Podcasts about here christ

Unity is an important subject. Many reasons are advanced for it. Many also are the purposes. Paul brings his pastoral address on the conscience to a unifying conclusion with a wonderful emphasis on Christ and the organic outworking of the gospel applied. Here Christ is exalted, to God's glory and the encouragement of the redeemed.

THE WEEK OF TRINITY XXVI - SUNDAYLESSON: MATTHEW 25:31‒42“Men will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.” Luke 13:29‒30In this Gospel, great prominence is given to good works as proof of the possession or absence of true faith. Those on Christ's right hand at the judgment, the sheep, have proved the genuineness of their faith in works of love to needy brethren. Those on His left hand, the goats, who have been rejected for eternal punishment in hell, have proved that they really had no saving faith at all by the absence of such works of love to their brethren. Here Christ also indicates that there are many among those regarded as Christians who actually become worse than heathen after hearing the preaching of the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins and of God's grace through Christ. Christ Himself declared, “Many that are first will be last, and the last first” (Matthew 19:30). At the final judgment, it will become quite evident that many of those who should have proved themselves to be true Christians because they heard the Gospel actually became worse and more unmerciful than they were before. One sees clear evidence of this on all sides today. Previously, when good works were enjoined under papal perversions and false acts of worship, everyone was ready and willing to do good works. A single prince or one city was able to provide greater and richer endowments and alms than can be provided today by the joint efforts of all kings and the Emperor. Today the whole world has learned nothing else but to lay others under contribution, to practice oppression, open robbery, and stealth by means of lies, deceit, usury, overcharging, and other pressures. Every man tries to gain an advantage over his neighbor, as though he regarded him not as a friend and even much less as a brother in Christ.SL.XI.1888,9‒12PRAYER: Never let our faith die as a result of greed and selfishness, O God, but let it always be in us a real power unto salvation, productive of many good works, in and through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. 

On this episode of Preaching the Text, John Hoyum and Steve Paulson continue their discussion of the rich young man and the impossibility of inheriting eternal life through riches. Here Christ teaches that we cannot inherit eternal life through anything that we do, nor should we put our trust in money to secure us on the last day. Instead, salvation is a gift of God bestowed in Christ for free apart from our merits. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Junk Drawer Jesus By Matt Popovits Listen to 1517 Executive Director Scott Keith and Magnus Persson on the latest Re:Formera podcast Signup For Free Advent Church Resources for 2024 Clothed with Christ by Brian William Thomas The Inklings: Apostles and Apologists of the Imagination with Sam Schuldheisz More from the hosts: John Hoyum Steven Paulson  

“concealed it at Mapleton” [SILV]    This month's Mr. Sherlock Holmes the Theorist episode goes back to 1949 to Volume 4, Number 1 of The Baker Street Journal and Jay Finley Christ's article "Silver Blaze: An Identification (as of 1893 A.D.).   Here Christ looks at what contemporary readers of the Strand would have thought of Watson's tale, specifically identifying which horse Silver Blaze was supposed to be. Oh, and for our Patreon and Substack supporters, we have a video version of this episode. It's just a Trifle.     All of our supporters are eligible for our monthly drawings for Baker Street Journals and certain tiers receive thank you gifts. Join our community on Patreon or Substack today. Find Trifles wherever you listen to podcasts.   Links / Notes Jay Finley Christ's article is available through the eBSJ. All of our social links: https://linktr.ee/ihearofsherlock Email us at trifles @ ihearofsherlock.com Join our community on Patreon or Substack to hear bonus material and be eligible for drawings.      Music credits Performers: Uncredited violinist, US Marine Chamber Orchestra  Publisher Info.: Washington, DC: United States Marine Band  Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0    

Racial animosity is all too common today. In Biblical times, the Samaritans were viewed as half bred, religiously compromised traitors. Here Christ speaks and acts in such a way as to include those who have been excluded. He builds bridges between people and unites them to God. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1417/29

Christ described how He has many things to say to His people, but they were not able to bear them at that time.--His disciples couldn't accept the death of Christ- They wanted a physical kingdom instead of a justifying sacrifice.--They were prejudiced against the non-Jewish people, thinking that Israel was God's only chosen people, and not understanding the Gospel is for all mankind---They didn't believe the resurrection of Christ- They didn't realize that a heavenly country is far better than an earthly country. They didn't understand that Christ's kingdom, at this time, is pursued by spiritual means, rather than by physical strife.--They didn't grasp the adoption of believers as the sons of God- They didn't understand how our bodies would be changed when Christ raises us from the dead.--Christ had surely broached many of these matters to them, but they were not able to bear them then.--Christ's answer to this is to send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, to guide His people into all these truths, and many more---The Holy Ghost will guide us into all truth, because He will not speak of Himself, but He will speak what He hears about God the Father and His Son. --Here Christ emphasizes the complete unity of the persons of the Godhead. There are no different stories told, or falsehoods conveyed, by the Holy Ghost. He is to be trusted explicitly and absolutely, as Christ's representative to His people.--Christ then makes it clear- the Comforter, by doing this work, will glorify the Lord Jesus---Everything true about Christ glorifies Him- The truth about Jesus is His glory- There is nothing true about Him that blemishes or stains His honor and majesty-

Christ described how He has many things to say to His people, but they were not able to bear them at that time.--His disciples couldn't accept the death of Christ- They wanted a physical kingdom instead of a justifying sacrifice.--They were prejudiced against the non-Jewish people, thinking that Israel was God's only chosen people, and not understanding the Gospel is for all mankind---They didn't believe the resurrection of Christ- They didn't realize that a heavenly country is far better than an earthly country. They didn't understand that Christ's kingdom, at this time, is pursued by spiritual means, rather than by physical strife.--They didn't grasp the adoption of believers as the sons of God- They didn't understand how our bodies would be changed when Christ raises us from the dead.--Christ had surely broached many of these matters to them, but they were not able to bear them then.--Christ's answer to this is to send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, to guide His people into all these truths, and many more---The Holy Ghost will guide us into all truth, because He will not speak of Himself, but He will speak what He hears about God the Father and His Son. --Here Christ emphasizes the complete unity of the persons of the Godhead. There are no different stories told, or falsehoods conveyed, by the Holy Ghost. He is to be trusted explicitly and absolutely, as Christ's representative to His people.--Christ then makes it clear- the Comforter, by doing this work, will glorify the Lord Jesus---Everything true about Christ glorifies Him- The truth about Jesus is His glory- There is nothing true about Him that blemishes or stains His honor and majesty-

Christ described how He has many things to say to His people, but they were not able to bear them at that time.His disciples couldn't accept the death of Christ! They wanted a physical kingdom instead of a justifying sacrifice.They were prejudiced against the non-Jewish people, thinking that Israel was God's only chosen people, and not understanding the Gospel is for all mankind!They didn't believe the resurrection of Christ! They didn't realize that a heavenly country is far better than an earthly country. They didn't understand that Christ's kingdom, at this time, is pursued by spiritual means, rather than by physical strife.They didn't grasp the adoption of believers as the sons of God! They didn't understand how our bodies would be changed when Christ raises us from the dead.Christ had surely broached many of these matters to them, but they were not able to bear them then.Christ's answer to this is to send the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, to guide His people into all these truths, and many more!The Holy Ghost will guide us into all truth, because He will not speak of Himself, but He will speak what He hears about God the Father and His Son. Here Christ emphasizes the complete unity of the persons of the Godhead. There are no different stories told, or falsehoods conveyed, by the Holy Ghost. He is to be trusted explicitly and absolutely, as Christ's representative to His people.Christ then makes it clear: the Comforter, by doing this work, will glorify the Lord Jesus!Everything true about Christ glorifies Him! The truth about Jesus is His glory! There is nothing true about Him that blemishes or stains His honor and majesty!

On this episode of Preaching the Text, John Hoyum and Steve Paulson discuss the readings for Transfiguration Sunday. Here Christ appears with his disciples on the mountain with Moses and Elijah. Despite the fear of the disciples, the voice of the Father comes once again to pronounce his blessing upon Christ and the ministry of forgiveness that he has come to give. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Bible in One Year with Chad Bird Freedom Lessons Album Your God is too Glorious, 2nd Edition by Chad Bird Schweitzer's Psychoanalysis of Jesus Christ: & Other Essays in Christian Psychotherapy by John Warwick Montgomery NWA Conference May 3rd-4th More from the hosts: John Hoyum Steven Paulson  

