Podcasts about because paul

In this episode, we explore Paul's closing words to the Philippians—a letter written from prison, yet overflowing with peace, contentment, and joy. How is that possible? Because Paul's focus wasn't on his circumstances—it was on Christ.We'll talk about how to handle anxiety, conflict, and financial stress with a mindset rooted in prayer, gratitude, and trust in God's provision. You'll hear practical ways to refocus your heart, stay anchored in peace, and discover why joy isn't tied to what's happening around you—but who you're walking with through it.If you've been feeling overwhelmed, restless, or just spiritually dry, this conversation will encourage you to fix your eyes on Jesus and find joy, no matter the season.

Full Text of ReadingsFriday in the Octave of Easter Lectionary: 265The Saint of the day is Saint MarkSaint Mark's Story Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. When Saint Peter escaped from prison, he went to the home of Mark's mother. Paul and Barnabas took him along on the first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned alone to Jerusalem. It is evident, from Paul's refusal to let Mark accompany him on the second journey despite Barnabas's insistence, that Mark had displeased Paul. Because Paul later asks Mark to visit him in prison, we may assume the trouble did not last long. The oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark emphasizes Jesus's rejection by humanity while being God's triumphant envoy. Probably written for gentile converts in Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul sometime between A.D. 60 and 70—Mark's Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a “scandal”: a crucified Messiah. Evidently a friend of Mark—calling him “my son”—Peter is only one of this Gospel's sources, others being the Church in Jerusalem (Jewish roots), and the Church at Antioch (largely Gentile). Like another Gospel writer Luke, Mark was not one of the 12 apostles. We cannot be certain whether he knew Jesus personally. Some scholars feel that the evangelist is speaking of himself when describing the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane: “Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked” (Mark 14:51-52). Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Venice, famous for the Piazza San Marco, claims Mark as its patron saint; the large basilica there is believed to contain his remains. A winged lion is Mark's symbol. The lion derives from Mark's description of John the Baptist as a “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Mark 1:3), which artists compared to a roaring lion. The wings come from the application of Ezekiel's vision of four winged creatures to the evangelists. Reflection Mark fulfilled in his life what every Christian is called to do: proclaim to all people the Good News that is the source of salvation. In particular, Mark's way was by writing. Others may proclaim the Good News by music, drama, poetry, or by teaching children around a family table. Saint Mark is the Patron Saint of: NotariesVenice Learn more on Saint Mark! Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Title: A Peculiar People Text: Acts 20:1-6 FCF: We often struggle pursuing what produces unity in and the victory of the church. Prop: Because the true church of Jesus is united and triumphant, we must continue in submission to the Word and the love of one another. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Acts chapter 20. In a moment we will read starting from verse one in the Legacy Standard Version. You can follow along in the pew bible or whatever version you prefer. Sermon Intro: Well, I did some math this week to discover where we are in our study of the book of Acts. Today, as we begin our study of chapter 20, we are around seventy percent done with the book according to verse count. That means we have a little over three hundred verses to go. Now my average for verse per sermon is a little under 10 verses. That being said, we probably have somewhere around 30 sermons remaining in the book of Acts. Meaning that sometime before the end of the year, Lord willing, we should be finishing the book of Acts. I hope and trust you have enjoyed the study of Acts so far. I know I have. But it seems that we are in the final stretch. That being said, let's come back to chapter 19 and 20. Last week Luke recorded for us the final episode of the Ephesian mission. But unlike similar examples where riots formed against Paul and his associates, no real harm or danger even approached any of them. From this we noted that Luke records this to prove that the Christians were not purposefully trying to cause issues around the Roman Empire. The only thing causing the offense, was the gospel of Jesus Christ. We noted that one of the primary reasons that people so hated the message of the gospel spoken through Paul and his associates, was because of the gospel's intolerance or exclusivity. And the world is the same 2000 years later. Today we will see what largely amounts to the beginning of the end of the third missionary journey of Paul. In it we will see one very important truth about the church and a couple responses that flow into and out of that truth. So please stand with me to give honor to and to focus on the reading of the Word of God. Invocation: Most Holy and Loving Father, we approach You today with our hearts held up to You. We come to be exhorted, to be encouraged, to be edified by Your Word. We come to hear from You and to obey. We come to feed our faith on the Bread of Life. We come to drink deeply from the Everlasting Fountain of Living Water. I pray that You would reveal to us today what You have made us to be in this thing called the church. Reveal what graces You have given us to keep us in Your purposes and reveal what responses You require from us as a church. Bind us together as one body in Your truth and for Your glory we pray this in Jesus' name… Amen. Transition: Last time we saw the narrowness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The intolerance of the gospel to any other faiths, worship, gods, or practices that it does not teach. Related to that today we will see the church being united around a very narrow set of essentials and that unity producing victory and love for one another. Let's look closer at the text this morning. I.) The true church of Jesus Christ is united and triumphant, so we must submit to continual exhortation from the Word. (1-3) a. [Slide 2] 1 - Now after the uproar had ceased, Paul having summoned and exhorted the disciples, said farewell and left to go to Macedonia. i. Luke doesn't often give us chronological markers, and when he does, they are not typically very precise. ii. We might be irritated by this, but this irritation is probably borne from our western culture. We have somewhat of a hypersensitivity to time and chronology that those in the east do not seem to always share. iii. Still, Luke does give us a definite chronological marker here even if it is lacking in specificity. iv. After the uproar had ceased. v. From the context the uproar in question is clearly the riot or almost riot brought on by some tradesmen in Ephesus. vi. We unpacked all of this last week, but as a reminder these tradesmen feared the financial and religious impact that Christianity may have on them and the city of Ephesus. vii. Because of this they were overcome with civic and religious pride and began shouting and dragging certain companions of Paul to the theater where city disputes were often heard. viii. It all came to an end after the chief executive officer of the city warned them that they are in danger of being punished by Rome if they continue this illegal assembly. ix. With this in mind the crowd dispersed. x. We should probably not rigidly infer that the next hour or the next day is when Paul does what he does. xi. More likely we should see this as after the events and when people had moved on with their lives. xii. Now people do tend to move on shockingly fast. They get distracted by other things and what was very important one day tends to become very unimportant in a few days' time. xiii. After the dust settles, Paul says farewell to the church in Ephesus and leaves to go to Macedonia. xiv. In the process of saying farewell though, he summons and exhorts the disciples. xv. Paul does not overtly go to the hall of Tyrannus to bid farewell to the Ephesian Christians. This no doubt indicates that although he isn't leaving the city due to the recent trouble, he is not a fool. He won't flaunt a large gathering of believers right before he leaves. xvi. In this we see the heart of Paul. It is not enough to simply say farewell… he must preach to them. He must instruct and apply to them the scriptures so they can be ready to face what is coming. xvii. Paul will be giving a good number of goodbyes in the next several chapters of Acts. I think it might be good for us to observe how often he accompanies his goodbyes with some sort of exhortation, encouragement or preaching of the Word of God. b. [Slide 3] 2 - And when he had gone through those districts and had given them much exhortation, he came to Greece. i. Once again, we remind ourselves that Luke is not writing a history of the early Christian church. ii. Or at least we can conclude that if he is writing a history of the early Christian church, he is doing a horrible job. iii. Why do I say that? iv. He summarizes Paul's travels through Macedonia in 10 Greek words. v. What are some of the “districts” that he probably visited? vi. 2 Corinthians chapters 1-7 actually dovetail nicely with the events of these two verses, since it was probably during this time that Paul wrote the letter. vii. Taking what 2 Corinthians says we can be assured that Paul probably visited Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Berea. And potentially spent time in several other cities and even further west into the Latin speaking region of Illyricum, which he speaks about in Romans 15. viii. Luke does not give us the where, but notice he does give us the what. ix. What was Paul doing in these districts? x. He was exhorting. xi. The same thing he did in Ephesus to the disciples there before he left. xii. Paul continues to preach the word and train believers to live in submission to all that Christ had commanded. xiii. So, if Luke is not recording a history of the early church, what is he doing? xiv. Luke describes the purpose of his two books at the beginning of his gospel. He is writing these two books to Theophilus, a wealthy and potentially powerful person involved in the government of Roman Empire, who has professed faith in Christ. xv. He writes to Theophilus to describe both the certainty and the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. xvi. The certainty and the power of the gospel is on display in these 10 Greek words. How? xvii. Even though it has been years since Paul has visited these places in person – he returns not only to find believers still, but also, he returns with the authority to preach to them, encourage them, and commands their respect to listen to him. xviii. If the gospel was false and impotent, we would expect to find few if any believers here, or to find them reject Paul having wandered from his teaching. xix. Instead, he is welcomed and respected and the Word is preached again to them. xx. But how long did Paul spend in Macedonia? It is difficult to say. But some suggest that he spent as much as a year going back through these regions ministering to the local assemblies in these areas. xxi. Then, Paul goes on to Greece. xxii. There are two likely congregations that Paul visited in Greece. xxiii. The city of Athens and the city of Corinth. xxiv. We are not given any indication of how much time he spent in each city or whether he even went to Athens. We do know that he went to Corinth based on the writings of both Romans and the two books to the Corinthians. c. [Slide 4] 3 - And there he spent three months, and when a plot was formed against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. i. So, Paul spends three months in Greece, probably most if not all of it in the city of Corinth. ii. There is a reason for that which we will talk about next. iii. [Slide 5] Now based on our timeline of the New Testament I'd like to take us on a little tangent so we can shuffle in to these events exactly when Paul wrote some of his letters. 1. Because in 1 Corinthians Paul expresses his desire to winter in Corinth before going back to Jerusalem, we can reasonably guess that while Paul was in Ephesus, and probably toward the end of his stay, he had written 1 Corinthians. 2. In 1 Corinthians there was indication that he had sent another letter to them before that. Which could have also been written from Ephesus or even before he began his third missionary journey. This is a letter that the Lord did not preserve for us. 3. In 2 Corinthians we learn of another letter that Paul had sent the Corinthians that is referred to as a harsh letter. This too could have been written from Ephesus. This is also another letter the Lord did not preserve. 4. As we have already said, 2 Corinthians covers some of the events after Paul leaves Ephesus. Paul travels north to Troas where he expects to meet Titus who will bring back word for him on the results of the harsh letter to the church in Corinth. However, Paul did not meet Titus there, so he went on to Macedonia. It was there that Titus met him with word that the Corinthians had received his harsh letter graciously and had repented. Therefore, during his time in Macedonia, Paul wrote 2 Corinthians which prepares them for his arrival in a matter of months. 5. This is why we conclude that Paul spent most of the three months he was in Greece in the city of Corinth, because there was some needed time of reconciliation. 6. Since Paul's mind was already on visiting Rome after he went to Jerusalem, since in the book of Romans he indicates that he has not yet visited them, and since Paul greets the Roman church from individuals we know were from Corinth, we can infer that Paul most likely wrote the book of Romans from Corinth during this three month stay. 7. [Slide 6] This means that by this time, before Paul goes back to Jerusalem, he had written six of his thirteen letters that we have in our New Testament. Galatians, I and II Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans – in that chronological order. iv. [Slide 7] Of course, we know that the Jews had always given Paul problems. It seems that in Corinth, again, they will stir up trouble against him. v. Apparently, the plot had something to do with his travel plans from Corinth to Syria. vi. So, Paul alters his travel plans to go back through Macedonia to set sail from somewhere else. d. [Slide 8] Summary of the Point: Luke presents to us via the travels of Paul as his third missionary journey comes to a close the unity and victory of the true church of Jesus. Although there have been many trials and tests, although there have been betrayals and even outright failures, the church continues to thrive in unity and victory over the forces of darkness and the wicked schemes of men. The church is the kingdom of Christ spreading to the uttermost parts of the earth, waging war against the dark domain of sin. Paul revisits these churches he helped establish with a message of encouragement and exhortation. This is the fuel of the church. The church is built up, energized, and rejuvenated by submitting to continual exhortation from the Word of God. And these churches were no different. They were united and they were victorious, but they still needed and welcomed encouragement and exhortation from the Word. We too must be continually encouraged and exhorted with the Word of God. The moment we neglect the regular preaching and teaching of the Word of God, is the moment we become weak and susceptible to error and compromise which disunifies us and defeats us. You see my friends, the Word of God is the key to unity and victory. That is why it must be continually preached and taught in every church claiming to be Christ's church. Transition: [Slide 9 (blank)] The true church of Jesus Christ is united and triumphant and the Word of God continually preached keeps it that way. But what else must continue since the church is united and triumphant? II.) The true church of Jesus Christ is united and triumphant, so we must continually love and care for one another. (4-6) a. [Slide 10] 4 - And he was accompanied by Sopater of Berea, the son of Pyrrhus, and by Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. 5 - But these had gone on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas. i. Look at the brotherhood of believers that the Lord has raised up for the cause of Christ. ii. What began in Jerusalem around 20 years earlier had not only gone out to the uttermost parts of the earth, but even now there are missionaries from all over going to many other places helping with the spread of the gospel. iii. What a glorious testament to the power of God's grace and His work. iv. Let me briefly discuss each of these individuals or at least all we can about them and then I'll make some further comments about the significance of this list. 1. Sopater which is potentially a shortened form of the name Sosipater is only mentioned in this text and in Romans 16:21. From both texts we understand that he was a companion of Paul and from this text we see that he was from Berea and was the son of a man named Pyrrhus of whom we know nothing. 2. Aristarchus is no doubt the same one that was dragged to the theater by the Ephesian mob. During the riot we discovered he was a Macedonian and here we see that specifically he was from Thessalonica. We also know that Aristarchus accompanies Paul to Rome for his imprisonment because he is named in the letter to the Colossians and to Philemon, both of which were written during Paul's first imprisonment in Rome which is recorded at the end of the book of Acts. 3. Secundus is not mentioned in any other passage of scripture. He was from Thessalonica too. 4. There are four Gaiuses mentioned in the scriptures and because of what is revealed about them, it is really impossible for them to all be the same person. a. The Gaius that Luke records in Ephesus during the riot was from Macedonia. b. The Gaius mentioned here is from Derbe which is located in what is now south central Turkey. c. The Gaius mentioned in 1 Corinthians and Romans seems to be a member of the church of Corinth whom Paul baptized and whose home the church used for its gatherings. d. Finally, 3 John mentions a Gaius who is thanked personally by John for putting up traveling missionaries. John does not specify much more and this could be the same Gaius who put up the house church in Corinth, but because John is traditionally associated with the church in Ephesus after the fall of Jerusalem, we may wonder if the Gaius mentioned in his 3rd letter is the same Gaius from the riot or another Gaius altogether. e. In short, Gaius seems to be a fairly common name across the empire at this time. 5. Timothy of course is Paul's spiritual son, won to Christ in Lystra on his first missionary journey and accompanying him to various locations throughout Asia and Macedonia on his second missionary journey. Timothy is mentioned quite frequently in the scriptures, even having two books bearing his name as a recipient. We won't go into much more detail today about Timothy, but his role in the church could be the subject of an entire sermon. 6. Tychicus, besides being one of my favorite names to say in the scriptures, is found as a continual companion of Paul's. We find him being sent with the prison epistles of Ephesians and Colossians. In both letters Paul says that Tychicus, a beloved and faithful brother, will come and explain everything to them. He is also with Paul in Nicopolis and is being sent to Titus to relieve him on Crete so that Titus can come to Paul in Nicopolis. And of course, as we see here, he is from Asia, which typically means what is now western Turkey, although a city is not mentioned. 7. Finally, Trophimus. Trophimus is from Asia and has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the primary reasons that Paul is arrested when he goes to Jerusalem. Paul is seen with Trophimus in Acts 21, there noted that he is from the city of Ephesus. Because Paul is seen with this gentile and because Paul went into the temple it is assumed that Paul brought Trophimus in the temple with him. Of course, he didn't. But that didn't matter very much. Trophimus is also mentioned in 2 Timothy during Paul's final imprisonment in Rome. Paul tells Timothy that he left Trophimus in Miletus because he was ill. v. Such is the wide variety of Paul's companions. People from all kinds of origins and backgrounds joining him in the work. vi. They all go ahead of him to Troas where they await his arrival to go on from there to Jerusalem. vii. But I said that I would remark on the significance of this list and their region of origin. And that I will do, but only after the list is complete. Because for now it lacks 1 more name… b. [Slide 11] 6 - And we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and came to them at Troas within five days; and there we stayed seven days. i. In verse 6 another unnamed traveling companion joins Paul as he heads to Troas to meet all those mentioned in verse 4. ii. Did you notice it? iii. That's right. iv. Paul picks up the author of the book Luke, probably from Philippi. v. Luke traditionally has been said to have been from Antioch of Syria, but with familial ties to Macedonia. Here we see him still in Phillipi where Paul left him all the way back on the second missionary journey. Since Paul picked up Luke in Troas and deposited him just across the Aegean Sea at Philippi it is safe to assume that Luke is probably living in this area at this time – even if he was from Antioch of Syria. vi. Paul and Luke wait until after the days of unleavened bread, probably to celebrate with the small group of Jews in Philippi. They make the trip to Troas in 5 days, probably against the headwind, and then stay an additional week there in Troas. vii. That will be the subject of next week's sermon as Paul has a very well-known episode concerning a young boy named Eutychus. We'll get to that next time. viii. So, what is the significance of this list? ix. Remember that during this time after Ephesus and heading to Jerusalem, Paul is gathering a collection for the Jerusalem church. He is gathering aid for them because they are experiencing great financial hardship. x. Not only is it safer to travel with a large group, especially when you have a good sum of money on you, but also, because Luke mentions where all these men are from, we can infer from this that each of these men represent churches all across the empire who are giving this financial aid to the church in Jerusalem. Indeed, from almost every city in which Paul has preached, we find members of that city church coming with Paul to give their gift to the church in Jerusalem. xi. What a wonderful testimony to the unity, compassion, love, and care that is present in the universal church. c. [Slide 12] Summary of the Point: Once again Luke presents to us a true church of Jesus Christ, from various backgrounds, that is united and victorious. In our last point we noticed that the way the church stays united and victorious is through regular exhortation from the Word of God. But, what we see here is an effect that is caused by the church being united and triumphant. We see that the church is abundant in love and sacrificial help to those who also bear the name of Christ. Even if we do not know them, even if we have never met them, those who bear the name of Christ have more in common with us than our own unbelieving family members. Those who have shared in the death and resurrection of Christ have become members of one body. That is something that family can never be. Although our family is DNA of our DNA they can never be one body with us. The unity and victory we share in the church produces a love for one another that exceeds all other loves possible from one human to another. Conclusion: So, what have we learned today CBC, and how then shall we live? Doctrinal Takeaway: [Slide 13] In the process of Paul closing out his third missionary journey Luke gives us a wonderful picture of the culmination of the work the Lord has done through Paul. Paul's legacy is the same as every other apostle and missionary of the early church. The Lord has produced through His abounding power and grace a church that is united and triumphant over the deception and darkness that permeated the Roman Empire. In less the 20 years after the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, the church has been established and has permeated the Roman Empire leading various cities with long histories of pagan worship to be turned upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ. But the nature of this status of the church and the effect of this status on the church is at the heart of these first six verses of Acts 20. The church is kept unified and victorious by continual exhortation from the Word of God. And one particular expression of church unity and victory is the unconditional and sacrificial love the church has for one another as the body of Christ. These two aspects come together to give us our application today. But let me get a little more concrete with these applications and explain how they might impact us on a daily basis. 1.) [Slide 14] Mind Transformation: “What truth must we believe from this text?” or “What might we not naturally believe that we must believe because of what this text has said?” We must affirm that the true church of Jesus is united and triumphant. a. Once again, every word in this application sentence is very important. If you remove one word here it could miscommunicate a few things. b. But if I had to draw your attention to the most important word in this application it would be the word “true”. c. I would love to use a word that is found in the ancient creeds. The word Catholic. However, today the word Catholic is only associated with the Roman Catholic Church. And it is probably so associated to it that to change it would be nigh unto impossible. Therefore, I use true here. d. By true church I mean the universal church. The invisible church. The church of people who are actually believers in Jesus Christ, the elect of God, called out from all the nations to be His people and do the works for which He has created them. e. The total of the true church of God is not found in one local assembly nor is each local assembly comprised solely of the true church. Every church is a mix of those who are actually believers and those who are not. f. Because of this, there are local assemblies that are not united and they are not triumphant. g. There are even entire regions where the visible church is not united or triumphant. h. So it is important for you to understand what I am saying here. i. We do not need to affirm that every single visible church is united and triumphant. Because that is, simply, not true. j. But we must affirm that the true church is united and triumphant. k. We are united and triumphant because we have been given true faith which unites us to Christ. Upon this true faith we receive the core essentials of the gospel of Jesus Christ which is found both in the early creeds and in the 5 Solas of the Reformation. l. In this the true church is united by doctrine and practice and we are triumphant because we have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to do the work of God and be heralds of His Kingdom. m. The Scriptures tell us that we will not fail in this. If we are the true church, we will be united in what we believe and if we are the true church we will not fail. n. Therefore, we must affirm that the true church is united and triumphant. o. Unity is a much desired and often used buzz word in Churchianity today. Everyone wants unity. But we remain in disunity over how to be unified. p. And there is a reason for that… 2.) [Slide 15] Refutation: “What lies must we cast down” or “What do we naturally believe, or have been taught to believe, that this passage shows is false?” We must deny that in order for the church to be united we must compromise essential doctrine or practice. a. The call of many pastors, priests, bishops, reverends, apostles and whatever other titles there are out there in broad Christendom, is for us to be unified on what we agree on and discard the rest. b. The only problem is that this is NOT how we see the church unite in the scriptures. c. They do not unify over what they hold in common and then discard every thing else. d. Instead, they unify on all the essentials of the Christian faith and practice and show love in the areas that are not essential. e. There are some churches in broader Christendom that if we had to unify with them by discarding everything we don't hold in common, we would have to discard salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. f. There are some churches that we would have to discard the Deity of Jesus Christ. g. There are some churches that we would have to discard the inerrancy of the Scripture and its final authority over us for doctrine and practice. h. There are some churches that we would have to discard definitions of righteousness, holiness, and upright lifestyles, taking what the Scriptures call deeds of the flesh, and even celebrating them. i. You see the problem, I hope. j. If we would unify right now… today… every single church in broader Christendom with the one rule that anything we do not share a common belief on would be discarded… My friends there would be nothing left. k. The folks that are begging for unity pursue unity based on a cause. The cause is to come together to love and serve humanity. l. But the church is not supposed to be united in cause only… but also in identity. Indeed, our cause is only unified when our identity is unified. What happens when we unite over cause but sacrifice identity? m. We would lose unity because we would lose doctrinal clarity. In fact, we would be a unified group of nobodies who believe nothing and do nothing. n. We would lose victory because we would discard godly lifestyles in favor of a vague notion of loving people… which is only the second greatest command and not the first. o. These folks that want unity under these conditions have left their first love in order to pursue their second and in so doing have lost both. p. No, my friends, unity is only established when we demand that the essentials of our faith and practice are held in common… and if they are not – we do not discard the belief or the practice… we discard the church who does not conform. q. In the Athanasian creed it boldly declares that any who do not believe it cannot be not saved. r. Any church that does not hold to the creeds and salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone – also cannot be called the church in any sense of the word. s. There is no unity if we must compromise on doctrine or practice. t. But as the united and triumphant church… what must we do with this text today? 3.) [Slide 16] Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don't naturally do or aren't currently doing?” We must submit to regular exhortation from the Word of God. a. One motto that came from the reformation is Semper Reformanda. b. Always be reforming. c. This is essentially a recognition of what song writers have pointed out. We are individually and generationally prone to wander. d. We often go through spells of ups and downs and we as a race of man go through cycles of reformation and darkness. e. The church is called to continue to reform and purify itself. f. How do we do that? g. By submitting to regular exhortation from the Word of God. h. The Word of God is the foundation of all that we believe. It is the final authority for what we believe and how we live. And the Word of God never changes. i. It is not our only authority – but it is our final authority. j. We need constant reproof, rebuke, correction and instruction from its pages. k. It is only then that we will be complete and thoroughly equipped to do everything God has commanded us to do and be everything God has commanded us to be. l. Paul as he visited these churches… exhorted them. He may have eaten with them, fellowshipped with them, enjoyed the Lord's Supper with them, talked with them for all hours of the night… but the one thing Luke chose to record for us under inspiration of the Holy Spirit… is that Paul preached to them. m. If we are to stay united and triumphant, we need the constant reformation that only the Scripture can bring. 4.) [Slide 17] Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don't naturally do or aren't currently doing?” We must love the universal church unconditionally and sacrificially. a. This universal church is comprised of all those who are believing on Jesus Christ alone for salvation. b. We are called one body. c. Our friends and our families are close – but compared to any unbelieving family member, our brothers and sisters in Christ are much closer. They are united not by their own blood, but by the blood of Jesus Christ. d. Even our love toward our spouse is amplified because they are believers. e. And those who have spouses that are unbelievers understand the disconnect of that. They desire greatly for their spouses to know the Lord for they know that will truly bind them much closer together with their spouse. f. In our text we see members of churches from everywhere around the Aegean taking money to Jerusalem with Paul. What a glorious testimony to the love they shared with those whom they had probably never met. Those with whom they shared only their faith in Christ. g. We too must be unconditionally and sacrificially loving of the global body of Christ. h. We must weep with those who have been killed in Syria. We must mourn with those persecuted in India. We must help those impoverished in Africa. We must rejoice for those who come to Christ in Asia Pacific. These are our brothers and sisters. And one day we will be united with them in one body – a bride prepared for her groom. And we all will be with Him forever. i. Look around you and mark those whom you know to be a true believer. Now hear me… you will be living with these folks forever. We better start loving each other now. 5.) [Slide 18] Comfort: “What comfort can we find here?” or “What peace does the Lord promise us in light of this passage of scripture?” God will not allow the true church of His dear Son to fail. a. God is doing a work through us. b. It doesn't depend on us… it depends on Him. And that is why it will not fail. c. He will uphold us and ensure that the work that He has commissioned for His church to accomplish, is accomplished. d. Knowing the end does not spoil our desire to work hard for His Kingdom. e. In fact, knowing the end means we have no fear of failure. f. We can press on and continue to share the gospel and disciple one another, preparing for that coming Kingdom – knowing that we won't fail. Christ will not lose even one that the Father has given Him. g. And all that the Father has given Him will hear His voice and follow. h. So let us take heart and set out to the work knowing that the Lord is faithful and will ensure that His church is united and triumphant to the very end. [Slide 19 (end)] Let me close with a prayer by the English Puritan Ezekiel Hopkins Lead us not into temptation, nor allow us to be assaulted and buffeted by the wicked one. Or if, in your all-wise counsel and purpose, you permit us to be tempted, yet deliver us from the evil to which we are tempted. Let us endure temptations as our affliction, but let us not say yes to them, nor make them our sins. Thy kingdom come, Lord! Raise, Lord; enlarge, Lord; establish your kingdom! For yours is the glory. And unless you want your glory confined only to heaven, or account the praises and eternal hallelujahs of saints and angels enough adoration for your great name, Lord, have regard to this your poor decaying kingdom. For only in it, and in heaven, is your glory celebrated. And if you leave this kingdom to be overrun by the agents and ministers of the devil, or if idolatry and the profane gain ground here so as to push you off the throne, would that not be giving your glory to another-which you have promised not to do? Lord, you are still the same God. Your essence is eternal. Your attributes will never change. Your power, wisdom, and mercy are the same as ever. So in your mercy, grant us the same favor. We ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Benediction: May the Lord, Who longs to be gracious to you, Who waits on high to have compassion on you, Plant you firmly in the faith, established, steadfast and unmovable Through the hope of the Gospel, proclaimed to all the creation under heaven. Until we meet again, go in peace.

Taming the Mind: Tools to Stop Worrying Hey there, friend! Do you ever feel like your mind is constantly racing with worries you can't quiet? Well, in this episode of the Personal Development Unplugged Podcast, we're going to take on that noisy “monkey mind” and discover how to transform those endless worries into clarity and peace. I'm going to walk you through what's really going on when that chatter takes over. We'll dig into why worry shows up in the first place and how you can acknowledge it without letting it control you. By the end of this episode, you'll have some super practical tools to break free from overthinking and start creating a mindset that's both calmer and more confident. Picture this: waking up tomorrow with a peaceful mind, ready to take on the day with ease. Sound good? Together, we'll explore how to make that a reality. I'll share simple but powerful techniques like practising gratitude and writing down your worries to help you regain control and move past the cycle of anxious thinking. Anxiety doesn't have to run the show. It's time to shift your perspective, break old patterns, and start finding healthier ways to navigate those swirling thoughts. This episode is packed with helpful insights and exercises to help you reconnect with your best self and truly enjoy the journey ahead. Ready to tame your mind? Let's dive in! I'd love to hear your thoughts—share what you learn and this episode with others https://personaldevelopmentunplugged.com/431-taming-the-mind-from-anxiety-and-worry Shine Brightly

Welcome to Twice 5 Miles Radio, where the art of conversation thrives. I'm your host, James Navé, and I'm delighted to welcome back my guest, Paul O'Connor—a celebrated photographer, sculptor, and visual artist who calls Taos home. Paul's work has left an indelible mark on the art world, and his latest performative book, Taos Portraits: Volume Two, is no exception. In this episode, we dive deep into the making of this extraordinary book, a collection of 60 black-and-white portraits that capture the essence of Taos's vibrant artistic community. Paul's lens reveals a striking truth: art is a collective experience, and every wrinkle, every story, holds a place in the mosaic of creativity. We explore Paul's intuitive process, his passion for honoring his subjects, and the meticulous craftsmanship that goes into creating an art book of this caliber. Paul's first volume of Taos Portraits, now a collector's item valued at over $1,000, set the stage for this second installment, which he calls "an enduring art piece." Because Paul features my portrait in his book, during this conversation, I reflect on what it means to be part of this community—an honor shared by many who have shaped Taos's creative spirit. Our conversation touches on the wrinkles of time, the celebration of maturity in a youth-driven culture, and the stories behind the faces that define Taos. Recorded across the globe—me in Manila, Paul in Crete—we find ourselves grounded in the universal language of art and storytelling. If you've ever wondered what it takes to create a high-end art book or how an artist turns intuition into legacy, this episode is for you. Mark your calendars for June 6, 2025, when Paul will officially launch Taos Portraits: Volume Two at the Taos Community Auditorium. Until then, please tune in for an inspiring dialogue about art, life, and the wrinkles that make us who we are. Enjoy the show.

In this programme, you learned important things about the activities of the Spirit of God that were carried out through Paul and Barnabas, the apostles of Jesus Christ, in the cities of Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe in the years after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Jews called the non-Jewish nations Gentiles and considered them unclean because they were idolaters or believed in many gods, but Jesus Christ came to save not only the Jews, but all nations and the whole world. Paul and Barnabas were named as apostles of Jesus Christ. In explaining this, it should be said that according to the books of the New Testament of the Bible, an apostle is someone who has received a special mission and assignment to preach the gospel and establish churches. Because Paul and Barnabas, like other disciples of Jesus Christ, had received this mission, we believers in Jesus Christ call them apostles.

Because Paul was commissioned by God, Paul was guaranteed victory, despite experiencing hardships.1. Paul's loving burden for the Corinthians was a hardship. (v.12-13)2. Paul was thankful that God always spreads the gospel - like the sweet smell of victory. (v.14)3. Paul became the sweet smell of victory, remaining conscious that God was accomplishing gains through Paul. (v.15-17)What does spiritual victory smell like?When does loving concern feel like a heavy burden? 2 Tim. 2:12How do we know that victory is assured? Col 2:15, Rom. 16:20When is triumph to be expected? Prov. 28:12, Rev. 11:15

