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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 38 – Sermon Manuscript

-People handle sickness differently. Kids seem to get sudden onset sickness, like running around playing like everything’s normal, then stop and projectile vomit. And then go straight back to running around. As you get older, the approach to sickness has to change because you don’t bounce back quite as quickly, and sometimes that’s a difficult lesson to learn! 

-During college, I remember learning this lesson through a difficult experience. I had perennial sinus infections (at least once a year, hence surgery last week), so my way of combatting the these infections was trying to load myself up with EmergenC, the little powder form of vitamin C, and I’d mix it with my Mountain Dew. I don’t do that anymore, but I still will sometimes take EmergenC (with water)

-In this week’s text, we see David’s response to sickness.

READ/PRAY

  1. A Plea and a Prayer (Psalm 38)

-Helpful summary of this Psalm: “The Psalm opens with a prayer (1); continues in a long complaint (2-8); pauses to dart an eye to heaven (9); proceeds with a second tale of sorrow (10-14); interjects another word of hopeful address to God (15); a third time pours out a flood of griefs (16-20); and then closes as it opened, with renewed petitioning (21-22).” Spurgeon

-I’m going to spend our time in this Psalm looking at what David asks of God. The other parts are a continuation of how terribly David feels, and I want us to focus more on David’s prayers, and then look at some different responses to sickness.

-First thing to note is the first word David uses. When sickness comes, where do you look? 

-The impulse for believers should be to look to God! Acknowledge His oversight, His control, His plans.

-Do you trust in God’s direction in every area of your life? David doesn’t try to exonerate himself, doesn’t make excuses, but the consequences are heavy.

-Chatting with Micah this week about 3 different kinds of suffering: general fall, righteous suffering, being dumb. 

-God created the world good, without sickness or dying, everything working perfectly as God intended. But with the Fall, disobeying God’s law, comes death, destruction, chaos, and pain. Because of sin entering into the world, suddenly everything becomes difficult because of what scientists call “entropy” that things always fall into chaos and disorder, that’s a result of the Fall, it means life is going to be hard, it means your car will break down, your body won’t recover as fast as it did when you were a kid. 

-There’s also suffering that comes from being righteous and facing the influence of the devil, where Jesus tells us in this world we will have suffering and difficulty. 1 Peter says we should rejoice when we suffer for the sake of being righteous (in good standing with God). A subset of this is so that we can encourage others, 2 Cor. 1:4 “He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” Don’t miss that sometimes your suffering isn’t just for you! We need to remember that God sends us to others as well.

-Finally, sometimes suffering comes as a consequence to your own dumb decisions. Think of David who lost a son because of his adultery and murder, or Moses who missed out on the promised land because of his anger, or Peter whose impulsiveness during Jesus’ trial meant he betrayed his Savior. Your sin will find you out, either in this life, or the next.

-In this case, David is dealing with the consequences of his sin: look at the end of vs. 3 into 4.

-We live in a world that doesn’t have any space or understanding of the spiritual realities around us all the time. We look for purely naturalistic explanations for everything. We read passages in Scripture about demonic influence and use terms like epilepsy to describe it. When we talk about sickness, we often talk about germs and bacteria. And while that is right and true what we don’t often talk about is sickness being the consequence of spiritual decisions.

-As I say that, I want to be careful in the way we talk about this. Not all sickness is a consequence of a sinful decision, but I worry that we have gone SO far to the extreme that we have no room in our minds for sickness as a consequence of spiritual decisions we’ve made. Not health/prosperity gospel, but acknowledging the complex realities of being human where we’re impacted by biology AND theology! We have become so focused on the material world (taste, touch, see, smell) that I worry we too quickly neglect the spiritual world, the things that have eternal value. We’ll talk about that more in a bit, but don’t forget that in the meantime! 

-What does David ask God? To not be punished in anger. 

-Spurgeon: “I must be rebuked, for I am an erring child and You a careful Father, but do not throw too much anger into the tones of Your voice; deal gently although I have sinned grievously. The anger of others I can bear, but not Yours.” When we sin, there are consequences. David admits that, recognizes that reality, but he still asks God to be merciful and gracious to him.

–Heb. 10:31 “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Terrifying, living. God is completely unique among all the gods, the only one who’s alive, therefore He’s the only God who can punish sins committed against Him.

-Next: 9 Every desire is known to God. This is why God’s judgments are right and true, He can see down to every motive and desire of every human heart. 

-So why hide? If God knows everything we can’t hide from Him, so don’t! Confess yours sins to God, it’s not like it’s a surprise, and it’s not like He’s going to stop loving you because of it!

-Then 15 in the midst of recognizing the implications of his sinful choices where does David put his hope? In God. Friends, it’s far better to trust yourself to God’s judgment than the judgment of the world.

-Sin looks so enticing until you realize the implications of your sins. “If you understand what holiness is, you come to see that real happiness is on the far side of holiness, not the near side. Holiness gives us new desires and brings old desires into line with one another.” Keller

-Friends: sin always and only leads to death, either in this life or the next. We have to decide if we’re going to die to the sin in ourselves or die to Christ, but we will all face a death of some sort.

-And sometimes, but not always, the implications of our sin will be felt and experienced here and now, as David does. But I can guarantee even if you don’t see or feel like you’re facing any problems because of your sin here, you will face eternal realities due to not living according to God’s commands. 

-Last request 21-22 even though David is facing consequences from God, he realizes the only hope he has for salvation is by running to God. Being saved can’t come from anything or anyone else, even though we often act like it can.

-Why do you think food and drink are so enticing? Because we act like they can save us! Why are drugs so addicting? Because we act like they can solve our problems. Why do people cheat to get more money? Because we act like money can fix our deepest longings.

-Friends, David serves as a model here for how we should handle sickness and disease in our lives: run to God, He’s the only one who can truly save you!

-One of the people on my big hiking trip is an ER Dr, and he made the comment one night that we need to change the way we pray for medical issues. We often pray that God would guide the surgeon’s hand, as if the surgeon is the savior, when what we should be asking is God to intervene DESPITE the accident prone human working on us! (No offense to anyone who’s Dr) but doesn’t that put a different perspective on it? Ultimately the only hope we have for salvation here and in eternity is by running to God, putting our hope anywhere else is guaranteed to let us down.

-This Psalm is a glimpse of the physical implications of our sin, but there’s another important place in the Bible that shows not all sin is because of a specific sin, so I want to look at John 9.

  • Whose Sin? (John 9)

-Ultimately all sickness is traced back to the Fall, but what about individual sickness? There are accounts in the OT of physical sickness being traced to a specific sin (Miriam, Moses’ sister), but does that happen today, when we’re under a new covenant that came after Jesus’ resurrection? Yes! This story looks at the way we view sickness, and how Jesus views sickness.

-John’s primary point in this whole book is to demonstrate that Jesus is the promised Messiah, which includes healing people. He does this by connecting Jesus’ teaching to His healings. Jesus’ message isn’t just a proposition or intellectual argument, it’s supposed to be connected to physical wholeness and flourishing as a human.

-Cara and I were talking about this a few weeks ago – Jesus desire is for us to be truly human, sin causes us to become sub-human, or less than human. So Christianity is the process of becoming what God truly intended us to be: fully human. Jesus was the only true human to ever live!

-Think about that! Part of the implication of that is there was no division in Jesus. He is the only person who didn’t talk better than He walked! He both talked the talk and walked the walk, and He’s called us to do the same, which is the process of slowly, day by day becoming more human.

-The reason I want to take a look at this passage is because it shows the way we tend to respond to suffering, which has been a problem for a really long time. His disciples see a blind man and ask who’s responsible for this man’s problem?

-I don’t know about you, but one thing I’ve discovered is true of me is when I’m facing something difficult, I tend to ask God “Why me!? What did I do to deserve this!?” But I’m very slow to give thanks to God when things are going well. Maybe you’re the same way. Maybe you forget all the good gifts God’s given you! The fact that you’re here today is a gift that we shouldn’t neglect or take for granted. That’s our response, but look at how Jesus answers that question:

-SO THAT God’s Work might be displayed. Friends, our view of sickness and suffering is often way too short-sighted. Part of the reason we get so off base when we suffer is because we are so focused on the immediate feelings we have, but feelings come and go based on a moment. I read a fascinating article this past week that looked at being spiritually sick. Often it’s easy to tell when your physically sick (something’s not working as it should), but how do we tell when we’re spiritually sick? Have you ever been spiritually sick? See, Jesus tells us that sickness is meant to serve as different purpose than we often admit, and even sickness and suffering are meant to be tools to bring true healing in our lives, to make us more like Jesus, to make us more human.

-There’s a beautiful picture of this in The Chosen. A couple caveats, and then the story. This is extra-biblical, we need to use our imagination to fill in some of the details of these stories, just like the writers of this show are doing. Doesn’t contradict Scripture, but isn’t explicit in the text. Same reason we get caught up in stories, they help shape our imagination in things are good, true, and beautiful. Also, don’t pray to Johnathan Roumie who plays Jesus in this show, he’s just an actor! Story: Jesus has just commissioned his disciples to go out 2 by 2 to start preaching the gospel and heal people, just like Jesus had done. One of the disciples (little James) has a limp (actor has scoliosis). Jesus has healed a number of people of all sorts of maladies, but not one of the 12 disciples, and he was just tasked with healing others. It’s a few minutes long, but I think it’s worth watching.

-Do you see the kindness of Jesus here? He doesn’t promise an easy life, He doesn’t promise healing, but He promises Himself. That doesn’t mean life will always make sense here, but it will make sense if we have a long-term perspective instead of worrying about the immediate feelings. 

-Friends, even sickness and debilitating disease is only for a moment compared to the glory of eternity that is coming. Can we be faithful and endure suffering now for the glory that’s coming in the future, or do we expect God to fix all our momentary issues now?

-The final piece that I think we need to consider on this topic is God as our Father. Fathers are given a unique role in the family to represent and image God to the rest of the family. We know that no earthly father will do that perfectly, but they’re supposed to give us a little picture of what God does in all our lives.

  • Loving Discipline (Hebrews 12:7-11)

-We need to talk briefly about the role of parents here. Parents are meant to shepherd the children God gives them. This means training them morality, providing for them, and at times disciplining them as a necessary consequence to disobedience. 

