All posts tagged Jesus

Revelation 20:1-10 – Sermon Manuscript

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

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

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

READ/PRAY

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

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

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

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

-So what MUST you believe about the end times?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  1. Serpent Bound (1-3)

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

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

-Binds Satan for a thousand years

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

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

-Premil believes this is part of Jesus’ return

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

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

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

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

  • Saints Seated and Share (4-6)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Satan’s Demise (7-10)

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

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

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

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

-Once again, a very anticlimactic battle. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Revelation 19:11-21 – Sermon Manuscript

-After months walking through the unfolding of human history, we’re finally at the end of time. We’ve seen the rise and fall of civilizations, the promise that God will someday bring about perfect revenge, and it all centers on the King enacting His final rule.

-I’ve been waiting for this week for months, because I really get to push into my LOTR fandom here! And thanks to Bradley, I also have a sign to help you remember the theme of this passage and this book.

-in LOTR Aragorn was the rightful king of Gondor, even though he hadn’t enacted his place. Instead, Denethor was the steward, tasked with taking care of the Gondor until the king returned, and it was a glorious day in Middle Earth when Aragorn took his rightful place as king! 

-Keep that picture in mind as we work through today’s text.

READ/PRAY

-A few literary keys to understand what’s going on here, one that gives us a framework of the book, and the other that gives us a framework for this section: “Opened” and “I saw”

-“Opened” – 4:1, 11:19, 15:5, 19:11

-Window 1: 1:9-3:22: Hears a loud voice commanding Him to write down what he sees, turns and sees Jesus standing among the lampstands (churches)

-Window 2: 4:1-11:18: a door standing open in heaven, throne, someone standing on the throne with a scroll that has 7 seals, leads to 7 trumpets, and heaven sings

-Window 3: 11:19-15:4: temple of God opened, Ark of the Covenant appears leading to a number of signs, war between beasts and the seed of the woman but the beast is never successful 

-Window 4: 15:5-19:10: temple of the tabernacle opened, 7 bowls of judgment with the worst penalties yet, fall of Babylon, Lamb’s Bride is ready

-Window 5: 19:11-22:7: victory of the Lamb, descent of the city of God, the New Jerusalem

-We’re in the last glimpse of history here now, after God has delayed His judgment, that delay is done and it’s time for Him to take His rightful place as King of kings and Lord of lords.

-3 scenes, each begins with “Then I saw” the king, an angel, and the beast

-Spend most of our time on the first one since that’s the most important!

  1. The King (11-16)

-White horse. White is purity, horse is a signal of riding in to make war, but the emphasis is on the rider.

-Contrast this arrival with Jesus’ first arrival. His supposed “triumphal” entry was to go die, this true triumphal entry is to enact perfect everlasting justice. This tells us the way the world works, that we hate is that humiliation is the only way to true life. To save your life you must lose it, to be great means you must be a servant.

-Rider is called Faithful and True

-Contrast this with all the descriptions we’ve seen of the beast and his minions. His leadership always leads to destruction, and if you dig deep enough you’ll find him unfaithful and untrue. 

-Think of the implications of this reality: there are no hidden skeletons in Jesus’ closet, He’ll never lead you the wrong way, He’s always available for you, He’ll never leave you or forsake you, He literally died for you. Friends, Jesus is completely worthy of your complete worship and adoration. Because He is faithful and true, it is worth losing everything to get Him (including your life), which this book reminds us may be the case. Satan will work to destroy every follower of Jesus with any means he has, whether it be through economic oppression, political oppression, religious oppression, or even martyrdom, he LOVES when death comes, which is the opposite of Jesus.

-Jesus only judges with justice, when he pursues war it is in the pursuit of true justice. Podcast on parole boards in IL, asked the question “how do you determine when justice has been served.” We can’t! How do we weigh time served in prison vs. someone being murdered? Jesus can! His judgment is completely just, which is evidenced in the next verse:

-Eyes: penetrating, understanding everything, nothing can be hidden from their sight. This is why his judgment is completely just: He understands everything from everyone, even down to your deepest desires. Can’t lie to Him, can’t trick Him, can’t deceive Him in anyway, He sees it all, which would be terrifying if He weren’t faithful and true!

-Many crowns, but not numbered. 

-Another contrast with the beast: remember 7 heads & 10 crowns, trying to be impressive but shown to be useless. Once again, the beast power is limited, but Jesus’ is limitless!

-I thought of a funny example of this that I read about hamburgers. Back in the 80s, A&W tried competing with McDonald’s quarter pounder by created 1/3 lb burger. Spent all this time and money researching and developing it but it never took off, and they couldn’t figure out why so they created a focus group. In their tests, people liked the taste of their burger better, it was cheaper than Mickey Ds, but it turns out Americans are really bad at math so they thought they were getting ripped off because 3 is less than 4. 

-Similar to the way people thought they were deceived by the numbers, Satan here looks like he has all the power, but his 10 are nothing compared to the MANY crowns on Jesus. Don’t get tricked by Satan’s many deceptions 

-Name: seems like a weird description “a name that no one knows” when we’ve seen 2 names so far, we’ve got another one coming up in the next verse, and then it seems to list 2 MORE names in 16

-Need to understand 2 cultural ideas here to understand what John’s saying. First is when talking about a deity, to know their name gives you some sway or influence over them, which is why the Romans had so many named gods to try to force the gods to obey them. You can see this when you’re out in a public place and someone yells your name, don’t you immediately stop and look around? (Side note, unfortunately ‘Mike’ and ‘like’ sound very similar in public settings)

-Second is names were seen as representing characteristics about someone, so to know someone’s name was to know who they are. We’ve already seen 5 names of Him, but that’s just the start because there aren’t enough names in the world to adequately describe Jesus, this is why we’ve got eternity to try.

-So what’s signified by this is no one can influence Jesus in any way, and no one can know Him fully. We can know Him truly as He really is, but not completely.

-Robe: whose blood? Either the defeated armies or His own. 

-Some irony to this being referred to as the last battle, not just because no battle takes place, but because Jesus won when He rose again! I don’t know that it matters whose blood is on this robe, because the point is the same either way: Jesus is returning completely victorious. The battle is won.

-Jesus isn’t alone, armies are coming with Him! White: purity, linen: priestly clothes

-This gets to the question what are you wearing? Paul gets at this idea in Eph. 4, where he compares growing in holiness (like Jesus) to taking off clothes and putting on new ones. Like we’re at the stage of life where we go through a TON of clothes! And that even includes leaving kids in dirty clothes far longer than we should. But what does that look like spiritually?

-Paul answers that questions in Col. 3 when he lists the clothes that Christians should wear. What clothes are you wearing? Are you clothed in all these attributes or do you need to work to take off the worldly self?

-Sharp sword comes from where? His mouth: Jesus’ power is in His words.

-Think of the night of His betrayal when Judas brought a group to arrest Jesus, Peter strikes out and cuts off someone’s ear, and Jesus says that He doesn’t rule with the sword, Jesus rules with words.

-We don’t often see or admit this reality that words have power. ‘Sticks and stone may break my bones’ We know this! Yet how much more damaging can words be than a broken bone that heals in weeks?

-And think of what Jesus does with words: He casts out demons multiple times. When He and His disciples are stuck in a storm in the middle of a lake how does calm it? He speaks. How does He raise Lazarus from the dead? He speaks. How do we know that He’s God? Because He told us Himself, He used words. But think back even further than that, how does God create the world? He speaks. 

-Friends, the reality is that in this world, words have incredible power. How are we saved? By using words: confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord with our mouths, and believing in our hearts (deepest part of ourselves) that God raised Him from the dead. Words bring the dead to life (spiritually), and God’s Word is always effective, that’s why preaching God’s Word is such a significant part of our Lord’s Day gathering! The best modern example of this is in a wedding ceremony: how is this new family created? By words “I now pronounce you man and wife,” from that point on they’re no longer 2 single people, there’s power in words.

-And at the end of history, when Jesus returns, words are the only thing that will matter. Words are how He rules the nations.

-Most English translations translate the next sentence here as “rule with an iron rod” but I think it makes more sense to translate as “shepherd with an iron rod.” His rod can’t break but that’s a blessing because He’s a good shepherd who cares for His sheep.

-Tramples the winepress (talked about that in Rev. 14)

-Name written on his robe & thigh: King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

-Everyone else, no matter how high they are in the political or global stage, isn’t the true ruler of the world. At this time, Nero would have thought he was, previously in history you could point to Alexander the Great, Atilla the Hun, even Mohammad, or Napoleon, King George, none of them are the king above all kings!

  • An Angel (17-18)

-I hope you’ve been picking up on the ways John is drawing out comparisons between the city of man (Babylon) and the city of God (New Jerusalem) as we’ve continued through this book. Last week Micah taught us about the bride of Christ who was invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. This time there’s another invitation to supper, but it’s a very different supper, this one is called the great supper of God, and the outworking is gross.

-Begins with an angel “standing in the sun”

-Too bright to look at, high above the earth.

-Picking up a prophecy from Ezek. 38-39 about the destruction of Israel’s enemies, which was pointing to this story at the end of history. Remember it’s important to know our WHOLE Bible to interpret Revelation properly – John regularly picks up OT themes or ideas and reinterprets them for his new audience, demonstrates this is God’s story and plan from beginning to end. It means we can trust Him.

-One thing that’s unlike Ezekiel is here no one is left out: free and slave, small and great, a way of referring to everyone 

  • The Beast (19-21)

-Remember that the beast is always trying to mimic the Lord – unholy trinity, signs and wonders, marks on his people, here we see him bringing an army just like Jesus has

-Jesus’ army is impressive: white horses, pure clothing, this one is a beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, but nothing listed about their purity, nothing listed about their ability to conquer

-All this build up, increasing intensity in the book leading to this final showdown, in 1 corner you have Jesus and all the saints who have been saved and redeemed, in the other you have the beast and all the people he’s deceived through the course of history ready for one last attempt to finally commit the ultimate rebellion and cast God out of heaven. Unfortunately, no matter the size of the army it’s not a fair fight, because the true victory was won 2,000 years ago when Jesus walked out of the grave. That was the moment the beast, that ancient serpent, lost the fight.

-And look what happens to them: the beast and the false prophet were taken prisoner by Jesus and thrown into the lake of fire. They’re ready to knock down, and when the time comes there’s not even a fight. Talk about anticlimactic! 

-The rest of the army also doesn’t get to participate, by the word of Jesus’ mouth they’re killed.

-At the end of time, we’re once again faced with the question: whose side are you on? Which army are you fighting in? We don’t get to opt out of this one, we don’t have someone fighting in our place, but we do have a choice.

-“I may never march in the infantry, ride in the cavalry, shoot the artillery, I may never fly o’er the enemy, but I’m in the Lord’s army”

-But friends, here’s the thing, our fight isn’t against flesh and blood, we fight spiritually, with the Sword of the Spirit (God’s Word), but putting on the full armor of God (Eph. 6)

-Have you ever paid attention to the characteristics of someone covered in the armor of God? Growing up in church we’d always focus on the items instead of the characteristic:

-Belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, gospel of piece, shield of faith, helmet of salvation “pray at all times in the Spirit” 

-The way God commands us to fight and live through is words, words are the means by which God’s message goes forth, God’s Words continue having power today, God’s Word is the way dead people are brought back to life, and we now have to speak the words of eternal life to others.

-Truth-tellers. Don’t play the worldly game of deception, of assuming the worst, of looking for a fight.

-Had a conversation with a retired pastor who said people would often complain that his sermons didn’t have enough application, they wanted him to tell them what to do. Friends, the message I want you to hear every week isn’t what you need to do, it’s what Jesus has already done.

-Words have power to transform, each week it isn’t about finding something new to add to your life, it’s being reminded that there’s nothing we can add to our salvation to make Jesus love us any more. He already loves us unconditionally!

-The king is already sitting on his throne, the battle is won, but the world doesn’t realize it. Someday everyone will bow the knee to Jesus, either willingly or by force – and our job is to use words to invite others to join the right army, our job is to faithful stewards, the key word there is faithful. The kingdom is advancing, the battle is being fought, but one side refuses to admit defeat. If you want to be on the winning side it’s easy: use words to confess with your mouth that Jesus is the Lord, and if you have done that daily continue putting on the godly characteristics we’ve seen today.

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by mikethestrand on October 27, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 27, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/10/27/revelation-1911-21-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 18 – Sermon Manuscript

-I love Table Topics. If you haven’t heard of them, it’s fun questions that prompt conversation, here’s some examples. One of my personal favorites is if you could change 1 event from history, what would it be? You can ask me later if you want to get into a discussion on church history. But a table topic question today’s sermon is: When are you most happy? Raise at work, A’s at school, recognition for your accomplishments, your birthday, new car, new house, new iPhone

-The flip side to that question is: what do you grieve? I think you can learn a lot about a person by knowing what makes them happy (celebrate) or what they grieve. Usually they’re connected, you would grieve the loss of what makes you happy. 

