All posts in category Theology

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/

Ephesians 3:14-21 – Sermon Manuscript

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

-Struggle following along or want to find a quote? Go to my blog, also can get sermon notes at the welcome table when you come in every week

-More content every week on youtube.com/southsuburbanchurch or anchor.fm/south-suburban

-My dad can beat up your dad. If your dad is all powerful, that’s true!

READ/PRAY

  1. To Be Strengthened (14-17a)

-Up until this point, Paul has been expounding on the reality of the 2 distinct people becoming 1 new people in the church, with Jesus as the head. These verses serve as the hinge from theology into practical living, so next week’s text starts with a reminder to “walk in a manner withy of the calling to which you have been called.” That means live a different life. One author stated: “The ethic of chapters 4–6 has its foundation in this prayer” (Snodgrass, NIVAC)

-Many of the NT letters have explicit theology in the first half, leading to explicit commands for new life in the second half. Through chpt. 3 has been this high theology, next week we’ll start seeing what that looks like in practice. This is a reminder for us that we need to begin with good theology, but then make sure we also take the next step of living out that good theology in our day to day lives. 

-“For this reason” repeat of 3:1. Have you ever gotten distracted during a time of prayer? “God I’m so grateful for the sacrifice of your one and only Son. Man I’m hungry, I wonder what food we have in the fridge” You’re in good company – Paul did the same! What is this reason? Because of the nearness of God to us today.

-To be fair to Paul, he didn’t get distracted because he was hungry!

-“Bow my knees”

-Humble posture. Luke 18:9-14.

-“Father”

-God as Father. Starting point matters, don’t start with human and then project onto God, start with God and then start looking for places where He is demonstrated. Theology proper

-Earthly fathers are guaranteed to fail, that’s why we need a perfect heavenly father. Just as I said before, when you hear God described as “Father” don’t just replace that idea with your earthly Father. However, because that’s our tendency, God holds the fathers accountable for their families (we’ll get to that in a couple weeks, but the idea starts here)

-Paul uses it to describe the: source, starting point, provider, nurturer of every family. Play on words (pater, patria) 

-JI Packer “You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.”

-Whether the world realizes this or not, everyone and everything traces their source back to God. First catechism answer we gave: God is the creator. He designed families. We have to demonstrate how God designed families to operate, and be a bigger family that welcomes in anyone who doesn’t have an earthly family. This is also where we see the devil continually attacking the family in our world today! We’ll get to some of that in Eph. 4-5

-“riches of his glory”

-Our Father created everything, why do we worry that God won’t provide what we need? Talking to someone this week about Psalm 23:1 “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.” Or reading through some examples in Acts of the early church 4:34 “there was not a needy person among them.”

-God has given us everything we need spiritually, and He’s given us the church to help us with everything we need physically. Do we live that out? Do we thank God for the gifts of each other? Do we ask God for these riches? As we go through here, be thinking through James 4:2 “you do not have because you do not ask” What’s stopping you from asking? But Paul doesn’t stop here! This is to remind us that God owns everything! Yet Paul doesn’t ask for everything, similar to Solomon who was offered anything he wanted, yet asked for wisdom.

-“To be strengthened with power”

-Can’t do it yourself (BE strengthened) Do you ask for this as well? This isn’t just grimace and bear whatever comes, this is intentionally asking God to sustain you through whatever comes.

-Comes only through the Spirit. The Spirit is what strengthens us, equips us, sanctifies us, brings us to life when we were dead. And now that the Spirit is alive in us, what do we have to fear?

-“In your inner being”

-Not Gnosticism (we are embodied beings, can’t separate) So much of what we see taking place in our world today connects back to this issue, we are gendered all the way down, can’t get away from that. We’re trying to train our kids this way, where Calvin is happy to be a boy, Ellie is happy to be a girl. Our world (our flesh & the devil) will try to train them differently.

-Paul is connecting to a similar idea in 2 Cor. 4:16-18 “16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. 17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Where are you focusing your attention?

-You’ve seen this if you’ve watched an older saint who’s faithfully walking with the Lord. Their faith gets sweeter, their temperament kinder. The fact that we’re still here breathing means God’s not done with us! He’s still helping us smooth out our rough edges, doing whatever it takes to make us more like Him.

-Purpose: “so that Christ my dwell in your hearts”

-This is part of where we get the idea to “ask Jesus into our hearts” but in the Bible that’s a whole big life change, not just a 1-time decision (we’re not witches)

-Great illustration of this: 2 of the 3 houses Cara and I have owned has been slightly neglected when we moved in. Seriously, what was the deal with wallpaper and popcorn ceilings? Over time, you pull down wallpaper, replace floors, remodel bathrooms, maybe eventually add some space in to accommodate your growing family. That’s what God does in our lives. He moves in “through faith” at that very moment, but then he gets to work remodeling, and sometimes he’ll need to knock down walls you’ve built, and it’s painful, difficult, and inconvenient. 

-House projects never come about at the right time. Our fence blew over 6 months before Calvin was born, I was in school, Cara was in school, our church was moving to 2 campuses (I was in the build out for the 2nd campus), our dog chewed up our carpet the next month, Cara’s car got totaled in May, yet God worked in that time, church came around us.

-This illustration is where Paul (borrowing from Jesus) talk about building your foundation in the right place, which leads us right into the next section:

  • To Grasp Christ’s Love (17b-19)

-“Rooted and grounded in love”

-Rooted like plants, grounded like a solid foundation.

-Love is the new ethic of all believers, not optional, but also not as the world defines live, go read 1 Cor. 13 to see how God defines love, but also note that this isn’t option for a Christian. (hold on to that idea, because Paul brings it up again later)

-“May have strength” (connected back to 16) “to comprehend” what?

-Options: (1) the incredible power of God (2) multifaceted wisdom of God (3) the love of Christ (4) the mystery of God’s plan of salvation. Literally text: “To grasp what is the width and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ.”

-“Perhaps it is best to see all four of these dimensions as summing up this chapter. If this is the case they may be said to refer to a combination of the last three possibilities – the revealing of the mystery as a result of the love and wisdom of God. Paul is then asking for the multidimensional plan of God to work itself out in the church and the world, manifesting God’s wisdom and Christ’s love as one person after another is converted to Christ.” (Osborne, 102)

-“with the saints” You can’t begin to comprehend Christ’s love alone, you need the church, livestream isn’t enough, solo Christianity isn’t enough, your nuclear family isn’t enough (have been told “youth group isn’t biblical”)

-“To know the love of Christ”

-How do you know love? It’s not just a fleeting feeling. Marriage, for many of us, is the proving grounds of where we start to know this (starts with our parents first). You think you love someone the day you get married, but you it hasn’t really been tested yet. Takes time, work, walking through sickness and health, through richer or poorer, then you can start to “know love”

-Story of the twin 18 month old boys. Orphanage in Russia.

-“surpasses knowledge” never be able to understand it, but as time goes on you’ll know it more.

-“filled with the fullness of God” 2 primary aspects:

-become like Christ (the remodeling is toward a specific end)

-fullness of love (John 17:26 “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”)

-As I mentioned earlier, love is the new Christian ethic. However, this love cannot be divorced from truth! “Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really hear it. God’s saving love in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.” Tim Keller

  • To Him Who Is Able (20-21)

-These great truths that Paul has been praying lead him to a doxology.

-Think of this reality: since God is all powerful, what can He not do? He can’t lie, betray Himself, can’t change. Because of that, God is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think. Church, you literally can’t out-ask or out-think God. God has already done it all and thought it all, your thoughts are merely derivative of His.

-But let’s take this in context, because what has Paul been asking for? Strengthening in the inner being (by faith), and growing in understanding of who God is (making and maturing disciples).

