Podcasts about dear christian

Dear Christian, as you look back on your life, what has made you the happiest?Of all the people you've met, for whom are you most grateful?Thing that made your happiest is you were called into God's House, the House of Lord, the church of the living God. You are most grateful to have known those people who called you to be one of the people with whom the God of all grace dwells and lives through his gracious Word and sacraments.

Dear Christian, take heart in your suffering! When you don't know what to pray, the Spirit of God prays for you.

Philippians 1:21, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." The apostle Paul saw his entire existence through the lens of his Savior. If he lived, it was for Christ's glory; if he died, it was for Christ's presence. Either way, he was wholly surrendered to Christ! Christ was the source, the substance, and the goal of his life."To live is Christ." What does this mean? It means that Christ is the purpose of our lives, the joy of our hearts, and the strength of our souls. Whether in trials or triumphs, in sorrows or joys, Christ is the center of all we do. Our lives are not our own--they are His! To a man who lives for Christ, nothing is secular--everything is sacred. To draw nearer to Christ is his life's ambition; to glorify Christ is his daily business; to live for Christ is his greatest joy.But then Paul adds, "to die is gain." How can death--the dreaded enemy of mankind--be gain? To the world, death is the worst possible loss--it is the end of all earthly hopes and dreams. But for the believer, death is simply the doorway into eternal, unbroken fellowship with Christ! It is the shedding of all sin, the end of all suffering, and the entrance into the fullness of joy in our Savior's presence. To die is to be with Christ, to behold Him in all His glory, and to rest in His love forever. No more pain, no more tears--only Christ, in the fullness of His beauty and glory!Dear Christian, do not fear what the world fears. Your life is Christ's, and your death is but a passage into His presence, to a glory beyond imagining. Take heart! Your life is Christ, your death is gain, and your eternity is secure in His loving hands.Live for Christ today, and long for the

I really hope many Christians watch this video and see the truth about God and money as I believe it will help us to have a right view of ourselves in regards to Jesus. I also share my favourite film with Will Smith in and how this also links to an important Bible verse. This message is very similar to my previous one called "Dear Christian, This Video Will Make You Cry."

When I was a child, I remember the sense of security I had while Ronald Reagan served as our president. I also remember his farewell address to our nation and the great sense of loss that I felt knowing that he would no longer be serving as our nations president. John Winthrop preached in 1630 upon arriving in Massachusetts; in his sermon Winthrop declared his fellow pilgrims: For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. He also said of their future in Massachusetts: Beloved there is now set before us life and good, Death and evil, in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his Ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land we go to possess. John Winthrops sermon had a profound impact upon President Reagan for he placed that line about Winthrops hope and expectation that one day that land he and the pilgrims discovered, ...will be as a city upon a hill. I still remember President Reagans farewell address to our nation; I was in eighth grade at Neshaminy Junior High when I heard it. Reagans address is just over 20 minutes long, and although we do not have the time to listen to it, I would like to share with you his concluding remarks that I believe have affected our nation more than some of you may realize: I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night?More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago.But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home. We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought Americaback. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands.All in all, not bad, not bad at all. There is a phrase introduced to our nation from another campaign that I was going to use for the title of this sermon... a phrase I have heard many Christians say or embrace that I have chosen not to use. I know that when some use the phrase, it has been and continues to be used out of a hope and desire for Americas good. However, I have instead chosen the phrase: America is a shining city on hill used by a president I still admire and respect. Jesus is Eternally the Same (vv. 7-9) What I dislike about a sermon series like Christians Say the Darndest Things is that today you will receive an exposition on Hebrews 13:7-14 without the benefit of seeing the wounder of chapters 1:1-13:6. We are skipping right to the end without gazing at the Christ who is, the heir of all things, through whom God also made the world. Right out of the gate in the book of Hebrews, we discover a Jesus who is, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact representation of His nature. In Hebrews we discover a Jesus who, upholds all things by the word of His power. The Jesus of Hebrews 13:8 is the same Jesus who, When he had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:1-3). Because Jesus is, the radiance of the glory of God and the exact representation of His nature (1:3), He is the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:9). Jesus is the great I AM (John 8:48-59) because He is equal with the Father as the eternal Son (John 5:15-23). Jesus is He who was and is the Light of mankind because He is the Word who was in the beginning with God through Whom All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being (John 1:1-4). This same Jesus became flesh through the miraculous conception in Marys womb while still a virgin, He was born and lived among mankind yet without sin, and He lived for the purpose of dying for sinners like you and me on a cross. This same Jesus was buried in a borrowed tomb, and on the third day... He defeated sin and death by rising from the grave. For this reason, this same Jesus is highly exalted and upon Him is, the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:8-11). Jesus is the same yesterday in that when God the Father spoke creation into existence, it was Jesus the Son who completed it: for by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authoritiesall things have been created through Him and for Him (Col. 1:15-16). The reason why the earth remains in orbit and every atom and molecule remains in place is because the One who is also the same today is responsible for holding, all things together (Col. 1:17). Jesus is the same yesterday in that He was the One before Whom Abraham bowed (see Gen. 18:1-22). Jesus is the same yesterday in that He is the One who wrestled with Jacob (see Gen. 32:22-33). Jesus is the same yesterday in that He appeared before Joshua as the captain of the Lords army, and it was before Him that Joshua removed his sandals and worshiped (Josh. 5:13-15). Jesus is the same yesterday in that He was the One who was seen by King Nebuchadnezzar in the furnace as He kept Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from perishing in blazing fire of the furnace (see Dan. 3:8-30). Jesus is the same yesterday. Listen, the same Jesus who provided Peter, John, and James the miraculous catch of fish that compelled Peter to fall to his knees and respond: Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man (Luke 5:8), is still the same today! The same Jesus cured lepers, made the lame walk, the blind see, and the dead rise... is still the same today! The same Jesus who died for sinners and rose from the grave is still the same today! The same Jesus who commanded us to make disciples (Matt. 18:19-20) and promised, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judah, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth (Acts 1:8), is still the same today! And listen, the same Jesus who promised that He would come back in the same way that He ascended into heaven (Acts 1:9), is the same Jesus yesterday, today, and forever! The point is that if you get Jesus wrong, or if you miss Him, or if you choose any person, thing, or ideology over Him... you will get everything else wrong! The message of Hebrews is that Jesus is a treasure that no other treasure can compare. This is why we are told in verse 8 to, Remember those who led you, who spoke the word of God to you; and considering the result of their way of life, imitate their faith. Those who truly spoke the word of God to you are those who did not get Jesus wrong! Jesus is the same yesterday. Everything in this World is Consistently Unsatisfactory (vv. 10-11) Because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever... His life, death, and resurrection provide for us a more permanent solution to our sin problem. What this means is that Jesus cross is a better altar unlike ones used under the Old Covenant. The carcasses of the animals slaughtered on the Day of Atonement during Passover were taken out of the city to be burned; if they were thrown into a pile with the city and burned, they would have defiled the city. Not so with Jesus, for while living, he was led outside of the city to become a curse for us on the cross we deserved (Gal. 3:10-14), and by dying for our sins outside the gate, His blood is what makes us holy. What is the point? Here is the point: There is no person, there is no religion outside of Christianity, and there is no government that can do (if you are not a Christian) or has done (if you are a Christian) what Jesus alone can do. Paul Washer put it this way in his sermon preached to pastors some time ago answering the question as to how Jesus death on a cross for a few hours on a tree to save a multitude of men from an eternity in hell: Because that one Man is worth more of them put together. You take mountains and mole hills, crickets and clouds. You take everything. Every planet, every star, every form of beauty. Everything that sings, everything that brings delight, and you put it all onthe scale, and you put Christ on the other side and HE outweighs them all, HE outweighs them ALL! Brethren, this is the one we chase after![1] Compared to Christ, everything in this world is not only temporary but unsatisfactory. Jesus is the living water, and all the promises of this world together cannot compare. They are all broken and cannot deliver what they promise to deliver! The Old Covenant only provided a temporary solution to the sin problem of the Hebrew people; the work of the priests required them to remain standing for the need of a sin covering was ongoing. This is why just three chapters prior, we are reminded in Hebrews 10:1 of the following: For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the form of those things itself, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect. Then in Hebrews 10:11-13, we are told of the only one qualified to address our sin problem: Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. (Heb. 10:1113) So, why is it that we are chasing after the shiny things of this world that cannot deliver what only Jesus is able to provide? Christian, if you have the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why are you looking for something different? Why would you long for anything else when you have He who is the Bright Morning Star (Rev. 22:16)? Jesus is the same today. If You Have Jesus, You are Waiting for Something Greater (vv. 12-14) These next verses serve as the crescendo of the entire epistle, and they begin with the word Therefore and if the author of Hebrews was texting you Hebrews 13:7-14, you would see THEREFORE in all caps because it is a very big THEREFORE! In other words, in light of all that has been said from the very first sentence of this epistle to verse 11, Jesus also suffered outside the gate, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood (v. 12). What was accomplished on His cross for our sins outside the gate on Golgothas hill has done infinitely more than anything else you have chased after thinking that person, or thing, or ideology would bring you purpose, peace of mind, or pleasure. They cannot give you what only God is able to deliver! Dear Christian, Jesus sanctified you by dying for you, his corpse was in that tomb for three days, and the proof that Jesus sanctified you is in the fact that He marched out of that tomb three days later! Who or what can give you what Jesus has provided? If you are a Christian, Ephesians 1:7-8 is about you: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. What Jesus provided on the altar of the cross is only available for those who receive it, and those who receive it will never be the same because of Him. The evidence that you have received what Jesus has made available to you is a desire to follow Him. To any and all who wish to know Him, must follow Him, for Jesus said: If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what good will it do a person if he gains the whole world, but forfeits his soul? Or what will a person give in exchange for his soul (Matt. 16:2426)? What we read in Hebrews 13:13 is no different: So then... So what? In light of the fact that Jesus is, the same yesterday and today, and forever (v. 7), and what has been provided on the altar of His cross for our sins (v. 10)... let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach (v. 13). The only reason anyone would do that is if they understood Jesus to be infinitely more precious and valuable than any person, any thing, any ideology, any city, or nation of this world. We chase after Jesus because in Him is life is and because He is life, He alone is the Light of mankind (John 1:4). We chase after Jesus because He is, the Light of the world and the one who chases after Him, will not walk in the darkness but will have the Light of life (John 8:12). Because we chase after Him and not the shiny trinkets of this world, He said of His Church: You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.... Your light must shine before people in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt. 5:14, 16). If you are a Christian, you are the light of the world because you have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God! He is the Alpha and Omega and He is the first and the last (Rev. 1:8, 17). It is before Him that the nations will stand in judgment and a day is coming when it will be from Him that earth and heaven will recoil in response to His holy and majestic presence! If you are a Christian, you belong to Him and because you belong to Him, you have no reason to fear Him who the tribes of the earth will mourn when He comes again (see Matt. 24:30). This may shock some of you and it may offend others of you, but you really need to hear this: America is not a shinning city on a hill! Here is what the Bible says about America and the nations that surround her: Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are regarded as a speck of dust on the scales (Isa. 40:15). Because we follow Jesus, we chase after another shinning city, we chase after His city... a city, which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:10). Because Jesus is the same yesterday and today, and forever, we live as foreigners, aliens, and strangers even in the United States of America. America cannot be our shinning city on a hill because we are promised something infinitely greater: For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking a city which is to come (Heb. 13:14). Here is what Revelation 21:23-27 says about the city we really belong to: And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lambs book of life. If America is a shinning city on a hill, it is nothing more than a tiny piece of glitter in comparison to the city we really belong to, and what makes the city we are seeking, that is to come, infinitely more beautiful is the Jesus who outweighs them all. He is the same yesterday and today, and forever! [1] Shepherds Conference 2016 | General Session 9 - Paul Washer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkqVZm9-7jc)

Dear Christian, WE HAVE such a High Priest, who is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God! He is seated because He has finished His work of redemption. He is seated upon a throne because He is a King and Priest! He is finished because His blood satisfied the justice of God for your sins! In His incarnation, He descended into to the world an dwelled (tabernacled) among men! And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And He is still with us, dear believing children! Jesus is "The True Tabernacle" which the Lord pitched, and not man.

If you're in a relationship, not in a relationship or some place in between, this episode is for you!

You can be forgiven and not free. The fact is truly tragic but true nonetheless. Some Christians find themselves wandering in the wilderness, repeatedly asking for deliverance yet stuck in a pattern of sin and shame. That pattern does not have to continue. In this sermon, Pastor Byron Ellis expounds on why some of us find ourselves in a cycle of sin and explains how we can find true freedom in Christ. In this life, will we be perfect? No. But, we can begin being perfected. Dear Christian, you have already been forgiven. Now, it's time to be set free.

It has been a few weeks since we were in Ephesians. The last sermon I preached was on the shoes of the gospel of peace. I have a confession to make, and it is not one to be proud of: I am not very good at creating space for my own rest. One of the symptoms that a break and vacation is needed is when your pastor takes 15-20 minutes to talk about shoes during his sermon introduction! In preparation for this sermon, I have been thinking about the importance of rest as it is related to faith. One of the Ten Commandments is to, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Exod. 20:8-11). Here is the irony with the fourth commandment: The first four commandments address our relationship with God and the last six commandments address our relationships with one another. I am of the opinion that a Sabbath rest has less to do with the seventh day of the week and more to do with our need to separate ourselves from the noise of life. Regarding the fourth commandment, Jesus said: The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28). The purpose of the Sabbath is that it creates space for you to listen to God for the purpose being strengthened in Him. The reason why the fourth commandment is sandwiched between the first three concerning our vertical relationship with God and the final six concerning our horizontal relationships with your neighbor is because if you ignore a Sabbath rest, both your relationship with God and your relationships with others will suffer. If you ignore the fourth commandment, you will be more prone to develop idols in your heart and become little good to those around you. So, here is what I want you to hear as we move forward: Sabbath rest stabilizes gospel grounded faith. The kind of rest I am talking about must include the kind of rest described in Psalm 46:10, Stop striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on the earth. Now, with Gods command for a Sabbath rest as our backdrop, lets consider again the armor of God: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. (Eph. 6:1013) Remember that the schemes belong to the devil, but the armor we are to put on belongs to God. The belt of truth is our identity in Christ, the breastplate of righteousness is our righteousness in Christ, and the shoes of the gospel of peace enable us to keep our footing in the whole Gospel, that includes our salvation but also the full redemption of all creation. The whole Gospel includes our resurrection, but it also promises us a day when sorrow and sighing will flee away: And the redeemed of the Lord will return and come to Zion with joyful shouting, and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa. 51:11). The fourth piece of Gods armor is the shield of faith. The questions we need to answer are what is it really; and how does one use the shield of faith? What is the Shield of Faith? The shield Paul had in mind was not the small round shield you would expect a soldier to have for hand-to-hand combat, for it was light but left most of the body exposed. Instead, the shield Paul envisioned was more like the one a soldier carried to protect his whole body from the enemys arrows shot from a distance. The large shield was called a scutum and was typically used by Roman legionaries. It was designed not only to protect the soldier wielding it from arrows, but was designed especially to protect him from arrows that were dipped in pitch and lit on fire before they were launched. The front of the shield was covered in leather that could be soaked in water; in this way, when the flaming arrows hit the shield, the fire would be quenched. For what purpose did a flaming arrow (aka fire arrow) serve? What is fire known for doing? The enemy would launch flaming arrows to set on fire anything that was flammable such as buildings, materials, and enemy troops. Fire consumes and destroys, and this is exactly what the rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places desire to do to any and all of Gods people. We are told to take up the shield of faith to protect us from such attacks from the enemy, but what is it? Is the shield of faith a self-determined will to hold on to what you believe? Is it something that you would have more of if you simply believed more? Is the shield of faith more about having enough faith in what we read about in the Bible so that you can claim financial, emotional, relational, spiritual, and physical healing and wholeness for yourself? I dont think the shield of faith includes any of that. Remember that Paul did not just come up with the armor of God because of some Roman soldiers around him. Paul received his shield metaphor from the Old Testament. To address Abrahams fear about being without an heir, God promised Him, Do not fear Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great. In Psalm 28:7, David celebrated the God who hears the prayers of His people with these words: Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the sound of my pleading. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart triumphs, and with my song I shall thank Him. However, I think Proverbs 30:5 is the most helpful verse that helps us understand what the shield of faith is: Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. So, which is it? Is God our shield and if so, how can our faith be the shield? On this point Iain Duguid is helpful: Faith is the means by which we flee to God for refuge. It is how we cling to God and find in him comfort and protection in times of difficulty and distress.[1] It is one thing to believe that God exists but is quite another thing to flee to the God you know to be true because of the way He has revealed Himself through His Word. The more you know about God, the more inclined you will be to flee to Him as your refuge and strength, for the Bible says, the people who know their God will be strong and take action (Dan. 11:32b). The way you cling to God and find Him to be your comfort and protection is through His Word! We are told in Ephesians 5:26 that Jesus intends to sanctify and beautify His church through the washing of water with the word. It is the word of God that we use to saturate our shield to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. This is not a New Testament concept; it is a Genesis through Revelation principle for living faithfully before God. Listen to Psalm 119:10-11 and tell me if you cannot hear the same tone that you hear in Ephesians 6:16, With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments. I have treasured Your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against You. How do We Use the Shield of Faith? It is all well and good to know what the shield of faith is, but how do you use it? To answer that question, permit me to show you something that I have read dozens of times and missed because I did not read Ephesians 6:14-17 as carefully as I should have. There are six pieces that belong to the armor of God. The first three are all pieces that a soldier puts on and keeps on so long as he is active: ...having belted your waist with truth (v. 14a) ...having put on the breastplate of righteousness (v. 14b) ...having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace (v. 15) Each of these pieces are attached to the Christian as part of his/her identity in Christ. The belt of truth is your new identity in Christ, the breastplate of righteousness is your righteousness in Christ, and the shoes of the gospel of peace are the promise of full redemption that Jesus makes possible. You put on these pieces of armor by standing in the gospel, confidently recognizing that all your righteousness is in Christ, and that your identity is rooted in Christ as truth for all of life! Now notice the final three pieces of the armor of God and how Paul distinguishes them from the first three pieces with the words, in addition to all...: ...taking up the shield of faith (v. 16) ...take the helmet of salvation (v. 17a) ...take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (v. 17b) The soldiers shield, helmet, and sword were all a part of his armor, but they were pieces he could take up and put down at will. The enemy can tempt you to believe that Christ is not enough, but what he already knows is that your righteousness is Christs righteousness; wearing the breastplate of righteousness is simply walking in light of that truth. However, when the enemy attacks with his flaming arrows in the form of temptations, lies, and accusations, you can choose to take up the shield of faith or allow those arrows to pierce you so that their fire can overwhelm, consume, and incapacitate you. If you are a Christian and you have truly been born again, the flaming arrows may not be able to destroy your soul, but they certainly can wound to the point of rendering you immobile and unable to fully engage and participate in Gods mission in the world and purpose for your life. If you are a Christian, the enemy knows that God chose you before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4-6), that you were fully and completely redeemed by the blood of His Son (1:7-12), and that you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit as Gods inheritance to receive all of His promises (1:13-14, 18-23). In fact, I am convinced that the devil has more of a theological grasp over what it means for you to be a Christian than many Christians, but if he can deceive you, if he can aid in destroying your Christian witness, if he can paralyze you with shame and guilt to keep you from clinging to all that the cross of Christ represents, then he will do all within his ability to do just that! Dear Christian, when those flaming arrows come, you have a shield God has given that you can take up to defend yourself from such attacks! God has given us all that we need, but faith in His promises, a dependance upon Him, and the responsibility to proactively saturate our faith with the word of God is something we must do. Conclusion The enemy will launch his flaming arrows but make no mistake from what we have learned so far from Ephesians, there is also the danger we face from self-inflicted wounds when we fall into temptation. The devil never makes us sin, we do that all on our own! This is why it is important to take on the full armor of God. When we are mindful that Jesus is our identity and not our sin, when we are fully aware that Jesus is our only hope and righteousness, and then stand in the truth of all of Gods redemptive promises, our resolve to resist sin and temptation becomes more determined. But, when the flaming arrows fly you can lower your shield and let them pierce and consume, or you can take up your shield. When the enemy whispers: You sinned and now you are too disgusting for God to love you! You take up your shield saturated with the word of God and say: Do not rejoice over me, enemy of mine. Though I fall I will rise; though I live in darkness, the Lord is a light for me... He will bring me out to the light, and I will look at His righteousness (Micah 7:8, 9). You take up your shield saturated by the word of God and say, God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.... For if while we were enemies we were reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Rom. 5:8, 10). Dont you think that Mary and Joseph endured many the constant barrage of the enemys flaming arrows the moment they found out about the conception of Jesus while Mary was still a virgin? Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus (Luke 1:30-31). Her only question was: How? since she was a virgin. After the angel told her that the Holy Spirit would make it possible miraculously, her response was simply: Behold, the Lords bond-servant; may it be done to me according to your word (v. 38). Mary could have been overwhelmed by fear over what her mother, father, relatives, and neighbors would think, but instead she raised up her shield of faith in the form of a song saturated with what she knew from the word of God: My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has had regard for the humble state of His bond-servant; For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me; And holy is His name. And His mercy is to generation after generation Toward those who fear Him. He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, And sent the rich away empty-handed. He has given help to His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, Just as He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and his descendants forever. (Luke 1:4755) Joseph could have walked out on Mary in disbelief, but He took up his shield as well and believed that God was not only big enough to make the conception of Jesus supernaturally possible, but he too believed the word of God: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him Immanuel (Isa. 7:14; see also Matt. 1:18-25). So, how do you use the shield of faith? How do you take it up to defend yourself? You take up the shield of faith each time you flee to God for refuge through the truth of His word and cling to Him to find your comfort and protection in times of difficulty and distress. [1] Iain M. Duguid, The Whole Armor of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2019), p. 68.

It has been a few weeks since we were in Ephesians. The last sermon I preached was on the shoes of the gospel of peace. I have a confession to make, and it is not one to be proud of: I am not very good at creating space for my own rest. One of the symptoms that a break and vacation is needed is when your pastor takes 15-20 minutes to talk about shoes during his sermon introduction! In preparation for this sermon, I have been thinking about the importance of rest as it is related to faith. One of the Ten Commandments is to, Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (Exod. 20:8-11). Here is the irony with the fourth commandment: The first four commandments address our relationship with God and the last six commandments address our relationships with one another. I am of the opinion that a Sabbath rest has less to do with the seventh day of the week and more to do with our need to separate ourselves from the noise of life. Regarding the fourth commandment, Jesus said: The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28). The purpose of the Sabbath is that it creates space for you to listen to God for the purpose being strengthened in Him. The reason why the fourth commandment is sandwiched between the first three concerning our vertical relationship with God and the final six concerning our horizontal relationships with your neighbor is because if you ignore a Sabbath rest, both your relationship with God and your relationships with others will suffer. If you ignore the fourth commandment, you will be more prone to develop idols in your heart and become little good to those around you. So, here is what I want you to hear as we move forward: Sabbath rest stabilizes gospel grounded faith. The kind of rest I am talking about must include the kind of rest described in Psalm 46:10, Stop striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on the earth. Now, with Gods command for a Sabbath rest as our backdrop, lets consider again the armor of God: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist on the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. (Eph. 6:1013) Remember that the schemes belong to the devil, but the armor we are to put on belongs to God. The belt of truth is our identity in Christ, the breastplate of righteousness is our righteousness in Christ, and the shoes of the gospel of peace enable us to keep our footing in the whole Gospel, that includes our salvation but also the full redemption of all creation. The whole Gospel includes our resurrection, but it also promises us a day when sorrow and sighing will flee away: And the redeemed of the Lord will return and come to Zion with joyful shouting, and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isa. 51:11). The fourth piece of Gods armor is the shield of faith. The questions we need to answer are what is it really; and how does one use the shield of faith? What is the Shield of Faith? The shield Paul had in mind was not the small round shield you would expect a soldier to have for hand-to-hand combat, for it was light but left most of the body exposed. Instead, the shield Paul envisioned was more like the one a soldier carried to protect his whole body from the enemys arrows shot from a distance. The large shield was called a scutum and was typically used by Roman legionaries. It was designed not only to protect the soldier wielding it from arrows, but was designed especially to protect him from arrows that were dipped in pitch and lit on fire before they were launched. The front of the shield was covered in leather that could be soaked in water; in this way, when the flaming arrows hit the shield, the fire would be quenched. For what purpose did a flaming arrow (aka fire arrow) serve? What is fire known for doing? The enemy would launch flaming arrows to set on fire anything that was flammable such as buildings, materials, and enemy troops. Fire consumes and destroys, and this is exactly what the rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places desire to do to any and all of Gods people. We are told to take up the shield of faith to protect us from such attacks from the enemy, but what is it? Is the shield of faith a self-determined will to hold on to what you believe? Is it something that you would have more of if you simply believed more? Is the shield of faith more about having enough faith in what we read about in the Bible so that you can claim financial, emotional, relational, spiritual, and physical healing and wholeness for yourself? I dont think the shield of faith includes any of that. Remember that Paul did not just come up with the armor of God because of some Roman soldiers around him. Paul received his shield metaphor from the Old Testament. To address Abrahams fear about being without an heir, God promised Him, Do not fear Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great. In Psalm 28:7, David celebrated the God who hears the prayers of His people with these words: Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the sound of my pleading. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart triumphs, and with my song I shall thank Him. However, I think Proverbs 30:5 is the most helpful verse that helps us understand what the shield of faith is: Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him. So, which is it? Is God our shield and if so, how can our faith be the shield? On this point Iain Duguid is helpful: Faith is the means by which we flee to God for refuge. It is how we cling to God and find in him comfort and protection in times of difficulty and distress.[1] It is one thing to believe that God exists but is quite another thing to flee to the God you know to be true because of the way He has revealed Himself through His Word. The more you know about God, the more inclined you will be to flee to Him as your refuge and strength, for the Bible says, the people who know their God will be strong and take action (Dan. 11:32b). The way you cling to God and find Him to be your comfort and protection is through His Word! We are told in Ephesians 5:26 that Jesus intends to sanctify and beautify His church through the washing of water with the word. It is the word of God that we use to saturate our shield to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. This is not a New Testament concept; it is a Genesis through Revelation principle for living faithfully before God. Listen to Psalm 119:10-11 and tell me if you cannot hear the same tone that you hear in Ephesians 6:16, With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me wander from Your commandments. I have treasured Your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against You. How do We Use the Shield of Faith? It is all well and good to know what the shield of faith is, but how do you use it? To answer that question, permit me to show you something that I have read dozens of times and missed because I did not read Ephesians 6:14-17 as carefully as I should have. There are six pieces that belong to the armor of God. The first three are all pieces that a soldier puts on and keeps on so long as he is active: ...having belted your waist with truth (v. 14a) ...having put on the breastplate of righteousness (v. 14b) ...having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace (v. 15) Each of these pieces are attached to the Christian as part of his/her identity in Christ. The belt of truth is your new identity in Christ, the breastplate of righteousness is your righteousness in Christ, and the shoes of the gospel of peace are the promise of full redemption that Jesus makes possible. You put on these pieces of armor by standing in the gospel, confidently recognizing that all your righteousness is in Christ, and that your identity is rooted in Christ as truth for all of life! Now notice the final three pieces of the armor of God and how Paul distinguishes them from the first three pieces with the words, in addition to all...: ...taking up the shield of faith (v. 16) ...take the helmet of salvation (v. 17a) ...take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (v. 17b) The soldiers shield, helmet, and sword were all a part of his armor, but they were pieces he could take up and put down at will. The enemy can tempt you to believe that Christ is not enough, but what he already knows is that your righteousness is Christs righteousness; wearing the breastplate of righteousness is simply walking in light of that truth. However, when the enemy attacks with his flaming arrows in the form of temptations, lies, and accusations, you can choose to take up the shield of faith or allow those arrows to pierce you so that their fire can overwhelm, consume, and incapacitate you. If you are a Christian and you have truly been born again, the flaming arrows may not be able to destroy your soul, but they certainly can wound to the point of rendering you immobile and unable to fully engage and participate in Gods mission in the world and purpose for your life. If you are a Christian, the enemy knows that God chose you before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4-6), that you were fully and completely redeemed by the blood of His Son (1:7-12), and that you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit as Gods inheritance to receive all of His promises (1:13-14, 18-23). In fact, I am convinced that the devil has more of a theological grasp over what it means for you to be a Christian than many Christians, but if he can deceive you, if he can aid in destroying your Christian witness, if he can paralyze you with shame and guilt to keep you from clinging to all that the cross of Christ represents, then he will do all within his ability to do just that! Dear Christian, when those flaming arrows come, you have a shield God has given that you can take up to defend yourself from such attacks! God has given us all that we need, but faith in His promises, a dependance upon Him, and the responsibility to proactively saturate our faith with the word of God is something we must do. Conclusion The enemy will launch his flaming arrows but make no mistake from what we have learned so far from Ephesians, there is also the danger we face from self-inflicted wounds when we fall into temptation. The devil never makes us sin, we do that all on our own! This is why it is important to take on the full armor of God. When we are mindful that Jesus is our identity and not our sin, when we are fully aware that Jesus is our only hope and righteousness, and then stand in the truth of all of Gods redemptive promises, our resolve to resist sin and temptation becomes more determined. But, when the flaming arrows fly you can lower your shield and let them pierce and consume, or you can take up your shield. When the enemy whispers: You sinned and now you are too disgusting for God to love you! You take up your shield saturated with the word of God and say: Do not rejoice over me, enemy of mine. Though I fall I will rise; though I live in darkness, the Lord is a light for me... He will bring me out to the light, and I will look at His righteousness (Micah 7:8, 9). You take up your shield saturated by the word of God and say, God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.... For if while we were enemies we were reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Rom. 5:8, 10). Dont you think that Mary and Joseph endured many the constant barrage of the enemys flaming arrows the moment they found out about the conception of Jesus while Mary was still a virgin? Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her: Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus (Luke 1:30-31). Her only question was: How? since she was a virgin. After the angel told her that the Holy Spirit would make it possible miraculously, her response was simply: Behold, the Lords bond-servant; may it be done to me according to your word (v. 38). Mary could have been overwhelmed by fear over what her mother, father, relatives, and neighbors would think, but instead she raised up her shield of faith in the form of a song saturated with what she knew from the word of God: My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For He has had regard for the humble state of His bond-servant; For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One has done great things for me; And holy is His name. And His mercy is to generation after generation Toward those who fear Him. He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, And has exalted those who were humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, And sent the rich away empty-handed. He has given help to His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy, Just as He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and his descendants forever. (Luke 1:4755) Joseph could have walked out on Mary in disbelief, but He took up his shield as well and believed that God was not only big enough to make the conception of Jesus supernaturally possible, but he too believed the word of God: Behold, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him Immanuel (Isa. 7:14; see also Matt. 1:18-25). So, how do you use the shield of faith? How do you take it up to defend yourself? You take up the shield of faith each time you flee to God for refuge through the truth of His word and cling to Him to find your comfort and protection in times of difficulty and distress. [1] Iain M. Duguid, The Whole Armor of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2019), p. 68.

Welcome to my first quick response episode, in which I respond briefly to popular claims I see online that sound good and draw in a lot of Christians, but fail from a biblical and/or logical perspective.Today, I respond to a Tweet from Rev. Benjamin Cremer, a progressive Christian on X who has quickly been gaining influence with a lot of people. Here's the post:“Dear Christian, If your religion is really about 'saving souls' then you wouldn't demand for it to be legislated. Because making someone follow your religion by force of law against their will is an extremely effective way to ensure they reject your God in their hearts."Before you listen, see if you can identify three types of errors: logical, civic, and biblical.

Christians have a responsibility to vote! Here's Why:   Voting is your God-given duty and responsibility Voting impacts policies that impact people Because Christ is Lord, voting matters Because it's not too late to make a difference Get out to vote! 

Wake Up! Isaiah 51:17–52:12 Teacher: Jon Morales, Lead Pastor at Oak Pointe Church In the movie “Hook”, Robin Williams plays the grown-up Peter Pan. Captain Hook, seeking revenge, kidnaps Peter's two children and holds them hostage. Peter returns to Neverland to save the captives, but in one crucial scene, all hope is seemingly lost. His children literally hang in the balance as they watch their dad try to save them to no avail. The children are horrified, and Captain Hook is elated.    Dear Christian, you HAVE been saved and set free; God saved His children from captivity long ago, and He has saved His children once and for all through Christ. Tomorrow morning we will hear God's call to Israel (and you) to rise up and rejoice, salvation is at hand!

Dear Christian, no matter what happens, be confident in this - that Jesus Christ and all His blessings are yours.

Before we can jump into Ephesians 1:13-14, I must address what or who it is that Paul is talking about in these verses. Until you understand what or who the apostle is talking about in these verses, you cannot understand or feel the gravity of Ephesians 1:13-14 upon your life. So, to feel the full weight of these verses, permit me to introduce you to the Holy Spirit. The first time we are introduced to the Holy Spirit is in Genesis 1:1-2 with these words: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for Spirit is raḥ, which can also mean wind or breath, but when used in association with God, it often refers to the Holy Spirit, not as a thing or a characteristic like love or holiness, but a person. This same word is used in Ezekiel 36: And I will put My Spirit within you and bring it about that you walk in My statutes, and are careful and follow My ordinances (v. 27). So, when we read through the Bible what we discover about the Holy Spirit is exhaustive. Of the Holy Spirit, we discover that He is the giver of life (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6; 104:27-30). As the giver of life, He raised Jesus from the grave on the third day and will give life to the body of every person who is joined to Him by faith, through a physical resurrection like the one Jesus experienced (see Rom. 8:11). As the giver of life, He caused Mary to conceive with the incarnation of Jesus (Luke 1:35, 41-42). The Holy Spirit anointed Jesus before He performed any miracle, after He was baptized by John, as a way of giving life and power to His earthly ministry; it is important to note that at Jesus baptism all three persons were present and witnessed: After He was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, and behold, a voice from the heavens said, This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:16-17; see also Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). Throughout the Bible, what we discover is that the Holy Spirit sustains and empowers the people of God to do the work of God. The Holy Spirit indwelled and led Israel out of the slavery of Egypt into the wilderness (Isa. 63:11-14), the Holy Spirit empowered Israels judges after they entered the promised land (i.e. Judges 6:34), and anointed Israels kings to lead the nation (i.e. 1 Sam. 9:27-10:1; 16:1, 13). From the beginning Gods plan was to do the same not just for a select few, but for all of His people as foretold in Joel 2:28-29, It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, your young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days (Joel 2:2829). Gods promise from the beginning was that a deliverer would come, and that deliver was God in the person of Jesus the Son; this is the great theme of the Bible. This is why the Bible declares: For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you was not yes and no, but has been yes in Him. For as many as the promises of God are, in Him they are yes; therefore through Him also is our Amen to the glory of God through us (2 Cor. 1:19-20). In other words, there is no pouring out of the Holy Spirit apart from the redemption that can only come through the shed blood of the Son of God for, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us (Eph. 1:7). Against the backdrop of all we have considered so far, I want you to listen to Ephesians 1:13-14, for it will help you feel the weight of these verses for your life today: 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 (Eph. 1:1314). But the question still must be answered: Who or what is the Holy Spirit? Not long before Jesus died to redeem lost sinners by going to the cross, He made a promise to His disciples, and that promise was the coming of the Holy Spirit. We find Jesus promise in John 14; Jesus told them He would be betrayed and would go to a place that they would not be able go (John 13:33). Jesus then consoled His disciples by telling them that He was going to prepare a place for them where they would one day live (14:1-6), but consider carefully what Jesus promised to His disciples that they would receive in His physical absence: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you. (John 14:1620) How will Jesus not leave His disciples as orphans? He will ask the Father to send them the Helper who is the Holy Spirit. It is possible that verses 18-20 are referring to Jesus resurrection, but even after His resurrection, He ascended to heaven after He again promised to send them the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). I think that when Jesus assured them, I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you that He was referring to the Helper because of what Jesus said in John 16:13, But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come (John 16:13). Who is the Holy Spirit? Well, when Ananias lied to the apostle Peter about what he and his wife had sold and given to the Church, Ananias was told: Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the proceeds of the land? You have not lied to men, but to God (see Acts 5:1-16). The Holy Spirit is not a power, a force, or a character trait of God; the Holy Spirit is a Person, and He is God. As God, the Holy Spirit can be everywhere at once (Ps. 104:30), He is all-knowing (1 Cor. 2:10-11). Jesus said that the one unforgivable sin was the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which I believe is unbelief in the Jesus that the Holy Spirit anointed and affirmed to be the Christ (Matt. 12:31-32). And like the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirt can be grieved by the way we live our lives and how we treat one another (Eph. 4:3-32). The Holy Spirit is not an awkward member of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is equal to the Father as He is equal to the Son because He is also fully God. In his book, Simply Trinity, Matthew Barrett put it this way: The Father does not exist without his Son, the Son does not exist without his Father, and the Spirit does not exist without the Father and the Son[1] The Trinity is not God divided into three parts as if 1/3 of God is the Father, 1/3 of God is the Son, and 1/3 of God is the Holy Spirit. What we see in Ephesians 1:1-14 is a Father who orchestrated our redemption, a Jesus sent from the Father to purchase our redemption, and the Spirit sent by both the Father and the Son to secure and preserve our redemption. How is the Holy Spirit Preserving Your Salvation? Look at verse 13 again: In Him (that is God), you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvationhaving also believed YOU WERE SEALED! What does that mean? To be sealed in the Holy Spirit simply means that I am secure in Jesus Christ and now I belong to God as His child and the only One who has the authority to remove the Holy Spirit from me is the God who chose me in Jesus (v. 4), and who purchased my redemption through the blood of Jesus (v. 7). I am sealed because the blood of Jesus secured for me the forgiveness of my wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on me (vv. 7-8). I am sealed because in Jesus, I have obtained an inheritance by Gods sovereign decree to make me His son before the foundation of the rest of creation was even laid (v. 11), and what is the guarantee that God has done all of that through the Son is the preserving power of His all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-pervasive Spirit. The moment you heard the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you were baptized by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16; Rom. 6:1-7). This is not a mystical event where you feel something strange, but it is a supernatural event where upon your belief in Jesus Christ, you experience what Deuteronomy 30:6 and Ezekiel 36:25-27 spoke of when the Holy Spirit regenerated your dead soul just as Jesus said had to happen for new birth to happen (John 3:1-15). The supernatural phenomenon that happens with the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that you are now able to respond to God in love and faith in a way you were unable to previously. Why the Holy Spirit Cannot be Manipulated. For about two weeks now, there has been one thought that has haunted me during the day and in the night hours that I believe that if I did not share it with you, I would be disobedient to my God. Because the Holy Spirit is not a force, and because He is God, you must understand that He cannot be manipulated by cheap tricks or recipes couched in religious language. He is God and nothing less! There is a passage that has overshadowed my thoughts as I prepared this sermon, and it is found in Isaiah 46:9-10; here is what it declares: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:910). He declares the end from the beginning because He is infinitely sovereign, and what He is doing from beginning to end and beyond is that He is accomplishing all His good pleasure! His good pleasure includes sealing you with His Holy Spirit, which is a first instalment (down payment) of an inheritance that is guaranteed to all He has chosen and redeemed. If you are a Christian, the inheritance that we are sealed for includes the reality that today you are a son/daughter of the almighty God (v. 5), you are forgiven (v. 7), you are a new creation in Christ (vv. 9-10), and you have glorious inheritance waiting for you that will never fade with time, can never be destroyed, and will forever be untouched by sin (v. 11; see also 1 Pet. 1:3-5). If you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit guarantees that your inheritance includes all things made new (Rev. 21:1-5), all things for your good (Rom. 8:28-30), and all things for Gods glory! Think for a moment what that means in light of all that we have considered in Ephesians 1:1-14, Why has God blessed the Christian with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. Why did God choose you before the foundation of the world? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. Why did God predestine you for redemption through His Son? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. Why did God seal you with His Holy Spirit as a guarantee for an inheritance we do not deserve? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. According to Ephesians 1:1-14, you have all of Gods love you will ever need, all of the redemption in Jesus that you will ever need, and all of Holy Spirit you will ever need. The question I have for you is threefold: How much of your heart does God have? How much of your loyalty does Jesus have? How much of your life does the Holy Spirit have? We will eventually get to Ephesians 4:30, but consider this verse in light of your identity in Christ: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. In Ephesians 5, we are told: Be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil but be filled with the Spirit (vv. 15-21). When the Holy Spirit has all of you, then you will begin to experience the kind of manipulation that only He can do in your life by shaping you like clay, pruning the dead branches from your life, and applying His holy fire upon your life to remove the dross out from your life. Dear Christian, your sin and unbelief is robing you of the kind of life God intends for you now. How long will you hold back the sin that is sucking the joy out from the life God has purposed for you as His child? In closing, I want you to consider Isaiah 46:9-10 before each section of Ephesians 1:3-14; I want Isaiah 46:9-10 to settle upon your heart like it has for me this past week as I prepared this sermon. I would like you to see Ephesians 1:3-14 in light of Isaiah 46:9-10 before each statement about the Father (3-6), the Son (7-12), and the Holy Spirit (vv. 13-14) in his majestic sentences concerning Gods role in our salvation: God: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:9-10) Paul: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Chris, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:46) God: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:9-10) Paul: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in the Christ would be to the praise of His glory. (Eph. 1:712) God: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:9-10) Paul: 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. (Eph. 1:1314) [1] Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books; 2021), p. 144.

