Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 53:5. The main subject of the sermon is the purpose Christ entered the world to accomplish, which is our healing.

Well, I want to wish all of you a merry Christmas. It's a special night. I always enjoy this service. It's a pleasant time to gather, to assemble. I would say that I've probably never cherished face-to-face fellowship as much as I do this year. I think it's the kind of thing that we can easily take for granted what it's like to be together, to assemble together, and we're grateful for the chance that we have to meet together and celebrate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I know that at Christmas we're nearing the end of the year, so we're coming closer to a new year and this year of trial and trouble is almost at an end.

As we look back at 2020, we will not soon forget the impact a microscopic virus has had on human history, on society, on commerce, on families, on churches, business, on whole nations, and certainly on individuals. Even still, as we look ahead to the year 2020, we know that we're not certain that the light is coming at the end of the tunnel in this particular trial, despite the advances that pharmaceutical researchers have made in a vaccine. We know that even when this pandemic may come to an end and life returns to whatever normal resumes after it, the larger problem will still remain, disease, suffering, death will not have been defeated, but will still stand looming over each one of us, like the grim reaper or the silent Ghost of Christmas Future with his long, bony finger pointing to the grave. Death is the final enemy, the Scripture tells us, the final enemy or the last enemy to be defeated and it will still be running amok, running roughshod over our beleaguered and guilty race until final and eternal healing comes. But dear friends, final and eternal healing is coming. To all diseases and to death itself. A light is shining in a dark place. We who are walking in the land of the shadow of death, on us, a light has dawned. The birth of Jesus Christ into our suffering world over 2000 years ago, ignited a blazing torch that fires up hope in our hearts and it's lit the way through the valley of the shadow of death for every generation there's been since that time, and including ours as well. Jesus Christ, the savior of the world has been born and that's what we are celebrating. Indeed, we celebrate as Christians every day, not just at Christmas time, but this is a good time for us to focus on it. The Savior of the world has come, hope has dawned, and the rising of the sun will grow brighter and brighter in heavenly glory as each day of redemptive history passes.

Now, that ever-growing brightness, that ever-growing glory cannot be seen with the naked eye. It must be seen by faith. Now, what do I mean by the ever-growing glory, the ever-growing brightness? How is the glory of Christ greater now than it was 2000 years ago? How has the magnitude of his brightness actually grown with every passing generation? Well, the answer is, as the Holy Spirit applies Christ’s triumphant, substitutionary death and his triumphant resurrection from the dead to individual people in every generation, the invisible glory of the church of Jesus Christ grows even greater. Every single sinner who repents, who bows the knee to Christ in humble adoration, in repentance and faith, crossing over from death to life, every single one of those adds to the glory of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And that greatness only ever accumulates. It only ever gets greater and greater. More and more glory, more and more brightness, more and more joy, more and more power. Though for the most part, it's hidden from our eyes. Jesus said, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and hid in a large amount of flour until it permeated, it worked all through the dough.” That's what the advancement of the kingdom of heaven has been like for 20 centuries. Matthew 13:33, every day of redemptive history, the invisible kingdom of Christ gets a little larger, makes a little more progress.

Now, I want to commend to you the idea tonight as we meditate together, that this advance can be seen as a healing. Christ was born to heal. Christ lived to heal. Christ did healing miracles as the sign of a future world that would be free from all disease. Christ spoke healing words. Christ died a bloody death to heal. And he has risen with healing in his wings. Christ as the worldwide healer of a grieving, hurting afflicted world, that is my topic on this beautiful night of quiet joy, candle lit night, a night of singing hymns, songs of celebration. I enjoy this night. And we assemble and we think back on that night and we sing, “Oh Holy Night” and we think what it was like to be one of those shepherds and to see Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes when the angel of the glory of the Lord shown around and those shepherds were... I'll never forget the King James Version, sore afraid. There's no translation better than that. They were sore afraid. And they were told, “Tonight, in the city of David, a savior has been born for you. And this will be a sign for you. You'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, Christ the Lord.” so tonight we meet to celebrate that, the gift of a divine healer who came into a disease ridden world to heal us of the ultimate disease, and that is sin.

Now, Christ's mission as healer was predicted centuries before he was born. Isaiah the prophet, wrote in Isaiah 53:5, "He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed." So seven centuries before Christ was born, Isaiah saw him coming. This is the miracle of prophecy. It's what sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world. The fact that our God, the God of the Bible is an eternal being who knows the end from the beginning, the beginning from the end. And not only that, he decrees the future and then has the sovereign power to bring it about, that's how predictive prophecy works. And Isaiah 53, I believe, is the greatest predictive prophecy of Christ there is in the Old Testament, the greatest prophecy of the coming of Christ. It clearly defined what Christ came to do. And the centerpiece of that prophecy in Isaiah 53 is substitutionary atonement.

Now, atonement is just made up of two simple words, at-one-ment, the idea of an estrangement, a rupture between us and God, and Christ came to atone for our sins, that means to make at one, us and God, where we were ruptured apart. We were enemies because of our sins. Atonement, therefore is the payment or the covering of sin resulting in reconciliation with a Holy God. Sin brought death, "The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23. Adam’s sin brought death into the world. Romans 5:12, it says, "Sin entered the world through one man and death through sin. And in this way, death came to all because all sinned." Now, disease was part of that judgment. It was an instrument of judgment by God. Disease is the dysfunction of the body. Pathogens, carcinogens, toxins enter the body and cause the body to stop functioning properly. Bacteria, viruses came into the world as part of the curse on this world, and they enter the body and they make eyes blind. They make legs paralyzed. They make skin to break out in terrible bloody rashes. They cause organs to cease functioning properly. This is disease, the tragic history of disease.

Now healing is the rectification of that process, the restoration of the body to a pattern of normalcy being rescued from that specific ailment or disease, and God in his grace has given insight to individuals who are wise enough to study the science of the body, and of various chemicals and substances in the world and procedures and it's been going on for centuries. If you add a particular pulses with a certain kind of recipe to a boil or a certain ailment in the body, it has been shown to give healing in that particular case, those kinds of things. Or if you cut open the body and if you cut out the tumor in a certain way, that healing may follow. But many diseases and plagues and fevers have long eluded human art and science to conquer. And the overall problem of sin, and disease, and death cannot be solved by human technology, cannot be solved by pharmaceutical research.

Only God can heal the human race. And God sent his Son, Jesus Christ into the world as a healer. Look again at Isaiah 53:5. It says, "By his wounds, we are healed." Isaiah saw the coming of a Savior who would heal the human race of all of its plagues. But Isaiah saw more than that. In the verses that we already heard tonight, he saw the root cause of all disease, of all affliction is sin. Sin is the plague of plagues. Adam sinned by breaking a specific command from God. But Adam's descendants, all of us, were born into the guilt and consequences of his original sin, and received diseases even immediately, some of us, even as infants, even though the infants had never sinned as Adam did by breaking a command of God. Yet they were born into his suffering, into his guilt in some mysterious way. Some babies receive diseases from the bodies of their mothers. Others receive genetic deformities from their parents in some very difficult and afflicting way, though they've never sinned voluntarily. However, all people, once they are born into the world and they grow up and understand the imprint of God's moral law in their hearts or they understand from Scripture the law of God, all of us violate those laws at some point. Every one of us has sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We have all violated God's laws. In that way we did sin as Adam did by breaking commands of God.

Now, Christ's healing could only be affected by dealing with the root cause of all disease, and that is sin in the eyes of a Holy God. Therefore, Christ was born into the world to suffer and to die in our place as a substitute. Isaiah 53:5-6 gives the whole unfolding of that truth, "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." That is substitutionary atonement, and it addresses the root cause of our afflictions and our miseries and our diseases, and that is sin. So seven centuries before Christ was even born, Isaiah saw very clearly Christ coming as the healer. But then Christ's mission as a healer was put on full display. It was demonstrated plainly.

Once Christ began his ministry, he started a river of healings. In Matthew 4:23-25, it says, "Jesus went throughout Galilee teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who are ill with various diseases. Those suffering severe pain, the demon possessed, the epileptics, or those having seizures, paralytics, and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him." Friends, that is the greatest unleashing of miraculous power there's ever been in history. The Old Testament prophets occasionally did a miracle here, a miracle there from time to time. So also the apostles did maybe more than that, but far less than Jesus, just a river of healings. Huge populations went to Jesus every day and he healed them all. Jesus' healing ministry was undefeated. Think about that. There's never a single case of a disease or an illness that was beyond his skill to address. There was not a single malady he could not heal. It says in Mark 7:37, "People are overwhelmed with amazement. ‘He has done everything well.’" I love that statement about Jesus. Isn't that great? He's just good at everything. There's nothing he cannot do, “He has even made the deaf hear and the mute speak." So therefore he was not a specialist. Some of us, we're in a great region for medical research. And if you have a particular malady, you go to see a specialist and the individual has zeroed in on that particular part of the body or that particular ailment, and becomes expert at that. Jesus was not a specialist, he was a general practitioner, but perfect at everything he did better than any specialist in that area. So organic illnesses, even dismemberments, remember when Peter hacked off Malchus' ear and Jesus touched it and gave him a new ear? That's amazing.

