Mark 16:1-8 – Sermon Manuscript

The Resurrection of the Son of God

Mark 16:1-8

-We’ve become so used to bad news (almost to the point that when you hear the word “news” you don’t even need to say it’s bad). But what about those times when there’s good news? How do you respond then?

-Think of the response after WW2, people flooding the streets. Or how people respond after a baby’s born. Or that dreaded day when someone who recently turned 16 gets their driver’s license (sometimes I wonder if it’s even safe for me to be out there)

-Today we’re going to look at how we should respond to good news, and not just good news, but the best news ever because it changes everything about our lives.

READ/PRAY

Anointing the Body (1-4)

-We ended last week hearing what happened to Jesus’ body. Joseph of Arimathea was given permission to take down the body and put it in a tomb, so he did as quickly as they could before Sabbath began.

-Whole week was centered around the practice of the Sabbath, no one did anything that day, it was illegal! That’s why Joseph was so adamant about getting Jesus’ body down before Saturday.

-Anyone remember the names of the women I told you to keep in mind for this week? No peeking! 2 Marys. Today’s text begins with 2 Marys

-Anointing the body was a typical practice in the 1^st cent. You’ve probably seen what Egyptians did with bodies before, that’s where mummies came from. Jews didn’t embalm the dead like that, they allowed nature to take its’ course. The spices were used to cover the smell, and once the flesh was taken care of the bones would be placed in a box (similar to what we do with cremation today). This was a way to continue honoring those who have died.

-The women had waited as long as they needed, Sabbath is done, so they’re now able to anoint Jesus’ body. I don’t always have the best memory, but do you think they’d have forgotten where one of their best friends was buried?

-One of the evidences given against the resurrection was the disciples forgot where Jesus was buried. Do you really think in 36 hours they would have forgotten where the tomb was?

-Not only would that have been completely narrow minded, but it would have been incredibly easy to discredit the news the disciples were sharing. On top of all that, remember what Mark told us about Joseph just a few verses ago. “A respected member of the council.” If you’ve ever driven by a graveyard and seen those giant tomb stones that stand out above the rest, that would have been like Joseph’s tomb. Prime tomb in the prime location that everyone would know about. Hard to miss!

-Very early, but still bright enough to see, on the first day of the week.

-They didn’t have access to electricity like we do, no flashlights or light switches to go out whenever they wanted. They were thinking of most things, but not everything. They didn’t think through how they would get access to Jesus’ body.

-Makes sense! If you’d hung your whole hopes on 1 person who was just killed do you think you’d be all there mentally? Even if it wasn’t your whole hopes, it’s still a big loss that throws everything else in your life off. Emotions are all over the place. Why would we expect people to act any differently?

-I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but when people get stretched emotionally, there’s a tendency to revert back to your old self. Like this past week if you spent any time with family, you probably felt yourself reverting back to who you were in high school (whether that’s good or bad is up to you!) Similarly here, these Marys had been stretched to the breaking point, so instead of trusting in Jesus, even what He had explicitly told them, they reverted back to unbelief, almost as if they didn’t spend years with him learning from Him!

-After all this questioning, they finally get to the tomb, and the stone in front of it had been rolled back. Then look at how Mark describes it “very large.” That would have made more sense a couple sentences ago! But anyway, they’re able to access Jesus’ body, but after they enter the tomb:

Alarm at the Lack of a Body (5-8)

-Remember, this is a big cave cut out of a rock, so maybe someone else had come to anoint the body as well. Joseph could have come, maybe another one of the disciples wanted to pay their respects. But instead they find: a young man dressed in a white robe. If you go to a graveyard, what do you expect to find? Hopefully no one who’s alive!

-Throughout the Bible we see the way people react to seeing someone who’s sent from God: scared out of their minds!

-Contrary to popular belief: angels aren’t cute little cherubs, none that we know of are named Clarence, a bell doesn’t ring when they get their wings, and trust me, you don’t want to be touched by any angels.

-This is the time of year where we talk about angels a LOT! We don’t often pay much attention to them the rest of the year, though. Think of the way all the people during the Christmas story respond: Zechariah responds in disbelief, Mary worries something is wrong but still chooses to obey, shepherds are (in the words of Linus from Charlie Brown) “sore afraid” To see something as completely holy, unstained by sin as an angel is terrifying! And these Marys know it!

-Thankfully, the angel tells them: Don’t worry, it’s ok! Let me tell you the gospel message: Jesus was crucified, but He rose! He’s not here! So you should go tell other people what happened.

-Think of how Mark started this book: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And here at the end we have the angel summarizing the whole thing: you’re looking for Jesus, let’s think about what happened to Him.

-But then they are also given a job to do: telling other disciples, specifically Peter. Why do you think Peter was called out specifically by name? What sets Peter apart from everyone else?

-Think back a few weeks ago now when Herb Bloomquist was here and preached on the trial of Jesus. Do you remember what Peter did that last night? He denied Jesus three times, and after the third time, Luke tells us Jesus looked straight at Peter, and Peter remembered what Jesus had told him just a few hours earlier.

-This story is meant to give the rest of us hope. All of His disciples abandoned Jesus, but 2 in were worse than the others: Judas and Peter. Have you ever thought of how terrible the people Jesus chose were in following Him? Literally no one was left on the last night! They were too afraid, too worried about the worldly ways of living that they fled. This tells us that there’s hope for reconciliation and restoration even after betrayal. This tells us that anyone can be brought into God’s family.

-Why don’t they tell anyone else? The angel gave them 1 job, and Mark leaves us hanging with them refusing to obey that 1 command.

-Won’t be believed, waiting to see if they were misled, distrust of this stranger, maybe they themselves refused to believe what they saw! Before we get to the line and the note in your Bible, I think this the correct place to stop our study of Mark. Throughout this book, Mark has been trying to get us (the readers) to respond to the question: who is Jesus? This ending leaves the story unresolved, because we should ask ourselves: how should we respond to this story? What is the proper response to a man rising from the dead? We’ll get there in just a minute, but before we do I want us to think through the question:

-Why do we believe this happened?

