Series: Moving From Fear to Faith

Service: Praise and Preaching Service

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Dwayne Gandy

Overcoming the Fear of Trusting Others

A Sermon from 1 Samuel  |  June 21, 2026

Trust is one of the most essential — and fragile — elements of human relationships. Most of us have been hurt by someone we trusted, and that pain has a way of following us into every new relationship we attempt to build. But what does it look like to move beyond that fear? What does it mean to go from fear to faith when it comes to trusting other people?

This message — part of a year-long series on overcoming fear — draws from one of the most remarkable friendships in all of Scripture: the relationship between David and Jonathan. Their bond, forged in the shadow of a giant and tested by a murderous king, gives us a framework for understanding what trustworthiness looks like, why it matters, and how it grows. Three principles emerge from their story, each one a step on the journey from fear to faith.

The story of David and Jonathan begins at a turning point in Israel's history. For forty days — eighty encounters in all — the Philistine giant Goliath had come out morning and evening to taunt the armies of Israel. Jonathan had walked through a camp of thousands of trained soldiers and could not find a single man willing to face the challenge. He even looked in the mirror and recognized the same inadequacy in himself.

Then came David — and everything changed. When the two men met after David's victory, we read in 1 Samuel 18:1 that "the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David." Jonathan immediately stripped off his robe, armor, sword, bow, and belt — and gave them all to David. It was an extraordinary act of instant, profound trust. But what made it possible?

David demonstrated several qualities that made him instantly trustworthy:

He trusted God, not himself. David didn't face Goliath boasting in his own skill. He went out with confidence in God. People can more readily trust those who themselves trust God, because their confidence rests on something greater than personal pride or self-interest.

He was the same person in public and in private. When questioned about his qualifications, David pointed to what he had already done alone with the sheep — killing a lion and a bear — when no one was watching. That consistency of character is the foundation of trustworthiness.

He identified the real issue. While everyone else focused on Goliath's size, David zeroed in on something deeper: an uncircumcised Philistine was defying the armies of the living God. The person who can name the real problem beneath the surface is the most trustworthy person in the room.

He didn't need anyone's permission to do what was right. There were no polls, no consensus-seeking. David acted from conviction, not from crowd approval. Character grounded in what others think is not reliable character at all.

He wasn't deterred even by the king's doubts. Saul told David he couldn't fight Goliath. Most people would have accepted the easy out. David didn't — because he understood that God, not Saul, was Israel's true sovereign.

But trustworthiness isn't only built in single dramatic moments. It's sustained in the ordinary ones. 1 Samuel 18:5 tells us that "David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved wisely." Every assignment, every battle, every ordinary day — David was faithful. The big moment proved who he was; the daily faithfulness proved it wasn't a performance.

Jonathan matched that pattern on his side of the friendship. He initiated the covenant without waiting for his father's approval. He interceded for David with Saul at personal risk. He told David the truth about his father's murderous intentions. He absorbed his father's wrath — even a thrown spear — rather than abandon David. He honored the covenant in inconvenient moments, traveling into the wilderness to strengthen his friend's hand. And perhaps most strikingly, he willingly subordinated his own claim to the throne because he understood that the throne belonged to David. That kind of consistent, costly faithfulness is what made him worthy of David's trust — and David worthy of his.

There's a challenging personal application here. Sometimes our fear of trusting others says more about us than it does about them. We project our own untrustworthiness onto people who may actually be trustworthy. We assume others will do what we ourselves might do. The starting point for overcoming the fear of trusting others is to ask honestly: Am I a trustworthy person — in both the big moments and the small ones? That's something we can actually control — and it changes everything.

One of the deepest obstacles to trusting others is our need to control what happens. We hold back because we're afraid of being hurt, abandoned, or betrayed — and we can't guarantee those things won't happen. The second principle in David and Jonathan's relationship addresses this directly: they both trusted God deeply enough to loosen their grip on the outcomes.

This is the posture of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before the furnace: "Whether God saves us or not, we will not bow." The outcome was not the point. Faithfulness to God in the present moment was the point. David and Jonathan embodied the same spirit.

In 1 Samuel 20:8, when David was trying to convince Jonathan that Saul intended to kill him, he said something extraordinary: "If there is iniquity in me, kill me yourself — why should you bring me to your father?" He was surrendering the most fundamental of all outcomes — his own life — into Jonathan's hands. That is what complete, God-anchored trust looks like. And Jonathan's response confirmed it: he knew David was faithful.

When the two men finally parted — not the outcome either of them wanted — Jonathan's farewell was a declaration of faith rather than grief: "May the Lord be between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever" (1 Samuel 20:42). They were separating, but not abandoned. The distance would not matter because God would be between them.

Proverbs 3:5–6 and Psalm 37:3–5 echo this same truth: trust in the Lord, commit your way to him, and he will direct your paths. David and Jonathan could trust each other precisely because they both trusted God completely. When we are anchored to God's sovereignty — when we genuinely believe he can be trusted with what happens to us — we are freed to take the risk of trusting other people, even knowing it may sometimes be painful.

The third principle is both practical and deeply personal: we need to be intentional about who we allow into our lives. God does not expect us to trust everyone indiscriminately. Scripture actually tells us to "test the spirits" (1 John 4:1) — trust is earned, not granted automatically. The question is whether we're surrounding ourselves with people worth trusting.

Consider Saul. He was surrounded by people who genuinely were trustworthy — David, Jonathan, his own servants who admired David. But because Saul did not understand who the real sovereign king was, he couldn't recognize their trustworthiness. He lived in constant fear and anxiety, suspicious even of those who had proven themselves time and again. The problem wasn't the people around him. The problem was his relationship with God.

The story of Ananias and Paul in Acts 9 illustrates another dimension of this principle. When God told Ananias to go meet the man who had been persecuting and killing Christians, Ananias' hesitation was entirely reasonable. God didn't rebuke him for it — he simply said: "Go anyway. You'll be all right. I say so." Sometimes we take relational risks not because we know the other person is trustworthy, but because we know God is. We trust his direction even when we can't fully see the destination.

When Paul arrived in Jerusalem and the Christians there were understandably afraid to welcome him, it was Barnabas who bridged the gap — putting his own reputation on the line to vouch for Paul's transformation. Sometimes a trusted person needs to step forward and say, "I know this person. I believe they've changed." That is a generous and powerful act. But it's also one that should not be taken lightly. When we vouch for someone, our credibility is part of the equation.

The local church is meant to be exactly this kind of community — a gathering of imperfect people who point one another to the only one who will never fail. None of us are flawless. But in a healthy church, we own our failures, make amends where we can, and give one another the grace we've each been given. We don't drag past hurts — including wounds inflicted by other Christians — into every new relationship. We let God carry that burden, and we move forward. That's not naivety. That's faith.

Moving from fear to faith in relationships doesn't happen all at once. Here are some practical ways to begin:

Ask yourself the honest question: Am I a trustworthy person? Not just in the big moments, but in the ordinary ones — every day, with God and with others? You don't need anyone's permission to work on this. Start small. Take one step tomorrow.

Be honest about your fear. Is your reluctance to trust rooted in a real experience of being hurt? Or are you projecting your own failures onto others? Name the real issue — the way David named what was really at stake with Goliath. Surface-level diagnoses lead to surface-level solutions.

Find your Jonathan. For many people, a spouse fills this role. For others, it's a close friend from the church family. Identify the person or people who have earned your trust over time, and invest in those relationships.

Be someone else's Barnabas. When it is genuinely warranted, be willing to put your credibility on the line for someone who is working to rebuild trust. Do it thoughtfully, not reflexively — but don't be too cautious to be generous.

If your earthly father wasn't trustworthy, look at Jonathan. He had to navigate around a dangerous, untrustworthy father — and he found his way by finding his David and anchoring himself to God as his true Father. If that story resonates, let it point you toward the same solution.

The friendship between David and Jonathan is not just a beautiful story — it is a blueprint. It shows us what it looks like when two people become genuinely trustworthy in both great moments and small ones, when they release the outcomes to God, and when they choose to surround themselves with people who share those commitments.

