All posts in category History

Revelation 2:1-11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Letters have become incredibly special today! I remember back when texts were the most significant thing you could get. Those things cost 5 cents each! I also remember when getting a phone call was the most significant thing! Back when you had to call a friend and awkwardly talk to their parents for a few minutes before you could ask to talk to your friend. Now, most people I know are annoyed when you get a phone call, texting is ubiquitous, and letters are incredible special and dear to your heart. Except for the ones from Anderson windows that look special and handwritten, until you open them up and find out it’s an advertisement.

-How would you feel if you got a letter from Jesus? Would you be excited or nervous?

-It’s at times difficult for us to remember that these letters are written to real people who lived in a real place, who had real lives, and needed comfort and correction from the Lord, just like we do today. What’s even crazier is we do have a number of letters written to us: 66 of them – we call it the Bible! Each time we open it God Himself is speaking to us – which means there will be times where we challenged, and times where we’re comforted. That’s true of any and every relationship!

READ/PRAY

-First thing to note is the similarities between all these letters.

-Chart

-7 churches, address to angel, connection back to Christ, encouragement, correction with a call to repent (of 5 of them, the 2 that don’t have that call are the least impressive and most impoverished), listen, and finally a promise on how to overcome. Keep that in mind as we walk through these churches over the next few weeks!

-Churches tend to reflect or adopt both the positives and negatives of the cities and cultures they’re in, same today.

-You may have heard the story of asking a fish what it’s like to live in water, and the reply is “what’s water?” It’s similar for us growing up – we assume so many things but until we run into someone who lives differently than us we tend to not get challenged on those assumptions. (Thank you, the food was very good, may I please be excused)

-If you say “church isn’t like it was when I was growing up” this is part of the reason why. Acts 17:26 We all have appointed times. I’ve talked to retired pastors who have shared they’re glad they’re not ministering today because it’s much more difficult. That’s ok! They don’t need to! God called them to a specific time and season, just as He’s called me to a specific time and season, and I’m very hopeful about the future of the church!

-As we walk through the letters to these churches, there are things that will apply to us, things that will apply to other churches, and things that applied to the churches that were written to. Written first and foremost to these churches, but have application for the church throughout all of human history.

Ephesus (1-7)

-Ephesus was a major port city. 3^rd largest city in the Roman empire. Roads traveling from here to all of Asia (hence why Acts can describe Paul as preaching the word to “all of Asia”)

-Major commercial port that required constant dredging to prevent the harbor from becoming completely silted over and inaccessible by boat.

-Because of the commerce, also home to 1 of the 7 wonders of the ancient world: temple to the god Artemis, 4x larger than the Parthenon in Greece. Artemis was the god of fertility, magic, and astrology (do you think it’s a coincidence that Jesus is described as holding 7 stars).

-Not only did they worship Artemis primarily, but significant cultural centers would also become centers of emperor worship (often referred to as “imperial cults”) Ephesus had 3 temples dedicated to 3 different emperors.

-Church was founded by Paul, Aquila, and Priscilla (Acts 18-19)

-Paul there for at least 2 years (Acts 19:10), wrote a letter to them called “Ephesians” that we studied a few years ago!

-Riot against Paul for affecting the economic base (Acts 19:23-41), but I think it’s important to note that Paul’s warning when he left was to be careful not to let people lead them astray from the true faith. (Acts 20:28-30)

True Orthodoxy (1-3) “straight teaching” Right belief

-Jesus is speaking to them, remember the one we just studied last week who holds the 7 stars and walks among them.

-Jesus is there and present in the church. Not some distantly removed dictator.

-Positive: works, labor, endurance, cannot tolerate evil people.

-Eugen Peterson: untiring, unflagging, and vigilant work

-Tested “apostles” not part of the 12, can be just church messengers

True Orthopraxy (4-7) “straight action” right action, right practice, living

-Correction: abandoned, fled, run away from first love.

-Far more intentional than just drifting away.

-Eugene Peterson: “abandoning their first zestful love of Christ”

-A few debates about what this love is referring to, but because we know the author of this book, I think it sheds some light on what he’s referring to. Proposals: love for Jesus/God, or love toward others.

-Think of John 3:16 “For God so loved the world” or 1 John 3:18 “Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and truth” or 1 John 4:7 “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” and finally 4:11“Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another.”

-I think we also need to keep in mind Jesus’ words on the great commandment: Matt. 22:37-40.

-Jesus is saying it’s not enough to just have correct theology. In fact, those with the best theology are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire: James 2:19 “You believe that God is one. Good! Even the demons believe-and they shudder.”

-Summary of God’s expectations for His people: love God supremely, love others sacrificially. It’s not enough to just mentally agree with some truth claims: those truth claims are meant to soak themselves deeply into your life and change the way you live, including even your emotional life.

-The way you could summarize this church is that they’ve become so committed to right beliefs that they’ve neglected to love God or other people. They’ve forgotten the great commandment.

-Think of just how many “heresy hunter” organizations exist today! A quick look at YouTube and it can quickly become overwhelming! True belief matters greatly, but so does the way we live. You can’t separate those 2 truths! And I think this is an area that we as a church need to be wary of. I’m honestly not worried about us drifting away from the truth: we have more seminary degrees in this room than some seminaries offer! What I do worry about is become so determined to hold onto the truth that we neglect Jesus’ command to love others too.

-This even affected the EFCA over the past couple years! A pastor was hired at a church in NJ who claims to be an expert in theology, and to have a prophetic gift from God, and wrote 3 books denouncing the EFCA as “woke,” Marxist, and social justice warriors. He was given multiple opportunities to repent, he was called out for a lack of charity and grace toward others, and at moments he literally lied about things people said. If you only listen to his side, it sounds like he was doing the right thing, but if you talk to those that have tried to engage with him it becomes clear that there’s no love and only wanting to care about true beliefs (according to him).

-And it’s not just him, there’s whole organizations devoted to the idea that we need to stand firm and fight for the truth, or else the world will fall down around us. Do you really thing that’s our job? Is God so dependent on us fighting for Him that if we don’t stand up His plans are going to fail? My encouragement to you is to be careful of those organizations that only want to fight. Yes, we must stand firm for the truth, but don’t forget to look for the fruit of those who are leading organizations. Hold their lives up to Gal. 5. Do you see outbursts of anger? What about dissensions – trying to divide people (even Christians!) apart? Same with factions – whose side are you on?

-Church: don’t miss this reality! Those that want to constantly fight and divide are not a part of God’s kingdom, they are manifesting the works of the flesh. Correct theology doesn’t mean you get into heaven! Your life must bear fruit. Always remember what we want to hear Jesus say to us when we finally see Him: “Well done good and FAITHFUL servant.” All of us are going to be surprised at some area of our theology being wrong (doesn’t mean we give up on learning and studying) AW Tozer, Ravi Zacharias (watch your life and doctrine)

-I think it’s important for us to see how Jesus commands them to respond to this letter: remember, repent, and do.

-I got coffee with someone this week and chatted about how forgetful we are, even when God does incredible things in our lives. That’s normal for humans! That’s why God constantly tells us to remember. But not just remember, go on to repent (turn around), and then live the way you should be living. It’s never too late to repent!

-If they don’t go back to their first love, Jesus says he will remove their lampstand. That means they would no longer be a church. Sure they can continue meeting, continue trying to achieve certain aims, but Jesus no longer views them as a true church. If we have all the right theology, but have not love, we stop functioning as a true church. This threat fits in with the concern of the city. Remember the constant dredging they did to remove silt from the harbor? There was this constant fear that the city would stop being a city because they were completely dependent on the harbor for their economic growth. Similarly, the church needs to fear no longer being a church unless they “dredge” up the sin in their lives and deal with it.

-I don’t have time to dig into the Nicolaitans, they’ll come up next week!

-Last thing we see is that this message is far broader than just this church. ANYONE who has ears.

-“To be an “overcomer” in the eschatological war demands a day-by-day walk with God and dependence on his strength.” (Osborne)

-Conquering comes about by the sword of the Spirit, not the sword of power and influence

-Intentional contrast between God’s provision and Artemis’ provision

Smyrna (8-11)

-Smyrna had a history of dying and being brought back to life. It’s also the only city that still exists today as Izmir, Turkey.

-Another harbor city (about 35 miles N of Ephesus) Claim to fame was the birthplace of the poet Homer

-Another prominent location with temples to various gods and emperors. Had an acropolis that was referred to as “the crown of Smyrna”

-The local currency had written on it “First of Asia in beauty and size.”

-Had a large and influential Jewish population who had access to economic and cultural power in the city. The Christians at Smyrna then faced oppression from both Jews and Romans in the city. Left out economically, banned from shopping in the marketplaces, yet 1 of only 2 churches that don’t receive any rebuke from Jesus.

True Riches (8-9)

-While Smyrna thought they were the first in priority, Jesus is the true First AND the Last. Just like the city had died and come back to life, Jesus shows His true divinity by rising from the dead (and holding the keys to death and Hades in His hands)

-Jesus sees what’s going on. He sees the way they are afflicted and the material poverty that they face, but that’s not the reality spiritually.

-Even if the church faces being social outcasts, and lacks material means, Jesus is still among them. Do we need to change some of what we view as a successful church? 3Bs: buildings, budgets, butts, ABCs: adults, buildings, cash. What if the most wealthy churches are actually impoverished spiritually?

-Jesus says he knows exactly what’s going on: slander from Jews, affliction from Romans, and the church feels oppression from both sides.

-This isn’t an antisemitic statement. Jesus was a Jew. Early disciples were Jews. But He is saying something new/unique is now taking place.

-When confronted by Jewish leaders, Jesus says this: John 8:44

-Because Jesus has come, suddenly genealogy doesn’t matter anymore! Suddenly anyone can become a follower of the 1 true God! So when Jesus goes on to talk about a synagogue of Satan, He’s saying that because they don’t believe in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, they’re serving their father Satan who can only lie. Let me say it again: this verse is NOT antisemitic, and using it to argue that is a gross misinterpretation.

True Suffering (10-11)

-The only guarantee on this side of eternity is suffering. Jesus promises us that!

-10 days isn’t a literal amount of time, but most likely picks up on an idea from Daniel 1 where the prophets were similarly tested.

-Once again, we see suffering is coming, but if you remain faithful you’ll receive not the crown of Smyrna, but the crown of life.

-The promise to those who overcome (persevere) is the second death will never hurt you. Second death is the eternal death (that idea will come up again later)

-This promise to Smyrna would see it realized just a few decades later when their bishop was burned at the stake (and may have even been in the church when this letter was read!)

-Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna: “Polycarp said: “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” … The proconsul said: “I have wild beasts. I shall throw you to them, if you do not change your mind.”

But he said: “Call them. For repentance from the better to the worse is not permitted us; but it is noble to change from what is evil to what is righteous.”

And again [he said] to him, “I shall have you consumed with fire, if you despise the wild beasts, unless you change your mind.”

But Polycarp said: “The fire you threaten burns but an hour and is quenched after a little; for you do not know the fire of the coming judgment and everlasting punishment that is laid up for the ungodly. But why do you delay? Come, do what you will.”

-Are we willing to face those kinds of threats? That kind of persecution? That kind of loss of social standing if we get the crown of life? That’s the blessing that comes from Jesus if we remain faithful unto death.

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on February 25, 2024 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon

Tagged Bible, Christianity, God, Jesus, revelation

Posted by mikethestrand on February 25, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/02/25/revelation-21-11-sermon-manuscript/

Overview of Revelation – Sermon Manuscript

Spoiler Alert: God Wins!

Revelation

-Glasses

-Why do that silly illustration? To show that we all view and interpret what takes place around us through specific filters. Ever been sharing a story with someone who remembers it completely different than you? We all wear specific glasses as we approach the text of Scripture, and our job is to work as hard as we can to take those glasses off so we can better understand the original author’s intent, as well as God’s intent through the human authors.

-And this is especially true when we come to a book like Revelation where there’s been so much debate and misunderstanding throughout history.

-Every generation since Christ ascended has become convinced Jesus would return in their lifetime. Every single one! And the 1 thing they all have in common is they’ve all been wrong! Anytime I hear someone predict the date I get a little upset because now God’s not returning on that day!

-GK Chesterton: “though St John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.”

READ/PRAY (1-8)

What Is Revelation?

-A letter, written by John to 7 churches. (vs. 4)

-Who was John? All sorts of debate! Some argue for a pseudonym, others argue that it was a well-known 1^st century pastor, but most who uphold to a conservative evangelical belief think this was the Apostle John (“The Disciple whom Jesus loved”) who wrote the Gospel. He was well known to these churches, carried some sense of authority for them. Language used borrows heavily from Hebrew (written in Greek. Biggest reason we believe this comes from Iranaeus writing in 180 AD. Disciple of Polycarp (martyred in 156), was a friend of John. Would need some pretty conclusive contrary evidence to cast this into doubt (primarily comes from people who don’t believe the Bible to be true)

-What’s the significance of the 7 churches? From Patmos, followed a well-established mail route and roads where the letter most likely would have traveled. Each church would be responsible to read, copy, and then pass the letter along to the next church (just as Paul’s letters would have been distributed)

-Some of what makes Revelation difficult for us is it is a combination of 3 genres: apocalyptic, prophetic, epistle

-Epistle is one many of us are familiar with. It’s a letter. Paul wrote 13 of them, Peter wrote 3, John himself wrote 3 other letters reminding believers to persevere under persecution!

-Apocalyptic (The REVELATION of Jesus Christ) “entails the revelatory communication of heavenly secrets by an otherworldly being to a seer who presents the visions in a narrative framework; the visions guide the readers into a transcendent reality that takes precedence over the current situation and encourages readers to persevere in the midst of their trials. The visions reverse normal experience by making the heavenly mysteries the real world and depicting the present crisis as a temporary, illusory situation. This is achieved via God’s transforming the world for the faithful.” (Osborne, 222)

-Revealing (not trying to hide)

-Transcendent realities (what’s taking place spiritually)

-Describes those transcendent realities instead of the earthly

-Gets to God’s ultimate end.

-Prophecy: “It is impossible to distinguish ultimately between prophecy and apocalyptic, for the latter is an extension of the former.” (Osborne, 13) “Prophecy” appears 7 times in this book, but here’s a few examples that point to this explicitly being a prophecy. First note that prophecy isn’t just focused on the future. John says we’re to keep this prophecy, live it out, enact the truths revealed in it.

-Similarly to the beginning, toward the end John repeats the need to keep it, AND that this prophecy isn’t meant to be hidden away or only understood by a select few who have deciphered the “code,” but is a reminder to share these truths!