Title: The Enemies of God Text: Acts 16:16-25 FCF: We often struggle against forces arrayed against us and our Lord. Prop: Because many forces are arrayed against our Lord building His church, we must trust and worship Him who fits us for spiritual warfare. Scripture Intro: [Slide 1] Turn in your bible to Acts 16. In a moment we'll read from the Legacy Standard Bible starting in verse 16. You can follow along in the pew bible or in the version you prefer. Last week the 4-man mission team arrived in the city of Philippi and began their ministry to the Jews by going to the river to speak to a group of Jewish women. There was no synagogue in Philippi meaning that the Jewish population was fairly small. We'll get an indication of why that may be today. In the process of speaking to these women one woman came to Christ because the Lord opened her heart to respond in faith. The primary teachings we have seen from this first missionary journey is the Lord's control over the missionaries, the mission, and even the building of His church. But today we will see more opposition to His Kingdom. Let's seen how the mission team handles it. Please stand with me to give honor to and to focus on the reading of the Word of God. Invocation: Father, You are maker of heaven and earth. All else in existence is created besides You. Though there are great powers and forces, heavenly bodies, animals, plants, spiritual and physical beings, they are, all of them, unlike You. You alone are uncreated. You alone are high and lofty. Because of this we rely on You for everything. And though much of Your creation has rebelled against You. We know that You are utterly and completely in control of all that You have made. May we learn from You – the Giver of Life – that we may grow and flourish in You. Be with us today we pray this in Jesus name, Amen. Transition: Let's get right to the text again this week. There is a good deal for us to uncover here. I.) There are many forces arrayed against the Lord building His church, we must trust the Lord for spiritual armor to stand against the enemy. (16-18) a. [Slide 2] 16 - Now it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a servant-girl having a spirit of divination met us, who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune-telling. i. The missionary team stayed in Philippi in Lydia's home for many days. In that time, they traveled around the city but also frequented the place of prayer where the Jews met. ii. Again, the gospel to the Jews first is Paul's passion. iii. And so, on one of those trips, sometime after the event with Lydia, this occurs. iv. But what is going on here? v. We have a servant girl with what Luke calls a “spirit of divination.” What is that? 1. While the word here has links to the Delphi oracles and speaking on behalf of the gods, by the time of Roman imperialism this word was used primarily the way we would use the word ventriloquist. 2. Fast forward to the time Luke uses this expression here in Acts, the term would be the same but rather than emphasizing the human agent he is emphasizing the demonic agent. 3. Although we are accustomed to considering all fortune tellers, soothsayers, and star readers to be con artists who merely want to make a buck off the gullible – I would caution us against such generalities. 4. There are forces in this world, spiritual forces, that have power and abilities that exceed our own. 5. We know that Satan is the prince of the power of the air. We know that there are principalities and powers that by God's permission, govern this dark and perishing world. Though their dominion is being overtaken by the kingdom of God. 6. We know that there are still unclean spirits and demons roaming the world. 7. Now certainly some people, even at this time, were pretending to be soothsayers and fortune tellers but were fakes. 8. But that does not mean that all were this way. And that goes for today too. 9. The bible does not speak of these things as if they are fake, falsified, or bunkum. 10. Instead, the bible warns not to participate in them because they are real and not of God. 11. This young slave girl was a slave not just of humans but of an unclean spirit as well. 12. She was possessed by this spirit. vi. Because she was possessed by this spirit, and did have some sort of power or clairvoyance to the unseen world, she was able to conduct a booming business for those who desired a good word for themselves or insight for their coming days. 1. The spirit spoke in her and through her to convey snippets of truth couched in vague generalities and gathered from careful attention and insight into the human condition. 2. These spirits are not all knowing or all powerful. They merely are able to see more than humans and humans are also easily impressed, especially when the promise of money, power, and fame come with it. vii. So, we've been introduced to this cash cow of a fortune teller, but what is she doing? b. [Slide 3] 17 - Following after Paul and us, she kept crying out, saying, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.” i. Here we see the activity of this spirit possessed woman. ii. She is following the missionaries around and crying out – probably yelling as loud as her vocal cords could, probably even louder than they were physically capable being amplified by the spirit's power. We also should consider the possibility of her shouting without her lips moving, since this ventriloquist meaning of the word had not completely disappeared. The shouting could have been coming from her belly. iii. And what is she shouting? iv. At first glance this appears to be truth. v. This wouldn't be the first time we see demons speak truth. vi. In fact, in each case that Jesus casts out demons, invariably they speak truth to Him. They address Him as the Son of the Most High. They beg Him not to judge them. vii. So, what is Paul to do with the free publicity? c. [Slide 4] 18 - And she continued doing this for many days. But being greatly annoyed, Paul turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to leave her!” And it left at that very moment. i. Ok so what just happened? Why was Paul so annoyed? ii. I mean she did this for many days… sure… but isn't she helping his cause? iii. Ironically, Paul in a future letter to these Philippians rejoices over the gospel of Christ being preached… even when it is preached by people who do so for selfish gain. iv. So, what is the big deal? Why is Paul annoyed? v. [Slide 5] Well, the answer to this question hinges on whether or not what the demon speaks is truth or is intentionally misleading. 1. Let's assume what most scholars assume. That although the demon's confession appears to be truthful, it is in fact, quite misleading. What do I mean and how would that cause Paul to be annoyed? a. We already noted that the vast majority of the people in Philippi are Gentiles. b. We recognize the phrase “Most High God” and frequently put that in the context of our Old Testament usage of the same words. i. However, to the predominantly gentile audience, such an expression could just as easily be applied to Zeus or Jupiter. ii. In fact, at the time of these events, such phrases were already in use and ascribed to Zeus the status of the highest of the gods. c. Secondly, her saying that the missionaries proclaimed the way of salvation could be misleading in a couple ways. i. First, the pagan concept of salvation would be ambiguous at best. It might describe success, or rescue from trouble or difficulty. ii. Secondly, the phrase here does not have a definite article in Greek. So, although it could be translated “they proclaim to you THE way of salvation.” It could just as easily be translated “they proclaim to you a way of salvation.” d. [Slide 6] Thus, the reason that Paul became so annoyed and distraught was because the demon was muddying the waters and making it seem like the missionaries were advocating syncretistic blend of paganism and Christianity instead of the abandonment of pagan gods to worship God through Christ Jesus. 2. [Slide 7] There are, however, some reasons to doubt what most scholars conclude. Let me point those out. a. Although it is true that gentiles would not associate the phrase “The Most High God” with Yahweh, we see that Luke has specified that this was happening while they were going to the place of prayer. A place where the Jews would gather. b. Now Luke only points this out once and it is possible that she stops them before they get there or meets them over the course of the next several days in other places around the city – but for now the only location we have been given is the place of prayer. c. This suggests that the audience, being Jewish, would probably understand the phrase “Most High God” to be Yahweh. d. And what she says about the way of salvation is also affected by a primarily Jewish audience. For they would have understood, at least in part, the idea that salvation has to do with God's deliverance into His Kingdom. e. In regard to the other issue with the way of salvation, the whole argument hinges on a translational ambivalence. It could literally be translated either “the way of salvation” or “a way of salvation” and if we take a quick poll of our major English translations – we'll find that the overwhelming majority translate this “The way of salvation” f. Meaning of course that we have to at least entertain the possibility that the demon is speaking pure truth here. 3. [Slide 8] But if the demon is speaking pure truth, and is not misleading, why then does Paul get so irked by it? There are actually several potential reasons. a. First, since this young slave girl was well known around the city as being a fortune teller, it subtly suggests that she and the missionaries occupy a similar position. i. They are both just heralds of truth. Paul can help you with your afterlife… and I can help you with your present life. ii. In essence it communicates that they are both spirit guides. Sure, one is pagan and the other is Christian, but that doesn't matter. iii. We are all on different sides of the same mountain, but we are all going up the mountain to the same god… right? A heresy still alive today. A heresy recently spoken by the Pope. iv. But God will not share glory with any. And Paul doesn't want the message of Christ to be shared by the local diviner as if they are on the same team. b. Second, by the girl confessing what the demon knows to be true, it gives credibility to any future fortune telling efforts. i. A false prophet telling truth once doesn't make that prophet a legitimate prophet of God. But it may convince some that they are. ii. Paul doesn't want the credibility of this demon possessed girl to continue as she piggy backs on the mission team. So, he casts out the demon in Jesus' name, ending the slave girl's career. c. [Slide 9] Third, it isn't like Paul hasn't had issues in the past with a crowd listening too well to him preaching the gospel. i. This slave girl shouting all this out is drawing a good deal of attention to the mission team. ii. At some point that will draw the ire of those who reject the gospel. And perhaps Paul is not ready to be forced to flee the city just yet. iii. This is unwelcomed publicity. He isn't done preaching the gospel here yet. d. Fourth, and although I can't prove it, I did manage to find one commentator, a church father named Bede, who saw it too. i. It seems to me that we could be seeing a Balaam kind of example here. ii. Perhaps the unclean spirit desired to speak falsehoods and slander Paul and the Mission team, but was not permitted to do so. iii. So, Paul's irritation is knowing that the demon desired to speak ill but was prevented. e. Finally, the work of revealing truth about Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of those who believe on Him is a work of the Holy Spirit. i. Last week we saw how the Lord opened Lydia's heart. We observed that this is what the Scriptures call regeneration. ii. Regeneration is a work of the Holy Spirit to prepare the heart of an individual to receive and respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. iii. This unclean spirit's attempt to reveal the nature of Jesus is, in a way, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. In that it takes what is clearly the work of the Spirit and attributes it to the work of demons, specifically itself. iv. In effect, the unclean spirit usurps the role of the Holy Spirit here. v. And Paul is distraught over this. Such a spirit deserves to be removed for its blasphemy. vi. Which is the right one? No idea. Maybe all of them. vii. [Slide 10] In any case – Paul is greatly annoyed by this young girl and her unclean spirit. viii. He turns, and in the power, the authority, and for the sake of Jesus the second person of the Godhead – he commands the spirit to come out from her. ix. And the spirit left at that very moment. x. It may shock you to realize that in biblical times exorcisms were common. In fact, the Jews had been practicing them even before Christ's incarnation. xi. But the incantations and rituals surrounding them were long and not always successful. xii. By contrast, the exorcisms we see in the New Testament are frequently instantaneous and not belabored by long drawn-out processes and incantations. The power rests in the authority of Christ and not in the ritual. xiii. And even in the church post Christ's ascension, we see the pattern continue. In Christ's name this spirit flees. xiv. This leaves no shadow of doubt. God is not fighting a war with the kingdom of darkness where they are evenly matched… or even closely matched. xv. Paul, a fallen and sinful creature, just like the unclean spirit, exorcised this demon… by the power of and for the sake of the one who redeemed him. xvi. Only Christ is King and there is no other. d. [Slide 11] Summary of the Point: So, what is the primary point of teaching in this first scene of this narrative episode? What do we learn here? In our previous two weeks we have seen that God is sovereign over the missionaries, the mission and even the building of His church. He is in complete control. But today, we see a counter point that doesn't invalidate that, but merely adds color to that discussion. Although God is in control of building His church, that doesn't mean there will not be opposition. In fact, there are many forces, and some of them quite powerful, that are arrayed against the Lord of Glory as He continues to build His church. What we see here in this text, is that those forces are not equal to or close to equal to Him. He is King… even over the most powerful among them. A command given in His will by His authority, must be followed. The application for us then, is neither to go around rebuking demons, nor is it to ignore them completely. Our task is to put on the full armor of God so that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. The Lord wants us to engage in battle with His spiritual opponent, but not in our own strength, for our own glory, or for our own temporary gain. Rather in prayerful petitioning for the perseverance of the saints and the proclamation of the gospel we are to hold the line against the enemy being fully protected by the spiritual graces of God. Transition: [Slide 12 (blank)] So spiritual forces are no match for our Lord. They are easily pacified by His power and authority. Are these the only forces that oppose Him? II.) There are many forces arrayed against the Lord building His church, we must worship the Lord in the midst of seeming defeat. (19-25) a. [Slide 13] 19 - But when her masters saw that their hope of profit had left, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities, 20 - and when they had brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, “These men are throwing our city into confusion, being Jews, 21 - and are proclaiming customs that are not lawful for us to accept or to observe, being Romans.” i. Upon realizing that the slave girl no longer had the spirit of divination and could no longer predict the future … they sought retaliate. ii. They grab Paul and Silas and drag them to the authorities of the city. iii. But what are they going to accuse them of? Casting out spirits isn't a crime is it? iv. Let's unpack what they charge them with and try to make some sense of it. v. They accuse them of sowing confusion because they are Jews and promoting customs that are illegal for Roman citizens to observe, because they are Romans. vi. So, what is the confusion and what are these customs? vii. Friends, I think us trying to figure out what customs they were talking about, and what they mean by confusion is a fool's errand. Why? viii. Notice not what they accuse them of – but how. They bring up both the ethnicity of these men… and their own. ix. As we saw last week, the Jews were not prevalent in this city. And the city was a Roman colony. So Roman that most of the inscriptions we have found from this city are in Latin and not in Greek. Which is quite telling. x. Jews had always stuck out as monotheists in a polytheist world. xi. This suggests that an Antisemitic sentiment was alive and well in the city of Philippi. Perhaps this is the real reason they don't have a synagogue in the city. Perhaps this is the real reason that there weren't many Jews in the city of Philippi? xii. Added to their hatred of the Jews, they were also quite proud of being Romans. xiii. They don't specify one charge against them. Instead, the only real accusation is that they are being very UN-Roman and telling them to do the same. xiv. The customs and the confusion charge, I believe, is a red-herring. They know that there isn't really anything they can accuse the mission team of. xv. But they can insight the crowd and the magistrates to violence because of racial tensions that already existed between Jews and Romans in the city of Philippi. xvi. And that is just what they did. They knew what buttons to push to really put the hurt on Paul and Silas. xvii. Incidentally, the fact that only Paul and Silas were drug before the city magistrates is more evidence that this is a racial issue more than a legal one. Timothy was only half Jewish and Luke was a gentile. b. [Slide 14] 22 - And the crowd joined together to attack them, and the chief magistrates, tearing their garments off of them, proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. i. Only Roman citizens were guaranteed a right to a fair trial before being physically harmed. ii. As non-Romans (or so they think) these men are not afforded those guarantees. iii. So, they are beaten with rods for having the audacity to be Jewish and to tell Romans to stop being so Roman. iv. Now we will find out later that Paul and Silas both were Roman citizens. So why didn't they say anything? v. Well, let's wait a couple weeks on that question. c. [Slide 15] 23 - And when they had inflicted them with many wounds, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely, 24 - who, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. i. It is obvious that the plan is to release them sometime later. We see this later in the narrative. ii. Basically, what we have here is imprisonment is their sentence to pay for their crime. iii. Because they caused a disturbance, they needed to pay for that with their lives being disturbed. iv. So, the plan was that they would be released the following day – but until then they instruct the jailer to hold them fast. v. So, the jailer puts them in the inner prison, where escape would be almost impossible. And he fastened them to the wall so they could not move. vi. Most likely with wooden or metal brackets and most likely not in a very comfortable position. No doubt with arms and legs splayed against the wall. vii. One doesn't have to wonder why we find them still awake at midnight in the next verse. viii. They were probably in a good deal of pain from their “many wounds” while being pinned to the wall. d. [Slide 16] 25 - But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. i. Such were the hearts of God's missionaries. ii. They prayed and sang to the Lord. iii. They prayed – probably not imprecatory prayers against their persecutors but rather prayers of thanksgiving and songs of praise. iv. Requesting the Lord to be glorified and the gospel to go forth no matter what happens. v. Requesting to be released without further incident. vi. And they did this as the rest of the prisoners in the jail… listened. vii. One of the most powerful things you can do to accompany your presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, is to suffer for His name while continuing to praise Him and trust Him. viii. So many in the history of the church have been won by the gospel of Christ and the powerful testimony of those who gladly bear His reproach and share in His wounds. e. [Slide 17] Summary of the Point: Our primary point of teaching endures through this point. There are forces arrayed against the Lord building His church. They are not only spiritual though. As if mankind are merely victims caught in the middle of this spiritual war. No, the greed, bigotry, and selfishness of man actively works against the Lord building His church also. But so far, in this narrative, we have not seen the Lord conquer these wicked men. Now we could peek ahead and see, and I assure you, the Lord will be victorious in more ways than one, but let us not do that. Why? Because Paul and Silas didn't get to look ahead did they. For now, let's stay right there in that inner prison room with Paul and Silas. Let's stay right with them in the midst of their searing wounds. In the midst of their aching joints pinned to a wall. In the midst of their hopeless position. Let's stay right there. Why? So, we can observe what it means to trust the Lord even in the midst of great suffering for His name. Even in the midst of apparent defeat. My friends, we must trust the Lord by worshipping Him in the midst of suffering. This also is part of engaging the enemies of God. Conclusion: So, what have we learned to day CBC, and how then shall we live? Doctrinal Takeaway: [Slide 18] In the last couple weeks, we have seen the Lord's control over building His church. He guides His missionaries. He prepares the mission. He opens hearts to respond. But just because He is in control doesn't mean He is unopposed. Today we see that both spiritual and physical forces are actively arrayed against the Lord. Harmonizing these two points is actually relatively easy. It is obviously within the will of God and part of His plan that these forces oppose Him. Although God does not sin, nor does God tempt men to sin, there are times in the scriptures where God uses the sinfulness of men and the rebellion of the forces of darkness to accomplish His will. Therefore, we should not interpret opposition to the Lord as a sign that He is not in control. Instead, we should interpret opposition to the Lord as a way for Him to receive greater glory. For us, when we experience opposition to the Lord and the building of His church, we must see it as an opportunity to trust Him. On the one hand, we must trust Him, putting on the spiritual armor He provides to us and engaging in spiritual warfare against our true enemy, the spiritual forces of darkness who wrestle against the body of Christ at every turn. With the graces of the Lord, and in the power of His might, we will overcome them. Why? Because Christ has already disarmed them and made a public display of them by triumphing over them to free us from sin and death. (Col 2:15). On the other hand, we may face flesh and blood enemies that seem to gain victory over us. In this passage we see the paradoxical story of Paul gaining victory over a demon by casting him out in Jesus' name but also being himself cast in prison by mere men. If God is able to cast out demons, is He not also able to save Paul from mere men? Well of course He is. That is why Paul and Silas trust the Lord by responding in worship. They pray and sing to Him while suffering for His name. Why? Because if He can triumph over demons, and flesh and blood seem to have the upper hand– we can bet that God's victory is almost at hand. And indeed, it was just so for Paul and Silas and I think even a cursory glance at church history seems to paint the same picture. The moment the world is at the bleakest and the opposition against the Lord is at its height is the moment the Lord does something amazing. So let me outline for us some more practical applications of these truths today. How does this affect our everyday life? 1.) Mind Transformation: “What truth must we believe from this text?” or “What might we not naturally believe that we must believe because of what this text has said?” We must believe that there are forces arrayed against the Lord. a. Now certainly this is not something that I think is difficult to prove to us. b. We know that there are forces actively working against the Lord and His church. c. In this text we see two. We see a demon, which represents the whole realm of darkness and we have bigoted, greedy, prideful humans. d. Let me address each of these specifically. i. The forces of darkness seem to have some measure of organizational structure. 1. The scriptures do not go into detail and although there are many myths, even Jewish myths surrounding these forces, there doesn't seem to be much consensus even among Jews on where these beings came from and how they organize themselves. 2. Still, we can come to a fairly robust understanding that there are intelligent spiritual evil forces aligned against the Lord of glory and at least from a New Testament perspective, they seem to be dominated and led by one particular member known as Satan or the Devil. 3. Paul tells us in Ephesians that if we are going to wrestle against these forces, we must not use physical means of warfare for our enemy is not physical they are spiritual. ii. But a second category of enemies against the Lord exists. And it is wicked humanity. 1. We might balk at this since Paul said in Ephesians that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood but against spiritual evil. 2. But Paul says this, not to deny that humans are wicked, or to say that they are just innocent victims caught in the middle. He merely says this to instruct Christians how to fight. Namely, not with flesh and blood weapons. 3. But even against flesh and blood enemies, the fight is primarily spiritual. So, our weapons and defenses must be spiritual also. 4. To be sure, wicked and unredeemed humanity are outright enemies of God and seek to destroy and kill God's people. 5. The only difference is that mankind is redeemable and spiritual forces of darkness are not. 6. Paul, after all, was one of these wicked men actively opposing the Lord of glory. And we all know how that worked out for him. iii. These two forces of evil work hand in hand to oppose the Lord. With the forces of darkness tempting, nudging and whispering and wicked men all to happy to pursue their passions. e. The Lord is opposed in His work to build His church and bring His Kingdom to earth in full. f. This is absolutely true. g. But.. 2.) Refutation: “What lies must we cast down” or “What do we naturally believe, or have been taught to believe, that this passage shows is false?” We must deny that when the forces arrayed against the Lord appear to be winning this proves that God has lost control. a. No matter how bleak it may appear. b. No matter how much it seems like God is losing c. No matter how much wicked men prosper and demonic influence thrives – God is still in absolute control. d. We see this exact thing happen in the Old Testament on repeat. Israel gets destroyed by the nations around them. Where was GOD? Using those nations to judge them… that's where. e. God is always in control. Even when these forces appear to be winning – it is by design so that He can get even more glory for their defeat. f. In their opposition they are unwitting pawns for His glory. g. Because this is true we must respond in a few ways. h. First… 3.) Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don't naturally do or aren't currently doing?” We must rely on the strength of God's spiritual graces if we hope to stand against the spiritual forces we face. a. Whether we face human beings who are wicked and casting us into prisons or whether we face a legion of the demonic hoard – we cannot afford to fight this battle with human weapons. b. What then are our weapons? What are our defenses? How shall we hold the line? How shall we stand firm? c. They are described to us in the armor of God. Truth, Righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation, and the Word of God. d. Notice that all of these are spiritual graces that God has given us. And notice how they all, in some way, tie back to Christ Himself. e. If we are to face the enemies of Christ – we must be protected by the strength of Christ. f. No weapon we fashion – wars, rhetoric, reasoning, politics, legislation, revolution, anger, frustration, shouting, hostile take overs, elections, - LITERALLY all of this cannot be our trusted method to stand against the enemies of God. g. Why? h. Because they work IN those things too. i. We need armor and weapons in which they have no share. And that is Christ. j. What else does God being sovereign over his enemies mean for us? 4.) De-Exhortation: “What actions should we stop doing” or “What behaviors do we naturally practice that this passage tells us to stop doing?” We must not be afraid when the schemes or Satan or the wickedness of men seem to prevail. a. My friends, God uses all of this to increase His fame and His glory. b. The more his enemies seem to be winning, the greater their undoing will be and the greater His glory will be when they are finally and forever put down. c. Most of the time when the church faced its darkest days – that is when the Lord did a marvelous work. d. A modern preacher once said, “Persecution has never hurt the church… only prosperity.” e. When our enemies are strong – our God is stronger. And my friends – we in America are ripe for Him to do something… Big. f. Not through an election. Not through a war. Not through diplomacy. Not through policy making. g. But through the outpouring of His grace. h. We have no need to be afraid at a time like today. i. What must we do instead… 5.) Exhortation: “What actions should we take?” or “What is this passage specifically commanding us to do that we don't naturally do or aren't currently doing?” We must worship the Lord and expect Him to deliver us one way or another. a. Paul and Silas sat in pain in that prison cell. b. But they were not without hope. c. Because either they would die there or God would see to it that they were released. d. God would deliver them… one way or another. e. For this, He deserves the highest praises and glory. f. What can man do to us? What can any enemy of God do to us that God does not allow? For His purposes? g. My friends – what a great honor and joy it is to suffer for the name of Christ. h. So do not be troubled. In fact, be encouraged. i. Why? 6.) Comfort: “What comfort can we find here?” or “What peace does the Lord promise us in light of this passage of scripture?” Only Christ is King and there is no other. a. Though Christ has enemies… they are not His equal. b. Though Christ has enemies… they are not His match. c. Though Christ has enemies… they are no challenge. d. Though Christ has enemies… they pose no danger. e. Indeed, the work of Christ has already disarmed them. He gathers His church and they are only able to cede ground to the church. f. My friends, there is no King but Christ. g. May this be our motto. Our hope. Our Strength. h. In times of abundance and in times of famine – there is no King but Christ. i. In times of safety and in times of peril – There is no King but Christ. j. In times of moral decency and in times of moral decay – There is no King but Christ. Let me close by praying this hymn. May it be our prayer. 1 Lead on, O King eternal, the day of march has come; henceforth in fields of conquest your tents will be our home. Through days of preparation your grace has made us strong; and now, O King eternal, we lift our battle song. 2 Lead on, O King eternal, till sin's fierce war shall cease, and holiness shall whisper the sweet amen of peace. For not with swords' loud clashing or roll of stirring drums with deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes. 3 Lead on, O King eternal; we follow, not with fears, for gladness breaks like morning where'er your face appears. Your cross is lifted o'er us, we journey in its light; the crown awaits the conquest; lead on, O God of might. We pray this in our King's holy name… Amen. Benediction: And now may the Man of Sorrows Who came to reclaim ruined sinners, Who sealed your pardon with His blood, And made a full atonement for helpless we, Bless you from Zion all the days of your life, And direct your hearts into God's love and into the steadfastness of Christ. Until we meet again… Go in Peace.

The Gideons International Bible Ministry visited us this morning, so this is a short meditation on Paul's prayer for the Ephesian church.  Because Paul knew of their faith and love, he thanked God for them and prayed for them to know God's love and power for them as His church. They had much hope and … Continue reading Prayer to Know →

This will be a bit of a shock to our viewers and listeners but today Jay will be talking about the Apostle Paul. I know, we can't believe it either. Paul is a bit of a troublesome character these days…or is he? That is what Jay is exploring in today's talk. He'll be re-examining Paul and his writings. Are we reading Paul's letters correctly today? In their correct context? Did Paul know he was writing the Bible at the time? Is everything attributed to Paul actually Paul's writing? These are some of the topics we'll be exploring today. Because Paul gets a lot of hate…and also Paul is the person a lot of Christians quote when using the Bible to justify their bias…but Paul also is quoted at almost every wedding when talking about love—how can someone with a message of love and grace that echoed Jesus's same teachings sit on both sides of the spectrum? Maybe we've been wrong? Maybe the context of Paul's letters is the key to everything! The Bible is so complex with so much nuance, let's not be afraid to take these deep dives so that we can learn more, know more, and so that we can unlock more. And let's do all of that together. This talk was given on Sept 1, 2024 from Seattle, Washington.www.facebook.com/revolutionchurchmnwww.revolutionchurch.com/donatewww.youtube.com/revolutionbroadcasting@jaybakker@revolution1994@revolution94 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul expresses himself from his heart in the above words.  After his astonishing encounter with Christ on the Damascus Rd he was overwhelmed by a sense of utter appreciation – followed by total commitment in the service of Christ for the rest of his life.  Our oft quoted chapter 15 in Corinthians today – must be read slowly, meaningfully, letting the emotion of Paul's message sink deeply into our minds. If there is no hope of resurrection then it cannot be true that Christ was raised “and if Christ be not raised your faith is futile.” [v.17]  All around them in Corinth, in this vibrant worldly Greek city, people were sure they had ‘immortal souls' and that the body was of no value, many found it impossible to accept the teaching of the resurrection of the body (v.12), – the same had happened in Athens (Acts 17 v.32).  Today, all around us most humanly ‘inspired' intellectuals scoff at belief in a Creator!  This human message is now being expressed in an ever greater spirit of conviction!  Is it affecting us? Is it undermining our convictions?  We need to apply our minds, both to the clear facts of the Bible and also the lessons of secular history, seeing the great upheaval in belief and conviction 1950 years ago as testified in secular sources as well as in the Bible – and declare with Paul with all our hearts, “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.  For as by man came death, by man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” [v.20,21] and true faithful believers like Paul will one day “bear the image of the man from heaven.” [v.49]. Indeed, in the final days “we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed … at the last trumpet.  For the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” [v.51,52]  Because Paul is totally concentrating on the reality of the resurrection he does not mention there is also a judgement, but he does elsewhere.( e.g. Romans 2 v.16; 14 v.10) Our chapter concludes with a challenging message beginning with the significant word THEREFORE! “Therefore, my beloved brothers (and sisters), be steadfast, immovable, always abounding the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”  Paul proved that “his grace toward me was not in vain.” [v.10] Let us do the same.

Well today is the last sermon in our series through the Book of Philippians. We started this series the first Sunday of January, and over the last 23 weeks we've been looking closely at this book, verse by verse, line by line, and what we have found here is a vantage into Ultimate Reality. We have encountered God and his truth, which is what we consider to be the penultimate goal of preaching. The reason that we slow down and look at the words and the phrases, and try so hard to understand what Paul meant, is because we want to see and think what he saw and thought. Because Paul has written this letter under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His words have been breathed out by God — God IS revealing himself through these words — and so we look at the words not to get stuck on the words, but to see through the words to God and his truth (Ultimate Reality!). That's the second-to-last goal of preaching. That's what we've been doing these past six months, and that's what we're gonna do one last time today as part of this series. Today we are looking at Philippians Chapter 4, verses 19–23, and the main thing I want you to know is this: God will provide for you. That's the promise of Philippians 4, verse 19 — God will provide for you — and as you hear me say that, I want you to track what's going on … How are you responding to this promise internally where nobody else but God can see?I'm going to say it again and I want us to just sit in it for a minute. Here it is: God will provide for you. Father in heaven, you know the hearts of every man and woman and boy and girl. You know where we're at in this moment as you confront us with your promise to provide for us. You know what our hearts are doing and why, and this morning, we ask, as humbly as we can, whatever is going on in us that is unbelieving, or whatever is not pleasing to you, would you change us today? Would you work in us now, through your word, by the power of your Spirit, to change us, in Jesus's name, amen. In this passage I want to show you three details about God's provision for you, and then close with application. The first detail is this:1) God will provide every need of yours. Look at verse 19:And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.In the ContextNow it's important that we see this verse in its context, so let's back up to the previous verses and remember what we saw last week: Paul is talking to this church about their true partnership. They've given money to Paul to support his ministry, and in verse 15 Paul calls what they have a partnership in giving and receiving. That was the criterion for a true friendship — there had to be mutual benefits — and we know that Paul received money from this church (physical money for physical sustenance). But what did this church receive from Paul? Remember we looked at verse 17, where Paul says that this church, in return for their giving material money, receive a spiritual credit — spiritual benefits. And last week we focused on that fact — that these benefits are spiritual — but here in verse 19 we see more about where these benefits are coming from. The church gave to Paul; now the church receives from Paul — except they're not receiving from Paul himself, they're receiving from God. (Verse 18 is like a parenthetical; it's a comment to the side.) But we need to look at verse 19 in connection to verse 17. I'm going to try to paraphrase that connection — Paul is saying: We have a true partnership of giving and receiving! … Not that I seek your giving, but I seek your receiving, which has an increasing profit! I'm good. I'm well-supplied. And now my God will supply every need of yours …It's significant here that Paul says “my God.” Because he's not just highlighting his personal relationship with God, but he's saying that God will provide for this church on his behalf! Remember Paul is in prison. He doesn't have anything to ‘give' this church. Paul can't give this church spiritual blessings — but God can. And Paul says my God will. My God will supply every need of yours.Every Need?And we have to ask, “Every need, really?” What does Paul mean here? Again, in light of the context, I think this applies to mainly spiritual needs, but it also includes material needs. On the material side, I think Paul is saying here what he said to the Corinthians about their generosity. In 2 Corinthians 9:10, Pauls says that God will supply seed to the sower. In other words: if you give, God will give you what to give. This is where we get the saying, “You can't out-give God!” — you've probably heard that before. I've always heard that saying (and used it myself) in terms of experience. People have experienced that reality; they've seen it to be the case — but the theological support for that saying comes from places like 2 Corinthians 9 and here in Philippians 4. If you give, God will not let you run out of what to give. That's material provision.But Paul says “every need” here and so he means more than material needs — but like, how much more? This is where we have to think. We need to drill into this …When Paul says “every need” he could simply mean “every” as in both material and spiritual — God provides both categories of needs. Which is true. This could be just an umbrella statement.Or — Paul could mean, not just that God provides both categories, but that God provides for every single need within each category — every single material need you have and every single spiritual need you have, God provides it all. In an absolute, literal way, God will provide for every single one need of yours. Is Paul saying that?Well see, it really has to do with how we understand the meaning of needs — and that's something that Paul has already talked about in this chapter. So we should go back a couple of weeks, back to when we looked at verse 11. In verse 11 Paul says, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content”Whatever my need is, I have enough!And we saw that the key to that statement is in the fact that needs are relative to goals. If the goal is to stay alive, then the needs would be things like oxygen (and food and water) … and for your head to stay attached to your neck. That's an important need in order to stay alive (and that need was not provided for Paul about five years after he wrote this letter). So is staying alive the goal?Well see, if this church's goal was like Paul's goal — if they were actually practicing what they had learned and received and heard and seen in Paul (verse 9) — then there goal would not be to stay alive, but their goal would be everlasting joy in Christ that honors Christ for the treasure he is (see 1:20!). Secret Turned PromiseTwo weeks ago we saw that Paul's secret to contentment is Christ-sufficiency. Finish this sentence here: “All that Paul truly needs to be happy in Jesus is … JESUS.”That's Paul's secret, and here in verse 19 he turns that secret into a promise for this church: God will supply every need of yours …Every need that you have in order to be eternally happy in Jesus, God will provide that for you.Whatever you need to have joy in Jesus forever, God will provide. I don't know how to say that so that it lands for you. I don't know how to make you be helped by this truth. But I just want to tell you as best as I can: God sees every single need that you have, big and small, long-standing needs, brand-new needs, pain-inflicting needs, losing-sleep-because-of-them needs, thorn-in-the-flesh needs; God knows more about your needs than you do, and he knows that behind your every need there is your ultimate need to be happy in him, and he will give you what you need for that even if it means withholding from you other things … and even if that withholding hurts.And we don't know why exactly. God doesn't give us all the details here, but he gives us himself and he will always give us whatever we need to have him forever.That's the promise of Philippians 4:19, church. That's the promise in its fullest. Here's the second detail about God's provision.2) God will provide for you according to his riches in glory.Look at those words closely in verse 19: “according to his riches in glory.” This tells us more about the nature and capacity of God's provision. The NatureWhen it comes to the nature of God's provision, it's according to his riches — not according to what we deserve, not according to what he owes us (which is nothing). I want us to get this clear: God's provision here, in context, is a response to this church's generosity, but a response and compensation are not the same. God is not paying this church back. God is never in debt to anyone. But instead, because this church's generosity in an expression of their faith in God — and God from all eternity has an unchangeable disposition of delight in response to the exercise of faith — God provides for this church in accordance with himself. “God takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love” (Psalm 147:11). That is true about God, and God provides for us in accordance with that truth of who he is! That's what his riches mean. His riches is the resource of himself. And one thing that might help us wrap our heads around this is how we think of tipping. Now, this analogy is gonna break down if you push it too far, okay — I need you to take it easy on me — but in general, at a restaurant, every time you leave a tip you have one of two choices: either you will leave a tip based on the kind of service you received or you will leave a tip based on the kind of person you are. You will either give in accordance with the server's performance or you will give in accordance with your own generosity. Now both are a response, but only one of those is to truly give. If it's according to performance, we call that compensation; but if it's according to your generosity, that's truly giving — and see, God only gives.He only gives in accordance with who he is as the eternal God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, who is all-sufficient — he does not stand in need of anything that he has made but instead all things are dependent upon him!The nature of God's giving is in accordance with himself, his riches.The CapacityAnd, they are his riches in glory, which tells us even more about the capacity of his provision. “In glory” here means that these riches transcend this world; they come from where God is — from where God dwells in his infinite splendor and majesty, in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. These riches are not sitting in a J.P. Morgan account. This is not “his riches in Miami real-estate.” It's not “his riches in Tesla stock.” It's his riches in glory — so it doesn't just cover what you need now on this earth, but it will more than abound for what you need for eternity.See, his riches in glory confirm for us that God's provision is not mainly material and current, but it's spiritual and eternal. Because, in the grand scheme of things, material provision here is peanuts. Easy. “His riches in glory” means that we are moving from more to more to more to more — more and better is always yet to come. God gives in accordance with his capacity in glory, and it's bigger than what we can fathom.Practiced in PrayerAnd this is a fact that we bring to God in prayer. This is where we make this truth practical. It's that when we come to God with our petitions — when we are asking God to provide for us — we are not appealing to how good we've been; we're not asking God to give in accordance with the quality of our service; but we are asking him to give, to supply, to provide for us in accordance with his riches in glory. This is why we say: “Is anything to hard for the Lord?” In glory means there is nothing he cannot do; there is no deficit he cannot overcome; there is no amount he cannot make happen!God will provide for every need you have in order to be eternally happy in him according to his riches in glory. Third detail:3) God will provide for you according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.And here is where Paul reminds us that every promise from God to us is fulfilled in Jesus. Paul says this plainly in 2 Corinthians 1:20 — “For all the promises of God find their Yes in him [in Jesus].”This means that all that God is for us, and all the good that God wills to do for us, and all that God has ever said to us, comes to us through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the face of God's revelation and redemption. We cannot know God apart from Jesus, and we cannot have a relationship with God except through Jesus — and keeping this front and center in everything we do is basic to the Christian life. And there are two very simple and clear ways we live this out: in baptism and again in prayer.Clear in BaptismWhen we're baptized as a sign of our faith-union with Jesus, the first question the pastors ask before we bring you under the water is this. We ask: “Are you now trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and for the fulfillment of all God's promises to you?”And the person being baptized will say, “I am!” And what they're saying is that Jesus is not just the way to get their foot in the door — he's not just giving them a clean record — but they're saying that every good thing that God will ever give to them comes through Jesus. Jesus is the “Amen!” to all of God's promises to us!Clear in PrayerAnd also we express that same hope every time we pray, when we end our prayers with “in Jesus's name, amen.” First, we pray “in Jesus's name” because that's how Jesus told us to pray — he told us to petition the Father in his name (see John 15:16; 16:23, 26) — but also, when we're deliberate with our words, from our hearts, to pray in Jesus's name, we are recognizing that Jesus is only way we have any right at all to be speaking to God. We don't receive from God based upon ourselves; and we don't even come to God based upon ourselves. It's all because of Jesus. That is his glory. The Father has highly exalted him to that place. In ChristAnd so we live and move and have our entire being in Christ … And we endure present sufferings in Christ … And we strive side by side for the faith of the gospel in Christ … We follow Christ's example of humility in Christ … We work out our own salvation in Christ … We do all things without grumbling and complaining in Christ … We shine as lights in the world in Christ … We seek to receive and honor one another in Christ … We rejoice in Christ … We worship God in Christ … We boast in Christ … In Christ, we consider everything else as loss compared to his surpassing worth … In Christ, we press on to know him more clearly and fully … In Christ, we will agree together and help one another agree … In Christ, we will not be anxious but we will pray … In Christ, we will think of whatever is true and honorable and just and pure and lovely and commendable … In Christ, whatever the situation, we will be content … In Christ, God will provide everything we need to be eternally happy in him. In Christ! — That is the Book of Philippians. That is our Christian existence. That's this promise.There is no greater security that you could have that God will provide for you than this. So we wanna just live in this promise. Let the reality of God and his truth surround you. Let us see him! (That's the second-to-last goal of preaching.)And then we come to verse 20.The ApplicationSo far we've looked at the details of God's promise in verse 19, and I told you we'd close with some application, and that's what we find in the text here in verse 20. What do we do with everything that we've seen about God and his truth in this book?Eternal WorshipVerse 20 tells us:“To our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”This is worship, and worship is the ultimate goal of preaching. It's what the seeing is for. We see God and his truth so that we will worship him — and it's worship that will last forever, because eternal worship is what God is worthy of. Infinite worth deserves infinite praise, and that's our ultimate calling. So Paul closes this letter by pointing us to what is vastly bigger than ourselves …And Paul does this not just by calling us to the worship God deserves, but he also does this in final greeting in verse 21. Look at verse 21:“Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. 22 All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. 23 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”+ All the SaintsA final greeting like this is a normal way to end a letter. Paul does this in his other letters too, but look at verse 21 together with verse 20. Verse 20 says “to God be the glory” and verse 21 says “greet every saint.” Both of these verses point us to something bigger than ourselves: Worship is our ultimate calling — that's why God made us! — but greeting “all the saints” reminds us that we're not in this alone. “All the saints” are more than us, and “all the saints” are everywhere, even in Caesar's household! There's no place the gospel cannot advance, and it will advance — until the knowledge of God's glory covers this earth as the waters cover the sea! One day all the saints will worship God together, but even today we are connected to what God is doing through the saints scattered all around the world.That little comment in verse 22 is meant to remind this church what they're a part of. The saints are in Caesar's household in part because of how God has used the church at Philippi. This is bigger than you, don't you see? God at work through you, church, has made you part of something vastly bigger than yourself — and that's not only true of this church, but that's true of our church, like right now …Right now, as our church gathers in worship here … all the saints at All Peoples Church in Minneapolis gathers for worship, and all the saints at Westview Church in New Hope gathers for worship, and all the saints at Gospel Joy Church in Mankato gathers for worship. They gather, in part, because our church has sent them out to be a church. We're connected and they greet you — and the same could be said of Exalting Christ Church in Northeast and Redemption City Church in Rochester and Horizon City Church in Orlando — we're part of that.Just like we're part of gospel advance in Turkey and Oman and Cameroon and Ireland and France and Austria and southeast Asia and the Philippines and the Peruvian Amazon — All the saints everywhere, and the worship of God forever. That's what this is all about. And God indeed will provide for you … for you and for our church.That's what brings us to the Table.The TableWe come to this Table to remember Jesus and to rest in God's love for us. God proved his love for us in that while we were sinners, Jesus died for us. And if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?All things that we need to be happy in him forever.

IT'S PARTY TIME!!!!! P-A-R-T-Y? Because Paul said so. This week, We are covering 1994's The Mask! But we aren't alone! We were joined by Josh and Brett of The Evil Deaths to see if this 90's comedy holds up today! (spoiler.....it does)

Friday, 7 June 2024   In that region there was an estate of the leading citizen of the island, whose name was Publius, who received us and entertained us courteously for three days. Acts 28:7   The Greek more literally reads, “And in the surrounding area [lit: in the around that region], were parcels of the first of the island by name Publius, who having received us three days, lodged us hospitably” (CG).   In the previous verse, Paul was seen to have not swollen up or keeled over from the snake bite. Because of this, the fickle islanders of Malta said he was a god. Now, Luke begins a new portion of the narrative, saying, “And in the surrounding area [lit: in the around that region].”   By God's providence, they were shipwrecked in a particular place that would bring comfortable times to those who had been cast ashore. Despite the great trials and losses that were suffered by those who were shipwrecked, there would be a season of blessing to come upon them. This is first starting to be realized now because in that surrounding area, there “were parcels of the first of the island.”   The meaning of “first” is the principal man of the island. The adjective used to describe the person is protos. It means the first, or chief, and thus he is “the first man.” Ellicott notes –   “The term is found both in Greek and Latin inscriptions, at Malta, of the time of Augustus, as an official title.”   Score another point for Luke's accuracy. He is the chief ruler or magistrate appointed to oversee the population. Luke then notes, “by name Publius.”   This man's name is a Latin one, literally: Poplios. It is known that Malta was rendered under the province of Sicily and so he would have been over the island, but under the Sicilian proconsul.   What we see in him then is a person who has received his job through appointment and not through a family line. This is indicated even more poignantly by the fact (as will be seen) that his father is there. He would not be the chief man if the position was based on family. This man is said to have “received us three days.”   It is a new word in Scripture, anadechomai. It comes from ana, up or upwards, and dechomai, to receive or welcome. Thus, HELPS Word Studies says it signifies to “receive up to the limit” and thus “to welcome with gladness.”   They were whole-heartedly and enthusiastically received up by the chief man of the island. It is agreed that this did not mean the entire host from the ship, but rather a select few.   Despite being a prisoner, Paul was a Roman citizen and stood in high favor with Julius. Luke was a physician and, thus, a man of respect. It is probably these three and maybe a limited number of others who were brought in as guests for those three days until other arrangements could be made. During this time, Luke notes that he “lodged us hospitably”   The word translated as “hospitably,” philophronós, is an adverb found only here. It literally means, “acting from a mind-set of personal affection” HELPS Word Studies. In other words, this was not a formal thing that was required by custom, but an invitation because of truly having come to like them. It was probably brought on by the words of Julius to Publius about the exceptional character of Paul and Luke.   Life application: Luke writes in the first-person plural concerning this visit. Thus, he was there, and it is absolutely certain that Paul, as will be seen, was there as well. Because Paul was there, Julius would have been there also, being the lead soldier and personally responsible for Paul.   Nothing is said here, or anywhere else, about Julius being converted to the Christian faith. However, it is unlikely that he was not fully aware of every nuance of what it meant to be a Christian by the time his supervision of Paul was ended. He personally saw prophecies uttered and fulfilled. He will see miracles of healing in the verses ahead. If anyone ever knew it, certain Julius did, that Paul would not have been silenced over his proclamation of the gospel, etc.   Because of this, either Julius was converted and that is purposefully left out of the narrative for whatever reason Luke deemed necessary or the heart of Julius was soft towards Paul and hard toward the message Paul proclaimed.   The latter is not unusual. There are people who have remained friends for years, even friends of pastors and preachers, who find the faith of their good friend curious and maybe even a bit comical. And yet, they stay fast friends through it. And how many times has there been an effect on the stout unbeliever later in life?   We cannot know what effect we will have on others by giving the gospel and then simply sharing our lives together with those we know whether they readily accept our words at the start or wait decades to yield. We don't need to beat our faith into others. We simply need to share it and then let our lives be a testimony to those we know.   Let us never tire of living out the gospel that we have received. When the ball drops in the life of others, and it always does, they will know who to turn to if they are willing to once again hear the good news in their time of need.   Lord God, may our faith be on display at all times for others to see and remember what we believe. But we need to first let them know what our faith entails. So, Lord, give us boldness to first share the message, and then to live it out from day to day from that point on. Help us in this, O God. Amen.  

Paul says, “have the same attitude as Christ Jesus” or “conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel.” That can be kind of abstract for me. It can seem impossible and so I feel free to ignore it. But then Paul says look at Timothy. This is what serving Christ, prioritizing Christ's interest means. It means caring for others. That simple. That real. Serving Christ's interest is caring for others, not winning them, not having all the right answers for them. Not fixing anything per say, but genuinely caring about others well-being. How does this orient our vision of next level discipleship like Paul's? Caring, that's the work. Easier said than done, yes, but also doable. We can train to become a person who can listen. Who has the space for others brokenness and isn't overwhelmed by it. Who can see needs and doesn't imagine they are the Savior, but a friend. Who can celebrate another's wins and grieve losses while putting away our own insecurities and our sense of scarcity. Who can speak out for someone who is bullied. Or make a meal when someone's sick. Or the call when someone's scared or grieving. Or speak a word of truth when a friend is lost or stuck. And in it all we can learn how to speak of our Jesus. And won't we also find our own loneliness unraveling. So, Timothy's going to come to Philippi and make a web of connection and relationship between the Philippians and Paul's work that much stronger. It's going to be awesome, but not yet. Because Paul needs him with him in this dark stinking prison.