Overcoming the fear of trusting others doesn't mean becoming naively open to everyone. It means becoming the kind of person God can trust — so that you can begin to recognize and receive the kind of people God has placed around you. It means releasing your grip on outcomes and trusting the One who holds all things. And it means stepping into the community God has designed, where imperfect people point each other toward the only one who is perfectly trustworthy.

That journey starts with a single step. You don't have to start with Goliath. Start small. Be faithful in one ordinary moment. Trust God with one outcome. Open the door to one person who has earned it. And watch what God does from there.

Key Scriptures: 1 Samuel 14:6; 17:26; 18:1–5; 20:8, 41–42; 23:14–18  |  Acts 9  |  Proverbs 3:5–6  |  Psalm 37:3–5

Series: N/A

Service: Sun Bible Study

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

It is Cultural Issue Sunday.  Every quarter, the shepherds give me and Dwayne permission to bring up something that’s been a subject of controversy and debate in society to make sure we’re not just sticking our heads in the sand as Christians and ignoring the shifts and conversations in our culture.  If we know what people are talking about and have considered God’s word on the subject, it can help us more effectively reach people with the truth.

This morning we’ll be talking about Christian Nationalism, and I’ll say right up front, I am NOT an expert on this subject.  It’s very difficult to be an expert on it because there’s so much material out there.  There are hundreds of hours of debates on this, dozens of books published on the subject, and one of the problems consistently expressed about Christian Nationalism is that it’s hard to find one, agreed upon definition, so it can feel like you’re aiming at a moving target.

So what I tried to do is craft a definition of my own that borrows bits and pieces from more mainstream sources so that I could steel-man the position.  There are definitions on the fringes that are more extreme and while some hold to them, they aren’t really the mainstream views.  Like some might push for a more ethno-centric Christian nationalism that purposely aims to exclude non-white people from America.  Or others claim America is God’s chosen nation like Israel and that God has foreordained America to be a Christian nation.  Or that the success of Christ’s kingdom is measured by the level of America’s promotion of Christianity.

A more mainstream definition looks like this…

Definition:  In loyalty to Christ, our primary goal as Christians is to convert people to Christ through the gospel and expand His kingdom.  At the same time, for the good of America, Christians should want to convert enough people to get a Christian consensus so we might vote Christians into office, Christian ethics into law, and defend America’s historically Christian culture, heritage, and values.  This is because our secular system of government has led to injustice and the promotion of degeneracy such as abortion, gay marriage, pornography, transgender surgeries, no-fault divorces, drag queen story hour, etc.

The goal is not to force anyone to become Christians or to remove freedom of speech or the freedom to practice other religions.  It is to publicly promote Christian values, to adopt Christianity as the foundation for American culture and ethics, and establish moral restraints for the betterment of society.

I think the reason there’s been so much discussion about this in the past few years is twofold:  1) Christians have felt increasingly attacked and marginalized, not just for expressing their faith like when Christians have been arrested for praying outside of abortion clinics, but also by the gradual removal of Christianity from public life.  So Christians are trying to find ways to use our own system of government to fight back.  2) Once Christians started to become more vocal about restoring the Christian culture and ethics we used to have in this country, those on the political left began using the term “Christian Nationalist” as an insult to demonize Christians for voicing their objections to certain sinful practices.  And typically when it’s used as an insult, it’s called “White Christian Nationalism,” or some kind of theocratic fascism in an effort to shame and silence Christians from speaking up.

So this conversation is about Christians trying to figure out if there’s a way to fight back against the secularization and public promotion of degeneracy in a way that honors our system of government, honors our history as a nation, and honors Christ, whereas non-Christians are trying to stop this from happening and to foment fear about it.

Now, even though that’s how this started, the truth is there have been criticisms of Christian nationalism not just by non-Christians, or from those on the political left, but even from conservative Christians and those on the right, so there’s still a discussion to be had about this.  And this conversation is difficult because there are multiple layers to it.

1) Biblical.  Does the Bible support it?  There are disagreements about that.

2) Historical.  Questions like, “Did the founding fathers intend for America to be a Christian nation?” and “How have Christian nations functioned in the past compared to secular nations?”  There are disagreements about those questions.

3) Political. This would include discussions about how best to use the force of law to modify behavior and how far do we go with it?  Should we take a more conservative approach or a more libertarian approach?  There are disagreements about these questions.

4) Practical.  How would something like this actually work in practice?  What would a nation run by Christians look like in modern times with such a diverse population with so many varied beliefs, and would it be good for Christ’s kingdom?

Now, our main concern as the church is the question, “Is it Biblical?”  It doesn’t matter if it’s historical, political, or practical, if it’s not Biblical we shouldn’t do it.  So that’s where I’d like the main focus of our discussion to be, is on the Bible.  But if you have points to make from those other categories, that’s okay you can mention those too because it’s a fair part of the discussion, I just don’t want to make those things our main focus.  I don’t want the entire class to turn into a debate over the writings of America’s founding fathers.

So with that said, I did a terrible job facilitating our discussion on Immigration last time, so I’d like this to be more structured.  What we’ll do is spend 10 minutes on what you all perceive to be the positives of Christian Nationalism and we won’t give any negatives about it during that time.  Then we’ll spend the next 10 minutes on the negatives without any positives from anyone.  And I just want to note, if you mention something positive, it doesn’t necessarily mean you support it; it just means you can see the appeal.  And if you mention something negative, that doesn’t mean you don’t support it, you just see the dangers.  So if one of us makes a comment either positive or negative, let’s avoid assuming we know that person’s entire position on this.  And

  And once we spend those 20 minutes on the positives and negative, we’ll spend the rest of our time offering rebuttals to any of the positives or negatives that were mentioned.  And honestly, I’m still working through this issue myself, and I’m hoping your comments will help sharpen my thoughts.  I don’t believe this is a salvation issue, though it could be depending on what version of Christian Nationalism you adhere to, but on this definition you may come to a different conclusion about it in your conscience.

Try to keep your comments brief, like 30 seconds max so we can get more participation.

What are some Positives of Christian Nationalism?

1)  It’s not a Sin for Christians to Hold Government Office

• In Acts 13, Sergius Paulus was a Roman governor who became a Christian, and he wasn’t told to step down as an act of repentance.  The Ethiopian Eunuch was a court official under queen Candace, Erastus was the city treasurer in Corinth (Romans 16:23).

2)  The Government is a Minister of God for Good

• Romans 13:3-4 - This doesn’t mean every government IS actually good and not evil; governments tend to become corrupt, but God’s goal for government is to be used for the promotion of what’s good and the restraint and punishment of what’s evil.

3)  A Nation is Far Better off When Governed by Good Rulers and Good Laws

• Proverbs 14:34
• Proverbs 29:2 - When righteous people increase in power and they rule, it’s wonderful, but when wicked people rule, it’s terrible for the nation.  So if we had all Christians in office, it would be far better than having atheists and secularists and relativists in office.

4)  God can bring nations down in judgment for evil governance

• Jeremiah 18:7-8 - This isn’t just true of the nations of Israel and Judah, but even of pagan nations.
  • And maybe someone says, “Yea but that was in Old Testament times.”
  • Psalm 2:10-12 - Christ’s kingship extends over all nations and rulers and God the Father expects these nations to submit to the Son.  This is why even in the New Testament, God condemned the Roman Empire because instead of ruling righteously, they became this great beast obsessed with money and murder.

5)  Christ is King over Every Sphere of Life

• All authority has been given to Him.  Which is why He must rule over every decision we make as Christians.
  • Colossians 3:17 - To do all in His name is to do it by His authority, which means if I’m a parent, I parent His way, if I’m an employee, I work His way, if I’m a boss at work, I treat my employees the way Christ would, and if I’m a government official in charge of making and enforcing laws, then I need to do that righteously in a way that honors Christ.  It wouldn’t make sense for a Christian to run for office with a non-Christian agenda; of course Christians would take Christ with them into office.