-“The prophecies predict literal events, though the descriptions do not portray the events literally.” (Blomberg, Klein, Hubbard, 443)

-Another piece that makes Revelation difficult to study is that it is stepped in OT imagery and references. But because we don’t know our Bibles they go right over our head!

-404 verses, 518 references to earlier Scripture. “St. John has his favorite books of Scripture: Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, Zechariah, Isaiah, Exodus.”

-Because John is so steeped in his Bible, when his mind struggles to come up with the words to describe what’s being revealed to him, he relies on what he knows, and what he knows is the Bible! This is a great picture for us on how our minds should be so saturated with God’s Word that it just naturally flows out of us! It’s not a word for word reference like we’re used to in the rest of our Bibles. We need to use our “sanctified imagination” (Kevin VanHoozer) This isn’t making stuff up or claiming some new revelation from God (we’ll get to the danger in that!) this is having our minds so filled with God’s Word that it changes even the way we think. Or to refer back to the glasses, it is getting a better and better prescription until we’re able to see God’s Word and world correctly.

-The last thing I want us to keep in mind about what Revelation is: the culmination of all of history (HIS story). My seminary professor summarized it: “God’s Plans for Cosmic History”

-Revelation isn’t ultimately written to provide a timeline of the end times, but is written to inspire perseverance and faithfulness that even in the end times God is still sovereignly ruling on His throne!

Why Study Revelation?

-It’s in the Bible

-As I’ve talked to many people in our body about studying this book there’s been a lot of nervousness and fear. Do we believe it’s God’s Word or not? We don’t get to pick and choose what’s God’s Word says! It’s our job to dig into it, to learn what it says, to get training in the correct way to interpret it and then apply it to our lives (we’ll get to that with the third point).

-“One of the great tragedies in the church in our day is how Revelation has been so narrowly and incorrectly interpreted with an obsessive focus on the future end time, with the result that we have missed the fact that it contains many profound truths and encouragements concerning Christian life and discipleship.” (Beale, 1)

-Think of what we just saw on the idea of it being a prophecy (not future oriented) there’s something we’re supposed to do with this book! It’s giving us an orientation to our lives that we’re supposed to obey.

-It stirs our hearts and imaginations in ways that prose cannot

-One of my favorite authors has become Eugene Peterson, who has an incredible way with words. He summarizes thoughts, ideas, and feelings in ways that move me. He says “I do not read Revelation to get additional information about the life of faith in Christ. I have read it all before in law and prophet, in gospel and epistle. Everything in Revelation can be found in the previous sixty-five books of the Bible. The revelation adds nothing of substance to what we already know. The truth of the gospel is already complete, revealed in Jesus Christ. There is nothing new to say on the subject. But there is a new way to say it.” “Revelation is a gift – a work of intense imagination that pulls its reader into a world of sky battles between angels and beasts, lurid punishments and glorious salvations, kaleidoscopic vision and cosmic song.” He goes on to describe John as a poet and pastor. He’s trying to train people to have their hearts stirred by the glories of the gospel. To help us keep our eyes and our gaze fixed heavenward.

-Which is another reason why we should study Revelation: it is completely Christocentric.

-The first chapter recounts a description of the resurrected Savior that can barely be contained in words! The Son of Man, the alpha and omega, firstborn from the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. White hair, eyes fiery, feet fine bronze, voice like cascading waters (think a hurricane instead of rippling brook). Holding 7 stars in his hand, sword coming from his mouth. Instead of stars being deities they’re mere playthings for Jesus! One of my favorite verses in the Gen. 1 vs. 16 “And the stars” There a theatrical encore, a passing note!

-And another reason why we should study this book: Do you want to be blessed? Don’t miss this: just reading them is a blessing. Hearing them and keeping these words is a blessing. If we don’t study it we miss out on a blessing from the Lord.

-And another reason we need to study Revelation: to correct many misunderstandings: rapture (Rev. 12:5), antichrist isn’t in Revelation

-“Since Satan is not omniscient, and since only God knows the timing of the end, the devil must have an “antichrist” ready in every era, lest that turn out to be the time God has appointed for the consummation of all things.” (542)

–Left Behind isn’t an accurate account of what’s going to happen.

-There are only 2 destinies for people: one of pure bliss and happiness, the other filled with unimaginable horror. Do NOT make light of hell.

How Do I Study Revelation?

-VERY CAREFULLY! With humility.

– The one thing I can claim to have some true expertise in is biblical studies. I have 2 degrees (and counting!) in biblical studies, and this series I’m spending more time and energy in preparation than most other studies.

-Define a commentary: someone who comments on a book of the Bible. Not just random people, those who have devoted their lives to the study and correct interpretation of the Bible.

-Every sermon series I’m reading anywhere from 3-5 different commentaries in preparation for my message. For revelation it’ll be more like 10-12! Here’s the list of all the commentaries I’ve already been consulting as I’ve been preparing for this series! And even though 2 of them look exactly the same, they’re not.

-Part of the reason I do that is to do my best to understand the different interpretive options of the text we’re studying. The Bible isn’t easy to understand correctly. It’s easy to read, but that doesn’t mean we always understand it right.

-I will probably teach and say things that contradict what you have learned before. I’m ok with that! DON’T approach this as a heresy hunt! Where there’s legitimate debate, I’ll share that, but I’ll also share what I think makes sense based on the entire Bible. We can’t just rip something out of its’ context and suit it to fit our own agenda. Remember the glasses we all have! That doesn’t mean you can’t get better at understanding, but it takes time and work.

-If you were in my class last semester, you’ve seen this, but I wanted to mention it again because it’s especially true of Revelation. We NEED biblical and historical theology.

“Exegesis” is the word often used for careful reading. Exegesis answers the questions, What does this text actually say? and, What did the author mean by what he said? We discover this by applying sound principles of interpretation to the Bible. BT answers the question, How has God revealed his word historically and organically? HT answers the questions, How have people in the past understood the Bible? What have Christians thought about exegesis and theology? and, more specifically, How has Christian doctrine developed over the centuries, especially in response to false teachings? HT is concerned primarily with opinions in periods earlier than our own. ST answers the question, What does the whole Bible teach about certain topics? or put another way, What is true about God and his universe? PT answers the question, How should humans respond to God’s revelation?

-To get the exegesis right, he says we must apply “sound principles of interpretation to the Bible.” What are those?

-Micah’s class: what one needs to correctly interpret Scripture: “Qualifications for the Interpreter of Scripture: A Reasoned Faith in the God Who Reveals, Willingness to Obey Its Message, Willingness to Employ Appropriate Methods, Illumination of the Holy Spirit, Membership in the Church.” (Intro to Bib. Interp.)

-“The text cannot mean something that would have been completely incomprehensible to its original audience.” (Klein, Blomberg, Hubbard, 442)

“The most fundamental hermeneutical principle to follow in interpreting Revelation is to look for meanings that could have been intelligible to first-century Christians in Asia Minor, not hidden meanings decipherable only be people centuries later who think they might be living in the days immediately prior to Christ’s return.” (Blomberg)

-Need to keep in mind the genre of the text we’re reading:

-Apocalyptic literature: “Frequent features include (a) the extensive use of symbolism, often with outlandish or grotesque creatures and cosmology, much like our modern political cartoons; (b) the depiction of past, present, and/or future events of world history leading up to a decisive intervention on the part of God to right the injustices of society and to reward God’s faithful people; and (c) the assurance to those people in a setting of crisis or perceived crisis that evil would not ultimately maintain the upper hand.” (Blomberg, 512)

-How much is symbolic in Revelation? A LOT more than we realize!

“In this light, the dictum of the popular approach to Revelation — “interpret literally unless you are forced to interpret symbolically” — should be turned on its head. Instead, the programmatic statement about the book’s precise mode of communication in 1:1 is that the warp and woof of it is symbolic, so that the preceding dictum should be reversed to say “interpret symbolically unless you are forced to interpret literally.” Better put, the reader is to expect that the main means of divine revelation in this book is symbolic.” (GK Beale)

-You may then ask, what do the signs stand for? What are they symbolizing? How are we supposed to understand what God’s messenger is talking about?

“In the case of John’s apocalypse, this background includes the Old Testament, intertestamental literature, and current or recent events in the cities of Asia Minor of John’s day. Number, though, are almost always symbolic, especially sevens and their multiples (standing for completeness or universality-based on the seven days of creation) and twelves and their multiples (standing for the twelve tribes of Israel and/or the twelve apostles-to designate God’s people as a whole).” (Blomberg, 512-3)

-Pulling in some historical theology, how has the church throughout history interpreted this book?

-First and foremost, pretty much every generation has believed they’re living in the last days (which they are because they started the moment Jesus ascended. But generally there are 4 interpretive options.

-futurism (all future), preterism (fulfilled in AD 70) historicism (progressively fulfilled throughout church history) idealism (symbolic of the timeless struggle between God and Satan throughout the church age) eclectic redemptive-historical idealist approach

-Three Views on the Millennium and Beyond “1-All are committed to the Scripture as the ultimate authority in this discussion. 2-There has been a sense of fellowship, even in the midst of the disagreement. 3-Each view represented here foresees the eventual victory of Christ to the glory of God.” 284-5

-This isn’t a debate about inerrancy, or authority of the Bible, about God or theology proper, it’s a debate about the proper way to interpret a primarily apocalyptic text that was written 2,000 years ago! We need theological triage (remember that) in this issue! Don’t condemn someone because they differ with you, where we all agree is: Jesus is coming back, hopefully soon!

Outline: -LOTR “Things that are…”

Rev. 1:19: “What you have seen, what is, and what will take place after this.” The only question is where does the “what will take place” begin? And does it include everything in that section? But it provides a helpful overview!

-I listened to a sermon yesterday that stood out to me on the reason we study Revelation, and it’s summarized by a story in the OT (Biblical Theology!) After 430 years in slavery, the Israelites are freed. Moses leads them to the brink of the Promised Land, and commissions 12 spies to scout the land. They go and 10 are TERRIFIED of the giants there, but 2 are determined to take it. They’re too busy looking at the giants to look to the giant slayer. Revelation commands us 70x to see or look. If we can keep our eyes on God, the enemies we face here seem to shrink in comparison, which is the point of this book. Dear friends, are you tired of feeling like the church is losing, like Christianity is failing, like there’s no hope? Stop looking at the wrong things, and cast your gaze in the right direction!

1 Comment

by mikethestrand on February 4, 2024 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on February 4, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/02/04/overview-of-revelation-sermon-manuscript/

Zechariah’s Song – Sermon Manuscript

-Short term memory loss. My son tells me I have a bad memory regularly (but not him, according to him his memory is so good his brain will tell him where things are even when he doesn’t know it)

-I remember growing up and getting so frustrated when my parents would call me be the names of one of my sisters. I’d be looking straight at them and they’d call me Elyssa. I swore I’d never do that to my kids, and here we are. I literally did it yesterday! I’ve mixed all their names up (and I hardly even have Thomas and Charlie to keep track of right now!)

-At this point I just keep telling myself that I have too many things that I’m trying to keep track of (and I keep telling my parents that they only had 3 kids to keep track of, so there was no excuse for them)

-But I think that’s a picture of the way we view our spiritual lives too. We forget which family we’re a part of, and the implications that family has in our day to day lives. We’re called to live radically different lives, but so often our lives look exactly the same as everyone else around us.

READ/PRAY

An Arrival (57-66)

-Talked about them briefly last week, but need a little more information about them.

-The best credentials (the right family, Ivy League school, straight As, honest in business, trusted by everyone)

-Unfortunately, the family lineage would stop with them, apart from God’s intervention because they were “advanced in years.”

-As we read through these Christmas texts, our ears are supposed to be hearing references back to God’s work in the past. Think of another couple who had a baby even after they were “advanced in years” The father of the Israelites: Abraham. God can communicate even by events that are taking place around us, and the people who witnessed these events would even make some of those connections for us, as you’ll see when we walk through this.

-But what is the significance of God pointing us back to Abraham?

-God was about to start something brand new. Well, mostly brand new. You may have heard “history doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme,” that’s because there’s an order and a purpose to all of history. God was at the same time fulfilling all the promises that He’d made to his people before AND undermining the way people had falsely interpreted those promises for their day.

-Today’s story also comes on the end of 400 years of silence from God. After God had sent prophets to His people regularly to tell them what they needed to know, he had stopped. Think of that: 400 years. 400 years ago Blaise Pascal was born, Pope Gregory 15^th died, the settlements that will become Gloucester, MA and Dover, NH are founded, a third vessel delivers pilgrims to Plymouth Colony, and in Nov. a fire will destroy 7 of their buildings. MN wasn’t a state, houses didn’t have running water, plumbing, or electricity. USA wasn’t a nation. Democracy wasn’t common, and capitalism wasn’t a part of economics yet. And that’s how long God’s people had been waiting to hear from Him. If my prayer app doesn’t load in 4 sec. I kill it and start over!

-And I think it’s important for us to reflect on that for a minute. I don’t know anyone who’s gifted at waiting, which just goes to show how affected we are by the world around us. 400 years feels like forever, but that’s a blip in eternity. God doesn’t treat time the same way you and I do. I think of the Ents in LOTR. Merry & Pippen are captured by Treebeard who takes them to the Entmoot “It takes a long time to say anything in old Entish and we never say anything unless it’s worth taking a long time to say.”

-Today’s text moves a story God had been telling for thousands of years 1 step forward in His unfolding plan. And just as it previously began with the arrival of a baby, this one also begins with the arrival of a baby.

Rejoicing! (57-59)

-Before John even begins his public ministry, people are rejoicing about him! Just like the angel had said earlier.

-Look back to the promise in 1:14 “many will rejoice at his birth”

-One of the aspects we need to ensure we’re doing today is celebrating with those who have been blessed by God, even if we’re still in a season of waiting. God brings us together as a group so that we can rejoice with those who are rejoicing and mourn with those who are mourning. Shared sorrow is half, shared joy is doubled.

-As we come into the Christmas season I think it’s intentional that God included this section in here. Church, this is your family! Even if you were abandoned at birth, never adopted into a family, and still single today, you have a perfect heavenly Father who has made a new and better family and welcomed you in. But we don’t act like that very often. We’re too quick to run to the nuclear family and too quick to dismiss the Christological family (define)

-Custom of this culture, along with circumcision came the naming of the child (again, we see they were being completely upright citizens, obeying every law that God had commanded)

-Names ran in the family, if you’ve seen Marvel (they used to be great!), Thor is always “Son of Odin” (Odinson, Johnson, etc) To carry the family name one was a great honor, and the expectation of this family! But then:

Confusion (60-63)

-Elizabeth refuses! Remember, Zechariah hasn’t been able to speak this whole time, but he found out some way to communicate all that had happened to his wife.

