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Psalm 46 – Sermon Manuscript

-I got a text from Micah this morning who was sitting at the airport ready to fly to Mexico for the week with Elizabeth. I love flying, but not as much as my wife does. Every time we’re near the airport she gets the travel bug to go visit a new place. I know not all of you feel the same way she does! And if you stop and think about what you’re doing it makes sense to fear it! You’re strapping yourself in to an uncomfortable seat that’s connected to a metal tube that is about to take you 6 miles above the earth (which is where we were made to live), move at something like 500 mph, and you’re just stuck sitting there. You have zero control over where you’re going, and if you’re lucky every so often the pilot will get on and tell you what’s going on, otherwise you’re just at their mercy. For some of you, planes are a place of excitement and fun, for others planes are on object of pure terror! And that’s a glimpse of what we see in today’s Psalm. Psalm 46 focuses on God being our refuge and strength, but that same refuge can be a source of terror and dread to someone who isn’t following after God.

READ/PRAY (pg. 496)

God Is Our Refuge In: 

-This Psalm begins with this reminder that God is our refuge and strength, full stop. That means that whatever comes after this sentence is dependent on that reality. A few weeks ago, we looked at Psalm 42 and saw the need to preach to ourselves instead of just listening to yourself. This is the next step in that process, the preaching needs to begin with the reminder of who God is. And in this passage: if this is really true, that God is our refuge and strength, then we don’t need to be afraid of anything else, which is the point of this Psalm. This Psalm has 2 purposes: to call out those who aren’t following after God, and to encourage those who are following after God. And that’s at the heart of God’s message; it’s the same message for both people. This message that encourages those who are His condemns those who are against Him, there’s no 3rd way. 

-This God who is our refuge and strength is also a helper. Now that seems like a weird turn. How is God a helper? As it goes on to say an “ever-present help in times of trouble” is how I learned it growing up. It begins with the reality that He created us which means we are completely dependent on Him, so in that sense He helps our beginning. But the Bible also tells us that He didn’t create and then peace out, it goes on to tell us that He continues sustaining the world. The fact that we have oxygen in our lungs is his gift to us. Now, I know how the cycle works, we exhale CO2 which trees and plants need and then release oxygen into the air, but who’s the one who designed and continues perpetuating that cycle? God is! A professor I had in seminary onetime said we should never say that anything is “God-forsaken” because we couldn’t begin to imagine the terrors that would come if that were true. Not only does He sustain us, but He also relates to us and sympathizes with us. He is on our side and supports us in our daily lives.

-A clear place we see that is the verse that was the inspiration for Dane Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly that came out a few years ago. Dane points out in his book that the 1 place in the Bible where Jesus describes His deepest desire towards us is in Matt. 11. If you haven’t read the book yet, and you’re feeling a level of angst of struggle, grab it from the library or talk to me, I have extra copies! 

-Look at Jesus’s description of His heart toward those who are following after Him: lowly and humble is the deepest feeling towards us (different translations change it to lowly and gentle). And would you want His heart toward you to be any different? That’s the reason He is our refuge, that’s the reason He is our help, that’s the reason we can find our rest in Him! I was listening to a podcast this week about the need for us to just go outside because doing things like looking at birds and trees calms us, while staring at a phone literally makes us anxious! Kids – that’s one of the reasons your parents don’t let you play with phones all day every day! It’s not good for you as a person.

  1. Destruction (1-3)

-The rest of this section talks about the destruction of the world. And because verse 1 is true, We don’t need to be afraid when the earth collapses around us. This is more than just a localized thing, he’s using apocalyptic language, like a de-creation of the world, similar to what we read in Rev. or Ezek. He begins focusing on the things that feel immovable and steadfast: the earth and the mountains, those are hard things! Can any of you move the earth? Or even a mountain? Like I’ve got some yard projects I need to do at my house that involve moving some dirt, and I keep putting it off because I don’t want to move a little pile of dirt. That’s nothing compared to a mountain! 

-Then it shifts to the seas, which are roaring and foaming. When I think of the sea, I think peace and tranquility. I LOVE the beach! But waters often in the OT are a source of anxiety. Think of the huge waves, storms regularly coming through, the fact that it looks unending (Cara’s fear on the cruise)

-All these things are what we today call “natural events.” Storms roll through, tornado sirens go off in the summer, hail is inevitable, but all of us have something we’re afraid of. What “natural events” are you most afraid of? The weekend Cara and I started dating I found out my future SIL was terrified of tornadoes from growing up in Arkansas, I grew up with them being an inconvenience watching my grandpa go outside to look at them. Maybe you fear another virus, I keep reading about a new norovirus making its rounds on cruise ships (another reason for Cara to avoid them!) We all have areas in the world where we struggle to trust God, but His invitation here is to remember that He is our refuge and strength:

Selah

  • Wars (4-7)

-Contrast the water here with the water in the previous verse. And I hope by now you’re starting to catch the allusions to Psalm 1, where the blessed person is the one who is planted by streams of water. Water can either be lifegiving (like after you’ve mowed the lawn when it’s 100 outside with 100% humidity), or water can be unbelievably destructive like a hurricane. And God rules over them all. Here we see the way God uses water to bring life and flourishing to his people.

-City of God is a reference to Jerusalem, so here’s where this is kind of weird. There is not a river, nor has there ever been a river running through that city, but do you know what we see in Rev.? A river flowing through the New Jerusalem from God, giving life to the nations. So I think we’re actually seeing a glimpse here of the new heavenly realities because of what Jesus has done.

-But the most important fact about this city isn’t the river, it’s the third line: this is the place where God lives. That’s been the goal since creation, for God to live with His people. Since Gen. 3, that’s been impossible because holiness can’t co-exist with sin, but this has been God’s plan forever: to have a people living with Him.

–Heb. 12 picks up this idea, comparing our experience today to the Israelites who were so scared of the mountain when God met with Moses that they wouldn’t come near it. 

-Unlike them, we have come to a new mountain. And I think it’s worth asking for us today, where do we see the city of the living God? In the church. God lives and dwells among us through His Spirit today. And what that means is that because God lives and dwells in us today, we won’t be toppled, nothing can stand against the church, and that’s played itself out in history time and time again. Each time the church faces a threat in one place and begins to shrink, it flourishes somewhere else. I’ve been reading reports about the church growing like crazy in Iran, despite regular persecution and death. But that’s only true of the city of God

-While the city of God is stable, vs. 6 describes the city of man which can’t stop fighting. Nations rage, I think referring to Psalm 2 where the Psalmist asks why the nations rage against the Lord? In this case, it’s because God is reigning. All God has to do is speak and nations will fall. 

-And I think it’s appropriate for us to think about this today, as we clean up firework remnants from our yards and streets. I feel blessed to have been born here, I’m thankful for the freedoms we have, and the prosperity that allowed my great-grandparents to immigrate here over a century ago, but let’s not pretend or assume that this nation will last forever. Give thanks, appreciate, be the best citizen you can, not for the sake of the US, but for the sake of Jesus. But don’t put your hope on this nation! We see in this Psalm that all it takes is a word from the Lord and even this nation will crumble.

-I was listening to a podcast interview this week because one of the speakers just released a new book with reflections from Jer. 29 (not the verse everyone knows about God’s plan to prosper us, these are a few verses earlier). This is one of my favorite verses in the OT, so this really stuck out to me when someone else focuses on it. Now, this is in the old covenant, so we can’t do a 1 for 1 applying this to ourselves, but Peter calls us exiles and part of those who are dispersed around the world instead of gathered together in 1 place, and I think the call for us today is actually very similar. And do you see how ordinary this call is? It’s a normal life of working, of providing for your family, of taking care of your little plot of land, and helping your kids become adults. Friends, what if God’s call is simply faithful presence in the world? Jesus tells us that we will have suffering and difficulty in the world, but we’re supposed to be encouraged and take heart because He has overcome the world.

-I read a book earlier this summer that was talking about what we as Christians and the church should be pursuing, and the author took his whole argument and summarized it in the title: pilgrims and priests. Believe it or not, the entire world will never be Christians. We’re told that we’ll always have some dealings with “the world” which means maybe we’re not supposed to try to take over the whole world. Additionally, maybe we’re not supposed to try being culture warriors or try to become “famous,” maybe our job is to be faithful pilgrims who are working to sanctify (make holy) our little corner of the world. Maybe that’s how we shine as lights in the world, (which assumes there’s always going to be darkness!) Now, we don’t want or pray that people will remain alienated from God, in fact we regularly ask God to work and move in and through us, but we need to understand what our job is vs. God’s job. We live as faithful followers of Him, we take responsibility for our little “garden” (whether you actually grow food or not), and pursue the well-being of the place where God plants us.

-One of my concerns in the church in America is that we have whole “ministries” and “churches” who stoke fear and division in the church, who try to get people worked up about how the world is falling apart. That shouldn’t surprise us! That should never catch us off guard! We see here that the nations are going to rage and kingdoms are going to topple, so even when that happens, we don’t live in fear, we walk by faith and trust in the Lord who protects and preserves us. One of the most common commands throughout the Bible is “fear not,” so let’s not be afraid, that’s the main point this Psalm is giving us! 

-This idea that we’re supposed to shine as lights comes from Matt. 5. Here’s how Jesus describes His followers:

-That means we have to live holy lives. How are you doing at that? When people look at you, do they see God represented? What’s interesting about this light shining before others is just as we’ve seen, God’s Word can create or destroy. Our holy living is meant to either draw people in or condemn them for their unholy living. The last verse in Matt. 5 says they will give glory, but it doesn’t say that will be willingly, some will give glory because they’re forced to. So church, are you faithfully living and shining as a light in the darkness? That’s God’s invitation through this Psalm, and it’s only possible because of vs. 7

-Why can we live this way and not be afraid? The Lord of Armies is with us as a stronghold. Maybe a better word for you to get what is saying here is a “safe room,” a place where even if a tornado knocks down your house, you’ll be just fine. 

Selah – think about garden God has called you to cultivate.

  • Worship (8-11)

-This section begins with an invitation to come and see the work God does, the God who can bring devastation, but also brings life because the church is God’s chosen means of work today. Friends, coming in here is where people should be able to see God at work in you and in me! We should be looking for God at work here and inviting other people to join us and see God’s work being made visible. This means we’re supposed to be witnesses, sharing how we’re becoming more like Jesus, sharing the ways God continues providing for us, and living a happy (blessed) life that is faithfully ministering and serving the place God has called us.

-That’s the direction for the church, but we also get the negative side of it for those not in the church: devastation. We saw the description of that previously. At some point, the sin of this world will be destroyed. He will put an end to all wars and fighting, but it comes by one final act of devastation. Kidner: “Although the outcome is peace, the process is judgment.”

-The word translated “makes cease” is where we get the word “sabbath” from, which is much more than the absence of war or conflict, it’s everything being as God intended it to be (which does include no more fighting).

-Verse 10 has been translated differently in many older Bible translations, you may have it memorized as “Be still, and know that I am God,” but this is a better translation in the context. It’s actually not meant to be a verse that is comforting, it’s meant to be a rebuke to those who are fighting. The “be still” that you’ve heard before could also be translated as “leave off!” or just “stop!” 

-God is going to be exalted whether people acknowledge Him or not! Even those who hated Him in this life will be forced to exalt Him in the next, so here we see that while war will someday come to an end, worship won’t. God will be worshipped, either willingly or by force.  

-The last verse in this Psalm repeats what we saw in vs. 7 with the focus being God living with us, which we see happening explicitly in Jesus when we turn to the first page of the NT, Matt. 1:23, quoting Isa. 7:14, God’s plan to bring an end to the wars and fighting of the world is by entering the world as a baby. One of the ways God has predominantly worked in history is by inverting the normal ordering of the world. There’s a reason Darwinian theory argued for “survival of the fittest,” if you look at the world that’s a pretty good description of what happens! The biggest, most aggressive, most powerful seems to be the one that always wins. 

-And in that world where that’s generally true, Jesus offers something completely different where He came into the world as a baby, completely reliant on His mother’s care. He is the God who takes the weak of the world to shame the strong. In God’s kingdom, you can’t get in by your intellect, your gifting, or your strength, in fact Jesus says in order to get in you need to become like a child. And children in the 1st century weren’t viewed the same way we look at them today. For us, kids are cute, they’re a gift, but that’s the opposite of the way the world at the time of Jesus viewed them. Here’s the way historian Tom Holland in his book Dominion says it: 

-Friends, Jesus’s arrival means that the entire world order has been flipped upside down, but that really means it’s been turned right-side up again, it’s back to the way God originally intended it to be, but it came with a cost. The destruction that God talked about here was laid on the back of Jesus. That act of love for us was an act of war in the spiritual realm where the pain, suffering, and sin of the world brought destruction to the Son of God so that we could stop fighting and know that He is God. This God who invites you and me to gather together each week to cease from our working and striving and chasing after the things of the world to see the works of the Lord. The Lord who brings us together who unites our hearts to His and to each other, and who works in our lives to make us more like Him. He invites us to live as faithful exiles who aren’t out to change the world but are living careful and intentional lives of love and service of God and others. And while it doesn’t look impressive to the world, it’s the way God has chosen to transform the entire world, taking the small and weak and destroying the big and strong.

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by mikethestrand on July 5, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on July 5, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/07/05/psalm-46-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 44 – Sermon Manuscript

-If someone asks you the question: how are you? What’s the correct response? Isn’t it generally “I’m good, how are you?” It’s supposed to be an “as you’re passing” comment, right? But every once in a while, someone says something that catches you off guard and changes the trajectory of the conversation, so then you realize you need to stop moving and engage a little further.

-Or if that’s never happened to you, you know the difference between a conversation and a real conversation? You’re spending time with some friends, and then someone says something that takes everything to a whole different level, like this just got REAL! That’s a picture of what happens in this Psalm. The first section the Psalmist goes along like many previous Psalms praising God for the ways He’s worked in history, but then in vs. 9 things get REAL.

-What we’ll see in today’s Psalm is how God’s past work can lead to present hope in the midst of difficulty. And if you were here last week, this probably sounds really similar to Psalm 42-43 which we looked at last week! This is a similar reminder of God’s provision towards us today, and I really think these Psalms are timely for us because many people are asking about the goodness of God today, which is a shift from the training I got in church when I was growing up! Most of the defenses of Christianity I had growing up focused on the truth of our faith, and we need to understand the truthfulness of it, but friends, Christianity is also good and beautiful, and I think we need to grow in our ability to defend the goodness and beauty of Christianity, and that starts with us living out the faith we proclaim, and following the ways of living that we find in a place like the Psalms. 

-Let’s read it, and then as we work our way through it, I’ll show you what I mean, and to help us orient what we’re going to see in this Psalm, many of the commentators I read connected this to the book of Job. If you don’t know that book, it tells the story of a man named Job, and the Bible says he was a man of complete integrity who feared God and turned away from evil. God allows Satan to tempt Job by taking away his riches, killing his children, and then bringing a painful skin disease on Job. Job’s friends are convinced he had sinned against God, but Job constantly defends his innocence, and at the end of the book God talks to Job and asks him where he was when the world was created, if he can take the wild animals, if he can control the weather. And after getting the scolding of a lifetime from God, look at how Job responds: 

-That last verse is where I took the title of this sermon from: my ears had heard these things about God, but then Job got to experience and see the realities that God is God and he is not. But what if Job’s story didn’t end with an encounter with God? What if his comment stopped at “I had heard reports about you” but he didn’t get an answer to his prayers? That’s what we’re going to discover today.

READ/PRAY (pg. 495)

  1. God’s Past Deliverance (1-8)

-The first thing the Psalmist does is bring to mind the ways God had provided for His people in the past, and that tells us that his ancestors have been the faithful ones who were obedient to God’s commands to teach and train their children. This is one of the joys we have of telling our stories to our kids. So with just this first verse, we’re already at a point for us to consider in our own lives.

-Do you share with your kids/grandkids/friends the ways God has worked in your lives? This verse assumes that people will be sharing with others how God takes care of them, and we so often neglect to share or dismiss God’s provision in our lives because we’re too busy comparing ourselves to other people. God doesn’t just work in our lives for us to enjoy his benefits, He works in our lives so that we can be an encouragement to others to remind them of how God has provided for us. When I was growing up my dad always called them “bricks in your foundation.” Friends, our faith isn’t a blind trust, it’s based on previous experience and precedent that God has been faithful in the past, which means we can trust Him to be faithful in the present, and will continue being faithful to us into the future. We aren’t asked to trust things without any evidence.

-When I lived in WY, we’d have Mormons stop by the house I lived in on a regular basis, partly because we had students from a local Bible school crash at our house in the afternoon and they’d debate the Mormons every time they stopped by. They stopped by once when they weren’t around and I got stuck talking to them and they asked me if I’d ever read the Book of Mormon (which I have read excerpts of) and they asked me what I thought of it, I said I thought it was a waste of time because there was no historical evidence to the claims in the book, and I was told (and I quote) “there are evidences, but that’s not the point of the book.” So I obviously took the bait and asked what the point was and I was told: “to affirm your faith.” If the only purpose of a sacred text is to give good “vibes” then don’t trust that book! Part of the reason we need to share our faith is because there are people like Mormons who will share about their vibes!

-And look at the things God had done for their ancestors before: God removed one group of people so that they could walk into the land, and they knew this was God’s work and not anything they did, it was all because of God’s blessing being on this people. And it wasn’t just for their ancestors, do you notice the change of tenses of the verbs starting in vs. 4, it goes from past tense to present tense. God had proven Himself previously, and for the people today. 