-It’s not fun or easy to discipline, but it is necessary. I once heard a comedian say that he was spanked as a child, and everyone who wasn’t is just entitled today. Every parent has to discipline somewhere. For example, you’re not going to let your kid play by the stove without supervision (up to a point), or you’re not going to let your kids play in the street without first teaching them that cars would win in any battle they had with one! 

-Yet that discipline (though painful and difficult in the moment) leads to better outcomes because the children learn how to pursue the right things. God does the same thing with us. Sometimes He allows suffering to come into our lives (righteous suffering) so that we can be made more like Jesus, that is so that we can become more truly human. The question is can you be faithful in enduring that suffering, or will you just give up?

-One of my favorite quotes I’ve ever read: “Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened once. And he volunteered.” R.C. Sproul

-Friends, any suffering we face is a tiny sliver of the suffering Jesus faced when he bore the penalty for our sins. He did that both to provide salvation for us, and to demonstrate to us how we can endure in the midst of our suffering, so for anyone who is sick today, either physically or spiritually: run to the Lord! Salvation, true eternal healing is found in Him, and Him alone. 

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by mikethestrand on August 4, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on August 4, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/08/04/psalm-38-sermon-manuscript/

Sermon Manuscript – Psalm 36

-One of the comments that most stood out to me from my galivanting across Europe was standing near where John Knox is buried in Edinburgh. All these walking tours going by, overhearing the way his influence was described: demeaning to women (believing that the office of Elder is reserved for men), and working to expand Christianity in Scotland.

-Christianity is often viewed as opposed to: flourishing, happiness, fun. I learned in Geneva one of the jokes for kids is “Post Lux Tenebrae” after the light darkness. I even thought this growing up! That to be a Christian was the hardest thing in the world, that it meant no fun, no enjoyment, and came with only following incredibly difficult rules. Don’t want this movie, don’t listen to this music. It felt like a chore! I felt the same way that tour guide in Edinburgh did: we need to move on from the shackles of Christianity. But what if that thinking is wrong?

–John 10:10 “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

-“There is a general assumption prevalent in the world that it is extremely difficult to be a Christian. But this is as far from the truth as the east is from the west. The easiest thing in the world is to be a Christian. What is hard is to be a sinner. Being a Christian is what we were created for. The structure of this world was created by God so we can live in it easily and happily as his children.” (Peterson, 115)

-We can caveat this a bit – Christianity isn’t necessarily easy, it involves dying to yourself which apart from the Spirit is impossible! But the sentiment is true: God created this world for His people, which means being a Christian begins the renewal process in your life to become what God has intended you to be all along in the world that He created you to flourish in.

-So why doesn’t it always feel that way? Let’s read this Psalm and find out

READ/PRAY

  1. The Motivations of the Wicked (1-4)

-To understand this Psalm properly, we need to go to the very beginning of the book Ps. 1:1 “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked.” 

-Wisdom literature, how to live in the world God has created. Not cute little sayings with no meaning, or even things that are always true, but give general guidelines for living in obedience to God. That’s true wisdom: Prov. 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” True wisdom is found only in God. 

-Does this mean that only Christians can be wise? Yes and no. Our way of measuring needs to change. Many of the big existential questions don’t often get discussed anymore: why are we here? What is the purpose of our existence? Listened to a podcast this week about 1 Kings 10 when the Queen of Sheba visit Solomon to interrogate him. The speakers contended that what Solomon provided for her was an explanation of God and the world that provided a solution to all her existential doubt!

-But how do we process what looks like those who are evil prospering? If the only way to true wisdom is through God, why do so many atheists seem to have all the recognition and acclaim? Doesn’t God care about those who follow Him? These have been questions throughout history, things David questioned too!

-He begins by stating the purpose of this Psalm: reflections on the transgression of the wicked. And remember where true wisdom comes from: fear of the Lord. But the wicked person doesn’t even dread God. 

–Heb. 10:31 “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” How frequently do you realize that God can’t be messed with? How often do you recognize that God is holy and separate from us, and that He can’t tolerate one little speck of sin?

-Look how David goes on to describe this: flattering opinion of self. Can’t assess himself properly, therefore he can’t see and fight against his sin. Using the wrong measurements of holiness and sin. We can’t compare ourselves to each other, there’s always someone worse. And have you noticed that people only tend to compare themselves to someone they think is worse, not someone they think is better? 

-I was talking to a friend on my trip recently about his sister who has had a few failed marriages (husbands cheated on her) and has become convinced that there’s no good guys out there anymore. When my friend asks about all the pastors he knows he’s told “you and your friends don’t count!” Don’t we often do the same thing? We interpret all the events around us from our own perspective.

-David moves from internal realities about the wicked to the external consequences of their living.

-The way they talk is malicious and deceptive. Jesus in Luke 6:45 “his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.” Do you want to see what’s in someone’s heart? Listen to how they talk. If someone complains about others all the time I can guarantee when you’re not around they’re complaining about you! Words matter greatly, they can build someone up or tear someone down.

-The wicked have also stopped all pursuit of wisdom which means they no longer do good. Who defines what good is? God! Rooted in God’s character. If they have no fear of God it means they also won’t be demonstrating goodness.

-Even on his bed: even times of rest are spent pursuing evil. Rest is a good gift from God, a reminder that we aren’t God, but even those moments can be used for evil!

-A path that is not good: I’m working on framing out my basement, and it’s incredible tricky because no house is built perfectly plumb! And when you’re trying to build straight walls it can quickly become a nightmare! When you’re building long walls, being just a degree off quickly becomes massively out of line! Same with our lives: 1 degree of unholy living doesn’t look like much at the beginning, but over the course of a lifetime it becomes a chasm separating you from what is good, right, and true.

-The reality of all these descriptions is they can be true of us! 

-Some debate about whether David is referring to the wickedness in his own heart, or if he’s contemplating in his heart the way of the wicked. One person translated the first verse “An oracle of the transgression of the wicked in the midst of my heart.”

-Our culture today tells us to look inside our heart to find our meaning and purpose to life, but the Bible tells us that our hearts are desperately wicked, and apart from God intervening in our lives we would continue in the path of wickedness! Only because of His grace and pursuit of us can this next section be true of us:

  • The Motivations of the Wise (5-9)

-Notice that David had only been talking about the way wickedness thinks and acts, and in order to remedy that he has to lift his eyes to a different direction. I was reflecting on this idea while touring the Roman Forum. This was the place where the emperor would stand and look down on his kingdom. But if he’s only looking down it’s going to be hard for him to look up and understand himself the way God understands him. And how prone are we to do the same thing? That’s why David begins by directing his gaze up toward the Lord.

-Acknowledging the Lord is the most important decision you can ever make! All of us begin as wicked, and only because of God’s saving work is there hope for renewal and reconciliation with God. I love the way Eph. 2 summarizes this idea as us being dead, BUT GOD who is rich in mercy has made us alive in Christ. This turn from death to life, from wicked pursuits to wisdom is the most significant change any of us can make. Look up to the Lord and cry out to Him, and everything else in your life will change and start to make sense. See, even suffering and difficulty can make sense when you have the Lord at the center of your life. This is why Christianity alone can actually lead to a flourishing life! 

-David is going to give us 5 aspects that are true about God, and then 5 blessings that come from walking with God. First, the things about God:

1- Faithful love: Hebrew word chesed covenant faithfulness, never ending love. It’s not just love, it’s faithful love. Love that means no matter what happens it will not stop. We can hardly start to get our minds around this kind of love because we have endings to everything we do. But God doesn’t. God is eternal, and so is His love. His love is so much that it goes to the heavens!

-“Guess How Much I Love You” a little brown rabbit is trying to communicate to his dad how much he loves him. Spreads his arms, dad does. Jumps high, which his dad jumps higher. Ends by saying he loves his dad to the moon, then falls asleep and his dad says I love you to the moon and back. That’s our love compared to God’s love. Our love will fall short, but His won’t.

2- Faithfulness: has the idea of being steadfast, immovable, unchanging. 2 Tim. 2:13 “if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” This one reaches all the way to the clouds. 

-Hiking trip: clouds on top of clouds. We can’t reach them, we just see them.

3- Righteousness: in right standing. This, too, is only possible because of who God is. And God’s righteousness is like the highest mountain. Solid, unmoving. If you’ve ever been to CO you’ve seen this! The mountains are breathtaking and nothing can stand against them. That’s like God’s righteousness: nothing can fight against it.

4- Judgments: connects to the deepest sea in that God is able to see to plumb the depths of everyone’s inner most desires. God’s judgments are perfect because He knows every detail, so we can trust the outcomes He determines. Even in His judgments He is perfectly right.

5- Preservation: other translations have care or save people and animals. God wants to see His entire creation saved and redeemed. That’s why He sent His Son to the world. He hates wickedness, He hates sin, He hates the bondage that creation was subjected to, and His intent is to see all of creation serving Him once again.

-Do you see that God even cares about the animals? The wicked person won’t be saved because he’s living outside of God’s plan, but not the animals!

David then transitions to 5 blessings that come from walking with God.

1- Refuge: During my hiking trip we stayed at places along the hiking trail called refuges. They’re definitely not a 5-star hotel (most of them probably wouldn’t be considered 1-star hotels!) but after hiking 10 miles in rain and snow and 45 mph headwinds, there’s something incredibly comforting about seeing shelter, regardless of how many stars they have. You know it means rest, warmth, and food. And that’s what God provides to those who trust in Him. It means that when the storms of life come He will take care of you. The picture David’s painting here is like a mother hen who tucks all her chicks under her wings to protect them. 

2- Flourishing: Following God means satisfaction to all the deepest longings of your heart. It means God’s provision for everything you need to grow like Him. Nothing else can ever fully satisfy you. Food, drink, sex are all good gifts from God, but they pale in comparison to having Jesus! Once again, we see that the only way to get true and lasting provision is from God. And it’s not just eternal, it’s abundant! More than enough!

3- Joy: what are these refreshing streams? God Himself! Ps. 16:11 – “You reveal the path of life to me, in your presence is abundant joy.” Joy and flourishing are 2 implications of being found in Christ. We flourish only when we are in Him, which means we can have joy in our lives despite the circumstances around us. 

