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7 episodes with how then shall we live
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3 episodes with how then shall we live
2 episodes with how then shall we live
2 episodes with how then shall we live
Join us as Pastor Josh and Matt Shiles unpack the second part of the final sermon of this year's T.E.D. series, "How Then Shall We Live?", where we examine Jeremiah 29, and our place as exiles. Pastor Josh also takes time to talk about how we should react to the world as we live in it. Also, we start with opinions about tchotchke verses.
Paul teaches believers to be humbled by God's exalted wisdom and live sacrificially, loving and serving one another as God enables through Spirit-given gifts. The post Class in Romans: God Has Been Merciful! How Then Shall We Live? appeared first on Two Journeys.
Paul teaches believers to be humbled by God's exalted wisdom and live sacrificially, loving and serving one another as God enables through Spirit-given gifts. The post Class in Romans: God Has Been Merciful! How Then Shall We Live? appeared first on Two Journeys.
Paul teaches believers to be humbled by God's exalted wisdom and live sacrificially, loving and serving one another as God enables through Spirit-given gifts. The post Class in Romans: God Has Been Merciful! How Then Shall We Live? appeared first on Two Journeys.
Paul teaches believers to be humbled by God's exalted wisdom and live sacrificially, loving and serving one another as God enables through Spirit-given gifts. The post Class in Romans: God Has Been Merciful! How Then Shall We Live? appeared first on Two Journeys.
Dr Josh Howard presents the theme of authority in 2023's "How Then Shall We Live?" Conference. Looking at Christ's authority and what it means now and for the future. Watch all of our videos and subscribe to our channel for the latest content >HereHere
Drew Williams concludes our Cornerstone U "Foundations" series with this week's message titled “How Then Shall We Live?”
In this breakout session from the 2023 "How Then Shall We Live?" Conference, Pastor Stephen Baker gives one of the best exegetical arguments for Postmillennialism, focusing in on the nations as Christ's inheritance.Watch all of our videos and subscribe to our channel for the latest content >HereHere
From the Eschatology Matters 2023 Conference, "How Then Shall We Live?", Pastor and musician Tim Bushong presents the eschatological theme of New Creation, as seen from the Postmillennial perspective, and encompasses the Fall, sin, death, Christ's death, burial and Resurrection, Ascension, His making all things new, and the New Heavens and New Earth.Watch all of our videos and subscribe to our channel for the latest content >HereHere
A new MP3 sermon from Calvary Bible Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: How Then Shall We Live? Subtitle: 2 Peter Speaker: Dr. Eric Sipe Broadcaster: Calvary Bible Church Event: Sunday - AM Date: 11/19/2023 Bible: 2 Peter 3:8-13 Length: 45 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Calvary Bible Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: How Then Shall We Live? Subtitle: 2 Peter Speaker: Dr. Eric Sipe Broadcaster: Calvary Bible Church Event: Sunday - AM Date: 11/19/2023 Bible: 2 Peter 3:8-13 Length: 45 min.
(11/05/23) How Then Shall We Live? 2 Peter 3:13-14
How Then Shall We Live? - Ephesians 4:1-3 A.D. September 20th, 2023 SUBSCRIBE to WarCry Media on YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChErMPtXrii04uoumBVLasQ/featured?sub_confirmation=1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/warcrymedia Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/warcrymedia/?hl=en Gab: https://gab.com/WarCryMedia ___________________________________________ Find us online at: Redeemer Community Church - https://www.redeemerlv.com WarCry Media - https://www.warcrymedia.com
How Then Shall We Live? - Lesson 11 (various verses) - Evening Sermon
Sunday June 18, 2023. How Then Shall We Live?: Studies in 1 Peter. "Living as God's Flock," a sermon on 1 Peter 5:1-14 from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas.
Sunday June 11, 2023. How Then Shall We Live?: Studies in 1 Peter."Living with the End in View," a sermon on 1 Peter 4:1-19 from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas
Sunday June 4, 2023. How Then Shall We Live? Studies in 1 Peter."Living in a Hostile World," a sermon on 1 Peter 3:8-22 from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas.
Sunday May 28, 2023. How Then Shall We Live? Studies in 1 Peter."Living as Exiles," a sermon on 1 Peter 2:11-3:7 from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas.
Prophecies of the Prophets Revealed 00:00:00 History Repeats Itself 01:03:27 How Then Shall We Live 01:48:53 "Sodom and Gomorrah pt 1" 02:29:44
Sunday May 21, 2023. How Then Shall We Live?: Studies in 1 Peter."Living as God's People," a sermon on 1 Peter 2:4-10 from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas.
Sunday May 14, 2023. How Then Shall We Live?: Studies in 1 Peter. "Living Out of Hope," a sermon on 1 Peter 1:13-2:3 from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas.
In a world of moral decay ruled by the social and political elite, how should we as believers be living? And as Satan's diabolical scheme to rule the world moves forward what can we as followers of Yahweh do to avoid corruption and the Mark of the Beast? Join us as we explore "How Then Shall We Live"
How Then Shall We Live? | Week 6: Not Ashamed Of The Gospel by LWCHouma
In this episode, we will answer 5 different questions related to the series "How Then Shall We Live?". In that series, we look at how we, as christians, are to impact the society and culture around us. We pray that you will be blessed by this Podcast, and it will help you to live the word in your life. Walk faithfully beloved and to God be the Glory! Please see the links below for more content from LWC's pulpit ministry. https://www.youtube.com/c/LivingWordChurch https://www.livingwordhouma.com
How Then Shall We Live? | Week 5: The Christian And The Government by LWCHouma
How Then Shall We Live? | Week 4: A Biblical Theology On Race And The Gospel by LWCHouma
How Then Shall We Live? // Eye to Eye // John Isemann by Sunday Podcast
How Then Shall We Live? | Week 3: Biblical Marriage: The Foundation Of Society by LWCHouma
How Then Shall We Live? | Week 2: The Image Of God Under Assault by LWCHouma
How Then Shall We Live? | Week 1: How Did We Get Here? by LWCHouma
"How Then Shall We Live?" Digital Bulletin - https://mailchi.mp/alliancechurch/how-then-shall-we-live-1tpnoolo9l Questions for Personal Reflection/Group Discussion 1.) As terrifying and devastating as it will be, why should we “look forward to the day of God…” (vs. 12a)? 2.) Why is the call to live “holy and godly lives” the only appropriate response to the day of the Lord (vs. 11)? 3.) Why must we “make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with Him” (vs. 14)? 4.) What might happen if we don't? (see verse 17) 5.) In regards to the Day of the Lord, how may we “speed its coming” (vs. 12b)? (see Matthew 24:14)
1 Peter 1:17-21 - How Then Shall We Live? - Part 2 (8/7/22) by Spring Meadows Presbyterian Church
1 Peter 1:13-16 - How Then Shall We Live? (7/31/22) by Spring Meadows Presbyterian Church
How Then Shall We Live by Carpenter's Way Church
How Then Shall We Live? Part 5 (Romans 13:8 - 14) Daniel Nealon March 6, 2022 by Deer Creek Church
How Then Shall We Live? Part 4 (Romans 13:1-7) Daniel Nealon February 27, 2022 by Deer Creek Church
How Then Shall We Live? Part 3 Romans 12:9 - 21 Daniel Nealon February 20, 2022 by Deer Creek Church
How Then Shall We Live? Part 2 (Romans 12:9-21) Daniel Nealon February 13, 2022 by Deer Creek Church
"How Then Shall We Live?" (Romans 12:1-8) Daniel Nealon February 6, 2022 by Deer Creek Church
This Sunday is the final part of our series: How Then Shall We Live? We've been working through Mark's account to see how Jesus responds to questions and issues of his day – and what this means for us. Our theme: Fake Performance or True Worship? In our reading from Mark 12, Jesus exposes the teachers of the law as hypocrites. They give their religious performance to bring attention and honour to themselves – yet they exploit widows! In reality, they are fakes and fraudsters. Then as Jesus sits and watches people contributing to the temple treasury, he points his disciples (including us) to a poor widow who gave her last two copper coins to God. I wonder: What does this tell us about her relationship with God? And: What might this mean for us? Jesus came to bring us into a relationship with God, where we can freely come into his presence without fear, give him our praise and honour, share whatever is on our hearts with him, seek his guidance and help in all that we do, and join in his eternal plans by blessing others in Jesus' name. Secure in his love for us in Jesus, we get to love God above all else; and love others as ourselves. So why do we settle for religious performance, where we go through the motions to placate God or impress people? The problem with religion is the perpetual focus on self: seeking to impress God or others with my outward behaviour. Jesus warns against religious performance or showing off to impress others. Our 24/7 life of worship is to be real, without pretence or pride, and focussed on bringing glory to God and his Son Jesus. As we pray in the Lord's Prayer: Your kingdom come…Your will be done… Yours is the kingdom the power and the glory. Amen? Joy in Jesus! Pr Rolly Stahl
This Sunday is the final part of our series: How Then Shall We Live? We've been working through Mark's account to see how Jesus responds to questions and issues of his day – and what this means for us. Our theme: Fake Performance or True Worship? In our reading from Mark 12, Jesus exposes the teachers of the law as hypocrites. They give their religious performance to bring attention and honour to themselves – yet they exploit widows! In reality, they are fakes and fraudsters. Then as Jesus sits and watches people contributing to the temple treasury, he points his disciples (including us) to a poor widow who gave her last two copper coins to God. I wonder: What does this tell us about her relationship with God? And: What might this mean for us? Jesus came to bring us into a relationship with God, where we can freely come into his presence without fear, give him our praise and honour, share whatever is on our hearts with him, seek his guidance and help in all that we do, and join in his eternal plans by blessing others in Jesus' name. Secure in his love for us in Jesus, we get to love God above all else; and love others as ourselves. So why do we settle for religious performance, where we go through the motions to placate God or impress people? The problem with religion is the perpetual focus on self: seeking to impress God or others with my outward behaviour. Jesus warns against religious performance or showing off to impress others. Our 24/7 life of worship is to be real, without pretence or pride, and focussed on bringing glory to God and his Son Jesus. As we pray in the Lord's Prayer: Your kingdom come…Your will be done… Yours is the kingdom the power and the glory. Amen? Joy in Jesus! Pr Rolly Stahl
…whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be slave to all. ~Mark 10:43,44 When I first read this passage for our worship this week, I thought to myself, ‘Wow! This is really appropriate in the 21st century.' Throughout the history of Christianity and the Church's infatuation with power and prestige, we are reminded time and time again how important it is for the body of Christ to serve, not to be served. (Mark 10:45) In the book of Mark, time and time again, Jesus points out that egoism and self-absorption restricts both the Christian and the future Christian. First, the disciples argue about who is the greatest. (Mark 9:34) Then, they are frustrated because others are not doing things the way that the disciples would have. (Mark 9:38) After that, they rebuke some adults who bring children to Jesus for a blessing. (Mark 10:13) Finally, James and John want to elevate themselves to a place of honour when Jesus comes into his kingdom. (Mark 10:37) Every time the disciples do this, Jesus brings them back down to earth and reminds them that those who want to be the greatest have the opportunity to do even more with humility – as servants. There is another way to understand Mark 10:44. In our world that is inebriated by power, prestige, and pontificating, it is abundantly clear that the moment one wants to be great, they become a slave to popular opinion and social media. Some politicians constantly check their approval ratings. Some entertainers perpetually push the edge of what is good and correct so that they can continue to be in the public eye. Some churches and pastors are slaves to the approval of the congregation. And yet, Jesus pushes that all out of the way. That slavery to public honour and opinion leads to nowhere. One private or public mistake and you are erased – cancelled, as is the contemporary terminology. But rarely, if ever, do we hear of servants, or servant-hearted people, being cancelled. Why is this? Because power and prestige and popularity has not enticed them to do and say things that bring glory to themselves. They serve to bring glory to God the Father. Thus, Jesus points to this way of life as one for which we strive. In the next instalment of ‘How Then Shall We Live,' we will dive into being a GOAT (the Greatest of All Time) as opposed to being a servant of the living king dedicated to help people shed their blankets of fear. Pr Reid Matthias
…whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be slave to all. ~Mark 10:43,44 When I first read this passage for our worship this week, I thought to myself, ‘Wow! This is really appropriate in the 21st century.' Throughout the history of Christianity and the Church's infatuation with power and prestige, we are reminded time and time again how important it is for the body of Christ to serve, not to be served. (Mark 10:45) In the book of Mark, time and time again, Jesus points out that egoism and self-absorption restricts both the Christian and the future Christian. First, the disciples argue about who is the greatest. (Mark 9:34) Then, they are frustrated because others are not doing things the way that the disciples would have. (Mark 9:38) After that, they rebuke some adults who bring children to Jesus for a blessing. (Mark 10:13) Finally, James and John want to elevate themselves to a place of honour when Jesus comes into his kingdom. (Mark 10:37) Every time the disciples do this, Jesus brings them back down to earth and reminds them that those who want to be the greatest have the opportunity to do even more with humility – as servants. There is another way to understand Mark 10:44. In our world that is inebriated by power, prestige, and pontificating, it is abundantly clear that the moment one wants to be great, they become a slave to popular opinion and social media. Some politicians constantly check their approval ratings. Some entertainers perpetually push the edge of what is good and correct so that they can continue to be in the public eye. Some churches and pastors are slaves to the approval of the congregation. And yet, Jesus pushes that all out of the way. That slavery to public honour and opinion leads to nowhere. One private or public mistake and you are erased – cancelled, as is the contemporary terminology. But rarely, if ever, do we hear of servants, or servant-hearted people, being cancelled. Why is this? Because power and prestige and popularity has not enticed them to do and say things that bring glory to themselves. They serve to bring glory to God the Father. Thus, Jesus points to this way of life as one for which we strive. In the next instalment of ‘How Then Shall We Live,' we will dive into being a GOAT (the Greatest of All Time) as opposed to being a servant of the living king dedicated to help people shed their blankets of fear. Pr Reid Matthias
In the midst of growing distrust, frustration, confusion and uncertainty in our society and world today, what do the Scriptures call Christ followers to focus on and give their lives to? The focus of this sermon will be on our pursuit of God as the beginning point in the life we are called to. This is the first part in a new series of messages entitled "How Then Shall We Live"?
In the midst of growing distrust, frustration, confusion and uncertainty in our society and world today, what do the Scriptures call Christ followers to focus on and give their lives to? The focus of this sermon will be on our pursuit of God as the beginning point in the life we are called to. This is the first part in a new series of messages entitled "How Then Shall We Live"?
St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX Online Sermons
Pastor Jeff Smith preaches on 1 John 1:1-2:2, "How Then Shall We Live?" https://youtu.be/CwH5Tsx5HDU?t=1886
A new MP3 sermon from Missio Dei Fellowship is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: How Then Shall We Live in Evil Days? Subtitle: The Minor Prophets Speaker: Grayson Stewart Gilbert Broadcaster: Missio Dei Fellowship Event: Sunday Service Date: 11/22/2020 Bible: Habakkuk 1:12-2:20 Length: 53 min.
A new MP3 sermon from Missio Dei Fellowship is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: How Then Shall We Live in Evil Days? Subtitle: The Minor Prophets Speaker: Grayson Stewart Gilbert Broadcaster: Missio Dei Fellowship Event: Sunday Service Date: 11/22/2020 Bible: Habakkuk 1:12-2:20 Length: 53 min.
Brother Steve Irby teaches the Word.
Brother Steve Irby teaches the Word.
How Then Shall We Live by Door of Hope PDX
If you missed Sunday service, you can listen to Pastor Rick’s message “How Then Shall We Live?” here. Share with someone who needs to hear this message!
How Then Shall We Live by Jacques Jacobs
Pastor Chik Chikeles teaches a message from the series "How Then Shall We Live." Thursday Night Live is recorded from Como Park in Saint Paul MN, from June to the 3rd week in August.
C.S. Lewis said regarding the return of Christ, “Precisely because we cannot predict the moment, we must be ready at all moments.” Pastor Ray shares a message from his “Last Days” series titled How Then Shall We Live?CHECK OUT OUT OUR WEBSITE:https://www.rbcdothan.org FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RidgecrestDothan/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ridgecrestbaptist/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/rbcdothan LISTEN TO OUR PODCASTS Shepherd Talk with Ray Jones Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4CRWqaj8HRTjyZdvZwG9pn?si=6G-IMu6-QGGD_D8NVa51Ug Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shepherd-talk/id1517881599 A2 Life Podcast Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1PyCfagJ5xYNEyqL6tSNM3?si=aBrFgVLSQvuMF0MhLIEHLw Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a2-life-podcast/id1517513212 Ridgecrest Stories Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/77moba4VnI1WvO6SefyBm3?si=SdDk_fjTST6U8drEc9Q-tw Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ridgecrest-stories/id1518138918 Ridgecrest Baptist Church - Sermons Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Ir5YcahI8G2SiIjrycB8W?si=rG660IGsRhSrgsRjBE33nw Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ridgecrest-baptist-church-sermons/id1517442154 Heart Truth Devotions Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/339RoxzO65vb8DX1P4E0YU?si=CuGT8_upQ-SzZn0o8mexMA Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heart-truth-devotions/id1518661566
Pastor Chik Chikeles teaches a message from the series "How Then Shall We Live." Thursday Night Live is recorded from Como Park in Saint Paul MN, from June to the 3rd week in August.
Pastor Chik teaches a message from the series "How Then Shall We Live." Thursday Night Live is recorded from Como Park in Saint Paul MN, from June to the 3rd week in August.
Pastor Chik teaches a message from the series "How Then Shall We Live." Thursday Night Live is recorded from Como Park in Saint Paul MN, from June to the 3rd week in August.
From Mark 12-18-27, How Then Shall We Live
[Intro: 8:47] In this episode, I speak with dear friend, healer, and counselor Barbara Cecil. This is a griefful time. We are witnessing systems fail and a deep fracturing of our collective shared experience of reality, particularly for those embedded within the dominant culture of North America, to which many of us are tied to. More and more, time seems to be quickening and grinding to a stuttering halt, all at once. Barbara and I deepen our exploration into the terrain of our current predicament, continuing with the themes journalist Dahr Jamail and I discussed in our recent interview released a few weeks ago. We discuss what it means to really be present in this time of trouble, and how vital it is to know how to ground oneself and (re)connect with our intuition. It is from this place that we may then proceed, as this wisdom and skill will prove to be increasingly needed as we meet our time of many endings. Barbara Cecil is the author of ‘Coming Into Your Own: A Woman's Guide Through Life Transitions.’ Barbara Cecil’s Master’s degree in speech communication and human relations has supported her in her calling to assist individuals, groups, teams, and organizations toward the full manifestation of their creative potential. Episode Notes: - Visit Barbara’s website to learn more about her and her book ‘Coming Into Your Own’: http://endingsandbeginnings.com - Read Barbara and Dahr’s series ‘How Then Shall We Live?” at Truthout: http://bit.ly/2M2g9Ek - The song featured in this episode is “On the Bright Side” by Blockhead from the album Bubblebath: https://youtu.be/OmA6zPh_ILU WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com BOOK: http://bit.ly/ORBITgr PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior
Scott and Gage launch the theme for this season "Problematic Phrases" by addressing unhelpful cliches in today's Evangelicalism and why we need to stop using them. This episode includes our friend Blake and Justin from the podcast Distilling Theology. Cheers and Enjoy! Bumper Music Is by Jake Haws. Check out his podcast, Making Music with Jake Haws.Resources mentioned in the episode: Bavinck of The Christian Life https://www.crossway.org/books/bavinck-on-the-christian-life-tpb/ (in the giveaway coming up!) DT Quote Mugs https://shopdistillingtheology.com/collections/bavquotes (also in the giveaway coming up!) The Wonderful Works of God https://www.wtsbooks.com/products/the-wonderful-works-of-god-9781733627221?variant=12437042790447 Heaven Misplaced https://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Wilson/dp/1591280834/ref=sr_1_2?crid=191AR81JXMZ32&dchild=1&keywords=heaven+misplaced&qid=1594480792&s=books&sprefix=heaven+misp%2Caps%2C191&sr=1-2 How Then Shall We Live https://www.amazon.com/Douglas-Wilson/dp/1591280834/ref=sr_1_2?crid=191AR81JXMZ32&dchild=1&keywords=heaven+misplaced&qid=1594480792&s=books&sprefix=heaven+misp%2Caps%2C191&sr=1-2the Bible and The Future https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Future-Anthony-Hoekema-ebook/dp/B00245A41Y/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3TK3O9V94P0BU&dchild=1&keywords=the+bible+and+the+future&qid=1594480913&s=digital-text&sprefix=the+bible+and+the+f%2Cdigital-text%2C189&sr=1-2Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/join/3789852?)
Pastor Chik teaches a message from the series "How Then Shall We Live." Thursday Night Live is recorded from Como Park in Saint Paul MN, from June to the 3rd week in August.
Worship Leader Ken Walugembe teaches on 2 Peter 3:1-14 in "How Then Shall We Live?"
