All posts in category Theology

Generous with our Treasures – Sermon Manuscript

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

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

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

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

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

READ/PRAY

Gray Matters research

READ/PRAY

  1. Grow in This Grace

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

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

-The privilege of sharing (4)

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

-Connect to Rom. 12:9-13

-Giving as an act of grace (7)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • How Much is God’s?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • What About Tithing?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Generous God – Sermon Manuscript

-The elders read through various books together to help us grow in our understanding of God, the church, leadership, etc. Over the summer, Micah took them through the book that God used to call me into ministry called ‘Worship Matters.” The bulk of the book is taken up with what the author calls “Healthy Tensions” things that we need to keep in mind to have a healthy music ministry in a church. But as I’ve thought about that concept over my life, I think it applies to our Christian faith much more broadly, and these tensions prevent us from sliding into heresy. And I’ve thought of this through the lens of something they have at playgrounds. Any kids know what this is? A see-saw! Has anyone ever seen a seesaw sitting in its natural state perfectly balanced like this? No! It always leans 1 way or the other. And if you trace the history of Christianity, you can see the theological see-saw going back and forth. A few examples:

-Is Jesus God or a man? Yes! And if you start emphasizing one over the other you end up in heresy!

-Is God 3 or is God 1? Yes! 

-Are Christians for the world, or against the world? Yes! We’re for the world coming to know Jesus as the Savior of the world, but we’re against the world and it’s sinful desires!

-We could keep going, but the point is there are things about God that don’t make sense to our finite human minds. And generosity is one of those areas of living that doesn’t make any sense in our world. Why in the world should we give things that we work hard to acquire to someone else? In a purely materialistic world, being generous is honestly a dumb way to live!

-In April, I took a class at TEDS titled ‘Fundraising Principles and Practices.’ Not a class I was excited, not a class I really wanted to take, but it’s a class that really knocked my socks off! Because it connected some dots for me on how I (we) tend to approach money, but all the things we think are “ours.”

-I say “ours” intentionally, because what do you have that hasn’t been entrusted to you for a season? And what do you have here that you’ll take with you after you die? So I’ve spent the last 4 months sitting in this idea and praying about what it means for us to be a generous people.

-Book recommendation

READ/PRAY (pg. 1027)

  1. Rich Through Poverty

-Background to 2 Corinthians: the upside-down way of living. One of my favorite descriptions of the early church is found in Acts 17. Paul is continuing to preach the gospel, arrives at Thessalonica (wrote a couple letters to them that we have later in our Bibles!), and the Jews become jealous and come before the officials and describe what’s taking place: turning the world upside down.

-A commentator put this summary of the book, just like the see-saw that I talked about earlier. This doesn’t make sense in our world! Paul is intentionally making these contrasts in this book that point to a cross-like way of living

-Paul making these contrasts that point to the cruciform (cross like) way of living, particularly in response to a group who claimed to be “super apostles” who proudly announced their accomplishments and pointed out all of Paul’s weaknesses. So Paul uses this opportunity to point out how these “super apostles” are only pursuing worldly recognition, which isn’t the way of Jesus.

-Think of Jesus in Matt. 10:39. In order to find your life, you must lose it. How does that make any sense? Until you understand the gospel message it doesn’t!

-This inversion leads to us being a people marked by generosity instead of hoarding, giving instead of taking, trusting instead of doubting.

-And I’ll put all my cards on the table here: this has been a stretching concept for me to engage, which probably means it’s exactly what God has needed to teach me! I don’t like talking about money, it honestly stresses me out! I’ve had to grow (a lot) in my engagement with money, in the ways I talk about money, and even in my own stewardship of money.

-I also don’t preach as someone who feels like they’ve arrived with this! I’m a pilgrim just like you, and just like many of you I preach far better than I practice! This is something I’m still working on and trying to grow in so that I can be better marked by generosity than hording. But I also know I’m not alone in this!

-And let me illustrate this by asking you a question: how would you feel if I asked to see your bank account, your budget, and your pat check? I’m not asking, and I won’t ask (unless you’re wanting to talk about it!) but why is it that we tend to feel comfortable talking about anything except money? I’ve had people share things with me that they’ve never told anyone else in the world, but those same people wouldn’t tell me what their annual salary is. And friends, I think that may be a way of revealing an area that we NEED to talk about. And I’ll make this personal, I think this is something I need to talk about, because I find myself cringing about this topic which I think is a way of God revealing an idol in my heart.

-I recently listened to a podcast from someone who said he has 2 guys go through his budget every year, and he calls them before he makes any purchase over $1,000. I’ve heard of other Christian guys who rented a house together out of college and literally pooled all their money together. Any purchase over $50 had to be approved of. 

-I don’t know about you, but I hear that and start to get uncomfortable! Why should anyone else have a say in MY money. And friends, there’s the problem. What is truly mine? Nothing! This is starting to get to the point where I think Jesus wants us to be, and (Matt. 6) why he says where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is. Jesus says you’ll build up treasures somewhere, where are those treasures that you’re building on?

-The theme verse for this that crystalized this topic for me is found in 2 Cor. 8:9. In this section, Paul is urging the church to give generously, and he summarizes the gospel message in a financial way. Jesus became poor to allow us to become rich. This richness isn’t limited either, and Peter picks up this idea in 2 Peter 1.

-I loved the way my professor talked about this in the class I took. What’s left out of “everything”? Well the opposite: NOTHING! So friends, what do we lack?

-The temptation for all of us is to operate out of a scarcity mindset, where there’s a limited amount of resources, so in order for us to ensure our survival it’s taken at someone else’s expense. But what if that’s a worldly way of living? What if we serve and worship the God who has made everything out of nothing? What if we really have been given everything we need, but it requires a shift in thinking and approaching the world from us? 

-We’ll get to this more in the Fall as we walk through 1 Tim., but look at how Paul describes the way Christians operate. What do we enter the world with? Our birthday suit! And you can’t even take that with you! But how many of you would honestly say you’re content with food and clothing? 

-I’m guessing many of the kids in here aren’t even content with the food they’re served each day! I know in my house we often get complaints that it’s food they don’t like, or we’re not getting it to them fast enough and they’re “STARVING.” 

-And noticed Paul doesn’t warn those who are rich, he warns those who WANT to be rich.

-Once again, as I say this, I feel the need to caveat, and it’s something I brought up in class: isn’t this prosperity theology? And once again, I think this brings us back to a tension point: because the opposite is also not true: poverty theology, and the Bible points us between those 2 extremes. See riches CAN be a root of evil, but it isn’t evil by itself. God blesses some people with material blessing so they can be a blessing to others. Think of Abraham or Joseph, men given material blessing so that they can in turn bless others. Or during Jesus’s ministry, when Luke tells us “many” were supporting Jesus and His disciples. Friends, riches isn’t a good barometer of either spiritual blessing or spiritual maturity. There can be mature people in poverty, and immature people who worldly rich, but the call for everyone who is in Christ is to grow in generosity. To grow in trusting God’s provision in your life.

  • Taking Versus Trusting

-Scripture begins with a story of a generous God who creates everything out of nothing and provides everything necessary for his creation to flourish.

-Generosity comes with stipulations: don’t eat from 1 tree. Could also say: don’t live beyond your means. But instead of trusting in God’s plan, Eve takes from the tree. The relationship between God and creation is broken, moves in the next chapter to human relationships being broken where Cain murders his brother. Doesn’t say why Abel’s offering was acceptable, but it describes Abel’s as “some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.” (Gen. 4:4) Abel gives the best, where Cain gives “some.” I think this is where we see that God expects people to be generous.

-And I also think this helps us understand a weird story in Genesis 6 about the sons of God “taking” the daughters of men. Instead of trusting God’s rules and laws for the structuring of the world, creation continues taking things that God has forbidden. In contrast to this is Noah who is described as righteous and blameless.

-Noah began trusting God’s rules, but then what happens to Noah? Noah takes from fruit of the vine in excess and becomes drunk. What was initially trust in God’s provision became abuse and excess.

-This rebellion against God’s ways of living climaxes in Gen. 11 with the tower of Babel. People had refused to obey God’s commission of filling the earth, so they build a tower in order to build a name for themselves, or TAKE a name for themselves instead of entrusting themselves to the one true name that matters: Yahweh. Their tower is their picture of human continually trying to take what is rightfully God’s, instead of trusting His good design, so God forces them to be obedient by confusing their language and spreading them across the earth. This unfinished tower serves as a picture for us of any human efforts to reach God, it will always fall short.

-Side note: story of a church building a pyramid in the lobby of all their “accomplishments”

-God’s story shifts from everyone in the world to 1 man: Abraham (studied his story in the Spring) Abraham’s life is meant to be blessed by God so that Abraham can turn and be a blessing to the whole earth. We saw this in the way Abraham blessed others, and those who were close to Abraham received blessing, and those that stayed far off didn’t.

-Genesis ends with God’s people in Egypt, where they are taken into slavery. Yet God still cares for them and raises up Moses to deliver them to a land full of abundance, God’s generosity continuing. 

-But even as God miraculously leads them out of Egypt, and his generosity continues in miraculously providing food for the entire nation, they don’t trust God. Each day God would send manna and quail for them, but as in the garden they were given stipulations: only take enough for that day. (Ex. 16:4) They were commanded to trust God’s daily provision in their lives, and how did they respond? They took more than they were supposed to, leading to their food spoiling. They took instead of trusting.

-After 40 years of God’s abundant provision of food, they finally enter the promised land that was supposed to have everything they needed, flowing with milk and honey, but they’re still not happy. They want to take a king to lead them just like the other nations, and what’s fascinating is God warns the people that a kind would take their kids and force them to serve the king! (1 Sam. 8:11, 13)

-Where God is generous, His people even the leaders aren’t so generous, and the rest of the history of Israel is people continuing to take for themselves instead of trusting God and being generous with their blessings.

-And then we get to the NT where God’s people are now subjected to life under a government that views taking as a normal way of life. If you’ve never read about the Roman empire, it was a BRUTAL place to live! And into that world comes Jesus who says it’s better to give than to get, better to turn the other cheek than lash back. And then went and lived that out, He trusted Himself to His Father instead of taking the honor and recognition that should have been His. 

-He modeled a truly generous life where He freely gives His status to anyone who would ask by taking our poverty on Himself. He became weak so that we could become strong. He stewarded His riches in a way that allowed others to be blessed through those riches. He didn’t horde it for Himself or hold anything back, He freely gave to anyone who would ask!

-THAT is the history building to what we see in 2 Cor. Jesus through his riches took on poverty to enable we who are poor to become rich, and then go from there to share our riches with others. Friends, this should completely change the way we view our riches! 

  • Which Way Are You Living?

-Would you say your life is marked by taking or by trusting? Just a few chapters earlier in this book, Paul says that what should compel us, drive us forward it “the love of Christ,” 

-One of the markers of the love of Christ is growing in generosity. Is that modeled in your life? 

-One of the assignments I had to do for this class was to write down my history related to generosity. Who modeled generosity for me and how have I modeled generosity in my life? This was an INCREDIBLY helpful experience for me! And one of the things that stood out to me was how much being a part of the church affected my views (yet another reason it’s important for kids to be in here on a regular basis!) I remember passing the plate, seeing people drop their hard-earned money into it every week. That starts to affect your views of money! 

-Take some time this week to thing and pray through your history of generosity! Is your life marked more by trusting or taking? What would it mean for you to grow in this gift of generosity over the next month, 3 months, 6 months, year?

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by mikethestrand on August 17, 2025  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Sermon, Theology, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 17, 2025

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Gender Roles in the Church – Sermon Manuscript

-Swimming, going off into the deep end today, as there’s some issues that we can’t paint with a broad brush on. Today’s message is one of those. 

-Make sure you have your Bibles out! We’ve got a bunch of texts to look at today!

-We’ll also be dealing with some difficult hermeneutical issues where some verses at first glance seem to be contradicting each other, so it’s important for us to understand the way all the pieces of the Bible fit together, otherwise the Bible is prone to misinterpretation and mis-application. 