-This is also where we see Zechariah was deaf during this whole time, they had to make signs to him instead of just asking. And why would they wonder if he just heard his wife say his name?

-Notice he doesn’t debate or question for a second! He doesn’t even say his name WILL BE, Zechariah writes his name IS John. One of the things I didn’t mention earlier is the Zechariah questioned the angel Gabriel when he was told to prepare for the arrival of a baby. That questioning led to him being unable to speak for 9 months. 9 months of complete silence. 9 months to contemplate what happened. Now, when you compare that to the 400 silent years, 9 months is nothing, but as someone who currently can’t hear out of my right ear let me tell you, 9 months would feel like FOREVER!

Fulfillment (64-66)

-As soon as Zechariah writes that his name is John, he can talk again! Zechariah had learned his lesson, and wasn’t going to go 0 for 2! Whereas the first time he doubted, this time he rejoiced, believed, and praised God.

-JC Ryle, an Anglican bishop in the UK (wrote some GREAT thoughts on the Gospels) “Let us take heed that affliction does us good, as it did to Zechariah.… “Sanctified afflictions” … are “spiritual promotions.” The sorrow that humbles us, and drives us nearer to God, is a blessing, and a downright gain. No case is more hopeless than that of a man who, in time of affliction, turns his back upon God.”

-Think about that. Ryle calls them “sanctified afflictions,” but in God’s plan every affliction is sanctified! What this mean is: obedience during suffering will lead to lasting fruit. When the Lord allows difficulty to enter your life, how do you respond? Think of Zechariah and Elizabeth, who were “advanced in years” (they were old). How long had they been praying for a child and had the Lord continue to answer “not yet”? But do you think those decades were wasted, or was God continuing to teach them in the midst of their waiting? Same for you today! Even if the answer up until today has been “not yet” are you going to trust that God is still working in your life (spiritual promotions) or do you give up and start doubting God?

-One of the themes in this first chapter of Luke is fear. When Gabriel appears to Zechariah, he’s described as fearful. When Gabriel appears to Mary she’s described as troubled (or fearful). But now, because of God’s work in Zechariah and Elizabeth (and John), their neighbors are fearful.

-That should embolden us, friends! We don’t need to be afraid to share the gospel message with others! God’s work is what properly orders our fear. Why would we fear anyone (or anything) instead of God? We should trust that as God works in our lives, it will lead to all sorts of questions from people, which is exactly what happens here.

-They were the talk of the town! Talk about a high bar for John! Can you imagine what his life was like? “Oh yeah, little Johnnie over there, we know ALL about when you were born!”

The Song (67-80)

-This seems to be a flashback to vs. 64. It says there that Zechariah blessed God, most likely this is what he said to bless God.

-Often referred to as the Benedictus taken from the Latin translation, first word is Benedictus. A song! When God works among his people, they respond through singing!

Salvation Has Come (68-75)

-God saves us so that we might worship. Think of Moses to Pharoah in Ex. 7:16 “Let my people go, so that they may worship me.” The freedom that comes from God saving us allows us to now properly orient our lives.

-Before we are saved, our whole direction in life is toward ourselves. After we’re saved, our lives now have a different direction to them – aligned vertically first to God, and then outward as we look to bless everyone else we come into contact with.

-Zechariah’s prophesy is like a funnel – it begins broadly with all of God’s people, and then slowly narrows to 1- the child he’s holding in his arms.

-Look at where he begins: “He has visited.” The God who had been silent for 400 years hasn’t disappeared! He’s still guiding His people, and redeeming them.

-Horn is used throughout the Psalms to signify strength (think of a rhinoceros horn, should be terrifying to you!) It also means that because it’s God’s horn, it’s guaranteed to happen. We’ll come back to David in a minute.

-This has been part of God’s plan “from of old.” You think Zechariah and Elizabeth are old, that’s not even where this story begins! This story begins all the way back in Genesis 1! God’s plan that was in place before the earth was created was about to take a major step forward.

-The people who had been under persecution for centuries, mocked and belittled by the nations were about the saved. No one would be able stand against them. Just as He had been faithful to the previous generations, that mercy would continue down to His people today.

-Then Zechariah utters an important word: covenant. Now we need to talk about David! Because one of the things that’s vital for us to learn about God is that He’s a covenant making and covenant keeping God.

-God made a covenant with David, God made a covenant with Abraham, God made a covenant with Noah, God has even made a covenant with you and me. You can trace the entire storyline of the Bible through God’s covenants. But the significance is that Zechariah is saying that ALL of those covenants are coming to a head now.

-Notice as well that it’s both spiritual and physical. We’re commanded to live holy and righteous lives all our days (75), but so many of these promises are spiritual promises (salvation (69, 71), holy covenant (72))

-This new way of living means we no longer have anything to fear (74) Unlike almost everyone else in this story, now when we see God move we don’t have to be afraid because of God’s provision of the Messiah.

A Prophet and a Messiah (76-80)

-Then the prophecy turns to John.

-John’s role is said to be preparation. His whole aim, goal, focus is to prepare people to meet the Lord.

-This is meant to connect to a prophesy in Malachi 3:1. John’s job is to be the hype man! Getting every ready, smoothing out the path, so that when the main event finally comes the people are ready.

-So how is John supposed to do this? By giving people knowledge of salvation, how their sins can be forgiven.

-Where the people were expecting God’s arrival to be a great time of political upheaval, God’s actual arrival would be a spiritual upheaval. And I think we do the same thing today! We’re so focused on the physical world that we miss the deeper spiritual realities that are taking place around us every day.

-God’s mercies (new every morning) are like the sunrise. Pointing back to Malachi 4:2 “For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”

-This imagery is also seen in Isaiah 9:2. Do you see how this prophesy is just dripping with OT ideas? I think part of the reason we don’t know our OT well enough is because we don’t see how it applies to us. What we need to realize is we need to understand ALL of God’s story so we can know how we can find our place in that story.

-The light is finally coming! The light of Christ shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. This light shines for eternity, and we have the responsibility to let our light shine before others so that others may see our good deeds and glorify our God who is in heaven.

-The “path of peace” is not simply the path that leads to peace but is itself a peaceful path: “Peace will characterize the walk along this road.” (ZECNT) Another way you could say this is: are you a peace-filled person? Do you bring peace into every situation you walk into?

-A good description I’ve heard of this is the church should be filled with shock-absorbers. The world will try to rile people up, causing them to become tension filled and anxious, and as soon as they walk in the doors they’re welcomed by people of peace. Not because it comes naturally or easily, but because Christ has won our peace through His sacrifice on our behalf.

1-Think of how hard John’s call was. He wasn’t the focus, he wasn’t the main event. His job was simply to point to someone else who was coming, someone whose sandals he wasn’t even worthy to untie. Yet that’s the call for all of us, and we don’t often like to admit that! We’d rather be the hero of the story than be a background character (NPC for gamers) But we’re back at the paradox of the gospel, and John’s (and our) life goal: He must increase, but I must decrease.

2-Second thing we see: “When it is recognized that Luke identifies ‘the enemy’ as the cosmic power of evil resident and active behind all forms of opposition to God and God’s people, it is plain that Zechariah’s hope has not been dashed but clarified and, indeed, radicalized.”

-This radicalization is most visibly seen by God taking enemies and turning them into family. Before Christ saved us we were opposed to God, fighting against Him, and at that time while we were enemies with God, Jesus saved us and made us family.

3 -Salvation isn’t for retreat, but to look for opportunities to bless others “Might serve him without fear” (74)

-God doesn’t save people and immediately call them up to heaven! He leaves us here so that we can serve Him and show the world what it looks like to live in the way of peace.

-Think of Psalm 23 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil.” Even if we’re surrounded by enemies, even if death has overtaken us we still walk in the way of peace, bought by the sacrifice of the Prince of Peace.

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on December 10, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on December 10, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/12/10/zechariahs-song-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 15:21-47 – Sermon Manuscript

-The whole story Mark has been telling has been building to this passage.

-Just like any good story, we’ve had the good guys, the bad guys, the conflict, there will be resolution. What’s crazy is this story just happens to be true!

-C.S. Lewis “I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of this text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage—though it may no doubt contain errors—pretty close up to the facts. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn’t see this has simply not learned to read…”

-There are only 2 responses to this event: defiance or discipleship.

READ/PRAY (pg. 497)

Derision Against Jesus (21-32)

-The mockery of Jesus continues. Criminals were expected to carry their cross to their crucifixion site, another form of torture and derision.

-Why was Simon forced to carry the cross? Remember what Jesus had just endured: brutal beating that had killed men before.

-Coming to Jerusalem for the Passover. Not many people are listed by name in Mark’s Gospel, most likely Alexander and Rufus were known to the 1^st Cent. Church. Rom. 16:13 lists Rufus among the members of the church in Rome. (another reason to think Mark wrote this to Roman Christians)

-The names in this Gospel are not accidental or incidental. They give historic accuracy to this story and they share the people who were involved.

-Simon serves as the first disciple. Remember what Jesus said back in Mark 8.

-We don’t often think about discipleship being a death. Death to self, death to sin, death to the world, death to our old way of living. We tend to view it as adding something on, but Jesus won’t let us add him to anything. Either we get Jesus alone, or we don’t get Him at all.

–Podcast on spiritual disciplines/practices as a way of finding yourself. How’s living by worldly standards working out for you? Anxiety on the rise, deaths of despair on the rise. Life expectancy had been rising for a hundred years, started declining the past few. Jesus tells us the only way to find your life (answer all the deepest longings of your heart) you need to lose your life. Let go of trying to control everything, let go of trying to work harder, work hard at trying to achieve your salvation: you can’t. There’s nothing you can add or take away from your salvation.

-Reflecting the past month on the reality that God loves me. We all say we know that, but I don’t think we actually live like that. Every night of the week I sing with my kids “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” but that truth hasn’t permeated through my thick skull or into my heart. I view myself as far too independent. Sure, Jesus needed to die to save me, but once I’m saved it’s up to me! What a joke! Unless the I’m “keeping in step with the Spirit” everything I’m doing is useless.

-Finally, notice vs. 38. What have we seen of Jesus’ followers so far in the midst of Jesus’ trial? Where are they? They all ran away! Mark ran away naked! Peter followed at a distance, but then got scared by a little girl and he became a crybaby. Do you think Jesus was talking about the 12 here?

-Brought him outside the city (Golgotha)

-Crucifixion served as a public spectacle. Right along the main road into Jerusalem (think of it taking place by the interstate). Again, the details Mark gives are to demonstrate the historical reality of these events. Lists the exact place where the Son of God was taken to die.

-Offered a sweet wine to dull the senses, potentially make the situation easier, and elongate the act.

-Accounts of people drinking enough to get a good buzz so the pain is more tolerable, similar to us using Tylenol when we get a headache, but He’s going to face something much more painful!

-4 words that speak volumes: “and they crucified him.”

-Isn’t it amazing that this act only gets 4 words. In typical Markan brevity, he just throws it out there and continues on. This doesn’t mean this event is unimportant, but there’s much more to it than just the crucifixion.

-After Jesus was hung on His cross, the soldiers split the spoils among themselves (just as after a war) Once again, this was a typical event for the Romans.

-Took place at the third hour (9 AM)

-Charges filed were meant to be a deterrent to those who witnessed it. Remember, this was a public event. People were supposed to see the punishment doled out to those who opposed Rome.

-Jesus wasn’t alone in receiving this capital punishment, this crucifixion was likely already scheduled. Not a stretch to think these 2 men were affiliated with Barabbas, who we learned about last week.

-Intentional wording here “one on his right and one on his left.” Back in Mark 10:37 James and John had asked Jesus to join with Him in glory sitting in those exact places. Do you think they had flashbacks after they heard what had happened?

-Often we’re in a similar position to them, we want the part after the suffering, but we’re unwilling to walk through the suffering. The J-curve – only get exaltation with humiliation.

-As if this wasn’t humiliating enough, because it was the main road during one of the busiest times of the year, people were walking by and getting their shots in.

-People are asking for the evidence in the wrong order, and they don’t know what they’re asking. The reason Jesus is on that cross is because sin MUST be dealt with. The only way any of those people can be saved is by Jesus staying on the cross, if he doesn’t stay there there’s nothing to believe in.

-And the chief priests join in! They think they’ve finally dealt with their Jesus problem.

-Do you think any of them were in Mark 12:1-11 the parable of the tenants?

Declaration of Jesus (33-39)

-3 hours after He was hung on the cross (noon), a change happens in the weather as darkness descends. At 3 PM Jesus, who was silent throughout His trial suddenly cries out in agony.

-Quotes from Psalm 22, but just the first verse. We studied this Psalm this past summer! One of the most quoted Psalms in the NT.

-Listen to some of the language from this. SLIDE

-Do you think David may have speaking far better than he knew 1400 years before the crucifixion took place? Before crucifixion had been thought up as capital punishment by the Romans.

-Remember from last week the “divine passive.” What appears like passivity to us is God’s eternal plan being fulfilled.

-People start to question what’s happening. Many people believed Elijah would come back as a marker of the end of the world. If injustice was being done, people would cry out to Elijah to save them. The people interpret Jesus’ cry as one of these.

-Why did Jesus take the sour wine, but not the wine offered before?

-A final act of humiliation. The rod that was used to beat Him earlier was now used to quench His tongue.

-Loud cry we know from other gospels was the phrase “It is finished.”

-What is the significance of the curtain being torn “from top to bottom.”?

-Bookends to signify the end of the story, we’ve seen heaven “torn in two” once before: after Jesus’ baptism. The temple was meant to serve as a picture of heaven. Where the first time the tearing open was meant to validate Jesus, this time it’s meant to validate everyone else.

-Theme of Mark has been discipleship. The only way we can be disciples (following after Jesus) is by heaven being torn in two so we can access the perfect Father. Instead of needing to go to a place to spend time with God, we can now spend time with God anywhere in the world! We don’t need a sacrificial system, we don’t need a mediator, we don’t need curtain separating us from God’s manifest presence, He’s always with us.

-We have a marked shift of the response to Jesus from those who speak before Jesus’ death and those who speak after His death. The first person in this Gospel to finally understand who Jesus is, is a Gentile, Roman centurion.

-This is finally good news! If even a Roman (and not just a Roman, a Roman soldier) can become a disciple, there’s hope for everyone! But it begins by recognizing that Jesus is the Son of God. That’s the first step that brings you in to a brand-new world, a brand-new way of living. It replaces all your focuses, changes all your perspectives, and brings you into a new family, marked not by worldly assumptions, but by spiritual/eternal perspectives.

