Calvary Baltimore Weekly Sermons

When the traditions of men become law, they can divide and devastate the people of God. The Hebrew oral traditions strayed from the main point of the Law, and ended up dishonoring what God actually requires. This is why we adhere to Scripture alone as the final authority!

It's not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out (evil thoughts, sexual immorality, etc.)

Jesus says all foods are to be considered pure for man to eat, but the root of every sin lives inside each of us. Evil in our lives comes from our own hearts... evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

No one else is responsible for your bad behavior. The central issue is sin, the wickedness of man! When your flesh rises up, it's all you. It's not the person who triggered your reaction, but your own sin. We must be on guard against these sins.

We have to acknowledge our own total depravity! Within our hearts is every evil imaginable. Destruction can come to all of us without the spirit of God. When Jesus ascended into heaven, his Spirit descended onto the church, and teaches us what sin is. The true marker of revival is holiness; we need less of us and more of him!

Two thoughts...

1. The Law...

The Law was necessary because of the sin nature of man. We cannot save ourselves! Galatians 3:24... The Law was a babysitter for a young people. As children, we needed lots of rules! God's people were just kids, but now we live as a people of faith.

Matthew 5 says the laws of the Old Testament have been fulfilled in Christ. In Hebrews 9:12, Jesus entered once and for all into the holy place! He fulfilled the Law that through faith, we may be freed from it. 

2. Jesus declared what is clean... What cleanses us?

We are clean because of the Word he's spoken to us, and we abide in him! All we want is to hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

A Christian is someone who reads God's word and lives it. We accept Christ as he is, not as we want him to be!

Inside each of us is an evil sinner. But if we come to Jesus for cleansing, he will cleanse us. We can't earn this; only he can replace our heart. We can live a sanctified life, free to sin no more! Only in Christ do we begin to change.

Biblical Christians need to reject the modern idea that we are doomed to be weak and ineffectual. There's a call on our lives, a call to be different. We must be all in, and watch what God does!

When you follow God's leading, sometimes you later look back and it looks completely different from what you thought he was calling you to. But if we're following his will, he is with us!

Jesus touches the unclean to heal them, and the Pharisees challenge him for his uncleanliness. Jesus prioritized the unclean and reached out to them, and the Pharisees prioritized their oral traditions.

In the sermon on the mount (Matthew 5), Jesus spends a lot of time prying off the heavy yoke imposed by the Pharisees, and getting people back to God's Word. His yoke is easy and his burden is light!

Jesus calls the Pharisees hypocrites, tearing down the Word of God to establish a monument to their traditions. Some churches today will cancel Sunday service when Christmas falls on a Sunday, giving priority to a tradition of man (celebration of Christmas) over the weekly assembly commanded in the Bible. We need to hold ourselves as closely as we can to Scripture, to avoid deviating from what God has said.

Mark 12:38... don't be like the scribes, who are outwardly pious but inwardly dastardly. They would convince people to dedicate elderly relatives' property to God (making the property "corban," irrevocably dedicated to God), leaving the elderly relatives with nowhere to live.

This is a rare New Testament passage that addresses honoring parents. Also 1Timothy 5:7-9. Someone refusing to take care of their aging parents (and elderly in the church) is worse than an unbeliever. To provide for the elderly is to receive a blessing from the Lord!

Regarding ceremonial washing... Hebrews gives the elementary principles of the Christian faith. The only washing we need is baptism. Our sins are washed once and for all by the blood of Jesus!

1 and 2 Samuel (two parts of one work) and 1 and 2 Kings (also two parts of one work) are sequential, and should be read together.

There's been a great apostasy in Israel as we start 1 Samuel. Samuel was born to become a lifeline for Israel, a precursor looking ahead to Jesus.

Polygamy is described here, not endorsed. Hannah is the favored one, despite her initial inability to conceive.

Elkanah took his family to worship regularly.

This church was run by and filled with corrupt people, sinners. Even so, this is no excuse to stay out of church. Hannah decides to continue going.

Elkanah favors Hannah with extra portions of the sacrifice, despite Peninnah providing him with four children. Peninnah is jealous and starts provoking Hannah. Elkanah was foolish to create this problem by giving preference to one wife over the other. This wore on her over time, and she would weep and refuse to eat.

Hannah vowed that if God gave her a son, she would give him to the Lord.

The history of Israel turns on this one barren woman giving birth to Samuel. She represents the weary people of Israel waiting for the promised conquering king. This is the first time God is referred to as the Lord of Hosts, the God of Heaven's armies, a clue to how he will operate in 1 and 2 Samuel.