Today’s topic is: gender roles in the church. We have talked about gender roles in marriage before, in our series through Ephesians, but today’s topic is a little different, and the question before us is: what does the Bible say are the appropriate roles to which we’re called? Is there anything that’s off limits to anyone? 

-This is not a major, but it is a distinctive of the EFCA and of our church. Even if you don’t agree with us on this issue, you’re welcome to join us, get plugged in and involved, as long as you know this is where we land. 

-Before we dive in, let’s read the first thing the Bible tells us about gender:

READ/PRAY

As we begin to think through gender roles, there are 4 primary “camps” that have different conclusions about this issue. We’ll begin with those 2 on the outside: first – feminism. 

Feminism argues that women are superior to men, thus women should lead everything. 

-I’ve actually gotten into trouble with people on this label before, so let me clarify. If your mind goes to women voting, working outside the home, or being fully equal to men when you heard the word “feminism” that’s not what it means today. If you search “fifth wave feminism” you’ll see a few articles talking about the way feminism has shifted over the past 100 years to focus now on things like intersectionality, or some even argue that 4th wave feminism is reacting to being “postfeminist”

–Within feminism, there’s a tendency to appeal to cases of abuse, of domineering, and of aggression and use that as the reason why all men are evil. They also have a tendency to throw out the Bible for the sake of experience or philosophical ideas. NOW – experience in and of itself is not bad, nor is philosophy, the problem is when those become the measuring stick instead of using the Bible which is dangerous! This leads them to generally be pro-abortion and pro-homosexual marriage because the standard of judgment is simply what feels right or fighting for whomever is marginalized. 

Patriarchy is the other side that we want to avoid. 

This takes the opposite approach in that men are superior to women, thus women are expected to remain passive and unengaged while the men make all the decisions. This has led to some immense oppression and neglect for women, and has led to the detriment of the church because women have not been encouraged to use their gifts, meaning half of the church isn’t involved in the life of the church. Think of what it would be like if you neglected or marginalized half of your body! Unfortunately, many people view this and complementarian as synonyms, but they are distinct positions, and some who claim complementarian are actually patriarchalists, so it gets difficult to define.

-Neither of these are good, so we’re down to these 2:

Egalitarianism argues that gender distinctives were part of the Fall, thus in this New Covenant area that we currently reside in, there is to be no distinctive anywhere. 

Any role that is open to men should be open to women as well. Where this is distinct from feminism is egalitarians will actually argue from the Bible, which is good! They appeal to passage like Gal. 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave not free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Their basic premise is that any gender role distinctive in the Bible are exclusively cultural, thus they are not applicable to today. This was the view of the college and seminary I attended, thus I’ve had to wrestle through this issue pretty intimately!

Where the EFCA, and South Suburban land is:

Complementarianism:

Coined in 1987 in Danvers, Massachusetts leading to the Danvers Statement, Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CAVEAT) 

-QUOTE

-Complementarians believe that men and women have distinct and unique roles to fulfill in the home and in church. This is based on passages that we’ll dig in to later, like 1 Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man; rather; she is to remain quiet.” 

-‘Where We Stand in the EFCA’

-Part of the difficulty, then is the old question: how far is too far? It’s one thing to ascribe to complementarianism theoretically, it’s a different thing to ascribe to it in practice. That’s where some who claim to be complementarian are practically patriarchs, and others who claim it are practically egalitarians. Within complementarianism there is a different scale. So those are waters we’ll be swimming in during our time together today: what does it mean to be complementarian, and what does that look like?

  1. Both Men and Women Are Created in the Image of God (Gen. 1)

This is where God begin, thus it’s where we’ll begin, and it should be a bit of a “well…duh!” but if it’s important enough for God to say it, it’s important enough for us to be reminded of it. 

-Both men and women are created in the image of God. Neither sex can claim to be “better” than the other because we both are created in the image of God. And both being created that way is “very good.” It is very good that we have men and women. 

-But let’s look at 2:18, A helpmate, a companion, a suitable other. This isn’t demeaning or belittling to Adam or Eve, this is necessary. In fact, this word ezer helper here is used to describe God in places like Psalm 54:4 “God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.” Psalm 118:7, “The Lord is on my side as my helper; I shall look in triumph on those who hate me.” Adam needed Eve to fulfill God’s mandate in his life, just as Eve needed Adam to fulfill God’s mandate for her life. This is not a greater than/less than, this is a beautiful outworking of our genders for the fullness that God has intended in our lives. 

-This is why we throw out feminism and patriarchy, BOTH sexes are equal in dignity, value, and worth. There is no better or less than in genders when it comes to salvation, to gifting, or calling. “The ground is level at the foot of the cross.” In God’s eyes, no gender is superior. 

-At the same time, notice that Eve isn’t the one held accountable for her sin in Gen. 3, God comes to Adam and asks him what he’s done. 

-This means that for men, there’s liability or accountability that women won’t have. 

-Men – you will be judged for how well the set the spiritual climate of your home. Yet both men and women are called by God and used by Him, let’s look at some examples of that.

  1. Both Men and Women Are Used By God (Judges 4, John 4, Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12)

-This point should be another “Well…duh!” point for you! 

-Nowhere in the Bible does it say that ONLY one gender can be used by God to fulfill his mission of spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. Think of just a few chapters later in Genesis 18 when the Lord tells Abraham and Sarah that they would have a kid in their old age. Sarah isn’t treated as lesser than or ignored, but God addresses her directly in confirming that they’d have a kid.

-Or think of Miriam, the sister of Moses in Ex. 15 after Pharoah and his army have been rushed by the Red Sea:

-Or one of the most often mentioned people is Deborah in Judges 4. 

-This is one of the most cited examples by Egalitarians for their position that every position should be available to men and women. 

-Question in seminary: “Deborah was a prophet, judge and leader in Israel. Does this affect your view of women in ministry today?” I didn’t score very highly on my answer, and the prof who generally didn’t interact with our posts sent me a lengthy reply about why I was wrong. So as complimentarians, what do we do with this idea that Deborah was a leader? It’s a GREAT reminder that we NEED to be encouraging women to use their gifts for the sake of the body! 

-Imperative to distinguish between that which is DEscriptive and that which is PREscriptive. 

-There’s a lot of things that are descriptive in the Bible that we shouldn’t emulate. Abraham had multiple wives. Moses had a temper and killed an Egpytian. Notice that after those stories it DOESN’T say “go and do likewise.” Or even closer to the story of Deborah – Samson, who was a hot mess! His life reads like a season of The Bachelor. Again, doesn’t say “go and be like Samson”

-One thing the text does NOT say: Deborah was a priest. Those who served as Priests in the OT HAD to be men. There is no instance of a women “priestess” in the Bible. So we already see that there is some distinction between the roles of men & women in the OT. But does that change under the New Covenant, as some have argued? 

-John 4 the woman at the well. Verse 27 Think of this woman’s testimony! And she willingly runs and shares it!

-Jesus thought both men and women were crucial for faithful ministry.

-Think of Mary and Martha and Lazarus in John 11:5, Again, we see that Jesus ministered to both men and women, and both men and women were used by God. 

-We also read that women traveled with Jesus and the 12 and supported Jesus during His ministry (Luke 8)

-BUT there’s again a distinction. 

-How many of the 12 that Jesus called were women? 0 

-Some have argued that Jesus didn’t want to upset the social norms, but do you really think Jesus had any issues upsetting the social norms that weren’t applicable to them? He seemed to push back to any and every issue that needed! Sabbath, tithing, lusting, giving, the law, relationships with Gentiles…to name just a few. So all that to say, that again there seems to be a distinction between the roles of men and women, even in how Jesus ministered to people.  

-Also important, is that spiritual gifts are not gendered.

Romans 12:3-8. Prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, mercy. None of these say only for women OR men.

-At the end of Romans, Paul beings by thanking Phoebe, a woman, and in the list of names are both men AND women who are using their gifts for the sake of the church. 

-1 Corinthians 12:4-13.

Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues. 

-Again, doesn’t say only for women OR men. Open to everyone, regardless of the gender.

-We’ve seen God doesn’t care about which gender you are in order to use you, and that God equips everyone regardless of their gender for the sake of the church. But, that doesn’t mean that any role in the church is open to anyone. 

-One of the greatest disservices in the church is encouraging people in areas of weakness for the sake of being “nice.” Front row seat to this with music, but you’ve all seen it on American Idol! I had a friend who only watched the first 2 episodes every season. 

  1. Everyone Isn’t Called to Every Role (Eph. 4, 1 Cor. 11 & 14, 1 Tim. 2)

-Before we dig into this, one note for us to keep in mind. God’s Word is sufficient, and I would argue a lot more clear on how the church is supposed to be ordered than many people want to admit. One of the things we need to realize is the church isn’t like any other earthly institution, it’s actually completely alien to the world! The church is supposed to be an outpost of heaven, therefore we need to order ourselves differently from the world and follow the Bible where it commands us, but no further, that’s where we start to get into trouble and start demanding people follow man-made rules.

–Eph. 4 Notice how the body builds itself up: “proper working of each individual part.”

-Don’t belittle or diminish your role and gift in the church! I think this is part of where confusion about gender roles come from, in God’s alien kingdom, one gift isn’t better than the other. Many of those gifts that aren’t seen are the most important. There are people that come here on a regular basis just to clean and organize this room! Yes, some gifts are more visible than others, but don’t belittle your gift at the expense of wishing you had a different gift. (1 Cor. 12:27-31 addresses this issue)

-There are a couple key passages that we need to deal with to understand this issue, and as I said, we’re going to go wading through some weeds here. 

-1 Corinthians 14:32-35. (1020)

At first glance, this seems to be quite restrictive, doesn’t it? So how do we faithfully exegete these verses, and then apply them to today? 

Remember: spiritual gifts are not gendered, so now turn back a page to 1 Corinthians 11. 

1 Corinthians 11-14 are all a part of the same section dealing with the question: what should we do when we gather as the church? What does it look like? 

-1 Cor. 11:2-16. (1017-1018)

-Notice especially verse 5. So this is in the gathering where women are praying and prophesying. 

-So how do we reconcile these 1 Cor. 11 with 1 Cor. 14? 

-Some have argued that Paul’s prohibition here is exclusively cultural, and not applicable to today. They compare it to a passage like: 1 Corinthians 16:20. “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” One commentator said, “Greet each other with a hearty handshake!” 

-3 words: context, context, context. 

-This whole section is a reminder that what we do when we gather is supposed to build each other up. Even the spiritual gifts that we are given are supposed to be used to build each other up and help us in our walk with the Lord. 

-Let’s read 1 Cor. 14:26-35. Orderly Worship.

-We’ve got this leadership that oversees and judges the prophecies that are being made. This is a position of authority in the church, thus it impacts who can serve in this role. Paul’s prohibition here doesn’t mean that women aren’t supposed to do anything but attend on Sunday morning, instead he’s saying that in the judgment of prophecies, women are not to oversee. We don’t have time to get into the nuances of what constitutes a prophecy today, that’s a discussion for a different time, but we do see that women are encouraged to pray and prophecy in church, but not sit in judgment about the validity of the prophecies. There’s a big distinction between the 2! 

1 Timothy 2:8-15 (991)

-Specifically verse 12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” 

-Once again, people have argued that this was contextual, and thus does not carry weight for us today. Letter was written to Timothy who was at Ephesus, primary god was Artemis who was a woman, thus many women in Ephesus were what we would call feminists. (false argument, Artemis also had male priests) But Paul doesn’t ground his reason for this in the Artemis worship – it’s grounded in pre-fall creation, signifying that as long as man is created first, and then Eve created second, this prohibition remains in effect. Meaning, it’s still in effect today, and will continue to be until Christ returns. 

-There is an element that is counter-cultural here, look at verse 11: “Let a woman learn” Women had no place to be taught and learn apart from the home.

-Now, we have to ask the question here: what kind of teaching? Because once again this cannot be an absolute prohibition because we’ve got other passages like:

Titus 2:3-4

2 Timothy 1:5

Acts 18:26

Colossians 3:16

-We see other places in the Bible, even in Paul’s writings, women are encouraged to teach! 

-Then what kind of teaching is Paul talking about restricting in 1 Tim.? Remember that we saw in the spiritual gifts passage that some people are given the gift of teaching. But not everyone is given that gift! So not everyone is called to teach. So just because you’re a man doesn’t mean you should be teaching in the church if that’s not your gift.