Organic illnesses, even paralysis from birth, blindness from birth, blindness had never been healed before Jesus. No one ever had done that before in the history of the world. Jesus healed him. Even death, even Lazarus dead four days, not too difficult for Jesus. He could do anything, universal success. And also I love in the healing accounts how easy it is for Jesus to heal. It was effortless. And we also see a variety of methods. It wasn't just one approach every time, sometimes he would spit on the ground and make mud. Other times he would touch someone. Other times he wouldn't even be there, he would just give the word and an individual would be healed. He didn't even have to be in the same vicinity. He could do anything. However, for the most part, I think more than anything, you see him healing by touch. He raises Jairus' daughter by taking her by the hand. He heals Peter's mother-in-law by taking her by the hand. And I think what it is, is he wants that relationship. He wants to be able to look the afflicted in the eye and they know he was the one who healed them.

I think about the story about the woman who was suffering from the problem of bleeding for 12 years and the account’s in Mark 5:27 and following, it says, "When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind Him in the crowd and touched His cloak because she thought, 'If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.' Immediately, her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched my clothes?' 'You see the people crowding around you,' his disciples answered, 'And yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’'" The disciples are interesting people, aren't they? It's like Jesus,  I mean they must have thought low thoughts of Jesus at that moment. But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. "Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and trembling with fear, told him the whole truth,” and I love this, “he said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.'" So that that was the whole point of part two of this drama, "Who touched me? I want to be able to look you in the eye and I want you to know the love that I have for you." He wanted that interaction with her. He wanted that personal relationship with her.

So Christ's mission as healer was really defined. Physical healing was not the ultimate goal. All healings, all of the physical healings that Jesus came to do were pictures of the real healing that all of us needs. Now, you may be here tonight in the picture of health. You may be in the prime of your years or you may be well beyond that. And you came tonight in great pain or with a chronic affliction or many of them. In any case, the greatest healing we all need is the forgiveness of sins. And so Jesus said in Luke 5:30-32, "The Pharisees and the teacher of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, 'Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?' Now, Jesus answered them. 'It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.'" Do you see the parallelism there? Jesus is calling himself a healer, and the way he heals is by calling sinners to repentance. That's the healing he wanted to do. All of the people Jesus healed physically died of something else, all of them. Jesus knew that death was going to be the final enemy; he was only just giving signs of His power over sin and death. But the real healing we need is forgiveness of sins.

And so Jesus pointed always to a higher healing. In John 5, He healed a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years, but he did not save his soul in that first encounter. He circles back later and finds that man and he says, "Behold, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." Now, please don't imagine that what the worst thing is 39 years of paralysis or a different disease. That's not what Jesus is talking about. He was talking about eternity in hell, eternity in hell. That's worse than any disease. And so Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the one who has power to destroy both soul and body in hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.” That is the greatest fear that any of us should have. Therefore, the greatest healing that we can ever have is being healed from our sins so we don't spend eternity in torment in hell. So Jesus's top priority always was to forgiveness of sins, not the healing of the body. You remember in Mark 2, the account of the paralyzed man that was carried by four of the man's friends. And again, keep in mind Jesus healing everybody. He was surrounded every day by a crushing crowd. You couldn't get near him. So if you imagine like one of those kids movies that you're going to go back in time and have time with Jesus, you'd never get close, friends, because everyone wanted to be near Jesus. And so these people brought their friend on a mat and they couldn't get close to Jesus. So they went up on the roof and dug through the roof. And after digging through it lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” No physical healing, none. That's Jesus' priority, “Son, daughter, your sins are forgiven.” And if that would have been all that Jesus had done for that man that would've been an infinite gift, spending eternity in heaven with God because your sins are forgiven. There's nothing more valuable than that. Conversely, to heal him and not forgive his sins, what good would that be ultimately? "But when Jesus’ enemies heard what they were saying, they were sitting there thinking, 'Why does this fellow talk like this? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins, but God alone?' Immediately, Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts. And he said to them, 'Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Rise and walk.' But still that you may know that I have power on earth to forgive sins.’ He then said to the paralytic, 'Get up, take your mat and go home.' So the man got up and went home in full view of them all. And they all praise God saying, 'We've never seen anything like that.'" Well, Jesus has the same power to forgive sins on earth now that he had then. The same power. And that's the healing that we need.

Now, Christ's mission as healer will be consummated in heaven. It will be consummated eternally. All of the miracles were signs, they're signs and wonders, signs pointing ahead to a city that's coming to a world that's coming. And in that world, “There'll be no more death, mourning, crying or pain,” Revelation 21:4. And in the city that's coming, the new Jerusalem, we are told that there is, “a river of the water of life flowing from the throne as clear as crystal down the center of that city, and on each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, each yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree," listen to this, "Are for the healing of the nations." Now, I spent a lot of time meditating on that. Like, “Well, what do we need healing for in a world that whether there's no more death, morning, crying or pain?" Well just put the two together. It's because the tree of the life is there that we never will experience death, mourning crying or pain again. It's a dynamic ongoing health that flows from the throne of God. It's not independent of God's throne or independent of the river of the water of life, or independent of the Tree of Life. It's because all of those things are open to us to feast from for all eternity that we will never know disease, or sorrow, or suffering ever again. And even better than that, death will be dead itself. So death thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation 20, and even better than that, sin will be gone. We will never sin again, but we will bow our knees before the throne of God and of Christ for all eternity and be delighted, delighted to obey him forever. That is the world to which we are going. That is the world where Jesus' ministry as healer is consummated for all eternity.

So as we finish up tonight, brief meditation on God's word, greatest application I can give to each one of you is be certain that your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ. Whatever physical condition you're in, whatever physical pain you may be feeling, whatever circumstances you may be in, the greatest need any of us has is forgiveness of sins. And Jesus is able to forgive all of your sins past, present, and future through simple faith in Christ. Trust in him. Trust in him.

Secondly, if you are in pain, if you are experiencing chronic illnesses, understand Jesus has every bit as much power to heal as ever he did back then. If you are sick, ask the elders of the church to pray over you- anoint you with oil and pray over you. It says in James 5, "And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise him up." And so God has the power still to heal. We've seen amazing healings in this church in answer to prayer. But even if he were to heal you amazingly, unless the Lord returns in our lifetime, you'll die of something else. But rejoice, the sting has been taken out of death forever. We're going to spend eternity in heaven and we're going to get resurrection bodies and they'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. So seek the healing, get good medical treatment, get your brothers and sisters in Christ to pray for you, and Jesus has the power still to heal.

Thirdly, think about heaven, to which we're going. Think about it more than you do. Think about Revelation 21:4. "No more death, mourning, crying, or pain." Think about the river of the water of life flowing clear as crystal. Think about the tree of life and feast in your heart on the healing that is coming. Let's close now in prayer and then we're going to turn to a time of the Lord's Supper.

Father, we thank you for the meditation that we've had now in the word of God. We thank you for its power, and I pray, Lord, that as we turn our attention now to the table, to the Lord's supper, we have the opportunity to celebrate and we pray that you would please send forth the power of the Spirit now to make this a powerful celebration of the Lord's supper. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Isaiah 53:5. The main subject of the sermon is the purpose Christ entered the world to accomplish, which is our healing.

The post Christ Came to Bring Eternal Healing appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Colossians 1:15-22. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ is gloriously revealed to the world by God.

Well, this is a number of days before Christmas. This is, for those of you that are wondering, this is the last Sunday before Christmas. I think when you're close, it’s a day or so away like, "Oh, I get it." But we are celebrating the incarnation of Christ today and, on Friday, many of you're going to gather with your families and celebrate the gift of Jesus and that's an exciting time. There's nothing really like the thrill, especially when you're growing up when you're a kid, the thrill of a mystery gift, something that's waiting under the tree with your name on it, especially if it's unusually large or if it's a strange shape that you don't recognize, those things that are really difficult to wrap. You know what I'm talking about. If it's got one of those shiny red bows on it, you can't wait to tear off the wrapping paper, find out what's in there. I think the excitement of opening gifts maximizes or peaks when you're somewhere between the age of five and 12, somewhere in there, it peaks out. When you remember last year and you're old enough to get that sense of years passing and you start to anticipate what it's going to be like to see what's waiting for you. The thrill of tearing off that wrapping paper. You're old enough to remember and to anticipate the magic, but you're not yet so old, so that you're too cool for the whole thing. You're not so old yet that you are the ones responsible for putting the whole thing on. And you're not even so old yet where all you really want on Christmas Eve is a good night's sleep. I mean, you're right in that sweet spot where you're just excited.

Now, one of the problems that people have when it comes to Christmas gifts is achieving surprise. That's hard to do. A pleasing surprise, in particular. I think you can certainly achieve an unpleasant surprise. But to achieve a pleasing surprise, something the person really wants, really needs, and didn't see coming, now that's hard to do, but that's one of the delights of Christmas. It's hard for parents that are seeking to achieve surprise, to find good hiding places for the gifts. Under the bed, up in the upper part of the closet. Where do you put it, where the kids aren't going to find it? Kids are amazing detectives and they're amazing snoops, and they can find out wherever you've hidden the gifts.

