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1 Timothy 4:6-16 – Sermon Manuscript

-There was an incredibly influential Scottish Pastor that served as a pastor from 1835-1843 named Robert Murray McCheyne. He died before 30 of typhus, was a beloved pastor for all of 5.5 years, came up with a daily Bible reading plan that’s still used by thousands across the world today! Another one of my favorite quotes from his is “Learn much of the Lord Jesus. For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely.” But another quote of his was written to pastors, and I want you to be thinking about how you think he’ll finish this as we work our way through this text. What does the church most need from a pastor?

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

  1. Labor in the Word (6-10)

-If you read Paul’s letters, there’s a general overview that starts to take shape. He begins with this rich and robust theology truths about God that warrant all sorts of study that lead to all sorts of debate, and then about halfway through he turns to the practical outworkings of that rich doctrine. We’re now at that place in this letter. We’ve seen all these debated things like: the proper use of the law, praying for everyone, including ungodly rulers, the ordering of men and women in the church, the leadership offices of the church, and a reminder to follow the true Spirit instead of the spirit of the devil. 

-This section, I read as Paul pointing a finger at Timothy. We’ve talked about some ways people distort the truth, but as for YOU! You have a job to do! What does it require?

-Point these things out: all the truths Paul’s been talking about previously, and then continues to talk about! Continue bringing these things up to the church. I had the privilege of conducting 2 weddings this month. One of the couples asked me to make sure I talked about Jesus during my message, and I told them you pick the passage and I’m going to connect it to Jesus! The whole thing is about Him. I love the way Spurgeon summarized this: preach the text, then make a beeline for the cross! Friends, every week you’re going to hear about Jesus! 

-The goal of Paul’s instruction: so that Timothy would be a good servant of Christ Jesus. 

-Servant, not the leader, not the king. Same word as deacon, but in this reference talking about the general practice, not the particular office.

-How do you know if you’re a good servant?

-Have followed: there’s a path that you’re supposed to follow, there’s others who have faithfully served throughout the centuries who have ministered and dealt with the same issues we face today! It’s imperative to remain on this well-worn path, not being distracted by the enticing things around you.

-But notice the way Timothy is nourished: words of faith, and good teaching. Those 2 things go together to remind Timothy that he can only endure by keeping the Bible his primary focus.

-He’s talked about these myths before in 1:4, there he said don’t pay attention to them, here he takes it even further: have nothing to do, here it’s translated pointless and silly myths, lit. he says “reject pointless myths and old wives tales”

-Blogs, influencers, mega-churches, “pastors” all these places that perpetuate ungodly nonsense. Have nothing to do with them!

-Unlike all these false teachers, Timothy is supposed to train in godliness. Notice all these actions that Paul uses in this section: train, (10) labor, strive.

-Have you ever gotten frustrated at how difficult Christianity can be? Do you ever feel like you were sold a false bill of goods that ended up being a lie? Turns out Christianity isn’t a cakewalk! 

-Christianity is simply, but it isn’t easy. There will be times and seasons of sweetness, where every time you open the Bible it’s like the Words jump out of the page and meet you right where you’re at. And there will be other times where it’s a grind. Paul knows that, he’s been a believer long enough, and he’s taking time here to remind his child in the faith, Timothy, that even when it’s hard, continue pressing on. 

-The training of the body had limited benefit. But it still has benefit! 

-I can’t tell you how many pastors that I respect seemed to have neglected this verse. Paul doesn’t say there’s no benefit, he says it’s limited, but the limitation is in reference to eternity. John Calvin died at 54 from overwork. Charles Spurgeon died at 57 (started getting gout regularly at 33), had to retired to the French Riviera every winter to recover from his schedule (plus the guy was huge! His chest measured 41”), I read a book that every pastor I respect has told me to read and I got so angry reading it because the guy said pastors must exert every ounce of energy on their ministry, and if they die from it, all the better because they died for Christ. Utter nonsense! Steward your body.

-But keep the physical training in check. Don’t let it consume you. Yes, take care of the body God gave you since it’s the only one He gave you, but don’t treat it as the ultimate thing.

-Instead, train yourself for godliness. But why? And friends, this is something that excites me more than anything else. Did you know that what you do today has eternal implications? 

-That’s what Paul is saying here: pursuing godliness will give you gains here and in eternity. That means every day, every decision you make has eternal consequences. I don’t know about you, but I feel like that just increases the potential of everything I do here!

-This gets to our whole purpose as a church, friends. We’re here to help people prepare for eternity, to help people take 1 step closer to Jesus today, because whether we realize it or not each day is 1 day closer to the day where we’ll see Jesus face to face. 

-That’s actually where Paul turns next in this section, too. And this should comfort you! We don’t have to come up with some creative campaign slogan, we don’t need a marketing department, or the best graphics. What we need is the Bible. Friends, the Bible tells us exactly what we’re supposed to be pursuing as a church!

-Here he says exactly why we work hard in our faith: it’s an overflow out of our relationship with the living God, who expects our everything. Our hope is in the one true and living God.

-Is Paul arguing for universalism here? Is he saying that everyone will go to heaven? Is he contradicting himself from Rom. 1:16-17? No! He’s saying that God’s common grace is extended to everyone, but there’s a different kind of grace given to those who put their faith in Him. 

-And there are literally cosmic implications to the realities of the gospel message Rom. 8 says that all creations groans waiting for Jesus’s return!

  • Live out the Word (11-16)

-Paul has just reminded Timothy to always keep eternity in view. Live as if we’re living for eternity! And then he has 2 verbs: command and teach. 

-Command connects to Timothy’s authoritative role. Remember: a faithful church will have a certain structure and ordering to it, with 2 leadership offices of elder and deacon. These 2 offices are God’s chosen means of helping the church to flourish, and we need to be careful who is chosen for those roles because they will determine the direction of our entire church body. Don’t affirm leaders that you don’t want to be like, but at the same time, when leaders have been elected, Scripture tells us to submit to them, to listen to them, which is why Paul tells Timothy to command things from the Word. 

-Some of where this gets difficult is the application of God’s Word is situational. Now, listen carefully: God’s Word never changes. Period. But the way we live that Word out does change. That’s one of the incredible things about the Bible! I’ve lost track of the times I’ve read through it, and still every week there’s something that I’d never noticed before. This is what Paul’s getting at when he says to teach these things. The application of this Word is going to change based on our people, our culture, our needs, and God’s Word is big enough for us to handle those different applications. Do you trust it?

-This verse has been the verse that has been preached at me for most of my life, and I figure I’m 3 years away from no longer qualifying for this verse. I’ve shared this story before, but before I was called here, I was told from another church that I was too young to be a pastor there. And it was an issue that came up when I was candidating here (believe it or not!) And just so everyone knows, when I was candidating I was 32, but as a professor at seminary says, don’t forget Jesus accomplished his entire ministry before the age of 33.

-And friends, there’s some truth to it! I get it! I haven’t had as many life experiences as some of you. But it’s also true that God’s Word doesn’t change, and I’ve devoted my life to the interpretation and application of this book. And as I said back then, I promise that I’ll do what I can to keep getting older! And I’ve kept my word!

-But the point to this verse is some commands, and they’re things that I’ve been praying for myself for the last few years. See, the way to ensure no one looks down on you in your youth is by setting an example. And the things that Timothy is called to are things that should be true of everyone who claims to follow Christ, but let’s look at them.

-Speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Now, I would argue that these are things that are particular temptations for those that are young. 

-Speech: it can be easy to be flippant or careless with words, not realizing the way that words can make or break a person and relationships. 

-Conduct: it feels like life is going to last forever, so why should there be any delayed gratification? 

-Love: you’ve probably heard that youth is wasted on young, and I think this is a particular area because there’s a level of pride of self-centeredness that comes with youth. I don’t think people know how selfish they are until they get married. 

-Faith: similar to love, there can be a thinking that you can wait until later to start taking Jesus seriously. Don’t wait! It’s worth it to chase after Jesus with all you’ve got now. 

-Purity: this feels like it could have been written today! With the rise of pornography use, the careless approach to sex. Church leaders must be marked by purity in all their relationships.

-And this is especially true of those who are young! And unfortunately, many who are young emphasize the first part without realizing they condemn themselves with the way they live. It’s on the young to not let anyone look down on you, but it requires you living a holy life that is faithfully following after Jesus. If any of you are young in here, don’t waste your youth on things you’ll regret as you get older. Choose today to set an example by pointing people to Jesus.

-Then Paul gives Timothy some more marching orders to focus on until he comes: Devote yourself, focus on, give everything you’ve got toward these things. In the Greek, these words have no conjunction, so one commentator said these 3 things are meant to be intertwined and inseparable, and notice that it’s again centered on the Bible.

-Public reading: we see examples of Scripture reading all throughout the Bible, and it’s supposed to take place every time we gather. One of the most discouraging things to me about our current church culture is how little the Bible is read! Friends, if you’re ever looking for a church count how many minutes it takes them to open the Bible. Same thing with the sermon, how quickly in the sermon is God’s Word read?

-Exhortation: God’s Word is supposed to be a mirror. We read something God says which has implications for us. Scripture is supposed to be used to exhort, to encourage to push us closer to Jesus. Similar to:

-Teaching: explaining what the text means. I’ve heard people say that what we do on Sundays is a modern invention, too influenced by education models. That’s just not true! This was adopted from the 1st century synagogue practice of publicly reading Scripture, then exhorting and teaching from the Bible. And in the 2nd century, Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist and philosopher, said this:

-Friends, the church has been fixated on God’s Word since the very beginning, and the act of preaching has been the primary focus of the church since then.

-Don’t neglect the gift that was given.

-This will come up again later, but I’m going to approach it from a different perspective there. Church leaders are called to be people of the book, but the book is also supposed to lead to a different way of living. Pastors must be people of the book, both in their study and in how they live. John Calvin begins his institutes saying:

-We have placed a high emphasis on knowledge of God for pastors. Looking for a seminary degree, an ability to know the Word. But how many pastors don’t actually know themselves? You’ve probably heard of IQ, but have you ever heard of EQ? We know about God, but who are you?

-The public affirmation of Timothy’s call – you can’t be a pastor without a church. You can claim whatever you want, but a pastor by definition needs a church, a pastor doesn’t get to self-identify. There are 2 aspects to a call: internal and external. Both of these are critical, if it’s just external you’ll question and doubt all the time, if it’s just internal you’ll probably end up disqualified from ministry.

-Just had my ordination council this past week, every person I know struggles with imposter syndrome in some area. And let me tell you just how affirming it is to have a group of your peers tell you that God has called you to ministry and a church, having both an internal desire to teach the Bible and an external affirmation from other pastors and a church that confirms that internal call.

-Not only are these things supposed to be markers of Timothy, he’s also supposed to grow in them, to get better at them. He’s supposed to practice them, and be committed to them. To continue growing in his understanding of God, and the way he’s living his life. And why? So that everyone can see his growth.

-Friends, you should see your church leaders continually growing. If your church leaders aren’t continually acknowledging their sins, working to fight against them, and finding new things to learn about God, something is off. One of my favorite questions to start asking potential pastors is: tell me about the last time the gospel emotionally moved you.

-There’s a pastor I really like (from afar) named Ray Ortlund. I onetime heard him say that he prays every time he preaches that it’s the best sermon he’s ever preached. Not out a sense of pride, but because he wants to live out this verse.

-This next verse really captured my mind a few years ago, and in particular the way the NIV translates it. 

-Life and doctrine: the 2 things that every Christian needs to be growing in. The way I think about this is like a train. Trains need 2 tracks in order to remain moving forward, just like we’re called to grow in both life and doctrine. That’s why we renamed our small groups to life groups, that’s why we offer equipping classes. These 2 things are meant to be linked together, but you also need to be taking time to pray and ask the Lord what you should be focusing on in at the stage of life you’re in. Maybe you need to be stretched to learn some new things about God, attend one of our 9 AM classes, or read a theology book (if you need suggestions reach out to me!). Maybe you need to work on applying something you’ve learned about God to your life – get involved in a small group, or ask to meet with someone sitting nearby you, or maybe start meeting with a group of friends to talk about what God has been teaching you. Friends, this can be done in a variety of ways, both formally and informally, but it requires intentionality and effort, as well as commitment to a local church where you’re forced to rub shoulders with a bunch of people who may not think or act exactly like you! And you need that to grow closer to Jesus. Friends, Christianity is a team sport. When God saves you, He brings you into a new family comprised of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

-And the reason Timothy is supposed to watch his life and his teaching (doctrine) is for the salvation of himself and his church.

-Once again, we know that salvation is by faith alone through grace alone, in Jesus Christ alone, but Timothy can help in God’s mission of seeking and saving the lost, or he can hurt it. There’s a pastor I really like named Kevin DeYoung who has shared that one of his pieces of accountability is thinking about his congregation, and fearing what would happen if he gave up. When I first heard him say that it bothered me, but as I’ve thought about that more, it’s absolutely true! The number of friends I have who have left the church because of a pastoral failure continues to grow! And the pastors who fail will someday give an account for both their failings and the ways their failings affected the whole body.

-Back to Robert Murray McCheyne. 

-So friends, as we come to the end of this, I want to leave you with this phrase: watch your life and doctrine closely. Where is God calling you to focus on in this season of your life? What things about God do you have questions about? Or what areas in your life are you struggling to live out what you know God has called you to do? Take some time right now to ask God to reveal to you what you need to be focusing on in the days and weeks ahead, and then I’ll close in prayer.

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by mikethestrand on October 26, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 26, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/10/26/1-timothy-46-16-sermon-manuscript/

1 Timothy 3:1-7 – Sermon Manuscript

-Leadership in the kingdom of God. James and John’s mom asks Jesus to sit at His right and left hands in heaven.

Matt. 20:25 “24 When the ten disciples heard this, they became indignant with the two brothers. 25 Jesus called them over and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 26 It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave;28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

-Church leadership has gotten a really bad reputation over the last decade, and I would argue it’s because many churches have gotten away from what we read in today’s text.

READ/PRAY (pg. 1052)

  1. Elders, Pastors, Shepherds, Overseers

-Paul begins by commending those who want to be leaders in the church, but we have to admit that being overeager probably is a disqualification! There should be a level of reverence and trepidation in approaching any leadership because the Bible has some harsh words about those who are in leadership. Look at what James says in James 3:1, or if you want a stinging rebuke, read Ezek. 34!

-There have been moves throughout the church recently to try to flatten any sense of leadership or authority within the church, and we should admit that anytime you have people in positions of authority, there’s going to be the risk of abuse. You’ve probably heard the phrase “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” But friends, believe it or not, that is antithetical to the message of the gospel! The gospel message is that the one who had absolute power wasn’t corrupted, but instead took corruption on Himself and then gives His power to His followers to accomplish the tasks He gives them.

-Part of this flattening is good and right and true, the ground is completely level at the foot of the cross, it doesn’t matter your academics, your genetics, your personality, your gender, or whether or not you were a leader in the church. There there have been times in the past where the pastor was put on too high a pedestal where no human is meant to be! But in response to that, to say that there is no distinction is also incorrect! The Bible assumes that Christians will organize into churches, and that those churches will have leaders who meet the qualifications listed here!

-The other piece that I want to mention that also applies to last week’s text (women in the church), is I think we have tended to get leadership in the church backwards. Friends, the church isn’t like the world, so adopting worldly ideas and definitions of leadership is at best unhelpful and at worst sinful. If Jesus serves as our model, then church leadership is actually about service instead of power. The call to be a leader in the church is a call to die so that others can be raised up. I worry that we as the church instead tend to look for people who are impressive by worldly standards instead of impressive by God’s standards.

