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The Existence of Jesus Christ

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We're in John 1, and we will look today at Jesus Christ, who we just sang of. There is no one more fascinating, wonderful, amazing to look at at any time. But in this particular time of year for us in this advent season as Ronald described the time of the arrival of the Messiah, the coming of the King God coming to earth to save sinners. It's common for all of us. We know it's that time of year to do an advent series in the church, and in the pastwe have looked at Christ from the Old Testament. We have looked at Christ in Matthew and Luke, the two most common places to go because of the genealogies, as well as the birth narrative and the manger scene. But we haven't looked in the Gospel of John. And so that's where we're going to spend the next four weeks, in what is called the prologue. John's gospel is really in four sections. In chapter one 1 to 18, commentators, scholars look at it and call it the prologue. It's the foyer that brings you into his account of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. You know a good foyer. It's the place you stand around and kind of you're told when you walk into the place, we're going to go here, or we can go up the stairs there. And really, that's what John does in these first 18 verses. He summarizes what is broken down over the rest of the gospel in the next 20 chapters. And then chapter 21 is the epilogue. It's the ending that leaves us standing there with the other disciples, particularly Peter, being told, now you follow me and go out. And John sets this whole gospel up, though with one sole purpose in mind, and that is for you to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, to have eternal life. That's right there from the start. He has a mission. We don't hear him say that until John 20:31. These things I have written so that you sitting there, Hickory, North Carolina, in that comfy seat of yours, with the coffee in hand, feeling those Christmas feels...that you would encounter Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the living God. God, very God, come in human flesh. He says that in John 20:31, I've written all these things. Every historical point I make in my gospel is for a theological reality that Jesus Christ is God, and that by believing in him you would have life in his name.
So I would love to welcome you if you're new here, if this is your first Sunday with us, that's awesome. Fantastic that you would visit us this month. Maybe you synched it up this way. This is when you wanted to come. Or maybe this is a one and done because you're just here from out of town. Either way, that you would just know right out of the gates the reason for this advent series is not just warm fuzzies. It's the greatest reality that you could encounter at any point in your life is for Jesus Christ to be revealed to you and to receive him who he is as Savior and Lord. And so, I would not want you to feel any bait and switch this morning. Hey, where's this guy going with all this stuff? Because John doesn't want you to. But what he is going to do, and what we're going to see in this prologue is instead of him saying as if, um, you know, because he would have known of the other gospels, the Synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke. They're called the synoptics, that word synopsis or summary, this idea of you can pull Matthew, Mark and Luke together and they give you a lot of the details, particularly get into the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, and give you things that actually the vast majority of John is nowhere to be found in those others because John wrote his a few decades later, perhaps waiting, led by the Holy Spirit, finally to say, you know, I want to give you not just a historical picture of the life of Christ. I want you to see into his soul. I want you to see past the flesh. I want you to see his transcendence and his immanence, that he is God who is far away and now come near. He gives you a theology of Jesus Christ, and he does it right out of the gates in our text today. He says, I'm not going to go to the manger scene and the prophecies to prove his existence. I'm just going to talk about existence. That's why as we start today and you hear me read John 1:1-18, it sounds less like a history of Jesus and more like a philosophy of him. The terminology that you will hear in these 18 verses over the next few weeks describing his existence and his essence, his mission of enlightenment, what he provided for that only he could bring. You'll learn all these things in the weeks to come, but today we will just talk about his existence. Eternal Son of God, unchanging, self-existent, unlike anyone ever in all history. So,follow along with me as I read John 1, even though we'll only study the first four verses. I want to read the first 18 because John wrote them to be heard at one time, to set the table, if you will, to read the rest of his gospel.
John 1:1, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that all may believe in him. He was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. There was the true light, which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and those who were his own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the father, full of grace and truth. John testified about him and cried out, saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. For of his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father, he has explained him."
Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. So,speak, O Lord, your servants are listening. Show us your glory, we pray. Amen.
This series is called Post Tenebrus Lux, and that was a term coined in the Protestant Reformation that basically said after darkness, light. And that idea goes back to the beginning of Scripture. And even in our first point, the pre-existence of Jesus Christ, his eternality. And in the first phrase of John 1:1, "In the beginning was the word" in our minds should echo back to Genesis 1:1, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". And the creation of the heavens and the earth, when it was formless and void, and darkness is over the face of the deep...the first action is God speaking light into existence. And so long before the Reformation at the beginning of time...the creation of time itself was light that came after darkness. But even though the earth was formless and void, no universe to speak of, there was the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the spirit. And here in John 1:1 he wants to start his account of the life of Jesus again, not with his arrival in the manger, but with his pre-existence, before anything else is there. Jesus never became. He has always been. And there is your first philosophical idea this morning to think about...pure being not becoming...always existent, never changing. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever and sometimes we have to remove the image in our mind of Jesus in the manger and growing up to Jesus the boy, and then Jesus the man. No, no, before all of that...Jesus is the same in his character, in his essence. We're always becoming at some point in our lives, we have high hopes to become so much more. And then we hit that point where we realize this is the law of diminishing returns. I saw that evidenced to me at the Turkey Bowl this past Thursday morning that there were things I just could not do, that those young stallions galloping around the field were leaving this old horse in the dust. Literally, I was in the dirt trying to grab a kid's flag. Just went flat into it. Now we still were victors. I have a championship trophy somewhere around here. Kurtis took it and hid it. He didn't want you people to know. I want you to know I contributed zero to that victory. So you don't think I'm puffed up with pride. I was the reason for our defeat if we were to have lost. Not for victory, but seeing what I have become and now becoming was evident in the picture taken afterwards of all these young, strong men. And it hit me, and I showed my family.  I'm the old guy in the picture, now.  I grew up playing Thanksgiving football, and there was always the older guys. I thought they were really old. They were my age and I'm there in lots of sweats, just hunched over after the game, all the other men standing strong, and I'm hunched. And that's because I'm becoming. I'm going back to dust. But not Jesus Christ. And so right out of the gates, the pre-existence, the eternality of Jesus as he is in the beginning and he is the word. And maybe your question is, what's up with the word...Word? I don't see the name in the beginning was Jesus, and that's attributed to John wanting to write a profound prologue here. Not to say if he would have said in the beginning was Jesus, that would have been any less profound. But he wants to take you there by way of giving you these ideas of the word and life and light and darkness. And then verse 14, we start to get a hint of who he's talking about here when he says, this word became flesh. That is the incarnation. And he dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. So we get a description about this word who became flesh from heaven, from the Father, described as grace and truth. But we still don't get his name. And some of you that are new to Christianity are like, so where does this idea of Jesus come in? Well, look down at verse 17. Then he says this grace and truth that came from the Father, full of his glory, begotten, not made as we confessed earlier...he is full of grace and truth...the Lord Jesus Christ. Sothere it is. That's the connecting points in your Bible from verse one to verse 14 to verse 17. That's why we know who it is. It's Jesus.
And in this advent season, that's where we start with his pre-existence that this message series we're in, even starting in something so transcendent and seemingly removed about him, is to help raise our gaze in a holiday season that comes at us thick and fast with all the wonderful things we love about it, but completely lost on our culture today is not the imminence of Jesus, not the baby Jesus in the manger, that kind of thing, but just his transcendent glory. Evidence of that this week was when I was in Barnes and Noble hanging with my homies, and there was a dangerous moment a shark was eating a giant squid. That actually wasn't the most dangerous part. It was what they were selling next to my son. I saw advent getting hijacked by National Geographic, as in they took the name and just slapped it on as a label to get you, the parent, to buy a toy before you're going to give your kid more toys. And we all know, like the advent calendars, the chocolates they're to lead up to Christmas Day. But this thing has nothing to do with Jesus whatsoever. I searched the box like there wasn't like National Geographic was suddenly going to turn Christian on us and say, hey, all these experiments you're going to do is going to be to lead you to this grand discovery that Jesus is the Son of God. No, John didn't make this toy. This was just them putting, hey, it's advent and maybe some parent will think I need to keep my kid busy for the next 24 days so they can do science experiments in the basement. And I just saw this as a picture just to show us that in this season. And this isn't against materialism as much as even a sacred idea, a word like advent means nothing to our society. It's just a label to sell another toy. And what I want these four weeks to be. Even though this splash of cold water this morning might feel more like an entire bucket being dumped on you like, whoa! I love what I was walking into. I had my eggnog latte from the cart, and I wanted all the fun and joy of Jesus, baby manger glory in the highest angels. And we're talking about some abstract Greek concept of the word or the logos. Yes, we are, because that's how John wanted to start his story. He knew he had two audiences potentially reading this book. His Greek audience, his irreligious audience, would recognize the logos. That's the word in the Greek. And that had been around for centuries, going back to 600 BC. Philosopher Heraclitus was a guy who was writing about the logos being this rational thought or idea, this perfect truth or wisdom that exists outside of us that we can never attain to and throughout that time period with every Greek philosopher, that same term was used right up through Marcus Aurelius would write about the logos, the logos. It's this perfect self-expression of something greater than us. And we mere mortals are on this quest to find this truth. And they thought I could find it just by what?...wisdom. That's why when Paul writes about 1 Corinthians 1, the wisdom of man is foolishness to God because they thought they could find it on their own exploration. And even though it was staring them in the face and the person of Jesus Christ. That would have been this idea of the word. A sophisticated self-expression of the highest form in Greeks through the centuries used it. And so maybe he thought, hey, some Greek speaking philosopher is going to pick up this gospel and hear this and be intrigued. Hey, I've been reading about the great philosophers through the ages and this logos can never be found. And now you're telling me in the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God? That's one way to look at it. Maybe you're that person here today, a secularist, a skeptic. I don't know what word would fit better than that. Maybe in the beginning was the truth. You know, because in our day and age, we don't know what to believe. You might not know what to believe because the truth has become a wax nose, moved around in the hands of whoever wants to claim it as speaking their truth. So that's a secularist point of view. But the religious point of view from the Jews would have been to hear in the beginning was the word. Well, that would have taken them back to Genesis. Genesis 1:3...that God spoke, let there be light. And then carried out throughout the rest of Genesis chapter 1. Any action of God's self-revelation in the universe was God saying, God's saying. And we have this children's book. It's actually for sale over in the bookstore. This wasn't meant to be a pitch, but it just came to my mind. The Big Story Bible and how they start that book is on page one with Genesis 1:1, and it's just words appearing in the sky like lights and the sun, or an animal name. And really, that's how it went down. There was nothing to work with. It was just God's ability to create before creation by the power of his word. Psalm 33:6, by the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host. So, to the Jews, using the word logos in chapter 1, verse 1 was not an abstract ideal, but a practical way God revealed himself to his people. And so, to the Jews and the Greeks hearing this opening line, they have to be reckoning with this idea of who Jesus is that they may have heard of before, existed before creation...His eternality. And throughout all history, the ability for man to try to find the truth about how it all began has continued to be elusive. I do my normal sleuthing on the internet and I typed in something related to....Ididn't want to go down the path of the Big Bang as much as I wanted to get kind of at the more the conceptual level, like what were the core components, Google of the universe, what had to be in its most broad terms for life to exist. And this was their answer from Google AI. "In physics, time, matter, and space refer to three fundamental components of the universe time, matter, and space. Where matter occupies space and its movement in existence are defined by time, and the relationship between them is described by the concept of space time." Now, unless you're Todd Jacobs, none of us really understand this. Okay, let's just put that out there. But it goes on to say, essentially meaning that space and time are interconnected and can be affected by the presence of matter, as explained by his theory of general relativity. Now I sit there and go, like I don't really make heads or tails of that, but it told me what I wanted to know about time, matter and space because it just confirms what the Bible already starts with. I like Genesis 1:1 version...in the beginning, time...God created the heavens...space and earth...matter. What Einstein couldn't find to complete what eluded him of the explanation for everything is right there from the beginning, isn't it? You have time. You have space, you have matter. But what the secularists can't find is who puts it all together, right? Who has this idea that he could take this and this and this and combine them and here we have everything we see around us in creation. What Einstein rejected was the simple, childlike faith that believes God at His Word. Towards the end of his life, he wrote in a letter to a friend...the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses. I mean, this is one of the smartest men to ever live. And that's his summation of the word God. It's the expression of human weaknesses. And the Bible is a collection of honorable but still primitive legends, which are nevertheless pretty childish. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions in anincarnation of the most childish superstitions. Well, the thing he did get right by putting two words nearby each other at the end of that is to talk about a child and the incarnation. It does take childlike faith to believe, doesn't it? But yet the more we dive into it, even today, in just the first six words in our English Bibles, lifts our minds well above the plane of something being just a superstition. The explanation for how we see everything around us. Stephen Hawking, the great physicist, wrote in his book The Grand Design that physics brought the universe into existence. And he said, religion is a fairy tale for people afraid of the dark, to which an Oxford mathematician, a believer, John Lennox, replied, yes, and atheism is a fairy tale for people afraid of the light. It just depends on which side you see it from. You know, if you are afraid of the dark of what's next...the closer you get to studying religion, and the closer you get to the truth about God makes you more fearful if you're honest with yourself. Soit's easier to ignore it. And yet, on seeing it from the other way, if you want to hold to that atheism, that's the fairy tale for you. Not just wanting to come to the light because John says in John chapter 3. This is the judgment, verse 19, the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil. And that's really what it starts with, is the pre-existence of Jesus, the one who could only say that he has come from God, and he knows in his eternality exactly who God is like. Maybe for you this morning, just the however you found yourself here, some of these truths, some of these ideas, or maybe some fresh beams of light coming in to your heart this morning. I pray they would be...to kind of loosen some of the bolts of your unbelief. Hopefully you'll stick with us this whole month and hear more about this Jesus, the Son of God, sent to save sinners, who can answer the questions that you've been looking for your whole life. Jesus Christ has existed forever, and the first light that breaks through the darkness is he has always existed. He's eternal.
The second one is the coexistence of Jesus with God the Father. Back in John 1. Second half of that verse...and the word was with God. That's his coexistence with God, not just his pre-existence before time itself, but his coexistence with God. And the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. You see, God brought into the conversation and repeated three times to show that it wasn't just this cold and vacuous universe with nothing there except for this concept of logos. This word was with God, and the word was God in the beginning with God. Jesus is there, the Son, God the Father is there. God the Spirit is there. We know that from the beginning of Genesis 1:2, the Spirit was hovering over the face of the water. And so what are these three members of the Godhead doing? Okay, that's a thought experiment for us this morning. I'm going to ask you to do something I haven't asked you to do before here. I want you to close your eyes and clear your mind. No. Just kidding. You're like. Actually, pastor, I am way ahead of you. My mind has been clear for about five minutes. I checked out the moment you started talking philosophical on me. But I want you to just try right now and think about nothing. I mean, that's where we are in John 1:1. Nothing is there...no images...nothing material, just one God as he exists in three persons...Father, Son and Spirit. What are they doing before they start doing something?...loving each other. And enjoying it to the greatest degree possible. And the mission that Jesus is sent on is to invite you, part of the creation, the only part of creation into that relationship of love, so that you could delight in God by enjoying his love for you forever. So are we so out in the ether. Were we so far gone already in the beginning of this account of the life of Jesus that I'm like, yeah, what's in this for me? What's in it for you is being invited into the eternal love that exists between the Father, Son and the Spirit. We know there was this love between the Father and Son because Jesus said it about himself. John 3:35, the Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. He always wanted people to know, as he was speaking of his father, that there was a love relationship between them. He loved his Son. And in John 17 we hear the heights of this in his prayer in John 17:24. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given me. And was that glory that he's given him for no reason? No, it was to be invited into love. For you loved me before the foundation of the world. There is the pre-existence of Jesus the Son with the Father, but also the coexistence equal with God, enjoying a perfect love relationship before creation itself. And then when you read the Bible with these eyes awakened to see that this is who God is, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. I'm sure many of us read that around the Thanksgiving table this past week. Why do we give thanks to the Lord? Because his steadfast love endures forever. Sometimes we just always think about that steadfast love, enduring forever from the point of our existence moving forward. But it exists forever, going backwards. I was reading Micah 7 and a sad chapter for this prophet who is waiting on the Lord, and he says in verse 8, I dwell in darkness. The Lord is a light for me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord. It's a sad way this Minor Prophet's book is coming to an end. And then you read this wonderful verse near the end. Verse 18, Micah 7... Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of his possession? He does not retain his anger forever. You say, what kind of God would do that? What's he like? Listen to the next line, because he delights in everlasting love, Micah 7:18. It's not just that this love exists between the Father, Son, and the Spirit to eternity past. They delight in the love that is between the three of them, and they invite you into that to experience that. That's what I wanted your mind to go to when you're thinking of nothing this morning, there's nothing to picture, no one to see. But at the heart of Jesus Christ's Eternality back in John 1, the word that was with God and was God, and was in the beginning with God, what is there other than love? A perfect relationship of love. And the last thing the enemy of our souls wants us to experience is that love. So, the initial way he got attacking that was to attack the person and work of Jesus Christ. At the time of John writing this, it's not surprising he had to write this in the prologue. He had to establish, because of the rise of Gnosticism, that spirits, good matters, evil and man needs delivered from the physical world in order to get to the spiritual world and the lies that were being propagated already within the church by 90 A.D. was that, you know, Jesus, if he was the Son of God, he couldn't really have taken on human flesh in the incarnation. But if he didn't do that, then we don't have what?...a perfect high priest who can sympathize with us in every way, who lived just as we lived in the flesh, that he was something other than that, and that destroys the gospel at its foundation, denying the truth about Jesus being truly God and truly man. I mean, that was the earliest and most frequent attack in the first three centuries on the gospel. That's why when we just recited this morning the Nicene Creed. What was the largest section of that dedicated to? It was dedicated to defending the deity of Jesus Christ, not just his deity, but also his humanity. And it still goes on throughout history. Even today, we defend the deity of Jesus Christ as coexistent and equal with God against Jehovah's Witnesses that teach that only Jehovah is God. They deny the Trinity, teach that Jesus was a created being, the Archangel Michael, who agreed to be placed in Mary's womb and is the first of created beings, not uncreated. I mean, we don't just say Nicene Creed together and talk about this stuff to fill the time. You'll run into people that want to call you brother or sister and say, we all believe in Jesus. There's just some minor details. The incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world to save sinners equal with God. Coexistent with God is not a minor detail. It's really the whole thing. So you may have a really nice neighbor, a mormon, a Jehovah's Witness, a Jew. What do they have in common? They're all wrong about the person and work of Jesus Christ. What do you have to offer them?...the truth about Jesus Christ. And by offering that, you give them the chance to receive eternal life, which is the most loving thing you could do for a person to speak that truth in love. So that's what's happening here. But as I said before, it's not just an abstract intellectual game. It's as, Tim Keller wrote in his book, The Reason for God. "It's a dance to be invited into, one that completes our joy. It doesn't compete against it." Keller wrote this in his book to take the abstraction about the Trinity and what seems cold and and show that it's really about this relationship, beautiful to our hearts and useful to our theology. "The life of the Trinity is characterized not by self-centeredness, but by mutual, self-giving love. When we delight and serve someone else, we enter into dynamic orbit around him or her. We center on the interests and desires of the other person, which creates a dance, particularly if there are three persons, each of whom moves around the other two. So it is, the Bible tells us, each of the divine persons centers on the others." And we talk about that often, don't we? The Son wants to give glory to the Father. The Father wants to give glory to the Son. The Spirit wants to shine the light of of the gospel's good news on the person of Jesus Christ. So that what? So that at the end of the day, you accomplish John's mission, that you would believe...all three members of the Trinity a different function in your salvation, but all for the same aim for you to know Jesus Christ and to know of his everlasting love for you. Each person of the Trinity loves, adores, defers to, and rejoices in the others. That creates a dynamic, pulsating dance of joy and love. So maybe another truth that's breaking the darkness illuminating your life is to see It's not just about the pre-existence and winning some debate there. It's about the coexistence. It's about being invited into a relationship with God that is rooted and grounded in love, and is meant for you to delight in it. Just as the Son delights in the love of the Father, and the Father delights in the love of the Son.
Last, let's talk about the self-existence of Jesus, verses 3 and 4. We've talked about his pre-existence, coexistence with God. Now John wants you to know he is self-existent. We're not. He is. Verse three, all things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing came into being that has come into being. In him was life. We hear the same thing Jesus says about himself in John 5:26, just as the father has life in himself, even so, he gave to the son also to have life in himself. That's why he can offer it. That's the doctrine of the aseity of God. Now you're like, well, the what? The aseity of God. It's not a word we use a lot, but it's a good one. It's self-existence, independence. True independence, meaning I don't need anything else for my existence to continue, and that eliminates every single person ever from that category. We are dependent in every way on everything around us...the air we breathe, the food we eat, the people that help us into our old age. From our young age we're dependent creatures. You think you're independent. It's a lie. It's a lie that sometimes is staring you right in the face in your morning tea. It was for me this week. Now coffee is what speaks to me. I mean, coffee truly is in touch with my soul. But sometimes I get a little bit of coffee, tea theology or tea leaf theology. And this week it was on the little thing in front of my cup. It said, the universe is within you, bright and beautiful. Now, I did arrange that picture for you to see my Bible intentionally. So, you know, just the dedication that I have to the craft. Maybe make you jealous a little bit like this is what this guy does. He takes his tea and he. Well, it was just the phrase, the dumb thing that was on there that said, the universe is within me...bright and beautiful. First off, if you've watched any science fiction movie, the universe is a dark and dangerous and deadly place. You do not want to be out there. Everybody in those movies that goes out there gets stranded. It's an awful way to end. But yet the universe is within me, and it's bright and beautiful. Well, there's a lie...that's pantheism that the universe is in me and God is in the universe, and the universe is in God. And so, God is in me, and I am God. I am the force, and the force is in me...dumb. Eastern mystical mumbo jumbo that makes you feel good about yourself initially. But there's no truth in it. We're not gods. We're humans. God is eternal. We're dependent on him. You know, in that picture, he's the cup. We're the vapor that was disappearing above it, just there for a millisecond. James 1:14 tells us that your life is a vapor, a vanishing mist. And what John wants us to see right here is that the only way we're going to have eternal life and live forever is that if we experience the life that is offered from him who is life, who gives life. But to understand that, you need to know that it comes through the truth of Jesus Christ. That's why he moves in verse four from talking about life that is in Jesus, to the light that is given to men to see, and those two themes of life and light, you'll read all throughout the rest of this gospel, the constantly back and forth. These themes will emerge. The only theme, word or key word that you'll see more than life and light in this gospel is the word believe. Those things all work together. And here they are right out of the gates. He wants you to know that you came into being. You were a part of that all things. You are not the exception. Because apart from him, nothing exists if he didn't bring it into being. Colossians tells us this, verse 16...by Jesus, all things were created in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible thrones, dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through him and for him. And here's his pre-existence. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. This is the testimony of Jesus Christ to the early church. It's the testimony to us today. We're here by him and through him and for him. We're not here by accident, through evolution, and for ourselves. That's the unholy trinity of atheism, Darwinism and hedonism. I'm here by accident, through evolution and for myself. But it's all around us in the culture. You know, we're the center of all things. Man is the measure of all things. How did I get here? I'm not sure, but science tells me I'm the highest in the chain of creation. It's not the message the Bible gives us that the only life I have that I've been given, initially born into this world, was determined by God, and the spiritual life is now given and received by me from Jesus Christ and Him alone. Verse 12, as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. If you believe in his name, born not of anything you could do, not of any of your lineage, blood, or the will of flesh, but of God. Only Jesus can give life this morning.
And so, for some of you who might be new to church, new to the message of Jesus, new to the gospel, I know I might not have brought you into all the merry and bright of the manger scenes that we see in people's yards and all that. But I hope maybe it stops you in your tracks this morning to realize who you're dealing with when we talk about Jesus Christ. And sometimes when you finally see him rightly, it puts yourself in perspective towards him, and you see yourself rightly as the sinner that you are and the darkness that you've been in. And it's only in the light of the gospel of Jesus offered to you this morning that you could come to a knowledge of the truth. Now, maybe there's more of you. Maybe this is just the start for you. And you're you're curious and you want to know more. Well, we're going to get into more in the weeks to come, but I want to give everybody something to do as we get out of here this morning. An assignment for the month. I've done this before. I've done it with the Gospel of Luke 24 chapters starting on December 1st, because that is the official start of the Christmas season in the Ashoff household. In fact, one of my kids at school was like, dad, one of my teachers did something wrong. She was playing Christmas music or said something about Christmas starting. And this was like a week ago. I was like, hey, ease up, okay? For me and my household but we can't enforce this on everybody else. They're not heretics for putting Christmas music on a week early, but now it's December 1, let's go. But what I want to give you is an assignment, and it just comes out of a reading that I was doing this week in coming to the end of 2 Peter.  Where there was just a line that struck me in my personal devotional time. Verse 18, well, start in verse 17, you therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard. You know we're always to be ready and never to let our guard down. For what? That you're not carried away by the error of unprincipled men. There is an enemy that seeks to kill, steal, and destroy in a world system that wants to steal any attention, extra attention this season that we would give in looking to Jesus Christ. Are you with me? I mean, of all times of the year, he can't stop the idea that it's a holiday we celebrate so he can inundate us with so much extra to distract us...good, bad or indifferent. So he says, be on your guard, that you're not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. As great as this month could be, it could be an awful month for some of you in the faith. I mean, there's stresses that come this time of year that we know. I even came across a publication from last year, that the holiday season can be both a happy and stressful time of year, in part due to expectations to spend time with family and friends. And I saw this graphic and I thought, this is going to be for our people on a Sunday, you know, playing Family Feud where they're like, I'll take all of those. Yep. That one, that one, that one that I experience all that stuff. But what stood out to me in this study is nine out of ten people say there is something, something about the holiday season that heightens the stress in my life, rather than this be a time of year where it goes down...all kind of different reasons. There's only one solution to it, and it's in 2 Peter 3:18. What would contribute to a fall in us or a discouragement? Listen to 2 Peter 3:18, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Did you catch that? The remedy to all those things you just read through and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm one of the nine in ten. I'm just coming down off the Thanksgiving stress ready to ramp up to the Christmas one. The answer is right in front of you. 2 Peter 3:18...here's how you fight it. Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How do you do that? Well, here's one way I'd like to do that as a church. We're studying John this month. We'll keep coming back to these 18 verses, but I would love you to some of these themes of light and life and belief. Read through the Gospel of John one chapter a day between now and Christmas. You got 24 days. You got 21 chapters. John six, seven and eight are the three longest ones. Cut them in half. You'll get right there. I would challenge you to read for your personal devotional time by yourself in the morning. Don't so much make it this big, you know, elaborate Bible study as much as just meditate on what you're reading about the person and work of Christ, and pray through it and be amazed by him. But save some of those thoughts and bring them back later in the evening, you know, because blessed is the man and woman who meditates on the Word of God, day and night. Bring those same personal devotional thoughts. And if you do this as a family or a group of friends or a life group, bring them back in the evening to share and then teach out of that. Dads, you can find something in a chapter in John, that leads us to faith. It says, that's amazing and awesome about Jesus, don't you guys think? And if they're like, yeah, now you're on your feet trying to say, okay, uh, let's look at it together. Let's read it together. Do it personally by yourself in the morning. Do it collectively with a friend or a spouse or kids, or call a friend up and say, hey, I was in John 3 today. This is amazing. I didn't see it before. I wanted to share it with you. Text it to somebody. Why do I want to offer you this this month? Because I want you to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. So that when Christmas Day comes and I know it's just a date on a calendar, that really wasn't the date he came. But it's not like you were just trying to flip the switch, you know, December 23rd. Okay, now I'm going to get to the manger scene. No, you've been in the Gospel of John the whole month, searching the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ...Paul calls them. So many amazing thoughts to fill our imaginations and stir our hearts to greater affections that he's pre-existent of time. Just to meditate on that this morning, if there is a way to eternity, the pre-existent Jesus is going to be the only guide. He is co-existent with God. If there is a truth about a God that we cannot see. He alone would know it. He is self-existent in creation. If there is a quality of life that we can't give ourselves, he can give it. It sounds like all three of these aspects are what uniquely qualified him in John 14:6 than to say I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but me. But here's what's wonderful this morning for all of us. He wants you to come to him. He says I'm the way, the truth and the life. Good luck finding it. He says no, come to me. He tells you who he is, and then he invites you to himself. One of my favorite parts of John chapter 1. Just look over to verse 35. The next day, John was standing with his disciples, and he looks and sees Jesus walking. And he says, behold, the Lamb of God. And these two disciples of John hear him speak, and they turn and follow Jesus. And Jesus turns around and sees them following and says to them, what do you want? That's really what he said. What do you seek? It's this idea of what do you want? What do you desire? And they say to him, Rabbi, where are you staying? And he says to them, come, and you will see.
So what do you want from Christ this month? Do you want to know the way, the truth, and the life about him? He says to you, come and you'll see. Show up tomorrow morning with the coffee or the tea. Remember your own life as a vapor. And then come and see the eternal life that I have to offer you. And then pray that maybe the Lord would use it to encourage somebody else that day. Let's ask the Lord now to renew our affections for him as we enter in to a time of communion and remembering his life and death and resurrection.  
Let's pray. Father, we thank you this morning for your Word. We thank you this morning for our minds and hearts to be lifted up to beyond the heavens, outside of space and time and matter and everything that we hold our lives together with as much as we can when we look around us. And it's the explanation for so much. But yet we ventured into the place where it was just the Father, Son, and Spirit and eternal love delighting in one another. And thank you for inviting us into that delight today. May the height of that now be, as we turn our attention to the Lord's table, as we remember you came, lived a perfect life, died a death in our place, and rose again for our justification. And sohelp us to see that and celebrate that this morning we ask. Amen.