1-No body was ever produced. This would have to be the worst hoax in history if Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead. It wouldn’t have been hard to just pull out the body and belittle this upstart little group who claimed to worship someone who people had seen crucified during the busiest time of the year (New Years/Christmas on the interstate) But they couldn’t, and still can’t!

2-Radical change in the disciples. They fled in fear on the last night, but just a couple months later, the same council that condemned Jesus to death holds no power over them. Why the change? Something must have confirmed what they’d been taught! Maybe seeing the resurrected Jesus?

3-Changing in day of worship. Did you notice the in vs. 2 is said “on the first day of the week.” That would be Sunday! But since Israel had been taken out of slavery they’d worshipped on Saturday. Why do you think suddenly this group of people started meeting for worship on Sunday instead of Saturday? Something significant must have happened that would make them throw out over a millennia of tradition, like maybe someone rising from the dead on that day!

4-Lastly, how would someone account for the transformation in Paul and James (Jesus’ brother). We’ve seen Jesus’ family appear a couple times in Mark, and every time they have they’ve tried to discredit Jesus. Yet in the book of Acts, the leader of the church in Jerusalem is James, Jesus half-brother. That’s the biggest reason for me! I have siblings! I don’t believe everything they tell me. James saw something in his brother that made him change his mind.

Excurses: Textual Variants (9-20)

-What do we do with the note in our Bibles? Is everything we just read a lie meant to trick us?

-As we continue uncovering new texts we find older and older evidence that solidify what we have in our Bibles. The Dead Sea Scrolls revolutionized biblical studies, and confirmed that the Bibles we have are correct.

-Nothing in this section is revolutionary or only found here. We have 3 other Gospels telling the same story that tell the exact same story that is contained here. But it’s most likely not written by Mark, and most likely not what God wanted us to have in Mark’s Gospel.

-The translations we have today (note: it is a translation. Jesus didn’t speak English), these translations are trying to communicate God’s words to us in a way we can understand, which is a beautiful gift. Let me tell you, Greek isn’t easy to read! Unfortunately, it’s no longer Greek to me, but it took literal years of my life in order to be able to read and understand the Bible in the original languages (I don’t know how many hours I spent trying to memorize vocab).

-We have more translations than we know what to do with, and all of them will give us notes to help us know and understand God’s message to us today. The problem becomes when we build entire theologies out of these passages that most likely weren’t in the original book Mark wrote. Look at vs. 18. That happened to Paul, but isn’t something that should be practiced today, but some churches hold regular snake handlings to “prove” they’re Christians. Don’t build any theologies or practices from these texts! I’ll talk a little more about this in Sermon Scraps tomorrow,

-What does this mean for us today? Why does the death of a Jewish man 2,000 years ago have implications for us now?

-As the leader goes, so goes the nation. 1 man’s sin led to death, 1 man’s death leads to life (Rom. 5:12) Think of the way we talk after a Viking’s game. WE lost last week. OUR quarterback is now mobile (sorry Cooper’s daddy). Somewhere we all view ourselves as part of a group. The question is which spiritual group are we a part of: Adam or the second Adam, Jesus? Whose family are you a part of, and which family do you demonstrate that you’re a part of in the way you live?

-I remember reading an article years ago where a dad would tell his kids every day they left for school “remember whose you are!” At one point, another parent heard them and tried to correct him “don’t you mean remember WHO you are?” Doesn’t matter who we, it matters GREATLY whose we are! If we’re a part of Jesus’ family, we’ll lack nothing.

-The way I’ve often shared this is all of life is who you know. Who you know can get you jobs, connections, vacations, money, even eternity is literally dependent on who you know. So when you see Jesus face to face, will He know you? The way we show whose family we’re in is by living a life that is true, beautiful, and good.

-How do we model lives that are true, beautiful, and good?

-Podcast this week talking about this very concept. We need to grow in hospitality. Heb. 13:2, 1 Peter 4:9, Rom. 12:13 all command us to show hospitality to others. How do we do that?

-We need to commit to being table people (appropriate for Thanksgiving weekend!)

-Think of God’s first command to Adam & Eve (if you’ve been in Micah’s class, the Adamic covenant). They were to fill the earth and subdue it, and eat of any tree except one. The Fall comes about by eating.

-Abraham, when God comes to him in Gen. 18, prepares food to eat with God.

-Throughout the OT the way God’s people celebrate and remember God’s work in their lives is by feasting (eating)

-I went to a conference right before the twins were born walking through Exodus, fascinating story of God’s covenant with Israel in 24:22 “They [elders, Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu] beheld God, and ate and drank.” God invites His people to eat with Him.

-The Last Supper is a meal, eating with His disciples, serving as a reminder of Jesus’ death on their behalf. That practice continues down to us today: we regularly eat and drink to celebrate and remember God’s work in our lives.

-And then what does Jesus say during that last meal? Mark 14:25 “Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

-We are commanded to be hospitable throughout the Bible, I would argue the way you demonstrate you’re hospitable is by inviting people to your table. By building a bigger table, you invite people in so that they can eat and drink of the Lord’s table at church (signifying that they’re now a part of the people of Jesus), which will find its final fulfillment after Jesus returns when we will have the biggest and greatest feast you could ever dream of!

-Are you hospitable? Are you regularly inviting people to your table because Jesus has invited you to His table? Jesus even tells us to invite those who can’t repay us to our tables! Do you long for the day when you will table with the Lord in the new heavens and the new earth?

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by mikethestrand on November 26, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on November 26, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/11/26/mark-161-8-sermon-manuscript/

Mark 15:21-47 – Sermon Manuscript

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

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

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

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

READ/PRAY (pg. 497)

Derision Against Jesus (21-32)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Brought him outside the city (Golgotha)

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Took place at the third hour (9 AM)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Declaration of Jesus (33-39)

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

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

-Listen to some of the language from this. SLIDE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Depositing Jesus’ Body (40-47)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Stone used to prevent grave robbers or wild animals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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by mikethestrand on November 19, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, History, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on November 19, 2023

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

Mark 15:1-20 Sermon Manuscript

-What do we do with sin? There has to be some way of dealing with it, fixing it, addressing the problems we see in the world.