6)  Righteous Government rule helps the church to flourish

• This doesn’t mean the church can’t still flourish under persecution by an evil government; of course it can, but not nearly as well as under a government that supports their flourishing.
  • 1 Timothy 2:1-2 - When we pray for our rulers, I don’t think we’re praying for them to be less Christ-like or to not rule with good morals.  No, we’re asking for those things.  So in this sense, the two separate kingdoms of church and state actually help each other.  The church produces righteous people through the gospel who then influence the state to promote righteousness, and then the state allows the free spread of the gospel to create more righteous people, and both church and nation flourish.

7)  Someone’s Morality will be Imposed on Society; Christian Morality is the Best

- One writer noted that you can separate church and state, but you can never separate morality and state.  There’s no getting around the fact that some standard of morality will be imposed by the state and federal governments.  Why would it be preferable to God for atheistic, relativistic, non-Christians to set the moral agenda for a nation, but not Christians?  Would God be pleased if we instituted the morality of Islam and allowed men to have 4 wives?  Or to institute the morality of secular liberalism and publicly promote Gay Pride from the White House and legally reward gay marriage with tax benefits?

What are some Negatives of Christian Nationalism?

1. Jesus never envisions Christians wielding governmental power

• John 18:36 - Jesus did not come to establish a Christian state, or a physical Christian nation, and He never even hinted that it would be ideal for Christians to control power in society.  The Bible does use language about Christians reigning and co-ruling with Christ, but that reign is about sharing in the blessings of His kingdom, not taking control of an earthly kingdom.

2)  It Gives the Impression that Christians Use Force Against Sinners

• We could argue that the church and state are still separate because there’s no official state sponsored church, but to non-Christians, it’s going to feel like they’re one in the same, and it’s going to feel to them like, “If we don’t do what Christians says, we’ll be thrown in prison for it.”  Which I think would hinder our evangelistic efforts because we’d be trying to persuade people to come to Christ, but they may actually perceive it as a threat.

3)  Christian laws don’t change hearts

• In the Old Testament, Israel was established as a religious nation, meaning there was no distinction between church and state.  Between civic life and religious life.  The Law of Moses was both their religious law AND their governmental law which shaped their culture.
  • But the problem was, people were born as citizens of that nation and told they were the nation of the one true God, yet for many of them, they didn’t come to love God in their hearts at all and they rebelled against Him constantly because God’s laws were simply imposed on them from the outside.  And a Christian nation which binds Christian laws on people from birth as citizens may end up having the same effect of people rebelling against Christ for forcing them to do things they don’t want to do.

4)  It’ll be Hard to Not Go too Far in Restraining Sin through Force

• As I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons Christian Nationalism has become so popular is because Christians are feeling more and more like lambs to the slaughter in America, and they’re trying to fight back using our American system of government.  If you think about it, it sort of blends Christianity with an American Revolutionary attitude that seeks to break free from people’s power over us and to become the ones in power instead.
  • One critic said it’s a worldview that seeks to turn lambs into lions.  Well, once Christians are in the position to be lions, it might be hard to resist turning the rebels against God into lambs, and how far does it go in restricting behavior?  Do we bring back blasphemy laws?  Do we throw people in jail for adultery?  How free will free speech and freedom of religion really be, given enough time?  Are we reintroducing prayer in public school so that we’re forcing teachers who may not even be religious to lead prayers anyway?  Are we putting crosses up in public buildings?
    • And is it possible many non-Christians might suddenly feel unwelcome in this country and leave?  Now we might say, “Great!  Good riddance, then we can have a better society!”  But if they leave because Christianity is forced upon them, how will we ever reach them with the gospel?

5) Can Cause Christians to focus way more on politics than on people’s souls

• There’s nothing sinful about political involvement, but Christian nationalism can conflate two kingdoms.  It can lead Christians to think the key to success in Christ’s kingdom is to get Christians in power over America’s kingdom.  But then instead of focusing our energy and effort on planting the seed of the gospel in people’s hearts, our main passion is aimed at getting Christians elected and changing society through law.  And I think this is what leads to angry Christians who constantly watch the news and walk around fuming because of the promotion of sin in our culture, instead of walking around with compassion because people are like sheep without a shepherd.

6)  Which version of Christianity gets promoted?

• There are so many people in the world who call themselves Christians, but they still support abortion and the LGBTQ lifestyle.  Now, you might at first think it’d be nice to hear politicians having Bible studies to work out their differences, but then if those studies turn ugly which unfortunately happens, then Christians end up making Christ look bad.  You also may get a Christian leader in a position of power, let’s say as President, but then he doesn’t act like a Christian at all and he’s pushing some weird perversion of Christianity so now Christ’s name suffers even more damage.

7)  Christian Nationalism has negative connotations in people’s minds

• Many people associate this movement with racism.  So it may be best to distance ourselves from this so we don’t get lumped in with the crazies.

Where I’m at today:  I personally believe it would significantly improve society.  Our streets would be more peaceful and we wouldn’t see evil promoted so openly in the public square.  But I’m not convinced it would help the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.  It would change society for the better, but might hinder our work of trying to change people’s hearts for the better through the gospel.

It might have the effect of more Christians wanting to live in America, but it might cause non-Christians to move elsewhere, the very people we’re trying to convert.   And as much as it pains us to have evil rulers who promote evil things, it also helps people see a clear contrast in lifestyle, whereas a Christian nation might be so homogenous and uniform that we just grow comfortable thinking we’re right with God simply because we’re Americans.

Series: N/A

Service: Lord’s Supper Service

Type: Lord's Supper Talk

Speaker: Brian Messerli

Galatians 4:4-7 - A few weeks ago, we talked before the Lord’s Supper about the fact that the Bible refers to Christians primarily as sons.  It only refers to daughters once, and that’s not because Christianity is against women, it’s because in their culture sons were the heirs of the Father’s inheritance, and the shocking thing about Christianity was that even women can become sons in the sense of being fellow heirs of God’s inheritance in Christ!  Just a few verses earlier Paul says there is neither male nor female, but if we belong to Christ, we’re all heirs according to promise!  And that’s because through Christ, we’ve been adopted as sons into God’s family!

Now, there are two senses in which we are sons of God; one is legally and the other is lovingly.  In v. 4-5 Paul mentions the legal transaction made when Jesus came into the world to redeem, or buy us out of slavery.  In ancient Rome, if a rich man had no children to pass his wealth onto, to manage his estate, and preserve the family name, he could legally adopt someone as a son, and sometimes that person would be one of his household slaves who he deems to be responsible and a good manager, so he would set him free from slavery and legally adopt him as a son so he could be an heir.  But in Rome, adoption was usually more pragmatic than personal.  It wasn’t like the Roman man was looking for a child to love; it was more that he was looking for someone to carry on his name.  So in their culture, you might legally become a son, but not ever feel the love of your father.

Which is part of what makes God’s adoption of us so special.  One, because when God set us free as slaves, it’s not because we had proven ourselves responsible, trustworthy managers.  No, we had proven ourselves completely unfaithful, so it wasn’t a pragmatic transaction where God looked at us and said, “I think they’ll be the perfect candidates to manage my estate!”  No, we were set free from slavery to sin and  adopted as sons purely by the grace and love of God!  He didn’t adopt us for what He could GET out of us, but for what He could GIVE to us.  In Ephesians 1, Paul words it this way:  “In love, He predestined us to adoption through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of His will.”

v. 4-5 were about the legal transaction of adoption, but v. 6-7 are about the loving tenderness of adoption.  God sent Jesus into the world to take care of the legal paperwork and signed it with His own blood, but then God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts so we might feel and experience what it’s like to be His Son, a relationship with Him so close that we can cry out to Him, “Abba!  Father!”  The word “abba” is a term of endearment and utter dependence.  A good way to render it is, “Papa.”  It’s an expression of warmth, trust, love, safety, and freedom to be fully vulnerable.  It’s why he says we can cry out to God in prayer.  When we, as children cry out to our Papa for help, it’s with a sort of reckless abandon because we have absolute confidence He’s going to come to our aid.  When we’re in need as kids and cry out to our earthly fathers, we don’t think, “Let me wait until He’s not busy,” or “Maybe He won’t come when I call.”  No, we throw our arms up and wait for Him to come to our rescue, pick us up, and assure us of His love.