-God led them to victories over their enemies, they know that apart from God’s mighty hand all their weapons would be useless. So because of God’s past deliverance, and protection of His people today, they respond with vs. 8. As I said previously, God doesn’t ask us to have blind faith, God invites us to remember how He has worked in our lives to draw us to Himself and because of God’s previous faithfulness we can trust that He’ll do the same thing in the future, and if you haven’t been a Christian for very long, that’s why God calls you into a community of people who can share how God has worked in their lives!

-We’re now at a word that is repeated regularly throughout the Psalms, so it’s time for my annual Babylon Bee joke. And the reason it’s so funny is because it’s probably not that far from the truth! Most scholars believe this is a note for an extended instrumental where the readers (or singers) are supposed to pause and reflect on what they’d just proclaimed together. So when we come to it in this series, we take a minute to intentionally pause and reflect on what we just studied. I’ll watch the clock so you don’t need to, but take a minute to reflect on your story of God’s provision in your life, and thank Him for it!

  • God’s Present Desertion (9-16)

-If this Psalm just stopped after verse 8, it would be an incredibly positive thing, right? The Psalmist has just said that we boast in God all day long and will praise His name forever, but then he goes on to say that God has responded by rejecting and humiliating them. So the people are being faithful, and God is being unfaithful. Now I don’t know about you, but this reads like many of the stories I read of accusations against God today, generally said something like: how could a loving God send anyone to hell? Or how is it fair that God would be so exclusive? And that tension point is what we’re going to be sitting in for the rest of this Psalm.

-A couple weeks ago, I shared about an interview I listened to with Oxford mathematician John Lennox, but I read another interview with him this past week (he just released an autobiography, so he’s making the interview rounds right now). John was notorious for debating the guys who were referred to as “the new atheists,” guys you may have heard of like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens (they had their moment and now it’s seen as kind of passed, especially when Richard Dawkins has started calling himself a cultural Christian). One of the questions Lennox was asked was the biggest challenge for Christians today, and he talks about what we see in this Psalm:

-I think he’s onto something, don’t you? The biggest issues we have to face as Christians today are related to pain and suffering, and I think that’s true. But another piece we have to remember is another thing Lennox says here, that those questions aren’t just a problem for Christians, it’s a problem that you have to do something with, and I fully believe that Christianity provides the best answer to this question and problem. That doesn’t fix all the issues in the world, but it gives us a different perspective to those problems, and that’s why we need a Psalm like this that helps us know how to voice our complaints with God, so if you are feeling abandoned from God and feel like you have no purpose to your life, just wait, because we’ll see some resolution in here.

-Look at all the ways this Psalmist is saying they have been rejected. In their wars, they’re the ones running in retreat, they’re being plundered, they’re being scattered among the nations, their neighbors mock and laugh at them and their enemies are heaping on the abuse. They’re the butt of every joke, they’re defeated in every battle, and the worst of all is that it doesn’t seem like God even cares. 

-Now, I’ve been made fun of for my faith before, I’ve been made fun of for being a pastor before, but I’ve never faced this level of suffering because of my faith where I wondered if even God had given up on me. And this is for someone who says that he is following after God! If this is how someone who follows God is treated, what hope is there for the rest of the world? Is God really good in a world where it looks like the enemies and evil wins? I feel like a great modern-day example of this is with technology, like one of original mottos of Facebook was “move fast and break things.” At least Google used to pretend to care about people, back when their motto was “do no evil,” but don’t worry, that’s no longer one of their mottos either! And both of these companies have gotten into AI, and the whole AI model seems to be: these programs are so smart it’s terrifying, so we need the government to make laws about it, but since you’re not making any laws, we’re just going to continue making them better and better, and those companies are making billions of dollars for their founders! We see evil prospering all around us today, don’t we? So how should we respond? Let’s keep looking at this Psalm:

  • God’s Future Rescue (17-26) 

-We’ve seen one way we respond in the beginning of this Psalm, we intentionally remember God’s work in the past, but then the Psalmist goes on to demonstrate another aspect that God calls us to live out: being faithful in the present so that we can trust in God’s future rescue. Look at how this Psalmist continues here and pay careful attention to all the pronouns in this section!

-All these things happened to them, all the things that we read about in the previous section, BUT what did he do? They remembered God, they faithfully obeyed His covenant, their hearts didn’t turn back, their steps faithfully followed the ways God has commanded them to live, BUT God has crushed them. In most of the Psalms, the opposite is true: God is faithful and the Psalmist has to acknowledge and confess his sin, but not in this case!

-So he doubles down on his innocence, if they had forgotten God’s name (not literally but forgetting to call out to God) and worshipped another god, God would have known because He knows everything and then hold on to vs. 22 because it comes up in the NT, but the Psalmist here is saying that because of God they are being put to death and being slaughtered like sheep.

-And this Psalm ends with a final plea to God to wake up and rouse Himself into action. And the words are intentionally contrasted with the Psalmist, who had been faithful in following after God and hadn’t forgotten to obey and worship the one true God, but God has forgotten His people, and their abuse means they’re crawling around on the ground like snakes. And the last verse of this Psalm reminds God of His character, where if He won’t respond to all the needs of the Psalmist, won’t He at least remember His chesed, His covenant faithful love? I try to point out that Hebrew word every time it comes up in the Psalms because it’s really hard to translate into English. The best summary I’ve found is in the Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones where she says it’s God’s “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” If that is true about God, won’t He respond to His people suffering and hurting? 

-One of the realities about being a human in this world is we tend to view the world as though it’s a meritocracy, if we do good we’re supposed to receive good, and if we do evil we’re supposed to expect that to return to us. But that’s not Christianity, that’s kharma which comes out of Easter mysticism. And we even see this Psalmist assuming that’s the way the world works. He says he’s been faithful, he’s obeyed God, which means God should be responding with blessing and protection, right? At one level he’s right, God had promised that if His people were faithful to the covenant then blessings would come, but sometimes trials are also meant to be purifying and refining, helping to draw us closer to God instead of alienating us from Him.

-Derek Kidner, a British pastor, who has written one of the best concise commentaries on the Psalms I’ve found (I read him every week when I preach through the Psalms), summarizes his thoughts on this Psalm by saying: 

-Suffering might be a battle scar rather than a punishment. Have you ever noticed how after enduring through suffering, you can see how God provided for you through it? I’ve got scars on my body that I can tell you some stories about! I can’t forget them, but I’ve also lived to tell the stories of what happened for me to get those scars. I know you all have stories of things that have happened in your lives that can be seen as battle scars now, ways that God allowed you to be refined and purified to become more holy, things that God has permitted to cause you to take steps closer to Him. When I’ve talked to you about those times in your lives, you wouldn’t necessarily want to live through them again, but you also wouldn’t trade them for the growth that happened through it. And Kidner goes on to say that a reverse (or a loss) as well as a victory might by a sign of fellowship. Think of Psalm 23, where David says that even when he walks through the valley of the shadow of death, he knows God is with him. Friends, just because you’re suffering doesn’t mean God has abandoned you, so if and when you suffer, continue calling out to God.

-And for us to understand how we apply this Psalm to our lives today, we need to look at how Paul uses it as the turning point of his Epistle of Romans. We just saw in the comments from Kidner that the feeling of desertion from God isn’t always true, and that’s exactly what Paul is talking about in this passage. If God is for us, on our side, supporting us, who is against us? The implied answer is no one! And if He gave His own Son to us, why wouldn’t He give us everything else, too? Therefore, there’s no accusation against us, no one to condemn us since God is the one who does both of those things, but if God is on our side, then there’s no condemnation, no accusation, and no separation. Think of the things that could come to those who are following God: affliction, distress, persecution. Doesn’t that sound like what we read about in Psalm 44 earlier? And Paul says it could get even worse: famine or nakedness (losing everything) danger or sword (the state or war) and then he connects it to this Psalm that we just read.

-Church, maybe Jesus actually meant it when He said that following Him means daily picking up our cross and following Him, but Paul helps us to understand that even in the middle of any kind of suffering, God is still with us because nothing can separate us from God’s love, so then Paul goes on to remind us that even as our lives are being poured out we are more than conquerors because God will never leave us. Do you believe that?

-So one of the things we’re supposed to be able to do as we follow Christ is to be able to look at suffering through a different lens because God redeems even suffering in our lives. I remember hearing someone say that every Psalm ends on a positive note, but that’s just false, and we saw this Psalm end on a negative note, feeling alienated and abandoned by God! And sometimes our live don’t end on a positive note, sometimes life is just hard! But we have 2 ways we can respond for those of us who are in Christ, the first is what we saw here: cry out to God! He has promised to never leave you and never abandon you, so even if you don’t feel Him, He is there with. Second, cry out to the church. When you’re hurting, tell others! Don’t keep it hidden, don’t keep it to yourself, God has brought us into a church to bring comfort and encouragement to us when we’re down.

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by mikethestrand on June 21, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, Life, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 21, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/06/21/psalm-44-sermon-manuscript/

In the Church – Sermon Manuscript

-We’re in our last week looking at the Nicene Creed! We’ve broken it down into the 3 persons of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this week we’ll be looking at the institution that represents that Trinity today: the church.

-And once again, I found another bad creed for us to look at, from an organization that claims to represent all “progressive Christians”

-“Inherently evolving and always progressing” how does that relate to Jude 3-4? A faith that was “once for all” delivered to the saints? Should Christianity always be evolving? No! That’s the amazing thing about it, it’s true forever. Now it can be applied differently depending on the context, but Christianity itself will never change!

-Is Jesus THE Way, truth, and life, or not? 

  1. One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic

-These 4 words have often become referred to as the 4 characteristics of the church, and I think we need all of them together because each new generation needs different reminders. We also need to be careful not to project current issues onto what the early church meant here. When we read “one” today, we tend to kind of chuckle to ourselves because of the abundance of denominations we have today. I found 1 article online that said there are over 50,000 “Christian” denominations around the world, and we’ll look at that in a minute, but think of what these 4 words together mean: it distinguishes them all from the different heretical sects that were popping up all over (one of which was Arius). And each one of these are brought up throughout the Bible as something Christians should be pursuing together. So let’s take each one in turn!

-What does it mean that the church is one? This signifies the unity that’s supposed to be true of Christ’s church, and this is literally something that Jesus prayed for during His last night on earth. Look at what He prays in John 17:

-First of all, I’m going to point this out every time we read this text, but I think it’s just amazing that Jesus prays for us. He’s facing His death and He takes the time to pray for anyone who will believe in Him. Another way of saying that is He’s praying for the church throughout all history. But look at what He prays for: that they would be one. He says it 3 different times!

-And look at the outworking of this: so that the world would know that Jesus was sent and that we’re loved by Jesus. But how can we confess that the church is one when there’s so many different churches that look & act differently from each other? And I want to propose potentially a different way of thinking through the unity of the church. There are 2 things we need to think through in relation to this: first we need a way of defining what actually is a church because it’s more than just meeting together (JW and Mormons meet together, and as I shared in the 1 sermon in this series, they also claim to be Christians. We’ll look at that more when we get to baptism). But secondly, what if, instead of being inconsistent with the differences between church and denominations, those are actually markers of unity?

-One of the biggest questions philosophers wrestle with is the connection between groups and individuals. How can there be unity & diversity at the same time? And I think it’s getting us back to the Trinity! The creation is pointing to the Creator who is united as 1 God who exists as 3 persons. So what if the different true churches are representative of the eternal God who can’t be contained by any 1 church or denomination? A couple things that might help illustrate this for you: how many families do we have represented in this room? Quite a few! Does every family look and act exactly the same? Nope! Even though we spend time together, even though we worship the same God, there’s variety in these families, just like there’s variety in church families. If that doesn’t help, think of all the various sandwich shops we have, kids, I need your help to list some of them! Subway, Jimmy Johns, Jersey Mikes, Erberts & Gerbets, and because I’m from Northfield, Hogan Bros. Every one of those places is taking basically the same ingredients (some places have better ingredients than others), and putting them into a similar vehicle for calorie delivery to your mouth, right? So again, we have unity and diversity in the way these sandwiches are compiled. It’s similar in the church, where each local expression of the church will do some things better than others, but together we better represent the unity and diversity in the Godhead. With that in mind, I want to look at one more passage:

-Paul also talks about this in Eph. 4 where he has a running list of “ones.” He calls the church a body, and it’s hard for one body to be divided, isn’t it? So while I do believe that the various expressions of church help us represent God, there is still the call for us to pursue unity and work to break down some of the divides that we see between true churches around us (true is important there).

-What does it mean that the church is holy? This is a way of saying the church is set apart, sacred, unique, but this marker also signifies that we’re supposed to represent God. Peter talks about this in 1 Peter (quoting a few passages from Lev.)

-And notice how Peter begins this section: children. We’re operating under the assumption that we’re brought in as adopted children of God, which changes the focus of this holiness. It’s not pursuing holiness as a way to earn God’s recognition or to get Him to like you, it’s pursuing holiness because you know that He loves you and desires your flourishing. And because you know that God wants the best for you, it means obeying the things He’s told us to do.

-As I brought up earlier, we know that each family has “traits” that set them apart from other families, you all have told me how much my kids look alike, and there’s literally nothing they can do about it! But there’s also certain habits or patterns that my kids pick up that I can do something about. The foods we eat, the games we play, the inside jokes we have, and that’s also meant to be true in the church! When the world looks at the true church, they’re supposed to see God represented in us and through us, which means holiness should be a family trait they see!

-What does it mean that the church is catholic? This word “catholic” is taking from word that means “universal,” NOT referring to the Roman Catholic Church (notice that the word is lower case when I didn’t capitalize it, meaning it’s not a proper noun). And we see this in Jesus’s last words in Matt. The church is supposed to have disciples in all nations!

-Each church I’ve been at I’ve introduced reciting various historical creeds, confessions, or catechisms (like we do here) and each time I’ve had someone get upset with me when they’re first introduced because we’re Protestants and not Catholics! Unfortunately, there has been a tendency to conflate church history with Roman Catholic, and that’s not a helpful way to view church history. Gavin Ortlund has done some fantastic YT videos from a particularly Baptist perspective on church history, if you want to learn more about church history from a Protestant and baptistic perspective, watch him!

-All that to say, when we confess that we’re a part of the catholic church, we’re saying that we trace our heritage all the way back to Jesus! It’s confessing that we’re a part of the global church today, connected to the historic church of the past, and will remain a part of the church into eternity!

-What does it mean that the church is apostolic? Just as I said, we’re tracing our beliefs back to Jesus, and His first apostles. Look at what Jesus said to Peter in Matt. 16

-We’ve looked at this other times, the rock that the church is being built on is Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, it’s not being built on Peter being the first Pope (which is why Jesus 3 verses later changes Peter’s nickname to Satan!)

-But do you see the authority that Jesus is giving to the church? The binding and loosing is in terms of recognizing and affirming the salvation of the future disciples. That’s an unbelievably weighty task! Now I want to be careful about this because I know your ears may have just pricked up: isn’t salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone? Yes, but the moment you’re saved you’re brought into a family that recognizes and affirms that you’re a part of this family.

-One of the early church fathers, writing in the 3rd century (so before the Nicene Creed) wrote an entire book titled “On the Unity of the Catholic Church” (again, catholic meaning universal). In that book, he stated the importance of the church this way: but then he went even further and also said: Once again, we need to caveat this a bit because Roman Catholics have taken this the wrong way to say that outside the church they’ve created there’s no salvation, what Cyprian is pointing to is the reality that God’s representatives on earth right now are found in the church. Think back to the great commission that we read earlier in Matt. 28, who is that charge given to? It’s not given to individuals, the command is given in the plural, saying YOU ALL TOGETHER go and make disciples.

-Jesus founded the church as His earthly representation in this time between His comings and for us to follow after Jesus, we must be a part of the church, and since I talk about it so much, this is another one of the reasons I emphasize membership so much. Membership is a modern day response attempting to live out what Jesus has commanded because every human relationship requires a commitment on the part of both parties involved.

  • Markers of the Church

-This only talks about baptism, not the Lord’s Supper, but we believe those are the 2 markers that help us get at what a true church is (our denomination SOF says it this way). Before we look at those, though, one of the common critiques from Protestants to this creed is the forgiveness of sins (which I just mentioned comes only through faith in Jesus), so is this Creed saying that baptism is required for salvation? This is picking up on Peter’s words at Pentecost in Acts 2:

-Do you see the way repentance and baptism are intertwined? Baptism is meant to serve as a marker of the entry point of faith. Baptism is often the first step of obedience when the Lord has saved you, and the New Testament has no category for someone who is not baptized. Throughout the NT these 2 things are intimately connected together. You can also read Rom. 6 to see the picture Paul gives assuming that every Christian has been baptized.

-The other reality we confess about baptism is that there is “one” and we can see that in Eph. 4. This means that you shouldn’t be baptized more than once, that would be like asking to be born again (and I know that none of your mothers would sign up for that!) If you, any of you, have trusted in Jesus as your Savior, we would LOVE to baptize you here! We will fill up this tank anytime someone talks to us and expresses a desire to be baptized, so if that is any of you, please talk to me or anyone else on staff here and we’ll set up a time to talk about the significance of baptism and what it looks like.

