Podcasts about has christ

Send us a textGood morning! Thank you for taking a few minutes to listen. If you are interested in the Daily Bible Devotional, you can find it at the links below:Amazon - (paperback, hardcover, and Kindle)Spiritbuilding.com - (premium quality paperback)Youtube Video Introducing the ContentFeel free to reach out with any questions: emersonk78@me.comMatthew 16As Jesus begins to expand His ministry toward Jerusalem, He lays out some strong and needful teaching for His disciples. Firstly, the Pharisees and scribes are false teachers. They always seek signs because their hearts are not open to the truth. Their teachings are unkind, unlawfully binding, and must be avoided. Jesus then turns attention to “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” His point is that He is the only way, truth, and life. His church is built upon the confession of Jesus as Christ, the Son of God. He follows by explaining that the road to glory would require His suffering, death, and resurrection. The disciples struggle with this, but eternal life requires His sacrifice as well as sacrifices by all who follow Him.  There comes a time when things need to be plainly spoken. Christ was patient with the Pharisees, but it was time to warn the disciples away from their form of teaching. His church would welcome all but would only be enjoyed by those who confess Him as Christ and the Son of God. The path of faith would lead to heaven but would require extreme and total submission to God's will, perhaps even suffering or death. In the judgment, people will be willing to do anything to get to heaven, but the saved will have made that commitment during their lives here on earth. Jesus has extensively spoken to us about discipleship. Are we willing to submit and follow Him? Great Creator and all-powerful God, teach us a form of belief that is willing to make hard choices. There are teachings around us that are false. Help us to reject them. There is a single truth that dominates the Christian: Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Give us the boldness to stand upon it in every part of our lives. Jesus gave everything to become our Savior. Guide us to be thankful and to put forth our lives as sacrificial offerings to You in gratitude and allegiance. Forgive our failures and strengthen us to be ready when Your Son returns.  Thought Questions:  -       The Pharisees demanded signs, even after Jesus had shown them so much. Has Christ done enough for you to be faithful to Him? -       If the church is built upon the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, what should that statement look like and mean in your life? -       “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (16:26)

Has Christ done away with the Sabbath, or does it remain?

“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” (2 Peter 3:4) Has Christ forgotten His pr... More...

“And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” (2 Peter 3:4) Has Christ forgotten His pr... More...

Gethsemane is the greatest display of the perfect humanity of Jesus in the Bible, it also offers opportunities to ponder the excellencies and perfection of his character. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - One sacred day, God spoke to Moses from the flames of the burning bush. "Take off your shoes, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground." What does this mean? Since God is everywhere, all at once, holy ground means that God was about to be uniquely revealed, revealed in an extraordinary way, and Moses's knowledge of God was going to be greatly increased by this encounter. "Draw near to listen. Draw near to fall on the ground in fear and wonder in worship and adoration." If that's true at the burning bush, then how much more true is it when we come to Gethsemane? Gethsemane is the greatest display of the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ in the Bible. It contains almost incomprehensible mysteries, but also tremendous opportunities to ponder the excellencies of Christ, His glories, the perfection of His character, His courage, His obedience, His trust in His father, His willingness to suffer for us, His love for us, His reversal of the disobedience of Adam, also His frailty and His weakness, His mortality, His emotions. All of this is on display. We will spend eternity in heaven, I believe, pondering these themes and others that flow through this account. This morning, we're going to spend just a little while on them. My desire, my goals with this sermon is first and foremost to exalt Jesus Christ our Savior, based on the words of this account, that we may worship Him with all of our hearts for what He did for us at the cross. Secondly, that we would understand more accurately the humanity of Jesus, His emotions, His submission, His mortality and frailty, His temptations, and yet His sinlessness. Thirdly, that we would understand the power of prayer in facing temptations, in strengthening us to do the will of our Father. Fourthly, to motivate us to trust in Christ's finished work on the cross, more than ever before. Fifthly, to help us understand the proper use of our own will, that we would learn to imitate Jesus Christ every day in saying, "Not my will, but yours be done," no matter what the cost. And sixth, to feel intensely personally, if you are a Christian, to feel intensely personally Christ's love for you. For you. In Galatians 2:20, Paul gives us permission to do this, to say, "Christ loved me and died for me. He gave Himself for me." It is right for us as Christians to say both Christ loved me and gave Himself for me, and Christ loved us and gave Himself for us, that multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe, language, people, and nation.[Revelation 7]. But in Galatians 2:20, “Jesus loved me and He drank my cup for me.” Here we're going to walk through all of these themes, and I don't know what the Holy Spirit's going to do in your heart as we walk through, probably a little different than He'll do in mine. But if those things will be achieved in you, then I will have preached for the glory of God in Christ. Let's walk first through the facts of Gethsemane. I. The Facts of Gethsemane All His life, Jesus lived under the shadow of the cross. B.B. Warfield, the great Presbyterian theologian, said the prospect of His suffering was a perpetual Gethsemane to Him. He said, in Luke 12:50, "I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed” or straitened, like in a straitjacket, "I am until it is completed." There is clear evidence in the Gospel. This is very important for us to understand. Jesus knew exactly what was going to happen to Him. In Mark 9:31, Jesus said, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill Him, and after three days, He will rise." There's no doubt about this at all. He said it again and again. As Jesus comes to Gethsemane on that faithful night, the time had come for Him to face the cross straight on, and make a final decision about what He was going to do. The Lord's supper is over. They have finished the Passover meal. They have sung a hymn. They've crossed the Kidron Valley into the garden of Gethsemane. Verse 32, "They went to a place called Gethsemane." What is Gethsemane? It was a private garden on the Mount of Olives, probably walled off, owned by some rich friend of Jesus, who allowed Jesus and His disciples to frequent the place. It was outside of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley from the city, away from the maddening crowd of millions of pilgrims that had come from all over the settled world for the Passover feast. The word Gethsemane itself means “oil press”, probably included a physical press for making olive oil from the harvest of olives on the mount, and the crushing of those olives produced a reddish, viscous, precious fluid, olive oil, to flow into containers for sale or for use. But this also could stand somewhat of a spiritual metaphor for the crushing pressure, spiritual pressure, that Jesus would experience there, so intense that by the end of the time there, His blood was flowing like sweat, like great drops of blood dropping from His face. Why did Jesus go to Gethsemane? It was a place, a regular place of retirement and prayer, a refuge for Him and His disciples. It was commonly used by Jesus and His disciples. Therefore Judas, who had left by then to betray Him that very night, would know exactly where Jesus was going that night. It was His habit to go there. He made it His habit, because in part He wanted to make it easy for Judas to find Him that night and betray Him. This is evidence, clear evidence of His willingness to lay down His life for us. He was never a victim trapped by external circumstances He didn't foresee or couldn't control. It's not the case. John 10:18, Jesus said, “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down freely of my own accord." It's vital to understand that. Jesus comes to Gethsemane for all those reasons, and He gives a command to His disciples, and He separates away from them. Look at verse 32-33, "Jesus said to His disciples, 'Sit here while I pray.' Then He took Peter, James, and John along with Him.” Luke tells us that Jesus separated from His disciples by a distance of a stone's throw, maybe 100, 150 feet, but He also took His closest disciples with Him. They were His best friends in the world, His closest friends, and He wanted to be with them at that point, Peter, James, and John. These are the same three, of course, that had viewed Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. It's amazing that these three saw Him at His most glorious, His most radiantly glorious in the days of His incarnation on Earth, and also would see Him at His most humbled and abased here in the garden of Gethsemane, eyewitnesses of both. He went there, Jesus did, He separated Himself so that He could pray. Jesus' understanding of prayer is infinitely greater than ours, clearly greater than Peter, James, and John's that night. Jesus knew it was only by prayer that He would be able to get through the cross, so He went there to pray. We see the awesome and the overpowering emotional distress that comes upon Jesus. First of all, it's stated in the accounts. Verse 33, “He began to be deeply distressed and troubled.” In Matthew 26:37, “He began to be sorrowful and troubled.” It's not only stated in the accounts, but Jesus says it about Himself. Look at verse 34, "'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,' He said to them." "Jesus knew it was only by prayer that He would be able to get through the cross, so He went there to pray." These overpowering emotions, there are two words, we're going to save one of the words for later, but He says He's “sorrowful”. The root word has to do with grief, sadness of an overwhelming nature, usually associated with death. Then “troubles”. It refers to a distracted or anxious state of mind or soul, like someone consumed with anxiety about an impending event. His statement says, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow," as though He's surrounded by it. He's walled in by grief. There's no escape from it except by His own death, right there in the garden. "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, even to the point of death," He says. I don't think this was just a phrase or a metaphor. I think it was literally true. I think He was literally close to dying in the garden of Gethsemane. So the Father has to dispatch an angel to strengthen Him. Luke 22:43, "An angel from Heaven appeared to Him and strengthened Him." What an amazing moment that was. Aa amazing picture of His frailty, the frailty of the Son of God in His humanity. This angel that was dispatched from Heaven, was created by Jesus, and yet at that moment, Jesus is so much weaker than the angel. It says in Luke's account, Luke 22:44, "And being in anguish, He prayed more earnestly, and His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground." This is literally true. We look at that, it's not just an analogy, but it's drops of blood. I would think then that what happened was His blood pressure spiked there in the garden of Gethsemane, the internal pressure so great that it seemed like the capillaries just under the skin burst, they couldn't handle the pressure, and the blood came out of the pores. I mean, not a little, a lot, and it's flowing down His face and dripping to the ground there in the garden of Gethsemane, great drops of blood. It seems quite likely that, had Jesus not been physically strengthened at that moment, He might've died right there in the garden. Then Jesus prays. Look at verse 35-36, "Going a little farther, He fell to the ground, and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from Him. "Abba Father,” He said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will." His physical position, He's on His face, He's prostrate, totally weak, helpless, submissive to God, as low as He can be. As Joseph Hart put in a 1759 hymn, "Come you sinners, poor and needy. View Him groveling in the garden, low your maker prostrate lies." And then the request is, “If it's possible, Abba Father," He said, "Everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me." For any parent of a child, this prayer must be the most heartrending you can possibly imagine. “Abba" means “daddy”. He's reduced to speaking like a little child. I can scarcely imagine what this must have done to His heavenly Father, who's the most perfect, compassionate being there could ever be, whose heart goes out to those that suffer, but especially His Son, whom He loved with a perfect love, with a love so complete that we can't even imagine how great that love would be. How much would Jesus's prayer rip the heart of a loving heavenly Father? "Daddy, you can do anything. If it's possible, take this cup from me." What loving father wouldn't do everything he could to alleviate the suffering, this kind of suffering from a child? But Jesus is also probing the limits of the sovereignty of God within the scope of His plan, “If it's possible.” Later, that same evening in Matthew's account, when Peter draws his sword to rescue Him from the cross, He tells him to put his sword away, and says, "How then would the Scripture be fulfilled that says it must happen in this way?" No, it isn't possible. Once it is written, once it is written, and God has made His commitment and signed it in the blood of millions of sacrificial animals, over centuries of history, and specific careful promises laid out in the prophets, there was no other way. What is this cup? How do we understand the cup? In Scripture, the cup in prophetic language frequently represents the judgments of God, the righteous judgments of God on a sinner or on sinful people or sinful nations. It's a regular pattern, the word “cup”. The most potent example of this word cup is in Revelation 14, "God's wrath and judgment poured out on the damned." Revelation 14:10-11, "He too will drink the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of His wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night." That's the cup. That's your cup and my cup set before Jesus there in Gethsemane. It's Hell. It's the wrath of God poured out on sinners. Jesus is staring into the cup of the wrath of God, and understandably in His humanity, shrinking back in horror. The wrath of God is terrifying, God is a consuming fire. The wrath of God is His omnipotence focused like a white-hot laser beam on the destruction of His enemies. Jesus is shrinking back from that, from drinking the cup of God's wrath in our place. We could also imagine He's shrinking back from being our sin bearer. We don't understand the purity of the person of Christ. We're just so used to sin. 2 Corinthians 5:21 said, "God made Him, Jesus, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." It's like having tons of raw sewage poured on a perfectly pure being, spiritual sewage. In the atonement, then Jesus, the only perfectly holy man that has ever lived, would become sin for us. He would bear the defiling sins of all of His people from every generation of history, all the filth and corruption, all the lust and murder, all the covetousness and greed, all of that poured onto Jesus as our substitute. Then we see the submission of Jesus. Verse 36, "Yet not what I will, but what you will." This is the centerpiece of this magnificent moment. This is the center of it. "Not what I will, but what you will." This is the greatest act of submission and courage in the history of the human race. More on this in a moment. Then we have the admonishment of the sleeping disciples, verse 37-38, "He returned to His disciples and found them sleeping. 'Simon,' He said to Peter, 'are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch and pray, so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.'" Matthew tells us Jesus said this to all three of them, but Mark focuses specifically on Peter. By contrast with Jesus, we have the weakness and the unbelief, really, of the disciples exposed here. Jesus specifically warns them of falling into temptation, not merely being tempted, but being ensnared and overcome by it. That's what it means to fall into temptation. He tells them that the remedy is to watch and pray. He also marvels at their weakness that they're not able to watch and pray with Him for even one hour. Peter in particular should have been getting ready for the most intense spiritual struggle of his life, but instead he's giving in to the weakness of the flesh. That famous expression, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” That was Peter. Amazing also, isn't it, the shepherd heart of Jesus, to break off His intense prayer to His father, which He knew better than any of us, how much He needed, breaks that off to go back and check on His disciples, make sure they're praying, make sure they're getting ready for what they're about to face, to reason with them, to pray, and watch and pray. Then in verse 39, we have Jesus' second prayer, "Once more, He went away and prayed the same thing." Matthew gives a little more detail. "My father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done." It's an evolution of the conversation that He's having with His father on this issue of the cup. Then He goes back, and we have the disciples' second failure, verse 40, "When He came back, He again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to Him." Luke tells us in Luke 22:45, "When He rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, He found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow." Then we have Jesus' final prayer. It's assumed in Mark and openly stated in Matthew 26:44, "So He left them and went away once more, and prayed the third time, saying the same thing." Finally the end of the account, verses 41-43, "Returning the third time, He said to them, 'Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough. The hour has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us go. Here comes my betrayer.' Just as He was speaking, Judas, one of the twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priest, the teacher of the law, and the elders." Jesus has effectively faced His final temptation there in the garden and conquered it, and now He rises from His moment of greatest weakness, and goes forth mightily to conquer sin and death with unflinching courage. II. The Mysteries of Gethesemane Those are the facts of Gethsemane. Now let's talk about the mysteries of Gethsemane. A. W. Tozer said, "If you've never faced mystery in your study of God, I doubt whether you've ever heard a single word from God at all." We will not plumb the depths of Gethsemane here. The issue has to do with Jesus' incarnation, the theological mystery of the incarnation. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is perhaps the most profound mystery in the Bible. How can Jesus be both fully God and fully man? Many over the centuries have questioned this, and sought to deny one or the other. Dualistic philosophies and theologies like the Gnostics early on, and the Docetists, deny the humanity of Christ, saying He only seemed to be human. Gethsemane is a powerful antidote to this heresy. Jesus' humanity is on full display here, especially in His weakness, His frailty, His wavering, His fear, shrinking back, and to some mysterious degree, His limited knowledge. The fact that Jesus in His incarnation can learn things. We’ll get to more of that in a moment. Jesus's emotional life is real and full and perfect. He fully displays the reality of His title, Man of Sorrows. How then can Christ be both omnipotent deity and this weak humanity? How do we understand and explain His stunning fear of death? Lots of people face death more courageously, overtly courageously than this. It's not that rare a story. Soldiers that are willing just to die, so that others may live. That actually is not all that rare. Socrates famously took the cup of hemlock, knowing it was his own death in that cup, unflinchingly drank it to the bottom and died. But Jesus seems different, just a quantum level difference. Martin Luther said, "No man ever feared death like this man." How can we understand this? How can the infinite creator of all things visible and invisible need help from an angel? How can He need strengthening? How can He shrink back like this from death? So, clearly the answers to all these questions is a mystery, but it shows clearly the humanity of Christ. We get to verse 33, and here I want to show you something that, unless you have the KJV, you won't see. The King James Version is the only version that translates the Greek word in the simplest way, the most direct way. "Now, when Christ entered Gethsemane, He knew exactly what was going to happen to Him factually." Factually. He knew He would most certainly die on the cross as a ransom for sinners. But apparently, it seems, there was a dimension of knowing that was withheld from Him by His father until this moment. Why do I say that? There's a shocking word in the KJV translation of verse 33, which accurately translates. It's not a mistranslation, it’s a good translation. "And He taketh with Him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy." Sore amazed. The word “amazed” stops us in our tracks. The word “sore” just means extremely, like overwhelmed with amazement. So in some mysterious way, Jesus was amazed at Gethsemane. The same word is used of a crowd reaction to Jesus's ministry, or to the apostles healing of the lame beggar in Acts 3. It is frequently translated in those places, “astonished.” It implies some sense of wonder or surprise. Something is hitting Jesus here that He didn't see coming, and hence He is sore amazed. How does that apply to Jesus at Gethsemane? I believe that when Jesus began to pray, the Father revealed to Him in an immeasurably more vivid way, to His soul, to His mind and His soul, what it would actually be like to drink the cup of His wrath on the cross as our substitute. Drinking the cup of God's wrath poured full strength on Him. The revelation occurred within Jesus's mind and soul, and knocked Him to the ground. This kind of showing or display language was essential to Jesus' role and His daily ministry, actually. In John 5:20, Jesus said, "The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. Yes, to your amazement, He will show Him even greater things than these." More in general in the Scripture, this is a regular pattern, that the prophets were shown spiritual visions and realities in the spiritual realm. They had visions and dimensions like Ezekiel, of wheels within wheels and all that. This is prophetic vision. This is common, actually. But Jesus says He openly got His marching orders from the Father daily. He doesn't say any word except what the Father has told Him to say. He doesn't do anything except what the Father is doing. The Father shows the Son what He's doing. What did He show Him in Gethsemane? He showed Him the cup. "Father, what are we doing next?" "Well, today I'm going to kill you. Kill you for the sins of the world. That's what we're doing next, and this is what it'll be like." It's akin to the difference between seeing an old black and white photo of the Grand Canyon and seeing like an IMAX movie or a virtual reality helicopter tour through the ravine itself. It's just a whole different level of impression made to the mind. As Christ began to pray, God turned up the intensity in Christ's mind of what it would actually be like to drink the cup of His wrath, to absorb the lightning of His indignation, to go through Hell in our place as our substitute, and it knocked Him to the ground, it increased His blood pressure so it spiked, He starts bleeding out of His pores. Why did He do it? Why did the Father do this? I think He did it, I believe, to give Christ the ability to make a more informed choice of whether He would do it or not, whether He would go through with their plan. He refrained from doing it earlier, because look what happened to Him. I mean, the human body can only stand so much strain. It would've been too great for Him to bear. I think, in effect, some infinitely mysterious conversation went on between the Father and the Son. The Father shows the Son the cup, and then the Father says, "Son, this is what the cup of my wrath will be like for you to drink." Jesus answered, "Father, is it possible for me to save my people without drinking that terrifying cup?" The Father. "Son, no. There is no other way. Will you do it anyway?" And now comes what I've called the most heroic moment in human history. "If it is not possible to save my people any other way than drinking that cup, may your will be done." If you ever don't feel loved by God, think about that moment. Think about that. That's your cup He drank, mine too. At that moment, Christ put His own will completely under the will of the Father. At that moment, as I said, He overturned the wretched choice made by the first Adam, that he had made in the Garden of Eden. All the wretched choices that the sons and daughters of Adam have made since by their willful sinning, that's yours and mine, all the bad choices we have made, He overturned all of that. Here, Christ showed the proper use of human will, and that is to do the will of God. So, bow your head and worship all generations of Christians. This is the most perfect act of obedience ever. We also have the mystery of Jesus' prayer. Is His will somehow different than the Father's? Are they at cross-purposes? Some have wondered if the wrestling Jesus displayed in Gethsemane, "If it is possible, take this cup from me," was indicative that His will was somehow against the cross, as though He's battling within Himself, as though He and the Father disagreed about this. In general, we just as Christians have to treat Gethsemane like holy ground, and limit your speculation, and don't go too far. Jesus has said plainly in John 10:30, "I and the Father are one." No doubt about that. He wasn't against the Father's will. He loved the Father's will. Isaiah 53:10 says, "It was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer. And though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering, He will see His offspring and prolong His days. The will of the Lord will prosper in His hand." It's so beautiful. It's like the Father wrote a magnificent concerto, and Jesus the soloist played it to perfection. He made it beautiful. The will of the Lord prospers. No, they're not at cross-purposes, not at all. It just shows that the cost to Jesus, and indeed to the Father, was infinitely high, and the Father was willing to pay it. He did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up to this for us all. III. The Glories of Gethsemane Finally, the glories of Gethsemane. We've said, the free will of Jesus, properly on display. Jesus went to the cross of His own free will. He was not coerced, He was not forced. Therefore, for those that talk often about free will, this is free will. This is what free will looks like. He had no sin nature holding Him back, no corruption. He was free, and He used it perfectly to do the will of God. That's what it's for. That's what free will is for, to do the will of God. Because the Father has a will, too. Our will is patterned after the fact that the Father has a will. Jesus taught us that the best use of human will is to find its joy and its delight and its fruitfulness in the will of God. He taught us that. From this moment in time on, Jesus will only be able to escape the cross by a direct application of His supernatural power, His wonder-working power, to get out of it. Physical forces will come on Him at the end of this account and seize Him, and the only way He'll be able to get out of it is by using His power. And He could do it, but He was not going to do it. This is His last moment of freedom, and He gave it up willingly. Therefore, we need to understand the significance of this choice theologically, Romans 3:26. Some have blasphemously, I don't even want to say these words, but blasphemously called the idea of substitutionary atonement Heavenly child abuse, as the Father's crushing His son in some way. Rather, in Gethsemane we have God the Father revealing to the Son as much as He possibly could do, what it would be like to drink the cup, and asking Jesus to make a choice, and He did. Therefore, it was of His own free will that He did it. "Not my will, but yours be done." This removes any charge of injustice against the Father concerning substitutionary atonement. Romans 3:25, "God put Jesus forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith." Propitiation is the one who removes the wrath of God by drinking the cup. Romans 3:26, "He did it to demonstrate His justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus." It is a perfect display of justice, not injustice. Why? Because in part of this transaction that we've been describing here. The willingness of Jesus to do it removes any charge of injustice. We see also the obedience of Jesus versus the disobedience of Adam. I've mentioned it, but the clear parallel is set up in Romans 5:19, "Just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous." That's staggering. You know what that means? By Jesus's obedience, He makes you righteous, if you're a Christian. What that means is He makes you obedient, positionally obedient. You are seen by God in Christ at the moment of your conversion to be as obedient as Jesus. How about that? That is our imputed righteousness. It's staggering. This is the righteousness given to you as a gift. God sees you as obedient as Jesus was there in Gethsemane, as a gift. What is that act of obedience? It's His willingness to die on the cross. Philippians 2:8, "Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross." Then Hebrews 5:8-9, "Although He was a son, He learned obedience." What a staggering phrase that is. "He learned obedience from what He suffered, and once made perfect or qualified, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him." Wow. Adam used his free will to rebel against God, and we all died in that. The second Adam, Jesus, uses His free will to make a right choice, and we all live and are seen righteous in that. That's our salvation. "Adam used his free will to rebel against God, and we all died in that. The second Adam, Jesus, uses His free will to make a right choice, and we all live and are seen righteous in that. That's our salvation." Finally, we see the perfect love of Jesus, first for God, and then for His people. In Gethsemane, we see Jesus loving God and us sinners more than He loved Himself. It was the revulsion of the thing that caused Him to shrink back, but it was love, first and foremost love for God, and secondly love for us, that caused Him to deny Himself, first vertically, John 14:31, "The world must learn that I love the Father, and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me to do." Think about that. "The world must know and learn that I love my Father, and they'll know that when they see me go to the cross." Secondly, love for us. John 15:13-14, "Greater love has no one than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. You are my friends." We see that courage of Jesus, that love that drives out fear. Many people have willingly laid down their lives to save others. It occasionally happens, very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man, someone might possibly dare to die. So, the Congressional Medal of Honor is given to people that were willing to lay down their lives in the battlefield. It happens. But nothing ever in history has been like this incredible moment of courage. IV. Applications of Gethsemane Come to Christ. Trust in Jesus. There is a cup of wrath, of righteous, just wrath, poured out from God on sinners. Either Jesus will drink that cup in your place, or you'll drink it for all eternity. Those are the choices. There's no other option. You can be in denial that there is such a cup, but there is a cup of God's wrath against sin. Jesus is offering in the gospel to drink yours for you. Trust in Him, repent of sin, turn away from wickedness, and turn to Christ in faith, and let Him save you. If you're already a Christian, worship Christ for what He did for you. Thank Him for what He did for you. I don't know how you're made up. I cry basically at one thing, for the most part. It's always the same. It's Christ's love for me as a sinner. It just melts me. I melt every time, and this melts me. This text probably melts me more than any other text. I almost can't talk about it in everyday life without choking up. I never stop thinking about this, my savior drinking my cup. I want to take and sharpen this and apply it on the matter of Christian contentment. When I was studying Christian contentment, I wrote one statement that people who have read the book that I wrote said is the most convicting in the whole book, and that is this: "Has Christ crucified and resurrected done enough for you to be happy today? Or does He have to be a little more?" Let's take it in the language of Gethsemane. Is it enough for Jesus to drink your cup and that's it, so you don't have to drink it and you'll spend the eternity in Heaven? Or does He have to do some more beyond that? I'm not minimizing the things you would pray for. For the healing of somebody that you love and you want to see them heal. I'm not minimizing that. I'm just asking you to put it in perspective, Him drinking your cup for you is the greatest act of love and gift that could ever be. Keep in mind, Romans 8 said He did not spare His own son. God's not holding anything back because He's stingy. He has given the greatest thing He could ever give, His beloved, His perfect son, shattered on the cross. It should be enough, it should be enough for you to be happy. What about obedience? What about free will? This is how you should use your free will the rest of your lives. What do you say? Just choose to say to God, no matter how difficult it is, "Not my will but yours be done." Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for this infinitely deep text. We'll never be able to finish it, to plumb the depths of it, to understand it. I pray that you would take its lessons and burn them into our hearts. Help us to be overwhelmed with thankfulness, with gratitude. Help us to be overwhelmed with love for Jesus. Help us to want to imitate Him and to use our wills the way He used His. Help us to understand that, oh Lord. And God, I pray that no-one that's here today would leave this place still under the wrath of God, but they would just simply transfer that, the sin and the wrath, onto Jesus by faith, by simple faith, and trust in Him that they would know the full and perfect forgiveness of God. In Jesus' name, Amen.