Now, when I was growing up, my parents were really shrewd. They did all their shopping relatively early and they stacked up their gifts and they told us exactly where the gifts were hiding. "They're in our bedroom closet, they're on the right-hand shelf, on the upper area. If you want to know what we got you, go look, we're not going to stop you. But if you want a surprise on Christmas, then don't go in our closet." It was like a little bit of reverse psychology. It was 100% effective. We never snooped. That was something I might suggest to all of you that want surprise.

Now, this morning I have the privilege, and this is the image that's in my mind, of preaching to you the glories of the incarnation, as if I were unwrapping a mystery gift, as if to some degree, Christ is a mystery that needs to be revealed to each one of you. I have the privilege every week throughout the year of preaching for your faith, to feed your faith, that you would have the eyes of your heart illumined to see the glories of Christ year round, not just Christmas time, but this is my great privilege and my delight that I believe that our salvation is a work in progress, that it's dynamic and that our faith needs to be fed the Word of God. I think about this every week, what Jesus said to Peter, "Feed my sheep, feed my sheep." I get to do that. I get to feed you the Word of God. But especially at Christmas time, we get to zero in on the mystery of the incarnation and to think of Christ as a gift, as a mystery gift that is in some way wrapped and needs to be revealed to us, to be unveiled for us. And I believe that unwrapping of Christ or that revelation of Christ will be progressive for all eternity. This is not a view that I've always had, but when it came to the realization that we would never be omniscient, what that meant would be that we would always be able to learn more of Christ. There's always more to see of him.

And If you look at Colossians 2, which is beyond what was read for, so if you look at Colossians 2:2-3, this is the text that started my thinking this year for this Christmas message. They're picking up in the middle of verse Colossians 2:2, Paul's talking about his ministry of preaching and teaching. He says that, "They may have the full riches of complete understanding in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." That's an explosive concept, especially the word all, all wisdom, all knowledge hidden in Christ. Colossians 2:3, that's a staggering concept. In my meditations on heaven that have been growing and developing over the last five years, it's become clear to me that we will never finish searching out the unsearchable riches of Christ. We're not going to get to a point in heaven when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, where we reach an end and we've learned all there is to know about Christ. We're going to continue to learn of him.

So, picture then Christ as somewhat of a gift that you unwrap to a pleasing level and then find that there's more to unwrap. Have you ever gotten a gift like that where you unwrap this big box and there's another wrap gift inside it? That happened at our staff Christmas party this past week, and I find that a little frustrating, but some people say, "Oh, that's so exciting." But you wrap and then there's another gift and you unwrap that. Or like, perhaps you've seen before one of those wooden dolls, like from Russia, where you open it up and there's another doll just like that, a little smaller, inside, and you pull that one out. It's called the Matryoshka dolls, like a “little matron” is what the Russian means. So, you just gets smaller and smaller. You pull it out and then open it up and there's another one inside. I looked it up, the record for that kind of doll is 51, 51 dolls within dolls, within dolls. The biggest one was just shy of 22 inches tall, like this, two feet, all the way down to an eighth of an inch, little baby at the end is an eighth of an inch, barely can see it. But that's one after the other as you open it up. But in that case, the engineering of that thing is that those things get smaller and smaller as you open them up. I think the exact opposite happens with Christ. He gets greater and greater, more and more majestic. The dimensions just keep expanding actually. As you open Christ up, he's greater than you thought he was. So, it says in Psalm 34:3, "O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together." I've meditated on that verse on and off over a number of years. It's a good corporate worship verse. As we get together, as Wes and his team lead us, "O magnify the Lord with me." The best thing that Wes can do is to magnify the Lord. What does that mean? The word magnify means to make greater, to make greater, but that is something we cannot do. Christ is already infinitely great beyond all dimensions. We cannot make him any greater than he is. When we think about a magnifying glass, it just makes something appear to be greater to our eye. Usually we use a magnifying glass for something really small to make it bigger. I think a better image might be of a telescope, which takes something very distant, like the rings of Saturn, very far away, appears like a dot in the sky. And then, with a powerful telescope, it magnifies it to the naked eye, so you can see the dimensions and details of Saturn and its rings. You've not done anything to Saturn, but you've made it bigger to yourself.

And because of our sins, we are distant from God and he appears small, naturally small to us, apart from the saving work of God, in our hearts, God will appear small, almost insignificant, same with Christ. But through the ministry of the Word, we can magnify the Lord and make him greater to us, make him appear to be greater. If I can have the blessing of the Spirit this morning and the gifting of the Spirit to do that for you, then I will have achieved my goal. If you walk out this morning thinking greater thoughts of Christ and of his incarnation than when you walked in, then I will have done what preaching is supposed to do.

I think about heavenly worship where the angels in Revelation 7:11-12, "All of the angels fell on their faces before the throne and worship God saying, 'Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power, and might be to our God forever and ever. Amen.'" Now, the angels knew they weren't bringing anything to the throne. They weren't bringing wisdom to the throne. They weren't bringing and depositing power to the throne. They knew that all wisdom is at the throne already. All power is already there. But they're ascribing these magnificent attributes to the throne of God and of Christ. That's heavenly worship.

So, this morning we get to unwrap Christ. We get to look at how Christ has been concealed in the past, how he has been revealed so far, and how he will be revealed for all eternity in heaven. Those are the three parts of my sermon. First, let's consider the context to these Colossian Christians. The Colossian church was fighting for its life doctrinally. They were under assault from a false doctrine, false gospel, a bizarre mixture, a poisonous concoction of Judaism, of Christian theology, of human philosophy, of mysticism and aestheticism. All of those things were mixed together and were drawing them off of a sincere and pure devotion to Christ by right doctrine. So, they were drinking this and this poisonous mixture was hurting them.  And central to the poison that Satan was feeding them was a false concept of salvation as a progressive ascent through higher and higher circles of wisdom or knowledge by means of personal aestheticism. So, they had that basic idea that many did in that part of the world, that the body is essentially evil, spirit is good. So, if you denied yourself through harsh treatment of the body, you fasted, you hurt to some degree your physical body and you denied food and earthly pleasures, then the higher beings, angels, would reveal secrets to you about the universe and you would become gradually wiser and wiser and descend to the heavenly plain, like they are. This is one of those so-called mystery religions that were all the rage back then. There were lots of these mystery religions. They were tied to pagan rituals in Egypt and Persia. Zoroastrianism has a lot of this stuff. It's all mixed in. And then some of the wisdom of the human philosophy from Greece was coming in there and affecting their worldview. The combination implied some kind of ascent through these locked doors. You come in, coming up and you're at a locked door and you're knocking on that locked door. And then if you were pious enough, if you were aesthetic enough, one of these supernatural beings would hand you a key and you would get through that locked door and you'd get ever higher and higher. So, central to their required piety was a denial of the bodily drives, harsh treatment of the body, like eating, drinking, sensual pleasures, aestheticism.

So, Paul sweeps all of that away by proclaiming the truth of the gospel in Christ. The gospel is the remedy to all false doctrine. And so, he proclaims the incarnation of the eternal Son of God. That would be all the mystery they would ever need. It would be all the mystery they could ever handle. The incarnation of God and the gift of righteousness through simple faith in Christ, repentance of your sins and faith in Christ, the gifts of full righteousness instantaneously given to you, imputed to you, through faith in Christ, would be all the righteousness you would ever need. And the progressive growth in holiness through the ministry of the Word, the faithful teaching of the Word, resulting in growing in Christ-likeness and holiness as he describes the Christian life beautifully in Colossians 3, what that life would look like, a life of personal holiness, yes, not of harsh treatment of the body, but of a right understanding of the physical gifts and those things and of growth and holiness and conformity to Christ. That would be all the ascending growth into spirituality they would ever need. And above this, above all of this, the wisdom and knowledge wrapped up in Christ was all the wisdom and knowledge in the universe. Everything that could be known, Christ knows. Think about that. It's mind blowing. Think about all of the experts and the PhDs and the skillful students on planet earth. Everything they know, Christ knows. Staggering. In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Be all the wisdom you could ever want wrapped up in Christ. To discover him, to have Christ as a gift unwrapped and revealed progressively more and more, that was the goal of worship and the goal of Christian ministry and then in heaven, the focus in heaven.

Now, central to all of this, and central to our celebration this morning and this week, is the incarnation, the person of Christ. So, he zeros in on what theologians call Christology, the study of the person of Christ. He does that, especially in Colossians 1:15-20, which you just read a moment ago, some of the richest, fullest, deepest words ever written on the mysteries of the person of Christ, the incarnation. So, this is the infinite gift that God gave to the human race 2000 years ago, and we get to unwrap some of that this morning. And that's marvelous, isn't it?

Let's begin with Christ concealed. Christ concealed. Christ is concealed, first and foremost, above all, by his infinite majesty. Fundamentally, Christ is hidden in some sense from us creatures, because he is an infinite being and we are finite. All of us are finite. So, we cannot take all of his infinitude in, even the holy angels who have never sinned, who are perfectly pure, cannot take all of Christ in all at once. And so we have Isaiah 6, this vision that Isaiah had where he says, "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and exalted and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings, and with two wings, they were covering their faces, and with two wings, they were covering their feet, and with two wings, they were flying and they were crying to one another, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory.'" Ponder why these burning ones, these seraphim were covering their faces before the enthroned Lord? John, the gospel of John tells us that Isaiah saw Jesus's glory and wrote about him. That's Christ, the pre-incarnate Christ and the angels are covering their faces. So, he's hidden from them in some sense, because he's infinitely glorious and they can't take it all in all at once. This is the infinite majesty of the person of Christ. When he became incarnate by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was God in the flesh.

