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Equipping Classes – Sermon Manuscript

Equipping Classes

-We’ve seen the importance of discipleship, the nonnegotiables for us to grow (Scripture, Sunday, Serve)

-Those are essential, vital elements for every Christian to grow more like Jesus! But then what’s the role of the church in discipleship? How can we be a part of helping people take 1 step closer to Jesus? 

-Different series than normal, VERY different sermon than normal! 

-Trying to cram lots of learning into 1 message, today’s message is more philosophical and educational (the way we learn)

-As I’ve shared before, I’ve read LOTS of books over my life that try to answer this question! They’ll say things like: the best way to do discipleship is small groups. We need that accountability. Or the best way to do discipleship is Sunday Schools where we’re able to instruct people the truths of the Bible. Or the best way to do discipleship is ABF where we’re in community together with similar aged people.

-The hard part is this is going beyond what Scripture commands. There are some things that are explicit: meeting together, learning from the Bible, leadership in a body, teaching, using your gifts, but the Bible says very little about the practical and specific ways we should do that, and it gets even more tricky when we start taking steps outside of the corporate gathering (what Heb. 10 was talking about last week).

-In order to accomplish what God has commanded there are probably an infinite amount of ways we could do that! But we have to choose something. Paralysis by analysis is a real thing. And every option we choose is at least somewhat culturally conditioned.

-We place a high value on education in our culture. Such a high value that we demand every child growing up get an education. We pay taxes towards it, track children as they grow up to ensure they’re being educated in the ways we want. Don’t you think that’s going to have an influence on the way we view training in the church too? And one of the biggest drivers for education in our Western world was the church.

-Did you know that the reason Sunday school was started was to teach children how to read so they could read and understand the Bible? Many children were forced to work to provide for their families, but Sunday off, so churches started schools as a way to provide education for them. 

-I had an overseer at the previous church I served buy me a book titled ‘The Search for God and Guinness’ which was the story of Arthur Guinness who founded Guinness Brewing in 1759. Arthur was a strong believer, who used his gifts and talents to combat alcoholism (his beer had much lower alcohol content and was more filling than alternatives) and used the proceeds from his beer sales to bring Sunday School to Ireland. Some of you may have even read books by his great-great-great grandson, well known apologist Os Guinness. The Guinness family has carried on the legacy of Arthur in both ministry and business

-With all that background, I have wrestled with what is the best way for us to provide a framework (trellis) to help as many of us grow 1 step closer to Christ as we can, and as I’ve read and studied I came across a passage in 1 Tim. That I think summarizes what we all need: life & doctrine. Both need to be growing together to become a mature Christian. Because of that, what we offer to help people grow should correlate to Life and Doctrine.

-This is what led to the name change from small groups to life groups, and the change to classes to being more focused on teaching specific doctrines than correlating to life stage.

-As many of you know (and are very grateful for!) we also have various ministries and community groups that do work to provide opportunities for relational connections or focus on a specific group of people, but the focus is toward the Life Groups and Equipping Classes. If you only have time to spend in 1 area, let it be one of those.

-In an ideal world, we would all be involved in as many areas as we could! And if you have the time and the bandwidth, please do look for more areas to get involved in and grow! But don’t forget, we’re also called to go into the whole world. The church doesn’t exist for herself nor should we be living our whole lives removed from the world around us. At the same time, some of these discipleship classes are great places to invite your friends and neighbors to so they can hear the truths that we believe.

-Today we’re going to be focusing on the right side of the trellis: the equipping classes.

READ/PRAY (Matt. 22 – pg. 483)

  1. Love God With Your Mind (Matt. 22:37)

-What do you think it means to love the Lord your God with all your mind?

-Do we just work our hardest to keep any thought not about God at bay? How do I provide for my family if I’m just supposed to think about God all the time?

-Remember that a way of summarizing what Jesus is saying here is everything we have and are is meant to be used to love God. Another way you could think about this is in connection to worship – we are supposed to worship God 24/7. Worship isn’t just music (although music can be used to worship), worship is living a life that is fully surrender to God and doing our best to honor Him with everything we do.

-Piper: Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Me: discipleship exists because worship doesn’t. If we are going to worship God correctly, we need to know and understand who He is.

–Rom. 12:1-2: connection between worship and living, goal is transformation but how? By the renewal of your mind, thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

-If I told you that I love my wife (which I do!) and went on to tell you that she’s a 6’ blonde woman who loves swimming and McDonalds you should have some questions.

-Similarly, if we claim to love God (I hope you do!) then you need to know some things about Him. What is He like? What does He enjoy? What does a relationship with Him look like? 

-God has revealed Himself to everyone in the world in more ways than we’ll ever fully understand. There’s a beautiful picture of this in The Lion King where Timon and Pumba are star gazing: “Timon, ever wonder what those sparkling dots are up there?” “Puh. I don’t wonder, I know” “Oh, what are they?” “They’re fireflies. Fireflies that uh, got stuck up in the big blueish black thing.” “Oh, gee, I always thought they were balls of gas burning billions of miles away.” “Pumba, with you everything’s gas.” 

-When you look up at the stars it creates a sense of wonder and insignificance. In the big scheme of things, we’re tiny! And God made it that way! The seemingly infinity of space is a constant reminder at how little we actually know.

-But that doesn’t mean that God keeps things hidden from us. My college had a motto that said “All truth is God’s truth.” (which as I got older I found out they stole from some guy name Augustine who lived in the 300s)

-What this means is Christians should be all about the truth (or a helpful way to say it in today’s age is “true truth.”) What that means is: worshipping God with our minds means looking for everything that is true, celebrating that it is true, and then making those connections back to God (worship)

-The reality is there are going to be people that aren’t Christians that we can learn from! Celebrate God’s gift in that person (common grace), and look for opportunities to share with them how that points them to God!

–Evangelism in a Skeptical World is a great way to learn about that! It’s a different way of approaching evangelism than many of us had been taught before.

-But another implication in this is that we need more “Christian” thinking – we need more Christians involved in every area of life

-Politics, businesses, trades, health care, teaching, science all of these areas help humans to be obedient to God’s command to “fill the earth and subdue it” which involves creating and sustaining culture. 

-So loving God with your mind means using your gifts to the best of your ability and using them as a tool to worship God, recognizing that He is the one who has gifted you and sharing with others how God your gifting points to God. But how do we make those connections?

  • Loving God Requires Teaching (Matt. 28:20, Acts 18:24-28)

-If you can remember back to the Spring, one of the things that came out in our study of Mark is that Jesus came to teach. We have so many accounts of the different things He addressed during His time on earth! Heaven and hell, marriage, divorce, death, money, love, neighboring. Nothing was off limits!

-Additionally, one of the things Jesus commanded in the great commission was teaching. What kind of teaching? Teaching that helps obey what Jesus commanded. What did Jesus command? A whole bunch of things! How do we know what those things are? It requires teaching.

-Micah: we don’t know what we don’t know. If we ever arrive at the place of thinking we’ve learned all there possibly is to know we’re either deluded or liars.

-Prince Caspian: “Aslan, you’re bigger!” “No, but each time you come back you’ll find me a little bigger.” 

-That is ESPECIALLY true of God! Think if you’ve ever had a conversation with a child and they ask things like “Why is the sky blue?” or “Is God big enough to pick up our house?” You become a much better theologian very quickly in those conversations!

-Think of the way God describes this in Isaiah 55: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We’ll never completely understand God, but that doesn’t mean we can’t understand Him truly. 

-Teaching didn’t stop with Jesus. The Apostles throughout Acts are shown to be teaching the crowds, in homes, and one on one.

-My favorite picture of this is in Acts 18. A guy named Apollos is a sharp dude, and knew the Bible really well! He had been taught really well, so he continues that tradition of teaching others. He had natural gifts and supernatural gifts. Yet what happens? He needs to be taught! He had all this understanding, but it wasn’t complete (missing the baptism of HS)

-Look at the way this teaching is described here: “explained to him the way of God more accurately.” That’s a great summary of what we’re aiming to do in our classes! Every person in this room, whether we realize it or not, believe some erroneous things about God.

-“He used to believe this, but now that he’s in heaven he knows better” We’ll all know better!

-Kelly’s story

-This trend has continued throughout history. Remember that the reason we’re here is because of a line of teachers over the past 2,000 years who have poured into us and culminated in where we are today. Now what is one of the best ways for us to communicate something to a large group of people? Offer a class that many people can attend! Which gets us to the final point:

  • Loving God Requires Maturity (Heb. 5:11-14, 1 Cor. 3:1-9)

-Put our thinking caps on: if we’re supposed to pursue maturity, what does that look like? What things would we need to know about in order to be “mature”?

-Money, marriage, parenting, grandparenting, prayer, Bible study, work, politics, sickness, health

-In order for us to address issues like that, there must be teaching so we can know how to faithfully engage the world we live in. There’s a few examples of this in the Bible:

–Hebrews

-The writer here is assuming that people will continue growing.

-Think of how children grow (I’m reminded of this every day!) It’s good for babies to drink milk! If you give them anything else you’ll make them very sick. But there’s something weird about a 3 year old nursing, right? Or even a worse a 30-year-old! Yet how many times are people content to spiritually be a 30-year-old infant who can’t eat milk? Not a call for everyone to go to seminary, but a call to never stop learning and growing.

-Look how he defines mature: constant practice to distinguish good from evil, being given training in how to engage our world.

-Recovering youth pastor, one of the most disheartening things was the sheltering that would take place. Don’t dump things on kids, but don’t shelter them forever! Help them work on their “powers of discernment.” Provide avenues for them to be exposed to the way the world works.

1 Corinthians 3:

-Paul picks up the same idea as before. 

-Notice this time the connection to maturity: jealousy and strife. Competition. Teachers aren’t meant to be in the place of God. In the day of “celebrity” preachers don’t forget that they’re only servants.

End on Eph. 4

-Maturity involves growing in knowledge and understanding of who God is. 

-In order to help us we will offer classes on a wide assortment of topics to get to the aim of presenting everyone mature

-One of the things we need to realize is that we’ll never stop learning, even in heaven

-I remember trying to contemplate eternity as I was growing up. I would lay awake in bed and try to wrap my head around it (I realize I was a weird kid). What was hard for me is I confess it sounds almost boring. At some point I get tired of doing whatever hobbies or activities I enjoy, so how would heaven be better? Here’s the thing: in heaven everything will be as it should be, and we’ll have the opportunity to continue learning everything we could ever want. I attended conference onetime where one of the speakers said he was so excited for heaven because he wanted to learn Mandarin, and in heaven, even if it takes him 10,000 years to learn it, that’s fine, because he’s got eternity to go!

-Gregory the Great: “Scripture is like a river again, broad and deep, shallow enough here for the lamb to go wading, but deep enough there for the elephant to swim.”

-While we’ll never master the God, or the Bible, we should never stop digging in.

-What Jesus invites us into when we are saved is a journey of growth. Day by day learning and growing more like Him.

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by mikethestrand on September 17, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 17, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/09/17/equipping-classes-sermon-manuscript/

How Do I Grow as a Disciple – Sermon Manuscript

-Last week we looked at the need to keep discipleship at the forefront of our focus

-Great Commandment, Great Commission, our great need.

-This week we’ll be looking at what we need to grow as disciples. Just as plants need soil, water, sun, and air to grow, we need certain things added to our lives to become everything God has called us to be.

-Diagram

-Explain T&V “the basic work of any Christian ministry is to preach the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of God’s Spirit, and to see people converted, changed and grow to maturity in that gospel. This is where the life and power of all ministry is to be found: in the prayerful, Spirit-backed speaking of the message of the Bible by one person to another (or to more than one).”

-Need some sort of trellis (location, Bibles, chairs are helpful, as is an HVAC system) But if we only focus on the trellis (the programs we have) we’re missing the point of a trellis. A trellis is designed to provide structure for a vine.

-Another extreme to avoid is all vine with no trellis. Vine become unhealthy and dies without a way to anchor itself and grow.

-The primary point of this is for the vine (us) to grow healthier and more like Jesus on a daily basis. Remember: each of us need to consciously decide every day to take 1 step closer to Jesus, and pray for the faithfulness to help others take 1 step closer to Jesus because of our time together.

-For all of us, there are some non-negotiables if we want to grow into maturity: it’s the 3 Ss that you see in the sermon outline: Scripture, Sunday, and Serve. We can have the best programs in the world, we can have the best Bible teachers, the best curriculum, the best facility but none of that will help you grow UNLESS you’re spending regular time in Scripture, committing to gather together as God’s people on Sunday, and using your gifts to serve one another. 

PRAY

  1. Scripture (Deut. 6:6, 2 Timothy 3:14-17)

-“These words…on your heart.” Guiding, directing everything.

-Not just a NT idea, this is the way God designed our lives to operate. Centering everything we do around His Words.

-What are we teaching our kids? God’s Word. What should we be talking about as we go about our days? God’s Word! What should be bound between your eyes and on your hands? God’s Word! What should be written on your doors and gates? God’s Word! The focus is God’s Word. 

-As we talk about this idea, I think many of us make the mistake of viewing this solely through our individualistic lenses. When we hear that we need to spend time in God’s Word, our minds immediately jump to “I must have a daily quiet time where I wake up at 5 AM and spend 2 hours reading and studying the Bible.” 

-Don’t take this too far where I’m saying that’s not good, because ANY time reading and studying God’s inspired words to us is worthwhile! But think of how Deuteronomy talks about this. Where do we talk about God’s Word? Not when we’re sitting in “my spot” with my cup of coffee and my journal! Throughout our lives. 

-The other thing that’s important to remember is we’re all wired differently. Some are taller than others, some are stronger than others. Some people thrive by doing the same thing every day, some strive by having variety every day, the primary thing is getting God’s Word in your life some way. Do a verse! Meditate, reflect, put them in your car, on your computer monitor, tattoo them on your arm!

-Timothy: “Continue…from childhood.”

-Praying for a boring testimony for my kids. If you were saved under the age of 18, praise God for the influence of godly people in your life.

-If you didn’t become a believer until later, thank God that you now have the opportunity to grow more like Jesus, but notice that the way salvation comes (through Jesus) is by being acquainted with the sacred writings.

