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Revelation 18 – Sermon Manuscript

-I love Table Topics. If you haven’t heard of them, it’s fun questions that prompt conversation, here’s some examples. One of my personal favorites is if you could change 1 event from history, what would it be? You can ask me later if you want to get into a discussion on church history. But a table topic question today’s sermon is: When are you most happy? Raise at work, A’s at school, recognition for your accomplishments, your birthday, new car, new house, new iPhone

-The flip side to that question is: what do you grieve? I think you can learn a lot about a person by knowing what makes them happy (celebrate) or what they grieve. Usually they’re connected, you would grieve the loss of what makes you happy. 

-In this week’s text, we’re going to look at worldly grief. 

READ/PRAY

  1. Announcing the End (1-8)

-“Another angel”

-Shifting focus a little bit from last week, not one with the bowls, but remember this is still a zoomed in focus of the 7th bowl – the destruction of Babylon the great. Cities look like they have all the privilege and prestige, but Revelation reminds us that things are not as they appear.

-“He called out”

-A warning, judgment comes but not without a warning beforehand.

-Don’t miss this warning! God has given a warning before the judgment comes. 

–2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.” Friends, God’s eternal patience is true, but it also depends on repentance. God should not be messed with or assumed about His grace and mercy, but we often do assume it, but someday your choice will determine your eternity. God’s heart and desire is for everyone to spend eternity with Him, but unfortunately that won’t be true of everyone. Some people will perish – spending eternity experiencing God’s wrath. This is why a message like Revelation is so needed! Think of what we just saw roll through FL, and thank the Lord that we have the technology we do so people can prepare, they knew the hurricane was coming. Similarly, we know judgment is coming, the question is are we prepared?

-Babylon the Great – the place of decadence and extravagance, the place where everyone gets what they want when they want it.

-Remember, described as a woman in this section. Suddenly she’s not so great. 

-A haunt (GRK prison) for demons, spirits, animals. Anything that is dirty and broken resides there. 

-This is a reminder for us that things are not always as they seem, and the physical doesn’t always match the spiritual. Think back to the descriptions of the 7 churches earlier in the book, the ones that are most vibrant and healthy are the ones facing the most physical persecution, and the ones that look the most appealing are the ones who are the least healthy spiritually. That’s true throughout history. I think of the excesses of Rome, the beautiful architecture, ornate buildings that I paid a few dollars to walk through. They hid a culture of despair and decay by beautiful art and architecture, but underneath it’s a prison for everything that is broken in the world.

-(3) Everyone, all nations have drunk of her idolatry

-Description here is of excess, no lack. Wealth that comes about with no concern about how you get it. We’ll talk about that a little later, but what comes to your mind when you think of pursuit of wealth in an unholy way? Is there a way that the pursuit of wealth can be unhealthy or unholy?

-The other key to remember is this sexual immorality language is referring to idolatry. It’s looking for ultimate satisfaction in something other than God, which is the drift of the human heart. All humans are looking for some way to get their deepest longings met. Think of what the Rolling Stones said “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” that’s the cry of every human apart from God.

-Another voice (angel or God?) Seems to be God for 2 reasons: “my people” John otherwise has no problem referring to angels. However, vs. 5 refers to God in the 3rd person, so that could be wrong!

-“Come out of her” What does that look like? Are we supposed to flee to the hills? Become Amish or monastics? Is it sin to live in a city? I’ve even read some books over the past few years that argue that it’s time for Christians to flee civilization, to head for the hills and create a holy enclave that won’t be influenced by the world. If you’ve been in our church history class you know that pull is centuries old! Monks have argued for this!

–John 17. Jesus wants us to remain in the world, He prays that we would remain faithful in the world. In but not of. Key distinction. Notice that Jesus says that we are sent by Him into the world. I don’t want you so busy with church activities that you’re never able to engage your neighbors, co-workers. There was a time when I was growing up where church was the social calendar for everyone, that time is gone, and we have a mission to pursue. One church I worked at the Sr Pastor would work to add stuff to the weekly bulletin (explain bulletins) so it looked like the church was busier than it actually was.

-And I can empathize with this impulse! It’s good to spend time with our church body, it’s healthy for us to enjoy each other, I’d even say it’s essential for you to remain engaged and involved here for your sanctification. But it’s also essential for you to engage in the rest of your lives with the good news of the gospel. At work, while shopping, while driving, while walking, while talking. God wants to use you to accomplish His mission of making disciples of all nations. He’s inviting you as a part of His plans. Are you joining with Him or working against Him?

-Since seminary one of my favorite passages to meditate on has been Deut. 6, something Jews have recited daily for millennia. “Hear Israel, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God, talk about Him ALL THE TIME.” Friends, what should come up when you’re having conversation is God and His Word. 

-I have some things that trigger me, one of them is when someone feels like they have to add a devotional to a gathering to make it more “holy.” My hope is that you can’t help but talk about God’s Word, what He’s done in your life, what you’re learning and being challenged in. The reality is you should have at least 1 steady input of God’s Word every week: right now! At minimum you’ve got Revelation 18 to chew on and meditate through for the next week, which should lead to new thoughts and ideas from this text that you can share with others! So do it!

-Condemnation of Babylon continues in vs. 5

-Contrast this description with the original Babylon in Gen. 11. The reality is anytime we try to make a name for ourselves it only serves to condemn us because it’s trying to force our way into the place of God.

-Sinful pursuits, the impulses they have are what will come back around to hurt her. God always remembers and will eventually bring about perfect justice and judgment. No one will doubt that He’s right in His judgments, except Babylon.

-Look how she describes herself in vs. 7. This sounds similar to what is described in Psalm 14 as a fool. Fools say there is no god, fools say that no one will hold them accountable, fools say to just pursue pleasure and alleviate pain. 

-Think about what Babylon (worldly temptation) says here “I will never see grief.” Friends, do you hear the call of our culture today? How much marketing is spent on never needing to grieve? How much time is spent on not needing to grieve? If we’re entertained 24/7 there’s no time to grieve. Why struggle with grief if I can just turn on Netflix and be numbed?

-But the reality is grief will come at some point – that’s guaranteed. Just like vs. 8 goes on to remind us. There is 1 kingdom that’s eternal, the rest will someday end by destruction.

  • Grieving the End (9-20)

-I asked earlier what makes you happy, but now I want you to thin about what do you grieve?

-Do you grieve when you sin? Do you grieve when people pursue Babylon instead of the New Jerusalem? Do you grieve at division in Christ’s body?

-Even as we talk about that, we need to recognize that there’s a difference between godly grief and worldly grief. Worldly grief will be modeled here, but godly grief is meant to lead us closer to Christ, closer to holiness, aligning us closer with what God has created us to be.

-Picking up on themes, ideas, and language from a few OT places of destruction: Ezek. 26-27, Jer. 50-51. I don’t have time this morning to dig into them, but you can read them on your own if you want to trace the lineage of God’s response to Babylon! There are 3 groups who grieve the destruction of Babylon.

  1. The Kings (9-10)

-The first group mentioned are the kings. Those in leadership and positions of power. But notice that they stand “far off” they don’t want to face the penalty, but they’re grieving.

-“Woe” could be “alas” or “Oh no” a sigh of mourning

-The judgment on the city is fast! They imagined they would continue in perpetuity (as the woman said) but their demise was quick

-Parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21) Where the phrase “eat, drink, and be merry” comes from, but it’s not a positive connotation. This parable is a reminder that everything on earth will someday disappear. None of us know when we’ll die, none of us know when our end will be. If you really think about some of the things we do, we’re all crazy! Strapping ourselves to a metal box, then moving inches away from another metal box going 70 mph. One twitch and you could be gone! But that’s not the way the world often thinks, the world thinks this will go on forever.

  • The Merchants (11-17)

-We also have those who have become wealthy from the worldly systems. Mentions extravagant things, all the nicest items, and this is the longest of these 3 groups. But culminates in treating humans as a commodity – slaves, instead of viewing them as image bearers.

-Let’s talk about this now. Have you ever considered ways you may be propagating unjust economic systems in our day that force people into slavery? The reason we have cheap and easily accessible clothing is often due to someone in SE Asia being forced to work in grueling conditions for an unlivable wage, and some those people working are children. Our culture expects things to be fast, easy, cheap, and easily accessible. There are moments where I won’t order something on Amazon because I can’t have it in 2 days. That’s ridiculous (and tells you where my heart is). I don’t have an easy solution to this, I’m not very good at economics, but I can see the ways we’re all impacted by our finances. Remember a few years ago when COVID hit and everyone went crazy with TP? Probably better things to horde, but when things suddenly aren’t going to be as easy as we thought we often don’t know how to respond so we do things that are really dumb. (Saw people with mountains of TP in their carts, heard stories of people filling their garages with it and then they couldn’t get rid of it)

-And the problem is Christians aren’t immune to this. I read a quote this week that I think brings this point to light, but to understand it you need to think of the city limit signs you see as you drive around. When I drive home every week after church, I drive by a sign that says “Welcome to Eagan established 1860” telling my I’ve crossed the line into a new city, if you live north of here you drive by it too!

-“There’s no ‘city limit’ sign to the earthly city precisely because the earthly city is less a place and more a way of life, a constellation of loves and longing and beliefs bundled up in communal rhythms, routines, and rituals.” James K.A. Smith Isn’t that interesting? We are all marked by the rhythms, routines, and rituals that we live in. Think of the ritual of a stoplight. Stay behind the white line, watch the lights next to you for them to turn red, impatiently wait and get bored so you pull out your phone to check your texts. We all have lived in these rhythms more than we realize, so if we’re going to live in different rhythms we need regular reminders that we’re citizens first and foremost of heaven.

-Just as the kings mourned but stayed away, the merchants do the same thing. Only used what they could and as soon as it wasn’t advantageous for them anymore, they ran away.

  • The Sailors (18-19)

-The last group to grieve were the sailors who once again got wealthy from the influence of Babylon. Once again, they’re not mourning for good reasons, they’re mourning because they’ve lost their access to wealth. Eugene Peterson summarizes this in his book well:

-Do you see any places where people worship economic prosperity instead of God? One I’ve been thinking of recently is “starter homes.” I keep reading about starter homes becoming more and more expensive and leaving out those who need a home. I remember when I bought my first home I was told the average time someone lives in a home was something like 3 years.

-We’re at a similar point to the parable of the foolish rich man. I’m not saying it’s bad to have nice things, I am saying it’s bad, wrong, and foolish to view money as your salvation. It’s not wrong to have a nice car, steward it, take care of it, and look for opportunities to bless others with it. It’s not wrong to have a nice house. Take care of it, have others over. But don’t look to your things as your ultimate source of comfort and hope because they will always let you down.

  • The End (20-24)

-Unlike the world, those who live in the way of the Lamb are called to respond to Babylon’s demise differently: Rejoice! Do you rejoice when evil is destroyed or judged?

-Look what happens to Babylon, the music stops, the work stops, the lights go out, there’s no more joy or happiness found there. 

-All this is in preparation for next week where we will start to look a different city.

Table Topics for this week:

-Do you talk about God’s Word everyday?

-What rhythms, routines, and rituals do you practice on a weekly basis, do those help you live more in Babylon or the New Jerusalem? 

-I realize this second question is harder because the practices of heaven don’t seem all that impressive. Read an old book, pray to a God we can’t see, meet 1 morning a week with people who don’t like the same things as us. Even the practices Jesus commanded us don’t seem to have any significance: take a bath, and drink some fruit of the vine and bread. Yet these habits and practices shape and form us into new people. God is working in us as we practice these habits in the context of His body – the church.

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by mikethestrand on October 13, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Relationships, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 13, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/10/13/revelation-18-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 17 – Sermon Manuscript

-What animal do you see on the screen?

-Is this a picture of an old woman or a young lady?

-Last one: vase or face?

-Fun tricks! What we’re going to see in today’s text is that Satan is great at pulling optical illusions. Paul summarizes it well in 2 Cor. 11 “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no great surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will be according to their works.” 

-Today’s text is a call for us to not be seduced by Satan’s schemes, to remain alert to his schemes, and to remember that the end of following him is destruction

READ/PRAY

  1. A Woman on a Beast (1-6)

-Recapitulation: repeating the same story from a different perspective, hence the 7 seals, trumpets, bowls are recounting the same event from different perspectives 

-7th all recount lightning, thunder, earthquake, and hail. Exact same language in each section, as if they’re recounting the same event but focusing on different aspects of the end.

-Intro from Discipleship on the Edge

-As I said earlier, I think today’s text is the most explicit call to wake up and live differently because the world will continually, day after day work to seduce us with her charms.

-Friends, this is why it’s SO important to meet here every week. This gathering isn’t an optional add on for when you have free time, this is your lifeblood to remember what’s truly true, to be reminded that there are spiritual implications to everything we do. It’s so easy to question and doubt when you don’t have this, and even when you have this it’s easy to doubt!

-I wrestled through this in 2021. As I’ve shared I listen to a lot of podcasts, found one that had a lot of musicians that I like and listened to it. The problem was all of them were ex-vangelical and talking about deconstructing their faith, without any sense of rebuilding. Things at church were difficult in that season, we were adjusting to having 3 kids (laughable now) but I found myself starting to get disillusioned with the church. I’ve shared before the need to preach to yourself more than you listen to yourself, and I found myself listening a whole lot more than I was preaching! I’d think really dumb things like church doesn’t matter, God doesn’t care, His ways are harmful: guys I know better than that! What snapped me out of it was listening to one of those musicians again who shared a similar story of wrestling through dumb questions and he realized it was because he had been touring too much and not spending time with his church family. About this time a Psalm became a balm to me, Psalm 73. I share that because I want you to understand that we’ll all wrestle through seasons of doubts, and the temptation is to not tell anyone about them. Friends, bring them to the church! When you’re discouraged or doubting, bring it here!

-Graphic warning: John uses pretty strong language!

-“One of the 7 angels” reference back to last week

-Zooming in on the 7th bowl for these next 2 chapters, how the destruction of Babylon will take place

-This is also intentionally contrasted with another woman that we’ll get to in Rev. 21, but listen to the description there: Does that sound similar to anything we read this morning?

-John is contrasting the city of God against the city of man, described as women. One destined to last forever, one destined for destruction.

-Babylon is taken from Gen. 11 the tower of Babel where the goal was for the people to build a name for themselves, which is idolatry. Throughout history you see the city of man continually trying to go their own way and refuse to submit to God’s will for them.