-Think of the Apostle Paul who claimed to learn the secret to being content. In seasons of plenty and seasons of want, he still claims that because God is in him all his circumstances can change and he’ll still have a life of flourishing!

4- Life: wellspring, the starting point of life is found only in God. But this also connects to

5- Light: God illumines everything else in creation. I love the example CS Lewis shares from a moment in a little shed. He was able to see the beam of sunlight shining in, and it made him realize that God is like the sun. We don’t stare into the sun, but the sun illuminates everything else so we can see it. Because God is light, he allows us to see and understand the rest of His creation as He intends us to understand it. This is what Eugene Peterson was saying in the quote I shared at the beginning. None of the rest of creation can make sense until you understand the Creator behind it all.

-And this is where we see this Psalm pointing us directly to Jesus. Think of how the Gospel of John begins. See how light and life are connected to Jesus? And how all creation comes about by Him? The only way to have a life filled with abundance and joy is by being found in Jesus. Only when you’re in Jesus can you then go on to pray the way David prays next:

  • A Prayer for Wisdom (10-12)

-David’s first request is asking God to spread his faithful, covenant love over those who follow Him. Just as he previously said that people take refuge in the shadow of his wings, here he’s asking God to spread his wings of protection over His people.

-Similarly, His righteousness is spread over the upright in heart.

-Connects to God’s judgments going down into the deepest parts of a person. God knows if someone is upright in heart and knows how to faithfully judge them.

-David’s big request is to be saved from the wicked. He doesn’t want to be in their company or be cast away from the places God brings.

-If we’re honest, I think we all need this reminder regularly in our lives. We are tempted to be selfish, we are tempted to neglect God, we are tempted to give in to our sinful impulses. But they can never lead to life, much less a flourishing life! God has given us exactly what we need for growth in Christ-likeness: his Word, His Spirit, and His people the church. This is why God has built into the created order these rhythms of gathering with His people each week. Our hearts slowly become cold toward the things of the Lord, we start to question His goodness and His love and care in our lives, but then we have the Lord’s Day each week to remember who God is and remind each other that God is transforming us.

-Friends, remember that it’s easy to be a Christian. Don’t give into the ways of wicked, walk in the ways of wisdom and find life to the full. Once we see that God’s ways are the best way and get a taste of the goodness that comes from following Him, we’ll never be satisfied with settling for our sins. Take these last 3 verses and pray them for yourself each day this week, keep your heart warmed toward the things of the Lord so that you can find life and life to the full in Jesus.

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by mikethestrand on July 21, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on July 21, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/07/21/sermon-manuscript-psalm-36/

Psalm 32 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you ever feel like someone’s always watching you? Security cameras everywhere (even in our building!), self-checkout you can watch them recording you!

-It would take 17 hours to read the terms and conditions for the top 13 apps in the UK

-I figure at this point that Google knows more about me than I do. And if that’s true of Google, how much more is it true of God? He created us, He knows us far more intimately than even Google does! So why do we so often pretend like we can keep things hidden from Him? 

-We’re going to talk to today about something that affects us all, something that has been true of almost every human being who has ever lived (1 exception, which we’ll get to), that is we are all sinners. EDoT: “Sin is not only an act of wrongdoing but also a state of alienation from God.” Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Anyone left out of that? Nope!

-But we don’t talk about it much today, and if we do we’ve somewhat sanitized this idea. We talk about messing up, a mistake, it was my bad, but we don’t often think about it how bad it is: cosmic treason against the Holy Creator God. I don’t say that lightly or carelessly, but because we have committed treason, all of us, we are worthy of eternal separation from God. 

-We talk a LOT today about God’s love, about His forgiveness, His mercy, and those are all right and good, but the only reason they’re good is because of just how terrible sin is, and I don’t think we give much thought to that anymore. We may have thought about it when we read ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’ in high school, or if we hear about someone REALLY messing up, but we don’t think about ourselves as sinners very often.

-Today’s passage gives us the reality that we’re all sinners, but it also tells us how to deal with that sin so it no longer affects us.

READ/PRAY

  1. Joyful Forgiveness (0-2)

-David wrote this, has some similar ideas to another Psalm he wrote – 51, after his sin with Bathsheba was uncovered. 

-Maskil – no one knows what that means, root word has to do with teaching or instruction, but that title is on a number of Psalms that don’t fit that.

-Joyful: happy, blessed. Begins the exact same way as the very first Psalm. Our minds should immediately jump back to that first Psalm, which gives us the theme of the whole book. If you want to be truly happy (not fleeting, like graduation which the gifts eventually break, or wedding day which is just 1 day, or getting a new car which eventually becomes an old car), it only comes through being obedient to God, by being a God-like person, responding as God would respond if He were you. Heavy job!

-Jesus talked about this too! One of his most famous sermons Matt. 5. Same word used here! Happy are the…

-Instead of rooting this joy/happiness in what we would think of blessing, David goes to sin. Does that feel like a sharp left turn to you? Maybe this should tell us something about the way we think about our sin! Instead of being flippant or careless to it (which has been an issue since at least the 1st cent.) Where Paul had to warn someone not to continue in sin to get more grace because that’s not the way it works! If we want blessing it comes by continuing to fight against the sin that we have within us.

-David uses 3 words to describe sin here, each one having a slightly different connotation and significance to them:

-Transgression – this gets to the idea of rebellion. Think of what we saw in Rev. 12 of Satan stirring a great rebellion against God. He tried to become god and let an entire revolt against him, but lost. If we don’t trust in Jesus we are a part of the rebellion. I think this is a part that is often missed today. We don’t start from a place of goodness, or even a place of neutrality when we look at God’s standard. All of us start in the same place: condemned as sinners.  I’ve had 5 kids now – it’s amazing how much we don’t need to teach them to be sinners! And it’s also amazing how much work it is to shape them to become upright people (I’d say it’s impossible until they’re saved!). 

         -This means that because we sin, God sees us in outright rebellion against Him. That’s why I’ll saw there’s only 2 options in your life! And we often only compare ourselves to other sinners, not to a completely perfect God, who is the standard we’re supposed to compare ourselves to. When we compare ourselves to perfect, who would dare to say they’re good enough? Think of one of the old proverbial phrases “to err is human” Being human means you will err, you will sin, you will transgress.

         -Think of it like this: could you get pulled over for going 1 mph over the speed limit? Technically, yes! That is breaking the law as it’s supposed to be the LIMIT for driving in that area, but we all know we’re not going to get pulled over. We tend to view God’s law the same way: technically it’s breaking the law, but God’s going to give grace to me, when in reality we’re just demonstrating that we’re more willing to rebel against Him than we would care to admit. 

-Sin – this one is picked up by a Greek word that means “missing the mark.” Often used in connection to archery. Think of your favorite local retail store: anyone know what store this is? Target. If you were aiming at the bullseye and you hit here, would that be successful?

         -Once again, so often we’re using the wrong standard of measurement when we think about sin. If we miss the mark, well that’s just human. Exactly! There’s an eternal chasm that separates the perfection God calls us to and the way we actually live. We all constantly and repeatedly miss the mark, no matter how hard we try we can’t ever reach it.

         -One of the best days of my life growing up was when I finally reached a mark. As I’ve shared, I love basketball, I’ve been playing basketball as long as I can remember, and there’s different goals you have as you grow. When I was in 7th grade I remember finally being able to touch the net. From there it’s grabbing the net and pulling yourself up, and then the backboard, and finally the rim. Rim is 10’, do you think it would be possible to ever touch it if it were 20’? Anthony Edwards can jump ridiculously high, but I don’t think even he could touch that net! What if it were in space? That’s where you start to get how far off the mark we are compared to God’s perfect standard. There’s literally no way for you to reach it.

-Iniquity – corrupted or twisted. This gets to the very motivation for us. Not only do we sin, but we still want to do sin! Think of what Paul says in Rom. 7“For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.” We can’t help ourselves! We’re literally at war within ourselves for anyone who is in Christ. We fight against the sin within us, striving and straining against the sin, at least we’re supposed to be.

         -There’s a word that’s not used much anymore, but signifies what we’re supposed to be doing: mortifying sin, that is killing it. John Owen “be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” (The Mortification of Sin). Friends, it’s much easier to just ignore it, or pretend sin isn’t an issue, but until Christ returns we’re going to continue needing to fight against sin, and until we actually start fighting and pushing back against sin, we won’t be blessed or happy. Remember, to err is human, but the quote goes on: to forgive divine. How does forgiveness come in?

-This is where we see 3 words that show us how God’s grace comes against even our sin, 1 for each of the ways we sin, did you see them as we were reading?

-Forgiven – pardoned from holding you accountable for your rebellion. Have you ever considered the power of forgiveness? Think of Les Miserables: Jean Vaujaun is forgiven for stealing silver and it literally changes the course of his life, that’s meant to be a picture of the what forgiveness does to us.

-Covered – when you miss the mark, God’s mark is counted instead of yours. Gets to the idea of the Passover (we’ve seen in Revelation the need to keep the Exodos story at the front of our minds). Anyone remember whiteout?

-Does not charge – take the biggest loan you’ve ever had (house, car, college) and imagine logging into your account and seeing the balance is $0, and you didn’t pay it. And all of this is rooted in who God is (grow in your theology!)

-Do you see what David’s saying here? The way to be happy is have all your sins dealt with once and for all, and that’s only possible because of who God is. He’s actually picking up on an idea from the Exodus:

-Some commentators believe David was reflecting on this passage because he uses the same language: Ex. 34 – forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, same words! And look at how this passage describes God. Slow to anger, abounding in hesed. Compare His judgment to His love and forgiveness. The God of the OT isn’t all judgment and wrath!

-Paul quotes these verses in Rom. 4 to make the point that forgiveness from God is only possible if you have faith in Him, which begins an argument 2 chapters earlier where we see that God’s hesed is meant to lead to repentance. If we repent, we will be happy/blessed people, but what happens if we don’t? David goes on to list exactly what happens.

  • Sinful Desolation (3-5)

-Unlike someone who’s happy, because their sins are covered is someone who refuses to acknowledge that they’ve sinned. David could think on a time like that, and it literally affected his body!