And Old Puritan writer put it this way:  “Picture a man walking along a road with his little boy, holding hands, father and son, son and father.  The little boy knows that the man is his father and that his father loves him, but suddenly the father stops, picks up the boy, lifts him up into his arms, embraces him and kisses him.  Now, the boy is actually no more a son when he’s being embraced and kissed than he was before.  The father’s action has not changed the status of the boy, but oh the difference in the enjoyment of the status.”

In v. 4-5, Paul shows us our legal status has changed from slave to son, but in v. 6-7 he’s describing the love and enjoyment of that status.  And that’s so crucial because if we only know intellectually that God is our Father, but we never know it experientially, if we only know it objectively on paper but never subjectively in our hearts, then we’ll never have assurance of His approval and we’ll spend our whole lives trying to be good enough and perform well enough to impress God so He’ll love us.  If we feel like God is our Father but only legally so, it’ll feel like He’s just tolerating us, and if we’re not good enough He’ll kick us back out into the cold.

And this leads me to think there’s another reason why the New Testament uses the word “sons” to describe Christians and rarely ever uses the term daughter.  It’s to emphasize the fact that the WAY we become sons of God is through THE Son of God.  In v. 4-5, when God sent for His Son into the world to perform the legal transaction to adopt us as sons, the idea is that we get to share in the same legal status as Jesus, the ultimate Son!  It’s why Paul says in Romans 8:17, “We are fellow heirs with Christ.”  By God’s grace, both men and women have the same legal right to the inheritance of the Father as Jesus does!  We’re all sons now because of the sacrifice of the Ultimate Son!

But the even more shocking thing I want to spend the rest of our time considering this morning is that this also means we get to share in the same beloved status as Jesus the Son.  Because of what Jesus did for us, we are not just legally in God’s family, we are lovingly in God’s family.  We get to experience the same feeling of love Jesus felt from His Father and we can have His level of warmth, trust, love, safety, and freedom to be fully vulnerable.  It’s why He says we now have the spirit of God’s Son within us.  Let me give you another passage that proves this, and then we’ll unpack it.

John 17:22-23, 26 [On the night before Jesus’ death, He prays a deep and intimate prayer to His Father and asks Him to bless His disciples after He’s gone] - God’s glory refers to the manifestation of His character in the world, and it’s interesting that the first time this word is used in John, he says in John 1:14, “We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.”  In other words, the glory we beheld was that of a son reflecting the character of His Father in the world.  Jesus is saying He has taken that same glory of sonship and given it to His disciples, so that we can be one with each other because we’re all in the same family, one with our Father because we reflect His character and live in His likeness, and so that the world will know the same love God had for Jesus His ultimate Son, He now has for us!  It’s such an incredible thought that the Father loves us just as much as He loves Jesus!  I imagine adopted children may have a nagging sense that they aren’t as loved as the biological children in the family, but in God’s family that’s not the case!  We’re loved just as much by our Father as Jesus was, and that’s NOT because of anything we did, but because of the grace of God who chooses in love to treat us as His own sons on the basis of what His ultimate Son did for us on the cross.  We’re not loved because of our own spirit, but because of the Spirit of His Son that dwells within us.

But how did Jesus know and feel His Father’s love for Him, so that we can know and feel it too?

1. The Father Expressed His Love to His Beloved Son

• Matthew 3:17 - “This my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  How many children long to hear that from their Fathers?  The beauty of the gospel is that even though we’ve done everything wrong, because the Spirit of God’s Son lives in us, He can say the same thing to us, that we are HIs beloved sons, in whom He is well pleased.  Over and over again, the New Testament refers to us as “beloved.”  In 1 Thessalonians 1, Paul calls us, “Brethren beloved by God.”  I read from Ephesians earlier where Paul said in love God predestined us to adoption.”  Well, in the next verse he says it was, “To the praise of the glory of His grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”  Because of THE beloved Son, we get to become beloved sons too, and in Ephesians 5, Paul says, “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.”

2.  The Father Gave His Beloved Son His Spirit

• In Matthew 3:16, right before God told Jesus He loved Him, He sent His Spirit upon Him as a sign that His presence would continually be with Jesus.  How many times have we heard how important a Father’s presence is in the home?  When kids grow up without a Father, it’s a disaster, but the Father sent His Spirit to make sure Jesus knew even though He couldn’t be with Him in Heaven for a while, He would never be without His Father.  And that same Spirit was given to us.

3.  The Father Listened to His Beloved Son

• John 11:41-42 [When Jesus prayed for Lazarus to be raised] - “Father, I thank you that You have heard me.  I knew that You always hear me.”  Jesus had the Spirit of God in His heart and knew He could cry out to Him anytime and His Father would hear Him, even though the Father didn’t always give Him what He asked.  We see that in the Garden the Night before His death when He cried out to God not to make Him go through with His crucifixion.  Mark 14:36, “He was saying, ‘Abba!  Father!  All things are possible for you, remove this cup from Me, yet not what I will, but what you will.”  Even though the Father would not grant Jesus’ request, He still heard Him and loved Him, and because we’re beloved sons now, we know God hears and loves us, and ultimately…

4.  The Father Brought His Beloved Son Home

• 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, for You loved me before the foundation of the world.”
  • As we partake of the Lord’s Supper this morning, let us not just know intellectually that we are God’s children, but that through the sacrifice of THE beloved Son, we can feel that we are His beloved sons too.  We can experience daily the love of our Father through the expression of His love for us, through His constant presence in the Spirit He gives to us, through His ever open ear to the cries of our hearts, and through His plans to bring us home in the end too.

Series: N/A

Service: Wednesday Night

Type: Invitation

Speaker: Luke Hinely

Series: Basic Bible Doctrine

Service: Wed Bible Study

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

Series: Basic Bible Doctrine

Service: Wed Bible Study

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

Series: N/A

Service: Praise and Preaching Service

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Brian Messerli

Leviticus 19:32 - I think this is one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible.  It tells us a great way to honor and revere God is to honor and revere the aged, those with gray hair.  I’m referring to senior saints this morning as silver saints to capture the beauty and honor of gray hair.  In fact…

Proverbs 16:31 - I’m not sure if Solomon is picturing a gold crown or saying gray hair resembles a silver crown, but either way gray hair is to be held in honor.  In later Jewish writings, they discussed in great detail the verse we started with in Leviticus 19:32 and wondered things like, “Do we stand for every old person, or just the wise ones?  How close does an elderly person have to get to you before you stand?  How long do you stay standing?” And they knew the way they stood in honor of the aged was being evaluated by God, so you couldn’t just give some half hearted quick rise and sit back down like checking off a box.  They understood standing was an outward sign of the inward respect you had for them, and if you stood for them but didn’t honor them with your words and by the way you treated them, standing was an empty gesture.

  Can you imagine how much better our society would be if we were having these kinds of discussions in America? Instead, we look at the elderly as getting in the way of progress, we measure people’s value in society by their productivity and old people need to get out of the way and let the young whipper snappers take care of things.  We treat old age like a plague, so we avoid talking about our age because it’s embarrassing, we spend obscene amounts of money on cosmetic surgeries to keep us looking young, and because of the stigma around age in our culture, instead of honoring the aged we expect them to fade into the background as they go out to pasture.

And honestly, this is more unique to America because we’re an individualistic culture that values independence and self-sufficiency, so naturally one of the most horrifying thoughts for Americans is to lose our independence and self-sufficiency, which happens when we get old.  In collectivistic cultures across the world even today, like in Asian, African, South American cultures, they’re much more likely to respect and appreciate their elders.

Which means churches like ours here in America are at the highest risk of ignoring, mistreating, or even looking down our noses in disdain at not just the aged in general, but even at the silver saints among us, AND we’re at the highest risk of silver saints buying into the culture’s assessment of their worth and feeling like God has no more use for them.  So we have to make EXTRA effort in our youth-obsessed culture to honor God by honoring the silver saints among us, and making sure they know they are a blessing to us.  And silver saints are blessing because they’ve seen so much in life they have learned what’s most important.