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Mastering the Test

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How many of you can identify with these words from your past? All right, class, close your books. Put away your study materials. And I want nothing but a pencil on top of the desk. For many of us, this statement causes a little bit of fight or flight. You begin looking for the door, saying, is he going to pass out a test? Rest assured, I will not be doing so to see how well you've listened this morning. But there were many times when the tests would come and the thought would run through my head. I sure wish I would have studied just a little bit more for this test. Right? Well, even though it's been a number of years since I've been in the educational setting, I still have dreams where I have a test, but I have no idea where the classroom is. I don't remember attending the class the entire semester. And yet people are saying, oh yeah, there's a test. And I remember thinking, this isn't going to go well.
Well, today we're going to be looking at passage of Matthew 4:1-11, that is commonly referred to as the temptation of Christ. And that is an accurate summary for sure, as we will see the devil attempting to entice the Savior to sin. But the same Greek word translated temptation here in Matthew 4 is also translated oftentimes in the New Testament as test. And in fact, we see that when Jesus is tested by the ones who came to him and said, hey, can you divorce a woman for any reason?...called a test. Another time they came to him and said, hey, should we be paying taxes to Caesar?...called a test...same word. And then another time they came to him and said, hey, show us a sign. Do some magic in our midst so we can really believe...again called a test. So I will be using both temptation and test somewhat interchangeably during our time this morning. Another thing I want to point out is God is not the author of tempting us to sin. However, God will allow Satan to tempt us as a test, and Satan is operating in that way. And the world, the flesh and the devil are a problem that we must overcome. So today we're going to look at what is the key to success in withstanding temptations to do evil and prove that it can be done. So we're going to look to Jesus, the pioneer or the author, the beginner of our faith, who is also the perfecter and the completer. He's who we're going to look to today for the perfection in how to do this. I do have a spoiler alert for you, however. Jesus is going to withstand the temptation of Satan and be completely victorious. There's the spoiler alert. He is going to prove that not only will he ace this test, but he'll ace any test that the devil will bring his way. So, let's look now into the background and details of our victorious Lord and learn from his perfect example how to defeat the devil and his tactics in our daily life.  
So the first thing I want to look at our first point is the environment of the evaluation, meaning the circumstances, the setting behind this temptation of Satan on our Lord. And to do that, we need to back up into chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, and see that this is following this great event in Scripture where Jesus is baptized, and it says in verse 16 of chapter 3. After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on him. And behold, a voice out of heaven said, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. So this testing follows great spiritual victory, where Christ is declared to be the Son of an Almighty God by a booming voice from God out of heaven. Not only that, but the Spirit of God in the form of a dove rests on Jesus. I couldn't help but think of Isaiah 61, where Jesus said, The Spirit of God is upon me, that he would later read in Nazareth in just a few chapters. We see here a Trinity, a triune God, pictured with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit, all in one place, and yet three distinct persons all in one. So, this testing is going to occur after this great spiritual victory. The other thing I want us to see in the environment is Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. The reason that's important is because the devil doesn't have control over how this is going to happen. Satan is under the rule and reign of our God. This is not dualism where we're hoping God is going to beat the devil. The devil is a defeated foe, but here he is allowed just like in Job chapter one, when he appears before God and says, hey, let me mess with job. That's Willms' translation it's not exactly what it says, but it's close. It's the idea. And he has to get permission from God in order to do what he was going to do to Job. So, we see the Spirit is leading Jesus into the wilderness. And then Mark one tells us it was immediately following the baptism. And of course, if you remember our study in Mark immediately is one of his favorite words.   Mark is summarizing and moving immediately. But then we also have Luke chapter 4 shed some more light on this temptation. And in Luke 4 it talks about that Jesus was being tempted even leading up to these three main temptations. So,Luke adds that there were temptations that are not recorded, that Jesus was passing all of those. And then Luke is going to record the same three we're going to look at here in Matthew. One other key thing that Luke adds in is that there is the word that there is going to be more testing coming from Satan. It says he left him and was looking for the opportune time. So keep that in mind as we look at the harmony of these Gospels. So not only was he led by the Spirit to the wilderness, but he was also led by the Spirit to fast. And it talks about 40 days of fasting...40 days. The only four that comes into my world of fasting is if I can do four hours at a time often, right? Like I eat breakfast and then can I make it to lunch without eating until I pass by a snack?...but 40 days of fasting. This can be done physically. We know it because Moses also fasted for 40 days when he got the law from God on Mount Sinai. And 40 is often the number of testing that we see in Scripture. 40 is often used in that way. So, he's led by the Spirit to fast. And then another point in this environment of evaluation is the devil appears in person. So the devil in person appears. I contend most of us are never going to see the devil in person. We're not important enough. The world, the flesh, the devil, our own fallen sin nature is enough to trip us up often. So, this idea of Jesus is getting the absolute strongest, most powerful temptation that anybody would ever come close to seeing, Okay? Then the devil appears right before Jesus is about to begin his public ministry. So, we've got this great baptism voice from heaven. This is the Son of God. This is divine. And now he's ready to start his public ministry. And the public ministry begins with private time in the wilderness. And what Satan is hoping to do is derail. Take it off the track so that Christ does not do all the things that he is going to do from here till Calvary and beyond. So, we see this is the environment of the evaluation.  
Now let's look at the tactics of the tempter. The tactics of the tempter, Satan himself here, are really not any different. He kind of is the same, uses the same things. And in fact, we can look in 1 John 2:15-17, where the apostle John said this, do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts. But the one who does the will of God lives forever. So, we see this description about how Satan works and how the lusts of the flesh are present in temptations we face. Now let's see how Satan uses those basic tricks to try and trip up our Savior. So the first thing, the first temptation we see, look at verse number 3 of chapter 4. And the tempter came to him and said, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. So the first temptation. Turn those stones into bread. By the way, if you haven't eaten for 40 days and the idea of some fresh bread doesn't appeal to you, I mean, this is a real temptation, okay? For me, when I picture the idea here of turn those stones into loaves into bread, I can't help but think of when I walk into Texas Roadhouse and they have those rolls up here on the ledge that they just have made, and I can go in saying, I'm not going to eat those carbs. And then by the time I leave say, well, at least I didn't eat the whole basket myself. So understand the temptation here is real. It's strong and it's powerful. What does the devil do here is he's actually challenging authority and he's casting doubt on God's goodness. He's like, if you are the Son of God, why don't you turn those things into bread? Did Satan know Jesus was the Son of God? Yes. He wasn't doubting that, what he was basically doing is...I double dog dare you. Trying to get him to do something that he certainly could do in his in his power. All right. But Satan also, I believe, is testing God's goodness in this temptation because why does God have you out in the wilderness here for 40 days and you're hungry, you're starving, you're weak. But I think Jesus is going to give the response to this, that we'll look at in just a minute, that will absolutely give us the way to defend against the devil. So the devil here appeals to physical desires, which is desires of the flesh. By the way, I think about Esau in Genesis chapter 25, when you remember he came in from the fields, and Jacob was in there mixing up some stew. And Esau said, give me some of that...now. And Jacob said, trade me your birthright...all that goes with being the firstborn. Trade me that, and I'll give you stew. And Esau goes...deal. What good is a birthright if I'm going to die anyway? So he doesn't value what God had given him, because the lust of the flesh, the desire for food, overpowered it. Satan does this. Then the second temptation...look what he does in verse five. The devil took him into the holy city, and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. So here his second temptation is go ahead and jump. Now some of you that are my vintage, if you thought about Van Halen 1984, that lyric is in there. And it did come to my mind. I jokingly said to Ronald, when I get to that point, I need you to jump up and do a cover of. And I said, no, I was just joking. The go ahead and jump off the wing of the temple. The highest point in the Temple Mount. The Temple Mount is surrounded by valleys and the Kidron Valley. Josephus says that from the point of Solomon's porch to the bottom was some 450ft. To give you an idea of how big of a jump it is. And so in this challenge, first of all, we see that the devil actually quotes Scripture. He quotes scripture. That stuff that's in funny print in your Bibles means it's coming from other scripture. He will command his angels concerning you. This is coming from Psalm 91, verses 11 and 12. But I want to read 11 and 12, and then we'll take a look how it compares to Satan. For he will give his angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. Satan left out the part to guard you in all your ways. He skipped that part, but even if he didn't skip the part, he is going to misapply the scripture. He is going to turn it into, hey, you can do whatever you want. Live recklessly, carelessly, selfishly, any way you want to, and God has to bail you out. All right? So, Satan is a master of deceit and he uses scripture. He knows Scripture better than we do, I think in most cases, and he will use it taken out of context and apply it wrongly in order to try and get us off track. So this is one of the devil's tactics. The third temptation that he offers, verse number 8, took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you fall down and worship me. So here he is promising just worship me once. Just bow down and worship me once and I'll give you all of this now. Now this raises the question. Does Satan have the authority to give this to Jesus at this point? I'll answer it this way. Scripture makes it clear that God calls Satan the prince of the power of the air, the God of this world. He calls him the in control of the earth within the restraint of what God allows him to do. Does that make sense? So Satan, in effect, is the one that is ruling and reigning in the world in that sense. However, is it really his to give to Jesus when he is working underneath what God has allowed him to do? And I say, no, it wasn't his to give. But when has the truth ever stopped the devil from making offers or claims or deceiving people? You see, he was more like a sub. He's like God's given it to him with a lease. And then Satan was trying to say, well, I'll give it to you like an illegal sublease. Okay. It wasn't his to give. However, that's what he is offering to Jesus. When he shows him this it says he took him up onto the high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Here we can see the devil appealing to the lust of the eyes. Everything that Christ could see. The purpose of this temptation, if you take a look and think about it, Jesus is due all the worship of the world. It is his. He will also have it in full. However, if Satan could get him to jump now to this temptation and say, yeah, let's do it now, he derails Christ again from being able to do everything that he is supposed to do from that point to Calvary and beyond. So he is offering something to get it out of order and destroy the work of Christ. And if he does, we're all hopeless today. The devil loves to change the order of good things, by the way...even in our lives. I can't help but think about the area of physical intimacy. God's given that gift to man and woman coming together as a marriage, united as one. And he gave it for joy and for so many good things. And yet what does Satan do? Says he's just a killjoy. God doesn't want you to have fun. Go ahead. You can have that intimacy now. It's so fantastic. And of course, Satan only paints the part of the picture he wants somebody to see and doesn't picture the guilt, the sin, the abortions. The brokenness that comes with getting things out of order. Our God is a God of order. When he prescribes, this is how he wants it done. That's how it should be done. So we see the tactics of the tempter are very similar to what the Apostle John said in 1 John 2 of what he did to Jesus in Matthew chapter 4. But I want to make a quick detour to Genesis chapter 3. So if you go in your Bible to Genesis chapter 3, we're going to take a look at just the first 7 verses there, because Jesus is going to as I gave you the spoiler alert, he is going to withstand these temptations. And we'll look at that in just a minute. But these temptations of Satan were first tried out on sinless, non fallen humans in the perfect Garden of Eden. And this is how that went down. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, you surely will not die. For God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, and she gave it also to her husband with her, and he ate. So here you see the same kind of temptation that we're seeing in Matthew 4 done to Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3. Look at that beautiful fruit. Look at how good that looks. Yeah, but God said we'll die if we eat it. Ah, you're not going to die. Challenging and questioning authority, putting doubts in people's minds, and then it's going to let you be like God. Uh, Satan loves to get us to want to be our own God. He really does. And I have proven to myself when I become my own God, when Scott Willms becomes God of his life, things do not go well. I am a terrible God. I will justify my own sin, which further moves me further away from the goodness of what God has given me. I have no tolerance for anybody else because they're not like me. I got no mercy, no compassion. But Satan loves for us to think that we can be God of our lives. Here is what happens. Eve says, man, that sounds good, takes a bite of the fruit and then it says, gave it to her husband with her. She didn't have to go looking for Adam. He was right there. All right. And so he takes it willingly, and sin enters the world. So Satan has used this before effectively. But it's not going to be effective this time on Jesus Christ.
So let's look at our third point here of the example of Emmanuel, the example of Emmanuel. First of all, Emmanuel is, uh, it's coming close to Christmas. Emmanuel means God with us. That's what that word means. So let's look at the perfection of Christ here. First of all, notice that Jesus was spiritually strong and prepared. Okay, absolutely spiritually strong and prepared. Why do I say that? Because in Luke chapter 2, we see that Jesus grew in favor and in stature with God and man. At age 12, he was in the temple and they were amazed at what he was understanding and able to teach at that point. What do you think he was doing from age 12 to age 30. I think he was increasing in favor and in stature with God and man. Jesus is strong and physically prepared. Then the 40 day fast which left him weak physically. I guarantee you he was communing with the father during those 40 days, and every time the hunger pains came, he trusted more in the God who he was equal to and one with. So we see this leading up to the challenge that Jesus is strong and prepared. He is master of the material that is going to be required to ace the test. The second thing we see when it looks at the example of Jesus is he limits his communication with the devil to the written Word of God. In fact, if you notice, it says in verse 4 it is written. He responds to Satan. In verse 7,  on the other hand, or literally again it is written, and then in verse 10, Go Satan, for it is written. So Jesus relies on the written word of God in order to deal with Satan. So now let's look at Jesus declares in his example, he declares truth to live by in his response to this temptation. So in the first one, when Satan has offered him bread, make those stones into bread. What does he do? He says, Deuteronomy 8:2-3. He quotes the last part of verse 3, which is the Word of God which says man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. By the way, in chapter 8, verse 2, it talks about the children of Israel in the wilderness, and it says that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You can have an entire feast ready at Thanksgiving and not eat a bite of it if God doesn't give you the breath and the heartbeat to do so. He's the most important thing in life. He controls our life. He provides us food, but he is the most important thing. Then, in the second temptation, when the devil took him up into the holy city, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said, throw yourself down. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16. He said, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test as you tested him at Massah. That Massah is a spot in the children of Israel's wilderness where they were thirsty, and they demanded that God produce water for them...not prayed, but demanded. It was a very presumptuous, demanding of God to do something like God is a genie in the bottle. Or in today's, many churches, you just name it and claim it, man. God's got to do it. You say it. God has to do it. God doesn't have to do anything that God doesn't want to do. So in this process, we see that Jesus is saying, don't ever test the Lord your God with careless, demanding, or selfish living. All right, Christ could have thrown himself off and the angels could have scooped him up and so forth. But when the devil suggests something that you could do, just don't do it. All right. Just the Bob Newhart defense. Stop it. Just don't do it anymore, okay? This is. Satan is a tempter. Even if it sounds good, make sure you check back with Scripture. Is this the right thing to be doing? And then in the third temptation, when Satan just said, man, all these things I will give to you if you fall down and worship me. Jesus quotes there from Deuteronomy 6:13 where he says, you shall fear only the Lord your God. You shall worship the Lord and serve him only. The idea of service and worship go together. What you worship, you will serve. What you serve, you will worship. So this is Jesus declaring truth to live by and his response to temptation. So it is written and here's what it says. It is written and here's what it says. I want to make a point here. Jesus did not do what Hollywood would want him to do. The story would be so cool in my Scott Spielberg movie maker. If when he said turn the stones into bread, if all of a sudden Jesus went and the stones just started pelting Satan in the head like the roadrunner does, you know, to Wile E coyote just pelting in the head. Or when he took him to the top of the Temple Mount and said, jump off here. If he would have Spider-Man, webbed him and then took David's sling and slung him, and he went flying into the air, into the Dead Sea. Right? I'd go, yes, great movie scenes, but you know what Jesus did? It is written. Guess what we have access to today. It is written. We have the Word of God, and if we will master that material, we too can ace every test that comes our way. As we look at Jesus, we also see this very interesting truth in verse number 11. It says, then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and began to minister to him. This verse has always fascinated me for a long time. That the perfect Son of God, fully God and fully man, had angels come to minister to him. That lets you know how intense this temptation is. Ok. This is like nobody has ever faced this kind of testing that Jesus Christ is facing. When the angels came to minister to him, the text doesn't tell us what they did exactly. But I'm going to make a really good educated guess. They made him some fresh baked bread. And they said...here, provided for by God. I contend that their appearance to him, to minister to him, reinforced the real truth of Psalm 91 that Christ in all your ways you're going to be protected. The angels are going to watch out for you. And in fact, they are demonstrating that by coming to his rescue in this time. And then I have no doubt that right there they worshiped their creator...just like they will in the future. That they praised and worshiped the one who had passed this test of Satan. And in fact, in Revelation 5, listen to these words coming from John...Verse 11. Revelation 5:11, then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, and wisdom and might, and honor and glory and blessing, and every created thing which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things in them I heard saying; to him who sits on the throne, and to the lamb be blessing, and honor, and glory and dominion for ever and ever. And the four living creatures kept saying, Amen. And the elders fell down and worshiped. You see, this worship that is promised of Christ...He's going to get every last bit of that. He didn't need it early. He didn't need to bow to Satan to get it done. He is going to do it in God's proper time.  
So what are the takeaways from this test?...the takeaways from this test. First of all, looking at Jesus as the God man in his work, as a God man, we see that his perfect, sinless example was clearly revealed, right? Perfect, sinless passes in flying colors. The second thing we see is the ability for him to demonstrate his complete power over the devil. Even the power of Jesus to end the testing is seen here because after that third test he says, get out of here, Satan! Get behind me! Be gone. He even has the power to end the temptation. But he certainly has the power over the devil. And we know this from all of Scripture demonstrated here in his first coming. In fact I John 4:4, writing about us, Apostle John says, you are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Satan is defeated, but he never gives up. Does that make sense? We have the King Jesus on our side. Third thing, take away from this test in relation to the work of Jesus as a God man. It confirmed with absolute proof that he was God and he couldn't and wouldn't sin no matter what is thrown at him. He's God in the flesh. The fourth thing is to know what we face....to know what we face. Hebrews 4:15 tells us this, for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. So one of the things that happens is Jesus now identifies because he took on flesh like us. He didn't have a sin nature like us, but he took on flesh. The devil tested him from the outside with the strongest temptations he could come up with, and Jesus withstands it perfectly. So when we get our temptations, which are very tiny in comparison to Christ, we have a Savior who is not unfamiliar with the testings that we have and our temptations that come from a sinful nature and from the world and the devil. So this is one of those things that is a glorious truth, that we have a high priest who is on duty for us 24/7, never takes vacations, never takes holidays, and actually welcomes us to reach out to him. Ridiculous grace that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ. So those are a few of the takeaways for what we see in Jesus is the God man. What are some takeaways for us today? Alright, so I'm going to propose to you that first of all, we must master the material in order to ace the test. What is the material? It is the word of an almighty God. We need to read it. We need to study it. We need to memorize it. We need to saturate our life with it. In fact, Paul calls it the sword of the spirit in Ephesians 6 part of the warfare with the world and the flesh and the devil. We're in a war, and one of the things that you've got to have is you got to have a sword, both to defend and to take care of Satan with those tests that he throws our way. Then more evidence of the goodness of God...1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul wrote this. No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. If you're a believer and a follower of Christ today, you actually have the capability to say no to the devil and the world system. You can resist by using the power of the word of an Almighty God and applying it to your life, understanding it, living it, and being ready to use it whenever you are facing trouble. I got time, i'm going to give you a quick example of how this might look in your life. I for a number of years was beset with the sin of worry. I would worry about a lot of things, and worry so much that sometimes I would get out of bed and then climb back in bed and pull the covers over my head. I would physically get sick from worrying about where my next sale was going to come from, because in my line of work, when I finish the school year, I have this much guaranteed income for the next year...zero. And I would get worried sick. I knew these words of Jesus and then one day I really not only listened, but acquiesced and absorbed to actually live these words. And these are the words that helped me to overcome the sin of worry. Matthew 6:25, For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink. Nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin. Yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow, is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more clothe you...you of little faith? Verse 34, he says, so do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. So in spite of the fact that I knew these words had been there, I had read them multiple times when I finally actually trusted in the God of the Word is when he gave me victory over worry. Because my problem when I start to worry is I am demonstrating a temporary lack of faith in God, and then I'm able to stop and say, no, don't do this. My life group in my mutual ministry, men know that I have confessed. I said I had that pop in, I started to worry, but I cut it off immediately, and I'm so thankful God has given me this weapon of Matthew  6. He has given us all the weapons to overcome the temptation and the sins that so easily beset us. But we're going to have to master the material in order to ace every test that comes. Second thing to us today. This is not a spoiler alert either, but every one of us has failed and still fails when temptations come at times, right? Unfortunately, we are not sinless. We still deal with this flesh. We still have the sin nature. So when we sin, it's very important, I believe, not to sit there and wallow in the sin like a pig in the mud. Because how many times have you been like me where you have absolutely sinned or did something wrong and then you go, well, I blew that, so I'll just do this. And the spiral of degradation continues to where you are going. Well, what difference does it make? I've already messed up here. No, I contend to you that the thing to do is to repent, to confess, ask for forgiveness of that sin. The great news is 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He will cleanse us from sin. There is no penance in this. It is forgiveness from the God who grants it graciously. And then dust yourself up. Get up and be ready to face the next temptation. And let's not fail them all. Let's use his word in order to defeat the devil, defeat our sin that is within us, and walk more like Christ, right? The third application to us today would involve two different groups of people that may be present here today. One is there may be some of you out there going, I'm doing my best to defeat temptation. I'm showing up at church. I'm doing men's Bible study, women's Bible study. I'm in life group. I never miss. But the reason you're doing those things and trying to resist temptation is because you think you're earning some sort of points in order to earn enough points, like the credit card points where you can redeem them for a free flight. You think by earning enough points, you are going to earn favor with God and a ticket to heaven. The bad news for you...it's not a points based system. Because any good you can do...qualified good...one little sin makes your points go to zero. I was damned to hell when I stole candy from my mother's purse as a four year old. Because she told me not to get candy, and I did. One sin is enough to separate us from a holy God who can't tolerate any sin whatsoever. So if you're thinking you're scoring points with religious activity, church membership, attendance for all the good stuff that happens at HBC, it's not a points based system. Then there's others here today in this category who you're going...resist temptation? I call those opportunities. Oh, whatever that Satan puts in my way, man. Oh, that looks great. I can't wait to get away from church. Away from my parents, away from my spouse, away from my family. To where I can fully indulge in these things. On the outside, you are living the buttoned up Christian life, but on the inside, you know you're playing a game. The solution for both of those people is found in the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm going to read Ephesians 2:1-10. Listen to my favorite passage of Scripture regarding the good news of Christ. It says, "and you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too, all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest." If it stopped right there, here's what this passage is saying. You're dead. You're disobedient and you are doomed. You are a child of wrath. God is going to have to punish that sin. And then this great little conjunctive word of verse 4, "But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in him." The solution to the one who is trying to earn points, or to the one who is pretending to be a Christian, is the same solution. Acknowledge the fact that you indeed are doomed. Sin has destroyed you. You are dead without a God who is going to miraculously make you alive. How is that executed? It is executed by you agreeing with God and mastering this basic material. I'm a sinner who needs a Savior. And indeed Jesus went to the cross. In fact, right before he got to the cross, he was in a place called the Garden of Gethsemane. And in the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed, and he said these words, pray that you may not enter into temptation. And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw. And he knelt down and began to pray, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done. Now an angel from heaven appeared to him, strengthening him. Two times in Scripture where angel appears to minister to Christ, one at the beginning of his public ministry and one right before his crowning achievement, which is dying in my place. All of my sin....millions and millions of sin. Just mine. Plus add yours, plus add people from the beginning of time to the end. He pays a price and takes the full wrath of God on our sin in our place. But you've got to repent of your sin. You have to turn to him and beg him to save you. The good news is he won't cast you out. He will save you.
So as we conclude, we got to master the material to ace the test. As a believer, you need to soak yourself in the Word of God. You need to memorize it, know it, live it, trust it, and then trust the God who gave it to you. And if you're one of the people who doesn't fully understand. It's not a works based system. It's not about externals. It's about your relationship with Christ. We invite you to come to him today.
Father God, we thank you for the opportunity to study this passage that shows the perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ. God in the flesh came to live among men perfectly, never failing, passing every test, defeating the devil, and then being willing to go to the cross to pay my sin debt. And indeed, everybody in this room in the world who is been chosen by the father. Lord, I ask that you will work and move in our hearts. Lord, help us to not be the same, but help us to be changed by your Word and Lord we just pray that you'll continue to do a work in each one of our hearts this week. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

 

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Exiles

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The focus of this morning's sermon is on who we are as believers, what our identity is, what is true about us. So this sermon is not going to focus on what we do. It's not going to focus on what we should be doing. It is not going to highlight our shortcomings as many as there are, but rather the unbelievable foundation we stand on, the amazing realities we possess as precious sons and daughters of the living, loving, holy, good Father. We are going to see what the Bible says to us as believers in Christ Jesus, through the words of  Peter that he wrote to a bunch of Christians who lived in what is now northern Turkey 2000 years ago. But in all substantive ways, we are just like them. This morning we are going to consider the first nine verses in the first chapter of Peter. But I want to remind us this is something that's important to me, these letters of the New Testament by Paul. Peter, um, who else wrote letters? The book of Hebrews. We're not sure. They were writtento be read as unified compositions and as modern Christians with Bibles that are, you know, divided into chapters and verses. We often read our Bibles as if it's a bunch of distinct thoughts, sort of, you know, the way the Book of Proverbs is. It has a lot of distinct sayings. You know, I think it's a lot how we text each other this and this and this and this. But, this letter from Peter is intended to be read in entirety in the churches. That's how he wrote them. But we don't have time for that this morning. Sowe're not going to read the whole book. We're going to read just the first nine verses. That's what I'm going to focus on. But even these nine verses contain way too much glorious truth to cover in one sermon. And you've witnessed Adam come up here, and he gets up and he's got his outline and his verses, and he's an accomplished preacher. And halfway through the sermon, he'llsay, oh, you know, I'm not going to get through this. We're going to have to finish it next week. Well, I don't have that fallback position because I'm not preaching next week. So we've got to get through this. So let me read God's Word, the words of Peter, just the first nine verses of the first chapter. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit For obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary. You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him, though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. As much as I desire. In fact, I wrote three manuscripts, and two of them I discarded because I wanted to unpack these beautiful, wonderful words in these nine verses. It can't be done in a 40 minute sermon. Instead, we are going to focus on Peter's audience this morning. We are going to see what he says is true about them, not what he hopes for them, not what he admonishes them to become. Peter begins this letter to these churches by telling them who they are. And by extension, if you are in Christ, who you are. So we're going to we're going to talk about Peter's audience. We're going to see ten realities, characteristics that define them. So the first one is elect exiles and two adjectives. Elect exiles. Now right from the start, because a lot of us read the new American Standard, a lot of us have read the ESV. We've got some new King James. There are probably some NIV folks out there. Some of you may have felt a little bump when I read that first verse or the second verse, because the NASB reads differently than the English Standard Version. The NASB reads to those who reside as aliens scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. So I hope you see the difference. But why the difference? The Greek has two adjectives one for elect, one for exiles. In the Greek manuscript there smack dab together. But the NASB took that word elect moved it down, and it says, who are chosenaccording to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Well, why? It appears that those who translated that translation may have thought, boy, if we read Elect Exiles, then people are going to go, oh, they were chosen to be exiles. That's the emphasis. It'smodifying exiles when that's really not the case. Peter's describing his audience. They are elect and they are exiles. Sothe word order doesn't really matter. But in case you felt that little bump there, let's briefly address that. His audience are elect. In verse two, Peter says that they are elect by the foreknowledge of God, or, as the NASB reads, chosen. Now, given my limited time this morning, I'm sincerely referring you to Adam's sermon on September 8th. On 2 Thessalonians 2: 12 and 13. In that sermon, Adam explained what the Bible means by election. However, staying in the context of Peter's writing here in verse three, he says, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. God's choosing is always effective. If God chooses you, elects you. You will be born again. You will turn to choose him. You will believe a person who sincerely comes to Jesus repenting of his or her rejection of Jesus or of God does so making a genuine personal Decision, but the ability to believe, which is like coming from the dead to life. That's a gift from God, and it's according to his sovereign mercy. If this biblical teaching is difficult, please speak to one of the elders after the service. And I'm not one yet, so officially. And I would I would really encourage the careful reading of Ephesians chapter two, verses 1-10 and Romans 8, verses 28-30. So Peter's audience is elect, but they are exiles. He's writing to Christians. They're mostly Gentiles. There probably were a smattering of ethnic Jews, believers in Jesus mixed in among them.

But he calls them exiles, not because they were literally thrownout of their country and pushed someplace else. He calls them exiles because they are Christians in a hostile environment. They were insiders, but now they are outsiders. They no longer fit in with the common practices and beliefs of their surrounding culture. Peter makes this clear in three other parts of this very letter. Farther along in chapter one, if you want to look down there verses 14 to 19, Peter says, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, you shall be holy, for I am holy. And if you call on him as Father, who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. Peter reminds them that their obedience means they no longer live like they used to, as easily as their predecessors, their grandparents, their parents. And they don't live like their present compatriots. They'redifferent. Chapter two, verse 11 and 12 Peter says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Finally, in the fourth chapter, verses three and four, Peter says, for the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this. They are surprised when you do not join in with them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you. Peter is making clear that his readers used to live a certain way. They lived like the people they lived among. They no longer do. They lived like Gentiles. And Peter is using that word spiritually. The people, they're all the same, they speak the same language. But now Peter considers them to be Israelites or the true Israelites and their neighbors Gentiles. They don't believe. Remember at this time Christianity is a new religion. People were suspicious of it. The Roman Empire had by this time instituted laws that you had to worship the Emperor. Christianity did not play well with other religions. Christianity says there is one God. Christians are not going to worship the Emperor, and they are not going to participate in religious activities of false gods just to get along. They weren't very tolerant. This was not like here in the south, where to be a Christian is still acceptedand even maybe well regarded. This was more like being a Christian in Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon. Now it should be clear why these people stand out as aliens or strangers, as exiles in their communities. They are different. They used to fit in. Now they don't. They used to be thought of as us. Now they are seen as strange. They're even seen as dangerous. The people to whom Peter is writing are elect exiles. So if you were born and raised in Catawba County or Alexander County, or Iredell County or Burke County, or Caldwell County or Lincoln County, and your last name is Starnes, or Sigmon or Bowman or Bolick, But you have been chosen by God for salvation. You are truly a Christian. You're an exile. Being this kind of an exile is not a bad thing, though. It is something rejoicing because it is an indication that God has done something incredibly special and wonderful in you and for you. So they're elect exiles. Second characteristic Peter says they are born again. Now, this is a common term in Christianity. We're used to throwing it around. Maybe not so much, maybe a lot more when I was younger. And it's often equated with someone having a conversion experience that is becoming a Christian. But the emphasis on the term when Peter uses it is on the one causing or bringing about the new birth. So think of this if someone in this room, if you thought back to the day you were physically born and you raised your hand and said, yep. On the day that I gave birth to myself, right, everybody would say, well, that's nonsense. In this context and as well as in John three, when Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus, or in verse 23 of this chapter, the idea of being a born again emphasizes that God brought about the birth. He caused you to be born again spiritually. And the first words out of your new life are I believe. In the Bible, needing to be born again implies that you were dead. Ephesians 2:4-5. Let me read this. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 and 18. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All this is from God. So elect exiles born again. Third, they have a living hope. These people have a living hope. Verse three reads, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Why do they need hope? Because they are living in a difficult world. They suffer disease, loss, death, rejection, disappointment, dashed expectations, unfulfilled dreams and pain, emotional and physical. On top of a life in a fallen, troubled world, they'refacing persecution and trial from their community because they are Christians who are living like true followers of Jesus. They no longer participate in the God dishonoring practices of their societies. Is that any different from our experience? I mean, let'sface it, except for the most part, we do not face severe persecution. But there are ,there are brothers and sisters in this world who do. In fact, Denise and I had breakfast with a couple. It's been a couple of months ago working in the Middle East. And they know that if the Lord brings someone to them and gives them faith, they will likely be killed and this couple would be put out of the country in minutes. But that's still their goal, is to have people come to Christ. So what do they hope for? They are hoping for a future of glorious life. This new life was made absolutely certain by the resurrection of Jesus. That's why it is a living hope. Because Jesus is alive. Their hope is not a fairy tale. Their hope is not a Disney make believe and it's not a blind hoping for... Oh, I hope things get better. Peter says they have a real living hope. Now, this next characteristic fleshes out what this hope is. Number four Peter tells these folks that they have an incredible inheritance. We all have an idea of what an inheritance is, something we anticipate receiving in the future, of which we have a right to take possession. So I thought of Warren Buffett for this, right? He's 94 years old now. He'sknown as the Oracle of Omaha. He's a very successful investor. He's worth, I think, about $150 billion. So let's say that Warren Buffett passed because he's 94 years old. And you somehow you find your way into the reading of the will, and they're going through all this stuff and you raise your hand up, I'd like just 150 million, Please just. Can. I have 150 million? You know, he's got 150 billion. It's just a little bit, you know. Give me 150 million. Well, obviously, two security guards would get you by the elbows and they would escort you out of the room. You have no standing because you are not mentioned in his will. Let'sconsider his children. They are his heirs. But if they are not mentioned specifically in his will as being the recipients of certain funds, they cannot make a claim just because they are his physical offspring. Assuming Mr. Buffett made his wishes clear and legally binding, they cannot make demands just because he was their father. So Peter is saying to these people that they have the right to receive an inheritance.

They have been born again to a living hope, which includes this inheritance and what an inheritance. He describes it as being imperishable, Undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. This inheritance will never lose its value. It will never degrade. It will never become obsolete. It will never fall apart. It cannot be stolen. It cannot be scammed or taken away by fraud. And it can't be even diminished by taxes. This inheritance, though, is a real entity. It's not some piece of paper. It's not a pie in the sky. Hope. It is the new heavens and the new earth that God will create. It is being in the presence of eternal God Himself. It is being with Jesus face to face who himself is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading in glory. Now, finally, this inheritance is being kept for them. Do you have I mean, most of us have something, right? We've got some savings. We've got some investment. We've got some cash hidden in a box. Maybe some of you even have gold buried in the backyard. Or maybe some of you have Bitcoin. How are those savings safe? Who protects them? Federal government, police... Encrypted passwords that you forget. Confidence in a growing global economy. That's our hope. None of them are a sure thing. I mean, we know even gold can lose its value and you can't eat it. This inheritance that Peter refers to here is backed, is kept, is preserved by Almighty God, who never goes back on his word, never fails in what he chooses to do. Tom Schreiner, in his commentary says, Peter emphasized in the strongest possible terms the security and certainty of the reward awaiting believers. They are elect exiles. They are born again. They have a living hope. They have an imperishable inheritance. Number five they have faith. That's a fundamental one. But Peter's emphasis is actually not their faith, but that their faith is being guarded by God. In Hebrews 11:6, the writer says, without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. Ephesians 2:8 reads, for by grace you have been saved by faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Faith is essential to obtain salvation. I think we would all agree with that. To be well received into God's presence. To have the right to receive the inheritance. Then the question is why? Why faith? Because faith says, God, you are good. You are trustworthy. You are faithful. Your promises will come to pass. Therefore, I believe in you. I have faith in you. But how can the people to whom Peter is writing have confidence that their faith will sustain? Why would they not succumb to the pressure of the communities that they live among? Right? That'spressure every day. Come on, come on. Let go of that. It's a fluke. It's going to pass. Do come back to what? The way you used to live. Why go on trusting God and not go back to their former ways of life? Because God is guarding their faith. I sohope that each of us understands and knows this amazing truth. The man who is writing this letter, Peter, knows this firsthand that his faith has been protected by God. In Luke 22, verses 31 and 32. Soon before Jesus' arrest, he speaks to Peter. He uses his former name. He says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. When Peter denied Jesus, when he did, and he did right the very one he rightly identified as the Messiah, he turned his back on. But Peter's faith did not fail. Peter gave in to fear, gave in to fear, and he sinned. He quit being an exile and wanted to join up with the community that he was, that people were he was faced with at that time. Peter turned away from Jesus, but Jesus prayed for him. In fact. Right. Jesus says, when you have turned again. And indeed, Peter's faith did not fail. And how do we know? Because Peter repented, was forgiven. And he's writing this letter that we're talking about this morning. Let's see this for us in Romans 8:31-34. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies, who is to condemn. Jesus Christ is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Same thought. Hebrews 7:25. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Finally, 1 John 2:1. My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. Peter did. But if anyone does sin. Peter did. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. What is Christ's intercession? How does he advocate for us? Is he up there just going? Oh boy, I really hope this guy. Oh, her. She is really on the edge there. He speaks to the third person of the Triune God, the Holy Spirit. Keep their faith alive. Bring them to confession. Cause her to repent. Renew his love for me. Cause her hope to endure. The faith of these people was protected. That does not mean it was not tested. This protection is not like an overprotective parent. Right. Don't go outside. Oh, you know, put sort of wrap them in bubble wrap. The parentsfear is because they know they cannot protect them. Not completely. They cannot keep them from any harm. God is not like such a parent. His protection. His protection does not mean that nothing difficult, painful, troubling, tempting, trying will ever face you. But he will see you through. God guards our faith. All right. We need to keep moving. Number six. Twice in these verses. Verse 5 and verse 9, he says that the goal of their faith is salvation. So this is one of these basic questions again, what is salvation? We hear it all the time. Are you saved? Are you saved? I was saved. Saved from what? Likewise. What do we need to be saved from? So let me read these verses from Romans 5:6-9. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved from him, from the wrath of God, saved by him from the wrath of God. This truth that we need to be saved from God's wrath can be difficult to swallow. God has righteous deserved anger against all who in essence have said to him, you are not trustworthy. You are not good. You are not worthy of my praise. You are not more desirable than all the stuff that you've made. But God is the only one worthy of praise. He is the only one worthy of devotion. He's the only one worthy of hoping in. And we all, every person that Peter was writing to every person in this room have sinned. And by sin, I don't want to... We so often think of it as some naughty things. I did this sin. Really, truly, all sin is against God because all sin is denying that his ways are good and to be obeyed for our good. All sin is saying to God, you are not trustworthy. You cannot satisfy my heart's longings. But Peter's audience had been born again. They have authentic, obedient faith. So instead of anticipating the coming wrath and punishment of God, they look forward to salvation. So in this context, salvation is the combination of what Peter has already referred to That is living hope that will be fulfilled when they come into their inheritance. This salvation is still in the future, but it is already prepared.