-If you’ve ever had secret sin, have you ever felt this way? Like it physically was eating you up from the inside, and if people only knew what was actually going on inside they’d reject you? Remember: God knows everything, including what you think. You can’t hide from him, but many people do try to hide. What’s scary is if you become numb to sin and don’t have a reaction! That’s when you need to start worrying.

-Selah: I want you to take some time now to reflect and ask the Lord to reveal any sins that you need to confess.

-After having his body waste away from trying to hide, David confesses, and God forgives. John picks up this same idea in 1 John. We see this tension between still being sinners, but being able to be cleansed from our sins, and all it takes is confession. Doesn’t that seem too easy? On the one hand, I worry that we don’t take our sin seriously enough, but at the same time I also worry that we sometimes don’t confess because we feel like we need to pay some kind of penance or earn God’s forgiveness. This is why the message of the gospel is (or should be) so scandalous! It’s not based on what you or I have done, it’s based on what Jesus has done.

-I realize we just had one, but there’s another Selah in here for a reason! So take some time and think about the sins the Lord may have just brough to mind and confess them.

  • The Response of the Forgiven (6-11)

-Therefore: building on everything else said so far. Since forgiveness is possible, what should the response be?

-Instead of bottling it up and trying to hide, pray IMMEDIATELY to God and ask for forgiveness! When this happens, you suddenly go from being in rebellion against God to being able to withstand anything that comes your way. See: great floodwaters won’t hurt them (even a flood like Noah faced). God becomes our safe place. I onetime heard a story about the way we should think of God in relation to our sin, when a little kid gets into trouble is their instinct “Oh no, dad’s gonna kill me!” or “Oh no, I need to go find my dad!” Friends, because of what Jesus has done for us, our response should be the second one. When we sin, we run to God because His grace and mercy are enough for all our sins.

–Selah

-Here we see what this could be viewed as instruction, we end with an exhortation from David. He contrasts following and being obedient to God with bring like a horse or mule who can’t do the right thing. Very similar to how Paul describes unbelievers in Rom. 1 as suppressing the truth and refusing the acknowledge the Creator God who rules over them.

-He goes on to say that many pains come to the wicked, but whoever trusts the Lord will be surrounded by faithful love.

-We don’t always see that around us. Doesn’t it often seem like the wicked are the ones who are doing well? That the one who cuts the most corners gets ahead, the one who cheats gets the raises and accolades, and Christians are increasingly marginalized? Psalm 73 talks about that exact idea! Asaph is complaining about how the wicked always prosper and do well while he’s wasting away, but then he gathers with God’s people and is reminded what’s truly true. Friends, God will bring about perfect and eternal judgment and justice someday, and when that day comes you can either have many pains, or faithful love: which one will you have?

-The last verse is a reminder for us to praise God for His forgiveness that is given to the 1000th generation! We can choose today to be forgiven, to be healed, to have our sin covered over, and to be finally and fully happy and blessed.

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by mikethestrand on June 16, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 16, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/16/psalm-32-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 31 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever had one of those experiences where your response to a situation doesn’t match what’s happening? I remember most acutely feeling that during college. You leave for a year, then come back home and suddenly things at home feel weird. Siblings bother you in new ways, parents rules are overly restrictive all of a sudden, your best friends are acting weird (graduates, just wait a year, and I promise I won’t say I told you).

-As we grow as Christians, there will be times and seasons where our response doesn’t match the situation at hand. What do we do when that’s true? How do we snap out of it, and what would God have us do in the midst of those situations?

-I remember hearing someone onetime say the problem with people is they listen to themselves instead of preaching to themselves. If we feel discouraged doesn’t your inner voice make it worse? Or if you’re sad doesn’t your inner voice make you more sad? Or if you’re feeling guilty doesn’t your inner voice heap on even more guilt? Today’s text will demonstrate exactly what it means for us to take every thought captive for Christ – and it doesn’t come by faking it til you make it, or by reciting a verse out of context (God causes all things to work for good), but by being real with God.

READ/PRAY

-Housekeeping notes:

-Book of Psalms vs individual Psalm (please don’t get a tattoo PsalmS)

-Psalms were the songbook of God’s people throughout history, the songbook of Jesus, and gives words to the gamut of human emotion and experience. Luther called it a “mini Bible,” because it traces the whole storyline of Scripture, and points to realities of the incarnation of God’s Son. Athanasius “Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you . . . learn the way to remedy your ill.” 

-These are used to help you know how to talk to God during every season of your life. I use that term season intentionally. I’ve found it helpful for myself to think of life in terms of seasons. Read The Resilient Life in seminary on this

-Every ministry job I’ve interviewed for has asked the question to my about balance in work and life. I don’t think there is. Wobble is better word.

-But God is still God in every season you’re in. “All of my life in every season you are still God.” (Desert Song). The Psalms are here to give us words in every season we’re in. Soak your mind in them, friends. 

-I know many people who read through this book each month, I’m doing a Bible reading plan this year that reads through it twice. Some orders of monks read through it every week.

-These are poetry, very different than prose, very different from apocalyptic. Read it full of flowery language, lots of extremes (very high highs and very low lows). Lots written by King David, all have musical notation, but none have the musical notes (intentionally).

-Last thing is the headings (verse 0) are a part of the original writings. Some give information about events that inspired the Psalm, some have musical notations, some tell the author. 

-Can be hard to preach, so keep that in mind! Because it’s poetry in order to get a cohesive outline we need to read it more section by section instead of verse by verse, so if I don’t touch on a verse you really liked or wanted to learn more about, I’m sorry! 

-Some notes about this Psalm: themes repeated in other places in the Bible. Psalm 71 copies the first 3 verse verbatim. Jesus quotes vs. 5 on the cross, Jonah quotes 6 from the belly of the fish, Jeremiah quotes vs. 136x. This one was apparently popular!

  1. God Is a Refuge (1-8)

-David begins by committing to seek refuge in God. 

-There are many times and places where David would be tempted to beg this of God. Chased by Saul, surrounded by enemies after he’s king, wayward children in his elder years who tried to take the kingdom away from him. There were many seasons in his life where he would need God to be a refuge.

-Disgrace means different things here than it would to us. Has a bigger and deeper meaning to them: social outcast, ghosted.

-If he’s been dismissed by everyone else, he starts to wonder if God will treat him the same way.

-Trusts himself to God’s righteousness. What does that mean? It means David is trusting himself in that God is right and will do right by His people. Since God is righteous, He can only be righteous to His children.

-Listen closely. One of the realities of being a parent today is the use of screens and how to handle them well with kids. I’ve had to learn how to be more present with my kids because they notice if I’m not actually engaged with them and distracted by my phone. This is David proverbially taking God’s face in his hands and saying “look at me!” That’s BOLD and takes courage, but is possible because he’s our Father.

-Interplay between 2-3. Asks God to be a rock of refuge, but it’s because God is a rock and fortress.

-James Montgomery Boice “’You are…then be…’ should be the prayer of every Christian.” Church, the reason we need to grow in theology is because it gives us a foundation to build the rest of our lives on. We could spend the rest of this sermon on this idea (actually the rest of our lives). Since God is faithful, we can ask Him to be faithful to us. Since God is love, we can ask Him to be loving to us. Since God is good, we can ask Him to be good to us. See, it’s only because of true things we know about Him (theology) that we can trust in Him throughout our lives. It’s only because we grow in theology that we can continue persevering in our faith and know that God will continue working in our lives. Theology isn’t just an intellectual pursuit, it’s a pursuit that is meant to help us better understand and trust Him. Keep that in mind as continue, I’ll come back to it.

-And notice how David continues: for your name’s sake. It’s not ultimately for us. 1 Cor. 6 your life is not your own, you were bought with a price. 

-David repeats this idea until vs. 6 where he contrasts himself with the wicked. I thought we were supposed to love everyone, including our enemies? Did Jesus just upend all this judging and hatred of the OT?

-Judge not? We’ve been reading some pretty dramatic ways Jesus responds to evil in Revelation lately. Does He just sit passively back and let evil run unchecked? No! Because God is the ultimate judge that provides a meaning even to our suffering today. On top of that, we even have a passage in the NT that tells us one of our jobs is to judge, but only a subset of people: the church. Friends, we must love each other enough to judge each other when we see sin grabbing a hold in someone’s life. 

-Idols were thought to bring healing and protection. Think more like a rabbits foot than a cosmic judge who sits on clouds. There were gods of each aspect of life. God of sea, god of rain, god of crops – needed to appease the right one based on the activity you were pursuing. 

-Where David lands this section is important. Instead of being handed to his enemy, God places him in a spacious place.

-Where would you rather go for a walk? Think of the freedom and joy that comes from a wide-open space to run and play. Think of Psalm 23 “He lets me lie down in green pastures.” Friends, this is God’s plan for your life! Wide open spaces. I remember growing up terrified that if I took 1 wrong step I would be outside God’s will and never get back on track. That’s not how God’s will works! He’s told us His will for all of us, and it leads to wide open spaces! You don’t have to be afraid of taking the wrong step, you don’t have to worry you’ll never get back on, this is the point of the overquoted passage in Rom. 8 that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. It means even when we take the wrong step, He’s still with us.

  • God Is Gracious (9-20)

-Things seem to take a sharp left turn for David here, almost as if he did step out of God’s plan for his life! He lists all sorts of issues: his body is failing him, he’s ridiculed, abandoned by his friends, ghosted, oppressed everywhere he looks. How do you respond in those situations?

-I remember when I was in high school reaching a point where God was starting to become more real to me. It felt like I was the only one following after God in the school, felt like I was the only one taking my faith seriously, and then my dad showed me 1 Kings 19: Elijah onetime felt the same way and God told Him (basically) get over yourself, you’re not as big of a deal as you think, I’ve got 7,000 others besides you. I learned that God works in community, not just individuals, so because God works in community, I can ask Him to give me community. God is always working to preserve His people! I can rely that I’m not alone and be encouraged to remain faithful. It is graduation season too – so high schoolers (and those who know a high schooler) remind them to remain faithful. It may feel like you’re the only one following God (even at a Christian college) so use this Psalm as a reminder to continue being faithful.