-In this week’s text, we’re going to look at worldly grief. 

READ/PRAY

  1. Announcing the End (1-8)

-“Another angel”

-Shifting focus a little bit from last week, not one with the bowls, but remember this is still a zoomed in focus of the 7th bowl – the destruction of Babylon the great. Cities look like they have all the privilege and prestige, but Revelation reminds us that things are not as they appear.

-“He called out”

-A warning, judgment comes but not without a warning beforehand.

-Don’t miss this warning! God has given a warning before the judgment comes. 

–2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord does not delay his promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.” Friends, God’s eternal patience is true, but it also depends on repentance. God should not be messed with or assumed about His grace and mercy, but we often do assume it, but someday your choice will determine your eternity. God’s heart and desire is for everyone to spend eternity with Him, but unfortunately that won’t be true of everyone. Some people will perish – spending eternity experiencing God’s wrath. This is why a message like Revelation is so needed! Think of what we just saw roll through FL, and thank the Lord that we have the technology we do so people can prepare, they knew the hurricane was coming. Similarly, we know judgment is coming, the question is are we prepared?

-Babylon the Great – the place of decadence and extravagance, the place where everyone gets what they want when they want it.

-Remember, described as a woman in this section. Suddenly she’s not so great. 

-A haunt (GRK prison) for demons, spirits, animals. Anything that is dirty and broken resides there. 

-This is a reminder for us that things are not always as they seem, and the physical doesn’t always match the spiritual. Think back to the descriptions of the 7 churches earlier in the book, the ones that are most vibrant and healthy are the ones facing the most physical persecution, and the ones that look the most appealing are the ones who are the least healthy spiritually. That’s true throughout history. I think of the excesses of Rome, the beautiful architecture, ornate buildings that I paid a few dollars to walk through. They hid a culture of despair and decay by beautiful art and architecture, but underneath it’s a prison for everything that is broken in the world.

-(3) Everyone, all nations have drunk of her idolatry

-Description here is of excess, no lack. Wealth that comes about with no concern about how you get it. We’ll talk about that a little later, but what comes to your mind when you think of pursuit of wealth in an unholy way? Is there a way that the pursuit of wealth can be unhealthy or unholy?

-The other key to remember is this sexual immorality language is referring to idolatry. It’s looking for ultimate satisfaction in something other than God, which is the drift of the human heart. All humans are looking for some way to get their deepest longings met. Think of what the Rolling Stones said “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” that’s the cry of every human apart from God.

-Another voice (angel or God?) Seems to be God for 2 reasons: “my people” John otherwise has no problem referring to angels. However, vs. 5 refers to God in the 3rd person, so that could be wrong!

-“Come out of her” What does that look like? Are we supposed to flee to the hills? Become Amish or monastics? Is it sin to live in a city? I’ve even read some books over the past few years that argue that it’s time for Christians to flee civilization, to head for the hills and create a holy enclave that won’t be influenced by the world. If you’ve been in our church history class you know that pull is centuries old! Monks have argued for this!

–John 17. Jesus wants us to remain in the world, He prays that we would remain faithful in the world. In but not of. Key distinction. Notice that Jesus says that we are sent by Him into the world. I don’t want you so busy with church activities that you’re never able to engage your neighbors, co-workers. There was a time when I was growing up where church was the social calendar for everyone, that time is gone, and we have a mission to pursue. One church I worked at the Sr Pastor would work to add stuff to the weekly bulletin (explain bulletins) so it looked like the church was busier than it actually was.

-And I can empathize with this impulse! It’s good to spend time with our church body, it’s healthy for us to enjoy each other, I’d even say it’s essential for you to remain engaged and involved here for your sanctification. But it’s also essential for you to engage in the rest of your lives with the good news of the gospel. At work, while shopping, while driving, while walking, while talking. God wants to use you to accomplish His mission of making disciples of all nations. He’s inviting you as a part of His plans. Are you joining with Him or working against Him?

-Since seminary one of my favorite passages to meditate on has been Deut. 6, something Jews have recited daily for millennia. “Hear Israel, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God, talk about Him ALL THE TIME.” Friends, what should come up when you’re having conversation is God and His Word. 

-I have some things that trigger me, one of them is when someone feels like they have to add a devotional to a gathering to make it more “holy.” My hope is that you can’t help but talk about God’s Word, what He’s done in your life, what you’re learning and being challenged in. The reality is you should have at least 1 steady input of God’s Word every week: right now! At minimum you’ve got Revelation 18 to chew on and meditate through for the next week, which should lead to new thoughts and ideas from this text that you can share with others! So do it!

-Condemnation of Babylon continues in vs. 5

-Contrast this description with the original Babylon in Gen. 11. The reality is anytime we try to make a name for ourselves it only serves to condemn us because it’s trying to force our way into the place of God.

-Sinful pursuits, the impulses they have are what will come back around to hurt her. God always remembers and will eventually bring about perfect justice and judgment. No one will doubt that He’s right in His judgments, except Babylon.

-Look how she describes herself in vs. 7. This sounds similar to what is described in Psalm 14 as a fool. Fools say there is no god, fools say that no one will hold them accountable, fools say to just pursue pleasure and alleviate pain. 

-Think about what Babylon (worldly temptation) says here “I will never see grief.” Friends, do you hear the call of our culture today? How much marketing is spent on never needing to grieve? How much time is spent on not needing to grieve? If we’re entertained 24/7 there’s no time to grieve. Why struggle with grief if I can just turn on Netflix and be numbed?

-But the reality is grief will come at some point – that’s guaranteed. Just like vs. 8 goes on to remind us. There is 1 kingdom that’s eternal, the rest will someday end by destruction.

  • Grieving the End (9-20)

-I asked earlier what makes you happy, but now I want you to thin about what do you grieve?

-Do you grieve when you sin? Do you grieve when people pursue Babylon instead of the New Jerusalem? Do you grieve at division in Christ’s body?

-Even as we talk about that, we need to recognize that there’s a difference between godly grief and worldly grief. Worldly grief will be modeled here, but godly grief is meant to lead us closer to Christ, closer to holiness, aligning us closer with what God has created us to be.

-Picking up on themes, ideas, and language from a few OT places of destruction: Ezek. 26-27, Jer. 50-51. I don’t have time this morning to dig into them, but you can read them on your own if you want to trace the lineage of God’s response to Babylon! There are 3 groups who grieve the destruction of Babylon.

  1. The Kings (9-10)

-The first group mentioned are the kings. Those in leadership and positions of power. But notice that they stand “far off” they don’t want to face the penalty, but they’re grieving.

-“Woe” could be “alas” or “Oh no” a sigh of mourning

-The judgment on the city is fast! They imagined they would continue in perpetuity (as the woman said) but their demise was quick

-Parable of the rich fool (Luke 12:16-21) Where the phrase “eat, drink, and be merry” comes from, but it’s not a positive connotation. This parable is a reminder that everything on earth will someday disappear. None of us know when we’ll die, none of us know when our end will be. If you really think about some of the things we do, we’re all crazy! Strapping ourselves to a metal box, then moving inches away from another metal box going 70 mph. One twitch and you could be gone! But that’s not the way the world often thinks, the world thinks this will go on forever.

  • The Merchants (11-17)

-We also have those who have become wealthy from the worldly systems. Mentions extravagant things, all the nicest items, and this is the longest of these 3 groups. But culminates in treating humans as a commodity – slaves, instead of viewing them as image bearers.

-Let’s talk about this now. Have you ever considered ways you may be propagating unjust economic systems in our day that force people into slavery? The reason we have cheap and easily accessible clothing is often due to someone in SE Asia being forced to work in grueling conditions for an unlivable wage, and some those people working are children. Our culture expects things to be fast, easy, cheap, and easily accessible. There are moments where I won’t order something on Amazon because I can’t have it in 2 days. That’s ridiculous (and tells you where my heart is). I don’t have an easy solution to this, I’m not very good at economics, but I can see the ways we’re all impacted by our finances. Remember a few years ago when COVID hit and everyone went crazy with TP? Probably better things to horde, but when things suddenly aren’t going to be as easy as we thought we often don’t know how to respond so we do things that are really dumb. (Saw people with mountains of TP in their carts, heard stories of people filling their garages with it and then they couldn’t get rid of it)

-And the problem is Christians aren’t immune to this. I read a quote this week that I think brings this point to light, but to understand it you need to think of the city limit signs you see as you drive around. When I drive home every week after church, I drive by a sign that says “Welcome to Eagan established 1860” telling my I’ve crossed the line into a new city, if you live north of here you drive by it too!

-“There’s no ‘city limit’ sign to the earthly city precisely because the earthly city is less a place and more a way of life, a constellation of loves and longing and beliefs bundled up in communal rhythms, routines, and rituals.” James K.A. Smith Isn’t that interesting? We are all marked by the rhythms, routines, and rituals that we live in. Think of the ritual of a stoplight. Stay behind the white line, watch the lights next to you for them to turn red, impatiently wait and get bored so you pull out your phone to check your texts. We all have lived in these rhythms more than we realize, so if we’re going to live in different rhythms we need regular reminders that we’re citizens first and foremost of heaven.

-Just as the kings mourned but stayed away, the merchants do the same thing. Only used what they could and as soon as it wasn’t advantageous for them anymore, they ran away.

  • The Sailors (18-19)

-The last group to grieve were the sailors who once again got wealthy from the influence of Babylon. Once again, they’re not mourning for good reasons, they’re mourning because they’ve lost their access to wealth. Eugene Peterson summarizes this in his book well:

-Do you see any places where people worship economic prosperity instead of God? One I’ve been thinking of recently is “starter homes.” I keep reading about starter homes becoming more and more expensive and leaving out those who need a home. I remember when I bought my first home I was told the average time someone lives in a home was something like 3 years.

-We’re at a similar point to the parable of the foolish rich man. I’m not saying it’s bad to have nice things, I am saying it’s bad, wrong, and foolish to view money as your salvation. It’s not wrong to have a nice car, steward it, take care of it, and look for opportunities to bless others with it. It’s not wrong to have a nice house. Take care of it, have others over. But don’t look to your things as your ultimate source of comfort and hope because they will always let you down.

  • The End (20-24)

-Unlike the world, those who live in the way of the Lamb are called to respond to Babylon’s demise differently: Rejoice! Do you rejoice when evil is destroyed or judged?

-Look what happens to Babylon, the music stops, the work stops, the lights go out, there’s no more joy or happiness found there. 

-All this is in preparation for next week where we will start to look a different city.

Table Topics for this week:

-Do you talk about God’s Word everyday?

-What rhythms, routines, and rituals do you practice on a weekly basis, do those help you live more in Babylon or the New Jerusalem? 

-I realize this second question is harder because the practices of heaven don’t seem all that impressive. Read an old book, pray to a God we can’t see, meet 1 morning a week with people who don’t like the same things as us. Even the practices Jesus commanded us don’t seem to have any significance: take a bath, and drink some fruit of the vine and bread. Yet these habits and practices shape and form us into new people. God is working in us as we practice these habits in the context of His body – the church.

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by mikethestrand on October 13, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on October 13, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/10/13/revelation-18-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 16 – Sermon Manuscript

-When you think of God, what comes to your mind? Is God in your mind like a divine Santa Claus who’s there to give gifts? Is He like Zeus who just waits for something to displease him and send out a lightning bolt? Is He like the dad from Full House who’s always understanding and patient? Is He like the perfect grandfather with flowing gray locks and perfect hair as Michealangelo pictured Him in the Sistine Chapel? 

-I hope the past few weeks have been stretching to you! In our world today we emphasize the love and grace of God, but we tend to miss the justice and wrath of God as just as true as His love. It’s jarring to our Western mind to think about justice and wrath as right attribute of the God of the Bible.

-But what about this explanation of God by Richard Dawkins? What Dawkins (and many others) miss is God hasn’t changed! The culture around us has changed significantly since Genesis 1 was written (and Revelation 16) but that’s for us to process through, not God!

-We’re continuing today with the theme of God’s wrath being poured out like bowls. Friends let me pause to remind us that while God is a wrathful God, that’s not the only attribute of God. God’s wrath is only poured out on those opposed to Him, God’s wrath is meant to be a warning to lead people to repentance. Listen for that theme as we read the text together:

READ/PRAY

-Last week, Micah prepped us for this week. God’s wrath is promised to come on those who refuse to serve Him. But before we look at the bowls, I think we need to think about why we’ve now gotten to God’s wrath being poured out, and in order to do that we need to understand the storyline of the Bible.

-In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The culmination of that was humans who were tasked by God with imaging Him in the rest of creation, stewarding and caring for the creation, and ruling over the creation, but they were also given limits, a law to follow in order to flourish in the world as God intended. But our first parents (Adam & Eve) rebelled and disobeyed God’s law. 

-From that point humanity split into the followers of God and those opposed to God. The followers of God were meant to serve as representatives to the rest of creation what true life looked like. By obeying God’s law it would lead to flourishing and peace. But time and time again God’s people disobeyed. 