-Heard people say “Don’t put God in a Bible shaped box” I don’t, that’s literally the way God designed it. You can’t separate God from His Word

-“All Scripture” 

-We don’t get to pick and choose which verses or sections we like and ignore the rest. In order to grow more like Jesus, it requires knowing and understanding ALL Scripture. And the crazy part about it is the more you come to know the more you realize you don’t know. I know no one who has completely mastered this book. I know people who have been reading and studying this book for their whole lives and still haven’t mastered it.

-The biggest thing I want you to take away from this section: the point of Scripture in our lives is not to master it, but to be mastered by it. In everything we do we conform ourselves to the Bible.

-A way I’ve been contemplating this reality recently: I’ve read a LOT of books in my life! Do you know how many have really stood out to me and I can remember specific things from? 3: Fellowship, Two Towers, ROTK! (little more than that) But I am the product of the hundreds of books I’ve read, each one somehow affecting and influencing me. Same with the Bible! I’ve read it cover to cover more times than I can count, I’ve dug deep into all sorts of passage regularly. How many times has it been amazing? A few. (Adam was there with her, let your gentleness be evident to all Phil. 4:5)

-“Breathed out by God”

-Translation of 1 Greek word “God-breathed”

-Think of what we see God’s breathe doing in the Bible: creation is by speaking, salvation comes by Jesus breathing on us (weird verse in John 20:22)

-“Profitable” No time spent in God’s Word is wasted. 

-“Teaching” 

-It’s no coincidence that most of our time on Sunday morning is taking up by the teaching of what? God’s Word! Takes place in more than just the preaching too! We sing God’s Word, we pray God’s Word, we see God’s Word (ordinances)

-What should we be teaching each other? God’s Word! Only teaching that is centered on God’s Word is profitable and thus worth our time

-“Reproof”

-Beliefs to avoid, correcting false doctrine

-“Correction”

-how not to live

-“Training in righteousness”

-Culmination of everything else. If we know what to believe, what not to believe, as well as how not to live, we’ll live rightly (or righteously)

-“Complete, equipped for every good work”

-Do you want to become everything God has called us to be? It only comes about through God’s Word. Our north star that guides everything else we do. Gives us everything we need to be obedient to God. Does that mean we should spend 24 hours a day doing nothing but read the Bible? No! But should the Bible be a regular part of our lives? Yes! 

-Read an article this week titled ‘Spiritually Hungry? The Church Service Is Your Main Meal’ where the author said if you ever feel discouraged about not having your “quiet times” think back to what you did when you gathered together with God’s people on Sunday morning. If you’re at a true/faithful church, God’s Word has been spoken over you and worked in you. But that assumes you’re at church, and the second thing we need to remember is God’s Word isn’t about us as individuals.

-Most of the NT was written to the gathered church, when God speaks, He’s speaking to His people (group) We have a tendency to view our faith only in terms of how it affects me instead of seeing how it affects us as a church.

  • Sunday (Hebrews 10:19-25)

-Everything that takes place on Sunday helps to center us on God’s Word, and it’s no coincidence that the way God has designed our world is centered on 7 days. Life is hard!

-Remember and remind. We gather to remember who God is, what He has done in human history (and our lives), remember how He has commanded us to live, and to remind others (and each other) to be faithful living as God has called and commanded.

-Stumbled across a podcast a couple years ago that interviewed some of my previous favorite musicians (CCM world when I was growing up) many of whom have “deconstructed” and left their faith, and honestly sent me spiraling for a few weeks. Why do I believe this, why do I keep putting all this time and effort into this? Is it true? Can I honestly devote the rest of my life to this? Then I stumbled across a guitarist who went through the same process and then realized the times he would question or doubt were when he missed the weekly gathering of God’s people. If we don’t have that, we won’t remember who God is and what He’s like, we’ll ask the question our first parents asked: “Did God really say?” 

-Once again, God’s Word gives us something about this! 

-Just as we saw last week, all of this is dependent on Jesus’ work. Under the old covenant (OT) the only way to enter any holy places was through animal blood, sacrifices, and even then with fear and trepidation for fear of coming face to face with the holy God. And even then, the only person who would try to enter were priests. But that’s the old covenant.

-Now, we have confidence, boldness, full assurance. Nothing to fear, nothing else to do, Jesus has provided the way for us to come straight into God’s presence. So how do we respond? If anyone is a vegetarian in the room, 3 heads of lettuce:

1) Draw Near:

-Full assurance, through faith, hearts sprinkled clean (Jer. 31) bodies washed (communion, the external evidence of our internal faith)

2) Hold fast: to what? Our confession. 

-Doesn’t that seem a bit weird? We hold fast to what we confess to be true, because our faith isn’t dependent on the strength of our faith, but the object of our faith.

-Back to remember and remind! We believe certain things to be true, but we forget them.

3) Consider how to stir up one another.

-How do we stir one another up? By meeting together, and as we meet together we encourage each other. You can’t stir one another up unless you’re actually together.

-COVID got us in a whole bunch of bad habits! Everyone learned how to consume church instead of be the church (heard a pastor one time say even the way our buildings are designed communicate that we’re here to consume. Didn’t offer any alternatives, but pointed it out!) 

-Carson quote

-Not a new idea! Even shortly after Jesus’ ascension people had the habit of not meeting together! There’s nothing new!

-Increasing urgency as “The Day” comes near! Love the way one pastor put this: we’re not on the planning committee, we’re on the welcoming committee. If we’re on the welcoming committee, we need to ensure we’re ready, and as we see that day drawing ever closer we need to scramble to get ready! Like having someone over

  • Serve (1 Peter 4:7-11)

-Just as the urgency in Hebrews was more important as “The Day” approached, Peter is reminding the church that the end is here. 

-Because of that reality, we should live self-controlled and sober-minded lives. Not careless, flippant, or unconcerned. Careful and intentional lives. If we know what the future looks like (we do) then we need to live like we do. Not fearful of what’s going on, not tentative about what God’s doing, not giving in to whatever feelings you have in the moment, instead boldly sharing what God has said: self-controlled and sober-minded. What one person called “Eschatological clearheadedness.”

-“Keep loving one another.”

-Anyone in this room not want to be loved? The reason we need to be reminded of this is it’s easy to forget or refuse to live in that reality. “Earnestly” could also be translated “constantly,” as in this needs to mark all of us. Do you live a life marked by love?

-This love (slow to anger) means it will be able to endure all sorts of sins. Are you unoffendable? 

-Show hospitality without grumbling.

-Talked to people who were tired of always planning the group get togethers. Read this past week about someone who felt called to open up their home to others, had dreams of creating a place where weary travelers could stop, but started thinking that they would be ungrateful and so decided it wasn’t worth it. Talked to a monk who said “love in the theoretical is easy, in the real world very difficult.”

-What does this say the purpose of gifts is? To serve on another.

-Not to build a brand, not to build a following – to serve. Think of Jesus who came not to BE served, but to serve. Who washed His disciples’ feet, a job no person in their right mind would willingly do (clean toilets)

-The primary reason God gave us these gifts is to steward. Not hide it, not bury it: steward it. I’ve shared before I think one of the greatest witnesses today is someone who enjoys all of God’s good gifts in moderation. That’s what stewarding means, not ignoring God’s gifts, not abusing God’s gifts, carefully using them in their proper place. Food is a great gift and a terrible god. Sex is a great gift and a terrible god. Kids are a great gift and a terrible god. Marriage is a great gift and a terrible god. Everything God has given to us is a great gift that points to our great God, but aren’t supposed to be worshipped themselves.

-Same with our gifts! The point of these gifts is to glorify and praise Jesus above everything else, so use your gifts to serve those around you! 

-If you want to grow as a disciple, it means becoming more like Jesus, which means serving as He served, looking to others’ interests above your own.

-The three things necessary for you to grow as a disciple: Scripture, Sunday, serving others with your gifts.

-This has to take place in the context of community. Scripture isn’t meant to be interpreted in isolation. Sunday can’t happen by yourself. You can’t use your gifts to serve yourself! 

-The key is to be actively involved in the life of church! Let Scripture affect every area of your life, prioritize gathering with God’s people, and find your gifts so you can faithfully serve others and continue growing to become more like Jesus.

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by mikethestrand on September 10, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 10, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/09/10/how-do-i-grow-as-a-disciple-sermon-manuscript/

What is a Disciple? – Sermon Manuscript

-Bob did such a good job last week! Thanks to him for being willing to try something new! I did find it funny that I’ve been here for 3 years and never once mentioned where I went to college, like a typical Wheaton alum, he only needed 1 Sunday to make sure everyone knew exactly where he went to college! I do need to offer 1 corrective too – there’s only like 3 podcasts that I listen to at 3x speed, the rest are only 2x.

-Thanks to Bob, I got next year’s sermon series planned! Mark your calendars, we’ll be spending most of the year walking through Revelation.

-One of the things my parents are absolutely terrible at is house repair, which means that if I wanted to learn how to do it, I needed to look somewhere else. Thankfully, my Senior year of high school I met a youth leader who had started his own remodeling company and needed summer help to keep up with all the work he had. 

-I learned how to paint, install toilets, drywall, use a saw, AND he made me start listening to sermons all morning and then talk about them in the afternoon. Alistair Begg, John Piper, Dave Ramsey

-For the summer, I essentially became his apprentice in the trades. He took what he had learned from his career in the trades and taught me. Since then, I’ve gotten to use those skills to do some light remodeling on all 3 of the houses I’ve owned! But I’ve also been given the tools I need to have the confidence tackle new projects that I have no previous experience with. 

-Contrast to the way I was certified in CPR. 1 afternoon class (where I rushed “Stayin Alive”) and I had a certificate that labeled me CPR certified. 

-Why do we need to keep talking about being a disciple, discipleship?

-I did a whole series on this idea last year, but I think it’s important enough for us to be regularly and repeatedly reminded of this idea because it’s the one thing that is supposed to set the church apart from every other earthly organization.

-Think about that: what other earthly organization has been tasked by God to make disciples? None! That’s must be the primary focus of the church! Out of that disciple-making purpose flows other things (care for the widow and orphan, concern for the poor and marginalized, and other societal concerns) but those cannot replace the primary focus of making disciples, those need to flow out of the disciple-making.

-Another reason we’ll keep talking about it is because of Jesus’ last words to us before He ascended to heaven. This disciple making idea is the last thing He left with His first disciples, and the reason you’re all here today is because those disciples continued making more disciples, meaning if you trace your spiritual lineage far enough back, we could all find ourselves gathered on a hill outside Jerusalem watching Jesus ascend to the clouds.

-READ/PRAY

  1. The Great Commandment (Matt. 22:34-40)

-If you were asked what the most important command or rule in all the Bible was, how would you do it? 

-“One rabbi quoted Proverbs 3:6 as the heart of the Law: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” Another rabbi quoted Habakkuk 2:4: “The righteous shall live by his faith.””

-Today it may be John 3:16 or Matt. 7:1 “Judge not, that you be not judged”

-Jesus went a slightly different direction.

-If you remember back to before we studied the Psalms we were walking through Mark’s Gospel. The 2 primary Jewish leaders were the Pharisees and the Sadducees, Pharisees were the conservatives, Sadducees were the liberals, but where they were united was in their opposition to Jesus. Throughout all the Gospels we see each group posing various theological or philosophical questions to Jesus to test Him or trap Him with some question they viewed as unanswerable. They were out to prove that Jesus wasn’t the great teacher many people thought. Sadducees (who didn’t believe in the resurrection) had just asked Jesus their philosophical conundrum: if someone is married, spouse dies, and this happens 7 times, who will they be married to in the resurrection? There isn’t marriage in the resurrection! This stuns them, so the Pharisees think its’ their turn: they ask a common debate of the day: which commandments were light, and which were weighty? The law was described as held up by hundreds of nails (613), and various religious experts had proposed various solutions to the best way of summarizing.

-It’s important to note who is thrust forward to ask the question. Lit. “expert in the law” which at the time had both religious and social aspects to it. This expert had been mulling over this question, scheming about the best time to spring it on Jesus. Only 2 options: either he would argue for 1 that would be viewed as crazy, or he would have refused to answer demonstrating that Jesus didn’t have enough understanding of the law.

-Remember what I said a few minutes ago about what people viewed as the most important aspect? Acknowledge God, or live by faith. Jesus doesn’t go there, though.

-Instead, Jesus used the most used known and used verse of the day. Written on the foreheads and hands, spoken by every faithful Jew each morning and evening. Deut. 6 the Shema (hear) Heart, soul, “muchness” 

-Command to teach them diligently (indoctrinate them in your children), they should come up throughout our lives.

-Bind them on hands and frontlets between eyes: even your hands should be used to love God, and the way you view the world (like glasses) should be loving God. Not just individually: doorposts (when you leave the house), gates (marketplace should be a place of loving God)

-Look at the command we’re given, it starts with love. Why love, why not obedience?

-We are all far more driven by our emotions/desires than we will ever admit. Think of Paul in Rom. 7who is complaining that he can’t stop sinning! He knows the right thing to do, but his can’t stop pursuing the wrong thing! It’s because deep down our loves aren’t right. We love ourselves, we love our stuff, we don’t love God first. 

-Additionally, Jesus invites us into a relationship. We’re not robots or automatons built to carry out a specific function to make God’s life better (as many other religions argue). We’re designed to be in a relationship with God: we love because He first loved us.

-Notice as well the repeated “all” What’s left out? Nothing!

-Heart, soul, mind this time. Slightly different wording, same meaning behind it. We’re supposed to love God with everything we have and are! But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Almost as if He’s playing a trick on this lawyer, He goes on to show the way God’s love is demonstrated in our lives. 

-These 2 commands had never before been connected to each other. The first quote was from Deut. This second one is from Lev. 19:18 in a section that talks about the ways God’s people are to care for their neighbors. Things like: leave some of your field unharvested for the poor, pay your employees well, pursue justice in legal matters. Or you could summarize it by saying love your neighbors like your love yourself. The way we demonstrate our love of God is by loving our neighbors.

-“Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love…If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfect in us.” 1 John 4:8, 11-12)

-Anti-mysticism because God actually cares how we treat other people.

-anti-selfish because we need to care about others just as much as we care about ourselves.

-anti-worldly because it requires giving up something of yourself for the sake of those around you. Instead of continually trying to get more and better things, it demands that you give away.