-Let’s look at how David responds, start in vs. 14

-Instead of focusing all his attention and energy on his peers, “friends” David looks to the Lord, and preaches to Himself in vs. 15. This is another reason I find the Psalms so helpful for us today: how often do we forget to preach to ourselves? How often do we succumb to listening to ourselves and then spiral worse and worse? Friends, this is part of the reason it’s so vital that we soak our minds in God’s Word. We need to have our minds shaped by what God says about us, not what we think or how we feel, because that changes minute by minute.

-Make your face shine is a way of denoting spending time in God’s presence. I’ve been kind of surprised how often that idea has come up in Revelation – the face shining connects back to Moses (Ex. 34) and also points to the transfiguration, which is then supposed to be reflected in believers today (2 Cor. 3:18).

-He goes on to contrast himself with the wicked (17-18), before going back to contrast them with those who fear (follow) God. He ends this section with something that we saw earlier that I told you to keep in mind. “God is….so be…” 

-God is good, therefore he asks God to be good to him, and everyone who fears him. Another reminder that we ask things of God because of who He is. Friends, God is good! And He is always working things out for us but it may not look like that while we’re on earth. Notice how it’s “stored up” Goodness is piled up in heaven just waiting for us!

-We’ve seen that through our time in Revelation: God continues protecting and preserving His people despite increasing persecution on earth. This is why we worship and praise God – because of His goodness (He IS good), because of His love (He IS love), because of His faithfulness (He IS faithful), even when it doesn’t feel that way. 

-This is another remind how important this gathering is in the lives of Christians. I don’t know about you, but I get discouraged during the week! I beat myself up, I doubt things about God that I know are true! But then I get to come in and have my selfishness shaken up each week! I get reminded that there’s something bigger than me, someone supporting me, and some people that He has called me to, which is the same place David ends:

  • God Is Faithful Love (21-24)

-It’s almost as if David has spent time in church! His outlook has been shifted, his desperation has changed and he realizes that God is on his side!

-The word he uses here is important hesed Sally Lloyd-Jones in The Jesus Storybook Bible “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” Because of all these truths about God, He always heard and always answers our prayers.

-We then see the need for us to live a certain way. Because God is faithful love, we can ask Him to be faithful in His love toward us, but we also need to respond by faithfully loving Him. If we do that then we can preach this last verse to ourselves and each other. We don’t need to fear, we don’t need to doubt, we can be strong, we can be courageous (bold!) because we know our outcome is as solid as the tomb is empty.

-End praying how this teaches us to pray. Spurgeon “We may pray to enjoy in experience what we grasp by faith. Faith is the foundation of prayer.”

-God is a refuge, so be a refuge

-God is faithful love, so be faithful love

-God is gracious, so be gracious

-God is good, so be good

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by mikethestrand on June 9, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 9, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/09/psalm-31-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 12:1-18 – Simon Manuscript

-8.5 years ago, there was much anticipation and excitement as the next Star Wars movie was released. This had been building since 2012 when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and it took 3 long years to get The Force Awakens to release. I remember eagerly sitting down to watch it, and it was a blast! Seeing Han and Chewy get back on the Millennium Falcon, watching lightsabers shoot out again, and it even featured a new cross shaped one! 

-Just 1 problem: it was literally the same story as Episode 4 – A New Hope. Bad guys are building a battle station, the good guys need to blow it up. It was so close to being such a good story, and then the next movies just devolved from there! Today’s text has a similar feel: things are so close to being good and right, only in this case, instead of bad writing, we have a literal enemy, a dragon.

READ/PRAY

  1. A New Hope (1-6)

-Preached on this section on Palm Sunday, so we’ll just do a quick overview! First is “a great sign” that John is shown of a woman who is unbelievably glorious.

-Descriptions are similar to some descriptions about God, and connects to Joseph’s dream back in Gen. 37

-Stand in for the people waiting for the Messiah, as if in labor, which is a description of Israel a number of times in the OT

-Another sign: a dragon. opposed to God’s people, tail sweeps stars out of the sky, many people believe this is referring to the original fall of Satan and his demons.

-Stood in front of the woman: Satan knows Gen. 3:15, and he has done his best throughout history to destroy all the offspring of the chosen one: Pharoah, Herod.

-Have you ever noticed that theme in the Bible? How many barren wombs are a part of Jesus’ genealogy? Or how many stories in the Bible are of a barren woman where God intervenes and brings about children? God’s plan was to save the world through an offspring, God works in people and families to bring about His perfect plan, and Satan has done everything in his power since the very beginning to thwart that plan and kill off God’s family.

-After all that, notice that the Son isn’t called a sign. The others are pointing to something else, but the Son is the point.

-Quickest description of Jesus’ ministry: born straight up to God! The dragon thought he was ready, thought he would finally win and defeat the Messiah, but he was again thwarted.

-Made me think of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. The Jesus figure is a lion who allows himself to be killed by the white witch in the story. He’s then raised back to life, and when asked why he says there’s a deeper magic that she didn’t know. Satan is just the prince of this world, he’s limited in what he can do, but God isn’t.

-Woman (God’s people) off to the wilderness. Think of all the times God’s people were led off into exile: Egypt, Babylon, Rome, place where they learn to fully rely on God. Yes, it’s a place that looks desolate, looks like only death is possible, but with God the wilderness becomes the place of provision.

-How many of you have experienced something similar in your own life? Times and seasons of stretching, times and seasons where you feel like you’re about to break, and then when you’ve made it through you look back and see God’s fingerprints over each step of the journey. I’ve had times like that, and I know some of you are having those times right now! One of the ironies I’ve found in my life has been the place that I viewed as a slice of heaven became one of the biggest wildernesses in my life.

-My last semester of college, I got asked to play piano for a friend’s wedding in Denver, and I fell in love with CO. I’ve been to Hawaii twice, I like CO better. I was going to move there after college at find whatever job I could, but I ended up back here! Then got a call to a church in Wyoming (close enough!), but after 4 years Cara and I moved to CO, I made it to heaven on earth! What I didn’t realize was the church had some major disfunction that took a couple years to rise to the surface. Church was growing numerically, which hid some of the issues, so then we tried adding a second campus, which also started to grow, so then we needed a second person to preach, and I was asked to take on that responsibility, but didn’t get to release the music side, so there were many weeks where I would lead the music and preach. I was exhausted and on the verge of quitting. A friend and I joked about working at the Smuckers plant next to the new campus just to provide for our family. Yet God was doing something in the midst of that that I can see now, but couldn’t at the time. He was stripping away some of my self-reliance, He was wooing me more to Him and affirming some of the ways He’s wired me that I didn’t want to admit. What I had thought would come from living in my favorite state, came from moving back to where I grew up: a church to love me and my family.

-Friends, don’t rush through the wilderness seasons – God doesn’t waste it, He wants what’s best for you, and wants you to realize that if you have Him, then nothing else matters.

-Back to 1,260 days – the time period between Jesus’ 2 comings, which could be summarized as a wilderness time! Things are difficult, but they’re training us that we need to rely more fully on God.

  • The Dragon Strikes Back (7-9, 13-18)

-God’s people are taken to the wilderness and protected/preserved by God for a season, but how does the dragon respond? With war!

-Michael (name means: who is like God) is viewed as the protector of God’s people, leads the charge against the dragon (the devil, Satan, deceiver)

-Because of his rebellion against God, he’s thrown out to the earth, where his reign seems to be supreme. 

-“The one who deceives the whole world” What do you think that looks like? Questioning God, doubting His Word and work, not obeying Him. Why do you think people so often question whether God exists or not? Why do you think when anything bad happens one of the first places people go is blaming God? Why do you think people who go through a wilderness season are more prone to give up on following after God? Do you think maybe there’s someone who’s sowing those kinds of seeds into the world?

-Think about what Paul tells us in Rom. 1 the world suppresses the truths of the gospel. People don’t want to admit that there is a supreme judge, an author of life who has expectations for his creation. Where do you think that comes from?

-We’ll look at that middle section at the end, because John picks up the idea of the dragon a few verses later.

-After losing the war, do you think Satan just gives up and admits defeat? Nope, when have you ever heard of a defeated enemy giving up easily? If he can’t win in heaven, he’ll try to take it out on God’s people who are left on earth.

-Reiterating what had already been said in the previous section, remember the woman was persecuted by the dragon, but then taken to the wilderness.

-God’s protection and provision are evident in how carefully He cares for His people. The wilderness looks like a place of desolation, but it’s the place where God can be proven the most faithful.

-Wings like an eagle: Ex. 19:4 “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Remember the exodus account is meant to serve as a model and foundational story for the way God’s people view the world. It’s the same thing for us! We were once slaves to sin, had no purpose or identity in ourselves, but God has made us a people, a kingdom of priests who love and serve the true God together.

-How long was she nourished? Time, times (2), half = 3.5, same time period we saw last week and in vs. 6. Remember, numbers are symbols not statistics in apocalyptic literature. They’re a stand in signifying something else. God’s provision of His people will continue through their entire wilderness wanderings. Just another reminder that God is in complete control, we can trust Him, we can follow Him, and we can persevere in difficult because we know our outcome is secure. 

-“from his mouth” think back to last week where something came out of the mouths of the witnesses. This time it’s a flood: accusations, deceptions, anything to get rid of this woman! I think this is pointing back to the deception that the devil brings. It’s literally in his name to deceive, to lead people astray, to discourage them and lead them away from following and obeying the one true God.

-And who helps the woman now? Creation. This is picking up another piece from the Exodus: as God’s people have been delivered they sing “You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them.” (Ex. 15:12) Creation knows who the king is, creation knows who to obey. We’re the ones who tend to disobey, the ones who give into the lies of the deceiver, we have since the beginning! Even if we were the ones in the garden, we would have eaten the forbidden fruit.

-I think this is modeled in Jesus’ so-called triumphal entry on the back of a donkey. The religious leaders get upset and tell Jesus to command everyone to stop praising Him, and Jesus responds. There’s a certain irony here, because the stones are crying out. The rest of creation operates as God intended, humans are the ones who don’t! Rocks cry out to God by being rocks! Dogs cry out to God by barking and wagging their tails. Fish cry out by being fishy. Humans are supposed to cry out by worshipping God with all they have and are, but so often we worship creatures instead of the Creator. Even nature obeys God’s commands, and this shows that God will continue protecting His people despite the work of the dragon.

