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Numbers chapter 2 describes the arrangement of the camp of Israel. Everything that their Sovereign gave to His people Israel was orderly and purposeful. Even in what might seem to be simple matters there were divine principles being taught to the Almighty's family. Each tribe had its banner, or flag. Three tribes camped on each side of the central Sanctuary, where the Tabernacle was located. The three tribes grouped on the eastern side of the Tabernacle under the flag of Judah – the lion – were Judah, at the head, and Issachar and Zebulon. On the southern side encamped a further three tribes under the standard of Reuben, the man, these were – Reuben, Simeon and Gad. The order stated for the tribes and for the furniture and tent of the Tabernacle was for camping and setting forth; as verse 34 tells us. What this chapter does not tell us is that the ark of the covenant led the Israelites on their journeying (Numbers 10:33-36). Psalm 145 is a Psalm of David which could be titled as, “I will extol you my God and my King”. Verses 1 to 3 tell of our Sovereign's greatness and of the worthiness of praising His Name. Verses 3 to 7 speak of each subsequent generation of God's people would relate His awesome deeds and extol and praise their LORD. Verses 8 and 9 summarise the character of the Almighty, “Yahweh is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in stedfast love. Yahweh is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made” (ESV). Compare these thoughts with the LORD's revealing, to Moses, His Name and what it meant (Exodus 34 verses 5to 7). The Psalmist proclaims that the remembrance of this would continue to cause the people of God to praise Him and acclaim His greatness. Psalm146 deals with the powerlessness of every human regardless of their supposed status and power . The prophet Isaiah also commented on this, “Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?” (Isaiah 2 verse 22, ESV). We must praise God while we have breath. Hezekiah tells us this following his miraculous healing from leprosy. The Almighty extended Hezekiah's life by 15 years. And the king's response was, “For Sheol does not thank You; death does not praise You; those that go down to the pit do not hope for Your faithfulness. The living, the living, he thanks You as I do this day; the father makes known to the children Your faithfulness” Isaiah 38 verses 18 and 19 (ESV). There is no consciousness in death as verses 3-4 state. Thought ceases when we breathe out our last breath. What a contrast to the Omnipotent Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth. When our Sovereign stoops to aid the powerless no power in heaven or earth can resist Him. Verse 8 tells us that He particularly takes up the cause of the widows and the fatherless (Psalm 68 verses 5 and 6; and so must we James 1 verse 27). But the wicked will be dealt with speedily. Praise our God forever you citizens of Zion. Let all generations to come praise Him. Hallelujah. Psalm 147 tells us that our God is the One who heals the broken hearted. Verses 1-3 celebrate the care of our Heavenly Father in gathering the outcasts. The awesome power of the Creator is told in verses 4-5; as He knows each star by name. Verse 6 tells of His gentleness. What a wonderful combination of characteristics are present with our God. Hannah spoke of them in her prayer recorded in 1 Samuel 2 verses 1 to 10. In Psalm 147 verse 7 the faithful are called upon to offer thanksgiving to their Sovereign. Once again verses 8-10 blend His great power and His disdain for human pride. What He asks from His children is reverence and a trust for His stedfast love. Verses 12 to 20 tell of the blessings He bestows upon His children. But note that the emphasis upon the knowing of His Word and the understanding of His ways are stressed above and beyond any of the material blessings. In Luke 12 the Lord counsels regarding the destructive teachings of the Pharisees. Our Lord Jesus says to his followers to have no fear when they are tried and killed by the religious authorities. This is because our Father has power over everything – including life and death. When giving testimony before rulers believers would be aided in their witness. In the parable in this chapter of the rich fool (based on the life of Nabal in 1 Samuel 25) our Lord refuses to arbitrate in a property dispute between two brothers. Instead Jesus turns the opportunity into a discussion about the dangers of covetousness and the need to be rich in loving service to God at all times. Christ urges the disciples to be free from anxiety. Look at nature and the Almighty's abundantly providing out of His richness. Disciples need, as wise and faithful servants, to be in a state of continual readiness for their Lord's coming. A constant challenge for disciples is that often times family opposition will be the result of a person's acceptance of Christ. As disciples we must be alert to the era in which we live. Our Master is standing at the doorpost of our hearts and knocking: Revelation 3:20-21. Finally if believers find themselves in a dispute they need to quickly reach agreement with their adversaries or the results may be much worse.
Most of us probably wouldn't consider ourselves “gluttons.” But when we look at how we spend our free time, how we respond to boredom or hardship, or what we do for “rest,” we likely find ourselves giving into excess and impulse. By definition, this is gluttony: consumption without contentment. To find happiness or satisfaction, we often chase cheap impulses, or what some call “pseudo-joys.” But this problem isn't new. Jesus calls it out when the crowds followed him after they ate the five thousand loaves and fish that he gave them. “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” Instead Jesus reminds the crowds, and us, that He is the Bread of Life that satisfies our deepest desires. This is the fruit of joy. By practicing both fasting and feasting, we can slowly train ourselves to resist gluttony and instead embrace the true joy that Jesus offers us.
Most of us probably wouldn't consider ourselves “gluttons.” But when we look at how we spend our free time, how we respond to boredom or hardship, or what we do for “rest,” we likely find ourselves giving into excess and impulse. By definition, this is gluttony: consumption without contentment. To find happiness or satisfaction, we often chase cheap impulses, or what some call “pseudo-joys.”But this problem isn't new. Jesus calls it out when the crowds followed him after they ate the five thousand loaves and fish that he gave them. “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” Instead Jesus reminds the crowds, and us, that He is the Bread of Life that satisfies our deepest desires. This is the fruit of joy.By practicing both fasting and feasting, we can slowly train ourselves to resist gluttony and instead embrace the true joy that Jesus offers us.
Most of us probably wouldn't consider ourselves “gluttons.” But when we look at how we spend our free time, how we respond to boredom or hardship, or what we do for “rest,” we likely find ourselves giving into excess and impulse. By definition, this is gluttony: consumption without contentment. To find happiness or satisfaction, we often chase cheap impulses, or what some call “pseudo-joys.”But this problem isn't new. Jesus calls it out when the crowds followed him after they ate the five thousand loaves and fish that he gave them. “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.” Instead Jesus reminds the crowds, and us, that He is the Bread of Life that satisfies our deepest desires. This is the fruit of joy.By practicing both fasting and feasting, we can slowly train ourselves to resist gluttony and instead embrace the true joy that Jesus offers us.
Leviticus 23 deals with the feasts of Yahweh, of which there were 8 – the weekly Sabbath, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks, the festival of the Blowing of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, the Feast of Tabernacles and lastly the Feast of the Eighth Day (called by the Jews Shemini Azaret, or Day of the Righteous). Note the repetition of patterns of 7 and 8 associated with these Feasts. The term “convocation” used of the Feasts means “an appointment”, or a “rehearsal”. These were typical of our Lord Jesus Christ. They were the shadow, he was the reality. The chapter breakdown is as follows: Verses 1-2 the holy convocation; Verse 3 the Sabbath; Verses 4 to5 the Passover; Verses 6 to 8 the feast of unleavened bread; Verses 9 to 14 the sheaf of the first fruits; Verses 15to 21 the feast of weeks; Verse 22 the gleanings of the stranger; Verses 23 to 25 the feast of trumpets; Verses 26 to 32 the Day of Atonement; Verses 33 to 44 the feast of Tabernacles; Verse 36 the feast of the eighth day. Eight is the number in the New Testament, which speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ. The following analysis of the Feasts is presented for the reader's' consideration: The weekly Passover spoke of the rest Christ at initially gives to the followers – Matthew 11 verses 28,30 to 12 verse 8; and finally completed in the Kingdom rest Hebrews 4 verses 7 to 11. The Passover and the Feast of unleavened bread 1 Corinthians 5 verses 7 and 8. (Christ the sheaf of the first fruits 1 Corinthians 15 verse 23) The Feast of Weeks (called in the New Testament, “Pentecost”) the time when the old covenant, or the Ten Commandments, was first given at Sinai; and the ecclesia founded by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2 the entire chapter). These all related to our Lord's first advent. Then the Feast of Trumpets speaking of the judgments at the commencement of Jesus' coming and preliminary to the setting up of his kingdom – Revelation 10, 11 verses 15 to19. The Day of Atonement speaks of the sacrifice of Christ, in which God's righteousness is upheld, revealed and demonstrated, and by which God has reconciled the world to Himself. It also speaks of Israel's national conversion; their acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour – Zechariah 12 verse 7-13. The Feast of Tabernacles, or booths, tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ has found rest for his faithful followers and they must come apart and contemplate the grace of their God and His incomparable Son. It will also be the festival observed by the mortal nations during the Kingdom Age – Zechariah 14 verses 9, and 16 where the nations of the entire earth will have their minds focused on the same lessons. The eighth day speaks of the fulfilling of God's purpose after the Millennium, and the following resurrection and judgment when every remaining mortal person, will be immortalised – 1 Corinthians 15 verses 24 to28. Psalm 128 talks of the blessing to those who reverence their God and walk before Him in the paths of righteousness. The labours of the faithful will be productive and their will blessings on family life. But the ultimate blessing is peace ie fellowship with our Sovereign in the Kingdom Age; for says the Psalm, the blessings flow from Zion (Isaiah 2 verses 1 to 4). Psalm 129 tells us that the path of the righteous is strewn with obstacles and trials. But never lose heart for in due season we shall reap if we faint not (Galatians 6 verses 6 to10). Psalm 130 provides us with great consolation. It was the Apostle John who said, “if your heart condemns you, Fear not for God is greater than your heart”. The Psalmist tells us that the LORD does not mark sin against those who have confessed to Him and been forgiven. What an awesome God is ours. But this forgiveness brings immense responsibility for His children, who reverence Him; who desire to walk faithfully wrapped in His love; and whose conscience smites them when they fail their gracious Father, so they immediately turn to God, and confess and acknowledge their sin; they repent and renounce their sin, and they humbly seek forgiveness of their sin. Luke chapter 6 tells us of the rebuke that our Lord Jesus' foes issues to Jesus' disciples for supposedly breaking the Sabbath. The Lord shows from the Scriptures that, based on the record of David in 1 Samuel 21 – the disciples, like David were blameless and that the Son of God was “the Lord of the Sabbath”. Next our Lord cures a man with a withered hand, again on the Sabbath. This man had undoubtedly been placed in the synagogue to trap the Lord. Instead Jesus' enemies found that they themselves had the tables turned on them. Jesus uses the occasion to teach the lessons of the Sabbath. The Sabbath is for helping and healing: Isaiah 561-8; 58 verses 6 to14. Read those words aloud and ponder their meaning for the way we must live. After a night in prayer to His Father Christ chose his twelve Apostles. The record says that multitudes come to him and are cured. The chapter follows by outlining our Lord Jesus Sermon on the Plain. No doubt this is a separate occasion from Matthew 5-7. The themes are common as the message did not change. The Beatitudes, or blessings producing happiness, to the citizens of Zion who will be granted glory in Messiah's kingdom are outlined. They present a complete picture of the character of our Lord Jesus Christ. On this occasion the counterpart of the curses upon the enemies of the Kingdom are enumerated. Like the Matthew record, we are once more told, that we 1) need to love our enemies in order to be as our Father; 2) must not to be censorious and hypocritical by finding fault in others; 3) a tree is be known by its fruits ie the outcomes, or behaviours, of our lives; 4) need to build our faith and lives on the rock that is our Lord Jesus Christ: Ephesians 2 verses 17 to 22.
Daily Anglican Prayer – Sunday Holy Eucharist at home – 29th December 2024 Readings. Samuel 2. 18-20, 26; Psalm 148; Colossians 3. 12-17; Luke 2. 41-52. Led by Felicity Scott, a Liturgical Assistant with the Anglican Church, QLD, Australia. The full prayer transcript is available by going to this episode on the Podcast website. https://dailyprayeranglicanprayerbookforaustralia.podbean.com Welcome to Sunday Holy Eucharist for you at home from the Anglican a prayer book for Australia. Preparing for this Eucharist: During this service you can minister Eucharist to yourself and your gathered family members. Place on your table if you have them, a Bible, a small glass of red wine or grape juice, pieces of bread or wafers, one piece for each participant, a lighted candle and a cross. Gather all who are to partake in the Eucharist around the table. The majority of the words of this eucharist are available from page 119 in the Anglican a prayer book for Australia or use the episode link to view the words. We gather together to celebrate God. The Good News We proclaim the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ: GOD in his infinite mercy, forgives all sins, and through our baptism in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, we are given a rebirth into new life, free from the burden of all sin. ALLELUIA With faithfulness we respond to the good news: We acknowledge Christ as our saviour and accept with gratitude, that we are forgiven for all wrong doings, past and present. To honour the gift of forgiveness, we release our burden of guilt and rise up to live in the glory of God forever more. Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Blessed be God forever. Let us Pray. The greeting The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. And also with you. The prayer of preparation; Let us pray. Almighty God, To whom all hearts are open, All desires known, And from whom no secrets are hidden; cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen Hear O Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Jesus said: ‘This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: you shall love your neighbour as yourself.' The Confession Our Lord Jesus Christ said: Lord, have mercy on us, and write your law in our hearts by your Holy Spirit. Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith confident in God's forgiveness. Merciful God, our maker and our judge, we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed; And in what we have failed to do: we have not loved you with our whole heart, we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves; we repent and are sorry for all our sins. Father, forgive us. Strengthen us to love and obey you in newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. The Assurance of Forgiveness Almighty God, who has promised forgiveness to all who turn to him in faith, pardon you and set you free from all your sins, strengthen you in all goodness and keep you in eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Lord have mercy Christ have mercy God have mercy The Gloria, we say together Glory to God in the highest and peace to God's people on earth. Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world: have mercy on us; you are seated at the right hand of the Father: receive our prayer. For you alone are the Holy One; you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen. The Collect of the Day – Year B Collect for the first Sunday after Christmas. Saving God, whose Son Jesus was presented in the temple and was acclaimed the glory of Israel and the light of the nations: grant that in him we may be presented to you and in the world may reflect his glory, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen The Prayer of the Week First Sunday after Christmas Almighty God, you have shed upon us the light of your incarnate Word: May this light, kindled in our hearts, shine forth in our lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen The Old Testament, Scripture Reading 1 1 Samuel 2. 18-20, 26 The Child Samuel at Shiloh 18Samuel was ministering before the Lord, a boy wearing a linen ephod. 19His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. 20Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, “May the Lord repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the Lord”; and then they would return to their home. 26 'Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the Lord and with the people. ' Hear the word of the Lord Thanks be to God. The Psalm Psalm 148; The New Testament, Scripture Reading 2 Colossians 3. 12-17 12 As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. The lord be with you. And also with you. The Gospel reading. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke 2. 41-52 As you make a small cross signs on your own forehead, left cheek and upper chest, we say together ‘Glory to you Lord Jesus Christ'. The Boy Jesus in the Temple 41 Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. 42And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. 43 When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. 44 Assuming that he was in the group of travellers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?”50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour. This is the gospel of the Lord, Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. A Short Homily on Luke 2. 41-52 This passage is revealing how people when they journey to a better place, instead of continuing in that better place, they return home to where they used to dwell. In this gospel the family of Jesus' journeyed together to Jerusalem and then after paying homage, they started to return to their old home, their old way of living. What was the point of going on a pilgrimage of growth and reverence if they were going to set a time limit on remaining in that newfound spirit. Jesus however didn't immediately return to the old home with his parents. Instead Jesus wanted to remain in that new found spirit, he wanted to remain right there continuing to grow and learn with God. The only way he could turn away was by being obedient to his parents, it wasn't his want to return to the old home but out of respect for his parents he did. Our lives are filled with moments of revelation that lift us up to higher spiritual levels, all too often it is actually other people that pull us back down to be the person we were before. By asking God to be our only guide of our lives and our actions is a way that we can continue to dwell in higher spiritual levels to let ourselves remain in God's presence in all we do regardless of what others want us to be. Let us pause for a moment to reflect. The belief and principle is said I believe in God, creator of heaven and earth, whose love and merciful forgiveness endures everlasting. I believe in Christ the saviour, whose example of love and compassion, taught us a restored way to live, in collaborative unity with all people. I believe in the Holy Spirit, whose divine guidance brings us together to be one with the Holy Trinity. The Nicene Creed We believe in God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in Jesus Christ, Son of God, God from God, Light from Light, of one Being with the Father. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father in glory and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. Who has spoken through the Prophets. We acknowledge the forgiveness of sins and the life of the world to come. Amen. The Prayers Let us pray for the world and for the church. God, we give you thanks for opening our eyes to witness your hand at work in the gifts that surround us. Thank you for your continued love and blessings in abundance throughout our lives. Bless us with your generous nature good Lord, as we answer your call to minister to your will. Guide us to walk before you in faithfulness, in righteousness and in upright honour towards you. God of Love we ask you. Hear our Prayer God, we offer thanks for your blessing of peace across all countries and continents. Give all your servants an understanding mind, able to recognise between good and evil. Give us all wise and discerning minds, that we might know how to honour God in our life. God of Love we ask you. Hear our Prayer God, we thank you for the church leaders in Australia, teach them to refresh us through their leadership. Guide our bishops, ministers and lay people and renew our courage to proclaim the good news of Christ in our schools, workplaces, and homes. God of Love we ask you. Hear our Prayer God, we pray thanks that with your guidance we live in your light and go out in your name to help others who are less fortunate. We pray that through our reverence in the name of Christ, we become new and maintain our light even when surrounded by darkness. God of Love we ask you. Hear our Prayer Heavenly Father, we thank you that through your Son Jesus Christ, you have shown us the way to live and breathe in your righteousness. Give us the strength to remain in your presence in all we do. Help us to be willing advocates of your work, guiding our actions to a better life for all. God of Love we ask you. Hear our Prayer We pause for a moment for you to pray for your own petitions. Almighty God you have promised to hear our prayers. Grant that what we have asked in faith we may by your grace receive, through Jesus Christ our lord. Amen The greeting of peace: We are the body of Christ. His spirit is with us. The peace of the lord be always with you And also, with you. Let us all exchange a sign of peace. The Preparation for the Lord's Supper We do not presume to come to your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. But you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him, and he is us. Amen. The thanksgiving: Lift up your hearts. We lift them to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give Him thanks and praise. All glory and honour be yours always and everywhere mighty creator ever living God. We give you thanks and praise for our saviour Jesus Christ who by the power of your spirit was born of Mary and lived as one of us. By his death on the cross and rising to new life he offered the one true sacrifice for sin and obtained an eternal deliverance for his people. Therefore, with angels and archangels, and with the whole company of heaven, we proclaim your great and glorious name, forever praising you, and saying: Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he that comes in the name of the LORD. Hosanna in the highest. Merciful God we thank you for these gifts of your creation, this bread and wine, and we pray that by your word and Holy Spirit we who eat and drink them may be partakers of Christ body and blood. On the night he was betrayed Jesus took bread and when he had given you thanks he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying ‘take eat. This is my body given for you do this in remembrance of me.' After supper he took the cup and again giving you thanks he gave it to his disciples saying drink from this all of you this is my blood of the new covenant shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. The memorial acclamation: Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. Therefore, we do as our saviour has commanded proclaiming his offering of himself made once for all upon the cross his mighty resurrection and glorious ascension and looking for his coming again we celebrate with this bread and this cup his one perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Renew us by your Holy Spirit, unite us in the body of your son and bring us with all your people into the joy of your eternal Kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord with whom and in whom, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, we worship you father in songs of never ending praise. Blessing and honour and glory and power are yours for ever and ever. Amen. The Lord's Prayer As our saviour Christ has taught us, we are confident to pray, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever. Amen. We break this bread to share in the body of Christ. We who are many are one body, for we all share in the one bread. Jesus Lamb of God, have mercy on us. Jesus bearer of our sins, have mercy on us. Jesus redeemer of the world, grant us your peace. The gifts of God for the people of God. Come, let us take this holy sacrament of the body and blood of Christ in remembrance that He died for us, and feed on Him in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving. As we minister the bread to each of the people gathered, we say: ‘The body of Christ, keep you in eternal life', and they respond with: ‘Amen'. As we minister the cup to each of the people gathered, we say: ‘The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, keep you in eternal life'; and they respond with: ‘Amen'. Please pause the recording while you minister the gifts and offer personal prayers of gratitude. On Continuing: Living God, in this holy meal you fill us with NewHope. May the power of your love, which we have known in word and sacrament, continue your saving work among us, give us courage for our pilgrimage, and bring us to the joys, you promise. We say together: Most loving God, you send us into the world you love. Give us grace to go thankfully and with courage, in the power of your holy spirit. The Final Blessing The peace of God which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen. The Dismissal We have today proclaimed the message of Christ in our homes, go forth and proclaim the message of Christ in your streets, towns, cities and countries, that all are saved by the death and resurrection of our saviour. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord. In the name of Christ, Amen. Music by John Keys – Anglican Chant Canticle organ accompaniments. A reminder disclaimer to the listener. The readings in the podcast may include ancient and old-fashioned sayings and instructions that we do not in any way condone as in use or to be used in today's modern world. The readings have not been modernised to reflect todays thinking, instead the readings remain from the old version of the NRSV bible. The podcast owners explicitly declare that each listener is responsible for their own actions in response to the bible readings and the podcast owners bare no responsibility in this sense.
Holy God so often we feel cut off from you and one another. Help us find our way to healing and hope, so that we can become new again. Amen. Strikingly beautiful, Maria had deep dark eyes and long black hair. Superficially she seemed jaded, a kind of rebel. But if you took the time to really know her, she had great intelligence, sensitivity and heart. During my junior year of high school we were close friends. She used to talk about what it felt like getting painfully lost in the shuffle after her parents split up, about her resentful mother being left with almost nothing. In those days divorce was suddenly becoming far more widespread and our society was not prepared. We did not know how to cope with divorce in a humane and grace-filled way. Divorce deeply affects all of us. Perhaps you have gone through a divorce yourself, or maybe it was your parents, your children, a close friend or work colleague. In our society really poor people, the ones who are barely making it, are far more likely to get divorced than wealthy people. Being truly part of the human family means understanding how hard it can be to sustain a relationship and how much pain we can suffer when it breaks down. Many of us also have an experience of new life and joy on the other side of this suffering. What does Jesus offer as we try to understand this feature of the human condition? Many preachers shy away from this complex topic and I worry a little about putting words into Jesus' mouth and a lot about saying something that inadvertently harms you. But I believe that Jesus offers practical and real good news. But like all communication his words need to be interpreted and this requires difficult work. It is worth it because this teaching will lead us to wholeness and new life. The context matters. Jesus has been teaching his disciples about becoming “servants of all.” [1] In fact he says that the world completely misunderstands servanthood. In Imperial Rome but also today we tend to think of servants as lower, lesser, outsiders compelled to work for those who are greater than they are. We easily slip into thinking that the great ones are those who coerce and control others. But Jesus turns this idea on its head. He tells his friends that serving others, especially vulnerable people, is the key to a meaningful life. He says that the greatest one will be servant of all. Some Pharisees come to Jesus. The name Pharisee in Aramaic means “the ones who are set apart.” [2] They care intensely about determining what and who is pure. They are right to fear Jesus because he undermines this whole project. For Jesus there is one human family and no one is impure or left out. The Pharisees ask Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” The narrator calls this question a trap. Whether Jesus says yes or no the Pharisees have a plan to condemn him. Jesus understands that there is no right answer. He also knows what happened after King Herod and his former sister-in-law each divorced their spouses and married each other. John the Baptist criticized their marriage. And this led to his execution by Herod. Rather than trying to set a policy or law on divorce Jesus changes the question. Rather than asking if it is legal to divorce he asks us to consider what God wants for us. During those times there were ethical disagreements concerning divorce. Some believed that the only justification for divorce was sexual infidelity. Others thought that a husband should be able to divorce his wife for pretty much any reason. According to the Book of Deuteronomy a man can write a certificate of divorce if his wife, “does not please him” or, “because he finds something objectionable about her” (Deut. 24:1-4). This biblical passage puts all the power in the hands of the husband. It makes divorce the rule rather than an exception to be employed only after all other courses of action have failed. Most important this law endangers the most vulnerable people in society – women and children who could not own property and who depend for their well-being on the generosity of their husband and father. This actually describes the situation of my friend Maria. Jesus hates just this kind of human suffering. You can almost hear him raise his voice as he says that the reason for a commandment permitting divorce is our “hardness of heart.” But note this. Jesus does not say Moses was wrong. Jesus does not say that the commandment permitting divorce should cease to be a law. Jesus is not forbidding divorce. Instead he uses hyperbole to make a point. In our reading a few weeks ago Jesus said that, “if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out” (Mk. 9:47). Just as this is not a call for us to pluck out our eyes, Jesus describing remarriage as a kind of adultery does not mean that no one should ever get divorced. In every way Jesus says we are children of God and our actions have lasting effects on other children of God many of whom are far more vulnerable than we are. Jesus is the same person who teaches us that the law was made for human beings not human beings for the law. Jesus' point is not to shame people who have already suffered all the effects of a broken relationship. He is not trying to make people stay in a relationship that is abusive or in one that has clearly died. He is not trying to preserve relationships that continue to do damage to the people who are in them. Instead Jesus is moving our attention from what the law permits to God's dream for how our relationships could be. Describing this higher picture of marriage Jesus rejects the Pharisees' approach which only sees the relationship from the perspective of the divorcing husband. In his words here Jesus treats women and men the same (he talks in equal terms about a man and a woman divorcing a spouse). Jesus paints a picture of what love can become. He quotes the book of Genesis and talks about people leaving their families in order to be joined together. So often in my own life I think about the deep and miraculous truth that “the two shall become one flesh.” Adding to this Jesus says that, “what God has joined together, let no one separate.” Let that sink in for a bit. Imagine two beings so united in purpose and affection that they become like one single entity. Imagine God as the source of our deepest relationships and actively at work in helping them to thrive. I understand that marriage is not for everyone. Anyone entering into marriage needs to know that even in the best circumstances it can be hard work. Marriage involves renewing the relationship over and over again. Marriage requires wisdom, communication, perseverance, patience, courage, forgiveness and an openness to what is new and what cannot be controlled. It demands not just a commitment to the other person but to the relationship itself. To be strong a marriage requires a community of support like the one gathered here this morning. Jesus wants us to know that there is more to life than feeling justified by the law and superior to another person. Jesus wants us to strive for goodness, to find the way that we are called to serve. But there are relationships that have become so broken that no matter how hard we try, they cannot be saved. Jesus speaks about this not because we have broken some rule and deserve to be punished, but because it is God's nature to be present to help us when we are suffering. [3] I began by sharing my fear of speaking about divorce with you today. I guess I really did not want to be misunderstood on this point. Jesus does not condemn people for being divorced. Fifty years ago Diane, my mother-in-law and one of the women I most admire, went through a divorce with my father-in-law. Because of this the church she grew up in utterly rejected her. For decades she never felt comfortable in a church and I did not talk to her about it. Some of you might remember that magical midnight Christmas mass ten years ago when she joined us. Delayed by her flight, Diane hesitantly made her way down the center aisle to her pew. In all those years as family we had never worshiped together. In the middle of my sermon, preaching from this pulpit I immediately recognized her. I almost started crying tears of joy because she had come home – loved by God and by you the people who welcomed her. Our reading today ends as Jesus' disciples try to keep children from bothering him. Mark writes that Jesus feels “indignant” about this. He says, “Let the children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” Mark writes, “And [Jesus] took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.” This week I keep thinking of my high school friend Maria and Jesus taking her into his arms and blessing her. I imagine Jesus holding Diane with that smile from Christmas on her face and blessing her. And in my mind's eye I see all the people who have suffered the effects of difficult marriages and divorce and he is reaching out to embrace and bless us. [1] Matt Boulton, “One Flesh: Salt's Commentary for the Twentieth Week after Pentecost, SALT, 1 October 2024. https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2018/10/3/one-flesh-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-twentieth-week-after-pentecost [2] “The appellation “Pharisee” is probably derived from the Aramaic word perishayya which means “the separated one.” Very likely the addresses of Mark's story would not know that. But from previous narrative they have already learned that the Pharisees maintain a pollution system that separates the world into two realms of the clean and the unclean.” Herman Waetjen, A Reordering of Power: A Socio-Political Reading of Mark's Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989) 165. [3] Canon Edie Weller writes about this in a sermon. She says, “Jesus was a realist. He knew that there are times when we can't reach or maintain the kind of relationship that God might dream for us. There are times and circumstances which lead to broken relationships, from which – as hard as we might work at it – we cannot recover. Jesus speaks about this not because the death of a marriage is more sinful or worse in some way than other experiences of human brokenness. Rather he speaks about this because he cares about us. God's grief in the face of our irreconcilable differences stems not from our having broken the rules or failed a divine test, but from God's response to our experience of such pain. Edie B. Weller, “Sermon for Sunday October 7, 2018 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 22), St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington. https://saintmarks.org/staff/the-rev-edie-weller/
Open your Bibles to Mark 3:31-35 A few weeks ago we were talking about all the apostles, blasphemy, and eternal sin. Jesus had selected his 12 apostles and was laying out solid truths for people to hear. Hard truths for people to hear. We are going all the way through the Gospel of Mark. You may or may not have noticed that I skipped over v.20. Today we are going to look at v.20, but that's not where we will start. Take a look at Mark 3:31-35 Like any mother or brother, or any family, you care for one another. Their concern for Jesus was real. They knew he was stirring up real controversy and grumblings with those you don't mess with. The Jewish leaders. Go back to v.20 “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat. 21 And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, “He is out of his mind.” Jesus' family has been watching Him, and they've been concerned for Him, His safety, His well being, worried about what might happen to Him if He keeps stirring up controversy. Jesus wasn't concerned with these things. Jesus had one goal… John 17:1-5 Jesus says, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” Read all of John 17 when you get a minute. You'll see that Jesus actually prays for you. So when Jesus responds to those who announced that His mother and brother's were there to see Him…He wasn't being rude. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” This wasn't meant to cause hurt, or harm to the feelings of His family. Jesus cared for His family deeply. Jesus while on the cross, dying, ensured His mother would be cared for by asking John, one of His disciples, to care for His mother. John 19:26 “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. Jesus appeared to James, His half brother, before appearing to the rest of the Apostles. Jesus' mother and siblings were included when big decisions had to be made. When Matthias was chosen to replace Judas as one of the Apostles, Mary was there joined in prayer. Instead Jesus is, as always, using this opportunity as a teaching moment. v.33 “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 Those of us who believe in Jesus as Lord and have confessed Jesus as Savior, and have decided to follow Jesus with their heart, we are part of a larger family. When Jesus said in v.34 “Here are my mother and my brothers! 35 For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.” Look around you! Look around you right now! We are brother's and sister's in Christ Jesus! We are mother's and father's to those in need! We are the body of Christ Jesus, we are the church! We are heirs to the Kingdom of God. Any one of us who is willing to accept and keep the will of God the Father. We are brother's and sister's, mother's and father's. We are family by blood…the blood of Jesus Christ our Savior who bled and died for each of us.