The prophecy in Genesis said that the offspring of Eve would crush the serpent's head, and the serpent would strike his heel. What does this even mean? What type of child could do this? What type of person could destroy satan, wash away our sin and overcome death? Only one person, the one to whom Mary gave birth and named Jesus. He is the one who will save his people from their sins. Has Christ done this for you? Is the Messiah your Lord?

A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion by Father Joseph Deharbe, S.J. was originally written in German, was very popular in the 19th century, and was translated into English. Bishop Donald Sanborn finds the Deharbe Catechism to be the most complete to convert and instruct people in the Catholic Faith. Join Bishop Donald Sanborn and host Stephen Heiner on this episode of This is Catholicism. Part I On Faith (continued) Chapter II. Chief Truths of Faith (continued) The Fourth Article. 'Suffered Under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.' 1. What does the Fourth Article of the Creed teach us? 2. Did Christ really die? 3. Why did Christ will to be buried? 4. Did Christ suffer as God or as man? 5. Was Christ compelled to suffer death? 6. Why was it the will of Christ to suffer and die? 7. For what sins has Christ given satisfaction? 8. Why could no one but Christ make full reparation for our sins? 9. Why is the satisfaction of Christ of infinite value? 10. Was it necessary for a perfect satisfaction that Christ should suffer such indescribable torments? 11. Why, then, would He suffer so much? 12. From what has Christ redeemed us by His sufferings and death? 13. What more has Christ gained for us through His sufferings and death? 14. Has Christ merited grace and eternal salvation for those only who are really saved? 15. If Christ has merited eternal salvation for all men, why, then, are not all saved? Episode Notes: The text is available in the public domain for free online as a PDF. Used copies and reprint versions can still be found and purchased. “A Complete Catechism of the Catholic Religion” by Father Joseph Deharbe SJ on Archive.org. Original Air Date: April 14, 2016 Show Run Time: 30 minutes Show Guest(s): Bishop Donald Sanborn Show Host(s): Stephen Heiner (guest host) novusordowatch.org/ Episode: https://www.truerestoration.org/season-5-this-is-catholicism-episode-9-the-incarnation-of-the-son-of-god/ This is Catholicism: https://www.truerestoration.org/category/radio/this-is-catholicism/ Subscribe: www.truerestoration.org/member-signup/ This is Catholicism ℗ is a production of the Restoration Radio Network. Copyright 2016. All Rights are Reserved.

The practice of Christian Meditation helps us live with the peace of Christ. Relax to the sounds of the ocean and piano music. Narrated by Jennifer Clark. Has Christ delivered you from a sin you were trapped in? Meditate on John 8:10-11. Find peace and rest during this guided meditation for mind and body with deep breathing, prayer, and scripture. Use these meditations as a Bible study in the morning to center yourself on the truth in God's word. For more Bible meditations, download the Abide app: https://abide.co/awesome Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

In this video, Nerd Pastor Nate takes a deep dive into the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, Ant-Man: Quantumania, and shares his thoughts on the film's highs and lows. He also explores a pivotal moment in the movie where the importance of focus is emphasized, drawing parallels to the need for unity and cohesion in the Church, as seen in 1 Corinthians. With insightful commentary and relevant scripture, Nate encourages viewers to reflect on the question, "Has Christ been divided?" and consider ways to work towards a unified vision of Christ in the church. Whether you're a Marvel fan or a Christian seeking spiritual insight, this video offers thought-provoking perspectives and invites you to join the community of faith and inclusion at Checkpoint Church. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more weekly deep dives! Follow Us Everywhere: https://linktr.ee/CheckpointChurch We stream Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and every other Friday: https://www.twitch.tv/checkpointchurch Writer, Filmographer: Nathan Webb Editor: Niki Turner Secret Link: https://youtu.be/UpPx7E27Bc8 Checkpoint Church is the place where all people from all walks of life are always welcomed with loving arms. We strive to steer clear from the modern temptations of being too ‘churchy' or judgmental. We are the safe space for those who haven't felt welcomed by the church before. Timecodes: 0:00 - Introduction 0:44 - Welcome! 1:15 - Scripture 2:06 - What is Quantumania? 3:45 - The Possibility Paradox 5:08 - Scripture Analysis 7:08 - Has Christ Been Divided? 9:32 - What does this mean for us today? 11:19 - Thanks for Watching! 12:38 - Quick Question 13:11 - Three Things 13:59 - Twitch Clip! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/checkpoint-church/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/checkpoint-church/support

Entrance Hymn #381 Thy Strong Word Did Cleave the Darkness Sequence Hymn #661 They Cast Their Nets in GalileeOffertory Anthem Agnus Dei (Sullivan)Communion Hymn #304 I Come with Joy to Meet My LordPost-Communion Hymn #530 Spread, O Spread Thou Mighty WordTHE COLLECT OF THE DAYGive us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever andever. Amen.FIRST READING Isaiah 9:1-4There will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness-- on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.PSALM Psalm 27:1, 5-13 Dominus illuminatio1 The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom then shall I fear? *the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?5 One thing have I asked of the LORD; one thing I seek; *that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life; 6 To behold the fair beauty of the LORD *and to seek him in his temple.7 For in the day of trouble he shall keep me safe in his shelter; * he shall hide me in the secrecy of his dwellingand set me high upon a rock.8 Even now he lifts up my head *above my enemies round about me.9 Therefore I will offer in his dwelling an oblation with sounds of great gladness; *I will sing and make music to the LORD.10 Hearken to my voice, O LORD, when I call; * have mercy on me and answer me.11 You speak in my heart and say, "Seek my face." * Your face, LORD, will I seek.12 Hide not your face from me, *nor turn away your servant in displeasure.13 You have been my helper; cast me not away; *do not forsake me, O God of my salvation.SECOND READING 1 Corinthians 1:10-18Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.GOSPEL Matthew 4:12-23When Jesus heard that...

1 Corinthians 1 NLT read aloud by Simon MacFarlane. 1 This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Sosthenes. 2 I am writing to God's church in Corinth, to you who have been called by God to be his own holy people. He made you holy by means of Christ Jesus, just as he did for all people everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours. 3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. 4 I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts he has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus. 5 Through him, God has enriched your church in every way—with all of your eloquent words and all of your knowledge. 6 This confirms that what I told you about Christ is true. 7 Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will keep you strong to the end so that you will be free from all blame on the day when our Lord Jesus Christ returns. 9 God will do this, for he is faithful to do what he says, and he has invited you into partnership with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 10 I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. 11 For some members of Chloe's household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters. 12 Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not! 14 I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 for now no one can say they were baptized in my name. 16 (Oh yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas, but I don't remember baptizing anyone else.) 17 For Christ didn't send me to baptize, but to preach the Good News—and not with clever speech, for fear that the cross of Christ would lose its power. 18 The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. 19 As the Scriptures say, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.” 20 So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world's brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. 21 Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. 22 It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. 23 So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it's all nonsense. 24 But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God's weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength. [...]

1 Corinthians 1:10-17 10 Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brothers and sisters, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. 12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am with Paul,” or “I am with Apollos,” or “I am with Cephas,” or “I am with Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I am thankful that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one would say you were baptized in my name! 16 But I did baptize the household of Stephanas also; beyond that, I do not know if I baptized anyone else. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made of no effect.   FREE EBOOK - Get the free eBook, Bible in Life, to help you learn how to read and apply the Bible well: https://www.listenerscommentary.com     GIVE -  The Listener's Commentary is a listener supported Bible teaching ministry made possible by the generosity of people like you. Thank you! Give here:  https://www.listenerscommentary.com/give     STUDY HUB - Want more than the audio? Join the study hub to access articles, maps, charts, pictures, and links to other resources to help you study the Bible for yourself. https://www.listenerscommentary.com/members-sign-up   MORE TEACHING - For more resources and Bible teaching from John visit https://www.johnwhittaker.net  

Has Christ already returned?... Sweet home Alabama…; Morality laws…; Indonesia bans sex outside of marriage Kaya from Texas answers the biblical question. — Paul from Virginia says his wife undermines his vision for the family. He reveals he has been married for many years and describes the ways his wife resents him in the home. They also chat about his parents and forgiveness.

Glory be to God!

Are you feeling stuck, maybe even feeling like a prisoner? Jesus Himself said: “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” Do you believe that? Has Christ set you free? Sign up for Dr. Randy’s INTENTIONAL ONE THING CHALLENGE. Here’s an Intentional Living Blog for inspiration! What is Intentional Living? At […]

Matthew 5:14-16 (NIRV)  //  14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill can't be hidden. 15 Also, people do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on its stand. Then it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine so others can see it. Then they will see the good things you do. And they will bring glory to your Father who is in heaven. Philippians 2:12-16 (NIRV)  //  12 My dear friends, you have always obeyed God. You obeyed while I was with you. And you have obeyed even more while I am not with you. So continue to work out your own salvation. Do it with fear and trembling. 13 God is working in you. He wants your plans and your acts to be in keeping with his good purpose. 14 Do everything without finding fault or arguing. 15 Then you will be pure and without blame. You will be children of God without fault in a sinful and evil world. Among the people of the world you shine like stars in the heavens. 16 You shine as you hold out to them the word of life. So I can brag about you on the day Christ returns. I can be happy that I didn't run or work for nothing. 1) Keep Your Own Life Calibrated to Jesus Philippians 2:12 (NIRV)  //  My dear friends, you have always obeyed God. You obeyed while I was with you. And you have obeyed even more while I am not with you. So continue to work out your own salvation. Do it with fear and trembling. Hebrews 12:2 (NIRV)  //   Let us keep looking to Jesus. He is the author of faith. He also makes it perfect. 2) Keep a Healthy Outlook on Life Philippians 2:13 (NIRV)  //  God is working in you. He wants your plans and your acts to be in keeping with his good purpose. Philippians 4:4-9 (NIRV)  //  4 Always be joyful because you belong to the Lord. I will say it again. Be joyful. 5 Let everyone know how gentle you are. The Lord is coming soon. 6 Don't worry about anything. Instead, tell God about everything. Ask and pray. Give thanks to him. 7 Then God's peace will watch over your hearts and your minds because you belong to Christ Jesus. God's peace can never be completely understood. 8 Finally, my brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things. 3) Be the Change You Are Seeking Philippians 2:14-15 (NIRV)  //  Do everything without finding fault or arguing. 15 Then you will be pure and without blame. You will be children of God without fault in a sinful and evil world. Among the people of the world you shine like stars in the heavens. Philippians 2:1-2 (NIRV)  //  1 Are you cheerful because you belong to Christ? Does his love comfort you? Is the Holy Spirit your companion? Has Christ been gentle and loving toward you? 2 Then make my joy complete by agreeing with each other. Have the same love. Be one in spirit and purpose. 4) Look For Opportunities to Serve Others Philippians 2:16 (NIRV)  //  You shine as you hold out to them the word of life. So I can brag about you on the day Christ returns. I can be happy that I didn't run or work for nothing. Philippians 2:3-4 (NIRV)  //  3 Don't do anything only to get ahead. Don't do it because you are proud. Instead, be free of pride. Think of others as better than yourselves. 4 None of you should look out just for your own good. You should also look out for the good of others. Matthew 5:14-16 (ESV)  //  14 "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Questions Covered: 03:55 – Is there any reason we should think that Adam was given a rational soul at the moment of his conception? 10:28 – What would be the best way to respond to protestants when they try to claim that St. Augustine believed protestant doctrine? 14:55 – Why does the Catechism say that we go to heaven, hell or purgatory right after death if scripture says differently? Why does the Catechism say there are 2 judgements? 21:00 – Has Christ provided everything for our salvation? 22:40 – Who are the people who Cain was afraid of after he was exiled? 28:38 – Do I lose salvation for not going to a Catholic Church? Is the Eucharist essential for salvation? 32:47 – When Jesus died, the curtain was torn into two. What’s the significance of that in our Christian life? 35:40 – In the Old Testament, how can people believe in false gods especially when they were tested, and nothing happened? When people that go through RCIA and go into the church turn away from the church, are they held accountable for their actions? 43:29 – Revelation 12:9-12 says that St. Michael will fight with the devil. What exactly does that mean? 48:43 – Follow up on torn veil question: Rending one’s garments was used as a form of mourning. This meaning can also be used to describe the veil being torn in two. 50:38 – What are your thoughts on us having unused DNA and us possibly using it in the next life? …

2022-06-26 The Perception of Selfby Seth CarrollScripture Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:10-3110 Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. 12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. 16 Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,And the cleverness of the clever I will set aside.”20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 29 so that no man may boast before God. 30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31 so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Episode 164 – Paul’s Places – Part 5: Corinth II Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: Several people from Chloe's family have already reported to me that you keep arguing with each other. They have said that some of you claim to follow me, while others claim to follow Apollos or Peter or Christ. 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 11 & 12, Contemporary English Version ******** VK: Hello! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. We’re very glad to be with you today. We are in the midst of a series on Anchored by Truth that we are calling “Paul’s Places.” By “Paul,” of course, we’re referring to the Apostle Paul who wrote at least 13 of the books out of the 27 books that comprise the New Testament. Most people know that the Apostle Paul was the foremost apostle to the gentiles as part of his ministry he wrote a number of letters to various churches. Many of those letters have been preserved in the books of the New Testament. In fact, God used Paul to write almost half of the New Testament including first and second Corinthians. In our last episode of Anchored by Truth we started looking at these letters to the Corinthians and we’re going to conclude that look today. In the studio today we have RD Fierro, an author and the founder of Crystal Sea Books. RD, why don’t you remind us of what this series “Paul’s Places” is all about and give us a brief summary of where we are? RD: Well, I’d like to start by thanking our listeners for joining us here today. As our longtime listeners know Anchored by Truth is focused on helping people develop a solid understanding of why they may be confident that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Well, one of the key points to people having that confidence is to see that the books of the Bible are trustworthy from the standpoint of history. In our opinion any book claiming to be the word of an almighty and perfect God would have to meet two criteria. First, the book would have to be consistent with what we know about the history of the natural world and the history of humanity. Second, the book would have to contain evidence of a supernatural point of origin. VK: And you cite four lines of evidence that the Bible meets those two criteria: reliable history, remarkable unity, fulfilled prophecy, and redeemed destinies. RD: Right. So, we believe that any book claiming to be the word of God would have to be consistent with what we know about human history in the parts of the Bible upon which the Bible reports. VK: And, in the case of the New Testament, the history with which the Bible is primarily concerned is the history of the Roman Empire. The books of the New Testament were all written during latter portion the first century AD. At that time the Roman Empire was the dominant power in Europe, the Mideast, and North Africa. At its height the Roman Empire extended all the way from modern day India to England and included most of the Mediterranean Coast of North Africa. RD: Yes. And since Jesus lived, died, and rose in what is today modern day Israel that was the point of origin of Christianity. In essence, Christianity began in Jerusalem and spread outward through the rest of Palestine, the adjoining nations, through the eastern part of the Roman Empire, and, of course, ultimately throughout the world. But, as you noted the books of our New Testament were all written in the latter half of the first century AD. During that time the gospel had gone from Jerusalem and through such modern day nations as Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Those are the nations in which the New Testament territory was primarily occurring. So, one question that can be reasonably asked is whether the books of the New Testament give evidence that they were authentic letters written to people who lived in those places at that time. VK: And that’s why we’re doing this “Paul’s Places.” We’re looking at the content of the New Testament letters and seeing whether that content makes sense from the standpoint of what we know about the geography, culture, and people of that time. And last time we saw that first and second Corinthians do contain a great deal of evidence that the concerns Paul expressed would have been legitimate concerns for a city like Corinth. For instance, we saw that Corinth is located on an isthmus that joins northern and southern Greece. As such it was a very active city for trade and commerce. It was literally the meeting place where east met west in terms of the Roman Empire. It had two port cities that serviced it – one on its east and one on its west. Ships would arrive in those ports and off load their goods. Those cargoes were then taken to Corinth and sold or exchanged for something else. Then the ships were reloaded with the new merchandise and headed back to another port usually in the opposite direction. So, Corinth was not only filled with merchants and trader but also sailors, buyers, and travelers. RD: And the most prominent Roman goddess worshipped in Corinth was Venus. Venus was the Roman version of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Aphrodite was the ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. There was a huge temple dedicated to Venus on the south side of the city and there were a thousand prostitutes that served as priestesses at the temple. VK: In short, sexual immorality was a prominent feature of life in Corinth. From the fifth century BC onward the expression ‘to Corinthianize’ meant to be sexually immoral.” Given all that, you would expect that when Paul was writing to the Corinthians he might have to pay special attention to the problem of avoiding sexual immorality – and he did. Paul devoted more attention to the problem of dealing with sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians than he did in any other of his epistles. Epistle is just another word for letter. Often, the books of the New Testament that Paul wrote are referred to as “Pauline epistles.” RD: Yes. So, the fact that Paul spent almost 3 chapters out of the 16 chapters of 1 Corinthians dealing with sexual immorality is strong evidence that the letters to the Corinthians are authentic communications to believers in Corinth during the 1st century AD. We know the city was well known within the Roman world as a city where temptation abounded, money was often made and lost quickly, and the believers were living in a licentious and dissolute society. In other words, the character of the letter matches perfectly with what we know of the character of the city. And that was true in other respects besides just sexual immorality. VK: What are you thinking about? RD: Corinth was not only a thoroughly immoral city but it was also a very competitive one. In a city where goods and merchandise are coming in and going out every day, where ships are on schedules they want to meet, where money is changing hands every minute of every day, and where the velocity of the economy is tied to the prosperity of the empire, obviously, the competition to be among the best is going to be fierce. VK: Last time we noted that Corinth was sort of the Roman Empire’s version of Las Vegas. And anyone who has ever been to Las Vegas can see the evidence of competition all around them. No sooner is one giant hotel or casino built than another developer comes along who wants to build something bigger and grander. One brilliant light display is quickly eclipsed by another. Every Vegas show competes with every other show. It seems like each new project must be bigger, grander, and showier than the last. RD: Right. Corinth was Vegas without the electricity. It would have been that way just based on the geography, economy, and culture. But as if all that weren’t enough, Corinth was also the site of one of the most famous of the ancient Greek sporting events. It was the site of the Isthmian Games. The Isthmian Games were similar in size and scope to the Olympic Games. VK:. The Isthmian Games were one of the so-called Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. And the Isthmian Games were named after the Isthmus of Corinth, where they were held. The Isthmian Games were held both the year before and the year after the Olympic Games while another set of games, the Pythian Games, were held in the third year of the Olympiad cycle RD: Panhellenic Games was the collective term for four separate sports festivals that were held in ancient Greece. The four festivals were the Olympics, the Isthmian Games, the Pythian Games, and the Nemean Games. The Olympics started the cycle. The Olympics and Pythian Games were held every four years whereas the Isthmian and Nemean Games were held every two years. VK: In other words the ancient Greeks were very fond of their sports. I guess that isn’t too much different from today. And also like today the cities that hosted the games would have benefitted economically from the games as well as well as being proud of their status as a host city. I see what you’re getting at. There was a highly competitive atmosphere present in Corinth because of its status as an important commercial and trading center. But beyond that, the fact that of one of the ancient world’s premier sporting events was regularly conducted in Corinth would have added to that atmosphere of competitiveness. RD: Exactly. So, in continuing our look at how the culture and geography were reflected in the letters that Paul sent to various church congregations we can see that this competitive atmosphere was present not just outside the Corinthian church but also inside it. VK: I’m sure one of the passages in 1 Corinthians that you have in mind is what we heard in our opening scripture. This is verses 11 and 12 of the first chapter of 1 Corinthians. Those verses say, “For some members of Chloe’s household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters. Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.” That’s from the New Living Translation. RD: Yes. These verses tell us that rather than being unified around the gospel the members of the Corinthian church had begun to identify with specific personalities. In other words at least some members of the church were drifting into a cult of personality. They had lost their focus on Christ and apparently on Christ’s command that the way the world would know his followers was by their love for each other. So, the church was being split by this competition among the members where the members were more focused on specific figures rather than being unified by their love and commitment to Christ. They were becoming unduly focused on personalities. VK: In other words you think that what Paul was observing was that those people who were claiming loyalty to Peter or Apollos were doing so in the spirit of “one-upsmanship.” RD: Yes. That was what his rebuke that followed his observation pointed out. He said in verses 13 through 15, “Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not! I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, for now no one can say they were baptized in my name.” Evidently the Corinthians had started bragging about who had baptized them as though the person who baptized them made a difference. Paul said I’m glad I only baptized a couple of them, not because he didn’t want the Corinthian church to grow, but because he was, in effect, saying “don’t draw me into your contentions. I’m not interested in being part of your competition.” VK: Rather like people often do today some of the Corinthians were competing by identifying who performed their baptism as if that person were a sports star or celebrity. And Paul would have none of it. Paul knew that people being the way they are this inevitably leads to a spirit of competition as each group claims that its star is the greatest. Kind of like arguing over which quarterback or tennis player is the greatest. RD: Right. So, this baptismal competition was one example that the competitive culture that pervaded Corinth had entered the church in an unhealthy way. VK: Are there other examples in 1 Corinthians that showed that this competitive culture was present among the Corinthian believers? RD: Unfortunately, yes. Let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians, chapter 14, verses 26 through 39. In that section Paul is giving the Corinthians instructions about how to conduct their worship services. Apparently, there was a substantial amount of disorder during their communal worship because the believers were competing with one another over who got to give a message or present a revelation. Apparently, some of the Corinthians had come to think so highly of themselves that some saw themselves almost at the level of being an apostle and receiving new revelations. VK: In fact in verses 36 and 37 Paul actually asked them, “… do you think God’s word originated with you Corinthians? Are you the only ones to whom it was given? If you claim to be a prophet or think you are spiritual, you should recognize that what I am saying is a command from the Lord himself.” That’s also from the New Living Translation. The Amplified Bible puts it this way. “Did the word of the Lord originate from you [Corinthians], or has it come to you only [so that you know best what God requires].” RD: Exactly. So, chapter 14 of 1 Corinthians makes it clear that this spirit of competition was manifesting itself in disorder in their worship. And chapter 11 makes it clear they were competing in the food they brought to their services. Apparently, a part of their communal worship was to have a meal – which is fine when it’s done appropriately – but in the case of the Corinthians, it wasn’t. Let’s take a quick look at verses 20 through 22 of chapter 11. VK: The New Living Translation of those verses says, “When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper. For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. … do you really want to disgrace God’s church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this!” RD: And just one more example of how this spirit of competition had infected the church is that the Corinthians were apparently competing in what is often termed “gifts of the spirit.” That is apparent from chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians. VK: Paul summed up his assessment of how the Corinthians had been behaving with respect to spiritual gifts in verses 29 and 30 of chapter 12. The New Living Translation of those verses says, “Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not!” RD: Yes. The general culture of Corinth contained a strong strain of competitiveness because of the nature of the economy and the regular conduct of the Isthmian games in the city. So, from all these examples we can see that this spirit of competition had entered the Corinthian church. As a result the Apostle Paul had to deal with the divisions this spirit was producing when he wrote his letters to the church there. This again provides strong evidence that the letters we know as 1 and 2 Corinthians were authentic communications from Paul, who was the most prominent apostle sent to the gentiles, to a group of believers in Corinth during the 1st century AD. The letters reflect the kinds of concerns that would have been prominent in a city like Corinth during that period in history. VK: But oddly enough – providentially really – as only God can do God used the occasion of the divisions that were cropping up within the Corinthian church to produce some of the most important teaching in scripture. In response to the competition among the Corinthians to have better “spiritual gifts” than their fellow church members Paul wrote chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians which is well-known as the classic chapter on Christian love in the Bible. And in response to the spirit of competition over the food being consumed at the church meals Paul wrote one the clearest statement in the Bible about one of the most important sacraments, the Lord’s Supper. RD: Exactly. VK: And as we saw in our last episode of Anchored by Truth we saw that Paul used the temptation to sexual immorality present within the city to give very clear directions to the church about how to deal with such temptation. Said differently, God used the problems that were confronting the Corinthian church to provide clear guidance that would help believers for the next 2,000 years. God turned evil into good as only God can. RD: Absolutely. God took the problems present within the church – that were largely there because of the nature of the surrounding culture – and instead of letting the evil and temptation dominate He brought eternal benefits. This is a dramatic illustration of the nature of God’s grace. He doesn’t let the evil of man overcome His intentions to produce good for His people. And the fact that the Corinthian believers did respond to Paul’s admonitions is evident from the content of 2 Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians Paul took great pains to begin providing comfort to the Corinthians rather than rebuke. VK: And one of the points you wanted to make today was that even though our Bible contains two of the letters Paul wrote to the Corinthian church it’s plain from 1 Corinthians, chapter 5, verse 9 that Paul wrote as least one more letter to them. The Contemporary English Version of that verse says, “In my other letter I told you not to have anything to do with immoral people.” Since this verse is contained in 1 Corinthians it’s apparent Paul had sent them an earlier version that has not been preserved. RD: Right. And many scholars actually believe that Paul had sent the Corinthian church another letter between the letters we call first and second Corinthians. Many scholars refer to the letter as the “severe letter.” It is thought that this letter resulted from a quick trip Paul made to Corinth from Ephesus when Paul was poorly treated by the church or at least some people within the church. Many scholars think the spirit of repentance that Paul recognized in 2 Corinthians came from this “severe letter.” If Paul did send this “severe letter,” this letter has also not been preserved. VK: And that also helps demonstrate the authenticity of the letters that we do have doesn’t it? It shows that the people who were involved in this back and forth were real people. When real people send real communication to one another sometimes some of it gets lost. God ensured the preservation of those letters that He determined were to be part of His inspired Word. But the material in 1 and 2 Corinthians shows that just because an Apostle or prophet wrote or said something that did not automatically mean it was intended to be part of the Bible. RD: Yes. One of the big points we’re making in this Paul’s Places series is that unlike the assertions of some Bible critics the Bible is not filled with “myths and fairy tales.” The Bible contains a record of real people doing real things in real places during the real history of the world. During that real history Christian leaders were dealing with real problems – and very often those problems were created or exacerbated by the places in which those struggling Christians were living. That is how God deals with us. We live in a real world and have real problems but God’s transcendent power is still available to help us. VK: And we should add one final note before we close for today. Competition does not have to create division. Properly understood and used competition can help people, teams, and companies improve their performance and the lives of others. RD: Right. Throughout history Christians have been very successful in sports and business – in other words they have been good competitors as well as good Christians. But a good competitor is one who strives to do his or her best while encouraging others to also do their best. We used to recognize this. And we used the term “good sportsmanship” to refer to a competitor who did their absolute best but always played fair, was willing to congratulate another on their victory, and was humble when they came out on top. Sadly, in today’s sports, business, and political worlds these kinds of people are increasingly rare. Today you hear things like “win at all costs” or “2nd place is 1st loser.” Good natured ribbing has given way to obscene “trash talk” and gracious winners are almost unknown. This is extraordinarily sad because it deprives our kids of knowing that it is possible to be a strong competitor while also being kind and generous in victory or loss. VK: We used to know all this. But as competition for attention has grown within our own culture it seems as though we have lost some of what used to be time-honored wisdom. Well, one of the best ways for us to reclaim this time-honored wisdom is for parents to begin to immerse themselves in the word of God so they can begin to teach their kids how to develop Godly characters. This sounds like a great time for a prayer. Since Father’s Day is almost here, today let’s listen to a prayer for fathers. Godly fathers are certainly one of the best gifts any child can receive – and no matter their age we should take time to reach out and let our fathers know we love them. And for those who were not blessed with a Godly father it’s always a good idea to pray for them to come to Jesus. Our prayers for our family members can move hearts and change eternal destinies. ---- PRAYER FOR FATHERS VK: Before we close we’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes in this series or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.” If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not perfect but our Boss is!” (Opening Bible Quote from the Contemporary English Version) 1 Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 11 & 12, Contemporary English Version 1 Corinthians 1 Barnes' Notes (biblehub.com) Since the games' inception, Corinth had always been in control of them. When Corinth was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, the Isthmian games continued, but were now administered by Sicyon. Corinth was rebuilt by Caesar in 44 BC, and recovered ownership of the Games shortly thereafter, but they were then held in Corinth. They did not return to the Isthmus until AD 42 or 43. The Isthmian Games thereafter flourished until the mid-4th century at least. A possible late literary reference dates to 362. The circumstances of their demise are unknown. Imperial pressure against pagan rituals was heightened at the end of the 4th century, but some polytheistic cult practices certainly continued at Corinth into the 6th century.

