A Reading From Ecclesiasticus 27:30— 28:7
A Reading From Psalms 103 or 103:1-14
A Reading From Romans 14:5-12
A Reading From The Gospel Matthew 18:21-35

A Sermon by Rev Dr Pastor Jimmy

Mercy. You know, my dad didn't do a lot of encouraging me to show mercy in my life. He used to say things like, the meek don't inherit anything.

He would use other words that I can't necessarily or won't necessarily use right now, but that was his perspective before Christ. Mercy was not something that he had in large quantities. In fact, choking people about over money seems quite familiar as I read this story.

I always paid my debts when it came to my dad for that reason. But once Christ got a hold of him, things changed a little bit and mercy is really something that only is capable in our lives if it reaches to the heart. And so there's a story that we read in the Desert Fathers about Abba Moses, or Moses the black.

And he was a fourth century monk in Egypt and someone in their community, a brother, had committed an offense and the monks gathered to consider the matter and they summoned Moses, but he initially refused to come. But when they sent him for him again, he carried a basket of sand with him and there was a hole in this basket of sand and the sand was spilling out behind him as he walked. And so the brothers asked him what he was doing by having this basket that was pouring sand out of the back of him and he said that the spilling sand represented his own sins, which he did not see, which as he came to judge someone else's faults.

And hearing him come to this realization that he was focused on someone else's faults while his faults were pouring out behind him that he didn't see, the community released the offending brother without further condemnation. I have to say it strikes me as fascinating how much our modern culture is drawn to desert mystics or desert fathers, those that retreated and detached from the world to draw closer to God, because they often do it as an attempt to escape the church. But what I love about the desert fathers is that they weren't escaping the church.

They were escaping the cares of this world. And so this example of them asking Moses the Black to come and to offer counsel on this is not the only time that a desert father was praying and seeking God in the wilderness and they were like, please come and help. Anthony the Great, which is considered almost the father, one of the fathers of monasticism and the idea of living a life of asceticism towards honoring the Lord, was out in the woods as well and Athanasius actually requested, he wrote the book, The Life of Anthony.

Athanasius actually requested for him to come and to speak on behalf of the validity of them creating a creed that came out of the Council of Nicaea. And I think that's fascinating because this is somebody that had detached from the world, who was praying out in the desert, who was seeking God and living a life of solitude, yet his counsel was so important to make a matter valid that he didn't say, no, that's too religious for me, all that church stuff. All I need is me and God over here, right? And so people would be drawn to that concept.

I don't need anything else. I just need me and God. But the father of monasticism was called into the Council of Nicaea to offer credibility for what they were trying to do at the council.

And he didn't say, well, much like Moses the Black, he refused at first because why would you want to leave and come? No one wants to get involved in all that stuff, but he was connected to it. And so he didn't consider himself detached from the church, nor did Moses the Black here. And so what I think is so powerful and why his actions were so important is because what we don't see in the history books is that Moses the Black considered the person that had committed this offense that he was innocent.

That wasn't his concern. He was just reminding the others that they had also needed mercy in their lives. And in doing that, it changed everything, right? It teaches us that it's possible to see someone else's failure accurately, and yet it still approached that person wrongly.

And I think if something is true and can be said of us, that it's easier for us to receive mercy than it is to extend mercy. We're so quick to receive it, and that same mercy that we receive from God must become the mercy that we extend to others. Today's gospel brings us face to face with that contradiction that we face in our lives.

What happens when people who have received extraordinary mercy refuse to extend it? Now I'll say this right out the gate. A lot of times the people that have a hard time extending mercy to others are generally the ones who have also received a lot of mercy. That's a weird reality in our world, right? We've received mercy, and so it's hard for us at times to extend it.

We know that these things happen in our lives and how this addresses us. And so what I think is fascinating is you may have noticed in us understanding this story and understanding our normal rhythms on a Sunday that we did not read our Old Testament passage. Well, we didn't have an Old Testament passage in the canon of Scripture today.

The lectionary actually teaches us and walks through one of the apocryphal books called Ecclesiasticus or Syric. And so we didn't read that because that's considered a Jewish wisdom book before the coming of Christ, but it's not part of the canonical Old Testament as we receive it. And so we want to be careful and we always try to be diligent in that, but if we were to have read that, you would have heard a difference in what we say at the end of those readings.

Instead of it saying the word of the Lord, we would say, here ends the reading. You might be saying, why would you even read something like that? We only want to hear the Word of God read in church. We have to understand what those books represented.

They were historical books, right? So imagine if we took that same logic in everything else in life, right? I'm only going to read books that have been inspired by God, but you think every book that's ever been written isn't profitable for something, right? I'm not going to read that. No, other books have been written that are profitable for us, and the church also recognizes books that are profitable, but they're just not considered inspired canon of Scripture, right? But we learn things from them, right? We learn about culture, and we learn about what was going on around that time period. And so this book was written by Ben Sarah, and we have to understand what is being said here in some of this Jewish wisdom literature.

Ben Sarah warns that anger and wrath are things a sinful person holds fast. And he describes the vengeful person as someone who keeps a record of wrongs. And then he asked a piercing question, how can someone harbor anger against another person and still ask the Lord for healing? Now again, this was written before Jesus' earthly ministry was even coming to fruition, and so you're hearing the same words in some of these historical writings that this culture was already establishing and already teaching, right? He tells the reader to forgive the neighbor's wrong, remember the covenant of the Most High, and overlook the offense.

And this happened before Jesus' ministry on earth. So if we were to take this historic writing in Ecclesiasticus or Sirach and hear the words of this man who is offering this same reality to us that we see in Scripture, we see that Sirach gives us the ledger. Psalm 103 shows us the God who refuses to treat us according to that ledger.

And Paul tells us in Romans that every one of us will stand before God's judgment seat. And then as Reverend Jessica read for us today, Jesus brings them all together with his story, which is where we're particularly going to rest today as we focus on this idea of mercy reaching the heart. Because we see in Peter's life, Peter wanted a number to how much mercy he should show to somebody.

And how much mercy is enough mercy? How much mercy is enough mercy? Right? Today is the Feast of St. John Chrysostom. It's also the Feast of the celebration of the start of the NFL football season, right? It's a holy sacred feast. And, you know, we know the patron saint of field goals comes at one o'clock today.

So we're going to be aware of that. But it's also, it's also the Feast of St. John Chrysostom, who was considered, his title, his name was given his golden mouth because he preached such wonderful oracles. And one of the things that we often attribute to St. John Chrysostom is that idea that when we leave from this space, we say all the time that we're like roaring lions, right? After we've received the body and blood of our Lord, right? We think about this reality and how God pours out his mercy in our lives and then sends us out to do something.

But I think in the middle of all of that wonderful reality, we find ourselves maybe like Peter, who is coming to Jesus with a situation and saying, Lord, how much do I need to do it? Should I forgive this person? Right? He wants a number. He wants there to be something, right? How often will my brother sin against me and I forgive him? As many as seven times, right? It's a good number. He's connecting this reality and it sounds generous because seven is the number of completion.

And so Peter thinks he's offered Jesus a spiritually impressive answer. You ever felt that way? Lord, I don't mean brag. I feel like that was a good answer.

I feel like I did a good job there. And clinically, Jesus always takes us in those moments and goes, yeah, but. And kind of reorders us back to where we need to be.

And so Jesus replies, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times. Some translations will say 70 times seven. And while we don't want to focus too much on the precise numbering and the arithmetic, because if you're keeping count so that you know when you may stop forgiving, you probably missed what Jesus is saying there, right? You got one more chance and it's over, right? You keep an account, right? Like one, two.

Start early, right? And you know by dinner time somebody's gonna get it. Yeah. May even happen by lunch sometimes, depending on the day.

But I want you to think about this, right? What is being said here? I think we can also see something connecting us to Genesis 4 here. Because Lamech boasted that if Cain was avenged sevenfold, then Lamech would be avenged 77-fold. And Lamech in this context represents the old human story in which every wound produces a greater wound, right? And every act of vengeance demands another.

The reason why my dad wasn't big on mercy is because he would say, you know, life's not going to give you everything. You just got to take it, right? And so you need to do it. So if somebody, you know, and there's that old adage growing over there.

Well, I'm not gonna start a fight, but I'll finish one, right? And you're like, don't start nothing, won't be nothing, you know? I'm gonna be kind to you, but if you push me, you're gonna get all of it. That's not what Jesus is saying here, right? And as much as that sounds rewarding, that's not what Jesus is saying here, right? In the old system, every wound produces a greater wound, and every act of vengeance demands another. But Jesus turns that whole arithmetic inside out.

In the kingdom of God, vengeance does not multiply, mercy does. Mercy multiplies. Augustine later made the point with a little kind of holy sarcasm.

He says, if you reach offense number 78, should you finally take revenge? Of course not. If Christ has forgiven you only 77 times, Augustine says, then perhaps you may set the same limit. But if Christ has to continue, has continued to forgive you, do not place a limit on the mercy that Christ has not placed on you.

So then Jesus, to illustrate this point, begins to tell a story. He tells a parable of a king that decides to settle accounts with his servants. And a man is brought before him owing 10,000 talents.

A talent was worth about 6,000 denarii. And a denarius was roughly a day's wage for a laborer. So think about this, 10,000 talents equals about 60 million days of labor.

Let's say it again, 60, we'll do like Dr. Evil, 60 million days of labor. Now some of you feel like you've been working a long time and you maybe you haven't had a day off in a while. And today may be your first day off.

I don't think any of us have the capacity to understand what 60 million days of labor looks like. Even if that man worked every single day, and a lot of you are hard workers, but even if that man worked every single day, it would take him more than a hundred and sixty thousand years to work it off. Right? To be fair, that's impossible.

Right? So Jesus isn't describing a difficult payment plan. It's not like the man was being crushed by high interest rates, and he needed to refinance this this payment plan. Jesus is describing an impossible debt.

The servant falls down and says, have patience with me, or have mercy on me. I will repay you, or I will pay you everything. That's an absurd statement.

There's no way he's gonna be able to pay it back, right? He doesn't need a little more time. This man needs mercy that he could never deserve. Never gonna pay it back, but he needs mercy.

And the king in this story that Jesus shares is moved with compassion, similarly to the way that Jesus was moved when he saw those people coming to him who were like sheep without a shepherd. He was moved deep down inside of his heart and his body, and he helps the man. He gives the servant more than he asked for.

He doesn't extend the deadline. He releases the man and forgives the debt. Forgives the debt.