-There is some debate around what these leaders should be called, and even today different denominations (or even sometimes churches) will use different titles to refer to the same office (Baptist churches for a while only had 1 office that they called “Deacons” which is a different and distinct office from Elder, it’s vs. 1-7 or 8-13). And some of the debate is because the NT uses different words in different places. In our text today, it’s translated as “overseer” episkapa 

-But even he seems to alternate between a couple different titles, because if you look at Titus 1, Paul refers to the same office with 2 different words, this time adding in presbuteros (if you’re thinking about various ways the church has ordered leadership, you may have heard the similarities to 2 church governance proposals: episcopal, and presbyterian, taken from these 2 words)

-Just like Paul uses different words to describe the same office, Peter does something similar in 1 Peter 5, but this time he uses the word for shepherd, which he goes on to use a bit of a descriptor for who elders should model themselves after: the chief shepherd (Jesus). He also says something similar to what we saw in 1 Tim. This should be done willingly. 1 other piece here, is the call for elders to be examples. Hold onto that thought, because it will come up again!

-To further confuse you, in Acts 20, Paul uses all 3 words to refer to the exact same office! He summons the elders, then calls them overseers, then tells them to shepherd. Something else we now learn about this office from this text is that they’re supposed to be able to defend against false teaching. That idea will come up again later, too!

-The last passage to look at before we continue in our text in Eph. 4, there again Paul uses the word for shepherd (pastor), but includes it in the list of other provisions to define all the things God provides to the church. But it’s not just to have leaders, the goal is maturity in the body of Christ. The other thing we learn about pastors in this section is they’re connected to a teaching ministry. He has this list going, but then he connects pastors and teachers together as if the role of a pastor is to be a teacher.

-We see these 4 words used interchangeably throughout the NT to refer to this leadership office in the church. This structure isn’t meant to be applied to other organizations or institutions; it’s God’s design and structure for the flourishing of His people between Jesus’s 2 comings. The day is coming when the Chief Shepherd will come and we’ll all live in a theocracy, but until that day, we’ll need faithful elders to lead our churches. 

-We’ve already started to see some of the descriptions of what and elder is supposed to be and do, but Paul gives us more in 1 Timothy:

  • An Elder Is Faithful in His:

-And I hope what stood out to you as we read it this morning how basic it is. Like the bar (at first blush) doesn’t seem to be very high. He says things like: “he must not be a drunk.” Nailing it! All but 1 thing in this list is supposed to be true of every follower of Jesus. Carson quote. 

-Friends, this should comfort us! What that means, at least at the start, is that this is something that’s attainable for real life people like you and me. He doesn’t say he must have gone to Harvard or Yale (or the 1st century equivalent!), he doesn’t say he must manage a fortune 500 company, it doesn’t even say he needs to be incredibly successful, or even manage a business. What Paul describes here is what I talked about a few weeks ago: a normal, dare we say boring Christian. 

-And I would argue that we can summarize this whole this as faithful. I’ve shared with you all before that each year I have a word of the year that helps me focus my heart and mind for the year, but it’s always in addition to the word: faithful. And I get that from a parable Jesus tells in Matt. 25. These are the words I hope to hear when I see Jesus for the first time: well done. 

-What we should be looking for in a leader is faithfulness. Are they faithful in following after Jesus in their lives? When they fail (and they will), how do they respond? Do they repent and run to Jesus or run away from Him?

-And that gets to another piece we need to consider before looking at the list, and that is that as the leader goes, that’s where the church will go. You see that idea all over Scripture! When Israel has a good and faithful king, they prosper. When Israel has a wicked king, they suffer. And churches follow the same pattern, they reflect their leadership. In fact, in every membership class I teach, I tell those who attend to PLEASE take their affirmations of elders seriously, because that’s the only way we as a church are going to remain healthy! Our leaders must faithfully point others to Jesus in what they say and in how they live.

-Once again, D.A. Carson helpfully summarizes why this is important: “Christian character is as much caught as taught—that is, it is picked up by constant association with mature Christians.” Basics for Believers

-Church, you will start to become like your elders! So be careful who you pick!

  1. Character

-I spent way too much time this week trying to figure out how to condense this list down, so take this a proposal, subject to change in the future! We begin with faithfulness, but then move to character, which again could summarize all of them! And combining those 2 things gets us even closer to summarizing the whole message: faithful character. But in order to help us think through this list a little more carefully, I condensed the character piece to 6 of them: above reproach, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, not an excessive drinker, and a good reputation among outsiders (above reproach in the church, good reputation outside the church).

-First, are any of these things just for elders and not for the rest of the church? Nope! We’re all called to be holy just like God is holy, self-control is a fruit of the spirit, sensible is used to describe men and women in Titus, respectable is used to describe all women in last week’s text, Eph. 5:18 says no one is to get drunk, and Jesus in Matt. 5:16 says that we’re supposed to let our light shine before others so that they’ll see our good works and give glory to God. So these things aren’t unique to an elder, they’re just what Christians are all called to be!

-So why isn’t everyone an elder? I would argue that what sets elders apart is that they live the ordinary Christian life extraordinarily well. Elders are called to be normal Christians who are faithfully following after Jesus. People that you would want to be like in your faith! So let’s look at each one of these:

-Above reproach: does this mean that elders are going to be sinless? Ask any of our elders if they’re sinless, and if they don’t laugh at you, they probably shouldn’t be elders anymore! 

-Which gets us to another piece to remember in this: no leader is Jesus. I know that sounds kind of obvious, but let me tell you, as a pastor and leader in multiple churches it can be easy to start to think or feel like the church needs me. I have a friend who said a professor at seminary would regularly have the class repeat after him: “I am not the Christ!”

-This is someone who’s life is actually worth trying to copy. It’s someone that serves as a model Christian. I didn’t say perfect, I say model. Someone who is daily working to take steps closer to Jesus, daily striving to become more holy, daily confessing their sins and asking for the Lord’s help to remain faithful.

-Self-controlled: someone that can control their own appetites is the way one commentary summarized it. Instead of making hasty reactions to something, this is someone who steadfast in their responses. 

-Sensible: Paul uses an interesting word here that can be translated “holding no wine,” which doesn’t make complete sense since Paul talks about that issue later. Some scholars translate this as sober, that is careful in the way he approaches life, could maybe even say steady. Doesn’t easily get worked up about things.

-Respectable: this refers to someone who is held in high regard by others. Not sure if you’ve heard the leadership maxim that I think this gets to is: if you claim to be a leader, and look back and no one’s following you you’re not a leader! Elders are people that others actually look to and call out as leaders.

-Not an excessive drinker: as I said earlier, Paul talks about this for all believers in Eph. 5. Christians are not to be marked by drunkenness, or you could say a lack of self-control. Someone who is a drunk can’t control their urges or their appetites, so they shouldn’t be asked to be in leadership. Now, it’s important to note that Paul doesn’t say it’s wrong to drink at all! Drinking alcohol itself isn’t a sin, it can be a sin, but it isn’t a sin in and of itself. Story of Spurgeon and Moody. 

-Lastly for this section: A good reputation among outsiders. The church is meant to be on the front lines of evangelism. We’re always supposed to be sharing the gospel with those we come into contact with in all areas of our lives. How would it look if the church elects leaders who even those outside the church don’t respect? I’ve talked to pastors who have had men who were known as bullies in the community be brought up as potential elders in the church. Based on what we see in this list, do you think someone like that should be called to be an elder?

-I would summarize all of these as: faithful character! But we’ve got 4 more to go:

  • Marriage & Home

-How does he manage his house? What kind of a husband is he? Do his wife and kids flourish? Now as we’ve seen many times, there’s some debate about these expectations! And it’s led to no small amount of controversy through the centuries!

-Husband of one wife: does this mean that if someone has gotten divorced, they’re automatically disqualified? Some would say yes! But even Jesus said that divorce is permitted in some cases. The Greek is literally “one women man,” so you could translate that as “devoted to his wife.” Other people argue that this means elders are required to be married. But that would automatically disqualify Jesus and Paul from serving as elders (and someone like John Stott – a British pastor who served faithfully until he died), and bringing in vs. 4, I don’t think we’d argue that they’re required to have kids. Others argue that this is a prohibition against polygamy. And while it is that, I don’t think it’s only that! The way I would interpret this is: is this man faithfully devoted to caring for his wife. If he is divorced, there would need to be some more questions asked, but it doesn’t automatically disqualify someone.

-Hospitable. Here’s one we don’t often think about! In the 1st century this would have been literally opening your home to having people come stay with you, since hotels weren’t always reliable, and if you became a Christian it often meant social alienation from your old friends and family. Today, I would take this as someone who regularly has people in their home, do they welcome others in? And I think it connects to vs. 4:

-If an elder is hospitable, people will be able to see how he manages his house. Do his kids thrive under his leadership? Does he love on them, play with them, and train them up to follow after Jesus?

-And notice why Paul says that: because the church is just a larger family! The nuclear family is the proving ground for elders. Does this mean that if someone has unbelieving children they’re automatically disqualified? Again, no! Church, we need to remember that we can’t force anyone to become a Christian! As much as I would give anything for my kids to know Jesus as their Lord, I can’t, that’s the Holy Spirit’s job! What this is getting at is does this person create an environment in their home where their children are regularly hearing about God? Think of the shema (called that because of the Hebrew word for hear), does this father talk about God: in the house, when you walk, when you lie, when you get up, is God the way he orients his entire life, so that the children know who God is and what He’s like?

  • Teaching

-The 1 gift he MUST have. Doesn’t say business savvy, doesn’t say charismatic personality, doesn’t say gifted communicator, it says able to teach. And if you think about how God has chosen to reveal Himself, it makes sense. God has revealed Himself to use through His Word! That means that church leaders should be able to point people to His Word as our highest authority for life and doctrine! This doesn’t mean that they’re required to preach, teaching is done in a wide variety of contexts, but they need to be able to explain the Bible to others. Which leads perfectly into:

  • Correcting

-One of the primary purposes of having leaders is to ensure commitment to the Word. So not only is the positive given previously (able to teach), but they also need to be able to correct those who are teaching wrongly.

-First, not a bully. I love the way the NASB translates this word: not pugnacious! That is not someone who is quick to fight or argue. I actually just read an article this week that shocked me (I’m not even going to link to it because it was that bad), but the “pastor” who wrote it said some pastors today “are not pugnacious enough.” In contrast to that, Paul here commends being gentle. That’s not taking a soft stance, that’s someone who knows how to correct people in a loving way.

-Also, not quarrelsome. Not looking to fight.

-And also not greedy, not looking at benefit from this service, which connects to what I said earlier about leaders being the number one servants! 

-And why are these ideas so important? Well it’s up to the elders to help in matters of discipline! Look at Paul says what we’re supposed to use the Word for 2 Tim.: to correct, rebuke, and encourage. This means that there’s both the positive teaching what is good, true, and beautiful, and correcting, which is pulling people back from following what is false and pointing them to what is true. And all this gets back to the need for elders to know the Word! 

  • Faith

-Finally, how do you ensure that someone is living these things out? It takes time! Paul says this shouldn’t be someone who’s a new convert. Don’t take someone who has just recently been saved and throw them into leadership positions! They’re not ready for it! And I can tell you, as someone who was called into ministry young, this is absolutely true! You start to think you can do things in your own power and strength instead of relying on God!

-And this is why the author of the Hebrews holds church leaders up as such a high example. This connects to what we studied last week: we’re all called to submit to the leaders of the church because the leaders are keeping watch over our souls. 

-Leadership isn’t a bad thing, nor is it such a high bar that no one can reach it. We need to look for those who are living the ordinary Christian life extraordinarily well, and then follow their lead!

“Tom Carson never rose very far in denominational structures, but hundreds of people in the Outaouais and beyond testify how much he loved them. He never wrote a book, but he loved the Book. He was never wealthy or powerful, but he kept growing as a Christian: yesterday’s grace was never enough. He was not a far-sighted visionary, but he looked forward to eternity. He was not a gifted administrator, but there is no text that says, “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you are good administrators.” His journals have many, many entries bathed in tears of contrition, but his children and grandchildren remember his laughter. Only rarely did he break through his pattern of reserve and speak deeply and intimately with his children, but he modeled Christian virtues to them. He much preferred to avoid controversy than to stir things up, but his own commitments to historic confessionalism were unyielding, and in ethics he was a man of principle. His own ecclesiastical circles were rather small and narrow, but his reading was correspondingly large and expansive. He was not very good at putting people down, except on his prayer lists.

When he died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation. In his hospital room there was no one by his bedside. There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen, vainly venting because he had stopped breathing and would never need it again.

But on the other side all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to the only throne room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man—he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor—but because he was a forgiven man. And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.””

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by mikethestrand on October 5, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 5, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/10/05/1-timothy-31-7-sermon-manuscript/

1 Timothy 2:1-7 – Sermon Manuscript

-I hope the focus of seeing the church as a household is starting to take shape for you! Today we’re digging into the main body of the letter, the last 2 weeks were preparing us for today. As we dig into this week’s text, I want you to think about what goes into creating a healthy family unit. What is needed for a good family to exist?

-Husband and wife, some source of income to provide for what you need, the ability to be yourself without fear of judgment or being cast aside. 

-We could also ask the same question of a church, the household of God. What do we need? Bible! Some place where we can gather, seats are helpful. But with the church, what’s the first thing we should focus on? I’m guessing if we’d go around the room we’d probably come up with dozens of different proposals, but Paul’s going to give us something that I think is often assumed in churches, but is rarely given the focused attention that it deserves. Let’s read the text to see what Paul says should be the first thing in our churches:

READ/PRAY (1051)

  1. Prays for Everyone (1-4)

-First of all, this is where Paul says we should focus as a church, and to communicate the importance of praying, he uses 4 different words. One commentator said “The point is that there be an abundance of prayers appropriate to worship occasions and concerns, not a precise delineation of prayer types or techniques.” That being said, I think it is helpful for us to look at all these words, just keep in mind the focus isn’t the types of prayers, it’s that we pray:

-Petitions – often asking God to grant something, there tends to be a sense of urgency to these things. 

-Prayers – the most generic word used, most used word in the NT for prayer

-Intercessions – prayers on behalf of other people

-Thanksgivings – most used by us today, gratitude. One of the things that was pointed out to me a few years ago at an elder training some of our elders attended was how often Paul is grateful and thankful for people in the church. It actually changed the way I pray for you guys! If you didn’t know, the elders pray for our church members every day, I set it up so I get a reminder in my phone a 9 every morning to pray for a portion of our church members. I pray for other people too, but less intentionally and less strategically, so one reason to come to our membership class is I would like to pray for you more regularly! But since that elder training, my prayers have started with, “Lord, thank you for ___” I think we’re going on 2 years of this now, so every member has probably been thanked for at least twice!

-The focus of Paul using these phrases is that prayers should be commonplace in the household of God! All sorts of different prayers! Short prayers, long prayers, prayers for other people, prayers where you give thanks to God, church pray what you’ve got, when you’ve got it wherever you’re at! 

-But who are we supposed to pray for? I’ve got good news and bad news:

-EVERYONE – who’s left out of that? The opposite: NO ONE! That means there’s always more people to be praying for! And church, don’t ever stop praying for them. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never seen any fruit from your prayers, don’t give up! I keep hearing stories from people in our church who have seen family members responding to God in ways they never expected. This is why Paul said last week is so important: if God can save me, God can save anybody, so keep praying! 

-But Paul also gets specific: kings and all those who are in authority. The king at this point was Nero, who was ruthless in his persecution of Christians. If Paul can command the church to pray for him, then we should also be willing and able to pray for our political leaders today, regardless of the D or the R next to their name, they bear the image of God. 

-But notice why do we pray for them? For the flourishing of our communities so that the gospel can be more easily spread! This letter was written during a time known as the peace of Rome, a time where people could easily travel on paved roads throughout the Mediterranean. That ruthless empire that persecuted Christians also became the means for the gospel message to spread.