-The imagery picks up in vs. 3

-The woman’s sitting on a beast that we saw in Rev. 13 (signified by the 7 heads and 10 horns, remember John doesn’t follow a linear approach to this story)

-At first blush she sounds beautiful, well dressed, well put together, but it’s all a façade. In her hand is a gross cup (Fear Factor, youth group games)

-Label on her forehead, just like we saw the mark of the beast in Rev. 13, not a literal mark, but a way of identifying their MO. This woman’s primary motivation is the mother of everything deranged on earth

-What’s in her cup is the blood of the saints, she keeps oppressing and killing them, just like a drunk person can’t stop drinking, she can’t stop killing them. A way of demonstrating the city of man: opposed to God and His people.

-John is amazed. The word he uses here for “greatly astonished” was used earlier in Rev. 13:3

-Just as I shared earlier, even John isn’t immune to the allure of the woman! She’s seductive, pulling people in, and it takes an angel to wake John up.

  • The Beast Is… (7-14)

-Ever been zoning out and it takes someone pushing you or saying something repeatedly to get you to snap out? That’s what the angel does here.

-One of the few places in Revelation we get a description of what’s happening. Now, that explanation doesn’t fill every detail in, but it does give some clarity.

-Mystery in the NT isn’t the same way we use mystery today. Something previously concealed that’s now been revealed in God’s redemptive plan.

-The beast is trying but failing to copy Jesus’ atoning work. It was, currently isn’t, but is about to come up.

-Governments and regimes opposed to God and His work. At the time it was Rome, and it will continue coming back again and again. I really enjoy reading thrillers, got really into Tom Clancy, the threat of Communism, but then it seemed like communism died, but now we’ve got a whole new threat of totalitarian regimes in other parts of the world.

-Who’s astonished? (same word as before) those who have not been written in the book of life, aka those who are following the beast.

-Mind that has wisdom, just like Rev. 13

-Wisdom for what? To understand and live faithfully as someone who follows the Lamb instead of the beast. Again, the world is enticing, it looks beautiful but at the end of the day it only leads to death.

-7 heads are 7 mountains:

-Rome. Rome was built on 7 mountains, and now we see the woman sitting on them. And just to make it even more confusing they’re also 7 kings! 

-But wait, we’re just getting started! Because 5 of the kings have fallen, the 6th us, and the other hasn’t come yet. No one has figured out what John’s referring to here. And then to get going even more, the beast that we’ve seen is an 8th that’s one of the 7, and pretty soon you start to think that John doesn’t even know how to count!

-Best explanation I read involves 2 previous ideas. First is the number 6 which is the number of man and falling short, which signifies that the current king continually falls short. Then the 8th is similar to Proverbs: 7 things I hate, 8 are an abomination, just a way of bringing emphasis to that one.

-Next verse we have 10 more kings who will serve for a short time.

-Has no 1st century parallel, so most likely referring to the complete turning away from God in preparation for His return as the world draws near to the end. It seems that what John goes on to say validates this interpretation.

-They have 1 purpose, they go to make war against the Lamb. That’s coming up, but just bear in mind each time it talks about this coming war is there’s a ton of buildup and when the final showdown happens there’s no war! Jesus shows up, speaks and wins, which is what John says here.

-The world will continue fighting against Jesus, but what they don’t realize is Jesus has already won. He’s already sitting on His throne, He’s already ruling and reigning, but He’s waiting until history has been completed to come back. He’s Lord above any other lord and King above any other competing king.

  • The Woman Is… (15-18)

-Even more explanation of the vision: the waters the woman sits on covers the world. No one is exempt from the influence of this woman. Anywhere you have people you’ll have the pull of the woman.

-And here’s the irony. While it initially looked like the woman was ruling over the beast by riding on them, that’s shown to be a farce because they turn around and destroy her. Her clothes will be ripped off, they’ll eat her flesh, and then burn her carcass. It’s gross! But it’s also a picture of how evil always, always, ALWAYS will turn in on itself. It’s never satisfied, it never rest, and it will continually seek to exert its’ control further and further. You can see this in literally any totalitarian government in the world! 

-Think of Russia with Putin. With all the bodies left in his wake how feasible would it be for him to step down? That’s a death sentence for him! Or Kim Jong-Un in North Korea, he claims to be a god. How likely would a transfer of power be from him? How long would he live if he willingly resigned? And on and on we could go throughout history.

-Yet who’s still in control? God. Everyone is still culpable for their choices and actions, yet God can still work to carry out his plans. 

-How does that work? I don’t know. I’ve done a fair amount of reading and research on this topic, and I want to be very careful to not go further than the Bible goes in discussing the things of the Lord. 

-Somehow and some way God is in complete control such that nothing can stand in the way of His ultimate plans. And at the same time, humans are responsible moral creatures who can willingly choose actions and activities that have real consequences. We’re not robots forced to choose things we wouldn’t willingly pursue. And I would argue that we’re at another mystery that we get to spend eternity discussing without the same sinful constraints we have here! I love the word paradox when we talk about some of these things. According to google, a paradox is: “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.” When we reach a paradox we’re reminded that God’s ways aren’t our ways and His thoughts aren’t our thoughts, so our response should be to fall on our faces in worship of Him. 

-Jesus being fully God and fully man. God being 3 persons and 1 God. God being completely sovereign and humans being willingly able to choose sin or obedience to God. Paradox, a reminder for us to worship Him.

-Finally the woman is solidified: the great city (Rome, Babylon, Washington DC, New York City, London, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai) All of the cities on this side of eternity will be marked by the allure of this sinful woman. Opposed to God, hating His people, doing everything they can to take more and more power. 

-Think of what cities are: mass densities of people. One of the first things we learn about people in the Bible is people are sinners. So if you take a bunch of sinners and throw them together in 1 location, what do you think the consequence of that is going to be? Lots and lots of sin. You see that reality all over in the Bible!

-But the craziest thing about that reality is in the new heavens and earth God’s people live together in a city, New Jerusalem, a city where this woman will have no power or influence, where the effects of sin are non-existent. Can you imagine that? I struggle to even process something like that! I’ve been to some pretty cool cities and all of them have sinful pulls in them.

-The unfortunate thing is it’s not just cities that are marked by sin, even if you move to the middle of Antarctica and live alone, this prostitute will still find you because you’re still with you, and I hate to tell you but you’re a sinner. And this is where we once again get to the good news of Revelation: you don’t need to stay there!

-Once again, the message we’re seeing in Revelation is the reminder that there are 2 ways to live, in the city of man (Babylon) or the city of God. Both of the stories of these cities originate in Genesis and continue fighting against each other throughout history. The dragon (the old serpent) leads 1 city, and God leads the other city.

-And right now these 2 cities look like they’re in competition with each other, and many times it looks like the city of man is winning, doesn’t it? We hear of pastors falling out of ministry (again), we hear story after story of people deconstructing their faith, of Christian influence waning.

-Yet at the same time, I keep hearing more stories of revival and renewal breaking out across the world. Football players at THE Ohio State meeting for testimonies and prayer, 10,000 students at Univ. of Arkansas met for a night of prayer and baptisms, University of South Carolina, TX A&M Corpus Christi. Friends even when it feels like the world is getting worse, God is still on the move and at work! The city of God continues breaking in against the city of man, and it requires us being faithful to continue bringing the light into the darkness, to remember that we are first and foremost citizens of heaven and to live differently because of that. 

-What does that look like?

1- Walk by faith and not by sight. Remember that this woman looks attractive and appealing. Even John was tempted by her!

2- Be ok living differently than your friends and neighbors. We have different goals, we’re living as citizens of a different kingdom which means we need to look, act, and think differently than many of the people we’re rubbing shoulders with on a regular basis. Work hard, but don’t let your work define you. Steward your possessions, but don’t let them control you. Care for your kids but remember they’re first and foremost God’s and not yours.

3- Practice the regular gifts of grace God has given (Bible, prayer, church) Bible is God’s very Word, He still speaks to us in and through His Word. Prayer is us responding to Him, speaking back. Church is the new nation that we belong to, our citizenship is in Heaven and church is a glimpse of that reality where we’re brought into and invested in people that we wouldn’t naturally get along with (different ages)

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by mikethestrand on October 6, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 6, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/10/06/revelation-17-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 16 – Sermon Manuscript

-When you think of God, what comes to your mind? Is God in your mind like a divine Santa Claus who’s there to give gifts? Is He like Zeus who just waits for something to displease him and send out a lightning bolt? Is He like the dad from Full House who’s always understanding and patient? Is He like the perfect grandfather with flowing gray locks and perfect hair as Michealangelo pictured Him in the Sistine Chapel? 

-I hope the past few weeks have been stretching to you! In our world today we emphasize the love and grace of God, but we tend to miss the justice and wrath of God as just as true as His love. It’s jarring to our Western mind to think about justice and wrath as right attribute of the God of the Bible.

-But what about this explanation of God by Richard Dawkins? What Dawkins (and many others) miss is God hasn’t changed! The culture around us has changed significantly since Genesis 1 was written (and Revelation 16) but that’s for us to process through, not God!

-We’re continuing today with the theme of God’s wrath being poured out like bowls. Friends let me pause to remind us that while God is a wrathful God, that’s not the only attribute of God. God’s wrath is only poured out on those opposed to Him, God’s wrath is meant to be a warning to lead people to repentance. Listen for that theme as we read the text together:

READ/PRAY

-Last week, Micah prepped us for this week. God’s wrath is promised to come on those who refuse to serve Him. But before we look at the bowls, I think we need to think about why we’ve now gotten to God’s wrath being poured out, and in order to do that we need to understand the storyline of the Bible.

-In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The culmination of that was humans who were tasked by God with imaging Him in the rest of creation, stewarding and caring for the creation, and ruling over the creation, but they were also given limits, a law to follow in order to flourish in the world as God intended. But our first parents (Adam & Eve) rebelled and disobeyed God’s law. 

-From that point humanity split into the followers of God and those opposed to God. The followers of God were meant to serve as representatives to the rest of creation what true life looked like. By obeying God’s law it would lead to flourishing and peace. But time and time again God’s people disobeyed. 

-Then Jesus comes and lives the perfect life where He completely obeys every law of God. I don’t it’s a coincidence that one passage describes Jesus as weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19), how frustrating do you think it would be to see the brokenness in the world and people’s refusal to live as God intended? Jesus then dies for the sins of the world, and offers people a new way to flourish in the world, which Jeremiah describes as having God’s law written on our hearts: instead of being written on stone tablets our internal drives and desires will shift and be able to align with God’s law, His instructions for living as He intended. 

-But we don’t see the full implications of that yet. It’s hard to obey God’s law, we don’t always pursue Him, we continue to rebel and disobey which is why we have Revelation to remind us that this struggle will someday end.

-One of the phrases that I’ve intentionally been using throughout this explanation is God’s law. His expectations for His people have never changed since the creation of the world. The way that looks has changed as His plan has unfolded, but we still need to obey God’s law, and the reason for that is summarized by a quote I read this week: “God’s law is not an imposition, but an exposition.” E. Stanley Jones. 

-I think that when we think of God’s law our minds drift towards the imposition (that was true for Adam and Eve). We view God’s law as shackles and restraints preventing us from living our “best life.” Friends, your best life isn’t going to happen until Jesus comes back! But the only way to have a life of flourishing is by living according to God’s law, hence it’s an exposition (explanation) of this world. And I love how even scientific study regularly backs up God’s law. Like the fact that loneliness is being described as an epidemic today, God says in the beginning it’s not good for humans to be alone. First thing for us to realize is God’s law is good and leads to life.

-Secondly, we are storied people, even though we often don’t realize it. We define ourselves based on stories/accounts that happen to us, and what God invites us to do is align our stories with His and move to start identifying our lives based on the 1 true story of history that will stand the test of time. What that means is you have the choice to either live in God’s story or pursue your own story, which God calls sin. One of the most striking things to me as I’ve been studying Revelation is how much the Exodus story is meant to serve as a primary story for God’s people, and it’s especially true in today’s passage. 

-Exodus plauges

-The thing to keep in mind is there are only 2 ways to live, either you obey God or you don’t, either you live in God’s story or you live in the dragon’s story. So as we look at God’s wrath, we need to remember something J.I. Packer said: “Nobody stands under the wrath of God, save those who have chosen to do so.” J.I. Packer. 

-Friends, we have a choice in our lives to follow after God’s law, or to follow after God’s wrath. We’ll once again see the destruction that comes from disobeying God, but even in the midst of that be reminded of God’s mercy.

-Bowls are a natural, automatic reflex of holiness (just as you have a gag reflex)

7 seals: from the church, 7 trumpets: from the world, 7 bowls: from the temple of God

-There is at least a closer connection between the bowls and the trumpets, but remember as well the increasing severity of the judgment. Seals affected ¼ of the earth, trumpets 1/3, now with the bowls it’s the whole earth.

  1. 4 Bowls on the World (1-9)

-From the temple – God is done with the rebellion and sin and is going to deal with it once and for all.

-The punishment fits the crime for every bowl that comes out. First bowl: Rev. 13 those who received the mark of the beast are given a mark of judgment. What they thought would be their saving grace earlier (literally the only way to participate in the economic system) ends up being their demise.

-And friends, how often is this true of us? We adopt sinful habits or practices that we think will help us succeed, but then they end up consuming us later. I think of the house projects I’ve been working on – I keep finding stuff that the previous owner did that were done completely wrong! And if I weren’t going through and cleaning them up could have let to my house literally being destroyed! And most of the time the issues we struggle with aren’t major things at the beginning, but if we’re not regularly reminded of the way the world lulls us to sleep and tries to get us to stop living in God’s story, it will consume us.

-We see it again with the next 2 bowls, the thing that people view as saving them is what leads to their demise, and I think this has 2 implications to it. First is what’s spoken in the text:

-This is a just judgment given to the earth, because they’ve killed God’s messengers, so in response the earth is suddenly covered in blood. God talks about this all the way back in Genesis when he says if someone sheds blood their blood will also be shed. There will be retribution for the disobedience of people. 

-But the second implication we can draw from this is in the way people look to money and wealth as their primary focus in life. Shipping back then, just like today, serves as a way people can expand their wealth and status, and fish are a great source of food! I love a good sushi! (good, my general rule is I won’t order seafood at a landlocked state)

-A couple weeks ago I talked about the reality that we become like what we worship, which is true! But what if God’s response is to take what we worship away from us? What if this water being turned to blood means people no longer are able to profit from the normal means they’ve typically used?

-Just this week, some new legislation came out banning any Chinese or Russian software in our cars (that’s a weird thing to say) What would the implications be of every vehicle in our country was hit with a software bug? (I know some of you with old school cars would be fine!) The great depression was not that long ago! I know I’m always told that if I invest now it’s guaranteed to grow by 3% until I retire, but what if it doesn’t? This is John’s reminder that we’re not as in control as we think we are. God can call down judgment at any moment, and someday He will! Are we ready for that day?