-The woman is protected, so the dragon lowers his expectations a bit, and decides to go after the rest of the offspring. Who’s that? Those who believe in Jesus, the church!

-“Keep the commands” it’s no coincidence that what Satan first attacked was God’s commands. This is also the way we demonstrate that we’re children of God instead of children of the dragon: we are obedient to God’s commands. Think of what Jesus said as His last commission to His disciples: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” Everything He commanded. Turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you, caring for the least of these. All of that is included in this command! And that’s just the first part!

-“hold firmly to the testimony” What do you hold on to firmly? What are you looking to as your source of comfort and strength? Easy life, money, job, marriage (if single), house, car, obedient kids, even the “right” church. All those things will fail you. Unless you hold firmly to Jesus you will be let down.

-Note that it says the dragon is waging war. This will continue happening. Satan isn’t going to give up just because the gospel message has been preached. He knows it better than we do, but he views that as even more reason to fight!

-I kept thinking of the old hymn by Martin Luther in connection to this passage this week ‘A Mighty Fortress’ which says at the end of the first verse: “On earth is not his equal,” but that’s not the end of the story, it goes on to say, “One little word shall fell him.” What’s that word? Jesus:

  • The Rise of Overcomers (10-12)

-Because Satan has been defeated, there are implications for you and me, and anyone who’s following after Jesus.

-First notice that how Satan is described: the accuser. Friends, don’t miss the reality that no one can out-sin the grace of God. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! When the accuser heaps his accusation on you, when it feels like a flood bearing down on you, remember that he has no more power.

-John Newton said, “Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” Newton wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was saved while he was a working in the slave trade, then pursued abolition and became an Anglican priest. Yet he fought to see the slave trade abolished, and saw it happen just months before he died. Can you think of the guilt John had as he reflected on his life? You can’t just wipe those kinds of images off your mind. Yet God’s grace goes deeper still! Christ was, is, and always will be a great savior.

-Secondly, we need to remember back to the letters to the churches. One of the promises God gives is to the one who conquers, but that was just setting it up to get to this reality. How do we conquer?

-By the blood of the lamb. Think of what washes us as white as snow, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Jesus victorious death rendered all the accusations the devil can throw at us useless. The opposite of velcro. Rom. 8:33-34 Satan has no room to accuse! Only 1 person does, and He’s on our side! There’s a difference between guilt and shame for your sin. God wants us to run to Him when we’ve sinned! Because his mercy is greater than all our sin. The devil wants us to be like our first parents and run and hide. But if Christ died for us (which He did), then we need to run into His arms.

-By the word of their testimony. I think there are 2 aspects to this, the first is we need to be careful of our words. Are we zealous about telling the truth all the time? We worship and serve the one who described himself as the way, the truth, and the life, that means we can’t even be content with a little white lie (as if there was such a thing). Our testimony must be rooted in the truth. But secondly, we have to be willing to testify, regardless of the consequences. Jesus told us the world would hate us because it hated Him. We need to stop worrying about trying to be cool or impressive and instead worry about pleasing God.

-They did not love their lives. Death isn’t the worst thing that could happen to us, second death is. Jesus even said we shouldn’t be afraid of those who threaten to kill us physically. What does death do to us? And if even death doesn’t hold power over us, then we shouldn’t be afraid of anything else! 

-Finally, we end with a reminder to rejoice. Eph. 2:6-7 “He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” We’re already in heaven, we just don’t see it yet. The devil will continue thrashing around like a chicken with its’ head cut off, but it has no power. His time is short because we have an eternity to look forward to living with God. So persevere now, run to Christ when you sin, and know that his grace covers all of your sins.

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by mikethestrand on June 2, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 2, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/02/revelation-121-18-simon-manuscript/

Revelation 11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever been told someone has some good news and some bad news, which do you want first? I’m a bad news first guy, get that out of the way, deal with it, and then move on to the good stuff.

-God’s Word is that way. It starts with the reality that everyone is a sinner – separated from God and worthy of condemnation. But the good news is it doesn’t need to stay that way! God provided a way of being adopted into His family, of having the penalty our sins paid for, and allowed to come near to God without any fear, knowing you’ll be completely welcomed in. My favorite way of thinking about this is from Tim Keller who said: who dares wake up a king for a glass of water at 2 am? His child. We have that kind of access to God. Regardless of what the world thinks of Jesus, or Christianity, we’re given privileged access to the Creator and sustainer of everything! But then with that comes bad news – the world isn’t as great as you may have thought it was, and what comes with following Jesus is a guarantee that you will have struggles and difficulties, today’s text is a reminder that Jesus is still in our side.

READ/PRAY

-I want us to think a little bit about where we’ve been so far:

-Letters to 7 churches: different strengths & weaknesses to every church, but often a reflection of the community the church is in

-John is given a glimpse of heaven, where he hears about the lion of Judah and sees a lamb who takes the big scroll and opens 6 seals in short order

-Then we get a break where John sees (I believe) the entirety of God’s people from all history gathered around the throne right before the 7th seal is open and we’re brought right to the end of history.

-Then John takes us back to look at the same events from a different perspective, this time using trumpet blasts. First 4 quickly, then slows down for 5 (locusts) 6 (invading army) Finally, another interlude where John is commissioned to prophesy again to many people and kings, which leads us here:

A call to the church to continue witnessing to the truths of the gospel despite increasing persecution.

  1. Measuring the Temple (1-2)

-Picking up John’s commission from 10, similar to Ezek.

-Signifies the protection of God over His people. Even when there is persecution, tribulation, difficulty, God sill protects and preserves His people.

-42, 3.5 years – referring to the time period between Jesus’ 2 comings: not God’s final word on the matter, things are not “7” perfect or complete.

  1. Measuring a Witness (3-14)

-2 Witnesses. Who are these, and why does John talk about them?

-I believe they’re the church, picks up a prophesy from Zech. 4 referring to the priest and the king, this means that the church will be a kingdom of priests. That is a CRAZY idea! John has the gall to proclaim that everyone now has easy access to God. You don’t need a buffer, you don’t need a sacrifice, you don’t need a temple, all you need is the Holy Spirit in you! 

-Additionally, think of one of the purpose of a lamp: light up a room. Think of one of the descriptions Jesus gives of His people: the light of the world. One of our jobs as God’s people today is to be a shining light into the darkness of sin, despair, and brokenness. But in order to shine into the darkness, we also have to have the light of Christ IN us and be able to shine. That’s part of the reason it’s so important for us to have this regular rhythm in our life of gathering as God’s people: we gathering to be built up and edified, and then scatter (are sent) to bring God’s light into our daily lives. Friends, don’t miss the reality that we’re all in ministry, we just get our paychecks from different places. God has equipped and gifted you, and then sent you into your workplace to be an ambassador of His gospel message. You have an eternal job to do! 

-This prophetic witness of God’s people is kept safe by God. Just as He commissioned John to measure the temple and count His people, God will protect and preserve them in the midst of their ministry.

-Let’s think about the picture John’s painting here. What comes out of your mouth? Words (hopefully nothing else, otherwise you probably shouldn’t be here!) Words come out and consume their enemies (who also happen to be the enemies of God if they’re opposed to His people). Our enemies are God’s enemies.

-This is showing us that God’s message brings death and judgment to some people. To those that are opposed to God, the gospel message is a message of condemnation, not life. Similar to John’s call to prophesy that will taste as sweet as honey, but make him sick to his stomach.

-But just as John has done throughout this book, it’s also pointing back to the way God’s message has been preserved through His people in the past by recounting major prophets and stories from the OT from the newest to the oldest.

-The first story is about Elijah from 2 Kings 1. Elijah is seen by the king as a thorn in his side, so he continually tries to deal with Elijah to get rid of him, but since Elijah is a prophet he can’t! Culminates with the king getting sick and sending messengers to ask Baal if he’d survive. Elijah intercepts the messengers and tells the king he’ll die, so the king sends 50 soldiers and a captain to get Elijah. And this happened TWICE! Finally, a 3rd captain is sent, falls on his face in front of Elijah and begs for his life. But the theme is God’s protection.

-The second story is an earlier one from Elijah’s’ ministry, actually the first time Elijah is introduced into the story, and he has a message of doom and gloom! He shuts up the heavens so that it doesn’t rain during his ministry. Bookends of Elijah’s ministry, then John goes further back.

-This one is a more well-known story (and featured in 1998 classic The Prince of Egypt): Moses. In Ex. 7 it shares the first plague leveled against Egypt, but that’s just the start! 9 more plagues come, and culminate in the death of the firstborn (for everyone, but it only affected those who weren’t covered by the blood of the lamb, pointing to the ultimate firstborn who would die for them)

-Finish their testimony – who gave them the authority? What time is this referring to? 

-“The beast” (Not beauty and the beast, setting up the stage for what’s to come) those opposed to God and His ways. We see here the same thing we’ll see in 12-13: Satan and his minions fight against God and his people for all history. Satan hates when the church is healthy, he hates when the church is flourishing, he hates when people take their faith seriously, he hates when Christians are faithful in their witness and he’ll do everything in his power to fight against God’s plan. And from an earthly perspective, he’s incredibly successful. It says “conquer them and kill them.” Have you ever heard or read that the church is dead? There’s a phenomenal book that came out recently titled ‘The Great DeChurching’ that says this is the most significant religious shift in our country’s history right now with church attendance declining faster than it’s ever declined before (and faster than it grew during both great awakenings). I’ve read articles from the 90s that said the church was dying then! This reminds us that we have nothing to worry about! If God’s on our side, no one can stand against His plans! (This book is actually very good, I’d highly recommend it, and the biggest take away is most of the time those that left church would go back if someone just invited them, they just got out of the habit)

-Dishonor them:

-Leaving a dead body out was shameful, a way of heaping even more abuse on an already dead person

-Where is this? Great city would be Rome, Sodom was destroyed a long time before this was written, Egypt is an entire country, Lord was crucified is Jerusalem. This is a way of signifying the city of man. Nations, civilizations opposed to God and His ways

-Do you ever feel marginalized as a Christian today? This is taking place all the time! Satan works his hardest to discourage and bring down God’s people! This is why we need each other, we need to be able to encourage each other when we’re getting discouraged. Don’t get out of the habit!

-These people (earth dwellers) go on to celebrate, to party, it’s described the way we celebrate Christmas today! 