Grace Cathedral, San Francisco, CA 2E23 4 Easter (Year B) 8:30 a.m. & 11:00 a.m. Eucharist Sunday 21 April 2024 Good Shepherd Sunday Acts 4:5-12 Psalm 23 1 John 3:16-24 John 10:11-18 “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want” (Psalm 23). When I was at Harvard, on the advice of a friend who is a nun, I decided to take a leadership course at the Kennedy School of Government. My fellow classmates came from twenty-six countries and included CEO's, a judge, a District Attorney, an army general, a state senator, the founder of an investment bank, the co-founder of a Political Action Committee, an ambassador, a university dean, the head administrator for airports in Israel, etc. Our teacher Ronald Heifetz changed who I am. He spoke with uncanny and absolutely non-defensive frankness. He had an MD, practiced as a surgeon, and had previously taught at Harvard Medical School. He was a cello virtuoso who had studied under Gregor Piatagorsky and music was central to his understanding of leadership. [i] This week I read all my class notes – everything from doodles that spelled my wife's Hawaiian name in Greek letters to quotes with three stars in the margin (such as, “in disagreements the first value we lose sight of is the ability to be curious”). [ii] The syllabus says directly that the course's goal is, “to increase one's capacity to sustain the demands of leadership.” It was perfect preparation for the rest of my life. On the first day Heifetz said, “if you are going through a difficult time I strongly urge you not to take this course.” He was right. This was not an ordinary lecture class but a seemingly entirely improvised discussion. Heifetz would start by saying something like, “What do we want to address today?” It felt strangely dangerous. Nothing was going to come easy or be handed to us on a silver platter. We talked about the feeling in class and agreed it was tense. At one point in the early lectures Heifetz just stopped being an authority figure for a while. In the resulting chaos we learned how much we all crave authority and guiding norms. It felt more like a Werner Erhard seminar than a Harvard lecture. Heifetz might not always say it directly but he regards leadership above all as a spiritual practice. The motivations for good leadership are spiritual. The character and the skills that we need to develop for leadership are spiritual. To be effective we have to recognize forces that were previously invisible to us and experience the world with intuition and based on a real understanding of ourselves. Leadership success requires curiosity, compassion, wisdom, honesty, courage, humility, self-knowledge and the right balance between detachment and passion. Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus faces accusers who seek to kill him. He uses the metaphor of a leader as a good shepherd. This idea was already ancient in his time and mentioned in the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Psalms. You might be thinking, “No one listens to me since I retired,” or, “I'm at the lowest level in my company, or I'm just a kid, what could leadership possibly have to do with me?” Heifetz makes a central distinction between authority and leadership. Authority comes from one's institutional standing and involves managing people's expectations. [iii] Jesus was not the Roman governor or the high priest. He did not have this authority. Leadership on the other hand means mobilizing resources to make progress on difficult problems. [iv] In many instances people exercise more powerful leadership without having formal authority than with it. Jesus did. And make no mistake Jesus expects each of us to act as leaders regardless of our formal or informal authority. We exist to glorify God and to help solve the problems we encounter. For homework I invite you this week to consciously exercise leadership that is inspired by Jesus. 1. Adaptive Challenges. This morning I am going to do the opposite of what my teacher did, I am going to speak directly and briefly about three of his observations concerning leadership. [v] One of Heifetz's primary ideas concerns the difference between a technical problem and an adaptive challenge. A technical problem is one that we already know how to respond to; best practices, if you will, already exist. It may be simple like setting a broken bone or incredibly complicated like putting a person on the moon, but an expert, a mechanic, surgeon or rocket scientist, already knows how to handle it. [vi] An adaptive challenge is different. No adequate response has been developed for it. I have in mind our terrible problem of people without housing, racial prejudice, addiction, education, misinformation, poverty, war, white Christian nationalism, election denial, despair, isolation, etc. It is tempting to treat an adaptive challenge as if it were a technical problem, to look to an authority to solve that problem for us. But problems like this require cooperation among groups of people who are seeking solutions, not pretending to already know all the answers. What was Jesus' adaptive challenge? His disciples thought it was overthrowing the Roman Empire or enthroning a king who shared their identity. But this was not it. Instead Jesus was what the theologian Paul Tillich calls “the New Being.” Jesus inaugurated a new way of being human which he called “the realm of God” in which all people would be healed, cared for and treated with dignity. It is a realm of spiritual well-being in which we experience God as a kind of loving father such as the father in the Prodigal Son story. This is what Jesus means when he says, “the Father knows me and I know the Father” (Jn. 10). As a spiritual community Grace Cathedral shares this adaptive challenge of working for the realm of God. And in a society where Christianity is justifiably associated with misogyny, homophobia and unkindness we offer a vision of community in which anyone can belong before they believe. On the basis of our conviction that every person without exception is beloved by God we have taken on the adaptive challenge of transforming Christianity, of reimagining church with courage, joy and wonder. [vii] 2. Strategic Principles. Heifetz speaks a great deal about the practical work of leadership. He describes this as creating a kind of holding container for people working on the problem and then paying attention to one's own feelings to understand the mind of the group. Leadership involves uncovering and articulating the adaptive challenge. A leader also needs to manage the anxiety of the group. People have to be concerned enough to want to act but not so afraid that they will give up in hopelessness. Because human beings tend to avoid hard challenges, a leader needs to keep the group focused on the problem not just on trying to relieve the stress the group is feeling. This involves giving the work back to people at a rate they can assimilate. He also points out how important it is to protect leaders who do not have authority so that they can contribute to the solution. [viii] 3. Values. Heifetz taught us that the best leaders have such a deep feeling for their mission they will, if necessary, sacrifice themselves for the higher purpose. Heifetz refers to the leaders getting (metaphorically, mostly I hope) assassinated. This happens when the stress a leader generates in order to solve a problem becomes so great that the leader gets expelled. This is how I understand Jesus' life. Jesus talks about this. In today's gospel the Greek the word kalos which we translate as good, as in Good Shepherd, probably means something more like real or genuine. Jesus says that the hired hand is there for the transaction, for the payment, but the real shepherd has the power (ezousian often translated as authority) to lay down his life (the Greek word is psuxēn or soul) for the sake of the sheep. Many leaders at some point have to decide whether to keep pushing for uncomfortable change even when they know it might mean they will be forced to leave. Before closing I want to briefly tell you about a leader who shaped us, our first dean, J. Wilmer Gresham. Dean Gresham moved to San Jose California for health reasons. In 1910 at the age of 39 when he was asked to become the first Dean of Grace Cathedral he hesitated wondering if the damp cold of San Francisco would kill him. Almost immediately after moving here to this block, he discerned his adaptive challenges: to build this Cathedral and to begin a ministry of healing that involved organizing groups to gather for prayer that gradually became an national movement. He helped so many people privately, financially. Trusting God he gave all of himself. [ix] After serving almost 30 years Dean Gresham retired and a year later his wife Emily Cooke Graham died. Many evenings he would stand on the sidewalk in front of their old home weeping for her. He found so much comfort in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, that he gave a stained glass window in the South Transept in her memory. He did this so that we would know that like the sheep in the arms of Jesus we are loved by God. At the end of our leadership course Ronald Heifetz reminded us that he had told us at the beginning that he would disappoint us. He talked about how at times the teaching staff too had felt that we were wandering in the desert, that some students might have felt hurt or misrepresented. But most of all he taught us how to say goodbye. Heifetz promised that we could shed light in our life even when there is no light around us. He said that the God of the Greek philosopher Archimedes was called “the unmoved mover.” But Heifetz said that he believed much more in Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's idea of God as “the most moved mover.” My dear ones, we are all called to lay down our lives for the sake of God's realm. But we are not left without comfort. We have each other and we always have the Good Shepherd. Jesus teaches that God loves us the way that a faithful teacher loves her students or a father treasures his lost child.
This morning we look at the incredible life of Peter up to his denial and then restoration by Jesus. Every choice is a chance and when Peter is given choices he messes up but this doesn't lead to his permanent disqualification. Instead Jesus lovingly restores him with forgiveness a fresh commission.
Join us this Sunday as we begin a new sermon series called Politics and the Gospel. We will begin by looking at one of the most famous scenes in the Gospels. Jesus is asked by the Pharisees and the Herodians if they should pay taxes to Caesar or not. They think they've trapped him with a yes or no question. Instead Jesus says, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." This scene and Jesus' answer have massive implications for how Christians today ought to approach their governing authorities and politics.
Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror. . . . — 1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT) If you were a kid like I was in the 1960s, you might remember Sergeant Joe Friday from the TV show Dragnet. Friday was a no-nonsense police officer. When he questioned a witness, he didn't want to hear stories or opinions. “Just the facts,” he would insist. And by the end of each episode, with the facts in hand, Friday would make an arrest. A focus on facts may be right for a police investigation. But things are different with the kingdom of God. When Jesus talks about the kingdom, he doesn't rattle off a set of facts. And he never offers a definition. Because the truth of the kingdom is more than we could ever take in. Instead Jesus gives us glimpses of the kingdom through stories and pictures. He says the kingdom of God is “like a mustard seed.” Or like many other things. Yet what Jesus says about the kingdom isn't necessarily obvious, even to the disciples. The same is true about what Jesus does. Just after the mustard seed story in Mark 4, we see Jesus calming a dangerous storm out on a lake. That certainly said something about Jesus as King. But it wasn't altogether clear. The disciples were left asking, “Who is this?” (Mark 4:41). Let's listen to some more of Jesus' stories and watch some of his deeds to learn what we can about the kingdom and its King. Teach me, Lord Jesus. I want to know who you are and what your kingdom is about. How else can I serve you? Amen.
Jesus encourages us not to worry about what we will wear, or eat or drink, because our heavenly Father knows that we need them. Instead Jesus says, '..seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.' (Matthew 6:33)
John 11:5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. 7 Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." 8 The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?" 9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 "But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." 11 These things He said, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up." 12 Then His disciples said, "Lord, if he sleeps he will get well." 13 However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. 14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. 15 "And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him." In this section of Scripture we see that Jesus has received the message that Lazarus is sick, but Jesus knows that he is dead at this point in time. So, Jesus waits two more days to test the sisters and the disciples. God loves to test us by making us wait on Him so our faith can grow and mature. Then He tells them lets go to Judea and scares the disciples because they know the Jews want to stone Him and they are in danger too if they go. Jesus tells us in the main point of the passage that there is only so much time for each of us to do what God has called us to do and so we better get busy while there is time to do His will. Then He tells them that Lazarus sleeps, they misunderstand, so He tells them plainly that he is dead. The last point of this section is Jesus testing them again because He says He is glad that He was not there when Lazarus died because He has something greater in mind. Did you know that God doesn't always do what we think He ought to do because He has a greater plan and a greater purpose than any we can imagine? Faith means we trust God no matter what happens. 5 Now Jesus loved(agape) Martha and her sister and Lazarus. He waited till the right moment in the Father's plan. This is God's Timing –Never late Lazarus' sickness would not end in death, that is, in permanent death. Instead Jesus would be glorified in this incident (cf. 9:3). This statement is ironic. Jesus' power and obedience to the Father were displayed, but this event led to His death (cf. 11:50-53), which was His true glory (17:1). 6 So, when He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was. As we come to verse 6, we have a real tension with which we must grapple. John makes a point of telling us that Jesus deeply loves Lazarus and his sisters. His love for Lazarus is mentioned by Martha and Mary in verse 3, and John then repeats it even more emphatically in verse 5. In spite of this, and the urgency of the situation, Jesus deliberately delays His return to Bethany. He waits two full days, so that when He does arrive in Bethany, Lazarus is “good and dead.” How can Jesus love these people so much and yet speak and act in a way that causes them such pain? it seems that since Lazarus has already been dead four days when Jesus arrives, that he must have died shortly after the messenger was sent. In other words, it was more loving to put Lazarus through death and his sisters through grief, if that would reveal more of God's glory to them and more of the glory of Christ. Jesus loves us by showing us himself. When delay occurs God has a better time and a Better way – grows their faith, love sometimes has to be tough 7 Then after this He said to the disciples, "Let us go to Judea again." When these two days are completed, Jesus says to His disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” Notice, He does not say, “Let us go to Bethany, again.” To go to Bethany is to go to Judea, which is virtually the same thing as going to Jerusalem, a mere two miles away. To go to Martha and Mary in Bethany is to return to that place where the Jewish religious leaders want Jesus dead. The disciples know this only too well. They are amazed that He even considers returning to Judea, and they remind Him of the dangers awaiting Him there. No matter how ill Lazarus might be, no matter how much these women feel they need Jesus, the disciples do not seem to even entertain the possibility of returning to Judea. 8 The disciples said to Him, "Rabbi, lately the Jews sought to stone You, and are You going there again?" 3 times they sought to kill Jesus: John 5;16-18, 7:1, 10:27-30, 39-40 The “you” here is singular, not plural. At this point in time, any discussion about going back to Judea was, in the minds of His disciples, a personal trip for Jesus. They seem to have no intention of accompanying Him at this point Martha and Mary must be mystified as to why Jesus is taking so long to get back to Bethany—if not to cure Lazarus, then at least to comfort them. Those four days after the death of Lazarus must have been especially difficult for them. The disciples have a different problem, however: they cannot understand why Jesus is even considering returning to Bethany, no matter what the circumstances. A return to Jerusalem would seem to spell certain death for Jesus, and for them, if they choose to accompany Him. I am not at all certain they are planning to do so—at least not until verse 16. 9 Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 1Jo 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 ¶ If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Joh 9:4 "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. This is walking in God's will, His truth, As long as I and you are doing God's will we are okay they can't kill us because we are on God's timetable. My hour has not yet come Joh 2:4 Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come." Joh 7:30 Therefore they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. Joh 8:20 These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come. Joh 12:23 But Jesus answered them, saying, "The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. 10 "But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him." The Jews and the Romans commonly regarded the daylight hours as 12 and the nighttime hours as the other 12. Literally Jesus was referring to the daylight hours. Metaphorically the daylight hours represented the Father's will. Jesus was safe as long as He did the Father's will. For the disciples, as long as they continued to follow Jesus, the Light of the World, they would not stumble. Walking in the night pictures behaving without divine illumination or authorization. Living in the realm of darkness (i.e., evil) is dangerous (cf. 1 John 1:6). "When there is darkness in the soul, then we will stumble indeed." As long as He followed God's plan, no harm would come till the appointed time. Applied to people then, they should have responded to Jesus while He was in the world as its Light (cf. 1:4-7; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5). Soon He would be gone and so would this unique opportunity. Their problem is they don't know the truth and they will die in their sins 11 These things He said, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up." Jesus then said, Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. The word “friend” has special significance in Scripture (cf. 15:13-14; James 2:23). Not only their friend, but His also. Jas 2:23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." And he was called the friend of God. 12 Then His disciples said, "Lord, if he sleeps he will get well." As was often the case in the Gospels, Jesus was speaking about one thing but the disciples were thinking about another. The raising of Lazarus is not a “first” in the Gospels. Jesus had already raised the dead son of the “widow of Nain,” as recorded in Luke 7:11-16. He did so on that occasion as they were taking his body out to be buried, and without being asked to do so by anyone. (Who would have thought to ask Jesus to raise a dead man?) This was followed by the raising of Jairus' daughter (Mark 5:21-43). In this latter raising, Jesus tells those who are mourning her death that she is not really dead, but is merely “asleep” (5:39). Our Lord's disciples and others seem to have forgotten these earlier raisings, nor do they seem to recall our Lord's use of the term “sleep” to describe a temporary lack of life. The idea that people would awake from this sleep, while revealed in the Old Testament (Dan. 12:2), was not the common perception of the outcome of death. Normally people thought of those who fell asleep in death as staying asleep 13 However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. The New Testament writers commonly referred to death as sleep for the Christian because our resurrection to life is a prominent revelation and is sure (cf. Acts 7:60; 1 Cor. 15:20, 51; 1 Thess. 4:13-18). That Jesus was not teaching soul sleep should be clear from Luke 16:19-31.403 The doctrine of soul sleep is the teaching that at death the soul, specifically the immaterial part of man, becomes unconscious until the resurrection of the body. The story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 shows that people are conscious after death and before their resurrection. 14 Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead. – There is no hope now in earthly terms, it's too late This is a picture of us being dead in our sins and trespasses, 15 "And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless let us go to him." Wants them to have more faith When death occurs God has a better plan and a better purpose His absence, He tells them, is for their benefit. His delay has been by divine design, so that they might believe. Frequently in the Gospel of John, reference is made to the fact that our Lord's disciples “believed” in Him (1:50; 2:11, 22; 6:69; 13:19; 14:1, 29; 16:27, 30, 31; 17:8; 20:8; 20:25-29). It is apparent that the faith of the disciples continues to grow, the more the person and work of our Lord becomes evident to them. It is my conviction that our faith, likewise, should never be static, but that it should always be growing as our knowledge of Him increases. Jesus was glad that He had not been present when Lazarus died because the disciples would learn a strong lesson from his resurrection that would increase their faith. The sign that Lazarus' death made possible would be the clearest demonstration of Jesus' identity so far and would convince many people that He was God's Son. Unto him (πρὸς αὐτόν). Most touching. To him, as though he were yet living. Death has not broken the personal relation of the Lord with His friend. 16 Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with Him." I believe this is a declaration of strong devotion to Jesus. He did not understand that the death that Jesus would die was a death that His disciples could not participate in with Him (cf. 1:29, 36). Nevertheless he spoke better than he knew. John probably recorded his exhortation because it was a call to disciples to take up their cross and follow Jesus (cf. 12:25; Mark 8:34; 2 Cor. 4:10). Mark 8:36 "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Have you trusted Him as your Savior? He can Save you if You ask Him based on His death, burial, and resurrection for your sins. Believe in Him for forgiveness of your sins today. hisloveministries.podbean.com #HLMSocial hisloveministries.net https://www.instagram.com/hisloveministries1/?hl=en https://www.facebook.com/His-Love-Ministries-246606668725869/?tn-str=k*F https://www.paypal.com/fundraiser/110230052184687338/charity/145555 The world is trying to solve earthly problems that can only be solved with heavenly solutions.
July 7, 2023Today's Reading: Daily Lectionary: Proverbs 22:1-21, John 18:1-14“Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, “Whom do you seek?” They answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Jesus said to them, “I am he.” Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. When Jesus said to them, “I am he,” they drew back and fell to the ground.” (John 18:4–6 ESV)In the Name + of Jesus. The Pharisees and Sadducees who plotted the arrest of Jesus probably thought that all their back room machinations were finally bearing fruit. You can almost hear them say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” They had received inside information on where Jesus was going to be absent from the crowds that had been preventing them from acting. One of Jesus' own inner circle was willing to betray him. At last they would be rid of this interloper that was challenging the status quo. They were wrong on all accounts.What was going on in there in the Garden on the night in which Jesus was betrayed was not the coming together of the plans of those who plotted Jesus' arrest. Rather what was coming together was the plan that God had set in motion from the very creation of the world. The Sadducees and Pharisees thought that they were conspiring against a man. Jesus the son of Joseph and Mary. Jesus who until now had avoided all their other set ups and traps. Instead Jesus was in full control of everything that was happening because it was His plan all along that was coming together. Look at His answer to His question about who they were looking for. He does not say ‘that is me' so much as He says ‘I AM'. He identifies Himself as the creator God. He was not the son of Joseph, He is the incarnate Son of God. Nothing happens to Him by surprise. His betrayal and arrest in the garden had to happen because it was part of the plan. Creation was broken and could not fix itself. The creator had to enter His creation to fix it and His plan was to become incarnate, to become man, to die on the cross and fix everything that had gone wrong. They fall to the ground because they understand who Jesus had said that He is. At this point in the passion narrative it looks like the Jewish authorities are the ones in control, but as the story unfolds it becomes more and more clear that Jesus is in control of all the events of his arrest and interrogation. The way of the cross was the plan from all along. Jesus is doing the very thing that He came to do and He is doing it for you. The plan of God from all eternity to save His people was the plan of God to save you. What happened to Jesus was all part of the plan. The great I AM came seeking you. Amen. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.He sent no angel to our race, Of higher or of lower place, But wore the robe of human frame, And to this world Himself He came. (O Love, How Deep, LSB 544:2) -Pastor Grant Knepper is Pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Modesto, California.Audio Reflections Speaker: Jonathan Lackey is an LCMS seminarian.Study Christ's words on the cross to see how you can show more Christlike grace in your life. Perfect for group or individual study, each chapter has a Q&A at the end, and the back of the book includes a leader guide. Available now from Concordia Publishing House.
In this message, Pastor Marco speaks on Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem and how Israel received an unexpected king. Israel expected their king to conquer Rome and liberate them from Roman oppression. Instead Jesus came to set them free from their sin. Sometimes we too have expectations of God that are not rooted in Scripture. Just as the people of that day responded to Jesus' arrival, we too must respond appropriately to Jesus as Savior, High Priest, and King.
Jesus is invited to dine with the “in crowd” of religious rulers. It is an attempt to set Him up, discredit Him and bring Him down. Instead Jesus uses the opportunity to teach us about wisdom, humility and the inclusivity of the Kingdom.
In Old Testament in the bible, the people were waiting for the Messiah, (Jesus). The people were expected the Messiah to arrive as a strong King. Instead Jesus, the King arrived as a baby and was born in a manger. Have your expectations every been interrupted? Did your expectations in the past, fall apart? How about now? Are your expectations falling apart? Listen in to be encouraged in the middle of unmet expectations. To receive Jesus read; Romans 10:9-13. If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. 11 As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, “Everyone who calls on th e name of the Lord will be saved.” Additional online locations of Nancy J. Ministries. Join our community here. http://eepurl.com/dCKrHL Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/relationship... Twitter - https://twitter.com/NJWatta Online Class coming in 2023, Master Class to assist with Focus, and a new community. My book- A Hurting Heart Turned Inside Out, On Amazon. Kindle and Paperback https://www.amazon.com/383208/... Give a gift here. www.paypal.me/nwatta --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/relationshipswithnancy/message
Audio recordingSermon manuscript:Our Gospel reading today is Jesus's prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. Jesus said these things about 40 years before it actually took place. This prophecy is also, at the same time, about the end times and the last day. At the end of our reading Jesus says that he will come with great power and glory. What I would like to focus on today, then, is how we should prepare for the end times according to what Jesus says in our reading. However, before we speak more positively about how we should be, it is helpful, I think, to point out two very common false beliefs about the end times. First of all, there are many Christians who do not believe that there will be any end times at all, or at least they never wish to talk about them. We confess in our creeds that Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead. You heard Jesus say that there will be signs and wonders in the sky and tribulations on earth. Peter says in his second epistle that the elements will melt as they burn. For many people these kinds of things are just too unusual. We want life to go on as it always has. It is unsettling to think that the existence of the universe could be so devastatingly altered. Plus, probably in the back of our mind, we think it is just mythical make-believe anyway. You know those ancient people. They weren't too smart. If they knew what we know they wouldn't have made such wild and impossible prophecies. This false belief is common among us Lutherans. We are pretty staid and steady people. We don't like to get too worked up about anything, and, in general, that's a positive thing. The teaching in the Bible is clear. If it's alright to disbelieve in the wrath of God at the end of days, why should we believe anything that we don't like? The other false belief seems like it is almost the opposite. Instead of despising the end times, never talking of them, there is an obsession with end times things. This is understandable. The signs and wonders are stupendous if you are willing to take them seriously. It can be thrilling to know things that others don't know. I remember as a kid sometimes seeing on TV a man named Jack Van Impe and his wife, Rexella. They would have a stack of newspapers on their set and they'd go from one to the next, citing bible passage after bible passage: “This news story fulfills this passage, and this news story fulfills that passage.” The take-away was always the same: “The end is near. There is going to be widespread collapse.” And there was always a kind of glee in the prospect of the widespread collapse. The TV prophet was quite happy to tell you about it. You can be happy too if you believe him, because you can prepare accordingly. Make sure you've got food and water in the basement. Maybe these days you need to make sure that you've got some crypto-currency. Be one of the smart ones so that you can ride out the end of days in style. You can be comfortably sitting in your bunker, armed to the teeth. Although these folks seem to be highly believing because they only want to talk about these conspiracies and prophecies, they, too, are unbelieving and unprepared. How may anyone escape the wrath that is about to be revealed? The true and infallible preparations are being baptized, feeding one's faith with the Word of God, receiving the Lord's Supper, praying, praising, and giving thanks. Repentant faith in Jesus, who has turned away God's wrath, is the only way to make it through any terrors or difficulties. As for what we should eat and drink, or what we should wear, Jesus tells us that we should not worry about these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you have need of them. These two false beliefs look like they are practically opposites. Some Christians never think or speak of the end times. Other Christians never stop thinking or speaking of the end times. Neither approach avails anything. Baptism is our spiritual ark. Faith in Christ is the only preparation. Flesh and blood cannot see the kingdom of God, but only a new creation. We must be born again by the water and the Spirit. As we now turn to Jesus's words in our Gospel reading, I would argue that this is Jesus's concern as well. He wants us to guard our faith. He forthrightly says that terrors and convulsions are coming. How we are to be prepared, however, has to do with our faith and the confession of our faith. So that is what we will turn to now. Jesus's talk is begun by the disciples commenting on the massive and impressive temple. The temple truly was a sight to behold. If anything seemed permanent, it was this temple, but Jesus said one stone would not be allowed to remain sitting upon another. Then the disciples asked Jesus to tell them more about that. I'd like to you pay attention to how Jesus does not tell them to form militias or shadow governments. He doesn't tell them to make any kind of physical preparations. The wrath of God is coming and there isn't anything anybody can do to stop that. Instead Jesus wants to guard their faith. Jesus said, “Watch out so that you are not deceived! For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,' and ‘The time is near.' Do not follow them. Whenever you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end will not be right then.” As you know there are many people who rise up all the time, saying that they have their finger on what is going on. They know the secrets. They know what is going to happen. Follow them because the end is near. Their exciting messages of doom and deliverance through prudent preparations stir up those who believe in them so that they gain their cliques and cadres of people in the know. Jesus says to beware people like that. Why? Because they are worthless. You already have all that you need in the true Jesus. If you have Jesus you don't need some guru to read the tea leaves or the newspapers. Gurus might tell you all kinds of secret and exciting things, but their wisdom is nothing compared to the wisdom even of our humble little Catechism. If you want to know what you are to do, turn to the Ten Commandments—and you won't find anything about crypto-currency or bunkers in there. If you want to know what you are to believe, consult the Creed. These truly make you wise for salvation. Let us turn again to Jesus's words, and he goes on for some time: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines, and diseases in various places. There will be horrifying sights and great signs from heaven. But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, handing you over to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name's sake. It will turn out to be your opportunity to testify. So make up your minds not to prepare beforehand how to defend yourselves, for I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all people for my name's sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By patient endurance you will gain your lives.” Jesus lays out frightening things: wars, earthquakes, famines, and diseases. Perhaps the most frightening things, though, are the personal betrayals and tests of one's confession of faith. It's like it was with Peter on the night when Jesus was betrayed: “Are you one of them? Are you one of Jesus's disciples? Are you an enemy of enlightened progress or an enemy of the state?” But, again, notice where Jesus directs us—not to swords or guns. We are to maintain our faith in him. If we have faith in him, then we can even rest assured that we will say what he would have us say before those who persecute us. The one thing that Jesus tells us we should make our mind up about beforehand is that we are not going to defend ourselves. The kingdom of God is not the product of human cunning, logic, or political manipulations. The kingdom of God is the testimony of Jesus, the one who has overcome this world. And if you have him, then not even a hair of your head will perish. Even if you are put to death for our faith, not one hair of your head will perish. By patient endurance in your faith you will be saved. One outward action that Jesus does recommend is the fleeing from Jerusalem. He told his disciples that when they see the armies coming upon Jerusalem that they should get out. Forty years later it appears that the Christians remembered Jesus's prophecy. They fled before Jerusalem was surrounded and hemmed in on every side. So also we Christians may flee from danger. You see this in the book of Acts. When Jerusalem was thrown into an uproar with the stoning of St. Stephen the Christians fled to other lands and cities. This was, in fact, how the Gospel came to the Gentiles. The Christians who fled Jerusalem preached the Gospel to their Gentile neighbors and by the power of the Holy Spirit they were converted to faith in Christ. You also see in Acts that St. Paul did not purposely hand himself over to those who were wanting to put him to death. Once he escaped under cover of night, being lowered down from the city wall in a basket. When he was arraigned in Jerusalem he appealed to Caesar, which was his right as a Roman citizen. So we do not need to go looking for trouble and martyrdom. However, if we are called upon to make the good confession, then we must do so regardless of the consequences. I can give you a contemporary example. Years ago a militant Islamic group called ISIS rose to power in the Middle East. They conquered some territory in Syria and Iraq. There are some towns in that area that have Christians in them. When ISIS would come to a town they would round up the people and ask them if they were Christians. If they said they were, their heads would be chopped off. They would do this even with Christian children. If you were one of those Christians, you would need to continue to confess Christ, come what may. If you confessed Christ and your head was chopped off, ultimately not even a hair of your head would be harmed, for you will live again. It is not optional for us to confess Christ. If we deny him we would be like faithless Simon Peter. As the Scriptures say, “If we deny him, he will deny us.” However, on the other hand, if you know that ISIS is heading towards your village, you do not need to stay there. You do not need to hand your children over to be slaughtered. You should try to go where you will be safe. However, if you end up before the executioner for your Christian faith, or if you should be fired from your job for your Christian faith, or some other persecution comes upon you, then you should know that this is God's will. He will keep you safe even if your head gets chopped off. It is your opportunity to testify of this hope that is within you. So, to sum up: The only true way to be prepared for the end times is always internal. Being prepared for the end times is a matter of repentance and faith. If we fear God's wrath for our sins and believe in Jesus Christ who has saved us from our sins, then we are in good stead. With such a faith we are in good stead even if the earth gives way and the mountains go crashing into the sea. Jesus has reconciled you to God. All things, then, must turn out for the best for those who trust in him. So when you see Jesus coming on the clouds with power and great glory, do not curl up into a ball or put your tail between your legs. Straighten up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draws near.