There's this great scene in one of Paul's letters to the church in Corinth. The scene is familiar—some of the people of that church are arguing about whose teaching they will follow. Some say it's Paul, some a guy named Apollo, and others Peter. Basically, these three have a different focus when it comes to following Jesus Christ. They are on the same team striving for the same things, but in different ways. Paul responds with a beautiful question: Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were you baptized in Paul's name? A couple of chapters later he asks, “After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul? They are servants who helped you to believe. Each one had a role given to them by the Lord: I planted, Apollos watered, but God made you grow.” What a poignant message for us, as ministers. It's tempting for us to get the idea that it's all up to us. I've even heard some ministers say that. Someone's life, their salvation, their entire eternal existence falls on your shoulders. No, Paul says. We have a role to play and it's God who truly brings the growth, healing, and life. Maybe our role is temporary. For children and youth ministers, we know this better than most. We plant seeds, like Paul. Sometimes, though rarely, we get to see those seeds grow and mature. Many times we do not. We know what it is to trust God to continue to work in a person's life long after they are no longer being watered by us. Sometimes, we can see a person growing down the road through someone else's ministry. That can hurt at times. We wanted to be a part of what is happening in a person's life. Maybe we don't quite agree with everything that young person is being taught later. We would have done it differently. It can haunt us. But I encourage you to think like Paul. Sometimes we plant and others water. Sometimes others planted and we water. We have our role and calling in a person's life for a particular time and place. That particular time and place is up to God. Do the best you know how to do—even though chances are strong you'll think much differently 10 years down the road than you do now. Trust that you are where you need to be for others who have been placed in your care. Trust that God is working through you and will continue to work through others for the sake of each and every blessed soul you nurture. Remember that it is Jesus Christ who was crucified and it's God who brings the growth through the Holy Spirit. It's not all on you. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! https://sundayschool.store/collections/the-sanford-curriculum Message brought to you be Rev. Joseph Sanford of Sanford Curriculum (Student ministry resources available on The Sunday School Store written by he and Lauren Sanford). Music by The Muse Maker https://ministry-to-children.com/best-childrens-bibles/ https://youthgroupministry.com/youth-group-lessons/

Readings for Monday, March 7, 2022 “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” -- 1 Corinthians 1:18 Morning Psalm 119:73-80 73 Your hands have made and fashioned me; give me understanding that I may learn your commandments. 74 Those who fear you shall see me and rejoice, because I have hoped in your word. 75 I know, O Lord, that your judgments are right, and that in faithfulness you have humbled me. 76 Let your steadfast love become my comfort according to your promise to your servant. 77 Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight. 78 Let the arrogant be put to shame, because they have subverted me with guile; as for me, I will meditate on your precepts. 79 Let those who fear you turn to me, so that they may know your decrees. 80 May my heart be blameless in your statutes, so that I may not be put to shame. Psalm 145 1 I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. 2 Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever. 3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable. 4 One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. 5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. 6 The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness. 7 They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. 8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. 10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you. 11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power, 12 to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds. 14 The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. 16 You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. 17 The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings. 18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them. 20 The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever. Midday Genesis 37:1-11 37 Jacob settled in the land where his father had lived as an alien, the land of Canaan. 2 This is the story of the family of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was shepherding the flock with his brothers; he was a helper to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him. 5 Once Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream that I dreamed. 7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright; then your sheaves gathered around it, and bowed down to my sheaf.” 8 His brothers said to him, “Are you indeed to reign over us? Are you indeed to have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more because of his dreams and his words. 9 He had another dream, and told it to his brothers, saying, “Look, I have had another dream: the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.” 10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him, and said to him, “What kind of dream is this that you have had? Shall we indeed come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to the ground before you?” 11 So his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. 1 Corinthians 1:1-19 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Mark 1:1-13 1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2 As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; 3 the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,'” 4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Evening Psalm 121 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come? 2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4 He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. 6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. Psalm 6 1 O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger, or discipline me in your wrath. 2 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror. 3 My soul also is struck with terror, while you, O Lord —how long? 4 Turn, O Lord, save my life; deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love. 5 For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who can give you praise? 6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. 7 My eyes waste away because of grief; they grow weak because of all my foes. 8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. 9 The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord accepts my prayer. 10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror; they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame. You can also find all of today's readings at PCUSA.org. The Daily Lectionary podcast is a ministry of First Presbyterian Church of Plattsburgh, NY, read by Pastor Timothy J. Luoma.

A listener asked the question: Is Jesus woke? At the core of that question is if Jesus belongs to a particular group. Has Christ cast his lot in for the woke movement? What about political parties? Shortly, Jesus starts to look more like us and less like himself. This week, we'll cover how Jesus transcends any group we attempt to put him in. This is a good thing, and should shape us more than we try to shape him.

Is Christ really present in the Lord's Supper or is the Lord's Supper a mere memorial of Christ's death? In the Sacrament of Communion we remember what Christ has done and also we look forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb when Christ returns, but is there a present reality where we commune with Christ during the Lord's Supper? If Christ is really present in the Lord's Supper, is His presence physical or spiritual? Has Christ's flesh ascended into Heaven or is it still on earth? In this episode, Pastors Zac and Brandon discuss different views on the Lord's Supper and how to engage them.  For more information, see:  The Lord's Supper: Answers to Common Questions by Keith Mathison  The Lord's Supper as a Means of Grace: More Than Just a Memory by Richard Barcellos  Reformed Dogmatics (Vol. 5) by Geerhardus Vos  Between Wittenberg and Geneva: Lutheran and Reformed Theology in Conversation (ch. 7) by Robert Kolb and Carl Trueman  The Lord's Supper and the Popish Mass by Cornelius Venema  Thinking God's Thoughts: An Introduction to a Pilgrim Worldview (ch. 17) by J. Brandon Burks     

Is Christ really present in the Lord's Supper or is the Lord's Supper a mere memorial of Christ's death? In the Sacrament of Communion we remember what Christ has done and also we look forward to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb when Christ returns, but is there a present reality where we commune with Christ during the Lord's Supper? If Christ is really present in the Lord's Supper, is His presence physical or spiritual? Has Christ's flesh ascended into Heaven or is it still on earth? In this episode, Pastors Zac and Brandon discuss different views on the Lord's Supper and how to engage them.  For more information, see:  The Lord's Supper: Answers to Common Questions by Keith Mathison  The Lord's Supper as a Means of Grace: More Than Just a Memory by Richard Barcellos  Reformed Dogmatics (Vol. 5) by Geerhardus Vos  Between Wittenberg and Geneva: Lutheran and Reformed Theology in Conversation (ch. 7) by Robert Kolb and Carl Trueman  The Lord's Supper and the Popish Mass by Cornelius Venema  Thinking God's Thoughts: An Introduction to a Pilgrim Worldview (ch. 17) by J. Brandon Burks   

1 Corinthians 1:10-17 10Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all [f]agree and that there be no [g]divisions among you, but that you be [h]made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.11For I have been informed concerning you, my brothers and sisters, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrelsamong you. 12Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am [i]with Paul,” [j]or “I am [k]with Apollos,” [l]or “I am [m]with [n]Cephas,” [o]or “I am [p]with Christ.” 13[q]Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized [r]in the name of Paul? 14I am thankful that I baptized none of you exceptCrispus and Gaius, 15so that no one would say you were baptized [s]in my name! 16But I did baptize the household of Stephanas also; beyond that, I do not know if I baptized anyone else. 17For Christ did not sendme to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with [t]cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made of no effect.

1 Corinthians 1:10-15 10Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all [f]agree and that there be no [g]divisions among you, but that you be [h]made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.11For I have been informed concerning you, my brothers and sisters, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrelsamong you. 12Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am [i]with Paul,” [j]or “I am [k]with Apollos,” [l]or “I am [m]with [n]Cephas,” [o]or “I am [p]with Christ.” 13[q]Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized [r]in the name of Paul? 14I am thankful that I baptized none of you exceptCrispus and Gaius, 15so that no one would say you were baptized [s]in my name! 

Continuing our critique, we begin to look at the devotions where Sarah Young's Jesus make claim that contradict Scripture. Topics discussed in this episode: Did Jesus dies so our teen can live an adventurous life? Do our teens need to give control to Jesus? What kind of life does Jesus want for our teens? What does it look like for our teens to call Jesus Lord? Does Jesus want us to judge ourselves and others? Why do some not come to Jesus? Does sharing our struggles unite us? What does unite us and cause us to walk in fellowship with each other? What IS Christ doing and what HAS Christ done with our sins? Enjoy and may God get the glory!

Continuing our critique, we begin to look at the devotions where Sarah Young's Jesus make claim that contradict Scripture. Topics discussed in this episode: Did Jesus dies so our teen can live an adventurous life? Do our teens need to give control to Jesus? What kind of life does Jesus want for our teens? What does it look like for our teens to call Jesus Lord? Does Jesus want us to judge ourselves and others? Why do some not come to Jesus? Does sharing our struggles unite us? What does unite us and cause us to walk in fellowship with each other? What IS Christ doing and what HAS Christ done with our sins? Enjoy and may God get the glory!

Continuing our critique, we begin to look at the devotions where Sarah Young's Jesus make claim that contradict Scripture. Topics discussed in this episode: Did Jesus dies so our teen can live an adventurous life? Do our teens need to give control to Jesus? What kind of life does Jesus want for our teens? What does it look like for our teens to call Jesus Lord? Does Jesus want us to judge ourselves and others? Why do some not come to Jesus? Does sharing our struggles unite us? What does unite us and cause us to walk in fellowship with each other? What IS Christ doing and what HAS Christ done with our sins? Enjoy and may God get the glory!

Readings for Monday, September 13, 2021 “Do not put the Lord your God to the test” -- from Matthew 4:7 Morning Psalm 135 1 Praise the Lord ! Praise the name of the Lord ; give praise, O servants of the Lord, 2 you that stand in the house of the Lord, in the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good; sing to his name, for he is gracious. 4 For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself, Israel as his own possession. 5 For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is above all gods. 6 Whatever the Lord pleases he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. 7 He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. 8 He it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both human beings and animals; 9 he sent signs and wonders into your midst, O Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants. 10 He struck down many nations and killed mighty kings— 11 Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan— 12 and gave their land as a heritage, a heritage to his people Israel. 13 Your name, O Lord, endures forever, your renown, O Lord, throughout all ages. 14 For the Lord will vindicate his people, and have compassion on his servants. 15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. 16 They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes, but they do not see; 17 they have ears, but they do not hear, and there is no breath in their mouths. 18 Those who make them and all who trust them shall become like them. 19 O house of Israel, bless the Lord ! O house of Aaron, bless the Lord ! 20 O house of Levi, bless the Lord ! You that fear the Lord, bless the Lord ! 21 Blessed be the Lord from Zion, he who resides in Jerusalem. Praise the Lord ! Psalm 145 1 I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. 2 Every day I will bless you, and praise your name forever and ever. 3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; his greatness is unsearchable. 4 One generation shall laud your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts. 5 On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate. 6 The might of your awesome deeds shall be proclaimed, and I will declare your greatness. 7 They shall celebrate the fame of your abundant goodness, and shall sing aloud of your righteousness. 8 The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. 9 The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. 10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you. 11 They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, and tell of your power, 12 to make known to all people your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of your kingdom. 13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds. 14 The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down. 15 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. 16 You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. 17 The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings. 18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desire of all who fear him; he also hears their cry, and saves them. 20 The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy. 21 My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever. Midday 1 Kings 21:1-16 21 Later the following events took place: Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard in Jezreel, beside the palace of King Ahab of Samaria. 2 And Ahab said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” 3 But Naboth said to Ahab, “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” 4 Ahab went home resentful and sullen because of what Naboth the Jezreelite had said to him; for he had said, “I will not give you my ancestral inheritance.” He lay down on his bed, turned away his face, and would not eat. 5 His wife Jezebel came to him and said, “Why are you so depressed that you will not eat?” 6 He said to her, “Because I spoke to Naboth the Jezreelite and said to him, ‘Give me your vineyard for money; or else, if you prefer, I will give you another vineyard for it'; but he answered, ‘I will not give you my vineyard.'” 7 His wife Jezebel said to him, “Do you now govern Israel? Get up, eat some food, and be cheerful; I will give you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” 8 So she wrote letters in Ahab's name and sealed them with his seal; she sent the letters to the elders and the nobles who lived with Naboth in his city. 9 She wrote in the letters, “Proclaim a fast, and seat Naboth at the head of the assembly; 10 seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him, saying, ‘You have cursed God and the king.' Then take him out, and stone him to death.” 11 The men of his city, the elders and the nobles who lived in his city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them. Just as it was written in the letters that she had sent to them, 12 they proclaimed a fast and seated Naboth at the head of the assembly. 13 The two scoundrels came in and sat opposite him; and the scoundrels brought a charge against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, “Naboth cursed God and the king.” So they took him outside the city, and stoned him to death. 14 Then they sent to Jezebel, saying, “Naboth has been stoned; he is dead.” 15 As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned and was dead, Jezebel said to Ahab, “Go, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.” 16 As soon as Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, Ahab set out to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it. 1 Corinthians 1:1-19 1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— 6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you— 7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Matthew 4:1-11 4 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” 5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,' and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'” 7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'” 8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9 and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10 Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'” 11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. Evening Psalm 97 1 The Lord is king! Let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! 2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. 3 Fire goes before him, and consumes his adversaries on every side. 4 His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles. 5 The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. 6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness; and all the peoples behold his glory. 7 All worshipers of images are put to shame, those who make their boast in worthless idols; all gods bow down before him. 8 Zion hears and is glad, and the towns of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O God. 9 For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. 10 The Lord loves those who hate evil; he guards the lives of his faithful; he rescues them from the hand of the wicked. 11 Light dawns for the righteous, and joy for the upright in heart. 12 Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous, and give thanks to his holy name! Psalm 112 1 Praise the Lord ! Happy are those who fear the Lord, who greatly delight in his commandments. 2 Their descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. 3 Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever. 4 They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and righteous. 5 It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice. 6 For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever. 7 They are not afraid of evil tidings; their hearts are firm, secure in the Lord . 8 Their hearts are steady, they will not be afraid; in the end they will look in triumph on their foes. 9 They have distributed freely, they have given to the poor; their righteousness endures forever; their horn is exalted in honor. 10 The wicked see it and are angry; they gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing. You can also find all of today's readings at PCUSA.org. The Daily Lectionary podcast is a ministry of First Presbyterian Church of Plattsburgh, NY, read by Pastor Timothy J. Luoma.

Frances Robinson asks, "Has Christ ever spoken to you about "Do not be deceived?" I had never heard that term before nor have I ever heard the expression until I read it before the "Ask Nadia" on Friday's "I Dig Your Soul Podcast." So I looked it up and found a lot of information. So why was I not ever spoken to about this and what could it mean? Tune in and join in on the conversation tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM PT/ 8:30 AM ET! 

Dear Resurrection, After describing the special communion we have with God the Father in love, John Owen goes on to describe the special communion we have with God the Son in grace (see 2 Corinthians 13:14). This grace includes what Owen calls “purchased grace” (the blessings of forgiveness and acceptance with God that Jesus earned for us through what He did). But it's not just that. Owen wants to focus our attention on what he calls “personal grace”—the grace that is found in Jesus Himself—who He is. Jesus came to earth “full of grace” (John 1:14). He is everything that the king described in Psalm 45 was meant to picture: “You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace” (Ps. 45:2a NIV). As fully God and fully man, Jesus “fills up all the distance that was made by sin between God and us; and we who were far off are made near in him.” Whatever you lack, Jesus can give. “Is [a person] dead? Christ is life. Is he weak? Christ is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Guilty? “Christ is complete righteousness. . . . Whether it be life or light, power or joy, all is wrapped up in him.” Owen is especially interested in the biblical image of Christ as the church's heavenly husband. This spiritual marriage union is a mutual self-giving where “Christ makes himself over to the soul . . . and the soul gives up itself wholly to the Lord Christ.” In this relationship, everything lovely about us is given to us by Christ. “He loves life, grace, and holiness into us; he loves us also into covenant, loves us into heaven.” As our heavenly husband, Christ delights in us (“As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you,” Isaiah 65:2b), and we respond by delighting in Him. (“Delight” Owen defines beautifully as “the flowing of love and joy.”) Christ values us as His treasured possession, and we respond by valuing Him above anything else in the world. Christ shows compassion to us, and we respond by giving ourselves in exclusive loyalty to Him. Christ showers us with His bounty of provision and blessing, and we respond with willing obedience. That is what communion with Christ in grace looks like. Grace-Based Action Point Owen challenges us to ask ourselves how our desire for Christ compares with our desires for other things. “What have you gotten by them?” Owen asks. “Let us see the peace, quietness, assurance . . . that they have given you?” Owen challenges us to fill our hearts instead with Christ. “You love him not, because you know him not,” which is why we spend so much of our lives “in idleness and folly, and wasting of precious time.” Owen asks the probing question: “Has Christ his due place in your hearts? Is he your all? Does he dwell in your thoughts?” So often we live as though we “prefer almost anything in the world” to thinking seriously about the glory and goodness of Christ. “What poor, low, perishing things do we spend our contemplations on!” when Christ's “excellency, glory, beauty, depths, deserve the flower of our inquiries, the vigour of our spirits, the substance of our time.” Yours in Christ, Pastor Simmons P.S. All quotations are from this edition.

Has Christ ever done anything for you? Think about it. The first verse of Isaiah 53 asks a similar question – “Who has believed our report?” That is, many people hear God’s report of His Son – the gospel message of how Christ died for their sins – but don’t believe it. Has Christ ever done anything for them? In unbelief, they would likely answer “No”. And they are wrong. The Lord Jesus was willing to go all the way to the cross for sinners. But all of Christ’s work would be to no avail if He is not received personally as Lord and Saviour. So ask yourself again, “Has Christ ever done anything for me”? 

This week we discuss section 29 of The Doctrine & Covenants.  Now that the Church of Jesus Christ has been officially restored, the Saints want to know when will Christ return?  They have lots of questions and the Lord provides lots of answers in section 29.  Even more than they anticipated.  That is a great lesson for us.  If we have questions, The Lord will answer.  Sometimes it takes time to understand his answers, but He answers.  Christ will gather his people.  What is the gathering of Israel?  Is is a physical gathering, a spiritual gathering, or both?  Who participates in the gathering?  Where will the gathering take place?  Will it be to a central location, or will it be multiple locations?  Will we be gathered in stakes?  Why is the gathering necessary?  There are many questions to answer as it pertains to the gathering of Israel.  We attempt to answer a few of those in this episode.  Is there a difference in the wicked and the righteous in the last days?  Will Christ save all or will He save some?  What is that saving dependent upon?  Has Christ bought us?  Does He own us?  Take a listen as we discuss The Saviors role in our lives as we prepare to celebrate Easter in the coming weeks.

Conversation StarterHas Christ ever asked you to do something or give something up for Him and you ignored Him? Why do you think it is important to promptly listen and obey when the Lord speaks to you?

In this episode, Jonah and Patrick get into the question of creativity and the second member of the Trinity: the mysteries of God, the Son.  This leads them into a sometimes tension-filled conversation as they walk along the razor's edge that explores the origins of evil in the universe.  Has God created evil?  Has Christ created the terrible things happening to people? How can we understand the difference between what has emanated from the heart of God, what has been allowed by the Divinity, and what connecting and ordering is being done creatively in human and world destiny?These questions and more are taken up by Jonah and Patrick and we hope they stir your reflecting and seeking as well.Notes from this Episode:For an introduction to the idea of Karma, see:- "Manifestations of Karma" by Rudolf Steiner. Available on RSArchive or from Steiner Books.For further thoughts on Christ as the so-called "Lord of Karma," see:- Lecture Three of Steiner's lecture series "From Jesus to Christ." Available on RSArchive or from Steiner Books.- Bastiaan Baan's booklet "Christ's New Presence" from our Fruits of the Seminary Series.For the whole story of the Garden of Eden, referenced in this episode, see Genisis chapters 2 and 3.For the story of the temptation in the desert:- Matthew 4:1-11- Luke 4:1-13- Mark 1:12-13Further background reading:- "Inner Aspects of Evolution" by Rudolf Steiner, available on RSArchive or from Steiner Books.- "An Outline of Occult Science" by Rudolf Steiner, available on RSArchive or from Steiner Books.Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together".  You can find more of his music here.Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes.If you'd like to join our support circle, visit our Patreon See Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/ccseminary/posts)

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.  For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you.  Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, “I am of Paul,” and “I of Apollos,” and “I of Cephas,” and “I of Christ.”  Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one would say you were baptized in my name.  Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other.  For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

How can Christ be fully God and fully man at the same time? Is it even necessary for Christ to be both? Has Christ always been both, and did he "become" God at his baptism? What does Christ's dual-nature mean for our justification? Join Nick Fullwiler & Peter Bell as they discuss the "hypostatic union" (the dual natures of Christ) and why a biblical understanding of this is crucial to our understanding of salvation, the Trinity, and how Christ relates to us on earth and in heaven! Have any questions or feedback about this episode? Email us at: guiltgracepod@gmail.com Find us on Instagram: @guiltgracegratitudepodcast Resources on Christ's Two Natures: Athanasian Creed; Nicene Creed; Ligonier; Belgic Confession Article 19; Westminster Confession of Faith 8.2-3 The Unexpected Jesus - RC Sproul The Person of Christ - Donald McLeod Studies in Dogmatics: The Person of Christ - GC Berkouwer Jesus Divine Messiah - Robert Reymond The Glory of Christ - John Owen The Person & Work of Christ - BB Warfield Incarnation - TF Torrance Looking for a Reformed Church? Check out NAPARC. Please rate and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gggpodcast/support

The Sanctifying of Israel to preserve the world through Jesus Christ! New Testament Scripture: 1Cor 1:10 1Co 1:10 Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment. 1Co 1:11 For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe's people, that there are quarrels among you. 1Co 1:12 Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." 1Co 1:13 Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 1Co 1:14 I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 1Co 1:15 so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. 1Co 1:16 Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 1Co 1:17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. Christ the Wisdom and Power of God 1Co 1:18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 1Co 1:19 For it is written, "I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE." 1Co 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 1Co 1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 1Co 1:22 For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; 1Co 1:23 but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, 1Co 1:24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 1Co 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1Co 1:26 For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; 1Co 1:27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, 1Co 1:28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, 1Co 1:29 so that no man may boast before God. 1Co 1:30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 1Co 1:31 so that, just as it is written, "LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD." --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/landis-fisher/support

Divisions in the Church I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church. Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose. For some members of Chloe's household have told me about your quarrels, my dear brothers and sisters. Some of you are saying, “I am a follower of Paul.” Others are saying, “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Peter,” or “I follow only Christ.” Has Christ been divided into factions? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? Of course not! - 1 Corinthians 1:10-13(NLT) The Corinthian believers were arguing over which of the leading evangelists (Paul, Apollos, Peter) was best. Paul rebukes them for their quarreling and worldly comparisons. As a minister of Christ and the Good News, he and the others are all channels through whom God works Order at the Lord's Supper But in the following instructions, I cannot praise you. For it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together. First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it.19 But, of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God's approval will be recognized! When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord's Supper. For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. What? Don't you have your own homes for eating and drinking? Or do you really want to disgrace God's church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this! - 1 Corinthians 11:17-22 You make the church a place to be despised and shame the poor by your conduct. Instead of putting the food on a common table so all could partake as needed, the rich ate by themselves and the poor ate by themselves. The rich despised the poor and this led to the divisions and strife, drunkenness and shame which causes disqualification from the Lord's Supper and death. 7 Disorders in the church • Division (vs 18) • Heresies (vs 19) • Selfishness (vs 21) • Misuse of the church (vs 22) • Shaming the poor (vs 22) • Partaking unworthily of the Lord's Supper with its benefits (vs 27-30) • Failure to judge selves (vs 31-34)

Righteous Relationships Matthew 5:21-26   What does an exposition on murder have to do with me? The Traditional Teaching of the Law Regarding Murder (V. 21) Exodus 20:13   The Prevailing Teaching of Christ Regarding Murder (V. 22) John 2:13-22  Mark 3:5 Matthew 23:17  1 Peter 2:23 Psalm 14:1   So What? Has Christ's radical righteousness truly penetrated our relationships with others? Living Out Christ's Teaching (Vv. 23-26) Example #1: Concerning Worship (Vv. 23, 24) Psalm 66:18 1 Peter 3:7   Example #2: A Legal Situation (Vv. 25, 26) Matthew 18:34-35  Mark 11:25   So What? Let us live as truly righteous people so that others will see the radical righteousness of Christ and be drawn to Him.