That word for forgiveness can also mean to release or to send away. I think that's beautiful when we think about the imagery of what happens on a Sunday. We come in to offer thanks for what he's done for us.

We receive his mercy and his grace in our lives, and then he sends us back out. He releases us back out into the world, forgiven, right? That's why you might leave grumbling, but you should leave smiling. You might enter frustrated for the week or the day or stressed out about everything, but you should leave happy, right? Because we've received God's mercy and grace yet again in our lives.

So what happens here in this moment? I think we can see a picture of what Jesus is doing with his grace for us. We are not people who merely needed more time to get our spiritual finances in order. What I just need some more time.

We had a debt that we could never pay, right? Never pay, and he provided for us. We were not people who could handle this. We were buried beneath a debt we could not pay, and God released us by mercy.

So then what happens? The servant went out and he forgave all the debts of everybody else that had ever come to him. He was merciful because he had received so much mercy, right? No, that's not what happened. He goes out.

He finds a fellow servant who owes him a hundred denarii, right? So think about this. The 10,000 talents, right, was essentially a hundred and sixty thousand years of labor that this man had to work off. The person that owed him a hundred denarii roughly owed him about a hundred days of labor, right? You could conceivably do that in a year, right? I'll work it off.

I'll work it over time. I'll figure it out. So compare a hundred days to a hundred and sixty thousand years.

This man comes to this person that owes him roughly a hundred days of labor, and Jesus isn't belittling the wrongs that people have done to us. He's not saying that this man didn't owe him the money, but he's showing the difference here, right? Because some wounds are deep, and some wounds are going to alter the course of our lives. It's not saying that the debt isn't there, but what happens in this peril is staggering, right? The first debt is 600,000 times larger than the second, and the man who had just been released from an impossible debt grabs his fellow servant by the throat and says, pay me what you owe me, as if he didn't just get freed and relieved from such an enormous debt.

And what's crazy is that the servant falls down and repeats almost the exact same words. Have patience with me. Have mercy on me.

I will pay you. And we don't see that this forgiven servant, hearing these own words coming out of another man's mouth, he doesn't strike him as hypocritical. It doesn't strike him in any way, shape, or form.

He doesn't even recognize himself in the man that was kneeling before him, who had just been in that same situation. This is where I think the forgetfulness of Moses' basket that we talked about, Moses the black, his basket that was pouring sand behind him, the forgetfulness of that reality is helpful for us to see. The servant can see what his neighbor owes, but he no longer sees himself as someone who lives by mercy.

He wants compassion for himself and strict accounting for everybody else. Does that sting a little bit? I think it does. That we are being instructed by Jesus to be mindful of what He has forgiven us of, and to exercise that mercy in the lives of others.

So this man's ledger had changed, but if, again, mercy is going to affect real change in our lives, it has to start where? It has to reach the heart, right? This man's ledger had changed, but his heart had not. He'd been freed from the debt, but his heart had not changed. Remembering our own forgiveness is not really an exercise in despising ourselves, but it is, in fact, how we learn to meet another sinner without imagining that we stand above him.

How quickly are we, and you have to see this is how this works, guys. When sin entered the world, and it corrupted humanity, almost immediately after that, you began to see humans looking down at other humans. Cultures trying to overtake other cultures.

That's a result of sin, that we look at somebody and think we're better than them. Jesus is correcting that and saying, all of us have fallen short of God's moral standard. So how dare we look at somebody and think that we're better than them? So when the king hears what happens, he says this central question of the parable.

Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you? Now, if we're looking at this parable, whose mercy came first, the king or the servant? Who showed mercy first? The king, right? The king showed mercy here to this servant. He didn't deserve it. He showed a mercy, and when it got back to him that he wasn't responding appropriately, it wasn't a quid pro quo situation.

The king wasn't saying, I'll forgive you if you go and forgive somebody else. He was saying, I expected you to show mercy because you've already received it in your life. I expect you to be merciful because you have already received it.

I wasn't expecting you to show mercy so that it would purchase your release. You've already been released. You've already been forgiven.

I expected you to do it. And so, this ending is so severe that we see in this text because Jesus says to those who are unwilling to show mercy to those after having received such abundant mercy in our lives, he says, so also my heavenly father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. Jesus, in this way, does not permit us to treat a settled refusal to forgive as a harmless personality trait.

That's just who I am. Right? Somebody mess with me, I'll write them off. Moving on.

We shouldn't pride ourselves. That's not a personality trait. That is a heart that has not been captivated by the mercy of God.

And that is a dangerous place to be. Dangerous place to be. But hear me when I say this though.

Forgiveness is not denial. The King settles accounts. Jesus, after his resurrection, did not wake up in the morning and go, where did that come from? What in the world happened? Like he's clearly aware of why he died and who he died for.

Yet he still opens his arms and says, come to me all you're weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest. He still offers those comfortable words to us. Forgiveness is not denial.

He knows exactly what is owed. And if we're going to understand biblical forgiveness, it starts with truth. You can't release a debt that you refuse to name.

But forgiveness is not the automatic restoration of trust either. Trust is rebuilt through repentance, truth, and faithful action over time. Hear this.

If you want there to be a restoration of trust, then that takes work. Right? If your life has been one repeated moment of failure and mistakes, and you have chosen every single time to blame everybody else for your problems, instead of realizing that if you truly want there to be restoration, you have to be willing to do the work. But forgiveness is something that frees us of holding that debt over them.

But the work of restoration takes work on the other person. Forgiveness is not permission for someone to continue harming you. If someone has abused you, Jesus is not commanding you to return to danger to conceal the abuse or to shield the offender from proper authorities.

In fact, Matthew 18 itself includes confrontation in church discipline. Mercy doesn't require the abandonment of justice or wise boundaries. Forgiveness is also not the same as reconciliation.

There has to be trust that's built. There has to be justice in order for there to be reconciliation. It requires truth and it requires participation of both people.

So, when we see this, we have to understand that you can forgive someone even if you cannot safely be near them. He's not saying forgive them and just let them continue to harm you. You can release vengeance while still telling the truth, while still keeping a boundary, while still allowing lawful consequences to follow, which is why Romans helps us understand why.

When Paul asked, why do you pass judgment on your brother? Why do you despise your brother? Then he says, each of us will give an account of himself to God. Forgiveness does not declare that there's no judge. Forgiveness declares that I am not the judge.

That we are not the judges. Now, some of you might be judges, in which case, hear me what I'm saying. I'm not talking about legal matters, right? If there are any honorable members in our congregation today, we appreciate you being with us.

But, we're talking about matters of eternity. Matters of eternity. And our liturgy is so helpful to remind us of this truth because our liturgy trains us to live this parable.

We confess our sins. We hear the announcement of absolution. We exchange the peace.

We come to the table. All of this order helps us understand that we don't create peace by pretending that nobody has sinned. We have peace because we know that Christ has made a way for us to receive forgiveness from our sins.

We begin with confession and God's mercy and then we carry the peace we've received to one another. Confession is such an important part of our process because we are still in need of his mercy. Every single one of us are, right? Still in need of his mercy in our lives.

So, as we prepare our hearts to do that, I want you to think again of Moses arriving with that basket. If the cleaners wouldn't think so ill of me, I would have carried a basket around while I was preaching this morning. Just to illustrate this.

But, I want you to imagine it, right? His reminder interrupts our habit of studying another person's faults while overlooking our own. The gospel in this reality takes us beyond simply remembering that we've sinned. We remember that Christ has met us in our sin with mercy.

We are forgiving people who are learning how to forgive, right? Learning how to forgive. It doesn't mean that your wrongdoing or someone else's wrongdoing are identical. They're not.

It certainly does not mean that a person who has been abused shares responsibility for the abuse. It means that none of us comes to God as a person who has no need of grace. The mercy we need from him must shape how we respond to others, even when the truth requires a difficult conversation or a firm boundary.

So, I want us to think about that today. All of us are in need of his grace and mercy.

A Reading From Isaiah 51:1-6
A Reading From Psalms 138
A Reading From Romans 11:25-36
The Holy Gospel Of Our Lord, Jesus Christ - A Reading From Matthew 16:13-20

A Sermon From Rev Dr Jessica Fulton Lee

A Reading from the book of Isaiah 56:1-8
A Reading from the book of Psalms 67:1-7
A Reading from the book of Romans 11:13-24
The Holy Gospel Reading Matthew 15:21-28

A Sermon By Bishop Chris
Sermon transcript:
Let's pray together, shall we? Father God, we're so thankful this morning as we come to your word. We pray now that you would open our hearts and open our minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that we might know your heart, we might know who we are, and most especially that we might know your son, Jesus. It is in his name we pray, amen.

Please be seated. Well, if we haven't met yet, my name is Chris. I'm the Bishop of the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic.

My wife, Catherine, is here with me as well. It's my second visit to Beach Church, her first, and it's just great to be here. Thank you for the warm welcome and the kindness you've shown us.

You know, there are seasons of life when faith is very easy to talk about. Your prayers are being answered. The things of life all feel settled around you.

It seems as though God is very near and the path ahead seems clear. You can tell what God is up to. And then there are the other seasons, right? A medical diagnosis comes that you weren't expecting.

A child goes off the deep end. A relationship breaks down that you'd had so much hope in. A prayer you've been praying for months, maybe even longer, well, it seems to go unanswered.

We ask God for help and heaven seems silent. It's like the heavens are brass, as though your prayers go up and they bang off some kind of a ceiling. And it's often there that real faith emerges.

Do I still trust Jesus when I don't understand what He is doing? Do I still come to Him even if He doesn't immediately give me the answers I'm hoping for? Do I want Jesus Himself or only what I hope Jesus will give to me? That's where we meet the woman in the gospel lesson today in Matthew. Her faith is tested and it is proven triumphant. And in the end, Jesus says something to her that He doesn't even say to His disciples, great is your faith.

And as we're going to see, there really are two tests that are taking place in this passage. The woman is being tested. Will she continue to seek the mercy of Christ? And the disciples, they're being tested also.

How far do they believe the mercy of Christ extends? And before the story's over, both of those questions, they're going to become questions for you and for me. So let's start with a little context. We wanna think about what is happening.

Verse 21 tells us that Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Now, what you need to know is that this is significant because Jesus is leaving the Jewish territory. He's heading out into a Gentile land, a non-Jewish region.

Before this event, almost immediately before, Jesus had been in a terrible kind of conflict, as so often happened with the Pharisees and with the scribes. They were accusing Him and He in turn turned the tables on them and accused them of elevating their traditions to have as much weight or perhaps even more weight than God's word itself. They were concerned with external purity, with the way things look, with religious observance, but Jesus told them that the problem that we have, the deeper problem, is the problem of the human heart.