And this appropriately leads us to the next characteristic. Peter's readers are rejoicing. They are joyful. In verse 6, Peter says, referring to the salvation that is ready to be revealed. In this you rejoice. And in verse 8 he writes, you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. And Peter does not say to them, rejoice! And he doesn't say, oh, I hope you rejoice, or you should rejoice. How can he be so sure that they're rejoicing? It'san emotion, right? Emotions come and go. Peter knows. Now listen to this paragraph, because this is going to be one of those going to hurt your brain. Peter knows their identity, and he knows that they know their identity. He knows they have been born again to a living hope. He knows that they know that they have an incredible inheritance. Peter knows that their faith is being guarded by God, and he knows that. They know that there is a salvation ready for them. Rejoicing just makes sense. Rejoicing is completely reasonable and expected considering the reality that these people know and are experiencing. It is completely appropriate because of what God has done for them and what God has prepared for them. Now let me say now, this is the characteristic that challenges me the most personally when my eyes are on myself. My weak, self-centered self. And then when my attention goes to the world, Either to the dangers, the troubles, the confusion, or to its baubles. The little bubbles floating in the air going, oh, I want you the cotton candy amusements. I tend not to rejoice. But I have every reason to rejoice, and so do you if you are in Christ. Number eight. The eighth reality for these elect exiles is not a happy one. It's not like rejoicing, but it is real for them nonetheless. They have been grieved by various trials. We all know that suffering is a part of life. No one, I don't think anybody can deny that. We see it every day on the news. We experience it ourselves from one degree to another. But we have been taught well here at Hickory Bible Church. Suffering trials are an expected characteristic of life, but particularly of the Christian life. Why? Is it because God is not able to protect us? I mean, he truly is not sovereign and control of the world. No, no. God intentionally, wisely, lovingly brings trials into our lives to purify our faith. Or as Peter says here, to test the genuineness of our faith. He says that our faith is more precious than gold. And because God is guarding our faith, it is way more durable than gold. The important phrase that Peter uses here is, if necessary. That means that there are no random, meaningless trials or troubles. If you lose your keys and you are late for an appointment, it is a necessary trial. I'm thinking of Matt. If you lose your watch and you can't find it for months, and then you find it. That was a necessary trial. If you get a diagnosis, though of cancer, it's a necessary trial. If you're home has been damaged by a hurricane, it is a necessary trial. If your child wakes up in the night terrified by a dream or with a fever, these are necessary trials. If your company eliminates your position, it is a necessary trial. If you hurt within a relationship, it is a necessary trial. If you are a missionary in another country and they give you 30 days to leave. It is a necessary trial. To conclude otherwise means God is weak, asleep, uncaring, distracted, and he is not the sovereign Creator and Lord of the universe. The conclusion must be that he only has control over some of the molecules, but not all of them. And it must be, then, that humans and our decisions are ultimately decisive. That is not what the Word of God says. Every trial provides an opportunity to have your faith and trust in God become stronger, purer. And remember, God guards your faith. Therefore, he sees to it that we do not fall away into unbelief. We know that at times we fail the test. We sin, and still God sees to it that we grow in faith. Remember back to Peter. He denied Jesus, but his faith did not fail. It'd be a different thing, right? If those people had come up. Hey, Peter. You're one of them. Yes, I am, and I am one of them. And I'm going through this trial and not. No. He rejected Jesus. His faith did not fail. Now, do not hear this, as the last thing you remember from the sermon is. Lauren says, it does not matter if we fail to endure the trials. Now here's a warning passage from 1 Timothy 1:18-20. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made shipwreck of their faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme. Some people, when they face trials and suffering, reject God. They become angry with them and turn away from him. This is blasphemy because either they are saying God cannot protect me, which is blasphemy, or they are saying God is not good. He does not care. That too is blasphemy. Hebrews 12 says, God disciplines those he loves for our good. All right, we're nearly done. Number nine, this is a future reality that Peter's audience will experience. Their tested, genuine, enduring living faith will result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That praise, glory, and honor is for them as well as for Jesus when he returns. Let me read two passages for this. James 1:12. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. And Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, the righteous which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Now understand the relationship between the preceding characteristic. They face trials, and this one that they will receive praise, glory, and honor. It is not because they gutted it out and endured that they received the crown, the praise, the glory and the honor. This is not a reward for completing the ultramarathon or my dear brother Greg, who ran a marathon yesterday and he's hurting today. You don't finish this race, you know. You pull out your phone and go look at the GPS. That's what I did there buddies. Come on. See it? You see it? You see the topography there. You see the hills. I had to do give me my prize. I did it in this race. You reach the finish line. And who are you looking for? You're looking for the organizer of this race. You're looking for the one who planned it all. Seeing him is the reason you ran. You run into his arms with delight. Because when you hit that finish line, you've got energy again. All the many strenuous miles, the hills, the times you tripped and fell, even the times you got lost are now forgotten. You are not focused on your accomplishment. You are focusedon the prize, the revelation of Jesus Christ. The reward is for those who loved God despite the trials. Faith in God is living out our love for him, even when the living is hard and you are an exile among your own people. Let me read that. I referenced that Hebrews passage, but let me read this chapter 12:1-2. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Peter's readers are grieved by various trials, but their faith will be shown to be genuine because God is guarding it and purifying it.

They will finish the race. And like the crowd of witnesses enumerated in Hebrews chapter 11, and like Paul and even like Jesus, they look ahead to receive praise and glory and honor. I will not read it here, but I would put down Philippians 3:12-14, because those are good verses of Paul leaving behind and looking ahead. All right. This leads us to the final qualities or attributes of Peter's readers, but I'm going to combine them into one because of a common element that Peter uses to tie them together. Without having seen Jesus, they love him. And even though they continue to not see him, they believe in him. They rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. So let me just read the actual verse. Though you have not seen him, you love him, though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Now I would love, I wanted really to focus on the reality that these elect exiles love Jesus and it's going to be covered. But why does Peter emphasize the fact that they have never seen him? And Peter saw Jesus in the flesh, right? He lived with him for three years. He followed him. Peter was even there when Jesus was transfigured. You know, glorious. This brilliance, this what words cannot really describe Peter saw that happen to Jesus. But Peter knows what happened to Judas. Judas lived with Jesus for at least two or so years, maybe all three. Judas heard him teach. Judas saw him heal, and Judas rejected Jesus. Judas turned away. Peter is saying that seeing is Believing is not necessarily true and not necessary. Let's consider Thomas, one of the 12. He also saw Jesus, lived with Jesus, listened to Jesus. He did not turn away as Judas did. But after Jesus' resurrection, Thomas says to the other disciples, well, wait a second, guys. I think you all have a delusion or a hallucination. I'm not going to believe until I put my fingers in here and my fingers in here. So let me read from John 20:26 to 29. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. Then he said, right to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. Put your hand here in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God. Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed. Why does Jesus say, those who have not seen but believe are blessed? I mean, is not the important issue to believe, regardless of whether you've seen Jesus or not? Because the one who has not seen but believes clearly shows that the believing is a gift from God. Such a person cannot claim any merit or achievement in figuring it out. You know, I researched it, really dug into the options, weighed the possibilities. I examined all the facts, and I came to the conclusion that this guy Jesus is worth believing in. Or, like Thomas was intending, I examined the guy. I put my fingers here and it really is him. Let's be clear. Thomas did not believe because he saw or touched the risen Christ. He believed because Jesus said to him, do not disbelieve, but believe. Thomas confesses that Jesus is his Lord and God. After Jesus' words, not after he examines him. In fact, he probably didn't. Let's consider one other passage this from 2 Corinthians 4:4-6. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus' sake. For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. When God said way back in Genesis, let there be light. Light came to be. When God shines in a person's heart to reveal his glory in the image of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that person believes whether or not that person has seen Jesus with his eyes. Peter is emphasizing that their new life, their living hope, their protected faith, their love for Jesus, and their ongoing belief and joy are not dependent or contingent on their having seen Jesus. Just as we haven't.
So conclusion. These are the characteristics, qualities, realitiesof people who are elect exiles. Are these the only qualities? No, of course not. Right. If you guys, if you dug into the Bible, you would come up with a whole lot more qualities and characteristics of believers. And are these even all the ones out of these nine verses? Not necessarily. I skipped verse two. I didn't mention sanctification and obedience and being sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. So don't get hung up on the list. Here'sthe critical point. Peter is writing to people who embody these truths. Are you such a person? Am I such a person? Peter wrote to people who were living day to day lives, just like we do, with a mix of day to day joys, pleasures and difficulties and hurts. After these nine verses, peter has much more to say to them about how they conduct their lives. Verse 13 of chapter one. Most of your translations should start with the word therefore. Then Peter begins his instructions, his admonitions, his warnings, and many more encouragements. But all that follows that word, therefore, is rooted in, founded upon, based on the preceding verses in chapter one, the ones we've just gone through. The starting point, the touchstone, the foundation on which he builds and bases all his further instruction is the reality that these people possess because of what God has done for them and in them. In the beginning, God. So this sermon is not meant to be a pep talk to help you feel better about yourself. You should feel better, but you're better feeling should be deeply embedded in God's power, wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness. Peter's words to these elect exiles are not to build up their self confidence. You should have incredible confidence, but in God's unfailing promises and assured fulfillment of all of them. The rock solid, unfailing reason to rejoice is in God Himself. Look at how many of these characteristics are God centered, originate from God, or are initiated by God. Elected God did that. Born again. God did that. A living hope. God did that. An incredible inheritance. God did that. Your enduring, guarded faith, that is all God. The salvation that is ready and waiting. God's work, our love for Jesus, even that 1 John 4:19. We love because he first loved us. The reason to leave here this morning glad. Heartened. Encouraged. Strong. Looking up, looking out is because of God. That is why Peter begins verse three with blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Taste and see what he has done for you. If you are in Christ, if you are saved, a believer, a follower or disciple of Jesus, then indeed you are included in Peter's audience. He is writing to you. I know he is writing to me, and that is what challenges my faith and gives me hope because I am an elect exile. Are you? If that question cannot be answered with an assured yes, then please come up and speak to one of the pastor elders after the service. You can know him. You can love him. You can have peace. You can have joy. You can have an absolute confidence that you will receive an incredible inheritance, having never seen him, but knowing that one day you will see him face to face.  
Let me pray, please. Father. All of our hope is in you. We confess when we put our eyes on our self, our weaknesses or our strengths. And yet we also recognize that we are but dust. We need you, Father. We cannot endure. Our faith will not be guarded without you. We cannot reach the finish line. Unless you continue to work in us and for us. Help us not to fear, but to believe your Word. Help us to be elect exiles, Father. Trusting you. Rejoicing in you. Amen.

 

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Elders are Essential

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1 Peter chapter 5. We're going to look at verses 1-4. It's a joy for me to get a chance to bring the Word of God to bear to a flock that I love, and so it's a wonderful privilege that I have here, and I'm grateful for the opportunity. But this message is truly about elders. It's about eldering. A duty task that I love, and all the men of this church who serve alongside. We love to do this work that is described here in 1 Peter 5:1-4. And really the message today is faithful elders are essential. Yes, faithful elders are essential. You know, this term essential has been used in our society, especially back in 2020, was trying to determine what exactly was essential. Anything and everything can be called essential. But surely when it comes down to faithful elders of a local church, they are absolutely essential. You know, you think about this text. It shows really the greatest command there in verse 2, which is shepherd the flock of God. And since shepherds and sheep are so foreign to us, I thought I'd give you some information from Charles E Jefferson in his book, The Minister as a Shepherd, as he gives a good depiction of sheep. He writes this about sheep. He says sheep are not independent travelers. They must have a human conductor. They cannot go predetermined places by themselves. They cannot start out in the morning in search of pasture, and then come home at evening on their own. They have apparently no sense of direction, and the greenest pasture may only be a few miles away. But sheep, if left to themselves, won't even be able to find it, and they'll starve to death. What animal is more incapable than a sheep? He says he realizes its own impotence. And no animal is more docile. Sheep must be led to fresh water. It can't be stale. It must be new pasture, and they must be relieved from the summer heat and protected from ravenous predators. And therefore, where the shepherd leads, the sheep will go. And it knows that the shepherd is a guide, and that it is safe to follow him. Wow. Great parallels in the local church when it comes to Christians. But I would commend to you today. Some of you can already see those similarities that shepherds are essential to sheep. They'll die without a shepherd. They won't be able to groom themselves as some animals can. They don't protect themselves as some animals can. It's very difficult for them to feed on their own. They have to be led by a shepherd. And just as shepherds are essential to sheep. Elders are essential to the local church. AndGod designed it that way. Christians are in need of guidance, feeding, leading, protecting. And that's exactly what God has called faithful men to this task to do. You add that and you couple it with the reality that we see in the church today, where some elders out there are nothing more than entrepreneurs trying to run the church like a business. And that can be a recipe for disaster. And you've seen it because people follow what's offered. So if the elders look like businessmen, the people will act like business people, especially in some business meetings where you've seen in the life of churches, sadly. Jeremy Wren in his book Church Elders, he gives a depiction of churches who have the wrong idea and they treat churches like a business. I'll show you by this slide here. This is the business model of the church. The elders are really just the board of trustees. They have usually a pastor, and he's the president, CEO, calls the shots. Then the staff are vice presidents and the members of the church are merely shareholders and loyal customers. And then you look at the visitors. What are they?  Awh, they're potential customers. So you got to buy in, use gimmicks and tricks to get them. That's the business model that you see in some of the churches, and some of them have grown by the thousands. People don't even realize what's taking place, but that is not how God designed his church. God designed that the elders are pastors. Pastors are elders. There's no one above the other. And they're not called to be businessmen. They're called to be shepherds tending the flock of God. Walking with the sheep.Guiding them. Helping them, equipping them. Encouraging them, counseling them, protecting them. That's God's desire for elders. And that's why faithful elders are essential. With that in our minds, let's read this text. I'm going to pray and elucidate it in your hearing. 1 Peter 5:1-4 says this. Therefore I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. Shepherd the flock of God among you, Exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntary, according to the will of God, and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. Nor yet is lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. Lord, we come before you now, thanking you for this precious word. We ask that you would open our eyes and help us to behold wondrous things from your law. I pray that you would grant grace to the preacher, and help us all to have undistracted minds, so that you might use your word to work in our thinking, that it may be carried out in our lives. But I pray that this text will give you ultimate glory as it's proclaimed and as it's demonstrated in the life of this local church. We ask this in Jesus' name...and all God's people said Amen.
Well, this image of elders being shepherds, it really goes back to the Old Testament. This wasn't uncommon for God to use the imagery of a shepherd to describe his leaders, and in fact, that imagery was paramount in the picture of leadership for those in God's household. You know, God Himself was the shepherd of Israel. You know Psalm 23. It's a familiar psalm. The Lord is my what?...shepherd I shall not want. He lies me down in green pastures and lead me beside still waters. It can't be stale waters. It's got to be still. Got to be calm or it will scare the sheep. That's how the Lord was with his people over and over again. You think about those that were great shepherds in the Old Testament. Moses, David, both of them shepherds before they led God's people. That's how that task was. And as you have there, there were just as though there were good shepherds in the Old Testament. There were also poor shepherds,  faithlessshepherds, wicked shepherds.  And Ezekiel chapter 34 is filled with all kinds of descriptions of what these poor shepherds were. And the prophet Ezekiel, he had to rebuke them, saying, woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves instead of feeding God's people. They were feeding themselves. They were caring for themselves. They were basically abusing God's people, charging them more for the sacrifices and sellingthem for exorbitant prices so that they could pocket their accounts and really store up for themselves. Even under their leadership God said, my flock have become prey. He said, the very people that you're called to protect, you're actually using to be a predator towards. And when Jesus approached his own city there and he saw how spiritually malnourished they were, he wept. In Matthew 9:36, he says, seeing the people, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dispirited, like sheep without a shepherd. And even Peter, in this epistle he's writing to Christians who have received persecution. I mean, here it is. They have said yes to Jesus Christ, and they have automatically signed up to be persecuted. The outside world didn't want to have anything to do with those who were part of the body of Christ, and therefore Peter is even challenging them to live as aliens and strangers residing here. And they were scattered throughout various places of Asia because of this persecution. And they were receiving that externally. But then they also had false teaching internally. They were being mocked by the Jews and they were being maligned by the Gentiles. And after encouraging all of this, he said, look, we must endure these sufferings of Christ. They suffer. He suffered when he was here. And if we're going to follow him, we're going to suffer as well. They'll hate you because they hated him. But as he does this now, he now turns his attention and he addresses the elders of the church. And really, the main purpose of this message today is to help us to see that faithful eldering is essential to the life of the local church. And you might be saying, man, you know, well, I'm not an elder preacher man. You know, that's probably many of you in this room, right? But that doesn't mean that you need to check out on me on this message, because what you do is it'll help you to see the importance of that role in the life of the body. And I believe it will amplify your appreciation for the task that God has called elders to do. Your prayers will be enhanced and you'll also love the church even greater as you see the significance of this role.
But we're going to look today and see three reasons why faithful elders are essential to the life of the church. And the first reason that we see out of this text is this...because elders have been solemnly charged. Elders have been solemnly charged. Peters is here in this letter and he says there in verse one of chapter five, therefore I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed. That therefore it really points back to verse 19, when, when he's telling Christians that they will suffer for the will of God, you're going to suffer. But he says,you're to share all things in that. Don't be surprised at the fiery ordeals when they come among you, as if there were some strange things that are going to happen, and hopefully when you suffer for Christ, it'll be sharing in his suffering and understanding him more. It will increase your appreciation for what he's done before you. And he's even saying, because of all of this suffering, you have to have the task of taking care of God's children in the midst of all of that persecution. It was vital. Peter is really trying to help the elders to see man, this is monumental. You got people that are now trying to follow Jesus Christ and they're receiving persecution. You've got to dismiss your task as doing faithful eldering among God's people. And so he's charging them. He's exhorting them. He's really saying, you must do this. And when Paul said these words to Timothy as a young elder, he says, I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ, and of his chosen angels. You must lead out of that ambition if you're an elder. You realize that God himself placed you there and your ministry is before him. It's not just before a group of people. It's in the presence of God himself and all of those who have called by his name. Elders have a sacred charge, a task to take care of God's people. And even as Peter tells him, he says he's doing this as a fellow elder, he says, I exhort you. You know, when you talk about the elders, it may be good to ask the question, what is an elder? Well, there are two offices in the local church, and that's the elder and the deacon. That's found in 1 Timothy 3. And the elder is distinct from the deacon in a couple of ways. One is that he must be a man. And not only that, he's a one woman man that describes his character, his eyes for only one, and that is his wife. Um, it says the deacon could be either a man or a woman...deacon and deaconesses. That's why we have that. But the elders are men. The second thing is that he must be able to teach. That's what distinguishes the elder from the deacon is having the gift of teaching because he must teach God's house. The office of elders, even described in a few words in the New Testament. Presbuteros, which refers to an older man. We'll see that in this text. We don't see that one in this text. We see episcopus, which has the full scope, careful watch, and then Poime, which is the shepherd, the one that cares and tends and feeds the sheep. Those are all interchangeable terms that describes one office, and that's elder. Pastors are elders and elders are pastors. That's what that is. You see that in Ephesians chapter 4, that they are the shepherd preacher, pastor, teacher. That's really what our role is as elders. But that's the term. And those are the people that Peter is writing to. And he's charging them to say, hey, I exhort you to do this task because it's vital and we must get after it. And he's going to give them three reasons why they have this solemn charge. And one, he says, I'm your fellow elder. I love how Peter gives an example here. He exhorts them. He means he comes alongside of them as a partner in this ministry. He could have easily said, I'm the apostle. You better get at the task of eldering. But what does he do? He says, I exhort you, I'm coming alongside of you, brother, as a fellow elder. I'm not asking you to do what I'm not willing to do myself. I'm an elder in God's household. That was how he saw himself. He urges them because he had the same obligations as they did. You think about this. Peter didn't claim to be the Pope, nor the rock of the church. He didn't say, I'm the one that's the pillar. He called himself a fellow elder, which is great. I could think of a coach, a recent track coach there for some students in a local high school, and he was challenging them and the rigors of their training and because he knew it was important. But in those practices, some of the students were just grumbling and complaining. Oh, coach makes us run too much and why we got to do this again? You can probably imagine what that's like. If you've ever been through a sport where the coach is just determined to make you better, but then once they found out that this coach had been training himself to be on the US Olympic track and field team, what do you think happened with their receptivity? All of a sudden he had their attention. They were like, you got to be kidding me. Our coach is actually training himself to be on the US track and field team. So it gave him greater receptivity to all those commands that he was giving given them out there as they were training for track each and every day. Because they knew that they were talking to someone that was doing it himself. And that's exactly what Peter is doing, is he's exhorting these elders. He says, hey, I know it's tough. I know it's difficult. I know we're experiencing massive suffering that's even caused us to be scattered abroad. But at the same time, I'm a fellow elder with you. Let's elder up and take care of God's people. That's good eldering. He was giving them a great example to follow. And notice, when he does this, he says he's exhorting the elders...plural among them. It's plural for a reason, because there is the priority of having plurality and elders, not just having one man. That really when you have the plurality, it produces more care because you have a a greater quantity that are able to share the ministry that God has given to a local church. It also prevents uniformity. You know the body of Christ has various gifts, and God raises men that are elders, and we all have various gifts. And even on this elder team, some of us have their most pronounced in evangelism, others in teaching, others in counseling and exhorting and encouraging. And we all get a chance to bring that together as a plurality. And that's God's design for a church, not just to have one person. And, you know, there are situations where there's a man that's out there and he's doing the very best he can and praise God for the work. And he's pursuing and raising and training up. And this isn't an indictment to that person at all. But it really is a desire that there be a plurality of men faithful, qualified by 1 Timothy 3 and are able to be at the task. And that's who Peter is writing to. You know, you think about this, it also having plurality of elders. It provides continuity. Someone's down or someone leaves. The church continues to flourish and grow and are edified because of plurality of elders. But he not only gives them this solemn charge as a fellow elder, he also says he's a witness to the sufferings of Christ. What he talks about here is he's saying that I've witnessed these things firsthand. Peter was an eye witness of Christ's suffering. He saw when he was unrighteouslyapprehended in the Garden of Gethsemane, wrongfully accused in the trial. And he was there when he was maliciously beaten and hung on a cross. And having said this, Peter is compelled by Christ to tell of these things. And when he says that witness that term is marturet is where we get martyr. He says, not only if I witness these things, but I'm going to die telling about these things. That's how much of a burden Peter had for this. He says, elders, you got to do this. I've witnessed the sufferings of Christ. I saw what our Lord did to give us this task so that we can helphis people. That's why you've got to be faithful at the task. It's a solemn charge. It's a sacred charge, by God, be about it. Even in just thinking about coaching and that same imagery, this would be the coach who knows what it's like to have experience, you know, and saying, look, I know that I've suffered and I've been in the trenches, but you can do this. And this is what Peter is doing. He's coming alongside of these elders that are struggling to help them to see the necessity of the task. And then he does it also as a partaker of the glory to be revealed. He says, I've observed Christ's glory. You know, really what he's talking about is the transfiguration. He was one of three that were actually able to see Christ when he had a full future glory on display, and Moses and Elijah there. And he said, I was that one that saw that. So not only...you can see how he's ratcheting up the charge here, he says, not only am I a fellow elder, but I've witnessed those sufferings. But I also saw that future glory. That future glory that's brilliant. It's beautiful, it's majestic. And we want to taste it. Like a coach who's won several championships and he comes to the team and says, look, we can do this because I know what it's like to hold up that trophy...to be there when all the hard work has paid off. And that's what Peter is doing, is he's challenging these elders. He's saying, let's do that. And that same charge needs to be true today. Eldering is difficult work. Sometimes it's sleepless nights. You have the burden of the people on your minds. You wake up with cares of the flock. But Peter is saying, man, it's worth it. It's worth it. And I pray that you would pray for elders because they have that burden, they have this task, they have this charge. But ultimately God says it's mandatory and it's essential for the life of his local church. You see, if shepherds flee, and so will the sheep. And so that's why the charge is essential. That's the first reason that faithful elders are essential in the life of the local church.  The second reason that faithful elders are essential is because elders have been significantly tasked. Not only have they been solemnly charged, they're significantly tasked here. Elders have the responsibility of doing what this task says in verse 2, and that's shepherd, the flock of God among you. You see, Peter lays out the elders task so he knows what to do, whose they are and where they at.  In what to do, he says, Shepherd the flock. This is the primary task of the elder. It's to feed the sheep. Feed the sheep. It's to teach them the Word of God. That's the primary focus. And even that was what Jesus told Peter, right? Feed my sheep. Tend the lambs. Feed the sheep, feed them. You know, we use the Word of God as written in 2 Timothy 3:16. It's to teach, to rebuke, to correct, to train in righteousness, and doing all that with great patience and instruction. Elders are required to teach, and we should be teaching the whole counsel of God. You see, now more than ever, we need Biblically informed, theologically astute men in the pulpit, feeding God's people, feeding the people. There's all kind of lies. People are redefining terms. They're deconstructing Christianity. We've got to have faithful men in the pulpit preaching and saying, this is what thus sayeth the Lord. We don't have time for games. Don't have time for gimmicks and theatrics. Elders, they need to be found faithful in the pulpit. They aren't to be finding faults with the sheep. They need to build them up and equip them. And sadly, I've been in in churches where they stand up in the pulpit and they berate the sheep, tell them how bad they are. It's as if they're taking the shepherd's rod and beating every single sheep in the church. Sadly, and even on the other end, you see some churches that they want their pastor to be anything other than a shepherd. You know, they want him to be a psychiatrist, a philanthropist, a statesman, a philosopher, a book writer, a Biblical scholar and a theologian and a community leader and a conference speaker. I want you to be wanted on the conference, but we don't want them to have you. We just want you to be wanted. I mean, you know, that's what they want for the elders. It's pressure. But God says it's not all about that. They got one task, and that's to shepherd the flock of God...Shepherd. We don't need entertainers and motivational speakers. We need shepherds building up the people from the word of life. That's the shepherds role. He has that task. And so that's what he's doing here. He's saying, Shepherd, the flock. Do that. Care for them, protect them, lead them, guide them all nurtured from the scriptures. He also tells them whose they are. He says, Shepherd the flock of God. Guess what? The significance of this responsibility for the elders is that these are God's people. You know when the elders aren't eldering they're people. These aren't my people. There's no elder that says, these are my people in this church. This is the flock of God. They belong to him. We've been entrusted with your souls. And that's the key that you must keep that in mind. I think about that often when I'm going out and and doing the ministry. You know, when I rebuke, encourage, teach, I'm thinking to myself, This is Christ's church. Did I say that, like Jesus Christ would have said that if he was here himself? That I have the same attitude, even if I did the right thing, that I have the the same attitude of Jesus Christ.Because after all, it's his flock. It's his people. You think about that. That's sobering. Do the elders of the church say what Jesus would say? Do what Jesus would do? Do we care like Jesus cares? Do we correct like Jesus corrects. Do we cry like Jesus Christ cries...weeps for his people because he sees the mess that they're in, and he wants to help them with truth. That's the posture. We don't own the people. We've been entrusted. And that's why elders must be faithful. Because they're gifts from God. He also says where the people are. He says the flock of God among you. He gives a qualifier there. Thank the Lord that it ain't all the saints in the world. That would be tough for every one of us to shepherd all the saints in the world at all time. He says, no. The flock of God is universal...all the flock. But he says, your responsibility as an elder is the flock of God among you. That speaks to the believers that have submitted to the elders in the context of the local body, the local church. You can even see that underscored in verse 3 where he says, those that are allotted to your charge. He's not thinking of every Christian, and it's not just every Christian that is around. It's those who have committed to this church by way of membership. It's those that say that they're submitted to the elders and committed to the body. Those are the ones that we'll stand and give an account for, not the one that may come one Sunday and leave for three come two Sundays. Gone for two. It's hard for us. We wouldn't be able to stand before the Lord and give an account for that person. But if they say I am going to submit to the elders here and commit to the body utilizing my gift. Those are the ones that God will hold us accountable. And even Hebrews 13:17 says, those who will keep watch over your souls, as those who will give an account. All of the elders here at this church realize that we're going to stand one day before the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're going to have to give an account for those he entrusted into our care. You see how significant that task is? That's significant. The elders don't have the authority. It's borrowed from Christ, but it's done in the context of the local church. And that's why we have a premium for members. We want to care for them. Our elders have a care list we divided our body up and we check on them all throughout the year at various times, and making sure that all those who are under our watch are tended to and they're being edified and equipped and having an opportunity to serve faithfully in the local church. You see, those are responsibilities, but they also have the requirements. And look at what he says even after that, He says they're exercising oversight, that exercising oversight, that term, episcopus, is really the episcope is to look at something with great scrutiny. That Greek term, it really came from the military commander, when a visiting general would come to the troops to see if they were battle worthy. He had the big picture, and he understood the people, and he could see exactly who needed to go where. And that's what the elder does. He has the episcope. He's looking at the direction of the church. Not only is he concerned about the doctrine, he's looking at the direction. He's thinking about those things. That's the difference in the elder and the deacon. The deacon can be serving. He leads by serving, and the elder he serves by leading. It's different. The deacon can kind of be plugging the holes in the wall, whereas the elder is on top of the wall, giving oversight. That's kind of the imagery here. And he lays out really the contrasting statements that goes along with these requirements. If you look there, he says, when you're exercising oversight and shepherding the flock, you're to do that voluntarily. The elder he must discharge these tasks voluntarily. He says, not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God. You see, the elder is not to be able to do this being forced on the outside, but he should be compelled on the inside to shepherd God's people. He ought to have a fire in his bosom that says, I must preach and teach the Word. It's like Paul said, woe is me if I don't preach the gospel, 1 Corinthians 9:16. He couldn't sit down and be still and not teach God's church. And that's what the elder must do. It can't be people coming up and saying, you must do this task. You've seen it in churches, possibly where the elder is come in because they said, oh, well, we need more help. Oh, you know, we need more men. Oh, we got more people now. And they just get guilted into this task. And some people do it just because they don't have enough older men. They say, hey, you old, you look like an elder. Let's come and elder our church. God says that they must be elder. They don't have to be elderly. By the way, just to let you know, because the kid wouldn't fit that category. Because, you know, I'm young, young guy over here. I'm young, I'm young, I'm young, I'm young. Don't let these little, little gray hairs fool you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I detoured a little bit. But all that being said, some people, they put him in just because they need men. But he says, no, you shouldn't be compelled for this. You should do it because you desire it on the inside. And some people, they see men that they'd have good business skills or great leadership ability in the world. And they say, ah, you're a good fit for an elder. Well, those don't automatically translate because a man must be saved, he must be sanctified. He must have those qualifications that are listed in 1 Timothy 3. But then he must be able to teach these scriptures to be able to proclaim truth. That'sexactly what he does. Not under compulsion to do it, but he must do it eagerly. Even you see there, he says, it's not for sordid gain, but with eagerness. We don't use sordid gain, but it means you're in it for money...filthy lucre. You know, some men, they see eldering as an opportunity to have a lucrative opportunity to make money and gain materials and really build their kingdom on earth, as opposed to advancing God's kingdom through the church. They say, man, I got an enterprise now, people following me. I'm getting more likes on my social media. I'm able to kind of have these people following. I can write books, I can make money, I can advance, I can do podcasts, I can do these things. And it's for selfish gain. It's not all of them, but there's some that that's what they do. And he says it shouldn't be done out of sordid gain, but with eagerness. It's eagerness. You see, you can't stop a good elder from shepherding God's people. It doesn't matter what I make, I'm going to tend to God's people because Ilove to do it, because I'm serving the King. There are people that ask...they say, man, Kurtis, you was in a corporate environment. Why would you give that up? I say it's because of God's people. It's because I love God's people. Sunday morning is one of the sweetest times to see the church, to see families that are still together because the Word has impacted their life. Couples still married because they're listening to truth. Students coming alongside of their parents submitting to them because they've been impacted by the Word.  I love God's church. It's a sweet thing and every elder feels the same way. Love, love the people. We could do it and get paid peanuts and would do it with joy and gladness because of our joy for the Lord and His church. It's a joy, and it's sad to see men out there that are abusing this office, using it for selfish ambition, berating the people, taking advantage of them financially. When God says it's not sordid gain it's eagerness. It should come from the heart. And I love to do it because it's not only a duty, it's a delight. And that should be the case for every elder worth his salt. And that's the kind of elders, praise the Lord, that I believe you have in this local church. Walked alongside of all of them. We're not in it for reputation. We're in it to represent the name that is above all names, and that is Jesus Christ the King. And we're to do it not only out of eagerness, but he says also we are to do it exemplary. He says, you're to be an example to the flock. It means that we're modeling versus commanding. You see, the Gentiles, they have it that way. They lorded their leadership over the people. It was a top down approach. They say, hey, I'm going to exercise and wield my weight on a person to accomplish the things that I want. But even Jesus in Mark 10:42-45, he says it shouldn't be that way among you. That's how the Gentiles do it. He says, but whoever is to be first among you and great, he ought to be the servant. You must wish to be a slave of all he says, for even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life a ransom for many. That's the example that Jesus gave us. And that's the example that elders are to be among the flock, not lording it over them like the Gentiles. You think about the example that it also means that you've got to be among the people to be an example to the people. It can't be in some ivory tower, you know, making decisions, being businessmen, you've got to be among the flock. And that's what God would have the elder to do. You must look at their own lives as well. You've got to do it with scrutiny. They're looking at and examining our spiritual walk and seeing if it's a walk that honors Christ, because people are going to follow our every move. That's why Paul would even say to Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16, pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching. He says, watch your life, because if you do this, you're going to ensure salvation, both for yourself and for those who hear. He says, pay attention to your life. Pay attention to your life. The same would be true for all of us. We've got to do that. Not only should we be scrutinizing our life, but our life should be among the body. You know, even as we look for potential elders, or the question that we commonly ask at the elder table is who in the church smells like sheep? The men that are among the people, they're caring, they're counseling, they're meeting them in the hospital. They're coming alongside to give them a word. They're doing the work that an elder does, because the elder is to be an example and be among the sheep among the flock. Well, those are the two reasons that faithful elders are essential. They've been solemnly charged. They've been significantly tasked.  
The third and final reason that faithful elders are essential to the life of the church is that the elders will be substantially rewarded. What is it they ought to get for all this hard work? Christ himself will grant him an eternal reward. Verse 4 says, and when the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. I love how Peter says...when he appears. It's not if, it's not if it might happen. Or in Hickory you say it might can happen, that Jesus Christ might come. It ain'tgoing to be a might can scenario. He says, when the chief Shepherd appears, because Jesus Christ is coming. He says, when that happens, when that happens, the chief or as John 10:11 calls him the good Shepherd, the one who lays his life down for the sheep or the great Shepherd, is what Hebrews writes, the great shepherd of the sheep, or even Peter earlier in this epistle in chapter 2:25, calls him the shepherd and guardian of your soul when he comes, the one who died for the church, the one who loves the church more than any other elder when he comes. Guess what? He's going to bring the reward that's commensurate with the elder who's been doing the faithful work in the church. He says you're going to receive an unfading crown of glory. You see, this crown is guaranteed for those he says you will receive it. It doesn't matter how big the congregation he led or how small it was. It doesn't matter how many books he wrote or how many books he read, he was faithful to the task, and Christ will himself reward that faithful elder. It says this crown is an unfading crown. You know, the Greco-Roman era. They had, you know, they would after enduring a long period of sacrifice, these athletes and their diet and exhausting themselves, they would receive a crown. And a lot of times this crown was a laurel wreath is made with branches and leaves, and sometimes they would have certain flowers that would last anywhere from 3 to 8 weeks. And they thought that was something that was like, man, that was the eternal flower because it never faded. Until about eight weeks later. But guess what? When Jesus Christ comes and that elder has been faithful at that task, he is going to give them an unfading crown throughout all eternity because of the work that he did to minister to his sheep. At the end of the day this is not what the elder is aiming for, but you can see how Peter could use this because of the enormity of the task and all that was at stake. He's saying, look at the future glory that you get a chance to share in with Jesus Christ Himself in eternity. It's worth it. Shepherd God's people. But in the end, as good as elders are, they're mere men. As good as they are, they're sheep, just like you are. One theologian said it this way. He said, elders are not Jesus. Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd, and the elders are merely his temporary helpers. His under-shepherds is what we are. You see, elders, he says, relies on Jesus just like everyone else. And even though they're shepherds, they're very much still sheep. At their best, elders model Jesus's character. They teach Jesus's word, and they lead the church by pointing them towards Jesus and His mission. Good elders never lose the awareness that they themselves are still sheep and utterly dependent upon the grace of the Good Shepherd. Isn't that sweet? That's sweet. That the chief Shepherd would still give strength to those who are tending to his flock in the local church. Well, you might be thinking, how can a man fulfill a task like this? Well, just think about the one who wrote this letter, Peter. He was the very disciple that disowned Jesus. He denied him. He denied the Lord of glory three times before the crow of the rooster. He said that the moment of failure could have caused him really to run away. Could have caused him to say, I'm done because of how bad he was in that moment. But when Jesus Christ came, he extended forgiveness, and he gave Peter this task. He said, feed my sheep, tend my lambs, feed my sheep. There might be somebody out here today saying, you don't know me, preacher man. I'm a failure. There's no way that God would want me in his household. There's no way that that I could be a shepherd, let alone a sheep in God's house. The arms of Christ are still open wide, just as he was for Peter. His arms are open for you. If you look to him, repent, you can trust in Jesus Christ today and be saved from your sin. And that chief Shepherd can be your shepherd. The good shepherd can be your shepherd and give you the things that you need to matriculate through this life, ultimately for his glory. You might be sitting here thinking this whole sermon, man, I it may have been really just for you to understand the depths of God's grace in the glories of the gospel, because like Isaiah 53:6, it says, all of us, like sheep have gone astray, you know. But each of us have turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of all of us to fall on him. Jesus Christ paid that debt. You could turn to him today and be saved. He'll forgive you, and you can seek his face. But for those of you that are in Christ and you're here in this church and you're not an elder, I figured I'd need to give you some practical takeaways for this sermon. One of them is this become a member of your church. Become a member of your church. That really is something that you want. You want this type of commitment over your soul, this care, this watch. You need to be committed to being under their care. Be a member. It means it's saying that you're going to submit to the elders and commit to the body use your gifts and you're doing that all in love because we're one. Another thing you can do is, is pray for your elders. Now you see the significance of that task. Pray, pray, pray. Solicit your prayers. Pray for them as you know what is at stake. Even the scrutiny that we'll have more strict judgment for those who teach as James 3 says, pray for your elders. Also submit to your elders. You see, you submit to the Lord who you cannot see by submitting to the elders that you can see. That's how you do that. That's how you exercise your submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. And as you do that, you'll bless the elders. The writer of Hebrews, he says in Hebrews 13:17 he says, if you submit, then your elders can serve with with joy and gladness and not misery and sadness. All right. That was the Kurtis standard version. But you know what I'm trying to say? The elders are like. Amen. Amen. That will preach. That will preach. But submit to your elders. Also get to know your elders. Get to know them. I love how 1 Thessalonians 5:12 says, appreciate those who have charge over you in the Lord. Appreciate them. It means to understand them enough that you get a chance to appreciate their work. Come alongside them, help them do things with them. I mean, spend time, you know, come and serve them. I mean, I know an elder that lives on 436 17th Avenue Drive that has a whole bunch of leaves. I mean he would love to have you come and spend time with him as he as he does his leaves. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's that would be true. Tend his leaves as he tends sheep. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. But get to know him. Honestly, that was not really intentional. It was just a joke. But spend some time with him. Get to know them. I've heard people say the more they're around, they get to know their elders, the more they are like man. Praise God for giving me such faithful men and we need that encouragement in a day like this. People accusing us of hate speech. We're up against pressures in society and sometimes internally within the house. Get to know your elders. And then imitate your elders. As Paul said, be imitators of me, as I also am Christ. Imitate their ways. God has put us in an exemplary role so that you can follow our example.  And then if you're a man here, consider becoming an elder, even if you've never had the aspiration, at least pursue the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3. Want your life to be exemplified by that, so that God can continue to do faithful work in this church. I heard one writer say that there are two rivals that refuse to allow men to raise up as elders, and one of them is the presence of leisure and the absence of love. Don't let that be true of you. If God has put that in your heart and you're leading faithfully and love that task, aspire to that office so that God can continue to do his work. Well, God gives elders as shepherds to his sheep so that we might grow spiritually his flock and then reproduce other healthy sheep. The elders are at the highest level of leadership used by God to sanctify his people from one generation down to the next, throughout the plan of redemptive history. And that's why faithful elders are essential. Let's pray that God would allow the elders of this church to be the men he's called them to be.
Gracious Father, we thank you for your truth. I ask that you would use it to instruct us, guide us, and help us to understand what it is that is expected of those who are in this office of elder. I pray, Lord, that you would continue to raise up faithful men in this task, and also help them to display their gifts and employ what they should do, all for your glory and honor, in Jesus' name. Amen.