-This isn’t “name it a claim it” (explain) This is asking God to work in us and make us more and more of what He has created us to be. I read a really interesting book on this idea this past week titled ‘Plugged In’ where it talks about how we can engage our culture today. One of the pieces that stood out to me is that we don’t have a choice on this, we’re in this culture whether we realize it or not, the question then becomes: what is the best way to be faithful in the place and culture God has called us? We need to start looking at things through a gospel lens. I mentioned this phrase in a sermon a couple weeks ago, but it’s where I got this term “Subversive fulfilment” from. The gospel is subversive fulfilment to all the stories the world tells, because the worlds stories can’t hold up to the reality of the world around us. Another way of thinking about this is we, as Christians, need to get better at telling the better story (abundantly more than all we ask or think)

-(Strange, 102) “The gospel…subverts in that it confronts, unpicks and overthrows the world’s stories and fulfils in that it connects and is shown to be worthy of our hopes and desires encouraging us to exchange our old stories for new ones which turn out to be the originals from which our false stories are smudged and ripped fakes” 

-Look for opportunities/ways to point out where the world is right (common grace) and then think and process through where their thinking falls short and use that as a connection point to the greatest story that is still being written! How often do we view our mighty God as too small to be working in the world around us? Whether we realize it or not, God is working in and through human history with an end, goal, and purpose in mind! That end is something we can only dream about right now. That is: as we grow more like Christ, we’ll be more filled with the fullness of God and be a better witness to the world around us of what we’re supposed to be like. This aim leads us to the last verse:

-Glorifying God, and he answers where, how, and when. Where: “In the church.” How: “in Christ Jesus”, and when: “throughout all generations, forever and ever.” 

-If you want everything Paul promises in this section, you must be a part of the church, which today is made visible in local churches. There’s a reason I keep emphasizing the church as vitally important today! It’s not an option add-on, it’s literally meant to be your lifeblood as a Christian today. If you’re not a part of a local church you won’t be strengthened, you won’t grasp Christ’s love, much less demonstrate Christ’s love to the world (which is how we glorify God today) The church is going to last forever, under the Lordship of Jesus, throughout all generations, and on into eternity.

-Since God is now our perfect heavenly father, we get to ask Him (pray!) to strengthen us and help us understand and then live out His love for us, and by doing that we bring glory to Him in the church and in His Son forever. And this prayer is meant to be a global prayer because there are saints across the world! So pray that God’s glory would be seen in the making and maturing of disciples of Jesus throughout the world, until He finally comes back and makes us completely holy.

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by mikethestrand on October 2, 2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Theology, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on October 2, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/10/02/ephesians-314-21-sermon-manuscript/

Ephesians 2:11-22 – 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.

-What is your earliest memory? Memories are a fascinating thing, aren’t they? Some moments we can remember as clear as if we were there each time we bring it to mind, others are just completely gone until you find a picture or an old friend reminds you of a shared experience. Maybe like me, you’ve been carelessly walking through a mall when a smell hits you, and brings back a flood of memories! When I moved back here, the first time we took our kids to MOA when I caught a whif of Cinnabon! I hadn’t eaten or smelled that delicious concoction since I left MN, but it brought back all the times I’d gone there with friends growing up, and the worst part is now that I have the money to buy it, I know I shouldn’t!

-Memories are significant in all of our lives, there can be negative memories we have that get triggered regularly, or positive memories that get triggered by other things, almost like riding a bike! No matter how long it’s been, they can come back.

-God has also given us collective memories that we’re supposed to call to mind on a regular basis, this is why it’s so important for us to gather together on the Lord’s day, this is why something like NCC is so important: God has designed our minds to remember certain things. I’ve started describing the purpose of our gathering as: remember and remind. Remember who God is and what He’s done, and then intentionally remind each other to live in light of that truth.

READ/PRAY

  1. Remember What You Were (11-12)

-“Therefore” connects us back to last week. That was a whole 7 days ago, so what did we study last week? Before Christ, we were dead, but God, who is rich in mercy, brought us to life and prepared good works for all of us to walk in. Because of this new life that is given by God, Paul begins by encouraging the Gentile readers to look back.

-Need to talk about an issue that I hadn’t made much mention of before: the different ethnicities Paul addresses in Ephesus, and the ethnocentrism that has been a problem since the Fall. 

-It’s important to remember Paul’s history in regards to ethnicities: he was a Jew. And not just any Jew, Acts 22:3 summarizes his life: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.” In Phil. 3 he refers to himself as blameless according to the law, he was trained as a Pharisee and persecuted anyone who was a follower of Jesus.

-Paul demonstrated the way the Jewish people had been trained to think: there was Jew, and then then there was everyone else. And unless you were a Jew you were useless. (you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much) One Jewish author actually wrote that Gentiles were created to keep the fires of hell burning. Just to be fair, everyone else also looked down on the Jews as weirdos, so it was a mutual hatred! 

-But the crazy thing about this new faith called “The Way” or “Christianity” is it was meant to transcend all ethnic and cultural boundaries, and transform everyone from the inside out. But how difficult is it to overcome historical tension that goes back generations? We struggle with tensions that go back a week! So how do you think people from different ethnic backgrounds (who had been taught to hate each other their whole lives) would feel when they walk into church on Sunday and sitting next to them is that person? How would they be able to sit together, much less actively love each other? It’s only through a radical, life altering transformation. Thankfully, as we saw last week, that transformation has taken place! Dead people can’t get along, if you’ve seen any zombie movie you’ve seen that! But now, because of Jesus’ work on the cross, these 2 diverse groups can begin to get along.

-“Remember” doesn’t Paul contradict this in Phil. 3:13?

-Remember last week: we are sinners by nature and by choice, all of us need to be saved from our sin, whether you’re trying to be the best person you can, or you’re stuck in a cycle of addiction and sin that you can’t escape. God’s grace and mercy are still for you. We all need to remember what Paul says in 1 Cor. 6:11, after running through a list of sins “and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified.” Even in our remembering, we recognize that we’re no longer that way! 

-“You Gentiles, in the flesh” flesh is repeated again.

-The differences are only skin deep. Circumcision was meant to be the sign of the covenant since the time of Father Abraham. Every law-abiding Jew was circumcised (even Paul). On the flip side, the Gentiles mocked the Jews for the practice of circumcision, so it was a contentious issue! But how effective is an external surgery at dealing with the problem of sin?

-This is a temptation for all of us! We all want to find something that will allow us to be measured righteous without having to die to ourselves. If only it was as easy as cleaning up our lives! It takes a death, and then daily dying again and again to our own made up standards so that we can actually follow Christ.

-Paul is not afraid here to call out what they’re adding to the faith when he says “by hands.” Remember, circumcision was the sign that someone was in right standing before God (righteous) but by using that phrase, he’s equating circumcision to idolatry. How would Jews feel about an accusation of idolatry? 

-We’re all tempted to do the same thing today: add external things to our faith on a regular basis, oftentimes without even realizing it! Music, clothes, schooling, books (Harry Potter), political party. We, as humans, are really good at creating ways that we’re supposed to follow God. Then we ostracize anyone who doesn’t agree with every detail of trappings we’ve added to the faith, which ironically enough is meant to be the marker of those who aren’t following after God.

-Once again, please pay attention to what I’m NOT saying: not saying there aren’t things we should divide over, but we need to be careful what it is that we’re putting up as markers of true orthodoxy, and what is an application point from true theology. (more in that in tomorrow’s Sermon Scraps!)

“Separated, alienated, strangers, no hope, without God”

-These are the markers of someone who isn’t in God, not meant to be dividers of those who are in Christ. 

-No hope is an interesting thing to contemplate. Paul talks about this in 1 Thess. 4:13 “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” One of the primary markers of Christians is that we are a hope filled people. The world may fall down around us, but we still have hope, not in ourselves, not in the world, but we have hope in God! This hope is based on what Paul goes on to talk about:

  • Remember What Jesus Does (13-18)

-BUT NOW- once again, Paul starts with the bad news before talking about the shift that come: “IN Christ Jesus” all the blessings that we have come about ONLY because we’re in Christ. Blessings, children, seated with Him, now the emphasis is on relational distance that has now been amended.