And so, look down at Colossians 2:9, there it says, "For in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form." Here he's setting aside the false doctrine, body is evil/spirit is good. It's just not true. Jesus is God in a body, God in a physical, that's what incarnation means. The enfleshment of God, he takes on a human body and all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form. This is the infinite mystery of the incarnation, the fullness of God, all that God is, all of his attributes in bodily form. And so it says in Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God,” the image of the invisible God. Now, in the fourth century, some theologians were wrangling over the person of Christ. They're wrangling over theology. And there was a strong heresy that was coming along called Arianism, which taught that Christ is the first and greatest creature or created being that the Father made. There was a time that he didn't exist. And God raised up a number of theologians, but especially Athanasius, who came along to battle against this false doctrine. What we know that the Jehovah's Witnesses, Kingdom Hall teaches now, same heresy. Athanasius came along and he had an image in his mind of the infinite dimensions of the person of Christ. Well, this is a man that had spent most of his life meditating on the incarnation. And I took that image, it's a little complex, and I simplified it based on experience I had once of seeing Pacific Coast 1, Highway 1 along one of those rocky coastlines. You ever seen those in Northern California, right near the Redwood Forest? It's just spectacular there. Japan has similar rocky coastlines overlooking the Pacific Ocean, very dramatic. But picture this in your mind; the image comes from Athanasius. It's like we're sitting on a cliff overlooking the ocean as it pounds the coastline as far as the eye can see. From our lofty perch, we can see a mile to the left and a mile to the right. Everywhere we look, wave upon wave of surf is rolling in and crashing with great plumes of spray on the beach below. We cannot begin to comprehend a single wave completely. Even if we did, there are countless more waves crashing in along the shoreline, a mile up coast and a mile down the coast from where we're sitting and we know it. And the ocean itself stretches as far as the eye can see, to the curvature of the earth, generating yet more waves that are going to pound the coastline in another five minutes or 10 minutes. That's the image that you have. You're never done contemplating the infinite majesty of the incarnate Christ. He's infinitely glorious. And so, he is concealed in his infinite majesty.

He also was concealed in the Old Testament age. He was concealed in the era of the Old Testament, the Trinity, the doctrine of one God and three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit was never carefully, clearly expounded in the Old Testament. There are clues, there are hints, but it wasn't clearly taught. Monotheism, that there is one God and only one God, there is no other God but the one God was clearly taught. Deuteronomy 6, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Isaiah is very clear on this in 10 chapters, in Isaiah 40-49, "Before me, no God was formed, nor will there be one after me." Monotheism. But the idea that the God, the one God has eternally existed in three persons, Father, Son, and Spirit was concealed, it was hidden. Jesus himself, Christ himself, and his mission planned out before the foundation of the world completely in the mind of the triune God. Christ and his mission was concealed in the mind of the Father in the Old Testament. Isaiah 49:2, Christ is speaking by the Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. So you hear Jesus say this in Isaiah 49:2, speaking of his own Father, speaking of God the Father, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword in the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He concealed me in his quiver like a polished arrow." So there's this hiding, this concealing of Jesus in the Old Testament age. And so, if you look at Colossians 1:26-27, it speaks there of the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints. There's that hiddenness, that hiding of Christ. "To them, God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."  So, that's Christ concealed.

Second in our outline, Christ partially revealed. Christ is revealed in the incarnation with Gabriel's first announcement to Mary, Luke 1:31-35, "The angel Gabriel came to Mary and said these words, 'You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end.' 'How will this be?' Mary asked the angel, 'Since I am a virgin.' The angel answered, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.'" Now, all of the ingredients of the mystery of the incarnation are in that announcement, Son of David, Son of God, fully man, fully God. And then at the time of his birth, the angel spoke these words to the shepherds in Luke 2:10 following it says, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today, in the town of David, a savior has been born to you. He is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you. You'll find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger." So here's this baby wrapped in cloth, helpless, needing to be cared for, but he's called Christ the Lord. The word Lord means God. And then this great company of angels appears in worships and celebrates, and the author to Hebrews tells us what's going on there. When God brings his Firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him." So, they're worshiping Jesus when he was brought into the world, this is the mystery of the incarnation, fully God, a baby wrapped and laid in a manger, fully God, fully man.

Then, at the baptism, Jesus, as Jesus is being revealed to Israel, and he goes to where John the Baptist is baptizing people and he himself is baptized. As he comes up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And voice came from heaven saying, "You are my Son. With you I am well pleased." A picture of the trinity there at the baptism of Jesus, again, as John said in John 1, John the Baptist said, "The reason I came baptizing is that he might be revealed to Israel. I have seen and I testify that he is the Son of God." Partial revelation.

And then, as Jesus began his public ministry, his deity was unwrapped little by little as he did these great signs and wonders, one after the other. For example, as he begins preaching in the synagogue in his hometown in Capernaum, this account in Mark 1:23-27, "Just then a man in their synagogue who is possessed by an evil spirit cried out, 'What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy one of God.' 'Be quiet,' said Jesus sternly, 'Come out of him.' The evil spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek. The people were also amazed that they asked each other, 'What is this? A new teaching and with authority, he even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey him.'" This is spectacular power, a display of effortless power over demons. They were terrified of him. Then his power to heal people, all manners of sickness and diseases are brought to him, and he handled all of them easily. So much so that huge crowds were gathered and following him everywhere, and people couldn't get to him for healing. So, when Jesus heals the paralyzed man, he does it as a sign that he had the power on earth to forgive sin, something only God could do. So, little by little Jesus's deity is being unwrapped. It's being unveiled.

And then his power over the weather, think about this, when Jesus was asleep in the boat, in Mark 4, "A furious squall came up and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped." Picture it, the boat is filling with water and Jesus is peacefully asleep in the back. Then his disciples woke him and said, I don't know what tone they used, but I don't think it was like this, but I'll just preach it like this, "Teacher, don't you care if we're drowning?" I think they probably screamed it. They were terrified. “Jesus got up and spoke to the wind and the waves and said, ‘Peace, be still.’ And immediately the wind died down. It was completely quiet. Then Jesus spoke to them, said, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ They asked one another, ‘Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.’” Well, I know who he is. He's God in the flesh. That probably is one of his most spectacular miracles ever. What would've been like for you to be in the boat and see that kind of power?

And he had power over death. It didn't matter that Lazarus had been dead for days. It wouldn't matter if it had been dead for four days, four months, four years, four centuries. Jesus has absolute power. He says, "Lazarus, our friend, has fallen asleep, but I'm going to go and wake him." It was as difficult for him to raise the dead as it would've been for us to wake a sleeping person. He had absolute power over all of these things. And now, the incarnation concealed all of that. You couldn't see the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, because he just looked like an ordinary man. Jesus said to his enemies, "I've shown you many great works from the Father, for which of these are you stoning me." "We're not stoning you for any of these, but you, a mere man, make yourself out to be God." But Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up a high mountain by himself in Matthew 17, it says, "There he was transfigured before them, his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light." And this was just a little glimpse of radiant glory coming out as he's unwrapped a little bit before them and they see the glory.

But yet, in all of what Jesus did, nothing glorified him more than his death on the cross. Jesus unveiled his glory as God on the cross in ways that he didn't do any other way, no other miracles, nothing else revealed Christ's glory, the glory of the Father, as much as the cross. Right before Jesus was crucified, he prayed to his father in John 17, "He looked toward heaven and prayed. 'Father, the time has come, glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you, for you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.'" And so, Jesus, in dying on the cross, revealed all of the attributes of God. Every attribute you could ever study is on display in Christ crucified. For example, the power of God is on display in that in a single day, he atoned for all the sins of the land, as it says in the Old Testament prophecy. In a single day, he paid for the sins of a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation, from every generation of church history in a single day, atoned for them, he is the power of God.

He is also, it says in 1 Corinthians, the wisdom of God. It was wise for God to save our souls that way, wise for him to humble us like that. And to point to the cross of a man bleeding and dying and say, "There's your savior. Believe in him and you will have forgiveness of sins." It was wise for God to do that. We see the love of God and that he laid down his life for his bride. He laid down his life for his friends. We deserve to die because of our sins. He died in our place. “God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we're still sinners, Christ died for us.” All of the attributes of God are shining forth, if you know what to look for, even though it's a supernaturally dark day, you have the radiant glory of God shining from the cross. Then you see it again in his mighty resurrection as He triumphed over the grave for all of us.

So, Christ is revealed. He was revealed in his incarnation, he was unwrapped. But I still say partially, there's yet more glory to see. And Christ is revealed in the proclamation of the gospel. Look at Colossians 1:27-28, "God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Verse 28, "We proclaim him, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we might present everyone perfect in Christ." so, just by words, by proclamation. Now, it would be infinitely better for all of us to have the privilege that Paul had of being caught up to paradise, whether in the body or out of the body, we don't know, and see God enthroned with our own eyes, that would be better. But now what do we get? We see through a glass darkly, then face to face. Now, we know in part, then we will know fully. So, we get acts of Jesus and we get nouns and verbs and preaching and Bible studies. That's what we get now. Yet, through the proclaiming of the gospel, Christ is unveiled. He's revealed.