Fr. Eric Nicolai preached this meditation on April 28, 2024, the fifth Sunday of Easter at Lyncroft Centre in Toronto. Acts 9:26-31: Barnabas explained how the Lord had appeared to Saul on his journey. Barnabas convinces the apostles about the newly converted Paul. Why are they convinced? Because Paul had spoken boldly in defence of the Lord. What does it mean for us to be bold, to be daring in defence of the faith? Music: 'Undertow' by Scott Buckley - released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com Thumbnail: Raphael di Sanzio, Study for St. Paul preaching in Athens, 1515, chalk sketch, in Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy Public domain.

Full Text of ReadingsFeast of Saint Mark, evangelist Lectionary: 555The Saint of the day is Saint MarkSaint Mark's Story Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. When Saint Peter escaped from prison, he went to the home of Mark's mother. Paul and Barnabas took him along on the first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned alone to Jerusalem. It is evident, from Paul's refusal to let Mark accompany him on the second journey despite Barnabas's insistence, that Mark had displeased Paul. Because Paul later asks Mark to visit him in prison, we may assume the trouble did not last long. The oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark emphasizes Jesus's rejection by humanity while being God's triumphant envoy. Probably written for gentile converts in Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul sometime between A.D. 60 and 70—Mark's Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a “scandal”: a crucified Messiah. Evidently a friend of Mark—calling him “my son”—Peter is only one of this Gospel's sources, others being the Church in Jerusalem (Jewish roots), and the Church at Antioch (largely Gentile). Like another Gospel writer Luke, Mark was not one of the 12 apostles. We cannot be certain whether he knew Jesus personally. Some scholars feel that the evangelist is speaking of himself when describing the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane: “Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked” (Mark 14:51-52). Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Venice, famous for the Piazza San Marco, claims Mark as its patron saint; the large basilica there is believed to contain his remains. A winged lion is Mark's symbol. The lion derives from Mark's description of John the Baptist as a “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Mark 1:3), which artists compared to a roaring lion. The wings come from the application of Ezekiel's vision of four winged creatures to the evangelists. Reflection Mark fulfilled in his life what every Christian is called to do: proclaim to all people the Good News that is the source of salvation. In particular, Mark's way was by writing. Others may proclaim the Good News by music, drama, poetry, or by teaching children around a family table. Saint Mark is the Patron Saint of: NotariesVenice Learn more on Saint Mark! Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Modern people from all over the spectrum have all sorts of problems with Paul. Why? Because Paul was, in many ways, an anti-modern man who didn't share our love of individualism and freedom because he believed true freedom was not doing whatever you want but surrendering to and serving the God who made you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Apostle Paul’s Jesus Today we are going to look at Paul’s Jesus. Paul, who as a Pharisee was known as Saul. Paul who became a follower of Jesus, after encountering him on the road to Damascus. Paul who describes himself as the least of the apostles, former persecutor of the church and the foremost of sinners. Because Paul chose to follow, believe in and receive Jesus Christ, most of the New Testament was written by this man and he sought to serve his master, Jesus Christ. For Paul’s life and ministry, we have much to be thankful to God! But what can we briefly learn about Jesus from Paul? Colossians 1:15-20 - The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. See how Paul piles up the metaphors about Jesus - image of the invisible God; firstborn over all creation, invisible and visible and also their creator and sustainer! This Jesus is the head of the church, all those who follow, believe and receive Him! This Jesus has the supremacy over all things! This Jesus, the man, had the fullness of God within him! This Jesus, who was fully man yet simultaneously fully God! This man Jesus who was fully God, yet became nothing by becoming human, in order that people may choose to be restored back into relationship with God or not. This Jesus the re-conciliator, redeemer and peacemaker through his death on the cross! Peace with God, only comes through Jesus’ blood shed on the cross! There is no other way! That’s why Jesus Himself said “I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody can come to the Father except through Me!” You an almost sense Paul going “WOW!!” 1 Timothy 1:12-17 - I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen. Here Paul reveals his relationship with Jesus! Jesus has given and shown Paul the wonders of Gods’ mercy, grace, faith and love! That’s why Paul has been appointed into service by Jesus, despite Paul’s past which included violence, blasphemy against God and persecuting the church – the body of whom Jesus is the head, the wisdom and guide! This Jesus has made Paul clean and renewed him! This Jesus strengthens Paul to be in active service for God – and because of that we get most of the New Testament! The only reason Paul can do what he does, is because it is Jesus who has anointed and appointed him to God’s service, sustains, guides and protects him! This Jesus, who with inexhaustible patience uses Paul as an living testimony to help others come to follow, believe and receive Jesus Christ. This Jesus, whose purpose was to save sinners – such as Paul who confesses that he is the supreme example of a sinner – and give everlasting life. Lastly, Paul overflows with praise for Jesus, describing him as immortal, invisible and only God and giving Him alone the glory and honour! May that be so in your life, your church and in the life of the church worldwide! Right Mouse click or tap here to save this as an audio mp3 file

Something we need to keep in mind as we're working through the Book of Philippians is that this is a very personal letter. It's personal in that the apostle Paul tells us a lot about himself over these four chapters — he tells us how he's doing in his current situation; he tells about how he relates to others and others to him, (good and bad); he tells us about his ministry intentions, he tells us about his past, he tells us about his values and goals — Paul gets personal in this letter, and I don't think we see that any better than we do in our passage today, Chapter 2, verses 25–30. At one level, what Paul says in these verses has nothing to do with us — because he's talking about details for his own day and about what he's got going on. But then at another level — at the level of “This is Holy Scripture” — Paul is modeling something for us here. Paul is an example for us, and I've not been exactly sure on what to call it. I've gone back and forth on this …I think you could call it “Christian realism” — meaning that Paul as a Christian is in touch with reality in this world. He's constantly aware of Ultimate Reality — he knows Jesus is real — and he knows that as he navigates the hardships and setbacks of life in a broken world. You must have both! Paul is not just a realist, he's a “Christian realist.” We could call his example that (but apparently that term is already taken and used for something else, so never mind). Instead, what if we just called Paul's example here, his honesty?In these verses in Philippians 2 we see the honesty of the apostle Paul. Here's what I mean: there's no doubt that Paul kept his eyes on heaven. We see that in this letter — we see that in all his letters. The hope of the gospel was right here for Paul. But although Paul kept his eyes on heaven, his head was not stuck in the clouds. He was honest.And I want to show you that in these verses, because I think what we find here will help us as we navigate our own lives in this broken world. So let's pray again and we'll get started. Father in heaven, by your grace, we trust this morning in your sovereign care for us and we rest in your great love for us in Christ. We remember now, that in this moment, we are here together beneath your smile, and that you are pleased to speak to us through your Word. By your Spirit, would you do that? Help us receive what you have for us, in Jesus's name, amen. Three ways we see the honesty of Paul: 1) Paul made practical ministry decisions.We're going to be talking a lot about Epaphroditus, and if you've never encountered Epaphroditus before… Don't worry, you can't catch it! It's a name. Epaphroditus was the name of man that we read about only in the Book of Philippians. We first read about him here in Chapter 2 and then also in Chapter 4, verse 18. Based upon what Paul says, we can put together a pretty good picture of who he was. First, with a name like “Epaphroditus” he definitely had a Gentile background. The name Epaphroditus was connected to the Greek goddess Aphrodite — and we know Jewish parents didn't give out that name! This guy was a pagan from a pagan family. He was ‘straight outta Philippi' — but at some point this pagan man from a pagan background heard the gospel and believed and he became part of this local church. And he wasn't just part of this church, but this church had chosen him to be their messenger and minister to Paul's need. We see that in verse 25. What exactly does that mean?Remember that Paul is in prison in Rome, and back then, prisoners relied upon the support of friends outside of prison to make sure their needs were met. Paul needed his friends to send him money. That's why in Chapter 4, verse 18, Paul confirms for this church that he received the gift they sent him through Epaphroditus.So Epaphroditus, then, was the one this church had commissioned out to take Paul a gift of money. Which is a big deal. Epaphroditus was the representative of this church, sent from Philippi to Rome, with a stack of cash for Paul. And by now — if we can put ourselves in the shoes of these first readers — by the time the church is reading this letter, Epaphroditus had been gone for months but now he's back. Epaphroditus was most likely the one who brought this church the letter from Paul that they're reading — and Paul wants to tell them why. Paul wants to tell the church why Epaphroditus came back to Philippi and not someone else. Notice the difference between what Paul says about Timothy and what he says about Epaphroditus. In verse 19 — y'all look back at verse 19 — Paul said that he hoped to send Timothy. See the word “hoped”? Now look at verse 25. Paul says there he thought it was necessary to send Epaphroditus. Why did he consider it necessary? Paul gives us four reasons in the passage, and I want to show them to you right away, and then I'll tell you the story. Paul says, “I have sent Epaphroditus back…”#1 — verse 26 — for he has been longing for you#2 — verse 26 — he has been distressed because you heard that he was illLook at verse 28: “I am more eager to send him, therefore …#3 — that you may rejoice at seeing him again#4 — that I may be less anxious (less sorrow)These are the four reasons. Here's the story:His Mission Situation First, we need a little context for what Epaphroditus has done. Today, if you were in the City of Philippi (in Greece), and you wanted to travel west, to Rome, you can get there by car within a day. You'd have to ferry across the Ionian Sea, which would slow you down some, but in theory, you could get there in 20 hours. By car. If you made that same trip by foot, you're looking at 235 hours, according to Google Maps, and it would take you a couple of weeks. That's today.But if we were to go back a couple thousand years ago, to the year 60, traveling from Philippi to Rome — from where this church was to where Paul was in prison — it would have taken you a couple of months. So, from the time that Epaphroditus first left for Rome, to when the church could expect to hear anything back from him, it would have been at least four months. But if you add to that the fact that Epaphroditus got sick, verse 26, it would have been even longer.It was most likely around six months since this church had heard from Epaphroditus. Some commentators suspect six to nine months.Understandably DistressedTime is relative. That's not a super long time. But it probably feels like a long time when you're waiting to hear from somebody and especially when they left with a bunch of cash! There would have been a moment when this church wondered: What happened to Epaphroditus?And Epaphroditus knew that they wondered that. Because Paul tells us in verse 26 that Epaphroditus was distressed that the church heard he was ill. Now why? Why would Epaphroditus have been distressed that the church heard he was sick? I'm sure it's because they cared for one another and he wanted this church to know he was okay, but also remember, there's cash involved. Epaphroditus wanted the church to know that he got that money to Paul! He wanted them to know, not just that he survived, but that he did what they sent him to do! That's at least one reason, in verse 26, that Epaphroditus had been longing to see his church family. This is not just generic homesickness. But he wanted his church to know that: he didn't flake out; he didn't take the money and run; and he didn't die. But he made it to Rome. He gave Paul the gift. He completed the mission. He wants his church to know that. And he knows they wanna know that. We're talking about very basic, understandable desires. It makes sense.Paul's Common SenseSo when Paul is trying to figure out who is gonna get his letter and update back to the Philippians, do you see how these things factored in? Paul thought: Epaphroditus longs to go home; Epaphroditus is distressed because the church knows he was sick; this church would be really happy to see him; and man, I'd be less anxious if I sent Epaphroditus instead of Timothy (because I need Timothy to stay closer by for the meantime) — there are four reasons here why Paul considered it necessary to send back Epaphroditus, and one thing all the reasons have in common is that they're practical.It seems like Paul is just using good old common sense. He's not over-spiritualizing things here — and this is for a man who had encountered the risen Lord Jesus in blinding light. Remember Paul had heard Jesus's voice. He once had a prayer experience when he was caught up to the third heaven. There's no doubt that Paul had his mind set on things above, not on things below — heaven was right here for Paul — and sometimes when it came to decision-making, practical things mattered. Paul made practical ministry decisions. Now this does not give us license to go bonkers and be super-pragmatic to our spiritual detriment — Paul would never do that — but it does mean that in our Christian lives, and in our ministry together, we should take into account practical things. Paul did that and we should too. It's being honest.Here's a second way we see the honesty of Paul …2) Paul knew who truly deserved honor.Skip down to verse 29. Paul concludes everything he says about Epaphroditus with two commands. Verse 29, talking about Epaphroditus, he says: So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men …Receive him and honor him. But notice the second command about honor. Paul says to hold in honor such men — meaning, he's not only talking about Epaphroditus here. He goes beyond Epaphroditus and he wants us to know something about honor in general. Paul wants us teach us something about the kind of person we honor in the church.And I'll go ahead and say it: the idea of showing honor to certain individuals in our church, it's a little uncomfortable for us. That we would make distinctions by showing honor to some people over others — that feels Victorian and un-democratic. So I wanna try to bring some clarity here. First, when it comes to the topic of honor — of humans showing honor to other humans — that's a universal human reality. You could go anywhere in the world you want, look at any human culture under the sun, and you're gonna find that in every human society, honor exists. One way or another, humans will find a way to distinguish other humans as being more celebrated than others. Showing honor will happen.And I'm not gonna get too deep into this, but I'll just say that our society is very confused with this topic.At one level, we don't want there to be any distinctions. That's why everybody gets a trophy; nobody gets their feelings hurt; everybody is the same. You are all equally good basketball players. But then at another level, our society has created “The Celebrity.” As a society we make valuations and comparisons of other people for the shallowest of reasons. And we esteem our celebrities so highly in America that we actually let these people become a scorecard for how we view others. It's nuts! Our society shows honor like crazy! And it's a mess!Clarifying the ConfusionAnd it's such a mess that we might think: “There should be no showing honor in the church.” “In the church, every single person should be treated the exact same.” “There should be NO holding certain individuals in honor.” We might think that, but remember, it's not just human to show honor, and it's biblical. Because Paul clearly says here in verse 28 to “honor such men.” And that word “honor” means it. It means to treat someone with high esteem, to show special attention to them. It means to give someone deep respect.See, the issue is not that we show honor; it's why we show honor. This topic all comes down to what we could call the honor-metric. What are the things we're looking at to be the reason we show honor?For example, say a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into our assembly, and then a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in. If you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there” — if you do that, the Bible says That is evil — James Chapter 2, 1–4. It's evil because you've made distinctions among yourselves based on worldly reasons. The Bible calls that partiality and it has no place in the church. That's of the world! Don't bring that in here.But showing honor is different, and it's different because of the reason we show honor. Paul says in verse 30. He says to show honor to Epaphroditus and to those like him because — he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. Do you see how that honor-metric is so different from the world's? It's so counter-cultural.We honor those in the church, not because of their jewelry and jackets, but because of their sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. In the church, we treat as the highest those whom the world would call the lowest. We have a cross-shaped honor-metric.The Cross-Shaped Honor-MetricTo bring this home, pretend for a minute that on a Sunday morning, Taylor Swift visited our church. That would be great! And you know we'd say to Taylor? We'd say: Welcome! You might be able to find a seat over there (that's what our ushers say).But, if Matthew and Kailie visited our church, whose last names I can't tell you, and where they live, I can't tell you — for security reasons — if they come here, we would try to find out days in advance, and we'd get here early and save a place for them to sit, and we'd throw a reception for them after the service so that you can greet them. We want to honor such people! — if we're listening to Paul.If we're listening to Paul, we show the most honor to those who most resemble the example of Jesus in Philippians 2:5–8. Honor Epaphroditus. Honor those like him — because he did not count comfort in the world a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being found as worthless in the eyes of the empire. He humbled himself by risking his life in the work of Christ. He was willing to die for the advance the gospel.The apostle Paul cares nothing about worldly prestige. He burned that scorecard (we're gonna see in Chapter 3). But he knew who truly deserved honor. That's part of his honesty.Okay, here's the last point. Third way we see Paul's honesty:3) Paul understood that death is still terrible.And I want to end on this point because of what our own church is going through in the loss of Kayla Rigney. I can't help but see the providence of God here, in that the topic of death is in today's passage after we just gathered yesterday to grieve in hope because of the death of Kayla.Look back at verse 25. Epaphroditus was not just a member of the church at Philippi who they commissioned out, but he had become dear to Paul. Paul calls him in verse 25, “my brother and fellow worker and fellow solider.” And notice that this is different from what Paul said about Timothy in verse 22. Paul said Timothy was like his son, but he calls Epaphroditus his brother.Now I think this is important, because technically Timothy was Paul's brother too — because all Christians, young and old, are sons and daughters of God and therefore fellow brothers and sisters. But Paul doesn't call Timothy his brother because he's not being technical, he's being personal. Personally, Timothy was like a son to Paul. Personally, Epaphroditus was like a brother. He was a colleague. He was Paul's fellow comrade in arms.And for Paul to say this about someone is a gushing commendation. The apostle Paul considered Epaphroditus to be a vital partner in his missionary work. And so already then, by verse 25, the church at Philippi would have read this, and it would have gotten their attention. Whatever they had been wondering at Epaphroditus, this would have set the record straight. Paul was vouching for him. Paul is saying Hey, Epaphroditus means a lot to me! And then he keeps going. Look at verse 26 again: “for he [Epaphroditus] has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death.”Paul confirms that Yes, Epaphroditus was sick — and he was so sick that he almost died. Verse 27 — But God had mercy on him.Does everybody see that in verse 27?What was this mercy? The mercy was that he did not die. Paul says that God had mercy on Epaphroditus by keeping him from death — and that wasn't just mercy on Epaphroditus, but Paul says it was also mercy on him, verse 27, “lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.” The death of Epaphroditus would have multiplied Paul's sorrow.So get this! Verse 27: Paul is saying that it's a mercy not to die and that death causes sorrow. But wait a minute Paul! Wait a minute! You just told us in Chapter 1, verse 21 that to die is gain! You said that it is far better to depart and to be with Christ! In Chapter 1 it sounds to me like the mercy is dying. But here in Chapter 2 the mercy is not dying! Which is it, Paul? Which is it?It's both. For the Christian, it is true that death is gain, because of where death takes you. Because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8), and to be in the physical presence of Jesus is better than anything we can imagine. For the Christian, death is never a tragedy in the technical sense because death is never the final ending, because “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). This means that death has been so overpowered by Jesus that he has actually made death to be our chauffeur into his joy. Because of what Jesus did, death is now the vehicle that carries us into amazing grace bright shining as the sun … Amen!That is now the ultimate result of death for Christians. That's why Paul says what he does in Chapter 1. This is why we grieve in hope. There's hope! Thanks be to God!And church, there's still grief.We can rejoice for where death takes us, but death itself, death as death, it's our worst enemy. Death is the last enemy to be finally destroyed, and until then, until Revelation 20:14, we should hate death. We should hate it. Nothing in this world hurts more than death. It causes sorrow, Paul says. And we know this, if we're being honest like Paul. You know this if you've suffered the death of people you love.Because death is the separation of things that should be united. Death robs us. Death robs us of so much that could be — of so much that should have been — with the people we love in this world. So yes, Jesus has defeated death — thank you, Jesus! — death is a defeated enemy! But it's not yet a destroyed enemy, and it's still an enemy. Paul understood that death is still terrible. And that's what brings us to the Table.The TableToday is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week — next Sunday is Easter.Easter would not be Easter unless death were terrible.That's what makes the cross of Christ so wonderful, see. The wages of sin is death, and that's precisely what Jesus set out to conquer. Jesus disarmed the worst that death could do to us by dying himself in our place. That's why death does not have the final word. Jesus has won victory. And we're gonna celebrate next Sunday! We have hope!But it's fitting to enter Holy Week grieving in hope. Jesus invites us to bring that heaviness to him.

We are about half way through the book of Philippians, and Paul has already packed a lot in. Over the next two weeks, we are going to look at instructions Paul gives regarding Timothy and Epaphroditus. This isn't just Paul taking a break, and getting some logistics out of the way. Rather than this being a nice bonus for the the Philippians, Paul's sending of these men is more integral to his care for them. This is actually at the heart of Paul ministry to the Philippians. And in the next few moments, I hope with God's help, to show you that in the text. The way our text is structured this morning is fairly straight forward. We see Paul say at the beginning and at the end stating what he wants to do, and he explains why in the middle.Verse 19,“I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you”In verses 20-22, he commends Timothy to them, and explains why Timothy is the guy to send.Verses 23-24,“I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust also in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.”I want to send Timothy to you, why? Because I have no one else like Timothy who cares for you all. Therefore I am excited to send Him to you, and trust Jesus that I will come soon as well.What Paul wants to do is clearly laid out, and we are going to spend the majority of our time developing the why in Paul's mind. Why is Timothy so valuable? And why does Paul see it as important to send him?We are going to do a lot of foundation work, to understand Paul's relationship to Timothy, which helps us in turn understand why he is eager to send him. So there are 3 answers to the “why” question we will cover this morning. Why does Paul want to send Timothy? 1) Because Paul was a father to Timothy.2) Because Timothy, was a son to Paul.3) Because being physically present matters.1) Paul was a father to Timothy (v.22).Verse 22, “But you know Timothy's proven worth, as how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel”This is how Paul characterizes his relationship with Timothy.What do fathers aim to do? Ephesians 6:4,“Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”It's at least that, not exhaustive but a good overall picture of what father's do.A father wants to live out a Godly life.A father wants to live out and pass along a Godly life (a Godly mission and vision).What I mean by mission, is what we are called by God to do or be. What are our lives supposed to be about?What I mean by vision, is what it looks like to actually live it out. This could be summarized as a way of life or a “manner of life.”Put together, it is a singular passion to help your sons have a: “manner of life worthy of the Gospel of Christ” (1:27). That is what Paul is trying to teach to the Philippians, and has taught to Timothy.Paul's goal in life was to live for the glory of God, and to live as an example of Christ, which is to walk worthy of the Gospel of Christ. So Paul having this Godly passion, lives it out for the good of others. And he does this, with a fatherly disposition. Let's look at a three basic pieces of what it looks like to pass along a passion in a fatherly way. Let's look at the fatherliness of Paul to Timothy.A father invites his son to join him in the work.A father invites his son into work that he is doing, he instructs his son in how to enter the work and share in it, and he works along side his son. They may not be doing the same exact thing at every point, but they are working together for a singular purpose. They are working together on something, not two different goals. The father is inviting the son to join him in a worthy passion and purpose. Fathers (& mother's) ought to have meaningful work to invite our children into.And Paul tells us what is most important, we don't need to find it on our own.For example, I was working along side my son, Jude. We were going to do some yard work. So I said to Jude, “I would like you to come outside and work hard to help me clean up the yard. Then if we get everything done and you listen well and are helpful, we can go to the store together and get some ice cream.” I'll help with toys, then leaves together, cut wood together, stack together, etc… (join me in the work).An example from Paul in Acts 16:1-5,“Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.”Paul is doing worthy work for the Glory of God and the sake of the Gospel, and he invites Timothy to enter into the work with him.A father is deeply invested in accomplishing his task.Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, contrasts his care for them with that of many others.1 Corinthians 4:15–16,“For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.”At minimum, there is an investment of care and concern Paul has for the Corinthians. There is a difference between a teacher and a parent. Paul's affections for the Philippians are poured all over his letter to them.Philippians 4:9,“What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me — practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”They are to practice things that have been displayed for them. They haven't just been taught, they have been modeled certain things.In my example of cutting wood, I did not give Jude the instruction manual, or buy him a book called “Chainsaw-ing for Dummies”. Dummies should probably stay away from chainsaws.I had him watch how I stood and what I did. I cautioned him, I told him how to shut it down, I carefully instructed him where to point it, and how to hold it. And if your stressing at this point, I firmly put my hands over his, so that he couldn't move them even if he tried.Great care is taken when things are important and have real consequences.An example from Paul,1 Timothy 4:15,“Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.”2 Timothy 2:2,“You then my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”Paul is working with Timothy, and is passing something along to Timothy.He is deeply invested because he is entrusting something to him. Entrusting the gospel and a manner of live = how to live, not just how to think.He know he won't always be there for Timothy, and I wont always be there to hold the chainsaw for Jude.That is the current case in Philippi, Paul just said “obey much more in my absence” (Phil 2:12).A father desires to reward His Son.It is a fathers delight to not only work with his son, and invest in his son, but to commend his son. To reward him with words of honor, or encouragement, or blessing, and sometimes also with ice cream. This is part of the whole thing. Back to the yard work… I told Jude to join me in the work, to work hard, I will help him and teach him, and if he does well, we will get ice cream. The ice cream wasn't just after the task, but it was part of the task. The father's job is not done yet just because the task is finished.To encourage and reward a son is the privilege and joy of the father. He delights in rewarding the son. And the “well done” from dad, is greater than the ice cream cone.That's what I did. I was a proud father, he worked really hard, and I told him that and there was joy in being able to reward him, and shared in the reward of ice cream as well.An example for Paul: Paul commends Timothy in the letter that Timothy helped him with. Philippians 2:20–23a,“For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon…”2) Timothy was a son to Paul (v.20-22).Paul was a good spiritual father to Timothy. We have seen the fatherliness of Paul. But, Paul's focuses in these verses is not mainly on how he was a father to Timothy, but how Timothy was a son to him. We may naturally think, Paul was such a good father to Timothy, but let us not miss what Paul says, that Timothy was such an amazing son to Paul.There is responsibility and blessing on both sides. This is a two sided relationship. Paul can only benefit Timothy as a father in so much as Timothy responds as a faithful son. Paul described himself as a father to the Corinthian church, in Galatians, in Philemon. He was fatherly by nature to many. But with Timothy he praises his sonliness to Paul: “My beloved and faithful child,” “my true child in the faith,” “as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.”Timothy was a model son to Paul in the gospel. Lets look at Timothy's life and how this came to be.It started at home with a physical lineage of faith.2 Timothy 1:5,“[Timothy], I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.”For all the talk of Paul being a spiritual father, Paul does not overlook his mother, and grandmother from whom he was not only a physical descendant, but a spiritual descendant.There is such a valuable investment of physical father and mothers, and Paul also wants us to have eyes to think of the spiritual family as well, and to consider a meaningful investment there as well.There is good reason to believe Timothy was taught and raised well, which was bearing fruit in his life and was a good foundation for him to remember and draw encouragement from.Timothy had displayed a pattern of faithfulness and was ready to receive instruction.Acts 16:1–5,“Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. A disciple was there, named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they went on their way through the cities, they delivered to them for observance the decisions that had been reached by the apostles and elders who were in Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith, and they increased in numbers daily.”Timothy took advantage of what was in front of him, he wasn't just sitting around. And when the opportunity came to join Paul in his work he gladly joined him and sacrificed for the work. As a son working with and learning from his father.A faithful father has a Godly passion that he wants to live out and pass on. And a faithful son, responds by embracing and participating in the Godly vision a father has laid out for him. The son responds with a heart that says: “If my father wants to instruct, then I want to learn.”Paul has laid out his heart and life before Timothy, and he is so bold to tell him to imitate him and follow his example. And Timothy does that very thing, He comes under Paul wing to learn the ways of Christ from him.For us: To be invested in by a spiritual mother or father is an immense blessing, and something good to desire. And Timothy didn't just sit around idle waiting for older help. He pursued Christ with the brothers around him. Most of our relationship will be brother to brother, sister to sister. We aren't guaranteed, nor are we entitled to the investment of a spiritual mother or father. May those type of relationships happen more and more, as God sees fit, and may we like Timothy, take whatever God has given us right now and make good use of it. Timothy having learned from Paul, now stands out uniquely as a partner in the gospel. Now Paul mentions three ways in which Timothy serves Paul so well as a son who is of one mind and spirit in Paul's passion.Verse 20, “For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.”Timothy has seen Paul's love and care for the Philippians, and he has the same passion.There is a sincere care and concern for them. This isn't just duty for Timothy, It isn't half-hearted or lip service. Traveling is not an inconvenience for Timothy, it is closer to a no-brainer, of course!Verse 21,“For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.”Paul contrasts Timothy with those around him. I don't think Paul is saying there are no other Christians around him, but that they have not learned, and are not living out the example of Christ, and the example of Paul.But Timothy is looking to the interests of Christ Jesus, which means he: “not only looks to his own interest, but also the interests of others”, and “in humility counts others more significant than himself.” His care for the Philippians is the interest of Christ.Timothy has been able to get his own interests and concerns out of the way, so that he can seek the interest of Christ, and genuinely, sincerely, care about the welfare of the Philippians.He doesn't need to carve out his own little niche of significance. He is content with serving the interest of Christ, by showing genuine concern for the Philippians and serving them in the gospel.Timothy is unique here, but what kind of uniqueness is this?“I have no one like Timothy”“They all seek their own interests”Is it a uniqueness like, “there is no one who can shoot a basketball like Steph Curry? Something that we have no chance of accomplishing even if we devoted our whole lives to it? No, its actually something that any Christian around Paul could be but they are not.1 Cor. 4:17,“That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.”Paul is a model for everyone, and he expects that you can and should imitate him.This is a commendation for Timothy and a convicting word for others. Would Paul, or would Jesus, find anyone like Timothy here? How are we doing? Can we get our own interests, and our striving for empty glory out of the way, to serve the interests of Christ by caring for the welfare of one another?Can we follow the example of Timothy, who was imitating Paul and Christ?Can we serve others, when it doesn't align also with our interests, or is inconvenient?Verse 22,“But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.”Last, Paul appeals to the fact that they already know this about Timothy. They should not need any convincing, because they themselves have witnessed Timothy's proven worth as a son to Paul and as a Godly example to them. Proven: tried and tested as he has spent time with Paul and time in Philippi. Timothy has learned Paul's ways, so that Paul can say if you imitate him you imitate me.To summarize where we are, we have covered two reasons why Paul wants to send Timothy to the saints in Philippi. 1) Because Paul has been a father to him and trained him in the gospel, and 2) because Timothy has been a proven son to Paul in the gospel. Both of these focus on why Timothy, and last here we will focus on why send anyone?3) Being physically present matters (v.19, 23-24).Paul values face to face interaction. It is so much more to him than a luxury, being with them gets at the very heart of his ministry. To see real faces, to shake real hands. Paul not only wants to send Timothy, but he wants to get there soon himself. As I mentioned at the beginning, sending Timothy isn't just icing on the cake, but is part of the completion of Paul's care to them. Paul, with Timothy, in this letter has laid out:His love and thankfulness for themHis singular mission in life “to live is Christ” (and labor for their good)That Christ is our substitute, and is also our exampleHe has commanded them to walk worthy of the gospel of Christ and work out their salvation with fear and tremblingAnd now he seeks to send a visible, tangible example to them (to put it all together)Paul sends Timothy to show them again what it is like to be united in mind and spirit, to in humility count others more significant, and to have the mind of Christ and walk worthy of the gospel of ChristPaul and Timothy want to go to the Philippians because: 1) They love them, he wants to hear good news and he anticipates joy from being with them again. 2) They are confident that the Lord is working in them, he is excited to see what the Lord has done, and he is excited to share about how he was delivered by their prayers. 3) And, because they want to be Christ to them, Paul wants to send more than words, it wasn't enough for Paul to just tell them about unity, and humility, and walking according to the gospel, he wanted to show them.Paul seems to think you can't just mail that, or stream it to one another.Face to face he wants to remind them that “what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.”The Philippians are starting to suffer for the gospel (1:29), and Paul wants to encourage them that God is working through it to advance the gospel, his life is a testimony of it and he wants to be there in person to further encourage and help them in the suffering that God is allowing among them.Sometimes, all a situation might need is a godly, mature example present. An example to help steady the ship, or right the ship. Paul is confident that through the grace of God, and the work of the Spirit, in tandem with Timothy as a living example of Christ, that the Philippian church will be united and strengthened under the gospel and be of one mind and one Spirit.In all of this, Paul goes to great pains to get there and care for them, because the salvation they have in Christ matters more than anything else. We have spent a bit of time this morning talking about horizontal relationship. Paul and Timothy's relationship. There connection and friendship with the Philippian church. But make no mistake, what animated Paul is the advance of the gospel for the glory and pleasure of His heavenly Father. In the gospel, we have a father that does everything we talked about at the beginning.“God [the father] so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”“[and] to all who did receive [Jesus], who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”And as a son or daughter of God, we have a father who has a mission to save and sanctify us. He works for us, and with us, and in us through His Spirit. And! He loves to reward His children. He works in us, so that he may in turn say to us “well done!” It is the joy of a father to be able to commend his son or daughter.It is your fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom.The TableThis table reminds us that Jesus died for our sins, so that by believing in Him we would become children of God and enjoy the smile of God the Father over us.

Welcome back to another dadcast.  Audio didnt turn out so well, I did try and make it sound better.  For all inquiries reach out to timonspodcast@gmail.com Act 15 The Jerusalem Council 1But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. 3So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. 5But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”The demand for salvation through circumcision was from Pharisee converts. This group became known as Judaizers. They taught that Gentiles had to become Jewish proselytes, following all the Mosaic laws, before they could receive salvation. They had a compelling argument because in Genesis chapters 12 and 15 God established an everlasting covenant with Abraham. Later in Genesis 17 God added the rite of circumcision to this earlier covenant. Circumcision was given to Abraham and every male descendant of his house forever. Look at Genesis 17:7 & 13-14: And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you... both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.” Notice that this sign is given to men only. However, this sign does not correlate with personal salvation. Remember, Abraham was righteous in God's sight before the covenant of circumcision was ever implemented (Galatians 3:6). The sign of circumcision was to accompany a heart that obeyed God. Circumcision was a national sign for the men of Israel, a mark to remind them of their commitment to serve God alone and no other. In the Old Testament, wives and daughters were set apart as unique because they were connected to a family where the men were circumcised – they were set apart along with their fathers and husbands for God's purposes. Circumcision made Israel different than all the nations that surrounded them. And this unique quality is what the Judaizers wanted to preserve. They insisted that circumcision remain obligatory, that all male Gentile believers must be required to keep it. The fact that Gentile believers were bypassing the Mosaic codes was perplexing and odious to the Pharisee converts. They felt that Paul was forsaking the Pentateuch and circumcision altogether. But Paul, who was trained as a Pharisee, disagreed with their position. He had been preaching salvation through faith in Jesus, not through the Mosaic Law. Look at what he proclaimed at Antioch in Acts 13:38-39: Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man [Jesus] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. And in Galatians 2:16: yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. And in Romans 2:28-29 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not bythe letter... Paul knew that circumcision did not necessarily birth salvation. Consider Israel's sordid history. It produced a myriad of circumcised males who rejected their own God. Salvation had always come to both men and women through a personal relationship and commitment to God. So what was circumcision even for? As I hinted earlier, it was a physical mark that reminded a man that he and his family belonged to a unique faith community. That community was supposed to train it's own populace to know and love the Lord and invite other nations to seek the Lord with them. Each Israelite man and his family had a God-given task to remain faithful to the Lord and their national calling. But it was up to each individual to choose to participate in that calling. Now let's tackle baptism. But why throw baptism into the mix? Because Paul argued that in the New Testament, baptism worked in a similar way that circumcision worked in the Old Testament. Look at Colossians 2:11-12: In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. First note, that believers are circumcised with a “circumcision made without hands.” This event occurs spiritually, inside a believer's heart. Second note, the circumcision of Christ frees us from our flesh, our sinful nature. It is very important to understand that it is not our commitment to Him; but, it is His commitment to us that brings salvation. He initiated the relationship. Third note, baptism symbolizes the war that Jesus won in Sheol: we are buried with Christ in the grave and we are raised with Christ into the heavenly realm. 1Peter 3:18-22 has much more to say about the connection between spiritual warfare and baptism. To put it another way, baptism is a non-physical sign that proves the “inner circumcision” of our heart. It is the New Testament sign of the Old Testament sign of circumcision. John the Baptist, Jesus and his disciples all baptized people as a sign of an inner working of faith residing in their hearts. Note also that baptism is not gender specific, both male and female believers were baptized. Again, circumcision and baptism do not save you, but they are supposed to be a representation of what you already believe. They are a membership card, so to speak, that you belong to Christ. Recap: 1 – Circumcision in Christ is an inward, spiritual event 2 – Circumcision in Christ brings freedom from the sinful nature 3 – Baptism relates to the burial and resurrection of Jesus from Sheol. 6The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe (he is referring to Acts 10 where Cornelius and his household received the Holy Spirit about 10 years earlier). 8And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith (their hearts were cleansed by faith, not the law). 10Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”12And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. 13After they finished speaking, James replied, (Notice that James, not Peter, is presiding over the council at Jerusalem. This is one reason, among several, why I object to the teaching that Peter was the first Pope.) “Brothers, listen to me. 14Simeon (his Jewish/Aramaic name) has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name. 15And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written, “‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.' James is quoting Amos 9:11-12 here. “After this” means that after the exile, God will do three important things. First, God would raise up the Messiah. This correlates to “David's fallen tent” because the kingship lineage of David had fallen into disarray after the exile. Jesus has corrected and fulfilled the ruins of David's kingship. Secondly, God would raise up a remnant of Israelites, who would seek God in truth. These are Messianic Jews; the 1st century Jewish prophets, evangelists and apostles that witnessed to the Gentile nations around them. This remnant of Jewish believers founded the Church and turned the world upside down. Third, God would raise up a new group of people that would follow the Messiah. This new group would consist of both Jew and Gentile believers. By the way, this refutes replacement theology which teaches that God has replaced Israel with the Gentile Church; not so, the “remnant” that became the church was a community of both Jewish and Gentile believers. In contrast, Jews and Gentiles who reject God, unbelievers, are the ones who fail to participate in God's purposes. Recap: 1 After the exile God would raise up the Messiah 2 – God would then raise up a faithful remnant of Jews who would seek the Messiah 3 – God would add to this group of Jewish believers a remnant of Gentiles who would seek the Messiah. 19Therefore (James is still speaking) my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” Verse 20 why does James list these four things in particular? Why not list all 613 Old Testament commands? Or why not list the really bad sins like a murder, adultery or stealing? Because James is recalling the “holiness codes” of Leviticus, especially chapters 17 – 23. Like circumcision, these codes were given exclusively to Israel to make them different than the nations around them. But there are three particular places in Leviticus where God includes restrictions on Israelites and Gentiles alike. He prohibits both groups from idol worship (17:8; 20:2); He prohibits both groups from sexual abominations (18:26); and He prohibits both groups from eating meat with the blood and in it (17:10-12). The fourth thing that James points out is avoiding strangled meat. I suspect that strangling an animal is prohibited because that kind of death would retain and congeal the blood of the animal inside of it. Which would be similar to consuming its blood [1] . These horrible practices were all connected to pagan rituals that summoned demons and fallen entities to that worship service. These rituals acted as a portal for the fallen realm to enter and inhabit the bodies and the physical territory of the worshipers. God wanted His people and His land to be a dwelling place for His righteous presence. So James' intention is to reiterate the long-term plans that God had for the remnant Jew/Gentile church long before its existence. A movement that had started after the Tower of Babel event. This was where the nations united against God, and then as a correction, He divided them. The nations were given over to angelic shepherds who ended up seducing them away from God, rather then shepherding them back to God (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). And so God raised up Abraham and his lineage to follow the Lord. Israel's job was to live as an exemplary culture so that the lost and pagan world would be attracted back to God. And the nation of Israel was also to produce the Messiah Who would one day unite and rule over all the nations. The Council's Letter to Gentile Believers 22Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas (note that the church didn't vote. Unity was reached by church leadership). They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions,(Although the issue of salvation through circumcision was settled here, this faction of Judaizers will continue to oppose Paul). 25it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. (Judas and Silas are sent along with the letter to the Gentiles as non-biased, second witness to the decision of the council). 28For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” 30So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. 31And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement. 32And Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, encouraged and strengthened the brothers with many words. 33And after they had spent some time, they were sent off in peace by the brothers to those who had sent them. 35But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also. Paul and Barnabas Separate 36And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark (who wrote the Gospel of Mark). 38But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work (Acts 13:13). 39And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, 40but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord. 41And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. The outset of this chapter begins with disagreement: the Judaizers against Paul and Barnabas. This resulted in the first church council to correct faulty doctrine. The chapter ends with disagreement between Paul and Barnabas. Many commentaries side with Paul. But I don't think we need to side with either Paul or Barnabas. I think it's okay to live with disagreement among the saints. This is reality. Notice that Scripture neither condemns nor commends either man. Nor does the Holy Spirit step in and correct either man. Let's wrap this up. In the Old Testament circumcision was the membership card into the Israelite community. The community was supposed to train you and nurture you in the things of God. The Judaizers insisted on continuing circumcision as a rite of entry into the Kingdom of God. Paul and the other apostles realized that God desired Jew and Gentile believers to have a “circumcised heart.” This was the fulfillment of Jeremiah's 600 year old prophecy (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Entrance into the Kingdom was about inward faith, not outward symbols. In letters of Paul he points out that in the New Testament baptism was the membership card, so to speak, for believers. The job of the church was to train and nurture its members in the things of God. But it was also understood that neither circumcision nor baptism could replace one's personal faith in Jesus. Today, our job in this church is to continue the work that God began after the Tower of Babel. God called Israel to be a light to the nations that had gone rogue. We are to be a remnant from every nation that has joined the family of God, grafted into that remnant of Jewish believers. Together we are to summon the nations back to the Lord. JCN 2/24 Lord please reveal to us Your ways. Reveal to us Your ancient paths. Rip open the veil of darkness that has been cast over the nations. Let the fullness of the Gentiles come in so that Your house is filled with every people, tribe, tongue and nation. 1 [1]As a side note, eating steak rare is not consuming blood. The juices of a slice of meat are mostly water and myoglobin. Myoglobin is a protein that turns red when exposed to oxygen.