-Then Jesus comes and lives the perfect life where He completely obeys every law of God. I don’t it’s a coincidence that one passage describes Jesus as weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19), how frustrating do you think it would be to see the brokenness in the world and people’s refusal to live as God intended? Jesus then dies for the sins of the world, and offers people a new way to flourish in the world, which Jeremiah describes as having God’s law written on our hearts: instead of being written on stone tablets our internal drives and desires will shift and be able to align with God’s law, His instructions for living as He intended. 

-But we don’t see the full implications of that yet. It’s hard to obey God’s law, we don’t always pursue Him, we continue to rebel and disobey which is why we have Revelation to remind us that this struggle will someday end.

-One of the phrases that I’ve intentionally been using throughout this explanation is God’s law. His expectations for His people have never changed since the creation of the world. The way that looks has changed as His plan has unfolded, but we still need to obey God’s law, and the reason for that is summarized by a quote I read this week: “God’s law is not an imposition, but an exposition.” E. Stanley Jones. 

-I think that when we think of God’s law our minds drift towards the imposition (that was true for Adam and Eve). We view God’s law as shackles and restraints preventing us from living our “best life.” Friends, your best life isn’t going to happen until Jesus comes back! But the only way to have a life of flourishing is by living according to God’s law, hence it’s an exposition (explanation) of this world. And I love how even scientific study regularly backs up God’s law. Like the fact that loneliness is being described as an epidemic today, God says in the beginning it’s not good for humans to be alone. First thing for us to realize is God’s law is good and leads to life.

-Secondly, we are storied people, even though we often don’t realize it. We define ourselves based on stories/accounts that happen to us, and what God invites us to do is align our stories with His and move to start identifying our lives based on the 1 true story of history that will stand the test of time. What that means is you have the choice to either live in God’s story or pursue your own story, which God calls sin. One of the most striking things to me as I’ve been studying Revelation is how much the Exodus story is meant to serve as a primary story for God’s people, and it’s especially true in today’s passage. 

-Exodus plauges

-The thing to keep in mind is there are only 2 ways to live, either you obey God or you don’t, either you live in God’s story or you live in the dragon’s story. So as we look at God’s wrath, we need to remember something J.I. Packer said: “Nobody stands under the wrath of God, save those who have chosen to do so.” J.I. Packer. 

-Friends, we have a choice in our lives to follow after God’s law, or to follow after God’s wrath. We’ll once again see the destruction that comes from disobeying God, but even in the midst of that be reminded of God’s mercy.

-Bowls are a natural, automatic reflex of holiness (just as you have a gag reflex)

7 seals: from the church, 7 trumpets: from the world, 7 bowls: from the temple of God

-There is at least a closer connection between the bowls and the trumpets, but remember as well the increasing severity of the judgment. Seals affected ¼ of the earth, trumpets 1/3, now with the bowls it’s the whole earth.

  1. 4 Bowls on the World (1-9)

-From the temple – God is done with the rebellion and sin and is going to deal with it once and for all.

-The punishment fits the crime for every bowl that comes out. First bowl: Rev. 13 those who received the mark of the beast are given a mark of judgment. What they thought would be their saving grace earlier (literally the only way to participate in the economic system) ends up being their demise.

-And friends, how often is this true of us? We adopt sinful habits or practices that we think will help us succeed, but then they end up consuming us later. I think of the house projects I’ve been working on – I keep finding stuff that the previous owner did that were done completely wrong! And if I weren’t going through and cleaning them up could have let to my house literally being destroyed! And most of the time the issues we struggle with aren’t major things at the beginning, but if we’re not regularly reminded of the way the world lulls us to sleep and tries to get us to stop living in God’s story, it will consume us.

-We see it again with the next 2 bowls, the thing that people view as saving them is what leads to their demise, and I think this has 2 implications to it. First is what’s spoken in the text:

-This is a just judgment given to the earth, because they’ve killed God’s messengers, so in response the earth is suddenly covered in blood. God talks about this all the way back in Genesis when he says if someone sheds blood their blood will also be shed. There will be retribution for the disobedience of people. 

-But the second implication we can draw from this is in the way people look to money and wealth as their primary focus in life. Shipping back then, just like today, serves as a way people can expand their wealth and status, and fish are a great source of food! I love a good sushi! (good, my general rule is I won’t order seafood at a landlocked state)

-A couple weeks ago I talked about the reality that we become like what we worship, which is true! But what if God’s response is to take what we worship away from us? What if this water being turned to blood means people no longer are able to profit from the normal means they’ve typically used?

-Just this week, some new legislation came out banning any Chinese or Russian software in our cars (that’s a weird thing to say) What would the implications be of every vehicle in our country was hit with a software bug? (I know some of you with old school cars would be fine!) The great depression was not that long ago! I know I’m always told that if I invest now it’s guaranteed to grow by 3% until I retire, but what if it doesn’t? This is John’s reminder that we’re not as in control as we think we are. God can call down judgment at any moment, and someday He will! Are we ready for that day?

-The last thing to note from this is the last line of vs. 6 “They deserve it!” GRK “they are worthy” Worthy for what? Judgment! This is picking up an idea from Rev. 4:11. This communicates the same idea I’ve been sharing: everyone is worthy of something, every human (apart from Jesus Christ) is worthy of condemnation because they’re not realizing that only God is worthy to receive praise.

-Which is what the next verse reminds us of. The altar is the place where the martyrs are. The martyrs, who had begged God earlier to avenge them, are now acknowledging that God is right and true and when He judges, it’s just. 

-Think of it like if you got caught blatantly disobeying the law (officer pulls you over for driving 20 mph over the speed limit). There are consequences to your actions, it is just for the police officer to give you a ticket. Similarly with God it is just for Him to judge you, but God doesn’t just leave you there, He provides a way for your judgment to disappear, we’ll get there at the end.

-Similarly to the previous bowls, this time people are scorched, but notice their response

-Instead of repenting and moving towards living in God’s story, they blaspheme and refuse to repent. Friends, even in His judgment God wants people to move towards Him! In this verse it’s saying there’s the choice to repent! God wants everyone to follow Him, to live as they should, to find life to the full, but not everyone will. C.S. Lewis quote.

  • 3 Bowls on the Beast (10-21)

-The focus of the bowls moves in a different direction now to the throne of the beast, and just like in the Exodus, the beast’s power is shown to be deficient because his kingdom is completely dark.

-Response of the people here seems weird, doesn’t it? Why are they gnawing their tongues? Not in the text, but I think they’re doubling down on their refusal to repent. If they don’t have tongues it’s going to be difficult to be forced to praise God, isn’t it? This is demonstrating a people who have become so calloused they’ll do everything they can to continue in their ways instead of repenting and trusting in the one true God.

-And it leads me to asking a question for you: do you have any areas in your life where you’re proverbially cutting off your tongue so you don’t need to submit it to God? Do you have little secret impulses or desires that aren’t honoring to God? I had a friend over the summer share that he’s working on better worshipping God with his dreams. Dreams are often the outworking of your thought life, are you worshipping God with your thought life too?

-And notice again the purpose of this pain: to lead them to repentance, but they continue refusing to repent. Friends, pain and suffering is often a kindness of the Lord that’s meant to lead us to repentance. It shocks us out of our stupor, focuses our attention and energies, and demands we pay attention to it. God walks with you even in your suffering. C.S. Lewis quote

-The sixth bowl focuses on 1 specific river that served as the Eastern border to Israel, and the place where a feared enemy in the 1st century resided. If there’s no river, there’s no protection from them.

-Unclean spirits, demonic influences. Frogs (again notice the LIKE here, not literal frogs), referencing back to the plagues of Egypt again! Text explicitly says they are demonic spirits who are opposed to God. They’ll continue fighting day after day until the great day with God comes back.

-Then there’s an interesting parenthetical note that Jesus is coming like a thief so be careful so that you don’t end up naked (guessing you didn’t think you’d be hearing that at church today) This is a warning to the church to not end up like the world. Same warning to the church at Laodicea in 3:18, reminder to store up your riches in the right place.

-Hebrew Har-Maggedio (mount Meggedio), not a mountain but a plain. A battle was fought between King Josiah of Judah and King Neco of Egypt (2 Kings 23), Judah was defeated and led to being captured by Babylon. John is recounting the great reversal of history: the new Babylon will bear the judgment of God in the exact same place the previous Babylon had conquered God’s people. See, God has an eternal scorecard, He never loses track of what takes place in the world and He will bring about perfect justice (which at times means divine irony)

-Last bowl into the air, sounds similar to Jesus’ last statement before He breathed His last, but this time what’s finished isn’t a sacrifice, what’s finished is God’s wrath being poured out. The creation is being uncreated and turning back into chaos. Similar language to the 7th seal and trumpet.

-And once again, after all this, what’s the response of the people? Blaspheming God, shaking their fist in anger at Him.

  • Judgment or Repentance?

-Friends, which side of this story are you going to be on? Part of the reason we have this book is to shake us out of our stupor, to wake us up to the realities of the life to come, and to remind us that even though Satan looks powerful here, he has no ultimate power in the end. Because even as we read this text (that sounds shocking and awful) we’re reminded that there’s still mercy, but not how we think:

“There is no refuge from the judging God. But there is refuge in the judging God. Mercy!” Darrell Johnson

-Who could imagine that? We can be preserved from the wrath of God only by running to the wrathful God because that God is also the only loving God. In the coming weeks we’re going to see how the dragon uses and abuses people promising riches and life but it only leads to their destruction, just like in the garden at the beginning. As Jesus has promises, He offers life to the full, but it comes by being obedient to Him.

-So I’ll leave you with 2 questions today: 

-Have you brought your story in line with God’s story by repenting and putting your faith in Jesus?

-If you are following in God’s story, are there any areas in your life that you’re holding on to too tightly and not allowing to be brought into God’s story?

-Either way, God’s mercies are new every day, including today, so I’d encourage you to repent and align or realign your life with God’s story.

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by mikethestrand on September 28, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on September 28, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/28/revelation-16-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 14:14-20 – Sermon Manuscript

-I HATE scary movies! Thrillers I can handle (and often enjoy, even when they keep me up late because I need to find out what happens)

-Even though I don’t watch them, I know all the tropes that come with scary movies: don’t go near the basement, stay away from windows, make sure you stay in a group. Good lessons to be learned if you ever find yourself in a horror movie!

-One of the pieces I hope you’re taking away from our study in Revelation is similar – that there are only 2 options to how you’re going to live your life: either worshipping God or worshipping the dragon. Today’s text is meant to be like a horror movie where we run away from these consequences and run towards God. See sometimes God tells stories that are repulsive to serve as models for us so that we run away from sin and death and run to Him. 

-C.S. Lewis “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”

-Part of the reason we (and the 7 churches) need to read about true justice is because we need the encouragement to remain faithful in the midst of this difficult world. When you’re used and abused, sometimes the only encouragement is to keep your eyes on Jesus, knowing that He will bring about perfect justice.

READ/PRAY

-Same section as last week, interlude between judgments, we’ve looked at 7 seals and 7 trumpets, then we’re in this interim leading into the 7 bowls where I believe John is given a glimpse of the arrival of Jesus through a heavenly perspective. 

-Jesus, the Creator of everything, came into creation as a baby. Didn’t appear out of nowhere, didn’t float down out of the sky, didn’t crash to earth on a spaceship like Clark Kent, he was born the same way you and I were born, which meant Satan thought he had the perfect opportunity to finally destroy God’s plans, but each time he’s thwarted! He gets angrier and angrier and works to destroy God’s plans and bring praise on himself instead of praising God, that’s why there’s this repeating theme of worshipping and praising God throughout this book, Satan’s aim is to steal that worship.

-Today we see 2 stories of reaping, but before we dive in there’s some debate about this section (much like the rest of the book) 3 options as to what this refers to:

-Both are negative judgments against those not following God

-1 is positive (grain) and the other is negative (grapes)

-Both are positive judgments referring to salvation.

-Yes, every interpretive option is on the table! Personally, I don’t find the first option convincing, and only found 1 person who argued that these both refer to negative judgments from God, and I’m currently leaning toward the middle option that this is recounting 2 separate harvest that serve 2 different purposes, as I’ll explain when we go through.

  1. The Grain Harvest (14-16)

-The next thing revealed to John is one like the Son of Man, some debate about who this could be referring to, some angel that looks similar to Jesus? Jesus himself?

-I would argue it’s Jesus. This title (taken from Daniel), last time referred to Jesus in 1:13, so it would make sense that when it’s used again it’s referring to the same person, this time instead of standing among lampstands (the church), he’s seated on a cloud. Jesus says his return will be “on the clouds” which is being realized in this vision to John.

-Golden crown on his head, connects back to the elders, signifies his rule and reign. Last time we saw the Son of Man, he had 7 stars in his hand, this time what does he have?

-A sharp sickle. This time he’s not standing sovereign in the church, this time he’s standing sovereign in harvesting.