-But notice what we’re specifically praying FOR: a tranquil and quiet life, marked by godliness and dignity. Like the prayers, let’s look at each of those words:

-Tranquil and quiet. A peaceful existence.

-Godliness: piety (let’s recover that word! Means “the quality of being religious or reverent”) some trans. as: “to live as God has told us we should live”

-Dignity: “behavior which is befitting, implying a measure of dignity leading to respect” trans. “to act in the right way”

-Would you be content to live a life like that? I think that some of what’s going on in Paul’s mind is what God told Israel when they were in exile: 

-Are you pursuing the well-being of this community? Are WE pursuing that? We see a similar reminder to pray for the city where we’re sent. Have you ever considered this to be your political aim? Friends, whether you admit it or not, we are politically homeless in this world, because no political ideology completely aligns with what Jesus commands. This is part of the reason we have so many contentious discussions in our politics today, I see both sides appealing to Jesus in some areas, but then ignoring Him in others. The early church was known to be the best citizens, in fact by the 4thcentury, the Christians were persecuted and marginalized, but they lived the best lives! 

-Julian the Apostate (last non-Christian Roman emperor) quote. Friends, the true church throughout history has sought the good of every nation they live in. How are we doing at seeking the good of our nation?

-Part of the difficulty with this is I think we often jump to the big, bold ideas instead of what Paul commands here. One of the most quoted phrases I remember hearing is: William Carey quote – called the father of modern missions, served in India

-What if what God wants is a tranquil and quiet life instead of “global changers” I would argue that what’s far more effective in the cause of Christ is a bunch of normal people faithfully serving where God has them, being hospitable, investing in their community, working hard at their jobs but not being consumed by them. 

-My generation (Millennials) believe it or not has some exemplary traits (the focus has shifted to Gen Z because we’re all middle aged now), but 1 of the things I was trained in was to think about changing the world. We were supposed to not waste our lives, we were supposed to be radical, we were supposed to care about every social justice cause, we were supposed to kiss dating good-bye (look how that turned out), we were told to acquire the fire, and we did evangelism explosions. But most of us just ended up in normal jobs, with a mortgage and school loans. Or for those called to ministry, we’re not in mega-churches or preaching to stadiums. And Gen Z, you’re not off the hook! How many of you want to become influencers, or are following after the latest greatest influencer? 

-My kids call themselves “Dude Amazing” after Dude Perfect That’s Amazing, 2 YT influencers. 

-What if life is more far more boring than that? I listened to a podcast recently that said YT has made the once-in-a-lifetime mundane. We can watch people traveling any place in the world, we can see insane trick shots, and on repeat! Things that used to be special experiences are now seen as boring, so people need to keep upping the expectations to keep up their followers. And I would argue that’s some of where the church has gotten skewed in what we’re supposed to be doing, because we view the YT channels as competition. 

-Do we now live in an attention economy instead of a faithful economy? How much of someone’s worth is viewed in terms of attention by likes or retweets or views? Is that the best metric of success?

-Is a quiet and tranquil life good enough for us? 

-We’ll get to some of these things as we continue through this book, but one of the remarkable things about expectations for leadership in God’s household is how unremarkable they are. 

-What’s amazing about Christianity is not the Christians, it’s that we serve an amazing and remarkable God who is in the business of redemption and healing

-Are you ok with living a completely “normal” existence? Paul here says that pursuit is good and pleasing to God. 

-Zinz quote. Is it ok to just let God work in you? Is it ok to “just” be a faithful friend, parent, grandparent, worker?

-Paul ends this section with the reason we should lead these lives: because God wants everyone to be saved.

-Friends, we don’t need celebrities to be telling people about Jesus (in fact, they’re often the ones who lead people away when they don’t keep following Him, sticking with YT Rhett and Link “deconverted”)

-One of the miracles of Christianity is the way it becomes can work in any cultural context. Christians can be Christians in democracies, in totalitarian regimes, in monarchies. The message can be understood by people in any class or educational background. And that also means that the church needs everyone who is a part of the church to actually live out what they believe. It’s not enough to be a Sunday morning Christian.

  • Points to Jesus (5-6)

-Since God wants everyone to be saved, what is the means by which people are saved? There’s only 1 way, do you see all the “ones” in this verse? 

-Opposing the false teachers who were emphasizing the law, using it in unlawful ways, the law can’t save! The laws purpose is to condemn! 

-Every person I know is inconsistent in some way with what they believe and how they practice it. If you ever hear someone accusing you of things that you know aren’t true, memorize this verse and quote it to them: Neh. 6:8. 

-Have you ever heard of a NIMBY? “Good for thee, not for me” I hate to say it because it was a tricky time to navigate, but how often did we see this during COVID? For many people, you don’t even need to go to the 10 commandments, just use their own standards of judgment and eventually they’ll condemn themselves. 

-‘The intolerance of tolerance’ think of just how many secular ideologies make an “us” versus “them” mindset. Last week we looked at some of the modern accusations towards Christians of “inventing” homosexuality as a sin, but another accusation lobbied against Christians is that of colonialism (exerting influence over another country for exploitation). People particularly argue that Christian missionaries work to “colonize” other countries, but the evidence points to literally the opposite reality: countries that had missionaries in the 1800s are the ones that most people are thriving in today.

-But here’s the irony goes, at least for me, today. Today those who are actually moving forward with trying to colonize other countries is Americans and particularly American politicians who are going to other countries and telling them how “backwards” they are on identity politics, particularly towards LGBTQ issues. Last year, I read about someone from congress going to Japan telling a newspaper here that they were going to tell the Japanese they needed to change their approach to homosexuality. Isn’t that literally colonization?

-But not just in politics, we see the same thing in entire denominations! I was initially incredibly encouraged by the United Methodist Church, because they actually held to historical Christian teaching on gender and sexuality, largely because the biggest UMC churches are in Africa. In fact, the UMC in Africa came out with a STRONG statement.

-THIS is the quite literally colonization: exploiting another people group to advance your aims. And in opposition to that stands Jesus as the only one who was never inconsistent, who came to redeem humanity and reconcile the broken world to His Father. He perfectly obeyed the law because sinful humans never could, and then He proceeded to take the penalty for breaking the law on Himself.

-What does a mediator do? He goes between 2 parties to help them live in peace with each other. This is where we need to see that sin isn’t just a mistake or a slip up, in God’s eyes sin is cosmic treason against a holy and righteous God.

-I don’t think our world today really thinks of sin in those terms. I was reading an article recently that talked about the standards different cultures have are often determined in opposition to someone. So if Jesus is the standard of a culture, you’ll never measure up to that level of perfection, but for our culture today the standard for many is Hitler. As long as I’m not as evil as Hitler then I’m doing pretty well! Do you think that’s the best standard to compare yourself to? I think what we’re seeing here is we’re supposed to we’re supposed to aim at Jesus, not the lowest bar.

-Paul also doubles down on emphasizing the humanity of Jesus “THE man,” which may tell us that another piece of the false teachers was denying that Jesus was a man (an early church heresy), which I think is an important reminder for us today, too! Friends, Jesus was fully man. He experienced a real human existence, and was still perfect. That’s why He can be a mediator – a go between for God and man, because He’s the perfect God-man. He experienced emotions, temptations, He was sinned against, His friends betrayed Him, and in His darkest hour He was abandoned by his closest friends.

-That man, THE man gave himself as a ransom. That’s an interesting term, isn’t it? Could also translate is as deliverance or redemption, he’s emphasizing what Jesus did as an exchange, He gives His life and receives “all” which is most likely referring “to whoever seeks it, Jew or Gentile.” (Pillar, 156)

-A weird phrase to end on, with some debate about the best way to render the Greek text into English. “A witness of one’s own time”

-Paul’s emphasizing that this wasn’t a random accident that caught God by surprise, he says something similar in Rom. 5. 

-Friends, history has an end goal and an end point. Someday history will just become HIS story where Jesus returns to fix our broken world and we get to experience eternity knowing Him and being known by Him. All because Jesus gave himself as a ransom. 

-I also love the idea of “testimony” in other places that’s translated as “witness,” one of our core values as a church! Jesus was the first witness of the resurrection (obviously!) but now it’s on us to continue being witnesses:

  • Proclaims the Truth (7)

-A herald in the first century was a prestigious position that had both political and religious significance, they would share messages from the king. And that’s the privilege we have now today! We’re not apostles (those were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus), we’re not all called to be teachers, but we are all called to be witnesses.

-When I hear that, my mind jumps to a courtroom today, calling forth witnesses to testify to the truth of what happened. And that’s not a bad idea! If you were called on to share about the truth of Jesus, could you do it?

-And what we’ve seen in this text is being a witness (which is just another way of saying being a Christian) isn’t just about saying the right things, it’s also about living the right way, and living the right way with the right group of people: the church. He says “All y’all” will receive power, it’s not you individually, it’s we together. Friends, this is the way God has chosen to spread His message to the corners of the earth: through you and me together being witnesses. This is why we say at the end of every service: you are sent. We’re all sent into the world to continue witnessing about Jesus in all the areas that we work, live, and play.

-But it all starts with prayer. So we as a holy church, need to pray for everyone, point to Jesus, and proclaim the truth.

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by mikethestrand on September 21, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on September 21, 2025

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Generous with our Treasures – Sermon Manuscript

-We have some “Table Topics” at our house that our kids love pulling out and asking us at dinner. One of the questions in the box is “if our house was on fire, what 1 thing would you take with you on your way out the door?” We tweaked it slightly, because the parents both wanted to take the kids, so assuming everyone in your family was safe! Now this is slightly abnormal, but I’m going to ask you to 30 sec. right now, and share what you would take with the person sitting next to you, and if you don’t know them yet, introduce yourself!

-What things would you take with you, go ahead and shout out a couple of them! When this question first came up, my answer was a guitar that I really like, and that’s probably what I would stick with, but I’m not sure anymore because most of the things I have are replaceable (minus some of the old pictures I have of my grandparents)

-The issue in front of us today is how do we grow in generosity with our treasures, and my guess is whatever you would take with you if there was a fire is your treasure. So now that you all have your treasure in your mind, what would it look like for you to be generous with that? For me, my guitar has been a way I’ve made money to provide for my family, a way of encouraging others with music, I’ve let other people use it when they didn’t have a guitar – it’s been a tool that has fostered relationships and meaning beyond just something for me!

-I would argue that treasures is more than just money, but not less than that. Treasures are any gift God has entrusted to you to take care of.

-Theologians have long argued that there are 3 conversions every Christian faces: conversion of the head, then conversion of the heart, and finally conversion of the pocketbook. Story of Sam Houston.

READ/PRAY

Gray Matters research

READ/PRAY

  1. Grow in This Grace

-When do you start being generous? Many people I talk to view it as something that is reserved for those who have already “made it” or those who have a lot of expendable income. The difficulty with that is even if your income increases, the expenses tend to rise with the, so each time there’s a raise, it doesn’t give any room to be more generous, it gives more room to expand your portfolio of things.

-In the midst of this comes the churches of Macedonia. Not sure what the affliction is, but compared to the capitol city of Corinth, Macedonia would have been relatively poor. Not only were they poor, but Paul describes them as facing a severe trial. Most likely, this would be due to them becoming Christians and being ostracized from many of the work places and not being able to participate in the local economy. And even in the midst of that persecution and poverty, they continued looking to be overwhelmingly generous. Friends, do you look to do the same?

-The privilege of sharing (4)

-Ordering: give to the Lord, then to others. Connected, can’t separate. Almost as if you can tell where someone’s heart is by the way they live.

-Connect to Rom. 12:9-13

-Giving as an act of grace (7)

-If you love, you will give. Refusing to be generous is the mark of an unrepentant heart. Even people I would have major issues with theologically would argue this point! Think of all the people who trumpet that “God is love,” but don’t go on to be generous. That’s an oxymoron, according to this text (kids, if you don’t know an oxymoron it’s 2 words that together don’t make sense, like “jumbo shrimp”)

-The call for anyone who is following Jesus is to daily strive to become more like him, and how did Jesus act with generosity? He used his generosity to elevate others. He gave everything away.

-But this doesn’t mean taking a vow of poverty. I’ve shared this with a few people this week, but I read an article recently talking about the ways pastors approach ministry has shifted between those retiring or getting close to retiring, and my generation (my dad vs. me) It used to be that being called to be a pastor was being called to poverty! There was a funny article that poked fun at this back in 2016 that included lines like “Congregation members began to question his opulent lifestyle in early April as he was spotted eating at Denny’s with his wife for their fourth wedding anniversary, but the scandal didn’t fully break until he was seen rolling up in the gaudy $1,500.00 vehicle, complete with sunroof, cassette deck, FM radio, air conditioning, and a full three out of four automatic windows functioning properly.” And “As part of the official referendum, Coles must donate the Corolla to charity and get something more appropriate for the ten-mile commute he makes seven days a week, such as a reliable, modest Schwinn or Huffy.” Thankfully, this approach has changed dramatically over the last 20 years (sometimes going too far the OTHER way), but notice in our text, giving is done “according to what a person has,” (12) and friends, as your pastor I’m not of the hook! I also give to the church and other ministries as the we can. This is for all of us!

-Paul goes on to say it’s for equality. (13) God brings people together for the purpose of sharing with each other. Start being generous now, so that when you have a surplus you’re already trained to be generous!

-This was first modeled in Exodus, where the everyone had just enough manna. That was meant to serve as a picture of how God would continue providing for all of God’s people in the future.

-I shared this passage a couple weeks ago, but I think it bears repeating again because at the heart of this is where are you banking your treasures? You’ve got 2 options: earth or heaven.

-And then Jesus says that you can tell where your heart is, what you truly believe in, by the way you handle your treasures. Do you view your treasures as a gift for you to steward, or do you view it as your right to continue accumulating more and more? I onetime read that we have so much storage space in America (ANOTHER place to hold all our “stuff”), that if we converted storage units to apartments we could solve the housing problem in our country. What does that tell us about where our priorities as a nation are?

-And I think this helps us make sense of another parable Jesus tells in Luke 12. A man has been getting more and more wealthy, accumulating more and more things, and he finally reaches the point where he thinks he’s made it, where after years of toil and trouble he has reached the point where he can live and do whatever he wants to do. And Jesus calls him a fool, because what the rich man doesn’t realize is that’s his last day on earth. He’d spent his life working to a point of building treasures on earth and neglected building eternal treasures.

-And church, this runs completely contradictory to most financial planning, even Christian financial planning! We’ve so often equated stewardship with just saving, but what if that’s wrong? Now again, please don’t hear me saying that saving is bad or wrong! We’re back to what is the motivation leading you to save? Is it to be a rich fool who can sit back and pursue a life of ease, or is it to allow you to expand your generosity toward others?

  • How Much is God’s?

-This should be an obvious answer, but I think it’s worth considering together because I think we often forget this, and I think a large part of it is because the news focuses on doom and gloom to sell and keep us coming back. In 1970, an environmentalist named Paul Ehrlich stated: 

-Does anyone know how many people died of starvation last year? 9 million. Now each one of those deaths is an image bearer who is worthy of honor and respect, but how close was the environmentalist? God has actually designed the world for the flourishing of His creation. The original task in the garden was to fill the earth, and let me tell you, as someone who used to live in the least populated state in the country, there’s more room to be filled! (If you don’t know, that’s Wyoming, which is significantly less than the population of just Minneapolis & St. Paul)

-The reason this question is important is because I think it gets assumed in any conversation about money instead of carefully and intentionally reflected on. God knows exactly what we need, AND often provides for us in abundance so that we can be a blessing to others.

-Friends being wealthy isn’t a sin! Being wealthy CAN be a sin if you don’t use that wealth to bless others, just as being poor isn’t a sin, but it CAN be if even in your poverty you’re not blessing others. We’re back to that see-saw I talked about a few weeks ago. 

