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How to Handle a Difficult Small-Group Member ​ Ministry Rachel Bailey Executive Director Alpha Women’s Center Published On: May 31, 2023 Small group Bible studies are a joy to lead. Any chance to study Scripture in community is a gift. But they can also be challenging to lead, particularly if you have a difficult group member. Perhaps this person has a lot of strong opinions and she’s decided this group is the best place to air them all. Maybe she overshares personal information or always directs the conversation back to herself. She might gossip, revealing inappropriate information about others under the guise of a prayer request. Or perhaps she dominates the conversation, not leaving space for anyone else to speak. Am I making any leaders squirm yet? As I’ve trained leaders to handle these challenging situations , I’ve found three principles helpful. 1. Set Firm Boundaries Establishing standards and expectations from the beginning is loving. This gives something tangible to refer back to when boundaries are tested. And it creates an opportunity to clearly address problems like gossip, talking over one another, or disregarding Scripture. Although boundaries are ideally established from the start, if you’re leading an existing small group , it’s never too late. Look for a natural place to introduce boundaries, like after a summer break, at the start of a new year, or when changing your topic of study . One way to set boundaries is to create a written group agreement and have everyone sign it. Another option is to write it out in an email and ask all participants to reply to indicate they’ve read it. Or you might just have the conversation verbally. Consider the dynamics of your group and what would be most loving and effective in your situation. 2. Extend Grace When you have a difficult member in your group, it can be easy to focus on the challenges he or she creates for you as the leader. Take a deep breath and ask God to help you see the bigger picture. Let’s think through a few reasons someone may be a difficult group member: She’s lonely, lacking other community, and expressing her desire for connection in unhealthy ways. She’s an immature Christian (or not a Christian at all), lacking the fruit of the Spirit. She’s struggling with a mental or emotional disorder which may inhibit her ability to function appropriately in the group. She’s been hurt by a community in the past. What do all these situations have in common? They describe people who need the grace and kindness of God as much as you do. If you discover your difficult group member has one of these deeper concerns, let it inform how you approach her. Exercise wisdom based on her particular circumstances, and seek to extend the same compassion and grace you’ve received from the Lord. 3. Have a Conversation Extending grace doesn’t mean allowing inappropriate behavior to continue unchecked. When a boundary has been repeatedly crossed, it’s time to speak with the person and address the issue clearly . Confronting others makes my palms sweat. Perhaps it makes you uncomfortable too. But lovingly correcting a brother or sister is a biblical call we must take seriously, particularly as leaders ( 2 Tim. 4:2 ; 2 Thess. 3:15 ). Here’s how you might approach the conversation depending on the issue you need to address. Conversation Dominators If someone constantly dominates the conversation, you have the freedom and responsibility as the leader to redirect the discussion during group time: “Hey ____, thanks for your thoughts. Let’s take a moment to hear from ____ about this topic.” In a private conversation with the group member, specifically describe her negative behavior. Encourage her to hone her gifts by looking out for those who are shy or not engaging and to use her voice to cheer on others whose voices aren’t being heard. Toxic Sharers Your group needs to be a refuge for sharing struggles, not a place for gossip to fester. Toxic Sharers may divulge too much information about themselves or others in the group, or they might share other members’ prayer requests with people outside the group. All of this must be snuffed out immediately. Don’t shy away from quickly redirecting the conversation during a group meeting, even if it feels awkward. As with the Conversation Dominator, you should have a private conversation with the Toxic Sharer where you describe her negative behavior. Acknowledge her need to feel seen and heard, and give her examples of appropriate ways to handle sensitive information in the future. One Who Needs to Leave What if you’ve had multiple conversations with a difficult group member and brought another believer with you to confront her, yet she’s still unwilling to change? At this point, we’re talking about blatant disregard for the boundaries and well-being of the group. Set up a time to meet with the person in a public space, potentially with a mediator, and include the following in your conversation: A specific description of the unrepentant sinful behavior A clear request for the person to leave the group, effective immediately A sincere commitment to pray for her It’s important to remember that we as imperfect humans will never adhere to standards and expectations perfectly, whether as group members or as leaders. But by God’s grace, we can seek to maintain a healthy, God-honoring atmosphere in our small groups. When you encounter a difficult member in your group, I encourage you to pray through your approach, seek the wisdom of your pastor or ministry leader, and avoid the pitfalls of inaction or anger. May our good and merciful God be glorified in how we handle the difficult group members in our care. 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Can we trust the Council of Nicaea? Examining the Myths about the Council of Nicaea Theology Mitchell Leach Community Pastor Peace Church Published On: May 31, 2023 It may be surprising to the average churchgoer that, the council that produced one of the most well-known creeds of the early church and solidified the orthodoxy — or theological position — of the trinity, has a bit of controversy surrounding it. Not everyone in academia can look back on this event with the love for the doctrines that came out of it, but with the weariness of the political and governmental influences that surround it. But contemporary Christians shouldn’t worry about this event being tainted by the forces behind its acceptance. Rather Christians should trust and even worship the beauty that was simplified and clarified by the work of the men who formed it. Main Issue The council of Nicaea was brought together — by the newly Christian[1] — emperor Constantine in 325 AD.[2]As Constantine came to power in the death of Emperor Galerius, Constantine found himself in a situation where he needed to unify the new republic of Rome. During this time theological divides seemed to be popping up in the newly legalized religion that Constantine allowed. So for the first time in the life of the church, pastors/bishops were welcomed without threat of persecution, to settle the division in the church.[3] The major doctrinal issue that backed by Arian — a talented Baucalis preacher — who challenged the view of the Bishop in Alexandria on his belief in Homoousion (or the doctrine that Jesus was of the same substance as God). Arian believed homoousion was Sabellianism,[4] and instead professed the belief in homoiosion (or the doctrine that Jesus was of a similar substance as God). To the modern outsider, this seems to be a minor bit of doctrine, that nerdy theologians like to debate in their free time. It seems like this is one of those fights that Paul warns against in Romans 16:17-18.[5] But the implications of getting this correct were critical for the church. Worship, and how it understands the God of the Bible, and many other practical parts of the church, hinged on understanding the person of Jesus correctly. In fact, this issue was so theologically important that is was impossible to look past each other’s view. Each side believed that the other’s view was so different that they were — ultimately — worshiping a different God. The implications of this were either — in Arian’s view — that Jesus was created, and that the son was not part of God.[6] Encouragement for the modern church During the actual council the view that Jesus was of the same essence as God was overwhelmingly adopted. Of the numerous bishops and clergymen in attendance at the Council of Nicaea (between 250-310), only two dissented. This was a huge victory for the ancient church but is also a huge source of confidence in the modern church. The modern church can look back on this event and find confidence that these men came out with the correct interpretation of scripture. Why can the church feel this way? Because men cannot create new — correct theology — men can only discover it. Men can invent new heresy, but not orthodoxy. Men and women today and in antiquity can only recognize it. And this is what the modern church should find confidence in. As noted above, the implications of this inform nearly every subsequent theological position the church has taken since. The council of Nicaea was moved by the Holy Spirit to see the Word of God correctly and identified Jesus as wholly God and wholly man. Whether that was the view of Constantine, or maybe just his wish, is irrelevant. The church can be confident in the beauty of the person of Jesus as stated by the Nicene Creed. If this were mere political pressure by Constantine, bishops would have revolted. They weren’t moved by fear of dissent. Here gathered at Nicaea were men who had been marked with scars from their previous persecution. They were not afraid of a man or the state. They feared God and in near unanimity, affirmed the truth of the Lord and Savior of the universe Jesus. [1] Or at least newly compassionate toward christian emperor. [2] Kenneth Scott Latourette, “Christianity Takes Shape in Organization, Doctrine,” in A History of Christianity, 4th ed., vol. 1 (Prince Press, 2007), pp. 154-156. [3] Bruce Shelley, “Splitting Important Hairs,” in Church History in Plain Language, 5th ed. (S.l.: ZONDERVAN, 2021), pp. 131-136. [4] Kenneth Scott Latourette, pp. 152. [5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 16:17–18. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. [6] Kenneth Scott Latourette, pp. 154. More Blogs You'll Like What is the Gospel? Why Recognizing Our Sin is Essential to Embracing God’s Gift of Salvation Read More Teaching or Concealing? An exploration of the complexity in Jesus’ parables and His reasons behind them. Read More Beyond the Heart The Significance of Making a Profession of Faith Read More

PODCAST That's a Good Question Divine Inspiration: Unveiling the Origins and Authors of Scripture April 14, 2024 Jon Delger & Logan Bailey Listen to this Episode Oh hey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question , a podcast of Peace Church and a part of Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc . That's a Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm John. I get to serve as a pastor at Peace Church as well as a part of this show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions . And today I'm here with Pastor Logan. Howdy. And Mitch, our producer. Hey everybody. And we got some great questions today about how the Bible all came together. Here's our first question for today: "I'd be interested in additional resources to understand how the scriptures were put together or canonization. I've read some stuff over the years, but it was mostly about how well-documented the history was and the significant number of consistent manuscripts. But when a group sat down and chose what to include, what not to include, and in what order to include it in, how was that done? What criteria was there?" I really like this question. I like how this questioner actually said a lot of things that I hope all the listeners understand and can assume as well, is that we use the word canonization to talk about the canon of scripture, the 66 books of canon that we have in scripture. What's a canon? That's a wonderful question. Mitchell, the producer with a computer. A loose canon. Could you look up a technical definition of what we mean when we say canon? Oh, I thought you were calling me a canon. Like a loose cannon. What we call the canon of scripture would be the 66 books that we recognize as inspired word of God. There are other books that you could consider as Jewish literature or early church literature that we don't see as part of the canon of scripture. They're nice books to read. You can go read the book of Tobit. It's in what we call the Apocrypha. It's Jewish literature, but we wouldn't consider it inerrant, infallible scripture. So yeah, is there a definition of canon? Yeah, from the Oxford Dictionary, it says, "a general rule, law, principle, or criterion by which something is judged." Yeah, the standard of what scripture is. Yeah, the law, I liked that word there too. Yeah, I think it's nice that they recognize that term and way of viewing it. I also liked this sentence, "I've read some stuff over the years, but it mostly was about how well-documented the history was and the significant number of consistent manuscripts that we have for scripture." Those are two huge points I just don't want to skip over. The Bible is the most well-attested historical ancient document in existence by miles. It's laughable to consider that what we have as far as the Old and New Testament isn't accurate; it's the most accurate ancient document in existence by far. And then also in line with that, the significant number of consistent manuscripts, we have an incredible amount of manuscripts for both the Old and New Testament in various books, in different languages. If you do any ancient language study or an ancient document study, it's incredible. Yeah, how credible the documents are. Yeah, and if you're going out to look to find those types of resources, there are plenty of them. I've got three or four books that could help spell those answers out. But specifically, I think they're trying to figure out how do we understand how the Bible was put together, really? Was it just a bunch of guys sitting in a room deciding this? I think that there are some common myths about this. I'd love to talk about those, maybe part of the reason why this was asked. I think one of the myths is that a bunch of guys sat down in a room and picked out which books are the Bible. That's a great point. Like I mentioned the book of Tobit. It's a book that we do not consider a part of the canon of scripture. It's what we would call the Apocrypha. It's other books of Jewish literature that we don't recognize as a part of the canon. Yeah, you won't find it in our Bibles. That's a great example and other books like it of like, well, who decided that this wasn't? And who decided that Jude was or James was? That sort of thing. So this, yeah, I think it's a great question. So why isn't Tobit part of the Bible? Well, let's talk about exactly what you just said: what are the parameters that all of the books in the Bible share and what are the things that a book like Tobit doesn't have? Yeah. Actually I'll let you go. There's one very helpful thing I think of. Do you want to read that? I do, but no, we're gonna come back to that. We've got a crazy assertion that somebody made that we'll come back to. But the first thing I wanted to say was I think it is a myth to think that how we got the Bible today was just a matter of a bunch of guys sitting in a room and choosing this one or that one. Now eventually church councils did come to the place where they had to say these are the 66 books of the canon, but what they were really doing is recognizing something that was already true at that point. They weren't deciding. They were just recognizing this is what the church has been doing now for quite a while. You go back to even the New Testament period itself, and you've got Peter talking about how Paul's books, assuming they are scripture, are really hard to understand. You've got interplay between the New Testament books, already talking about the Gospels, talking about Luke's Gospel. So the New Testament writers themselves in the first 50 years after Jesus' life and ministry are already seeing each other's writings as part of scripture. And part of the really helpful thing is what you said: it's not them choosing, it's not them deciding, it's them recognizing this was inspired by the Holy Spirit. God meant this to be used for worship in our worship gatherings, to be seen as authoritative in the lives of a Christian. And so it's a recognition that God has inspired this document. And there are those that we would say are not inspired to that level of "should be used in worship." And the recognition is this has been used for Christians to worship God and to be an authority in our lives. So that's the really helpful thing, seeing it as a recognition, not a decision being made. So what are the—real quick, just for the sake of—this is one of those things that I think it's really good for most Christians to maybe just kind of know these basic four things off the top of their heads. What are the four marks that make a book a part of the Bible? Apostolic origin would be one of them, saying that these books need to have their basis in an apostle. Someone who saw Jesus, learned from Jesus, was commissioned by Jesus, or read by an apostle or the source is an apostle. You have Matthew and John, who are apostles of Jesus, disciples of Jesus, following Jesus, and then apostles in the church. Then you have Mark and Luke, who weren't apostles, but had a source with an apostle, whether it be Peter or Paul. The origin goes back to apostles, right? Peter did an extensive search into the story of Christ and went back to the apostles or eyewitness accounts. The second one would be universal acceptance, commonly used, affirmed by many churches in the first century. By the time we get to the 300s AD, when church councils are solidifying this, one of the marks that they use is: has it been universally accepted for the last two or three hundred years? Were the church fathers quoting it as authoritative? Absolutely. The third would be liturgical use. Is this helpful for the liturgy of the church or is it helpful for worship within the church? Four would be consistent doctrine. Does the doctrine in these books fit with the rest of what we consider to be scripture? I've told people this: one of the things that has always helped me when I have any seasons of doubt or deep questions that I'm looking for answers to, is the severe consistency within scripture. Just the radical consistency and comprehensive nature of how one book was written hundreds of years prior to another book by a totally different person across the world from each other, and yet there's this incredible amount of consistency in doctrine and the vision of the world that they have. So, well, real quick, I just want to—we just talked through the four marks real quick. So again, I said I think it's really good for Christians just to kind of know these off the top of their head a little bit. I think it's just one of those good things to remember. So again, the four marks are it was either written by or connected to an apostle. It was universally accepted among the churches in that first early church period, the first century after the church. It was used in worship in churches. And fourth, it's consistent in doctrine. So I think just that's worth kind of remembering. Those are the four marks. That's why we, that's how we look at the books of the Bible and kind of evaluate them. We're recognizing those things. And there are valuable documents that God's people have produced and can produce that are still good. They're just not necessarily those four things as inspired by scripture. Maybe hit all three of the four, right? But we just, you know, it has to hit the four, all four to be considered. So you could say the books in the Apocrypha, which the Roman Catholic Church, and I believe Eastern Orthodox Church, would say these are a second canon. We wouldn't recognize them as a second canon because they wouldn't be hitting all four of those marks. Those are books that were written by God's people in the past that are good stories, maybe historical accounts that we just wouldn't see as completely inerrant. Valuable to read, but not inerrant, not authoritative. And then you could look at, for the New Testament, you have things like the Didache, like an early church document that was written talking about how early churches, how their liturgical services went, different guidance in a Christian's life, and we see those as valuable, but they don't hit those four marks. And they weren't universally used. I guess you could go through the list, but valuable, not those four things, not scripture. Yeah. So getting back to this question, how did this get put together? I mean, I think a common understanding is that a group of guys got together. I think one of the most common understandings is that we put together the New Testament at the Council of Nicaea, and there's a lot of kind of mystery, or there's maybe some questionable motives that people throw into that. And so what would be your response to something like that, that the Bible was put together kind of under scrupulous circumstances? And you're saying that it was politically motivated and things like that. Yeah, I mean, that's, I think, one of the criticisms of this. That somehow Constantine edited the manuscripts in his original languages and then also went back and edited all the manuscripts in Latin and Syriac and Coptic and somehow managed to change the text. Yeah. Yeah. What would you guys say to that when you hear that? That's where I just stick to the refrain that no, the church councils in the 300s are just recognizing what was already true. They're just using those four marks and reflecting on the last couple hundred years of the church and saying, yeah, this has already been true. We're just going to write it down and solidify it in a church council. Yeah. And I think solid, universal, used in worship, and consistent in doctrine. I think an important part, too, is that the Council of Nicaea did not touch the canon of scripture at all. Totally. Right. So they couldn't have. You go back and look at the notes, and what they talked about was the person of Jesus. Yeah. It wasn't until later councils that we talked about any sort of canon. Yeah, that theory I think is so baseless just because of the impossibility of that's 300 years of church history had it happened. It's longer than America has been a country. The amount of manuscripts that were produced in that timeframe is ridiculous to think that they could have... So along those lines... ...changed things. Let me read—here's a couple sentences written by a popular, a very popular Christian author, a very influential person. Who has some bad ideas. Yeah, who has some not-so-good ideas. So let me just read this and add to the conversation. So he says, "Supporting our faith with 'the Bible says'"—in quotes, quote-unquote, "'the Bible says'"—"communicates the foundation of our faith is the Bible." I would say it is. We'll keep going. "As we've discovered, it's not. Not unless there weren't any Christians until after the Bible was assembled in the fourth century. 'The Bible says,'" quote-unquote, "insinuates that the roots of our faith go no deeper than the fourth-century decision to combine first-century documents with the Jewish scriptures." Yeah, so to summarize, his critique is saying that we as Christians shouldn't say as a basis for our faith, "Well, the Bible says it." Right. And he's saying that isn't valid because the Bible wasn't put together until 400 years after Jesus was. He's depending on that faulty theory that prior to the fourth century, there wasn't consensus on what scripture was. Yeah. I think there's conversations going on because once that council happened, there was a much more kind of authoritative voice on the list. But the list was recognized and put together because they're saying, hey, we were recognizing these 66 books as set apart, as holy, as different because of those four parameters. Yeah, I think if we're going to be charitable at all, in its form today with the 27 books in the New Testament, it wasn't really solidified until about 400 years after. You know, about 367, there was a letter that went out by Athanasius on Easter, not canonizing, but really offering the first complete set of books. But that would be to say, and that's kind of where the charity runs out, but that would be to say that there wasn't scripture before that. And I think that's where this is a little bit silly. There being consensus across the globe of Christians, of the list, especially at a time where there wasn't necessarily Crossway and Zondervan publishing well-bound 66 books, right? Their being consensus is different than there being scripture at all. That the Lord has inspired words of men to be infallible and inherent, and those four things, apostolic, Christians reading that, using it in worship, it being beautifully consistent within itself. Scripture existed ever since God spoke through men and inspired. Let me pull up the verse just because one thing we would say about scripture is that it's self-attesting. It's not to mention that you've got the Old Testament. Yeah, exactly. Long before this. Second Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." According to that author we read, he would have us believe that faulty assumption that there wasn't a God-breathed scripture profitable for all these things, for the man of God to be complete and equipped for every good work, until the Council of Nicaea, which is ridiculous. Yeah, I think one of the things that the question asker—I'd love to connect the dots just a little bit. So they say, you know, "I want to know more about why these books were put together, but all I can find is just that there were lots of books or there were lots of manuscripts" and all that kind of stuff. I think that is in itself a way to attest to the fact that scripture was around in the first century, that there were all of these letters being passed on, copied and passed on, copied, because we recognize them as scripture. And so there are books floating around the Mediterranean that we recognize as scripture early on. I mean, one of the cool things about the Bible's history is we can find things like the Ryland fragment that was found in Alexandria, Egypt. It's like a piece of paper the size of your hand from the book of John. Right. And it carbon dates to 100 AD, or yeah, 100 AD. And it was wrapped on a mummy. It was thrown away. It had already been copied. And so it traveled from where John was in Ephesus, or right outside of Ephesus, all the way down to Alexandria, Egypt, and used and discarded to be put on a mummy by 180, which is kind of crazy. It's unprecedented. The Bible was being circulated. Scripture was being circulated. It wasn't until 400 years, or 367, that they put it all together in one place. Yeah, do we want to mention any resources that they could read? Yeah, you mentioned you have a few books. Why don't you mention one, and then let's go to the next question. One of the books that I found that's really good is called Scribes and Scripture by John Mead and Peter Gurry. It's published by Crossway. It's actually one of my former professors from Phoenix Seminary. Awesome book. I stole a lot of content for this podcast from it, but it would be a great one to see, and we'll put that in the show notes for people if they want to look it up. I think just as a more readable one, Can We Trust the Gospels by Peter Williams. Yeah, great book. It would be great. So just to connect the dots to repeat the question, we have the early manuscripts, well-attested, tons of them, very reliable historical documents, but how do we get the list of 66? And the answer is it was recognized early on because of its connection. Each book is a connection to an apostle, universally recognized, used in worship services, and consistent Orthodox doctrine within itself across the 66 books. Yeah. All right, let's jump into the second question. In the Old Testament, there are texts that record what the enemy of God's people said, even though no one from the Israelites would have heard them, and they give some examples here. How did the authors of the Bible know what they said if they weren't there? It's a wonderful question. I read that and paused for a second and thought, this is a good question. That's this whole podcast. That's right. That's a good question. We'll be right back after this break. Hi, I'm Elizabeth, one of the co-hosts of MomGuilt, a podcast with new episodes every Monday. Mom Guilt is a podcast about the daily struggles in motherhood. Stephanie and I share real experiences of mom guilt and how we have found freedom from that guilt through the gospel. Listen to us on resoundmedia.cc or wherever you find podcasts. I think it's similar to, you know, did Moses write, "and Moses was the humblest man on the face of the earth?" You know, I think it's similar to some of those questions. We've got parts of the Bible or about people recording their own deaths. You know, we know the first five books of the Old Testament were compiled by Moses, but there are parts that we look at and say, Moses couldn't have written that himself. Unless he was a ghost. We do not think that Moses died and then came back and wrote. You are right. Thanks for saying. We don't believe that. Yeah, so I think it points to the idea of editors and some fact-collecting, and maybe even what you call very early journalism, going on back in the day of going back and getting some witnesses and asking questions, and that's a great point. I think Moses's example is good. Moses wrote the Pentateuch, and then at the end of it, it says that Moses died. Clearly, Moses didn't write that. You said editor is a word we would use. Someone came back, trusted it within the community that wrote that. We also have examples within Paul's letters where Paul is speaking and someone's writing for him, and there's times where someone will actually say that person's name. I don't have a reference on top of my head, but we have moments where frequently Paul says, I write this with my own hand, or I, Paul, at the end of a letter, meaning, well, that part he wrote with his own hand. And the rest of it he was saying, and someone was writing as he was speaking. Yeah, Siri. Here we go. A transcriber. They brought up the idea of 1 Samuel 5 when the Ark was captured by the Philistines and brought back because it had caused some pretty bad, bad real-life consequences, I would say, of stealing something like that. I think you... Which is where John said some journalism going on. There are editors, transcribers, and some journalism going on. There's oral tradition going on, and they're writing down what's being spoken about. We also have to understand that Old Testament Israel was not like America. It wasn't as big as America. It would be a smaller size. So when someone would take something like that and a phenomenon like this would happen, where they steal an ark and then all these supernatural things happen, word would spread. That's how news spread, through word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when we look at ancient Near East texts, we wouldn't say it has to meet our standard of journalism today. We need to have an eyewitness, like oral tradition, with a citation. Correct. Back then, oral tradition was a legitimate form of literature. I mean, in any old literature, we would say that that is legitimate, not just legitimate, but it is authoritative. We would say that this is credible. That's the word I was looking for. That's a much better word. No, I think that's true. Oral tradition is a credible source for this. And there is, underneath scripture, there is an oral tradition of how did that get to that person, and how did Moses write this, or how did it? And it was because news was spreading. People were talking about these things. So the writer of this book didn't have to be there to hear these people say, oh, I got tumors from the Ark. And that's what we mean when we say there's some journalism going on. They are writing what is being attested through the oral stories and sharing. And that's OK. It doesn't take away from inerrancy at all. Right. Let's jump into the third question. This is a great one. Why are the books of the Bible ordered in the way that they are? For example, Nehemiah and the return to Jerusalem is before many of the accounts of the capture of Jerusalem. This is a good question too. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so going back to the Old Testament, I mean, the Jewish canon was the law, the prophets, and the writings, right? So that's the order they had it in. So you had the first five books of the Old Testament, and then the prophets, which was what we know today as the prophets, as well as some of the historical books. And then you had the writings, which is what we would call the wisdom literature, plus Ezra and Nehemiah. Was Ezra and Nehemiah part of the wisdom? Yeah. That would be a more Jewish traditional way of organizing scripture in the Old Testament. And then there's some Christian traditions that would categorize it by Pentateuch, history, poetry, and prophets. So there's different opinions at different times of, well, how do you categorize these things? Because, again, these are loose documents. They're not bound into one book necessarily. They're scrolls. There's a papyri or whatever that are just kind of out and about, and people would be like, "Hey, read me the letter of James," and then grab the letter of James and read it. We don't even have verse references for the Bible until the 1500s. So they're ordered differently. Those are not inspired, by the way. I don't know how many people actually know that. Yeah, that's a great point. No, legitimately. It's the same with the order. Yeah, the order of the books, and the verse numbers, and the chapter numbers. Those are not inspired. They're helpful. That came much later. Yeah, they're helpful. They're added, and they're organized in a certain way. But yeah, the inspired word is what was originally written. And then the order we put it in and the verse references that we add to it, they sometimes vary. And it's because they are not the inspired thing. The inspired thing is the original words that are written. Yeah, so if your pastor is preaching through something and he stops with, you know, chapter 3, verse 15a, that's okay. Or it's really bad proof texting. That's either one or the other. No, I'm just kidding. But it's okay. Well, I do sometimes appreciate when someone says, how come you didn't read to the end of the chapter, or how come you picked a passage that's half on one chapter and half in the other? Or in one verse, right? Yeah, it's because those verse numbers and chapter numbers, like you said, were added, and they're helpful, but they don't necessarily break up the text in the way that is right. I mean, Paul's letters were ought to be read in one read-through. Yeah. I mean, who wants to sit down and just listen to the book of Romans be read through once? But that was what it was meant to be. It's just, let's listen to what Paul said to the Roman church. Yeah. We're the Roman church. Read the whole book. Logan, if you read it to me, I'd sit down and listen to it any day. I love it. So that ordering can be different, and the reason being, there's a reason behind it, like the later Christian tradition or the earlier Jewish tradition, the three categories of the four. The way I've always thought of the reason that we order it the way we do in our tradition is just because it's the historical account, and then everything flows out of that. It's basically the history and the interpretation. Yeah, yeah. That's the way I thought of it. Yeah, I mean, the major prophets and the minor prophets are not because the minor prophets were not ready for the big ones. Smaller, yeah, not ready. They're smaller books. Right, well, and in the Old Testament, the prophets are really the interpretation of the history of what's happened in the first five books of the Old Testament as well as in the history books. It's a reflection on that, it's a looking forward on it, it's an application of that, just interpreting the meaning behind all that's happening. Same thing with the New Testament letters, it's interpreting the meaning of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. I think too, like we're planning on studying Kings for the men's and women's Bible studies in the fall, and Kings, I mean, traditionally it's seen as kings, the book of kings. And we've gone back and we've said, well, there's first kings and second kings, just because if we don't do that, it's a really big book. Well, it was also how they broke it up because they ran out of scroll. Exactly. That's a great point. Yeah. All on one scroll. Yeah. And it's the same for Samuel. We have first and second Samuel, but it's just Samuel. Any Old Testament book where there's first and second, it's because they couldn't fit on one strong long piece of paper. Yep. Yeah. Well, hey, these are some great questions, really good practical questions, just about how the Bible came together and how we engage with it now. So hey, thanks everybody for asking. Thanks for listening. So hey, thanks everybody for asking. Thanks for listening. Tune in next time. That's a Good Question at resoundmedia.cc or wherever you listen to podcasts.