And so, that's what happened when Epaphras came and preached the gospel to the Colossians, when they heard the simple gospel, the milk of the gospel, and they believed, that's what happened. Now, Paul's expanding their knowledge. He's writing the epistle of the Colossians and he gives them more theology. He said, "You are underestimating Jesus. Let me tell you more who he is." And so you have the words that you heard and did read earlier, look again, Colossians 1:15-20, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in Him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness well in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." Now, these are some of the most astounding words you'll ever see written about Jesus. Each one of them is explosive and powerful. He claims that He is the physical image of the invisible spiritual God, so that if you had been alive at that time, like when one of his disciples said, "Show us the Father." And He said, "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I've been with you all this time? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father." He is the image of the invisible God. And he says, "By him, all things were made." That's staggering, by Jesus all things were made. The author of Hebrews says the same thing. Hebrews 1:10. It says, "In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands." That's amazing. Jesus laid the foundations of planet earth. Now, modern science has taught us something called plate tectonics. You're like, "Pastor, you're one of the few pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention they're going to mention plate tectonics in your Christmas sermon." But I do mention it, big, huge floating plates, I guess nine of them, they tell us, and these plates kind of bump into each other and grind against each other sometimes and create earthquakes and all of that. The biggest is the Asian plate, 40 million square miles. Jesus made it. 40 million square miles. Yep. Jesus made it. He laid the foundations of the earth.

Don't you wish you could go back when those Pharisees and Sadducees were arguing with him, it's like, "Wait, wait. Do you know who you're talking to?" He laid the foundations of the earth that you're walking on, this ground. It says in Psalm 104:5, "He set the earth on its foundations. It can never be moved." This has been the foundation of human history. Everything ever built by humans has been on this foundation, and Jesus laid it. Now, I've tended to think of the Father as creating everything. And so, I think he did, but I think he did it through the son. It's like he speaks and Jesus is the word he speaks. In some sense, Jesus also, we could say, created all things. Not only that, he created the stars, all things. Hebrews 1:10, "In the beginning, O Lord, you lay the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands." So, next chance you get to go out and look at the night sky, if there's not light pollution around where you live, and you can actually see the stars so distant, twinkling, cold and blue and beautiful. Jesus made them.

And not only that, the scripture tells us that he sustains all things by his powerful word. He upholds everything. God the Father, Christ the Son, the Spirit created a needy universe. They need the triune God to keep them going. He upholds or sustains everything by his powerful word. Verse 16, "For by him all things were created, in heaven and earth, visible and invisible, where thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things created for him by him and for him." so, angels, demons, everything. He's the Creator and Ruler of all things. I love what it says that they're created not just by him, but for him. Oh, Christian, meditate on this: You are not made for yourself. We are so selfish. You are made by him, meaning Christ, and for him, for his pleasure, for his delight. And you're going to find your greatest freedom and pleasure in meditating on that and living, going to Christ and saying, "I am yours. You made me. I live for you. What do you want from me? How can I please you and glorify you?" And he sustains everything moment by moment, by his powerful word.

And so, Christ is revealed in the proclamation of the gospel like it's happening right now. But Christ is also revealed in the miracle of conversion, because all of us, apart from Christ, are dead in our transgressions and sins and blind to these things. We're like the Jews of Paul's day when he says that whenever Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, "Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God." But at conversion, the Holy Spirit takes that veil away, and suddenly Christ is revealed to you. “And God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Corinthians 4:6. That's the moment of conversion. That's the moment you're born again, and you see the glory of God in Christ for the first time. So, Christ is partially revealed in all of this. He's been partially revealed to you in your hearts by faith, but there's more to come. Isn't that exciting? I mean, there's a lot more to come. 

And so, Christ will be eternally revealed. He's infinitely glorious. As it says in Colossians 2:3, "In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," Christ is going to be unwrapped and revealed and dimensions and details of his glory are going to be revealed to us for all eternity in heaven. And that's going to be thrilling, not static, but dynamic. For all eternity, we're going to see more and more of Christ. And we're going to see how wisely he acted in history, how wisely he worked to save the elect in every generation, what he did in each and every case to win them over.

Wasn't it marvelous to hear Molly's testimony? It's just beautiful. I don't take it for granted ever, that a child that's raised in a Christian family comes to a genuine faith in Christ. Amen? It is the normative way. The most common way by which God's elect are converted is in healthy Christian families, fathers and mothers pouring the gospel into their kids all over the world. Missionaries go to just fire starters so that one generation later that's up and running in that country, in that tribe or language or people or nation. And that's marvelous and exciting. But when we get to heaven, we get to look back and see how he did it, what he did, how he providentially arranged things in your life, where you were born, how you were raised, what he did, who he brought into your life and when, and what words he used to save you. And you'll be so expanded; you'll be so over you by then. You'll be over yourself. It won't be all about you. You'll be like, "Not just how did he save me, but how did he save him or her? That person over there." And you will care what God did to save someone you never met 487 years before you were born. And you are going to be excited at the display of God's wisdom and power through Christ in saving each person. And to see how Christ controlled wicked governments, unbelieving kings, and orchestrated their decision so that the gospel could spread to the ends of the earth. And how the one enthroned in heaven laughed at their rebellion and their opposition, and how he used their schemes and their plots to actually further the gospel. We're going to get to celebrate those kinds of things.

And we who have developed a certain level of expertise in an area of study, maybe in software or pharmaceutical research, medical research, physics, mathematics, banking, business, you're going to find Jesus knows more than you when you get to heaven in that area, “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” I blew the mind of a Japanese person I was talking to as I was fumbling my way through the Japanese language. Never really did that great. I was growing, getting better, but at any rate. I said, "You know, Jesus knows Japanese better than any Japanese that's ever lived." That was such a shock to that person. But it's true; Jesus knows the Japanese language better than any Japanese person. “In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” It's mind blowing. When we get to heaven, Christ will be forever unveiled, forever revealed to our joy and delight. 

What applications can we take? Well, this Christmas come with hearts expecting to learn more of Christ. Can I just say, you parents gather your kids around sometime on Christmas Day and read to them some miracle stories of Jesus, not just the birth narrative, read some of the accounts of the great works of Jesus, some of his teaching, some of the sermon in the mount. They said of Jesus, "No man ever spoke like this man," read some of his teachings. Feed Christ to your kids. Guess what? You'll be feeding Christ to yourself, too. That's the great joy. Realize the sweetest, richest meditation you can have in this world is Christ.

Do you realize? I know you do, but I'll say it again, everything we interact with our five senses is temporary. The things that are seen are temporary. So, everything you will unwrap on Friday will very soon break or be lost, or no longer bring you any joy. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Even some of them will have a life cycle, and they'll do pretty well for a while. You'll get some clothes, some sweaters, some other things, that'll be spectacular on you, and you'll look really good. But then they'll wear out. All of those things wear out. The real gift on Christmas Day will be sitting quietly off to the side, somewhat neglected. Don't let him be neglected. Make him front and center. Unwrap him, meditate on him. Remind yourself that you're temporary in this world. You're just passing through and Christ is your eternal treasure and your joy and delight.

And if you have not yet come to Christ, if you have never believed in him, never trusted in him, Christ came to save sinners like you and me. It's not hard. It's simple. Just admit that you are a sinner. Admit that you need a savior, and that God is the only savior for the world. Christ is God's savior for the world. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Close with me now in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the chance we've had to do a little more meditation on the person of Christ. He is a joy and delight to each one of us. Thank you. And Lord, I pray that you would take these feeble, ineffective words and allow them, however much they are based on Scripture, to transcend the limitations and to move our hearts to joy and to peace and to power in Christ. Lord, thank you for the gospel. Thank you for coming to earth and for living for us, dying for us, and rising again for us. In Jesus' name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on Colossians 1:15-22. The main subject of the sermon is how Christ is gloriously revealed to the world by God.

The post The Glory of Christ Unwrapped and Revealed appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy and Wes cover John 20:19-31. John recounts the astounding evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ in two accounts of His physical appearances to His disciples after death. He also commissions them to spread forgiveness of sins in His name through the power of the Spirit and the confession of Thomas to the ends of the earth.

The post John 20:19-31 Episode 43 – My Lord And My God, Pt.1 appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy Davis covers the 20th Century. Some of the specifics Andy discusses are World War 1, World War 2, nationalism, liberalism, the fundamentalists, Billy Graham, and the battle for the inerrancy of Scripture.

The post Journeys from the Past, Ep.9: The Nations Rage appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:29-34. The main subject of the sermon is the power that comes accepting the truth of the resurrection with faith.

Well, turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians, we continue our study. We're looking this morning at verses 29-34 as we try to understand these verses. We modern people tend to be very pragmatic, very practical people, we always tend to ask, what difference will this idea or this event or thing make in my life? As a result is possible for many to minimize the importance of theology. To minimize theology as though it has no practical place, you can imagine theologians in some ivory tower of ideas debating back and forth like the old scholastics used to do on things that really aren't gonna make any difference. And some people can see theology that way, but the passage that we are looking at today actually will get directly to the concept of the practical applications of the resurrection from the dead, and it's gonna show us the impact of doctrine on our daily lives. Friends, every one of us here today, we are all theologians, we could use another word, I don't know the relationship between the two words, but we could say, we're all philosophers. The question I wanna ask you, is your theology true? Is your philosophy true? Is it based on truth? That's the question we have to ask.