Scripture Reading: John 12:1-26 1 Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 So they prepared a dinner for Jesus there. Martha was serving, and Lazarus was among those present at the table with him. 3 Then Mary took three quarters of a pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped his feet dry with her hair. (Now the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil.) 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was going to betray him) said, 5 “Why wasn't this oil sold for 300 silver coins and the money given to the poor?” 6 (Now Judas said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money box, he used to steal what was put into it.) 7 So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has kept it for the day of my burial. 8 For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me!”9 Now a large crowd of Judeans learned that Jesus was there, and so they came not only because of him but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, 11 for on account of him many of the Jewish people from Jerusalem were going away and believing in Jesus.12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him. They began to shout, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!” 14 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, 15 “Do not be afraid, people of Zion; look, your king is coming, seated on a donkey's colt!” 16 (His disciples did not understand these things when they first happened, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him and that these things had happened to him.)17 So the crowd who had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead were continuing to testify about it. 18 Because they had heard that Jesus had performed this miraculous sign, the crowd went out to meet him. 19 Thus the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you can do nothing. Look, the world has run off after him!”20 Now some Greeks were among those who had gone up to worship at the feast. 21 So these approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and requested, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew, and they both went and told Jesus. 23 Jesus replied, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I tell you the solemn truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. 25 The one who loves his life destroys it, and the one who hates his life in this world guards it for eternal life. 26 If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow me, and where I am, my servant will be too. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.Main ThemesJesus' Anointing—1, 2, or 3At the beginning of Chapter 12 we find the anointing of Jesus. The scene is strange yet incredibly moving. Before we can delve deeper into it though, we need to address an issue of consistency between all four gospels. There is a similar anointing story in each gospel. Yet each story seems to be different in some ways. Do they refer to the same event? If so, maybe some (or all) of the gospels got details wrong. That is not a conclusion we should accept lightly. Christians have an incredibly high regard for scripture. In fact, many Christians hold that there are no mistakes in scripture. Can biblical inerrancy hold up to the four anointing stories? I think so. (This is the kind of topic on which we could spend a couple of hours. My blog will present an abbreviated answer. There is a more detailed resource linked at the end.)Luke has the most different version of events. Let's begin by comparing Luke to Mark. Consider the following passages:Luke 7:36-50. 36 Now one of the Pharisees asked Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went into the Pharisee's house and took his place at the table. 37 Then when a woman of that town, who was a sinner, learned that Jesus was dining at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfumed oil. 38 As she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. She wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfumed oil. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” 40 So Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” He replied, “Say it, Teacher.” 41 “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed him 500 silver coins, and the other 50. 42 When they could not pay, he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” Jesus said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then, turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss of greeting, but from the time I entered she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with perfumed oil. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which were many, are forgiven, thus she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little loves little.” 48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” 50 He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”Mark 14:1-11. 1 Two days before the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the chief priests and the experts in the law were trying to find a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. 2 For they said, “Not during the feast, so there won't be a riot among the people.”3 Now while Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of costly aromatic oil from pure nard. After breaking open the jar, she poured it on his head. 4 But some who were present indignantly said to one another, “Why this waste of expensive ointment? 5 It could have been sold for more than 300 silver coins and the money given to the poor!” So they spoke angrily to her. 6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a good service for me. 7 For you will always have the poor with you, and you can do good for them whenever you want. But you will not always have me! 8 She did what she could. She anointed my body beforehand for burial. 9 I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus into their hands. 11 When they heard this, they were delighted and promised to give him money. So Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray him.What are the similarities that would make us consider that both stories refer to the same event? Both accounts happen at a Simon's house, both accounts involve perfume in alabaster jars, and both accounts involve a woman using the perfume to anoint Jesus. What are the differences? The Luke story happens in Galilee and much earlier in Jesus' ministry. The Mark story happens in Bethany (Judea), a few days before Jesus' death. One Simon is a Pharisee, the other Simon is called a leper. The dialogue is different as well.Can we explain the similarities if the two narratives are describing different events? Yes. Simon was the most common name at the time. This is why the Bible rarely refers to a Simon without giving a sort of last name (Simon Peter, Simon the leper, Simon the Zealot, etc.) The fact that two stories involve Simons should be barely eye-catching. Also, perfume was commonly held in alabaster jars. Despite what you may have heard, alabaster jars were not rare. Thousand of these jars have been discovered. So, the alabaster detail is unimportant as well.But what are the odds that two women anoint Jesus with perfume using their hair? (The hair detail is not in Mark, but it is in John.) Completely independently, that would be suspiciously unlikely. Nevertheless, the odds are pretty good if we do not assume that the stories are independent. The later woman could have been inspired by the prior one. To put it simply, Luke refers to a different anointing. This earlier anointing of Jesus described in Luke helps inspire Mary's behavior in John. Why would Mary think of doing such a thing? Because she had heard how another woman had shown kindness to Jesus. She wished to do the same.Now, let's consider the more difficult question: can Mark, Matthew, and John be reconciled? Consider the following passage in Matthew and the verses of John we read today.Matthew 26:6-18. 6 Now while Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, 7 a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of expensive perfumed oil, and she poured it on his head as he was at the table. 8 When the disciples saw this, they became indignant and said, “Why this waste? 9 It could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor!” 10 When Jesus learned of this, he said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a good service for me. 11 For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me! 12 When she poured this oil on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. 13 I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”14 Then one of the 12, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests 15 and said, “What will you give me to betray him into your hands?” So they set out 30 silver coins for him. 16 From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray him.Matthew and Mark have similar descriptions of the story. But what about John? At first glance there are some glaring inconsistencies. Maybe, then, there are three anointings of Jesus: one in Luke, one in Matthew and Mark, and one in John. Although that is not technically impossible, it is not convincing. In Matthew, Mark, and John, the story occurs at the same time in Jesus' ministry (plus or minus a few days), in the same town, with the same amount of perfume, that could have been sold for the same 300 silver coins, and it resulted in Judas turning on Jesus. Quite clearly, Matthew, Mark, and John are discussing the same event.What are the major inconsistencies between John and the other two gospels. There are two. First, the timing. Mark seems to place the story “[t]wo days before the Passover.” John seems to place the story “six days before the Passover.” Second, the location. Mark and Matthew seem to place the story in the home of “Simon the leper.” John seems to place the story “where Lazarus lived.”The timing question is the trickiest one. John seems firm on the timing—I mean we could hardly interpret John's Gospel any other way than the anointing happening six days before Passover. Is Mark as firm on the timing? Not really. What we find in Mark may very well be a “Markan sandwich.” Mark will sometimes divide one story in two by introducing another story in the middle of the narrative. This is not as strange as it sounds. I bet you have been telling a story once and had to interrupt it to tell another story as proper background information, and then returned to your main story. In Mark, what happens two days before the Passover is the meeting of the priests and Pharisees. (See also Matthew 26:57.) Then Mark interrupts his story to tell us about “now while Jesus was in Bethany.”The location question is not quite as difficult. Mark and Matthew unequivocally state that the event occurred at “Simon the leper's” house. Does John make an equally definitive statement that the scene happened at Lazarus' house? Not at all. Notice that John says the following, “Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had raised from the dead. So they prepared a dinner for Jesus there.” There where? There where Lazarus lived. Where did Lazarus live? In Bethany. All that John makes clear is that the event happened in Bethany—not at Lazarus' house specifically.Everything I wrote above is based on Mike Winger's work. Please watch his video for a more detailed explanation.Jesus' Anointing—Anointing a King and a Dead ManAfter taking into account the information presented above, the event of Jesus' anointing by Mary goes something like this. Six days before the Passover, Jesus returns to Bethany. A meal is prepared at the house of Simon the leper. Jesus' disciples, Lazarus, Martha, Mary, and perhaps other people are present. In this context, Mary takes approximately 12 ounces (a Roman pound; for scale, this is the amount of liquid in a typical soda can) of expensive nard perfume and pours it on Jesus' head and feet. She proceeds to wipe Jesus' feet dry with her hair.Let's consider some details. What is nard? Nard is a plant that grows far from Israel, in the modern countries of India, China, and Nepal. That made nard perfume highly expensive. The word perfume is also misleading to the modern reader. Nowadays, we might refer to a nard “perfume” as an essential oil. Additionally, the normal quantity of perfume one might buy was about one ounce. No one would have used a full 12 ounces to anoint anyone. In fact, 12 ounces of nard perfume would have been worth more than most women would inherit from their families. One silver coin was one day's wage for a laborer. The perfume was worth about 300 silver coins—more than a whole year's wages.I wrote about the odd significance of feet in Jewish culture in my last blog post. However, I did not get to discuss it during the session and it is relevant for this week. So, I am reposting some of that material. We must keep in mind that feet were dirty in a literal sense and in a ceremonial sense. To come close to someone's feet was a dramatic demonstration of humility. Consider this excerpt from the Jewish EncyclopediaSince the Israelites, like all other Oriental peoples, wore sandals instead of shoes, and as they usually went barefoot in the house, frequent washing of the feet was a necessity. Hence among the Israelites it was the first duty of the host to give his guest water for the washing of his feet (Gen. xviii. 4, xix. 2, xxiv. 32, xliii. 24; Judges xix. 21); to omit this was a sign of marked unfriendliness. It was also customary to wash the feet before meals and before going to bed (comp. Cant. v. 3); to abstain for a long time from washing them was a sign of deep mourning (II Sam. xix. 24). Though there are no extant laws for laymen in regard to washing the feet, such laws for priests are given in Ex. xxx. 19-21. There mention is made of brazen vessels, placed between the Tabernacle and the altar of burnt offering, in which the priests had to wash their hands and feet on entering the Tabernacle or before approaching the altar of burnt offerings: hence at all their priestly functions. Just as no one is allowed to approach a king or prince without due preparation, which includes the washing of the hands and feet, so the Israelite, and especially the priest, is forbidden in his unclean condition to approach Yhwh, for he who comes defiled will surely die.Finally, we must talk of a woman's hair. (I bet you didn't anticipate today's lesson was on feet and hair. Neither did I.) In 1 Corinthians 11:15, the apostle Paul refers to a woman's long hair as her glory. During biblical times, Jewish women often covered their hair when outside the home. Their custom was similar to the Muslim practice today.So let's put all this together. Mary takes the equivalent of a year's worth of earnings in perfume (for perspective, using the American minimum wage rate that would be about $15,000) and pours it on Jesus. Then she not only touches his feet—a literally and ceremonially unclean part of the body—with her hands, but with her hair! She would not have dared even show her hair to most men, and here she uses it as a rag to clean Jesus' feet. As a modern audience, we might see this situation as strange. Sure, it was. But that is missing the point entirely. This is a scene of the utmost humility on the part of Mary—a humility beneath that of a slave. And this is a scene of the utmost exaltation—exaltation not even due a king. Exaltation only properly due to God.Moreover, as we have grown accustomed throughout John's Gospel, the moment drips with irony. Kings were anointed before their coronation. Jesus is about to be received as king in Jerusalem. The other common anointing was that of dead bodies before burial. Jesus is about to be killed. Jesus does not require two anointings though, because his coronation is his death on the cross. His raising up as king is his raising up as sacrifice.Judas the BetrayerMark: Then Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus into their hands. When they heard this, they were delighted and promised to give him money. So Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray him.Matthew: Then one of the 12, the one named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me to betray him into your hands?” So they set out 30 silver coins for him. From that time on, Judas began looking for an opportunity to betray him.John: But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was going to betray him) said, “Why wasn't this oil sold for 300 silver coins and the money given to the poor?” (Now Judas said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money box, he used to steal what was put into it.)Christian and non-Christian alike knows that Judas is nearly synonymous with betrayer. We have finally come to the verse that tells us the very moment Judas decided to betray Jesus. I quote three gospels above to give us a better picture of what happened. For some reason Mary using the expensive perfume to anoint Jesus was the tipping point for Judas. People speculate about the reason. Maybe Judas was disappointed and upset that his (ill-gotten) wealth was wasted and decided to create wealth elsewhere. Maybe it was not about the money at all. Maybe Judas finally realized that Jesus was not the savior he desired—a king and conqueror who would give Judas an honorable role in the kingdom. Some people have even speculated that Judas betrayed Jesus to force Jesus into starting his kingly conquest. Your guess is as good as mine.But more importantly, what do we know with certainty? John's remark that Judas was not truly concerned with the poor is a clear way of letting the reader know that Judas was of evil character. Additionally, the term John employs to describe Judas as “unconcerned” is the same that John used to describe the hirelings “unconcerned” for the sheep.The story of Judas should also make us consider the criterion of embarrassment. According to Wikipedia (shame on me for quoting Wikipedia), “The criterion of embarrassment is a type of critical analysis in which an account is likely to be true as the author would have no reason to invent an account which might embarrass them.” Judas was not only selected by Jesus to be a disciple; Jesus made him treasurer! For an omniscient being, Jesus was quite a poor judge of character. Applying the criterion of embarrassment, the story is likely true. Why would anyone make that up? Of course, one can interpret Jesus' decisions in two ways. As stated above, one option is that Jesus was a poor judge of character. Alternatively, Jesus walked to the cross intentionally—selecting every piece on the chess board just right. The chess game needed a betrayer.The Triumphal EntryThe key to understanding the triumphal entry is to focus on the language used by the crowds and the odd things involved: a donkey and palm branches.Hosanna. The word “hosanna” renders the Hebrew of Psalm 118:25. As translator note 26 to John 12:13 in the NET Bible explains,The expression ῾Ωσαννά (hōsanna, literally in Hebrew, “O Lord, save”) in the quotation from Ps 118:25-26 was probably by this time a familiar liturgical expression of praise, on the order of “Hail to the king,” although both the underlying Aramaic and Hebrew expressions meant “O Lord, save us.” As in Mark 11:9 the introductory ὡσαννά is followed by the words of Ps 118:25, εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου (eulogēmenos ho erchomenos en onomati kuriou), although in the Fourth Gospel the author adds for good measure καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ (kai ho basileus tou Israēl). In words familiar to every Jew, the author is indicating that at this point every messianic expectation is now at the point of realization. It is clear from the words of the psalm shouted by the crowd that Jesus is being proclaimed as messianic king.For context, here is Psalm 118:14-2714 The Lord gives me strength and protects me;he has become my deliverer.”15 They celebrate deliverance in the tents of the godly.The Lord's right hand conquers.16 The Lord's right hand gives victory;the Lord's right hand conquers.17 I will not die, but live,and I will proclaim what the Lord has done.18 The Lord severely punished me,but he did not hand me over to death.19 Open for me the gates of the just king's temple.I will enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.20 This is the Lord's gate—the godly enter through it.21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me,and have become my deliverer.22 The stone that the builders discardedhas become the cornerstone.23 This is the Lord's work.We consider it amazing!24 This is the day the Lord has brought about.We will be happy and rejoice in it.25 Please, Lord, deliver!Please, Lord, grant us success!26 May the one who comes in the name of the Lord be blessed.We will pronounce blessings on you in the Lord's temple.27 The Lord is God, and he has delivered us.Tie the offering with ropesto the horns of the altar.I encourage you to read Psalm 118 from the standpoint of the believer. Imagine a man who is well aware of how he perishes in his own sin, but he trusts that God will deliver. God will not let him die. Finally the day of deliverance comes. He is overjoyed and exclaims, “tie the offering with ropes!” What he does not know is that the offering is God himself.Donkey. As a Christian article explains:[T]o modern readers the donkey seems to be an unlikely and surprising device for Jesus' use. That is because we see donkeys primarily as work animals capable of carrying heavy loads, or as docile creatures used for children's rides, but certainly not as the animals of choice to transport triumphant kings. In the ancient world, however, donkeys were used for ceremonial purposes. Whereas horses were symbols of war, donkeys were symbols of peace and often used to enact treaties. [Emphasis added.] Additionally, the donkey is part of prophecy fulfillment. Zechariah 9:9 foretold,Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion!Shout, daughter of Jerusalem!Look! Your king is coming to you:He is legitimate and victorious,humble and riding on a donkey—on a young donkey, the foal of a female donkey.Palm Branches. Palm branches recall military triumph. The most immediate reference in the Jews' minds may have been that of the Maccabean rebellion. Consider 1 Maccabees 13:51 (NCB):On the twenty-third day of the second month, in the year one hundred and seventy-one, the Jews entered the citadel with shouting and the waving of palm branches, to the accompaniment of lyres and cymbals and harps and the singing of hymns and canticles, because a great enemy of Israel had been destroyed. So what does the expression Hosanna, a donkey, and palm branches have in common: Jesus is king. Jesus comes as one who has succeeded (i.e., celebrated with palm branches) and returns in peace (i.e., on a donkey). The crowds recognize this as they exclaim, Lord, saves us!Greeks Want to See JesusSome Greeks were attending the Passover festivities. What does John mean by Greeks? He could be referring to Diaspora Jews, Gentile proselytes, or Greek God-fearers. However, the first two groups would normally be referred to by terms other than “Greeks.” The word “Greeks” is likely referring to the third possibility: gentiles who feared (that is, followed) the God of Judaism but had not converted to Judaism.Notice that Jesus does not respond to the Greeks' request. Instead Jesus exclaims, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Jesus recognizes that we are at the end of the story. The prophecy to Abraham is almost complete. God promised Abraham he would have many descendants, those descendants would become a conquering nation, and eventually blessings would come from that nation to the entire world. Acts I and II are over, and the Gentiles coming to Jesus signifies the climax of Act III.The Price of Following JesusJesus uses a commonplace image to explain how his death will work. It is like a kernel of wheat planted in the ground. The kernel will break and open—no longer being a grain of wheat. It that sense, it dies. Yet from its death something else sprouts. An entire plant springs forth from which many kernels come. In the same way, Jesus lays down his life such that many may obtain eternal life.Here's an interesting question: is this a sacrifice only Jesus must make? The answer is decidedly no. Jesus adds the following statements to his short parable, “The one who loves his life destroys it, and the one who hates his life in this world guards it for eternal life. If anyone wants to serve me, he must follow me, and where I am, my servant will be too. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.” Of course Jesus' sacrifice is unique. Only he can satisfy divine justice and he does so completely. We can add nothing to what Jesus has done. Nevertheless, the fact remains that every believer must lose his life as well. Don't believe me? This is Jesus' most common teaching. Consider the following verses:Matthew 10:39. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life because of me will find it.Matthew 16:25. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.Mark 8:34b-35. If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me and because of the gospel will save it.And finally, the most shocking:Luke 14:26. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.What does it mean that we must hate our own life, hate our parents, hate our wife, and hate our children? This sounds pretty bad. Quite clearly, Jesus does not mean hate in the emotional sense we employ today, but I do not want to downplay the demand made by Jesus. He says one must hate one's life to the point of losing one's life. Surely that must mean something important.The best way to understand these statements is in covenantal terms. A covenant was an ancient form of treaty between nations or sometimes groups or individuals. Oftentimes this kind of treaty was between a suzerain and a vassal. (Both the terms suzerain and vassal are anachronistic. They come from medieval times. However, they are used by historians and theologians as useful terms to describe relationships even in more ancient times.) Covenants had their own type of language, just like modern contracts. For example, a modern contract has recitals, conditions, and promises. To break a contractual promise is called a breach. Covenants also had promises and responsibilities that the parties had to follow. However, if a party broke the covenant, that party was not said to have breached. That party was said to “hate” the covenant and the other party. To follow the covenant was called to “love” the covenant and the other party. In a covenantal context, love and hate are not emotional terms. They are terms of fidelity and obedience.So, how are we to “hate” our lives and even the people closest to us? We “hate” them because they are not our highest allegiance. Our highest allegiance is not even ourselves. We follow God over all things. In a funny turn of events, what does God commands us to do towards everyone? To love them. This is one of the most profound Christian truths. We love people because our allegiance is not to them, but to God. This is why Christians love differently from the world. For example, Christians cannot love someone by affirming a lie or going along with something harmful that person desires, even if it hurts their feelings. Christians must engage in holy love. They must sacrifice for others within the confines of God's goodness.
Where humility is the order of the day. Luke 14:1-14 This may be the most counter-cultural chapter where Jesus challenges the Me First mindset. Instead Jesus calls his family to humility, recognizing God's family is a place for flexibility, a place for humility, and a place for all. Visit southplains.org to request prayer and to stay up to date, or join our Facebook Group.
Message: Last week we learned to use God's rule of measure to avoid man's. Comparing stems from mathematics, the equal sign, which sums up the factors. In people terms, the "what's in it for me?" attitude becomes a way of life and a measure in this world. Paul to the Philippians is encouraging them in the way of the Lord as children of the Most High God, in particular, treating others with equality. Beginning in Genesis, man wanted to be equal to God, listening to satan and causing separation. The temptation was food pleasing to the eye and full of wisdom, all to benefit man. Jesus' did not consider it a status to be equal with God, though He was, rather He emptied Himself of His privileges. If He was not God, there would be no hope for us, there being no man who could endure the wrath of God for sin. Instead Jesus walked humbly being acknowledged as the "Son of Man", "One with with the Father" and the "I Am". We walk this out by using the gifts of God as privilege, emptying ourselves of status, letting our Spirit witness to the Glory within us through Christ. Knowing who you are is the "special ingredient of equality. God's equality is "none be lost" though we deserve it. so He sent Jesus. Let them see Christ in you. Scripture: Philippians 2:5-7 "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men." NKJV Audio: Interference due to audio quality clears within a minute.
Audio recordingGod did many important things through Moses. God did many “new” things through Moses. We are not accustomed to thinking about things being “new” when it comes to God, and that is not a bad attitude to have. When it comes to God, new things are probably lies, coming from the father of lies, who loves to deal in all things spiritual. Nevertheless, with Moses God did all kinds of new things. First of all, the number and power of miracles that are done through Moses is a definite difference from the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God did miracles for them too, but they were much more connected to their family life. God caused Abraham and Sarah to conceive and bear Isaac even though they were both extremely old. God gave Isaac his wife at the well. God caused Jacob to flourish with his flock of sheep when he lived with his father-in-law Laban. These signs and wonders should not be poo-pooed. Every time the sun rises and gives its warmth, every time a flower blooms, God's wonder-working power is what is behind it. Every day we are the beneficiaries of God working and working. We would have a better sense of what is going on if we understood that miracles happen every day and every moment as God does his work, but that is not how we normally understand the word “miracle.” We take the word “miracle” to mean that God does something unusual. He doesn't use the ways and means that we are accustomed to him using. With Moses God does things that are very unusual. God called him to be his servant at the burning bush. From that time forward there is practically one unusual thing after another. God does signs through him before Pharaoh. God pours out one bowl of wrath after another on the nation of Egypt until Pharaoh decides to let his slaves go. God opens up the Red Sea for his people to pass through on dry ground, but Pharaoh and his army and destroyed by those same waters. He rains down bread from heaven and makes quail fly into camp with the wind. He causes water to flow out of the rock. God manifests his glory with the pillar of cloud and fire. When he takes up residency at Mt. Sinai it is with fire, smoke, thunder, earthquakes, and all manner unusual things. God sends fiery serpents. He opens up the ground to swallow his enemies. There is just one thing after another that God does. How can we explain this? One explanation might be that it was necessary. Pharaoh had to have his stubborn will broken. The Israelites needed to be gathered together as a nation numbering many hundreds of thousands. (God wasn't just dealing with a family anymore.) Plus the Israelites themselves were stiff-necked and hard-hearted. They had to have their own will broken over and over again, and this was done by God's miracles. So the number and power of miracles that God does through Moses is something that was unprecedented. These sorts of miracles have not been done since that time, as our reading from Deuteronomy said. The other thing that is new with Moses is all manner of religious things. God reveals his name to Moses at the burning bush. God gives his people their first festival, which is Passover. God gave his people a succinct statement of his Law with the Ten Commandments. God instituted worship for the Israelites down to the smallest details. He gave them the tabernacle, sacrifices, blessings, and the Aaronic priesthood to carry this all out. From the time of Moses onward God blessed his people and they returned their prayers and praises according to the way God set things up through Moses. The Old Testament is dominated by what God did through Moses. The word “testament” or “covenant” is about an arrangement between two or more parties. God made an arrangement with his people whom he had chosen. The most extensive covenant was set in place through Moses. Even at the time of the New Testament, all the people we hear about—including Jesus—are still doing things that God set in place with Moses. With the coming of Jesus, however, we have someone who is greater than Moses. Hebrews says, “Jesus is worthy of greater glory than Moses, in the same way that the builder of a house has more honor than the house.” The apostle John says, “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were put into place through Jesus Christ.” Jesus performed miracles. Jesus's miracles were different than Moses's. Moses did not have power within himself to bring about miracles. The source of that power was God. Moses was the means through which God worked. With Jesus we are dealing with God himself. He is true man, born of the virgin Mary, and true God, begotten of the Father from eternity. Jesus performed miracles because he is God. This is hugely different than how it was with Moses. Jesus's miracles lack no power, but Jesus's miracles are at the same time deeper and more homespun. Jesus deals with the most fundamental aspects of our lives as human beings. He casts out countless demons. Our willingness to submit to the devil goes all the way back to the first disobedience in the Garden. There is no more fundamental problem for us than that we are born in subjection to the devil until and unless Christ sets us free. Jesus's miracles also tend to have to do with people's domestic lives. He raises the dead on account of the grieving members of the family. He restores sight, hearing, and speaking so that life may be lived to the full. Most of Jesus's miracles are kind of like the miraculous things that God did at the time of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—things connected with daily life. And, of course, Jesus does things that are of supreme importance religiously speaking. It is in Jesus that we have been given the authority to become children of God. Jesus became one of us. Thereby we are given the gift to become like him. The Son took on our flesh and blood. Having joined himself to us we are given what he has. This is fully and completely communicated to everyone who is baptized. It is by baptism that we are born again by the water and the Holy Spirit to be a child of God—not figuratively speaking, but literally. “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved,” Jesus said. “Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Jesus does not institute a whole raft of statutes and regulations like God did at Mt. Sinai. The statutes and regulations at Mt. Sinai take up well over a dozen chapters in Exodus and the whole book of Leviticus. Instead Jesus leaves behind a simple ceremony, the Lord's Supper. Although this ceremony is extremely simple—so simple that a seven year old understands perfectly what is going on—it is also extremely profound. It is so profound that most people, and even most Christians, can't bring themselves to believe it. Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and distributed it to the disciples. He said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” A seven year old understands that Jesus is speaking about his flesh which was crucified on the cross. Then Jesus gave them a cup of wine. He said, “This cup is the new testament—the new arrangement between God and you. This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins. As often as you drink it, do so in remembrance of me.” A seven year old who was unfamiliar with the Christian church came to a service not too long ago and asked his grandma, “Are they drinking blood?” The correct answer is, “Yes. That is Jesus's blood, in, with, and under the wine. It is the blood that was shed as the atonement for our sins.” Jesus leaves behind this simple ceremony. He says that we should do it often. When we do it we should remember him. In remembering Jesus we remember how he fulfilled God's Law for us—the Law that otherwise cries out for our condemnation and punishment. By Jesus fulfilling the Law for us we are freed from death. Paul says, “As often as we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.” When Christ comes again we will enter into the fullness of our promised land. Our promised land is not the land of Canaan, as it was for Moses and the Israelites. Our promised land is the place that Jesus has prepared for us. Jesus says in John 14: “Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have said to you, ‘I go to prepare a place for you?' And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you along to myself, so that where I am, you may be also.” Moses was a great man. God hammered together a people into a nation through him. Jesus is beyond orders of magnitude greater. He makes poor miserable sinners into holy children of God. How does he do this? By the sacrifice of his body and his blood on the cross. This is obviously at the very heart of the sacrament that he has left behind for us. He, in this sacrament, comforts us with the forgiveness of our sins. When we believe what he says in this sacrament, we may be sure that we have exactly what he says. The cross also looms large in Jesus's transfiguration that we heard about this morning. However, it is mentioned so unassumingly that it is easy to overlook. When Peter, James, and John see Jesus transfigured he is with two men, Moses and Elijah. Luke says that he is speaking to them about his “departure which he was going to bring to fulfillment in Jerusalem.” What Luke literally says is that Jesus is speaking with them about his “exodus” that he is about to fulfill in Jerusalem. The term “exodus” is loaded, particularly when Moses is involved as he is here at the mount of transfiguration. Moses led the exodus of God's people from their slavery under Pharaoh. All the signs and wonders that we have been talking about were connected with that whole exodus process. Jesus has the greater and more fundamental exodus in mind. The exodus Jesus brings about is the exit from slavery under the devil. Through Jesus we become not only God's people, but even his children. We do not just enter a promised bit of geography, but the eternal dwelling God has prepared for us. We will not have our interactions with God through a tent or a temple. We will see him face to face. Without a shadow of a doubt, Jesus's exodus is greater than Moses's exodus. To say the least, however, not everyone would agree with me about this. If we put the grand and magnificent miracles that God did through Moses on one side of the scale, and Jesus's exodus—his mistreatment, suffering, death, and resurrection—on the other, our reason would go with the miracles done through Moses every time. Our reason is impressed with the manipulation of earthly forces. But our reason is very foolish when it comes to the things of God. The biblical record bears this out even with the events that we have been talking about. God shook the earth and all the powers thereof at the time of Moses. Our reason says that this should work like a charm for making people believers and obedient. But what were the Israelites like? Over and over and over they disbelieve. They want to return to their slavery. Despite the power and the glory they are constantly breaking the first and most important commandment. God many times over says that they are a stiff-necked people. This is not the greater exodus. The greater exodus is through Jesus. Grace and truth are established through him. The gift of the Holy Spirit, who creates faith and softens our stony heart, is a greater miracle than what God did at the time of Moses. You are beneficiaries of Jesus's exodus. You have been made into God's children, having been born again by the water and the Word. Embrace this life of fellowship that Jesus has established between God and you. Believe the promises. Wait for their fulfillment.
Don't Murder! Realistically not many of us will ever disobey this command, but Jesus takes this to another level, telling us to be mindful of the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. To be self-aware of how we handle our anger specifically. That to think evil thoughts about someone, we have in some degree committed a crime against the other person. Instead Jesus calls us to be peacemakers in our relationships, be a uniter and not a divider. From our passage Jesus tells us: 1. Anger is the same as murder, and subject to judgment. 2. Have self-awareness in our relationships. Do we unite or do we divide? 3. Pursue Shalom (peace) in our community and world by serving others. Challenge: Being a peacemaker will be distinctive for the world to see, and for you to experience a more full and joyful well-being.
Don't Murder! Realistically not many of us will ever disobey this command, but Jesus takes this to another level, telling us to be mindful of the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. To be self-aware of how we handle our anger specifically. That to think evil thoughts about someone, we have in some degree committed a crime against the other person. Instead Jesus calls us to be peacemakers in our relationships, be a uniter and not a divider. From our passage Jesus tells us: 1. Anger is the same as murder, and subject to judgment. 2. Have self-awareness in our relationships. Do we unite or do we divide? 3. Pursue Shalom (peace) in our community and world by serving others. Challenge: Being a peacemaker will be distinctive for the world to see, and for you to experience a more full and joyful well-being.
Community Life - Denny Lai #weareclc - Gordon Wang Speaker - Pastor Calvin Yim "Thunk It, Done It!" Don't Murder! Realistically not many of us will ever disobey this command, but Jesus takes this to another level, telling us to be mindful of the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. To be self-aware of how we handle our anger specifically. That to think evil thoughts about someone, we have in some degree committed a crime against the other person. Instead Jesus calls us to be peacemakers in our relationships, be a uniter and not a divider. From our passage Jesus tells us: 1. Anger is the same as murder, and subject to judgment. 2. Have self-awareness in our relationships. Do we unite or do we divide? 3. Pursue Shalom (peace) in our community and world by serving others. Challenge: Being a peacemaker will be distinctive for the world to see, and for you to experience a more full and joyful well-being.
Community Life - Denny Lai #weareclc - Gordon Wang Speaker - Pastor Calvin Yim "Thunk It, Done It!" Don't Murder! Realistically not many of us will ever disobey this command, but Jesus takes this to another level, telling us to be mindful of the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. To be self-aware of how we handle our anger specifically. That to think evil thoughts about someone, we have in some degree committed a crime against the other person. Instead Jesus calls us to be peacemakers in our relationships, be a uniter and not a divider. From our passage Jesus tells us: 1. Anger is the same as murder, and subject to judgment. 2. Have self-awareness in our relationships. Do we unite or do we divide? 3. Pursue Shalom (peace) in our community and world by serving others. Challenge: Being a peacemaker will be distinctive for the world to see, and for you to experience a more full and joyful well-being.
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Podcast Introduction Our reading today is Matthew 14-16, and I'm calling the episode “The Long Detour." Thoughts on Matthew 15 When the chapter begins, Jesus is in Gennesaret, by the Sea of Galilee. But in verse 21 Jesus travels to the area around Tyre and Sidon, about 50 miles away. And the area is in the opposite direction of Jerusalem. For reference, Galilee is roughly due north of Jerusalem, about 75 miles away. As the crow flies, Tyre is about 105 miles from Jerusalem. Remember, Jesus walked everywhere. He didn't own any animals. So it probably took him two to three days, depending on his speed, to walk from Gennesaret to the area around Tyre and Sidon. Why am I telling you this? Because when Jesus went there, this was not on the way to any of the places he usually frequented. He was there on a mission. He had an appointment to keep with a Canaanite woman. A Gentile. There was a lot of hatred between the Jews and the Canaanites. Yet this woman cries out to Jesus, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely possessed by a demon!” She must have heard the accounts of the miracles of healing that Jesus had done, even for Gentiles, and she believed that Jesus was the Son of David, and that He could heal her daughter. The people in his home town had no faith in Jesus, but this Canaanite woman did. Let's step aside for a moment to note that the Gentiles Jesus healed previously had travelled to his location. In this case, Jesus made the trip to her. Now back to the scene. The woman cries out, "Have mercy on me...!" and Jesus doesn't even answer her. Maybe he didn't even acknowledge her presence. This doesn't sound like Jesus. He ignored her. Evidently her reaction to being ignored was to keep pleading with Jesus, because the disciples said, “Send her away, because she is crying out after us!” At this point, we don't know what Jesus was doing, but the disciples were annoyed. They wanted her to just go away. In saying "send her away", the original language implies that they were asking Jesus to do what she asked so that she would stop her pleading and go away. Instead Jesus said in essence, "I was not sent for the Gentiles, but for Israel." This made her even more persistent. "Lord, help me!" Listen to what Charles Spurgeon wrote about this plea: “I commend this prayer to you because it is such a handy prayer. You can use it when you are in a hurry, you can use it when you are in a fright, you can use it when you have not time to bow your knee. You can use it in the pulpit if you are going to preach, you can use it when you are opening your shop, you can use it when you are rising in the morning. It is such a handy prayer that I hardly know any position in which you could not pray it: ‘Lord, help me.'” Lord, help me. Some people don't feel like they've prayed effectively unless they use a lot of words. Jesus told us in Matthew 6:8 that "...your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Lord, help me. But to our ears, Jesus seemingly doubled down in his coldness to her. He says, “It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs!” Sounds pretty racist, doesn't it? Knowing how Canaanites and Jews hated each other, it sounds like Jesus is calling her a dog, doesn't it? But not so. The language tells us that what Jesus said was "little dogs", as in the pet dogs that even Jewish people had, not the wild dogs that roamed the streets. We aren't told the tone of Jesus' voice when he made this statement, but I imagine He was beginning to let her in on the fact that He was using this as a teaching moment. I can even believe that He had a hint of a smile on his face. So she said, “Yes, Lord, for even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.” She understood what he was saying. She didn't take offense at being called a little dog. And she continued her plea. "Just throw me a scrap, Lord.
Greater than Jesus' miracles of healing is the prophecy of him as the gentle and meek servant. Matthew includes the prophecy of Isaiah 42:1-4 in this intermission within the 12th chapter of the gospel as the greatest evidence that Jesus was/is the Messiah. Jesus never allowed the opposition of the Pharisees to hinder the ministry that God the Father placed upon him. In no way was the prophesied Beloved Servant of the Lord looking for attention or accolades from the people. Instead Jesus controlled the ministry to the suffering by withdrawing from the hinderances thus showing his Sovereign power as the Christ. He never allowed the political discourse to interfere or dominate the Kingdom of Heaven.
Greater than Jesus' miracles of healing is the prophecy of him as the gentle and meek servant. Matthew includes the prophecy of Isaiah 42:1-4 in this intermission within the 12th chapter of the gospel as the greatest evidence that Jesus was/is the Messiah. Jesus never allowed the opposition of the Pharisees to hinder the ministry that God the Father placed upon him. In no way was the prophesied Beloved Servant of the Lord looking for attention or accolades from the people. Instead Jesus controlled the ministry to the suffering by withdrawing from the hinderances thus showing his Sovereign power as the Christ. He never allowed the political discourse to interfere or dominate the Kingdom of Heaven.