There is a story about a baby eagle who fell out of his nest and into a chicken coop. As the little eagle grew up, he began to cluck like a chicken, strut like a chicken, think like a chicken. But every day he noticed the eagles soaring high in the sky, always sensing that he was meant for something more than the chicken coop, but never realizing who he really was. The difference between the eagles that soared and the one living in the chicken coop was his understanding of who he really was. I think the Christian can go through life in the same way. I said at the beginning of our series in Ephesians that Pauls epistle answers two questions for us: 1) What does it mean to be a Christian, and 2) what does it mean to be the Church. When it comes to your identity as a Christian, some of you may be living like you belong in the chicken coop. Think about what it means to be a Christian according to Ephesians 1:3-14. You, Christian, have all the spiritual blessings listed throughout Pauls magnificent sentence of more than 200 words! You, Christian, have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). You, Christian, have been predestined to be the adopted son/daughter of the living God through the redemption of Jesus Christ (vv. 5-7). You, Christian, have been completely pardoned of past, present, and future sins only because of the grace of God that has been lavished upon you as a result of the Fathers wrath that was lavished upon the Son for all of our wrongdoings (Eph. 1:8; 2:1-4). You, Christian, have an inheritance that will not fade with time, cannot be destroyed, and will never be stained by sin (v. 11). You, Christian, have been sealed by Gods Spirit as His guarantee of salvation that will be completed and the full experience of all Gods blessings that you will receive (vv. 13-14). You, Christian, are loved by the God of Isaiah 46:9-11, and you are the beneficiary of all His good pleasure. Christian, you were saved not for the sake of being saved, not for the forgiveness of your sins, not for a pain-free eternity in heaven, not for loved ones who preceded you in death, or for any other reason but for the purpose of knowing Christ, and by knowing Christ, you can know God. I can say this because of the first three words in Ephesians 1:15-23, which state the reason for why Paul prays, what Paul prays, and how Paul can pray for the Christians in Ephesus, and those three words are: For this reason Now, I know that these verses teach us something about how we can structure our prayers. I believe that the way Paul expressed his thanksgiving for the Ephesian Christians and why and how he prayed for them can serve as a model for how we can structure our prayers for one another, but that is not how I want to use our time this morning. What I want to do with our time together is glean what we learn from these verses. Why Paul Prays for the Christians (vv. 15-17) How do you follow one of the most majestic statements about the salvation of lost humanity found in Ephesians 1:1-14? You do it with Ephesians 1:15-23. The apostle Paul begins, For this reason. For what reason, Paul? For the reason contained in the over 200 words that make up Ephesians 1:1-14. For the reason that the Christian has been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). For the reason that the Christian has been predestined to be the adopted child of God the Father through the redemption of Jesus the Son (vv. 5-7). For the reason that the Christian has been fully pardoned of past, present, and future sins because of Jesus (Eph. 1:8; 2:1-4). For the reason that the Christian has an inheritance that will not fade with time, cannot be destroyed, and will never be stained by sin (v. 11). For the reason that the Christian has been sealed by the Holy Spirit as Gods guarantee of salvation and redemption that will one day be fully complete (vv. 13-14). For all of these reasons is the reason the apostle wrote of the Ephesian Christians that he did, not cease to give thanks for them, while making mention of them in his prayers (v. 16). Notice what the apostle says about these Christians against the backdrop of the first fourteen verses: having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints (v. 15). What did Paul hear about these Christians? He heard about their faith in Jesus and their love for one another while in prison. In other words, the reality of who these Christians were was expressed through the way they lived. Paul specifically and intentionally notes that the faith of these Christians was in more than facts they agreed with, but in the Lord Jesus and the evidence of their faith was seen in the way they treated each other. Because Paul heard of the faith and love of these Christians, he prayed for them, and what He prayed also teaches us something about what it means to be a Christian. Pauls prayer for these Christians is simple: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him (v. 17). Notice what it is that Paul does not pray for; he does not pray for more power, or success, or easy living, or any other thing but that God would give them, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. The wisdom and revelation Paul prayed for can only be given to them by God; this is why many theologians believe that the word, spirit is a reference to the Holy Spirit. Others believe that the word spirit is not a reference to the Holy Spirit but the spiritual part of us that lives on after the physical death of our bodies. Regardless of whose spirit Paul is referring to here, what is clear in light of the sealing of the Holy Spirit and His work in the life of the Christian (vv. 13-14), is that it is the Holy Spirit who enables our growth through the authority of the Word of God (revelation) when it is applied to the way we live our lives (wisdom). What does the Word of God (revelation), and its application (wisdom) to our lives, produce? It produces the kind of knowledge of God that Paul longed for in his own life as he expressed in Philippians 3:10-11, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. The same word Paul used in Philippians 3 for know (ginōskō), he also used in Ephesians 1:17. The Christian was saved by the grace of God to have a relationship with God and Pauls prayer is that the relationship would only deepen through a faith rooted in Jesus as Lord of their lives. What Paul Prays for the Christians (vv. 18-19a) In verses 15-17, Paul lists four character traits of those who have been saved and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; those character traits mark the person who has truly been born again, and they are as follows: A faith that is IN Jesus. A loyalty to the LORDSHIP of Jesus. A LOVE for those who belong to Jesus. A pursuit to KNOW Jesus. It is because of these character traits that Paul prays for a deepening knowledge of God that is intellectual, experiential, and emotional - because it is a knowledge that involves the mind, the will, and the heart. In verses 18-19, Paul unpacks what specifically he is praying for. His prayer is that the eyes of their hearts will be enlightened. What Paul is praying for is that the hearts of these Christians would see and understand what God has done for them. The word Paul uses for heart is kardia; he could have used a word for mind as he did in Philippians 2:5, Have this mind [proneō] in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Or Paul could have used a different word for mind that Luke used in his gospel to describe the way Jesus opened the minds of two disciples who were confused over the death and news of his resurrection: Then He opened their minds [nous] to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). However, Paul used the word kardia (heart), and he put an eye on it. What are eyes on a heart good for? They are good for seeing what God has done for you so that you can see the heavenly blessings listed in Ephesians 1:1-14, which are yours, and that you will know that they are yours not only with your mind but with your heart. Permit me to put it in a way you may understand more clearly. At the beginning of this series in Ephesians, I listed several truths that are rooted in the identity of the Christian. I said that if you are a Christian and your faith is in the Lord Jesus, then the following is true of you: You are saved by the will of God. You have the grace and peace of God. You have the blessing of God. You are redeemed to be holy and blameless before God. You are a son/daughter of God. You are favored by God. You are forgiven by God. You are rich in the grace of God. You now know God. You have a future with God. You are secure because of God. You are treasured by God. Listen, if you are a Christian, the reason why Paul does not pray for your adoption as a son/daughter, or for more salvation, or more purpose, or more of the inheritance, or more resurrection power, or more of the Holy Spirit is because they are already yours in Christ.What Paul prays for is the thing that we need, and what we need is to know (ginōskō) that they are ours in Christ (v. 17), and to know that they are ours is that they are ours; as you know it is the word used for when Abraham knew Sarah, but maybe what you have not considered is to have known her was to experienced her fully with a mind, a heart, and will that was bound to her as his wife.Paul uses uses a different word for know in verse 18 (oida) that also is the type of knowing that is tied to a persons experience: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know [oida].I will say more about this next week, but for now, I want to show you what specifically we are to know as Christians.Paul lists three blessings that he wants his Christian readers to know: 1) What is the hope of His calling, 2) what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance, and 3) what is the boundless greatness of His power.I will revisit these three whats that Paul mentions next week, but I will briefly mention what they mean for you now as a way to whet your appetite to come back next Sunday: The hope of His calling: The calling is the kind of thing Paul described in Ephesians 1:3-6 and 2:1-4. You were not looking for God because not only did you not know God, but you were also dead and unresponsive to God spiritually, and then He called you in the same way Jesus called Lazarus to come out of the tomb even though he had been dead for four days (see John 11:1-46). If you are a Christian, you are only a Christian because God called you by breaking into the tomb of your unbelief to give you life. God called you out of His great mercy to make you alive in Christ! The riches of His inheritance: Oh, this is so good, and I cant wait to unpack this with you next week, but for now, what I want you to know is that the inheritance is you Christian! I know this grammatically, but also because of what we read in verses 13-14, In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvationhaving also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of Gods own possession, to the praise of His glory. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit as, Gods own possession and because of what He has done to secure the salvation of wretched sinners through His own Son, we are now His inheritance! If you are a Christian, you are now Gods treasured child and because you are redeemed in Christ, what God sees is not a wretched sinner, but a treasure. The riches of His inheritance are that you are loved and given all the rights that come with being his treasured child. The knowledge of the boundless greatness of His power: The power is what we already have as those who have been called by God and belong to Him as His inheritance. What sort of power is it that we have? It is the power of the risen Christ. Paul tells us that this is the power that is ours in the rest of these verses: These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead (vv. 19b-20). Think about it, who can avoid the power of death? No one can, for death is coming for us all! Yet, there is One who conquered death, and the same power that conquered the grave is at work in you Christian! What Paul wants us to know with all our being is that because of our faith in Jesus as Lord, we are progressively moving from death to life. Because you are called by God and because you are His inheritance, the power of God is at work in and through you just as Paul described in Romans 8:11, But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. As one person wrote of this amazing promise that is for the Christian: This power is ours to witness, to overcome sin, to pursue holiness, to fight against the schemes of the Devil, and to have great faith for mission.[1] There is a magnet on my filing cabinet in my office with one of my favorite quotes from Jonathan Edwards that says, You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. The one who made your salvation possible is the One you were made to know through and in Jesus. If you really know that it is He who called you, that it is you who are now His inheritance and treasure, and that the power that raised Jesus to life is the same resurrection power at work in and through your life then dont you know that you will be with Christ with a resurrected body on a resurrected earth one day and while with Him, with 10 billion years behind us, we will still know only a joy that will increase with every moment we are with Him. Paul prays that we will live our lives in light of a knowledge that not only acknowledges and understands that truth; but with a knowledge that encounters that truth with the eyes of our hearts. [1] Tony Merida, Christ-Centered Exposition: Ephesians (Nashville, TN: Holman; 2014), p. 39.

There is a story about a baby eagle who fell out of his nest and into a chicken coop. As the little eagle grew up, he began to cluck like a chicken, strut like a chicken, think like a chicken. But every day he noticed the eagles soaring high in the sky, always sensing that he was meant for something more than the chicken coop, but never realizing who he really was. The difference between the eagles that soared and the one living in the chicken coop was his understanding of who he really was. I think the Christian can go through life in the same way. I said at the beginning of our series in Ephesians that Pauls epistle answers two questions for us: 1) What does it mean to be a Christian, and 2) what does it mean to be the Church. When it comes to your identity as a Christian, some of you may be living like you belong in the chicken coop. Think about what it means to be a Christian according to Ephesians 1:3-14. You, Christian, have all the spiritual blessings listed throughout Pauls magnificent sentence of more than 200 words! You, Christian, have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). You, Christian, have been predestined to be the adopted son/daughter of the living God through the redemption of Jesus Christ (vv. 5-7). You, Christian, have been completely pardoned of past, present, and future sins only because of the grace of God that has been lavished upon you as a result of the Fathers wrath that was lavished upon the Son for all of our wrongdoings (Eph. 1:8; 2:1-4). You, Christian, have an inheritance that will not fade with time, cannot be destroyed, and will never be stained by sin (v. 11). You, Christian, have been sealed by Gods Spirit as His guarantee of salvation that will be completed and the full experience of all Gods blessings that you will receive (vv. 13-14). You, Christian, are loved by the God of Isaiah 46:9-11, and you are the beneficiary of all His good pleasure. Christian, you were saved not for the sake of being saved, not for the forgiveness of your sins, not for a pain-free eternity in heaven, not for loved ones who preceded you in death, or for any other reason but for the purpose of knowing Christ, and by knowing Christ, you can know God. I can say this because of the first three words in Ephesians 1:15-23, which state the reason for why Paul prays, what Paul prays, and how Paul can pray for the Christians in Ephesus, and those three words are: For this reason Now, I know that these verses teach us something about how we can structure our prayers. I believe that the way Paul expressed his thanksgiving for the Ephesian Christians and why and how he prayed for them can serve as a model for how we can structure our prayers for one another, but that is not how I want to use our time this morning. What I want to do with our time together is glean what we learn from these verses. Why Paul Prays for the Christians (vv. 15-17) How do you follow one of the most majestic statements about the salvation of lost humanity found in Ephesians 1:1-14? You do it with Ephesians 1:15-23. The apostle Paul begins, For this reason. For what reason, Paul? For the reason contained in the over 200 words that make up Ephesians 1:1-14. For the reason that the Christian has been chosen before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless (v. 4). For the reason that the Christian has been predestined to be the adopted child of God the Father through the redemption of Jesus the Son (vv. 5-7). For the reason that the Christian has been fully pardoned of past, present, and future sins because of Jesus (Eph. 1:8; 2:1-4). For the reason that the Christian has an inheritance that will not fade with time, cannot be destroyed, and will never be stained by sin (v. 11). For the reason that the Christian has been sealed by the Holy Spirit as Gods guarantee of salvation and redemption that will one day be fully complete (vv. 13-14). For all of these reasons is the reason the apostle wrote of the Ephesian Christians that he did, not cease to give thanks for them, while making mention of them in his prayers (v. 16). Notice what the apostle says about these Christians against the backdrop of the first fourteen verses: having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints (v. 15). What did Paul hear about these Christians? He heard about their faith in Jesus and their love for one another while in prison. In other words, the reality of who these Christians were was expressed through the way they lived. Paul specifically and intentionally notes that the faith of these Christians was in more than facts they agreed with, but in the Lord Jesus and the evidence of their faith was seen in the way they treated each other. Because Paul heard of the faith and love of these Christians, he prayed for them, and what He prayed also teaches us something about what it means to be a Christian. Pauls prayer for these Christians is simple: That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him (v. 17). Notice what it is that Paul does not pray for; he does not pray for more power, or success, or easy living, or any other thing but that God would give them, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. The wisdom and revelation Paul prayed for can only be given to them by God; this is why many theologians believe that the word, spirit is a reference to the Holy Spirit. Others believe that the word spirit is not a reference to the Holy Spirit but the spiritual part of us that lives on after the physical death of our bodies. Regardless of whose spirit Paul is referring to here, what is clear in light of the sealing of the Holy Spirit and His work in the life of the Christian (vv. 13-14), is that it is the Holy Spirit who enables our growth through the authority of the Word of God (revelation) when it is applied to the way we live our lives (wisdom). What does the Word of God (revelation), and its application (wisdom) to our lives, produce? It produces the kind of knowledge of God that Paul longed for in his own life as he expressed in Philippians 3:10-11, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. The same word Paul used in Philippians 3 for know (ginōskō), he also used in Ephesians 1:17. The Christian was saved by the grace of God to have a relationship with God and Pauls prayer is that the relationship would only deepen through a faith rooted in Jesus as Lord of their lives. What Paul Prays for the Christians (vv. 18-19a) In verses 15-17, Paul lists four character traits of those who have been saved and redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; those character traits mark the person who has truly been born again, and they are as follows: A faith that is IN Jesus. A loyalty to the LORDSHIP of Jesus. A LOVE for those who belong to Jesus. A pursuit to KNOW Jesus. It is because of these character traits that Paul prays for a deepening knowledge of God that is intellectual, experiential, and emotional - because it is a knowledge that involves the mind, the will, and the heart. In verses 18-19, Paul unpacks what specifically he is praying for. His prayer is that the eyes of their hearts will be enlightened. What Paul is praying for is that the hearts of these Christians would see and understand what God has done for them. The word Paul uses for heart is kardia; he could have used a word for mind as he did in Philippians 2:5, Have this mind [proneō] in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus. Or Paul could have used a different word for mind that Luke used in his gospel to describe the way Jesus opened the minds of two disciples who were confused over the death and news of his resurrection: Then He opened their minds [nous] to understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:45). However, Paul used the word kardia (heart), and he put an eye on it. What are eyes on a heart good for? They are good for seeing what God has done for you so that you can see the heavenly blessings listed in Ephesians 1:1-14, which are yours, and that you will know that they are yours not only with your mind but with your heart. Permit me to put it in a way you may understand more clearly. At the beginning of this series in Ephesians, I listed several truths that are rooted in the identity of the Christian. I said that if you are a Christian and your faith is in the Lord Jesus, then the following is true of you: You are saved by the will of God. You have the grace and peace of God. You have the blessing of God. You are redeemed to be holy and blameless before God. You are a son/daughter of God. You are favored by God. You are forgiven by God. You are rich in the grace of God. You now know God. You have a future with God. You are secure because of God. You are treasured by God. Listen, if you are a Christian, the reason why Paul does not pray for your adoption as a son/daughter, or for more salvation, or more purpose, or more of the inheritance, or more resurrection power, or more of the Holy Spirit is because they are already yours in Christ.What Paul prays for is the thing that we need, and what we need is to know (ginōskō) that they are ours in Christ (v. 17), and to know that they are ours is that they are ours; as you know it is the word used for when Abraham knew Sarah, but maybe what you have not considered is to have known her was to experienced her fully with a mind, a heart, and will that was bound to her as his wife.Paul uses uses a different word for know in verse 18 (oida) that also is the type of knowing that is tied to a persons experience: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know [oida].I will say more about this next week, but for now, I want to show you what specifically we are to know as Christians.Paul lists three blessings that he wants his Christian readers to know: 1) What is the hope of His calling, 2) what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance, and 3) what is the boundless greatness of His power.I will revisit these three whats that Paul mentions next week, but I will briefly mention what they mean for you now as a way to whet your appetite to come back next Sunday: The hope of His calling: The calling is the kind of thing Paul described in Ephesians 1:3-6 and 2:1-4. You were not looking for God because not only did you not know God, but you were also dead and unresponsive to God spiritually, and then He called you in the same way Jesus called Lazarus to come out of the tomb even though he had been dead for four days (see John 11:1-46). If you are a Christian, you are only a Christian because God called you by breaking into the tomb of your unbelief to give you life. God called you out of His great mercy to make you alive in Christ! The riches of His inheritance: Oh, this is so good, and I cant wait to unpack this with you next week, but for now, what I want you to know is that the inheritance is you Christian! I know this grammatically, but also because of what we read in verses 13-14, In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvationhaving also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of the promise, who is a first installment of our inheritance, in regard to the redemption of Gods own possession, to the praise of His glory. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit as, Gods own possession and because of what He has done to secure the salvation of wretched sinners through His own Son, we are now His inheritance! If you are a Christian, you are now Gods treasured child and because you are redeemed in Christ, what God sees is not a wretched sinner, but a treasure. The riches of His inheritance are that you are loved and given all the rights that come with being his treasured child. The knowledge of the boundless greatness of His power: The power is what we already have as those who have been called by God and belong to Him as His inheritance. What sort of power is it that we have? It is the power of the risen Christ. Paul tells us that this is the power that is ours in the rest of these verses: These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead (vv. 19b-20). Think about it, who can avoid the power of death? No one can, for death is coming for us all! Yet, there is One who conquered death, and the same power that conquered the grave is at work in you Christian! What Paul wants us to know with all our being is that because of our faith in Jesus as Lord, we are progressively moving from death to life. Because you are called by God and because you are His inheritance, the power of God is at work in and through you just as Paul described in Romans 8:11, But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. As one person wrote of this amazing promise that is for the Christian: This power is ours to witness, to overcome sin, to pursue holiness, to fight against the schemes of the Devil, and to have great faith for mission.[1] There is a magnet on my filing cabinet in my office with one of my favorite quotes from Jonathan Edwards that says, You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. The one who made your salvation possible is the One you were made to know through and in Jesus. If you really know that it is He who called you, that it is you who are now His inheritance and treasure, and that the power that raised Jesus to life is the same resurrection power at work in and through your life then dont you know that you will be with Christ with a resurrected body on a resurrected earth one day and while with Him, with 10 billion years behind us, we will still know only a joy that will increase with every moment we are with Him. Paul prays that we will live our lives in light of a knowledge that not only acknowledges and understands that truth; but with a knowledge that encounters that truth with the eyes of our hearts. [1] Tony Merida, Christ-Centered Exposition: Ephesians (Nashville, TN: Holman; 2014), p. 39.

What does the Bible say about speaking in tongues? There is so much controversy and disagreement, why didn't Paul just outline exactly what it was and how to do it? Because Paul was not concerned with rules; he was concerned with the Gospel. The real question is this: how are you going to make the Gospel clearer to the world around you? This week, Pastor Taylor Gabbert discusses making the Gospel Clear in 1 Corinthians 4:1-19. Get Connected! https://linktr.ee/reachtulsa

I love Paul's prayer. I often pray Paul's prayers. My favorite is Ephesians 3:14-21. An amazing prayer. I've memorized it and pray it often. BUT Colossians 1:9-14 is a pretty good prayer too! It's a prayer that Paul is praying for his friends. He is so proud of them, they are doing so well in Christ and for Christ on mission. In fact, there are doing so well,  that Paul develops this deep sense of urgency for them. He says, "For this reason, because what God is doing in you and through you is so good, I can't stop praying for you. I'm continually asking God to fill you up so that you may live a life that is worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way. So why The Urgency? They've got so much faith, love and hope that Paul is thanking God. But still, he can't stop praying for them all the time. Why?Because Paul believes there is absolutely nothing  more important than living a life that is worthy of Christ...a life that brings a smile to Christ's face, a life on mission!

Tuesday, 31 October 2023   “What then? The assembly must certainly meet, for they will hear that you have come. Acts 21:22   The words of this verse are significantly different based on the source text used –   LSV: ...what then is it? Certainly the multitude must come together, for they will hear that you have come.   LET: What is it then? Certainly they will hear that you have come.   In the previous verse, James and the elders noted that the multitude of believing Jews had heard that Paul was teaching apostasy from Moses and the customs of the people. Now, their words continue, beginning with, “What then?”   These words are given as an introduction concerning what is sure to occur and what should be done about it. Today, we might say, “Whadaya think? It is sure to be, and so what to do about it...” These leaders of the church are preparing, in advance, to avoid any problems that may arise from the rumors that had been spread about Paul and his teachings. With that, they next say, “The assembly must certainly meet.”   The word “assembly” is better rendered “multitude.” There would be a large gathering of people simply because Paul was such a hot topic. He would have the nonbelieving Jews attacking him because of his faith in Jesus. He would have the Judaizers attacking him because he taught the Gentiles that they were not obligated to Moses. And more, He taught all that Jesus was the fulfillment of the law.   Therefore, even if he never told a Jew to not observe Moses and the customs, the inevitable truth was that they were freed from such bondage. What they were doing by continuing to observe the law was as pointless as remaining in prison after one's sentence was complete. His letters to the Gentiles could very easily be twisted to fit any situation they wanted to stir up. And this is exactly what Peter warned about –   “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” 2 Peter 3:14-16   Any law-observing Jew, whether believer or unbeliever, could read his words, twist them, and use them against him, charging him with apostasy. Because he is now in Jerusalem, there would be little doubt that an angry crowd would be just around the corner. This is exactly what is implied in the next words, which say, “for they will hear that you have come.”   It was inevitable that the word would get out. It was the time of the feast. The people who had argued against Paul in Acts 15:1 & 2 would be there. His old associates from the Pharisees before his conversion would be there, etc. It wasn't a question whether it would become known or not. Rather, it was a matter of just how soon until it took place. With a list of enemies a mile long and growing by the day, it would be easy to stir up the multitudes against him.   Life application: Peter's words about Paul still resound today. There are those that take the words of this chapter and other parts of Acts and adamantly state that Paul always observed the Law of Moses. They then essentially say, “Because Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles, and because he faithfully observed the law, it then logically follows that his adherents must also follow the Law of Moses.”   Rather, Paul explicitly denies this time and again in his writings. But to the unlearned, fear tactics are used to lead them away from the truth and directly into the very bondage that Christ Jesus came to free people from. Take time to read Colossians 2:11-23 today.   When he writes about “the handwriting of the requirements” in verse 14, he is writing about the Law of Moses. When he writes about food, drink, festivals, new moons, and sabbaths, he is writing about various things required under the law and within the customs of Israel.   Christ has freed us from these things. Don't let anyone steal the prize from you. Jesus offers grace. If you choose law, you reject Jesus. Hold fast to the grace of God which is found in the completed work of Jesus Christ our Lord.   Lord God, we are all susceptible to being led astray by those who desire control over us. Please guide us in understanding Your word so that we will be able to spot when such people come against us. May we be clear in our thinking so that we are faithful in our lives and sound in our doctrine. Yes, Lord God, lead us for Your name's sake. Amen.

Register for the conference: https://trinityreformedkirk.com/tentmaking/ The Apostle Paul was not only the best-educated apostle, and one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of the world, he was a tradesman. He made tents for a living. It was the perfect trade for a man on the road. In 1 Corinthians 9 he made the case for making a living from the gospel, yet he didn’t take advantage of his right to do so. He even said, “But I have made no use of (my) rights, nor am I writing these things to you to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.” (1 Cor. 9:15) Could you say that? Would you like to be able to? Because Paul was able to support himself financially he enjoyed the sort of freedom that many pastors today can only dream of. But not all pastors. There are a few who even today enjoy the sort of freedom Paul boasted of. And they’ve done it while seeing their ministries actually prosper because of it. Would you like to learn how? Join us, October 17th in Huntsville, Alabama to hear more.

Register for the conference: https://trinityreformedkirk.com/tentmaking/ The Apostle Paul was not only the best-educated apostle, and one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of the world, he was a tradesman. He made tents for a living. It was the perfect trade for a man on the road.  In 1 Corinthians 9 he made the case for making a living from the gospel, yet he didn't take advantage of his right to do so. He even said, “But I have made no use of (my) rights, nor am I writing these things to you to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.” (1 Cor. 9:15) Could you say that? Would you like to be able to?  Because Paul was able to support himself financially he enjoyed the sort of freedom that many pastors today can only dream of. But not all pastors. There are a few who even today enjoy the sort of freedom Paul boasted of. And they've done it while seeing their ministries actually prosper because of it. Would you like to learn how? Join us, October 17th in Huntsville, Alabama to hear more.

Register for the conference: https://trinityreformedkirk.com/tentmaking/ The Apostle Paul was not only the best-educated apostle, and one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of the world, he was a tradesman. He made tents for a living. It was the perfect trade for a man on the road. In 1 Corinthians 9 he made the case for making a living from the gospel, yet he didn’t take advantage of his right to do so. He even said, “But I have made no use of (my) rights, nor am I writing these things to you to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.” (1 Cor. 9:15) Could you say that? Would you like to be able to? Because Paul was able to support himself financially he enjoyed the sort of freedom that many pastors today can only dream of. But not all pastors. There are a few who even today enjoy the sort of freedom Paul boasted of. And they’ve done it while seeing their ministries actually prosper because of it. Would you like to learn how? Join us, October 17th in Huntsville, Alabama to hear more.

Register for the conference: https://trinityreformedkirk.com/tentmaking/ The Apostle Paul was not only the best-educated apostle, and one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of the world, he was a tradesman. He made tents for a living. It was the perfect trade for a man on the road. In 1 Corinthians 9 he made the case for making a living from the gospel, yet he didn’t take advantage of his right to do so. He even said, “But I have made no use of (my) rights, nor am I writing these things to you to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.” (1 Cor. 9:15) Could you say that? Would you like to be able to? Because Paul was able to support himself financially he enjoyed the sort of freedom that many pastors today can only dream of. But not all pastors. There are a few who even today enjoy the sort of freedom Paul boasted of. And they’ve done it while seeing their ministries actually prosper because of it. Would you like to learn how? Join us, October 17th in Huntsville, Alabama to hear more.

Register for the conference: https://trinityreformedkirk.com/tentmaking/ The Apostle Paul was not only the best-educated apostle, and one of the most influential intellectuals in the history of the world, he was a tradesman. He made tents for a living. It was the perfect trade for a man on the road. In 1 Corinthians 9 he made the case for making a living from the gospel, yet he didn’t take advantage of his right to do so. He even said, “But I have made no use of (my) rights, nor am I writing these things to you to secure any such provision. For I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of my ground for boasting.” (1 Cor. 9:15) Could you say that? Would you like to be able to? Because Paul was able to support himself financially he enjoyed the sort of freedom that many pastors today can only dream of. But not all pastors. There are a few who even today enjoy the sort of freedom Paul boasted of. And they’ve done it while seeing their ministries actually prosper because of it. Would you like to learn how? Join us, October 17th in Huntsville, Alabama to hear more.

Thursday, 3 August 2023   so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Acts 19:12   The previous verse noted the unusual (not matched) miracles that God worked through Paul. The account of that now continues, saying, “so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought.”   The word translated as handkerchief, soudarion, is seen for the last of four times in this verse. It is “Of Latin origin; a sudarium (sweat cloth). i.e. Towel (for wiping the perspiration from the face, or binding the face of a corpse) -- handkerchief, napkin” (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance).   The word translated as apron, simikinthion, is found only here. It is also “Of Latin origin; a semicinctium or half-girding, i.e. Narrow covering (apron) – apron” (Strong's Exhaustive Concordance).   Both of these were probably items that Paul used while working his trade as a tentmaker. He would be working and sweating, so he would use the handkerchief. He would also be wearing the apron while doing his cutting and sewing to protect his regular garments as is common with any such skilled laborer. These were brought “from his body.”   It is another word found only here in Scripture, chrós. It signifies the surface of the body, the skin. Despite this, Vincent's Word Studies notes that in medical language it was used as a reference to the body itself. The same terminology is used even today in a negative way when one might say, “That guy is just wasted skin.” It speaks of the whole person, represented by the skin covering. These were carried from his body and were taken “to the sick.”   The reason for this is probably as simple as a token of acknowledgment. Paul is working, maybe finishing an order for a customer. Someone comes up to him and says, “We have a sick person that we would like you to come and pray over.” Paul may have then said, “Give me forty-five minutes. I am on the final stitching of this tent and the man is waiting to take it.” With that, the disciple says, “Don't worry about it, Sir, just give me your handkerchief. I'll take it to the person.”   Luke, being a physician, highlights such activities, knowing that they were certainly of a miraculous nature. The unusual workings here would be a sign to those in the synagogue and a means of edification for those at Tyrannus. This care for the sick would not be unlike what happened during Jesus' ministry –   “Then Jesus went with them. And when He was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying to Him, ‘Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to You. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, “Go,” and he goes; and to another, “Come,” and he comes; and to my servant, “Do this,” and he does it.'” Luke 7:6-8   The centurion knew that God was working through Jesus. He simply asked for a token, a word, knowing that was all that was needed. Likewise, the disciples knew that God was working through Paul as just stated in the previous verse. If this was so, then it wasn't Paul at all that accomplished the healing. He was simply the material cause (as described in the previous verse). As this was so, then God could work just as easily through his sweaty napkin as He could through his physical presence.   Thus, this was to demonstrate to the person that God approved of Paul's ministry and that He was working through Paul in a real way to bring glory to Himself. In Paul's case, he was proclaiming Jesus as Lord (verse 10). Therefore, God was being glorified in Christ Jesus (the final cause) through Paul's ministry.   This was being carried out by God (the efficient cause, which was the Lord's presence) through Paul's articles of trade (which were the material cause as being connected to Paul). With this understood, it next says, “and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them.”   These actions are the formal cause, the design. They are the miracles that occurred. The people could see or personally experience the events taking place and know, without any doubt at all, that God had accomplished these things, that they were done through Paul, and thus Paul's ministry was validated through what occurred. Because Paul's ministry proclaimed the Lord Jesus, God was glorified in Christ by the events that took place.   Life application: Quite often, the words of 1 Peter 2:24 are used to justify healing of people today, “by whose stripes you were healed.” Sometimes, the person who calls out those words will also pretend that God is working through him to bring about healing. Often, televangelists and others will send healing cloths, healing water, etc., to people, claiming that they have this same special power as seen in Acts 19.   The words of 1 Peter 2:24 are not intended to be used in this manner. The obvious question for all believers to consider is “Healed of what?” What healing is Peter referring to? Is it healing from the sniffles? Is it healing from cancer? Is it healing from any other body ailments? The answer is “No” to all of them. The whole verse says, “...who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”   Peter referred to sin and only sin. The highly inappropriate nature of claiming physical healing based on the words of either Isaiah 53:5, or 1 Peter 2:24, is obvious. Healing from the effects of sin, such as sickness, anxiety, trouble, and death, may come about through prayer and/or right living, or it may only come about when the believer is translated to glory. But claiming physical healing of any type based on the words of Peter is not only poor doctrine, it is a false teaching which leads hopeful believers into sad paths of dejection and turmoil when they are not healed of the physical affliction they fervently desire to be healed of.   Paul was used as an instrument of healing to validate his ministry. The words of Luke have been recorded. The ministry stands validated through Scripture. There is no longer a need to validate Paul's ministry in this manner. Today, preachers and teachers are to be evaluated based on adherence to the word of God. There is no need for external validations of their ministries, and none will be provided.   Claiming healing in such ways can only lead to false expectations and weakened faith in those who are not healed. We can pray for healing and hope for it to come about, but we should never be so presumptuous as to claim it. We do not possess that authority. The word is written, and we are to live by faith in what is documented there.   The amazing part of what is conveyed to us in Scripture is that God took our pain and our suffering and placed it on His own precious Son. The healing we receive because of His cross is spiritual and it is eternal. We have new life because of the work of Jesus Christ.  Praise God in the highest for what He has done for us in the giving of Jesus Christ our Lord.   Thank You, O Lord, for the wonderful blessing of Jesus and the healing He provides. Through Him and through His suffering, we are healed of our state of corruption and death, and we now have new life through Him. How precious it is to be called a son of the Living God because of His terrible trials! May we never forget what He went through to restore us to You. Thank You for Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

2 Thessalonians 3:1 As Paul brings this letter to the Thessalonians to a close, we see his heart. He asks them to pray for him. He doesn't give any details about specific personal needs, but he asks that the Lord's message would spread rapidly. A literal translation of the Greek would be “that the word of the Lord may run”. Because Paul so often used athletic imagery, he was almost certainly trying to convey his desire that the good news should be spread as quickly and effectively as possible. He longed for the message to be respected and accepted by as many people as possible. That's what had happened when he visited Thessalonica and he was eager that it should happen in the same way in the much tougher context of Corinth, from which he was writing this letter. I believe that we need to be praying today with a new urgency “that the word of the Lord may run”. It's all too easy for us to accept our multi-faith society and lose our passion for sharing the good news of Jesus. We are absolutely called to show grace and generosity to people of other religions. And it is good that we get to know them, befriend them and embrace opportunities to work alongside them. But, at the same time and out of deep love for them, we are called to be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to die on a cross that they might experience his forgiveness and new life. When we pray for one another, it is good that we should keep the focus on spreading the good news. Let's pray that we will all become more urgent in our evangelism and increasingly eager to see the word of the Lord run throughout society. QUESTION What do you find the biggest challenges to sharing your faith with others? PRAYER Lord God, I ask you to give me a renewed determination to share your good news with those I meet each day. Amen

Paul in Philippi: As the Apostle Paul ventures into Europe on his second missionary journey, he encounters three very different types of people — a wealthy woman of status named Lydia, a spiritually oppressed slaved girl, and a Roman jailer. All three experience the saving power of God in Jesus' name, highlighting a simple lesson: Everybody needs Jesus. Recorded on May 28, 2023, on Acts 16:11-34 by Pastor David Parks. The Life of Paul is a new sermon series (mostly) from the book of Acts in the Bible. The Apostle Paul has a fantastic story. Born Saul of Tarsus, Paul was a brilliant young man who was a violent persecutor of Christians. But then he met Jesus, which changed everything. Eventually, Paul would become not only the preeminent Apostle to the Roman world but one of the most influential people who ever lived. Paul's story offers a great case study of what it looks like to learn the way of Jesus. Sermon Transcript The theme of our preaching ministry this year (which runs through the end of June) has been Learning the way of Jesus. And today, we're continuing a sermon series on the life of the Apostle Paul. And we're using Paul's story as a case study for learning the way of Jesus. Because Paul was born Saul of Tarsus, a brilliant young man who was a violent persecutor of Christians. But then, when he was about 25, Paul met Jesus, and he became a Christian, which set his life on a completely different path. By his early 40s, Paul had served for a time as a leader of the vibrant, growing church in Antioch before being sent out as a missionary with his coworker, Barnabas, and their young helper, John Mark. They had a successful trip to the island of Cyprus (with the exception that John Mark bailed and went back home), but Paul and Barnabas continued into modern-day Turkey before coming back to their home base of Antioch. We saw most of this first missionary journey last week in Acts 13, and just a reminder that if you've missed any of the sermons in this series, you can always go back and watch on the Church Center App or on YouTube. Well, today, we're picking up the story of Paul's second missionary journey. But for the next few weeks, we'll consider his work in several notable cities, including Philippi (today), Athens (next week), and then, on his third journey, to Ephesus. But today, in Philippi, we'll see Paul and his team have remarkable success but also cause such a disruption they get beaten up by a mob and thrown into prison. Now, in some ways, this is just normal life for Paul. But through it all, we see a remarkable poise; we see that Paul has this unusual ability to have joy (and literally keep singing!), even as life seems to be crumbling around him. This joy, regardless of his circumstances, is exactly the theme of his letter to the Philippians Paul would write later — when he was in prison once again. If you have a Bible/app, please take it and open it to Acts 16:11. We'll put the Scripture up on the screens for you as well. But today, we'll start with a little intro passage for context. And then we'll encounter three people in Philippi who are saved by God: first a powerful woman named Lydia, then a slave girl, and then a Roman jailer. Let's start with the intro: Acts 16:11-12 (NIV), “11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.” So again, this is the second missionary journey of the Apostle Paul. But one detail we haven't mentioned yet is that when leaving for this journey, Paul and Barnabas had a serious problem. At the end of Acts 15, Luke writes, “They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord.” (Ac 15:39-40) Relationships are hard for everyone,...

Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles: The spiritual awakening at Antioch produced two things: generosity toward the poor and a heart for the lost. As a result, Paul and Barnabas were sent out to bring the gospel to other people and places. They traveled to Cyprus and then to Pisidian Antioch and shared the word of God with a demonstration of spiritual power — and both Jews and Gentiles responded in faith. Paul was sent by the Spirit with power from the Spirit to all peoples. Recorded on May 21, 2023, on Acts 12:25 - 13:48 by Pastor David Parks. (Apologies for the loss of about 10 seconds of audio!!) The Life of Paul is a new sermon series (mostly) from the book of Acts in the Bible. The Apostle Paul has a fantastic story. Born Saul of Tarsus, Paul was a brilliant young man who was a violent persecutor of Christians. But then he met Jesus, which changed everything. Eventually, Paul would become not only the preeminent Apostle to the Roman world but one of the most influential people who ever lived. Paul's story offers a great case study of what it looks like to learn the way of Jesus. Sermon Transcript The theme of our preaching ministry this past year has been Learning the way of Jesus. And today, we're continuing a sermon series on the life of the Apostle Paul. Now, Paul's story is fascinating, but for us today, it serves as a great case study for learning the way of Jesus. Because Paul was born Saul of Tarsus, a brilliant young man who was a violent persecutor of Christians. But then Paul met Jesus, which changed everything. He became a Christian and had to relearn everything in light of the way of Jesus. In our passage today, it's about 15 years after Paul became a Christian. He's in his early 40's and has been serving the church in Antioch (about 450 miles north of Jerusalem) for a year with his friend, Barnabas, during a great period of spiritual renewal/awakening. We looked at this time last week, and we called it an unexpected outpouring of grace. For the first time, a large number of Jews and Gentiles had believed the gospel and started following Jesus. As we said, this doesn't really mean anything to us, but in their day, this was a radical change. There was a wall of separation (social/cultural/ethnic/religious) between Jew and Gentile and now they saw themselves as brothers and sisters in the same church because of Jesus. Maybe the closest thing to this for us today would be hearing that there was a church where people on the extreme political left and right were actively loving each other and seeing themselves as brothers and sisters because of Jesus. That would be unusual, right? Maybe unusual enough to seem suspicious? I'm sure that's how many people felt about Antioch. But that's what God was doing. Well, today, we'll see what happened next. And what happened next was that this gospel-centered, Jew and Gentile uniting, radically new thing that God was doing in Antioch — that started to spread. In fact, as it spread around the Roman Empire, the world would never be the same. If you have a Bible/app, please take it and open it to Acts 12:25. We'll put the Scripture up on the screens for you as well. But today, we'll work through this passage in three sections. First, sent by the Spirit. Second, sent with power from the Spirit. And third, sent to all peoples. Acts 12:25-13:3 (NIV), “25 When Barnabas and Saul had finished their mission, they returned from Jerusalem, taking with them John, also called Mark. 13 Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.” Ok! Let's pause here. So when Luke writes that Barnabas and Saul had fin...