-James 3:1

-Doug Moo, “While the word [teaching] can be used more broadly to describe the generally ministry of edification that takes place in various ways, the activity usually designated by teach is plainly restricted to certain individuals who have the gift of teaching. This makes it clear that not all Christians are engaged in teaching. In the pastoral epistles, teaching always has this restricted sense of authoritative doctrinal instruction.” 

-Thus 2 Timothy gives us 2 restrictions: women are not to teach Christian doctrine to men, and they are not to exercise authority over men in the church. 

-That being said, when does a boy become a man? Where do we draw the line where we should be encouraging women to teach and serve in various areas, and not others? What constitutes Christian doctrine? What does it mean to “exercise authority over”? Great questions! I don’t have time to answer them today! I’m just trying to give an overview of this! 

-Part of the difficulty is this position and idea has been used throughout history to marginalize women, which goes contrary to what the Bible commands! I think part of it is because many people are scared to disobey the Bible (good concern!) but that leads them to forgetting to encourage and foster women to serve in the church. (except for in women’s ministry and the nursery…)

-So what does that mean for us? Here at South Suburban, you’ll see women helping us worship God through singing, encouraging us through praying, reading Scripture to us, sharing their testimonies of God how is working in their lives to encourage us, in fact our staff is primarily comprised of women using their gifts, BUT you won’t see a women preaching. Again I don’t have time for this, but part of it gets to the role of preaching in the church being one of authority and speaking on behalf of God to his people (not something to take lightly!)

But this is also why I don’t want to end with the prohibition passages! Because:

  1. Everyone Is Called to Serve Within Their Gifts (1 Cor. 12)

-Everyone here has been uniquely gifted by God for the sake of building each other up. Within the spiritual realm there is a unique sense of equality between all the gifts where we all need each other to function in a healthy manner. 

1 Cor. 12:21

-Similarly, men cannot say to women “I have no need of you,” or women to men “I have no need of you.” Instead, we all need each other to build each other up and encourage each other to become more like Christ.

-Friends, this means none of you are off the hook from using your gifts to serve Christ’s body here! It requires all of us to give of ourselves, it requires us to be obedient to what God has commanded, even the sticky and difficult parts, but, it’s also completely worth it. God’s ways are best, and it’s only be faithfully following in His ways that we’ll find life to the full.

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by mikethestrand on January 19, 2025  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on January 19, 2025

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Revelation 22:6-21 – Sermon Manuscript

-We did it! We’ve made it through the entire book of Revelation! After having someone tell me I should NEVER preach through this book because no one can understand, I was worried we’d end up with confusion and frustration every week, but I’ve already had a number of people tell me they finally feel like they have a grasp of how to interpret this book, which was my prayer when we started this.

-Today’s text serves as a summary, direct application to our lives, and some final reminders on what we’re supposed to do now that we’ve walked through this whole book, not only that, but it’s the last verse of all of Scripture, the last words God wanted us to hear regarding His plans for the reconciliation and renewal of all things. Because the reality is Jesus is coming soon. Now, it’s going to take us another 30 minutes to understand what that means!

READ/PRAY

  1. Look to the Word (6-11)

-The first thing we need to notice is there’s wording and themes here that should sound familiar. Look at the parallels between chapter 1 and 22. It’s almost like there was a plan, purpose, and direction to this entire book to communicate these ideas! This section also sounds very different from all the stuff we’ve been reading over the past number of months.

-Said this in the first sermon I preached in this series: combination of apocalyptic, prophecy, and letter. We’re back to the letter part.

-Begins with the reminder that these words are faithful and true, exact same phrasing we saw in 21:5. God communicates and identifies Himself through words. Words that come from a God who is faithful and true are also faithful and true. 

-Reflecting on why we have the written Word. What’s the best way to communicate something that can be saved and preserved for centuries? Write it down! Make copies of it! (working on digital stuff, have 3 copies of everything)

-Since God wants us to know Him, He had people write down what He wanted us to know, therefore the mark of a Christian is trusting that His Word is faithful and true. Friends, don’t give up on the Bible!

-God of the spirits of the prophets. What is that? True prophets only speak on behalf of God. John is identifying himself in that lineage. Just as God spoke previously to His prophets, He’s concluded His speaking here to John.

-Sent his angel, just like the beginning.

-Soon take place. Look I am coming soon. How soon?

-Is 2,000 years soon? God looks at time differently, think back to Rev. 6 where the martyrs beg God to return and He says “not yet.” My kids think waiting a half hour is FOREVER, and we laugh! Don’t you think that may be a picture of how God looks at time, even 100 years is nothing to Him! But whether it’s 2,000 or 20,000 years, the next step in salvation history is Jesus coming back. 

-If you just think through the primary events in God’s plan of redemption: creation, fall, redemption, salvation, and then consummation is the only thing left!  

-Blessed: Revelation beatitudes. Jesus gives beatitudes in Matt. 5, things like blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. 

-6th of 7 blessings promised throughout this book. Review the blessings:

-Read, hear, and keep the words (remember there’s an end goal for us to DO something with this text)

-If we die in Christ we actually live!

-Alert and clothed: alert to not give in to the way the world works to seduce us, and clothed in Christ’s clothing (19:8: “fine linen represents the righteous acts of the saints.”)

-Invited to the marriage feast – those saved and washed by the blood of the lamb

-First resurrection, when Jesus returns and sets up His kingdom on earth

-Then here we’re back to the start: keep the words of this book (pointing back to the start), 1 more to come.

8-Reminder of who wrote this book: John! Once again, he’s tempted to worship an angel, one of God’s messengers. This happened once before in Rev. 19. 

-All of God’s creation is meant to have 1 aim and goal in life: worship God. Worship isn’t just what we do on Sunday morning (though it includes that), it’s not a type of music (though it includes music), worship is an orientation to our entire lives, it’s what we do all the time, everyone worships something or someone. The most dedicated atheist worships something, but generally their worship is geared/focused on themselves

-I think this focus of this book is to force us to answer the question: what are you worshipping? Some people worship politics (the beast from the sea) and some people worship the power and influence that comes from politics (the beast from the land) but we’re all tempted to worship in worldly categories instead of heavenly categories, the way God intended us to. The temptation is to worship the gifts God has given that point us to Him, because if we pursue them as an end in themselves we will always be lacking. Augustine: our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. That’s why Revelation is so timely! Do you think anyone is looking to politics for salvation today? Do you think anyone is looking to power and influence for salvation today? Pastors aren’t immune! Why do you think pastors always question how big each other’s church is?

-Friends, what are you worshipping?

-We glance by this: DON’T seal up. Why does that matter?

–Dan. 12:4. God is telling John that the end is now here. It has been the last days since this book was written, 1900 years ago. 

-Vs. 11 seems weird, doesn’t it? Where do we see God encouraging people to sin?

-Once again, John is picking up an idea from Daniel, where it’s not encouraging people to pursue sin, but it’s saying that sin blinds people, and until they are saved they will continue pursuing sin.

-Connection here is unrighteousness leads to being filthy, righteousness leads to being holy. The way you live has spiritual implications, we don’t just work to become a better human, we need a complete transformation. 

-I love the way Jeremiah 31 describes it, it says God will remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. He’s saying even a quadruple bypass isn’t enough, we need a transplant, an inbreaking of something completely new and alien to us, we need to be spiritually raised from the dead.

  • Look at Your Works (12-15)

-Once again, a reminder that Jesus is coming soon! While He comes in judgment, He also comes with a reward that’s only given to those who live according to His will and ways.

-This comes about only by a transformed heart. You can’t offer good works to God without His Spirit changing you from the inside out. We talked about this idea in Rev. 19, so if you want to hear more about that go back and listen to that sermon, but the core idea is that faith comes by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, but then as Calvin says the faith that saves is never alone because it’s always accompanied by new good works that God has called us to

-And all of this is possible because in 3 different ways, Jesus identifies Himself with God and as the author of history: alpha and omega (A and Z), first and the last (and everything in between), and beginning and the end.

-Time itself only exists in God, that’s why He can speak with confidence and authority about the way everything is going to happen. 

-Final Beatitude (blessing) in the book: wash their robes. What does that mean? Picking up a theme from the rest of the book.

-Multitude in Rev. 7 praising God, one of the elders asks John who they are, John says that the elder must know, so the elder responds: 

-The way our robes are washed is by being washed in the blood of the Lamb. This is picking up another theme that God spoke about back in Isa. 1. The means by which clothes are washed is through faith in Jesus Christ, the outworking of that is “the right to the tree of life” and “entering the city by the gates”

-Remember back to last week where we saw this odd combination of a city and a garden. Reflections back to Eden with the tree of life and the water of life, but now remade as a city. The perfect place, the new Most Holy Place where God lives among His people.

-I also think it’s significant that we enter “by the gates,” where angels watch over them, and they point to the historical validity of Christianity. One of the reasons I remain a Christian is because of history! 

-Think of this: for Buddhism, what would happen if we were able to definitively say that Buddha didn’t exist? Nothing! Hinduism, too many gods to articulate, but has no reflection in reality. Mormons: take away Joseph Smith and nothing happens to their faith (even when their religion is proven time and time again to be historically unverifiable). What is often called Liberal theology even argues that even if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead they would still be Christians (which honestly is just dumb!). Friends, part of the reason you should be a Christian is because of history. We look back to a definitive event where Satan was defeated, and we look forward to an end point in history where death will be no more! Where the gates will never be closed, where everything will be finally work in perfect peace and harmony.

-But not everyone will be there, only those whose lives are marked by Jesus, who are clothed with the righteousness of Jesus, who realize that they can’t do anything in their own strength but need Jesus to work in them.

-For those people:

  • Look to Jesus to Come (16-21)

-Another reminder who’s in control: Jesus. Everything centers on Him, all of History hinges on Him, and the End is held off until He comes back. 

-He’s even in charge of the angels (messengers), notice that the angel’s job is just to serve as the messenger of Jesus.

-Who is the message to? Not to angels, to the churches, the churches which are comprised of those who have washed their clothes in the blood of the Lamb. Picks up the same idea at the very beginning where John recounts that Jesus sent an angel to John, who recorded everything that was revealed (Revelation) to him.

-Jesus is the root and descendent of David (the Messiah), picking up a theme from Isa. 11:1, Jesus is David’s promised son who sits eternally on God’s throne.

-Bright morning star: Num. 24:17. Balaam’s prophesy (mentioned back in 2:14, letter to Pergamum) Balaam hired by a king to curse Israel, goes to do it, but only blessings come out. Friends, God can use even greedy, wealth-seeking false prophets to carry out His will and plan! And the prophesy here is that some star will come to destroy the enemies of God’s people. What has happened over the course of this book? God’s enemies have been destroyed! All of them! None are left. The descendent of David has won!

-What word do you see repeated in vs. 17? Come! This is to anyone who is hearing this message (all of you), and it gives both a command and a commission:

-First the command: Spirit and the bride (anyone remember who the bride is? The church!) they say to come. Come and align yourself with Jesus, wash your clothes in His blood so that He can bring you near.

-Next, the commission: anyone who hears join with the Spirit and the church to say “Come!” Friends, this is where all of us are a part of God’s reconciling plan to bring all things under His sovereign rule and reign. This book isn’t meant to be us sitting in a room by ourselves trying to figure out if we’re living in the last days, because we are living in the last day, and even if Jesus were to come back tomorrow, it would change nothing about what we should be doing today! We’re supposed to be bearing fruit and inviting others to come to have their clothes washed in His blood. I shared this idea a few weeks ago, but I want to say it again: the point of a sermon isn’t for you to walk away with 3 new things to try to “fix” your life in your own strength, the point of a sermon is for you to behold God and remember what Jesus has done for you! And then we are sent back out into the world to continue inviting others to come!

-Which gets us to the third invitation: anyone who is thirsty. Thirsty for what? John 4 – eternal life. Jesus provides the solution to all the deepest longings of your heart. Jesus’ offer is for any and everyone. So if you’re here today and you haven’t yet trusted Jesus to be your Savior and Lord, why not? Your life won’t have any ultimate purpose or meaning until you do, you won’t find the answer to the deepest longings of your heart until you do!