Zeal for Christ and His truth is not optional for the Christian. As those who have been redeemed by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to be a people who are -zealous of good works- -Titus 2-14-. Zeal is a hot passion for Christ as opposed to a complacent lukewarmness for Him. When the Lord Jesus -early in His ministry- found the merchandisers and money changers in the Temple, He manifested a zeal -a holy and hot passion- for His House by making a whip of sorts and literally chasing these men and animals out of the Temple. After witnessing this incident, His Disciples remembered that it was written, -The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up- -John 2-17-.-Is a holy and passionate zeal for Christ consuming your heart and life, or has rather a lukewarmness -or coolness- taken up residence there due to your preoccupation with so many things in this life that leave you little to no time for Jesus- Is spending time with Jesus in private worship been crowded out by forgetfulness, neglect, busyness, procrastination, or lack of desire- Has Christ become just a part of your life, or is He your life and reason for living every day- Is a former zeal for Christ now only a faint memory of the past- Now is the time to repent of that lukewarmness for Christ and to renew that first love you once had for Him, and to be consumed with a holy zeal for the Lord and His Word.

Have you had to throw away your old life for a new life? Has Christ ever called you to something that wasn't your original plan? The question isn't what impact are we called to have, the question is, how great of an impact are you going to have. Tune in to hear Justin Ross, pastor at Impact City Church share his story on how God used him for a greater impact.

“Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas,’ and ‘I of Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor 1:12-13).

Does your heart know the pains of motherhood that doesn't quite look like what you thought it would? Has Christ called you to marriage, but not introduced the second part of that vocational equation into your life yet? Is your little saint in Heaven, too? Does the experience of infertility weigh heavy on your heart? Does physical motherhood not quite look like what you had dreamed of? Is Christ calling you to be His bride alone, asking you to sacrifice physical motherhood in a vocation to consecrated life?  If any of these situations are close to your heart, it may feel like the call to spiritual motherhood is a second-rate motherhood. But that couldn't be further from the truth.  In this episode, I sit down with Danielle Bean and we talk about why the universal call to motherhood applies to all women, how “mother” is a verb, and why you’re made for maternity as a woman, even if you don’t feel maternal. This episode was brought to you by Stay Close to Christ, a Catholic gift company! Use the code LETTERS for 10% off your next order.

Has Christ Done Enough for You to Make you Happy? Just like to ask that you turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 7, as we continue our study in this incredible epistle. And I want to ask you a question that came powerfully into my life as I was writing my book on Christian contentment. It's something that stands over me every day, every moment of my life, it is this question: has Christ crucified for sins on the cross, raised to life again, by the power of God, ascended and seated at the right hand of God, interceding for you… Has Christ done enough for you to be happy today, or must he do a little more? And whatever, you would say, honestly, I really think he needs to do a little more that is apparently not enough based on my mental state right now, I would challenge you that whatever additional thing you want him to do is probably an idol. It's probably some created circumstance that you're putting too much weight on, you feel you need that in order to be happy, and it is not true, and the Lord wants to weed that out of your heart. And what's remarkable is that, I believe, though he doesn't use the language, the overt language of Christian contentment in this section that you heard Topher just read for us a moment ago, he is arguing from a perspective of Christian contentment and he's going to apply it to life status generally, and to marital status, specifically. We live in a discontented age we live in, a discontented world, we are surrounded by miserable people, people who are discontent, when they sit and when they rise when they leave home when they stay at home they're discontent with their jobs, they're discontent with their material possessions, they're discontent with their mode of transportation, they're discontent with the traffic and with the weather they're discontent with the season. In the winter, they say, if it were only summer, in the summer, they say if it were only winter. Now, I've learned in the Christian life, to see more and more, sin is never just out there with all those people. Sin is right here in my own heart. I am also discontent from time to time in all of those situations. Now, as I look at our world, I look at what we're facing. And I think about even the text that we're in in the section I think there may be no topic that brings as much discontentment in this world as marital status. People yearning, single people yearning to find their soul mate. Yearning to find someone who will bring meaning into their life, I'm talking about non-Christians, just listening to the songs that are sung and then if their relationship falls apart, they act as if they cannot go on living now without that person. And then, sadly, even once people get married, they seem to be discontent in that marriage. They finally got what they wanted and within a short amount of time, their disillusioned and their discontent, and so people are discontent in marital status. And so I think it's a beautiful thing that God wants to speak into all of this and give us words of wisdom as Jesus said so beautifully to the church, so many years ago, the night before he was crucified, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. And He comes to us by the Holy Spirit, and by the Scripture, and he comes to us today to speak into this situation of being content in any and every situation, the rare jewel of Christian contentment. Now, here in this context, let's try to understand the context. The Apostle Paul is answering a question that was put to him. I. The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment He is in a new section in the epistle 1 Corinthians 7:1 he said, "Now concerning what you wrote to me quote it is good for a man not to touch a woman." In other words, it's good for us as Christians who are now redeemed or in a whole new realm of the Spirit, and turn our backs on the realm of the flesh to abstain from all sexual interaction completely. Now that's what some of the Corinthians were thinking and had written to him. Now, in the context, we can see why some might think that they were living there in Corinth in a pagan world, super-sexualized and corrupt sexually, and we see the corruption even in the church, in 1 Corinthians 5, there's a man there that has his father's wife and Paul says you need to act decisively and excommunicate that man immediately. 1 Corinthians 5, then in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, he lists, a series of sinful life patterns that you have to be redeemed out of or you're not going to go to heaven. And four of them relate to sex, fornication, adultery, effeminacy, homosexuality and then other sins besides, and he says that When the Gospel came, and you believed in the message of Christ and him crucified, you are radically transformed as he will say In the next epistle, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old is gone, everything has become new. And so He says there in that context, such were some of you, you are ex-fornicators, ex-adulterers, ex-effeminate, ex-homosexuals. And ready for the Kingdom of heaven, ready to enter eternity and then in the second half of that chapter, 1 Corinthians 6, he deals with some in the church that had not forsaken the habit of visiting temple prostitutes. And Paul has to address them very vigorously about sexual immorality, and the need for complete sexual purity. And then he brings up a new section, but it's right there in context. Problems with sexual purity, he says, "Some of you are saying to me it's good for a man not to touch a woman period. So even within marriage that we would have complete sexual abstinence. And Paul, in addressing that has said, "I don't deny, that for some people, that is true, people who are given the gift of singleness, celibate singleness." It is good for them not to touch a woman or vice versa for those women sisters in Christ to not be with a man that is true, but not everyone can accept it. Some have the one gift, and some have the other, and so he elevates the two gifts that God has given for sexual purity, in this world, which is celibate singleness, and then Holy marriage, and so he's going through and he's addressing all of these things, and he addresses various marital status to the single people, to the Christian couples, to those that are married to non-Christians, and he's been dealing with all of that. Now in the midst of all of this, practical advice about how to live a healthy God-honoring life, sexually. He gives us a central lesson, that's going to unify our text today, look at verse 17. "Nevertheless each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him in which God has called him. This is the rule that I lay down in all the churches." So, just retain the place in life you are in. He said, This is what I say all the time and he's going to go through various life situations and He's going to apply this same lesson in verse 18 to the circumcised. He says, "Stay circumcised." To the uncircumcised he says, "Stay uncircumcised." Then he gives this lesson again look at verse 20, "each one should remain in the situation, which he was in when God called him," or in which God called him verse 20. Then amazingly, he addresses slaves of which the overwhelming majority of the early Christian church, were slaves. There were millions of slaves in the Greco-Roman world, and so many of the early Christians were... You know, not many wise, not many influential, not many of noble birth, they were slaves, many of them and so he says to the slaves... To the slaves, he said don't let your slave... The fact that you're slaves bother you, that's incredible. Don't let it trouble you. But if you can get your freedom, do it. However, in verse 24, each person should remain with God, in whatever circumstance, he was in when called. So God is enough for you, that's what he's saying. You should remain in your walk with God in whatever circumstance in which he called you. Then in verses 25-28, he returns to home-base which is the topic of marriage and singleness, so he's been dealing with general life situations, but then he returns to the topic of marital status and he addresses virgins, unmarried single people, who've never been married. And the advice he gives generally to them is stay where you are. Don't be pining and yearning after marriage. Don't be yearning to change your circumstances. And he begins his overt advocacy of the single life which he continues in the next section, we're not going to address it today. And the central lesson again, verse 26, Look at it, because of the present crisis. I think it is good for you to remain as you are. It's the consistent teaching throughout this section of 1 Corinthians 7. Now I think in all of this, Paul is arguing not overtly, but from the perspective of Christian contentment. God gave me a great gift and a great privilege of studying this topic for a couple of years and writing a book on it, and I learned so much from it. Now, I wasn't going to tell you this, but this is kind of a low point in my life. Over the last week and a half, I was doing a radio interview based on this book and the radio host called me "the guru of Christian contentment." What in the world should I do with that? I was speechless, which is not a good way to be in an eight-minute interview. No, I'm not a guru of anything. Let's start there. And certainly not of Christian continent. I feel very much that God gave me the gift of studying this because I needed it as much as anyone I know. I'm not claiming like Paul did to have learned the secret of contentment in any and every situation. Just I am claiming I need it. And so I think he's arguing for that. I'm not going to try to force a square peg in a round hole. I think that's exactly what Paul's doing here. He's saying you should be content in your life situation. And frankly, that will be the best way you can possibly be single and the best way you can possibly be married is to be content in Christ. What is contentment? Now, what do we mean by contentment, what is that? Well, just in a simple kind of definitional sense, contentment, to me, is just in a mental or emotional state of peace and happiness that's just when you think of... It's a combo... A combination of peacefulness and happiness. So I think that's when we would use the word, I'm content. Worldly contentment is totally based on favorable circumstances. Your five senses are satisfied. So picture late in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day, alright? When that chemical in the Turkey is kicking in and nobody's really watching the football game any more half of the people they're asleep. So that would be kind of a picture of worldly contentment bellies full, people sleepy. So there's that picture. Or imagine a sports fan going to bed the night that their team has won the championship and all the adrenaline's worn off by them, but they're just laying there, going back over the game in their mind and they're just happy, follow this team all year and they won the championship. Or imagine a young married couple, on their honeymoon, and they're cuddling together, on a beach and the sun's going down and it's just really beautiful and they're just completely happy in each other and happy with their life circumstances. Or imagine a law school graduate has just gotten a pretty prestigious placement and everything's falling into place, and they're walking across the campus of the law school, and they're just happy with what happened today. Or imagine a baby nestling in her mommy's arms, warm, protected happy, trusting, wordless, but just everything's fine. So these are all pictures of normal, worldly, earthly contentment. Christian contentment is a supernatural thing, it is not worldly, it's not based on earthly circumstances, it is based on invisible spiritual realities. It is based on a fact of an Almighty God, who is your adoptive Father who loves you. A God, who sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross for you. Not just for sinners in general, but for you, He died for you. And you know this by faith and your sins are forgiven and you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit as a deposit guaranteeing your future inheritance, in Heaven. And all of that, plus the promises that God has made for your future covering now until the day you die and then just really take off after that filling you with hope based on your faith and the promise of God contentment is based on those things, not on any earthly circumstance and you come to realize that your earthly circumstances are just props and window dressing or dress-ups like kids used to do which God has given you for a certain purpose in this world. He's got some work for you to do, and He's giving you that and that it includes prosperity and affliction both. He's just kind of dressing you up and putting you in a setting for his own purposes. And you just look at every earthly thing that way, all of it, including marriage. Paul and Contentment in the Philippian Jail Now, the Apostle Paul other than Jesus is the greatest teacher, an exemplar, a living example of Christian contentment there has ever been. And I think to me, one of the key moments I've mentioned it more times I can count from this pulpit and I never tire of mentioning it, because I think about it probably every day. And that is Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail, the greatest picture to me other than Christ, the picture of Christian contentment. You remember how they were arrested for preaching the Gospel, actually for doing an exorcism and they were beaten publicly. And they were thrown in a nasty dark dungeon and they were put in the inner cell where there's no light, and their feet were bound in stocks and their backs were bleeding, and their stomachs were empty and their tongues were burning with thirst and the stench must have been incredible, and they were hearing the curses, and the complaints of other prisoners and at midnight they began to sing praises to Jesus. I'm like, "Oh God, give me that contentment give me that life I want to be like that, I don't want to be like I have to be bought off God, if you don't buy me off, if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to be angry at you. I just want to be so filled with Christ that I can sing in whatever jail you put me in." So that's Paul and Silas. And so, they displayed it. And you remember what happened, how God moved it supernaturally and how there was this incredible earthquake and the prison doors flew open and everybody's chains, fell off, but no one ran away and the Philippian jailer was about to fall on his sword because he lost all of his prisoners no fault of his own, but Romans were merciless. But the voice comes out from the inner cell. Don't harm yourself. We're all here and the jailer calls for lights, rushed in, fell trembling before Paul and Silas, brought them out and said, "What must I do to be saved?" question that changed his eternity Believe in the Lord Jesus, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And that's true for all of us right now, that's the source of it. It may be that God brought you here today to hear this moment in the message not so much to think about marriage or singleness, but just to hear that statement, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, saved from what? Saved from hell. And saved from missing heaven. Which is so good that even if there were no hell, if you missed it, it'd be like, hell, did not be there. But there is a hell, there's a fire that never goes out and if you believe in Jesus, you will be delivered from what you and all of us as sinners deserve which is condemnation and hell. And that becomes the basis of lasting contentment for the rest of your life no matter what your marital status, is. Believe in the Lord Jesus and the Philippian jailer did he and his family, and they cared for Paul they washed his wounds, they fed them and beginning of the Philippian church along with the other converts that had already been made an amazing story. The "Thank You" Note Well, in the course of time that same Philippian church sent Paul, some money when he... They'd heard he was in prison again, and he was in prison in just about every city that he went and preached and it's incredible and he was in prison and they sent him money and Paul wants to thank them so he wrote an amazing thank you note. When I write a thank you, I write it on thank you note Stationary. It says thank you on the front. And then I just say Thanks for the money, something like that. And I try to put in some Scripture verses. Paul wrote the letter of Philippians. That's his thank you note, And as he's writing Philippians, he can't just say, thank you for the money when he gets to that topic in Chapter 4, he's got to say this about the money. Thanks for the money. But I want you to know I was fine before it came and I'll be fine after it's spent. Just wanted you to know. Please don't take offense. My real reason for being happy the money is not that my belly will be filled or I'll be a little bit warmer at night because I have a blanket. No, because actually, I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, I know what it is to be well-fed, and I know what it is to have nothing. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, living in plenty or in want. I can do everything, through Him who strengthens me. However, it was good of you to send the money. And off he goes. Now, the word that Paul uses for contentment, there in Philippians 4, translated content is self-sufficient. It's an amazing word, and it should blow your mind. He's like, wait, wait, wait, wait. That doesn't sound in Christianity to me. It seems like that's the very thing we're supposed to be weaned off of, is self-sufficiency. We're supposed to learn that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, and apart from him, we can do nothing. Paul knew that better than anyone. Now, what did he mean? I think he was referring to God's self-sufficiency. And basically, I have learned to be like God, is self-sufficient. I'm going to change it a little bit. I've learned to be God sufficient or Christ sufficient. If I have Christ, I don't need anything else. I don't need anything else if I have Christ. And he said earlier, in Philippians, he said, "For me, to live is Christ. And to die is... " Do you remember? Yeah, I now hear that this way, "more Christ." Not better than Christ or different than Christ, more of Christ in heaven. I get to see Him face-to-face. I get to be in his presence, so either way, I can't lose. So what does that mean? I don't actually need food. I don't need water. Wait, Paul. If you don't get food and water, you'll die. Mm-hmm, which is better by far. I don't have to eat. If God wants me to stay alive, he'll feed me. I don't need air. If God shuts off my air supply, I'll get there faster, but if God chooses to keep giving me air and food and water and enough, he wants me to keep living, I'm going to serve him. For me, to live is Christ, that's what I want. Like, wow, if that's true, then that's just pretty explosive. Yeah, this is a very explosive idea. What it means is, I don't need to be noticed by other people. I don't need to be praised by other people. I don't need my freedom. I can be in jail. Alright, I don't need any of the earthly circumstances I thought I used to think I need. I don't need them. If I have Christ, I have enough. That's the foundation of contentment. And so he's saying that. That is the power. Learning the Secret And the secret. Wait, he says, "I've learned the secret." Now. The secret means that Christian contentment is possible but not guaranteed. Want to use a secret language? Do you know it's possible to go to heaven as a discontent person? You can be discontent from now until the day you die and go to heaven. But why would you want to do that? Why be in such a miserable condition, when you could be praising and trusting God every day? So it's possible but it's not guaranteed. Paul says "It's a secret to be learned, but I learned it so it is possible." And what is the secret? It's right in the text. Philippians 4:13. "I can do everything through Him who strengthens me." There's an ongoing strengthening work that God does through the spirit that enables us to be content in any and every situation, to be filled with the Spirit. If you look at the fruit of the Spirit, two of the elements of the fruit of the Spirit are joy and peace. Does that sound familiar? Put them together. That's contentment, so I can be filled with the Spirit and displaying the fruit of the Spirit in any and every situation, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit in me. Conversely, when I meditated on the word strengthen, do you know that discontentment is a display of weakness? It is so weak to be discontent. Weak. I don't want to be a weak today. I don't want some circumstance to come and I'm blown or tossed by that circumstance, and now I'm complaining and I'm whining and moaning and murmuring against God, which is a great sin. Defining Christian Contentment Well, that's Paul on contentment. And I also had the privilege of reading Jeremiah Burroughs. Jeremiah Burroughs was a Puritan pastor, and he did a series of sermons on contentment based on Philippians 4. And he gave this dense, theological description of Christian contentment, which I will now recite to you. And then I will hope to unpack it a little bit. Jeremiah Burroughs wrote it, and he was published posthumously. Rare jewel of Christian contentment, is what he says. "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submit to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition." Let me break it apart. First of all, it's a frame of spirit. It's an attitude or a demeanor of your soul. It's described with four adjectives. It is a sweet frame of spirit, as opposed to bitter or sour. Ever met somebody who was bitter or sour? You don't want to be around people like that. But someone who's content, it's sweet to be around him. It's an inward frame of spirit. In other words, it's not... We go to acting school and we learn how to act happy. It's a heart work. It is a quiet frame of spirit like when Jesus stilled the storm, you're just tranquil under your father's hand, you're tranquil in it. It's a peacefulness as opposed to murmuring and roiling and re-pining and controverting against God, and complaining and moaning against him. And it is a gracious frame of spirit. It's something that can only be worked in you by sovereign grace, supernatural grace. So that's the frame of spirit. The second part of the definition is God's wise and fatherly disposal, or let's keep it simple. God as your Father makes decisions about your life. He decided when you will be born, and he has already decided when and where you will die. And who of you by worrying can add a single day to his life? All the days ordained for you are written in God's book before one of them came to be. And not only that, not only is he the alpha and the omega of your earthly life, he is every day in between. He has made lots of fatherly decisions about you, and they are wise, these fatherly decisions. And he could have said kingly, because he's a king and you're the subject, and he's just going to do what's best for his Kingdom no matter whether it's best for you or not. But Burroughs used the word fatherly, meaning he just tenderly loves you and the two come together because what's best for His kingdom is what's best for his children. It's the same thing, and he is in a marvelous way making fatherly decisions about you. So the third aspect is, it's a frame of spirit that freely submits to that. You're not going to fight it anymore. You're not going to be angry about what God's doing in your life. But you're going to submit to it because He's your father, and you're a child. He's the king and you're the subject. He's the master, and you're the slave. You're going to submit, but not only that, you're going to delight in it. You're going to delight in what God is doing in your life, even if it brings great sorrow and suffering. How could Paul and Silas delight in being beaten and thrown in a jail? Well, at that time, maybe it's hard to delight, but looking back years later, and they saw what happened and the Philippian jailers family and how that church grew and all that, they can delight in it then. And you may not know everything that God's choosing for your life, but God has a wise plan and He is wisely bringing you through suffering, or through prosperity. He knows exactly what he's doing. That's Christian contentment. I could go on at length but I'm going to just move now to 1 Corinthians 7. I believe that Paul openly teaching Christian contentment, Philippians 4, clearly exemplifying Christian contentment in Acts 16, is teaching on marriage and singleness out of the perspective of Christmas contentment in 1 Corinthian 7. II. Christian Contentment Applied to Life Status So look. Look and see if you can't see that idea. Look at Verse 17. Now, I'm going to read the New American Standard Translation in verse 17. "Only as the Lord has assigned to each one as God has called each. In this manner, let him walk." That's powerful. As the Lord has assigned to each, the Greek word here is means to divide or measure out or separate, to put a boundary around you. Alright. As God has made an assignment to you. Now, that assigning language is the language of God's wise and fatherly decisions about your life. It's the language of providence. God has made a providential decision about you. Alright, Verse 17. "Only as the Lord has assigned to each one as God has called each…" There's an allotment here. Now, the grammar is a little unclear and you're going to see it in the different English translations. It has to do with the word call and what is God calling. Is it that he's calling you to follow Christ and to be a Christian, and you're in the middle of a specific life circumstance when he did that and the calling is to be a Christian in the midst of that life circumstance, or does the calling extend to the life circumstance itself? He called you to be single. He called you to be a slave. He called you to be circumcised. He called you to be uncircumcised. The grammar doesn't settle it. And as a matter of fact, most of the translations go about 50/50. Better safe to say, in the midst of your life, He called you to follow Christ. But I could say that the calling might extend also to these specific circumstances that he's addressing. Now, Paul repeats this mentality in all these life situations that we've seen. To the circumcised, that is to the Jews, he gives this advice. And to the uncircumcised, that is the Gentiles, he gives this advice. Look at Verse 18. "Was a man already circumcised when he was called?" In other words, was he a Jewish man. "He should not become uncircumcised. Conversely, was a man uncircumcised when he was called, he should not be circumcised." Now, this is interesting because it's pretty obvious to any who gives even a little amount of thought to it. There's no way you're going to become uncircumcised. But what He's saying is, if you are living as a Jew, in the pattern of life as a Jewish person, and he's going to deal with this in-depth in Chapter 9, he says to the Jews and became like a Jew. Had to do with your eating, your lifestyle, the patterns of your life. Don't stop all that. Just keep on living like a Jew. And conversely, if you were a Gentile, you don't have to become a Jew in order to be saved. He deals with this at length in the book of Galatians, saying, circumcision doesn't save you. You don't need to be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses in order to go to Heaven. And so, he gives that again in verse 19. "Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing." It is not going to help you spiritually. Those days are over. Jesus died on the cross, He was raised from the dead, He destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile, of those ceremonial rules like circumcision and dietary laws and all that. Blown up. Now we've got one new person, Christian, some Jews, some Gentiles, but one new person. So you don't need to become the opposite. You Gentiles don't have to become Jews. You Jews don't have to become Gentiles. Just be what you were in the midst of your life when you were called. And he says circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts. Now, that's a mind-blower. I can actually find commands concerning circumcision in the Old Testament. A law-abiding Jew would say, "What do you mean keeping God's commands? We're commanded to be circumcised?" No. Not anymore. Not anymore. And the same thing, we were commanded or forbidden concerning dietary laws. We'll get to that in chapters 8-10 about eating. Not anymore. Those things are fulfilled. What commands do you have in mind? Well, those moral laws that are timeless, which Jesus summarized powerfully for us. The first and greatest commandment is this, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength." And the second commandment is like this, "Love your neighbor as yourself." Keep those commandments. That's what matters, not circumcision or uncircumcision. So, be content in your daily lifestyle. In Verse 20, he says each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Next, amazingly, this is mind blowing. He addresses slaves. It's really quite remarkable. Look at Verses 21-24. "Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you, although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord, is the Lord's freed man, and similarly, he who was a free man when he was called, is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price. Do not become slaves of men. Brothers, each one who is responsible to God should remain in the situation God called him to." This is incredible. If you are a slave, don't let it bother you. Now this is, it's revolutionary. You can reach such a place in your heart, in your soul, where the fact that you're even a slave and can't walk away doesn't bother you at all. You know you could spend the rest of your life in that condition. Most slaves did. And you can go from, as a Christian slave, you can go from that to being lavishly rewarded on Judgment Day by the master, for how you carried yourself. You actually belong to Jesus and all of the service that you're rendering your earthly master, if you do it right, you're really rendering it to Christ. He goes through all this in Ephesians and Colossians, so you actually can live free-er than your master, if your master is not a Christian. He's enslaved to sin. Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin." But if Jesus sets you free, you'll be free indeed, you are free in Christ from the real chains, which is it in and death and hell. You're set free from that. You are Christ's freed man. So don't be bothered by your status as a slave. Don't let it weigh on you day after day, saying, "I can't be happy as a slave." Yes, you can. However, he says, if you can get your freedom, do it. It's incredible. So, if an opportunity to get free and to become free comes, fine, but you need to carry the same attitude, because once you become a freed man, you're going to be Christ's slave in the midst of all that. You'll be free to do whatever you want, go wherever you want. You'll be free to go where the Lord tells you to go. And not only that, but you're going to be in bondage to other people based on circumstances like the parable of the Good Samaritan. You're walking by and somebody's bleeding by the side of the road, you're not free to walk on by. You need to serve that man in love. So, you're going to end up being even horizontally serving to everybody. It's a whole different way of thinking, isn't it? It's powerful. So I love it. He says, If you can get your freedom, do it. Think. Let's go back to the Philippian jail. Alright. When the chains fell off and the doors came open, Paul didn't run away. Why? Because it would have been illegal, and they would have had to send someone after him to bring him back. And do you realize, if he and the other prisoners had done so, the Philippian jailer would be in hell right now? He would have committed suicide that very night. Never in all the Bible do you see anyone so dangling over hell that's later rescued. This man had drawn his swords ready to fall on it. But because Paul was submissive to God's will in his life, he stayed put. He stayed as a prisoner until the law said it was time for him to go, which they did the next morning. And they sent messengers saying, "Okay, you're free to go." Paul said, "Wait, wait, wait a minute now. You enslaved us and beat us without a trial, and now you just want us to go away? No. You come and escort us out." But one thing Paul didn't do is say, "Actually, we found a kind of a home here in the dungeon. We love it here. I know there's nothing to eat or drink and I know it stinks and it's dark, but we have learned to be content here and we're going to stay in prison." Not at all. If you can get your freedom, do it, but it's not why he's alive. He's alive and whether he's in prison or free, he belongs to Christ. III. Christian Contentment Applied to Marital Status Alright, so now let's take all that and apply it to marital status. Look at verses 25-28. "Now, about virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I give a judgment as one, who by the Lord's mercy, is trustworthy. Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. And if a virgin marries, she has not sinned." So he begins by addressing virgins or the unmarried. They were perhaps they had been betrothed, but not yet married. Paul says, I do not have a specific command from Jesus on this. So he didn't have a word from Jesus in terms of the catalog of sayings of Jesus, but he speaks as someone who has been trained by God's mercy to speak wisdom into situations. So, he's going to give them advice. And what is that advice? It's predictable. Stay in the condition in which you were called. That's what he's saying. If you are married, then stay married. He's already covered that. The only way to end the marriage would be a divorce and that is not lawful. But it's more than that, isn't it? Stay married as a content man or content woman. Don't be pining after a better marital status. Don't wish you had a different spouse. Be content in your life situation. Bloom where you're planted, flourish where you're planted, stay in the condition. But if you're single, he says, stay single if you can. Don't allow your mind to be dominated by worldly things. This life is brief. Our time here is temporary. And verse 26, he says, "Because of the present crisis, I think it's good for you to remain as you are." That means just the difficulties of life in this world, and even more, if you're in a persecuted setting. If you might die any day as a Christian, it's better to die as a single person than to leave behind a spouse and kids. So he says, in light of the present crisis, stay single if you can. So, be content in the circumstance of your life. Don't say, "My life will begin when I find my spouse. Until then, it's all a waste." Don't think like that. Verse 27, "Are you on married? Don't seek for a wife." Don't seek. The keyword here is seek. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. Seek the face of God and prayer. Seek what pleases God and find out what God is seeking in the world. He's seeking people to worship Him in Spirit and truth. John 4. He is seeking and saving the lost, Luke 19:10. Don't seek for a wife or a husband. Do you not see, that's not why we're here on Earth. Even if you had found the most godly spouse and have the most wonderful decades together, at some point, you may well become a widow or a widower. What, does your life end at that point? Your life is not your wife, your life is not your husband. Your life is Christ. Just as Bob was praying from Colossians 3, Christ is your life. When Christ who is your life appears, your wife isn't your life, your husband isn't your life. And so, think like that. Don't seek for this, but he does give this tepid endorsement. If you do marry, you have not sinned. Thank you, Paul. Alright, that's not the final Bible's final word on the blessings of marriage. We covered that already, but he said I just want you to know, if you do choose to marry, you found sin. Now he's about to make his extended defense of singleness and we'll get to that, God-willing, in the future. So, let me just apply this as we finish. Have you learned the secret of Christian contentment? Are you learning it? Is Christ crucified, resurrected enough for you today, or does he have to do more? If you're a single person, is Christ crucified and resurrected enough for you or do you have to have a spouse? If you are married, is Christ's crucified and resurrected enough for you to be genuinely happy in your marriage, no matter what the situation is with your spouse? Are you able to be content in Christ, in any and every situation? Are you able to look at your life circumstances? Maybe your medical situation, maybe you're hurting, you're in pain, maybe your spouse is. Maybe your housing situation is not what you want it to be, maybe your job situation is not what you want it to be. Again, if you can improve those things, do so, but don't live for them. Christ is your life. A final advice here is, bloom where you're planted. Don't be yearning for what God hasn't given you yet. The other day I was watching with one of my kids, the original clip from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And do you remember how she was singing "Someday My Prince Will Come." Do you remember that? Oh yeah, I forgot that song. It's an interesting song musically, it's a little quirky. Jazz musicians did bunches of riffs on that tune. But it's like, no. I mean, and you could just say, "Oh it's so hokey all that," but I'm telling you, it's incredible. Discontentment is like, "Someday, my X will come. And when that X comes, then I'm going to be happy and fulfilled." Don't live like that. Christ has already given you everything you need to be content today. Live like it. Close with me in prayer.