PODCAST That's a Good Question Decoding the Divine: Exploring Profound Biblical Passages April 30, 2024 Jon Delger & Stephanie Delger Listen to this Episode So Hey everyone, welcome to That's Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and a part of Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc . That's Good Question is the place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon. I get to serve as a pastor at Peace Church as well as get to serve as part of this show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions . Today, I am here with one of the hosts of the Mom Guilt podcast, a teacher in our women's ministry at Peace Church, as well as, she's also my lovely wife. Hello, good to be here. Thanks for being here, Stephanie. Excited today to get to talk about some tough texts. People have asked some questions about some very specific Bible passages. And so that's what we're going to talk about today, is they write into some verses that are hard to understand. Love those kind of questions, people send those in, that you're just studying along in your Bible and you come across something really hard. Always feel free to submit those questions. So we're going to try to tackle at least three of those today and see how that goes. So here we go. All right, the first one is this. In my devotions this morning, I was reading 1 Timothy 2.15, and the question is what does childbearing have to do with a woman's salvation? Such an interesting question such an interesting passage, so I'll read the passage a minute. Yeah, well initially okay as you pull it up Initially I would say that it has a lot to do with it because it points out my need for salvation that much more Because so much in motherhood is like oh, no I messed up. Oh, no, you know it revealed the ugly sin I need salvation, but I kind of doubt that that might be what they were asking it for. That's funny. And actually it's almost like you could do a podcast about that. Almost. The guilt that comes with motherhood. Hey, I'm here to help. I'm here to help you. All right. First, Symphony 215. Here's what it says. Well, actually I'll tell you what, let me, I'll read the verse even leading into it. This is a big paragraph. You're going to have more questions. Okay, go for it. Yeah. I'll just read the first couple of verses. There's lots in this paragraph we can talk about. There is. And we have talked about in the past on this show, but here's, I'm gonna start in verse 13. It says, For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Here's verse 15. Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. Yeah, so the question is, what does a woman's salvation have to do with childbearing? Because at first you read that and it seems that you are saved by having children. You almost read that and go, well, all moms go to heaven, just like that, that movie, all dogs go to heaven, all moms go to heaven. Right. But we would say, no, we don't think that that's really what that verse is talking about. But on first glance, I think this is a great question because it seems to say that, yeah, if you're a mom, you go to heaven, you're saved because you have had a child. Yeah, it seems that way. We know that's not true, right? This wise man once told me that the Bible doesn't contradict itself. And you have always encouraged me in asking questions. Sometimes it's really helpful to start of what does it not mean? And I think this might be a good start of what does this not mean? Because we would say there's other verses in the Bible that talk about you're saved through faith alone, right? It makes me think of Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah, so it's not that we're saved by the work of childbearing, but what does it mean? Yeah, so we're saved by grace, by God's grace as a gift through faith in Jesus, not by works. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 is a great passage to look at for that. So that's what we know it doesn't mean. Yeah, so to give a couple of, so I read today a few different perspectives on this. So this is one of those passages that is kind of unclear as to exactly what it means. Many of us look at it and think it's not quite clear exactly what it's talking about. I think there's some gray area, maybe some possible interpretation. So two of the main ones that I saw, I'll just give you the two main ones and then kind of what I think. But the two main lines of thought are these either either one that word saved isn't meaning so much like salvation being justified becoming right with God as much as it means like being sanctified that you're saved through childbearing that you become more like Jesus through childbearing which you kind of joked about and said that that's true that happens. Yeah I mean that I see in my heart with motherhood all of the time. There are so often where through motherhood, it's really, especially in that newborn stage, you right away are really tired and you want to just sleep, but you can't. You kind of die to yourself. We talk about that sometimes in the church, you die to yourself to provide for something else that I might want to go take a nap, but I can't because I have this screaming newborn who needs to be fed and clothed and taken care of. And so through motherhood, it really teaches me to put aside my needs of what I need and to really lay that down so I can take care of another person. Yeah. Which I think in a lot of ways really images what Christ did. I mean, he died himself for our salvation. And so there's some different ways that we can, through motherhood, kind of be a Christ-like figure to our child. But there's also some other ways in motherhood where it's just this constant battle of, you know, trying to fight this sin in my life, trying to fight this self-control, the selfishness that I have in order to show love to somebody else, which doesn't come as naturally as what I thought it would be. Like before you're a mom, you think, oh, of course, this is so easy. You're going to love your child. And yes, I love all of our children, as I'm sure you do as well. But it does come with this ugly side that really reveals your sin. Yeah, totally. Shows your selfishness. I've said before that marriage and having kids are two things that show you that you're a sinner. Well, it's like that nursery school rhyme, like, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage. Like there's kind of that progression with showing sanctification too. I think sometimes you can say, oh, I'm a really great person, and then you fall in love with somebody else and it kind of reveals maybe some lust that you're struggling with. You get married and you think, oh, I'm not that selfish. And then you get married and that marriage reveals your selfishness. And then you have kids. And I think that level, again, just shows this deeper level of selfishness that I had in my heart. And so I just see this progression through marriage and then through childbearing, too, that it really is revealing of that sin. Yeah. So it makes practical sense. Right. The argument makes practical sense. Some of the other there's some textual arguments that guys made. I mean, one is that in this paragraph, Paul's talking about the sanctification or what it's like to be a godly woman, like verses 9 and 10 in this paragraph. Talk about also kind of just the context and the setting, talking about in 1 Timothy 1, 3, there's false teaching going on in this church. In 4, 1, we see that there's talk about people turning to evil spirits. Later in chapter 4, there's talk about asceticism, people trying to be religious and earn their way. It talks about even having abstinence within marriage, which is not really something God prescribes but something people were doing because they thought it would make them look even more holy. Maybe Paul is just saying that this normal domestic stuff of having kids is a good thing. So those are some of the arguments that I read for just this concept that So the argument about what the text means is that saved doesn't mean salvation But it means being sanctified and maybe that's what Paul's saying. So that's one argument. The other perspective The other major perspective is that the reference is To the seed of the woman going back to Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 So right before this verse in verses 13 and 14 in 1st Timothy, it's talking about Adam and Eve, so you can see how that makes sense, that's the context. And then, so if you don't know, in Genesis chapter 3, that's where the fall into sin happens. That's where Adam and Eve sin, they eat of the tree like God told them not to, they fall into sin, and in Genesis 3 verse 15 is where God promises hope. It's actually, I would say, it's the storyline of the whole rest of the Bible. So let me read it to you real quick, so you can make sense of this argument. It says, so there's God speaking to the serpent, the snake. He says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. Okay, so Genesis 3.15 is God's promise that there's going to be war for the rest of humanity, the rest of history, between the woman and the offspring of Satan, essentially. So there's going to be Satan and his people, there's going to be God and his people, and they're going to be at war with each other. And the day is going to come when a man, a descendant of the woman, on God's team is going to be bruised or injured or hurt by a follower of Satan. But ultimately, that son of the woman is going to have victory through defeat. Ultimately, that man is going to have victory over Satan by being defeated. And you can sort of imagine in the future what that looks like. So we'd say that points to Jesus. Jesus is a seed of the woman. He's a child of Eve, and yet he's also the son of God who comes and he is defeated on the cross, or so he appears defeated, and yet actually he gets victory through that defeat and ultimately crushes the head of Satan. That makes a lot of sense too, because really then it's saying that women are safe through childbearing. Also, if that's what the verse is meaning, men are also safe through childbearing if the child that's referred to is Jesus. Yeah, yeah. So personally I think that's actually the better argument, just based on the context of that they're already talking about Adam and Eve and I just think it makes, I just think it makes the most sense. It is a tough passage. You look at it and you're like, what in the world is going on here? Saved through childbearing. But yeah, to me that makes the most sense to just say that yeah, childbearing is this amazing thing that God is gonna work through woman. It's one of the glories of woman that she gets to be the bearer of children and that ultimately the Savior's gonna come through that way and save all of humanity by coming and crushing the head of the serpent. We'll be right back after this break. Hi, I'm Elizabeth, one of the co-hosts of MomGuilt, a podcast with new episodes every Monday. MomGuilt is a podcast about the daily struggles of motherhood. Stephanie and I share real experiences of MomGuilt and how we have found freedom from that guilt through the gospel. Listen to us on Resoundmedia.cc or wherever you find podcasts. Either way, the answer is Jesus. You're saved through Jesus. Yeah. Whether it's sanctification, it's still by Jesus. Yeah. So, awesome question. Totally a hard text. I'm so glad that it was asked. So, let's go on. We got at least two more here. Let's talk about. All right. So, the next one. Jacob and Esau. Let's talk about that story for a minute So here's the question as it came in person says I've always wondered about the story of Jacob and Esau Why does God bless Jacob and his descendants after he deceives his father and steals his brother's blessing? It doesn't seem fair All right, so good question So the passage if you want to look at it Genesis 25 and 27 those two chapters are kind of the biggest chapters that talk about this story between Jacob and Esau. Quick, if we remember the story, remember Jacob and Esau are both children of Isaac and Rebekah. Before they're even born, while they're in the womb, God says to Rebekah that the older will serve the younger. So Esau comes out first, but ultimately God has already said Jacob's the one who's going to be the promised line, the one for whom the nation of Israel is eventually going to come, ultimately going to come. And then the story goes on that Esau sells his birthright to his brother for a bowl of soup at one point. And then at the end of Isaac's life, before their dad passes away, Jacob ultimately deceives his dad, tricks him into thinking that he's Esau so that he gets his blessing as well. So that's kind of the story. You can read it if you want to in Genesis 25 through 27. But the question is, what in the world does Jacob, dude, does some bad things, and yet it all works out great for him in the end. As you're saying this story, man, wouldn't this be like a great story for like a Christian soap opera? Like, can you just imagine the drama and all of these like turns it takes? It just makes me think of this would be some good television. I don't know if I could put Christian and Soprano in the same sentence. I don't know if that works. But you make a good point. Yeah, no, it's a great. Yeah, the Bible has some of the best stories. They're great stories. Yeah. And I think as you're saying that, yeah, it doesn't seem fair. It seems like Jacob is this deceptive, conniving man, and why would God choose him? And I wonder if that's possibly the point of when you're reading this, so often I think good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people. And Jacob and Esau are not only brothers, but they're twins. And I think this is a case study almost of that's not the way God works. Wow. I think that's a really good point. Yeah, so we totally expect that the dude who does bad things should be punished. Now actually one of the things that we, so you look at Jacob's name, Jacob's name actually literally in Hebrew means deceiver or cheater. That is so, like, okay, we have two sons. When we name one like cheater, deceiver, that's such an odd name. We would not do that. No, we didn't. We didn't do that. Our daughters actually, if you remember, they were recently reading in their Bible storybook, Hosea. Remember they came across how Hosea's children were named, not my people, and no mercy. And they were pretty horrified at that idea. Yeah, that's just an interesting idea too, that they named their son that because he was named before he acted or did any of that. Sure. You know, usually you would think a parent is going to name a child after something they aspire to. Like our son is named Levi because we want him to be a man of the Lord with the Levites. And that just doesn't even seem like why would a parent name their child deceiver? Yeah. It's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. We can ask when we get to heaven. Yeah, right. What were you thinking? So to try to unpack the answer, so I mean, first of all, I think it's true that it's not fair. I think that's kind of what you're saying, right, is that the story doesn't come across fair and that's, we're not misreading it. That's the point. It doesn't seem fair that Jacob ends up with God, with Isaac's blessing and God's blessing in the end. He's, you know, he's the father of the nation of Israel. That doesn't seem fair because he did some messed up bad things. He lied. He actually, I was rereading the story this morning thinking about this. Um, and I, I, one of the things that he says strikes me, his, uh, his dad starts to kind of get a sense that he's being tricked and he says, my son, how did you get the game so quickly to bring me this meal? And Jacob's answer is the Lord provided so quickly the animal. And I just, yeah, yeah. It really struck me that this just, man, he, yeah. Took it to the next level. It really kind of does. It takes it to the next level. You're lying about God. So Jacob does some bad stuff, but here's, I'll try to break down kind of what I think is going on in the passage. I think one of the things we got to realize is actually, first of all, Isaac's error and sin in the whole matter. So Isaac knew from before the boys were born what God's will was for Jacob and Esau, that God had designed for Jacob to be the one, for Jacob to be essentially the chosen line. And yet we read throughout their story that Isaac favors Esau, he prefers Esau, he's more manly, he's very hairy, the text tells us many times. Red, red and yellow. Red, red, yeah. I don't know if this is, you know, the first Irishman or how that works, but he's also just an outdoorsman. He likes to hunt, whereas Jacob, it says, he was more inside, hung out with his mom, did some gardening instead of the hunting, you know. So Isaac makes a point of favoring the son that God has already said is not the chosen son. So Isaac's in error here. And then even, you know, leading up to the blessing, Isaac sort of seems to be driven more by his stomach than he is by actually sort of following God's will for passing down to the next generation. Esau also married Canaanite women. Remember that part of the text? That was a no-no. Yeah, so Esau himself is also not going in the direction that God wants him to go, which should be another hint that for Isaac. Doesn't the text also say that him and his wives cause trouble or stir up sorrow for his parents as well? Yeah. So you got to start there with Isaac is actually in the wrong early on and throughout the boy's lives. Kent Hughes, who I read his commentary on this earlier today, he says, there's no heroes in this story, only sinners. I think that's what you were saying, is that part of the point of this story is that, yeah, none of us are good none of us have earned or deserve God's blessing but God decided to do it anyways and I think that's the best explanation of the story is is it fair no it's not fair but God actually determined who is going to be blessed before either of the boys was born neither of them had the possibility to earn it it was it was just it was God's design it was God's plan and that's what played out more I'd say, in spite of each of the characters than because of what each of the characters did. And I think as you were talking, too, you were saying that the dad favored kind of the more masculine one, the one that you would think of, and God didn't favor that. He chose Jacob. And I think, is there something to be said there about how culture views manhood? Because I think there's a conversation happening right now of almost like this toxic masculinity of what does it mean to be a man? And I just, what do you think about that? Oh boy, there's a lot we could say about that. There's a ton we could say about that. Oh man, I wouldn't even know where to begin on that. I mean, I think God, yeah, one thing we could say from that is that I don't think scripture says anywhere that being a man means being super hairy or hunting or having a big beard. But that's not, yeah, so there are definitely some things in our culture that we have elevated and said, these things make you a manly man, a masculine dude, and are not healthy, godly things. Now, I think, unfortunately, in our culture, we do sort of somewhat see an overcorrection too, in the other direction, of saying, well, we're going to just be everything that's opposite of that. So some people have cried out that there's toxic masculinity. And so we've created an alternate form of masculinity that seems to be the opposite of that. And that's not healthy each either. And that's what the world tends to do is we create a pendulum. We're going to see this and we're going to react to it and go to the opposite side. And that's going to be bad. And the next generation is going to react to that and go to the other side. Whereas actually usually the biblical vision of something, for example, the biblical vision of man is probably somewhere in between those two things. So God has given men, I think, a certain level of natural, how do I want to say it, strength, physically, mentally, emotionally, aggressiveness, maybe you could call it, because God has called men to provide and protect and to have that aspect to them. So there is that, but obviously that can become abused. Men can become aggressive to the point where they abuse women or children or others. So tons we could say about that. All right, so let's hit the next question. So the next story that somebody brings up is a story about King Saul and the evil spirit that comes to him. So this is 1 Samuel chapter 16. Let me jump to the question. Here's what they say. They say, In my personal devotions, I was reading 1 Samuel 16, and I read this, Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him. Or in other translations, it says evil spirit. And then they go on to say, It just doesn't fit with anything else. I read about God. I think of God as only doing good. How could he send a harmful spirit to Saul to torment him? I have had this question, and I think this is one of, to me, one of the scariest texts. I think this one and the text where Jesus can turn to somebody and say, depart from me, I never knew you. These two texts I think are really hard and are some of the maybe most scary Bible verses for me. So I was really glad somebody asked this question because I want to talk about it. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, I mean it strikes you as, I think if you're reading along the story in 1 Samuel, it strikes you as very strange that all of a sudden there's an evil spirit and it was sent by God to one of the characters. Yeah, because God chose Saul to be king out of the people. I mean, we see in some sense God chose Saul, right? Like it was evident from the beginning that this wasn't really God's choice or first choice. We see God saying, well, I'm going to give you what you want. You want a king like the other nations. Well, here he is, here's Saul. And I think this was so interesting as well, because we really see that Saul was the first king in some ways. I mean, he's the king that all of God's people wanted. They said, we want a king like the other nations. And God says, OK, here's Saul. And so it seems like God gave Saul favor. And now all of a sudden he's taking that away. And instead of, you know, just taking something away, he's actually taking it a step further and giving him a spirit that's going to torment him. That's scary. Hmm. Yeah, I get that. That, I mean, that is essentially what you just described is what's happening in the story. I mean, so Saul has, yeah, I mean, so the people's desire for a king wasn't good in the first place, right? So God was their king. God very clearly said that they're rejecting God as their king and Saul, you know, is given to them, but Saul has a chance to be a godly king. Saul fails at being a godly king and then actually right before this passage we read that God withdraws his spirit from Saul and right before that we read that God is beginning to send his spirit on David. Okay, so there's already the transition, we're reading something right in the middle of a transition that God has withdrawn his spirit from Saul, he's given his spirit to David, God has already decided he's going to put a new king in place, a different chosen person. Can I ask a question about the Spirit? Yeah. So I have heard it said that in the Old Testament, God's Spirit is resting on one person in one time for a specific thing. Is that true? Because I've heard people say that about the Old Testament, and then in the New Testament, we receive the Holy Spirit as Christians, and so it's different now. That's a great question. There's a lot we could say about that. I'll just say a little bit. It is different between the Old Testament and the New Testament, how this works. I think that's just part of the progressing of God's story and how He works. So in the Old Testament, what we see is God's Spirit enables them to do something for a certain period of time, that kind of thing. Whereas in the New Testament, we've got this promise that the Spirit rests in us, on us, He's our guarantee, He's our seal of our inheritance to come, of our relationship with the Lord. Now I also want to say though that we know that, you know, the New Testament tells us that nobody has faith, nobody comes to faith, nobody receives salvation apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. So we can't say that the Holy Spirit was totally absent from the everyday believer's life in the Old Testament. He was, because it's only through the power of the Spirit that somebody can be born again, that somebody can come to faith. So the Holy Spirit was doing that in the Old Testament, but we don't have passages telling us like we do in the New Testament, that he was resting on us sort of continually. So when the text is saying that God is removing his spirit from him, that's not speaking to say that Saul is like somehow losing his salvation of some type? Or do you think that is what it means? No, I don't think. I would say Old Testament, New Testament, you can't lose your salvation. Saul's salvation is an interesting question. You know, did he ultimately have faith faith that resulted in righteousness in God and in God's promises. I don't know about Saul's eternal state and where that ended up. If he had repentance and received forgiveness for his sins and all those kinds of things, I can't speak to his eternal state, but I wouldn't say it. I would say this is not a passage about salvation so much as about who God's anointed king is, who God's Spirit is uniquely working through to lead the people and be his representative to the people. That's really helpful. I think that helps me put distinct markers on what this is talking about. Sure, sure. So this evil spirit comes, which seems kind of crazy to us, but really this evil spirit is, that's how David gets into the story, right? This is how David, so later, Saul's buddies, his staff, say, hey Saul, we need to bring in an awesome harp player to help you out with this evil spirit. And that's how David gets into kind of the throne room, into the cadre of Saul's people. Because this is almost like a hinge text between Saul disobeying the Lord because he was told to go and destroy this nation and all of their possessions. He doesn't. He disobeys the Lord. There's this hinge and then doesn't it immediately talk about David being brought in like you were saying the harp? Yeah. Okay. And then after that, we've got the story of David Goliath. So this is the beginning of, you know, sort of David's ascension. So it's not the only passage we have in the Bible about evil spirits either so I jotted down a couple. So one is Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira, so the Apostle Peter says that they've an evil spirit is at work in that whole situation. 