-Then there’s a warning: do not add or take away from any words of this book, but that could also be extended to the rest of the Bible. If God has spoken, we must respond. This actually picks up almost the exact wording in Deut. 4:2. 

-Tertullian: “Just as Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors.” 1 error is adding to God’s Word, this would be called “legalism.” This tells you not only what sin is, but how far you need to stay away from even the appearance of sin. But the opposite error is taking away from God’s word, this would be called “licentiousness” living however you want. We must be completely obedient to God’s Word alone, and the temptation is to lean one way or another and call it the gospel, but Jesus doesn’t allow us to do that, He perfectly embodies grace AND truth, not grace OR truth.

-Once again, we’re remined that Jesus is coming soon (in salvation history), and in response John (and we) respond with “Amen!” yes, we agree, come, Lord Jesus!

-This should be the prayer and cry of every Christian down through the ages. We’re supposed to live as Jesus comes back tomorrow, which means get busy being obedient to Him! Luther was asked if he knew Jesus was coming back tomorrow what would he do? He said he would plant a seed today. Where are you planting seeds today that will bear fruit in eternity? Where is God calling you to be faithful today so that you can be ready to see Jesus face to face? Because the reality is He is coming soon! No one knows when, but we need to faithful today because it’s one day closer to THE day.

-God’s grace (undeserving free gift) be with everyone. Amen. What an appropriate way to end this sermon! God’s grace is freely available to everyone! So come, and come Lord Jesus.

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by mikethestrand on November 24, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on November 24, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/11/24/revelation-226-21-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 20:1-10 – Sermon Manuscript

-Think back to the most significant moments in your life. You can probably remember the smells, the feel, the emotions behind all of it, right?

-Receiving an award in high school, the day I got married, the day my kids were born (somewhat foggy due to lack of sleep after)

-In those moments, who was with you? Significant events don’t happen in isolation, it’s always with someone else, and Jesus wants to be that someone else for every human.

READ/PRAY

-What is this 1,000 years? One of the most hotly debated passages, with entire systems of theology built around interpretations of this.

-First thing to note: all of these positions are trying to make arguments from the text of Scripture, therefore none of them are heresy. You can believe any of these positions and still be a faithful, orthodox Christian, if anyone tries to tell you that you HAVE to believe certain things about the end times just give up the conversation because it won’t be worth your time! 

-Second is this 1,000 years is used 6x in the entire Bible, and they’re all in vs. 2-7 that doesn’t mean we just ignore them, but keep them in perspective!

-Third: the main point of this entire story isn’t the 1,000 years, it’s the new heavens and earth! In the timeline of eternity, 1,000 years is nothing! 2 Peter 3:8 “Dear friends, don’t overlook this one fact: With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.” When we have eternity, 1,000 years is as significant as we count a day. It matters, but it’s not the main thing.

-So what MUST you believe about the end times?

1. Jesus is coming back physically, for real. He will return bodily to enact His perfect, just, and eternal reign. His kingdom will be established, and it will be a physical reality, not just a spiritual one. Everyone agrees on this point.

2. No one knows the day or the hour. The only thing we can say with certainty is each day gets us 1 day closer to THE day. That’s it! And if you try to predict it you’ll ruin it for the rest of us because NO ONE knows!

3. Jesus isn’t going to become King. You can’t become something you already are. Jesus is already ruling from His throne, and He invites us to join with Him in His work of reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor. 5:19)

-3 positions (all of which have subsets of thought): premil, amil, postmil. None of these positions require the 1,000 years to refer to a literal 1,000 years (numbers are often signs) This is the only time I’ll use charts in Revelation!

-Amillennial: many prefer to call this “realized millennialism” “a” means no, they argue that this 1,000 years refers to the time between Jesus’ 2 comings, not future. This was the predominant thought among the church from the 400s until the 1800s, due to the influence of Augustine. They argue that the binding of Satan took place when Jesus died, and since then, God has regularly been working to draw people to Himself and conform them into His image, literally stealing them from the domain of Satan (we’ll get there)

-Postmillennialist: the gospel will continually spread across the globe until we get “1,000 year” time period where God’s peace and justice are the predominant focus across the world.

-Premillennial: Jesus returns before (pre) His millennial reign. This one has a sharp divide between historic (classical) vs. dispensational premillennial. Historic appeal to early church fathers like Papias and Irenaeus for their support, and dispensational premil didn’t come onto the scene until the 1800s. Dispensational argue for a secret rapture 7 years before Jesus’ return, and that was what most evangelicals in America believed in the 20th century (if you ever heard teaching on Revelation it was probably this kind) I don’t agree with it for 3 reasons (1) partly because most of church history was dominated by amil, (2) nothing in Revelation points to a secret taking away of the church because the church remains throughout the entire book, and (3) the passages people appeal to for a secret rapture I would argue shouldn’t be interpreted as a secret rapture, but should instead be read as either punishment/judgment or being a part of God’s welcoming committee. If you want to talk more about that, let me know!

-There is a very tiny difference between postmil and classical premil, they both use the same interpretive tools for approaching all of Scripture, including this text. My caution to you is to not use this text as a way of trying to interpret the rest of Scripture. Remember: numbers throughout Revelation are symbols and not statistics. However, the reason I’m still in the premil camp (barely) is because nowhere in Revelation does time serve as a symbol for something other than time (which is my issue with amil), my issue with postmil is it’s too positive, and my issue with premil is it tends to be too pessimistic!

-Every interpretive option has “problem” texts, does better with some verses than others, as we work through today, I’ll be primarily arguing for the historical premil, but will also share how the other options make their arguments.

  1. Serpent Bound (1-3)

-We’ve seen lots of angels! And we saw an angel holding the key to the abyss back in Rev. 9 to allow the locusts to escape. This time, instead of letting things out, he’s throwing something into the abyss.

-Apparently different than the lake of fire, as we’ll see in vs. 10. 

-Binds Satan for a thousand years

-Last week we saw the 2 beasts captured and thrown into the lake of fire

-Lots of emphasis given to this binding: seized, bound, threw, closed, sealed.

-Premil believes this is part of Jesus’ return

-Amil believes this binding happened when Jesus was rose from the dead (based on Mark 3:27 “But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house.”)

-Do you think Satan is currently bound and not deceiving the nations? Seems to miss the way the beast has been the puppet master behind all the political persecution throughout this section.

-Released a second time, or is this recounting the same event we saw last week: the final “battle” where God’s rule is enacted? 

-I believe this is referring to a second battle, but you’ll need to wait until the end to see why! It comes up in vs. 9

  • Saints Seated and Share (4-6)

-John’s focus shifts from the dragon to the saints. Some work needed to understand what John’s saying here! 

-Thrones, people seated on them with authority. Rev. 2:26

-And the souls who had been beheaded, connects back to Rev. 1:2

-Don’t push the idea of beheading too far – most likely a stand in for all believers, who may be required to pay for their belief with their life, because the descriptions are true of all believers.

-They reigned with Christ, which we are currently doing! Eph. 2:6, right now we’re meant to serve as Jesus’ ambassadors, that is we represent Him and His rule and reign to the rest of the world. 

-If what I’ve proposed on vs. 4 is true, then vs. 5 refers to the resurrection of the unbelievers. John calls this the “first resurrection,” but he never goes on to talk about a second resurrection, so we need to do some inferring.

-Blessed – every other time it’s used in the book (6 others for total of 7) it refers to all believers. Priests – same, every other time it refers to all believers.

-“Second death” John never refers to a first death, so once again we’re speculating. 

-This is where the premil position is probably weakest and amil is strongest because there’s some things here that seem to not make sense to us. At face value, it appears that all believers will be resurrected to receive their glorified bodies, and will be living and judging on earth at the same time that unbelievers have their normal unglorified bodies for this thousand year time period (however long that actually is!) Is that even possible? Is that correct?

-I’m going to go ahead and argue yes! But why? Because God is FAR more patient than any of us, and once again in the grand scheme of eternity 1,000 years isn’t that long. I believe this 1,000 years is the final demonstration that even when people are no longer blinded and deceived by Satan, they’ll still reject Jesus and choose sin.

-The other reason I think this is because we already have an instance where a glorified body was here walking around the earth hanging out with people who didn’t have their glorified bodies yet, and people still didn’t believe Him, that’s Jesus. Believe it or not, we do have a picture of this reality and if God’s done it once, why wouldn’t He do it again?

-If this feels or sounds odd to you, it may be because of how culturally conditioned we are, and how much we tend to view the material as only bad and negative.

-I was at a funeral recently where the speaker mentioned that the important part, the spiritual and immaterial part was saved. But that’s wrong! That’s platonic philosophy, not Christianity! God’s plan is to renew both heaven AND EARTH. So God’s plan includes a period of time where the world will be operating as it should have been operating forever. Where He is on His throne and all of us are given a job to spread His influence across the world. 

-The hard part for me is that I’ll have to find a new job when we get to this point, because I theoretically won’t need to preach anymore! But anyone who has a job outside of ministry will be able to take that vocation with you (we’ll get there in a couple weeks, this is just a teaser!) 

-And remember, this isn’t the ultimate end for us. This is just a taste of how great it will be! Yet even when everything is as it should be, with Jesus on His throne and His followers faithfully following after Him, people will still reject Him. That’s just how depraved humans are, just how prone humans are to reject and walk away from Him, at the end of time no one will be able to blame God for being unkind or impatient with them.

-If you’ve ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, this is the closest you can find in the Bible as evidence for his beliefs in there.

  • Satan’s Demise (7-10)

-After these 1,000 years, Satan is released for what was earlier called “a short time” to conduct the true final battle.

-Similarities to last time, drawing the armies up, but where in 19 it only listed kings of the earth and their armies, now it says all nations. So interpreters argue that Gog & Magog are a stand in for the nations of the world (picking up on the terminology Ezekiel uses Ezek. 38-39). Much larger army than before!

-Shows that even after all this time where Jesus was ruling, the world was as it should be, as soon as Satan is released the people flock to him with their plans to attempt to overthrow Jesus’ perfect reign.

-“Beloved city” aka “encampment of the saints” which is Jerusalem, but not the Jerusalem we know today, because that’s a stand in/representative for the entire universe (which you’ll need to come back for in 2 weeks to see how!)

-Once again, a very anticlimactic battle. 

-Saved the illustration for this week: end of ROTK, Aragorn and a tiny army of men and elves (with a dwarf and a couple hobbits) draw up against Sauron and all the forces of evil. Aragorn whispers “For Frodo” and charges. Outnumbered, impossible odds, and then the moment the ring is destroyed the earth caves in on itself and Mordor is destroyed, leaving only the good guys standing.

-Similarly here: fire consumes the army, reminiscent of another showdown in the OT (1 Kings 18) where Elijah confronts the prophets of Baal and attempt to call down fire from heaven. Spoiler alert, Elijah wins, and to connect it to last week, he wins by speaking and asking God to respond.

-Devil, dragon, ancient serpent, Satan (deceiver) finally thrown into the same place as the 2 beasts. Place of never-ending torment “day and night forever and ever.”

-We’ll look at this more closely next week, but the lake of fire is the same place unbelievers are thrown, too. After all this time to repent and turn to God, even at this late stage they refuse.

-Shared a story before of someone I heard at school saying he would just wait until he was on his deathbed to confess and get into heaven, this shows us that won’t actually happen. His choices even up to the end will be to turn away from God and pursue his own sin.

-Friends, everything we do has consequences, either positive or negative. That’s why you have to walk by a sign that say “One Step Closer” each time you walk into our doors. Every day is a new opportunity for us to grow closer to Jesus. Unfortunately, it’s also an opportunity to walk further away from him.

-PDT life isn’t made up of a few major decisions, it’s made up of millions of tiny decisions that turn into your life. What decisions are you going to make today?

-Talking with staff this week about technology – how do we use technology as Christians, as something that draws us closer to Jesus? 

-Conversations with others: how do we engage with other people in a way that allows us to better model Jesus to them AND push them closer to Jesus?

-Watching the Vikings tonight, how can we walk that in a way that brings us closer to Jesus? 