-The last thing to note from this is the last line of vs. 6 “They deserve it!” GRK “they are worthy” Worthy for what? Judgment! This is picking up an idea from Rev. 4:11. This communicates the same idea I’ve been sharing: everyone is worthy of something, every human (apart from Jesus Christ) is worthy of condemnation because they’re not realizing that only God is worthy to receive praise.

-Which is what the next verse reminds us of. The altar is the place where the martyrs are. The martyrs, who had begged God earlier to avenge them, are now acknowledging that God is right and true and when He judges, it’s just. 

-Think of it like if you got caught blatantly disobeying the law (officer pulls you over for driving 20 mph over the speed limit). There are consequences to your actions, it is just for the police officer to give you a ticket. Similarly with God it is just for Him to judge you, but God doesn’t just leave you there, He provides a way for your judgment to disappear, we’ll get there at the end.

-Similarly to the previous bowls, this time people are scorched, but notice their response

-Instead of repenting and moving towards living in God’s story, they blaspheme and refuse to repent. Friends, even in His judgment God wants people to move towards Him! In this verse it’s saying there’s the choice to repent! God wants everyone to follow Him, to live as they should, to find life to the full, but not everyone will. C.S. Lewis quote.

  • 3 Bowls on the Beast (10-21)

-The focus of the bowls moves in a different direction now to the throne of the beast, and just like in the Exodus, the beast’s power is shown to be deficient because his kingdom is completely dark.

-Response of the people here seems weird, doesn’t it? Why are they gnawing their tongues? Not in the text, but I think they’re doubling down on their refusal to repent. If they don’t have tongues it’s going to be difficult to be forced to praise God, isn’t it? This is demonstrating a people who have become so calloused they’ll do everything they can to continue in their ways instead of repenting and trusting in the one true God.

-And it leads me to asking a question for you: do you have any areas in your life where you’re proverbially cutting off your tongue so you don’t need to submit it to God? Do you have little secret impulses or desires that aren’t honoring to God? I had a friend over the summer share that he’s working on better worshipping God with his dreams. Dreams are often the outworking of your thought life, are you worshipping God with your thought life too?

-And notice again the purpose of this pain: to lead them to repentance, but they continue refusing to repent. Friends, pain and suffering is often a kindness of the Lord that’s meant to lead us to repentance. It shocks us out of our stupor, focuses our attention and energies, and demands we pay attention to it. God walks with you even in your suffering. C.S. Lewis quote

-The sixth bowl focuses on 1 specific river that served as the Eastern border to Israel, and the place where a feared enemy in the 1st century resided. If there’s no river, there’s no protection from them.

-Unclean spirits, demonic influences. Frogs (again notice the LIKE here, not literal frogs), referencing back to the plagues of Egypt again! Text explicitly says they are demonic spirits who are opposed to God. They’ll continue fighting day after day until the great day with God comes back.

-Then there’s an interesting parenthetical note that Jesus is coming like a thief so be careful so that you don’t end up naked (guessing you didn’t think you’d be hearing that at church today) This is a warning to the church to not end up like the world. Same warning to the church at Laodicea in 3:18, reminder to store up your riches in the right place.

-Hebrew Har-Maggedio (mount Meggedio), not a mountain but a plain. A battle was fought between King Josiah of Judah and King Neco of Egypt (2 Kings 23), Judah was defeated and led to being captured by Babylon. John is recounting the great reversal of history: the new Babylon will bear the judgment of God in the exact same place the previous Babylon had conquered God’s people. See, God has an eternal scorecard, He never loses track of what takes place in the world and He will bring about perfect justice (which at times means divine irony)

-Last bowl into the air, sounds similar to Jesus’ last statement before He breathed His last, but this time what’s finished isn’t a sacrifice, what’s finished is God’s wrath being poured out. The creation is being uncreated and turning back into chaos. Similar language to the 7th seal and trumpet.

-And once again, after all this, what’s the response of the people? Blaspheming God, shaking their fist in anger at Him.

  • Judgment or Repentance?

-Friends, which side of this story are you going to be on? Part of the reason we have this book is to shake us out of our stupor, to wake us up to the realities of the life to come, and to remind us that even though Satan looks powerful here, he has no ultimate power in the end. Because even as we read this text (that sounds shocking and awful) we’re reminded that there’s still mercy, but not how we think:

“There is no refuge from the judging God. But there is refuge in the judging God. Mercy!” Darrell Johnson

-Who could imagine that? We can be preserved from the wrath of God only by running to the wrathful God because that God is also the only loving God. In the coming weeks we’re going to see how the dragon uses and abuses people promising riches and life but it only leads to their destruction, just like in the garden at the beginning. As Jesus has promises, He offers life to the full, but it comes by being obedient to Him.

-So I’ll leave you with 2 questions today: 

-Have you brought your story in line with God’s story by repenting and putting your faith in Jesus?

-If you are following in God’s story, are there any areas in your life that you’re holding on to too tightly and not allowing to be brought into God’s story?

-Either way, God’s mercies are new every day, including today, so I’d encourage you to repent and align or realign your life with God’s story.

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by mikethestrand on September 28, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on September 28, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/28/revelation-16-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 14:14-20 – Sermon Manuscript

-I HATE scary movies! Thrillers I can handle (and often enjoy, even when they keep me up late because I need to find out what happens)

-Even though I don’t watch them, I know all the tropes that come with scary movies: don’t go near the basement, stay away from windows, make sure you stay in a group. Good lessons to be learned if you ever find yourself in a horror movie!

-One of the pieces I hope you’re taking away from our study in Revelation is similar – that there are only 2 options to how you’re going to live your life: either worshipping God or worshipping the dragon. Today’s text is meant to be like a horror movie where we run away from these consequences and run towards God. See sometimes God tells stories that are repulsive to serve as models for us so that we run away from sin and death and run to Him. 

-C.S. Lewis “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

-Part of the reason we (and the 7 churches) need to read about true justice is because we need the encouragement to remain faithful in the midst of this difficult world. When you’re used and abused, sometimes the only encouragement is to keep your eyes on Jesus, knowing that He will bring about perfect justice.

READ/PRAY

-Same section as last week, interlude between judgments, we’ve looked at 7 seals and 7 trumpets, then we’re in this interim leading into the 7 bowls where I believe John is given a glimpse of the arrival of Jesus through a heavenly perspective. 

-Jesus, the Creator of everything, came into creation as a baby. Didn’t appear out of nowhere, didn’t float down out of the sky, didn’t crash to earth on a spaceship like Clark Kent, he was born the same way you and I were born, which meant Satan thought he had the perfect opportunity to finally destroy God’s plans, but each time he’s thwarted! He gets angrier and angrier and works to destroy God’s plans and bring praise on himself instead of praising God, that’s why there’s this repeating theme of worshipping and praising God throughout this book, Satan’s aim is to steal that worship.

-Today we see 2 stories of reaping, but before we dive in there’s some debate about this section (much like the rest of the book) 3 options as to what this refers to:

-Both are negative judgments against those not following God

-1 is positive (grain) and the other is negative (grapes)

-Both are positive judgments referring to salvation.

-Yes, every interpretive option is on the table! Personally, I don’t find the first option convincing, and only found 1 person who argued that these both refer to negative judgments from God, and I’m currently leaning toward the middle option that this is recounting 2 separate harvest that serve 2 different purposes, as I’ll explain when we go through.

  1. The Grain Harvest (14-16)

-The next thing revealed to John is one like the Son of Man, some debate about who this could be referring to, some angel that looks similar to Jesus? Jesus himself?

-I would argue it’s Jesus. This title (taken from Daniel), last time referred to Jesus in 1:13, so it would make sense that when it’s used again it’s referring to the same person, this time instead of standing among lampstands (the church), he’s seated on a cloud. Jesus says his return will be “on the clouds” which is being realized in this vision to John.

-Golden crown on his head, connects back to the elders, signifies his rule and reign. Last time we saw the Son of Man, he had 7 stars in his hand, this time what does he have?

-A sharp sickle. This time he’s not standing sovereign in the church, this time he’s standing sovereign in harvesting.

-This would have been a common theme in the 1st century. Think of one of the pivotal scenes in the Gladiator: walking in the wheat field. When’s the last time you took a stroll in a wheat field? This is part of where we can miss some of the stories or implications in the Bible because we live in a different day. In the 1st Century their lives were dominated by the changing of seasons, and if the fields weren’t taken care of, death was immanent. When I need food it comes in saran wrap that I rip open! 

-So when John sees Jesus with a sharp sickle in his hand, we tend to miss the implications, too. My mind jumps to something like the grim reaper, or a horror movie (doesn’t help that people already have Halloween decorations up). Not a positive idea. What John’s readers had in mind was more like this: farmer’s out in their fields reaping their harvest, that means it was another successful year, they were going to continue having enough food, it’s a positive connection.

-Then “another angel” appears. Remember from last week, we’d seen 3 angels who delivered various messages: eternal gospel, fall of Babylon, the cup of God’s wrath. This angel comes out of the temple.

-The temple is where God lives, so this angel is sent from God with a message that it’s time to reap. This is where people have attempted to argue that this Son of Man couldn’t be Jesus then, because angels are sent from God, angels don’t tell God what to do. I would disagree with that sentiment, because it doesn’t say Jesus is submitting to them, all the angel is doing is sharing the message from God, and if you remember, one of the things Jesus said while He was on earth was that He didn’t even know when He was going to come back. How that works when He is God is a mystery, but we know that in everything Jesus does, He submits Himself to the will of the Father. 

-Why is it time to reap? Because the harvest is ripe. This is full of a bunch of previous imagery John would have heard from spending time with Jesus! Just a couple examples:

-Jesus tells a couple parables about sowing and reaping in Matt. 9, one is very well known where the seed is sown on all sorts of different soils which leads to different outcomes, but the second parable is applicable for today’s passage. 

-He shares a story of a good farmer who’s taking care of his field and plants his seed faithfully and lets it start to grow, but during the night one of his enemies throws a different kind of seed into the field to compete with the wheat. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to us, think of this like 2 businesses who are in constant competition with each other and continually look for ways to undercut the other. When the plants start to come up, they notice that wheat and weeds are growing together! The servants come to the master and ask if they should pull up the weeds, and he responds:

-This is a picture of what happens all around us all the time! Just as the eternal gospel is being sown and people are being saved, Satan (the enemy) is continuing to work to fight against God, just like this image shows us. Friends, this should give us hope because it means there is hope, even if it feels like the world is just getting worse!

-The second passage that illumines this text is from John 4 right after he met a sinful woman at the well and told her that He is the Messiah. His disciples come back very confused, and here’s how Jesus answers their questions:

-His disciples can read the signs of the seasons, as can we! As the temperature drops at night, we know the leaves will start changing colors, and then the first frost will come and kill all your plants. But how good are we at reading the signs of the spiritual seasons? See, we’re supposed to be looking for opportunities to share the gospel indiscriminately, we’re supposed to be like the Sower who doesn’t care what soil we’re in we continue throwing out seed.

-Because here’s the other reality: the harvest is abundant. Friends, spiritually it’s harvest season all year long! You don’t need to wait for pumpkin spice season to invite people in!

-What we see in Revelation is the implication of the gospel going out. As the seed of the gospel takes root in people’s lives they continue to grow and produce more fruit in more people and eventually will be harvested into heaven. Jesus uses so many different harvesting illustrations that John would have remembered and picked up on as he saw this vision from the Lord. 

-And because Jesus talked about this so much, I don’t want us to miss one of the applications for us today. Look at vs 38 here:

-Friends, this means we need to actively be praying that the gospel continues to go out, that more people are called by the Lord to go out and share the gospel. But this message isn’t just for others, we’re included in that “workers” word. There’s a reason we end every service saying: “you are sent.” God welcomes you in each week, and then God sends us out each week to live as his witnesses and to share the gospel in our words and our lives.

-But that’s only 1 harvest, John is given a glimpse of another harvest:

  • The Grape Harvest (17-20)

-Differences: first is done by the Son of Man, second by an angel. This one has some connection to the altar and the fire on the altar. This second one talks about the implication of the harvest, first one just mentions that the earth was harvested, so it seems like a bit of a stretch to argue that this is exactly the same as the previous one.

-First thing is an angel with a sickle, we’ve seen a sickle before! He’s ready to go, but he’s waiting for the call, so yet ANOTHER angel comes with a message.

-“Authority over fire” connection back to 8:3-5, judgment coming because of the prayers of the saints, which I think is also signified by “came from the altar” which also connects us back to the saints in Rev. 6:9 There the martyrs are begging God to return in judgment and avenge them, but they’re told to wait a little longer. Now we’re seeing that time has come.

-Instead of wheat, this time he’s to gather clusters of grapes because they’re ripe, and this is where the story diverges from the previous harvest. The grapes are successfully harvested, but then they thrown into a great winepress of God’s wrath.

-This connects to last week’s text again, 10 “he will also drink the wine of God’s wrath,” so John is saying where this judgment is coming from. Wine pressing is an interesting phenomenon in the 1st cent. The way wine was made was stomping on the grapes in a winepress until the juice flowed out, that juice was collected and preserved to let it ferment and create wine. 

-This idea is actually picked up in Rev. 19 in a description of Jesus. The one who’s enacting God’s judgment is Jesus. We talked a bit last week about God’s wrath, but don’t miss that Jesus is also wrathful. So often Jesus is pictured as a hippy who walked around with long flowing locks and told everyone to just get along, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, the difficulty is Jesus just doesn’t play by the same earthly rules that we tend to get so bogged down in. He doesn’t have to play the power game because He’s already reigning supremely. And while His first coming was in humility, His second coming is with a vengeance.

-But there are some things for us to note about this pressing of the wine. First: outside the city. We have an opposite idea of the city today than the 1st century would have!

-City provided protection and safety from the oppression of the wilderness where you could be robbed or attacked by wild animals. I have a friend who lives in downtown St. Paul and anytime he offers to host a meeting I ask if it’s safe to come in there from the burbs! Outside the city is where you were left to fend for yourself, and this is even more true when you realize that coming up in Rev. 21, the city of God will come down to be the place where God’s people can live securely, so being pressed outside of the city is a terrifying reality.

-And even more terrifying: what flows out isn’t juice but a river of blood up to about 5’ for 1,600 stadia (which is approximately the length of Palestine 1,664 stadia), symbolically it’s 4×4 by 10×10 – if you can think back to 7:1 we saw the 4 corners of the earth, thinking back to Rev. 4 there are 4 living creatures, so 4 is often referring to all of creation, then 10 refers to completeness, so what’s signified is the way God’s wrath extends to all of creation.

-One of the most significant things we’ve seen through this book is the reality that there are only 2 ways to live: either for God or against God, and everyone is moving closer to one of those realities with each decision they make.