-One of the passages that gets to this concept is in 1 Tim. 6. We looked at these first verses a couple weeks ago, but this text goes on. And the last verse in this section is one that often gets misquoted, I remember hearing that the love of money is the root of evil, but that’s not what the verse says, is it? It says, “A root,” and that changes the way we interpret this passage. It also doesn’t say money is the evil, it says the love of money. Friends, money can disappear in an instant. I’ve heard some stories from 2008 that are a reminder of that reality, and there was some irony to when I took this class on generosity, because it was when the stock market dipped in relation to the announcement about tariffs, so the professor on the first day said to not check your retirement accounts! 

-So when we think about the question: what is God’s, the answer is everything! EVERYthing is His, and He gives it to us as gifts (James 1:17) to steward, to take care of, for a season. 

-Friends, this is where we start to see that everyone is not exactly the same, which should be obvious. Some of us are tall, some are short, some have good rhythm, and some of us can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Which is also true with treasures. Some of us are good at making money, and others aren’t as good, and this is why God calls us together into a church body to come alongside each other in our times of need. Did you know that we have a benevolence fund that is used to help people out in times of crisis in our church family? Since I’ve been here, we’ve used that to pay for medical bills, car repairs, rent, food, and that account continues growing, so if you need help, please let us know!

-BUT there are some caveats to that (1 Thess. 3:10), and there’s an understanding that we can’t help everyone around us. 

-God has provided for everything we need – sometimes if the money doesn’t come in, it’s because God is leading us in a different direction, (which is why I said last week our annual budget is a step of faith), but if we’re keeping in step with the Spirit, following faithfully after Him, and trusting that He’s continuing to guide us we can trust God will provide for us for everything we need.

-I was talking to a friend after we found the lightning struck and wrestling through how much that was going to cost, and at the end of the conversation he prayed for me (and us) and in his prayer he thanked God for the lightning strike as something that didn’t catch God off guard, which was the gut punch I needed! Instead of complaining, do we trust that God is working all things for our good and His glory? That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but that gives us hope even when it’s hard, or expensive like a lightning strike!

  • What About Tithing?

-Under the old covenant, God’s people were required to live in a way that showed the world what life under the one true God could look like, which Micah led us through this year! God gave good rules for how to be able to live with a holy God. What we see as oppressive should be viewed as a good gift of God’s mercy, grace, and love.

-And under the old covenant, a tithe was the way God’s people provided for many of the social, religious, and civil services they needed to operate as a nation. Therefore, tithing was a legal obligation for Israel (just like paying taxes is a legal obligation for us today). AND there were 3 different “tithes” in the OT: Levitical tithe (Lev. 27:30-33, Num. 18 regular to cover the work of the Levites in caring for the temple), festival tithes (Deut. 14:22-27 to provide for the many festivals celebrating God’s provision) and a charity tithe (Deut. 14:28-29 taken every 3rd year to provide for the less fortunate: aliens, fatherless, widows, orphans) this last one would be like us giving a 10th to all the poor and needy in the southern suburbs! Add all these up, and annually the Israelites tithed about 25%! How close is the average Christian to THAT tithe? 

-But I think we can take this a step further and I would argue that tithing has passed away with the Mosaic covenant. We no longer need to follow the same rules and laws because now we have a new rule under a King who has fulfilled all the laws demands because we never could. Tithing was a part of the Mosaic covenant, and tithing was the means God used to support that covenant. And we could look at each of those 3 tithes as things Jesus has fulfilled: instead of Levites we are ALL priests now so we’re supposed to care for each other, instead of festivals celebrating Passover, harvest, or booths, we have a festival each week to celebrate the salvation won by Jesus, AND we have a new community called ‘the church’ that comes around those who poor and can help provide for them in the midst of their needs. 

-So tithing isn’t required for those of us who are in Christ, but Jesus calls us to something even greater: extravagant generosity. Quote.

-Friends generosity is a high calling, and it’s completely contradictory to our natural way of living. Generosity is only possible if Jesus has transformed your heart and baptized your wallet. Generosity is the means God has chosen to provide for his new covenant people today, and it demands all of us being extravagantly generous to each other, and those around us.

-A heart that has been transformed by the gospel will be demonstrated by a baptized wallet! And that also includes us as a church. 

-One of the things I’m coming back from sabbatical hoping for us is a renewed focus on our whole church being generous. This isn’t just for us as individuals, this is for us a community, too! And friends, we have a generous church! Over the last 2 years we’ve had 3 years’ worth of giving come in. We have financially supported 2 churches in the area (1 in Bloomington and 1 in St. Paul). When I came here, I was focused on church health, and we’ve gotten a lot healthier. The reason I want us to be healthy is so we can be a place to be a blessing to other people and churches in the area, and we don’t always know when those opportunities will come up! 

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by mikethestrand on August 31, 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon, Theology, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 31, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/08/31/generous-with-our-treasures-sermon-manuscript/

Generous with Time and Talents – Sermon Manuscript

-Middle of a series looking at the God of generosity.

-This section is all about financial generosity, but I think Paul lays the groundwork for us to go beyond just being generous with our finances, and the way I’ve always heard it talked about is with 3 T’s: time, talents, and treasures (good alliteration, and 3 points so you know it has to be true!) 

-This week, we’re going to be focusing on time and talents, with treasures being the focus of next week, but I want to start looking at what Paul says in 2 Cor. 9, before seeing other places where these ideas are also brought up.

-And this isn’t a brand new idea for us, it’s just approaching a topic we’ve talked about many times from a different lens, another way of thinking about generosity is through the lens of worship. Are you worshipping God with all you have and all your are, or are you holding things back?

READ/PRAY (1027)

  1. Excel in Every Good Work

6-This section begins with the assumption that sowing is going to be done, the only question is where are you sowing, in the world or in heaven?

7-What should mark the giver?

-As you decide – this is up to you, don’t try to keep up with someone else!

-Not reluctant – if God has changed your heart, it should affect your wallet

-Not compulsive – don’t lock the doors until you give a certain amount, don’t give just because someone begs!

-Cheerfully. Did you know that God actually wired us to become cheerful through giving? Some people report a “giving high” when they’re generous. Not only does God love a cheerful giver, but God INTENDS givers to become cheerful! Sociology is just the study of how God created us!

-“A stingy Christian is a contradiction in terms. We ourselves have been gifted into new life in Christ. We have been gifted into becoming givers.” Ortlund

8-At the core, where does this generosity come from? Generosity is grace, generosity comes from the gifts God already gives, and it leads to excelling in every good work.

9 – quotes from Psalm 112 as a model of someone who gives generously leading to being a righteous person. Generosity always bears fruit, even into eternity.

10 – God provides AND multiplies, it all comes from Him

-We’re expected to sow what God provides, but it leads to a harvest in our righteousness, which means one of the ways to determine if you’re walking with the Lord (in right standing before Him) is evidenced by your generosity.

-And the best part is we’re not the point! Generosity begins with God, is stewarded through us, and then goes back in thanksgiving to God! 

12 – our generosity is supposed to be a means of caring for each other, those who are a part of the church

-And I think this is important for us to realize that God’s means of providing for one another in this church body is right here, which I believe means that one of the ways this is evidenced is through our annual voting of our budget. Each year is a step of faith that God is going to provide for the needs of the saints through us, which means we should all take that vote very seriously, and cover it in prayer because at the end of the day this isn’t a business, this is a ministry. And the reason it’s an act of faith is because we can’t manipulate the market to increase our revenue stream – it takes all of us taking these ideas to heart and living out a generous life that leads to thanks to God.

13-Which leads to this last section, where Paul begins saying that your generosity towards other believers is a proof that the gospel has changed you. 

-And we continue to see this interplay between God receiving the glory, and the way generosity unites us closer to each other.

-Obedient confession with your mouth leads to an outpouring of generosity, those 2 things can’t be separated! With them and EVERYONE!

14-which connects to prayer, prayer is to God, but it also unties us together: it’s hard to remain mad at someone when you’re praying for them. Generosity leads to deep affection, deep union, a close relationship with each other.

-Which means we must be grateful people. One of the things about Paul’s letters that amazes me is how much thanks he writes about for and to other people. We, as Christians, should be the most grateful people on the planet, first because of what God has done for us through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, but also because out of Jesus comes this new community called ‘the church’ which is comprised of people from all backgrounds who are brought together in a specific time and place to provide everything needed for us take steps closer to Jesus.

-Now, one of the things I want to note about this section is the temptation for us to have the appearance of generosity, but do it from the wrong motivation.

-Ortlund quote. There’s a story in the book of Acts about the way the early church was ridiculously generous, so everyone wanted to become more generous. So a couple decided to sell a field and give some of the money to the church, but because they were more worried about appearances they told everyone that they gave EVERYTHING they made from selling their field. Instead of actually being generous, they were wanting to look generous to others, they were more worried about what other people thought than what God thought.

-I want to end this section with another passage from Paul that we’ll come back around to again in the Fall in 1 Tim. 6 because it connects to this section.

-Friends, we are rich in the present age. Paul says not to be arrogant (prideful, trusting in your own wealth), and to not hope in wealth (which can disappear in an instant), but on our rich God who alone provides everything for us.

-Instead of being rich in earthly wealth, look to be rich in good works! That’s practically how you store up treasures in heaven! And then Paul says how to be rich in good works: be generous and willing to share. Don’t horde and don’t hold on to your possessions too tightly – that’s how you demonstrate that the gospel message has changed you!

-But I think the most incredible piece of this section is the way Paul ends it, and it’s a phrase that was pointed out to me last October that I’ve been contemplating since then. What is life that is truly life (NIV)? 

-And as I’ve been thinking about it, I think what Paul is getting at is if you want to live a full life, or as Jesus says life in abundance, it requires reorienting your life to the way God intended us to live, being like Jesus. 

-Eternity for us starts now. Things you do now have a direct influence on the rest of your life. That’s why Paul is saying there’s a connection between how we handle our resources here, and what God gives us to handle in eternity. Friends, we’re going to live forever, the question is do we live like that now or not?

-And a primary way we live like that is by being generous with our time and our talents.

  • With Time (1 Thess. 2:8) 

-Who or what determines time for you? This is another concept that has been fascinating for me to consider since last summer’s trip in Europe. We had a professor from TEDS come who is a Genevan church history expert, wrote this book and spent the beginning chapter talking about St. Pierre, the biggest cathedral in the city, and still the highest point of the city. Listen to how he describes the passing of time:

-Manetsch quote

-Do churches have any bearing on time today? I often joke that I keep “Apple Standard Time” in my house. But with so much of our lives moving online that even affects the way we live! (the staff was laughing this week at how much we rely on the internet to do our jobs) And when does the internet shut off? Never! How do you think that affects the way our world engages time?

-Think of the promise of all the technological advancement we’ve had – easier lives, less time devoted to work, but has that actually happened? Why do people say that we spend about the same amount of time on household tasks today as our grandparents, or great-grandparents did 100 years ago? 

-Yet another piece, think of the verbs we use in relation to time, aren’t they all monetary? Spend, invest, waste, steward. But is that the way God thinks of time? Think of what Peter says about time (2 Pet. 3). God’s timing is rarely the same as our timing. And how long does it take for us to grow in holiness? I’ll be honest, it seems to be taking a LOT longer in my life than I thought it would when I was a kid!

-A book I recently read said God’s speed is 3 mph, which caught me off guard. But then the author went on to say: how fast did Jesus move? Walking speed! And then the author pointed out that Jesus spent a majority (something like ¾) of his 3-year ministry walking. If God’s speed is 3 mph, should that affect the way we view time? How much do we miss because we’re in too much of a rush to notice what God is putting in our path?

-I think one of the ways we all could grow in generosity with our time is by prioritizing people over productivity. Friends, you never need to apologize if you want to spend time with me or anyone on staff. I’ve lost count of the times I sit down to meet with someone and they say “I’m sorry for taking your time, I know you’re busy.” I’m not! My role here is to invest my time here on all of you! There are some boundaries that I need to keep, priorities that I have, but it’s a joy for me to be with you!

-For many of us, we live by the maxim time is money, don’t we? One of the things that has driven me nuts over my life is the people who are always looking for someone better to talk to, where you feel like you’re just in their way. When you’re trying to talk to them they won’t make eye contact, they keep looking just over your shoulder. Please don’t be like that! Friends, everyone we encounter is going to live for eternity, so get started loving them now!

-I onetime had someone ask me: how do you I know you care about me? After a bunch of wrong answers I landed on the one he was looking for: time. Time is one of the primary ways we show that we care about each other, which is just another way of saying if you love someone, you will spend time with them. 

-Which gets us to the primary verse for this section. What does Paul say he’s willing to share with the church? The gospel, and our very selves. We’ll give you ourselves. That’s how we’re generous with our time: by sharing our very selves. Do you share yourself with others, or do you try to remain stingy with yourself and your time?

  • With Talents (Matthew 25:14-30)

-5 talents, 2 talents, 1 talent. The first 2 double their talents, the third hides it, which would have been a completely acceptable arrangement at the time! Thieves and robbers were plentiful, burying it would have ensured it didn’t grow legs! 

-But look at how the master rewards the first 2, and then look at the third. The third is called evil, lazy, good-for-nothing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think those words are very positive! My prayer when I see my master is what the first 2 heard: well done good and faithful servant. But how do we steward our talents? In this parable, Jesus is talking about money, but I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for us to move this into the ways God has created us with specific talents that we’re supposed to build on and grow in. 

–1 Cor. 12 talks about many different ways that the body of Christ is gifted, none of us are gifted (talented) exactly the same way. And that’s not meant to cause jealousy or comparison between each other, God designs the body so that we always have exactly what we need, and nothing more! BUT it requires all of us using our gifts for the good of each other, look at the end of vs. 7: “for the common good.” 

-Church: your talents are not for you. But that also means you need to be actively using your talents, growing in them so that you can be a blessing to those around you. So that you can be generous with your talents! Every person who has been saved has some way or ways that God has equipped them for the good of the church, your brothers and sisters around you.

-Now, you might be thinking that’s awfully self-serving of me to say! I need your help to make this church function, and that may be true if it wasn’t for Eph. 4, which I have often referred to as my job description. 

-Notice why it says gave all these roles: to equip the saints for the work of ministry (service). Friends, the reason we have a church staff is to help equip you to function to the best of your abilities for the sake of our church. And the end result of us all using our gifts is growth and maturity, taking steps closer to Jesus each and every day.

-If you’ve been attending here for a while, you’ve seen this chart before, but this is what I try to share at least annually in our member’s meetings to give you a perspective on all the areas of ministry we have. And do you see all the question marks? Those are places we have needs! Now, that doesn’t mean no one is involved in these areas, many people are, but we don’t have someone to be the point person and help direct and guide these areas…yet. Are you someone that is looking for more ways to get involved? 

Communication, finances, hospitality, equip, care, mercy/outreach, men’s all are places that I would love to have an intention focus. Kid’s ministry always needs people, youth group always has opportunities, facilities always has little projects going.

-How are you growing in generosity with your time and your talents?

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by mikethestrand on August 24, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 24, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/08/24/generous-with-time-and-talents-sermon-manuscript/

Tales from the Trail – Sermon Manuscript

-THANK YOU!

-First of all to the staff & elders for picking up many things in my absence, particularly Micah for doing the bulk of the preaching while I was gone. Anyone become converted to his side of having your favorite book be Lev.?

-So appreciate this time, time with my family, time to reassess and reevaluate. And even when we were gone, we missed you all. So thankful for this church family that loves and cares about me and my family, it wasn’t easy to be gone! 

-It’s going to take me a while to catch up, so if I look dazed and confused for a few weeks, I probably am! I realize it’s going to take me a while to catch up with all of you, too, so I’m going to get our side of it out of the way now so when we sit down to talk you can just fill us in on what you did this summer.