2 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh and he also calls it a messenger of Satan. I think of the book of Job of course where Satan is allowed to torment Job. So this isn't the only example we have in the Bible of an evil spirit coming from God or is the result of God's action or even allowed by God is another way to phrase it. But whether you say God sent it or God allowed it, I think the ultimate question here is, if God is good, how come he can either cause or let bad things happen to people? Whether it be an evil spirit or something else. I mean, to me, I think this is the same question as how can God be good and let hurricanes happen? How can God be good unless somebody get cancer? This is probably what a lot of the Old Testament people thought when they were part of the people of Israel and this evil nation would come in and conquer them. I think they probably would ask a very similar question. Sure. So to try to, so that's a topic we've talked about in other episodes, we have to talk about in longer length. So in short, I think there's a few really important points we got to bear in mind. So the first is that God made the world perfect and we broke it with our sin. So yeah, you know whether whether you're talking about the hurricane or you're talking about cancer or you're talking about the sinful behavior of a person, God made the world perfect and good. We broke it with our sin. I think you have to remember that fundamental piece in the story. Now we can talk about what's behind that, we can talk about God's design and plan, but I think we do have to remember just about that God is good and he made it good. Okay, the creation did originally reflect God's character of being perfect. Then it got broken. Sin came into it. So, there's that. Another important point would be to just kind of remember that I think it's true that something can be against God's moral design and yet within his will. So for years, theologians have talked about that. They've talked about there's two wills of God. There's the moral will of God and there's the sovereign will of God. So on the one hand, it's true that everything that happens is part of God's will, right? There's nothing that happens that's outside of God knowing it's gonna happen, God being in control of it happening, God is sovereign over all things. So in one sense, everything that happens is within his will. But on the other hand, we know that God's will is for certain things not to happen. Like God says, do not murder. So whenever somebody's murdered, on the one hand, it's within God's will because God knew it was gonna happen. God was in control of that happening. So on the one hand, it's within his will. But on the other hand, it's totally against his will. God doesn't want it to happen. God has said we're not supposed to do it. So you can kind of see that there's these two different aspects of God's moral will and design for the universe. And then there's also everything that happens, the fact that he is sovereignly in control of everything. Everything's within his will. But again, kind of keep those two perspectives in your mind. And then kind of last step I'll say here is that God, we do know from the Bible that God uses temporal bad for ultimate good. So one great example is Joseph. Genesis 50 makes it really clear that Joseph says to his brothers, you meant this for evil. God meant it, designed it, intended it for good. So God all along, it was God's plan all along that even though his brothers did this terrible thing, they sold him into slavery, he was falsely accused of something, he was in prison. Joseph had a rough life, and yet it was God's plan for that temporal bad to result in ultimate good. It's actually how the nation of Israel ultimately comes to be about. You know, the line of Jacob, the line of Joseph, that all would have ended in starvation if it hadn't been for Joseph going ahead of them to be Pharaoh's right-hand man, to save up the food and to give it to his family eventually. I think if that idea sounds really interesting to you, the Peace Women's Conference this fall at Peace Church will actually be talking about that whole story, pairing it along with one of the Psalms. So if you're in the area, here's Shameless Plug. Check out this fall Peace Women's Conference. You're really good at these Shameless Plugs. Absolutely. Hey! So I think that idea that I just shared is really, it can be really hard to swallow, and yet it's what the Bible tells us is true. So I think we've got to have the humility to accept that God's ways are higher than our ways, that he tells us that he's good, that he demonstrates that he's good, and that the temptation for us to think that he's not good is as old as Adam and Eve. I mean, that was the temptation to Adam and Eve in the garden was Satan went to them and said, you know, if God was good, why would he put this tree here? Why wouldn't he let you have all these good things that you want? You know, when in reality God had given them all the trees in the garden to eat of except for one, but Satan tries to reframe that and tempt them to think, man, God must not actually be good. God must not actually want good things for me because there's this thing that he says that I can't have. So this is the ultimate temptation is to think that God is not good, but he tells us that he is. He demonstrates that he is, and I think there are some times in this life, there are some things that we witness in the world that we do have to trust Him. We have to trust that that is His character. That's what we see in the Bible. Even though our current moment, our situation, our experience might feel like that's not the case. Romans 8, 28 is one of the key verses, obviously, that reminds us of that. For those who love God and are called according to His purpose, God works together all things for their good. And I think listening to you talk to it's so often in my life where I feel something I feel that emotion and Emotions are good. They're a gift from the Lord, but we need to be careful to not root our beliefs in emotion But rather in truth And so I think just what you were saying of this may feel that God is not good But we know the Bible says God is good and so base You know what we're thinking on and what the Bible says rather than what we're feeling because we know we can be deceived by our emotions. Yeah, totally. Well, I think that's all we've got time for today, but great questions, everybody. Thanks so much for them. Stephanie, thanks for being part of the conversation. Thanks for having me. Thanks, everybody, for listening. You can always send in more questions at peacechurch.cc /questions. You can follow us on Instagram. You can follow us on resoundmedia.cc . Look forward to seeing you next time. You can find That's a Good Question at resoundmedia.cc or wherever you listen to podcasts.

What Do I Do With My Guilt? Sermon Series: What Do I Do With My Guilt? Mitchell Leach Community Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Isaiah 53:4-6 Transcript Well, good morning Peace Church. If you would grab your Bibles, we are going to be in Isaiah 53 verses 4 through 6. But before we get into that and to give you time to open, I want to introduce myself for those of you who haven't met me. My name is Mitchell Leach and I am the community pastor here on staff, which means I get to oversee our community groups, which is our small group ministry, and our communication team and process. I have a family. I have been married since 2015 to my wife Elizabeth. We have three kids, Levi who's seven, Shepard who's four, and our daughter Sower. She will turn three in four days. It has been an amazing privilege to be on staff at Peace Church. Peace Church, I've been on staff at a few other churches, but Peace Church really is something special. I think you guys know that if you guys go to the 9:30, so you know, you've seen what's been happening in the 9:30 service. There's something moving here, right? Even just the parking lot, what a blessing that it's a nightmare for all of us, right? God's doing something, and I just want to say thank you for allowing me to be one of the pastors here on staff. With that, let's jump into our text. That's long enough, I'm sure you guys have found it there. Isaiah 53:4-6 4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you are a good God who sent his son to take our place. God, I pray that we would worship as a response to your word. God, I pray that you would soften our hearts to hear your gospel and it would transform us. God, we love you and we love to do your will, so help us do that. In your name we pray, amen. We are gonna ask a question today, a question of this text and a question of ourselves, and it is this, what can I do with my guilt? What can I do with my guilt? This is a universal question. Every person on the face of the earth has asked this question because guilt is a universal feeling. We are great at not dealing with our guilt, though. Even though this is a universal problem, we're great at working around it. Primarily in three ways. First is denying it. And this is maybe the more academic or the clinical or secular clinical approach to guilt. It says deny it, not outright, but it uses, secular therapy will use fancy words like, you need to find self-acceptance or find better ways to practice self-talk. What that really means is, you're not wrong. The feelings you have are wrong. Don't feel guilty about something you've done, which is just a fancy way of denying our guilt. The second is to distract. Right? To distract. And this is probably the most popular one, right? If you're familiar with the term doom scrolling, it's the idea of scrolling through Instagram or TikTok to the point where you're, you yourself are just tired and you're finding no more pleasure in it. I think it's a great microcosm for our desire to distract ourselves from our feelings. It's not just social media. It can be through popularity, it can be through success in your career, through money, through a plethora of different things. We love to distract ourselves from our guilt. The last, it's probably the most dangerous, but it's to become numb, right, to use substances or experiences to chemically alter our mind, to just become numb from our situation. This is dangerous. If you've ever dealt with that, or if you know someone who has, you know how hard this can be. And when you look at these three categories, when you look at the ways that we try to avoid our feelings of guilt, the way that the world tells us that we can avoid our feelings of guilt. You see that they're not enough. They're not adequate, right? They're just temporary. They're disposable, really. They don't last. When we realize this, we have to ask ourselves the question, where can we run? Can we run to scripture? Does this Bible, does this old book contain the answers? Can we trust it to answer life's hardest questions? And the good news is we can. The Bible has answers for us. And the answer we will find is more hopeful than you could ever imagine. And yet, it will be more painful than you want to admit. So what do we do with our guilt? The Bible gives us an answer, and the answer is this. It's our main idea for today. God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus. God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus. We see three points in our message. Where does guilt come from? What can we do with our guilt? And what was done for our guilt? So let's jump into that first one. Where does guilt come from? Let's look at verse six again. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. If you look at this passage, this is just a small section of what's called the fourth servant song in Isaiah. It's a song all about Jesus, right? In fact, when Jesus died and the apostles were trying to figure out what had happened, they went back to this passage to understand what happened on the cross. It's important for us to understand it. I wish I could go so much longer, but this little section shows us what is going on on the cross. We see our sin even through this passage. The longer passage, I'm gonna put it up on the screen, you don't need to read it, it's too small a font, I understand that, but just look at the yellow words, okay? We see synonyms for sin all throughout this passage because our guilt comes from our sin. And maybe you don't like that idea of sin. Maybe you think it's archaic, it's old-fashioned as a society, we've moved past it. Or maybe you're just sitting here thinking, sin isn't a fun topic to think about. If you're a little bit squeamish about it, it's okay. Let's think about sin in terms of our guilt. We'll still get to the same answer, but I'm giving you an out right here. Because guilt is a natural reaction to something that's gone wrong in us, right? Guilt is to our soul what pain is to our body, right? If I go out and I'm barefoot, I step on glass. My body won't let me go any further. It tells me that there's something sharp there, it's painful, right? If I go any further, it's gonna cause me more pain. I cannot go any further. The same is true for our soul. Guilt shows us that if we were to continue into that practice or continue into whatever we've done any further, that we are gonna do more harm to our soul. We need this guilt in our life to show us and to avoid dangerous, dangerous things. We are actually really good at justifying the small things in our life, right? The little things that we can explain away, right? If you snap at your wife, it's not your fault. It's because you had a hard day at work and your kids were crazy and your wife maybe was a little bit snippy with you. Not my wife, but you know otherwise I'm sure. But all of a sudden it's not my fault anymore. It is, I'm just, what happened was it's a product of my environment. Or if you cheat on your homework, if you're a student, it's not your fault. You stayed up late, your best friend had a life crisis and you had to stay up texting her, or all the guys could hop on the game, hop on online, and you played all night. How many times do you get to do that? And so you copy the notes the next morning and, you know, it's not wrong, but all of a sudden you're justifying something that is objectively wrong. Or maybe you lie to a friend because the truth would have hurt too much. The truth is, if we discount all the things we can explain away, there are things in our lives that we cannot justify. Right now, I want you to think about the worst thing that you've done. And for most of us, we can immediately think about it. It immediately comes to our mind. It's the thing that causes us anxiety, right? It's the thing we hope that there's no mind readers in here, because if someone found out what we had done, it would crush us. And for most of us, that one thing, somebody knows about. Somebody else knows about because it's probably against somebody else. Those are the things that usually crush us the most. But for some of us in here, the one thing that we've done, nobody will know about, and you'll actually go to the grave with it. And yet, you still feel guilt. And this is actually a really good apologetic, or a really good proof for the existence of God. Because we know deep down, those of us who are gonna take our one thing to the grave. If there wasn't a God, we shouldn't feel guilt. Yet we do, because we know deep down in our DNA, in our soul, we know that God will come and give ultimate justice against wrong. We fear and we have guilt because we know that there is a God who's coming one day. To try to explain away, to try to avoid our guilt is damaging for us. Because when we make our sin small, we make the cross small. So we need to see what can we do with our guilt. This is our second point. What can we do with our guilt? So thinking about our one thing again, what can we do with it? Right, we can't just forget it, it's too big. We can't explain it away, we can't distract ourselves enough for it. There aren't enough substances, there isn't enough experiences, there aren't enough whatever, disposable ways to chase after or to avoid our guilt, there aren't enough of those to really, truly get rid of our guilt. So maybe, maybe you try to fix it, right? That seems like the next logical step. So you try to swing from one extreme to the other. Maybe for you, and I hope that this isn't for you, but maybe for you, your one thing is that you've cheated on your spouse. And so you go from one extreme, right, doing something that was damaging to your relationship, to being the greatest spouse you can be, right? Having only eyes, eyes only for your spouse, and you never lust, in fact, you turn completely away from it, and that would be a beautiful story of repentance, right? We would love to hear those types of stories by the power of the Spirit bringing us to hate our sin. The truth is, the truth is, flipping to that extreme doesn't undo what we've done. And I don't say that because I want to condemn anyone in here. I don't want anyone to feel like they are beyond forgiveness. I want us to see that there is nothing within us, no amount of good works within us to make what we've done come undone. We don't have that power. Imagine another example might be if you've committed murder, right? And then you become a fireman who is literally pulling hundreds of people, saving hundreds of lives out of burning buildings. That's beautiful, that's wonderful. Yet it doesn't resurrect the person who's murdered. So what do we do here in this moment? we've realized that we don't have the ability to do anything about our guilt. It reminds me of a situation with my son a few weeks ago. He had broken his Lightning McQueen toy and he brought it to me and he said, Dad, I don't know what to do with this. Can you fix it? I think in some regard we need to get to that point. We need to get to the point where we go to God and say, God, I've done something. I have this guilt. I have this thing in front of me, and I don't know what to do with it anymore. I don't have the agency to even understand how to fix it. God, all I know is it's broken. That's a beautiful place for us to be as Christians. We need to see that we can do nothing more than put metaphorical fig leaves on our guilt. Right? That's what Adam and Eve did in the garden when they sinned. They took fig leaves, they sewed them together to hide their sin and their shame. But the thing about fig leaves is they're temporary. They're disposable. They don't last. They don't work. That's why some of us are chasing endless amounts of money, chasing endless amounts of success, chasing whatever it is, because there's never enough of it to truly get the feeling away that we've done something wrong. We see that we can do nothing about our sin and about our guilt. No amount of hard work can do anything that will make us feel at peace. We don't have the answer within us. We need someone who can show us what to do with our guilt. And that's our third point. What was done for our guilt? In the Old Testament, God set up a sacrificial system, a system to help Israel deal with their guilt. A priest would lay his hands on a goat and he would confess the sins of the people, confess the guilt of the people, and the goat would be slaughtered. 17th century pastor and theologian John Owen says this, "'Why would people kill good and useful animals and offer them to God except to acknowledge their own worthiness of death and need for a substitute to receive punishment in their place? And the good news is that this isn't just an Old Testament thing, that we have an answer and it is prophesied in the Old Testament. Let's look at verses four and five. It says, Surely he has bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Jesus, the Messiah, the prophesied Messiah, rightfully took our place on the cross. This is the gospel. This is the good news of the gospel. This is what causes us to worship, right? Jesus died for my sins. We know this to be true. And yet, if I was to ask you, by what cosmic agent or how does this actually work? How does Jesus's death on the cross, how does that actually forgive our sins? Now that's a harder question, but it's so important. It's at the root of the gospel. It's so important for us to understand, and as we understand it, it will cause us to worship even more. It's a beautiful, beautiful theology. We see that Jesus has to make an atonement for my sins. And you're thinking, man, this is Memorial Day, could you please stay away from big words, but I'm gonna break this down for us. Okay? Atonement really just means at one meant right to be at one again Right being brought back into a right relationship and that's what we need because when we sin our sin demands an eternal and infinite punishment from God because God is infinite and eternal. It's not the kind of crime we commit, right? Because it almost feels unjust that we would serve an eternal punishment for a momentary thing, right? One little lie sends us to hell forever. Why in the world does that seem just? Because it's not the kind of crime we commit, but it's who we commit the crime against, right? Imagine I go to a junkyard and I take a key and I scratch a car there. Nobody's going to care. But if I go to a dealership and I scratch a brand new F-150, they're going to call the cops. I'm going to have a fine to pay. But if I scratch a million-dollar Ferrari, not only are they going to call the cops, but I'm probably going to end up in jail. All three, the same action, and yet the punishment increases each time with the value of the car. And the same is true for our sin against God. That God is infinite, He's infinitely righteous, and our sin provokes God's perfect wrath. So maybe you're sitting here thinking, okay, He talked about sin first, and now He's talking about wrath. I hate the idea of God being a God of wrath. And I wanna push back in two ways. First, I would say we need to understand our Bible a little bit better because God being provoked to wrath is both in the Old and New Testament, and it's a wonderful thing. And second, I think we actually do like this idea of wrath. Think about your favorite superhero. Think about Batman, right? When he gets provoked to wrath against the Joker, it's a great thing, right? Because the Joker's doing evil. It's one of the parts of Batman that we like, that he fights against evil. See, it's not a problem with God that we have. It's not that God being a God of wrath makes him somehow lesser. Our problem is that we understand that we are the ones who are evil. We're the ones who deserve God's wrath, right? And so then it makes it our problem. And that's why we don't like God being a God of wrath. It's actually a beautiful thing. And this is why Paul talks about wrath when he talks about our salvation. This is probably from one of the most important paragraphs in all of scripture, but it says this. This is Paul in Romans 3 saying, Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith, this was to show his righteousness. Propitiation, for some of you, is a word that you've never heard or never used before, and it's okay, it's not a word that we really used in English very much, but it was used a ton in ancient Greece and ancient Roman culture. It means this, propitiation means to satisfy the wrath of a God. Right, so let's just read it right back into that text. Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a way to satisfy his wrath, by his blood, to be received by faith, this was to show God's righteousness. Jesus goes to the cross to bear the wrath of God. This is what happens on the cross, right? When we're talking about by what agent can we be forgiven, it is because Jesus goes to the cross and bears the wrath that we should have gotten on the cross, right? Verse 10 says this, yet it was the will of the Lord, it was the will of the Father to crush him, to crush Jesus. He has put him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. The Father pours out his wrath on Jesus. If you missed Pastor Ryan's message on April 28th. You missed, well, you missed two things. First, it was my ordination, but it's okay, I forgive you. And then second is, it was his message on hell. It was a great message, and if you missed it, please go back and watch it or listen to it. I'm going to talk about hell just a little bit here, but Ryan really flushed it out. Pastor Ryan really flushed it out well. Hell, in a literal sense, is God pouring out His wrath against evil and against sin. This is what Jesus receives on the cross. Jesus receives hell, our punishment, on the cross, and this is why He screams out on the cross, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's because in this moment, all of the hell that you and I deserved is poured out onto Jesus He's getting exactly what we should have gotten The father for the first time in history turns his face away from his son It's the greatest injustice in the history of the world See the truth is we need a God who can stand in our place, who can make atonement between us and God. We need God himself to bear the wrath of God for us. And this is exactly what happens on the cross, and this is why our main idea is God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus. God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus. Jesus must take our place. He must bear the wrath of God. He must be our substitute. He must trade places with us. Jesus was declared guilty because on the cross, it was as if the Father was looking at us. It was as if the Father was looking at me. So why does this matter to us? Why does this matter to you and I? It's because it answers our question, what can we do with our guilt? We understand that Jesus going to the cross paid it all. Jesus paid it all. We're about to sing that song in a little bit. Jesus takes all of our wrath, he takes all of our guilt, he takes all of our shame on the cross. And therefore, there's no more left for you. There's no more left for me. When Jesus dies, right before Jesus dies, he announces, it is finished. And when he's saying that, what he's saying is, I have satisfied the wrath of my Father. Verse 11 says this, out of the anguish of his soul shall he see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. The beauty of the gospel is not just that Jesus takes our sin, that our sin gets transferred to Him. The beauty is that His righteousness gets given to us. We are counted as righteous. We now get to be seen as His Son. When on the cross, His Son was seen as us. In eternity, we will be. And from now on, we get to be seen as his son. So the answer to the question, what can I do with my guilt? We can do nothing but believe that Jesus went to the cross to bear our guilt, who was declared guilty on the cross and paid our price for our sin. And this leads us into our application. I've just got two points of application. The first being, let substitution invade your life. John Stott has this quote on sin, and I'm gonna paraphrase it, but he says, sin is substitution. Sin is substituting ourselves in God's place. Salvation is God substituting himself in ours. This idea of letting substitution invade your life is so broad. There are so many practical ways that this could happen. From as small as letting your sibling have the front seat. I don't know if any of you guys were like me as a kid, but I mean, it was like full on like hip checks. I mean, it looks like hockey with me and my brother trying to fight over a shotgun. Anybody else in there with me? Okay, just me, that's good. But it can be as silly as that, right? Letting your sibling have the better spot to as grand as charity, right? Not the charity that this guy is trying to scam you guys all from, from Pastor Ryan, or pretending to be Pastor Ryan. I'm talking about true charity, right? Giving people what honestly they don't deserve, right? Because charity doesn't make sense. Why should I give my resources or my time to someone who doesn't have their own resources, right? And most of the time those people have made decisions to disqualify themselves from those resources. Why does it make sense that I would do that? It's because because we are all charity cases. Anyone who calls themselves a Christian is a charity case, right? The gospel calls us to be poor in spirit, not middle class in spirit. Middle class in spirit is working for everything that you get. And if we work for everything, if we get everything that we've worked for, we get separation from God. If it wasn't for Jesus getting what we deserved, we would have no hope. Charity will always be a marker of the true Christian and the true church, because it is exactly what we see on the cross. God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus so be willing to put yourself in someone else's place. The second application point is identify as the pardoned and not as the guilty. Peace Church, we have to stop identifying. We have to stop trying to earn it. I get that that's what we've always been told, to work hard, but in this case, working hard doesn't lead us anywhere. We already learned this with our guilt that we cannot do anything. No amount of good works gets us away from our guilt and no amount of good works gets us closer to God. Right, and this is the good news of the gospel is that it's not on us. Right, if someone asks, why are you a Christian? We can't answer in the first person. We can't answer, well, because I did this, or because I was baptized, or because I was raised in a Christian home, or I went to Christian school, or whatever it may be. We have to answer, it's because He, because He took my place, because He went to the cross instead of me. That's the beauty of the gospel. There's a story of a farmer and a carpenter, two friends. The farmer is someone who understands the idea of this substitutionary love, this substitutionary sacrifice. But his friend, the carpenter, struggles to feel good enough. And so the farmer asks his friend to build him a gate, a gate for one of his fences. The thing about gates is they have to be perfect. They cannot go too long or they'll hit the post, they can't be too short or they won't latch. If it's unlevel, it'll be impossible to go over the top or if it's unlevel the other way it'll just hit the ground and it'll go nowhere. So the carpenter builds him this gate and it is perfect and the farmer comes out and looks at it he says it's perfect, it's great, thank you for building this. But now that you're done, can I take one of the extra 4x4s that you have laying around and can I screw it where one of the hinges are? And the carpenter says, no, you can't. If you add anything to it, you'll actually take away from it. And the farmer turns to the carpenter and says, exactly. If you add anything to it, you're actually taking away from it. If we add anything to our salvation, it's like we're trying to say, thank you, Jesus, for going 99% of the way, but really, the 1% that you couldn't do, I've got now. I know, really, when you said it was finished, you were just kidding. No, when Jesus said it is finished, he meant it. He has paid it all. Identify as the pardoned, not as the guilty, not that we have to earn anything anymore. To add anything to our salvation is to take away from it. So what can we do with our guilt? The answer, we found, is nothing. Jesus has already dealt with it. Jesus was condemned as guilty, so that way we can live a guilt-free life. Not that we should go on sinning, but we can know that our guilt and shame is paid for. Jesus died in my place as my substitute, so now I can be seen as his son. This is great news. God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus. In a moment, we're gonna celebrate this by taking communion together as a body, as a family. We will participate in this, and this is more than simply remembering what happened on the cross, but it is an active way that we get to experience God's grace again. So as we get ready for this, as we get ready for this and our closing song, I hope that you would respond in worship knowing that you were paid for in full, that Jesus paid it all for you. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for your love. We thank you that you sent your Son to take our place. God, thank you that we do not have to be seen as guilty anymore, but we can be seen as your son. God, I pray for anyone in here who's hearing this for the first time, that they would not leave today without responding to this. And I pray for us as Christians that we wouldn't leave today without being transformed in our heart by this good news, this good news that we need to hear every day. God we love you. It's in your name we pray, Amen.