May silver saints who see what matters most, matter most to us.

I want to share 3 things our silver saints have seen that give them understanding about what matters most and that make them such a blessing to us.

1. Silver Saints Have Seen the Other Side of Ambition

• Job 12:12 - Now I realize there are exceptions to this rule.  It’s possible to reach old age and still be a fool, but generally the longer you live in this world, the more you understand how life works and what’s most important.
  • And that’s so valuable because when we’re young, our ambitions are either misaimed or shortsighted because we have an underdeveloped sense of what really matters, so when we’re a kid, we might think there’s nothing more important in the world than ice cream and when our parents say “No, not this time,” like a cone left in the hot sun, we have a meltdown and we think the whole world is ending.  When we’re in our teens and start to like boys or girls, our biggest ambition is to determine whether or not they like us back, and if we find that we like them and they don’t like us, or maybe they like us for a while and but then they start liking someone else, again it feels like the end of the world.  And in these cases, the parents who are older understand these aren’t the most important things in world even though they seem like it to the youth.
    • But the irony is, those parents who may be in their 20’s or 30’s, maybe chasing their own version of ice cream and they’re just convinced landing this particular job so they can make more money is the most important thing in life, and if they don’t get it, there’s a meltdown and yet THEIR parents who maybe in their 50’s or 60’s or 70’s understand these aren’t the most important things in the world either.
    • Ecclesiastes 2:4-8, 11 [Ecclesiastes may have been written by Solomon or someone writing from Solomon’s perspective, but we learn about Solomon’s ambitions and how he sought all the riches, pleasure, and fun life has to offer, but on the other side of it, he discovered it was all empty] - When we’re young, we feel like the world is our oyster and Satan convinces us the most important ambition is to build up our own kingdom and consume and accumulate, but at the end of the day, it leaves us empty because those things simply aren’t what’s most important.
      • One writer said, “As the years increase, things look smaller; and life, which had so firm and stable a base in the days of our youth, now seems nothing but a rapid flight of moments, every one of them illusory.” - Arthur Schopenhauer.
        • When we’re young, we spend so much time chasing illusions.  Things we THINK will really make us happy and satisfied in life, but silver saints have lived long enough to see reality on the other side of the illusions.  And Ecclesiastes ends with Solomon’s realization of what truly matters most:
          • Ecclesiastes 12:13 - Silver saints understand youthful energy and ambition are good things, but they can cloud and distract us from what matters most in life, and that’s honoring and obeying God, because it’s the only thing that’s not illusory; it’s the only thing left standing at the end of our lives.  Silver saints know in the end, we’ll lose everything we’ve accumulated in this life.  Like a game of monopoly, all the houses and hotels and properties get swept off the board back into the box, but our eternity with God and the legacy of faith and love we leave behind for our families can never be swept away.
            • And because silver saints live nearer to the edge of eternity, they’ve learned to see time as a precious commodity because there’s only so much left, and they wish they could get some of the time back they spent in their youth chasing the less important things.
              • One writer asked, “Who does not wish to be beautiful, and clever, and rich, and to have back, in old age, the time spent trying to be any of them?” - Robert Brault
              • This is why their advice and counsel is so valuable because they understand now the best use of time.
                • Titus 2:3-5 - Silver saints can help younger saints remember there’s nothing more important than faith and family.  If you make millions, but forfeit God and burn bridges with the people you love, it’s pointless.  If you spent decades working over time to buy your kids more stuff, but your kids hardly see you, it’s all empty.  If you move across the country to take a lucrative job, but there’s no local church nearby, it’s going to drain your soul.  If you take up a fun hobby that makes you happy, but leaves your wife in a constant state of stress, it’s just not worth it.  Our silver saints know what it’s like to have youthful ambition, and it’s a good thing if aimed properly, but we need their counsel to help us be “sensible,” to keep our heads on straight and never forget what matters most in life.

2.  Silver Saints Have Seen the Other Side of Sin and Self-Reliance

• John 8:9 [When the Pharisees brought a woman to Jesus who had been caught in the act of adultery, they were testing Him to see if He would order that she be stoned to death according to the Law of Moses.  And Jesus famously responded, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”] - The older ones, the ones with silver in their hair, left the room first because they were more aware of their own sinfulness than anyone else.  And I don’t think it’s because these particular old people were more deviant than any others; I don’t think they were in a biker gang in their old age and knew they were just the worst of the worst.  No, it’s because they had lived longer which means they had more time to sin than the young people did and more time to reflect on it and feel the pain of regret on the other side of it.
  • Psalm 25:7 - Silver saints remember the sins of their youth and often ask God NOT to remember them.  And one of the reasons so many sins are committed in our youth is because of self-reliance.  When we’re young, we’re strong and feel like we can conquer the world which tempts us to do things our own way, but as we get older and physically weaker, we start to gain a much better grasp of our frailty and dependence on the Lord.  Which means as we get older, we replace the “strength” of self-reliance with the true strength of God-reliance!
    • 2 Corinthians 12:10 - The world sees the elderly like fireworks; in their youth they’re bright and glorious but then they just fizzle out in their old age.  But the Bible presents a different picture!  The Bible pictures the elderly as getting stronger with age because they’ve learned so many lessons from their sins, they’ve learned daily dependence on the Lord, their prayers are deeper, the word of God is more meaningful to them because it resonates perfectly with all of their experiences, and as Paul says…
      • 2 Corinthians 4:16
      • Psalm 92:12-15 - Rather than fireworks that fizzle out, silver saints are like majestic trees with deep roots in God that continue to bear fruit for Him because they know their own weaknesses better than they did in their youth and they know God’s strength better than they did in their youth.  Based on this passage, one writer called older Christians, “Evergreen saints” because they stay healthy and green in every season of life, even in the winter months.
        • And part of the reason Evergreen saints can continue to bear fruit even into their silver age is because they know what happens when they try to bear fruit without God, they’ve sinned so many times and made so many mistakes and seen the other side of self-reliance and momentary pleasure that they have a more settled resolve about the decisions they make.  The evil road isn’t as appealing because they’ve been down it so many times before.
          • “You know you’ve lived a few years when you start having your second thoughts first.” - Robert Brault
            • While the young might rush headlong into sin without giving it a second thought because it sounds so exciting and promising, silver saints have been there, done that and seen the misery and regret and emptiness on the other side of it.
            • And I think this is part of God’s wisdom in requiring that shepherds of a local church be silver saints.  We want men leading us who have their second thoughts first, who are evergreen because they’re deeply rooted in God and fully reliant on His strength, and who know from experience what’s most important in life.  It’s why shepherds are also called elders, and as we consider the blessing of all our silver saints at PSD, let us thank God especially for the blessing of the 4 silver saints who serve as our elders here.