-This also summarizes the 10 commandments: Ex. 20: No other gods, carven images, name of the Lord in vain, Sabbath, honor parents, no murder, no adultery, no stealing, no false witness against a neighbor, no coveting what others have

-God’s law is summarized as loving God, and loving others. If you want to live a full life, be satisfied in what you have and are, it means love God first and foremost, and then demonstrate that love by loving others. How do we do that? I’m glad you asked! Jesus talks about that:

  • The Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20)

-Begin with “all authority”

-Jesus is sitting on His throne whether or not we want to admit it. That means that everyone is a part of His kingdom and everyone will someday have to acknowledge that reality. Some will join with Him in furthering and working that Kingdom in heaven, and others will be forever separated from Him and will bear the just penalty for their treason against the King. This is why it’s important to understand and live according to God’s law! If you want to find success in the world He made, it means ordering your life as He says we should.

-Salvation isn’t the end goal, that’s just the starting point. That’s why He commands us to make disciples, not converts. If conversion were the end goal that would be far too easy (as Muhammad did, surround a city, threaten death if they don’t convert, and then move on).

-How do we make disciples? 

-Whose job is it, ours or Gods? Yes! Ultimately, we can’t save anyone, it’s only when the HS brings someone from death to live that the journey as a disciple begins. Not only that, but it’s us working in conjunction with the HS to continue growing as a disciple. We’re commanded to work out our own salvation, but at the same time remember that it is God who works in us.

-That doesn’t mean we’re completely passive in this whole endeavor. Even in this commission, we baptize (Trinitarian God), we teach, and we live as citizens of heaven. We don’t have the eyes to see the way God’s kingdom advances. It’s not on power or might or persuasion or intellect, it’s through the Word & our lives.

-What is a disciple? Literally: a pupil, learner, to be intentionally taught.

-As the OSB has been chatting, 3 words came to my mind: love, learn, and live. Love God and others, learn the things that Jesus taught, and live out the loving and learning that you’re doing. This is a daily occurrence, in Luke 9:23, Jesus said if anyone wants to follow after Him, they must take up their cross daily. This means bringing intentionality to your every decision. Unlike signing up for an 8 week class and getting a certificate that says now you’re a disciple, it’s instead an entire lifetime pursuit. We’ll take a look next week at the foundation of that growth. 

-But that gets us to the next step in this, which is discipleship: a few key things to point out: 

-Intentionally: You need to own this. Being a disciple doesn’t just happen, it takes a daily decision to follow Christ today. And tomorrow, it takes intentional effort to decide to get up and follow Jesus then. And you can’t do it by yourself! You need to look for ways to disciple others as you grow, otherwise you’re not obeying Jesus’ commission!

-Formally and informally: think of what we saw in the Shema, training happens when you go about your regular life. Yes, there will be and should be times where you’re intentionally growing in a certain area, or you’re training someone else in a specific area, but it should also take place as you’re shopping for groceries, or going on a walk, or playing video games. Everything you do can be used as a tool to encourage others in their walk with Jesus, even if the Holy Spirit hasn’t yet saved them.

-Cheri’s story

-1 step closer: this has become the refrain that many of the OSB and staff have latched onto as a way of summarizing this whole idea. Our aim in life is to daily take 1 step closer to Jesus (or loving God better with all our heart, soul, mind, strength), and not just ourselves, but to be looking at the interactions we have with others as an opportunity to have them take 1 step closer to Jesus. One easy way of doing this is just take time to pray with someone after a meeting! Or if someone’s sharing a need stop right there and pray for them!

-As he often does, C.S. Lewis summarizes this idea really well in The Weight of Glory

  • The Great Need (1 Tim. 4:11-16, Gal. 5:22-26)

-How do we intentionally disciple others, how do we help them, and ourselves, take 1 step closer to Jesus through our interactions? 

-Paul’s letter to the younger Timothy, and one of the verses people spoke regularly into my life when I first started here. Notice the 5-fold command Paul gives to Timothy (we focus on the first half of that verse and tend to stop there.)

-Speech, conduct, love, faith, purity. I don’t think any of those words are accidental or incidental. Speech: who tends to be slightly flippant in their speech, or speak authoritatively without experience and humility to temper it. The young! Conduct: who tends to be up too late, eat too much junk food, spend too much money? The young! Love: who tends to focus on themselves instead of others? Young! Faith: who often struggles in their faith? The young! Purity: who struggles remaining chaste and completely pure in their interactions with each other? Paul is telling Timothy to put childish ways behind, set an example that looks like Jesus to those around Him.

-Devote yourself to: public reading of Scripture (which is preaching and teaching), and use your gift!

-Be diligent (intentionally practice, don’t give up! Remain faithful in them!)

-So others will see. 2 extremes to avoid: pride and hiding. 

-Pride: insisting on your own way, judging others for your perceived lack of their gifts. Looking to be served because of your giftings. None of us is better than the other, we ALL need each other to function as God intends this body to function.

-The other extreme is hiding your gifts and growth. We feel like we’re bragging when we share about how God is using us. It’s not you, it’s Christ IN you that these things happen! We need to get better at sharing the ways we’re seeing God working.

-There’s something specific that Timothy needs to watch closely: Life and doctrine.

-Where do people fall away from God’s grace? Life or doctrine.

-We’ve all read the stories of pastors who didn’t watch their life closely and disqualified themselves from ministry (money, affairs, bullying)

-But what about failing to watch their doctrine? There’s a lot of churches who should stop using the title of “church” because they’re not preaching the faith that has can be traced back to the first 12 disciples. 

-We need to be taking steps in both our life and our doctrine on a regular basis.

-What measurement do I use to see if I’m taking 1 step closer to Jesus? Gal. 5, or use love as the metric (which is in the fruit list!)

-As you think through the life piece, think of these 9 evidences of the Spirit at work in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

-Keep in step with the spirit:

 -Ever taken dancing lessons? It’s SUPER painful if your dance partner doesn’t know the steps, or if you’re out of sync. Our job is to be following the HS’s lead.

“One of the most striking evidences of sinful human nature lies in the universal propensity for downward drift. In other words, it takes thought, resolve, energy, and effort to bring about reform. In the grace of God, sometimes human beings display such virtues. But where such virtues are absent, the drift is invariably toward compromise, comfort, indiscipline, sliding disobedience and decay that advances, sometimes at a crawl and sometimes at a gallop, across generations.

People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.” Carson

-What do you want in your life? Grace-driven effort, that leads toward holiness (1 step closer), or drifting away from what God has commanded you to do and be?

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by mikethestrand on September 3, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 3, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/09/03/what-is-a-disciple-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 29 – Sermon Manuscript

Our God is an Awesome God

Psalm 29 (pg. 262)

-Luther’s “call” to ministry. In 1505, Luther had just received his master’s degree in law. He was planning to go back home to visit his family (about 55 miles away)

-He got caught in a terrible storm, so strong that he thought God had unleashed the heavens to take his life. He found a big granite rock, clung to it and prayed out to a Saint, swearing to become a Monk if he survived. Luther survived, and after getting back home gave away everything from his law school days and entered the monastery, beginning Luther’s journey that 12 years later would ignite the Protestant Reformation across Europe.

-Maybe you’ve seen a similar storm: the awesome power, the fear welling up inside of you. What’s your response when you see incredible power at work? Today’s Psalm will help give us language to worship God in the midst of these storms that we see on a regular basis!

-Sometimes the point of a passage of Scripture is just to help us think differently/more rightly about God.

-We are called to worship God with all our hearts, soul, and mind, which means we sometimes need to have our mental frameworks challenged. You won’t grow in understanding of God unless you’re sometimes stretched, just like working out

-I also want to take a minute to remind us that part of the purpose of church is reorientation. Everything in our world trains us (whether we realize it or not) that we’re the center of the world. Church is pretty much the only place left that teaches us that’s not true. So basically every week when we come to church, we’re experiencing a Copernican revolution: having us removed from center of the universe to bringing God in there. Friends, your life isn’t just about you: it’s about you bringing glory to God.

READ/PRAY (pg. 262)

  1. He Reigns In Glory (1-2)

-Last week I shared part of the difficulty in this section of Psalms is that we have no context of what was taking place – they list the author and stop. This Psalm continues that idea

-Ascribe literally translated as “give” Give what to Him?

-Recognition, awareness, mental recognition. Later on it specifically commands the worship of God, which tells us these 2 ideas are connected together. To worship God is giving Him something. The word worship came out of the idea of recognizing the value of something – worth-ship. So anytime we’re worshipping we’re giving saying that we value that specific thing. That’s why people can worship (give worth to) all sorts of things besides God! Money, kids, family, education. Everything in our world as assigned some sort of worth, we literally put price tags on things to tell us exactly how much “worth-ship” we should give it. As we’ll see as we walk through this text, that’s part of the reason it’s so important to be gathering together each week: to remind us what we should be giving all our worth-ship to.

-Begins calling on the “heavenly beings” or a more literal translation of the Hebrew is “sons of God”

-angels or other gods? Similar phrasing to Gen. 6:2, or Job 1:6 some kind of heavenly council comprised of the various spiritual beings created by God. Remember, Psalms are poetry, they bring in various elements that are open to interpretation. The primary point remains the same: the first people David called on to “give” to the Lord aren’t humans, it’s in the spiritual realm.

-That combined with (spoiler alert) vs. 10 shows us that most likely David was reflecting on the time of the great flood (only other time the specific word for “flood” is used in the OT) Not just referring that one-time flood, but also brings in the way God reigns over major weather events like a thunderstorm.

-This also points to some of the ways we can celebrate where people are looking for or seeking after the one true God. If it’s true that David stole an already written song dedicated to another God and refocused it for the worship of the one true God, shouldn’t we look for areas where God’s truth is breaking through? Some of the old hymns that many of you love started as bar songs. Where the music once celebrated drunken revelry, people like Martin Luther gave them new life when he changed the focus from sinful living to sanctified songs used to gaze our attention from ourselves to our God. Honestly, it causes me to ask myself: where am I misplacing my focus and attention and belittling something instead of taking the things that are good, right, and true and celebrating those pieces and using them as an opportunity to point to God. I, just yesterday, read 1 Cor. 13 at an OSB meeting: Love REJOICES with the truth! Do you rejoice when the truth comes out?

-This is also not the first time we’ve seen David focus on creation as a reminder to worship God. Spurgeon: “Just as the eighth Psalm is to be read by moonlight, when the stars are bright, as the nineteenth needs the rays of the rising sun to bring out its beauty, so this can be best rehearsed beneath the black wing of tempest, by the glare of the lightning, or amid that dubious dusk which heralds the war of elements. The verses march to the tune of thunderbolts. God is everywhere conspicuous, and all the earth is hushed by the majesty of his presence.”

-Why should the sons of god or heavenly beings ascribe to God? Because He has glory and strength, which leads to being worthy of glory.

-Think of the way people prepare for someone who’s in a position of power & authority to visit, like if you found out the president was stopping by the church. How would you respond? Security would increase, expectations would change.

-Or maybe that’s too big for you to imagine, instead think of what happens when a judge enters the courtroom chambers (at least from what I’ve seen on TV!). All rise until you are invited to sit down. It’s a way of showing honor to the judge. 

-It’s the same reason we stand when the Word of God is read! Every time we do that God is speaking to us. Do you realize that? God still speaks to us all we have to do to hear Him is open our Bibles.

-After commanding these heavenly beings to ascribe to God, David then changes the last term to remind us to worship (ascribe worth, dignity, honor to) because of His holiness (sacredness, set-apart-ness.)

-Holiness isn’t something we often come to terms with, especially today! We’ve so broken down any dividing walls that we don’t have anything that’s considered sacred anymore. Yet what’s crazy is the sacred still continues breaking through (saw this last week with the wicked who don’t regard God’s works as worthy of praise to Him). And when we come before God, He’s not just holy, He’s holy, holy, holy, three times. I remember hearing a message from RC Sproul a number of years ago on this idea: 3 times in the Bible means perfection, so God alone is describe as perfectly holy. We see this a couple times in the Bible: Isa. 6:3, Rev. 4:8. 

-When we worship God in His holiness, it’s describing something that is only true of God. The only reason anyone or anything else is holy is because of Him. Think of the way the moon provides light: it’s only a reflection of the sun, similarly we worship God (in holiness) as a reflection of His holiness. We don’t have any in ourselves.

-But all this is just the prelude to the main event:

  • He Reigns Over Nature (3-9)

-Have you ever been outside on the plains of the Dakotas or our West and watched a storm roll in? You can see it coming from miles away! 

-This is watching a storm front in Cheyenne, WY. I pulled over just to take the picture of the wall of clouds thundering down! The day after Cara agree to date with me, we had a tornado touch down in town!

-Which you can see in this picture! You can see some of the funnels starting to form here. Reminds me of my fear of tornados growing up, and watching my grandpa walk outside and look for them while we were on our way to the basement!

-Finally, this picture shows a storm brewing over the Rocky Mountains outside Estes Park. Notice how visibility goes from crystal clear to non-existent.

-I remember watching one of those storms with a friend who commented “Can you imagine what this would have been like as people drove their wagons through here?” How terrifying would it have been to watch a tornado off in the distance without the satellite view we enjoy today? We can see where the end of the storm is by opening a map on our phones, what if we didn’t know that the storm would end?

-I think the beginning of this Psalm shows another evidence that David is reflecting on Genesis: where does it say God is hovering at the beginning? Over the face of the waters.

-Other ANE religions (particularly Baal worship) viewed the storms, waves, water as the god themselves. What’s unique about the one true God is He’s over the waters, over the other competing gods. Whether we realize it or not, there are other spiritual forces at work in the world around us. The Bible tells us there’s an enemy, a great deceiver who views his job to cause as much destruction as possible. To lead as many people astray as he can. But he has nothing on our God. Where other religions make lower gods their ultimate focus, the one true God is enthroned far above any other ruler or power on earth (Eph. 1:21). While these other gods may seem impressive to us humans, even God’s voice thunders over them.

-Isn’t thunder impressive? It’s so loud you hear your house shake, you can feel it in your bones, if you’re outside it literally hurts your ears.

-Yet thunder has nothing on God! God’s voice is even more powerful! It’s full of majesty

-Think of all the things we see God’s voice doing in Scripture: creating everything in the beginning, calling sinners to repent throughout the whole Bible, coming down as the “Word made flesh” and living among us sinful people, forgiving sin. All God has to do is speak and it literally changes the way things operate and exist. God opens His mouth and His creation obeys. At least most of His creation obeys. Who doesn’t? Humans! 