It's from the heart, He says, that all of the evil thoughts come and the impure words come and the defiled actions, well, that's where they come from. And now almost immediately, He encounters someone whom most people in Israel would have regarded as unclean, impure, defiled. She's a Canaanite woman.

She's a Gentile, she's an outsider. Her people are enemies of the people of Israel. That's the historic and immediate context.

This is what it says in verse 22. If you're following along in a Bible or an app, you don't have to, but I'm gonna walk through the text. Behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David.

My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. So she's desperate, her daughter is suffering. And if you're a parent, even a grandparent, you understand something of what this is like, because there's no pain like watching your child suffer.

For a parent, you'd rather take the pain yourself. You would rather carry the illness yourself. You'd rather absorb it than stand there, well, unable to do anything to help someone you love.

One of our children has had illness at various times in her life. She was bedridden from age 14 to 18. And as much of a champion as Catherine was for her healing and getting her care, there wasn't a lot we could actually do.

And I can tell you, I felt helpless. And I was so frustrated so many times because I couldn't fix it. The Canaanite woman is in a place like that, except her daughter is being demonized, we're told.

So whether that's manifesting in illness or mental health issues or some combination of those things, we don't know. What we know is she's desperate. And so she cries out to Jesus, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me.

And then comes one of the difficult passages in a very difficult section of Scripture. Verse 23, but he did not answer her a word. She comes to the right person.

She asks for mercy. She's even asking for somebody else. And Jesus is silent.

And this is the first test of her faith. And there are times when the test of faith is not that God is absent, it's that he seems to be silent. You pray, you ask, you wait, and nothing seems to change.

Over the years, as a pastor, I have seen people come to God. They're in the middle of a crisis that causes them to start seeking outside of themselves. An addiction has taken hold.

A marriage has fallen apart. A child is in trouble. Financial hardship has arisen.

The circumstances don't seem to change and the frustration just, ugh. It's usually, you know you're in that place, because you're up at 3 a.m. Or somewhere in that region of the night. And sometimes the real question becomes, do you still want Jesus if he doesn't fix the problem? If the marriage is not restored, do you still want him? If the diagnosis doesn't change, is he still enough? And if life doesn't go back to what it was or what you hope it would be, will you still trust him? In other words, do you want God? Or only what you hope God will give to you? And the remarkable thing about this woman is that Jesus' silence doesn't send her away.

No, in the test of silence, she does not quit. She keeps coming. She presses closer.

I think she gets louder. And perhaps some of you are living in that place today. You've prayed, you've asked, you've waited.

God seems silent. Don't run away. Hold, get people around you.

Grieve, ask, cry, seek the Lord. Because sometimes tested faith is simply faith that stays. Now, it's at this point in what's happening that the disciples enter into the picture.

Verse 23, and his disciples came and begged him, strong word, saying, send her away, for she is crying out after us. She's making a scene. It's noisy, it's public, it's out in the open.

This is not behind closed doors. People are watching. They're in Gentile territory.

The disciples are already uncomfortable and now there's a scene and they want it to stop. And Jesus says in verse 24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Mind you, Jesus is speaking to the disciples.

The woman's there and she's listening in, but right now he's shifted and he's speaking to them. And I think this is where the disciples test begins. It's happening right in the middle of her test.

Now, Jesus has come as Israel's Messiah. That is who he is. That is what he came to be.

He's come as a fulfillment of God's promises to the people of Israel, all the way back to Abraham. And there's an order to the unfolding of salvation history to the Jews first, to Israel, and then through Israel's Messiah, blessing to the nations. We heard that in that reading from Isaiah.

In Isaiah 11, it says, the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord so that even the Gentile nations will look to the Messiah, the non-Jewish people. So when this Gentile woman calls son of David, we tend to miss that. What she's doing is she's actually appealing to him based upon God's covenant with the Jews, but she's not part of Israel.

She has no covenant status that she can point to. She cannot say, you owe me this because of who I am in your people. Verse 25 says, but she came and she knelt before him saying, Lord, help me.

Notice the change. There's no argument. There's no explanation.

There's no claim being made. She knows she has no status before the Jewish Messiah, but she does have three words. She does have three words, doesn't she? Lord, help me.

And there are moments in life when the deepest prayers are often the shortest, right? Lord, help me. Lord, have mercy. Jesus, I need you.

And sometimes you just groan. You know what I mean? If you haven't groaned, you probably will if you live long enough. And she kneels.

Now remember, her people are watching her do this. Her neighbors are there. They don't believe in Jesus.

They don't want to have anything to do with the Jewish guy who's there, this Messiah. He's their people's enemy, at least the people he's from. And her kneeling, it absolutely matters because humility, that is at the very heart of worship, right? You're either on your knees or you're on the knees of your heart.

The scripture says God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. She doesn't bring her spiritual resume. She doesn't tell him she deserves his attention.

She doesn't argue her worthiness. No, no, no, she just comes empty-handed. And that's how every one of us comes to God.

We haven't earned his mercy. We haven't lived well enough. We haven't prayed hard enough.

We come because he's merciful. He is rich in mercy. I shared this earlier, and it's one of those moments where God so got a hold of my life in the everyday.

And so it comes out a lot. When we were teaching our children to pray when they were young, you know, a natural place to do that is at the dinner table. It's simple.

You can get in and out. Nobody gets hurt. And there's food on the back end, right? So my girls have a lot.

We have two girls and a boy. The boy is the youngest. And my girls have a lot more words than my son.

And so we were doing this for a while. And after a couple of weeks, I noticed he's not saying a word because he knows if he stays quiet long enough, one of them is going to speak up and pray. And I just had that I'm one to you look one night.

And I said, girls, thank you. Thank you. Your prayers are beautiful.

Let's let your brother pray tonight. And he looked at me. Oh man.

And he looked down at his plate, his furrowed brow. And then he threw his hands up and he said, Lord, have mercy on me a sinner. And he grabbed his fork and he started to eat.

And I was like, I don't think he gets this. But I thought, okay, that's better than nothing. So a couple of weeks go by, girls always saying your prayers.

And I say to him one night, it's I mean, almost a mirror. Son, would you say the prayer? He looks at me, kind of grinds his teeth, looks at his plate. Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.

And he grabs his fork and he's just chowing down. And I was going to do my fatherly duty to correct him at that point. Because clearly, he had no idea what we were doing.

And by God's grace, I got one of those checks. You know how the Holy Spirit for me, the check often comes here. Sometimes it's here, but it's usually in my gut.

And I have just learned to pause. So after kids were in bed, I went for a walk that night and I was just talking to the Lord about it, just grumbling like a holy father does, right? That kid doesn't know anything. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The Lord can translate that by the way. And the Holy Spirit whispered quietly to my heart, what was wrong with this prayer? And this is where we get, right? I said, well, he didn't say anything about the food. What was wrong with his prayer? Well, he clearly doesn't understand.

He didn't even say thank you. What was wrong with his prayer? And then I went, oh Lord, oh, Lord have mercy on me a sinner. That prayer is always appropriate, isn't it? It's always appropriate.

See, grace begins where entitlement ends. The apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2 that the Gentiles were once separated from Christ, alienated from the Commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. That was their condition.

And that is our condition spiritually apart from Jesus Christ. So we don't come to God demanding anything. We come to God demanding.

We are sinners seeking mercy, amen? And that's not even the weirdest part of the text. Now we get to the really strange part. Jesus says something that is so hard for our modern ears to hear.

Verse 26, it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And I got to tell you, the first time I ever read the Bible, I was 19 and I said, I think Jesus just called that lady a dog. And I got to tell you where I came from, you don't do that.

And as I've learned over the years, it's better not to call girls any kind of animal names. Just don't do it. And I didn't know much about the Bible at that point.

It was new to it. But as I began to learn over the years, there are things in it that we have to have interpreted because this is a different culture a long time ago. And there's something cultural happening here specific to that time, but that we actually understand pretty clearly.

See, Jesus is not demeaning her. He's not a racist. He's not a misogynist.

Remember, he's not only speaking to her, he's speaking to the disciples who are right there. And there are two tests going on. And so Jesus uses this household image of the kids at the father's table and the little dogs, not the scavenger mutts on the streets, but the little dogs, the household pets, but it still carries a sharp edge.

Because what it does is it reflects a real boundary between races, between Israel and the Gentile world. And the woman doesn't deny the distinction. But there's another issue going on here.

Remember what the disciples had just said to him, send her away. And that's probably to me the most uncomfortable line in the passage. Because a suffering woman is crying out for mercy and the disciples mainly want this disturbance to stop.

Because to them, she's a problem to be managed rather than a person created in the image of God to be loved. And this is where their test comes clearly into view. How far does the mercy of God extend? Even to the outsiders, even to those who make you feel uncomfortable, even to those who aren't like us, even to those people, their people, even to the ones who have hurt us.

I got to tell you, friends, there is a real danger because it is possible to be close to Jesus and still have a heart that's too small for the mercy of Jesus. And that is a frightening possibility. And we see that a lot in the wider church right now, especially online.

And before we point a finger out there, we have to look right in here, right into our own hearts. And we have to allow the question he's asking them to come toward us. Who are you tempted to send away? A difficult neighbor, family member who has wounded you again, a person whose life you don't understand, somebody who's politically very different from you or has a different theology from you, a person whose failures are really visible and who's made a complete mess of life.

Who would you rather see judged than saved? That's a probing question. It's a searching question. And the word of God always searches to the deep parts of us, right? Between soul and spirit, bone and marrow, because the Lord is trying to set us free.

Where have you quietly decided? We never generally say this out loud, at least not on Sunday morning, that the mercy of God should stop. Jesus has this uncanny knack and way of exposing the human heart. And part of discipleship is letting him do it.

And not running away when he does. He did it with the Pharisees, he did it with the disciples, and he does it with me and with you as well. So we come to the turning point in verse 27.

The woman says, yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. And the first two words are remarkable. Yes, Lord.

She doesn't fight him. She doesn't say, let me explain. She doesn't insist upon anything.

She says, in effect, yes, Lord, I have no claim upon you. Yes, Lord, I cannot make demands. Yes, Lord, I come empty handed, and I know something about you.

See, she knows his heart. She knows that there is more mercy in Jesus than there is misery in her situation. And there's more mercy in Jesus than there is unworthiness in her own life.