-One of the incredible things about this section in Revelation is the judgment only comes after the eternal gospel has been proclaimed. Look back in your Bibles to 14:7 “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship the one who made heaven and earth.” How do we do that? 

  • Blood Enough?

-Throughout this section there has been this idea of wine and blood almost intermixed. Those who have the name of the beast will drink the wine of God’s wrath, here we see that wine is actually blood and condemnation on those who are opposed to God, but even in the midst of this, there is good news because someone has drunk the entire cup of God’s wrath, and now stands willing to welcome us in with open arms where we won’t need to drink that cup or be crushed in the winepress of God’s wrath, someone who took all of God’s wrath on Himself and now gives the freedom to live a new life: Jesus.

-The reality is this description of brutality described here could also be seen as describing the payment Jesus made. Do you know where Jesus was crucified? Outside the city. And think of how Isaiah describes the crucifixion in Isa. 53 Jesus was trampled so that we don’t need to be, his blood poured out so that ours doesn’t need to be.

-And what about the 1,600 stadia? Quote from Discipleship on the Edge What an incredible blessing that we have! Jesus was crushed on our behalf, His blood ran freely so that ours wouldn’t. His blood is enough to cover every sin of those who repent and believe in Him.

-Jesus talks about this idea on his last night before the crucifixion, He pleads with His Father to take the cup of wrath away, but submits Himself to His Father. Friends, Jesus drank the whole cup, not a drop of wrath needs to be given to any of us IF we trust in Jesus as the one true Messiah, the Savior of the world.

-Salvation is both the most difficult and easy thing in the world. Difficult because it meant someone had to die, someone’s blood had to run, someone had to drink the full cup of wrath. But easy because now you don’t have to, now the Bible says salvation requires 2 things: confess and believe. Confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He reigns over everything and is worthy to be worshipped and praised, and then believe that truth in your heart which means focusing your life in a different direction, and this is true for all of us, whether you’re a brand new believer or you’ve been a believer for 100 years, if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, do you live like it? What step do you need to take today to better live in Jesus’ kingdom here? 

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by mikethestrand on September 15, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on September 15, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/15/revelation-1414-20-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 14:1-13 – Sermon Manuscript

-Believe it or not, I ran cross-country in high school.

–Cliff Young, an Australian farmer, showed up for the 1983 Sydney to Melbourne ultramarathon: 544 miles. Next to hundreds of sponsored ultramarathoners decades younger than him. No one took him seriously, the race hosts were incredulous when he asked for a number. Didn’t have the typical running gear, he was wearing pants with holes cut out for ventilation, cheap shoes, and when the gun went off he ran with a weird shuffle instead of the gallop of the professionals. No one took him seriously.

-We’re going to look today at the ways people run differently. Last week we saw the implications of running after the beast, you become like them. This week we’ll see what it looks like to run after the Lamb.

READ/PRAY

  1. The Lamb (1-5)

-Remember where we left off last week: 2 beasts, sea and land who stand in for any government that tries to oppose God, and the worship of those beastly institutions which results in becoming like the beast. You become what you worship.

-I think this picks up on a story in the OT, picking up in Ex. 32. One of the themes of Rev. is the way the Exodus story serves as a model for God’s people throughout history. Just as Israel was slaves in Egypt, today people are slaves to sin until God rescues and redeems them. Just as Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, we are in the wilderness until God calls us home to His eternal Promised Land. Just as Israel grumbled, complained, and so often chose sin over God’s ways, we too often grumble and choose sin.

-The amazing thing is the way Jesus enters the story and changes the course of the Exodus. After being called by God, Jesus is driven into the wilderness for 40 days, where instead of grumbling and sinning, He continued trusting Himself to God and set a new course for all of God’s people (that’s us) to live faithfully in the rest of their wilderness wanderings.

-As I was studying this week, there’s 1 verse that’s led to a bunch of debate, that I think becomes clarified when you start to see this as modeled after these passages in the Exodus. 

-Beasts vs. beast like. The theme of becoming what you worship begins in Exodus, where the people are described as “stiff-necked and hard-hearted,” that is they became like the golden calf they created. The temptation is for us to find substitutes to worship instead of God, but those things are beast-like, grotesque, and make us become less than human. Only way to be truly human is to have your priorities right and worship God.

-Saints vs. Moses: endurance, faithfulness, and wisdom. Moses after spending time with God becomes like God: slow to anger, abounding in steadfast-love and faithfulness towards his people. The saints are reminded regularly to be like God, in today’s text it says to follow the Lamb wherever he goes. 

-Virgins vs. no idolatry. This is the verse that contains TONS of debate! Does this mean single people are the only ones who go to heaven? Does marriage automatically exclude someone from Christianity? Ex. 34:15-16 “Do not make a treaty with the inhabitants of the land, or else when they prostitute themselves with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices. 16 Then you will take some of their daughters as brides for your sons. Their daughters will prostitute themselves with their gods and cause your sons to prostitute themselves with their gods.“ Throughout the OT, God refers to idolatry as prostitution, and Paul picks up that same theme in 2 Cor. 11:2. Those who are virgins are those who have remained faithful to God.

-Babylon vs. Egypt. Babylon was long gone at this point! Remember last week I mentioned the beast in Daniel referring to 4 subsequent civilizations, most of which were also gone. But there will always be someone opposed to God attempting to oppress and marginalize His people, whether that be Egypt, Babylon, Rome, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, or whomever else comes along.

-Lastly, in Exodus it builds up to the Sabbath command, and Rev. builds up to rest from their labors, as we’ll see in a bit this is contrasted with the never-ending torment experienced by those who worship the beast.

-Exodus is meant to serve as a model for God’s people of life with God. The rest isn’t on earth, it’s when heaven comes to earth, which began when Jesus came. All that’s in the background to help us faithfully interpret today’s text!

-“Then” is not necessarily sequential, some translate it as “behold!”

-Debate on Mt. Zion: heavenly or earthly?

-I would argue this is heaven because every other time the Lamb is mentioned in Revelation it’s referring to heaven, so it would make sense that here it’s also referring to heaven.

-144,000: all the redeemed of the Lord (12 tribes, 12 disciples, 103 fully complete)

-Sealed by the Lord, in contrast to the mark of the beast (please don’t watch YouTube videos about this)

-Cascading waters: 1:15, hurricane. Harpists harping their harps. 

-Why harps? I’m not a huge fan of harps, especially when I’m trying to study. There was a coffee shop in CO I frequented that would randomly have a harpist show up and play in the middle of the shop! It drove me NUTS when I was trying to write a sermon!

-These are meant to signify joyful, celebratory instruments. Whatever music you listen to when you’re celebrating: loud guitar, organ, orchestra, choir, that’s what’s signified here

-Sang a new song, gathered around the throne. Friends, Christians have always been marked by singing. Those who are now viewed as holy before the Lord, those who are even now seated with Jesus in heaven (Eph. 2:6) celebrate, rejoice, give thanks by singing. This is where people get the mistaken idea that heaven is constant harps and singing so if you don’t like harps or singing here you won’t like heaven. But what’s denoted is the response to God’s work is praising Him. That’s why we sing:

-Andrew Fletcher (Scottish writer & politician last half of the 17th century) quote. What moves people isn’t strict rules, it’s the emotions. We’re far more emotionally driven than we often realize. We instinctively make emotional responses all the time, they’re just subconscious. Even in our weekly gathering, we sing so that we can be moved emotionally toward the things of God. If I’m lucky today, you might remember 1 word I say, but I can almost guarantee you’ll get an earworm during your time here. Songs shape and mold and move us in ways sometimes imperceptible to us.

-Edwards quote. God designed us this way! Music is meant to affect us! That’s what John is communicating here: the way we’ll be moved is towards Jesus, it will help us continue becoming like Jesus.

-Friends, we will change in heaven! Look at vs. 4: These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. We’ll continue taking steps closer to Jesus in heaven, our desires and impulses will finally be perfected, but we still won’t know everything because we’re not God. We’ll still have things to learn and vocations to pursue, but instead of being difficult, they’ll come easily to us. Work was a part of God’s good design in creation, but it became incredibly difficult after the Fall.

-On top of that, this process starts now! Right now we’re supposed to be following the Lamb everywhere he goes, this is called discipleship. I’ve heard someone trying to redefine discipleship as apprenticing after Jesus, or following in his footsteps. We’re trying to become more and more like Him everyday, we’re trying to live in His kingdom on earth, even though it hasn’t fully been enacted yet. This is the call of Revelation to the saints today: endure, remain faithful, continue following after the Lamb! Don’t become beast-like while you’re in the wilderness because it’s not worth it. 

-Think of what Jesus said in Mark 8:34 “Calling the crowd along with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” Following Jesus is the call for anyone who wants to live life to the full.

  • Three Angels (6-13)

-The next thing John sees are 3 angels with different messages:

  1. The Eternal Gospel (6-7)

-Gospel is good news: what is the eternal gospel? This is the good news that God has planned from eternity past to redeem a people to Himself! This angel is telling everyone that salvation is possible!

-Remember something from last week “earth-dwellers” is a phrase John uses to refer to unbelievers, but he doesn’t use that word here. Here is a more general term to people who live on earth signifying that these people have the opportunity to repent and believe in Jesus. And just as the beast last week tried forcing everyone (every nation, tribe, language, people) to follow him, this week we see even as the beast’s influence spreads, the gospel spreads right along with it.

-I mentioned this last Spring, but I think what we see taking place here is this picture. The beast will continue working to spread his lies and influence, and at the same time the gospel will continue being preached, people will continue repenting of their sins. As we see evil increasing, we need to lift our eyes toward heaven and continue to be hopeful because the Lamb is still on His throne!

-If we’re in Christ, we don’t need to fear the beast, but we do need to fear God! This fear comes with a warning in this passage, because it says the judgment has come. What’s the judgment? That’s what the next angel says:

  • The Fall of Babylon (8)

-This is another reason I think the virgins in vs. 4 is talking about those who haven’t pursued idolatry and are instead being faithful to God. Here, Babylon had been gone for centuries.

–Dan. 4:30, King Nebuchadnezzar “Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built to be a royal residence by my vast power and for my majestic glory?” exclaims this right before he’s punished for his pride, he becomes like a beast: eats grass, crawls around on all 4s until he looks to heaven and admits his sin. In the same way, the Babylon of the 1st century (Rome) would also fall. God’s judgment would be dumped on anyone who opposes Him, those who are opposed to God will become like beasts in their lives, some more literally than others.

  • Judgment of the Beast (9-13)

-Many people don’t like to think about God being wrathful today, which is what this section talks about. It also contains one of the most difficult descriptions of hell in the Bible. This gets at one of the oldest heresies in the world that contrasts the vengeful god of the OT against the loving God of the NT, but friends the God of love is also a wrathful God who punishes sin and sinners. Let’s walk through this text to see what this reveals about God.

-First is the description of God’s wrath being poured full strength.

-People would dilute wine with water to make it last longer. Wine was precious and the only way to get a non-bacterial drink, if it’s full strength it hasn’t been diluted. Another way of saying “no holds barred” or “the full monty” there’s nothing held back. Anyone who isn’t following the Lamb will face the full consequence of God’s wrath, not just the full thing, but it says their smoke will go up forever and ever.

-God’s wrath is not popular to talk about today! One denomination asked the authors of the song ‘In Christ Alone’ if they could change a line for their churches to sing. The line was “The wrath of God was satisfied,” and they asked if they could change it to “The love of God was magnified.” We’re a somewhat weird culture in this way, because many other cultures understand wrath but they struggle to understand unconditional love and grace! 

-Annihilationism, or conditional immortality. The belief that at some point, people will cease to exist. God’s wrath will be poured out onto them until they’ve paid the penalty for their sins and then they’ll just be gone forever. Some argue that this verse is pointing to that – the smoke is because people will continually be snuffed out for eternity as their punishment comes to an end. But this seems to contradict the very next sentence: there is no rest – the punishment continues forever. This is terrifying, isn’t it? The way it’s worded in out EFCA SOF is “We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment.”

1-We don’t understand how terrible our sin is. We have phrases like “a little white lie.” We say we “messed up” or made a “mistake.” Friends, sin is cosmic treason against the creator and sustainer of the universe. God is not be trifled with and He can’t be shrunk down to our size. Any sin (no matter how small in our minds) means we’re worthy of God’s judgment.

2-We don’t understand God’s holiness. God is perfectly holy which means He can’t have anything to do with sin. Think of God’s holiness like the sun, which consumes anything that gets close to it. God’s holiness means that any sin that comes near it will be consumed. 

3-This downplays the significance of the cross. If people don’t exist forever then why did Jesus have to die the most terrible death in the world? Jesus’ death wouldn’t have been necessary if people have an expiration date.

4-Everyone has some concept of hell because we all want justice. I hate to reduce the argument down to this level, but everyone thinks Hitler deserves hell. No one’s going to argue that point. The only debate is who else is going to be there? Who gets to determine the line between heaven or hell? We judge on a sliding scale, but God judges on a Jesus scale where true and perfect justice is finally delivered.

5-Hell is a choice. It’s significant that this wrath comes only after the eternal gospel has been proclaimed. The Bible tells us that creation points to God, the question is how do people respond? Those in heaven are those who are continually taking steps to become more like Jesus, but those in hell are those who are continually taking steps away from Jesus, actively pursuing that reality. 

-Endurance: don’t give up! Persevere, don’t become beast-like in your life!

-Remember Cliff Young who I mentioned at the beginning? Not only did he complete the 544 miles, he won by over 10 hours. He’d learned endurance from being a shepherd, anytime he needed to round up his sheep he’d end up running for days at a time to track them down. No one told him the REAL ultramarathoners only ran 18 hours a day: he just kept going.

-Friends, this is what believing in the eternal gospel leads to: rest from your labors, suddenly the running doesn’t become work. Think of the call of Jesus: “come to me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” But this wrest came about because someone else satisfied God’s wrath for you, you’ve been sheltered from drinking that cup.

-“Their works follow them.” Once you’re saved nothing can change that, but there are implications to how you live. This is the difference between Christianity and any other religion. Every other religion you have to do enough good works to earn merit, and that continues to be the temptation for us as Christians too. We can’t add anything to our salvation, but once we’re in Christ our lives must look different, we must endure.

-The call for us the past 2 weeks has been clear: endure, remain faithful, and remain wise.

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by mikethestrand on September 8, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 8, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/08/revelation-141-13-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 13 – Sermon Manuscript

One of the realities of humanity is that we become what we worship. If you worship money you become greedy, trying to hoard as much as you can. If you worship recognition you become desperate to keep up appearances. If you worship success you become a jerk. All these things demand your allegiance, your devotion, your time, and none of the outcomes are good. 