-Think of a passage like James 4:17 “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” Do you want to know what God commands? Read His Word! This Word has spoken galaxies into existence, broken armies apart, toppled dictators, and created new people out of sinners like me. God’s voice both created the existing world, and continues in the new creation of calling people to himself.  

-There’s a specific direction to these descriptions David gives us in this Psalm. Look at the way this storm moves:

-Begins over the sea, moves inward to the forest of Lebanon where it breaks down cedars. Cedars aren’t small trees. Micah visited CA before he started here and shared some pictures with me of the redwood trees. If you haven’t seen them, they’re MASSIVE trees! And they’ve got nothing on God. God breaks them down like you or I break a toothpick, nothing can stand against Him!

-The next stop is Sirion, which is another name for Mt. Herman. Deut. 3:9 “The Sidonians call Hermon Sirion.” Not only do the cedars break at His name, the mountains run before Him. Once again, if you’ve ever felt thunder roaring, you can understand why even a mountain would shake in its’ boots! 

-The storm continues moving East as it goes out to shake the wilderness of Kadesh. There’s a number of places throughout the East that this could be referring to, but continues following the path of the storm.

-Nothing can stand in the wake of it: dear give birth, forests are stripped bare, lightning strikes as flames of fire. Think of what you’ve seen after a tornado wrecks its’ way through a city. Pastor Bruce had a tree or 2 fall down because of a tornado a couple years ago. The pure power behind those things is incredible!

-What’s the only way people can respond? Crying out to worship God! How much control do we have over the weather? We can see it coming, we can watch the clouds, can we stop the rain? Can we move a tornado? Can we even adjust a single rain drop? All we can do is stand in awe!

-Friends, don’t miss this: storms aren’t mere accidents, they don’t catch God by surprise, His rule isn’t threatened by these acts of nature, instead they are evidences of His power and glory ruling over His creation. Where some people are tempted to worship the storm, we’re called to worship the God who controls it. We view the storm as reminders of His strength and glory, and fall on our faces in worship of the God who rules over the storm!

  • He Reigns Forever (10-11)

-God is King far above any weather phenomenon. Baal can only be found in the storms, but that’s way too small for God!

-Reminiscent of the story of Elijah in 1 Kings – there had been a drought for 3 years. Who’s the god of the storms & weather? Baal. How’s he doing? Showdown on Mt. Carmel: which god shows up? The one true God.

-Not only is God enthroned above the weather, he’ll never be overthrown and He’ll always pay attention. How do we know that? The last verse:

-God strengthens and blesses His people with everlasting peace.

-It’s appropriate that this Psalm ends with the way God intends His creation to operate: shalom, everlasting peace and prosperity. Everything existing in perfect harmony with God and each other. 

-This is the direction God is taking His creation in the future, and the way He initially created the world, yet we live in this time of tension where storms scare us instead of reminding us to praise God. Someday, everything that happens will cause us to respond to God with worship.

-This Psalm has taught us that God allows everything to happen for a reason, and it’s meant to cause us to better worship God (obey, honor, and recognize Him).

-Your job with this Psalm: next time a thunderstorm rolls through: read this Psalm and give thanks to God for His rule over all creation, and ask God to allow you to bring shalom to those around you.

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by mikethestrand on August 20, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on August 20, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/08/20/psalm-29-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 25 – Sermon Manuscript

Waiting on the Lord

Psalm 25

-Who here likes waiting? I am terrible at it! I hate waiting so much I don’t even like surprises! Cara has tried planning surprises for me multiple times, and as soon as I get a wind that something it going on I’m on a mission to bug her until she caves and tells me. Delayed gratification vs. instant gratification (marshmallow study)

-Our culture is terrible with this! Why wait for anything when everything is immediately available? I’ve even had times where I’ve gone on Amazon to order something and because it didn’t have 2 day shipping I just skipped it. Where this is dangerous is that’s not the way God works in our lives, and in many cases waiting is a spiritual development that we need to pursue.

-Slowness from The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

-No one that I know likes waiting, but what if waiting is exactly where God wants us? How many of you by rushing ahead have come to regret your decisions? I’m not saying there’s not a time and a place for quick decisions, but what if God’s ways are to work in us to transform us through waiting, and part of the reason we’re not as far along as we thought (or hoped) we’d be by now is because we’re so bad at waiting.

-In today’s Psalm, David will show us what it looks like to actively wait on the Lord. Doesn’t mean we disengage, doesn’t mean we run away, it means we push into Him and trust Him to work while we wait for Him.

READ/PRAY (pg. 261)

-This Psalm is an acrostic (using each letter of the alphabet) Hebrew poetry is VERY different from the way we write poetry today! Not rhyming, but does have a defined pattern (which you can see as you look through the book of Psalms vs. the rest of the Bible)

-Think of how much time it would have taken for David to write this? The intentionality and effort to have each phrase begin with the next letter of the alphabet (not a bad prayer template! Use the alphabet to pray to God). One of the things this reveals to us is that art and beauty come from God. Think of the beauty we see around us. I sat outside with some guys on Friday night watching the lightning storm come in. That is IMPRESSIVE! Or watching a sunset off in the distance. God didn’t need to make things beautiful, but He did, and because humans are created in His image, we derivatively create beauty (music, painting, buildings) they’re all opportunities to bring honor and glory to God, just as David does with this Psalm.

-Chiasm 

-Regular feature of Hebrew poetry, brings everything to specific focus at the center of the poem, here’s what this Psalm looks like as a chiasm: The center point is the character and forgiveness of God.

  1. Waiting for God’s Protection (1-5)

-Who else would David lift his soul to? We’re tempted to lift our souls all sorts of other places! Think of what God says in the First Commandment: no other gods before me. Aren’t we all tempted to look for our ultimate satisfaction and worth in other places? Job, parenting, house, money, recognition. 

-How often do you take stock of the idols of your heart? David’s first prayer is asking God to reveal any idols in his heart that are taking the place of God. This connects back to last week: as we approach God, we need to acknowledge and understand that He is completely holy. His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts, so we need to bring acceptable worship before Him, which we have only because of the sacrifice of Jesus.

-Shame in the Bible isn’t a feeling. Honor/shame culture means if you have shame you lose all social standing and has repercussions throughout their whole life (friends abandon, business won’t let you shop there).

-Cancel culture today is a picture of this!

-If you wait for God’s guidance this won’t happen to you, instead David’s enemies are the ones who will be put to shame, but it’s only for those who are waiting and following after the Lord.

-But waiting doesn’t mean you sit back (“let go and let God”). There’s an active waiting and a passive waiting. Back when Black Friday was in person, friends and I waited overnight for flash drives. Many people brought chairs, heaters, tents. We had sleeping bags and spent the night coming up with games we could play! Others sat by themselves trying to stay warm. Similarly, waiting on God means we continue moving and living our lives.

-Pastor once told me God can’t move a parked car! So get moving!

-How do we know we’re waiting correctly? Vs. 4-5

-We ask God! David asks to know God’s ways and paths. That’s another way of saying how God’s children should carry out their lives. How do we know what that is? By planting ourselves in God’s truth, His Word. 

-I’ve often heard the Bible described as a life map. If so, it’s a terrible map, because it only leads to 1 person: Jesus! However, if we take that idea to it’s logical conclusion, then it’s a great map, because we’re supposed to become more like Him every day.

-Don’t treat the Bible like an atlas (today’s problem is gluttony so I’m going to look up those verses), treat it like a life-long workout plan (slowly becoming more of who God created you to be)

-Not enough to just set it on the side and move on, active waiting continues as we:

  • Waiting for God’s Teaching (6-11)

-Remember is more than thinking something, it’s a call to action! 2 aspects to this remembering: God needs to remember (and act) according to His character, because David’s character can’t match up to God’s! Thankfully, God is always true to who He says He will be, and acts according to who He is.

-God’s mercy and steadfast love (covenant faithfulness, which means God ALWAYS keeps His Word & promises)

-“Been from of old” there is historical precedent for David to call on God to do these things. As He prays to God, David remembers how God had moved in Israel’s history, and so should we. God isn’t disconnected from what happens here in the daily grind.

-Contrasted with God’s character is David’s character, because David needs God to forget his sinful ways. 

-As David looks back over his life, he realizes that he was a terrible sinner (similar ideas in vss. 11, 18) and asks God to not remember his previous sins or acts of rebellion.

-It’s amazing how quickly we can look back over our lives and realize how dumb we were. Bob Dettmer one time told me no one is their best self at 16 (sorry if you’re 16!) But I don’t think it stops at 16 (at least it shouldn’t!) I look back at 26 and think “if only I knew…” 

-But at the same time, the things I know I’ll never regret as I get older is the times and moments where I was obedient to God. I don’t regret the times spent reading my Bible, the times spent encouraging other Christians, the times spent with His people, the time spent reading more about who God is and how I relate to Him. The regrets come from not waiting on Him! 

-This is why we need God’s steadfast love and mercy! Think of a verse many of you have probably heard before, Lam. 3:22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Do you ever contemplate that reality? God’s steadfast love (covenant keeping faithfulness) NEVER stops! Energizer bunny: keeps going, going, going. Or there’s no limit to his mercy: you can’t out-sin it. And all this is done because God is good, David isn’t!

-Continuing on with what God is like: good and upright. God is good, everything He does is good, and because of that He can help sinners (us) following in the correct ways of living.

-But notice what’s required of those sinners: humility. “Pride stands in the way of instruction; humility makes a person open to listening to God.” (Longman) Pride puts yourself in the place of God, and fights against vs. 1.

-You don’t know what you don’t know. I can’t tell you how many arguments I get into with my kids over stuff they’re convinced is right, but they have no clue what they’re talking about! If that’s true with our 30 year age gap, how much more true is that for us and God’s eternal age gap? That’s why we need to submit ourselves (humble ourselves) to God’s guidance in our lives so that we don’t pursue the wrong paths!

-To wrap up this idea, David summarizes: ALL the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness. If we follow God’s way, we will be like Him. But there’s again a stipulation or expectation on His people: keeping God’s covenant and testimonies (the demands of His covenant)

-This is David, once again, looking back to the historical ways God has revealed Himself. Think of how God describes Himself in Ex. 34:6-7 ““The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” Do you see all those same ideas in these verses? 

-This is the center of the chiasm, the main point David wants to get across is who God is and what He’s like, exactly as God has revealed Himself. Now notice that David basically uses Ex. as a template for his prayer. All the same themes and ideas are incorporated into these verses. David uses God’s word as the inspiration for his prayer life, which is a wonderful practice!

–Praying the Bible – if you want a copy, I have about 10!

  • Waiting for God’s Provision (12-22)

-Building back out from the focus on God to David’s current state, he moves to fearing the Lord. Isn’t living in a constant state of being afraid, instead it’s giving him the honor and recognition that He alone is worthy of.

-Think of Prov. 9:10 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” The beginning! Those are the people God will continue to train in how they should live (the way connects it back to vss. 9-10)

-This man will abide (live) in well-being, or prosperity, and his children (who are also following God) will inherit the land. Yet another look back to history Gen. 15:18 Abraham and his descendants would inherit the promised land. 

-Not only would David get these blessings from God, but he’d also receive friendship with God. Doesn’t that feel too close/intimate with the holy Creator of the universe? It would be if it wasn’t true! Paradox of the gospel message is the holy creator God can now live with His people.

-Only way this can happen is by continually focusing the gaze and focus of your life toward God, letting other things fade away in comparison to him. Feet out of the net is another way of referring to traps from enemies.

-David then contemplates his situation apart from God. If God won’t turn to him and be gracious, then he’ll be: lonely, afflicted, have big troubles, distresses, and his sins won’t be forgiven.

-Friends, don’t miss this: these verses are only true if our eyes only ever toward the Lord. If we look at the mess around us or spend too much time fixating on our sin we’ll miss the goodness of God in extending His mercy and lovingkindness to us. This is why we need to daily preach to ourselves because if we don’t we’re prone to forget, neglect, marginalize the good news of what Jesus’ coming means for all our lives.

-The final section brings attention back to David’s enemies who remain opposed to Him. While David has continued waiting for the Lord, so have his enemies. And the enemies are using this active waiting to mock and belittle David. He needs God’s provision in His life, because otherwise the enemies will win! They’ll put David to shame and leave him to rot.

-Notice what David asks to preserve him: integrity (right, pure living) and uprightness (conforming to the right standard, following the right path) These words are true of God, but they’re also supposed to be true of His people! David asks God to preserve and deliver him, but that doesn’t leave David off the hook! He’s responsible for living in such a way that it is reflective of God (or imaging Him)

-Ends by changing the focus of this from the individual to the nation. 

-The only way this can be true of the nation is by each individual waiting on the Lord, living as He has called and commanded us.

-This is also true of the church today! We individually need to be actively waiting on the Lord, which means living as He has called and commanded us. If we each don’t pursue that, we won’t be everything we as a church should be. So the question before all of us once again: how good are you at waiting? Not sitting back and doing nothing, but living as we need to, as God has commanded us in this time of waiting.

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by mikethestrand on July 23, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on July 23, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/07/23/psalm-25-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 24 – Sermon Manuscript

-Getting ready for prom, a wedding, a date. What does it entail? Showering, shaving, right outfit, hair just right. 

-Do we ever think about getting ready to worship God?

READ/PRAY (261)

-Before we dig in, I want us to pay attention to the overall flow of thought of this Psalm. God – humans – response. If you’ve been coming here very long, that should sound familiar to you! The best way I’ve found of summarizing the message of the gospel: God, humans, Christ, response.

-Who is God? What is he like? How does He communicate Himself to others? Think of how the NCC begins: God is the creator and sustainer of everyone and everything. How do we know that? His Word! Think of how the Bible begins: in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

-The pinnacle of creation was humans. Humans were and are created in God’s image, meaning in some way humans reflect or mirror God. Nothing else is described that way. This also means that humans are created to be in relationship with God, and that lasts for 2 whole chapters before descending into chaos in what is known as “the fall.” This is starting to sound like terrible news, and the gospel literally means good news! And if it stopped here it would be terrible news: life sucks, oh well (naturalistic worldview: if this is all there is it’s terrible!)

-Thus far we’ve got God and humans. Calvin “true and sound wisdom consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” I think we need a recovery of this idea today: we don’t know ourselves well enough, nor do we know God well enough so we continually try to find our own way, like the blind leading the blind.