3.  Silver Saints Have Seen the Other Side of Trials

• Whenever you look at a silver saint, you’re looking at someone who’s been through an incredible amount of pain in their life.  Aside from the current pains in their body, they’ve lived through so much loss, grief, injustice, relational conflicts, wars, disappointments, heartaches, persecutions, and fill in the blank with whatever other trial you can think of.  Their wrinkles are like battle scars, and yet they are still standing and still worshipping because of God’s faithfulness to them through it all.
  • I read about an elderly doctor who gave his life to the study of medicine, who saved many lives, but who unfortunately lost patients who’s lives he could not save.  He had seen so much joy and so much pain, and in his later years his family asked if he’d be willing to have his portrait painted.  He agreed, but the young painter saw the wrinkles on his face as blemishes and asked the doctor if he’d like them removed or at least smoothed over in the portrait.  And he said, “Young man, it has taken me 70 years to acquire those lines; each one tells a story of where I’ve been and where God has been with me.”
    • Psalm 37:25 - David wrote this in his old age, and even though there were plenty of times in his life when he FELT like God had forsaken him because of the intensity of his trials, like back in Psalm 22:1 when he actually cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”  Yet here on the other side of all those trials, he sees that God was with him all along.
      • Psalm 71:17-19 - Silver saints are like rocks and solid oaks in the church because they’ve seen so many of God’s deliverances through their trials.  They’ve seen His wondrous deeds, His strength, and His righteousness or faithfulness, which makes them so much more convicted in their faith.
        • You can laugh at this it’s okay, but lately part of my wind down routine before bed is to turn on Youtube and watch Bob Ross videos.  I find his voice to be incredibly soothing and calming, and I just watch in amazement at his talent.  And one of the most stunning things to me is to watch him paint something on the canvas, and I have absolutely no idea what it is.  It just looks like blotches of color and I’m thinking, “What is he going to do with that?  How is that going to turn into anything?”  Just a couple nights ago, he drew these squiggly lines at the bottom of a sky and I was so confused about what he was thinking, and then within just a few minutes he takes a little fan brush and starts adding some detail and uses some techniques to pull the colors together to create shadows and distance and all the sudden I see it.  When I first started watching his videos, I couldn’t believe he could turn these random markings on the canvas into something beautiful, but I’ve been watching for a few weeks now and while I’m still amazed by it, I know he’s going to pull it off.  I know Bob has the ability to take random things and turn them into a work of art because I’ve seen him do it so many times now.
          • And that’s what it’s like for silver saints and their faith in God.  They’ve seen so many painful trials in life that seemed random and senseless and they had no idea what God was thinking or doing, and yet God came through every time and brought beauty out of the chaos.  Silver saints have seen seen the other side of so many tragedies in life, they’re rock solid in their conviction about God’s faithfulness, and it gives them the settled hope that God will bring them safely through the other side of the grave too.
            • • • Psalm 71:20 - When we’re young, we’re unsure of things and trying to figure God out, to see if He’s really faithful like everyone says He is.  Silver saints may not have God figured out completely, because a God that can be completely figured out isn’t worth worshipping, but they do have the faithfulness part figured out because they’ve seen the other side of trials.

Applications:

1. Stand to Greet Them

• In this country, we honor our vets because of the wars they’ve seen and the sacrifices they’ve made for the ones they love.  Well, silver saints have seen decades of daily spiritual warfare, they’ve been fighting with Satan for the souls of their children and grandchildren for so long, their wrinkles are battle scars, each one a story, some joyful and others painful.
  • Let’s stand for our silver saints when we greet them or even when they enter the room because they’re still standing for the Lord and they see what matters most.

2.   Seek their Counsel

• I heard a true story about a Christian man named Joe Bailey who had 5 boys.  One died after surgery at only 18 days old.  Another died of leukemia at age 5.  A third one died at the age of 18 in a sledding accident.  Joe went on to write a book on death and dying and spent much of his life traveling across the nation at conferences share his experiences to try to comfort those who were grieving.  And yet before he died he expressed a deep regret he had in life.  He said “God blessed me with 5 boys, and I regret that I spent far more time talking to people about the 3 who aren’t here than about the 2 who are.”  That’s something his younger self would have never considered, but imagine if someone older had told this to his younger self; it would have made a huge difference in his life and in the lives of his 2 living boys.
  • I know we have ChatGPT now and we may not think we need to ask our silver saints about things, but there’s no substitute for wise counsel from a real person who has seen more things than we can imagine, and seeking their counsel will not only help our lives, it’ll help us grow closer to them and communicate to them what a blessing they are.

3.   Show Them you See Them

• • Those who’ve seen the most among us should never feel unseen.  We can assure our silver saints we see them by going out of our way to talk to them at services, to sit with them at services, to let them know how great it is to see them, to call them during the week, to write them cards, to go visit with them, to celebrate special events in their lives like birthdays and anniversaries, to ask about their kids and grandkids, to let them know we’re praying for them, to ask them to tell us stories about their life, to include them when we go out for lunch on Sundays, to ask them to help watch your kids during services, to tell them specifically how they’ve blessed you, and when those silver saints are our parents, to make some return to them by taking care of them because they took care of us for so long.
    • I love how we have a multigenerational H2H group which helps us get outside our comfort zone of interacting only with people our age, and it gives younger generations a chance to get to know our silver saints better and vice versa, which is such an encouragement.  We are the church of Jesus Christ, we don’t have a young church, a middle aged church, and an old church; we are one church growing to God’s glory together and silver saints are a true blessing from God because they know better than any of us what’s most important in life.

May silver saints who see what matters most, matter most to us.

Series: Basic Bible Doctrine

Service: Adult Class

Type: Bible Class

Speaker: Brian Messerli

On Wednesday night, we talked about the danger of falling away from the Lord.

We talked about how it’s not so much that we lose our salvation like we lose our keys and we just randomly wake up one morning and it’s gone.  No, as Jason put it in his comment Wednesday, we don’t technically lose our salvation, we give it away.

We don’t constantly bounce in and out of the kingdom, losing and then regaining our salvation each week depending on our performance.  No, we talked about verses that give us great confidence in our salvation, that Heaven is reserved for us, that we’re protected by the power of God so that we won’t lose our salvation, and that no one can snatch us out of the hands of the Father and Son.  BUT, the condition for that is to continue living by faith.

Hebrews 3:12 - We must not be like the Israelites in the wilderness, living lives of consistent unbelief, constantly questioning whether God is with us and whether He’s willing and able to keep His promises.  Most importantly, we must not abandon our faith in Jesus, because if we do, we have an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away, and that’s INCREDIBLY serious because we’re rejecting Jesus, the only source of salvation, and we’re not just rejecting Him, we’re crucifying Him!

Hebrews 6:4-6 - When a Christian decides one day to reject faith in Christ and go back to the world, he or she is acting just like the Jews who shouted, “Crucify Him!” and just like the Romans who put Him on the cross!  They crucified Jesus because they did not believe He was who He said He was, and when a Christian walks away from Christ, they’re saying the same thing.

Now, we didn’t talk about this phrase, “It’s impossible to renew them again to repentance.”  It almost makes it sound like once a person rejects Jesus they can never come back from it even if they tried, but that’s not true; sometimes a Christian does fall away, but the Lord in His mercy grants them time and then, like the prodigal son, they come back again later in life.  I think it helps to realize the word “since” can also mean “while.” My Bible actually has a footnote that says that, which probably would have been the clearer translation here.  If we translate it, “while,” it means as long as they continue to crucify Christ in their hearts, it’s impossible for them to repent because they don’t even think there’s any need for repentance.  They’ve decided following Jesus doesn’t matter, so you’re not going to talk them into changing their lives if they don’t think Jesus is worth changing for.  Now, it’s possible at some point they may have a change of heart, but for some that’s just not the case.  In fact, the language is so strong here because probably in the majority of cases where a person experiences all the blessings of Christ and then walks away from it, they aren’t coming back, and it can be even harder to get them to repent AGAIN than it was to get them to repent the first time they came to Christ.  This may be part of what Peter means in…

2 Peter 2:20-22 - Before coming to Christ, we’re lost, but that’s because we don’t know Him and all the amazing blessings He brings.  But once we actually know Him and all the spiritual blessings in Him, and THEN we abandon Him, that’s an even worse kind of lost than the first state of lostness we were in.  At least in the first state, there was hope to find the knowledge of Christ.  But in the last state, we’ve already found that knowledge and deemed it to be not enough for us, so now there’s no hope at all; and it can leave us in a hardened state where there’s nothing left for us in the world but the vomit of our own sin.  And we’ll talk about this more in our class on the Second Coming, but it’s possible there may be a more severe punishment in Hell awaiting those who have fallen away, which is another reason the last state would be worse than the first.  God’s punishment for ignorance may not be nearly as severe as His punishment for knowing the truth, living in that truth for a while, and then rejecting it.

Questions/Comments?

Question:  What are some things that might lead a Christian to abandon faith in Christ?