-Great picture of this in Voyage of the Dawn Treader where Eustace, the antihero and a miserable boy tries to ruin the vacation of his cousins, the Pevensies. He only worries about himself and doesn’t get along with anyone. They’re drawn into Narnia (again) and Eustace finds a hoard of dragon treasure, what he doesn’t realize is the greed that made him want all the treasure corrupted him and turned him into a dragon! His love of the gold corrupted his life.

-Today we’re going to look at what happens when you worship government & politics, and the outcome is beastly!

READ/PRAY (pg. 44, 1097)

-What do we need to remember?

-A letter, written to 7 churches.

-A mix of 3 genres: apocalyptic, prophetic, epistle

-Why are we studying Revelation? To be blessed

-Outline of the book based on 1:19: seen in the past, what is presently, and what will take place in the future.

-I would argue that what the best way to faithfully interpret this book is to understand John is talking about things that will continue being true throughout history until Jesus comes back, not exclusively about future events. Therefore we shouldn’t read it chronologically. Satan will continue fighting, sin will continue wreaking havoc and destruction, and none of that withstand the strength and power of the Risen Jesus! So the primary call in Revelation is for us to understand that God is in control, despite what it looks like in the world, so we must remain faithful in the midst of any suffering and persecution we face.

-Remember that Satan is not omniscient – he has no clue when Jesus is actually coming back, so we should expect to find an antichrist in every stage of history. 

-We’re in the middle of an interlude between the trumpets and bowls. Similarities between all of these 7, but increasing intensity.

–Rev. 12 began recounting the birth of Jesus, the preservation of God’s people, and the dethroning of Satan where he is cast out of heaven and goes to make war against God’s people. We were left in the Spring with this verse.

-The sea for Jews – the place of chaos, terror, uncertainty. If you get far enough out in the ocean it can start to feel flat, but not by the land, the land is constant being hit by waves! 

  1. Ten if by Sea (1-10)

-The dragon calls forth from the sea a beast. We’ve seen the grotesque descriptions of the dragon before, this first beast has ten horns on 7 heads.

-One of the primary keys to interpreting Revelation correctly is to know the Bible, especially the OT, and guess what’s been decreasing significantly in our world: understanding and deep reflection on the Bible which means we don’t know how to study Revelation. In this case, John is referencing a vision from Daniel 7

-Just as in Rev. Daniel recounts that 4 beasts are arising out of the sea (the place of chaos), and these 4 beasts are representative of 4 different governments that will arise in the future: Babylon, Medes/Persians, Greeks (Alexander the Great), and Rome as the worst of them all. When the 1stcentury churches heard this their minds would have immediately jumped to this prophesy in Daniel, what’s different in Rev. is all the beasts are suddenly combined together into a grotesque parody of an animal. 

-Remember: numbers are almost always symbolic: 10 being complete or full, 7 being perfect. This is the dragons attempt at perfect and complete power, but even in that he falls short because one of his heads is wounded.

-This is significant, because what John is seeing here is the continual rise and fall of tyrannical governments who are opposed to God and His people. When John’s writing this that would be Rome, who demanded full and complete allegiance from every citizen, there was no separation between church & state like we have today. To be a citizen meant you bought in completely and worshipped the governmental structures in place. This is where the Jews had so much conflict with the Romans – Jews claimed to worship the 1 true God, which meant worshipping no one else, and nothing else, but doesn’t that make them bad citizens? That’s one of the cruxes facing the early church, who was viewed as a subset of the Jewish faith until about AD 70 when the temple was destroyed. Since this was written after, this is where the church would have started facing increased persecution again.

-But to get more of what John’s saying here, we need to turn to Rev. 17, John sees a woman riding the beast from Rev. 13 (7 heads & 10 horns)

-Notice that it says the beast “was, is not, and is about to come” TWICE! Does that sound like anything else we’ve heard in this book before? Rev. 1:8

-If this was written in the 90s, this is most likely a lull in the midst of intense persecution from the Romans. The totalitarian government seems like it’s gone away, at least a little bit: it was, it isn’t, but it’s coming back! Remember, Satan doesn’t have complete control, he can only mimic what God has done, so he won’t always be in complete control. However, even when it looks like his work is done, get ready because he’ll come roaring back and try it all over again. That’s what John’s getting at here in vs. 3 that even when it looks like he’s dead, he’ll come back.

-How do people respond? They’re all in! The dragon has been defeated twice before (first in trying to eat the child being born from the woman, then he tried to send water to drown the woman but he was defeated again, and then he goes to wage war against Christians), but this time it looks like he’s successful. The whole earth gets in line to worship the dragon because he’s given authority to the beast. 

-Remember, who is this beast representing? Any government that attempts to claim total and complete power, and governmental force that attempts to become god! When they do that, they’re becoming beast like, they’re following the way of the dragon, by worshipping the beast the people will become beast-like.

-Look at how this beast goes about his business: utters boasts and blasphemies, and allowed authority for 42 months.

-Blasphemes God, heaven, and everyone who dwells in heaven. Who allows this? God does. God is still in complete control, even of this grotesque beast. Nothing happens outside of God’s plans!

-42 months: half of 7, not God’s final plan, did a whole sermon on this in the Spring you can listen to!

-Permitted (allowed from God) to wage war against the saints and conquer them. Well that’s discouraging! It’s means that in the short-term, we lose, we’re humiliated, we’re cast-off, we’re beat down. I hate to tell you, but it’s going to happen. Why? Because we won’t be like the earth-dwellers who worship the beast.

-Technical term in John for unbelievers. Comes up regularly, always refers to those who aren’t following Jesus.

-The Lamb who was slaughtered. Another reminder that the way of the Lamb comes about through death.

-Then John quotes from Jer. 15:2, there it signifies God’s punishment for not following God’s commands, but here John is saying this wall fall on God’s people as validation that they are His. Only believers will face this persecution from the beast.

-Finally, John ends with the reminder that despite this persecution, there’s a call for: endurance and faithfulness.

-I want us to think about this for a minute because I think this passage demonstrates to us what’s going on in our world today. What we see is that the work of the dragon is to create complete allegiance to political systems and structures, and to oppress anyone that stands in their way. This is one of the things that historically made USA unique – it was built on the premise that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, but I would argue that we’re now just as influenced by the dragon as any other nationality. Just look at the way politics is discussed today, where each side demonizes the other side and demands complete allegiance (worship), otherwise you’re cast off, dismissed from operating in that political sphere.

-But we’re called to operate by a different set of rules where the way of the Lamb reigns supreme, where we lay down our swords and seek to outdo one another in showing honor to each other. 

-Eugene Peterson: This is what we’re seeing play out in the church today, either attempt to takeover various institutions and communities, or abandon any cultural engagement and create a sanctified huddle which doesn’t engage the world for fear of becoming stained. Neither is what God calls us to! I’ve shared this before, what we’re called to is faithful presence! Here we see it worded as endurance and faithfulness. Friends, endure the ridicule, endure the scorn, endure the mockery and be faithful where God has you. Work to be the best employee, the best neighbor, the best friend, the best parent you can be, that’s what faithfulness looks like! And that today is absolutely needed (and rebellious!)

-Christians should work hard to be the best citizens we can, because that’s how we can go about ensuring that the gospel can continue to be spread. And on this side of Jesus’ return it doesn’t look impressive, it doesn’t look powerful, but the call for Christians hasn’t changed: endurance and faithfulness.

  • Two if by Land (11-18)

-To complete his mimicry of the trinity, the dragon calls forth a beast from the land. 2 horns like a lamb. Can anyone think of where we’ve seen that before? Back in Rev. 5 where a slaughtered lamb is seated in the middle of the throne! 

-The characteristic of this beast sound similar to the Holy Spirit: compels worship, performs signs, calls down fire, deceives people, gives breath (like the Spirit) to the image of the beast, compels people to adopt his mark so that his followers can participate in the economic system of the day. 

-Once again, we need to remember that Satan, the old dragon, doesn’t have ultimate power and authority. He’ll keep trying to usurp Jesus, he’ll keep trying to fight against God, but all Satan can do is a poor copy. Notice that fire comes down from heaven, like the fire that came down to rest on the early church at Pentecost, just like the early disciples were given power to perform miracles to validate their message, the beast performs signs, just like the Holy Spirit awakens people in salvation, here this beast “awakens” the image of the beast. Do you see how it’s a poor imitation of God’s work? Satan can’t compete, can’t keep, up, so he keeps falling short, but he doesn’t give up! 

-And what else does he attack? Finances. Did you know that Jesus talks more about money than almost any other topic? Jesus had no problem talking about money, and He went so far as to say that how you spend your money reveals who your God is. Friends, the way you spend your money reveals if you’re following the dragon or the Lamb.

-Not a literal mark, this is yet another lame attempt by the beast to copy what God has done. Think back to Rev. 7 where God seals His people on their foreheads. Seal vs. a mark. A seal is eternal and infinite, nothing can stand against it, and once it’s in place it’s viewed as enacted. A mark can be wiped off, like if you’ve ever gone to a concert or a fair they’ll stamp you to show that you paid, but it washes off after a couple days. This mark is Satan’s lame attempt to draw the battle lines against God, but just as his trinity falls short, so does his mark.

This calls for: wisdom. 

-We need to understand and remember that even though these beasts look impressive and powerful, they’re not. There’s something bigger going on here than the world can recognize, and it only comes about by following the way of the Lamb who was slain.

-Friends, this isn’t going to be a literal mark that people have on their hands or their heads, it’s not a barcode, it’s not a tattoo. This is a way of referring to your worldview, and how you live your life (hand). It’s not enough for us to just have all the right theological answers, Christ demands that we submit everything to Him! Our minds, our hearts, our lives, everything. To be a Christian is not less than having a new worldview, but it’s much more than that. It must affect the way we engage with governments, the way we engage the workplace, the way we engage our neighborhoods, all of it is supposed to be Christ-like.

-There are some accounts of trade guilds in the first century requiring allegiance and receiving a mark in order to participate in them. One of the difficulties the early church faced was in regards to which jobs a Christian could have, because these trade guilds would at times require you to make an offering to their patron deity. Metal had one, wood had one, sailing had one, travelers had one, all these random gods and focuses competing for allegiance, and only 1 God rules over them all.

-Peterson quote.

-Do you think anything in our world today attempts to manipulate us economically? Maybe the entire commercial system we have? If you’re looking for something fascinating to study, look up the shift in America’s economy during the 20th century. “We must shift America from a needs to a desires culture…. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality. Man’s desires must overshadow his needs” Paul Mazur CEO of Lehman Brothers (4th largest investment bank in the US until it went bankrupt in 2008)

-Friends, this is the reason this book is so critical for us today. It helps us to raise our eyes above our problems and issues and reveals to us the ways God is still working behind the scenes to bring His perfect plan to completion, but it requires us to participate! It requires us to remain aware and engaged in the world! It also requires us to worship correctly. If we worship the way the world worships we’re going to end up beast-like, but if we worship God, then John tells us 3 explicit things that will mark us as Christians: endure, remain faithful, and remain wise.

-How do we endure? We surround ourself with others who will help us persevere. We don’t give up! We continue taking 1 step closer to Jesus each and every day, which is the second piece
-Remain faithful. As our world becomes increasingly divided, we cannot give up on God’s call to be faithful every day. That means continually doing the right thing, continually working hard, continually loving and serving others even when it feels like no one else is. God sees your faithfulness, and will reward you for it!

-Finally, remain wise. Keep your eyes on Jesus Christ. True wisdom is found in Him, don’t give in to the dragon’s temptations, don’t play by the worldly rules, don’t look at things through power and prestige. Look to the slain Lamb, His ways are the only way to find true, eternal life and healing. 

-And the best part of this story is that the one we worship became like us. God took on flesh, added humanity to his divinity and then died in our place to allow us to be rescued and redeemed from sin to live new lives through Him, and we get to celebrate that reality. The boy Eustace learned that in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In order to become a boy again he had to rip off all his scales, and it HURT! It took dying to his misplaced worship and worshipping the right way for him to become truly human again.

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by mikethestrand on September 1, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on September 1, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/01/revelation-13-sermon-manuscript/

How to Go to Church – Sermon Manuscript

-In 1940, a philosopher named Mortimer Adler published what has become an often used book that remains in print even today, titled ‘How to Read a Book.’ 

-The irony is you need to know how to read a book to read this book, and often we assume we already know how to read a book. But where this is helpful is it demonstrates to you different ways of reading that we often just assume as when we pick up a book. You used to be able to demonstrate this with a newspaper (anyone remember those things?) maybe a better way of thinking today is reading differently based on the website you’re using. I read ESPN differently than CNN. I read a blog differently than I read The Onion. Because we know the kind of writing that’s taking place, we interpret what we read differently. I don’t read ESPN to learn how the stock market is doing (nor do I look to athletes for help on political opinions, but that’s a talk for a different day!)

-We approach buildings similarly, even though we don’t often think about it. I don’t go to Cub Foods to buy clothes, I don’t go to a hospital to try to buy a car (or for their coffee!) So how do we approach the church, and how should we approach the church? What should we be looking for, what should we expect, and what should our attitude be?

PRAY

-To help you remember today, I used alliteration and fill in the blanks!

  1. Excited 

-How are we supposed to be excited about coming to church, where we have to sit still for over an hour, listen to me talk for half of that time, and then miss the beginning of football games pretty soon? Do you think that maybe that’s overly idealistic?

-To see why and how we should be excited, we need to look at a few Bible passages.
-1 Thess. 5:16-24:

-We’re excited because the Bible commands us to rejoice always. Always, explicit command. This means even on Sunday morning we’re supposed to be joyful, filled with joy. That doesn’t mean we pretend everything is fine when it’s not, this joy is talking about the implications of our salvation. If our sins have been fully paid for, how should we respond? With joy! With excitement! Friends, can you believe that NOTHING can now separate us from God’s love? Death can’t, life can’t, angels can’t, the rulers of the earth can’t, anything you see now can’t, anything that’s coming in the future can’t, any other power can’t, you can’t climb high enough to escape it, you can’t dig down deep enough to outrun it, NOTHING can separate you from God’s love! Isn’t that amazing? Not only is that true, but we also now have a family of people to remind us of that truth every week, an entire group of people who are committed to rejoicing together because of the salvation Jesus has purchased for us. If you can’t get excited about that, I don’t know what to get excited about! No matter what happens to me, NOTHING is going to change my eternal position.

-What else do we see here? Constant prayer: we can be in constant conversation with the God of the universe. He not only hears us, He also cares about us and responds to us when we cry out to Him. Yet another reason to rejoice!

-And give thanks all the time. Give thanks when things are going well, give thanks when things aren’t going well. And part of the reason we can give thanks is because we never go through life alone. God is with us, and He’s given us an entire church body to walk with us!