[Intro: 2:50] In this episode, I speak with Barbara Cecil and Dahr Jamail, co-authors of the ‘How Then Shall We Live?’ series published at Truthout. An excerpt: ’What I've learned is when you really listen, and I mean go really quiet — put all the mental jargon aside and just get really quiet and really, really humble and really listen to the Earth — then I believe that each one of us is going to get our own personal marching orders of “here's what you're going to do, here's what I need you to do.” That's where I've gotten my messages to go to Iraq, to do the book that I did with 'The End of Ice,’ and so many other big decisions in my life — and small ones. When I go out there, I listen and I get this clear message, and I always know what to do. And I really believe that now is that time for people to — don't run around and panic. Don't light your hair on fire. Don't go out and see what other ten more things you can do, or how many articles you can forward and all this. But just stop and get really, really quiet and touch down into the Earth and really listen and see what comes up into your heart. When you ask: “What is it that I need to do to really serve this planet?" — because I think if we do that, and in the proper context of understanding that it is too late…. You're not going to get all that heat out of the oceans. The oceans have absorbed ninety-three percent of the heat we've put into the atmosphere. That heat is staying there and it's increasing and it's not going to go away. We're not going to turn this thing around. In the context of knowing the great loss that's now upon us what is the most important thing for me to do? And for some people it might be "I need to play music,” and that's great because God knows we need music right now. And for some people it might mean "I'm going to write a book.” Barbara and my good friend Colin MacIntosh just went and got arrested, and he's in Extinction Rebellion. All power to him. To other people it might mean we're going to go shut this fucking shit down once and for all. Great. Please do. But my point is that if you really listen in closely and get that call for what you need to do, and understand that it's in the context that we really have nothing left to lose — I would argue that that's going to generate an activism and actions taken from love that could never happen in the context of "oh do this because this book tells you to do it,” or "go to this march because we're organizing it,” and "we have a permit on this date we're going to do this….” I'm talking about doing things way more radical and way further outside of the box than a lot of this stuff that we see happening right now. I'm talking about real risk.’ Barbara Cecil is the author of ‘Coming Into Your Own: A Woman's Guide Through Life Transitions.’ Barbara Cecil’s Master’s degree in speech communication and human relations has supported her in her calling to assist individuals, groups, teams, and organizations toward the full manifestation of their creative potential. Dahr Jamail is an award-winning journalist who (formerly) reported on climate disruption and environmental issues for the online publication Truthout. Dahr is the author of multiple books, including ‘The End Of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption.' Episode Notes: - Read Barbara and Dahr's 'How Then Shall We Live?' series: http://bit.ly/2M2g9Ek - Barbara's work: http://endingsandbeginnings.com - Dahr's work: http://www.dahrjamail.net - The song featured is “Wolves” by Down Like Silver from their self-titled EP. WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior
In this episode of Pathways to Resilience, I sit down with Dahr Jamail and Barbara Cecil to talk about their new monthly article series in the publication Truthout, titled, How Then Shall We Live; Finding our way amidst global collapse. The monthly series invites the reader to face the darkness of an uncertain future not with fear but instead with an open, honest, and humble heart, mind, and spirit, that can hold the all of the grief, beauty, despair, and possibility that comes with deep change.
Sunday September 23, 2018. Who Do You Say I Am: How Then Shall We Live. A sermon from Dr. Sean Michael Lucas on Mark 10:32-45
How Then Shall We Live? and God sent... Never Give Up (March 11, 2018)
How Then Shall We Live? and God sent... Never Give Up (March 11, 2018)
Pastor Dan continues with the sermon series "How Then Shall We Live"
Pastor Dan continues with the sermon series "How Then Shall We Live"
Pastor Dan brings us the next sermon in the sermon series How Then Shall We Live.
Pastor Dan brings us the next sermon in the sermon series How Then Shall We Live.
Pastor Dan Cochrane continues his sermon series called How Then Shall We Live.
Pastor Dan Cochrane continues his sermon series called How Then Shall We Live.
How Then Shall We Live - and God said - Marriage (February 11, 2018)
How Then Shall We Live - and God said - Marriage (February 11, 2018)
Part 2 in the sermon series How Then Shall We Live with Pastor Dan Cochrane
Part 2 in the sermon series How Then Shall We Live with Pastor Dan Cochrane
Pastor Dan Cochrane brings us a new sermon series entitled "How Then Shall We Live - and God said".
Pastor Dan Cochrane brings us a new sermon series entitled "How Then Shall We Live - and God said".
2017-09-10 How Then Shall We Live by Wellspring Church
If you've have never heard of Frank Schaeffer, you may be surprised to learn that his life has most likely impacted your life and the lives of nearly every American in ways we're just now beginning to grasp. Frank is the son of Evangelical Christian authors Francis and Edith Schaeffer who ran a world famous Christian organization in Switzerland. As Frank got older, both he and his father Francis became prominent figures of the Evangelical world in America, working closely with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and most importantly helping to start pro-life movement, as recently pointed out by Samantha Bee on her show, Full Frontal. Many who were religiously homeschooled in America in the last 30 years grew up watching Frank's Evangelical Christian movies. From the pro-life propaganda film, Whatever Happened To The Human Race to How Then Shall We Live, a documentary that Michelle Bachmann has often cited as one of her main inspirations. Frank Schaeffer left the Evangelical world years ago and is now an artist and writer. And while the most important aspects of his life involve his grandchildren, his family and his home in Massachusetts, Frank is extremely outspoken about his time in the fundamentalist Evangelical world as evidenced in his memoir Crazy For God and his most recent book, Why I Am An Atheist Who Believes In God. Co-host Dustin Parent and I sat down with Frank a couple of weeks ago to discuss his current advocacy against the Fundamentalist ideals of Donald Trump, America's addiction to certainty and the intrinsic value of Beauty. This is episode is part one of our conversation with Frank.
Introduction Well, I come this morning to the first of three sermons in our series in Ephesians. We've come to the section on marriage. It was not intentionally lined up with Mother's Day, it just happened that way. And Jared, I have six points in my sermon this morning. Is that okay? So this is like two sermons I guess, two Baptist sermons, I guess. But we're going to look this morning in an overarching, overview, sense of marriage. And we're not going to get into the exegetical details of Ephesians 5, but we're going to talk some, in a big picture, about Christian marriage. And then God willing, next week we'll have a second sermon zeroing in on the wife's responsibilities in that section, that scripture. And then, the following week, God willing, we'll look at the husband's responsibilities. So that's where we're going. A Fruitful Garden Needing Protection And as I begin this sermon this morning, my mind goes back in time. I imagine, I don't know that this happened, but I think it must have happened back to a warm, late June day in 1863 in a Pennsylvania farm area, where a peach farmer was just walking through his orchard. I can picture this, and I've walked through orchards myself, and you just smell the fragrance of those peach blossoms and you see the peaches growing on the trees, and you just anticipate the harvest and the time when the fruit is going to get ripe. And your heart is so filled with hope. The problem was that peach orchard was near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and within a week it would be the site of one of the worst battles in history. And that those peach blossoms were going to get ripped to shreds by bullets and by artillery fire, and the peace of that place was going to be rent by the screams of agonizing wounds and men dying. And we picture that image of a beautiful garden, a rich, beautiful garden that has become a battlefield. And you think to yourself, "How could such a fruitful garden become such a battlefield?" And this is the image that's in my mind as I think about Christian marriage. Marriage: One of God’s Richest Gifts And as we come to the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:21-33, I look on marriage as a fruitful garden, a beautiful, rich garden that needs protection. That it is a battlefield. And we're going to find out later in Ephesians, not yet, but maybe in the future if God gives us the time, how we are in a place of spiritual warfare all the time. And our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against the rulers and the authorities and the powers of this dark age, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And that Satan has made marriage a special focus of his activity, a special focus of his attack. Marriage is one of God's richest gifts, a fruitful garden. You look at the book of Song of Solomon, and marriage, the beauties and the mysteries and the allure, the attraction of marriage is pictured as a garden, a walled garden with fragrant spices and a fruitful harvest that's to come. And it's just a beautiful picture. And so, that garden imagery there in the Song of Solomon about married love, even sexual love, that picture in the Song of Songs, I think, harkens back to the original garden, the Garden of Eden where God first set up marriage, and established it right at the beginning. Adam, the first man, created by the sovereign power of God, and God brought Eve into his life. But before that, God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2:15. It says, "To work it and take care of it." Most English translations go in that direction, but I think the Hebrew more simply says, "To serve and protect it." And so, the man's job there was to serve the garden and pour his intelligence and his skill as a gardener into that Garden of Eden. It was perfect, but incomplete. And there were certain shrubs and plants that needed human cultivation. And so, God gave to the man work to do and he was to serve that garden to the end, that that Garden could be everything God intended it to be. What a beautiful image for the man in his protection role of the garden, or his serving role, and also protection. When you think, "To serve and protect", the image of protect comes in my mind of an impending threat. You protect because there's danger. And you might think, "What danger could there be?" But by then, putting the whole Bible together, Satan had already fallen and been cast down to earth with a third of the angels, it seems, from Revelation 12. And so, Satan and the demons are coming and there's going to be a temptation and there's going to be danger. And there would be a severe threat to the garden and to the whole planet. And it was Adam's job to protect the world from that threat, to serve and protect. I've thought about that often, since I had those insights. And I said, what Adam is called to do with the garden, I'm called to do with my family, with my marriage, and with my children, to serve them and protect them. And that's what I want. My purpose in these sermons is that husbands would serve and protect their wives and their children, and that wives would fulfill the role that God has for them as well. And then we'll get to the children's section, God willing. Marriage Under Attack in this Age But we understand that marriage, as an institution, is under direct attack in our day and age. I don't have to elucidate this for you, you know very well what I'm talking about. You know that the idea of one man, one woman, in a permanent covenantal union, for life, is under direct attack. The Supreme Court's decision last year to allow or endorse, I don't know what verb to put, gay marriage, is I think a satanic attack on biblical marriage. I find it staggering that the justices there could so arrogantly overturn millennia of jurisprudence and common understanding of marriage, and make that decision. In Scandinavia, in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, where gay marriage has been legal since the early 1990s, the result has been a clear decline in marriage itself. Fewer and fewer young couples even get married, they just cohabit together, they might even have children, then they move on to another partner. And so, the idea of marriage itself has become, there, it seems, passé. But this is only the most recent attack on marriage, marriage has been under attack from the beginning. But even in our own culture we see it. The escalating divorce rates is an attack on marriage. The ideas of sexual freedom, open marriage, different things, cohabitation. And then just in general, constant marital strife. Marriage is a battleground, it's a fruitful garden that has become a battleground. No New Model Needed Because of all of these faulty assumptions, because of various things, Tim Keller in his book on marriage related that many younger people, who we often call millennials, these would be young people who have come to their adult years around the year 2000, thereabouts, "Are increasingly skeptical about the traditional pattern of marriage, one man, one woman, and a binding exclusive covenant for life." Keller quotes a star of the film Monogamy. This star, a woman, said, "In this country we have kind of failed with marriage. We're so protective of this really sacred, but failed institution. There's got to be a new model", she said. Well, do you not see that that's exactly what our world is saying? We need a new model of marriage, we need to come up with something new. because that thing didn't work. Well, friends, we as Christians know very well, we don't need a new model. We need instead to live up to what God has committed to us in the Word of God. We need to live up, as