 

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Thinking Biblically About Politics: The Church

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We wrap up our series on thinking Biblically about politics. We end with the institution of the church. So turn to John 18, where we'll learn about the glorious reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the head of the church, who is the King of all, who has all authority in heaven and earth given to him. The first two institutions we talked about that are created by God for his glory and our good, were the institution of the family and then the institution of the state. And those were good things, we said. There was nothing wrong with them. But the church is the forever kingdom, the lasting institution into all eternity, established in eternity past, ransomed by God's King, Jesus Christ, and advancing still present day...each time a lost sinner calls upon God's Son to be saved. The great confession of the church is Jesus is Lord, and it's heralded by all who are citizens of his kingdom. It was the message you heard from John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, declaring, repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. And from the time that the church was born, her singular message has been very clear and absolutely compelling. Jesus Christ is King. That is where we end today. In John 18, we see a clear presentation of this truth in its simplicity and authority that Jesus Christ is King of kings, Lord of lords, Son of God, Savior of the world. We see it in its simplicity as it was stated by a man, Pilate, a man of power, a man who had been around kings. A man who would have known Caesar, and he was the one who was led to eventually say, see, you are a king. And yet that wasn't anything that had authority to it. It was just another man's opinion, and he was just taking it based on the facts he was seeing around them. But what gave it authority was it was affirmed by Jesus himself. And that's why it's important for us today, as we do look ahead to the election this week, the election of an earthly power that we have the conviction we have the confidence that whatever the result is, our King is on his throne. And our loyalty is to him and to him alone, above all earthly loyalties. It's to King Jesus Christ. So follow along with me as I read John 18. We'll take this whole section 28 to 38 and see how Jesus, the head of the church, is the king over all. John 18 starts in verse 28,
And then they. And that's talking about religious leaders who had just had Jesus on trial all night. They led Jesus from Caiaphas into the praetorium, and it was early, and they themselves did not enter into the praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but they might eat the Passover. Therefore Pilate went out to them and said, what accusation do you bring against this man? They answered and said to him, if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you. So Pilate said to them, take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law. The Jews said to Pilate. We're not permitted to put anyone to death. This was said to fulfill the word of Jesus, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was about to die. Therefore, Pilate entered again into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, are you the King of the Jews? Jesus answered, are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about me? Pilate answered, I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered you to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, and my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm. Therefore Pilate said to him, so you are a king. Jesus answered, you say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. Pilate said to him, what is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, I find no guilt in him.
The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God and the word of our King endures forever.
It was June 12, 1520, 3 years after the most famous date in Protestant Reformation history, which we talked about last week. October 31st, 1517 Luther putting the 95 theses on the castle church door in Wittenberg. It was three years later that the Pope caught wind, Pope Leo the 10th, and after avoiding most of the issue and letting other people deal with it, he finally issued a papal bull titled Exsurge Domine...arise, O Lord. Which said, arise, O Lord, and defend your cause a wild boar is loose in your vineyard. He was calling Luther to recant his teachings in 60 days, or be condemned, a heretic, and excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Well, Luther obviously took offense to being called a boar. And so he went to work with his two most trusted swords, the Word of God and a pen. And he wrote a few months later, in August of 1520, as a response to the papal bull, to the Christian nobility of the German nation, in which he doubled down on his views that Jesus Christ was head of the church, not the Pope, not Rome, and she, the church and the Pope needed to reform their heretical doctrines, not him. He laid down a gauntlet for the religious leaders in his country, once and for all, to side with him. Those leaders in Germany were leaders of the church and the leaders in society to side with the gospel, the word of God, the reign of Jesus Christ over the church, as opposed to loyalties to the heresies of the papacy, namely exalting the Pope to a position no man can possibly possess. A few lines from this letter to the Christian nobility of the German nation outlined his case, where he was very adamant that the Pope had overstepped his bounds. He wrote it is a horrible thing to see the head of Christendom, who boasts he is the vicar of Christ and successor of Peter, going about in such worldly and ostentatious style that neither king nor emperor can equal or approach. He claims the title of most holy and most spiritual, and yet he is more worldly than the world itself....Those sound like fighting words...He ought to leave the crown of pride to Antichrist, as his predecessors did centuries ago. The Romanists...and those were the Pope's most loyal followers. Say he is a Lord of the earth...that is a lie. For Christ, whose vicar and vice gerent he claims to be said to Pilate, my kingdom is not of this world. So no vicars rule can go beyond that of his lord. Moreover, the Pope is not the vicar of Christ glorified, but of Christ crucified. Now the Romanists make the Pope a vicar of the glorified Christ in heaven. Some of them have allowed the devil to rule them so completely that they have maintained that the Pope is above the angels in heaven, and has them at his command. These are certainly the proper works of the real Antichrist. Like I said, Luther spared no words, pulled no punches. He had seen in the time that transpired, even from the time of 1517 to 1520, when he has issued this call to stand before the Pope, that the Pope had the wrong view of where he stood before Christ, as if he stood as his equal, as if he stood above the church. When Christ is the head of the church. And then that letter to German nobility, he showed three ways in which this happened. The Pope had put himself above the law of the land. We talked about the state, and the state has a right to bear the sword. But the Pope had put himself in a position that he ruled the natural leaders he called them. He saw himself as a spiritual leader. He was above the fray. And even an emperor or prince or anyone down the line from him. He had authority over them because he dealt in the spiritual matters. It would be as if I today, as a preacher, were to go out and speed towards lunch today, and I get pulled over by a policeman, and he comes up and I say, you know, I don't know if you know who you're dealing with. I'm a master of divinity. I deal in spiritual matters so you can put that ticket away because you have no authority over me. And the policemen say, oh, of course. Yeah, I'll just go pull your wife over. She's right driving behind you. You know, you could pay for that ticket. But that was the way in which the Pope was conducting himself. He actually thought he had authority over all matters natural. Second, Luther called him out because he thought he had authority over the Bible. As in, he had the final word. His chief right hand man, a theologian, um, in the church, basically explained it this way. He said, well, yeah, the Pope, he can be in error, but only as a man, not as the Pope. He tried to pull it apart as if there was some hypostatic union in the office of the Pope, that he was human, and he was also divine. So he said, though the Pope could be wrong as a person, he actually is infallible and inerrant as the Pope. Therefore, he has the final word on what the Word of God says. So he had put himself above the Bible, and the last one is he was above the church. That he could call a council. He could call Luther to recant. He could call Luther out for his teaching. But Luther said nobody can call him out. So he is now above the church. So if you have authority over the state, you have authority over the Bible, and you have authority over the church that makes you THE authority. So three months later, in December, he took that papal bull and other books from the papacy, and he burned them. And you might ask yourself, what gave Luther such courage? Well, he said it in the song he wrote, A Mighty Fortress is our God. That were not the right man on our side. A man of God's own choosing. Lord of Heaven, his name. And he will win every battle. He knew that he stood in Christ and he stood with Christ. And if you stand in him and for Him as King Jesus, he stands over every human authority.
What we're going to look at today, four movements through this text show that King Jesus stands in authority over death, his very own, over all dominions of heaven and earth, over all truth, because he is the truth and over our sin, the most important part. And you put it all together in this narrative. And my prayer is that in each part we see this facet of Christ's life. We turn the diamond of his glory. That this wouldn't be like the last two sermons, in that those were principles that you need to recognize and live by, the truths about the family, truths about the state, but the truths you learn about Jesus Christ as King today and head of the church...these are truths that transform you personally. This is about a relationship to a king. This isn't about a relationship to laws. Yes, we have to have a high view of the family. God created it, intended it to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and have dominion. And we praise God for that, and we stand on those truths. And the same with the state. We are thankful that the state, when done according to the Word of God, should be built on a throne of righteousness, and justice, should hold back evil, punish evil doers, and promote the good. But the relationship you have with Jesus Christ goes back to what you see of him in the text today...when you see him in his glory as King, king over death, king over dominion, king over the truth, and king over our sin, that transforms you from the inside. And in fact, that relationship you have with Jesus Christ that you will see in this text today, is what makes you love the institution of the family. It makes you love the institution of the state because it's his words. Not for us to mess with. Not for us to try to change no matter which way the culture is going.
So let's first look at the King whose death was intentional. Verses 28 to 32. The first mark of his reign that's revealed in this interaction is that he is king over all death. It starts off the context. Jesus has just faced all night kangaroo court trials from the Jews. They've taken him before Caiaphas, then to Annas and back to Caiaphas. And he's been found innocent on all accounts. It's a total sham. They now bring him before Pilate because they know they don't have a case. But if they can make a case that he's a threat to Pilate's power locally, and to Rome's power nationally, then he could be executed as an insurrectionist. So they go to see Pilate in the early hours, maybe 6 a.m., they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium. That's another word for a governor's quarters. And it was early. And they themselves, these pious men that they are, would not enter into that Gentile territory, as they called it, so that they could not be defiled or impure, but might eat the Passover. Kind of ironic, isn't it? Hypocrisy carries this curse where they were scrupulous in this moment to strain out a gnat in order to keep the Passover, but swallow the camel, and the great injustice they were committing against the one who was the greater Passover, the one who was going to put the Passover to an end. But see, that's the way that the religious hypocrite works. They are careful to observe ceremonies and neglect the substance of the truly sacred one. Calvin wrote. In short, they observed the shadow of the Passover with a feigned and false reverence. Yet they violate the substance, and they try to as far as they can overwhelm him with an eternal ruin. So they bring Jesus to Pilate. He goes out to them because they won't come in to him, and he meets them, and he gets right down to the point. What accusation do you bring against this man? He gets to the heart of the issue. He opens the proceedings with a direct question, as he should. He's challenging them, and that has a little bit of history behind it. Uh, Pilate had been assigned to this area in 26 A.D.. So if this is around 30 or 31, he's been there about 4 to 5 years. And his time as governor over this region in Israel has been nothing but drama. He is recorded by Josephus, the Jewish historian Tacitus. All these men who recorded this time of history of the Caesars role, and even Pilate has recorded that he was a weak man. He was a petty man. Uh, each time he tried to rein in the religious zeal of the Jewish people, he tried to flex using the power of the sword they would call his bluff. If they had some type of, uh, problem with the way he was leading and they went to him, he would say, if you don't stop, I'm going to bring out the sword. And they said they would lay down their necks. It's recorded once and say, go ahead, do it. And he would back down. And then the times he didn't back down and actually led to some savagery and death...when Caesar actually would hear about it, he would come down on Pilate because he's saying, what? You can't control these people. So when Pilate comes out to them and says, what accusation do you bring against this man? There is more to the story there. He didn't want to just give them their way that easily, even though it was Passover and the crowds were there. And he might have thought, you know, I just want this week to end and whatever they want I'll give to them. Probably lurking in the back of his mind is, this could go really bad if this Jesus character who everyone on the first day of this week, Passover week seemed to be really excited for this guy's presence. If I hand him over to be killed, if I execute him. Who knows if a riot is going to break out? So he just gets down to the matter. He says, what is the accusation? If I'm the one who bears the sword, what am I going to execute him for? Verse 29, he says that. So verse 30, their answer is, well, if this man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered him to you. They had a little bit of snark there. Uh, they're testing him. They're pushing him...that they say, oh, why would we bring a guy to you for you to cast a judgment over if he really wasn't a bad guy, if he wasn't an evildoer. If he wasn't an evildoer, we wouldn't have brought him to you. Wouldn't be wasting your time early in the morning. But the truth is that he had done no evil. There was no case against him. If you read the other three gospel accounts, they had him all night before the high priest. They couldn't find anybody that had anything to say of him, of breaking the Old Testament law, save one. If you look at chapter 19, verse 7, the Jews said, here is what he's guilty of. He made himself out to be the Son of God. They said he deserved to die because he dishonored the name of Yahweh. He broke Exodus 27, not taking the name of Yahweh in vain. You also see that carried out in Leviticus 24:11 to 16 in the Old Testament. An example of this is when there was a young man in Israel, the son of an Israelite woman, who blasphemed the name, Leviticus 24:11, and cursed God and brought him to Moses. And they put him in custody. And the Lord said to Moses, bring the one who is cursed outside the camp. Let all who heard him lay their hands on his head, and let all the congregation stone him. You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, if anyone curses his God, then he will bear his sin. Well, here's the reality. Jesus never cursed God the Father. In fact, the Jews were never able to come to grips with the fact that though he said God was his Father and he was sent from heaven, and what he heard the Father say, he spoke. They had no case against disproving that. When he said before Abraham was, I am. All the miracles, all the teaching, all the good that he did, they couldn't prove that he broke one law. All they could come to Pilate with was the accusation of blasphemy. And they had done that throughout his life: John 5:18, John 10:33. And then John 19:7. Three times accused of it.And so Pilate realized this. He knew enough about their law to turn it back on them. He wasn't going to cow to them on this theological point. They had to jump through his political hoops. So in verse 31, what does he say? Take him yourselves and judge him according to your law. Now, I don't think Pilate is trying to be brave here or noble. He's being petty at best...self-preservation at worst, because he did not want to get in between what the crowds might have believed about Jesus and what thejealous religious leaders wanted to do with him. So he says, you know what? That's on you. You guys take care of it. What's their response in 31b?  The Jews said to him, well, we're not permitted to put anyone to death. He might have known their laws. They knew his that from the time that he was put in charge of this area, that the execution of any prisoners, the execution of any convicts had to go through Pilate. So they said, hey, we believe according to our law he is guilty of death, but we're not permitted to put him to death. That's their last ditch effort. And what John wants to show here what the action looks like is right now, Jesus's life is hanging in the balance between the two most powerful groups in Israel at this time. The political power represented by Pilate and the religious power represented by these religious Jews. And if you were reading this at face value, you would think that until John adds this, verse 32, all of this, even their own words, were to fulfill someone else's sovereign words, the word of Jesus, which he spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was about to die. It's one thing to show yourself as resilient in the face of death, to show courage, but to be able to call your own shots the whole way is a whole nother level. We've seen in our own country, in our lifetime leaders of our country who showed courage in the face of death. The assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan's life. Some of you remember that March 30, 1981. Not only showed courage in the face of death, showed that he had a good sense of humor. When Nancy came to visit him in the hospital and he said, honey, I forgot to duck. Or when he told the surgeons in the operating room, please tell me you're Republicans. Or if you've ever lived in Los Angeles, you get this joke. Send me to LA where I can see the air that I'm breathing. We had Donald Trump's defiant fist skyward and shouts of fight, fight, fight! Maybe less witty in his response afterwards, more wiry in later interviews, stating I'm not supposed to be here, I'm supposed to be dead. But by luck or by God, people say, It's by God, I'm still here. Both men resilient in the face of death. But in no case has a leader ever been not just courageous in the face of death, but led himself to it like Jesus did. This was not just about a fulfilled prophecy of Jesus' word. This was about Jesus being true to his Word. You see what was at stake in Jesus being intentional about going to his own death, and the exact way that it was going to happen goes back to what he said about himself throughout his life. If you turn back in your Bibles in John. John records these moments where that the Jews would not be able to stone him.That's not the way that he was going to die. And so when we learn in our text that he wasn't going to die the way that the Jews are saying here, that they're not permitted to put anyone to death, that would be stoning for blasphemy. But John 3:14 Jesus said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so, the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life. John 8:28, Jesus said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and I do nothing on my own initiative. But I speak these things as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. I do the things pleasing to him. And then finally, in John 12:32, the third time recorded in this gospel, where he says, now judgment is upon this world, now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself. And he was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which he was to die. Had the Jews taken the law into their own hands and stoned him, his word would have been broken. He would have been thrown down, not lifted up. And that would make Jesus what?...a liar. And if he's a liar, our faith is in vain. But he kept his word. And John wants you in this final hour, when it looks like there's a tragedy of injustice happening. He wants you to see that Jesus is turning this tragedy into his own triumph, and his triumph over this death is yours. No one was going to take his life from him, he says in John 10. He lays it down on his own initiative. And why does he do it? So he can draw all men to himself. Because he still had sheep that needed to hear his voice. He had you in mind. You see, that's where the institution of the church. Christ as head of the church. Christ is head of a kingdom, not of this world, is not just some idea to believe in. It's a personal issue for you. Do you take him at his word? This is the picture of all history. Every king like Pilate, every leader like these religious leaders come and go off the scene. But the whole story of redemption hangs on...will Christ be true to his word? Is he actually in control, and is he in control of going to his own death? Not subject to man's evil will. He's not a victim. He's the victor. And by you believing in life in his name, you can be victorious too. That's the first thing we learn in this section. He's intentional over his own death.
Second, we learn that he's the king who's reign is infinite. The second mark of his kingly reign is he is king over all dominions. Pilate, verse 33, enters back into the praetorium. The scribes and religious leaders go away. Pilate calls Jesus back in, and he needs to get down to the issue. Are you the King of the Jews? This is the accusation. This is all that I can come up with. I need to get my facts straight. And yes, deep down, Pilate needed to know, is he dealing with a legitimate threat to Caesar and to Rome? The Jews were trying to make this case that same week. You can look back at Luke 23:1-2. The whole body of them got up and brought him before Pilate. Actually, this is not early in the week. This is the same account as Luke retells it. The whole body of them got up and brought him before Pilate. This is after his all night trials with the Jews, and they began to accuse him. So we get more information from Luke's account. Luke 23:2,and this is what they said. We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that he Himself is Christ, a king. So this parallel account, we get the details that they were making up lies about him. They were saying that he was a threat to the power of Rome, that he was misleading the nation, that he was Lord and not Caesar, and that they didn't need to pay taxes to Caesar. The problem with that,and this is what I was thinking of, that happened earlier in the week. You have to go over to Matthew 22 to see it, that earlier in the week when Jesus arrived, he was tested by the Pharisees. They were plotting together, Matthew 22:15, how they could trap him in his words. So they sent their disciples to him, saying, teacher, we know that you are truthful and teach the way of God and defer to no one. Tell us then, what do you think? Is it lawful to give a poll tax to Caesar or not? Jesus says, why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Maybe they were remembering that sting from earlier. He perceived their malice. He knew that they had it out for him. But what we see in our text just a few days later is that their accusation that he's an evildoer, that he's an insurrectionist, that he's against Rome was an entire lie, and Pilate knew it. That's why his only question is, are you the King of the Jews? I heard earlier in the week some of these accusations, and I know they're not true. You said to pay taxes to Caesar. You didn't say to keep it. So clearly they're making up lies about you. But what about this accusation that you're making yourself out to be a king? Are you a king? Look at Jesus' reply in verse 34. Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you this about me? What's Jesus trying to get to there? He's trying to get to the heart of Pilate because Jesus knows justice and he also knows cowardice. If it's justice that Pilate's after, then maybe he is saying this on his own initiative. Maybe he's taking Pilate at his word, but he wants Pilate to reveal that about himself. So is this something in your own heart that you're truly curious about knowing about me, or are you just going off of what the crowds have been saying? Are you listening to them?...others saying this about me. Are you just trying to get out of this realizing you're in a jam, he asks this brilliant, clarifying question in verse 34 to put Pilate on the horns of a dilemma personally. Does he reveal his own ignorance of Jesus? Will he respond and say, yeah, you know, this is my own initiative. I may think I have some power here, but clearly you're of a different type. Tell me more about you. Or he's going to reveal that he just is self-centered. He doesn't really care who Jesus is. He just wants this problem to go away. So let's see by verse 35, what Pilate was feeling. He answers, I'mnot a Jew, am I. Your own nation and the chief priest delivered you to me. What have you done? So, he goes down the path of denial right away. He doesn't show the humility. He doesn't show the curiosity. He doesn't say in response, you know, that's a great question. Now that you're standing here before me with everything I've been told about you and what I've seen of you, I really want to know more. He doesn't say that. He goes, I'm not a Jew, am I? Why should I care? It's your nation. It's your chief priest delivering you to me. I just want to know what you are here for. If you're actually a king, then tell me what charges are against you. What have you done? He goes down this path rather than his responsibility and the role that he has as Jesus is being wrongfully charged. He does a classic pivot. He deflects. He puts it back on Jesus. He puts it back on the Jews. He wants to put it on everybody else but himself here, because he doesn't want this to be on his conscience. Is this man more than just a king? That a whole nation and these chief priests would be either for him or against him to be that divisive? And you know what?...the truth is, that's everyone in history. History all divides out between those two categories. And John is having you, the reader, put yourselves in Pilate's sandals of interrogation and you're asked, are you seriously interested in Jesus Christ as your King? Or are you just satisfied with second hand information today? Are you okay to just level with whatever I'm going to say about him? Whatever people have told you about Jesus? Or are you here this morning truly looking into the Word of God right now and amazed by Jesus Christ the King. Seriously interested in everything about this Son of God, son of Man in his life on earth. And now what he's going to say in verse 36...His life in heaven, his kingly reign. Jesus answers his question, what have you done? And he says, okay, if you want to know my origins, here's this verse 36. My kingdom is not of this world. It's out of this world. It's not of this realm. It's not like anything you've ever seen. Pilate. And here's what's at the heart of it. If I was of this world, then my servants would be fighting that I would not be handed over to the Jews. You're a pretty smart guy. You can figure this out. If I was a king of this world, and I actually had some power that you should feel threatened by, why would I let myself get arrested and be standing before you here right now? So clearly, I'm not operating in the same realm that everyone else is. The answer he gives in verse 36 echoes through all history guides our understanding of church and state, rule of force, rule of grace, kingdoms of men, and the kingdom of God. He says, my throne, verse 36, is not found in any earthly kingdom or explained away by any earthly power. I'm not appointed by anyone. I'm sent by God. I don't come with a sword to conquer. I'm different. Matthew 26:47-56 perfectly captures this contrast in kingdoms, when Jesus is arrested by the leaders that were brought by Judas the betrayer. Matthew 26:47, It says, Judas, one of the 12, came up accompanied by a large crowd, hundreds with swords and clubs from the chief priests and elders of the people. Well, this is a picture of a clash of kingdoms. Here comes the religious and political powers to arrest a rabbi, a teacher, a miracle worker. And they come to lay hands on Jesus and seize him. And when they did that, verse 51, one of those who was with Jesus, we know it's Peter, reached and drew out his sword and probably just wildly swung a sword and struck the slave of the high priest and cut his ear. Probably was aiming for anything. I mean, it was the dark of night. I doubt Peter was that precise in his swordsmanship. He's a fisherman. But either way, Jesus says to Peter, put your sword back into its place. For those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. That's a statement of kingdoms. The kingdom of man, the sword of the state. Yeah, they have a right to bear it. And, Peter, if you want to go down that path right now, you will die by it. Going all the way back to Genesis 9:6 we talked about last week. If you shed blood, your blood will be shed. But Peter is thinking, well, Jesus, if the sword is not the chief force for the church to prosper, how will your kingdom advance...if we get taken out here? Peter doesn't know a more powerful force for Jesus than the sword is what's going to come next.
The third aspect of his kingly reign. He doesn't understand that the force that the church operates with is the power of truth, the power of the gospel, the power of the words of Christ. The third facet we see in verses 37 to 38 is the King whose word is infallible, inerrant, unbreakable, the most powerful force there is. He's the King over all truth. Verse 37, Pilate says back to Jesus, so you are a king. Again, he doesn't try to pick apart Jesus' statement about like, tell me more about this kingdom, not of this world. I would have wanted to know that. You're in a kingdom not of this realm, not of this world. Sounds prettyamazing. You want to tell me about it? Maybe I'm serving the wrong guy. He just moves right past it. He just gets the information he needs to what?...clear himself. So you are a king. So these accusations about being a king and having some power, they could be true. Okay, Jesus answer is, you say correctly that I am a king. And here's my kingly orders. This is why I've been born. Because, you know, every king has got a back story. How they came into power, what's their pedigree, why they were chosen and not everybody else. To conquer kingdoms, acquire lands, put people under them. So what's Jesus' mission on earth? He says it... For this I've been born Pilate. This I've come into the world for...brace yourself...to testify to the truth. That's the sphere of authority I have. That's the power I operate out of. I have the corner of the market on truth. That's my force. It's not the force of a sword. It's not the force of an army. In fact, my force of truth will get around the world much faster than any army ever could. The truth about God, the truth about man, the truth about sin, the truth about heaven, and the truth about hell.I've come to tell the truth about all of that.  And anyone who is of the truth hears my voice. If there was a message that John has been trying to get across throughout this entire gospel, so that John 20:31, all these things have been written, all the details I've been giving you, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And by believing in him, believing the truth about him, you may have life in his name. So all the details John records in his gospel is so that he could convince a reader, a listener, a hearer, that Jesus Christ is King. From the beginning John 1:9, it was always about the truth. There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. It has to start with that. That those who walked in darkness would see a glorious light. Who was the light of the world? It was Jesus. And right out of the gates in John in verse 9, he says, this light that comes to the world gives enlightenment. What other king that's ever existed could say that. If I went around the room right now and said, hey, there's some pretty impressive kings. Conquered a lot of lands. Uh, tell me about Genghis Khan. What are some of his famous quotes that enlightened man. Tell me about Cyrus the Great. Tell me about Alexander the Great. Probably wouldn't have much. They may have come for power, but they didn't have the truth. John 1:14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Christ came to reveal the true glory and true grace of God, never seen or heard before. John 8:32 he says to the religious leaders, you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. He's saying that I am the king that sets prisoners free, not locks them up, locked up in Satan's lies. I free them from those lies. John 14:6, I am the way, I am the truth. I am the life. No one comes to the Father but through me. So in this section we see the King trying to tell Pilate, here's my mission on earth, here's what I came for. I'm here for the truth. I'm here with the truth. I am the truth. And if you're of the truth, you hear my voice. How does that land on us here this morning? This is how it lands. There's not any person in this room. There's not any person on planet Earth. There's not any person that's ever existed who can make the claim that they've come to know the truth and yet reject Jesus Christ. Do you understand that? It doesn't matter your background, your education, your influence, your pedigree, whatever it might be, if you reject Jesus Christ, you do not know the truth. And if you do accept Jesus Christ, if you do believe in Jesus Christ, if you believe His Word, if you have followed him, what does he say then? You have heard the words of eternal life, and you know me, and you know God, my Father. So if you're sitting there today, if you're hearing his voice, his voice that says, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice. If you haven't accepted this fundamental reality about him, that he is the truth and everything he says about himself and everything that the Bible says he did...his perfect life, his sacrificial death, his resurrection from the grave, his ascension to the Father, his coming back again to rule and reign forever. And we all will bow our knee one day before him. You have to believe that truth, you have to understand that concept, or all the other truth that you may fill your head with doesn't mean a thing. That's what's at stake. Pilate's response. Maybe it's a response some of you are wrestling with what is truth? And maybe you say that because in the day and age we're in, we're lied to. I mean, we live in a day and age. It's a sad commentary on our society that the two people running for the highest office in our land need fact checked constantly. The headlines constantly read how many times we have to fact check a president. The person that we're supposed to follow. The person we're supposed to trust to lead our country. And we've come to a point that we can't trust them. Trust ought to be the most indispensable quality a leader can instill in his or her followers. And yet we've grown accustomed to not trusting the words of our leader. That's pitiful. Imagine a leader, though, who would speak with such clarity and authority that never once was an accusation of obfuscation there...twisting a narrative, dodging a question that even if you disagreed with that person, you had to respect what they said because they told the truth and they not just told the truth, but they also backed it up with a good life...that they weren't a hypocrite. I was reading an article in Harvest Business Review that said, in the last decade or so, there was all these workplaces that wanted to keep their employees. So they made them very employee centric workplaces with gourmet lunch offerings, nerf wars, bring your dog to work day. And then they did some surveys, Harvest Business Review. And they said, you know, the most important quality that employees of that organization that want to stay with them and keep with them, it isn't because of these fads. It's because of one thing. They trust the people they work for. Compared with people at low trust companies, people at high trust companies report 74% less stress. 106% more energy at work. That's an amazing statistic. 50% higher productivity, 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, 40% less burnout. You know what that tells us? That the average person, the average follower, just wants to trust that the person they're following won't lie. Because trust is built on the truth. If we're followers of Christ, then our example should match that. If you own a business, if you're a boss, if you manage a team, if you manage a classroom, if you manage a home, if you manage children, are you building trust with the people that follow you because you are of the truth? If you don't have that, you've lost everything. If a person can't trust your word, what can they trust?  
Now, in the case of Jesus, he fills it out not just with the words he said, but our last point, verse 38b, he fills it up with a life that backed it up, proven by six words that separate Jesus from every flawed leader in history. When Pilate says in verse 38b, I find no guilt in him. He was a king whose life was impeccable. No valid accusation from the Jews led to a no guilty conviction from Pilate. After all of this, this whole night of trials, standing before Pilate this morning, Jesus is declared innocent on all accounts. John makes sure you, the reader, know this about him. He includes the other two times it was said of him. Look at John 19:4, Pilate had taken Jesus in the beginning of chapter 19 and had him beat. Soldiers, put a crown of thorns on him, beat him up, brought him back out, mocked him, hail, King of the Jews! And Pilate says in verse 4 of chapter 19, behold, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him. John wants you to know that second time, not guilty. Third time, verse 6, when the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, saying, crucify, crucify. Pilate says to them, take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him. And it wasn't that he was innocent only in Pilate's eyes. Much more important, the scriptures tell us he was innocent before God the Father. Hebrews 5:9 says he lived in perfect obedience to the law of God. 1 Peter 1:19 says, we have not been redeemed by perishable things, but we have been redeemed by what?...the perfect and spotless blood of an innocent lamb. He's the perfect king...the king of truth, the king of eternity, the king of glory, the king of grace. And what you saw in this chapter is evidence of his matchless perfection...greatest king ever. And what emerges in this story for us to walk away from is this...in this account, tragic yet triumphant we see the greatness of our guilt as sinners, and the glory of his perfection is our Savior. Do you see it? Have you seen the stark contrast in every way. He's king over our life and death. Not just his own. So that we can have confidence that our living and our dying are in his nail pierced hands. He's king of over time and space, his realm, not of this world. He gives us the confidence that there is nothing seen or unseen today, or to come for all eternity that should make us afraid. He's the king of all truth, giving us courage that what he has said, what he has spoken, will never change. He's King of our sin. Because to have those first three things, but to not have this leaves us dead in our sins and trespasses. He could be the king of death and life. He could be the king of time and space and the King of truth. But if he wasn't sinless, if we didn't have the assurance that he was perfect, that he was guiltless, that he was faultless, that he was flawless, then we would have the fear that we wouldn't be found perfect in him before God. But this morning, as we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper in a few minutes, what we celebrate is we are absolutely sure that his body and his blood, broken and poured out for us, was satisfactory for the Father. We stand in him complete. And when he comes back to take his throne one day to be the judge of every nation to crush every kingdom of wicked men like an iron scepter shattering a clay pot. Psalm 2, turning every sword and spear into a shovel, every knee bowed, and every tongue confess Jesus is Lord. The question I have for you today is will you be found in him? Kiss the son, Psalm 2 says, lest he be angry with you, and you perish in his way. How blessed is the man or the woman who takes refuge in him. How can you know that you've taken refuge in Christ today? You don't look to yourself. You look to him. You look to him in his death. And you say, do I believe that his death was sufficient for my life? You look to him in his kingly reign. Do you live for his kingdom and not your own? Is he Lord of your life? Do you believe he is absolute truth? And any word that ever stands against him is a lie, and you take him at his word every time. Do you believe that it was his sinless life that merits your account to the full? If you do, then you do have a mandate to leave here with...you're mandated to proclaim his Kingdom till he comes back. Not to promote your own, but to tell others about his.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, our King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We thank you now that as we turn our attention to the Lord's table, that in it we would find a meal that satisfies us today. Whatever is heavy on our hearts, whatever is weighing us down, that we could look to you, Christ, this morning and see satisfaction that only you could provide. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Thinking Biblically about Politics: The State