Everyone is running a race through life, but many are running with different goals. Our prize will be eternal fellowship with Christ; something that cannot be fully attained in this life, but we still need to pursue that goal as we mature in Christ! Sermons Archive RSS Philippians 32 Corinthians 11:23-28Acts 22:4-10Hebrews 12:14,6:12 Timothy 2:18Luke 9:621 Corinthians 9:24,3:12 Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:What kind of a spirituality race are you running?How do you press on when life gets you down?Has Christ laid hold of your heart?What are you trying to forget from your past in order to reach forward to the upward call of Christ?Are there sins in your life which are moving you backward in your Christian walk?What spiritual goals do you have?What is the prize you are running to obtain?

Welcome to “Bible Study for Progressives,” a show where moderates, liberals and leftists of all faiths and ideologies come together to discuss scripture, spirituality and politics. Today we will be reading from Paul’s first letter to Corinthians.  Those testy Corinthians were in a ruckus over who they followed and what they believed.  Paul tells to be in “united in mind and purpose.”   Have you ever had your faith called into question? Many Christians have a litmus test for deciding who's in and who's out. It is as if they have to double check to make sure we believe the exact same things. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior? Do you believe that Jesus is God who took human form in order to die for our sins so that we can go to heaven after we die? Do you believe that anyone who doesn't believe these things will go to hell? These are actually just the first questions people are asked. Throughout our lives we are told what it means to be a Christian, but many people disagree on the details. So we split up into different demoninations. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, there as as many as 33,000 different demonations around the world. While this number may be exagerated, there are at least thousands of different Christian denominations many saying that only they are saved. This type of division lead the Apostle Paul to ask: "Has Christ been divided?" Today we will discuss Paul's instruction that we be in agreement with no divisions. Given the diversity of early Christianity, what could Paul have meant, and what should it mean for our modern pluralistic world today where we value and respect people of other cultures and religions? Is it something more than just agreeing to disagree?

This week we reflect on the readings for this week in year A, which is the third Sunday in Epiphany: Isaiah 9:1-4; 1st Corinthians 1:10-18 and Matthew 4:12-23. Show Notes: Is Christ divided? or, literally, ‘Has Christ been parcelled out?’ (13). Paul is asking the Corinthians, with all their division, ‘Do you suppose that there are fragments of Christ that can be distributed among different groups? If you have Christ, you have all of him. Jesus cannot be divided.’ We cannot have half a person, as though we said: ‘Please come in, but leave your legs outside.’ This, incidentally, throws light on such common phrases as ‘wanting more of Christ’. It cannot be: we should rather be allowing Christ to have more of us. We are the disintegrated ones whom Christ is gradually making whole, so that we become more like him—integrated and entire. The same argument applies to wanting more of the Holy Spirit. If he is personal, a Person, than we either have him living within us or we do not; again, our desire and prayer should be for the Holy Spirit to have more of us. -David Prior The phrase “from that time Jesus began” (v. 17) is followed by the infinitive “to preach.” The identical phrase appears again in 16:21, this time with the infinitive “to show” following. Now comes the content of the preaching or showing. Even though the phrase appears but twice in Matthew, it has the look of a formula introducing something of major importance. Some students of Matthew’s Gospel see it as an important indicator of Matthew’s view of the unfolding of Jesus’ ministry.In any case, “Jesus began to preach,” and the public work of Jesus is defined as preaching the nearness of the kingdom of God. In all too many cases today, the term “preaching” has associations with scolding, harping on moral platitudes, or dwelling on the obvious or the irrelevant. In the Scriptures, however, “to preach” (kēryssō) is not to deal in shopworn or secondhand goods, but to announce as a herald (kēryx) the news that is both gut-wrenching and glad beyond all expectation. -Andre Resner Neither religious philosophy nor existence can provide the criterion for the genuineness of Christianity. In philosophy, man discovers what is humanly knowable about the depths of being; in existence, man lives out what is humanly livable. But Christianity disappears the moment it allows itself to be dissolved into a transcendental precondition of human self-understanding in thinking or living, knowledge or deed. -Hans Urs von Balthasar “As we have taken the circle as a symbol of reason and madness, we may very well take the cross as a symbol at once of mystery and health. Buddhism is centripetal, but Christianity is centrifugal: it breaks out. For the circle is perfect and infinite in its nature; but it is fixed for ever in its size; it can never be larger or smaller. But the cross, though it has at its head a collision and a contradiction, can extend its four arms for ever without altering its shape. Because is has a paradox in its center it can grow without changing. The circle returns upon itself and is bound. The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers.” -G.K. Chesterton

I got an email asking me, "Does just the act of making space for a thing with clear purpose actually assist us in going down that road good or bad? Has Christ ever taught on that subject with you?" and I thought immediately about Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. We use to use this term alot, however we do not so much in this time. We speak in vision boards, visualizing, and seeing ourselves doing something, however how do we make space, make room, clear the path for what we want from our lives? How do our intentions create our reality?  Tune in and Join in on the Conversation Friday Morning at 5:30 AM, PST.  

I remember now that at Epiphany, January 5, which somehow did not get recorded, I simply read a column of Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ.  I'll try to point you toward a transcript of that column.   "Has Christ been divided?"  Rips in the fabric of Christianity go back to the time of St. Paul.  We consider the absolute need for Christians to be woven back together.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches on Galatians 4:12-20 and the goal of the gospel ministry that seeks conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ, and the pains related to the work. - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - One of my favorite stories when I was a child growing up, and it actually became more of a favorite as I began my life as an adult working, was the story of the shoemaker and the elves. You remember that story about this guy who was an elderly guy, poor shoemaker, and he would work all day just barely scraping out a living. And at one point, he went to bed and some elves came into his workshop and they had compassion on him and loved him. I don't know what it was that he did to gain their affection and their loyalty, but they finished a set of shoes that he had been working on and maybe some others as well. I don't remember the details of the story but I know this, he comes in the next morning and all of these shoes are assembled and ready with incredible workmanship and he sells them at a great profit. And he thinks this is incredible, and the same things keeps happening to him. There was a point in my life when I wanted that to happen to me. Why can't it be that the projects that I just leave would be done overnight. Have you ever had that thought? It's like where are the elves? To come in and do this work for me, I would love that. Well, I was thinking about all of that in reference to a statement made by a Puritan pastor some years ago, he said the work of a pastor is different than that of other tradesmen. When a tradesmen or craftsman leaves his project for the night and goes to bed he wakes up the next morning and finds it in the exact same state in which he left it and he continues on. So you take a cabinet maker for example, he's working on a cabinet, he does some elaborate carvings and some floral pattern, all that. The day ends, he goes to sleep and there's no elves in the story but the good thing is it's right where he left it and he picks up his tools and goes on with his work. But it is not so with the pastor. No, actually when the pastor leaves his work and goes away, immediately Satan sends his demons to start to deconstruct all the things he's been working on. The world, the flesh and the devil are constantly un-working the work of the ministry of the word. It's going on all the time and so he doesn't find the work in the same place where he left it; it's actually more like building a sand castle sometimes, and the waves come in and he comes and finds a smooth nub where he was working, and he picks up his tools and begins to work again. And you know why, it's because of the relentless spiritual warfare that we are engaged in all the time. We have invisible enemies that are assaulting our souls. Now, that's only the negative or maybe pessimistic side, illustrated in the bible by a parable that Jesus told, the parable of the wheat and the weeds or commonly known as the wheat and the tares. You remember how a farmer sowed good seed in his field but at night while everyone was sleeping an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away, it's the same image there. Now, there's another parable that Jesus told so beautifully of a seed planted in the soil and whether he's awake or asleep, whatever he's doing it grows. And so not only is Satan and his demons at work but God is sovereignly at work too, even apart from or beyond the work of the pastor. I'm only kind of focusing on half of the equation today, but this is the very issue the Apostle Paul is struggling with here in the text that's in front of us here. He came to Galatia and he preached the gospel, he preached it purely, he preached it powerfully, by the power of the spirit he planted churches in Galatia and then he left. And then Satan sent some false apostles, some false missionaries, false teachers to start to deconstruct all of the good work that he had done. And Paul is very aware of this kind of thing going on as a matter of fact, very aware. In Thessalonians he's very anxious about the churches that they planted there and very anxious until a good report comes from Timothy that they're still walking with the Jesus, and he's relieved and he says, "I can't even tell you all the joy I have in my heart for this good report." In 2 Corinthians, when he's listing all of the things that brings him sorrow and suffering in his life, and so many physical assaults and being beaten with rods and being lashed and shipwrecked and all that. The capstone of all of his misery is, on top of all of this is the constant anxiety I have for the churches of Christ. That they're constantly being assaulted, they're being tempted and I'm like burning with them as I'm concerned about their souls. And do you see that in the text we're looking at today, do you see the anguish he has. And it's very clear at the very end, he says, "I'm perplexed over you," "I'm anxious over you, I'm concerned about you." It's an anguish that's come on him. By the way, if we can just speak very sweetly, and powerfully and positively here about this man, this Paul. There was a time in which he was filled with, seething with murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, hated them. How far has the sovereign grace of God taken this man? All he wants is Christ to be formed in them, that's all he cares about. Do you see the transformation that the sovereign grace of God can work in the human heart? But he is anguished over them and he's concerned over them and he's distressed and he is in a long line of God's messengers who have been in this exact same position. How anguished was Moses over the status of Israel during the time of the golden calf, with what anguished prayer did he pray for the Jewish nation at that time. Or think about Elijah just pleading with the people to make a decision between Yahweh and Baal on the top of Mount Carmel. Pleading with them and yearning that they would come and believe in the true God. Or think about Isaiah and all of his writings pouring out his passion and his love for the people that they would repent from their sins and stop following the Baals and the false gods. Jeremiah the weeping prophet, he was the one who metaphorically, he's the one that turned off the lights after Jerusalem was empty. And the book of Lamentations, how desolate lies the city once so full of people. And he was pleading with them and yearning for them, and why? Why all of this? Why? Because of the very thing we sang a few moments ago; "prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart Lord take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above." Our hearts are prone to wander. The people of God can be doing really well in January and not very well in February. Some have likened it to herding cats, Not trying to be insulting but that's what it feels like sometimes, because of the instability of the work that's going on here there's just a constant concern over the flock. And so we are able to look at some of these themes, we are able to look at the depths of Paul's concern over the Galatian churches here in this text today and the nature of true gospel ministry. And there's so much passion in this text and it doesn't just unfold in a kind of a logical orderly way. He's so filled with anxiety and so filled with concern for them and he is openly perplexed over you. So we're not looking for a kind of a consecutive unfolding here. I. The Goal of Gospel Ministry: “Until Christ is Formed in You” What I'm going to do is go to the end, the goal of true gospel ministry right at the beginning. And so I'm going to draw out themes not necessarily right in the order of the text, we're going to draw out themes so we can try to understand this. The goal of gospel ministry is in verse 19, "Until Christ is formed in you." Do you see that? That's really what he wants to see happen in these Galatians. Until Christ is formed in you. Verse 19, "My dear children for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you." So this is the overarching goal of gospel ministry: total conformity to Jesus Christ. That's what we're looking for, that's the goal of the church in the lives of the people that we minister to. Now, our natural state, naturally apart from Christ, described in many places what Titus 3:3, at one time it says, "We are foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures, we lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another." That's where we start, that's us in Satan's dark kingdom but Paul says hearing Galatians through the gospel ministry, the ministry of Jesus Christ we're set free from all that. How glorious is that news? "This is the overarching goal of gospel ministry: total conformity to Jesus Christ." Look again in verses 7-8 eight of the same chapter, Galatians 4:7-8, "So you are no longer a slave but a son." Oh, that's the glorious good news of the gospel, you're not enslaved anymore to passions and pleasures and all that, not enslaved to sin anymore. You are now adopted sons and daughters of the Living God. So you are no longer a slave but a son and since you are a son, God has also made you an heir. Formerly, verse 8, "When you did not know God you were slaves to those who by nature are not God's." So you are enslaved to demonic forces and to false doctrines and all that, the gospel has set you free, how beautiful is that. And so he came to preach the gospel and having been rejected in other places, persecuted in other places, and suffering greatly. This was I think the first time he was in anguish of childbirth over them. He uses the word again, the first time just to stay on the gospel road, just to even come to you, it was anguish for me, because there was so much persecution, so much satanic opposition, but I persevered and I came to your towns and I preached the gospel and we wrestled in prayer over you. And we preached faithfully and so we were in the pains of childbirth that first time, so that you could come to faith in Christ. Also is a very difficult time Paul says, "It was because of an illness, [verse 13] that I first preach the gospel to you." So these things could have caused Paul to give up in the preaching of the gospel. Instead he soldiered on and he got an amazing result. The Galatians heard and believed the gospel, and they received the outpoured gift of the Holy Spirit and a church was planted, and churches were planted in Galatia. But that was the first time, now he's in the pains of childbirth over them for a second time. And the goal is he says, until Christ is formed in them. The parallel verse that teaches this as the goal of the gospel ministry is in Romans 8:29, and there it says, "For those God foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, so that He might be the first born among many brothers." That's the goal of everything God is doing, that's the goal of the predestination, that's the goal of everything that we who are originally created in the image and likeness of God but that was marred and so severely damaged by sin, that we would be perfectly conformed in every way to the likeness of Jesus Christ. That's the goal of the gospel, that's the goal of this ministry here, and Jesus is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being (Hebrews 1:3), so we would be beautifully and perfectly conform to God himself, as he originally intended when he created us. Transformed internally, transformed from our hearts. Ephesians 4:24, "Created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." And even physically, we'd be conformed physically. So that it says in 1 Corinthians 15:49, "Just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man [Adam] so we shall also bear the likeness of the man from heaven," that's Christ. We're going to be just like him in our resurrection bodies. That's the work that God is doing in the gospel. until Christ is formed in you and you are totally conformed in every way to Christ. That's what we're trying for. Now, this happens by the inner working of the Holy Spirit. A radical change of the individual from the inside out, but ongoing shepherding is needed because our salvation comes to us in stages. Comes to us in stages, we don't get it all at once. Now, we have to be clear. Justification, which we have been focusing on here in Galatians does not come in stages, that's instantaneously. From darkness to light, from dead to alive. That's justification, but our salvation is bigger than justification. There's more to it and so the Lord is working in us to transform us. It comes to us in stages and Paul says, "Now I've got to be in the anguish of childbirth again, until Christ is formed in you." Because they have regressed in their sanctification. They have drawn back away from a healthy doctrine and a healthy lifestyle. And that's the essence of pastoral ministry. Paul has to go back to basics with them, as though they need to born again. It's weird, it's not the way it was meant to be, I don't need to be again in childbirth... No, no woman ever goes through childbirth twice. Why should I have to do this? Why do I have to go through this with you again as though you don't even know the gospel. How could this be? Step by step in pastoral ministry, we want to see people conform to Jesus. We want to see their hearts conformed. We want to see their affections conformed. We want them to love what Christ loves and hate what Christ hates. And we want them to yearn after the things that Christ is yearning after. We want people to make choices, use their will the way that Christ did, not my will but yours be done, oh Father. We want our wills conformed to that of Jesus Christ. We want our thought life, we want to have this mind in us which was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2:5. We want to think like Jesus, have the same attitude and we want an emotional healthy emotional life like Jesus had. We want to rejoice over what causes him to rejoice and mourn over those things that grieve him. That's what we want. That's what Christ is formed in you means. That's the goal of pastoral ministry. Well, how does this happen? II. The Method of Gospel Ministry: Speaking and Living the Truth Secondly, the method of gospel ministry is speaking and living the truth. Proclamation of the truth, the teaching of the truth, coupled with a living out of it by role modeling and exampling, that's the essence of it. We would add also prayer, an accessory prayer, but look what He says in verse 12, "I plead with you brothers. Become like me for I became like you." We have here in this text, this whole section, a combination of words and actions. We have pleading, he's pleading with them, that's words. Also we have the teaching ministry we've seen so plainly in Galatians 1, 2, and 3, especially, 3, in which he lays out so clearly from the scriptures justification by faith alone, faith in Jesus alone, apart from work. He's done all this teaching. That's the essence of this work, this pastoral ministry work, but also there's this role modeling, become like me. So imitate me, that's the essence. Look at teaching as it's on display here in this book of Galatians. Strong emphasis on teaching the truth. It's also on display in this passage. Look at verse 16, "Have I now become your enemy," he says, "by telling you the truth?" Truth-telling is of the essence of pastoral ministry. It's our ministry. It's our concern as pastors, as shepherds to tell the truth coming from scriptures, scriptural truth. So the truth is doctrinal truth and spoken passionately and powerfully and it's applied directly to people's lives, especially key moments when they need to hear the truth. If you look back at Galatians 2:14, for example, he does this. He takes the truth and applies it directly at a key moment. In Galatians 2:14, he says, "When I saw that they were not acting or living in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all…" You remember all that? Peter was shrinking back from table fellowship with the Gentiles because of the dietary regulations, and Paul steps in there and he just confronts them and says, "You're not living in line with the truth that you've learned. We're free from the dietary regulations. We should be living and eating together, there's no Jew-Gentile distinction anymore. So of the essence of this pastoral ministry is teaching the word of God. The willingness to speak the truth even if it hurts. Even if it's somewhat temporarily seems to damage the relationship. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Being willing to do that, to risk that. To risk a feeling, an odd feeling of alienation with somebody because your telling them the truth. Martin Luther, put it clearly in terms of preaching. He said, "You should always preach in such a way that when you get done, people will either hate you or hate their sins." Well look, that's a heavy burden to lay on any individual. Which are you, do you hate your sin or do you hate me? But that's of the essence of pastor ministry, tell the truth in the ways that it needs to be said. Truly wise people made wise by the Spirit, made wise by the gospel, want to hear the truth. They want to hear the truth told, we want to hear the truth. Psalm 141:5, "Let a righteous man strike me, it is a kindness. Let him rebuke me, it is oil on my head." We know in the book of Proverbs one of the big differences between the wise man and the fool is what happens at the moment of rebuke or correction. The wise man drinks it in like water and grows and changes, but the fool hardens his heart and turns away and is not interested in that. Now, in ministry and the history and redemptive history again and again we've seen how much people yearn for candy-coated lies. Happened again and again. Clear example of this is wicked king Ahab, remember when he's going off to fight at Ramoth-Gilead? And he's got all of these "yes" men around him. His false prophets were dancing and jumping and saying things about how he's going to win this battle. And he's got godly king Jehoshaphat out there with him, remember? He (Jehoshaphat) shouldn't have been there. Clearly he shouldn't have been there. It's a different issue for another time but here's there and his going to go out to fight alongside the wicked king Ahab. And Jehoshaphat is troubled in his spirit and says, "Isn't there a prophet of the Lord here? Can we find somebody who'll speak for the Lord?" He said, "Actually there is one," said King Ahab, "there is one who prophesize for the Lord, but I hate him because he always says bad things about me. Never good." And Jehoshaphat said the King should not say that. A pretty mild rebuke at that point. Micaiah, son of Imlah. It's just an amazing story but he wants a candy-coated lie, which actually interestingly, Micaiah gives him right at the beginning. I think he says it sarcastically, "Go and conquer and win. Have a good time." He's like, "Well that's what all the prophets are saying, but I don't think that's what you really mean. What do you really mean?", "Well I'll tell you what I mean. You're going to die at that battle. That's what's going to happen."; "See, I told you, he always says bad things about me." It just points how we in our sin, yearn for the candy-coated lie. Isaiah isolated this in Isaiah 30:9-11. These are some of those powerful verses on this tenancy that we have. Isaiah 30:9-11, it says, "These are rebellious people. Deceitful children. Children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction. They say to the seers, see no more visions. And to the prophets give us no more visions of what is right. Tell us pleasant things. Prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path and stop confronting us with the Holy One of God." This is what the people yearn for: Candy-coated truths. But gospel ministry is telling biblical truth even if it hurts. Can I actually say gospel ministry is telling biblical truth, especially when it hurts, because that's the point where the Spirit is dealing with people. That's where the conviction is coming. That's where these stings come. That's where the cuts are. You ever had some cuts on your finger and you've been peeling an orange or grapefruit or something like that, has that ever happened to you? And it's like wow, the citric acid gets in those cuts and it really stings. But that pain is telling you, "There's some cuts there." All right? "This is what the people yearn for: Candy-coated truths. But gospel ministry is telling biblical truth even if it hurts. ... That's where the conviction is coming." And so it is sin that leaves us damaged and then the Word comes and it stings where it hurts. It stings there and that's where the sin is. And so gospel ministry is telling biblical truth even if it hurts, perhaps especially when it hurts. We also have role modeling too in verse 12, "I plead with you brothers become like me for I became like you." This is a big theme in the Apostle Paul isn't it? "Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1. Probably the clearest time he ever said that. This is as bold a statement as any discipler will ever make to a disciple, or any pastor will ever make to anybody, is in Philippians 4. Listen to this. Philippians 4:9, "Whatever you have learned or receive or heard from me [as doctrine] or seen in me — put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." Wow! Imitate me completely, doctrinally and lifestyle. So that's how it's done, that's how ministry is done. This is the method of gospel ministries. Speaking the truth and modeling and living out the truth. III. The Matrix of Gospel Ministry: Loving Relationship The matrix of gospel ministry is loving relationship or you could say loving relationships, but I want to say especially between the individual and Christ and then horizontally between the individual and another individual. All of that speaking, all of that truth telling must be done in the matrix of a loving relationship. Must be done. It says in Ephesians 4:15, "Instead speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the head and His Christ Jesus." Speaking the truth in love. It needs to be said with gentleness, with tenderness through prayer in the matrix of a committed relationship. We genuinely love each other. In some sense I would say we've earned the right to say hard things in each other's lives. Not everybody can do it equally in a local church. A lot of it comes from a developed friendship and relationship that happens because there's reciprocity. I know you love me. I know you care about me and therefore I can hear this from you. So there's a context of it. "By this will all men know that you're my disciples if you have love for one another." John 13:35. Paul here in this text goes over the history of their relationship, do you see it? Very painful for him to look back. He says, "That was then, remember how it used to be? Remember how we were friends? When I first came remember how you were with me? It's so different now." Look at the verses 12-16. He said, "I plead with you, brothers, become like me for I became like you. You have done me no wrong. As you know it was because of an illness that I first reached preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?" Now, there is a lot in those verses, but what I want you to notice is how relational they are. How relational, he's got this close relationship with them and he's hurt by this. I think in chapters 1, 2, and 3, especially chapter 3, it is just like a dispassionate dispenser of truth. Just saying how it is in the old testament and all that, but here he just shows his heart. He says, "This hurts me. It's hurtful that this has happened." He loves them, he calls them brothers and he pleads with them. It's a passionate appeal. And he writes, "Become like me for I became like you." What does that mean? Well, I don't know exactly what it means but I think it has to do with missionary strategy, and he says very plainly in 1 Corinthians 9:21-22, talks about missionary strategy, he says, "To those not having the law," those were Gentiles, "to those not having law I became like one not having the law, so as to win those not having the law." "So I changed my mannerisms, my dress, my eating habits and things. I became like you so I could win you to Christ. But now I want you to become like me in my gospel freedom. I want you to imitate how free I am from legalism. I want you to become like me as I walk in this free path." That's what he's saying to them. He reminds them of the circumstances of how he first came there, he reminds them of his illness. This shows us how God can use suffering to divert the paths of missionaries and messengers and he just does incredible things providentially. God's moving pieces on the chess board in ways we can't even imagine. He'll use circumstances. The implication of this statement is, "I wouldn't have even come to you if I hadn't gotten sick." Sometimes we're praying for health and all that, look, that's good, it's good to pray for that but, God just uses these things to orchestrate what he wants done. And he wanted Paul in Galatia to preach the gospel and establish his churches, so he made him sick. There goes your health and wealth right there. He made him sick. He orchestrated his illness to get him there. And he focuses on the relationship he had in those days, how much they loved him. Apparently, his trial, his illness was not so much that he couldn't preach or minister. I think the ministry's going on while they care for him in his sickness is going on. And so that's why they welcomed him with such joy as if he were an angel from God. As if he were a messenger from heaven. As if he were Jesus Christ himself. All that doesn't make much sense except that Paul was preaching the gospel to them, and they were loving what he was saying and they were excited to care for him. Very much like the Philippian jailer, you remember that? Philippian jailer, who almost killed himself? Paul and Silas cry out, "Don't harm yourself, we're all here." And then he rushes in trembling, calling for lights, trembling, brings him out and says, "What must I do to be saved?" "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household." And so that very hour he believed and then immediately after that, the jailer cared for Paul and Silas' wounds and set a meal in front of them. That's powerful because his heart had been changed and he cared about them. He was every bit as in need of medical care and food before that but the guy wasn't converted yet. Once he was converted, suddenly he has a heart of love and affection for the messenger of the gospel. I think that's what's happening, these folks cared for them. Even though it was a trial to them and they were tempted to despise him. There were certain aspects of medical care that are disgusting in some ways. It could have be loathsome to you. The Greek word there is spat out. Just, Ugh! There's gross parts of it. I was reading an account from William Bradford, of what the first winter was like when the pilgrims settled at Plymouth and many, many, many of them got sick, many died. And Bradford talked about the few handful of people at any given time, six or seven of them at any given time, who are healthy enough to care for others. And this is what he writes, "Who to their great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains, night or day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, prepared their meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them; the sick people. In a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named, and they did all of this willingly and cheerfully without any grudging in the lead showing here and there true love unto their friends and brethren. I get the same feeling here with the Galatians. They were caring for Paul with a cheerful heart because they were so delighted in the relationship. But now all of that was gone. Look at verse 15, "What has happened to all your joy. I can testify that if you could have done so, you would've torn out your eyes and given them to me." Now, I think verse 15 is a very significant statement. "What has happened to all your joy?" Can I just pause for a moment and talk about joy in the Christian life? Okay? Joy in the Christian life is a fragile barometer of spiritual health. Fragile barometer of spiritual health. This book, is about legalism. You got to obey the Law of Moses in order to be saved. Legalism destroys joy in Christ. Destroys it. The people who are legalistic, they're not joyful. They're trying to earn it all the time, there's no joy. Can I go the other side and say license destroys joy, in the Christian life. If you're just indulging the flesh, indulging the sin nature, your joy is going to go. I would say look to your joy. There are other things that can hurt joy. We'll talk about them at the end of the sermon, but these extremes are joy killers. And so, I look on joy as (I've used this illustration before, so bear with me if you've heard it) the canary in a coal mine of the Christian life. Coal miners used to bring these little birds in cages into the tunnels where they were carving out a very difficult existence, down in the depths of the earth. Down there, there were a lot of dangers but one of them are just invisible fumes like carbon monoxide and other things you couldn't even see or smell... They're odorless, colorless and deadly dangerous. What these coal miners would do, it would be bring these little birds in cages, and if the birds were singing and just doing normal bird things, whatever they are. But just chirping, singing, everything is fine and so you would look up occasionally at how's the bird doing. But if that bird was getting woozier or even worse, down at the bottom of the cage, you need to get out of there fast, because you're in trouble. I guess what I'm saying is, how's your joy in Christ? Is your life characterized by joy, the joy of your salvation? I'll return to this theme at the end but that's what he's saying, what's happened to all your joy? Joy with Christ? Joy with me? Just joy in general. What's happened? In the next chapter in Galatians 5:15, he gives a glimpse on how they're doing with each other. He says if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you'll be destroyed by each other. They're not getting along. They're bickering with each other and all that. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. We'll talk about that next chapter as well. The Holy Spirit produces joy in the Christian life. Now, I want to do another side just because I think it's worth mentioning, the nature of Paul's illness. Paul says a very strange thing here in this verse 15. He says, "I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me." Now, I don't know what that means. That seems a bit odd. Now, it might be just a simple expression that we don't use anymore, but we might use something like it, like I'd give my right arm for… Very few would actually see it through, it's like "Okay, it's a deal." "Wait, I'm not sure about that. Not sure." But I think it could be something like that, I would give my eyes if you could just be healthy. But some commentator say it probably just has to do with the nature of Paul's illness, it had to do with his eyes. That he had trouble seeing. At the end of the Book of Galatians, he says, see what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hands. This is how I always write. He frequently dictated his letters through secretaries. Trivia question, who actually wrote the Book of Romans? Look it up. I know the answer, you guys can look it up. Tell me later. Who actually wrote it? It wasn't Paul, it's his secretary who slipped his name in there in Roman 16. We'll meet him in heaven. But Paul, when he was on the Damascus Road was blinded, literally blinded by the glory of the resurrected Christ. And then when Ananias laid hands on him something like scale fell from his eyes when he was baptized and then regained his sight. But some commentators wonder if he struggled with his eyesight for the rest of his life. I don't know. But it's just an interesting expression he says, "You would've given your eyes for me." But now, the relationship has changed. Everything has changed and he says in verse 16, "Have I know become your enemy by telling you the truth." This is such a tragic display of the kinds of things that happen in gospel ministry. Paul was willing to speak strongly, even somewhat harshly to the Galatians to try to reclaim them from this heresy. To wake them up from the danger of combining the gospel of Jesus Christ with the Law of Moses thinking you need them both to be saved. He says in Galatians 1: 6-7, "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and returning to a different gospel, which is no gospel at all." He's shocked at them or even more pointedly how about Galatians 3? 1-3. So there he says, "You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?" Oh, now Paul, that's not nice. That's not nice. He says in verse 3 again, Galatians 3:3, "Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now perfected by the flesh. Have you learned so much for nothing?" He's really coming on strong here. Is there a time that that's needed? Yes there is. It actually is. Now people have the tendency to love the preacher when he says the things that they want to hear. Says in 2 Timothy 4:3, "The time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine." Not going to put up with it anymore. Instead to soothe their own desires they will gather around them a large number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and will turn aside to myths." Well, this is exactly how the Judaizers were. They were just tickling the ears of the Galatians in some ways. Look at verses 17-18, "Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us so that you may be zealous for them. It's fine to be zealous provided the purpose is good and to be so always, not just when I am with you." The Judaizers talk like they really care about you. These one that are teaching this legalistic gospel. They're acting like they really care about you but they don't care about you. They were fawning over the Galatians so that the Galatians would fawn over them. You know the mutual admiration society, giving each other compliments, this kind of thing, back and forth. That's what that works righteousness tends to do. It makes you proud and you want to hear some compliments coming back and you know there's human nature to it so you feed some compliments out. Get the thing going like that. They're zealous for you to win you over so that you'll be zealous for them. That's what he's saying. The use of flattery. Paul's not a flatterer. Flattery doesn't help anybody. Encouragement helps people. I think our church should be characterized by encouragement. Amen? Let's encourage one another. Let's not flatter one another. False teachers frequently use flattery. Romans 16:18, speaking of a false teachers there, it says, "For such people are not serving our Lord Christ but their own appetites by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people." Be very careful about teachers, preachers, disciplers who just pander to your ego and tell you the things you want to hear. "Flattery doesn't help anybody. Encouragement helps people.... Be very careful about teachers, preachers, disciplers who just pander to your ego and tell you the things you want to hear." IV. The Anguish of Gospel Ministry: Spiritual Drift I always see the anguish of gospel ministry and that's the spiritual drift. Look at verses 19-20. "My dear children, he says, for whom I am again in the pains of child birth until Christ is formed in you. How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone because I am perplexed about you." This is the anguish of Paul, he reveals it fully here at the end. He's hurt by what they've done and he speaks almost like a mother. He says in 1 Thessalonians 2 that you know that we were like a mother caring for you and encouraging you and pouring ourselves, sharing ourselves with you. We're like a mother. Here, he's like a woman in labor. Now, I know you women could say, "Paul, what do you know about being a woman in labor?" And you'd be right. But, he's observed it at least. He knows, gee, it must be painful, something like that. I think that's the best a husband can do. Well, no actually he can do a lot more than that, a lot more. Different topic, different day. But the apostle Paul says, "Like that I'm wrestling and struggling, I'm laboring over you. I care about you. It's painful." And he calls them my little children. There's a tender affection here. Diminutive in the Greek. He just loves them, says little children. Cares about them. And it's unnatural for me to have to go through this again, this anguish of child birth and the spiritual drift he says, verse 20, "How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone because I am perplexed about you." I'm at my wits end. I don't know what else I can say to you. V. Application All right, what is the application or what are some applications we can take from this text. First, look in the mirror of the text and bigger look in the mirror of Galatians and ask this one question: Has Christ been formed in me? Has Christ been formed in me? Am I born again? Am I alive spiritually? Have my sins been forgiven through faith in Christ crucified and resurrected? Am I a Christian? That's the most important thing. Nothing can be done towards sanctification without first justification. You have to first come to faith in Christ. As Jesus said, "This is the work of God that you believe in the one that he has sent." Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Trust in him and ask, has Christ been formed in me? Secondly, just to speak to the elders. I've been speaking about pastoral ministry here now. I want to just say a word to you few men who are elders in this church. Embrace this kind of suffering and shepherding in the ministry toward the flock. You know that were doing this. This is a lot of what we are trying to do on Monday evenings when we meet together. But let's embrace it, let's understand that the flock will need to be overseen until the Lord returns. This is an ongoing work we're going to need to keep doing this and remember the goal till Christ is formed in all of the members of this church. That is as one writer put it, and infinite journey, internal journey that just keeps going on and on. Just keeps going on and on, all right. Embrace the responsibility that we have to this, that we need to shepherd the flock and that this is going to be an ongoing work. The time is now for speaking the truth in love and not being flatterers and not saying what people want to hear. Let's encourage one another and build one another up as shepherds, but also shepherd the flock. And let's develop the kind of heart of compassion that we see in Paul here. Do you see the passion Paul has for the flock? He didn't shed his blood for them but boy he loves them. Anguish, child birth, and all that. Let's not anticipate that kind of pastoral ministry is going to be easy. Be willing to make the difficult phone call. Have the difficult face to face meeting. Say the difficult words. Now, of course let's say them in love with gentleness. He's going to say, "If anyone's in trouble," Galatians 6, "drifting away. You who are spiritual should restore him how?" Gently. Gently. Okay, you can do as much damage trying to restore harshly. Okay, gently. Now let me speak to the church. Yearn for this kind of elder-type ministry in your life. For the rest of your life, yearn for this. Say, "I want to be overseen by a godly men, who will shepherd my soul and pray for me and teach me the truth and organize a church that will care about me. I want this. I want Christ fully formed in me. I want to see it happening to all of my brothers and sisters that are here. I yearn for this kind of ministry." Yearn for it. Don't be offended at elder ministry that does tell you the truth. Look at verse 16 again, "Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?" That should never happen. If someone is bringing a hard message to you, ask "Is it true? Is it biblical?" Don't get offended. Don't shoot the messenger. But say, "I want truth telling. I don't want flattery. I want the oil on my head of an honest rebuke if that's what I need. I want someone to tell me the truth." And so cherish a body of elders who is willing to grieve over the wandering sheep of the flock. Pray for them. Ask God to protect this kind of ministry at FBC. Remember in 2 Timothy 4:3 it says, "People will gather around themselves." It's really the congregation that's responsible for the kind of elder-ing and shepherding it gets. If you yearn for this and pray for it and delight in it, you'll have it. If you start to turn in your hearts, you're going to lose it. Give it a number, 5, 10 years you won't have it anymore. Yearn for this. Fourth, let's embrace the responsibility we have as members of this church to watch over one another in brotherly love. This is in our church covenant. We've promised to do this for each other. We will watch over one another in brotherly love. It's too big a job for the elders. It really is. Number one thing we can do is to teach all of you to do it for yourselves. And we'll do some of it, we do a lot of it. We make a lot of phone calls. We have a lot of meetings with people. We interact with folks. We do that but there's just too many people. And so let's embrace the responsibility we have to notice how things are going in each other's lives. Let's notice that it's been a while since so and so was in BFL or it's been a while since so and so was at home fellowship. Let's notice, let's pick up the phone and make the phone call. I am so grieved at hearing about, "Well no one ever called. No one cared, I never heard anything." Grieved by that. Now, there's two sides to that equation I know. But for us as a community, let's not let that happen. Let's be attentive to the people around us. We're going to watch over one another in brotherly love. Everyone here is assaulted by the world, the flesh, and the devil every day. And Satan the joy thief is going to come after your joy. He's going to come, "The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy," Jesus came "that you may have life and have it abundantly." We need to care about each other's joy. Are you joyful in Christ? Are things going well for you? Let's embrace that. Let's notice. Let's be a real community for each other. Don't take this and just run and start nailing each other, okay? Telling each other what you think of each other's clothes, "I never have had the chance until now to tell you what I really think about that outfit." Look, friends, that's not what we're doing here. We want to speak the truth in love but let's care about each other. Let's be a real community. Let me get specific. Can I urge you again, as I have many times in the past, to resume or continue, whatever verb's best, praying through the church phone list every month. Pray through, look at the names. Pray for them. Ask yourself as you're praying, "How is this person doing as far as I'm concerned?" In many cases, you'll be "I don't know." But in some cases, you'll be an early warning system to see someone that's starting to drift away. Have their attendance patterns changed? They used to be doing X and now it's different. Let me zero in for a minute on home fellowship. I am very concerned when someone was involved in home fellowships and is taking some time off. I'm not going to be legalistic about it but I consider it a step toward the door, out into the cold, step by step by step by step. The drifting looks actual and practical in some things. Home fellowships are a major part of our church's ministry to one another. It's a major part of what we do. Now, reverse, if you've never been involved in a home fellowship, don't know what they are, get involved. It's one of the number one ways you can get into a matrix of relationships where people will know actually what's happening in your life. If you're going to say, "Hey, no one ever called, no one cared, no one came." I'm going to ask first thing is, "Were you in a home fellowship?" It just takes commitment on that part. Let's be involved in that. Bible for life, that's a fruitful ministry. It's a good ministry, I know it's early now, really early, really really early for us. I understand that. Half hour earlier than it used to be. I know that, but here's the thing, I just want to ask you as a steward, if you're not attending BFL, is what you're doing right now at that hour better for your soul than what you would be getting it at BFL? That's all I'm asking? I think probably not. These are great classes, great teachers, you're with brothers and sisters that are studying these things, avail yourself. We don't charge tuition, isn't that awesome? That's cool. We get free biblical instruction and so many things. Let's get involved, Perhaps their attendance is fine but they're going through trials, medical trials, recently widowed or widower-ed. Lost, they're struggling. We need to be a family for each other and shepherd one another, and it's a job situation, something. Maybe they're just struggling with their quiet time, maybe they'll confess that they're struggling with some serious sin in their lives and they told you. Pray for heart of compassion for drifting people. One final point of application, I want to just talk about joy. Smile and rejoice. I tell you what, joy is a gift of the gospel, isn't it? The joy of knowing you're going to live forever in a resurrection body free from death, mourning, crying, and pain. Jesus is giving you a place at the wedding banquet of the lamb. It's got your name on it. I believe in election, predestination. Your name there. You're going to be there, nothing's going to stop it. I frequently ask people in my life, people I know, say they're discouraged. And I know we face discouragement. I know, that's what I'm preaching about. Satan's assaulting joy all the time. What's happened to all your joy? Legalism destroys joy, license destroys joy, trials can destroy joy. A lot of things, I understand that. But I guess what I'm saying is, there's one question I ask. Has Jesus Christ, who died on the cross in your place for sins, and who rose from the dead so you could live forever, done enough to make you happy today? Or do you need more from him? What more do you say? It's like, "Yeah, it's good, but if I could also have X then it'd be complete. It'd be fine." Really? Jesus has done enough for all of us who are in Christ to be joyful all the time. Now I know, sometimes you're going to be sorrowful. I get it. Sorrowful sometimes. But always what? Rejoicing. This church should be characterized by happiness. I do not make a distinction between happiness and joy. I know you're going to come say, "No, Pastor, joy is based on the promises of God and the deep things of God. Happiness is like nothing. It's like cotton candy." Friends, what's the difference? You're happy, you're joyful. I can tell they're both smiling, they're both up. I think it's the same thing. We can be happy about a team winning a game, or happy about Christ resurrected, but it's happiness. I'm saying let's be happy about Christ resurrected and that you're going to heaven when you die. Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for this text. We thank you for Paul's passion, his concern for the Galatians which has run through 20 centuries, and comes through to us today. Give us, O Lord a deep concern for the spiritual welfare of one another in this flock. Help the elders to be faithful to shepherd, help us to pray for one another and care for another. Thank you for the gospel that gives us joy in the midst of such sorrow and misery, that we can just be light shining in a dark place. Lights of joy shining in a dark place. In Jesus' name. Amen.