Christians now, speaking as a Christian to Christians, we need to live up to Ephesians 5 marriage. That's what we need to do. And so, that's what I want to do. And I want to go to the end of this section here and talk about what Paul says to get a sense of the importance, and the spirituality, and the mystical truth of marriage that Paul gives us there. Look at Ephesians 5:31 and 32. He says there, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife. And the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the Church." Marriage is a Profound Mystery So marriage, there is a profound mystery, it is a picture of Christ's union with the Church. Profound mystery. Now, when we come to the word mystery we're not talking about something like Sherlock Holmes where you look at something and with deductive skill and reasoning you pick out the clues and you put the whole thing together. I think there's a lot of young married men that are like that. They're trying to figure their wives out. "I don't get it. I don't understand how that even happened. What just happened? Something happened. I can tell something happened. She's upset. I must have done something. I must have said something. Don't know what it is, but something happened there." So I think a young man like that, a young husband would say, "Amen, marriage is a profound mystery." That's not, I think, what Paul means there when he says that. This is not in my outline but I'm going to go ahead and say it. Alright, you're off message, handlers running, "Don't do it." But I'll say it anyway. Here's the thing, a man is constantly studying his wife, trying to understand her. The first wife was brought by God, and He explained to Adam where she came from, because he was in a deep sleep at the time. That's kind of a symbol, isn't it? But anyway. Deep sleep, here is this woman, and he gets it and says, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Where did he get that? God told him. So here's the thing, you confused husbands, go to God. He understands your wife. She might not even understand herself. Romans 7 says we don't understand ourselves. But God knows her. That's just an aside. But what does Paul mean when he says that marriage is, literally in the Greek, a "mega mystērion", a "profound mystery"? Mystery: An Eternal Truth Kept Hidden What he is saying is that every marriage there's ever been, including non-Christians, any tribe, language, people, nation, any marriage, all marriages from the beginning have been a picture of Christ and the Church, whether they knew it or not. And that God, when He established marriage in the garden, was intending to give a lasting picture of Christ's union with his Church. That's the mystery. A mystery then, in Paul's way of speaking, a mystery is something hidden in God that has to do with His redemptive purpose that He is now revealing and making known in Christ. And marriage is now fully understood in this way. It's a picture of Christ and the Church. So therefore marriage is important. And it's especially under this kind of confusion, this mental fog, this spiritual fog our people are in, this culture that we're in is in. We need to live out Christian marriage according to Ephesians 5 for the cause of the Gospel. So that's what this is a call to do. The Biblical Foundation Matthew 19: Christ’s Teaching on Marriage So let's go to the foundation. I'm going to step back and look biblically at marriage and just give an overview. I don't think we can go over these things enough. When I do premarital counseling, and after we've gotten to know each other, me and the couple, and we have some time to talk, the first text I go to is Matthew 19. And you can turn there in your Bibles if you'd like, or just listen. But in Matthew 19:3-6, there Jesus teaches on divorce. Now in doing premarital counseling I'm not trying to be negative. "You guys are so excited, and you're engaged, and you're looking forward. Let's talk about divorce." But I'm not trying to be negative because what Jesus does so beautifully, the divorce question comes to Him, and He answers by scripturally defining marriage. So it actually is a very good place to begin premarital counseling. In effect, I'm trying to just get out of the way and say, "I would love for Jesus to be your premarital counselor. If He were your counselor what would He do?" And so, look what it says in Matthew 19:3-6. Some Pharisees came to him and said, to test him, they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" "Haven't you read", He replied, "That at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, 'For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate." So that's Jesus' teaching on divorce, but even more significantly, He's teaching on marriage. The question that's posed is, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" The answer's plain, Jesus' answer is plain. "No, it is not, it is not lawful." And He gives the reasons why. But the reasons just transcend the question, they just transcend. So in effect Jesus says, "If you want to understand marriage, we're going to start with scripture, you're going to start with the Bible." If we could all, in our society, agree on the inspiration and authority of scripture, we wouldn't have problems on marriage. It's because we don't, that's where we're getting into strange definitions, and we will continue to have that problem. The Bible is the Ultimate Authority on Marriage The basic presupposition for us as Christians is the Bible is the word of God. And you can see that that's Jesus' presupposition too, "Haven't you read?" If you want to understand marriage, you have to go to the scripture, you have to understand the Bible. And so, there are dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of books on marriage, many of them are very helpful. There are lots of conferences you could go to on marriage and many of them will be very helpful. But ultimately, if I can just say, the scripture is sufficient for a healthy marriage. Scripture is sufficient for a blessed, fruitful, Christian marriage. It's ultimately all we need. I think Jesus would say that. So He says, "Haven't you read?" And it's not just any scripture. All scripture is God-breathed, all scripture is helpful. But when it comes to marriage He’s going to bring you back to the beginning. "Haven't you read that at the beginning... " So He's going to bring you to Genesis. And so beautifully he's going to bring you to Genesis 1 and then Genesis 2. Genesis 1: Man and Woman Equally Made in the Image of God And you learn different lessons from each of those chapters. In Genesis 1 you learn that the Creator made them male and female. Now, Jesus doesn't quote the whole thing in Genesis 1, but you know it very well. "Let us make man in our image[, in our likeness.]” “And so God created man in the image of God, male and female, He created them.” And so, what we learn in Genesis 1 is the significance of the husband and wife, the man and the woman, first and foremost, as human beings created in the image of God. Now, we're going to learn later in the New Covenant, we also learn that they're absolutely equal. The husband and wife are absolutely equal, not only in being created in the image of God, but they’re absolutely equal in being redeemed by the blood of Christ. They're equally heirs of Heaven. And so, the first most important thing that a husband needs to know about his wife is that she's created in the image of God, and then that she's redeemed by the blood of Christ. And we'll get into all that. So the equality of male and female in the image of God and then later in Christ, is established. And frankly, if all we had were Genesis 1, we wouldn't actually think of any kind of differentiation of roles within marriage. It's very egalitarian. But Genesis 1 is not all we have, we also have Genesis 2. And so, Genesis 1 gives this overarching view of marriage set in creation as part of the six days of creation. Or of humanity, not marriage. Of humanity set in the six days of creation. But then we're zeroing in, in Genesis 2, on a detail. These accounts are not contradictory, they can actually very easily be harmonized. It's not written by different authors as some liberal scholars have told us. But it's just in effect like a map of the state of North Carolina, and then zooming in on the Raleigh-Durham area, let's say, or on Charlotte. Because that's a metropolitan area. You've seen that state map, so then zero on the capital or something like that. So, we're zeroing in, in Genesis 2, I would say on marriage. I mean there's other things, but more than anything by the end of the chapter, we understand we've zeroed in on marriage. Genesis 2: Special Roles within Marriage So humanity, male and female, equally in the image of God, Genesis 1. But then we zero in on marriage. And within that, we are taught some very significant things. Special roles happen. "The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the Earth and breathed into his nostrils and he became a living being" Genesis 2:7. So there was a time that Adam was alone. He was formed first, and then Eve, as it says in 1 Timothy 2. So there was a time he was alone, and he was walking around in the garden, and the Lord was instructing him in terms of his role. And I already quoted Genesis 2:15 where God gives him a command. "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." I'm thinking that is the most well-ordered, most beautiful, most fragrantly appealing bachelor pad in history. Probably don't quote me on that. But I'm thinking there he is, he's alone, and it's a very beautiful ordered place. But there's work to be done. He said he put him there to serve it and to protect it, and “He commanded him not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, for when he ate of it he would surely die.” So this setting. But then comes this statement in Genesis 2:18, "It is not good for the man to be alone." It is very vital for us to understand. We don't have to change the scripture, we should never change the scripture. But I hear it this way, "It is not good for the man to remain alone." It was very good for him to be alone for a while. How do we know that? Because that's how God did it. God could have created Adam and Eve instantly at the same time. As a matter of fact, if all we had is Genesis 1, we'd think that's what He did do. And he could have done that, but he didn't do that. Why? To create, I think, the headship and submission relationship that we're going to have more clearly unfolded in Ephesians 5. To establish the male-leadership. To establish Adam, not just as head over his wife, but actually that Adam as head over the entire human-race. And there's all kinds of theology that flows from that. So He establishes him there, but He makes this statement, "It's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Also, it's important for you to realize, his aloneness was utterly unique in redemptive history. There was no other human being on the face of the earth. No one. So I don't think it's good for us to take that in terms of a bachelor, or a single woman, and say, in reference to them, "It's not good for them to be alone." It may be very good for a man to never marry. There are some men that never marry. And it could be very good for some women to never marry, because that's what God wills. Jesus talks about that in Matthew 19. But Adam's aloneness was unique. There was just no other human being, and there was no way that Adam, alone, could fulfill the cultural mandate of filling the earth, subduing it, and ruling over it and being fruitful and multiple. He had to have a wife. And so it was not good for him to remain alone. So God said, "I will make a helper suitable for him." And so I find in Genesis 2:15, "serve and protect" is the man's calling. Genesis 2:18 is a quick take at the woman's calling, "helper suitable." And I think those words are worthy of a great deal of meditation. And so the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on him, and He created his wife from the rib of the man, and brought her to the man. Such a picture of how God makes marriages. The bringing to is a picture to me now in this world of God's providential activity in putting couples together. And it's a beautiful thing to watch, isn't it? So, He brings the woman to the man, and the man celebrates. "This now bones of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." And then the statement that Jesus quotes in Matthew 19, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother, and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh." And then it says in Genesis 2, "The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame." Scripture Provides the Permanent Definition of Marriage Now what Jesus is doing in Matthew 19 with Genesis 2 is He's saying, "What happened then between Adam and Eve, that's the lasting paradigm for all time." We don't need a new pattern of marriage, that is it. What we need to do is live up to it. We need to embrace what God says about it and live up to it, and we will have a fruitful harvest in our marriages and our family lives. So, that's the kind of biblical foundation. The Christian Foundation: The Spirit-Filled Life The Context in Ephesians Let's look at the Christian foundation. I want to go to Ephesians, and you can follow with me along in Ephesians 1 up through 5. And I'm just going to give an overview of the book to where we've come, but this time I'm going to look at it through the lens of marriage. Because this is what I'm going to assert: That marriage flourishes best in the context of the redemption worked by Christ. Christian marriage is the best kind of marriage there is, and it's established on the foundation of salvation by the triune God. So, I'm going to go back and just get a context of Paul's commands here, so we understand it. We know Ephesians breaks into two main sections. Ephesians 1-3 just basically gives us salvation through Father, Son, and Spirit. And then Ephesians 4-6 gives us “how then shall we live.” What kind of lives shall we live? And so that's what we're doing. So, in Ephesians 1-3, we have salvation. Beginning in verse 4 and 5 of chapter one, “God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ.” So, I'm going to say we are able to have God-honoring marriages because we have been chosen before the foundation of the world to be Christians, and we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. And that gives us a solid basis for an excellent marriage. And then, in Ephesians 1:7-8, "In Christ we have redemption through His blood. The forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." So, I'm going