Cambria Pulpit

Guest Speaker Dave Deets (Vice-President of the Institute of Biblical Leadership) walks us through Psalm 23. He reminds us that God is our Shepherd, we shall not want, we shall not fear, and we shall be blessed forever. 

What is God like and how do we please Him? If I asked you that, how would you answer? There are a multitude of views about God, from a doting grandpa to a blacksmith ready to smash us with a hammer. But your view of God dictates your view of life. For how you view God determines how you believe you can please God. Further, your view of God determines your view of everything around you: You possessions, your circumstances, your trials, your blessings, and even yourself. 

After sparring with the Jewish leaders and revealing their hypocrisy, Jesus get to the point of how we can live lives pleasing to God. Admittedly, the last few passages have been very hard. Week after week I have ended feeling rather beat up. Convicted of spiritual self-righteousness, of lacking trust in God’s control of our civil authorities, and of unacceptable biblical ignorance, I entered this week thankful that we have arrived at the section which provides comfort and hope. We can have the power to do all these hard things and we can please God. We will discover that a life pleasing to God is tied up in the very person of God. In this text, Jesus presents for us three necessary steps to live a life pleasing to God. 

We need not look far to discover Biblical ignorance in our world or in our church today. We quickly discover a gross misuse of Scripture, making it say what it never meant. We see some using Matthew 7:1 as a statement that we have no place to pass judgement on the sinful acts of others. We see some using 1 Corinthians 9:20 to justify sinful actions in the name of evangelism. We see the misuse of texts to justify not wearing masks or to dictate the use of them. We see the misuse of Scripture to justify hatred. We see the misuse of Scripture to justify sinful authority problems in our lives towards our bosses and government authority. 

We also quickly discover Biblical ignorance in the complete ignoring of Scripture. Some churches have made worship all about getting people in the door. They don’t point to any Scripture, but rather to modern psychology and self-help books. Sadly, the church which should be the most biblically literate is the most biblically ignorant. 

So how do we avoid this biblical ignorance? How do we understand what God says? How do we know how to live our lives so that one day we will hear God say, Well Done!? 

In our text this morning, we discover the appalling biblical ignorance of Jesus day. But in the text, Jesus provides for us the solution. 

Would you agree or disagree with this statement? Nothing is more nauseating to contemporary youth than hypocrisy, and nothing more attractive than sincerity. … Young people hate our adult shams and subterfuges. They have a very sensitive nose with which they can smell the faintest odor of religious humbug from a considerable distance. (Stott, Between Two Worlds, 203). People hate hypocrisy. Often when asked why someone won’t go to church, they reply, “Because of all the hypocrites.” While we might bristle, there is some truth to their statement. Modern Christianity is marked by hypocrisy. And if we are honest, our own lives are often marked by this. If I am honest, my own life is marked by this.

I say I love God, but only obey when it is convenient or fits my thinking. I say I am a child of God, but my attitude is marked by ungodly attitudes. I say one thing and do another. I make excuses for this hypocrisy, but at its core, it is still hypocrisy. In our text today, Jesus addresses the hypocrisy that is found in all of us. And he does so using a circumstance in which most of us struggle with hypocrisy more than any other. The area of civil government and politics. This will be a challenging text. I ask that as we work through it, you keep and open heart, asking God where you need to change. All of us struggle here. So let’s work on it together. 

We all love a good story. Whether it’s a love story, an action story, a historical narrative, or a good bit of fiction, our lives are surrounded by stories. But sometimes these stories are meant to teach us something. And some stories, from the nursery rhymes of our childhood to some fantasy allegories today, use word pictures to teach us those lessons. Jesus was a master storyteller. Throughout his ministry, he used story telling as a common method of teaching. We call these stories parables. They are some of the best-known teachings of Jesus. From the parable of the Good Samaritan to the parable of the prodigal son, even secular society knows many of these parables. But these parables served a greater purpose than entertainment. They served the purpose of teaching an important lesson. In our text today, Jesus uses another parable to teach an important lesson the Jewish leaders and Jewish people. 

As you may remember, last week we discussed the narrative in which the Jewish Leaders questioned Jesus’ authority. Through a question of his own, Jesus unmasked their hypocrisy and revealed that he is the Son of God. Jesus then immediately follows with a narrative in order to further reveal the danger the Jewish leaders were in, and to provide for us some very great and special promises. 

We live in a day when one can determine their gender regardless of their biology and it is considered normal. A day when one can be accused of racism simply because of the melatonin or lack thereof in their skin and no one can argue. When the reigning ideology is tolerance, except to those you perceive as intolerant. And when everyone gets to determine truth for themselves, as long as it lines up with the values of current culture. How did we get here? What impact does this have on the believers? And how should we respond. 