-Thankfully the gospel message goes on to Christ! Because of the fall, separation from God, there needed to be some way of fixing that broken relationship, so God came to earth in a person, in a specific time and place. This God-man lived the perfect lied and died a brutal death in place of the world. But unlike every other death, He didn’t stay dead! He rose again showing that He has power even over death! This act has cosmic implications and impacts literally all of creation! But it also demands some kind of response from us.

-How should we respond to the historical fact of this resurrection? Peter answers this question in Acts 2:38 “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” 

-This Psalm actually contains every aspect of the gospel message in it, as you’ll see when we walk through it. But that’s why I wanted us to be aware of the bigger picture of this Psalm before we get into the nitty gritty.

-This also is meant to serve as a way we structure and understand our worship of God. See, all of worship is a response to God. God works, we respond because unlike everything else in creation, we have a choice in whether or not we choose to worship. (the rocks cry out) Worship isn’t meant to be just a feeling or a genre of music or a creative expression. Worship is meant to be a life fully surrendered to the God of the universe. So if we take this big picture idea as the way we structure our worship, it has to begin with an awareness of God, which then moves to an understanding of who we are in light of who God is, and then we can respond as we’re supposed to: in obedience and surrender. 

-Need to begin with an understanding of God: call to worship. How does God describe Himself matters greatly! Think of it like this: if I told you I loved my wife SO much and then said she’s a 5’ blonde who enjoys sewing and McDonalds you would need to start questioning my commitment to my wife! It’s the same thing with God. God created us to be in relationship with Him, which means we need to know who He is, what He’s like, how He works.

-Then we need to who we are! If that’s who God is and what He’s like, how do we relate to Him? What are the practices or expectations He has for us, and what do we need to do to ensure the relationship lasts? Again, like marriage, think of love languages. In order for a marriage to last love is integral, but both parties need to express love in a way that the other can understand. Similarly with God: because of sin (at its’ core is idolatry or worshipping the wrong God) that relationship has been broken. So when we understand who God is, we must respond with confession of our sin and need of God to get back to a healthy relationship with Him. Once that relationship has been restored:

-How do we respond? With gratitude and thanksgiving for God’s provision & salvation. If you think through the way our worship services are structured, these elements must be a part of them. It helps focus our hearts and minds in the right direction, it helps us to orient our thoughts around God, and it reminds us of the truths of the gospel message we gather around!

-The gospel message must be visible explicitly and implicitly. 

-With that in mind, let’s take a look at how this Psalm teaches us to worship.

  1. The King’s Domain (1-2)

-Have you ever played “Dibs” Or seen Finding Nemo where the seagulls clam they own everything? Who truly owns the world? We have a tendency to act as if we do! We buy and sell land. We collect stuff to try to get more (or the same) stuff as the people next to us, but at some point it will either be in a landfill or belong to someone else. Everything we have is just ours to steward for the little time we have it. Do you view your relationship to “your” stuff that way?

-This is why it’s so important to begin with an understanding and awareness of who God is! AW Tozer: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” As we take stock of our lives: where we spend our time and money, do we view them as good gifts from God for us to steward while we’re here, or do we view it as “No, mine” as I hear through my house regularly! In reality, the only one who can claim “No, mine!” is God:

-Kuyper “There’s not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence over which Christ, who is Lord over all, does not exclaim, ‘Mine’!” This is exactly what David is saying in this first verse. “The earth…and the fullness” Nothing is left out!

-It’s not just the land and animals, God’s oversight also includes: “Those who dwell” 

-Who’s left out of God’s oversight? No one! This means we need to care for everyone who dwells on the earth. We just heard from the Erno’s today, I had the opportunity to have lunch with them this past week and hear more about what God’s doing in China, and this is where it’s so important for us to continue to pray for and care about global missions. Whether people realize it or not, God is in charge and everyone will either bow the knee to Him willingly on this side of eternity, or be forced to on that side. Let’s look for ways and opportunities to invite people to join with God today!

-Founded and established. Complete power and control. Unlike the other “gods” people worship, the one true God created the world out of nothing. The seas are as a mere drop to Him, the rivers only course because of Him. How many of you could hold back the ocean? God can. And that’s the same God who invites us to be in a relationship with Him. It just boggles the mind.

-After reflecting on this Creator God, this causes David to ask a question:

  • The King’s People (3-6)

-That question is: who can approach this God who is in charge of everything? 

-If we truly understand God as He has revealed himself to be, it forces us to ask this question. Think of Isaiah the prophet who sees God and falls on his face (woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips!) The ones who don’t ask that question are followers of the evil one who see God and shake their fist!

-The hill of the Lord is a way of connecting back to how God has met with His people throughout history. Think back to Psalm 2:6 where God says “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” This is the place where God rules from. The second question takes this idea a step further when it refers to “his holy place” the temple! Where people literally go to meet with the Lord! At this point, the temple hadn’t been built (that was David’s son Solomon’s job), but when it would be built it was placed at the highest point in Jerusalem, the hill people would have to climb to stand in the holy place, the spot where God’s presence dwelled among His people. The question David is asking is: who is worthy for such a task? Who dares to approach this powerful creator God? 

-Four requirements from God: 1-Clean hands

-NET: “deeds are blameless” Hamilton “innocent of hands”

-Someone who uses their hands only for good, being completely obedient to God with every action, being kind and caring toward others.

-Think of the 4-H pledge (I recited growing up) “I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty, my hands to larger service, and my health to better living.”

-Another way of thinking about this is: does this person consider other’s interests higher than their own? But that’s not the only requirement, and the only way this description can be true of someone is by:

2-Pure heart

-NET: “motives are pure”

-What is your underlining drive and motivation for your whole life? That will determine much of what you do with your life! Think back to high school, for most people I knew in high school the primary driver was trying to be “cool.” Literally nothing else mattered! But things change. You’ll never be able to keep up with what’s trendy (and now when I show people pictures from when I was “cool” they laugh at me! Just last night I was mocked for my frosted tips) 

-A better, and more lasting way of summarizing this idea is found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (similar to NCC that we’ve been reciting, but older) First question: what is the chief end of man? (or what is the motive for everyone) answer: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. If you’re primary drive for your life remains glorifying God, you will be able to have a pure heart. These first 2 requirements are intimately connected to each other, you won’t have clean hands apart from a pure heart, and when you get those two lined up, then you can get to the third:

3-Does not lift up his soul to what is false 

-NET “who does not lie” Hamilton “Does not lift his soul to emptiness”

-Getting to the idea of speaking and believing that which is truly true. At it’s core, worshipping anyone other than God (which is idolatry) is a lie. We as Christians cannot tolerate lies of any kind. This means we need to worship God truthfully, and we need to be people who celebrate truth wherever we find it!

-Think of one of the descriptions of love in 1 Cor. 13 where Paul says “love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” As people who live according to the God of love, we must also be people of true truth.

-But notice that it also includes how we worship. Church, don’t miss this: there is a right and a wrong way to worship God! There is worship that God will accept, and worship that He won’t, and it’s not dependent on which songs you sing!

–Hebrews 12 picks up this idea and summarizes it well when it says “let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,for our God is a consuming fire.” God’s kingdom, acceptable worship means there’s unacceptable ways to worship Him, and if you don’t you won’t ascend His hill or stand in His holy place!

4-Does not swear deceitfully 

-NET “make promises with no intention of keeping them” Hamilton “does not make an oath for treachery”

-This person is not two-faced. They keep their word and promises, even if it’s at great personal cost to them! Another way of not lying.

-If someone lives out these 4 characteristics, they will receive a blessing and righteousness.

-What is a blessing? The opposite of cursing! Good gifts from a good Father who loves us and wants what’s best for us. They’ll have a full life, a joy-filled life, and be able to weather any difficulties that arise. 

-What is righteousness? Perfect standing before God, being declared innocent of any charges. This is the only way someone can stand before God is if they are righteous!

-All of this leads to/culminates in salvation. Saved from what? Death, destruction, separation from God.

-The 4 expectations (clean hands, pure heart, worshipping truly and being truthful, and reliable/keeping their word) are supposed to demonstrated, lived out by those who seek God. None of us do this perfectly, but are these descriptions overall true of your life? Would someone use these words to describe you?

-Interesting way of referring to God here. The covenant making and keeping God who ties Himself to His people. God isn’t disconnected or unconcerned about daily life. God makes covenants with a specific people, and then keeps it. Who are those people? Described above!

-Selah. This is a great time for this! Reflect on these verses and think if they’re true!

-We’ve finally arrived to the last part of this Psalm! We’ve started with the Creator God, moved to His people, and finally we see what the response should be to this King.

  • The King’s Arrival (7-10)

-What do you think the proper response should be to the king arriving somewhere? Do you lock the doors and hope pretend you didn’t see him? Do you try to casually bump into him in the street? Tell him “Well I didn’t vote for you!” 

-The proper response is to give him a royal welcome!

-As you think of these gates and doors it’s almost as if they’ve gotten tired of waiting and have begun sagging their shoulders so they need to be woken up and stand at attention! Throw wide the gates and let Him in!

-Call and response. David inviting the city to throw open the gates, the people ask: “who is this king” David answers. 

-The strong Lord, able to win any battle. If He created everything and has provided the means of salvation, surely He would also be mighty in battle.

-And that question is asked again! And this time we are reminded that He has an entire army following and serving Him! If you’re opposed to this Creator God you will face annihilation. 

-Before we take some time to contemplate this whole Psalm, we need to take some time to contemplate who this description is true of. Remember at the beginning I said all 4 parts of the gospel are seen in this Psalm, but we’ve only seen 3! Where’s Jesus? Let’s think about those 4 characteristics again:

-Clean hands: think of what Jesus did with His hands? All the healings, the blessings, the ways He cared for others.

-Pure heart: Jesus Himself said He didn’t do anything of His own desire, He only did what His Father wanted! Jesus lived out glorifying God and enjoying Him forever perfectly.

-Not lying: Jesus described Himself as THE truth! He only ever spoke the truth and only ever lived out truth.

-Not misleading: see above, but also think of all the misleading He corrected in others. “You’ve heard it said…”

-Jesus is the only person who ever lived who actively lived these descriptions out, and now because He lived that way, salvation is available to any and everyone! So when God looks at us, He no longer sees our sin, instead He sees Jesus’ perfect righteousness. So if you haven’t responded to this truth in faith and trust yet, respond today! If you have responded, today’s a great time to praise God for that salvation that He’s given you!

-Selah 

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by mikethestrand on July 16, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on July 16, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/07/16/psalm-24-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 23 – Sermon Manuscript

-One of the most well-known and memorized chapters in the whole Bible! The image of God as a shepherd has been beloved throughout history. Charles Spurgeon called it “The pearl of Psalms.”

-And this Psalm also takes on new meaning for us living on this side of Jesus’ life, because He then picks up the imagery from this and describes Himself in John 10 as the “Good shepherd.” So while David was thinking of his relationship with God, when we view it through the lens of Christ it takes on much fuller and deeper meaning for us today!

READ/PRAY (pg. 261)

  1. Abundant Life (1-3)

-What does it mean to describe God as a shepherd? As we talk about pretty much every Christmas, being a shepherd wasn’t a lofty position. Wasn’t something people laid awake at night dreaming of pursuing! It was a coincidence that David, the youngest of all his brothers, was the shepherd. He drew the short straw because he was the youngest. No one wanted to be a shepherd! It was tedious work, monotonous work (no wonder he had so much time to write a bunch of songs!)

-But God being described as a shepherd elevates that position to a whole new level, doesn’t it? A good way of summarizing the role of a shepherd is with 2 Ps: protection and provision. First, protection. The shepherd has to look after the sheep because there’s always dangers to be aware of, and sheep aren’t great at defending themselves. In Israel David had to watch out for lions! When I was growing up and my uncle had me help him with his sheep he introduced me to his llama who protected that herd from wolves (and sometimes my uncle, much to his dismay!) Second, provision, which we’ll get to as we walk through this section! But the shepherd had to ensure the sheep had everything they needed to eat and drink, they weren’t good scavenging for food. When David describes God as a shepherd, he’s saying that God ensures we will be protected and have provision.

-A helpful way we are reminded of this idea regularly is when we use the term “pastor.” So often when we use words we don’t take enough time to understand what we actually mean, or dig into the history of that word. The word “pastor” is taken from the Latin word (pastor) which means “shepherd” and taken from the verb “pascere” meaning “to lead to pasture, set to grazing, cause to eat.” So when we talk about a pastor, we’re talking about a shepherd who provides for sheep. Therefore, “pastoring” is derivative of what God does in all our lives, and gives a slightly different perspective on a passage like 1 Pet. 5:1-2 “I exhort the elders: shepherd the flock of God that is among you” Why? Because the Chief Shepherd is coming! Because God is our shepherd, and not anyone else, it leads us to not wanting.

-Can you say you don’t have any wants? Let’s stop for a second and think about the way you pray. Do you thank God for his abundant provision in your life, or do you jump straight to the needs you think you have? I think of the way my kids pray (which I know they picked up from their parents) “Hey Lord, thanks for a good day, and I hope…”

-But the language David uses here actually points back to the time of Israel’s wilderness wanderings (basically walking in circles for 40 years before they arrived in the place God told them to go). The book of Deut. Is Moses’ last sermon to the people where he recounts what had happened to lead them out of slavery in Egypt to where they were at the precipice of entering the Promised Land. At the beginning and at the end this idea of not lacking comes up:

–Deut. 2:7 “For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing.”

-But then, as Moses goes on to warn the people to be obedient to God’s law, look at how he describes the consequences of not following Him:

–Deut. 28:47-48 “Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.”

-The fact that David has no wants signifies that he is living according to God’s law. This is one of the aspects of Christianity that I’m trying to emphasize for my kids that I didn’t feel was emphasized enough growing up. That is that we obey God not just because He told us to, but because obedience is what leads to full and complete flourishing as a human. Even sociology supports what the Bible teaches! I was reminded this week about that fact, listened to a podcast that referred to a sociological study that said the best way for a child to succeed is to have them grow up in a home with their biological father and mother. Where have I heard that before? Oh right! These rules aren’t in place to ruin our lives, they’re here to help us succeed in the world God created! So what else does God, as a good shepherd, provide?

-He makes me lie down in green pastures.