2 Corinthians 3 - Moses' face shone after he received the OT Law, but his glory faded. The new covenant - faith in Jesus brings forgiveness of sins - that glory is ever growing. We are being transformed more and more into the glory of the image of Jesus. 2 Corinthians 4 - God has shone the light of the knowledge of the glory of Christ in our hearts. Now, it's like we are ordinary clay jars with something extraordinary inside - the glory of Christ. We are ordinary people, look ordinary, have struggles, common, nothing special on the outside. But on the inside, there is something extraordinary, a treasure, from God. It has a preserving affect on us. We face all kinds of trouble, but are not destroyed by it. Paul is describing the difference that Christ makes in the life of a believer. The follower of Christ is being transformed to be more like Jesus Christ. The follower of Christ is a common person with common problems, but they have been changed forever on the inside. They will never be the same. Paul will continue to talk about the effect of believing in Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 11-12 - Paul is defending his ministry to people in Corinth who are listening to false teachers who have "who is Paul?" we have letters of recommendation from important people. "Knowing the fear of the Lord" - Paul knows that his work will be judged by God, so he wants to be faithful 13 - perhaps Paul and his associates were accused of being out of their minds. 14 - Because they had received Christ's love, they were compelled to show Christ's love. Christ's love motivated or compelled Paul in his ministry. Throughout the history of the church, the church has failed over and over again. When the church fails, it is almost always because it failed to be compelled by the love of God. Love is the compelling reason we give, minister, invest in other people's lives. "One died for all, therefore all have died" - Christ died out of love for people, to set them free from sin and death. Christ's love for Paul resulted in Paul loving people. Has Christ's love for you resulted in love for people? 15 - He died so that we might live for him. Christ's death on the cross - the greatest demonstration of love the world has ever known. The innocent laid down his life for the guilty. The hero who sacrificed himself so others could live. He did it out of love for us. That, now is our motivation for living in the life he gave us. He died for us, now we should live this new life for him. 16 - Regarded Christ in the flesh - looked on his lowly humanity and disregarded his glory. Likewise, we should not look on other believers and see all their faults, but recognize that God has done and is doing miraculous work in their lives, just like he is doing in ours. 17 - Remember - the effect of believing in Jesus Christ. "New creation" - something new, created out of nothing, completely new and completely different "old has gone" the "new has come." 18-19 - God reconciled us to himself through Christ. Reconciled - exchanged. The great exchange of Christianity - because we could not do anything to save ourselves, We were enemies of God, but through Christ, God made an exchange: our punishment to Christ so that we could be forgiven. His perfect lift to us so that we could have a new life. THEN God said, now that I have done this for you, go do this in the lives of others. Tell them about how to go from living for yourself and being an enemy of God to being reconciled, forgiven, given a new life. 20 - We are ambassadors of Christ - "presbyters" or "elders," representing Christ to others. Doing his business - "living for him" Imploring people, "be reconciled to God" - He has made a way for everyone to come to him. 21 - God made Christ, who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus was perfect. He was the only one who could pay our debt - everyone else had debt of their own. He died the death we deserved so that we could be made new.

Tonight 8p est on kirpradioshow.com We are having an Open discussion on...  1.The judicial/ legal system! Are we really "guilty first" and have to prove our innocense? Do you have a story that proves this theory right?  2.Has Christ lost his spot in America? Are we moving forward with our the principles this nation was built upon?  3. George Zimmerman: What happens when Superheros come to real life! THEY MURDER INNOCENT CHILDREN? Join us by dialing 619-638-8559 or loging on to kirpradioshow.com also on itunes podcast. search podcast: kirp radio show

Has Christ been divided? No, but he was broken.

Has Christ been divided? No, but he was broken.

Has Christ been divided? No, but he was broken.

Has Christ been divided? No, but he was broken.