“Far off” vs. “brought near” 

-Muppets made the best illustration of this with Grover

-For those who are not in Christ, we’re eternally separated from God, a chasm that we cannot cross. Think of the first time you saw the ocean (assuming you’ve seen it) I remember feeling completely overwhelmed at the distance between me and the next chunk of land “if I get sucked out, I’m not getting back” That distance pails in comparison to the eternal gulf separating us from God. There’s no way to bridge that by our own efforts, it only comes about because Jesus bought us with his blood. We saw this in Eph. 1:7 “In him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace”

-This idea of how we can be near to God is one of the major themes throughout Scripture. Talk with Micah – one way of putting the Bible together is the way we can be near God. Think of how Matthew structures his book, begins with Immanuel (God with us) last phrase of the great commission: behold I am with you always, to the end of the age. Genesis begins with God dwelling with His people, Revelation ends saying “The dwelling place of God is with man” this separation that we have today will no longer exist!

-He is our peace, because He is now alive in us (Gal. 2:20) Peace is the theme of this section, notice the end of vs. 15 repeats the peace idea, with 3 things this peace accomplishes: made us one, broken down the dividing wall, and abolishing the law of commandments.

-Made us one, beginning and end (14a, 16b). The things that we once used to divide are no longer allowed to divide those of us who are in Christ. Same as we saw at the beginning of this section, we’re no longer allowed to divide however we want, we need to divide where God divides: in Christ or not.

-Second: broken down the dividing wall. Some debate about what Paul means by this, as he goes on to talk about the means by which he has done this is “by abolishing the law of commandments” The law was what served as the distinction between the two groups, Jews obeyed, Gentiles didn’t! 

-But there was also a literal dividing wall in the temple where Gentiles were only allowed to a certain point before a sign would say “No foreigner is to enter within the forecourt and the balustrade around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his subsequent death.” How do you think this would train the Jews to treat the Gentiles? But Paul goes even further:

-“abolishing the law of commandments” Abolishing has a wide range of interpretive options: “make powerless” “use up” “to be released from” one translation went with “nullify” When Jesus came, he came to fulfill the law. He obeyed everything God had commanded perfectly, because no one else could. One of the primary reasons God gave the law was to reveal how unable we are to achieve the level of holiness He expects. And then when Jesus came he double down: it’s no longer a matter of mere external obedience, now it’s internal obedience, so even your thought life is required to be holy. 

-And those standards are the same across ethnic lines:

-“One new man” 

-Think of all the genocidal fights that have happened throughout history, that try to create different people. As we read through the OT we see Israel against the Canaanites, NT Romans vs. Jews, Sunni vs Shiite, Germans vs Jews, Russians vs Ukrainians, blacks vs whites. The normal state of human affairs is conflict! Most of us have lived in this weird time of not much conflict, but that is not the norm. However, true and lasting peace, without hostility can only come about because of the cross.

-“preached peace”

-Same message to both! Both those who were/are “near” and “far” need the same message from God: peace is possible! But not through the ways humans want to pursue peace. It’s not through a complete turnover of society, it’s not about pursuing power, it only comes about by pursuing God. This idea is something Paul is picking up from:

–Isa. 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.””

-Salvation creates a level playing field for all of us: same spirit, same Father, we’re now a family. Family doesn’t always get along, but you can’t escape them! 

-Think of your extended family! Every family I know has someone that’s the weird one/odd ball doesn’t really fit in with everyone else, but you can’t change the fact that the same blood flows in your veins, same for those “in Christ!”

-Scene from ‘Remember the Titans’ “Alice, are you blind? Don’t you see the family resemblance? That’s my brother.” There’s no longer any room for comparison, or belittling others, we’re now a part of the same family, which is where Paul goes next.

  • Remember What You Now Are (19-22)

-What you were, but no longer! Apart from Christ, we are strangers and aliens to God, then once we’re in Christ we move to being strangers and aliens to the world! We no longer have the same identity markers or judge using worldly standards, because God’s standards are radically different. Yet at the same time, we have some things to learn from this, because 

-How was Israel to treat a stranger and alien? Sabbath was commanded for everyone, including the alien. One note, not alien like outer space, alien as in not a citizen. Even Lev. And Deut. Talk regularly about how God’s people are to treat aliens and sojourners. For example, they’re commanded to not harvest their field all the way to the edge, they’re commanded to leave grapes that fall when you’re harvesting for the poor and the sojourner. Similarly for us today, how should we treat the stranger and the alien, those different from us?

-I was reminded this week of one of my favorite books: The Rise of Christianity because the author died over the summer. Stark was a sociologist, and in the book studied the early church through a sociological lens, concluding that the reason the early church spread was their care for the poor and marginalized. Friends, we should be known for those who care for everyone, but especially the poor and marginalized (poor materially, spiritually, emotionally). This has been the marker of the church since Jesus commissioned us! It’s no coincidence that so many hospitals used to be named after saints (until they all got bought out), because Christians took care seriously! Even the word “hospital” was taken from “hospitality” that Christians showed to aliens and strangers. 

-This is a high bar, but the best part is we don’t need to do it alone, nor are we the first generation to be wrestling with these ideas. Look what we’re built on. We aren’t the foundation! Christianity in the big scheme of human history, doesn’t depend on us, because even if we were wiped out today, God has people following Him faithfully across the globe.

-There is a tendency to get myopic and overly fixated on right here and now instead of remembering our past and the reasons for our hope. This forces us to ask the question: where are you building the foundation of your life on? Because if you’re in Christ, He’s the cornerstone, and literally nothing can shake that foundation, not even hell itself! 

-We also need to note that it is: “being joined together” it’s not done, and it won’t be until Christ comes back. That means that as long as we have breath in our lungs on this side of eternity, we need to continue pursuing peace with God, and preaching peace to those who are near and those who are far.

-By doing this, God’s people grow into a “holy temple”, AKA the place where God’s presence dwells. This is the craziest part of salvation! God is no longer mediated through a law or an intricate sacrificial system, He now lives in those of us who are believers. The reality that God’s dwelling place is with humans is already happening, but we are often completely oblivious to it. Why don’t we often believe enough to pray “your kingdom come and your will be done,” and instead try to pursue these things through purely human efforts? It will never work! Instead, we need to die to those worldly ways, submit ourselves to God’s work in us through His Spirit, and become one new people. 

-Friends: what do you remember? We remember who we were before God saved us, we need to remember what Jesus did and does, and finally remember and remind each other each week how God has transformed us and made us a new people.

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by mikethestrand on September 18, 2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Relationships, Sermon, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on September 18, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/09/18/ephesians-211-22-sermon-manuscript/

Ephesians 2:1-10 – 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.

I’ve got some good news and some bad news. Which one do you prefer to hear first? 78% of people prefer to begin with the bad news. Studies has shown that starting with the bad news leaves people in a more positive mood than the reverse.

READ/PRAY

  1. You Were DEAD (1-3)

-Paul paints a stark picture here of our spiritual state. Our life before Christ was one of death. The problem was we didn’t even know it! We were able to walk, talk, carry on as if everything was completely fine, but spiritually we were dead.

-Scene in The Princess Bride where not as Miracle Max says in The Princess Bride “just mostly dead,” which according to him is “slightly alive. Unlike dear Westley, we were COMPLETELY dead. 

-I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about that implication, but what can dead people do? Well, they can lay there, decompose, take up space. But can a dead person will themselves to life? No! 

-I know this is a morbid picture, but imagine going to a mortuary, you walk through to the back room where the bodies are. What would your response be to one of those bodies sitting upright and talking to you? I’m pretty sure that’s the plot of some scary movie that I will never see! 

-Before Christ, all of us are like those bodies in the back of the mortuary, we are spiritually dead. There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, there’s nothing we can do to bring ourselves back to life. And not only were we dead, but we were dead in something: trespasses and sins. We are dead in and because of our sins: completely separated from the only one who gives life. 

-I think there’s a tendency to miss this reality. We don’t understand the depths of our sin and separation from God, so we don’t view ourselves as spiritually dead. We’re often too busy comparing ourselves to others (our strengths vs their weaknesses) to contemplate that reality that apart from God we’re dead!

-“In which you once walked”

-Not only did those trespasses and sins keep us dead, but they also were the only way of life we knew how to follow. Before Christ opened our eyes to the reality of our sin “in sin” was the only way we could walk. 

-This word “walked” is a life encompassing word. It’s not just the action of walking, it’s the entire way of being. Before Christ, our only way of living and orientation was toward our trespasses and sins. 