-At the end of a day, how much does someone need to force you to lie down? I love my bed! We’ve got a great thing going on together, spend a solid 8 hours a night together! But it’s a little different for sheep.

-Sheep are social animals, need literally nothing nearby (predators, flies) for them to feel comfortable laying down. Even lying down for sheep can be an alarming task! Did you know that they if they roll over they have no way of righting themselves, and would be stuck upside down, have gasses build up in their intestines, and die! Once again, this is another way God provides for his people: even throughout the night He watches out to ensure they’re not stuck upside down! 

-Not only is this nightly provision, it also signifies provision of food. The shepherd regularly has to move the sheep so they don’t kill the place they’re living. Sheep aren’t smart. If they could, they would eat so much they’d kill themselves! But God cares enough to ensure they have everything they need, eating the best grasses available. So good is provided as is:

-He leads me beside still waters. Once again, notice who’s in charge here. God! God is going before us to ensure we have everything we need.

-Contrast still waters with white water rafting. One of these you have to sign your life away to participate in, the other you let your children play in. Definitely a time and a place for those rapids! But think of the safety that comes from still waters.

-A more literal translation: “Waters of resting places” This is, once again, David reminding himself of some of the ways God has provided for His people in the past.

–Gen. 2:15 “The Lord God took the man and caused him to rest in Eden.”

–Deut. 12:9 “you have not as yet come to the rest and to the inheritance that the Lord your God is giving you.”

-This is both a look back and a look forward to the ways God provides for His people.

-But God doesn’t just care about physical provision, He also provides spiritually. He restores my soul.

-Ever had a big project that you needed to finish? Last summer I replaced the flooring in my house, which involved removing hard wood to get to the subfloor. Many late nights trying to knock that thing out! But you work your hardest and then at the end you get a huge glass of water that is the best tasting water you’ve ever had. That’s what this restoration looks like. Think of how Jesus describes obedience to Him in Matt. 11 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gently and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

-Friends, stop trying to earn God’s favor, stop trying to be good enough. You can’t! That’s why a passage like this is so important for us to soak our minds in! We can’t restores ourselves, we need Jesus to do that for us! That’s why Augustine said “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.” And then, when are hearts are fully satisfied in God:

-Leads me in paths of righteousness (the right paths)

-Not coercive or manipulative, he leads we willingly follow

–Eph. 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

-God knew each step of your life, each breath you would take, each beat of your heart before you were born. God knew the sinful tendencies you would have, the struggles you would walk through, the ways you would insult Him, yet He still walks with you (or in front of you in this case) each step of the way.

-Did you know that you can’t out-sin God’s grace? Every sin you’ve committed came millennia afterJesus died and rose again, yet Jesus’ one-time sacrifice was enough to cover all our sins!

-All of this abundance has led to the last part of vs. 3 “for his name’s sake”

-We are blessed by God so that we can bless others. God loves all and wants everyone to come to repentance in Him. So as Pastor Bruce LOVES to remind us: we are meant to be His ambassadors. What do ambassadors do? They serve as representatives of a different nation. The reason we exist on earth right now is to represent God, to join with Him in His mission to seek and save the lost. We are here to invite others to be a part of this new kingdom that we represent

-David is thanking God that He gets to represent God to others

  • Blessed Life (4)

-It’s one thing to be praising God and saying “I shall not want” when things are going well like in those first 3 verses, but what about when difficulties come?

-Carson, “The truth of the matter is that all we have to do is live long enough, and we will suffer.” 

–Job 1:21 “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed by the name of the Lord.” 

-Valleys are places where fear comes. Shadows are cast that can either by an enemy out to destroy or the branch of a tree. 

-If you’ve been in an empty church building at night you know that feeling! Every shadow causes your mind to race, every noise could be a footstep from someone you don’t know. Your nerves are on edge and you just wait for someone or something to jump out at you. But even in these situations, there’s nothing to fear.

-Doesn’t say death, it’s the shadow of death: where you’re on death’s doorstep. Even when you’re given every opportunity to doubt, to struggle, to question, what does David remind us of?

-He’s recounted God’s promises and provision up until this point, why would a series of questions or doubts throw David off? Even when it feels like life is falling apart, did you know that God is still there?

-“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” CS Lewis The Problem of Pain

-Pain doesn’t meant God’s out to get you, pain doesn’t mean you’re paying penance for wrongs you’ve done, God allows you to walk through pain to grow closer to Him. God allows difficulties and suffering so that you can work out your faith muscles and become stronger in who He’s called you to be.

-This is the center of this whole Psalm, everything previous builds up to it and everything after points back to it: God is with us. 

-God’s presence is the reason Job can say blessed by God’s name; God’s presence is the reason the disciples believe in Jesus after the resurrection. God’s presence is always with us, even when we’re walking at the precipice of death’s door, God is with us. 

-Rod and staff: protection, correction, and guidance.

-Sheep are not smart. As I’ve shared, they can get stuck upside down and literally die! They can eat until they explode, they can wander off and get lost in a moment’s notice! So the shepherd needed some way of keeping the sheep in line. The rod was used to defend against predators, and the staff was used to correct wayward sheep!

-Do you view God’s discipline as a kindness and a blessing? How can discipline bring comfort? Because it means you know whose family you’re in

–Heb. 12:6 “The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives…If you are let without discipline…then you are illegitimate children.” 

–Rom. 2:4 “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.” 

-When you live a life of repentance, God will bring you comfort. Martin Luther, when he posted his thesis to the door in 1517 began his list of 95 reforms needed by saying “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said “Repent,” he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.”

-God’s presence leads us to repentance, which finally lands us:

  • Comforted Life (5-6)

-A table in the presence of my enemies 

-Back to physical provision. Even when enemies surround me, even after surviving the shadow of death, God continues taking care of me. Think of how helpful a meal is after you’ve weathered a difficult season.

-Just a few months ago when we were initially told that one of our babies wouldn’t survive Erin Rivenburg that night brought us a meal and gave Cara a hug. That was a moment of relief in the storm that was wrecking our hearts. And that’s just 1 example! 

-But this is also meant to contrast the provision of David vs. his enemies. Enemies won’t last, David will. Don’t miss this, friends: all suffering has an expiration date! We’ll be able to feast either on this side of eternity, or in the life to come! But the fight isn’t fair. We have God on our side! 

-Anointing

-Ceremonial or provision. Oil helped with dry skin on sheep, and served as a layer of protection from insects. But oil was also used to signify someone as God’s chosen person, so when David was anointed King, it was with oil. Either way, it’s another picture of God’s abundant provision of His people!

-As if that wasn’t enough, his cup overflows. Never reaches the bottom, that’s how deep God’s provision goes! Like if you’ve ever gone to Chili’s and gotten their “bottomless” chips and salsa, trust me, there’s a bottom! Can’t just eat forever, and they will eventually kick you out! But not so with God. God’s provision is more than we could ever ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20) 

-Because of God’s presence, goodness and mercy follow forever

-David uses a weird word here that’s better translated as pursue, as if goodness and mercy are relentlessly chasing after him! It’s most often used to refer to enemies who are doggedly pursuing someone. But what if it’s not an enemy who keeps chasing, but instead it’s goodness and mercy? David is so blessed, his enemies have been dealt with, and now his only pursuers are goodness and mercy. That’s how blessed his life is!

-And where does David end up? In the house of the Lord forever, in God’s presence.

-Remember, the hinge point of this Psalm is God’s presence! First we saw God as a Shepherd, protecting and providing for his people, then God’s presence was with His people in their darkest moments, and now the dwelling place of God’s people is in God’s house. Once again, this is a reality that points to the future of all time.

-Rev. 21:3 “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

-Because God is a good shepherd, we have a life that is: abundant, blessed, and comforted.

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by mikethestrand on July 9, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on July 9, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/07/09/psalm-23-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 21 – Sermon Manuscript

-Annual reminder: book of PsalmS, each one is a PsalM 

-Why do we do Psalms in the summer?

1 -Everything is inspired. Can’t pick and choose which parts of the Bible we want to like, read study. We’re told ALL Scripture is God breathed and useful for: teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. All of it, down to the genealogies (God’s provision throughout generations)

2 -The songbook of Jesus. Jews throughout history have used the Psalms as to give voice to their praise of God. Remember what we saw in Mark last week where the city used Ps. 118 in their praise of Jesus arrival, using the same Psalm they recited each year but giving new focus and meaning to it.

3 -Gives voice to human emotion and experience. Addresses difficult things like: losing a child, betrayal by your best friend, losing a job, questioning God’s call on your life, wayward children, gratitude for God’s blessings, and how to praise God in the midst of life’s circumstances!

4 -is the only inerrant and inspired hymnal (notice the top of this week’s Psalm “to the choirmaster”) Because it’s God’s Word, this is the only completely perfect hymnal we have, and I think it’s intentional that it didn’t come with musical notation (praising God through music can’t be contained by any genre or style of music, use them ALL!)

5 -Forces us to slow down and meditate on these words God has given us. We are inundated with information today! What’s not happening is meditation on the right information. God’s Word is meant to transform us from the inside out, if we’re not soaking and suturing ourselves in God’s Word we won’t be conformed into the image of Jesus! 

-Explain vs. 0 

READ/PRAY

-Today’s Psalm connects back to Psalm 20 to demonstrate both how to ask God’s provision, as well as how to give thanks for God’s provision. 

-Overview of Psalm 20:

-Centered around the king, who is meant to serve as both God’s representative on earth, and the people’s representative to God. 

-The nation uses this Psalm to cry out to God for protection, abundant provision, and salvation of the king. In ANE, wars were viewed as fights between the gods, so if a nation was defeated, their god was viewed as inferior.

-What makes Israel unique is not their size, wealth, status, it’s the uniqueness of their God and their relationship to Him. (vs. 7). 

-Ends pleading to God to save the king when the people cry out, which sets us up perfectly for Psalm 21, where the people give thanks for God’s provision.

  1. The King Trusts the Lord (1-7)

-Let’s do some remedial English work: anyone remember what a pronoun is? The way we faithfully interpret this Psalm is by paying careful attention to the pronouns. Look at how frequently “you” and “your” is used in this first section.

-Any honor, acclaim, or recognition the king gets is derivative. Even the king, who is meant to be closest to God and demonstrate God to the rest of the world is completely dependent on God!

–1 Cor. 4:7 “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (I got Cara’s money after we got married, she got my student loans)

-Yet how often do we act as if we’re the center of the world, celebrating in MY gifts, in MY talents instead of using and stewarding those gifts for the good of other people and the glory of God?

-Look now at how David responds to God’s good gifts: the king rejoices, exults, receives his heart’s desire, his prayers are answered 

-In short: David responds by giving thanks to God and praising Him, remembering all the ways God has provided for him. (keep that in mind as we continue working through this)

-Remembering is a key through the Bible: Gen. 8:1 “God remembered Noah” Gen. 19:29 “God remembered Abraham and Lot” during the destruction of Sodom. Ex. 2:24 “God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham.” Ex. 20:8 “remember the sabbath day” Throughout Num. and Deut. “remember what God did.”

-Does anyone in this room ever feel like they have short term memory loss when it comes to God’s provision in your life? 

-“Here I raise my ebenezer” (stone of remembrance). We are such forgetful people! We would do well to remember, share, and exhort each other to continue remembering what God has done! Cara and I had the privilege of going to the EFCA national conference this past week and part of the reason it’s important to go is to remember what God has done in and through fellow ministers of the gospel. This feels like more of a family reunion than going to my family reunion! We’re a part of something bigger than ourselves, we’re caught up in a story with cosmic implications but we so frequently forget about that and instead focus on whatever current issues we have.

-One interesting note Micah brought up to me regarding the heart’s desire. We so often view this as more “stuff” (David and Solomon were rich, so should I!)

-Yet as we are sanctified (define!), our desires become more and more of what God would want, which is Himself (vs. 6). Think of Psalm 73:25-26 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Asaph says there’s NOTHING that I want on earth besides God! Can you say that? 

-Friends, this should even affect the way we view eternity! I’ve been contemplating some of these ideas recently, as I shared, we had 2 miscarriages this past year, and that makes you long for heaven in a unique way. I’ll finally get to hold the 2 children that were taken from us! But I need to check my priorities with that, because the real treasure, and our real pursuit MUST be Jesus above all else. If we just view heaven as the place where we’ll get all the “stuff” we want, we need to check our hearts! The real joy and treasure of heaven is being as we were truly intended to be: in perfect relationship with God and others.

-Selah

-Some kind of musical notation, most likely an extended instrumental. Each time they appear in the Psalms, I use them as an opportunity for us to pause and reflect on the truths of what was just shared, so take a couple minutes and meditate on these first 2 verses.

-What does David go on to thank God for? There’s some specific things that he refers to:

-(3) Rich blessings and a crown of fine gold.

-The true king vs. any alternative “kings” We talked about that last week when we saw how Jesus’ arrival was predicted during David’s reign as the reign was given to Solomon.

-(4) Life and length of days

-Davidic promise and covenant with God (2 Sam. 7:12-13 “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”

-Couldn’t be David or Solomon (or any earthly king! Last I checked every human still has a 100% mortality rate)

-(5) Glory, salvation, splendor and majesty

-All descriptions of God! Also true for the king as God’s representative, and also true (because of salvation) for us!

-Been studying the doctrine of salvation in my SS class: regeneration and adoption are 2 beautiful doctrines!

-(6) How are we to be blessed and glad? God’s presence!

-God’s presence is everywhere, sometimes we are more aware of it than others. (camping in the Rockies, seeing a herd of elk run across the mountain every night, singing songs with other pastors)

-God’s presence brings comfort, joy. Think of Psalm 139:7 “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” Heaven, sheol, morning, sea, darkness, light.

-Story in Ex. 33, God gives the people what they think they want, but won’t go with them. Moses has the gall to go toe to toe and debate with God! Surely we can work up enough courage to ask God to be present among us!

-I think the crux of this Psalm is vs. 7, one author said it’s a summary of the whole book: God’s steadfast love, the king trust.