Heavenly Father, we recognize that we live as fallen people in a fallen world. Yes, it's all because of our own rebellion and subordination of trying to reject your authority. Lord, we understand that we live in a world that is under the curse. Lord, in this world, we do experience suffering and pain and we experience trials and tempest. Sometimes life becomes tempestuous. Storms come. Lord, in those moments when the storms do come, I pray that you give us the power of the Holy Spirit to stand unflinching on the gospel and the word of God. That you are a great God, there's nothing outside of your control. You are sovereign and that you are good God. You love us and you long to bless us. Sometimes you bless us by protecting us from the storms.Sometimes the greatest blessing is your own presence and protection within the storm. Lord, I pray from the holy scriptures today, remind us that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace. That we are to be a people who are characterized, defined by peace, the tranquility of heart, despite the storms. Lord, when the winds of this world blow and they blow against us, I pray that we are not blown from one doctrine to another, but we stand fast and hold on to the anchor of our souls, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's beautiful name. Amen. We are continuing our sermon series to the Gospel of Mark. We've entitled this, "The Gospel of Mark and The Secret of God's Kingdom."The title of the sermon on this communion Sunday is the Storm Calming King. One of the most accurate gauges for how strong your faith is, is to take an inventory of your current fears, anxieties, and worries. What worries you the most today? Perhaps the state of the economy or your own personal finances. How are we going to keep paying the bills? Perhaps it's inflation or politics or war or disease or perhaps you're more concerned about finding love or keeping love, about losing health or aging. For the wellbeing perhaps of your children, you're most concerned, or not measuring up intellectually, physically, financially. Or how about death? Do you experience fear when you consider death, of what it would mean to meet the living God?The Holy Word proclaims that God gave us the spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. The spirit of fear is not from God. God doesn't want you living in a constant state of panic. Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So we are to be calm and cool, even in the face of storms. The most effective, sustainable way to counter our fears is with a greater fear, a fear of God, and to truly believe in God, to truly know Him as He is to fear Him. Our text today is Mark 4:35-41. Would you look at the text with me? "On that day when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was.And other boats were with him and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And when they woke him up, they said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Be still. Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Three points as we walk our way through the text, a great storm, a great calm, and a great fear. First, a great storm. Jesus had called these disciples by coming to them and commanding them, "Follow me." His very first sermon, both to them and to everyone else, was the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe. What he's saying is, "I am the king. I'm the king of everything. The way you enter my kingdom is repenting of sin and believing in me." Those are the two most important lessons of the Christian faith. This is how everything begins and this is how everything continues. Repent of your sin and believe and follow Jesus Christ.Then Jesus spends in chapter four, parable upon parable explaining to the disciples, trying and impress upon their hearts the importance of paying attention to God's word, of listening in a way that you actually hear and heed and obey the word of God. So after teaching his disciples lesson upon lesson and preaching, now comes the test. You've all taken tests. Are you a good test taker? What makes for a good test taker? Is it just the power of recall? It's more than that. It's the power of recall under pressure. In particular in a pop quiz, you weren't ready. Pop quiz, here we go. Do you know the information? Have you mastered it? We learn about truth, the truth about God and who we are from the Holy Book. Then we're called to apply this truth in real life.That's the real test. Can you apply the truth in real time? Often God does test our faith and he does so with sudden unexpected storms. Will your faith be blown off course? Usually, the storms come in the form of some pain, some suffering. Can you continue trusting God when the skies have darkened, when lightning strikes, when you feel like you're sinking? Can you trust God, believe in God when it matters most? So Jesus administers the test in Mark 4:35. "On that day," it says, "when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'" On that day and in context, we see what happened on that day in Jesus' taxing life of ministry.The day started where he's casting out demons and then the Pharisees and the scribes of the Pharisees, they accused Jesus of doing the work he was doing by the power of Beelzebub or Satan himself. Jesus says, "No, you saying that is actually blasphemous." There's tensions. Whenever there's a conflict, whenever there's tension, there's all adrenaline pumped exhaustion. That's what Jesus went through. The second event of that day was when his mother and his brothers came to take Jesus by force almost. Then Jesus turns around and He looks at his disciples and He says, "Who's my mother? Who's my brothers? Who's my sisters? It's those that do the will of God." Then He spends all day preaching to the biggest crowd yet.There were so many people that He was forced to back off from the shore and start preaching from a boat using the boat as his pulpit. So after exhausting day of ministry in the hot sun, Jesus says, "Let us go across to the other side." The Greek tense reveals a note of urgency in Jesus' decisions to depart. Perhaps he's hit a wall physically where you just can't continue. He didn't have the physical strength to go on. So He tells the disciples, "Let's go out to sea." Whose idea was this? This is important to notice. Whose idea was it to get in the boat that evening and to go into the sea that night? It was Jesus' idea. It was Him taking them right into the storm almost as if it's a setup and it is.He's setting them up to test their faith. He loves them and He wants to strengthen their faith in God and fear of God. God does not promise that when we serve Him, when we obey Him, when we believe in Him that we're going to lead a life of smooth sailing. Jesus doesn't promise to protect us from experiencing storms. He promises to protect us in the midst of storms. The sermon of the Mount in chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says this, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. Great was the fall of it." But notice in both of these paths, the people that obey God, the wise people and the people that disobeyed God, the foolish people, they both experience storms. The question isn't, "Are you going to experience a storm?" The question is, "Will your faith weather the storm?" Obedience to God takes them right into the heart of the storm, into the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. This shows us that service to Christ even does not exempt us from storms.The 12 disciples seem to be doing all the right things, forsaking everything, following him, listening to his teaching, growing in their faith, doing all He commands. They're as obedient as you'll find. Jesus says, "Let us go to the other side." The other side was predominantly the Gentile Decapolis, a region where most of the people there were Gentiles, they were pagans. They did not believe in Yahweh. So Jesus here is showing us that He's the prophet similar to Jonah being sent to the Gentiles except Jesus did it willingly. Verse 36, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was and other boats were with him." So He's been preaching in the boat and then He just goes to the back of the boat and to the stern, finds a cushion, and goes to sleep.What kind of boat was this? It was probably one of the ordinary 15-passenger boats, 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, 4.5 feet high, with a little platform in the stern that protected from the elements. Also, notice it says that other boats were with him. The other boats aren't mentioned later in the text. It does nothing to further the plot. Why is this detail here? Because it's just showing us this is eyewitness account as they remembered this detail. So Jesus is exhausted from his day, climbs into the back of the boat. The boat hoist sail and begins the five-mile trip across the lake. Verse 37. "And a great windstorm arose, and waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling."The sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level and it's surrounded by mountains, by Mount Herman and the Eastern Shore. The mountains go up about 9,200 feet above sea level. So there's about a 10,000-foot difference between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the sea. What happens is cool air sometimes rushes from the top of the mountain down to the sea, which is warmer and it creates this thermal buildup. Tremendous storms, violent changes of weather were known in that area, come out of nowhere severe and treacherous. We know that God is creator of all things and He is the controller of the natural world and natural phenomena.This is also the God that once in a while, He tames or uses creation in order to provide salvation for His people. For example, when he's leading His people out of the exodus and they get to the Red Sea, an east wind was sent by God and dried up the waters. Already Mark has shown that Jesus is the Son of God. At His baptism, the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus. God the Father speaks, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." Jesus has already proven that He's king over demonic by exercising demons. He's proven that He teaches with a new ring of authority as if it's His word, which it is. He heals the sick, which shows that He has power over sickness. Here Jesus shows us that He has power over creation, but not yet.He waits until the disciples are unnerved. A tempest arises. The waves are breaking into the boat and the boat is filling up with water. The verb translated breaking in is a strongly expressive verb, meaning literally hurled upon. The description of the storm reminds Biblical readers of the story of Jonah. Note the similarities between the two narratives. There's departure by boat, a violent storm at sea, a sleeping main character, badly frightened sailors, and a miraculous stealing related to the main character, and then a marveling response by the sailors. Even the vocabulary that's used is similar. We're about to die or the sea died down or they feared a great fear. But also, we have a significant difference between this text and the Jonah's story.Unlike Jonah, Jesus is not fleeing the will of God no matter how hard it is. No, He's actively involved in accomplishing God's will. Also, the disciples don't ask Jesus to pray to the Father. They go to Jesus directly. So they had faith that He could save them. That's why they're asking for the help. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that He has power over creation. So Jesus is more God than Jonah. Life storms are like this. The disciples had smooth sailing for a bit, and then out of nowhere, immediately a storm is upon them. In life, this happens often. Everything's fine and then you get that one phone call. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? It means to be a learner and there are infinite lessons to learn. Sometimes those lessons are learned by reading.Sometimes those lessons are learned by weathering storms. Though the disciples were mostly oblivious to this in the moment, the terrifying storm was actually God's grace and teaching them more about God and more about God's power in their lives. Storms and hardship are an adversity, are essential in our spiritual development. God is a loving father. He does not give us a life without difficulties or trials or stresses or pain or suffering or setbacks or failure. Why? Because He wants us to be strong. He wants us to be as strong as possible in the faith. Verse 38, "And he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'"By the way, these are very experienced fishermen. Peter and Andrew had their own fishing business, and John and James had their own fishing business. They've seen storms, but here this one terrified them. So it must've been some storm. They're freaking out and they wake Jesus. There's a hint of resentment, of reproach as they rebuke him. It's almost as if they're mad at Jesus for allowing this situation. Jesus, we did all the right things. We did everything that you told us to do. Why would you allow this to happen in our life? Jonah, for example, Jonah's situation, yes, that storm was punishment for his disobedience, but they had been obedient. That's why they feel aggrieved. Jesus is in the stern. I love the detail that he's asleep on the cushion, climbs in there, just finds a pillow.He's like, "This one's for me," and just goes into comatose, so a nap, just a tremendous nap. By the way, be like Jesus once in a while, take a nap. There's something here that's majestic about this detail if you meditate on. Jesus, He did get exhausted in His human form. He's God incarnate, but in the human body, He's bone tired after an exhausting day of ministry. Even the storm couldn't wake Him up. In a moment from now, Jesus would calm the storm, but first, He slept in a weary body. Here we have a grand display of the opposites of weakness and omnipotence coalesced into harmony too magnificent to be the product of human imagination. No other religion, no other worldview, no other ideology comes even close to something.God incarnate, God becoming one of us, remaining fully God, yet fully human. There's something so reassuring here that Jesus knows the human experience from the inside. He's been through it. He knows what it's like to be human, and we know His sleep is intentional, thus the cushion. So He is completely in control. He controls the weather, therefore He could have foretold the weather. So this is all a setup. It really is a test. God loves saving at the very last moment, in the 11th hour, when the odds are insurmountable where it just seems impossible. So Israel, as they're coming out of Egypt and the Exodus, they get up to the Red Sea. You got the Egyptian army breathing down their neck. They're trapped, they're doomed.Then in the last hour, God saves them. Or Gideon's army or Sarah or Ruth or widow loses her son or even Lazarus. Jesus goes to Lazarus' funeral and they're like, "Why are you here? If you came a little sooner, you could have healed him. Why are you here? It's too late." It wasn't too late. Jesus resurrects him. Jesus sleeping here indicates His calm trust in God. Psalm 4:8 says, "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." The disciples call out that Jesus as they're awakening Him. They call him teacher or rabbi. Rabbi's been teaching them and they don't realize that the rabbi's continuing to teach them. They cry out, "We're perishing, we're about to die."This verb, the identical form in the Septuagint and the Greek translation of the Hebrew is used in the Jonah story. Then the crux of their question is, "Do you not care? Do you not care?" The question uses the negative particle in the Greek, ou. It's asked in a way that makes clear. They think they know He cares, but at this moment, they're not sure. "Jesus, you care, right? Jesus, you care for us, don't you?" That's what they're saying. I think we've all felt this. We've all had moments in life where it feels like God just disappears. God just hid His face or it feels like God is asleep and they're crying out, "Lord, save us. We're about to die, we're overwhelmed, we're crushed."Worry in our lives comes from either forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm that He is great, or doubting his commitment to us in the storm that He's good. We either doubt that He's great or we either doubt that He's good. In those moments, I'd like you to remember three things. First, realize that feelings of anxiety or fear, trepidation, those are natural, but we are not to trust in our feelings. Our feelings are fallible. The size of the waves and the fury of the wind and the sight of the water accumulating at the bottom of the boat, the boat is sinking deeper and deeper into the water, into the lake. All of this makes the disciples almost forget everything they've learned about Jesus. J. C. Ryle says this, "Sight, sense, and feeling make even believers very poor theologians."Here you got the theology of what's happening in that moment, in that storm, when all the theologists throw out the window. We have to pause, we got to meditate, because right now, here and now we are not in a storm. It's times of peace in which we need to study God's word and not just learn the truth, but embody the truth. Where the truth becomes so much part of us that we understand that God is in control. At this moment, you could have said to the disciples, "Hey, do you really suppose that God's plan for the world is going to come to an end in some unforeseen accident? Do you really suppose that the Messiah Himself would drown as He's crossing the sea of Galilee?"Couldn't they see that no boat ferrying the son of God, no boat carrying the savior of the world was going to sink? Couldn't they see that high as those waves were deep as the water was getting in the boat, as wild as the winds were, there was no safer spot in the world than being in that boat with Jesus Christ? Faith knows that God is sovereign, but sight forgets it often. At these moments, we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Meaning don't just judge everything you see physically, but what do you see with the eyes of your soul, with your faith? Second, salvation isn't always from circumstances but through. We'll get to that in the second point.Then third, even when you feel like you're drowning, even when you feel like everything is falling apart, you are sinking, just dismantling of everything, at those moments, it's okay to run to Jesus and wake Him up. No matter how much He was enjoying that nap. Have you ever had a nice nap and then someone awakens you? What's your first reaction? I know what mine is. It's irritation. You're just groggy. Jesus doesn't get irritated for them waking Him up. He is grieved by their lack of faith, by their lack of trust, but He doesn't rebuke them for their fretting cries for help. In these moments, we are to remember that when we run to God, when we cry out to Him honestly, from the depth of our soul, He hears those pleas and He will answer. So Jesus is awakened.This brings us the second point of great calm, verse 39. "And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm." So He says to the sea, "Silence, peace." Then he says, "Be still." That's the same verb that's used in chapter 1, verse 25 where Jesus casts out a demon. He tells the demon, "Be still", but in the Greek, it's more than that. It's be muzzled, or one translator says, "Shut up." He's telling the storm to do what He says because He's king over the storm. He doesn't rescue them from the storm, but He stills the storm itself. Only the one who had initially created the sea and the wind, it's only His place to rebuke the storm and the storm and the wind's instant obedience show us who's in control.It's God himself that's in that boat. It's Jesus Christ, the creator. In Him all things were created, through Him all things were created. He's also the redeemer. It's significant that when Jesus lends his authority to His disciples to go cast out demons and do miracles, He never gives them power over creation itself, over nature itself. That power belongs to the Son of God, king over the natural world. When the authors of the Psalms reflect on the fact that God doesn't just help us in the storms, He also sends us those storms. Psalm 46, for example, the Psalmist says, "God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. Though the waters roar and foam." Psalm 65 says, "He stilled the roaring of the seas and the roaring of their waves." Then it says, "There was a great calm."That's the same verb that's used for the calming of the sea in the Jonas' story. Remember the other boats, there were other boats with them? Well, the text doesn't say anything else about those boats, but that detail shows us that the calming of the storm wasn't just for the salvation or preservation of these disciples, but also, it was a miracle of mercy in a wider scale. Psalm 107:23-32 is an incredible parallel passage to meditate on. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters are quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders." Whenever you are experiencing a storm in life, let us never forget that with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything can change in a second. With the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing is impossible. No stormy sins are so strong that He can't tame them or He can't save us from them.No conscience is so disturbed that He can't speak peace to it and make it come. No despair is so deep that it can't be replaced with unspeakable joy. No sinner, not even one is beyond the reach of our savior. Christ can speak so to any stormy soul, "Peace! Be still!" Scripture says, "Greater is he that is in us than he who is in the world." Matthew 4:40, He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" After conquering the external threat of the storm, Jesus turns to the internal threat. This is His follower's unbelief. After rebuking the storm, He now rebukes His disciples and He says to them, "Why are you so afraid?" The word for afraid here is deilos, which means cowardly. So Jesus here is rebuking them for their cowardice, for their timidity, for their lack of courage.They challenge Jesus by saying, "Don't you care?" Now He's challenging them by saying, "Why are you so cowardly? Why are you such cowards?" By the way, what would your answer be if you were the disciples? We almost died, Jesus. That's why we were cowardly. We were almost dead, wiped out. Yes, you are the God of the world we know, but in that moment, come on. There's a reason for it. So why is Jesus calling it out? What He's doing is He's pointing out that a secondary fear has become a primary fear on their hierarchy of fear. He says, "Why are you so afraid? Why are you so cowardly?" Meaning you are afraid of something more than God. You fear something more than God. What was that in their case?Perhaps suffering, perhaps pain, perhaps drowning, perhaps death itself. They fear death itself more than fearing the God that was in the boat and that's why they rebuked Him. The Lord rebukes cowardice. Here are a few points just to point out. As believers, we are to grow in courage. This is what it means to be encouraged. God infuses courage in our hearts. Sometimes for that courage to grow, we need a nice rebuking and Jesus Christ rebukes his disciples. If you have a Jesus that never rebukes you for anything, that's not the Jesus of reality, that's not the real Jesus. If you have a God that never contradicts anything you do, never calls you to repentance, never calls you to change, you don't have a God that's the real God of reality.The real God does rebuke and we are to look to scripture for training and for teaching and for encouragement and edification. But we are look through the scripture and say, "Lord, rebuke me. Teach me where I need to change." Proverbs 24:10 says, "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." This is what Jesus is rebuking them for. The Lord's sleep did not only show His very natural weariness, it also showed His tranquil faith. He did not doubt that God is sovereign. Here Mark shows that faith and fear are mutually exclusive in scripture. It was because of their lack of faith that they feared that they were about to drown. So it was for a lack of faith that they are rebuked. The command and scripture that has reiterated more than any other is do not fear.Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? And then have you still no faith? Don't you have faith yet?" Here Christ is showing that He, God, takes our craving and fear as a personal insult. Where is your faith, disciples? Is it in me? If it isn't me, I'm right here. I didn't go anywhere. I was right there with you the whole time. So we need to hear from time to time from our savior that our faithless ways, especially in light of the Lord's demonstration over and over years in our lives of his faithfulness, our faithlessness is inexcusable. It's actually a sin that we must repent of and put to death. There is no excuse for us to not understand that when we experience troubles and trials and storms of life, it's because God allowed them in our life. They passed through His hands.If He is for us, then who can be against us? So we need this rebuke and the rebuke itself is a powerful encouragement that we can grow more courageous. We can grow out of our cowardly ways and we can become deeper believers. In our passage, faith seems to have two aspects. On the one hand, it's a trust like Jesus. Here He is exuding a basic confidence in God's provident care. On the other hand, faith is also trust in Jesus. By the end of our passage, faith has come to mean a perception of who He really is, His cosmic stature. He is the son of God and the conviction that nothing bad can ultimately happen to the person who was with Him. In this text, we see this progression that Jesus moves just from being an example for our faith to actually being the object of our faith.Isaiah 45:6 and 7, "I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I'm the Lord who does all these things." I want to walk you through Psalm 23, one of my favorite psalms, one of our favorite psalms, one of the most famous ones. I want to show you that all of these truths are right there in that psalm and just show you that transformation is promised when we keep trusting the Lord. Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that's where the faith ends. You come to the Lord.He's your shepherd and He's going to take you in bucolic green pastures, delicious running water. He takes care of all your needs. That's awesome. No, that's just the beginning and then the story continues. Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they come from me." How in the world did we end up from green pastures... Bucolic running water is tremendous. How do we go from there to a valley of the shadow of death? The shepherd led him there. The good shepherd led him into the valley of death. God loves us and bad things happen. Both are true. Jesus was perfect and bad things happened to Him.David here, he doesn't fear that despite seeing only shadows, experiencing near death, he takes comfort in the fact that the shepherd is close. The shepherd has been leading me. He continues to lead me and He will surely lead me through and out. Jesus doesn't always lead us around danger or protect us from danger. Sometimes He leads us into green pastures. Sometimes it's into danger and sometimes He protect us by means of danger. Perhaps the valley of shadow of death was to train David, to learn, to grow in wisdom, to not go through bigger valleys, deeper valleys of shadow of death. He allows us to experience present pain often to protect us from future pain.In verse three, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." So the path of righteousness sometimes goes through green pastures and often it goes through valleys of death. Most importantly, David didn't lose sight of the shepherd. I just want to point out that his relationship deepened with the shepherd after going through the valley of the shadow of death. Look at how he changes the way he addresses the good shepherd. In verse two, "He makes me lie down. He leads me besides still waters." Verse three, "He restores my soul." Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of shadow death, I will fear no evil for..." It doesn't say he, it's no longer he. It's for you are with me.Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil and my cup over overflows. His relationship with his shepherd changed. It became more personal, it became more real. God became more present, and this is the universal experience of God's people. If you ask a believer, "At what times in your life did you experience the presence of God like never before?", and they will no doubt tell you a time when they had to walk through a valley of the shadow of death. Charles Spurgeon said, "I've learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." God doesn't always shield us from danger, but He shields us in the danger, sometimes with the danger and leads us through it all.Sometimes He does it all so that we get a cup that overflows with comfort for others. Sometimes He sends us affliction so that we learn to be comforted to pass through the affliction and then we become even more useful instruments in His hands to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 2:3-6 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer."What a difference it would've made if the disciples had exercised faith that night. Imagine if they got a take two. Jesus, let's do this again. We are terrible at that first pop quiz. This is awful, but imagine if the next storm, all of a sudden, Jesus is in the cushion. They were like, "Jesus, we know what you're doing." All the storm comes, it's filling up. I'd be standing right next to Peter. Peter would be the wild man. Just be fishing off the boat, just enjoying it, just maniacal smile, laughter. All of a sudden, the suffering, the storm turns into an adventure. No matter what, I'm in the hands of God. No matter what, until Jesus says we are invincible, we are immortal until our job is done. Imagine being brought to the brink of death but preserved. That would've been the gift of a deepened faith.Point three is a great fear. In verse 41, it says, "They were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" They were filled with the great fear. That's the same idiom that's used in the Jonah's story when the sailors saw the power of God. Here Jesus' great authority leaves them in awe. The word for fear here is different than the previous word for afraid. The word for fear here is phobos, which is the proper response to a manifestation of the divine. They see that God is with them. Whereas the other word, deilos was cowardly. It was reprehensible because they didn't trust in the Lord. The disciples respond to Jesus' question about their cowardice with another question, "Who is this with us in the boat?"Well, who is this? This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God, the one that Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18. He said, "A greater prophet is coming after me. Obey him." The idea here has been magnified. Magnified because obedience is rendered to Jesus, not just by people, but even by creation itself. Even the wind, even the sea, they obey Him and leaving the disciples stunned. If the storms obey Him, if the sea obeys Him, if the wind obeys Him, then who are we to disobey Him? That's the sentiment here. Who are we to defy Him? This is the fear that they're experiencing. He is creator. We are creation and they stand in fear and on reverence of Christ. Do you stand in a right relationship with your creator? That right relationship must include a healthy respect for God.You can fear God without loving Him. That's what the demons do. They fear God. They know God but they don't love God. But you can't love God without fearing Him. To truly love Him is to truly know who He is and to truly know who He is to fear Him. What is the fear of the Lord? It's not just pure dread, it's not just shrinking back from Him in terror. You can obey God because you're terrified of him or terrified of the consequence. But if that's the only reason why you obey, then you don't really know God either because God is a loving God. He is God the Father. We are to fear God in the sense that we are to fear offending Him, displeasing or grieving Him. Therefore, our relationship must not be glib or flippant. We are to fear His rebuke more than just respect or reverence.The word does use the word fear. In Exodus chapter 20, Moses comes down from the mountain given the 10 commandments of God. The people see this. They see that God has been with Moses. Moses has been with God, and they say, "Moses, don't have God speak to us. You speak to us." They're in trepidation. Then this is what Moses says in Exodus 20, "Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." Do not fear but fear. What is he saying? He's saying, "Do not fear approaching God for mercy. Do not fear looking at the 10 commandments and realizing that you have transgressed the commandments." What are we to do? We deserve the infinite eternal condemnation of God upon ourselves for rebelling, for insubordination.Here Moses says, "Do not fear coming to God for mercy." This is what Christ says. Do not fear coming to the cross asking God for forgiveness. But once you do receive Jesus Christ as savior, recognize that He's also your Lord. As you approach this God, we are to fear kindling His wrath against sin. We are to fear His rebuke. Psalm 25:14 says, "The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him and he makes known to them his covenant." It's incredible that the Lord would offer His friendship, but this is what the Lord's saying. He's like, "I would rather just be friends." This is why I tell my kids. I got four daughters. I hate the rebuking. I hate the discipline part. I hate that. I hate that. Can't you just do what I say first time?What I want to say is can't you just know what I want you to do? Can you just read my mind? Haven't we been together long enough and then we can just be friends? We can just hang out. This is what God is saying. He's like, "Do I want to stand over you and tell you what to do?" I want the word to be planted in you so that you don't just learn these truths, but you embody the truths and then your relationship with the Lord is a relationship of friendship. Martin Luther made a distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile comes from Latin servus, which means slave, and fillus means son. He says, "Sometimes people have the servile fear of God where they're just slaves and they never understand the relationship with God as children."Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. Hebrews 10:31 says, "It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." It is, and this is why we need Christ. So we don't fall into the hands of God's wrath. But also, once we are forgiven, it's like we are in the hands of God the Father and still a very fearful thing to be held lovingly by these same hands. Psalm 130:1-4, "Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared."That last verse is fascinating. With you is forgiveness that you may be feared. Why include fear with forgiveness? Well, because you begin to understand what it took for forgiveness to be procured. It took the cross of Jesus Christ. The bloody cross was the terrible price for our sin, for our disobedience. We have broken God's commandments. We deserve His eternal wrath. Yet God sends Jesus Christ to the cross, Jesus Christ, fully obedient who did the will of God from the heart perfectly. This same Jesus goes to cross to pay the penalty for our lawbreaking. On the cross, what does Jesus say? He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I'm perishing. God the Father, why are you allowing me to perish?"God the Father allows the son to perish so that we do not. What do the disciples say? We're perishing. Do you not care? What does Jesus say with His life? How long until you truly believe that I have come so you do not perish. I have come to perish so that you'll be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, so that whosoever believes in Him, in Jesus would not perish but have eternal life. The good shepherd is the one that lays down His life for His sheep. Friends, hell is real. It's reality. The lake of fire is real and the condemnation is for eternity. The suffering is for eternity. Jesus Christ came to save us from the ultimate storm of God's judgment, which is hell. The cross of Jesus Christ is as close of a glimpse of hell that true believers will ever get.That's hell, God the Son experiencing it. Why? So that we would never have to. All we have to do is turn to Him, turn from sin, repent and believe. What is the storm? The storm is an expression of the curse. The curse was pronounced upon all creation when the first Adam sinned and fell. The ground was cursed and the fabric of creation was disordered and chaotic and became dangerous. Then Jesus is second Adam, the God man came to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found. He did what the first Adam did not do. Jesus kept covenant with God perfectly. He obeyed. He bled and He died and the curse fell on him. It was etched into Him and the storm of divine wrath engulfed Him and there was no peace for Him.Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" The disciples were afraid that they would perish that night. They didn't understand that Jesus came to give them life and life eternal. He would perish that they might live and that's why He came to give us life at the cost of His own. The final question is, who really got woken up in the story? Who really got awakened? We see the disciples trying to wake Jesus up. They wake Jesus up. At the end, it's the disciples that got awakened. They're like, "Who is this? We're in the presence of God Himself." They fear Him with a good godly fear. If you fear God, there's nothing else to fear.If God is number one in your hierarchy of fears, there's nothing else to fear. There's no one else to fear. This is how we fight lesser fear, secondary fears. We fight them with the greatest fear, fear of God that displaces all the others. Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is the Jesus that we worship. This is the Jesus that we follow. He didn't have to save our souls, but He did. He's a good God. If you're not sure where you stand before God today, if you're not sure if you die today where you'll spend eternity, today in your heart of hearts, cry out to Jesus Christ, "Lord Jesus, do you not care?"He will respond, "Of course, I care. Look at the cross. Look at my death, my burial and my resurrection and my ascension." The moment you repent, the moment you believe, you are saved and you are given eternal life. One of our favorite hymns that we sing at Mosaic is Amazing Grace. We sing in particular when people get baptized. If you've not been baptized a believer, let us know. We can't wait to baptize you and then sing the song. In the song, it goes like this. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. How precious did the grace appear the hour I first believed?I'll close with Psalm 42:7-11 before we transition to holy communion. "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning, because of the oppression of the enemy?' As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God? Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.'"Well, we celebrate holy communion at Mosaic every first Sunday of the month. We celebrate holy communion as it was commanded to us by our Lord and Savior that we are to do this in remembrance of him. For whom is holy communion? It is only for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a follower of Christ, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. Instead, meditate on what you've heard. Or if you today repent of your sins and you become a Christian, you're welcome to partake. Then if you are a believer living in known unrepentant sin, please refrain from this part of the service. Instead, take time to repent and pray.If you haven't received the elements and would like to, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring them to you. Would you please pray with me over holy communion? Lord Jesus, we thank you that you gave us this ordinance to remember your suffering, bread that you said is to remind us of your broken body. Your body was truly broken. You suffered on that cross and the cup was given to us to remind us of your blood, the blood of the Holy Lamb of God that was shed for us in order to make atonement for our sins, provide a way for salvation. Jesus, bless our time in holy communion now. We take this moment to repent of sin. We repent of pride. We repent of selfishness. We repent of our own desire to be our own gods, to define good and evil as we deem.We repent of transgressing your commandments. We repent of not loving you with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and not loving our neighbor itself. Lord, we pray that you give us grace and mercy and pray that you forgive us and also give us grace to empower us, to fear you above all else, and to not be cowardly, to truly grow in our courage in particular when we testify to the world of your name. Bless our time in the holy communion. Now we pray this in Christ's name, amen. 1 Corinthians 11:23 says, "For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."If this is your first time partaking communion with us, there's two lids, one at the top to open the cup and then one at the bottom to get the bread. On the night that Christ was betrayed, He took the bread and after breaking it, He said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." He then proceeded to take the cup and He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time of spiritual nourishment from the richness of your holy scriptures.Lord, we pray that these lessons that we learned don't just stay in our minds, but we pray that they set roots into our hearts and that we become a people who are not just hearers of the word but doers of the word, because we embody the word. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you God incarnate, you showed us what it means to truly live a life of obedience to you and service to people, love to you and love toward people. Lord, we do fear you and we pray that you deepen our fear of you.As we grow and fear of you, I pray, Lord, that we become more effective servants for you, courageously proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to all who would hear. Give us opportunities even this week to go and to share the good news, to share the fact that anyone who repents of sin and turns to Christ is forgiven, is given eternal life, and is welcome into an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will stand the test of time and no storms will shake. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen.