-In other places, Paul describes it as being a slave to our sin. Similar to being spiritually dead, being a slave means you can only do that which your master demands and expects of you. It’s not a very freeing way of living. Paul also goes on to explicitly state who the masters of those who are spiritually dead are, he mentions 3 things: 

-worldly influences, Satan, and our flesh. Let’s look at those one at a time.

“Following the course of this world”

–Paul here is referring to the ungodly trends and directions the world will try to move us. And for those who are dead in their sins, they aren’t even aware of it. 

It becomes as much a part of us as a fish is a part of the water. Just as the fish doesn’t even realize they’re wet, so those who are not in Christ don’t even realize the problems with the world, the culture, around them. And this is not just a modern-day problem, because Paul is writing this 2,000 years ago! But let’s think about the 2 predominant ways cultures can influence and lead people away from where they should be going. 

-During Paul’s time, and in other parts of the world today, the group always trumps the individual. For simplicity sake, let’s call this “The Eastern Way of Thinking.” A person’s sense of identity was completely wrapped up in their genealogy, their family, their history. Think of how Thor describes himself: Son of Odin. That carries weight to it! That also leads to a great sense of responsibility, because your actions reflect not only on you, but on your family. Now: there are some things that are good and can be applauded in this Eastern thought: 

we didn’t just appear out of nowhere, we do have a history, and that does shape and inform us today. 

-The problem with this thinking is dealt with extensively all over the NT – just because of your family history, you are not saved! So when you read in various places about Abraham being someone’s father, this is what they’re referring to. The course of the world for Paul and all those who were alive at this time is one of assurance by family ties. If you have a good family in the right bloodline, then you don’t need to worry.

-We have the opposite extreme in what I’ll call the “Western Way of Thinking.” The individual trumps the communal. Think about the Frank Sinatra song, “I did it MY WAY.” Our culture today places the emphasis pretty much exclusively on individual wants, needs, and desires. The way of thinking becomes “If I want to do it, by golly, I’m going to do it, and no one can stop me or get in my way!” This is also referred to as “expressive individualism.” 

This is where we have very loose abortion laws, no fault divorce, unconcern that anyone around us may be struggling, and only worry about me, myself, and I (Libertarianism isn’t the answer). No one else matters because I am an individual. 

-Just as the Eastern way of thinking has good things, so does the Western way of thinking. Yes, we are individuals. We all have unique gifts, strengths and weaknesses, just because our parents are gifted in an area doesn’t mean we’ll be gifted the same way. Individually, we all need to be saved. I think it’s helpful that many of us don’t look to our family heritage as a reason why I am a Christian. 

-The problem is when we take our individual identities into our community, which for us is the church. 

-A couple implications of this: 

-first, don’t waste your time comparing your gifts or strengths or weaknesses to someone else. News flash, they’re not you and you’re not them. God brought us both of you for a reason, to use your gifts for God’s glory, and strengthening and equipping the body, the church. 

-The second piece is the tendency to view the whole church only through your lens of interests. So if a specific ministry has significance to you, then it must be the most important thing in the whole church, right? Same as the previous idea, we have a wide assortment of ministries that combine together to make up this church. We also need to realize that some of these ministries are seasonal, depending on the people God has brought to our body at that time. “For everything there is a season” Eccles. 3:1. Just be aware of that, don’t be discouraged about it, don’t get too fixated on something that is meant to be a tool, instead fix your attention on the one who never changes!

-Both the Eastern and the Western way of thinking have strengths AND weaknesses. The Bible calls us to not completely follow either way, but follow God’s way, which is contrary “the course of the world.” 

-One author quipped “You can recognize ‘the ways of this world’ wherever sin seems acceptable and righteousness seems strange.” (Fruit of the Spirit) And who is behind this, attempting to orchestrate this negative “course of the world”? The devil. As Paul continues: 

“Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sonsof disobedience.”

-Throughout the NT, the devil is referred to as: “the ruler of this world” “the ruler of the demons” “god of this world” Ephesians HEAVILY emphasizes the spiritual realm. But anytime we talk about the spiritual realm, we need to be careful because we don’t want to OVER emphasize it, or UNDER emphasize it:

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” CS Lewis

-So we don’t overemphasize the devils work, nor do we want to underemphasize it, because there’s other things that are at work to lead us into sin.

-In Jewish thought at this time, the devil and his followers operated in “the air” the sphere between earth and heaven: spiritual realities happening around us all the time! And this influence is “now at work” 

-“Sons of disobedience” a way of referring to one’s character of life. Again, Thor son of Odin. Just do you get this: being called a son of disobedience is NOT a compliment. But think about the opposite as well, for those who are In Christ, we are now sons of God. Not demeaning to women, just talking about the way the world worked at the time, only male children received an inheritance from their fathers. Our primary allegiance and focus has completely changed!

-“Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind.”

-This is the third and final way we were dead in our trespasses and sins. 

-For many of us, the devil doesn’t need to waste his time on us, because we’re too influenced by our fleshly passions. Our own wants, desires and needs no matter the cost. “Expressive individualism” found a prayer that would work in our cultural context today! 

-Nothing is left out, flesh, body and mind. Remember how Jesus said we can sin with our thoughts too? It’s not a matter of merely external obedience, it’s radical transformation. Paul has vice lists in a few of his writings, we’ll be looking at one of them in a few weeks in Eph. 5:3-14. But a summary is: the opposite of the fruit of the spirit. Those are the works of the flesh, the sins that we so easily give in to. 

-We’ve seen 3 different ways that influence us to remain dead: as one commentator stated “The world dominates from without, the flesh from within, and the devil from beyond.” (Kent Hughes, 65)

The implication of our being dead:

“Were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”

-All of us were sinners by nature, and by choice as we’ve seen in the past couple verses. 

-By nature refers to our state at birth. Paul expounds more fully upon this idea in Romans 5, where he says “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” (12) Our nature, our orientation, from birth is toward spiritual death in sin. 

By choice – we all have sinned (Rom. 3:23)

-We saw earlier “sons of disobedience” similar idea “children of wrath.” 

-An early church heresy that continues until today is this idea that we need to separate the God of love from the God of wrath. A popular pastor a few years ago said we need to “unhitch” the OT from the NT and only teach the New. As we’ll see in a minute, apart from God’s mercy and grace, we only have wrath. We don’t get to pick and choose the characteristics of God we like and throw out the rest. YES, he is love, AND he is holy, AND he is wrathful, AND he is kind and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. His wrath is his just condemnation against sin. This isn’t the way we tend to see wrath today, which is often unbridled and unhinged, no, this is the just consequences for enmity against a holy and righteous judge. 

-This is our original nature, before Christ we were only deserving of condemnation, of his wrath, that’s the bad news. But now we come to the best news ever. 

-Here’s the deal, God’s wrath MUST be dealt with. There MUST be a payment made, there HAS to be restitution. All of us are sinners by nature and by choice, and the penalty for that HAS TO be paid. So for those who are “In Christ,” it has been. The debt we could NEVER pay has been paid in full.

2 of the most important words in the Bible, the best news possible:

  1. BUT God (4-7)

-All of those negative things that make us deserving of God’s wrath find their answer, their resolution, their demise in God’s mercy, love, grace, and kindness. 

-“Mercy” is a term that is used throughout the OT, which is tied to the notion of his covenant faithfulness, or steadfast love (hesed).

-Lamentations 3:22-23 “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

-Mercy is God’s forgiveness to not hold us accountable for our actions. But it’s not just mercy, God is RICH in mercy! God has more mercy than he knows what to do with! God has enough mercy for every sin all of us have ever committed, or will commit. His mercy is more! PLUS grace!

-Notice as well, that his mercy is tied to his love. Mercy AND love. We get mercy because of God’s love. We saw that a couple weeks ago in Eph 1. In love God predestined us for all these gifts here!

-When did all this take place? When we were dead. So we saw in the first 3 verses the past tense verbs (were), that’s where we used to be. Before Christ we were… and even when we were in that state, God. Because we are now “In Christ” there are now 3 realities about us. Spiritually we have been brought from death to life, and because of that Paul explains it this way: 1 – made alive, 2 – raised up, 3 – seated in the heavenly places. All 3 are “With Christ” 

1 – “Made us alive together with Christ.”