-One other important thing to note about this creed is that it’s a summary of the bare minimum doctrines, but it isn’t a complete list of things that you need to practice or affirm to be a Christian. For example, baptism is only 1 of the ordinances Jesus gave to the church, the other is the Lord’s Supper. As I shared at the beginning of this series, creeds are written in response to questions or issues being raised, so at the time these statements were enough to articulate what the church is. 1200 years later, another confession was written that was working to distinguish the true church vs. false churches, and look at their summary: 3 things: correct preaching of the gospel, practicing of the sacraments (or ordinances) of baptism & communion, and church discipline (which I believe is a subset of the Lord’s Supper, email me if you want to know why).

-And I want to take some time to walk through the connection between those 2 things, because they are connected to each other, but most of the time we don’t think about their relationship. In fact, I’ve gotten into some debates with some pastors over this connection before! And that debate is: who should celebrate communion? And to answer that we need to think about what each sacrament is connected to. Baptism, as I shared earlier, is connected to repentance and the moment you’re saved. The Bible doesn’t have a category for an unbaptized Christian, which means anyone who is following Jesus should be baptized as a step of obedience to the Bible. Communion is connected to the ongoing sanctification (being made holy) of the believer, which I believe means you shouldn’t celebrate communion before you have been baptized, hence why I’ve shared before in various settings that I would discourage children from celebrating the Lord’s Supper until they have been baptized, because I don’t think it’s right to celebrate the ongoing practices until you have celebrated the beginning practice. There’s a logical connection to these 2 things that we need to keep in mind. This is also the historic practice of the church. The Didache (late 1st or early 2nd century document describing the practice of the church) says this:

-That being said, because I can’t point to a chapter and verse that makes this practice explicit I don’t believe it’s a sin if you get these out of order, and in my debates with people I’ve had people ask me: if someone got saved today would I bar them from the table? No! But the normal practice should be: saved, baptism, Lord’s Supper. And parents, you have a role to play in this: talk to your kids about what each of those ordinances mean! And if you don’t know how, talk to Erin because she’s a master at collecting books and resources to equip you to help your kids take 1 step closer to Jesus! Kids: talk to your parents about these things! And if you have put your trust in Jesus, talk to your parents about being baptized!

  • The Future Church

-This first phrase would have been viewed as ridiculous to most of the world at the time! What do you mean there’s a resurrection of the dead?! We need to squeeze as much pleasure out of this world as we possibly can, because once we’re gone that’s it! And I hate to break it to you, but that’s not Christianity. Christianity tells us that this world is broken, but redeemed, and that one day all the brokenness will be fixed, and the reason we can trust that is because someone told us that, and then He proved His words by rising from the dead.

-One of the most helpful passages for us to meditate on in relation to this is 1 Cor. 15. Paul tells us the necessity of the resurrection of the body because if there is no resurrection, then even Jesus is still dead, and if Jesus is still dead, then we have no reason to put our faith in Him. And it gets worse! Paul says if our only hope is in this world then everyone else should pity for us. But Jesus has been raised from the dead, which means the only people who should be pitied are those who don’t put their faith in Him!

-And Paul connects that reality to us for the rest of this section. Do you see how he refers to Jesus as the firstfruits here? That’s a way of saying Jesus is the picture of what we someday will be like. Those who belong to Christ will be resurrected just like Him, someday in the future when death itself is defeated and undone.

-And friends, the Bible also tells us about the life in the world to come, and the guy who told us what it will be like is the same one who rose from the dead, and since He’s the only guy who can claim that, I’m going to stick with His suggestions. Look at the picture we get of this new life in the last chapter of the Bible, Rev. 22

-In the new Jerusalem, after Jesus comes back, the city is divided by the river of the water of life. No more death exists there! And do you see the sources of this life? The throne of God and the Lamb. God is the source of all our life (remember last week we saw the Lifegiver?). And the tree of life produces fruit each month, the nations are healed, and the curse of sin is the only things that’s dead. And this life will never end! It says we will reign forever and ever.

-And the whole creed appropriately ends with a Hebrew word that means “this is true.” Which also happens to be the last word in the Bible, which is connected to another promise from Jesus. Jesus says that He is coming soon (which is a relative term when you compare it to eternity!)

-So John’s response: Amen, yes, this is true! And we respond inviting Jesus to return, but until that time we ask for the Lord’s grace to be with all of us, and just to reiterate that this is true, the Bible ends with this note of praise: amen. Yes, let it be true!

-We’ve made it all the way through this creed; how do we take this and begin applying it to our lives?

-First, we read and reflect on this as our pledge of allegiance to this Trinitarian God who exists as Father, Son, and Spirit, and we fall on our faces in worship of this mysterious reality that brings us into the loving relationship of this God.

-Second, we use this as a reminder of what is most important in our faith, this summary of God’s plan in salvation to rescue, reconcile, and redeem a people for Himself. This reminder of what the church throughout history and the world together believes and confesses as the mark of orthodoxy.

-Finally, because of the way this creed (and the Bible) ends, we use it as a reminder to hope! Jesus is coming soon, so we say: amen and amen, this is true, so come, Lord Jesus, come!

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by mikethestrand on May 31, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 31, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/05/31/in-the-church-sermon-manuscript/

In the Holy Spirit

-Looking at the Nicene Creed in celebration of it’s 1,701st birthday. But each week, we’re also looking at a different creed to see why we need to have creeds. I’m guessing you’ve seen this one before, there’s a house in my neighborhood that has it up:

Let’s think about what this is saying:

-Black lives matters. I agree! As the nursery rhyme that I still sing to my kids says: Jesus loves the little children of the world, red and yellow, black and white. But, we have to differentiate between this statement the organization Black Lives Matter. BLM as an organization has some major disagreements with Christian faith, but we as Christians can affirm that black lives do indeed matter! 

-Science is real: science is merely observation, this is as helpful as saying “science says…” science doesn’t “say” anything, scienTISTS can say things as they interpret data and observations.

-Love is love: we talked about that one last week.

-Kindness is everything: have you looked at gas prices? I can’t use kindness to fill up my tank! It’s a ridiculous platitude that’s meant to give warm fuzzies but doesn’t mean anything!

-And Christians can be guilty of doing the same thing: I’m “pan” millennial, we’ll see how it all “pans” out, I’m as Calvinist as the Bible says and as Arminian as the Bible says. Study these issues! Those are an excuse to be lazy, and God doesn’t call people to laziness! Friends, this is why we need creeds in our lives to help protect us from laziness or theological drift. A friend sent me this yard sign that if anyone wants to buy for me I will gladly stick in my front yard:

-I’m going to ask you to stand for the reading of God’s Word, but we’re going to do something a little bit different, I’m just going to read them to you and ask you to listen and not follow along in your Bibles quite yet because I want to read the primary texts that get to what we’re studying today.

–Gen. 1:1-2; Luke 1:26-35, 4:1, 14-15, John 14:15-26, 16:12-15

  1. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed

-Technically, the creed we’ve been studying is referred to this way instead of just the Nicene Creed, because there are 2 editions of this. I shared at the beginning of this series that we’re celebrating 1700 years since this was written, but that’s only partially true. The conversation continued over the next decades, so in 381 they landed on the finalized version of the Nicene Creed that continues to be used through today.

-Now before we look at the biggest difference, I want to remind us where we’re starting and the reason this Creed even exists. God is the creator of everything, but there’s a hard line between God and creation, you’ve seen this each week. Arius worked hard to emphasize the one-ness of God and thus argued that Jesus has to go below the line. He argued that since Jesus was “begotten” then there had to have been a time when He was not. But the council, tracing what the Bible said, disagreed with that argument and said that Jesus Himself claimed to be one with the Father, therefore Jesus is above the line.

-The next question they had to work through gets us back to the beginning of last week’s section, where it said that Jesus’s work was “for us and for our salvation.” How do we bridge this divide? History traces humanity’s attempts at building a ladder to try to get up there, most specifically seen at Babel where humans did their best to reach the realm of the gods (in the heavens above), but despite humanity’s attempts, there is nothing that can bridge this gap. God exists completely outside of His creation, we can’t do anything to get up to Him, which means He has to come down to us, which just so happens to be the story we see in the Bible! Out of the overflow of God’s inner love comes the physical created world that is created to love God and love each other. But how can we be brought into that Trinitarian love? That’s where we need the Holy Spirit living in us, which the 325 edition of this creed didn’t articulate very much, here’s the comparison:

-The first edition made a basic statement that didn’t give much clarity, which meant guess which debate came next? Yeah, people trying to argue that the Holy Spirit was less than God. There was a group that called themselves the Pneumatomachi (side note, but if you’re going to create a heretical cult, this is a great name to use) which is Greek for “Spirit-fighters.” Just as Arius denied that Jesus was fully God, this group denied that the Holy Spirit was fully God, proposed by a guy name Macedonius. So how did the church respond? They convened another council to re-articulate and defend what the Bible says by fleshing out what they meant when they said “and in the Holy Spirit” previously.

-This takes place all the time, like you know how policies and laws always get created in response to something happening? That’s exactly what’s taking place here. At a previous church I was at, there was a policy in the wedding manual (but nowhere else) that banned Dungeons and Dragons, which means it could be played anytime EXCEPT when a wedding is going on! I would have LOVED to have known what happened that led to the banning of a board game because you know it was in response to some funny story!

-1 other big difference between these 2 editions is what is included after the section on the Holy Spirit: 

-This was removed in the 381 version because they wanted to use it as devotional and liturgical statement to be used in the church and by Christians.

-hypostasis and ousia are used as synonyms here (untranslated to be able to see what exactly is being said) and ensuring that Arius couldn’t use his preferred word and get away with it. Hypostatis refers to personhood or being, and ousia is the same thing (at this time). Eventually, hypostatis is the preferred term in referring to the persons of the Trinity, so what we looked at last week is what theologians call “the hypostatic union,” Jesus having 2 natures but 1 Being or essence. And if you’re already confused, then use that confusion to marvel at our God whose ways and thoughts are above anything we can ever imagine!

-So now let’s all recite the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed together again (and I hope some of you are taking the time to memorize it throughout the week! There are papers at the tables on your way out if you haven’t gotten one yet!)

-This last phrase I’m breaking up into 2 weeks, this week we’ll just look at the Holy Spirit, next week we’ll look at where He’s at work: in the church. 

  • The Life-Giver

-I intentionally pulled this word out even though it’s not the first word used to describe him because I love this summary of the Spirit’s work, and the Greek is 1 compound word “life-giver.” Have you ever thought of the Sprit as the one who gives life? We read Gen. 1 earlier which explicitly mentions the Spirit being involved in creation. We know from other passages in the NT that the Son is also involved in creation, so we see from the beginning the Trinitarian nature of God.

-This is intentionally mean to contrast with the dead. Think of what Rom. 8:11 says: the Holy Spirit’s role in salvation is literally to bring us from death to life spiritually. 

-And we also see the role of the Spirit in the act of creation twice. First in the verses we read earlier where the Spirit is involved in bringing life to the primordial chaos, but then we see His work implied when the text focuses on the creation of humans in Gen. 2: notice that it’s not until the man is giving breath that he becomes a living being, so the Spirit’s role is to give life.

-We read these verses earlier, too, but that theme comes up again in the new creation of Jesus inside Mary’s womb. Look at how both Luke and Matthew describe what happened.

-Back to the creed: the Lord, the same as Jesus, pointing to unity between Son & Spirit

-The ordering is both biblical & logical. We started with the Father, then talked about the Son, and now we’re getting to the Holy Spirit, and that’s the reason we refer to them as the first, second, and third persons of the Godhead. It’s not significance, it’s the way God reveals Himself to us. 

-What is “proceeds”? Another word theologians will use in reference to the Spirit is the word “spiration” which just means breath.

-They’re trying to answer the question: how do we talk about the distinctions within the godhead? How do we determine the difference between the Son & the Spirit? Last week we looked at the word “begotten” in relation to Son seen from John 3:16, proceeds is the word chosen to refer to the Spirit’s relation because of John 15:26 (remember, they’re working to define how the Bible reveals God to us) so we see that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, while the Son is begotten from the Father.

-we’ll talk about the part in brackets as the third point, so hold onto that

-The theme in this next section is the Greek word syn being used repeatedly in this section, it means “with” or “together.”

-a literal way of trying to translate this idea would make zero sense in English in most cases, but it appears 3 times: “with”, “co-worshipped” and “co-glorified” attempting to signify that we worship God as Father, Son, and Spirit.

-Something I’ve been mulling over for a few years that comes out of this: do we pray to the Spirit? And I at times struggle to land on some of this discussion because there’s so many excesses of conversation that we need to avoid, but that doesn’t mean we should stop thinking, studying, or learning about the HS, but if the HS is God, then shouldn’t we also pray to Him? 

-I also think emphasis matters, because the primary focus throughout Scripture is on the Father (think of the Lord’s Prayer, how does it begin?), the second emphasis is on the Son, and the third emphasis is on the Spirit, which means if we’re following the Bible our addressing of God should follow a similar pattern where we direct our prayers to our Father, addressing him through the Son, and we do so in the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. And even the work of the HS is meant to focus our minds in a specific direction: towards Jesus.

-I love what Charles Spurgeon said about this idea in one of his devotionals: Friends, part of the reason we struggle with sin is because we’re too busy looking at our sin or at ourselves instead of looking to Christ! Ask the Holy Spirit to focus your eyes on Jesus instead of yourself! 
-As always, because we’re in the realm of God, there’s more that could be said, but we don’t have time to dig into it today! I have plenty of books for you if you want to borrow them!

-The last phrase on the Holy Spirit gets to the realm of speaking. Have you ever considered the reality that our God speaks? And not just that God speaks, but sometimes God speaks through people! Where it says the prophets here, just replace it with “the Bible.” Anytime we see the Spirit speaking it’s going to drive us back to the Bible, and we see examples of that throughout Scripture:

-Look at what David says in 2 Sam. 23:2. Who is that spoke through David? The Spirit!

-Look how the author of Hebrews refers to the OT in 3:7. He’s quoting Psalm 95 there, but who does it say was speaking in Psalm 95? The HS!

-But it’s not just the OT the whole Bible is inspired by the same Spirit! 2 Tim. 3:16-17 tells us that ALL Scripture is “inspired by God” is trying to translate another compound Greek word made up of God + breath/Spirit, some translations have “God-breathed”, again inspired by the Spirit, and notice the goal of this inspiration: for us to be complete and ready for every good work (which comes about through the Spirit working in us)

-The last example of the Spirit speaking through Scripture: 2 Peter 1:21. I love the picture Peter paints here! “carried along” God working in them, but not leaving them off the hook, all this comes because the third person of the Trinity lives within us in some mysterious way through faith.

-Not let’s get into the most debated phrase of this whole thing: 

  • Filioque

-If you don’t know Latin, this word is Latin for “and the Son.”

-Let’s go back to the verse for the wording of this creed “proceeds” in John 15:26

-It sure looks like the Son is somehow involved in this process, right? And there’s other passages like John 14:16, once again Jesus is involved in the sending of the Spirit, even if the Spirit doesn’t “proceed” from the Son.

-The biggest debate about this whole creed is whether or not to include “and the Son” of for the procession of the HS. This is pointed to as the reason for the split of the church between the east and the west. The phrase wasn’t added to the creed until 589 (200 years later), at a Western council in Toledo, Spain

-And this wasn’t a trivial matter! One of the eastern bishops named Photius wrote in 866 (pardon the French): do you see how strongly he’s condemning the phrase?

-And he has a point! Notice the word ecumenical, we tend to view that word with at least skepticism today, if not outright dismissal as someone who pursues just the lowest common denominator in theology instead of taking a stance, in this case view it positively as something the whole church together affirms.

-We’re Western Christians, we’re products of affirming that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son, but is that the best way to describe their relationship?

-Some terms theologians use to help us understand are in Latin: one refers to the mysterious inner workings of the Trinity that we can’t fully understand, the other refers to the external workings of the Trinity (and if you go digging into this further you’ll find that theologians will also refer to this distinction as the economic or the immanent Trinity, economic as the external workings, immanent as the internal)

-And if you just got more confused: we need a way of distinguishing between the work of God Himself versus the way we experience him in the history of salvation. For example, we can say that God lives in us from the moment we’re saved, but we can’t say the Son lives in us. Similarly we can say that Mary is the mother of God (another early church debate!), but we can’t say that Mary is the mother of the Father. Or one more example, we can say that God died, but we can’t say that the Father died.

-The phrase “and the Son” wasn’t in the original, so it shouldn’t be considered a marker of orthodoxy, but we do have to acknowledge some kind of relationship between the Son and the Spirit. Maximus the Confessor (another great name) said it should be proceeds from the Father through the Son.

-Words matter, definitions of words matter, and God’s revelation matters above all of them! And one of the joys of being a Protestant (that’s another church history issue for another time) is we can look at some of these debates as outside observers who continually go back to the Bible and try to defend what the Bible says. So a couple passages that I think help us get some more glimpses into the Trinity:

–John 16 shows the Spirit obeying Jesus, and says that everything the Father has is also Jesus’s, which you could argue that if the Spirit proceeds from the Father, then He must also proceed from the Son.

-In contrast to that, Mark 1 tells the account of Jesus’s baptism where all 3 persons of the Trinity are glimpsed together, Jesus in the water, the Spirit like a dove, and the Father affirming His Son. But then what happens to Jesus? He obeys the Spirit. And once again, we’re left with a mystery as to how the Godhead works “ad intra” or internally. We experience the Trinity “ad extra” and the Spirit (through the Son) brings us into this loving relationship within the Trinity, but we will never completely understand how this relationship works. And each time we bring up this mystery, we need to fall on our face in worship of this God. 