-Finally, who’s the one who actually does this work God or us? Yes! God himself will sanctify us completely, that means He will make us perfectly holy. But it comes about by living out what all the previous verses said. God works in us, and expects us to work out our faith along with Him. Jesus gives us a picture of what this looks like when He says that He can only do what the Father tells Him to – God wants us to be completely surrendered to Him, to represent Him in every area of life and to walk with him day by day in fellowship with other believers.

-Heb. 10:25

-I was recently listening to a podcast from a Christian rapper who said this verse doesn’t mean what we tend to think it means in America, that we need to go to church each Sunday, and I’m going to disagree with this rapper here because he’s only half right. It actually means that going to church on Sunday isn’t quite enough, it means that we need to be involved and engaged in one another’s lives so much that we can know how best to encourage each other.

-There’s some provocative language here: provoke love and good works. I don’t know about you, but I don’t ever think of provoking being a good thing, and I see a lot of provoking happening in my house! A sister provokes a brother until he hits her, a twin grabs his other twin until he provokes crying. But what if we provoked each other in positive ways? Provoked someone to better love other, provoked someone to act kindly toward others. How much more excited would you be to come to church if you knew the outcome was being provoked to love and good works? Yet that’s exactly what this tells us we should be doing! The way that happens is by encouraging, how much? Even more! Anyone in here just feeling overly encouraged today, like your encouragement tank is just completely full and you can’t handle anymore? And look at the urgency that we should have for our encouragement: ALL THE MORE. What’s “the day”? Bible talks about 2 days: today, and THE day. Today we’re supposed to be faithful, because THE day when Jesus returns is coming. Each day brings us 1 day closer to THE day, so be faithful today in encouraging others!

-Rom. 12:10

-Last verse has 2 ideas in here: first is be devoted to one another in love. That’s an incredibly strong commitment, isn’t it? I heard someone recently say that the Bible talks about being devoted in 2 places: to the church, and in marriage. What I saw was the Bible primarily talks about being devoted to the Lord, but here it says we’re to be devoted to each other. That’s a much stronger commitment than just showing up 1 day a week, isn’t it? That means remaining involved in each other’s lives.

-I had someone at one church I served who was trying to take this idea to heart, and would take time each week to randomly stop by church member’s houses! Might have been taking it a little too literally, but I think the sentiment was good.

-Then we see how we’re supposed to compete with each other: outdo one another in showing honor. If you see something that God is doing in someone, encourage them in that! Honor them in that! Don’t worry them being overly encouraged, or getting a big head, let’s compete with honoring each other!

-We’re excited because we get to be with our family to be encouraged and encourage others.

  • Expectant 

-What do you expect when you come to church each Sunday? Are you expecting (as one pastor has called it) a U2 concert followed by a TED Talk? Are you expecting a choir? Are you expecting some good coffee? What is it you expect, and what should we expect?
1 Cor. 11:18

-First I want you to notice that there’s the expectation (twice) that we gather together as the church. Gathering together isn’t an optional add-on for those who claim to be Christians. 

-Second is that there are divisions where there shouldn’t be. Divisions come about when we’re not outdoing one another in showing honor, but they’re not supposed to be markers of the church.

-Finally, when there aren’t divisions, then we can celebrate the Lord’s Supper, otherwise we’re just taking a tiny piece of bread and little shot of grape juice that has no deeper significance or meaning, which we’ll see next:

Matt. 18:20

-You may have this one cross-stitched on a pillow at home! Some bigger context: Jesus is talking about church discipline. Jesus actually gave the church His authority before He left that means part of the church’s role is to help the world understand who is a part of Jesus’ kingdom and who is not. 

-It’s a delegated authority, not a final authority.

-While this verse applies specifically to church discipline, the principle is true: when we gather as the church, Jesus is here among us. So when we gather together, our expectations should be that we are meeting with God. There is something sacred and unique about our weekly gathering as the church that marks this as different than the other 166.75 hours in our week.

-We’re expectant because we actually get to meet with God

-Because we come excited and expectant, that means that we need to come:

  • Engaged 

-Church isn’t a passive spectator sport. It’s not like what I do on Sunday afternoons during football season where I turn into Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite “I could throw the pig skin a quarter mile. Would’ve won us state.” I would yell at Captain Kirk Cousins on the regular! You know what I’ve never done? Had a 400 pound lineman trying to kill me while attempting to throw an oblong ball at some of the fastest human beings on earth. It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback, but I’ll never get into the game. The church is the opposite! Church requires every single one of us playing our part in the whole body for us to function as we should, for us to be a healthy church. Think if you’ve ever broken a bone, doesn’t it make everything more difficult? 
2 Tim. 4:2

-There’s a reason preaching takes up so much time on a Sunday. We see this explicit command in there: preach the Word! We want everything we do to be built on God’s Word, and anything that doesn’t come from there needs to disappear. It doesn’t matter what season we’re in, the solution is the Word. Our lives are meant to be changed and shaped by the Word. Each week we gather to learn more about God’s Word, and then apply that Word to our lives this next week. Paul says “correct, rebuke, and encourage”

-Do you expect God to speak to you when you come here each week? An old Reformed Confession called the Second Helvetic Confession states “The preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God.” When I stand up here each week, I’m claiming to be God’s mouthpiece, which is a terrifying thing! It leads to much prayer on my part, and I have copied John Calvin’s practice of each step I take on my way up here saying “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” But that also means you have a responsibility to each word you hear. I have a little book here titled “Listen Up! A practical guide to listening to sermons” that I think gives some good advice on how to remain engaged each week.

-But preaching is only half of what we do, there’s a couple other passage that show us how else to remain engaged. 

Col. 3:16

-Once again, we see the emphasis on the word of Christ, AND we’re supposed to admonish and teach one another through our singing, the word Paul uses has this idea of setting right or correcting. So singing is meant to be a teaching tool where we admonish/teach each other AND sing to God. 

Eph. 5:19

-Which is what this passage says! Speaking to each other through our singing. This is why I love listening to you all sing every week! It teaches me, but it also means you need to sing! We were laughing this past week about former pastor Bruce’s ability to sing loudly enough to be heard across the room even when he doesn’t have a microphone! But that’s a blessing and encouragement to me, because he’s engaged!

-We’re engaged because we need to teach others

So be:

Committed 

-I understand that we live in a transient and consumeristic culture. Transient in that people come and go pretty regularly without any thought given to where and how they’ll remain connected to a local church body. One of the things I’ve started encouraging people if I hear they’re thinking about moving is to factor in the church into their decisions. Friends, it’s better to get paid a little less if it means you have a place where you can serve and grow more like Jesus. The math isn’t even close! But our world is also consumeristic where there’s a tendency to pick and choose the things that I like or want instead of committing myself to a body. I’ve known of people who would go to 1 church for music, then hop in their car and drive to another church for the preaching, and then were involved in a life group in a different church! Friends, commit to a local church where you engage holistically with the same people on a regular basis. It’s the best way to grow!

-Micah and I have been chatting recently about this tendency, if you are a member of a church you’re supposed to be “devoted” to it, similar to marriage. Yet I’ve had numerous conversations with people who say they’re “just looking around” at other church for a season. How do you think that would go if you told your spouse you were going to stay married to the, but you wanted to take some time to just date around for a little bit? That’s why we need to commit to 1 body.

Concerned

-Paul actually gives us instructions on how to encourage each other when we gather.

-Warn those who are idle. One of the expectations of someone who follow Jesus is to work hard. There’s no place for laziness in the kingdom of God. Just as with most things in our faith, there’s a fine line to walk because there is lots of room for play, enjoying God’s good gifts, but the Bible commands us to work hard as if everything we were doing was done for God (because it is). In 1 Tim. 5:8 Paul says that if someone will not provide for his family, he is no longer following Jesus, and is worse than an unbeliever. So one of our jobs when we gather is to exhort those who aren’t working.

-Comfort the discouraged. Friends, the church is a place for you to receive comfort. It’s the only place where you can find lasting, eternal comfort, and we as Christians are meant to comfort others just like Jesus comforts us. This is a joyful privilege for anyone who is now in Christ – we get to minister to each other as Jesus would minister to us if he were here. Do you look for ways to comfort other people?

-Help the weak. At some point, I can guarantee, you’re going to be overwhelmed by something in your life. Sickness, loss, wandering children, the troubles of this world will catch up to you, and will stretch you far beyond what you can handle. Where do you turn? My encouragement is to turn to the church! They’re people who are committed to you, concerned about you, and want to help you when you’re weak. I don’t know how anyone survives without a church family!

-Lastly, if you don’t fit into the idle, discouraged, or weak camp: then be patient. What a good reminder, because just like a nuclear family, sometimes your church family will drive you nuts, offend you, or even hurt you, so when that happens, remember to be patient with EVERYONE. At some point in my life, I’ve been all of these, and I’ve needed other people to be concerned enough for me to help me work through my issues.

-Paul summarizes this as always pursuing what is good for one another. You can’t just worry about you and God, it always has to be about WE and God, what can I do to encourage my brother or sister? How can I pursue their good? We actually need to care and value others more highly than ourselves.

Compassionate (forgiving)

-Because we live on this side of Eden and Eternity, there is going to be conflict, tension, turmoil, difficulty. That’s a guarantee. The question is what do we do with that? We are kind, compassionate and forgiving. One of our jobs is to assume the best in others instead of the worst.

-How do you go to church? Excited, expectant, engaged, which means we all need to be committed, concerned, and compassionate.

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by mikethestrand on August 25, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on August 25, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/08/25/how-to-go-to-church-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 40 – Sermon Manuscript

–A few years ago, a man and a woman met online and started dating. Unfortunately, he lived in Holland and she lived in China. The man eventually got fed up by the distance and decided to buy a plane ticket to visit her. He sent her all his flight information and boarded the plan. When he landed, he looked all around for his love and she wasn’t there. But he was in a new county that spoke a different language, and he had 1 mission on this trip, so he decided to wait for his girlfriend. And wait he did! After a couple days he started trending on social media, a local new outlet did a segment on him, and after 10 days of waiting he had to be taken to the hospital because of physical exhaustion. A news outlet tracked down his girlfriend, and she thought he was joking! 

-We wait pretty much daily, don’t we? I waited at a stoplight driving here this morning (just 1 thankfully)

-How do we wait for God? Today’s Psalm instructs us in what it looks like to wait for the Lord, and it doesn’t involve being ghosted at an airport

READ/PRAY

-John Stott’s outline was really helpful, so I just borrowed this from him. 

  1. Looking Backward (1-3)

-David begins by looking backwards and reflecting on God’s provision, notice past tense “waited”

-Heb. “waiting I waited” have you ever noticed how slow it is to become like Jesus, and how much effort it takes? There’s a theme throughout the Bible of periods of waiting and preparation before God uses you.

-Abraham promised a child at 75, child at 100. Joseph spent decades in servitude after being his dad’s favorite child, then he rose up to the number 2 in all of Egypt. Moses was exiled in Midian for 40 years before God came to him in a burning bush, David was anointed young and didn’t become king until 30, Paul had this radical conversion story and then he goes off to the wilderness for 3 years. But none of these experiences were wasted, and God wasn’t ignoring any of these people, instead God was using these experiences to shape and form all these men to be ready to be used by God later.

-The waiting season is rough, you may be in one now! Waiting for a new job, a new house, to go back to school, lots of life is waiting. But waiting isn’t doing nothing, despite how it often feels to us. If you just remain faithful in the midst of the waiting it is always remarkable how much work God does in those seasons, isn’t it?

-Just reflecting this past week with some people over my waiting to come here! It took almost 2 years of me looking and hoping and praying and waiting to find a church that would hire a young guy like me! Was told from 1 church that I wasn’t a good enough singer, another church told me they loved everything about me but wished I was 3 years older it was humbling and stretching! But God was still working. So friends, keep waiting! And if you’re not waiting encourage those who are waiting that you know! This will come up again, but you’ll have to wait.

-After the season of waiting, David is saved from God, notice the description in vs. 2 Hiking in mud is awful! Through my trip I experienced this, your feet get heavier, literally start weighing you down and wearing you out. Unlike that is walking on a rock-solid road. Clear path ahead, nothing to burden you. 

-And friends, that’s what it looks like to follow after God. By being obedient to Him, it allows you to be brought from muddy clay to a rock. It doesn’t mean that life will be easy, but it does mean that God will be with you in the midst of it. God’s way it right, good, true, and beautiful, it leads to flourishing as a human.

-Have you ever noticed how sociological data demonstrates this truth? I was just this week listening to a podcast that talked about all the benefits of biblical marriage: between 1 biological man and 1 biological woman in a lifetime monogamous covenantal relationship. Financial stability, healthier children, healthier lives for both spouses, it’s almost as if God knew what He was doing! 

-New song – the response of God’s movement in His people is singing. Friends, there’s a reason that we sing so much each week! Singing has been marker of God’s people since the beginning. Some theologians believe that God created through singing, I think when Adam meets Eve he bursts out in singing, this book of Psalms is an entire book dedicated to songs of God’s people. In Rev. (pick up again in 2 weeks) it says there’s singing around the throne of God 24/7. We must be a people who sing God’s truth to each other and back to Him 

-When this salvation is happening and God’s people are singing, what will other people see? They’ll start to see how God saves His people, and what’s their response? Fear and trust the Lord. Notice it doesn’t say the David will trust in the Lord, it says THEY

-Our lives are meant to be a witness to others, this means that our lives need to look different. Does yours? I think one of the reasons we need to gather together as the church is to be reset to this reality that we have a reason to trust in the Lord, that He has proven Himself faithful over and over again, so we can know that He’ll continue to!

-If you’ve ever been a part of team you’ve experienced some of this reality. When you’re running suicides with the rest of the bball team it helps when you can look over and see someone else persevering. Same thing in the church, when you’re struggling and hurting it helps when you can look down the pew and see a brother or sister who has walked through something similar to you. This is why God brings us into a new family called the church when we’re saved, we need that support and encouragement.

  • Looking Upward (4-5)

-Same idea that we’ve seen the past few weeks, God’s ways are the best way, they lead to our flourishing as humans, including happiness (not the pursuit of happiness, true lasting happiness)

-Same word here as the beginning of the whole book, another reminder that we need to read this as a whole book, there’s an intentional ordering to it that builds on certain ideas or topics.

-It’s wisdom literature, similar to Proverbs, just structured slightly differently. But this whole book is meant to give us language to express ourselves in the midst of life’s circumstances. We’ve seen language from the past few weeks on how to suffer well, how to voice those complaints to the Lord. This week we see how we wait on God in the midst of those times, which David goes on to tell us what we should be doing when we struggle:

-By remembering all the things God has done for David and His people. What are these wondrous works that David would think of? Exodus, wilderness wanderings, safety from enemies, food.