Hannah's vow... she says if she receives a son, she will give him to the Lord and not cut his hair. He will be a permanent Nazirite, dedicated to the Lord's service his whole life, similar to Samson and John the Baptist. As Samuel is the forerunner to David, John the Baptist is the forerunner to Jesus. 

v12-18... Eli gives her trouble for acting drunk, but she explains she's simply deeply anxious and troubled. He finally sees the truth and asks God's blessing on her petition. Eli was an example of the many spiritually blind leaders at the time; the priesthood was in shambles.

Eli and Hannah... Hannah represents the people of Israel, barren and desperate for God to provide... Eli represents God's institutions, created to help people through these hard times, but wicked and broken. Israel is without spiritual discernment in the priesthood, just as they would later be when Jesus arrives.

Nepotism... Eli is poised and ready to rebuke poor Hannah for what he incorrectly assumes is sin, but in the same place, he's willing to overlook the actual sins of his own sons.

Preaching to our families... Eli is willing to be a "fierce defender of the faith" until it comes to his own family. It's so much easier to share the Gospel with people who don't know you. Eli may realize he doesn't have a spiritual leg to stand on when it comes to rebuking his sons because they know he's just as bad as they are.

"Your true religion is what you do when no one is around."

Let's not be nitpickers and fault finders! Some good marriage advice: don't major in the minors. Satan likes to take those little irksome things and amplify them. 

We are to genuinely love one another, not just give them our words but give them our hearts.

Don't follow the commandments of men over the holy scriptures! When man's teaching disagrees with the Word of God, we go with the ultimate authority: God.

Traditions can become so ingrained that they take on the appearance and weight of Scripture itself. We must not let that happen! The moment a tradition of man becomes "law" in this way, it becomes divisive. Pharisees think doing this makes them holier than everyone else... Jesus calls them hypocrites! He says in Romans 14 that this is the behavior of the spiritually weak, not the mature!

If you're willing to stone your brother over something God says is a minor issue, you are missing the heart of God! And you are weak in faith. We must have a spirit of generosity toward each other, not a spirit of criticism.

Two final thoughts:

1. Majoring in the minors...

Keep the plain things the main things; don't deviate from the core issues of Scripture. Stay grounded in the Word and you won't fall prey to these silly divisions!

Satan wants us wrapped up in traditions, because he loves division. We must stay tethered to the gospel, or we'll find ourselves warring over minor issues.

2. The danger of telling the truth...

Jesus did a very dangerous thing by telling the truth to the people in power. He told "the best of the best" they were nothing but blind guides! And they began plotting his murder. 

- We must tell the truth, and if we tell the truth, it may cost us our lives.

- Satan hates Christ, and he hates people who act like Christ... people who tell the truth. The first to be thrown into the lake of fire at the judgment will be the cowards! 

- We must choose between boldly speaking the truth, and protecting our own interests. 

Let's not argue about politics or denominational differences. Go to the scriptures and follow Christ! The darkness hates the light. We don't need people to speak well of us. The only opinion that matters is that of Jesus Christ himself!

We need to trust and prioritize the authority of Christ above our own feelings, and learn to depend entirely upon his will. In walking on water, Jesus is demonstrating he is God; he also identifies himself as the "I Am" of the scriptures. 

Mark seems to have been a scribe for Peter; Peter taught (mainly to a Roman audience) and Mark recorded it. The Romans likely would have understood the references to Jesus' divinity, as walking on water was understood by Romans to be a sign of the divine.

An interesting possibility: In 1 Kings 19:19, where Elijah passes by Elisha and just leaves his mantle for him... Elijah may be drawing from Exodus, letting his glory pass before Elisha, like God did for Moses on Sinai. Perhaps having God's glory pass before you is a way to receive the mantle, to have the call of God passed on to you. This could be what's happening here as Jesus passes by the apostles on the water before turning and joining them.

When the apostles were afraid, Jesus comforted them immediately.

A thought:

v49... the apostles were exhausted and terrified when they think they see a ghost. But in their worst moment, they were on the verge of being their best! That's when God shows up. Just like the cross, darkest before dawn.... in the Exodus, things were at their worst, then God sent the plagues to free his people. The same with Elijah and the widow of Zerapheth. Gideon and the winepress. Paul and the Phillippian jailer who was about to take his own life... then God showed up.

God so often moves just when things seem darkest! He lets us experience the trials because he loves us and wants us to grow in faith; then he swoops down and saves the day.

It's important we ground ourselves in the Word of God so when God has us go through valleys, we will deepen in our faith!

After feeding the 5,0000, Jesus sends the apostles away and deals with the crowd himself. He didn't want the apostles to get swept up in what the crowd wanted from him (a political / military savior). He is our King, not a puppet of the people's agendas!