-I want to end our study on the HS today in John 20. Because of what God has done for us through His Son and in the Spirit living in us, we have peace with God. But the Spirit living in us is also the reason we’re still here in the world. The Spirit living in us is the reason Jesus sends us out into the world to both show the world the love God has for them, and to live holy lives in the world as a picture of what it means to follow Jesus.

-There’s also a note in here about sins, which leads us into the Lord’s Table. The church is the place where we gather each week to remember what’s truly true: that we have been adopted into this family of God that comes from the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit. This family allows you to have your sins forgiven and together works towards ensuring the purity of Christ’s bride. 

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by mikethestrand on May 24, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 24, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/05/24/in-the-holy-spirit/

In One Lord – Sermon Manuscript

-We’re spending 4 weeks looking at the Nicene Creed because it helps provide a foundation for what we as Christians need to affirm. It’s the 1 extra-biblical document affirmed by all branches of the church and helps us learn how we should talk about the God of the Bible. Today we have a special treat, though, because there’s 1 word in here that’s not found in the Bible, which we’ll get to in a little bit.
-Also, remember that this wasn’t written to determine the books of the Bible (I don’t like that terminology anyway, humans didn’t determine the books that God inspired, they affirmed them, feel free to ask me about that sometime if you want)
READ Col. 1
-But just like we had a bad creed last week, I have another really bad creed that went viral a few years ago during a livestream from a “church” in Edina (I won’t even mention the name of it), called “The Sparkle Creed,” and it is as bad as that makes it sound. Are you ready to hear it? DO NOT recite this one with me because it is horrible: 
-non-binary doesn’t work to a being that isn’t gendered, God is spirit so that’s a category mistake. Also, He always reveals Himself in the singular and masculine throughout the Bible, so why aren’t they using God’s preferred pronouns?
-I have no clue what fabulous tunic Jesus wore, Joseph wore a fabulous tunic in Genesis, but not Jesus (maybe they confused the 2 people?). Jesus also didn’t have 2 dads, this completely ignores the mother of Jesus, you can’t create a baby with 2 dads!
-And on and on the nonsense goes (what does an AIDS quilt have to do with Jesus? love is love is love?) What are they actually confessing to believe in and where is their unbelief here? This whole thing is merely a humanistic statement that aligns with all our modern culture’s little-g gods. I shared last week that it’s significant that the Nicene Creed begins with WE believe (although some manuscripts said I in terms of one being baptized), but look how this one begins. Friends, this is one of the biggest problems in our world today: excessive focus on the individual. Even for Christians in the West, we view our faith as something we pick and choose. We jump from church to church whenever we want, we run from commitment and complain when things don’t perfectly align with what we want. And in that world, Jesus offers us something radically different: an invitation into a relationship with the triune God, who has eternally existed in a loving relationship of 3 equally divine persons, and our job as Christians is to invite others into that relationship that happens from the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit.
-The question before us today is point one in my outline:
Is Jesus God?
-Think back to last week, I said the primary question the early church was working to determine was in this world, where there’s God, then a HARD line that separates Him from His creation, where do you put Jesus? Arius (4th century pastor) argued that the Son has to go below the line because God is one, so he used the phrase “There was a time when the Son was not” as his motto. But is that what the Bible actually reveals about God? I alluded to this last week, but Dan Brown (who just used an argument from Bart Ehrman) in The da Vinci Code spun a funny story about the Nicaean council meeting to “create” the Bible that ostracized people and didn’t represent “true” Christianity. That’s nothing close to what happened! In fact, this debate pushed people back to the Bible, and many of the early church fathers had the entire Bible memorized! Their writings are dripping with quotes from the Bible, which is why the Nicaean creed is similarly dripping with the Bible.
-One of my favorite professors in seminary said he wished instead of asking “what do you believe” when talking about this creed, pastors would ask “In whom do you trust,” because this creed is focused on the God of the Bible, not in what we do. So I’m going to ask you to recite it with me again this week, and following my professor, church, in whom do you trust?
-I want to look at 2 passages from the Bible before we work our way through the creed that will help us answer this question and will help us hear where some of the wording from the creed comes from! 
-First, John 1. John begins by alluding to the creation account of Gen. 1, and then goes on to tell us that the Word (who John later reveals is Jesus) was in the beginning. And this Word was with God and was God. With and was, separate and together. And then we see our preposition that we got from Fred Sanders last week: through. From the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. He’s also described as the light (which is important for the creed)
-Second is what we read earlier, the Christ-hymn of Col. 1. Building up to this, Paul has been saying focusing on what we have in Jesus, then He bursts into this praise: the image of God, if you want to know what God looks like, look to Jesus. Firstborn (but not in terms of being created, this is priority) and we see that creation was THROUGH Him (visible and invisible). He is before and holding together everything, and He’s the head of the church. AND the Firstborn from the dead (pointing to another resurrection that we will experience). God has ALL his fullness dwell in him. How much is all? All! Nothing’s left out of God’s fullness dwelling in Him (that’s another way of saying He’s God). Jesus also provides the way to peace: through His blood. 
-I don’t know if you picked up on it from those passages, but those pretty clearly seem to be saying that Jesus is God, don’t they? And just in case we missed it, look at what Jesus says in John 10:30. And this is the point where the Jews know exactly what He’s saying and pick up rocks to kill Him! The question is: how do we talk about that? And that’s where the debate came from at Nicea:
-We’ll take this in 2 parts, the first is the divinity of Jesus, second is the work of the incarnate Jesus.
The Only-Begotten
-First thing to note is just as we confess one God, we also confess one Lord, but then it goes on to describe the HS as the Lord! That’s intentionally done so that we understand that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also united. This word has a wide range of meanings throughout the Bible: used in the Greek translation of the OT to translate the divine name (Yahweh). In the NT it can refer to Jesus as God, and in other places it can be a sign of respect (such as calling a ruler my lord). In this case, it’s referring to Him as His divine name.
-Jesus Christ, transliteration of Joshua, the one who led his people into the promised land, and Christ is the anointed one, the long-awaited Messiah from the OT.
-Now we get to the good stuff! The only-begotten. Taking language from John 3:16, the creed states that Jesus is the only one who was begotten from the Father, and that this “begetting” is eternal.
-This is where Arius got off, because it’s a category error to assume that God is exactly like us, and this is also where this is good news for us. Begetting is a way of referring to the relationships within the Trinity, it’s not the same way that we “beget” today. So even though the Father “begets” the Son, there was never a time where the Son wasn’t “begotten” from the Father. What that means is we can’t apply the limit of time to this relationship; God has forever existed as Father and Son (and we can add Spirit to that list).
-And what makes this good news for us is it’s because of this relationship that we’re here today. One of the realities about God that we read in 1 John 4:8 is that He is love, but love assumes that there is someone else to love, otherwise that love turns inward and becomes self-love, which is gross! Love requires there to be someone else that the love is directed towards (which is, as the EFCA SOF says, why God eternally existing as a loving unity of 3 equally divine persons is so significant). Contrast this with Muslims who believe that Allah has 99 names that describe Him, one of which is “the most loving.” But who has Allah been loving? Muslims emphasize the unity of God and call those who believe in the Trinity heretics, strong words about Christians! But who has Allah been loving for eternity? And the word is specifically supposed to refer to love of someone else. If that someone else means that Allah loves his creation, then suddenly he’s not a completely independent god, he’s reliant on his creation to allow him to be loving, that’s not the case with the Christian God. That’s why we can say that God didn’t need to create us, He is completely independent in himself, but out of the overflow of God’s perfect trinitarian love, He created everything to be brought into that pre-existing relationship, which means our purpose in existing is to love God, and then represent that love to the rest of creation (doesn’t that almost sound like what Jesus said is the summary of the law? Love God, and love your neighbor) And once again, we see the importance of the prepositions from Fred Sanders: from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.
-God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God. Jesus is God, light, and the true God, and He’s also the Son who is sent from the Father: unity and diversity at the same time.
-They then clarify what they meant when they said begotten: not made, meaning that God’s begetting is different than a human begetting. This is another way of attacking Arius’s argument that Jesus was a created being.
-And now, finally, we’re at the one word that isn’t found in the Bible. One note: it’s not wrong to use extra-biblical words to attempt to describe things that are true about God, it helps us understand what we’re talking about! The Greek word they used is the word homoousios which is of the same essence (or Being as the translation we’ve been using says).
-And there’s a fantastic story that goes along with the choice of this word! The bishops kept attempting to use only words from the Bible, but Arius and his crew kept sitting in the corner chuckling to themselves as each word was proposed because they could use those same words with different dictionaries to stick with their perspective that Jesus was a created being. Here’s what Athanasius wrote about 20 years after the council:
-Dissimulation is a fancy word for hiding one’s internal thoughts and feelings to trick someone else. Arius and his followers (called Arians) were able to take the biblical words and twist them to mean what they wanted them to mean, which is why the council needed to come up with a word that couldn’t be twisted by them. And do you see how this discussion drove them back to the Bible to try to summarize what the Bible says in a way that can’t be debated?
-And the debate became which of these 2 words is the best description of the Bible’s definition of Jesus? And it’s been said that never has so much hinged on a single iota (the Greek letter i). The first word: homo (is a common word today, means “same”) the second word is ousia (“essence” or “being” or “substance”) some of the trick is in translation there isn’t always a 1 for 1 correlation, and words change meaning over time, so I like the way this translation has “Being” with the capital letter. The second proposed word changes the first word from “same” to “like”, which means Jesus is like the Father in essence, which Arius could have affirmed in his own way. And after much debate and discussion, the word homoousios became the orthodox way of referring to the Son, that is He is of the exact same essence or Being as the Father. Because of the unique relationship within the Trinity, people had to carefully determine how we would talk about it, which words adequately describe it, which words make it more difficult, and how can we all come to the same dictionary definition? You may remember this picture from last week, the 7 statements to describe God (which 1 book I read this week said is still not helpful because it looks like there are 4 instead of 3! Do you see why this is so difficult to discuss?) But what it’s trying to communicate is what we just talked about, which can be seen like this: The words they landed on to make sure that Arius couldn’t sneak by was “being” or “essence” which the three were referred to as “persons.” If you want to know about why they landed on persons, email me! 
-But that doesn’t get to everything that Jesus did, as we see in the next section:
Was Incarnate 
-What is the incarnation? We established from the first section that the Son is God, but then what about all the other stuff that He did, like taking on flesh and living as a human (like we saw in Colossians earlier). And it’s important for us to realize that even when the council that met at Nicaea was done, the debate wasn’t done. We heard from Athanasius earlier, who wasn’t even a bishop at the time, but spent his life defending the Nicene creed against misinterpretation. Then after Athanasius was another guy who continued refining what it was that the Bible revealed about Jesus, and here’s why we needed Jesus to become incarnate:
-Essentially, what he’s arguing is that if Jesus wasn’t completely human, then we can’t be completely saved. As an example, what if Jesus didn’t have a physical body (as some early cults tried to argue)? Then the only thing that could be saved is our immaterial parts, which is one of the things that this creed makes clear didn’t happen. Jesus was fully and completely human so that we could be fully and completely saved.
-It begins with the entire reason Jesus came: for our salvation. Did you notice that this is the first time it turns any attention to us? This is all focused on God and what He has done for us to bring us into relationship with Him. And then after mentioning us, it goes back to focusing on the second person of God:
-And I think it’s helpful for us to see the 10 verbs in this section that provide a summary of what Jesus did, and do you see how there’s what He did in the past, what He is currently doing, and what He will do in the future.
-First He came down from heaven, he humbled himself is the way Phil. 2 says it. Was incarnate comes from the Latin translation of this word, but the Greek word used is something like “was fleshified.” This is a unique term that describes something that only God could do. One author stated that this is different than embodied because “every living human being is embodied, but only Christ is God incarnate.” The Greek word emphasizes the fleshiness of this, the reality that Jesus entered into a fully human existence. This is a slight tangent, but I’m not a fan of people who say we as Christians are supposed to do “incarnational ministry.” I understand what people mean by that in that we’re supposed to represent Christ to the world, but I worry that it conflates what only Jesus could do with what we can do. We can witness and point to Him, only Jesus can be incarnate.
-And see how He became incarnate: from the HS and the Virgin Mary. We’ll look closer at the HS next week, but the first description of the HS in this creed is the life-giver. Just as the Spirit was hovering over the waters in the first creation, here He was involved in this special creation of the God-man, Jesus Christ, as Luke 1:35 tells us.
-And to make it explicit that Jesus was fully human, a literal translation of this next phrase is “in-humanized.” This is where Arius’s famous statement didn’t go far enough: there was a time when the Son was not human, but there was never a time when the Son was not existing. And friends, this is the craziest part of the whole story of Scripture. God eternal, who existed before time and space lowered himself down to our level by entering human history and being born as a baby. Again, I think Gregory of Nazianzus is helpful here: at no time during His earthly existence did He stop upholding the universe, but He also added humanity to what He was. Somehow and some way the eternal and invisible God added humanity to Himself, and with that said we’re at the mystery card again! Now, think of what the author of Hebrews says about Jesus: 
-I remember pondering this verse when I was in high school, and theologians love to debate: could Jesus have sinned? As if sin is inherent to being human. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it is. But that was not a part of God’s design of humans, sin actually is a marker that we’re not fully human, so Jesus was the most human person to ever walk the earth. 
-After ensuring that we understand Jesus’ humanity, we get to His work on the cross. He was crucified under Pilate, pointing to the historical reliability of this event as well as God’s sovereignty in guiding even a Roman governor! 
-Then it says he suffered death, but could the eternal and all-powerful God even suffer, much less die? One of the truths we confess about God is that he is immortal! I appreciated with Phillip Cary said about this: 
-And this creed goes even further in saying that He was buried. He died all the way, even facing the realm of the dead, which means when we die, we don’t need to be afraid, because Christ has already conquered that, too!
-And then we get to the reason to be a Christian: Jesus didn’t stay dead. On the third day He rose again! And this resurrection isn’t just for Jesus, this resurrection is the first fruits of death itself being undone! Jesus, in death, ensured that we never have to live apart from Him, so even when death comes for us (if the Jesus doesn’t come back before that day), we have nothing to fear! Jesus is with us here and there, and this was God’s plan “according to the Scriptures.”
-After 40 days, He ascended back into heaven, the place where He came down from. But now there’s something different about Him: He now has a body, forever. Jesus, the 1st century Jewish man, is now living in heaven as a fully incarnated human, which blows my mind! Now, heaven isn’t some place that we need to go into space to enter, it’s an invisible realm that we can’t see with our physical eyes right now, but somehow God can still see and interact with us here. And Jesus, the Son of God is currently sitting at the right hand of the Father, and a better way of thinking of sitting would be “is enthroned” as David describes in Psalm 110. While Jesus’ atoning work is done, the Bible tells us that He lives to constantly intercede on our behalf, to constantly lift us up before His Father.
-And lastly, this isn’t the end of the story. He has promised that He will return, the same way He left, in glory. This return won’t be humble, this return will be as the conquering King who will judge the living and the dead, which means no one is off the hook. And when He returns, that’s just the beginning of the end, because His kingdom will never end!
-And if we are in Christ, if we have been saved, if we have believed that Jesus is the Son of God, then we are brought up into this perfect trinitarian relationship because the of what Jesus has done for us.
-He came down, was incarnate, and was made man. He was crucified, he suffered, and was buried. Then he rose again, ascended into heaven, and is seated at His Father’s right hand, from where He will come again in glory, and all of this was: for us and for our salvation.
-This is the miracle of the Trinity, that God became a man to enable men and women to become children of God. I can’t think of any better news, of any better hope then trusting in this God of love.

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by mikethestrand on May 17, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Church, History, Sermon, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 17, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/05/17/in-one-lord-sermon-manuscript/

In One God – Sermon Manuscript

-My parents offered to watch the kids last night, so Cara and I got to go out for a date night, and we tried a new to us place called Crisp & Green in AV. Decent salads and smoothies if you’re looking for a salad! But they had something on the wall that serves as a perfect illustration of why we need to study something like the Nicene Creed: 

-I’m not sure about you, but I’m not looking to a salad place to tell me what to believe! Also, what does it mean to be 100% authentic? There’s all sort of different creeds that people hold to today (one of which is always be 100% authentic to yourself). But what is a Christian creed? What do we claim to believe in?

-We’re going to kick this series off reading from Deut. 6:4-8 (pg. 157)

-Our bread and butter here is picking a book of the Bible and walking through it. But how do we know how to interpret what’s in the Bible? Another way of asking this question is: how do we know which interpretation is the correct one? I share this regularly when I preach, but there are debates about all sorts of things in the Bible! The correct translation of specific words, the authors meaning behind the words, why some authors use words differently (if you want to wade into the waters look at the different ways Paul and James use the word “works”). One way the church (when I say that, I’m referring to the universal church) has tried to answer that question is by creating creeds, or statements of belief. Generally, these occur in response to specific questions or issues that are brought up as people start digging into Scripture, and the earliest debates in the church were focused on the question of how Jesus could be God. How could a first-century Jewish man who ate, walked, breathed, and slept be the Creator and sustainer of the universe? Especially when at the core of the Jewish faith is the confession that the Lord our God the Lord is one. I’ll mention this now as a teaser, but the big debate centers on this picture: where does Jesus fit in the understanding that God is unique when there’s a hard line between God and creation, does Jesus go above or below the line?