Each one of us view the world through a kind of lens, we call this our world view. What we believe is the source of truth, who we believe is the authority to determine truth, and therefore what we perceive as the purpose of life determines how we view and react to every situation in life. The problem today is a question of authority. … 

In the 1500s there was a notable English seaman and privateer who made three voyages to the new world by the name of Martin Frobisher. His goal was to find a northwest passage to Asia. He spent the majority of his time searching the St Lawrence River and the areas north. On his second voyage, he made an amazing discovery. He discovered a huge deposit of what he thought was gold ore. He loaded 200 tons of it on his three ships and sailed back to England. Where he dropped it off and promptly returned. On his second voyage he returned with even more ships and loaded 1300 tons onto the ships for his journey home. On the journey home, he believed that he had become an incredibly wealthy man. He could build a castle on acres of land and live the rest of his days in luxury and peace. However, after smelting, a startling discovery was made. Although very pretty, the ore he had so laboriously brought him was worthless. He was informed that he had shipped to England 1500 pounds of iron pyrite (or fool’s gold). No doubt you have seen this mineral before. It is gold, it is shiny, it looks like the real thing. But it is not. Gold is incredibly durable and valuable. Iron pyrite has little durability or value. It’s pretty, but it’s worthless.

Sadly, many of us are like Martin Frobisher. No, we don’t load 1500 tons of fool’s gold to ship to our homes. Instead, we load tons of spiritual fool’s gold and think that we are shipping it to heaven. We do ritualistic acts of religion and God stuff without complete dedication to God and believe that God is amazed by it. We expect that because of these ritualistic acts and God stuff that God will bless us, and that God is pleased with us. Sadly, we will discover one day that these things, like fool’s gold, are pretty but worthless. 

Two weeks ago, we looked at the narrative commonly known as the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. We were reminded that Jesus is the eternal King. But as King, Jesus demands our lives, not just our service. This is the message of the narrative from the next day. In our text this morning, Mark recounts for us the events that followed. And in them, Mark challenges us to live lives for God that are of value. We are to live lives that bear fruit. He does this by picturing for us the danger of fruitless lives. 

Guest speaker, Pastor Wayne Muri, presented the four tests believers must face from John 21. 

In our final outdoor service, we looked at the events of Palm Sunday:

I have come to the point where I have no desire to turn on the news. I hate social media more and more every day. 2020 has given us a worldwide pandemic, crushing economic struggles, murder hornets, and now anarchy in the streets (not just of major cities, but even smaller towns). I waffle between consternation and hopelessness. If Jesus is in control, how can these things continue to happen? But I am reminded that Jesus is still King, He is still in control, He is still sovereign. The problem is my view of God. The problem is my handling of the Word of God. The problem is not with Jesus, it is with me! 

In our text this morning, we are reminded that Jesus is the sovereign King. But this does not always mean what we think it means. Only when we properly understand Jesus role and purpose as King can we find hope and peace in the middle of a broken world.

Mark 11:1-11 – Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus[a] sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it. 3 If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’” 4 And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it. 5 And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go. 7 And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it. 8 And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields. 9 And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! 10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” 11 And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

When we properly understand Jesus role and purpose as King, we can find hope and peace in the middle of a broken world. In this text, Jesus demonstrated His sovereign rule in three ways on this glorious day:

Wearing masks is really important, everyone should do it when in indoor public spaces. Wearing masks is worthless and stupid. It is simply another way the state is trying to control us. We need to open the economy up today. If we don’t many will lose everything and then the death due to suicide will be numerous. If we open the economy up now more people will die, don’t you care about life? The church should never have closed. They responded in fear and lack of trust in God. The church should not open yet, they need to honor government and love others. This virus is the most dangerous thing we have ever faced in our lifetime. This virus is nothing more than a bad flu. You can find everyone of these statements made by good people who love God. Each one of them believes strongly in their opinion, many times they support it from Scripture, and they struggle to understand how anyone can disagree.

We live in a divided age. This crisis has done nothing to alleviate it. It has only exacerbated it. As we begin to open the church back up, Satan would love nothing more than to take these diverse opinions and to divide the church over them. He would love to divide us over the economy, masks, vaccines, physical distancing, and changed worship structure. We have a diversity of opinions in the church. We have disagreement. So how can we have unity in the midst of such stark disagreement? How can we remain a strong church with so many different views? This problem is not a new problem. In two separate texts, Paul addressed unity in the midst of disagreements. But through these texts, we learn that we can have unity in the midst of disagreement. We will focus on Romans 14 today (although we will refer to 1 Corinthians 8). In this text, we learn that we can have unity in the midst of disagreement if we recognize three things.