-I’ve never talked to anyone who thinks everything is going great in the world. Wars, rumors of wars, death, sickness, political polarization. Car breaking down, getting a poor evaluation at work, or abruptly losing a job.

-As Christians, we have what I would argue is the most complete understanding of why there are so many problems in the world around us: sin. Everything is broken, down to our cells producing cancer. Did you know that if you live long enough, cancer is an inevitability because even our DNA decays. But what’s crazy about that is Christians believe in what we call “good news.” Yes, the world is completely broken, but there’s a solution.

-In order to deal with the problem of sin, the Creator of the universe came to earth and lived a perfect life, then He died in our place to deal with all the penalties for sin which now means there is hope! Where there once was just wishful thinking, now our hope has a name and a purpose. But at the core of it is this idea of replacement.

-In many cases, we don’t want to be replaced! I remember a call from a boss at my first job out of college where I was going to be pulled from my role to be replaced by someone else because I wasn’t up to snuff.

-But in this case, replacement is the only way for sin to be dealt with. None of us are good enough (perfect) to bear the penalty for our sins. We require a replacement, and that was promised from God all the way back in Gen. 3. But Jesus being the replacement for the world begins with the replacement of 1 man.

READ/PRAY (pg. 497)

Interrogation (1-5)

-After holding the fake trial overnight, things took a different turn today. Why wait until morning?

-Roman trials all started at sunrise so they could break in the later morning for their leisure activities. This shows us why last night was so critical for the chief priests to rush through their trial so they didn’t miss being the first in line the next morning to have their Jesus problem dealt with.

-Theme of bounding (divine passive: 9:31, 10:33, 14:21, 41)

-Look at all the ways Jesus has talked about this up to this point. As you read it, it sounds like Jesus is the passive recipient of all these events. But don’t forget: who’s the Lord of the universe? Who created everything? Who upholds everything by His might? Do you think He is passively sitting back and questioning what’s happening to Him? Absolutely not! He’s in complete control of everything that has happened at each moment of His life. In John’s account of Jesus interaction with Him, Pilate asks Jesus “Do you not know that I have the authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been give you from above.”

-How frustrating do you think this situation was for Pilate? He’s got a no-win dilemma in front of him! This innocent man is being accused of a whole host of issues, but unless he deals with this Jesus guy, he’s going to have a riot on his hands, and then potentially lose his role in the government! So when he tries to reason with Jesus to get some traction with Him it goes nowhere. Jesus doesn’t play the same political game, He’s not worried about scoring point or the response of the crowds. Jesus is worried about what’s right and being obedient to what the plans of His Father. But don’t view Jesus as some passive observer throughout this! And this should give us comfort anytime we’re walking through a difficult season.

-What has God allowed to happen in your life? What kind of testing has God permitted, where you question where God is, but He’s not sitting back laughing at you, He’s allowing you to grow in reliance on Him, to grow in understanding of Him, and to better know and live the life He’s called you to.

-Friends, this is a vital message for us to understand today. Jesus doesn’t promise us an easy life. He doesn’t promise us wealth and prosperity. He doesn’t even promise to fix all our problems. What he does promise is Himself. AND He said if you have Him you will face all sorts of difficulties, what’s different is that He’s with you in the midst of those difficulties walking you through them and ensuring that you’re never alone. But nothing ever catches God off guard or by surprise. What looks to us like passivity is held in God’s sovereign hand, so trust in Him and walk with Him.

-And keep that in mind as we continue walking through the rest of Mark’s Gospel. Everything that happens is the way God intended it to happen. All these characters in the story bear responsibility for their role in these events, but God knew what every person’s role would be, from the chief priests, to Peter, and even Pilate.

-Pilate – real person, prefect of Judea from 26-36 (historicity, helps us date Jesus’ crucifixion)

-Often impulsive and caving to crowd’s desires. There are a couple historical stories that help us understand Pilate’s MO. When he first arrived in Palestine, his army came in with armor that had the images of the Romans emperors (idols to the Jews). Protests broke out, and in response Pilate changed the armor the army wore to not have a revolt. Similarly, another time Pilate had shields brought in that had the images on them again, and he once again got rid of them because he was worried they would complain to Rome and tell him about all the other problems they had with him. Philo quote.

-Pilate was not the most upstanding guy! So when he begins in interrogate Jesus, he takes his typical approach of trying to appease the masses.

-“You have said so” Wesley from The Princess Bride “As you wish.”

-Parallels say “You say it” (Matt. 26:46, Luke 22:70)

-Yes, but we’re talking about VERY different things (John 18:36). Initially the chief priests had accused Jesus of religious sins, but as soon as He’s brought to Pilate it changes to political sins. King of the Jews sounds like Jesus is trying to start an uprising, a revolt against the Roman occupation. What Pilate (and the chief priests) miss is it’s a true statement, but they’re not speaking the same language.

-Accusations continue, Jesus remains silent. Any defense He makes will be twisted and distorted anyway because they’re using a different dictionary.

-How often is this the case? And how often are Christians misunderstood because we mean different things by the words we use?

-Christians were initially accused of being atheists because they only worshipped 1 God. Accused of being cannibals (drinking blood and eating a body). Accused of having incestuous sex parties (brothers and sisters in the faith, communion was called a love feast). Why would we expect anything different from people who are deceived, and looking to the wrong sources of inspiration for how they should live in the world?

-I was listening to a podcast this past week that was talking about the need for Christians to live distinctly different lives, and unfortunately that hasn’t always been true for those claim the name of Jesus on their lives. There are 3 ideas that philosophy calls “transcendentals” things that transcend every human culture and experience. They are: truth, beauty, and goodness. Christianity is true, but it’s not just true, it’s also beautiful and good. And we as Christians are called to live lives that are all 3 of these things. Do you/are you living a life that is beautiful and good? Is your marriage (or singleness) beautiful and good? Is your work beautiful and good? Is your parenting (or encouraging other parents) beautiful and good?