-This would have been a common theme in the 1st century. Think of one of the pivotal scenes in the Gladiator: walking in the wheat field. When’s the last time you took a stroll in a wheat field? This is part of where we can miss some of the stories or implications in the Bible because we live in a different day. In the 1st Century their lives were dominated by the changing of seasons, and if the fields weren’t taken care of, death was immanent. When I need food it comes in saran wrap that I rip open! 

-So when John sees Jesus with a sharp sickle in his hand, we tend to miss the implications, too. My mind jumps to something like the grim reaper, or a horror movie (doesn’t help that people already have Halloween decorations up). Not a positive idea. What John’s readers had in mind was more like this: farmer’s out in their fields reaping their harvest, that means it was another successful year, they were going to continue having enough food, it’s a positive connection.

-Then “another angel” appears. Remember from last week, we’d seen 3 angels who delivered various messages: eternal gospel, fall of Babylon, the cup of God’s wrath. This angel comes out of the temple.

-The temple is where God lives, so this angel is sent from God with a message that it’s time to reap. This is where people have attempted to argue that this Son of Man couldn’t be Jesus then, because angels are sent from God, angels don’t tell God what to do. I would disagree with that sentiment, because it doesn’t say Jesus is submitting to them, all the angel is doing is sharing the message from God, and if you remember, one of the things Jesus said while He was on earth was that He didn’t even know when He was going to come back. How that works when He is God is a mystery, but we know that in everything Jesus does, He submits Himself to the will of the Father. 

-Why is it time to reap? Because the harvest is ripe. This is full of a bunch of previous imagery John would have heard from spending time with Jesus! Just a couple examples:

-Jesus tells a couple parables about sowing and reaping in Matt. 9, one is very well known where the seed is sown on all sorts of different soils which leads to different outcomes, but the second parable is applicable for today’s passage. 

-He shares a story of a good farmer who’s taking care of his field and plants his seed faithfully and lets it start to grow, but during the night one of his enemies throws a different kind of seed into the field to compete with the wheat. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to us, think of this like 2 businesses who are in constant competition with each other and continually look for ways to undercut the other. When the plants start to come up, they notice that wheat and weeds are growing together! The servants come to the master and ask if they should pull up the weeds, and he responds:

-This is a picture of what happens all around us all the time! Just as the eternal gospel is being sown and people are being saved, Satan (the enemy) is continuing to work to fight against God, just like this image shows us. Friends, this should give us hope because it means there is hope, even if it feels like the world is just getting worse!

-The second passage that illumines this text is from John 4 right after he met a sinful woman at the well and told her that He is the Messiah. His disciples come back very confused, and here’s how Jesus answers their questions:

-His disciples can read the signs of the seasons, as can we! As the temperature drops at night, we know the leaves will start changing colors, and then the first frost will come and kill all your plants. But how good are we at reading the signs of the spiritual seasons? See, we’re supposed to be looking for opportunities to share the gospel indiscriminately, we’re supposed to be like the Sower who doesn’t care what soil we’re in we continue throwing out seed.

-Because here’s the other reality: the harvest is abundant. Friends, spiritually it’s harvest season all year long! You don’t need to wait for pumpkin spice season to invite people in!

-What we see in Revelation is the implication of the gospel going out. As the seed of the gospel takes root in people’s lives they continue to grow and produce more fruit in more people and eventually will be harvested into heaven. Jesus uses so many different harvesting illustrations that John would have remembered and picked up on as he saw this vision from the Lord. 

-And because Jesus talked about this so much, I don’t want us to miss one of the applications for us today. Look at vs 38 here:

-Friends, this means we need to actively be praying that the gospel continues to go out, that more people are called by the Lord to go out and share the gospel. But this message isn’t just for others, we’re included in that “workers” word. There’s a reason we end every service saying: “you are sent.” God welcomes you in each week, and then God sends us out each week to live as his witnesses and to share the gospel in our words and our lives.

-But that’s only 1 harvest, John is given a glimpse of another harvest:

  • The Grape Harvest (17-20)

-Differences: first is done by the Son of Man, second by an angel. This one has some connection to the altar and the fire on the altar. This second one talks about the implication of the harvest, first one just mentions that the earth was harvested, so it seems like a bit of a stretch to argue that this is exactly the same as the previous one.

-First thing is an angel with a sickle, we’ve seen a sickle before! He’s ready to go, but he’s waiting for the call, so yet ANOTHER angel comes with a message.

-“Authority over fire” connection back to 8:3-5, judgment coming because of the prayers of the saints, which I think is also signified by “came from the altar” which also connects us back to the saints in Rev. 6:9 There the martyrs are begging God to return in judgment and avenge them, but they’re told to wait a little longer. Now we’re seeing that time has come.

-Instead of wheat, this time he’s to gather clusters of grapes because they’re ripe, and this is where the story diverges from the previous harvest. The grapes are successfully harvested, but then they thrown into a great winepress of God’s wrath.

-This connects to last week’s text again, 10 “he will also drink the wine of God’s wrath,” so John is saying where this judgment is coming from. Wine pressing is an interesting phenomenon in the 1st cent. The way wine was made was stomping on the grapes in a winepress until the juice flowed out, that juice was collected and preserved to let it ferment and create wine. 

-This idea is actually picked up in Rev. 19 in a description of Jesus. The one who’s enacting God’s judgment is Jesus. We talked a bit last week about God’s wrath, but don’t miss that Jesus is also wrathful. So often Jesus is pictured as a hippy who walked around with long flowing locks and told everyone to just get along, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, the difficulty is Jesus just doesn’t play by the same earthly rules that we tend to get so bogged down in. He doesn’t have to play the power game because He’s already reigning supremely. And while His first coming was in humility, His second coming is with a vengeance.

-But there are some things for us to note about this pressing of the wine. First: outside the city. We have an opposite idea of the city today than the 1st century would have!

-City provided protection and safety from the oppression of the wilderness where you could be robbed or attacked by wild animals. I have a friend who lives in downtown St. Paul and anytime he offers to host a meeting I ask if it’s safe to come in there from the burbs! Outside the city is where you were left to fend for yourself, and this is even more true when you realize that coming up in Rev. 21, the city of God will come down to be the place where God’s people can live securely, so being pressed outside of the city is a terrifying reality.

-And even more terrifying: what flows out isn’t juice but a river of blood up to about 5’ for 1,600 stadia (which is approximately the length of Palestine 1,664 stadia), symbolically it’s 4×4 by 10×10 – if you can think back to 7:1 we saw the 4 corners of the earth, thinking back to Rev. 4 there are 4 living creatures, so 4 is often referring to all of creation, then 10 refers to completeness, so what’s signified is the way God’s wrath extends to all of creation.

-One of the most significant things we’ve seen through this book is the reality that there are only 2 ways to live: either for God or against God, and everyone is moving closer to one of those realities with each decision they make.

-One of the incredible things about this section in Revelation is the judgment only comes after the eternal gospel has been proclaimed. Look back in your Bibles to 14:7 “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship the one who made heaven and earth.” How do we do that? 

  • Blood Enough?

-Throughout this section there has been this idea of wine and blood almost intermixed. Those who have the name of the beast will drink the wine of God’s wrath, here we see that wine is actually blood and condemnation on those who are opposed to God, but even in the midst of this, there is good news because someone has drunk the entire cup of God’s wrath, and now stands willing to welcome us in with open arms where we won’t need to drink that cup or be crushed in the winepress of God’s wrath, someone who took all of God’s wrath on Himself and now gives the freedom to live a new life: Jesus.

-The reality is this description of brutality described here could also be seen as describing the payment Jesus made. Do you know where Jesus was crucified? Outside the city. And think of how Isaiah describes the crucifixion in Isa. 53 Jesus was trampled so that we don’t need to be, his blood poured out so that ours doesn’t need to be.

-And what about the 1,600 stadia? Quote from Discipleship on the Edge What an incredible blessing that we have! Jesus was crushed on our behalf, His blood ran freely so that ours wouldn’t. His blood is enough to cover every sin of those who repent and believe in Him.

-Jesus talks about this idea on his last night before the crucifixion, He pleads with His Father to take the cup of wrath away, but submits Himself to His Father. Friends, Jesus drank the whole cup, not a drop of wrath needs to be given to any of us IF we trust in Jesus as the one true Messiah, the Savior of the world.

-Salvation is both the most difficult and easy thing in the world. Difficult because it meant someone had to die, someone’s blood had to run, someone had to drink the full cup of wrath. But easy because now you don’t have to, now the Bible says salvation requires 2 things: confess and believe. Confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He reigns over everything and is worthy to be worshipped and praised, and then believe that truth in your heart which means focusing your life in a different direction, and this is true for all of us, whether you’re a brand new believer or you’ve been a believer for 100 years, if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, do you live like it? What step do you need to take today to better live in Jesus’ kingdom here? 

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by mikethestrand on September 15, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Relationships, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on September 15, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/09/15/revelation-1414-20-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 39 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you know anyone that never seems like they’re actually interested in talking to you? They always look just past you to see if there’s someone else they should be talking to so you end up feeling like an inconvenience. I know someone like that, and it frustrates me every time I talk to him! I’d rather he just tell me he’s busy than stand there and pretend to listen to me! At the other end of the spectrum I’ve met a number of people who are “Christian famous” who will remain completely engaged and focused on you no matter what’s going on around them. Met Matt Chandler once, and it really stood out to me!

-Which one of those responses do you view God’s way of engaging with you?

READ/PRAY

  1. Silent Suffering (1-3)

-Who is Jeduthun? Psalm 62, 77 – 1 Chron. 25:1

-Remember, these are written as the songbook for God’s people, just like we might make notes to Tami, Richie, or Micah

-David begins by contemplating how to be a happy person, which is the aim of this book! “How happy is the one who does not walk in the advice of the wicked or stand in the pathway with sinners or sit in the company of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the Lord’s instruction, and he meditates on it day and night.”

-How are we happy? By living the way God commands us to!

-He starts by pursuing holiness with his mouth, the way he speaks.

–James 1:26. 3:6-10. Isn’t it fascinating the way James talks about the tongue? He says that the tongue is the marker of whether or not someone is “religious” (said in a positive way here, truly following after God). He goes on “no one can tame the tongue” no one. Out of the same mouth praises God, and belittles humans who are created in God’s image.

-Reflection on Jesus’ words in Luke 6 – the mouth reveals what’s really in your heart. 

-Maybe you’ve had this experience where something happens to you that you know isn’t good or right, and you overreact. Anger, frustration, flippant, and even in the middle of your poor response you tell yourself that you’re overreacting, but you can’t stop! 

-Swindoll “Life is 10% happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” Jesus talks about this reality earlier in Luke 6: If anyone hits you, turn the other cheek. If anyone takes your coat, give them your shirt. You can’t control what other people do, but you can control the way you respond, and that’s what God cares about. We’ll talk more about this idea later, but keep it in mind as we work our way through it.

-This is what David is meditating on in this Psalm. He doesn’t want to sin against God, but he’s seeing the wicked sinning and seemingly not suffering for it. He kept silent even when he wanted to speak good, so he got more and more frustrated at the lot of the world.

-Don’t expect the world to act like Christians, they’re not saved! But you will feel an inner turmoil about it, I know I do! It’s hard when it feels like Christians are being increasingly marginalized, when pastors are no longer trusted (read this week that trust in clergy fell to the lowest on record at 32%), when pastors fail at what feels like an alarming rate. Is there anyone actually following after God? What’s the point?

-We’re not the first people to feel that way! This is part of the reason the Bible remains relevant even 3,000 years after it was written – humans haven’t changed! We have the same desires, we still sin, and God is still God.

  • Short Shadows (4-6)

-Eventually, the tension builds up in David and he can’t help but talk, but just as last week he directed his focus in a specific direction, this week he does the same thing. 

-Look at the first word of this verse: Lord. Up to this point the pressure had been building in David, the frustration was increasing, but instead of blowing up at someone standing nearby, he aims his direction to the only one who can truly help him with his situation.

-Maybe you’ve been in a situation like this, where you were working your hardest to not respond in a mean way. Kids, maybe you’ve had that experience where your sibling just keeps pushing your buttons and they won’t stop! David is demonstrating for us here the right way to respond: go to God! Pray! Ask God to help you! God can handle your complaints, He knows all your emotions, and He’s promised to walk with you through every situation in life.

-But what David asks isn’t help in the present situation, it isn’t for God to destroy his enemies, this time he asks God to help David remember the end of his life.

-That’s a fascinating thought, isn’t it? All of us are mortal, we will someday die, and the older you get the shorter you realize your life is. Calvin turned 7 this past week, and I don’t feel like I’m old enough to have a 7-year-old! In my mind he’s still crawling in diapers! One of the things I’ve tried to do with my kids (imperfectly) is to not make them feel like they’re growing up too quickly, because of this reality. Calvin has lived 7 years, he should be a 7 year, regardless of how I feel, and if I just try to keep him stuck at where I feel like he should be both he and I miss out on the joy of our relationship today! This is what David’s expressing in theses verses. Our lives are nothing when you compare them to eternity. That’s why last week’s message is so important: endure in the midst of suffering and difficulty, because the end is coming! 