1) Discouragement from trials.  We may be persecuted for our faith, or we may find that we’re having to make sacrifices to take up our cross to follow Jesus, and we get tired of sacrificing and may decide it’s not worth it.  It’s interesting that there aren’t any verses with the specific wording warning us not to lose our salvation, but there are a lot of verses warning us not to lose heart.  Because losing heart can absolutely lead us to give up our faith in Jesus.  Trials can make us feel like maybe God doesn’t care about us or that He’s abandoned us and won’t keep His promises.  2) Temptation to go back to our old life.

Luke 9:62 - Another thing the Israelites did was constantly look back to Egypt longing to go back.  God was trying to move them forward, but they were living in a romanticized past.  They remembered all the food they had, but they didn’t remember the harsh slavery, and that happens to us.  We might remember all the partying we did before becoming Christians, all the “fun” we had, and we only remember the pleasure but don’t remember the pain, the emptiness, the loneliness, guilt, and shame.  And I love how Jesus describes joining the kingdom as grabbing a plow, because there’s work to do to co-rule with God by cultivating life in this new Heavenly garden on earth.  It points back to the kingdom prophecy in Isaiah 2 about turning our swords into plowshares, and it’s really hard to move forward with our work while looking back.  Next time you’re out mowing your lawn, try to turn your body and head around so you’re looking behind you, and then see how hard it is to keep walking forward.

3) Self-reliance/Pride.  Instead of connecting to the vine, we live as practical atheists.  We say we believe, but then we live like there is no God, we act like we’re totally self-sufficient and don’t really need God’s help or wisdom because we can be good enough for Heaven based on our own performance.  This happened to many of the Pharisees.  They professed faith in God, but their faith was completely in themselves.  They thought God was privileged to have them in His kingdom, and that they weren’t like all those terrible sinners out there.  4) We turn to idols.  Instead of trusting God to satisfy our souls, we turn to people, possessions, and pleasures to fill the void in our heart.  Instead of spending out time, money, and energy worshipping God and working in His kingdom, we spend all our time, money, and energy on hobbies, bigger and better stuff, and other things that have become the true source of our happiness and joy.  Sometimes these idols are sins, but other times they’re just good things we’ve turned into ultimate things.  5) Seduced by the ways of this world. The comfort, the pleasure, the riches and fame can pull our hearts away from Jesus and we can fall in love with all the flashy things of this world.  In the passage we read earlier in 2 Peter 2, he mentioned becoming entangled again in the defilements of the world, and we actually have a

2 Timothy 4:9-10 - We don’t know much about Demas, except that he was mentioned as being with Paul in one of his earlier letters, but here at the end of Paul’s life, as he’s sitting on death row for Jesus, he shares the sad news that Demas deserted him because he loved this present world.  It could have been that the persecution was too much for him and he chose comfort instead, it could be that he just wanted people’s approval and it was too socially shameful to be associated with Christ, or it could be that he just wanted an easy life of leisure and pleasure.

6) Neglect. Hebrews 2:1.  CS Lewis once said, “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”  This can happen in marriage where you just gradually stop spending time together, stop talking and sharing life together, and you drift apart to the point where eventually you don’t even recognize each other anymore. That can happen in our relationship with God.  We neglect prayer and Bible reading, we start going through the motions, and our faith just becomes empty and hollowed out over time to the point where we don’t even feel like we know or care that much about God anymore.  And sometimes that neglect can happen because we have a misunderstanding of grace, that it means as long as we have faith in God, we can just live however we want, but that’s not the case because people of genuine faith don’t neglect God, and if they do, it’s only temporary and then we repent.  7) Deception.  Colossians 2:8.  We may allow ourselves to be deceived by the ideas and philosophies of this world, like evolution or relativism or pluralism where all roads lead to Heaven, and loving people means approving of their sin and to say Jesus is the only way to be saved is too exclusive and hateful, or fill in the blank with any other false ideologies.  These can have a powerful pull on us, especially because they’re usually held by the intellectual elites in society and can make Christians feel like primitive cavemen and idiots for believing in Jesus, like there’s no evidence for Christianity, and if we’re not careful, we can give in to that cultural pressure.

Question:  What are some safeguards given to us by God to prevent us from falling away from Jesus?  I think this question is so helpful to think about because even though the danger of falling away is very real, God actually puts things in place for Christians to make that difficult!  In many ways, once we’re saved, God makes it hard to be lost!

1) He gives us a way of escape!  1 Corinthians 10:13.  There’s never a time when we can say, “I had to fall away from Jesus.  The pressure and temptation were just too great, I had no choice.”  No, God always gives us a choice, He does not allow us to be overpowered or snatched out of His hand by Satan.  There’s always a way of escape.  2) God is extremely patient and forgiving!  He doesn’t say, “If you mess up too many times, I’m removing your salvation.”  No, the Father is eager to forgive us and patient with us as we grow.  Jesus told us to forgive an unlimited number of times, 70 x 7, because that’s how our Father is with us.  3) He gives us His word.  The Bible not only gives us warnings about not falling away, but tools to help prevent it!  He gives us the understanding of how to stay in relationship with Him and stay connected to the vine, He gives us wisdom and tells us exactly how to keep ourselves from being deceived by Satan.  4) He gives us the church.  We’ll talk about this in a few minutes when we discuss church discipline.  5) He gives us consciences.  Our consciences are like built in warning systems, kind of like check engine lights, to tell us, “Danger, you’re going off course!  You’re going to be lost if you keep driving without fixing this issue!”  6) He disciplines us.  A lot of times when we’re not living right, God can present us with a series of dead end roads and consequences to help us see the way we’re going isn’t working.  Now I realize it’s tough to always know that’s what’s happening because sometimes bad things happen to us even when we’re living righteously.  But the Bible says God goads us, kind of like a cowboy poking a stubborn ox with a sharp stick.  He uses pain to corral us in the right direction.  It’s like when Saul was killing Christians, God was using failure and frustration, and the more Saul rebelled, the more Ananias said he was “kicking against the goads.”  If you’ve ever been living in a way you KNOW is not right, God might give us some immediate consequences or He may even just let us hit rock bottom to help wake us up to the folly of our decisions.  7) He gives us His Spirit. We can absolutely call on God in prayer to give us strength through His Spirit to stay faithful.  God does NOT expect us to fight Satan alone; He has promised to be with us and by His strength and His armor to crush Satan under our feet.

Now let’s talk about church discipline, because it’s one of the safeguards God puts in place to keep us from falling away.  And I know the phrase “church discipline” sounds terrible, like some medieval cultic practice where we surround a person and beat them or lock them in a closet until they repent, but that’s not what it’s like at all.  Jesus describes the process in…

Matthew 18:15-17

• I love the wisdom here in starting with a one on one approach.  Jesus doesn’t say, “If you someone sins, go tell the whole church about it so everyone knows how terrible they are.”  No, you just go by yourself and approach them about it.  And this could be a personal sin that you caught them doing so now it’s known by you, or it could be a sin against you, and hopefully their response would be, “You’re right, I’m so sorry, please forgive me.”  But if they have a rebellious heart and scoff at you and say, “No, I’m not repenting, this is none of your business,” then you go take one or two more with you, like a miniature intervention and hopefully with another person or persons involved, preferably people they’re close to and that have influence on them, they’ll change their tune.  But if they tell two or three people to go pound sand, now you have enough witnesses to their unrepentant behavior to make a case to the church that this person refuses to change, and then the whole church can reach out to them and plead with them to change.
  • And if they STILL refuse to repent, then Jesus says to consider them as a Gentile and a tax collector.  This means there’s a clear change in relationship, and they are no longer fellow members of the new covenant with you.
    • To the Jews, Gentiles were viewed as outside the covenant, and tax collectors, even though they were Jews, were viewed as violators of the covenant and traitors to their own people for helping the Romans.
      • Jesus is NOT telling us to hate them or mistreat them or even to excommunicate them and say, “We never want you to here ever again.”  No, Jesus still loved and pursued Gentiles and tax collectors to try to get them to repent, and we should still long for their salvation.
        • 2 Thessalonians 2:14-15 - This is why we call it church discipline, not church punishment or banishment or excommunication, because the goal is to win our brother or sister back!  We’re not ghosting them or treating them like they’re dead to us, we’re trying to love them and persuade them to come home.
          • Now, I realize the Bible doesn’t use the term “church discipline,” but I think it’s fair terminology, especially in light of this passage where Paul says not to associate with them in order to put them to shame, and what he writes in…

1 Corinthians 5:1-2 - The way it’s worded seems to indicate this is his step-mother, but this supposedly Christian man and his father are sleeping with the same woman!  And this particular sin is so bad that even Gentiles who don’t know Christ know this is unacceptable behavior.