-This is going to be VERY different from a normal sermon here! I just have some things to share with you about to catch you all up on our summer, as well as some things I’ve been thinking and praying through over the summer. Normally, we’re walking through a passage of the Bible, this week will be random wanderings and disconnected Bible verses, so bear with me today, we’ll get back into our normal rhythms next week.

-I have a couple sticky notes on my church computer monitor with verses that have been meaningful to me at various points during my time here that serve as a good starting point for sharing some of what I learned, and one that I’ve had on there since the beginning of this year is Psalm 16:6.

-Friends, don’t ever forget that God is good and desires good for us as His children. This doesn’t mean that everyday will be the best day ever, or that it always feels like things are “pleasant” but it means that God is in control and the outcome for anyone who is a child of God is “a beautiful inheritance.” This has been something I’ve been trying to remind myself of over this year, because I have so many things to be grateful for, one of which is you all.

-I haven’t shared much of this publicly before, but Cara and I came here in 2020 at a pretty low spot. The church we were coming from was pretty dysfunctional, and I’d had 3 failed interviews the year leading up to coming out here (nothing like you guys getting sloppy thirds) – interviewed at a large church in Chicago to be a worship pastor in 2019, and was told I wasn’t a good enough singer, thus ending my dreams to be on American Idol. But God used this to confirm that it was time for me to move out of music ministry and into preaching ministry.

-Then I had 1 phone interview with a church in La Crosse, and was told they loved my preaching and leadership, but wished I was 3 years older. Strike 2!

-Then in March of 2020, Cara, Calvin, Ellie and I flew to DC to interview about doing a church plant (which everyone called to be a pastor within 10 years of my age has wanted to do). When we landed, one of the pastors picked me up and said “not sure what this is going to look like now, the whole city just shut down” and I, foolishly said, “over a little virus? Are you guys crazy!?” So we went through the interview weekend, watched these 2 churches process shutting down in-person meetings, and then flew back to CO. A week later, they called me and said “I tried pushing as hard as I could, but my elders don’t feel like we can ask you to move across the country when we don’t know what this city is going to look like tomorrow, much less in 3 months.” So we went back to square 1. A month later, I got an email from South Suburban who asked me if I was interested in having a conversation about a position, and this has been just the right fit for us.

-We got to go back and visit with people from that church, and were reminded of how God has continually provided for us again and again and again. So when I say we’re thankful for this church, that’s not hyperbole or an exaggeration. I have a friend who pastors the EFCA church in Hastings (since 2018), who tried planting a church in San Francisco – 3x, each time failed. He said what his family needed was a hug from a church, and that’s how Cara and I came here, and you guys have welcomed us and our growing family, God has been at work in and through us together, and we’re just getting started! When I candidate, I shared that if you hired me, I was committing to AT LEAST 10 years, then the elders extended the contract to 15 years (to finish Psalms) which is actually going to take us 18 years (because of sabbaticals), so we’ve got 13 more years before we can talk about a sign and trade with another church! 

-I told a friend about the Psalms in the summer, and he said it was brilliant on my part to make sure you couldn’t fire me before we finish! 

  1. Our Travels

-Now onto what we did and where we went this summer!

-A highlight for me personally was getting to visit a number of other churches where I had no responsibility! If you were here last summer, you got to hear all about my big grand European escapade where I hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc with 8 other EFCA pastors from MN (and some others), well it’s time to hear about it again, because those are the guys I visited!

-John Stromberg at Elmwood in St. Anthony Village (shoutout to Tom & Kris)

-Clay Edens at Hope in Oakwood 

-Bryan Lair at Trinity City in St. Paul

-RCC at the resort (don’t worry, we didn’t take the eucharist, and the priest made sure the emphasize that his homily would be “short” don’t expect the same from me!)

-South Sub online (a poor substitute for in person!)

-(no picture) a Baptist church in Bismark, ND with my sister who played piano

-Siloam Springs Bible, EFCA in Siloam Springs, AR (Cara’s family) 

-Aaron at Resurrection in Burnsville 

-Mike Richards at CrossPoint in Bloomington

-Friends, there’s some great churches in our area that are faithfully preaching the gospel, that are loving their communities, and following hard after the Lord! I’m so thankful for the ways God has been working in all these churches to bring the pastors together as friends, and as encouragement in gospel ministry. If you haven’t realized this yet: life is hard, and no one should be going through life alone! I just listened to a podcast this past week on the need for pastors to have good friends, and I sent it to many of these guys.

-As far as our TRAVEL: we stuck around here while the kids finished up school, and I got in the way around the house a LOT (I’ll get to that with my next point)

-After school wrapped up, Cara and I spent a week in Mexico to celebrate our 10-year anniversary while my parents watched our kids. Everyone survived, but I’m not sure that my parents will sign up for that again. When we got home they told me “your house is busy!”

-This was what Cara looked like most of the week, and this is what I looked like

-I made the mistake of reading the 2 Jurassic Park novels while I was there (if you haven’t read them, they’re really fun science fiction books that the movies didn’t necessarily recreate very well) The reason it was a mistake was because this resort was in the jungle, and the dinosaurs kept trying to take my food! These things are TERRIFYING!

-As a special treat, my youngest sister and her husband joined us after a few days, and we enjoyed catching up with them and introducing them to the resort!

-Flew back for a week (I got sick), then we spent 2 weeks on the road!

-Bismarck (stayed with the same sister who was in MX), Medora, Bismarck, Mt. Rushmore, Colorado, Arkansas, Nebraska, home. If you can’t see the tiny font, that’s 48 hours of driving and 3,222 miles.

-As fresh as we got, in Medora we did the pitchfork fondue (which Charlie loved), Mt. Rushmore was a hit for the bigger kids, my highlight from CO was getting In-N-Out. Ellie decided it was the best cheeseburger she’s had, but Lucy prefers Wendys. It was so good, I got it twice!

-Were hoping to make it back to Cheyenne to see our old church there, but Thomas had other plans. Unfortunately, he had a respiratory infection where he wasn’t breathing well, and nurse Cara was very worried. We came home a few days early and took him to the ER, his blood oxygen was 90%, and they diagnosed him with cold induced asthma. But wait, we weren’t done! That was Saturday night, on Monday, Cara took Calvin in, and it turned out he had gotten walking pneumonia! Didn’t know you could get that in summer. AND THEN we had to talk Thomas BACK in on Wednesday, and it turned out he ALSO had walking pneumonia! Then that Thursday it was Charlie’s turn for tubes, and to round out the summer, Lucy’s getting her tonsils removed in a couple weeks!

-We had a great summer together despite all the sickness! And got to show the kids all sorts of fun things! 

  • Human Being vs. Human Doing

-It was hard to mentally shift from doing to being. The first week and a half I read at least a book a day to try to keep out of Cara’s way (she had her schedule with me at work, from taking the younger kids to the library, to grocery shopping, to naptime), meanwhile I was just trying to keep busy and keep feeling productive, which I realized wasn’t the best use of my time. I texted a friend and asked him how much of sabbatical is supposed to be realizing you’ve put too much of your identity in what you do and what you produce, and his reply was “that was my entire first sabbatical.” Which is NOT what I wanted to hear!

-I don’t know about you, but I often judge myself on what I’m able to accomplish or produce. Like one of the biggest struggles I have in ministry is that I can’t see my accomplishments. No one gives me an award for praying, I can’t measure my growth in holiness, and I would argue that one of the markers of God’s people throughout history is complaining and grumbling that God’s timetable doesn’t align with ours. I don’t know about you, but I felt like I would be FAR more sanctified by now than I am! What’s been amazing to me, is as I’ve talked to many older saints, the older they get they just realize how much more of a sinner they are than they were when they were younger. It’s like the sin goes far deeper than any of us would care to admit. Additionally, what happens when you put sinners in close proximity to each other? Your sin is going to come out, and potentially hurt someone nearby.

-An old joke: ministry would be great, if it wasn’t for all the people. But the reality is if it wasn’t for all the people, there wouldn’t be a need for ministry! And I really like this you all!

-I think part of the issue is that many times we end up judging other people based on our own doing-ness (don’t think that’s a word), but we compare the ways we’re strong to the ways others are weak, particularly when we think of the ways we’re gifted. We tend to view gifts through a scale: we give certain gifts higher priorities, but that’s not the way God views it. It takes all of us working together because we also have to deal with sin, and sin is the reason work is hard. A few things I processed about work:

-Work is good (Gen. 2:15)

-I think we have a tendency to view work as a result of the curse, not something God designed. Friends, when we get to heaven, all of us will be working! I am convinced that when I get to heaven, I’ll get to be a chef! I love cooking and using food as a way to spend time with people. Another pastor friend of mine thinks he’s going to be a driver! He loves chauffeuring people around and hearing their stories. Many of you will get to continue doing what God has called you to here, but without the problems, which is the second thing we see about work:

-Work is hard (Gen. 3:17-19)

-Where Adam used to be able to get fruit easily, now all his work will produce thorns and thistles. And that is life between Eden and eternity. We work hard and it doesn’t always seem to work out well, which leads to the last point:

-Work isn’t God.

-Honestly, the rest of the Bible is humans attempts to work their way up to God, either through a literal building to the realm of the gods with the tower of Babel, to creating entire civilizations where the emperor can feel like he’s in complete control of everything. But it never works! Think of the Roman empire, we have nothing that compares to it today. I spent $25 to walk on the path the emperor would take to look down on his subjects and claim to be god. Little old me walked that path!

-I shared a verse from Psalm 16 earlier, but that Psalm ends by saying:

-What is the path of life? It’s not looking to work as your source of worth and identity, it’s God’s presence that fulfills all the deepest longings and existential questions you’ll have. Blaise Pascal said we have a “God-shaped hole” in our hearts that can only be filled by God, which gets us to the need to: 

  • Guard Your Heart

-The second thing I really spent time praying over and processing was what it looks like to become more like Jesus, I shared before I left that I was praying over what a “Rule of Life” looks like for a church body. One of the books I read over the summer was titled ‘Mere Christian Hermeneutics’ by Kevin VanHoozer, who teaches at TEDS, our denomination’s school in Chicago.

-He has made it his life’s mission to determine what it means to be “biblical,” which is a phrase that often bothers me because people tend to use it as a sledgehammer to stop any discussion. If you just say someone is “unbiblical” you can dismiss them outright. I’ve been called unbiblical before because I don’t agree with someone’s interpretation of Scripture! Does that make me unbiblical? And if not, how do we determine what it means to be “biblical”?

-One of the things I’ve really wrestled with over the last 18 months has been the sufficiency of the Bible (fancy word that means it’s enough for Christians to grow in godliness). I’ve been a pastor long enough to see that just reading or even preaching the Bible isn’t enough to lead to true transformation, which has at times made me slightly disenchanted with my job! (remember what I said about work being hard!) This book reaffirmed for me that the way we are made more like Jesus is by knowing, studying, and meditating regularly on God’s Word. This is God’s chosen way of both speaking to us and changing us to become more and more like Jesus. 

-To that end, one of the things I’ve added for us is a weekly verse for us to memorize together, it’s on the bottom of the sermon notes.

-The title of this point comes from Prov. 4:23 “Above all else guard your heart,” which it may be better to think about guard yourself, Hebrew the word “heart” is trying to refer to your deepest desire, where we tend to view the beating muscle in our chest!

-But how do we do that? The foundation or starting point is God’s Word. But then it goes on from there to impact and influence 2 things: meditation/reflection on God’s Word, and prayer which is responding to God who speaks to us through his Word. A couple passages make this point really well:

–Psalm 1

-“Happy” I like that translation! I’ve actually had people at church tell me I shouldn’t use that word, Christians aren’t promised to be happy, and I completely and absolutely reject that idea. But it’s not happiness to do or be whatever we want. It’s happiness that can only come from living a life fully surrendered to God.

–Psalm 119

-Second, see the happiness again? How does it come? Following God’s instruction, and decrees, and seeking Him with their whole heart. That’s how you guard your heart! Following after God.

-Keller “If you understand what holiness is, you come to see that real happiness is on the far side of holiness, not the near side.”

-Friends: soak yourself in God’s Word! But then after you’ve done that, move on to respond to God in prayer!

-I practiced this quite a bit this summer (I unsubscribed from all my podcasts) and would often drive and pray (usually driving time is when I knock out all my podcasts). There’s a guy I’ve been reading as much as I can of over the last year named Kyle Strobel (if you’ve been in church for a long time, you’ve probably heard of his dad Lee Strobel who wrote a book called ‘The Case for Christ’) Kyle Strobel is the director of Institute for Spiritual Formation at Talbot who has done a lot of writing in what Protestant spiritual formation is as distinct from other streams of Christianity (Roman Catholic, eastern orthodox)

-2 BIG takeaways for me from my reading and praying this summer:

1- You don’t begin and end in prayer, you enter into something that is already taking place.

-Friends, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are praying for us 24/7, and praying in the ways we wish we knew how to pray! What that means is prayer doesn’t depend on us. You should be praying, you should be talking to God, but He doesn’t passively sit back and wait for you to begin praying – Jesus and the Spirit are praying for us all the time! 

-Do you believe that God answers prayer? Now sometimes the answer is “no,” but God does hear us and He does answer us. What should comfort us in the midst of that is that God knows WAY more than we do. Keller quote

-Think of this just in human terms: my kids ask for dessert EVERY night, and we often tell them no, which makes NO sense to them. I shared with them recently that when I was their age, I told my parents I was going to eat hot dogs for every meal when I grew up. Guess what I don’t eat for every meal now! God sees and knows things perfectly, do we trust Him?

2 – prayer is a place to be honest. 

-This is just as important as the first point, because what do you do when the answer is “no”? Do you continue praying? Do you give up? God invites us to keep asking, and then come to Him with our complaints and issues!

-I don’t know about you, but I think praying can be one of the hardest things to do, usually because every time I go to pray, my mind starts to wander, and I feel like a failure. But what if that wandering is God’s way revealing to us what we should be praying for? Like when you pray and start thinking about work, is it God’s way of showing that your work is too important to you, or there’s an issue at work that you should be bringing to Him?

-Kyle Strobel quote

-I heard a pastor onetime say “Pray what you’ve got” and I love that! Don’t put on a show, don’t try to impress God with your prayers, but I also think we should add to that: pray what you’ve got, when you’ve got it, wherever you’re at! 

-You can pray when you’re driving, at the grocery store, talking to a friend, mowing the lawn, but one of my hopes and prayers for us as a church is to become more fluent in prayer, to let prayer become more normal in our daily lives.

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by mikethestrand on August 10, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 10, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/08/10/tales-from-the-trail-sermon-manuscript/

Genesis 24 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you know how all your friends met and got married? One podcast I listen to asks people “what’s your ‘meet cute’”? 

-Cara and I met when she was looking for a small group and walked away with a husband! Cara moved to Cheyenne to work in the ER and it took her a while to find a church. When she finally did, she reached out to one of the other pastors and asked to join a small group. That pastor came into my study and asked if we had any room in ours, so I said yes but we’re all in our 20s so how old is she? He said I can’t tell, but I figure she’s either in her 60s, or your future wife. And here we are! 

-Today’s text is a the “meet cute” of Isaac and his wife Rebekah.

READ/PRAY

  1. Promise (1-14)

-We’re getting to the end of the account of Abraham, we’ve followed his life through the ups and downs, but just the highlights that God wanted Moses to record to help us understand the bigger story of what He’s been doing through Abraham.

-Notice that he’s been blessed by the lord “in everything” – last week he finally has a plot of land, he’s got his chosen descendant, and he’s already started being a blessing to the world.

-But Abraham wants to ensure that his son is provided for (that will come up again next week), so he calls his main servant (who may have been mentioned by name in Gen. 15:2 Eliezer of Damascus), and tasks him with finding a wife for his son, but let’s look at the stipulations Abraham makes for this wife:

-First – her past with her family.