-There’s a sobering that comes when you reflect on your future, isn’t there? It shifts your focus, keeps today’s difficulties in perspective, and should bring joy to today’s experiences. I think this is where it’s so important to spend time with people older and younger than you. Older people help you remember that life is short (“just you wait, blink and they’ll be in high school”), younger people help you remember to take advantage of each day. Every day when my kids wake up they ask “what fun thing are we going to do today?” Every day is full of potential, if we are willing to be faithful with it!

-There’s a phrase that David uses here at the end of vs. 5 that is most often used in Ecclesiastes: vapor. It’s the Hebrew word hebel which has led to all sorts of debates about its’ meaning! It’s translated as breath, or emptiness, or vain, or futility. Some have translated it as fog.

-And David is comparing human life to that hebel, that vapor. Thankfully, winter hasn’t come yet, but during a cold winter day when you walk outside, what happens when you breathe out? You can see your breath! How long can you see your breath? A couple seconds? That’s how God sees human life, just like we see our breath.

-But this is only true of our earthly life. That’s what David means when he talks about being aware of our end! We need to factor eternity into our daily lives, and by keeping an eternal perspective, it will shift the way we engage our lives today. 

-There’s a missionary named CT Studd (1860-1930) served as a missionary in China, India, Africa who wrote a poem that has a refrain that is embedded in my mind: “only one life twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.”

-Selah. Contemplate the idea that your life is a vapor.

-David then continues contemplating the how short his life is, describing life as a “mere shadow,” where people rush around to get stuff, but they don’t know where they’ll end up. Have you ever considered that nothing you have will last forever?

-We see this in history, I think. Think of how we’ve discovered the Egyptian Pharaohs buried: with all their stuff, and sometimes even some of their slaves, which his incredibly morbid. But they didn’t believe this! They thought they were able to take all their possessions into the afterlife! 

-I read a couple stories this week about some of these realities that helped me to understand some of what David’s saying. The first was a man who looked at the average life expectancy for a male in the US and calculated how many days he had left. Each day he would knock a number off to remind him to “count his days.” Similarly, my dad’s dad died of a heart attack at 62. My dad and his brothers calculated the exact day, and when each of them turned that age they send a text out to the thread to give thanks for their good health. How do you number your days?

-The second story was about a man who lost his wife in his late 60s, but by God’s grace was able to meet another woman who had lost her husband about the same time. This man worked hard, but he wasn’t wealthy by any means! The woman he married, however, first husband was VERY wealthy! So this man who never had much suddenly had access to this other man’s wealth: friends you can’t take anything with you, even money! Only one life, twill soon be past, only what’s done for Christ will last.

  • Substance (7-13)

-Once again, David turns his attention to the Lord. He asks a question that’s true for all of us: What are we waiting for? 

-I think just as he’s been contemplating the realities of living in the world, here he’s continuing to ponder that idea. Another component of being human is waiting, isn’t it? You wait for food to be done, you wait in line at the grocery store, you wait at traffic lights, you wait for your kids to get ready, or you wait for your mom and dad to play with you! But then as you get older, you’re waiting for bigger things: you wait for your dream job, you wait for your dream car, you wait for the perfect house, you wait for a vacation, you wait for retirement. Yet each time you achieve what you were waiting for it changes, doesn’t it? That dream car doesn’t seem to be quite a dream when you have to take care of it, the dream job isn’t quite as dreamy as you had thought when you run into issues and conflict, and it’s not quite as fun or enjoyable as you thought it would be.

-What does David wait for? He says his hope is in the Lord, he’s hoping for God to be present to him. He’s asking God to be with him, to come alongside, to support him. If God is with him, it changes all the other waiting that we do on earth, doesn’t it? Suddenly all the other waiting starts to make sense because God is doing a work in us even as we wait. It shifts our perspective and mindset as we wait for the events on earth.

-But there’s a second component to this hope because David needs salvation from God. Another component to numbering our days is pursuing holiness instead of dabbling in our sin.

-We talked quite a bit about this in last week’s Psalm, but there are consequences to our sin, the question for us is what do we do with our sin? Do we continue to play with it assuming that it’s not that big of a deal, or do we confess our sins and bring them to the only person who has provided a way for our sin to be dealt with?

-When we keep our focus on eternity it begins to make our sins look really dumb. God doesn’t give us a list of rules as a punishment or as chains, God tells us how to live so that we can have life to the full! He wants us to live full, healthy lives in this world that He’s created, which means He knows best how we should live and desires that all of us can be in lasting relationship with Him.

-So friends, deal with your sin. Because your life is just a moment, keep short accounts. Because your life is just a vapor deal with your sin today.

-Selah. 

-The last place David goes is asking God to hear him because this world isn’t his home.

-I don’t know about you, but I love home (the place where your phone automatically connects to the Wi-Fi). I know where everything is (most of the time), I’ve got my earthly possessions there, I can grab food from the fridge whenever I want, it can become too easy at times to remember that this world isn’t actually my home. It can get too easy to get comfortable here and not count my days, not deal with my sin, not keep God as the focus of my life, which is why I need reminders like this Psalm. I need the reminder to keep an eternal perspective each day so that I don’t become complacent in my walk with God.

-As we wrap up, I want us to contemplate David’s direct requests to the Lord throughout this Psalm, there’s 3: (4) make me aware of my end, (7) what do I wait for, and (12) hear my prayer. 

-These 3 requests together are how we are able to keep eternity as the focus of our lives. The first is the reminder of our mortality. Because of sin, we will all die at some point. Because we will die, we should live differently today, which is what leads to the second request.

-We wait for the Lord! I think Paul gets at how we do this in Phil. 4:6-7. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can live a worry-free life! That’s a whole lot easier to say than to live. But look at the outcome: the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds. Friends, lasting peace is possible, but only through Jesus, which gets us to the third one, and what Paul also mentions here:

-In everything, through prayer and petition, present your requests to God, or as David says “Hear my cry!” Bring everything to the Lord: your hopes, your sickness, your sin, your joys, He’s honestly the only one who’s patient enough to deal with it all! 

-Just as we saw last week with David’s reaction to being sick was to run to God, we see the same thing this week. We need to each day run to God because He cares for us, because He helps us to number our days, and because He’s the only one who can bring lasting peace to our lives. 

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by mikethestrand on August 11, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Life, Sermon
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Posted by mikethestrand on August 11, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/08/11/psalm-39-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 32 – Sermon Manuscript

-Do you ever feel like someone’s always watching you? Security cameras everywhere (even in our building!), self-checkout you can watch them recording you!

-It would take 17 hours to read the terms and conditions for the top 13 apps in the UK

-I figure at this point that Google knows more about me than I do. And if that’s true of Google, how much more is it true of God? He created us, He knows us far more intimately than even Google does! So why do we so often pretend like we can keep things hidden from Him? 

-We’re going to talk to today about something that affects us all, something that has been true of almost every human being who has ever lived (1 exception, which we’ll get to), that is we are all sinners. EDoT: “Sin is not only an act of wrongdoing but also a state of alienation from God.” Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Anyone left out of that? Nope!

-But we don’t talk about it much today, and if we do we’ve somewhat sanitized this idea. We talk about messing up, a mistake, it was my bad, but we don’t often think about it how bad it is: cosmic treason against the Holy Creator God. I don’t say that lightly or carelessly, but because we have committed treason, all of us, we are worthy of eternal separation from God. 

-We talk a LOT today about God’s love, about His forgiveness, His mercy, and those are all right and good, but the only reason they’re good is because of just how terrible sin is, and I don’t think we give much thought to that anymore. We may have thought about it when we read ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’ in high school, or if we hear about someone REALLY messing up, but we don’t think about ourselves as sinners very often.

-Today’s passage gives us the reality that we’re all sinners, but it also tells us how to deal with that sin so it no longer affects us.

READ/PRAY

  1. Joyful Forgiveness (0-2)

-David wrote this, has some similar ideas to another Psalm he wrote – 51, after his sin with Bathsheba was uncovered. 

-Maskil – no one knows what that means, root word has to do with teaching or instruction, but that title is on a number of Psalms that don’t fit that.

-Joyful: happy, blessed. Begins the exact same way as the very first Psalm. Our minds should immediately jump back to that first Psalm, which gives us the theme of the whole book. If you want to be truly happy (not fleeting, like graduation which the gifts eventually break, or wedding day which is just 1 day, or getting a new car which eventually becomes an old car), it only comes through being obedient to God, by being a God-like person, responding as God would respond if He were you. Heavy job!

-Jesus talked about this too! One of his most famous sermons Matt. 5. Same word used here! Happy are the…

-Instead of rooting this joy/happiness in what we would think of blessing, David goes to sin. Does that feel like a sharp left turn to you? Maybe this should tell us something about the way we think about our sin! Instead of being flippant or careless to it (which has been an issue since at least the 1st cent.) Where Paul had to warn someone not to continue in sin to get more grace because that’s not the way it works! If we want blessing it comes by continuing to fight against the sin that we have within us.

-David uses 3 words to describe sin here, each one having a slightly different connotation and significance to them:

-Transgression – this gets to the idea of rebellion. Think of what we saw in Rev. 12 of Satan stirring a great rebellion against God. He tried to become god and let an entire revolt against him, but lost. If we don’t trust in Jesus we are a part of the rebellion. I think this is a part that is often missed today. We don’t start from a place of goodness, or even a place of neutrality when we look at God’s standard. All of us start in the same place: condemned as sinners.  I’ve had 5 kids now – it’s amazing how much we don’t need to teach them to be sinners! And it’s also amazing how much work it is to shape them to become upright people (I’d say it’s impossible until they’re saved!). 

         -This means that because we sin, God sees us in outright rebellion against Him. That’s why I’ll saw there’s only 2 options in your life! And we often only compare ourselves to other sinners, not to a completely perfect God, who is the standard we’re supposed to compare ourselves to. When we compare ourselves to perfect, who would dare to say they’re good enough? Think of one of the old proverbial phrases “to err is human” Being human means you will err, you will sin, you will transgress.

         -Think of it like this: could you get pulled over for going 1 mph over the speed limit? Technically, yes! That is breaking the law as it’s supposed to be the LIMIT for driving in that area, but we all know we’re not going to get pulled over. We tend to view God’s law the same way: technically it’s breaking the law, but God’s going to give grace to me, when in reality we’re just demonstrating that we’re more willing to rebel against Him than we would care to admit. 

-Sin – this one is picked up by a Greek word that means “missing the mark.” Often used in connection to archery. Think of your favorite local retail store: anyone know what store this is? Target. If you were aiming at the bullseye and you hit here, would that be successful?

         -Once again, so often we’re using the wrong standard of measurement when we think about sin. If we miss the mark, well that’s just human. Exactly! There’s an eternal chasm that separates the perfection God calls us to and the way we actually live. We all constantly and repeatedly miss the mark, no matter how hard we try we can’t ever reach it.

         -One of the best days of my life growing up was when I finally reached a mark. As I’ve shared, I love basketball, I’ve been playing basketball as long as I can remember, and there’s different goals you have as you grow. When I was in 7th grade I remember finally being able to touch the net. From there it’s grabbing the net and pulling yourself up, and then the backboard, and finally the rim. Rim is 10’, do you think it would be possible to ever touch it if it were 20’? Anthony Edwards can jump ridiculously high, but I don’t think even he could touch that net! What if it were in space? That’s where you start to get how far off the mark we are compared to God’s perfect standard. There’s literally no way for you to reach it.

-Iniquity – corrupted or twisted. This gets to the very motivation for us. Not only do we sin, but we still want to do sin! Think of what Paul says in Rom. 7“For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.” We can’t help ourselves! We’re literally at war within ourselves for anyone who is in Christ. We fight against the sin within us, striving and straining against the sin, at least we’re supposed to be.

         -There’s a word that’s not used much anymore, but signifies what we’re supposed to be doing: mortifying sin, that is killing it. John Owen “be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” (The Mortification of Sin). Friends, it’s much easier to just ignore it, or pretend sin isn’t an issue, but until Christ returns we’re going to continue needing to fight against sin, and until we actually start fighting and pushing back against sin, we won’t be blessed or happy. Remember, to err is human, but the quote goes on: to forgive divine. How does forgiveness come in?

-This is where we see 3 words that show us how God’s grace comes against even our sin, 1 for each of the ways we sin, did you see them as we were reading?

-Forgiven – pardoned from holding you accountable for your rebellion. Have you ever considered the power of forgiveness? Think of Les Miserables: Jean Vaujaun is forgiven for stealing silver and it literally changes the course of his life, that’s meant to be a picture of the what forgiveness does to us.

-Covered – when you miss the mark, God’s mark is counted instead of yours. Gets to the idea of the Passover (we’ve seen in Revelation the need to keep the Exodos story at the front of our minds). Anyone remember whiteout?