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Please turn in your Bibles to second Demacrations. Just even things up, Sham. You can notice up on the screen that we have actually gone with a new slide. People were reading too much into the last one, trying to decipher whether we put a little more red or blue on the split screen, and. But now this week, the debate is, oh, you made the elephant bigger because elephants are bigger. It's just zoology or whatever that's called, right, Jerry? Elephants tend to be the largest animals, land creature, as far as I know. But you could read into it what you want. Okay. It's totally up to you. Let's start in Psalm 89. We ended there last week. Just a final glance at a verse that has particularly an encouraging word for us as we think about the earthly throne that is up for grabs in ten days. Very important to remind ourselves of the heavenly throne that is unchanging and is founded on what we just sang about the character of God, who he is and what he does. Psalm 89:14 righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before you. So when we talk about thrones, that's the one that Colossians 3 would say we should set our minds on. That wherever we decide to go in the text this morning and we'll be going to Genesis 2 next, so you could get there in advance. We want to remember this morning, in this entirety of this series, on thinking biblically about politics, that the ultimate throne, the one that is on eternal pillars, indestructible heaven and earth, will pass away, but righteousness and justice will remain forever. That's the timeless truth our hearts gravitate towards as citizens of heaven. Why that's such an encouragement to us is, though we do have an earthly citizenship, we don't deny that ultimately we're citizens of heaven. And so ultimately, it's God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, who we trust in and we trust in those pillars, it says. Foundations, righteousness. What's more glorious than thinking upon the stability, the security of the righteousness of God for us? Because as the Christian, that's just not some abstract character quality. That is what makes him different from us. He absolute righteousness, absolute holiness, absolute perfection that we fall short of. And in his justice we would be condemned forever unless he was not just the just, but also the Justifier. And so the other pillar of the throne that we rejoice in our creator in this morning, as he is also our Redeemer, and that when his justice is the foundation of his throne, we know that we stand in him complete, because of the completed work of His Son, Jesus Christ. That's our hope today. And that's what encourages our hearts. That the perfect standards that he rules his creation by righteousness and justice are what establish our hearts and minds today. The pillars of his throne are not left or right, conservative or liberal, Fox or CNN. They're righteousness and justice. That's what we have to have our minds filled with. Any time we venture into the topic of politics but thankful today, we can see from the scriptures what God has said about the state, about government. That's what we'll be talking about today. Last week we started talking about God's very good institution of family from the beginning. At the beginning of creation, God had a very good plan for human flourishing. That hasn't changed since creation, and its truth remains consistent throughout the Bible and to today on the topics of gender and children in marriage. And I was greatly encouraged at your response. So many emails and texts over the last week that show me how much you love the relevance and the clarity that the Word of God brings. And so I pray the same will be true today. As we look at the idea of the state or government, the God ordained establishment and institution of his authority from heaven being delegated on earth. I mean, when you just think about the word authority and that's what the state is about, the state is about force, it's about governance. And when you think authority, there is a word that starts, that word that tells you everything you need to know about who's behind it, the author of authority. And when the author of authority says, I have an institution for human flourishing, for the advancement of the good of people and the prevention of evil from overcoming my creation, thenwe need to bow our knee before that truth. Every government that's ever been is under the authority of the author of life. That sounds crazy, doesn't it? When you think of pagan governments, if such a thing exists wherever those nations are, that what we would say would be pre-Christian, there's no law there. It's every person for themself. A true pagan society that whatever governance is there. Whatever authority is there is ordained by God. Pagan as it might be. And on the other hand, a truly secular society, post-Christian. That the gospel has visited there. They know the law of God, and there is no love for his law, and they've moved past it and their societies today that would be proud to say they're post-Christian. They're still under the authority of God. It's binding throughout the entire universe because he is the author of life. And Daniel 2:21 says simply, all kings and those and authorities have been raised up and brought down by one person. In every case, he casts the deciding vote.  
That's the starting point today. Every authority there is isaccountable to God and will be judged whether they ruled according to righteousness and justice. So the big idea for today is this the state that we're going to talk about government. The state exists because sin exists, and the sword that the state wields was ordained by God for the promotion of good and prevention of evil. Just get that thought in your mind today. When we talk about the state, we're not trying to put one institution of human government above any other, because no matter what type of government, it is, transcending time and culture, the state exists because sin exists. And because sin exists, there needs to be a sword. There needs to be some authoritative force that can prevent greater wickedness happening and promote the well-being of its citizens. That's what it comes down to. As Christians, that's how we need to think biblically about the state. And if we don't think biblically about it, where are we going to have any foundation for thinking about government coming from? If we don't take it back to its fundamental roots, nothing less than this. God puts institutions of state here for our good and the punishment of the wicked. If you get that, you can flow with me today. So I'm here now to just prove that point. Starting with this first point,  the state is necessary because of evil, but is not evil necessarily. The state government instituted by God, ordained by him, created by him, the author of all authority. The state is necessary because of evil.

And yet we do not say that it is a necessary evil, in that there is nothing good about it. Now we use the term necessary evil, talking about those things we think have some semblance of evil in them, and we know that a greater good can result. Examples of that being taxes. Going to the dentist. No offense. None taken, my friend. For young people in the room, taking a bath is a necessary evil in your opinion, but it is for your good and prevention of wickedness. At least the stench around you. Lots of examples of necessary evils. In fact, that phrase, at least in church history, runs all the way back to Augustine of Hippo, who was first credited with the idea that government is necessary because of wickedness, and that he stated, even a corrupt government is better than what? No government at all. Because you're left with the alternative of anarchy, every person doing what is right in their own eyes. No law whatsoever. So let's go back to Genesis and let's see the beginning or Genesis of the state. And it exists because evil exists. And so God starts at the top before there is any institution of state to govern between the evil that man can commit against man. We will see at the end of Genesis 3 that the evil that God has to deal with is that between man and God. The first sight of the beginnings of the state starts with a sword. We left off in Genesis 2 where everything is perfect. There is no state because there is no evil in Genesis 1 and 2. It's a perfect Paradise. It's Eden, no evil, no state. And at the end of chapter 2, no clothes for the matter. I mean that it doesn't get any better than that. A great place to raise a family. The blessing in Genesis 1:28. Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. And I said, that's the Adamic blessing. Be blessed. Have babies. Have dominion. And some people think that the God of the Bible is some cosmic killjoy. Talk about a nice way to enter in to society when all you're told is be blessed, have babies, have dominion, it's all yours. That's how it starts. It's not until sin comes in in Genesis 3 that we need this huge middle part of the Bible, because without sin you have a pamphlet, Genesis 1 and 2, revelation 21 and 22. You know what we contribute to it? Turn your Bible this way and in a big black magic marker. Right? My fault. Don't do that. But that's really what the middle of the Bible shows us, that if we don't sin and plunge humanity into the wickedness that we have seen throughout the entirety of history. It's a short story. The inception of this is in Genesis, chapter 3. The serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field, and he comes to the woman and he brings a question did God say...? Tempts her to eat from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden? The one the knowledge of good and evil, the one that God told Adam in Genesis 2:17 from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it from you you will surely die. Any other tree, including the tree of life, was accessible, was to his advantage. Well, Eve is deceived. Adam follows. They break God's law. They take the bait of the crafty snake. Devil Satan. Revelation 12 nine calls them the slanderer and the adversary slandering who God opposed to who God and what's he want? Death. Death. And what did God want? Life. Prosperity. Procreation. Dominion.Subduing. But now. Adam and Eve. Cursed by God. In Genesis 3, in the two areas that were meant to be a blessing. Having babies and having dominion. Notice verse 16. I will multiply your pain in childbirth, doesn't say stop having children. It doesn't take away that blessing. It's just now cursed by sin. The pain of it, the difficulty and travail of it. But it's still a good thing from God. As we said last week, children are a gift from God. And then having dominion, subduing the land cursed in verse 17 with Adam, cursed is the ground because of you and the toil you eat of it all the days of your life. Notice also he doesn't take that away, that just because those things were cursed, they were still for Adam and Eve to pursue. Neither command repealed because God's word doesn't change. Same commands, but due to the effects of sin, it would not be pure blessing as originally intended. How does this chapter end? Verses 22 to 24. Banishment. An often overlooked part of the origin story is man's banishment from God's presence for the promotion of his good and the prevention of evil, without any other humans around, just Adam and Eve. That banishment from the garden was for Adam and Eve's good, and the prevention of greater evil. That's what it states in verse 22. Man has become like us, knowing good and evil. And now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat and live forever. Notice how that tree of life that was once going to be a great thing for Adam and Eve within the garden, in a state of innocence now having innocence lost, the tree of life is actually bad for them. Because if they stay in the garden in the fallen state they're in, they're under the impression that by some way, shape or form, they can please God again according to their own doing. Yeah. We're fallen. Yeah, we've broken your law. Yeah, we're unholy. But we can stay in your presence and eat of this Tree of Life. And continue on as if nothing has ever changed. And if God is a holy God, that was the furthest thing from the truth. No one could be in the presence of God as a sinner and live. The loss of innocence. The addition of sinfulness is so serious and Adam could not understand it. Left to himself, as God says, they would stay. We gotta put them out. They don't know what's best for them. Had Adam and Eve tried to fight that banishment by working back into the garden, they would have been destroyed. So the first glimpse of the sword in verse 24 is not to prevent man from destroying man, it's to prevent God from destroying man. Do you see that? Verse 24, he drove the man out. And at the east of the Garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim, an angel, and a flaming sword. God's first form of the states, the form of force. He puts an angel there. He puts a sword there. And it's going to stop Adam from thinking that though I have lost something, I can gain it back by my own doing. And God puts that sword there to remind him, no, you may not, but he does give him a hope. He does give humanity hope. It's back in Genesis 3:15 when he says to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He, the seed of the woman shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. What's he saying there? That there is a way back into my presence. Paradise can be restored. There is a hope. But it's not by you working your way back. It's by faith. It's by believing that I'll make a provision for you. Not through the sword, but by faith in the seed. Matthew Henry said this of Genesis 3:24 God revealed this to Adam, not to drive him to despair, but to oblige and quicken him, to look for life and happiness and the promised seed. In him, the flaming sword is removed. God, reconciled to us in a new and living way into the holiest, is consecrated and lay open for us. Do you see the grace in that moment? Do you see that it wasn'tgoing to be Adam working his way back to God, though he had 900 years to do it, right? He lived to be 930. Maybe he was thinking, I can cut a deal. I really screwed up the first 30, I get it. Plunged humanity into sin. Okay, that's on this side of the scale. Bad first 30. So you're going to give me 900 more years? God, I can make up for it. Maybe he could have lived for 900 years, never sinning again. Would that have been enough? Because one sin is enough. God is that holy? That's what's established from the beginning. The wickedness of man is so wicked in the eyes of God that that's enough, that not 900 years, nor 900 lifetimes of 900 years would be enough to work our way back to God. How can we get back? By the seed, the promised Messiah. Turn to Romans 5 makes very clear the only way back. The only way for the curse of sin to be reversed... Is not through Adam, not through our toil, not through our work, not through our own righteousness, but through the second Adam. Romans 5:12. Just as through one man, Adam, sin entered the world and death through sin. And so death spread to all men, because all sinned. Do you understand this morning, as much as I have an agenda to make clear that the institution of the state is a good thing from God for our human flourishing prevention of evil, that's important. And maybe you come in here a just a curious skeptic somebody brought you today and you say, hey, you know what? I'm listening to a lot of the stuff on the news. I'm interested in politics. I like this idea that Christians have that we should appreciate government. I'm for that. I'm going to vote that way. I like force, I like the sword. But if you don't understand something about yourself this morning that no matter how many rights and ethical policies you want to support, no matter who you think the best leader would be, if you don't have Christ this morning, you're lost. We are sinners by nature. It says right there sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and it spread to all men. So you may be in your mind convinced that you're not a sinner by choice. You've had a pretty good run in the last week or month or year, or you've done enough good things to overcome the bad. But the problem is inside you, not the things outside you. A sinner from within, by nature passed on through Adam. Through every generation. And your only way out. Romans 5:18 as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men. That's all of us. We all fall short of the glory of God. No one is perfect. No one is righteous, no not one. Here's what it says. Here's the hope. Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men. That's the hope. That hope goes all the way back to Genesis 3:15, that there would be a perfect one who would come and live with perfect righteousness, and would be trusted in faith that his righteous life, his sacrificial death, can count before God as a substitute for your own wicked life, and that by faith you could be restored in a relationship to God. Romans 5:21 just as sin reigned in death, and grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Do you know Jesus Christ as Lord today? That's far more important than me changing any opinion you have of the state or of a politician. Who do you say Christ is today? Is he Lord of your life? Is he in your life? Everything to you. Have you trusted in him for his righteousness, saying that yours is but filthy rags? And you cry out for mercy and say, Lord, save me, the sinner. I bring nothing but my sin, and you give me everything in your righteousness. And I could be forgiven and live forever with you. That's the good news of the gospel today. And that good news goes all the way back to the garden, all the way back to the banishment that the same sword that stood before Adam and Eve and said, you'll never be in the presence of God again. By faith they say, yeah, you're right. But the seed that is to come will trust in him and will be made righteous by faith. You can have that same hope today. Adam and Eve lost their esteemed position in the garden, but not their esteemed position in humanity. They were still to bear children. They were still to have authority, but they could not force their way past the sword. And the storyline of Genesis picks that up and expands that out. From why God has to institute the sword to keep man from his own demise by trying to work his way back to God. That now God has to institute the sword for the destruction of between man and man. And that's Genesis 4 through 9. It starts on the most personal and painful level, as Adam and Eve conceive and give birth to twins, probably, Cain and Abel. Eve names Cain. I have gotten or acquired a child, maybe thinking that this son, Cain, was going to be the one that would crush the head of the serpent, reversing the curse. Except we find out he was anything but righteous. When some people question how, how quickly can things go bad? Adam and Eve, who raised their sons to worship God? They were. They were to bring offerings to the Lord. Abel brings the best. Cain brings something less than the best. Puts in his heart a spirit of envy, bitterness, hatred.And that hatred grew into what? Cold blooded murder of his own brother. Just a few years removed from Paradise Lost. God even warns Cain. He's giving Cain a chance to to restrain himself. But a sinner left to himself cannot restrain himself. He says Cain. Genesis 4:7. If you do well, if you do the right thing, will not your countenance be lifted up, this bitterness, this anger towards your brother? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire it wants you to master you, but you must master it. It's true of all of us. Sin wants to master you. It's at the door of your heart. It's wanting you to open it, to come in. We've taught our kids that from the time that they could understand anything we were saying. Just knocks on the door of your heart wanting to master you, saying it'll be okay. Let me in. He says you must master it. The result is Cain calls his brother to the field and kills them. That's how fast evil works. And so this sin is on a personal level now. It's just not between man and God. It's between man and man and his own brother. And it just picks up there picking up speed, picking up power. The wickedness does. Spreads throughout all mankind to a level of corruption that we would not believe it unless we saw it in the text. Genesis 6:5 A thousand years later. Adam's lifetime. How bad did it get? Genesis 6:5 the Lord looks on the earth after man has multiplied on the face of the earth, and then he sees the wickedness of man was so great that the writer of Genesis 6:5, Moses, gives a seven fold description of wickedness. Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. That's how bad man is. Every meaning abundantly evil, intention, meaning purposefully evil, thoughts meaning consciously evil, heart meaning personally evil from the essence of your existence only meaning exclusively evil. Evil meaning purely evil. Continually, repeatedly evil. And some want to make the case that you know what? People are pretty good people, if you just, you know, put them in the right environment. Is that so? This is what the Lord saw. This isn't Moses's version when he writes this later. This isn't Noah's opinion on how bad it was. The Lord saw this and saw through to the heart and saw abundant, purposeful, conscious, personal, exclusive, pure, repeated evil left to ourselves to find our own way outside the garden and apart from God's grace. This is us. We don't choose the righteousness of God. We choose wickedness. So when we say the state is necessary because of sin. This is what the beginning of Genesis is showing us. Why does God have to institute the state and the sword? Because apart from his grace. And apart from him putting a deterrent, a restrainer on us, the use of force, this is what society will become. It will destroy itself. It will destroy itself. So God has to come up with a way to restrain it. He restrained Adam through the sword of coming back in. How is he going to restrain humanity? After the flood, Noah finds favor in his eyes. Verse 8, as in things were so bad, things were so depraved. God shows his grace, loves Noah because he loves Noah. Not for anything good. Noah, did you say anything in verse 8 that says, Noah did all these wonderful works that made God choose him? He just finds favor in his eyes. It's a work of grace, just like Ephesians two 1 to 4 says, Ephesians 2: 1-4 is almost a commentary on Genesis six 5 to 8 dead in sins and trespasses, walking according to the course of the world, the prince of the power of the air. That prince that loves to steal, kill, and destroy. Among them we too formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and mind, and were by nature children of wrath. Sounds like Genesis 6:5, doesn't it? Sounds like there's no hope except for Ephesians 2:4. But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, though dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. Genesis 6:8 But God or Father say, But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah is not the hero of the story here. God's grace is. Pulls Noah out of it. The seed of the Messiah is going to carry on. But how is God going to slow down the rampant wickedness he left off with back in Genesis 6:5? It's just going to happen all over again. So we start in Genesis 9 post-flood, and it's like a part in the film where the director yells, cut! Let's try it again from the top. This went really bad. And why I say that? Because it starts out just like Genesis 1:27-28 starts out God blessed Noah. God blessed the man and the woman, didn't he? And said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Take it from the top. Except I've got to change a few things here. If we're going to not end up back in a Genesis 6:5 world, I've got to add something. It's not just the accountability that man has before me. It's now going to be the accountability man has before man. And that's right there in Genesis 9:6 whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed. This is the beginning of the institution of the state. Using the sword to enforce the standard, God has to promote good and prevent evil. It's a progression. God is laying it out for humanity to see and for us to see today that in a post-fall and post-flood world, life is sacred and to keep life flourishing, man will be accountable. Even the animal kingdom is accountable. Did you notice that end of verse 5? Surely I will require your lifeblood. Every beast. I will require it. For what?Shedding man's blood. As in it's even over top of the animal kingdom. We see later in the mosaic code that if you have an ox that gores a person, the ox dies. That's not to be punitive on the animal. It's to be preventative for him not to kill someone else. That God has that high of a view of those created in his image, his desire to protect them for their flourishing and prevention of evil. That he puts this requirement out there. Promote the sanctity of life and humanity through the subduing of evildoers who want to kill. And God's binding law, starting in Genesis 9 and then carrying over into Genesis 11. Once the world goes international, is that wickedness would be kept in check from man to man, from the authoritative Word of God, and now by force being carried out by man, because man is made in the image of God, be fruitful and multiply, populate the earth abundantly, and multiply in it. But now the sword would be there to take life for those who would take life. Listen, you have to have this kind of conviction sealed into your soul if you're going to think biblically about any form of government. This is the way God runs his world and delegates it to those in authority to run it the same way, all the way back to Genesis 9. Human life is that sacred? Human life is that valuable, created in the image of God. But now to be upheld by the state and the sword.And that carries over into the New Testament at the widest level, the societal level. Paul picks this theme up in Romans 13. In verse 4 he says, government, those in authority are ministers of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid for it. The government, the state does not bear the sword for nothing. You see how this goes all the way back to Genesis? The world of good and evil. God is trying to see good flourish and evil be prevented, and the state is to bear the sword. But it doesn't do it for no reason. It's a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. From seed form in Genesis, now into the church era thousands of years later, God ordains order in human society, even when governments like this one that were persecuting people like Paul and other Christians, pagan to the core, secular, whichever you want to call it, he could still say, that is my minister, to punish the wicked, to bring wrath on the one who practices evil. You say? Maybe that's just Paul's interpretation. No, it's Peter's interpretation, too, under the same wicked rule of Rome. 1 Peter 2:14. Back up to 13. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority or to governors, is sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. Both of these apostles are talking about empires that persecute Christians, the same regime in acts :223 that Peter said, nailed Jesus Christ to the cross by the hands of godless men. So you think there's some exception clause for a corrupt government? You say, you know. Yeah, that state thing applies. Except when. Except when what? That Peter could say that knowing his Savior that was put to death by the hands of godless men. But you get an exception for your submission. There's some way around that.? Do you see how God has designed the basis of all human governance since the beginning? The church has the mandate to promote spiritual life by the power of the gospel. The state has the God ordained mandate to protect human life by the power of the sword.  
Which brings us to point two today. The state is distinct from the church, but is not separated from God. Maybe it's the misnomer that floats around church and society that says separation of church and state. You know, if I called on one of you this morning and said, hey, what's up with separation of church and state? Some of you are slinking down in your seat already. Like, don't call on me. Don't call on me. Don't call on me. I don't want to answer that one. It gets repeated. Separation of church and state. No, there is no separation of church and state in the sense of the authority that we're both under. Yes, there is sovereignty of sphere of influence and authority in each just mentioned it. Some have authority in the state. Some have authority in the church, but there's more distinction than there is separation, because both are under the sovereign authority of God. And even when we think about our faith, as R.C. Sproul said, it's pervasively political because our Savior is a king with a kingdom. The kingship of Christ is a statement of his authority. It touches every political matter. It's as the Dutch theologian turned prime minister, Prime Minister of the Netherlands Abraham Kuyper said that. There is no inch in all of creation over which Jesus Christ, who is sovereign, does not cry mine. Kuyper wasn't saying that just to preach a sermon on the sovereignty of God, Kuyper was saying that there needs to be there needs to be the law of God, promoted, given in society. He wrote if God is truly God, then all determination of law proceeds from him, and all that remains for us is to do is to ask with holy reverence for the road that can lead us to the purest knowledge of what God Almighty has stamped as justice for the whole of his creation, as eternal justice for every creature. Kuyper was trying to show that you can expect a civil society, a lawful society, without some inherent acceptance of a greater law than it can come up with on its own. Otherwise, I mean, again, another misnomer. Hey, you can't legislate morality. Really?What's the point of a law? Is it just unto itself? Why are we not supposed to speed? So that some knucklehead doesn't go faster than he should and takes someone else's life, right? That's why it exists. Why do all the laws that have a sense of protection from evil and promotion of good exist? Because there's some moral framework behind them. Where does that moral framework come from? Kuyper was making the point it comes from God. C.s. Lewis made the same point at the beginning of Mere Christianity in chapter one, when he wrote this law. This inherent law was called the law of nature, because people thought that everyone knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it. Just as you find a few people who are colorblind or have no ear for a tune. Love his way with words. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behavior was obvious to everyone, and I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless right is a real thing to which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practiced. If they had no notion of what we mean by right than though we might still have to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the color of their hair. Do you understand what he's saying about that natural law written on our hearts that he writes later in the chapter, it says, when somebody does this thing to you and say, hey, that wasn't fair. Where does that sense of fairness come from? If we're to be a society outside of any understanding of a moral law, where does it come from? Now to keep the distinction between church and state clear as the Bible does? We would affirm that we want the church to do the things that the church were created to do under the authority of God and the state to do the things we want God, or we want the state to do under the authority of God. And those are the sovereign spheres that back to Abraham Kuyper, he talked about in spheres sovereignty, that you don't want the state trying to do the things of the church, and you don't want the church trying to do the things of the state.