-Jesus had been trying to help His followers understand all these realities, but they kept missing it, and now they were too scared to be seen in public with Him (remember, everyone abandoned Him). But that doesn’t stop Him from continuing to save people, even one of his executioners.

Depositing Jesus’ Body (40-47)

-Not all of His followers had abandoned Jesus, but this is a weird situation, especially for the 1^st cent.

-Women’s testimonies were viewed as unreliable, wouldn’t stand in a court of law. But they weren’t as scared as the men (potentially because they were women!)

-Once again, specific names listed. People who could give eyewitness testimony to everything that happened.

-Finally, a man isn’t too scared to be identified with Jesus! Joseph of Arimathea: part of the council (Sanhedrin, ruling Jews) steps forward to help take care of the body.

-Interesting description “looking for the kingdom of God.” I think that’s a good description of what many people want, but they keep looking in the wrong places (Micah’s class)

-I would argue that everyone you interact with is looking for the kingdom of God. I love the way Augustine said it in the 4^th cent: “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God.” No one will ever be completely satisfied until they find the kingdom of God, but the only way to find that (true life) is to lose it. That’s the irony of the gospel message: the kingdom of God is accessible to everyone, but only by becoming a disciple.

-Joseph is also a “respected” member. Jesus’ message wasn’t just for the poor/marginalized, even people who were a part of Herod’s house followed Jesus!

-Sabbath was meant to be a day of rest, body couldn’t be dealt with, Joseph asked Pilate for the body. Pilate was surprised (crucifixion could take days, and death sometimes only came after becoming food for wild animals)

-Joseph is granted his request, so he prepares the body for a quick burial with a linen cloth.

-Tombs were often more communal in the 1^st cent. Room for lots of bodies. Other Gospels tell us this one hadn’t yet been used. Just as today you can buy a burial plot before you die, most likely Joseph had a tomb created for him and his family to be buried together. Looking something like THIS.

-Stone used to prevent grave robbers or wild animals

-Who was there watching where Jesus’ body was laid? Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses, that’s important for next week, so keep that in mind!

-What do we do with this embarrassment of a story? There’s a reason everyone abandoned Him – who wants to be seen losing? Jesus’ supposed insurrection was seen as a failure, little does everyone know this is just the beginning of the story.

-JRR Tolkien – Eucatastrophe: a good catastrophe. Sounds wrong, doesn’t it? How can there be a good catastrophe? That’s the way God designed the world to work. What seems wrong and broken is the only way to bring about redemption.

-This is a 2 part story, and most of us know how it ends (spoiler alert, Jesus doesn’t stay dead)

-But that’s next week (as a new song says “Friday’s Good because Sunday’s coming!) This week I want you to contemplate whether or not you’re willing to follow Jesus to death. We saw this passage earlier, but Luke and Matthew add a word to Jesus’ first command: daily.

-The only way to truly follow after Jesus is through death. But where Jesus’ death was a 1 time event, our call is a daily death. We need to wake up every single day and choose to die to our fleshly, sinful tendencies, and decide to walk in light of the empty tomb. And here’s where the “eu” (good) part comes in: we’ll suddenly find ourselves completely content! Jesus’ commands are true and life giving, the only way to truly find your life is to lose it! But by losing it you gain everything.

-Jesus says if you’re tired of trying, tired of searching, or if you’re just tired, come to Him and He will give you rest.

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on November 19, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, History, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on November 19, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/11/19/mark-1521-47-sermon-manuscript/

Glorifying God – Sermon Manuscript

PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

-Johann Sabastian Bach (1685-1750) German composer

-2 Chronicles 5:11-14, “At a reverent performance of music, God is always at hand with his gracious presence.” “The final aim and reason of all music is nothing other than (1) the glorification of God and (2) the refreshment of the spirit.” Because of that, much of his music was signed S.D.G.

-A few years ago we celebrated the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation. On Oct. 31, 1517, Luther posted his 95 thesis on the door of the Wittenburg chapel, changing the landscape of the entire Western world, and even the way we talk about God’s glory. When Luther was born there were 2 classes – sacred & secular.

“The works of monks and priests, however holy and arduous they may be, do not differ one whit in the sight of God from the works of the rustic laborer in the field or the woman going about her household tasks, but all works are measured before God by faith alone.”

Allegedly Luther stated, “The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays—not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”

-Where I would disagree with that is not that God loves good floors or good craftsmanship, but He loves things done to the best of our ability as an act of worship, glorifying Him.

-The reformers, and we today, believe what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:31, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

-Westminster Shorter Catechism, written in 1647: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

-So what do we mean when we talk about the glory of God?

-Like fitting the ocean into a kiddie pool. God’s glory is inexhaustible. That’s why he’s God and we are not! If I were to preach every Sunday for the rest of my life on the glory of God, we would only just begin to scratch the surface.

-Similar to Luther, John Calvin sought to expound only “what I esteemed to be for the glory of God,” or he lived his life “Soli Deo Gloria,” and in his Institutes, he wrote, “wherever you cast your eyes, there is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of his glory.”

-This is Calvin’s way of saying what David wrote in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare…” what?? The GLORY of God.

-Going back even further – the early church used God’s glory as a mark of orthodoxy creating the Gloria Patri (been reading it with a new devotional recently) – “Glory to the Father, glory be to God the Son, glory be to God the Spirit. As it was in the beginning, now and evermore shall be.”

-Look at 3 passages, with a 4^th just mentioned quickly!

READ/PRAY

Strip Away Idols (Exodus 33) pg. 42

-2 book of the Bible, sin had brought all sorts of problems, God’s chosen people had been enslaved to the Egyptians until God delivered them, saving from all of Pharaoh’s armies, leading them into the desert. God manifests himself in a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire by night, and the people follow. They finally reached Mt. Sinai, where God meets with Moses to give him the rules for being God’s covenant people, including the 10 commandments. As Moses was meeting with God, the people got bored, and Aaron built them a golden calf. Because God is God, he knows everything and tells Moses what his people are doing. God tells Moses to get out of the way so he can kill the entire nation and start a new nation from Moses’ lineage, and Moses intercedes for the people. That leads us to Exodus 33.

1-6

God begins by commanding his people to leave Mt. Sinai. God had promised to bring them to the Promised Land, but he would not longer be with them, and why would he no longer be with them? So he would not kill them all because of their sin. This is the God we worship, and call glorious – God kills because of sin.

-But notice that everything He promised would still come to pass. Vs. 2.

-How often do you see or hear of people who would be completely content with that arrangement? You get all the “stuff” but you don’t get God.

-I think at times, our evangelism can even be geared this way, can’t it? Accept Jesus into your heart so you can go to heaven! That’s part of it, but isn’t it more/bigger than that? Almost as if we’ve forgotten about the person who created the heavens and the earth. This temptation is true of every generation, they want the benefits, they don’t want the giver of the benefits.

-Just funny to note: stiff-necked. Think about what that means. They won’t look beyond themselves and their own ideas.

-Moses then talks about ornaments. Have you ever noticed this and wondered what it has to do with them being sinners?

-Egyptian culture, these ornaments, bracelets, amulets served as protection, like a good luck charm (rabbits foot, dream catcher) The Israelites are literally casting off their idols of supernatural protection.

-You can often tell your idols by that which you most closely try to protect, and we may not realize it’s an idol until it gets pushed. Another way of saying that is: what angers you? I had a moment at a previous church where I finally got a week off, which meant I was in the booth running slides! We had a pre-recorded sermon, so I started it and ran out to visit the loo. On my way out I was accosted by someone who demanded to know why I wasn’t preaching. I was the music guy, not the preacher. After I explained why, I was told, and while I have you, no one likes your music!

-Music in the church has a tendency to become an idol, which is so ironic to me! Anyone remember surviving the bloody battles of the “worship wars”? Don’t worry, they still crop up from time to time!

-The reality is we are all glory-thieves. Our first parents wanted to “be like God.” Have a piece of his glory, but sin turned that wiring for giving glory to God inward.

-Think of some of the ways the Bible talks about where we should give glory:

-Psalm 115:1 – “not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory.”

-Isaiah 42:8 – “I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.”

-The best picture of idolatry in all the Bible:

-Isaiah 44:9-20 – carpenter chops down a tree, half is used for fire, half as a god.

-We don’t see people bowing down to a block of wood today, but what are some idols you see being worshipping today?

-Technology addiction – Time magazine, teenagers are becoming addicted to their cell phones, leading to depression.

-Social networking – FOMO, fear of missing out.

-Money? 401K your god? Maybe the security of being financial stable?

Money isn’t evil James 4:10 “the love of money is A root of all kinds of evil.”

In fact, none of these things are completely bad! A smart phone allows my parents to see their first grandkid on a regular basis. Social networking lets me keep up with friends across the globe. The problem is when they become gods.

-What about family? Families are a gift from the Lord, but elevating them to the place of God is wrong. I think this is one that is acutely true of the church.

-Maybe image is your God? Proverbs reminds us that beauty is fleeting

–Health? 1 Tim. 4:8 “while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

–Job? What if you’re fired? Or have everything move to work from home and no one can see your accomplishments?

-What about our acts of worship? Amos 5:21-24 “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

-Old vs. New. High church vs. low church. Singing vs. not singing. The problem is looking to my own interests instead of others. Philippians 2

-The most difficult god for us to put to death is ourselves. We want the glory, we are all glory thieves.

-We so often look to things outside of us as idols, but what about the idol of yourself? We see this when we drive, everyone who drives slower than you is an idiot, everyone that drives faster than you is a maniac. Each one of us is born into sin “by nature and by choice.” Josh Duggar. Trevin Wax: “sin is not primarily something we need to be sheltered from, but delivered from.”

-The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, “the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less.”

-The biggest problem since sin entered the world is us.

All these things are gifts from God! The fact that you’re alive is a gift from God! But what things do you need to cast aside in order to better give God glory?

7-11

-This section serves as background to the current situation. Think of it like a flashback in a movie. Moses would speak to the Lord regularly.

Exodus 16:10, “the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud.”

Moses and God’s unique relationship – only person called a friend of God

“The Lord would speak with Moses” (9)

-The glory of the Lord came down. Did you know that you can have the same privilege as Moses? Meeting with God.

12-23

-Cut back to Moses’ conversation with the Lord.

-With Moses’ relationship with God in the background, we see why Moses is able to ask the Lord these specific questions

-Moses tells the Lord that his presence is the only thing that makes them unique among all the people’s of the earth. Notice also how Moses is reminding God that they are HIS people, God’s, not Moses’. (vs. 13 contrast vs. 1)

-(18) Moses then asks God a huge request, he figures he’s 2 for 2, might as well go for broke – to see God’s glory. The perfect presence of God – related to his holiness.

-Hadn’t he seen God’s glory in the cloud and the fire? Moses had seen manifestations of God’s glory, but not the whole thing.

-People could tell when Moses was with the Lord, Ex. 34:29-35. His face was so bright he had to put a veil over his face!

-We no longer need to look to other mediators, in order to see all of God’s glory, we need to look to Christ.

Messianic prophecy – God’s glory would come down in Jesus Christ.

John 1:14 – “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

John 17 (527)

What did Jesus do while he was on earth? He gave glory to the Father.

Jesus shared God’s glory “before the world existed.” We saw this in Genesis 1.

What is that glory? Eternal life. To see God’s glory is to be given eternal life.

God’s ultimate plan for his glory is our salvation.

-But salvation, as I mentioned earlier, doesn’t necessarily demand earthly benefits.

Suffering Leads to Glory (Romans 8) pg. 550

-Paul has been addressing the law and sin, and reminds us in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” The same God that was ready to kill his people with Moses has born the penalty for our sins on his own Son.

-But our way to glory may not take the route we most often see. 16 “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs – heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” Our path to glorification may be/WILL be through suffering in this life.

You know how people always say, “it’ll be worth it in the end.” I’ve seen my beautiful bride Cara give birth 3 times. Each time it is an amazing process, and I’m both glad and relieved that I will never have to go through what she did! But the end result was worth it!

-Church, we will face suffering of some sort, be it cancer, wayward children, financial difficulty, SOMETHING will happen to you. But no matter what happens, the other side of that is glory. And the glory on the other side makes everything else pale in comparison.

-We’re working on delayed gratification with our kids. Maybe you’ve heard of the experiment of the kids who were placed in front of a marshmallow, and told if they waited they’d get 2 marshmallows. It’s a marshmallow, not that tempting anyway. But God promises life WITH HIM, far eclipses any of the difficulties we’ll experience here.

-And it’s not just us! All creation is waiting for this glory to be seen. Right now it’s like we’re looking through the veil that Moses wore, but someday everything will see God as He really is! And we’ll see each other as God originally created us to be.

-I read recently someone was asked if they’d know each other in heaven, and the reply was that will be the first time we’ll actually know each other! Without veil

-It’s with all this background and understanding (that glory comes through suffering) that this chapter includes one of the most misunderstood and misapplied verses in all the Bible:

28 “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

-Not for our glory or our aim, but to give glory to God.

-What about now? We’ve seen what it looks like in the OT, how it looks in Christ, and in moments of suffering, but what about daily life?

Let Your Glory Shine (2 Corinthians 3) pg. 562

-Paul has been saying that in this new covenant we can have hope.

-This hope leads us to boldness. Not presumptive, trusting.

-He has the audacity to say what we have today is better than Moses! That is quite the claim!

-The veil served 2 purposes: prevent fear for the Israelites, but also prevented them from being made more glorious (glow in the dark toys). Needed to be hid from the glory to not be consumed.

-The veil remains unlifted for anyone who does not believe in God, and the message of His one and only Son Jesus Christ. When God’s Word is read, how do you respond? Because if you respond in faith, there’s no longer any separation. God’s glory doesn’t need to be hidden at all, we all are now called God’s friends, we all are now able to talk to God face to face.

-One note on freedom: the freedom we have in Christ now isn’t ability to live however we want. Where once we were only able to live in sin, now with Christ in us we can finally have the freedom to say no to sin. (Heb. 11:16)

-Finally, the main point (18)

-For those in Christ, unveiled has 2 implications. We don’t need a veil (we can approach God without a barrier) and our faces should be shining! (can others tell you’re a Christian?) Family from the walk with Cara in Frederick.

-We are being transformed, slowly becoming more and more like God, this is where the image of God is so important!

-And remember, this isn’t grimace and do it in our own strength, all from the Lord.