-Does not charge – take the biggest loan you’ve ever had (house, car, college) and imagine logging into your account and seeing the balance is $0, and you didn’t pay it. And all of this is rooted in who God is (grow in your theology!)

-Do you see what David’s saying here? The way to be happy is have all your sins dealt with once and for all, and that’s only possible because of who God is. He’s actually picking up on an idea from the Exodus:

-Some commentators believe David was reflecting on this passage because he uses the same language: Ex. 34 – forgiving iniquity, rebellion, and sin, same words! And look at how this passage describes God. Slow to anger, abounding in hesed. Compare His judgment to His love and forgiveness. The God of the OT isn’t all judgment and wrath!

-Paul quotes these verses in Rom. 4 to make the point that forgiveness from God is only possible if you have faith in Him, which begins an argument 2 chapters earlier where we see that God’s hesed is meant to lead to repentance. If we repent, we will be happy/blessed people, but what happens if we don’t? David goes on to list exactly what happens.

  • Sinful Desolation (3-5)

-Unlike someone who’s happy, because their sins are covered is someone who refuses to acknowledge that they’ve sinned. David could think on a time like that, and it literally affected his body!

-If you’ve ever had secret sin, have you ever felt this way? Like it physically was eating you up from the inside, and if people only knew what was actually going on inside they’d reject you? Remember: God knows everything, including what you think. You can’t hide from him, but many people do try to hide. What’s scary is if you become numb to sin and don’t have a reaction! That’s when you need to start worrying.

-Selah: I want you to take some time now to reflect and ask the Lord to reveal any sins that you need to confess.

-After having his body waste away from trying to hide, David confesses, and God forgives. John picks up this same idea in 1 John. We see this tension between still being sinners, but being able to be cleansed from our sins, and all it takes is confession. Doesn’t that seem too easy? On the one hand, I worry that we don’t take our sin seriously enough, but at the same time I also worry that we sometimes don’t confess because we feel like we need to pay some kind of penance or earn God’s forgiveness. This is why the message of the gospel is (or should be) so scandalous! It’s not based on what you or I have done, it’s based on what Jesus has done.

-I realize we just had one, but there’s another Selah in here for a reason! So take some time and think about the sins the Lord may have just brough to mind and confess them.

  • The Response of the Forgiven (6-11)

-Therefore: building on everything else said so far. Since forgiveness is possible, what should the response be?

-Instead of bottling it up and trying to hide, pray IMMEDIATELY to God and ask for forgiveness! When this happens, you suddenly go from being in rebellion against God to being able to withstand anything that comes your way. See: great floodwaters won’t hurt them (even a flood like Noah faced). God becomes our safe place. I onetime heard a story about the way we should think of God in relation to our sin, when a little kid gets into trouble is their instinct “Oh no, dad’s gonna kill me!” or “Oh no, I need to go find my dad!” Friends, because of what Jesus has done for us, our response should be the second one. When we sin, we run to God because His grace and mercy are enough for all our sins.

–Selah

-Here we see what this could be viewed as instruction, we end with an exhortation from David. He contrasts following and being obedient to God with bring like a horse or mule who can’t do the right thing. Very similar to how Paul describes unbelievers in Rom. 1 as suppressing the truth and refusing the acknowledge the Creator God who rules over them.

-He goes on to say that many pains come to the wicked, but whoever trusts the Lord will be surrounded by faithful love.

-We don’t always see that around us. Doesn’t it often seem like the wicked are the ones who are doing well? That the one who cuts the most corners gets ahead, the one who cheats gets the raises and accolades, and Christians are increasingly marginalized? Psalm 73 talks about that exact idea! Asaph is complaining about how the wicked always prosper and do well while he’s wasting away, but then he gathers with God’s people and is reminded what’s truly true. Friends, God will bring about perfect and eternal judgment and justice someday, and when that day comes you can either have many pains, or faithful love: which one will you have?

-The last verse is a reminder for us to praise God for His forgiveness that is given to the 1000th generation! We can choose today to be forgiven, to be healed, to have our sin covered over, and to be finally and fully happy and blessed.

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by mikethestrand on June 16, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 16, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/16/psalm-32-sermon-manuscript/

Psalm 31 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever had one of those experiences where your response to a situation doesn’t match what’s happening? I remember most acutely feeling that during college. You leave for a year, then come back home and suddenly things at home feel weird. Siblings bother you in new ways, parents rules are overly restrictive all of a sudden, your best friends are acting weird (graduates, just wait a year, and I promise I won’t say I told you).

-As we grow as Christians, there will be times and seasons where our response doesn’t match the situation at hand. What do we do when that’s true? How do we snap out of it, and what would God have us do in the midst of those situations?

-I remember hearing someone onetime say the problem with people is they listen to themselves instead of preaching to themselves. If we feel discouraged doesn’t your inner voice make it worse? Or if you’re sad doesn’t your inner voice make you more sad? Or if you’re feeling guilty doesn’t your inner voice heap on even more guilt? Today’s text will demonstrate exactly what it means for us to take every thought captive for Christ – and it doesn’t come by faking it til you make it, or by reciting a verse out of context (God causes all things to work for good), but by being real with God.

READ/PRAY

-Housekeeping notes:

-Book of Psalms vs individual Psalm (please don’t get a tattoo PsalmS)

-Psalms were the songbook of God’s people throughout history, the songbook of Jesus, and gives words to the gamut of human emotion and experience. Luther called it a “mini Bible,” because it traces the whole storyline of Scripture, and points to realities of the incarnation of God’s Son. Athanasius “Whatever your particular need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you . . . learn the way to remedy your ill.” 

-These are used to help you know how to talk to God during every season of your life. I use that term season intentionally. I’ve found it helpful for myself to think of life in terms of seasons. Read The Resilient Life in seminary on this

-Every ministry job I’ve interviewed for has asked the question to my about balance in work and life. I don’t think there is. Wobble is better word.

-But God is still God in every season you’re in. “All of my life in every season you are still God.” (Desert Song). The Psalms are here to give us words in every season we’re in. Soak your mind in them, friends. 

-I know many people who read through this book each month, I’m doing a Bible reading plan this year that reads through it twice. Some orders of monks read through it every week.

-These are poetry, very different than prose, very different from apocalyptic. Read it full of flowery language, lots of extremes (very high highs and very low lows). Lots written by King David, all have musical notation, but none have the musical notes (intentionally).

-Last thing is the headings (verse 0) are a part of the original writings. Some give information about events that inspired the Psalm, some have musical notations, some tell the author. 

-Can be hard to preach, so keep that in mind! Because it’s poetry in order to get a cohesive outline we need to read it more section by section instead of verse by verse, so if I don’t touch on a verse you really liked or wanted to learn more about, I’m sorry! 

-Some notes about this Psalm: themes repeated in other places in the Bible. Psalm 71 copies the first 3 verse verbatim. Jesus quotes vs. 5 on the cross, Jonah quotes 6 from the belly of the fish, Jeremiah quotes vs. 136x. This one was apparently popular!

  1. God Is a Refuge (1-8)

-David begins by committing to seek refuge in God. 

-There are many times and places where David would be tempted to beg this of God. Chased by Saul, surrounded by enemies after he’s king, wayward children in his elder years who tried to take the kingdom away from him. There were many seasons in his life where he would need God to be a refuge.

-Disgrace means different things here than it would to us. Has a bigger and deeper meaning to them: social outcast, ghosted.

-If he’s been dismissed by everyone else, he starts to wonder if God will treat him the same way.

-Trusts himself to God’s righteousness. What does that mean? It means David is trusting himself in that God is right and will do right by His people. Since God is righteous, He can only be righteous to His children.

-Listen closely. One of the realities of being a parent today is the use of screens and how to handle them well with kids. I’ve had to learn how to be more present with my kids because they notice if I’m not actually engaged with them and distracted by my phone. This is David proverbially taking God’s face in his hands and saying “look at me!” That’s BOLD and takes courage, but is possible because he’s our Father.

-Interplay between 2-3. Asks God to be a rock of refuge, but it’s because God is a rock and fortress.

-James Montgomery Boice “’You are…then be…’ should be the prayer of every Christian.” Church, the reason we need to grow in theology is because it gives us a foundation to build the rest of our lives on. We could spend the rest of this sermon on this idea (actually the rest of our lives). Since God is faithful, we can ask Him to be faithful to us. Since God is love, we can ask Him to be loving to us. Since God is good, we can ask Him to be good to us. See, it’s only because of true things we know about Him (theology) that we can trust in Him throughout our lives. It’s only because we grow in theology that we can continue persevering in our faith and know that God will continue working in our lives. Theology isn’t just an intellectual pursuit, it’s a pursuit that is meant to help us better understand and trust Him. Keep that in mind as continue, I’ll come back to it.

-And notice how David continues: for your name’s sake. It’s not ultimately for us. 1 Cor. 6 your life is not your own, you were bought with a price. 

-David repeats this idea until vs. 6 where he contrasts himself with the wicked. I thought we were supposed to love everyone, including our enemies? Did Jesus just upend all this judging and hatred of the OT?

-Judge not? We’ve been reading some pretty dramatic ways Jesus responds to evil in Revelation lately. Does He just sit passively back and let evil run unchecked? No! Because God is the ultimate judge that provides a meaning even to our suffering today. On top of that, we even have a passage in the NT that tells us one of our jobs is to judge, but only a subset of people: the church. Friends, we must love each other enough to judge each other when we see sin grabbing a hold in someone’s life. 

-Idols were thought to bring healing and protection. Think more like a rabbits foot than a cosmic judge who sits on clouds. There were gods of each aspect of life. God of sea, god of rain, god of crops – needed to appease the right one based on the activity you were pursuing. 

-Where David lands this section is important. Instead of being handed to his enemy, God places him in a spacious place.

-Where would you rather go for a walk? Think of the freedom and joy that comes from a wide-open space to run and play. Think of Psalm 23 “He lets me lie down in green pastures.” Friends, this is God’s plan for your life! Wide open spaces. I remember growing up terrified that if I took 1 wrong step I would be outside God’s will and never get back on track. That’s not how God’s will works! He’s told us His will for all of us, and it leads to wide open spaces! You don’t have to be afraid of taking the wrong step, you don’t have to worry you’ll never get back on, this is the point of the overquoted passage in Rom. 8 that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. It means even when we take the wrong step, He’s still with us.

  • God Is Gracious (9-20)

-Things seem to take a sharp left turn for David here, almost as if he did step out of God’s plan for his life! He lists all sorts of issues: his body is failing him, he’s ridiculed, abandoned by his friends, ghosted, oppressed everywhere he looks. How do you respond in those situations?

-I remember when I was in high school reaching a point where God was starting to become more real to me. It felt like I was the only one following after God in the school, felt like I was the only one taking my faith seriously, and then my dad showed me 1 Kings 19: Elijah onetime felt the same way and God told Him (basically) get over yourself, you’re not as big of a deal as you think, I’ve got 7,000 others besides you. I learned that God works in community, not just individuals, so because God works in community, I can ask Him to give me community. God is always working to preserve His people! I can rely that I’m not alone and be encouraged to remain faithful. It is graduation season too – so high schoolers (and those who know a high schooler) remind them to remain faithful. It may feel like you’re the only one following God (even at a Christian college) so use this Psalm as a reminder to continue being faithful.

-Let’s look at how David responds, start in vs. 14

-Instead of focusing all his attention and energy on his peers, “friends” David looks to the Lord, and preaches to Himself in vs. 15. This is another reason I find the Psalms so helpful for us today: how often do we forget to preach to ourselves? How often do we succumb to listening to ourselves and then spiral worse and worse? Friends, this is part of the reason it’s so vital that we soak our minds in God’s Word. We need to have our minds shaped by what God says about us, not what we think or how we feel, because that changes minute by minute.

-Make your face shine is a way of denoting spending time in God’s presence. I’ve been kind of surprised how often that idea has come up in Revelation – the face shining connects back to Moses (Ex. 34) and also points to the transfiguration, which is then supposed to be reflected in believers today (2 Cor. 3:18).

-He goes on to contrast himself with the wicked (17-18), before going back to contrast them with those who fear (follow) God. He ends this section with something that we saw earlier that I told you to keep in mind. “God is….so be…” 

-God is good, therefore he asks God to be good to him, and everyone who fears him. Another reminder that we ask things of God because of who He is. Friends, God is good! And He is always working things out for us but it may not look like that while we’re on earth. Notice how it’s “stored up” Goodness is piled up in heaven just waiting for us!

-We’ve seen that through our time in Revelation: God continues protecting and preserving His people despite increasing persecution on earth. This is why we worship and praise God – because of His goodness (He IS good), because of His love (He IS love), because of His faithfulness (He IS faithful), even when it doesn’t feel that way. 