Episode 120 – Perfectly Quiet – The Intertestamental Period 6 Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God. Script: How can a grown man be born again?” Nicodemus asked. “He certainly cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time!” “I am telling you the truth,” replied Jesus, “that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.” The Gospel of John, chapter 3, verses 4 through 7, Good News Translation ******** VK: Hello. I’m Victoria K. Welcome to another episode of Anchored by Truth. Today we are continuing our look at “The Intertestamental Period.” The intertestamental period is the 400 to 450 year period that elapsed between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. It’s a very important period in overall Biblical history but we suspect it’s one of the least studied. I’m in the studio today with RD Fierro, author and Founder Crystal Sea Books. RD, why do you think the intertestamental period receives so little attention even from people who are faithful students of the Bible? RD: Greeting to all the Anchored by Truth listeners. If you are joining us here today for the first time we’d like thank you and invite you to keep checking us out. If you’ve heard Anchored by Truth before, thank you for coming back. We know that your continuing interest in our show marks you as someone who is serious in knowing the Bible. Much of the material that we discuss on Anchored by Truth requires thought and concentration and we know that in today’s hectic world that’s not always easy to come by. VK: Amen. RD: Anyway, I think you’re right that the intertestamental period may be the period of Biblical history that receives the least attention today. The biggest reason it doesn’t is because no books were being added to the canon of scripture during that time – between the testaments. And even for those who accept the Apocrypha as canonical there was still a gap during which no new material was being added to scripture. Because we normally focus our time on scripture itself we tend not to think very much about what happened outside of scripture, especially since we’re talking about events that all occurred over 2,000 years ago. VK: But you believe that those events that happened over 2,000 years ago are still important in our lives today. Why is that? RD: Well, let me answer that question with a question. What is God’s will for every one of his children? VK: That’s an easy one. God wants us all to be holy. 1 Peter 1:16 says “the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy.’” I know a lot of people spend a lot of time wondering what God’s will is for their lives. Usually, they’re thinking about what to study in school, what job to take, or whether to get married. And those are important questions. But, when it comes down to it, the only goal that scripture states for all of our lives is for us to be holy. RD: Very good answer. VK: Thank you. RD: And the next question is how do we go about becoming holy? VK: Well, I suppose two verses spring to mind. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 12 verses 30 and 31 where Jesus says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” RD: Again, that’s a very good answer. And I might add John 4:24. “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” In Mark Jesus is talking to someone who is referred to as a “scribe” or “a teacher of the law” – in other words a religious expert at the time. In Mark 12:28, the scribe has asked Jesus which of the commandments is the most important and, after reminding the scribe that there is only one God, Jesus replies with the commandment to love that God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. A lot of people today forget about the “mind” part. Then in John 4:24 Jesus in talking with the Samaritan woman at the well Jesus says that we must worship God in “spirit and in truth.” It would be hard to know the truth if we don’t use our minds. The point of all this is that for us to be holy (which is God’s will for all of our lives) we have to use not only our hearts and strength, but also our minds. Well, one of the things we need to be doing with our minds is not only reading scripture but doing our best to understand what we are reading. VK: So, your point is that there are many events that happened over 2,000 years ago that affected, or directly applied to, the content of our current Bibles. Some of those events occurred during the intertestamental period. So, if we don’t have some understanding of those periods historically we are automatically placing limits on our understanding of some parts of scripture. RD: Right. I’m not saying we have to turn everyone into a Bible historian. I’m certainly not. But I am saying that as we progress through our Christian lives, in order to be obedient to Christ’s command to the scribe and the Samaritan woman, we need to grow in our understanding of not only the Bible, but also the times in which the Bible was set. VK: And we need to do that because our times and cultures are quite different from the times and cultures that in which the Bible was written. The Bible tells us not be “unequally yoked” but very, very few modern Bible readers have ever had to put a yoke on themselves or an animal, for that matter. But we at least need to have a basic understanding of how yokes were used in Biblical times for us to see how that commandment should apply in our own lives. RD: Once again, that’s a great illustration. VK: And again, thank you. So, one of the biggest reasons we have undertaken this series on the intertestamental period is to make it a little easier for our listeners, who truly do want to improve their understanding of the Bible, achieve their goal. We’re doing the research and putting the research into a package that they can consume easily and share easily. RD: Exactly right. Back to the verse from 1 Peter where Peter starts off the encouragement part of his letter by reminding his readers of Leviticus 11:44 and Leviticus 19:2. Peter is writing his letter to a widely separated group of believers – believers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. Those are regions in modern day Turkey and they cover a lot of territory. Peter intends for his letter to be widely circulated. So, after some introductory comments Peter starts off by reminding his readers that God’s will for their lives, for all our lives, is for them to be holy. This is particularly important to remind them because Peter’s readers are being subjected to a great deal of persecution. VK: Like many believers are today. RD: Like many believers are today - and Peter doesn’t want them to give up their faith. Peter wants them, and us, to persevere. So, he starts off his encouragement by reminding them that God wants them to persistent in their efforts to be holy and he reminds them that the basis for this admonition is because God Himself is holy. VK: But, in reminding his readers of God’s holiness, Peter is actually reminding them that God is on their side. He’s not trying to act as some sort of “conduct policeman.” What Peter is actually reminding his readers, is that God is on their side. God is so much on their side that God wants them to be clearly identified with Him through their lives and behavior. Right? RD: Right. Peter is reminding his readers, and all of us, that God is very well aware of all the temptations and persecutions that come into their lives. But God doesn’t abandon them in those temptations and persecutions. God remains with His people and because God is with His people He knows how tempting it can be for us to give up “fighting the good fight.” VK: There is no more foundational comfort for a Christian than Deuteronomy 4:31 where God tells us that He will never leave us or forsake us. RD: I agree. So, the foundation for God telling His people to “be holy” and to love Him will their hearts, souls, strength, and minds is that His people belong to Him and not to the world or the forces of the world. This, not coincidentally, is a lesson that we can see clearly from God’s supernatural preservation of His people during the 450 years of the intertestamental period. VK: I like how you brought our discussion back to the intertestamental period we’ve been talking about. RD: Thank you. I try. VK: What you’re saying is that the Jews in Palestine during the intertestamental period would have had every reason to be discouraged. They had just endured decades of exile from their homeland. Even after the exile ended and some returned home, they returned home to an impoverished and desolate set of cities, towns, and fields. Even back in their homeland they were surrounded by hostile actors who would happily have destroyed them if they could. When Nehemiah arrived to lead an effort to restore the walls of Jerusalem, the workers were constantly harassed. They were threatened so much they had to keep their weapons with them at all times. And even after they rebuilt the walls and the temple, neither had the grandeur they had known formally. The truth was it would have been very easy for the Jews of that time to give up and leave or at least give up what made them distinctive – their faith. But they didn’t give up their faith. And neither should we during times of trial. RD: Exactly. But while the Jews had not given up their faith during the intertestamental period, as Jesus exchange with Nicodemus in our opening scripture illustrates errors had crept into the Jews understanding and practice of their faith. This was also illustrated by the exchange Jesus had with the Sadducees that we talked about in our last episode of Anchored by Truth. VK: Last time we discussed the incident where the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus with the woman-married-to-seven-brothers question that is related in Matthew, chapter 22, verses 25 through 28 and in Mark, chapter 12 and Luke, chapter 20. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection so they had developed this trick question about a woman who was married to 7 different brothers in accordance with the Jewish requirement that a younger brother marry the widow of an older brother. The Sadducees tried to illustrate that believing in the resurrection created questions that were impossible to answer - like whose wife the widow would be after the resurrection. RD: Right. But, of course, the Sadducees couldn’t trick Jesus. Instead Jesus pointed out that their own scriptures proved that the resurrection was real by quoting the scripture that described Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush. So, both the exchange with the Sadducees and Jesus’ exchange with Nicodemus showed that, even though the Jews had preserved their faith during the intertestamental period, errors had crept into their understanding of the content of their faith. In the case of the Sadducees they had begun to deny a fundamental doctrine of their faith – that there was life after death and that the life after death would be physical not merely spiritual. VK: And we don’t really know why the Sadducees had come to reject the doctrine of the resurrection do we? RD: Not precisely, no. But I think we can make some informed speculation. Let’s remember that the Sadducees and the Pharisees were kind of like political parties that had arisen during the intertestamental period. For over 200 years during the intertestamental period Palestine had been ruled by one group of Greeks or another. The Greeks actively promoted their language, culture, and ideas in the territories they controlled. This process was called “Hellenization.” Well, one of the ideas that pervaded Greek philosophy was the idea that the immaterial part of human beings, the spirit or soul, was far superior to the fleshly part. The Greeks largely thought of the spirit as good and the body as evil. So, to the Greeks the spirit needed to be liberated from the body and for some they thought of death as accomplishing this liberation. VK: The notion that the spirit is good but the body is evil is completely foreign to the Christian faith, isn’t it. When God had finished His creative activity on the 6th day he pronounced everything He had created “very good.” So, this pronouncement included both man’s body and spirit. Christianity and Judaism regard human beings as body-spirit unities with both parts having been originally created good. Right? RD: Right. And the Christian hope of resurrection is a physical resurrection just as Jesus was physically resurrected after he had been in the tomb. Jesus walked around, interacted with His disciples, ate and cooked food, and invited Thomas to touch His body to cure his doubts. The Christian faith believes in a physical resurrection though not in bodies that have been corrupted by sin, but in glorified, physical bodies like the one Jesus obviously possessed after He walked out of the tomb. Well, during the intertestamental period the Sadducees may have been heavily influenced by the Greeks ideas that were circulating in Palestine as a result of the Hellenization. The Sadducees as a party seemed to have been much more willing to embrace the process of Hellenization than the Pharisees like Nicodemus. VK: The Pharisees seem to have been the party within Israel that resisted Hellenization. The Pharisees seemed to have been far more interested in preserving their original culture and religion. As such, the Pharisees embraced the entire body of what we call the Old Testament as scripture whereas the Sadducees only believed that the first five books of the Old Testament were authoritative. So, after the intertestamental period when Jesus was conducting His earthly ministry the Pharisees did believe in the resurrection. But based on the exchange between Nicodemus and Jesus apparently some errors had crept into their understanding also. It’s just that their errors were different from the errors of the Sadducees. RD: Yes. The Sadducees were wrong about the existence of life after death, especially physical life. Since they didn’t believe in the resurrection at all they had no interest or questions in how such a resurrection could be accomplished. The Pharisees, such as Nicodemus, did believe in the resurrection but apparently even a Pharisee as knowledgeable as Nicodemus had questions. In particular, Nicodemus seems to have wondered about the means by which the resurrection would be achieved. Nicodemus seemed to have a good understanding of the ends but not the means. So, wisely, he brought his questions to Jesus because as Nicodemus acknowledged at the beginning of their interview Nicodemus knew Jesus had come from God. VK: So, we get some great lessons from this exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus. First, we learn that even people who are respected leaders and mature in their faith can still have questions and that’s ok. It’s okay to have questions and when we do it makes sense to go find people we think can help us find answers. We also learn that God is willing to provide us with teachers if we are sincere in wanting to grow in our understanding. Throughout church history there have been skilled teachers and preachers who have thought carefully about matters that are of concern to all of us. Thankfully, they have left behind an abundance of resources that are available to us today. So, even though we can’t go physically to Jesus we can go to a source of revelation more complete than Nicodemus had. Nicodemus had ready access to the Old Testament but we have ready access to both the Old and the New Testaments. RD: Those are both valuable observations. But we get learn even more when we contrast Jesus’ exchange with Nicodemus and His exchange with the Sadducees. VK: Like what? RD: Nicodemus was an honest questioner. He had some sincere questions about certain things that were part of his faith. But when Nicodemus approached Jesus he made no attempt to trick Jesus. The Sadducees did attempt to trick Jesus. The Sadducees had just as much information about Jesus as Nicodemus did, but rather than availing themselves of the opportunity to learn from him they attempted to defend their flawed understanding. They tried to trick Jesus with their supposedly-impossible-question. They probably used that question regularly in their debates with the Pharisees about whether the resurrection was real. It probably worked with the Pharisees but it didn’t work with Jesus. So, a lesson we learn when we compare the two encounters is that we need to recognize opportunities to learn from skilled and knowledgeable believers when they arrive. And we need to be honest about our questions and open to their teaching. VK: But we do need to be discerning about who we accept as teachers. We need to be sure that people we look to for help in growing in our faith are people who are solidly grounded in the understanding of the Bible. We need to be sure their desire is to elevate the Bible rather than their own ideas. RD: Yes. That’s a good caveat to keep in mind. Another lesson we pick up when we compare Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus as opposed to his encounter with the tricky Sadducees is to see how Jesus responded. With the Sadducees Jesus first corrected their misunderstanding but then he added what I would characterize as a mild rebuke. But he didn’t go any further. But with Nicodemus, who was both open and teachable, Jesus went beyond just trying to answer a question or explain a basic point regarding the content of his faith. VK: Well in John’s account of the encounter John doesn’t really record Nicodemus asking Jesus a question before Jesus told him that he had to be born again. RD: That’s true. So, we’re not sure whether there was a preliminary discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus before Jesus told Nicodemus that he had to be born again. As a reporter John tends to focus on the material which is most relevant to John’s basic purpose of demonstrating that Jesus is the son of God. So, it’s possible that Nicodemus asked a question which John didn’t bother reporting or it’s possible that Jesus already knew what Nicodemus wanted to ask. VK: Jesus was a prophet, after all. In fact, Jesus was the greatest prophet of all time. He constantly displayed the ability to know things about the people he was talking to without having been told. The encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well comes to mind. RD: Exactly. Nicodemus may have asked a question or the two may have had an initial discussion which John doesn’t bother to report or Jesus may have just known what was bothering Nicodemus. It’s quite possible that Nicodemus, a Pharisee who believed in the resurrection – and who had had lots of debates through the years with the Sadducees on the resurrection – just wanted to be sure he understood the subject of life after death clearly. A lot of people today have similar questions. At any rate, Jesus did not just go about addressing the basic question he went on to provide Nicodemus with additional information – likely information Nicodemus didn’t even know he needed but which has been a cornerstone of the Christian faith. VK: You’re thinking of John 3:16 – possibly the most well-known verse out of the entire Bible. “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.” (King James Version with slight edits) RD: Right. In response to Nicodemus’ honest question or question Jesus proceeds to give us one of the most famous expositions in the Bible. Jesus assures Nicodemus that not only is the resurrection real but that he was face-to-face with the instrument by which God would accomplish resurrection for everyone who believed. Jesus goes on in his discussion to a verse (18) which is less well-known but just as important. “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.” (New Living Translation) Jesus ratifies that there will be a resurrection but notes that the resurrection will include a separation between the believers and unbelievers. I’m sure that must have been both comforting and distressing to Nicodemus. VK: Comforting because it reassured Nicodemus of the security of his individual destination. After years, or perhaps decades, of being told by the Sadducees that there was no such thing as the resurrection Nicodemus would have been comforted to know that he had been right all along. But he would have been distressed to know that many of his colleagues and perhaps friends were in eternal danger because he knew they did not believe that Jesus had been sent from God the way he did. I think that’s a sentiment many of us today would share. RD: Exactly. And so this goes back to the reason it’s a good idea for us to have some understanding of what life was like in Israel while Jesus was performing His earthly ministry. Debates had raged for decades on questions that are basic and essential to our faith. It can help us immensely to not see Nicodemus and the others Jesus encountered, pro or con, as real people with lives and histories just like ours. They had concerns just like we do and we share many of those concerns 2,000 years later – like how to help our friends avoid eternal judgment. Improving our understanding of scripture and how Jesus ministered during his life is invaluable to helping our friends. VK: Amen. This sounds like a great time for a prayer. Jesus’ ministry while He was on this earth was all about saving those who are lost spiritually. The need for doing that continues today. So, today let’s listen to a prayer for our nation – knowing that God continues to want to provide His light to any and all who are genuinely open to receiving answers to sincere questions: ---- PRAYER FOR THE NATION (MARCUS). We hope you’ll be with us next time and we hope you’ll take some time to encourage some friends to tune in too, or listen to the podcast version of this show. If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!” (Bible Quote from the New International Version) Daniel, chapter 8, verses 5 through 8 and 20 and 21, New International Version
John explores what harvest festival is about, and uses Matariki to offer the idea that in harvest festival we also commit to ongoing care for creation, where the harvest comes from. He links that with Pope Francis's Laudato Si, - giving thanks for creation and developing an attitude holding the bond between concern for nature, justice for the poor, commitment to society and inner peace. That leads us to the Gospel reading (Mark 5:21-43) and the reign of God revealed in Jesus offering of hope and life. In Jesus the reign of God defeats the powers that bring death and prevent people and creation from thriving. Instead Jesus offers life. And for many what prevents people thriving is their fear. Jesus breaks the power of fear and invites us to trust God even in the midst of our fear and doubt.The notes for this sermon can be found here
Satan offers Jesus a shortcut to gaining the blessings God has promised him. But idolatry is looking to someone or something other than God to grant us Life. For each of the temptations, we'll answer 3 questions: Why is the choice wrong? Why is the choice attractive? How does Jesus respond? Review At Jesus' baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to claim the throne of David amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation. Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation. On the one hand, Jesus has been powerfully confirmed as the Son of God, the Messiah. On the other hand, God has put him in a place where he is facing great hardship and deprivation. This tension lies behind all these temptations. Satan wants to destroy Jesus personally and more importantly he wants to disqualify Jesus to be the Messiah. God is testing Jesus and demonstrating that Jesus is, in fact, worthy to be the Messiah. God tests Jesus in a way that echoes the story of Israel's journey in the wilderness to teach us that Jesus is succeeding where Israel failed. Jesus shows he understands this parallel between his situation and Israel's by quoting from Moses' sermon to the nation before they enter the promised land. Why is the choice tempting? 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'” 11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. - Matthew 4:8-11 Satan is not asking for Jesus' complete loyalty, but for an act of respect. This word translated "bow down" refers to the physical act of prostrating yourself as a gesture of respect, the kind of homage a subject would give a king (e.g. Revelation 3:9; Mark 15:19). Satan is asking Jesus to perform the physical act of bowing down before him in exchange for the kingdoms of the world. Ruling over the kingdoms of the world is Jesus' destiny as the Messiah (e.g. Daniel 7:13-14). Jesus must have longed for it insofar as he longs for God's will. God has promised to give Jesus authority over all the earth, but to realize that promise Jesus must suffer and die. Satan is offering to "fulfill" God's promise to Jesus WITHOUT the suffering. Luke 4:6-7 implies that Satan has authority to grant these kingdoms. Deuteronomy Review 1“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey." - Deuteronomy 6:1-3 The focus in this section is on the future. Israel is about to cross into the land God promised their fathers. Moses reminds the present generation that in the promised land they will face the same temptation their fathers faced in the wilderness: Will they be faithful to the Lord or not? 4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart." - Deuteronomy 6:4-6 What does it mean that that Lord is one? Compare with Mark 12:28-34.
Satan offers Jesus a shortcut to gaining the blessings God has promised him. But idolatry is looking to someone or something other than God to grant us Life. For each of the temptations, we'll answer 3 questions: Why is the choice wrong?Why is the choice attractive?How does Jesus respond? Review At Jesus' baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to claim the throne of David amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation. Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation. On the one hand, Jesus has been powerfully confirmed as the Son of God, the Messiah. On the other hand, God has put him in a place where he is facing great hardship and deprivation. This tension lies behind all these temptations.Satan wants to destroy Jesus personally and more importantly he wants to disqualify Jesus to be the Messiah. God is testing Jesus and demonstrating that Jesus is, in fact, worthy to be the Messiah.God tests Jesus in a way that echoes the story of Israel's journey in the wilderness to teach us that Jesus is succeeding where Israel failed. Jesus shows he understands this parallel between his situation and Israel's by quoting from Moses' sermon to the nation before they enter the promised land. Why is the choice tempting? 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'” 11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. - Matthew 4:8-11 Satan is not asking for Jesus' complete loyalty, but for an act of respect.This word translated "bow down" refers to the physical act of prostrating yourself as a gesture of respect, the kind of homage a subject would give a king (e.g. Revelation 3:9; Mark 15:19).Satan is asking Jesus to perform the physical act of bowing down before him in exchange for the kingdoms of the world. Ruling over the kingdoms of the world is Jesus' destiny as the Messiah (e.g. Daniel 7:13-14). Jesus must have longed for it insofar as he longs for God's will.God has promised to give Jesus authority over all the earth, but to realize that promise Jesus must suffer and die. Satan is offering to "fulfill" God's promise to Jesus WITHOUT the suffering.Luke 4:6-7 implies that Satan has authority to grant these kingdoms. Deuteronomy Review 1“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey." - Deuteronomy 6:1-3 The focus in this section is on the future. Israel is about to cross into the land God promised their fathers. Moses reminds the present generation that in the promised land they will face the same temptation their fathers faced in the wilderness: Will they be faithful to the Lord or not? 4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart." - Deuteronomy 6:4-6 What does it mean that that Lord is one? Compare with Mark 12:28-34.The scribe in Mark 12 restates the significance as there is no other besides him.
Satan offers Jesus a shortcut to gaining the blessings God has promised him. But idolatry is looking to someone or something other than God to grant us Life. For each of the temptations, we'll answer 3 questions: Why is the choice wrong? Why is the choice attractive? How does Jesus respond? Review At Jesus' baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to claim the throne of David amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation. Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation. On the one hand, Jesus has been powerfully confirmed as the Son of God, the Messiah. On the other hand, God has put him in a place where he is facing great hardship and deprivation. This tension lies behind all these temptations. Satan wants to destroy Jesus personally and more importantly he wants to disqualify Jesus to be the Messiah. God is testing Jesus and demonstrating that Jesus is, in fact, worthy to be the Messiah. God tests Jesus in a way that echoes the story of Israel's journey in the wilderness to teach us that Jesus is succeeding where Israel failed. Jesus shows he understands this parallel between his situation and Israel's by quoting from Moses' sermon to the nation before they enter the promised land. Why is the choice tempting? 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'” 11Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him. - Matthew 4:8-11 Satan is not asking for Jesus' complete loyalty, but for an act of respect. This word translated "bow down" refers to the physical act of prostrating yourself as a gesture of respect, the kind of homage a subject would give a king (e.g. Revelation 3:9; Mark 15:19). Satan is asking Jesus to perform the physical act of bowing down before him in exchange for the kingdoms of the world. Ruling over the kingdoms of the world is Jesus' destiny as the Messiah (e.g. Daniel 7:13-14). Jesus must have longed for it insofar as he longs for God's will. God has promised to give Jesus authority over all the earth, but to realize that promise Jesus must suffer and die. Satan is offering to "fulfill" God's promise to Jesus WITHOUT the suffering. Luke 4:6-7 implies that Satan has authority to grant these kingdoms. Deuteronomy Review 1“Now this is the commandment—the statutes and the rules—that the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it, 2that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son's son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. 3Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey." - Deuteronomy 6:1-3 The focus in this section is on the future. Israel is about to cross into the land God promised their fathers. Moses reminds the present generation that in the promised land they will face the same temptation their fathers faced in the wilderness: Will they be faithful to the Lord or not? 4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart." - Deuteronomy 6:4-6 What does it mean that that Lord is one? Compare with Mark 12:28-34.
In the temptations, Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as the Messiah while God wants to demonstrate that Jesus is worthy to be the Messiah. We'll look how how Jesus responds when he's tempted to believe God is no longer taking care of him. For each of the temptations we'll answer 3 questions: Why is the choice wrong? Why is the choice attractive? How does Jesus respond? Review At Jesus' baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to establish his rightful reign. We might expect him to claim the throne of David as is his right amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation. Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation. Setting Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. He is there because God told him to go there (Matt 4:1). God sends Jesus into the wilderness is so that he might be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1). The basic meaning of the Greek word for "test" (periazo) is to test something to find out what it's made of. If you are testing a person with the hope that he fails the test, this word is typically translated "tempted." If you are testing a person with the hope that he succeeds, this word is often translated "try" or "test." God and Satan have two very different purposes for this testing. Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as God's Messiah while God wants demonstrate that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah. God is deliberating creating a parallel between the nation of Israel in the wilderness and Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus appears to understand the parallel by quoting from the sermon Moses gave to Israel reviewing the lessons they were supposed to learn from their journey in the wilderness. Jesus succeeds in obeying God where Israel failed. Passage 1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” - Matthew 4:1-4 Satan is not asking Jesus to prove that he is the Messiah. It is not inherently wrong to turn the stones into bread. Elsewhere Jesus miraculously produces food. Satan is trying to convince Jesus that God cannot be trusted and he should take matters into his own hands. Satan's logic: "If God is really good, He would feed you. He's not feeding you, so God must not be good. If God isn't good, I can't trust Him to care for me. And if I can't trust God to care for me, then I'd better look out for myself.” The problem is the premise: God is good and He may not feed you. The choice is tempting because Jesus may conclude from his present circumstances that God is no longer taking care of him. The choice is wrong because it would be to stop trusting God and take matters into your own hands. Exodus Review When the nation of Israel is suffering in slavery in Egypt, God sends Moses to them with a message of deliverance (Exodus 4:1-31). God promises that He will deliver them from their slavery with a striking display of power. He will be their God and they will be His people (Exodus 6:1-130. Even though Israel is skeptical, God delivers them through a series of ten miraculous plagues, including the Passover (Exodus 7-13). Pharaoh agrees to let them go, but pursues them with his army after they leave. The people panic when they see Pharaoh's army approaching (Exodus 14:10-13). But God miraculously saves them by parting the sea (Exodus 14). The people believe God (Exodus 14:31), but their trust does not last. When they face hunger, the nation again loses confidence in God (Exodus 16:1-3).
In the temptations, Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as the Messiah while God wants to demonstrate that Jesus is worthy to be the Messiah. We'll look how how Jesus responds when he's tempted to believe God is no longer taking care of him. For each of the temptations we'll answer 3 questions: Why is the choice wrong? Why is the choice attractive? How does Jesus respond? Review At Jesus' baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to establish his rightful reign. We might expect him to claim the throne of David as is his right amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation. Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation. Setting Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. He is there because God told him to go there (Matt 4:1). God sends Jesus into the wilderness is so that he might be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1). The basic meaning of the Greek word for "test" (periazo) is to test something to find out what it's made of. If you are testing a person with the hope that he fails the test, this word is typically translated "tempted." If you are testing a person with the hope that he succeeds, this word is often translated "try" or "test." God and Satan have two very different purposes for this testing. Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as God's Messiah while God wants demonstrate that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah. God is deliberating creating a parallel between the nation of Israel in the wilderness and Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus appears to understand the parallel by quoting from the sermon Moses gave to Israel reviewing the lessons they were supposed to learn from their journey in the wilderness. Jesus succeeds in obeying God where Israel failed. Passage 1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” - Matthew 4:1-4 Satan is not asking Jesus to prove that he is the Messiah. It is not inherently wrong to turn the stones into bread. Elsewhere Jesus miraculously produces food. Satan is trying to convince Jesus that God cannot be trusted and he should take matters into his own hands. Satan's logic: "If God is really good, He would feed you. He's not feeding you, so God must not be good. If God isn't good, I can't trust Him to care for me. And if I can't trust God to care for me, then I'd better look out for myself.” The problem is the premise: God is good and He may not feed you. The choice is tempting because Jesus may conclude from his present circumstances that God is no longer taking care of him. The choice is wrong because it would be to stop trusting God and take matters into your own hands. Exodus Review When the nation of Israel is suffering in slavery in Egypt, God sends Moses to them with a message of deliverance (Exodus 4:1-31). God promises that He will deliver them from their slavery with a striking display of power. He will be their God and they will be His people (Exodus 6:1-130. Even though Israel is skeptical, God delivers them through a series of ten miraculous plagues, including the Passover (Exodus 7-13). Pharaoh agrees to let them go, but pursues them with his army after they leave. The people panic when they see Pharaoh's army approaching (Exodus 14:10-13). But God miraculously saves them by parting the sea (Exodus 14). The people believe God (Exodus 14:31), but their trust does not last. When they face hunger, the nation again loses confidence in God (Exodus 16:1-3).
In the temptations, Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as the Messiah while God wants to demonstrate that Jesus is worthy to be the Messiah. We'll look how how Jesus responds when he's tempted to believe God is no longer taking care of him. For each of the temptations we'll answer 3 questions: Why is the choice wrong? Why is the choice attractive? How does Jesus respond? Review At Jesus' baptism, we have a dramatic heavenly confirmation that Jesus is the Messiah. After that, we might expect Jesus to rally an army and march to Jerusalem to establish his rightful reign. We might expect him to claim the throne of David as is his right amidst the cheers and adoration of his nation. Instead Jesus is led into the wilderness, alone, to face starvation and temptation. Setting Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Spirit. He is there because God told him to go there (Matt 4:1). God sends Jesus into the wilderness is so that he might be tempted by the devil (Matt 4:1). The basic meaning of the Greek word for "test" (periazo) is to test something to find out what it's made of. If you are testing a person with the hope that he fails the test, this word is typically translated "tempted." If you are testing a person with the hope that he succeeds, this word is often translated "try" or "test." God and Satan have two very different purposes for this testing.Satan wants to disqualify Jesus as God's Messiah while God wants demonstrate that Jesus is qualified to be the Messiah. God is deliberating creating a parallel between the nation of Israel in the wilderness and Jesus in the wilderness. Jesus appears to understand the parallel by quoting from the sermon Moses gave to Israel reviewing the lessons they were supposed to learn from their journey in the wilderness.Jesus succeeds in obeying God where Israel failed. Passage 1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'” - Matthew 4:1-4 Satan is not asking Jesus to prove that he is the Messiah.It is not inherently wrong to turn the stones into bread. Elsewhere Jesus miraculously produces food.Satan is trying to convince Jesus that God cannot be trusted and he should take matters into his own hands.Satan's logic: "If God is really good, He would feed you. He's not feeding you, so God must not be good. If God isn't good, I can't trust Him to care for me. And if I can't trust God to care for me, then I'd better look out for myself.”The problem is the premise: God is good and He may not feed you.The choice is tempting because Jesus may conclude from his present circumstances that God is no longer taking care of him.The choice is wrong because it would be to stop trusting God and take matters into your own hands. Exodus Review When the nation of Israel is suffering in slavery in Egypt, God sends Moses to them with a message of deliverance (Exodus 4:1-31).God promises that He will deliver them from their slavery with a striking display of power. He will be their God and they will be His people (Exodus 6:1-130.Even though Israel is skeptical, God delivers them through a series of ten miraculous plagues, including the Passover (Exodus 7-13).Pharaoh agrees to let them go, but pursues them with his army after they leave. The people panic when they see Pharaoh's army approaching (Exodus 14:10-13). But God miraculously saves them by parting the sea (Exodus 14).The people believe God (Exodus 14:31), but their trust does not last.When they face hunger, the nation again loses confidence in God (Exodus 16:1-3). But God miraculously provides food for them (Exodus 16). Jesus' Response
Jesus enters Jerusalem sitting on a humble donkey to decry the popular understanding of a political Messiah who will drive out the Roman invadors. Instead Jesus speaks of an interior kingdom where one meets God "within" then flowing out in a stream of love, peace and joy.