1 Corinthians 5:4-5, 13 - Now, at the end there, he quotes from Deuteronomy 13, and in that context it meant to put him to death!  Well, gratefully in the New Testament we’re no longer required to carry out the death penalty on unrepentant sinners, but the fact that Paul uses that verse shows just how serious this is!  And Paul’s solution is to hand him over to Satan, which means to cut this man off from fellowship with the church and give this man over to his sinful lifestyle and let him see how it destroys his life, with the goal that this man will wake up and come back to the Lord.  Like the prodigal son, Paul wants them to turn this guy over to his decision to reject Jesus until he finds himself eating slop with the pigs and comes to his senses.

Note:  His parents likely aren’t Christians, otherwise Paul would have condemned the father too.

1 Corinthians 5:6-8 - In the last plague on Egypt, before God killed all the firstborn in Egypt, He told the Israelites to put blood over their doorposts so that the destroyer would Pass Over them, and they were also meant to get ready to leave Egypt quickly and didn’t have time to use leaven.  So in the future when God instituted the yearly Passover feast, they were not allowed to have any leaven in the house, and Paul is saying Christianity is like an eternal Passover feast and Jesus is our new Passover lamb who spared us from death, and we can’t have any leaven in our midst either.  And he says evil is like leaven in that a little bit of it can spread throughout the whole lump, and if we want to keep this eternal Passover feast we have to remove the leaven of evil from our midst.  So they need to remove this man from their midst, AND their attitude which seems to be tolerating his behavior!

1 Corinthians 5:11 - This doesn’t mean they can’t ever talk to this man again, but it does mean their relationship has changed.  They can’t eat together as a church with him anymore; that implies that they’re in fellowship when they’re not.  They can’t just have this guy over to their home and act like everything is fine.  No, their interactions with him now are still to be with kindness, but always with an appeal to come back.  Instead of just shooting the breeze and laughing together, they need to be saying, “Hey we miss you, we need you to come back, how can we help you be right with the Lord?”  And hopefully the shame of losing their association with us will motivate them to come back.

So the 3 main reasons for church discipline in this section are 1) it’s setting a terrible example to the world for the church to tolerate sin.  Why would anyone want to join the church when the church is just as evil as the world?  2) We do it to try to wake up the unrepentant sinner and save their soul.  3) We do it to prevent the evil from spreading in the church from their bad influence.

Questions/Comments?

Question:  What are some ways church discipline might be abused/used improperly?

1) Treating the person in mean or cruel ways.  2) Not having a relationship with this person in the first place so when we say, “Look we can’t be in fellowship anymore,” it doesn’t really matter to them because they don’t feel like they’re losing much.  3) Skipping the first part of Matthew 18 and instead of one person approaching them first, the whole church gets involved right away.  4) Instead of meeting with them in person, just resorting to writing them letters, which is much more cold and impersonal.  Now, sometimes you have to write them a letter bc they refused to meet or even talk on the phone, but some churches immediately jump to writing letters.  5) Holding grudges/refusing to forgive when the sinner comes home.

Series: N/A

Service: Lord’s Supper Service

Type: Lord's Supper Talk

Speaker: Dwayne Gandy

The Appearance to the Two Men on the Road

They were seven miles from Jerusalem, walking away from it, and they had no idea who had just fallen into step beside them.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus are not named heroes of the faith. One is called Cleopas. The other isn't named at all. They weren't among the inner circle. And on the day of the resurrection, they were doing what discouraged people do — putting distance between themselves and the place where hope had died.

They had heard the reports. The tomb was empty. Some of the women claimed angels had appeared and said Jesus was alive. A few of the men had gone to check and confirmed the tomb was indeed empty — but no one had actually seen him. And so these two were left with an absence: no body, no appearance, no certainty. Just an empty grave and a grief they didn't know what to do with.

Then a stranger appeared and asked what they were talking about.

He Let Them Talk First

What Jesus did next is worth slowing down to appreciate. He didn't reveal himself. He didn't open with an announcement. He asked a question: "What kind of conversation is this that you are having with one another as you walk and are sad?"

He already knew the answer. He knew they were sad before he asked. But he wanted them to tell him. He wanted to hear it from them — their confusion, their grief, their dashed expectations, all of it.

And so they poured it out to the stranger on the road. They told him about Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word. They told him how the chief priests had handed him over to be condemned and crucified. And then came the sentence that carries the full weight of their heartbreak: "But we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel."

We were hoping. Past tense. The hope was already being spoken of as something that had been and was no longer.

There is something deeply gracious happening in this moment. Jesus, the very person they were grieving, was listening to them describe their grief over him — and he let them finish. He didn't interrupt. He gave them space to release what they were carrying before he gave them anything else.

That is the posture of someone who understands what people need before they need anything corrected.

Then He Opened the Scriptures

After they finished, Jesus spoke — and what came next was not what they might have expected. He didn't comfort them with reassurances. He called them out, gently but plainly: "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken."

They needed that. Not condemnation, but a reorientation. Their understanding had been incomplete, and he was about to fill in what was missing. Beginning with Moses and working through all the prophets, he walked them through the Scriptures and showed them that the suffering of the Christ was not a tragedy that contradicted the plan — it was the plan. The cross was not the end of the story. It had always been the path to glory.

Seven miles is a long walk. They had his undivided attention for all of it. He wasn't on his way somewhere else. He wasn't distracted. For those hours on the road, everything he had was directed toward two ordinary, grieving disciples who needed to understand what God had been doing all along.

The Invitation They Had to Make

When they neared Emmaus, he gave every indication he would keep walking. And they stopped him: "Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is far spent."

He knew he was going to stay. The invitation was not for his benefit — it was for theirs. They needed to be the ones who asked. There is something important in the act of saying, come in, stay with us, we want you here. It is not a one-time thing. It is the ongoing posture of people who recognize they cannot get where they are going alone.

So he went in with them. They sat down to eat. He took the bread, blessed it, broke it — and their eyes were opened.

We don't know exactly what it was. The hands. The gesture. The echo of every meal they had ever shared with him before. Whatever the mechanism, the moment the bread broke, they knew. And in the instant they knew, he vanished.

Why He Left

They may have wished he had stayed. But his leaving was as carefully chosen as everything else about that afternoon. They needed him to go so they could do what only they could do next: go back to Jerusalem, find the others, and become eyewitnesses. Not of an empty tomb — of the risen Lord himself.

They got up that same evening, the walk they had said was too late to make, and went back the seven miles to Jerusalem. When they arrived, they found the eleven already gathered with a report of their own — Jesus had appeared to Peter too. And the two from the road added their account: they had seen him, talked with him, walked with him for hours, and known him in the breaking of the bread.

The story was beginning to spread, one witness at a time. That was the design.

What He Knew They Needed

Looking back across the whole encounter, what stands out is the precision of it. They needed to talk before they could hear. They needed a question before they needed an answer. They needed a gentle correction before they could receive the truth. They needed to extend an invitation. They needed his full attention on a quiet road. They needed the breaking of the bread at exactly the right moment. And they needed him to leave so they could become what he had prepared them to be.

He gave them each of those things, in the right order, at the right time.

That same attentiveness is present at this table. Whatever you bring here today — confusion, grief, exhaustion, distance from God, a week that wore you down — Jesus knows it before you name it. And he meets each person with exactly what they need, not what they ask for, not what they expect, but what only he can see they actually require.

The bread breaks. The cup is passed. And somehow, in this moment, he makes himself known.

Series: N/A

Service: Wed Bible Study

Type: Invitation

Speaker: Connor McClenny