Before we can jump into Ephesians 1:13-14, I must address what or who it is that Paul is talking about in these verses. Until you understand what or who the apostle is talking about in these verses, you cannot understand or feel the gravity of Ephesians 1:13-14 upon your life. So, to feel the full weight of these verses, permit me to introduce you to the Holy Spirit. The first time we are introduced to the Holy Spirit is in Genesis 1:1-2 with these words: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for Spirit is raḥ, which can also mean wind or breath, but when used in association with God, it often refers to the Holy Spirit, not as a thing or a characteristic like love or holiness, but a person. This same word is used in Ezekiel 36: And I will put My Spirit within you and bring it about that you walk in My statutes, and are careful and follow My ordinances (v. 27). So, when we read through the Bible what we discover about the Holy Spirit is exhaustive. Of the Holy Spirit, we discover that He is the giver of life (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 33:6; 104:27-30). As the giver of life, He raised Jesus from the grave on the third day and will give life to the body of every person who is joined to Him by faith, through a physical resurrection like the one Jesus experienced (see Rom. 8:11). As the giver of life, He caused Mary to conceive with the incarnation of Jesus (Luke 1:35, 41-42). The Holy Spirit anointed Jesus before He performed any miracle, after He was baptized by John, as a way of giving life and power to His earthly ministry; it is important to note that at Jesus baptism all three persons were present and witnessed: After He was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, and behold, a voice from the heavens said, This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:16-17; see also Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). Throughout the Bible, what we discover is that the Holy Spirit sustains and empowers the people of God to do the work of God. The Holy Spirit indwelled and led Israel out of the slavery of Egypt into the wilderness (Isa. 63:11-14), the Holy Spirit empowered Israels judges after they entered the promised land (i.e. Judges 6:34), and anointed Israels kings to lead the nation (i.e. 1 Sam. 9:27-10:1; 16:1, 13). From the beginning Gods plan was to do the same not just for a select few, but for all of His people as foretold in Joel 2:28-29, It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your old men will have dreams, your young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days (Joel 2:2829). Gods promise from the beginning was that a deliverer would come, and that deliver was God in the person of Jesus the Son; this is the great theme of the Bible. This is why the Bible declares: For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you was not yes and no, but has been yes in Him. For as many as the promises of God are, in Him they are yes; therefore through Him also is our Amen to the glory of God through us (2 Cor. 1:19-20). In other words, there is no pouring out of the Holy Spirit apart from the redemption that can only come through the shed blood of the Son of God for, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us (Eph. 1:7). Against the backdrop of all we have considered so far, I want you to listen to Ephesians 1:13-14, for it will help you feel the weight of these verses for your life today: 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 (Eph. 1:1314). But the question still must be answered: Who or what is the Holy Spirit? Not long before Jesus died to redeem lost sinners by going to the cross, He made a promise to His disciples, and that promise was the coming of the Holy Spirit. We find Jesus promise in John 14; Jesus told them He would be betrayed and would go to a place that they would not be able go (John 13:33). Jesus then consoled His disciples by telling them that He was going to prepare a place for them where they would one day live (14:1-6), but consider carefully what Jesus promised to His disciples that they would receive in His physical absence: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you. (John 14:1620) How will Jesus not leave His disciples as orphans? He will ask the Father to send them the Helper who is the Holy Spirit. It is possible that verses 18-20 are referring to Jesus resurrection, but even after His resurrection, He ascended to heaven after He again promised to send them the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). I think that when Jesus assured them, I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you that He was referring to the Helper because of what Jesus said in John 16:13, But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come (John 16:13). Who is the Holy Spirit? Well, when Ananias lied to the apostle Peter about what he and his wife had sold and given to the Church, Ananias was told: Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the proceeds of the land? You have not lied to men, but to God (see Acts 5:1-16). The Holy Spirit is not a power, a force, or a character trait of God; the Holy Spirit is a Person, and He is God. As God, the Holy Spirit can be everywhere at once (Ps. 104:30), He is all-knowing (1 Cor. 2:10-11). Jesus said that the one unforgivable sin was the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which I believe is unbelief in the Jesus that the Holy Spirit anointed and affirmed to be the Christ (Matt. 12:31-32). And like the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirt can be grieved by the way we live our lives and how we treat one another (Eph. 4:3-32). The Holy Spirit is not an awkward member of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is equal to the Father as He is equal to the Son because He is also fully God. In his book, Simply Trinity, Matthew Barrett put it this way: The Father does not exist without his Son, the Son does not exist without his Father, and the Spirit does not exist without the Father and the Son[1] The Trinity is not God divided into three parts as if 1/3 of God is the Father, 1/3 of God is the Son, and 1/3 of God is the Holy Spirit. What we see in Ephesians 1:1-14 is a Father who orchestrated our redemption, a Jesus sent from the Father to purchase our redemption, and the Spirit sent by both the Father and the Son to secure and preserve our redemption. How is the Holy Spirit Preserving Your Salvation? Look at verse 13 again: In Him (that is God), you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvationhaving also believed YOU WERE SEALED! What does that mean? To be sealed in the Holy Spirit simply means that I am secure in Jesus Christ and now I belong to God as His child and the only One who has the authority to remove the Holy Spirit from me is the God who chose me in Jesus (v. 4), and who purchased my redemption through the blood of Jesus (v. 7). I am sealed because the blood of Jesus secured for me the forgiveness of my wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on me (vv. 7-8). I am sealed because in Jesus, I have obtained an inheritance by Gods sovereign decree to make me His son before the foundation of the rest of creation was even laid (v. 11), and what is the guarantee that God has done all of that through the Son is the preserving power of His all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-pervasive Spirit. The moment you heard the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you were baptized by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 3:11; Luke 3:16; Rom. 6:1-7). This is not a mystical event where you feel something strange, but it is a supernatural event where upon your belief in Jesus Christ, you experience what Deuteronomy 30:6 and Ezekiel 36:25-27 spoke of when the Holy Spirit regenerated your dead soul just as Jesus said had to happen for new birth to happen (John 3:1-15). The supernatural phenomenon that happens with the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that you are now able to respond to God in love and faith in a way you were unable to previously. Why the Holy Spirit Cannot be Manipulated. For about two weeks now, there has been one thought that has haunted me during the day and in the night hours that I believe that if I did not share it with you, I would be disobedient to my God. Because the Holy Spirit is not a force, and because He is God, you must understand that He cannot be manipulated by cheap tricks or recipes couched in religious language. He is God and nothing less! There is a passage that has overshadowed my thoughts as I prepared this sermon, and it is found in Isaiah 46:9-10; here is what it declares: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:910). He declares the end from the beginning because He is infinitely sovereign, and what He is doing from beginning to end and beyond is that He is accomplishing all His good pleasure! His good pleasure includes sealing you with His Holy Spirit, which is a first instalment (down payment) of an inheritance that is guaranteed to all He has chosen and redeemed. If you are a Christian, the inheritance that we are sealed for includes the reality that today you are a son/daughter of the almighty God (v. 5), you are forgiven (v. 7), you are a new creation in Christ (vv. 9-10), and you have glorious inheritance waiting for you that will never fade with time, can never be destroyed, and will forever be untouched by sin (v. 11; see also 1 Pet. 1:3-5). If you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit guarantees that your inheritance includes all things made new (Rev. 21:1-5), all things for your good (Rom. 8:28-30), and all things for Gods glory! Think for a moment what that means in light of all that we have considered in Ephesians 1:1-14, Why has God blessed the Christian with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. Why did God choose you before the foundation of the world? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. Why did God predestine you for redemption through His Son? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. Why did God seal you with His Holy Spirit as a guarantee for an inheritance we do not deserve? Because He is God, there is no one like Him, He will establish His plan, and will accomplish all His good pleasure. According to Ephesians 1:1-14, you have all of Gods love you will ever need, all of the redemption in Jesus that you will ever need, and all of Holy Spirit you will ever need. The question I have for you is threefold: How much of your heart does God have? How much of your loyalty does Jesus have? How much of your life does the Holy Spirit have? We will eventually get to Ephesians 4:30, but consider this verse in light of your identity in Christ: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. In Ephesians 5, we are told: Be careful how you walk, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil but be filled with the Spirit (vv. 15-21). When the Holy Spirit has all of you, then you will begin to experience the kind of manipulation that only He can do in your life by shaping you like clay, pruning the dead branches from your life, and applying His holy fire upon your life to remove the dross out from your life. Dear Christian, your sin and unbelief is robing you of the kind of life God intends for you now. How long will you hold back the sin that is sucking the joy out from the life God has purposed for you as His child? In closing, I want you to consider Isaiah 46:9-10 before each section of Ephesians 1:3-14; I want Isaiah 46:9-10 to settle upon your heart like it has for me this past week as I prepared this sermon. I would like you to see Ephesians 1:3-14 in light of Isaiah 46:9-10 before each statement about the Father (3-6), the Son (7-12), and the Holy Spirit (vv. 13-14) in his majestic sentences concerning Gods role in our salvation: God: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:9-10) Paul: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Chris, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:46) God: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:9-10) Paul: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in the Christ would be to the praise of His glory. (Eph. 1:712) God: I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, My plan will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure (Isa. 46:9-10) Paul: 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. (Eph. 1:1314) [1] Matthew Barrett, Simply Trinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books; 2021), p. 144.

In this episode Tori and I talk about how we can sometimes try to find rest for our bodies but not rest for our souls! Also how we can find rest because the Lord has been good to us!!Link to devo hereSubscribe to watch our Podcast on YouTube!Links to Talks with Tori!InstagramYoutubeApple PodcastsSpotifyFind us on YouTube and IG:YouTubeToriChad

On January 16, 1994, sometime after I read the verses we are going to explore this morning, I reflected on the tension I felt over how a loving God could choose and predestine a person before the foundation of the world for salvation. I wasnt angry over what I read in these verses, but I was disturbed; I was disturbed to the point of a near crisis of faith even though I had only been a Christian for just over two years. While I read over Ephesians 1:3-6; I also read similar passages such as Romans 8:28-30; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; John 6:44, and the entire chapter of Romans 9. I read these passages without the aid of books or commentaries, for it was only me and my Bible. I knew nothing of John Calvin or Jacobus Arminius, nor was I aware of their teachings by which we get Calvinism and Arminianism. I share this with you because I want you to know; that if some of you currently struggle with what you see in Ephesians 1:3-6, I also struggled with these same verses, and it took a lot of time for me to work through it, with just me and my Bible. What is clear, however, is that Gods love for you is older than dirt. There are three words that are linked to what it means to be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (v. 3) that I want to focus our time on that I believe will help you work through what it is Paul is saying in these verses, and those words are: chose (v. 4), predestined (v. 5), and favored (v. 6). God Chose the Christian to be Holy and Blameless (v. 4) What was so hard about my struggle with verses 3-6 is that this verse could not have been any clearer: God chose us in Jesus before the foundation of the world; the Greek word used for world is kosmos, and it refers to creation. When did God do it? Before He invented dirt. How did God do it? Through His Son, Jesus. Why did He do it? That those who were chosen, would be holy and blameless before Him. Before we can get to why God chose, we need to understand what it means for Him to choose. To choose is to pick or select someone or something. Every November we vote and when we vote, we choose certain candidates that we hope receive enough votes to be elected to whatever office it is that they are running for. In the case of verse 4, to choose is to elect. From verses like the ones before us this morning and others like it, we get the doctrine of elections (aka the doctrine of predestination). No person or theologian who believes the Bible to be the word of God denies what Paul is saying here, but where theologians, pastors, and Christians throughout the ages have disagreed is how it was that God chose the Christian before the foundation of the world. Let me summarize the most popular ways people have explained how it was that God chose. God chose you for salvation because you freely chose Him. You were drawn to him, but it wasnt until you chose Him that He chose you. God chose not only you but the body of Christ that is the Church to be the group of people who receive salvation freely by faith in Jesus. So, God does not choose individuals for salvation, but he has chosen before the foundation of the world that it would be through Christ that people would be saved. God chose you for salvation because he sees all things eternally, and because He can see peoples and events both present and future, He sovereignly chose you because he already knew you would freely choose Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. Of the three views I mentioned, the third is the one I gravitated towards and believed was the best of the three options; I even stated in my journal on January 20, 1994, Due to the Scriptures and that all scripture is inspired by God, my conclusion on predestination is made: God is all-knowing therefore He predestined us for salvation, but allowed us to choose him for salvation. At the time, my conclusion seemed to reconcile Ephesians 1:3-6 and others like it with passages like 2 Peter 3:9, The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. There is a fourth view that I have come to appreciate due to two realities I never considered back in 1994, the first concerns the fact that God stands outside of time because time is a part of creation, therefore He is not bound to time and does not make choices based on what He can see down the corridors of time because He stands outside of time. The other reality I did not consider back in 1994 was Ephesians 1:1-4, which states: And you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest (Eph. 2:1-3). In light of Ephesians 1:3-6, how can a person respond to God in faith when that person is spiritually dead? Can the spiritually dead do anything spiritual? Can the spiritually dead will themselves alive just enough to believe in God? What does Paul mean by dead in Ephesians 2:1? The Greek word could not be any clearer, it is nekros. Do you want to know what nekros means? It means this: no longer having life. So how dead is dead? So, the question I had to answer is a question you must answer as well, and that question is simply this: How can the spiritual dead do anything apart from God doing something? Paul gives us the answer in Ephesians 2:4-5, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:45). The point of verse 4 is simply this: You, who were once spiritually dead. You who once, lived in the lusts of your flesh, indulged the desires of your flesh, you who followed the prince of this world, and you who were once a child of wrathHe chose you before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in Christ. Whatever you are doing with verse 4, whatever you want to do with verse 4, and whatever you plan to do with verse 4, one thing is very clear: God acted first. When you had no ability or desire to find Him, He found you. John Stott was right when he wrote The doctrine of election is a divine revelation, not a human speculation.[1] God Predestined the Christian for Love (v. 5) What does it mean to be chosen? It means that God predestined you to something. What does predestination mean? It means, to determine something ahead of time before its occurrence.[2] So, according to verse 5, before God invented dirt, He planned for your adoption as a son or daughter through all that Jesus would do on your account for your sin on a cross that we all deserved. We know we deserved the cross because of what Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:3, which is that all of us at one point in our lives were, by nature children of wrath, just as the rest. In Romans 3:10-11, we are told just how bad our spiritual deadness is: as it is written: There is no righteous person, not even one; there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks out God (Rom. 3:1011). Since when have I been spiritually dead? According to Psalm 51:5, Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, and in sin my mother conceived me. Just in case you are not sure what to make of Psalm 51:5, consider Ecclesiastes 9:2, Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of mankind are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. So, with Ephesians 2:1-3 and a whole bunch of other verses about our spiritual problem as our backdrop, lets read again Ephesians 1:5 more closely and thoughtfully: In Love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. In other words, among the mass of spiritually dead humanity that has postured themselves against God as, sons of disobedience who walk according to the course of this world, God chose you, Christian, in Jesus, before He created dirt, to be holy and blameless. God chose you because you were dead, dead, dead, and because you were dead, He did the thing that no one else could have done! God raised your spiritually dead and helpless self. Why did He do it? Well, we are told that He did it In love and if that is not enough for you, Paul elaborates and tells us that He did it, according to the good pleasure of His will. And if that is not enough for you, he further elaborates on that point in the next chapter: being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead made us alive together with Christ (2:4-5). It is because of Gods love, His will, and His good pleasure that you who were once dead, now stand before Him as a son or as a daughter solely because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ! Dear Christian, the point of Ephesians 1:3-6 is this: you are only a Christian because of a merciful God who set His affection upon you by sending His son to endure a wrath you deserved for the purpose of adopting you to be His child out of an infinite love no one deserves. God Favored the Christian in Christ (v. 6) So, lets walk through these verses now that we have observed the scenery of Gods word that surrounds Ephesians 1:3-6. If you are a Christian, you were once dead in your sins, you were hostile towards God, and there was no real motive in you to seek the true God, and in spite of all of that, God the Father chose to make you alive in His Son, Jesus, before Genesis 1:1 ever happened, and He did it so that you, would be holy and blameless before Him. The point of verse 4 is that God did something you were powerless to do. Not only did God the Father choose you to be holy and blameless by making you alive in His Son, but He predestined us to be His adopted child with all the rights and privileges that come with being a son or a daughter, and He did it by putting His Son, who kept the Law, on a cross to atone for your guilt from breaking His cosmic Law just as the Bible declares: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for usfor it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Gal. 3:13). If that is not clear enough for you, we also are told in Colossians 2:13-14, And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Col. 2:1314). You were not only dead in your sins before Christ, but the Bible informs us that we are now redeemed by Jesus who were once enemies of God: For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Rom. 5:10). What this means dear friends, is this: You were once dead in your sins, are now alive in Christ, and are now reconciled to God. You who are reconciled to God, are now a friend of God (John 15:14-15). If you are still confused as to why He did it, look no further than verse 6. Not only did He save your sorry soul because He simply loved you, and not only did He redeem you as his child out of His good pleasure of His will alone, but He did it, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored you in His Beloved Son (v. 6). By the way, the word favored literally means, to become the recipient of Gods freely bestowed, beneficent goodwill. What this means is that you were saved from your sins, and it was not due to anything in you, but solely because of the love of the Father who sent His Son who willingly became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). In his book, Friendship with God, Mike McKinley wrote what I think is a good way to end this sermon: Your status before God doesnt depend on your performance, or work, or obedience; it depends on Jesus, and he did everything perfectly to make you Gods friend. Nothing can ever separate you from Gods love in Christ (Rom. 8:38-39). Once He has made you His friend through faith in Jesus, you can never be his enemy again.[3] In closing, permit me to give you some pointers that will help you listen, understand, and submit to the authority of the Bible: Do not try to bend what you read in the Bible to your will. If you want to grow as a Christian, you must submit your will to the authority of the Bible as Gods Word. The Bible is one book, therefore read every verse in the Bible within the context of its surrounding verses, chapters, and books. When you study your Bible, pray to God to help you understand and apply His Word to your life. Read every verse in the Bible with the understanding that God does not need to get better. So, if you read a story, chapter, or verse in the Bible that you do not like, understand you are the one who needs to improve at being good, not God. Just because you do not understand or do not like something you have read in the Bible, does not mean that it is untrue. At the end of the day, what matters is what Gods Word says, not what you think the Bible says, what your pastor says the Bible says, what your family says the Bible says, what your friends say the Bible says, or anyone else says that the Bible says. What matters is what Gods Word says about who He is, who we are, and what we are called to do in this short life we have been gifted. If you have heard anything this morning, I hope you have heard this: Ephesians 1:3-6 teaches us that you are a Christian not because of what you have done, but because of everything God has done, and because of Jesus, you are now a child and a friend of God Almighty! [1] John R. W. Stott, Gods New Society (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), p. 37. [2] From Lexham Research Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament. [3] Mike McKinley, Friendship with God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2023), p. 11

On January 16, 1994, sometime after I read the verses we are going to explore this morning, I reflected on the tension I felt over how a loving God could choose and predestine a person before the foundation of the world for salvation. I wasnt angry over what I read in these verses, but I was disturbed; I was disturbed to the point of a near crisis of faith even though I had only been a Christian for just over two years. While I read over Ephesians 1:3-6; I also read similar passages such as Romans 8:28-30; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; John 6:44, and the entire chapter of Romans 9. I read these passages without the aid of books or commentaries, for it was only me and my Bible. I knew nothing of John Calvin or Jacobus Arminius, nor was I aware of their teachings by which we get Calvinism and Arminianism. I share this with you because I want you to know; that if some of you currently struggle with what you see in Ephesians 1:3-6, I also struggled with these same verses, and it took a lot of time for me to work through it, with just me and my Bible. What is clear, however, is that Gods love for you is older than dirt. There are three words that are linked to what it means to be blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (v. 3) that I want to focus our time on that I believe will help you work through what it is Paul is saying in these verses, and those words are: chose (v. 4), predestined (v. 5), and favored (v. 6). God Chose the Christian to be Holy and Blameless (v. 4) What was so hard about my struggle with verses 3-6 is that this verse could not have been any clearer: God chose us in Jesus before the foundation of the world; the Greek word used for world is kosmos, and it refers to creation. When did God do it? Before He invented dirt. How did God do it? Through His Son, Jesus. Why did He do it? That those who were chosen, would be holy and blameless before Him. Before we can get to why God chose, we need to understand what it means for Him to choose. To choose is to pick or select someone or something. Every November we vote and when we vote, we choose certain candidates that we hope receive enough votes to be elected to whatever office it is that they are running for. In the case of verse 4, to choose is to elect. From verses like the ones before us this morning and others like it, we get the doctrine of elections (aka the doctrine of predestination). No person or theologian who believes the Bible to be the word of God denies what Paul is saying here, but where theologians, pastors, and Christians throughout the ages have disagreed is how it was that God chose the Christian before the foundation of the world. Let me summarize the most popular ways people have explained how it was that God chose. God chose you for salvation because you freely chose Him. You were drawn to him, but it wasnt until you chose Him that He chose you. God chose not only you but the body of Christ that is the Church to be the group of people who receive salvation freely by faith in Jesus. So, God does not choose individuals for salvation, but he has chosen before the foundation of the world that it would be through Christ that people would be saved. God chose you for salvation because he sees all things eternally, and because He can see peoples and events both present and future, He sovereignly chose you because he already knew you would freely choose Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. Of the three views I mentioned, the third is the one I gravitated towards and believed was the best of the three options; I even stated in my journal on January 20, 1994, Due to the Scriptures and that all scripture is inspired by God, my conclusion on predestination is made: God is all-knowing therefore He predestined us for salvation, but allowed us to choose him for salvation. At the time, my conclusion seemed to reconcile Ephesians 1:3-6 and others like it with passages like 2 Peter 3:9, The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. There is a fourth view that I have come to appreciate due to two realities I never considered back in 1994, the first concerns the fact that God stands outside of time because time is a part of creation, therefore He is not bound to time and does not make choices based on what He can see down the corridors of time because He stands outside of time. The other reality I did not consider back in 1994 was Ephesians 1:1-4, which states: And you were dead in your offenses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all previously lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the rest (Eph. 2:1-3). In light of Ephesians 1:3-6, how can a person respond to God in faith when that person is spiritually dead? Can the spiritually dead do anything spiritual? Can the spiritually dead will themselves alive just enough to believe in God? What does Paul mean by dead in Ephesians 2:1? The Greek word could not be any clearer, it is nekros. Do you want to know what nekros means? It means this: no longer having life. So how dead is dead? So, the question I had to answer is a question you must answer as well, and that question is simply this: How can the spiritual dead do anything apart from God doing something? Paul gives us the answer in Ephesians 2:4-5, But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:45). The point of verse 4 is simply this: You, who were once spiritually dead. You who once, lived in the lusts of your flesh, indulged the desires of your flesh, you who followed the prince of this world, and you who were once a child of wrathHe chose you before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in Christ. Whatever you are doing with verse 4, whatever you want to do with verse 4, and whatever you plan to do with verse 4, one thing is very clear: God acted first. When you had no ability or desire to find Him, He found you. John Stott was right when he wrote The doctrine of election is a divine revelation, not a human speculation.[1] God Predestined the Christian for Love (v. 5) What does it mean to be chosen? It means that God predestined you to something. What does predestination mean? It means, to determine something ahead of time before its occurrence.[2] So, according to verse 5, before God invented dirt, He planned for your adoption as a son or daughter through all that Jesus would do on your account for your sin on a cross that we all deserved. We know we deserved the cross because of what Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:3, which is that all of us at one point in our lives were, by nature children of wrath, just as the rest. In Romans 3:10-11, we are told just how bad our spiritual deadness is: as it is written: There is no righteous person, not even one; there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks out God (Rom. 3:1011). Since when have I been spiritually dead? According to Psalm 51:5, Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, and in sin my mother conceived me. Just in case you are not sure what to make of Psalm 51:5, consider Ecclesiastes 9:2, Furthermore, the hearts of the sons of mankind are full of evil, and insanity is in their hearts throughout their lives. So, with Ephesians 2:1-3 and a whole bunch of other verses about our spiritual problem as our backdrop, lets read again Ephesians 1:5 more closely and thoughtfully: In Love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will. In other words, among the mass of spiritually dead humanity that has postured themselves against God as, sons of disobedience who walk according to the course of this world, God chose you, Christian, in Jesus, before He created dirt, to be holy and blameless. God chose you because you were dead, dead, dead, and because you were dead, He did the thing that no one else could have done! God raised your spiritually dead and helpless self. Why did He do it? Well, we are told that He did it In love and if that is not enough for you, Paul elaborates and tells us that He did it, according to the good pleasure of His will. And if that is not enough for you, he further elaborates on that point in the next chapter: being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead made us alive together with Christ (2:4-5). It is because of Gods love, His will, and His good pleasure that you who were once dead, now stand before Him as a son or as a daughter solely because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ! Dear Christian, the point of Ephesians 1:3-6 is this: you are only a Christian because of a merciful God who set His affection upon you by sending His son to endure a wrath you deserved for the purpose of adopting you to be His child out of an infinite love no one deserves. God Favored the Christian in Christ (v. 6) So, lets walk through these verses now that we have observed the scenery of Gods word that surrounds Ephesians 1:3-6. If you are a Christian, you were once dead in your sins, you were hostile towards God, and there was no real motive in you to seek the true God, and in spite of all of that, God the Father chose to make you alive in His Son, Jesus, before Genesis 1:1 ever happened, and He did it so that you, would be holy and blameless before Him. The point of verse 4 is that God did something you were powerless to do. Not only did God the Father choose you to be holy and blameless by making you alive in His Son, but He predestined us to be His adopted child with all the rights and privileges that come with being a son or a daughter, and He did it by putting His Son, who kept the Law, on a cross to atone for your guilt from breaking His cosmic Law just as the Bible declares: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for usfor it is written: Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (Gal. 3:13). If that is not clear enough for you, we also are told in Colossians 2:13-14, And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Col. 2:1314). You were not only dead in your sins before Christ, but the Bible informs us that we are now redeemed by Jesus who were once enemies of God: For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life (Rom. 5:10). What this means dear friends, is this: You were once dead in your sins, are now alive in Christ, and are now reconciled to God. You who are reconciled to God, are now a friend of God (John 15:14-15). If you are still confused as to why He did it, look no further than verse 6. Not only did He save your sorry soul because He simply loved you, and not only did He redeem you as his child out of His good pleasure of His will alone, but He did it, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored you in His Beloved Son (v. 6). By the way, the word favored literally means, to become the recipient of Gods freely bestowed, beneficent goodwill. What this means is that you were saved from your sins, and it was not due to anything in you, but solely because of the love of the Father who sent His Son who willingly became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). In his book, Friendship with God, Mike McKinley wrote what I think is a good way to end this sermon: Your status before God doesnt depend on your performance, or work, or obedience; it depends on Jesus, and he did everything perfectly to make you Gods friend. Nothing can ever separate you from Gods love in Christ (Rom. 8:38-39). Once He has made you His friend through faith in Jesus, you can never be his enemy again.[3] In closing, permit me to give you some pointers that will help you listen, understand, and submit to the authority of the Bible: Do not try to bend what you read in the Bible to your will. If you want to grow as a Christian, you must submit your will to the authority of the Bible as Gods Word. The Bible is one book, therefore read every verse in the Bible within the context of its surrounding verses, chapters, and books. When you study your Bible, pray to God to help you understand and apply His Word to your life. Read every verse in the Bible with the understanding that God does not need to get better. So, if you read a story, chapter, or verse in the Bible that you do not like, understand you are the one who needs to improve at being good, not God. Just because you do not understand or do not like something you have read in the Bible, does not mean that it is untrue. At the end of the day, what matters is what Gods Word says, not what you think the Bible says, what your pastor says the Bible says, what your family says the Bible says, what your friends say the Bible says, or anyone else says that the Bible says. What matters is what Gods Word says about who He is, who we are, and what we are called to do in this short life we have been gifted. If you have heard anything this morning, I hope you have heard this: Ephesians 1:3-6 teaches us that you are a Christian not because of what you have done, but because of everything God has done, and because of Jesus, you are now a child and a friend of God Almighty! [1] John R. W. Stott, Gods New Society (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979), p. 37. [2] From Lexham Research Lexham Research Lexicon of the Greek New Testament. [3] Mike McKinley, Friendship with God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway; 2023), p. 11

Worship Theme: Cancel Casual Christianity! Scriptures to read along with this sermon.... Isaiah 52:1-6 Cancel Casual Christianity! The people were sleepwalking through life, grieving many afflictions. Isaiah announced, "Wake! The LORD redeemed you and crowned you!" Psalm 90 - About this psalm, Martin Luther said, “Psalm 90 is a teaching psalm.  Moses teaches that death comes as a result of sin, which is innate from Adam to all of us, even though it is known only by God and is hidden from the world.  The psalm asserts that life here is both short and miserable, and could be called ‘daily death.'  But that is surprisingly good, because we are driven to God's gracious help for deliverance.  God shows us this deliverance by sending Christ.  This psalm is a short, fine, rich and full little prayer. I Thessalonians 5:1-11 Cancel Casual Christianity! Dear Christian, live in the light! God did not appoint you to suffer, but to receive salvation through Christ. Matthew 25:1-13 (sermon verses ) Cancel Casual Christianity! All ten virgins were invited. Five were aware, wise and prepared. Five were unaware, foolish and left behind in the cold. If you have any questions you can email us at: votl.podcast@gmail.com Instagram: @votlchurch Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/votl.org/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbssSY_GyJMabh9W-sSVQpQ  Online: https://votl.org

after my episode with my friend alex, i did some reflecting. here's the part two of an episode that has been a long time coming. in this episode, let's discuss where the lack of respect comes from, how culture shapes our views and why it's important to respect christian men.

On this weeks episode we get into a topic not often discussed in churches but is necessary to confront to reach the world! If you have any questions or comments feel free to reach out via email donovanljones1994@gmail.com or instagram calledtoactpodcast Also if you feel led to support the show via merch click the link- https://partner.spreadshirt.com/shop-area/101581195/shop

Dear Christian, God governs the Earth through principles. You are greatly mistaken if you believe that prayer alone, without any effort on your part, will suffice! Lol

Keshon has a conversation with Entrepreneur, Podcaster, and Graduate student Kayla Copeland. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/qwj/support

Dear Christian Soul | Easter Sunday by Fr. Kris Schmidt

Keshon has a conversation with father, pastor, and podcaster Xavier Maryland.