-Friends, Jesus wants every tiny little part of your life to be a way of engaging with Him. Will you allow Him in?

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by mikethestrand on November 3, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on November 3, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/11/03/revelation-201-10-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 11:1-4 – Sermon Manuscript

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

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

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

READ/PRAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Measuring the Temple (1-2)

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

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

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

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

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

-A few options about this temple:

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

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

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

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

-Why is there an area excluded? 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Measuring 2 Witnesses (3-4)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revelation 1:1-8 – Sermon Manuscript

-I’m not much of a gambler (I’ve played the penny slots each time I’ve gone to Vegas just for fun), but I onetime got the better of a friend with a guaranteed bet. March Madness party.

READ/PRAY

  1. Blessing Comes Through God’s Word (1-3)

-Apocalypse = revealing. Opposite of hidden. 

-This is meant to be studied and understood and applied and lived out in our lives. If anyone tells you this has a hidden meaning or we shouldn’t seek to learn and discern this book, point them to the first word of the first verse. The revealing! This book is going to give us a glimpse of what takes place in the spiritual realm, a peek behind the curtain to see things through God’s eyes. 

-Revelation OF or ABOUT Jesus Christ (both) The Greek can be translated with either preposition: the point is the revelation is focused on Jesus. This should be significant to us for a couple reasons:

-First, all of history is centered on Jesus the Christ. Everything that is revealed only comes about because of what Jesus has accomplished in his life, death, and resurrection. Second, that means the focus of this book has to be on Jesus and not our experiences or perspectives on what the great tribulation period will look like. All of those stories must remain in the background as we remember and focus on the revealing of Jesus.

-If you’ve ever taken a picture of someone and you do the new portrait mode on the new phones, it allows you to choose a focal point and the rest of the image becomes blurry. If we focus our attention too much on the background we’ll miss the point of the picture. So as we walk through some pretty fantastical descriptions of events and characters, remember to keep them in the background because they’re not the main event. 

-This does NOT say “The mystery of all the events that will take place at the end of all things” it says “The revealing of Jesus.” Keep that as the focus!

-To show his servants: servants is used 7 times (perfection) to refer to believers (1:1; 2:20; 7:3; 19:2, 5; 22:3, 6). Just as this book was written to reveal, it’s also for all Christians. 

-Soon: (near vs. 3) what does it mean that Jesus is coming back “soon”? How does God view time, how do we view time? 

AT Pierson (Christian missions advocate) in 1886: “Imminence is the combination of two condition, certainty and uncertainty. An imminent event is one which is certain to occur at some time, uncertain at which time. Imminent is not synonymous with impending. It is not exact to say that what is imminent is near at hand, it may or may not be.”

-Think of a verse like 2 Peter 3:8 “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” So it’s only been 2 days since Jesus ascended into heaven, according to the Lord! That’s not long! And what if His return is delayed for 2 more days? Even my kids can tolerate waiting 4 days for a big event!

-He made it known, or signified it by sending: his angel or messenger? Angels are God’s messengers, they’re sent by God to bring messages to His people. This divine emissary speaks on God’s behalf, and we’ll see John interacting with various angels throughout this book, but again they are subservient to God. The angels aren’t the point, the angels don’t accept worship (John at one point will become so overwhelmed that he’ll fall down at an angels feet) Angels just like you and I are created beings. They have a role to play in God’s cosmic plan, but unlike us they’re not embodied creatures. 1 Peter tells us that angels wish they could understand the implications of the salvation we experience, so they have a different kind of relationship with God than we do. This angel is sent to a specific person: John (1 of the 12 disciples who ministered with Jesus during his earthly ministry, go back to last week’s message to hear about him)

-Testified to what? The Word of God. John’s not making something up, not a fanciful story. Cara and I recently watched the new Wonka movie – reused the song from the old movie Pure Imagination that begins “Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.” I think we can have a tendency to read Revelation like that. When we read this book we’re entering a land of pure imagination. It makes no sense, logic and reason are left at the door, but that’s not true! Since it’s the word of God, we hold to it just like the other 65 books. And what is this testifying about (again) Jesus Christ!

-“See” is an important verb throughout Rev. It’s another way of telling us that John is (similarly to the angel) just a messenger recording what God is revealing to Him.

-We next get to the verse that is the reason I wanted to preach through this, what I’ve heard some people refer to as the Revelation beatitudes, the blessing that comes from reading and keeping the words of this prophecy. 

–7 blessings in this book. Once again perfection, probably signifying a full or complete blessing that comes about through this whole book (1:3, 14:13, 16:15, 19:9, 20:6, 22:7, 22:14)

-“who reads aloud” one translation adds “in the church” as I had pointed out to me last week. The way the early church received the message of these letters was by having some receive them and read them in the church. Can you imagine how shocking this letter would have been for those first Christians? 

-But it’s not enough to just hear it, it requires us to do something with it. Hear AND KEEP, or obey them. As we work our way through this book, or as you read it, look for the things that we’re supposed to be doing with the message in them. It may take some sanctified imagination, but that’s ok!

-As we just read, this revealing isn’t just for 1 person, it’s for all believers, or you could say this is for the church. We need to be a part of the church in order to correctly live out and receive the blessing God is giving through this revelation.

  • Blessing Comes In the Church (4-5a)

-Author of the book we talked about last week. Seven churches (we’ll dig into those in a couple weeks)

-Numbers are almost always symbolic. This letter is addressed to these 7 specific churches, but these churches also stand in for all churches in all times and places. 7 stands for fullness or completeness. 

-Another reason to think this is the last verse in every letter to the specific church says “Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.” (We’ll get there soon! Gotta get through this chapter first)

-Grace and peace ALWAYS comes from God in the Bible.

-On our own we can’t have either of these things. Grace is unmerited favor, the fact that God has cast our sin as far as the east is from the west. If you don’t know how far that is that’s the point. God has placed eternity between us and our sin. Because of God’s grace given to us, we now have peace with God and with each other. Without God’s work there is only fighting and disagreement, but now God allows us to have true and lasting peace.

-Just like many other greetings in the letters of Scripture, signifies the “letter” genre of this book.

-The one who is, who was, who is to come: Ex. 3:14 “I am who I am” or “I am the one who is” (Schreiner) 

-He is (he reigns even over the Roman empire), He was (He has always been the sovereign Lord, even over the Egyptian empire), He will be (we will finally see His ultimate rule and reign when He returns)

-These churches were facing a brief but intense season of persecution. When things are difficult, doesn’t it become easier to start doubting that God is working in your life? For a number of these churches, they’re seeing their friends dragged off and killed for choosing to identify with Jesus. For many of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world, this is also true for them. I think of the church in Afghanistan that for the first time in their history were able to publicly declare their faith, then that tool because a hit list for the Taliban after we withdrew our forces. If you’re facing death it can be hard to trust that God’s still in control. That’s why we need to have good theology because our experience will train us to neglect this fact that God is, God was, and God will be.

-7 spirits: 

-Once again, 7 refers to completeness, perfection. The perfect spirit. Many believe this is a reference to Isa. 11:2. Notice the 7 descriptions of the spirit here: Lord, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge, fear of the Lord.

-Trinitarian: and the Son. Dear friends, don’t miss this. The trinity wasn’t made up by the church in the early centuries, the church instead affirmed what God has revealed about Himself throughout Scripture. (3-fold description of Him)

-Faithful witness: the mission of the Father to seek and save the lost

-Firstborn from the dead: “Others were resuscitated (like Lazarus), but they all died again. Jesus, on the other hand, has conquered death forever.” (Schreiner) This will matter when we get to Rev. 21, so keep that in mind as we continue through this – have you ever considered that Jesus, after the resurrection, is the only example we have of what our resurrected bodies will be like? There will be some things that are the same (the disciples recognized him, his scars were still there), but there will also be some things that are different (walk through walls, able to conceal himself from others). We often miss the significance of a phrase like “firstborn” too. The firstborn was the most important child. The one who received all the recognition, a double inheritance, all the privilege and prestige. This also connects to Psalm 89, which gets us to the third description.

-Ruler of the kings: Psalm 89:27 We talked about this politically, went to a conference with Micah this week where I was reminded that every government and leader will someday give an account to the Lord for how they lead (Rev. 6). Even though it seems like the evil government was winning, in the world that really matters (which for now is unseen), they have no power. Jesus is their ruler! It’s already true spiritually, someday soon it will be true visibly.

  • Blessing Comes Only By Jesus (5b-8)

-In spite of the persecution they’re currently facing, that’s not what they’re facing in the heavenly realm.

-Loves, set free from our sins. Church don’t miss this: Jesus LOVES you. All of you. The real you. Not some future you. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you more, and nothing you can do to make Him love you less. That’s why Paul goes to such great lengths to tell us that NOTHING can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

-Freedom: Galatians 5:1. We are free to no longer sin. Where we used to be bound by sin (could only sin) we can now become slaves to Jesus, which completely frees us to be exactly who God has created us to be. And this freedom makes us: (vs. 6)

-Kingdom and priests: Ex. 19:6

-“The promise of salvation given to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:15) and to Israel has now been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.” (Schreiner)

-Kingdom has a king, a place, and a people. Our king is Jesus, our place is heaven (which will be coming to earth), and His people is the church. And because of what Jesus has done, we can now be called priests: the people who engage with God. That’s CRAZY! We don’t need a sacrificial system, don’t need magic words, we don’t need to dress a certain way or act a certain way, we can come straight to God.

-Doxology: these realities must move us to praise God! One of my favorite questions to ask those pursuing ministry: “when is the last time the implications of the gospel emotionally moved you?” The fact that we’re saved has implications in the way we live our lives, including how we handle our emotions.

-Amen doesn’t mean “goodbye” it means “I agree” or “May it be so” it’s a way of signifying agreement. It will come up again in just a couple verses. 

-“Look” or “Behold” a way of saying “PAY ATTENTION!”

–Dan. 7:13-14, 

–Zech. 12:10 “The Zechariah text has been altered in two significant ways. The phrases “every eye” and “of the earth” (cf. Zech. 14:17) have been added to universalize its original meaning.”

-Jesus second coming will be significantly different than the first time! This time it won’t by incognito, it won’t be in a humble manger.

Schreiner: “First, “all the tribes of the earth” probably alludes to Genesis 12:3 (cf. Gen. 28:14; Ps. 72:17) and the promise to Abraham that many will become part of his family. John declares that “all the tribes of the earth”—all who have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord—have pierced Jesus. Or we could say that every human being has crucified and pierced Jesus, but those who have repented of doing so are freed from their sins (Rev. 1:5–6).

John responds to what he has written in verse 7 with an affirmation: “Even so” and “Amen.” The salvation of the righteous and the judgment of the wicked are both a matter of joy in Revelation, the latter not because of vindictiveness but as a matter of justice.”

-Remember what I said last week: don’t ever take hell, or the coming judgment lightly. Final justice is permanent. No take backs, no do overs. And everyone at some level wants that. It is fascinating to me that the natural human impulse is to want justice when you’re wronged, but grace when you the one who does wrong. We self-justify and blame others very quickly. And everyone has this impulse to want justice, but the justice is for someone else not for me. Eternity is a very long time. 

-Alpha and omega (Greek letters): like Amazon (A to Z)

-Believers can be guaranteed such vindication because God is “the Almighty.” “Almighty” (pantokratōr) in the LXX is most often a translation of the Hebrew for “Lord of hosts,” referring to Yahweh as the Lord of the armies of heaven. Keep that in mind for later too.

-Church, God is in complete control. It doesn’t matter who’s in the oval office, it doesn’t matter how socially ostracized we become, this world is not our home. Jesus has defeated sin and death, He is currently ruling over the kings of the earth, and we have nothing to be afraid of. That sounds like the greatest blessing I could ever hope for!

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by mikethestrand on February 11, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Sermon, Theology, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on February 11, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/02/11/revelation-11-8-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 12:13-44 Sermon Manuscript

-What does it mean that Jesus is Lord? If, as we saw last week, He has complete authority, what does that look like in our world today? If we’re His followers, how do we live that out?