0 (0s): Good morning, everybody online, everybody all over the campus here. Thank you for coming to church this morning and worshiping with us. Let's all stand together. Worship our Lord 1 (15s): 0 (14m 10s): Lord, we praise you this morning. We thank you that you make it abundantly clear your creation screams. The love you have for us. Lord, we dedicate this time to you, Lord, we pray Holy spirit, that you would lead us, that you give us ears to hear your word and to understand it. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. If you ever watched those movies where like in the backroom, the mafia's counting a whole bunch of change. 0 (14m 50s): All this money. They got the green hats 2 (14m 52s): On all that stuff. 3 (14m 54s): Well, that didn't happen 2 (14m 56s): At the lifeline pregnancy center, but they did have to bring extra volunteers to count all of the cash that we brought in. 3 (15m 2s): So harvest church, you all were saying, 2 (15m 5s): So, so generous. So thank you so much. Yeah, it was, it was, they were just blown away by the amount of cash that they had to count. And so thank you. Hey, we are still looking for a few more volunteers. Let's see, we've got a few more things. It takes a village to run a church, right? Right. So we're still looking for one, the greeting team serving one Sunday, a month. One service safety team is still looking for a few extra folks. I know a few few people came up and talked to me last week about helping out with that. If you talk to me on Sunday, my mind has just gone. So go check it at the info center. Put your name, your email, all that email address. And Phil let us know w where you can serve there. 2 (15m 48s): As well as worship and tech team were helping need help with slides, cameras, instruments, all that. So you can either do it on online or go to the info center to check in. And then 3 (15m 59s): Lastly, big announcement. We've got Easter coming up Easter. So we, 2 (16m 3s): Our Easter is April 4th and we're going to be having one service here at the church. And we're going to have to be having in the upper parking lot, where we purchased a stage. We got all the sound equipment for it. It's going to be awesome. We're excited. Announced that it's going to be there in the upper campus. Hey, there will be baptisms this year. I can't promise that the 3 (16m 23s): Pool will be warm or hot, but 2 (16m 25s): At least there'll be warm. We'll make sure it's warm and then there'll be plenty of opportunities to serve as well. So just put Easter on your calendar. We're doing Easter, we're doing it in our upper parking lot. 3 (16m 35s): So that's all I got. That's it? That's it. Valentine's day go. Well, 4 (16m 45s): No, come on up here. What was it? So you've been married for how many years? Almost 10. Almost 10 years. So Valentine's day, was it a success or 3 (16m 57s): Yes, we do. We do. I'm trying to remember. Oh, yes, yes. That was the last Sunday. It was last Sunday. That's why I'm talking about it. Yeah. Our daughter is in the middle of teething reflux, not sleeping. So, so plans had to adjust, but we had, we had fun. We got a little dinner at California, fresh Pismo with everyone else and watch the sunset. All right, good. It was good. It was good day. Yeah. How was yours? You should ask my wife and shit. 4 (17m 27s): Yeah, it was good. It was, it was good. It was good. Yeah. We're going to be, we're going to make it another year. I think it's good. It's good. 3 (17m 36s): That's fine. Maybe I should Pat. Jolina her on the back. 4 (17m 42s): Welcome. We are in first Timothy chapter one today. We're actually going to get through the whole chapter today. I believe up to this point. We've through about three verses. I know you'll believe it when you see it, but I that's the plan. Anyway. That is the plan. Hey, crazy story. I don't know if you guys heard about this, but there was this guy in his neighborhood and he's watching his neighbor kicking down his own door. It was the craziest thing. The guy watching the neighbor kicked down his door. He knew that this guy was a criminal, but he didn't think that he was like insane. So he's like, he's like, dude, you know, this guy had been put in prison for breaking entering and all kinds of robberies and all kinds of things. 4 (18m 25s): And, and so the neighbor who's watching his neighbor kicked down his own door. He's like, you know, kind of cautiously say, Hey, Hey dude, what are you doing in the criminal set? I'm working from home. 3 (18m 43s): That's halfway, halfway decent. 4 (18m 50s): W what's the best time to go to the dentist? 3 (18m 55s): Why? Why two 30, two 30? Yeah. Somebody's tooth two 30, but enough of the jokes, 4 (19m 4s): Two questions. Part three. We're in first Timothy chapter one, we're looking at two questions again this week. God, what do you want me to do today? Number one and God, what do you want to do through me today? So we're just kind of asking those questions throughout the month of February two questions, throw them up there one more time. What do you want to do through with me today? What do you want me to do today? God. And what do you want to do through me today? We're just kind of asking God these questions kind of helping to align our lives with his plan. And when I talked about his planet, it really literally puts a smile on my face because his plan is really good. And I know sometimes we're worried about asking God to fulfill his plan innocent with us and through us because we're nervous about his plan, but if we can get past all of that and realize that his plans for us are really, really good. 4 (19m 57s): And when we ask God these questions, we can get excited about what he will do. Now. He's probably not going to download information and answers to us like out of the gate in the morning, but throughout the course of the day, he will show us what we're supposed to be doing and what he wants to do through us. He'll just make that clear in the course of our conversations, interactions with people, whether we're in business or in school or working from home or in our neighborhoods, whatever the case may be, God will show us with that. Let's go ahead and stand up. And we're going to continue to drill down on this. As we get through first Timothy chapter one, Lord, we love you. And we, we, we want to know what you want us to do. 4 (20m 38s): So we're camped out on this this month. And, and so I pray that it would become more clear to us. I know if we've never asked these questions before, if, if we've never had this expectation, have you before God, it's, it's it's new territory. And so I, I, I pray God that with this new territory that you'd show us Lord and that we would have eyes to see ears to hear, and then just a willingness to do, do it. Lord, a willingness to obey, to listen and obey. So Lord God, I, I pray that as we do that, that we would hit a new level in our faith walk with you. It would just become new and exciting for us, our faith journey. And some of us have been walking with the Lord for a long time. 4 (21m 20s): Some of us are brand new in the Lord. I pray that every person represented here all over this campus would just find a new excitement following you and trusting you through all the seasons and journeys of life. So Lord, as we open up your word and as we see what Paul was speaking about to Timothy, and as we look at other passages of scripture in Romans and Galatians and in Luke, I pray God that, that we would have fresh vision for our lives, fresh obedience, doing the things that you called us to do. We love you. And we trust you Lord in Jesus name, amen. You can be seated. You can be seated. What do you want me to do today? And what do you want to do through me today? 4 (22m 1s): We're going to, we've already kind of gone over the first three verses of first Timothy chapter one, but I'm going to read them just because it's just takes a second to read through them. And then we'll kind of pick things up in verse four. And like I said, we're going to try to get through all of it today by God's grace, without going too all the way to lunchtime. So that's the plan here. Here we go. First Timothy chapter one, all the verses will be up on the screen here. This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ. Jesus appointed by the command of God, our savior in Christ. Jesus who gives us hope powerful truth right there. I'm writing to Timothy. My true son in the faith. 4 (22m 41s): May God, the father and Christ Jesus, our Lord give you grace mercy and peace. Hope grace, mercy, peace. These are the things that the Lord wants us to experience in him. So we've got nothing to fear. Can we say that? Let's say that together. We've got nothing to fear. We got nothing to fear. Hope grace, mercy, peace verse three. When I left for Macedonia, I urge you to stay there in emphasis and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. Verse four, Paul said, don't let them waste their time in endless discussions of myths and spiritual pedigrees. 4 (23m 24s): These things only lead to meaningless speculations and don't help people live a life of faith in God. And so the goal of the teaching of scripture is that we might live a life of faith in God. This is the goal of the scripture from the old Testament, all the way through the new Testament that we might a life of 5 (23m 46s): Faith in God. So these endless this discussions, it seems James is based, based on verse eight, might have been about the laws of God. So there's meaningless speculations in debate about the laws of God is most likely what's going on. The law. The commandments were never meant to be the focus. What we see is that these things tend to become the focus that 10 commandments, the laws of God. They tend to be our focus. It's what we're trying to do, trying to follow, trying to accomplish. But the laws of God, the commandments were never meant to be the focus. The law was dizzy signed to demonstrate our desperate need for a savior. 5 (24m 32s): The law was to help us understand. We look at what God's expectations are in our abilities. We can never accomplish what God's expectations are. So we cry out for the mercy and the grace of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We say, save me, Lord. The Pharisees, a Jewish shacks were known for their strict adherence to the law is if the, that might earn them some kind of favor with God and salvation. Pastor Joseph stole from moody Bible Institute in Chicago said this, he wrote in contrast to the two commands of Christ, what are the two commands of Christ? Love God and love others, right? 5 (25m 12s): So in contrast to these two commands that encompass all of the law of God. The Pharisees had developed a system of 613 laws, 613 laws. Like if you've got 613 laws to pay attention to like, you're never thinking about anything, but those 613 laws, because if I mess up, I've dishonored God. According to their thinking, there were 365 negative commands in 242 positive laws by the chime Christ. He continues by the time Christ came in, it had produced a heartless by the time Christ arrives on the scene, the 613 laws had produced a heartless cold and arrogant brand of righteousness, heartless cold and arrogant brand of righteousness as such. 5 (26m 6s): It contained at least 10 tragic flaws. And we're just going to go through these 10 tragic flaws really quick. So this is what Joseph stole said are the 10 tragic flaws of the 613 laws that the Pharisees had developed. Number one, new laws continually need to be invented for new situations. So what does it mean to honor the Sabbath day? How far can I walk and still honor the Sabbath? How, how much work can I do? And still honor the Sabbath. So new laws needed to be created constantly. Accountability to God is revealed, replaced by accountability to men. So instead of living in a relationship with God, where by I'm accountable to him for the way that I live my life now, all my accountability is with men. 5 (26m 51s): It's with people and now I'm comparing myself to them and measuring myself by their success or by their failures. It, it creates a disconnect between people and God and it makes, keeps it all external. Number three, it reduces a person's ability to 6 (27m 7s): Personally discern 5 (27m 10s): God has called us into a relationship whereby weep have the power, the ability to personally discern what he would have us to do. We've got the laws of God, love God and love others. But within that, we have a bazillion decisions to make throughout the course of the day. Lord is this the right decision? It calls us to account with God, to intimacy with God whereby we're asking him all of the time. Lord is this the right decision? Lord is this the right plan for my life? We're we're the law of Christ calls us into account to Jesus and calls us into a relationship with him. All of these 613 laws keep everything external. 5 (27m 50s): Number four, it creates a judgmental spirit. 6 (27m 53s): It creates 5 (27m 54s): A judgmental spirit. Number five, the Pharisees confused personal preference with divine law. Number six, it produces inconsistencies. Number seven. It created a false standard of righteousness. Number eight, it became a burden to the Jews. We'll talk more about that in just a little bit. Number nine, it was strict 6 (28m 15s): CLI external and 5 (28m 18s): Finally, number 10, it was rejected by Christ. It was rejected by Christ theologian. John F Wolverine wrote exactly what these endless discussions, these crazy myths, fables and genealogies spiritual pedigrees involved as not known. So we don't know exactly what they were arguing about. We have a feeling that it had something to do with the law, but we're not sure exactly they may. He, she continues. They may have had a Gnostic flavor, but we're more likely of Jewish origin. Paul wrote to Titus in Titus one 14, he said they must stop listening to Jewish myths and the commands that people who have turned away from the truth. There's going to be all kinds of distractions in the world and within the church, if we're not careful that will take our attention off of Jesus. 5 (29m 6s): It will move our attention and cause us to focus on something else. 6 (29m 9s): Calls, Wolf, ward continues, whatever their nature, they were 5 (29m 15s): Empty of any spiritual value. And that only to further speculations questions and arguing. 6 (29m 23s): There's so much 5 (29m 25s): Speculations, so much argument with and questions within the body of Christ. I find that we tend to battle amongst ourselves as the body of Christ when we should be unified around the person and the work of the Lord, Jesus Christ. I was with a couple 4 (29m 42s): From our church and this 6 (29m 43s): Couple, they write Bible 4 (29m 46s): Study curriculum that goes into jails and prisons and facilities all over the, all over the country and really all over the world. The 6 (29m 54s): Dutra is well, they were down 4 (29m 56s): In Southern California and with the jail system and they were trying to get their more books into the LA County jail system. And so the, the chaplain read through all of their curriculum and found two sentences that he disagreed with. And so, because he found two sentences in the whole curriculum that he disagreed with, he wanted to keep 6 (30m 19s): Her books, their books out 4 (30m 21s): Of the jail system, even though 99.9% of their curriculum was in, in, on par with what he believed, because he found a couple little things in 6 (30m 31s): There that were really 4 (30m 33s): Unimportant things in most people's minds, he decided I'm going to keep, keep her books out. So these effective books that have been ministering to people all over the globe are now going to be kept out because we can't figure out how to get along over unimportant 6 (30m 48s): Issues, 4 (30m 51s): Speculations questions and arguments, such speculations were to be avoided because they did not further God's plan, which has grasped and implemented, not by human imaginings, 6 (31m 1s): But by faith, he can 4 (31m 4s): Continues by contrast human speculations tend to lead off, down endless blind tunnels, which serve only to confuse and obscure God's truth. 6 (31m 14s): So whatever 4 (31m 14s): The church in emphasis was dabbling in and in discussions of myths and spiritual pedigrees, these things only led to meaningless speculations, which don't help people live a life of faith in God. And that, and that's the goal. According to verse four, the goal is that we would live a life of faith in God, man. We need to stop arguing amongst ourselves within our denominational structures about things that are so unimportant that hinder our ability to evangelize and to grow people in their most Holy faith. So what is the purpose of Paul's instruction back to first Timothy chapter one, verse five. The purpose of my instruction Paul says is that all believers would be filled, 6 (31m 58s): Would love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience and genuine faith. Remember 4 (32m 8s): The letter written to the church in Ephesus in revelation, chapter two, he said, you've got all this stuff going for you, but I have this one thing against you. You've forgotten your first love. You don't love God and you don't love others like you did at first, the first thing that the enemy wants to attack, but the world system wants to attack is our love one for another, because the Bible says that the world will know that we're God's disciples. That we're, that we're the followers of Jesus because of our love, one for another. And so we're going 5 (32m 40s): To be attacked in that area of love. And so we're going to find a Fe fight, make it easy. We're going to find a fence with people. It'll be easy to find a fence with people and not love them. It'll be easy to find a fence with God and not love God. The, our love for God and love for one another is under attack. And instead of loving God and loving you, loving others, we can become mechanical in our faith. We can make it all about religious activity, all about the law, all about external things and be distant from God in our heart. And with our love. The purpose of my instruction is that believers will be filled with love. 5 (33m 20s): Paul understood. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He, he understood the law better than most, and he understood that it lacked desperately. These things that he's talking about. Now, God got a hold of him with his great, with God's great love and set him on a new path. The purpose is love. That comes from a pure, 6 (33m 41s): Our hearts are clear conscience and genuine faith. How's your walk with Jesus in light of that verse, right there. How's 5 (33m 53s): Your connection with Jesus in light of that? 6 (33m 56s): How your love what's the condition of your heart and your conscience is your faith genuine. As 5 (34m 4s): We look at these passages of scripture, and as we look at the word of God, verse six says, but some people have missed this whole point. They missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. And they want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don't know what they're talking about. Even though they speak 6 (34m 24s): Confidently. 5 (34m 27s): Commentator wrote certainly for the Christian. The goal of all exhortations in practical affairs is 6 (34m 33s): Love, which was in all probability conspicuously lacking in these speculative speculative reasoners 5 (34m 41s): Whose main purpose was their own 6 (34m 44s): Intellectual satisfaction, 5 (34m 48s): Where we're supposed to grow in our knowledge of God. We're supposed to grow in our knowledge of the word of God, but that growth should only cause us to love more fully and more effectively. It should cause us to serve Dow with a pure heart and a clear conscience with a genuine faith. The knowledge of God should draw us closer to him and not cause a distance, a separation. So we need to be careful that the knowledge that we're trying to accumulate does what it's meant to do. That's meant to cause us to have a genuine faith, a pure heart, a clear conscience it's it's meant to cause us to love more deeply. 5 (35m 28s): We should love people more deeply, more passionately. When we walk away from our time in the word, it should be teaching us these things about character of God and the plans of God for our life. So we talked about this last week, God, what do you want to do with me today? When he, what do you want to do through me today? Most likely it's around the topic of love. God wants to do something with you and through you in the area of love, like how can we love people more effectively better. We can do that by walking with people through the difficult seasons of their lives. Sometimes when we're, when people are going through difficulties in their life, we kind of give them their space. But I think maybe God wants us to walk with people more effectively, better by praying for them and just meeting their, their, their tangible needs. 5 (36m 15s): As people walk through difficulty because everybody walks through challenging seasons in 3 (36m 19s): Life, verse eight, 5 (36m 22s): We know that the law is good when it's used correctly. So we're not saying the law is bad. Jesus came, he fulfilled the requirements of the law. They're good. When they're used correctly. W what does that supposed to look like? Galatians three, 19 through 26 says this, then why then was the law given? He was given alongside the promise Jesus to show people their sins. But the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child, the 3 (36m 53s): Christ child, who was 5 (36m 55s): Promise God gave his law through angels to Moses. He was the mediator between God and the people. Now a mediator is helpful. If more than one party must reach an agreement, but God who is one did not use a mediator when he gave his promise to Abraham, 3 (37m 12s): Is there a conflict 5 (37m 13s): Then between God's law and God's promise his promises? Absolutely not. If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying. 3 (37m 24s): It's not the case. 5 (37m 26s): The scriptures declare verse 22, that we are all prisoners of sin. So we received God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus. 3 (37m 38s): So we don't receive 5 (37m 40s): The promise of freedom. By trying harder, we received the promise of freedom by drawing close to Jesus and allowing ourselves to be filled with the Holy spirit by constantly like constantly drawing closer to Jesus. The, the human condition always wants to keep an eye on the law. And so we're constantly focused on the things we should not be doing. Jesus has called us into an intimate relationship, a connection with him so that we're, we're, we're focused on him and filled with his presence so that we're living our lives out of that abundance out of that fulfillment out of that life, we're living out of that power. 5 (38m 21s): And the freedom just comes as a by-product just naturally comes as we keep our eyes on him. And as we keep ourselves filled with his, 3 (38m 31s): The spirits, if the law could give us new life, we 4 (38m 37s): Could be made right with God by obeying it. But the scripture is clear that we are all prisoners of sin. Verse 23 has jumped down to 23 before, 5 (38m 45s): Before the way of faith in Christ was available to us. We were placed under guard 3 (38m 50s): By the law. We were kept in 5 (38m 52s): Protective custody. So to speak until the way of faith was revealed, let me put it in another way. Verse 24, the law was our guardian until Christ came. It protected us until we could be made right with God through faith. Our hang up is that we want to be constantly made right with God, through our good actions. We want to constantly try to measure up. We can never measure up. And when we're focused on that, we're going to continue to stumble because our focus is on the wrong thing. It's like having our focus on the law, the list of do's and don'ts instead, when we're transformed by the power of God, when we're filled with the presence of the Holy spirit, and when we've got our focus on him, then freedom is a byproduct. 5 (39m 38s): We just 4 (39m 39s): Literally begin to walk in freedom, new life in Jesus Christ, 3 (39m 44s): Nice 4 (39m 47s): Verse 25. And now that the way of faith has come. We no longer need the law as our guardian for. We are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ and Christ. Jesus. Back to first of the chapter, one verse nine 3 (40m 3s): For 5 (40m 3s): Law was not intended for people who do what is right. 4 (40m 9s): It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who considered nothing sacred and to file. What is Holy who killed their father or mother, or commit other murders, murders. The laws for people who are sexually immoral or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, 3 (40m 31s): There's liars promise breakers, or do, or who do 4 (40m 34s): Anything else that contradicts the whole teaching that comes from the glorious good news entrusted to me, by our blessed God, 5 (40m 43s): The law was designed to make people realize their sin. So it's designed to help us recognize that apart from Christ, we can't, we, we w we, we don't measure up. I can't do what God requires. I can't do it because it's beyond my capacity to do it. 3 (41m 3s): The law 5 (41m 3s): Is not the good news. We talking about the gospel, Jesus Christ is their focus, and he is the good news. And so we need to get our focus on him. And as we do that, 4 (41m 16s): We'll experience Liberty and new life in Jesus. 5 (41m 20s): Jesus rebuked the law, abiding Pharisees over and over again for their lack of true godliness. So they were constantly the law by these law, abiding Pharisees were constantly about the laws, 613 laws. It's like they did. They couldn't write enough laws to try to keep their lives in order, but Jesus rebuked them because of their lack of godliness, their lack of intimacy with him, their lack of real salvation faith in him and Luke 1137 to 46. I was reading this in my devotional, my devotion time this week. And I just wanted to share it today because it's, it's, it's really it challenged. 5 (42m 1s): Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and we're not fair. He he's, but he's, we have a Ferris ankle side of us. We can tend toward the law and tend to try to measure up by doing acts of doing the works of the law. As Jesus was speaking, one of the Pharisees invited him home for a meal. So he went in and took his place at the table. His host was amazed to see that he sat down to eat without first performing the washing ceremony. Another law required by Jewish customs. Then the Lord said to him, you Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are filthy full of greed and wickedness. 5 (42m 46s): And then that isn't not the trap. Like we can focus so much on the outside of the cup, our ex eternal life that we neglect. What's going on internally. We can look so good on the outside. And yet internally be a mess. It's not God's design inside. You're filthy full of greed and awakeness fools. Didn't God make the inside as well as the outside. Jesus said, so clean the inside by making gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over. Just take a message. I'll get back to them. 6 (43m 27s): Thanks, Juanita. No, 5 (43m 31s): That's fine. First 42. What sorrow awaits you Pharisees for you are careful to tie the, even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore justice and the love of God. He said you should tie. Yes, but do not neglect. The more important things. So tithing is a external thing that we can do. It's often tied to our, you know, tied to our heart. We want to honor the Lord with our resources. And so we give, and then we check that box, potentially. I'm not, not never case, but potentially we check that box. 5 (44m 14s): And then we go about our business. When God wants to do more than just that bit 6 (44m 22s): In your life. 5 (44m 26s): Juanita is leaving the church. Now they don't go for a long come back. You're careful to tie the, even the tiniest part from your herb gardens, but you ignore justice and the love of God, you should tie the yes, but do not neglect. The more important things he continues. What sorrow awaits you, Pharisees for you love to sit in the seat 4 (44m 46s): Seats of honor in the synagogues and receive respectful greetings. As you walk in the bar 5 (44m 51s): Marketplace. Yes. What sorrow awaits you for? You are like hidden 4 (44m 56s): Graves in a field. People walk over them without knowing the corruption they are stepping on. According to the law, walking over the grave was would cause defilement. 5 (45m 10s): So what Jesus is saying is that you are defiling people because you are spiritually dead. You're so spiritually dead. That when people encounter you, you are literally 4 (45m 21s): Defiling them. 5 (45m 23s): You're misleading them and misdirecting them. You're causing them to be unclean. They don't know you're dead. 4 (45m 31s): They don't know you're dead, but you are dead and you to file them. Nonetheless 3 (45m 37s): Teacher 4 (45m 39s): Said an experts in religious law. You have insulted us too. And what you just said, yes, said, Jesus, I know what sorrow also awaits. You experts in religious law for you, crush people with your unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden. 3 (46m 3s): People who are 4 (46m 3s): Or focused on the law, the Pharisees and people in our own midst, within the faith of Christiandom, we can be so focused on all of these external things and out of that word, judgmental of others who don't see things, the way that we see things we're critical, we're unloving, we're ungrateful. We're focused on the wrong thing. The law was never meant to be our focus. 3 (46m 31s): Good works in Christ were meant to be the focus faith in Jesus. We're meant to be. The focus. Love 4 (46m 37s): Is meant to be the focus of pure hearts is meant to be the focus, a clear conscience. 3 (46m 44s): All of these 5 (46m 45s): Things flow out of that connection that we have 4 (46m 48s): With, with God when we're intimate with him. 5 (46m 53s): When we abide with him, when we walk with him, when we allow him to direct our steps, when we ask God, what is it that you want to do with me? God, what is it that you want to do through me? What is your plan, Lord, because I want to be about your plan today and this week, God, I want to be about your plan, God, this month, I want to be about your plan and not just for the month of February, but God, for all of 2021 in moving forward, I want to be about your plan 4 (47m 22s): And God, because it's like a good plan. And it's a plan that will fill us to overflowing with just the beauty of God. The law was never meant to be our focus. So we need to get our eyes off of the law and get our eyes on Jesus. It was meant to just kind of keep us in check until the Christ child came. The law will never get us focused on what we were supposed to be doing. The grace of God will keep us focused. The grace of God will compel us to work or to ask these two questions. What do you want me to do today? Lord, how's that going? Anyway? I wonder, how's it going? I, I, I get up every morning and I'm like, okay, Lord, it's a new day. 4 (48m 3s): What do you want to do today? What do you want me to do today? What do you want to do through me today? And then, and then throughout the course of the day, I'm just listening. I'm just trying to listen, trying to pay attention and trying to do what he says to do. And it's like, it's like a new adventure every day. What is, what is God's doing? What does he want to do? 1 (48m 22s): I really appreciate the fact that you put that forward because for me it's been wonderful. All your senses. And you know, when you're in a word, the word is, it's not even like, you're just reading words, just like you can actually see it in motion and feel yourself. It's just so much more alive emotions, everything. 1 (49m 3s): And show me when I want to say it immediately. 4 (49m 10s): Okay. So those of you who are in a different venue and you can't hear what's going on, Maryland is talking about her experience. She's grateful that we have the opportunity to ponder these questions, thinking about these questions. And she said, it's just made everything come to life. The word of God, her walk with the Lord, everything is just is different and new. Is that accurate? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There's something it taps into the re our relationship with God and just at a whole new level, it brings it front and center and, and it's really, it's really a life-giving experience. Thanks for your testimony about that. I wish I had you up here on a microphone, two more verses about the law, and then we'll leave the law alone. 4 (49m 51s): Obviously Romans three, 19 and 20. Obviously the law applies to those, to whom it was given for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show that the entire world is guilty before God for no one can ever be made right with God, by doing it to the law commands by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. Paul understood God's grace in his mercy on that Damascus road experience that Paul had an act chapter nine. He understood the grace and mercy of God. He was actually persecuting the people of God as a Pharisee because he thought he was doing the will of God and misunderstood the will of 5 (50m 28s): God. When anytime you're focused on the law of God, you misunderstand the will of God. And we're focused on all of the wrong stuff. Paul said this in verse 12, I think Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. And so when we're asking God to work through us, God, what do you want to do with me today? What do you want to do through me today? We're we're asking God to, to work through us with his strength, with his wisdom, with his understanding, with his capacity, we don't understand what people are going through, but God does. And so when he asks us to do something, we're operating based on his understanding and out of faith in his strength, I think Christ our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work, he considered me trustworthy and appointed me to serve him. 5 (51m 10s): Even though I used to blast him the name of Christ. So maybe you're here today and you're like, I'm too bad of a person. Like I've made too many mistakes. You were never as bad as Paul . He's going to go on and tell us that he's the chief of sinners. Like you'll no matter what you've done. You've never been that bad. And yet God, because of his mercy and grace, Grace's 6 (51m 33s): Getting what we don't deserve. Mercy is not getting what we do deserve. Paul got both. We all get both mercy, 5 (51m 39s): Not getting what we deserve. Grace, 6 (51m 41s): Getting what we don't deserve. Forgiveness. 5 (51m 44s): I used to blaspheme the name of Christ in my insolence. I persecuted his people, but God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Oh, how generous and gracious 6 (51m 59s): Lord was. He filled me with the faith and love that comes from Christ. Jesus. Paul was a Pharisee. He became a follower of the Lord. Jesus Christ. Right? What was your was, and what is your now w what is your was, and what is your now, whatever your was, was your now can be, I'm a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ, because of his grace and mercy. That's the gospel, whatever your was was it's unimportant. Grace and mercy can touch your life and set you on a new path. 5 (52m 37s): Verse 15, this is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. Christ Jesus came into the world to save center 6 (52m 44s): And I am the worst of them all. So Paul takes the prize. He's worse than all of us, worse than all y'all, but God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they too can believe in him and receive eternal life. All honor, catch this all honor and glory to God forever, because we're saved by grace through faith right now, because of our good works. 6 (53m 27s): Paul wasn't saved 4 (53m 29s): Because of all of his good works. He was saved because of the grace and mercy of God. 6 (53m 33s): God. So anytime 4 (53m 36s): We have a success in our walk with Jesus, 6 (53m 38s): All honor, and glory to God, when we, 4 (53m 43s): He experienced his mercy and his grace a new, because we've stumbled because we've tripped because we 6 (53m 49s): All in all honor and glory to God, he gets all of the honor and the glory all honor and glory, 4 (53m 58s): Paul understood that all honoring glory to God forever and ever, he is the eternal King, the unseen one who never dies. He alone is God. Amen. 6 (54m 6s): And, and then the final, 4 (54m 9s): Final couple of verses here, Timothy's responsibility, Timothy. My son here are my instructions for you. Based on the prophetic words, spoken about you earlier, may they help you fight with, 6 (54m 21s): Well, in the Lord's battle, we're all called to a spiritual battle. May God's grace and mercy equip you for that battle. Has you 4 (54m 36s): Honor him with those two questions? God, what is it that you want to do with me? And what do you want to do through 6 (54m 40s): Me? We enter this battle 4 (54m 43s): And that's, this is why it's difficult for us to ask those questions. And this is why it's difficult for us to do though, do what God has asked us to do because we're in the spiritual battle where the enemy of our souls is fighting against us and trying to keep us distant from the Lord and distant from his plans. So he said clean to your faith in Christ and keep your conscience 6 (55m 3s): Clear. For some people 4 (55m 5s): Have deliberately violated their conscience. As a result, their faith has been shipped 6 (55m 10s): Brecht verse 20. Hi, 4 (55m 17s): Ennis and Alexander are two examples. People who have shipwrecked their faith, I threw them out and handed them over to Satan. So they might learn not to bless FIM God. He threw them out. So they might encounter 6 (55m 32s): The 4 (55m 33s): Enemy of their soul. So they might get so tired of blaspheming, God and rebelling against God and resisting God that they might turn and serve him. Maybe you're here today. And you've been maybe not blaspheming God, but you've been working against God. You've not been allowing God to work in your life. You've not been willing to ask those questions. God, what do you want to do with me? And what do you want to do through me? Not, you've not being willing to ask those questions because you're really living a life contrary to God outside. You look great. Externally, the cup is clean, but internally there's just junk going on. And God wants to address that. Maybe you've been trying to address the junk, but your focus has been on the junk. 4 (56m 14s): And God says, Hey, get your focus off the junk and get your focus on me and get filled with me. When you do that, deliverance will come. Freedom. Liberty will come. Victory over. Sin will come. Victory over. Addiction will come. That the right stuff will come. When we get focused on Jesus, what will you do this week? Maybe you forgot all about these questions. Maybe you're hearing these questions for the first time. What will you do this day? And this week, as you ask all those questions, will you out of the gate, like Maryland said, obey, obey, obey, will you be committed to it? 4 (56m 56s): No matter what he asks you to do, some are like, there's no way I need to hear what he's telling me, because we're afraid of what he's going to tell us to do, because we don't at the heart of the matter. Trust him. We don't believe that he's good. And we don't trust that. What he's going to tell us to do is good. We feel like it's going to be embarrassing to us. We feel like it's going to be whatever. So we don't even ask the question. Can I challenge that premise, that lack of faith, that fear can I challenge that and just say that we serve a good and faithful God, and it will be fun. 4 (57m 37s): I I'm going to make a promise to you that it will be fun. It will be stretching for us, but it will be fun at the same time. It'll be exhilarating too. For the first time. Maybe walk in that freedom. It says, you know, we've got, I'm just going to ask the question and do it no matter what the answer is without let's go ahead and stand up and bite the worship team forward. Lord, we want, we want to be resp responsive to you. Fill with you, attentive to you, led by you excited about you Lord. And so I pray that that would be the case for each of us. 4 (58m 17s): God use our time, our talent and our treasure for your glorious purposes, we submit to you, Lord God. And I pray that the result will be a renewed excitement or renewed joy about our faith Lord, a renewed, renewed vigor, or just excitement and, and strength and power in you. Jesus renewed faith for you. Confidence. God renewed, whatever it is that needs to be renewed in us. Do that. We pray help us. We ask Lord in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 1 (59m 5s): . 0 (1h 10m 36s): Thank you, Lord, for saving us. Thank you for your grace and mercy toward us. Thank you Lord, for your protection over us, Lord, we pray that you'd be with us this week. You'd empower us. It fills with your Holy spirit. It helps us to walk with you. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys for joining the class as well. 1 (1h 11m 11s): Great week. 7 (1h 12m 2s): I don't want to be 8 (1h 31m 21s): 7 (1h 32m 7s): never gave up on me. 7 (1h 34m 4s): Never gave up on me. 7 (1h 34m 11s): 1 (1h 39m 25s): 7 (1h 40m 13s): when I'm broke and then I can be no take care necessary. 7 (1h 42m 46s): 1 (1h 56m 19s): Good morning. Welcome to harvest. Let's all stand together. 1 (1h 56m 32s): 0 (2h 10m 14s): Lord, we thank you for great mercy and forgiveness. You offer us Lord. We thank you Lord, for this gorgeous day for the protection of a place to worship. We thank you for meeting us here. We thank you for the power of the Holy spirit. Lord, we just honored you. We confess that you are the one true. Holy God. We praise you in Jesus name. Amen. 0 (2h 10m 54s): Amen. What do you say? We all make friends 7 (2h 11m 11s): all right. 7 (2h 14m 18s): Good morning. Harvest church. Good morning. 2 (2h 14m 22s): Hey, my name is Jeremy. I'm one of the pastors here. I am joined by my daughter Posey. Yeah, one of these days she's going to give the announcements. Hey, we're so glad that you're here. Thanks for joining us. And I know I've seen some new faces today, so thanks for joining us here in person. And we want to just let you know that if you're new here, joining us for the first time visiting, go check in at the info center, we have a free gift for you. And we just like to be able to connect and find out how you can connect with harvest church. With that said, have you ever seen those mafia movies where there's a back room and there's people in the backroom, they got those little green hats and they're, they're counting all this change behind the scenes. 2 (2h 15m 5s): Well, I've never been to one of those rooms. Hopefully you haven't either. But that's why I referenced it is is a few weeks ago we had our lifeline baby bottle drive and we and harvest church donated so much cash that they actually had to pull extra volunteers into count all this change. So great job harvest church. Your generosity is amazing. So we're so thankful for, for the, for your y'all's generosity. Hey, we, we are still looking for a few more volunteers in a few areas. Once again, Sundays, the greeting team, once a month, one service, one service. Why do I always mix it up? 7 (2h 15m 42s): Okay. Yeah. That's that 2 (2h 15m 45s): Service one time a month. That's what we're looking for. We're also looking for folks to jump, join at the safety team and that's that they keep feet, keeping folks safe on campus and that'll include first aid training as well. We're looking for some more people to help out with the worship team and tech team. So slides, musical instruments, cameras, all that fun stuff. And so you can connect with us that way and go to the info center. Put your name down on a little email address. We'll get, we'll get back to you. Or you can go on the website. There's a whole plethora of ways to get connected. So grateful for that. So last announcement, and this is exciting. One Easter is coming RI Easter's coming April 4th. 2 (2h 16m 25s): We are going to be having our Easter service here on a campus at 10:00 AM, one service, and we're going to be taken over to the upper parking lot. We have a new stage, we've got a big TV wall going in. There's it's going to be an awesome, awesome Sunday. And yes, we are going to be doing baptisms as well. I can't guarantee the pool will be hot. It won't be cold. So maybe lukewarm somewhere in between, somewhere between. So we're so excited to be planning for that Lee, be listening for some opportunities to serve that way as well. So that's I think 4 (2h 16m 56s): Yep. Easy for helping with the announcements today. You get my five I five. Good job. Good job. Thanks guys. Welcome. How is everyone? Good. Good, good. We're in first Timothy chapter one today, I'm going to put this over here and we'll just do it the old fashioned way. First Timothy chapter one, we're going to get through all the first Timothy today. So far in three weeks, we've gone through three verses. And so we're actually going to get through all of it today. That is the plan all of first Timothy. 4 (2h 17m 37s): Welcome. But you guys did you, did you guys hear this, this story? There was this guy who was neighbors with this felon and this guy was known for, you know, breaking and entering and robbing people's houses and that sort of thing. And so his neighbor, this neighbor, this felons neighbor notices that this guy's kicking down his own door. Like the felon is kicking down his own door, not somebody else's door. And, and the neighbor said why? I knew this guy was an ex-con of a felon for breaking and entering and that sort of thing. 