Dear Christian, how do you "look?" Join us as Pastor Dick teaches on this subject.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Heavenly Father, you are a glorious God. And Lord, humanity, we followed Satan in rebelling against you. And the root of that rebellion, insubordination was pride. We decided we are more glorious than you are, that you exist for us, you exist to serve us, you exist to do our will, our bidding. Or even worse, we've just been indifferent toward you, which is even worse than hatred.So Lord, we thank you for Jesus Christ. God incarnate. Fully God, fully man. Jesus, we thank you that you though being the glorious God, you humbled yourself. You took on flesh. You became a servant. You considered us more than significant than yourself in that you gave yourself for us on the cross as a substitute. Lord, we thank you for providing a means of being reconciled with you and also by showing us the pattern of life, the way of life. You told us to follow you. And this walk in following you is a walk of humility.So we pray that you give us grace today. We do repent of pride. We are so proud that we don't even know how proud we are. So today I pray, Lord. Begin to unravel the layers, onion layers of our pride. Holy Spirit, we love you and we thank you for gathering us and we pray today. Take your holy scriptures, your inspired scriptures and apply them with precision to our hearts, our souls, our minds. Bless our time in the word and we thank you for it. We pray this in Christ, holy name, amen.Today, we are in Romans 12:3-8 and the title of the sermon is think humbly. Jesus Christ, when he began his earthly ministry, the first words out of his mouth were the kingdom of God is at hand, therefore repent and believe. But the repentance and the belief, that's the beginning of the Christian walk. And then Jesus also said to the disciples, he said, "Follow me. On a daily basis, follow me." This is kind of the pattern that St. Paul, the apostle Paul gives us in Romans. Romans 1 through 11, we see in an exposition, a wonderful exposition of what it means to repent and believe of our state apart from Christ that we are wretched in our sin, lost.We're spiritually dead and it takes a work, mighty work of the Holy Spirit to give us the gift of grace and faith and to regenerate us. And then once we do, then Paul says, "Okay, here's what it means to follow Jesus Christ." And that's chapter 12 through 15 and then a little in 16. So he began chapter 12 last week by saying, "Therefore, in view of God's great mercy, present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And that's how you know what God's will is, is good, pleasing and holy will.In that, he gives us the principle for the Christian life. The principle is that we are to present our physical bodies, everything we have to God as a sacrifice. And then Paul, beginning with verse 3, he begins to explain what that means. And the puritans in the 17th century, they had a term for this. They called it breaking grace up small, where you get the main principle of grace and then you have to give it in little bite size bits.Kind of like when I grill steak for my daughters. When I grill steak for myself, I don't even need a knife. I will just inhale that thing. But when I cook it for my daughters, they prefer that I slice it up and they prefer I slice it up in small little squares. They're kind of like steak nuggets. For some reason they're more tasty and palatable, et cetera. And that's what St. Paul does here with very specific application.What does it mean to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God, wholly and acceptable? What does it mean to live the Christian life in the spirit? Well, St. Paul gives us exactly what he means in Romans 12:3-8. Would you please look at the text with me?"For by the grace given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many are one body in Christ and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in is teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes in generosity; the one who leads with zeal; and the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness."This is the reading of God's holy, inherent, fallible, authoritative word. May he write these beautiful truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First, think humbly about yourself. That's verse 3. Second, think humbly about fellow believers, that's verses 4 through 5. And then think humbly about our gifts, verses 6 through 8. First think humbly about yourself, that's verse 3. "For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. "I just want you to notice St. Paul is doing what he's calling us to do in the same verse. He says, "By the grace given to me, I say to you." Paul has been called by God. He's been gifted by God through no merit of his own. He's been given the position of apostle. And despite his calling, he never forgot that he was the chief of sinners. So he says in the same way that he does not think too highly of himself, he calls us to sober self-evaluation that we are not to esteem ourselves highly than we should.In particular with our abilities. Now why does he have to say this? One of the reasons he has to say this is because sin does make us self-centered. We tend to see the world centering and revolving around ourselves. We see ourselves as the most important person in the world. Question, who's the most important person in the world?You know the answer. It's church. There's only one answer in church. It's Jesus. We know this. We know Jesus is the most important person in the world. Okay? Yeah. Who's the person that you think most about during the day? We think about ourselves. We think about our needs. We think about our identity, our value, our worth. And even when we become Christians, there is this temptation and Satan does attack us with this temptation of pride.We begin to evaluate everything that God is doing in light of our current situation. We evaluate God is doing in terms of the benefit it's going to bring to us. Paul exhorts us not to do this. The renewed mind realizes that it's human sin that creates this self-centered perspective. We must strive to see ourselves in light of God's larger purpose. And God's larger purpose inevitably includes people. So don't just ask, dear Christian, don't just ask God what is your will for my life?That still remains very self-centered. It's better to ask, "Lord, what are you doing now? Where I am, Lord, in my town, in my city, in my church? Lord, what are you doing and how can I be of service in what you are doing?" While even each of us, we do have dignity and we have value because of the fact that we're creating the image of God, the imago dei. But still, we must not forget that we've been redeemed by Christ. Apart from Christ, we're nothing. We must see ourselves with a proper sense of proportion.The question you have to ask is, "Why start here, Paul? You gave us the principle that we are in view of God's mercy. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. That's the principle. And then the first application of the principles is not to think too highly of ourselves. Why start here?" Well we start here because humility is the first thing. There's nothing terribly surprising about that. Augustine said when he was asked, What is the key to godliness? He said, "First, humility. Second humility. And third, humility."It's humility that that draws us into a life of Christ's likeness. So why humility? First, a few other reasons. The life that Paul is going to describe here cannot be a life of self-admiration or pride because that's a contradiction to gratitude. In view of God's mercy, present your bodies as a living sacrifice because of Thanksgiving. Be thankful to the Lord for the undeserved mercy.Second of all, the Christian life is a life to be lived, to imitate Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior. And Jesus though he was God, he did not think more highly of himself than he ought. And he humbled himself under the hand of God, the Father in obedience when it was the hardest.In the garden of Gethsemane, what did he say? As he is sweating, blood capillaries are bursting in his face, sweat mixed with blood, under immense pressure, untold pressure. And then ultimately he said, "Father, let this cup pass from me. I don't want to do it." He said, "I don't want to do. I don't want to do what you've called me to do, but it's not my will. Yours be done."Philippians 2 connects Christ's obedience with Christ's humility. Philippians 2:1-11, one of the preeminent texts about humility, which leads to unity in the church. Verse 1. "So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."Jesus is our savior, but he's also our example in life. Thus he says, "Follow me." Finally, the life that Paul is going to describe later in this text is an other centered life. He's saying, "Don't count yourself too high." And then he starts talking about being members of one body and using the gifts that God has given us for what? The building up in the body for others. So he's saying, "If we are going to live a true life of love and service, we need to understand you can't experience love apart from humility, arrogance and the love of others can't live together in a single heart." Because the truly love another person is to be willing to deny self and sacrifice for them. And you'll never be able to do this if there's pride in your heart.Today is a very special day in the Vezikov household. October 23rd, 2005, 17 years ago, I woke up. I was a 22-year-old kid. I had a job and I had an apartment. I was like, "I am ready for a wife." I woke up and I was sleeping over at my friend's house, Mike's house, and I said, "Mike, you know what, today I'm going to go and I'm going to meet my wife."And then I got on the car and I drove from DC to Philadelphia and I went to a Slavic church, because I wanted Russian speaking babies. I don't know why. It was deep in my heart. So I go to the Slavic church and there's a gal at the door and she is greeting, she's greeting. She thought I was a pagan because I didn't have a tie on. If you go to Russian church without a tie, you're probably a pagan.So I go to this church and as soon as I saw her, I was like, love at first sight, baby. Come on. And for me, it took a little convincing for her. I asked for a number and she wouldn't give it to me. I was like, "Oh, playing hard to get, huh?" And then being who I am, I asked my mom who was there to ask her mom for a number and that's how it's all happened.I remember when we were getting ready to get married, my pastor, he came up to me, he is like, "Jan, do you think you're ready for marriage?" I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "All right, you don't need premarital counseling." I was like, "Yeah, of course I don't." He asked me one question. He was like, "What are your expectations?" I was like, "To have a good time." He's like, "You're all set."But I remember before marriage, before marriage, I thought I knew it. I was like, "I've got this." And I would tell other people, I'm getting married. I remember this one guy I work with, I told him, "We're getting married," and he's like, "Bro, it's a lot of work." I was like, "That's because you're not a romantic. You don't know how to do it, man."Then you get married and you realize, "Yeah, it is work because denying yourself on a daily basis is work to saying no to yourself, sacrificing for another is work." And then once you have, if Lord willing, you have children, once we start having children, you begin to understand that to the nth degree, just dimensions of it that it's sacrifice. Well, this is what he's saying. He's like, "If you are truly going to be the person that God has called you to be, if you're going to truly live the life that God has called you to live, which is a life of love, right?" Jesus Christ comes and he says, "The two great commandments that summarize all the commandments are love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength in mind."That takes humility to love God, obey him, and love your neighbor as yourself. That takes humility. That's why Paul starts here. Also, Paul has spent a great time already explaining that we're guilty sinners. That apart from Christ we deserve the wrath of God forever in a place called hell. It's only because of the love of the Father sending Jesus Christ. And then because of his work on the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit in renewing us and regenerating us, only because of grace. It's only because of grace that we are saved. But still, despite Paul's exposition of election, redemption, regeneration, et cetera, et cetera, he still needs to tell us not to think too highly of ourselves.If he feels the need to tell us after giving us Romans 1 through 11, not to think too highly of ourselves, that should tell us everything we need to hear that we, you and I must be very proud people indeed. CS Lewis in Mere Christianity, he said that, "Pride is the ultimate in the bottom vice of the human soul. Impurity, anger, greed, hatred, and all the rest are mere flea bites in comparison."For instance, it's pride that made the devil the devil. It was saying it was the devil that went to God and said, "No, I will not submit to you. Who are you to demand submission for me? I did not ask for the burden of existence. I didn't ask to be born. I didn't ask to be alive. I didn't ask to be created. And you want me to serve you?" Do you feel that? Does that ever arise in your heart? Well, yes. It arises in each one of our hearts. And pride is the root. It's at the root of every single one of the other vices.Pride is the ugly lie we tell ourselves about our own worth, our own value, virtue, importance about how much we deserve from God, about how much he owes us. And then with people, it's pride that just ask these pestering questions. "Hey, these people ignored me or they're belittling me. They're failing to appreciate me. They're failing to serve me. I need to be served." That's all pride.It's so fundamental. It's so pervasive. We're so used to it that we usually almost entirely fail to recognize that we're in the grip of pride. Question, when's the last time you repented of pride? When's the last time you said, "God, you know what? Forgive me. I was so self-absorbed today. God forgive me. I was so self-centered. God I wanted glory. I wanted honor. I wanted attention. I wanted to root my identity in something other than the grace of God.We are as Augustine famously put it, homo incurvatus which is man curved in on himself. Why did he say that? Because God designed us to be outward looking, to look out to God, to look out to others. We have been so twisted that we look entirely at ourselves. We're so used to doing so that we find nothing strange in it. And the Christian, by the new birth, by the power of the Spirit can fight against it, but it does take work.Pride, I would submit to you, Dear Christian, not fear is the real reason that you, I, we do not share the gospel as boldly as we should. We start thinking, what will people think of me? What if people think I'm stupid? What if people think that I am regressive? What if people stop liking me? And to that I say, "Who cares? Do you really care more about someone's opinion of you than the fate of their eternal soul?"My friend, I wrestle with this as well. Last night, Caleb, who is our worship director, and he handled some of our media, he sent me a screenshot of comments to our Instagram reels. We do a little sermon reels. The comments were all trash talking. It was haters just hating. He sent it to me and he's like, "Should I delete these?" He sent it and one of the things that the guy said, "I think his pastor is half a brain," something like that.Then I was like, "That did not feel good." That did not feel good. All of a sudden I'm like defensive. I'm like, "You want to know what my GPA was in college?" And then I'm like, "You know what?" First I wrote... I was like, "Clap back and tell him to come to church and tell it to my face." The keyboard warrior. And then you know what I said, "Lord, thank you. I needed that."I'm preaching on humility and I was like, "Yes, I needed that. Who cares? Who cares what they think? Who cares? Let the Lord draw who he's going to draw." St. Francis was a powerful man of God. He preached the gospel powerfully. Lots of people came to faith and he got a lot of compliments as he would preach the word. It got to the point where it started getting to his head. So he hired a brother monk to follow him around all the time and to whisper, whispered into his ear of just about how terrible he was.So just to cancel out the compliment, so someone should go, "Brother St. Francis, that was the most powerful message I've ever heard." And then this guy, he'd be like, "That message stunk." Your introduction, we had no idea where you were going. There were no points. There was no structure. You did not stick the landing. And so a brother came up to me after the service and he's like, "Jan, that sermon stunk." And I said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Praise me to God."That's that's what he's saying, sober judgment. That's verse 3. Each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. So what's he saying? He's saying that God is the one that gives faith. It's God that's the gift giver and he gives as much as he decides. Have you noticed this from Ephesians 2:8-10. Famous text. "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them."This and this is not your own doing. What's this? What's this referring back to? Is it the grace or the faith? It's both. Both grace is a gift and faith is a gift from the Lord. And it's only through the eyes of faith that we see everything that we have. It comes from the hand of a merciful God and only light of faith that we realize we're wicked people. We have been justified not by works, but through the merits of Christ. And therefore we are to be humble.It does not hurt to remind ourselves every now and again that God is very good at humbling the proud. And also God is very good at raising up those who are down casting and disheartened. Those who have humbled themselves or those who have been humbled by life.James 4:10, "Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you." 1 Peter 5:5-11. "Likewise you are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.Casting all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ will himself restore, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen."It's fascinating he starts with younger people. Younger people subject yourself to the elders. And he's talking about elders in the church. He's speaking to younger people in... It applies to everybody. We have a hard time submitting ourselves to accountability. And this is why a lot of Christians do not join churches because they don't want to submit to other members. They won't submit to other Christians. They don't want to submit to the elders of the church.He says, "Be careful, humble yourself because..." And then he brings in Satan out of nowhere. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion. What's tempting us? What's he want to devour us with? It's with our pride. So perhaps it's no wonder at all that Paul would spend significant time here reminding us to humble ourselves. And as he does, he applies the principle of humility to our gifts that all of us, every Christian has gifts that the Lord has given us innate capacity or talents, but there are gifts to serve the Lord.And as Paul puts it in another place, what do you have that you have not been given? What do you have that you have not received? What makes you to differ? And he talks about these gifts and that's 0.2, think humbly about fellow believers. Verse 4, "For as in one body we have many members. And the members do not all have the same function so though many are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."It goes from present your body as a living sacrifice to don't think too highly of yourself humility, to we are members of one body that we belong to one another. What's the connection between those? And I'll try to weave it all together, but first he does bring in the body, the body of Christ, which is the church. The church is the mystical body of Christ. A very prominent theme elsewhere in 1 Corinthians. Paul talks much of this in 1 Corinthians 10:17, "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body for we all partake of the one bread."In Ephesians, he talks about the church, which is the body, Ephesians 1:23 which is the body, his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Colossians 1:18, "And he is the head of the body, the church. He's the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent."Yes, God does save us individually, but God does not save us as isolated individuals with individual destinies. Having been united to Jesus Christ where members of Christ's body. He gives us gifts. Those are our gifts and we are to serve the whole community with our unique gifts and abilities just as the different parts of the body serve the whole person. Who's the head? It's Jesus Christ. It's his body. We belong to him. We're in him. So we must submit to him.And this is the very essence of humility that Paul is describing. Paul is not saying, "I want you to humble yourself with sack cloth and ashes, prayer and fasting. Prayer and fasting is incredible for humbling yourself." No, no, no. He's talking about humility in the context of sacrificing.Giving toward others, serving others in the same way that no part of the body functions, if it's severed from the whole. If you cut off my arm, there is no life in my arm apart from my body. So in the same way each Christian believer is useless if not an active part of the body. For St. Paul, for all of the writers of the epistles, there's no such thing as a Christian who's not a member of the body, who's not a member of the church.And the application here is so obvious. While we're personally justified by grace alone through faith alone on account of Christ alone, we're not justified in isolation from other Christians. We are baptized into the church. We're called from death to life to be part of the larger body which is Christ and we can't exist independently of the body. We need to contribute using our gifts and we need the gifts of others. It's vital for our walk.Paul cannot even envision any believer, any Christian existing independently of the church as is common in modern America. If you go to other parts of the world, sermons on membership make all the sense in the world. Everyone understands that if you're in the church, if you're a Christian, you're a committed member of the church. For some reason in the United States, I think it's because back in the day we just said no to England and we're like, "Yeah, forget about that."We're independent. We want freedom. We're individuals. Freedom, America. And we bring that sentiment into the church and we should not, that we are a body of believers. And the public assembly of the body of Christ for worship and to receive God's word and sacraments, it's essential to the Christian life. And it's also a testimony. It's a testimony to the watching world.This is part of our collective evangelism. We're testifying to the world that God is bringing people together. And this is why the church is called Mosaic. There's a cross in the middle and it's fragments around that cross. It's a mosaic. That's who we are, that God takes these broken people, broken through our own rebellion and sin and God is the one weaving us together, creating a new society without racial and social barriers. They're all removed where each member serves the whole and each member benefits from the contributions of others.Interdependent, not independent. Interdependent and interconnected. In 1 Corinthians 12, we did this sermon series a few years back called Prodigal Church. You can find the sermons online. But at 1 Corinthians 12, he gives the next position of what this means. He says, "Someone is an eye in the body. Someone is a hand. Someone is an ear and so on and we need each other."And he says, "If you're an ear, don't say because I'm not an eye, I'm not that important. I don't need to belong here." No, we need ears and we need eyes and we need nose and we need every single body part of the body of Christ. And through this unity in diversity, God reveals his grace to his people and glorifies his name through the church.In Romans 12, Paul's point is simply the different members of the church have different gifts, all of which have their place. And there can't be any pride because it's all grace. They're gifts. They're called gifts. He doesn't answer here, are these gifts natural? Are they supernatural? Are we born with them and then we cultivate them? Or do they come when you get saved or you get an unction and filling and anointing of the Holy Spirit? He doesn't explain because it doesn't really matter. Because all the gifts, everything we have is by grace.This simply means that we cannot be something that we are not, nor because some people have visible gifts that they're more important in some way. No. This section, what gifts do you have? They're gifts. You can't take credit for them. They're meant for a blessing to the whole body, not to increase your name or status. And everyone else, Christians have been given other gifts and that there are no gifts that are useless. And it's only when our gifts are used in the service of God, in service of the body, that we can truly grow in the humility that God calls us to.So question, are you, dear Christian, a member of a local body of believers? And if so, how are you serving the body with what gifts are you serving the body? I ask this because it is counter-cultural even in the American church to practice church membership. We do practice church membership and we talk about church membership. I do get pushback on the church membership part. And people say things like this, "Oh, you're just trying to build up this church. You're trying to grow this church." Yeah. Of course that's my job.And then second of all, second of all, if we really wanted to grow the church just numerically, if that was the only objective, we would not practice church members. Church membership is so much work. It's so much work. And if you read any church growth books and I've read them all, they never talk about church membership. They don't talk about accountability. They don't talk about leadership structures. They don't talk about any of that regenerative church membership. Why? Because it is a lot hard.No, no, no. We don't want just numbers, we want a church of regenerative believers serving one another using the gifts that God has given us. So Christian, if you do not seek to become an official member of a local church, you must repent of the sin of pride because that's in the way where you say, "I don't need anybody. I don't need accountability. I don't need community. I don't need to serve. That's all pride." So join the church, serve fellow believers. And once you do, you'll begin to understand just how proud you are because you understand how difficult people are.I had a gentleman asked me this week, he said, "How's your week? How's a week going?" I go like, "Oh, stressful. I work with people." He's like... Sometimes it is stressful. Part of it because the emotional energy that it takes, the spiritual energy that it takes. I do get moments where I'm like, "God, how can you stand these people?" And then you know what? God responds. It's almost like every time he's like, "Yeah, how can I stand you, dear person." That's every single one of us. We've all had seasons. And even now at our holiest, we're still not as faithful as we should be.So it's the church that's God's plan for humble sanctification to grow you, stretch you in your humility. We cultivate humility by serving others. We do that by action on behalf of others. As so often in the Bible, the best antidote to a false state of mind is proper and decisive action. God gives us gifts and we are to present the gifts that he has given us to serve him. And the gifts have humility in them only if we use them to the Lord.So if you're not a member of a church... By the way, we did not plan this. I did not plan a membership sermon a week before our last membership class of the year. I did not plan that. We're not smart. Humility, it's all the Lord. And so next Sunday, we have our... I think it's our last membership class, or it's our last class before our last members meeting. So if you're not a member of this church, if you're not a member of any church, we welcome you to become a member of this church. This is a great church. This is a tremendous church. My favorite church ever. Best church ever.So next week, one to 3:00 PM, it's a great time. That's the first step to becoming a member. And last thing I'll say here, to be humble, one can attempt to bring his or her heart, soul into humble frame to cultivate a self, a facing spirit, a Christ honoring state of mind. We can do that. But then it's still you. It's still you're focused on you. |Lord, make me humble. Lord a humble, a humble. Me, me, me."The way he's saying to cultivate humility here is action, to serve others, to act on behalf of God and others. Why does he do that? Because love is a verb. It's not a feeling. God loved, so he gave. It was action. Christ loved me and he gave himself for me feelings usually follow, hopefully follow. And this is what humility is, serving others. And the simplest definition of humility in all of scripture, it's just a life lived for God and others. That's true, humility, a life lived for God and others.And then that brings us point three, think humbly about our gifts. Verse 6, "Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let us use them. If prophecy and proportion to our faith." The operative verb here is let us use them. We have gifts, let's use the gift. A lot of people ask, "Okay, how do I find out what my gifts are?" And the most helpful framework I have come across is the Venn diagram. You know what those are? There are three circles. Circle, circle, circle and the sweet spot in the middle. That's what we want.The three circles are ability. Do you have the skills? Because we want to worship God and we want to do it skillfully. Do you have the skills? That's ability. And then the next circle is affinity. Do you like doing it? Do you enjoy doing this? And then opportunity. Is there an opportunity to use these particular gifts in your local body or are there other opportunities? It's not always like that. I remember when I was called to preach the gospel, to preach God's word, to prophesy. It says here. I knew I had the ability, I had the gift of gab. I always knew that. I have great short-term memory. That's how I got through high school and college. I did not have the affinity. I wanted nothing to do with being a pastor or anything like that. God just called me. And for some reason the juxtaposition of the way I look and the pastoral job, for some reason it's highly effective for evangelism in Boston. Because any time anyone asks me, "What do you do?" I say, "I'm a pastor." And they're like, "What?" I don't know why it's so shocking to be partially because I think I look like this like I could probably kill someone with my bare hands, which I think I could. I've never done that.But God says do it. And then the opportunity, does the opportunity present itself? And then also the internal call of whatever you think God is calling you too has to be confirmed by the external call of the brothers and sisters of the church around you. That's important. The other thing I just want to mention here is that Satan does tempt us with dissatisfaction of our gifts.So be careful. There's an example in holy scripture where King Uzziah came to the throne Jerusalem when he was 16 years old. He reigns for 52 years and then his monarchy for the most part was marvelous because he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. But in his later years, his status got to his head. He became dissatisfied with being just the king, he wanted to also be the priest.So he goes to the temple and he starts to offer sacrifice and the priests were horrified. When they tried to stop him, he went until wild rage. At that moment God struck him with leprosy and he dies alone, cut off from the temple and the royal house, and shame, and disgrace. He was discontented with the office that God had given him. Be careful there friends.Here he begins with prophecy. Prophecy and proportion to our faith. What does he mean by prophecy? A lot of people think prophecy is just telling the future or just understanding what's coming. It's a spirit given ability. In the Old Testament, the supreme agents of revelation were the prophets. And the counterpart to the Old Testament, capital P, prophets in the New Testament is capital A, apostle. There's a parity between the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostle.Both are authoritative agents of revelation. That's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about prophesy as if you're revealing more of God's holy scriptures. No, he's saying prophesy here in the sense that in the Old Testament, the prophets weren't just telling the future foretelling, they were mostly forthtelling, telling people God's word, communicating the word of God to God's people, showing them where their lives were falling short of the word of God and alike manner.In New Testament, the prophet is one gift interpreting positing the word of God. So in contemporary terms, the prophet is just a preacher, someone who preaches the word of God. As Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:2, "Preach the word. Be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching."Romans 12:7 continues, "If service in our serving." Here, the word for service is just meeting physical needs. In particular for widows, orphans and the poor. So some people just have the gift or the burden to help people who have been downtrodden by life. If you're called to serve, then to serve people in their practical needs. And then he says the one who teaches in his teaching, pretty straightforward. You have to teach the faith.And what's the difference between teaching and prophesying? Teaching is you're just bringing information to people. This is what God's word says. This is what it means. This is what the church has believed through millennia. You're just teaching, informing the mind. It's like in Sunday school. The prophet has a little more edge. It's not here's what Christianity teaches, it's you, sinner are to repent of your sinner or you're going to hell for eternity. So why won't you accept the grace of Jesus Christ, you wicked sinner? And now you're a saint. Praise be to God.That's kind of like a prophecy. I'm not really good at it. I'm still working on it little by little. So if you teach... He says teach. If you prophesy, you prophesy. And then verse 8, the one who exhorts in his exhortation some. What's exhortation? Exhortation is, I'm just telling you what you know. I'm just reminding you what you know. And some people are just really good at this. I have an uncle who's just gifted in exhortation.Every once in a while he calls me up and he's like, "Jan, you were chosen by God before the foundation of the world. His Holy Spirit is upon your anointing." And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all this." He's like, "Fight the good fight. Remain faithful." I'm like, "Yeah, yeah." So exhortation it's an important gift because it encourages us in a way to follow the Lord. So if you see brothers and sisters in community group or at church and need some exhortation, need some encouragement, do it and do it lovingly.Then he continues the one who contributes in generosity. So everyone has an obligation to give, but some really have a gift for it. And they give, and if so, if you have this gift, give generously with liberality. And there are people who go above and beyond. They give a lot more than required and they do it cheerfully. And nobody wants to get a gift from a sour puss who can't stand to be separated from his or her money. God doesn't want such gifts.What scripture does teach that God loves a cheerful giver. Praise be to God for all the generous givers at this church. I do want to emphasize that because we live in one of the, if not the most expensive place to do minister, to do church work. And through the years God has sent a very generous gospel patrons and we pray for more. If you have the gift of generosity, praise be to God that you are here and you're here in the nick of time.I just want to explain how expensive this place is. Just to explain. You know how much it costs us to lease this space for half a day on Sundays? You know how much? 4G's, 4G's. A brother came up to me after the service. He's like, "What does G's mean?" Like thousands, $4,000. Every single Sunday.My first car in high school was an Audi 80. It cost me $3,000 cash. So every Sunday I'm like, "Today is an Audi with rims every Sunday. Today is an Audi with a subwoofer every Sunday." But we're thankful to be here and we are praying to buy some real estate because something about being in the city... Before people really want to get to know you and be friends, they always ask, "Do you rent or do you own?"And I know why because I've been here for 13 years and it's sad to see people go. So we want to be rooted here. We'd like to buy a worship space. Space like this probably be a hundred mil. So we are thinking more humbly. We're going to ... We just like some office space. We want to buy some office space. We got eight people on staff. There's eight of us now by God's grace. So we started this campaign, mosaicbuild.org. You can find all the information there.We started last December. We were ready. But by your generosity and God's grace, raised $400,000. Praise be to God. And then this week we met with a banker. Get charismatic. The Lord deserves it. And this week we met with a banker and we're trying to qualify for a half a million dollar loan that brings $900,000. The properties that we're looking at for office space around 1.2 million. I know if you're like from a place like... Let's pick something, Nebraska.If you're from Nebraska and you're like, "One point... You're using decimals and M's? That's crazy." But I'm like, "That's because you're in Nebraska. Move here, get an apartment, a little studio basement, apartment in Allston, live here for a couple of years, and then you'll see, it's expensive." We have a goal of raising $300,000. We need lots of generous givers. If that's you, praise be to God.Leadership. He says, "If you lead, the one who leads with zeal, if a gifted leader is to be followed, he or she better know which way they're going." And you have to lead with zeal because it's zeal that inspires people to do things that they've never done before, to challenge people, to motivate people. And then he ends with the one who does acts of mercy with cheerfulness.Some people are just incredible peacemakers. They have the gift of mercy where two parties antagonistic toward each other. You come in, you throw a little counseling through mercy, there's peace. And mercy used to be dispensed with cheerfulness. Why? What's the connection between mercy and cheer... I know why. Because if you have this... It's not a gift for me. So it's super exhausting.I can do this a little... Even this morning, my daughter Milana had a meltdown on the way here. I'm trying to do the mercy. I'm like, "I'm going to go preach. It's a lot easier." But for some people, it's natural, but still it's work, especially with emotional energy. So he says to do it with cheerfulness.A few years back, I was in an Uber and this is my conclusion. I'm going to try to stick the landing. I was in Uber and I get picked up in Brighton. I'm going back to Brookline. The driver picks me up and immediately I was like, "This guy is a talker. He's a talker." He warns me, he's like, "I'm warning you, I am chatty because I used to work as a psychiatrist for decades."I was like, "Whoa, you got a psychiatrist and a pastor in one car. That's going to make for some interesting conversation." So we started chatting. Of all the profound wisdom he shared, this is what resonated the most and stuck with me. He had worked for decades trying to help people and he realized that these people didn't need the drugs that he was giving them. He said, "What they needed more than anything was friendship, love, and community."And he said this, he said, "Look, what I did was important, but what you are doing by working to create a true community where people are bound by genuine love is infinitely more important." And that's what I want to encourage you with, dear Mosaic. What you're doing matters far more than you realize. You're not just impacting people's physical lives, you are impacting their souls and their eternities. We're creating the image of the triune God, the Trinity, three persons.God is a God of humility. He's glorious. Humility in that each of the persons of the Trinity defers to the other. The Father wants to glorify the son. The son wants to glorify Father. The Holy Spirit wants to glorify all three. And what's important is, in this community, that is the trinity. There's perfect love and perfect harmony because there's perfect humility.We're created by this triune God and his image. We're created for community. What's in the way? It's our pride and it's our sin. Therefore, we need the cross of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Christ, which binds us vertically with God the Father. And once we receive grace from God the Father, he fills our hearts with love, a real love for real people, creating meaningful horizontal binds that we all desperately need. And that's God's heart for the church and that's God's heart for our church. Praise be to God.Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the time, the holy scriptures, the rich time and a rich text. We thank you for it. Holy Spirit, we do pray that you inspire us, exhort us through this text. Help us truly live this text out. Help us be a church that is a Romans 12 church, a church where each member counts others more significant than themselves, just like Christ. Jesus, we thank you for the gift of salvation, the gift of grace, the gift of mercy, and we pray that you make us to people who live in a man worthy of the gospel of Christ.Jesus, we thank you that you gave your body for us, broken for us. And in response, you call us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice for you and in service to the body, the church, the body of Christ. And we pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Dear Christian, remember and know that you are blessed when you are suffering for Jesus. Be glad by looking at your spiritual blessings in Christ. Encourage other brothers and sisters to grasp on to the unshakeable joy of Christ.Thank you for listening to this episode of Declaring His Glory Among the Nations: Daily Scripture Meditations from Pastors Around the World. This show is from The Master's Academy International. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, and leave a review on your favorite podcast app. The Master's Academy International is committed to fulfilling the Great Commission by training indigenous church leaders worldwide. For more information and to learn how to get involved, visit www.tmai.org. ► CONNECT WITH US: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tmai.orgInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/tmai_orgTwitter - https://twitter.com/tmai_org► SEE OUR RESOURCES: Field Reports - https://www.tmai.org/updateMinistry Updates - https://www.tmai.org/subscribeOnline Giving - https://www.tmai.org/donateDevotional Book - https://www.tmai.org/devotionalFree Book - https://www.tmai.org/freebook► CONTACT US: Address - 13248 Roscoe Blvd, Sun Valley, CA 91352Phone - (818) 909-5570Email - info@tmai.org