-God not only has done wonderful things in His people, but He also has future plans for them. What are God’s plans? Salvation in Jesus, which leads to life with God, which is the only way to have lasting happiness. God wants us to live life to the full! God wants us to enjoy His good gifts of food, drink, observing His creation. But notice that His plans aren’t just for God, He has plans for US. God throughout history has always been identified by and connected to a people. Adam and Eve, Noah and his family, Abraham and his family, this is why the Bible calls Him the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Those who aren’t in the family don’t get the family blessings. 

-Think about how many things God has done to the people in this room. How many are God’s wondrous works in this room? David describes them as “more than can be told.” How often do you talk about and reflect on how God has been good to you? Multiply that among all of God’s people throughout all of history and how great is our God?

-One encouragement I have for you all is to find ways to be celebrate when God works in you. An old song we sing “Come Thou Fount” has a line that makes no sense to our modern ear: “here I raise my ebenezer, hither by thy help I’m come” When I was growing up all I thought of was Ebenezer Scrooge (and not even from the original story, from the Muppets Christmas Carol). What that song refers to is a Hebrew word ebed (stone) ezer (help) a stone of help. God’s people would build stone altars when God saved them so that in the future when they were struggling and hurting they could look at these altars and remember how God had provided for them. What can you do to give thanks for God’s provision in your life so that you can remember His faithfulness when you’re struggling?

  • Looking Inward (6-8)

-The next place David looks is inside Himself, how does God’s provision affect his internal life?

-A bit of an exaggeration here, because God does delight in sacrifice and offerings. David mentions all the required offerings from Lev. 1-4 here. Leviticus can be a difficult book for us to understand, but the point of the whole book is: how can an unholy people be in relationship with a holy God? What does it require? It requires a sacrifice, a way for the penalty for sin to be paid, as David says here it takes sacrifice, offering, burnt offerings, and sin offerings.

-I think David is actually picking up a story about his predecessor in the office of King of Israel: King Saul. He’s commanded to completely destroy an enemy, including all their animals, but he doesn’t. He leaves the king alive and takes all the spoils of war. Because Saul doesn’t obey, God rejects him as King, and sends Samuel to confront Saul. In that confronting, Saul says he was just saving these spoils as an offering to the Lord, and Samuel replies 1 Sam. 15. Yes, God does demand sacrifices and offerings, but the heart of even those offerings is to create a spirit of obedience in His people.

-Jesus picks up on this idea in Matt. 23. Jews loved creating a hierarchy of laws, prioritizing some over others, but missed what all these laws were pointing to: a life fully surrendered in obedience to God. Jesus summarizes them as: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. What God wants from us is growing in holiness, taking 1 step closer to God each day. What does that take?

-God’s Word, obedience to God’s Word, internalizing God’s Word so that it becomes evident in your life. This is what David had been fixating on, mediating on, soaking himself in day after day. Friends, just as God works in the waiting, God also works through things that seem very ordinary and at times boring. It’s not magic or rocket science, it’s what have been referred to as the ordinary means of grace: the Bible, prayer, the church. All 3 of those elements are what it takes to have our internal life grow more holy.

  • Looking Outward (9-11)

-After working internally we can move to looking outward.

-Last week we saw the need to keep silent in the midst of wickedness, this time we see what we should talk about: righteousness. Means “straight” or “what is in accordance with law or social norm.” (EDOT)

-There is an external drive to the way God wants us to live, we’re supposed to speak out about God’s faithfulness, about how to pursue righteousness, we’re supposed to tell others the truth of who God is and that He continues working and moving in the world.

-This also means we need to tell each other how God has provided for us. Twice in here David refers to the “great assembly” The word “church” is taken from the word “assembly.” Again we see one of the purposes of our gathering together so that we can remember who God is, and remind each other the to live differently because of that.

  • Looking Around (12-15)

-Faith has precedent because of what God has done in the past. We are commanded to be students of history, our faith literally hinges on historically verified events. If the tomb is not empty, that everything we’re doing in here is worse than pointless, it’s a waste of time and we should be pitied. But because the tomb is empty, we can cry out to God when we’re surrounded by evils. 

-Because we’re supposed to be students of history, we’re offering a class at 9 AM this fall titled ‘Echoes of Faith” I heard someone said this class isn’t helpful or practical, but the truth is knowing church history helps prevent us from making the same errors, and demonstrates to us the validity of our faith. Church history is theology applied – 

1- gives us a broader perspective on God’s working in the world. It can be too easy to see our moment as the most important moment and each crisis as the worst crisis ever, but when we see how God has worked in the past it gives us confidence in the future.

2- it helps us to evaluate theology. I remember learning about the liberalizing tendencies of the German church in the late 1800s and realized that many people were doing the exact same thing today!

3- it helps us to mediate extremes. There’s a tendency to overreact (think of deconstruction today), but when we know church history we can understand the way things come and go not overreact to either side. It helps us to know that those who are opposed to God will someday be dealt with.

  • Looking Forward (16-17)

-Because of how God has moved in the past, we can continue to say that the Lord is great. God has promised to be our helper and deliverer, all these promises find their fulfilment in Jesus. 

-If you love God’s salvation (which I hope you do!) then we should moment by moment say “the Lord is great!” 

-Tertullian, the great North African theologian, said about David, “He sings to us of Christ, and through his voice Christ indeed also sang concerning Himself.” These Psalms are meant to point us to Christ, and Jesus used Psalms at key moments of His life to demonstrate that He was the fulfillment of all the promises to David, but this Psalm has a double application to Jesus

–Heb. 10:5-10: Jesus’ arrival means there’s no more sacrifices we can make, His death was complete and final, there’s nothing else you can add and nothing else is required. That’s the message of the gospel, the message that Jesus came to save sinners like you and me, so because of what Jesus has done we can walk in a new way and we can with Jesus say the Lord is great!

-What does this require of us? We’ve seen a few things in this text:

-Waiting patiently. God doesn’t work on our timetable

-Celebrating when God provides for you. Find ways to commemorate those moments

-Both of those mean that we must live unique, sacred, set apart lives

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by mikethestrand on August 18, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on August 18, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/08/18/psalm-40-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 39 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you know anyone that never seems like they’re actually interested in talking to you? They always look just past you to see if there’s someone else they should be talking to so you end up feeling like an inconvenience. I know someone like that, and it frustrates me every time I talk to him! I’d rather he just tell me he’s busy than stand there and pretend to listen to me! At the other end of the spectrum I’ve met a number of people who are “Christian famous” who will remain completely engaged and focused on you no matter what’s going on around them. Met Matt Chandler once, and it really stood out to me!

-Which one of those responses do you view God’s way of engaging with you?

READ/PRAY

  1. Silent Suffering (1-3)

-Who is Jeduthun? Psalm 62, 77 – 1 Chron. 25:1

-Remember, these are written as the songbook for God’s people, just like we might make notes to Tami, Richie, or Micah

-David begins by contemplating how to be a happy person, which is the aim of this book! “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.”

-How are we happy? By living the way God commands us to!

-He starts by pursuing holiness with his mouth, the way he speaks.

–James 1:26. 3:6-10. Isn’t it fascinating the way James talks about the tongue? He says that the tongue is the marker of whether or not someone is “religious” (said in a positive way here, truly following after God). He goes on “no one can tame the tongue” no one. Out of the same mouth praises God, and belittles humans who are created in God’s image.

-Reflection on Jesus’ words in Luke 6 – the mouth reveals what’s really in your heart. 

-Maybe you’ve had this experience where something happens to you that you know isn’t good or right, and you overreact. Anger, frustration, flippant, and even in the middle of your poor response you tell yourself that you’re overreacting, but you can’t stop! 

-Swindoll “Life is 10% happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Jesus talks about this reality earlier in Luke 6: If anyone hits you, turn the other cheek. If anyone takes your coat, give them your shirt. You can’t control what other people do, but you can control the way you respond, and that’s what God cares about. We’ll talk more about this idea later, but keep it in mind as we work our way through it.

-This is what David is meditating on in this Psalm. He doesn’t want to sin against God, but he’s seeing the wicked sinning and seemingly not suffering for it. He kept silent even when he wanted to speak good, so he got more and more frustrated at the lot of the world.

-Don’t expect the world to act like Christians, they’re not saved! But you will feel an inner turmoil about it, I know I do! It’s hard when it feels like Christians are being increasingly marginalized, when pastors are no longer trusted (read this week that trust in clergy fell to the lowest on record at 32%), when pastors fail at what feels like an alarming rate. Is there anyone actually following after God? What’s the point?

-We’re not the first people to feel that way! This is part of the reason the Bible remains relevant even 3,000 years after it was written – humans haven’t changed! We have the same desires, we still sin, and God is still God.

  • Short Shadows (4-6)

-Eventually, the tension builds up in David and he can’t help but talk, but just as last week he directed his focus in a specific direction, this week he does the same thing. 

-Look at the first word of this verse: Lord. Up to this point the pressure had been building in David, the frustration was increasing, but instead of blowing up at someone standing nearby, he aims his direction to the only one who can truly help him with his situation.

-Maybe you’ve been in a situation like this, where you were working your hardest to not respond in a mean way. Kids, maybe you’ve had that experience where your sibling just keeps pushing your buttons and they won’t stop! David is demonstrating for us here the right way to respond: go to God! Pray! Ask God to help you! God can handle your complaints, He knows all your emotions, and He’s promised to walk with you through every situation in life.

-But what David asks isn’t help in the present situation, it isn’t for God to destroy his enemies, this time he asks God to help David remember the end of his life.

-That’s a fascinating thought, isn’t it? All of us are mortal, we will someday die, and the older you get the shorter you realize your life is. Calvin turned 7 this past week, and I don’t feel like I’m old enough to have a 7-year-old! In my mind he’s still crawling in diapers! One of the things I’ve tried to do with my kids (imperfectly) is to not make them feel like they’re growing up too quickly, because of this reality. Calvin has lived 7 years, he should be a 7 year, regardless of how I feel, and if I just try to keep him stuck at where I feel like he should be both he and I miss out on the joy of our relationship today! This is what David’s expressing in theses verses. Our lives are nothing when you compare them to eternity. That’s why last week’s message is so important: endure in the midst of suffering and difficulty, because the end is coming! 

-There’s a sobering that comes when you reflect on your future, isn’t there? It shifts your focus, keeps today’s difficulties in perspective, and should bring joy to today’s experiences. I think this is where it’s so important to spend time with people older and younger than you. Older people help you remember that life is short (“just you wait, blink and they’ll be in high school”), younger people help you remember to take advantage of each day. Every day when my kids wake up they ask “what fun thing are we going to do today?” Every day is full of potential, if we are willing to be faithful with it!

-There’s a phrase that David uses here at the end of vs. 5 that is most often used in Ecclesiastes: vapor. It’s the Hebrew word hebel which has led to all sorts of debates about its’ meaning! It’s translated as breath, or emptiness, or vain, or futility. Some have translated it as fog.

-And David is comparing human life to that hebel, that vapor. Thankfully, winter hasn’t come yet, but during a cold winter day when you walk outside, what happens when you breathe out? You can see your breath! How long can you see your breath? A couple seconds? That’s how God sees human life, just like we see our breath.

-But this is only true of our earthly life. That’s what David means when he talks about being aware of our end! We need to factor eternity into our daily lives, and by keeping an eternal perspective, it will shift the way we engage our lives today. 

-There’s a missionary named CT Studd (1860-1930) served as a missionary in China, India, Africa who wrote a poem that has a refrain that is embedded in my mind: “only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

-Selah. Contemplate the idea that your life is a vapor.

-David then continues contemplating the how short his life is, describing life as a “mere shadow,” where people rush around to get stuff, but they don’t know where they’ll end up. Have you ever considered that nothing you have will last forever?

-We see this in history, I think. Think of how we’ve discovered the Egyptian Pharaohs buried: with all their stuff, and sometimes even some of their slaves, which his incredibly morbid. But they didn’t believe this! They thought they were able to take all their possessions into the afterlife! 

-I read a couple stories this week about some of these realities that helped me to understand some of what David’s saying. The first was a man who looked at the average life expectancy for a male in the US and calculated how many days he had left. Each day he would knock a number off to remind him to “count his days.” Similarly, my dad’s dad died of a heart attack at 62. My dad and his brothers calculated the exact day, and when each of them turned that age they send a text out to the thread to give thanks for their good health. How do you number your days?

-The second story was about a man who lost his wife in his late 60s, but by God’s grace was able to meet another woman who had lost her husband about the same time. This man worked hard, but he wasn’t wealthy by any means! The woman he married, however, first husband was VERY wealthy! So this man who never had much suddenly had access to this other man’s wealth: friends you can’t take anything with you, even money! Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.

  • Substance (7-13)

-Once again, David turns his attention to the Lord. He asks a question that’s true for all of us: What are we waiting for? 

-I think just as he’s been contemplating the realities of living in the world, here he’s continuing to ponder that idea. Another component of being human is waiting, isn’t it? You wait for food to be done, you wait in line at the grocery store, you wait at traffic lights, you wait for your kids to get ready, or you wait for your mom and dad to play with you! But then as you get older, you’re waiting for bigger things: you wait for your dream job, you wait for your dream car, you wait for the perfect house, you wait for a vacation, you wait for retirement. Yet each time you achieve what you were waiting for it changes, doesn’t it? That dream car doesn’t seem to be quite a dream when you have to take care of it, the dream job isn’t quite as dreamy as you had thought when you run into issues and conflict, and it’s not quite as fun or enjoyable as you thought it would be.

-What does David wait for? He says his hope is in the Lord, he’s hoping for God to be present to him. He’s asking God to be with him, to come alongside, to support him. If God is with him, it changes all the other waiting that we do on earth, doesn’t it? Suddenly all the other waiting starts to make sense because God is doing a work in us even as we wait. It shifts our perspective and mindset as we wait for the events on earth.

-But there’s a second component to this hope because David needs salvation from God. Another component to numbering our days is pursuing holiness instead of dabbling in our sin.

-We talked quite a bit about this in last week’s Psalm, but there are consequences to our sin, the question for us is what do we do with our sin? Do we continue to play with it assuming that it’s not that big of a deal, or do we confess our sins and bring them to the only person who has provided a way for our sin to be dealt with?

-When we keep our focus on eternity it begins to make our sins look really dumb. God doesn’t give us a list of rules as a punishment or as chains, God tells us how to live so that we can have life to the full! He wants us to live full, healthy lives in this world that He’s created, which means He knows best how we should live and desires that all of us can be in lasting relationship with Him.

-So friends, deal with your sin. Because your life is just a moment, keep short accounts. Because your life is just a vapor deal with your sin today.