Heavenly Father, we recognize that we live as fallen people in a fallen world. Yes, it's all because of our own rebellion and subordination of trying to reject your authority. Lord, we understand that we live in a world that is under the curse. Lord, in this world, we do experience suffering and pain and we experience trials and tempest. Sometimes life becomes tempestuous. Storms come. Lord, in those moments when the storms do come, I pray that you give us the power of the Holy Spirit to stand unflinching on the gospel and the word of God. That you are a great God, there's nothing outside of your control. You are sovereign and that you are good God. You love us and you long to bless us. Sometimes you bless us by protecting us from the storms.Sometimes the greatest blessing is your own presence and protection within the storm. Lord, I pray from the holy scriptures today, remind us that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace. That we are to be a people who are characterized, defined by peace, the tranquility of heart, despite the storms. Lord, when the winds of this world blow and they blow against us, I pray that we are not blown from one doctrine to another, but we stand fast and hold on to the anchor of our souls, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's beautiful name. Amen. We are continuing our sermon series to the Gospel of Mark. We've entitled this, "The Gospel of Mark and The Secret of God's Kingdom."The title of the sermon on this communion Sunday is the Storm Calming King. One of the most accurate gauges for how strong your faith is, is to take an inventory of your current fears, anxieties, and worries. What worries you the most today? Perhaps the state of the economy or your own personal finances. How are we going to keep paying the bills? Perhaps it's inflation or politics or war or disease or perhaps you're more concerned about finding love or keeping love, about losing health or aging. For the wellbeing perhaps of your children, you're most concerned, or not measuring up intellectually, physically, financially. Or how about death? Do you experience fear when you consider death, of what it would mean to meet the living God?The Holy Word proclaims that God gave us the spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. The spirit of fear is not from God. God doesn't want you living in a constant state of panic. Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So we are to be calm and cool, even in the face of storms. The most effective, sustainable way to counter our fears is with a greater fear, a fear of God, and to truly believe in God, to truly know Him as He is to fear Him. Our text today is Mark 4:35-41. Would you look at the text with me? "On that day when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was.And other boats were with him and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And when they woke him up, they said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Be still. Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Three points as we walk our way through the text, a great storm, a great calm, and a great fear. First, a great storm. Jesus had called these disciples by coming to them and commanding them, "Follow me." His very first sermon, both to them and to everyone else, was the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe. What he's saying is, "I am the king. I'm the king of everything. The way you enter my kingdom is repenting of sin and believing in me." Those are the two most important lessons of the Christian faith. This is how everything begins and this is how everything continues. Repent of your sin and believe and follow Jesus Christ.Then Jesus spends in chapter four, parable upon parable explaining to the disciples, trying and impress upon their hearts the importance of paying attention to God's word, of listening in a way that you actually hear and heed and obey the word of God. So after teaching his disciples lesson upon lesson and preaching, now comes the test. You've all taken tests. Are you a good test taker? What makes for a good test taker? Is it just the power of recall? It's more than that. It's the power of recall under pressure. In particular in a pop quiz, you weren't ready. Pop quiz, here we go. Do you know the information? Have you mastered it? We learn about truth, the truth about God and who we are from the Holy Book. Then we're called to apply this truth in real life.That's the real test. Can you apply the truth in real time? Often God does test our faith and he does so with sudden unexpected storms. Will your faith be blown off course? Usually, the storms come in the form of some pain, some suffering. Can you continue trusting God when the skies have darkened, when lightning strikes, when you feel like you're sinking? Can you trust God, believe in God when it matters most? So Jesus administers the test in Mark 4:35. "On that day," it says, "when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'" On that day and in context, we see what happened on that day in Jesus' taxing life of ministry.The day started where he's casting out demons and then the Pharisees and the scribes of the Pharisees, they accused Jesus of doing the work he was doing by the power of Beelzebub or Satan himself. Jesus says, "No, you saying that is actually blasphemous." There's tensions. Whenever there's a conflict, whenever there's tension, there's all adrenaline pumped exhaustion. That's what Jesus went through. The second event of that day was when his mother and his brothers came to take Jesus by force almost. Then Jesus turns around and He looks at his disciples and He says, "Who's my mother? Who's my brothers? Who's my sisters? It's those that do the will of God." Then He spends all day preaching to the biggest crowd yet.There were so many people that He was forced to back off from the shore and start preaching from a boat using the boat as his pulpit. So after exhausting day of ministry in the hot sun, Jesus says, "Let us go across to the other side." The Greek tense reveals a note of urgency in Jesus' decisions to depart. Perhaps he's hit a wall physically where you just can't continue. He didn't have the physical strength to go on. So He tells the disciples, "Let's go out to sea." Whose idea was this? This is important to notice. Whose idea was it to get in the boat that evening and to go into the sea that night? It was Jesus' idea. It was Him taking them right into the storm almost as if it's a setup and it is.He's setting them up to test their faith. He loves them and He wants to strengthen their faith in God and fear of God. God does not promise that when we serve Him, when we obey Him, when we believe in Him that we're going to lead a life of smooth sailing. Jesus doesn't promise to protect us from experiencing storms. He promises to protect us in the midst of storms. The sermon of the Mount in chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says this, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. Great was the fall of it." But notice in both of these paths, the people that obey God, the wise people and the people that disobeyed God, the foolish people, they both experience storms. The question isn't, "Are you going to experience a storm?" The question is, "Will your faith weather the storm?" Obedience to God takes them right into the heart of the storm, into the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. This shows us that service to Christ even does not exempt us from storms.The 12 disciples seem to be doing all the right things, forsaking everything, following him, listening to his teaching, growing in their faith, doing all He commands. They're as obedient as you'll find. Jesus says, "Let us go to the other side." The other side was predominantly the Gentile Decapolis, a region where most of the people there were Gentiles, they were pagans. They did not believe in Yahweh. So Jesus here is showing us that He's the prophet similar to Jonah being sent to the Gentiles except Jesus did it willingly. Verse 36, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was and other boats were with him." So He's been preaching in the boat and then He just goes to the back of the boat and to the stern, finds a cushion, and goes to sleep.What kind of boat was this? It was probably one of the ordinary 15-passenger boats, 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, 4.5 feet high, with a little platform in the stern that protected from the elements. Also, notice it says that other boats were with him. The other boats aren't mentioned later in the text. It does nothing to further the plot. Why is this detail here? Because it's just showing us this is eyewitness account as they remembered this detail. So Jesus is exhausted from his day, climbs into the back of the boat. The boat hoist sail and begins the five-mile trip across the lake. Verse 37. "And a great windstorm arose, and waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling."The sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level and it's surrounded by mountains, by Mount Herman and the Eastern Shore. The mountains go up about 9,200 feet above sea level. So there's about a 10,000-foot difference between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the sea. What happens is cool air sometimes rushes from the top of the mountain down to the sea, which is warmer and it creates this thermal buildup. Tremendous storms, violent changes of weather were known in that area, come out of nowhere severe and treacherous. We know that God is creator of all things and He is the controller of the natural world and natural phenomena.This is also the God that once in a while, He tames or uses creation in order to provide salvation for His people. For example, when he's leading His people out of the exodus and they get to the Red Sea, an east wind was sent by God and dried up the waters. Already Mark has shown that Jesus is the Son of God. At His baptism, the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus. God the Father speaks, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." Jesus has already proven that He's king over demonic by exercising demons. He's proven that He teaches with a new ring of authority as if it's His word, which it is. He heals the sick, which shows that He has power over sickness. Here Jesus shows us that He has power over creation, but not yet.He waits until the disciples are unnerved. A tempest arises. The waves are breaking into the boat and the boat is filling up with water. The verb translated breaking in is a strongly expressive verb, meaning literally hurled upon. The description of the storm reminds Biblical readers of the story of Jonah. Note the similarities between the two narratives. There's departure by boat, a violent storm at sea, a sleeping main character, badly frightened sailors, and a miraculous stealing related to the main character, and then a marveling response by the sailors. Even the vocabulary that's used is similar. We're about to die or the sea died down or they feared a great fear. But also, we have a significant difference between this text and the Jonah's story.Unlike Jonah, Jesus is not fleeing the will of God no matter how hard it is. No, He's actively involved in accomplishing God's will. Also, the disciples don't ask Jesus to pray to the Father. They go to Jesus directly. So they had faith that He could save them. That's why they're asking for the help. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that He has power over creation. So Jesus is more God than Jonah. Life storms are like this. The disciples had smooth sailing for a bit, and then out of nowhere, immediately a storm is upon them. In life, this happens often. Everything's fine and then you get that one phone call. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? It means to be a learner and there are infinite lessons to learn. Sometimes those lessons are learned by reading.Sometimes those lessons are learned by weathering storms. Though the disciples were mostly oblivious to this in the moment, the terrifying storm was actually God's grace and teaching them more about God and more about God's power in their lives. Storms and hardship are an adversity, are essential in our spiritual development. God is a loving father. He does not give us a life without difficulties or trials or stresses or pain or suffering or setbacks or failure. Why? Because He wants us to be strong. He wants us to be as strong as possible in the faith. Verse 38, "And he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'"By the way, these are very experienced fishermen. Peter and Andrew had their own fishing business, and John and James had their own fishing business. They've seen storms, but here this one terrified them. So it must've been some storm. They're freaking out and they wake Jesus. There's a hint of resentment, of reproach as they rebuke him. It's almost as if they're mad at Jesus for allowing this situation. Jesus, we did all the right things. We did everything that you told us to do. Why would you allow this to happen in our life? Jonah, for example, Jonah's situation, yes, that storm was punishment for his disobedience, but they had been obedient. That's why they feel aggrieved. Jesus is in the stern. I love the detail that he's asleep on the cushion, climbs in there, just finds a pillow.He's like, "This one's for me," and just goes into comatose, so a nap, just a tremendous nap. By the way, be like Jesus once in a while, take a nap. There's something here that's majestic about this detail if you meditate on. Jesus, He did get exhausted in His human form. He's God incarnate, but in the human body, He's bone tired after an exhausting day of ministry. Even the storm couldn't wake Him up. In a moment from now, Jesus would calm the storm, but first, He slept in a weary body. Here we have a grand display of the opposites of weakness and omnipotence coalesced into harmony too magnificent to be the product of human imagination. No other religion, no other worldview, no other ideology comes even close to something.God incarnate, God becoming one of us, remaining fully God, yet fully human. There's something so reassuring here that Jesus knows the human experience from the inside. He's been through it. He knows what it's like to be human, and we know His sleep is intentional, thus the cushion. So He is completely in control. He controls the weather, therefore He could have foretold the weather. So this is all a setup. It really is a test. God loves saving at the very last moment, in the 11th hour, when the odds are insurmountable where it just seems impossible. So Israel, as they're coming out of Egypt and the Exodus, they get up to the Red Sea. You got the Egyptian army breathing down their neck. They're trapped, they're doomed.Then in the last hour, God saves them. Or Gideon's army or Sarah or Ruth or widow loses her son or even Lazarus. Jesus goes to Lazarus' funeral and they're like, "Why are you here? If you came a little sooner, you could have healed him. Why are you here? It's too late." It wasn't too late. Jesus resurrects him. Jesus sleeping here indicates His calm trust in God. Psalm 4:8 says, "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." The disciples call out that Jesus as they're awakening Him. They call him teacher or rabbi. Rabbi's been teaching them and they don't realize that the rabbi's continuing to teach them. They cry out, "We're perishing, we're about to die."This verb, the identical form in the Septuagint and the Greek translation of the Hebrew is used in the Jonah story. Then the crux of their question is, "Do you not care? Do you not care?" The question uses the negative particle in the Greek, ou. It's asked in a way that makes clear. They think they know He cares, but at this moment, they're not sure. "Jesus, you care, right? Jesus, you care for us, don't you?" That's what they're saying. I think we've all felt this. We've all had moments in life where it feels like God just disappears. God just hid His face or it feels like God is asleep and they're crying out, "Lord, save us. We're about to die, we're overwhelmed, we're crushed."Worry in our lives comes from either forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm that He is great, or doubting his commitment to us in the storm that He's good. We either doubt that He's great or we either doubt that He's good. In those moments, I'd like you to remember three things. First, realize that feelings of anxiety or fear, trepidation, those are natural, but we are not to trust in our feelings. Our feelings are fallible. The size of the waves and the fury of the wind and the sight of the water accumulating at the bottom of the boat, the boat is sinking deeper and deeper into the water, into the lake. All of this makes the disciples almost forget everything they've learned about Jesus. J. C. Ryle says this, "Sight, sense, and feeling make even believers very poor theologians."Here you got the theology of what's happening in that moment, in that storm, when all the theologists throw out the window. We have to pause, we got to meditate, because right now, here and now we are not in a storm. It's times of peace in which we need to study God's word and not just learn the truth, but embody the truth. Where the truth becomes so much part of us that we understand that God is in control. At this moment, you could have said to the disciples, "Hey, do you really suppose that God's plan for the world is going to come to an end in some unforeseen accident? Do you really suppose that the Messiah Himself would drown as He's crossing the sea of Galilee?"Couldn't they see that no boat ferrying the son of God, no boat carrying the savior of the world was going to sink? Couldn't they see that high as those waves were deep as the water was getting in the boat, as wild as the winds were, there was no safer spot in the world than being in that boat with Jesus Christ? Faith knows that God is sovereign, but sight forgets it often. At these moments, we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Meaning don't just judge everything you see physically, but what do you see with the eyes of your soul, with your faith? Second, salvation isn't always from circumstances but through. We'll get to that in the second point.Then third, even when you feel like you're drowning, even when you feel like everything is falling apart, you are sinking, just dismantling of everything, at those moments, it's okay to run to Jesus and wake Him up. No matter how much He was enjoying that nap. Have you ever had a nice nap and then someone awakens you? What's your first reaction? I know what mine is. It's irritation. You're just groggy. Jesus doesn't get irritated for them waking Him up. He is grieved by their lack of faith, by their lack of trust, but He doesn't rebuke them for their fretting cries for help. In these moments, we are to remember that when we run to God, when we cry out to Him honestly, from the depth of our soul, He hears those pleas and He will answer. So Jesus is awakened.This brings us the second point of great calm, verse 39. "And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm." So He says to the sea, "Silence, peace." Then he says, "Be still." That's the same verb that's used in chapter 1, verse 25 where Jesus casts out a demon. He tells the demon, "Be still", but in the Greek, it's more than that. It's be muzzled, or one translator says, "Shut up." He's telling the storm to do what He says because He's king over the storm. He doesn't rescue them from the storm, but He stills the storm itself. Only the one who had initially created the sea and the wind, it's only His place to rebuke the storm and the storm and the wind's instant obedience show us who's in control.It's God himself that's in that boat. It's Jesus Christ, the creator. In Him all things were created, through Him all things were created. He's also the redeemer. It's significant that when Jesus lends his authority to His disciples to go cast out demons and do miracles, He never gives them power over creation itself, over nature itself. That power belongs to the Son of God, king over the natural world. When the authors of the Psalms reflect on the fact that God doesn't just help us in the storms, He also sends us those storms. Psalm 46, for example, the Psalmist says, "God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. Though the waters roar and foam." Psalm 65 says, "He stilled the roaring of the seas and the roaring of their waves." Then it says, "There was a great calm."That's the same verb that's used for the calming of the sea in the Jonas' story. Remember the other boats, there were other boats with them? Well, the text doesn't say anything else about those boats, but that detail shows us that the calming of the storm wasn't just for the salvation or preservation of these disciples, but also, it was a miracle of mercy in a wider scale. Psalm 107:23-32 is an incredible parallel passage to meditate on. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters are quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders." Whenever you are experiencing a storm in life, let us never forget that with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything can change in a second. With the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing is impossible. No stormy sins are so strong that He can't tame them or He can't save us from them.No conscience is so disturbed that He can't speak peace to it and make it come. No despair is so deep that it can't be replaced with unspeakable joy. No sinner, not even one is beyond the reach of our savior. Christ can speak so to any stormy soul, "Peace! Be still!" Scripture says, "Greater is he that is in us than he who is in the world." Matthew 4:40, He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" After conquering the external threat of the storm, Jesus turns to the internal threat. This is His follower's unbelief. After rebuking the storm, He now rebukes His disciples and He says to them, "Why are you so afraid?" The word for afraid here is deilos, which means cowardly. So Jesus here is rebuking them for their cowardice, for their timidity, for their lack of courage.They challenge Jesus by saying, "Don't you care?" Now He's challenging them by saying, "Why are you so cowardly? Why are you such cowards?" By the way, what would your answer be if you were the disciples? We almost died, Jesus. That's why we were cowardly. We were almost dead, wiped out. Yes, you are the God of the world we know, but in that moment, come on. There's a reason for it. So why is Jesus calling it out? What He's doing is He's pointing out that a secondary fear has become a primary fear on their hierarchy of fear. He says, "Why are you so afraid? Why are you so cowardly?" Meaning you are afraid of something more than God. You fear something more than God. What was that in their case?Perhaps suffering, perhaps pain, perhaps drowning, perhaps death itself. They fear death itself more than fearing the God that was in the boat and that's why they rebuked Him. The Lord rebukes cowardice. Here are a few points just to point out. As believers, we are to grow in courage. This is what it means to be encouraged. God infuses courage in our hearts. Sometimes for that courage to grow, we need a nice rebuking and Jesus Christ rebukes his disciples. If you have a Jesus that never rebukes you for anything, that's not the Jesus of reality, that's not the real Jesus. If you have a God that never contradicts anything you do, never calls you to repentance, never calls you to change, you don't have a God that's the real God of reality.The real God does rebuke and we are to look to scripture for training and for teaching and for encouragement and edification. But we are look through the scripture and say, "Lord, rebuke me. Teach me where I need to change." Proverbs 24:10 says, "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." This is what Jesus is rebuking them for. The Lord's sleep did not only show His very natural weariness, it also showed His tranquil faith. He did not doubt that God is sovereign. Here Mark shows that faith and fear are mutually exclusive in scripture. It was because of their lack of faith that they feared that they were about to drown. So it was for a lack of faith that they are rebuked. The command and scripture that has reiterated more than any other is do not fear.Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? And then have you still no faith? Don't you have faith yet?" Here Christ is showing that He, God, takes our craving and fear as a personal insult. Where is your faith, disciples? Is it in me? If it isn't me, I'm right here. I didn't go anywhere. I was right there with you the whole time. So we need to hear from time to time from our savior that our faithless ways, especially in light of the Lord's demonstration over and over years in our lives of his faithfulness, our faithlessness is inexcusable. It's actually a sin that we must repent of and put to death. There is no excuse for us to not understand that when we experience troubles and trials and storms of life, it's because God allowed them in our life. They passed through His hands.If He is for us, then who can be against us? So we need this rebuke and the rebuke itself is a powerful encouragement that we can grow more courageous. We can grow out of our cowardly ways and we can become deeper believers. In our passage, faith seems to have two aspects. On the one hand, it's a trust like Jesus. Here He is exuding a basic confidence in God's provident care. On the other hand, faith is also trust in Jesus. By the end of our passage, faith has come to mean a perception of who He really is, His cosmic stature. He is the son of God and the conviction that nothing bad can ultimately happen to the person who was with Him. In this text, we see this progression that Jesus moves just from being an example for our faith to actually being the object of our faith.Isaiah 45:6 and 7, "I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I'm the Lord who does all these things." I want to walk you through Psalm 23, one of my favorite psalms, one of our favorite psalms, one of the most famous ones. I want to show you that all of these truths are right there in that psalm and just show you that transformation is promised when we keep trusting the Lord. Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that's where the faith ends. You come to the Lord.He's your shepherd and He's going to take you in bucolic green pastures, delicious running water. He takes care of all your needs. That's awesome. No, that's just the beginning and then the story continues. Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they come from me." How in the world did we end up from green pastures... Bucolic running water is tremendous. How do we go from there to a valley of the shadow of death? The shepherd led him there. The good shepherd led him into the valley of death. God loves us and bad things happen. Both are true. Jesus was perfect and bad things happened to Him.David here, he doesn't fear that despite seeing only shadows, experiencing near death, he takes comfort in the fact that the shepherd is close. The shepherd has been leading me. He continues to lead me and He will surely lead me through and out. Jesus doesn't always lead us around danger or protect us from danger. Sometimes He leads us into green pastures. Sometimes it's into danger and sometimes He protect us by means of danger. Perhaps the valley of shadow of death was to train David, to learn, to grow in wisdom, to not go through bigger valleys, deeper valleys of shadow of death. He allows us to experience present pain often to protect us from future pain.In verse three, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." So the path of righteousness sometimes goes through green pastures and often it goes through valleys of death. Most importantly, David didn't lose sight of the shepherd. I just want to point out that his relationship deepened with the shepherd after going through the valley of the shadow of death. Look at how he changes the way he addresses the good shepherd. In verse two, "He makes me lie down. He leads me besides still waters." Verse three, "He restores my soul." Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of shadow death, I will fear no evil for..." It doesn't say he, it's no longer he. It's for you are with me.Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil and my cup over overflows. His relationship with his shepherd changed. It became more personal, it became more real. God became more present, and this is the universal experience of God's people. If you ask a believer, "At what times in your life did you experience the presence of God like never before?", and they will no doubt tell you a time when they had to walk through a valley of the shadow of death. Charles Spurgeon said, "I've learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." God doesn't always shield us from danger, but He shields us in the danger, sometimes with the danger and leads us through it all.Sometimes He does it all so that we get a cup that overflows with comfort for others. Sometimes He sends us affliction so that we learn to be comforted to pass through the affliction and then we become even more useful instruments in His hands to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 2:3-6 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer."What a difference it would've made if the disciples had exercised faith that night. Imagine if they got a take two. Jesus, let's do this again. We are terrible at that first pop quiz. This is awful, but imagine if the next storm, all of a sudden, Jesus is in the cushion. They were like, "Jesus, we know what you're doing." All the storm comes, it's filling up. I'd be standing right next to Peter. Peter would be the wild man. Just be fishing off the boat, just enjoying it, just maniacal smile, laughter. All of a sudden, the suffering, the storm turns into an adventure. No matter what, I'm in the hands of God. No matter what, until Jesus says we are invincible, we are immortal until our job is done. Imagine being brought to the brink of death but preserved. That would've been the gift of a deepened faith.Point three is a great fear. In verse 41, it says, "They were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" They were filled with the great fear. That's the same idiom that's used in the Jonah's story when the sailors saw the power of God. Here Jesus' great authority leaves them in awe. The word for fear here is different than the previous word for afraid. The word for fear here is phobos, which is the proper response to a manifestation of the divine. They see that God is with them. Whereas the other word, deilos was cowardly. It was reprehensible because they didn't trust in the Lord. The disciples respond to Jesus' question about their cowardice with another question, "Who is this with us in the boat?"Well, who is this? This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God, the one that Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18. He said, "A greater prophet is coming after me. Obey him." The idea here has been magnified. Magnified because obedience is rendered to Jesus, not just by people, but even by creation itself. Even the wind, even the sea, they obey Him and leaving the disciples stunned. If the storms obey Him, if the sea obeys Him, if the wind obeys Him, then who are we to disobey Him? That's the sentiment here. Who are we to defy Him? This is the fear that they're experiencing. He is creator. We are creation and they stand in fear and on reverence of Christ. Do you stand in a right relationship with your creator? That right relationship must include a healthy respect for God.You can fear God without loving Him. That's what the demons do. They fear God. They know God but they don't love God. But you can't love God without fearing Him. To truly love Him is to truly know who He is and to truly know who He is to fear Him. What is the fear of the Lord? It's not just pure dread, it's not just shrinking back from Him in terror. You can obey God because you're terrified of him or terrified of the consequence. But if that's the only reason why you obey, then you don't really know God either because God is a loving God. He is God the Father. We are to fear God in the sense that we are to fear offending Him, displeasing or grieving Him. Therefore, our relationship must not be glib or flippant. We are to fear His rebuke more than just respect or reverence.The word does use the word fear. In Exodus chapter 20, Moses comes down from the mountain given the 10 commandments of God. The people see this. They see that God has been with Moses. Moses has been with God, and they say, "Moses, don't have God speak to us. You speak to us." They're in trepidation. Then this is what Moses says in Exodus 20, "Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." Do not fear but fear. What is he saying? He's saying, "Do not fear approaching God for mercy. Do not fear looking at the 10 commandments and realizing that you have transgressed the commandments." What are we to do? We deserve the infinite eternal condemnation of God upon ourselves for rebelling, for insubordination.Here Moses says, "Do not fear coming to God for mercy." This is what Christ says. Do not fear coming to the cross asking God for forgiveness. But once you do receive Jesus Christ as savior, recognize that He's also your Lord. As you approach this God, we are to fear kindling His wrath against sin. We are to fear His rebuke. Psalm 25:14 says, "The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him and he makes known to them his covenant." It's incredible that the Lord would offer His friendship, but this is what the Lord's saying. He's like, "I would rather just be friends." This is why I tell my kids. I got four daughters. I hate the rebuking. I hate the discipline part. I hate that. I hate that. Can't you just do what I say first time?What I want to say is can't you just know what I want you to do? Can you just read my mind? Haven't we been together long enough and then we can just be friends? We can just hang out. This is what God is saying. He's like, "Do I want to stand over you and tell you what to do?" I want the word to be planted in you so that you don't just learn these truths, but you embody the truths and then your relationship with the Lord is a relationship of friendship. Martin Luther made a distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile comes from Latin servus, which means slave, and fillus means son. He says, "Sometimes people have the servile fear of God where they're just slaves and they never understand the relationship with God as children."Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. Hebrews 10:31 says, "It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." It is, and this is why we need Christ. So we don't fall into the hands of God's wrath. But also, once we are forgiven, it's like we are in the hands of God the Father and still a very fearful thing to be held lovingly by these same hands. Psalm 130:1-4, "Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared."That last verse is fascinating. With you is forgiveness that you may be feared. Why include fear with forgiveness? Well, because you begin to understand what it took for forgiveness to be procured. It took the cross of Jesus Christ. The bloody cross was the terrible price for our sin, for our disobedience. We have broken God's commandments. We deserve His eternal wrath. Yet God sends Jesus Christ to the cross, Jesus Christ, fully obedient who did the will of God from the heart perfectly. This same Jesus goes to cross to pay the penalty for our lawbreaking. On the cross, what does Jesus say? He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I'm perishing. God the Father, why are you allowing me to perish?"God the Father allows the son to perish so that we do not. What do the disciples say? We're perishing. Do you not care? What does Jesus say with His life? How long until you truly believe that I have come so you do not perish. I have come to perish so that you'll be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, so that whosoever believes in Him, in Jesus would not perish but have eternal life. The good shepherd is the one that lays down His life for His sheep. Friends, hell is real. It's reality. The lake of fire is real and the condemnation is for eternity. The suffering is for eternity. Jesus Christ came to save us from the ultimate storm of God's judgment, which is hell. The cross of Jesus Christ is as close of a glimpse of hell that true believers will ever get.That's hell, God the Son experiencing it. Why? So that we would never have to. All we have to do is turn to Him, turn from sin, repent and believe. What is the storm? The storm is an expression of the curse. The curse was pronounced upon all creation when the first Adam sinned and fell. The ground was cursed and the fabric of creation was disordered and chaotic and became dangerous. Then Jesus is second Adam, the God man came to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found. He did what the first Adam did not do. Jesus kept covenant with God perfectly. He obeyed. He bled and He died and the curse fell on him. It was etched into Him and the storm of divine wrath engulfed Him and there was no peace for Him.Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" The disciples were afraid that they would perish that night. They didn't understand that Jesus came to give them life and life eternal. He would perish that they might live and that's why He came to give us life at the cost of His own. The final question is, who really got woken up in the story? Who really got awakened? We see the disciples trying to wake Jesus up. They wake Jesus up. At the end, it's the disciples that got awakened. They're like, "Who is this? We're in the presence of God Himself." They fear Him with a good godly fear. If you fear God, there's nothing else to fear.If God is number one in your hierarchy of fears, there's nothing else to fear. There's no one else to fear. This is how we fight lesser fear, secondary fears. We fight them with the greatest fear, fear of God that displaces all the others. Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is the Jesus that we worship. This is the Jesus that we follow. He didn't have to save our souls, but He did. He's a good God. If you're not sure where you stand before God today, if you're not sure if you die today where you'll spend eternity, today in your heart of hearts, cry out to Jesus Christ, "Lord Jesus, do you not care?"He will respond, "Of course, I care. Look at the cross. Look at my death, my burial and my resurrection and my ascension." The moment you repent, the moment you believe, you are saved and you are given eternal life. One of our favorite hymns that we sing at Mosaic is Amazing Grace. We sing in particular when people get baptized. If you've not been baptized a believer, let us know. We can't wait to baptize you and then sing the song. In the song, it goes like this. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. How precious did the grace appear the hour I first believed?I'll close with Psalm 42:7-11 before we transition to holy communion. "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning, because of the oppression of the enemy?' As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God? Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.'"Well, we celebrate holy communion at Mosaic every first Sunday of the month. We celebrate holy communion as it was commanded to us by our Lord and Savior that we are to do this in remembrance of him. For whom is holy communion? It is only for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a follower of Christ, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. Instead, meditate on what you've heard. Or if you today repent of your sins and you become a Christian, you're welcome to partake. Then if you are a believer living in known unrepentant sin, please refrain from this part of the service. Instead, take time to repent and pray.If you haven't received the elements and would like to, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring them to you. Would you please pray with me over holy communion? Lord Jesus, we thank you that you gave us this ordinance to remember your suffering, bread that you said is to remind us of your broken body. Your body was truly broken. You suffered on that cross and the cup was given to us to remind us of your blood, the blood of the Holy Lamb of God that was shed for us in order to make atonement for our sins, provide a way for salvation. Jesus, bless our time in holy communion now. We take this moment to repent of sin. We repent of pride. We repent of selfishness. We repent of our own desire to be our own gods, to define good and evil as we deem.We repent of transgressing your commandments. We repent of not loving you with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and not loving our neighbor itself. Lord, we pray that you give us grace and mercy and pray that you forgive us and also give us grace to empower us, to fear you above all else, and to not be cowardly, to truly grow in our courage in particular when we testify to the world of your name. Bless our time in the holy communion. Now we pray this in Christ's name, amen. 1 Corinthians 11:23 says, "For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."If this is your first time partaking communion with us, there's two lids, one at the top to open the cup and then one at the bottom to get the bread. On the night that Christ was betrayed, He took the bread and after breaking it, He said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." He then proceeded to take the cup and He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time of spiritual nourishment from the richness of your holy scriptures.Lord, we pray that these lessons that we learned don't just stay in our minds, but we pray that they set roots into our hearts and that we become a people who are not just hearers of the word but doers of the word, because we embody the word. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you God incarnate, you showed us what it means to truly live a life of obedience to you and service to people, love to you and love toward people. Lord, we do fear you and we pray that you deepen our fear of you.As we grow and fear of you, I pray, Lord, that we become more effective servants for you, courageously proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to all who would hear. Give us opportunities even this week to go and to share the good news, to share the fact that anyone who repents of sin and turns to Christ is forgiven, is given eternal life, and is welcome into an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will stand the test of time and no storms will shake. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen.