-First things first, we’ve already established that there’s not much someone’s who dead can do. Which means that needs to change! So we’re first brought to life! 

-So often when we talk about becoming a Christian we approach it as an add-on. “I tried all these other things, and then I tried Christianity and I liked it best.” We’re reminded here that Christianity isn’t something we can add on to our lives, it’s a complete and radical shift FROM death INTO life. That means that EVERYTHING changes from that moment on. One author stated “Christianity is not about becoming a nicer person, nor is it about starting a new religious routine. It is about becoming a new person.” (Tony Merida, 48) 

-At the very center of these things that we are “In Christ” is the reminder that over all of this is God’s grace. Grace is God’s unmerited favor, it’s the reminder that we couldn’t accomplish any of the things that God has done. It’s all because of him! Remember: what can a dead person do? Nothing! There’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation. It’s all grace, a free, undeserved gift. We’ll see this pop up again in the next section. God’s rich in mercy, and lavished his grace on us as his children. What else could we ever need?

2-“Raised us up with him.”

-After we’ve been brought to life, we are raised up with him. Because we are now “In Christ” we are with Christ in his resurrection. This term “raised” should remind us of Christ rising out of the grave. He has defeated sin and death so that we no longer need to be slaves to our flesh and passions. 

-Do you understand the implications of this? You don’t need to wallow in self-pity of misery anymore! Since you’re now in Christ, earth is literally the closest to hell you’ll ever be! 

-This idea of being “in him” can be hard to understand. A good way to think of it (albeit, on a MUCH less significant scale) is like the Olympics. 3 out of 4 years I don’t give a rip about swimming (more like 1 week every 4 years). But every time the Olympics come around, I become, or maybe became, obsessed with watching all the swimming events, largely because of a guy named Michael Phelps. Now: I am not a swimmer, I can barely make it from 1 side of the pool to the other, but Michael Phelps represents me and all of us at the Olympics, so we’re ALL pulling for him. We are all “in him.” As I mentioned, this is a far smaller scale because this doesn’t have eternal consequences. But just as we are all pulling for “our” athlete to win at the Olympics because he represents us, so are we brought together “In Christ” to participate in all that he accomplished. He did what we couldn’t so that we could celebrate with him. 

3-“And seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

-This is referring to Christ’s exultation. This is the final “In him” we’re made alive, raised up, and now seated WITH HIM, that is Christ. Spiritually we are seated with Christ in heaven, in our eternal home, where we will spend eternity with God. Just as Christ said on the cross “It is finished.” There’s nothing else we can do or need to do to change our position, spiritually. Christ has already accomplished it! 

-Once again, notice the tense of these verbs: PAST: MADE, RAISED, SEATED. It’s already happened! Yet we don’t experience that reality yet. This is where we have a tension. We live in this period between Christ’s comings, where we don’t yet see everything as it truly is. The war is over, but the battle wages on. This should make us long for the day when our spiritual reality matches our physical reality, but until that time we remain faithful. 

-Even studies/conversations about the end times are supposed to give us hope, not make us despondent. Here’s what EVERY person believes: Jesus is coming back! I once heard a pastor say “we’re not on the planning committee, we’re on the welcoming committee.” God didn’t tell us what would happen so that we would live in fear about whether or not we’re in the end times (spoiler alert, we are, and have been since Jesus ascended!), God told us what all of human history looks like from his perspective. Another spoiler alert, He wins! At the beginning of eternity He’s in the same spot He’s sitting now: on His throne. And guess who’s also sitting there with Him? Anyone in this room who’s “in Christ.” Nothing can change that.

-Now that we’ve seen the 3 spiritual realities because we are “In Christ” Paul continues on to the WHY question:

-“So that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

-The reason we are in Christ is so that God’s grace can be made manifest in and through all of us, for eternity. 

-Did any of you ever play show-and-tell growing up? The premise was simple: you bring in something you like to show people, and then tell them about it. The crazy thing is what God does for show & tell is: look at us! WE are God’s demonstration of grace and kindness to the world. This is why God extended his mercy and love to us, so that we could be a witness to the watching world.

That means we actually have a job to do: tell others what God has done! Throughout the Bible, the gospel message is compared to a light. What do you do with a light? You use it to extinguish the darkness! Think of the old song you learned: “This Little Light of Mine, I’m Gonna Let It Shine!” We DON’T hide it under a bushel, we let it shine! SO SHINE! Share with others what God has done in you and through you. Share your story of how God brought you from death into life, how his grace mercy and love transformed you and can transform anyone. On author stated it this way “No one is beyond the reach of God’s regenerating grace, and no one is beyond the need for God’s regenerating grace.” (Merida, 48)

This leads us to the final point:

  1. GRACE Through FAITH (8-10)

-Paul reminds us that all of these things that are true spiritually are true because of God’s grace. As we sing in the hymn Amazing Grace “’Twas grace that brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead us home.” Everything we have is because of God’s riches of grace. 

-God’s grace is what allows us to be saved. Saved from what? Saved from our “death in the trespasses and sins in which we once walked”

-Paul then describes the means by which we are saved, which is a gift of God’s grace: faith. 

Faith is believing in God and trusting in him. Belief + trust. 

-Think of a tightrope walker. Now I am deathly afraid of heights so even saying that phrase makes me queasy. But let’s imagine we see a tightrope walker go back and forth over the Grand Canyon. (I would ask the question: what kind of fool does it multiple times, but anyway…) We’ll say he’s the best tightrope walker in the world. Now one of those times he’s going over the Grand Canyon he brings someone from one side to the other on his back, and then walks up to you and asks if you’d want to go over with him. Would you? My response would be a quick ABSOLUTELY NO! I believe he could bring me with him, but I don’t trust him to actually do it. It only takes one slip, or me messing something up and we’re done. The wonderful thing about faith in God is he CAN’T and WON’T let us go. We have every reason to both believe and trust him. 

-“And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

-And because it’s God doing it, we can trust completely. Once again, what can a dead person do? Nothing! But God can even resurrect the dead! We read of him doing that physically in the Gospels, but he also does it spiritually. We need the reminder that there’s nothing we can do to be saved: it’s all God’s work, it’s all God’s gift to us.

–Ezek. 34 dry bones

-“not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

-Paul doubles down on the idea that we can’t save ourselves. There’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation. Think about that. Nothing. 

-Jonathan Edwards said it this way, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.” 

-This is freeing! It levels the playing field. If we added something to our salvation that made it possible we’d spend the rest of our lives comparing to those around us. But God doesn’t let us. Everything in salvation is a gift of God so that we can’t boast in anything except the cross: where we are all equal. None of us is any better than the other.

-Therfore, because it’s all a gift of grace, Paul can conclude:

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

-This word “workmanship” is one that means a work of art (poema poem). The NLT translates it as “masterpiece.” We’re the pinnacle of everything he’s done. We’re the Sistine Chapel of everything God has made! Just as God, when he created humans said it was VERY good. Now that he has re-created us by grace, it is VERY good! For those “In Christ” there have been 2 creations: physical life, and spiritual life. 

-Remember what we saw earlier about works not adding anything to our salvation? Now we see the purpose of those works. 

-One of the big statements of the Reformation was “faith alone.” But the Reformers refined that and said, “It is faith alone that justifies, but the faith that justifies is never alone.” So while the works are not the root of salvation, they are the fruit. 

-God has good works that we are to do. We are to live lives that are holy and blameless as Paul says in Eph. 1. Our works cannot add anything to our salvation, but once we are saved, we now demonstrate that new life BY our good works. 

-This often feels like a tension, and is where many of us end up sliding into legalism. We MUST obey and do these good works. The problem is when we correlate these good works as something added to our salvation, that they somehow make us more righteous and holy before God. Don’t forget: spiritually we are ALREADY seated with Christ in the heavenly places. ALREADY. That’s not changing! But that future reality of us being positionally in Christ must also be manifest in our present reality. 

John Newton, author of Amazing Grace who experienced a radical transformation because of Christ: “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be, yet by the grace of God I am what I am.” 