-The first place Abraham goes is to swear that he won’t let Isaac marry a Canaanite, a native of the land that will someday be theirs. What’s the significance of this?

-First, it’s the opposite of what Ishmael has done. Remember? His mom found an Egyptian woman for him to marry, going a long way off from Abraham to find a wife! 

-Secondly, the Canaanites are those who have been cursed from God (Gen. 9:24 “Canaan is cursed, he will be the lowest of slaves to his brothers”), and those who will be driven out of the land for Abraham’s descendants. 

-This is preserving the lineage that God has promised, and will actually set up a pattern for the rest of Genesis – Genesis is the story of how God became known as the God of: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Isaac’s brother Ishmael married an Egyptian, Jacob’s brother Esau will marry Hethite women while Jacob marries 2 women who are a part of the family (Laban will show up again after today’s text)

-Finally, this is continuing the theme from last week that Abraham is a resident alien. Remember, he’s looking forward to a future hope, a future home not built by human hands.

-The next thing Abraham focuses on is her present. What kind of character does this woman need to have?

-We’ve started with a sweeping statement: not a Canaanite. But what if he finds someone and she doesn’t want to move halfway across the known world? Is it worth taking Isaac to ensure the bloodline continues?

-I think we’ve seen Abraham finally become convinced that God is actually planning out all these events. The Lord had promised to give this land to Abraham and his family, not his homeland. We’re back to this tension of not having a true home. Abraham is FINALLY trusting that God will follow through on everything He’s promised, 

-Which means the woman’s future is in play. If the woman isn’t willing to come back to the promised land, the servant is off the hook for any penalties from this oath.

-The servant agrees, taking 10 camels, all kinds of goods (required to travel and to pay the bride price) and travels across the Middle East to get to Abraham’s homeland. One scholar stated this trip would have taken over a month to travel, ending up in a place called “Aram of the Two Rivers”, near Haran (giving some credence to the northern Ur argument)

-Skips ahead to his arrival, which was apparently during the evening, he stops the caravan just outside town to rest. Once he’s gotten settled, he then prays to the God of his master. 

-Friends, don’t miss that the God of all of creation has always connected Himself to a people or person. He’s the God OF ______, connecting Himself to history and bringing all things to their fulfilment in just the right time.

-And he asks a specific request of God: if he happens to find a girl and he asks her for water, the right one will be the one who goes even further to even water the camels. Is this a test of her character? Is it a test of God? The text doesn’t say.

-Have you ever been in one of these situations where you’ve been asking God for clear direction, and you ask Him to do 1 of 2 things for you? You might have heard this as “laying out a fleece for God,” which is referring to Gideon who has a call on his life from God, but he’s just trying to make sure that God is actually on his side. Or maybe you’ve heard stories of people who are in a difficult situation, and they promise God they’ll devote their lives to Him if He gets them through. This is a fairly common human experience! And it even follows some of the ways God worked in the past:

-One of the components of the priestly garments was Urim and Thummim, almost like a magic 8 ball where the priest would ask a question, stick his hand in this pouch, and whatever was pulled out was the will of God.

-Even the 12 disciples in Acts 1 cast lots to determine who else would be added to their number to bring them back from 11 to 12, the number of completion.

-So if we see these examples in Scripture, should we be doing these same things? Like, should we try to copy what the priests did, and go buy a Magic 8 ball that I’ll keep in my study to consult when any questions come up? And if not, then why? I always seemed to get the “ask again later” option.

-We need to have an understanding of the way God’s will works, and what He wants and expects from us in our daily lives. God has 2 wills (from our perspective, in Himself it’s just 1): His revealed will and His hidden will (theologians call this His preceptive and decretive wills) 

-You get this idea from Deut. 29:29. And notice the purpose of God’s revealed will: so that we may follow God’s law. God doesn’t keep things hidden from us to try to trick us.

-We also know from Jesus’ time being tempted in the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry that one thing we’re not supposed to do is test God. So how in the world do we figure out God’s will apart from putting out a fleece, or testing Him?

-There’s 1 key difference between us and Abraham, Gideon, and even the 12 disciples when they cast lots. Do you know what it is? It’s come up the last 2 weeks: we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. We don’t need a magic 8 ball anymore, we have God living in us! 

-Think of what James, the brother of Jesus, says in the beginning of his letter.

-3 things: God’s Word, through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, in the context of the church.

-God’s Word is the foundation and source of truth. Apart from knowing how God has chosen to reveal Himself you’ll have no hope of knowing what He wants from you. He even says in 1 Thess. 4:3 that his revealed will is for us to be holy. Then we should ask what is holiness? What does that look like? It looks like God! God is holy, so being in His will is taking on His character traits and becoming daily more like Him.

-Because we need to know and understand God’s Word (the Bible), in order to correctly understand it we need the Holy Spirit within us to bring it to life. Unbelievers can read Scripture, understand it, put together the syntax and grammar of it, and completely miss the point of it. It’s not like any other ancient work of literature, and it requires the same Holy Spirit who inspired it to faithfully interpret (or illuminate it).

-Which gets us to this last part: this interpreting needs to be done in the context of the church (both past and present!). The Bible isn’t meant to be read alone. Did you know that? One of the things that has led to a number of heresies has been reading the Bible alone, without any other council or help. See the Bible is supposed to be read and interpreted with the local church, AND the church of the past (provides guardrails and gets us out of the blinders of our cultural context). 

-Friends, if you’re struggling to determine God’s will, don’t buy a magic 8 ball, don’t cast lots, spend time in God’s Word, ask the Holy Spirit to guide you, and invest in the church. Thankfully, it’s not rocket science, and it’s not hidden! That doesn’t mean all your decisions will be easy, but it does mean that you can trust God’s hand as you go through life!

  • Providence (15-25)

-In this situation, God does answer the servant’s prayer exactly how he requested. And notice how quickly it happens: before he had finished speaking, the answer walks up: Rebekah.

-Now if the wording here confuses you, you’re not alone! I had to write it down so I could keep track of where these family relationships were! So I drew up the way this family lineage was working. Rebekah is Isaac’s “first cousin once-removed.” Relationships worked a little different at this time period! But the key is that she’s in Abraham’s family, so she’s exactly what he had requested.

-Then we learn some more about her:

-Very beautiful (like her future mother-in-law), and a virgin.

-And then there’s some speed in the rest of this section:

-The servant runs

-She quickly gets the water for him, then quickly fills up the trough for the camels, and repeats this process again and again until all 10 camels have had their fill. The servant waited to see if she would follow through and be the person he had prayed for, and once they’re all done, then he gives her a drink, costly gifts. 

-And then invites himself into her house, perhaps to see if she is hospitable like she needs to be to follow after Yahweh. 

-And what’s the proper response when God answers our prayers? 

  • Praise (26-61)

-Not only did she fill up the water for the camels (again and again) she also offered him a place to stay. This woman is perfect for Isaac! So he gives thanks to God.

-Which we need to pause and contemplate for just a minute. Because God answers prayers ALL the time! My kids and I pray for a good day at school every day, and God always answers that prayer. We regularly pray that God would bless our food, and he always answers that. Which means we should always respond with praise and thanksgiving to God.

-And once again, speed becomes of the essence, Rebekah RUNS home to tell everyone what’s going on, and surely shows them the gifts he had brought (and the 10 camels, representing the great wealth of his benefactor).

-And then we’re introduced to her brother, Laban. And what does the text say he notices about his sister? The ring and the bracelets. See, Laban is an opportunist. We learn later on that he is a polytheist and is always looking to get ahead, and I think we see that begin to take shape in this text, but I’ll wait to point out where. And notice that just as Rebekah ran home, Laban ran to go meet this servant, not wanting to miss out on this opportunity!

-Laban seems to have gotten things at the house ready, the camels are taken care of, and then the food is brought out, but the servant refuses to eat until he accomplishes his mission. And then we get a repeat of the exact story we just read, almost verbatim.

-He begins with a description of Abraham, who is rich in every way. These riches have been handed down to his son, and he’s here to find a wife for that son, and Rebekah is the one who responded exactly how he’d prayed. So: what’s their answer?

-It’s interesting that it lists Laban first, because generally they start with the older and then go to the younger. And their response seems odd to us: well, this is obviously from the Lord, so go for it. We don’t see the psychology behind this, and this is a completely different culture from ours, so this is a fascinating look at how marriages were conducted 3,000 years ago!

-Abraham’s servant responds just as he did last time! God had provided the woman, this time her family’s on board. God has provided exactly what he’d requested, giving Isaac a wife. And in response, he gives more gifts to Rebekah, and Laban and her mother, and after finally getting his answer, then he sits down to eat with everyone.

-The next morning, he’s ready to go. His prayer had been answered, the wife has been found, now they just need to get back.

-But Laban and her mother aren’t quite ready to go along with it. Could it be that they’re wanting a few more of those gifts the servant had given to them? See this is where I think we’re starting to see Laban’s character coming through. Rebekah’s just a means to an end for him!

-This delaying becomes a bit of a pattern in Laban’s life later on, but that will come up in a future sermon series someday! Or you can just keep reading in Genesis and learn more about Laban! 

-And the servant is ready to go! His job is done, there’s only 1 step left: get home. And remember, this is probably a long journey!

-And finally Rebekah gets to make her thoughts known: they decide to ask her, and she’s ready to go.

-So they do, and with her is her nursemaid, and on her way out they bless her. And does this blessing sound like any other blessings we’ve heard in this book? Think back to Gen. 22, after Abraham had offered up Isaac as a sacrifice, in response God reiterates his promise to Abraham and says: 

-What’s taking place here is Rebekah is demonstrated as being like Abraham. She has been a blessing to others, she is following the ways of the Lord, and now she’s received the same blessing as Abraham. Abraham’s family line will continue through a woman who is emulating him.

  • Provision (62-67)

-This location has come up once before, this is where the Lord provided for Hagar and Ishmael when Hagar fled from Sarah’s abuse.

-One day, he’s out for a walk and he sees Rebekah and Abraham’s servant approaching. We never heard Isaac and Rebekah interacting in this story, but she asks the servant who’s coming to greet them.

-When she finds out, she puts her veil on, which is the customary way of signifying that a woman is unmarried. And then this love story comes to a happy conclusion: they’re married happily ever after! At least mostly, it does say that Isaac loved her, that this marriage brought comfort to him after his mother’s death, but they’re going to end up having twins that adds some level of animosity into their marriage, but that’s a story for a different day!

-What do WE do with this story? Well, if you’re unmarried it may be time to go find the local well. JK. 2 things, both related to God’s will. If you want to dig into what I said about God’s will further, read this book: 

-Do you trust God’s providential hand in your life? Friends, even when things are difficult, God is still working to accomplish his plans and purposes: make you more holy.

-Do you ask God to lead and guide you in your life? It can be very easy for us to only call out to God when things are difficult, but as we saw in this text, even when things are going well we should be praising God and asking for His continual guidance.

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by mikethestrand on May 4, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 4, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/05/04/genesis-24-sermon-manuscript/

Genesis 23 – Sermon Manuscript

-If we get coffee, I will most likely order a 16 oz Americano with an extra shot and a little heavy cream. It’s been a big debacle trying to figure out the best way to order this drink at various coffee shops, but what I learned while I was in Europe last summer is my drink has a name over there! It’s called “The White Americano,” which when I learned change my life and made ordering WAY easier.

-But then my friend, who was traveling with me started muttering under his breath each time I’d order: yeah you are, and I suddenly was reminded that I was an outsider! I really enjoyed my time overseas (and even started looking for McDonalds just to feel like I was home), but I knew it wasn’t home. They drove on the wrong side of the road, in many places they spoke a different language, used different money, and even ordering coffee was a reminder that I was a foreigner. 

-Today’s text is Abraham’s reminder that he is a foreigner.

READ/PRAY

-Brief overview of where we’ve been the last few months following Abrahams’s life:

-God called him as a pagan to leave his homeland and go to a new land that the Lord would show him so that he would be a blessing to the ends of the earth. This blessing will come about through 3 things: land, seed, and blessing. However, Sarah, his wife, was barren.

-We’ve seen Abraham’s various responses to trusting in God – sometimes he does really well, and other times he utterly fails. But God remains true to his promises to Abraham, despite him acting faithless. We saw this in Gen. 15 when God enacts the covenant with Abraham. Cut some animals in half, then Abraham falls asleep and God walks right through the middle of it, saying that if the covenant is broken, the penalty for that will fall on Him instead of Abraham:

–2 Tim. 2:13

-Keep this idea in mind as we continue over the next 3 weeks to finish up the life of Abraham: it’s a good thing that God’s promises are dependent on him and not us, because if it were up to us, we would completely ruin it.

-We then saw a seed finally born to Sarah & Abraham when he was 100, after waiting 26 years for God’s promise to be fulfilled, so God did prove to be faithful. Then we saw the way God blessed Abimelech through Abraham, so we’ve seen 2 of the 3 promises from God be fulfilled, but there’s 1 missing: land. Today will be the downpayment of that promise.

-We’re going to go through this text fairly quickly today to get to the final point, because the NT has a lot to say about this idea of Abraham being an alien and sojourner that we need to be reminded of in our lives today.

  1. Sarah’s Sojourn Ends (1-6)

-Interestingly, Sarah is the only woman who is given an age in this book. She had Isaac when she was 89, meaning he would now by 38.

-Died in Kiriath-arba (Hebron) parenthetical note to signify which place Moses is referring to here, places can change names! Think of the lake formerly known as Lake Calhoun (now known as “be-DAY me-KAH skah”) or the Gulf of America, or Mexico?

-This is in Canaan, where Abraham had been promised he would be given an entire nation

-Normal mourning period, then the body would be taken out for burial, has to ask the local people for the provision of a place to bury his wife

-But notice the way Abraham describes himself: alien residing among you. This isn’t his home, even though God has promised that this land would someday be his, it’s not his yet. 

-Abraham is humbly approaching and asking this people to be kind and gracious to him, he’s also following the customs of this land.

-Where Abraham labeled himself a resident alien, look how they label him in vs. 6. “prince of God among us.”

-They’ve seen something different and unique about Abraham that sets him apart from the rest of them. Where Abraham comes almost groveling to them, approaching like a beggar, they have a much higher opinion of him! Abraham’s blessing from God is visible even to the watching pagans in Canaan.

-Which is a really good picture of what God wants for all of us, too. Do you think your neighbors would label you as a “prince (or princess) of God”? We’ll look at that more explicitly in a little bit, but keep that in the back of your mind.

-The Hethites go on: you can bury your wife anywhere you want! Because of his exalted status and their high opinion of him, no one would stand in the way of what Abraham wants.

  • Secure Foundations (7-16)

-Abraham proceeds to humbly respond to them and bows in front of them, he knows exactly where he wishes to bury Sarah: a cave that becomes the burial cave of all the patriarchs. 

-Sarah first, then Abraham joins her in a couple chapters, then Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and finally Jacob requests that he be buried in the same cave, the same place where he also buried his wife Leah.

-Ephron, the current owner of the cave offers not just the cave, but the field attached to it as well, and to ensure its legally right, it’s done in the sight of everyone. AND Abraham won’t just take it for free, he wants to make sure there’s no question of who owns this land in the future.

-This is a fairly steep price for a field! But Abraham doesn’t want any discounts or credits, and we’ve established that he’s a wealthy man, so this wouldn’t be outside the bounds of what he can afford.

-Additionally, let’s think back to an account where he was given a bride price for his wife. Back in Gen. 20, Abraham pulled his classic trick of telling people Sarah was his sister (a half-truth). The Lord reveals to Abimelech that Sarah is married, and if he were to follow through on what he wanted to do he would face severe consequences, so in order to ensure nothing bad comes upon them, he gives Abraham 1,000 pieces of silver. I don’t know that’s it too much of a stretch to think that’s what Abraham uses to pay for this field cave.