-The Westminster Shorter Catechism said the chief end of every human is glorifying God and enjoying Him forever. Since the church is comprised of people, that must be our chief end as well! Just as it has been historically, so it will be in the future: we must seek to glorify God in everything we do and say.

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on May 8, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Music, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on May 8, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/05/08/glorifying-god-sermon-manuscript/

He Is Risen Indeed! – Luke 24 Sermon Manuscript

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Have you ever wondered why we say that every Easter? Was it just something someone came up with to be clever? We find it in the Gospel of Luke! We’re going to be studying Luke 24 together this morning, open your Bibles.

-We’re going to see as we walk through this text that the early disciples demonstrated every possible normal human response to the miracle of the resurrection. All the “new” ideas about what happened to Jesus aren’t so novel when you find out people in the 1^st Century (even those who believed Him!) thought the same things!

READ/PRAY (words of our mouths and meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord our rock and our redeemer)

The Women Are Reminded (1-12)

-Good Friday we ended with the Sabbath note, today picks up where we left off. Since Sabbath is Saturday, what do you think “the first day” is? Good start! Sunday.

-First example of the validity of the resurrection. Throughout all of Jewish history, their week was centered around Sabbath, Saturday. Why do you think suddenly this group of Jews started centering their week around Sunday? Something significant must have happened on a Sunday to change the way the early disciples oriented their lives.

-Who’s this “they” look back at 23:55 “the women” before Sabbath they had done the prep work, today was the delivery.

-Common practice in the 1^st Century, preparing a body for burial, which they didn’t have time to do.

-Something is wrong as they approach the tomb: front stone is rolled away, and there was no body in the tomb. Did they go to the wrong place? Look again at 23:55: “saw the tomb and how his body was laid.”

-They were perplexed. Seems like an understatement to me. If you saw a dear friend of yours beaten to a pulp, then hung on a cross by an expert executioner, had no breath or pulse, when he was taken down so you put him in a tomb, what would you expect to happen? Let me ask another way: what would you expect someone who’s dead to do? Stay dead! None of the disciples were expecting this! Think of all the spices they wasted!

-Suddenly, 2 men appear in “dazzling” clothes.

-I think we have too many “touched by an angel” shows today, every time angels appear in the Bible people are terrified!

-They ask one of my favorite questions in all of Scripture: why do you seek the living among the dead? Once again, seems like a weird statement! The women had just seen Jesus die. So they didn’t know they were looking for a living person, they thought they were looking in the right spot.

-Where would you go to look for living people? Walk through the neighborhood, always people at MOA, airport, Target, LOTS of options.

-Where would you look for a dead person? Hospital, funeral home, graveyard. Much more limited options. Based on all the information given to them, the women think they’re in the right place.

-The angels then go on to tell the women to remember what Jesus said.

-Hindsight is 20/20, as you read through the Gospel accounts, Jesus repeatedly told his followers that he would die, but they didn’t connect the dots until later. Honestly, it would sound completely ridiculous as Jesus’ fame was growing, people were being healed, He was providing for so many people, why would he die a martyrs death? John 12:16 tells us: “His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.” They were living it, and they still had trouble remembering it!

-Jesus wasn’t the only person who claimed to be the Messiah in Israel’s history, there were even other so called Messiah’s who were killed by the Romans in the first century! Jesus’ disciples thought there was something different about Him, but apparently his death had proven their hopes wrong. Or had it?

-Look at vs. 8. “They remembered his words.”

-If you’ve been paying attention during our 2 Peter series, you’ve heard that word repeated regularly. God knows us all, He knows just how forgetful we humans are! I joked about it during one sermon that you forget things by walking through a door (called the doorway effect, real thing!), and then Micah had to tell me to do that twice this past week!

-The angels’ reminder jogs the women’s memory, so suddenly it all comes back to them! In their excitement they go back to the rest of the disciples and report what happened. But no one else believes them!

-Look at vs. 11

-‘An idle tale’ could see this as “an old wives tale” equivalent to: if you read in the dark you’ll damage your eyes. This is one of the reasons we can believe these accounts, they contain natural human responses to what happened. If one of your friends was publicly killed, and then someone came and told you they had 2 angels appear at his grave and tell you he’s alive, how would you respond? Accuse them of making things up, and not believe it. Just like the text says!

-But something changed in the disciples, because Peter, when he wrote 2 Peter 1:16 said “We did not follow cleverly devised myths.” Luke recounts that Peter ran to the tomb to see it, and saw exactly what the women said.

The Two Foolish Ones (13-32)

-The next account Luke records for us is of 2 other disciples who were leaving Jerusalem.

-Yet again, we see the validity of this account because this is another normal, human response to what had happened. They saw Jesus killed, they waited for Sabbath, then they decided they needed to go back to what they were doing before they followed Jesus. And as they go on their journey, they (again, normal human response) are talking about what happened.

-But then some other dude catches up to them and joins them on their walk. The person they were just talking about appeared (like the women were NOT expecting it) so they didn’t recognize him.

-Maybe you’ve had one of those experiences, like running into a pastor at the grocery store (I thought he lived at church?), or you run into one of your work friends at a church friend’s house and you don’t even recognize them, since your brain can’t make those 2 connections. I can’t be the only one who’s had that experience! However, in this case there’s something more going on, as the text says their “eyes were kept”

-Jesus proceeds to ask them what they’re talking about on their walk

-Yet again, another human response, they’re sad! The person they had banked their lives on, that they had become convinced was the Messiah was gone. But it’s not enough for them just to remain sad, the one disciple who’s named in this encounter sarcastically responds to him saying “Where have you been?” It’s like that old Geico commercial: “could Geico REALLY save you 15% on car insurance? What, have you been living under a rock!?” How would you feel being recorded in Scripture as the guy who was trying to make Jesus feel bad for not keeping up with the headlines? Think maybe Jesus said “I’ve been busy”

-Thankfully, (For Cleopas) Jesus plays along with them, and asks for an explanation. Cleopas answers with an explanation of everything that happened on the fateful weekend, and then lands on their response:

-Look at vs. 21 with me. “We had hoped”

-Past tense. Just as other so-called Messiahs had risen up and died, leading to the dissolution of their followers, so it looked like this Jesus was going to follow the same path. We had a good run!

-This is day 3! Didn’t have the same medical technology as us, so sometimes people would be very sick, but not dead, so day 3 made the person officially dead. Then he tells the account we just read about the women, and that Peter went to look, but they still couldn’t find Jesus, not even his body.

-This time, Jesus doesn’t hold back. “O foolish ones” This is not MN nice!

-There is no underselling or tiptoeing around these issues this time. As I was thinking about how direct Jesus was here, I thought about a friend whose way of telling me I need to lose weight is every time I see him he asks “Have you been working out?” This past week, my son was cuddling with me in bed in the morning, and his approach was to poke my stomach and say “Daddy, your tummy looks full!” Thanks bud. Calvin took the Jesus approach!

-But he goes on, not just foolish, but also “slow of heart to believe” Despite repeating Himself while He was still with them, they still forgot. And I think we often do the same thing! No matter how many times throughout the Bible God promises to be with us, to sustain us, to provide for us, we still struggle to believe Him, don’t we? Despite thousands of ways He’s provided in the past, we still forget.

-Jesus knew exactly what He came to earth to do, he uses the word “necessary” in vs. 26. God’s plans are perfect, and they’re guaranteed to come to pass!

-Jesus moves to take them on probably the most enlightening Bible study that has ever taken place. Starting with Moses (the beginning, the first 5 books), all the prophets (there’s a lot of them!) “in all the Scriptures” just throw the rest of it in there too. Must have been quite the long walk! According to a study I found, it would take the average reader 56 hours 44 minutes to read the entire OT. If you look back to vs. 13 you can see they were only traveling 7 miles, so no more than 2 hrs 20 min. Doesn’t quite add up. Slightly hyperbolic statement! Instead, He went back and pointed out the ways the Bible was pointing to Him. This is meant to change the entire way we approach the Bible! I’ve said this before, we must read the Bible Christocentrically, everything centered on Christ!

-Finally, after the greatest Bible study with the greatest Bible teacher, they arrive at Emmaus, and Jesus goes for the sneak attack: pretends he’s going to keep going, but since it’s approaching night time, they beg Him to stay with them. During their evening meal, suddenly their “eyes were opened” again, this is God’s doing, didn’t just happen, but they finally realize who they just journeyed with, and as soon as they realize it, he’s gone.

-This story of the disciples is little picture of what it means to become a Christian: initially, Jesus appears as a stranger, and then over time reveals Himself to us so that we can then look back and say “didn’t our hearts burn within us as we started learning more about who He is?”

Jesus Trains and Sends (33-49)

-Just as the women had to run back to the rest of the disciples to share the good news, now it’s Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple’s turn.

-Once again, hindsight is 20/20, since these disciples are now able to piece together what just happened. And despite the day being “far spent” (29) they immediately run back to Jerusalem to tell everyone else what happened.

-Then we see why we say “He is risen indeed!” every Easter. As Jesus slowly starts appearing to the disciples, there become more and more eyewitnesses to the reality of the resurrection.

-Now we’ve got 2 different groups of people who claim to have seen the risen Jesus, so they have a very normal, human response: they start talking about it! But as they’re talking (I would imagine having a very heated debate) Jesus appears with them. It doesn’t say how, just that suddenly He’s there. And look at the first word He says: peace.

-We saw something very similar at the beginning of 2 Peter: grace and peace. If you weren’t here, we have a slightly too small definition of peace when we use it today. We tend to refer to it exclusively as the absence of conflict, but when the Bible talks about peace it includes the absence of conflict, but it goes beyond that to mean everything is as it should be. Relationally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Everything is correctly ordered exactly how God intended it to be. Paradise.

-No coincidence that this is the first thing Jesus says to His disciples. Because of the sacrifice Jesus made (grace) there is now the possibility of peace. True, lasting peace.

-Yet again, another normal human response: they think Jesus is a ghost! Wouldn’t that make more sense than someone rising from the dead?

-And Jesus goes right there with him, but calls out their unbelief. Thus far, we’ve got a few women who have been reminded what Jesus said, Cleopas and an unnamed disciple who went on a walk with Jesus, but the rest of the group still has serious doubts. Jesus encourages them to use their senses to discern whether or not it’s really Him. He begins with what they can see. The number of people who would now be eyewitnesses is expanding dramatically. But it’s not just enough to see, they’re invited to touch Him. This isn’t an illusion, this isn’t a spirit, you can touch Him, He has a body.

-Then Luke gives us another reasonable doubt: “still disbelieved for joy.” Despite seeing and touching Him they didn’t believe it was Him since they were overly joyful. Have you ever had a dearly loved pet die on you? You spend the first couple weeks being reminded all the time, seeing the remnants of your old buddy, but each time that hope is dashed. The disciples don’t want that disappointment, so despite Jesus being there they don’t want to believe. This story is showing us such typical responses to this whole story.

-The final cherry on top is that Jesus is hungry. Do ghosts need food? CAN ghosts eat food? (Scooby Doo episode watching the food in the stomach) What else could Jesus do to prove that it’s really Him? The disciples are incredulous, untrusting even their eyes!

-If you’ve ever been to Disneyworld you’ve probably seen people with the same experience. We got some free tickets last Fall and took our older 2 kids, the first half of the day was AWESOME, then they got tired and hot. We walked in the front gates as a parade was starting, Tinkerbelle was carried by on a float waving at everyone, I pointed her out to Calvin and his first question was: “Is she real or betend?” That’s a loaded question at Disney! But that’s the exact experience as the disciples – is this real or betend?

-Just as the women needed to be reminded, Jesus needed to remind the rest of the disciples what he had been trying to prepare them for. Just like a parent repeatedly reminding your kids to be obedient, you can say it until you’re blue in the face, and they will look you in the eyes and be disobedient.

-Then, just as he explained the Bible to the 2 disciples on the road, he explains how they should interpret the Bible, and the mission it points them to in vs. 47. “Repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to allnations.”

-This is why Jesus came: to offer a way to have sins forgiven. But then once you have repented of your sins and put your trust in Jesus, you’re given a global job.

-Look at vs. 48. We’re meant to be witnesses of the realities of the resurrection. Similarly to this story, one of the things we saw in 2 Peter 1 was the need to be both eye and ear witnesses. These early disciples were eyewitnesses before they became earwitnesses (hearing and believing the truth). Today, we’re primarily earwitnesses and longing for the day when our faith will become evident in what we see around us. Jesus even says those who believe without seeing will be blessed in a different way than those who believed because they saw Him (John 20:29).

-As we walked through this text, I tried to point out the places where we see very normal human responses to the story of the resurrection. Why would we believe that someone rose from the grave? It runs contradictory to everything we’ve been taught to think and operate. I think we need to remember Luke’s point in writing this letter was to create an orderly account of what happened with Jesus.

-When we read this today, it’s really easy for us to read this and forget that the early disciples weren’t expecting this. We’ve read the story so many times and can easily neglect the human, real aspect that these are true historical events. Not just a made-up story. So that leads to the question: what do you do with Jesus?

Bart Ehrman: “It is indisputable that some of the followers of Jesus came to think that he had been raised from the dead, and something had to have happened to make them think so” (How Jesus Became God, 182-83).

-If you haven’t read CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity, he postulates 3 options to respond to Jesus: liar, lunatic, Lord.

-Liar: what kind of liar gets a following from so many people, and says things like “do onto others as you want them to do unto you” or “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you”

-Lunatic: if you haven’t, go read some crazy people’s writings. David Koresh has his last letter published online! It’s nuts! And doesn’t sound remotely similar to Jesus. Additionally, the Gospels tell us His family initially accused Jesus of being crazy! But then ended up following Him and dying for Him.

-Just for fun, Bart Ehrman, who I read earlier, added that Jesus was merely a legend. Like a fish story.

-We have more historically accurate accounts of Jesus written within decades of his life than any other person who lived during the 1^st Century.

-The Gospels are proven time and time again to contain verifiable, historical data. In one verse, Luke 3:1, Luke gives us 15 different historical facts. Do you think this would be something that would be easy to fake?

-Lewis had a great quip on this idea too: “as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly.” (from the article“What Are We to Make of Christ?”)

-That leaves us with 1 possible, dare I say scientific, option: Jesus is who He said He was: the Christ, the Messiah, the Lord, whose arrival ushered in a new era of human history. Whose death at the hands of sinners and subsequent resurrection provide the only means of salvation because there is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved. As I was preparing this sermon this week I was once again overwhelmed with the mountain of evidence that points to the historical reliability of this Gospel account. So if you are a believer, remember that our faith isn’t some abstract concept and be encouraged to even more diligently commit to live in light of the resurrection each and every day. If you aren’t a believer, I want to ask you: why don’t you believe that Jesus is who He says He is?