-Just to remind us that it is all God’s grace, Paul says the good works we’re called to do were prepared by God beforehand. Before what? As he says in Eph. 1:4, “before the foundation of the world.” God not only sovereignly orchestrates our salvation, but the demonstration of that salvation in our lives today. That demonstration is what Paul says we are to walk in. This brings this whole section to a close, as the bookend to the opening verses: We once walked in death, but God in his mercy saved us and brought us back to life. 

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by mikethestrand on September 11, 2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on September 11, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/09/11/ephesians-21-10-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 14 – 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.

-Why do you believe in Jesus as the Savior of the world? Have you ever given thought to reasons or rationale for believing in Him, and believing that we have a rational faith that makes sense of the world and our lives? 

-Dr. Groothius in Seminary: “the defence of Christianity is objectively true, compellingly rational, and pertinent to the whole of life. I have dedicated my entire adult life to that defending that claim.”

-Because Christianity is defensible, it gives us a reason to have hope when the world around us is full of chaos.

-Hopelessness is seen all around us today, deaths of despair, upcoming generation despondent about climate change, wars taking place in Europe for the first time since WW2, friendship is on the decline

-When do you tend to feel hopeless about the world around us? When you feel that way, do you take your thoughts to God, or do you start to complain about how unfair life is and either ignore or blame God for your current state of affairs?

-When I feel that way, I need to go back and remind myself why things are this way, remind myself who God is, and ultimately speak the truth to myself!

READ/PRAY

  1. The Unbelief of the Fool (1-4)

-Not something you should run around referring to people as! Hebrew has a few words that we translate as fool, and all of them refer to something that is morally inferior, not intellectually inferior.

-Not saying this person is dumb, instead they’re refusing to acknowledge that there is a moral standard they aren’t matching up to, which the rest of the verse goes on to talk about

-However, there is a base level that true intellectual pursuit can’t be found apart from God. If the pursuit of intelligence is meant to lead to the discover of the truth, and the source of everything (including truth) is God Himself, how can someone legitimately pursue intelligence apart from God? While the Hebrew denotes moral inferiority, I don’t think this leaves out intellectual inferiority. But how can this be, when some of the “smartest” people in the world are avowed atheists?

-One of the things that has fascinated me in the past is the entire University system was initially conceived as centering around theology, which was referred to as the “queen of the sciences” Theology was the centering point around which everything else flowed, hence a uni (1) versity

-Paul picks up on and expands this idea in Rom 1:22-23: 

-Mere intellectual pursuit isn’t enough! It will point to, reveal, demonstrate God, but just pursuing more smarts is a pointless aim unless it finds it’s fulfilment in the worship of God, talked about this idea in the Spring when we looked at the image of God. We, as sinners, participate in the great exchange, where instead of worshipping the Creator God, we worship the creation, that is God’s definition of foolishness!

-Now, notice where the fool says this: in his heart, Lit. “No God”

-He has convinced himself (or herself), that’s where Romans says this is self-deception. In Ecclesiastes we’re reminded that God has placed eternity in our hearts, which is where humans have an innate desire for something more or bigger than themselves. 

-If you haven’t heard/read the statistics, the biggest growth in religion is “nones” (not nuns), but what’s fascinating is if you dig a little further into the research, something like 40% of the self-identified “nones” believe in the God of the Bible. So they’re refusing to identify with a specific religious identity, but they still believe in God. How have we gotten to the point of separating these 2 things out? I don’t get how you believe the God of the Bible, but you’re not a Christian.

-When I was in college, it was really cool to say “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.” I get what you’re trying to say, but it’s more accurate to say it’s a religion AND a relationship! I heard a story onetime of a professor who has a sign that he brings to every class, on one side is the phrase “I don’t know” on the other side is the phrase “both/and”

-I even saw this week, Chris Pratt (Star Lord, Jurassic Park, Parks & Rec) clarified that he’s not a religious person because religion is all about oppression, but he is a Christian.

-Part of the challenge is you can’t learn these things the natural way we learn, just studying more or reading more or being taught more, the Bible says apart from a transformed heart, these things will continue to appear foolish to people.

–1 Cor. 2:14 these things are spiritually discerned, AKA you can’t figure out who God is just by looking at the world He made. It points to Him, but it doesn’t contain Him, He is not constrained by or the same as His creation. 

-Then look at what this denial about God leads to: corruption and abominable deeds.

-A well-known picture of this is seen in the book many of you have heard about or read: the Lord of the flies. A group of young boys escape England during a war but the plane carrying them crashes on an uninhabited island where their attempts to govern themselves lead to death, destruction and chaos. That’s a great picture of what happens apart from God sovereignly guiding things – who cares what God says if I’m my own god? That’s where this next verse is so funny!

-The Lord looks down.

-How do you look at an ant? Sitting in our driveway, oh weird! Look at them all!

-One of the fascinating things throughout the Bible is how God responds to those who think of themselves as being something great. In Gen. 11:5, the Tower of Babel, they planned to build a tower so high it would reach to the heavens and make them gods: “The Lord came down”, Nebuchadnezzar in Dan. 4, Psalm 2 the kings of the land make themselves great and God laughs!

-Atheists act as if they’re the intellectual gods, they have arrived, have all the answers, and God both intellectually and literally has to look down, and what does he see?

-A lack of understanding, corruption, no one doing any good, not even one.

-It makes me think of another story in Genesis where Abraham is let in on a secret by the Lord to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah where his nephew Lot lived. 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10. This is literally why God sent Jesus, because there is no one who does good.

-That’s the argument Paul makes in Rom. 3:10-12. None of us are off the hook! We either deep down in our hearts believe there is no God, or we act as if there is no God and refuse to admit that we need Him. That’s where David will go on:

-No knowledge

-Claiming knowledge, they refuse to follow knowledge by not calling on the Maker of everything they study. Again, they are acting or assuming superiority to God, this is where atheism is so dangerous! 

-So how do you think God should respond?

  • God’s Response (5-7)

-Lit. “They feared a fear”

-Despite not acknowledging him, they live in fear, think of how difficult it would be to live without certainty, what reason or purpose would there be to live if there wasn’t an end goal to live for? As you talk to people and ask them how certain they are about their beliefs, if you keep pushing don’t get you to a low-level sense of fear about everything? How many of us can guarantee anything? 

-Guy from high school who said he’d just wait until he’s on his deathbed to hurry up and say a prayer and then be fine, but what if that’s not how he dies?

-Story from Spurgeon about atheist, ship going down, stabbed in town, writes about “religious experiences”

-If the fools are opposed to God, who does God side with? 2 words used to describe them here: righteous and poor. Those are the ones that God will be a refuge for

-Jesus says something similar in the beatitudes: Matt. 5:3 poor in Spirit will have the kingdom of heaven. This is the paradox of the way God has ordered the world. It doesn’t make sense to the natural mind, it contradicts the way our flesh thinks we should operate and behave. 

-Think of some of the other things Jesus said: first shall be last, whoever wants to be greatest must become the least, you’re blessed when you’re persecuted. Do any of those things sound like the way the world should work?

-If we want trust success and true flourishing, it means that we must acknowledge that God is God and we are not! It means we need to come to the end of ourselves, admit that we too often try to live as fools and instead become fools to the world.

-It is by being worldly foolish that God will serve as our refuge

-We don’t often need a refuge today, our world is at times far too safe! Everywhere we go we’re in a refuge: car, house, work. It wasn’t always like that, and any travel often meant you were dependent on someone else’s hospitality to act as a refuge for you. When we come to God as our refuge, we are completely safe, and nothing, not even the most formidable army in the world can fight against God. So we need to trust Him!

-That’s where David ends this prayer in vs. 7:

-Salvation

-Notice the certainty of this salvation, not if, when. Micah reminded us last week that we can and should turn to God in the midst of our struggles and pain because we know that God will restore our fortunes. It’s not if, it’s when! So if you are struggling, if you are hurting, bring it to God and trust that God will restore your fortunes. HOWEVER, it might not be on this side of heaven. God doesn’t guarantee us health and wealth here, but when we’re with Him, all those things that are broken are done.

-Spurgeon: “On earth are atheists many, in hell there is not any.”