-Friends, this is the call for all of us today! Everyone saw Jesus’ life that was marked by truth, beauty, and goodness, and all of us today are meant to live those exact same lives. And what will the response to that be? Look at the end of vs. 5.

-Why was Pilate amazed? Jesus’ silence. How does the world train us to respond to accusations (even when they’re true!) With anger, bitterness, cancelling, but how does Jesus teach us to respond? With love and graciousness.

-Sam Bankman-Fried (FTX). Crypto-currency company that went completely bankrupt, losing billions (with a B) of investors dollars. What I read about the trial was he made a bold (and foolish) move of taking the stand himself, because he was convinced his testimony would exonerate him. But it did the opposite! The jurors only took 4 hours to find him guilty on all accounts!

-Yet so many of us live like that! We’re trained that we always need to defend ourselves, we view ourselves as the hero of every story instead of seeing Jesus as the hero. I’m just as guilty as anyone else of responding poorly, that’s why we need grace and forgiveness extended to each other on a regular basis. If we live in such a way where we don’t respond with harshness or bitterness we will leave people amazed, we will be a faithful witness to others.

Insurrection (6-15)

-These other sections build off that first one, which is why I wanted to spend so much time on it! These next 2 sections are more detail about what was happening in those first 5 verses.

-The first thing we see is this odd tradition of a prisoner release.

-Again, opportunistic Pilate, follows the theme of Passover by “passing over” a convicted felon. But the felon Pilate chooses to contrast with Jesus is Barabbas.

-Not a lot of info about Barabbas, some early manuscripts name him “Jesus Barabbas” adding even more weight to Pilate’s question. Which Jesus do they want?

-Notice the difference right away between these 2 Jesus’: one was convicted. He had committed murder! The other had done nothing wrong.

-Vs. 10. Pilate wasn’t dumb! He realized it was a sham, and the only thing Jesus was guilty of was influence. The chief priests were threatened by Him, so they deal with him the way they know how: hand Him over to the Romans.

-Pilate tries 3 times to change the outcome of these events.

-First is the ironic title “King of the Jews.” Had this story gotten back to Rome it would have led to major issues for Pilate! The ultimate king of the Jews was in Rome! Tiberius, ruling over the entire Roman Empire! Pilate thought (wrongly) that if these 2 men were contrasted with each other, the people would make the right decision. What he hadn’t counted on was the conviction of the chief priests. Look at vs. 11. These are the same people who had paid Judas to betray Jesus. Conjecture, but wouldn’t surprise me if they were bribing the crowd to ensure their way! Doing anything they could to continue their hold on their power.

-So Pilate tries again. The crowd has chosen the convicted felon to be released, so he asks “ok, fine, but then what should I do with this other Jesus?” The first tactic didn’t work, let’s try just outright asking for His release! But how do they respond? Capital punishment!

-So Pilate tries a third time: What is he guilty of? At this point, the mob mentality has taken over and they will not be appeased until they get what they want.

-Is Pilate more worried about pleasing people or doing what’s right? Just as we read the stories before, he just caves into the demands of the crowd. He’d rather stay in his position of power than live in an honorable way.

-Scourging is nearly a death penalty. Tied to a wooden post, stripped naked, whipped with a rope braided with pieces of bone and rock.

-Historical accounts of people dying merely from this. Read a story of someone who’s intestines spilled out from this beating, another whose bones were showing. I don’t share that to be grotesque, but to help us understand what Jesus went through. The Romans were MASTERS of torture and death, they had to be do continue exerting their influence over the expanding empire. And as if that penalty wasn’t enough, the abuse continues.

Inside the Palace (16-20)

-Most likely those who were stationed at the governor’s palace. A fairly boring, routine night was broken up by the arrival of a newly condemned prisoner who was accused of looking to start an insurrection (but that guy was just freed).

-The irony reaches its pinnacle with the soldiers crowning Jesus with royal colors and a crown.

-The crown that connects back to the original problem with the world: sin. Gen. 3:18 “thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.” Instead of being royally crowned as the sovereign king of the universe, the true king is crowned with all the effects and penalties of sin.

-The soldiers thought they were heaping abuse on Jesus, and they were! But it wasn’t any worse than the abuse that was coming because of the problem of sin that was affecting the whole world. In Luke’s account of Jesus’ last week of life, he tells the story of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He sees the way sin has completely broken all of humanity and it grieves Him. Instead of living in truth, beauty, and goodness, people look to lies, ugliness, and evil, and all that will be heaped upon Jesus to deal with it once and for all. The weight of that burden would be far too much for any of us to bear, yet Jesus did, in full obedience and knowing exactly what was coming, He allowed all this abuse to be heaped upon Him.

-Once they’d finished their humiliation of Jesus, they put his bloody clothes back on Him and took Him to the outside of the city.

-Jesus taking the place of Barabbas serves as a picture for the ultimate replacement Jesus would take for the entire creation order. And that replacement means that for us today, we have a new lease on life. We can now live lives that are marked by: truth, beauty, and goodness. We can amaze others with a life fully surrendered to Jesus, being content in all circumstances. Not by putting on a front or pretending that everything is fine when it’s not, but by living the life Jesus calls us to.

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by mikethestrand on November 12, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on November 12, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/11/12/mark-151-20-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)

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.

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!

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 1^st 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/

Mark 11:27-12:12 Sermon Manuscript

-Jumping back in to Mark, been a few months since we were in this book, so some refreshers:

-Jesus is the focus of this book, unlike the other Gospels, Mark is straight to the point. Jesus’ focus is on teaching, other ministries flow out of that.

-Theme of “immediately”

-Ended with the triumphal entry into Jerusalem: Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, people shouting praises to Him who is seen entering as a king!

-Today’s text can be viewed through the lens of a high school – at least a high school like I grew up in! There were various clicks/groups in high school who all had a certain standing in the school and didn’t have a lot of overlap with each other.

-Jocks played sports, theater kids put on shows, nerds played chess (Bob asked me to change this to scholars, your future boss). There was a social hierarchy that was meant to be followed! Sometimes those social standings would be messed up, or someone new would move to town who would attempt to join one of the groups, and it was always viewed with suspicion. The school was already operating well, didn’t need someone new to come in!