-One of the first things we have to admit is that in order for us to know God, He has to come down to our level. John Calvin, in his institutes, said, “God, in so speaking, lisps with us as nurses are wont to do with little children.” He’s saying that any talk God does to us is like baby talk, which is good for us, but it also means there are things that are said that we can’t fully understand, if we could completely understand God then He wouldn’t be God, we would! So then as we dig into what God has revealed, it takes some work and effort for us to figure out exactly what is meant in this “baby talk.”

-We also need to do some (what I have previously called) “Theological tune-up” from time to time! It’s worth trying to take some of what the Bible says and putting it together into a coherent system of belief (which is called systematic theology). I’ve shared this picture before, but it bears repeating as a reminder of how we grow in our knowledge and understanding of God. Exegesis is working to answer the question what does the text say? Biblical theology answers the question how has God revealed His word organically and historically, tracing various themes and ideas throughout the whole Bible. Historical theology answers the question how has the church historically understood this text? Systematic theology answers the question what does the Bible say about certain topics? And finally, pastoral theology answers how should humans respond to God’s revelation? We need all of these disciplines, but they’re often segmented off from each other, and in preaching the tendency is to do exegesis and then jump to pastoral theology without doing any further work. This series is intentionally taking some time to drill down into systematic theology, how do we put together what the Bible says about God? And all of these areas of study shape and inform each other in a feedback loop to help us grow in our understanding of what God has spoken to us. We need all of them working together to help us.

-I also like being late to the party, last year was the 1700th anniversary of the writing of the Nicene Creed, so I thought we should look at it, but I’d rather look at it after everyone else has already done it! My hope by the end of this series is that some of you have this creed memorized! So instead of doing a key verse in the sermon notes for this series, I’ve printed off some half sheets that have the whole thing on them, and the elders are also working to memorize it to recite at our meeting next month (so feel free to ask them how they’re memorization is coming). We’ll ALSO be singing a song after the sermon each week that helps us learn the words to this creed and move to a proper response. The words are also going to be on the screen each week, so would you please recite this creed with me (modern translation that I linked to in the sermon preview)

  1. What is a Creed?

-At the most basic level, a creed is an articulation of right belief, it’s where we get the word orthodoxy from 2 Greek words: orthos meaning straight or correct, and doxa meaning praise or belief. And that’s just 1 of the orthos, because for Christians the end goal isn’t just orthodoxy, the end goal of correct belief is orthopraxy (praxis Greek doing or practice) which is guided by orthocardia (right emotions), this is loving God correctly with all our heart, mind, soul, strength. This is meant to be a means of aligning what it is we believe with each other.

-Sometimes creeds were called symbols (from the Latin symbolum) which served as a sign or a token of being on the same side. For example, imagine a soldier is approaching a building at night, it’s dark outside, so the soldier standing guard says, “Halt! Who goes there?” and this army has a response that means they’re on the same side (open sesame). Another meaning of the symbolum is a pledge of allegiance giving from a solider when they were inducted into the army, they were given a creed something to recite that served as their confession in. Similarly for Christians, when they were baptized, they were pledging their allegiance to this God. 

-There are a number of what we could call “creeds” throughout the Bible (different than other creeds because these are all inspired), but there are numerous phrases that were used to identify God’s people throughout Scripture. One of the common phrases I’ve heard from Evangelicals is “No creed but the Bible.” And I understand and empathize with that impulse, but as soon as we say that we’re actually enacting a creed! And even more difficult: what do we do when heretical groups claim the same thing, as we’ll see with Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses? Really briefly, a few examples of what could be viewed as creeds throughout the Bible:

-We read this one earlier, Deut. 6, and do you see how this is God’s people pledging their allegiance to Him alone? God’s Words are to be at the forefront of everything they do.

-Another example is found in 1 Cor. 15, Paul quotes something that he says he received. That is he didn’t make it up or come up with it, it was passed down to him, and then he passes it down to the churches he plants and supports. 

-Another one is thought to be found in 1 Tim. 3, which again focuses on Jesus.

-Finally, there’s a few different places where we have a VERY short creedal statement, I’ll use Rom. 10:9, but it’s also found in 1 Cor. 12:3, Phil. 2:11, and that is the proclamation that Jesus is Lord. It’s a confession of truth, of aligning ourselves to this specific God who took on flesh as the God-man Jesus.

  • Why Study a Creed?

-The first and most important reason is because creeds provide guardrails that serve as protection from heresy. One brief caveat here before I continue, that word is used far too loosely today by so many online organizations that become “heresy hunters” who are trying to condemn as many people as they can! It’s not a Christian virtue to constantly be looking for problems in others. I have a pastor friend who likes to say that Christians are called to operate with the perspective of love, which means we assume the best about others, we don’t operate with the perspective of skepticism, that’s not a Christian virtue. That being said, heresy is still a real thing that we need to be aware of! So a few examples of groups today who deny the Nicene Creed, and why we need to understand what this creed is saying:

-We’ll start with Jehovah’s Witnesses (of which Michal Jackson was a part of, and so was Prince). On their website under what they believe they say: 

-Do you notice that they’re quoting the Bible to back up what they believe? Does that mean that they’re orthodox in those beliefs? Absolutely not! In fact, I often see JWs at the library when we take our kids there, with their displays to try to convince others to join this heretical cult! 

-What about the group formerly known as Mormons (LDS)? Here’s a quote from their website from an article titled “Becoming Like God.” Distinct beings, unity of the divine. What is divine, and what are beings? But Joseph Smith said some pretty crazy things too, like: Does any of that sound like what we read in the Bible, or like what we read about in the Nicene Creed?

-One more modern-day example: United Pentecostal Church International (oneness penecostalism) again deny the Trinity. There aren’t 3 persons of the Godhead, they are 3 “modes” or perceptions of God. They even explicitly state that they baptize only in the name of Jesus.

-Do you see how they’re taking the Bible and twisting and distorting it to fit their ideas? They even reference various verses but then ignore or gloss over any verses that don’t fit within their ideas. This is why we need creeds to correct the areas where we may be tempted to twist the Bible. As an example, my kids will often ask the question “Does ____ believe in God?” So YouTube stars, actors, basketball players, etc. And that’s fine for their age, but as you get older you know it’s not enough to ask that question, you need to go to the second question of WHICH God someone believes in. The Nicene Creed tells us which God is the God of the Bible that we should worship.

-Secondly, it allows us to avoid what CS Lewis called “chronological snobbery.” Friends, we are not the first Christians to live! God has been at work among His people for millennia, and it helps us to know and love God by learning from the examples of those who have wrestled through various issues in the past.

-A secondary question to the above is why study of THIS creed (besides it being the 1701st anniversary of it). Because it’s the most important creed in church history. It’s the only creed that has been affirmed by every branch of orthodox Christianity (not the eastern orthodox church), thus serves as a good foundation for “theological triage.” If you haven’t heard that before, you haven’t been coming here very long! We need a way of ranking specific doctrines, because denying some of them would land put you in heresy, but other doctrines have a wide margin of belief to them and you’re not in doubt of worshipping the wrong God. 

-If you noticed when we recited it, it’s broken down nicely into 3 sections that all begin with “We believe” and each section refers to 1 person of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The trinity is what separates Christianity from every other religion that has ever been created, and whatever language we use for it is going to fall short in some area. We’re entering into the realm of the divine when we talk about theology, which means there’s going to be things that our human minds can’t completely comprehend. There’s also no analogy that accurately describes the Trinity (egg and clover they’re all separate, water can’t be all 3 at the same time, human as father, son, and husband only gets to the relational aspect of the trinity but breaks down into modalism). 

-In an attempt to simplify some of this conversation, there are 7 statements that are true about God, which are all found in this picture. So if you can start to understand this picture, you’re starting to grasp the one true God who has revealed Himself to His creation. 1. The Father is God. 2. The Son is God. 3. The Holy Spirit is God. 4. The Father is not the Son. 5. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. 6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. 7. There is only one God.

-I’ve shared this story a couple times before, but it bears repeating as we begin this series. In seminary, you’re required to take some theology classes, which means we got to read a few books about theology. In talking about the Trinity, my professor said because we’re in the realm of God, we have a “mystery” card to play, but that doesn’t mean as soon as we enter into that realm we jump to waving the “mystery” white flag, we need to put in the work before we jump to the mystery. Our focus over the next 4 weeks is going to be exploring the beautiful doctrine of the Trinity, what theologian Fred Sanders calls “the happy land of the Trinity.” Even the word “trinity” isn’t in the Bible, it’s a word that humans came up with to describe this picture: tri (3) unity.

-Why was this creed written? In response to an early church debate that was taking place. There was a bishop (elder/pastor) named Arius who was trying to uphold the unity (oneness) and uniqueness of God. If God is one, then that means that even the Son had to be created by God. He was picking up the terminology from one of the most well-known Bible verses: John 3:16 (in the old NKJV that I memorized it in), begotten means there was a beginning time, right? That’s how it works with humans, I begot my kids, there was a time before they existed. Unfortunately, we can’t project the way humans work unto God. So when Arius was reading this, he equated begotten with created, but that’s not what is meant by this statement. God’s begetting is connecting to the way they relate to each other, not the way ordering of the Godhead (we’ll get there, don’t worry!). But Arius began teaching this, and apparently even created catchy songs that were spread across the Mediterranean by sailors (Athanasius said the songs weren’t even very good).

-Recently converted emperor Constantine, in order to protect the unity of his kingdom convened this council that met in Nicea to determine who was right: Arius or Alexander (bishop of Alexandria). Over 300 bishops convened, and there wasn’t a clear winner at the beginning. But it’s important for us to know that they didn’t set to determine ALL orthodoxy (inerrancy and the books of the Bible wasn’t even a discussion topic, contrary to Dan Brown’s presentation) primarily focused on the deity of Jesus, and worked to clarify the relationship God had between Himself and how that impacts us today.

-I mentioned Fred Sanders earlier, but I love the way he summarizes the way we respond to God: 

-We’ll be discussing more about the council each week as we work our way through the creed, but with all that background, let’s look at the first section:

  • God is One

-We believe: instead of a mere intellectual ascent, this is a way of ascribing allegiance to the one true God, who has declared from the beginning that He is one. He has no parts, He cannot be divided, He is completely united in being. This begins in the same place that shema began as a way to acknowledge the past history of God’s work. One note on this creed, the authors worked their hardest to use only biblical language, and they were successful with all except 1 word. But you’ll need to come back next week to find out what that 1 word is! There’s also some debate over how to translate this opening phrase, some manuscripts have the plural (we), others have the individual (I). One purpose in having this creed is to give something for those who were getting baptized to agree to! So in that case, it’s I believe, but WE all affirm along with those getting baptized.

-Second, the first things He’s called is Father, and this gets to His relation to His Son, Jesus, and because of what Jesus has done it also describes His relation to us. He’s not just the father though, He’s also the almighty. The words used by this creed were used to refer to some other gods too, in this case it’s a way of saying that God is the ruler over everything.

-He’s also the maker (or creator) of heaven and earth. This is a way of saying everything (like when someone says I’ve been working day and night, you don’t take it to mean there was no breaks), it also echoes the language of Gen. 1

-Lastly, it alludes to Col. 1:16 when it says that God created the visible sphere and the invisible sphere. But this also is a way of denying the Gnostic heresy that said Jesus was just 1 of a plethora of gods in the supernatural realm.

-This is the shortest section of the creed because this wasn’t really up for debate. Even the heretics believed in the unity of God, but what do we do with it today? We believe. Belief is more than just a mental check box (like saying you read the terms and conditions of every app you download), this is confessing our allegiance in this God who is completely united and can’t be divided. This God created everyone, including you and me, and what’s the most amazing about this God is He doesn’t leave us alone. He comes down in flesh to bear the penalty for our sins and then comes down to indwell those who confess that they believe in His name.

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by mikethestrand on May 10, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, History, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 10, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/05/10/in-one-god-sermon-manuscript/

Zechariah – Sermon Manuscript

-God’s people at this point at looking small and insignificant. They were under the rule of a different kingdom, the temple they had was described by God as “nothing” in comparison to the old temple. So the midst of that world, how do you think they were feeling? I would guess pretty discouraged. Things weren’t going their way, and they only had dreams about the way things “used” to be. We saw that last week when we looked at the people pining for the glory days!

-And in the midst of that discouragement, Zechariah gives us a different perspective from the Lord for His people, the message to the people is to hope. God is aware, God sees everything that’s going on, and none of it has caught Him by surprise! It struck me this morning, this is VERY similar to the message of the book of Rev., and not just because John uses all sorts of language and imagery from this book, but because the messages are the same: hope in God because He’s in control! We’re going to read the last chapter together:

READ/PRAY (pg. 848)

  1. The Message of Zechariah 

-Similar to last week, we don’t have a lot on the prophet, but we do have a lot about the timing of this word, dating it to Aug. 29, 520 BC.

-God begins by talking about the way the people’s ancestors angered the Lord. Their ancestors refused to repent, refused to obey God’s commands, and that’s the reason God sent them into exile. So this people now has a choice to make: are they going to obey God now, or will they be like their ancestors? If they repent and return to God, God promises that He will return to them. And we saw this last week in Haggai: even though God swore to Zerubbabel’s grandfather that his descendants wouldn’t sit on the throne, God redeemed and restored the Davidic line, which tells us there’s always the potential to turn back to God. But isn’t it interesting that this book begins with a call for the people to repent? The Lord is setting the tone for the rest of the book with this call. I liked one commentary I read about it that said that repentance always comes before blessing.

-The choice is in front of the people: you have 2 choices before you, either return to the Lord now and receive His blessing or be like their ancestors and face God’s punishment. But just to make the decision a little easier, look at vs. 5-6: where are those ancestors? They’re all dead! And where are God’s words? They’re being spoken over the people right now. God is showing His hand here, no human can last forever, but God is eternal, which means His Words are never fail or stop.

-And reading this from our perspective today, there is a sense of irony to this letter, because while the people repent here and turn to God, it doesn’t take long for them to go back to disobeying and disregarding God’s law. It’s almost as if they can’t help themselves and can’t escape the reality that they’re sinners! And I think we can see that today too. For those of you who are parents, have you ever found yourself saying something and then realizing you just became your parents? So much of who we are is caught by osmosis instead of carefully and intentionally worked through, and that’s true of all of us! That’s where Jesus offers something completely new and unique, where He offers us the Holy Spirit who works to transform us and make us more like Him. But it takes work, it takes a LOT of work! And part of the reason it takes a lot of work is because it means opening yourself up to others and allowing them to speak into your life, including the broken and messy parts of your life that you don’t want others to see. God brings us into a new family to expose us to new ways of living and moving so that we’re not just stuck doing the same old things our ancestors did. With the arrival of Jesus there’s hope that we can change and impact our future descendants, and I think this is why God says He punishes down to the 3rd and 4th generation but blesses to a thousand generations! 

-The point: God doesn’t change, His Words are always faithful and true, so if we trust & obey, we will be blessed by Him and we will be a blessing to others. That’s the starting point of this whole book, and then it gets weird. And I’ll be honest, I’m still not really sure what to do with all these visions he has! I trust God’s plan to have them in here, I believe they’re inspired and authoritative for us, but it was a struggle for me to work to interpret them this week.

  1. Visions (1-6)

-Zechariah is given a total 8 visions and at the end of 6 he’s told to do something that serves as a picture of a point God is trying to make. While this isn’t explicitly apocalyptic literature, it has apocalyptic elements to it, similar to Rev. Apocalyptic writings paint vivid pictures for us of various events that stretch us and force us to view things from a different perspective. Think of the difference between reading something versus seeing it on TV. Apocalyptic is meant to put flesh on the stories.

-One caution is to not try to force meaning onto the text. For example, the first vision includes a list of horses, as well as colors of those horses, but the colors don’t have any significance apart from being able to tell them apart. The point is what the horses do. Thankfully, if you’re confused as you read through it, you’re not alone, because Zechariah struggled to figure out what was going on, too! He repeatedly asks his angel guide what in the world he’s seeing. An overview of these visions is that the 1-5 point to God moving toward His people to bring healing and blessing. Then, 6-8 is God casting out sin and wickedness. Because there’s more to the book than just these, we’ll go through these as quickly as I can so we can get through the rest of the book!

-First vision: a man riding a horse standing in a grove of myrtle trees with 3 other horses nearby. These are sent by the Lord to patrol the earth, and they report to the Lord that everything is currently calm and quiet. And since the horses have returned, the Lord says that it’s time for Him to return to Jerusalem and bring prosperity again.

-Second vision: Zechariah see 4 horns who are a stand in for those nations who have caused God’s people to go into exile. But even though the horns look tough, God sends 4 craftsmen who deal with the horns so that they can’t stand again God’s people any longer. This serves as a reminder that God is more powerful than all the nations of the world, even though they look powerful, they can’t stand against God. 

-Third vision: a surveyor who goes out to measure Jerusalem, but he’s stopped because the restoration of the people isn’t done. Not only is it not done, but they won’t need walls because God will be their protection and their glory. And as we’ve seen multiple times throughout these prophets, God will call people from every tribe, and tongue, and nation to join His people, and He will live among all these people.

-Fourth vision: focuses on the high priest Joshua (we saw him last week), with the introduction of (in the Hebrew) “the accuser” (which is translated as Satan). But notice why Satan is there: to accuse. But He’s never even given the opportunity to speak, God rebukes Satan and then focuses on Joshua (who’s representing all the people here). The angel of the Lord takes his filthy clothes (signifying the removal of the people’s sins) and instead puts celebration clothing on him. This act is a picture that God is going to bring “The Branch,” a way of referring to the descendant of David who would fulfill God’s promises. And look how vs. 9 ends: the sin of the nation will be taken away in 1 day.