Paul Carpenter is one of those rare people you meet that makes an impact on your life immediately.He's real, he's direct, and he's usually spot on.Paul is like most of us - we've seen the ups and downs in life.However, Paul's ability to take his learnings and lessons and morph them into content that helps others is rare.Why is it rare? Because Paul's goal is to serve first.I've experienced this service. I've also benefited.Paul's coaching business has flourished because he's lived his lessons and his purpose is to serve others.And it's valuable, so people are happy to pay, and benefit.Listen, learn, ask Paul for help, he'll listen...Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/eating-crow. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Full Text of ReadingsFeast of Saint Mark, evangelist Lectionary: 555The Saint of the day is Saint MarkSaint Mark's Story Most of what we know about Mark comes directly from the New Testament. He is usually identified with the Mark of Acts 12:12. When Saint Peter escaped from prison, he went to the home of Mark's mother. Paul and Barnabas took him along on the first missionary journey, but for some reason Mark returned alone to Jerusalem. It is evident, from Paul's refusal to let Mark accompany him on the second journey despite Barnabas's insistence, that Mark had displeased Paul. Because Paul later asks Mark to visit him in prison, we may assume the trouble did not last long. The oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels, the Gospel of Mark emphasizes Jesus's rejection by humanity while being God's triumphant envoy. Probably written for gentile converts in Rome—after the death of Peter and Paul sometime between A.D. 60 and 70—Mark's Gospel is the gradual manifestation of a “scandal”: a crucified Messiah. Evidently a friend of Mark—calling him “my son”—Peter is only one of this Gospel's sources, others being the Church in Jerusalem (Jewish roots), and the Church at Antioch (largely Gentile). Like another Gospel writer Luke, Mark was not one of the 12 apostles. We cannot be certain whether he knew Jesus personally. Some scholars feel that the evangelist is speaking of himself when describing the arrest of Jesus in Gethsemane: “Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked” (Mark 14:51-52). Others hold Mark to be the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Venice, famous for the Piazza San Marco, claims Mark as its patron saint; the large basilica there is believed to contain his remains. A winged lion is Mark's symbol. The lion derives from Mark's description of John the Baptist as a “voice of one crying out in the desert” (Mark 1:3), which artists compared to a roaring lion. The wings come from the application of Ezekiel's vision of four winged creatures to the evangelists. Reflection Mark fulfilled in his life what every Christian is called to do: proclaim to all people the Good News that is the source of salvation. In particular, Mark's way was by writing. Others may proclaim the Good News by music, drama, poetry, or by teaching children around a family table. Saint Mark is the Patron Saint of: NotariesVenice Learn more on Saint Mark! Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston,or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens or youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston. And whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is truly my honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. So this week we're kind of in between series, and so the pastors gave me the opportunity to preach something that is on my heart and it's a message about hope. I'm calling it, Praying for Hope. We're going to be spending most of our time in the text in Ephesians. And my wife and I recently had just gone through Ephesians, and so this is something I've been thinking about, been meditating on. But even before then, this idea that we're going to see and expound upon in this text is something that God has been working in my own heart, challenging me, growing me in, and I think it's something that will benefit the church as a whole. So we're going to see what does God mean? What does God call us to pray for? But what does it mean to pray for hope in our lives and in the church in general? So before we get started, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We are so thankful that we get to be here today to hear your word, to learn from you, to know you more. So Lord, we ask that in this time that you speak to us through your word, that you use me to proclaim the truth of your word for all of us. And you challenge us, you soften our hearts to see the reality of who you are and how you are working in our lives. So Lord, we thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, we will be in Ephesians 1:15-23. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you could follow along on the screens behind me, but I'll read the whole thing and then we'll get started. So Ephesians 1:15 says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative, infallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in kind of three points today. The three points are actually one sentence and the third point of that sentence has three subpoints. So just to throw some chaos and difficulty into things. But the one sentence that I want you guys to take away from this is the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. And the reason why the church should do that is to have hope, to recognize riches, and to perceive power. So that's what we're going to be spending our time in today. And so if you're like, "Wow, Tyler normally goes a long time with three points, and now He has three and three subpoints," I want to encourage you points one and two are on one page. So we'll get through those real quick. We'll spend most of the time on point number three. But point number one, the church, this is verse 15. Verse 15 says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints..." Who is Paul addressing here? He is addressing the church. Well, he's clarifying how he knows it's the church that he's speaking to. It's the people that have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. This is the very basics, the very fundamental definition of the church. It's those, it's the people who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards all the saints. Now, a couple clarifying things. I love that it says, Lord Jesus, because I think oftentimes in my mind I focus on savior Jesus, which is good. Jesus is savior. I have faith in Jesus as my savior. Which is what we talked about last week with Easter, and we talk about every week at Mosaic, that Jesus came and died to save us from our sins and raised to life three days later to prove that He had the power to do it, to save us from our sins. We have faith in that. But He's not just savior, He's also Lord. Lord is ruler. He is Lord. He has power. He has authority over our lives today and we trust in Him as our king. We have faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. That's a Christian. And naturally, when you do that, you love the saints. So let's clarify saints. If you're like me, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and so a saint is someone who did some really incredible work and then died, and so you get to be a saint. But that's not what the word means. The word just means holy or set apart. Paul is talking about Christians. He's talking about the church. And so when we have faith in Jesus, naturally, we should love each other, we should care for each other. And so Paul is just being very clear at the start, he is addressing the church. He is talking to the church. And so everything that we're going to talk about now, he is addressing to Christians. And so if you're here today, and you're not a Christian and you're like, "Well, why am I here?" Praise God that you're here. We're very thankful that you're here. We want you to be able to see a glimpse into what we talk about when we talk about church. We're not talking about a meeting on Sundays. We're not talking about a place that we go to do the thing we're supposed to do and get on. We're talking about a faith and love of Jesus Christ and a love for each other. And what I would just ask you, humbly, in this time, if you are able to just pray and ask God, "If this is true, if you are real, if you are here, open my eyes to see you." Ask God that, "If this is true and what we are speaking about is true," ask Him to reveal himself to you. Because what we are going to see in this text is that God works powerfully in His church to help, to give hope, and to save His people. Forgot to mention real quick, we have a motto, love Jesus simple, right? That's what this text is all about. That's why we have that motto, love Jesus simple. We love God, we love His people, and we love those who do not yet recognize that they're His people. We love the church. We have love for the saints. We love God and Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just God in general, but we love Jesus Himself. So we have faith in Jesus. We love the saints. Simple, that's all we need. That's the foundation. That's the point. That's the root of all of that. We do. End of point one, nice job, nice and easy. Point number two, the church should pray. And this is verses 16 and the beginning of 17. It says this, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory..." And we're going to pause there and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger. But Paul starts saying, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers..." First thing, we cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. When we pray, thanksgiving needs to be a part of it. Whatever you are thankful for in this life, whenever something happens or you receive something or whatever, you're just reminded of something that you're thankful for, praise God for that thing. Literally, go to Him in prayer and praise Him. Thank Him for it. We cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. But specifically what Paul is thankful for is for the church, is for other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians, we are called to be thankful for each other, so thank you. I mean that very sincerely. You don't know how much this church has been an encouragement to me, been an encouragement to the staff, been an encouragement to the pastors, to each other, been able to support and help each other throughout the many years that this church has been here. Thank you. I praise God and thank Him for you and your faithfulness to Him. And I mean that sincerely. Now, when we look at each other, do we sincerely feel that way? Let's feel that way. Let's be thankful for each other that God has blessed us with the ability to have these relationships with each other. The next thing I want to point out is that Paul is very specific in who he is praying to and why he is praying to Him. This is the beginning of verse 17, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...." So he's specific. Paul's not just talking to air. He's not just throwing out prayers to someone in general. He is praying to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's specific. And then he throws it in and follows up with the Father of glory. Is this just some fancy phrasing that really religious people like to do so they sound nice when they pray in the letters read out loud to the church? No. What Paul is doing here is he's clarifying why He's praying and trusts this God that he's praying to. He's not just any God. He's not just any person. He's the Father of glory. I was reading a commentary on this text and it was written by a guy named Francis Foulkes, who he didn't write many commentaries, but he did on Ephesians. But most of his works were about prayer. Most of the things he wrote was like how to pray. Why do we pray? What does it look like to pray? Things like that. And I thought that he would be a very helpful person to study in these texts. And this is what he says about Paul's address of God. He says, "He is the Father to whom all glory belongs; for all the power and majesty revealed in creation, providence and redemption are His, and He the source. Such a thought of who God is gives to prayer a sense of awe and strengthens the faith in those who pray." Christians, we should strengthen our faith when we pray. It actually matters how we address God when we pray. It doesn't mean that we have to say, "The Father of glory," that's not the point. For me personally, when I prayed, I said, "Heavenly Father," that's what I usually say. You don't have to say that either. But I say that, because I'm reminding myself, yeah, I'm praying to God who is in heaven. He is above all things. He rules. He reigns. That's who He is. But He's not just in heaven. He's a father. He's relational. He knows us. He cares for us. We can have relationship with Him. And so I start, when I pray that way because I'm reminding myself, I'm speaking to the God who has a relationship with me, and He has power to do things. He has power to hear me. I trust He will hear me. I trust that He can act on what I'm asking of Him. I trust and grow in my awe and faith of Him. And so this isn't to say that's how we all need to pray, but what we all need to do is go to God in awe and reverence. Go to Him and prepare our hearts when we pray to say, yeah, I am speaking to the one true all powerful God. That matters. That makes a difference. And so when we are in times of questioning, times of doubt, times of weakness still go to God in strength, not our own strength, but we can go to Him saying, "God, I know I'm weak, but you're strong. God, I'm weak, but I'm reminding myself of who you are. I'm reminding myself of how you've been faithful to me." And so that regardless of our season in life, we can pray in strength, because it's God's strength, not our own that we pray in. And then from this point on in our text, Paul is going to launch into specifics that he prays over the church. So he's writing this letter to remind them and encourage them. He is praying for them and he's going to tell them specifically what He's praying about. And as we continue through these texts, we're going to see what are those specific things, and we're going to stop and we're going to pray for those things for this church. Why? Because Paul thought it was important to pray over the church in Ephesus. And if God thought it was important enough to canonize in scripture, I think it's something good that we should pray for ourselves as well. Plus, I know that it is something good for us to pray for ourselves as well. But real quick before we continue with that, I want to point something out, and this is something that I learned only a couple years ago and was never explicitly taught to me. And I was like, "Wow, why was this never explicitly taught? This is really important." When anyone, myself or a pastor or someone else is up here preaching and praying, or if you're in a small group and one person is praying and you're just there listening, we're all praying. And what I mean by that is it's not a time to just sit and listen and think, "Okay, do I like what he's saying?" Or, "That sounds good or nice? I like that wording." That's not the point. But it's the time of Christians to be led by one person to pray to God together about the same things. That's why the word amen matters. If you don't know the word, amen means truly. You're saying that you agree with everything that was said and you're praying it. So we've all done this, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you've ever been in a prayer group and someone's praying and it's late and you're tired and your mind starts drifting and you don't really hear anything that they're saying, and then the end comes and everyone's like, "Amen," you're like, "Amen. Amen." You just lied and you're guilty of lying. So what I'm saying is that as we talk about these things, I'm asking that we as a church pray together for God to bless His church with these things. It's not about me standing up here praying these things. It's about us as the body of Christ praying together in unity and seeking God for His help. So with that, that's the end of point two, on to point three. Wow, we're flying through this. Point three, the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. This is verses 17 through the end. I'm just going to read the first part of it for us. But "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." We'll stop there for now. So Paul's first request to God in prayer for the church is for us, for that church, but applicable to us as well, to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Everything else that we're going to talk about, all of the rest of the requests of Paul are summarized in this point. He gets more specific as to why it matters as he goes along, but this is the heart of it. What Paul really wants for the church is to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God. So what does that mean? What is the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God? Well, wisdom is knowledge applied, right? Wisdom is about how we act based on information that we have. So you can classify it as a spirit to know God's will. The ability to know what God wants for us, for His people, for His church, for us to do. And then what is the spirit of a revelation in the knowledge of him? This is a spirit to know God, to see God. Well, Paul, you're writing to Christians, don't they already know God? Why are you asking for a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him? Because we all can know God deeper, better, and more personal. Again, Francis Foulkes in His commentary on this section says this, "Such wisdom and revelation, moreover, come, not simply as such higher intelligence is given from God, but by the knowledge of Him, the personal knowledge of God Himself, which in the Bible always connotes the experience of life in union and fellowship with Him. Paul put the prayer for wisdom first, because to him the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for people to see the glory of it unless they were taught by God, and also because he knew that the knowledge of God was life itself." So when put that way, does it make sense to pray for a spirit, to pray for more revelation of God so that we can have greater unity with Him in this life, that we can have greater fellowship with Him in life? Yes, of course, it does. Well, how does that happen? How do we receive the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him? It's the next verse that says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know," right? It's not that God is suddenly going to be someone more of Himself than He was so you could recognize it. He's always there. He's always there. We need to recognize Him there. We need to see how He is working. See who He is. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened. What does that phrase mean, eyes of our hearts? Our hearts don't have eyes, that just doesn't make sense. Well, the only way you think of your heart is as a beating organ, you're probably the first person in all of history. Because every single culture talks about the heart, not just as a beating organ, but also as more than that, as part of who you are about emotions and desires. But what Paul is saying with the eyes of your heart, it's saying, "Let all of who you are, the truest part of you, your soul, everything that you are, have that open, your eyes open to see who God is, to see who He is, and how He is working His will and His revelation in your life." And we need to have our eyes opened, because we can't do it ourselves, right? We all know this experientially that we can see things and not actually understand what they are, or we can hear things and not understand what you're supposed to take away from it. During first service, it came to me that there's a really good example of this in art for me. I can look at art, I could see there's painting and brushes and whatever, and I just don't get it. It's art. Cool, that's nice. But I understand that there is beauty in it and that some people do get it. And so I need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened. There's a painting or a picture in our office space that Raquel, God bless, who God has used powerfully in this church and has blessed her, but Raquel loves this painting and I look at it, I'm like, "I don't get it." It makes me angry that I don't... Anyway, but she gets it. So I just need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened to the truth of the beauty of that painting. But anyway, I bring that up to say we all know what it means to see something and not get it. And what Paul is praying for the church is that we're not that way with God, that we can see Him and we can get Him, and we can see the fullness of Him and grow in our relationship with Him. And we need God to do that for us. We see this idea also in Isaiah 6:9-10, it says, "'Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." It's a very difficult text, but what it's saying is that God is the one who has the power to open people's eyes. And so if we need our eyes open to the reality of God, let's go to Him. Let's ask him. Let's ask Him to reveal Himself to us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is what I urge you, ask God, open your eyes. Ask God to reveal himself to you, to show you to reveal His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through the work of Christ for you. And he ends this part by saying, "that you may know..." And then he continues with what He's praying for. We need the eyes of our hearts opened and enlightened, not so that we could have an idea about what God is like, so that we can know Him, that we can know the hope that He gives us, that we can know what the inheritance is, that we can have confidence in Him. It's not a wishy-washy thing, but we could have confidence in Him. That's what God wants for us, and we need Him to open our eyes to it. So as the first thing that Paul is praying for the church, let's now spend some time praying for us, this body, this church here to receive wisdom, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We need more of you, and we need to see you. Open the eyes of our hearts to wherever we are blind to you and who you are and the way you are working in our lives. Give us eyes to see you. Lord, wherever we are blind, wherever we are stubborn, where wherever we are hardhearted, soften us and open our eyes to know you more. Grow our relationship with you. Lord, we know you desire the deepest relationship with us. Give us hearts that desire the deepest relationship with you to know you personally, to love you personally. Bless this body of believers, your church here with the deepest growth in relationship and love for you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So now He's going to get into three subpoints for why we should have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of God. So the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God, subpoint number one, to have hope. To have hope. And each of the subpoints is going to get a little bit more specific, but they're all relating back to this idea of hope. And they're going to be ways that Paul shows that we as the body, we as Christians, can have hope. So this is in verse 18 where it says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you..." Have you ever thought about hope that way, as you're calling? Christians, you are called to have hope. We are not called to despair. We are not called to anxiety. We are called to hope. And not just any kind of hope, a living hope. Pastor Shane referenced this in his prayer as he started the service. But 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Christians, we are called to have hope because we have a living hope. Christ did not stay dead. This is what we celebrated last week at Easter, that Christ raised from the dead. He is alive. We have a living hope, and it is practical to us in day-to-day life. It's not just a hope that we can have one day in the future. It's a hope we can have now. And I want to pause here for a second and recognize that life's not always easy. It's not always easy to have hope. I recognize that there are many brothers and sisters in this church who have gone through struggles and difficulty and are in the middle of that even right now. I know people in this body that have suffered from illness, have been diagnosed with cancer or disease. I know people in this church that have suffered from mental illness or anxiety or eating disorders. I know people in this church who have this desire for God to answer their prayers, and they've been waiting and waiting for an answer. I know people who have lost their jobs and are wondering when they're going to be able to pay the bills. I know people who are looking for housing, and like, "Don't know where I'm going to live, but I'm going to do something, I guess. I don't know." I know people who are suffering and I know many of you are. And what I am saying is God is calling us to have hope, even in that. It's not a call to suck it up and get tough. That's not what I'm saying. It's a call to recognize that we are weak and that in those moments we need help, and that God is the one who can provide it. And that God is the one who can give us hope, even when we don't see the reasons for hope. Because we are called to it through the life of Christ. We can look at Christ. We could look at what He willingly suffered for us. We could look at the way He lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and say, "You know what? Regardless of my circumstances, I could look to Christ and have hope." And as I mentioned, we're going to see in the further points of Paul's prayer, more specifically, more powerfully the thrust of why we can have hope. But Paul starts generally, we are called to it. We are called to have hope. So with that, let's pray for this church to have hope. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We live in a fallen, broken world where we see the effects of sin, and where we see the pain and suffering and bitterness that comes from our own sin and from the sin in the world around us, and just from the brokenness of creation apart from Christ. Give us eyes to see the hope in those situations that only you provide. Give us eyes to see that you are with us. You love us, you are there. You have endured and suffered for us. And you are our reason for hope. Our hope is not in the solving of all the problems. Our hope is in you alone. Give us hope. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Subpoint number two, why the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God is to recognize riches. This is the rest of verse 18. I'll just read the first part to remind us, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," to what? "To what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints..." This made me pause and think, what is the inheritance that he is talking about here? The inheritance that Christians have is the kingdom of God. Yes, we can see it fully in eternity in heaven with eternal life with God in His presence, in His kingdom forever. That is the inheritance that Paul is talking about here. And he clarifies what he means, actually, earlier, he had already talked about, it in verses 11 through 14 of this chapter. He says this, "In him," in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise and glory of God." We are not in heaven right now. We have not acquired possession of the kingdom of God, of this inheritance that we are given yet. But in verse 11, he says that we have obtained it. How have we obtained it if we haven't taken possession of it? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of it. But how have we obtained it? Three small words at the end of verse 18 of our text, "in the saints." In the saints, right? There's this idea with the kingdom of God, it's a idea that we talk about as an already and not yet. And the day that Jesus was raised from the dead, He already conquered sin and death. He did it, definitively, done. He already ushered in the kingdom of God here on earth. Done. But we don't see the fullness of it yet. We're waiting. We're looking forward to that day. But as we wait, what do we look for the hope and to recognize what that inheritance is? We look to each other. We look to His church, His people, the saints. Because when we look at the way the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to interact with each other, the way they love each other, support each other, pray for each other, build each other up, use their gifts for each other's good for the upbuilding of the church, we just get a little taste, get a little glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And I want to be clear. The word glimpse is my word. That's not what Paul uses. What does Paul say? Paul says, "What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." What Paul is saying, "Don't downplay the power that the body of believers have to be able to reveal the love of God, the kingdom of God to each other." I said glimpse because I recognize the ultimate, infinite glory of the kingdom of God in heaven whenever we get there. But Paul is saying, "The church here now is still rich and glorious. It's still able to fully reveal the kingdom of God to those who are in it and who see it." So Christians, does this describe us? Are we the riches of His glorious inheritance to each other? The way I think about it is what do we want most or long for most when we get to heaven? The right Sunday school answer, which is true and good, is that we desire the presence of God. That that's what we want when we get to heaven, is just to be in the presence of God. Good, praise God. We need that. Do we bring the presence of God with us where we go? Do we bring the characteristics, the love, the nature, who He is to each other when we interact with each other? Or are we more of our own sinful self than Christ? But if we're honest with ourselves, maybe it's a little bit more specific than just the presence of God. Maybe it's the peace of God that we're longing for in heaven. Now, there's so much uncertainty in the world around us, so much going on that we don't have peace. We're not settled here. We just can't wait for the day that we have peace in heaven. Well, if that's the case, are we bringing peace wherever we go? And when you need peace and you're struggling to see that, do you look to the other believers, the brothers and sisters in the church, who you see, you've been walking with, you know are faithful, and say, "You know what? I need peace. I don't have it. Can you help me? Can you encourage me? Can you strengthen me?" Can we be the church for each other? Maybe it's hope. Maybe you're like, "There's so much that I have going on that's suffering, that's hard, it's difficult. I can't even imagine how to have hope for the next season. And in heaven one day we won't have to worry about any of that, so I'm belonging for that." Well, do we bring hope to each other? If what you need is hope, do you have the ability to share hope with other people? And if not, do you have the humility to ask for help? Do you have the humility to go to members of your community group, to go to brothers and sisters in Christ, and say, "I'm struggling. I need hope. Can you help me?" And are we willing to help when that happens? What Paul is saying is that we need to have the eyes of our hearts open to see how great it is to be the church. It is a blessing. It is an honor, and that we can reveal all of who God is through the church. And we need to be that for each other. So with that, let's pray that we could have the eyes of our hearts opened to see the riches of God's inheritance here and now through His church, and that we can be that for each other. Heavenly Father, we need you. This is what this all comes down to, Lord, is that we need you. Open the eyes of our hearts to see how you are working in our brothers and sisters here in this church. Strengthen us, convict us on how we are called to live to exemplify the fullness of the inheritance of your kingdom in heaven while we are here on earth. Let us to live joyfully and fully in that reality that we are in your kingdom even now. Give us that hope. Give us that boldness to live that way, to be your church here and now. Open our eyes to see that, to rejoice in the riches, the fullness of it, to not look at it as something light and not view it as merely a glimpse. And then just hope for that day when we get to be with you, even though we do. Help us to see the blessing, the richness of the blessing that is your church, even here at Mosaic. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. And the last subpoint that we have is that the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God to perceive power. This is verses 19 through the rest of the chapter. I'll read just verse 19 first. It says, verse 18, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," why? Verse 19, "to what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His great might..." I love this verse. I love this verse. Paul is using as much human language as possible in this text to try and give us a sense of God's power, even though he knows no human words can ever describe the power of God. But he uses these phrases, immeasurable greatness, power, working great might in this verse to try and stoke in us an understanding of how great the power of God is. The word for immeasurable is huperballo, which is where we get the word hyperbolic from. And what it's saying is use all the hyperbolic language you want. Think as lofty and as high as you could think of anyone, any type of power, and it's not even accurate enough to describe God's power. That's not how, it's not even close to how great He is. It's immeasurable His power. But it's His greatness as well. And the word for greatness is exceeding a standard of excellence. So God is a standard of excellence, so much greater than we could ever imagine. That is who He is. That is His nature, His character. He is more excellent than we could ever measure or imagine. Then he uses the word power to describe God's working. And this word is what I characterize as gym strength, or you could think of it as potential energy. For those of you who are smarter than me and like science, it's potential energy. It's that God has the power, the ability to do, He has the ability to get things done. That's gym strength through me, right? You're not physically doing the thing, but you're preparing to be able to do whatever you need to do. You're lifting weights so that way you're prepared to do something with it whenever you need to. I'm not trying to dis gym strength. I need more gym strength myself. Pray for me for that. It's a good thing, but it's about being prepared to do something. Church, do we recognize the immeasurable excellence of God's ability to work to who? It says, "towards us who believe." God wants to work for His church, He wants to use His power to benefit Christians, to use His church to usher in the kingdom here. So when we look at the immeasurable, ultimate excellence of God's power, do we ask Him for help in times of need and recognize that He has the power to do it and that He wants to do it? And that that's the reason why He is using this power is for the benefit of those who believe in Him. But He doesn't just want to do it, He does it, that's the word working. This is kinetic energy. This is, it's happening. It's active. I call this manual labor strength. The strongest people I've ever known in my life never went to the gym. My friend Ty Harris, praise God for him. Love him. You look at him, you wouldn't think He's strong. He loves musicals. He loves singing and dancing. Great guy. I love him. He had to help someone move and lifted a pool table by himself. Now, for those of you who don't know, pool tables are solid stone. They weigh almost a ton. No, not quite a... They weigh a lot. I'm not using ton literally. They weigh a lot. It usually takes four or five people to install them. And if you have to move them up or downstairs, you usually you need to use machinery. He's just like, "Okay, go lift it up, and help people move." He has working strength. Never once in the gym, working strength. My friend Rich, his father, also Rich, Stovakin, had all of the brute ruggedness of German and Russian heritage combined. So think of the toughest German and the toughest Russian, put them together, that's him. He's like 6'7. And Rich and I would work out in his basement in high school, and we were like there curling our 20 pounds, feeling good about ourselves. And then he comes in, and is like, "what are you guys doing?" "Oh, we're lifting. Well, how much can you do?" And He's like, "I don't work out, but I'll do whatever I need to." And he starts curling a 100 pounds just for reps, just like, "I'm good." What he did for a living, he lifted bales of paper and just moved it and did it. And He was faithful in his job and he just worked for his job. God has working power. He doesn't just sit and say, "I have the ability to, I could do it if you want me to. We'll see if I do." No, He works. He does. He uses His power to help His church, His people bring His kingdom here. And the last one in the sentence is great might. The word for great is just focusing on the intensity, the magnitude of the might, of God's might. But the word for might is focusing on the ability to execute something. So God doesn't just have power to work, and then He keeps working and working and working. If you've done home projects yourself, you probably know what this is like. It takes a lot longer than you thought. And you just feel like I'm just working and working and it's never going to end. No, God executes. He completes. He does what He sets out to do. He finishes it. He finishes the work He promises to do it. He has promised to save His people. He has given us that assurance. He has promised to protect His church. He has given us that assurance. So we can trust that He will do and complete what He says. And Paul says, "You know what? Maybe you still don't understand the power of God." So He goes on to try and even more hyperbolically, explain the power of God. And we're just going to fly through verses 20 through 23. I'm just going to read the snippets of it real quick. But the next thing he says is that... Well, sorry, this is the most important thing in verse 20, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places..." When we look at Easter, when we look at the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead, that's the power He uses for His church. When we're talking about working power, when we're talking about Him completing and His ability, He shows us that He does it. He doesn't just tell you He's going to do it and hope that... He proves it through the resurrection of Christ. And now He's going to point out all the power of Christ to again stoke in us a desire and understanding of the ultimate supreme power of God, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. The right hand is the hand of power. Whoever sits at the right hand of the king has all the power, all the authority of the king himself. So what it's saying is that Jesus Christ has the full power, full authority of our heavenly Father. Is that not enough power? Well, it's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. I think we, like I do often, clump these together and just run through them and it's like it's a bunch of things that are powerful. God's more powerful than that. But Paul is calling out specific things here, and he clarifies what He means by them in Ephesians 6:12. He says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." So rule and authority are specific positions that are being addressed, there are rules of people who rule and have authority, but then power and dominion is the force, is the power behind them. But Paul's saying, "We're not talking about flesh and blood here. We're not talking about physical earthly kings and rulers and authorities. What we can summarize all of this by is the kingdom of Satan," is what Paul is addressing here. Whether it's those who are working for the kingdom of Satan and the force behind them, whether it's demons or Satan himself. The sin and brokenness we see in this world, you compile all of that power together, and it's nothing compared to Jesus Christ. I think we often fall into thinking Satan is just the equal opposite of Christ, and that is so far from the truth. He is nothing compared to Christ. Jesus Himself alone is even more powerful than all of the kingdom of Satan could throw at Him, so much so, He's so far above and beyond that. In terms of power looking at it, He can barely even see the power of Satan, because He has none in comparison to Christ. Not only that, that not enough power for us, Jesus has the name that is above every name. The name of Satan has no power. He's not Lord Voldemort, or he who shall not be named. No, his name has no power. The name of Christ does have power. We see that in the New Testament, that the name of Christ has power to cast out demons. It has real, tangible power for those who believe. This is all in the context of those who believe. Don't want to say like you could just throw out Jesus' name and everything's going to go your way. That's not what it's about. It's about for those who believe and for the will of God. We see in the New Testament that the disciples see these people running around casting demons out in the name of Christ. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Should we tell them to stop?" And He's like, "No, no, they're fine." Why? Well, because apparently, even though they weren't known, they had some sort of faith or trust or relationship with Christ. But then there's a time when we see people who don't have a relationship with Christ try and cast out demons in the name of Christ, and the demon says, "I do not know you," and attacks them. So study the book of Acts. It's a fun one. There's a lot that happens. But the point of all this is being is the name is not just the name you throw out and it's just like, "Okay, whatever I want is going to happen." It's that it has power for the church. It's powerful for God's people to work the will of God. To help, to protect, to bring hope, to perceive power, to understand our role in the church. The name of Christ has power unlike any other name. All things are under His feet, not just the kingdom of Satan, but everything you could think of in all of creation. Compile all the power, all the greatness, all the honor of anything in all of creation that you can think of, and it's barely even a footstool for him. Culturally, at the time when this was written, if they heard the word feet, the initial response would've been, "That's disgusting. Feet are gross." It's very similar to today. Not much has changed. I think of when my wife and I were dating, and if my feet went anywhere near, she would slap me, and jump and run away. And it's like, my feet are gross. I get it. Feet are gross. But back then, they were walking in sandals, barefoot. The dust of the road, the filth and grime that are on the streets that they're walking are just covering their feet. And that's why washing of feet was such a big deal when someone like Jesus did it for others. But what it's saying is if there was a less honorable part of Christ, which there's not, all of Christ is fully honorable, fully glorious, fully beautiful, all of the greatness of the things of this world, they barely are even able to get to His feet. They're barely even worthy of that. That's how great is the honor and power of Christ. And He's not just powerful sitting there on His throne. He is head over all things. He leads. He guides. He is in control. He is sovereign. He is working and leading and guiding His people. We can trust in His power because it's not just there and doing whatever He wants, but He is leading, guiding us in His will. And then verse 22 and 23, 23 is my actual favorite verse of this text. It says, "And He put all things under His feet and gave Him," Christ, "as head over all things to the church, the church is His body, the church, which is the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Church, do we recognize that we are called to be the fullness of Christ. Like I said, not just a glimpse. We are called to be the fullness of Him, to bring all of His power, all of His working, all of His love, His characteristics to the world. Why? Because it's not about us. He is the one who fills. We are dependent on Him. Again, going back, bringing it full circle. We are dependent on the relationship we have with Him, our love and trust for Him, to trust Him, to fill us, to open our eyes to what we need to see, to help us see where we are weak and need to be strengthened, to let Him fill us, so that the way we live can fully exemplify Him to all who see Him. Are we the fullness of God to each other? Are we the fullness of God to those who see us? We need to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see our need for His power, but also to see how His power can help us be the church today. So we'll close with prayer for that. We'll close with prayer, for us to have the eyes of our hearts open to the power of God, that fulfills us and enables us to be His church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are powerful. You are mighty. You are working. And you desire to do good for your church. Open the eyes of our hearts to see the greatness of the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, individually where we need to see you, open our eyes to see how you are working in our lives. Lord, corporately, with this body, your church, here, open our eyes to see how you are working powerfully for your kingdom here and now. Lord, open our eyes to see that we are called to exemplify fully you to those who see us. Fill us with your power. Fill us with your strength, not for ourselves, not for our own good, but so that we can truly be your church. We can be your people. We can bring your kingdom here and now. And that those who see it turn to you and love you. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your hope. Fill us with your power. We praise you, and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston,or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Good morning. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Tyler. I am the teens or youth and hospitality director here at Mosaic Boston. And whenever I get the chance to be up here, it is truly my honor and privilege to be able to deliver God's word to all of us today. So this week we're kind of in between series, and so the pastors gave me the opportunity to preach something that is on my heart and it's a message about hope. I'm calling it, Praying for Hope. We're going to be spending most of our time in the text in Ephesians. And my wife and I recently had just gone through Ephesians, and so this is something I've been thinking about, been meditating on. But even before then, this idea that we're going to see and expound upon in this text is something that God has been working in my own heart, challenging me, growing me in, and I think it's something that will benefit the church as a whole. So we're going to see what does God mean? What does God call us to pray for? But what does it mean to pray for hope in our lives and in the church in general? So before we get started, will you pray with me over the preaching of God's word? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We are so thankful that we get to be here today to hear your word, to learn from you, to know you more. So Lord, we ask that in this time that you speak to us through your word, that you use me to proclaim the truth of your word for all of us. And you challenge us, you soften our hearts to see the reality of who you are and how you are working in our lives. So Lord, we thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty, we will be in Ephesians 1:15-23. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn there. If not, you could follow along on the screens behind me, but I'll read the whole thing and then we'll get started. So Ephesians 1:15 says this, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe, according to the working of His great might, that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all." This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, authoritative, infallible word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. We're going to be spending our time in kind of three points today. The three points are actually one sentence and the third point of that sentence has three subpoints. So just to throw some chaos and difficulty into things. But the one sentence that I want you guys to take away from this is the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. And the reason why the church should do that is to have hope, to recognize riches, and to perceive power. So that's what we're going to be spending our time in today. And so if you're like, "Wow, Tyler normally goes a long time with three points, and now He has three and three subpoints," I want to encourage you points one and two are on one page. So we'll get through those real quick. We'll spend most of the time on point number three. But point number one, the church, this is verse 15. Verse 15 says, "For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints..." Who is Paul addressing here? He is addressing the church. Well, he's clarifying how he knows it's the church that he's speaking to. It's the people that have faith in the Lord Jesus and love for all the saints. This is the very basics, the very fundamental definition of the church. It's those, it's the people who have faith in the Lord Jesus and love towards all the saints. Now, a couple clarifying things. I love that it says, Lord Jesus, because I think oftentimes in my mind I focus on savior Jesus, which is good. Jesus is savior. I have faith in Jesus as my savior. Which is what we talked about last week with Easter, and we talk about every week at Mosaic, that Jesus came and died to save us from our sins and raised to life three days later to prove that He had the power to do it, to save us from our sins. We have faith in that. But He's not just savior, He's also Lord. Lord is ruler. He is Lord. He has power. He has authority over our lives today and we trust in Him as our king. We have faith in Him as our Lord and Savior. That's a Christian. And naturally, when you do that, you love the saints. So let's clarify saints. If you're like me, I grew up in a Catholic Church, and so a saint is someone who did some really incredible work and then died, and so you get to be a saint. But that's not what the word means. The word just means holy or set apart. Paul is talking about Christians. He's talking about the church. And so when we have faith in Jesus, naturally, we should love each other, we should care for each other. And so Paul is just being very clear at the start, he is addressing the church. He is talking to the church. And so everything that we're going to talk about now, he is addressing to Christians. And so if you're here today, and you're not a Christian and you're like, "Well, why am I here?" Praise God that you're here. We're very thankful that you're here. We want you to be able to see a glimpse into what we talk about when we talk about church. We're not talking about a meeting on Sundays. We're not talking about a place that we go to do the thing we're supposed to do and get on. We're talking about a faith and love of Jesus Christ and a love for each other. And what I would just ask you, humbly, in this time, if you are able to just pray and ask God, "If this is true, if you are real, if you are here, open my eyes to see you." Ask God that, "If this is true and what we are speaking about is true," ask Him to reveal himself to you. Because what we are going to see in this text is that God works powerfully in His church to help, to give hope, and to save His people. Forgot to mention real quick, we have a motto, love Jesus simple, right? That's what this text is all about. That's why we have that motto, love Jesus simple. We love God, we love His people, and we love those who do not yet recognize that they're His people. We love the church. We have love for the saints. We love God and Jesus. Specifically Jesus, not just God in general, but we love Jesus Himself. So we have faith in Jesus. We love the saints. Simple, that's all we need. That's the foundation. That's the point. That's the root of all of that. We do. End of point one, nice job, nice and easy. Point number two, the church should pray. And this is verses 16 and the beginning of 17. It says this, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory..." And we're going to pause there and leave you on a little bit of a cliffhanger. But Paul starts saying, "I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers..." First thing, we cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. When we pray, thanksgiving needs to be a part of it. Whatever you are thankful for in this life, whenever something happens or you receive something or whatever, you're just reminded of something that you're thankful for, praise God for that thing. Literally, go to Him in prayer and praise Him. Thank Him for it. We cannot separate thanksgiving and prayer. But specifically what Paul is thankful for is for the church, is for other believers, brothers and sisters in Christ. Christians, we are called to be thankful for each other, so thank you. I mean that very sincerely. You don't know how much this church has been an encouragement to me, been an encouragement to the staff, been an encouragement to the pastors, to each other, been able to support and help each other throughout the many years that this church has been here. Thank you. I praise God and thank Him for you and your faithfulness to Him. And I mean that sincerely. Now, when we look at each other, do we sincerely feel that way? Let's feel that way. Let's be thankful for each other that God has blessed us with the ability to have these relationships with each other. The next thing I want to point out is that Paul is very specific in who he is praying to and why he is praying to Him. This is the beginning of verse 17, "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory...." So he's specific. Paul's not just talking to air. He's not just throwing out prayers to someone in general. He is praying to the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's specific. And then he throws it in and follows up with the Father of glory. Is this just some fancy phrasing that really religious people like to do so they sound nice when they pray in the letters read out loud to the church? No. What Paul is doing here is he's clarifying why He's praying and trusts this God that he's praying to. He's not just any God. He's not just any person. He's the Father of glory. I was reading a commentary on this text and it was written by a guy named Francis Foulkes, who he didn't write many commentaries, but he did on Ephesians. But most of his works were about prayer. Most of the things he wrote was like how to pray. Why do we pray? What does it look like to pray? Things like that. And I thought that he would be a very helpful person to study in these texts. And this is what he says about Paul's address of God. He says, "He is the Father to whom all glory belongs; for all the power and majesty revealed in creation, providence and redemption are His, and He the source. Such a thought of who God is gives to prayer a sense of awe and strengthens the faith in those who pray." Christians, we should strengthen our faith when we pray. It actually matters how we address God when we pray. It doesn't mean that we have to say, "The Father of glory," that's not the point. For me personally, when I prayed, I said, "Heavenly Father," that's what I usually say. You don't have to say that either. But I say that, because I'm reminding myself, yeah, I'm praying to God who is in heaven. He is above all things. He rules. He reigns. That's who He is. But He's not just in heaven. He's a father. He's relational. He knows us. He cares for us. We can have relationship with Him. And so I start, when I pray that way because I'm reminding myself, I'm speaking to the God who has a relationship with me, and He has power to do things. He has power to hear me. I trust He will hear me. I trust that He can act on what I'm asking of Him. I trust and grow in my awe and faith of Him. And so this isn't to say that's how we all need to pray, but what we all need to do is go to God in awe and reverence. Go to Him and prepare our hearts when we pray to say, yeah, I am speaking to the one true all powerful God. That matters. That makes a difference. And so when we are in times of questioning, times of doubt, times of weakness still go to God in strength, not our own strength, but we can go to Him saying, "God, I know I'm weak, but you're strong. God, I'm weak, but I'm reminding myself of who you are. I'm reminding myself of how you've been faithful to me." And so that regardless of our season in life, we can pray in strength, because it's God's strength, not our own that we pray in. And then from this point on in our text, Paul is going to launch into specifics that he prays over the church. So he's writing this letter to remind them and encourage them. He is praying for them and he's going to tell them specifically what He's praying about. And as we continue through these texts, we're going to see what are those specific things, and we're going to stop and we're going to pray for those things for this church. Why? Because Paul thought it was important to pray over the church in Ephesus. And if God thought it was important enough to canonize in scripture, I think it's something good that we should pray for ourselves as well. Plus, I know that it is something good for us to pray for ourselves as well. But real quick before we continue with that, I want to point something out, and this is something that I learned only a couple years ago and was never explicitly taught to me. And I was like, "Wow, why was this never explicitly taught? This is really important." When anyone, myself or a pastor or someone else is up here preaching and praying, or if you're in a small group and one person is praying and you're just there listening, we're all praying. And what I mean by that is it's not a time to just sit and listen and think, "Okay, do I like what he's saying?" Or, "That sounds good or nice? I like that wording." That's not the point. But it's the time of Christians to be led by one person to pray to God together about the same things. That's why the word amen matters. If you don't know the word, amen means truly. You're saying that you agree with everything that was said and you're praying it. So we've all done this, I'm guilty of this as well, but if you've ever been in a prayer group and someone's praying and it's late and you're tired and your mind starts drifting and you don't really hear anything that they're saying, and then the end comes and everyone's like, "Amen," you're like, "Amen. Amen." You just lied and you're guilty of lying. So what I'm saying is that as we talk about these things, I'm asking that we as a church pray together for God to bless His church with these things. It's not about me standing up here praying these things. It's about us as the body of Christ praying together in unity and seeking God for His help. So with that, that's the end of point two, on to point three. Wow, we're flying through this. Point three, the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God. This is verses 17 through the end. I'm just going to read the first part of it for us. But "that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened." We'll stop there for now. So Paul's first request to God in prayer for the church is for us, for that church, but applicable to us as well, to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. Everything else that we're going to talk about, all of the rest of the requests of Paul are summarized in this point. He gets more specific as to why it matters as he goes along, but this is the heart of it. What Paul really wants for the church is to have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the knowledge of God. So what does that mean? What is the spirit of wisdom in the knowledge of God? Well, wisdom is knowledge applied, right? Wisdom is about how we act based on information that we have. So you can classify it as a spirit to know God's will. The ability to know what God wants for us, for His people, for His church, for us to do. And then what is the spirit of a revelation in the knowledge of him? This is a spirit to know God, to see God. Well, Paul, you're writing to Christians, don't they already know God? Why are you asking for a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of him? Because we all can know God deeper, better, and more personal. Again, Francis Foulkes in His commentary on this section says this, "Such wisdom and revelation, moreover, come, not simply as such higher intelligence is given from God, but by the knowledge of Him, the personal knowledge of God Himself, which in the Bible always connotes the experience of life in union and fellowship with Him. Paul put the prayer for wisdom first, because to him the gospel was so wonderful that it was impossible for people to see the glory of it unless they were taught by God, and also because he knew that the knowledge of God was life itself." So when put that way, does it make sense to pray for a spirit, to pray for more revelation of God so that we can have greater unity with Him in this life, that we can have greater fellowship with Him in life? Yes, of course, it does. Well, how does that happen? How do we receive the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation and the knowledge of him? It's the next verse that says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know," right? It's not that God is suddenly going to be someone more of Himself than He was so you could recognize it. He's always there. He's always there. We need to recognize Him there. We need to see how He is working. See who He is. We need to have the eyes of our hearts enlightened. What does that phrase mean, eyes of our hearts? Our hearts don't have eyes, that just doesn't make sense. Well, the only way you think of your heart is as a beating organ, you're probably the first person in all of history. Because every single culture talks about the heart, not just as a beating organ, but also as more than that, as part of who you are about emotions and desires. But what Paul is saying with the eyes of your heart, it's saying, "Let all of who you are, the truest part of you, your soul, everything that you are, have that open, your eyes open to see who God is, to see who He is, and how He is working His will and His revelation in your life." And we need to have our eyes opened, because we can't do it ourselves, right? We all know this experientially that we can see things and not actually understand what they are, or we can hear things and not understand what you're supposed to take away from it. During first service, it came to me that there's a really good example of this in art for me. I can look at art, I could see there's painting and brushes and whatever, and I just don't get it. It's art. Cool, that's nice. But I understand that there is beauty in it and that some people do get it. And so I need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened. There's a painting or a picture in our office space that Raquel, God bless, who God has used powerfully in this church and has blessed her, but Raquel loves this painting and I look at it, I'm like, "I don't get it." It makes me angry that I don't... Anyway, but she gets it. So I just need to have the eyes of my heart enlightened to the truth of the beauty of that painting. But anyway, I bring that up to say we all know what it means to see something and not get it. And what Paul is praying for the church is that we're not that way with God, that we can see Him and we can get Him, and we can see the fullness of Him and grow in our relationship with Him. And we need God to do that for us. We see this idea also in Isaiah 6:9-10, it says, "'Keep on hearing but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed." It's a very difficult text, but what it's saying is that God is the one who has the power to open people's eyes. And so if we need our eyes open to the reality of God, let's go to Him. Let's ask him. Let's ask Him to reveal Himself to us. And if you're here today and you're not a Christian, this is what I urge you, ask God, open your eyes. Ask God to reveal himself to you, to show you to reveal His love, His grace, His mercy, and His power through the work of Christ for you. And he ends this part by saying, "that you may know..." And then he continues with what He's praying for. We need the eyes of our hearts opened and enlightened, not so that we could have an idea about what God is like, so that we can know Him, that we can know the hope that He gives us, that we can know what the inheritance is, that we can have confidence in Him. It's not a wishy-washy thing, but we could have confidence in Him. That's what God wants for us, and we need Him to open our eyes to it. So as the first thing that Paul is praying for the church, let's now spend some time praying for us, this body, this church here to receive wisdom, a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We need more of you, and we need to see you. Open the eyes of our hearts to wherever we are blind to you and who you are and the way you are working in our lives. Give us eyes to see you. Lord, wherever we are blind, wherever we are stubborn, where wherever we are hardhearted, soften us and open our eyes to know you more. Grow our relationship with you. Lord, we know you desire the deepest relationship with us. Give us hearts that desire the deepest relationship with you to know you personally, to love you personally. Bless this body of believers, your church here with the deepest growth in relationship and love for you. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. So now He's going to get into three subpoints for why we should have a spirit of wisdom and revelation of God. So the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God, subpoint number one, to have hope. To have hope. And each of the subpoints is going to get a little bit more specific, but they're all relating back to this idea of hope. And they're going to be ways that Paul shows that we as the body, we as Christians, can have hope. So this is in verse 18 where it says, "having the eyes of your hearts enlightened that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you..." Have you ever thought about hope that way, as you're calling? Christians, you are called to have hope. We are not called to despair. We are not called to anxiety. We are called to hope. And not just any kind of hope, a living hope. Pastor Shane referenced this in his prayer as he started the service. But 1 Peter 1:3 says this, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Christians, we are called to have hope because we have a living hope. Christ did not stay dead. This is what we celebrated last week at Easter, that Christ raised from the dead. He is alive. We have a living hope, and it is practical to us in day-to-day life. It's not just a hope that we can have one day in the future. It's a hope we can have now. And I want to pause here for a second and recognize that life's not always easy. It's not always easy to have hope. I recognize that there are many brothers and sisters in this church who have gone through struggles and difficulty and are in the middle of that even right now. I know people in this body that have suffered from illness, have been diagnosed with cancer or disease. I know people in this church that have suffered from mental illness or anxiety or eating disorders. I know people in this church who have this desire for God to answer their prayers, and they've been waiting and waiting for an answer. I know people who have lost their jobs and are wondering when they're going to be able to pay the bills. I know people who are looking for housing, and like, "Don't know where I'm going to live, but I'm going to do something, I guess. I don't know." I know people who are suffering and I know many of you are. And what I am saying is God is calling us to have hope, even in that. It's not a call to suck it up and get tough. That's not what I'm saying. It's a call to recognize that we are weak and that in those moments we need help, and that God is the one who can provide it. And that God is the one who can give us hope, even when we don't see the reasons for hope. Because we are called to it through the life of Christ. We can look at Christ. We could look at what He willingly suffered for us. We could look at the way He lived for us, died for us, rose for us, and say, "You know what? Regardless of my circumstances, I could look to Christ and have hope." And as I mentioned, we're going to see in the further points of Paul's prayer, more specifically, more powerfully the thrust of why we can have hope. But Paul starts generally, we are called to it. We are called to have hope. So with that, let's pray for this church to have hope. Heavenly Father, Lord, we need you. We live in a fallen, broken world where we see the effects of sin, and where we see the pain and suffering and bitterness that comes from our own sin and from the sin in the world around us, and just from the brokenness of creation apart from Christ. Give us eyes to see the hope in those situations that only you provide. Give us eyes to see that you are with us. You love us, you are there. You have endured and suffered for us. And you are our reason for hope. Our hope is not in the solving of all the problems. Our hope is in you alone. Give us hope. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. Subpoint number two, why the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God is to recognize riches. This is the rest of verse 18. I'll just read the first part to remind us, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," to what? "To what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints..." This made me pause and think, what is the inheritance that he is talking about here? The inheritance that Christians have is the kingdom of God. Yes, we can see it fully in eternity in heaven with eternal life with God in His presence, in His kingdom forever. That is the inheritance that Paul is talking about here. And he clarifies what he means, actually, earlier, he had already talked about, it in verses 11 through 14 of this chapter. He says this, "In him," in Christ, "we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the council of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who was the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise and glory of God." We are not in heaven right now. We have not acquired possession of the kingdom of God, of this inheritance that we are given yet. But in verse 11, he says that we have obtained it. How have we obtained it if we haven't taken possession of it? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of it. But how have we obtained it? Three small words at the end of verse 18 of our text, "in the saints." In the saints, right? There's this idea with the kingdom of God, it's a idea that we talk about as an already and not yet. And the day that Jesus was raised from the dead, He already conquered sin and death. He did it, definitively, done. He already ushered in the kingdom of God here on earth. Done. But we don't see the fullness of it yet. We're waiting. We're looking forward to that day. But as we wait, what do we look for the hope and to recognize what that inheritance is? We look to each other. We look to His church, His people, the saints. Because when we look at the way the body of Christ, the church, is supposed to interact with each other, the way they love each other, support each other, pray for each other, build each other up, use their gifts for each other's good for the upbuilding of the church, we just get a little taste, get a little glimpse of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And I want to be clear. The word glimpse is my word. That's not what Paul uses. What does Paul say? Paul says, "What are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints." What Paul is saying, "Don't downplay the power that the body of believers have to be able to reveal the love of God, the kingdom of God to each other." I said glimpse because I recognize the ultimate, infinite glory of the kingdom of God in heaven whenever we get there. But Paul is saying, "The church here now is still rich and glorious. It's still able to fully reveal the kingdom of God to those who are in it and who see it." So Christians, does this describe us? Are we the riches of His glorious inheritance to each other? The way I think about it is what do we want most or long for most when we get to heaven? The right Sunday school answer, which is true and good, is that we desire the presence of God. That that's what we want when we get to heaven, is just to be in the presence of God. Good, praise God. We need that. Do we bring the presence of God with us where we go? Do we bring the characteristics, the love, the nature, who He is to each other when we interact with each other? Or are we more of our own sinful self than Christ? But if we're honest with ourselves, maybe it's a little bit more specific than just the presence of God. Maybe it's the peace of God that we're longing for in heaven. Now, there's so much uncertainty in the world around us, so much going on that we don't have peace. We're not settled here. We just can't wait for the day that we have peace in heaven. Well, if that's the case, are we bringing peace wherever we go? And when you need peace and you're struggling to see that, do you look to the other believers, the brothers and sisters in the church, who you see, you've been walking with, you know are faithful, and say, "You know what? I need peace. I don't have it. Can you help me? Can you encourage me? Can you strengthen me?" Can we be the church for each other? Maybe it's hope. Maybe you're like, "There's so much that I have going on that's suffering, that's hard, it's difficult. I can't even imagine how to have hope for the next season. And in heaven one day we won't have to worry about any of that, so I'm belonging for that." Well, do we bring hope to each other? If what you need is hope, do you have the ability to share hope with other people? And if not, do you have the humility to ask for help? Do you have the humility to go to members of your community group, to go to brothers and sisters in Christ, and say, "I'm struggling. I need hope. Can you help me?" And are we willing to help when that happens? What Paul is saying is that we need to have the eyes of our hearts open to see how great it is to be the church. It is a blessing. It is an honor, and that we can reveal all of who God is through the church. And we need to be that for each other. So with that, let's pray that we could have the eyes of our hearts opened to see the riches of God's inheritance here and now through His church, and that we can be that for each other. Heavenly Father, we need you. This is what this all comes down to, Lord, is that we need you. Open the eyes of our hearts to see how you are working in our brothers and sisters here in this church. Strengthen us, convict us on how we are called to live to exemplify the fullness of the inheritance of your kingdom in heaven while we are here on earth. Let us to live joyfully and fully in that reality that we are in your kingdom even now. Give us that hope. Give us that boldness to live that way, to be your church here and now. Open our eyes to see that, to rejoice in the riches, the fullness of it, to not look at it as something light and not view it as merely a glimpse. And then just hope for that day when we get to be with you, even though we do. Help us to see the blessing, the richness of the blessing that is your church, even here at Mosaic. We thank you. We praise you. In Jesus' name. And the last subpoint that we have is that the church should pray for wisdom and revelation of God to perceive power. This is verses 19 through the rest of the chapter. I'll read just verse 19 first. It says, verse 18, "having the eyes of your heart enlightened," why? Verse 19, "to what is the immeasurable greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His great might..." I love this verse. I love this verse. Paul is using as much human language as possible in this text to try and give us a sense of God's power, even though he knows no human words can ever describe the power of God. But he uses these phrases, immeasurable greatness, power, working great might in this verse to try and stoke in us an understanding of how great the power of God is. The word for immeasurable is huperballo, which is where we get the word hyperbolic from. And what it's saying is use all the hyperbolic language you want. Think as lofty and as high as you could think of anyone, any type of power, and it's not even accurate enough to describe God's power. That's not how, it's not even close to how great He is. It's immeasurable His power. But it's His greatness as well. And the word for greatness is exceeding a standard of excellence. So God is a standard of excellence, so much greater than we could ever imagine. That is who He is. That is His nature, His character. He is more excellent than we could ever measure or imagine. Then he uses the word power to describe God's working. And this word is what I characterize as gym strength, or you could think of it as potential energy. For those of you who are smarter than me and like science, it's potential energy. It's that God has the power, the ability to do, He has the ability to get things done. That's gym strength through me, right? You're not physically doing the thing, but you're preparing to be able to do whatever you need to do. You're lifting weights so that way you're prepared to do something with it whenever you need to. I'm not trying to dis gym strength. I need more gym strength myself. Pray for me for that. It's a good thing, but it's about being prepared to do something. Church, do we recognize the immeasurable excellence of God's ability to work to who? It says, "towards us who believe." God wants to work for His church, He wants to use His power to benefit Christians, to use His church to usher in the kingdom here. So when we look at the immeasurable, ultimate excellence of God's power, do we ask Him for help in times of need and recognize that He has the power to do it and that He wants to do it? And that that's the reason why He is using this power is for the benefit of those who believe in Him. But He doesn't just want to do it, He does it, that's the word working. This is kinetic energy. This is, it's happening. It's active. I call this manual labor strength. The strongest people I've ever known in my life never went to the gym. My friend Ty Harris, praise God for him. Love him. You look at him, you wouldn't think He's strong. He loves musicals. He loves singing and dancing. Great guy. I love him. He had to help someone move and lifted a pool table by himself. Now, for those of you who don't know, pool tables are solid stone. They weigh almost a ton. No, not quite a... They weigh a lot. I'm not using ton literally. They weigh a lot. It usually takes four or five people to install them. And if you have to move them up or downstairs, you usually you need to use machinery. He's just like, "Okay, go lift it up, and help people move." He has working strength. Never once in the gym, working strength. My friend Rich, his father, also Rich, Stovakin, had all of the brute ruggedness of German and Russian heritage combined. So think of the toughest German and the toughest Russian, put them together, that's him. He's like 6'7. And Rich and I would work out in his basement in high school, and we were like there curling our 20 pounds, feeling good about ourselves. And then he comes in, and is like, "what are you guys doing?" "Oh, we're lifting. Well, how much can you do?" And He's like, "I don't work out, but I'll do whatever I need to." And he starts curling a 100 pounds just for reps, just like, "I'm good." What he did for a living, he lifted bales of paper and just moved it and did it. And He was faithful in his job and he just worked for his job. God has working power. He doesn't just sit and say, "I have the ability to, I could do it if you want me to. We'll see if I do." No, He works. He does. He uses His power to help His church, His people bring His kingdom here. And the last one in the sentence is great might. The word for great is just focusing on the intensity, the magnitude of the might, of God's might. But the word for might is focusing on the ability to execute something. So God doesn't just have power to work, and then He keeps working and working and working. If you've done home projects yourself, you probably know what this is like. It takes a lot longer than you thought. And you just feel like I'm just working and working and it's never going to end. No, God executes. He completes. He does what He sets out to do. He finishes it. He finishes the work He promises to do it. He has promised to save His people. He has given us that assurance. He has promised to protect His church. He has given us that assurance. So we can trust that He will do and complete what He says. And Paul says, "You know what? Maybe you still don't understand the power of God." So He goes on to try and even more hyperbolically, explain the power of God. And we're just going to fly through verses 20 through 23. I'm just going to read the snippets of it real quick. But the next thing he says is that... Well, sorry, this is the most important thing in verse 20, "that He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places..." When we look at Easter, when we look at the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead, that's the power He uses for His church. When we're talking about working power, when we're talking about Him completing and His ability, He shows us that He does it. He doesn't just tell you He's going to do it and hope that... He proves it through the resurrection of Christ. And now He's going to point out all the power of Christ to again stoke in us a desire and understanding of the ultimate supreme power of God, because Christ is seated at the right hand of the throne in heaven. The right hand is the hand of power. Whoever sits at the right hand of the king has all the power, all the authority of the king himself. So what it's saying is that Jesus Christ has the full power, full authority of our heavenly Father. Is that not enough power? Well, it's far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. I think we, like I do often, clump these together and just run through them and it's like it's a bunch of things that are powerful. God's more powerful than that. But Paul is calling out specific things here, and he clarifies what He means by them in Ephesians 6:12. He says, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." So rule and authority are specific positions that are being addressed, there are rules of people who rule and have authority, but then power and dominion is the force, is the power behind them. But Paul's saying, "We're not talking about flesh and blood here. We're not talking about physical earthly kings and rulers and authorities. What we can summarize all of this by is the kingdom of Satan," is what Paul is addressing here. Whether it's those who are working for the kingdom of Satan and the force behind them, whether it's demons or Satan himself. The sin and brokenness we see in this world, you compile all of that power together, and it's nothing compared to Jesus Christ. I think we often fall into thinking Satan is just the equal opposite of Christ, and that is so far from the truth. He is nothing compared to Christ. Jesus Himself alone is even more powerful than all of the kingdom of Satan could throw at Him, so much so, He's so far above and beyond that. In terms of power looking at it, He can barely even see the power of Satan, because He has none in comparison to Christ. Not only that, that not enough power for us, Jesus has the name that is above every name. The name of Satan has no power. He's not Lord Voldemort, or he who shall not be named. No, his name has no power. The name of Christ does have power. We see that in the New Testament, that the name of Christ has power to cast out demons. It has real, tangible power for those who believe. This is all in the context of those who believe. Don't want to say like you could just throw out Jesus' name and everything's going to go your way. That's not what it's about. It's about for those who believe and for the will of God. We see in the New Testament that the disciples see these people running around casting demons out in the name of Christ. And they go to Jesus and they're like, "Should we tell them to stop?" And He's like, "No, no, they're fine." Why? Well, because apparently, even though they weren't known, they had some sort of faith or trust or relationship with Christ. But then there's a time when we see people who don't have a relationship with Christ try and cast out demons in the name of Christ, and the demon says, "I do not know you," and attacks them. So study the book of Acts. It's a fun one. There's a lot that happens. But the point of all this is being is the name is not just the name you throw out and it's just like, "Okay, whatever I want is going to happen." It's that it has power for the church. It's powerful for God's people to work the will of God. To help, to protect, to bring hope, to perceive power, to understand our role in the church. The name of Christ has power unlike any other name. All things are under His feet, not just the kingdom of Satan, but everything you could think of in all of creation. Compile all the power, all the greatness, all the honor of anything in all of creation that you can think of, and it's barely even a footstool for him. Culturally, at the time when this was written, if they heard the word feet, the initial response would've been, "That's disgusting. Feet are gross." It's very similar to today. Not much has changed. I think of when my wife and I were dating, and if my feet went anywhere near, she would slap me, and jump and run away. And it's like, my feet are gross. I get it. Feet are gross. But back then, they were walking in sandals, barefoot. The dust of the road, the filth and grime that are on the streets that they're walking are just covering their feet. And that's why washing of feet was such a big deal when someone like Jesus did it for others. But what it's saying is if there was a less honorable part of Christ, which there's not, all of Christ is fully honorable, fully glorious, fully beautiful, all of the greatness of the things of this world, they barely are even able to get to His feet. They're barely even worthy of that. That's how great is the honor and power of Christ. And He's not just powerful sitting there on His throne. He is head over all things. He leads. He guides. He is in control. He is sovereign. He is working and leading and guiding His people. We can trust in His power because it's not just there and doing whatever He wants, but He is leading, guiding us in His will. And then verse 22 and 23, 23 is my actual favorite verse of this text. It says, "And He put all things under His feet and gave Him," Christ, "as head over all things to the church, the church is His body, the church, which is the fullness of Him who fills all in all." Church, do we recognize that we are called to be the fullness of Christ. Like I said, not just a glimpse. We are called to be the fullness of Him, to bring all of His power, all of His working, all of His love, His characteristics to the world. Why? Because it's not about us. He is the one who fills. We are dependent on Him. Again, going back, bringing it full circle. We are dependent on the relationship we have with Him, our love and trust for Him, to trust Him, to fill us, to open our eyes to what we need to see, to help us see where we are weak and need to be strengthened, to let Him fill us, so that the way we live can fully exemplify Him to all who see Him. Are we the fullness of God to each other? Are we the fullness of God to those who see us? We need to have the eyes of our hearts opened to see our need for His power, but also to see how His power can help us be the church today. So we'll close with prayer for that. We'll close with prayer, for us to have the eyes of our hearts open to the power of God, that fulfills us and enables us to be His church. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are powerful. You are mighty. You are working. And you desire to do good for your church. Open the eyes of our hearts to see the greatness of the ways you are working in our lives. Lord, individually where we need to see you, open our eyes to see how you are working in our lives. Lord, corporately, with this body, your church, here, open our eyes to see how you are working powerfully for your kingdom here and now. Lord, open our eyes to see that we are called to exemplify fully you to those who see us. Fill us with your power. Fill us with your strength, not for ourselves, not for our own good, but so that we can truly be your church. We can be your people. We can bring your kingdom here and now. And that those who see it turn to you and love you. Fill us with your spirit. Fill us with your hope. Fill us with your power. We praise you, and thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Countdown #411   This episode could very well be sub-titled 'Old Men Shake Fists at Clouds/Sky/The World' or 'The Ep That Will Probably Kill The Show'. Because Paul and Wayne have decided to call out the pop culture trends which they think are most over-rated ... and absolutely NOTHING is safe.   From body modification procedures to some of the biggest social media platforms - and with plenty of massive fan bases in between - the boys laugh and/or rage at something which is sure to offend just about everyone who has ever listened to the show.   Dare to take the challenge? Tune in to find out what pop culture trends earn the ire of podcasters who have been around for almost eight years ... as The Countdown may not continue!   Check out the show's first draft of a website for your one-stop shop for all things related to The Countdown.   But if you want more specific directions, find so many more Countdowns - all the way back to Episode 40! - on our Podbean site.   Join The Countdown Podcast Listener Community on Facebook so you can interact more directly with Paul and Wayne and vote in the weekly poll for who has the best list!   Head on over to Patreon to find out to have your topic covered on the show and see what extras you're missing.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston ordonate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. This morning we are beginning... We are in week four of our sermon series Committed. We've been talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. And what I've been saying over these last four weeks is that we are looking at the essential, the non-negotiable and super practical commitments that every Christian needs to make in order to grow in their faith, in order to persevere through the trials of life, in order to fulfill God's calling for their life and to experience and enjoy the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give. And I'm probably going to repeat that every week. I've been told repetition is the mother of wisdom, but also every week we have new people here that are joining us for the first time and want to get them caught off the speed. And so as we begin, just a couple of reminders. First of all, as we talk about abundant life, said this in the first week of the series, we're not talking about a life full of the earthly comforts and pleasures that the world often seeks. We're talking about something deeper than that. We were talking about a life filled with purpose, meaning, with mission, with the hope, love, joy, peace, presence of God's Holy Spirit, of a life lived in the presence of Jesus Christ and so that's one reminder. Secondly, if you weren't here last week, we began looking specifically at something in scripture called the Great Commission. And you can find this in Matthew chapter 28 beginning in verse 18 said, and Jesus came and says to his disciples... This is right before he ascends into heaven. So he's been resurrected, he's risen, conquered the grave, he's about to return to his Father's right hand on his throne in heaven. He tells his disciples this, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And so go therefore and make disciples of all of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." This is the great commission. This is the mission of the church. This is the mission that every Christian is called to live out. And last week when we started this, we talked about how there's really two aspects of this mission. The first one we looked at last week was evangelism. It's the call to go and to make disciples of all the nations. And that for some of us, that means God's going to call us across the world. For most of us it means God's going to call us just across the street, across the cubicle, across the way to the people that he has put into our lives. But to go and to do so and to share this good news with them. And so we talked about evangelism last week. This week we are focusing on the second part. We're focusing on discipleship. We're focusing on Jesus' command to go and teach them to observe, all that I have commanded you to do. Discipleship to simply put is the lifelong process of following Jesus, of trusting his word, of obeying his commands, of becoming like him more and more in faith and knowledge and holiness and obedience to the Father. It's a total body soul transformation. Our minds are transformed by the truth of his word. He transforms the desires of our hearts, the actions of our hands. And last week when we started talking about this mission, we talked about how really when you look at it, the mission is very clear and the mission is very simple. The mission is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy. Evangelism's hard. And as we talk about discipleship today, what we're going to find is that discipleship is costly. That our salvation cost us nothing. It costs Jesus everything, our justification. But justification costs us nothing. We are saved by grace through faith. It is the free gift of God. Salvation is free. But our sanctification, this life of discipleship that we are called to, that may cost us everything. We sing the song often. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. And so we're going to be talking about this today and we're going to see that discipleship is costly, but it doesn't need to be complicated. And so I'm going to be trying to demystify discipleship for us today so that together we can be the disciples that Jesus calls us to be. And so if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter four, we're going to be looking at verse 18 through 22. A pretty short passage, just a couple of verses. And really we're going to be focusing most of our time just on one verse within this passage, just one sentence, 10 words. But in these 10 words Jesus gives us, he lays out the entire framework for what it means to be one of his disciples. So if you have your Bibles, you can follow along. If not the words will be up here on the screen. This is Matthew chapter four, beginning in verse 17. Sorry, I said 18 earlier. Matthew 4:17. Matthew tells us, "From that time Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And while walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and they were casting the net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and they followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets and he called to them and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him." This is the reading of God's holy word with us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer over our message today? Jesus, I pray today that you would make evident both the price and the privilege of being your disciple. Help us to count the cost so that we can find Christ worthy. Lord, challenge us today where we need to be challenged. Holy Spirit, convict us where we need to be convicted. Encourage us in whatever area that we may lack the faith or the courage to move forward, to commit, to take up our cross and to follow Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time and your word right now. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right, well I said that we're going to be looking primarily at just one verse out of this passage and the verse we're going to be looking at it's right there in the middle. It's Matthew chapter four verse 19. And it just simply says this, "And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men." And in that one short sentence, Jesus gives us the entire framework of what it means to be his disciple. Follow him and he will make you a fisher of men. And so we're going to break this down thought for thought. And the first thing Jesus says is follow me. And the first thing that we need to understand is that being a disciple of Jesus requires a change of both direction and of identity. And when Jesus tells us to follow him, this is what he's calling us to do. It's a change of direction and identity. Right before calling Peter and Andrew, Matthew tells us that from that time Jesus began to preach, and this was his message. His message was, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And we talked about this in the first week, that discipleship, following Jesus begins with repentance and faith. That you cannot follow Jesus and yet continue to live life your own way. That there needs to be a change in the trajectory of your life where you turn away from sin in repentance and you turn toward Jesus Christ in faith. You got to lay down your pride. You got to lay down your sin. You got to lay down the false idols and the ideologies of this world and submit fully to the lordship of Jesus Christ as your king. It's a change in direction, but it is also a change in identity. Discipleship, it's not just something that you do. It is something that you become. It is something that you are. That you were once a prisoner in the domain of darkness, you have now been transferred as a citizen into the kingdom of heaven. You were a slave to sin, but you have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You've been set free. You've been adopted into the household of God. You are now a child of God. You are now a new creation in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. A radical transformation of identity takes place when you become a disciple of Jesus Christ. I'm going to read one of Jesus' most famous teachings that he gave his disciples about what it means to follow him. And if you never heard this, if you've never read this before, this is shocking. Matthew 16 verse 24. Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, if anyone wants to follow me and be my disciple, then let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." We talk so much about the cross. Sometimes you forget what that really is. This is the most gruesome form of execution and punishment and existence in that world. Jesus saying, this is what it looks like to follow me. You're going to have to die to yourself. You're going to have to pick up your cross. You're never going to find true life. You're never going to find your true self, your true identity until you lose it, till you lay down your old life. That to be born again as a child of God, you need to die to yourself. That to be accepted as a disciple of Jesus, you need to deny yourself, deny your selfish, proud, rebellious heart and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. And what we see is that Jesus offers us this glorious new identity, but with it comes a radical change in direction, one that is going to require total surrender. And so Jesus calls these first disciples and immediately they leave everything. They leave their nets, they leave their boats, their livelihoods, their family. They leave it all to follow Jesus. And before we go any further today, this is what we need to ask ourself. This is what I want you to ask yourself. What have you given up for the gospel? What have you needed to leave behind to follow Jesus? Or what do you know that you're being called to leave behind, to let go of right now? Are there things that you know should be giving up, that you need to be letting go of, leaving behind, surrendering in order to fully follow Jesus as you know that you ought? Peter and Andrew, James and John, they left everything. Now this doesn't mean that every Christian needs to leave their job and leave their family and go be a missionary somewhere across the world, but not all of us are going to be called to that, but we are going to all be called to something. So what is the Holy Spirit putting on your heart right now? Is there something there that you're holding on to? Is something there that's holding you back from following Jesus as you ought? The only way to come to Christ is with the empty hands of faith, right? It's hard to embrace God when you got your arms already wrapped around the world, when your hands are full, when you're clinging to things that you know need to let go of.Hebrews 12:1 says, "Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin in which clings so closely." Just whatever is holding you, whatever you're tangled up and cast it aside, let it go. And then in your freedom in Christ, "Run with endurance the race that is set before us." How? "By looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him." He went that distance for us. "Seeing the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God." In Luke 14, Jesus is going about, he's preaching and large crowds of people begin to follow him. And in verse 27, he turns to these crowds and he says, "Listen, whoever doesn't bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?" "Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 men to come against him with 20,000?" "And if not, while the other is he had a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace." So therefore, and this is his point, "So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple." What is it going to cost to follow a man who carried a cross? Jesus wasn't interested in drawing crowds, fair-weather fans, right? He wasn't coming so that he could clean up our lives a little bit or do some renovations here and there. He wants to come into your life. He wants to tear the whole house down. He wants to lay a new foundation, one that's going to last, one that he can build your life on for eternity. He wasn't looking for fair-weather fans, he's looking for people ready to deny themselves, ready to take up their cross, ready to follow him and lay their lives at his feet and say, Lord, not my will but yours be done. This is what it means to follow Jesus. We can't talk about discipleship without counting the cost. What is it going to cost? Are you willing to pay that price? I'm going to leave us here in this tension for a while. We'll come back at the end. I'll give you some resolution to this, but we're going to move on for now. And just understand that when Jesus says, follow me, he means take up your cross and follow me. But second, he says, follow me and I will make you. That if you follow Jesus, he's going to change your life. He's going to transform you. And the second point today we're going to be looking at is that being a disciple, it also requires a change of heart and behavior. To really grasp this, what Jesus is saying here and what's going on, you got to understand a little bit about first century Judaism because this idea of discipleship, it's maybe a word that we're familiar with, but it's not a word that's like commonly used or understood in our culture. It was very common in their culture back then. Everyone knew what a disciple was. They'd received disciples out and about following their rabbis around town. A disciple was a student who would come under the teaching and the instruction and the discipline of a rabbi, but they weren't just a student. See, first century Jewish kids, from an early age, they would begin the work of memorizing the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. And as these children grew up, there would come a time where the very best, the very brightest students might perhaps be offered the rare and distinguished honor of being called by a rabbi to be his disciple. And accepting this invitation it meant you had to leave everything. You had to leave your old life, you had to leave your family, the family business. They would leave everything not to follow their rabbi, not just to learn from the rabbi, but to live with the rabbi, to spend every moment with the rabbi trying to learn all that they could to become like their rabbi in every way being a disciple. What it meant was living life in the presence of your rabbi, close proximity, close relationship. And the goal was so that you could really in every way become just like them. And this is exactly what we see Jesus did with his 12 disciples. They follow him around. Everywhere he went, they watched how he lived, they heard him talk, they served with him, they went on missions together with him, and they were learning to be like him in every way. And so we have to ask, what are the implications of this for us today? And really to be a disciple today, it doesn't mean anything different than what it meant for the disciples back then. The difference is Jesus isn't here with us physically. We don't follow him around, the man Jesus Christ in a physical body, but he pours his spirit out upon his church so that yeah, spiritually we live our life in the presence of our rabbi Jesus Christ with him, going where he goes, doing what he says. And I say that because Christians today, we often want to reduce discipleship to like a program or a class or a one-on-one mentorship with a more mature believer. And none of those things are bad. They're just not what we're talking about. There are just such a long ways off from what the New Testament is talking about when it uses this word disciple. And so being a disciple of Jesus, it means living like the 12. It means living in fellowship with other disciples. But you're not following them, you're following Jesus, you're following him together. And so we can't reduce this to meeting with a mentor. We can't reduce it to going and attending a seminar or a Sunday school class or anything like that. When we're talking about the discipleship we're talking about living in community and fellowship with other disciples who are together following Jesus, living life in his presence by the power of his Holy Spirit. Following Jesus, abiding in Jesus, abiding in his spirit, abiding in his word together. And so what this means is two things. First of all, it means that disciples need to follow Jesus personally. And secondly, it means that disciples cannot follow Jesus privately. Personally, if you're a member of Mosaic or if you've taken our membership class, you know that one of the things we talk about in that class is that we have seven expectations of members here at Mosaic. And the first expectation that we have for our members is that each and every one of us strive spiritually. That we each take a personal responsibility for living life in the presence of Christ, of striving to build that relationship with Christ ourselves, of working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. This comes from Philippians chapter two verse 12. Paul says, "Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." You work out your own salvation personally because God is working in you personally. But bigger than that, the idea that Paul's really getting at here is that he wants this church to know and to understand and to never forget that he is not their pope, he's not their priest, he's not their rabbi. Jesus is. And this is important, the Philippians were not called to be disciples of Paul. They weren't called to follow Paul, they weren't called to live their lives in the presence of Paul. They were called to follow Jesus. And thankfully they were a church that really didn't struggle with this very much. They were a relatively healthy and mature and solid church. There was another church that Paul cared about that did struggle with this quite a bit. It was the church in Corinth. We did a whole sermon series on first and second Corinthians called Prodigal Church. And the reason we called it that is because this was a church that had some issues. They struggled with a lot of things and this was one of them. And so in first Corinthians chapter one, one of the very first things that Paul addresses with them is this. He says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree and that there be no division among you, but that you all be united in the same mind and the same judgment for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there's quarreling among you brothers." And this is what I mean. "What I mean is that each one of you says, well, I follow Paul or I follow Apollos or I follow Cephas, that's Peter, or I follow Christ." He says, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?" Corinthian Church was pretty immature and dysfunctional at times and you read the letter that Paul wrote to them. He gives them a lot of correction. The Philippian church, however, was relatively strong and healthy. He addresses this same thing with them, but does so from way of encouragement and reminder. And so when you read the book of Philippians, one of the things you got to keep in mind, and you see this throughout the book, if you're reading it closely, one of the things you see is that Paul is writing to them from a place in his life where he doesn't know that he is much longer to live, right? This could be his last correspondence with them. He may never see them again. There's a very real chance that he may be facing death, even execution sometime in the near future. And he's not sure, but he wants to write to them to remind them that they're going to be fine without him. Because from the very beginning, they were not his church. God used him in a very special way as an apostle to help this church get started. But what they really needed to understand was that they were not Paul's church. They were Jesus' church. Paul wasn't their pope. Paul wasn't their priest, their mediator or their rabbi. The word that Paul uses to describe his relationship with them. He says, "I was your partner." We were partners in the gospel. We were disciples following Jesus together. And this is why he opens his letter in Philippians chapter one. He says, "I thank my God and all of my remembrance for you, always in all my prayers of mine for you, all making my prayers with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus." Well, who is the he that Paul is referring to here, right? Because Paul is the one who kind of planted this church, but Paul's not referring to himself. The he who began the good work that Paul is talking about is Jesus Christ. That Jesus will complete this good work even if Paul's no longer around. And this is how he starts his letter and then he encourages them with the same thing again at the end. Like, okay Paul, if you go, if you leave us, if you die, who's going to take care of us as a church? And he tells them in Philippians 4:19. He says, "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in Christ Jesus." Regardless of whether Paul lived or died, what mattered was that Christ would be with them till the end of the age. And that Paul had full confidence that he would make sure even in Paul's absence, that Jesus would finish the good work that he had started in this church. And I say all this because this is what making disciples is all about. It's about teaching people to become independently dependent on Jesus. To become independent in the sense that they're not dependent on us or any other human being for their spiritual wellbeing and to become dependent on Jesus Christ who really is the head of the church, the chief shepherd of every church. And so this might be a paradigm shift for a lot of Christians. It was for the early church as well because this is not how the religious leaders of their day behave. The religious leaders of their day, they very much gathered people around themselves who were dependent on them, who looked to them as spiritual authorities, as mediators between them and God. But Jesus warned his disciples not to be like them, that as his followers that they were going to need to be different, that they could not go on and fall into the same footsteps of the other religious leaders of their day. And Jesus actually had very harsh words for some of these religious leaders. In Matthew chapter 23, he's warning his disciples about this and in verse five he says, "First of all, they do all of their deeds to be seen by others. They love to make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long." They like to show off their spiritual maturity. "And they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces, and they love being called rabbi by others, but you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth for you of one Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructor for you have one instructor, the Christ." He says, "The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Now, I don't think Jesus is trying to argue about semantics and titles and calling people teacher or whatever that may be, but he's trying to make a point and the point is this, there's only one Father and by the blood of Jesus Christ, God can be your Father, but God can't be your grandfather. You can't be dependent on some other earthly father to be the mediator between you and God the Father. Only Jesus Christ can do that. There is one teacher, one rabbi, and Jesus can be your rabbi, but he can't be your rabbi's rabbi. He can't be your pastor's pastor. You need that relationship with him yourself. Jesus can call you friend, but he can't be a friend of a friend. The big idea is every single Christian needs to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ for themselves. As Paul said in first Timothy 2:5 that, "There is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all." This mission to go and to make disciples is not a mission to go and make disciples of ourselves. It's a mission to go and make disciples of Jesus. It's not a mission to go out and to become the mediator between God and men. The mission is to point people to the only mediator that there is, the man Jesus Christ. If I had to sum it all up, I would put it like this, that the call of discipleship... Well, first of all, it's a call to be a disciple, to be yourself connected to Christ, abiding in Christ, living in the presence of Christ, following your rabbi. But the call to make disciples is a call for those who are doing that, for those who are more mature in the faith, to help those who are less mature in the faith, become more mature in the faith, by becoming less dependent on them and more dependent on Jesus. That was a lot. So I'm going to say it again. That the call to make disciples is a call for those who are more mature in the faith to help those who are less mature in the faith, become more mature in the faith by becoming less dependent on them and more dependent on Jesus Christ, where you're teaching them to cling to Christ, to abide in Christ, to pursue Christ, to follow Jesus, and to live their lives in his presence. Yesterday our daughter Nora had a birthday party. She's turning eight tomorrow and with our kids we don't do the big huge birthday party every year. But we told them both, when you turn eight years old, you can do the big party where you invite the whole class and everything. So we did the whole trampoline park thing and celebrated her birthday and it was a ton of fun. Now every parent in the room knows when these birthdays come along its bittersweet because it's like how do they grow up so fast? I remember just as clear as it was yesterday, the day that she was born and now she's eight years old and it's hard to see them grow up. You just kind of want them to stay little forever. My wife saw one of these sappy parenting memes the other day, said something like, one day you're going to pick your child up and not realize it will be the last time you put them back down. First of all, how dare you? Like the internet is supposed to be a nice happy place, I thought. You say that and all the moms... It was more pronounced in the first service because we had all the MiniMo parents here. All the moms are like crying. All the dads coincidentally have something stuck in their eye and it's like, what? You just want them to stay little and cute forever, just hold on. They're so sweet and innocent. And we as parents, we think that way. God doesn't think that way. God doesn't want his kids to stay little for... He wants them to grow up fast, to grow up healthy and strong and mature. He wants them to grow up to be independent in the sense that they're not dependent on people or things, but dependent on himself. Because unlike us, unlike our kids, when God's kids grow up, they don't grow up by becoming less dependent on him as they mature. As God's children's mature, they mature in doing so, they begin to see how really totally and utterly dependent on God they really are. They become less dependent on people, on things, and they become more dependent on God himself. That's what it means to grow up, to mature in the faith, to live every moment with this awareness and dependency on your heavenly Father. And so what this means is like, yeah, a newborn baby Christian, they might need to be held, they might need to be fed for a while as they start to grow, they might need someone there to hold their hand as they learn how to walk. For a little while that's okay, but that's not the goal. The goal is not to coddle them, not to become the spiritual equivalent of helicopter parents. The goal is to help them grow up, push them out of the nest, teach them to feed themselves, teach them to walk on their own so that they can begin helping others to do the same. And John 15:5, Jesus said, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." That the only way for a disciple to be healthy, to grow and to bear fruit is not to be a branch of a branch of a branch. It's to be a branch directly connected and abiding in the vine of Jesus Christ. And so disciples need to follow Jesus personally, but disciples can't follow Jesus privately. That you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but this doesn't mean that you should have a private relationship with Jesus Christ. I said this last week, I'm going to say it again. You almost never see Jesus in the gospels. You never any of the apostles. You almost never see them in a private one-on-one setting with anyone, like everything that Jesus did, he did in a communal setting. And Jesus knew each one of his disciples personally. He called each one of his disciples personally. He loved and he cared for each one of his disciples personally. But he spent almost all of his time with each one of his disciples in community, with the three, with the 12, with the 72. There's always a group of people around him, and I say this because sometimes we want to kind of narrowly define discipleship as like a one-on-one mentorship and that can be useful for a time, for a task, for a purpose. But when you read the New Testament, everything that you see happening is happening in the context of community. It's the body of Christ united working together. That's where people grow. And I said this earlier, I want to demystify discipleship. Discipleship is costly, but it shouldn't be complicated. And when you look at the example of Jesus, when you look at the example of the early church, what you find is there's really only four things that you need as a disciple of Jesus to grow in your faith. It's four things. You need the truth of God's word. You need the power, the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. You need the fellowship of the church. And you need the experiences of life. You need God's word to cut to your heart, to reveal truth, to correct your understanding, to give you knowledge. You need God's Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, to bring assurance of your salvation. The Holy Spirit is needed. The Holy Spirit equips the members of the body so that they can minister with their gifts to one another. You need the word, you need the spirit. You need the fellowship of the church. You need the rest of the body holding you up and holding you accountable. And then you need the experience of life. And this is everyone, regardless of whether you're a disciple of Jesus or not, you're going to get the experiences of life. We're all going to go through the storms of life. How you go through those are dependent on those first three things. You go through the storms of life alone, they're going to crush you. Go through the storms of life with the power of God's Spirit and the fellowship with the church and the truth of his word. God's going to use those very experiences to grow your faith, your character, your perseverance to strengthen you. And so if you're living in the presence of Jesus, if you are in fellowship with other spirit-filled believers and together submitting your lives to the truth and to the authority of God's word, you are going to grow in your faith. It's not complicated. It takes commitment, it takes time. It takes patience and perseverance, but you will grow. And this is why if you know us as a church, we don't focus a lot of time in just offering a thousand different classes or seminars or programs. We focus so much time and care and attention into our community groups because this is where growth happens. Every week spirit-filled people coming together as the body of Christ around the truth of God's word. We're there together in community and that is where the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, to strengthen us, to guide us, to help us, to abide each firmly connected to the vine of Jesus Christ so that we can bear fruit as we go through the experiences of life together, the ups, the downs, the joys, the pains, all of it. God has ordained for our growth. There's a really beautiful picture of this in Ephesians chapter four that kind of shows how this all is intended to work. Ephesians 4:1. "I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There's one body and one Spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism when God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts." So first of all, Paul begins to show this picture of the unity of the body and of the power of the Father's Holy Spirit present in each member of the body. But then he says, within the unity of the body there is distinction among the members. That God equips the body, different people, members of the body in different ways and that they all need to work together to grow up together into maturity. And so he continues in verse 11, he says, "This is why he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." When Jesus says, I will make you, when Jesus tells us he's going to change our lives, this is how he does it as one body with many members, each equipped by the Holy Spirit to come and to work together under the headship of Jesus Christ, growing in unity, growing as one. And the idea here is if you abide in this, you will grow. That Jesus will make you new. He will bear his fruit in your life. He will give you and transform your heart, your behavior, your character. You will be conformed to the fullness, the image of Christ. So that's point number two. Point number three, being a disciple requires a change of heart and behavior. It also requires a change of purpose and perspective. And so I said I was going to leave you in that tension. We counting the cost of discipleship, going to kind of come back to that. Now, from our perspective in this life, when you look at the cost of following Jesus, right? Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow him. That's a high price. That seems like that cost might be too much. It is high, and Jesus calls us to consider that cost before following him. He calls us to consider that cost. Then he challenges us to consider it again and to consider it from an eternal perspective. Because if you keep going in Matthew 16, the verse we read earlier, Jesus told the disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." He tells them that, but then he gives them like... Well, let's look at this from a different angle. Let's look at this from an eternal perspective. Four verse 25. "Whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What should a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels and the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done." What Jesus wants to see is on the one hand the discipleship is costly and on the other hand, it's not nearly as costly as the alternative. What is it profit a man if he gains the whole world, all the money, all the fame, all the friends and praise and power and comforts of this world and yet loses his soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whatever following Jesus may cost you right now and the grand scope of eternity, it is a small price to pay. That Jesus says, "I'm coming, and when I do, I'm coming in the glory of my Father and I'm going to repay each person according to what they've done." And every single one of us, we need to have this perspective. We need to see things from this angle, when we do, what we see is that the true cost of discipleship, it's not a price to be paid, it is an investment to be made. You invest your life savings, you give everything that you have, you give it all to Christ and you live life through the bear market of this life, but you do so knowing that in the end that the bulls are going to win, that the investment is going to pay off. That Jesus is coming soon and that your sacrifice, everything that you give up right now, it is earning you spiritual dividends right now and it's earning you heavenly rewards when Christ returns. Mark 10. Peter comes up to Jesus and he's like, look, "Jesus, we left everything to follow you." And Jesus says in verse 29, he says, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time. Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and land with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life." In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus shares a few parables and to show us what this is like. He says in verse 44, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that's hidden in a field which a man found and he covered up. And then in his joy, he goes and he sells all that he has and buys that field." And the idea is from one perspective, this guy seems like a fool, right? He just gave his life savings to buy a worthless piece of dirt, an empty field. And yet from another perspective, you see that he didn't give up anything at all. That whatever he laid down to purchase that field could not compare to the infinite glory of riches that were buried beneath the surface that no one else could see. Jesus says again in verse 45, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value." He goes out and he sells all that he has to buy it. And Jesus gives us this new perspective to think about discipleship and with this perspective, he gives us new purpose as well. That he says, "Follow me and I'm going to make you." And what is he going to make us? Ultimately he says, he's going to make you fishers of men. That's the purpose. Think about that purpose in the context of this new perspective that we have. Jesus asks, "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his soul?" Well flip that around. What does it profit a man if he gives up everything he has right now for the sake of the gospel, in order to gain the souls of others for eternity? Jesus wants to make us fishers of men. You think about that. Jesus wants to give you the opportunity right now as his disciple to play a part in altering the eternal destiny of souls, to play a part in changing the eternal destination of people. You talk about heavenly rewards, like imagine seeing someone in heaven and knowing that Jesus used your witness, your faithfulness, your sacrifice to get them there. Imagine the joy of walking in and seeing that person and knowing that they will be spending eternity in paradise, in the presence of Christ, and that you got to play a part in that. Before telling the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus told two other parables to the same effect in Luke chapter 15. In the context we're told that, "Tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to him and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling about it, saying, "This man receives sinners and he eats with them." And so he told them this parable. He says, "What man of you having a hundred sheep if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he is found it, he lays it on his shoulder rejoicing and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance." "Or what woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one does not light a lamp and sweep the house and see diligently until she finds it. And when she's found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found the coin that I lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Who are we that we should be given the privilege, the joy of taking part in something like this? There is great joy we're told in heaven right now when one sinner repents, imagine the joy then. Imagine the joy when all the saints go marching into the joy of their master together and you see those souls that led you to Christ, and you see those people that Jesus used you in their life to lead them to Christ, to help them to grow in Christ. Imagine that joy of being there together. We do not deserve such an honor, and yet we serve a God of amazing grace. When you have this perspective and this purpose, it changes everything. And when you have this perspective and this purpose, all of a sudden everything seems, as Paul said in second Corinthians, it's like "Light and momentary affliction which is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." For why? Because, "We are not looking to things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." Well, I could spend a whole lot more time talking about this theoretically, rather, what I would like you to do is I would like you to go into your community groups this week and talk about how you've experienced this for yourself personally. Share testimonies of God's grace. Jesus calls us fishermen and fishermen love to tell stories. And so tell some of those stories. I think we're going to be spending a lot of time in heaven telling fishermen stories of how Jesus used us to bring other people to faith or used other people to save us or lead us to himself. Share some of those stories this week. If you've played a part in leading someone else to Christ or share the stories of those who played a part in leading you to Christ, not to boast in yourself but to boast as Paul says in Jesus Christ, and to be an encouragement to one another. Share some of those stories this week. And if you're not connected to a community group, this is a really good week to get connected to a community group. If you don't take anything else away from the sermon, this is what I would hope you would take, that you need to be connected to a community, to have fellowship with other people in a meaningful way. And so we would love to help you do that. You can check those out on our website, or better yet, just stop by the welcome center out there and there's people there that would love to help you find a group that works for you. And then if you're here today and you are not yet connected to Christ, if you are ready to make that commitment, to become a follower of Christ, to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, we would love to talk to you about that as well. You can talk to people at the welcome center or Pastor Andy and I will be up here after the service. We'd love to talk to you about that. We could talk to you about baptism or just if you have any questions about Christianity in general, we'd be happy to talk to you, pray with you about that as well. Well, right now, let's pray and we'll spend more time worshiping together. Jesus, we thank you. We praise you so much for the price that you paid to save us. And I pray that you would give us now the grace and the strength and the courage to gladly pay, to gladly suffer and sacrifice whatever is needed to be your witnesses, your followers, your disciples here on earth right now. God help us to take up our crosses daily to follow you, knowing that as our good shepherd that you have promised to lead us into pastures of abundant life. Give us faith to believe that whatever we may have to give up right now in terms of worldly comforts and pleasure, they cannot compare to the spiritual blessings, the eternal rewards that await those who follow you. So Lord, help us to keep our eyes fixed, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on you, Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that was set before you endured the cross for us, and you're now seated in glory and power at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Father, we love you, we praise you, and now we just want to worship you together in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston ordonate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. This morning we are beginning... We are in week four of our sermon series Committed. We've been talking about the essential habits of an abundant life. And what I've been saying over these last four weeks is that we are looking at the essential, the non-negotiable and super practical commitments that every Christian needs to make in order to grow in their faith, in order to persevere through the trials of life, in order to fulfill God's calling for their life and to experience and enjoy the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give. And I'm probably going to repeat that every week. I've been told repetition is the mother of wisdom, but also every week we have new people here that are joining us for the first time and want to get them caught off the speed. And so as we begin, just a couple of reminders. First of all, as we talk about abundant life, said this in the first week of the series, we're not talking about a life full of the earthly comforts and pleasures that the world often seeks. We're talking about something deeper than that. We were talking about a life filled with purpose, meaning, with mission, with the hope, love, joy, peace, presence of God's Holy Spirit, of a life lived in the presence of Jesus Christ and so that's one reminder. Secondly, if you weren't here last week, we began looking specifically at something in scripture called the Great Commission. And you can find this in Matthew chapter 28 beginning in verse 18 said, and Jesus came and says to his disciples... This is right before he ascends into heaven. So he's been resurrected, he's risen, conquered the grave, he's about to return to his Father's right hand on his throne in heaven. He tells his disciples this, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And so go therefore and make disciples of all of the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." This is the great commission. This is the mission of the church. This is the mission that every Christian is called to live out. And last week when we started this, we talked about how there's really two aspects of this mission. The first one we looked at last week was evangelism. It's the call to go and to make disciples of all the nations. And that for some of us, that means God's going to call us across the world. For most of us it means God's going to call us just across the street, across the cubicle, across the way to the people that he has put into our lives. But to go and to do so and to share this good news with them. And so we talked about evangelism last week. This week we are focusing on the second part. We're focusing on discipleship. We're focusing on Jesus' command to go and teach them to observe, all that I have commanded you to do. Discipleship to simply put is the lifelong process of following Jesus, of trusting his word, of obeying his commands, of becoming like him more and more in faith and knowledge and holiness and obedience to the Father. It's a total body soul transformation. Our minds are transformed by the truth of his word. He transforms the desires of our hearts, the actions of our hands. And last week when we started talking about this mission, we talked about how really when you look at it, the mission is very clear and the mission is very simple. The mission is simple, but simple doesn't mean easy. Evangelism's hard. And as we talk about discipleship today, what we're going to find is that discipleship is costly. That our salvation cost us nothing. It costs Jesus everything, our justification. But justification costs us nothing. We are saved by grace through faith. It is the free gift of God. Salvation is free. But our sanctification, this life of discipleship that we are called to, that may cost us everything. We sing the song often. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. And so we're going to be talking about this today and we're going to see that discipleship is costly, but it doesn't need to be complicated. And so I'm going to be trying to demystify discipleship for us today so that together we can be the disciples that Jesus calls us to be. And so if you have your Bibles, open up to Matthew chapter four, we're going to be looking at verse 18 through 22. A pretty short passage, just a couple of verses. And really we're going to be focusing most of our time just on one verse within this passage, just one sentence, 10 words. But in these 10 words Jesus gives us, he lays out the entire framework for what it means to be one of his disciples. So if you have your Bibles, you can follow along. If not the words will be up here on the screen. This is Matthew chapter four, beginning in verse 17. Sorry, I said 18 earlier. Matthew 4:17. Matthew tells us, "From that time Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And while walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew his brother, and they were casting the net into the sea for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and they followed him. And going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets and he called to them and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him." This is the reading of God's holy word with us this morning. Would you please join me in prayer over our message today? Jesus, I pray today that you would make evident both the price and the privilege of being your disciple. Help us to count the cost so that we can find Christ worthy. Lord, challenge us today where we need to be challenged. Holy Spirit, convict us where we need to be convicted. Encourage us in whatever area that we may lack the faith or the courage to move forward, to commit, to take up our cross and to follow Jesus. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time and your word right now. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen. All right, well I said that we're going to be looking primarily at just one verse out of this passage and the verse we're going to be looking at it's right there in the middle. It's Matthew chapter four verse 19. And it just simply says this, "And he said to them, follow me and I will make you fishers of men." And in that one short sentence, Jesus gives us the entire framework of what it means to be his disciple. Follow him and he will make you a fisher of men. And so we're going to break this down thought for thought. And the first thing Jesus says is follow me. And the first thing that we need to understand is that being a disciple of Jesus requires a change of both direction and of identity. And when Jesus tells us to follow him, this is what he's calling us to do. It's a change of direction and identity. Right before calling Peter and Andrew, Matthew tells us that from that time Jesus began to preach, and this was his message. His message was, "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." And we talked about this in the first week, that discipleship, following Jesus begins with repentance and faith. That you cannot follow Jesus and yet continue to live life your own way. That there needs to be a change in the trajectory of your life where you turn away from sin in repentance and you turn toward Jesus Christ in faith. You got to lay down your pride. You got to lay down your sin. You got to lay down the false idols and the ideologies of this world and submit fully to the lordship of Jesus Christ as your king. It's a change in direction, but it is also a change in identity. Discipleship, it's not just something that you do. It is something that you become. It is something that you are. That you were once a prisoner in the domain of darkness, you have now been transferred as a citizen into the kingdom of heaven. You were a slave to sin, but you have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You've been set free. You've been adopted into the household of God. You are now a child of God. You are now a new creation in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. A radical transformation of identity takes place when you become a disciple of Jesus Christ. I'm going to read one of Jesus' most famous teachings that he gave his disciples about what it means to follow him. And if you never heard this, if you've never read this before, this is shocking. Matthew 16 verse 24. Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, if anyone wants to follow me and be my disciple, then let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." We talk so much about the cross. Sometimes you forget what that really is. This is the most gruesome form of execution and punishment and existence in that world. Jesus saying, this is what it looks like to follow me. You're going to have to die to yourself. You're going to have to pick up your cross. You're never going to find true life. You're never going to find your true self, your true identity until you lose it, till you lay down your old life. That to be born again as a child of God, you need to die to yourself. That to be accepted as a disciple of Jesus, you need to deny yourself, deny your selfish, proud, rebellious heart and surrender your life to Jesus Christ. And what we see is that Jesus offers us this glorious new identity, but with it comes a radical change in direction, one that is going to require total surrender. And so Jesus calls these first disciples and immediately they leave everything. They leave their nets, they leave their boats, their livelihoods, their family. They leave it all to follow Jesus. And before we go any further today, this is what we need to ask ourself. This is what I want you to ask yourself. What have you given up for the gospel? What have you needed to leave behind to follow Jesus? Or what do you know that you're being called to leave behind, to let go of right now? Are there things that you know should be giving up, that you need to be letting go of, leaving behind, surrendering in order to fully follow Jesus as you know that you ought? Peter and Andrew, James and John, they left everything. Now this doesn't mean that every Christian needs to leave their job and leave their family and go be a missionary somewhere across the world, but not all of us are going to be called to that, but we are going to all be called to something. So what is the Holy Spirit putting on your heart right now? Is there something there that you're holding on to? Is something there that's holding you back from following Jesus as you ought? The only way to come to Christ is with the empty hands of faith, right? It's hard to embrace God when you got your arms already wrapped around the world, when your hands are full, when you're clinging to things that you know need to let go of.Hebrews 12:1 says, "Since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin in which clings so closely." Just whatever is holding you, whatever you're tangled up and cast it aside, let it go. And then in your freedom in Christ, "Run with endurance the race that is set before us." How? "By looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him." He went that distance for us. "Seeing the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God." In Luke 14, Jesus is going about, he's preaching and large crowds of people begin to follow him. And in verse 27, he turns to these crowds and he says, "Listen, whoever doesn't bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?" "Otherwise, when he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 men to come against him with 20,000?" "And if not, while the other is he had a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace." So therefore, and this is his point, "So therefore any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple." What is it going to cost to follow a man who carried a cross? Jesus wasn't interested in drawing crowds, fair-weather fans, right? He wasn't coming so that he could clean up our lives a little bit or do some renovations here and there. He wants to come into your life. He wants to tear the whole house down. He wants to lay a new foundation, one that's going to last, one that he can build your life on for eternity. He wasn't looking for fair-weather fans, he's looking for people ready to deny themselves, ready to take up their cross, ready to follow him and lay their lives at his feet and say, Lord, not my will but yours be done. This is what it means to follow Jesus. We can't talk about discipleship without counting the cost. What is it going to cost? Are you willing to pay that price? I'm going to leave us here in this tension for a while. We'll come back at the end. I'll give you some resolution to this, but we're going to move on for now. And just understand that when Jesus says, follow me, he means take up your cross and follow me. But second, he says, follow me and I will make you. That if you follow Jesus, he's going to change your life. He's going to transform you. And the second point today we're going to be looking at is that being a disciple, it also requires a change of heart and behavior. To really grasp this, what Jesus is saying here and what's going on, you got to understand a little bit about first century Judaism because this idea of discipleship, it's maybe a word that we're familiar with, but it's not a word that's like commonly used or understood in our culture. It was very common in their culture back then. Everyone knew what a disciple was. They'd received disciples out and about following their rabbis around town. A disciple was a student who would come under the teaching and the instruction and the discipline of a rabbi, but they weren't just a student. See, first century Jewish kids, from an early age, they would begin the work of memorizing the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. And as these children grew up, there would come a time where the very best, the very brightest students might perhaps be offered the rare and distinguished honor of being called by a rabbi to be his disciple. And accepting this invitation it meant you had to leave everything. You had to leave your old life, you had to leave your family, the family business. They would leave everything not to follow their rabbi, not just to learn from the rabbi, but to live with the rabbi, to spend every moment with the rabbi trying to learn all that they could to become like their rabbi in every way being a disciple. What it meant was living life in the presence of your rabbi, close proximity, close relationship. And the goal was so that you could really in every way become just like them. And this is exactly what we see Jesus did with his 12 disciples. They follow him around. Everywhere he went, they watched how he lived, they heard him talk, they served with him, they went on missions together with him, and they were learning to be like him in every way. And so we have to ask, what are the implications of this for us today? And really to be a disciple today, it doesn't mean anything different than what it meant for the disciples back then. The difference is Jesus isn't here with us physically. We don't follow him around, the man Jesus Christ in a physical body, but he pours his spirit out upon his church so that yeah, spiritually we live our life in the presence of our rabbi Jesus Christ with him, going where he goes, doing what he says. And I say that because Christians today, we often want to reduce discipleship to like a program or a class or a one-on-one mentorship with a more mature believer. And none of those things are bad. They're just not what we're talking about. There are just such a long ways off from what the New Testament is talking about when it uses this word disciple. And so being a disciple of Jesus, it means living like the 12. It means living in fellowship with other disciples. But you're not following them, you're following Jesus, you're following him together. And so we can't reduce this to meeting with a mentor. We can't reduce it to going and attending a seminar or a Sunday school class or anything like that. When we're talking about the discipleship we're talking about living in community and fellowship with other disciples who are together following Jesus, living life in his presence by the power of his Holy Spirit. Following Jesus, abiding in Jesus, abiding in his spirit, abiding in his word together. And so what this means is two things. First of all, it means that disciples need to follow Jesus personally. And secondly, it means that disciples cannot follow Jesus privately. Personally, if you're a member of Mosaic or if you've taken our membership class, you know that one of the things we talk about in that class is that we have seven expectations of members here at Mosaic. And the first expectation that we have for our members is that each and every one of us strive spiritually. That we each take a personal responsibility for living life in the presence of Christ, of striving to build that relationship with Christ ourselves, of working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. This comes from Philippians chapter two verse 12. Paul says, "Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." You work out your own salvation personally because God is working in you personally. But bigger than that, the idea that Paul's really getting at here is that he wants this church to know and to understand and to never forget that he is not their pope, he's not their priest, he's not their rabbi. Jesus is. And this is important, the Philippians were not called to be disciples of Paul. They weren't called to follow Paul, they weren't called to live their lives in the presence of Paul. They were called to follow Jesus. And thankfully they were a church that really didn't struggle with this very much. They were a relatively healthy and mature and solid church. There was another church that Paul cared about that did struggle with this quite a bit. It was the church in Corinth. We did a whole sermon series on first and second Corinthians called Prodigal Church. And the reason we called it that is because this was a church that had some issues. They struggled with a lot of things and this was one of them. And so in first Corinthians chapter one, one of the very first things that Paul addresses with them is this. He says, "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all agree and that there be no division among you, but that you all be united in the same mind and the same judgment for it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there's quarreling among you brothers." And this is what I mean. "What I mean is that each one of you says, well, I follow Paul or I follow Apollos or I follow Cephas, that's Peter, or I follow Christ." He says, "Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?" Corinthian Church was pretty immature and dysfunctional at times and you read the letter that Paul wrote to them. He gives them a lot of correction. The Philippian church, however, was relatively strong and healthy. He addresses this same thing with them, but does so from way of encouragement and reminder. And so when you read the book of Philippians, one of the things you got to keep in mind, and you see this throughout the book, if you're reading it closely, one of the things you see is that Paul is writing to them from a place in his life where he doesn't know that he is much longer to live, right? This could be his last correspondence with them. He may never see them again. There's a very real chance that he may be facing death, even execution sometime in the near future. And he's not sure, but he wants to write to them to remind them that they're going to be fine without him. Because from the very beginning, they were not his church. God used him in a very special way as an apostle to help this church get started. But what they really needed to understand was that they were not Paul's church. They were Jesus' church. Paul wasn't their pope. Paul wasn't their priest, their mediator or their rabbi. The word that Paul uses to describe his relationship with them. He says, "I was your partner." We were partners in the gospel. We were disciples following Jesus together. And this is why he opens his letter in Philippians chapter one. He says, "I thank my God and all of my remembrance for you, always in all my prayers of mine for you, all making my prayers with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus." Well, who is the he that Paul is referring to here, right? Because Paul is the one who kind of planted this church, but Paul's not referring to himself. The he who began the good work that Paul is talking about is Jesus Christ. That Jesus will complete this good work even if Paul's no longer around. And this is how he starts his letter and then he encourages them with the same thing again at the end. Like, okay Paul, if you go, if you leave us, if you die, who's going to take care of us as a church? And he tells them in Philippians 4:19. He says, "My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in Christ Jesus." Regardless of whether Paul lived or died, what mattered was that Christ would be with them till the end of the age. And that Paul had full confidence that he would make sure even in Paul's absence, that Jesus would finish the good work that he had started in this church. And I say all this because this is what making disciples is all about. It's about teaching people to become independently dependent on Jesus. To become independent in the sense that they're not dependent on us or any other human being for their spiritual wellbeing and to become dependent on Jesus Christ who really is the head of the church, the chief shepherd of every church. And so this might be a paradigm shift for a lot of Christians. It was for the early church as well because this is not how the religious leaders of their day behave. The religious leaders of their day, they very much gathered people around themselves who were dependent on them, who looked to them as spiritual authorities, as mediators between them and God. But Jesus warned his disciples not to be like them, that as his followers that they were going to need to be different, that they could not go on and fall into the same footsteps of the other religious leaders of their day. And Jesus actually had very harsh words for some of these religious leaders. In Matthew chapter 23, he's warning his disciples about this and in verse five he says, "First of all, they do all of their deeds to be seen by others. They love to make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long." They like to show off their spiritual maturity. "And they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces, and they love being called rabbi by others, but you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher and you are all brothers. And call no man your father on earth for you of one Father who is in heaven. Neither be called instructor for you have one instructor, the Christ." He says, "The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted." Now, I don't think Jesus is trying to argue about semantics and titles and calling people teacher or whatever that may be, but he's trying to make a point and the point is this, there's only one Father and by the blood of Jesus Christ, God can be your Father, but God can't be your grandfather. You can't be dependent on some other earthly father to be the mediator between you and God the Father. Only Jesus Christ can do that. There is one teacher, one rabbi, and Jesus can be your rabbi, but he can't be your rabbi's rabbi. He can't be your pastor's pastor. You need that relationship with him yourself. Jesus can call you friend, but he can't be a friend of a friend. The big idea is every single Christian needs to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ for themselves. As Paul said in first Timothy 2:5 that, "There is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all." This mission to go and to make disciples is not a mission to go and make disciples of ourselves. It's a mission to go and make disciples of Jesus. It's not a mission to go out and to become the mediator between God and men. The mission is to point people to the only mediator that there is, the man Jesus Christ. If I had to sum it all up, I would put it like this, that the call of discipleship... Well, first of all, it's a call to be a disciple, to be yourself connected to Christ, abiding in Christ, living in the presence of Christ, following your rabbi. But the call to make disciples is a call for those who are doing that, for those who are more mature in the faith, to help those who are less mature in the faith, become more mature in the faith, by becoming less dependent on them and more dependent on Jesus. That was a lot. So I'm going to say it again. That the call to make disciples is a call for those who are more mature in the faith to help those who are less mature in the faith, become more mature in the faith by becoming less dependent on them and more dependent on Jesus Christ, where you're teaching them to cling to Christ, to abide in Christ, to pursue Christ, to follow Jesus, and to live their lives in his presence. Yesterday our daughter Nora had a birthday party. She's turning eight tomorrow and with our kids we don't do the big huge birthday party every year. But we told them both, when you turn eight years old, you can do the big party where you invite the whole class and everything. So we did the whole trampoline park thing and celebrated her birthday and it was a ton of fun. Now every parent in the room knows when these birthdays come along its bittersweet because it's like how do they grow up so fast? I remember just as clear as it was yesterday, the day that she was born and now she's eight years old and it's hard to see them grow up. You just kind of want them to stay little forever. My wife saw one of these sappy parenting memes the other day, said something like, one day you're going to pick your child up and not realize it will be the last time you put them back down. First of all, how dare you? Like the internet is supposed to be a nice happy place, I thought. You say that and all the moms... It was more pronounced in the first service because we had all the MiniMo parents here. All the moms are like crying. All the dads coincidentally have something stuck in their eye and it's like, what? You just want them to stay little and cute forever, just hold on. They're so sweet and innocent. And we as parents, we think that way. God doesn't think that way. God doesn't want his kids to stay little for... He wants them to grow up fast, to grow up healthy and strong and mature. He wants them to grow up to be independent in the sense that they're not dependent on people or things, but dependent on himself. Because unlike us, unlike our kids, when God's kids grow up, they don't grow up by becoming less dependent on him as they mature. As God's children's mature, they mature in doing so, they begin to see how really totally and utterly dependent on God they really are. They become less dependent on people, on things, and they become more dependent on God himself. That's what it means to grow up, to mature in the faith, to live every moment with this awareness and dependency on your heavenly Father. And so what this means is like, yeah, a newborn baby Christian, they might need to be held, they might need to be fed for a while as they start to grow, they might need someone there to hold their hand as they learn how to walk. For a little while that's okay, but that's not the goal. The goal is not to coddle them, not to become the spiritual equivalent of helicopter parents. The goal is to help them grow up, push them out of the nest, teach them to feed themselves, teach them to walk on their own so that they can begin helping others to do the same. And John 15:5, Jesus said, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." That the only way for a disciple to be healthy, to grow and to bear fruit is not to be a branch of a branch of a branch. It's to be a branch directly connected and abiding in the vine of Jesus Christ. And so disciples need to follow Jesus personally, but disciples can't follow Jesus privately. That you need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but this doesn't mean that you should have a private relationship with Jesus Christ. I said this last week, I'm going to say it again. You almost never see Jesus in the gospels. You never any of the apostles. You almost never see them in a private one-on-one setting with anyone, like everything that Jesus did, he did in a communal setting. And Jesus knew each one of his disciples personally. He called each one of his disciples personally. He loved and he cared for each one of his disciples personally. But he spent almost all of his time with each one of his disciples in community, with the three, with the 12, with the 72. There's always a group of people around him, and I say this because sometimes we want to kind of narrowly define discipleship as like a one-on-one mentorship and that can be useful for a time, for a task, for a purpose. But when you read the New Testament, everything that you see happening is happening in the context of community. It's the body of Christ united working together. That's where people grow. And I said this earlier, I want to demystify discipleship. Discipleship is costly, but it shouldn't be complicated. And when you look at the example of Jesus, when you look at the example of the early church, what you find is there's really only four things that you need as a disciple of Jesus to grow in your faith. It's four things. You need the truth of God's word. You need the power, the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. You need the fellowship of the church. And you need the experiences of life. You need God's word to cut to your heart, to reveal truth, to correct your understanding, to give you knowledge. You need God's Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, to bring assurance of your salvation. The Holy Spirit is needed. The Holy Spirit equips the members of the body so that they can minister with their gifts to one another. You need the word, you need the spirit. You need the fellowship of the church. You need the rest of the body holding you up and holding you accountable. And then you need the experience of life. And this is everyone, regardless of whether you're a disciple of Jesus or not, you're going to get the experiences of life. We're all going to go through the storms of life. How you go through those are dependent on those first three things. You go through the storms of life alone, they're going to crush you. Go through the storms of life with the power of God's Spirit and the fellowship with the church and the truth of his word. God's going to use those very experiences to grow your faith, your character, your perseverance to strengthen you. And so if you're living in the presence of Jesus, if you are in fellowship with other spirit-filled believers and together submitting your lives to the truth and to the authority of God's word, you are going to grow in your faith. It's not complicated. It takes commitment, it takes time. It takes patience and perseverance, but you will grow. And this is why if you know us as a church, we don't focus a lot of time in just offering a thousand different classes or seminars or programs. We focus so much time and care and attention into our community groups because this is where growth happens. Every week spirit-filled people coming together as the body of Christ around the truth of God's word. We're there together in community and that is where the Holy Spirit works in us and through us, to strengthen us, to guide us, to help us, to abide each firmly connected to the vine of Jesus Christ so that we can bear fruit as we go through the experiences of life together, the ups, the downs, the joys, the pains, all of it. God has ordained for our growth. There's a really beautiful picture of this in Ephesians chapter four that kind of shows how this all is intended to work. Ephesians 4:1. "I therefore, a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There's one body and one Spirit just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism when God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gifts." So first of all, Paul begins to show this picture of the unity of the body and of the power of the Father's Holy Spirit present in each member of the body. But then he says, within the unity of the body there is distinction among the members. That God equips the body, different people, members of the body in different ways and that they all need to work together to grow up together into maturity. And so he continues in verse 11, he says, "This is why he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes, rather speaking the truth in love. We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. From whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love." When Jesus says, I will make you, when Jesus tells us he's going to change our lives, this is how he does it as one body with many members, each equipped by the Holy Spirit to come and to work together under the headship of Jesus Christ, growing in unity, growing as one. And the idea here is if you abide in this, you will grow. That Jesus will make you new. He will bear his fruit in your life. He will give you and transform your heart, your behavior, your character. You will be conformed to the fullness, the image of Christ. So that's point number two. Point number three, being a disciple requires a change of heart and behavior. It also requires a change of purpose and perspective. And so I said I was going to leave you in that tension. We counting the cost of discipleship, going to kind of come back to that. Now, from our perspective in this life, when you look at the cost of following Jesus, right? Deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow him. That's a high price. That seems like that cost might be too much. It is high, and Jesus calls us to consider that cost before following him. He calls us to consider that cost. Then he challenges us to consider it again and to consider it from an eternal perspective. Because if you keep going in Matthew 16, the verse we read earlier, Jesus told the disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." He tells them that, but then he gives them like... Well, let's look at this from a different angle. Let's look at this from an eternal perspective. Four verse 25. "Whoever would save his life will lose it, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? What should a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels and the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done." What Jesus wants to see is on the one hand the discipleship is costly and on the other hand, it's not nearly as costly as the alternative. What is it profit a man if he gains the whole world, all the money, all the fame, all the friends and praise and power and comforts of this world and yet loses his soul? What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whatever following Jesus may cost you right now and the grand scope of eternity, it is a small price to pay. That Jesus says, "I'm coming, and when I do, I'm coming in the glory of my Father and I'm going to repay each person according to what they've done." And every single one of us, we need to have this perspective. We need to see things from this angle, when we do, what we see is that the true cost of discipleship, it's not a price to be paid, it is an investment to be made. You invest your life savings, you give everything that you have, you give it all to Christ and you live life through the bear market of this life, but you do so knowing that in the end that the bulls are going to win, that the investment is going to pay off. That Jesus is coming soon and that your sacrifice, everything that you give up right now, it is earning you spiritual dividends right now and it's earning you heavenly rewards when Christ returns. Mark 10. Peter comes up to Jesus and he's like, look, "Jesus, we left everything to follow you." And Jesus says in verse 29, he says, "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brother or sister or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time. Houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and land with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life." In Matthew chapter 13, Jesus shares a few parables and to show us what this is like. He says in verse 44, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that's hidden in a field which a man found and he covered up. And then in his joy, he goes and he sells all that he has and buys that field." And the idea is from one perspective, this guy seems like a fool, right? He just gave his life savings to buy a worthless piece of dirt, an empty field. And yet from another perspective, you see that he didn't give up anything at all. That whatever he laid down to purchase that field could not compare to the infinite glory of riches that were buried beneath the surface that no one else could see. Jesus says again in verse 45, "That the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who on finding one pearl of great value." He goes out and he sells all that he has to buy it. And Jesus gives us this new perspective to think about discipleship and with this perspective, he gives us new purpose as well. That he says, "Follow me and I'm going to make you." And what is he going to make us? Ultimately he says, he's going to make you fishers of men. That's the purpose. Think about that purpose in the context of this new perspective that we have. Jesus asks, "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his soul?" Well flip that around. What does it profit a man if he gives up everything he has right now for the sake of the gospel, in order to gain the souls of others for eternity? Jesus wants to make us fishers of men. You think about that. Jesus wants to give you the opportunity right now as his disciple to play a part in altering the eternal destiny of souls, to play a part in changing the eternal destination of people. You talk about heavenly rewards, like imagine seeing someone in heaven and knowing that Jesus used your witness, your faithfulness, your sacrifice to get them there. Imagine the joy of walking in and seeing that person and knowing that they will be spending eternity in paradise, in the presence of Christ, and that you got to play a part in that. Before telling the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus told two other parables to the same effect in Luke chapter 15. In the context we're told that, "Tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to him and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling about it, saying, "This man receives sinners and he eats with them." And so he told them this parable. He says, "What man of you having a hundred sheep if he has lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he is found it, he lays it on his shoulder rejoicing and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found my sheep that was lost. Just so I tell you, there's more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance." "Or what woman having 10 silver coins if she loses one does not light a lamp and sweep the house and see diligently until she finds it. And when she's found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I found the coin that I lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Who are we that we should be given the privilege, the joy of taking part in something like this? There is great joy we're told in heaven right now when one sinner repents, imagine the joy then. Imagine the joy when all the saints go marching into the joy of their master together and you see those souls that led you to Christ, and you see those people that Jesus used you in their life to lead them to Christ, to help them to grow in Christ. Imagine that joy of being there together. We do not deserve such an honor, and yet we serve a God of amazing grace. When you have this perspective and this purpose, it changes everything. And when you have this perspective and this purpose, all of a sudden everything seems, as Paul said in second Corinthians, it's like "Light and momentary affliction which is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." For why? Because, "We are not looking to things that are seen, but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." Well, I could spend a whole lot more time talking about this theoretically, rather, what I would like you to do is I would like you to go into your community groups this week and talk about how you've experienced this for yourself personally. Share testimonies of God's grace. Jesus calls us fishermen and fishermen love to tell stories. And so tell some of those stories. I think we're going to be spending a lot of time in heaven telling fishermen stories of how Jesus used us to bring other people to faith or used other people to save us or lead us to himself. Share some of those stories this week. If you've played a part in leading someone else to Christ or share the stories of those who played a part in leading you to Christ, not to boast in yourself but to boast as Paul says in Jesus Christ, and to be an encouragement to one another. Share some of those stories this week. And if you're not connected to a community group, this is a really good week to get connected to a community group. If you don't take anything else away from the sermon, this is what I would hope you would take, that you need to be connected to a community, to have fellowship with other people in a meaningful way. And so we would love to help you do that. You can check those out on our website, or better yet, just stop by the welcome center out there and there's people there that would love to help you find a group that works for you. And then if you're here today and you are not yet connected to Christ, if you are ready to make that commitment, to become a follower of Christ, to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, we would love to talk to you about that as well. You can talk to people at the welcome center or Pastor Andy and I will be up here after the service. We'd love to talk to you about that. We could talk to you about baptism or just if you have any questions about Christianity in general, we'd be happy to talk to you, pray with you about that as well. Well, right now, let's pray and we'll spend more time worshiping together. Jesus, we thank you. We praise you so much for the price that you paid to save us. And I pray that you would give us now the grace and the strength and the courage to gladly pay, to gladly suffer and sacrifice whatever is needed to be your witnesses, your followers, your disciples here on earth right now. God help us to take up our crosses daily to follow you, knowing that as our good shepherd that you have promised to lead us into pastures of abundant life. Give us faith to believe that whatever we may have to give up right now in terms of worldly comforts and pleasure, they cannot compare to the spiritual blessings, the eternal rewards that await those who follow you. So Lord, help us to keep our eyes fixed, not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on you, Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that was set before you endured the cross for us, and you're now seated in glory and power at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. Father, we love you, we praise you, and now we just want to worship you together in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Bostonand our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visitmosaicboston.com. So we finally made it to the last week of Romans. Yeah, praise God, we are very thankful for the year that we have been in it. This is a clap of celebration, not of it's over with. No, amen. It has been 11 months, I believe, two weeks and two days since we started the Book of Romans, and we are finally in the last section of this text. And so what we're going to see is how Paul is a master of communication. He knows how to communicate points to people. And any good public speaker, in any format, knows how to communicate clearly what they are trying to say. I pray that I communicate clearly to you what the Lord is trying to say through me today. But if you've taken any classes on public speaking, on sermons, on how to communicate to people, there's a very common three part saying for how to communicate, and I'll get to it in a second. No one knows exactly where this phrase or idea or originated. Some people attribute it to Aristotle, some to like other philosophers and whoever. The earliest date that we have it written down is 1908, and it's in a piece called Three Parts of a Sermon. If you've been at Mosaic for a while, we love three-part sermons, but it's a little bit different here. But it's by a pastor as Mr. Joette, and he talks of a preacher who was communicating to him how to communicate to others. So he says, "How do you prepare your sermon?" The elder pastor says, "I take my text and I divide my sermon into three parts. In the first part, I tell them what I'm going to tell them. In the second part, I will tell them. And in the third part, I tell them what I told him." And that's exactly what we see Paul doing in this text. We have been in Romans for a long time, and if you remember way back to the first sermon in Romans, Paul told us what he is going to tell us. He had a thesis statement. And then we've spent a year hearing what Paul told us. And now, today, he's going to tell us what he has been telling us for the past year that we've been in this text. And so it's his conclusion, it's his summary, but it's not just a restatement of the same things for the sake of concluding. It's a restatement to show how each and every one of the themes and things he has been trying to say to us actually has practical implications for the church today. So before I get into the reading of scripture and the preaching of God's word, I just want to break down the major overarching themes from the Book of Romans for us real quickly. We've spent a year real deep in the details. This is the high arching themes of the Book of Romans. So in Romans 1:1-15, he starts with a greeting to the church in Rome, and a expression of his desire of his wanting to be with them and be in fellowship with them. Then in verses five and then 16 and 17, we sort of see Paul's thesis statement twice stated. So in Romans 1:5, Paul says, "Through whom we have received grace," through whom is Christ, "we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all nations." Then in verses 16 and 17, Paul says, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it as the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith." Paul stated his point in writing the book of Romans is to produce faithful obedience from the church to the Lord, that's verse five. It's the same thing in 16 and 17, from faith, once you are saved, once you have saving faith in Christ for faith, for living a life of faithful obedience. That's why the righteous shall live by faith. So that's Paul's thesis to promote faithful obedience to the Lord and the church. And then the rest of chapter one through the end of chapter five, Paul is arguing about how this faithful obedience is not the same as legal works. It's not the same thing as fulfilling the law or doing your duty. It's a joyous, faithful obedience to the Lord out of love for him. And when we strive to live in love for God, now in chapter six through the end of chapter eight, we get the battle of the spirit versus the flesh. We want to do good. We want to follow the Lord. We want to live by the Spirit. But there is the flesh, the sinful desires, the earthly nature within us that is waging war and trying to push against the Spirit. And so we talked about how we are called to live by the Spirit, not by flesh, to follow the Spirit, to put our flesh to death. And that's a battle. It's a war that's waging. And so what do we do? How do we fight this? Well, first we start by trusting the sovereignty of God, that's chapters nine through the end of chapter 11. In this battle, in this life, all of it is under the umbrella of God is in control. He is Lord and sovereign. Then in chapters 12 through the end of 14, he gets into the specific practicals, "Here's what you do. Here's how you live Christians. Here are the marks of a Christian. What to do as a church." Then he sums it all up, kind of saying, "This is how we're able to actually do it." In 15:1-21, he says, "It's all because of the hope we have in Christ." That everything Paul has written about in the Book of Romans, we need to focus on Christ and have hope that comes from him alone. To be able to live practically for God, to be able to recognize God's sovereignty in difficult times, to be able to fight in the Spirit and reject the flesh, to live in faithful obedience, not as one completing the law, it all requires hope in Christ. And then last week we see how Paul is sort of completing his themes. We talked about his longing, his greeting to many brothers and sisters in the church. Last week we talked about that. And so this week we're seeing Paul's conclusion, and I'm summarizing all of what he has said before, because I want us to be looking at the text we'll read today and seeing where is Paul making connections to these themes? Where is he drawing from these points to try and bring it all about to the practical life of the church today? So with that summary, let's pray over the reading and preaching of God's word. Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you that we have the opportunity to gather here today to praise and worship and honor your name. We thank you that you give us your word, your scriptures to challenge us, to strengthen us, to provoke in us a desire for faithful obedience to you. We thank you for the gift that is our ability to serve and live for you. In this time, use your word, use your scriptures to challenge us, where we need to be challenge, to strengthen us, where we need to be strengthened, and encourage us ultimately to live lives that glorify your name. In Jesus' name, amen. Alrighty. So with that, we actually are not going to have three points today, because I told you what I'm going to tell you, and I've told you that Paul's already told us it. So now I'm just going to go to the third point and tell you what he's been telling you. But what we're going to do is we'll read the text and then I'll go through verse by verse just to point out, this is the theme that Paul is arguing and drawing from. So our text today is Romans 16:17-27 with you'll read with me, you can follow along in your bibles or on the screens behind me. It says this, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsman. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you. Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen." Alrighty, so we will start in verse 17, at the beginning of this text. And what Paul is focusing on is the practicalities of the Christian life. What we talked a lot about in these last few chapters, that was sort of the ending of Paul's argument, is how to live as a Christian. And Paul's argument for the practical life of a Christian, he summarizes with two points. First, focus on the gospel, and second, focus on unity within the church. That is the summary of all the things that Paul has written in terms of the practical life of a Christian. And here in verse 17, he says, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them." And so he's drawing on the text from Romans 14:13. His point that he made there is says this, "Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother." If you remember back in chapter 14, Paul's argument of not passing judgment was specifically, "If someone bears the name of Christ, if they are a Christian, they're in Christ. They are saved. It is not your ability to save them or not save them, to condemn them for what they say or do. God alone saves. So do not pass judgment on them, condemning them. And also rather than condemning them, now, decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of the brother." So focus on the gospel. If they are saved, that is the power of God, that is their identity through Christ, and do not put up any hindrances. Now, the hindrance that Paul was talking about specifically in chapter 14 was meat offered to idols, right? Some Christians said, "We can't eat meat offered to idols, lest anyone think I'm dare worshiping that idol?" Then other Christians were like, "Idols aren't real. We could eat whatever we want." And there was division within churches because of this issue. And Paul's saying, "No, no, we don't have any divisions. We seek, we focus on unity within the church based on the gospel. If it is in the gospel, that is what we focus on." What's interesting, and a brother in the church pointed out to me this week that it ends by saying, "Avoid people who causes division." Seems like it's causing division. Well, two things that we need to recognize here is that, first, Paul is calling for the flip of what he was saying before. Before he said, "Seek unity and don't create division yourselves." Now, "Avoid those who do cause division and reject the gospel." Well, what is this about? It's first, we as Christians are called ourselves, specifically, individually but also corporately as a body to seek this, to seek unity, to pursue unity in practicality and to live it out. And to focus on the gospel ourselves, to hold the gospel of Jesus Christ in utmost authority over our lives. And when we do that for ourselves, we want to protect it. We want to protect that sanctity. We don't want anything to come in to this body and affect that belief. So we do need to protect the gospel of Christ. Now, are we causing divisions by doing that? No, we aren't. Why? Because Paul is clear, "Those that are causing these divisions are not part of the body to begin with." This is verse 18, "For such persons," those causing divisions, "do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." See, we cannot serve the Lord and our own appetites. You can't do both. It's one or the other. And this is Paul's argument from chapter six through eight of the Spirit versus the flesh. You can't serve two masters. This is from Romans 8:5-8, it says, "For those who live according to their flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." And so what Paul is talking about is not division within the church. It's about recognizing that if you are causing division, you are in sin, and you cannot please both your own satisfactions, your own appetites, it's literally your stomach, your hungers, your earthly desires, your flesh and the Lord. And so when we see those that are serving their own desires solely, they are not serving the Lord, we should recognize that, as not what Christ is about and not what Christ is like. And there's always grace and forgiveness and repentance. So if you see somebody who is causing divisions within the church, call them to repentance, and forgive them if they do. If you are causing divisions within the church, call you to repent, and there will be forgiveness, and you will be in the Lord. And we can put aside the desires of our flesh to live in the Spirit. And again, it says that, "Those who set their mind on the Spirit, it brings life and peace." Well, what is the gospel? The gospel is the story of life. The life that we can have eternal life through the working of Christ. And peace is the unity that we seek in this church, but also the peace of our hearts and mind, because of the gospel of Christ.So if you're here today and you're not a Christian, I want to tell you, there are two sides of this, Spirit and the flesh, serving Christ and serving yourself. Ultimately, we'll see that as serving the kingdom of Satan. But I urge of you to run to Christ, pray to Him, seek Him, go to Him, because He desires relationship with you. He died on the cross. He left everything in heaven above to come and save you from your sins, if you have faith and trust in Him. If you will say, "Lord Jesus, I submit my life to you. You are the only one who can save me and bring me into the Spirit, and save me from this sinful flesh of mine." And Paul then goes on talking to the church in Rome, recognizing that they have been saved and they are sanctified, and he knows that by their obedience. Actually before I get to that, quick point, at the end of verse 18, it talks about that, "Those who do not serve the Christ but serve their own appetites, do so by smooth talk and flattery." I like the word flattery. Well, I don't like the word flattery, but I like that it's here. When I think about flattery, what I think about is people telling me I look good when I don't. Like, "Oh, Tyler, you smell great. Is that new cologne?" It's like, I've just been running up and down stairs. I've been sweating. I know I smell terrible. That's not good. That's not true. That's flattery. But that's what flattery is emphasizing here is praise that is not true. So we just sang a song before the service about how God is worthy of praise. That's actually the same word as flattery here. But the difference is, yeah, God is worthy of praise. God is holy. He is worthy of glory. He is almighty. So it's not flattery, it's praise. Now, when someone gives us praise, and we know it's not true, that's flattery. I don't know about you, but my least favorite compliment to ever receive is, "You're such a good person." Jesus is very clear, there is none good but one and that is the Lord God. And so when I hear that, all that goes through my mind is, "You have no idea how much of a sinner I am. You have no idea how wicked I am that you say I'm good." What Paul is saying here is, "Watch out for people who tell you what you want to hear. Watch out for people who tell you how great you are and amazing you are, when it's not true." You see, this was what was causing division in so many churches in the first century, and throughout all of history, is that people start to say, "You know what? I'm going to tell people what they want to hear. I'm going to tell them how awesome and great they are, and then they'll follow me." But, Paul's saying, "No, follow those not who speak well, not who have smooth talk, but those who live lives of faithful obedience." Don't listen to what I'm saying or any other preacher at Mosaic says, because we are eloquent, check us. Are we faithfully following the Lord? And by God's grace we strive to, we desire to. And anyone who is faithfully obedient to the Lord, they are the ones to follow, regardless of how well they speak, regardless of how charismatic they are, are they bearing fruit of faithfulness to the Lord? Follow them and praise them, because then it's true. Praise God that you are able to live a life of faithful obedience and bestow that honor upon such people. And that's what Paul does here, right? In verse 19, he says, "For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." Paul rejoices, he brings praise over the church in Rome, because he knows that they have been obedient. He's also clarifying, he's like, "I'm not saying these things about you. You haven't been the ones causing division. You aren't the ones with smooth talk and flattery. I'm thankful and praising God for you because of your obedience." And what Paul is drawing on is that faithful works, faithful obedience is not the same thing as fulfilling of the law. And where do we see that clearly is the rejoicing that Paul gives for their obedience. Have you ever rejoiced because someone followed the law? That's like, you're supposed to follow the law, just do it like we don't rejoice and celebrate the fact. Guys, I can tell you this past week I did not murder anyone. Great. Yeah, exactly. That proves my point. No one rejoices over me doing what the law says I'm supposed to do. You're like, "No, duh, just do what you're supposed to do." But what we rejoice over is when people do things that they're not supposed to do, that they are not supposed to be able to do. And this is what Paul argues in Romans chapter four and in chapter five, kind of together, that whole argument he brings it about. But in 4:1-5, Paul says this, "What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but believes in him, who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness." See, when we work, we get wages, right? You have a job, you get paid. So when you receive wages for the work you do, that's just what you're supposed to get. When you get a gift, that is a cause for rejoice and because you know don't deserve it. And what this text is saying, is that Abraham was counted as righteous, was counting as faithful before the Lord because of his faith. He was counted as doing good things, as fulfilling the law, because of his faith, not because of the works he did. And so he is in a position of saved by grace through faith. And anyone who bears the name of Christ is in the same. We are in a position, a state of faith by grace, of grace by faith, I should say. Well, so then what do we do from that position? This was Paul's argument in his thesis that from faith, for faith, you are in faith. From that faith, now you go in faith, you do faith, you live in faith. And this is Romans 5:2-5, "Through him," through Christ, "we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand," this is the state we are in because of faith, "and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." We're in a position of faith, now, we live in faith. We live in a way that allows us to endure suffering, to build character, to produce hope in us. Why? Because of the faithful obedience to God that we are able to live in because of the state of grace through faith that we are in. And we rejoice over it, right? He says twice that, "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, but we also rejoice in our sufferings." There is a rejoicing, and that's Paul's point here. He says, "I rejoice over your obedience," because when we see the obedience in our lives, when we see the obedience in other faithful Christians lives, we look at them and what we see is not them doing good things. What we look at is we see that God has saved them and has allowed them to live a life that actually brings honor and glory to God. Praise God. That's not possible for any of us to do unless it's a gift of God. So when we see faithful obedience, we should rejoice, we should celebrate it, not because it's good work, but because it's a gift from God. And then he says this little phrase, "Be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil." The word innocent literally means unmixed, untainted. What he's talking about is purity. Be wise as to what is good without any evil mixed in. Okay, well, and what is wisdom? My working definition that I don't know where I got it from, but I've heard for many years and I love about wisdom is knowledge applied. It's not just knowing what is good, but actually living in it and applying it to day-to-day life. I can see what God says is good and apply it to my day-to-day situations. So what Paul is calling for us to do is to strive for perfection. Oh, that's a hard thing to do, right? Now, none of us are perfect, none of us achieve it. But again, it is a gift from God in the first place that we could do anything good. And so if that is true, then we trust God and we seek him, and he will enable us to remove the evil within our hearts, within our lives. And so Christians, we are called to examine ourselves. We are called to look at our lives and say, "Where is their sin? Where is there evil? Where is there something within my heart and my life that I am not submitting to the Lord?" And we're called to cut it out. We're called to remove it. We're called to submit it fully to the Lord and be sanctified, so that we are unmixed, we're innocent to evil. Now, Paul transitions very easily to verse 20, which is all about the sovereignty of God in this. If we want to strive for perfection, if we want to grow in sanctification, we need God to be in control of it. That's verse 20, where Paul says this, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." So Paul's encouragement for us as we're striving to be faithfully obedient, to do what is good and remove evil, is that God will crush Satan under our feet. This is my favorite verse in this text. I love this verse, it's good pre-workout. You should just read it before you lift. But it's really interesting, because it's God doing the crushing. It says, "God will crush you." Sorry, "God will soon crush Satan." Sorry, slip of the talk. No, God's not going to crush you, by god's grace, if you're in Christ, so repent and believe. God will soon crush Satan. But it's under our feet, not under His feet, under our feet, but God is the one doing the crushing. What is going on here? If you think back and remember to the story of creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, the very first prophecy of the Messiah is in Genesis 3, and it's about how Jesus, the Messiah, will crush the serpent's head, will crush him with His foot. And in Hebrews 2, we see that Jesus is that Messiah who has done this. In Hebrews 2:14, it says this, "Since therefore the children's share in flesh and blood, he himself," Jesus, "likewise, partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil." What it's saying is that we are flesh and blood, we are people, and Jesus Christ, likewise, took on flesh. This is what we celebrated at Christmas. He became like us. He took on flesh. Why? So that through his death, his death on the cross, he might destroy the one who has the power of death. It is Satan. That word destroy and crush that it's the same idea. It's complete, utter destruction, completely destroys. It's the idea of a fine China vase that you just take and throw and smash on the ground. It's just shattered into millions and billions of pieces. And you could never put it back together the way it was before. It's completely destroyed. It's no longer what it was. Jesus did that. Jesus defeated Satan in that complete total way from his death and resurrection on the cross, because he proved that he has power over Satan, sin, and death. And just like Christ's righteousness is applied to us through faith, so is this applied to us. This actually comes from the book of Luke. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out 72 disciples and tells them, "Go preach the gospel to anyone who will listen." And those 72 come back, and this is what it says in Luke 10:17, The 72 returned with joy saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" And he said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." See, God is in control of all things. Romans tells us that all things are from Him, through Him, and to Him. He is in control of all. And what He has ordained from the beginning is that Christ will defeat Satan. That the kingdom of God will reign and power and might and defeat and crush and utterly destroy the kingdom of Satan. And by God's sovereign grace, we are called to partake in that mission. We are called to partake in the treading of the kingdom of Satan underfoot. And how do we do that? Not by rejoicing in it, not by celebrating and getting power hungry and being like, "This is great. We can do all this." No, but we rejoice that our rejoice that our names are written in heaven. We rejoice in the salvation that comes from Christ alone. And like those 72 that were sent out, the great commission calls us to be sent out, to go and preach the gospel to all nations, to all who have not heard. Why? Because it's good, it's true, because we desire for people to be saved? Yes, and this is how God ordained us to continually tread, excuse me, continually tread the kingdom of Satan underfoot. We recognize that it is the kingdom of God versus the kingdom of Satan. And so when we see places where God is not at, where the world is not in submission to the Lord, where kingdom of Satan is ruling, we march into those areas and boldly, faithfully proclaim the gospel to anyone and everyone who will listen. And we usher in the kingdom of God in places where it is not, because we recognize kingdom of Satan you have no power, you have been defeated from Christ. And as we look forward to the day that that is fully realized, at the second coming of Christ, we still are faithful in ushering the kingdom of God here and now. We want to trust in the sovereignty of God. But specifically what Paul is calling us to do that in is the preaching and proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of those who hear. So in everything in life, trust in the sovereignty of God, but especially in the preaching of the gospel. And then in verses 21 through 23, Paul gets into a little bit more of greetings saying hello to more people. If you're here last week what we talked about was how the word greeting is Paul welcoming as if into their own home. We talked about how Paul genuinely loved and cared for other Christians, and he can't help but greet more people and send more greetings from other people, because they actually love and care for each other. So if you want more information on that, listen to last week sermon where we talk about how Christians, we are called to love each other here in this room, but every single person who bears the name of Christ, we are called to love and care for. But in verses 21 through 23, Paul says this, "Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsman. I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greets you." So rather than greeting people who are at Rome, he's sending greetings from people that are with him, encouraging them like, "Church in Rome, there are people who love and care about you here too." And this is just like my personal head cannon. This is not certain, so don't... it's not certain, but Tertius and Quartus, it says, "Our brother Quartus," I believe they're physical, literal brothers. But anyway, here's why Tertius means third and Quartus means fourth. So great creativity, parents, they named their kids first, second, third, fourth. And praise God, I haven't had any teenagers roll through. "Oh, you're the first one. What's your name? First, oh, second, third..." Thank you parents for creativity in naming your kids. And if you name is first, second, third, fourth, I'm sorry, but the Lord still loves you, and we will all receive a new name in heaven anyway, so it's okay. No, anyway, sorry. So he is just continually pointing out his themes that he is going through. He has his greetings, his longing to be with the people in Rome. And then in verses 25 through 27, the largest part of his conclusion, his summary, he focuses on the most important thing. The most important thing for how all of this applies to us today is that we need to hope in Christ alone. So verses 25 to 27, he says this, "Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel in the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen." Starts by saying, "Now to him who is able to strengthen you..." Well, who is that? That is God. That is Christ. He is the one who is able to strengthen us. So when we're looking to live in faithful obedience, when we're looking for living in life in the Spirit and to follow all the practical wisdom and guidance that the scriptures give us, we first need to recognize that the strength we need to do this comes from Christ alone. Comes from the hope that we can have that He is with us, He is strengthening us, He is encouraging us, He is there. Then he says, "According to my gospel." Paul, it's not your gospel, it's the gospel. Don't hold it for yourself. No, this is incredible, because what Paul is saying is he really truly believes the gospel applies to everything about him. He has internalized the gospel, recognizes the reality of the power it has over who he is. It's not just the gospel, it's not just the good news, it's his good news, because it's the only way that he can be saved. It's the only way that he can have hope in Christ. It's the only way he can have hope in this life. So Christians, do we actually think the gospel applies to every single area of our life? Do we look at parts of our lives, what we think, what we say, what we do, and say, "Is this following the gospel? How does the gospel transform this?" And do we actually have pride in this? Paul is bold enough and proud enough to say, it is his gospel to declare to everyone that it is his. He takes ownership of it. It's not just something he thinks about or likes or prefers. It is his gospel. It's part of his identity. It is his identity. Christians, are we bold enough to proclaim to those around us, "It's our gospel too"? We're not ashamed of the gospel, right? That was his thesis in verse 16, chapter one. I'm not ashamed of the gospel, we're not ashamed of it, because it's our gospel. It's the only thing that saves us, as we talked about earlier. It's the only thing that brings life and peace in this world and in the one to come. Then he says, "In the preaching of Jesus Christ," I love this too because that's part of why I'm up here. That's part of why every preacher does what they do is we want you guys, we want all of us, myself included, to focus on Christ. To focus on Christ, so that you are strengthened, you have hope in Him, so that way we can live lives of faithful obedience. I'm not up here just to talk about things that were written a long time ago. I'm not up here just to say whatever I want to. I'm up here so that we can all, as a church, as a body be unified and strengthened and encouraged. So that when we walk out those doors, we don't just say, "That was nice. I had a good time." No, that we walk out these doors saying, "I am ready. I am prepared. I am strengthened to be able to live this day, this week, this life in honor of God, to bring glory and praise to His name." And in this text, Paul can't help but focus on the sovereignty of God still, right? That's the next part. "According to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations..." Paul is saying, "This salvation through Christ alone has been God's plan, his sovereign plan for all of human history. And what gives us the strength to go and live lives of faith... we need His help in living lives of faithful obedience." And it's his command. I love that, too, by God's command. God's command is do not fail. He is true. He keeps his word. He is honorable, and it is His command that all nations will hear the gospel. And so when we see that we take encouragement, we take hope in Christ, because Christ coming, His death and resurrection, His life here on earth is proof of God's sovereignty. It is validating to us that when we look at Christ, when we see the hope we have in Christ, yeah, God's sovereignty is real. It's not just in theological idea. It's not just something we think about, but it is proven true through the life of Christ. And He can change all nations by it, by this reality, by his sovereignty. And within this conclusion, he just slips in his thesis one more time, just to make sure we all understood and we all heard it. Verse 26, "But has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings and has made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God..." Why? "To bring about the obedience of faith, to the only wise God be glory forever more through Jesus Christ! Amen." The obedience of faith is a gift from God that we even get to live at all, let alone live a life that brings honor and glory to His name. And so we should live lives of obedience, faithful obedience to the Lord, joyfully, trusting in his sovereignty, focusing on the hope we have in Christ. And as it says in verse 27, "All for the glory of God." That is the way we bring the greatest glory to God's name by living lives that honor Him, by living lives that are faithfully obedient to His word. And that when others see it, they recognize it as God in us, and that we are then able to proclaim the gospel to all who witness and see. So I told you what I was going to tell you, talked about what Paul has already told us. I just told you what I've been telling you. We are called to live lives of faithful obedience to the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, you are good. We thank you that we get to honor and glorify your name. We thank you that we get to live in obedience to you. We thank you for that gift. Give us hearts that are able to recognize where sin is in us and to run to you, to repent of it to you, and remove it from our hearts, remove it from our lives. Lord, give us hearts that truly desire to see your kingdom come here on earth, to live faithfully marching forward for your kingdom. And give us hearts that no matter what circumstances come our way, are focused on Christ, are focused on the hope that you alone provide, and will strengthen us to be able to get through all of life's situations. We thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name, amen.