-You may have been told the way you give a talk is 3 things: tell people what you’re going to say, say what you’re going to say, then tell everyone what you just said. Jesus told everyone what he was going to do, He did it, then told everyone what He just did. Then He leaves the choice up to you: will you believe Him? Brothers and sisters, if He can rise from the dead there’s nothing that can stop Him!

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on April 17, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Life, Sermon, Theology, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on April 17, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/04/17/he-is-risen-indeed-luke-24-sermon-manuscript/

Remember: Jesus Came 2 Peter 1:12-21 Sermon Manuscript

PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

Who here can tell me what you had for lunch on October 13, 2019? I had Runza! Why do I know that? Because of this picture! What if I made it a super special day, dinner for Christmas Eve 2020? We had Lou Malnatis pizza!

I can guarantee you ate, had everything you needed to survive otherwise you wouldn’t be here today, but how good is your memory of that? There are only a handful of meals that truly stand out in my mind, that I can recall without pictures on a regular basis! I at times worry that we are guilty of the same thing in our faith. We don’t often spend enough time scrolling back through the pictures of Christianity in our minds, reminding ourselves of the call to daily die to ourselves and be conformed into the image of Jesus. Peter will begin this section saying “I intend to ALWAYS remind you of these things”

READ/PRAY

Always Remember These Qualities (12-15)

-Therefore connects to last week

-Last week’s big theme was remember your calling, which begins with God’s call through our faith. God has given us everything we need to grow in godliness, therefore we need to continue working to supplement our faith, virtue, etc. So that we can faithfully run the race God has called us all to.

-These qualities need to be our focus in our lives. Peter says he intends ALWAYS, he never stops harping about these qualities that need to be demonstrated in our lives.

-Yet there’s still the need to be reminded, why do we have to be reminded so often?

-We are forgetful creatures! Have you ever heard of ‘The Doorway Effect’? Walking through a doorway causes a mental shift in our minds, where our brains move to a new mind space after walking through a doorway. Comic strip at Grace “now why did I come in here?”

-Because we’re forgetful people, the Bible regularly calls God’s people to “remember”

–Deut. 5:15 – Sabbath. What purpose does the Sabbath serve? A reminder that God has providentially saved His people! That they used to be enslaved to the Egyptians but God brought them out with a mighty hand and His outstretched arm. That even if they’re enslaved in the future, God will continue to provide for them. Then for us today, it’s why we need to regularly gather together with other believers: to remember and remind. I’d encourage you to think about and approach Sunday morning with those 2 words in mind: remember and remind. Remember that we were once slaves to sin, but God has redeemed us, brought us out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, so we have a job to help remind those around us about these truths! Remember and remind. This is part of the reason it’s so important for us to GATHER TOGETHER!

–Deut. 16:3 – Passover. This feast served as another reminder of what God had done to providentially provide for His people. When an entire country faced the loss of their firstborn sons, God told His people how they could be spared: the blood of a sheep. Thus, Passover is an annual reminder of how God providentially passed over their sins and spared their lives. Similarly for us today, our regular celebration of communion, the new covenant version of the Passover, is a reminder for us of how God now “passes over” our sins because they were dealt with once and for all when Jesus died in our place. I was in CO as COVID hit (just passed the 2 year mark), I pushed for us to not try to find creative ways to celebrate communion, because it’s meant to be a corporate act, an us gathering together unification. I intentionally tried to remind our body that watching online left something missing: the one anothering we’re commanded to. This isn’t just an OT idea:

–1 Cor. 15:1 – the gospel. I find it interesting that after 14 chapters (most of the letter!) Paul then decided he needs to remind them of the gospel! It is the lifeblood of the church and every individual Christian. We need the gospel preached to us every day to remind us who we are and who God is! But at the very least, we need to be reminded of these realities every time we gather. Lastly:

–2 Tim. 2:8, 14 – Remember who? Jesus Christ risen from the dead! Our whole faith is centered on an historical event, the reality of the empty tomb (which we’ll intentionally celebrate in a few weeks). And finally, there’s a last command from Paul: REMIND THEM! Focus on the empty tomb and quite fighting about issues that don’t matter. Some things won’t change until Jesus comes back, people still like to divide!

-None of these reminders are new! Notice the rest of vs. 12: you know them and are established in them. This means we never arrive that but still have work to do. This means we need to regular reminders in our lives, so keep coming to church to be reminded: you need it, and we need you!

-This reminding has become the primary focus of the ending of Paul’s ministry. ESV “stir you up” Greek literally: “Wake you up” Why do we act like “being woke” is such a bad thing? Biblically, we’re called to be awake! Eph. 5:14 “awake o sleeper, rise from the dead” That’s the gospel message in a nutshell! Wake up! Plead with others to be woken up out of their sleep!

-Peter knows that the end of his life is coming, apparently Jesus told him.

-We have 1 account of Jesus telling Peter of his death in John 21:18 “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹(This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God.)”

-Could be referring to that text, or that the post resurrected Jesus had appeared to Him some other time and shared with Him that the end was near. Either way, Peter knows he doesn’t have much time left, so what is he focusing on?

-One thing is Peter is refusing to become a bitter old man who’s yelling at the youths to get off his front lawn! Peter is refusing to sit back and let life pass him by.

-Remember last week we saw Peter’s command to make every effort to demonstrate certain characteristics, now we see what he’ll make every effort to do: to remind Christians about the truth. Being a Christian means to be marked by a remembrance of the resurrection. We saw the reminder of Sabbath for God’s people in the OT, now Sunday morning serves as a reminder of the empty tomb. That’s Peter’s 1 remaining goal in his life: make it easy for everyone to remember that reality.

-There are some people today who try to divorce that historical reality from their faith. The avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens was onetime interviewed about one of his new books by a Unitarian minister.

–The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

-Christopher Hitchens, the atheist, understands Christianity than this supposed “minister” And that’s the point that Peter is making here – if we think we ever move beyond the need of regular reminder of empty tomb, we’re not in any meaningful sense a Christian anymore.

-And this is what Peter goes on to remind us of:

We Have the Truth (16-21)

-For: reason for everything he’s been talking about

The Word Made Flesh (16-18)

-Cleverly devised myths

-This is not a new accusation! It’s been trendy since the early church to question the realities of what Jesus did on our behalf. I’ve read The Da Vinci Code, that’s not a new proposal! (fun book, terrible historicity) Christians today have a tendency to get so worked up about some of the crazy ideas that come up. Don’t! These ideas have pretty much all come up before, and Christians much smarter than us have responded in some incredibly helpful ways.

-Remember: what we read in the Bible is rooted in historical fact. There is no serious scholar today that questions whether or not Jesus lived, the only valid questions are whether or not you take his claims seriously, which Peter did!

-Power and coming

-We’ll get to this part next week, but part of the purpose of this letter is because there were false teachers denied that Jesus was going to come back (we’ll see some more implications about this in the next section as well)

-Here Peter is reminding that Jesus is coming back. How does he know that?

-Eyewitnesses of his majesty. Let’s look at the rest of this section as 1 big unit.

-Eyewitnesses of his majesty, referring to a specific event, the transfiguration. All 3 Synoptic Gospels have the story, and many people think John 1:14 (And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth) refers to it too.

-Through most of His time on earth, Jesus’ divinity was concealed (Phil. 2 talks about Jesus emptying Himself) But the transfiguration was a time where it was completely revealed (Mark almost trips over himself describing it, Jesus’ clothes being bleached whiter than anyone can possibly bleach it). And this revealing was seen by 3 disciples: Peter, James, and John.

-This revealing wasn’t done just by watching something, they heard the truth spoken too: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The eye-witnessing also had ear-witnessing to accompany it.

-It’s important to note this: what they saw was accompanied with an explanation. When they saw Jesus’ as He truly is, the Father told them what He was doing. We see Peter talk about this another time in Acts 4:20 “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” Do you do the same thing today? Are you at a place where you cannot but speak of what you have seen and heard?

-What’s difficult about this is it was a 1 time event that only 3 people saw, what about today, or other believers who didn’t see this event?

The Word Passed Down (19-21)

-Now today we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.

-The first question you should ask is: what prophetic word? Was there some kind of prophecy the early church was aware of that we don’t have today? Everyone agrees Peter is referring to the OT, the question is: is he saying the OT is more fully confirmed than his eyewitness or that the Transfiguration confirms the OT prophecies? I tend to lead toward the former, that the OT is more fully confirmed since it’s something we can all look to together, and it’s what he goes on to talk about in the next verse.

-Since this word has been more fully confirmed, we need to pay attention to it. That means read it, study it, grow in it. This is a more fleshed out version of what we saw last week in vs. 3, we have been giving “ALL THINGS that pertain to life and godliness.” What God has given us is this prophetic word, the Bible! It should be the focus of our whole lives, like a light shining in the darkness.

-Have you ever been in a cave or even a room that’s pitch black? Your eyes start craving light, searching for any little speck of it to try to make sense of the space you’re in. That’s what the Bible is meant to do and be for us: the guiding light in the darkness. But only for a season, because someday:

-Day dawns, morning star will rise in our hearts.

-This is talking about the day when Jesus will come back. This was prophesied about back in Num. 24:17: You probably remember the guy who gave this prophecy, Balaam, who rode a talking donkey. “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth.”

-Until Jesus returns, we need to pay close attention to God’s Word, this is our remaining source of authority that God has chosen to use. We’ll see in a minute that people will try to use this and twist and distort it to fit their own ideas or agendas, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true! It means we need to continue correcting our interpretations. This connects back to last week with the “knowledge” that we need to add.

-The remaining 2 verse get to the doctrine of inspiration. You’ve most likely heard me pray at the beginning of my messages for “the inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word” Sermon’s generally aren’t meant to be teaching of theology, but when theology comes up in the text, I’ll share it!

-Wayne Grudem defines inspiration as “a term referring to the fact that the words of Scripture are spoken by God.”(1512)

-“first of all” the starting point or foundation for this doctrine is the reality that no prophecy of Scripture (different than just prophecy, different topic for a different time!) comes just from someone’s own interpretation. This has a few implications:

-People twist Scripture to support their ideas, even during Peter’s time! (come up again in chapter 3) But Scripture, under the inspiration and direction of God aren’t brought about by an individual’s interpretation. Which means:

-Scripture isn’t just what people wanted to say. God was using various people to record the things that His people needed to be equipped for life and godliness.

-Prophecy requires correct interpretation. Just as the transfiguration was accompanied with an explanation, so prophecy is meant to be connected to an explanation (Paul explains this further in 1 Cor. 14 if you want to study that on your own time)

-To double down on this, Peter emphasizes that NO prophecy comes just through someone desiring to do it, instead men “spoke from God.” That is, they uttered the very words God wanted them to! These words took places as they were:

-Carried along

-Not just dictation (although there are some instances where God told people to write this down) wasn’t possessing people as if they each went into a trance then when they came out of the trance they had the Bible in front of them.

-God used people’s own language, experiences, and skills to capture exactly what He wanted captured for His people until He comes back.

-The illustration my dad always used with me growing up was me “mowing” the lawn with him when I was 3-4 years old. Who’s actually doing all the work? But who thinks they’re doing it? The Holy Spirit was working through people to be a blessing to God’s people. But here’s the best part about that, who carried the authors of Scripture along?

-Holy Spirit

-same Spirit that inspired the Bible allows faithful interpretation today. Each time we come to God’s Word we pray for the Spirit to continue His work in us. The same work that inspired the authors when it was first written down.

-All of this is meant to center around and point us to the reality that Jesus came. What we read, study and devote ourselves to isn’t (as every other religion is) some cleverly devised myth, instead everything we believe centers around the realities of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And as I’ve heard, if you believe that someone has risen from the dead, the rest of the miracles in the Bible seem minor in comparison!

Benediction (2 Tim. 3:16-17)

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the people of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on March 27, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, History, Life, Sermon, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on March 27, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/03/27/remember-jesus-came-2-peter-112-21-sermon-manuscript/

Ethnocentrism in the Early Church – Acts 15

PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

Reminder: this is a very unique/different series! We’re taking some biblical and theological truths, seeing what they say, and then applying them to various cultural ideas today.

-Foundation of the image of God, which is the reality that every human is worthy of dignity, honor, and respect simply because they’re human. This has relational, functional, and structural implications.

-Last week we saw the worldly image. The ways the world images the creation instead of the Creator, and the most direct application to that is seen in the broken sexuality of so many people today. Still humans, still created in God’s image, just a distorted image.

-Today we’ll look at ethnocentrism in the early church. We’ll get to some definitions in a little bit, but I want to start with the Bible!

-How does the Bible speak to ___ issue? DOES the Bible speak to ____?

READ/PRAY

Salvation

-Christianity started as a Jewish sect. Had a whole way of life, specific holidays, foods, ways of existing that were distinct from everyone else.

-Torah even included the identity markers required for sojourners/strangers who wanted to become a part of God’s people. (circumcision and following the law) Might even say the Pharisees had a good point! They were the ones following the Bible! That was how one came into the family of God.

-The problem became apparent when suddenly Gentiles started trusting in Jesus. What was the early church going to do in response? Did Jesus’ arrival change anything in how believers acted and behaved, or was it just a continuation of the same rules and expectations?

-This was a watershed moment in the life of the early church! The definition of the gospel literally depended on it! Is salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, or are we saved by faith + works (cultural distinctions)?

-If you didn’t realize it, most of the NT is the outworking of these questions, and the implications they bring up. How do people from 2 utterly different backgrounds, from completely different cultural understandings come together and be unified in 1 church? How can the family of God continue to exist as a family? What does obedience to God look like?

-Passage begins in Antioch, then transitions to Jerusalem (about 250 miles away) where starting point and authority for the beginning of the church is centered. First example in Scripture of a members meeting vs. 7: “after there had been much debate.” Nice to know some things never change!

-First, Peter stands up. The first Apostle to be called to the Gentiles (most likely referring to his visit to the Italian Cornelius after being encouraged to eat bacon for the first time!) Peter reminds the room that the law was given to demonstrate to the Jews that they couldn’t keep it! Salvation comes only through the grace of Jesus.

-Then, Paul and Barnabas tell what has happened on their missionary journey, and finally, James, the half-brother of Jesus (same mom, different dad) shares how this is the fulfilment of the prophets. Now the elders have spoken!

-4 things, not salvific, but for fellowship and unity in the body: food offered to idols, sexual immorality, things that have been strangled, and blood. Doesn’t 1 of those sound much more important than the others? Most likely the Gentiles had a VERY different sexual ethic than the Jews (we looked at some of that last week) yet the church calls Christians to sexual purity.