When Jefferson Thomas Jefferson was the one that kind of coined the phrase a wall of separation between church and state.That's all he was saying. He wasn't saying isolate these two things so much that when you talk about the state, you can't talk about the authority of God. He was saying, just don't let this one try to do this other one's task. So this group over here is free to worship, but they cannot impose their worship on these people over here in a free society. So how does that hit us? Well, we see that there are in those distinctions between sovereign spheres in the state and the church. A use of force that the church has, and the power of the gospel and a use of force the state has, and a power of the sword. Though both institutions are created by God and under his authority. We stay in our lanes, so we don't want the state coming in to the church and using force to mandate church attendance or nobody's coming to my mind but the guy that will not get baptized. I would call up the cops, say, can you arrest this brother until he gets baptized? That's what I'm talking about. We don't call up the state to enforce the matters that are spiritual. Hey, I'm checking the giving records. Get over here, guys. Got some people not giving. That's the sovereignty sphere. Yet we do call them up when what? We see laws being broken, crimes being committed. Walk outside mugging in the parking lot. I don't stand there and just preach at them, man, I hope this works. Call the cops. Say, get over here. Guys, there is connection there. I'm not reticent to call them thinking, you know what? Separation of church and state. You know, I don't know if those guys are really down with the moral law that we should help people being oppressed. I mean, I was even hanging out with a guy that was a former Green Beret this week, and after hanging out with him, I was telling my son about it and he got interested in the Green Berets. So we watched some videos on it and found out that their motto is Free the Oppressed. That's a state group who says the motivation for what we do is something moral. There's evil and wickedness out there, and we're there to stop it. So you want a society with separation of church and state that they just come up with their own ideas asright and wrong? Or do you want them under the sovereign authority of God? Now here's where we come in. When we see the state not being the state as ordained by God, we speak up. How do we speak up? Well, you do it one way by voting. You don't sit back and say, oh, woe is me. Our society is going to hell in a handbasket. What should we do? Well, you try to make change in the ways that have been laid out and ordained. Write to the Congressman. Protest peacefully. And if you so feel called into the world of politics, then you go there. But there is a line that the church doesn't cross. We don't take up the sword against the government. I don't become the Secretary of conversion, mandating that any unbelieving people in the United States must convert to Christianity or be executed. I mean, that is unless you want to go back to a theocracy and we stone your blasphemous children. Is that what you want? It's one thing to say that the state operates outside of the authority of the church. It's another to say it operates outside of the authority of God. And when we see it do that, the church's role is not to call the state to be the church, but the state to be the state. R.C. Sproul wrote, the minute any state, whether in the US or China or Russia, declares itself independent from God outside of the authority of God, it has become demonized and become an evil empire in rebellion against the authority by which it rules in the first place. So if you end up in an elevator one day next to the president of the United States, you know, and you turn to them and say, hey, did you know that you are an authority under the authority of God, appointed within proper measure to promote the good and punish evil? Just thought you would like to know that. Reminded of that. That's your role. You're a minister of God. Romans 13. To promote the good and punish the evil. Reminds me of a story in we'll close in this. In 1 Kings 21 that there was a wicked king named Ahab. Greedy. On a vacation property.Wanting more land so he could be a homesteading influencer. That's what the text says. Comes about these things that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard which was in Jezreel, beside the palace of Ahab, king of Samaria. This was Ahab's second home. Ahab spoke to Naboth, saying, give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden. See homesteading influencer. I want it close by my house, and I'll give you a better vineyard than in its place. And if you like, I'll give you the price. And it's money. So here's this greedy king wanting to grab up more land. But verse three, Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbidme that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers. He knew the Old Testament law about not selling the family land, but to keep it for your grandbabies. And he was going to obey God rather than man, Because I know sitting in the back of your heads this morning sometimes is when do we disobey? When we are what? Called to do something God forbids or forbidden to do something God commands. So Naboth says no. So then, super wicked Ahab and his wife Jezebel, in verses 4 to 10, devise a plot to frame Naboth as a, and isn't this rich that he was the one breaking God's law? That worthless men were going to come and testify and say that he was a blasphemer, and he would be taken out and stoned to death. So they could steal his land. So verse 11 of 1 Kings 21, the men of his city, the elders and nobles lived in the city, did as Jezebel had sent word to them, just as written in the letters. These wicked, worthless men come, and they testify against Naboth. And they say, he cursed God and the king. So they took him outside the city and stoned him to death with stones. And then Jezebel says, well, there's your land. Go take it. In comes courageous Elijah the Tishbite, the prophet of God. What's his role in this? To go find some righteous men and say, hey, we got some worthless men. Let's go on a killing spree here. Let's be vigilantes. Let's burn down the palace. No! The word of the Lord came to Elijah, the Tishbite saying, arise, godown to meet Ahab, King of Israel. Who's in Samaria. He's in the vineyard of Naboth, where he has gone down to take possession of it. And you shall speak to him, saying, thus says the Lord, have you murdered, and also taken possession. He called the king out for the abuse of his power. You're there to promote the good and prevent evil, and you used your power to reverse that. Says to him in the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth. The dogs will lick up your blood, even yours. Now, hey, back to that scenario where you're in an elevator with the president. Choose your words carefully. Not saying you go full Elijah on him here. But what you see is a response later on. Verse 27, end of the chapter, which came when Ahab heard these words, that he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth, and fasted and lay in a sackcloth, and went about despondently. It shows that secular rulers need spiritual leaders to be a reminder of the authority under which they live. When we make a case for 10 Commandments hanging on walls in schools and courts, they're not there to convert anyone, but they are there to put on the conscience of the person. I'm under authority. There is a God. There is a law. There is a standard and no one is outside of that standard. The distinction between church and state is a division of labor by delegated authority from its divine author. The state promotes the temporal good of society through the prevention of evil. The church preaches the gospel and promotes the greatest good imaginable, eternal life. Come back next week and we'll tie that up with a closer look at that final institution created by God that will outlast the family and the state, the institution of the church.  
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word this morning. We thank you for its clarity and its power. We pray you would use it in us and through us to be promoters of good in our own areas of influence. Protectors from evil in our own families and those who have an eye out in society and look for opportunity to be salt, to promote good and prevent decay, to be something of a pleasing aroma. When we speak of you and speak of Christ. Life to life among those who are being saved and death to death amongst those who are perishing. When we speak of you, Father, and salvation in your Son. We get the privilege to remind our world that you reign. Help us never take that for granted, that any time we speak up and speak of you, we're doing the work you designed us to do. Remind every single person that one day, every knee will bow before your sovereign throne, the throne of perfect righteousness and perfect justice. We thank you for that. In Jesus name, Amen.

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Thinking Biblically about Politics: The Family

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As you turn to Genesis 1, because Genesis 1 is where we get our guidelines for everything that we see created by God, his world, his universe, his rules. So that is a starting point for us to thinkBiblically about politics. There is no specific Bible to turn to or book in the Bible that is not...one book. But there are many places that contain the truths we need for how we need to think and act as salty Christians as we learned about last week withPastor Harry. That is our mission here. We are to be the salt and light, a savory enhancer of society around us, a preserving element, a mark of purity. And that applies to the entire Bible, the whole counsel of God. And so when we do a series like this that is evidently topical, we're going to have to move around in order to see all that it has to say when we want to speak to the issues of our day. And that's my clear mandate, is not to go off ever on any hobby horse, but to say, hey, if there's an issue going on in society that you have to take a step back from the Bible and piece some things together, you do that. And that's alluding to maybe when Paul talked to the elders in Ephesus in chapter 20 of Acts and said, I did not fail to preach Christ and to take to you the whole counsel, to declare to you the whole counsel of God, all of it, not leaving any part out, especially the parts that might make us uncomfortable. And so that's my mandate as a preacher. But our mission also as a church when it comes topolitics, is very clear in 1 Timothy 2:1-2. It's to pray for those who are in authority at all times, and especially during an election cycle. We should pray for God's work to be done through the political process to give us leaders who are marked by integrity, honesty, bravery, humility, compassion, all the aspects we see the scriptures put forth of the type of leader God looks to. We're never going to find a perfect one on this side of eternity, but we still can look for marks that would say that person would make a good leader. And so I try to keep things simple often here by saying, look, if I can reduce down how we think about politics to just a few things, one would be we need the Word of God to inform how we think. And that comes by way of the Word of God being preached. And we also are called to pray. So those two things...that forward that simple. My job is done today. We'll see you next week. No, we're going to go into the Word today and see what it says. And I know that for some of us, the last thing we want is more politics, especially more texts from people pretending to know us personally. Hi, I'm Andrew, I'm a former fill in the blank, but now I'm fill in the blank. Would you watch this video I made to change your view.As if it's going to change your view. Steven has texted me this week. A guy named Alex. Somebody that wants me to stand with crypto, which I have no idea what that means, and I'm not going to check into it. But we all just might want to say, like, can we take a break from this being the most important election ever...being told to us constantly. I don't mean to seem to sound cynical about it, but I don't know. As far back as I could think, maybe 20 years of paying attention to it, that each one seemed to say this is the most important election ever. And yeah, if you're four years old and it's your first go round and you're eating crayons as I talk, it probably is your most important election ever. That's all just to highlight the amount of political fatigue. And I don't want to add to that. I would rather over the next three weeks that we look at thinking Biblically about politics to ease a burden rather than put one on you. I would rather bring you to a cup of refreshment from the Word of God each week rather than the cesspool of man's opinion. And so the next few weeks, as we walk through the scriptures looking at what God's Word says, I do want to challenge you to do this one thing right on the front end. And it's the same thing I'm doing each week as I study, and that is to take your presuppositions, however they have been formed. Those older, more set saying, I've been there, seen it, read it. I'm twice your age, preacher boy. Yeah you are, but it doesn't mean your presuppositions about politics shouldn't be subject to what God has to say, any more than the young in our audience who might be privy not to believe anything old. What's new is true, and what I can see on TikTok and whatever grabs my attention and aesthetically impresses me. That must be where the truth lies. And so the same caution I would give to the young that just because we're going back to something super old. The old paths, as the prophets called the Word of God, thatyou can have your positions moved as well. It's to take up the attitude of the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther, who challenged the authorities of his own day. He had his own presuppositions challenged when he was changed to go from what he thought was a works based righteousness found in the law of God, to grace based salvation found in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. And when he was put to the test after he had already on October 31st, 1517, nailed the 95 theses on the doors of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. His desire to reform the church from within, to say that we've lost our way both in what we believe and how we behave, and we need to talk about it. Well, that didn't sit too well with the Pope at the time. He called him to a papal bull, where he had to stand before a group of leaders, and they wanted him to recant. And you know his famous words. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand. I can do no other. That's my challenge to you the next three weeks. Regardless of what you believe coming in here about politics, are you willing to let your conscience be captive to the Word of God and say, if this is what I see, despite what I've heard, then that's what I'll believe. That's how I'll think differently. Now, what you do with that different thinking, the implications it has on your life, and the application of then what you do this election year that's on you. That's not on me. What I'm here to do is to assault the conscience with the Word of God, to make it so clear, not through some compelling, persuasive speech. Not to try to sway you to one side or the other, to mention one name versus another. But to say this is what the Bible says about these issues and you've got to deal with it. And that's what it does to us all the time.
So what we're going to examine over the next few weeks, starting in Genesis one, are the three foundational institutions that God has built human existence around. These three institutions of human society were created by God and commanded to be sustained until his Son returns. It's the institution of the family. It's the institution of the state, and it's the institution of the church. As in, God is sovereign over all. And we know Jesus has all authority given to him, Matthew 28. In heaven and on earth all authority is his. But there are vice regents who are given spheres of sovereignty, spheres of authority in these three areas...the family, the state, and the church. And they are to respect each other out of a respect for the sovereign God. And if you understand how God sets each one of these institutions up, you understand how to view politics. You understand how to view platforms. You understand how to view parties. If you understand what the family was designed for by God, created and commanded for human flourishing, not subject to man's opinion. Next week we'll look at the institution of the state, and then we'll finish with the institution of the church, the only one of the three that's going to remain forever. So let's start today, first up in thinking biblically about politics is the institution of the family as ordained by God in Genesis 1:26-28. And we'll see as we just work in Genesis one and two, mainly today when we talk about the institution of the family, Genesis gives us three clear convictions, three clear truths that flow out of the text. The first is that gender is a fixed reality, not a fluid fantasy. The second is that children are a gift from God, not a curse of man. And the third is that marriage is a covenant promise, not a convenience contract. These are not political talking points. These are theological realities. What God says when he instituted the family about gender, about children, and about marriage are meant to last forever. Now, I also realize as the preaching pastor, I'm not just here to preach at you. I'm here to shepherd. That's that second part of my title. And as a shepherd, I realize that on the subject of gender, it touches on the sensitive issue of LGBTQ friends and family that, you know. And on the subject of children, it touches on the painful issue and private issue of abortion. And on the subject of marriage, it touches on the issue that has touched probably every person in here to some degree or another...divorce. I get, on the front end, that this is personal and painful and for many...private. You'd rather just not talk about it. But my desire as a shepherd is not to reopen any wound. But it's actually for you to find healing in the Word of God. I hope you know that's my primary motive. My primary motive isn't to get you to rock the vote. It's not a voter drive that's going to be out in the atrium afterwards. My primary desire to shepherd you through these truths is that if something was burdening your heart attached to any of these issues that we're going to talk about today, that the work wouldn't be done out there in some...let's make sure everybody votes this year. It would be down here talking to me afterwards. Another one of our pastors or somebody in your life group and saying, you know, I've never just seen that sin for what it is called it for what it is. And I don't know if I've ever healed from it. That would be the greatest thing God could do with this series, especially today's message. And I want you to know that whatever we talk about today, whatever sin is talked about in relation to gender, children and marriage, none of them fall under the category of the unpardonable sin. Any of those can be forgiven when you take them to the cross, and they're covered by the blood of the lamb, and you find further healing by the body of Christ coming around you, not distancing you from them. So that's why it's important to talk about this. There is deep guilt and shame with a lot of this, but far more important than the politics is your personal relationship with God this morning. We live in his created order and under Christ's heavenly reign and everything we see and hear, we want to take captive to him. Because there is a war going on and it's unseen, the Scripture tells us. It's a war for truth, and I would hope that you would give me the benefit of the doubt this morning, that I'm not trying to make any enemy with any person. I've got one enemy this morning. It's the prince of the power of the air who lies and who kills and who destroys and who is a murderer from the beginning. That's who is in my crosshairs this morning. And the lies that he's promoted in our culture for the last few decades that have allowed some people to buy a narrative...that's not true...that sounds tolerant, that sounds scientific. That sounds right philosophically. And you say, but when you hold it up against the Word of God, it crumbles. It's smashed to pieces. That's what I'm out here to do today. The greatest gift I can give you today, in a world of lies is your ability to discern the truth. So if any of these issues today, as you see it more clearly in Scripture and your conscience says, you know, I've been lied to, but now the truth is doing what Jesus said it would do, right? It will set you free, but you got to take him at his word. This series is to give us the convictions we need for the institution that God ordained the family.
So let's start with the first truth. The institution of family begins with gender as a fixed reality, not a fluid fantasy. There was a line that caught my ear this week from a political comic who, in all fairness, punches left and right. He even admitted in the last few years he's punching left a lot more than he used to. But he does it in the cause of common sense. He said that in today's world, when truth conflicts with the narrative, it's the truth that has to apologize. This isn't coming from a godly man, but this is coming from somebody who just sees that there's a narrative that's been created that feels like no matter what, the truth is always the one that has to apologize to the narrative that's out there, and especially the narrative of the last decade on gender fluidity that we hear nonstop about. Well, what's the truth that conflicts with it? It's back in Genesis 1. First in verse 26, it says, God says, let us make man in our image according to our likeness. It's at the high point of creation, established from the beginning of the Bible, is that we are the crown of God's creation, the most glorious gem made exclusively in his image and likeness. But we were made in a particular fashion. And there's only two categories. Verse 27, God created man in his own image, his character qualities that are unique to humanity, not to the rest of creation, the unique privileges we have to carry out as a result of that. God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, He created them. Genesis 1:27 is where you develop your core convictions about gender. Because if you don't start here, where will you? If you don't take God's Word from page one day six male and female two categories fixed from the beginning, unchanging forever. When will you start taking God's word serious? It's rather arbitrary, isn't it? I don't know about Genesis 1 and 2. I think it's kind of poetry. I heard some person say that once. It's it's poetic narrative. It's poetic allegory. I don't even know exactly if Adam and Eve were real people. And so you take that first wrong step that Eve took when Satan came and said, Did God really say that? Can you really trust him? Can you be smarter? Can you be as smart as him? Well, the thing we'd have to see is, does it ever change in the Bible? Is gender ever seen anything otherwise besides male and female as you walk through the scripture. Well, just staying in Genesis alone when you move to Genesis 3 and there's the fall. And maybe because sin comes in, maybe the categories change. Well, if you get to chapter 5, when it's kind of a recap of all the generations, it's rather an overlooked chapter. The descendants of Adam, the book of generations, Genesis 5:1-2. You see that after the fall, 1,100 years later, when Noah is around, nothing has changed. This is the book of the generations of Adam in the day when God created man. He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and he blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created. And then chapter 5 takes you 1100 years, all the way up to the time that Noah was born. Nothing changes in those categories. Genesis 6 came about when man began to multiply on the face of the land. God looks down at his creation, and he sees in verse 5, the wicked wickedness of man was great on the earth, and every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So he's going to send a flood, he's going to start over. And when he starts over, maybe he starts over with some new categories. Maybe he's going to just say, Noah, just whoever wants to come on the ark. It doesn't matter. Male and female. Just bring whoever. Actually, it's quite the opposite. God is very specific in how the world's going to start over again after the flood. Genesis 6:19, and of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark to keep them alive with you. Human flourishing, even the animal kingdom flourishing is going to be built on this line. "They shall be male and female". So it's not just exclusive to humans, it's what?...it's in the animal kingdom too. The very simplicity of Genesis 6:19 shows us natural law proves that this is how society is going to continue. And throughout the rest of the Old Testament, it goes that way. But then what about the New Testament? Maybe you say I'm a red letter Christian. Jesus is my creed. I follow what he says. I don't know, you know, all this stuff in the Old Testament, it's just Neanderthal. It's pre-modern. I'm a Jesus Christian. All right, well, Jesus says this in Matthew 19 when questioned on the issue of marriage and divorce, verse 4, Matthew 19, he answered and said to the Pharisees, have you not read? So he's pointing them back to the Old Testament that he, God, created them, Adam and Eve, from the beginning. And then he quotes directly, making them male and female. So if you're for Jesus, you say he's about love, he's about tolerance. He's about change. He's about accepting people as the way they are.  Not according to Him.  He loves people. He loves them where they are, but doesn't leave them there if they've been believing a lie, does he? He takes them right back to Genesis 1:27. And then he adds, for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh. It's repeated in Mark 10:6, affirming the special creation of Adam and Eve in the beginning. In the genealogy of Luke 3:38, Luke connects Jesus being born all the way back to Adam...human lineage. That's the history of mankind all the way up to Jesus. Paul reiterates in Ephesians 5:30 and 32 that the basis on which we build our marriages between male and female is all the way back to Adam and Eve...Christ and the church, two categories. 1 Corinthians 11:8-12 Paul argues for family order because of Adam and Eve. So here's where we land. God has made clear throughout the entire council of His Word what no amount of Satanic lies can change. Gender is a fixed, God ordained reality, not the fluid fantasy narrative it's become today. Now here's something interesting. I typed that phrase...gender is fixed, not fluid into Google because I do things like that often. Just curious what would come out and artificial intelligence Google AI kind of rebuked me. Never been rebuked by AI. I typed in...gender is fixed, not fluid. And this is what Google AI said back to me. No, gender is not fixed. It's a social construct that changes over time and varies from society to society and different from sex. Gender is socially constructed, gender can change. Gender is different from sex. And I said thanks Google AI you just gave me sub points. Three lies there. Did you catch them? It's a social construct. That's a lie. It's a God construct. It changes over time. That's a lie. God sets it and it stays that way. And gender and sex can be artificially separated out. Yes, I know on one hand they're talking about sex being biological and gender being social or philosophical or environmental, I get that. But what they're trying to make the case and build is you can pull them apart and say, one is this and one is that, and the form doesn't have to match the function. I actually, I was curious. I was like, how like, you know, personal does Google AI get. So I was like, I'm going to try something else. I'll type in the earth is flat...typed in, the Earth is flat. Google AI didn't have a response. It is interesting to me though, that it would attack that one, that it would respond to me as if it knows the facts. Well, let's take those lies and pull them apart first. Gender being a social construct, the truth that gender is God constructed. He made it, not us. Made me think about something in my own lifetime, going back to the 90s, my teenage days, and I wondered if the same advocates of gender fluidity today were the ones 30 years ago looking for the gay gene to justify homosexuality as fixed from birth. You notice how that just disappeared from any discussion, right? That it moved from...if we could just find a gay gene, which they never found. It's hard to even find credible information talking about it anymore. That you go from something...if you could just establish this thing that tells us something that is deviant from the way God designs is fixed, has disappeared, and now we have to say, okay, something in a new category, not sexual biology, but now gender behavior. That's what's fluid. So which is it? Is it fixed or fluid? Science has given us no more clarity today than it did in the 90s. Why? Because it's a shifting Satanic lie designed to confuse the sheep and destroy the family. Even I found an article in Psychology Today not written by a believer whose headline was...We need to drop this distinction. Move beyond it's socially constructed, because there's a contradiction inherent in it. His main thesis is gender cannot simultaneously be socially constructed and inherent to the individual. He goes on to say that the APA's definition...the Association of Psychology of America. Sex refers to biological apparatus. Gender refers to cultural expectations and norms. And he admits, drawing on this distinction, when people say that gender is socially constructed tends to assert that sex is independent of gender. But this is what I put up there. However, if gender is an arbitrary creation of society, how is it possible for it also to be internal and inherent as a sense of self? This is not a Christian writing this. This is somebody who's not reading Genesis. This is somebody just pointing out it doesn't pass the test of logic. It is not possible for gender to simultaneously be an arbitrary product of the culture you're in, and an inherent experience of the individual. It can't be simultaneously self-chosen and the product of socialization. Are you catching what he's saying? This idea of artificially separating the two through by way of a social construct. Maybe you're not into following, you know, that line of logical argument. You just want something more pop culture and symbol. So I found another article written by a female who now says she's a man, and she is arguing that gender is fluid and because her life proves it. And at the end she closes with the line, so go out there and be exactly who you were born to be. That sounds fixed, as Lady Gaga says, born this way. So I'm born a certain way that actually isn't any way because I could choose whichever way I want to be. You have your feet planted firmly in midair, don't you? And I mean, it's laughable, but it's tragic that young and old are buying this lie because it gives you no sense of where you stand in the world. If simultaneously I am born a certain way, but I'm not because it can change whichever way the wind is blowing. However, I feel whatever the society tells me. Go and be whoever you were born, but you weren't born any way...we can't tell you that. That's the social construct lie. Then there's the gender can change, which is related to that. But we just build it on what we already saw in the Scripture that the Bible never says that gender changes. The Bible, written by 40 authors from three continents over 2000 years, maintains a perfectly consistent message from beginning to end on the most important matters. Salvation is from God alone in Christ alone, but also on these other matters of understanding who we are and where we fit in. And the gender being male and female only, and always throughout is one of those truths. And then lie number three from AI. Gender is separate, can be separated from sex in a way that they can be different. And the Bible teaches us that it cannot be artificially separated. The Bible teaches us from Genesis 1:27 that who we are is determinative for what we do. Said another way who we are biologically determines what we do behaviorally. You cannot separate those two out. We see it in Genesis 1:27 right after it says, male and female, he created them. Then he tells them, now that's your form. Here's the function...I bless you. Go be fruitful and multiply. There's a biological and behavioral lesson right in there. And we also know that throughout the Bible, the act of homosexuality is proof of the same reality. It's always called a sin, when a person acts in a way against his or her created nature...always a sin. Never put in a new category. There's no divide. That is an observable truth of natural law through general revelation, and it's a revealed truth of special revelation. It's particularly spoken of in Romans chapter 1. If you want to turn there, starting in verse 18, an anti-God narrative Paul addresses that has attacked the truth that through lies wants to suppress righteous living andgodly living for the cause of unrighteousness and ungodliness. That's there in verse 18. Paul sets a stage for where humanity is and is headed, and it's a downward spiral. Sin is always a downward spiral. Seeking self over God always takes you down the wrong path. That's the message of Romans 1:18 to 32, but it starts with any individual in 18 to 20, denying which is evident within them and around them. Verse 19. Natural law, the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. And remember what I said from the beginning. This is about an attack on the truth. These unrighteous and godly men suppress the truth. Why?...in unrighteousness. That's what they want. They want their sin. That's why they do it. Rebellion against God. Verse 19, but yet that which is known about God is evident within them. They know it naturally. He's not even saying that special revelation or the Word of God has come into the equation here. God has made this evident to them. Verse 20, since the creation of the internet...No, they didn't have to wait for the internet to understand this. We didn't need the enlightenment to understand this. Since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes and eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Ever since creation, the same loop has been played. But rather than humans move upwards toward God and true godly wisdom, they move downward toward sin in human wisdom. Verse 22, professing to be wise, they became fools. It didn't happen overnight, but with every choice to stand opposed to what God has already said and by the lie of Satan and what man says, further down they go, professing to be wise, becoming fools, taking the glory of God, corrupting it...false gods. Verse 24 all the way to 32 is now here's what God gives them over to the lusts in their heart, the ungodliness, the impurity, the dishonoring of bodies, degrading passions. And then 26 and 27 talk about why we can't separate gender from sexuality and say that it's acceptable behavior. People change. No it's not. It's actually a change from what does it say in verse 26, natural function for that which is unnatural right there in your Bible is the blinking lights that say, look back at Genesis 1:27 and 28. That's what he's talking about here, the natural being taken away with the unnatural. Men, abandoning the natural function of women and burning in their desire toward one another, men committing indecent acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of that error. How far down does it go? All the way to verse 32. It's not just that a society sees it, allows it. It says those who practice such things are worthy of death. They not only do the same, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them....hearty approval. Acceptance. Celebration. So I have to ask you this morning, just on this first point, what societal sin do you see our country in now and heading headlong into further? And as it relates to politics, what can you do about it? We live in a country that we feel like we can do something about it if we choose to. But why would we choose to do it? Not because we're trying to score political points for a certain person or a party. We...our consciences are captive to the Word of God here. That's what it's about. It's theological above everything else. And you have to stand before what the Word of God makes plain as day. Natural law, revealed revelation, that the future of the God ordained institution of the family in Genesis one through the end of the Bible, divinely designed to build society, starts with gender as fixed. So what has your conscience been taken captive to?
Truth number two, the institution of family grows as children are a gift from God, not a curse on man. Connected to the creation of male and female in Genesis 1:27 and the next verse...first command God blessed them and said to them, we don't know what the blessing was, but as far as we know, here is the first charge he gives to this newly married couple. Be fruitful and multiply. How beautiful and simple that this is what he wanted Adam and Eve to know right out of the gates. Maybe I need to adopt that as not the Aaronic Blessing of number 6, but the Adamic blessing when I do premarital with couples, the last session I'm having with them, I should say bless you...have babies. Because that's what God said to Adam and Eve. That's where it goes. The second truth to stand for with no compromise is this. The implication is that God is for giving life, not aborting it. That's not a pro-life position. That's a pro God decision. It's a Biblical reality. It's a God truth. Life beginning at conception is theological and science caught up eventually. They were behind a few thousand years figuring out when does life begin? A few years back, biologists from over a thousand academic institutions were given a survey on when life begins, and there was 96% consensus. It begins at conception...scientists. So whatever discussion is being had that tries to pit theology against science, they're in accord where it starts. It begins at conception as an act of God. Well you say no...it's an act of man...granted. Who does the Bible say opens or closes a womb? God does. We're not in control of that. We pray to that end from the beginning. God is the only sovereign with the will and ability to create, sustain, and take life in the sanctity of human life starts with the will of our Creator, not the created. Everything we believe about abortion and the right to life hinges on our reading of Genesis one. Now it builds from there. We learn in Ezekiel 18 that when we're talking about life, we're talking about a soul. Who does that soul belong to? Who created the soul? Ezekiel 18:4 God says, behold, all souls are mine. So you start with the soul. It belongs to God...no exceptions. Every single person, righteous or wicked, who will live forever in eternity, is a soul that belongs to the One who gives life. Second, the opening of the womb for life is from God. Psalm 127:3,behold, children are a gift of the Lord. The fruit of the womb is a reward. I stopped and read that very slowly, because if you were here in first service, I said, the fruit of the loom is a reward. And it was a needed point of levity in the discussion. I accepted it as from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, which then got me thinking...distracted. Is that how fruit of the loom came up with their name? But that's for another day. Don't ask Google. God is in sovereign control over the ability to conceive. We learn this in Genesis in the narrative. I mean so much focus of the activity of God choosing Abraham on through the line of Isaac, and then to Jacob, always referred to as the patriarchs, even to the time of Jesus, always going back to talking about your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What consistent story do we learn about their wives? What's the thread that runs through their lives? Genesis 16:2 Sarah, the womb had to be opened by God. Genesis 25:21 Rebecca same thing. Genesis 30:22 Rachel same thing. Each one was barren until God opened the womb. You think he's telling a story there about who gives life and how he is going to keep the line of the Messiah moving on through redemptive history. It is going to be by no accident. It's going to be by his Sovereign will. Right from the beginning when he called Abraham and said, through you I will bless the world.  Third, the fullness of our days is from God. It's just not at the beginning, and it's all throughout, and it's all the way to the end. We learn this from Paul speaking in Acts 17 to a group of pagans...sermon on Mars Hill. And as they're trying to figure out who this unknown God is, he wants them to know. You may not know him, but he knows you. And how well does he know you? He knows you from the time you were a soul all the way throughout eternity. This is what Paul preached. The God who made the world Acts 17:24 and all that is in it. He is the Lord of heaven and earth. He does not dwell in temples made withhuman hands. He is not served by human hands as though he needs anything. He himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. That's the fundamental distinction between creator and created. He is not dependent upon his creation for anything. We are dependent on him for everything. And he made from one man, Paul's going back to Adam and Eve, every nation of mankind, to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and boundaries of their habitations That's how much God knows where every person is going to be, where they're going to go...that they would seek God; perhaps they might look for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. Isn't that a wonderful truth? I don't know where all of you are this morning. I recognize most of you, but somebody out there could be new. And you might have come in here searching this morning, searching for truth, searching for God because you thought he was far from you. Do you know he is not far from you? You know that you're sitting under the teaching of His Word is his grace to you. He wants you to know him. He wants you to be amazed by him. He wants you to know the truth about yourself no matter how lost you are today...and confused and angry. None of that deters God's interest in you because he made you. You're by his design, and he's designed your life all the way up to this point to put you in that seat right here to be told he's looking for you. He sees you. And what he wants you to know about him is you can know him through his Son, Jesus Christ, the Son that he loved and he sent to die for a sinner like you. And whatever sin is in your life, whatever guilt, whatever shame, whatever you've done, he says, it can be forgiven if you call upon the name of his Son thismorning. You can be saved. He did all of that for you. And you sit there and you are a recipient of his grace. But you have to first see he's a holy God who has a holy law that's expected to be obeyed. And we can't keep it, but we can turn to him and ask for forgiveness of our sins for us breaking it. Would you call upon him today? And then, as Paul says, to close, in him we live and move and exist. And he says, your poets, your pagan writers even know this. What point am I making there? That the fullness of your days is from God? The clear account from the Bible is that God fundamentally is the giver of life, the sustainer of life, and only he has the right to take it. But who wants to usurp that right?...Satan, the liar and the murderer from the beginning. He wants to end all life and he doesn't care when it happens. He just wants it to happen. He comes to steal, kill and destroy. Satan is the one on the wicked side of history wanting to end every human life, not give it. I remember walking past pictures in Frye when our first son was born 12 years ago, and there was a great theological point there on the wall. Doctor Seuss made it. A person is a person, no matter how small. We all start out as a tiny zygote, full of all the genetic information we will ever need to live. The Human Genome Project went on from 1990 to 2003. If you don't know anything about it, just look for a guy that looks like that and ask him. Somebody with that haircut clearly knows how to tell you about the Human Genome Project. But it was the idea that if we could map our genetic code, it could lead to us being able to understand how we can help human life flourish even more. I think it was done with good motives, and it was to map out 3 billion letters of our DNA. You learned those in grade school or somewhere. A, C, T and G, and it's repeated in sequence 3 billion times in our DNA this sequence happens. In fact, somebody probably that guy figured out that if you would, from the time you were born till you turned a hundred said A, C, T or G, every second, you would finally do it 3 billion times. And it took thousands of scientists from 1990 to 2003 to get 80% of it working all the time, funded by billions of dollars to figure that double helix out that God does for every single person at every single conception, just like this. There's no comparison in the brilliance and wisdom of God and how he designs us from conception. No mere clump of cells was God's precious handiwork. Psalm 139:13 to 16 has such wonderful language when it says, you formed my inward parts. Verse 13, you wove me in my mother's womb. And then later in verse 15, my frame was not hidden from you. When I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth. And that skillfully wrought phrase was in my head this week as my family, we were reading through a children's story Bible where the writer just would take sections, chapters, and kind of put them together and just telling a little story for them. And we hit some dry toast, as I call it, not fresh bread. Exodus 35 to 39 talking about the Tabernacle, because it's just a lot of very talented, skilled people, make these curtains and make this high priestly garment and put on some pomegranates, whatever those are, I know they're not the fruit, but whatever. And weave them and they keep saying this word. And I was reading it. And then the writer talked about how these two guys, Bezalel and Aholiab, apologies, men, if I butchered your names. And she just had such a picturesque way of describing how they would have to take the strands of purple and take the satin and cut it and line it up, and then twist it together, and it was dry for me. I'm like, how am I going to get it's 7:30. These kids don't want to listen to how to make a tabernacle curtain. And then it hit me. It said in those sections that they were doing this work, Weaver's work. And it triggered skillfully wrought. And so Nerd Dad looks up the word in the Hebrew. It's used nine times in the Old Testament. Eight of them are in Exodus 35 to 39. The ninth time it's used in Psalm 139, when you and I were skillfully wrought, just like those weavers work, just like taking every strand and the detail of an artist putting together the most beautiful thing worthy of God in a tabernacle. He took you and me and in our DNA. 23 and 23. 46 chromosomes, weaving them together, making you exactly the way you are today. He does it for every person it exists. Those that don't acknowledge him makes him with the same intricate care and love...fearfully and wonderfully made. And any life...and no, it's no less prized and precious because of size at conception or location inside of a womb versus outside, or an evil situation surrounding the origins of that life. It doesn't change that life's preciousness at all. That's the hardest issue, isn't it? Sexual assault is heinous. Despicable.Heartbreaking. God hates it and hates it and hates it. It can't be said enough. And yet, Biblically speaking, that baby's life is no less deserving of protection because of the means by which it came into existence. God ordained that we live. He made us. He formed us. He breathed life into us. He opened the womb for us. He knew who he wanted us to be. That's the truth. Those aren't political talking points. Those are theological starting points with eternal endpoints. Truth number two.
Truth number three. The institution of family will remain as marriage is kept as a covenant promise, not a convenience contract. You build from the first two. You have to keep male and female in their categories, and you have to protect life. And then you have to protect the idea of marriage being built on covenant promise, not this contract of convenience that our culture has made it. You have to understand what marriage is in order to rightly promote it and protect it. If you don't understand that marriage is between male and female only, then you'll fall prey to the culture's narrative. Even the phrase same sex marriage is a contradiction in terms. It might be a marriage in the eyes of society who have changed the meaning of it. But according to the Bible, according to God's view, it's a mirage of a marriage. It's not the real thing. And all the talk of love, being love and commitment doesn't change the fact that God sets the parameters for what a marriage is. It's between male and female. So when people ask me, pastor, I have this wedding of a family member, a friend. I love them deeply. Should I go? I say, is it a marriage? It's not. So what are you going to see? I don't know, but it's not a marriage according to the scripture. And if you don't understand that, then how can you promote the right view of it? If you don't understand that marriage is a covenant meant to be honored for life, then you won't protect it from a culture of convenience that says if you don't like it, just quit. Harry, who was here with our men last week and preached here, said to the guys last weekend, marriage is a covenant, not a contract. It's not. If you will, then I will. It's I will whether you do or not. That's what a covenant promise is. I'll keep my side of the deal...even if you don't. It's not...you do this, I do that. And our culture sees it entirely differently. Their solution to keeping marriages together is cohabitation. Interesting thing is, 34% of couples who live together before marriage end in divorce. 22% who don't live to before marriage end in divorce. So clearly cohabitation isn't the solution. You got to live and get to know the person beforehand. The number one reason divorced couples gave recently, 75% of them summarized it as this...lack of commitment. I no longer was committed to them. They were no longer committed to me. We were no longer committed to each other. Sure, they would acknowledge there were other pieces of the puzzle that contributed to that, but 75% said it was lack of commitment. I didn't want to stay in it. And our culture has embraced the idea of no fault that's spread to the church. And now irreconcilable differences is an accepted explanation for many endings. Now, in bringing these to our attention, these statistics, it's to show how far our nation has fallen as a culture, what we used to call the sanctity of marriage and the protection we showed it. And yet, I want to say this that the Bible does have a permissible reality for divorce, though it wasn't God's intention. Even Jesus said that...Moses had to create this. Moses had to come up with this idea because of how you guys had trodden over the sanctity of marriage. In our church, we strive to maintain a high view of marriage and the hard work of forgiveness to keep them together, while also understanding that the Bible makes provision for divorce in the cases of adultery and abandonment. And I do want to make clear this morning, as much as I can, that we as elders, leaders, life group leaders, flock leaders will continue to fight for every marriage in this room. That's our first step. That's our instinct. We're going to do it. It's never pleasant. It's hard because you're coming into something that didn't happen overnight, and it's going to take a lot of work to get out of. But we've seen God do it. And so that gives us from the hope of the Word of God and the healing we've seen...why we're going to keep stepping right back into it. And all that said is we won't promote any attitude in this church that would treat a divorced or remarried person as a second class Christian. How you walk in the door is how we get you. Whatever has happened before is how we receive you. We're going to try to help you where you're at. We can't undo what's already been done. Paul says very clearly in 1 Corinthians 7, stay in the condition that you're in. And so if you're in the condition of marriage in here, and even if it's a mess, we're here to help you where you're at, because we believe in that covenant promise. We believe it's a display of the gospel...Ephesians 5:22 to 31. The mystery of marriage is this the gospel displays Christ's love for his church, which is then what we try to display in our marriages through forgiveness and commitment. John Piper writes it this way in his book, This Momentary Marriage. The ultimate thing we can say about marriage is that it exists for God's glory. It's patterned after Christ's covenantal relationship to his redeemed people. Therefore, the highest meaning and most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenantal relationship of Christ and His bride on display. Keeping our covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God's covenant with us in Christ. Marriage is not mainly about being or staying in love. It's about telling the truth with our lives. When he calls marriage a mystery in Ephesians 5, it's not because the basics of it haven't been known to humanity since the beginning. The mystery of it was that it tells the story of the gospel, the sacrificial love of Christ for his church.  
So as we bring this all together this morning, talking about gender, talking about children, talking about marriage, the question for you is how will you steward these truths that you know? If we are to be salt in a culture that's declining and decaying, what can you do to support the righteousness and justice that God has built his world with? Psalm 89:14, righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. So what throne are you bowing before right now? Is how you view the way our culture is going...is it more worried about the throne in DC or is it more worried no matter what happens? Are you saying what I'm obligated to do is to support the throne that God sits on whose foundations...the two things that matter most...Righteousness not wickedness. Justice...not corruption.Truth not lies. I made no mention of person or party today. Because all I care about is the truth. That every thought that you came in here with and will leave with has been taken captive to the Word of God. What God has fixed in gender let no man deviate. What God gives in conception, let no man take away. And what God has brought together in marriage let no man separate. Because all of it is about the institution of the family that God has designed for his glory and our good.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word this morning. We thank you for its simplicity, that we could go back to the beginning of Genesis 1 and be so shaped by it, strengthened by it, and in the hope that we have in Jesus Christ the steadfastness of Christ. He himself directs our hearts to your love, that we see that the way you design the family to operate in its form and its function, was a gift of your love. You had the best idea for it from the beginning. Help us to get back to that. Do what we can, individually and as a church and as a society, that people would see our good deeds and praise you in heaven and know you sit on a throne of righteousness and justice. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.