-It also tended to threaten the social standing of someone in the group! In basketball, only 5 guys are starters. In football, only 11 guys are on the field at a time. If someone was going to be replaced, they weren’t going to be happy!

-Unfortunately, that sentimentality doesn’t just stop in high school, does it? If a new hire is brought into work and starts succeeding it’s viewed as a threat. In churches, if a new pastor is hired at the church down the road and they start growing it’s hurtful. We all have places and spaces where we have some kind of social standing and position that if we were being pushed on would struggle.

-That’s what’s been happening to the Jewish leaders throughout this book. Pharisees, Sadducees have been seen as Jesus’ opposition. Questioning, doubting, looking for ways to trip Jesus up, sow seeds of doubt in others, and eventually stir up enough people to kill Jesus. Why? Because Jesus was threatening the social order of the day.

-If we go back to the high school illustration, Jesus was mixing all the various groups together and changing the way people were meant to spend their time. He was upsetting the apple cart, and in the beginning of Mark 11, he upsets the entire temple by kicking out those looking to make a profit off God’s people. How do you think people would respond to their source of power and influence being questioned?

READ/PRAY (pg. 495, or 72)

Doubting God’s Work (11:27-33)
1. Questioning (27-28)

-After Jesus had run out the money changers, he and his disciples left the city to stay outside, but then returned back to Jerusalem the next day. Not only did they come back, notice that they went back to the temple.

-How do you think He was received? The market, the place where offerings were sold so people could worship God correctly, had been a place of chaos the day before. Jesus was upsetting the social order!

-Look who approaches him: chief priests, scribes, elders. These 3 groups comprised the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. They help all the power and influence for the rest of the Jewish people.

-They were the “cool kids” of the high school, or the 3 bodies of the government if you’re thinking in adult terms! They held all the power and all the societal influence in their day.

-Their next attempt to discredit Jesus gets to the source of his authority.

-This question isn’t a flippant one! Jesus has been going around telling people “truly, truly I tell you!” Where does he get the right to tell people what’s true? God’s people have, since the beginning of human history, been people of the word. God’s Word has been the highest authority since Adam was formed from the dust of the ground. Sanhedrin were people of the word. Trusted it, studied it, worked their hardest to apply it to every area of their lives and everyone around them. They were considered the authority, and they sure hadn’t authorized Jesus to tell people how to interpret and live out God’s Word!

-Think of it like a teacher in a school. If one of the kids were to begin telling the class how they should study the material, how they should apply it to their lives, the teacher would rightly be upset! Here we have Jesus who is viewed to be the student telling all the other students how to live and study. Would be wildly inappropriate if he was stepping out of line!

-From a worldly perspective, they’re asking the right question. All of us are accountable to someone and refusing to acknowledge that reality demonstrates a hardness of heart, and need to be corrected. But Jesus is a major exception to the normal rules, and he produces some evidence that points to that truth:

The Evidence (29-32)

-Just as they asked Jesus a question, Jesus answers their question with another question. You can imagine this being a frustrating proposition for the Sanhedrin. They’re used to being respected and responded to quickly.

-But what is the evidence Jesus produces? It’s not His teachings, not His healings, not His exemplary life, it’s the work and ministry of someone else – His cousin John.

-Remember, John was a divisive person too! He preached in the wilderness, baptized people for repentance, and called out the sinful leaders. It all culminated with John condemning Herod for marrying His husband’s ex-wife. As you can guess, Herod (and his new wife) didn’t appreciate that, so John was eventually beheaded for betrayal, but not before creating quite a following and a stir throughout Israel. Just as Jesus had a following, John had a following, and the leaders had gone out to visit John. So Jesus asks them – who gave John authority? Was he a madman? Leading people astray, forcing people to disobey the one true God, or was he right?

-Why does Jesus jump to John?

-There was a special even that Mark records all the way back in the first chapter that answers the question being asked. Remember, John had created quite the following, but he wasn’t he main event, he was just the hype man! He came in to stir up the crowd, get them ready and excited for someone else to come. Someone who had more power and authority than John could ever dream of! Enter Jesus.

-Jesus first act in ministry (at least from what we see in Mark’s Gospel) is being baptized by John. This was the initiatory right for Jesus’ ministry, so if the leaders wouldn’t believe that John was speaking on behalf of God, they wouldn’t view Jesus’ call to ministry as legitimate.

-But another reason Jesus asked this question was because something unique happened at Jesus’ baptism. Many people were being baptized by John, John’s call to all them was to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. Meant to signify a radical change of their lives. But something different happened when Jesus came – no repentance needed, no change in life required from Him, instead look at what the text says:

-heavens being torn (just as the heavens will open when Jesus returns), they were getting a glimpse into the normally unseen realm. At a conference this week walking through Exodus, one of the speakers was assigned Ex. 24. Could you imagine seeing God like this? But look at the description of Him: look at His feet. Anytime throughout Scripture that people are given a peek into the greater reality, suddenly they all become tongue tied, as if there are no words that could adequately describe the reality their eyes are beholding. But what’s even crazier about this is when heaven came down to earth as a man, suddenly people refused to believe Him, as we’re seeing in this story!

-It’s really easy for us who know the story, who know what’s going to happen to act as if we’d have gotten it right, that we always know and respond to Jesus as we should. But we’re only lying to ourselves! The temptation for everyone who encountered Jesus at His first coming wasn’t to fall at His feet and worship Him, it was to mock and belittle Him because He looked just like everyone else. Remember, we’ve seen His family try to take Him back home, we’ve read about others who dismissed Him because they knew the rest of His family. The incredible truth about God’s redemption plan is how seemingly ordinary it was. Except for a few rare moments where the greater reality breaks through, which was seen at Jesus’ baptism.

-Spirit descends on Jesus with the appearance of a dove. Finally, God the Father Himself also speaks from heaven and commissions Jesus to begin His ministry. If anyone wanted to question who authorized Jesus, do you think they would take this as authorization enough? All 3 persons of the Trinity demonstrated in power at Jesus’ baptism.