Hang on to your hats, this one is a wild one!....Sorry if you get offended but sometimes the truth hurts.  Doug and I talk about how Fear has overtaken the Church and this culture and what Christians should be doing about it.  As a pastor himself Doug hold nothing back when it comes to speaking the truth, like Trump you many not like his delivery but results is what matters.  We will also touch on his new book "Dear Christians: Your Fear is Full of Crap.  A biblical dive into the scriptures and how the church is not operating from this truth.You can follow Doug at the links below,https://clashdaily.comhttps://douggiles.org/clashradio/Dear Christian: Your Fear is Full of Crap bookhttps://www.amazon.com/Dear-Christian-Your-Fear-Full/dp/1618082116/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=doug+giles&qid=1663997458&qu=eyJxc2MiOiI0LjEwIiwicXNhIjoiMy4yNyIsInFzcCI6IjMuMzMifQ%3D%3D&sr=8-2   Id say you're like The Dennis Miller of Christianity. Doug Giles  0:44  I'll take it. I get Ted Nugent, Dennis Miller. It's like, I was baptized and dirty water. My mentors are Ted Nugent, Dennis Miller, and Elijah. So that explains a lot. Gary Duncan  0:59  So Doug, appreciate you coming on the program in the podcast. It's just a pleasure to see you face to face and hear you talk about what's been going on the last one, two years here that we've dealt with in your new book. And so talking with Doug Giles, right is the Giles guy. Yeah, John. soft key like giraffe. Okay. Now, you I want to point this out because you've got 17 other books, right? Yeah, I got 60s. Doug Giles  1:32  I actually have 19. Yeah, so the voice is they just keep going inside. People see in my weird gloves. Gary Duncan  1:41  I've literally, you're not a proctologist. Right? No, Doug Giles  1:45  I'm not. I'm not checking. Jethro is oil. I'm an artist. So I went, when when the Zoom meeting alert came in. I was literally working on a painting so I'm not just I'm an artist, and the reason I wear the gloves if anybody thinks I'm a wuss is like I deal with turpentine and acetone. And that crap will eat your flesh. Gary Duncan  2:09  Yes, yes, it will. And anything else it touches. So your book, dear Christians, your fear is full of crap. And just loved it. I don't know how I ran across. Yeah, you've got a podcast. It's called warriors in wild man with CO hosts co host Rich Whitman. And Rick Whitmer. Excuse me, and I love listening to that. And I think I heard you talk about your book. And I got a hold of it. And I'm telling you, folks, it's thing. It's, there's there's a nice, cool, this is some of the artwork he does. It's old painting. Right? Right. And he's a man's man, a warrior, just like it says, and you've got a lot of other books. sleeveless t shirt leave. You know, you just you got to come as you are I work in my redneck. Yeah. Now, are you in your your bio? It said, Your the cigars and sermons. Is that a church now? Or was it still? event I guess is what you said. Since you brought up the cigar. I think I'll smoke one. There you go. Right. Now this might offend a few. Bible thumpers, but I hope it Doug Giles  3:23  does. So I was at a pastors conference. And so this goes back nearly 30 years. And so we're sitting around with a bunch of senior ministers. Okay. We're not talking about new believers. We're talking about guys who've been Christians for years. They have churches of anywhere from 500 to 3000 on the low man on the totem pole. Gary Duncan  3:48  I can actually smell that over here. That smells so good. Doug Giles  3:53  Yeah. Yeah, so anyway, so everybody's ordering drinks. And since it's a past pastors conference, everybody's doing tea, sweet tea, Coke, Diet Coke, dark pepper, root beer, comes to me and I order one Coors Light, which is barely beer. I mean, it's barely beer. It's like 2% by volume. And Gary i I only drank wine. I didn't you know get up on the table start dancing. I didn't you know get into my seat 28 Start driving around the city you know, creating havoc for you know, innocent people. I just had one beer. And you would have thought that I ordered warm blood from the last one on the planet and drank it, you know, in homage to El Diablo. And I get the same kind of crap with the cigar stuff. So I figured you know what, I'm not going to hide it. I love smoking cigars. There's no injunction in Scripture to not do it. And people always bring it up. It's like well, your your your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and Like, you just ate 17 pieces of catfish and 31 Hush puppies. You've got more chance and a Chinese phone book. You're 300 pounds overweight. I cycled probably, you know, 60 miles a week. I work out constantly. I smoke cigars. So, physician Bill heal yourself. Gary Duncan  5:23  Yeah, exactly, exactly. I've always wondered why Baptists were so fat all the time. I mean, I used to be in a bad restrict. And I promise you that I think that's a prerequisite when they interview you got to be. I know, I don't go down that trail, get in trouble. So. Doug Giles  5:39  So my, so there's a teacher and she's doing this show and tell and she wants and she lives in a eclectic city. It's in Miami. And she wants all the various people, the little kids to bring something that represents their religion. So Maria comes and she said, Hello, my name is Maria. This is a crucifix. I'm a Catholic. And then Shlomo, he rocks up and he says, Hey, my name, Shlomo. This is the star David. I'm Jewish. And then Billy's like, Hi, my name is Billy. This is a casserole. I'm about. Gary Duncan  6:19  Oh, that's so good. All right, let's see who else we can offend. Let's now let's get into your your book, because I know you got a little bit of time. And I'm telling you, it's hard hitting it is pure, raw truth. And, you know, just let's talk about 2020 Because I know where I was, I was at. And that was the time that light switched. For me. Everything switched, I got red peeled, probably before that, actually, about seven years before that, I started waking up to a lot of stuff, but 2020 really sent me over the age. And since then, I've just I've run across a lot of people that feel the same way that we just totally miss something, the church miss something. I love what you say in the book about the it's in the very front of the book about pastors should repent, for closing down and doing what they did. And I agree 100%, I've yet to hear that. I doubt we'll hear it. And, you know, because they, they, again, you get into Romans 13, all the stuff that goes on. And we just need to if you just watch the news now, I mean, they're, they're coming after our kids. Some of the stuff they're doing to our kids, we just, I mean, Christians should be out in the streets with pitchforks with these people. Because this is just it's demonic. It's Luciferian. And they're totally ignorant of what's going on in our country. And so we're What was your mindset to in 2020? Doug Giles  7:53  Yes. So, you know, I've never feared sickness. I've never, you know, been some kind of scared, Dread laden hamster of anything, you know, going into the deepest, darkest places of Africa and Mexico. I'm a hunter, I travel a lot. I do mission work, you know, especially when I was a young Christian. And I'm not just talking about passing out tracts of Juarez, we'd go into the tail end of the Sierra Madre in the state of Nairobi. Where, where there's no streetlights, there's, there's hostile Indian tribes, the core that we chose, you got you got the federal rallies that are that are planned heroin and marijuana, and we're invading their space and trying to liberate people from drug addiction. And also I would eat their food and drink their water, you know, not fearing if I'm going to get Montezuma's revenge. So I've never been, you know, some nail biter. And so when the, the plague from the Wuhan lab that Fauci oversaw, and when it was released upon us, which I believe as a weapon to collapse America's economy, everybody's, you know, in dread of it, and, you know, when Trump said, Gary said, Look, we're gonna take two weeks to flatten the curve. I said, Okay, I'll do it. So we had our cigars and sermon event, which is, at that time, it was a monthly Bible study. And so I said, Look, we'll just, we'll just punt for the month of March. April, we'll reconvene and then of course, you got Fauci and Birx and all the other quote unquote, you know, experts coming in saying, Oh, no, you know, we've got to do it not just for two more weeks, but what the heck maybe in perpetuity, maybe for you know, Infinity and Beyond we're going to social distance, we're not going to have Christmas you know, we're gonna like granny rot in the system living home and, you know, this is the new normal and it's right then that I started smelling 1984, this Orwellian bull crap rat cage that they're going to strap on our heads and make us toe the line and so So, at that juncture, I was going to a church. And then I started getting memos and emails from the church like, well, you know, Merrimack cheese and Governor Abbott says that we got to gather safely and so we've got to social distance, we're going to close our church down for a few more months, until he allows us to open the church. And man, you know, I don't want to aggravate hair loss, but I started scratching a bald spot in the back of my head. Just listening to these pastors, you know, my pastor, say, you know, we're going to follow Abbotts IIDX wisdom, you got to frickin be it. This is we got to we got to gather wisely. It's like, you got to be kidding me, man. Because I believe very, that there's somebody who Trump's civil magistrate, a governor, and I think it's pulled up what's his name? The Lord Jesus Christ. And he, you know, he's omniscient. He saw it, you know, and His omniscience, that 2000 years, since he slept this pebble, that there would come this Wuhan Weezer. And in spite of it all, he says, to meet weekly, have communion, greet each other with a holy kiss. And, and, and continue to do this, no matter what comes along. And then you've got all these knotless wonder pastors that curled up in the fetal position and what their big diaper and they started obeying against civil magistrates, thinking that they were, you know, adhering to Paul's eating in Romans 13, or Peters in first Peter to when in fact they were they were doing the opposite of what Peter and Paul and the Lord Jesus Christ commands no matter what's going on. And they they decided that they're going to shut their church down, that they're going to have zoom meetings, which is a Chinese app, and they're no friends of Christianity, and you gave him an eyeball into your church in are working, and all the people that are a part of your church, or they went to Facebook, who. So it Facebook, there are no friends of Christians. And so the stupid little Christians in the shriveled nut, little pastors, they started obeying the government Instead of obeying God. And that's why I said in the first chapter, it's like, look, Pastor, you can show me anywhere in the Scripture, where you're to cease and desist communion, where you're two separate, you know, or social distance, you know, six feet from people when you gather together, if you can show me where we're supposed to stop in person preaching and worship, and we're not supposed to love and hug each other anymore. If you can show me one place in Scripture, where Jesus said, look at the bad code comes around. Here's the modus operandi, here's how you operate. Here's how you roll if you can show me anything remotely close to ceasing our regular gathering together, I'll I'll eat a tube sock because it's not there. And we acted like more or not, we, I continued cigars and sermons, you know, no mask, if people were sick, don't frickin come. You know, it's, it's that simple. It's that easy. And, but again, the pastors and all the churches, they fold it up like cheap suits. And I think it's because the hallowed 501 C three that they worship, more than God, they're scared of being fined. They're scared of being put in prison. But um, you know, again, I take my cue from from Christ, and sometimes following him as a political offense, which Peter and Paul found out pretty quickly in the book of Acts. But these guys are terrified. I think they should hand in there, man card. And I think just like we used to recall automotive automobiles back in our day. If they were crappy, and they didn't operate properly, I think there ought to be a great recall of pastures. Gary Duncan  14:09  I agree. I agree. Because we're, the things are different now. Things are totally different in the church. Unbelief and because we've gotten to the point now that they're willing to kill even more people than they've killed in the past, but, I mean, it's so it's so dark and it's so so it's what's the word? manipulative? I don't know. It's it's when they started abusing when they started censoring truth. That's when it really kicked up a big notch for me, and and to watch how people in the church responded to that, you know, I remember hearing comments about you need to stay off Facebook and quit you know, you're supposed to be a Christian and, and you're mouthing off on face book about this or that. And, you know, but we never had discussions about why we were Malvin off and what was the reason about it? You know, the reason was because they were shutting us down. They were shutting truth down. Truth is what you've heard. I think you've probably heard it truth is, is lying in the street getting walked upon, and what are the churches doing? You know, we're still in our buildings, singing Kumbaya, you know, and I'm looking for those kind of guys that are that have thrown down the gauntlet or going after this stuff. You know, Doug Giles  15:33  how many people how many pastors stood up for Arthur, Pulaski and Calgary. When he defied them? Everybody's like, well, what does he know? He's a rogue operators from frickin Poland. He saw that garbage go down when he was a young kid. And then boom, you know, he thinks he's moving to the land of the free and, and the home of hockey. And he goes to Calgary in Canada. And he's like, this is the same crap that we were under the boot of, you know, many moons ago. Gary Duncan  16:01  I love that video that went viral with him throwing him people don't help people out of the church. I'm like, wow, look at that. Doug Giles  16:09  Then you got a pastor who was less demonstrative than Palacky. You've got I think his name's James coats, Passard and Edmonton, Canada, again, leading the charge. And we're supposed to be these big, bold Americans. And you see these Canadian pastors like we're not going to take this crap. Rodney Howard Brown in Tampa, Florida. He didn't shut down. Hillsborough County Sheriff arrested him. Now. He's suing them. So this is going to be interesting. And his church, Gary exploded when he kept it open. Same thing that happened with John MacArthur. And there's other pastors that did it too. Gary Duncan  16:45  Now Louisiana, was somebody in Louisiana, right? You talked about that. In the back of your book, you list out some of these guys in their stores. There's there's Doug Giles  16:54  a lot of guys that that I'm missing. So they're not all Tinker pots, but they're, I'd say the I'd say the the gamut of them are are pretty. I don't know. To me, it's shameful for you to act like that. And the only person man that I saw, I don't know if you saw this video sent it to you. We put it up on Clash. daily.com It's my news portal, a Catholic priest in Arizona. He said, You know what? I I completely, you know, flopped down on my post. I didn't. I didn't serve you, Chris. We shut our church down. I'm ashamed. I'm sorry. I haven't heard a Protestant pastor say that yet. And they should. And cowardice is a sin. And I don't know how I don't care how they slice this. They were a coward to not go against the federal and the state and the local eating. Because the church is this thing, Pastor. It's essential. It is odds eternal purpose. They carried on having church you morons during the bubonic plague. You know, the first the first wave and the second wave. You got 10 will translate into Scripture. During the first hit of it. You got Martin Luther enacting the reform and the second leg of the plague. They didn't stop. And this was a no kidding. No crap plague, where you have three quarters of western and southern Europe croaking. It's not like people are getting a bad cold and they got the sniffles. And so you're gonna shut everything down. That was a test run. Gary, I think they're gonna come back again with COVID You know, 24 or 26? I think it's going to hit around. I don't know, October. Gary Duncan  18:36  No, this year and then 24 two, right. Yeah, Doug Giles  18:40  little mail in balloting, you know, something to stem the red wave that's coming. And, you know, I saw churches, they're like, we're gonna roll up, we're gonna have vaccine, you know, centers on the parking line, you know, get the strange poison injected in you. And if people think that I'm a conspiracy theorist, and I'm full of crap, the mass didn't work. The vaccine didn't work. The boosters didn't work. New York Times now reports it the CDC is like, and we kind of missed it. Frickin Fauci, he, he just resigned and shame. You know, he's getting out because he's gonna get in trouble. Oh, yeah, man, if but the House and the Senate booth man, he's gonna go under this thing called the microscope, and it's not going to be pretty. And but again, but look at it, man. You know, all the Christians are like, well, you know, that was weird. It's not weird. It's cowardice. You need to repent. Right? Gary Duncan  19:39  And it's, it's demonic. It's, it's, you know, I've been doing a little delving back into history. And you can just see the fingerprints of, of the devil in his little minions throughout it, starting from the Adam and Eve. And this. This virus is just a part of the pool. I am. And to me, the churches should be seeing this, they should know the history. And then they should see how it trends transgressors to where we're at today, and not be surprised by some of the stuff but then we're not even addressing it. And that's what what kind of flies over me the most is, if we didn't see it in 2020. Are we going to see it when it comes again? And was that the last stand? You know, that was one of the questions I wanted to ask you is because, you know, because in the back of your book, you go through a lot of verses in Psalms and, and how to pray, you've got one section says, God restores our land. And I'm struggling with with feeling happy about the future, you know, because I don't see people waking up. Doug Giles  20:54  Yeah, I think I think let me bring you over to the rarefied air of hope that I live Gary Duncan  21:01  in. I use the F word because you've got a chapter in there. It's called use the F word. So now. Doug Giles  21:10  Yeah, so I'm a post millennialist. So I don't believe that, you know, the the church is going to get the shitai mushrooms kicked out of us. I don't think that the devil wins in time. I believe that Christ had a significant victory. When was it? Oh, his first coming, or death hell in the grave. He's ascended into heaven. He's king of kings and Lord of lords. We have two thirds of the angelic armies that are BFFs according to Hebrews one, verse 14, we're filled Gary with the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, the indomitable Holy Spirit. And so the United States of liberal acrimony, they don't want gone they publicly booed him kick them out of their party, that the DNC in 2012 So I'm thinking that yeah, they probably tied to I don't know, El Diablo. So if they are, then Satan's a created been, which means that he has no power over the Create tour, because he's, he's a creation in the death, burial, resurrection and ascension. He was stripped of his power. He's got 1/3 of the fallen angels with him that are ever diminishing in power on a regular basis. There is no massive Holy Spirit on their side of the ledger that can empower them. I'm, I'm like looking at Christians like What is your problem? It's like, well, it's never been this bad. Did you not pay attention to the 20th century where we had two world wars, Vietnam Korea, we had the liquidation of hundreds of millions of people through Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, I mean, that was some absolute crazy demonic liquidation. And we're still here. And so if we're now faced, you know, with again, this full on assault from a anti theistic Marxist radicals than little Christian instead of getting your bags packed and ready to be raptured at any moment, which I don't believe it's going to happen, dig your heels in and frickin fight. But it with the weapons of our warfare like in my book songs of war prayers, it literally kick ass. There's a whole bunch of imprecation mal addictions or curses for those who went to public school that God said to pray against people who are impenitent implacable, and watch God come open up a 64 ounce can of whoop ass on the Zoom. I mean, it's pathetic Gary to hear Christians like Well, that's how it was saying it it's Gary Duncan  23:48  we know how it's gonna end. Yeah, we know how it's gonna end. Well, it's like salt and light never heard that one. Doug Giles  23:54  Right? Hopefully God will reps rapture you out now so that the workers can come out not you. But the crybabies in, they could just take them off the planet. So when you get to work, here's how here's a reason that I have hope man. College football stadiums, hockey stadiums, NFL, you know, stadiums that were quote unquote, woke you know, two or three short years ago are now screaming. Let's go Brandon. That was that's rebellion on a gargantuan level. And I don't know if these people are Christian but here's what they do know that that half dead carrier pigeon. I'm talking sleepy creepy Joe who loves to sniff children. They're not buying it. They're not liking the inflation. They're not liking the open borders. They're not liking the invasion. They're not liking the fentanyl. They're not liking these insane gas prices. And so I think what we're going to see if we can get free and fair elections, that's a big F okay. It If we can get the free and fair elections, I think we're going to see 100 year change in the whole gestalt of America where people have really seen what unbridled Marxism looks like in a first world country. And they flippin hate it. And I've seen people who were a political, or they tilt, you know, center left, I live outside of Austin. So you bump into those guys. Occasionally, I've got friends all over the United States that, you know, that I hunt and fish with some of them, you know, they don't really give a crap about politics. They do now. And you know what, they know what they hate. And it's progressive ism. It's democratic, socialism. And all of a sudden out there, whoa. And Gary, they're turning the little Magic Bus of their family to the right. And they're looking at Trump. They're not looking at, you know, Mitch McConnell, they're not looking at Mike Pence, they're not looking at any of those guys got their status quo. They're part of the problem. And they're looking back to the great disrupter Donald Trump and also, you know, cats like Ron DeSantis, just did an incredible bang up job, my former home state of Florida. Gary Duncan  26:10  Well, I am a precinct captain in our Republican Party in our county here. And part of my pessimism is that we just went through a, an election for a school board. And we had, we had three conservatives and one independent that pretty much will go conservative, running. And it thoroughly they got thoroughly trounced. Okay. And yet, when I look at the numbers, the the raw numbers, I have a precinct, it's 3700 voters. How many Republicans do you think voted out of 3700? Just in my small precinct, or the school board? No, just in election, just pure election, we had cog we had a primary for a Republican Senate Doug Giles  27:04  3% of that? How about Gary Duncan  27:06  49 people? 49 people out of 3700? Doug Giles  27:12  Well, so here's what you can card. Yeah. So here's what they got to do. After they watched the podcast, walk out in their backyard, pick up a sledge hammer and hit themselves in the face with it. Because they're the problem. Yes. And, you know, probably a lot of pastors like, well, you know, we don't want to get into politics. You see, you know, God loves this, and God loves that. And you know, we're just preaching the gospel, and it's like, Listen, man, the Scripture addresses all those salient issues that are dinner table concerns, and we're supposed to disciple nations, not just win people to Christ, and discipling nations, and discipling Christians entails teaching them the biblical worldview. And that deals with economics that deals with taxation that deals with these things called freedom and liberty. And, again, these these little crucify and pusillanimous pastors Gary, that won't touch it. You know, I think I think it's because they're whores. I think they're sold out to money. I think they're sold out to, you know, public approval and political correctness. And I, I would low, I'm not a I'm not a perfect man at all, man. But I'll tell you what I got. I've got a healthy dose of the fear of God, I would love to be in their shoes, when they die, and they rock up to the Bema Seat. And they have to count to God for their congregation, when there are all these draconian overlords and enemies and satanic stuff happening. And they didn't equip their people to think through these salient issues. If it was up to these pastors, unlike our founders and framers, who had the majority of them, had great Christian education, and were solid as a rock in regards to their biblical worldview. If it was up to them, and the founding of the framing of the United States, and they were back then, with their little chicken heart mindset, the United States will be called United States of war suffocation, and we probably wouldn't even have a country because they would have bowed and kiss Snagit to King George's reign, you know, so we've got to, we got to get the black robe regiment back, man. That's why I wrote the book. Dear Christian, your ears full of crap. Try to, you know, give brains and balls or the brothers. And so I'm trying to pull them out of the weeds cause this fights raging, it's hot. God's given us weapons and armor to wax the powers of darkness. And it's, it's it's time for us to blow the dust off of them and use them. Yeah, yeah, Gary Duncan  29:43  I agree. I agree. And I did have one of the pastors it's leading. There's a couple of different black road regiments. But this guy, he's he does kind of a theatrical, theatrical educational thing on black robe regimen and it's it footnoted Doug Giles  30:00  you got to do one that makes fun of the TinkerPop pastors, we could do it. The red necklace che regiment. There's a little dandies, you know? Gary Duncan  30:13  Tell us how you really feel. Just don't hold back. Because no, I mean, I, there's so much that the that I agree with and there's truth in it. And, you know, it's just like you said, you give tons of stories of Paul and, and David and I wouldn't put up with what we just went through. Doug Giles  30:33  Well forget. Okay, let's let's remove, you know, the biblical badass is from the equation, you know, like David and Moses and Paul and Peter and chief dragon slayer Himself, Jesus, the midwives in Exodus one, they wouldn't put up with Pharaohs edicts like, hey, we want you to kill all the babies and like, okay, yeah, we'll do that. And, and they started saving the babies save Moses. And then Pharaoh is like, dude, what do you do? And it's like, well, you know, the Jews, they have big hips, they birth before we can get there and boom, you know, that's so they lied. They did. So check it out. They lied to Pharaoh. they disobeyed Pharaoh. And God said that they feared him. And they feared the Lord and they obeyed God, through disobeying civil magistrates, Pharaoh and lying about why they did what they did. So I don't know if they taught you that in in youth group. But it's in the Bible, you know? Yeah. I love that. It's another thing about Paul and Peter. It's like, Well, Paul wrote Romans 13. You know, we're to obey authorities, like wait, wait a minute, you're to obey civil magistrates, when they praise what's good, and they punish what's evil, exactly. When they punish what's good and praise what's evil, then you're duty bound as a lesser magistrate, as a free person under God, to disobey them and to rebel against them. And if you look at Paul's life, Paul bounced in and out of prison more than Lindsay Lohan did from 2007 to 2013. Peter, he was constantly Gary's constantly in jail. And so if somehow he meant Look, everything that the Caesar says, are everything that the king, you know, dictates you're supposed to do it? Well, then Peter, sure as heck didn't lead by example. And neither did Paul. Because again, like I said, those cats had a lot of mug shots, you know? Gary Duncan  32:30  Yeah, we've, I think we've been through this gracefield Love Field. last two decades, and we've raised a bunch of chocolate soldiers. We've not been through a real war that creates hardships and reliance on God. And so we just don't know, like, like you were saying, you went through the deep parts of was Africa and in the, in the jungles in the dark places. So just like David was learning how to be David, as a kid by killing lions and tigers. When he was tending sheep, there you go. When you kill that one? Doug Giles  33:12  Sure did. Gary Duncan  33:13  Oh, man, what do you use? Doug Giles  33:15  I use a 450 403 inch double rifle. And that thing came to kill us and Oh, man. The one problem I have with the Scripture gearing because everybody asked me like, Do you have any problems with the Bible? Like the creation account or Noah's Ark? Or, you know, virgin birth? And it's like, Well, honestly, I do. And Lord, forgive me. You're listening. I'm sure you are. I have problems believing that David killed one of those kitty cats that 600 pounds with his bare hands. Gary Duncan  33:50  That's pretty big cat. He's for those that are on the podcast. He has a mountain a mountain lion or it's a cat. It's a lion. Yeah, African lion thing weighs what's 1800 pounds or something? Doug Giles  34:03  So the taxidermist put it in we didn't weigh it, but he guesstimate around 606 Gary Duncan  34:10  scary cat. Yeah, Doug Giles  34:12  so anyway, of course, I'm being facetious. I believe that. Yes. You know, through God's power read, you can kill lions and bears with your hands. Gary Duncan  34:20  Right? So you know, it's just where we haven't come through those struggles to really be Doug Giles  34:26  carried the church hasn't the pastors haven't allowed them to parents haven't allowed their kids to struggle. Little Timmy suffering or poor little Tanya, she's going through a rough time. That's fricking life man pony up. You know, you just didn't say if you come to me, it's going to be tiptoe through the tulips are gonna have trouble in this world. He said, But cheer up. I've overcome it. Gary Duncan  34:49  Yeah, yeah. Well, I know you gotta get going here out. Tell us what you think. Let's see, where do we go from here, I guess is a question. You know, Hey, what's your best advice for those that might have surely have gotten offended as I've listened to this, but how to get over that? And to realize the essence of what we're trying to do, we're at war. We're in a all out blitzkrieg war of demonic proportions. And we need to wake up to that. Doug Giles  35:24  Yeah, so that that would be, wait, you know, drink a double espresso and wake the heck up to what's going on. And it's not business as usual, as you just said, this is not normal, you know? And, and for people, it's like, well, this is the new normal. It's like, no, that's some new. What do they call it? The Latin StarCore Torah and the Greek they call it scribble on the Brits call it bollocks. And in Texas, we call it bullcrap. There's no new normal, we always go back to what the Scripture says we operate according to the manual. And, but but practical advice for parents, they're dipping into the podcast right now. Get your kids out of public school, because there are no fans Christianity. If you have a boy in public school, they're going to they're going to shame him away from his masculinity. And we need masculine men under the governance of God who providers, protector centers and heroes. More than Yoko Ono needs a tuning fork. Also, as much as you can get your kids away from social media, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, all that bullcrap. And I'm not a legalist. But just get them away from that, get them into fishing, hunting, farming, trapping, that kind of stuff, get them out in the outdoors, to where they don't have eye posture, where they're just looking down all the time, get them into something where, you know, they're taking in this incredible creation, and they're being stewards of it. Like we're, you know, God created man to be. And thirdly, well, Gary, if you think that people got offended regarding all the crap that I just said in the last 30 minutes, they will get offended on this, I would pull your kids out. If you've got a church, that's effeminate. If you've got a church, that's therapeutic, if you got a church that curled up in the fetal position of what their big Christian diaper during COVID Leave it and go to home groups. Do some kind of supplemental feeding. We've got tons of great stuff over on our podcast on gels dot lor. Listen to what Gary has to say. But I believe the church man because those aren't leaders, if they don't repent over what they did during COVID. If they're not addressing the Martin Luther said this he goes if I don't address the most salient issues that concern my flock, and what's going on right here and right now from a biblical perspective, than Luther said, all my preaching the sin Ezekiel had put to him this way in Ezekiel three God says if you see bad crap going down on the planet, and you don't say diddly squat about it, I'm gonna hold you accountable, just as you just just as much as the people who have sinned. The priest, the Prophet, the pastor, who does not blow the trumpet. He said, I'll hold you accountable for their blood. It'll be on your head. So have a good night's sleep. Yeah, no, no, I Gary Duncan  38:18  agree. I mean, I'm, I'm there. I left my church of 1215 years. And it's kind of you know, it's it's a wilderness define those that are the remnant church, those that are the warriors. There are a few and far and in between. So I just I don't have the tolerance to hear the happy clappy, you know, we're in a war we're being shot at we're being murdered we're being and if it's not addressed or brought up or any kind of just acknowledgement of where we're at. I'm done. I'm done with it. Doug Giles  38:57  How many how many churches addressed the issue of the raid on Mar a Lago? Gary Duncan  39:02  Not a single one? Probably. Of course. I can't say because I haven't been in all of them. Doug Giles  39:07  Yeah, I guarantee a lot of them danced around it that didn't happen Look over there. Hey, guys, are you want to do you want to prosper today? Hey, you want to you know feel good about justice? Like what are you talking about? You're taking her Gary Duncan  39:21  next we're next you know, we won't wake up till they come for us and the rest of us will already be taken other other measures but Doug Giles  39:33  it's you know, it's time for the men to come in the in the women of God the midwives of Exodus one it's time for the David's the Elijah is the Moses all those guys you know, to come to the forefront. Look at the look at the cat that God used in order to steer this. The state of the ship or the ship of the state. Correct Donald Trump. He's gonna kick out weirdos, man. And that's why exactly that's why God's pick you that's why Pick Me because we're fricking weird. But you know what? We love them. We love his word. Not afraid. Try. Yep, Gary Duncan  40:07  you got it, man. Doug, it's been a pleasure. I know you got to run and his book. Dear Christians, your fear is full of crap. What's up? I'm done reading this one. Give me what's your next best one that I need to be written? Doug Giles  40:22  Yeah. So if you haven't read Psalms of war prayers that literally kick ass that's been my all time bestsellers. 26 weeks at number one on Amazon. You know, sad to say that it's dropped to the top 10 After nearly a year, being on Amazon, that's a must read. It will change the way that you pray forever. And I've got a new book coming out October 1. And it's a devotional for man. It's called the wild man devotional. 50 days. Or we're dudes to plow through what was around in my little 10 brain? That's good. Gary Duncan  40:57  Yeah, cuz I heard y'all talk about on your podcast. So yeah, check out his podcast as well with warriors and wild man. And, Doug. It's been a pleasure, man. I could. We could talk all day. But this has been great. Appreciate your time. 

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Dale Mast says it's time to become the YOU that God created you to be!

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning. I don't know if you've heard, but Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Christ is risen. Praise God. I'm Jan, one of the pastors, and we're going to preach the word today, because there's power in the word of God. Would you pray with me over the preaching of God's holy word? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a great God and a holy God, blazing holiness. Not one of us can stand in your presence apart from the shielding of the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Jesus, we thank you that you lived a perfect life. Impeccable, no sin, perfect life of love toward God and love toward neighbor itself. And you loved us to the end, of going to a cross, bearing, excruciating physical anguish, and that was just the surface level of the pain as you bore the wrath of God on our behalf. We thank you, Jesus, that you didn't stay dead. Praise God. We thank you that you came back from the dead, and in the death of Christ, you dealt death a death blow.We praise you for that, and we thank you that you are the Great Conqueror, the Great Victor over Satan, sin, and death. And that when we trust in you by grace through faith, we are in you, shielded, protected. Your shield of favor covers us. We thank you for that. And I pray, Holy Spirit, you are with us, you are heavy in the room. I pray today for those who feel dead inside, for those who have experienced death of relationships or death of marriage. I pray today bring your resurrection power from the inside out, speak life to dry bones so that they come alive. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.My dear wife, Tanya, told me that in a suit I look like a funeral home director, which is appropriate because the title of sermon is Your End is Near, and we're all going to die. How much money do you have? You know the bottom line. You think about it all the time. Order magnitude. How much time do you have left? We have no idea. I don't have to be a mystic or a profit to know that every single one of us, our end is near, and on Good Friday we establish the fact that we're all sinners and we're guilty before a righteous and holy God. Ivan Turgenev said the following. He's a Russian poet writer. He says, "I do not know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the heart of a good man is like, and it's terrible." It's just terrible. The physical life is not all there is. We know that there's something that transcends the material life, that's God. So, the question before us is, how can a just, holy, righteous God accept unrighteous, sinful, unjust people?How can we be saved from the looming just punishment that's coming? Is there a way to get mercy? Mercy is when you say, "God, have mercy on me. Please forgive me of my sins." Not guilty. There's no punishment. All of your sins are forgiven. You're free to go home. You're free to live your life. Is that just why Jesus Christ died? To forgive us our sins and give us mercy? No, it's not just why he died. If you pause there, you only have half the gospel, and half the gospel is no gospel. Jesus Christ didn't just die to give you mercy. Jesus also died to give you grace. Well, what's the difference between mercy and grace?Mercy is when you are not given the punishment you deserve. Grace is when you are given something on top. Grace is when you get what you don't deserve. You're declared just. You're justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Just as if I'd not sinned. Justification by grace through faith. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about grace, and every single one of us needs grace. God's unmerited favor. Roman's 3:21-31. Would you look at the text with me, either in your Bible or in your app or on the screen? By the way, we're in the Sermon Series through Romans. And if this is your first time, it's been one of the most powerful sermon series ever at this church. You can get it in the app. You can get all the sermons online, on the website. Today, we're in Romans 3:21-31."But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it - the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and false short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.""Then what becomes of our boasting? It's excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God has one - who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law."This is the reading of God's holy and infallible authoritative word. May you write these eternal truths upon our lives. St. Paul begins this stream of thought in verse 20. "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin." We talked about this last week that God gave the 10 commandments. It's a moral law. It's written on every single one of our hearts. We know that it's true. And every single one of us, we've broken the commandments. Therefore, we are guilty. We can't be justified through obedience because no one's been obedient except for Jesus Christ. So, the question before us is, how are sinners justified? Martin Luther, the great reformer in the 16th century, he coined this phrase. By the way, he said that this text, this is the greatest text explaining the gospel, because if you don't understand this text, you most likely do not understand the gospel. He coined the phrase called "Simul justus et peccator," in Latin.'Simul,' we get the word 'simultaneously' from it. 'Justus,' 'just,' 'simultaneously just.' 'Et,' E-T, 'and.' 'Peccator' means sinner. We get the word 'impeccable.' That's someone without sin. That's why I don't like the word 'impeccable,' because only Jesus is impeccable. Not your car. And we're sinners. But, we can be simultaneously just. How? That's the question before us. Thanks to Jesus Christ, life, death, and resurrection, we can be judiciously declared just by God while still sinners. This is the very heart of the gospel. That you are a wicked sinner, that's the bad news. You're so much worse than you ever even thought. Just ask your mom. You're terrible. We are all sinners, just terrible, but we don't have to clean ourselves up before we come to God.You don't have to clean up your sin before you come to God. You don't have to be righteous in order to be accepted by God. You need to come to God the way you are. Just the way you are. Come just as you are to Jesus Christ and say, "Jesus, you promised I can be justified even as a sinner. You promised. I name and claim your word. I believe your word. I can be just, I can be declared just because of Jesus Christ."Romans 3:21. "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it." Righteousness of God, apart from the law? Paul, what are you talking about? You just made the case that the law, the law, the law, it's still enforced. We need to obey the law. And then, you're telling us that we can't do it. We can't make ourselves righteous. We need a righteousness apart from the law. Whose righteousness is that? It's the righteousness of God. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ.Jesus Christ is the only person who lived a life good enough to get into heaven. No one else comes even close. Not even Mother Teresa. Nobody comes close. No one can get into heaven on their own merit, on their own work. This isn't a Christian idea, as the verse tells us. It wasn't something made up by Jesus Christ. It wasn't something made up by the Apostle Paul or any of the other apostles. He said that it was in the Law and the Prophets, the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it. He's talking about the Hebrew scriptures. He's talking about the Jewish sacred scriptures, that the doctrine of justification by grace through faith from the reformation. He's saying it was in the Hebrew Bible the whole time. It was in the Torah the whole time. He's like, "Yeah."When God comes to Abraham, a pagan, and says, "You're mine. I choose to pour my life and my love out on you. You are mine." And Abraham believed. That's all it took. And this is Genesis 15:6. "And he believed the Lord, and he, the Lord, counted it to him as righteousness." Was Abraham righteous the rest of his life? No, he made mistake after mistake, but this is the beauty of why you can bounce back when you sinned. You can repent and immediately receive grace from God and you can keep going. The righteous person falls down seven times and keeps getting up because of this.By the way, you can't have any relationship unless you understand grace. You can't understand any relationship, in particular, marriage. I've been thinking of marriage a lot recently, because it's springtime in Boston, the best time of the year, and there's a lot of weddings happening at Mosaic. Praise God, praise God. And by the way, if you're single, today's a tremendous time to meet a godly person. To all the single people, there's going to be a mixer in the foyer or on the steps afterwards. Just be bold. The righteous are as courageous as lions. Ask someone out for a coffee at Tatte. Go to brunch.I've been rethinking how I am doing marital counseling and how I'm going to weddings upcoming. I don't want to say, "Are you going to love each other?" I don't want to say that because to love each other means that you are going to bear with this person's sin until death do you part. That's what we should be saying. "Do you, groom, take the bride with all of her baggage and carry-ons and you're going to carry them the rest of your life?" "Are you going to take his sin too?" And when you sin against each other, you give each other grace and you repent, but you start by repenting to the Lord. The law was given as a standard by which we will be held accountable. It was given to drive us to God and say, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner."And this is why the blood sacrifices are so important in the Old Testament, because it was a reminder to every single person every single time it was done that we cannot be made righteous by our works because our works have never enough. So, how do I get the righteousness of God? How can I be declared righteous? That's verse 22. "The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." All you need is faith in Christ. But, here I've got to pause, because we have to define what faith is. Let's talk about faith in Jesus Christ for a bit. Saving faith. Who is Jesus Christ? He's the second person of the Trinity, he's fully God, he's fully man. And Jesus Christ is the word, the word of God incarnate.John 1:1-5. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." Jesus Christ is the word. He is the light, and he shines this light into darkness, but we hate the light because the light exposes our sin. It's impossible to sin with the lights on, the light of God. The light, when you're in darkness and you're sinning, the lights come on and it's unpleasant. It's blinding. It's disorienting. You're shocked. People in Boston live in darkness, people in the whole world live in darkness. We're like hormone-disoriented middle schoolers.I'm thinking seventh and eighth grade at a school dance in the gym. Lights are off. You're having a good time. Just learned to dance. There're girls. And then, the gym teacher turns the lights on at 8:00 PM, tells everyone to go home. Oh no, you're crestfallen. The light comes into darkness. Unbelief is the darkness. It's the core division in our country, in our society, in our workplaces, in our homes. Faith was and is the core of Western civilization. It shaped the modern world, and you can see that faith in unbelief division. You can see it playing out in every single major debate and argument that we see in the world. Popular society has done everything it possibly can to banish Jesus, just getting rid of Jesus Christ from everything. Every single public space, you're trying to squeeze Jesus out completely. And how's that going for us? How's the reconstruction of a better morality working for us? It's not.We're living in darkness, and in darkness, you don't know what's true. We search for truth. Can we find truth without Jesus Christ? No, of course not. We deny the truth, and it's led to a whole manner of wickedness and perversion in our world. Moral corruption, and blindness, and lawlessness. Calling evil good and good evil. This is the darkness, and in the darkness, you can't tell which way is up or out. Disbelief is the darkness, and it leads to destruction and confusion, because all we have gone astray like sheep. We search for truth, is that search genuine? Because, when we find the truth, it's inconvenient, because now we have to orient our lives around the truth if we're going to be honest.Pontius Pilate searched for truth, genuinely or rhetorically, when he asked what is truth before letting the mob decide the answer to that question. John 18:37-40. "Then Pilate said to him, 'So you are king?' Jesus answered, 'You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world - to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.' Pilate said to him, 'What is truth?' After he said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, 'I find no guilt in him. But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?' They cried out again, 'Not this man, but Barabbas!' Now Barabbas was a robber."Pilate says, "What is truth?" And then, he says, "I see nothing wrong with this man. That's my truth," and then the mob comes at him and he cowers like a coward to the mob. He doesn't even stand... You want to know the truth? You don't even stand for your own truth. Because when the mob comes after you, it takes courage to stand in the truth. By the way, this is why some of you, perhaps, are not as open about your faith as you should be. You're afraid of what people might think. You're afraid of the loss. You're afraid of not being liked. Jesus Christ said, "I'm the way and the truth and the life." His life and words speak the truth he's meaning itself. Picture Jesus has a bridge between the physical world and the immaterial meaning of the world. We live in the material world, but it's not all there is. We know that. We know that there are things that transcend the material. We all know that, but Jesus Christ is the only one that can speak meaning into this world, makes sense of things.Yesterday was my sister's birthday, and her second favorite place in the world... Her first favorite place in the world is Mosaic, because this is a house of prayer for all nations. Her second favorite in the world is Gillette stadium. So, yesterday we went to Gillette stadium. I took three of my daughters and we drove to Gillette stadium and we had some Five Guys. It was delicious, grabbed some ice cream. And then, we went to the Hall of Fame, the Patriots Hall of Fame. I saw this painting of Bill Belichick, and it moved me. That's the only way I can explain it. It moved me. It stirred my heart. I'm standing... Bill... It's just ugly. It's so ugly, like he's just pissed at you. He's like cussing you out without even saying anything with just his face. He's got the hoodie and he's just... And I'm staring at it and it's just moving me. I'm like...It's just a canvas with some paint. That's all it is. It looks nice, but why does art move us? Why does beauty move us? Because, it transcends the material. Truth transcends the material. Goodness transcends the material. And you take Jesus out, you banish him from society, well, that's why we can't make sense of any- that's why we have no idea what's true anymore. I stopped watching the news. I got no news. I'm off of social media. I go on Instagram because my sisters post my nieces and nephews. That's nice. I don't want to know anymore news. It's all terrible all the time, so I look to the word of God, which is truth. Michael Gazzaniga in The Consciousness Instinct, he's one of the leading experts in the human mind, and he says the metaphor is built into human consciousness. Human consciousness has an instinct for creating symbols to represent experiences to ourselves.In school, we were taught that simile is a comparison using 'like' or 'as.' Metaphor, which is so important to the human consciousness, doesn't use 'like' or 'as.' It uses 'is.' Jesus is the truth. He is the symbol of truth in a fallen world. But more than just a symbol, he is truth. Everything Jesus did was wholly true. He really historically lived. He really historically died, and he really historically physically came back from the dead. That's true. Now, because that's true, we can draw meaning from it. And the meaning is this, this is how wicked we are. The one time God decided to come into the universe to break through, break in, the immaterial becomes material, divine becomes human, the only time he did that, we killed him.And it wasn't just because back then they were more sinful than we are now. Yes, they were sinful. The Roman leaders killed him because they were Roman leaders and there was too much to lose if they were to allow him to speak the truth. The religious leaders killed him because they were religious leaders, because they were going to lose too much if he were true. The people killed him because he proclaimed the truth about their sin. If Jesus Christ came back today to the world, we would do the same exact thing. We would kill him. Sinful people would figure out a way to kill him, and probably make it look like a suicide. Why? Because, he exposes sin. He exposes the truth. He knows every single one of our dark secrets. He can speak it out loud. That's a dangerous, dangerous person. That's why they killed him. It still is the same way. It would happen all the same this very day.Do you believe in Jesus Christ? That's what we're talking about. Saving faith, and I don't mean, do you believe that Jesus Christ really lived as a human being? I don't mean, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God? And I don't mean, do you believe that everything Jesus taught is true? What I do mean is, have you submitted every single aspect of your life to Jesus Christ, who is king? Is Jesus Christ on the throne of your heart and your life, not just on the throne in heaven? I'm not saying you do it perfectly, but I am saying that you strive to do it perfectly. A true Christian strives to be perfect as your Heavenly father is perfect, as Jesus has told us in the Sermon on the Mount.A lot of modern American Christians have been inoculated from true saving faith with a vaccine of cheap grace. "Oh, you're a sinner? Come, here's your first shot of forgiveness. Now go, live anyway you want, and come back for boosters." No. True faith in Christ is knowing him and doing the hard work of reorienting every single aspect of your life around the truth of Jesus Christ and his word. Some of you have been baptized, maybe members of churches, but one day you'll stand before Christ and hear Matthew 7:21. "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,'" words of Christ, "will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then I would declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'"Saving faith is when you realize that you have not kept the law, the 10 commandments, you've broken them, and then you turn to Christ and say, "Christ, I need to be forgiven and also I need your righteousness," and by grace through faith, he gives it to you. And then, you do everything you possibly can to do the will of God and follow the way of God as you read in the word of God. So, back to Gillette stadium. My daughter, Milana, she's four. She didn't take a nap yesterday because she was so excited to go to Gillette stadium. And as soon as I got there, I saw my sister. I was like, "We're going to have a meltdown at 5:00 PM." And it was 5:47, she's got a meltdown. We're walking back to the vehicle. She got a meltdown because her sister, Ekaterina, who's seven, went to spend the night at her cousin's house, and Milana started weeping. And I told her, "Baby, you just broken the commandment. Number 10. Thou shalt not covet your sister's sleepover. You wicked little sinner. You are to repent."Instead of repenting, she took a nap. Didn't get to the repentance. We've broken the law, Jesus has fulfilled the law, paid the penalty for our breaking the law. We believe in him, his righteousness gets counted to us, judicially, legally, and then we are to set out to live a life of obedience. That's true saving faith. That's Romans 1:5, that he wrote everything he wrote, Paul wrote everything he wrote for the obedience of faith.Matthew 7:24-27. "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."Andrew Klavan in The Truth and Beauty writes the following. "If you do not believe that life is more than life, it would be sadness to do anything but seize the day and live from pleasure to treasure. Better to kowtow tell to the money man and make your pile. Better to kill an inconvenient unborn child and live unfettered. Better to silence your opponents and seize their fortune than to live in mutual freedom. Better to ditch your promises to your spouse and have a sweet new affair. Better to trade your integrity for success and its trappings. Better to keep your head down and your mouth shut in times of danger. To choose instead the tragedy of love is to proclaim with your whole life that this kingdom of heaven within you is a kingdom that never ends. When your cross looms in front of you, it won't be enough to act as if there were a God. You will have to believe, or you will crater."That's saving faith. Saving faith is when we place our trust in Jesus Christ, his righteousness, and not our own, because we don't have enough, we'll never have enough to meet the holy demands of God. And when you trust in Jesus Christ, God judicially transfers the righteousness of Jesus to you. Our sins transferred to Christ, his righteousness is transferred to us. He takes off our sinful rags and he clothe us in his robe of righteousness.A few years ago, I went to buy a shirt at T.J.Maxx, a preaching shirt. It was white. I never do the fitting room, it's a waste the time. And I walk by faith, not by sight. So, I bought the shirt and I go home. I put it on and my wife's like, "What's that written on the back?" And I didn't even see. And it was like embroidered, gangster calligraphy. I don't know. And it said "King of Kings." I had to go preach and I was like, "Well, I don't have a shirt so let's do some theology." It's kind of arrogant to wear a shirt like this. I can pretend it doesn't say anything on the back, but people are observant. And then, I realized that this is what happens in the double exchange. He who knew no sin, Jesus, becomes our sin, our dirty rags are transferred to him. And then, his righteousness, we become his righteousness, so he clothe us in his robe of righteousness.Let's change the way you live. If you know that you are saved, that you are a Christian, that you are robed in the righteousness of Jesus, it changes the way you live. You walk around with a righteousness that is not your own and you want to do everything you possibly can to not dishonor it with sin. Romans 3:22-24. "For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."We have all sinned. We've all missed, this is what sin means. It means you missed the mark. Hamartia. You missed the mark. The problem... What's the mark? The mark is the glory of God. God created us in his image so that we image forth his glory. We are created to live for God's glory, God's honor, God's reputation, not our own. And you know that you are a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ, when God's glory is more important to you than your own, or God's reputation, God's honor is more important to you than your own. Here I've got to pause and ask the following. Dear Christian, are you paralyzed by the idol of being liked? That's why you're so nice to people and you're only nice to people. It's good to be nice to people, but once in a while, you have to speak truth in love because you love them, but you have to speak truth and that truth might come as a rude awakening like this."Dear friend, I love you so much. I want the best for you. I want you to meet God. And what's in the way? Your sin, your selfishness, your self absorption, your virtue signaling, your sin. You've broken the law. Oh, you don't believe me? Let's look through the 10 commandments. Oh, you don't even know them? Then, you definitely broken them. But Jesus Christ, God incarnate, came, lived, paid the price for your sin, died, rose from the dead. And all you have to do is place your faith and trust in him and then commit the rest of your life to him. And that is the only hope for you to be saved from the wrath of God for all of eternity, from hell, for all of eternity. So, receive the gift."That's not impolite. That's not rude, because you want the best thing for the person. Grace is a gift. What's the best gift you've ever received? If you're married, you better say it's your spouse. You have to, you have to, you have to. My wife and I have been married, coming up on sweet 16, praise God. We love going Ukraine, but we can't go there. Might go to Colorado. Grace is a gift. It's the greatest gift God gives, because if you receive grace, you get God. This one is infinity times better than any other gift. Verse 24. "And are justified by the grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins."Propitiation, do you know that word? Well, we learn stuff at church here at Mosaic because we love the word of God so we learned stuff. And if you can figure out how to order coffee at Starbucks, you can learn theology. Propitiation means to satisfy the demands of justice. In the biblical terms, is to satisfy the demands of God's wrath, the penalty for law breaking is God's wrath. When holy scripture talks about being saved, we're not saved from just Satan. We're saved by God from God. We're saved by God, Jesus Christ, from the Father's wrath on us. We're saved by God from God for God. And Christ is the substitute who took upon himself the wrath that we deserve by his blood to be received by faith. And God will only pass over your sins of Jesus has paved for them.Jesus Christ didn't die in the cross for everyone's sins. Did you know that? Not everyone's sins. Not everyone sins. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the elect, whom he had chose. I don't know who the elect are, so whenever anyone listens to my sermons, I just assume everyone's elect. You should just assume you're elect and repent your sins and follow Jesus. But if you reject Jesus Christ, know your sins are not paid for. You will pay for your own sins for all eternity. So, repent, receive the gift of justification by grace through faith. Romans 3:26. "It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus."The gospel isn't just pardon of sin because God can't just forgive sin. If God could just forgive sin, Jesus Christ wouldn't have to die in the cross. God is just and he does not forget his holiness when he forgives us. He's not just some congenial old guy in the clouds, lonely and wants us to spend eternity with him. No. God is holy and he never negotiates his holiness. He demands and requires that sin be punished. So, how can a just God forgive us? Well, the justice of God and his love and mercy, they mean for God's wrath is poured out on his son. His son is on that cross because he loves us and gave himself for us, and he absorbs the wrath of God. So, God remains just and the justifier. Repent, receive the gift of justification by grace through faith, and then what? Well then, humbly follow Jesus Christ daily.Romans 3:27. "Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith." There is not one thing that you have added to your salvation if you're saved other than your sin. That's the only thing. You did nothing to be justified by God. You did nothing. That why it's called grace. It's a gift. You did nothing. You can't do a thing. What do we have to be proud of? Nothing. That's why Christians and followers of God should be the most humble of people. "I am nothing. I am wicked sinner. I'm saved by grace through faith." But, we're also the most confident. We should be. Because, your identity is secure in Jesus Christ. You are a child of God by grace through faith, and the righteous shall be as bold as lions. So, stay humble. Do God's will.Verse 28. "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one - who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law." He talked about the Jewish people in the text on last Sunday, and now here he says, look, God is one. There's not a God of the Jews and a God of the Muslims and a God of the Buddhist and the God of the Christians and the Catholics and the Orthodox. There's only one God. And if you do not have the Son, you do not have the Father. And if you do not have the Son or the Father, you do not have the spirit of God, because God is one. That's what he say.What does he do with the law? Do we get rid of the law? Do we overthrow it? No, by no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. Faith doesn't overthrow the law. We don't get rid of the 10 commandments. Faith actually reestablishes the law. Do you know the 10 commandments are still enforced on every single one of us? That's why Jesus Christ, when he summarized what the law is and he pointed the 10 commandments and he said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself." That's how you summarized the 10 commandments, but the 10 commandments are still enforced. Read the oracles of God, that's what the Bible calls the Bible. Study, understand, believe, and obey.Matthew 5:17-20. "Do not think that I've come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not in iota, not a dot, will pass away from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."Do you want to be great in the kingdom of heaven? Follow the Lord. And again, community with other followers of Jesus Christ. We need each other. We need each other to fight the good fight of faith, together to fight sin. And I'm not just talking about Christian friends. A lot of people come to Mosaic saying, "I have no friends. Give me friends." And I'm like, "That's why no one wants to be friends with you. You're desperate. I can smell it." We need brothers and sisters. We need spiritual family that will help us grow as followers of Christ. So, join the church as a coveted member, commit, and allow yourself to be held accountable, officially accountable, and share the gospel. The tremendous news that we can be justified by grace through faith in Christ, and share the gospel with your family, friends, neighbors.If you are not concerned about their eternal souls and their faith, are you even saved? And we have a responsibility to proclaim the truth in a world that hates it and insists that we all have our own truth. Jesus Christ didn't just come to save you from the wrath of God. He also came to give you life, true life, and the fullness of life. Imagine living life without guilt, without shame. Imagine living life with a clean conscience. I slept the soundest I've ever slept in my whole life last night, which is a miracle because before Easter I always get nervous and I'm like, "I'm out of emotions, no more." And then, I woke up today, it was like the most tremendous sleep in my life. And then, a verse came to mind and it says, "God gives sleep to whom he loves." I was like, "Thank you, Lord. You love me. Praise God. Can we do it again tomorrow?"Imagine living a life where the spirit of God courses through you. Imagine living a life of eternal meaning, purpose, significance. Is this life easy? No, it's not. I'm actually 25. This life is not easy. This is the hardest thing you will ever do, but you get God, and God is with you. And the spirit of God is with you. And that's all that matters. Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus came back from the dead to show us the way, to tell us the truth, and to give us life. And also, don't forget, love. Everything he did, he did because he was motivated by love for God and love for people. The last supper, right before he gets on his knees and washes the dirty feet of his disciples, it said having loved his own who were in the world. He loved them to the end. That's true love.The love of this world does not love to the end because the love of this world is in love. It chews you up and spits you out when it's done with you. The love of this world is transactional. You're used for what you're good for. And when the time comes, you're done, you're canceled. There's no grace. There's no forgiveness. There's just perpetual confession and reparation. That's our culture. There's no grace, because there's no Christ. His story was a life that was beset on all sides by pain and suffering. He's a man of sorrows, emotional, mental, spiritual suffering. He was tired, hungry, misunderstood, mistreated, even by his friends and family. Betrayed, denied by those closest to him. But, he was obedient to the will of the Father.And because he was obedient to the will of the Father, that's why he died. It wasn't just the physical pain that killed Jesus Christ. Jesus died because the Father withdrew his love. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Instead of love, all he got in the cross was wrath and hatred. Our Lord, though he died on the cross, did not die of the cross. He died of a broken heart, suffering for you. I'll never forget a sermon by Pastor Andy Davis who texted me right after I said this in my first sermon. He texted me. He's like, "Huh? Spirit of God, baby." Pastor Andy Davis, one of my mentor. I remember a sermon on Colossians where it says, the text is, "In Christ, all things hold together," and he said, "On the cross, Jesus Christ was keeping the nails together." The nails that were nailed through his hands and his feet, he was keeping them together. And he was keeping the cross together. He was keeping Golgotha together, he was keeping it all together, because he's God and God is love. So, Christ is love.Love is what keeps everything together, and love is the heart of the gospel. It's the greatest story ever told. It's the most tremendous news. That's what the gospel is. When you placed your trust in this man, Jesus Christ, who is God, God who chose to come down into the filth, into the dirt, into just the heartbreak of life, the human existence, and he died a criminal's death on a cross, the very moment you trust in him, your sins are all forgiven. You're loved. You're welcomed into the family of God. You're no longer spiritual orphan. You're adopted, and you are free and you will be transformed to bring that story of love into the lives of every person you'll ever encounter in this world, through your life, through your words, through your deeds, sharing Jesus' life and story.This is meaning, this is fulfillment. This is Jesus. That's truth. That's beauty. That's life. So yes, your end is near, but thanks be to God, your eternity is secure. When you die, you are just in heaven for all of eternity by the grace of God, because he will love you to the end and you can't even squirm out of his grasp. He's already proven his love for you, by living, by dying, and by rising from the dead. He is risen. He is risen. He is risen. Now live like it. And love like it. Let's pray.Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are the Great Conqueror. Our Lord, our Savior, our King, our Substitute, our Propitiation, our Shepherd, the word of God, the light of God. You are the truth. Lord, we repent that often we've rejected the truth. It's too inconvenient. We've rejected the light because we like our sins. We repent of all this Lord and we pray. Cleanse our mind and our heart. Purify our souls. Fill us with the Holy Spirit, and make us a people fervent for you, living for your glory, sharing your gospel, building your kingdom. And we pray all this in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Matt Cruz reveals why most Christians are MISSING their destiny!