 

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Be Salt: Life Changing Living for Eternal Influence

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Well, listen. Greetings, Hickory Bible Church. I usually say...I probably should say good morning and greetings from the Master's University and Seminary, where I serve on the board, and was there last week, and they know that I'm here. I now serve in Franklin, Tennessee with the former Adam. Adam was the person that served with me in student life at the university, and we built a friendship and a relationship, and I've enjoyed both our personal fellowship with Adam and Shannon and the opportunities we've had to fellowship through the years, and then to be a part of your church by engaging your elders and getting to know them, and then periodic opportunities to talk to you, and especially the men yesterday. It was just a joy to be here. And I do bring you greetings from the West Coast and from Franklin, Tennessee, which is not that far away. Um. I so look forward. I had booked this trip. I agreed to do it back in when I was in California, and it was circled in orange because it's fall. And I thought, man, this is going to be my favorite travel. I travel about once a month and this was my look forward to it trip to be in North Carolina at this time of year. I was telling Adam, walking over, this is the best time of year in my view. And it's just I love the fall, the anticipation of the colors, the crispness of the air. And I know things are unsettled because of the storm. So there's a part of this season that feels different because of the way this area of the country has been impacted. And my church in Franklin is both praying for North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, and it's been a challenge for so many, and it sobers us all. It certainly has me. Well, I'd like you to take your Bible and join me in Matthew's gospel, chapter five...Matthew chapter five. And I've entitled this sermon Salt Different to Make a Difference...impactful, intentional, eternal influence. The genesis for this message is an observation of the rapid decline of our culture. I mean, it's one thing for the culture to be declining, and it has for years. But what's sobering is the rapidity of the decline. The things that are happening now that you couldn't even foresee, at least I couldn't in my lifetime. And the dramatic spiral is discouraging. And it's also impactful to the church because another observation that is the genesis for this message is the church, instead of engaging, is withdrawing. And my hope today is to encourage you to be a difference maker in a world that God intends for you to have influence and impact...intentional influence and impact. And Jesus Christ in the greatest sermon ever preached by the greatest preacher who has ever lived, our Savior speaks in chapters five, six, and seven about Kingdom realities. The greater Moses will say famously in this section...what you have heard they have said, but I say unto you. You have heard it said, but let me tell you how it really is. And with rabbinic divine authority he calibrates his kingdom and those outside of it, and those who are in it. And in chapter 5he makes a statement in his kingly authority because he's going to sit down on a mountaintop. Multitudes are following him, and the King of creation is going to authoritatively pour out his heart about essential critical truths relative to understanding what you must understand if you're a Kingdom citizen. Or what you must understand if you're not and you want to be. And housed in this section very early on is our text to open our time together today. One verse, a declaration he has said famously already, the means to blessing. If you want to know the virtues and the realities that attract the blessing of God, nine times Jesus says, in my kingdom, this is what God blesses. This is who gets blessed. Even if life is hard, God blesses the one who is enduring hardship for his name's sake. And that's how Matthew chapter five begins the beginning of the sermon. But our focus this morning is verse 13, which introduces two figures of speech...salt and light. We're going to focus primarily on salt for the sake of time, but I'm going to read the section and just comment about the light, because this is from how to be blessed to how to be a blessing. If you're a Kingdom citizen, I want you to know who you are. And because you are who you are, I want you to act like you should act to the end, that the world is blessed and God is blessed.
Follow the words. Verse 13, You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing anymore except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. Second figure...You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under the peck measure, or a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Watch Verse 16. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. As the light of the world, you're to bless the Father by living as you ought to live in a way that undeniably points people to him. Secondly, which blesses him. But the focus for today is blessing them, which blesses him. Verse 13. Watch the emphatic words. He says, you are...present, active, indicative. That is, it's true today. It's true every day. You are an everyday and everywhere influence, because you are the salt. Notice the definite article...the salt. There isn't any other. It's exclusively you. It's the kingdom citizens. You are the salt to the whole earth. You're the salt of the earth...the earth, all of it. The definite article indicating there is no other. And you benefit everyone everywhere. That's a declarative statement of reality.
My preaching hope today is that you will leave here today with a compelling conviction...I am something. I am salt. If you're in the Kingdom of God, you are this. I'm hopeful today that you will leave with a determined intention to be what you are, salty and with the hopeful expectation that when you are what you are, you will see the fruit that is guaranteed. Because salt, when it's potent and it's present, has power. My hope today is you'll see the sobering statement unless you're not potent. Which soberingly Jesus says, if you've become tasteless, that's you've lost the properties of salt. You're not potent. If you've become tasteless, first of all, how will it be made salty again? It's very difficult to do. Once you've forfeited your influence and your potency, it's hard to recover it. So protect it. And then he says this very sobering. It's good for nothing anymore. It's not a blessing to the world. And the world knows it's not a blessing. It's not useful.  It's not valuable. So, what does the world do except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men, which is a way of saying contempt, unwanted, not needed, not desired. Because a tasteless kingdom citizen, one who is not salty, is not useful. So I wanted to highlight for you the four things that salt would be understood to do and be at the time Jesus made those statements. Because with this figure of salt, Jesus is calling his citizens to be something because their life needs to impact everyone they engage. Four things...let me give the four of them to you at the outset. Salt is a picture of purity. It was white, refined. It was pure. Number two a powerful preservative. Sodium chloride...salt is a preservative. Number three, a provider of pleasure. Salt is a seasoning. And number four, a prompter of passion...thirst because salty makes you thirsty. Now remember, you are these things. Therefore, you need to be these things and the guarantee is your life will make a difference. It'll be impactful. It'll be a blessing. It'll be useful. Let me tell you why I would say that because at the time Jesus made this statement, it would be helpful to know that salt was highly valued. The Greeks called salt divine from the gods. The Romans had a kind of jingle in Latin that said, there is nothing more useful than the sun and salt. It was called white gold. It was rare. Taxes and wages were often paid in salt. Often Roman soldiers were paid in salt, which is where we get the concept...not worth his salt. Not worth his wages. He's not a useful, valuable soldier because he is not worth his salt. One of the greatest compliments you could give was to call someone the salt of the earth, because it meant that their life was understood to be valuable, useful, meaningful. And Jesus is saying you possess useful, powerful qualities...desirable, like salt is desirable.
So today we're going to consider the four qualities of salt and therefore the four necessary priorities of a Christian. So my desire is today you would understand what you are, the qualities that ought to characterize you, and the priorities, therefore, that you need to possess and pursue, so that your life does what salt is supposed to do. So that you're not tasteless. Because if there's anything the world needs, it needs an abundance of salt.  
The number one quality that we're going to start with, what you are and what you need to be has to do with purity. Salt was connected to purity at that time. If refined, it was brilliant white, as I said, piles of it glistening in the sun. The Romans said salt was the purest of all things, because it came from the purest of all things, the sun and the sea. Pythagoras, a Roman historian in 600 BC circa 600 BC, said, this, "salt is born of the purest of parents, the sun and the sea." Salt was used as a primitive offering to the gods, symbolizing purity. Even Mosaic law.Leviticus 2:13 says, every oblation of your meat offering you shall season with salt. Listen to 2 Kings Chapter 2, where it aligns salt with purity or connects salt with purity. Listen to these words. This is Elisha using salt as an ingredient of purifying power. Verse 19. Second Kings 2. Then the men of the city that's Jericho said to Elisha, behold, now the situation of this city is pleasant. Now the reason they're saying it's pleasant is because Jericho is an oasis in the desert. It's called the City of Palms. It's a pleasant situation, as my Lord sees. But despite that situation and the potential, the water is bad. It's impure. And the land, therefore is unfruitful...barren. And Elisha said, therefore bring me, listen to this, a new jar, and put salt in it. So they brought it to him, and he, Elisha, went out to the spring of water and threw salt into the water and said, thus says Yahweh, I have purified these waters. There shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer. So, verse 22, so the waters have been purified to this day according to the word of Elisha, which he spoke. There's symbolism here. Bring me a new vessel. Liken that to a new creation vessel...a Christian. Housed in that vessel put salt. Pour that salt into impure water, bad water in an unfruitful, barren land. And the application of that salt has the power to purify. And that's symbolic of what salt is supposed to do. It's supposed to be an agent that promotes purity. So the first thing that a Christian is to be in this culture, I'm going to argue as the salt of the earth is to be a picture of purity, so that when people see your brilliant white life, they're affected. You calibrate the culture because you give them an inspiring picture of what purity is when you're living in a way that is honorable. As a Christian and a Kingdom citizen, you are to be a purifying ingredient and an influence in the culture because you show them what right is and what wrong is. You are to be the standard by which the world measures right and wrong. Jesus prayed in the high priestly prayer that we're in the world as his disciples. But were what?...not of it. James says in James 1:27, we're to keep ourselves unspotted by the world. We're to be in it, but not of it...unspotted by it. We're not to isolate ourselves from it, but we're not to become like it. William Barclay wrote, the Christian must be the person who holds aloft the standard of moral purity in speech and in conduct. Turn with me to Colossians chapter 4, and I want to give you some Biblical categories when you think about being a model of morality or a picture of purity. It involves at least three categories Biblically...one speech, two conduct, three attitude, speech, conduct, and attitude. You'll know this verse, but feel it today in the context of this message. Verse 5. Chapter 4. The book of Colossians...Paul writes to the church at Colossae...conduct yourselves. In other words, live life this way with wisdom toward outsiders. Okay, so the focus is outward, not inward, making the most of the opportunity. What opportunity?...to be an agent of influence. How? Verse six. Let your speech always be with grace. Now watch it, seasoned as it were, with salt, so that you may know how you should respond to each person. Conduct yourself so that you maximize your influence. And one of the ways you maximize your influence is with your mouth. Gracious speech as if it were seasoned with salt. Pure speech is gracious speech. Look, salty speech is not sailor speech. It's not soldier speech. Its Christian speech, salty language for the Christian, is seasoned with salt grace speech...toward outsiders in a way that has impact on the outsider, and it takes advantage of the opportunity. Let me color that out even a little more. Go over to Ephesians chapter four, parallel book. People say...commentators say the ink was still wet on Colossians when Ephesians was written, or Ephesians was wet when Colossians was written. They were written together. Similar time, similar space, house arrest in Rome, similar themes but different foci and different places. Listen to Paul in the same kind of context speak about speech. And the context here in Ephesians four is in the context of walking in a way worthy. Worthy walking...worthy because you've been blessed in a bombastic way. Saved by grace through faith. Dead in your trespasses. Chosen before the foundation of the world.God sends his Son. Ransoms you. Delivers you out of love and mercy to you. He rescues you. He saves you. He adopts you. He seats you with his Son in the heavenlies, and he's going to lavish grace upon you for all of eternity. That's why we long to go home. And because of all the benefit, reconciled to God, reconciled to one another, recipients of incomprehensible love.Paul says, walk like that in a worthy way, consistent with that, as if there's balances. You got blessed. Live like you've been blessed. That's the context for this statement on speech. Verse 29. Ephesians four. Worthy walking is gracious, life giving talking. Verse 29, Let no unwholesome word. Now the word unwholesome is a word for being rotten, spoiled. In other words, if you open the refrigerator and you smell it, you back away and you know that if you eat it, it'll make you sick. It's that word. It's impure. Let no impure, unwholesome, rotten words proceed from your mouth. But only. And I've circled only in my Bible...only. No exceptions, no exclusions, but only such a word as is good...practically good for edification. The word edification means to build up, to strengthen the soul of someone else. Don't say it if it doesn't strengthen somebody. The only words that ought to come out of a worthy walking Christian are words that are elevating, strengthening, encouraging, gracious words. And then watch this. According to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. Gracious speech produces gracious outcomes. But the word grace here has to do with favor, benefit, blessing. God expects his children to have speech seasoned with salt. And that kind of speech is life giving speech. Listen, we're in an angry, abusive, rude, harsh culture, and we get treated sometimes in ways that justifies attitudes and actions and language that is not congruous with who we are. Look at verse four of chapter five where this idea of salty speech. Christian speech. Worthy speech. There's a kind of speech that ought not be present among us. It's not fitting. Verse four, there must be no filthiness. Now the word filthiness is the word for general obscenity. It's the word we would use for cussing. It's ignoble speech. It's not honorable speech. It's cussing. It's foul language. That's what filthiness is...foul language. Now we're in a culture that is influenced as he seems, even the Christian, because I meet a lot of Christians who cuss and I sometimes meet or hear a pastor who cusses. Let me tell you what, that is...a contradiction. Because what this verse will say there should be no filthiness, no cussing. It's not fitting, no moral logea verse four. That's silly talk. You hear the word moronic in there. Logea is the word for word. Moronic words.Silly talk. Think tabloid talk. Think social media talk. Think the kind of subject celebrity talk that consumes much of our culture. You know what that is?...silly talk. It's shallow talk. Thirdly, no coarse jesting. That’s sexual innuendo. That's where you try to get somebody to laugh by saying something that has a double meaning. Verse 12, same chapter, it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. There's things you don't talk about. There's things that are ignoble. It's just not subject matter that is worth voicing, and which is why verse four says these are not fitting. They're not consistent with kingdom speak. Christians, you're the salt of the earth. You're a model of morality, an icon of integrity. You're a picture of purity by what you say and what you don't say. But it's not just our words, it's our conduct. Notice verse two where the Christian is called to walk in love. Chapter five, verse two. Walk in love just as Christ also loved you. Now watch this...sacrificially gave himself up for us, which was an offering and a sacrifice to God, which God received as a fragrant aroma. Now, don't miss this. Christian, you're a part of my kingdom. You've been bombastically blessed. You've been redeemed at great cost by a sacrificial lamb. And he, God, wants you to sacrificially serve others like you have had sacrificial benefit and service to you. Walk like that. And what that is, is an offering to God and a blessing to men because you're serving them sacrificially, which is what love is. That's what you do. But what you don't do. Verse three is you do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Now, the key word in this passage is impurity, sensuality governed by your carnal desires and passions. You act out because I want what I want. I'm inflamed by that passion. I cross boundaries morally. I'm immoral in my conduct...porneia. I violate the bounds of purity as it relates to marriage and sexual activity. I'm looking at things I shouldn't look at. I'm involved in things I shouldn't be involved in. I'm transgressing in ways that make me immoral because I have an impure motivation. And that impure motivation doesn't just involve sexually acting out... And listen, it's dramatically sobering to see how many Christians are not committed to honor before marriage or honor in marriage by what they do, who they talk to, what they watch. But this kind of sensual passion, which is not fitting among saints. It's not proper, includes greed, a passion for stuff. I want this. It dominates me. It's my motivating desire to have it, to get it, to take it. And a Christian who is a picture of purity is a giver, not a taker. They're a sharer. They have a heart of a kingdom citizen...speech, conduct. And let me mention attitude, because verse four ends interestingly after it says, don't talk like this. It says those things are not fitting filthiness, silly talk and coarse jesting which are not fitting, but rather...do you see that the adversative don't talk like that, but what it says is but rather giving of thanks. What ought to be the expression of your mouth is the attitude of your heart. You know what I am? I'm grateful. I'm grateful to God for the life I have. I'm grateful for the friends I have. I'm grateful for his kindness to me. Listen, there's a lot of challenges in life. We all have them. But the blessings and the abundance and the realities that we have, if we're alive and if we have the hope of heaven is boundless. And our mouth and our attitude ought to reflect it, because we're a picture of what people ought to look like, not just by what they say, not just by what they do, but the attitudes that they express. I used to tell my children, attitude is everything, and you don't show a good attitude until you're in a bad attitude situation, because gratitude is to be expressed in everything. Give what? Thanks. Turn over to Philippians chapter 2, verse 14, where you kind of get the same idea of positive and peaceful good attitudes are relationship building, not relationship dividing. Verse 14 Philippians 2 says, do all things without grumbling. That word means complaining. It's actually not even a word. It's a sound. Do all things without (grumbling sound) I don't like this, I don't accept this, and I'm displaying an attitude that reflects that. And then it goes on to say do all things...did you see the all? Do all things without grumbling or disputing. That's complaining. That's arguing. That's divisive speech. Do all things without grumbling or disputing. Look at why...that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent. Do you know what that is?...pure...children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. You see, you're living in the midst of perversity and a broken and crooked world, and in that world you're to be different. You're not to be argumentative and unkind and grumble and complain and fight and dispute. Look, you look on the internet.  The problem with many times is not between unbelievers, with unbelievers, it's Christians, with everybody, Gentiles who don't know God act out as sinners and Christians say things that aren't anything like this. In the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world. You're supposed to direct them to heaven. How? By our attitude. Listen to Mark chapter 9, verse 50. Jesus is the speaker. He says this...salt is good, but if the salt becomes unsalty with what will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves. Now listen to how he describes salt in yourselves. Be at peace with one another. Stop the fighting. Stop the arguing. Stop the dividing because you're the salt of the earth.
Number two, the salt of the earth is not only a picture of purity, it is a powerful preservative. Turn with me to Luke chapter 14. Luke chapter 14. Here's a second thing you need to know about salt in the ancient world. It was valued because it was a preservative. Before refrigeration, salt was very valuable because it preserved things from going bad. Like meat. You salted meat. Salt was used to preserve meat from rot and decay. Salt was used so that good and valuable things were not rapidly corrupted. Look, salt couldn't keep a thing from going bad, but it inhibited bad corruption. Salt was valuable because it slowed spoilage. It preserved the value of things. Now let me make a parallel in a similar way, salty Christians, by their presence, will prevent and inhibit society's corruption and evil's rotting influence. Listen, all it takes for evil to prevail and prosper is for good men to do what?...nothing. What salty Christians are is to do something, to promote what's good and to inhibit what's evil. You know, we all know certain people in whose company it is easy to be good, and certain people in whose company it is easy for standards to be relaxed. There are some people you would use certain words and tell that story to, and there are others you would never dream telling that story to or using those words. You're to be the latter kind of person that by your very presence, people are reluctant to use bad language...bad behavior. Tell the sordid stories. Periodically, I'll get teamed up on a golf course. There'll be a guy with me and there'll be two guys teeing off. They like foursomes. They'll put me together. Me and my partner with somebody else. We'll tee. Hi. I'm Harry. Hi, Bob. We exchange names. Somewhere, typically along the third or fourth hole somebody in the other twosome will look over and say, Harry, what do you do? And I said, well, actually, I'm a pastor. I preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, I am so sorry. Because the language on the first three holes was what would be different language for the next 15 holes. Now, listen, I know preachers have a reputation that inhibits that, but every Christian should have a reputation that inhibits that. That's the idea of this. The Christian, says one commentator, must be a cleansing antiseptic in the society in which he happens to be. He must be the person who, by his presence, defeats corruption and makes it easier for others to be good. Look at verse 34 of Luke chapter 14. Preservative...powerful preservative. Verse 34 Jesus talking. Therefore salt is good. Now notice the word therefore. Therefore means it's connected to what he's just talked about. It's kind of a concluding connection. Well, what is he just been talking about? He's been talking about Christ first, Jesus over everything discipleship. He's actually stopped and he looked at the crowds, the ones who would be disciples because they're following him. And that's what discipleship is. It's following Jesus. But it's more than walking with Jesus. Jesus says in verse 26, this is the context of good salt. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Now, don't miss this. He's not saying you hate your kids. You hate your wife. You hate your family, or your own life. He's saying when you compare your love for me, that's like hate for them. So dramatic and obvious is your affection, your preeminent affection, the priority affection for me, the dominating desire and space and place I have in your life. It's like you hate everything else, including yourself. And you know what that is?...costly. Which is why he goes, hey, like a man building a tower, you better count the cost because you're going to have to make some choices. And it's also this decision you're going to make about following me and the cost attached to it. It has consequences. He's going to tell another illustration. He's going to describe two kings. A king with 20,000 Army men coming up against a weaker king with 10,000 army men. And Jesus says, listen, would the guy with 10,000, half the war force go and make a deal with the king, who has greater strength? Of course he would. He would broker a reconciliation, because the consequences of being an opposition to an adversary with such great power is catastrophic. God has more army men. And if you're going to be the adversary of the king coming, you need to reconcile with the king coming by being a disciple of the King on earth. You need to surrender. You need to submit. You need to follow. You need to exchange. You need to be a Christian. You know there's this idea that this kind of discipleship is extra level discipleship. Let me tell you what it isn't...that. Jesus said in John chapter ten, if you're my sheep, you hear my voice, and you do what? You follow me. And if you're going to follow me and be my disciple, which is more than a...I walk with you. I'm learning from you. I'm intending to become like you because that's what a disciple is. When it's all finished, he's like his master. I want to be like you, and I want to do your bidding. And I want to extend your work. I want to represent you. I'm a disciple. And Jesus said, you can't be my disciple unless I'm first over everything and everyone. Look at verse 33. So therefore, no one of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. What does that mean? Renounce my stuff as my priority. My house isn't. My car isn't my job isn't. All of my possessions are submitted to the one I follow. Look at verse 34. Therefore salt is good. The good salt, the salty kind, the tasty kind. The impactful kind is the Jesus first kind. And I'm going to give you a word...you need to be potent, because potent Christianity is Jesus first Christianity. Christ over everything. Now listen, we're not always going to hit that mark, but we're aiming at it. Because that's the salt that's good. And he goes on to say, but if even salt has become tasteless, so you're a follower and you've lost your convictions and your priorities with what will it be seasoned? How are you going to restore its potency? It's hard. Look at verse 35. It's useless if it's lost its potency...either for the soil or for the manure pile. Now, what does that mean? Salt, when it was added to the soil, was like a fertilizer. When properly dosed, it caused the good things to grow. And the manure pile...this is obvious...is a place where germs breed. And salt on it, the manure pile, inhibited germs corruption. So tasty salt, when it's in the soil, promotes growth,and potent salt when it's on the corruption, the manure...inhibits the bad. A Christian who is potent and in it the soil, the culture, life, the world promoting what's good. That's what tasty salt, potent salt does. And when it sees corruption and it engages, it's on it. It inhibits it. Let me tell you what a Christian should be...a promoter of growth and an inhibitor of corruption, because that's what salt in part is designed to do. You're to be a powerful preservative. You need to be engaged in the world in which you live, in the soil of our lives, in the soil of our culture. You need to be properly dosed in a way that promotes what's good in our culture, what's good for people. The good works that blesses the world in which you live. And you need to be in spaces and places that inhibit the downward spiral. Listen, you got to get out of the salt shaker, one book writer says, and into the world, because you can be as...look, this is great that you're here today. You need to be here today because God's people need to be inspired, stimulated, encouraged, and taught. But when you leave here today, the rest of your Christianity is important, and that is what you do in the world in which you live. Listen, Hickory, North Carolina is your space. I'm in Franklin, Tennessee. I'm not here. You're here. And this community, whatever it is that's good, needs the influence of the potent salt that you represent. And whatever's not good, you need to find a way to influence and discourage and inhibit. Because, look who wants to be on the manure. And there is manure. I was in Anchorage, Alaska, a couple of years ago doing a conference and speaking at a local church like this. And the church housed me at a hotel on Tudor Avenue in Anchorage. And I was excited because I rolled in and I saw there was a Starbucks attached to the parking lot. And I'm happy with Starbucks coffee. I know many aren't. And it's not because I desire to promote their values. I just like their coffee. And I know that puts me on the outs with some of you because you say...you're a coffee snob. I'm not. I'm an equal opportunity drinker. But anyway, the first morning I was there got up early, which is my habit, and I walked across the parking lot. And what I hadn't noticed yesterday was abundantly clear in the daylight. This was like no other Starbucks I'd ever seen. It was like somebody was having a rainbow party. The drive thru was draped in a rainbow, had this canopy over it. The pillars in the front were wrapped in rainbow ribbons. When I walked in...from corner to corner were flags and just banners and stuff. And they were not celebrating the promise of God to not flood the world. They were promoting a flood of corruption, actually. They were promoting dysfunction and rebellion. But what set that apart was not even that. It's the atmosphere in this Starbucks. You know, Starbuck's kind of thing is...community. Matter of fact, you walk in or when you make your order, it's hi, I'm Mary, what's your name? Harry. Hi, Harry. Welcome to Starbucks. What can I get you today? That's how it sounds. Oh, I'd like a venti pike. I'd like a few Splenda and some cream, please. Great. Thanks for serving me. It's a pleasure to have you here. That's something like that. You feel like. Hey, this is my team, my town. I'm a neighbor. This was not like that. What do you want? Oh, by the way, all the baristas had rainbow masks except one. I said I'd like a pike. A venti pike with cream and sweetener. Go stand by the wall. Now what that is, is cold and what it felt was oppressive. So I went and stood by the wall as instructed until they called venti, pike, Splenda and cream. I walked over, got my coffee, started through the eating area, and I started to google Christian coffee shops near me. You know why? I don't like the music they're playing. I don't like the decorations they're displaying. I don't like the attitude. I don't like anything. I'm hopeful that I'll like the coffee. And as soon as I googled that on my phone, this convicting thought went through my mind. Harry, this place needs what only a Christian possesses...the rainbow signs are a neon sign of corruption, saying this place right here is in need of disinfection. It needs a disinfectant, it needs preservation. So under the conviction that came with those thoughts, I sat down. I opened my Bible like I would do. I took clandestine photos of the baristas so I could pray for them by name. I've got them on my phone and I began to read my Bible and pray by name for those baristas and do what I do. I smiled a lot, tried to get them to smile, although you can only tell if their eyes wrinkled. And for five days committed myself to salting the corruption. And then on Sunday, preaching in a church like this, this is what I would have said. Hey, listen, I need a favor. I don't care where you buy coffee. Will you please buy yours at the Starbucks on Tudor Avenue. Because not worth a grain of salt means one grain is not enough. This place needs a heavy dose. Christian. I know why we want a bubble and bunker. I know we why we want to gather in places and spaces that are consistent with the sounds we like, the attitudes we like. But if we disengage our culture, we can't bless our culture. Salt in the shaker affects nothing. It needs to be potent and in it and on it to affect it. Turn over with me to Titus, chapter 1. I want to give you a Biblical illustration of this. I did not get to do this in the first service. I think I can pull it off in this second one because it's a powerful, inspired piece of theological and scriptural real estate that makes this point purity and powerful influence, promoting what is good and inhibiting what is bad. How you should live in a corrupt culture. Now, the reason Titus is so relevant, this is where Paul's talking to his son in the faith, Titus. And he says, go appoint elders on the Isle of Crete. And then there is this statement in verse 12, descriptive of the citizens of Crete. One of themselves.Verse 12. Chapter 1. Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, references a prophet of their own, who said, Cretans now watch the language are always liars, they never tell the truth. And Cretans are evil beasts. Evil has the idea with violent and ruthless. They're killers, they're ruthless killers. They're everyday liars. And they are lazy gluttons. That's freeloaders. I want something for nothing. Sound familiar? Yeah, it should sound familiar. But what's such a powerful and impactful thing is verse 13 says, that was Epimenides in 600 BC, who said that Paul quotes that quote and then he makes this statement, this testimony is true, this culture, this island...everybody never tells the truth. They're violent, hurtful, ruthless, and they want everything for nothing. It's an angry victim culture. Take care of me. Feed me. I'm going to manipulate you...a corrupt culture. And Titus is the message to Christians in a corrupt culture. And this is where you get older women teach younger women. Older men teach younger men. This is where you see the statement in verse 7 of chapter 2...young men are to be sensible. In all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds. Do you see the word good deeds? Stay with that with purity and doctrine, dignified sound in speech, which is beyond reproach, in order that the opponent may be put to shame, having nothing bad to say about us. In other words, every adversary to the truth you represent will be silenced, because they watch the way you walk and the way you talk. The sensible means it's consistent with what's rational. If you're a Christian, this is the way a Christian ought to live and walk and talk. And when they see you live and walk and talk that way, they'll be quiet. If you're living it, not just saying it. Look at verse 14 as in reference to Jesus Christ, chapter 2. It says of Christ Jesus, he gave himself for us. Look at the reason Jesus Christ redeemed us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed. Not only paying our debt so we don't have to bear the consequence of it, but to deliver us from the behavior of it. Every lawless deed and to purify, see that word himself, a people for his own possession. Jesus died so that you would abandon lawless activity from which you've been saved, and for which the price has been paid. So that he can live in you as his vessel, the purest one living in you. That you'll be a pure people for his own possession. Now watch this. Zealous for good works. Now, you already saw that in verse 7. An example of good deeds. Now he's saying, being zealous for good deeds. The word good...the normal one is agathos... practical good. Walk her across the street so she doesn't get hit by a car kind of good. Open the door for her. It's practical, good. This word is beyond practical good. It's kalos, good. The word kalos is so noble, so virtuous, so eye opening and mouth dropping that somebody goes, wow...good deeds. It is inspiring. So people see God. So valuable, so beautiful, so helpful. Be zealous for those kind of undeniable good deeds. Something that a people of God would do. Look at verse 1 of chapter 3, where the people of God are called to be ready for good deeds. That's prepared. So not only zealous for it, I want to, but I'm ready to. Look at verse 8, chapter 3. This is a trustworthy statement, and concerning these things, I want you to speak confidently so that those who have believed God may be careful, careful, to engage in good deeds. Now watch this. These things, when you do that, that is good and profitable for men, not just Christian men, all men. It's profitable. In what way? Because those deeds so powerfully pursued and zealously desired, they point people to Christ. You want a manual on salty living that preserves a culture? You do the things that cause the culture to go man. It profits them. Some of the things that are happening right now that Christians are doing, whether it's Samaritan's Purse or the things you're doing as a church, are profoundly impactful to the culture. Look at verse 2. Good deeds and good attitudes malign no one. The word malign means to blaspheme. Speak down call names, malign no one. Be uncontentious. Be gentle. I love this, showing every consideration for all men. You know what one translation says?...be perfectly courteous. Good deeds. Good attitudes. Why? Verse 3. For we once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hating and hateful, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness of God, our Savior, and His love for mankind appeared, he saved us. Now just look up for a minute. Why would I be gracious to a person who doesn't deserve it? Because I used to be messed up like they are. And God graciously fixed me up out of his kindness. The reason I'd be kind to them is because God's been kind to me. I know what it's like to be them because I was them. But God in his love through Jesus Christ. He saved me not by works of righteousness, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the regenerating, that's making new work of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior. We're justified by grace, verse 7, so that we can be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. You know what that is? That's a big blessing. God was kind to me that causes me to want to be kind to them, even though they're mistreating me. So good deeds and good attitudes and a good gospel message of what God did for me. He fixed me up. He can fix you up. Now, let me tell you what that is. That's powerful in a corrupt culture. And that's what Christians are. That's what preserves, that's what promotes, and that's what inhibits. Can you say amen? All right. I've got two left and I got two minutes. So let me finish. And actually that's probably five minutes late. Let me give you the last two.
Number three as the salt of the earth you are a provider of pleasure. You're a pleasing seasoning. Salt is a seasoning and it promotes satisfaction. It makes things tasty, not tasteless. Salt has a powerful ability to add flavor to things. It makes things better, more enjoyable. I know the doctor doesn't want you to do it, but salt promotes flavor, whether it's steak, watermelon, or the white of an egg. Listen to Job chapter 6, verse 6. Job asked this. In it he says, this is tasteless food eaten without salt.?Or is there flavor or taste in the white of an egg? And everybody said, no, there is no flavor in the white of an egg. And tasteless food is not eaten without seasoning. And he goes on to say, my soul refuses to touch them...the tasteless stuff. They're like loathsome food to me. Because food without salt and flavor is loathsome, and he's applying that to his life. My life without the salt and seasoning and pleasure is not worth living. He's saying it has the power to bring pleasure, and he's saying, my life is stripped of life and no longer desirable, and life without seasoning is not palatable. And I'm going to argue that part of the reason people take their life in our culture is they don't see any reason to live. And what a Christian is, is the seasoning that says, oh yes, there is. Oh yes, there is. Because they see in us by relationship with us, by the sheer attitudes. They see our joy when there's no reason to be joyful. We bring stuff to the table that the culture needs. We're an addition that makes life better. We bring hope to a depressed world, comfort to a hurting world, peace to a worried and angry world. Real joy to a vain, shallow, frustrated, addicted world. We bring real love to a selfish and self-consumed world. We bring clarity and sense to a confused, chaotic, and I don't get this world. And we bring life to a dying world. Can you say amen? Listen, your neighborhood needs you to bring what only you can bring.  We're high concentrate seasoning that should make everything we touch better. Our neighborhood, our ball club, our office, our committees.Wherever it is we frequent. They ought to be better because we're there. We're the fragrance of Christ in a culture that's dying. And we bring life to some. And we're a fragrance of death to others. Listen, when Constantine passed away, he made the Christian religion the religion of the Empire. And the guy who followed him...his name was Julian. And the first thing Julian did was bring back the old gods. Let me tell you why he did that in his own words. He said, have you looked at these Christians closely?...hollow eyed, pale cheeked, flat breasted. They brood their lives away. The sun shines for them, but they do not see it. The earth offers them its fullness, but they don't desire it. All they desire to do is renounce to suffer, that they may come to die. Do you know what he just said? As Julian saw Christianity, they took the life out of life. And as the salt of the earth we're to bring life to life.