A Faith That Obeys God Above All Else Sermon Series: A Faith that Endures Ryan Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 2 Kings 1:9-17 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen and Amen. Have you ever seen those videos where you have a mom and a dad and they stand a few feet apart and they have their toddler a couple feet in front of them and they're both parents are calling to the child to see which one the child goes to. You ever seen those videos? That's horrendous. That's like torture. That's terrible. I think those videos are so mean, but what are those videos trying to do? You know what they're trying to do. These parents are trying to figure out who does the child love more. I Would never do that to my child Because I know I would lose But in that, you know, I know psychologically there's a lot going on there with familiarity and a sense of security and all that sort Of stuff but here's what I think is happening, and I think here's what we're trying to see. Right? The parents are trying to figure out who does the child love more, and the way they're going about that is they're trying to figure out who is the child going to obey. When they're calling out to the child, the voice, the person that the child obeys, it's kind of like revealing who the child loves more. At least that's the notion of this whole game that they're playing. When the parent calls out to the child, which one will the child obey? Now here's the point I'm trying to make. When we are free to choose, what we obey shows what we love. Again, when we are free to choose, I know that's not always the case, but when we are free to choose, what we obey shows what we love. I understand that is a very loaded and complex statement. So let me just make it a little bit more hometown for us here and put it like this. I want my children to obey me, not just because I'm the authority in their life, but I want my children to obey me because they know that I love them and because they love me. And that sentiment should be challenging for us today, but it's exactly the notion that we're going to need as we walk through this passage here today. It's a very challenging passage and we are walking alongside the life of Elijah and that's going to cause us to skip a couple of chapters in the Bible, but we're not, we're just following the path of Elijah. So here's what I'm going to invite you to do. If you have your Bibles, would you go ahead and please now turn to 2 Kings. We've been in 1 Kings, but we're going to jump a couple of chapters and go to 2 Kings 1, verses 9-7. Now, let me catch you up to speed with what's been happening since we last were in our Bibles together. So, at the end of 1 Kings, here's what happens. The wicked king Ahab dies. He dies in war. And his son, now Ahab was wicked, but his wicked son Ahaziah has risen to the throne. He's the king in Israel. Ahab ruled for about 22 years, but his son Ahaziah rules only for a few years, and we're about to find out why. But with the emergence of Ahaziah to the throne, we see the return of the prophet Elijah, God's prophet. Now, early in his kingship, Ahaziah has a terrible accident. He falls out of a window, and he's wondering if he's going to die or not. And so what does he do? He doesn't pray. He doesn't consult the priests of the temple. He doesn't read the scriptures. What he does is he gets a group of people, like a convoy, and he sends them to a foreign country to consult their foreign god to find out whether or not he's going to live or die. Now, God tells Elijah that this is going to happen and he sends Elijah to intercept this convoy of people with a message for the king. And so Elijah goes and he intercepts this convoy of people with a message from God for the king. And here's the message. You're going to die. God basically is saying to Ahaziah, you didn't come to me, you went to a false God. God is basically saying to this king, you've rejected me, and you're leading your kingdom away from me, and you looked for life and for answers where there's only death, and so death is what you shall have. Now, Elijah gives this message to this convoy, and they take it back to the king, and they give the king this message, and the king is like, who told you this? And they said, we don't know. It was just some rough looking dude with a leather belt. And Ahaziah goes, I know that was Elijah. So what he does is he gets a platoon of men, soldiers, and he sends this platoon to go find Elijah and bring Elijah back to him. And that's where we're going to pick up our story. But I'm just going to warn you right now, we're going to read a little bit longer of a section and it's a gritty and a gruesome passage. But here at Peace Church, we don't shy away from passages like this. We're going to enter into them. We're going to see what's going on, because there's so much there. So with that, would you hear the word of the Lord? 2 Kings 1:9-17 Then the king sent to him a captain of 50 men with his 50 men. He went up to Elijah who was sitting on the top of a hill and he said to him, Oh man of God, the King says, calm down. But Elijah answered the captain of 50 and said, if I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Again, the King sent to him another captain of 50 men with his 50 and he answered him and said oh man of God this is the King's order come down quickly notice the difference there verse 12 but Elijah answered them if I am a man of God let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50 then the fire notice before it said heaven but now it says then the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty. Again, the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty, and the third captain of fifty went up and came, look at the difference here, and fell on his knees before Elijah and entreated him, O man of God, please let my life and the life of these fifty servants of yours be precious in your sight. Behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of 50 men with their 50s. But now let my life be precious in your sight. Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, go down with him and do not be afraid of him. So he arose and went down with him to the king. And he said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have sent messengers to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there is no god in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up. You shall surely die.' Then he died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken." Prayer This is God's word. Let's take a moment and pray and we'll continue. Let's pray together. Father in heaven, Lord, you are great and you are good. Would you help us in our weak understanding and our limited knowledge to know how your greatness and your goodness did not just coincide with this passage, but Father, are revealed in it. Help us to see and to know you better today by the words that you've given to us through the scriptures. Help us to obey you above all else. It's by the power of the spirit and in the name of Jesus we pray these things. And everyone said? Amen. All right, so as we walk through this passage, there's so much we could do with the prophet Elijah, but we've been using this one specific lens for this series, and it's about how to have a faith that endures. Main Point And so our main point for this morning will be this. A faith that endures obeys God above all else. A faith that endures obeys God above all else. Yes, in this life there are authorities that we need to obey, whether parents or teachers or government or maybe even the elders of the church. But this all falls under the canopy of our first love and our first allegiance, which is to God. This is what it means to be the people of God. That we obey God above all else. And so as we walk through our passes, we're going to look at three specific things I'll give them to you ahead of time here. Elijah, the man of enduring faith shows us that God's people know God's seriousness. God's people extend God's grace. God's people share God's message. God's people know God's seriousness All right, first thing, God's people know that God's serious, that God is serious. Now, I am fully, fully aware that with a text like this, our Western, American, enlightened, compassionate, and romanticized ears, we come to a passage like this and let's just be honest. We really only have one question Why did those men have to die? Why were they consumed by fire why did Elijah do this why did God allow this why all the death and all the killing And I need to share something here like not every culture on the face of the planet would come to this text and that be their first question. The reason that's our first question is that that's exposing something about our worldview, about the way that we are told to think, about the ways that our society works. That exposes something about us with that being the first question that we come to, that we come with for a passage like this. But here's the thing, I'm not saying that's a bad question. It's a fair question. I'm just trying to help us all recognize that's not everybody's first question. That's us Americans. And so, fair enough though. Let's talk about that. Why? Let me pose a philosophical inquiry for you for a moment. So I have four children, a sophomore down to a kindergartner. Now, I'm going to ask you a question here. Am I, as the father, am I entitled to do things that my children are not allowed to do? It's not a trick question. What I mean by that is I'm not assuming an answer for you. I don't know what people think nowadays. In fact, I'm willing to tell you that, yeah, cards on the table, the answer is yes. But I believe there is an emerging generation that's parenting differently, and I think that will become more pronounced in the next 15 to 30 years. I think a lot of us here, we assuming the answer is yes. Yes, there's things that you're allowed to do that your children are not allowed to do. But I'm here to tell you, I think that tide is turning, and I think there even may be some parents in here who are not sure what the answer is to that. So let me ask you this again Are there things that I as the father that I am morally allowed to do that would be sinful for my children to do Yes, is it hypocritical if I do things that I don't allow my children to do is that hypocritical? No Okay, so that shows me that you're already on your way To understanding the passage like this if you struggle with that scenario that I just proposed, you're probably gonna struggle with a passage like this. We cut right to it. God has the right to take the life of sinful people whenever it pleases His good and righteous divine will. Why can He do it and not us? Because he's the father and we're the kids. And if we don't understand that about God, we are really gonna wrestle with faith. If we think that God is equal to us, we're really gonna struggle. Number one, I would tell you, you don't want a God like that. You want a God who has more authority than you do. But that whole notion tells us something about the relationship we have with God and the authority that God has. I'll say it again. God has the right to take life. God has the right. It's not morally wrong for God to take the life of sinful people whenever it pleases his good and moral and divine will. As we look at the pages of Scripture, we do see a God who loves us. We see a God who challenges us. But listen to me, we do not see a God who is equal to us. And this passage is a case in point. He is the creator of all the universe. He's the father. We're the kids. He's the creator of humanity and all that is good. And the life that he's given to us all here, me church, the life that he's given to us, and the faith that he's instilled in us is serious. This is the fabric of our life. This is the reality of who we are. These are the guiding principles in life. We as God's people, know something. We know that God's serious, that God is serious. He's serious about our life. He's serious about our love. He's serious about our faith and he's serious about our obedience to him. This is all not just one big joke or test. What we're doing here, we're not doing here because we like and have fun doing it, we're doing something because we believe we're here because God is real, doing something real in this world, doing something real in our lives, and it's serious. And we need a passage like this to remind us of this. God doesn't play around. So let's go to our verses and find out more about this. Go to verse 9. Please keep your Bibles open. Then the king sent to him a captain of 50 men with his 50. He went up to Elijah, who was sitting on the top of the hill. This captain did, and said to him, oh man of God, the king says, notice that the king says, come down. But Elijah answered the captain of 50, if I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50. Then fire came down from, what's it say there in your Bibles from heaven and consumed him in his 50 so let me just stop right here for a second and I want to speak to a few of you and if you're struggling with this if you read a passage like this and you are shocked by the brutal murder of innocent men at the hand of an evil God I'm here to tell you you're already off to a bad start this is this is not the brutal murder of innocent men. This is the righteous divine judgment upon wicked men. Wicked men who did the wicked works at the order of a wicked king. Elijah is saying, if I am a man of God, then it will show because the judgment will be from God. It will be godly. And then God brings the judgment upon these men with fire. And what happens next for me is just absolutely nuts. This king sends another group of 50 plus one. Verse 11 In verse 11, he doubles down on this. Again, the king sent to him another captain of 50 men with his 50, but listen to the tone this next guy takes. And he answered him, and the captain said to Elijah, oh man of God, this is the king's order. The first captain just said, the king says, now this guy comes with an order. This is the king's order. Come down. The last guy just said, come down. This guy doesn't just say come down. He says, come down quickly. Kind of like when I was growing up, my dad wanted me to come over here when he was mad at me. He would say, get your blank over here now. That's kind of the tone these guys are taking. Verse 12 Look at verse 12. But then Elijah answered him, if I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your 50. Then the fire of what? What does it say this time of God? Then the fire of God came down from heaven and consumed him and his 50. Listen to me, people. God's not trying to get off the hook here. He wants to make sure that you understand this isn't from Elijah, this is from Him. God doesn't answer to us, we answer to God. He does whatever His good, moral, and divine will allows and pleases Him to do. Then the fire came down from heaven, and then the fire came down from God from heaven and consumed Him and His fifty. Listen, I know I gave a quick answer, that God can do this because He is God, but 102 men died. This is not to be taken lightly, even if they deserved it, this is not to be taken lightly. Church, this needs to bring sobriety to our faith and to our life. Hear me on this. Faith is a matter of life and death. It is the most important thing in your life. Faith isn't a cute little thing for your wife to do. It's not a silly little thing that your youth group attending kid does. Faith is not a box that you check at night by praying once a day. Faith is everything. Faith is life. There's nothing. There is nothing more serious in your life than your faith. God knows this. God takes second place to no one and to nothing. And the church, hear me on this. You can't fool God with a faith that doesn't obey him. Let me say that again, you cannot fool God with a faith that does not obey him above all else. Elijah shows us this, and God's people know this because God's people know that God's serious. God is serious. When someone tells me that they're a Christian, and it's clear that faith isn't the primary thing in their life, for me it's like a person who's sitting in a house and that house is on fire and they're not doing anything about it. It's like I don't think you understand the seriousness and the gravity of the situation here. And I think in large part the reason they have that perspective is because they truly don't understand God's love and God's grace in their life. If you call yourself a Christian, then it's because you have accepted the grace of God and you cannot accept the grace of God without it changing the very fiber and fabric of your being. I'm not saying it makes you perfect, but I'm saying it changes you from the inside out. Grace does this. Grace is the truth that our salvation is a free gift from God. Elijah knew that as he looked forward to Christ. We know this as we look back on the cross. Grace is the truth that our salvation is a free gift from God. We cannot earn it. We just receive it. You can't earn it by giving money. You can't earn it by attending church. You can't even earn it by being nice to people. You can only receive it. And it's made possible because of the finished work of Jesus Christ who died on the cross in our place. Taking the punishment for our sins and then rising on the third day He proved that he was who he said he was and rising on the third day. He proved that the promises of God are real Elijah Called down fire on these men. He called down the judgment of God on these men. But here's why Jesus is better than Elijah. Jesus stood in our place and took the judgment that should have been ours. Because he was obedient to God. The Bible says that Jesus was obedient to God to the point of death. He was obedient in the ways that we should be but aren't. And because we're not, we deserve judgment. But Jesus took that judgment, that wrath, for us. I don't know how a Christian can believe this and have it not envelop their entire life. How it changes us from the inside out. When we repent and place our faith in Christ, then we are saved. Not by what we have done, but by what Christ has done. And this is called grace. We can't receive it. We can't earn it. We can only receive it. I don't know how we can receive it and not be changed by it. Because when you get God's grace, you extend God's grace. God's people extend God's grace And that's what we see in this next section. God's people extend God's grace. Verse 13 Go to verse 13. Again the captain, again the king sent the captain of a third fifty with his fifty, and the third captain of fifty went up and look at the difference here. Look at the difference between this guy and the third captain of fifty who went up and came and fell on his knees before Elijah and entreated him, meaning he pleaded with him in a kind and compassionate way. Oh, a man of God, please let my life and of these 50 servants of yours, not servants of Ahab, but servants of the prophet of the true God. Let my life and the life of these servants of yours be precious in your sight. And right there, we see a key difference. This platoon of men, while they were following the king's orders, had their ultimate allegiance to God. And look what happens. The king says, behold, fire came down from heaven and consumed the two former captains of 50 men in their 50s. But now let my life be precious in your sight. Do you see what's happening here? He's asking for grace. And so Elijah gives him grace. God tells him to. Verse 15 Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, go down with him, do not be afraid. So Elijah rose and went down with the captain to the king. So, look at this. This is so key for us here nowadays. Elijah and this platoon of men, do you notice, they are still obeying the orders of this wicked king, but they're doing it because their ultimate allegiance is to God. They're ultimately obeying God. We live in a time of a godless society ruled by godless authorities. How are we to live in the midst of such wickedness? Well, here's what I tell you, church. Start by looking at the life of Elijah. It's because we ultimately obey God. And so when we obey a wicked government, we all come to the Bible with things that we don't want to hear. Because whether or not we like it, passages like Romans 13 and Titus 3 remind us that the people who are in authority are the people who God allows to be. In this passage, do we really think that God had no control over Ahaziah being crowned king? Having obedience to a wicked government is an act of faith in God's providence. Having obedience to a wicked government is an act of faith in God's providence. But hear me, when we submit to them, we do so within our submission to God. But our obedience to wickedness, our wicked government, our obedience to a wicked government should never lead us to sin because we obey God above all else. We see this even in Jesus Christ's own disciples. In Acts 5, the authorities tell them, you all better stop preaching or you're going to pay for it. And what did the disciples say? God has called us to do this and we obey God, not man. That leads nicely to this next notion. For those of us who are up and ready to go and defy the government in obedience to God, let me tell you what that means. That means sharing God's message. God's people share God's message For those of us who wish to be faithful, for those of us who want a faith that endures, share his message. Share his message. Let's go to the end of verse 15. Verse 16 So Elijah arose and went down with him to the king, verse 16, and Elijah said to him, thus says the Lord, because you have sent messengers to inquire of Beelzebub, the god of Ekron, is it because there's no God in Israel to inquire of his word? Therefore you shall not come down from the bed to which you have gone up, but you shall surely die.' So he, King Ahaziah, died according to the word of the Lord that Elijah had spoken." Now if we think sharing God's message is a hard thing to do in this difficult, is a difficult thing to do in this world, then imagine being a prophet, trying to tell a king he's gonna die. But here's the thing, Elijah brought a message of death. But for those who believe in Christ, our message is one of life. It's one of love, it's one of the gospel. We are to bring the gospel, which is life. It's the good news of Jesus Christ that brings life to those who believe this is what we are called to do if we are going to be faithful and obedient to God because God's people share God's message. Fruit baskets & Evangleism Before I went into ministry, before I was in college, I was also working at a grocery store. I was doing many things during that time, but I was working at a grocery store, specifically in the produce department. And during Christmas time, we would always get these big orders for fruit baskets, okay? And this one year, we got this massive order for like a ton of fruit baskets. And so they paid me and this other dude to work through the night, get paid overtime, to put together these like 150-some-odd fruit baskets. Okay, so this is like, I've only been a Christian for a few years at this point, but I am a Christian, I said I was a Christian, and I go into the back room this night with this other dude, and we got this boxes of fruit that we had to put in the fruit baskets, and it was like this moment where God was like, well, you got eight hours alone with this guy. And so I was like, well, time to share my faith. And again, I was young in my faith, but I knew the gospel. And I'll tell you, even nowadays, I'm not any like a big evangelist, but I started the conversation just by asking what he believed about God. I just wanted to open the door. He gave the typical answer that most people nowadays do, which is normally something like, I believe there's probably a God, but who really knows? And so I asked him about this God that he thinks may or may not exist. And you know what he said about this God? Oddly enough, this God that may or may not exist, the moral ethic of this God looked oddly similar to progressive American society. Surprise, surprise. And I just said to him, can I share with you what I believe? Hey, listen, I didn't want to