  • Starting the Promise (17-20)

-This seems to have become somewhat of a homebase for Abraham, we’ve seen him in Mamre numerous times! 

-Payment is finalized, whatever it looked like to write up a deed of contract to buy a plot of land is stamped. And remember something I mentioned from S&G destruction: the gate of the city is the place where the business of the city takes place.

-After all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted, Abraham buries his wife in the exact place that he was hoping to buy at the beginning of his interactions, and because he is now the rightful owner, it’s supposed to be his in perpetuity. 

-Let’s think back to what I said at the beginning of this sermon, what God had promised to provide to Abraham: land, seed, and blessing. We’ve seen the seed (Isaac) and the blessing, but what about land? Here it is! A whole field and cave! Not too much, is it? Most scholars I was reading said that this serves as a foretaste or the downpayment on the greater land promise that God had given him.

-And this is where we now see some of the ways our lives today are similar to what Abraham experienced in his life, with 1 key difference.

–Eph. 1:14 tells us that we have something similar to what Abraham had here, a down payment of the promised land that would eventually belong to his descendants, but our downpayment is God Himself dwelling in us, bringing us spiritually from death to life, making us as new people. Look at what Paul says:

-The moment you believe you are: transformed, made new, radically changed, given the privilege and opportunity to actually pursue Jesus day by day. 

-The Holy Spirit is literally the way we know we’re saved. I was always so terrified growing up that my salvation didn’t “take” so I must have “asked Jesus into my heart” 20 times! (which is nowhere in the Bible! Peter says to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, and that’s it)

-That’s not how Jesus invites us to live. Just like Abraham was promised an entire country of land, but as he approaches the end of his life all he has is a field, we are promised a life of abundance and flourishing, but it won’t be completed until Jesus returns or takes us home. All we’ll ever have on this side of eternity is the down payment.

-If you’ve ever bought a home you know this process is like! You save up for years for that downpayment, you finally find a house you like so you put the offer in and write the biggest check you’ve ever written in your life – but it’s not yet yours, is it? At least not fully, you’re still sleeping in your old house, spending WAY too many hours comparing the hundred shades of grey you could paint your walls, trying to find as many boxes as you can, but you start to worry less about your current place of living too. It starts to feel less and less like home because all your attention is on where you’ll eventually be living.

-And friends: that’s how Abraham viewed his time on earth, and that’s how Jesus calls us to view our time on earth.

-And that’s what we’re going to spend the rest of our time talking about! I mentioned this in last week’s sermon, but I don’t know if you caught it: Jesus said it’s better that he goes away, but for a really long time I struggled with that fact, and some of what we read about Abraham today points to this fact: Jesus is saying if he doesn’t go away, we don’t have our down payment. The reality is that this world isn’t our home, but our temptation is to act like it is. We put WAY too much work and effort into acting like this is our home, acting like nothing else maters but getting the most out of this life that we can. But here we see the reason Abraham is such a big deal is he didn’t try to make this world his home, he describes himself as an alien, which the NT writers pick up as a theme as well for us to contemplate today! We’ll look at a few different texts before getting to some things I’d like to encourage you to contemplate over the summer, some things I’ve been contemplating over the past year, and things I want us as a church to start thinking about how we can engage the world God has created in potentially some new ways. 

-First, lets look at how the author to the Hebrews helps us to interpret this very event:

-Abraham was called to live by faith and not by sight. It took 25 years for him to get his son, there’s been some blessing, but nothing like a blessing to the whole world, and he just now got land (he’s 10 years older than Sarah, so he’d be 137 here). His whole life he is a foreigner, sojourning among other people. And why could he do that? Because he knew this world was not his home, he was living for a different city, a city that is build and sustained by God, an eternal city that will bring lasting peace and prosperity to the rest of the world.

-Faith is what led Sarah to become the mother of a multitude, who only saw 1 child born to her while she was alive, but today there are over 2.4 billion people who are spiritually descended from her. Do you think she would have imagined the implications her life would have on the rest of history, and the world?

-Then the author ends this thought by saying that even in death all these saints died, but NONE of them got the things promised to them.

-They were looking forward to a new day, a better day where they would finally have a home, but instead they were foreigners, and only temporary residents of earth. This world isn’t our home either, the home that’s coming will make the greatest places on this earth look like trash dumps.

-And the reality of this is we’re just called to live like our Savior, look how Jesus described his life:

-Obviously, he had places to sleep, he’s picking up this same idea that we’ve seen with Abraham: this world was not His home, He was looking toward a better home. And what’s ironic is the entire world only existed because of and through Him, but He still didn’t have a place to call home while He sojourned on earth. 

-Which gets us to the last passage which tells us this is also true of us today. Look how Peter describes the church: strangers and exiles, other places refer to us as “ambassadors.” These are here to describe how we’re supposed to engage this world: as outsiders who are pointing to a different reality. If we’re strangers here, that should be noticeable. If we’re ambassadors, our job is to faithfully represent our homeland (which is heaven). And I’ve been thinking about this particularly in relation to the idea of generosity over the last couple months, and generosity in 3 ways: time, talents, and treasures. 

-In the church, when we talk about generosity, we often jump to finances, but generosity is far more than that. Here’s something Paul says about generosity, notice: where does it come from? God himself! God gives us literally everything, and He rightfully expects us to respond with generosity toward others with the gifts He’s given us.

-Which is what Peter gets to in the rest of the section I just mentioned: abstain from sinful desires (sin is putting yourself at the center, only worrying about yourself without caring about anyone else). Sin is literally the opposite of generosity.

-I’m just going to go through time talents and treasures briefly, because I’m planning to talk about them in MUCH greater detail this Fall, but let’s start with time:

-In a book about Geneva during the Reformation (mid 1500s), the author shared how the church bells marked time for the entire city:

-What marks time for us today? Apple, Google, Amazon? What SHOULD mark time for us today? How can we steward the time God has given us, and not just steward it, but look to be generous with our time? To do that I think it’s going to take some changing of patterns in our lives so we don’t just adopt worldly patterns in our lives. 

-Have you ever heard of Blue Laws? Certain activities used to be banned on Sundays because it was marked as a sacred day, unique from the other 6. But when most of shopping goes online, does it even matter?

-What about talents? Have you ever considered that God has uniquely wired and gifted you in a way to be generous to others with your skills? 

-I’m so glad that not everyone is wired exactly like me! Just yesterday, Micah and I were moving a fridge and getting it set up at his house, and we broke the water line going into the fridge. Thankfully, we both have HoJo’s number, so we amateur movers sheepishly called him, and he fixed it much quicker than we could have! And I know many of you have stories just like this.

-And treasures: I would argue this is more than just money, we also have possessions (house, car, other “stuff”).

-Did you know that those who give away 10% of what they make are happier, healthier, have less problems with depression, and live more satisfied lives? A professor I had described social science as scientists discovering the ways God made us.

-Not only that, but did you know that when you give generously to others, it releases dopamine, which makes you cheerful? So not only does God love a cheerful giver, God literally makes you cheerful when you give. Isn’t it amazing how God has created us to operate?

-This is what Abraham was pointing to: living a generous life that demonstrates that this world isn’t our home, that we were made for a different country, a better country, where the God who made everything out of nothing provides everything we need in abundance. 

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by mikethestrand on April 27, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 27, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/04/27/genesis-23-sermon-manuscript/

John 11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Break from Abraham to follow the church calendar (ordering the year around significant events in the church, most of the year is called “Ordinary Time”)

-John’s Gospel is probably my favorite of the 4. Emphasis on the Jesus being God. Gospels are all about the same story, centered on the same person. One author has described them as “extended passion narratives.” Have you ever noticed the way they’re structured: only 2 of them talk about his birth, only 1 of them adds any information between his birth and the beginning of His ministry (Luke at the temple). And then it feels like it rushes through the 3 years of his ministry and then spends a TON of time on the last week of His life (Matt. 21-28, Mark 11-16, Luke 19-24; John 12-21)

-John’s Gospel is a beautiful work of literature, centers on 7 signs, contains Jesus’s 7 “I Am” statements (1 of which we’ll get to today)

-But John’s Gospel also has 2 significant resurrection stories. John brackets his passion narrative with Jesus raising someone from the dead, and then Jesus being raised from the dead. This week, we’re going to look at the first one:

-A couple things to look for throughout this passage: 

-Jesus is jealous for His glory. This event is in here to model/demonstrate that He is worthy of worship.

-Jesus interacts with people based on what they need, not what they think they need. Every interaction is different, every response is different

-The end goal is for people to believe in Jesus.

READ/PRAY (pg. 953)

  1. Jesus and His Disciples (1-16)

-This section serves as a bit of a background to this unique relationship. 

-One of the things that should stand out to us as we walk through this passage is the humanity of Jesus. Yes, as I said at the beginning, I love this Gospel because it emphasizes the divinity of Jesus, but Jesus is also fully human, living a fully human life with all of the implications that come with being human.

-John gives us a little more info on Mary, apparently when he was writing this Mary anointing Jesus’ feet was well known! Doesn’t happen until the next chapter so if you want to read that account keep going beyond where we’ll be today!

-John also assumes you know the account from Luke 10, Martha the worker bee, and Mary the lazy one who just listens to Jesus and doesn’t help prepare the meal

-Then find out Lazarus is Mary & Martha’s brother – I’m going to guess Lazarus was the middle child. The neglected and overlooked one.

-Because Lazarus is sick, they decide to reach out to Jesus to ask for help

-Jesus, who knows everything (including what will happen in the future) says what seems like a weird phrase “will not end in death” Most likely Lazarus was already dead at this point, it took a bit for the messengers to get to him. The ultimate outcome isn’t death, but it sure goes through death before the end!

-Jesus says something similar to the situation back in John 9, blind man, disciples ask whose sin is responsible for the man’s handicap, Jesus says in vs. 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This came about so that God’s works might be displayed in him.”

-Jesus will stop at nothing to ensure He is receiving glory

-With that said, look how Jesus responds. Vs. 5 tells us that Jesus loved this family. This is one of those instances I wish John had more info. What kind of a friend was Jesus? How close of a friendship was this? Back in vs. 3 Lazarus is described as “he whom you love.” Jesus had close friends – people he enjoyed spending time with and who enjoyed spending time with Jesus.

-Now, what would a normal response be when you find out your best friend is sick and you could help them? Drop everything and go! Look at vs. 6.

-Jesus waits TWO EXTRA DAYS! So much for loving them and wanting what’s best for them! The Greek is actually even more explicit than the English, it says “Jesus loved them, THEREFORE he stayed longer” explicitly connecting the love for them with His actions of staying longer.

-Remember what I said earlier, about Jesus stopping at nothing to be glorified? Here’s why Jesus did this:

-There was a Jewish superstition connected to death. How do we know someone’s dead? We have machines that tell us their heart stopped, Dr. tells us they’re dead. They didn’t have that in the 1stcentury. Sometimes people would be declared dead, funeral would be held, and then on the way to bury them they would wake up. How would you feel carrying a coffin, and then you heard someone knocking from the inside? This led to this Jewish superstition that after someone dies, their soul kind of lingers or hovers around the body for 3 days to see if they resuscitate, and only after 3 days is someone actually dead. If he hadn’t waited, people wouldn’t have believed it was a miracle. Jesus waited to demonstrate that even death is defeated by Him!

-So Jesus brings his disciples into his plans, and they remind him of what he appears to have forgotten! (referring back to John 10:31 after his Good Shepherd speech, “Again the Jews picked up rocks to stone him.”)

-Jesus uses a seemingly weird illustration here. Look at vs. 9-10

-He’s saying that it’s not his time to die. As long as it’s “during the day” (walking according to His Father’s will) he doesn’t need to be afraid, he’s untouchable!

-“The disciples (and all Christians) could not be more secure as they enter life-threatening situations (e.g. Judaea), than when they are right where they are supposed to be: “In him.”” (Zondervan, Klink, 499)

-Isn’t that incredibly comforting? We have nothing to fear when we’re “In Him”

-The confusion worsens, because Jesus tells them Lazarus has fallen asleep, which they think is good news! A little rest is always good for a sick person! So he has to explain again, Lazarus is dead. 

– Thomas, on behalf of the whole group, sarcastically responds “might as well go die with him!” (Him is referring to Jesus here) Little does he know exactly how prophetic this is! Lazarus is dead, Jesus is going to die, why not all join in the fun?

  • Jesus and Martha (17-27)

-This section begins with more back story. Bethany was near Jerusalem, and apparently this family was pretty well known, so many Jews had come to console Mary and Martha.

-Customary to hire professional mourners. Group to come grieve with you. Jewish customs demanded that even a poor family was to hire AT LEAST 2 flute players and a professional wailing woman. Since it appears that this family was well off, they would most likely have had a much larger wailing group.

-Martha’s response in vs. 20 is abnormal, as typically those coming to mourn with the family would go to the house. Perhaps it’s for privacy, perhaps Jesus is avoiding the crowds, but either way Martha hears Jesus has come and goes to find him while Mary stays home. 

-Notice what Martha says here “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” She’s accusing Jesus of not caring enough, yet just a breath later she realizes what she said and admits God will answer whatever Jesus asks.

-So Jesus assures her that Lazarus will rise again. Common to Jewish thought, at some point, he will rise again! Jesus corrects her – that future resurrection is already here, because I’m here! Jesus is both the resurrection and the life, just as you don’t need to fear as long as you’re “in Christ” so we don’t need to fear death as long as we’re “in Christ.”

-“What to the Jews is a future hope is to Christians a present reality.” (Zondervan, Klink, 504)

-And all you need to do to live forever is believe in the one who is the resurrection and the life. Just as Jesus asks Martha here “Do you believe this?” Is a question every person in the world needs to be asked. Because if you believe (like Martha) that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, you don’t every need to be afraid! 

-Jesus is jealous for his glory, so even in the midst of Lazarus dying, he points Martha to himself

  • Jesus and Mary (28-35)

-Martha then leaves to go tell Mary that Jesus is here (in private!), so now it’s Mary’s turn to go talk to Jesus. There’s a lot of background info here (Jews follow, assuming she’s going to the tomb to mourn some more, Jesus doesn’t go into the village but stays at the same place Martha and he met)

-Notice what Mary says in vs. 32. It appears that Mary and Martha had decided the best way to approach Jesus. But Mary stops there. Where Martha continued on acknowledging that he was God, for some reason Mary doesn’t. She does however, fall down at his feet, it’s almost as if her body can’t help but worship Jesus, but her mind can’t keep up

-Sometimes it seems like the hardest thing in the world is to get up to go to church, or read your Bible, or spend time praying. We need to remember we’re complex creatures, we can’t segment our lives into various components. Sometimes we just need to go through the motions and wait for our mind to catch up!

-Sometimes it is a white-knuckled, grimace, and get through it. In the midst of those difficulties, look back to how God has provided for you in the past, because that’s the same precedent that will carry you into the future. Quote I heard “I speak the truth in the light so I can whisper it in the dark.”

-Jesus then responds a little differently than he did to Martha earlier

33

-“Deeply moved in his spirit” is better translated as angry, so Jesus was angry in his spirit and greatly troubled. Jesus was worked up over what was going on. Then the question is: why was he angry? Was he angry at the group of mourners? Was he angry with Mary for her response? 

-2 options: angry with the sin brokenness and fallen world, or angry toward the unbelief of the people in front of them, who are grieving like pagans who have no hope.

-Jesus reconciles both anger and love at the same time. Jesus can be angry toward the broken, fallen world, AND angry at the unbelief currently demonstrated in front of him, while at the same time being completely loving toward them. Just as the world can be at enmity with God (James 4:4) yet God still loving the world (John 3:16). God can say that with no contradiction.

-We need to remember how Jesus acted in the midst of grief taking place around us! There is something so unnatural about death. Something screams within us that this isn’t right, this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be! And it’s not. We don’t grieve without hope, instead we grieve with hope.