-Israel was a unique country in that when it was founded, they didn’t have a king. They were a theocracy (define). But God knew that at some point the people would want to be like all the other nations and ask for a king, so God told them what they should be looking for in a king: someone who commits themselves wholeheartedly to studying and obeying the law of God. In fact, in Deut. 17, the king’s first job is to write down the whole law of the Lord (first 5 books), get that approved by the Priest, then study and meditate on it day after day. No account of a king ever doing that. But look at how else it describes what should be true of the king: not many horses (a way of summarizing building an army), not have many wives (hearts will be turned away from the worship of God, intimate connection between sexual sin and idolatry), not amass silver and gold (temptation to rely on riches instead of trusting the provision of God). What’s heartbreaking is these descriptions here in Deut. Could also be summarized in Ps. 21:7, but unfortunately were not true of David or his lineage. 

-The word David uses here of trust has different connotations than the way we tend to use it today. According to TWOT, it “expresses that sense of well-being and security which results from having something or someone in whom to place confidence.” When they were translating the OT into Greek, they translated this word as “Hope in” instead of “believe in” in the way we would use it. It has more of a sense of assurance or the feeling of being safe and secure. Like think of driving through a snowstorm in the middle of the night, you see all sorts of cars in the ditch and the snow isn’t letting up! The moment you finally pull into your driveway and walk into your warm house and can finally breathe again is the sense communicated by this word. One note said it’s someone who is “unconcerned.” Can you imagine living as someone who is “unconcerned”? Yet that’s exactly what living as God’s child allows us to do. Think of Jesus’ words: if Jesus clothes the lilies and cares for the birds, why would we worry? We can live life as the unconcerned.

–The other word is Chesed in Psalm 136. Eddie (grew up in the Caribbean) it takes 10, 12, 15 times of saying something before you can actually start meditating on the truths that you’re saying!

-This should cause us to take a minute to reflect on whether or not we give thanks to God for good things.

-a good job, a healthy salary, appreciation of good co-workers. Do you thank God for those things?

  • The Enemies are Destroyed (8-12)

-God’s presence also has a different meaning for those who are not following God:

-Think of some songs we sing: “Open up the heavens, we want to see you” “show us your glory.” The only reason we can boldly say that is because of the atoning work of Jesus! If it weren’t for Him being our substitute, we would be condemned! Think of all the stories in the Bible of people seeing God, fall on their face and realize their sinful state – until Jesus.

-All sorts of descriptions of how God handles His enemies, but the short summary is: they can’t stand against Him.

–Rev. 19 has a fascinating account of the last battle of all time. The enemies of the Lord assemble together, draw up battle lines, and then the war is done because Jesus wins just like that. It says everyone is slain by the sword that came from the mouth of the rider on the horse (His word). Just as God can create with a word, God can move mountains (or defeat armies) with a word. We saw that last week in Mark!

-Paul picks up this same idea in 2 Thess. 1:7-9 “7 and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, 10 when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”

-To be opposed to God merits His destruction, it is the just penalty for disobedience towards Him. It is pretty trendy today to question and doubt eternal conscious punishment, but we need to acknowledge that’s how the Bible (God’s revelation of truth) speaks of the punishment of those who are opposed to Him. We have a misunderstanding of love (acceptance) and judgment. Honestly, I wish I could believe in annihilationism! But I am bound by what Scripture says, not what I wish to be true. If you want more information on that, feel free to email me, I don’t have time to dig into that issue today! 

-But that’s not where David ends this Psalm:

  • God’s People Praise Him (13)

-What is a proper response to the way God mercifully saves His people?

-Singing and praising! Singing is FAR more than just music. Singing changes us, and we so often don’t even realize it! Singing brought down the walls of a jail for Paul! 

-At times the only thing we have are the words we’ve sung. I can’t tell you how many times in my life in times of crisis, music has been the balm to my soul to remind me the truths of what I proclaim up here week after week. And often it comes through the mouth of a brother or sister. Think of Eph. 5:19 “addressing one another” through our singing:

– “But God has put this Word into the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.” Bonhoeffer, Life Together

-Do you speak God’s Word to others?

-Church, this is why we need to gather together, our faith isn’t meant to exist in isolation! God has called us into a family that He has brought together. God saves us a His people, and in response we must praise Him!

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by mikethestrand on June 25, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on June 25, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/06/25/psalm-21-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 11:1-25 – Sermon Manuscript

-Ever seen a parade?

-Parades aren’t new inventions, been around for a while! Kids love them, adults go for the kids. Celebrating holidays, major events, victories

-Romans would have parades to celebrate victories on a regular basis. (including a slave who would whisper in the ear of a commander “remember you are mortal”) The Roman audience who was hearing this from Mark would have understand what was taken place by Jesus’ humble parade, but there were some weird things about it that we’ll see as we walk through it!

READ/PRAY (pg. 494)

  1. A Humble Entrance (1-11)

-Let’s think about where all this is taking place. 

-Over the past few weeks, we’ve been slowly approaching Jerusalem, we finally get there today! Perea, last week was Jericho, you can see the road traveled to get to Jerusalem, which looks like THIS

-Jesus sends 2 disciples nearby to grab a colt.

-A donkey seems like a weird choice and Mark tells us has never been ridden before. 

-At this point of the journey, you’d have to think the disciples were wondering why he needed a donkey. They’re within sight of Jerusalem, only a few more steps and they’ll be at their final destination, if Jesus has gotten tired, just let Him take a quick break! Thankfully, the disciples have learned not to question Jesus, so they respond with obedience

-Now, notice that Jesus gives them basically a password in order to take this donkey away. You know like “open sesame,” but in this case the code is “the Lord has need of it.” And that’s exactly what happens!

-Mark’s trying to make a point here. Notice who’s in charge here: Jesus. At times we view Jesus as the victim in this story (innocent man killed on the cross, some even go so far to describe it as “divine child abuse” which would be true only if Jesus hadn’t been a part of the planning). None of it caught Jesus by surprise! This was His eternal plan from before the earth was even created, and He continues demonstrating that plan through each step of this process.

-But there’s far more going on here than Jesus needing a ride. This act is done to fulfill a prophecy from Zech. 9:9

-Original context tells us: The king who comes is righteous, has salvation, and is humble. Jesus is fulfilling this prophecy of God’s deliverance from their enemies.

-But this isn’t the only ideas Jesus comes to fulfill from the OT: and to understand that picture, we need to know about a king named David.

-If you’ve ever heard of David, it’s most likely in relation to a giant named Goliath. David was the pinnacle of kings for Israel. He became the golden standard by which all future kings would be judged (like MJ in bball)

-As David comes to the end of his life, some of his deficiencies as a father start to reveal themselves. He had appointed his son Solomon to be the next king, but another one of his sons, Adonijah wants the throne, and plan to usurp that role. In secret, Adonijah brings his followers together and throws a private coronation party for himself. David hears about it from Bathsheba and decides to throw a realcoronation party for the true king: Solomon. And guess what David gives him to ride on? That’s right: a royal donkey! Solomon rides into Jerusalem to demonstrate that Adonijah and all his followers aren’t telling the truth, that the true king is coming to rule.

-Solomon’s reign ended very poorly. He allowed idol worship, he took too many wives, and started down the path toward being carried off into exile. But Jesus comes in purity to establish His rule that will never end, that will never be overthrown, and that will never be abolished. The prophecy to David that his descendants would sit on the throne forever is coming true!

-The Disciples obey Jesus’ command, and then use cloaks to create a saddle for Jesus. But the disciples aren’t the only ones who are getting excited about Jesus finally revealing Himself as the Messiah, as word travels about Jesus coming, the crowd joins in on the celebration. 

-Part of this is most likely due to Jesus raising one of his best friends: Lazarus. Remember Bethany is only a couple miles away? That’s where he lived with his sisters Mary and Martha. Not much a stretch to imagine that people in “the big city” had heard about this resurrection! 

-Because the crowd is excited about this coming king, they realize He can’t just walk on the plain old ground, so they use their cloaks, and if don’t have any cloaks they use branches, pulling out the red carpet for the arriving king! This would be typical of a kingly processional. There’s an account in 2 Kings 9, and the book of Maccabees where palm branches and cloaks are thrown on the ground for the king’s processional.

-Do you see what the crowd is reciting to Jesus? They’re quoting Psalm 118.

-This Psalm is one of the what is called “Psalms of Ascent” which were recited as the pilgrims would make their way to Jerusalem. Hosanna (Aramaic meaning save now) name of the Lord (Messianic title) Blessed be (thanking Yahweh for military victory) 

-There’s a big difference between Mark & Matthew’s account here, and I think it’s connected to the different intentions behind each author. Where Matthew was primarily writing to a Jewish audience, Mark is writing to a Gentile audience, so Matthew includes more details about how the city of Jerusalem responded.

-Mark jumps straight to Jesus alone with the 12. Just as quickly as the crowd had convened, they leave Jesus by Himself. He goes straight to the temple, looks around, and because it was getting late in the day, he goes back to Bethany.

  • A Haughty Façade (12-25)

-Why are people tempted to put on a front? I remember hearing a pastor talk about this during college: we’re all tempted to compare our strengths to someone else’s weaknesses. He is a professor at a university, and was sitting in a meeting hearing someone share a new insight he hadn’t thought of and he thought “I bet you couldn’t guard me in basketball.” Then later that afternoon was playing pickup, got burned on the court and thought “I bet you haven’t read a book this week!” (so then I burned him in basketball and told him that I’d also read a book that week)

-We have a tendency to try to portray something we’re not instead of being content with who God has made us! And it’s true even in our faith, as we’ll see demonstrated in this section:

  1. A Fig Tree (12-14)

-The first thing we see about Jesus in this section is His hunger. This is a normal human endeavor, IDK about you, generally after a night of sleeping (not eating) one is hungry when they wake up (another evidence that Jesus is truly a human). But another aspect to hunger is how one responds when they’re hungry.

-For me, it’s a little bit like my morning coffee. If I don’t get my coffee I’m not a happy camper!

-Or maybe food is what you need in the morning, and if you don’t get your food you become hangry (that is someone who gets angry when they’re hungry) If that’s you, don’t worry you’re in good company, so does Jesus!

-Because Jesus is hungry, he becomes a man on a mission, and He sees a fig tree with leaves. Leaves are the marker for a fig tree having figs on it, or at least the starting of figs, but it’s supposed to mean you’ll be able to find food on it (despite it not being the season for figs).

-So how does Jesus respond? He curses the tree! I read a description this week that said Jesus’ final miracle is one of destruction and death! There’s even a philosopher who has used this passage to explain why he isn’t a Christian, accusing Jesus of “vindictive fury.” Which would make sense if that was all that was said about it! But we need to go on:

  • A Temple (15-19)

-After riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and stirring up the town, Jesus turns His attention to the temple and comes to cleanse/purify the temple

-Drove out all who sold and bought: a necessary occupation. People would travel from all over the country to come to Jerusalem for the Passover, they needed some way of getting a sacrifice, it didn’t make sense to bring an animal, much less a spotless animal! 

-Money-changers: who were necessary too pay the temple tax in the correct currency (Torah said it had to be a half a shekel) But also had a wide assortment of moneys being used at the time, so essentially a currency converter.

-pigeons: particularly focused on the sacrifices of the poor.

-Text doesn’t say these people were stealing, could be implied by Jesus’ response, or else the mere fact that they were in the temple was missing the purpose.

-The temple was divided into different areas by level of holiness for where people were able to go, the closer you got to the Holy of Holies, the fewer people could go. Court of the Gentiles (we’ve talked about before), The Court of the Women, and then only purified Jewish men could go closer. These salesmen set up shop in the Court of the Gentiles, leaving them nowhere to worship the one true God. 

-Once these people are cleared out, what does Jesus do? He teaches, once again. And this time we have some of the contents of his sermon: Jesus quotes 2 different OT texts to make his point.

–Isa. 56:7 “house of prayer for all the nations” ethnic implications

–Jer. 7:11 – Jeremiah calling out Israel for indulging in sin, then treat the temple as a talisman to cover the sins. 

-Do you live this way? Only certain people are allowed to church, if they don’t look, think, and act like us we don’t have room for them! Or do you not connect your Sunday worship to your Saturday living? Walking into a church doesn’t save you, just like walking into a garage doesn’t make you a car! What we do here is meant to transform us from the inside out (thinking God’s thoughts after Him, dripping down into hearts, then living it out through our hands)

-(18) Now the higher ups are getting upset! They heard the teachings, and realized that Jesus was upsetting the apple cart! They want to destroy Jesus, the one who came to purify everything! Instead they see the people following Him and His teachings as a competition with what they had been teaching.

-They’re more worried with the external form of what they think worship is supposed to look like than they are worried about whether or not they’re actually pleasing the Lord they’re supposed to be worshipping. 

-They’re trying to force God to fit into their preconceived ideas and boxes instead of approaching Him as the sovereign ruler of the universe!

-Think of some of what we’ve been seeing throughout Mark’s Gospel about how Jesus subverts everyone’s expectations.

-His disciples eat on the Sabbath, He heals on the Sabbath pushing against the traditionalism of the Pharisees. He’s accused of being on cohoots with the devil. He continues teaching people about what it means to live in the kingdom of God, and what it means to actually be defiled (it doesn’t come by eating or drinking or certain thing, it comes by being transformed from the inside out)

-Think of all the times the disciples continue to miss what He’s telling them! We just wrapped up a section where He explicitly tells them 3 different times that He was going to Jerusalem to die, and they take that as an opportunity to fight about who’s the best. Everyone is expecting and wanting a political ruler, but what they got instead was the King of kings.

-Honestly, when you think about it: has anything changed in the past 2,000 years? How many people continue looking to politics as the ultimate solution to the world’s problems? (if you don’t vote for this person, the world will be over!) Dear church, don’t miss that second word: we are the church! At the end of the day your savior isn’t going to come riding in on an elephant or a donkey (at least the second time), He’s coming in a white horse: meaning He’s coming to win! Which is exactly what gets demonstrated in the last verses of this chapter:

  • The Meaning of It All (20-25)

-Took a whole day for the fig tree to whither. Who notices it?

-One of the pieces of evidences that leads people to believe that Mark wrote down Peter’s story, and then compiled it together to give us this Gospel.

-Peter brings attention to Jesus’ cursing coming true. This is an intentional act. Remember: all the miracles are meant to be living parables, living examples of a bigger point Jesus is making.

-In this case, the way Mark has structured this story is supposed to tell us something about the cleansing of the temple. It’s the classic Markan sandwich! The fig tree is meant to serve as an illustration of what’s going to happen to the temple: destroyed down to its’ roots. Just like the fig tree, the busyness (and business) that was taking place was just a façade that didn’t give rise to lasting fruit. How do we know this? The connection is prayer. 