And the thing that just fills me with joy, I was just filled with confidence as I was sitting in the pew getting ready to preach, I just believe in the doctrine that I'm going to teach to you today, I just believe, and I'm just giving you... Every week, I just give you the tip of the iceberg. But Christianity is sound, healthy theology from top to bottom; in it's grand great glorious themes, but also down to its detailed level. God has thought this thing out, dear friends, and he has... I don't know, included it in Scripture, he's put it there for us some things plain and easy to understand, other things more difficult. But we get to walk through it. And if you, by the power of the Holy Spirit, having come to faith in Christ, are ready and open, over years and years, God is going to be building within you a sound theology. A healthy philosophy or worldview out of which you're gonna live your life and that will end up being very practical, it's gonna end up being very pragmatic, we're gonna see that today. Now again, I wanna set the context as I try to do every week, we're in the middle of this grand, this glorious epistle, this letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church that he helped plant centuries ago. And he deals with a series of difficult topics that were affecting the life of that local church, and they were messed up, I use the word again and again, dysfunctional. And in a strange sort of way, I thank God for it. Because we're able to learn from some of the mistakes they made, some of the problems they had, and it's timeless, every generation needs to walk through a lot of these same issues. And so he comes in Chapter 15 to a new issue, doesn't get to it right away but we can look down at verse 12 and see what it is.

Now in the epistle, just the way it's structured. When he says “now”, frequently translated “now” or “now brothers”, he gets to a new topic. We're gonna see that after he's done with this into chapter 16, he just does this again- again, it comes to a series of topics. And so in verse 1, he's coming to a new topic, but again, we don't find out what it is till you get to verse 12, and you know what it is now, because you've heard a number of sermons in this chapter, but there were some in the Corinthian church saying there is no resurrection from the dead, resurrection cannot happen, does not happen, probably even should not happen, verse 12. So he's addressing that throughout this chapter, and we're in a continued unfolding of that, now he begins before even saying what the issue is in verse 12, verses 1-11 reviewing the gospel, “I wanna remind you of the gospel that we preached to you when we came to Corinth.”

Now, aside from the issue that they were addressing, it is just always good for us as Christians to go back over the gospel, we can never get enough of it, we're never gonna graduate beyond the gospel. And so Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, he was buried, he was raised on the third day, according to the Scriptures, and he was seen by eyewitnesses, verses 1-11. Then the problem in verse 12, “some of you say, there is no resurrection from the dead.” And then in verses 13-19, he walks with it for a while, what if it's true? What if what you say is true; actually is true? What if there is no resurrection from the dead? Then what? Well, then, first of all, Christ hasn't been raised from the dead. And if Christ hasn't been raised from the dead there is no Christianity, your faith is worthless. You're still in your sins. A bunch of cataclysmic outcomes come. If there is no resurrection from the dead those who have died, Christian, dead Christians are lost, you'll never see them again. And aware of all people to be pity, he goes through all these things up through verse 19, and then he stops in the middle of that and through 20-28, he just... It's like he just can't contain himself any longer; he just breaks forth. Says in verse 20, “But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” And so for the next... Those nine verses 20-28, he gives us God's big picture plan of all of this. And that big picture plan, what he's saying is, “You need to understand Christ has won a triumphant final victory over death over the grave. He's won it, and he didn't just win it for himself, he's not an exception, he is the firstfruit of a vast harvest of resurrected people who will spend eternity in resurrection bodies.” And so he diverts himself for a moment to just give this grand glorious big picture plan.

And the plan is that Christ will be the first fruit, and then there's a long intervening period in which it seems like death still has ascendancy, death is still winning, but it isn't... It's temporary. And Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and he has heard from the Father, “Sit on my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” And this is a process whereby Christ and God's enemies are being subdued, and the final enemy to be destroyed is death. And then at the end of all things, Christ, having wrapped up the entire universe in one submissive package, will himself be made subject to the throne of God in his humanity, talked about that last week. So that God may be all in all in this glorious unification of the universe in which all things in heaven and Earth are brought together under one head. And we get to know about it. We Christians get to see what's going on. He's made known to us the mystery of his will to bring all things together under one head. Everything's on schedule, COVID hasn't diverted any of that, none of the things that happen in current events are diverting this plan we should be buoyant in hope, confident. That brings up 28.

Now, he kind of like resumes, if Christ... If there is no resurrection from the dead, what then, and so he kind of picks up that again in verse 29, so that's where we are, that's context. And we're going to see the practical implications that Paul gives us of really believing that there is a resurrection from the dead, that we ourselves will be raised. This world is not all there is. Conversely, if you don't believe that, well how should you live? And so we're gonna walk through that. Now we start with, I think, the best way to approach verse 29 with an interpretation that says that the idea of resurrection from the dead gives power for conversion through faith in Christ. So if you really believe that dead Christians will rise again, it actually kind of have an impact on you, so that you yourself will believe... I think that's the best we can do. So we come to verse 29. Now, you heard Mike read it. And those of you that were attentive to the Scripture reading, you're like, "What was that?" Alright, so look at it, verse 29, “Now, if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, then why are people baptized for them?” So let me stop and ask you, why are they baptized for the dead? And you're looking at me, say, "I have no idea what you're talking about, I don't know what this is. So that's why you're up here, tell us what in the world could this mean?" So undoubtedly, this is one of the more obscure verses in the New Testament, but I just have a complete confidence in the written word of God, every week, all Scripture is God-breathed, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. Every word of Scripture is exactly how God wants it to be. But not all Scripture is equally clear. Peter says this about our dear brother Paul, in 2 Peter 3:16, “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort to their own destruction as they do the other Scriptures.” It's actually a very important statement, Peter makes, Paul's writing is Scripture, but they're in different categories, some things easy to understand, some things harder to understand, and those harder things become vulnerable to being twisted and distorted. I think 1 Corinthians 15:29 is just such a verse, hard to understand. No one is 100% sure what this verse is teaching. And that there are hard verses in the Bible should actually encourage us. It really should. We believe that when we come to the Scriptures, we're sitting at the feet of Almighty God and listening to him speak to us, that the written word of God is in fact the Word of the living God. And that we are hearing God, the God who created heaven and Earth speak to us a timeless, unchanging word, that's what we believe about Scripture, all started on Mount Sinai when God wrote with his own finger, the Ten Commandments and the tablets, the written word of God, never to change. And then he deputized Moses to write and then we've had written Scriptures accumulating until we have the canon, the 66 books. And we believe all Scripture is from the infinite eternal mind of God.

But there is milk and there is meat in the Scripture. We have that division even within the Bible. Milk refers to things that are so easy and so basic in our Christian faith that a child can understand them. I think we could also argue that milk could be the kind of thing you have to believe in order to be a Christian, the basics of the gospel, that there is a God who created heaven and Earth. And that he made us in his image, and that he gave us laws by which we are to live our lives, but we have violated those laws, we have broken them, we have sinned. And we deserve to die; we are under the death penalty because of sin. But God sent his son, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Came into the world, lived a sinless life, died in our place on the cross and was raised from the dead on the third day. And that if we repent of our sins and believe in Jesus, we will be forgiven and will spend eternity with God in Heaven. That's milk. It's basics. You can explain it to a three-year-old. They can get it, they can understand, and there's other things that we could call milk as well, but these are the basics and there's meat. What is meat? Meat are things that are hard to understand and or hard to accept. I would say the combination of those things, there are things that are difficult to understand, or you can get it, I understand, but they're hard to accept. So there's all kinds of these kinds of topics such as the sovereignty of God as over against human responsibility frequently called free will, eternal election, sovereign election before the foundation of the world. These kinds of questions, the doctrine of the trinity, aspects of the incarnation, they are difficult doctrines, or specific Verses like 1st Corinthians 15:29 that just seems to elude clear explanation. And that's this one.