Pornography addiction and how to stop watching porn as a Christian. Joe Kirby from Off The Kirb Ministries.

Dear Christian, I wanted to share the story of "God Will Save Me" With an Energy Healing twist. If you haven't heard the previous Christian Post I did about Energy Healing; feel free to listen to this one. https://anchor.fm/healingthehealer/episodes/Episode-16-Can-I-Accept-the-Emotion-Code-As-A-Christian-eeuoqc Compasshealingcenter@gmail.com www.compasshealing.as.me --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/healingthehealer/support

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning, church. I will explain my t-shirt in my conclusion so you have to keep listening.As I was worshiping, I remembered that even just a little while ago, I used to rate our house bands. I used to rate them. In my mind, there was the A team. There was the B team. Once in a while, there was a C team. I think all our events are A team now. And that's saying a lot.I'm not a musician but like music, it's saying a lot because Caleb's not here and that was just tremendous so praise God.If you watch online, you don't come in person. Let me just tell you what you're missing. You're missing the live band. When you go to a party, there's good parties and there's better parties and the good parties have a DJ. The better parties have a band. It's a live band. And what I'm saying is if you watch online, you don't come in person. I am calling you to repentance. If you're in sin, if you're in sin. If there's other reasons, we can talk. I'm calling everyone. Everyone should go to church.How's your Thanksgiving?I had a really good Thanksgiving. My Thanksgiving just to tell you perspective, every single Sunday, I don't know why the time works like this but I get a notification from Apple that tells me about my screen time and it's always right before I go up to preach. My screen time for this week was one hour and 27 minutes which is significant to me because it went down by 71% from last week. So I'm saying I had a tremendous Thanksgiving, spent time with family at my dad's house, there's 21 of us, 21 eternal souls.My sister, Aida, brought her dog Zuma. So now my daughters want a dog. I'm praying for the Lord to change everyone's heart in the house to want a dog. So I ask that you pray with me.I like Thanksgiving. This is why I like Thanksgiving. I like Thanksgiving because everyone now has to be thankful. Unfortunately, most of the nation doesn't know who to be thankful to and I just want to tell everyone, you got to thank Jesus. You got to thank the Lord. The Lord is so good to us. So with that said, would you please pray with me? I prepared a little pastoral prayer.Lord, we're thankful. We thank you for being the best God ever. Thanks for being so loving. Thanks for being so forgiving. Thanks for being so merciful and thanks for ever being present with us. And thanks for giving us the greatest gifts, love, grace, wisdom, strength, courage, family, friends.And we're thankful for this church. If we didn't have this church, I have no idea where I'd go to church. We've got the best worship music. We've got the best kids in youth ministry. We've got the friendliest greeting. The hospitality is tremendous. This church has helped me raised my daughters. This church has grown my faith like no other, like no other. Thank you, Lord.Heavenly Father, we pray that you give each one of us a heart for the lost, break our hearts over the fact that we have siblings or parents or children or spouses or friends who don't know Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.Lord Jesus, give us courage to do everything we possibly can to help them finally see how awesome you are, that there's nothing more meaningful, there's nothing more significant, more transformed, more exhilarating, more joy filled, more hope filled, more peace filled, more love filled than to believe in you and obey you. Obedience of faith. What a gift. Thank you, Jesus. Holy Spirit, we welcome. You magnify God, the father, God the son and God, the Holy Spirit. Amen.So I was at my dad's. He lives in Jamestown. It's an island which is a boss thing to do like I'm just going to live in an island. He does. And while we were in his backyard and he had not a fire pit because he's Russian, we had a bonfire just in his backyard and I was like, "Hey, is that even legal?" He's like, "Well actually I went to the town hall and I asked can I have a bonfire and they said no one's ever asked the question." So he just took that as an answer that he can.We're sitting around the bonfire and it's tremendous and he decided to start burning just broken branches and leaves and as he is doing it, he's making fun of Americans for bagging leaves. That's my dad.We're sitting there. It's him, it's me, and it's my daughter, Sophia, we're sitting there. Every once in a while, my dad just out of nowhere, he just starts reciting poetry, Russian poetry.He likes this guy Yevgeny Yevtushenko and he likes the guy because the guy wrote in Soviet times and the guy was a genius. No one knew that he was a genius until actually the Soviet Union fell apart because as then he could actually put his name on his stuff to get it published so he would publish everything anonymously.One of the things that he published anonymously was he wrote a poem but he couldn't call it the monologue of a Russian or a Soviet writer so he called it a Monologue of an American Writer as if he's making fun of Americans. It's an American writer making fun of Americans but it's really a Soviet writer making fun of the Soviet Union. It's tremendous, it's genius. It's genius. So you should look it up.But I'm going to cite a little bit to you in Russian and then I'll translate. And so you get the point, okay?Мне говорят — ты смелый человек. Неправда. Никогда я не был смелым. Считал я просто недостойным делом унизиться до трусости коллег.It's a poem about courage and people tell him, "You have courage," they tell me it's not true. I was never courageous. I simply felt it unbecoming to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.Устоев никаких не потрясал. Смеялся просто над фальшивым, дутым. Писал стихи. Доносов не писал. И говорить старался всё, что думал.I like that because it says, "I've shaken no foundations. I simply mock that pretense and inflation. I wrote articles, scribbled no denunciations. And I tried to speak all on my mind." Liked that.О, вспомнят с чувством горького стыда потомки наши, расправляясь с мерзостью, то время очень странное, когда простую честность называли смелостью!And that's his punchline and it goes like this. "Oh, our descendants will burn with bitter shame to remember when punishing vile acts at most peculiar time when plain honesty was labeled courage."I want to meditate today on the word courage. Boldness. Are you courageous? Can you stand up and speak the truth to people who don't agree with you? Actually, people who despise the fact that there are even any people who believe what you believe. Imagine true Christian courage.Like when the Pope... Bro, you are the boss of all the church, you're the Pope. You're the head guy and then you meet with the leader of the free world, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, and you do not call him to repentance. Bro, that's the easiest... That's your only job. And he didn't.So I'm calling the Pope to repentance. Both of them. And I'm calling Joe Biden to repentance. And Trump for that matter.Here's how I view a good president. You know what my test is. Would I let this guy babysit my daughters? We haven't had a good one in a while. I want a president that cares about children, that cares about families, that cares about what's most important in life.So I'm calling everyone to repentance. I'm on a mission. I'm calling the whole nation to repentance. Everybody. We all need to repent of our selfishness and our self-absorption because every single one of us we live as if this movie called life is about us, that you're the main character of the movie, of life.You're not the main character. Maybe you're in the supporting cast. Jesus is the main. He's the point. He is the point of everything. We need to repent and follow Him.Many of you are courageous when it comes to secondary issues. No, I just wrote a few down. Politics, COVID vaccines, the economy, deep state, big food, big pharma, big tech, big banks, all that stuff. You're very passionate about it which is good and I respect passion. I really do. Whatever your passion, I respect it. But I'm also passionate and let's have a conversation.But the main thing I want to talk about is Jesus Christ. I wish you would channel some of that courage of speaking truth. I wish you would channel to speak a truth to yourself. Speaking truth to your family members.I have a dream. You know what my dream is. I have a dream that every single man and woman in this church on a daily basis gets up wherever you live in your house, you take out a Bible, a really big one, not on the phone because your kids think you're watching YouTube. You take out a Bible visually, it's important, and you read something and you read it with conviction and you explain it to the people that you live with. "This is what it means." And then you talk about it and then you pray for each other.If every single one of us did that in our homes on a daily basis, everything will change. This is how I parent my children. And then I turn on my little Bose speaker and then we have a worship dance party. That's what we do.That's how I teach my girls that worshiping Jesus is awesome. Why wouldn't you?So courage. Imagine if every single one of us viewed ourselves as missionaries, full-time missionaries, not mercenaries, missionaries who transform the world.Practically, what am I saying? What am I saying? I am saying everyone should start throwing tremendous parties, house parties. This has been on my heart for a while because I wanted to do this thing where I want to invite the whole neighborhood to party so we have tremendous food and there's live band and then I get up and just tell a few jokes and call people to repentance. I have that dream.But I do that in my house already. I invite people in and you say, "Do you have a verse, Jan?" Yeah. Look at Luke 14, 12 through 14.He said also to the man, this is Jesus. He said also to the man who had invited him. So some rich guy invited Jesus to a party and Jesus, it's kind of savage, because the guy invites Jesus to a party and then Jesus is preaching to the guy that invited Him to a party and this is what Jesus said."When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you'll be repaid. But when you give a feast..." When. What's the assumption, dear church? "When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just."Did you even know that was in the Bible? If someone told me when I was a kid, "Hey, Jesus, just wanted everyone to have a good time. Jesus just wanted everyone to have fellowship, friendship. You will be blessed." I challenge you, church, resolved to throw great parties.You know who's really good at this? Tyler. Tyler and Allison Burns.I was at their party for Thanksgiving. You got to talk to Tyler. You know what the first thing he said when I came to his house? You know what the first thing he said. He said, "The fridge's over there, the bathroom's over there. Make yourself at home." That's all I needed to hear.Oh, and he has this couch that reclines. That was awesome. And we watched football and we had fellowship.Music, food, drink, dessert conversation, warmth, love, destruction of strongholds, fire pits, bonfire, scripture, laughter, reflection. Let the word of God flow like wine. Make memories, bless people. And you say, "Oh, that's expensive." I know. I throw parties and whenever I throw a party, I got to feed at least six human beings to begin with.Have you taken five females to the movies for a date? Have you ever done the calculation of how much that comes out to? With two tubs of popcorn? Have you ever? We watched Clifford The Big Red Dog. It was awesome. That's how my daughter at Ekaterina is sneaking a dog into our house.This is how I grew up. The best part of church for me was the parties. The sermons were all in Russian. I didn't understand half of what was going on and we had a choir, which I...You know what? I've been thinking about choirs. Choirs are awesome. I think we should bring them back. I don't know. I'm just thinking out loud. Nate Young doesn't like that.The parties were the best part of church. Every time we'd go to the park, we'd go to Lincoln woods. We throw a party after church. That was the best part because I was like, "Oh, this is what church is."But they didn't call it a party. They call it общение, which is the most buzzkill kind of word that you can think of, which means fellowship. But it was actually a party.If you remember the church when we got started, this is how we started the church we threw parties. We did apologetics the way apologetics was supposed to be done in the context of fellowship and friendship. When you could have a long conversation with someone, when I'm not just trying to win a debate and lose a friend, I want to continue the conversation at the next party where we can have full hearts of fellowship.Dear Christian, people like to hang out with you. I say that because we live in a city of nerds which is awesome. When the nerds... You ever watched those old movies from the eighties when the nerds do awesome things? That's what I want this church to start doing. When the nerds start having a good time.Where was I going? Oh, yeah. I want to call you to repent of your being introverted, church. "Oh, I'm so introverted." I am too. If you really know me, this is hard work for me. And then I have to go home and sit in a room by myself and listen to Russian Orthodox chants.There's no Bible verse being an introvert. Jesus literally said love people and have conversations with them. Get to know them, have parties. So I never want to hear the word introvert-extrovert ever again. I'm just going to gauge people about how faithful they are as Christians.Okay. Now it's time for the text. 2 Corinthians chapter 10. And I assume you've done all the homework. I've created another study guide this week and if you follow along the study guide, everything else will just make so much more sense. If you didn't get the study guide, go to mosaicboston.com. There's a blog section. I've got the study guide in there in a link as well. It's in the newsletter. If you haven't subscribed. I did all the exegesis and now we'll just talk through the text.2 Corinthians chapter 10:1. "I, Paul," St. Paul, "I treat you," the church that he started, "by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. I who am humble when face to face with you but bold toward you when I am away. Exclamation mark."What's going on here? What's going on here is that St. Paul has changed his tone because sometimes if you want to be heard, you have to switch things up. You have to switch up your tone especially if you're talking to different people.In chapters eight and nine of 2 Corinthians, he was talking about generosity. He was talking about gathering, a collection, finances for the herding church in Jerusalem. And so he was talking of faithful Christians because that's who loves to hear about giving. And now he switches his tone because now he's talking to the wolves in the church, the wolves who crept in in sheep's clothing and he's speaking differently to them because they are trying to undermine everything that he has faithfully done. So that's the tone change.He starts by saying... Before he talks about boldness. He says, "I entreat you, I plead with you, I compel you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ." I want to come to you with gentleness. I want to come to you with meekness. I don't want to come with boldness, I can and boldness is the rail to have certainty in a matter, be confident, be courageous. Courageous to do what? What's Paul doing? He's taking on the wolves in sheep clothing.In Clifford The Big Red Dog, I will allude to that movie because I just watched it and it's a classic. But there's a mean sheep. There's a sheep that looks really nice but it wants to kill you. It's a mean sheep.Well, St. Paul biblically speaking that's wolf in sheep's clothing, but St. Paul, this is fascinating to me, he doesn't just shoot the wolf. He pleads with the wolf. He tries to convert the wolf from being a mean sheep to a holy sheep. That's what he's trying to do.Paul was meek and he was a gentle guy. Why? Because meekness and gentleness was Jesus' natural demeanor. Jesus was just a chill guy. He had a calm masculine presence that brought order to a chaotic world.People like this when you're with them, just their presence calms everything in here. You have peace inside and you can create peace around you. That's why people wanted to hang out with Jesus. He was gentle. He was meek. That's why kids wanted to hang out with Jesus. Kids all the time saw that guy and say, "That guy's having a good time. I want to be close to him."There's something about being a man of God or a woman of God where kids just want to hang out with you. You know me. I have a spiritual gift called being a baby whisperer. I said, "Give me a baby. I will put it to sleep." It's a calm presence.But Jesus Christ could like... When Jesus would hug people, you knew that he really meant it and he could also suplex you. That's why the hug actually meant something more.Jesus is bold. He is bold because he's gentle and when he sees someone hurting, the weak, he's bold in speaking and standing against it even to the point of death and that's why Jesus Christ died on across for us. He went to war.Look, in a perfect world, you wouldn't need courage. But we don't live in a perfect world. If everyone was just a navy seal Christian, we could all just relax and just have a good time. They wouldn't have to be...This is why I tell my girls. I'm like, "Can you just grow up a little? Because I can be more of myself around you if you just grow up a little, if I don't feel like I have to parent you all the time."That's what St. Paul here is doing. He's like, "I want to come with meekness and humility and gentleness so we can just have fellowship. I don't want to come bringing discipline."Meekness, gentle, humility. They weren't seen as virtues in Paul's day and the same today. But if you combine meekness and gentleness and humility and you also... A lot of us have that. But if you also add courage to actually say what everybody is thinking, to actually address the elephants in the room. If you know me, this is how I operate.I was at Cane's Chicken yesterday, Raising Cane's. I wanted to finish off Thanksgiving well so I took my girls on a walk. Mom didn't know. I took them on a walk. "We're going on a walk. It's exercise, it's healthy." And then we got fried chicken.But as we're in Raising Cane's, it's tremendous and the sauce, ah, slaps every time. I'm in line for 45 minutes because apparently you got to do the mobile order thing and people coming in and out and just grabbing stuff for mobile order. I'm like, "I should have... ahhh. Now I know."Finally, the lines I move, I go up to the guy. I'm like, "Hey, man, can I help? Anything I can help with? I can't cook chicken, but I can pray for you. Can I..." And the guy's like, "Oh, the girl cashier, she just started." Oh my God. Okay.But there was a guy next to me who had three kids and he was waiting for an hour and he was like, "Hey man, you just said out loud what everyone's thinking?" Like, "Yeah, that's what I do." It's my job to speak the truth with love and then I gave her a tip after. It's hard, I know.But the point is you need courage. That's what he's saying. Verse two. "I beg of you that when I'm present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some of you who suspect us of walking, according to the flesh."He's like, "You've seen the boldness. I can be bold. I don't want to use that tone. So please put your lives in order. Please put the church in order." That's what he's saying. And the more you submit, dear church and dear Christian, the more you submit your life to Christ, the less energy your spiritual leaders have to invest in leading you to follow Christ and the more energy we can focus on reaching the lost.I view much of what we do here as defense. Defense. Defense. COVID, it was all defense, defense, defense. Can we just protect the church, protect the church, protect the... Defense, defense, def... I'm sick of playing not to lose. Can we actually score? Can we actually throw some touchdowns? You know what I'm saying? Can we actually run the ball? Can we actually see our relatives get saved? Can we see our colleagues, our neighbors, everybody, everybody around us, people we interact with? Can we just share the gospel with them? Throw a party.And the reason why we could do a lot more being on the offense if people just didn't get so offended, no offense. Imagine how sick our offense could be if people in the church didn't get offended when Pastor Jan with his t-shirt. I don't know. "What was he saying? Is that political statement?" If you know me, that's not a political statement. But if you know me really well, you're like, "Yeah, that's probably a political statement, double meaning. I don't know. I'll get to it."I am doing this intentionally. I want to ruffle all your feathers. I want offense so we can finally get past defense and we can actually go on offense.Yeah, you see Hebrews 13:17. "Obey your leaders." I love this verse. I really do. Would you pray this verse over me and you? "Obey your leaders and submit to them." What a word.Americans don't understand this verse. Slavic people understand this verse. Basically, people from any other part of the world except for America, they get this verse because we don't do honor here."Obey your leaders and submit to them for they are keeping over your souls as those who will have to give an account."Pastor Shane, Pastor Andy and I, we take this seriously. I know I will stand before God and God will say, "Jan Vezikov, did you care for the souls, those I've entrusted to you?" I pray for you every day. I pray for you every day. And if you have a prayer request, text me, email me. I will pray specifically. I pray for you every day. I pour... My whole life, it revolves around this. My whole life. Every single waking second. Even when I sleep, I dream about church. Every single second, I'm like, "Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, please bless your church. Let them..." Yeah, we'll go there.So if you have criticism, critical spirit, you can bring constructive criticism. You can coach... Coach me, coach me. I welcome the coach. If you want to criticize my question is, are you responsible for the church? Will you give an account to God for the church? And if you want to be in that position, I can help you get there. If not, well, no offense. Let's see some people get saved and then you continue to let them do this with joy and not with groaning for that would be no advantage to you.That last part really blesses my soul because there've been seasons in my ministry where there's been a lot of groaning like, "Ah." People that know me now realize I have so much joy in this season of life. I think this is my favorite time of my whole life. I think if Jesus came back today and be like, "You know what? Good. Okay, my screen time was only an hour 27. Sweet. I think I'm ready to go, Jesus."The point is just follow the Lord. And if false teachers continue to bring destructive diabolical, demonic, critical spirit into the church undermining, St. Paul says, "My reputation, my integrity. I'll come at them with spirit filled power and boldness. Courage." Do you have courage?Hebrews... I'll do 2 Corinthians. There's the same word for boldness he uses earlier in the letter, 2 Corinthians 6:6 through 10 where he talks about dying. He says this. "So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body," while we're still here, "we are away from the Lord for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Because I'd rather be dead because I'd be with Jesus, but I still have work to do."So whether we are home or away, we make it our aim to please Him for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether the good or evil."Have you done enough for the Lord in the body that you're like, "Yes, Lord, I am ready for that second judgment?" First judgment is, did you believe in Jesus Christ? That's the first judgment. If you believe in Jesus Christ, repent of your sins, you will spend eternity in the house of God and a feast. And there's a work as well, but it's a party. Heaven is a party. Joy.If you reject Jesus Christ, you will spend eternity in a place called hell. Hell, eternal, conscious suffering. I don't know how to make it even more clear than that. Fire and brimstone is that... Are you a Bible thumper? Fire, brimstone. Yeah, I am. It's in the Bible.I believe in hell. This is why I weep over my lost friends. I weep over my lost family member. I weep. I weep because hell is real. People die on a daily basis and they're eternity apart from God. So have we done enough to get as many people in the house of God as we can?Hebrews 13:6. "So we can confidently say," that's the same word, confidence, courage, it's confidence in the Lord and His word, "The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me?"I haven't done a C.S. Lewis quote in a while. So C.S. Lewis in Screwtape Letter says, "This courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions." Pilot was merciful till it became risky.Lot of you are tremendous Christians in church and then you forget when you leave church.By the way, I think church would make a lot more sense if people thought about church as like I was thinking about this as we were worshiping as an Irish bar. You ever been to a good Irish bar where they have a live band and a violin? They literally sing and there's people at the bar who are... Men sing from their bellies.I was listening to Mark Driscoll. So I do this every single Saturday night. If you want to know what rhythm Pastor Jan gets, I listen to Mark Driscoll servant, every single... Because I'm in the ministry because of that guy. If you don't like that guy, he... I'm a church planter because of that guy because that guy is like, "Hey young men of the nation, we should plant churches to take over the nation." I was like, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea." And that's why I went to ministry.I listened to that guy. He's in Arizona and he was talking about men in worship, men singing, and he said, "Men who can't sing at worship, they don't sing because they're emotionally constipated." I like, "Oh, that's a good way of thinking about it."You can't express what's in here unless there's other spirits. Well, we have the Holy Spirit so why can't we express?And Martin Luther says this, "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking. I'm not confessing Christ however boldly, I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. They have to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."This is why I do not get why people go to seminary and then go take pastoral jobs down south. I don't get that.Why aren't the best of the be... I'm not even... I'm trying to be better. I'm not even that good at it. There's people who are so much better at preaching. There's people, there's some Christians who are so just phenomenally talented and they're in places where it's saturated with churches. There's more churches down south than there are Dunkin Donuts in Rhode Island.I just want everyone to move to Boston, that's what I'm saying.2 Corinthians 10:3, "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh." That's what the critics were saying, the false teachers. They would come in and St. Paul here is saying, "They think I'm walking according to the flesh. They, my critics, think that what is happening, what I'm doing in my ministry is according to the flesh because they have in their mind, this idea of what it means to be a spirit filled person."Oh, yeah, my dad told me to wear a tie today. I told him I'm going to wear a t-shirt. He said, "You got to wear a tie." Say, "I'm not going to wear a tie because it points people to hell. I want to point people to heaven." If I'm going to wear anything, it's going to be a bow tie. It's funny. He said, "No, it's a noose. It's a noose that you are in submission of Jesus Christ." I said, "Oh, in that case, I'm going to put a yoke on me," because Jesus said, "Take my yoke upon you." Literally, he said that.So what I'm saying is there's no picture in the Bible of what it means to be a spiritual person. That's why these false teachers who had an idea of a religious person, they've got the garb, they've got special hairstyle, and then you see someone who's not like that and you're like, "Ah, you're probably in the flesh and you're just doing what every other person does. You judge a book by its cover."St. Paul uses the word flesh, sarx, and he's like, "I'm not living a rebellious life. I'm living a spirit filled life." And yes, St. Paul did have a sinful flesh and he would ask himself every morning, he'd get up and he'd say, "Am I in the spirit right now? Am I in the flesh or am I in the Holy Spirit?" And then from the outside, he just looked like a regular guy.I think if St. Paul walked in, you look at him. Oh, that's a nice congenial gentleman. You would not think this is the guy who influenced the world like no one else after Jesus Christ. He just looked like a normal dude and that's why his words, written word, was more compelling to people because he communicated with such depth that it takes time, energy, humility, prayer, and meditation to understand and receive.And the only way to win spiritual battles, this is a lesson here, is not to wage war with the flesh. A lot of us, we see everything that's going on around us. They're like, "Yeah, I'm going gun shopping." That's a different conversation for a different day.That's not the real war. The real war is men and women of God on their knees, begging God for the Holy Spirit, studying scripture, just eating up... A lot of you don't understand scripture I've realized because you're not a big eater because you don't really expend a lot of energy. There's a lot of people like that. I've never had...My kids, they just eat everything. Everything you put in front of them and then they go and expend all the energy, studying and running and playing music, making jokes, writing. They just work all day. I like living like that.Well, when you actually do the Christian stuff, you expend energy and then you get really hungry and then you take the scriptures and you devour it, chapters at a time. You devour sermons, you devour worship music. You are in the spirit all the time.I was re-listening to last week's sermon and I realized in the same way that I have typos in my newsletters. That's why I send them to my brother who caught two typos and then one he missed. But I realize when I preach, when I verbal process, I have typos that come out sometimes and I need to edit them. I said that David took on Goliath and 1 Kings 17, it's actually 1 Samuel 17. But in my mind, I mix them up 1 Samuel, 1 Kings because in the Russian Bible, there's no Samuel. There's 1 Kings, 2 Kings, 3 Kings, 4 Kings that's why.What I'm saying is you got to be in the word. You got to study the word. I dare you. I want you to know the word better than I do. I want you to know the word better than I do. I challenge you.2 Corinthians 10:4 and 5, "For the weapons of our warfare," weapons, strateia in the Greek, we get the word strategy from it. We get stratagem from it, strateia, warfare. He uses that word, warfare. It's a military campaign designed to achieve a specific objective in a foreign country. Huh? That's interesting. In a foreign country.And then he uses the word power. "For the weapons of our warfare, not of the flesh, but have divine power, dunatos..." You know what power is in the Greek? Skills or qualification to do something well. Power is skills or qualifications to do something well.I pray, dear church, that you developed a skillset to dismantle strongholds that people have against believing in Jesus Christ. power to destroy. Destroy.This is a fascinating word, katharsis, because we get cathartic from it. It's interesting because the word destroy is cathartic and that doesn't really make sense to you if you've never did demolition.You ever watch like HDTV and they demo a house? I've demoed a house where I live. I demoed it. I know the satisfaction that you feel when you have a sledgehammer in your hands.I think the church would really bond if we bought a big house that we demoed together. I think we would really bond over that just to see how people work together."So destroy strongholds," he says. A stronghold is a strongly fortified defensive military structure. So he says, "People have in their minds strongholds, in their hearts strongholds to keep them from obeying Jesus Christ, following Jesus Christ." So we, Christians, need to go to war against the strongholds. We need to destroy them with divine power. That's what he said."We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ."What a rich text. He's saying, "The strongholds are any idea, any opinion, any ideology, any world view that stands against Christ, that keeps people from obeying Christ, knowing God. Anything that gets in the way, anything that obfuscates faith in God."To do this, we must know the word of God inside and out. "Wield the holy sword of God's word against the demonic ideas."Some ideas are fully true, those ideas are from God. Some things are fully true. A lot of things are partially true and those things are from Satan because Satan presents half-truth as a full truth which makes it a sinister lie.Lessons start with yourself on a daily basis. "Take every single thought captive." You're listening to the radio. A song comes on. You're like, "What is that song about?" Just imagine if one of my daughters was in the car when you're listening to that song and my daughters very inquisitive and they say, "Dad, what is that song about?" They listen to the words or a show or a movie or a book or your favorite pundit.Be very careful of who you let influence you, of what voices you let into your house or what voices your children are listening to or what voices your spouse is listening to.Adam. Adam, you should have been careful. You shouldn't have let Eve listen to that podcast run by Satan. That's what he's saying.And let me give you a weapon real quick. It's an Uzi. This is a submachine gun. Warren W. Wiersbe, 699. That's the price in the back. It's probably cheap on Amazon. Read this. The Strategy of Satan: How to Detect and Defeat Him. This book is really, really tremendous. This lady from my CG, nice sweet lady, gave this to me.Chapter one, the deceiver. Satan's target, your mind. Satan's weapon, lies. Satan's purpose, to make you ignorant of God's word. Your defense, the inspired word of God.It's everything I'm saying. He just says it better. So I challenge you to read this and talk about it at your CG.You know what's a fun game to play? I play this game all the time. One second. Hydration's really important.I play this game all the time of I think through non-Christians in my life who have influenced me like no one else. I think about the strongholds in their mind and in their heart and I think about how I would dismantle those strongholds. I think about that. I think about that with my best friends.One of the reasons I became a church planner is because I wanted a church that I could invite my friends to and my best friends growing up...Let's start with my roommate from college, Dave. I won't say his last name. But we lived in a Jewish fraternity together. He was a brother and I was a cousin because I'm not Jewish.So Dave and I, we lived together for three years in college and I would share the gospel with him all the time. I still do. Whenever he calls, I'm like, "Dave, can you just repent and we can be brothers for eternity please?"I want to say to Dave, "Dave, man, you're not really Jewish. You're Jew-ish. You don't even know your own scriptures, man. If you're really Jewish, can you please read your own scriptures so I can talk to you about Isaiah 53? So I can talk to you about Psalm 22, about Psalm 110, about Psalm 16, that they all point to Christ. Can we just talk about that? Dave, you are the smartest person I've ever met but can you please do some homework about the most important question that there is." So that's why I would say to Dave.My friend, Keith, we grew up together. We wrestled together and we were co-captains of the wrestling team together. When you wrestle a man, you really get to know him. You feel their power. Keith, he was always the man. This guy grew a beard in sixth grade. He was Irish. I always coveted that and I broke all kinds of commandments. I was like, "I want a beard..."He looks like Matt Damon. He looks like Matt Damon Good Will Hunting. So I would say... Now he lives in California. I watch him on Instagram. He does CrossFit workouts. He's got two beautiful boys. I pray for his family. And all I want to say to him is like, "Keith, you're the man. You are such a good person. You are a better person than I am in many ways." I'm working on it. "Imagine how effective, how powerful you would be if you submitted your sword to Jesus Christ."Craig, my boy, Craig, we grew up together. Another Jewish guy who... A big heart. Loves people. Just loves people. And I just want to tell him, "Craig, you're almost there. You just need to welcome in Jesus Christ into your life. That's the missing piece."My friend, Narath, Narath is funny because Narath made me the president of the national honors society as a joke. I'd say this because Narath, we gathered together senior class and the teacher just got up and she said, "Who you nominate to be president of the national honors society?" Narath just got up. He said, "I nominate Jan Vezikov." I was like, "What?" And then all my friends were like, "Yeah, Jan would be a great pre..." And that's how I got into college. So Narath, thank you.Narath is the kindest guy I've ever met. He's so kind. I just want to say, "Narath, you're not the kindest person in the world. Jesus Christ is. You need to repent of your sin."I think about my cousin, Serge. He's the smartest guy I've ever met. If Elon Musk for Russian, that's my cousin, Serge. I pray for him. I pray... He's such a great guy. He bakes bread. Just a great guy. He works for Amazon. I want to tell Serge, "Hey man, if you came to church, man, we probably could figure out a way to take over the world for Jesus Christ. You got to set your ambitions higher. You got to get in the word."I think about other voices that influence me, Jordan Peterson. I figure out if I sat with him how could I help disciple him. I don't know if he's a Christian. I heard he recently became...Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle is a Muslim. He's a Muslim. He's a genius. I want to sit down with him and like, "Hey man, can you just be a true Muslim? Because you know what the Quran says, the Quran says to actually listen to what Jesus Christ said. Can you just do that? You can't be a true Muslim if do not read the New Testament. You can't do it. You can't do it, Dave."Biden, I wonder what I would say to Biden. Let's not get too political.Tom Brady. This is what I'd say to Tom Brady. Maybe like, "Hey man, how's your marriage? Because I get it, man. You're married to a beautiful strong-willed international woman. She doesn't want you to play football anymore and you just keep..." That's the angle that would take.The thing is I do this all the time. I do this just for fun.Last one, last one. I've got a whole list here. My favorite Russian rapper is Oxxxymiron because he's actually a philosopher. He went to Oxford and he got a degree in literature and then he just started doing philosophy with rap, Russian rap, which is really difficult to do.I've known him. I followed his work. He stopped producing in 2015 and then two months ago or a month ago, he came up with a 10-minute song talking about the past 10 years of his life and that was meaningful to me because I was reflecting on the past 10 years of my life in ministry at Mosaic and I was like, "That's weird."He has this song where he's got this one line and first of all, this is how I share the gospel with him. His dad's name is Jan and I'd be like, "Yo, Oxxxy, Jan Vezikov Ян, как твоего батью. Слышь."He's got one line in that song where he says, "Я так не хотел стоять десять секунд на коленях Что в итоге стоял на них десять лет ."He talks about the fact that because he didn't want to stand on his knees for 10 seconds he's been standing on his knees for 10 years. I just want to be like, "Hey man, can you just get on your knees for 10 seconds, repent of your sins, and then you can get up. Jesus just forgives you all of your sins, shame, guilt, everything."I think about these people and I'm like, "What would it take for them to hear me out? What would it take for me to end up on a Joe Rogan podcast, tell them about Jesus Christ and have three hours to do it?" That's what I pray about. This is the things I think about. This is how much I care about evangelism.So I've got home work for you. Your homework is this church. Send me an email with how you would share the gospel with the most influential non-Christians in your life. Would you do that for me in the email with one, two, three, I don't know. It doesn't matter. Non-Christians in your life and how you would share the gospel with them. This is serious. This is really serious so that I can start speaking to them with your language so that you can actually start bringing your friends to church. You got it? Write that down. Homework.Okay. 2 Corinthians 10:6, "Being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete." He talks about church discipline here. I don't have time to get into it. But church discipline, there's positive church discipline. This is what we're doing, teaching, exhorting from the scripture. We're teaching, teaching, teaching. And then there's negative. There's negative discipline. There's actions that spiritual fathers need to take because they love their spiritual children.A lot of fathers don't understand fathering, if you don't understand the concept of discipline, but there have to be consequences for rebellious behavior. Meditate on Hebrews 12 where he talks about God being a loving father who disciplines His children. That's an important category.2 Corinthians 10:7, "Look at what is before your eyes. If anyone is confident that he is Christ, let him remind himself that just as he is Christ so also are we." He's saying, "Look at the data. I'm a Christian, you're a Christian. Don't just judge me by looks, skin color, ethnicity, background." The whole world wants to do that. He's like, "Can you just look at the heart like God does not at the outward appearances?"2 Corinthians 10:8-9, "For even if boast a little too much of our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I will not be ashamed. I do not want to appear to be frightening with my letters."This is fascinating because he talks about influence and he talks about authority that God gives spiritual influence, God gives spiritual authority and we are to use it to build people up, to build up their souls, to build up their faith, to build up their heart, to build up their families, to build up their life. We're called to be builders. A lot of Christians don't understand Christianity because they don't understand building.The gospel is like demo. You go in, you demo everything, and then you rebuild that. A lot of Christians stop there and they're like, "Okay, we did the demo. Now we're going to live in a house that's down to the studs." You can't live in a house like that. That's not comfortable. And then you rebuild. That's what he's talking about, that we are given authority, we are given influence.Over whom has God given you influence? There are people that you can speak to that I can never speak to, there are people that you just know their language. You're just on the same wavelength with them in waves that I will never be so use that influence to destroy strongholds. Do you use the authority God has given you to build up those under your authority?2 Corinthians 13:10, "For this reason, I write these things while I am away from you that when I come I may not have to be severed in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for the building up and not for tearing down."So what he says at the end of the letter? He's like, "I want to build you up. I want to build you up."2 Corinthians 10:10, "For they say, 'His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech of no account." What's fascinating here is they judged his power by his looks and that's not how the Holy Spirit works. He says, "Don't look at my outward... Listen to the words, listen to the heart. Focus on the ideas. Focus on the truth."Verse 11, "Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent we do when present. Not that we dare classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding."Saint Paul says, "I do not care what people think about me." That's where his courage came from. "I don't care. I don't care what people think of me. All I care is about what God thinks of me. I want to submit completely to the God of the universe, the king of king." St. Paul just says, "I'm good soldier. I don't care about self-commendation because self-commendation is self-condemnation." Or you look for praise from people. "What are people going to think? What are people..." Who cares? Who cares?When you worship, I pray that you, at Mosaic, you worship the way you worship at home. If you want to get on your knees, get on your knees. If you want to just exuberantly worship, exuberant... If you want to just scream at the top of your lungs, you just tone it down a little bit or come up here and then the music rounds you out and it's awesome. That's what he's saying.2 Corinthians 10:13, "But we will not boast beyond limits, but we'll boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us to reach even you." So God assigns the influence. Many of you haven't asked for more influence. "God send me more influence. God make me a person that when I speak, people hear my words, they hear my heart so I can communicate from my heart to their heart."Verse 14, "For we are not overextending ourselves as though we did not reach you, for we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Jesus Christ."What's fascinating is that St. Paul every once in a while reminds people of how much he sacrificed for them to become Christians.You know what kind of church I want to go to? I want to go to church where the guy up there is the guy who sacrifices the most for the church. I want to go to church like that. "Oh. Oh, you really believe in stuff?" Yeah. "Oh, you made life decisions where you sacrificed things." Yeah.2 Corinthians 10:15, "We do not boast beyond on limits in the labors of others. But our hope is that your faith increases and our area of influence among you may be greatly enlarged." That's all. He's like, "All I want is your faith to grow. I just want your faith to grow. I want your faith in God to grow. And when your faith in God grows, then the influence of spirit filled Christians grows in your life because you begin to sense that when they speak, they speak from a place where they're filled with the Holy Spirit, spiritual influence grows to the degree that you help people grow in their faith."Verse 16, "So that we may preach the gospel and lands beyond you without boasting of work already done in another's area of influence. Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord."Historically, St. Paul wanted to go to Spain. That was his great ambition. He was ambitious to go preach the gospel where it was never preached and he wanted to go to absolutely the Western point of Europe and Clement of Rome. Writing at the end of the first century claims that Paul traveled to the furthest point limit of the west which is how people refer to Spain in those days. He's just want to do something great for God.2 Corinthians 10:18, "For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends." So the only approval that matters is the Lord's.I read from Luke 14, I'm coming in for a landing, I'm doing a text and then conclusion. Luke 14, we read that in the beginning, verse 15, "When one of those," Jesus at the feast, "who reclined at table with Him heard these things. He said, 'Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God.' But he said to him, 'A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time..." it's like if we threw a member's party for Christmas on December 4th and we got brisket and all that and it's like if the members just don't come, it's like that. That's a nice plug for that members' party and for you to come. It's going to be tremendous."At that time for the banquet, he sent a servant to say to those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything's now ready,' but they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I bought a field. I bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused."I don't know what the real estate market was back then but maybe it's like today where it's like you like a place and there's 14 offers on the first open house. So like he bought a field and he didn't even go see the field which is a terrible excuse. So that's the first thing he did. "Please have me excused.""And another said, 'I've bought five yoke of oxen. I go to examine them. Please have me excused." Buying a car that you've never seen?"And another said, 'I've married a wife and therefore I cannot come." That one I get, I understand that one. I don't want to go to that party. Okay. All right."So the servant came and reported these things to the master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.' And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been done and still there is room.' And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in," Compel, persuade people to come in, "that my house may be filled for I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet."That's how Jesus Christ talks about evangelism. He talks about evangelists throwing a feast and inviting everyone who can never return the favor. Imagine if we caught that vision.I challenge you this week. Invite someone over who cannot return the fa... And let me just say a word. If you live in Boston, a lot of us, we struggle with this thing called real estate shame. You're ashamed of your place. You're ashamed of your kitchen. You're ashamed of your bathroom. You wish it was bigger. You wish it was nicer.Let me tell you something. I was talking to an old brother this week and he said, "None of that matters." I was like, "Oh." He's like, "Yeah, yeah. It's just a fellowship that matters." Like, "Oh." "Yeah. Yeah. Who cares?"Okay. Now I'm going to, in conclusion, explain my t-shirt. It's not a political statement because I'm a pastor. It's a prayer. I can't do this. Make America born again? I can't do it. So I'm begging God. Lord, send Your Holy Spirit. Regenerate souls. Lord, make everyone a Christian. You've done it before. You've done on a day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit just comes. Fire from heaven. Lord, make America born again.And so this is my campaign. If I were ever president, I would run a campaign called make America born again. I can't be president because I wasn't born here so unless we change some rules, if you know some people.This would be my campaign speech. I would say this. I'd say, "America, we're not having a good time. A lot of you just aren't very fun. America, can we all just be people that people want to hang out with? Can we all just be kind and gentle and humble? Can we all just hang out together?" That's what I'm saying.I was watching an Asian comedian this week. He was hilarious and he said that his mission was to reconcile white people and black people and that's meaningful to me because God said our job is to reconcile all people with God and that's where world peace begins, where people repent of sin, and they stand before God, they humble themselves and God fills your heart with love and then you can love people.You know who I like to hang out with? I like to hang out with people who let me be myself but they don't keep me there. They challenge me to grow, to grow in my love for God, understanding of God, love for people, love for the gospel, love for the kingdom of God.I like to hang out with people who have the courage to challenge me and whenever anyone does, I say the Russian word davai. Davai means let's go because I want to feel your power. I want to feel your influence. I do want you to change my mind.That's why I like parties where you can just talk about everything. Politics, religion, everything, just everything. You love the people. You talk about family, how to raise son and daughters, how to invest, how to increase your bench, how to build a business, how to build empires and submission to the king.So if I were running for president, my only agenda would be America, would you do me a favor and invite your neighbor over for a party. That's my only agenda and invite Jesus too.Some of you are great at throwing parties but you forget Jesus. So invite Jesus too and have Jesus be the king of that party and pray for the people that do come before the meal. It doesn't have to be awkward. Just get up and say, "You know what? In this house we worship Jesus Christ and we love you so much that we invite..." They're going to eat your food so they're going to bear with you for a little bit and you say, "Don't hold the hands thing." I get sweaty palms when people... Just raise your hands man of God and women of God and just pray for you, pray for everybody by name.You came to my house. Yeah, I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to pray for you to get saved. You can repent of your sin. And if it comes in a prayer, it doesn't feel like it's evangelism so you can go as long as you want. And you like, "Lord, I know that this person's stronghold and they don't believe in Jesus Christ because they have all these issues," and you just dismantle them in the prayer and you're saying Jesus' name and then you eat the meal and they're like, "Hey, what did you just do in that prayer?" And you're like, "Oh, let's talk about it."That's my only agenda. How do we make America born again by making America pray again, getting on our knees as a nation, on both knees, and begging God, please forgive us of our sins and when you do, God forgives you and He's awesome and following Him is tremendous, but it's also the hardest thing you'll ever do because anything worth doing is difficult. But by the divine power of God, you can do it. I believe in you. If I can be a Christian, anyone can be a Christian. That's what I'm saying. And it's a miracle. And the Holy Spirit is with you.Would you rather hang out with someone who makes things sad or do you want to hang out with someone who makes things fun?There's a lot of people that can make fun things sad but Jesus Christ is the king of making sad things fun. Satan takes fun things, he just ruins them. He ruins sex. He ruins money. He ruins a good tie. He just ruins everything. He makes good things sad. Jesus Christ makes sad things fun. He's the king of it. Jesus is the master of taking the saddest moment. Good Friday, Jesus Christ dies on a cross and he's put in a tomb, cold, dark, dank tomb and He turns Good Friday into Easter Sunday.He's the king of turning sadness into fun. He turned the cross into conquering power, conquering dea