Wednesday, 4 January 2023   “after John had first preached, before His coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. Acts 13:24   Paul is in the synagogue in Antioch of Pisidia. He has been addressing those gathered on the Sabbath, telling them about God's plan of salvation. In the previous verse, he specifically introduced Jesus as the Savior. He now notes that Jesus' ministry began “after John had first preached.”   This is referring to John's preaching which immediately preceded the ministry of Jesus. It was not that John preached before the coming of Jesus at His birth, but before the designated time for His ministry to begin.   The significance of this was that John didn't preach like the other prophets as if the Messiah was coming at some unstated point in the future. Rather, his words indicated that the Messiah was right at hand and ready to appear. This was, as Paul continues to note, “before His coming.” The Greek literally reads “before the face of His entrance.”   It is a Hebrew expression indicating an appearance, the face representing the person's presence. In this, a new word is used, eisodos. It is essentially the opposite of exodus. It indicates an entrance and extends to a means or place of entrance. Because Paul is connecting John's ministry to that of the coming of the Messiah, he is indicating that the two events are inextricably linked. The herald had come and then the One he proclaimed had immediately followed. As for John, his proclamation was “the baptism of repentance.”   The meaning is that John called the people to repent. In his calling, those who agreed with his proposition were then baptized to outwardly acknowledge the inner change that had taken place. It was a symbolic act of repentance. The word “repent” must be defined to understand what is being said –   “A word compounded of the preposition μετά, after, with; and the verb νοέω, to perceive, and to think, as the result of perceiving or observing. In this compound the preposition combines the two meanings of time and change, which may be denoted by after and different; so that the whole compound means to think differently after. Μετάνοια (repentance) is therefore, primarily, an after-thought, different from the former thought; then, a change of mind which issues in regret and in change of conduct. These latter ideas, however, have been imported into the word by scriptural usage, and do not lie in it etymologically nor by primary usage. Repentance, then, has been rightly defined as ‘Such a virtuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like virtuous change in the life and practice.' Sorrow is not, as is popularly conceived, the primary nor the prominent notion of the word. Paul distinguishes between sorrow (λύπη) and repentance (μετάνοια), and puts the one as the outcome of the other. ‘Godly sorrow worketh repentance' (2 Corinthians 7:10).” Vincent's Word Studies   It was this changing of the mind that John was called to proclaim. The Messiah was soon to appear and there was to be a national preparing for His arrival –   “In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, 2 and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!' 3 For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord; Make His paths straight.”'” Matthew 3:1-3   This call for the people to change their minds was “to all the people of Israel.” Jesus came to the people of Israel. His ministry was to the nation of Israel. No Gentiles were a part of the nation. He had come to fulfill the law and then initiate a New Covenant. This covenant was to be “with the House of Israel and with the house of Judah” as stated in Jeremiah 31:31.   As such, what Paul is conveying to those at the synagogue is a restating of the process of preparation for Israel to enter into this New Covenant based on their lives under the Law of Moses. As the Gentiles were never under the law of Moses, what Paul says here does not apply to them. It is simply a restating of the facts as they occurred just as the Messiah was ready to come forth. That was prophesied by the prophet Malachi –   “Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments. 5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 6 And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:4-6   Commentaries quite often shove Paul's words here in Acts 13 into their “Gentile” theology concerning entry into the New Covenant, meaning “how to be saved.” But this is entirely inappropriate. Christ has come. And more, the Law of Moses was never in effect for any Gentile at any time or place in human history. The entrance of Gentiles into the New Covenant was anticipated by Isaiah, and it is something that was only available after the work of Christ was accomplished –   “And now the Lord says, Who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, So that Israel is gathered to Him (For I shall be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, And My God shall be My strength), 6 Indeed He says, ‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.'” Isaiah 49:5, 6   Israel had to repent because they were under the law. To be brought out of that state, they needed to be in the right condition for that to occur. Now, with Christ's work complete, salvation is solely by faith in what He has accomplished.   Life application: Remember the basics of the gospel –   “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Corinthians 15:3:4   By faith in this message, one is saved. At that time, the Holy Spirit is given as a seal, a guarantee, of that salvation –   “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” Ephesians 1:13, 14   The process is of God. The work is accomplished by Jesus. Belief in this results in eternal salvation. Nothing can be added to this message without causing damage to its purity.   Glorious God, we stand in awe of what You have done. You have brought us from darkness into the wonderful light of Christ. Thank You for restoring us to Yourself. And thank You for Your word that reveals these things to us. We can have confidence in our walk and hope concerning our future because of what You have provided for us. Hallelujah! Amen.  