Now, I would say for myself as a pastor, I would say, if you can just easily understand everything in the Bible, wouldn't that question its divine origin? Wouldn't you question whether it really came from God? Either that or you're really quite a remarkable person, that you've got that level of intellect up there with God himself, everything God says is perfectly clear to you. Honestly, we should expect this kind of hierarchy of difficulty in the Bible. But we also need to be aware, as Peter said, that some people take statements made by Paul, ignorant and unstable people distort and twist them to their own destruction. You can get some bad theology from bad exegesis, and this is, I think, a good example, this baptism for the dead. Look again at the text: “Now, if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead are not raised at all, then why are people baptized for them?” Now, baptism for the dead may at first brush seem to imply that some people alive here on Earth, were going through water baptism to in some way benefit dead people, to improve their situation. So behind that would be a larger kind of presentation that there's things the living can do to help the dead. Now, there's a long history of that false understanding, and it starts in the Roman Catholic system with the doctrine of purgatory. And the idea of purgatory, this was alluded to by Saint Augustine and his writings toyed with it, but didn't really go there, but he thought it was possible. And what it was is a place where dead people who had been water baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, but who died in sin, un-confessed sin perhaps, went to be purged, purgatory, went to be purged of their sins by personal torment, by the fires of purgatory. And it really is only different from hell in one respect; well I guess two respects. One, it has a kind of a redemptive ultimate purpose and it's temporary. Other than that, it's bad. Frankly, I think if that's a presentation and that there's this special category of saints, and most of us aren't saints and everyone else, the best you're gonna get is to go to purgatory for some period of time, that's not too encouraging, is it? But it's not based on Scripture, what happened is historically, Gregory the Great, Pope Gregory the Great, Pope is a Bishop of Rome, who is Pope Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, picked up on this idea of purgatory, told a story from his earlier days in a monastery. That he had himself ordered a mass, said every day for 30 days for a monk that had died, whose departed soul then appeared to another monk in that monastery, to the effect that their masses had been effective and he had been set free from purgatory and was now in heaven. Well, this became Medieval Roman Catholic policy for a thousand years, a little less than a thousand years, resulting in masses for the dead, prayers for the dead, money given, indulgences could be bought to get people out of purgatory. This led immediately to the Protestant Reformation when Luther was opposing this idea of indulgences and all this sort of stuff. All of that was going on. So basic acts of piety could be done to benefit the dead people. Now, that does not directly connect to baptism for the dead, 'cause the Roman Catholic Church never did that. They actually rejected it as a heresy because Marcion, a heretic, advocated baptism for the dead based on this text. So they declared him a heretic and they didn't do any baptism for the dead, but they did a lot of other things for the dead. So that's one way you can go off in this direction, also in our present day Mormons do baptism for the dead based on this text. It's a secret ritual.

But we need to just stop and look at it and say, okay, we can start by saying what this verse is not teaching. We do not believe based on this obscure difficult verse, that we living can do anything to benefit the dead at all. We believe that you have one life to live, you're born, you live, you die. And somewhere in that life, you must repent and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And that's it. No chances after death. There's nothing that can be done. Many Scriptures testify to that. Hebrews 4:7, “God has set a certain day, calling it Today, when he says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, don't harden your heart.’” And linking up with that theology of today, that's all we ever have, dear friends, you know that. We don't have tomorrow, we'll never get to tomorrow, because when we get to tomorrow, it's got a new name called today, and you can't do anything about the past except learn from it. You got today. And so it says in 2 Corinthians 6:2, God says, "In the time of my favor, I heard you. And in the day of salvation, I helped you. I tell you now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.” It's what you have. So today, you've already heard the gospel from me this morning. You've already heard the basic facts of the gospel. I'm pleading with you to repent and believe in Jesus, if you're not a Christian. You have today. You don't know you have tomorrow. For it says in Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed to each one of us to die once and after that to face judgment.” And we also have a Jesus parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You remember that? Rich man and Lazarus in the parable and they both die. Lazarus goes up to heaven where he's with Abraham; the rich man goes to hell, and the rich man sees Abraham from a distance and asks Lazarus if he will send Lazarus to come and dip his finger in water and cool his tongue, 'cause he's in torment in Hell. But he can't do it; Abraham can't do it. And he says this, “besides all of this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can any one cross over from there to us.” It, so there's nothing that can be done for the dead. This is not teaching baptism for the dead.

Alright, so what is it teaching? “You're spending a lot of time, pastor, on what it didn't... What is it teaching?” First answer, ready for this? I don't know. I don't know, and I've been studying Christian theology a long time, and I'm secure enough in my theology to know when it's okay to tell you, I don't know, but that's not all I wanna say, there are some ideas, some good exegetical ideas you can walk through. The problem is whatever one you choose, you don't know for sure that that's what Paul meant or God meant through Paul, and that's where you have a certain level of uncertainty. But there are some possibilities. One answer is that Paul was speaking of the effect that godly people have while they're living on unconverted people, as those godly people then die, and the unconverted people yearn to be with them again. See what I'm saying? They want to spend eternity with a godly father, let's say, or a godly mother. And the only way they're gonna be able to do that is if they themselves become Christians, you could even see a deathbed evangelism, not deathbed conversion, but deathbed evangelism, where you've got a godly mother, let's say, who's dying and a son who's well along in his adult life coming and he loves his mother and he's is crying, and the mother says one more time, “If you wanna ever see me again, you need to repent and believe in Jesus." Water baptism then will be part of that, so that could be a baptism for the dead. In other words, a converting impact that godly people would have. As Hebrews 13:7 says, “Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” “If you ever wanna see me again, become a Christian. Become a Christian.” I remember years ago, and I've told this story a number of times, but it hit me again. My son, Calvin, when he was little, had a nightmare, and Christie and I went in to see him and he was crying and wasn't fully awake, and then he woke up and saw me in particular he grabbed me and hugged me, and he had a nightmare that I had died, and he was crying, his pillow was wet, his face was wet, and he was holding on to me tight, 3:00 in the morning. So we sat there, we comforted him, prayed with him. But then I said, "Calvin, I might die. I don't ever know when I'm gonna die, but if I do die, there's three things I want you to remember. Number one, if I die, I'm going to be in heaven and I'm gonna be so happy, perfectly happy to be with God. Number two, you are going to have a hard time in my absence, but God will be faithful and he'll take care of you. And then number three we'll see each other again." Now, what I didn't add at 3:00 in the morning is that is if you're a Christian; that is if you actually repent and believe in Jesus. And that's implied here. So faith in the resurrection has converting power. As he already said in verse 18, if there is no resurrection, then those who died in Christ are lost, they're gone, you'll never see them again. And he reverts back to that, I think here in verse 29, that's his point, if there is no resurrection from the dead that whole argument falls apart. You won't see them again whether you're baptized or not, so if there is no resurrection, then why would someone be persuaded to be baptized and become a Christian if they're never gonna see anybody again? Anyway, that's his point in verse 29.

Now, if you think there's a better interpretation, I was on... A good friend of mine sent a scholarly New Testament article with 13 possible interpretations of baptism for the dead. So you can walk your way through all 13 of those and pay your money and make your choice. But I think this is probably the best for what Paul meant. In any case, it's an obscure verse. What I'm gonna say is, I think that godly living and godly dying has converting power, in those who watch it. I think that's what's going on.

Secondly, resurrection, belief in resurrection from the dead gives power to endure suffering for the glory of Christ. Look at verse 30-32, “And as for us, if there is no resurrection from the dead, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? I die every day- I mean that brothers- as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained?” So Paul turns to his own example of suffering for Christ, we endanger ourselves every hour for the gospel, we're in danger. And then he says, “I die every day.” Paul consistently does this: he presents himself as a model for them to follow, “Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ,” 1 Corinthians 11:1, and Paul has lived a life of extreme danger, extreme suffering for the gospel. In all of my study of 20 centuries of church history, I love reading accounts of martyrs, martyrology, a history of missions, a history of the church. I have never found any individual in all of 20 years of church history who suffered as much physically to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ as the Apostle Paul. Nobody can hold his shoes. 2 Corinthians 11:24-27, he catalogs some of his sufferings, “Five times I received from the Jews the 40 lashes minus one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea. I've been constantly on the move; I've been in danger from rivers in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea, and in danger from false brothers. I have often labored and gone and have toiled and have gone without sleep, I've known hunger and thirst, and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.” Paul's saying, “Why do I do all of that if there is no resurrection from the dead?” that's what he's getting to here. “Why do I endanger myself every day? Why do I die to myself daily or even face physical death, so regularly?” Paul would say, “My courage in the face of all of that suffering comes from belief in my own resurrection from the dead, that I will someday be raised in glory, and that there is stored up for me a crown in heaven, which will be awarded to all who have suffered for the gospel that Jesus promised in the sermon on the mount. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.”

For himself, he would say, “I yearned yearn to die.” He said that in Philippians 1:23, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” He was by no means suicidal. For him to live is Christ, but to die is gain.  He looked at that, so his faith in the resurrection from the dead enabled him to face even the howling winds of a hurricane that went on for two weeks, he accounts in Acts 27, and he had, it seems, absolutely no fear of death. He just took over. He told them, "You need to eat something. Keep up your strength." He’s just buoyant in hope, confident; it's a beautiful thing, because he had no fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15 it says, “Jesus died so that by his death, he might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil. And free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” That shouldn't be you. Even in this COVID era, maybe especially, we shouldn't be enslaved to fear of death, not at all. 'Cause it's better by far, to depart and be with Christ and Paul was freed from fear of death.

I think about that storm that he went through in Acts 27, and how confident he was. There's another story, a beautiful story from church history about John Wesley, and Wesley went across the Atlantic Ocean to minister in Georgia. It was a failed mission, in many respects, he was a failure in ministry at that point, and did not really understand the gospel of God's grace, so maybe even unconverted state at that point. Was sailing back and on board on the ship were a group of Moravians and they sailed into a hurricane, and it was a terrifying time, and the Moravians were, had a prayer and a hymn sing on deck while that was going on, and they were absolutely fearless in the face of imminent death. Wesley writes in his journal, he said, "In the midst of the Psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces covered the ship, poured in between the decks as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. We were already submerged. A terrible screaming began among the sailors, but the Moravians just calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterwards, ‘Were you not afraid?’ he answered, ‘I thank God, no.’ ‘But were not your women and children afraid?’ he answered mildly, ‘No. Our women and children are not afraid to die.’ Well that lodged a memory inside Wesley's mind, and when he got back to London, he started pursuing Moravian prayer meetings, and he went there and eventually his heart, as he said, was strangely warmed and he was converted to the true gospel by the Moravians, but it started with absolute confidence in the face of death, imminent death, no fear of death at all.