to say we're able to have God-honoring marriages because we, both the husband and the wife as Christians, have been completely forgiven by the shed blood of Christ. We've been atoned for. By grace, we are blameless positionally before God. The Christian husband is blameless. The Christian wife is blameless positionally before God by the redeeming blood of Christ. So what that does is it gives a solid basis for the continual forgiveness you're going to need to give each other in marriage. It's never going to stop. And I actually think the giving and receiving of forgiveness is very much the essence of a healthy marriage between two sinners. That we can give and receive forgiveness. It's based on the fact we've been forgiven already by the shed blood of Christ. And God has given us wisdom to understand His big picture. We get what marriage is about. We understand it's not just about me and you. Or just about me, that's even worse. That individualism, I'm seeking my own pleasure. No, no. There's a big purpose for my marriage, and your marriage. And that is in Ephesians 1:9-10, God was doing this to bring all things together under one head, even Christ. So there's this incredibly work of unification going on in the universe, and marriage is a subset of that. The two becoming one. Also, we have been given the gift of the indwelling Spirit. Ephesians 1:13-14, it says, "You also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit. Who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance, until the redemption of those who are God's possession." So, the sealing of the Spirit is essential to the Christian marriage. Each one of you, the Christian husband and the Christian wife, has the gift, the infinite, immeasurable gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. You've been sealed with the Spirit, and the Spirit is there to help you, in part, have an excellent marriage. So you're indwelt by the Spirit. Now, in Ephesians 2, we learn that each of you have been saved by grace. You were dead in your transgressions and sins, and you have a lot of bad habits. Romans 7 makes that plain. But because we walked in the pattern of wickedness in Satan's kingdom, we've got a lot of bad habits. We were dead in our transgressions and sins, and you're going to bring that into the marriage. Both of you is. But we've been “saved by grace through faith, and this not of ourselves, it's the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.” And again, that same solid basis for giving and receiving forgiveness. I've been saved by grace. I was a tool of Satan's. I was a slave of Satan's. I did his will, and now I've been redeemed. And you can see your spouse that way too, and you can extend that grace and mercy that's been extended to you. And then in Ephesians 2:10 says, "Now that we've been saved by grace through faith, we have a life of good works to do. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them." So, if you're married, a lot of your good works are going to be in the context of your marriage. Christian husbands, you're going to do a lot of good works toward your wife, because she's your wife. Christians wives, you're going to do a lot of good works that God's laid out ahead of time for you to do because you're a wife. And that's going to be an organizing pattern of your good works toward one another. And then at the end of Ephesians 2, we see Christian marriage as a part of of what God's doing to build this magnificent spiritual structure. The Church of Jesus Christ, the Temple of the Living God, the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly Zion. This beautiful structure that's in the heavenly realms, and living stones through conversion are being brought into that, and the structures rising and becoming more and more glorious all the time. It's a dwelling in which God lives and will live eternally by His Spirit. And so my marriage, then, serves that end. My children aren't given to me for my own personal enjoyment, but that they might be converted and be living stones in that. And my marriage is to be a platform of the Gospel, and we're to have people in our homes and lead people to Christ, because our this marriage, like this, is temporary. ‘Til death do you part.’ So it's going to serve that vision of Ephesians 2. The building of the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly Church, and that's a beautiful thing. And then, in Ephesians 3, we learn that we, having been redeemed by the blood of Christ, we are infinitely, perfectly loved by Jesus. He wants you to know how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And that you would know that love that surpasses knowledge, that you would be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. So, a Christian marriage isn't two empty people clinging and clutching to each other, and trying to find meaning from each other, and then failing once you get into marriage. Like, “this person is not going to satisfy me, I'm not self-actualized by this person.” And then you're going to get a divorce and go try to find your soulmate, who completes you and all that. Jesus completes you, you're already complete. In Him you have fullness, and you're bringing that fullness to the marriage. And she's bringing that fullness to the marriage. You understand what that means? If you're single and you never get married, you're full. You're complete in Jesus. If the Lord wills to add a husband to you or a wife, He's not going to improve your fullness at all. He's just going to give you good works to do and the blessings of marriage and all that, but you're already full. And that means if you're a widow or a widower, and you may never get married again, you're not an incomplete person now. You are full in Jesus, and that's a beautiful thing. How Then Shall We Live? So Ephesians 1-3, a very solid foundation for a Christian marriage. But then, how then shall we live? “As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you've received.” I want a marriage worthy of this Christian calling, that's what I want. And so, verse 2-6, Ephesians 4, "Be completely humble and gentle." Might be helpful in Christian marriage. Oh, Christian husbands. "Be completely humble and be gentle, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There's one body and one spirit, just as you were called the one hope when you were called one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all, and through all, and in all.” And so, in Christian marriage, you're already one. Live like it. You're going to Heaven. Live like it. Live a heavenly day now between the two of you. Live as two who have become one, as we all are in the Church. That's a beautiful thing. And then Paul defines holiness. Saying, "You're not supposed to live like the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. Don't think about your life like a Gentile. Don't think like a Pagan. Don't think about your marriage like a Pagan." Christian husband, if you're going to have a good marriage, you need to be transformed. “You need to put off the old man. That old nature which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. You need to be made new in the spirit of your mind by the ministry of the word of God, and you need to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” That's how you'll be able to do your Ephesians 5 work, which we'll get to in a couple of weeks. And Christian wives, same thing. “You have to put off the old man, you have to be made new in the spirit of your mind, and you have to put on the new self which is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Then you'll be able to be a Christian wife. The Spirit-Filled Life And now we come to verse 18. Ephesians 5:18, "Be being filled with the Spirit." And it's directly applicable to the Christian marriage. It's dramatically applicable to the Christian marriage. What do I mean? Well, He gives this command, "Be being filled with the Spirit." Be filled with the Spirit. The Spirit-filled life is a life controlled and empowered by the Spirit of God to live out these biblical principles I've been giving you. The scripture that the Holy Spirit Himself inspired. And so, to be filled with the Spirit means to be very scriptural, to be very biblical in how you live. It means to be super saturated with the third person in the Trinity, where He is just controlling your heart's and your thought's affections, and your actions. Filled with the Spirit. The Spirit indwells every Christian, but He doesn't fill every Christian at every moment. You know that's true. And all of your marital problems come because one, or both of you is not filled with the Spirit at that moment. That's where it comes from. You will not have sorrow, and grief, and sins, and all that if you're each filled with the Spirit, for the Spirit drives out sin. So be filled with the Spirit, and as we're filled with the Spirit, we're able to do what we're called to do. So, I want you to follow along. NIV kind of breaks it up and makes it smoother and easier to understand, but it doesn't keep the grammatical construction the way it does. "Be being filled with the Spirit," and then come a bunch of participles, what we call -ing words. -ing, -ing, -ing, -ing, -ing. So it's like, this is what I mean by the Spirit-filled life. "Be being filled with the Spirit, speaking," I'm in verse 19, "speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing, making music to the Lord in your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." See, it flows from the Spirit-filled life. Just like the worship does and all the other things. So, the submitting flows from the power of the Spirit. The Spirit-filled life is one characterized by joyful worship within your own heart. Thankfulness, flowing out horizontally to joyful worship with others. But then we get to verse 21, and we get to this idea of submitting to one another. So, if I could just pause right now in the Spirit-filled life, and just say this. Do you want a flourishing, fruitful happy marriage. Christian men, Christian women, Christian husbands and wives? What I'm going to say is to be filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is not magic. It involves taking the truth of God that you already know, repenting of known sin, asking for forgiveness, and praying, and by faith receiving the gift of the Spirit. The filling of the Spirit. A Moment for Self-Evaluation So here's just a check for you. Okay, just a check. You're in a conversation. One of those conversations with your spouse. Husband or wife, freeze-frame, just a moment. Strobe light. Bang. Right now. Are you at this moment characterized by the fruit of the Spirit? “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control.” If you're not, you've sinned. It doesn't matter what your spouse is doing. Take responsibility for your own demeanor. Take responsibility for your being filled with the Spirit. And if you're not, then you need to ask the Lord to forgive you. You need to find out what you've done. Maybe you've already said some harsh things, some unkind things, some prideful things. Maybe you've done some other things. The reason we need to constantly be being filled, we're so leaky. Herbert said that this morning. Leaky. We're leaky. All right, you've leaked through sin, each of you. Don't blame your spouse. "Lord, if you knew what my spouse was like. You wouldn't hold me accountable. It's totally his fault." Or her fault. No, it isn't. You have to give up your filling with the Spirit, ever. It's a choice you make. So if you're not at this moment filled with the Spirit in that, it's your responsibility. So ask forgiveness, and then ask forgiveness of your spouse. To Our Non-Christian Friends And now let me make a direct appeal to non-Christians. Could very well be there are some unbelievers here. The joy of a Christian marriage is for Christians, but it's nothing compared to the joy of Heaven. And I just to appeal to you, if you've come here today and you're on the outside, you're not a believer in Christ. You might even be in a troubled marriage, you might be in counseling, you might be contemplating divorce. There might be some abuse going on. You may be doing it, or receiving it. All I'm saying is that I have heard so many stories of how individuals coming to faith in Christ changes everything in the marriage. Changes everything. So in the name of the marriage, I'm going to go beyond that to appeal to you for the sake of your souls. Trust in Christ. God sent his Son, who lived a sinless life, died on the cross, that we might have forgiveness of sins. An Overview of Marital Roles: Submission and Love Not Mutual Submission So now, I want to say a few more things. I'll give you an overview of where we're going, and then we'll be done for the day. Okay, so an overview of marital roles. The first thing I want to set aside is something that many godly men teach, but I don't agree with. And that is the idea of mutual submission. I do not think that Ephesians 5:21 is teaching mutual submission. It may seem like it is, because it says, "Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ [Or, “in the fear of Christ]”. I don't think that that's right. They'll bring in a verse, a passage like Philippians 2:3-4, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility. Consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also the interests of others." Well, that's a great passage, and it's great for marriage, but that is not what submission is. I would call on mutual self-denial. Mutual service. Mutual foot-washing. Mutual love, yes. But the only way we can get at mutual submission is to redefine the word ‘submission’, or ‘submit’ biblically. And that's the problem I have with those that teach it. They're emphasizing too much the one another part, and they're not studying more carefully enough the submit or submission part. Submission biblically always has to do with God-ordained authority. Always. Every time the word is used in the New Testament, there is an authority and someone else yielding to that authority. Biblical submission then, would be cheerful yielding to a God-ordained authority, because you're mindful of God. It's in service to God. So, there's many examples of this word ‘submit.’ We see it again and again. Like, for example, in Luke 2:51, "Jesus submitted," same Greek root, "to his parents, Joseph and Mary, because he was a minor in their home. He obeyed his parents and submitted to them." He wasn't saying they were intrinsically higher or better than him. They were just parents and he obeyed the Law of Moses, and submitted to them. Their authority. In Luke 10:17, the demons submitted to the 72 missionaries that were sent out. They obeyed them, they left the people they were demonizing. Romans 8:7 says, "The mind of the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so." So that, again, is not just God-ordained authority, it's God's authority in the word, and they won't submit. That's the essence of rebellion. Romans 13:1 says, "Everyone should submit himself to the God-ordained authorities, for there is no authority except what God has established." Same Greek word, submit. You're not going to find any example, at all, of submission meaning loving service or self-denial of any of that anywhere at all. And the examples that are used, like where there's a scripture reference, there's only one. It's always Ephesians 5:21. I think there's a better way to understand this. Instead, what Paul's saying to the mixed Christian assembly is, "Okay, all you Christians, submitting to one another is part of the Spirit-filled life." How We Should Relate with Regard to Authority Category A to Category B, in the way I'm about to give you. “Wives to your husbands. Now, meanwhile, husbands, this is how you should carry yourself. Children to your parents. Now meanwhile, parents, this is how you should carry yourselves. Slaves to your masters. Now meanwhile, masters, this is how you should carry yourselves.” I think it's just a better way of looking at it, that way you're not redefining the word submit. Frankly, I think mutual submission makes as much sense as mutual obedience. Like imagine that in parenting, sometimes we obey them and sometimes they obey us. They'd love that. Let's have Parent Obedient Day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and Child Obedient Day the rest of the week. What would you kids do with that day? It'd be an interesting day, wouldn't it? What would you eat for dinner? It'd be kind of interesting. It's like, today you have to obey me, tomorrow I have to obey you. Well, that would be the idea of mutual submission equal to mutual obedience. I think, instead, we're talking about arranging yourself under God-ordained authority, and that is the command given to the wives. “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, His body, of which He is the savior. Now, as the Church submits to Christ, so also, wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” So, I'm going to give a whole sermon to that next week, and we'll talk about more about that. And then the command to the husband is love. To love like Christ does. Husbands, Love Your Wives Look at verses 25-30 and following, actually, go through verse 33. "Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her to make her holy. Cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the Church, for we're members of His body.” And then these words that we've looked at, "For this reason, a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the Church. However, each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”And as I said, God willing, we'll go over these the next two weeks. Two Clear Implications Embrace these God-Given Roles Let me give you two clear implications as we finish. First, embrace your corresponding roles. I would think there are very few, especially older folks, among us, anyone of adult age that's not heard Ephesians 5 before. It's not a new thought here, it's not a radically new teaching on headship and submission, not that. Instead what this is is again, for all of us, for me, for me, it's a call from God through Paul, through the Spirit, to embrace the role that God's given you. Husbands and wives should constantly copy the relationship God intended for Christ and the Church. So wives are to take their unique cue from the Church's relationship to Christ, that's how they're to think of their relationship with their husband. And husbands are to take their unique cue from the way Christ relates to the Church, as defined here. And this is going to be incredibly helpful for us going forward in this age of weird gender confusion. We're having a harder and harder time defining masculinity and femininity. It's like we really don't even know what they are. And I think that for me, if you get a 10-year-old, 12-year-old boy that says to his dad, "What does it mean for me to be a man, and not a woman?" Or you could see a 10-or-12-year-old daughter saying the same kind of thing to her mom, "Mom, what does it mean for me to be a woman, and not a man?" I would urge parents, moms and dads, bring them to Ephesians 5. That's going to be your homebase for answering that question, because frankly any other attribute that you put. Like courage, or self-sacrifice, or dedication, or thoughtfulness, or any of those things are true of both men and woman equally in the Bible. What's the difference, then? It's going to be this issue of Christ-like leadership, taking initiative to serve the Church, and lay yourself down for the Church for its benefit. That's the masculine role. And then the feminine role of responding to that kind of Godly initiative with delighted, Spirit-filled submission. That's, I think, what biblical masculinity and femininity means. So, we're going to unfold those more in the future. Find Delight in the Joy of Your Spouse And then secondly, and this comes right from my mentor on these things, John Piper. Desiring God has done more for my marriage than any Christian book that I've ever read. In that, he talks about Christian hedonism, the idea is finding pleasure. What he would say to non-Christian marriages that are floundering because they're seeking pleasure and all that, and they're selfish, and the self-actualization and all that. He'd say, "Your problem is you're not seeking enough pleasure. You're setting your sights too low. There is a kind of pleasure that soars above that kind of scrabbling in the mud after selfish lust, and patterns, and all that, that just goes so far beyond that that you don't even know about. But I wish I could tell it to you. It's the idea of learning to find your joy, first and foremost, in pleasing God and being satisfied in Him vertically. But then finding your joy and your blessing in another person's joy and blessedness. It's like, "I am here. I'm delighted to bring the light to you. I am pleased to bless you." That's what I want. I find my pleasure wrapped up in yours. So both husbands and wives can do this, that we would find our blessedness, our highest joy in bringing joy to our spouse. That's where we're going, and we're going to find it directly in the command of the husband, very plainly. “He who loves his wife... What? Loves himself.” It's a beautiful statement. In other words, you want to be a happy man? Have a biblical marriage. Invest in your wife. Love her. Feed her. Cleanse her. Strengthen her, and she will bless you. So those are two clear implications. One application I would give is married couples, just take Ephesians 5 home today, and just read it together. And pray together. And if you need to give and receive some forgivenesses, and almost undoubtedly you will, then give it and receive it. Don't be too prideful to ask forgiveness. Don't be too prideful to give it. Let the Lord heal your marriage. You don't have to earn your way back to obedience. Just obey. You can just step right up into a biblical marriage today. Just give and receive forgiveness, and by the power of the Spirit, may He bless you. Close with me in prayer. Prayer Father, we thank you for the initial thoughts we've had today on marriage in Ephesians. Thank you for the way it just flows from the whole Book of Ephesians, and how the work of redemptions just, for us as Christian couples, just flows right into our marriages. Father, we are mindful of the fact that not everyone here is married. Some would like to be married. We know that others have been bereaved. Father, we pray a special measure of blessing for each of them, that they would know that their fullness is Christ. Christ is their lives, and that they don't need a spouse to be full and complete people. For those of us that are married, oh Lord, I pray that you would help us to live up to the Ephesians 5 pattern that you've given us here, by the power of the Spirit. Help us to put the Gospel on display for our watching children, that they would see what a Christ-like husband and a Church-like wife looks like. And that they would live that out. And Lord, all of us, I pray that you would fill us with your Spirit, and help us to do the good works you have for us to do the rest of the day. In Jesus name, Amen.
Who Is Our God? His Attributes So we come to Ephesians 5:1. We come to one of the most remarkable commands that the Apostle Paul ever gave to any group of Christians. There, in these verses, we're commanded to “be imitators of God.” Maybe you've read that for many years, or even just now as you heard Tom reading it, it just washed over you and you didn't realize just how remarkable that is. The Bible says that “God created the heavens and the earth by the word of His power,” that, “He sits enthroned above all the surface of the earth, and all the nations before Him are like a drop from a bucket and like dust on the scales compared to His majesty and His great power,” Isaiah 40:22. Psalm 99:1 says, "The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble. He sits enthroned upon the cherubim. Let the earth quake." Moses records that Almighty God, the creator and sustainer of heaven and earth, descended on Mount Sinai in fire and spoke out of a cloud and out of fire, and the ground beneath their feet shook as God spoke these words, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me," and the sight was so terrifying that Moses said, "I'm trembling with fear." The holiness of God caused the seraphim in Isaiah's vision in Chapter 6 to cover their faces, not daring to look upon the glory of God, though they had never committed any sin, and they weren't defiled in any way or they had never been rebellious. And yet, they were covering their faces and their feet in the presence of the holiness of God, the infinite gap between God, the creator, and all of us, his creatures. No one has captured it better than A.W. Tozer in The Knowledge of the Holy. He said, "Forever God stands apart, in light unapproachable. He is as high above an archangel as He is above a caterpillar, for the gulf that separates the archangel from the caterpillar is but finite while the gulf between God and the archangel is infinite. The caterpillar and the archangel, though far removed from each other on the scale of created things, are nevertheless one and alike in that they're both created. They both belong in the category of that which is not God and are separated from God by infinitude itself." And we're commanded to imitate God. The Westminster theologians who gathered together. They wrote these words about God: "There is but one only living and true God who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit without body, parts or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will for His own glory. God has all life, glory, goodness and blessedness in and of Himself. He is alone in and unto Himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which He has made, not deriving any glory from them, but only manifesting His own glory in, by, unto and upon them. He is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom and to whom are all things, and has most sovereign dominion over them to do by them, for them and upon them whatsoever Himself pleases. In His sight, all things are open and manifest. His knowledge is infinite, it is infallible and independent upon the creature and to whom is due, from angels and men and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service or obedience He has pleased to require of them." We Are Not God Well, we are not God We are not God. These things cannot be said in total of us. Theologians have tended to divide the attributes or the descriptions of God into two categories: communicable and incommunicable. Incommunicable are those things that are true of God but will never be true of us, cannot be true of us, and communicable attributes are those things that are described of God, and we can in some way reflect them. For example, we are not self-existent. God exists in and of Himself and He needs nothing created from the outside to come in, like we need food and air and water to stay alive. God doesn't need anything created to come into Him to sustain His existence. He is self-existent, but we are not, for “in Him we live and move and have our being.” We are dependent on God for our existence. We are not immutable. God never changes. Malachi 3:6, "I the Lord do not change." But we are constantly changing. Indeed, we must change. Actually, the text in Ephesians 5:1 says, "Become imitators of God as dearly loved children." We are not immense, omnipresent beings that fill the universe with our existence, but God is. Jeremiah 23, he says, "'Am I only a God nearby,' declares the Lord, 'and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?' declares the Lord. 'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' declares the Lord." But we are not sovereign. We don't get to do whatever we please and be accountable to no one for our decisions as God is. In Daniel 4:35, Nebuchadnezzar said, "He does as He pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'" We are accountable to God. We are totally under his sovereign will. So there are these incommunicable attributes of God and many others, but there are also communicable attributes. There are ways in which we are commanded to be exactly like God, and as we come to Ephesians 5:1 and 2, we come to the centerpiece of that communicable attribute, and that is love. We are commanded to love, to live a life of love, to walk in love as God has loved us in Christ. We are commanded to be like God, and this makes sense, for in creation, in Genesis 1:27, we were all, as human beings, created to be like God. We are created in the image of God. And again, in salvation and earlier in the last chapter, in Ephesians 4:24, it says, "Put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." So we are to imitate God. Now, this is amazing because the Apostle Paul in other places tells people to imitate him, and we need role models. We need men and women to stand up in front of men and women in the Body of Christ and say, "Imitate me." We need mentors. And Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 4:16, "Therefore, I urge you to imitate me." That takes a lot of boldness, doesn't it? "Imitate me. Be like me." In another place, he says, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." So the implication is we're seeking to imitate Christ. Christ is our role model. We want to follow after Him, and so in the text as well. But here we're commanded to imitate God. And how is that? Well, in an immediate context it is that we are to walk, or to live a daily life that's characterized horizontally to other people with self-sacrificial love, especially in forgiveness of those that sin against us. Sometimes I think the chapter divisions hurt the flow and we don't fully understand the context, so I think it might be better to just remove the chapter division from Chapter 5 and just flow on from Ephesians 4:32 on to 5:2. "Be kind and compassionate to one another," it says in verse 32 of chapter 4. "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ, God has forgiven you. Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love [or walk in love,] just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Context Now I never tire of saying exactly where we are in the book. It's important for us to understand context. And so we're in the middle of an ethical or moral imperative section of the book of Ephesians in which we Christians are told how we are to live. This is built on the foundation of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We're going to talk more about that later in the sermon, but on the foundation of Christ’s blood atonement for us and the foundation before that of God's sovereign grace in choosing us before the foundation of the world, to be adopted as His sons and daughters, and the foundation of the saving work of Christ and then this vision of a holy temple rising to become larger and larger with living stones quarried from Satan's dark kingdom from all over the world, every tribe and language and people and nation, we the living stones built into this spiritual house to be a temple, a spiritual house in which God lives by His spirit, on the foundation of that, Ephesians 1-3, we have Ephesians 4-6. Beginning in Ephesians 4:1, it says, "As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." Then one chapter later, now in this verse, Ephesians 5:1, "Live a life of love. Imitate God and live a life of love or walk in love as Christ loved us and gave Himself." This is the kind of life we should live. Now this morality, this Christian ethic, flows from the Gospel. We are commanded in chapter 4 verses 17-24, "I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They're darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more." That's the nature of the darkness that was in us apart from Christ. That's the nature of the darkness of the people we're going to try to reach with the Gospel as Nathan was just talking about, our neighbors, our co-workers. Their hearts are hardened. They don't walk in love. They don't live a life of self-sacrificial love. They're filled with bitterness and unforgiveness toward people who have sinned against them. They harbor that bitterness. They feed it. They nurse their grievances and I think often about them. But he said, "You didn't come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard him and you were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self," as we've already said, "created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." And so, then that flows out into morality in all areas of life. In verse 25, "Put off all falsehood and instead speak truthfully to your neighbor." Verse 26, "Put off sinful anger. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry." And verse 28, "Put off stealing, but instead work hard and bless and benefit your neighbor by your labor so that you can share with those in need." And then verse 29, "Put off all corrupting speech, [anything that's corruptible and wicked] and instead speak only those things that build up your neighbors and give grace to those who hear that it might benefit them." And put off this unforgiveness, this wickedness, this anger of all level, any kind of malice or anger or brawling or any of these things. Be kind and compassionate to one other instead, forgiving one another, just as in Christ, God has forgiven you. Imitating God’s Love And so, these moral imperatives I think, atheists that want to be moral, or Greek philosopher types that want to live an upright life, Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard Almanack-type morality, they can do that, the horizontal thing, and we can imitate some of that, but for us, it's all founded on our vertical relationship with God, on the fact that we have the indwelling Holy Spirit, whom we are not to grieve, and how we are to imitate our adoptive Heavenly Father and walk like Him. It's a whole different type of ethic. And so, we're told here to imitate God or be imitators of God in His love. Look at verse 1 and 2, "Be imitators of God therefore as dearly loved children and walk in love." God is Love Here, we are to imitate, I think, the central attribute of God as He presents Himself to us. God is love. 1 John 4:16, "God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God and God in him." This is the strongest statement about love in the Bible, 1 John 4:16. “God is love.” God certainly commands love and He exemplifies love and He teaches us about love, but 1 John 4:16 says God actually is love, and from this, as I meditate on it, I see He's the source of all love there is in my heart. He's the source of everything, and as I come to this ethical command that I'm to live a life of love or walk in love, it's not long before I realize that I don't, that there is still some of that residual darkness in my heart, a hardness in my heart, and that I don't love my neighbor as I should, as myself, and so to know that God is love, that if I want to be transformed, if I want to live a life of love and walk in love, I need to get closer to God. He is the source of all love. Now, what do we mean by love? Well, I've come to see it this way. It has to do with our heart, the essence of our, the centerpiece of our being, our minds, our hearts, our souls, and their ability to either be attracted to something or repulsed from something to a greater or lesser degree, like magnetic attraction or repulsion such as we talk about liking or loving something, being attracted to it, or disliking, or hating something. We all have that nature created in the image of God. We can be attracted to or repulsed from something to a greater or lesser degree. We're made like this. And so, love is on the positive side of attraction. It's that my heart is drawn to something, attracted to it, but then this ethic, this morality of love, moves beyond heart attraction into cheerful sacrificial action that benefits the person that I'm loving. So, it's heart attraction resulting in cheerful action. That's the essence of love, and God is the source of all of that love. God's heart is attracted to all that He has made. He is attracted to His universe. He's attracted to the things that He shaped and molded with His own hands. “So, after God had created everything in six days and looked out over everything that He had made, and behold it was very good, and you see a sense of God's attraction to the works of His hands, and even after the fall, even after sin entered in, there's still that love of God toward His creatures, all of them.” And so, in Psalm 145, verses 13-17, it says, "The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. The Lord upholds all those who fall and lifts up those who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you O Lord, and you give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and you satisfy the desires of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all He has made." So God's heart goes out toward His creation and He is delighted. He finds personal joy in doing His creation good. So that's the essence of love. We are commanded to have our heart go out horizontally toward others, and to find personal delight in doing good to people around us. It's not enough to just do good, we have to find personal delight or joy in it. “God loves a cheerful giver.” He wants us to love loving one another, if we could use that redundant expression. He wants us to be cheerful in giving to one another. So God's love is on display every time He feeds one of His creatures, every time the sun rises and then warms a field of wheat or barley, every time there's a feeling of a breeze on your face or the rain soaking the earth and sustaining life. All of these things are gifts from God, and God gives it to people whether they love Him or not. He gives it to His enemies. “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” He is generous toward everyone that He's made whether they acknowledge Him or not, and God overwhelmingly has loved His enemies, human beings who do not acknowledge His gifts. They owe him thanks. They ought to be thankful. They ought to worship Him and glorify Him as God and give thanks to Him, but they don't, and yet God is generous to them. It says in Psalm 103:5, "He satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles." Well, God has loved us, we who are Christians, at an even infinitely higher level. Even before we were born, even before the creation of the world, God set His love on us in Christ. Look again. Go back at Ephesians 1:4 and 5. It says, "He chose us," He, God the Father, chose us, in Christ, "in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." “In love, [in love,] He predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will.” God Loved Us Before We Were Born So what I'm saying is that God's heart went out toward us by name before the creation of the world. And He set His affection on us and delighted to do us good. He delighted to do us good. And so He loved the world like it says in John 3:16, "God so loved the world" or in this way, "God loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." And so He loved His elect by setting His electing love on them, and by sending Christ in the world, and by offering His Son as an atonement for our sins. As Romans 5:8, says "God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners...", and again, 1 John 4:10, "This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.” So God loved us directly in saving us. God put up with all of your sins for the days, weeks, months and years before you were regenerated, covered them. He was gracious and patient to you in all that time and He loved you by sending the Gospel to you, maybe again and again, He sent messengers of the Gospel to you, who sought to persuade you to trust in Christ. Maybe it was your parents, maybe a brother or a sister, maybe it was a friend, someone in college, maybe a co-worker. And God reached out to you again and again, and then if you're a Christian, He loved you, ultimately by sending the Holy Spirit to take out that heart of stone, and give you the heart of flesh, so that you would love Jesus and believe in Him, and trust in Him. It's because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, it says in 1 Corinthians 1, "It's because of the Holy Spirit's work on you that you believe in Jesus." God has been so loving to you and in all of this, God was delighted to do it. It's something that's hard for us to understand, but God really enjoys saving people. I love what Jesus says in Luke's Gospel, He says, "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom." It's been one of the most fruitful verses I've ever meditated on, on the pleasure of God in saving me. He enjoys saving me, He enjoys forgiving me, He enjoys “washing me with water through the word.” He enjoys presenting me to Himself as holy and blameless. And He will enjoy raising my corpse from the grave, and making it glorious and radiant in His glory. He enjoys creating a Church and then He will enjoy creating the New Heavens and the New Earth as a home for His bride to live in forever, He enjoys this, He delights in it. Now: God Commands Us to Imitate His Love And so, we are called on to imitate God in His love, this lavish display of God's love comes with an inherent command, “if God has so loved us, we ought to love one another.” That's what's going on in Ephesians 5:1. 1 John 4:11, "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another," and this is especially poignant, when it comes to the issue of forgiveness of sins. We saw this last week, but I don't think I can say it too much. We are commanded to be gracious and merciful and forgiving to people who sin against us. Whether they're Christians or non-Christians. But especially within the Body of Christ, we are commanded to be gracious and to be forgiving toward those who sin against us. As we saw last time, God is likened to a king to whom we owed an incalculable debt. The 10,000 talents, and God forgave all of that debt just out of His grace and mercy and with it, comes an obligation, the vertical relationship of forgiveness carries with it a horizontal imperative, we ought to so love one another. We ought to forgive one another. We ought to not find some fellow servant who owes us a third of a year's wages, and choke them and say, "Pay me what you owe me." This life of love should be one of tenderness and compassion to other sinners, we should feel the weight of their misery in sin and yearn to set them free. The love of God in Christ should constrain us to reach out. Like Nathan was saying, like we've been saying, we want to reach out, not just this week but throughout the year, to people who are in bondage, to people who are without hope and without God in the world, to show mercy to them and show compassion, even if they treat us very poorly. Let me tell you, throughout church history, Christians have amazingly loved their enemies in ways that has had converting power. So actually, it might be better if you ventured out in evangelism in the workplace and get smacked down this week. Or by your neighbors and get badly treated. And then love and forgive, and who knows but a month later, they might be in some medical emergency, and you'll be the only one that shows any consideration for them, or maybe their spouse, or their child, and they'll remember how badly they treated you and how gracious and loving, you're being toward them. I was incredibly rude to Steve Chamberlain who led me to Christ and the Lord never lets me forget it. So don't tell me you don't want to witness remember how you treated Steve, now go out and share your faith. But it actually was instrumental it doubled back on itself because I realized, “Why was I being so rude to this guy. What did he ever do to me, he's actually only been kind to me.” That was the beginning of seeing my own sin, and the need I had for Christ, actually the way I treated him so badly, and the way he was so kind to