-I was listening to a sermon from Tim Keller on anger recently, and he pointed out some things that Jesus’s anger in this passage can teach us, too.

-We’re actually commanded to be angry. I’m guessing you’ve never heard that at church before! But the direction to our anger matters GREATLY! In fact, Keller actually says that no human emotions are sinful. God created us as emotional, God Himself gets angry, but the way we direct our anger can either be holy or sinful. 

-When my children sin, I can get angry with them and direct my anger AT them, or I can direct my anger at their sin. One makes my kids the problem, the other gives us a common enemy to attack. Jesus here is angry at sin and its’ consequences, but he still responds with love towards people, serving as as model for the way we should respond to sin.

-And look at how Jesus responds to his close friend in the tomb, the shortest verse in the Bible! Jesus wept, which the Jews take as a sign his close friendship.

-Jesus isn’t weeping for Lazarus, he’s gonna be alive again in just a couple minutes! No sense weeping for that, Jesus said all the way back in vs. 11 he was going to wake him up, Jesus is weeping because of the state of the world. Death isn’t normal! Sickness, sadness, cancer isn’t the way things are supposed to be! We’re made to have life to the full, life in perfect union with God and each other, anger directed at our sin not at other humans. 

-Jesus is the 1 true perfect human to ever live. He’s more human than any of us! Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to know what this world could be like, but all you see if death, despair, and grief?

  • Jesus and Lazarus (36-44)

-Jews (as is typical) have 2 responses: some saw Jesus’ weeping as how much he loved Lazarus, others said he should’ve saved him.

-We begin this section with the same word from vs. 33, Jesus is angry once again when he comes to the tomb. More background description (cave)

-Jesus orders the stone be removed. He also will order the people on unbind Lazarus after he’s raised. Why doesn’t he move it supernaturally to have it automatically done? 

-It’s not “let go and let go” it’s trust God and get to work!

-Carson, For the Love of God

-Dallas Willard

-Martha jumps out again at Jesus and tells him not to have the stone removed because (as the KJV says) he stinketh!

-Don’t forget, Jesus will stop at NOTHING to receive glory – so that’s what he tells Martha. Then he prays. But his prayer is a little different, don’t you think?

41-42

-Apparently he’s already prayed for the Father to raise Lazarus, so he just jumps straight to the point, he’s praying for other people.

-Sometimes, prayers are done to serve as a model to those around you. Yes, prayer is primarily you talking to the Lord, but sometimes prayer is done to strengthen and encourage those around you.

-Then, finally, Jesus calls out to Lazarus “with a loud voice.” Many scholars quip that it’s a good thing Jesus specifies a person, because otherwise every dead person would have obeyed!

-The text doesn’t even make mention that it was Lazarus, instead “The man who had died.” Lazarus isn’t the point of the story! And then the story ends. Jesus’s fame continues to spread, the Jews continue to plot against Jesus to eventually kill Him, and someday afterwards Lazarus will die again.

-But did you notice the other resurrection? Look back up at vs. 25

-Jesus says whoever believes in Him will never die, and then he asks Martha a question: do you believe? And does she? Yes!

-Friends, this is the bigger deal, and the bigger miracle than someone raising physically from the dead. The physical resurrection is actually meant to point to what’s taking place spiritually here with Martha. This is the moment where she’s spiritually brought from death to life, and we went by it pretty quickly earlier because we almost take it for granted that this is possible.

-If you have been saved, if you confess with your mouth what Martha did here, and believe in your heart (your innermost being) that God raised Jesus from the dead, you are saved. You are made alive in Christ, and best of all, you never have to be afraid of death ever again. Lazarus is just the picture, what Martha experiences is the substance. And we can have that exact same experience today! 

-We get to celebrate this reality today through baptism: the reminder that those are saved are laid in the water like Jesus was laid in the tomb, and then brought up into new life to never die again. Have you believed in Jesus, and taken this step of obedience? Have you been raised from death to life? Because if you have, you are now “In Christ,” you have nothing to fear, not even death!

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by mikethestrand on April 13, 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 13, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/04/13/john-11-sermon-manuscript/

Genesis 21 – Sermon Manuscript

-A common proverb today is: “Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” I apologize to anyone who’s not a Millennial, but I immediately thought of a movie that came out in 2003 (remake of a 1976 film), called ‘Freaky Friday’ 

-If you haven’t seen it, it’s a story about a mom and teenage daughter who aren’t getting along, they fight all the time, have a lot of resent between them, and one day they wake up having switched bodies. One of the best moments is the day they wake up, and Jamie Lee Curtis runs to the mirror and screams “I’m old!” And I’ll be honest, that gets less funny each year! Part of the reason this has been on my mind, is if you hadn’t heard, Freakier Friday is coming out this summer. I know fashion is cyclical, but this is one I didn’t expect a sequel to!

-We’re continuing to follow the life of Abraham, and what this story does is somewhat allow us to walk a mile in his shoes. We’ve seen the ups and downs, Abraham as the hero and Abraham as the villain. People are complex, aren’t they? That’s one of the reasons I love the Bible – it doesn’t sanitize the stories!

READ/PRAY

  1. The Child of Promise (1-7)

-The first thing I want us to notice is who’s doing the acting here? After last week where Abraham doesn’t even acknowledge the one true God, suddenly the first word in this chapter is Yahweh. We’re once again struck with the way God continually upholds His end of the covenant, despite Abraham’s unfaithfulness. This first verse is just between Sarah and the Lord, and remember how Sarah responded to the Lord’s promises to provide a child? Laughter! And how does God respond? Faithfulness, steadfastness.

-The first word in this communicates something to us: who’s in charge of this process? Not Abraham, not Sarah, the Lord. God is orchestrating all these events at just the right time.

-This is one of the main things I hope you take away from this whole series: your life begins and ends the same way this chapter begins: the Lord comes. In fact, I would argue that this is one of the predominant themes throughout the entire Bible: God living and dwelling with His people. 

-Micah just did a brief teaching on this idea at a school this week, but Scripture traces the idea of a temple from cover to cover, the temple is the place where God can live with His people. Eden is created as a temple where Adam & Eve live together with God in perfect harmony, then when that union is broken through sin, there’s only division unless God intervenes, which He does again and again. The ark is built as a temple where God’s creation is saved from the wrath to come, Abraham repeatedly builds altars to the Lord, which serve as a temple. He’s promised a land where God’s people will live in prosperity, where God will dwell with them, and in that land a literal temple will be built where God will live with His people, and then the best part of this story is that God Himself comes into time and space and becomes the means by which a physical building is no longer required to be right with God. We’ll be celebrating that reality in just a few weeks with Easter – the temple who became flesh died and rose again, allowing outposts of God’s temple to be spread across the entire world! We as Christians are now called temples of God. What a glorious picture, beginning all the way back here with Abraham. Our stories can now look like this, where we’ve refused to acknowledge God, God meets us, fulfills all His promises, and makes us His temples forever.

-This time, Abraham is obedient to the Lord’s command. God had told Abraham what the child would be named and what the timing of circumcision was supposed to be for all his descendants. 

-And what’s most amazing is Abraham’s age: 100. Think back to the first sermon in this series from Gen. 12, when did God first come to Abraham? 75. Abraham had been waiting this entire time for this promised son. Do you think you could wait that long? 

-Once again, the theme of laughter appears. Remember I told you a few weeks ago to keep the idea of laughter in mind, because it was going to serve as a minor theme moving forward, all that laughter has built up to today. Isaac’s name will be a reminder of the laugher and joy of the Lord’s provision for His people! But as we know, there’s more people involved in this story.

  • The Child of Flesh (8-21)

-Another theme we’re supposed to trace through the story of Scripture is 2 lines who are opposed to each other: the line of a women and the line of a serpent. After the fall in Gen. 3 God promises that there will be continual fighting between the family of the women and the family of the serpent, and this continues all the way to the end where a giant serpent (actually a dragon) is still trying to fight against the woman. Kids, ask your parents about that story, it’s in the last book in the Bible, Revelation! This story also has a comparison between 2 lines, but it begins as Isaac grows.

-Abraham throws a great feast on the day Isaac is weaned (other ancient documents state this takes place at 3 years old). Why throw a party?

-It was a miracle to make it to 3 years! Many children died very young, remember they didn’t have the same medical advancements we take for granted today! Things that we have medicine for could have been a death sentence here.

-One of the fascinating things about this account is Ishmael is never mentioned by name in this story, first referred to here as “the son,” 

-We’re supposed to begin contrasting these 2 boys: one son of the promise and one son of the flesh. What does this son of the flesh do? Our translation says mocking, the word is the same as has been used repeatedly in this story for laughing, but a different kind of laughing, you can laugh WITH someone or you can laugh AT someone, these have 2 different implications.

-“Drive out” used in Gen. 3:24, 4:14 (Cain) Sarah is pushing here for the disinheritance of Ishmael, forcing him away from Abraham

-Last time, Sarah drove her away by mistreating her, this time she’s making Abraham do it, which is difficult for him because it’s his son. 

-God reconfirms His commitment to Abraham, even to his illegitimate son. God’s promises are far beyond what we could ever imagine! Even though Abraham took matters into his own hands, God will still bless Abraham’s line.

-It seems that Abraham is a morning guy, we saw him up early after S&G, he’ll be getting up early again in next week’s chapter, but I also think that this is demonstrating the similarities between the 2 sons of Abraham (come back next week for more!)

-Hagar and Ishmael are sent off, and I want you to notice how Hagar responds through the rest of this story, because I think it’s a warning for us to not become immune to the way the Lord is working. 

-First, she wanders away from Abraham. Who has been blessed by the Lord and promised to bless everyone else?

-Then she leaves her son, doesn’t look to take care of him, she’s more worried about herself. Don’t want to be too hard on her because I can’t imagine losing a child, but we’re going to see Abraham do the opposite next week when he offers up Issac to the Lord.

-She weeps, but not to anyone in particular, because look at vs. 17, who does God hear? Ishmael, but God talks to Hagar. How many times does God need to appear to Hagar for her to begin trusting in Him? 

-And how many times do we need to hear God’s promises before we start to believe them? Friends, this is why it’s so important to come to church every week! The point of us gathering isn’t just to see your friends, it’s to help us remember God’s promises. I heard a description I really liked of the way many people view church: we come to church to get our weekly steroid shot to get me through the week, but the point of church is to be reminded who God is and then see His Spirit transform us to become more like Him. All week, our gaze is continually pointed back to ourselves, we need this weekly reminder to keep our gaze fixed on Jesus.

-After promising to bless Ishmael, God opens Hagar’s eyes so she sees that she was right near a well so Ishmael is saved, and then blessed. And where does she go to find a wife for him? Back to her homeland. Once again, she’s not trying to stick close to the blessed man, not trying to follow the God who continually provides for her.

-The place that had been his banishment becomes the place where Ishmael creates his life. He settles in the wilderness, creating his home and life there, but still apart from the blessed one – his Father Abraham. Now the Ishmaelites (descendants of Ishmael) come up again throughout this story, particularly in relation to Joseph, who is pulled up from a well and sold to Ishmaelites on the way to Egypt (which becomes the means by which God saves the people of Israel). Then the conclusion of this book (I would argue) is found on the lips of Joseph who says: Gen. 50:20.

-I want all of you today to realize that nothing can change God’s love for you, His commitment to you, and His desire for you to live right! You’re never too far gone, you’re never too sinful, and the Bible promises us that nothing can ever separate us from His love. God demonstrates this reality over and over and over throughout the pages of the Bible, through all of history, and all the way down to today! If you want to hear how God continues working today, just find someone who’s been a believer for more than a year and ask them to tell you how God has provided for them, in most cases THROUGH being a part of a church

-I had 2 opportunities this week to reflect on this reality in my own life (sorry, but I’m up here which means you get my stories). 

-First was I was asked to record a brief video of someone who mentored me in some significant way. When I started preaching every week (2019) a preaching professor agreed to mentor me for a few months and completely changed everything about my preaching. I’d preached a handful of times before that, I’d done a preaching cohort in college and then a preaching class in seminary, but none of that affected me the same way someone intentionally pouring into me over a 3-month period.

-Second reminder was from a class I’m taking this next week where the pre-class assignment is to write a paper on your philanthropic memories throughout your life. One of the most significant came after my freshman year of college. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but college is EXPENSIVE! In order to pay for college, I did manual labor: painting and remodeling, and made decent money doing it! But this summer I also had the opportunity to do an internship at my home church (Northfield EFC) but the church didn’t pay as well as my other job, so I hoped God would provide some way for me to go back to college. At the end of the summer, the church took a love offering and it more than made up the difference, allowing me to continue in college! 

-Friends, God always follows through, always keeps His promises, and always brings about good for His children, even when or as the world falls apart around us. I can guarantee that God will be faithful even when you’re not. Which is where this story goes next:

  • The Child of God (22-34)

-Back to Abimelech, the guy who had taken Sarah into his harem. But last time it looked like Abraham was the one needing something from Abimelech, this time their relationship is reversed: Abimelech is needing something from Abraham.

-Abimelech is looking for a commitment from Abraham to him and his children to ensure they’ll endure even as Abraham endures. Since Abraham is living nearby he’s essentially looking for a peace treaty.

-Yet apparently there’s been an issue: a well Abraham had dug was overtaken by Abimelech’s servants. A small spat between friends, but not something to interfere with their commitment to each other.

-Where Abimelech had previously blessed Abraham, now Abraham returns by blessing him. Think of what God said he’d do: bless Abraham, so that those who bless him would be blessed. What are we seeing with Abimelech is that very promise coming true. Covenant being enacted (similar to what we saw with the covenant between God and Abraham, this time it’s between these 2 men), but 7 ewes are pulled out.

-7 ewes as a special gift to solidify the ownership of the well. It doesn’t say why 7 ewes, doesn’t tell us the significance of this act, just that part of their pact between each other comes from these sheep! Which leads to:

-Called Beer-sheba: literal translation is “well of 7” referring to the ewes, but the Hebrew word for seven and oath is the same, so intentional play on words, by calling it Beer-sheba they’re emphasizing their oath to each other, demonstrated through the gift of these 7 sheep. Every time someone refers to this place, they’d be reminded of their oath to each other!

-Abimelech leaves, and Abraham plants a tree, potentially pointing back to the place where the Lord had previously met with Abraham: under the oaks of Mamre. We’ve seen Abraham near trees at multiple significant moments in his life, connected to where Abraham meets the Lord (Gen 12:6 Abram goes to the oak of Moreh, Gen. 13:18 moves to the oaks of Mamre of Hebron, Gen. 18 Abraham is at the same oaks when the 3 visitors come, here he’s building a tree). And I would argue this is continuing the temple theme from the garden (or if you remember our series on Gen. 1-11, better to call it an orchard) of Eden. Perhaps pointing back to the original garden when Adam and Eve lived in perfect union with God.

-He’s once again calling on the name of the 1 true God, the everlasting God. Abraham’s life in Beer-sheba becomes marked by worship, by walking with God, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing, has it? Very high highs, very low lows, does that ever sound like your life as you look back over it?

-How do you think Abraham would feel if he knew we were talking about his life 4,000 years later? And not just talking about his life, talking about every aspect of his life! The times where he was faithful, AND the times where he was faithless.

-I think the primary thing we should take away from this story is summarized well by Paul in 1 Cor. 6. He begins this little section by talking about who won’t be a part of God’s kingdom, and it’s terrible stuff! Stuff that every Christian knows to avoid. But he doesn’t stop there, in vs. 11 he says: some of you did this! 

-We tend to only see and share the sanitized parts to our story and gloss over or dismiss the negative parts, but friends just as we’ve seen in Abraham’s story, God takes the broken pieces of your life and redeems them. 

-Share your story! 

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by mikethestrand on March 30, 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 30, 2025

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2025/03/30/genesis-21-sermon-manuscript/

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