And she is saying, I do not need to take the children's bread because a crumb will do just fine. Because if it falls from your table, Lord, it's enough. If it comes from your hand, it is sufficient.

That is faith. Not faith in the strength of her own faith. Not faith in her ability to understand what Jesus is doing.

I don't think she does. Faith in Jesus. Faith in his character.

Faith in his heart. Faith in his identity. Faith in his mercy.

Faith that says, I know who you are. And Jesus answers her, oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire.

And her daughter is healed. Her faith was tested, and her faith was triumphant. And why? Because she kept coming to Jesus.

And she humbled herself before Jesus. And she trusted in the mercy of Jesus. Now let me leave you with three simple words.

Stay, everybody say stay. Stay. Kneel.

Kneel. Receive. Receive.

If God seems silent, stay. Don't run off. Just wait.

Get people around you. Talk about the pain of the silence. Let other brothers and sisters help you bear.

Don't interpret delay as another person, parent, whatever, abandoning you in your need. A system that never actually panned out. Stay.

He is faithful. He is true. Don't give up.

The scripture tells us that the testing of our faith produces steadfastness, which means strength. It means stability. It means grit.

Not grits. Grit. And we need some gritty Christians.

Mature. The apostle Peter says that tested faith is more precious than gold. So if you're in a season of silence, don't go anywhere.

Stay with Jesus. And then kneel. If you've recognized any little hint or large hint of pride in you, kneel.

If you've begun to think God owes you something, kneel. If you think your goodness, your success, your knowledge, your morality, your religious record are the thing you should trust in, kneel. Kneel.

That is the posture of faith, and that is the posture of worship. Come with a prayer, Lord, help me. Have mercy upon me.

I'm a sinner. And receive. If your heart is hardened towards someone else, please don't miss this last part.

If your heart is hardened towards someone else, ask the Lord to soften it. It might mean you've gotta walk through some pain. It might mean you've gotta do some serious forgiveness work.

Who are you tempted to send away? Who would you rather not have there? Who's beyond hope? Ask Jesus to give you His heart for that person. That doesn't mean there aren't boundaries that you put in place. It doesn't mean there aren't healthy things you have to do, but you need to start with His heart, not your heart, because my heart is fallible, and it's so easily swayed by pain and hurt and sorrow.

But here's the thing about asking Jesus to give you His heart. He never gives us His heart just so we keep it, but so that we can give it away. You see, we receive so that we can give away.

We receive, this is the kingdom economy. We receive to give away. We receive to give to others, and we become people through whom the mercy of God is meant to flow.

We receive so we can give mercy to others. Now, in just a little while, we're gonna come to the Lord's table, and we're not gonna come just for the scraps. We're not crawling under the table.

Nope, we're not doing that. He invites us to come. All who are weary and heavy laden, He invites you to come.

Why? Because the reality to which this points is that our Savior, and this is the gospel, died upon the cross, His body broken like bread, His blood poured out like wine so that we might be forgiven and brought into the family of God, that the mercy of God would be the hallmark of our lives, that we would not be afraid of God, but we would be healed by God, forgiven by God. He invites you to come to taste and see because He's merciful. That's the gospel.

The mercy of Jesus is greater than your sin. The mercy of Jesus is greater than your failure. The mercy of Jesus is greater than your confusion.

The mercy of Jesus is greater than the darkness of the devil himself. Amen? Amen. So come.

So come. Great faith doesn't have it all figured out. Great faith comes because it knows His heart, that the Lord is rich in mercy, and His mercy is enough.

Let's pray. Lord, have mercy upon us who are sinners. And Lord, thank You that we don't simply stay that.

You make us sons and daughters because Your son Jesus is righteous and He gives Himself to us. So as we worship, as we receive, as we pray, meet us in the midst of it. We bring You all of who we are, even the things we don't wanna talk to anybody about, and we ask You for mercy.

We pray all of this, Jesus, in Your name, and for Your sake, amen. Amen.

A Reading from the book of Jonah 2:1-10
A Reading from the book of Psalms 29:1-11
A Reading from the book of Romans 9:1-5
A Reading From The Holy Gospel Of Jesus Christ - Matthew 14:22-33

A sermon by Rev Mother Vivian
It began innocently enough. I was on the phone with my good friend while I was waiting for my car to be serviced at Firestone. We talked about many things, but one of the things we spoke about was that I had shared with her an audio link to a Bible experience interpretation of one of the Psalms that was not simply read, but it was kind of half preached and half sung, a style familiar to my church upbringing, but was unfamiliar both in genre and culture for my friend.

Even so, my friend loved the link and thought that maybe I could sing like that, a thought I totally disagreed with. But the things we talked most about on that long Firestone phone call was the fact that she could not shake the impression that the Lord was calling her into ordained ministry. Now the problem was we had both grown up in traditions that women could only serve in certain roles, and that was not one of the roles that we could serve.

Yet she could not shake the feeling that the Lord was calling her to a place that she was told that this was not for you. And so by the end of this conversation, we were both going back and forth our thoughts, she said to me that she would put her name forward as a candidate exploring ordained ministry. So she would know for certain that the voice that she felt she was hearing in her spirit was not just her voice, but the voice of the Lord.

And after making this monumental decision and telling me about it, she lightheartedly added, and if the Lord wants me to be a minister, and if I'm ordained, I want you to sing, preach that song at my ordination. And so I lightheartedly agreed thinking this would not occur, and I would not, this conversation would long be forgotten. And I was wrong, very wrong.

So years later, my friend would call me to invite me to be the psalmist at her ordination to read the psalm that she had picked, and it was that psalm that we had talked about, that we had not talked about again until that conversation. It was as loving of a dare as only a friend would do. And so when I hung up the phone, I thought to myself, why oh why oh why oh why did I tell my friend, even lightheartedly, oh I'll do that, no, because that was not something, I don't have a voice for that, that's not something I can do, but, and then to do it in front of all the people who were important to her, in front of her bishop, God and country, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.

But then I thought about my friend, she was a chaplain's wife, a Navy chaplain's wife, she raising five children, and so she was balancing going to seminary, and balancing those roles, and she comes finally to this sacred moment. So in light of those things, and because I love my friend, so out of love for my friend, and out of my ever-loving mind, I would pray, preach, sing, preach Psalm 29 to the best of my ability. Since then, the Lord loves surprising me with Psalm 29 whenever I'm in a faith-stretching moment, moments like going to Kenya, and you notice that Psalm 29 was a verse, was a Psalm for the day.

For this is not only my first beach sermon, it is also the first anniversary of my very first visit to beach church, the occasion of Jimmy's ordination to the priesthood. And our first impression, Terry and my first impression of beach church, that this was a church on fire for the Lord, who loved the Lord, who loved one another, and who loved their pastors, and we were 100% right. So at this year of firsts, first year anniversary, I want to thank you beach church, because you have been so good to Terry and myself, opening the doors of your hearts and your fellowship to Terry and myself.

It has been quite a year since then. Psalm 29, first two verses, ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory, do his name, worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. The voice of the Lord is over the waters, the God of glory thunders, the Lord over the mighty waters, the voice of the Lord is powerful, the voice of the Lord is majestic.

The majestic, powerful voice of the Lord rules and reigns, not only over the cosmos, not only over oceans and seas, the rising and falling of kingdoms, but even over the turbulent waters of our lives. We might know this in our heads, but what is our response when the voice of the Lord calls us out onto those waters to join him in work that is impossible without his help? Today's lectionary readings with Jonah and Peter offer us three pictures of disobedience, of begrudging obedience, and growth through obedience to the voice of the Lord. So bad news first, disobedience.

The voice of the Lord told Jonah to arise and go to Nineveh, and that voice prompted Jonah to arise and go in the opposite direction. Scripture states twice that Jonah's disobedience was Jonah's attempt to literally run away from the presence of the Lord. Now Jonah would be familiar with the voice of the Lord because he was a prophet, and he is mentioned in 2 Kings 14.25. So as a prophet of the Lord, familiar with the voice of the Lord, certainly he had read King David's words in Psalm 139.

King David writes, Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, Sheol, the place of the dead, you are there. Now if Jonah didn't know these truths before he started running, he certainly would testify of them when he prayed those words in this morning's Old Testament lesson.

Now Jonah's disobedience to the voice of the Lord quickly set him on a downward spiral. Scripture says that he went down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into the deep waters at the roots of the mountains, he would call it, and finally down to the belly of a fish. And what I had not considered until I started preparing this message is how Jonah's disobedience to the voice of the Lord not only hurt him, was costly to him, but was also costly to others.

Sin rarely remains a private matter. When we disobey the Lord's voice, others are also negatively impacted. In the storm that Jonah's disobedience stirred up, the ship, the cargo that was on the ship was lost because the shipmates were throwing them over the side trying to save their own lives.

Jonah's disobedience to the Lord's voice jeopardized the Ninevites' lives. Without a prophetic warning, the people would be destroyed, and annihilation, we later discover, that would have been A-OK with Jonah. So, for whatever reason, Scripture does not say, after three long days of being slowly digested in the fish's gastric juices, with his life fading away, as we read this morning, Scripture says, then Jonah remembered the Lord, and it was then he prayed.

In our Old Testament reading, Jonah comes to this conclusion. Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. Those who pay regard, those who cling to, cherish, pay attention to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.

In the word steadfast love that we translate in the English, in the Hebrew, is a beautiful word describing God's love, hesed, covenantal, faithful, and generous love. Hesed has so many definitions, it's such a beautiful love, because it's God-sized love. So this verse could very well read, it's on the screen, those who cherish vain idols forsake their hope of experiencing God's love.

So how could we possibly have an awareness of God's hesed, covenantal, faithful, generous love if we're looking for that love everywhere else? It's just like that old song, looking for love in all the wrong places. Jonah finally surrenders himself to God's will at the end of today's Old Testament lesson, and the Lord tells the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. Jonah's response toward the voice of the Lord then changes from disobedience to begrudging obedience, the second point of this message.

The same good friend I told you about earlier once sent me a comic strip based on that famous footprints poem, the poem where the poet reflects on their walk with Jesus as seeing two sets of footprints on the sand side by side most of the time. In the comic my friend sent, Jesus explains, where you see one set of footprints is where I carried you. In the second frame, that long groove is where I dragged you, kicking and screaming.

Jonah heeded the voice of the Lord with begrudging obedience, kicking and screaming. Why was Jonah dragging his feet? It could be two reasons. If the Ninevites repented and God relented from judgment, as he has a right to do, Jonah might lose credibility as a true prophet because the destruction he proclaimed to the Ninevites did not come to pass.