-Fifth vision, last one that deals with the blessing: Zechariah see a menorah, which is a lampstand with 7 lamps that is placed between two olive trees. The point of this image is that God will ensure that His plans come to pass, as the angel quotes in vs. 6. God is promising that even though they’ve only placed the foundation of the temple, if they rely on Him, it’s guaranteed to be finished. But Zechariah is still confused, so he asks about the olive trees, which are defined in vs. 14. Some think it’s referring to Joshua and Zerubbabel (civil & religious leaders), some think it’s Haggai and Zechariah, some think it’s Joshua & Zerubbabel who are pointing us forward to the Branch who will unite both roles of king and priest, then the oil that flows from the olive trees to the Menorah is the Holy Spirit who empowers this service, I think some of this is getting into the realm of speculation! The point remains: God will make sure this comes to pass through the means that He has planned. Now, this comes up again in Rev. 11 so we can’t just ignore it, but God could be using themes and patterns to bring about His plans, so I think He’s referring to 2 different people who are used to bring about His plans.

-This is where things shift, and in the sixth vision Zechariah sees a flying scroll that serves as a curse on the evil. Anyone who disobeys the words on this scroll are cursed, even though it may look like they’re going unpunished. This seems to be referring to the book of the law from Moses (Deuteronomy) and specifically Deut. 27:26. 

-The seventh vision: the focus is on a women of wickedness or sin who is in a basket and stuck there with a lid. She is then cast off into Shinar, far away from where God’s people live (think of it like a garbage dump). Shinar is important because it was both the place where God’s people were living in exile and where Babylon is (or Babel, where God confuses the people). This is meant to contrast with the 6th vision because the 6th one tells us each individual will be held responsible for their sin, this one tells us that God will also teach with sin and wickedness itself and cast them far away from where He will live with His people, and not only is it cast off from His people, those who aren’t following Him are going to look to it as their place of worship! There’s only 2 ways to live: either on God’s side or opposed to Him.

-The eighth and final vision is back to horses: chestnut, black, white, dappled horses driving chariots which are the 4 spirits of heaven going to patrol the earth and exert God’s rule over the surrounding nations who had often defeated Israel (Egypt to the south and Assyria to the north). This vision is picked up by John in Rev. 6as God’s continued oversight and judgment over the world at the end of time. Last time they brought reports to God about what was happening, this time He’s sending them out with his authority to accomplish his plans.

-We end this section with a sign-act: a crown (kingly rule) being placed on the high priest. He’s also called Branch (do you see the capital letter there) picking up the Davidic line: build the temple and reign, which most people take to mean that the coming Messiah is going to be both a priest and king (some other Jewish groups even took this to mean that there would be 2 different Messiahs, 1 who would be the priest to fix the religious side, and another who would be the king and rule politically) God’s plans are so much better and He sends Jesus to be both! 

  • Desolation or Restoration? (7-8)

-This section is marked off as distinct from all the previous parts we’ve read by not being about visions, but also because it’s 2 years later. And it begins with a question from the people of Bethel. Now, in order to understand what’s happening here, we need to think back to the very beginning of this series (so sorry if you missed it), but to catch you up, I said God reveals future things to the prophets, but He doesn’t always distinguish between the near future and the far future, so if you’ve ever been to CO you’ve seen the mountains off in the distance, but it’s really hard to tell how far away they are, how many there are, how much space is in between them, that’s the same thing with the prophets. They’re told what God is going to do in the future, but He doesn’t tell them WHEN. So some things God talks about take place, and are fulfilled, in Jesus, other things won’t happen until He comes back again in glory. So as we work through this section, we need to keep that reality in mind! Some of the things brought up are fulfilled in Jesus, other things are waiting for Jesus to return and fix all the brokenness in the world.

-Chapter 7 begins with a question about acts of worship. The people had taken to mourning and fasting on the anniversary of the destruction of the temple, and now that the temple had been rebuilt, they realized that it didn’t make sense to continue mourning the loss of the temple.

-But God knows their hearts, and He asks them a question: why were they fasting? God didn’t demand it, didn’t call them to it, it was something they had decided to do on their own. What’s more important that keeping these rituals they decided was to live lives marked by justice, bringing justice to their nation. God is basically asking the people if they’ve learned the lesson they were supposed to over the 70 years in exile, or if their hearts are still far from Him. 

-In chapter 8, the focus shifts from God asking the people the questions about their motivations to the future when God will bring blessing to the people. He says the cities (which have been laid desolate because of all the invading armies) will become places of peace and prosperity. And how is this blessing going to happen? God says how in 16-17: speak truth to each other, love your neighbor, sounds oddly similar to many of Jesus’s commands, doesn’t it?

-But it gets even better, look at vs. 19: fasts will turn to feasts and parties. Where there previously had been mourning and lamenting about how difficult things were, in this future time there will be nothing but parties! But we still have 1 more section in this book:

  • Two Oracles (9-14)

-You can see just be a quick glance at this text that this begins a new section, even the formatting in our Bibles is different! The first oracle (pronouncement from the Lord) is in 9-11 and focuses on the coming shepherd-king. The Lord begins coming through the way most of the invading armies came to attack Judah: from the north, and just like none of the nations could push back against the invading armies, none of these cities or nations can push back against the Lord. But what’s incredible about God coming in is that even as He comes in judgment against these nations, they will begin to follow after Him!

-And then God says something about how this will happen: the King will come on a donkey, that’s a marker of peace, the opposite of coming in on a horse (that means He’s coming in to fight). Can you think of anyone in the Bible who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey? We’re not that far past Easter; it was Jesus on Palm Sunday!

-In the next 2 chapters, God condemns the leaders of the nations by calling them poor shepherds. God also tells Zechariah to act out this reality by taking a flock and abusing them. At the end of his caring for this flock, he tells the people to pay him for his prophecies, but they only view it worth 30 pieces of silver (what a slave cost according to Ex. 21:32). And once again, this serves as a picture pointing us to Jesus, because Jesus was betrayed by the same amount.

-Second oracle begins in chapt. 12, same wording as we saw previously. This oracle begins with the Lord saying that people will try to destroy Jerusalem, but He will protect them, and then there’s a bit of a weird verse (10) and it’s weird because it seems to say that God Himself will be the one who is pierced. Do you see all the first-person pronouns that are being used? This would be completely unexpected! But it goes even further, look at the beginning of chapt. 13:

-A fountain will be opened that will wash away sin and impurity. If you’re thinking of an old hymn, this was the inspiration for it! “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

-And God continues saying that this persecution will continue, and Jesus at the last supper in Matt. 26says this verse is about Him. 

-One last piece from this that points us to Jesus is seen in the last chapter. When “that day” comes, living water will flow out of Jerusalem, which Jesus says in John 4 is once again talking about Him. Friends, do you see how Jesus takes all this promises that God has made and fulfills them in Himself? 

-Now, besides being really cool in seeing how God revealed His plans, what should we do with this book? First, and most significantly is to rest in the promises of God! Nothing stands against His plans, no one can interfere, and He will remain faithful to everything He’s said.

-But secondly, is what do we do as we live in this time in between Jesus’s two comings? From Zechariah’s perspective, it was all in the future, but for us we live after the coming of Jesus, so I think there’s a few passages from 1 Peter that tell us what we’re supposed to do as we live in-between.

  • Living In-Between 

–1 Peter 1:1-2. First, Peter’s introduction tells us how we’re supposed to view ourselves. First as those chosen. It’s not an accident that you’re here today, and Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He went to the cross for you. It was because He knew exactly what was going to happen.

-How are those chosen living? As exiles who have been dispersed abroad all over the known world. Just as God said in the past that He would draw everyone to be His people in Jerusalem someday, we’re looking forward to the NEW Jerusalem! Where there will be no separation between us and God. And just a reminder of who this God is, Peter says all 3 persons of the Godhead were involved in this: The Father plans, the Spirit indwells and sanctifies, and the Son purifies with the sprinkling (living water and fountain that we saw in Zechariah)

-The second text: 2:11-12 – since we’re strangers and exiles how do we live? We abstain from sinful desires. That is, we work to keep in step with the Holy Spirit who works to daily make us more holy, who daily works to make us more like Jesus.

-Not just do we run away from something, we’re also supposed to run towards something: good works. Our good works do 2 things, they show us as different from the world, so they’ll complain about us, and they serve as a witness to the world of what God is like. I don’t know about you, but every time I think about that reality, I cringe a little bit. I am supposed to represent Jesus will enough that when other people look at me, they see Him. 

-The last text comes from the end of the book: 5:6-9 (if you want, go read this whole chapter this week, the first verses talk about the kind of leadership God wants taking place among His people). First, we start from a position of humility, acknowledging that we’re not God, but He is. Then He will bring us up at the right time, and we do that by casting all our cares on Him because He does care about us. This gives me all sorts of confidence that God’s going to see me through. I can trust Him completely because He does care for me.

-At the same time, that doesn’t mean it’s a passive sit back “let go and let God,” it’s a daily work to be sober-minded and alert. Pay attention to today because we can’t control the future. And the reason we need to pay attention is because the devil never takes a day off, he works his best to fight against everything good that God is doing. But friends, we have the ability to resist him, we can endure any of the temptations that he throws at us, and Peter ends by reminding us we’re not alone. Even if it feels like no one else is chasing after God, we have other brothers and sisters across the world who are in the same fight as us!

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by mikethestrand on April 26, 2026  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 26, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/04/26/zechariah-sermon-manuscript/

Zephaniah – Sermon Manuscript

-I think that stories based on events that happened during WW2 have led to some of the best movies: Fury, Unbroken, Saving Private Ryan, Darkest Hour, Life is Beautiful, Midway, Dunkirk, Hacksaw Ridge, The Pianist all incredible movies of the resiliency of humans, and the destruction of war. But all those movies are from the perspective of the Allies. Where we celebrate the victories, how do all those movies portray the Germans? As the bad guys. We look at those various battles in triumph, but how would the other side view those events? As humiliation, right? Think of D-Day, when the Allies cross the English Channel and began their attack of the Western Front of the Nazis. Do you think the Germans were celebrating that day? Absolutely not! See, every war has 2 sides to it. Similarly, Zephaniah is going to give us 2 sides to the Day of the Lord. We talked about this back in Joel, but this is the book that talks about it the most.

READ/PRAY (pg. 835)

  1. The Message of Zephaniah

-The intro to this book gives us the opposite of what we’ve seen for a while: 4 previous generations of people! Why is this significant? 

-3 names: Cushi, Hezekiah, and Josiah, intending to give us a starting place for Hezekiah

-Cushi: refers to the land of Cush, significant because of what God promises and it would make Zephaniah bi-racial

-Hezekiah is described as the best king of Judah in 2 Kings 18, he destroyed the competing “worship” sites in Judah. One of the most fascinating things about him is in preparation for the Assyrian invasion, he dug a tunnel under Jerusalem to reroute a river and provide water for the city during the siege, and you can go visit “Hezekiah’s tunnel” today!

-The last significant name is Josiah, who led a major reform movement in Judah and became king when he was a child (2 Kings 22). When he was king, he began repairing the temple, and in the repair the book of the law was uncovered (Deuteronomy) which gave the stipulations the people were supposed to follow and obey. And Josiah took this seriously! He re-enacted the covenant ceremony with the people, who recommitted themselves to obeying God’s laws.

-These names are pointing out that Zephaniah is going to be in the same line as his great-great grandpa Hezekiah, one who is faithfully following God and encouraging the people toward obedience of God’s law. There’s debate about how far into Josiah’s reign this takes place, with most people I read saying it’s most likely shortly after he found the book of the law and began enacting it, but it hadn’t yet taken root in the people.

  1. The Day of the Lord in Judgment (1:1–3:8)

-Zechariah mentions “The Day of the Lord” 22 times throughout it, which tells me it’s his primary point in writing! One scholar said, “There is a compelling simplicity about Zephaniah’s message: he has only one topic, and he never digresses from it.” (Alec Motyer)

-We’ve talked about it before, because it’s a theme that’s been running across all these prophets, so just as a refresher, “The Day of the Lord” is a future moment where God would come in judgment to pay back the enemies of His people. Throughout this time period, the Israelites were excited for the day of the Lord because it was viewed in a completely positive light, where the other nations who had attacked God’s people would be judged. But the warning from the prophets is that the judgment would be negative, not positive!

-And that’s where Zephaniah begins his rebuke of the people. Look at this first description from God: He says He’s going to completely sweep away everything! And there’s intentionality in the way this destruction is described. If you think back to Gen. 1 when God created the world, this is the opposite of creation, it’s meant to make us think that the day of the Lord is going to be a de-creation. But it doesn’t take long for Him to remind the people that this isn’t just for people “out there” because right after this promised destruction of the world, look at vs. 4

-God is also angry with Judah, the 1 remaining people of God, and even worse He’ll destroy the promised city of Jerusalem. But notice how God describes the problem: the people are worshipping Baal, a fertility god who was thought to bring rain to them which they needed in order to live. And apparently there’s no difference between the pagan priests and the supposed priests of Yahweh. And if that’s the priests, the one who are supposed to be leading people in the worship of the one true God, what about the rest of the people?

-They’re worshipping the stars instead of the one who made the stars. On the one hand they’re worship God, but at the same time they hedge their bets and also worship Milcom (the false god of the Ammonites). This is called syncretism that is combining the worship of the true God with the worship of all these false gods, and we do the same thing today! We say we trust God completely, but we also make sure we don’t get too sold out to following after Him. Both Baal and Milcom are gods that the surrounding nations worshipped, and as I have read about the Israelites, you can take them out of Egypt, but the rest of their history is working to take the Egypt out of them. And that’s the same journey for all of us in our Christian life: God has taken us out of the world, but the rest of our earthly lives is working to take the world out of us. Unfortunately, the temptation is always there! Also unfortunately, it’s incredibly hard to find those areas that you’re still holding onto worldly ideas, we often don’t even realize them until either someone points them out or we react poorly to those areas being inconvenienced.

-I think I’ve shared this story before, but when one of the idols of my heart that I have to be conscientious of is when I feel dumb, and one of the precipitating reasons that has come to the surface in my life is because we drive older vehicles. Towards the end of me going to seminary, my car started having these weird issues where it would suddenly lose all power and acceleration, so the fastest I could go was like 15 mph. First time it happened, I pulled over, waited about 15 min, and suddenly it started and drove with no issues. But over the next week it KEPT happening and I just got ANGRY. And in one of my angry outbursts, I realized my reaction wasn’t the corresponding to the situation in front of me, and then it hit me: cars aren’t that complicated, I should be able to figure this out, and the fact that I couldn’t made me irate! Now I know you all already know this, but I needed to remind myself that I’m not God! I don’t, can’t, and won’t know everything, which means there’s going to be areas in my life that I am just ignorant about. This is an area where I know that I’m not God, but I don’t want to have to rely on Him, much to my shame and disgrace. And we all have areas like that in our lives, where we need to pray for the strength to fight those idols, those places where we struggle to trust God, where we still want to do our own things and live our own ways. The only consolation is we’re not alone in that! We see it in Zephaniah, which means it was true 3,000 years ago, so humans are still humans.

-Notice that in the very next verse, Zephaniah gives us the right response: be silent. Have you ever noticed that’s the response of people in the Bible who encounter God? Every time they realize that God is so much more holy than they are, so they fall on their faces and acknowledge their sin. Which is why it always make me chuckle to myself when so many songs that we sing in church are asking God to be present here, to reveal Himself to us, to show us His glory, because the Bible shows us that it’s a terrifying thing! With 1 caveat: if we’re covered by the blood of the sacrifice (Jesus) we don’t have to be afraid of approaching God. In fact, the book of Hebrews tells us we should have the opposite approach to God: we come before Him in confidence because of what Jesus has done, which is exactly what Zephaniah is talking about here.

-I think I mentioned him a few months ago, but I watched another interview with former Senator Ben Sasse yesterday where he was asked if he’s ready to die. He was diagnosed with stage 4 terminal pancreatic cancer in December, and you can tell if you watch this interview. But his response was fascinating, and it caused the interviewer to begin to cry, because he said, “I don’t feel ready, but to whom would I go? I have confidence that when Jesus said to the disciples, he didn’t want to be identified as the Messiah yet, keep these crowds away, don’t tell them about the water into wine miracle at the feast, but he says you can’t keep the children from me. And we’re told that we get to approach the Almighty, we get to approach the Divine and call him Daddy, Abba Father, that’s pretty glorious. And I know that that’s what I need.” 

-That’s someone who understands this reality here: we approach God in reverence and silence because He is so far above us, but that same God welcomes us in as His children, with open arms, for those are following Him, but for those who aren’t, it’s a completely different story.

-On that day, there will be punishment from God on those who have been disobedient to Him, but the punishment from God ALWAYS fits the crime. He calls out those who take on the habits and practices of the nations (foreign clothing) instead of living as God has commanded them. He also promises to punish those who take on the superstitions of the nations (skip over the threshold, like “don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back”) No one will be left out of this persecution, and the rest of this chapter describes all the ways God will bring about this punishment. And do you remember what I said earlier about the day of the Lord? Look at the warning about this day in vs. 14-15:

-It doesn’t sound like the greatest day in the world, does it? It sounds horrible! But it gets even worse: distress, their blood poured out.

-And this day will also reveal where people are putting their confidence. Look at the beginning of vs. 18: even in Zephaniah’s time people were thinking their riches would save them. Once again, we see that the human heart hasn’t changed, has it?