4 (2h 18m 17s): But I didn't know. He's kind of crazy as well. He was just kind of wondering what was going on. And so kind of cautiously. He said, Hey, Hey, what are you doing? And the guy said, I'm working from home. Pretty good. I mean, it's, it's, it's not terrible. Right? One more time. What's what's the best time of the day to go to the dentist, whatever, two 30 to two 30, two 30. I owe Jean five bucks for that second joke. It may be only worth about two 50, but I'm going to give her the five bucks anyway, anyway, so, Hey, we're continuing our conversation about these two questions. 4 (2h 19m 6s): So this is like two questions. Part three guys. Remember the questions, God, what do you want to do with me today? And God, what do you want to do through me today? Those questions are up on the screen. What do you do want to do with me? And what do you want to do through me today? I love these questions because they, they, they, when I wake up in the morning and I think about these questions, it kind of gets me focused right on Jesus. And it gives me focus on what his plans and purposes are for my day. Now, some of us may be a little fearful about asking these questions. Number one, where maybe we're not sure what God will ask us to do. So we're not going to ask the question, right? I just want to, I just want to make this promise to you that if you ask God this question, and if you do what God asks you to do, it will be fun. 4 (2h 19m 48s): It will, it will be fun. And it will be a bit exhilarating because you're going to do stuff that you wouldn't normally do. It's stuff that's outside of your comfort zone. And so it's going to be kind of a new experience for you. And this may have to do with your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends, your spouse, your family, whoever, maybe, but God will do something. And usually, usually I've found that it surround the area of just loving someone. So whether you're loving someone through a word of affirmation where you're just saying something honest and kind to someone in your world, maybe as someone that you don't even know, but it's someone that the Lord has kind of tapped you on the shoulder and said, Hey, just say something kind to this person. 4 (2h 20m 35s): Maybe it's someone in your life. Maybe it's someone you don't know, but it's going to be either a word where it's going to be an action. It's going to be something that communicates love in some way, either your love for that person or God's love for that person. So let that kind of take the mystery out of the whole exercise, the whole experience, and just, just go with me for the rest of this month and just ask yourself or ask God that question every single morning, when you wake up and then throughout the course of the day. So when you wake up and you ask God that, that those questions is probably not, you're probably not going to get an answer right away. You just not probably not, but you will have clarity as you're interacting with people. 4 (2h 21m 19s): And as you keep thinking about those questions, you're going to say, what do you want me to do today? What do you want to do through me today? And does it include this person? Does it include this person who's in front of me right now? And they just see what the Lord will do. Just see. I bet. I bet you'll be pleasantly surprised. It's going to be fun and it'd be exhilarating. And, and it, it will do something else. It'll keep you focused on Jesus all day long. And that's really what Christianity is meant to be about. I don't know about you, but I spent most of my Christian life focusing on the to-do list, what I'm supposed to do and what I'm not supposed to do instead of focusing on Jesus. 4 (2h 22m 1s): And often that's what Christianity boils down for people. It boils down to what I am supposed to do and what I'm not supposed to do. And that's where our focus lies. Instead of having our focus, just be on Jesus and being filled with the Holy spirit. And then out of that experience out of that life with Jesus being filled with the Holy spirit living life, I have just greater victory in my life. Since I figured out that that was kind of the, the, the formula or God's design, greater freedom, greater joy, greater peace, greater relationships. There's just something about making Jesus. 4 (2h 22m 41s): Your focus is, and being filled with the Holy spirit all day long, there's just something about it. Everything goes better. Relationships are better. You love people better. Your relationship with, with God is more intimate. There's just, there's something about the intimacy that is developed when you're focused on Jesus and filled with the spirit all day long. Let's take a look at first Timothy, we're going to be looking at Galatians three, Romans three, Luke 11 and a. So I'm going to do something a little bit different today. I had nine pages of notes and I appreciate them for the first service on my iPad, but I felt this morning for second service. After first service, I thought, you know, I, to, I feel like the Lord is asking me to, so this is the kind of the deal you don't get the revelation or the answers from the Lord until you are in the midst of whatever it is that you're doing. 4 (2h 23m 29s): So I felt like the Lord said, just, just open up the word and just teach you, you know what you're going to teach. You've got the outline in your head and all that sort of thing. There's plenty of quotes that I'm going to miss, but there's something that God wants to do. We just open up the scripture and allow God to speak. So we're going to be looking at all the same texts, all the same passages, but we're just going to be kind of doing it a little bit differently. So here we go. This letter is Paul. We've already kind of gone through the first three verses over the last three weeks, two, three weeks, whatever it's been. So I'm just going to reread them just for context, text sake, and then we'll jump and start really unpacking things in verse four. Does that sound good? You guys with me? All right, so everything will be up on the screen. 4 (2h 24m 10s): All of the verses will be up on the screen. Now they may not be in the order. This is going to be interesting for you on the tech team. They may not be in the order exactly that that I present. It gave them to you. So anyway, just be patient with me back there on the board and on the computer. This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ. Jesus appointed by the command of God, our savior in Christ. Jesus who gives us hope. That should be an expectation as followers of Jesus Christ. There should be a hope expectation. Like I should have this expectation that there's a divine hope connected to knowing Jesus that gives life. 4 (2h 24m 57s): This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ. Jesus appointed by the command of God, our savior and Christ. Jesus who gives us hope. I'm writing to Timothy. My true son in the faith. May God, the father and Christ Jesus. Our Lord gave you grace, mercy and peace. So four things hope. Grace, mercy, and peace, all tied to an intimate knowledge and walk with the Lord. Jesus Christ. Paul understood it. Having been a fair sissy, having been a person who understood the laws of God, but didn't understand God. And I think that's where we have a disconnect. Sometimes as followers of Jesus, we understand the laws of God, but we don't understand God. 4 (2h 25m 41s): And we'll never fully understand the person of God through the laws of God, because the laws of God were simply designed to help us to recognize our need for God. Does that make sense? So we're not going to get a full understanding of who God is by simply understanding the law, the do's and the don'ts we'll get full understanding of God. When we allow ourselves to be filled with his presence on a regular basis, Ephesians five, it's not on the screen. Ephesians five says don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life. Instead. Be filled with the Holy spirit 6 (2h 26m 12s): Instead, be filled with the Holy spirits. 4 (2h 26m 15s): First three, when I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there and emphasis. And we talked a lot about emphasis in the last couple of weeks and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. Don't let them waste their time in endless discussions of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don't help people live a life of faith in God. What is the author talking about there? When he talks about spiritual pedigrees myths, endless discussions about these things. We're not really sure it doesn't really tell us, but if we go to verse eight, it kind of helps us. The context helps us understand what this might be. It says in verse eight and we'll come back to the rest of the verses here shortly. 4 (2h 26m 57s): But it says, we know that the law is good when used correctly. So most likely there's a misunderstanding about the use of the law. Why did God give us the law? When I say the law I'm primarily mean the 10 commandments, why did God give us the law of God? Why, why were we given a lot? Well, let's, let's look at a few verses here. Let's go to see if I can flip around in my Bible here and go to Galatians. Actually, let's go to Romans chapter four, Romans chapter three. I think the tech team can find that on the screen. This is Romans chapter three, verse 19. If you can find that it'll go up on the screen. It's just obviously the law applies to those, to 6 (2h 27m 37s): Whom it was given 4 (2h 27m 40s): For its purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. The Bible says in Romans three, that all have sinned and all fall short of God's glorious standard. So the law was given so that the whole world, the entire world might realize that they're guilty before God for no one in verse 20 says for no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. Isn't that interesting. Some of us are maybe hearing this for the first time for no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful simple we are. 4 (2h 28m 21s): So the law can't make 5 (2h 28m 22s): Us Holy. Why don't we spend so much time thinking about a lot. If a law can't make us Holy, if only our holiness can only be made available to us through Christ Jesus, as he imputes his righteousness to us, as he gives us righteousness, then why are we so focused on the law? We never find freedom in Jesus. As long as we're focused on the law, let's take a look at Galatians chapter three as well. 3 (2h 28m 49s): Galatians chapter three says why then was the law given it was 5 (2h 28m 59s): Give it alongside the promise to show people their sins. So again, the law is there. So it might recognize we have a desperate need for a savior, but the law was designed to last only the law was designed to last only until the coming of the child who has promised, who is that? Speaking about Jesus, right? God gave his law through angels to Moses who was the mediator between God and the people. Now a mediator is helpful. If more than one party must reach an agreement, but God who is one did not use a mediator when he gave his promise to Abraham, is there a conflict then between God's law and God's promise absolutely not. If the law, if the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. 5 (2h 29m 46s): But the scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin. So we receive God's promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ. So we get back to first Timothy, we're going to get into a passage. We're where we're beginning, beginning to understand what all of the arguments in foolish disagreements were about. I wish I wish as the church that we could get over our foolish disagreements, they're often so petty and so small and so unimportant. And yet they hinder a few things. They hinder real fellowship within the body of Christ. 5 (2h 30m 29s): They, they hinder our ability to evangelize the loss because if the church is fighting amongst itself, how can we effectively show the world? Jesus love proved that we're his disciples and then point people to him. Quick story. We've got a couple of our church who write Bible study curriculum, Mike and Sharon do Trump. Well, they have their Bible study books and curriculum in County, jails and prisons all over the States and all over the nation. And in other parts of the world, they, their, their books have been translated into other languages. And it's gone out to nations around the world and it's helpful. 5 (2h 31m 11s): Bible study tools and information to help people follow Jesus. Well, they had a meeting with Southern California jail system, a chaplain down there, and the chaplain loved, loved 3 (2h 31m 28s): The books, but there were 5 (2h 31m 30s): Two sentences within the book that this chaplain didn't like. And so he said, your books will not be in the County jail system. Did that crazy. Why don't we have to fight amongst ourselves as the church. We're not talking about essential stuff, like things under salvation. We're talking about 3 (2h 31m 51s): Minor silly 5 (2h 31m 54s): Theological and doctrinal differences. That is not going to keep anybody out of heaven, but will keep the church from being unified. I love that dark pastors in our churches are the pastors of our churches in the area, get together once a month for lunch in prayer and fellowship. And, and so we get together the first Wednesday of every month, just for lunch and fellowship and prayer. And, and to break down those walls of division that so easily want to go up in our midst. 3 (2h 32m 25s): And so continue to 5 (2h 32m 27s): Pray because I believe as the pastors go, so the churches will go. So pray that as the pastors gather that we will continue to find unity and not get focused on 4 (2h 32m 37s): The unimportant things. 3 (2h 32m 42s): Oh, really 5 (2h 32m 42s): Reread verse three in verse Timothy one. When I left from Macedonia, I urged you to stay there at emphasis and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. Don't let them waste their time and endless discussions of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don't help people live a life of faith in God. That is the goal that the teaching of scripture from the old and the new Testament is to help people to live a life of faith in God. And so when we read the scripture, that should be a major takeaway for us. It should, this scripture should build us up in our most Holy faith. The Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please God. 5 (2h 33m 24s): And so God is calling us into a place of faith. And so in the arenas of our life, we need to be operating as people of faith. And I wonder how often we're actually operating as people of faith doing, answering the, you know, asking God those questions, God, what is it that you want to do with me and God? What is it that you want to do 3 (2h 33m 43s): Through me believing that bye-bye 5 (2h 33m 45s): Faith, God will speak to us. He'll direct us. She'll give us an assignment and by faith in him, and as he gives us the power and the grace, we're able to walk it out and to see people's lives touched and see people ministered to in our sphere of influence. I just wonder how much we're actually living lives of faith in God. Paul said in verse five, the purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love. Go ahead and underline that love if you got your, with you, me, Phil would love that comes from a pure heart. I'm an underline that a clear conscience, I'm an underlying that and a genuine faith. 5 (2h 34m 28s): The purpose of my instruction Paul says is that all believers will be filled with love. That comes from a pure heart, that clear conscience and genuine faith, but some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don't know what they're talking about. Even though they speak so confidently, this is God's the purpose of God speaking and, and inspiring the scripture so that we might listen to it and be taught about it and read it for ourselves that we would be well, let's just go from the top that we would give experience hope in verse one, grace, mercy, and peace in verse two, that's in verse five, we would see the love that comes from a pure heart at clear conscience, that genuine faith. 5 (2h 35m 29s): These are the purposes of the scripture. Now it's important that we, I just broke the pen. It's, it's important that we grow in knowledge and understanding of God, but not for the wrong reason so that we feel better about our understanding, about who God is. It's okay to feel like you're growing and like, things are good, but it should drive us somewhere. Knowledge of God, understanding of doctrine and theology. It should take us somewhere. And Paul's saying the purpose of my instruction, and this is true for not only Paul's writings, but all of the texts within the scripture. The purpose is that all believers will be filled with love. I talked about last week, the church in Ephesus in revelation chapter two, John on the Island wrote this letter to the seven churches in the first church that he wrote a letter to was to the church at emphasis. 5 (2h 36m 22s): Timothy is pastoring the church in emphasis. And so that's why we talk about emphasis. And so we're in first Timothy he's pastoring the church in Ephesus. The letter that was written to the church in emphasis was full of affirmation. But God said this, I have this one thing against you. You don't love each other. And you don't love me like you did at first, you've lost your first love. So he said, if you don't repent of losing your first love, I'm actually going to remove your lampstand from you. In other words, you won't be recognized as a church any longer. If you don't figure out how to love one another and figure out how to love me, that's what God is saying. Isn't that crazy? 5 (2h 37m 3s): It's a big deal. And so the, the emphasis of the scripture and the reason that we open up the scripture and the reason that we teach scriptures, we might have these things, this hope, this grace, mercy, and peace, but then ultimately this love that comes from a 3 (2h 37m 19s): Pure heart, a heart that just wants to honor the Lord. That just wants to give back 5 (2h 37m 29s): Laurie to God and do what he's asked us to do a pure heart with a clear conscience. 3 (2h 37m 34s): That means we're not messing 5 (2h 37m 35s): Around with our faith. We're not messing around with, in dabbling, in things of the world, cluttering our conscience, but we've got a clear conscience because though we're not perfect by God's grace, our effort and our desire is to honor him and to please him and so such that our conscience as clear, or m
No one likes to be attacked. It is an evil that brings with it a justified response. Yet Jesus is teaching a radically approach to injustice. Jesus reminds his disciples that it is the governing authorities that have the responsibility and right to dole out justice and to protect the people. In no way does God permit His people to take God's law (Leviticus 24:17-20) into their own hands. Instead Jesus reminds his disciples that although judges and governing authorities have the right to seek justice, we are to wait patiently with the injuries suffered in attacks from another. Citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are to allow God's rightful justice to be issued as needed rather than for individuals to take God's Law into their own hands.
No one likes to be attacked. It is an evil that brings with it a justified response. Yet Jesus is teaching a radically approach to injustice. Jesus reminds his disciples that it is the governing authorities that have the responsibility and right to dole out justice and to protect the people. In no way does God permit His people to take God's law (Leviticus 24:17-20) into their own hands. Instead Jesus reminds his disciples that although judges and governing authorities have the right to seek justice, we are to wait patiently with the injuries suffered in attacks from another. Citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are to allow God's rightful justice to be issued as needed rather than for individuals to take God's Law into their own hands.
In John 8, Jesus confronts the systems we can rely on for security. Instead Jesus invites us into real security in him and in community - one of the gospel promises of a new way of relating to God and each other.
In John 8, Jesus confronts the systems we can rely on for security. Instead Jesus invites us into real security in him and in community - one of the gospel promises of a new way of relating to God and each other.
Two Men Went Up to Pray St. Luke 18:9-14 by William Klock I want to look at today’s Gospel, but before we do we need to backup in the passage to look at the context. What was Jesus’ reason for telling this story of the two men praying in the temple? In Luke 17 the Pharisees approached Jesus and asked him when to expect the kingdom. It was one of those “If you’re so smart, tell us such-and-such” questions. In this case, “If you’re really the Messiah, Jesus, tell us when the kingdom’s going to be here.” And they were asking because they did believe that the Messiah was coming and because they did believe that when he came he would usher in God’s kingdom. The problem with Jesus was that what he was saying and doing didn’t meet their expectations and for all his talk about the kingdom, they couldn’t see anything happening around Jesus that looked like the kingdom. In fact, everything Jesus was doing was pretty much the opposite of what they expected. So their question was really an attack on Jesus. When we ask those “If you’re so smart” questions, what we’re really saying to that person is: “You’re not really as knowledgeable as you think you are” and when the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom was coming what they were really saying is, “You’re not the Messiah.” And so Jesus took their “question” and turned it back on them. The kingdom is in your midst, he told them. Woe to you if you can’t see it, because judgement is coming. Just as it came in the days of Noah and as it came to Sodom in Lot’s day, most people won’t be expecting it. They’ll be going about their business and their lives and then—BOOM!—judgement will come and there will be no mistaking it. Like lightening is unmistakable as it lights up the sky at night so the judgement on Jerusalem, on the temple, and on unbelieving Israel will be unmistakable when it comes. But then it’ll be too late. You need to take hold of the kingdom today. Now Jesus takes the Pharisees’ question as a teaching opportunity. Just like a lot of people today who are focused on Jesus returning to finish his kingdom work, the Pharisees—and many other Jews—were fixated on the coming of the Messiah for the wrong reason. The Jews of that day were obsessed with the soon coming of the kingdom. Anticipation of the coming of the Messiah had reached a fevered pitch by the First Century. If there’d been a First Century Jewish equivalent to the Christian publishing industry, it would have been churning out silly books like “The Late, Great Planet Jerusalem” and “Thirty Reasons the Messiah is Coming in A.D. 30”—probably something about “blood moons”, too, for that matter. The people wanted and longed for the Lord to come to vindicate his people and to judge their enemies. And while the specifics may be different, Christians today often have the same obsession. We long for the Lord’s return to vindicate us and to judge our enemies. Brothers and sisters, that kind of longing and that kind of obsession with the question of “When?” often betrays the need to ask a more important question: “Who?” You see, people obsessed with “When?”—like the Jews of Jesus’ day and a lot of people today—are usually very certain of their status as kingdom insiders. The Jews were sure of their status as God’s people and so they could look forward in confidence to the coming day of God’s wrath. They were the good guys and they would escape while all their enemies would get their just comeuppance. But Jesus backs us up and forces us to question that assurance of our status as insiders. In fact, what he gets at is that just this kind of assurance and just this kind of hope and longing for judgement on our enemies is a cause for concern. Because as Jesus has shown, the kingdom of God is about redemption and reconciliation. God will judge sinners at the end of the story, but first he sent his Son into the middle of the story to provide a means of reconciliation so that sinners can escape judgement on that last day. Jesus came not to condemn, but to redeem. That’s one of the key defining values of his kingdom and it’s why the Pharisees and most of the Jews missed it. They were looking to be vindicated for their righteousness; they were looking for judgment; they were looking for fire and brimstone on their enemies. Instead Jesus condemned self-righteousness and embraced the outsiders with mercy and grace. We need to examine our own attitude. Do we long for Jesus’ coming because we can’t wait for our enemies to be destroyed or are we longing to see our enemies embraced by the grace of God so that they too escape destruction? So the people asked “When?” is the kingdom coming and Jesus redirects them to a more important question: “Who will be in the kingdom?” What do kingdom people look like? More importantly, what kind of attitude and values do they have? You see, before you start getting excited about the coming kingdom, you first need to ask if you’re going to be part of it. To answer the question of “Who?” Jesus tells two parables. Look at 18:1-3. And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ Jesus has been talking about judgement and now he takes us into a courtroom. An ancient Jewish court was very different from a modern court, but we can imagine one of our own civil courts easily enough. You’ve got a plaintiff bringing a complaint against a defendant. Both of them come before a judge to have the complaint decided. In Israel there were no juries; every case was basically like a modern civil case where a judge makes the decision. Each side would come to make their case. A just or righteous judge would rule fairly and in accordance with the law and the person he ruled in favour of would leave vindicated or “justified”. The Gospels almost never address this issue of justification, but it becomes very important in St. Paul’s epistles. This court language and imagery is what St. Paul is drawing on when he talks about the justness or righteousness of God and about God justifying his people. In the parable Jesus tells us about the judge and the plaintiff. The judge is a bad judge. In the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles we read about King Jehoshaphat. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a good king who tried to bring the nation back to the Lord. He opposed the worship of false gods and idols and he cleaned up and reformed the judiciary. We’re told specifically that he appointed judges and he gave them this commission: “Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgment. Now then, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with the Lord our God, or partiality or taking bribes” (2 Chronicles 19:6-7). That’s the profile of a good judge, but Jesus describes someone just the opposite. The judge in Jesus’ parable neither fears God nor respects man. And in front of the bench Jesus places a widow. It’s not without reason that throughout Luke’s Gospel he uses widows as examples of piety and of people to whom God shows his goodness. Widows were often the poorest of the poor. They had no one to look out for them, which is why throughout the law, the Lord commanded his people to care for widows. But this judge does just the opposite. It’s safe to assume that this woman’s case had something to do with property or inheritance that was righty hers, but that was being withheld. Other people would simply bribe the judge to give them justice, but this woman is too poor for that. All she can do is go before the judge over and over and over in the hopes that she can wear him down. It’s popular to take this parable out of context and to twist its meaning. A lot of people understand this parable to be telling us that if God doesn’t answer our prayers, we need to keep praying. If we keep praying long enough, we’ll wear down God the way the widow wore down the unjust judge. Brothers and sisters, stop and think about what that says about the God we worship. First, the God of the Bible is a God who is sovereign. He’s also a God who is perfectly good and perfectly wise and perfectly patient. If God hasn’t answered our prayers the way we expect, it’s not because we need to wear him down. A god who can be worn down by our constant petitions is no god at all. No. If God isn’t giving us what we’ve asked for, it’s because what we’re asking isn’t what he wants for us. Jesus’ point is that our prayer is meant to be an expression of our trust in God’s goodness and wisdom and faithfulness. And we can trust him precisely because he is the polar opposite of the unjust judge of the parable. We pray and we don’t lose heart because we pray to a God who is faithful and just and who isn’t worn down or manipulated by our shallow, short-sighted petitions and complaints. Look at how Jesus continues the story and consider how dramatically this unjust judge contrasts with our perfectly just Lord: For a while [the judge] refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. (Luke 18:4-8a) The judge eventually gives in and does the right thing—he sends this woman away from his court justified or vindicated. He does what’s right, but he only does it because he’s feeling beaten down. Jesus uses imagery from the boxing ring: the poor widow eventually corners the unjust judge and forces him to do justly. Now, does that sound like God? Can we beat God down by our persistence in prayer? If that’s how we’re praying, friends, we’re praying to an idol, to a false god. In contrast to the judge, Jesus points to God who is perfectly just and who is faithful to justify and to vindicate those who cry to him out of their suffering. In contrast to the judge, who only did justly when forced to, God will justify his people speedily. This is important. Consider the context. Jesus was preparing his disciples for a time of coming suffering and persecution. He knew that he was going to Jerusalem this last time to face his own death. He was probably considering the possibility that some of his disciples might be executed with him. Even if they weren’t, Jesus did know that as they carried on his mission, taking his good news to the world, they would face persecution. Jesus promised them that they would suffer and be persecuted—the slave is not above his master. But in the midst of that, Jesus reminds them, the Lord will hear their cries and will vindicate them. “Keep praying,” Jesus is saying, “keep crying out to God in faith, and know that he will vindicate you. And that’s just the point. Look at the last part of verse 8: Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Prayer is an expression of faith in our perfectly good, perfectly wise, and perfectly just God, would he find faith when he returned in judgement to Jerusalem a generation later? And in our case, will he find faith when he comes in judgement to consummate his kingdom? We ask “When?”: When is Jesus coming back? And Jesus turns the question back on us: Better to ask, will I be found faithful on that day? This is the point of the second parable that Jesus tells. What does the faith of kingdom people look like? Look at verse 9: He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “He told this parable to some who trusted in themselves.” There were Pharisees in the crowd. They certainly “trusted in themselves”, but Jesus doesn’t just address the parable to them. The parable is addressed to everyone there who had this problem: to the Pharisees, to others, and even to his disciples. And he addresses it to us. The characters in the story may have changed over the two millennia since Jesus told the story, but you and I have this same struggle. Too often we trust in ourselves instead of God. Too often we are too sure of ourselves—too sure of our guaranteed place in the kingdom and sure for the wrong reasons and just as sure of the spot that others will have outside of the kingdom. Jesus goes on: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ (Luke 18:10-12) The Pharisees goes into the temple and he sets himself apart from everyone else. As far as he’s concerned, he’s better than all of them. And he prays. But his prayer is nothing more than a boast of his own righteousness. And since people in those days prayed out loud, the implication is that he’s boasting to the other people gathered in the temple as much as he’s boasting to God. He boasts that he’s one of the righteous: not an extortioner, not an adulterer, not like the sleazy tax collector in the back. He boasts that he fasts twice a week—not just on the required days, but twice a week—and that he doesn’t quibble about tithing on just the things he’s required to tithe on, but on everything he gets. He boasts that he’s not “unjust”. And that brings us back to the courtroom. What started out looking like a religious setting takes us back to the court. This man is certain of his status before God. He’s certain that were he to stand in the dock before the judge, he would be vindicated and his cause found just—because he’s not a sinner like all the others, because he does good, because he keeps the law. This man represents Israel. He was circumcised, he ate the right food, he kept clear of gentiles and unclean people and so he was pure. He’s convinced he’s in the kingdom, and yet he trusts only in himself. He embodies the rebuke the Lord gave his people through Isaiah: “this people draw near with their mouth and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me” (Isaiah 29:13). In contrast Jesus describes the other man: But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ (Luke 18:13) Here’s the polar opposite of the Pharisee. He was a social and religious outsider. He collaborated with the Romans and spent his days in contact with unclean gentiles. He knows that he has nothing in which to boast, he knows he’s a sinner, and so he comes to the temple and throws himself humbly on the mercy of God in repentance. It’s an expression of faith in the one who judges justly. And so Jesus says: I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14) Again, we’re back to the courtroom. As much as the Pharisee, like so many, went into the court confident of his case, it was the poor tax collector who was vindicated—not for his righteousness, but for his faith. And people in the crowd would have looked at Jesus like he was crazy. The Pharisee should have gone home vindicated, not the tax collector. The tax collector was one of those collaborators who should have gone down in flames with the Romans and Herodians when the Messiah came. And this is just the problem with so many people who are so eager for the Lord to return and who are eager for judgement. They are—we are—like the Pharisee, smug in our assumptions of righteousness and justness, smug in our assurance of being kingdom insiders, and eager for all the evil outsiders to get their comeuppance. And yet what Jesus is saying here is that this is precisely the attitude that kingdom people do not have. Kingdom people may well have assurance of their status before God, but they have that assurance not based on what they’ve done, but on their faith in Jesus. And kingdom insiders don’t look with eager expectation for their enemies to be judged. No, in fact, just the opposite. Kingdom people do good to their enemies, pray for them—pray for them to repent and turn to Jesus that they might be reconciled with God rather than judged when he returns. Brothers and Sisters, God’s kingdom is about reconciliation and redemption. It always has been, ever since he called Abraham to himself, blessing him in order to be a blessing to the nations. Jesus brought that mission of blessing to its climax as he created a new people, his Church, to be a light to the world that the whole human race might be drawn to the Lord and know him and go home justified by faith. That’s our mission. And that means that our lives ought to be characterised by humility—by the knowledge that, like the tax collector, we are poor sinners redeemed by grace. We can stand before God only because Jesus, the only human being who was ever perfect enough to stand before him on his own merit, went to the cross to die the death we deserve. And kingdom people, because of our humility, because we have experienced and known the love of God for sinners, will always be about redemption and reconciliation—about seeking not to condemn the lost, but to summon them to Jesus. Because kingdom people were once lost, because kingdom people know what it means to be lost, and because we desire to share this life we know only by grace with everyone around us. But all too often we forget the true nature of grace. We look at the sinners around us and we start to think like the Pharisee in the parable and we start looking down on others. And it isn’t a great step from looking down on sinners to longing for their judgement. Think of all the times we look at others with judgement and condemnation. Think of our attitude towards the people who hurt us. Think of our attitude towards the Mormon who knocks on the door or the Jehovah’s Witness handing out cult literature on the street corner. Think about our attitude towards the people we hear on the street cursing up a storm with the Lord’s name or the same-sex couple holding hands. Think about our attitude towards the members of the “wrong” political parties who are ruining our country or ushering in an era of persecution for the Church. Think of our attitude towards criminals and prisoners and our attitude towards the people in far off countries who follow false religions. What’s our attitude towards all these people? Brothers and Sisters, the answer to that question reveals our place in the kingdom. It reveals whether we’re the Pharisee who went home condemned in his self-righteousness or the tax collector who went home justified for his humble faith. Yes, God’s people long for justice and we seek justice in this world—that’s part of our mandate—but if we are truly following our Lord, we’ll recognise and we’ll remember that Jesus went to the cross, not to reconcile good people to God, but to reconcile sinners—all sinners, including you and me, including the people who hurt us, including the cultist interrupting our dinner to argue doctrine, including the kid dropping f-bombs and the same-sex couple, including Liberals and New Democrats and Conservatives and Greens, including criminals and prisoners. Jesus even died to reconcile terrorists and murderers to God. We have a duty to speak out against evil and sin in the world, but Brothers and Sisters, let us never be like the Pharisee. Let us never speak out of self-righteousness. Let always remember that the only way evil and sin will ever be overcome is as we proclaim the good news that Jesus is Lord and as sinners are welcomed to the cross and into the kingdom with the message of God’s reconciling love for his enemies. Let us pray: Lord God, you declare your almighty power most chiefly in showing mercy and pity: mercifully grant to us such a measure of your grace, that we, running the way of your commandments, may receive your gracious promises, and be made partakers of your heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
We cannot put confidence in what we do in order to earn our salvation. The only path to righteousness is through God. Ps. Kelsey Lasher talks about the revolutionary idea in Philippians 3 of not putting confidence in our deeds because we will always fall short. Instead Jesus’ actions on the cross are enough to save us. Join us each Sunday at 5:30pm. In-person gatherings are back. More information is on our website. https://www.hopedenver.com/
Series: Together Speaker: Nick Ressler Date: June 21, 2020 Synopsis: Do you ever feel like we’re all getting caught up in the wrong stuff? Like, our attention is focused on things that keep us distracted from what is really important? Pastor Nick shares with us about how Ghandi used the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) to focus is heart and guide him in the work he was doing to help free the people of India. What would help us focus? Pastor Nick directly challenges us to stop letting political allegiances inform our picture of Jesus. Instead - Jesus comes first! If you are interested in learning more about Conoy BIC Church or the Brethren in Christ please check out the information on our website: www.conoychurch.org. Intro Music: Inspire And Motivate by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Outro Music:Inspiring Beat by Alex Menco | https://alexmenco.net Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US