-Think of it like if someone were to walk up to the White House and walk in like it was their home, how successful would their approach be? They wouldn’t get very far before facing some VERY unpleasant circumstances! But what if it’s a child of the president? Not only would they be welcomed in, anyone who stood in their way would face some pretty negative repercussions! Similarly here – who gave Jesus permission to minister? God the Father, as evidenced by His baptism.

-But the Sanhedrin didn’t want to admit that – and notice their thought process:

-John was viewed as a threat too, and they didn’t believe him which means they didn’t view his baptism from heaven. But if they say it was only from man (earthly with no spiritual reality) they would face an uprising from the people because the people knew he was a prophet.

-And notice the irony of vs. 32: who are they afraid of? The people! Who should they be afraid of? God!

-The run ins with the high priests doesn’t stop here either. We read of a run in Peter (and the rest of the apostles) have with them, and as if condemning them for their questioning of Jesus here, Peter responds “We must obey God rather than men.” Yet another example of the Jewish leaders having their priorities misplaced, leading to misunderstanding God’s message and messenger in Jesus. So what’s the outcome to this debate?

The Solution (33)

-Instead of being honest, they respond with “No clue!”

-These were supposed to be the leaders of the day, the people with all the answer! The ones to whom everyone else looked for how to faithfully interpret, understand, and apply God’s Word, yet they couldn’t give answer to a simple question from Jesus.

-So Jesus won’t answer them, because the answer was right in front of them, but they refused to acknowledge it. Their pride and drive for power and prestige blinded them to the realities of what God was doing among them, and they refused to admit where even their authority came from.

-This seems to be a timely message as authority has gotten a really bad rap recently. We’ve all read the stories of pastors who have abused their authority, or elder boards who have enabled unqualified leadership to perpetuate instead of calling out sinful behaviors, or maybe you’ve experienced one of those issues yourself! Life east of Eden is full of difficulties, abuse, and sin. But that doesn’t mean we just dismiss all leadership as wrong or inherently sinful. Instead, the only way to combat abuse of authority is to double down on good authority, and go back to what the Bible commands.

-Read a book this past week titled ‘Authority: How Godly Rule Protects the Vulnerable, Strengthens Communities, and Promotes Human Flourishing’ The author uses David’s last words recorded for us in 2 Samuel 23 to demonstrate what godly authority looks like: begins with fearing God, then uses that authority to provide a context of flourishing for those under his care. Could summarize this as using authority like Jesus did: not to demean others, not to be served by others, but to serve others.

-Which means Christian authority is supposed to be equipping authority. Doesn’t meant that everyone gets to do whatever they want (read the book of Judges to see what happens when that’s the reality), but it means that everyone is using their gifts to serve each other, recognizing godly leadership as those who will have to give an account to the Lord for how they lead, but also recognizing that I will give an account for how I submit to godly leadership. Notice what I said there: godly leadership. Leadership the way God has designed, and in the contexts that He commands. There’s more that could be said about this, but that’s not where Jesus goes next:

Response to God’s Work (12:1-12)

-The last parable Jesus tells also happens to be probably the easiest to interpret! Using a well-recognized practice in the first century to tell His story.

-Wealthy landowners would entrust their fields to various tenants to take care of it while they were gone. The stipulation was the tenants had to pay some of the fruit back to the owner each year as their rent for the use of the land. It wasn’t their land to keep, they were merely tasked with caring for it.

-As they should have expected, the owner sent a servant to collect his dues. And how do they treat him? Shamefully! And this continues through numerous servants, with the owner never getting what he’s owed.

-Your first reaction should be “this was a really dumb owner!” Don’t you think he should have just kicked these crazy guys out? That’s when we are reminded that God’s authority is never vindictive. Remember God is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness to those who fear Him. God wants no one to perish, but wants all to love Him, so He will continue being faithful even when His servants are punished.

-The last person He sends is His one beloved son. Instead of honoring Him as the Son, they kill him too in an attempt to steal His inheritance. Guess what, that doesn’t work at all! Finally the owner comes and kills the tenants and gives it to others.

-This story serves to demonstrate that Jesus fulfills a prophecy from Psalm 118 (connects back to Jesus’ entry where the people quoted Psalm 118 to Him)

-The leaders reject Jesus as the true heir of God, but then God uses His Son to be the primary stone of His unfolding plan of redemption.

-Think of the song we sing: “Who would imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless grace? The God of ages stepped down from glory to wear my sin and bear my shame.” What person in their right mind would be so gracious to people who continually refuse to submit to His rule?

-Even the Sanhedrin could understand this parable, and it made them upset! Instead of fearing God, they continued fearing the people and remained in their sin.

-As we come to the end of this text, the question in front of us today is whose authority do you submit to? Do you trust godly leadership in your life, or do you refuse to acknowledge God’s good design for our good and His glory in our life?

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by mikethestrand on October 1, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on October 1, 2023

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2023/10/01/mark-1127-1212-sermon-manuscript/

Equipping Classes – Sermon Manuscript

Equipping Classes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

READ/PRAY (Matt. 22 – pg. 483)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Kelly’s story

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

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

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

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

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

–Hebrews

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

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

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

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

1 Corinthians 3:

-Paul picks up the same idea as before.

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

End on Eph. 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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by mikethestrand on September 17, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 17, 2023

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

How Do I Grow as a Disciple – Sermon Manuscript

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

-Great Commandment, Great Commission, our great need.

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

-Diagram

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

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

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

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

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

PRAY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Timothy: “Continue…from childhood.”

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

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

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

-“All Scripture”

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

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

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

-“Breathed out by God”

-Translation of 1 Greek word “God-breathed”

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

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

-“Teaching”

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

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

-“Reproof”

-Beliefs to avoid, correcting false doctrine

-“Correction”

-how not to live

-“Training in righteousness”

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

-“Complete, equipped for every good work”

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

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

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

Sunday (Hebrews 10:19-25)

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

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

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

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

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

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

1) Draw Near:

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

2) Hold fast: to what? Our confession.

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

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

3) Consider how to stir up one another.

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

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

-Carson quote

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

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

Serve (1 Peter 4:7-11)

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

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

-“Keep loving one another.”