So we come now to my final sermon in Colossians. And we are looking at Paul's list of his friends, his fellow workers. And as I was thinking about this, I was just thinking about the partnership we're all in, in the Gospel. As you enter the World Showcase section of Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida. The centermost pavilion is dedicated to the American experience. And if you walk in there, you're going to see 12 statues dedicated to what they call the 12 spirits of America. Makes you a little eerie actually. But as you walk through you wonder, “What are the spirits of America?” And they list them and they'd be familiar words like innovation, compassion, discovery, freedom, etcetera. But there are going to be a couple of them that you may look at with a different kind of eye. Trained by the Gospel. A statue known as independence. Another statue known as self-reliance. And another statue entitled individualism. That brings me to one of those great myths of American history, the myth of rugged individualism. You know it well, America was built on the back of the rugged individualist who left behind his family and his friends in continental Europe or wherever he came from and sailed across an ocean and made his own way in this life. We have these icons in front of us like the trail blazer and hunter, Daniel Boone, who spent most of his adult life alone, exploring the western frontier, leaves his wife and his children, and goes out to find new ways, the Cumberland Pass or something like that and going hunting and trapping. Interesting guy. He said, "I've never been lost, but I will admit to having been confused for several weeks." So I can relate to that. But he never admitted to being lost. He always knew where he was, but he was a rugged individualist. He was alone out there in that frontier. Or later on, like “Mountain Man,” Jim Bridger, who was the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake. He was a trapper, a trader, a guide, a merchant, Indian interpreter. All of these things, did most of it alone. You picture him with two horses, his pack mule and just going through the Rockies or the High Sierra all by himself, the rugged individualist. Or even the homesteaders who were in families but they were separated by a couple of days ride from the next homesteader. And they really made it alone. They were alone, a small family in the Nebraska prairie facing wild beasts, and Indian attacks, and prairie fires, and drought, and all kinds of things alone, making it alone. Or the cattle rancher of Texas. And that's what the statue of the 12 spirits at Epcot Center was. It was the rugged cattleman like John Wayne. He's got some equipment in one hand that says individualism and there he is. The guy who rides the fences for days on end by himself. Rugged individualism. It's just part of the way we think of ourselves, our natural culture. Personal freedom, wide open spaces. Solitary trial faced alone and conquered alone and celebrated alone. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the original champion of individualism in America. Spent considerable time alone in Walden, Massachusetts. In a famous Phi Beta Kappa addressed in 1837 he shared what he'd learned about life. This is what he said, "I learned that no man in God's wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man. Help comes from our own bosom alone." Emerson later wrote a famous essay called "Self-Reliance" celebrating this theme. He carried it to its logical extreme, rejecting any effort to help or be helped by other people. This is what he said, "Then again, do not tell me as a good man did today of my obligation to put all poor men in a good situation. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar or the dime, even the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong." That is self-reliance. Well, I tell you, nothing could be further from New Testament Christianity than this. Nothing could be further from it than this. And as I come to this list of greetings that Paul gives at the end of the letter. You wonder, "How is a pastor going to get a sermon out of these?" But what I look at is I look at a man who knew how dependent he was on other people, cheerfully dependent, gladly dependent. Glad to be in fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ, knowing full well that his co-laborers in the Gospel are indispensable, to the Gospel progress in his own life and the advance of the Gospel to the ends of the earth. Now let's get some context and I'd like to give a brief overview of what we've learned in Colossians, since this is the last time we'll be looking at this book. Paul wrote this letter to a church that he'd never visited before, a church he did not plant, but a church he was greatly concerned about. Colossae was a city in Asia Minor, currently Turkey, with nearby Laodicea and Hierapolis who was part of a triad of cities in the Lycus Valley, about 100 miles east of Ephesus built on the Lycus River. The population was predominantly Gentile, but there was a sizeable Jewish population there as well. And thus the church at Colossae had to face challenges from both ends, both from the pagan culture from which many of them had come and also from the Jewish culture that had not, for the most part, accepted Christ or the Gospel at that point. Now the church itself was planted by Epaphras. And in Colossians 2:1, he makes it plain that he'd never been there or seen them before. Now by the time he was writing, the church was already in a battle for its theological soul. Already facing doctrinal challenges from a heresy that was brewing up and that Paul felt he had to write and challenge. Of course, there was the allurement to these pagans of going back to the old Gentile way of life with all of its Gentile way of thinking. But then there was the threat coming from the Jewish side as well of asceticism and legalism. So, you've got human philosophies, on the one hand from the Greeks. And you've got Jewish asceticism and legalism. And then through it all was this Spiritism, a worship of angels, a kind of a mishmash, a hodgepodge put together. And at the core of it were some toxic concepts to the Christian faith. For example, that the physical world was inherently evil. That God hadn't really made it. And that all of our sins come from an allurement of the physical side. And that Christ Himself wasn't truly human, wasn't truly physical. And that His work on the cross wasn't enough to save you. These are toxic concepts and Paul writes to refute every one of them. Now, as he's writing, the way he does it, he's got a two-fold strategy for the health of the Colossian church. And it's well for me as a pastor in this church, and for all of us as Christians to keep in mind how Paul is battling for the souls of the Colossians. How he's struggling for the future of the Colossian church. He does it by right doctrine, by good teaching. And by faith-filled prayer, prayer in the ministry of the Word. That sounds familiar to me anyway. And the need to keep these things in front of us, as we struggle for each other's souls as well. Summary Colossians 1: The Supremacy of Christ and the Mystery of the Gospel of Christ So, let's give a summary of the book. In Colossians 1 then, Paul immediately goes to the supremacy of Christ. The greatness of Jesus Christ. This is the centerpiece of our faith, and it's the centerpiece of Colossians as well. Look at Colossians 1:15-17, just go back a few pages. And there it says, "He is the image of the invisible God. The firstborn over all creation. For by Him, all things were created, things in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." So, there is the material physical world, and it's not evil, it's something Christ created. And there is Christ, not a mere emanation from God, but He Himself, the creator of all things, the greatness of the person of Christ. The image of the invisible God. And at the center of our faith is this mystery. Colossians 1:27, "Christ in you, the hope of glory." Oh, how sweet is that phrase, and how great should our hope be. Our hope is not a mere pale optimism that the future will be brighter. Oh, the future will be infinitely brighter, but hope is much stronger than that. It's an absolute certainty based on the promises of God, based on the very character of God, that we are going to spend eternity with God in face-to-face fellowship. And Christ within us, by the Spirit, is the deposit guaranteeing our future inheritance. Christ in us, hope of glory. Colossians 2: Fullness in Christ vs. The Inadequacy of Man-Made Religion Then in Colossians 2, he gets into the fullness that we have in Christ. We are full in Christ, complete in Christ. We don't need anything more than Christ, and the Gospel that He sought to bring. Christ gives us fullness. And so, we have in Colossians 2, fullness in Christ versus the inadequacy of that false religion that the heretics there in Colossae were teaching. So first, the fullness of Christ, it says in Colossians 2:9-10, "For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, the mystery of the incarnation." The fullness of deity, fully God in bodily form, fully man, the incarnation. In Verse 10, "And you have been given fullness in Christ." We are full and complete in Christ. You don't need anything more. The world has nothing it can add to you. You have everything in Christ. We are fully circumcised spiritually, that's addressing the Jewish side, Jewish legalism. We can't be any more pleasing to God, having been circumcised physically, than we are circumcised spiritually in our hearts by the Spirit. We are fully alive, at one point, “we were dead in our transgressions and sins, but God made us alive with Christ,” and now we are fully alive, and we shall never die. Forever, we are alive in Christ. And we are fully forgiven. Remember how we pondered the benefit to us if we were only partially forgiven. If God forgave 99% of your sins, you're still lost. That 1% would be sufficient to sink you for eternity. But we are fully forgiven. He forgave us all our sins. Colossians 2:13, "And we are fully free from the law." By this I do not mean we don't need to love our neighbor as ourselves, and we don't need to love God with all of our “heart, soul, mind and strength.” We are empowered by the Spirit to do those things, that's not it. But we are free from the law and its power to condemn us to Hell. It has no power to do that, for Christ has fully met all of its precepts, all of its laws and regulations. They're met in Christ and in the perfect righteousness that God gave us through faith in Christ. We are fully, therefore, free from the law. And we are fully triumphant over Satan. Just as Christ was triumphant over the powers and the principalities, and triumphed over them by the cross. So, we also are triumphant over Satan. There is nothing that Satan can do to destroy our souls, to bring us down to hell. We are secure in Christ, and fully free therefore from Satan's power. Well, we have all of that, what do we need with this mishmash, this false religion that the heretics were seeking to put over on us? Therefore, beware about man-made philosophies. Take care about them and watch out for them. Watch out for human legalism. The idea that through your efforts, you can improve your standing with God. Watch out for legalism. And mysticism. The worship of angels is what it said there in Colossians 2. But any kind of mystical experience is cut off from the Gospel of Christ. We're not talking about a deepening in your walk with God, where you have a greater sense of His presence, you should seek that through the Spirit. That's not it, this is the worship of angels, this is a false mysticism. False religion. And then there is asceticism, the harsh treatment of the body. Again, the basic underpinnings there, the basic concept, is that the physical body is evil. And that salvation is away from the physical body. Friends, it is not. God intends to save the physical body. We're going to be resurrected in a physical body. We're going to spend eternity in physical bodies. We're going to a place. Jesus said, "I go and prepare a place for you." And we're going to dwell there forever and ever. This is false religion. It's a heretical mishmash, and it's attacking the fullness we have in Christ. And so Paul refutes it by right doctrine. Elements of a Truly Happy, Fruitful New Life But then he gives a picture in Colossians 3, of the true Christian life. Of how sweet is that life, how fruitful, and how wonderful. I think Colossians 3:1-17, I think you ought to memorize it. I've said before, because it would enrich your life. If you would just know these things and put them into practice, you will be happy forever. You will be fruitful forever. You will be strong against temptation. In the first section is a heavenly mindset based on the truth of the Gospel. "Since then you have been raised with Christ," Colossians 3:1, "set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory." Think about this. Think about the greatness of it. We talk in our culture about guilty pleasures. This is an innocent pleasure, pure. Think much about your future happiness in heaven. Live there as much as you can in your minds, and you'll be empowered to serve Him with great energy and joy in this life. “Set your heart on things above not on earthly things.” And then secondly, you've got to be at war. You've got to “put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed,” put them to death. The Holy Spirit gets you dressed for battle every day and sends you off to mortify the deeds of the flesh, so you must do. And you must put these things to death, or you cannot be happy, you cannot be fruitful in the Christian life. And thirdly, understand that God has saved you up. As I was praying in my pastoral prayer, God has saved us into a community. We're in a family. When someone loses a loved one, that should matter to us. We should put an arm around them. Weep with them. Pray with them. It should make a difference. And this community has come from people all over the world. People that are very different from us. And here there's "no circumcised, uncircumcised, Barbarian, Scythian, slave or free. But Christ is all and is in all." That's who we are. We're put together. And we don't get to choose who the brothers and sisters are, God did that from “before the foundation of the world.” What we're told to do then, is to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and welcome brothers and sisters in Christ. And know that we are in a rich community together. And we need to walk together with other Christians in that new self. And then personally, individually, we should saturate our hearts with Christ. We should, “let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts.” And we should, “let the word of Christ, dwell richly in our hearts.” And whatever we do, we should do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus. Giving thanks to God the Father through Him. So Christ saturating even the simplest thing you do, washing the dishes, or praying, or interacting with your family members, or your time at work. Whatever you do, you're doing it to the glory of God through Jesus Christ. “And be thankful.” Be thankful that you've been delivered from Hell, and you're going to Heaven. Is that not enough for you? Be thankful forever for these riches that God's given. So this is the rich full new life in Christ, Colossians 3:1-17. But then the Lord wants to see us live it out in certain arenas. You think about the arena like the Colosseum, the sands of the Colosseum, where the courage of first generation Christians, were put on display as their blood was spilled. As lions killed them. And the audience was watching. The Roman audience, the pagan audience, watching how they lived, and watching how they died. So also we are to live out the new Christian life in various arenas. First marriage, the most key human relationship there is. And so he urges that this new life be lived out in a marriage. “Wives submitting to the husbands.” “Husbands loving their wives and cherishing them.” And then in the parent child relationship, second most important. Second most significant human relationship there is. The children will be trained in the Lord, and that parents would love their children, and not be harsh with them, but train them well, and bring them up. And then the arena of labor. As we understand it now in the 21st century, the master-slave relationship is labor. It's got to do with work. And the laborer should work as unto the Lord, knowing that in effect, he's taking his work as an offering and giving it up to Jesus. And the master, the one in charge, should treat his slave, his servant, his employee, the way he has been treated by Christ, and the way he wants to be treated as well. So in that arena as well, the new life, saturating. And in our daily life conversation, in the way we carry on just what we talk about, and our prayer lives, and all of these things saturated with the Gospel. This is the full life that Paul has given us. Much better than the life that the heretics were trying to give. A life of trying to escape from the body. And thinking that Jesus isn't enough, and that you've got to have some specialized knowledge and all that, that seems like nothing compared to the true Gospel. No One Can Do It Alone So now we come to Paul's final greetings, and I guess as I look over Paul's attitude here, as he writes to each of his friends, I come to this one concept, and that is not one of us cannot do it alone. We cannot do it alone. Rugged individualism is impossible in the kingdom. Moses couldn't do it alone. God gave him 70 elders to help him in the leadership of Israel. Jesus chose 12 apostles as part of his strategic way of advancing the gospel. And together they built the church. Even the great apostle Paul couldn't plant churches alone, but frequently at the end of his letters he writes speaking of his co-laborers, both men and women. And how God used them, this dear brother or this dear sister, a co-laborer in the gospel and they worked together. By the way, I had co-laborer, Microsoft kicked it out. It's not a word according to Microsoft. Well, fellow workers, is that better? But you know what I mean, don't you? By co-laborers. So we got that little red squiggle underneath, and I can either add it to the dictionary or I can use something else. So in the translation, they gave us fellow workers for the kingdom. And that's what we are. But you know what I mean by co-laborers and he's writing to each one of them. And basically, the bottom line lesson here is that none of us can do any of it alone. Away with self-salvation. Satan is trying to sell it all the time. You can save yourself by your own efforts, by being a good person, by philosophy or mysticism or legalism or any of these things. You can save yourself, away with it, you can't. God has testified to this by sending his Son Jesus Christ to shed his blood on the cross as a testimony to the fact that we could none of us save ourselves. Galatians 2:21 says, in effect, "If salvation could be worked out by obedience, then Christ died for nothing." Well, Christ didn't die for nothing because it can't be worked that way. And therefore I say to you, if you've never come to faith in Christ and you care about the salvation of your soul, you have a choice. You can either try to save yourself, through your own individual effort and you will fail. Or you can turn to Christ and you can look to the cross of Christ and see him having shed his blood on the cross for sinners like you and me. And you can turn away from self and turn to Jesus and he will save you. And so I urge you to do that. That is the Gospel. But it doesn't end there. It's not like now that I have been justified I can now be sanctified by my own efforts. I can finish my race alone, no way. Jesus said in John 15, a very famous image, "I am the vine, and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing." And so having begun dependent on Christ we will proceed dependent on Christ to the very end. Completely dependent on Christ. But secondly, we also need to feel our need for each other. We can't do it alone. We are not independent of one another. 1 Corinthians 12:21 and 22, Paul uses the analogy of the human body and we are the Body of Christ and we're all together in Christ and he the head. And so he says, "The eye cannot say to the hand I don't need you. And the head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable." Every part of the body is indispensable. We need each other. We really do. And you have to convince yourself of that. Because we got that American independence. That American self-reliance, build a statue to them one after the other. That American individualism. It doesn't work in the Christian life. It's impossible. We need each other. And so Paul goes person by person. Another thing happens to me as I read these things. I think "If Paul knew me, what would he write in a few lines about me? If you could sum it all up in a couple of lines what would it be?" And far more important than that, what would Jesus say? If He gave me a nickname kind of summing up my life, what would it be? If He summed it all up in a few lines, what would my life and my ministry be? That's what it makes me think about. So let's look at them one at a time. Some Lessons from Paul’s Laborers The Faithful Servant: Tychicus First, we have the faithful servant. Tychicus, look at verses 7-8. “Tychicus will tell you all the news about me. He's a dear brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord. I'm sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts.” There's a lot of nuts and bolts in these greetings. I'm sending him as a messenger. He's going to tell you what's going on with us. But there are a few extra things that he says. This man is a faithful servant. Faithful means what has been entrusted to him before, he sticks with it, he perseveres and he brings forth the harvest. He's faithful. He's an overcomer. So as I look at this as I think about myself, am I faithful to what's been entrusted to me? Am I faithful? Are you a faithful servant in the Lord? The Forgiven Sinner: Onesimus Secondly, we have the forgiven sinner, Onesimus. Now, I believe that Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon are written around the same time and sent together, all of them together. I think it's the letter that he refers to concerning the church at Laodicea, more about that in a moment. But Philemon of course is the story of an escaped slave who ran away and went to Rome. And there he meets up with the apostle Paul and Paul converts him. And now he's sending Onesimus back to Colossae, turns out that he's from this church. He says he's one of you. And so with him is also the letter to Philemon and which Philemon was one of that church as well and he was being urged to welcome this runaway slave back not only as a slave but as a brother, and forgive him. It's a beautiful letter and it's very, very artfully written, Philemon. And where Paul says, "If he owes you anything, then write it down to my account, not to mention you owe me your very life." So he twists his arm a bit there and says, "Please forgive him richly, accept him back richly." All of that within this Colossian church. It's a very sweet letter but there is Onesimus, he the forgiven sinner. And that's what all of us are, isn't it? Aren't we all runaway slaves who ran away from our true master, God? We don't want to serve Him anymore. We want to be on our own like the prodigal son, doing our own thing. And now we're being sent back to the true master of our souls and He will welcome us back. He will welcome us back richly and so Onesimus. The Fellow Sufferer: Aristarchus And then we have the fellow sufferer, Aristarchus verse 10, "My fellow prisoner Aristarchus sends you his greetings." We don't know anything about this man other than he was Jewish, he comes before verse 11 so he's one of the Jews. And therefore I think he probably suffered greatly from the other members of his Jewish community. We know in the life of Jesus, that the hierarchy had already decided that anyone who claimed that Jesus was the Messiah would be put out off the synagogue. And so it could be that was the nature of his suffering. The Future Surprise: Mark But then we have this future surprise and that's Mark. Now by this time there's already been some, I think, water over the dam. Mark has already been turned back to fruitful service in the Lord. But look at verse 10, “Mark the cousin of Barnabas, he is also sending you, received instructions about him, if he comes to you, welcome him.” Mark has a long and fascinating history. Mark, John Mark, cousin of Barnabas accompanied Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, gets halfway through and doesn't want to do it anymore. And it's not blameless, it's not like he had urgent business, he had to go away. It was a sin. He turned away, he was not faithful, and he turned away from his work. So much so, that when it was time for Paul and Barnabas to go back, and visit some of those churches they planted, Barnabas wanted to take John Mark, give him a second chance. Paul said "No way." There's no way. And we can see both of their points of view. You know, this was an important work, and that he had already proven unsteady, unfaithful. "You don't want somebody like that in the firing line right next to you, and so I'm not taking him." Well, Barnabas, son of encouragement, his name was Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, son of encouragement. He's the kind that would put an arm around somebody who is down and out, like Saul of Tarsus who've been recently converted and nobody wanted to get within a mile of him, the persecutor of the church. It was Barnabas that brought him into the church in Jerusalem and said, "You know, he's done well. He's preached the gospel faithfully in Damascus." Paul should have known Barnabas better than that. Barnabas was urging that we give John Mark another try. But they had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company and went separate ways. And God ended up using it. Then you have Paul and Silas going through Philippi and bringing the gospel there, and so they go. And Barnabas and John Mark continue their way, but by this time John Mark has been clearly reclaimed for the Gospel and he is useful in the ministry of Christ. And later, Paul says that, final epistle, final word from Paul is that "Mark is useful to me and my ministry." Well, he's been useful to all of us and if you ever read the Gospel of Mark and from that perspective we get an insight into the life of Jesus that God wanted us to have, and He used this man, this reclaimed failure in ministry, to write it, Mark. The Fearless Stalwart: Justus And then we have the fearless stalwart, somebody courageous, Jesus, who is called Justus, sends greetings. Another Jew, who is willing to stand firm against his countrymen for the Gospel. "These are the only Jews", he says, "among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have proved a comfort to me." And you can imagine why, you know why, because everywhere Paul went, the first place he goes is to the synagogue, and he preaches the gospel in the synagogue until in effect they throw him out. He's always got a handful of converts, the remnant, that he writes about in Romans 9-11, but it's not many. And so therefore, any Jews who had turned to Christ and believe in him were a great encouragement to the Apostle Paul. The Fierce Struggler: Epaphras But now we get the fierce struggler and, Epaphras, I want to spend some time on. Epaphras convicts me, and why? Because he is an incredible prayer warrior, a man of prayer. Look at verse 12 and 13, "Epaphras, who is one of you and a servant of Christ Jesus, sends greetings. He is always wrestling in prayer for you, that you may stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured. I vouch for him that he is working hard for you and for those at Laodicea and Hierapolis." This is one of the best brief descriptions of a prayer warrior you're going to find anywhere in the Bible. Epaphras, who's wrestling in prayer, and the Greek word 'agon' from which we get this idea of agonizing prayer, means a wrestling contest, that's what he is doing, and he is doing spiritually, like Daniel who fasted and prayed for 21 days until the heavenly messenger at last fought his way through the Prince of Persia, I think Satan or one of Satan's henchman and gets the message though after 21 days of wrestling prayer, it's hard work, spiritually, and Epaphras gave that kind of effort. May his tribe increase, may his spirit increase in my heart. Prayers work, he says, I tell you that he is working hard for all of you. It's hard work to be praying for people. Church History Example: David Brainerd Now, I love to get examples from church history and I can think of no better example, and I mentioned last week, in wrestling prayer, than David Brainerd. David Brainerd lived in the 18th century, the first half of the 18th century. He was a missionary to the American Indians on the frontier there, a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards. He died of consumption tuberculosis at age 29. Very brief life. He had been a missionary to the Indians only four years. Very, very short time of missionary service. Why then has his life had such an incredible impact on the spread of the Gospel and specifically on missions as it had? Out of all proportions to its brevity and this short length of his service with the American Indians. Why? Well I think it's because he was a man of prayer who wrestled so faithful in prayer and wrote about those wrestlings in his diary. And then Jonathan Edwards took that diary and published it and it's never gone out of print since. Still in print today. And when you read it, you can just feel the fire of the Holy Spirit coming through the words, you're with him as he wrestles, you can feel the urgency, you can feel the passion, the fire. There's a heat there. There's sweat pouring from his body. And he teaches us how to do this kind of wrestling prayer. Great men of God have found his work to be of tremendous example for each one of them. John Wesley said, "Let every preacher read carefully over the life of Brainerd." It was said of Henry Martin the great missionary, "Perusing the life of David Brainerd, his soul was filled with such a holy emulation of that extraordinary man, and after deep consideration and fervent prayer he was at last fixed in a resolution to imitate his example and become a missionary." So it was Brainerd that led him into the missionary life. William Carey regarded Edwards' Life of Brainerd as a sacred text. So also Robert Morrison, Robert Murray McCain of Scotland, John Mills of America, and even Jim Elliot of the modern era, read these diaries and it inflamed them with a drive a desire to be poured out for Christ. And why? Well, listen to these words. This is David Brainerd from his diary. He said, "Oh, that I might be a flaming fire in the service of the Lord. Here I am Lord, send me. Send me to the ends of the earth, send me from all that is called earthly comfort. Send me to death itself if it be but in thy service to promote thy kingdom." Well, you don't need to read many pages like that before you're really at a fork in the road in your Christian life. Am I going to be mediocre and cold and lukewarm? Or am I going to be passionate on fire for Jesus? Because I can't read this kind of stuff and stay where I am. Brainerd overcame incredible obstacles through prayer, he overcame almost constant sickness, coughing up blood. He overcame relentlessly recurring, cyclically recurring depression, moodiness, black moods, depression. He overcame loneliness out in the wilderness. He overcame immense external hardships, poor food, exposure to the elements, extreme cold, inadequate shelter. He overcame a personal lack of love for the Indians. It wasn't a romantic thing with him in terms of the mission life. Now he knew what it was like and it was a struggle for him. Struggle, and how, by wrestling, wrestling, wrestling in prayer like a Epaphras, wrestling over himself. And he wrestled for the internal journey, he wrestled for personal holiness. This is what he said, "When I really enjoy God, I feel my desires of Him the more insatiable, my thirstings after holiness, the more unquenchable, oh for holiness, oh for more of God in my soul, oh for this pleasing pain. It makes my soul press after God, oh that I might not loiter on my heavenly journey." I have done some loitering brothers and sisters on my heavenly journey. Taken a break in my sanctification. He's saying "Oh that I may never do that." My guess is he had too as well but he didn't want to. "Oh that I may not loiter on my internal, my heavenly journey." He wrestled also for that external journey, he wrestled for the conversion of Indians. Could it be we see so few people baptized in this church because so few people wrestle for specific souls in prayer? Could it be? Once when visiting in a home with friends he got alone to pray, he said this, I continued wrestling with God in prayer for my dear little flock here, and more especially for the Indians elsewhere, as well as for dear friends in one place or another until it was bedtime and I feared I should hinder the family. So they have the guy over for dinner and he's upstairs praying in a room and they're wondering if they should go ahead and eat without him. "But oh with what reluctancy did I find myself obliged to consume time and sleep. I didn't want to sleep, I wanted to keep praying." We read of him spending whole days in prayer, sometimes setting aside six times in the day to pray. Sometimes seeking out a family or friend to pray with. He prayed for his own sanctification, he prayed for the conversion of Indians, he prayed for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ in America and to the ends of the Earth, this is how he prayed. His journal is filled with entries like this. Wednesday, April 21st, "And God again enabled me to wrestle for numbers of souls and had much fervency in the sweet duty of intercession." Four days later, Lord's Day April, 25th. "This morning I spent about two hours in secret duties and was enabled more than ordinarily to agonize for immortal souls. Though it was early in the morning and the sun scarcely shined at all yet my body was quite wet with sweat." Saturday, December 15th, "Spent much time in prayer in the woods and seemed raised above the things of this world." Oh boy, see there's the payoff right. Setting your heart on things above and God just lifts you up a bit and gives you a sense of His presence. One biographer talked about one occasion in his life July 21st, 1744, on hearing that the Indians were planning on holding an idolatrous feast and dance the next day, he spent that whole day and that whole night fasting and praying for them. And he writes "This morning, about nine, I withdrew to the woods for prayer I was in such anguish that when I rose from my knees I felt extremely weak and overcome and the sweat ran down my face and body. I cared not where or how I lived or what hardships I went through so that I could but gain souls for Christ, I continued in this frame of mine all evening and all night." Thus empowered, he went forth and met the Indians as they were beginning their feast, their pagan feast. Convinced that God was with him in his contest just like Elijah on Mount Carmel, he knew he was going to be able to confront them. And instead of promptly scalping him, they listened to him preach all that day and on into the evening and many were converted. Oh that's power, do you see? Power for souls and it comes the root of it, the furnace of it, is prayer. "Oh that God would work in our hearts," this kind of wrestling in prayer. That He would work it in my heart and in yours. Make us like Brainerd. Make us like Epaphras. Make us like the apostle Paul. Make us like Jesus. Whoever lives, it says, to intercede for us at the right hand of God, never stops praying for you and me. The Foreign Specialist: Luke Then we have the foreign specialist, Luke verse 14, “our dear friend, Luke the doctor greets you.” He was not a Jew. We know that because the line of demarcations in verse 11 and everyone after was not a Jew. So he was a Gentile, a doctor, therefore a specialist. First of many missionary doctors, let's say, who went and plied their trade for the glory of God on the mission field. But that was Luke, and from him of course we get the Gospel of Luke and also the Book of Acts. And then we have the heart breaker, the future scandal, Demas. Demas, right alongside Luke just listed there. But we know more about Demas sadly from 2 Timothy, Chapter 4. In verse 9 and 10, it says "Do your best to come to me quickly for Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica." Can you not feel the pain in those words? "Demas, having loved this present world," where it says in 1 John 2, "Do not love the world or anything in the world." What could have been in Thessalonica worth his eternal soul? What was so attractive about Thessalonica to Demas that he turned his back on Paul? He abandoned him. "He has deserted me." That's what Paul says of Demas. No hint of it here, though. Many a pastor, many a disciple maker, many a parent has been heartbroken by the defection of someone from an apparent walk with Christ to turn their back on Jesus and stop walking with Him any longer. Final Applications “Read My Letters” Final application verses 15-18. I'm going to just get our own applications right from Paul's text here. First of all, read my letters. Okay? Read my letters. He says "Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea and to Nympha and the church in our house and after this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter for Laodicea." So read each other's letters. It's not reading each other's mail. It's not wrong for you to read the Letter to Philemon. God meant for you to read it. Ordinarily, it's bad to read somebody else's mail, ought not to be done. But here, we ought to read the Letter to Philemon. We ought to read all of Paul's letters. They're right here for us to read. And so read the Scripture. Saturate your minds. Now let's talk about that letter from Laodicea. We think it's probably the cyclical letter of Ephesians. It wasn't just written to one church, but it was written to a whole area and I think that was the letter from Laodicea. There's a tremendous similarity between Ephesians and Colossians. I think they're written about the same time. So read Ephesians, read that letter from Laodicea. Now a word to the Laodicean church, you ought to read it too. Because their future is pretty black. It's pretty bleak. Remember what Jesus said about the church at Laodicea in Revelation 3? They were the lukewarm church that He wanted to spew out of His mouth. They were neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other. But because you're “neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spew you out of my mouth.” You say, "I am rich. I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked." That's advice given by Jesus earlier as the Apostle Paul who wrote them a letter. They ought to heed it, don't you think? Lest God remove that lampstand. Complete Your Ministry Second application is complete your ministry. First of all, you need to have one in order to complete it. He says to Archippus, "See to it that you complete the work you've been given by the Lord." What is that? I mean in your case? Are you able to identify a ministry? I don't mean a Christian lifestyle in the midst of an ordinary, you know American lifestyle. I mean a ministry. Has He entrusted you with a ministry? Has He set before you race for you to run? Like Paul says, "I count my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me." The task of testifying the gospel of God's grace. Alright. If that is not your task, what is? Has Christ entrusted anything to you. If so, like Archippus, see to it that you complete it. It's not how you start friends. It's how you finish. And if you're sitting there in the pew today and you say, "I really don't have a ministry. I really don't know how I'm using my gifts. I'm really not involved in this church. I'm not really doing anything really for Christ." Then I would urge you, quickly, repent. It's not how you start friends, it's how you finish. And Paul says at the end, he says, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. I've completed the task God gave me to do." So like Archippus, see to it that you complete your ministry. Suffering: Remember My Chains And then thirdly, suffering. He says "remember my chains." Lots of Christians in chains today. In the 10/40 window, in China, there are house churches, with their pastors under arrest for simply preaching the Gospel. In the Muslim worlds, there are martyrs every day. In Darfur, in other places, remember the suffering church. Remember them in prayer. Lift them up as though you yourself are suffering with them. And then finally, grace be with you. Grace be with you. Without this, we can do nothing. Close with me if you would in prayer.