Do not demean your gifts then second do not despise other gifts do not despise other gifts and then third do not divide the body do not divide the body Hear now the word of the Lord from 1 Corinthians 12:14-26. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 1 Corinthians 12:14-26, ESV This is the Word of the Lord that's given to us in love this morning. As we study this passage it's probably easy to see that this is a fairly straightforward passage to understand. The imagery is so vivid, we all understand the parts of our bodies that make up one whole body. So, as we read this it seems on the surface to be a very easy and simple passage to understand, but that actually could be a problem for us. This passage may in fact be too easy to understand and perhaps too familiar to us if we've studied this passage again and again. Now I say that not because I want the Bible to be difficult, because I don't. Rather when we read this story, this image, this picture of the members of the body of Christ as individual people in the church, sometimes we tend not to actually read the words that are there. We sometimes just read over it. We get a general sense of the passage, then we take that general sense and run with it. Then we go immediately into application mode, what does this mean for me, what does it mean for you, let's start applying this. In the process, if we haven't really understood this well, we actually overlook some of the details of what Paul says. Worse than that we can then perhaps fill in some of those gaps by reading our own ideas into this passage, ideas that might actually run contrary to what Paul has said. Let me give you a perfect illustration of how this passage has been misused in the past. Now this image here of many members making up one body is not new to Paul. This isn't something that he was the first person to sort of use to describe some larger body of people. In fact, if you read the history there were many times in history where different people or philosophers talked about individual groups, whether a family or a clan or a tribe or a whole nation, as individual members of a body. That was a very common thing. However, in the past when people would use that image, the same image that Paul is using here, they would use it to emphasize the importance of the body over the importance of any individual member. So, the message would be we live in a body, so your individual needs are not important, the only thing that's important is the good of the whole. Or even to take that one step further and say, you know what you're actually just a foot you need to just be quiet and serve the needs of the head. The image was often used this way in the ancient world for the sake of promoting unity and harmony. Ancient cultures, and some modern cultures but not ones in the West, were collectivists. They exalted the body at the expense of its members. That's a very real way of misreading this passage. Guess what? We do the exact opposite error. We're not collectivists, we are individualist, we just had a grand party yesterday to celebrate our individuality. Remember that we have these unalienable rights for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Well that leads us to read this passage in a very particular way that also falls into its own issues as we emphasize the importance of individual members above the body, even at the expense of the body. So, we teach that each foot should dance to the beat of its own drum and we tell every hand to just take for itself whatever it pleases. For every ear and for every eye we offer personally curated individualized endless streams of audio and video to suit your particular tastes. We are a culture of extreme rampant individualism. We don't abuse individuals so much for the sake of the whole. Rather, because we emphasize diversity and freedom, we have such a fractured society where we are torn apart and divided and factionalized one from another. Well whatever culture were coming from, whether it's from a collectivist background where we're looking primarily at the body and sort of ignore the individual members, or whether we're coming from an individualist background where we look at the individual members and forget there's a larger body, this passage confronts assumptions that we don't even know we're making. So, it's important that we read what Paul says because this word, which was given for all times to all peoples, cuts both ways and confronts both kinds of errors. Our big idea as we study this passage this morning is this, God has arranged and honored every member in the body of Christ. By speaking of an arrangement, that's a word to individualists that you can't pick your own arrangement and you can't go off on your own you're a part of a larger body. By speaking of every member being honored, that's a word to collectivists that you can't do something for the whole at the expense of a member. Each member is honored in the body of Christ. There are three parts to this passage. 1. The Way We Look at Our Gifts 2. The Way We Look at Other's Gifts 3. The Way We Look at the Whole Body of Christ The Way We Look at Our Gifts So first we see this instruction, “do not demean your gifts”. In the first paragraph in verses 14-20 Paul tells us don't demean your gifts, because we are tempted often to do this very thing. In verse 14 Paul says, 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 1 Corinthians 12:14, ESV Paul is saying the body, by definition, cannot be composed of identical members, so you should not expect to have identical gifts to other people. If the body was one big pile of noses that wouldn't be a very effective body, you need all the parts working together in coordination to have a body. Then Paul illustrates this point in verses 15 through 16, he says, 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 1 Corinthians 12:15-16, ESV Now because each member has this unique role to play, what Paul is saying here is that no member should look at another member and envy those gifts. Do not demean your gifts, the gifts that God has entrusted to you. This is one of the places where we're perhaps a little too familiar with this passage. I've never noticed this until I was studying it this week and I can't count the number of times I've read 1 Corinthians. Notice here this specific comparison that Paul makes, it's a different kind of comparison than Paul makes in the next paragraph, here the comparison is between members of the body that are similar, but one member compares itself to a slightly more impressive member of the body. So, notice that the foot doesn't compare itself to the ear, which is a very different kind of organ or limb, but rather the foot compares itself to a hand because a foot is something like a hand. If a foot looked at the hand and says, look at all the things that a hand can do that I can't, well if I can't do all the things that a hand can do, I guess I don't have a purpose here. In the same way the ear compares itself not to the hand but to the eye, I mean I guess it's cool to hear things and all but think of what I could do if I could see, I can't see so I don't know what I'm doing here. Leon Morris, a commentator on this passage, writes, “We are prone to envy those who surpass us a little rather than those who are patently in a different class.” Don't demean your gifts, don't look at someone who's similar but maybe outpaces you just a little bit by your estimation. Don't envy the gifts of others, don't demean your own gifts. Paul exposes then in verse 17 the absurdity of that kind of comparison game. In verse 17 he says, 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 1 Corinthians 12:17, ESV Each of us must be content with our role in the body because each role is not only unique, but it's essential. Look there are ways to be unique but unessential. When I was in Little League baseball I had very unique talents, which is to say that I had none. So, my coach then had to find a place to put me that wouldn't be too essential because that would expose our team to a lot of risk. So, I was plopped in right field because not many kids could hit it out to right field at that point in time. That was how my unique, but unessential gifts were used in that particular team. Well it's a very different kind of a thing in the church. The church is not at all like that. It isn't that some of us have these unique gifts that well I guess we got to just find a way to for this person to get a participation ribbon. No, what God is saying in his word is that every individual gift, every individual function, is absolutely necessary and in it essential and indispensable in the body of Christ. Then Paul reminds us that the reason for this is not an accident, the body did not work its way together by some strange evolutionary process. Rather the body came together by the explicit choice of God himself. Look at verses 18 through 20, 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. 1 Corinthians 12:18-20, ESV To demean your gifts is to criticize God's wisdom. To want what someone else has is to tell God that he has made a mistake. Not only is this a sinful attitude toward God, but the problem is that this robs us of the great joy that we have. The great joy that we would have if we were content with what God gave us. As the father of several young children I'm amazed at how often fights break out because one child sees a toy that the other child has. Now the first child may actually have a better toy at the moment, but the important thing is the other child has a toy that the first child does not and that is cause for war. I think why do they do this, wouldn't they be so much happier if they were just content with what they had? Then I think, oh I do the same thing, wouldn't I be so much happier if I could be content with what God has given me. Our Heavenly Father is so gracious, so good, so loving he gives only good gifts. What he has given to you is not a throwaway gift, it's not an accident, it's by God's specific purpose and choice. Don't demean your own gifts. The Way We Look at Other's Gifts Well what then about the gifts that God gives to other people? If that's how we should think about our gifts, what should we do when we look at the gifts of other people? How should we evaluate and assess those? Sometimes our problem is not that we look at someone else and say, boy I wish I had those gifts and start to envy that person. We'd rather look at a person and think, I don't know what purpose those gifts serve, and we begin to despise what God has given to them. So, the next paragraph in verses 21 through 24 Paul gives us the next instruction, “do not despise other gifts.” In verse 21 Paul was telling us that we should not despise or look down on someone else's gifts, he writes, 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 1 Corinthians 12:21-24, ESV Notice the comparisons have changed here. It's no longer between similar but slightly more impressive comparisons, such as the foot to the hand or the ear to the eye. Now we're seeing comparisons of very different kinds, one set of gifts that seem to be stronger versus another set of gifts that seem to be weak. I used that word “seem” for a reason. We'll talk more about that word “seem” in a moment. Here the eye compares itself with a hand. That the point of comparison could potentially be the reach the hand has. It can reach for something that's an arm's length away, but the eye can reach a lot of things that are a very far distance away, certainly farther than the hand. It is a different or a similar kind of comparison. The head then compares itself not to the hand, but to the feet because the head is so much higher than the feet which are in the dirt. Now almost certainly when Paul uses the images of a head and of eyes, he's talking about the leadership roles in the church. Paul is saying that those with gifts and roles of leadership should not look down upon other members of the church, but that means this applies to every one of us. None of us should look down on another person, another member of the body of Christ, and despise what seemed to be weaker gifts. What Paul says is that what seems to be weaker to us is not necessarily weaker. In fact, those gifts which we evaluate, which we think, to be weaker are nevertheless indispensable in the body of Christ. Look at verse 22, “on the contrary, the parts of the body that seemed to be weaker are indispensable,”. We underestimate their strength, we look upon these things and they don't seem to be of much use, much function, much power and yet God looks on these things differently. God says this all over the place in his word, such as 1 Samuel 16:7, man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The Lord gives specific gifts and he wants those to be used in the specific way in which they are to be used because every gift is indispensable to the body. Now not only does Paul warn us about despising seemingly weaker gifts, he goes a step further than this. In verse 23 he says, “and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow greater honor.” Paul is saying there these gifts in the body of Christ which outwardly are not that impressive, and they don't accumulate a whole lot of praise from people looking on them. What Paul says is that we should be giving great honor to those who labor faithfully in in very humble circumstances. Last week I encouraged you to encourage someone else to use their spiritual gifts and this really should be an ongoing exercise for us, to be constantly thinking, how can I encourage other people in the body of Christ to use and exercise their gifts. This is all the more true for those whom you recognize whose gifts are not flashy, not outwardly visible and obvious to other people. Paul takes this idea then even one step further, not just the weak, not just those who seem to have less honor. Look at the end of verse 23 into verse 24, “and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, 24 which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it.” Well, Paul here is talking about these unpresentable parts. He's talking about our private parts and he's making a point here that the great care and attention that we give in the modesty to cover over those parts doesn't demean the value of those parts, rather our modesty gives those parts greater honor. The same is true with exercise of gifts in the church that most people will never see. What's Paul talking about here? Well think particularly of gifts like generosity and prayer. In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus says that when you give, this isn't a gift that's showing it's flashy that you should do before everybody, so everyone praises you and said wow you're a really generous person. If you do that Jesus says, “I tell you the truth you've received your reward in full.” The same thing is true of prayer. That is why you pray don't stand on the street corners and show everyone when an eloquent prayer you are; “I tell you the truth you've received your reward in full.” Instead Jesus says, “when you give in secret and your Father who sees in secret will reward you and when you pray go to your secret closet and pray there and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” The lack of public recognition does not mean that God has abandoned those gifts as ultimately worthless. The fact is that God himself bestows great significance, great honor on those gifts that will never be outwardly seen. Some of you give endlessly of your resources, blessing others in ways that will never come to light until the Judgment Day when all secrets are exposed for good or for evil. Some of you labor for hours upon hours in secret prayer, exercising a spiritual gift that no one else will see. Remember what Jesus said, “your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” Remember what God says in his word here, “but God has so composed the body giving greater honor to the part that lacked it.” Do not demean your gifts and do not despise the gifts of others. The Way We Look at the Whole Body of Christ Well in this third and final section Paul tells us the purpose of this, why should we work so hard at unity when unity is so difficult. It would be so much easier to just give up the attempt and the efforts at this, but Paul says in verse 25 and 26 that we must not divide the body. 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 1 Corinthians 12:25-26, ESV Paul says here's the purpose that I'm writing this, here's what I'm wanting out of this, that there may be no division in the body. Don't divide the body, but rather that the members may have the same care for one another. The body cannot survive if its various members divide individualistically or into groups of factions that care only for their own concerns. Each member needs to care for the needs of all the members and all of the members needs to care for each of the needs of each of the members individually. So in verse 26 Paul says, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” In suffering or in rejoicing we stand together, we're not divided, we are together in this. I think about what happens when you experience pain in any part of your body. It isn't that you sort of register it from afar and think well that's tough for my finger or my foot. Martin Luther has this great line that he's written about this passage he says, “See what the whole body does when the foot is trodden on or a finger is pinched; how the eye looks dour, the nose draws up, the mouth cries out, and all the members are ready to rescue and to help and none can leave the other, so that it means not that the foot or a finger is trodden on and is pinched, but the entire body.” What you suffer with one part of you, your whole body suffers together with that part. Our bodies know this intuitively. Our bodies have no part jumping into the efforts when one individual member is suffering. Yet this comes so hard for us doesn't it? To really suffer with someone who is suffering. The same thing is true though we are rejoicing. It's not just that we're all supposed to be miserable together, although that's part of it, we all must rejoice together. Anthony Thistleton, a commentator on this, observes that it would be absurd to go up to a someone who's just won a race and say, I congratulate your legs. Now that would be absurd because we know that in a race your whole body has to work in a coordinated effort so your lungs are working to bring in enough oxygen, your heart is pumping that out to the various members, your arms are trying to keep your legs in rhythm. That's the extent of my running knowledge and body knowledge, but all of that is a corporate, coordinated body effort. So, when the legs win the whole body rejoices together. We must suffer together and rejoice together. Each individual member's welfare is as vitally important to my welfare as my own welfare is. You have to look at it that way and if we truly believe this, we would have no problems fulfilling the second of the great Commandments, “you should love your neighbor as yourself.” We would have no problem considering others as more significant than ourselves. If you're like me you, that probably means a lot of work in this area because I know I need it. May God continue to knit us together as many members of one body in Christ Application What should we do with this? How should we apply this great passage on the individual members in the body of Christ? 1. The first application is this submit to God's purposes for your life. We demean our own gifts when we look at envy on the gifts of others. When we do this, we are despising and pridefully holding our self-up against God's arrangement of the various members of the body of Christ. God has not given you something that is beneath you. God has not given you an unofficial role that he's just trying to find a way for you to earn your participation ribbon. Everything God calls us to is essential in the body of Christ, there are no spare limbs, there are no spare organs. This isn't like when you get a kit to build something and at the end there are screws left over and you wonder, did I build this right or are those on purpose left over. God leaves nothing left over, every part has a purpose. So, submit to and embrace God's purposes for your life. Now here's what this looks like as you think about the ways in which the Holy Spirit of God has equipped you. This isn't about sitting back and dreaming about what might be one day or someday. It's actually a lot more careful reflection on what's in front of you right now; where you are right now, what responsibilities has God given you and your family in your neighborhood and your work, in your church. What abilities has God given you to accomplish those responsibilities? What relationships has God entrusted to you? When we think about our gifts these are questions of stewardship. Again, the whole point of stewardship is that we've been entrusted with something and will be asked at the end by the master to give an account for how we have invested in what he has entrusted to us. If you are a foot, are you serving the body to take it where it needs to go? If you're a hand are you serving the body with your ability to provide for other's needs? If you're an ear are you serving the body by listening and learning? If you're an eye are you serving the body by seeing where the body needs to go? The point of all of these metaphors and images is not that you need to come to know precisely which part of the body you correspond to, it's not like that. This isn't sort of like an online quiz you can take to get a personality profile. You need rather to know what part you play in the body of Christ. Again, of your responsibilities and abilities and relationships, you need to know where you should be serving now. If you don't know this and you want to know this, understand this is one of the best things that the elders can work with you toward. If you want to know how to serve please come talk to the me or to one of the other elders, we would be happy to help you to find ways to exercise your gifts. Of course, when we talk about all of this submitting our lives to God's purposes, we've got to also understand first of all that this is impossible until we have surrendered our lives to Christ by faith. The Bible teaches that apart from Christ we can do nothing. The Bible teaches us that God loves us and that he has a magnificent plan for our lives, that is a true statement. Then because God loved you, he sent his Son into this world to die for you at the cross so that all those who confess their sins and look to Jesus Christ in faith for salvation, trusting in Jesus and what he has done for us so that we might be saved, you will be saved. You wait for him more than watchmen for the morning. With the Lord there is redemption. So, if you have never submitted to the lordship of Christ by looking to him, entrusting saving faith, why not today look to Jesus and be saved? So, the first application point then is to submit to God's purposes for your life. 2. The second application point is this, encourage others to use their gifts. Encouraging the others is the opposite of, its the remedy against despising the gifts of others who seem to have weaker or less honorable or less presentable gifts than yours. Here's why, because when we proactively encourage other people we are required to sit down and think about why God has put this member in the body of Christ. We have to think about why God has included this person's gifts and what would we lose collectively if we did not have this person individually. When you start to sit that down and think about that, you come away with a greater appreciation for what God is doing in the church. You begin to recognize that every person, every gift, every function is indispensable, it's essential. Of course, seeking to encourage others is not just for your benefit. You sort of get to sit back and think about the importance of other people, but then when you go and encourage people to tell them what you see about the way the Lord is working in their life, that helps that person. In fact, it may help the other person if they are right now demeaning their own gifts. Well, all of this is good if I had a gift like that person or that person or that person, but I have what I have and it's really not that much; if only I were like the hand, if only if I were like the eye. When you encourage that person you teach them what the Bible says, that their roles and their place in the body of Christ is important and indispensable. Now I last week gave you a challenge to go encourage another person to use their gifts. I had only one person take me up on that challenge. So, I'm going to reissue it. You don't have to tell me about it, but I hope that you're doing it. Let me tell you about it again. Find someone else this week whose gifts, especially whose gifts may be overlooked and underappreciated in the body of Christ. Go to that person and encourage that person about the importance, the essentialness, the indispensability of their gifts. Encourage that person to use their gifts. Then pray that the Holy Spirit would fan into flames that person's spiritual gifts. If you want, I'd love to hear about it. You may be doing this, you don't have to tell me about it, but I would love to know because you may be seeing gifts in other persons that I personally have not, and it will help me to grow in appreciation for the body of Christ. That's a good form of gossip. 3. The third application then is this bind up the body of Christ. The body suffers together and rejoices together. What do you see as a barrier between you and fellow members of the body of Christ? We cannot exist in silos and we cannot be separated into factions. We live together and die together, we've got to remain together. Again, in our individualistic society we have any number of possible reasons to divide from one another, possible justifications to go to war against each other, whether it's over politics or education or generational outlooks or family or life situation or our opinions about COVID-19 or whatever it is. We can't let these issues divide us in the body of Christ. We've all got to be finding ways to connect with one another, especially people who are not like us. Find ways to share their sorrows and find ways to rejoice in their honor. Brothers and sisters what a privilege we have. We have not been saved merely as individuals, but as a part of a body, as a group where we stand together, where we benefit from one another's gifts, where there are people there to suffer with us, and there are people there to rejoice with us. We get to do the same for them. So, brothers and sisters, let us pray that God continues to knit us closer together as many members of the one body of Christ. Let's pray. Our Father in Heaven, we pray that you would remind us of these gifts that you have given us and remind us especially of the gifts that you have given to others. We pray that we would not demean our gifts, that we would not despise other's gifts, but that you would rather keep us from dividing the body by uniting us closer and closer into relationship in the body of Christ. We pray for the unity and the glory and the goodness of Christ, that you would love us and build us up in this way so that Christ would look good and so your church would be blessed. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
A man asked Jesus to play judge for him and He will not. Instead Jesus tells a parable where a man tries to assure his own soul. Jesus wants people to stay “ready for action” but His primary goal in these passages is to blow apart anxiety. Erick and Daniel discuss all of this. Have a listen! 1517 Podcast Network Las Vegas City Event Great Freedom Conference in Germany Freedom Conference in Stockholm Donate
Jesus' Concern that His ministry might be misinterpreted as a change in God's value. Instead Jesus came to fulfill God's plan. Jesus' fulfillment shows how important it is to God. What is the value of God's Syllabus to us today?
FBCWest 337 | Jesus Heals and Forgives Sins After having sowed His power and authority over nature by Simon’s great catch of fish, Jesus now shows not only His authority over the Scriptures as He teaches and preaches, He shows His power and authority over other matters. He casts out a demon from a man in the synagogue. Jesus has both the power and authority to do so and the people attending the synagogue that day are amazed by it and recognize that Jesus does have such power and authority. After the service Jesus goes to Simon’s house, where Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever. Jesus touches her, rebukes that fever and she is made well. Immediately thereafter she goes to work helping to serve those there. That evening is filled with Jesus healing and casting out demons of may who are brought to Him. But the next day Jesus goes into seclusion. If Jesus found that necessary, maybe we should too. However, people continue to search for Him until they find Him and want him to remain with them. Instead Jesus tells them He must continue to teach and preach elsewhere.
After having sowed His power and authority over nature by Simon’s great catch of fish, Jesus now shows not only His authority over the Scriptures as He teaches and preaches, He shows His power and authority over other matters. He casts out a demon from a man in the synagogue. Jesus has both the power and authority to do so and the people attending the synagogue that day are amazed by it and recognize that Jesus does have such power and authority. After the service Jesus goes to Simon’s house, where Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with a fever. Jesus touches her, rebukes that fever and she is made well. Immediately thereafter she goes to work helping to serve those there. That evening is filled with Jesus healing and casting out demons of may who are brought to Him. But the next day Jesus goes into seclusion. If Jesus found that necessary, maybe we should too. However, people continue to search for Him until they find Him and want him to remain with them. Instead Jesus tells them He must continue to teach and preach elsewhere. Find out more: https://fbcwest.net/Service/583664cd-fb80-4a66-8903-11bd64300e35/Miraculous-Healings-by-Jesus
Today is the beginning of Holy Week…Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and then Easter/Resurrection Sunday.And today is Palm Sunday. The day we call Jesus’ Triumphal entry into Jerusalem.Palm Sunday is absolutely a day that signifies triumph,But not the way of triumph that was expected.Here we have Jesus going into Jerusalem for Passover,Knowing there are those in Jerusalem that wish to kill him.Knowing He was about to suffer and die.The Jews that followed Jesus looked to Him to dethrone Rome from their rule over Israel.That is what the general group of His followers were expecting.I believe the Disciples had a different idea of who Jesus is.Now, if we pay attention to Jesus in Scripture,He does not confrontRome during His time here.No. Jesus confronts the rulers of Israel…the religious leaders.Jesus confronts incorrect understanding of God and God’s Law.Jesus confronts sin.Jesus confronts the kingdom of satan.That is the real kingdom Jesus was fighting.So here we have Jesus…Messiah…Riding into Jerusalem for Passover.And Jesus rides into the city on a donkey’s colt.Humbly entering Jerusalem.And fulfilling Zechariah 9:5-10 ***READ***This is pretty awesome…but probably a bit confusing to the Jews.How was Messiah coming in a show of power and strength,On the back of a colt…which is completely the opposite of power and intimidation.And - to make it even less of an impressive entrance of power,Roman historians recorded that Pontias Pilate was entering Jerusalem on theater side of the city in military force.At the beginning of Jewish festivals, Rome would show up in force,To squash any thoughts rebellion that may crop up.So, on one side of town we have Jesus entering the city humbly, on a colt.And on the other side of town, Rome entering the city in a show of military force.A donkey colt vs a stallion/war horse.Meekness vs pride.But - the very Power of God vs a person of the dust…Or more accurate - the very Power of God vs the kingdom of satan.The Jews were waiting on a Messiah that could forcefully expel Rome.What they got was a Messiah that wasn’t concerned with shows of force,Or powerful appearance, or military strategy.A Messiah that was concerned with their heart/soul.mind relationship with God…Regardless of their circumstance..Jesus entered Jerusalem knowing what was coming…The mocking; the beatings; the lashings; the denial; the cross, AND the resurrection.But - Jesus did not enter with a chip on His shoulder.Instead Jesus entered in humility, as one that has submitted to the will of God.Jesus entered Jerusalem already victorious.Another interesting piece to Matthew’s telling of this account is that Jesus rode two animals…A donkey and a donkey’s colt.And in Zechariah, he prophecies the same.So I read some stuff this week and came across some wirings that suggest,Christ rode in on both because the donkey represents the Old Covenant,And the colt represents the New Covenant.And Jesus bridges the two…or fulfills the one and ushers in the new.Now, Bethpage - where Jesus gets the donkey and the colt,
Last week we read from John chapter 6, where Jesus fed the five-thousand. The crowd was so pleased with the bread Jesus gave that they showed up the next day looking for more. But they were disappointed. Instead Jesus said, “Do not labor for the bread that perishes. Labor instead for the bread that endures…
I have never witnessed a live mob killing someone and I hope I never do. I have however seen videos from Syria and Iraq. It feels unnatural. You can sense and feel the horror from the one who knows death is only seconds away. Jesus certainly knew the hatred. As you read John 10 you can picture Jesus surrounded by men holding large rocks ready to throw with deadly intent. What will the co-creator of the world do? With just a word to an angel he ends it. A simple wave of the hand and everything goes away. Not his style. Instead Jesus quotes Scripture. Why does He respond in this way? He tells you why – "Scripture cannot be broken." This phrase sums up his attitude toward the Bible. But what does it mean? If a promise is broken then the words did not come true. The words of God cannot be broken and therefore they always come true. The Bible is trustworthy. You see it's not enough to say, "I think Jesus was a good man." Jesus was a student of the Word. If you say, “Jesus is my example" then are the Scriptures central to your life? When you are surrounded by enemies and unwanted circumstances do you turn to the Bible? This is the backbone, the foundation for everything Jesus did.
Matthew 5:27 You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. As Jesus continues to preach in what we now refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, His first public message, he moves in verse 27 of chapter 5 to the seventh commandment which we can read in Exodus chapter 20. Remember Jesus has said that He did not come to do away with or destroy the Law but to fulfill it. In this sermon he does with the seventh commandment what He did with the sixth. He takes the Old Law and He shows us not just its basic meaning but shows us its intent or the heart of the Law. And we have to know that when He does this, He is not simply saying here is a new standard for you but is saying here is the standard that I will keep perfectly for you. He is saying here is what I will do for you, this is the extent to which I will keep these commands so that you can be saved through me, through my life. Now this does not negate our responsibility to live in accordance with God’s commands but it does show us that our trying to live in accordance with God’s commands will not save us because we will fall short. But Jesus never, not once, fell short…not outwardly and not inwardly. Our purpose for keeping the commands is not to save us, that is Jesus’ job. Our purpose is to express our love to Him. So if we are serious about showing our love, our gratitude to Him and our desire to honor Him then this is how we are now to live. Jesus said: Matthew 5:27 You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” “Adultery” usually referred to sexual relations by a married person with a partner other than his or her spouse, but v. 28 makes it clear that Jesus is not limiting his commandments to married people but speaking of sexual sin in general. The grammar of v. 28a leads to two possible translations. Jesus could be speaking of one who “looks at a woman with the intention of committing adultery” or to one who “looks at a woman for the purpose of getting her to lust after him.” Either way, the present tense participle blepōn refers to one who continues to look rather than just casting a passing glance, and in either case the mere viewing or mental imagining of a naked body is not under consideration. Instead Jesus is condemning lustful thoughts and actions—those involving an actual desire (the most literal translation of the verb epithymeō) to have sexual relations with someone other than one’s spouse. Yet despite the danger of over applying this verse, an even greater danger is that of under applying it. Adultery among Christians today is a scandal, yet it almost never occurs without precipitation. Christians must recognize those thoughts and actions which, long before any overt sexual sin, make the possibility of giving in to temptation more likely, and they must take dramatic action to avoid them (Blomberg, 1992, pp. 108-109). It is in verse 28 where we begin to see the extent of the command of God. It is talking about intent and the heart. Sin begins before an outward action. You can analyze this in many ways but I think we would all agree that something moves us to sin. Something moves us to action whether sinful action or holy action. Something internal moves us, motivates us; and these are desires and desires are a part of our inner being. When I say inner being I mean they are hidden from others. It is possible for me to have a desire that no one on this earth would ever know about, no one but me. And unless I tell you what it is or unless it is revealed through some action of mine, you will never know it is there. This is where we must be careful. It is the cultivating of sinful desire that leads us to sinful behavior. Jesus is saying that lust, an internal desire for sin, is sin. If it just stays right there, inside of me or you it is still sin. Adultery can be committed in the heart and this adultery is sin. And if it is not dealt with it may very well likely manifest itself beyond the heart to full blown outward behavior of sin. How serious is this? Very. And to show its seriousness Jesus gives two metaphorical illustrations. The first illustration has to do with the eyes and the second with the hands. The tearing out of one’s eye and the cutting off of one’s hand. Now I realize this sounds gruesome and it is if we take it literally. But this is best understood as being figurative hyperbole, not literal. No where in the Bible does Jesus promote self-mutilation and this should not be taken that way either. Instead Jesus is using this to illustrate for us the seriousness of sin and how radical our actions should be to avoid it. Think about this: How might your life be different if you took sin as seriously as Jesus does. What if we hated sin, all sin, as much as God does? How would we change where we go, what we do, what we put before our eyes and what we listen to? How we spend our spare time, what we daydream about and who we hang out with? How would we deal with known vulnerabilities in our lives? I think this is what Jesus is getting at here. He is saying, listen…there are times when drastic measures should be taken to keep oneself from further sin. And this is how He illustrates such drastic measures: Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Pretty radical. In fact, in much of Biblical counseling material this is used and described as “radical amputation.” “Radical amputation” is a term to describe making radical life changes as a first step toward lasting change. It can also be seen as potentially, at least first steps, moving toward true repentance. John MacArthur says of this passage, "Jesus’ point is that we should be willing to give up whatever is necessary, even the most cherished things we possess, if doing that will help protect us from evil. Nothing is so valuable as to be worth preserving at the expense of righteousness.” Now let’s talk about this for a moment. I want to describe radical amputation and then I want to talk about its limitations. Sin and temptation often lurk in unknown places. They can sneak up on us. However, much of sin and temptation is predictable. Most of us know particular sin and particular temptation that we are most subject to. For some it may be gluttony, for others lust or some struggle intensely with drunkenness. Maybe for you it is anger or worry or fear. Think about where you struggle most. As you analyze this, then think about where are you most tempted, I mean a physical location. Is it at home, is it at some other particular place, restaurants, driving, at they gym? Identify where you may be most tempted. Next you can think about with whom are you most tempted or with what group of people are you most tempted. Think about under what circumstances you may be most tempted. When you are tired, when you are overwhelmed, when you are hurting, when you are happy? Maybe a time of day comes to mind, after work, in the morning, at night? Do you see where we are going with this? Now you have identified many factors regarding the sin and temptation you may deal with — locations, people, circumstances, times of day and you can go on. Now, if you are serious about dealing with sin, particularly habitual sin then you can re-arrange your life in a way to avoid many of these factors, this is amputating these things that you have identified as contributors to your sin and temptation. And since Jesus is talking about the heart, not just outward behavior, then we must as well. Where are our temptations even if no one else knows about them? Are we able to make these hard choices, disrupt our lives even, for the sake of righteous living, for the sake of honoring our Lord? What do you need to pluck out of your life? What do you need to cut off, remove from your life? And are you wiling to do that? Now, a word of caution. We live in a world of sin with temptation all around. We cannot avoid, all sin and temptation always. On a deserted Island we would be tempted to sin. So the full solution is not to build walls around our lives and desires and just keep all temptation away. That is not the full solution and that is not the point here. The point is that we must be willing to take steps, significant steps, in the way of righteousness and be serious about battling temptation in our lives. Are we serious about sin? That is the point, that is the thing we must ponder in our lives. Jesus said, in this life we will have troubles. Temptation, ugliness of sin, our sinful desires—all of this is trouble and, frankly, overwhelming and impossible to deal with on our own. But we are not on our own. We have Jesus who has been trough temptation, we have Jesus who has promised to be with us, we have Jesus who is interceding for us with the Father. Do you know what that means? It means He is for us. He is for us. Jesus said, “In this life you will have troubles.” In the ESV tribulation, here is what Jesus said in John 16:33: John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. So we see what this means. Jesus really has overcome the word. He entered into it, He lived among people, He dealt with many of the things we are faced with and He handled it all perfectly and sinlessly. Now He is the One who leads us through this world, with us and for us! And we can make choices that seem hard to avoid falling prey to sin through temptation. He helps is with that, He helps navigate us through that. And then we have this blinding reality: Matthew 5:30b For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. This like a wake up call, a clear statement that hopefully helps us to see what is real and important. It is like Jesus is saying, is your sin worth so much to you that you are willing to go to hell for it? Is whatever pleasure you may be deriving from your sin so great that up against eternity in hell it will be worth it? This is not about losing ones salvation it is about never fully trusting in Christ. He is describing a person who deeply loves his or her sin, it is all to him or her. It is their life to the point that they will not let it go even when faced with the reality of its end for them. Jesus just has to be plain with them and with us here. What is your sin worth to you? This passage forces us to or should force us to deal honestly with ourselves. I want to encourage each of us to work at identifying sin, even habitual sin in our lives. And then take the next step to plan how you will perform radical amputation in your life to guard against the sin. And then follow your plan. And at the same time humbly cry out to the Lord for His help, for His power and for real change in your life. Take a step, yes, but cry out to Him along the way. Yes,“Do whatever it takes to correct your heart attitude,” but don’t think you can do this apart from the strength of Christ! Do you remember the scene in the Garden just prior to Jesus’ arrest? Do you remember His struggle? He was praying and asking the Father to remove the cup of the crucifixion if it be possible yet He yielded to the Father’s will. In this interaction with the Father, we read that Jesus being in agony prayed more earnestly; and His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. This was Jesus, we see Him in this intense struggle and what did He do in this struggle? He cried out to the Father for help, He prayed and He relied on the Father through the struggle. The Father sustained Him and He continued in righteousness and carried out the plan of redemption. Amazing! If Christ so needed the strength of the Lord God how much more do we need the Strength of Christ? If the Father can carry the Son through, how much more can Christ carry us through? And all the while Jesus understands, as He was tempted as we are. Rely on Christ and fight sin with all your might. Believe that Christ his near while performing radical amputation, making needed changes in your life to resist sin. I believe that is the message, the message that each of us needs to hear! Matthew 5:27 You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. References: Blomberg, C. L. (1992). The New American Commentary - Matthew (Vol. 22, pp. 108-109). Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman.
If anyone has the right to leverage, shame or guilt us- it is Jesus. Only He doesn’t. Instead Jesus creates enough space so that we can decide for ourselves how we will respond to Him.
We all have expectations when we talk to people. We expect when we bring a problem, it will be addressed. But when the official came to Jesus he expected Jesus to come with him. Instead Jesus sends him on his way with a promise, "Your son will live." How often to we accept a promise instead of action? How often are our requests answered in ways we don't expect? John 4:46-54
The Next Level | Part 3 | We often think of fruitfulness as part of our vision, something we hope will happen. Instead Jesus wants us to see it as a value, something we expect to happen and make changes when it does not.
This week our text talks about loving our enemies. A radical idea: not the most natural response to enemy behaviour. Out temptation is to hate our enemies, after all, they have done something to hurt us and we tend to respond aggressively out of our pain. The Old Testament Law commanded that the people of God love their neighbour. The Law never said to hate their enemy but it was implied and many people in Jesus' day understood that the hatred of an enemy was totally acceptable. Obviously the Middle East and the whole world for that matter, still has issues along these lines. So the false narrative that Jesus contradicts in this passage is that it is okay to hate our enemies. He challenges us to love our enemies. This is perhaps the most well-known section on the Sermon on the Mount and one of Jesus' most famous sayings. In fact even today, Christians are judged according to this standard. We are to love with "agape" love that originates in our will and actively seeks out the best for our enemies. When we love like this we are proving ourselves to be sons and daughters of God because this is the way he treats his enemies. But in order to love our enemies we must confront what might be called a "poverty mentality." It is that tendency to think that we are so near the brink of disaster that one more bad thing would push us over the edge. It is the feeling that we are impoverished and lack adequate resources to survive. We say to ourselves that we must protect ourselves at all costs and that any threat to our emotional, financial or overall safety must be dealt with quickly and severely. I believe this is at the root of our tendency to hate our enemies. Instead Jesus wants us to understand that we have more than enough. We have a surplus when we consider that Christ dwells in us and the Kingdom we belong to is strong and secure. Even if our enemies strike us we will survive and in fact flourish because we are Kingdom People; citizens of the everlasting Kingdom. When we know our identity in Christ, we are able to love our enemies. Questions for Discussion: 1. Slide 2-5. Discuss briefly the false narrative we have addressed in the past two weeks. What new narratives have you learned that replace the false narratives? 2. Slide 9. Why is terrorism so rampant today? How does it reflect the world's attitude toward enemies? 3. Slide 10-12. Discuss "agape" love and how it applies to how we should treat our enemies. Does agape love still allow us to protect ourselves from our enemies? Why or why not? Can you see any evidence of how God protects his people from his enemies while still loving them? 4. Slide 13-16. Describe the "poverty mentality" that sometimes resides in the People of God. Why do some Christians feel this way? What is the opposite extreme? What can be done to keep us balanced? How do we maintain a proper/biblical attitude regarding our identity in Christ? List at least three ways to help us remember to live generous and gracious lives.