-God has revealed himself in creation, but God most manifestly shows Himself in the cross. The real crux of apologetics has to answer: what do you do with Jesus?

-No serious historical scholar doubts that there was a Jesus who made some pretty big waves in the first century. The only question becomes, how do you respond to Jesus, and where do you find out more about Him?

  • Are You a Fool?

– Or maybe another way to ask this question is who views you as a fool, God or the world? Or perhaps even if you’re not a practicing atheist, are you a practical atheist, living and operating as if God doesn’t exist and you don’t need Him?

-I’ve been getting some interesting apologetic questions since I moved here, and wanted to just give you all a really brief introduction to some of these questions to help you begin to understand why we can and should believe in Christianity as reliable and defensible as the one true faith in the world. 2 parts: first the existence of God, second the existence and purpose of Jesus. 

-Doubt is the natural state, it’s completely normal to have doubts and questions about God, but don’t just stop there! Since God is the source of all truth, He stand up to your scrutiny, and believe it or not, there are answers to every question I’ve ever had, heard, been asked, or read about whether or not God is real and can exist. Church, we don’t need to view faith and science or faith and reason as opposed to each other! The creation points to God! We can learn about God from both science and faith! We need more Christians who take seriously the Bible and seriously their scientific pursuit! 

-Wayne Grudem, in his Systematic Theology (171-172) summarizes the 4 primary arguments for the existence of God: cosmological, teleological, ontological, moral.

-1. Cosmological. Nothing exists by itself. Everything that exists is dependent on something else to be. If everything in the universe must have a cause, then the universe itself must have a cause. I remember learning about the big bang in middle school, and then joking that I believed in the big bang: God said it and bang there it was! But God could have used a “big bang” as His chosen means of creating the universe! I’ll leave it at that, if you want to talk further about that, or want more resources about that email me!

-2. Teleological this is taken from the Greek word “telos” which means purpose. Think of all the incredible ways we see the purpose around us. The moon creates tides and rhythms, our planet is the perfect distance away from the sun to provide life giving nutrients, the water cycles reproduces itself to give us what we need. The best example I’ve heard of this argument is like a watch (old school watch, not like my fancy new Apple Watch!) If you were to stumble across a watch would you be amazed at what the ocean created by the waves pounding against the sand, or would you think someone dropped their watch? Think of all the various components that make up our bodies, do you think it was a complete accident?

-3. Ontological this one gets to some of the intellectual discussions people like to have. Has been a philosophical conversation since the 11th Century. Asks the question: what is the greatest being that can possibly be imagined? Then, if you can come up with that being, to exist is greater than not existing, so intellectually you’re at God! If you want to dig further, again email me!

-4. Moral: why do we have things that are considered good and bad? Is it just cultural? Is is just upbringing? This argument says what justification can there be for there being morality in the world? Why is Mother Theresa lauded as an example to the world, while Adolf Hitler conjures up hatred and anger? 

-Liar, lunatic, Lord, legend.

CS Lewis on Jesus:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

-Maybe all these ideas came about after Jesus lived, and then became a legend like King Arthur. 

-More than I have time for, but this is where it’s worth to note all the historical evidence we have for the validity of the NT

–Lewis again: “Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced that whatever else the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends. From an imaginative point of view they are clumsy, they don’t work up to things properly. Most of the life of Jesus is totally unknown to us, as is the life of anyone else who lived at that time, and no people building up a legend would allow that to be so. Apart from bits of the Platonic dialogues, there is no conversation that I know of in ancient literature like the Fourth Gospel. There is nothing, even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence.”

-We can believe that Christianity is objectively true, compellingly rational, and pertinent to the whole of life

-Study these things, but also share your story of what God has done in your life. Even if someone doesn’t believe the apologetic arguments, they can’t argue with a changed life, so refuse to live like an atheist and demonstrate that you believe in God, it will transform every aspect of your life

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by mikethestrand on July 3, 2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon, Theology

Posted by mikethestrand on July 3, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/07/03/psalm-14-sermon-manuscript/

Gospel Rooted Growth – 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.

James 4:1-10

-Finally reached the end of this series! I hope it’s been encouraging to you, and a helpful reminder as far as what is it we need to focus on as a church, the non-negotiables that need to determine what we spend our time and money towards, and how we’re going to be moving forward together as a church. 

-Started with the mission of making and maturing disciples of Jesus. This is what sets the church apart from every other group, organization, or entity in the world. There are lots of other organizations doing lots of great work, but there’s only 1 group called to make disciples. That must be at the forefront of everything we do!

-Then we saw the need to by glorifying God. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism begins: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We are created to glorify someone/something, if we glorify something other than God it’s idolatry and leads to death.

-This need to glorify God means we need to lead the gospel permeate into everything we do, so we looked at gospel centered worship. All of our lives are meant to worship God, so the gospel needs to be both explicit and implicit in our lives, and in our gathered worship.

-We also need to be a gospel shaped community, we looked at Gal. 5 with the need to lovingly care for each other and live out the fruit of the Spirit instead of the works of the flesh.

-This idea continues as we join with God’s mission to seek and save the lost. The church needs to embrace being the church and allow the gospel to shape both our gathering and our scattering. But the ultimate goal has never changed: God’s people in God’s place serving under God’s perfect rule and reign. Right now we already serve as an embassy where we serve a different king than the world. We do our best to represent that king and kingdom. Read this this week: 

-“The ambassador represents the message of the King, the methods of the King, and the character of the King.” (accelerate, 14)

-Let’s think about this for a minute. That ambassador language is taken from 2 Cor. 5 “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” 

3 aspects: message, methods, character. The message is the gospel, the good news of what Christ has done by entering into human history, dying on the cross, then rising again on the third day which changes everything about our future. That needs to be on the tip of our tongues and forefront of our minds for our whole lives.

-The methods are what I love describing as the “upside down way.” Acts 17:6 the early church is accused of “turning the world upside down.” Isn’t that exactly what Jesus coming does? Instead of being served we’re to serve others, instead of lording over people our status, we’re to act humbly. In our culture humility is a virtue, in the 1st century it’s a vice! God’s ways look counterintuitive to our fleshly human minds, but they’re the only way to find true, lasting life.

-The character. Brothers and sisters, we are literally commanded to look like God. “Be holy as I am holy.” (Lev. 19:2, 1 Peter 1:16) Have you ever thought of what that looks like? Being just as perfect as God? Don’t just run to “I’m not God” actually think about that for a minute.

-One characteristic about God I’ve been trying to meditate on recently is “draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” When I am confronted with a sinful situation in my life or heart, I’m supposed to use that to run TO God not AWAY from God. So if we’re supposed to act like God, shouldn’t we be a welcome place for someone to run to when they’re confronted with their sin? Why do we act surprised when sinners sin? 

-Religion: “I messed up. Dad’s gonna kill me!” Gospel: “I messed up. I need to call Dad.”

READ/PRAY (pg. 587)

-Different message, intentionally today! I don’t like using a text as a springboard, but I think James lays a great foundation to talk through what I mean when I talk about gospel rooted growth, but then I’m going to spend the bulk of today on how to apply these truths using 2 of the most helpful books on sanctification (becoming holy) I’ve found: Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands and How People Change. The first is in the library, the second will be there tomorrow.

  1. The Tensions of This World (1-4)

-The first step in any hope for growth is recognizing there is a problem! 

-I don’t know if any of you had this experience, but I had no clue how truly selfish I was until I got married! I thought I was a fairly patient, understanding person until I actually had to be accountable to someone for money, time, location!

-The problem for all of us is we are sinners, which means we are far far worse than we would ever imagine! We are sinners down to our core. This is why we need the gospel message, which means because of Christ we are far more loved than we could ever dream.

-James says even our passions are suspect! What is it that you most deeply think you want? Because if it’s anything other than life with Christ, you’re going to be severely disappointed. Think of the last time you got a new (at least to you) vehicle. You promise yourself that it will be different this time – cleaned every week, meticulously maintained, then what happens? Lasts for maybe a month! You can’t change you!