-This is painting a picture of Christians viewed as the killjoys, now that the church is gone we can finally have fun and party, we need to throw off the shackles of religion and Christianity.

-How do you view your faith? Do you see it as only rules and regulations, as only difficult and struggling? Or do you see it as life, and life to the full? Friends, this changes your entire way of living! If it’s just rules you become self-righteous and look down on anyone who can’t measure up to your standard. But Jesus doesn’t let you do that, He forces you to rely completely on Him because you can’t ever measure up! At some point you’ll even fall short of your standards! I heard a story this week of a pastor who was taken to the hardest level of a prison (serial murderers) and he prepared a message thinking these people would be struggling with self-confidence, so he began by asking on a scale of 1-10 how good were they? The lowest score was a 10! Friends, don’t look to yourselves to be justified, look to Jesus who will make you more human than you could ever dream!

-After 3.5 days: 

-Remember how John so often uses OT ideas. Here’s another one of them! One of my favorite OT passages, Ezek. 37. Ezekiel is taken to a valley filled with dry bones, “they were VERY dry.” God asks is those bones could live, Ezekiel says only God knows. So God commands him to prophesy over the bones. As he prophesies the bones come together, muscles and tendons form, then skin covers the bones, but that’s not enough, they’re still dead. Prophesy about God’s breath on them. He does and suddenly it’s a vast army. This is what God does: he raises the dead to life until they’re an army! And spiritually, God has brought the dead to life and made them a kingdom of priests who are commissioned to prophesy to the world that they too can be brought to life! This story serves as a picture of what the church has become today – God’s Word brings people back to life, before they’re a useless sack of flesh, but once God saves them they’re made a truly living person who can serve God and witness to others.

-Think of how the world responded to their death. Do you think they would respond similarly to their resurrection? No way! “Great fear” 

-Same description of Jesus’ ascension, or the end of Elijah’s ministry, connecting the ministry of the church all the way back to Elijah! This is a way of validating the message of the church. It might take away for this validation, but it will come!

-Earthquakes are connected to the very end in Revelation, but this judgment is revealing God’s mercy. Yes, even judgment can reveal God’s mercy! Remember: numbers are symbols not statistics. This is alluding back to some previous judgments we’ve seen in the past.

-Isa. Look at the numbers here. How many are left? 1/10, how many are killed in Revelation? 1/10

-Amos: what percentage is left? 1/10

-1 Kings: Only 7,000 were preserved, but here only 7,000 are killed and 63,000 are left. Even in God’s righteous judgment, His mercy is made evident! And this comes about because of Jesus! Jesus has born the brunt of God’s wrath, what’s given to us is grace and mercy!

-There is some debate about this last phrase. They’re terrified and “gave glory to God” is this referring to saving faith or just admitting that they were wrong, as is promised in a place like Phil. 2 that every knee will someday bow to Him?

-At this point I’m leaning slightly toward saving faith, but might change tomorrow! Strongest point I see for that is we’ve seen before in Rev. that even in the midst of suffering the world still refuses to acknowledge God. I lean toward saving faith because otherwise they couldn’t truly give glory to God! So the job of the church is to witness to God’s saving grace, and in response, people are saved! 

-Still not done yet! There’s another woe (trumpet) to come!

  1. Measuring the End (15-19)

-Seventh angel blows his trumpet, and heaven responds: the end is here! Remember, this is the focal point of the whole book (not just Revelation) God’s goal for all of history has been: God’s people, living in God’s place, serving under God’s rule and reign. This last trumpet gets us to that reality!

-And what’s the only right way to respond to God’s kingdom now being seen? Worship. One of the pastors I worked with said the theme of Revelation is worship, and I agree! The Bible opens and closes with worship – praising God with everything we have and everything we are.

-Notice the acknowledgement that the nations were angry: entire nations were upset with God! But God has dealt with them. Not always here and now, but they will one day be dealt with, so Christians should be on the front lines of affirming good nations and standing against evil nations – and that starts with recognizing that the church is called to be a unique nation. We’re not supposed to completely align ourselves with any nation or culture on earth, that’s idolatry. Instead, we’re supposed to live as foreigners and exiles who look for ways to be more faithful witnesses.

-See again that this is referring to the very end: the dead with be judged and entered either into glory or separation from God. Have you ever considered that those who oppose God are destroying the earth? This stood out to me this week as I consider how people talk about earth care today. We’re told that humans are destroying the earth, that it’s irreversible, and that we’ll all die within the next few decades. But they’re focusing in the wrong direction. Those who don’t obey God are the ones destroying the earth. I think connected to that is that Christians should care about the earth. Not abusing or destroying, but seeking to care for it since that’s God’s call on the human race. Lots more that could be said about that, and I don’t think it’s explicitly in this text, so I’ll leave it there! 

-Last piece we see in this section is the temple of God in heaven (not a literal physical temple, referring to the place where God lives as signified by the ark of the covenant)

-John was able to see where God’s presence is contained. This is part of the reason I believe this is the center point of the book, it’s hinting at God’s presence no longer being hidden or removed or far off, it’s now accessible to everyone who follows Him.

-The ark of the covenant in the OT was the place where God presence was made visible. It was completely separated from the rest of the temple, it was only approached periodically and by someone who entered with fear and trembling. But not anymore! Because John can see it, anyone can see it! This is pointing to Rev. 21:3 “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them.” This is another evidence to me that shows we’re not supposed to read this book strictly linearly or chronologically. Just as other apocalyptic writers will do, he’ll talk about something, then go talk about something else, and then eventually make his way back around to talk about something he talked about previously. Here we’re once again brought up to the very end (as we were with the seals), as evidenced by all these weather phenomenon’s. But we’re not quite done, because we’re only halfway through this book.

-Once again, the question in front of us at the end of this sermon is: what do we do with this text? I think there are 3 things, and I said them at the very beginning.

1) Continue witnessing. It will often feel like our witnessing is pointless, and at times even worse than that because it will lead to persecution! But this text reminds us that even though some Christians will die for our faith, God will continue preserving His church, so we have to be faithful with our job.

2) Truths of the gospel. We don’t preach a message of self-help or how to improve your life, we preach a message that nothing you can do will save you, so come to Jesus and find true life! We don’t preach ourselves, but God sends us as ourselves, so find ways to use your personality to share the truths of the gospel.

3) Increasing persecution. Don’t get comfortable here! I’ve been reflecting recently on some of the alarming things I’ve read about our country, often coming from people who claim to be Christians. Why would we expect anything other than persecution? I think we at times forget that the 1 thing Jesus promises us is suffering, but with that promise He reminds us to be encouraged because He has overcome, and if we’re in Him, we will overcome too!

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by mikethestrand on May 26, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 26, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/26/revelation-11-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 11:1-4 – Sermon Manuscript

-A defining story of your life, or your family’s life?

-some of my most fond memories from growing up involved my parents taking too long to go home after church. Playing football, running through the dirt paved parking lot, trying not to get into trouble. First time parents warned you we’d be leaving in 5 minutes meant we had AT LEAST 30 min. My parents locked the doors of the church when they got married!

-We all have these family stories that we can use to communicate something about ourselves. The Bible does something similar, and it’s important for us to understand the Bible’s defining stories if we want to understand the significance of God’s message, given to John, passed down to us today. The defining story for God’s people is the Exodus: God’s deliverance out of slavery into a season of exile.

READ/PRAY

-Not sure about you, but I think this might be one of the most difficult passages in the Bible to interpret correctly! Full of OT allusions, mention of specific times and days. I’m going to give an overview of the whole chapter, and then we’ll walk through it over the next 2 weeks, just so there’s no surprises. I say most of this with a grain of salt, and I reserve the right to change my opinion on this in the future! But as I’m working through this letter and trying to study this section this week I think this is the best way to interpret the text.

-This is a call to the church to continue witnessing to the truths of the gospel despite increasing persecution.

-John is told to measure the temple and count the worshippers. This is referring to God’s people today, not a physical temple that will someday be built. 

-The 2 witnesses are similarly referring to the church (again, wait until I build my case for that!)

-The numbers are a way of pointing back to Jesus, but through a prophesy in Daniel. Their story also parallels an upcoming story in Rev. 12-13 about the beast persecuting God’s people. Their death and resurrection points to God’s provision of His people throughout history and validation of their witnessing to the truths of Jesus as the Savior and King.

-Finally, the last trumpet takes us all the way to the end, where God’s kingdom has come and His will is being done on earth just like it is in heaven. That’s where we’ll be going over these next 2 weeks, now let’s talk about how I got there!

  1. Measuring the Temple (1-2)

-John is given a commission, connected back to his role from last week to “prophesy again.” 

-Connected to Zech. 2, Ezek. 40-42. John is the next in line! 

-Notice “was given” this is all from God, God’s work, and God’s plan

-The idea of measuring is connected to counting. Think of Jesus who said God counts even the hairs on our heads (which is easier for some people than others!) It’s a way of signifying that God knows each and every person who belongs to Him. No one can take them away, no one will be lost, He will keep track of them all and preserve them all.

-Before we go on, I want to ask you a question about that: if John were asked to go and count His people today, would you be included in that number, or would you be left outside and be trampled? If you want to ensure you’re a part of God’s people, if you want be counted in the temple, then you need to confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and believe that He was raised from the dead. If you do, you’ll move from death to life, from outside the temple to inside the temple, and God will welcome you in with open arms.

-A few options about this temple:

-A physical temple that’s rebuilt, a heavenly temple, or the temple that we today refer to as the church. I don’t think it’s a physical temple because of the way this book uses symbols and imagery throughout to communicate a bigger spiritual reality. Similarly, I don’t see how it could be a heavenly temple because I’m not sure how “the nations” could trample any part of it then. 

-I also think there’s an assortment of other NT passages that tip the scale in the direction of the church, here’s a few. 

-All of these are referring to the church. Similarly, when we trace the idea of the temple (or tabernacle) throughout the Bible, it signifies God’s dwelling place with His people, not necessarily just a building. It’s meant to be a new Eden because of the way sin broke the relationship between God and His people. When Jesus comes, the Bible says God tabernacled among us (God moved into the neighborhood), and then Hebrews reminds us that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises, so there’s no more need for priests or sacrifices or a temple, they’re pointing to Jesus who now fills his people with the Spirit, making them a new temple. 