In Matthew 13:1-9; 18-23 Christ gives the parable of the sower or the parable of the soils. This is the first of the famous kingdom parables from Matthew 13 given in response to the unbelief recorded in chapters 11-12. Here Christ explains that there will be many who do not respond well to the gospel. Some will be deceived by Satan. Some will fall away after persecution. Some will be choked out by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. Those who bear fruit, however, will be saved.

Today, in the office of readings from Holy Saturday, there is an ancient text from the early Church. All about Christ's descent to the dead, to free Adam and Eve and the just. He extended his hand to them, and to us now. Reach out to him in prayer. The Resurrection is represented in different ways, from traditions stemming from Western traditions, like Piero della Francesca from the 1460s. Here Christ is conquering over the external world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Resurrection_(Piero_della_Francesca) Eastern icons show him descending to the dead, freeing those in Sheol, like Duccio's version inspired by Eastern icons. Both are an invitation to learn the art of prayer in the silence of Holy Saturday. Preached by Fr. Eric Nicolai, at Cedarcrest Conference centre in Belfountain, Ontario. https://www.cedarcrestcc.ca Music: Adoramus Te, Christe was composed by Théodore Dubois (1837-1924). Thumbnail: Duccio di Buoninsegna - Descent to Hell 1309 (Siena Museum)