-This is another remind how important this gathering is in the lives of Christians. I don’t know about you, but I get discouraged during the week! I beat myself up, I doubt things about God that I know are true! But then I get to come in and have my selfishness shaken up each week! I get reminded that there’s something bigger than me, someone supporting me, and some people that He has called me to, which is the same place David ends:

  • God Is Faithful Love (21-24)

-It’s almost as if David has spent time in church! His outlook has been shifted, his desperation has changed and he realizes that God is on his side!

-The word he uses here is important hesed Sally Lloyd-Jones in The Jesus Storybook Bible “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” Because of all these truths about God, He always heard and always answers our prayers.

-We then see the need for us to live a certain way. Because God is faithful love, we can ask Him to be faithful in His love toward us, but we also need to respond by faithfully loving Him. If we do that then we can preach this last verse to ourselves and each other. We don’t need to fear, we don’t need to doubt, we can be strong, we can be courageous (bold!) because we know our outcome is as solid as the tomb is empty.

-End praying how this teaches us to pray. Spurgeon “We may pray to enjoy in experience what we grasp by faith. Faith is the foundation of prayer.”

-God is a refuge, so be a refuge

-God is faithful love, so be faithful love

-God is gracious, so be gracious

-God is good, so be good

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by mikethestrand on June 9, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 9, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/09/psalm-31-sermon-manuscript/

Revelation 12:1-18 – Simon Manuscript

-8.5 years ago, there was much anticipation and excitement as the next Star Wars movie was released. This had been building since 2012 when Disney bought Lucasfilm, and it took 3 long years to get The Force Awakens to release. I remember eagerly sitting down to watch it, and it was a blast! Seeing Han and Chewy get back on the Millennium Falcon, watching lightsabers shoot out again, and it even featured a new cross shaped one! 

-Just 1 problem: it was literally the same story as Episode 4 – A New Hope. Bad guys are building a battle station, the good guys need to blow it up. It was so close to being such a good story, and then the next movies just devolved from there! Today’s text has a similar feel: things are so close to being good and right, only in this case, instead of bad writing, we have a literal enemy, a dragon.

READ/PRAY

  1. A New Hope (1-6)

-Preached on this section on Palm Sunday, so we’ll just do a quick overview! First is “a great sign” that John is shown of a woman who is unbelievably glorious.

-Descriptions are similar to some descriptions about God, and connects to Joseph’s dream back in Gen. 37

-Stand in for the people waiting for the Messiah, as if in labor, which is a description of Israel a number of times in the OT

-Another sign: a dragon. opposed to God’s people, tail sweeps stars out of the sky, many people believe this is referring to the original fall of Satan and his demons.

-Stood in front of the woman: Satan knows Gen. 3:15, and he has done his best throughout history to destroy all the offspring of the chosen one: Pharoah, Herod.

-Have you ever noticed that theme in the Bible? How many barren wombs are a part of Jesus’ genealogy? Or how many stories in the Bible are of a barren woman where God intervenes and brings about children? God’s plan was to save the world through an offspring, God works in people and families to bring about His perfect plan, and Satan has done everything in his power since the very beginning to thwart that plan and kill off God’s family.

-After all that, notice that the Son isn’t called a sign. The others are pointing to something else, but the Son is the point.

-Quickest description of Jesus’ ministry: born straight up to God! The dragon thought he was ready, thought he would finally win and defeat the Messiah, but he was again thwarted.

-Made me think of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. The Jesus figure is a lion who allows himself to be killed by the white witch in the story. He’s then raised back to life, and when asked why he says there’s a deeper magic that she didn’t know. Satan is just the prince of this world, he’s limited in what he can do, but God isn’t.

-Woman (God’s people) off to the wilderness. Think of all the times God’s people were led off into exile: Egypt, Babylon, Rome, place where they learn to fully rely on God. Yes, it’s a place that looks desolate, looks like only death is possible, but with God the wilderness becomes the place of provision.

-How many of you have experienced something similar in your own life? Times and seasons of stretching, times and seasons where you feel like you’re about to break, and then when you’ve made it through you look back and see God’s fingerprints over each step of the journey. I’ve had times like that, and I know some of you are having those times right now! One of the ironies I’ve found in my life has been the place that I viewed as a slice of heaven became one of the biggest wildernesses in my life.

-My last semester of college, I got asked to play piano for a friend’s wedding in Denver, and I fell in love with CO. I’ve been to Hawaii twice, I like CO better. I was going to move there after college at find whatever job I could, but I ended up back here! Then got a call to a church in Wyoming (close enough!), but after 4 years Cara and I moved to CO, I made it to heaven on earth! What I didn’t realize was the church had some major disfunction that took a couple years to rise to the surface. Church was growing numerically, which hid some of the issues, so then we tried adding a second campus, which also started to grow, so then we needed a second person to preach, and I was asked to take on that responsibility, but didn’t get to release the music side, so there were many weeks where I would lead the music and preach. I was exhausted and on the verge of quitting. A friend and I joked about working at the Smuckers plant next to the new campus just to provide for our family. Yet God was doing something in the midst of that that I can see now, but couldn’t at the time. He was stripping away some of my self-reliance, He was wooing me more to Him and affirming some of the ways He’s wired me that I didn’t want to admit. What I had thought would come from living in my favorite state, came from moving back to where I grew up: a church to love me and my family.

-Friends, don’t rush through the wilderness seasons – God doesn’t waste it, He wants what’s best for you, and wants you to realize that if you have Him, then nothing else matters.

-Back to 1,260 days – the time period between Jesus’ 2 comings, which could be summarized as a wilderness time! Things are difficult, but they’re training us that we need to rely more fully on God.

  • The Dragon Strikes Back (7-9, 13-18)

-God’s people are taken to the wilderness and protected/preserved by God for a season, but how does the dragon respond? With war!

-Michael (name means: who is like God) is viewed as the protector of God’s people, leads the charge against the dragon (the devil, Satan, deceiver)

-Because of his rebellion against God, he’s thrown out to the earth, where his reign seems to be supreme. 

-“The one who deceives the whole world” What do you think that looks like? Questioning God, doubting His Word and work, not obeying Him. Why do you think people so often question whether God exists or not? Why do you think when anything bad happens one of the first places people go is blaming God? Why do you think people who go through a wilderness season are more prone to give up on following after God? Do you think maybe there’s someone who’s sowing those kinds of seeds into the world?

-Think about what Paul tells us in Rom. 1 the world suppresses the truths of the gospel. People don’t want to admit that there is a supreme judge, an author of life who has expectations for his creation. Where do you think that comes from?

-We’ll look at that middle section at the end, because John picks up the idea of the dragon a few verses later.

-After losing the war, do you think Satan just gives up and admits defeat? Nope, when have you ever heard of a defeated enemy giving up easily? If he can’t win in heaven, he’ll try to take it out on God’s people who are left on earth.

-Reiterating what had already been said in the previous section, remember the woman was persecuted by the dragon, but then taken to the wilderness.

-God’s protection and provision are evident in how carefully He cares for His people. The wilderness looks like a place of desolation, but it’s the place where God can be proven the most faithful.

-Wings like an eagle: Ex. 19:4 “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.” Remember the exodus account is meant to serve as a model and foundational story for the way God’s people view the world. It’s the same thing for us! We were once slaves to sin, had no purpose or identity in ourselves, but God has made us a people, a kingdom of priests who love and serve the true God together.

-How long was she nourished? Time, times (2), half = 3.5, same time period we saw last week and in vs. 6. Remember, numbers are symbols not statistics in apocalyptic literature. They’re a stand in signifying something else. God’s provision of His people will continue through their entire wilderness wanderings. Just another reminder that God is in complete control, we can trust Him, we can follow Him, and we can persevere in difficult because we know our outcome is secure. 

-“from his mouth” think back to last week where something came out of the mouths of the witnesses. This time it’s a flood: accusations, deceptions, anything to get rid of this woman! I think this is pointing back to the deception that the devil brings. It’s literally in his name to deceive, to lead people astray, to discourage them and lead them away from following and obeying the one true God.

-And who helps the woman now? Creation. This is picking up another piece from the Exodus: as God’s people have been delivered they sing “You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them.” (Ex. 15:12) Creation knows who the king is, creation knows who to obey. We’re the ones who tend to disobey, the ones who give into the lies of the deceiver, we have since the beginning! Even if we were the ones in the garden, we would have eaten the forbidden fruit.

-I think this is modeled in Jesus’ so-called triumphal entry on the back of a donkey. The religious leaders get upset and tell Jesus to command everyone to stop praising Him, and Jesus responds. There’s a certain irony here, because the stones are crying out. The rest of creation operates as God intended, humans are the ones who don’t! Rocks cry out to God by being rocks! Dogs cry out to God by barking and wagging their tails. Fish cry out by being fishy. Humans are supposed to cry out by worshipping God with all they have and are, but so often we worship creatures instead of the Creator. Even nature obeys God’s commands, and this shows that God will continue protecting His people despite the work of the dragon.

-The woman is protected, so the dragon lowers his expectations a bit, and decides to go after the rest of the offspring. Who’s that? Those who believe in Jesus, the church!

-“Keep the commands” it’s no coincidence that what Satan first attacked was God’s commands. This is also the way we demonstrate that we’re children of God instead of children of the dragon: we are obedient to God’s commands. Think of what Jesus said as His last commission to His disciples: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” Everything He commanded. Turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you, caring for the least of these. All of that is included in this command! And that’s just the first part!

-“hold firmly to the testimony” What do you hold on to firmly? What are you looking to as your source of comfort and strength? Easy life, money, job, marriage (if single), house, car, obedient kids, even the “right” church. All those things will fail you. Unless you hold firmly to Jesus you will be let down.

-Note that it says the dragon is waging war. This will continue happening. Satan isn’t going to give up just because the gospel message has been preached. He knows it better than we do, but he views that as even more reason to fight!

-I kept thinking of the old hymn by Martin Luther in connection to this passage this week ‘A Mighty Fortress’ which says at the end of the first verse: “On earth is not his equal,” but that’s not the end of the story, it goes on to say, “One little word shall fell him.” What’s that word? Jesus:

  • The Rise of Overcomers (10-12)

-Because Satan has been defeated, there are implications for you and me, and anyone who’s following after Jesus.

-First notice that how Satan is described: the accuser. Friends, don’t miss the reality that no one can out-sin the grace of God. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! When the accuser heaps his accusation on you, when it feels like a flood bearing down on you, remember that he has no more power.

-John Newton said, “Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.” Newton wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace,” was saved while he was a working in the slave trade, then pursued abolition and became an Anglican priest. Yet he fought to see the slave trade abolished, and saw it happen just months before he died. Can you think of the guilt John had as he reflected on his life? You can’t just wipe those kinds of images off your mind. Yet God’s grace goes deeper still! Christ was, is, and always will be a great savior.

-Secondly, we need to remember back to the letters to the churches. One of the promises God gives is to the one who conquers, but that was just setting it up to get to this reality. How do we conquer?

-By the blood of the lamb. Think of what washes us as white as snow, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Jesus victorious death rendered all the accusations the devil can throw at us useless. The opposite of velcro. Rom. 8:33-34 Satan has no room to accuse! Only 1 person does, and He’s on our side! There’s a difference between guilt and shame for your sin. God wants us to run to Him when we’ve sinned! Because his mercy is greater than all our sin. The devil wants us to be like our first parents and run and hide. But if Christ died for us (which He did), then we need to run into His arms.

-By the word of their testimony. I think there are 2 aspects to this, the first is we need to be careful of our words. Are we zealous about telling the truth all the time? We worship and serve the one who described himself as the way, the truth, and the life, that means we can’t even be content with a little white lie (as if there was such a thing). Our testimony must be rooted in the truth. But secondly, we have to be willing to testify, regardless of the consequences. Jesus told us the world would hate us because it hated Him. We need to stop worrying about trying to be cool or impressive and instead worry about pleasing God.

-They did not love their lives. Death isn’t the worst thing that could happen to us, second death is. Jesus even said we shouldn’t be afraid of those who threaten to kill us physically. What does death do to us? And if even death doesn’t hold power over us, then we shouldn’t be afraid of anything else! 

-Finally, we end with a reminder to rejoice. Eph. 2:6-7 “He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” We’re already in heaven, we just don’t see it yet. The devil will continue thrashing around like a chicken with its’ head cut off, but it has no power. His time is short because we have an eternity to look forward to living with God. So persevere now, run to Christ when you sin, and know that his grace covers all of your sins.

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by mikethestrand on June 2, 2024  •  Permalink
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Posted by mikethestrand on June 2, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/06/02/revelation-121-18-simon-manuscript/

Revelation 11 – Sermon Manuscript

-Have you ever been told someone has some good news and some bad news, which do you want first? I’m a bad news first guy, get that out of the way, deal with it, and then move on to the good stuff.