READ/PRAY (pg. 495)

  1. 3 Questions (13-34)

-Increasing opposition to Jesus. He’s seen as a threat, a liability, competition to the power, prestige, and social standing of the day (as will be pointed out again as we walk through this)

-What are the issues that we’re not supposed to talk about at the dinner table? Politics, religion, money. Guess what is dealt with in today’s passage!

-Jesus didn’t come to offer an easy life, or a simple path to prosperity, He came to usher in literally a new kingdom that isn’t of this world. It affects this world, it subverts the expectations of the world, but the world cannot contain or comprehend this new kingdom that Jesus brings.

  1. Taxes (13-17)

-The first issue that is brought to the forefront is politics. (yay) There’s no debate about how we engage politics today, is there?

-The first thing Mark tells us is who is in opposition to Jesus here: Pharisees and Herodians. Pharisees have shown up before: conservative, small government people. Herodians were named after Herod, the Roman ruler of the province. They were liberal, big government people. You can literally replace those 2 terms with Republican and Democrat! What should stand out to you about this is that both parties are united under a common threat: Jesus.

-Before we’ve even gotten through the first verse, we can already see that Jesus transcends (is above) any political ideology. Both of them view Him as a threat, yet both sides (even today) will still use Jesus’ words as proof texts for their position. A podcast I really appreciated on politics today said it this way: “Jesus is political, but He is not partisan. The kingdom of God has political implications, but it is not a political kingdom.”  Cunningham

-Back to the text: they begin by flattery, but they’re really lying. Look back at the end of vs. 13. They’re trying to trap Jesus, to give him a problem that is unsolvable. And in worldly terms, it is.

-Look at what they say: true, do not care, not swayed by appearances (read that as power), teach the way of God. The irony is all those descriptions are true! Jesus is the manifestation of truth, He is the only way to God, but they don’t see that, they see Him as a threat.

-The issue they bring up was the predominant political debate of the day: should Jews pay a “head” tax (the privilege of living as a citizen of Rome). Jews were HEAVILY taxed. Paid to the temple and to Rome. This head tax was significant not because of the sum (a quarter) but because it was a reminder of their oppression. Denarius had a picture of Caesar on it, and an inscription saying “Caesar, the son of god, the great high priest.” Zealots (one of Jesus’ disciples) led a revolt centered on this godless tax. They’re asking Jesus: whose side are you on? Are you a Democrat or a Republican? If he said no, don’t pay the tax he’d be liable for insurrection, if he said yes pay the tax he’d see a mass rising against him from the people. In their minds, an impossible political situation!

-The irony continues as Jesus asks for a denarius. He didn’t need to ask for one, but they demonstrate their heart issue by giving in to the worldly systems because they’re the ones that have the coin, not Jesus! They’re demonstrating their beliefs before Jesus even gets to the real issue.

-After they find the coin, Jesus asks them whose image (better translation than “likeness”) is on the coin. Obviously, Caesar. This is a profound statement! Jesus is legitimatizing the role of government in our lives. The government has a sphere of authority! By saying this, Jesus is running contrary to the Zealots who wanted to overthrow the Romans, but He’s also running contrary to the worldly expectations of the Messiah, which were limited to purely political control. But Jesus doesn’t play by worldly games, and He doesn’t stop by saying “give Caesar his coin,” let’s finish the statement:

-What belongs to God? EVERYTHING! What’s left out? NOTHING!

-podcast: “Give Caesar his little coin, give Rome to God.” As great as the Roman Empire was, with effects even down to us today (how often do you guys think about the Roman Empire?), it’s nothing to God. Jesus isn’t threatened by Rome, He doesn’t play by Rome’s rules, nor does Rome have any eternal significance (apart from serving as the time for God’s Son to come to Earth!) 

-This gives us a whole new vision and purpose for politics for those of us who claim the name of Jesus. Just as that little coin has an image of a so-called god on it, who bears the image of the one true God? You and me. What that means is we need to give ourselves wholly and completely to God. We can’t treat politics as non-thing, we can’t be indifferent. We instead need to bring God’s image to bear in every culture we find ourselves in. Partisan politics will not usher in God’s kingdom, God’s kingdom advances by people who aren’t bound by any partisan ideal. Our kingdom can’t be contained by a donkey or an elephant, our kingdom advances through love, through demonstrating the fruit of the Spirit, through living out the Beatitudes.

-We saw this in Psalm 2: the nations rage, the kings of earth set themselves against God, and what does God do? He laughs! These silly little political games don’t matter to Him, because He is the Lord! Yes, politics matter! Yes, engage in the political sphere (I want more of Jesus in the south metro!), but don’t look to politics to do what only Jesus can and save you. Lots more could be said, but we’ve got a theological debate to look at!

  • Resurrection (18-27)

-After the Pharisees and Herodians are left marveling, the Sadducees decide to get into a theological debate with Jesus. Notice how Mark describes them: they don’t believe in the resurrection.

-Pharisees and Sadducees are the 2 competing religious groups of the day. The Sad. only believed that the first 5 books of the Bible were the Bible. Prophets weren’t authoritative, but they viewed themselves as the people of the book! 

-They pose a question that, once again, seemed to have no answer! Most likely a debate they had been having. Levirate law commanded that if a man dies, his husband is to take her as his wife and produce a child with her so that the genealogy will continue. But in this case, it happens to all 7 of the men in the family! The question is who will the woman be married to in the resurrection? Their question is meant to points out the absurdity of believing in a resurrection. It’s nonsensical! To them. But not to Jesus.

-The issue is they don’t know how to understand the Bible, nor do they know what the God of the Bible is like. This is the biggest diss Jesus could have given to them! For claiming to know the Bible, Jesus is saying they don’t actually know it, nor do they know the God the Bible points to!

-What they fail to see is the logic of God, and the reality that life after the resurrection isn’t just a glorified version of the life we live today. Marriage is something for this side of eternity, not that side. Marriage is only meant to serve as a picture of what we’ll experience when we’re finally united to Christ.

-Then he goes straight to their primary theological issue: the resurrection of the dead, and demonstrates how we need both Scripture AND the power of God.

“Notice that Jesus does not hang the hope of life after death (like the Greeks did) on the idea of an immortal part of us. Rather, He rests in the commitment of God to us (“I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”). This is a very powerful argument for life after death. We have a God who cannot, at our death, scrap that which is precious to Him!” (Keller, “Mark,” 161) Danny Akin, CCE

-Since God is the God of the living, that’s our hope for life after death: God always keeps his promises to us, even after death! (if you have questions, ask anyone that is in my class!)

-It’s also important to note where Jesus quotes from. Sadducees only viewed the first 5 books as authoritative, so He goes straight to Exodus to point out what they should have understood.

-We all have a tendency to elevate or fixate on specific verses at the expense of others. We need to understand the whole Bible together, not just pick and choose the passages we like. We need both the Scripture and the power of God!

  • Greatest Commandment (28-34)

-The third issue is something we’ve looked at before, so we’ll go through this section quickly, because we’ve got 3 other sections to look at! Scribe comes up to ask a question about the most important commandment, Jesus replies with the most well known verse of the time (shema), and adds to it the command to also love neighbors. These 2 commands can’t be separated!

-One thing that came out from my study this week, the Greek word translated “with” is better translated as “from”. Love God FROM our heart, not just with. This requires a completely transplant! It requires a complete change of being, which is only possible through the Spirit within us.

-The scribe found a companion in Jesus – he agrees with the assessment Jesus has offered. So Jesus commends Him: how can he be “not far” from God’s kingdom? If he got the answer right, isn’t that a demonstration that he’s in?

-The only way we can love God from our heart is to put our faith in Jesus. This scribe is so close, yet so far! He hasn’t taken that 1 life transforming step that he needs to take to be in the kingdom of God.

-Mark leaves us hanging – did this guy take that step or not? I think it was intentional to motivate us as the readers to decide if we’re going to take that step! What’s stopping you from putting your faith in Jesus? Both believer and unbeliever need the Bible and the power of God to transform us, the make us new, to make us more like Jesus. What’s stopping any of us from taking that next step? That’s what Jesus invites all of us to do!

  • Jesus’ Teaching (35-44)

-After all this interrogation, Jesus goes on the offensive.

-One of the characteristics of debating in the first century was the winner was determined by whomever was silenced. So Jesus has been batting 1.000 in his debates! 

  1. Question (35-37)

-Jesus asks a common question regarding the coming Messiah (remember, Christ is just another term for Messiah, not Jesus’ last name)

-This connects back to the political question at the beginning of this chapter. Scribes (experts in the Word) argued that the Messiah would sit on the throne as a royal heir of David. And while that’s true, it also misses the bigger picture (just as the Sadducees did before). 

-Jesus quotes from the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament: Psalm 110, which by this time was viewed as a Messianic Psalm. Many people believe David wrote it when His Son, Solomon was being crowned king, but it also has Messianic undertones that gave future readers glimpses of what the future Messiah would look like.

-Notice that Jesus talks about the inspiration of Scripture here. How was the Bible given to us? Through the Holy Spirit!

-How can David refer to his son as the Lord? Because He’s great David’s even greater Son! In the lineage of David, yes, but so much more than just that lineage. God has an even bigger plan than what a human genealogical line can contain. Once again, those who have been tasked with reading and understanding God’s plan don’t have a solution to the question. But the crowd listening loves it!

-We all love a David & Goliath story! Even our post Christian culture knows what we’re talking about! When the little guy beats the big guy (every sports movie ever). The crowd loves Jesus winning in a battle of the wits with the “experts.” It’s a reminder that worldly wisdom has limits (just as worldly politics have their limits)

  • Appearances (38-40)

-Not only does Jesus ask them questions they can’t answer, He also will call publicly condemn them for their hypocrisy. Look at the description Jesus gives:

-Long robes: dressing for public recognition. “greetings” similarly, they want everyone to know who they are so they can be known as important.

-“Best seats and places of honor.” They’re served everywhere they go. Everyone defers to them and they are given certain social status everywhere they go.

-“Devour and pretense” they give no regard to the poor or marginalized. Instead of loving and caring for their neighbor (remember, we saw that a few verses ago) they prey on those who have the greatest need, and then pray the longest prayers as if the length of the prayer makes them superior. Nothing in this list is coming from a heart that loves God supremely and others sacrificially. Instead, all they’re doing is demonstrating the condemnation that is coming.

-Watch out for religiosity. Not from the heart of God, not from a heart of someone who has been transformed by God! Instead, it’s a demonstration of someone who’s trying to achieve what only Christ can: a way of approaching God.

  • The Heart (41-44)

-Jesus then gives us a picture of what God is looking for instead of what the scribes are offering. 

-Still in the temple, watching the pomp and circumstance brought by the wealthy, who are demonstrating their wealthy by the abundance given to the temple. In contrast to all these wealthy people, in comes a poor widow (almost goes without saying. Like calling someone a “poor homeless person”) 

-This becomes a teaching opportunity – this woman gave out of her poverty, and that’s what God cares about, not the sum given, the heart of the person who gives.

-God doesn’t care about the external obedience, He cares about the heart. This goes back to the great commandment, and the question Jesus had about taxes.

-Remember what we saw before: what is God’s? Everything! Even our money is a gift from God that we’ve been given to steward. The question for us is what kind of stewards are we? How are we using our money? The idea of tithing wasn’t anywhere near what the church practiced in the 1st Cent. What we see throughout the NT is regular, cheerful, and sacrificial. The tithe (10%) is a good starting point, but a bad ending point. 

-Regular: 1 Cor. 16:2

-Cheerful: 2. Cor. 9:7

-Sacrificially: 2 Cor. 9:6, 8:3

-Politics, death, theology, and money. God cares about all of them, and so should we!

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by mikethestrand on October 8, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on October 8, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/10/08/mark-1213-44-sermon-manuscript/

What’s the Big Deal About the Bible? – 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.

-Can anyone finish this phrase: “We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect ______.” Where does that come from?

-Constitution of the USA. One of the most well-known documents, something many of us had to study in school or potentially even memorize. Serves as the written foundation of our country even down to today.

-Did you know that England has no such document? Closest they come is the Magna Carta, enacted in 1215 to prevent the King from tyrannical rule.