In this episode, Chris is joined by Dr. James Coates, Pastor-Teacher at GraceLife Church in Edmonton Canada, and co-author of the book “God vs Government: Taking a Biblical Stand When Christ and Compliance Collide.” Tune in and listen as Chris and James talk through what James experienced over the last 2 years. Read the Legacy Standard Bible at read.lsbible.org Check out GraceLife Edmonton: https://gracelife.ca Order your copy of James and Nathan's book, HERE Listen/Watch James' sermon entitled, “The Time Has Come” HERE Listen/Watch James' sermon entitled, “Directing Government to It's Duty, HERE “Christ, not Caesar, Is Head of the Church” Read HERE

In Matthew 8:5-13, Matthew records Christ's second miracle in chapters 8-9. Here Christ heals a Centurion's servant. Amazingly, this Centurion, a Gentile, understands that Christ has sovereign authority even over diseases and disabilities. He believes that Christ is able to heal by simply speaking a word. Though he thought himself unworthy to have Christ in his home, Jesus assures him that he and those who have such faith will yet feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in heaven. His faith is a model for us. True faith recognizes Christ's sovereign authority.

THE WEEK OF TRINITY - FRIDAYLESSON: MATTHEW 3:13-17“This is eternal life, that they know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.” John 17:3You can have no more sure and certain basis for the deity of Christ than to wrap up your heart in clear passages of Scripture and, in this way, also lock up this truth in your hearts.Scripture begins in a very gentle manner and introduces us to Christ as a man. Then it brings Him before us as the Lord of all creatures. Finally, we are shown quite clearly and expressly that Christ is God. In this way, fine progress is made, and we learn to recognize God.The philosophers and worldly-wise men begin at the top and make fools of themselves in the process. You must begin at the bottom and make your way up so that Solomon's words are not fulfilled in you: “It is not good to eat too much honey, and he who investigates difficult matters will find the going too hard” (Proverbs 25:27, Luther's translation).Our faith in the two persons of the Father and the Son has been adequately grounded and established on clear passages of Scripture. On the third person, the Holy Spirit, we may well quote Christ's words on sending out His disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19).Here Christ assigns deity also to the Holy Spirit, inasmuch as I can trust or believe in no one else but God alone. I always need one who is mighty over death, hell, and the devil. He must also be able to rule over all creatures so that they cannot harm me and so that He can always pull me through. I must have one on whom I can freely build. Christ decides that we should believe and trust in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Holy Spirit must be God.SL 11:1150 (8-9)PRAYER: Almighty and everlasting God, in Your mercy You have granted us the faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity. Keep us steadfast in this faith which leads us to the salvation which You have prepared for us in and through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.Editor's note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today's sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 3:405-411.

THE WEEK OF QUASIMODOGENITI - SATURDAYLESSON: COLOSSIANS 3:12-17“Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” John 20:22-23This is a great and powerful authority which no one can adequately praise, bestowed upon poor mortal man and valid over sin, death, hell, and all things. The pope boasts that Christ has given him authority over all earthly and heavenly matters in the spiritual domain. This could be quite right, correctly understood. But he applies all this to the earthly sphere and government. This is not what Christ means.He is here conferring spiritual authority and government, and He means to say: “When you speak a word over a sinner, this word has also been spoken in heaven, and it avails as much as if God Himself had spoken it in heaven. For when you speak this word, God is in your mouth, and hence, this work is as powerful as a word spoken by God Himself.”It follows, therefore, that when Christ speaks a word because He is Lord over sin and death, and say to you, “Your sins are forgiven you,” then your sins must be gone, and nothing can gainsay it. On the other hand, if He declares, “Your sins are not forgiven you,” then they must remain unforgiven, and in this case not even an angel, or a saint, or any creature can forgive you those sins, even if you martyr yourself to death over them.It is this power to forgive sins that Christ confers on every individual Christian inasmuch as Christ has made all authority in heaven and on earth available to us (Matthew 28:18). Here Christ rules not in any material manner, but spiritually, and He also rules His Christians spiritually.SL 11:731 (15-16)PRAYER: Grant us Your Holy Spirit, heavenly Father, the Spirit of truth and understanding, so that we may fully appreciate the very great authority which we enjoy to proclaim forgiveness to our neighbor, in and through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Editor's note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today's sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 2:352-63.

In Matthew 6:1-4 Jesus begins speaking about good works that are pleasing to God. He assumes that Christians will give but shows that giving in and of itself is not necessarily pleasing to God. It matters how one chooses to give. What makes the act of giving pleasing to God? Here Christ focuses on the aim of it. Giving is acceptable when it is not done for one's own glory but rather for the glory of God to be rewarded by Him rather than man. www.newcovenantopc.com

Talk 2: Thanking God despite the problems (1 Corinthians 1:1-9)   Today we’re going to make a start on the text of 1 Corinthians, but first let’s take a quick look at why Paul wrote this letter.   The general purpose of the letter is revealed by its contents and may be summarised as follows:   to set right disorders in the church   division (chs 1-4) immorality (chs 5-6) public worship (chs 11-14)   to answer questions   eg on marriage (ch 7). Cf Now for the matters you wrote about (7:1) with Now about (7:25, 8:1, 12:1, 16:1, 16:12)   to correct doctrinal misunderstanding   on Christian liberty (chs 8-10) on the resurrection (ch 15)   So let’s make a start on the text. Today we’ll be looking at Ch.1:1-9 which I’ve titled Thanking God despite the problems   We’ll begin by reading verses 1-3 where Paul greets the Corinthians    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 in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ--their Lord and ours: 3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.   v1     Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God   Paul is confident of his apostolic authority.  He is called by Jesus to be a ‘sent one’ (see Acts 9).  This was the will of God.  He stresses this to the Corinthians. If they did not recognise his authority, they would not obey his instructions.  But he needed to be sure of his authority too. We need to know who we are in God.       And our brother Sosthenes   Possibly the synagogue ruler who had opposed Paul in Acts 18:17. If so, it was an amazing conversion.  Now he’s one of Paul’s valued companions. But Sosthenes was a common name and so probably a different person is referred to here.    2 To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ - their Lord and ours:   ekklesia (church) comes from the verb ekkaleo which means ‘call out’   In using the term Paul is stressing their separation from the world.  They are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy or saints. Christians are called saints in the NT because they are God’s people (cf Israel) not necessarily because of their moral condition.   It was God’s church in Corinth.  It did not belong to the Corinthians. Here the local church is referred to, but in 15:9 Paul uses ekklesia to refer to the church universal.    together with all those everywhere   All who call on the name of the Lord Jesus, wherever they are, are sanctified in him.   The letter was not just written to the Corinthians. It has a universal application. Its general principles may be applied to Christians of all cultures and generations, but some of its specific instructions would be meaningful to the Corinthians alone.  It was written for an ad hoc situation in Corinth.    Call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ   Compare Joel 2, Acts 2, Romans 10: whoever shall call... Paul in his thinking connects an expression that in the OT refers to Jehovah with the Lord Jesus Christ. The deity of Christ is implicit throughout his writings.  Right at the beginning of his letter Christ is exalted.  Note the close link with the Father in verse 3.   3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.   Paul adapts a traditional secular greeting (chairein - rejoice) to charis (grace) and combines it with the Jewish shalom (peace) to make his own Christian greeting, Grace and Peace.  These two words summarise his theology. Now in vv4-9 Paul moves from greeting (vv1-3) to thanksgiving   Thanksgiving (4-9)   4 I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. 5 For in him you have been enriched in every way - in all your speaking and in all your knowledge - 6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. 7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.     4 I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.   There were problems in the church - very serious ones - but Paul saw the Corinthians as they were in Christ.  That is how we should see each other - and ourselves.   5 For in him you have been enriched in every way - in all your speaking and in all your knowledge   Again, in him.  Every area of our lives is enriched because we are in Christ.   Paul possibly has in mind here spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and words of knowledge – Note the reference to spiritual gifts in v7 However he may well be speaking in more general terms about speaking and knowledge.   6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.   Confirmed here means ‘validated’.  The Gospel message was validated by the change in their lives.  Plummer suggests three possibilities:   a) established durably (cf v8) b) verified by its influence on character c) was brought home to them by the witness of the Spirit   However, the following verse suggests that a charismatic change is in mind here.    Further, in you (Gk. en humin) may be translated in your midst.   7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.   spiritual gift   NIV has supplied the word spiritual which is not in the Greek. Charisma is an actualisation of God’s charis (grace). The word is used not only of spiritual gifts as in 1 Corinthians 12, but also of natural gifts (eg 1 Cor. 7:7).    However, in the light of the connection with the second coming here, very possibly spiritual gifts are referred to, for they are a foretaste of the age to come (cf Ephesians 1:13, Hebrews 6:4-5).   As you eagerly wait for....  Christ ....  to be revealed   Here Christ’s coming is referred to as a revelation (apokalupsis).  Other expressions used are ‘end’ (telos), ‘day’ (hemera), ‘appearing’ (epiphaneia), and ‘coming’ (parousia).  They are used pretty much interchangeably in the NT and in my view it is a mistake to try to distinguish between them at least chronologically.   8 He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.   He will keep you strong to the end What an amazing promise, bearing in mind the state of the Corinthians   on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.   Compare the OT the Day of the Lord (Amos 5:18-20, Joel 2:31).  For Paul the Lord is none other than Jesus Christ.   9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful   fellowship with his Son This is also the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:13, Phil. 2:1)         Summary – thanking God despite the problems   The problems:   disorders in the church   division (chs 1-4) immorality (chs 5-6) public worship (chs 11-14)   doctrinal misunderstanding   on Christian liberty (chs 8-10) on the resurrection (ch 15)    Things Paul thanks God for:   4 I always thank God for you because of   his grace given you in Christ Jesus.   5 For in him you have been enriched in every way--in all your speaking and in all your knowledge-- 6 because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you.   7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.   8 He will keep you strong to the end,   so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.   9 God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful.                  