I. Introduction: It’s a Wonderful Life When I was a college student at MIT, there were a lot of courses that were just crushing burdens, the kind of courses that you just hope to survive, and you think you might not get through. And then there were other courses. They weren't called underwater basket weaving, but close, alright. And one of my favorites was a course on American cinema. I got to watch movies for college credit, and I will never forget this December evening. I went to the place where we watched them and I saw for the first time what became one of my favorite movies, and that is, It's a Wonderful Life. Now it's on every year at Christmas time. I'm sure you've seen it with Jimmy Stewart, George Bailey, the American hometown hero, who doesn't like his life working at The Bailey Building and Loan, and wish that he could have done more, could have gone, traveled, seen great things… And he reaches a crisis in his life where he just doesn't see any value, any worth whatsoever in his life. And a crisis comes where he might be facing prison for something he didn't do. And he wants to throw it all away and dive in over a bridge into the water. Now I'm not vouching for the theological precision of this movie. You understand that. But at that point God sends Clarence the angel to come and help him. Alright, and Clarence comes and basically Clarence mission is to try to convince him that his life was worthwhile, and at one point Jimmy Stewart says, "Well, I guess you're right. It wouldn't be better for me to kill myself. I wish I'd never been born." And then somehow he gets to see what life was like if he had never been born, and it's absolutely chilling to him and there comes a point where people he's loved, the people that he's been with don't know him, don't recognize... His own wife runs away screaming from him, and he just wants it back, even as bad as it was, he wants it back, that he was living that same life again. And the lesson is very clear, the value and the worth of a single human life. And at the end of the movie, the climax comes after he wants to live again even as bad as it was, and God enables him to step back into that tough situation. The door of his home opens and friends come flooding in the door, bring in money to try to pay for that which was lost and free him from the burden so that he won't have to go to prison. And it's just streaming in and it's just a tremendous climax of friendship. And he sees a book on the tree, and he opens it up and there's an inscription there and it's from Clarence the angel. Remember, I did not vouch for the theological precision of this movie, but there it is. There's an inscription from Clarence the angel and says, "Remember, George, no man is a failure who has friends." Now as I come to Romans 16, and you may wonder, is our pastor really going to preach an expositional sermon from these greetings? Can it really be done? Well, yes, it can, I hope. We'll find out over the next half hour or so, but yes, I think it can be done. And what I get out of this is I look at name after name, and I want you to go up and encourage Ryan after the service, this man did yeoman duty standing up and pronouncing all of those proper nouns one after the other. So let's go and encourage the dear brother, thank you for your courage. Alright. But these are friends in the ministry of the apostle Paul. He lists no less than 27 people by name. Verses 21-23, there are some that are greeting back the church at Rome, and they want to be remembered. And so there are people that Paul wants to greet, and then there's people around Paul there in Corinth where he wrote the letter and they want to greet their friends in the church at Rome. And it's amazing insight into first century church life and the preciousness of friends in Christ. And I'll tell you this, the Gospel is a treasure trove. You just open up the box, and there's just one rare and beautiful gem and treasure after another. The greatest is reconciliation with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. All of our sins forgiven, we saw Tommy testifying to the value of that to him through water baptism, all of our sins forgiven. And then it just flows from there, a new nature transform within a heart of stone taken out a heart of flesh, given in. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have adoption into the very family of God, we have a gloriously bright future, and every day, every toilsome and suffering day in this world brings us closer and closer to that. The future is gloriously bright, but along with all of that, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who make the journey with us, and that is precious, it's unspeakably precious. And in the end we will get to look each other in the face when we are done being glorified, and we will just smile and with joy we will say, "God did it. God saved us. He brought us through that toilsome journey and look where we are now." In the meantime, we have each other. We can look at each other, and we can encourage one another and they can encourage us. And that's what I see in these verses today. II. Commending Phoebe and Properly Valuing Women’s Ministry Now I just like to draw out some themes. I'd like to look at the names, look at some of the details of those things that are said about these folks, and try to learn some things together. We're not going to exhaust this passage, we're not going to understand everything, but there's some good things that we can learn. And we begin with this woman Phoebe, as Paul commends this woman Phoebe. And throughout these verses we see him valuing the ministry of women. It's really quite a remarkable thing. I think this may have been the most precious letter delivery in history. Can you imagine being entrusted with the only copy of the Book of Romans ever? Tertius wrote it down. We learned later on that he was his secretary in effect, we think perhaps Paul's eyesight wasn't good enough, and so he dictated the letter and there is Tertius. He's the one who actually wrote the letter, but after it was written, it seems entrusted to this woman Phoebe, and she was going to carry it to Rome. Now why do commentators think that Phoebe carried the letter? Well, it's because she's placed first in this chapter, the first and the greetings and it could be she's the very one who's standing there, having handed the letter over to the leaders of the church at Rome. And so he's writing basically a letter of commendation for the messenger, for Phoebe and it says there in verse 1, "I commend to you, our sister Phoebe, a servant to the church at Cenchreae." Now this word commend is an official term, it literally means, I stand alongside her, she's in effect standing in my place in handing this letter over. And it also could mean I demonstrate her worthiness. Now frequently in the ancient world, letters of introduction had to be written so that people who had never seen another person by face would know who this individual was and would treat them properly. This was the days before the lightning quick communication that we're used to through email and text messaging and all that kind of thing. And it's to the point with virtual conferences, you can have a relationship with somebody you've never seen and never we'll see, but you know what their faces look like. You could know it the next day if somebody does some significant issue in history or in the news, you know what their face looks right away, looks like right away. But these folks they had to have letters of recommendation. So we see this whole issue in 2 Corinthians, chapter 3:1, there, the apostle Paul says, "Are we beginning to commend ourselves again, or do we need like some people letters of recommendation to you or from you?" So we're talking there about the issue of a letter of recommendation, again, in connection with the big offering that was being taken among the Gentile churches for the Jewish believers in Judea. In 1 Corinthians 16:3, Paul says, "When I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem." So it seems to me that Paul is here writing a letter of introduction for Phoebe, in effect, so that they will accept this letter as from the apostle Paul. It seems to me, I think, reading between the lines, that Phoebe was a wealthy woman, more on that in a moment, and she was planning on going to Rome. Paul perhaps heard about that and wanted to take advantage of it. And so he sat down to write the book of Romans, and what a good use of time that was. I don't know how long it was that Phoebe was going to leave, but he made a good use of his time. She, Phoebe, was from the city of Cenchreae, which is very close to Corinth. Corinth is across a very, very narrow isthmus of land and Cenchreae is just on the other side, it's the port city on the other side of Corinth, and that's where Phoebe was. It could be that that church at Corinth planted the church at Cenchreae and Phoebe was a member there. Therefore, she was entrusted with the most precious letter delivery in history. I can't recount to you all of the people whose lives have been transformed by this book of Romans. How many people will be in heaven because they say they read or heard a message preached from the Book of Romans? We know Martin Luther was one of them. His soul was transformed, his soul was saved by Romans 1:17, The righteousness from God, that is simply by faith, he read about it in the book of Romans. Imagine being Phoebe holding that letter as she boarded a ship perhaps, or traveled over land to Rome. If the ship had sunk in a storm, or if highwaymen had been able to strip her of her possessions and destroy the letter as of no value whatsoever to them, it would have been lost. But let me tell you something, God has sovereign power over the entire process of getting the Scripture to us. Isn't that marvelous? The same God that inspired the apostle to write it and guarded him from all error, was with Phoebe when she traveled to get it to the church. It was with the church when they read it and recognize it to be apostolic and authoritative, and then it was protected until they started to copy it, and it was protected through all the centuries that they copied it by hand, until finally in the 15th century, the printing press was developed and they could mass produce them. And now there are literally millions and millions of copies of this letter. God sovereignly watch over all of it, and now we have it today. Phoebe: A Remarkable Woman Well, who is this woman, Phoebe? She's a remarkable woman. But I will say this, apart from this one mention here in Romans 16, we know nothing else about her, and that's going to be true of many people in Romans 16. We have no other information about Phoebe than what we have here in this account. Paul clearly has admiration for her, he calls her our sister, so she's part of the family of God, she's a believer in Christ, and we're going to see later in the message the tender affection that Paul has for every member of the body of Christ. But he calls her sister, but he also calls her, and a literal translation would be a servant of the church at Cenchreae. Now whether this means more than servant we'll talk about it in a moment, but at least it means that she has taken up the role of a servant to Jesus Christ. Remember that Jesus commended this role as the highest that we can do in this life. The best thing we could ever do and be in this world is a servant of Jesus Christ. It says in Matthew 23:11, "The greatest among you will be your servant." And so servanthood is of the essence of our Christian faith. Now, Paul asked the church at Rome to receive her well and to take care of her needs. Look at verse two, I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and to give her any help she may need from you. Now saints should be receiving each other gladly, and we should be helping each other in each other's journey, and Christ will never forget anything you do to help a brother or sister in Christ along in their heavenly journey. To speed them along in making progress in Christ, in the internal journey of sanctification growing in grace becoming more like Jesus, in the external journey of worldwide evangelization, all of you that came and stood around us a moment ago and prayed. And all of those of you that prayed from the pew, you helped us in our journey and God will never forget. And so he wants the church to help this woman in her journey and to receive her well. This is especially so back then and the fact that there were no hotel chains, there was no Motel 6, no place to spend the night except a network of friends and contacts, and then some irreputable places that you really probably wouldn't want to be for the evening. And so he wanted them to show her hospitality and to care for her needs, and why? Well, because of her past ministry. It says in the NIV, she has been a great help to many people including me. The word great help, comes from the Greek word which means a patroness to some degree. My take on Phoebe is that she was a wealthy business woman, perhaps in the pattern of Lydia, who made a great deal of money dealing in purple cloth in Thyatira, that's Lydia. We don't know how Phoebe may have gotten her money, but I think that she was probably in some way a financial patroness to the apostle Paul. And we see the exact same thing in the life of Jesus in Luke chapter 8, verse 1 and following, it says, "After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna, the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means." So here's a group of women around Jesus, kind of funding and supporting him as he goes about his work of preaching the good news. And I think that it probably was that Phoebe was this kind of a patroness. Now the question is in front of us, was she a deaconess? Some of the translations will give us perhaps deaconess as one of the possible translations for this Greek word. Now, the Greek word translated here is diakonon, and you can hear the similarity between diakonon and deacon. Frankly, the deacons themselves were simply servants. The word originally meant table waiter. For example, in John chapter 2, when Jesus changes the water into wine, it says there that the headmaster didn't know where the wine had come from, but the servants who waited the tables, they did. It's the same word. So these are just table waiters, but it's a term of honor, isn't it? To be a servant of Jesus Christ. Jesus said in Matthew 20, "Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Frankly, this exact same word, and I mean to the letter, to the Greek letter right across, this exact same word is used of Jesus. If you look back one chapter in Romans 15:8, it says there, "For I tell you that Christ has become a servant to the Jews on behalf of God's truth to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs…" A servant, it's diakonon, the exact same word. Now, I would say no one is arguing that Jesus was a deaconess, certainly. They may be arguing that he was a servant of some sort. So the term servant can apply to any Christian at any time, and I might say to you that if the only evidence we had for deaconesses in the early church life is Romans 16:1, it's very scanty. However, in 1 Timothy 3, in a chapter on deacons where there's more extended treatment, there is some scriptural evidence that women were to be deacons. They just were not to have authority or leadership over men in the very previous chapter, in 1 Timothy 2, Paul says, "I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, she must be silent." But in the very next chapter, there's a section on elders and then on deacons, and as he's going through the section on deacons, suddenly there's some descriptions to women or to the wives, some translations go with wives and some with women. It may very well be that some women were identified in some way, and they would minister to the needs of the poor, they would instruct younger women on how to respect their husbands according to Titus 2, so the Gospel might be adorned, etcetera, and it may be that they held that role. Others see exegetical reasons for saying no even then they were not identified deaconesses. So, I really, bottom line, don't know. Here I stand in front of you and I say that I don't know if Phoebe was a deaconess. But it's okay because you know what? I think throughout this chapter we see the value and worth of the ministry of women, and we're going to see that I think very, very plainly. I see also that there are good reasons for accepting either way. So I don't reject evangelical churches that established male leadership according to 1 Timothy 2, but have women deaconesses doing other types of serving ministries. I don't think that's wrong. I respect those churches that say we can't see that in the text. I respect those things as well. The Ministry of Women in Romans 16 Now concerning women's ministry, we see it throughout this whole section in Romans 16. Look in verse 6 of how sweetly Paul speaks of maybe seven or perhaps even eight women that are mentioned and commended for their service to the Gospel and to the church. Look at verse 6, it says, "Greet Mary who worked very hard for you." And then verse 12-13, "Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord." Well, those are beautiful names, aren't they? If you're going to have a daughter, consider that, Tryphena and Tryphosa. They may have been twins, actually, sisters, we don't know for sure. The names mean dainty and delicate. So you've got dainty and delicate. Imagine having twin girls and one of them is dainty and the other one's delicate. But at any rate, these women were hard workers for the Gospel. Paul thinks very highly of them. And then here's this woman "Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord." And then we get Rufus, "Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, who's been a mother to me, too." More on that in a moment. And then in verse 15, "Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister…" by the way, if there's any difference in my pronunciation, from Ryan's, Ryan is right and I'm wrong, okay. But anyway, I'm going to take my crack at these names and do the best I can, and "Olympus and all the saints with them." Bottom line is Paul was delighted, delighted to do the work of the Gospel and the ministry with many women as he commends here. He's delighted to have sisters in Christ as friends and co-laborers in the Gospel. Based on Romans 16 alone, it is obvious that women have amazingly vital and wide-ranging ministries that are indispensable to the life of the church. That's what I get out of Romans 16. III. Some Lessons from the Greetings Now, there's some other lessons in these greetings that I like to pull out. Again, we're not going to get them all, but let's just look at some aspects of early church life from these greetings. The Richness of Devoted Friendships The first I get as I began with the message today is the value of devoted friendships. People measure wealth in different ways, don't they? You can measure wealth financially, the amount of gold that you might have bought over the last number of years, or bonds, or stocks, perhaps in real estate or in some other holdings. You could measure your wealth and finances. Some people measure their wealth in terms of knowledge, maybe academic degrees, one degree after another from a good institution. Or, perhaps some people measure it in terms of experience, maybe work experience, the ability to switch out an engine in a car, which is quite amazing to me, or to re-decorate a bathroom, which is more amazing to me than it ever was before I did or tried to do mine. So experiences, wealth of experiences, or saying, "I laid on a beach in Tahiti and I was at Rio during the festival down there. I have been and walked along the Rive Gauche, Paris, or I've taken a cruise along the Alaskan shoreline. Been there and done that." Rich in experiences, etcetera. Brothers and sisters in Christ, if you're a Christian, you are rich in friends, you never need to be lonely in the Gospel. You have brothers and sisters in Christ around the world and right here in this very room, who are deeply devoted people and who could be your friend. If you're feeling lonely reach out to them. There is no reason ever to feel lonely in the Christian life. And many of you can say, with me, that my Christian friends, my Christian brothers and sisters are some of God's richest blessings to me in my daily life. So we see the richness of devoted friendships here, and we've seen it throughout in the life of the Apostle Paul. Time forbids me from going through this, but in the Book of Acts, in chapter 20 and 21, one group after another is weeping with Paul, kneeling on a beach to pray with him, urging him not to go to Jerusalem, because he's going to get arrested there. And when he's determined to go, then they say, "The Lord's will be done." And they put their arms around and pray. We see Paul drawing from people tears and love and commitment because they saw from him the same level of commitment that he gave to them everything he had. He stayed up late at night counseling with them or praying with them, pouring into their lives and building them up in Christ, and so we see that friendship. The Family of God We also see, secondly, the theme of the family of God. Paul uses a lot of family language and there's three different senses of family here. First, we get Paul's own relatives. Now, the word is translated in some cases, kinsmen, but I actually think Paul is talking about his extended family here. I respect those that think he's just talking about other Jews, but I think he is actually talking about family members, because he mentions them by name. He says, "So and so, my kinsmen or my relative." So he's got his relatives. Look at verse 7, "Greet Andronicus and Junius, my relatives who have been in prison with me." And then again in verse 11, "Greet Herodion, my relative." So we see Paul's family and I think that... Can you imagine being family to Saul of Tarsus? And it says of Andronicus and Junius that they were in Christ before Paul was. So imagine praying for that troublemaker relative of ours, Saul of Tarsus, almost being ashamed that he's our relative. He's destroying the church. Imagine Andronicus and Junius getting down on their knees and praying for Saul, cousin Saul, or third cousin twice removed. I don't know he's a relative, but they would get down and pray that Saul would be converted. Imagine their joy when they heard what had happened on the road to Damascus, tears of joy at answered prayer over family members. We see also Paul's used more generally and spiritually of the idea of the family of faith, that when you're a Christian you're in a family. Look what he says in verse 13, "Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too." Now, Rufus is a fascinating individual. If you were to look over in Mark 15:21, in the Gospel of Mark, Mark, most scholars believe was writing to the church of Rome, and he mentions a significant man at a significant moment in Jesus' life. Jesus is making his toil some way up the cross, up the hill carrying the cross. He's going to Calvary, he's going to Golgotha to die for our sins. And a man watching is pressed into duty, his name is Simon of Cyrene, he's pressed into duty to help Jesus carry the cross. Mark mentions parenthetically that Simon is the father of Alexander and Rufus. Now, he wouldn't have put that in, except that they would have known him. So I think that Rufus is the son of Simon, the very man who physically helped Jesus carry the cross at Golgotha. What that means is that Rufus' mother is Simon's wife. Now, what's the relationship to Paul? Well, I think no biological relationship. He's not saying, Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, who is a mother to me, too." If he were write into his mother he would have said, "Hi, mom, it's your son. I'm fine. I'm eating my vegetables. I'll see you soon." There was nothing familiar like that. He's saying she's been a mother to me, it's like having a mother in the faith. And I can testify to the value of godly older men and women in my life who have been like that for me. It's such a rich thing. And then more horizontally brothers and sisters in Christ, etcetera. And to some degree, even other people's children feel like children of mine as well. So it's a sweet thing to be a member of the family of God. He also uses this common brother and sister language that speaks of our kinship in the family of God. When He says in Verse one, "I commend to you our sister, Phoebe." And then in verse 14, "Greet Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the other brothers with them." House Churches The final way that Paul uses family language, concerns household churches. In other words, churches that are meeting in people's households and Gospel having spread along household or family lines. May I say to you, the church growth flourishes best along family lines. History has born this out. More people have been brought to faith in Christ, by far, by parents than by any other category. More than by pastors, more than by friends, by college members, roommates, more than by missionaries and evangelists, more have been brought to faith in Christ by their mom and dad than by any other category of person. And may I stop and just say to you, if you're a parent of growing children, you have a weighty responsibility to share the Gospel of Christ to your children. You need to evangelize them. If they are new-borns, you need to bring them home from the hospital and share the Gospel with them. And keep sharing the Gospel and keep sharing the Gospel. May they say, "I never knew a time I didn't know Jesus. I never knew a time I didn't know that he had shed His blood on the cross for sinners like me. I never knew a time that I didn't need to repent and believe in Jesus, for the salvation of my soul." Never be derelict in your duty. Charles Spurgeon, talking about his own conversion, remembered specifically the time that he overheard his mother and she didn't know he was listening, but she's down on her knees praying for her children, and she said, "Lord, they have heard the Gospel from me and may it not be that I will have to stand up and bear swift witness against them if they continue in their sins." And as a child, loving his mother, he did not like that idea of his mother bearing witness against him, that she shared the Gospel boldly, with him, and he never repented. He remember specifically his mother putting her arms around his neck, and crying and praying, "Oh, that my son may live before thee." Oh parents, please share the Gospel with your children. Don't leave it to the Sunday school, don't leave it to the pastor, don't leave it to anybody, it's your responsibility. God will ask you on judgment day about your children. And after they've made a profession of faith, be sure that they're working out their salvation with fear and trembling, that they're making their calling and election sure. Do those things that will feed their souls, feed them in the Gospel. And so we see these house churches and we see the development there. The house churches developed along the family lines as well. Now, you may imagine and say, "What is a house church?" We're used to larger churches, big rooms like this. This sanctuary is built in 1927, and it is a benefit for us to have a place to meet, isn't it? Isn't it better to be here, especially when it's cold and rainy etcetera, to have the weather off of us? But the church is people, it's not a building, it's not a location. And many churches in the first century, they were house churches, and so we see these house churches. Look what he says here. We have an example of them in Priscilla and Aquila. Look at verse three through five, it says, "Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I, but all the churches, the Gentiles are grateful to them." Look at verse five, "Greet also the church that meets at their house." So Priscilla and Aquila had a house church there in Rome. Well, what's amazing is, according to 1 Corinthians 16:19, when Priscilla Aquila were in Ephesus, in Asia Minor, they had a house church there too. Because it says there, "The churches in the province of Asia send you greeting. Greetings, Aquila and Priscilla. Greet you warmly in the Lord and so does the church that meets at their house." Oh, they were consistent people, weren't they? But their home was Rome, that's where they were at originally. And the Roman Emperor Claudius had driven all the Jews out of Rome. Well now apparently, they've been allowed to come back, and guess what they did when they got to Rome? They opened up their home in hospitality to have a house church. Now, we don't have so-called house churches here, but we do have home fellowships. And many brothers and sisters have been glad to use their gift of hospitality and open up their homes on Sunday evenings to these home fellowships. Are you involved in one? If you're involved in one, in a committed way, you will testify, can testify to the value of getting to know brothers and sisters in an unhurried and comfortable hospitable setting like that. Please be involved in those home fellowships. We see these house churches. Hard Work for the Lord We also see the issue of hard work, hard work. Look what he says here again, we've seen it in verse six and 12, "Greet Mary who worked very hard for you." Again in verse 12, "Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord." And then, "Greet my dear friend, Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord." But Paul himself can testify that he didn't leave the hard work just to women, but he himself was an incredibly hard worker in the Gospel. He says in 1 Corinthians 15:10, "By the grace of God, I am what I am. And His grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was in me." You see, Paul was a tent-maker, and I think what he did was at night, late at night, he made tents for a living. And during the day, minister to God's people. He deprived himself of sleep. It says in 2 Corinthians 6:5, "In hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger." At the beginning of my ministry here, I wrote those three phrases or words across on a card and put it in front of me, at my computer terminal; hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger. That's a standard. I'm not saying I live up to it, I'm saying that's what Paul did. That's what he did to establish the church. How can we do any less? As you look at your own life, would you say that characterizes you in your service to Christ? Hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger. I yearn for that level of dedication in my life. We see hard work. So I say to you, it's not the lazy, but it's the diligent who are going to advance the church of Jesus Christ. So don't be lazy, but labor. Labor in the scripture, labor in prayer, labor in evangelism, labor in your spiritual gift ministry, labor for the Lord, fully convinced that your labor in the Lord is not in vain, but rather that God will remember all things and then he will cause it to flourish in the day of Christ Jesus. Affection Finally, I'd like you to look at affection. Note the affection that the Apostle Paul has for these people. He says, in verse five, "Greet my dear friend, Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia." What joy that must have brought him. It's brought me incredible joy to get to know, Tommy. It's just been a great joy. I wonder if Epaenetus was like that for Paul. The first one in Asia. What a close relationship that they must have had, what a close friendship. And then look at verse eight and following, "Greet Ampliatus, whom I love, in the Lord." You see his affection there. "Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ and my dear Stachys. Greet Apelles, tested and approved in Christ." And then verse 12, "Greet my dear friend, Persis." You see this sense of affection and he puts it in writing. Can I urge you, just very practically, take time to express your affection to each other. Write it down, write a note of encouragement to some brother or sister. Say, "Your ministry has blessed me hugely." Take the time to write it. Those things are precious and they're actually pretty rare that someone would take the time to speak words of encouragement. IV. Stories Left Untold Now brother and sisters, there are many stories left untold. And they need to be left untold because I need to be on a plane at 3:10. And I got a hurry out of here. I don't want to leave undone what I plan to do today, but there are lots of stories that cannot, really literally cannot be told by us, because frankly many of the names that are listed here in Romans 16, we don't know anything more about at all. Nothing. Some of the folks have little phrases after them or little identifiers and we know something, some of them are just... They're just listed, they're just names, we don't know anything about them at all. Have you ever read the genealogy, the First Chronicles, name after name after name? And you're like, "Why do I have to know all the descendants of the Gadites? Is there some reason I have to know these names?" And then just in honoring the Word of God, you think, "Well, God is not foolish. There must be a reason that there are so many names in the Bible of men and women." You have no idea who they are or what they did. I think there's a couple of things we get out of this. One is that, God is the loving historian, and you may not know any of their stories, but He knows all their stories. He knows what was the best day of their lives, He knows what the worst day of their lives was, He knows the day they came to faith in Christ, He knows what sins plagued them and how they struggle with them and how they overcame them. He remembers it all. If you wanted to say, "Lord, tell me about at Apelles. I want to know about him." He'll say, "Let me tell you about Apelles." And off you would go. What that means is that, everything we do in this life matters. The message of, "It's a Wonderful Life" is true. Our lives are significant, incredibly so. And even though you don't know somebody else's story, God does. And it's all been part of an intricate network that's brought us to this point. There are no insignificant human lives. People matter and so do their lives. Let me pick up on that and say, in four or five generations, if the Lord tarries, doesn't return, there might be as many as eight or nine billion people on the face of the earth walking around. I have no idea, but there might be. It might very well be that not one of those nine billion people will know anything about you at all. None. It might be. So therefore, can I urge you to invest in eternity? Can I urge you to invest in the record book of God, where He keeps a record of every cup of cold water that's given to one of the Lord's servants, every dollar given to serve and advance the Gospel, every prayer for those who have gone out to preach the Gospel. He remembers all of it. Invest in eternity, not in what your neighbors and co-workers and other people think of you, that doesn't matter. It's dust in the wind. Build an eternal legacy by living to God, and to God alone. And Paul writes here, secondly, this letter of commendation. I can't say anything more important to you than this. She took that letter. And if it is indeed a letter of recommendation or commendation from the Apostle Paul, on Phoebe, he was introducing her to the congregation of the assembly there at Rome. V. Application Can I say to you, not one of you, none of you will get into heaven without Christ commending you to the Father. If he doesn't commend you to the Father, you're not getting in. You won't be let in, you'll be stopped at the door. And so therefore, if you have come here today and Christ has never commended you by name to the Father, then you're on the outside looking in. Oh, come to Christ. It says in Romans 5:1-2, it says, "Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained introduction, commendation into this grace in which we now stand." Has Christ introduced you to the Heavenly Father, has he commanded you into the heavenly assembly by faith? Don't leave this place without trusting in Christ and having Christ commend you for the glory of God to the throne of God. Close with me in prayer.