-Not contrary to Rom. 14 or Acts 10, they don’t need to DO anything to be saved, but because of the desire to live in true fellowship with each other, this would allow the Jews & Gentiles to live life together, to have table fellowship with each other. Remember that, it’ll come up again.

-Paul and Barnabas are then sent back to Antioch with the good news: your ethnicity no longer matters! Salvation comes through the grace of Jesus alone!

-The Great Commission literally commands us to go into all the ethnes, ethnicities of the world and make disciples. Command to Abraham, and Israel too

-So what is the purpose of the wide variety of ethnicities across the world?

Ethnicity

-Like many of you, I’ve been watching with shame what is taking place in Ukraine over the past week. So many people refused to admit Putin actually meant what he said, until the day when the Russian forces invaded the borders of Ukraine. It has been fascinating to read what Putin has been repeatedly saying regarding the history of the 2 countries. According to him, the West’s influence on Ukraine has led to Nazis being in control, and everyone in Ukraine was just waiting for the troops to FINALLY come in and bring them back under Russian rule.

-I started thinking about how often a false understanding of history has affected conversations and realities today. Is America a failed/doomed experiment, completely flawed from it’s foundation as the 1619 Project articulates? Is American Exceptionalism the name of the game and America is now God’s chosen nation? Maybe it’s some of both!

-“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” Edmund Burke

-If we misdiagnose the problem, it will lead to more harm than good. If we don’t understand how we got to where we are today with the difficulty of conversations, or refuse to acknowledge some of the ways Christians have historically been complicit in sins we’ll never understand why people are frustrated.

-Similarly with the Jew/Gentile divides in the NT: the 2 ethnicities worked to empathize/understand each other so they could live in true unity with each other.

-As we enter into this discussion, we need to be on the same page. The world uses all sorts of words with different definitions than I would use them. Even pronouns are losing their purpose in our culture. So some terminology that I’ll be using:

-Race. Vs. ethnicity. Race is a social construct meant to elevate certain ethnic groups above others. Historically in the US it has been used to elevate whites to positions of power and influence. Where people often get frustrated is there’s 1 race: the human race. The Bible uses the word ethne as the distinctive word, where we get ethnicities. The world continues using the word “race” and since most people understand that, I will almost always begin conversations using the word “race” since it’s understood. Then as the conversation continues we can get to redefining words. When talking to unbelievers always celebrate the places where they’re pointing to truth! Even when the world is using a different dictionary than us, we need to look for every opportunity to point them to truth!

-Reconciliation: hasn’t everything been reconciled? Until Christ returns NO! That’s what Bruce’s favorite passage is all about: 2 Cor. 5. Until He comes back there is ALWAYS reconciliation that needs to take place.

-Don’t use buzzwords like: CRT: advanced legal theory that very few people understand, BLM: the organization is deplorable but the sentiment is something we should totally agree with (black lives matter too), defund the police. We don’t need hashtags, organizations, or the world to tell us how to deal with the sin of racism/ethnocentrism, God does in His Word!

-NOT a standalone message! Everything else has been building up to this. I also only have ___ min left, so I obviously have to be selective in what I’m bringing in.

-History of ethnocentrism in the USA (define ethnocentrism). This isn’t the first place we see slavery, and unfortunately wasn’t the last place, still slavery today, however we need to understand/remember OUR history so in order to remind us:

-Aug. 1619, the first slave ship arrived at Jamestown, VA, beginning a deplorable history that we can do nothing but condemn. At the beginning here, I want to mention something we have to wrestle with: Christians were both the most vocal supporters and opponents to the slave trade in the USA. We just have to admit both of those realities when engaging this conversation.

-Trans-Atlantic slave trade transported between 10-12 million men, women, and children from their homes to various other parts of the world to work as unpaid labor and be viewed as another’s property. Families ripped apart, people treated as subhuman. For every 100 who reached the Western hemisphere, 40 died either during the march to the coast or during the “Middle Passage.” There are countless human remains sitting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean until the resurrection. This carried on until 1808, which didn’t end slavery, but shifted to:

-Domestic slave trade. Instead of shipping humans over from Africa, they started being sold domestically. Imaging giving birth to a beautiful baby, seeing that baby growing up before your eyes, then suddenly you’re ripped away and sold to another plantation, never to see your family again.

-While slavery was finally outlawed at the conclusion of the Civil War (1865), there were still laws on the books (Jim Crow laws) that negatively affected people of color for another 99 years. This is where the idea of “separate but equal” took hold. There would be a white bathroom, and a colored bathroom, and again this carried on for almost 100 years.

-Sermon from a well-known, conservative pastor: “If you are against segregation and against racial separation, then you are against God Almighty because He made racial separation in order to preserve the race through whom He could send the Messiah and through whom He could send the Bible. God is the author of segregation. God is the author of Jewish separation and Gentile separation and Japanese separation. God made of one blood all nations, but He also drew the boundary lines between races.”

-During this time, if there was a perceived slight or offense toward a white person, without a jury there could be a public execution known as a lynching. These would often become public spectacles where a body was beaten beyond recognition, and body parts taken as souvenirs.

-While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made segregation illegal, how long do you think it took for people of color to make up the lost ground from the past 300 years?

-Redlining 1935-1977. FHA provided government backed loans to people, but would draw red lines around “poor” (black) areas. Many of those places remain the poorest neighborhoods to this day!

-My history, as I’ve been digging into this issue further:

-My great grandparents immigrated here in the 1890s from Norway. Great grandpa came through Canada to ND, great grandma came through Ellis Island eventually making her way to ND. Personally, I viewed the racial issue as a “southern” thing. That was until last Nov.

-Had the wonderful privilege of joining a number of other pastors from our district to travel to Montgomery, AL and visit The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. The Legacy Museum traces the history of African Americans since they were brought over on ships, and then the implications of those relationships that continue down through today. It was unbelievably hard. One of the first areas of the museum was this picture. An African artist is capturing the faces/bodies of many different Africans to use in this exhibit. Yet there was a shocking contrast. I love the beach, the rhythmic pounding of the waves, the sand between my toes. Yet for over 10 million people, this was their last sight of their home country. The faces grimacing in pain, chains holding them together doesn’t correlate to the image of the beach I have in my mind today.

-A little further down the hall was some hologram images of actors sharing stories that had been written down by former slaves. The one that got me was 2 children who kept shouting “Mommy! Mommy! Have you seen my mommy?”

-Finally, they got to lynching. Did you know that Duluth, MN was the site of a lynching in 1920. Isaac McGhie, Elmer Jackson, Elias Clayton lynched in front of 10,000 people. Afterwards, postcards were sold commemorating the event.

-After some time in The Legacy Museum the group went to The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. There are over 800 boxes shaped like coffins that track (to the best of their ability) the lynching’s that took place. Each box stands for a county and there are name or names on each of them. And MN is up there. 3 people, created in the image of God, were “othered” and killed.

-It wasn’t just MN! My whole family is from ND: Law 1943: “If any judge, justice of the peace, priest, or any person authorized to solemnize the rites of matrimony knowingly shall perform the ceremony of marriage for any white person with a negro person, he shall be punished by imprisonment…or by a fine…or by both such fine and imprisonment.”

-For my grandparents, America was the land of opportunity, for others it was the land of enslavement. Story from ‘Weep With Me’ about college admission. How do we “weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice” regarding this history? Many people ask what’s the point of reliving history? Because we need to understand it in order to better address the problems we see today. Just like a person, countries have good and bad history that we need to acknowledge. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else! The foundation has cracks. No country is heaven, until we get to heaven we are commanded to continue bringing reconciliation wherever we live!

-That’s all very interesting and moving history, but what does that do for us today?

Engagement

-Many people have done some fascinating studies on how we engage this important topic, and I believe we NEED to engage it, because so many people in our current cultural climate are concerned about it.

-I at times wonder if, in our pursuit of being quick to listen, we forget that we are supposed to speak too! Just be slower to speak! And go back to the Bible to help interpret what how we’re supposed to engage these issues instead of our favorite political pundit. None of these things should scare us! We have the ultimate source of truth, so why should we be afraid if/when controversial topics come up? I am fully convinced that the Bible actually gives us a framework for us to faithfully engage all these issues that we’ve been studying together from gender discussions to same sex attraction to racial divides to even owning up to a bad history.

-Even gets to the question: how do we view history? Cyclical, slowly getting better, ups and downs. History is moving us somewhere, each day is closer to THAT day. Until Christ returns we’ll have problems, sickness, broken relationships, but God has us here as his ambassadors pointing to Him.

-George Yancey, a professor at Baylor recently talked about the 2 primary ways to engage this issue in our culture today: colorblindness or antiracism. One views the problem largely through an individualistic lens, the other primarily through a cultural or societal lens.

-Colorblindness (Racism is something that is overt and only done from one individual to another individual) studies have shown that there has been no decrease of racial discrimination in hiring over the past 25 years. Educational outcomes are different for people of color.

-Antiracism (Racism is structural as well as individualistic and social institutions can perpetuate racism even when individuals do not intend to be racist) studies have shown that diversity training improves relationships for about 6 months, then goes back. Also shows that this training leads to less sympathy towards whites, but no increase in sympathy toward blacks.

-His problem with both: they ignore human depravity. We’ve looked at that! Sinners by nature and choice!

-He argues for: “A mutual accountability approach: A Christian based approach whereby we recognize that people of all races have a sin nature that has to be accounted for. Thus, everyone has to work towards healthy interracial communications to solve racial problems.” This isn’t a 1 sided problem!

-Next week we’ll look more fully at how we engage this, but we can start with 4 things:

Listen

-Commanded to be QUICK to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. Remember, this doesn’t mean we never speak, but we need to ensure we’re listening before we do.

-This also assumes we have people that we can listen to. Remember: we’re commanded to go into all the ethnicities and make disciples. What’s amazing about living here is all the ethnicities are coming here! Most of us can just walk down our street to reach other ethnicities with the gospel.

-This also assumes that we realize every person we meet has different life experience than we do. I have yet to meet anyone that has lived my exact life, and even my siblings who got as close as anyone experienced it differently than me, so when we get into disagreements we need to listen to each other. READ some new books!

Lament

-I think this is a big piece that has been missing from our American Evangelical discussions for a while! Not just in this conversation, but it certainly applies to this conversation! There’s a lot that we should have been lamenting over the past 2 years, there’s lots of lamenting we should be doing with Ukraine right now.

-Mark Vroegop Weep With Me pgs. 18-19. Lament gives a voice to those who are struggling. Instead of just putting on a mask every time you come to church (I’m great, how are you?) this is supposed to be the place where you can let down your guard and honestly share how you’re doing.

-I know of one church that has been having an internal discussion about whether or not it’s sinful to extend empathy. Just blows my mind!

Learn

-Be in relationship with “others” Are they a human? Then we need to share the gospel with them in word and deed. Invite “others” over to your house to learn from each other.

-MLK: the most segregated hour is 11 AM on Sunday morning. To address that, we need to fix truly the most segregated time which is 6 PM every day. Invite people over that don’t look like you. Jesus in Luke 14 says to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind because they cannot repay you.

-The gospel isn’t constrained by any 1 culture or ethnicity. God’s goal from all the way back in the garden was to have the entire world worshipping Him. That goal didn’t change with Abraham, he was to be a blessing to the whole world. If we try to define Christianity by 1 culture/ethnicity we’ll misunderstand many aspects of what God has called us to do and be. In the West we have a largely individualistic approach to everything, but the Bible was written in a communal context, so in order to understand and apply the Bible we need to understand another culture!

Love

-Francis Schaeffer in his little book ‘The Mark of the Christian’ described love as the final apologetic.

“without true Christians loving one another, Christ says the world cannot be expected to listen, even when we give proper answers. Let us be careful, indeed, to spend a lifetime studying to give honest answers. For years the orthodox, evangelical church has done this very poorly. So it is well to spend time learning to answer the questions of men who are about us. But after we have done our best to communicate to a lost world, still we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable able love of true Christians for true Christians.”

-Love that covers a multitude of sins, love that will endure, love that is sacrificial and other oriented, love that looks like Jesus.

-Listen, lament, learn and love, but the greatest of these is love.

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on March 6, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on March 6, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/03/06/ethnocentrism-in-the-early-church-acts-15/

Core Values Summary – Sermon Manuscript

PLEASE NOTE: these are the notes I use to preach from, if you would like to hear them in context, please watch our YouTube video.

All out there! It was great hearing from everyone on staff about our new core values, and to hear from some of you where you’ve seen these emphasis in your own life!

-Stories are important, we are caught up in the greatest story ever created. One scholar I know refers to it as the “drama of redemption” We are caught up in God’s drama as if we are characters in a play that He has written. We all have a vital role to play, an indispensable part. However, none of us are the main character. All of us are meant to point to shine the light on the main character of Jesus. He’s the reason we exist, He’s the reason we’re alive, He’s the point of everything we do. If our focus ever shifts off of Him, we need to close our doors and find some place that is focusing on Him.

-Here’s the best part: our story is still being written. From our founding in 1978 to our multiple building projects, to our continued updates and remodels in the past year, and we’re just getting started!

-Do you know how miraculous it is that we’re still here? This building was almost sold off in 2010/11 because we couldn’t pay the mortgage. Yet God sustained us, many of you remained faithful in attendance and giving, and each year brings us that much closer to being debt free!

-Back before this building was ever here, the land was purchased and a sign placed off Johnny Cake Ridge Rd, and a certain Bruce and Linda Hibbard one time drove by, and Bruce had the audacity to share “what kind of dummy would build a church here in the middle of nowhere!” Jokes on him!

-Today, we’re going to spend some time walking through all 5 of our new core values, how they fit together, how we’ll be talking about them moving forward, and some other helpful passages of Scripture that tie in to each point of emphasis.

-Tried using alliteration to make it easy for you all to remember them! AND each arrow should help you remember each point as well, they all have significance!

READ Acts 2:42-47 – PRAY

We – John 13:34-35

-We don’t exist without each other. We need each other to function/thrive/survive. There is no such thing as a lone ranger Christian (Keith reminded me, he had Toto)

-The predominate theory today “expressive individualism.” If you haven’t heard that term, maybe you’ve heard the mottos of it: you do you, be true to yourself, follow your heart.

-Historically, humans have been educated/taught to conform to some standard outside themselves (cultural, religious, familial) but today we’re encouraged not to conform ourselves to any other standard, but to “figure out/discover” whomever we want to be.