shove it down his face. I just, man to man, I gave him my testimony, I shared about the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I, you know, again, I was young in my faith, I didn't know everything, I still don't, but I just shared what I knew, which is what the Bible said, that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, and that he was raised again on the third day. I shared with him the gospel. And you know what? Not only did he start asking questions, but he started attacking the Christian faith. I mean like, he brought out his fangs and he went after the Christian faith. And you know what? I sat there and I did what I could to provide a defense and try to answer his questions. But you want to know what really happened? For eight hours of time and a half pay, I got utterly destroyed. He took me to task and he destroyed me. He was smart and articulate. It was terrible. I made no headway. I sounded like a fool. My answers were weak. They were lacking. But you know, it didn't discourage my faith. I'll be honest with you. I felt bad. The next morning, I couldn't eat or sleep. I did feel sick to my stomach about it, but it didn't discourage my faith. Do you know what it actually did? It forced me to go deeper in my faith. Because here's the thing, I was getting comfortable. If you're not sharing your faith, you're getting comfortable. I was getting comfortable, so I needed to share my faith. And you know what he did? He started asking questions that I should have been asking, but I was too comfortable in my faith to ask those questions. And so he started challenging me with questions that I should have already been asking. And what he did, so it forced me to go drive deeper into my faith and try to seek answers. Some of them I found easy answers to. For some of them, I was a little digging. Some of them I'm still wrestling with. But he forced me to ask questions and to drive my faith deeper. And here's what I'd say to you. It didn't discourage my faith. It made me seek answers. And church, when the Bible calls us to share our faith, which it does, by the way, it calls us to share our faith, but you know what? It never promises it's going to go well. It never promises it's going to go well. And here's the truth, and here's why you can rest at night because you can't convert anyone anyway. Only God can. We plant the seeds and we water the seeds, but it's God who makes it grow. In that conversation with that guy, you know what? He didn't get his answers, but he saw my faith. He didn't get his answers, but he saw me willing to step to the plate and try. He saw that my faith was alive. And sometimes sharing God's message simply results in people seeing your faith and that's awesome. I consider that night a key moment in my faith journey. Honestly, it was a terrible night, but I consider it a key moment in my faith journey because God used it to help me develop a faith that endures. that even among my sloppy answers, I know a seed was planted in his heart. And I pray that God's people along the way do what they're meant to do and continue to water that seed. Challenge Church, my prayer for us all, all of us who call Peace Church home, my prayer is that as we approach Easter, you are considering who you would invite. I don't know if you noticed it, but there's a card on your seat, maybe you sat on it, that is yours to give away to someone and invite them to Easter. But here's what I'm going to say to you. Would you share with them the gospel before I do? You're going to invite someone to Easter? Would you share with them the gospel before I do? That's what I'm asking for the Peace Church people. Because there's no faith in God without obedience to God, and your faith will not endure if you don't obey God above all else. Like that video of those two parents calling to their child to see which one the child loved more, there are two calling to you now. God and everything else. Who are you going to obey? Who are you going to show that you love more? Like the righteous Father that He is, God is calling to you in love, that you might have a faith that endures by obeying Him above all else. Yes, because He's God, but also because He loves you. And the love that He's shown to you is made evident in the gospel of Jesus Christ. So go and share that. Obey God above all else and you'll see your faith endure. Amen. Would you please stand and let's prepare our hearts to worship? Would you bow your heads for a moment? Let me just share something with you before we pray. I just want you to answer in your own heart. Is faith, is your faith alive? Is your faith driving you to obey God above all else? Let that be the faith that drives you now to worship. Don't just sing because everyone else is. Sing because you have a God in heaven who is turning your heart towards him. Sing because you have a God in heaven who has shown his love to you and his son. Sing because you're obedient to God because you are walking in step with the Spirit. Ending Prayer So let's pray together. Father, we come before you, thankful that we worship the one who is perfectly obedient, Jesus Christ, even to the point of death, dying in our place so that we might have life, not wrath, not death, not judgment, that we might have life. So, Father, I pray, Lord, that you, by the power and presence of your Spirit, would develop in this church a faith that endures because we obey you above all else. Father, let our submission to the authorities here on earth be under the canopy of our ultimate submission to you. And so Father, I would pray here and now that we sing, that the words we're about to sing, we just don't sing them because they're on the screen. We sing these words because they are the cry of our hearts. So Father, I just pray in Jesus' name that you would fill the people in this room as you fill this place, that we would sing unto you because we honor, love, and obey you above all else. Father, I pray, Father, that our song would be known. So help us to sing it now in Jesus' name. So help us to sing it now in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen.

Why Do We Baptize Babies? Exploring the Rich Theology and Covenantal Roots Behind Baptizing Babies Theology Jon Delger Executive Pastor Peace Church Published On: March 19, 2024 I serve as a pastor in a healthy, large, non-denominational church. On the surface, I imagine that we look like many other non-denominational churches. We talk a lot about Jesus, we preach the Bible boldly, we worship passionately, and we don’t show a lot of signs of being “traditional.” However, as people get to know us through regular Sunday attendance, participating in our membership class, serving, or joining a small group, they realize that under the hood we have some rich Reformed theology. And… when they attend one of our baptism services, there are many who are shocked to find that we baptize babies. Why would a church that doesn’t have “Presbyterian,” or “Reformed,” or “Lutheran” in its name baptize babies? Why would any church baptize babies? Is it because of tradition? Is it because they are being careless with the sacred sacrament of baptism? The real answer is that we believe this practice is deeply biblical. We are not beholden to tradition (though we do value practices, confessions, and catechisms of Christians who have gone before us). We are not careless with sacred baptism. We have studied the Scriptures and believe (though we still love our baptist friends) that this is the best practice according to God’s Word. While whole books have been written on this topic, in this short article, I will seek to provide a concise answer to the question: Why do we baptize babies? What is Baptism? In order to understand why we would baptize babies, we first need to understand baptism itself. In order to understand baptism, we first need to understand a major theme of the Bible — covenant. Covenants & Covenant Signs Covenant isn’t a word frequently used today. Nonetheless, there is still one place many people will recall having heard the term. When a man and a woman are joined in marriage, it is referred to as a covenant. While much could be said about the meaning and history of covenants, a covenant could be simply defined as a relationship sealed by promises. This is precisely what we witness in a marriage. Two people have been in a relationship for some length of time. They have spent time together, grown to appreciate each other, and at some point they decided that they now want this relationship to be life-long and exclusive. In the wedding ceremony, the relationship, becomes defined and protected by promises — in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, till death do us part. What was once only a relationship, now becomes more than a relationship, it becomes a covenant. This covenant involves greater commitment, but it is also matched by greater intimacy. Because of the promises inherent in the covenant, the two parties have a deepened trust for one another which allows for even deeper relationship. One of the things that accompanies a covenant is a sign. In marriage, the covenant sign is a ring. Wedding rings are typically made of precious metal symbolizing the preciousness of the relationship and the promises. Rings are also in the form of a circle, a shape without end-points. The never-ending nature of the circle symbolizes the promise of a relationship that can only be ended by death. The wedding ring is a visible sign of an invisible reality. Whenever a married man or woman looks at their ring, they are reminded of the precious and life-long covenant they have with their spouse. This sign is also a seal (or guarantee, or assurance) that the covenant is true. When a married person has reason to doubt the surety of their marriage, they need only look down at their finger to be assured that the covenant is true. When a married person faces temptation, they need only look down at their finger to be reminded of their covenant commitment. The Bible is a story of covenants. One example is the story of Noah and the flood. After destroying the earth with a flood while carrying Noah and his family safely through on the ark, God makes a covenant with Noah. God and Noah already have a relationship, and now God adds promises to that relationship. God promises that he will never again destroy the earth by a flood (Gen. 8:20-9:17). To assure Noah and his descendants of the truth of this covenant, God provides a sign — the rainbow. The rainbow is a sign and seal for God and Noah of the covenant between them. Another very important example of covenant in the Bible is the story of Abraham. God called Abraham to leave his home and former way of life and to follow him. At the beginning of this story, God promises Abraham three things: land, descendants, and blessing (Gen. 12:1-3). However, this covenant is not really about earthly blessings. The heart of the covenant is summarized when God says “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Gen. 17:7 ESV). What is at the heart of the covenant between Abraham and God? Relationship. This promise is repeated throughout the Old Testament in the words, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” It is fitting that we began this discussion of covenant with the example of marriage. This is just what God enters into with his people. He is the bridegroom and they/she is the bride. God also provides Abraham and his descendants with a sign of this covenant, although the sign may seem a bit strange. Circumcision. Really? This is the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham? The heart of God’s promise to Abraham is relationship. How is circumcision a sign of relationship? In order to answer that question we must ask another. What does it take for a holy God to have a relationship with sinful people? The great problem in the story of God and man is sin. In order for a holy God to have relationship with sinful people, the problem of sin must be resolved. Sin must be cut away. Sinful people must be cleansed. This is just what circumcision symbolizes. A part of the body is cut away so that the body may be clean. The Old Testament attests that this was in fact the symbolism of circumcision. Just as the body was circumcised, so surely did God promise to circumcise the hearts of those who put their faith in him, thus removing their sin so that they could have everlasting relationship with God (Deut. 30:6; Rom. 4:11-12). So a covenant is a relationship sealed by promises. Covenants are accompanied by signs and seals that symbolize and assure people of the truth of the covenant. The central covenant of the Old Testament is a promise of relationship, and the sign and seal of this covenant is circumcision which symbolizes cleansing from sin. So what is Baptism? Now when we look at the New Testament, we might notice some similarities. Circumcision symbolized cleansing from sin so that a person could have relationship with God. Baptism likewise symbolizes cleansing from sin for relationship with God. “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-4). The Apostle Paul even connects the Old Testament sign of circumcision with the New Testament sign of baptism in a single verse. “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:11-14). Baptism is a visible sign of an invisible reality. Just as surely as water cleanses the body from dirt, so surely does the blood of Jesus cleanse the heart from sin. It is a seal or assurance of the gospel promise that all who put their faith in Jesus will receive forgiveness of sin and everlasting relationship with God. One of the things we believe about the Bible is that the New Testament and Old Testament are connected. Perhaps the best description of this connection is that of promise and fulfillment . The Old Testament provides promises and foreshadows, while the New Testament provides fulfillment of these promises and shadows. For example: The OT promises a Messiah who will overcome sin and rescue God’s people. It also foreshadows this Messiah in characters such as King David. In the NT we find the fulfillment of these promises and shadows. Jesus is the Messiah who overcomes sin and rescues God’s people. David was a great king and hero; Jesus is the greatest king and hero. When we consider covenants and covenant signs, we find the same thing. God promised Abraham a relationship (Gen. 17:7). In order for this relationship to happen, sin had to be overcome. God declared Abraham righteous not on the basis of works, but faith (Rom. 4:11-12). Circumcision was the sign given to symbolize and provide assurance of this promise. Isn’t this the gospel preached in the New Testament? God promises to have everlasting relationship with his people. Jesus pays for sin on the cross to remove the obstacle to relationship. God declares his people righteous not on the basis of works, but faith in Jesus. Baptism is the sign and seal of this reality. Just as surely as water cleanses the body from dirt, so surely does the blood of Jesus cleanse the heart from sin. The gospel preached in the New Testament is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. The sign of baptism given in the New Testament is a fulfilled version of the sign of circumcision in the Old Testament. Just as the New Testament provides fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant promise, so it also provides a fulfilled version of the Old Testament covenant sign. So what is baptism? Baptism is a covenant sign and seal of the gospel. An Important Point At this point, let me pause to make something clear that is extremely important. Baptism does not save people. One of the things we have to understand about covenants is that they are conditional. This may sound strange at first because we are used to talking about God’s love toward us being unconditional. However, the gospel is a conditional promise. What is the condition? Faith. The good news of the gospel is for those who believe (John 3:16). This same thing is true for the signs of the covenant. Just as the covenant is conditional, so is the sign. The gospel promises salvation for all who believe. Baptism provides a sign and seal of salvation that is only realized in those who believe. Long ago, kings would write letters and put their seal upon them with melted wax and a signet ring. In these letters, the king might promise to do something for one of his subjects once a certain condition was met. His wax seal then became a sign and seal of his promise. As surely as that seal bore the king’s mark, so surely could the recipient of the letter trust that the king would do as he promised. However, this promise was still conditional upon the recipient doing what the king asked. If the recipient did not do as the king asked, then the recipient could not expect the king to do as he promised. The king provides a sign and seal that his promise is true, yet the seal only provides a guarantee if the conditions of the covenant are met. Baptism works the same way. It is a sign and seal of a conditional promise. Just as surely as water cleanses the body from dirt, so surely does Christ’s blood cleanse us from sin if you put your faith in him. In fact, if the recipient of a covenant sign does not complete the conditions of the covenant, the sign actually stands as a mark of judgment against them. It signifies that just as surely as you did not meet the condition of the covenant, so surely will you not receive the covenant promise. Why do we baptize babies? Thus far, we have seen that a covenant is a relationship involving promises. Covenants are accompanied by signs and seals that symbolize and assure people of the truth of the covenant. Covenants and their signs are conditional, meaning that only those who meet the conditions really receive what is promised in the covenant and receive assurance from the sign. The gospel is a covenant promise that was foreshadowed in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the covenant was accompanied by the sign and seal of circumcision, in the New Testament the covenant is accompanied by the sign and seal of baptism. So why do the children of believers receive the sign of the covenant? The short answer is this: because the children of believers have always been treated as a part of the covenant people and received the covenant sign. God dealt with families in the Old Testament. The promise of relationship with God for all who put their faith in his promise was for Abraham and his children. Israelite boys received the mark of the covenant at 8 days old. This sign was a mark of a conditional promise. These children did not automatically receive eternal life by their circumcision or their being children of Israelite parents. In fact, we know that many Israelites did not ultimately put their faith in God and were not saved even though they received the sign of circumcision (Rom. 9:6-8). The meaning of the sign, cleansing from sin for relationship with God, was only true for those who fulfilled the condition of the covenant — faith. Nonetheless, the (conditional) covenant promise was given to the Israelite people, God’s covenant people, and thus the sign was for them and for their children. God continues to deal with families in the New Testament. The good news of relationship with God for all who put their faith in Jesus is the gospel promise. This promise is for believers and their children, just as it was in the Old Testament. There is no indication in the New Testament that the children of believers should now be excluded where they were previously included. Jesus and the apostles speak of the continuing special place of the children of believers. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter affirms the special place of covenant children in relationship to the promise. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” (Acts 2:38–39 ESV) When his disciples try to ward off children from coming to him, Jesus affirms the special place of covenant children. And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. (Mark 10:13–16 ESV) The early Christians were converted Jews. The Jews had included children in the covenant people and given them the covenant sign throughout the entire history of their people. As much discussion as there is about whether or not to continue Jewish practices in the New Testament (Acts 15), you would think that if the apostles thought people should stop marking their children with the covenant sign they would have said so. How would these Jewish people, who have always applied the covenant sign to their children, have known not to apply it to their children? Throughout the majority of church history, Christians have believed that God deals with families. Outside of the New Testament, we have evidence that within the first two centuries after Christ Christians were practicing infant baptism. It wasn’t until the sixteenth century that Christians began to question this practice. While church history is certainly not the Bible, it is worth noting that infant baptism was the primary practice of the church for 1500 years, while not baptizing infants has only been a practice of the church for the last 500 years. Conclusion Baptism is a sign and seal of the gospel. In the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, “As surely as water washes away the dirt from the body, so certainly His blood and His Spirit wash away my soul’s impurity, in other words, all my sins.” Believers and their children receive this sign to assure them of the truth of the gospel. All who put their faith in Jesus will be washed clean of sin and enjoy everlasting relationship to God. Praise God for the gift of baptism. For Further Study This essay provides a concise explanation of the practice of infant baptism. Much more could be said about this topic and much more has been written. For further study, check out “The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism” edited by Gregg Strawbridge. More Blogs You'll Like What is the Gospel? Why Recognizing Our Sin is Essential to Embracing God’s Gift of Salvation Read More Teaching or Concealing? An exploration of the complexity in Jesus’ parables and His reasons behind them. 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Personal Distraction vs. Truth and Righteousness Sermon Series: Withstand Ryan Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Ephesians 6:14 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone everywhere said with all their hearts, Amen. Did you know that the ancient Roman Empire, before it was an empire, it was a republic? Full of problems, yes it was, but before it became an empire, it was a republic. Until 27 BC when Caesar Augustus deemed himself the first emperor. Now you can debate whether or not Augustus made improvements to Rome and beyond, but the truth is that Rome went from being a republic to an empire. From the people having power to one person having power. And when commenting on this, the satirical writer juvenile made this statement. He said the people who used to grant power high office the legions everything now curtails its desires and Reveals its anxiety for only two things bread and circuses. He was saying the people lost their power, but they didn't care as long as they were fed and entertained. Here's a history lesson. People are willing to give up their influence as long as they are satisfied and pacified. Our world can come to ruin, our culture given to wickedness as long as we have snacks and sports to watch. Keep us distracted and we'll give up our influence. And what's true about society is even more true when it comes to the spiritual. When faithful people are distracted, the devil is most effective. And with this sermon and sermon series, Withstand, this is about seeing how the Bible gives us the perspective and the eyes to see and reminding us that the culture war and the things that are going on around us ultimately find their root in the spiritual. That the people, the people around us are not our enemy. The devil and his schemes are our enemy The world around us is our neighbor and Christ calls us to love our neighbor as we recognize the devil is having massive influence in this world and in response to this God has given us not just the beauty and the power of the Gospel, but God has given us spiritual armor and with that a call to stand a call to stand strong. We started this series last week, but as we continue it from here on out, we're gonna look at each piece of the armor and what it means and how we might wear it as we stand and face the battles of our time. But before we talk about what's going on out there, we gotta make sure that we're addressing the battles in here. So that's where we're gonna start as we look at the notion of our personal distractions versus the truth and righteousness that's given to us. If you have your Bibles, please turn to Ephesians chapter 6. If you were with us last week, you should already have a bookmark in that page, because this is where we're going to be for this entire sermon series. Ephesians chapter 6. Now, as you turn in there, if you weren't with us last week, let me remind you, Ephesians is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote from prison to the church in Ephesus, and in it he writes about certain doctrines of the Christian faith and how do we live out certain ethics of the Christian life. But then he closes this letter by talking about the spiritual reality around us, the spiritual battle and how God has dressed us with a special suit of armor to be able to face the battles that are around us. And so, hopefully you are to Ephesians chapter 6. We're going to read simply and only verse 14 today. And so with that, would you hear God's word? Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Amen. This is God's word. Let's pray. Let's continue. Let's pray. Father, Lord, we ask that you would help us find our rest, our assurance and our strength in you. Protect us from the evil one. During this series and in our lives, please continue to pour out your Holy Spirit. In Holy Spirit, we pray that you will fill us, guide us, fuel us for the lives you're calling us to live, that we might know the truth, that we'd be able to take our stand. We pray these things in the precious and perfect and powerful name of Jesus. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. So, church, I hear a lot of talk these days about how people are frustrated and angry with all that's going on in our world and in our country. And a lot of this frustration gets pointed towards Christians, that Christians are not stepping up. In fact, many of us are asleep, distracted when the call on our lives is so great. The devil, it appears, is having so much sway in this world while Christians just sit idly by, not engaging, and we won't engage as long as we are entertained and have food. We're going to confront this today. And that's what this series is all about. But before, again, I said it before, I'll say it again, before we can turn our attention to the brokenness that's out there, we must first address it in here, in our own hearts, in our own lives. Before we can talk about being awake for the battle out there, we need to make sure that we are aware that we are dressed for the battle that we face on a daily basis. And so, main point for today, as we get going, is this. Main Point: We are most vulnerable when we are most distracted. We are most vulnerable when we are most distracted. And as we look at this one verse, we're gonna look at three key ideas that come from this one verse. And here's what we're gonna be looking at here this morning. First thing we'll see is that attention is the antidote for distraction. We're then going to see how truth is the antidote for deception. And we'll close it up by looking at how righteousness is the antidote for dishonor. Attention is the antidote for distraction Truth is the antidote for deception Righteousness is the antidote for dishonor 1. Attention is the antidote for distraction And so let's look at this first one here. Let's get going. Attention is the antidote for distraction. Our passage starts out very simply. Have your Bibles open. The very first two words here, stand therefore. This is what God calls us to do. This is the opposite of what the devil wants us to do. The devil wants us to fall. Now we use phrases like, you maybe even heard me use a phrase something like this, the devil's trying to trip you up. What we're trying to do in this series is help us to understand the gravity of the situation. The devil is not trying to trip you up. The devil is trying to destroy you. He's trying to devour you. He's trying to keep you from God. He's trying to make you fall. What does that mean? It means to fall into the pattern of this world rather than stand for the kingdom of God. Stand, therefore. What's it mean to stand? It means to be established. It means to be steadfast. It means to hold your ground when evil advances. And let me just make one observation. I'm going to speak directly to the American church here. Unless if you're not American, number one, thank you for being here. Welcome. Welcome to the family. But I want to speak to the American church here for a second. I think many people are falling, not because they don't engage the battle. They're content just to live their lives. They're satisfied and pacified. We have food, we have our nice houses, and we're the most entertained people of all time. And so the devil has all the power he needs because we're putting up no resistance. You literally have a 24-hour distraction device in your pocket, and we let it distract us rather than using it as a tool to help sharpen us. The devil has everything he needs. He has a powerful church that's satisfied and pacified, happy to stay in the corner as long as they have food and entertainment. Now, let me remind you, attention is the antidote for distraction. Now if you know me at a personal level, you know that it was probably only a matter of time before I brought up chess as an illustration in the sermon. I love to play chess. Does anyone else in here like to play chess? Okay, like five of us? Okay. My wife and I play chess all the time. My wife and I, we played six games yesterday. That's how we know we're getting old. Now, if you want to know who the better chess player is between my wife and I, you're gonna have to ask her. But I can tell you this, when we play chess, we typically play at our kitchen table, and if you sit right at our kitchen table, you can see into the living room, and like many people, we have a TV in our living room. Now , if I sit playing chess with my wife where I can see the TV. And if the kids are watching a show, I am most always going to lose. Even if they're watching a show that I would never personally choose to watch, just the fact that there's something on the TV is a distraction enough for me to lose the game every single time. Why? Because I'm distracted. And when you're distracted, your attention is divided. And you can't win a battle if you are entertained elsewhere. So here's the question. Where are you entertained to the point where you are distracted? Where are you entertained to the point where you are distracted? Where are you so entertained you are to the point of no longer being effective for the kingdom of God? Maybe it's entertainment, maybe it's sports, maybe it's money. Where are you entertained to the point where you're no longer effective for the kingdom of God? Distraction is how the enemy divides your attention. He may not be able to get all of your attention, but if he can distract you and divide you, then he's already won. Now, we talk about this notion of divide and conquer is an ancient military strategy to control or to win against an opposing army or nation? I think it's evolved into this notion that when we talk about divide and conquer, like we're a group of people, so we're going to split up so we can attack more. That's not the genesis of divide and conquer. Divide and conquer was about an army holding together, breaking through a rank so that that army was divided, and then you'd fight and win. Divide and conquer is a strategy of the enemy. It should not be one for the church. The church needs to be unified. I'll remind you, Jesus says in Matthew 12, he said, no city or house divided against itself will stand. The enemy's tactic is to divide and conquer, to divide us and so conquer us, to divide our attention and so conquer us. Divide and conquer is the enemy's tactic, not ours. Church, I'm gonna say something here that's gonna ruffle some feathers and will probably fill my inbox tomorrow. So here's what I'm gonna say. Bring this sermon series full circle before you come at me. You're happy to do what you want, you're an adult, you want to email me, go ahead. But I'm just going to ask you, bring this sermon series full circle, but I'm going to say something here that I know might ruffle some feathers here. Church, let me say one more qualifier. Again, this is about giving us the right perspective, elevating the seriousness of the battle that's around us, because I'm afraid that many of us, we're fighting the wrong battles. So, here's what I'm gonna say. Church, our fight is not simply about imposing our moral ethic upon the nation. Our fight is much bigger than that. We are trying to win the hearts of the people to the gospel, so that then we can have true unity in our nation, in our world, under the name of King Jesus, and with him as our King, then the kingdom ethic can flourish. Now, do I believe the Christian moral ethic is the best and right ethic out there for humans? Yes, I think it's the best for everybody. We most flourish when we follow God's design. Not saying that, but I am saying many of us, we're just trying to win the cultural battle rather than winning the hearts of the people to the gospel. We have to stand for the kingdom. We'll never win people to the gospel if they think that we just see them as an enemy to be defeated, rather than our neighbor to be won over. We're not trying to defeat anyone. We're trying to save them. We're trying to bring them from a lost and broken world into God's good and glorious kingdom. And until they see that in our hearts, the culture war will rage on, fueled by an enemy who is happy to see us fight the wrong battles. So when we stand, what we've got to do, and this is the extra effort on our part, we have to make sure that the world knows that we don't stand against them, we stand against the enemy. But here's the reality of the situation. The world has so tied up their identity with the brokenness of the world that when we attack the lies of the enemy They will feel like it's an attack on them because they've so tied their identity to the falsehood of the enemy And so that's why we constantly have to have the extra burden constantly repeat ourselves. We're not against you We're against the forces of evil in this world. We're trying to show you a better, more kingdom gospel way. It's the extra burden on us. It's our burden to bear. The world and the enemy will fight at whatever base tactics they want, but we're the ones that have to constantly rise above, holding the mantle of truth and love with every interaction. It is tiresome. But you've got the Spirit. You've got the Holy Spirit within you to fill you when the world drains you. And so, before we can have a battle of morals, we need to realize we're in a battle for truth. And the reason that we're in a battle for truth is because we're distracted rather than paying attention. And let me just, you can write this down, two of the primary ways that we are distracted, two of the primary ways that our attention is divided is because one, we've given ourselves to the lies of the world, empowered by the enemy, but also we've given ourselves to the desires of our heart, which has been broken by sin. And what's interesting is that the first two pieces of armor mentioned address both of those realities. Two primary ways that we are distracted: 1. We've given ourselves to the lies of the world, empowered by the enemy 2. We've given ourselves to the desires of our heart, which has been broken by sin 2. Truth is the antidote for deception And so let's look at the first one, the belt of truth, as we look at how truth is the antidote for deception. So Paul writes to the Ephesians and by the extension and by extension the Holy Spirit still says to us, having fastened on the belt of truth. The belt of truth helps us to recognize the lies of the world. Now it should be noted that when Paul, again writing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, when Paul was talking about armor, the image that came to his mind and the people of Ephesus, their mind, was not that of an American soldier, it was a Roman soldier. Rome had occupied most of the world at that point, so they saw Roman soldiers all the time. They would have thought of a Roman soldier. And so, what's interesting to know is that when it came to a belt, a Roman soldier wore that underneath his armor. He wore that underneath his armor to hold all things together and to hold up his pants. So when we talk about the belt of truth, I've often heard people say, well, that means that a belt encircles you so that truth should encircle your life. Yeah, and that's a fine way to understand. I think that's one implication, but I think what you need to understand is that truth is the thing that holds it all together. We cannot lose truth. Our battle first is to make sure we're talking about the same thing, and that's a battle for truth. And so, this world at large is entrapped by the lies of the evil one. They're in a prison cell of lies, and do you know what the key is to break them out of that cell? It's truth. It's truth. One of the most famous sayings of Jesus, one of the most well-loved sayings of Jesus Christ is when he said, the truth will set you free. Now even a recent Marvel movie quoted that line. If you go to secular college campuses across the nation, you'll see that phrase engraved in stone on secular college campus buildings, the truth will set you free. But what these places fail to realize is that phrase comes at the end of a much larger thought and sentence from Jesus. Let's put it in context. Here's what Jesus actually said. He said, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. It's not just knowing the truth. It's being a disciple of Jesus. And who is Jesus? He told us in John 14 verse 6 when Jesus said, I am the way and the truth. Jesus is the truth. In a world of opinions and preferences, in a world of popularity and progressivism, to have the belt of truth means that we look to Jesus as our firm foundation to who he is, to what he taught, and what he's done. Truth may not be fashionable because it confronts what's popular in our culture and it pushes back what's trending online, but truth is eternal. It predates us and it will outlast us. And to put on the belt of truth, here's what it actually means. To wear the belt of truth means that we weigh the message of the world against the message of Christ. We weigh the so-called wisdom of the world against the words of Christ. That's what it means to wear the belt of truth. We're constantly filtering the message of this world. And this is why we must know the scriptures so well. This is why we must be in God's Word every single day, seeking it deep into our hearts, getting solid biblical teaching. So here's a question. How often should you do this? Well, I'm going to blow your hair back. Every single day. Why? Because you're being lied to every single day. And if you're not constantly equipping yourself with the truth, you're gonna fall prey to the lies of the world and the enemy, which are so pretty. And they're so attractive and they seem so right. But they're insidious. We need to be in God's word every day because we're being lied to every day. Every day the world buys more and more into the lies of the enemy and tries to regurgitate it to people. So every day we must be equipped with the truth. Psalm 1, verse 2 says this, says, blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord What? Day and night. So not just every day. Every day and all night long. We are immersed in the truth so that we will know what the lies are. Every day we must find at least a few moments to be saturated in God's truth. And if you think you don't have time, let me see your phone. I'll show you your screen time. I'll show you you've got time for this. I talked to a person after first service and they were talking about, maybe I just need to set my alarm to read God's word. And I'm like, do you need to set your alarm to check your social media? Hmm, someone needed to hear that. Every day, every day, just a few moments, a few moments in God's eternal truth will have an internal impact on you. So use your phones to promote truth rather than keep you distracted. Because truth is the antidote for deception. It's available to you through God's word, open to the teachings of Jesus. And knowing the truth, that's how we pursue righteousness. That's how we know what righteousness is, which is our second piece of armor, third point here today. 3. Righteousness is the antidote for dishonor Righteousness, righteousness is the antidote for dishonor. Our verse continues, having fastened on the belt of truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness. Now the imagery here should be painfully obvious to you. Physically speaking, a breastplate protects your heart. Spiritually speaking, that's what righteousness does. It's about protecting our hearts. It's about keeping us focused on godly things that fill us up rather than worldly things that empty us and drain us and defeat us. We are distracted by the lies of the enemy. We said that. That's why we need to know truth, so that we know the lies of the enemy. But righteousness helps us to battle against the brokenness of our hearts. As we looked at, let me remind you what Jeremiah 17 verse 9 It says that the heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately sick. Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? The Bible is saying you don't follow your heart because your heart will lead you astray. You are to follow Jesus and he will lead you into the ancient ways full of life. The enemy is after our heart and our heart's already broken. That's why we're so prone to fail and to fall because our hearts are already broken and the devil feeds lies and their broken heart wants to believe. And so we need to have eyes open to the message of the world. We need to keep our eyes open with the truth we're given and the righteousness that we wear. These lies are all around us, such as when you see billboards like this, when they say "Life is short, get a divorce". We who are wearing the spiritual armor of God, we need to be asking ourselves, what is spiritually being communicated here? What's the spiritual message behind this and how does truth and righteousness combat this? There are messages like this that the enemy uses to prick our hearts, to tease us. It's the enemy saying to us, is your marriage hard? Yes, your marriage is hard, isn't it? You shouldn't waste your life with someone who doesn't make you happy. Life's too short for that. This is a lie. It 's a lie the enemy is using against people who are struggling in their marriage, speaking to the broken parts of their hearts and the broken parts of their marriage, which is why we need the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. You know why this is a lie? Because it doesn't tell you everything. What it doesn't tell you is that on the other side of divorce, it doesn't make you happier. Now listen, let me just say this real quickly. The Bible does provide a path for divorce in certain instances, and God can grant new life after a failed marriage. I've seen it happen, but I'll tell you now, I've had proximity to far too many divorces in my time as a pastor. And more often than not, you're just trading in one level of brokenness for another. Rather than sticking it out for the long haul and seeing what God can do over time, people take the quick route, because life's too short and they want to be happy, so they take the path of divorce and they destroy their life and they destroy their kids, they destroy their families. Again, I'm not saying God can't grant new life, but I'm saying His plan is for unity. If God can save our souls, He can save our marriages. Life is short, get a divorce, and messages like this, this is not just a cultural message, this is a spiritual message. And so we, as people wearing the armor of God, you need to have your eyes always open to see the messages of the world. I challenge you, look at some billboards and ask yourself, what's the spiritual message behind that? Filter that through the belt of truth to see what the world is trying to sell you, how the devil is trying to lie to you. This is why we need to be dressed with the belt of truth and the breastplate. That's a defensive mechanism. But righteousness is life-protecting, yes, but it's also life-giving. Christians in the house, pop quiz, what is righteousness? I'll give you the answer. Righteousness is what is right before God. There's your simple Sunday School answer. Righteousness is what is right before God, and if it's right before God, then it's good for our souls, it's good for our families, it's good for our culture. And righteousness is the pursuit we have in our lives towards God, but it's also a defense. And so, men and women, many of us are not engaging the fight. We've given ourselves to the folly of the world. But here's what I want to say to you, that's not who we are in Christ. We are people equipped with righteousness. So let me just speak to the husbands and dads for a moment here. Men, you are the defender, you are the protector. Now, I know that in many ways I'm a stereotypical dad. I can't help it. I like to be in the garage just because it's the garage. I listen to dad rock. I can't help it. And the other day, I was quote unquote helping, I was helping quote unquote get the kids ready the other day. And my wife yells from the bedroom, hey, can you grab Georgia's, and by the way, Georgia's my six year old. She said, hey, can you grab Georgia's white tights and her white dress with the headband and the flower on it? I'm like, babe, I don't know where any of that is. I'm thinking it's in the house, you're not telling me to go buy it, so, and she's like, oh, for Pete's sake, I'll just do it myself. Like, I get it, but dads, hear me. You may not be the one getting your kids dressed for the day, but you need to be the ones getting them dressed for battle. You need to be the one making sure that they are wearing the armor of God. Men, do you want to protect your families? You won't always be there. It's the way you protect them when you're not there is making sure that they are wearing the armor of God. That's how you protect your families when you're not there. And when you equip them with the armor of God, you're helping them to be able to both understand and withstand the evil and the pressures of the world that are around us. Men, if you want to protect your family, I'm telling you now, it's not just by having you know what in that locked box, ready to go at a moment's notice. It's making sure that your family, your kids, are dressed with the armor of God. And how do you do that? You talk to them. You help them process the world. You disciple them. Helping them to see how the lies of the enemy speak to the brokenness of our hearts. And the thing about armor and really any uniform is that when I see a soldier dressed in armor, dressed for battle, there's a sense of duty and honor that comes with that, isn't there? It's kind of a majestic, powerful thing. That's how Christians are to be all the time. Because what does sin do? Sin dishonors God. And so when we walk in righteousness before God, that's the antidote for dishonor. But here's the hard truth. Here's the hard truth about righteousness. To wear the breastplate of righteousness is to constantly be reminded that the righteousness you wear does not come from you, it comes from God. He is the one who gives it to you and puts it on you. It's not some part of you that needs to be unlocked so that you can find your inner righteousness. You don't have any. You have to be given it from God. That's why it's the armor of God, meaning the armor from God. It's His. And we wear this armor when we place in Jesus. Psalm 31 tells us, in you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame, in your righteousness deliver me. I'm gonna say something that's gonna go against the grain of our American culture, but I need to say it because it's biblical truth. Righteousness is not earned, it's imputed to you from God. That's an important term here. And so, I need to wade into some deeper theological waters for a second here, because you need to understand the power and the beauty of righteousness, and when you do, it will change the way you go to work tomorrow, it'll change the way you go to school tomorrow, it'll change your entire outlook on life when you truly understand righteousness. And to do that, you kind of have to understand it theologically. And so Romans chapter 4 tells us that when we believe in Christ, His righteousness is counted towards us. The term here is imputed, not imparted. Imputed is an accounting term. So it's like when you become a Christian, you open a checking account and God deposits your right, His righteousness in your account. That's imputation versus impartation where God writes you a check and you have to go and cash it and find it from within. We're not talking about impartation, we're talking about imputation. That it's counted towards you, it's not yours, it's not given to you, it's His that He ascribes to your account. So when you wear the breastplate of righteousness, you're wearing something that's not yours, that you did not earn, that you did not deserve, yet God gives it to you anyway. This is why we wear the breastplate of righteousness, not in pride, but in gratitude. Because it does not come from us, but yet we wear it. We wear it and we stand as God's righteous own. And it's a powerful and it's a beautiful thing. And we get this when we believe in what Jesus has done and what has he done? He took our place on the cross, dying for our sins and rising again on the third day. But why did Jesus do this? Well, 2 Corinthians chapter five, in one of the most powerful gospel verses tells us why. It says, for our sake, for our sake, he, meaning God the Father, He made Him, His own Son, Jesus. For our sake, He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Here's what happened. Meaning God placed on Jesus Christ the weight of all of our sin, all of our shame, all of our guilt, He took all of that, placed it on the shoulders of His Son, and then nailed His Son to a cross and watched him die. And when he died, so did your sin. So did your guilt. So did your past. So did your shame. It died with Christ and it stayed dead. Although Jesus did not. Jesus rose on the third day and when he rose, he left your sin and shame in the grave, but he rose to a new life that he now gives to you that we live eternally with as we wear the righteousness not from ourselves but from Him. So wear it on your chest. Let it protect your heart and let it remind you of who you are that when God looks at you, He does not see the sin of a sinner. He sees the righteousness of His Son. That's the power of the breastplate of righteousness and that's why we wear it, not out of pride but out of immense gratitude because we stand counted as righteousness in God's sight. So don't leave here distracted by bread and circus. You're made for more than that. You're made for much more than that. Don't be distracted by the routine life and mindless entertainment that's so available to us. Through it all, you got to remember Christ has won the war. He has secured the victory, but the battle rages from now until the last day. And that's why we are dressed for battle because we are in a battle for the until the last day and the last days I'm telling you you got to be prepared for them be prepared for them We need to be reminded that life and faith can be hard can be really hard Which is why we really need spiritual armor so that we can stand ready and stand at attention Because we are most vulnerable when we are most distracted so stand stand at attention. And by all means, at least once a week, sit down and relax and unwind. This is a good and godly thing. God calls us to rest. We can have rest, and we can take a day of rest. It's a godly thing to do, but you must remember the devil doesn't take a day off like that. Never forget the devil is waiting for you to take your eyes off the prize. He wants you to be distracted. He wants you to forget there's a spiritual battle all around you. This past week I had someone contact me and they said, Pastor, are you going to actually talk about what it means to actually wear the armor, not just describe the armor, but what does it mean to actually wear the armor? And I said, certainly am, sir. So let me boil it down for you. As I said, I'll say it again. To wear the belt of truth means to be ever weighing the message of the world against the message of Christ. That's what it means to wear the belt of truth, that you are surrounded by truth, that truth undergirds your life, and you are constantly weighing the message of the world against the message of Christ. That's what it means to wear the belt of truth. To wear the breastplate of righteousness means that we protect our hearts with the truth, that we have a righteousness counted to us from God as we pursue the righteous path of God with our lives, as we seek to be Christ-like in this world, knowing that we are already dressed in His righteousness. And this is all empowered by the one and only Holy Spirit, who fills us, fuels us, and guides us, calling us to live into the life that God has called before us. And so, to wear this armor means to be attentive to the spiritual battle that's all around us. So now that we are taking a self-assessment, looking in the mirror, making sure that we're dressed for battle, making sure that we are aware, from here on out we can look at the battles going on out there and how Christians can present something that can literally change the world. To wear the armor means to be attentive, awake to who the true enemy is, not our neighbor, but the enemy, the devil. So don't be entertained to the point where you're no longer effective. Don't be pacified to the point where you've surrendered all of your influence. Rather, stand. Stand at attention because we are most vulnerable when we are most distracted, distracted by the lies of the devil and distracted by the desires of our broken hearts. So put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand. Amen. So let's stand at attention right now and give our attention to God in worship. Let's stand. Would you bow your heads? Would you consider the armor of God and the fact that you are dressed in it right now? Would you raise one hand in the air? With your heads down, arm one hand in the air, preparing to give your full attention to God and what He's done for us in the Gospels we celebrate now. So Father, we come before you asking God that you would again fill this place, fill this people with the power and presence of your spirits and with the knowledge of the Gospel for your glory, God. Unite us that we may be able to give our attention to you here now in praise and adoration and worship. Help us to be people standing, singing loudly for your namesake. We pray these things in Jesus' powerful name. And everyone said, amen. And everyone said, amen. Let's worship, everyone.