So faith in the resurrection, unleashes courage for bold service to Christ. So in the days of the Roman persecution, our brothers and sisters in Christ were herded into the coliseum and they died with great courage and confidence, singing hymns. That's how, as Tertullian said, “The blood of martyrs was seed for the church.” That's how it was, 'cause the people watched how they died and they weren't afraid. So also missionaries in the 19th century would pack up their belongings in their own coffins and sail to the jungles, steamy jungles of Western Africa, knowing that their lifespan was probably 18 months at about 18 months to learn the language and culture and share the Gospel before they died of a fever, a tropical fever. Imagine packing your belongings in a coffin. Or missionary John Paton, who left Scotland with his wife 1858, sailed 16, almost 16000 nautical miles to get to the New Hebrides, one of the most remote places on planet Earth, where just a few years before that, the previous missionaries had been killed and cannibalized on the beach in full view of the ship that had deposited them there. But, he wants to go back to that same island, go to that same island, and when a well-meaning Christian friend heard what Paton was planning on doing, he exclaimed, "You'll be eaten by cannibals!" John Paton gave that man, a well-meaning church member, one of the greatest answers in the annals of church history. He said this, "Mr. Dixon, you are advanced in years now and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave and there, to be eaten with worms. I confess to you that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I'm eaten by cannibals or by worms. And in the great day, my resurrection body will rise as fair as yours in the likeness of our great Redeemer." Isn't that great answer? "Mr. Dixon, do you know where you're heading? Do you have any idea what's about to happen to your body? What difference does it make what happens to my mortal remains after I'm dead, I believe in the resurrection from the dead, and I believe I'm gonna rise glorious on that day." And it gave him boldness and confidence to go and not be afraid of cannibals.

Paul's own assertion, he says, "I fought wild beasts in Ephesus." I'm not really sure what this means, exactly, it could refer to that riot that was started by the preaching of the gospel, where they stood these fanatical pagans and chanted for two hours, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians," for two hours, mindlessly chanting this, remember that Paul was willing to go in and preach the gospel to them, but others said, "Yeah don't do that. They will kill you." So he was just completely fearless. Other than that, I don't know what, “I fought wild beasts in Ephesus” means. It just, I've faced a dangerous situation with full confidence in resurrection, it's what he's saying.

Paul's deepest desire, then, was not to save his own life, not to escape from harm or danger, but to learn how to die for the glory of God and the salvation of others, like Jesus did Philippians 3:10-11, he said, “I want to know Christ, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” “I wanna learn how to die.” Paul said, “That's why what, and I wanna learn how to be raised to glory.” As Jesus said, “Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses life for me and for the gospel will find it.” 

Third, faith in resurrection gives power to live for Christ. Not for temporary pleasures. Look at verses 32-34, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.’ Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character.’ Come back to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God- I say this to your shame.” Paul's life of holiness, of self-denial, facing martyrdom for Christ, makes no sense if there's no resurrection from the dead. If there is no resurrection from the dead, then only a certain number of life courses make sense. One of them, he gives right here: hedonism, “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” There's nothing in this world, we're not heading toward anything, so find as much pleasure as you can in this world, part of that would be diligent labor in your career, to career advancement and success, and some people do that: atheistic have no confidence in a resurrection, just seek to live the best life they can in this world. Others turn to depression and even ultimately suicide, and before that, they kind of anesthetize themselves and numb their pain with escapism. Mike was talking about David Hume, the philosopher, whose philosophy was so dark, and he believed it was true, that all he could do was kind of find escape in playing backgammon and getting drunk. You know, I wonder if COVID has stripped away some of those numbing factors and people are able to look around and say, “This is life, this is it?” They're finding that their worldview is not serving them well, and they are depressed. It's an opportunity for us. Isn't it? For us to point to Christ, to point to hope, but people do that because if there's no resurrection from the dead, this world is all there is, and you're just gonna find something, or like the British people, stiff upper lip, just daily hanging on in desperation day after day, making it through grim, joyless endurance.

Sensual indulgence, that's exactly how many unbelievers live in this world, I've seen it in hard-working people in Japan who just have materialistic goals, achievement type goals. I've seen in MIT students that I went to school with who have built successful careers in engineering and research, and who just wanna be prosperous and be as happy as they can in this world, a hedonism is everywhere, if you look for it. In America, everywhere, it's here in the Triangle, is here in a comfortable life of material prosperity, so the doctrine of the resurrection frees us from a life of sensual indulgence of hedonism, which the book of Ecclesiastes calls ultimately vanity of vanities. Emptiness, everything is vain. The book of Ecclesiastes harmonizes with this. The preacher who wrote it, did everything he could do to find me something under the sun, for which there was value, he did great building projects, intellectual achievements, great wisdom, he studied a lot, material prosperity, gold, silver jewels, accumulation a sensual indulgence: wine, women, and song in various forms. And he said it in Ecclesiastes 1:14, "I've seen all the things that are done under the sun, and all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind." So Paul seeks to warn them and even to shame them, he says, "Some of you are ignorant of God- I say this to your shame.” I think that ignorance of God comes when Jesus said to the Sadducees who say there is no resurrection from the dead. He says, "You're in error because you don't know the power of God or the Word of God, and God has the power to raise the dead. And so you're ignorant of Scripture and of the power of God,” and so he said, "I say this to your shame, you should know." Now, the gospel had come to Corinth, had turned these pagans away from meat sacrifice to idols and temple prostitutes and that whole sensual life to a life of holiness, a life of self-denial in the name of Christ, but this doctrine: there is no resurrection from the dead, has the power to undo all that and draw them back to daily paganism, so don't go there. Bad company corrupts good morals, don't hang around with people who teach falsely and live falsely. Watch out who your friends are. Those who walk with the wise grows wise, be with people who believe in the resurrection or who are living accordingly, don't hang around with people who are into sensual indulgence. He said, “I say this to your shame.” Bible's answer to the desperation and hopelessness that characterizes the book of Ecclesiastes is found in verse 58, look at it with me, “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

So applications, we've already seen a number of them. Just see the ethical implications of believing right doctrine specifically, the resurrection from the dead, just see that. Push away in your mind, all denigration of theology or deep thinking, “Ah that's for the experts for the bookling, for the doctrinal nerds, people like that.” No, it's not true. Develop sound theology, walk through Scriptures and see a worldview form within you through the word of God. To the unconverted, I already have pled with you once so I'll plead with you again: repent and believe in Jesus, you have today. You've heard the gospel. You've heard everything you need. Christ died in your place; he rose again. If you repent and believe, you'll be forgiven not by works, but by grace. So trust in him, don't presume on a future day that you don't know you're gonna have.

And then for yourselves as Christians, evaluate your own life, I actually think this “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die” theology or philosophy is one of the greatest dangers to western Christians, American Christians; it's a danger to our affluent church. Please don't imagine that you're exempt, and there's no aspect of that philosophy that's crept into the way you spend your time, your energy and your money. Evaluate yourself, “Am I living like there really is a resurrection from the dead? Am I fighting wild beasts? Are there any wild beasts I'm willing to take on?” Could be an unsaved boss. Share the gospel with your unsaved boss. Now, that's interesting. “Oh, you don't know what that guy is like.” No, I don't. Probably scary, but be willing to fight your own wild beasts for the sake of Christ, be willing to do courageous things for the sake of the gospel, live and serve Christ boldly. And pray for the persecuted church. Some of them are fighting wilder beasts than we can even imagine, governments that are crushing them and incarcerating them, taking away their freedom, their possessions, pray for the persecuted church. And be willing, as it says in verse 58, and we'll circle back to it, God willing again in the future to serve Christ, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Close with me in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the time we've had to walk through these verses, how incredible they are, we thank you, O Lord, for just sound theology, sound doctrine and how it leads to healthy living. So just strengthen each one of us. Build the theology of the Bible in our hearts and minds. Help us, O Lord, to see the truth, help us to live out the truth and to believe in it. And Lord, we just wanna thank you, I thank you with joy in my heart that Christ has been raised, that our sins are forgiven. That we're gonna go to heaven when we die. And we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Believing in the resurrection is a transforming power in Christians which brings hope and crushes the fear of death and sacrifice.

The post The Transforming Power of Believing in the Resurrection (1 Corinthians Sermon 62) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy Davis walks through John 20:1-18. John lays out the physical and experiential evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The physical evidence is the empty tomb and the grave clothes. The experiential evidence is the testimony of His appearances to disciples like Mary Magdalene. These two types of evidence are combined to give us sufficient grounds for belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. John’s extended treatment of the tender appearance to Mary shows Jesus’ unbreakable commitment to every one of His sheep, no matter how lowly their station in life.

The post John 20:1-18 Episode 42 – Resurrection Morning, Pt.2 appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy Davis covers from 1789 to 1914. This period is best characterized by the explosion in missionary activities. Some of the specific figures covered are William Carey, Adoniram and Ann Judson, and Hudson Taylor.

The post Journeys from the Past, Ep.8: Missionary Explosion appeared first on Two Journeys.