Divine O. (ebube_divine) joins the podcast to discuss the struggle of balancing college life and her spiritual life with God. Follow @quarantinewithjesus on Instagram and Tik Tok for more.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston and our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.We're going through a sermon series through II Corinthians that we're calling prodigal church. Why prodigal church? Because every church goes prodigal in one way or another. So we need to focus on the scriptures, go back to the scriptures to reorient our focus on what's most important. This week reminded me of one of my favorite things about living here is that Boston is a city of champions. And I was reminded of this last Sunday night when Tom Brady came back to Gillette Stadium. And I grew up watching Tom. Tom Brady won his first Super Bowl when I was still in high school.And so the immensity of the moment didn't really hit me until I sat down like, "Oh wow. My childhood hero is playing against my favorite team. Who am I rooting for?" And I rooted for both. And every single play of the game was awesome because it felt like two of my favorite teams were, the bucks I don't care about, but it's Tom Brady. He's a team in of himself against the... And it was tremendous. And then Mack Jones went 19 for 19 completions in a row tying Tom Brady's long. So I remembered that. Awesome. And the reason why Tom Brady, he orients his whole life around this one goal of winning championships. And then Tuesday comes around and it was Sox, Yankees, oh my. And the Sox pulled it out. It was probably the best game they played all season.And then now that with the Rays. This is all in one week. This just happened this week. And then the Rays, okay, we blew that first game, but the second one we snagged the second one. Now, it's one on one. And so that's all to say this is a great city living. And we know about winning and we know what it takes to win in life. It takes short term pain to win for long term gain. Every athlete knows this. And we just lose sight of the fact of what is the finish line? The finish line isn't it when you get a championship, the finish line isn't when you cross the marathon finish line, that's not the finish line. The finish line is when you die and you stand before God. That's the only race that ultimately matters.And when we talk about Christianity, why is there suffering in the world, it's because in order to have the ability to love, in order for love to exist, sacrifice has to be part of reality, because you can't love without sacrifice. So how can we talk about loving God and loving people if we don't talk about the pain that you have to go through to do that. It takes pain to live a revolutionary life. I'm so fed up with this narrative of kids growing up in a good solid Christian home, and then finally they turn 18 and they go off to college and they rebel against their parents. And by rebel, we're taught the rebellion is you get drunk, you get high, you live any way that you want. That's rebellion. That's not rebellion. That's what everyone does.You know what true revolutionary living is, you love God, you love Jesus Christ, you love the holy scriptures. If you were single, you commit yourself to chastity. If you're married, you commit to yourself to this one person. If you have kids, you do not abandon them. You proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ with your words and with your life. That's the only revolutionary life that's left. And that's the only way of living that actually matters in terms of eternity. Living a revolutionary life means you do not live for yourself. Look at everyone in scripture and live a revolutionary life.Jesus Christ comes to hung out with 12 dudes, just regular dudes. And he taught them, "Look, don't live for yourself and I'm going to throw you transform the world." They turned the world upside down. Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Nathaniel, Matthew, Thomas, James, Simon, Judas, not Iscariot, and then Paul replaced Judas Iscariot. As you got Sarah, Rahab, Ruth, Hannah, Mary, Anna, Samaritan woman, Martha and Mary, Mary Magdalene and Lydia, all people that changed the world, but not living for themselves. So today we're going to look at the keys to living a revolutionary life from II Corinthians 5:11-21. Would you look at the text with me?Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God and I hope it is known also to your conscience. We are not commending ourselves to you again but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.This is the reading of God's holy in our infallible, authoritative word may write these eternal truths upon our hearts. The bigger the mission, the bigger the goal, the more sacrifice it takes. So if you have a big vision for life, if you have a big goal for life, you need a why that is iron clad. Why am I doing this? What motivated Paul to orient his whole life run the gospel. What was it? What were the keys to a revolutionary life? And I'll give you four from this text. It was fear of judgment, love of Christ, gospel, respect and reconciliation. First is fear. I missed out one, but that's okay. Fear of judgment. The context here is one of the greatest summaries of the message of scripture. It's all about salvation and St. Paul saved. You need to understand what happens after.Once you are saved, a lot of people think that you're saved and Jesus saves you from your sin. And then all of a sudden, you are in the waiting room. Like in a hospital, you're in a waiting room. Like yeah, you got better, but you're in a waiting room until you die. And that's now what happens, what happens is when you become a Christian, you get thrown in gladiator and God gives you a sword. And now lions and tigers and soldiers are coming at you. That's what the Christian life is. And Saint Paul says, there will be a ceremony, there will be a podium, a medal ceremony when we die.There's the first judgment. We talked about that last week before the White Throne of Christ, where Jesus Christ is going to judge us, did we believe in him, did we trust... Out medals. And St. Paul says, "This drives me." II Corinthians 5:9-10: So whether we are at home or away, whether we're alive or not, we make our aim to please him. That's our goal. That's our finish line. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Saint Paul says, "I've been saying, I know I'm saved." Now, I'm running with every fiber of my being to get to the finish line. And I want to win as much as possible for God, for God's glory. And verse 11" Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience.He's saying since we are going to give an account to God, I fear, I stand in fear in awe of the awesomeness of the Holy God before whom I stand. Fear of God is what fuels me, he says. He's not terrified or afraid that God won't accept him. He knows he's accepted because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He just knows that he's going to stand before a Holy God who is morally superior in every way. So removed from evil in every way and in his awesome presence, all human pride, all selfishness, boasting, arrogance, all of it vanishes. And as you stand before, you got nothing to say, you're a humble speechlessness. God, you saved me, thank you. And you equipped me and you gave me time and you gave me talents, you gave me treasure and I will give an account to you for that.And as an apostle, St. Paul felt the fearful way on his soul, that he will give a strict account, the judgment, see, for how he fulfilled his apostleship. James 3:1 says, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know, that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." I do not take that verse lightly. And if you are a leader, if you're a Christian, you should be teaching somebody. It's called discipleship. You should be learning from somebody and you should be teaching somebody. And you should know that when you teach someone something that you do not live out yourself, God will judge you for that hypocrisy.There's a verse in Hebrews that says, "Elders will give an account for the souls that God has entrusted to them." I do not take that lightly. That's why we take membership seriously. Who's part of the church? Who are the souls that I will give an account to God for? Knowing the fear of the Lord, he says, that's why we persuade others. Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. Fear evokes in him persuasion. Fear of God releases him from fear of people so now he can persuade people about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was at the park yesterday. There's a gentleman that we've just known for years. He's got two daughters who are the same age as my two youngest daughters. And we got to talking. And he's like, "Do you want to slice it? We're birthday parties. Like do you want to slice pizza?" I said, "No, I'm saving room." He said, "Saving room for what?" I said, "I'm saving room for barbecue. I got our 10th anniversary. Our church is doing our 10th anniversary birthday party today. I'm saving room for the brisket," which I did not have any of.So if you had brisket, I want to emphasize that fact, that leaders eat last. And I sacrificed my love for brisket, because I love you guys so much more. And so he said, "Oh, your church 10th anniversary. Wow." He's like, "Oh, have you been going there for a while?" I was like, "Yeah, kind of. Yeah." He said, "Why did you start a church, because you like community or because you're religious?" Where are we going with this one? If a fear for the Lord does is like... I was like, I can't reveal all the cards right away, because I still got to see him every week. But I said, "Yeah, because we believe in God. That's why. We believe that there's a God that created everything and you haven't said thank you to him." So that's how I planted that seed.Fear of God helps you get over the awkwardness of telling people, hey, we really believe this. We believe this is true. We believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to be saved from the wrath of God that we deserve for our spiritual insurrection before God is the only way. Fear of God. Do you share the gospel with people in your life? Do you speak words of the truth of the gospel? Not just talking about living in a way where people see that you're a good person. Everyone's so self absorbed, they're not even going to notice. Do you speak the truth of the gospel to people in your life? That Jesus Christ is God, that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and he is life. He's the only way to God. Do you speak truth of the gospel? If not, what's holding you back? I know what's holding you back. Oh, what are they going to think? Who cares? Who cares? Who cares what people think about you? Only one person's opinion matters, and that's God's.Saint Paul says that fear evokes persuasion. He's persuaded. He persuades people of the gospel. You know that someone said something and you definitely disagree with them, but you do the math of is it worth it? Is it worth to have this conversation right now? Is it worth the emotional toll it's going to take? And St. Paul says it is when it comes to God. And Saint Paul doesn't need to persuade God. He says what we are is known to God. And I hope it's also known to your conscience. Paul says, "I don't need to persuade God, God knows my life, character, motives." All of that is laid bare before God. And Paul's character has been assailed with these poisonous slurs by critics that come in and they've criticized him for not being an apostle, not seeing Jesus Christ, not really being anointed, not being filled with the Holy Spirit. And Saint Paul appeals to the Lord. The Lord knows. So does your conscience.He speaks to their heart. Your heart testifies what the critics are saying is a lie. Deep down, the Corinthians were aware of Paul's character and the character of his ministry and the moral faculties of their conscience would connect the dots. He's sure of that. And in expressing himself like this, that God knows who I am, he knows my character, you know in your heart. He's aware that his detractors are going to accuse him of boasting in a dubious manner. So he covers himself. Verse 12 he says, "We're not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you a cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance, not about what is in the heart." So as critics are boasting about outward appearance, literally, about the face, about their image.And it's a conscious reference here to God's advice to Samuel. When Samuel goes in and he's about to choose a king, and he goes into David's family, he sees all older brothers and God says, "No, I'm not picking people based on height or based on what they look like or based on their athletic ability or leadership skills or anything like that." He's like, "I will choose a leader based on the heart." I Samuel 16:7: But the Lord said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, that's face and the Septuagint, but the Lord looks on the heart." So Paul's opponents come in and they boasted in the face on their sheer externalities, perhaps about their skills or about the rhetorical eloquence that they had or extravagant letters of recommendation or where they went to school.The Paul's saying, "I'll give you cause to boast about me." My heart is in this. I love the Lord, I love you, I love the gospel. What's most important was written in the heart by God's spirit says I'm giving you cause to boast about us. I remember when I was a new Christian, I was enamored with... So I grew up in a church where no one went to seminary. And I grew up in a church where if you showed up to church 15 minutes early with a Bible, you're probably preaching. Especially, if you wore a tie, the pastor would come up to you and he was like, "I think you have a word from the Lord." You're like, "I do." Yes, you're going to preach them. And the reluctant preacher, you're going to preach on Jonah. And that's why.So no one really knew what was going on. Guys would just read the text and they're like, "Yeah, I think this is what it's talking about." And another guy would be like, "No, that guy is totally wrong." And then once in a while you get into these debates. And at the end, the pastor would get up and correct everything and then you go home. And it was a four hour service. So I was enamored with pastors who had degrees. Like, "Oh, that pastor went to Cambridge university. He's got a PhD in church history. He really beezes better. He knows more." But if that pastor doesn't preach from the holy scripture, it doesn't matter. That pastor doesn't love God with all his heart, soul, strength, mind, love Jesus Christ, love the cause, love the gospel, love his family. And none of that.Saint Paul says those are fine, skills are fine, degrees are fine, all of that. Influence of a pastor or how well known a pastor is, that doesn't matter, what matters is what's in the heart. Boast about the fact that God's spirit is in or upon a person and ever weary and attuned to his critics. He continues verse 13. He says, "For we are beside, if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we are not in our right mind, is for you." What's going on here? When he talks about being beside ourselves, he's talking about spiritually ecstatic experiences, where you have an experienced vision from God or a prophetic dream or you have a prophetic word or ecstatics. That's what he's talking about, that's being outside the body.And he's like, "If we want to go there, if we want to establish credibility for spiritual work there," he's like, "I could do that." Paul was taken up to the third heaven. He talks about this in II Corinthians 12:4. And heard things that cannot be told. He's talking about himself. I heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter. He says, "I've seen, I've experienced things I can't even communicate to you, but that's not, I don't want you to base your spiritual walk on my spiritual experiences." I have spiritual experience, some kooky spiritual experiences, I don't share. I never share. Sometimes I share once in a while, maybe I'll share. I'll share right now.My wife wakes me up in the middle of the night this week. She wakes me up in the middle of the night. She's like, "What were you doing?" I said, "I was wrestling." She said, "Who were you wrestling?" I said, "I was wrestling a demon." She said, "What did it look like?" I was like, "I didn't see it. The demon, don't see demons, but I've felt it." See, that's why I don't share because that's kooky. You're like this guy's a nut. That's what I'm saying Paul doesn't share any of this stuff. The spiritual realm is real. It's as real as everything that we see. A spiritual warfare is absolutely real. But Saint Paul says, I don't want you to ground your walk with the Lord. I don't want you to ground on that stuff.He said, "I want to reason with you." He said that if we are beside ourselves is for God; if we are in our right mind, it's for you. He's like I want to be in my right mind because I want to argue with you, persuade you from the holy scriptures because that's the only foundation that we really have. II Corinthians 5:18-19, Paul told the Corinthians earlier. It's in I Corinthians and it's not second Corinthians 5:18. I don't know why I put that in there. I Corinthians chapter 14. I thank my God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. Nevertheless, in church, I would rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue. St. Paul says, "I spoke in tongue. I pray in tongues, he says that." But in church, I want to speak words with my mind in order to instruct mark of authentic ministry is an ecstatic experience is public ministry, where you persuade others passionately, soberly.Martin Lloyd Jones called this logic on fire. It's just truth and logic and you're persuading and you're doing it passionately. And that was Paul's consuming passion to persuade others from scriptures. So he was motivated by the fear of God and that he's motivated by the love of Christ. This is the opposing side of the paradoxical power of Paul's revolutionary life. It was fear of God. On the one hand that I will give an account to God, fear of God, love of Christ on the other. II Corinthians 5:14: For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died. Love of Christ controls us. And how is Christ's love demonstrated to us, not just in sentimental words. He says, "This is the love of Christ that he died," because we have concluded that he has died for all, therefore all have died. And that's curious logic here.Why does he say therefore all have died? Wouldn't it make more sense to say Jesus died for all, therefore all did not die? Or Jesus died for all, therefore all live. That would make more sense. But he says one has died for all, therefore all have died. How does that compute? Well, from the scope of scripture, the math is rigorously logical and it's also sublime. What does this mean that we have all died? Christ died for all, therefore all died. He's talking about the fact that Christ died, not just the personal death, he died a substitutionary death. He didn't die for his own sins, he's pure and blameless. He died for the sins of the elect. The all here doesn't mean all. It doesn't mean that Jesus Christ died for the sins of everybody alive ever. That's not what it means.Christ's sacrifice is sufficient for everybody, but ultimately it's only efficient, it's only going to count for those who repent of their sin and trust in Jesus Christ. Because if Jesus Christ, by the way, that's where universalism starts that Jesus Christ died for everybody. And then they say, well, Jesus Christ died for everybody. And then how is there a hell? Because it's like double jeopardy of Jesus paid for your sins on the cross and why would he make you pay for your sins in hell? So that's where that goes. That's not what scripture teaches. You have to respond. It counts to you, but you have to respond. Christ's death is the death of all the elect. In a sense, he died the death that we each one of us should have died. He bore the penalty for our sins. He died in our place.So when Christ died on the cross, I died on the cross. When Christ died on the cross, you died on the cross if you are follower of Jesus Christ. I died on the cross outside the walls of Jerusalem. That's what he's saying. I deserved that, but Jesus did that for me. This is the unmitigated love of Jesus Christ. This is the love St. Paul says that controls us. Christ love is the controlling force in his life. It's what keeps us tethered, keeps us in bounds, hams us in. Fear of the Lord negatively controls us. Although that could be argued that it's actually positive control, because you want a reward. But then love is what propels us, overpowering love of Christ demonstrated when he died in the cross for us. This is what led Paul to live a revolutionary life and seeing this great love.How in the world could you live for yourself? That's what he says. II Corinthians 5:15: And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Do you live for yourself? I think this is why I'm going to start asking people. Are you a Christian? Like yeah, I believe in Jesus. I repent of my sin. I want to start, do you believe in Jesus? Yeah. Do you live for yourself? Because Christians do not live for themselves. If you're like, I'm a Christian, but I still live for myself, you're probably not a Christian.Back in the day, I used to think there was different levels of Christians. Like if you're a Christian, you just got to pray this prayer and you're a Christian. And then you got to grow to get to the point where actually you're a revolutionary Christian and you do not live for yourself. That's not true. It's not true. Like that point of when you live for Christ revolutionary life, that's you become a Christian. Jesus literally says, "Take up your cross and follow me daily." That means every single day you got to die to something that you really, really want. That's what it means to follow Jesus. You wake up and you pray a prayer, "Lord, Jesus, what would you have me do today? And in order to do that, what would you have me sacrifice on my personal cross that I'm carrying around?"Jesus died for you. So it's unfathomable to live primarily for yourself. If you're a lukewarm Christian, Jesus is having a conversation with you as he's doing an assessment of your current life. And Jesus will sit down and say, "I died for you." And in response, you show up to worship service once a month at best twice a month, once a month, when there's a long weekend. That's once a month. When there's a holiday weekend, okay, I'm gone, I'm going to go worship God, doing something else. Well, worshiping God just isn't even a priority. And you show up once in a while, you give God some half hearted worship on Sunday and then you tip God and pray to him whenever you're in a bind. How does that math make any sense? Jesus says, "I gave everything for you and you give me lip service and the tip? I died for so much more than what you're giving me and I didn't die so you could live a small life focused on possessions and earthly passions."Jesus, didn't die just to save us from sin, he died to save us from a pathetic life. Pathetic life is a small life is when you live for yourself. You just live for yourself and you can get older and older and older, and it's just you. You're just living for yourself. There's no joy in that. Jesus died to free you from yourself to live for him to give you freedom and joy. What good? And then ultimately, is there anything better? Is there anything better than serving people, seeing them rejoice and that fills your whole heart with so much joy. Is there anything better? Romans 8:31 says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" He who 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?Every athlete knows this. It's like short term pain, but that's actually the best thing for you. Deny yourself in the short term, but then the feeling of completions, the satisfaction of crossing the finish, I did this. There's nothing greater than that when you do it for the Lord and God fills your heart with joy and satisfaction and just his delight. This is the energy cell and Paul's revolutionary heart is charged both negative and positive fear of Christ and love of Christ. And the combination was explosive. Point three is gospel respect. Verse 16, from now on, therefore we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.The word regard means to be cognizant of or aware of something, understand something, but also means honor something. So when he's talking about regarding Christ and regarding the gospel, he's talking about a level of respect. I Thessalonians 5:12, he uses the same word with the same Greek word. We ask you brothers to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. St. Paul here is saying, he said, "I knew of Jesus before I was..." Paul was a Pharisee. He was a high ranking Pharisee. I don't know. We're not told if he heard Jesus preach or saw Jesus or had conversation with Jesus before his crucifixion, burial and resurrection. We don't know if he saw his miracles. It's easier to assume he didn't, some theologians say, because he doesn't mention it anywhere. But perhaps he doesn't mention it anywhere because he viewed Jesus through the flesh.He saw Jesus and he just did the analysis. And in his mind, Jesus was a messianic pretender who pushed too far and got exactly what was coming to him. And when Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin, crucified by the Roman, Saint Paul was in agreement with that, so much so that he then persecuted the church because in his mind, from the old Testament, it was clear that Jesus Christ was cursed. The scripture in Deuteronomy says, "Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree." Jesus was hung on the cross, the tree, but something changed. Jesus changed all that by appearing in splendor, the splendor of his glory. And something happened in Paul's life where the thing that Paul had despise became the center of his life. And he realized that he had been viewing Jesus through the flesh. Therefore, he wasn't respecting Jesus and giving him the respect that he deserved.In personal irony, Paul, now is being regarded in the same way by certain people in the Corinthian church, where they are regarding him according to the flesh and judging him on his looks, on the way he speaks, judging him on his credentials, judging him on letters of recommendation. And Saint Paul is saying, there's two ways of looking at Jesus Christ. Some people evaluate Jesus Christ on his historic significance, historically, and they just look at the stats, everything he's accomplished. And there's a different way of looking at Jesus Christ. And that's through the eyes of the spirit. Many know Christ only in worldly ways. They know about him and judge him without a true understanding of who he is. And St. Paul talked about this in the past chapter, it takes the holy spirit to come in and change your heart. Put the lights on. And because of Christ, St. Paul says, "Because he did that, now I have respect for him, respect for the gospel. I honor him.And also because of Christ, he says, we regard no one according to the flesh. He says, "I'm done with judging people by what they look like. I'm done with judging a book according to its cover. I'm done with judging people in the shallow, external carnal way, especially those of the household of God." Stop judging people according to the flesh. That's what the whole world is doing. The whole world wants everybody focused on what you look like. The whole world wants, because image is everything. So let's focus on image. And Saint Paul says, "Instead of judging people by image, we should view them as image bearers and look at everyone through the eyes of Christ's love." This changes everything.Imagine we viewed each other like that, like children of God, image bearers of God, it doesn't matter what your skin color is, it doesn't matter what your nationality, none of that matters. We're children of God, the whole world's trying to divide and conquer. That's what they're trying to do. And Saint Paul says, "No, we are to be unified, unified as one human race, unified in our need for Christ. And then unified once we're in Christ as the body of Christ. Why? Because anyone in Christ is a new creation. This is verse 17. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The oldest passed away, behold, the newest come. This is a biography of every single Christian.There's many metaphors in scripture to describe becoming a Christian, receiving a new heart, a new birth, being born again, becoming a new person. And one of the main results of being United with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection is that you change. There's a profound and radical change that happens when you become a Christian. Salvation isn't just Jesus forgiving you of your sins, it's Jesus changing your nature, it's a radical change. You've changed at the core, change so profound, it makes you a different person than you were.Jesus had this conversation with Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Pharisee. He shows up to Jesus at night because he didn't want the other Pharisees to know that he's having a conversation with Jesus. And he says, "How do I inherit the kingdom of God? How do I get into heaven?" And Jesus said, "You got to be born again." And Nicodemus says that's not even a category in his mind, because he thought he was good enough. I was born this way and Jesus says you have to be born again. You need a new heart, you need a new nature, you need new affections, new desire. You must be changed. The presupposition to you must be changed. This is why it's highly offensive. The presupposition is something so wrong with you and me. In of ourselves, there's something wrong with us and God is offering to make you new, make you all over again, wants to make you a new creation from the inside out.So what's the prerequisite to becoming a new creation. You've got to accept, acknowledge your need. This is the gospel respect. I need the gospel. God, I need transformation. There's something wrong with me. I can't fix it. Yes, God. I agree with the fact that I'm so bad that God had to save me, that Jesus Christ had to die for me. I'm helpless without his work. But then when you are in Christ, there's a security and acceptance and insurance for the future. Inheritance of glory of participation in the divine nature that you now are a new creation. And the fourth thing that motivated him to live revolutionary life was reconciliation. II Corinthians 5:18: All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.There's three models of Christ's work in scripture. There's redemption, which is Christ buys us out of bondage by a payment of ransom. There's propitiation, which is turning away of wrath by offering a sacrifice, redemption, propitiation. And then there's reconciliation, which is the restoration of a relationship, a restoration of a friendship or a harmony of Shalom between two parties between two persons, who've been estranged or alienated. And obviously if Christ reconciles us, offers us reconciliation, it means that we need reconciliation, it means that we are profoundly as strange and alien and from whom. Everyone around us is telling us that our biggest problem is that people are at odds with one another, that we need reconciliation between people.Is that our biggest problem? St. Paul says, "No, our biggest problem is that we're separated from God that we are at war with God." Our problem with God isn't some minor misunderstanding that can be easily put right with just a conversation, God, can we work it out? No, we're at war with God. Then of ourselves is a mutiny against God, a rebellion, an insurrection, a true insurrection. There's no human rebellion that can compare to this insurrection. It's an insurrection against the God of the universe. That's the essence of sin that you put yourself in the place of God, that you become the arbiter of truth, that you become a controller of all things. And this desire obviously leads to self absorption, self love, self worship. But this isn't the only factor on alienation from God. Some of us don't understand because we're like, "Oh, we sinned against God. Okay." But the greater the party, the more honorable the party against whom you've sinned, the more egregious that same sin is.If you go up to a person on the street and you spit in their face, that person is no body. Yeah. You might get a ticket or something. If you go up to a person and the person is the governor of state, well, then there's deeper consequences. If you do that to the president of a nation, well, now that's insurrection. Well, what if you spit in the face of the God of the universe? And you know what insurrection is? It's basically flipping God off. Who are you? Who are you? You're nobody to me. That's what insurrection is. It's not just sin. It's sin against the holy just God. And we deserve his wrath until God's holiness has been satisfied, terms of his justice met. There is no reconciliation.Romans 1:18-23: For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, having clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So we are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchange the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.Basically says, everyone knows that God exists everybody, deep in your heart. You know it. To believe that everything came out of nothing, takes more faith than believing in a God who created everything out of nothing by speaking. Deep in our hearts we know that we are not here just by accident, we know this, our heart testifies to it. And he says, "This sin is that we didn't honor him. We didn't respect him. And we didn't give him thanks. Didn't give him thanks." I was listening to a comedian who was talking about the fact that he can't be a veterinarian. He's like, I couldn't be a veterinarian. And I didn't really understand what he was talking about. He's like, because animals don't really say thank you.And then I saw this video clip of this guy driving down the street, I don't know where it is, like in Australia or something, and he's driving down and there's sheep, a big fat sheep. And it's stuck in barbed wire fence. And he pulls over and this thing's massive. This thing's like 100, 150 pounds huge. He gets out of the car and he tries to wrangle it free from this fence. And he's wrestling with it. The thing is fighting back. He's wrestling with it and it's inflicting pain on him, but he finally pulls it out and he understands he can't just leave it, because it's a dumb sheep and it's going to jump into the fence again. So then he musters all his strength and with tremendous deadlift form, he hoisted upon himself and toes it over and then the sheep just runs away. It just runs as fast as it possibly can.And I'm watching this thing run the whole time. And I'm watching it run to a tree and then it turn. And in my heart, I see it go, "Thank you." But it didn't. And the guy's crestfallen and he is like, "You're welcome." And he gets back in the car, like I did all of this for you, dumb sheep, all I want is a thank you. And that's what I was telling the guy at the playground. If you want to have a gospel conversation, you want to start over here. That's basically what we're saying is everybody owes thank you to God. No one is saying thank you to God. And what we're telling people is you should say thank you to God. And then they're like for what? For the fact that he provided a way for you not to go to hell through the reconciliation and the work of Christ on the cross. That's what Paul's saying. This is precisely what makes Christ sacrifice so important. Jesus died in our place, the just for the unjust, precisely meet the mans of God's holiness and his justice. We've rebelled and we deserve God's wrath, but God matches our rebellion with his love.Verse 19: That is in Christ, God is reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespass against them and trusting to us the message of reconciliation. This is the message. The message of reconciliation isn't telling people, hey, you got to make peace with God. That's not what we're saying. You can't make peace with God. If right now, from this moment on to the rest of your life you live like Mother Teresa, that would not be enough to atone for your past sins. That's not how the holiness of God works. Ministry reconciliation is telling people, look, Christ has made peace. Christ is offering us amnesty, but you have to accept it. That's why the gospel isn't just good advice, it's good news, is tremendous news, but you need to act upon it. Verse 10. Romans 5:10-11: For while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more, now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Salvation isn't achieved, reconciliation isn't achieved, it's received. You have to just take it. Just ask for it.And he says in Christ, God doesn't count our trespasses against us. So apart from Christ, this is the assumption that God does count our trespass against us, which dooms us. We're sinners deeply, constantly comprehensively. We're guilty and liable to be punished for our sins. Therefore, we're in desperate need of salvation. What is the most important information that I can give anybody? What is the absolute most important information I can give anybody at any point? This is it, Christ is offering reconciliation with God. And also there's no information, more offensive, because every time you say that, you're telling the person they've been living wrong.And that never feels good. That never feels good for someone to show up, and you're like, you're wrong. But I'm saying we're all wrong. That's what I'm saying. We're all unified and being wrong. It doesn't matter how you see yourself, it doesn't matter how others see you, all that matters is that God sees you based on his standards, not the worlds. And a lot of people push back and are like this is so out of date. Speaking of sin is so out of date. Is it speaking about evil is so out of date. We see evil all around us. There's nothing out of date about sin or evil. And because there's nothing out of date about sin or evil, there's nothing out of date about God's grace.We live in a world where there's so many just logical inconsistencies with the worldview outside of Christianity. One of them is we're told in school that everything came from nothing meaning we got here by accident. Primordial soup and all of that, we just got here by accident. It's all just a lucky accident. So here we are. So there was no creator, no designer, no benevolent God. We are insignificant. If you came from nothing, then you're not significant. That's on the one hand. On the flip side, everyone thinks they're awesome. Everyone thinks they're just amazing. Everyone thinks that you are God's gift to the world. There's no kid that is born and he's like, "Oh, I'm just really insignificant." No, every kid that's born is like I own the place. I am awesome. And I am going to be a tyrant of this house. And that's why you got to parent them actively, parent them. So that's on the one hand.And then Christianity shows up and says, No little human being. You're not awesome. You are, but you're not." You're sinful. We're all sinful. And we're all alienated from God. We all need to be remade. And at the same time, we are magnificently significant to God because he gave his greatest treasure to save us. We're the object of the most amazing thing that ever happened. The son of God came into the world as a man to suffer and die in our place to reconcile us. Now, Blaise Pascal said, there are only two kinds of men, the righteous who believe themselves sinners and the rest sinners who believe themselves righteous. It's all it takes to be a Christian. Just recognize your need. I Peter 2:24: He himself bore our sins in the body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. How are people reconciled with God through the proclamation of this message, the belief of this message and this changes everything. Verse 20, therefore we are ambassadors of Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God.And St. Paul uses a bold analogy here to describe this ministry and the ministry of each Christians that were ambassadors, that you are a representative for him. Ambassador was your representative of the Roman empire. So you walk into towns with immense authority, you don't speak for yourself. You don't act on your own behalf. It's not your authority. It's not your message. It's the sovereigns authority. It's his words. And this is the message is be reconciled to God. Receive the offer of reconciliation except the amnesty. Isaiah 53:5: But he, Jesus, was pierced for our transgression; he was crushed for our inequities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. Dear Christian do not drift from this message. This is the center of the message that we proclaim, the message of reconciliation between God and human beings. Don't drift like the church in the United States has been drifting for a while.Quick test. What's more important to the world today, reconciliation between the races or reconciliation between the one human race and God? That's a battle that's waging in the church right now. What's more important? What's more important? What's in the position of primacy? There's nothing more important than talking about reconciliation between the one human race, all of us and God. Talk about unifying and healing, racial tensions. We are all united in the fact that we need to be reconciled with God. There's no greater need. And therefore there's no greater power for unity. You want to be United, I'll do my best to unite this Mosaic. You're all sinners. That's what I do every Sunday. We're all united in that. We have all fallen short of the glory of God, no matter your skin color, nothing.You know what? I was meditating on this week. We got a couple minutes. I was meditating, my wife noticed recently and she's like, "How come wherever you go, you always find enemies." She's like whatever room you walk into, there's always someone shows up that just doesn't like you before they have ever met. I'm like, "Yeah, why is that?" And then you probably already know. But then this was a revelation to me. Well, first of all, I'm a man, I'm a big man, I'm like 6, 2, 240. I'm a big dude. And I'm a big white man. And I'm a big white Christian man. And then I'm a big white Christian heterosexual man. And on top of that, I'm rushing. So it's like every one of those adjectives just times 10, whatever room I walk into, I just already know hater's going to hate and how's the Lord going to use this?What's the point? The point is, we're all sinners. That's the point and me too. So we all need Jesus. And II Corinthians 5:21, this is how he sums it up. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God. This is one of the greatest verses in holy scripture, 15 words in the Greek. This is our foundation. This is how salvation comes to sinners. Knows how careful the language is. He doesn't say that Jesus became a sinner, he says that Jesus became sin. The sinless became sin. God didn't make us righteous, but he made us righteousness. It's imputed. It's not our righteousness. So our sin was imputed to Jesus and Jesus righteousness is imputed to us. Imputed means counted.Jesus never sinned. He committed no sin. Neither was deceit found in his mouth. 33 years, zero sins. Remained sinless until he became sin for us. The sinless one becomes our sin, our substitute, our sacrifice. All of our sins were poured over Christ on the cross wave after wave, after wave, after wave, he was robed. And all that was heinous and hateful and evil and corrupt lies, hatred, jealousy, pride, lust, gluttony, greed, all poured on his sinless soul. And it wasn't just that. It's not only that our sin is poured on him, it's our sin is poured on him and he's robed in it. And then God's wrath is poured on our sin, which is upon Christ.Jesus died the death that we deserve to die so that we can live the life that he deserved to live. And John three, that conversation about Nicodemus. And I'll close with this. Everyone knows John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Everyone knows that, but not most people just, they don't know the context. And I'll give you the context. The context is verse 14. And as Moses, John 3, lifted up the serpent and the wilderness. Yeah, there was plague. God set in a plague upon the people of God because they sinned. They rebelled against him. And then he tells Moses, "Hey, Moses, I want you to take a serpent and I want you to lift it up high." And whoever looked upon the serpent got saved. Serpent. So as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of God be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name, the only son of God. Jesus Christ here compares himself with the serpent. Serpent. Jesus died the death the serpent deserves to die, to extend to us the life that the son deserves. He did that so we might be the righteousness of God both legally and practically. This is our justification.And then II Corinthians 6:1-2: Working together with him, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, "In a favorable time, I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I've helped you." Behold, now as a favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. If you yourself right now, do not know that you are a Christian, that you do not live for yourself, that you are eternally secure, today is a day of salvation, repent from sin and turn to him. And for the rest of us, what motivates us to live revolutionary life should be fear of judgment, love of Christ, gospel, respect and reconciliation.Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you paid everything. You paid the full price. And therefore Lord, we owe everything to you. And I pray that you make us people who are motivated by fear of you and love of you, people who respect the gospel and take the gospel to those who need to be reconciled with you. And bless us as we go and fulfill the mission you've called us to. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Christian message on can I lose my salvation because of repetitive habitual sin or is there still forgiveness? Is once saved always saved true for every Christian, will God forgive me even though I keep doing the same sins - ongoing sin. Is sinning repeatedly condemning my soul to Hell?