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

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

-Show hospitality without grumbling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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by mikethestrand on September 10, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 10, 2023

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

What is a Disciple? – Sermon Manuscript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-READ/PRAY

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

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

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

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

-Jesus went a slightly different direction.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Begin with “all authority”

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

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

-How do we make disciples?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Cheri’s story

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Keep in step with the spirit:

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

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

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

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

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by mikethestrand on September 3, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon

Posted by mikethestrand on September 3, 2023

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

Psalm 29 – Sermon Manuscript

Our God is an Awesome God

Psalm 29 (pg. 262)

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

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

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

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

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

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

READ/PRAY (pg. 262)

He Reigns In Glory (1-2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Reigns Over Nature (3-9)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He Reigns Forever (10-11)

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

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

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

-God strengthens and blesses His people with everlasting peace.

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

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

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

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

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by mikethestrand on August 20, 2023 • Permalink

Posted in Bible, Church, Sermon, Worship

Posted by mikethestrand on August 20, 2023

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

Psalm 28 – Sermon Manuscript

The Lord Strengthens His People

Psalm 28

-I grew up before everyone had a cell phone, which means there were times when I was left home alone. Anytime my parents left my, I made sure I knew exactly when they would be back.

-One time, they told me they’d be back at something like 7:45, well that time came and went, and by 7:46 I went to full on panic mode! Remember, back in the day before cell phones where every family had 1 phone that you had to endure talking to everyone’s parents for a couple awkward minutes before your friend came to the phone. Had a list of all my friend’s phone numbers. Called this friend’s parents, who said they would come sit with me until my parents came home, as we were talking I saw some headlights turn down our street, and wonder of wonders, guess who it was!

-When you go through moments of doubt or struggle, who do you call? These moments tend to be where our true selves are revealed.

-As we read through this Psalm, notice what David asks of God, as well as how he makes his requests.

READ/PRAY (pg. 262)

If They Cry to Him (1-2)

-Part of the reason we do the Psalms every summer is because they don’t read like the rest of the Bible. It doesn’t even look like the rest of the Bible, even the formatting looks different! Maybe you, like me, struggled in English when you’d get to the poetry section. I always did well in English until I got to poetry because I wanted a specific meaning to the text, and poetry leaves lots of room for interpretation, doesn’t it? Just like other forms of art, there are many different ways to apply a specific text, and I don’t like that!

-In addition to that fact, many of the Psalms don’t tell us why they were written, what was happening, and we’re in the middle of a section of Psalms that only list who wrote them, and that’s it. Doesn’t it make you want to figure out what was going on and why (in this case David) was crying out to God?

-Unlike much of the prose of the rest of Scripture, the Psalms are much more emotional, sometimes seems like the author is bipolar. But think of how your emotions can change in an instant. Doing well jamming to your favorite song in the car, and then you get cut off! Or you’re innocently preparing dinner and your child starts throwing a royal fit. How do you respond?

-By soaking our hearts and minds with the words of these bipolar authors, we start to become trained in how we should respond to our own bipolar emotions, which can change just as quickly as David’s!

-This Psalm doesn’t list a specific situation, but we can see how David begins by focusing his thoughts in a specific direction:

-“To you, O Lord, I call” What is your knee-jerk reaction to something difficult in your life? Do you blame God, ignore God, or run to God? I’ve lived through some world changing events in my life: 9/11, COVID. After 9/11 I remember reading headlines that said “Where was God?” I honestly thought we’d see something similar in response to COVID, but we didn’t. People turned to Netflix & Doordash instead of taking stock of the fragility of life.

-When the Lord takes you through a difficult season, how do you react? Blame, ignore, or run to?

-David chooses to run to God, “My rock”

-“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages” Spurgeon. When we walk with Christ, we have nothing to fear! One of the descriptions I’ve heard of the church recently that stuck with is that we should be shock absorbers. The world winds people up (think of how the news puts everyone on edge. Good things don’t make the headlines), the church is meant to be a place where we’re not afraid, where we can absorb the stress and angst that comes from living in a broken world, and that’s only true because God is our rock.

-When it refers to God as a rock, think of the safety and security that comes from being protected on all sides. Like if you’re in the middle of a snowstorm and you’re sitting by a roaring fire sipping hot chocolate. That’s what the church should feel like! A place of safety and security from the storm around us.

-What is the alternative? If God doesn’t respond, David will be “like those who go down to the pit.”

-Not literal death, but he will be like those who are destined for destruction, whose cries for help God will not respond to. This is similar to the wicked people we read about in Ps. 26 who would actively try to deceive others and live only for themselves.

-Similar to crying out to God “pleas for mercy…for help” When does he ask? When he lifts up his hands to God’s holy sanctuary.

-Common practice in the ANE, even up to Jesus’ arrival when spaces and places mattered greatly. God’s manifest presence was restrained by a specific place so that the people wouldn’t be destroyed! And that remained true until Jesus came and in John 4 said that now is the time when spaces no longer matter! (hence not referring to this room as a “sanctuary,” I’d be fine just calling it the “Big Meeting Room.”)

-Language matters, and even the way we refer to spaces shapes the way we think and engage with them. Sanctuary is the place where God dwells, and God now dwells in us, regardless of what room we’re in or what it looks like. We have brothers and sisters across the world meeting in mud huts, open fields, or hiding in basements so the police don’t kill them! It’s a wonderful privilege for us to gather together freely like we do each week, but the space in which we gather shouldn’t be given too high a priority.

-What does matter is proper worship (or the term I like to use “acceptable worship” taken from Heb. 12:28). That’s what David is talking about in this section: God hears and responds when we’re worshipping Him rightly or correctly. And that’s far more than checking the Sunday box and then living however you want Monday through Saturday. It must affect all areas of your life, meaning right living:

If They Live Rightly (3-5)

-While David worships God rightly, the wicked only work evil. How do you know what evil workers look like? They speak peace to their neighbors but don’t plan to treat them very neighborly.