Changing situations and changing circumstances often come with changing moods, like unease, irritability, or even irrational behavior. These changes may be due to the loss of employment, a loved one, or something else we once held so dear. We might lose something that used to occupy our time, or something that's just always been there. When a part of our lives that has felt normal since childhood suddenly isn't there anymore, life can feel empty..The apostle Paul experienced a lot of changes. He was one of the most educated people of his day. He sat at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the best teachers of the Jewish Scriptures (Acts 5:34; 22:3). No doubt Paul was envied by some who didn't enjoy the same privileges he did..But when Paul came to faith in Christ Jesus (whose followers he had persecuted severely up till then) things took a different turn. That privileged position was no more. Now, as a follower of Jesus Christ, Paul was the one being severely persecuted for his faith. He went through very uncomfortable situations—sometimes because of persecution from non-Christians, and sometimes because of natural disasters beyond his control. Paul was shipwrecked more than once. There were times when he had very little to live on and he went hungry and thirsty. He experienced sleepless nights and shivered in the cold without enough clothing. He worked hard and for long hours. He was beaten with rods and imprisoned frequently (2 Corinthians 11:23-29). Sometimes Paul had more than enough, but other times he had less than enough..Through all this, rather than complaining and becoming bitter or even abandoning his faith in Christ, Paul says he “learned the secret of being content” with whatever he had and whatever circumstances he was going through (Philippians 4:12). And that secret was knowing Christ. Paul learned to bring all his anxieties to the Lord and to trust and depend on Him (4:6). But this is something he had to learn—it didn't happen automatically. Because Paul had met the risen Jesus, he had hope that Jesus would return to raise the dead and unite heaven and earth. This is the message Paul constantly told the churches, and this is what drove him. In good times and bad, Jesus was the One who provided Paul's contentment. As we go through life's challenges, twists, and turns in this ever-changing world, we can learn to be content as we draw near to Jesus. Only He can bring true peace of mind and rest to our souls. • Charity Kiregyera.• What might it look like to draw near to Jesus during times of change? (Read Philippians 4:4-7.) .I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. Philippians 4:11b (NIV)

Romans 9:10-13 - Although everyone is under God's sovereign control, His special purpose and promises are only for His children, those who are born of the Spirit. As Paul argues this case in Romans 9:1013, he gives examples in the Old Testament including that of Isaac and Ishmael. Because Paul understands that there may be some arguments or disputes against this example, he then goes on to give the example of Esau and Jacob. In this sermon on Romans 9:1013 titled God's Purpose Made Sure, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that Paul always refutes any arguments with facts first, and later provides doctrine to prove his point. The example of Esau and Jacob proves that God intervened in their situation because Rebecca was barren. Before the twins were even born, God said that he would choose Jacob to fulfill his promise and not Esau. This shows that the Lord draws distinctions among people, proving the doctrine of election. God did this because it was part of his holy plan. God's purpose is always worked out by means of election. Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds that God's plan is never based on works and it is all through those whom he calls. Therefore, only those who are born of the Spirit are truly part of God's plan. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/603/29

How do we share the good news in hostile places? Because Paul and Silas believed the Gospel was the power of God, they weren't intimidated as they moved into new territory. In this first message from a series on Acts, we're introduced to the courage and the strategy of the early church. The Gospel changes everything.  This month's special offer is available for a donation of any amount. Get yours at offerrtw.com or call us at 1-800-215-5001.

How do we share the good news in hostile places? Because Paul and Silas believed the Gospel was the power of God, they weren't intimidated in new territory. In this message from Acts 16, we discover three conditions of our hearts, much like the Philippians—the first converts in Europe. Even in the darkest of places, we can have faith and courage.  To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/172/29

Romans 9:10-13 — Although everyone is under God's sovereign control, His special purpose and promises are only for His children, those who are born of the Spirit. As Paul argues this case in Romans 9:10–13, he gives examples in the Old Testament including that of Isaac and Ishmael. Because Paul understands that there may be some arguments or disputes against this example, he then goes on to give the example of Esau and Jacob. In this sermon on Romans 9:10–13 titled “God's Purpose Made Sure,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points out that Paul always refutes any arguments with facts first, and later provides doctrine to prove his point. The example of Esau and Jacob proves that God intervened in their situation because Rebecca was barren. Before the twins were even born, God said that he would choose Jacob to fulfill his promise and not Esau. This shows that the Lord draws distinctions among people, proving the doctrine of election. God did this because it was part of his holy plan. God's purpose is always worked out by means of election. Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds that God's plan is never based on works and it is all through those whom he calls. Therefore, only those who are born of the Spirit are truly part of God's plan.