Jonah might have been concerned about marring his sterling reputation as a true prophet speaking the voice of the Lord. But Jonah also had a stronger concern. The Assyrians he was called to minister to were known for extreme cruelty and for being without mercy, and they acted that way toward his people, the Israelites.

The Assyrians were the archenemy of Israel, the Assyrians, the Ninevites were at the capital of Assyria. Jonah wanted to see God's vengeance on the Ninevites. He did not want God's mercy to be put out on the Ninevites, and this explains why Jonah had been dragging his feet since the book's opening sentence.

Now, as Jonah feared, Ninevites responded to Jonah's one-sentence warning with deep lamentation, repentance, and fasting. The king got down from his throne and commanded everyone, even their livestock, to fast, to repent, and to pray to the God that Jonah spoke of. Now, normally when a prophet proclaims a message and the people respond positively to it, it's like, mission accomplished, thank you, Jesus, or thank you, Lord, if they go in the Old Testament.

But that didn't happen here. Instead, Jonah didn't just get angry. The text in the original Hebrew describes in Jonah's mind the Ninevites' chains of heart as exceedingly evil to him.

He did not want them to repent. The thought that they changed their mind was exceedingly evil in Jonah's mind, and the theological term goes far beyond just simply ticked off. But before we start throwing stones at Jonah because he got that angry that someone repented, we better tend to our own glass houses.

Because of past or historic wrongs by a person or a group, have we ever been tempted to despise something like Jonah? Not being able to imagine, not being able to pray that God would change someone's heart, not being able to pray good for that group, that individual, that person. To be so hurt, we find ourselves like Jonah, waiting and praying for someone to finally get what's coming to them, for vengeance. Weekly we pray the Lord's Prayer together, asking God to forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Depending on the depth of the hurt, the depth of the wrong done to us, emotions can be very slow to get on board. But forgiveness is a process that needs to be practiced the deeper it goes. Even so, the voice of the Lord calls us out over the storm of our emotions and hurt, and he asks us to do something impossible without his help, to forgive.

Our Anglican Catechism states that forgiveness is a decision of the will and an attitude of the heart that seeks the good of our neighbor and chooses not to hold against them the damage they inflicted. Failing to forgive impedes God's work in our lives and gives opportunity for the evil one. Anger, in itself, is not wrong.

But what we do with that anger can either repair or destroy ourselves and others. And I think Ephesians 4 says in the Amplified, spells it out nicely. Be angry at sin, at immorality, at injustice, at ungodly behavior, yet do not sin.

What do you mean by that? Do not let your anger cause you shame, nor allow it to last until the sun goes down. Why? Do not give the devil an opportunity to lead you into sin by holding a grudge, nurturing anger, or harboring resentment, or cultivating bitterness. And I can't help but see a picture of you holding something close to your heart that keeps the Lord from walking in that place.

From the belly of the fish, Jonah himself, running away from the voice of the Lord that might want to extend mercy to his enemies. He admitted in prayer that those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. An idol is a person, place, profession, position, preference, or passion, like anger, that we expend our energies on more than seeking, experiencing, and desiring to go deeper into the love and presence of God in our lives.

St. Augustine says, the essence of sin is disordered love. We start our service together, proclaiming to two great loves, to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And when we hold something against something closer to us than either one of those, we get disordered.

The disturbing book of Jonah, only four chapters, both Jonah's disobedience that we see, and later his grudging obedience, serves as a warning about the disordered loves, the sin in our own hearts. And as I prepared this message, remembering the people, the groups, the situations that I have to practice the process of forgiveness, situations that tempt me to act and think like Jonah, I found myself praying a colic that we pray to start the service. Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, he sees in everything, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, why, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord, amen. Oh, I urge us all to remember the great patience of our Lord as we practice forgiveness. We see his patience in dealing with Jonah, and he does the same with us in our weakness.

So, at this time we will turn from the fear that fueled the storm of Jonah's actions, his disobedience, his begrudging obedience, and move to our gospel lesson, to be encouraged by Peter's growth through obedience to the voice of the Lord. The events of this week's gospel that Jimmy read occurred only hours after last week's gospel lesson, last week's sermon, where Jesus multiplied the five loaves and two fish to feed more than 5,000. Each of the disciples would have handled this miracle as they distributed Jesus's all-you-can-eat meal to this crowd until the hungriest among them could eat no more.

And if that were not enough, Jesus had enough of this miracle meal to make sure that his 12 disciples had take-home baskets of leftovers, one for each of them. Now after this miracle, scripture says that Jesus immediately made his disciples get into the boat, and he sent them to the other side while Jesus dismissed the crowds. Finally, with the crowds gone, Jesus went up to a mountain and he prayed a long while.

By the time he was finished, evening had come, and the disciples' boat was far away from land, but going nowhere, as the strong wind was against them. Now unlike the storm that Jonah encountered for disobeying the voice of the Lord, the storm that the disciples encountered happened while they were obeying God's voice, the voice of Jesus. The presence of difficulty is not an indicator of the presence of God or his blessing.

There's a whole book called the Book of Job that talks about that. That is not an indicator, trouble is not an indicator of God's love or God's presence or God's blessing in your life. The disciples obeying Jesus' command in the middle of the storm were in a better place in the middle of the will of God than they would have been on land in a safer place outside of God's will.

Even so, even though they were in the middle of God's will, in the middle of the storm, I cannot help but to imagine that the disciples must have wondered, after Jesus' all-you-can-eat meal, that they had to work up all those miracle carbs going over and over on a boat that was going nowhere, the ultimate rowing machine for hours and hours on end. And maybe that's where you are. You obediently follow the voice of the Lord and now you find yourself treading water, feeling like you're going nowhere and wondering, where is Jesus? Today's gospel, we could be encouraged by this.

Jesus knew exactly where the disciples were in the middle of that water. He was on the mountain, he was praying, no doubt he was praying for them as he knew they were about to enter a storm. In the same way, you in the middle of the storm, he knows where you are and he's been praying for you in the middle of that storm.

That you may know that even though in the middle of the storm your heart and your flesh may fail, but you, that you would know beyond shadow's doubt the rest of that verse, my heart and my flesh may fail. All right, sometimes I'm just, I'm just out, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. During hard times, that was the verse that kept me going was, okay, God, I'm done.

You're going to have to take over. God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. May you know that if you're in the middle of a storm going nowhere, but you know you're in the middle of God's will.

The voice of the Lord who sent you into the storm will see you through the storm. On the fourth watch of the night, somewhere between 3 and 6 a.m., Jesus came to his disciples. The disciples initially didn't recognize that the unexpected event unfolding and walking toward them in the middle of their crisis was actually the Lord drawing near.

They were exhausted. It could not handle one more thing. And here's this, what is this happening? Someone's coming toward us.

No, it's Jesus walking toward you in this situation, coming in a form that you did not expect. And so they cried out in fear when the Lord does something in our lives that we don't expect. And it's like, oh, I didn't expect you to come that way.

You know, so, so the disciples cried out in the same way. But after the disciples cried out, the scripture says immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.

I love that when the chosen reworked this scene, that worked this scene on their TV series, and the disciples encountered Jesus walking to them on the waters, one of the disciples said, how is this the second most incredible thing I've seen today? After the multiplication of the fish and now Jesus walking on the water, how is this the second most incredible thing I've seen today? Maybe that is you. In the middle of your storm, in small, in various ways, you've expected, you've uncovered unexpected thin spaces where the Lord has met you in that dark place. And you've heard his voice in a clear way, in a new way.

But you, encountering him, even though the storm is still raging on. You're experiencing Isaiah 43.2, of passing through the waters of difficulty, but not being overwhelmed because the Lord is with you. If this is you, don't wait until the story is finished and the storm is over to testify of his faithfulness.

Use the storm in your life as a platform. Let that be your 2 Corinthians 4 testimony to proclaim that you have an eternal treasure that is from God and not you. And that's his power in you that enables you to stand.

Even though you're hard pressed on every side, you are not crushed. Even though you are perplexed on what is going on, you're not in despair. You may feel persecuted and struck down, but you know you're not forsaken and you know you're not destroyed.

And even though you feel that your faith is not clean, is not neat, and you're barely hanging on, the fact that your motoring wick of faith doesn't feel like it's much, but in a dark room, in a dark place where someone is going through a storm and they don't have Jesus and they have total darkness. They don't even have what you have. You are a shining beacon of hope.

It's like, okay, I don't know how you're getting through. Let me tell you how I'm getting through my storm and that may help somebody else through their storm because they don't have the hope you have. They don't even have the smoldering light that you have.

So don't wait to testify of his faithfulness in the storm. Now maybe you stand in Peter's sandals. Peter believed that someone powerful enough to include him in a miraculous food distribution was also powerful enough to include him in walking on water.

But even impulsive Peter knew better than to walk on water without knowing for certain he heard the voice of the Lord calling him to do so. Just like my friend that opened up this illustration. She wanted to know what the voice of the Lord was before she started off.

Peter wanted to know before he got out of that boat that it was the voice of the Lord calling him out. So he says, Peter says, Lord if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And I imagine that Jesus stopped his approach to the boat and told Peter to come.

Now in the crisis on land hours before the disciples surrendered their meager food supply to Jesus. In this crisis in the middle of the water, in the middle of their obedience here, the voice of the Lord would call Peter to a deeper surrender. If you've ever been asked to do something that was risky and if it went sideways you might be hurt, you might know what Peter was looking at.

If you've ever been on the edge of a diving board and looking at the deep water and didn't know if you could make that jump, you would know where Peter was. If you've ever been on the tip of an airplane at height and you're about to skydive and you're about to, that first step is the doozy one. You know everything in your body will rebel against you obeying the thought in your mind I need to take a step forward because you get into preservation mode.

The only thing, the only thing that would encourage you to take that step into the deep water, to take that roll off into the wild blue lander away from the safety of the plane is that you trust the person giving you that command with your very life. With your life. And this is what the voice of the Lord was telling Peter to do.

Trust me with your life. The verses of the worship song oceans describe this moment better than I can. You call me out upon the waters.

The great unknown where feet may fail. And there I find you in the mystery. In oceans deep my faith will stand.

Your grace abounds in deepest waters. Your sovereign hand will be my guide. Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me you've never failed and you won't start now.

And with that Peter takes that huge step out of the boat and he stands. He would take more than that first step. He would continue to walk toward Jesus.