-The beginning of chapt. 2 is a shift in focus, because in the middle of this promised punishment is a change of tone. Here the call is to repent before all this punishment comes. One of the reasons we have these warnings in the Bible is to prevent people from continuing on in their sin and facing this punishment. 

-And do you see what repentance looks like? It looks like seeking the Lord, AND it looks like seeking righteousness and humility. Another way of saying this is if you seek after the Lord, you will start to look like the Lord (although imperfectly). And this section ends saying PERHAPS you’ll be saved, but we know from the message of the NT that this sparing is guaranteed because we know how to be on the right side of history (which doesn’t mean going along with whatever is trendy in our culture), it means we’re obedient to the Creator and Sustainer of everything. 

-The rest of chapter 2 is God continuing to talk about the punishment coming to the nations, but there’s a specific ordering to this following the 4 points of a compass around Judah: Philistines to the West, Ammonites and Moabites to the east, Cush in the south, and Assyria to the north. And who’s in the center of that compass? Judah, but remember, they’re assuming that the Day of the Lord is going to be the destruction of everyone else, so they would hear this expecting everything to be ok for them! But then God focuses His attention on 1 city, and contextually you would expect this to be something like Ninevah or another one of the Assyrian cities, and look at how terrible this city is: 

-Rebellious, not obeyed God, hasn’t responded to God’s discipline, hasn’t trusted the Lord, and hasn’t sought after God. Not only is the city running away from God, but her leaders are even worse! Princes and judges have become like wild beasts who are looking to exploit other people. The prophets and priests aren’t leading people to follow the Lord, they’re only looking to their own interests (which is a perennial problem in Israel, and as the leaders go, so goes the nation). So remember, I said contextually that it seems like it’s talking about the rest of the nations, but then look at the first line in vs. 5:

-This is talking about Jerusalem, the city where the Lord lives. God’s own people weren’t spared from the punishment, in fact theirs is even worse because they were supposed to be different from all the surrounding nations, but instead they’ve acted exactly like them. But in contradiction to the His own people, God is completely righteous and holy. Even when His people are running away from Him, God stays the same and continues being faithful to Himself and His promises. God never changes, that’s one of the greatest realities about God. 

-The last thing God says in this section is that in that day, there will be people from every tribe and tongue and nation who will stand condemned before Him because they refused to follow Him. This is the reality of life in the world God created, which is why He gives us all these warnings. Follow and obey Him now, because someday it will be too late.

  • The Day of the Lord in Salvation (3:9–20)

-The best news about this book is that while the ending is bad news for those who haven’t followed the one true God, for those who have listened and obeyed Him, the ending is joy and salvation.

-Do you see how great this day will be? The end goal is that everyone will be able to call on the name of the Lord and serve and obey Him perfectly. And it’s interesting that the Lord mentions Cush here, because that would include the family of Zephaniah, the people who were once spread out will come and worship the Lord together from all areas of the world. AND there’s a story in Acts that shows the fulfillment of this promise. 

–Acts 8 tells the story of Phillip who was told to go to a specific place and share the gospel message with an Ethiopian. Ethiopia is the same place that was called Cush during the time of Zechariah. God’s promises always come to pass, as we see here from Zechariah. 

-But that’s not all! Look what God goes on to say:

-The punishment has been changed. Those who trust in God are spared from this suffering because the king has come and lived with them, which changes everything for His people. Now that He is with them, they have nothing to fear. Then God doubles down on this promise, but look at the description He gives: 

-A warrior who saves. This helps us understand some of what the early disciples were expecting when Jesus came, a conquering warrior who would overthrow the shackles of oppression from the Romans. What they didn’t realize was the enemy they were thinking about was too small. The Romans were nothing compared to sin and death. God’s plans are so much bigger than anything we could come up with. And look at how God responds to His people: rejoicing,  quieting us, and delighting in us. Isn’t that amazing? God delights in spending time with His people.

-And the very last verse, God tells us what the last day will look like for those who have followed after Him: He will gather His people together to honor them, to encourage them, and to give them a place in His kingdom forever. And we know this is going to happen because of the last phrase in this verse: if God has spoken, it’s guaranteed to happen.

  • The Day of the Lord for You

-But now that we’ve looked at this book, we’re left with the question: which side are you on? For some, the Day of the Lord is something to get excited for because it means everything we’ve been hoping for will come true! But for others, it’s a day to fear. I heard a pastor onetime say that for those who are following Jesus, this world is the closest to hell we’ll ever live. And the reverse is also true: for those who aren’t following Jesus, this world is the closest to heaven they’ll ever live. 

-The Day of the Lord isn’t just a topic that’s seen in the prophets, we saw it when we looked at Revelation together last year. Look at how John describes that day in Rev. 6: 

-Notice that no ones left out, just like God promises in Zechariah that He’ll be looking EVERYWHERE for those who haven’t followed Him. These people are begging to be buried alive in an earthquake because God is that much more terrifying. When that day comes, if you aren’t walking with the Lord, it’s going to be the worst first day of the rest of your life. But you have a choice, right here and right now to not have that day be terrifying.

-For those of us who are walking with the Lord, we have a different reality, a completely different response to the Day of the Lord. For us, it’s going to be a day of celebrating, rejoicing, and giving thanks for because our faith is now sight. Everything we’ve hoped and prayed for has become real. But in this in between time, where we live between Jesus’ two comings, the book of Hebrews reminds us how we’re supposed to live with an eye on that day. 

-It begins with a reminder of how we’re supposed to follow God: through a confession that Jesus is that Warrior King who conquered Satan, sin, and death through his victorious resurrection, and now provides the way for us to come boldly before the Father. That confession is what saves us and makes us new people. And once we’re new people look what we’re supposed to do: consider one another. This is a way we imitate our God, by looking to other people above and beyond ourselves! But then it gets weird! Because we’re supposed to provoke each other. I don’t know about you, but I can’t think of a situation where it’s positive to “provoke” someone else (this may be a reminder that I have young kids at home because there’s a LOT of provoking that goes on!) but have you ever considered that provoking can be a good thing? According to this text, there’s a way of provoking each other that can lead to love and good works. Now I don’t know about you, but I feel like I could use more of that provoking in my life! Most of the provoking I have around me is to get angry about what’s taking place politically or socially. That doesn’t make me more holy, that doesn’t make me more like Jesus, and that doesn’t help me to represent the one true God to the watching world. And the author doesn’t stop there, do you see the way we provoke each other positively? By gathering together. Friends, this weekly meeting is more than just a social hour, this gathering around the throne of Jesus Christ is a spiritual battle where we provoke each other positively to grow in our love and our good works. This gathering is meant to be the place where we’re encouraged to continue following faithfully after Jesus. Out there, we’re going to be tempted to question, tempted to doubt, tempted to reflect the world instead of the Creator of the world. But in here, we get to encourage (provoke) each other to love and good works. 

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by mikethestrand on April 12, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 12, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/04/12/zephaniah-sermon-manuscript/

The God of the Garden (John 20) – Sermon Manuscript

-How many of you have seen the Marvel movies? I’m not a big comic book guy, but I still remember when Iron Man came out in theaters. I was in college, wanted to go see a movie, and figured I might as well see this one. It blew my mind! But what was even more amazing was that was just the beginning because they kept building on that movie. And at this point, I’ve given up on trying to see them all because some of them have been pretty bad. Marvel had a good streak, but after Avengers Endgame, I think they lost their way with the story a bit. AND I also feel bad for anyone that’s missed out on the last almost 20 years of Marvel movies, because in order to catch up you’ve got: 37 movies, 32 TV shows, with more coming out regularly!

-What’s most impressive about their run is that each movie tends to be a good story just by itself, but at this point, unless you’ve seen them all I can pretty much guarantee you’re going to miss some callbacks and allusions to previous things.

-That’s a picture of what we get in the Bible, but thankfully there’s no more books being added at this point, and unlike Marvel, the Bible never gets lost in its story. But in order to properly read and interpret the Bible, we need to know the story. The whole thing has allusions and references to previous parts of the story that if we’re unaware of will go right over our heads.

-I’ve titled this sermon ‘The God of the Garden’ because John’s account of the resurrection is FULL of allusions to Genesis, which means in order to understand the resurrection we need to understand creation. As we read through this text, see if you can catch all the allusions to the creation account:

READ/PRAY (pg. 963)

  1. The Garden Tomb (1-10)

-The story begins focusing on Mary, who came very early in the morning to the tomb.

-Where was this tomb located? This part of the story was read at our Good Friday service, it’s found at the end of the previous chapter:

–John 19:41-42. The place where Jesus was crucified was in a garden. John is the only Gospel that has this note. John’s intentionally trying to call our minds back to THE garden in creation. And this garden theme has been building:

-If you look at John 18. I hadn’t noticed before that the text says Jesus OFTEN met there with his disciples. Jesus would take His disciples to a garden, a place where on His last night He prayed to His father asking for this cup to be taken away from Him.

-What’s so important about the place where Jesus was killed, as well as the tomb being in a garden? For that we need to think back to creation, because a garden is where sin entered the world, and John is telling us a garden is where sin met its end. But the garden isn’t the only piece John refers back to. This is why we need to know the WHOLE Bible, don’t just get stuck in 1 part of it, because if we don’t know the whole thing we’re going to miss all these ideas. We need to know the Bible so well our language and daydreams are impacted by it! That’s what we see from all the Bible authors (as I’ve been trying to point out through our 12 angry men series, even the minor prophets were quoting or alluding to so many other passages)

-Honestly, this whole thing as I was reading and studying this week blew my mind! So let’s think about the first garden, which I believe should be viewed as a temple. See, a temple is the place where God comes to meet with humans, and Eden was created as the place where God would come to meet with humans, we know that from Gen. 3:8. Apparently even God has preferences about what time of day is best, He would come walk in the garden in the evening.

-There are 3 components to the creation account that will align with the tabernacle and then the temple later: there’s the earth, the place where the humans dwell, there’s the visible heavens which is the sky above, and there’s the invisible heavens which is the place where God and the angels dwell, and the goal for God was to have no separation between all these things: He wanted His entire creation living and working and playing together. If you then think of the tabernacle, it is also built of 3 different components: the outer court (where humans can go), the Holy place (where some humans can go) and the Most Holy place (where God dwells). And woven into the fabric of the tabernacle and crafted out of gold in the temple are creation motifs, pictures of plants, animals, and angels in and on the walls. So Eden, the tabernacle (and later the temple) are meant to be representatives (stand-ins) for all of creation. God’s plan didn’t change, but the means by which His creation is able to access Him does.

-But there’s another sense piece to this that we can often miss as well. We often call it the Garden OF Eden, but a more precise word would be the Garden IN Eden, the garden was a subset of a bigger place called Eden, and the first humans were tasked with “working and watching” over the garden. Those 2 verbs are also used to describe the role of the priests in the tabernacle and temple, meaning that part of Adam’s role is to be the priest of this garden, who works and watches over it.

-And what’s most amazing to me about this whole process is the way God orchestrates is. In the days of creation 7 times it states, “and God said.” In the building of the tabernacle, it’s structured around 7 times where it states, “The Lord said.” And then when Solomon built the temple, it took 7 years, was dedicated in the 7th month, during a feast of 7 days, and Solomon’s speech is organized around 7 requests of God. All these things are meant to signify the resting place of God. Think of what God did on the 7th day of creation, so all these other acts are pointing to a similar goal: God being in relationship and proximity to His creation (although in the OT it has to be mediated, someone else has to be the go between).

-With all that background from the OT, look at how John begins the resurrection account. What day are we talking about? 

-The first day. As if this is meant to enact a NEW creation account.

-We also should be thinking of creation because of something Pilate (accidentally?) said about Jesus in the previous chapter. Pilate calls Jesus “the man,” which is the same thing God called Adam when he was cast out from the garden. The difference is in that place the judgment was just and right, this time, the judgment is laid on an innocent man. 

-For those of us who grew up in the church, we’ve heard this story so many times that we can miss what’s happening. How many of you would expect to find the body of a dead friend gone? People weren’t dumb in the 1st century, they knew what happened after someone died, they didn’t just get up and walk out of the grave!

-Which is why Mary’s response makes sense: someone took the body! What other option is there? 

-Peter and John (the one Jesus loved) take off immediately, most people think John got their first because he was younger (sorry to those of you who are older). John stopped, Peter went straight in, and what they found wouldn’t make sense if the body had been stolen: linen clothes, with one folded up and placed by itself.

-John is giving us 2 comparisons, 1 that’s immediate and 1 that’s much further back. First is a reference to a previous resurrection account in John’s Gospel where Jesus raises Lazarus from the grave. But Lazarus comes out fully wrapped in linen cloth, Jesus actually tells people to go help unwrap the cloth, he can’t do it by himself.

 -The second comparison is to the priests. Listen to what God commands Aaron to do when he meets with God during the day of atonement, the day where the sins of the people are paid for:    Then when Aaron is done atoning for the sins of the people, look at what he’s supposed to do with the linen cloth:

-By leaving His linen garments, Jesus is signifying that He was acting like Aaron in paying the penalty for the sins of the people. He’s saying that He has entered the Holy place, paid the penalty for the sins of the people, and gone back out. Friends, this is the reason the temple in the curtain was torn in 2! The Holy Place doesn’t need to be curtained off anymore; Jesus has provided a way for everyone to have access to God! 

-This section ends with an interplay between seeing and believing: John’s primary point of writing this story is so that we would believe (as you’ll see at the end!). Here John’s saying that seeing the empty tomb has resulted in a belief.

-But his belief isn’t complete: they did not yet understand what? The Scripture. There’s a reason Paul refers to the gospel message as a mystery, it was hidden, it wasn’t easy to understand! Until everything happened, the disciples didn’t get everything the Bible was saying.

  • The Gardener (11-18)

-This next section has some interesting references to Jesus that are supposed to (once again) remind us that this is a NEW creation.

-After Peter and John had left, John doesn’t tell us how much later this is, so either Mary came running back after them or was with them this whole time. But the text tells us that now Mary looks into the tomb. And there’s even some interesting verbs used to denote the historical reliability of this: it would have been carved into a hillside, where she would have to stoop down to see into the tomb.

-When she peeks in, she sees 2 angels, but why does John denote where they’re sitting? Because it points back to something else in the OT.

-When God gives instructions for building the Ark of the Covenant, on top of which was the mercy seat (where Aaron sprinkled blood while wearing his linen clothes). The mercy seat was called that because it’s the place where mercy was given to the people through the sacrifice of the animals. Where were the cherubim placed? The head and the feet. So God sending 2 angels to sit at both sides of where Jesus was buried is God’s way of saying there’s a new mercy seat, a new place where sins are atoned for! But that’s not all, does anyone know what was stationed at the garden in Eden when Adam and Eve were banished from it? Yep, the cherubim, the angels tasked with guarding the Holy of Holies. Once again, isn’t it amazing how God has woven these themes throughout this story? What once marked separation from God is used to mark that He is now near!

-And Mary’s story isn’t done: the angels ask her a question, this isn’t supposed to be a time for mourning, this is a time of rejoicing, to giving thanks, of dancing and praising God, because of what happens next:

-Jesus arrives, but she doesn’t know it’s Him. (there’s both similarities and differences between Jesus’s pre-resurrection and post-resurrection body, hold on to that thought because it will come up again in a minute). 

-Since she doesn’t recognize Him, who does she think Jesus is? A gardener. What were Adam and Eve tasked with being in the beginning? Gardeners. John is telling us that where Adam failed in his role, Jesus is faithful, and fulfills everything God wants for His creation. 

-Jesus says Mary’s name, and that’s all it takes for her to realize who it is, and she immediately comes running to Him! 

-Doesn’t Jesus’s response seem a bit harsh? Especially when just a few verses later He invites Thomas to come and touch Him. Most likely has a different connotation in both places, here she needs to be reminded to look forward further than the here and now, while Thomas needs the sight to believe. See Jesus is accommodating Himself to the needs of His disciples. No 2 people are the same, no 2 stories of salvation are the same. We’re given these different accounts so that we can understand the multiple ways Jesus draws us to Himself. And that thought continues through the rest of this chapter:

  • The Future Garden (19-31)

-What day does this begin with? John emphasizes what day it is AGAIN, he wants to make sure we understand a new creation motif is taking place!

-Why does Jesus say peace? This is the common Jewish greeting, one that’s still used today when they say “shalom aleichem.” But this is more significant than just peace be with you, this is meant to complement the last word He cried from the cross “It is finished.” Because Jesus said it is finished, there is now peace for His followers. And not just peace, both peace and reconciliation are now possible for humanity because of what Jesus has done. 

-Do you notice what Jesus shows them? His hands and his SIDE. Anyone who survived a crucifixion could show his hands and feet, but in order for them to know it was truly Him, He also showed the place where the spear pierced His side.

-Once again, He says peace to them, but then adds a component to this. Because they have peace with God, peace is now possible with other humans, so these first followers of Jesus are given a job: they are sent. Now, not in the same way as Jesus (because only Jesus can make atonement for sin) but they’re sent on the same mission as Jesus: to proclaim the good news that peace is now possible with God!

-This is the same mission we have today, and this is the reason we say at the end of our services: you are sent, because Jesus has sent us back into the world to represent Him and tell others about Him. It’s not meant to be a casual dismissal, it requires everything from us.