-Because of sin, we are our own worst enemy, and by giving in to the way the world operates, we put ourselves at war with God. Every time we sin we are breaking at least 2 commandments: the 1st one (no other gods) and then whichever of the next commandments we also broke. This is why worship is so important: we all worship someone or something, and sin has misplaced our worship. 1-3: no other gods, no other images, God’s name in vain (dishonor Him)

-4 Sabbath – my time is more important than God’s time, and I have no limits

-5 honor parents – my will is higher than God’s, and I don’t need authority in my life

-6 Do not murder – others exist for me, if I am not treated as the highest authority, I will seek revenge

-7 No adultery – my pleasure are more important than others, even God’s law

-8 Do not steal – I need more things to be satisfied instead of God

-9 No lying – my image is more important than someone else’s image

-10 do not covet – I similar to 7, my needs/desires are more important than others and I can’t celebrate when someone else is blessed.

-Prayer can help you do this! ACTS: by the time you get to “supplication” you’ll actually start to be praying for those needs according to God’s will.

-We need to treat sin as it really is: a cancer that spreads into our whole bodies affecting everything we do. John Owen: be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.

-So what do we do about that? This is where How People Change is so helpful! 

-Using Jer. 17:5-10 as a picture: heat, thorns, cross, fruit. I’ll let you go read the passage on your own time, but I’ll walk through this illustration to help you think through what this looks like in your life.

-Heat: situations that God brings into your life, all of us have things that happen to us each and every day. The way God works in us is our responses to the “heat” that comes into our lives. The Bible is full of examples of this! The Israelites, the kings, the prophets, the apostles. The Bible accounts how people responded to many of these situations! The way we respond to these situations reveal exactly what’s in our heart! Initially, our fleshly response leads to thorns.

-Thorns: these would be responses that manifest our sinful tendencies, and what kinds of things have you seen that come out when you respond to situations sinfully? These thorns are areas that God allows for us to see the ways our sin so easily entangles us.

-The authors have a list of typical ways people respond with thorns, I’ll just pick a couple and let you go read the rest.

–Deny, avoid, escape: how many of us refuse to admit where we’re struggling or hurting? We put on the “good Christian” face, but inside we’re scared to admit we’re struggling to keep our head above water. Or maybe you’ve found ways to numb the difficulties you’re feeling, either with working too many hours, or eating too much food, or drinking too much. Whatever it is, it allows you to run from facing your thorns head on. 

–Magnify, expand, catastrophize: maybe you view your entire life through a negative lens. No one else could ever truly understand your difficulties, no one else carries the same burden you carry, nor do you believe anyone else would truly care enough to let them in. Maybe it’s even giving into 1 story that has shaped the way you view literally everything!

–Self-excusing self-righteousness: instead of actively killing our sin, we see our sin, but then blame other people for it and refuse to acknowledge it. This is most often manifested as children start to grow up and become independent. Your parent’s end up becoming the punching bag for all your issues because they clearly didn’t understand you as well as they should have. I could go on with these ideas, but you get the point! The thing to remember is: God will allow thorns to expose our sin.

-So what do we do? We run to God!

  • The Grace of God (5-6)

-God’s grace is sufficient. Grace is described as “the thick rod of rebar that courses through the concrete of the biblical story.” (Instruments, 32)

-The very moment where we’re tempted to turn around and run away from God, the moment when we feel most distant, most disconnected, most afraid of Him, is the moment where He is most near. It’s at that moment when we finally start to realize that we need His grace. Lewis: “pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Spurgeon: “I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages.”

-Leads us back to the need to bring everything to the cross.

-Cross:

-The cross means we have a brand new way of living (because of God’s grace) that wasn’t available to us before God saved us. This idea is most clearly demonstrated in:

-Gal. 2:20 This new life is signified with baptism, we die as our old selves and rise as Christ. Not an improved person, a brand new one! I have been crucified (saved) Christ lives in me (present tense) The life I live in the body (ability to live a new life daily)

-This is how we now have the ability to live a changed life! All the excuses we once had are now pointless and useless. Because of the cross, we can own up to the times we fall short, which leads instead of thorns to:

-Fruit: lasting heart change instead of merely external obedience is only possible because the gospel is taking root in our lives.

-ILLUS: staple an apple to a dead branch. Does this apple have any hope of continuing to grow? This is what happens when we try to force obedience without a transformed heart. With my kids! Until God saves them, this is what I’m going to be doing (doesn’t mean it’s bad for parenting, but as they grow I need to continue going for the heart, not the externals)

-This is where we all have the need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. You need God’s grace today just as much as you did yesterday, and you’ll need God’s grace tomorrow just as much as you’ll need it today.

-However, we often forget that we need the gospel in our lives today. We have a tendency to view the gospel past tense (were saved) and future tense (will be glorified) but the gospel is also the means by which we can have lasting fruit. And once again, we need to remember this needs to be done in the context of the church. James is written to a church to help them live out these truths. Galatians is written to a church to help them live out these truths. Actually the NT is written FOR THE CHURCH to live out and embody gospel rooted growth.

-So how do we do that together? I’m glad you asked!

  • Humble Repentance (7-10)

-Submit to God: don’t puff yourself up, allow Him to work in you.

-Resist the devil: we can actually do that now! Before we had no hope of defeating his temptations, but now we can!

-Watch your life and belief: life: “cleanse your hands” belief: “purify your hearts”

9 – how do you respond when you’re made aware of thorns in your life?

-“God uses the instrument of His Word, delivered by human preachers and applied by the Spirit, to call his people to repentance.” ESV Expositors

-Every revival in church history began with repentance!

-How do we seek repentance together? First we need each other!

-Heb. 3:12-13. Love, know, speak, do from Instruments

  1. Love

-Christ’s love in us, which compels us as believers (2 Cor. 5:14-15), we have a new way of treating others, we are actually called to love them, even our enemies! That’s where love is described by Jesus as the last apologetic, the way the world knows if we’re Christians. 

-“If there had been no fall, if we had never sinned, we would still need help because we are human.” (Instruments, 41)

-Get up in each other’s business! We act as if we can’t have deep, lasting relationships, but that’s exactly what we need! If we are only known 99% we’re not actually known! This leads us to:

  • Know

-Ask questions, don’t assume you know everything that’s going on.

-Need honesty, both sides: look in the mirror before the other (log vs. speck)

-Try to actually understand the other person. How many arguments take place because you don’t actually understand what the other person is saying?

-Or let’s think about this another way, go to the Dr but you’re dishonest about your symptoms, will the medicine he prescribes be effective? In order to deal with the cancerous sin, we need to use the right medicine, it is the gospel, but it’s applied in different ways.

  • Speak

-Speak the truth in love. What do we speak? “The word of Christ” (Col. 3:16)

-Don’t just confront your preferences, confront where someone is out of line with what the Bible commands! AKA, extend grace to others and assume the best. Even in confronting, you can do it in a way that honors and assumes the best of someone else! 

-Podcast this week, “I heard you saw ____ this week and I’m just wondering if you meant that, why you said that, and how that aligns with Scripture?”

  • Do

-Continue living in relationship with them. This is going to need to happen again and again until Christ returns.

-Accountability. Do people know what’s really going on in your heart? When you are demonstrating thorns instead of fruit, who will tell you?

-Long term hope for us: 

-a healthy church that intentionally looks to welcome people in 

-disciples them on what a healthy church looks like and how it operates (steeped in God’s grace)

-and sends them out, every week, but also:

-Church planting. I found documents from 2008 when I got here that said “South Suburban needs to remain committed to church planting,” and I completely agree!

-Church revitalization. Until Christ returns, church’s are going to need help to get healthy. How can we help other churches be healthy? When one church catches fire for the Lord, it raises the temperature of every other church around them.

-Pastoral training. Because of my commitment to the local church, I’m convinced the best place to train pastors is, guess where? Partner with seminaries to help train new pastors.

-Today is multiplication Sunday in our district. We have an EFCA church plant coming into Eagan, Lord willing this fall! What can we do to help them be a healthy church that’s pursuing God’s kingdom together?

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by mikethestrand on June 5, 2022  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon, Theology, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on June 5, 2022

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2022/06/05/gospel-rooted-growth-sermon-manuscript/

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