This week our text talks about loving our enemies. A radical idea: not the most natural response to enemy behaviour. Out temptation is to hate our enemies, after all, they have done something to hurt us and we tend to respond aggressively out of our pain. The Old Testament Law commanded that the people of God love their neighbour. The Law never said to hate their enemy but it was implied and many people in Jesus' day understood that the hatred of an enemy was totally acceptable. Obviously the Middle East and the whole world for that matter, still has issues along these lines. So the false narrative that Jesus contradicts in this passage is that it is okay to hate our enemies. He challenges us to love our enemies. This is perhaps the most well-known section on the Sermon on the Mount and one of Jesus' most famous sayings. In fact even today, Christians are judged according to this standard. We are to love with "agape" love that originates in our will and actively seeks out the best for our enemies. When we love like this we are proving ourselves to be sons and daughters of God because this is the way he treats his enemies. But in order to love our enemies we must confront what might be called a "poverty mentality." It is that tendency to think that we are so near the brink of disaster that one more bad thing would push us over the edge. It is the feeling that we are impoverished and lack adequate resources to survive. We say to ourselves that we must protect ourselves at all costs and that any threat to our emotional, financial or overall safety must be dealt with quickly and severely. I believe this is at the root of our tendency to hate our enemies. Instead Jesus wants us to understand that we have more than enough. We have a surplus when we consider that Christ dwells in us and the Kingdom we belong to is strong and secure. Even if our enemies strike us we will survive and in fact flourish because we are Kingdom People; citizens of the everlasting Kingdom. When we know our identity in Christ, we are able to love our enemies. Questions for Discussion: 1. Slide 2-5. Discuss briefly the false narrative we have addressed in the past two weeks. What new narratives have you learned that replace the false narratives? 2. Slide 9. Why is terrorism so rampant today? How does it reflect the world's attitude toward enemies? 3. Slide 10-12. Discuss "agape" love and how it applies to how we should treat our enemies. Does agape love still allow us to protect ourselves from our enemies? Why or why not? Can you see any evidence of how God protects his people from his enemies while still loving them? 4. Slide 13-16. Describe the "poverty mentality" that sometimes resides in the People of God. Why do some Christians feel this way? What is the opposite extreme? What can be done to keep us balanced? How do we maintain a proper/biblical attitude regarding our identity in Christ? List at least three ways to help us remember to live generous and gracious lives.
I. Introduction: The Quiet Beginnings of the Mighty Church We are focusing today on Philippians 3:17 and we're looking at a pattern of discipleship for the second week, "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." Philippians 3:17, partner verse is Philippians 4:9, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you." If you were to trace the mighty Mississippi River back to its origin, you would find it begins as a trickle flowing out of Lake Itasca in Northern Minnesota. From there, the river grows and flows 2,348 miles until it dumps into the Gulf of Mexico below New Orleans. Millions, and millions, and millions of gallons of water. The Mississippi River drains 33 states, its watershed covers one half our nation. Fosters cities, commerce, transports people and goods, provides habitat for fish and all kinds of animals, and it's an immense thing created by God. And it all starts with a tiny little trickle up there at Lake Itasca. I've never seen that trickle, I'd like to go and visit it someday. But if in like manner, you were to trace the human origins, human origins now, of the mighty river which is the Church of Jesus Christ. It began one afternoon around the time of the Ministry of John the Baptist, this mighty thing called the Church of Jesus Christ, which has already spread to almost every tribe, and language, and people, and nation, began in an afternoon. It was an exciting time at that point. The Ministry of John the Baptist was really taking off and there were Jews coming from all over the nation, coming there to hear this wild man preach, to look at him and to be baptized. What a strange thing that John would be baptizing Jews. That was an initiation rite for us dirty pagans. As gentiles, if we wanted to become Jews, we would be washed and cleansed of all our pagan idolatries. But John was baptizing Jews, and so there were huge throngs coming to hear, and preach, and to see the baptism of repentance for sins. One day at a small place called Bethany beyond the Jordan, a day like any other during that time in Israel's history, an obscure man stood in front of John, and if you had been near John and knew him well enough, you would have noticed an incredible change in his demeanor. John looked perhaps stunned or overwhelmed, amazed as this unknown man stood in front of him. And perhaps only a few people around John heard the change in his tone of voice, a sense of wonder and awe, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" And the response by this obscure stranger would have been incomprehensible, "Let it be so now… we must fulfill all righteousness." That would have gone over your head. You would have said, "What are they talking about?" And then like everybody else, the obscure stranger submitted to baptism. And the next day the Church began. Jesus was just walking along and John saw Him, and said, "Behold the Lamb of God." That's all. And two of John's disciples, his daily followers that John was teaching at that point, heard him say it, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned around and saw them following and asked them a question. Jesus is always asking questions, one thing you learn about Jesus, He's always asking questions, and here He asked them a question, "What do you want?" And they said, "Rabbi," which means teacher, "Where are you staying?" "Come," He replied, "and you will see." And so those two disciples went and they saw where He was staying, and they spent that day with Him. It was about the 10th hour, now the Jewish clock begins at six in the morning so that would be about four in the afternoon by my understanding. About four in afternoon, they went and spent some time with Jesus. That's how it started. This is the quiet beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ. The Church that would spread from shore to shore began with what the British would call "an afternoon tea." A little time with Jesus spent wherever it was He was staying. And now it's spread from shore to shore, to almost every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. And it began with a simple concept, discipleship focused on time spent with Jesus. And Jesus in the end would call to Himself 12 who He named apostles, and He would pour Himself into those men, especially three in particular, and He would build a church on that. And He would command them to follow His same pattern of discipleship to the ends of the Earth. Now, I believe that the Apostle Paul was following that pattern. I believe he was calling others to, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." Kind of do ministry the way Jesus did. "That's what I'm doing," the Apostle Paul would say. To some degree, we've come at this topic backwards. Logically we would really begin with Christ's pattern of discipleship, and then we'd go to Paul's, but I thought it'd be better to start with Paul because we're following him in Philippians. And we've seen that Paul said in Verse 17:3, "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you." And Verse 9:4 again, "Whatever you have learned, or received, or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." Last week from this, we saw two aspects of discipleship, a pattern of doctrine resulting in a pattern of Godly living. Doctrine, transforming life, and the two of them indispensable. Not just doctrine, not just lifestyle, but doctrine resulting in lifestyle, the two of them together, a pattern of discipleship. This we saw was supported by many scriptures. 1 Corinthians 11:1, I've already alluded to several times this morning, "Join with others," he says there, "Be imitators of me just as I also am of Christ. I'm following Christ, you follow me." We saw also last week in 2 Thessalonians 3:6 and following, "Now we command you brethren in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you receive from us," very strong word. Just like we have in Philippians 3:17, the tupos, the type, the pattern of life in Philippians 3:17, we have what was passed on, the tradition of life as we talked about in 2 Thessalonians 3. And then, 1 Corinthians 4:15 through 17. Again, from last week, "Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ," said Paul to the Corinthians, "you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you to imitate me. For this reason, I'm sending you Timothy, my son whom I love who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus which agrees with what I teach in every church." The pattern of doctrine resulting in a lifestyle. And he said, "I'm sending you Timothy because he kind of knows what I do. He's my son in the faith. And so he imitates me very well, and so he'll help you imitate me as well." Now, I talked to you last week about how audacious all of this is, that any sinner, any human being would stand up and say, "Follow me and God will be with you." But I think this is exactly what our church needs. This is exactly what not just this local church, but the church in America needs, is men and women who are willing to say the same thing. Not just with their mouths, but with their lives. There is such a great divide I think in the American church between doctrine and living. We believe a bunch of things and we have a hard time living them out. And I think that God's answer is discipleship. It's bringing the two together so that doctrine results in transformed lifestyle. And I think there are some things that you really can't learn from a book. I think you just learn them by living them. You learn them by seeing it exemplified by having somebody with the courage to say, "Follow me and I'll show you how to do that." And I think we need that in our church. II. Christ’s Pattern of Discipleship Now, this is all review, Paul's pattern of discipleship. This morning, I want to spend time on Christ's pattern of discipleship. In John 13:15, Jesus said, "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you." Now, there he's talking about the foot washing, but I think it's not a stretch to say that this was intended in many more areas than just foot washing. He intended to give us an example. We know this, definitely in 1 Peter 2 in which he intended to give us an example of how to suffer in a Godly manner. And so also, I think he came to give us an example of how to build a church. "You build a church the way I have." Well, how did Jesus build the church? Well, that is the central question the two books that have changed my life sought to answer. One of them this AB Bruce's book, "The Training of the Twelve." Now, Bruce's book, "The Training of the Twelve" is about 100 years old, his son FF Bruce, the great commentator on scripture well known to many, but it was his father who wrote this book and basically, all he's doing is just a New Testament study on how Jesus discipled the 12. And he just goes through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and just puts it together in how Jesus shaped and molded the 12. The cover art from the book is on the cover of your bulletin. I've used it one other time before, but I love it. I've never forgotten it. It's the master's hands shaping the clay on the wheel, and how Jesus was just using every interaction to just shape the lives of the 12, shaping their lives, preparing them for what was to come. A wedding together of incredible doctrine with perfect example, and Jesus just shaping them at every moment, preparing for what was to come. And that affected my life greatly, The Training of the Twelve. But even more I think in a clear way is Robert Coleman's book, The Master Plan of Evangelism, first published in 1963. And I'd just like to give you kind of a summary of the eight steps that he notices in Christ's pattern of discipleship. You really should read the book. You could read it in about two hours or less. It's a very short book, and brief, and to the point. In it, he looks at eight things that Jesus did, eight steps, which together I think formulate his pattern of discipleship. Selection, that is he chose men to work with. Association, that is he spent time with them. Consecration, he totally devoted himself to them and to the Father on their behalf and expected them to devote themselves as well to him, consecration. Impartation, he gave himself away, Christ did, gave of himself. Demonstration, that is he lived it out in front of them and did not expect them to do anything that he hadn't first displayed in his life. He lived it out by lifestyle, demonstration. Delegation, he gave them work to do, he gave them projects, sent them out to do things and then came back and assessed how it went, delegation. Supervision, he didn't just send them out and then when they came back they were on to something else, but he worked with them and trained them based on their experiences. He supervised them, he didn't just cut them free. Jesus said later, " I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." There's a sense of intense training there. And then finally, reproduction. He expected them to be fruitful and do the same thing in other people's lives which he had done in theirs. That's it quickly. 1) Selection But let's look in a little more depth at each of these. First selection. Jesus' methods were not programs. It was not techniques, it was not marketing. His strategy was men. He was working with these twelve men. He was the initiator in the relationship. In Matthew 4:18 and 19 "As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee he saw two brothers. Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. 'Come, follow me,' Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.'" Who initiated that? It was Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee. They followed, He initiated. At the core of this was selection. He chose them for this task. It says in John 15-16, "You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last." And so Jesus selected them. He chose them. It says in Mark 3:13 and 14, "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to Him those He wanted, and they came to Him. He appointed twelve, designating them to be apostles so that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach." He chose these 12 at the specific leading of His Heavenly Father. Luke tells us that He spent all night in prayer before He chose the 12. And so He was with them all night and then He came down and those were the ones He had selected. His principles for the selection were he was looking for men who were willing to learn, who were willing to be consecrated to Him, willing to pick up their cross and follow. We'll talk more about that in a moment, but there were reasons why He chose these men. They are not the men the world would have chosen. You're not going to choose these 12. But Jesus works in a different way than we do. God's ways are not our ways and neither are Jesus' ways our ways. And so he chose these men. Now, this is where I think the church needs to be like Jesus. Jesus always was ministering to the masses. But his strategy for the world was this; the 12 apostles, and specifically within them three, Peter, John and James that he worked with especially and poured himself into. They were with him in Gethsemane, they were with him on the Mount of Transfiguration. They were with him when Jairus' daughter was raised, the three in particular. So there were kind of concentric circles in Jesus' ministry. Pouring himself into the three, a little less so but still intensively into the 12 and then the disciples that were kind of following him consistently and then the multitudes or the crowds around. And Coleman puts it this way. He says, "I'm not in any way dismissing the mass evangelistic rally," which is so popular and is kind of the strategy, I guess, of some for reaching the world. We need a set piece room were people come in and listen, get the thing and go out and then you bring in the next group. And this is not God's way. This is one that wasn't Paul's way and it wasn't Christ's. Instead there was the multiplication approach that he sought to use. Coleman said this, "This is where we must begin just like Jesus. It will be slow, tedious, painful, and probably unnoticed by people at first. But the end result will be glorious," listen, "even if we don't live to see it." We're in such a rush aren't we? We want it now, we want to see results immediately. Jesus was going after quality and then quantity. Did he care about quantity? Of course he did. Every tribe, and language, and people, and nation would be represented ultimately by a multitude that no one could count. But his approach was quality first. He was building into these key folks. 2) Association Secondly, association. The basic concept here is pretty simple. He stayed with them, he spent time with them and did it constantly. We've already seen this in John 1, the whole thing began with an afternoon with Jesus. We've seen it also in a verse I just quoted but moved through quickly, but take a minute and listen to it again. In Mark 3:13-14, "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted and they came to him. He appointed twelve, designated them apostles," listen, "that they might be with him." Secondly, "and that he might send them out to preach." There's a definite order there. First they're going to be with him, and then they're going to go out to preach. They're going to just spend time with Jesus and you're going to see this in Acts when Peter and John are there so bold and courageous. The Sanhedrin looks down and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Their lives had been shaped and molded for three years by the master and they were ready now for their preaching ministry. We were talking recently about the prices of various seminaries. And one of the wonderful things about being a Southern Baptist is that the cooperative program greatly reduces the cost of going to seminary. Very difficult to get out of seminary with a big debt. Because for the most part you won't and shouldn't be making tons of money in the ministry. And so as a result, to have a huge educational debt is a big problem. We were talking about this topic of how much seminaries cost and the encouragement of cooperative program. And we got to talking about the cost of Jesus' seminary. What was the cost of three years with Jesus? Well, in one sense it was free. He didn't charge anything. But in another sense he said, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." You want to follow me, you want me to disciple you, you may not know when you'll eat next actually. You know any time I can turn the stones into bread but I'm not actually going to do that frequently. I'll feed the 5,000, you'll have plenty to eat that day. But maybe a few days later you'll be walking through the grain fields and picking heads of grain and eating them because you haven't had anything in a while. And you may not know where you're going to sleep tonight because you're going to be maybe out in the stars with a rock for your pillow. That's the price tag of enrolling in Jesus' seminary. And more than that, he's going to break you down, he's going to bring you lower than you've ever been in your life. Think about Peter after he had denied knowing Christ. The lowest point of his life. And then he's going to build you back up again and use you like you could never imagine that we would. That was the price. I think it was the cheapest and most expensive seminary in history. The cost of following Jesus. And Jesus spent time with them, he taught them constantly. His lessons were woven together in a way of life. I mean, they'd be walking through the fields and he'd say, "Consider the lilies of the field... Look at the birds of the air." They were out there all the time. He spent time with them. And all the more as the time drew near for Him to die, He actually kind of closed up shop on the masses and withdrew from them and spent intense time with these 12. In John 11:54 it says, "Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the Jews, instead He withdrew to a region near the desert, to a village called Ephraim where He stayed with his disciples." So there He is, kind of withdrawing, on retreat, as it were, and really pouring Himself into these 12. John 13 through 17 is Jesus' private ministry to His own disciples. He washes their feet. He instructs them about love, and the Holy Spirit, and suffering, and the persecutions that are going to come. And then He prays for them in a lavish and loving way, intensely pouring out prayer, not just for them, but for the world that will hear through their ministry. Pouring Himself out on them. 3) Consecration Thirdly, consecration. Jesus required total obedience. He gave himself fully to them and expected them also to give themselves fully to Him. Jesus, it says in Hebrews in a very mysterious way, learned obedience from what He suffered. Well, they watched that. They watched him suffering in order to obey. And so he expected them to do the same. "If you're not willing to take up your cross and follow", said Jesus, "you are not worthy to be my disciple." They understood completely what this meant, a consecration to the task. Coleman put it this way: "We must learn this lesson again today. There can be no dilly-dallying around with the commands of Jesus Christ. We are engaged in a warfare, the issues of which are life and death. There could be no insubordination in his command. No one knew better than Jesus that the satanic forces of darkness against them were well organized and equipped to defeat any half-hearted effort of evangelization." Satan can knock us aside if we make a half-hearted effort to reach the world for Christ. Half-hearted won't do it. And he is well equipped to knock it aside. Instead Jesus said, "We are going to pour into these 12 and get them ready for the real war that's coming." 4) Impartation Fourth, impartation. Christ gave himself away to his disciples. He gave himself totally. I think of Jesus at the cross, you know that this week the movie "The Passion" is coming out and a number of folks are going to see it. But if you were to see that image, whether you see the movie or not is not important, it's still the Scripture that converts, not a movie. Keep that in mind. But at any rate, there is going to be a depiction of Christ when you read the Scripture. Now, when you think about that, think about Jesus dead on the cross and ask, "What more could he have given for his disciples? Was there anything left?" I mean, they already gambled away his clothing in fulfillment of Scripture. There was nothing left, he had given everything he had, and that principle was there throughout his ministry. What I have, I give to you, for your benefit. He imparted himself to them. And then all the more after his resurrection when he breathe on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." He gave of himself directly into their souls through the Holy Spirit. He imparted himself to them. So therefore, in effect, discipleship must be of the same type. Impartation, what I have, I give to you. 5) Demonstration Fifth, demonstration. And this has kind of been the point as we've looked at the pattern of discipleship, we see that this is kind of a central theme here. That Jesus didn't command his disciples to do anything that he didn't display or demonstrate before them. It's interesting to know how long he is with them before he finally sends them out to preach in Matthew 10 and then in Luke 10 also. There is the ministry of the 12 going out in Matthew 10, and all the instructions there. And then in Luke 10. But he has been with them, by some calculations, at least a year, and they have seen him do many things before he sends them out. So he is demonstrating them. You see this, I think, especially with prayer, don't you? In Luke 11 it says, "One day Jesus was praying in a certain place…" And they are watching him pray, that must have been something. It must have been something to watch Jesus pray. To watch the look on his face, to watch his body language, the intensity with which he poured out his heart to God. Obviously the highest of this was Gethsemane, but Jesus prayed many times. And as a matter of fact, in some places he even says, "I'm praying for these people that are watching, so that they may know that you sent me." This kind of thing. He is praying so that they can watch him pray. He wants them to have a hunger for prayer. And so, one time he was praying in a certain place and the disciples came and said, "Lord, teach us to pray, the way John taught his disciples." And so Jesus at that point teaches them in Luke, it's in Luke 11, the Lukan version of the Lord's Prayer, and then there is couple of parables on prayer and a bunch of other instruction. Do you see the beauty of it? There is lifestyle leading into a question in which doctrine is imparted. What a beautiful thing that is. Jesus did it all the time, but especially with soul winning. Especially with soul winning. He would go from place to place and interact with a rich young ruler and see how he would handle that. He'd interact with a Zacchaeus who was too short, and he is up in the tree, and he spent time with him, the tax collector. Or he'd interact with 10 lepers who he'd healed and then one came back, and he would interact with him. Or he'd interact with the money changers in the temple, and how he would deal with that? I mean, they saw him in a variety of settings and focused on winning souls for the Heavenly Kingdom. I just think that evangelism isn't really ultimately taught in a classroom. You have to go out and do it. And that is why we every month make available opportunities for you to witness. I don't want you ever to say in the end, "My church didn't give me an opportunity to go out and witness." We do it every month. Every month. We even provide ever increasingly wonderful meals, although I'm not one to tell you that because I don't want you coming for the meal, but they really are good. But then you get to do the work of the Father. All right, you get to come and witness. And I just believe that there's just a beautiful dynamic of going out and having experiences and then coming back and saying, "I've got some questions." and then wanting some training out of that. And Jesus did that. 6) Delegation Six, delegation. He didn't just keep showing them. Ultimately he gave them work to do. It says in Luke 9:1, "When Jesus had called the twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick." So he sends them out. He sends out the 70 in Luke 10. He sends out the 12 in Mathew 10. Then at the end certainly with all the great commissions he definitely sends them out. "As the Father has sent me, even so I'm sending you." So definitely he intended them to go out. He gave them work to do. But before the final great commission there were kind of miniature commissions and work to do along the way. And it wasn't just those mission trips, but there would be little tasks or different things that he would give them to do. 7) Supervision Seventh was supervision. As he gave them these tasks he would keep a check on them. He constantly followed their progress. And real life situations would bring up issues that would then be discussed. Great example of this is in Mathew 17, when Jesus is up on the mountain with his inner circle of three on the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, John and James. And they're coming down. So the nine other apostles are still down there waiting for them to come off the mountain. And during that time a father brings his demon-possessed son and they, the nine apostles, are not able to drive out the demon. Now this is already after he gave them authority to drive out demons and they'd returned and said, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name." And they're so excited. But now, this time they just can't do it because Jesus isn't there or something. And the father comes to Jesus as he's coming off the Mount of Transfiguration and said, "Lord, have mercy on my son," he said. "He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him." And then you get this from Jesus, "O unbelieving and perverse generation. How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me." And he drove out the demon. Afterward the disciples came up quietly and said, "why couldn't we drive it out?" We did try. We did pray. He said, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith like a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there', and it will move." Do you see the dynamic there? The situation would never have popped up in a classroom. It was out in life. And then there was a feedback loop, and a discussion, and further training, supervision. 8) Reproduction And then finally reproduction. Christ expected them to reproduce. What he was pouring into them, he wanted them to do for others. He wanted them to grow numerically through this kind of reproduction. This was the goal of the gospel work. And Coleman said it ultimately was the acid test of his ministry. If they didn't reproduce, the whole thing is a failure. But it's not going to be a failure. No way. In the end the spirit will guarantee that they will reproduce in this way. And it has been continuing ever since. III. The Modern Church’s Failed Pattern of Discipleship But for me as I look at the church, I want to assess, are we doing this? We looked at these eight patterns that Coleman gave us, and even if you don't necessarily buy all the details of Coleman's analysis, I think that these eight things were things that Jesus did. And my question is, is the modern church doing this? Now I touched on this last time. Some have noted two different approaches toward education. One of them the Greek model and the other one the Hebrew model. I think a beautiful display of the Greek model is in Acts chapter 17 where the Apostle Paul is here to preach to the Athenians. And Acts 17:21 says this, "All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas." That's the kind of Greek style of teaching. They would sit around and discuss, and debate, and argue over the latest points of ethics, or philosophy, or morality, whatever. And they would kind of work it over and talk about it, and then they'd go home. And then they'd come back the next day and they'd do it again. And they just loved to sit around doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. That is kind of the Greek pattern. And interestingly, I think it eventually affected the universities of Europe and the American educational system. It's basically, withdraw from life, sitting in a place dedicated to the educational process and impartation of a bunch of information, sitting around listening to it, and then you'd go home and try to do it. That's kind of how it works. The Hebrew model is a little bit different. Now I have my understanding or assessment of why these are different. But listen to the Hebrew model. I think you're going to see this most clearly in Hebrew 6... Sorry, Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7, Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7 in which parents are told to disciple their children, (parenthetically, the best discipleship in the world are Godly Christian parents working with their kids and bringing them to a full and mature faith in Christ. Nothing better than that. We'll talk more about that in a moment). But in Deuteronomy 6:6 and 7, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts." There's content. You see it? Commandments are to be on your heart. You're to know the law of God. "These commandments are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children." That's like through repetition. That's that word sharpen. Sharpen them into your children. Impress them on your children. "Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up." Doesn't that sound like Jesus? It's just a kind of a lifestyle instruction, a weaving together of instruction with what's really going on in life. Now my theory is that the Greeks thought that the physical world was evil and that the world of the mind was good. And so what we ought to do is get away from the physical world and kind of sit and talk about pure ideas. But the Hebrew model is that everything God made is good. We know that sin has entered the world, but it's still a good world, and we want a wisdom that's rubber-meets-the-road-ish, if that's a word. Anyway, it's just involved in life, woven together in the way you're really living. We want that kind of a wisdom. Now, let me ask you a question. As you look at the church today, which of those two models more accurately describes what we do for discipleship? I've already asked that question, and I come up with the Athenians, and not the Book of Deuteronomy. I've come up with kind of us withdrawing from life, sitting in a kind of a dedicated room, talking about content, and then expected to go out and live it. "Do your best. Be praying for you." All right? And then hope that you'll grow. Now, I don't want to sell us short. I believe that many churches and individuals in churches have a mindset of discipleship and things go on throughout the week to that end. Believe me, I'm not minimizing the importance of good, solid teaching and doctrine. The Apostle Paul rented the lecture hall of Tyrannus, and worked and poured in doctrine. There must be there... I've nothing wrong with dedicated rooms in which doctrine is communicated, I'm just saying there's another component that I don't see and it troubles me. And that is the role modelling woven together with life that was such a big part of what Jesus did and what Paul did. Now, I think, today in evangelical Christianity, parachurch groups do it best. Especially on the college campus. Groups like Campus Crusade for Christ, and InterVarsity, and Navigators, have a vision for discipleship. It's a little unfair because I have to say that college students have the greatest freedom and possibility in one sense to be discipled. But it's not unfair because I think that's great. Use it. Be discipled now. This is exactly the time to do it. When you have a mature mind and freedom in life to just have your life shaped and molded by a mentor. But I just feel like the church should do it. And so I've been trying to think about that, and how it works. Trying to work it together. How is it that we can be a community of faith? And there is a community involved here. It isn't just one man discipling one younger man, and one woman discipling a younger woman, etcetera. But there is a mutual discipleship that kind of goes on all the time in the community. But, I'm arguing for a man discipling a younger man and a woman discipling a younger woman, more than it's happening. Much more than it's happening. What's going on? Well, I think the modern lifestyle is the enemy of discipleship. We're too busy. And we're really busy people. And it's almost a mark, or a badge of, I don't know affluence or importance or something, that we're this busy. "Well, I have something on Monday night, and then something again on Tuesday night, and something... " Woah. And there's no room for this. And actually I almost got kind of a sense from some folks in the church, "Is this like another thing we're going to have to do? Kind of on top of all the other things that we're going to do?" And I'm saying, "Do you hear what's going on? What is the great commission?" "All authority in heaven and Earth has been given to me, therefore go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." I want to keep on doing, through generation after generation what I've done for you 12. Teaching them, that's content. To obey, that's lifestyle. That's the great commission. And if we're too busy for that, we're too busy. We have to look again at it. So, I gave myself one more week... This wasn't originally a two part sermon, originally it was just one. But I needed more time to pray through what it is we're supposed to do. IV. Suggesting a Remedy And I'm not done answering the question. I'm not done thinking it through. I just see a difference between what I read in these books, especially in Scripture, and the way we're really doing discipleship here. Somebody comes to faith in Christ in our church, what do we do with them? Do we have an idea of how to work with them? Do we have an idea of how to take somebody that says, "Look, I really feel myself to be very young in the faith and I want to grow. What do I do? Do you have an answer for me?" And I'd be convicted by that kind of question. I have a kind of a jumbled answer but I want a clear answer of what it is that we're going to do. I'm encouraged by the strong word "pattern". Join with others and follow my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern. The typos, the type that we gave you. We knew what we were doing. We weren't making it up as we went along. We understood how to disciple somebody. Five steps, I think, toward a remedy. Step 1: Identify a Pattern of Discipleship Step number one for the church and perhaps especially for those that are called to lead the church, is to identify this pattern. Doctrinally and lifestyle, what is the pattern of discipleship? What is a one year, two year, three year pattern that would be reasonable discipleship? What doctrines do you need to know, in order to be mature? How do you move from milk to meat and at a certain point you'll be fully trained? Doesn't mean you know everything there is to know about Christianity, you'll never know that. The more I study the Bible, the more new things I learn. But that doesn't mean that I'm insufficiently trained in order to disciple somebody else. That's a cop-out. There comes a point which you know enough doctrine in order to mentor, to disciple somebody else. So, what is that? What is the pattern of biblical content to impart? And along with that what is the pattern of Godly character and lifestyle that goes with that? In five sub-areas that I've got. Godly personal habits, that is Bible intake, memorization, meditation, consistent prayer, fasting, active church life, family devotions, these kind of things. These are the spiritual disciplines that are foundational. A well ordered lifestyle, discipline in sleep, and eating, and lawful pleasures, good ordered home, discipline in speech, faithfully working at your job, these kinds of things, put order to the life, putting sin to death by the Spirit, a regular pattern of facing temptations and seeing victory over that by the power of the Spirit, putting sin to death, an active ministry in which you're using your spiritual gift finding a place of service and using it, in the context of ministering to the body. Passion for missions and evangelism, all that active ministry, and then stewardship. Time, money, relationships, the stuff of life using it like a steward. Those are the kind of five areas I thought that would go into the lifestyle. If you can think of more, come and tell me. I'm learning more and more, but these are the kinds of things we'd want to kind of figure out, when is a person fully trained, so that they understand these things and they're kind of in their lives? So step one identify a pattern of discipleships, Step 2: Assess yourself Step two, assess yourself. It says in Romans 12:3 that we should think of ourselves neither too highly nor too lowly but with the measure of faith that the spirit gives. And so you have to assess yourself. Assess yourself, "Do I need to be mentored, or am I really ready actually to be mentored?" Not, "Am I... " or to be a mentor. "Am I perfect?" That's not the question. We already answered that in Philippians 3 earlier. No, you're not. As long as you're here on Earth you're not completed, you're not perfect. We're not looking for perfect people. We're looking for people who are willing to step forward and say, "Follow me as I follow Christ." If on the other hand, you say, "Really I am not, as I look at these areas, there's some disorder or disarray and I'm not ready. I need actually to be trained." Step 3: Choose someone Step three is to choose somebody. Pray that God would give you somebody that you could mentor or disciple if you're ready. And if not, then come to us, come to me or some of the other leadership in the church and say, "I want to be trained. Is there somebody who can do that for me?" Or if you know somebody, come and ask them if they would be willing to do it. Step 4: Set up the relationship Set up the relationship. Step four, either be discipled, or disciple someone, for a set amount of time. That's so important. I know that we could go on and on and on, and we should go on and on in friendship, but in terms of intensively meeting and training, Jesus did it for three years. And then they were ready. And then continue to meet. Step 5: Follow Christ’s pattern And then step five, follow Christ's pattern as set out in Robert Coleman's book. Or if you've got another approach use it, but understand what you're trying to do. The goal is spiritual multiplication. I want to close with a couple of insights. I don't believe that anything in this area is going to change unless we're willing to make some sacrifices. I think we're going to bump into reality. We're going to say, "I'm too busy for this, I can't do anything like this, etcetera." We're going to keep going on. I think instead we have to start thinking strategically. We have to say, "Okay, I'm going to go to that conference, is there somebody I can bring with me?" All right? "I'm going to go out witnessing on Sunday afternoon, I'm planning on being there. I'm going to call somebody and bring them along." Now, the somebody, somebody, somebody, after a while I think for strategic sense should be the same person, the somebody you're focusing on. You see? But I'm just saying you're laying somebody's life on top of your life. Instead of adding another thing to your life, you're going to make an extra phone call and pick somebody up and go with them. If you have a day full of errands and you know that there's single guy or girl that's got a little freedom on Saturday, you invite them over and say, "Be part of my family. Be part of my thing while I do... Let's work together. Let's spend some time together." Use the present church activities. We're not... Believe me, we're not trying to increase. We don't want to look like the federal government, folks, and we're not always looking, adding more ministries, more subcommittees and all that. That is not where we're heading. Actually praying the opposite direction, trying to simplify so we can do these kinds of things. Hard to do. Hard to do, but that's what we're trying to do. So use church activities. If you're a busy family... Look, I've got four kids growing up in my home. We are busy. We are. We're probably kind of at peak busy-ness right now in my life, is my guess. All right, does that mean I cannot disciple? No, it doesn't. But what it it means is that we have to be strategic about that and have people into the home, so that they can observe the way that we do family life, let's say. I mean, how valuable would it be, for a godly couple that's got kids growing up, etcetera, to take a newlywed couple and say, "Be with us for awhile. Let's do family life together, so that you can see how we do it."? Would that not be valuable? I mean it's so much better than reading it in a book. Senior adults have as much flexibility, if not more in some cases, than college students. We really do need godly seniors to say, "You know, follow me as I follow Christ", and to spend time with a specific individual, passing on a pattern of discipleship to them. Now we have some good ministries in our church right now. Heart to Heart started a few years ago as a mentoring ministry, and I think it's doing a wonderful job. I know it could be better, because I know that some of the women set up their meetings but never meet, actually. Well, that won't help, obviously. I don't mean to say that un-gracelessly, but to set up a relationship and you never get together will not accomplish anything. All right, neither will it accomplish as much as if you get together and are just friends together and don't talk about spiritual content. So you don't have a pattern of doctrine and a pattern of godly lifestyle. There's got to be, you know, up at a higher level I think there in some of the relationships. But the men don't even have the organized ministry set up, and that's something we're praying toward, and something we very much would like to see. I would like to close by just asking that you pray with me for further wisdom in this matter. I mean, I want our church to make disciples, disciples that will last, fruit that will last. If you are here today and you're listening to me talking about this and you realize that it's not a matter of discipleship for you, you're not a follower of Christ, you've never come to faith in Christ. Won't you trust in Christ today? Won't you believe in him for your salvation? Say, "I need to follow Jesus Christ just for salvation." Come and talk...