Fourthly, finally and simply. As the salt of the earth, the Christian is to be a provoker of thirst, passion for God. The fourth property and characteristic of salt. You know this. It makes you thirsty. Traditionally, in my pastoral ministry in Birmingham, there's a little Chinese restaurant up the street. After the two morning services, I would call them, and I would ride up and I'd pick up my order. I did it so often that I did not need to tell San my order. I'd go up, pick it up, bring it back to my office. Family tradition. We'd eat Chinese in my office. Family would go home. I'd study for the evening service. But what the afternoon consisted of was not only books, but bottles of water. Because that meal made me thirsty. And what I'd like to plant is a seed in your heart as we conclude, at least my part of this service. Is you're to be a Christian who causes people to want what you have. Thirsty for the life you possess because of the salt that you bring. Potent present Christians should cause people to say, I'm thirsty for the water of life. Where do I find it?  So my prayer for you is that the Christian that you display to others will make the gospel not only credible, but you'll make God wantable. You're the salt of the earth. You are something. You need to be something. And the guarantee is...your life is going to mean something. You're not impotent if you're potent.
Father, thank you for the opportunity to open your Word today.The thought is compelling and the thought is encouraging. The reality is convicting and the potential is motivating. Lord, I pray for Hickory Bible Church that this will be the Saltiest church in town. And I pray that in Jesus name, Amen.

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Christ Grows the Church

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I was born in the Holy Land. And for all you uneducated people in North Carolina, that's Northern Ireland. Don't be so shocked. I remember being in Texas and a pastor asked me, where were you born? I said, I was born in the Holy Land. And he said, Israel? I said, no, Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is the land of saints and scholars, and we even have our own version of the Bible, the NIV...the Northern Ireland version of the Bible. And we're just going to read God's Word in a moment. But before I do, let's go before the Lord in prayer. Anybody can speak from a pulpit, but we don't want to speak as a mere man. We want to be the voice of God. And I need his power, and I need your prayers. And I need the help of God Almighty. Let us bow our hearts, and then we'll read the scriptures. Oh God, our heavenly Father, in this holy moment, I pray that you would do a work of grace, that you would work in each of our hearts, that you would open our eyes, that we might see the majesty and the glory of the living Christ of Scripture. Speak, Lord, this morning. Your servants are listening. Amen.

I'm reading this morning from the Gospel of Matthew. It's a very familiar portion of Scripture. It's Matthew chapter 16, and we're going to commence reading at verse 13...Matthew chapter 16. This is not the word of man. This is not simply the word of Matthew. This, my friend, is the word of truth. It is the inspired Word of the living God. God speaks through His word. I believe that. I mean, God speaks. The Spirit of God moves in conviction. May God move in our hearts. May God move in this service this morning. More than anything, we need to hear this. We need to hear God speaking to us. Let us hear the word of the Lord.

“When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, who do people say the Son of Man is? They replied, some say John the Baptist. Others say Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked, who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah. For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter. And on this rock, the rock of my divinity, I will build my church and the gates of Hades...the gates of hell...the powers of darkness shall not, shall not prevail against it. They will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.”

This is the first mention of the church in the New Testament. The church is the Kingdom of God. It is comprised of believers, men and women, young people, boys and girls who have been rescued from the Kingdom of darkness. The kingdom...the church is comprised of people who know with all certainty that their sins are forgiven, that they stand in grace covered by the blood of the lamb. Those who are rescued are called in Scripture, the redeemed. And the redeemed of God on the authority of the Word of God, affirmed by the Spirit of God, know that their names are recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life. When you come to the study of God's Word, when you come to the preaching of God's Word, context is very important. Geography is very important. Knowing where something happens is very important. Knowing who is speaking and to whom that person is speaking is important. It provides us with vital, important background information. Knowing why something was said is very important. Our scripture reading began in verse 13. And by the way, nothing recorded on the pages of the Word of God is incidental. Everything is important...every word, every jot, every title. Everything is inspired by God, inserted in the Word of God, by the Spirit of God for a divine purpose. God provides us with important background information. It provides the setting to what is being said. We read...when Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi. In one of the other Gospels it tells us that Jesus was in the villages surrounding Caesarea Philippi. Caesarea Philippi was a very prominent and a very important city in Jesus day. It was located about 25 miles north of Galilee. It was a pagan city. It was a pagan culture. The citizens are pagans. They are godless. They are worshipers of idols. I say that to let you know that when Jesus says, I will build my church, he is standing on enemy territory. This is an evil place. Everywhere there are idols and shrines. In Caesarea Philippi there were temples. There was even one temple dedicated to the Roman emperor Caesar, and it stood in a very prominent place. Wherever you travelled in Caesarea Philippi and in some of the surrounding villages, you would have been confronted by idols and shrines. Idols that cannot speak. Idols that cannot hear. Idols that remained unmoved because they are created by the hands of men. Jesus is standing on Satan's doorstep. It's here that Jesus asks an important question. Who do men say that I am. That's a very important question. The answer to that question will determine your eternal status. The answer to that question will determine, my friend, whether you are in the Kingdom of God. You are a citizen of the United States. Let me tell you, spiritually speaking, it means absolutely nothing...nothing. All that matters is this. Do you know Christ? Are you a citizen of the Kingdom of God? It doesn't matter where you were born. It doesn't matter how you were born. The question is, have you been born again? Do you belong to Christ? Are you in his kingdom. Who do men say I am? Peter answered you, you, Lord...you're the Messiah, you're the Christ. Listen to this. In an area full of idols and shrines what does Peter say? You are the Messiah, the son of the living God. Hallelujah! Our God lives. Jesus Christ is alive, and only a living Christ can solve the crisis dilemma of the United States of America and the world at this time. The Middle East is on fire. The world is on the brink, but God is on the throne. And let us remember this...men come and men go. Men live and men die, but the Messiah, Jesus is the living Christ. He's the living God. In the Himalayan mountains, in the Hindu regions, Christ lives. And the church exists because Jesus is building a kingdom. I will...not might...not hope to...I will build my church.How many of you have said Hickory Bible Church...my church? No it's not. Hate to disappoint you. It's not your church. It doesn't even belong to Pastor Adam. This church belongs to Jesus. He's the king of the kingdom. What did Jesus promise? I will build my church in every generation of time. Jesus is in the process of building his kingdom. What did Jesus mean when he said, I will build my church? What is the church? Is it what you think it is? Is it what people think it is? Or is it what the Bible says it is? Our only authority in answering questions comes from the pages of the Word of God. This is no ordinary book, my friend. This is God's word. This is God's inspired word. God speaks. He speaks to the dead through this word. I have seen God speak to congregations, men and women who were dead in trespasses and sin, and I have watched them as the power of God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit came upon them. There's authority. There is power in this word. This is God's Word. Just over a week ago, I was in Bucharest, Romania, and we stopped for a moment because I wanted to take some photos of a building. It's the biggest Orthodox cathedral in the world. It's being built by Romanians because they still need another year at least to complete it. It's cost around $300 million. It's got a golden dome. Is this the church that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 16:18? Is the church a magnificent building with stained glass windows and scarlet carpets? Just a few weeks ago in Pakistan, Islamic extremists destroyed the homes of 60 believers. They also destroyed by burning 20 church buildings. Are these 20 buildings the church that Jesus promised to build? What does the Bible say? One day a group of Pharisees came to Jesus. They love to come to Jesus. They were antagonists. They were religious hypocrites, always looking for an opportunity to trip Jesus up with their questions. And one day they came. It's recorded in Luke chapter 17, the conversation, especially in verse 20 and 21. And they were asking Jesus, when the kingdom of God would come. And Jesus answer absolutely shocked them. I love it. I've had those moments when the answer leaves people speechless. Do you know what Jesus said? The kingdom of God is not what you think. The kingdom of God is not what you see. It's not an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom. It's a spiritual kingdom, not a physical kingdom. You can't observe it. You can't see it with the human eye. It's not the kingdom of man. It's the kingdom of God. I love the Lord's Prayer. I love that little phrase, your kingdom come. And then it goes on to say this...Yours is the kingdom, the power, the power and the glory. The Kingdom of God is not confined to one people group. No one nation, no one people group on Earth has a monopoly on the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's not confined to one particular geographical region of the world. It's not confined to Israel. The gospel is for the world. The Kingdom of God is advancing around the world, and the kingdom of God was not, as the Pharisees supposed, a kingdom similar to the Roman Empire. And interestingly, the Pharisees, they assumed that they belonged to the kingdom of God...what a shock to their system they got when, in Matthew 21 Jesus said this in verse 43. The kingdom of God, listen to this will, be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. What people? What are these people that Jesus is talking about? He's talking about people who have truly repented, are genuinely converted, are in the faith, and are citizens of the kingdom. How do we know that? Because they've got a passport...citizen of the Kingdom of heaven? No. The evidence Jesus said, is in the fruit of our lives. These Pharisees, these religious teachers and leaders of the Jews thought they were in the kingdom. They even felt entitled to be in the kingdom. When they thought of the kingdom being re-established, they were thinking of a physical temple. But isn't it interesting in the epistles we learn that every true believer is what?...a Temple of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever wondered what Jesus did between the morning of his resurrection, Easter Sunday, and to the moment of that incredible, indescribable, magnificent ascension to the glory of the father, to sit at the right hand of the Majesty and high 40 days. What did Jesus do? Most people have no idea. Do you know the answer is on the first page of Acts chapter one. I wonder if you ever noticed it. Hey...have you ever read it? I never assumed that Christians are familiar with the Bible. Not only that, I never assume when I go to a conference where it's all pastors...I never assume that every pastor is born again. Does that shock you? Shocked me the first time I realized it. I remember being in Plymouth, in the south of England, preaching at a pastor's conference, and I thought, oh my goodness, I think I'm preaching to the unconverted here. And I changed my message and preached a conversion message to pastors. Can you imagine asking pastors to repent of their sin and turn to Christ. There's power in the Word of God. And I witnessed men with tears say I never understood it before. And here I am preaching God's Word. I never realized what it meant to be born again. What did Jesus do for 40 days? Well, if you read Acts 1:3, it tells you.  It says over a period of 40 days he spoke about the kingdom of God. See, it was there all along. You just didn't notice it. Even the apostles, even the followers of Jesus, didn't fully understand, didn't comprehend what Jesus meant when he said, I will build my church.  Just before the ascension, just before Jesus is gathered to the glory of heaven they gathered around him in Acts 1:6 and they asked, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel"? Now they had witnessed the power of the resurrection. They saw Jesus. They spoke with Jesus. They ate with Jesus. They had conversations with Jesus. They even touched Jesus. He gave them the promise of the Holy Spirit. And they all understood that the era of the kingdom of God was imminent. But they still don't get it. They think it's going to be a political kingdom, a military kingdom that's going to expel the Roman armies and bring true freedom to Israel...restoring national sovereignty. And Jesus corrects their understanding. And he says in verse seven, it is not for you to know the times or dates the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes in you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. The kingdom that Jesus was building was not a physical structure. It was not a glorious, magnificent temple made with the hands of men. It was the church of the living God. Men and women who are now by grace temples of the Holy Spirit. Are they going to triumph over the armies of Rome? No. They're going to do something even more magnificent. They are going to triumph over the entire Roman Empire. And they're not going to do it with a sword or a spear or a weapon made by human hands. They are going to do it empowered by the Holy Spirit, moving forward prayerfully on their knees, preaching the gospel of Christ. It's the gospel that conquers people. It's the gospel that's the answer to our dilemma. Isn't it interesting that Jesus in Acts 1:8 didn't simply say, you will receive the Holy Spirit? Read it carefully. I always tell people. Read it slowly. Read it carefully. Don't tell me what you think it says. What does it say? Do you know what it says? Jesus said you will receive power...power. When will you receive the power? When the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Not only did Jesus promise power...Jesus said, this power will enable you. It will energize you. It will help you in unbelievable ways to be my witnesses. You see, if you're a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, whether you live in Hickory or Katmandu, whether you live in London or Nairobi, if you're a Christian by nature, you're a witness. Every church, if it's a real, genuine Biblical church, it's not only a preaching church and a praying church and a discipling church, it is also a witnessing church. Jesus is building a kingdom. It's a kingdom that is eternal. It is a kingdom that can never be overpowered. It can never be conquered. It's the kingdom of God. And very interestingly, here's something. Why don't you go home today and read the entire book of Acts? Your reaction...you've got to be joking...the entire book of Acts? Do you know what work that is? That's not work. That is an exciting blessing. Anthony Hopkins, very famous actor...godless actor. I read something interesting about him. They asked him, how many times do you read a script before you go to the studio and begin to practice the film that you're about to make? Listen to this...at least 100 times. I tell that to students in seminaries. You got to read a book at least a hundred times. Pass out the heart pills. It's unbelievable. We need to be saturated in the Word of God. We need to know the Word of God. And the Word of God needs to be oozing out of us naturally and supernaturally.

Here's something amazing. The book of Acts begins in chapter one, talking about the Kingdom of God. 30 years later, because it's just a brief history of the New Testament church. The early days of growth, expansion, opposition, persecution. When you reach the last chapter, Acts 28:30-31, we're no longer in Jerusalem. Do you know where we are? We're in Rome. We're in the heart of the Roman Empire. And here's what Paul said in verse 31, boldly, boldly, and without hindrance. Paul preached...wait for it...here it comes...Paul preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus, even in the heart of Imperial Rome. There were those who could call Jesustheir Lord and their Savior. The Bible tells us that even in Caesar's household, the kingdom had arrived, and there were brothers and sisters in Caesar's household who could bow their heads on a schmidly and look up to heaven and say, Lord, thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. The Kingdom of God, my dear friend, is on the move around the world, on every continent...in isolated valleys, hidden in remote mountain areas. In small tropical islands scattered throughout the world. In remote deserts scorched by the sun. In large cities and small towns and villages everywhere...Jesus is building his church. Hallelujah! And every century of time, he's never paused. He's never stopped. Jesus, Jesus. Jesus is building his church. Albert Einstein was a very famous scientist. He traveled a lot by train, and one day he was on a train going to some city, and the conductor comes down to check the tickets. He was looking for all the people from North Carolina who hadn't bought a ticket. So he comes to the compartment of Albert Einstein. And Albert Einstein must have been Irish, you know, looking in every pocket. Couldn't find his ticket. And the conductor looked at him and said, Doctor Einstein, it's okay. I know who you are. You travel a lot by train. I know exactly who you are. Don't worry. And he continued down the train, checking, looking for North Carolina. And then he's making his way back, and he comes by the compartment of Albert Einstein, and he's on his knees. And by the way, he wasn't praying. He's on his knees, searching underneath the seat, looking for his ticket. And the conductor with a smile says, Doctor Einstein, I told you it's not a problem. I know who you are. And immediately Einstein jumped up and said, I know who I am too, but I don't know where I'm going. The Church of Jesus Christ knows where it's going. We have received marching orders...all the world...no exception. During the Communist era Jesus did not say all theworld except the Communist nations. Jesus never said anywhere except North Korea or China. Jesus never said anywhere but Iran. You know how bad those people are. No, Jesus said, all theworld, every creature...starting in Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria...listen to it, and then to the ends of the earth. The gospel of the Kingdom is moving forward. I had an unforgettable experience some years ago. Sometimes when you're traveling and you've got moments on a plane, you go down memory lane. And sometimes I think of things, and I have to pause because I feel so blessed to have experienced it. I was in the city of Zaporozhye. Two thirds of it, by the way, are now under Russian occupation. We've lost hundreds of churches. I was in Zaporozhye. It was a Saturday afternoon, and along with a few other pastors, I stood in the Dnieper River. And as I stood in the river, I looked and I wept because we were going to baptize over 1000 people and they were all dressed in white. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I've never felt so moved, so humbled, knowing that God had honored His Word and saved lost sinners and brought them into the kingdom. And I'm having this unique privilege, along with some of my dear brothers of baptizing them. Did you know that in a corner of northeastern Brazil, in a remote area of the Amazon, an area, by the way, that for some it takes them four weeks traveling by boat just to get there Doesn't get any more remote than that. They just baptized 14,500 people. That's what God can do. No, that's what God is doing. When I was a young boy, I was converted at 14. Thank God for a godly geography teacher who led me to Christ in a geography classroom during the lunch break on a Monday. I got off my knees, never to be the same again. I remember listening to missionaries when I was young. It was the last century, by the way. In particular, I remember one missionary who worked in the interior of Brazil. He actually was located in an area called Manaus. And I never forget, he said they planned this expedition. They were going to go up the river. It would take a long time to reach an unreached tribe. They were excited. They were praying. They had people everywhere praying for them. And he said...his name was Bill. He says, when we arrived at this village along the shores of the river, I fell on my knees and I wept because the first thing I saw was a Coca-Cola bottle. And he says, I saw that Coca-Cola bottle. And he said, Lord, how can it be that Coca-Cola got here before the gospel? My dear friends, we have a mission to accomplish. A previous CEO of Coca-Cola many years ago had a vision. Do you know what his vision was? That every person in the world would taste Coca-Cola at least once in their lifetime. How many millions are in the world today who have never heard the gospel? I was taken once to a remote area of Nepal up in the Himalayas, and they told me I was going to a place where the gospel had never, ever been before. They knew nothing of the kingdom. What do you say to people who have never heard the gospel before? Do you know the four spiritual laws? Throw them out the window. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. So Jesus died on the cross for your sins. Who's Jesus? I remember going and thinking, Lord, what am I going to say? Because these people don't know anything. Where do I start? Well I am Irish...I'm very smart...start before the beginning. Go back into eternity. That's where it all started. And you start to explain the incredible majesty and glory of God who designed the universe, the stars, the sun, the mountains, the flowers, the trees, the grass, therivers. And this God had a plan for mankind. And you start then to go into Genesis, and you come to Genesis 3 and the fall of man, and you go right through the Old Testament. And then you come to Jesus, then you come to the cross. How can you speak about salvation when people don't even know what sin is? How can you be convicted of sin if you don't even know you're a sinner? We've got to get our message right. It's got to be scriptural...scriptural.  Jesus is building his church. It's a great church. I've been to some interesting buildings around the world. In fact, when I was converted, my home church was a church just outside Belfast. It was a place called Dundonald in Northern Ireland. And the church building, by the way, is still standing today. It was built in 1645. And as I told the people in the first service, I know because Pastor Chris was there, he had a photograph of that, that event 1645. Do you know how many pastors have preached in that pulpit? How many have come and gone? They came to preach. They died. They were buried. Here's the good news. I remember standing with Dwight Stone. I said, Dwight, you got to see this. This is the triumph of the gospel. Here we are, hundreds of years later, and the same gospel is being preached from generation to generation. In May, I was in Armenia speaking at a graduation, preaching in churches. I went to one church. You know how old this church was?...still standing. It is magnificent...huge. Even an earthquake could make this thing fall. It is nearly 1000 years old. The acoustics...absolutely perfect. Unbelievable. The test of time. That's just the building, by the way. The church has stood the test of time.

One of the greatest stories about the church and the kingdom of God that I've ever heard...it literally moved me to tears. I could even tell you where I was standing when I heard it. It was from a brother in Armenia, and it's a story about the kingdom of God in the Islamic country of Turkey. There was a tourist and he came to a remote village in the mountains, a place that people usually didn't visit. He was expecting to see a mosque, but he didn't see a mosque. To his absolute amazement, he saw a small church. He couldn't believe it. I'm standing on Turkish soil. This is a church. And he saw an old man coming down the street and he stopped him. He said, sir, when did this church arrive in this village? And the old man put his hand around his shoulder and he says, let's sit down. And they sat down, and the tourist heard something unbelievable. The man said, sir, 2000 years ago a man from our village went to a city called Jerusalem. When he was in Jerusalem, he heard the gospel being preached by a man named Peter. His life was changed by the power of God. He returned to our village. He brought the gospel with him. Listen to this. And the gospel's been here ever since. I tell you when I heard that, I wept. That's what it's all about. The lasting effect of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh what a church...what a kingdom Jesus is building. Someone told me all the sinners come to the second service. I'm not sure if that's true. I'm not even saying it is true. But I do want to say this to some of you here today. This might surprise you. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to go to church. We are to be the church. And you can't be the church unless you're in the kingdom. And those who are in the kingdom and part of the church, they gather faithfully like you gather right here this morning for fellowship, instruction, encouragement, and strengthening in the faith. Do you know what the big question is this morning? It's not do you go to church. Because you, my friend, can go to church, listen to this, and go to hell. I have stood over the graves of people who were church people and they went to hell. Going to church will not transform your life. Going to church will not give you a passport to heaven. The question is, are you in the church? Are you part of the church that Jesus is building? In just over a week, I'm going to be in Armenia. I'm going to teach at the seminary. One of the places I'm going to go to is in a remote corner of southern Armenia. It's called Agarak. It's right on the border with Iran...the Islamic Republic of Iran. When we're driving into Agarak, the river that separates both nations is there. It's not very wide. The old Iron Curtain from the Soviet era is still there, separating. And you can look over to the other side of the river and see shepherd boys...Iranian shepherd boys...minding sheep. You can see the little villages dotted on the hillsides. There is a church in Agarak, and I remember when it was being built. I said to the pastor. Do me a favor. What? I said get the biggest neon sign that you can get. Make it the cross and put the cross on top of the church. Because they were in a high position.Because at nighttime, I want them to see the cross.  Thank God for the cross. Thank God for the message of the cross and the work of the cross and the power of the gospel in modern day Iran. Let me tell you, my friend, the enemy of the United States may be the government of Iran. It's not the people of Iran. There are over 1 million born again citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven in Iran. They meet secretly. They're persecuted. Some of them are put in prison. Others have been killed for the faith. In spite of opposition, in spite of pressure...the church is continuing to grow...the fastest growth rate of any nation in the world when you look at the population. That, my friend, is a miracle. Iran sent 181 missiles to hit Israel. I know a missile stronger than anything that Iran has in its arsenal, and it will explode all over Iran. It's the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Bible says it is the power of God unto salvation. Listen to this...to all, even Iranians, even North Koreans, even Chinese, and even someone here in this service today. The gospel, the gospel of the Kingdom is the power of God unto salvation. The church that Jesus is building will never be destroyed. Before I close, let me say this. For many, many years I preached in Ukraine. We built many churches. When I went first to the city of Zaporozhye, over 1 million people, two churches...in the entire city. And then in the ? old blast, that became hundreds. Now they've got a theological seminary. The war between Russia and Ukraine has resulted in the destruction or the partial destruction of over 600 Ukrainian churches. It's heartbreaking. Some of those churches, we spent a lot of money and a lot of effort building. I tell you, you look at a photo of something that you were there on opening day and you see the destruction. It breaks your heart. And then I'm encouraged because that's not the church. That was just the building. Jesus. His church is made up of living temples of the Holy Spirit. I spoke to the wife of a dear pastor, and she said,when war broke out, within a few weeks, our church went from 120 to 10. It was devastating. And you know, they ain't coming back. When they got out of the country, they're gone. The pastor, what are we going to do? And they prayed and God showed them through His Word. Lift up your eyes and look. The fields are white. They're ready for harvesting. All the people that haven't left. That's your mission field. That's the kingdom to come. Today they have more people than they had than when the war started. That, my friend, is what God can do. Jesus is building a kingdom. The king is coming. Hallelujah! Jesus is coming again. He's coming to reign over his kingdom. People say, when is He coming? I can give you the answer. And I'm not even a prophet. Are you listening? I find this in the NIV. When the last soul on earth is converted by God's grace, when the last soul in this earth, wherever they are, is washed in the blood of the lamb, the lamb is coming in triumph, in power and in great glory. I thank God for Hickory Church. You've got a great name. Hickory Bible Church, and I know that this is a church that preaches the Word, but America has lost the Word. We need to rediscover the message, the authority, the power of the Word of God. We need to recover the fear of the Lord. And we need to recover biblical holiness. If we're going to impact the world and extend the kingdom, we need to rekindle the fire of lukewarm love for Jesus. And we need to reignite our passion for world mission. One of the most moving verses that you will find anywhere in Scripture is this: Jesus wept. Can you imagine the creator of everything, the giver of salvation, the worker of unspeakable miracles. He looked over Jerusalem and he wept. I ask you a question in closing. When was the last time you wept for lost souls who are still outside the Kingdom of God. We need your prayers. The world needs your prayers. Most people assume when a missionary stands on a platform, he's going to ask for money. We don't need to ask for money. I always plead for prayer. Pray for Iran. Pray for Turkey. Pray for Romania. Pray for South Africa. Pray for North Korea. Pray for Honduras. There are millions, yeah, billions outside the kingdom. Oh that the day will come when many who are yet unconverted will one day be able to say. Lord, thine is the kingdom, the power and the Glory. Dear friend, we must glorify God. We must obey God. We must remain faithful to the message of God. We need power. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. May God move in this church. May God move to the preaching of the Word. May God work through the prayers and the tears of his people, may Hickory come to Christ. May North Carolina bow before the power of Almighty God. What America needs more than anything in the church is revival. What America needs, and the highways and the byways and the little backwoods towns and in the major cities is they need Christ. They need the gospel. All that the kingdom of God would extend everywhere. I will. Hallelujah. He never breaks apromise. I will build my church.  
Let's pray. Oh, God, our heavenly father, we need your help. We need you to move in our hearts, motivate us, move us, send us out. Lord, energized by your spirit, that we might reach the world and bring the message of the kingdom to lost peoples everywhere. Amen.

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