And everybody watching Peter walk toward Jesus on the boat their faith grew but not as fast as the faith of Peter grew as he stepped on waters and found firm footing beneath his feet. And I can't imagine Jesus' face as he watched his disciple walk toward him on the water. And just like those old cartoons.

Think about Yuletunes and Wile E. Coyote where he is running after something and then suddenly finds out he's defying gravity and he's actually walked off a cliff. And he doesn't know it and then he looks down and says uh oh what am I doing here. Peter saw the wind and he thought about the impossibility of the place that he was standing and he began to sink.

And when he began to sink he cried out Lord save me. And immediately Jesus reached out his hand to get Peter. That is how close Peter was to Jesus when his faith stumbled.

The Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, or the Ninth Sunday after Trinity (Proper 13)

A Reading from Nehemiah 9:16-21
A Reading from Psalm 78:1-16
A Reading from Romans 8:35-39
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew 14:13-21

A Sermon From Rev Dr Pastor Jimmy

A Reading from 1 Kings 3:3-14
A Reading from Psalm 119:121-136
A Reading from Romans 8:26-34
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew 13:31-33, 44-50

Sermon by Rev Dr Jessica Fulton Lee

Daily Midday Prayer - Goldie's 99th Birthday - God Bless Her! Seapoint Students Discussion On Spiritual Formation

The Eighth Sunday after Pentecost, or the Seventh Sunday after Trinity (Proper 11)
A Reading from Psalms 86:1-17
A Reading from Romans 8:18-25
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew 13:24-30, 34-43

Presentation by Rev Dr Pastor Jimmy

A Reading from the Book of Isaiah 55:1-13
A Reading from the book of Psalms 65:1-13
A Reading from the book of Romans 8:7-17
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Sermon by Rev Dr Pastor Jimmy. Transcript:
Picture this, the spring of 1980. Mount St. Helens has just erupted with devastating force. Entire forests have been flattened.

Rivers have changed course. Hundreds of square miles have become a gray wasteland. And scientists were predicting that it would take generations for life to return.

Yet surprisingly, in only a few years, something unexpected happened. The ecosystem and the life that was underneath the burnt soil began to produce seeds that began to sprout. Small plants emerged where no one thought life was possible.

Elk returned, birds nested, streams filled with fish. The landscape had not simply been repaired. It had been transformed from the inside out.

Now, the seeds had always possessed life within them. But the ground first had to become capable of receiving that life. And that's exactly what our passages painted for us today, this picture of understanding the difference between barren soil and fruitful soil.

It's not human effort, but it is the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit, who transforms enemies of God into beloved children of God. Let's think about that for a moment, what that looks like in our lives. All these passages that we have read today help us understand what it means to have a heart that bears fruit, to have a heart that bears fruit.

Isaiah tells us that God's word is like rain falling upon the earth. Jesus tells us that God's word is like seed that is scattered upon the ground. Paul tells us why some ground bears fruit while other ground remains barren.

It's important to know that the issue is not ultimately the seed. The issue is the soil. And even deeper than that, the issue is who transforms the soil.

If we aren't careful and we become a little more undisciplined in our thinking, many people could begin to think that Christianity is about becoming a better version of yourself, being the best you that you can be. But Paul says something much more radical than just try to be a better version of yourself. He says that Christianity is not self-improvement.

It's resurrection. And we understand this to be true by what he says in Romans 8, which is the bulk of where we'll be today in Romans 8. And I want you to think about verses 7 and 8. And I want you to think about this point that Paul is making in trying to develop this idea of having a heart that bears fruit. The first thing he says in verse 7 is that the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God.

First thing we need to understand is that the natural heart cannot produce spiritual life. The natural heart cannot produce spiritual life. Paul was very aware of this.

And he wrote intimately about this. That is to say, in my flesh, right? Me, inside, dwells no good thing. The natural heart cannot produce spiritual life.

Why? Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. Paul is speaking in absolutes here. He doesn't say that the flesh is indifferent.

Some people are indifferent about things, right? Some people are more passionate about things. They're more absolute about things. Paul isn't just saying that the flesh merely struggles with God.

He uses a word that says it is hostile. It's the Greek word ekthra, which means enemy. It means hostility.

It means war. He's saying that the mind that is set on the flesh is at war with God. The mind that is set on the flesh is in hostility with God.

This is not just indifference. This is war. And this should remind us of our covenant language that we understand about our relationship with the Lord, that humanity isn't just wandering from God.

It's not as if we've just lost our way. Our compass is bent towards ourselves. Our compass is bent.

Humanity isn't simply wandering from God. Humanity is in rebellion against Him, in rebellion against Him. Think about Genesis 3 when the fall occurred.

Do you think that it's appropriate, because many people do, that Adam and Eve were merely deceived? They were like, oops. I had no idea that we weren't supposed to eat of that fruit or that what would happen. The woman gave it to me, God, and the serpent deceived us.

We see the language, and we sometimes think that they were just ignorant, like blissful creatures that were naive, and then they got caught up in the course of things. But in reality, what happened is they knew what God said to them, and they rebelled against His words. And ever since that moment, humanity has this thing about us that when we hear God's word, we have a tendency to want to rebel against it, to say, I don't think that's what that means.

Maybe it means something else. Did God really say it like that? Maybe He meant something different. Jesus begins to address this in His parable and why it is so startling, because He identifies that the seed is perfect.

The gospel of Jesus Christ has come to us and is complete. We talked about the gospel Wednesday in our confirmation class, and it's such a beautiful concept that as we grow in the Lord, the gospel continues to grow in us, that the depth of the gospel and the truth of the gospel continues to grow in us. The seed is perfect.

And the sower is perfect, according to what Jesus has revealed to us. Yet what do we see in the passage that Reverend Vivian read for us? Three out of the four soils remain fruitless. The seed is perfect.

The sower is perfect. Yet three out of the four soils remain fruitless. Why is that? Why do they remain fruitless? Why do three out of the four of them remain fruitless? It wasn't because they lacked, or the seed lacked power, or the soil lacked life.

Isaiah says very clearly, and we read that today, and Ninon read that for us, that my word shall not return to me empty or void. Some translations will say. And for years, people have debated what that means.

And some hear that and conclude that every person who hears scripture must, therefore, be converted. We also have references in Romans where it says, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We know that faith is produced and received through the proclamation of God's word.

That's why the gospel is the good news. But what is truly being said here in Isaiah 55? We need to understand that Isaiah's point is not that every time somebody hears scripture, that they're going to be converted. What Isaiah is saying here, that God's word always accomplishes God's purpose.

God's word always accomplishes His purpose. Sometimes, to them who receive it with gladness, His word brings salvation. But to them who reject it, who are in rebellion against the truth of His word, it judges and brings judgment.

Regardless of its salvation or judgment, His word never fails. It will be life to those who receive it, and it will be the judgment against those who reject it. The failure is never God's word.

It is always in the human heart. Either we receive His word with gladness, or we reject it and close ourselves off to it, therefore condemning ourselves. But what does the scripture say? There is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.

The spirit cannot produce, or the human heart, the natural heart cannot produce spiritual life. But what does the spirit do for us in helping us develop this heart that bears fruit? If the natural heart cannot produce spiritual life, we have to understand the alternative to it, the antithesis of it, the juxtaposition of it. If the natural heart cannot produce spiritual life, the second point to understand in us, understanding what is being said here about having a heart that bears fruit, is understanding that the spirit creates what the flesh never could.

If you read verses 9 through 11 of Romans 8, you see this point that the spirit creates what the flesh never could. So again, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile towards God. But what does it say in verse 9? But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

You are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. He's showing them that you used to be at odds with God. You used to be hostile toward God.

You were in rebellion against him. And this is one of the most overlooked doctrines in Christianity. I don't understand why, but it feels that we often lean towards just segments of it without understanding the fullness here.

Because Paul isn't saying that the spirit just helps us. I mean, we read the fact that he's a comforter, he's a helper, right? He's the paraclete. He's the one that comes alongside us.

And we understand that, but he's not just saying here that the spirit helps you. But he's saying that the spirit is in you, that you are in the spirit. Understand that if you are in the flesh, then you are in hostility towards God.

But if you are in the spirit, then now you are in a different realm. You're in a different realm. You see, Paul's already developed this in Romans 5. We know that Adam inaugurated one humanity, the concept of him being Adam, right? The human humanity that he represented this paradigm.

And when he fell, all humanity became susceptible and corrupted. That's why when Christ came, he inaugurates another humanity. There are only two humanities.

We are either in Adam and therefore have our minds set on the flesh, or we are in Christ and have our minds set on the spirit. Either you are in the spirit or you are in the flesh. It's not about just self-improvement.

It's not about just creating a better version of yourself. Christianity is not about just making better moral choices. That you should just do better.

Do better. Paul is saying instead of that, he's talking about an entirely new creation, which affirms what he wrote to the church in Corinth that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. And it echoes what the prophet Ezekiel says that I will remove the heart of stone and put in a heart that I can mold and I can shape.

See, God doesn't polish the stone. He replaces it. He replaces it, takes that heart of stone out and puts in something that he can mold and he can shape.

That's why Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again. He doesn't say you need to just improve yourself and become a better version of yourself. You must be born again.

But hear this language that teaches us, just with such profound reality, this concept of who God is. We're coming up toward just the continual understanding of the Trinity. In this time of our calendar, we call it ordinary, but it's also called Trinity time.

It's this continual understanding that God exists in these spaces in perpetuity through the work and existence of how he is identified to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It says the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, Christ in you. These beautiful images of how we are all connected through this existence.

Look at what we see here. The Father sins, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies. If you read this passage, you understand that this is language that we've yet to put together.

And as the church became more formal, then they started to put language to it. And it's why we have these theological terms that have been created. And there are other things that are happening in beautiful imagery as the church begins to grow.

But the thing that has always remained true is that the Spirit does what the flesh never could do. Why is that important to understand what the flesh cannot do and what the Spirit creates? Because in these, in verses 12 through 16, to understand a heart that bears fruit is to understand who is doing the work. If the Spirit is the one that makes the difference between barren soil and fruitful soil, how does that apply to our life in the most profound way? Well, Paul begins to talk about adoption.

And he begins to show us that we weren't just acquitted of our sin. We weren't just acquitted of our wickedness and our rebellion, and we are just, we're no longer just not in hostility, but we have been adopted. And if you understand what is being said here, you understand that adoption is greater than acquittal, that He hasn't just forgiven us.

He's done so much more than that. And this is probably the greatest part of this passage. So don't stop at forgiveness.