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning. Welcome to Mosaic Church. My name is Jan. We're the pastors here at Mosaic along with Pastor Shane and Pastor Andy. And if you're new or visiting we'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card in the worship guide. The physical one or you can also get the digital version in our app or on our website. And if you fill it out we'll be sure to get in touch with you over the course of the week. Happy summer. And happy bring an iced beverage to church day. If you see my last station back there I've got 18 water bottles back there. Stay hydrated my friends. Stay hydrated. Oh, that said would you please pray with me with the preaching of God's Holy Word. Heavenly Father we thank you that you are good God and you are a great God. Although our sins, our rebellion, our transgressions deserve punishment. Instead, you poured out that punishment upon your Son Jesus Christ. The Lamb of God, the Son of God. Jesus on the cross, you got what we deserved so that you could offer to us what you earned.We thank you for the gift of salvation. We thank you for the gift of grace that just doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that? You did that because you are God who is love. We thank you for the Holy Scriptures. We thank you for the story and the example of Abraham that often he was not a hero, he was actually an anti hero. And yet you came in and you worked with him and he poured out your love upon him and you kept sculpting him, kept molding him, kept shaping and sanctifying him and I pray that you do the same with us.If there are habitual sins in our lives. If there is recidivism in our lives where we fall back into patterns of sin I pray today pull us out by your grace and give us a vision for our lives to be people who are a blessing to many. Bless our time the holy word. Holy Spirit we welcome you into the space. We love you and we love your presence. We pray that you today convict us and encourage us where we need to be encouraged. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.We are in a sermon series. Going through parts of the book of Genesis. We're calling it Jesus in Genesis. And we're in particular looking at the story of Abraham and how our story relates to his story and more importantly how his story and our story points to the story of Jesus Christ and our need for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The title of the sermon today is Déjà vu All Over Again. And we see Abraham committing his greatest sin that he's ever committed. And he does it again. In chapter 19 we saw the story of God's punishment coming down on Sodom and Gomorrah. God pulls through the angels Lot out and ends the story in a very hopeless situation. So now we're done with Lot and we'll hear nothing more of him. And after the promise that God made in chapter 18, where Jesus Christ as a Kristoff and he shows up.He's flanked with angels. And he comes to Abraham and Sarah and promises that in a year you will have the promised son. You've been waiting for over two decades. Probably 25 years but next year he's coming. And what we're expecting after chapter 19, is that in chapter 20 Isaac is born. Why do we expect that? We expect that because Abraham has been winning. He's been growing in his faith. God called him in chapter 12. He said I'm going to bless you, I'm going to make your name great, I'm going to bless those who bless you. And I'm going to bless the nation's through you Abraham. He follows God and we see him early on his walk with the Lord was serpentine. It was wandering. Kind of like Storrow Drive. Just wavering back and forth. And what we see with Abraham is now he's beginning to string wins together.We see that beginning with Lot and goes to his nephew Lot and he gives him a pic of the land generously. And then after Lot is taken into captivity by a coalition of kings, Abraham the great warrior gets his 318 trained men and they together go to war to save Lot and he comes out victorious. He's recognized by Melchizedek as a man of God. He resists temptation. When the king of Sodom offers him financial profit, the Lord appeared to him twice to reaffirm and elaborate the covenant. And God said here's a sign of the covenant. You need to circumcise yourself. And Abraham in his '90s probably his greatest act of faith promptly obeys, circumcised himself with a flint knife and does the same to 318 trained men. You see just his faith guides everything that he does. Win after win after win after win and apparently he got tired of all that winning. So after Abraham wins, now Abraham sins.And in chapter 20, Abraham takes his 90-year old wife. He's 100. He takes his 90-year old wife and passes her off to King Abimelech. And she's taken into his harem. He pimps off his 90-year old wife. Apparent grandma was really good looking. I don't know what it was. A different oxygen, different food levels, no GMO, Pilates. I have no idea. But apparently at 90 she was still smoking hot and King Abimelech takes her into his hands. So we'll get into that.The worst part is. The worst part that as I sat down and I'm like chapter 20. I'm writing this sermon. I'm crestfallen. I'm like, "Oh, no. Not again." The worst part of this whole situation is he's done this before. He pimped off his wife who was a little younger to the king of Egypt back in chapter 12. And God intervened and God saved him. And now he does the same thing again. Big lesson for us is dear Christian sin clings so closely. And time with the Lord does not make you impervious to sin. It doesn't make you impervious to falling back into old patterns of sin. Into tragic recidivism where you relapse. The point of the whole text is Abraham's a sinner saved by grace. Still remains a sinner. He's a saint, he was a sinner and a sinner who's a saint. So never lose sight dear Christian. That we have to be aware of sin and that we are to fight the good fight of faith.We'll do the same thing we've done in the past weeks. We're going to walk through the text verse by verse. But three big sections. Three points to frame up our time. Point one is Abimelech restrained. Second is Abraham rebuked and third is Abimelech restored. First Abimelech restrained. Genesis 20:1. And from there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur. And he sojourned into Gerar. So Abraham was called by God to go to the land of Canaan. That's the promised land. The first time he sinned against his wife and against God, he went from the promised land to Egypt. Now he goes from the promised land to Kadesh and Shur into Gerar. He's traveling from the extremely southern point of Palestine. Shur was on the border of Egypt. And he visits the royal city of Gerar which is just above the Gulf of Suez on the way to Egypt. Suez we've heard recently in the news. The Suez Canal. That's where the container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal. This is the general vicinity where Abraham goes. It's hostile territory.We're not told why he goes. Perhaps he went because there was famine in the land or perhaps he went because he was afraid of God who judged Sodom and Gomorrah and Abraham watched him judge Sodom and Gomorrah. Perhaps he was afraid of retaliation from the neighbors of Sodom and Gomorrah, that they will retaliate against Abraham in order to retaliate against God or perhaps he was bitter. Later on the text he says God made me go from my hometown to land of Canaan. There's a bitterness. Perhaps it's because he expected that when he interceded for Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah that God would answer him.And he didn't get what he wanted from God. Perhaps he's... But we're not sure. So now we see him going into hostile territory with his flocks, with his herds, with the people he has with him. He's a chieftain. There's over 300 people with him. So it's a huge caravan. And he's going into hostile territory as a believer. These are different people, they worship different gods. It's kind of moving to Boston from somewhere where it's acceptable to be a Christian. You move up to Boston and you keep your bumper stickers on your car.You keep the little fish on your car. Why do you keep the fish on your car? Because you're a Christian. That's why. Why'd you put the fish in your car in the first place? Because back in Mississippi when Christian police officers pull you over, they're going to let you go. You're a Christian. Up here no one cares. I remember when Pastor Shane moved up here, he had a little Toyota Camry. And he had a little Jesus fish on the back of his car. And after an evening service, we show up this car and the back windshield was just mis shattered. Someone threw a brick through the back of his car. Why? I don't know. Jesus fish maybe. So if you've got Jesus fish on your car, man congratulations. You are a very bold Christian. And now you have to drive like a hostile territory. He goes there. He knows that he is not like these people. That he believes unlike these people. These are enemies of Israel.We'll learn later on. The Philistines come from this general land. So what happens? Well, Genesis 20:2. Abraham said of Sarah his wife. So now people are asking, "Hey Abraham. Who's that woman next to you? She's apparently very good looking." And the tradition of that land was the king could take any unmarried woman into his harem or the king could kill any husband of the married woman to take her into his harem. So that's why Abraham said of his wife Sarah. She is my sister. And Abimelech King of Gerar sent and took Sarah. He takes Sarah the wife of Abraham.First thing Abraham does is exactly the same thing he did 30 years ago. Why? What's he motivated by? Motivated by fear. Fear for his life. And he gives up his dear wife Sarah. Decades they've been married. Gives her up to a King Abimelech into his harem. Now I've been married by God's grace and my wife Tanya. It's going to be 15 years this week. Someone came up to me. Praise... Yea, clap for her. Good job. Thanks, Edgar. And I've made some faux pas. Some mea culpa. Some my bads in my life in my marriage. I have some bad ones. The first one I think is first year married. I forgot it was her birthday. I just forgot her birthday. Show up at home, she's dressed up, makeup on. It's dinner on the table. Beautiful. And I'm like, "What's the occasion? Of course I know. Well, I forgot your present in the car."So I run down. And I go to the nearest store that was next our apartment building. It was TJ Maxx or Marshalls. And I went to the first thing I could find. And it was a little wooden bucket with soap stuff. And some country CDs. So that's what I grabbed for. I was like, "You're from Ukraine. You like country music." No, she did not. That was a... So still to this day I'm recovering. I've made some bad mistakes in my marriage. But I've never pimped off my wife. Praise God. And the lesson here gentlemen is don't pimp off your wife. That's number one. Number two, is Abraham the great father of the faith does this. And he does it twice. And what's the lesson here? The lesson here is under pressure, under stress, under anxiety. When motivated by fear, it's so easy to relapse the former sins. It's so easy to go back to old patterns of life. So the question for us today is what sins from your past are you prone to return to? Especially when under stress. And when are you prone to return to them?And you need to know that. You need to reverse engineer your walk with the Lord and you need to know yourself and when you're tempted so that you do not make provision for the flesh. Don't put yourself in positions where your flesh takes over. And instead of walking by the spear you walk by flesh. Speaking of harems. The custom of the land. You have power, you have money, you can make yourself a harem. A harem is just a group of women that you sleep with. Your concubines. Perhaps you don't have the money and the power and the opportunity to build yourself a harem. But we live in a day and age when people are building not physical harems but definitely digital ones. And Jesus spoke right into that. And he said whoever looks upon a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Abimelech committed the sin of adultery when he just looked at another man's wife. And so we see Abraham sinned and we see Abimelech sins and there's a lesson for us that we are to fight our sin and protect in particular sexual sin. So the question is what's going to happen? Who will protect Sarah from being defiled? Because God promised that Sarah is going to have a child with Abraham.God promised a unilateral covenant that he's not going to break his word. That's exactly what we see God coming to the rescue. This is verse three. But God. I love that phrase because that's the same phrase that's used in Ephesians when it says that you are dead in your sins and your trespasses. All of us are on our way to hell but God intervenes but God sent his Son. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you've taken for she is a man's wife. Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me she is my sister and she herself said he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart. And the innocence of my hands I have done this.God speaks, God intervenes. Speaks to him in a dream. Does God still speak in dreams? Yeah, he does. And sometimes to you, sometimes to your loved ones. This week I was sitting at home in my basement. It was 11:00 PM and I smell something burning. And I run around. I ran upstairs and make sure it's nothing upstairs. And then I ran back downstairs and one of my outlets was on fire. I had to pull out a plug and sparks were flying. I was like, "Whoa, that was weird." The next day my daughter Elizabeth wakes up and says to my wife, "Hey, Mom. I had a dream that our basement set on fire." Sounds trippy. She had no idea.And I was like, "Did we make it on alive?" She said yeah. I was like, "All right. Praise God." It's just once a month. So sometimes God speaks in prophetic dreams. Sometimes it's just to reaffirm yes, I'm with you. Yes, I'm here to protect you. Sometimes it encourage, sometimes is to sanctify. So God speaks to an unbeliever through a dream. Can God speak to unbelievers? Yeah. God can do whatever he want with whomever he wants. He sovereign speaks to this guy in a dream and says you're a dead man. The same God who set Sodom and Gomorrah on fire, judgment, fire, brimstone comes to King Abimelech who's definitely heard about what went on Sodom and Gomorrah. And he says you are a dead man. I'm going to kill you. Does God have the authority to take our life? Yeah. The God of the universe who gives us life can take it at any single moment. And God says that you're dead. Maybe you've taken another man's wife. Why? Because God cares about marriage. He cares about marriage a lot. Abimelech says I haven't approached her yet. And Abimelech says Lord, that's a great start. Lord, he knows that this is God and he speaks of innocence. He's like, "God, I'm innocent." Actually a relative term. He's sinful in other ways. But from this perspective, he's innocent. He did what he did without knowing the full story.And Abimelech makes the same argument to God that Abraham made to God as He was interceding for Sodom and Gomorrah. He says will not the just God of the universe do what is right. And he's got a case. What he's really saying is, God I didn't deserve this. If anyone does deserve it, who is it? If anyone does deserve to get whacked for the situation that they're in, who deserves to get whacked? Abraham. God why aren't you coming after Abraham? Why are you coming after Sarah? Who also isn't a total victim. Apparently they played this con whenever they've when because that's what Abraham says later on the text.I asked my wife. I was still talking about this text. And she's like, "You know what? I bet Sarah wanted to leave." I was like, "Why did you say that?" She's like, "Just imagine you have the option of being a princess. You were living in a tent. Now you get to live in a mansion. She's not completely innocent either. You get a black American Express Card. You get your hair's done and your nails done, your hair done and all that done like everyone's pampering. Who knows. But she went along with this plan." And what's fascinating about this text is Abimelech the pagan king is more righteous. Presented as more righteous in this text than the man of God.In chapter 18, God said about Abraham. I've called him. He's mine. I've chosen him to be righteous, teach righteousness to his children. And we see the unbeliever behaving more moral than the believer. And that's often the case. Unbelievers are sometimes some of the most moral people just really, really good people. Generous people, caring people, loving people. And then on the flip side, it's the believers that are sometimes the most mischievous and the most sinful. You ever do business with a Christian? With an unbeliever, you got to sign one contract. With believers, two. At least two. Because of the Christian, when they became a Christian, they understand how wicked they are. That's what makes them a Christian. What makes you a Christian is I have sinned against God, I need to repent. It's really bad. Every Christian that you see is a really bad person. But the difference is they know they're a bad person.Sometimes the moral people are very moral people to get away from God. Abimelech is the moral person in this text. At the end of the text, he's very generous but he never becomes a Christian. He never loves God. You can do a lot of good things. And you can be a very moral person and not be a believer not go to heaven because you are doing all the great things not for God but for self. Back to Abraham. What was motivating him? What motivated him to sin again? It might have been bitterness against God. It might have been just time has elapsed. It's been 30 years since chapter 12 and chapter 20. It might have been that he knows just how lavish God's grace is. Did Abraham deserve to be called by God? No. Did Abraham deserve to get a word from God? No. Did Abraham deserve for God to speak to him and show him the covenant? No, no, no, no. Did Abraham deserve for God to tell him I'm making a unilateral covenant with you even if you break your end of the bargain, I'm still going to hold up mine? He didn't deserve that.Abraham also knew that God saved him once. I sinned you save me again. You also promised me that within a year I'm going to have a son. So clearly, you are going to work out your plan. And you might not need me in the process. This whole idea of I can sin because God will come to the rescue. This idea is called cheap grace. Where you say Jesus died on the cross for all my sins past, present and future. So why not continue to sin? God will forgive me. It's his job. I think part of that is going on in this idea of cheap grace. And yet God will forgive. Dear Christian, if you are in your sins. If you sin, God will forgive you if you repent of that sin. But it doesn't mean you won't bear the consequences of that sin. And it definitely doesn't mean that God won't discipline you like a loving father. Does God discipline Abraham in this text for this sin? Oh, yeah.He publicly shames Abraham through Abimelech. And he publicly shames Abraham for 1,000s of years by including this text in the Bible. So we look at this guy like, "You're a loser. You're a loser twice." God does discipline. Look at Hebrews 12:5-11. Have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline. If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the father of spirits and live.For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them. But he disciplines us for our good. That we may share his holiness. For he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. But later, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Shows us that we're saved not by a morality. This is what the text shows us. But just by sheer grace. We're saved by sheer grace not because we're better. We're not Christians because we're better. We're Christians because we're saved, forgiven. And we're not saved because we're good. We're not forgiven because we're good. We're saved because God is good. That's really what this chapter is highlighting. That despite Abraham's sin, how great God's grace is to intervene and help him. God intervenes just like in chapter 12 showing you that God is the only hero of the story and of the book of Genesis of the whole Bible.And God intervenes his work in the marriage of Abraham and Sarah, right? And that's what God is doing. He's exposing sin in their marriage. He's exposing deception in their marriage. A lack of faith prior to the child coming. And this is important lesson that before you have a child, you need to know that whatever sin there is, you got to work through and repent of it and do the hard work because when children come, everything just gets magnified. It's just exponentially harder. Not only does your wife see your sin but the kids see your sin and oh, your sin then impacts your kids. And imagine Isaac wakes up and he says, "Abraham. Dad. Daddy, where's mommy?" And then Abraham's like, "Oh, long story. Hear I pimped her out to King Abimelech. You want cereal for breakfast." That would scar the kid for life.So God is working on their marriage exposing the sin. So there's repentance prior to when the child comes. Verse six. God speaking to Abimelech. Then God said to him in the dream. Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart. And it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Now then return the man's wife for he is a prophet so that he will pray for you. And you shall live but if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die. You and all who are hers. So I didn't touch her. You wanted to obviously. That's why you married her.I don't let you consummate the marriage. So God here is sovereign even over sin. He's the one that keeps Abimelech from sinning and the part of the Lord's Prayer is Lord, lead us not into temptation. God I beg you please keep me from sin. Prevent me from sin. And God does that with Abimelech. And then God gives Abimelech a choice. You can either return her and live or if you don't, you'll die. And that's the same choice that God gives every single human being. Either repent and that's turning from sin and you will live. Repent and believe in Jesus Christ. You will live if not, you shall surely die. The decision is yours. If Sarah had stayed even one night with Abimelech, there would have always been a question of is Abraham Isaac's dad? And the other thing I want to point out is this is the first use of the word prophet in scripture. And which is very ironical though.We're prophets messenger for God. And the first time the word prophet is used is in the context of the Prophet's sin. Showing that every single human prophet is fallible and sinful and it points to our need for a greater profit who's never sinned. And Abraham will pray for you. And at this point, Abimelech is got to be thinking what in the world? The guy sinned against me, lied to me. And now it turns out he's a prophet. And it turns out he needs to pray for me so that I can get saved. It doesn't make any sense. Just from a human perspective from a societal justice perspective. It doesn't make any sense. We'll leave that hanging until point three. Point two. Abraham rebuked. We see this in verse eight. So Abimelech rose early in the morning which is contrast to Lot when God warned him through the angels. Hey, get out of Sodom and Gomorrah because fire and brimstone coming. Lot slept on it woke up had breakfast. Finally, the angels had to drag him out.Here Abimelech wakes up first thing in the morning. This what he does. Called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. Abimelech fears God. His servants fear God. And yet they don't become believers at the end. They fear God like children fear a stranger. Please I don't know what you're going to do with me. I'm afraid of you. Abraham fears God as a child. There's a difference. There's a loving relationship. Here Abimelech never becomes a Christian. His father's never become Christian. They're just afraid of punishment. Whereas a real child of God fears disappointing God which obviously Abraham did in this situation. So he too needs to grow in fear of God. Verse nine. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, "What have you done to us? How have I sinned against you?" That's interesting. Because the very first time that the word sin is used in this chapter is from God talking to Abimelech. I kept you from sinning. So now Abimelech has an understanding of sin. That sin is transgressing God's law.How have I sinned against you that you brought on me and my kingdom of great sin? You have done to me things that ought not to be done. And here what's fascinating is Abimelech preaches a sermon to Abraham. Abimelech gets everyone to get the whole court together. Puts Abraham in front. It just lights them up with the words that God gave them. So this is God speaking through Abimelech that you Abraham are a hypocrite. Your witness is terrible. Your witness to God. If God didn't intervene, all of us would have perished. You would have brought great sin on me and the kingdom. You did what ought not to have been done. And that's a fascinating term.Abimelech how did you know what ought to be done? How do you know? God told him. Abraham, did you know what ought to be done? Yeah. So you sinned against me. And this is a fascinating idea. And every single person you ask that's alive and a christian or non Christian. You ask them is the world as it ought to be? And every single person says no, the world is not as ought to be. There's a lot of crime and there's a lot of evil and there's a lot of terrible things in the world. Corruption in the world. The world is not as it ought to be. Are you as you ought to be? No, I'm not. Well, how do you know? Because there's a moral law written on your heart. A moral compass. Is it calibrated perfectly? No, it takes God's word brought in to recalibrate Abimelech's moral compass here. Abimelech's concern isn't just for himself but for his kingdom. Which shows that he's a good ruler and again shows that he's a good person despite the norms of the day. Verse 10, Abimelech said to Abraham. What did you see that you did this thing? Abraham said I did it because I thought there is no fear of God at all in this place and they will kill me because of my wife. So Abimelech is like, "Why do you do this?" And Abraham says I did this because you guys don't fear God.And here Abraham is the hypocrite of Matthew seven where Jesus says before you pull out the speck in your brother's eye, make sure there's not a log in your own eye. So Abraham to Abimelech. He's like, "I did this because you don't love God. You don't fear God. I did this because you have a toothpick in your eye." As Abraham has a two by four in one eye and a telephone pole in the other. He's just the biggest hypocrite of this whole text. You guys don't fear God. I just knew all of you guys are perverts and sickos and weirdos. You kill me to take my wife. So I decided to pimp her out before you did that. Just the logic is so warped. I knew you were so sinful. So I'm going to sin to prevent you sinning against me. And this just shows a lack of faith. He didn't go into the place on mission to share the gospel. He went to the place selfishly to preserve his wealth, kind of like Lot did when he went to Sodom. And apparently there was more fear of God in Abimelech than there was in Abraham. That's the contrast.Verse 12. Besides. So now Abraham is... He knows he's caught. But he lawyers up and he just... Oh, what a text. Besides, he pathetically tries to make excuses. He's caught in sin and he's like, "Besides." He's like, "I knew you don't fear God. And besides she is indeed my sister. Cue the country music. She is indeed my sister." Like a pro. Why are you even...? Don't even bring that up. Why did you marry your sister? Oh, because it was easier. We didn't have to change last names. You're a pervert. Don't do that. This is pathetic. It's like you get caught in a sin and then you try to excuse it and the excuse is even worse than the sin. You get pulled over by a cop and the cop is like, "Why are you speeding? Why are you speeding?" And you say, "I swear to drunk. I'm not God. I'm not God." The first service nobody got it. Here, a couple...The excuses are worse than the sin itself. Kids do this all the time. Where you get caught in a sin and then you just try to excuse it. That's what Abraham is doing. He knows he's caught. He's caught by daddy, he's caught by Abimelech. And then he starts saying this is my sister that I married her. My father though not the daughter of my mother and she became that way. And when God caused me to wander from my father's place that's it. That's the verse. God caused me to wander. When God forced me to wander. Remember last week I was talking about Lot. He got saved but he wasn't happy about it. It's like a high schooler getting saved before they start freshman year in college. And like, "Don't save me yet I want frat parties." That was Lot. That's Abraham. He wants to sin right now. And he's just caught in the sin. And then who does he blame for this whole situation? Oh, God caused it. Same thing Adam did. Adam sins, eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.God comes looking for him. Adam where are you? And what does Adam say? The wife whom you gave me. She forced me. You see the past 70. You see he's trying to shirk his responsibility. Pass it off. There's bitterness toward God. And I said to her this is the kindness you must do to me at every place to which we come. Say of me he is my brother. And he's saying this is the kindness you got to do me. This is how you need to love me. That's what we're doing. Instead of saying how can I love my wife and sacrifice myself to protect her, he goes to his wife and says this is how you must love me and sacrifice yourself to protect me. He's just got everything back. And remember last week I was talking about Abraham was a great patriarch and Lot was a soytriarch. Where here Abraham, he's back to soytriarch land. He loses his spine. His faith spine and he goes to his wife and he says I want you to sacrifice yourself for me anti gospel.What is the gospel? The gospel is Jesus Christ sacrificing himself for his bride. And then Jesus says to husbands. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Abraham is doing the opposite here and technically was Sarah his sister. Yes, technically yes. But it's not the full truth. She was also his wife. His sister wife. A half truth masquerading as the full truth is a full lie. And we need to know this. If you are going to grow in discernment and understanding of reality, you need to understand that this is the thing. People lie with facts. Just like Abraham lies with facts. People lie with statistics all the time. Your head could be in the oven and your feet in the freezer and on average, very comfortable temperature. You're not comfortable. Statistic lie all the time.If you want to understand politics and you understand the news. You need to understand that people all the time spin one fact and present one fact which is half truth as the full truth. And they do it for click bait and they do it for eyeballs and they do it to persuade us with a narrative et cetera. So we as believers need to grow in discernment knowing that people lie all the time with facts. And this is what Abraham was doing. Abraham's behavior is pathetic, it's an excusable, it's deeply disappointing. He's here no different than Lot was in last chapter. Last chapter Lot takes the angels into his house, shows them hospitality and then an order protect himself and the angels, he passes off his daughters to the gang rapers. And he says, "Hey, take my virgin daughters instead of the angels." He's sacrificing his beloved ones for himself. Abraham's doing the same exact thing here. The worst part he's in the middle of his Christian life. It should be expected that he would do better but he suffers from what something that all of us suffer from is thing called spiritual amnesia.And once again he falls on his face, fails in his faith. We see cowardice, selfishness, indifference. He stumbles badly. So will his son Isaac. Who will do the same thing. And then his great, great grandsons will sin as well Judah in particular. Abraham stumbled, so have I. And so have you. And this just shows the fallibility of the saints. And when you become a Christian, you're still a sinner. You're a sinner saint and a saint sinner. And the privileged position doesn't preclude him from failure. It doesn't preclude him from floundering. Genesis 20:14. Then Abimelech took sheep and oxen and male servants and female servants and gave them to Abraham and returned Sarah his wife to him. And Abimelech said, behold my land is before you, dwell where it pleases you. To Sarah he said, behold I've given your brother... Tremendous Abimelech. Tremendous little jab. Behold I've given your brother 1,000 pieces of silver. It's a sign of your innocence in the eyes of all who are with you before everyone you were vindicated.What in the world just happened? Abraham sins against Abimelech. Abimelech is the one giving gifts to Abraham. This makes no sense. It should have been Abraham saying here Abimelech. I'm sorry. My bad man. Here's some animals. Here's some silver. Instead, Abimelech is the guy. He's like, "Take the animals, take any real estate you want. Here's 1,000 pieces of silver. Half a piece of silver was a monthly wage of an average worker. Half. So that means 1,000 pieces is working 167 years. That's like if our average salary is 40 grand. He's given him $7 million. Just incredible wealth. On top of that, this is what Abimelech is doing. This why I think he's a funny guy.When you get married, the price of a bride was 50 shekels and he's like Abraham I'm not just going to give you 50 shekels. I'm going to give you the price of 20 brides. 1,000 shekels. It's boss right here. And part of what he's doing is, he's vindicating the honor of Sarah. He cares more about her reputation than Abraham did himself. So Abraham was a complete anti hero here. Abimelech takes God's warning seriously. Abraham doesn't. Story continues. These are point three. Abimelech restore. Genesis 20:17. Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech and also healed his wife and female slaves so that they bore children. Apparently part of what happened with Abimelech was there was a curse put on all the people for Abraham's sin. And the wombs of the people were closed. And what's ironic is... Oh, and this is verse 18. For the Lord had closed all the wombs of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.The irony is that in order to open Sarah's womb for the promised son, God closed the wombs of many other women. Here the Lord is Lord of Abraham's sin. He's the Lord of Abimelech's non sin and he's the lord of childbirth. And he's the Lord over everything. A question here that I want to wrestle with at the end in closing is why is this text here? Why is this here? It teaches the lesson that we all stumble, that we all fall. We have a proclivity to relapse into sin. But is that all it's teaching us? I think it is teaching us more. Because by the end of the chapter, despite Abraham's sin. Abraham is a better man for it. He's learned from this sin. In a sense he's been sanctified by his sin and he's been blessed through the process of the sin. So there's a deeper lesson going on here. And I think there's a doctrine here. A doctrine that's taught by theologians in their books not often taught out loud. Because of the danger of this doctrine being twisted to justify sin.The doctrine's called O felix culpa in the Latin. O happy fault. And the phrase goes back to Gregory the Great in the end of the sixth century. And he got it from Augustine. And who got it from St. Paul in Romans seven. That yes, we wrestle with sin undeniably. But at the end, it brings glory to God because our sin... It turns our attention to Christ like nothing else does. Sin is undeniably ugly is disreputable, inexcusable, it's harmful. It's an abomination before God. But sin is also an occasion often to learn the absolute deepest lessons of our lives. Life changing discoveries. Now sometimes you know what true. You know a truth. I'm a sinner saved by grace. You know a truth. And then you sin.You commit a sin that scares you. Why I did that. And you walk out of that sin by God's grace pulls you out. And you have such a deep awareness of sin like you never have a deeper fear of God. A deeper love for God and more zeal to fight the good fight of faith without the fall, without the sin of Adam and Eve, we would have never had the incarnation. We would have never had the death of Christ on the cross. The resurrection. We wouldn't have had some of the most incredible victories in the spiritual warfare. One theologian says there would certainly have been no display of some of the divine attributes of God had sin not been. They would have been conserved forever and the depth of the Godhead. So in a sense, we get to know more of God, the depth of God, the greatness of God because sin entered the world. And obviously, we can't use that as an excuse to excuse our sin, to justify our sin. God hates sin. Sin is wickedness.But there is this undeniable reality. As John Owen says the greatest evil in the world is sin. And the greatest sin was the first. And yet Gregory feared not to cry O happy fault which found such a redeemer. And I think we can't deny that. Some of the greatest lesson we've ever learned in our lives about God, about the truth, the reality of good and of evil, of God and of Satan, we've done through the sin. Romans 7:14-25. This is the text that Augustine points to. For we know that the law is spiritual but I am of the flesh sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out.For I do not do the good I want but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies closer and for I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from the body of death. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.The logic is irresistible. I'm wrestling with sin. St. Paul says he struggled with sin. If he was always finding himself flat on his face even near the end of his life mourning his great moral weakness then there's hope for me and there's hope for you. His sin pointed him to the glory of the Savior Christ. And Christ gets glory from saving us from sin. And then God uses our sin in the process of sanctification because we realize what it took for Jesus to turn my sin into sanctification. What did it take? It took the cross of Jesus Christ. There on the cross of Jesus Christ, Jesus got what we deserved. Punishment for our sin to extend to us where he earned. Kind of like Abraham and Abimelech.Abraham sins, God goes to Abimelech and says you're a dead man. Abraham gets what he didn't deserve. And then Abimelech gives to Abraham... So Abimelech gets what he didn't deserve. Abimelech gives to Abraham what Abraham didn't deserve. It's a double imputation. This is what happens when we believe in Jesus Christ. That our sins get counted to him. His righteousness gets counted to us. He who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God. Obviously the danger here is that we can sin as a way to get more grace and Romans six deals with that. And obviously that's false. In Romans two, St. Paul sternly condemns that idea that doing evil may bring about good.Does God want us to be complacent with sin? Does God want us to sin? Of course not. But this chapter's showing that God is greater than our sin. Whatever the things in your path, God is greater than our sins and God can use those sins as a sculptor. We're all block of marble and Jesus is sitting here with a hammer and chisel and just chiseling away the sinful parts of who we are so that we can be more faithful to him. And the final analysis Abraham is a better man. He's prepared for the rest of his life to live a life of faithfulness. 2 Timothy 2:13. If we are faithless he remains faithful for he cannot deny himself. Did Abraham betray the covenant? Yes, he did. But God did not. Abraham gave God reason to withdraw the promise but God would not. Abraham dishonored the Lord's name, dishonored his word but the Lord not only forgave him not only rescued him but blessed him abundantly with land, with animals, restored his marriage and gave him $7 million. God used Abraham's misbehavior then to create peace and harmony with the people in the land. Now back to the question. Is this fair? Was this text fair?Was it fair that Abimelech almost gets whacked for doing something that he didn't know he was doing? Oh, it's not fair. Is it fair that Abraham who commits the sin is called a prophet and has to intercede for the guy that didn't do anything wrong? Is that fair? No. Is it fair that Abimelech then gives the sinner Abraham $7 million, land and vehicles? Is that fair? No, it's not fair. Is it fair that Jesus Christ dies on the cross for my sin? That's not fair. It's not fair. God is greater than fair. That's not fair. But that's grace. And that's why grace makes us so... Makes God so great. Look, you might be a great person. Good person. You might be much better person than I am. You might recycle much better than I do. Sometimes a plastic bottle goes in the garbage in my house. It's terrible. You might drive an electric vehicle. You're much better than I am. You might waive the right flags and you might go the right parades and be an activist for the right things. You might be a great moral person.Being a good person doesn't get you into heaven. It doesn't. That's the point with Abimelech. It's not about being a good person. It's about being a perfect person. And there's only one perfect person and that's Jesus Christ. And the only way we can be reconciled with God and have our sins forgiven is to believe in Jesus Christ and ask for his righteousness to be counted on to us. And that's the beauty of the gospel. That through faith in Jesus Christ, God sees Christ's righteousness in you. It's as if Jesus Christ is interceding for us. Abimelech needed Abraham to intercede for him but Abraham died. So who can intercede for us? There's one who can intercede for us who is not dead. He's sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us. Isaiah 53:12. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many and he shall divide the spoil with a strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors yet he bore the sin of many. It makes intercession for whom transgressors.This one means to be a Christian you say God I am a transgressor. I have sinned. God I need you to intercede for me. Jesus intercede for me. And Hebrews 7:25. Consequently, he is able to save the uttermost those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them. If you are not a Christian we welcome you to become a Christian today by repenting of sin and believing in Jesus Christ. If you do that you are welcome and partake in communion. Today for homeless communion it's for repentant Christians. How do you become a Christian? You repent of sin and turn to Jesus Christ is for repenting Christian. So if you're Christian, if you have repented of sin but are currently living in habitual sin, you know that our sins in your life that you have not repented of them you have not turned from then right now is the opportunity to repent of those sins and partake in Holy Communion. If you don't repent today, if you don't become a Christian today, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service per 1 Corinthians 11.Right now we're going to pray for Holy Communion. If you haven't received a cup and you'd like to partake in communion, raise your hand and the ushers will pass them out as I'm praying. Let's pray. Heavenly Father we thank you for the gift of grace. What a gift it is. We thank you that you are more than fair. That you are also a loving God, a gracious God, a merciful God, a God that's long suffering. A God that longs to bless us not just in our lives but to the third, the fourth, the 10th, the 10,000s generation that comes from us. Lord we thank you for the story of Abraham. We thank you that you didn't give up on him when he was faithless but you remained faithful. In our own lives Lord, we repent of sin and we ask you to forgive us for all those times we've been faithless. And fill us with the spirit to fight the good fight of faith. Continue to sanctify us Lord and make us people who not only wage war against sin but our daily victories over.Lord Jesus we thank you for pouring out your blood and we thank you for your broken body. And I pray that you cleanse us through your blood and that you heal us through the brokenness of your body. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Take off the first piece of plastic, take the bread and then peel off the second piece of plastic which opens up the cup. And the night Jesus Christ was betrayed he took the bread and after breaking he said this is my body broken for you. Take eat and do this remembrance of me. Then proceeded to take the cup. And he said this cup is the cup of new covenant of my blood was poured out for the sins of many. Take drink and do this in remembrance of me. Lord Jesus we thank you for your intercession on our behalf as you sit the right hand of the throne of God the Father. We thank you not just for forgiveness of sin but that you use even our past sins to shape us and sanctify us and to sculpt us into the people that you have created us to be.I pray Lord Jesus that you send us the Holy Spirit and fill us and empower us. Give us the wisdom and the power and the strength to live in a manner worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ and use us here in the city to share the gospel with many so that many are saved. Draw the elect into your kingdom. And please use us in the process. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic Boston Church. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston in our neighborhood churches, or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com.Good morning, and welcome to Mosaic. My name is Jan. I'm one of the pastors here at mosaic. And if you knew, if you're visiting, we're so glad you're here. We'd love to connect with you. We do that through the connection card, either the one that you can get virtually online or in the app, or the physical one, you can get in the back. If you fill it out and then submit it, we'll be sure to get in touch with you over the course of the week. Happy Memorial Day weekend. It's not just a three-day weekend. It is an opportunity for us to pause and to remember those who have fallen in fighting for our freedom.So, here in the beginning, we're going to pray for our law enforcement officers, we're going to pray for the military and those who are in authority over them, as we're told to do in scripture, let us pray. Heavenly father, we thank you that you are a God who has created us and you have created the world with a design, and you've woven into the design the idea of authority, that you are Lord over everything, that you have in innate authority, and then you delegate authority to others. Scripture tells us that you delegate authority even to the government, the governing authorities, and as Romans 13 says, in order for them to further the good and curb the evil.So, we thank you for those who are in law enforcement, for those who do a great job, for those in the military, and for those who are in authority over them. I pray that you give them wisdom, protect them from the evil one. Protect their lives and guide them as they do their job. We remember, Lord, today, those who have fallen, and the families of the fallen, we pray that you minister to them. Lord, and as they represent giving a life for those who are closest to us, giving life for friends, that is the epitome of love, that's what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross.Lord, we thank you for this nation. We thank you for the blessing that it is to gather as believers and a free assembly to read the holy scriptures, to read them and to meditate upon them, and to apply them to our lives. Lord, Jesus, we thank you that you submitted to the authority of the father, that you humbled yourself, became a servant and went to the cross, and you did that to forgive us, to provide for a way for us to be forgiven for our rebellion against your authority, our rebellion against your moral authority, where you tell us how we are to live, how are to love, and how we are to serve.Lord, bless our time in the holy scriptures. Show us the anti-example of Lot. Make us a people who are less like Lot and more like Abraham, people who believe and actually act on that belief instead of believing secretly in our hearts by allowing our lives to have nothing to do with the faith. Lord, bless our time in the holy scriptures. We pray for the Holy Spirit. We want more of it. Welcome Holy Spirit. We welcome you to this place. Teach us. We pray all this in the beautiful name of Jesus Christ, amen.We're going through a sermon series through the book of Genesis that we are calling Jesus in Genesis. The title of the sermon today is don't grow comfortable with sin. Last week, we saw this incredible example of Abraham, father Abraham, who believes in God. And he knows that God is going to judge the wicked City of Sodom and Gomorrah. And he pleads with God. He intercedes on behalf of Sodom before God. A bright picture that points to Jesus Christ, and in chapter 19, we see just how wicked the City of Sodom was. And chapter 19, we get a vivid, raw, gritty account of the sinfulness of sin.It shows us how deep sin can get ingrained in a culture. We see a scene that's obscene, perverted. We see moral filth, pervasive debauchery. The big idea of the text is that we live in a sinful world, but we as Christians, as followers of God, we are to be in the world, not of the world. We are to be in the city of Boston would not allow the City of Boston into us, not allow the City of Boston to shape our worldview, to shape our values, to shape our idea of God, of gender, of sexuality, of what matters in life.Instead, we are to be transformed by the renewal of our minds with the word of God. This is Romans 12:1-2, "I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God," which is a spiritual worship. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you made discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." Don't be conformed to this world, in particular, what it says we can do with our bodies, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, with the word of God. Let the word of God shape what you do with your bodies, because your body is a sacrifice.Today, we're going to walk through the text, the narrative. It's a long text, but I will draw out five lessons or five signs of conformity to the world. As we read the text and look at these signs, we need to be asking ourselves, where am I conforming to the world? The first sign of conformity to the world is you have the same goals as the world. The second is there's a tolerance of sin. The third is you have no spiritual authority. Fourth is a hesitation to sacrifice, and the fifth is the desire to keep a little sin, just a little sin.Would you look at the text with me in Genesis 19:1-3. "The two angels," these are the two angels that came with Yahweh, with Jesus in bodily form in chapter 18. These two angels came to Sodom in the evening. "And lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, "My Lords, please turn aside to your servants house and spend the night and wash your feet, then you may rise up early and go on your way." They said, "No, we will spend the night in the town square.""But he pressed them strongly so they turned aside to him and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate." First thing we see is Lot is sitting at the gate of Sodom. By this time, he is one of the leading citizens of the city. The first sign of conformity to the world is you have the same goals as the world. Who is Lot? Lot is the nephew of Abraham. They were living in the Ur of the Chaldeans, a pagan nation, a pagan city, and God calls Abraham, speaks to Abraham, and said, "Abraham, you are mine. I love you. I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless those who are with you. I'm going to give you a great name and a great nation will come of you. And from your son, there will be salvation to all the world."Lot hears this call and says, you know what? I want to be blessed as well. Goes with Abraham to Canaan, the land of Canaan. He paused in Haran, goes to the land of Canaan, and he lives with father Abraham. He is blessed with Abraham, so much so, they had flocks and they had herds and he needed more land, more real estate to feed them. So, he chooses the green pastures, the fertile valley right next to Sodom and Gomorrah. The story of Lot is the typical story of an immigrant boy, who grows up in poverty and then makes it big in the city.It's a story of rags to riches, poverty to power. At this point in the story, he's a chief magistrate in the city, sitting at the gate. They're making decisions influencing the politics of the city. However, he went to Sodom with one goal. He went to Sodom for the same reason other people went to Sodom. He went to Sodom for the same reason most people come to Boston. He came to make a career for himself. He came to make money. He came to enrich himself, not reach the city for God. He had a monetary mindset, not a missionary mindset.He didn't think about reaching people for God. He didn't think about making an altar to God. He didn't think about the word of God, influencing his neighbors to believe in God. No, he just wanted to make money. Chapter 13, he was drawn towards Sodom. He pitches his tent outside of the city. Chapter 14, we see that he is now in the city owns real estate within the city. By chapter 19, he's one of the most influential people in the city, but when it comes time to stand up for righteousness and stand against evil, because he has been thoroughly compromised, nobody listens to him, and his witness is ineffective.Like uncle Abraham, in the text, we see that Lot, too, was a hospitable man. Meets these angels, wants to bring them into his house. Same words are used. The fact that he bowed before them, the fact that he wanted to wash their feet, the fact that he created a great feast for them. Later on, we see in the text, he's doing this, not just because he's hospitable, he's doing this because he knows how corrupt the men of Sodom are. He's trying to protect these angels, these men from the men of Sodom.It would be as if you see angels descend upon Methadone Mile, and they plan on camping out Methadone Mile, and you say, "No, no, no, no, no. We know what happens here at night. No, you are coming with me." That's what's going on. That's why he pleads with them. He was hoping that they would spend the night and then slip out quietly in the morning. Why? Because of verse four. "Before they laid down," so they have this feast, then, "before they laid down the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house." The text tells us that they were entirely corrupt.All of the men from young to old. So, you have nasty old men and you have prepubescent boys, who most likely were doing what the old men had taught them. The old men most likely molested through acts of pedophilia with the boys to allow them to live like this, to teach them to live like this. Sodom here shows us what the world looks like without God a city, where you're not safe to walk around at night, or else you might get raped. Genesis 19:5, "And they called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them." Not that we may get to know them. It's a euphemism for, we want to have sex with them."Bring them out so that we can, all of us from young to old, "rape these men, this fresh meat. We're going to rape them. We're going to gang rape them, Lot. Bring them out." We see the first sign of conformity to the world. Your goals are the same as everybody else and they begin to think that you are just like them and therefore your witness isn't powerful. Then sign two of conformity in the world is a tolerance of sin. A tolerance of sin.First of all, you need to know Lot, just by his connection to Abraham, does become a believer. He becomes a Christian. How do we know this? We know this from 2 Peter 2:4-8, where Peter, the apostle Peter calls him a righteous man twice, "Where if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment. If he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, the herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes. He condemned them to extinction making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly."He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the central conduct of the wicked. For as that righteous man lived among them day after day. He was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. His soul was tormented because of the sensuality in the evil of the city. His witness meant nothing. Jesus Christ told his disciples, "Hey, go into a town, go into a village and preach the gospel there. If people get saved, tremendous. If they don't get saved, if no one responds to the preaching of the gospel, you walk out of that city, you dust off your sandals of that city and you keep going."Instead, Lot, first of all, he didn't preach the gospel. He didn't preach God's word. And second of all, he was fine living there. His soul was vexed, but not enough to leave the prosperity, to leave the status, to leave the influence, to leave the money. Here we see that he tries to fight back a little bit. Verse six, Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him and said, "I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. He calls them his brothers. You're my brothers, you're my friends. He's known them for over a decade and he knows what goes on in the city. And he says, do not act so wickedly.What is this wicked, what they were about to do? Were the intentions of the heart? Yes. On what grounds? On what grounds is this wicked? Just because Lot said so? That's why they pushed back. They were like, who are you? You've lived there for over a decade. You're the mayor of the town and you've never said anything prior to this moment, who are you? But what he does next is just unbelievably, and it shows us how far he's gone in tolerating sin, and he has. He's tolerated the sin. Most likely, he had the mindset of honestly, who am I to tell them that this is wrong?Love is love. They're adults, consenting adults. They can do whatever they want. I have my own faith, that's my private faith. I'm not going to tell them that what they believe is actually evil. So, he comes up with a plan, verse eight, "Behold, I have two daughters," This is just disgusting. "I have two daughters who have not known any man. They're virgins. Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please, only do nothing to these men for they have come under the shelter of my roof." You want to rape angels, let's not do that. Instead, here's my virgin daughters, raped them instead. That's what's happening.In his mind, hospitality was more sacred than the chastity of his daughters who, by the way, are also under his roof, who, by the way, also deserve his protection for him. This is where a tolerance of sin warps your worldview so much, where you get to the point where your moral compass is just so way off that you have no idea what is good and what is evil. Yeah, he had a sacred obligation to hospitality, but he had a sacred obligation to protecting his daughters. Why didn't he say, hey guys, let's not rape anybody.Let's not do that. Let's not rape angels, let's not rape my daughters. He doesn't do that. And we see the incredible contrast between Abraham, the patriarch and Lot here, who does not have the backbone, the spine to say, I am responsible for my ... I'm responsible for my own walk with God to submit to his authority. I'm responsible for my wife. I'm responsible for the faith of my daughters. By God's grace, I have four daughters. And my job as a father is to pastor them in the faith, to raise them up in the Lord, to teach them to fear the Lord and love the Lord, to pastor them, to protect them, to protect them. I will protect them. I will protect them to the death, and I will teach them to protect their selves. I will teach them to fight and I will teach them to shoot pepper spray and a gun.Why? Because I know there are people in the world that wants to destroy them. That's my job. As a father, I am to protect. We see Abraham who has a son, Isaac, and he cares so much for Isaac's faith and Isaac's family, that he doesn't let Isaac get married to a woman of Canaan. He said, "I don't want you to marry this woman." That's why he waits until age 40 to allow Isaac to get married. He would say, no, no, no. You're going to marry a godly woman. He sends a servant to go find a godly woman and Rebecca, and they finally they get married.Lot could not be bothered to do that. Not only did he not protect his daughters, but he allowed them to marry, to be engaged to Sodom men, men of Sodom who wanted nothing to do with God. We see, in Lot, a very pathetic man. Verse nine, "But they said, "Stand back." And they said, "This fellow came to sojourn and he has become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them." Then he pressed hard against the man, Lot, and drew near to break the door down." What's fascinating is, even the most viciously, evil of people are highly sensitive to judgment.They feel like he's judging them for ... They called this thing that they were about to do wicked. Don't do this wicked thing. They called it fun. He calls it wicked. What they're saying is, who are you to judge us? Honestly, who was he to judge them? He's lived a decade in the city, has never raised a word about the wickedness of the city. Who are you to judge us? Only God can judge us, and God will. All Lot is proposing is they not rape his guests, but they take offense at the implication that he's morally superior.That's how far gone the society is. Verse 10, "But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door, and they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great so that they wore themselves out by groping for the door." Now we see that the angels, that these people aren't just regular people. They are angels. They have supernatural powers. They blind these people to show how blind they were spiritually, now they're blind physically, and even blinded physically, what are they doing? They're still driven by their lust, groping for the door.It just show that it's like a zombie apocalypse where these people are so far gone in following the lusts of their hearts, the lust of their flesh, that even being blinded doesn't stop them from trying to do what they had in mind. Verse 12, "Then the men said to Lot, "Have you," the men, the angels, "have you anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city? Bring them out of the place for we are about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord and the Lord has sent us to destroy it."In the previous chapter, God, knowing the weakness of the city still extends mercy to them by sending the angels down. The angels are messengers. They're messengers that unless you turn from sin, you will be punished. And instead of listening to the messengers, they try to rape the messengers, and now it's beyond doubt Sodom has to be destroyed. So, sign number two of conformity to the world's a tolerance to sin. We see that Lot just lived there and he tolerated sin, tolerated his own sin, tolerate the sin of his wife, of his daughters, of these people.Sign number three of conformity to the world is you have no spiritual authority, especially with those who know you best. When you speak on matters of spiritual things, matters about morality, matters from the word of God, do people listen to you or do they mock? Do they joke? Genesis 19:14, "So, lot went out and said to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, "Up. Get out of this place for the Lord is about to destroy the city." But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. They thought he was joking.Because this is the first this time they'd ever heard him speak seriously, soberly on matters of spiritual things. They think he's joking. The Lord is going to destroy this place and they think he is joking, impending judgment. Lot, sleep it off. We'll talk about it in the morning. He has zero spiritual influence over the men that he was going to allow to marry his daughter. Zero spiritual influence. Compare that with Abraham, compare Lot's spiritual influence and Abraham's spiritual influence. God goes to Abraham and says, "Abraham, I'm going to make a covenant with you. The sign of the covenant is going to be circumcision. So, you need to circumcise yourself at age 90 plus, and you need it to circumcise the other 318 men in your household."So, he gets that word from the Lord, circumcises himself, and goes to the men in his household and says, "Gentlemen, I have a word from God." "Oh yeah, what's that word, Abraham?" "God said that he loves us and that we are to love him back, and the way that we're going to do that is circumcising ourselves." "Oh, Abraham, what does circumcision entail? And he shows, and the 318 men do it. They do it. The spiritual authority of this man who led by example, how do you get spiritual authority? How do you grow in spiritual authority? By submitting to the authority of God.The more you submit your life, the more you submit the pattern of your life to the authority of God, the more authority you have to speak to others, that this is the way of God, this is the will of God. Lot has no spiritual authority because he didn't obey God, he didn't submit himself to God. This is why the other men are like, who are you to judge us? You're just like us, bro. You're the mayor of the town. You've allowed this to happen. He has no spiritual authority over these sons. By the way, the sons-in-law, why should they listen to him? He had just offered these guys' fiances to a gang of rapist.Of course, they're not going to listen to him. He's accommodated his lifestyle to life of Sodom. Sign number four of conformity to the world is a hesitation of sacrifice. To follow the Lord, you are the sacrifice. Jesus Christ tells us, if you are to follow me, you need to take up your cross daily and follow me. So, we are to say yes to Jesus. By saying yes to Jesus, there are things that we have to turn our back on. Genesis 19:15, "As morning dawned," first of all, he waited all night. The angels told them, judgment is coming, flee now. He waits all night. Oh, we need to get rest. We need to wake up, have a nice breakfast, little protein to be ready to run from the judgment. And he waits.It shows that he has no desire to leave his flocks and his herds and his real estate and his influence. He lingers. "As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Up, take your wife and your daughters who are here, lest you be swept away the punishment of the city," but he lingered. But he lingered. I wonder if there's areas of life where you know exactly what God's will is, and you're lingering in sin because you know it's a sacrifice to leave sin. Lot is saved. He's saved. He's barely saved. He's one of those people who's saved, but he's not happy about it.It's like the guy who gets saved freshman year in college, like the summer before freshman year in college. He's like, ah, why'd you save me now? God save me when I'm 26 and I want to get married and start a family, save me then. That's when I'm going to go and find a nice Christian girl in church. But until then, I don't want to be saved. Lot's that guy. He's not happy about it. And he's lingering, lingering and sin, because to say no to sin, to say no to the comfort of a sinful lifestyle, man, that's painful.He lingered. So, the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, and the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. Lingered, he was so attached to Sodom. Wouldn't leave. With destruction looming, it just comes down to the angels pulling him out, physically pulling him out. Why? Because he didn't want to make the sacrifice of losing everything he had been working for. Why did he hesitate? In the words of Jesus, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.Sign number five of conformity to the world is desire to keep a little sin, just a little sin. "As they brought them out, one said, "Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley, escape to the hills lest you be swept away." And Lot said to them, "Oh no, my Lords. Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life, but I can not escape to the hills lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there, is it not a little one? And my life will be saved."He said to them, "Behold, I grant you this favor also that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly for, I can do nothing until you arrive. Therefore, the name of that city was Zoar." This is just absurd. They're physically pulling him out and they say, "Go into the hills, go live in the woods, away from this perverse people and perverse cities and towns." And he says, "Oh no, oh no, no, thank you." And he says, "I can't live out in the woods in the hills. I'm a city boy. I need access to a Starbucks. I need a walkability rating of at least 9.1." I need museums, I'm a man of culture. No, I cannot go. I want to go to a city, a little city.""Yeah, the city was supposed to get over thrown just what the others, but have mercy on this little ... It's a little city." God's like, get out of Vegas. And he's like, can I go to Reno instead? They don't have big strip, but they have little strip clubs. Can I go there? That's what's going on here. You see just the absurdity of a man, disaster is looming, judgment is coming, and he's bickering and bartering with the angels who've come to save him. At the most dangerous moment of his life, he's still thinking about worldly comfort. It's like a Christian saying, God, okay, you've saved me, all right I'll go to church. I'll go to church once in a while or I'll go to church on a Sunday, but the rest of the week is mine.I'll tithe, I'll give you 10%, but I get to do whatever I want with the other 90. You can't call me generosity. Okay, I'll read my Bible once in a while, but I just need to keep a little ... The things you call us to, sexual purity, to not even be named among you, to not look at a person lustfully with your eyes. God, you're being extreme. I need a little sin, just a little sin. That's what's going on. Verse 23, "The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar, then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground."The instrument of the structure in here is probably an earthquake that then releases the heat, and the gas is especially a sulfur that were in the ground. But the narrative combines the ultimate cause was the Lord, but the instrumental cause that was burning sulfur by heat from below, or maybe lightning from above and the word for Lord here is Yahweh. It's the same word that's used for when there was three men that came to Abraham, two angels and Yahweh in human form, Jesus. This is Jesus judging Sodom and Gomorrah. I wonder if that changes your view of Jesus.A lot of people think of Jesus like Mr. Rogers, really nice. He's here to help you in life. He'll give you a good word of advice. He'll bless you when you ask for it, he will heal you when you ask for it, but he never tells you no, and he certainly won't judge. Oh, that's starkly different from the Jesus of scripture who does judge and will judge. He does judge here with the sword and he will judge with a flaming sword when he comes back. In the middle, while we're alive, we still have hope. Hope to turn from sin and to turn to him.That's what was going on with the angel saying, don't look back, don't look back. You need to turn from that city, turn from everything you love that was sinful in that city and that's what repentance is. When we talk about repentance, it's not just saying, Jesus, I'm sorry. Repentance is actually leaving your sin. Stop sinning. I trust in Jesus. I repent of sin. I leave the sin. Lot did that. His wife didn't. In verse 26, "But Lot's wife behind him look back and she became a pillar of salt." We don't know much this woman. We know that Lot married her. We're not sure the timeline when.Scripture says when he left Ur of the Chaldeans, it's clear that Abraham had a wife, Sarah. Lot's wife isn't mentioned, most likely, it's because he wasn't yet married. She's not named here just like her daughters aren't named, because she most likely doesn't deserve to be named, to be remembered. Most likely she's not a believer and she was just a woman of Sodom. Most likely he married her only because she was good looking. He didn't care about her character. He didn't care if she was a believer, he didn't care if she submitted her life, God, and she looks back.They weren't supposed to simply flee for their lives, they were supposed to leave the city behind, drop their pasts with any desire to touch it. Again, and she's looking back, not just out of curiosity, but out of longing, and she gets judged, not for looking, but for longing, for wistfully wishing for what must be left behind. She loved the city. She loved the people of the city. Most likely her relatives, most likely her dad and her granddad and her uncles and her brothers were in this insatiable crowd of rapists.But it was just fun. It's okay. It was our lifestyle. That's fine. She longed to be back there. She felt more comfortable in that town without God than with God outside the town. Her identification with Sodom, her unwillingness to leave the place explains the behavior of her daughters in the next episode. Young men, single men, Proverbs 31:30 is for you, "Charm is deceitful, beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." When trying to decide whom to marry, the number one priority isn't physical beauty. The number one priority is she love God, that she fear God, will she submit to God in his word?Husbands, this is our job, is to ourselves, grow in the fear of the Lord and teach our wives. Lead our wives in fearing God and loving him. Single ladies, that's what you need to be focusing on, cultivating fear of the Lord. That's to be praised. I remember when I was figuring out whom to marry back in the day, coming up on year 15 of our university in this next week. I just knew. I knew this is just basic wisdom. I knew that daughters are influenced by mothers. I wanted to marry a woman, and if God gave us daughters, I wanted my daughters to be like her.By God's grace, we have four daughters. Praise God. They love God, most of them, three of them, definitely. The fourth, I'm not sure she's a little degenerate. She takes more after me than after her mom, but we're working on her. We're working on her. But that's how you need to be thinking about marriage in terms of generations and faith and legacy, etc. Genesis 19:27-28, "And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord and he looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the valley. He looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace."Chapter proceeding this one, Abraham beg God, prayed to God, interceding on behalf of Sodom, please, God, save it. And God chose not to. God chose to save Lot and his two daughters. He didn't the city, poured out judgment upon the city. And we, as children of God, need to be like Abraham. And when we see judgment poured out on people who deserve it, we have to say, God is good, and because God is good, he is just. A lot of people push back and say, I can't believe in a God that would punish and a God who meets out justice like this. Really? Really?God doesn't punish evil, then God is not good, and if he's not good, he's not worthy of being worshiped. The reason hell exists and the reason judging exists is because God is good and because God is loving. Here, we need to take a little excursus. I'm done with my five signs, by the way. So, if you're like, oh, are we still on sign number five? I'm done with those. Little excursus here. Question, why did God punish Sodom and Gomorrah? Why did he do it? Why did he do it? Well, the three major prophets, they comment on Sodom and Gomorrah. Ezekiel 16:49-50, "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor in needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me, so I removed them when I saw it."A lot of liberal theologians will look at this text and they look at Sodom and Gomorrah and say, Sodom and Gomorrah got punished because of their inhospitality. I push back, like in hospitality, they want to rape the angels. They want to rape the guests. That's isn't hospitality, so that's just wrong. Then they go to this text and they're like, hey, it's because they weren't generous to the poor. That's the main reason. No, that's a secondary reason. They were generous to the poor because they lived for themselves. They lived for themselves, why? Because they were selfish? Why were they selfish? Because they were full of pride.And those are the bookends in this text. Yeah, they had food. They were prosperous, etc. They didn't care for the poor, But it was because of pride. A pride that says, I am my own. I get to do whatever I want with my life. I am God of my own life. There is no God over me. That's the pride. The pride that says, if I accumulate enough power, enough money, I can do whatever I want against those who are weaker or not as rich. It's a pride that's proud of itself. It's a pride that has hashtags and parades and flags by sin.The hypersexuality sexual sin, it's an outworking of the pride, the pride that says, I am God. I don't need anyone to tell me what to do and how to live. Isaiah 3:8-9 says, "For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence, for the look on their faces bears witness against them." They proclaim their sin, like Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to them for they have brought evil on themselves. Proud of the sin. That's the issue.When society, openly practices sinful sexual behavior and actually promotes it and actually says, this is good, promotes any kind of sexuality that you can think of. That shows a society that's away from God. Scripture teaches clearly that the only sexual activity that God allows is between one man and one woman in heterosexual marriage making a covenant for life. Fornication is a sin, adultery is a sin, pedophilia is a sin, homosexuality is a sin. And when a society openly practices and accepts specifically homosexuality, it's a sign that God has given that society over to degrading passions, and it's the final stages of corruption with judgment looming.Look at Romans 1:26 and 27. "For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature. And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves due penalty of their error." Christian, does this text, does this teaching make you feel uncomfortable? If so, perhaps you've grown too comfortable with the sin around you, and perhaps you are conformed to it.If you're not a Christian, let's just reason together real quick. Is it okay to gang rape angels? I think we can all agree, it's not okay. Is it okay to gang rape humans? I think we can all agree, it's not okay. Is it okay to gang rape an individual? No. Is it okay to rape an individual? No, it's not okay. Is it okay to allow your daughter's be gang raped by a hoard of men. Is that okay? No, no, no, no. Why? Because we are not animals. We're not animals. We're created in the image of God, and that God, the creator of the universe tells us what is okay and what isn't okay.For the same reason, you can't just say, oh, what matters is consent? As long as there's consent, then that's okay. No, there's no consent from God. And if there isn't a consent from God, then it is sin. We as Christians, we need to know that God of the universe has authority over our life.. the other thing I will mention about this text is, it shows us like the end, the most egregious end of the spectrum of sexual sin. But Where does it start? Where does it start? It starts in the heart. And Jesus said, whoever looks upon another human being with lustful intent in their heart has already committed sexual sin.Yeah, this has to do with every single one of us. Dear Christian, do you entertain sinful sexual thoughts in your heart? Do you look at porn? Sex ed in public schools, they teach you, this is healthy. Enjoy yourself. No, it's wrong, and it's sinful, and it grows, and it continues to grow. A ship in the water is perfectly right. Water in the ship is not. What this is saying is a Christian is in the world, but we can not be of the world. We can't let the world in. We can't let Sodom in. Jeremiah 23 also comments on this text, "But in the prophets of Jerusalem, I've seen a horrible thing." He's talking to prophets. He's talking to the teachers of the people of God."I've seen a horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evil doors so that no one turns from his evil. All of them have become like Sodom to me and its inhabitants like Gomorrah. He's talking to believers who have pastors, who themselves, and not just entertain, they commit sexual sin and they strengthen the hands of those who do it. This is most of the churches in our city, in our very Sodom esque city, where priests and pastors get up, and instead of a cross, they got a rainbow flag outside, and they said, love is love however you define it, as long as it's consensual for now, and as long as with an adult for now. We'll see where that goes.God calls it out. And then he calls it out because these people haven't submitted their lives to the authority of God's word. Genesis 19:29. "So, it was, when God destroyed the cities and the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived." A lot of people say, if God is like this, if God is a judge like this, I can't believe in a God like that. And what a warped logic that is. No, you should be saying, if God is like this, God is judge and I deserve his judgment. I need to run to him. I need to believe in him. I need to ask for mercy and for forgiveness to be saved.We're given the impression here that Lot was saved only thanks to Abraham's intercession. What's most fascinating about this account is that Lot is a Christian, and how absolutely unimpressive of a Christian he is. He's the worst I can ... I think I can say this. He's the worst Christian who's ever lived. The absolute worst. He's the guy, like he is the guy in heaven who's as close to hell as possible. He's that guy. He's there and he's like, I have no idea why I'm here. He's probably doesn't even want to be there, and he's only there because God chose to save him because of Abraham's pleading.Yes, he was a man of faith, kind of, yes, he saw how wicked the City of Sodom was. His soul was vexed, but not vexed enough to leave. He sought to protect his guests from the evil, but he wanted to do it in a very evil way, a more evil way. And we see that Lot, the problem with law is just how half-hearted he was. Knew the truth, but never lived it out. Tried to straddle the fence between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the evil one, and that's the most uncomfortable seat in the house. We see no determination. Abraham was a patriarch. He took responsibility for himself.When he sinned, he repented. Yes, he committed sin. He had a child out of wedlock. He committed a sin, but he took responsibility for this, and he repented, he turned to God. He took responsibility for his wife, for teaching his children how to follow God. He was a patriarch. And that's what a patriarch does, sacrifices himself for the benefit of his beloved. Beloved wife, beloved children, beloved city, beloved church. That's what a patriarch does. Lot is not a patriarch. Lot is a soytriarch. He does not have the spine, the backbone to say, "God, this is your word. Whatever the sacrifice is, I'm going to follow it." Doesn't take responsibility for himself, for his wife, for his daughters. If Abraham is the father of the faithful, Lot is the father of all who are barely saved. Scarcely saved.So, friend, are you saved, first of all, do you trust in Jesus Christ? Did you repent of sin? And are you surely saved or scarcely saved? Lot was saved by the skin of his teeth hesitating as he's being dragged out of Sodom by force as death reigns on the city. And what a sad sight. You see Lot dickering with the angels just moments before the death of his neighborhood of his neighbors, in the judgment of his wife. Yeah. He was saved. His wife wasn't. His daughters weren't, his neighbors weren't, his friends weren't. He called these men brothers. They all end up in hell because he had no influence. And he had no influence because he himself didn't really believe, not enough to actually obey.Would things have ended differently if he moved quickly, if he had done precisely as he was told, if he had showed the proper deference to the angels, if he exhibited proper fear of the judgment that is to come, if he had set an example for his wife and his daughters, of strong faith, of prompt obedience? Perhaps his wife wouldn't have looked back. Perhaps his daughters wouldn't have raped him as we read in the text after. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 talks about these different levels. Yeah, everyone's saved by grace through faith, but what do we do with that salvation? There's different levels of the faith.Verse 11 of 1 Corinthians 3, "For no one can lay foundation other than that, which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Building a metaphor, Jesus is the foundation. Now, if anyone builds on the foundation of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, this right here is the materials of a building, and he's saying, Jesus is the foundation, what materials are you using to build the house of your faith? Do you give God the absolute best that you have, the gold silver, precious stones, or the leftovers? That's the wood, hay, and the straw."Each one's work will become manifest for the day, the day of judgment will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone is built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." Question, dear Christian is, what materials are you building with? The best of what you got or the leftovers of what you have, and I wonder if St. Paul had lot in mind with verse 14, "Save, but only as through fire."It's possibly pulled out of the rubbish heap just in the Nick of time, but you'll end up singed, stripped of everything, traumatized by the severe discipline of the law of the Lord. It's tragic, and what's more tragic is that he lost his family. The same idea's in Amos, Amos 4:11. I overthrew some of you as, when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you are, as a brand plucked out of the burning yet you did not return to me declares the Lord. Brand plucked out, it's a stick that's so near to the fire. It's charred, but not reduced to ashes just yet because you got pulled out. Lot lived a comfortable life for a long time.Green grass, fat cattle, position of influence. Even when Kings came from the north and took him captive and uncle Abraham saved him, and he goes back to Saddam. After a while, he becomes like the men of Sodom. Lot is the father of all the people whose righteous souls are vexed, but they do nothing about the vexation, and lots of luscious green pastures are laid to waste. And the entire valley five cities turned into one of the most arid lifeless deserts in all of the earth. That's where a life of compromise ends, but that's not really the ending, the ending is even more hopeless.Genesis 19:30, "Now, Lot went out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar, so he lived in a cave with his two daughters. He asked the angels, can I go to Zoar, goes to Zoar, and now he's afraid to live here. They don't know why. Most likely it's because people of Zoar knew that because of lot and the God of LOt destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. We don't know why he leaves, he goes to live in a cave. The question is, why didn't he go back to his uncle? Why didn't go back to uncle Abraham?The only answer that comes to mind is pride. He didn't want to go back to his uncle with nothing. Uncle, I need your help again. So, he goes and he lives in a cave with his daughters. Then we see one of the most sorted tales of deceit and incest in the scriptures. Verse 31, "And the firstborn said to the younger, "Our father's old and there's not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth. Come let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father.""So, they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she laid down or when she arose. The next day, the firstborn said to the younger "Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also, then you go in and lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father." So, they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him," and he did not know when she laid down or when she arose, thus, both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father." The first born bore a son and called his name, Moab. He's the father of Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called him Ben-ammi, he's the father of Ammonites to this day."The daughters aren't named most likely, because this is an act of censure on the narrative's part. They don't deserve to be remembered. You can take a family out of Sodom, but we see here that you can't take Sodom out of a family, out of Lot, out of his daughters. They had absorbed the ethics of Sodom. He did not shield his daughters from a godless worldview, where they were sexualized at a young age. He didn't shield them from that, and then with their perversed mind, they concoct this plan, to his credit, he would not have said yes to this plan unless he was intoxicated. That's why they got him drunk.To his discredit, bro, why are you getting blackout drunk with your daughters? Why are you getting blackout drunk to begin with? I remember in high school, everybody knew, probably every public high school they have this family, where it's like, the family is like, my kids are going to party, they should do under my supervision. I'm going to open up my house and buy the keg. I had people in my high school like that. My parents would never do that. I had a curfew at 9:30. Praise God. Apparently this was a thing. Apparently this was normal, they're like, let's do it tonight. They do it. Then the next night they're like, let's do it again. And he's like, okay. Apparently, this was part of the whole culture of that city.The substance abuse, where you get so intoxicated that you lose complete control of yourself, get blackout drunk and do the things that your flesh completely wants to do. There's a connection between this. There's a connection between intoxication and debauchery, sexual debauchery. There's a connection, where people drink so much, they want to do these simple things, but they know their conscience is not allowing them to do it so they drink enough to mute the conscience, and that's what's going on here. Totally passive in this affair, just like usual, pathetic, pathetic waste of life. Man, the guy who had offered his daughters to a gang of rapists now, unbeknownst to him impregnates them himself. He was not good to his daughters.You think they forgot that moment where he offered them up. They did not. He was not good to his daughters because he didn't want the best for his daughters. Fathers, you got to be good to your daughters. By being good to your daughters means wanting the best for them, which is to love the Lord, walk in the ways of the Lord, to care for them to care about the chastity of their sexuality, to care about their virginity. That's that's our job, gentlemen. And daughters, be grateful when your dad tells you put on more clothes. Be grateful when your dad buys you pepper spray, and be grateful when your dad teaches you to shoot and fight, a little jujitsu, a little boxing, be grateful. Say thank you, dad. Thank you. The other thing that you just got to see from this text is that sin grows. It does.It's restless. It's ever reaching for more. It's never satisfied with mere in your life. It wants to damage the lives of everyone around you. We see a Lot, he chose to go down to the valley. He kept going down and down and down and down until we see him at last with two pregnant daughters living in a cave and his wife as a widower, having watched his wife die of divine judgment, finds himself in poverty with two sons, whom he had sired by his own daughters and his sons don't know whether to call him grandpa or daddy. Pathetic, pathetic ending to the story. It starts out with a flock so large, needed more real estate, ends up as a Lord of a hole in the rock on a dirt floor, destitute, disgraced, pathetic shadow of a man he had once been.Scripture says, God will not be mocked, whatever you sow, that you shall reap. Are you sowing to the flesh or are you sowing to the spirit? Satan's too clever to show you everything that happens when you sin. A thought is sowed, a deed is reaped, and you sow further deeds and you reap habits, and you sow habits and you reap a character, reap a pattern of life and attitude. Augustan said that sin becomes the punishment of sin. When you want sin, when you pursue sin, God gives you up to that sin and you reap even more sin. The warning of the text is be afraid of sin. The greatest thing to fear in sinning, isn't just what happens immediately after you sin. The greatest fear is that you get put on a trajectory that pulls you away from God.So, we ought to run from sin and we ought to mortify sin. We are to make war against a sin. From Abraham, who walked with God and obedience, would come most of what is lastingly good and lovely in this world. From lot would come to pagan deprave nations who would appear and then a few centuries later disappear. Some of the wives of Solomon lead him astray. They were Ammonite women. Their religion was so debauched that Deuteronomy 23:3 says, "No Ammonite or mole by may enter the assembly of the Lord even to the 10th generation." None of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever. So, where's Jesus in this text, in this hopeless texts, the story of a hopeless man, an antihero, where is Jesus Christ?Well, it's fascinating that one of his daughters, the nation led to the Moabites, can't even enter the house of God, the house of worship. The Moabites, that's how wicked they were. God said, you can't even go to church. Until we hear a story of another Moabite, a Moabitess, in the book of Ruth, Ruth was a Moabite, and Ruth meets Yahweh, meets Jesus Christ. When Ruth's husband dies, she goes with her mother-in-law back to Jerusalem. She serves here, she cares for her, and she meets Boaz, a godly man, and they get married, and God blesses their wedding, and they have children. God blesses their child so much so that Ruth becomes the great, great, great grandmother of Jesus Christ, that God takes this bloodline, this wicked ancestor's bloodline that comes from a wicked pathetic man, barely saved, and God brings Jesus Christ out of that.Then Jesus Christ lives the perfect life, goes to the cross and bears the fire and brimstone, the wrath of God, the judgment of God on the cross in order to be able to offer us forgiveness. He bought himself the justice of God so that when we repent of sin, we can be forgiven, even a pathetic sinful man like Lot, he could be forgiven because of the justification by grace through faith because of the work of Christ in the cross. So, if there's hope for that guy, there's hope for every single one of us.Turn from sin and turn to Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, and then by grace through faith, by the power of the Spirit, let us follow Jesus so we don't end up like this man. And close of this, Luke 17:28-33, the words of Jesus Christ, "Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom and fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all, so will it be on the day when the son of man is revealed.""On that day, let the one who is on the house top with his goods in the house not come down to take them away, and likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife, whoever seeks to preserve his life, will lose it. And whoever loses his life, will keep it." Let us pray. Lord, Jesus, we thank you for your grace and we thank you for this text, the sordid story of sin to teach us to never grow comfortable with sin. We thank you, Jesus, that because of your sacrifice in the cross, whatever we've done, no matter how perverse, no matter how wicked, you're willing to forgive and extend mercy if we just turn from sin and turn to you.By the part of the spirit, make us a people go who can to war against our sin on a daily basis against our pride. We humble ourselves before you, and we ask for grace, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Are you regularly sharing the Gospel? Are you teaching the world to observe all that Jesus has commanded to us? Dear Christian, make it your aim to preach the GOSPEL!