-An Australian author/pastor Mark Sayers have been unbelievably helpful for me in how we engage this cultural idea, and also pushes Christian to be better trained/equipped in how to deal with these ideas. He wrote a book called Disappearing Church where he defines this idea with 7 summary statements:

The highest good is individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression.

-Yet this has led to an increase in depression, suicide, etc.

Traditions, religions, received wisdom, regulations, and social ties that restrict individual freedom, happiness, self-definition, and self-expression must be reshaped, deconstructed, or destroyed.

-Once again, how is that working out for people?

The world will inevitably improve as the scope of individual freedom grows. Technology —in particular the internet—will motor this progression toward utopia.

-This was the predominant thought at the turn of the 19^th/20^th cent. Too. Then a world war came. And after that, a second one!

The primary social ethic is tolerance of everyone’s self-defined quest for individual freedom and self-expression. Any deviation from this ethic of tolerance is dangerous and must not be tolerated. Therefore social justice is less about economic or class inequality, and more about issues of equality relating to individual identity, self-expression, and personal autonomy.

-This is fine, but what about when your quest contradicts someone else’s quest? Who gets to decide who “wins”?

Humans are inherently good.

-Are they?

Large-scale structures and institutions are suspicious at best and evil at worst.

-Even the church is questioned (sometimes rightfully so!) Every institution is comprised of people, who (contra point 5) are not good!

Forms of external authority are rejected and personal authenticity is lauded.

-What is “authenticity”? Drives me nuts “authentic” worship

-We’re not immune to these things! People leave church because it doesn’t conform with their preconceived ideas. We complain when things aren’t done “our way” instead of looking to build each other up. We so often aren’t even aware of how much we’re influenced by this thinking because it’s the air we breathe.

-Sometimes it feels like people treat the church like Burger King: have it your way! What about God’s way?

-This isn’t new! This is the way people in the 1^st Century lived too! What is new is that today we have the internet so each individual can find other individuals who are pushing and believing the same things so then a new community comes out, but no one monitors or upholds people to a specific standard.

-Out of that hyper/expressive individualism of the 1^st century came a church that was commanded to love each other more than you love yourself.

-The fact that “we” is one of our core values is vital to our continued health!

-I am honestly convinced that by committing to and demonstrate that we need each other we’ll serve as a blatant example of what the world is trying to do/be with purely normal means. The problem is it takes something supernatural to truly bring people together. (we’ll look at that more fully in our next sermon series)

-One way of talking about this is the: 59 “one anothers” of the NT

-Do a quick word search for that phrase if you haven’t already. We’ll look at one of them, but take note: it’s really hard to “one another” without another! The Christian call is a call to community, to being together, to “one anothering”

-Jesus talking to his followers here.

-A new “commandment” Do you know of any other commandments? Maybe 10 of them? In the OT the ten commandments served as the ethical framework for God’s people, in the NT, the ethical framework is: love. Poster of one anothers.

-Let’s think about this: how did Jesus love us? To death! And that’s how we’re supposed to love each other. That’s quite the command!

-I love the way the EFCA SOF says it: we are to love God supremely and others sacrificially. And notice vs. 35: if we demonstrate our love for God supremely and others sacrificially then other people will sit up and pay attention, and notice. But that means we actually need to love each other.

-The we is the circle that surrounds every other value: we do all these other things together. I shared this example when I candidate here: when people stand in a circle which way do they always stand? Facing inside, but when we’re together we cannot just look at each other, we need to love and care for each other with one eye out to those around us, looking for opportunities to share the gospel in word and action.

-The first step of the process is looking back to welcome others in

Welcome – Romans 15:7

-I couldn’t find a better verse than this one to encapsulate this idea! Sometimes there are passages in the Bible that are surprising to me. Last year the most impactful for me was Phil. 4:5 “let your reasonableness/gentleness be known to everyone.” So far this year it’s been this passage.

-I knew hospitality was in there, but welcoming?

-This is another one of those “one another” passages.

-Notice: “as Christ has welcomed you” How has He welcomed us? Have you ever had a conversation with someone who seemed completely enraptured in the conversation? They were all in, legitimately cared for you. Take that, add some steroids to it and you have Jesus.

-3 stories encapsulate this:

–John 4 the woman at the well. Micah talked about this, so we won’t turn there today. But this woman had 3 strikes against her: woman, Samaritan, and living in sin. Did Jesus treat her as less than? Now he didn’t let her sit in her sin, but he honored her, treated her with dignity and respect.

-Secondly, another woman, this time in John 8. This woman only had 2 strikes: being a woman, but caught in the act of adultery. Caught in the act. Yikes! And how does Jesus treat her? Again, he treats her with honor. Yes, calls out the sin, but doesn’t belittle her, doesn’t join in with the fuss or condemnation.

-Prodigal Son: how does the Father respond?

-We, similarly, should welcome everyone. Regardless of age, race, gender. Think of what God has saved you from, no one is too far gone!

-This is why you can probably quote my sermon opening, but I always introduce myself as a way of trying to welcome people in.

-Had someone at a previous church tell me they long for the day where I don’t have to introduce myself on Sunday morning. If we get to that point we’re gonna die! We have new people every week! Introduce yourself!

-Next is our foundation for everything we do and say.

Word – Hebrews 4:12-13

-One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the fact that the Bible is alive. In fact, one of the reasons I believe the Bible is true today is because there is no singular culture that the Bible explicitly endorses. Every culture/civilization has something in the Bible that they would find offensive.

-The church is meant to be a counter-culture to our prevailing cultural ideas and ideals that are taking place around us. We’re meant to live out a different way of living that is rooted and grounded in God’s Word. And God’s Word doesn’t fit nicely into our human made boxes. There’s a reason Christianity has spread to every corner of the globe! It isn’t culturally bound, so there can be Christian expressions just as easily in Japan or Mongolia or Russia or France as it does in the United States.

-But it’s not enough to merely say that, we need to read/study AND APPLY what we read to our lives today. It cuts through cultures, yes, but is also cuts through our hearts that are so prone to sin, or as we sing “prone to wander, Lord I feel it”

-Now that I say that, I also want to remind us that the Bible isn’t the only source of authority. It is the ULTIMATE source of authority, but God has also given us other means/methods of learning and growing.

-I worry at times that we conservative Christians have a narrow biblicism that doesn’t recognize what the Bible actually calls us to. We are called to SOLA Scriptura, not SOLO Scriptura.

-I think this even affects the science/Bible “debates” The Bible isn’t a scientific textbook, we shouldn’t read it like that! The Bible tells us truth and is the source of truth, but it doesn’t teach us things like mathematics or science or how to build a house. It tells us that we should work hard, build good things, create culture, but it isn’t meant to be an instruction manual. Instead, it’s supposed to give us a language and create a new culture.

-The picture I’ve shared before is that the Bible is a window. Can spend time looking at the window, but a window is meant to be looked through. We’re supposed to use the Bible as a means of viewing/interpreting the world around us. So we gather together to spend time learning where our views are warped and deficient and submit ourselves to the Bible as our ultimate source of authority.

-Hence the down arrow. I get that idea from a passage like Col. 2:6-7 we need to remain rooted in Christ Jesus (we do that by learning/studying his teachings which are God’s Word). The Bible needs to be our foundation that we build on, because all other ground is sinking sand.

-This leads us to the up arrow! It is through God’s Word that we better learn how to worship God with everything we are.

Worship – Romans 12:1-2

-Back when I was titled a “worship pastor” I would just tell people that means I’m the pastor of everything! Every individual area in our lives is supposed to be used as an act of worship. That means you work hard at everything you do, because Col. 3:23 reminds us we’re not working for people, we’re working for God!

-Work hard and play hard. Not too far from the truth, as long as you’re remembering that your play is an act of worship.

-Look at this passage in Romans 12.

-Present your body as a LIVING sacrifice. We read that so often we can just glance by it, but think of that for a second. Isn’t that an oxymoron like “jumbo shrimp.” How can it be a LIVING sacrifice. The sacrifice is what you kill as an act of worship.

-In a sense that’s what happens – the Christian call is a call to die so that Christ can live/be seen in/through us. But at the same time, Paul says LIVING sacrifice, so we’re still alive!

-At the heart of that this is the irony of the Christian life. If you really want to live, you have to die. That’s how live a life of worship.

-But Paul doesn’t stop with just being a living sacrifice, he talks about HOW we operate out of being a living sacrifice. 2 things: don’t conform, be transformed.

-The temptation is to be conformed. To give in, to look exactly like the world. I think that’s been somewhat true if you study the history of Christianity in the US. There was an assumption somehow that if you were an American you were a Christian. We’re seeing some of those facades stripped away now and to be a Christian is finally starting to mean something again. But because of that, there’s a lot of people who associate Christianity with certain worldly things that aren’t meant to be true of the church.

-Instead, we’re supposed to be TRANSFORMED. How? Through the renewal of your mind. That’s more than just thinking differently. In fact sometimes I think it’s imperative that we just “go through the motions” because I think we can act ourselves into better states of thinking than we can think ourselves into better states of acting.

-2 aspects of this worship: gathered and scattered. Gathering is important to help us renew our minds every week. To be reminded of what is true, to be encouraged in our pursuit of Christ, so that we can scatter and continue being a living sacrifice.

-This arrow points us up because our orientation needs to be heaven-ward. The author of Hebrews reminds us to fix our eyes on Jesus Christ. By doing that we can keep all the things in the rest of their lives in the proper order.

-Finally, we don’t exist for ourselves, we need to keep an outward orientation at all times

Witness – Acts 1:8

-We’re here because the first disciples were faithful witnesses. I thought Pastor Bruce had a stroke of genius last week in reaching out to his son-in-law to find out how he views a witness.

-Expert and fact witness. Really hard to claim to be an “expert” witness on Christianity (there’s so much to learn!) but all of us are supposed to be “fact” witnesses!

-One of my favorite examples of this in is in John 9 with the man who was born blind. The Pharisees are grilling this guy, they grill his parents, and here’s his fact testimony: “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” That’s a beautiful picture for us! All of us were once blind, but God opened our eyes and now we can see. I used to be one way, but now because of God transforming my mind I’m completely different! Your witness doesn’t have to be much more than that! Just tell about how God is working in your life.

-Look at where Jesus tells them to go: Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, to the END (not ends) of the earth. We can be fact witnesses to our transformed lives, or as the EFCA SOF says “demonstrating the gospel in word and deed,” all across the world.

-None of this is anything new/novel, in fact it’s what the church has been doing for 2,000 years, but we need a way of capturing that idea together, so I used alliteration and arrows to try to help you!

-The order matters: we, together, need to commit to this otherwise it’s just words on the wall. (keeping with the w theme!)

-This also serves as the way we grow as disciples:

-Someone welcomes us in enough to give us a glimpse of God’s love

-We’re given God’s Word to be planted and grounded in as our foundation

-Because of that foundation we’re better equipped to worship God with more areas of our lives

-This worship leads us to be a fact witness about the transformative power of the gospel in our lives.

-Here’s the crazy part (to me) about this. One of my most helpful books on philosophy of church ministry is Center Church by Tim Keller. I read this one a number of years ago, and made a note on a specific section in here. Then I forgot about it. After coming up with our new core values I was perusing this book again and found my notes. I need to find a better system of tracking these things!

Leave a comment

by mikethestrand on February 6, 2022 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, History, Life, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on February 6, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/02/06/core-values-summary-sermon-manuscript/

April 10 Devotional

Today is generally referred to as Good Friday in the church calendar, and the reason it’s good is because our sins were paid for! We no long need to bear the penalty for them. I’ll be working on editing a Good Friday video that Pastor Jeff and I recorded yesterday, so that will be going live on our website at 6 PM tonight, you’ll be able to watch it on the front page of our WEBSITE.

Today we’re going to be reading from Romans 5:6-11:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is a beautiful picture of what Christ has accomplished for us in His death on the cross. Paul begins by calling all of us weak. So weak that in other places of the Bible we’re referred to as dead! (See Ezekiel 37 for the most graphic depiction of this) Yet even when we were at our weakest point, God considered that the be the right time. Have you ever had a conversation with someone where they said the right thing but at completely the wrong time? Or maybe you’ve been in that situation: you ask someone how they are, they say they’re good and how are you, and you reply I’m good how are you again? You’re saying the socially acceptable thing, but you said it at the wrong time! What this text is telling us is God sent Jesus to die for us in the right way at exactly the right time! And not only were we weak and helpless, God did this while we were still at enmity with Him. Opposed to everything He stands for. Disobeying Him in thought, word, and in deed. So because of our disobedience and sin, Jesus had to die for us. Can you imagine the weight that Jesus felt as He was carrying His cross? Yes, the physical weight of the cross itself, but the spiritual and emotional weight of dying for those who were in the process of killing them. And then in the midst of his suffering and grief, He shouts to His Father: “Forgive them! For they know not what they do!” Even in His death He was looking for the interests of others.

But that’s not all! Paul goes on to remind us that not only did Jesus die in our place, but now because of that we have an even better reason to hope and rejoice: we have now been saved from God’s wrath. Instead of His wrath being poured out on us, He poured it out on His Son on the cross. And what that means is God has reconciled His enemies to himself. He has brought everyone He’s saved into eternal life with Him! So because of that, as Paul says, we now can rejoice! We can celebrate! We can dance! John Stott, a pastor and theologian who lived last century said, “We should be the most positive people in the world. We cannot mooch round the place with a dropping, hang-dog expression. We cannot drag our way through life, moaning and groaning. We cannot always be looking on the dark side of everything, as negative prophets of doom. No, “we exult in God.” Then every part of our life becomes suffused with glory. Christian worship becomes a joyful celebration of God and Christian living a joyful service of God. So come, let us exult in God together!”

SONG:

Today’s song is titled ‘Magnificent, Marvelous, Matchless Love’ by the Gettys. You can listen to it on YOUTUBEor SPOTIFY. And don’t forget! I’ve still been updating the playlist including all the songs I’ve sent out! You can listen to it HERE.

Pastor Mike's Musings

All posts in category History

Revelation 2:1-11 – Sermon Manuscript

Overview of Revelation – Sermon Manuscript

Zechariah’s Song – Sermon Manuscript

Mark 15:21-47 – Sermon Manuscript

Glorifying God – Sermon Manuscript

He Is Risen Indeed! – Luke 24 Sermon Manuscript

Remember: Jesus Came 2 Peter 1:12-21 Sermon Manuscript

Ethnocentrism in the Early Church – Acts 15

Core Values Summary – Sermon Manuscript

April 10 Devotional

This is Me

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Get My Writings in Your Inbox