As Jesus walks on water to rescue the apostles, we see that the only reason we make it through the rough seas is because Christ comes for his people!

Jesus is God...

- He walked on the sea.

- He meant to walk past them, as God the Father did in Exodus 33:18; he shows Moses only the back of himself because no man could see his face and live. Here Jesus reveals that he's the same God.

- He identifies himself using the same language as in the Old Testament, when he says, "I am," the God of Moses. He is being itself! The God of the Exodus, God of the waters.  

He says you can take courage, and be not afraid, when the Creator "I am" is with you!

As he entered the boat, and the winds ceased, we see that in the presence of God, there is peace! Yet the apostles still didn't understand, not about the loaves and fishes, not about walking on the water; their hearts were hardened...

This shows us that knowing about Jesus (or spending time in church) doesn't necessarily lead to faith. Our hearts must first be softened by God, then we must respond, choosing to follow him.

Theology matters! We must engage our whole minds, our whole selves with the Word of God. If we miss that, we miss when he shows up in our lives, robbing ourselves of joy, and robbing him of his due glory.

God provides! He's with us until the end of the age... we're waiting for him to save us from this world, but we also know he's with us now. We have the Spirit of God, accessible to us always! We have the power to not sin. In the worst of situations, he is faithful to protect and provide for us. He makes a way when there is no other way. As he was in the Old and New Testaments, he still is now; he changes not!

Our God will not leave us or forsake us, because he loves us, and love never ends. He is the great I Am, he sees us, and he comes to his bride in our need!

The focal point of Psalm 3 is David's confidence and trust in the Lord. He's on the run, likely from Absalom in this case. He's accused of not being a believer; his enemies are trying to discredit him. This forces them to discredit the prophet Nathan and the very office of prophet, discredit David's Psalms and the miracles God worked through him. To tear apart David, they have to tear apart all the things that support him!

In this story, one sin led to having to tear down the very fabric of society.

In our lives, it's the same: an adulterous spouse has already committed the sin of lust, the sin of plotting to act on the lust, the sin of lying about it. Then they have to demonize the other spouse and tear them down. This is similar to what Absalom was doing to David.

But God is our shield, our glory, and the lifter of our heads!

He is our shield: on this earth, we are absolutely invincible until it is our appointed time!

He is our glory: he shares some of his glory with us in the presence of the Holy Spirit, who empowers us.

He's the lifter of our heads: Romans 10:11...anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame!

When we cry aloud, the Lord answers us. He sustains us while we sleep. He's still on the throne even during our trials. We should not be afraid even when the storm is raging around us!

David asks God to strike his enemies on the cheek to break their teeth, to remove their power to devour God's sheep. He's also likening them to the lying serpent in Genesis 3, asking God to crush their heads.

Psalm 3 ends with a call to reflect on salvation. All of those who follow the living God are beyond blessed, because his blessings are upon his people!

No matter how much evil is pursuing us, we have great cause for rejoicing. To be in Christ is to belong to the Lord. What awaits us in Heaven renders the earth our hell by comparison, and even in this evil world, the Lord is with us!

The assassination of Charlie Kirk is indicative of growing hostility towards Christians today. This conflict is not primarily political but spiritual, a battle between good and evil.

We must respond to hatred and violence with Christ-like love, patience, and steadfastness, while also warning of God's judgment on those who rejoice in evil. The only solution to this growing darkness is to shine brighter, through studying and living out God's Word.

God's timing is perfect, and we must always be ready to share our faith. When we're willing to step out in faith, he can use us, ordinary people, to accomplish the extraordinary! Philip's obedience to the Holy Spirit led to a divine appointment.

The story of the Ethiopian eunuch shows us how God orchestrates encounters, bringing together those seeking truth with those prepared to share it.

If someone has betrayed you or deeply wronged you, there cannot be no real restoration until there's true repentance.

verse 5: we must offer right sacrifices... Romans 12:1: we are as living sacrifices; we die to self and live for Christ.

verses 6-7: David has more joy than that of the wicked when their grain and wine are plentiful. Deuteronomy 28... having an abundance of grain and wine was a symbol of blessing, of God's provision. David's joy is beyond this, not in the blessings, but in the Lord himself!

verse 8: David will lie down and sleep in peace, and dwell in safety. Mark 4:37-40... In calming the storm, Jesus had absolute confidence in this verse!

Peace, shalom... physical protection or safety, but also emotional peace and wholeness. It's a gift from God, a fruit of the Spirit. If you want peace, ask for a greater measure of the Holy Spirit! The godly can also pursue peace.

There are few things better in this life than having a clean conscience. If you're living in sin, you're not getting away with it; for one thing, it robs you of your peace. A clean conscience brings peace!