-The last piece that tilts the scales for me in this direction is the ending of this letter, Rev. 21:22 says God’s eternal plan is no temple. This is like Eden where God’s plan was to be in perfect relationship with his creation, no separation, no divide, but sin broke that. That’s what’s signified by the lack of a physical temple, we don’t need that anymore, Jesus has provided a way to approach God that’s superior in every way (again, read the book of Hebrews).

-Why is there an area excluded? 

-“Court of the Gentiles” or “court of the women” most likely the first as it had been given over to the nations already.

-If the temple is the church (as I’ve argued) this could either refer to persecution of a segment of the church, or is a way of signifying that not everyone is a part of God’s people. I lean slightly toward the latter as I think it makes better sense of the comment “outside the temple.” The only way to avoid being trampled is by becoming a part of the temple, or the church. 

-We’ll get to the holy city a little more when we get to vs. 8, but really briefly notice that it’s referred to by 5 names. Holy city, great city, Sodom, Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. Can’t be all of those at the same time, and 1 of them is a country! Once again, John is using a well-known idea to signify something bigger: there will always be rulers, nations, and civilizations opposed to the work of God. Once again we see that there’s no middle ground: you’re either for God or against Him.

-We now get to a hugely debated section that is very difficult to understand and needs to be nuanced incredible carefully: how do we interpret the 42 months? One of my primary arguments through this series has been we struggle to understand this text (Revelation) because our minds aren’t saturated enough by the whole text. The 1st century reader would have devoted themselves to the Bible, many of them had memorized large sections of it, if not the whole thing. Our minds today are too cluttered by useless trivia (or movie quotes for me) to memorize large portions of God’s Word, much less go on to meditate on those Words and then apply them to our daily lives. If our identity starts to become defined by anything other than God’s Word we’re in trouble! 

-This text kicked my butt this week! I’ve shared before that my Hebrew prof. in seminary: wrestle with the text. I did a LOT of wrestling this week! Because there’s so much background to this text, I also divided this sermon into 2 weeks, so consider this part 1. Also, fair warning, you’re going to need to put your thinking caps on! There’s a mountain of other texts being referenced here that we’re going to need to wrestle through together today to understand John’s message.

First, remember numbers in Revelation are symbols not statistics, the numbers are standing in for something important. We’ve talked about these before, so 7 (and it’s multiples) refers to: perfection or completeness. 10 (and it’s multiples) refers to fullness. 4 refers to the whole creation/earth. 12 (and it’s multiples) is God’s people. But then we start adding in halves, or lesser numbers. So if you remember back a few weeks ago to the overview: 666 is signifying that Satan and his unholy trinity false short in every case (fail, fail, fail). With 42 months:

-It’s another way of saying 3.5 years. If you look at vs. 3, you’ll see 1,260 days, which also happens to be 42 months. Vs. 9, 11: 3.5 days. Maybe these are all referring to the same period of time?

-To understand this reference, we need to go back to a prophecy in Daniel 9, which itself is a meditation on God’s Word from Jer. 25, which itself is using language from Lev. 25. Do you see why this book can be so hard to understand and interpret correctly? Are you ready to wrestle through this text with me?

-First, Daniel introduces this section to us by saying he was reflecting on Jeremiah, and notice what he’s wearing, because that will come up again. This tells us that Daniel is meditating on a specific passage in Jeremiah, something to do with 70 years. 

-Jeremiah is God’s plan for getting the people out of Babylon. They’d been carried off into exile as a penalty for their sin, but there was an end point to that exile. God will bring His people back and redeem them.

-Those 70 years are the season of exile, where Israel is under the Babylonian captivity. As Daniel starts doing the math, he realizes that 70 years is close to coming up! So he begins by confessing his and the nation’s sins and asking God to listen and respond. God does by sending the angel Gabriel to visit him and tell him what’s going to happen. Before we get there, 1 very important note: Israel wasn’t in exile for 70 years, it was more like 60. So if that number is a symbol (like in Revelation) we should also expect the rest of the numbers to be symbols.

-We begin with “70 7s (translated as weeks)” Anyone remember the significance of 7? Completion, perfection. This means Gabriel is picking up the language from Jer. 25 but using weeks as a stand in for years. Look at the 6 things promised from God, specifically 2-4, stop sin, atone for iniquity, everlasting righteousness. God is saying He will take care of the sin Daniel had just been confessing. Who do you think that’s talking about? Sunday school answer: Jesus! Just wait, it gets even better!

-Gabriel then he goes on to break those years down, starting with 7 weeks. This gets us back to Lev. 25 on the sabbatical year and Jubilee (7 7s). Israel was supposed to practice the year of Jubilee every 50 years. Those who had sold property would have it reverted back to the original family, anyone that had sold themselves into slavery would be freed, it was a reset so that no one would be getting rich off the rest of the people and helped them place their ultimate trust and allegiance in God. It was a celebratory year! What’s fascinating is we have no account of Israel ever actually practicing a year of Jubilee. They became complacent and were too enticed by the world and riches instead of continually trusting in God’s provision for them. 

-The 7 7s would have started with a decree from Cyrus in 538 BC, meaning the completion should have been 489, but nothing happened then! So Gabriel begins by what would have been seen as a cycle to get to Jubilee, or a great reset. Therefore, this most likely refers to the time period between the edict and either the rebuilding of the temple or the wall (515 or 444, 23 or 94 years).

-Then Gabriel goes another 62 weeks, which would be referring the time period between the rebuilding of the temple/Jerusalem to the arrival of the Anointed One (Jesus) Math isn’t my strong suit, but my calculator said 434 years after this is getting close to Jesus’ arrival, but not exactly. There is 1 person who has added all these together (490 years) to argue that it gets to 33/34 AD, the exact day when Jesus died, but I would argue that for some imprecision in their dating because there’s MAJOR debate about which decree is referred to, and Gabriel intentionally breaks up these 70 weeks. 

-Plaza and moat: completely rebuilt, and difficult times facing various atrocities and even more persecution from the Romans.

-Finally, we get to the end. These are 2 verses referring to the same thing, first half about the sacrificial work of the Anointed One, the second half referring to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. A better translation of “have nothing” is “but not for himself,” meaning this “cut off” is for someone else.

-Then we see this strong covenant with many, but in the middle of this week (which would be how many days? 3.5) Jesus’ death means there’s no longer a need for sacrifices and offerings. So we’re still in the time period of these 70 weeks, because the second half of the week is the rest of the time before Jesus comes back a second time. 

-But what this refers to is the fact that we now look forward to living in the year of the ultimate Jubilee. If 7 7s (weeks) in Leviticus brought about Jubilee, then 70 7s would be the ultimate Jubilee! I read a quote that I thought summarized this well: 

-Jesus’ death on behalf of others provides the means for living in this new time of Jubilee. Sin is dealt with, Jesus has made a sacrifice once and for all, and now we get to live with the Holy Spirit in us, making us as new temple! Isn’t God’s story good? All that background to help us understand that when John talks about 42, he’s referring back to this promise from Daniel, reminding God’s people in the 1stcentury that God is still in control! 

-So to summarize: 42 = 3.5 years, or the time period in before we get to the ultimate Jubilee of God dwelling with His people forever. In between Christ’s first and second comings is an incomplete time because things aren’t as they will finally be forever. Half of perfection, meaning it’s not God’s final word on the subject. God will use however much time He needs to bring about His perfect plan.

-Another way of thinking about this connects to the exile idea I mentioned earlier. 7 would be the perfect and completed plan of God, but until that day we’ll be living in 3.5, not God’s final plan. God cares much more about our spiritual exile then our physical exile, so much so that he’s ok leaving us as exiles for thousands of years.

  • Measuring 2 Witnesses (3-4)

-This section will be a little easier, and take less time because I’ll pick it up again next week. The question is: who are these 2 witnesses? Why do they have authority, and what’s the significance of the days?

-I would argue this is referring to the church. Why? Look at the description of them in vs. 4. Olive trees and lampstands. What is that? Can anyone think of a passage in Revelation where we’ve seen lampstands before? First few chapters, ironically enough, does anyone remember how many churches had no critiques from the Lord? 2.

-This is picking up a prophesy from Zech. 4: Olive trees and lampstands. Later on, the olive trees are identified as 2 anointed ones, a king and a priest. By calling these 2 witnesses by this identification, John is saying the church will be a kingdom of priests – a theme throughout the Bible, but mentioned in reference to the church in Rev. 1:5-6 “To him who loves us and has set us free from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father.”

-But why 2? Throughout the Bible, the minimum required number of witnesses for it be true was 2. It’s a way of validating the truth of their message.

-The final reason I think this refers to the church is the overall structure of the book. One of the predominant ways Jewish authors wrote was through chiasms. A chiasm is named after the Greek letter chi (looks like an X), a way of emphasizing the middle point, then the outer parts connect/mirror each other. Here’s the chiasm for the entire book of Revelation, emphasizing Jesus being Lord, and responding to that reality in worship.

-So just as the church will face opposition from Satan in the next couple chapters, the church will face opposition from Satan in this section, do you see how they pick up similar themes? But the middle remains the same: worshipping God because we’re now a part of HIS kingdom, instead of the kingdom of Satan.

-So what do we do with this? How should we respond to this reality?

-Worship. Do you worship and praise God because He is in control and has a perfect plan for all human history? This is why, even when life is really hard, Paul can say “Rejoice always.” This is why Christians can be faithful to love and serve God when it looks foolish, when worldly rulers and powers are bearing down because this passage reminds us we live in the 3.5, not the 7. 

-And because we live in the 3.5, we are supposed to be prophesying, declaring God’s Word to believers and unbelievers. It’s God’s Word that saves people, and it’s God Word that sanctifies people (makes holy). 

-I’m currently taking a class on pastoral ministry during the Reformation “The Christian life is a pilgrimage with a banquet spread in the wilderness for weary travelers.” Friends, if you are a part of God’s family, we have all the riches we need to grow more into what God has created us to be, and that allows us to prophesy faithfully to each other and the world.

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by mikethestrand on May 19, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, History, Life, Sermon, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 19, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/19/revelation-111-4-sermon-manuscript/

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