-For the past 800 years England has been forced to change, adapt, and tweak their governmental structure, but instead of writing them down in a formal document they rely on an abstract understanding of rules and laws that have evolved over a long period of time. Makes it slightly easier to make changes, but who’s to say the changes are in the positive or negative direction? How do they know which direction they’re moving?

-Just as it helps the USA to have a written constitution by which all subsequent laws are based or judged (then amended as necessary), we need to have some standard by which we can measure our spiritual selves, as well as provide an understanding of where the world around us is moving. 

-That’s where the Bible comes into play for those of us who believers today (but thankfully it doesn’t need amendments, nor will it ever be changed!)

-I love the way our SOF summarizes what we believe about the Bible. 

READ/PRAY (2 Tim. 3:14-4:4)

-As we think through the importance and significance of the Bible today, I want to remind us that Christianity isn’t unique in having a sacred text that we look to for our highest source of authority. I feel like the Bible gets the most scrutiny, but we need to remember that:

-Every major world religion has some sort of sacred text used to define how one is obedient to a deity or way of living. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism (that covers 78% of the world, the other are “unaffiliated”/“irreligious” or “folk religion”) 

-Islam has the Koran (Muhammed was visited by an Gabriel and told to write words down that were the fulfillment of all of god’s previous revelations) No one else to back up his claims, as well as debate about the originals said

-Hindus have “The Vedas” (meaning knowledge) which contain hymns, incantations, and rituals that were spoken to an ancient seer. Doesn’t really speak much to the real world, can’t test it against what happens around us (although looking at the Indian caste system I would hate to be forced to adopt that way of living!)

-Buddhists have memories of the saying of the Buddha, as well as rules for monastic life and philosophical texts. People today are questioning if “the Buddha” ever lived!

-Jews have the same Bible we have, but without the NT. Remember, I made a big deal at Christmas Eve about the 400 years of silence, Jews have been waiting for 2,400 years! 

-“unaffiliated” have (I would argue) a different trinity than we do: “science,”  “social philosophy” and, themselves. They believe “science” can provide answers to everything, that “social philosophy” can bring true and lasting meaning to a person’s life, and that they are their highest source of authority. Often read history through a modern-day lens and view culture as a long march toward “progress.”

-All that to say, Christianity isn’t unique in having a sacred text that we look to as our source of ultimate authority. Everyone has something or someone that they use as their source of authority

-It would make sense why people would then push back against the Bible in a culture that values expressing my wants and desires as a higher priority than anything else. “That’s just your opinion” or “I need to share MY truth.” Into that culture, we stand here holding a book written (at least) 1,933 years ago and claim that this is unlike any other writing out there, and needs to serve as the authority for everyone and everything. And we do it unapologetically! Let’s see why:

  1. The Bible is God’s Very Word (2 Timothy 3:14-15)

-There’s a lot in just these few verses of 2 Timothy for us to unpack BRIEFLY! Because we’ve got lots of other things to cover.

-There is something wonderful about being able to look back and remember things fondly from your childhood. Favorite movies, favorite foods, favorite vacations. For those of you who grew up in the church, you have a beautiful foundation that you’re building on that you should not let go to waste! 

-And for those who aren’t yet adults here, this is why your parents will bring you here on Sunday mornings, even when it’s hard to wake up and get out of bed, God is working here even when you don’t want to pay attention, because His Word is being shared! We’ll see this at the end, so wait for it, but one of the truths we believe about the Bible is that it is effective. Anytime God’s Word is spoken or read, it is doing something.

-This is what we saw in the discipleship series. The content of discipleship is God’s Word because it always accomplishes what God wants it to accomplish. This is why we need to know enough about God’s Word to speak into every situation we find ourselves. Trust it and rely on it.

-“All Scripture is God-breathed”

– Θεόπνευστος “the Holy Spirit superintended the biblical authors as they composed their writings, the Word of God.” Gregg Allison

-This doesn’t mean that the authors had some out of body experience, then woke up and suddenly the text was in front of them, instead God used a wide variety of people, a wide variety of situations, and a wide variety of writing styles to record His revelation and His will for the world.

–Heb. 1:1-2. Think of all the ways the Bible was written.

–Gen. 1 says “In the beginning” before anything or anyone was created. Who was there to give the eyewitness account of creation? God was. Tradition helps us understand that Moses wrote the first 5 books, Moses had many conversations with God on a mountain over a period of 40 days.

–Ex. 34:27, Jer. 30:2 – God commands people to write things down

–Ex. 31:18 – God literally writes things

–Jeremiah 1:1-2 – God speaks to people

–John 14:26 – Spirit assisted memories 

–Luke 1:1-4, 1 Kings – people do historical research

-Today we have the fulfilment of all the things God was talking about and planning throughout the Bible, Jesus! Jesus is the centering point around which the whole Bible points. The OT points forward to Jesus, the NT points back to Jesus and talks about the implications of His first coming and how to live in light of His second coming.

-What is considered “Scripture”?

-39 books in the OT, starting at the very beginning, recounting the history of God’s people as well as pointing to how true lasting deliverance was going to come about. It began with God telling Moses to write down the law, and continued down until about 475 BC, where God continued telling people to write things down, but this is when the last prophecy was given. The OT has remained the same since then.  

-God’s speaking changed in the NT when Jesus came! Then there was new writings to explain how Jesus fulfilled all of God’s promises and what it means to be a follower of God today. The litmus test for the books of the NT were books written or authorized by an apostle. Look at the universal recognition of these books.

-What about the Apocrypha (RCC)?

-Jesus and His followers quote from the OT regularly, but never from the Apocrypha as God speaking. Jerome, who added the books into his Latin translation of the Bible described them as “books of the church” but not divine. In fact, the RCC didn’t recognize them as Scriptures until the Council of Trent in 1546 (anyone remember when the Reformation started)

-Tradition vs. tradition. One of the reasons we trust the Bible we have is true is because of the 2000 years of tradition that accompany it. Tradition isn’t the same level as the Bible (unlike RCC), but it provides guardrails or guides to help us ensure we’re staying on the right path.

-Ensures we’re not participating in “chronological snobbery.” The world isn’t always getting better all the time. If you go to Rome you’ll see 2,000 year old roads that are still used! I don’t think roads in MN last more than 2,000 minutes!

-Because the Bible is God’s very word, and we can trust the Bible that we have in our hands, it also means:

  • The Bible is Truthful (John 17:17)

-Because it’s God’s very words, we need to know some things about God to understand how it is truthful. Num. 23:19, Heb. 6:18

-Our first point was this is God’s very word. All of it is what God wanted us to have, it contains everything we need for growth in godliness and understanding who God is and how He’s worked throughout human history. But because it’s God’s very Word, what comes out from God is truthful because God cannot lie. 

-Need to do some logic, if God cannot lie, what does that mean about every word he says? Not going to lie, which means it will be truthful! Which is exactly what we saw from Jesus in John 17.

-This has 2 components to it: truthfulness means it describes reality, but it also means that the Bible will truly accomplish what God intends it to do.

-These are known as the doctrines of inerrancy and infallibility, you’ll often hear me say those things when I pray on Sunday mornings! Means not liable to error and not liable to failure. (Isa. 55)

-There has been some debate/discussion about these issues today. I first started becoming passionate/concerned about these doctrines when I had a friend who said he didn’t believe everything Paul said was true. And again when another friend said he didn’t believe Jonah contained a factual account of real events.

-This is why both of these words are important! They aren’t stuck in academy, they have implications for you and I today! Let’s think about this again (put on your thinking caps with me!) If the Bible has things that aren’t true, what would that do to our faith? How would we know which parts are true and which are false? Not only that, what would that say about God? Or if the Bible was ineffective in accomplishing what we saw in 2 Tim. 3, that we could never be “complete” we would always be needing looking for something else.

-Some of you may be thinking this sounds like “circular reasoning” just using the Bible to make claims about itself.

-While that’s true in one sense, that doesn’t make it wrong! If the Bible is the highest source of truth, then it needs to be the measuring stick we use for everything else, otherwise whatever else we’re using becomes the higher authority (usually it ends up being my own reasoning, which isn’t the best source of truth!) 

-But it’s not just the Bible we appeal to in order to validate it as true:

-What other book is as tested and proven as the Bible? 

-Think of The Book of Mormon (which LDS use as their inspired text). There are all sorts of historical claims in the book (like Jesus resurrected and then came to the USA, no evidence for it). Honestly, when you dig into some of the claims of other world religions it becomes laughable! Do you know how demeaning LDS is to women? When a Mormon couple marries, man taken behind curtain and given a secret name for his wife that only he knows so that when he’s in heaven he can decide if he wants to call out his wife’s name to have her join him. 

-Or think of Buddhism, which says everything is an illusion and nothing matters. What do you think would happen if you were stole all their money? Would they let you get away with it or would they cry for justice? But if nothing matters, why shouldn’t I do anything I want to achieve my own sense of happiness?

-What I’ve found in talking to people from other faiths is there’s a tendency to make yourself the center of the world, then look for the best idea that will allow that to continue. However, God doesn’t let you get away with that, instead He says you need to die to yourself if you really want to live!

-Unlike that, the Bible has yet to be proven false by any archaeological find. Just this past year, they believe they uncovered the home of the apostle Peter, and uncovered curses from Mount Ebal that says “cursed by the God YHW” dated from 1200-1400 BC. I’ve shared before the little piece of pottery that says “bayt David” in Hebrew, validating the existence of King David.

-The longer we go the more historical and textual evidence we have for the Bible being corresponding to reality. And if the Bible truly describes the world around us, shouldn’t we also trust it for the things it describes that we can’t see?

-Because the Bible is true, it also means that it is:

  • The Bible is Necessary (Psalm 19:7-11)

-Let’s looks briefly at Psalm 19, I say briefly because I preached a whole sermon on this last summer! Look at all the words used to describe the Bible, as well as the implications for following them.

-law, testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, rules

-reviving, wisdom, rejoicing, enlightening, enduring, righteous, great reward

-If you want a full, content, blessed life, live how God has commanded us.

-Let’s see what else God through Paul says Scripture does in the same place we started today, 2 Timothy:

-teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. Doesn’t this sound similar to what we saw in Psalm 19? It’s almost as if there’s 1 main point behind this whole book! 1 Divine Author speaking the same message through dozens of people over thousands of years.

-Look where it finds its fulfilment: Leads to being complete (accomplishing God’s intent, infallible). 

-But notice where Paul also goes after this:

-Preach the Word! Use it to: reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

-It’s hard in the church, because many people today are described in vs. 3. You can hear exactly what you want to hear 6.5 days of the week! Your social media feeds will cater to your specific preferences, you can even listen to your favorite preacher from the comfort of your living. However, that doesn’t allow us to live in community with others, and when we gather together we’re supposed to be challenged, stretched, pushed outside our comfort zones because we’re coming face to face with the living God as He’s revealed Himself to us!

-So, if you want to know how you can become a complete person:

-Begins by trusting in God as your Savior and Lord. But that’s just the first step. We saw in our last series that God’s command is to make disciples BY teaching people to observe everything God commanded.

-Requires regular studying of God’s Word. One of my favorite parts of preaching is that I get to spend intentional time each week digging into God’s Word pretty deeply, and it transforms me! You will NEVER become an expert on this book. You can spend a lifetime studying, restudying but you’ll never have the whole thing down.

-Let me encourage you, with it being the start of a new year, how can you take 1 step closer to Christ in your reading/studying of the Bible?

-Maybe you can start by reading 1 verse a day! Grow from there, but that’s a great starting place. 

-Maybe you need an intentional plan to help you read through it, I printed off a number of copies of my favorite plan (5 Day Plan)

-Maybe you need to start studying it! Get a good study Bible (NIV, ESV) and read through the notes as well as the Bible

-Maybe your next step is memorizing and meditating (Psalm 119:11 “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you”). The OSB memorizes a new passage each month, if you want to know the verse we’re memorizing that month let me know! 

-Find some way of growing 1 step closer to Christ through His Word this year, whatever it is! Share it with others who can encourage you and help you grow in that, and let the Bible begin to transform you and make you more like Jesus!