-Selah. 

-The last place David goes is asking God to hear him because this world isn’t his home.

-I don’t know about you, but I love home (the place where your phone automatically connects to the Wi-Fi). I know where everything is (most of the time), I’ve got my earthly possessions there, I can grab food from the fridge whenever I want, it can become too easy at times to remember that this world isn’t actually my home. It can get too easy to get comfortable here and not count my days, not deal with my sin, not keep God as the focus of my life, which is why I need reminders like this Psalm. I need the reminder to keep an eternal perspective each day so that I don’t become complacent in my walk with God.

-As we wrap up, I want us to contemplate David’s direct requests to the Lord throughout this Psalm, there’s 3: (4) make me aware of my end, (7) what do I wait for, and (12) hear my prayer. 

-These 3 requests together are how we are able to keep eternity as the focus of our lives. The first is the reminder of our mortality. Because of sin, we will all die at some point. Because we will die, we should live differently today, which is what leads to the second request.

-We wait for the Lord! I think Paul gets at how we do this in Phil. 4:6-7. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can live a worry-free life! That’s a whole lot easier to say than to live. But look at the outcome: the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. Friends, lasting peace is possible, but only through Jesus, which gets us to the third one, and what Paul also mentions here:

-In everything, through prayer and petition, present your requests to God, or as David says “Hear my cry!” Bring everything to the Lord: your hopes, your sickness, your sin, your joys, He’s honestly the only one who’s patient enough to deal with it all! 

-Just as we saw last week with David’s reaction to being sick was to run to God, we see the same thing this week. We need to each day run to God because He cares for us, because He helps us to number our days, and because He’s the only one who can bring lasting peace to our lives. 

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by mikethestrand on August 11, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Life, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 11, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/08/11/psalm-39-sermon-manuscript/

Sermon Manuscript – Geneva Reflection

-Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on shoulders of giants.”

-I love studying history (almost majored in archaeology in college), and getting to walk in the places that have impacted me was one of the most impactful moments I’ve ever had. It’s a reminder that this isn’t all there is, we have ended up here for a purpose and there are reasons behind what we as the church do today. It is chronological snobbery to pretend that we have all the answers, that we are self-contained, that we are completely independent.

-Purpose of this trip: learn more about the historical developments of the pastor and the church, go for a LONG walk (113 miles), and grow closer to these other pastors. Additionally, 1 of the pastors has been a friend for a while, so we added some extra time on the front and back ends (with the support of our wives) to do some of our own exploration.

-Backwards church history tour: stopped in Dublin and explored the city. I’ve shared before the way Arthur Guinness used the proceeds from his beer to bring Sunday school to Dublin, did a ton for worker’s rights and care for his employees, used brewing of beer as a way to glorify God. Descendent today is Os Guinness. Lesson: part of the reason we need to build institutions and organizations is because they will outlast us – will our institution (church) be a force for good or bad in the world? We tend to think too immediately and need to do better to think generationally. 

-Flew to London: British Museum – they claimed the spoils of the world, so it’s only fair that they let the world come and see them. If you’re able, it’s free! The Rosetta Stone: opened the world to interpreting ancient languages. Contained an edict in 3 different languages. Statues from the Parthenon, statues that Paul would have walked by on his second missionary journey. My friend and I talked about when we get to heaven chatting with Paul about his perspective on the statues! But when he saw them, they were painted! And then we turned another corner and found this. Remnants from the Assyrian empire! Friends, this was a brutal, brutal period. Doors, reliefs on the doors depicted their victories in war. Killing children, impaling on stakes. From there we went to tour Westminster Abbey. They don’t make churches like that anymore! Operating since 1066. Unbelievably ornate. But what stood out to me was the mixing of politics and religion. Here is the coronation chair, for anointing the next ruler of the nation in this chapel. Right next to Westminster is Parliament, where the governmental decisions are made. But I think you also see it in the people that are buried there. Christendom has given way to “influence” in many minds of Westerners. How else could Hawking, an atheist, be buried in a church? Our last visit was to Metropolitan Tabernacle (proof I was there), and here’s the back of that beautiful façade. Protestant influence is so different from RCC or Anglican. It’s just a building! We can meet anywhere! What’s fascinating to me is there’s a theology behind that. On our hike if we came across a RCC we would peek in, and every time the doors were open, because for them there are sacred spaces that people may need. For Protestants the building is secondary, so it doesn’t need to be open for God’s people to meet. We’re in God’s presence whether we’re gathered or scattered. 

-Train to Oxford, one of the oldest universities in the world, and probably my favorite town that we visited. Both Lewis & Tolkien taught at Oxford (you knew I’d have a LOTR connection in here somewhere!) and we stopped by the pub their writers group (Inklings) would frequent, as well as walking the path they would often take together (Addison’s Walk), a walking path next to Magdalen College, where Lewis taught. While not as big or impressive as London, I enjoyed Oxford much more, and was reminded of the need to be connected to God’s natural creation. Walks like this are hard to find in the US, and I think contributes to the sense that we can exist apart from God. If we don’t see His rule in the rest of creation, why would we see His rule in our lives? I pulled up a Mere Christianity recording as we were walking this path and thanked God for Lewis’ influence in my life (some weird theology, but I’m still profoundly thankful for him).

-Train to Edinburgh: John Knox and Scottish Presbyterianism at St. Giles (1124). What I didn’t realize is this was also the birthplace of Harry Potter! Edinburgh was VERY different from any of the other places we went. They’re not sure what to do with their Christian heritage. Heard a tour group say the best thing to do to Knox is to stomp on his grave as you walk over. Where the other places still acknowledge their Christian influence, Edinburgh celebrated humanist philosophers, actually a number of philosophers who influenced America’s founding. It was also a very dark city, buildings not cleaned as well, foreboding architecture, it felt like a picture of a country where the Christian influence has been all but snuffed out. We attended a church of maybe 100 people downtown, a tiny percentage of the population, and when we exited we walked through a group of tourists taking pictures of the building. Are we ensuring our faith isn’t dying? Are we passing on our faith to our children, and our children’s children so that the church continues to flourish? 

-Fly to Geneva where we had an extra day before meeting up with everyone else and got an official tour from a native Genevan. The next day, we got a tour from a Calvin scholar, as well as a couple lectures from him. Calvin’s house, St. Pierre, Geneva from the tower, mosaic ruins from an early church. Reformation museum: The sermons of Luther from 1523, a Bible from 1562, Protestant propaganda where the Bible is heavier than all the works of the RCC, finally I was relieved to see that not even the great John Calvin could keep his students engaged all the time, here’s some doodles from the margins of his students’ notebooks! So if you need to doodle, feel free, you won’t hurt my feelings. One of the things that stood out to me about Geneva was the reality that in many ways it’s a post-Christian nation. There’s a Reformation wall, but it doesn’t talk about the theological distinctions of the Reformation, it talks about the political distinctions which led to Geneva being a democracy, and it made me wonder if what we’ve been trained in is political engagement but not Christian witness.

-Then we hiked the Tour du Mont Blanc (the tour of the white mountain) which passes through France, Italy, and Switzerland, covered 113 miles, about 10 miles a day. Each night someone would lead a discussion on an aspect of pastoral ministry (mine was counseling, which Cara laughed at when she heard), but each night was a new aspect of pastoral ministry that we discussed and shared and prayed about together. It was incredibly helpful to have men who are laboring together discuss these important things: prayer, administration, personal discipleship, physical health, delegation, worship, equipping the saints, evangelism, church discipline. Not all easy topics, but necessary. 

-Then, because 113 miles wasn’t enough, we ended flying to Rome (toured the Colosseum and Vatican and did MORE walking). This blew my mind! All the biblical or Christian events that have taken place here. Think of how impressive this city would have been before it was ruins! And Paul says it doesn’t matter. Here I am standing where the emperor would have stood looking down on his kingdom, thinking he’s a god. If you’ve watched the new trailer for Gladiator they’ve got a scene that shows this view in it. And I walked by the emperor’s tomb. He’s still there. But do you know who’s not in his tomb anymore? Jesus. Paul was taken to Rome, he saw this in all its’ glory and he says all of this is dung compared the riches of the glory of Jesus. None of this matters! 

-One of my favorite pieces I got to see was this arch, finished in AD 72. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

-To end on a lighter note: as we toured the Vatican we ended in St. Peter’s Square, which is probably what it would have been like to tour the Roman ruins when they were still up. But what stood out to me was the fact that it’s sponsored by Samsung!

1. John Calvin 

“History is theology’s laboratory, in which it can assess the ideas that it espouses or considers espousing” (Erickson, Christian Theology, 28).

-Initially dad wanted him to work in the church, then had a change of heart and wanted him to pursue law. He pursued that, but had a friend who become convinced of the Protestant ideas, which Calvin joined in. He had to flee the place where he was getting his education and began applying what he’d learned in law to theology. 

-Humanism: not the way we would think about it, going back to the original sources, original languages, church fathers.

-3 years later writes his first edition of the Institutes (only 250 pages) and plans to become an academician, serving in obscurity for the rest of his life, but his travel plans led him to Geneva. Calvin was a Frenchman, who ended up as a refugee. William Farel finds out Calvin is in town and sets out to convince him to remain in Geneva and serve as a pastor. Calvin refuses, so Farel calls down a curse on him if he continues on: Calvin caves in and spends the rest of his ministry (minus a couple years) serving as a pastor in Geneva.

-Sought to bring Reform to every part of life, using the standard of Scripture for everything. There wasn’t the same unity between RCC and government, nor the complete separation we have today: the church worked with the local government to deal with sin. I know we can hardly fathom that today, but this idea was revolutionary at the time.

-How did Calvin structure the church?

-Services everyday of the week, with everyone in the community expected to attend at least 1 service. But there were also churches all over: 3 in Geneva, as well as smaller churches in the surrounding communities. This required pastors to serve in! But the Reformation was still in its’ infancy stage, so he needed to train them, leading to him building a college for pastors (drawings).

-What shocked me was how similar Calvin viewed the pastoral office then to what we do today: primarily centered around the word, praying for the congregation, visiting the congregation. He changed the liturgy (service order) to better teach people the truths of the Bible, he created a catechism so people would know how to explain what the Bible teaches. But Calvin essentially reformed the pastoral office (with help/influence from Martin Bucer, then passed to Theodore Beza)

-What was fascinating to me was he created 4 offices: elders, deacons, pastors, and doctors (teachers) of the church. We’ve somewhat morphed that into separating the doctors from the church and placing them in the academy (Seminary), but the seminaries were meant to be the place where pastors are trained.

-Friends, God’s plan for all of human history is traced back much before our present day, much before Calvin’s day, God’s plan begins in eternity past. But now we’re in our era of human history – how are we going to preserve the faith that has been passed down to us? We have a job to do: we need to love the church, we need to help people take 1 step closer to Jesus in every area of life. God can use us just like he used Calvin or Luther, Lewis or Newton! 

2. Stretching

-There are all sorts of spiritual allusions to hiking, and we talked about many of them while our bodies felt like they were falling apart. From hoping that we could be like Christian in Pilgrims Progress to have our loads released, to just taking 1 step at a time, to the need for continual persevering. But a trip like this is absolutely exhausting! 20 lbs on your back doesn’t feel like a lot until you’re going up and down 8000’ a day!

-One of my friends asked on the trail: what adversity have you faced on the trail, and how has God met you in that adversity? 

-Answers were all over the place, my friend who asked that question had his rain jacket stolen from the place we had stayed the night before, I had a moment where I felt like my body was giving up and didn’t think I’d be able to make it. Another friend had a similar experience. But we’re all going to reach those times and moments in our lives where we are pushed absolutely beyond our comfort zones, where we feel like we won’t be able to go any further: how do you respond? Do you ask for help? Do you cry out to God? Do you throw a fit and demand things change? It’s amazing to me the mental spiraling you can do when you’re exhausted, not sleeping well, and being forced to walk 10 miles through mountains! I asked a couple guys to pray for me and got some much needed encouragement to persevere!

-The other key is to remember to receive and ask for help: we tend to try to do everything by ourselves. We’re independent people after all, aren’t we? We look up to the “self-made” person. What we often fail to realize is just how dependent we really are. 

-Our bodies, our vocations, the air we breathe. Even a trip like this was dependent on everyone putting training before the trip, being willing to carry their equipment on the trip, we relied on a Dr. who was able to guide us through any medical issues, we relied on the plans of a group to ensure we followed the right trails, and at times we relied on each other to share food and water! 

-There is something amazing about doing physical activity in creation. Ps. 121:1 “I life my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” 

-Impressive mountain, beautiful views, variety of people plants and animals. 6 countries visited, each with its unique culture, food, geography, and the Lord God made them all! It made me incredibly excited for all those things to be redeemed and renewed when Jesus returns and has the rulers of these places bring their riches into the new kingdom.

3. Fellowship

-Friends, life is hard, but one of the ways life becomes more manageable is by sharing life with others. Just as I couldn’t have done this hike alone, and would have definitely given up without others pushing me on, I can’t do my daily life alone and need others who can push me on to remain faithful.

-Not just that, but there were incredible conversations had on the trail. You know when you get together with likeminded people and can let all the fake fall off and allow conversations to get to a deeper level so much quicker? That’s what happened on the trip.

-DS said You guys have had years of time together that can’t be duplicated in any other setting. I made new friends on this trip that could be men that I serve alongside for the rest of my life! We’ve already got a text thread going continuing to share memories and thoughts (as well as weight gained or lost).

-I share that to encourage you: surround yourself with people who will push you toward holiness. Hold tightly to them and allow yourself to be open and honest with them, and I would hope and pray they can come from the church.

-camaraderie: Psalm 133:1 “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony!” There are some great EFCA Pastors in MN who I consider it a privilege to serve with! We are not the only church (praise God), we’re not even the only healthy church!

-Similar goals in ministry (contextualized), similar convictions, similar training, and a similar desire: to see Jesus glorified and His church built up. 

-I’ve shared before that it seems like God is doing something amazing in our area of the EFCA, one friend said he thinks we’re living in “the good old days” right now. I sure hope not! I hope this is just the beginning of those days as we see more people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus and see people strengthened to live more holy and faithful lives for the good of God and others.

-can’t survive the Christian life alone. If you’ve been trying to clean your life up or fight your sin by yourself you’ll never find victory. God has called us into a new family 1 Pet. 2:9 “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.” We are all together those things! We need each other, we rely on each other, and we can’t exist by ourselves, and the best part is we don’t! God has brought us into a global family called the church where God continues working today. So church, keep persevering today! Keep encouraging others, and keep serving God with joy!

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by mikethestrand on July 14, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, History, Life

Posted by mikethestrand on July 14, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/07/14/sermon-manuscript-geneva-reflection/

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