me, was actually instrumental to my salvation. So we see this again and again, Stephen as he is being stoned to death cries out saying, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." You must believe that that had an impact on Saul of Tarsus, who heard him say those words. An Anabaptists Self-Sacrificial Love There's a story of an Anabaptist man named Dirk Willems, Anabaptists were persecuted by almost every authority in Continental Europe, back then, and this godly man, Dirk Willems was fleeing for his life, across a frozen lake, and suddenly his pursuer, he heard his pursuers getting closer and closer, but he heard a crack in the ice and then the unmistakable sound is that man fell through the ice, and Dirk Willems stopped, he was free now, he could get away, but he went back on the clearly dangerous ice, and got close to where he'd fallen in and he rescued this man and saved his life pulled him out, but the time he took to go back and pull that man back out of that freezing water, allowed some others that were chasing as well to lay hands on him. And though this man that Dirk Willems had pulled out of the freezing water, pleaded with them to let him go, and he eventually came to faith in Christ at any rate, Dirk Willems was burned at the stake for his heterodox beliefs according to them. So he basically traded his own mortal life, so that at least one man could have eternal life. Just the forgiveness that is shown. Burdened to Forgive: Corrie ten Boom I read an account and some of you have read it too of Corrie ten Boom, who is a Dutch woman, who with her family risked much to protect the Jews during the Nazi occupation during World War II. Eventually, they were discovered and they were arrested and they were put in the concentration camp at Ravensbruck, and it eventually led to the death of her sister, Betsie. She never forgot that, obviously, it was on one of most terrible experiences of her life, but in the years that followed God gave her a ministry of speaking about her experiences in the concentration camp, and her experiences in her Christian walk, and the amazing forgiveness that God gives In Christ and how God takes our sins and throws them into the depths of the sea. And we never see them again. Well, to her horror at one particular church service, after it was done, a former SS guard came up, and she recognized him and he came up smiling and said, "Isn't it wonderful how God takes all of our sins and throws them in the depths of the sea, and we see them no more? Well, I've become a Christian and I want to say will you please forgive me for what I did to you and your family?" And he stuck out his hand like that. Well, she stood there looking at his hand and this is what she said, she said "I knew I had to forgive him. The message that God forgives has a prior condition that we forgive those who have injured us. Jesus said, "If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses." I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but I saw it as a daily experience since the end of the war, I had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality, and those who were able to forgive their former tormentors were also able to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what their physical or emotional scars. But those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and horrible as that, but now there I stood. And as I looked at that man's hand extended toward me, there was a coldness clutching my heart, but I realized that forgiveness is not first of all an emotion. I knew that too forgiveness is an act of the will, it's a commitment, and that the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. So I prayed, "Jesus help me," I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand, I can do that much. You must supply the feeling." And so, she said, "woodenly mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me, and as I did something incredible took place. There started to be a feeling in my shoulder like electrical current that flowed down my arm and sprang into our joined hands and then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being and it brought tears to my eyes. "I do forgive you brother, with all of my heart." For a long moment we grasped each other's hands. The former guard and the former prisoner I have never known God's love so intensely as I did at that moment.” Now, by the way, I think that is exactly why we will remember everything that happened on earth. Because we will feel God's grace and power and forgiveness and saving work of Christ far more powerfully when we remember the details of the stories or the things that happened here on earth. Apart from that, how can we celebrate God's grace? What would it even mean if we have no memory of all the sufferings that sin caused in this world? So, we are to walk in love as God has loved us. Is there someone you need to forgive? I asked you this last week, you had a week to think about it. Is there someone you're still bitter toward? As Beloved Children We Imitate God Because He Adopted Us God is commanding you in Ephesians 5:1 to imitate God in His loving forgiveness of those that have sinned against you, and He's commanding you to do it as beloved children, as dearly loved children, He says. We are the adopted children of God. “In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ.” 1 John 3:1, "Behold what manner of love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God", and that is what we are. This is a motive for our walking in love because we bear the family likeness. More than that, we bear the family name, and Jesus said, "By this will all men know that you're my disciples, if you love one another if you walk in love in this kind of forgiveness, then everyone around will know what it means to be in the family of God. You're putting the Father's name on display, His reputation, by how you live, and we are to imitate Christ's love." He goes from the Father to the Son. "Be imitators of God, therefore as dearly loved children and live a life of love or walk in love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." So ultimately, Christ is the example of walking in love. Imitating Christ’s Love Christ is the Greatest Example of God’s Love At every moment, He loved the Lord his God vertically with all of His heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then horizontally, loved His neighbors as Himself. Think about His healing ministry, His healing ministry, was so successful and so famous so pervasive that huge crowds from multiple cities around wherever He was poured out every day to be healed by Jesus, it was so much and so overwhelming that people couldn't even get physically near Jesus, even to touch Him. He did this out of compassion, out of love. How do you know that? Well, in Mark 1: 40-42, it says "A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees. If you are willing, you can make me clean. Jesus filled with compassion, reached out his hand and touched the man. I am willing, be clean and immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy." You know, Jesus could have healed 10,000 people with a word, you know that, don't you? 10,000 people, “You're all healed go home.” But Jesus wanted to be able to look people in the eye and say, "I love you, I want a relationship with you. I want to touch your hand and heal you. I don't have to touch your hand, but I want to. I want to look you in the eye and I want a relationship with you." It was out of love that he did those healings, same thing with his teaching ministry. And one of the accounts in Mark chapter 8, Jesus landed and when he saw a huge crowd that they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd, He had compassion on them, and taught them many things, so His teaching ministry, was an evidence of His love for other people. So also His feeding ministry in Mark chapter 8. He said, "I have compassion with these people. They've been with me many days, three days now. And if they go home, they'll collapse on the way, feed them." Everything Jesus did was motivated by love for God and others, He walked in love, He lived a daily life of love and especially you see that in His sacrificial love on the cross, and not just this time of year, not just holy week, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, leading up to Easter Sunday. Sacrificial Love at the Cross Do we Christians contemplate the death of Jesus? Jesus gave Himself up for us, as a fragrant offering, it says, in sacrifice to God. Have you noticed how similar this verse is to Galatians 2:20? Galatians 2:20 says, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself up for me." But this verse says that “Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us. I think both of those things are worthy of meditation.” There is an intensely personal love that God has for each of His sheep. He knows us by name and we can say honestly from Galatians 2:20, "He loved me, and gave Himself up for me, so I should love others and give myself up for them." But then we can expand and say, "Well there's a lot of us, there's a multitude greater than anyone could count. He loved us and gave Himself up for us, as well. And it says that He gave Himself up as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” As a Fragrant Sacrifice The Atonement: The Centerpiece of Salvation The Old Testament again and again, animal sacrifices were spoken of as a fragrant offering well pleasing to God. Like Noah, remember when he took some of the clean animals and he offered them up and the aroma of the pleasing sacrifice went up to God, the pleasing aroma. Now, you shouldn't imagine that God just has a taste for meat. God doesn't have a taste for meat. He just loves the smell of a barbecue, just oh God, no that's not it. He's looking at the heart of Noah and his faith, and the sacrifice and his willingness to give at that point, and that's the offering of Jesus. Jesus gave Himself up to the Father on our behalf, the fulfillment of all of the animal sacrificial system. He gave Himself up. He died in our place that we sinners trusting in him might have forgiveness of sins. The Aroma of a Pleasing Sacrifice Now that's an aroma wafting heaven-ward from what Jesus did, the life He lived and the death He died. It's an aroma, a fragrant offering to God. What is the aroma wafting heaven-ward from your life? What does your life smell like to God? Let's put it that way. Is it fragrant? There are a number of things that are said to be wafting heaven-ward like our prayers are caught in a ball, they're like incense that goes up. Our prayer life can waft heaven-ward. Revelation 5:9 says, "The prayers of the saints are caught like incense. And our service to other sinners." It says in Hebrews 13:15, "Therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name and do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices, God is pleased." So there you have two-fold sacrifice. Vertical, praising His name, it's like a fragrant offering, a heart of worship, and then horizontally, doing good to others, whatever that means, is a fragrant offering and sacrifice with which God is well pleased. Even money given to missionaries is spoken of in Philippians 4:18, He talks about the money that Epaphroditus brought and he said they're a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. So the money you give to church workers, to mission workers, or to any other brother and sister in Christ, is doing some kind of ministry is a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God and our evangelism. 2 Corinthians 2:15 and 16, "For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and to those who are perishing, to the one we are the smell of death, but to the other the fragrance of life." How Then Shall We Live? So, we are called on to live a life of love. What is the fragrance that floats from your life? What's the fragrance of your home life? What's the fragrance of your marriage? What's the fragrance of your parenting? What's the aroma of how you live towards the poor and needy, toward lost people? What about toward those who sin against you, hurt you, in some way? What is the fragrance wafting from your life? As we come to this text, this is a very plain, straightforward text but it challenges me. Do I find my delight in blessing other people? Am I a cheerful giver? Something that my son Calvin and I were, we've been talking about, we were going through discipleship and we've been talking about love and it's something that I said, "Pray for me, I want to pray for you too, but I want to find my joy, my delight in blessing others. I don't want to complain when serving others, I don't want to be negative. I want to be joyful and delight in forgiving others, that's the kind of life I want to live, and that's the kind of life I want this church to live. I want us to be a beacon of hope in this community. I want us to live a life of love just as God loved us in Christ and gave His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Close with me in prayer. Prayer Father, these words will continue to challenge us the rest of our lives. We know that you have loved us and we know that you have forgiven us through Christ, and you loved us when we are most unlovely, when we were in some ways repulsive. Father, thank you for that love, and I pray that now you would do a work through the Holy Spirit of God, of love in our lives. Help us to love one another, to find joy and delight in blessing others, to find personal happiness in alleviating other people's suffering, whether that's through evangelism or through mercy ministry, or through simple forgiveness, I pray that you would enable us to alleviate the suffering of people that we find around us. Help us to live a life of love, to walk in love, just as Christ did. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Nov 29: Rev. Michael Ellis: "How Then Shall We Live?" by St. Francis in-the-Field
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How Then Shall We Live? Sin, Sanctification, the Law and the Gospel
How Then Shall We Live? Sin, Sanctification, the Law and the Gospel
How Then Shall We Live? Sin, Sanctification, the Law and the Gospel
The message below was preached by Rob Willey, Senior Pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel Davenport, on April 26-27, 2014. The message came from Isaiah 54 and was titled "How Then Shall We Live?"
How Then Shall We Live. For more information and resources, please visit www.crosstownechurch.com.
How Then Shall We Live. For more information and resources, please visit www.crosstownechurch.com.
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