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by mikethestrand on January 1, 2023  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on January 1, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/01/01/whats-the-big-deal-about-the-bible-sermon-manuscript/

Ephesians 6:10-24 Sermon Manuscript

Spiritual Fighting in Christ

Ephesians 6:10-24

We’ve made it! This is the end of our series on Ephesians! 

So: a quick recap: We saw all this rich doctrine, theological truth in 1-3. That God extended his grace to us when we were sinners, that faith allows us to be sealed by the Holy Spirit, the riches we’ve been given in Christ, remember those 2 words: BUT GOD! 

Then there was a shift in chapter 4 that set the tone for the rest of the book. Paul urged us WALK WORTHILY! We do that by seeking unity, continuing to put off our old self and put on Christ, walking in love, have rightly ordered relationships at home and outside of the home. Today we’ll look at the final way we walk worthily, and it picks up a similar theme to the end of chapter 4: we’re called to put something on, instead of putting on the new self, we’re called to put on the whole armor of God, which we’ll see is the same thing as putting on the new self.

READ

PRAY

As a guy growing up, this was one of my favorite Bible passages, because it has that connotation of fighting with it. I even remember wearing those cheap plastic “armor of God” toys when I was in Sunday School. Look, the 90s were a weird time in the evangelical Christian subculture. In fact, that stuck with me so much, that when I got to college and took Greek, I spent 3 months studying this passage, and did a whole presentation using pictures and movie clips from the movie 300. I loved this! Paul’s picking up all these Roman ideas, this elite fighting force who dominated world history for centuries! 

The problem is: that’s not Paul’s intent! While Paul’s imprisonment certainly would have given him many opportunities to see Roman armor up close and personal, his choice of armor would be leaving out some key areas in the Romans armor. Instead, Paul’s picking up on this Messianic prophecy in Isaiah. 

You don’t need to turn there, but listen to some of this wording.

Smack dab in the middle of a Messianic prophecy that gets read most Christmases about someone coming from the stump of Jesse on whom the Spirit of the Lord would rest. Isaiah 11:4-5 “Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.”

On dealing with the Lord’s coming salvation, coming right before one of the Easter passages in Isaiah 53, is Isaiah 52:7 “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion ‘Your God reigns.’” 

Isaiah 59:17 “He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak.” 

In Paul’s mind as he’s writing this is all these things we now get because we’re in Christ! Which leads us in to verse 10. 

  1. Be Strong in the Lord! (10-20)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of HIS might.

Finally – this is the last of how we practically walk worthily, and in many ways this is a summary of everything that’s come before, as we’ll see as we continue walking through it! 

Notice whose might are we to be strong in? Even the command to “be strong” has the connotation of being strengthened, we are the ones being acted upon to be strong. God is the one whose power is at work in us (1:19) when we are brought into right relationship with God. It is GOD who works all these things out in our lives. Remember that quote from Johnathan Edwards: “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” 

This is circling all the way back to chapter 1, “In him…” we have redemption (7), we have an inheritance (11), we were sealed with the HS (13) 

These things all take place because of Christ’s work in us, not because of anything we can do. And how do we appropriate this strength? By putting on the armor of God. Putting on the armor of God is HOW we remain strong in the Lord. 

  1. Use the full armor of God in your spiritual battles (11-13)

Put on the whole armor of God, 

First thing, we’re called to put on the WHOLE armor of God. We don’t get to pick and choose the pieces we want. 
Generally, that’s the way armor works anyway. EVERY individual piece is necessary for comprehensive coverage. But there’s also nothing that’s redundant or unnecessary. It’s all carefully thought through & planned to be most effective in battle. Similarly here, we need to arm ourselves completely. Why? Look at the rest of vs. 11-12.

That you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

The physical world is not all there is. Western world is unique because we have a tendency to ignore the spiritual realities around us that the majority world continues living in. Yet we can’t get completely away from it, even in our “enlightened” minds! There’s still magic 8 balls sold in stores, you can still buy a “lucky” rabbits foot, there’s still “psychics” who will tell you your fortune for the right fee, even Sephora tried getting into the game by selling “witch kits!” We are far more spiritual than we care to admit!

The problem for many of us in the Western world is: we don’t pay enough attention to the spiritual state of our souls. We care far more about our physical health than our spiritual health because the spiritual health is a lot harder to measure. I think this is a large part of the reason it’s so hard for many of us to get to church on time! I know, there’s kids, there’s the lame driver, the list is endless, BUT that’s why we need to gather together! We are a visible representation of the world to come, which we’ll see in the next verse. 

Satan, the evil one really exists – AND he’s had millennia to hone his craft. Think about some of your hobbies. How do you get good at them? Practice. Hours and hours and hours. Now take that and expand it by millennia, and that’s what the devil has had to work with. 

Paul also says this is wrestling in the spiritual realm. I remember loving the idea of wrestling when I was growing up, wrestling with my dad, my sisters, my friends. Calvin loves wrestling with me! But this signifies a specific type of fighting. 

This spiritual battle is not something far off, removed from us, it’s close, it’s intimate, it’s something we need to deal with because ignoring it leads to our detriment. We’re in this battle already, the question is what are we going to do with it? Paul answers what we should do with it in verse 13:

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Again, we see this reminder to take up the whole armor of God. SO THAT we can stand. That idea of standing has come up a few times now already in just a few verses. This seems to go against this idea we’ve been sharing of “WALK worthily” We can’t walk and stand at the same time, well, I guess there are those moving walkways at the airports that make it possible, BUT other than that you can’t walk and stand at the same time! Notice that Paul doesn’t say we need to win the war, he just says stand. The battle’s already been won!

The evil day – Bible talks about 2 periods of history, before Christ, and after Christ, and the after Christ is known as the last days, what we’re living in right now. 

What Paul is communicating is the way we walk worthily, the way we orient and go about our lives, means we must stand strong against the devil and his works. It means not rescinding any areas to him. Think of someone wearing a military uniform, if you notice the flag on their arm, no matter which way they’re going the flag is flying back, so they’re never giving up any ground! Similarly, we cannot give up any ground to the devil. That’s how we stand firm. Now let’s take a look at howwe’re able to do that, as we put on the whole armor of God. What does the armor consist of? 

  • The armor consists of… (14-20)

The armor: subjective AND objective. Every piece.

Many scholars debate whether these things are talking about Christ’s attributes or ours, much ink has been spilled in this debate, but when you get right down to it, both are supposed to be true. Christ personified every piece of this armor perfectly, so should we. 

Having fastened on the belt of truth. 

What is the truth he’s referring to? 

Eph. 1:13 “When you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him.” 

The gospel message is associated with the truth. All truth is God’s truth.

Remember, truth both subjectively and objectively, so it begins when we objectively believe the truth of the gospel, believing in Jesus who is THE truth (Eph. 4:21), but then subjectively it means we are truth- tellers (Eph 4:25)

As Christians, we have the only truth. As that truth of that gospel takes root in us we become marked by truthful lives. That leads us to the first question: Are you marked by truth? 

Throughout history, those who have been most used by God have been people who have been those most saturated in God’s truth. Martin Luther had most of the Bible memorized. John Wesley, whose evangelistic zeal was the spark God used to begin a revival, had the NT memorized in Greek. This foundation will come up again. 

And having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

Righteousness is one of those Christian words that gets tossed around a lot but not always defined. So what is Paul talking about? 

Once again, it’s come up before. Eph. 4:24 “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” 

Something God-like in righteousness. It is moral uprightness, which we know is not our own doing, because apart from God we have no right standing. 

So again, subjective and objective. Objectively there is 1 righteous person in all of existence, yet through faith in Christ, his righteousness is given to us. This is what is known as imputed righteousness. Christ takes the penalty for our sin on himself, and we get the righteousness of Christ given to us. One author has called this The Great Exchange. We give sin, we get righteousness. THE BEST!

So: have you made that great exchange? Have you given your sins to God and received his righteousness? 

And as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

All of us wear shoes. There’s various types of shoes for various types of activities. You’ve got your hiking shoes, basketball shoes, tennis shoes, sandals, dress shoes, Crocs. And there’s nothing worse than wearing the wrong shoes for the current activity! I played basketball growing up and had really weak ankles, which meant I had to make sure I had the right kind of shoe for the activity to make sure I didn’t accidentally roll my ankle. Shoes really matter! But spiritually, we need to be ready to manifest the gospel of peace. BUT not just the gospel of peace, but the readinessthat comes from the gospel of peace. So what does that mean? 

We must ALWAYS be ready to share the gospel in any and every opportunity we have. There’s a certain amount of jealousy that I have for those of you who are not in vocational ministry. You get to have those conversations around the coffee machine that I don’t! I miss the days where I was getting to rub shoulders with unbelievers every day in the work place, because those opportunities came up almost weekly where someone would ask something about me that was different. But this isn’t just at work, as we’ve seen over the past couple weeks, parents, YOU have opportunities probably every day to demonstrate the gospel in word and deed with your kids!

But it’s not just the gospel, it’s the gospel of what? Peace! We tend to neglect that aspect to our faith except for Christmas, where we remember Jesus is the prince of peace. And don’t forget, this is peace objectively and subjectively! Objectively, the gospel allows us to have peace with God which leads to the peace of God. Apart from God’s work in the spiritual realm, there is no hope for peace in the physical realm. 

Clinton Arnold, “Spiritual warfare is the solution to human warfare”

BUT, in God, there can be peace. Apart from God, there is no peace. 

So is your life marked by the gospel of peace? 

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one

I believe, help my unbelief. 

Faith in God is based on a precedent of what God has previously done to/for you. So again, remember objective and subjective. Objectively, we have faith in God, but subjectively, that faith is based on things God is doing and has already done. 
Here I raise my Ebenezer (Come Thou Fount), stone of remembrance 

We NEED those because we’re so quick to forget how God has provided! Think of the space we’re in right now. Do you know what went in to get here, or the fact that we nearly had to sell the building 12 years ago to survive. Think about how God has provided above and beyond what a few people (some of whom are sitting in here) over 40 years ago could have even dreamed of??? And not just us, think about the church in Ephesus 2,000 years ago, under persecution daily, do you think they ever could have thought Christianity would become THE dominate world religion? So have faith!

When we have faith, it allows us to fight against temptation. Think about the way we try to excuse sin…The devil made me do it…I was born this way…it’s not my fault…it was bad parenting…it was the hand I’ve been dealt…You do realize that none of that matters or is an excuse for sin? We all have our pet excuse we go to when we allow those darts from the evil one in, and as we saw earlier, he’s been practicing his archery a lot longer than you and I have been around! So put your faith in God! Trust that He is better than any temptation the devil may throw at you.

And take the helmet of salvation

Just as a helmet protects us, so salvation protects us. For those of us who are “in Christ” we can now wear the helmet of salvation. Once we’re truly saved there’s no going back! This allows us to walk with confidence because we already know our destination. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        I hope and pray we start to see more of that in our prayer chain!

Grace Be With You (21-24)

Let’s see how Paul ends this letter. 

Paul is sending “the beloved brother.” A dear friend who’s been through thick and thin for the purpose of encouragement. Paul, the guy who’s under arrest is trying to encourage the church in Ephesus. That’s amazing! That’s the guy who’s learned the secret to being content in all circumstances! That’s the kind of question all of us should be asking: how can we encourage each other no matter what circumstances we’re in? 

Finally, the last things he mentions are: peace, love, faith and grace. That’s a pretty good description of the gospel, and a great way to end our time studying this book. Peace: God has provided a way for people from EVERY walk of life to come together and get along. Peace with God leads to the peace of God. Love: and not just get along, but genuinely LOVE each other! Just as Christ loved us. Faith: the bond that unites us, blood is thicker than water, except in the family of God. Grace: God’s undeserved favor given to us. We need to be reminded of that reality all the time, instead of dismissing or neglecting that truth.

Paul’s told us how to ensure we stand fast against the schemes of the devil, and it begins by praying, so I’m going to give you some time to pray right now. We’ve seen things we can pray for, we’ve seen to pray for the strength to stand firm, we’ve seen to pray for each other, and for boldness to proclaim the gospel. 

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by mikethestrand on November 13, 2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on November 13, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/11/13/ephesians-610-24-sermon-manuscript/

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