We can rejoice that He has forgiven us. We can rejoice that He has washed away the stain of sin and the guilt of sin, and we can be free to walk in freedom and victory. But he didn't just stop at forgiveness.

It wasn't just about removing the debt. Paul keeps going to show us what Christ has done for us. He says that we have received the spirit of adoption.

The spirit of adoption. That Greek word there is huiothesia. It means placement as sons.

That we have received the spirit of adoption. We have received placement as children. We've received placement as son.

Under Roman law, adoption was astonishing. In the first service, one of the members told me about a scene in Ben-Hur. When was the last time you guys watched Ben-Hur? Been a while? Just yesterday.

It's funny you say that, right? Well, in Ben-Hur, there's a scene that really portrays this imagery effectively. But under Roman law, an adopted son received an entirely new legal identity. Old debts vanished, old obligations ended, a new inheritance began.

Even a wealthy Roman could adopt an adult man who had never been part of his family. And this was the example in Ben-Hur, where I guess there's a Roman admiral that's adopted by Ben-Hur, and he experiences this whole identity change, right? This is a real thing. The moment that adoption became official, the old identity legally disappeared.

And Paul chooses this image deliberately, because God has not merely pardoned criminals. This isn't clemency, or this isn't pardon in any type of way. He has welcomed enemies into his household.

Remember, the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God. So he hasn't just forgiven us by bringing us into the spirit. Now he has welcomed us into his household.

That you and I are the children of God. That's what John wrote, that to them that believed, he gave the privilege to be called the children of God. We've been brought in.

If you think about this reality, we can understand that even our articles of religion, the 39 articles, Article 11 teaches that we are justified by faith alone, right? But understand that what Paul is saying here is that justification is not the final goal. He just doesn't want you to be justified. There's a process of sanctification that's taking work, right? And the more you spend time with him, the more you're in proximity to him, the more that you share around his table, he begins to do a sanctifying work in you.

That's why we believe it's a means of grace that continuously is poured out in our lives. And why is that important? Because he hasn't just justified us, he isn't just sanctifying us, he's doing all that so that one day we will be glorified with him in heaven. We've been saved, we're being saved so that we will be saved.

So forgiveness is important because it opens the door. We need to have that personal moment with him where we receive him and we accept him as our Lord and Savior and we are washed clean from that guilt of sin and baptism helps us understand the work that he has done in us. And a means of grace gives us that assurance.

But here's the beautiful thing about this passage is that adoption goes further. It brings us around the family table. It isn't just, okay, we're good now, you can go on your way, I'll go on my way.

He says, no, come on over for dinner and sit next to me at my table. And we are treated as sons, placement as children. The colic that we read today ask that we receive what we ask by being taught through the Holy Spirit.

What's the difference between barren soil and fruitful soil? The Holy Spirit producing in us the fruit of a righteous life, we pray that every Sunday as we hear your word, as we reflect on it, let it produce in us the fruit of a righteous life. That's exactly what adopted children do. They're formed by their father's presence.

Paul says, we cry, Abba, Father. This is the same intimate address that Jesus gave to the Lord himself when he was in Gethsemane. Abba, Father.

You see, through Christ, those that are in him now pray with the very language of the Son. Isn't that beautiful? We've been given an opportunity to do that. That's a staggering reality to think about that we haven't just been forgiven, that we've been given placement as children.

We've been given the spirit of adoption. We don't just merely imitate Jesus by the Spirit. We participate in his relationship with the Father.

You see, that's what the Spirit does. It animates the relationship between the Father and the Son. Now we get to participate in that.

If we stopped there, it'd be wonderful because that is, again, I believe arguably the most powerful part of the passage. But there's another verse that Zeb read for us that's important to understand the fullness of what it means to be an heir and to have a heart that bears fruit. The final verse says that if we are children, then we are heirs.

That sounds wonderful, right? And if we are heirs, then we are heirs with Christ. Even better, right? Provided we suffer with him. Hold on a second.

What does that mean? That we are heirs through suffering? That he's saying that we will continue this to be fleshed out in our lives. And this, that wasn't expected. We went from being at war with him to now being restored and being invited to his table provided that we walk through suffering with him.

We are heirs through suffering. Paul is unquestionably rejecting some of the modern hermeneutics that people have about that if we do this, then God will do this and that we can escape hardship or we can escape pain and we can escape suffering. He clearly is telling the Romans that we have been made heirs with Christ provided that we suffer with him.

The cross always precedes the crown and the seed that falls must fall into the earth. You see, Jesus taught this repeatedly. Isaiah's rain falls, the seed dies, the harvest comes.

The pattern is always the same. Death, then life. So if we're gonna bring all this together, what are we understanding this to be? Jesus isn't asking us to die on the cross.

He bore that shame for us. But what did he say? If you're gonna be my disciple, you must deny yourself, right? Pick up your cross and follow me. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile toward God.

Will God's word accomplish its purposes right according to Isaiah 55? Yes. It's either gonna bring salvation or it's gonna bring judgment. The psalmist asked, who prepares the earth? We know that God does.

Jesus asked, why do some bear fruit? Because the condition of the heart differs. Some are in the flesh and some are in the spirit. What changes the heart or who changes the heart? The Holy Spirit regenerates our hearts to believe.

It renews our minds. It transforms us. It continues to produce in us that fruit of a righteous life.

You see, these readings are not just disconnected. They're not just an isolated set of Scriptures. We can see in it an unfolding story that God sends His word, that God prepares the soil, God plants the seed, and God gives the harvest.

And as Paul himself even said in his letter to the Corinthians, he said, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth, the increase, right? So perhaps today you might find yourself in a situation where you've been trying to grow spiritually by sheer determination. Right, in my Hebrew class, my professor would use other Latin terms like solo bootstrappa, that if you had to, if you had no other choice to figure out the rhyme or reason into why this made sense in the Hebrew language, he would put it in the solo bootstrappa category where you just had to learn it. You just had to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and just learn it.

When you think about sheer determination, we have to understand the importance of what is happening here. Some of you have tried harder and you think, well, I just need to do more. Maybe you've made new resolutions and you said, you know what, it'll be different this time.

You started another Bible reading plan, you've promised yourself that this time you will finally change. Remember, Paul says that the Christian life does not begin with trying harder. It begins with us humbling our hearts, right? And letting the Lord take that heart of stone out and receiving a new heart.

A heart that he can mold and he can shape. You see, the fruit that Jesus describes is not manufactured. It grows.

It grows. The fruit is the evidence of life. The fruit is evidence of life.

An apple tree does not strain to produce apples. It produces fruit because it is alive. It is alive.

And so too with us in our Christian faith that if we are aspiring to live lives of holiness, we have to understand that holiness is not the cause of new life. Holiness is the evidence of new life. If we have consecrated our lives to the Lord and we live lives that are set apart for him and set apart from the world, that is evidence of life.

The act of doing that doesn't cause the life. He is the one that brings the life. And so today as we are thinking about what it means to have a heart that bears fruit, we have to understand that the human heart cannot produce spiritual life.

That the spirit does what the heart, the flesh cannot do. That in this transformation that the Lord has done in our lives, he has brought adoption, not just acquittal in our lives so that as we share in everything, we also share in suffering. We also share in suffering.

I'm thankful for that today that the Lord has given us that opportunity to do that. The question is not simply today how much fruit do I have. The deeper question today is whose life is at work within me? Is my mind set on the flesh or is it set on the spirit? Is the Holy Spirit the one doing his work in me or am I surrendering to my flesh? See, at the end of every service, we take communion.

We celebrate the Eucharist together. And it's a beautiful opportunity to remind us that at the end of that service and at the end of our service today, we are sent back into the world. We're sent back into the world.

It's not just a vague dismissal. We bless you. We send you out.

We're not just doing that to prove ourselves worthy of Christ. It truly is a commission. A commission to go as people in whom Christ already dwells.

The same Spirit who hovered over the water at creation. The same Spirit who overshadowed the Virgin Mary. The same Spirit who descended upon Christ at His baptism.

The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead now dwells in His church. That's why the gospel bears fruit. You don't have to try hard to do it.

You just need to preach it. It's fascinating. The gospel does it.

A Reading from the book of Zechariah 9:9-12
A Reading from the book of Psalms 145: 1-21
A Reading from the book of Romans 7:21-8:6
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew 11:25-30

A Sermon by Dr Rev Pastor Jimmy

Transcription:
You may be seated this morning. This weekend we celebrated our Independence Day right yesterday and the 250th anniversary or birthday anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Now throughout the weekend Americans have remembered the courage, the sacrifice, and the perseverance that gave birth to our nation.

I made my kids watch the Patriot yesterday. Yeah, yeah they're nine now so they're mature. I wanted them to know freedom ain't free.

But one of the greatest threats to the American Revolution did not come on the battlefield. It came after the war was nearly won. In the spring of 1783 the British had effectively been defeated.

The surrender at Yorktown had taken place nearly two years earlier and peace negotiations were underway. Victory was in sight. Yet in Newburgh, New York, and this has been called the Newburgh conspiracy, something dangerous was happening.

The officers of the Continental Army had gone months, in many cases years, without receiving their promised pay and they had sacrificed their farms, their businesses, their health, and many had buried friends along the way. And so frustration slowly turned into resentment. Anonymous letters began circulating throughout the camp urging the officers to stand against Congress and some even proposed using the army itself to pressure the new government by force.

Think about the irony. After surviving years of attacks from the British Army, the greatest danger to the Revolution was no longer outside the camp. It was inside the camp.

And so on March 15th, 1783 General George Washington entered a meeting with these frustrated officers and he appealed to their honor, their sacrifice, and the fragile future of the nation they had fought to create. And near the end of his remarks he reached into his pocket and quietly pulled out a pair of reading spectacles. Many of his officers had never seen him wear glasses before and as he unfolded them he apologized and said, gentlemen you must pardon me for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.

The room fell silent. Many hardened by years of war were moved to tears. The conspiracy had been dissolved.

A potential military coup had vanished and the Revolution survived because the battle within the camp was overcome. Now history teaches us something profound. Sometimes the greatest danger is not the enemy outside.

Sometimes the greatest battle is the one inside. And this is precisely what Paul is teaching us in the book of Romans. We know that Paul has spent the last seven chapters explaining the gospel, that Christ has died for sins, that we are justified by faith, and that we have peace with God and we have been united with Christ in his death and resurrection.

And yet there's still a war. There's still a war not merely around us. Paul says it is within us.

It's within us. Paul writes, I delight in the law of God in my inner being but I see in my members another law, waging war against the law of my mind. Now notice what Paul is saying here.