Think Spot – 27th July 2020 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. John 3: 14-15 Here Christ uses the Scriptures to point to himself. He means to say, that just as the Jews in the desert, who were bitten by fiery serpents, were saved by looking upon the serpent of brass, which Moses set upon a standard, so it is also with regard to me. No one who looks upon me will perish ; all those who have an evil conscience, are tormented by sin and death, should believe that I have come down from heaven for their sakes and have ascended again. Then neither sin, nor death shall harm them. Whoever would enter heaven and be saved, must be saved by this serpent, which is Christ. Thus this gospel condemns free will and every human accomplishment, and points only to this serpent. The spiritual significance of the narrative in Numbers is this. The serpent, which bit and poisoned is sin, death and an evil conscience. I know that I must die and that I am under the power of death; I cannot free myself and must remain in this state until a dead serpent is set up for me, one which can harm no one, but rather benefit, as did the serpent of Moses. Now, this is Christ. I see him hanging on the cross, not beautiful, nor greatly honoured ; but I see him hanging in disgrace, like a murderer and malefactor; thus, reason must say that he is cursed before God. The Jews believed this to be true and they could only consider him the most cursed of all men before God and the world. Moses had to set up a serpent of brass, which looked like the fiery serpents, but did not bite, nor harm anyone; it rather saved the people. Thus, Christ also has the form and the appearance of a sinner, but has become my salvation; his death is my life; he atones for my sins and takes away from me the wrath of the Father. If man believes that the death of Christ has taken away his sin, he becomes a new man. The carnal, natural man cannot believe that God will gratuitously take away and forgive us all our sins. Reason argues: You have sinned, you must also atone for your sin. The gospel of Christ says : You have sinned, another must atone for you. Our works are nothing; but faith in Christ does it all. (An excerpt taken from "Devotional Readings From Luther's Works For Every Day Of The Year" By Rev. John Sander, L.H.D.) in the Public Domain. Click or Tap here to listen to or save this as an audio mp3 file ~ You can now purchase our Partakers books! Please do click or tap here to visit our Amazon site! Click or tap on the appropriate link below to subscribe, share or download our iPhone App!

From the 3/26/2017 Worship Service Philippians 2:1-4 (Full text of Philippians Chapter 2 can be read HERE) Christ's Example of Humility 1So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, 2complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

This week's Gospel contains one of the greatest challenges Jesus ever offered to his disciples: "If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Here Christ is emphasizing the great spiritual principle of detachment. In order to live healthy spiritual lives we must love Christ most of all, with everything else finding its meaning in relation to God.

As Christ takes the occasion of questioning to reveal the Kingdom of God – this incident in Mat 19 provides a perfect opportunity to identify model citizens or subjects of the Kingdom of Heaven. The message of New Covenant membership continues to surprise His hearers as their notions, impressions, experience, and understanding are challenged by Jesus. In this passage, 2 occasions in the narrative appear back to back providing a helpful lesson in Kingdom civics. Here Christ the sovereign interacts with children and a young, successful, accomplished, learned, polite, wealthy applicant. Opening illustration: The city of Singapore and its dramatic wage gap splits the city into the very rich and the very poor... where might Christ invest the greater part of His Kingdom building capital in a situation such as this?

Our text today is more than fitting for a sanctity of life themed sermon and demonstrates, in its context, how basic our attitude toward children is to our understanding of, and participation in, the Kingdom of God. Jesus opens His 4th great discourse taking a little child as His object lesson and the church as His theme. The foundational truths of Christianity are thus expounded and a basic litmus test of faithfulness to Christ is thus provided. Consider 2 quotes by way of introduction in light of Jesus' clear teaching that sharpen the distinctions on the contested moral ground in the great battle of the world views. First: (R.C. Sproul Jr.) “I've argued for years that we would see an end to abortion in these United States amongst the heathen when the Christian church agrees with God that children are a blessing.” Second: (Margaret Sanger, founder Planned Parenthood) “Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity...”. We need look no further than Mat 18:1-14 for the essential principles of Jesus' teaching Sanger satanically opposed. Here Christ insists the bed rock ideals of kingdom fidelity are reflected in our attitude toward children. Let us consider four Kingdom of Heaven observations from this text.

This week's Gospel contains one of the greatest challenges Jesus ever offered to his disciples: "If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple." Here Christ is emphasizing the great spiritual principle of detachment. In order to live healthy spiritual lives we must love Christ most of all, with everything else finding its meaning in relation to God.

Today's Gospel comes again from the sixth chapter of John. Here Christ discusses the necessity and reality of the Eucharist as the Word of God made Flesh.