-But then John tells us Jesus does something weird, it says He breathed on them. Ever since COVID, this has made me chuckle, because people are so scared of being breathed on! I sometimes will blow in my kid’s faces, sometimes to have them check my breath! I don’t think that’s what Jesus is doing here. We need to keep thinking about the creation and new creation theme that John is focusing on. This same word that John uses to talk about what Jesus is doing is used in Gen. 2:7 when God breathes into Adam and gives him life. Do you see how Jesus is restoring all things here? I think Micky Klink summarizes what’s taking place here really well in his commentary: 

-Isn’t that an incredible summary of what Jesus enacted? While the OT is a story of humanity failing again and again, Jesus’s arrival means that God’s plan never got off track. He’s recommissioned this new people through this new creation to serve as kings and priests in the world. 

-Unfortunately, one of the disciples isn’t in this locked room with them, and it would stick with him for the rest of history, because people often refer to him as doubting Thomas! And there’s a sense where that’s right, but there’s another sense where I feel bad for him (especially considering I named one of my kids after him, because did you see what his name means in the text? Twin!) 

-Vs. 26 tells us the disciples did the same thing the next week, almost as if they expect Jesus to show up on this day, but this time Thomas wasn’t going to miss it. We’re already starting to see that there’s some new rhythms that are marking these people out, they’re meeting on the first day of the week, the day that Jesus rose from the grave. Friends, that means that EVERY Sunday is resurrection Sunday! This is literally the reason we’re here today! 

-Even though the doors were locked, Jesus comes to be with them. I said this earlier, but once again we see that there’s something different about Jesus’s body. He apparently can walk through walls or just appear at will. And he gives them the same greeting He did last time: peace.

-Then He singles out Thomas, but unlike Mary, Thomas is invited to come near and touch the Jesus’s wounds. And this confirmation leads to Jesus encouraging Thomas to believe. It’s a play on words in the original language: don’t unbelieve, believe!

-And Thomas responds with another component to the resurrection: while it has cosmic and eternal implications, it’s also personal. It’s for each one of us to believe that Jesus is not just the Lord, but He can be MY Lord. 

-And Jesus affirms Thomas’s belief, but He also affirms the belief of the rest of humanity throughout history: there’s going to be some people that don’t get to see His hands and side, but they can still believe, and there’s a special blessing Jesus gives towards people like that. Friends, this blessing that Jesus speaks here is for you and me.

-I was listening to some Rich Mullins this week (if you’ve never heard of him, you’re missing out! A Christian artist in the 80s-90s that died in a car accident in 1997). He had a line in his song ‘Step by Step’ that says “Sometimes I think of Abraham, how one star he saw had been lit for me.” God’s plans and promises are guaranteed to happen, nothing can stand against God, not Satan, not sin, and not death. And definitely not you and me. It’s incredible that God’s plans include a special blessing for us, we can be brought in to be a part of this new creation today! Which is what John says next:

-John concludes this chapter by giving his reason for writing this book: he could have included many more things that Jesus did, and in the next chapter 21:25 he actually says if everything Jesus did was written down, all the books in the world couldn’t contain it (which is why we’ll have eternity to think about it)! But this book was written so that even though we can’t see Jesus with our eyes, we can believe that He is who He said: the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God, and through that belief we can have life, NEW life. Just like John has been casting the story of Jesus as a new creation, He’s telling us that we too can be a part of this new life creation, just like these first disciples. One of the amazing things about being a Christian, is if you think about it, everyone who becomes a Christian is only 1 generation away from those who saw the risen Christ. We’re reading these eyewitness accounts of people who saw Jesus in His resurrected body, we’re brought back to that very moment where Jesus invites His followers to believe in everything that He said. And that same offer is on the table for all of us today: don’t disbelieve, believe! The resurrection proves that God has followed through on all His promises, that His plans are good and right and true, and that through belief in Jesus we are able to have life, NEW life in His name. 

-If you haven’t yet made that confession, do it today. Jesus invites you to join with Him in restoring His creation. And if you have made that confession, Jesus also invites you to not be unbelieving but believe. Walking with Jesus is a lifelong pursuit where each day we’re invited to take one step closer to Jesus. That’s the invitation to new life that is available to all of us because Jesus is alive!

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by mikethestrand on April 5, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 5, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/04/05/the-god-of-the-garden-john-20-sermon-manuscript/

Nahum – Sermon Manuscript

-How many of you have seen this picture? It shows a scene that was captured on Aug. 14, 1945 in the midst of the celebration that WW2 was coming to an end with the surrender of Japan. A long a bloody war that included the introduction of the atomic bomb, the attempted annihilation of the Jewish population, and tens of millions of people dead. The Allies celebrated mightily at the end of this war, which apparently included even the kissing of strangers.

-And there’s an element to this that we can understand, because when evil is defeated, celebration is the right response. When Hitler was finally defeated, it led to rejoicing! This week’s angry man tells us of a similar story from the 600s BC. When evil nations are defeated, people celebrate! Nahum tells us the story of the defeat of the Assyrians. They were a brutal civilization who boasted about defeating their enemies and impaling their bodies on spikes in front of the city. Their capital at the time was Nineveh (who we read about a couple weeks ago in Jonah). The repentance that we saw in Jonah was apparently short-lived, Martin Luther stated, “Such are the hearts of men that when the punishment ceased, so did the repentance.” Let’s read 

READ/PRAY (Nahum 1, pg. 829)

  1. The Message of Nahum

-Don’t know much about Nahum either! We know what his message focuses on (Nineveh), and we know he’s from Elkosh, but we don’t even know where that is! If you remember this map, you can see Nahum here on the right, but there’s a question mark next to the city.

-The one thing that can be known is the approximate time that he prophesied because of other historical events that he’s talking about. Here’s the way Eric Tully (professor at TEDS and author of Reading the Prophets as Christian Scripture that I recommended at the beginning) summarizes it: So this was written sometime between 663-612BC.

-I think one of the interesting things about the prophets is the way people summarize the message of these books. I was talking to someone a couple weeks ago about a conversation he was having with a family member who said it must be timely to be preaching through these books right now because it’s all about judgment on God’s people. While it’s true that that’s part of it, I don’t think that’s the best summary. There’s a professor that summarizes the whole message of the Bible with 1 sentence: God’s glory in salvation through judgment.

-I wasn’t convinced the first time I heard it, but as we’ve been going through the prophets the last couple months, I’ll admit that it’s grown on me! The first part is literally the whole purpose of creation: God is jealous for His own glory because if He weren’t He wouldn’t be God! We tend to view jealousy only in negative terms, but there is a right jealousy that can be true, for example I can be jealous for my wife’s affections, and she can be jealous for mine. God can be jealous for his glory because if His creation gave glory to anyone else it would be sin. And the means by which God’s glory is most demonstrated is through salvation. All these stories throughout the OT of God’s deliverance are meant to show a picture of the greater salvation that comes through Jesus. All these nations and civilizations are nothing compared to the ultimate enemy of sin! But it doesn’t stop there, it goes on to say it comes through judgment, which is the part that tends to grate against our Western sensibilities. We don’t like to think or talk about the judgment of God, especially when we all know 1 John 4:8, God is love. How does judgment fit into love? We’ll get there at the end today!

-But where this message is timely for us is if you look around us, I think this summarizes the divide we see in our country today. One side emphasizes salvation (redemption, liberation), the other side emphasizes judgement (personal responsibility, consequences), yet isn’t it amazing that the Bible message doesn’t allow those 2 extremes to exist on their own? It cuts through both of them and offers a radically different way where salvation is offered THROUGH judgment, the judgment is placed on someone else. We need to remember that reality as we work through this book:

  1.  Yahweh Is…

-The first thing Nahum tells us is who God is, and this is at the core of why we need the Bible, of why we need the church, and of why we need the gospel. If we reverse this order and start with humanity our perspective is going to be skewed. Just like in Amos where we saw the plumbline that God holds to judge the world, we don’t get to be the ones who determine the standards, God does. If we start with ourselves, by the time we get up to God we’ll just be looking at Him through a human lens, it’s going to be completely skewed. That’s why plumblines are used in building! If you’ve ever seen someone building something that looks off it’s because they were using the wrong plumbline, the wrong standard of measurement, which threw everything else off. We’re tempted to do the same thing when we talk about God, which is why it’s so important for us to spend time reading books like the minor prophets because they remind us that we need to get God right! That we need to rightly understand who He is so we can go from there to interpret the world rightly.

-Nahum begins saying the Lord is jealous and avenging. He’s beginning in a different place than we’ve seen from the other prophets! Contrast this with Jonah! Isn’t this the side of God that Jonah was hoping for? The avenging God who would destroy the Ninevites! But Jonah didn’t get to see that part of God. 

-Eventually, we get to what Jonah talked about: The Lord is slow to anger, other prophets add to that reality: Joel said He is also gracious and compassionate, abounding in faithful love, and He relents from sending disaster. BUT notice that God isn’t opposed to anger, it says He’s SLOW to anger, but when His anger is kindled there is a reason for it. 

-Our God, who is slow to anger, also takes vengeance against His enemies and remains furious with them. But this anger isn’t like our anger. Even Paul admits that there can be a righteous anger (Eph. 4:26), but God’s anger is ALWAYS righteous. So we shouldn’t read this as someone who’s vindictive and finally snaps, this is a righteous judgment coming down on someone who is completely guilty and deserves punishment.

-And as we also saw in Jonah, God is also in control of nature. The storms obey Him, the clouds obey Him. He can make the sea dry up (like He did during the Exodus), He can make rivers run dry (like He did during Joshua’s reign). He can even destroy mountains and shake the foundations of the earth. None of this is difficult for Him! And sometimes God uses nature as His means of bringing about his judgment on people. Think of the story of the Exodus where God uses all sorts of natural things to lead to the freedom of His people, and then the destruction of the Egyptian army by swallowing them up in the Red Sea. 

-And Nahum asks some rhetorical questions at the end of this section: Who can stand up against God’s wrath? Answer: no one! If God’s anger has been kindled, watch out! Not even rocks can stand up to Him!

-But look at how Nahum ends this whole section: God is good! Even in His wrath, God is good. If we miss that reality, we’ll miss the point of the whole Bible! Even in His wrath there’s the potential for salvation IF you take refuge in Him. No one is too far gone to receive God’s mercy! Friends, this is our God! But that’s not where this book ends:

  •  The Destruction of Ninevah 

-Once we get God right (as Nahum just did) then we can move on to His actions:

-Look at the very next verse! God is good, but sometimes God’s goodness results in destruction where His enemies will be completely destroyed. He tells the king that he will be literally wiped off the face of the earth, that his children will be destroyed and that their gods will also be defeated. God is talking smack talk here! He continues this interplay between Assyria’s defeat and Judah’s provision before going into chapt. 2.

-I’m going to read chpt. 2, listen to all the descriptions of what God’s going to do to them:

-Did you notice that it begins in the present tense, even though it hasn’t happened yet? It’s an amazing choice that increases the tension of this story! It immerses the reader in these events. The attack is devastating, the shields and men are covered in blood, the chariots can’t run in a straight line, the officers are falling down, a flood rips through the city. And look at vs. 9

-The things that the Ninevites had put their hope in had been taken away. All their hopes and dreams were wiped out by this invading army. Then Nahum gives this play on words using 3 Hebrew words that sound similar, our translation does a fantastic job with these words so we get the point: desolation, decimation, devastation, as if Nahum is desperate to communicate how complete this will be. And the people will terrified, both internally and externally.

-The next verses are another play on Assyria’s supposed strength. We have accounts of them referring to themselves as lions who destroy everyone in their wake. We can miss the impact of this because we just see lions in cages at the zoo, in this time lions would have been terrifying! They constantly prowled looking for food, and Assyria viewed themselves as just as terrifying as lion. If you ever get to the British Museum, you can see these stone statues that are kind of creepy but look at the feet of the one on the right, do you see how they’ve incorporated a lion into the theme? This would have been a common way of viewing themselves, as undefeatable as a lion or a bull. But as we all know, pride goes before the fall!

-God says even though they think they’re completely powerful, God is against them. They think they’re lions, that’s fine, but their children will be destroyed.

-This continues in chpt. 3, where God compares them to Thebes, a city in Egypt that the Assyrians had previously destroyed. Thebes was the capital of Egypt and was also viewed as impenetrable. It was surrounded by water, hundreds of miles away from the border, and they had allies nearby to help. But they were overtaken by the Assyrians. So if even Thebes can be taken, Ninevah isn’t quite as secure as they think. In fact, if God is opposed to someone there’s nothing that can stand in their way! God has a tendency of destroying nations that think too highly of themselves. 

-And this book ends with the rest of the nation’s celebrating the destruction of this city. All these people had been subjected to their cruelty and destruction, but now that they’re defeated the rest of the people are thrilled because evil has been destroyed.

-I think there are 2 key takeaways for us today, I’ll do the most important second, but the first one is that no nation is off the hook from facing the potential judgment of God. It’s easy to look back at Assyria as overly primitive and not having the same technological advances we have today and dismiss them, but we’re not immune from experiencing the same temptation as the Assyrians. How often do we look to our military or technology and think that we’re safe and have arrived? Friends, the reality of every human civilization is that they have their rise and fall. No kingdom of earth will last forever (apart from the church). I think we have a very modern example of this reality: when Russia attacked Ukraine, they expected they would be welcomed with open arms, and that those who were opposed to them would be overthrown within a couple days. Some of the generals went into battle with their dress uniforms because they assumed they’d need them within a week! And here we are over 4 YEARS later. Turns out Russia might have thought they were a little stronger than they are. Friends, don’t put your ultimate hope in any nation or civilization. 

-The second takeaway for us just happens to be the second point in the sermon outline:

  • Vengeance is Whose?

-The fact that Assyria was destined to fall because of their pride and sins against humanity shows us that there are always consequences for our sin, and the God who is able to cast our sins as far as the east is from the west is also the God who will punish those who refuse to repent from their sins.

-God has promised that ultimate vengeance belongs to Him, which means we should trust His timing and His plans. If nothing happens outside of His plans then we can trust ourselves to Him, even if it doesn’t feel like things are fair in the moment. And ultimately, don’t we want vengeance, at least when we’re wronged? Anytime we’re hurt, don’t we want there to be some way of bringing justice to the situation?

-Paul picks up this idea when he talks about Christian ethics in Rom. 12. Our job isn’t to pursue our own justice, instead our job is to overcome evil with love. That’s what Jesus did when he willingly went to the cross and took all of God’s vengeance and retribution on Himself. He drank the entire cup of God’s wrath, which means there’s the possibility for us to not face the same vengeance as the Ninevites, IF we have the Lord as our refuge. But before we get to that I want to talk about God’s wrath, because we don’t often hear or think about God’s wrath today, we often hear about God’s love, which isn’t wrong it’s just not complete.

-We have to begin with an understanding of God’s wrath. God’s wrath is retributive justice doled out in response to the creation acting in willful rebellion against the Creator. And how does that interact with the reality that God is love? There are 2 things we need to keep in mind in this discussion: first we need to make sure we know the terms we’re using in light of God’s revelation (which is why I just defined God’s wrath as retributive justice), and second we need to understand that some things that are true of God seem like contradictions to us. I like to think of it like a see-saw. Think of some things we know to be true about God: is God 3 or 1? Yes! Is Jesus God or is Jesus human? Yes! Is God love, or is God wrathful? Yes! 

-I think JI Packer is helpful here where he uses the word antimony: 

-What he’s saying is there are some things in the realm of God that we in our finite human minds can’t completely understand. I had a professor in seminary said we have a “mystery” card that we can pull out when we’re talking about God. At the end of the day, there are truths about God that we don’t completely “get,” any every time we come to one of those cases, it’s a reminder to us that we’re not God, so we should fall on our faces in worship of Him!

-So when we talk about God’s wrath, it’s not in contradiction to His love, it’s the correct response to His love. He loves His creation and He doesn’t want anyone to perish, but when His creation acts in rebellion against Him there are consequences for everyone!

-There’s a Christian apologist named Wes Huff that’s gotten incredibly popular over the past year for some of the ways he’s engaged unbelievers. A couple weeks ago he was on a podcast titled “The Diary of a CEO” which is one of the 10 biggest podcasts in the world. He was asked by the unbelieving host if the host was going to hell, and he responded “yes.” Friends, would you be willing to be that bold? Now, Wes went on to say that “heaven is a place for those who have submitted their lives to Jesus, who are living the identity of what they’re created to be and said, ‘Your will be done, God.’ Hell is a place where God says, ‘You rejected me, your will be done. I’m going to give you what you want.” Friends, eternity is a really, really, really long time! And every person who has ever lived is going to live forever either saying “Your will be done” to God, or having God say to them, “your will be done.”

-So don’t let this moment pass you by! If we’re saved, then we have a job to do to encourage others to live in the reality that Jesus has taken God’s wrath on Himself. Paul earlier in Romans actually quotes from Nahum, in Rom. 10. 

-Everything centers on Jesus! If Jesus is really God (and He is), then all of us who were once God’s enemies have the opportunity to become the adopted children of God. Do you notice the ordering: It begins with the message of Christ that sends us out (like we do every week), it requires someone to preach the truths of the gospel so that people can hear it, and it takes people responding to what they heard through repentance and faith.

-And when that happens, when we’re brought from death to life, the verse that Paul is quoting from in Nahum says that we have peace. The wicked won’t have the same power over us because it’s been defeated, so we respond by celebrating!

-Which is exactly what we do when we celebrate communion.

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by mikethestrand on March 22, 2026  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on March 22, 2026

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2026/03/22/nahum-sermon-manuscript/

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