-Who is your neighbor? Jesus was asked that one time in Luke 10, and it’s now one of the best-known stories in the world called ‘The Good Samaritan.’ The point of that story is anyone can be a neighbor, and in God’s kingdom, we’re supposed to treat any other human being as our neighbor, which those who don’t follow God refuse to do. They give off the appearance of right living, but in their hearts they despise them. Right living means we care about the places God has placed us enough to be a visible witness in our community, and care about our neighbors.

-But it’s not just being unneighborly, the wicked live whole lives that are marked by evil. Therefore, David asks for justice toward them, which is the proper consequence to their actions.

-One of the things I’ve learned you need to teach your kids is the fact that there are consequences for their actions. Things like: if you’re rough with your toys they will break. Or if you don’t clean up after yourself you may never see your toys again! These evil people are living in such a way that they will need to face consequences that are different than those who cry out to the Lord. See all of us will someday face the consequences for how we live our lives today: which consequences will you be facing?

-After asking for God to dole out the necessary consequences, he goes right back to worship in vs. 5.

-They don’t regard/pay attention to God’s works in people’s lives or His works in the world. Have you ever considered that refusal to acknowledge the way God is working in other people is a mark of sin? I think this actually connects back to the neighbor piece, and is something I’ve been contemplating over the past few months: God commands us to both mourn and rejoice with His people, but what that text doesn’t say is at times you’re going to be rejoicing with others while you’re internally mourning at the same time! I had a moment earlier this year where we were wrestling through a miscarriage, and that Sunday at church found out another couple was expecting another kid. It wasn’t easy to rejoice with them, but it was necessary because God had blessed them.

-Paul picks up this exact idea in Rom. 1 where he draws out this comparison on what it looks like for someone to not pay attention to the ways God works. Notice that men are tempted to “suppress the truth,” but the truth keeps popping out! Like when you’re growing up and told to clean your room, so you throw everything in your closet and slam the door on it. If you keep trying to do that, eventually it’s going to pop open and your master plan will be foiled!

-Friends, the reality is: the heavens declare the glory of God: do you see it? I listen to podcasts on the regular, an geophysicist/philosopher named Stephen Meyer was on Joe Rogan (world’s biggest podcast). Stephen also happens to be a Christian who argues for Intelligent Design as the best explanation for the origins of the material universe, and part of the reason he argues that is the way our bodies are designed. We have access to scientific evidence that Darwin never dreamed of! At the base of everything that exists (deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA) is information. Adenine (A), guanine (G), cytosine (C), and thymine (T). We are comprised of words that we only recently were able to understand. If the God who created everything that exists did so using information/words, don’t you think He’d also communicate to us using information/words? (ironically enough, as I was looking up something about Stephen Meyer this past week, Wikipedia lists that he argues for the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design)

-Friends, don’t miss this! God has created evidences of Himself down into the tiniest quark and onto the biggest galaxy that exists. Everything that exists is meant to point us to Him, and we’re supposed to respond by worshipping Him in every area of our lives, because if we don’t, look at what David says will happen:

-God will tear them down. Just as they belittled God in their lives, God will belittle them in the world to come. It says they will be torn down and never built up again. Unlike children playing who love and thrive on building towers and knocking them over, when God tears the wicked down, they won’t ever be rebuilt.

-Remember that David is contrasting himself with the wicked, so we’ve seen David begin this Psalm by crying out to God, then move to the need to live rightly (according to God’s standard). What then is the proper response after God responds to His people?

If They Thank Him (6-9)

-We praise God because He responds! Believe it or not, God answers prayer, even today! We’re called to continually cry out to Him. Be honest here, how many of you feel like God doesn’t respond to your prayers? If you’ve never experienced that before just wait! In seasons of waiting it can be difficult to persevere in prayer, but that’s exactly what Jesus commands us to do. In Luke 18:1, it says, “Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” We’re actually commanded to keep bothering God with our requests, because it’s not a bother to Him. So don’t give up, God will respond and He calls us to continually cry out to Him. But it requires us to move from crying out to Him to living rightly, which is where we see David calling God his strength & shield.

-What David is saying is the very reason we exist is because of God. If we don’t trust in God we don’t have a strength that will last, nor do we have a shield to protect us. Remember, we saw this in the first section: when issues come up in our lives do we ignore God, blame God, or run to Him? Another way of saying that is “in him my heart trusts.” It’s taken 7 verses for David to get to that point, but as he continues talking to God, he can land at a place of trusting God. Which also means:

-He helps us. How does God help us, because sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re helped, right? This connects back to what Micah reminded us of last week: we’re in a different place today than David was! Once we’re saved, we’re indwelled by the Holy Spirit, meaning we never walk through anything alone. But God has also given us a family to belong to so that we can tangibly be helped through whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, but we’ll get to that in vs. 9, David also says:

-My heart exults or praises. When we take stock of all the ways God has worked in our lives throughout the past the only proper response is praising. Think of all the stories of martyrs who have been killed as they sang praises to God:

-Overflow with thanksgiving through song (The importance of singing and giving thanks) Parable of the 10 lepers in Luke 17

-The last thing we see David focus on starting in vs. 8 is a community. Another thing God has given us is His body. It’s one thing to give thanks individually, but that’s not sufficient, we also need to give thanks communally.

-Lord is the strength of His people, both individually and together.

-saving refuge (like the rock before, as well as the shield) One of the ways God is a saving refuge is through His body, the church! The church can become a place of refuge, a shelter in the storm. It seems like when people go through difficulties the first thing to drop off is attending the weekly gathering. What if by doing that you’re running away from the place of comfort?

-Prayer for God’s people (don’t pray just for yourself, God has called you to a body so care for it!)
-Shepherd (read Ps. 23, when we’re weak God carries us)

-One of the ways we see to give thanks to God in the Bible is by the Lord’s Supper. This is meant to be a unifying meal: a centering point where we’re reminded that we don’t exist in isolation. In fact, one of the things Jesus modeled in the first celebration of the table is the command to serve each other, and Paul picks up that idea in 1 Cor. 11 and commands us to examine ourselves and see if we have anything against another person in God’s body, and if we do we should not partake of this celebration.

Pastor Mike's Musings

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