Introduction We come this morning to an awesome parable, the parable of the talents. We come to this parable, and then the sheep and the goats account at the end of Matthew 25. Matthew 24 and 25 are two chapters given by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives to get His church ready for the Second Coming of Jesus and to get the church ready for Judgment Day. We've seen so many things, but as we look at the parable of the talents, and then after that at the sheep and the goats parable, something struck me this morning, and that is the seriousness of sins of omission, of leaving undone what God wants us to do. This wicked lazy servant did nothing, that's all. He actually did a little something, but he didn't do what he was supposed to do. He left it undone. In the sheep and the goats parable, the goats are characterized by inactivity, "I was hungry, you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, you gave me nothing to drink," and so on. Anybody who knows me knows that one of my favorite movies is, "It's a Wonderful Life." I've seen it 15-20 times. I quote it in everyday life because there are just so many things that can be covered by a line from that movie. In the movie, there's a man who's suicidal, he's desperate, he hates his life, he doesn't like the everyday humdrum regular existence he's had, and then he runs into a tremendous financial trial. He wants to kill himself by throwing himself off a bridge, and along comes his guardian angel, Clarence. I am not vouching for the theology of the movie at all. But Clarence gives him a great gift. He says at one point, "George, you've been given a great gift, a chance to see what the world would have been like without you." Bedford Falls, this tidy little community, this beautiful little place, is turned into a mini Las Vegas with all kinds of open sin going on. It's a wild and wicked kind of place. The end result is that George is ennobled, he realizes that the life he's lived has been well worth living. His life has made a tremendous impact on his wife, his children, his extended family, and the community through his acts of service. It was indeed a wonderful life; it was worth living. I've wondered what the opposite would look like on Judgment Day. The Lord is omniscient, He knows not only what was, what is, and what will be, but He also knows what might have been. What would it be like for you to sit with Jesus and have Him show you your life if you had been fully faithful to Him, to show you what your family would have looked like, what your church would have looked like, what your community would have looked like, the people you met along the way, the people you traveled with, to be able to track down maybe one of their lives, if you had actually opened your mouth and shared the gospel with them, and what would have happened if at that point, they had heard the gospel from you and came to faith in Christ. You would see what things might have been avoided. I can't imagine the pain of actually sitting through that. I actually wrestled inside myself back and forth, “Should I begin the sermon this way. I don't want to begin with a downer. I mean, frankly, two of the servants are very faithful, aren't they? Well done, good and faithful servant.” As a matter of fact, that statement is so profound and so powerful, I'm going to devote a whole sermon next week to Matthew 25: 21, 23. So in fairness to me, you're getting the whole sermon on two verses, not just on one, but it's the same verse, "Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master." We're going to talk about that next week, the rewards that wait us, but still, there's a seriousness here to this parable, isn't there? Jesus is not telling a light-hearted, frothy story here. It ends up with the wicked lazy servant being cast into Hell, and so there is a seriousness to the issue of stewardship. Aspects of Stewardship As I think about stewardship, there are two questions that are in front of me, there's a kind of a detailed everything comprehensive nature stewardship question, and then there's a focus stewardship question. So, in one sense, I want to ask, what am I not a steward of? What do I have that I didn't receive? If I did receive it, am I not a steward of it? Hasn't the Lord entrusted every blessing in my life so that I can do something with it for His glory? Every minute of time, every physical ability and skill, every relationship, every possession, every dollar, every providential so-called chance encounter, all of these things are matters of stewardship. I want to be faithful to everything. I don't want to feel overwhelmed. I don't want to anticipate like the wicked and lazy servant that we're going to a hard master who's unjust and evil. Not at all, He's gracious, Jesus is the kind of master that's going to reward even a cup of cold water given to one of His servants. Those people will never lose their reward, that's how generous and gracious Jesus is. But on the other side, I don't want to miss anything, do you? I don't want to waste my life, I want to live for Jesus, and so I want to look at everything in a stewardship light, and we're going to talk about that today. Isn't there also a sense that some things are more important than others, and maybe one thing more important than anything? In the end, I ask, “What is this church a steward of that's more valuable than anything else.” I have to think it's the ministry of reconciliation, the gospel of Jesus Christ, isn't it? That we are entrusted with the gospel, we are entrusted with the only power of God there is for the salvation of lost people around us. That responsibility has been given to us, and we are to be out and about with it. It's the greatest stewardship that we have as a church, and I want to be faithful, don't you? I want to lead people to Christ. I want to be able to say, “Here am I and the children you have given me,” to God like it says in the scriptures. I want to be able to point to sons and daughters, and grandsons and granddaughters. I want my sons and daughters to be faithful spiritual sons and daughters and they lead people to Christ. I want to be part of a vast spiritual family. But you know wanting and doing, they're just two different things. I don't want to live a life of sins of omission, and therefore, I want this parable to have its full impact on me and on you. I want us to feel its weight, and I want a response to this, if we need to, to repent if we've not been fully faithful. D.L. Moody was driven by a statement he heard early in his Christian life, "The world has yet to see what God can do through a man fully devoted to Him." The issue is fullness of devotion. Can I give everything to Jesus? Romans 7 holds me back, I never give everything to Jesus, but I want to. I want to fight the good fight of faith, and I want to see what God can do through me more fully devoted than I've ever been before. If that's the outcome of this sermon, then it'll be a successful sermon. Stewardship Parables We're looking at stewardship this morning, so let's dig in and look at the details of the parable. I propose today to just go through it line by line and talk about it briefly, and then apply it. Next week, I'm going to just zero in on the rewards. We're not going to talk about it much at all today, but I think the reward, the three-fold reward that the Lord offers in that one verse is so staggering and so overwhelming that I would find it greatly motivational to have as much of that as possible. Let's look at verse 14 and 15, as the stewardship is initiated. Verse 14 says, "Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his property to them." So, what will be like a man going on a journey? It's the context, His second coming and the circumstances around that will be like this parable. That's what He's saying. He is leaving. He's going to come back, "It's going to be like this when I come back." That's what he's saying, the Second Coming of Christ. I believe that verse 14 is probably the most comprehensive single verse on the essentials of stewardship in the Bible. All the basic ingredients are here and in verse 15. First of all, you have a master, somebody in authority, an owner, and then you have servants who are owned by the master and accountable to Him. You have a journey, this is a key issue in these stewardship parables, is that the master isn't standing over your shoulder. He's not right there, he's away, he's apart from you, in some sense, you’ve got to do it on your own, although we know from the vine and the branches, we never do anything apart from Jesus, but you've got to have faith. So, the master's away, and the steward's on his own, and he's got to be faithful. The property is entrusted to him throughout the account. It's understood that everything belongs to the master, not to the servants, and it is committed to the servants to be managed in the master's absence. Finally, there is accountability. There's a time in which the master returns and says, "Now, what did you do?" Those are all the basic ingredients of stewardship, and this concept of stewardship is vital in our relationship with Christ, it shows up again and again in His parables. For example, you have the parable of the vineyard. The owner of the vineyard entrusts his vineyard to some tenant farmers, and he goes away. Then he sends his servants to the tenant farmers to get his share of the crop at harvest time. It’s the same concept there, stewardship. Then you have the parable of the 10,000 talents in Matthew 18, which is essentially about forgiveness, but again, it begins this way, “The king wants to settle accounts with his servants and a man comes in who owes him 10,000 talents.” Again, the basic concept. In Luke 16, the parable of the unrighteous steward in which the man is found to be a bad steward, and he's going to get fired. The key to the parable is he doesn't get fired right away, so he's got a window of opportunity in which he's managing his master's stuff, and what does he do? He very shrewdly calls in people who owe his master a bunch of money and cuts their debt in half or knock 25% off. The master comes in and praises his shrewdness. Why is he doing it? So, he can curry favor with these individuals so that when he loses his job, he'll have a place to eat and stay. We'll come back to it later in the sermon, but it's a parable of stewardship. Then there's the parable of the ten minas. It’s similar to the parable of the talents here, but a little different. In Luke 19, a king gives to each of his servants the same amount, in that case each one gets a mina, which is a little more than a pound of gold. Then the king returns and calls them to account for what they did with the investment. Here Christ is preparing His disciples for their time of accountability before Him. The unique element of this parable is there's a variety of what's entrusted. To one, he gave five talents of money, to another, two talents, and to another, one talent, each according to his ability, then he goes on his journey. The master knows his servants well, he knows what they're capable of. He's assessed their abilities, probably based on past performance and they don't all get the same thing entrusted to them. This is a key issue with stewardship. God doesn't measure you on where you begin, and He doesn't measure you on where you end, He measures you in your faithfulness as you travel from beginning to end. Some people start with tremendous disadvantages, and they make incredible progress to achieve levels that we would be tempted to sniff at. But God knows very well the struggles they went through to get to that level, and so not everybody gets the same thing. In one sense, dear founders of our country, all men are not created equal. We don't all have the same capabilities, we don't all have the same opportunities to influence for Christ, but different abilities. What is a talent? It's 75 pounds. I think in this case, it's silver. One commentator put it as much as 17 years of wages for a daily wage earner. So, the one with the five talents had, if that's true, upwards of 85 years of wages, basically a lifetime of money. Two talents would be about 34 years of wages. If that calculation is true, even one talent is a significant amount of money. In verses 16 and 17, we see the elements of good stewardship put on display. Verse 16 says, "The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his master's money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more." First of all, you see no procrastination at all. Again, procrastination comes up here, that devastating sin of putting off to tomorrow what you ought to be doing today. Jesus tells us these two servants, the good servants, immediately go out and they work. Jesus says, “Don't put off to tomorrow.” Just like the parable of the five wise and five foolish virgins, there's going to come a time where you won't be able to get what you need for Judgment Day, it's over. So, do it today. Be ready today. These servants seized the day immediately. The second element of the stewardship is labor, hard work. They worked hard. They are contrasted with the other servant who's called lazy, so they're good servants because they're hard workers. Thirdly, notice there's total focus. It doesn't come across as much in the translation, but the Greek expression is literally the one who had received the five talents “worked in them.” What that means is the talents were the focus of his efforts. Every day, he said, "What can I do with these talents? What can I do with this money that the master has entrusted?" He's thinking about it. It's a focus. We are not big enough to be in charge of the universe. We are entrusted with a narrow-defined field that we are to work. There's a focus here, and so also the one with the two talents, he works in the two talents. Good stewardship involves a focus on what God has entrusted to you and not getting distracted with other things. Fourthly, we see skill and foresight. To put the talents to work involves tremendous financial skill, foresight, knowledge of wise investments, there's a money analogy here. The servant with the five talents had a huge responsibility, and he manages it well, skillfully, he does well. He's courageous, he's not afraid of failures. He's out trading with his master's money, he's choosing wisely where to invest the money, and the one with the two talents does the same, though not with the same scope. We see fruitfulness here as a result. Investment experts speak of the ROI, which is return on investment. Well, these guys did great, 100% return on investment, they doubled their master's investment. The fact of the matter is that growth is what Jesus is getting at, He wants the thing improved, He wants it developed, He wants a harvest, He wants fruit, He wants something back as a result of what you mingled into it. From the very beginning, friends, it's been this way. God blessed Adam and Eve and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it. Here's this world I give you. Here's all these different kinds of seeds with the crops, corn and tomatoes and cucumbers and all these different things, just make it happen.” He wanted fruit back, so He's not looking for a static situation, but dynamic growth of what He's entrusted. The Lord doesn't need any of this from us. The Lord is not short in power, He's not looking for hired help here. He's being gracious to us. He is including us so that our lives are worth living. The years that we spend from the time we come to faith in Christ on are not wasted, but they're beneficial, they're fruitful, they're good. God is so good to us, and He wants us to get involved in His work. So, we see beautifully, I think, good stewardship. We also see bad stewardship in verse 18, “But the man who had received the one talent went off. He dug a hole in the ground, and he hid his master's money." No one can tell for sure what this man's motives were, he clearly has a very dark and negative view of his master, doesn't he? I think this is a key issue. The more you know your master, Jesus, the more fruitful you're going to be, the more you just know His love for you, and how gracious He's going to be on Judgment Day to reward any faithful service, the more optimistic you are about that whole exchange. The more you sense his love, the more you know his love and feel it, the more you're going to do for Jesus. Conversely, if you're living in craven fear, the dark negative view of God and think, "Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough for Him. Why even bother?" God's not saying that to you. That's the language of the devil. This man clearly has a very negative view of his master, he doesn't want to be ashamed and have to tell his master when he gets back that he lost the talent, so he does a little amount of work, not a lot, but a little. He goes off and he digs a hole in the ground and hides his master's money, safe and sound. But nothing happens with it. It's just there, it's unproductive. When the master returns, he's going to get it back, but nothing happened with it. The things that Jesus has entrusted to us have tremendous growth potential, they’re just bursting with vitality. They're just bursting with energy and just waiting to be released, just put them in the soil and add water and watch what happens. It's powerful. God wants something back for those things. He wants return on investment. In verse 19, "After a long time, the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them." Again, this is the essence of stewardship, this accountability. The Greek implies a kind of an accurate logbook, a record book, and what you did as recorded in the book, is gone over by the master. “What did you do? This is what I entrusted. What did you do with it? How did it go? Why did you do it that way?” It's Judgment Day, friends. Again, notice that verse 19 implies a long time between the first and second coming of Jesus. This is the third time now we've had that sense. In Matthew 24:48, "Suppose that servant is wicked, and he says to himself, 'My master's staying away a long time,' and then he begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with drunkards." In the parable of the virgins, it says, "The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep." It's the third time that Jesus is giving us a very strong hint that it's going to be a long time between His first and second coming. A long time as it seems to us. You know with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, but it's been 2000 years now since Jesus left. During that long delay between the first and second comings of Christ, the whole issue for the church will be faithful stewardship of the gospel and of spiritual gifts and time and money, and children, and everything else the Lord entrusted to you. After the time is up, Christ comes and settles accounts. Look at the rewards for faithful service. We will not touch on this much because we're devoting a whole sermon to it next week, God willing. It says, "The man who had entrusted the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.' His master replied, 'Well done, you good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.' So also, the man with the two talents came, 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents, see, I have gained two more.' His master applied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful with a few things. I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.'" These servants come and give very succinct reports of their activities. I think one of the essences of stewardship is to know what He gave you. Wouldn't that be something to sit down and just make a catalog of everything God has given you? God has given us so much material possessions, money, opportunities, gifts, talents, education, just... We have been lavishly supplied. This man comes back, and he knows exactly what the master gave him. "You gave me five talents." Then comes one of the most famous lines in the Gospel of Matthew, "Well done, good and faithful servant." I heard so many times how somebody says their ambition is that God would say this to them on Judgment Day. It's a good ambition. We also see punishments for a faithless servant, verses 24 through 30, "And the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I know that you're a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So, I was afraid, and I went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.' His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant, so you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed. Well, then you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. Take that talent away from him and give it to the man who has the 10 talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'" This is a very strong, devastating exposure of a man who lived his life in selfishness, cowardice, faithlessness and fruitlessness. Notice as I already mentioned, his hard assessment of his master, "You're a hard man." The word is used of harsh circumstances like a hard, bitter wind, like a nor'easter that blows and brings a cold storm. "That's the kind of master you are. It's the kind of man you are. You hard master. You're also unjust, you gather where you have not scattered seed, you harvest what you didn't work for, so you're harsh and you're unjust. Here's my excuse anyway, I was afraid. Fear took me over. I just was afraid to be out there doing what I needed to do, I guess, and so I hid what was yours in the ground." Here is a very strong and fascinating statement, “Behold, here is what belongs to you." He gives it back, right? Do you know all of your talents and abilities, that's just the clothing you're wearing, it isn't you. It's on loan from Jesus, and you're going to give it back some day. It's not yours. He entrusted it to you. One of the key verses on this in the Bible is Romans 11:36, "For from Him and through Him... " and back to him is the way I think of it... "are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen." That means everything you have came from Him. He's sustaining it now, and someday it's going back to Him and you're going to give Him an account. It all goes back to God. Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, "The dust returns to the ground it came from, the spirit returns to God who gave it." Everything you have in your life, all your money, talents and skills, your advantages, your education, your possessions, everything you pride yourself on, your exquisite athletic ability, your marvelous, good looks, your hair, all of it came from God. Those providential occurrences throughout your life, they're just entrusted to you, everything. It all goes back to God. Now then comes his master's judgment, words of disgrace, not praise, "You wicked, lazy servant." The exact opposite of “good and faithful servant”, I think. Then he restates the servant's insulting assessment, "So you knew that I was a hard man, harvesting where I have not sown and gathering where I have not scattered seed. That's what you knew about me? Well, let me give you some advice that's now too late for you. What you should have done is you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers so that when I returned, I would have gotten something back for it.” Then the sovereign action of the master, "Take away from him that talent and give it to the one with the 10 talents." He's the king, he can do anything he wants, it's his money. And why? "Because everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance.” More on that next week. The most faithful servants in this world will be given the most responsibility in the next world. I'm going to talk about that next more next week, but that's what's going on here. He will have an abundance. "And whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him," and then these words of condemnation, "throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Some of the clearest descriptions of hell are in Matthew 24 and 25, and they're worth the study. Application How can we apply this parable to ourselves? First of all, let's just have a sense of how great our stewardship is. Remember that we have a master, we have someone in authority over us, an owner. Our master is Jesus Christ, He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and He's the ruler of all. We are servants, we are not our own. We are bought at a price. 2 Corinthians 5:15 says, "He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them." He went on a journey, He ascended up to Heaven, so like I said, He's not standing over your shoulder. We need faith, strong faith to be good stewards. Let's not forget any of our gifts. Let's say, "Lord, what have You entrusted to me? What do I have?" I have a spouse, I have some children, I have a house, I have some other possessions, I have some spiritual blessings. I'm accountable for these things, and at the end, I'm going to stand in front of Jesus, and I'm going to give Him an account for the things done in the body, whether good or bad. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight, everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account [Hebrews 4:13]. We've got to be faithful with our time. “This is the day the Lord has made…” That means it's His, “We will rejoice and be glad in it.” How about we also be faithful in it too. Let's rejoice and be glad, and let's be faithful. Let's redeem the time for the days are evil, as it says in Ephesians 5. Redeeming the time. I look on it like I'm an action hero. Wake up in the morning. The day has been kidnapped. I have to go rescue the day. If I don't rescue it, it's lost. I've got to go redeem the day. You know what I'm talking about. If you kick back, you relax, whatever, the day is gone, and then the next day is gone, and then the years are gone, and then all those good things you wanted to do, you never did them. So, let's redeem the time because the days are evil [Ephesians 5]. Let's go get it. We are stewards of our bodies, let's be faithful, let's be faithful to take care of our bodies. Don't overeat, get exercise, be in it for the long haul, so you can be maximally energetic and fruitful in this life. I don't believe you're going to extend your life one day, all the days ordained are written, but I want a quality of life. I want to be able to be energetic. Let's take care of our bodies. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you which you received from God? You're not your own, you are bought at a price. You're also a steward of your family relationships. What about your marriage? It's entrusted to you from God. I get to perform a marriage later today, a wedding at Duke Chapel. The couple is going to make pledges and promises to each other. Meeting with them in counseling, I wanted to give them what I know they already have, a sense of the great gift that God has given them in each other. I need to be a wise steward of that marriage relationship with my wife and my children too. You don't know how long you have or how long we have our children, but we need to pour the gospel into our children and get them ready for Judgment Day. We need to be stewards of our money and our possessions. I've got a bigger vision of stewardship here today than just money, but money's part of it, isn't it? The fact is you have your money in your possession for just a short time, that's why I like that parable, that quirky parable of the unrighteous steward. He's not saying, "Hey look, be a slimy operator so you can get fired." That's not the point of the parable. The point is, you have what you have for a short time, a window of opportunity, make the most of it. You can't take it with you, but you can send it on ahead, so be good stewards of your money and use it for the kingdom. One of the biggest lies Satan tells you about your money is that if you give it away for Jesus, you'll never see it again. That is a lie. It's if you try to hold on to it, you'll never see it again, it's if you give it away, you'll see it for all eternity. You're a steward of your spiritual gifts. If you've been given a gift of teaching, then teach, the gift of administration, then lead and minister. Do what the Lord has called you to do according to the patterns of scripture. Each one of us has a role to play in the body of Christ. Let's play it. Don't waste your spiritual gifts. If your gift is hospitality, have more people over than you've been having over. If your gift is evangelism, then share more faithfully than you've ever done before. If your gift is intercessory prayer, then spend more time with more fervency than you've ever done before. That's what the parable of the talents is about. Finally, we are entrusted with the gospel, it's the greatest stewardship we have. Proclaim it. I'm mindful of my stewardship of this pulpit and the fact that there could be people listening to me right now who aren't saved. If you're not ready to stand before God and give Him a minute account of your stewardship, because you're not one of His servants, you're in danger of judgment. I just tenderly warn you to flee to Christ, because Judgment Day is coming for all of us. If you're lost, if you don't have Christ as your Savior, hell stands in front of you, it's your danger, and you underestimate it. So, I urge you, flee to Christ, flee to the cross, his bloodshed on the cross is enough for all of your sins and for mine too. If you just repent and trust in Him, you will be forgiven. Dear friends, we as believers, we have been entrusted with the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation. Let's proclaim it faithfully. We're coming now to a time of celebration of the Lord's supper, so it's a solemn ordinance, a joyful one, a chance that we have to think ahead to the second coming of Jesus Christ, when we will give Him an account and when He will welcome us. After Judgment Day and after He wipes every tear from our eyes, we will get to sit down at table with Jesus. I'd like to ask that you take this time and begin reflecting on yourself. If you're not a Christian, if you have not come to faith in Christ and testified to that by water baptism as a believer, please don't come to the table. The Bible says you'd be eating and drinking judgment on yourself. If you're a Christian and you need to do business with God, repent, but come to the table. It's for sinners, not for perfect people.