Proclaim for the Health of the Church (In) Sermon Series: Proclaim Ryan Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Colossians 1:3-8 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, amen. Amen and amen. Church, as we go through this Proclaim campaign today, we are talking about a topic that is extremely important to me, and that is the health of the church. On the one hand, I'll be honest with you, I don't care how big we get, I don't care how small we grow, I don't care how quote on quote successful we are as a church for whatever that actually means. What I care about is that as a church we are healthy. And I'll just say to you, there's no way I'd be leading our church through a multi-million dollar campaign if I didn't think we were healthy enough to do this. Now listen to me clearly, church, do not confuse health with perfection. If you wait until things are perfect before you move forward, I'm telling you, you'll never move forward. Are we healthy? I do believe so. Are we perfect? Nope. We got a lot of room to grow in many areas. In many areas, we can become more like Jesus, but I won't consider us perfect. One of the best? Yeah. Perfect? No. We're learning as we grow and we are ever becoming more like Jesus. And this Proclaim campaign is many things, but it's at least in part helping us to be even more healthy as a church. And so as we talk about health, I thought I'd start on a lighter mood to get us in the mood about talking about health. And so what I want to do is take a moment and look at some sort of fun, kind of weird health facts, just to kind of set the tone. Did you know that more germs are transferred from shaking hands than from kissing? So gentlemen, when I shake your hand this morning, me and you swapping more germs than when you kiss your wife goodnight. Did you know that over a full lifetime, a person can shed nearly 50 pounds of skin? Did you know that following that, that 50 to 75% of the dust in your home is actually dead skin. So first service, I think some people actually threw up. They were like, ew, gross. Second service was like, no, that's interesting. You guys are a little in the middle. I'll be honest, that's completely disgusting. One last, one last thing. Did you know that your ears never stop growing? And I think that's because the Lord is reminding us to never stop listening and never stop learning. Amen. Well, there you go. Some sort of fun, kind of weird health facts as we talk about the health of the church today. And today we do mark the start of a spiritual journey that we're going to continue through as we journey through Colossians chapter 1. So if you have your Bibles, please be bringing your Bibles, please be opening your Bibles. Do that now to Colossians chapter one that's on page 1251. If you do want to use the Bibles that we have provided as you're turning there, quick recap, the book of Colossians in the Bible, we say it's a book. It's actually a letter. It's a letter that the apostle Paul wrote from prison and he church in a town called Colossae or Colossae. That town is located in what is now modern day Turkey. Now the people who lived in Colossae were called Colossians and that's who Paul is writing to. He's writing to this Christian church made up of Colossians. And so for those of you who like history and context, here's what's going on. This church was mostly Gentile, meaning they were not Jews. They did not come from a Jewish background, meaning this church did not come from a background of learning the Old Testament. They didn't know the Old Testament Bible stories, so they were starting completely fresh with this Christianity thing. They didn't know the stories of the Old Testament to build off of. This was completely fresh for them, which means in a number of ways they were even more susceptible for fault to false teachings because they didn't have the foundation of the Old Testament. If you know me as a preacher, I'd rather preach out of the Old Testament. I'm an Old Testament preacher. I love the Old Testament. Now they needed what they needed, what this church needed because they didn't have that foundation. They needed clarity of doctrine and they needed direction on how to live out this Christian ethic. And that's part of why Paul writes It's Colossians. And so when you read Colossians, bear that weight of the context as you go through it. Last week, we looked at verses one and two. If you weren't here, I encourage you to go back and hear about those two important first verses. But today, as we continue journeying through Colossians chapter one, we're going to focus on verses three to eight today. And so with your Bibles open to Colossians 1:3-8, would you hear God's word? Colossians chapter one, verses three to eight. Would you hear God's word? Colossians 1:3-8 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. Amen, this is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray Father God we come before you on this day and we know that you are doing something amazing in our midst and we are thankful Father we want to confess with one voice proclaim is not about what we are doing It's about what you are doing through us you get the glory and so father we ask that by the power and the presence of your Holy Spirit that you would keep this church healthy Firstly father for your glory. But also for our joy and that by the health of this church, it would produce more good for our neighbor And Lord we pray these things in the power of the Holy Spirit in the presence in his perfection that he's calling us to We pray these things in Jesus name in his name we pray and everyone said amen. So church if you haven't yet in the devotional packets that that's a gift to you. Would you please turn to page 5 and that you'll see the outline? I encourage you to take notes on today's message fill in the outlines that will help you as you do your devotional packets Throughout the week so Colossians chapter 1 page 5 in your devotions. Let's get going. Today, the title of our sermon is, we are to proclaim for the health of the church. There's many reasons and many good things that we do when we proclaim the gospel, we proclaim God's truth, but today we're talking about, we proclaim for the health of the church. And as we look at verses three to eight today, here's your main point. We won't be effective in our mission if our church isn't healthy. We won't be effective in our mission if our church isn't healthy. And listen, listen, listen, church, I know you want this church to be healthy. So do I. I'm here to tell you, I believe we are a healthy church. Not perfect. Yes, we got room to grow. But I think we're largely a healthy church. We glorify God. We seek to preach the Bible, we're baptizing people, families are getting discipled, people are getting connected, our membership is growing, we're multiplying as a church. Our first campus over in Wayland, week five, doing phenomenal. Financially as a church, we are ahead of the game, we're healthy financially, and that's because we have such a faithful and generous church. God is leading and guiding us and he's blessing us and we stand thankful to him. But let's dive into what this means. There are many things we could say about what it means to be a healthy church. But if we just focus on our verses 3 to 8 today, we're going to pick up some important themes. So as we walk through this text together, here is what we're going to be looking at as we talk about to be a healthy church. To be a healthy church means: 1. Before we pray for the world, we must pray for each other. 2. Before we love the world, we must love each other. 3. Before we share the gospel, we must adhere to the gospel. 1. Before we pray for the world, we must pray for each other So let's get into it. Number one, look at verse three. Paul writes and he says, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. So number one, before we pray for the world, we must pray for each other. I know for many people immediately that's going to sound very self-serving, if not fully selfish. But here's the context. Remember the context here. Let me put it this way. How good is a man who takes care of his neighbor but won't take care of his own family. See, the Christian faith is a family. And the fact that the Bible, the fact that God has revealed family language to talk about the Christian faith, that should mean something. God is our father. Other Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ, we have every opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith, the household of faith. Now, I know this may sound weird coming from a pastor of a fairly large church, but I want you to hear me clearly. Church should feel like a family Because we are a family We're the household of faith And if we don't have the heart to take care of each other, how can we say we are a family and I dare say that the integrity of the testimony of the gospel that we profess rings hollow if People don't see us taking care of one another loving one another praying for one another. Look back to our verse, verse three. It says, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you. And the words when we pray for you has the implication that this is an ongoing thing. And so church, there is no change without challenge. And so let me lay down a challenge for you here. And let me just say real quick, this challenge is for the Christians in the house. If you're not a Christian and you're joining us, number one, bless you. I'm so thankful that you're here. This is for the Christians in the house. Is prayer such a regular part of your life that when people ask you, what have you been up to? You can honestly say with one of your first responses is, well, praying actually. Because that's kind of what we see Paul here. He leads off with talking about how much they pray for the Colossian church. Or let's put it this way. Let's say you're sending someone a text in the church. Could you honestly start by saying, hey, I've been praying for you. We need to be praying. We need to be a praying church and we need to be praying for each other. I've never met a Christian who shouldn't be praying more than what they do. That's not to guilt you, that's to invite you into something amazing. Pray before you send that heated email or that fiery text. Pray before you cast judgment. Pray, pray, and pray. I'm telling you right now, you probably have picked up that I definitely wanna be someone walking in step with the Holy Spirit, but no one's gonna label me a hyper charismatic Christian. And I'll also tell you, I know people in this church are praying for me. In a very real spiritual sense, I can feel it. And I can't even begin to tell you how much of an encouragement that is to me. It gives me the strength to continue to do what God has called me to do. And so we need to follow Paul's example and be praying for each other as well. So let's just do that right now. You already swapped a bunch of germs as you sat down with other people, so here's what I'm going to invite you to do. Would you grab the hand of the person next to you? The people next to you. And we're going to spend just a short, brief couple moments, and you are going to pray for the people next to you. You can do this out loud, you can do this in your heart, you can do this in your head, you can do this however you want, just for a brief couple moments, as a church, we're going to pray for one another. So go ahead and do that now. Let's pray. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. Let me pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's, what you just did right there, continue to do that. Less time on your phone, more time in prayer. Go ahead, I just said it. Before we pray for the world, we must pray for each other. At least the second thing. To be a healthy church, We must love each other before we love the world. 2. Before we love the world, we must love each other We must love each other go to verse 4. Paul continues verse 4. It says since we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for what to say for all the Saints We talked about this last week. Remember Saints just means Christians. It means it means holy ones It means people who are being made holy by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and the truth of God's word. The love that you have for all the saints, verse five, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven of this, you have heard before in the word of truth, the gospel. So what I love about this is that Paul acknowledges the love this church has for one another and for other Christians. And what's the defining, the defining feature of their love. It's the love they have for one another. That's what Paul commends here. They have love for each other. Listen here. They have love for their church. On the night that Jesus was to be trade he had his last supper with his disciples and after his last supper before he was arrested tortured and crucified when he knew that was coming he was literally giving his disciples some final teaching. And I want to read to you what he says in John chapter 13: 34-35. Again, this is after the Last Supper, but right before his arrest, torture, and crucifixion. He says this, he says, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another." Church, this is so important to our Lord that he makes it a commandment. You know, it doesn't say this, but I'm guessing it's because Jesus doesn't want our excuses getting in the way of our love for one another. He doesn't want our grudges or our opinions getting in the way. He's just like, nope, you are to love one another if you want to be my disciples. Because when you think about it, what is the world to think if we come and we say how much we love them, but they don't see how much we love each other? Think about that testimony. If we come and say, hey, we're Christians, we want to love you, but then the world looks at the church and they don't see the church loving one another, how much, what are they supposed to think about the so-called love that we have? It's like this, the love that we have as a church for one another, listen here, like, that's the love that we are inviting the world to join into. That we have God's love and we love one another and we put this on display and we go to the world and we say, hey, we want you to come and join and have faith in Jesus and join the love that we have for one another. Now what if they look at us and they say, I don't see love for one another, I see a bunch of fighting and opinions being thrown around. Like what sort of testimony is that? The love that we are to have for one another is God's love that's selfless as we give our love to one another. Now Paul acknowledges, and I love this, he says, Paul acknowledges that the Colossians, yo, they are doing it right. They love one another and they're showing it. But listen, listen to their motivation. Because I think this is so key for us. Listen to their motivation. It's not because they are such wonderful and lovable people. They had their problems just like anyone else did. But look at verses 4 and 5. He says, since we've heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of this you have heard before in the word of truth, what's the word there? The gospel. Our motivation is this common hope that we have, that we share in our faith in the gospel. Church, church, would you, this is going to be awkward, but look around. I want you to look around for a minute. Look at the other people in the room here. If you are a confessing Christian, these are the people you'll be spending an eternity with in heaven. You best start learning to like them now. Best start learning to love them now. This is kind of a trial run, practice run for heaven. Before we love the world, which we most certainly should do, before we love the world, we must love each other. And with the gospel being our motivating factor, this leads to the final point. 3. Before we share the gospel, we must adhere to the gospel So let's finish our passage. Let's go verse by verse. Let's take it real quick. The gospel, verse six, which has come to you and is indeed in the whole world, it is bearing fruit and increasing." Real quick, let's make note of this. This is not just an American thing. This is not an American thing. This is a worldwide thing. We talk about the church being unified, but did you know that the gospel is the thing that can unite the world? And if we want to see the world united by the gospel, then that better start here in the local church, that we are united by the gospel, that it's our motivation, it's our focus. Verse six continues, in the world, the gospel is bearing fruit and increasing as it also does among you since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth. Grace, look up last week if you weren't here, talk about that word. So Christians, I'm gonna ask you a big, bold question here, right? Ready to be challenged? Christians in the house, can you say that the gospel is bearing fruit in your life? Or do you take some sort of self-deprecating approach and just say, yeah, well, you know what? We're all sinners. Listen to me. Stop that. We have to stop that. If we're going to tell the world that the gospel has the power to change, then we must be the living demonstration of that. Does that mean we're perfect? No, but it means that we are living demonstrations of the truth that the gospel changes hearts and lives. And we people need to see that in us. So stop saying, I'm a sinner like everyone else. No, you're not. You're a redeemed saint who's been saved by the blood of Jesus. That should mean something in your life. That should mean something when you show the world your life and your marriage and your love and the way you raise your kids. That should show something different. Not that we're better, but that we're distinct because that's what the gospel does. It sets us aside as something other. And the world needs to see that. Before we think as a church, we can get out there to share the gospel. The gospel is something we must adhere to in here, in our own lives, just like this awesome guy, Epaphras. Look at verse 7. It goes on to say, just as you learn this from Epaphras, our beloved and fellow servant, he is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. So this man, Epaphras, I wish we knew more about him. But here's what we do know. He was the pastor and probably the church planter of this Colossian church. He started this church and then he traveled to go meet Paul in prison and told Paul about this church that he started in Jesus' name. He taught this church in Colossae. He taught them the gospel because he was a living example of it. He demonstrated the power and the beauty of the gospel in his own changed life and now this church is a living example of it and Paul commends them for this. I'm gonna say something that I know some that probably rub some people the wrong way and theologically I understand some of the implications here but I think you'll get what I'm saying. Before we share the gospel with others, others need to see the gospel in us. Meaning whether or not they have the language to say, oh you've been changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, they need to see how the gospel has changed us. And the gospel won't change us if we're not adhering to it, we're not following it. Again, the gospel needs to be represented in our lives, in our marriage, how we go about our jobs, how it's bearing fruit in our lives, how it creates in us a life where love is the defining feature. Just as it says in verse 8, it says, he's a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf. And has made known to us your love in the Spirit. So this pastor Epaphras was able to testify that the Colossian church was a clear example of the love in the Spirit. They were showing the world the gospel because they were demonstrating a love infused by God's love through the Holy Spirit. That, my friends, for however healthy of a church we are, that's an example we can live into. Before we share the gospel, we must adhere to the gospel. And just so we're clear on this, what is the gospel? That Jesus Christ lived and died on our behalf paying the penalty for our sins on the cross and they killed him dead. And when he was placed in a tomb, he lay there for three days and on the third day he rose again from the dead. And when he resurrected from the dead that was the guarantee of not just our eternal life but how we can be reconciled with God and have a relationship with God again where sin is no longer breaking that relationship and we can have that relationship starting now when we place faith in Jesus and that's a relationship that will extend through the rest of our life and into the life eternal that's the gospel that's the power to change lives that you are no longer a wretched sinner. You are a redeemed saint that God calls into his kingdom as he adopts us again as his sons and daughters. And until that becomes the root core of our identity, man, I don't know how much the world's going to see in us. For whatever political statements we want to make, I don't know if the world's going to see the right things until the gospel is taken root in our hearts. I'm here to tell you the gospel has the power not just to change the world, but the power to save the world. And the gospel has the power to make any church healthy. And so as we continue through this Proclaim campaign, I want to talk about, as we have been, the health of our church. And to do that, I want to invite up a man to have a conversation with, and his name is Hal Eisenhoff. Hal is the vice president of our Elder Board. And so, would you please welcome up your Elder, Hal. Hal, thank you for coming up here. I know this isn't probably the first thing you'd sign up to do any day. But you're here. Hal We're here. It's not my first choice. Ryan Let me ask you just a few questions about health and Proclaim and things like this. So Hal, what would you say are the markers of a healthy church and does peace pass the test? Hal So we have some time to think about this. And a healthy church is not guaranteed by numbers and attendance as we are experiencing here at Peace Church. It goes beyond that. Health of church is best measured by proclaiming God's biblical truths without compromise. I think day to day we see and experience the spiritual battles in the world where the world is trying to tell us what the definition of truth is. It doesn't line up with the Bible. So I believe we're a witness to a hunger for biblical, God-centered spiritual truth. An uncompromised gospel message is our focus and as a result we are growing in numbers. Ryan So as we as we think about this and as we enter into Proclaim which is a spiritual journey and in all honesty it's a multi-million dollar capital campaign. Let me ask you what are some areas that maybe we're not necessarily weak but as a church we should be mindful of as we embark through proclaim? Hal So this is going to be a busy load and I think patience on our part and burnout is something we have to avoid. The campaign will be taxing on us as a congregation, its leaders and volunteers. We're in a two to three year process of managing some challenges and complications. We need to stay focused on reaching the goals we have set in place with our time, our resources, and with prayers for God's help. Ryan Amen. Amen. Yeah, Proclaim is getting us healthy for the future in ministry. It's about expanding our facility. But between A and B, between now and when we get to inaugurate this new building, we're going to have to hold hands and walk across this bridge together, and we need to be healthy as we do that. And so let's just get specific here. What do you think is the number one thing a Christian does that contributes to the unhealth of a church? Hal I think you brought it up earlier. It's not making time daily for a serious relationship with God. We should all discipline our time in prayer and strengthen our relationship with God by reading and studying the Bible every day. Ryan I love that answer. And, you know, we talked about some of these questions beforehand. And when I was thinking about the answer to that question, you helped me realize that I immediately went to the fruit of things. You went to the root of things. You talked about the state of the inner man, who we are before Lord and in our daily discipline, I immediately went to things like, oh, people contribute to unhealth when they lead with cynicism, when they're negative, when they gossip. And those are all fruits of a root. Those are all symptoms of something deeper going on. And I love that you said it starts with your daily devotional to God. Are you walking with Jesus on a daily basis, praying and reading scripture? So those are some negative things. Let's talk about some of the exciting things real quick. What are you most excited about for this spiritual journey that we are on as a church? Hal So, I've been in this for about two years, and obviously every day seems to be growing and growing. And the most exciting part of this journey is watching God help us solve problems. We have examples of answered prayer, getting us to this peach church moment that is just that. God answering our prayers. Ryan Amen. Amen. Thank you, Hal, for coming up and taking time to answer some questions. Would you mind, as the vice president of our elder board, would you mind praying for our church right now? Hal Sure. Let's pray. Our Lord and Savior, we are so blessed, grateful, and humbled by the work you are doing at Peace Church. Continue to watch over us as we proclaim your love and biblical truths. The world is at war with you, your followers, and the message of your salvation. Christians are being persecuted around the world for believing and following your message of truth. Please comfort them. Watch over the nation of Israel during this time of crisis. May we all be blessed with your love as we continue to grow our relationship with you. Hear our prayer. We love you and adore you. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Ryan Amen. Amen. Thank you, Hal. Can we give Hal a round of applause? So, church, this spiritual journey that starts today, it ends on November 5th when we all conclude this campaign by making a financial commitment to this two-year campaign. Let me specify, we're asking you to seek the Lord's face on how much he's calling you to give, not just on November 5th, but over a two-year commitment. What's the commitment God's calling you and your family to make that will be fulfilled through a two-year giving pledge? Part of what we're doing is seeking the Lord's face in this as we prepare and grow to be more healthy, to prepare for expanded ministry in the years to come. And so today let me leave you with a spiritual and financial challenge. I'm going to tell you right now, every financial challenge I'm going to bring during this series is intimately a spiritual issue as well. And so let me give you a spiritual and financial challenge for you to think about this week. Do you give, I'm speaking financially, do you give in a way that keeps our church healthy? Now, here's another way you can think about it. Someone once posed it like this that I thought was a really profound way to think about it. He said, if everyone gave like you do, would the church be financially healthy? Now, that's not speaking about a dollar amount because we all have different capacities, but we're talking about a faith based, generous, sacrificial gift where we seek the Lord's face and His guiding on that, if everyone gave like you did, would the church be healthy? Or would we be starving? Church, I just want to affirm how generous of a church you have demonstrated to be, or at least most of you. I think some of us have room to grow, and so I'm going to call on every person who calls Peace Church home to investigate and go deep into the resources of your heart and really discern can you say that you are given in a way that God's called you to give that is joyous and sacrificial and generous before you before some of you think about giving to the campaign. Maybe you just need to start thinking about giving to the ministry and mission of the church so that our local area can be blessed. I want to say you have demonstrated to be such a wonderfully faithful and generous church. And I have no fear of saying that that would result in like, well, if we're so good that I'm going to stop giving. I don't believe that's the heart of a Christian. I think the heart of a church is when I say, Hey, we're financially healthy. A church wants to give to can maintain that. I am thankful that the church is so faithful and generous that I don't have to spend my time going around doing a bunch of side gig fundraising to make sure that we can keep our lights on as a church. I don't necessarily have to quote on quote worry about the finances because God is blessing us through the faithfulness of this church. I'm telling you right now, I think you would rather me spend my time on preaching, leading, ministering, shepherding. Wouldn't you rather me be doing that than trying to do. So let me give you another, let me just hammer this challenge home. Do you give in a way that keeps our church healthy? Church, again, I would not and the elders would not be bringing our church through Proclaim if we did not believe that God had brought us to a point where he's ready to bring us through Proclaim to see our goals met. Peace Church, Proclaim is our great response to God's great work these last few years, and this is our moment in the life of our church to do something that the next generation will be thankful for. This is about our collective effort and collective generosity to see, proclaim, be what we believe God is calling it to be as we journey through this spiritual journey together. And I wanna stress that. I am asking every single person who calls Peace Church their home church to do this devotion daily together and not just you doing it individually, but that you would know that as you do it spiritually, we are doing this together. Church, even though we're big, let's be one church doing one thing together. I'm asking you to do this devotion with us. I'm going to try and do it daily. I'll jump on social media and do this live. And you want to join me on social media. We can go through the devotion together, be watching for that. But here's what I'm asking. If you call this church home, if you love this church, then let's journey together. Let's journey together because we need to be healthy because we won't be effective in our mission if our church isn't healthy. And one of the other ways the church demonstrates health is in the response to worship. So let's do that. Please stand. I heard a couple of people do it. Let's all do it. Let's all clear our throats and be ready to sing. That was awesome. Let's pray. Father, we come before you. Lord, we ask that by the power and presence of your Holy Spirit, you'd fill this place, you'd fill these people, you'd fill this church, that we would respond to, respond in worship to the good things you are doing, to respond to who you are because you are good and you're good to us. So I pray Lord here and now, your church, both who are those who are seated to the front of the stage and those who are on the way back Lord, we would lift up our voices as one singing your praises because you are worthy. Father, you are good. We pray these things in Jesus' powerful name and everyone said, Amen.