He's not just saying another, you know, a difference of opinion or two thoughts. He uses the phrase waging war. In the Greek that word he uses is painting a picture that there is a complete and total separate force, a military operation that is taking place against the law of his mind.

That it's not just that he has different thoughts, that he has an entire war, a military installation that is attacking him, that is created for the sole purpose of conquering his mind. Paul is describing an invasion and not merely bad habits that he's trying to break, that there is an invasion taking place in his mind. And it's created to overcome him.

This is not simply poor choices. This is the lingering power of sin, seeking to reclaim territory that Christ has already conquered. This is the work that we know sin does in our lives and because of that many Christians become discouraged because they assume that once they come to Christ they didn't think that they would struggle with sin anymore.

They thought that the struggle with sin would disappear. But it lingers. Paul teaches us exactly the opposite, that the struggle itself is evidence that something has changed.

Before Christ we sinned comfortably. We didn't have any issues sinning. After Christ, if we are in him, and Scripture says if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

If we are in him we cannot sin comfortably. It bothers us. Why? Because we've been made new.

Right? It feels like warfare now that we're in Christ when we have these desires and we have these urges and we feel tempted. Augustine famously described the humanity after the fall as being curved inward upon ourselves. That we are now naturally bent towards self rather than toward God.

Martin Luther echoed the same truth and John Calvin described remaining sin as an enemy that still inhabits the believer even though its reign has been broken. That distinction is important for us because sin remains but it no longer rules. Sin remains but it no longer rules in our lives.

Perhaps someone needs to hear that today. Maybe you're discouraged because you continue battling the same temptation. You struggle with the same stuff over and over again and you're trying to overcome it but you can't overcome that temptation and you wonder whether your struggle means your faith is weak or whether God has abandoned you.

I need you to listen carefully this morning. Dead people do not fight wars. Living people do.

If you're fighting against the flesh and every single day you are fighting to live for the Lord, know this, that you are not weak in your faith and God has not abandoned you. That struggle is evidence that God has done something in you or else you could just keep on doing what you're doing and nothing would matter. Being new in Christ changes things.

Your grief over sin and your grief over the temptation or maybe giving in to those temptations is not evidence that God has left you. It's evidence that the Spirit has awakened your heart. That's why Scripture says godly sorrow leads to repentance.

Worldly sorrow leads to destruction. The battle itself points to new life. But then Paul asked one of the most honest questions ever recorded in Scripture.

He says, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Who will deliver me from this body of death? Notice Paul doesn't ask what program will deliver me from this body of death. What discipline will deliver me from this body of death? What strategy will deliver me from this body of death? Or what self-help book will deliver me from this body of death? He simply asked, who? Who? This is important because Christianity is not just about techniques. Although we have form and fashion to our worship, why do we have form and fashion to our worship? Because it's supposed to be geared toward a person and not us.

And so we gear our worship and we pattern everything around Jesus Christ. And Paul immediately answers this question, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And then, and I love how on the screen you could see this continuity because we think sometimes because of the chapter and verse demarcations in our Scripture that there's a break in thought. But oftentimes you have to read into the next chapter to understand or to read above the previous chapter to see how the context is connecting everything together. So I want you to think about this.

We're finished in chapter 7 and Paul is teaching us this, that our help to overcome this body of death is only through Jesus Christ our Lord. Then he says in verse 1 of chapter 8, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. He doesn't say there's less condemnation.

You still got a little, you should be, you still be guilty, feel guilty about things, but there's less condemnation. Not delayed condemnation like, you know, just you wait. One day you're gonna get what's coming to you.

You might be okay now. It's not possible condemnation where we live in fear that one day he's still gonna, he's still gonna tell us, I remember what you did. No, he says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Why is that? It's not because we've been perfect. How many have been perfect? No one's been perfect. All of us have fallen short of God's moral law.

Paul tells us that in Romans 3 23, right? We all fallen short of God's glory. It's not because we finally got in our lives together, although we're trying and we still got work to do. We still have work to do.

This matters and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because Jesus Christ has already borne the condemnation that belonged to us. He bore our shame. He bore our shame.

Our verdict has already been rendered at the cross and every Sunday that we confess our sins, we are asking him to continue to pour out his mercy and grace in our lives because we still need him. We still need his work, his mercy, and his grace in our lives and we come honestly before the one whose mercy never fails. What did the psalmist say, right? Slow to anger, abounding in and faithful steadfast love.

He abounds in loyal love. His love is enduring and after our time of confession we often hear the declaration of God's forgiveness that he's faithful to forgive those, right? He's faithful to forgive. Why do we hear those words every Sunday? Because the gospel announces something objective.

Do you all know the difference between subjective and objective? Objective is not dependent upon someone's opinion. It's not dependent on circumstances. Objective is without bias.

The gospel in our lives announces something objective. If we understand this truth, it announces to us that Christ has done what we could never do. Christ has done what you and I could never do.

We could never save ourselves. The burden of condemnation has been removed forever in our lives. Amen? Paul doesn't just stop here though.

Romans 8 begins to shift this focus away from what he focused on in chapter 7 which was repeatedly, I, I, I, I, I struggle, I fail, I want, I cannot. But what happens in chapter 8, the focus changes and it teaches us something. Now we see the focus on the Spirit and it teaches us that the center of the Christian life is the work of the Spirit, is us living in the Spirit and letting the Spirit sanctify us, renew our minds, transform us.

It's not simply trying harder. Sanctification is about learning to live by the life that God Himself has placed within us, that He has given us new life. But Paul contrasts two forms and two ways of living.

One is the Spirit. You know what the other one was? You can live in the Spirit or you can live in the flesh, right? The Spirit and the flesh. This is not a contrast between body and soul because God created our bodies and declared them good.

We know that when we are renewed in Him that He begins to transform us and one day these mortal bodies are going to be fully restored. What Paul is contrasting here is two realms. The old creation ruled by Adam which we've talked about and the new creation inaugurated by Christ.

One leads to death, the other leads to life and peace. Remember the compass that we gave out to all the men? Think about that compass for a moment. No matter how many times you push its needle away, once you release it, if it's working correctly, it returns and points north.

It points north. Before Christ, we know that our hearts naturally pointed toward ourselves. They naturally pointed toward ourselves, toward pride, toward sin, toward independence from God.

But when the Holy Spirit gives us new birth, He gives us a new orientation. How many are thankful for those holy times of recalibration where He reorients our hearts back to Him? Do we still stumble? Yes, every day, every hour, every minute. We stumble and we need His grace.

Our deepest direction though, because we are in Christ, has changed. Though we may fall, we may stumble. We may miss the mark, we may lose our way.

We know that Christ, having redeemed us and taken away the condemnation, we are now in Him and so we fix our eyes on Him. Hebrews says, fixing our eyes on Jesus. That's a present tense reality.

Fixing our eyes on Him, the author and finisher of our faith. We fix our eyes on Jesus because He is the one. And the Spirit in our lives continuously points us back to Christ.

That's why the Christian life is not lived for victory. It's lived from victory. We're not trying to get the victory.

We have the victory. We live from victory. And the Neuberg conspiracy that we talked about in the beginning that almost derailed everything that had been accomplished in the Revolutionary War happened after the decisive victory had already been won.

The Revolution had not yet reached its full conclusion, but its outcome had been secured. The same thing is true for everyone who is in Christ. Every believer in Christ.

The decisive victory has been won at Calvary. Sin's reign has been broken. Death has been defeated.

The empty tomb has changed history forever. Yet until Christ returns, we continue to experience the battle within. We continue to experience the battle within.

We're not fighting to earn God's acceptance, though. We're fighting because we have already received it. We could just give in to sin.

That changes everything. We obey because we are sons and daughters, not in order to become them. That's why today's gospel has such wonderful news for us.

Jesus, in these words, offers to us these comfortable words that we say every week. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Matthew tells us where the rest is found, and Paul tells us why we need it.

Do you know the best advice I ever got when it came to overcoming sin? It's real simple advice, but the best advice I ever got when it came to overcoming sin, I heard from an Orthodox priest. And he said, whenever you feel tempted to give in to sin, just don't do it. That's good advice.

Just say no. Don't do it. Walk away, and you'll overcome it.

I mean, that sounds easy, but sometimes the draw of our desires keeps us. But truly, if we understand what he's saying here, he's saying here is sin no longer has control over us. So if we say no, we're not trapped by sin.

Yes, it's still present. It still remains, but it does not have authority over us anymore, unless we give it authority, unless we give in to those things. But you might be weary today and heavy laden from this fight.

I want you to know the greatest burden that Jesus removes for us is not simply stress, but it's actually guilt. It's condemnation. It's the crushing weight of trying to save ourselves and realizing that we're never going to measure up.

We're never going to measure up to his standard. But Christ invites us to lay that burden down, because he has already carried it to the cross. And every Sunday, as we gather around the Lord's table, we don't come as people pretending that the battle is over.

We come as soldiers who know that the King has already won. We know that the King has already won, and we confess because the battle is real. We know that there is a war that is waging against us, that is being waged against us.

And we struggle, but we confess because the battle is real. But yet we receive what he has given to us, because grace is greater. His grace is greater, and we receive what we need, the nourishment we need.

We eat and drink, because Christ himself strengthens weary pilgrims for the journey home. It's why John Christopherson says that we are like roaring lions when we walk out after receiving from the Lord what he has given us, after his grace has been poured out in our lives again. We're never more fearful to the enemy than we are in those moments, because we have been fed and nourished by Christ.

I want you to know that if you came here this morning exhausted from trying to earn God's approval, I want you to hear these words. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you came discouraged because the struggle continues in your lives, remember this, the battle is not proof that Christ has abandoned you.

It is evidence that his Spirit is at work within you. And if you wonder whether real change is possible, remember Paul's promise. The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus.

My friends, yesterday we celebrated the birth of a nation. Today and every Sunday we celebrate something even greater, the freedom that wasn't won by generals or armies, but by the crucified and risen King. Now I'm thankful that we live in a country that provides us opportunity, but I'm more than thankful for Jesus Christ our Lord, because he's the one that has given us the ultimate victory.

He's given us the ultimate victory. And today as we remember those freedoms that we've been given, we're gonna celebrate together. We're gonna have a good time together.

It's First Fruits weekend, but I want us also to remember the price that was paid for us and the opportunity that we have today to receive his new life and to receive his peace and to have his grace continuously poured out into our lives and to receive his mercy, his steadfast love, because it's there for us today.