-See, just as the temple was mean to serve as a “house of prayer for the nations” so God’s people are supposed to be marked by a life of prayer and faith.

-Faith is the first step: demonstrating trust, hope, and confidence in God. But then the ongoing steps are prayer. Think of Paul’s command to “pray without ceasing.” 

-Need to again warn against prosperity theology! This isn’t name it and claim it (I prayed for a Rolls Royce and got it), it’s praying according to God’s will.

-I was meeting with someone this week who asked about this idea and I pointed them to Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” If you are truly following the first part of that verse, your desires will slowly over time will become more and more of what God would want for you.

-But there’s a third part to this that we see: so faith, prayer and forgive.

-Think of what we prayed in the Lord’s prayer last week: “forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE THOSE who trespass against us.” God’s forgiveness toward us is directly correlated to our forgiveness of others. Are you a forgiving person, or do you tend to hold grudges against others? 

-If we live these truths out, God will answer prayers and move mountains in our lives. Think of the fact that you’re saved! God literally had to bring you back from the dead (spiritually speaking) in order to do that! Do you know how miraculous that is? 

-So what: what does your life look like? Are you bearing fruit, or just giving off the appearance of fruit? 

–Matt. 3:8 J the B “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” It’s easy (at first) to give off the appearance of fruit, but over time it will start to wear on you. If you have faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will work in you to actually make it possible to bear fruit, because apart from that fruit we’re dead! Vs. 10 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” 

-How often is that true in our lives too? We do our best to act all “put together” when we come to church (despite yelling at our kids on the way out the door, cussing out the person who cut you off) then as soon as we walk in the doors we put on a smile and act like everything’s ok. It’s no wonder people give up on church when they see that kind of hypocrisy! Instead, we need to ensure that we’re ACTUALLY bearing fruit in our lives, not just the illusion of it.

-That is what is means to be a true disciple of Jesus. It’s not pursuing worldly aim, it’s not building yourself up, it’s submitting yourself to the Lordship of Jesus through faith, demonstrated by your prayers, and filled out in the way you forgive others.

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by mikethestrand on June 18, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on June 18, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/06/18/mark-111-25-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 10:32-52 – Sermon Manuscript

-Don’t remember many Sunday School classes growing up, but 1 has stood with me (probably because of the family story)

-Trying to communicate to 5 year olds the importance of serving. Each person was given a turn wearing an apron and “serving” the rest of the class donuts. Apparently I refused to give up my serving role (which was obviously relayed to my parents after about how much of a servant I was, and much I cared about getting donuts for everyone else)

-I liked wearing the apron! And then at the end I got to take a whole box of donuts home!

READ/PRAY (pg. 494)

  1. Comes Through His Death (32-34)

-Continuing their journey to Jerusalem. This is the middle section of Mark’s Gospel (began with the recognition from Peter in 8, ends at the end of this section when they get to Jerusalem in 11)

-This middle section could be considered Jesus on the way to Jerusalem (remember I mentioned that in Luke hinges on 9:51 “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”) The other emphasis in the middle section is the way it can be broken down into 3 predictions of Jesus’ death (look at the title given in your Bible, mine says: “Jesus Foretells His Death a Third Time”)

-All follow the same pattern: Jesus tells what’s coming, launches into a talk about discipleship, then the disciples miss the point and revert back to the world’s ways of organizing and living.

-As I said, this section is marked by Jesus 3 times predicting his betrayal, death, and resurrection. Look at how Jesus repeatedly describes it!

-Let’s think through everything we’ve seen in the midst of these 3 predictions:

-After the first one, Peter rebukes Jesus, who in turn is rebuked by Jesus, then Jesus explains the cost of discipleship (take up your cross and follow)

-Then Peter, James, and John see Jesus transfigured before them and hanging with Moses and Elijah, then coming down from the mountain the disciples are shown to not yet be able to everything Jesus can with the boy suffering from (what sounds similar to) epilepsy. This leads Jesus to remind the disciples to live a life of prayer (like surrendered to a dependent on Him)

-Jesus then offers his second prediction in 9:31, and the disciples go on to argue about which one of them is the greatest. Jesus uses this as a teaching opportunity to say that if you want to follow Him, you need to look for the poor and marginalized (as demonstrated by a child). You can’t follow the world’s ways and expect to also live in Jesus’ kingdom. It also involves mortification (subduing bodily/sinful desires). Jesus says to cut off your: hand, leg, eyes if they cause you to sin. Yet again, not the way the world operates! This includes how Jesus’ followers live in marriage (not divorce), how they welcome children in (care for them! Our kids ministry should never struggle to find volunteers!), and how they view their earthly possessions (if you give them up you’ll get more in return).

-Then we land at today’s passage, where Jesus will once again move from a passion prediction to the cost of discipleship, and then conduct a living parable by healing blind Bartimaeus.

-We’ve spent a lot of time on the second half of this section, but there’s a couple things to note about the introduction to this section. Up until this point, Jesus had been walking with them, suddenly now He’s by Himself. People following are describes as amazed and afraid. The leader they’d been following was moving in some new ways, and they weren’t wanting to be quite as close to Him.

-Why were people amazed and afraid?

-Jerusalem is where the insurrection would happen. It’s time for war! Jesus had been building His following, teaching them what it means to follow Him, now it’s time to bring about His kingdom. But how did the people think it would happen?

-By force. Throughout this whole section, how had Jesus been describing the way of entering His kingdom? Childlike, aka needy and with nothing. Literally the opposite of force! Yet power and persuasion is exactly the way we as humans view the world.

-Lots of conversation today about power, about victimhood, and about privilege. The heartbreaking thing is Jesus repeatedly commands His followers to not focus on those things, yet throughout history we can see God’s people repeatedly coming back to those very issues.

-Dear friends, it’s not a coincidence that Jesus came as an infant. It’s not weakness that Paul describes the gospel message as not coming by human power or persuasion, but by God’s power.

-No, power isn’t the issue! It’s what those in power do that can become an issue. But the only way the world can operate is through power dynamics, we’ll get to some more of this in the next section, as Jesus explicitly talks about the differences between authority in the world and authority in the church.

-So far, we’ve seen that what’s necessary for Jesus is His death. His followers think that means through a political uprising and overthrowing of the Romans, but Jesus knows and keeps trying to tell them that’s not the way! But 2 disciples want to make sure Jesus knows how valuable they are (using the world’s ideas)

-We see following Jesus:

  • Is Demonstrated By Serving (35-45)

-Just as the first time comes about by Peter trying to put himself first, this time it’s the rest of the “inner 3” who approach Jesus. (Jesus had crowds of people following Him, from those He spent more focused time on the 12, from that 12 He spent more focused time with 3: Peter, James, and John)

-Begin innocently enough, but Jesus doesn’t commit to anything. I’m sure they’ve been working on trying to find the best time to bring this request to Jesus! Think of the way kids work at trying to figure out which parent will give them what they want. Recently, Cara confronted Calvin about why he asked me if he could watch DP in the morning instead of her “because I knew daddy would say yes!”

-As we saw in the last section, they think Jesus is going to Jerusalem to begin His reign, so they’re hoping that once the insurrection is complete, they have the highest positions. They’re 2 of the inner 3, who’s left out? Peter! This would make sense, right, you’ve got 2 hands there’s no room for a 3rd person in there. 

-On the one hand, their request makes sense! Someone needs to sit by Jesus and help Him reign (at least in their minds, doesn’t enter that Jesus may be sitting to someone else’s right hand) 

-Jesus begins with a gentle rebuke and a reminder that they don’t know what’s happening. 

-Drink refers to suffering/persecution that was coming. Throughout the OT there’s repeated references to a cup being poured out as wrath upon sinful people. Even on Jesus’ last night with His disciples, He prays that the Lord would remove this cup of suffering from Him (Mark 14:36)

-Baptism similarly refers to intense tribulation that would be brought upon them, and Paul even picks up this idea in Rom. 6 that baptism serves as a reminder that we have died with Jesus, so Jesus is telling these brothers that both suffering and death are on His horizon. Do they think they can handle all that?

-They (once again) miss it! “Of course we can!” They’re not called the sons of thunder for nothing! 

-Once again, their minds are most likely going to the political war that is coming up. They could even be interpreting Jesus’ comments as referring to that event, so Jesus is going to be a martyr for the cause, and if He can do that, so can they!

-Not dissimilar from what Peter will pledge just a few chapters later: “Even though they all fall away, I will not. If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” (14:29, 31). 

-Jesus promises them suffering and persecution, but he can’t promise anything else. Jesus, in everything, submits to the will of His Father. Someone will sit there, but it won’t those that try to get it, it will be those that the world wouldn’t recognize.

-Think of all the children Jesus had been interacting with recently. Think of all the marginalized people who had been ostracized that He’s healed (bleeding woman, demon possessed). Those who are the greatest in God’s kingdom are described in Heb. 11 as people “of whom the world was not worthy.” But even the lowest in God’s kingdom is greater than the person Jesus describes as the most significant human to ever live (Matt. 11:11)

-This is done by obeying Jesus, not by building yourself up.

-How do you think everyone else would have felt once they heard about it? Definitely would have led to a fight! But here’s the thing: the reason they were fighting is because the rest didn’t think about it first! They were upset that James and John beat them to the punch!

-Think of what we saw Peter do during the transfiguration: he offered to build houses for Moses and Elijah on the mountain so they could rule with them. They’re continually fighting about who gets the positions of power and recognition (remember, just recently we read about them arguing about who was the greatest) You could read this section as just a continuation of that previous conversation! Jesus’ repeated refrain that they need to serve has fallen on deaf ears.

-And this continues to happen today in the church! How big is your church? How many books have you published? How many conferences have you spoken at? Does your church have the “right” ministry? We’re always comparing, but we’re comparing to the wrong standard! See, if we continually compare ourselves to others we’ll always find ways we’re superior. What Jesus is commanding us to do is compare ourselves Him, who is the perfect standard. In that case, we’ll always be falling short, which is the point of the gospel message. 

-Picture the group of disciples having a heated debate about this very topic, until Jesus gets in the middle of them and changes the direction of the conversation

-Once again becomes a teaching moment! Jesus’ way of leadership is the opposite of the world. Look at how he describes the world’s ways: “lord it over” and “exercise authority.” That’s not the Jesus way! Jesus says “It shall not be so!” 

-Do you want to lead? Serve! Example of music team asking people to run slides for 6 months before they get on the stage. What are you willing to do to serve those who are sitting nearby you? Music is a great opportunity for that, and I think one of the best ways to model this service! 

-“If the gathering is about building up and encouraging the church, then a song I don’t like presents an opportunity to love and encourage others whose tastes differ from mine.” (Mike Cosper, Rhythms of Grace, 88)

-Jesus isn’t calling for anything He isn’t willing to do. He’s demonstrated to them in multiple ways what it means to serve, not be served.

– “The brothers hope to honor Jesus while honoring themselves. How easily worship and discipleship are blended with self-interest; or worse, self-interest is masked as worship and discipleship.” (James Edwards)

-How often do you equate God’s way with your way? Or you take your desires and assume they’re the way God wants you to live? What’s even worse is when you take those desires and then force others to live that same way! That’s called legalism, and there’s a whole host of issues with that!

-Text I got when we had to shut our doors during COVID (this was an incredibly hard season! No one knew exactly what to do, it’s easy to look back now and see the mistakes, but not in the middle of it): “I was going to use this as an opportunity to demonstrate my faith in God!” I wanted to text back “If you’ve been waiting for a global pandemic to demonstrate your faith, then you don’t have those faith muscles built up to start practicing them now.” Jesus here is saying you need to start practicing service in the small things so that as you grow in ability and responsibility you can continue being faithful. The problem is when people are elevated beyond their character. We’ve seen that repeatedly in the church the past couple years, and it comes about because people forget that Jesus called us to serve, not be served. As soon as you get to the point that you think it’s time for others to start serving or accommodating your needs, preferences, and desires, you need to step back for a season!

-So far: following Jesus comes through His death, is demonstrated by whether or not we serve others, and it:

  • Requires Faith In Him (46-52)

-20 miles away from Jerusalem, slightly off the main road, 1 way to get in and out. Those who had been following were continuing toward Jerusalem, ready for the revolt!

-Only named person healed in this Gospel: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus (name means: “Son of Honor”) Let’s compare Bartimaeus to the 2 brothers who asked for the positions of honor: they were most likely wealthy (Father had a fishing business), Barty had to beg to eat. They were getting recognition and fame from following Jesus (such that they knew to ask for even more fame) Barty was (apart from being in here) forgotten and marginalized.

-No social welfare, begging was the only way to survive. 

-Jesus of Nazareth to delineate this Jesus from all the others (like the name “John” or “Michael” thanks a lot mom & dad)

-Instead of asking for power and prestige, what does Barty ask for? Mercy. He wouldn’t even care if his name was mentioned in this text: he just wants a full life.

-What’s the response of the crowd? Barty doesn’t deserve the see Jesus! Jesus is too busy and on a different social standing. How does he respond? Cries all the more! He’s desperate! Which is something we (and the disciples) could learn! (parable of the persistent widow Luke 18:1-8 “because this widow keeps bothering me”)

-Jesus stopped. Has a whole crowd around Him and he stops for 1 blind beggar.

-Invites Barty near. 3 verbs: take heart, get up, calling you.

-Throws off all his worldly possessions (his cloak, both protection from heat and pillow at night), jumps up as quick as possible and runs to Jesus.

-Jesus asks the same question he’d asked James and John: “Whereas the Sons of Thunder asked for extraordinary glory, Bartimaeus asks only for ordinary health.” (James Edwards)

-Refers to Jesus as a higher form of Rabbi (used primarily of God). Those on the inside continue to remain blind, while those on the outside see who God is. He has 1 request: let me see!

-Why is this man healed? Faith. How strong did his faith need to be? As strong as a mustard seed, but in the right person.

-Example of ice from Keller.

-Became a follower of Jesus. Tradition says he’s named because he became a prominent leader in the early church.

-What are you willing to give up to get Jesus? Are you truly following Him, or is Jesus a convenient excuse to try to force your way, agenda, ideas onto others? Do you come to serve or to BE served? 

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by mikethestrand on June 11, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on June 11, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/06/11/mark-1032-52-sermon-manuscript/

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