-God’s Word is that way. It starts with the reality that everyone is a sinner – separated from God and worthy of condemnation. But the good news is it doesn’t need to stay that way! God provided a way of being adopted into His family, of having the penalty our sins paid for, and allowed to come near to God without any fear, knowing you’ll be completely welcomed in. My favorite way of thinking about this is from Tim Keller who said: who dares wake up a king for a glass of water at 2 am? His child. We have that kind of access to God. Regardless of what the world thinks of Jesus, or Christianity, we’re given privileged access to the Creator and sustainer of everything! But then with that comes bad news – the world isn’t as great as you may have thought it was, and what comes with following Jesus is a guarantee that you will have struggles and difficulties, today’s text is a reminder that Jesus is still in our side.

READ/PRAY

-I want us to think a little bit about where we’ve been so far:

-Letters to 7 churches: different strengths & weaknesses to every church, but often a reflection of the community the church is in

-John is given a glimpse of heaven, where he hears about the lion of Judah and sees a lamb who takes the big scroll and opens 6 seals in short order

-Then we get a break where John sees (I believe) the entirety of God’s people from all history gathered around the throne right before the 7th seal is open and we’re brought right to the end of history.

-Then John takes us back to look at the same events from a different perspective, this time using trumpet blasts. First 4 quickly, then slows down for 5 (locusts) 6 (invading army) Finally, another interlude where John is commissioned to prophesy again to many people and kings, which leads us here:

A call to the church to continue witnessing to the truths of the gospel despite increasing persecution.

  1. Measuring the Temple (1-2)

-Picking up John’s commission from 10, similar to Ezek.

-Signifies the protection of God over His people. Even when there is persecution, tribulation, difficulty, God sill protects and preserves His people.

-42, 3.5 years – referring to the time period between Jesus’ 2 comings: not God’s final word on the matter, things are not “7” perfect or complete.

  1. Measuring a Witness (3-14)

-2 Witnesses. Who are these, and why does John talk about them?

-I believe they’re the church, picks up a prophesy from Zech. 4 referring to the priest and the king, this means that the church will be a kingdom of priests. That is a CRAZY idea! John has the gall to proclaim that everyone now has easy access to God. You don’t need a buffer, you don’t need a sacrifice, you don’t need a temple, all you need is the Holy Spirit in you! 

-Additionally, think of one of the purpose of a lamp: light up a room. Think of one of the descriptions Jesus gives of His people: the light of the world. One of our jobs as God’s people today is to be a shining light into the darkness of sin, despair, and brokenness. But in order to shine into the darkness, we also have to have the light of Christ IN us and be able to shine. That’s part of the reason it’s so important for us to have this regular rhythm in our life of gathering as God’s people: we gathering to be built up and edified, and then scatter (are sent) to bring God’s light into our daily lives. Friends, don’t miss the reality that we’re all in ministry, we just get our paychecks from different places. God has equipped and gifted you, and then sent you into your workplace to be an ambassador of His gospel message. You have an eternal job to do! 

-This prophetic witness of God’s people is kept safe by God. Just as He commissioned John to measure the temple and count His people, God will protect and preserve them in the midst of their ministry.

-Let’s think about the picture John’s painting here. What comes out of your mouth? Words (hopefully nothing else, otherwise you probably shouldn’t be here!) Words come out and consume their enemies (who also happen to be the enemies of God if they’re opposed to His people). Our enemies are God’s enemies.

-This is showing us that God’s message brings death and judgment to some people. To those that are opposed to God, the gospel message is a message of condemnation, not life. Similar to John’s call to prophesy that will taste as sweet as honey, but make him sick to his stomach.

-But just as John has done throughout this book, it’s also pointing back to the way God’s message has been preserved through His people in the past by recounting major prophets and stories from the OT from the newest to the oldest.

-The first story is about Elijah from 2 Kings 1. Elijah is seen by the king as a thorn in his side, so he continually tries to deal with Elijah to get rid of him, but since Elijah is a prophet he can’t! Culminates with the king getting sick and sending messengers to ask Baal if he’d survive. Elijah intercepts the messengers and tells the king he’ll die, so the king sends 50 soldiers and a captain to get Elijah. And this happened TWICE! Finally, a 3rd captain is sent, falls on his face in front of Elijah and begs for his life. But the theme is God’s protection.

-The second story is an earlier one from Elijah’s’ ministry, actually the first time Elijah is introduced into the story, and he has a message of doom and gloom! He shuts up the heavens so that it doesn’t rain during his ministry. Bookends of Elijah’s ministry, then John goes further back.

-This one is a more well-known story (and featured in 1998 classic The Prince of Egypt): Moses. In Ex. 7 it shares the first plague leveled against Egypt, but that’s just the start! 9 more plagues come, and culminate in the death of the firstborn (for everyone, but it only affected those who weren’t covered by the blood of the lamb, pointing to the ultimate firstborn who would die for them)

-Finish their testimony – who gave them the authority? What time is this referring to? 

-“The beast” (Not beauty and the beast, setting up the stage for what’s to come) those opposed to God and His ways. We see here the same thing we’ll see in 12-13: Satan and his minions fight against God and his people for all history. Satan hates when the church is healthy, he hates when the church is flourishing, he hates when people take their faith seriously, he hates when Christians are faithful in their witness and he’ll do everything in his power to fight against God’s plan. And from an earthly perspective, he’s incredibly successful. It says “conquer them and kill them.” Have you ever heard or read that the church is dead? There’s a phenomenal book that came out recently titled ‘The Great DeChurching’ that says this is the most significant religious shift in our country’s history right now with church attendance declining faster than it’s ever declined before (and faster than it grew during both great awakenings). I’ve read articles from the 90s that said the church was dying then! This reminds us that we have nothing to worry about! If God’s on our side, no one can stand against His plans! (This book is actually very good, I’d highly recommend it, and the biggest take away is most of the time those that left church would go back if someone just invited them, they just got out of the habit)

-Dishonor them:

-Leaving a dead body out was shameful, a way of heaping even more abuse on an already dead person

-Where is this? Great city would be Rome, Sodom was destroyed a long time before this was written, Egypt is an entire country, Lord was crucified is Jerusalem. This is a way of signifying the city of man. Nations, civilizations opposed to God and His ways

-Do you ever feel marginalized as a Christian today? This is taking place all the time! Satan works his hardest to discourage and bring down God’s people! This is why we need each other, we need to be able to encourage each other when we’re getting discouraged. Don’t get out of the habit!

-These people (earth dwellers) go on to celebrate, to party, it’s described the way we celebrate Christmas today! 

-This is painting a picture of Christians viewed as the killjoys, now that the church is gone we can finally have fun and party, we need to throw off the shackles of religion and Christianity.

-How do you view your faith? Do you see it as only rules and regulations, as only difficult and struggling? Or do you see it as life, and life to the full? Friends, this changes your entire way of living! If it’s just rules you become self-righteous and look down on anyone who can’t measure up to your standard. But Jesus doesn’t let you do that, He forces you to rely completely on Him because you can’t ever measure up! At some point you’ll even fall short of your standards! I heard a story this week of a pastor who was taken to the hardest level of a prison (serial murderers) and he prepared a message thinking these people would be struggling with self-confidence, so he began by asking on a scale of 1-10 how good were they? The lowest score was a 10! Friends, don’t look to yourselves to be justified, look to Jesus who will make you more human than you could ever dream!

-After 3.5 days: 

-Remember how John so often uses OT ideas. Here’s another one of them! One of my favorite OT passages, Ezek. 37. Ezekiel is taken to a valley filled with dry bones, “they were VERY dry.” God asks is those bones could live, Ezekiel says only God knows. So God commands him to prophesy over the bones. As he prophesies the bones come together, muscles and tendons form, then skin covers the bones, but that’s not enough, they’re still dead. Prophesy about God’s breath on them. He does and suddenly it’s a vast army. This is what God does: he raises the dead to life until they’re an army! And spiritually, God has brought the dead to life and made them a kingdom of priests who are commissioned to prophesy to the world that they too can be brought to life! This story serves as a picture of what the church has become today – God’s Word brings people back to life, before they’re a useless sack of flesh, but once God saves them they’re made a truly living person who can serve God and witness to others.

-Think of how the world responded to their death. Do you think they would respond similarly to their resurrection? No way! “Great fear” 

-Same description of Jesus’ ascension, or the end of Elijah’s ministry, connecting the ministry of the church all the way back to Elijah! This is a way of validating the message of the church. It might take away for this validation, but it will come!

-Earthquakes are connected to the very end in Revelation, but this judgment is revealing God’s mercy. Yes, even judgment can reveal God’s mercy! Remember: numbers are symbols not statistics. This is alluding back to some previous judgments we’ve seen in the past.

-Isa. Look at the numbers here. How many are left? 1/10, how many are killed in Revelation? 1/10

-Amos: what percentage is left? 1/10

-1 Kings: Only 7,000 were preserved, but here only 7,000 are killed and 63,000 are left. Even in God’s righteous judgment, His mercy is made evident! And this comes about because of Jesus! Jesus has born the brunt of God’s wrath, what’s given to us is grace and mercy!

-There is some debate about this last phrase. They’re terrified and “gave glory to God” is this referring to saving faith or just admitting that they were wrong, as is promised in a place like Phil. 2 that every knee will someday bow to Him?

-At this point I’m leaning slightly toward saving faith, but might change tomorrow! Strongest point I see for that is we’ve seen before in Rev. that even in the midst of suffering the world still refuses to acknowledge God. I lean toward saving faith because otherwise they couldn’t truly give glory to God! So the job of the church is to witness to God’s saving grace, and in response, people are saved! 

-Still not done yet! There’s another woe (trumpet) to come!

  1. Measuring the End (15-19)

-Seventh angel blows his trumpet, and heaven responds: the end is here! Remember, this is the focal point of the whole book (not just Revelation) God’s goal for all of history has been: God’s people, living in God’s place, serving under God’s rule and reign. This last trumpet gets us to that reality!

-And what’s the only right way to respond to God’s kingdom now being seen? Worship. One of the pastors I worked with said the theme of Revelation is worship, and I agree! The Bible opens and closes with worship – praising God with everything we have and everything we are.

-Notice the acknowledgement that the nations were angry: entire nations were upset with God! But God has dealt with them. Not always here and now, but they will one day be dealt with, so Christians should be on the front lines of affirming good nations and standing against evil nations – and that starts with recognizing that the church is called to be a unique nation. We’re not supposed to completely align ourselves with any nation or culture on earth, that’s idolatry. Instead, we’re supposed to live as foreigners and exiles who look for ways to be more faithful witnesses.

-See again that this is referring to the very end: the dead with be judged and entered either into glory or separation from God. Have you ever considered that those who oppose God are destroying the earth? This stood out to me this week as I consider how people talk about earth care today. We’re told that humans are destroying the earth, that it’s irreversible, and that we’ll all die within the next few decades. But they’re focusing in the wrong direction. Those who don’t obey God are the ones destroying the earth. I think connected to that is that Christians should care about the earth. Not abusing or destroying, but seeking to care for it since that’s God’s call on the human race. Lots more that could be said about that, and I don’t think it’s explicitly in this text, so I’ll leave it there! 

-Last piece we see in this section is the temple of God in heaven (not a literal physical temple, referring to the place where God lives as signified by the ark of the covenant)

-John was able to see where God’s presence is contained. This is part of the reason I believe this is the center point of the book, it’s hinting at God’s presence no longer being hidden or removed or far off, it’s now accessible to everyone who follows Him.

-The ark of the covenant in the OT was the place where God presence was made visible. It was completely separated from the rest of the temple, it was only approached periodically and by someone who entered with fear and trembling. But not anymore! Because John can see it, anyone can see it! This is pointing to Rev. 21:3 “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them.” This is another evidence to me that shows we’re not supposed to read this book strictly linearly or chronologically. Just as other apocalyptic writers will do, he’ll talk about something, then go talk about something else, and then eventually make his way back around to talk about something he talked about previously. Here we’re once again brought up to the very end (as we were with the seals), as evidenced by all these weather phenomenon’s. But we’re not quite done, because we’re only halfway through this book.

-Once again, the question in front of us at the end of this sermon is: what do we do with this text? I think there are 3 things, and I said them at the very beginning.

1) Continue witnessing. It will often feel like our witnessing is pointless, and at times even worse than that because it will lead to persecution! But this text reminds us that even though some Christians will die for our faith, God will continue preserving His church, so we have to be faithful with our job.

2) Truths of the gospel. We don’t preach a message of self-help or how to improve your life, we preach a message that nothing you can do will save you, so come to Jesus and find true life! We don’t preach ourselves, but God sends us as ourselves, so find ways to use your personality to share the truths of the gospel.

3) Increasing persecution. Don’t get comfortable here! I’ve been reflecting recently on some of the alarming things I’ve read about our country, often coming from people who claim to be Christians. Why would we expect anything other than persecution? I think we at times forget that the 1 thing Jesus promises us is suffering, but with that promise He reminds us to be encouraged because He has overcome, and if we’re in Him, we will overcome too!

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by mikethestrand on May 26, 2024  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Church, Life, Sermon, Worship
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 26, 2024

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2024/05/26/revelation-11-sermon-manuscript/

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