The Story of Job - His Humility Sermon Series: The Story of Job Ryan Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Job 32-37 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone everywhere, whether you're here in one of the other venues or online, everyone said amen. Well, if you're lucky enough to still have a good mom in your life, make sure that you treat her well today, not just treat her well. Why don't you go ahead and take the next step and actually not just give her a gift, but share why she's special to you? Share what you appreciate about her. For so many of us, our moms were the first ones to wipe our little tushies. And therefore a little honor and humility toward them is in order. Okay, I'm gonna about to order a bunch of coffee for everyone here. If you don't start waking up. We are in the story of Job. And you know what? The story of Job is heavy. And if you've been walking with us for the last number of weeks as we walk through the story of Job, you've probably felt some of this weight, which is right. It's right to feel the weight of Job. It's right to feel the weight of someone who is so good and so righteous, yet suffered so much. It's okay. And it's right to be, to have a somber reflection of that. Today, we're going to continue our story of Job and just like how our mothers demonstrate humility towards us, we're going to see Job receive a massive dose of humility this morning, not just in what is told to him, but in who tells it to him. So we are coming off last week where Pastor Nate did a wonderful job of preaching through 29 chapters of Job. And saw during those 29 chapters we saw Job wrestle with his suffering through the advice and counsel and questions of three of his friends. His three friends come and they sit with him and they discuss why Job's suffering so much. But ultimately, we come to see that the conversation ultimately goes nowhere. For 29 chapters of the Bible, Job discusses with these other men. And there's a lot to be gleaned, but it ultimately doesn't go anywhere. But what we're going to find out today in our passage is that for those 29 chapters, for all that discussion between Job and his three friends, there was another person sitting there, observing, watching, listening, processing, waiting for his turn to speak. And this man's name is Elihu. Would you please turn in your Bibles to Job chapter 32? We're gonna sink our teeth into one specific section that Elihu teaches to us, but we're gonna take a moment, we're gonna get to know this guy first. He is an awesome, awesome guy. He is definitely someone that we should be naming our sons after. Elihu is an awesome guy, and what he has to say is phenomenal. But let's first take a moment, let's just meet this man. Here's a painting of him from Arthur Ackland Hunt. So Elihu just kind of emerges in chapter 32 on the heels of this massive conversation, this 29-chapter conversation, Elihu emerges and before we go into what he says, let's just meet this guy and get to know him for a moment. Let's just walk through chapter 32 really briefly together. So if you have your Bibles, we're gonna look at 32 verses one and down. So the Bible says that, so these three men, speaking of Job's friends that we looked at last week, these three men ceased to answer Job because Job was righteous in his own eyes. Then Elihu, the son of Barakel, the Buzite of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because Job justified himself rather than God. He burned with anger also at Job's three friends because they found no answer, although they had declared Job to be in the wrong. Now Elihu waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger. Did you count how many times it says that Elihu's angry? So what's going on here? So Elihu's been sitting there quietly listening to this conversation that lasted 29 chapters between Job and his friend, a conversation that ultimately got nowhere, and now Elihu is angry. The Bible says he's angry for three reasons. One, he saw that Job was righteous in his own eyes, meaning he's beginning to see the pride in Job emerge in the way that Job was handling his suffering because, here's Job's great fault, Job was focusing on himself rather than God, Elihu identifies that and it makes him angry. Second thing, Elihu is mad at the three friends. Why? Because they kept saying that Job is suffering because of sin in Job's life, but they couldn't provide any proof of Job's sin. And Elihu is basically like, this is the heaviest of all situations of suffering in history and you can't go around accusing someone of sin and then not being able to prove it. That also makes Elihu really angry. And the third thing that makes Elihu angry is that he's mad because their conversation went on and on and on and ultimately got nowhere. We find out that Elihu is the youngest among them. This is important. He's the youngest among Job and Job's three friends. So out of respect, this younger man waits to speak. And let me just stop here real quick and just say, I understand that this is an ancient Near East historical context, cultural context from 4,000 years ago, but I'm going to tell you right now, for those who are younger among us, that's a wise thing to do. Let those who are older go first, let those who are older speak first. You sit and listen, not saying you can't speak, but I think a lie. He was such a great example that he listens first. He listens for a long time. He listens to the point where actually he gets angry, but he lets them speak first. And when they've had their say, that's when he speaks up when he sees that the conversation has ended, but gotten nowhere. That's when he speaks, go to verse six. And then a lie here, the son of Barakel, the Buzite, answered and said, I am young in years, and you are aged. Therefore, I was timid and afraid to declare my opinion to you. I said, let days speak and many years teach wisdom. But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand. Look at verse nine. It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right. All right, stop right here for a second. So Elihu, the youngest one there, steps up and challenges them all. He steps up to the plate and basically says, yeah, yes, I'm the youngest one here, but just because you're older than me doesn't make you wiser than me because it's God's spirit in a person that makes them wise, not the number of years that they've lived. And then Elihu, like a boss, says this in verse 10. He says, therefore I say, listen to me. He's saying, it's my turn now. It's my turn to speak. And this is actually reminiscent of something the apostle Paul teaches Timothy in the New Testament. When the apostle Paul tells the younger man, Timothy, this, he says, let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and impurity. So this younger man, Elihu, steps up, and again, for the younger generations among us, this is why we seek the Lord, to gain wisdom. Yes, yes, of course, we listen to those who have gone before us. Our moms set great examples for that. But the Bible tells us that it's the breath of the almighty that gives a person insight. It's the breath of the almighty. It's the spirit of God that makes a person wise. And the Bible says that the word of God is God's breath. The word of God is the Bible. It's God-breathed. So to know wisdom, we must know God's word, the Bible, which has been challenging humanity since it was written yet continues to stand the test of time and continues to be the best seller and most read book in the entire world. The Bible does not say, once you hit 60, then you're wise. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When you know your place before God, that's when you can start to gain insight. And so God uses this younger man Elihu to teach and to humble Job and his friends. In over six chapters, Elihu teaches Job and he teaches us. And there's so much here. There's so much richness. And we're gonna sink our teeth into one specific passage, but if I could just give you a quick broad overview of Elihu's grand speech, it would be something like this. Elihu's speech to Job through these chapters, 32 to 37, is this. Number one, God is not silent in our suffering. We cry out to God, we think He's not answering, God is not silent. God speaks through pain, He speaks through His word. God is not unjust in our suffering. We're going to find that out in a little bit more detail here this morning. God is not unjust in our suffering. Elihu goes on in the next chapter, 35, to say that God is not absent in our suffering. He is present with us. The fourth thing that Elihu shows us is God is not helpless in our suffering. God doesn't stand aside and wish that he could do something, but doesn't. This all feeds into the grand and great mystery of faith. You know, at some point, we're gonna have to come back and do a real study on Elihu. I love this guy, but I think it's really good for us to zero in on chapter 34 here this morning. So again, if you have your Bibles open, I hope you do. Jump over to chapter 34. We're going to look at verses 1 to 15 this morning. Now, as you're turning there, we really have to understand the worldview that these guys were leaning on. And let it challenge your own worldview, but here's what's going on. Now, these guys, they understood the world in a very black and white term, in a very black and white way. See, they believe that God was just, that he was, he was a God of justice. He did what was right. They believe that God is just meaning they believe that good people got blessed by God and bad people got cursed by God. This was their worldview. This is what they believed. And so what happened was you got Job, this righteous man who was suffering, that did not fit into their worldview. And now they had to try to reconcile what they were experiencing with what they knew to be true about God and it leads them to some bad and dark places, which we're going to find out in a second. This is what they believed. That God blessed the good and He cursed the bad, and now they are confronted with a situation that didn't fit into that. Job's friends say, yes, God is just, God is good. Therefore, Job, you must have some sort of secret sin in your life that we don't know about, although they couldn't point to anything. But on the flip, what we see is Job begin to articulate, I'm righteous. I'm righteous before God, and yet I'm suffering, therefore God must be unjust. Both of them came to the wrong conclusion. And Elihu steps up to provide some much-needed correction. And what he says is, you guys, your whole frame of thinking is off. And this is what Elihu begins to articulate and share. And so, with that massively long introduction. Let's read God's Word. Chapter 34 of Job, verses 1 to 15, would you please hear the word of the Lord? Then Elihu answered and said, hear my words, you wise men, and give ear to me, you who know. Stop right there for a second. It's kind of hard not to read a snarky tone in that. I'll just be honest with you. Hear my words, you wise men, and give ear to me, you who know. For the ear tests words as the palate tastes food. Let us choose what is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good. For Job has said, I am in the right, and God has taken away my right. In spite of my right, I am counted as a liar. My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression." Then Elihu picks up and says, What man is like Job, who drinks up scoffing like water, who travels in company with evildoers, who walks with wicked men? For he has said, it profits a man nothing that he should take delight in God. Therefore hear me, you men of understanding, far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and the Almighty that he should do wrong. For according to the work of man he will repay him and according to his ways, he will make it befall him. Of a truth God will not do wickedly and the Almighty will not pervert justice. Who gave him charge over the earth? Who laid on him the whole world? If he should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath all flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust." This is God's word. Let's pray, and we'll continue. Let's pray together. Father God in heaven above, Lord, we thank you on this day for the mothers and the mothers in spirit among us who show us so well, so often, the meaning of humility. But most of all, we thank you for our humble Savior, Jesus. Help us today, Father, by the power and presence of your Holy Spirit, that we would know the power of this passage. Father, would you be with me, that I may bring about your truth well to my friends and family here? And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. And everyone said, Amen. All right, so there's so much that we could glean from Elihu. But from this passage here, I just want to give you one thing. I'm going to warn you, this is a layered, thick main point here today. And here it is. Faith is having the humility in suffering to say that we may never fully understand what we know to be true. I know that sounds paradoxical, but let's listen to it. Let's see it again. Faith is having the humility in suffering to say that we may never fully understand what we know to be true. And as we look at these 15 verses here, here's our breakdown for this morning, here's your outline. When suffering, we need to have the humility to critique your own position, to change your own presuppositions, and to challenge your own pride. When suffering, have the humility to critique your own position, change your own presupposition, and challenge your own pride. And as we get going, I just want to remind ourselves of something here before we start jumping to lessons and application and all this. It took unimaginable suffering for Job to come to a place of humility where he could learn these lessons. And as we talked about before at the beginning of this series, listen here, I know, I know a lot of us, like, suffering is just not part of the equation for our lives. So a sermon like this could feel like a throwaway for you, but I'm telling you, on this side of eternity, you need to be prepared for suffering. This is a sermon, I believe, that you may not feel like you need it right now, but at some point in your life, it's something you need to have in your back pocket to pull out when the time is right. And I know, I fully would submit to you that I know that my words can appear dull and unsharpened by lack of experience. But as Elihu pointed out, it's not age or life experience that makes our words true. It's God breathing life into those words. By the way, what I just said would get me canceled in today's world. But let's see what God's truth says. The first thing that we need to look at is when suffering, we need to have the humility to critique our own position. Let's continue in verse chapter 34. Then Elihu answered and said, hear my words, you wise men, and give ear to me, you who know. So Elihu continues his rebuke and he places his words before them. He lays his argument before them. He doesn't hide behind his feelings. He doesn't hide behind compassion. He says, listen to what I say. Verse 3, for the ear, tests words as the palate tastes food. He's telling these older men, to take my words to task. Listen to what I say. Debate with me. Taste them. Touch them. Test them. He's telling them to engage. He's not gonna let them off the hook. He wants them to receive his words. This is completely the opposite of what's happening in our world today. In our world, when someone's confronted with an idea that offends them or they don't like, what do they do? They shut down the conversation and they run away. Church, we cannot play that. We cannot be that way. We have to be able to stand our ground, know what we're saying, and engage in the conversation like Elihu is calling us to do. He says, in verse 4, let us choose what is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good. Elihu is saying, let's be objective here. What is the right and good thing to do? He says the right and good thing to do is not a matter of opinion here, gentlemen. He says we don't get to walk away from this situation, just living our own truth he says there's something larger going on at play here we need to determine and figure out what that is listen to me a lot of you is like the anti woke he's not gonna let people think that they can just determine their own reality here he will not respect a thought on the matter if it's not grounded in truth capital T truth he's not running away with the car he's not gonna run away from the conversation. He wants to have an exchange of ideas. He says, test what I'm saying. If I'm wrong, show me. Because remember, here's the whole problem. Here's the tension they're dealing with. Job is righteous, yet he's suffering. So the question on the table is this. Job's suffering makes God unjust. So Elihu shows up and basically says, you have your own thoughts on the matter, but it's now, it's time to put those thoughts to the test. It's time to consider the faults of your own position. Listen to what I say, and let's see where we land. And church, this goes back to the entire theme of this whole series. That the best way to deal with and the best way to prepare for suffering and loss and pain is not by answering why, but by knowing God. Church, I have a question for you. Don't answer this one out loud, because I'm kind of scared of what you'd say, but don't answer this out loud, but what is one thing that is true for all people? If you're in one of the other venues, I ask you the same thing. What is one thing that is true for all people? I can tell you this, with nearly 20 years of ministry under my belt, talking with people on multiple different continents from all over, one thing I know about humans, one of the hardest things for any of us to do is to change our minds. And that goes for everyone who can hear my voice, probably. So many people lack the humility to fully critique their own positions. And here's why, because here's what people do. Here's what humans do. We equate our opinions on the matter with the truth of the matter. We can't differentiate between the two. And in the church, this becomes even more insidious because we've turned our preferences into battles of morality and theological integrity. And, by the way, battles of morality and theological integrity are at stake, but they shouldn't be birthed from our preferences, but God's truth. As we consider our own positions, the next step is to consider from what place those positions are birthed, our presuppositions, which leads to number two. When suffering, have the humility to change your own presuppositions. So, meaning, here's the question, like, from what base truth am I building my worldview? What's the truth that I base my arguments upon? And suffering, when done in humility, can lead to a change in your presuppositions. Listen to this, verse five. For Job has said, I am in the right, and God has taken away my right. Meaning here's what Job's saying, Job is saying, I'm righteous. I am righteous and I have done nothing to deserve this. This is an injustice, what is happening to me. And then Job basically is saying, which shows that God has denied me justice. Meaning, Job is saying that God is being unjust. This is huge. Job is convinced of this as we see in verse six look at verse six in spite of my right I am counted a liar now this is all in poetic form so let's understand what's happening here this is such an insightful verse job says in spite of my right I am counted a liar what job is saying is that God has done this to me without cause but when I say that that this means that God is unjust, people accuse me of speaking falsely. And Job is saying, how am I in the wrong? He goes on to say, my wound is incurable, though I am without transgression. Translation, Job is saying, God is doing an injustice to me, and here's the proof. I am suffering but without cause. So how can I be lying or saying something untruthful? If God is good and I'm good but I'm suffering, that makes God unjust. Right? This all stems from his presupposition of the matter, which is faulty. And Elihu is going to attack that premise. And he challenges us all to do that. What is the reality that you base your worldview upon? And does it lead you to believe things that are not true about God? Job is saying this because he's relying on his presupposition that God would not allow, that God would not allow those who are righteous to suffer. And this is such a key, key lesson for us. People hear me. When we don't understand God, His being, His motive, His justice, his plan. When we don't understand that, then it's our worldview, meaning our moral and theological framework, that's what needs to be challenged first, not God. And Job, rather than believing that God knows more and God knows better than he does, Job is sticking to his presuppositions, which leads to the wrong conclusion that God is unjust. And with that, Elihu lets him have it. Go to verse seven. It says, what man is like Job, who drinks up scoffing like water? What Elihu is saying is that Job, Job you're too loose with your words right now my friend. You're too quick to judge God without first considering how your thinking could be wrong. And Elihu continues to lay into him, verse eight. He says, speaking of Job, you who travel in the company of evildoers and walks with wicked men. Remember the context. Job's friends are standing right there. Like Elihu was speaking and Job's friends are like, well, this is awkward. Yeah, because they're standing right there. Elihu is bringing the fire because they've been no help either. He's saying if you're all going to stand there and say nothing but spit accusations at God, then you are wicked. Elihu continues, verse 9, for he, meaning Job, for Job has said, it profits a man nothing that he should take the light in God. Job is asking, if God is going to allow this to happen to me, then what is the point of worshiping God? Job is saying, what's the point of trying to enjoy God if life is terrible? Church don't make this mistake. Church do not make this mistake. Rather than questioning his own presuppositions, Job questions God. And here we begin to uncover Job's capacity to sin. This isn't from me, but it was once summarized that Job did not suffer because he sinned, he sinned because he suffered. Elihu is saying we all know God is just, that is true. And so when it seems like God is unjust, it's not because God is wrong, it's because our presuppositions are faulty, they betray us. We are the ones who are wrong, not God. Elihu is saying, we all know it to be true, that we humans think we know it all, especially in today's world. We think we know it all. We think we are people who are more righteous than God. Mankind thinks that we can outsmart God. Do you know what that's called? Pride. And pride is the thing that limits our ability to fully understand what's going on, which is such a dangerous thing because pride is so celebrated. Pride limits our ability to fully understand what's going on. And Elihu's calling that out, which leads to this last thing. When suffering, when suffering, we need to challenge our own pride. Now Elihu, here, he goes for the checkmate. Verse 10 and 11 says, "'Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding. "'Far be it from God that he should do wickedness, "' and from the Almighty that he should do wrong. For according to the work of man, he will repay him, and according to his ways, he will make it befall him. Here's what Elihu says, in verse 12. Of a truth God will not do wickedly, and the Almighty will not pervert justice. Elihu was saying, God is good. God is just. He's saying, don't think for a second anything other than that. Yes, sin will be held to account. The wrongdoer will be held to account, but it's according to God's timeline, not yours. And to further challenge our pride, Elihu was saying, if you have a complaint, what are you going to do about it? If you have a complaint, what higher authority are you going to appeal to other than God himself? There is only God and there is none higher. He goes on to say, who gave God, verse 13, who gave God charge over the earth? Who laid on him the whole world? The answer of course is no one, no one bequeathed to God, his status on God, or his dominion over the earth. There is only God and none higher. He goes on to say in verses 14 and 15 if God should set his heart to it and gather to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together and man would return to dust. Elihu is saying to Job and to us all, remember your place in the universe, Job. You only have breath, you only have breath in your lungs. You only have life because God wills it to be so every moment. And this should give us, especially those of us who know God, perpetual humility. Elihu is not saying that what Job is going through is easy. Elihu doesn't undermine Job's pain. He's not saying that it's easy what Job is going through, he's not dismissing it. Elihu doesn't undermine Job's suffering like this, but it's clear. Elihu is telling us that suffering is not an excuse to sin. It's not an excuse to challenge God's justice. Rather, our suffering is a call for humility because God is not vengeful. God's not vengeful. He's not spiteful. God's not mean. God is good and he is just, and if you are led to think otherwise, it's your presuppositions that need to be challenged. Because when times of suffering come, we must remember that faith is having the humility in suffering to say that we may never fully understand what we know to be true. If we have any questions on this, then let's just take it up a notch and see the suffering of Jesus. If we think that the suffering of Job is troublesome, let's look at the suffering of Jesus. Let's look at the gospel. The gospel is good news. The gospel is that the righteous one, the sinless one, suffered for the unrighteous, for the sinful, so that we could be saved. A plaguing question that mankind has is, how can suffering ever lead to something good? Well, that answer is most clearly and profoundly found in the Gospel of Jesus, that Christ died on the cross in our place for our sins. The theologians would say that's substitutionary atonement. He died in our place for our sins so that we would not face the judgment that is due us for our sins, but rather through our faith in Jesus, what happens is that God gives the righteousness of Jesus to us, and we are seen as more righteous than Job, for we have the righteousness of Christ in us. And this happens, listen to me, not through our suffering, but through the suffering of Jesus. The gospel is the declaration that God is good, that God is holy, and that He will do what is right even when we don't fully understand it. And listen to me, what goes for justice goes for love. God's love for us, we may know it, but we will never fully comprehend it. The love that is described loved the world that he gave his one and only son. Mothers, mothers, could you give your only son? What sort of love is this? This is beyond us, that God would so love the world that he gave his only son so that whoever believes in him will not perish, will not die, but have everlasting life so that we would know the love of God. This is the gospel that Jesus, the one who was given, the one who was sinless, suffered for those like us who are sinful. Jesus suffered and died taking our place for us. And the story of Job is definitely a tension that every thinking person and every Christian needs to grapple with. The story of Job is a tension we must face. And the suffering of Job is something we must consider, what he endured. But all of that suffering needs to point us to something even greater, even greater suffering. It should turn us to Jesus and the suffering that He endured for us. Amen. Do me a favor, let's stand up. Let's have a little chat for a second. As we sing this morning, we sing some of the old hymns. I know there are people who deeply love the hymns, but if you sing because you love the hymns. But if you sing because you love the hymns and not firstly because you love God, I'm telling you, you're singing wrongly. We are going to sing of God's great love for us. And there is a world that looks upon the church and wonders, do you even believe what you say? Do you even believe what you sing about? And church, I'm telling you, right now is your chance to respond to that in the way that you sing of God's love. So let's pray. Father, we pray here and now as we come before your holy throne of grace. Father, we know that we are only able to do that because of what Jesus has done for us. So Father, as you sent your spirit, Father, I pray you to continue to do that. Holy Spirit, we pray that you'd fill this place with your presence, that we might be reminded of the goodness of God, the holiness of God, and the love of God, as we are reminded of the suffering of Jesus who suffered in our place. So fill us with your spirit as we sing of this great love. Father, we love you and we thank you and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Father, we love you and we thank you and we pray these things in Jesus' name. And everyone said very loudly. Amen.