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Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, January 12, 2025 Womb to Tomb Exodus 22:22-24 Caring for Widows 2 Overview Main Idea: God's people are to share God's heart to care for those who can't care for themselves Sermon Outline: God has concern for those who are neglected. {Exodus 22:22-23} God has condemnation for those who are unjust. Exodus 22:24} 3 Pre-Questions James 1:27 describes pure religion as looking after orphans and widows in their distress. How does this verse challenge our current practices in caring for widows within our church community? When you hear the term ‘pro-life,’ what aspects of life come to mind? How does caring for widows fit into a holistic pro-life ethic? 4 Questions General Questions: In 1 Timothy 5:3-16, Paul provides specific instructions on supporting widows. What principles can we extract from this passage to apply in our context today? Psalm 68:5 describes God as a ‘father to the fatherless, a defender of widows.’ How can embodying this aspect of God’s character influence our approach to social justice and mercy ministries? 1 Timothy 5:4 emphasizes that if a widow has children or grandchildren, they should first learn to show godliness by caring for their own family. How can families and the church collaborate to ensure widows receive comprehensive support? In what practical ways can you personally contribute to caring for widows in your community? Consider time, resources, and advocacy. Family Questions: Have you ever met someone who was lonely or needed help? How did you feel when you helped them? Do you know someone in our family or church who has lost a loved one? How can we show them that we care about them? A widow is someone who has lost their husband. How do you think they feel, and what can we do to make them feel loved? In Luke 4:18, Jesus said He came to help people who are hurting or lonely. How do you think Jesus would want us to treat widows or people who don’t have family to help them? What are some things we can do as a family to help people who are lonely, like widows or older people in our church? Activity: “Love in Action” Challenge • Plan a family project to bless a widow or an older person. Ideas include: • Making a homemade card or artwork. • Baking cookies and delivering them. • Inviting them over for a meal or visiting them. • Offering to help with tasks like yard work or groceries. PDF Download

PODCAST That's a Good Question Bridging Beliefs: Catholicism in Contrast March 4, 2024 Jon Delger & Ryan DB Kimmel Listen to this Episode Jon So, 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 Jon, I serve as a pastor at Peace Church, and you can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions. Today I am here with lead pastor, Pastor Ryan. Ryan Hello, Pastor Jon. Jon And I'm also here with Mitchell Leach, producer. Mitchell Hey. Jon And we get to have an awesome conversation today about some questions that have come in about Catholicism and how it relates to Protestantism, which is a church like Peace Church and many other churches. And so we're going to talk about how those two things are different and similar and also want to let you know that if you've got more questions about Catholicism, we would love to hear them. So we're going to answer just two questions today, but we're actually working on a resource, a written resource, that we're going to release in the next month or so that provides a lot of answers to these kind of questions, because we're just seeing more and more people move from Catholic backgrounds into Peace Church, and so we want to provide a resource to our church and to other churches that answers those kind of questions about what's it like to move from Roman Catholicism into a church like Peace Church, a Protestant church. And so, today is just the beginning. So we'd love to hear more questions as you have them, as you listen today. So Mitch, you want to kick us off? Mitchell Yep, here we go. I grew up Catholic and believing in the seven sacraments. Can you discuss why or why not you believe in the sacraments and how you practice them? Lots of facets to this. I think we could break it down into, I mean, I think we should probably just start with what are the sacraments? Question #1: I grew up Catholic and believing in the seven sacraments. Can you discuss why or why not you believe in the sacraments and how you practice them? Lots of facets to this. I think we could break it down into, I mean, I think we should probably just start with what are the sacraments? Ryan So my understanding is that sacraments connects to the Latin word sacramentum, which is in many ways Isn't it originally connected to the symbol that a Roman soldier would wear on their armor? There's this notion that it's a it's a symbol that denotes that you are a part of something. Sure I think either way whatever the root word is the sacrament is something that is Sacred is something that sets us apart. That's what I was thinking, it was sacred or holy, yeah, set apart. I think there's probably some overlap in the etymology of the word, but either way, it's the notion that it is something that you do slash wear slash ascribe to you that denotes you're a part of something. You're separated out for something else. And so for the Roman Catholic Church, they have seven of those. We would say we have two of those. But I would say, I don't know how much we want to get into this, right now, that is one thing that even in the Protestant world, the word sacrament isn't always the terminology used. We think of our Baptist friends, they would use the term ordinance for the things that we're talking about, for the two sacraments that we hold to, which would be, of course, baptism and the Lord's Supper. But in the Catholic Church, they have more than just those two, which are? Mitchell Baptism, confirmation. Confirmation, holy communion, penance, marriage, anointing of the sick. Holy order. Jon Yep, yep, so somebody's called into ministry. Yeah, sweet. Ryan I think those are special things, but do they hold equal weight in the faith as baptism and Lord's Supper? Right. That's what we would say. Probably not. Right. Special awesome things. Well, actually, I don't, I can't say it about all of them. I'm not very familiar with all seven. I knew that marriage is one of them. Jon Yeah, well, I mean, like last rites, we would see that very differently. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. But going back even to the idea of just what is a sacrament, so like when we talk about them here at peace, we talk about their relationship to the covenants, that the sacrament is a sign. So when we do a baptism service here, for example, we get to do a short 10-minute message or so on what is baptism before we perform baptisms, and we talk about the sacrament as being a sign and seal of God's covenant. Ryan A sacred sign and seal. Jon Yeah, a sacred sign. So in the Old Testament, we talk about the signs of the Passover and of circumcision. Those were signs, they were visible things, they were seals or guarantees of the truth of God's promise and his relationship. So covenants in the Bible have promises, they have blessings, they have curses. God promises something and he offers a blessing to those who walk with him in that promise and in relationship and in obedience to the conditions. There's curses, there's results for disobedience. And in the Old Testament, the two visible signs and seals are the Passover and circumcision. In the New Testament, we've got baptism, which corresponds to circumcision, and you get the Lord's Supper, which corresponds to the Passover. And so I think for us, there's a very different just context even to what a sacrament is and means, and even how it works. So for us, we see it as a sign and a seal of the word, right, it's the word of the promise that is really like the root thing, the main thing. God is giving a promise, and then there's this visible element to it. Whereas in Catholicism, they would say that the visible element, the sacrament, is the thing that actually does the work, that grace comes from the sacrament. Ryan So we'd also say part of the reason that sacrament, or part of the implication for us for sacraments is that it's for everyone who's part of the covenant versus the Roman Catholicism. I don't know if they were tied to the covenant because there are sacraments that wouldn't apply to all covenant bearers. Marriage is exactly what I was thinking of, or the Holy Order being called into the ministry. Those are things that can be applied to covenant bearers, but it's not universal for everyone who's part of the covenant. That's why we would say that the sacraments are those things that apply to everyone who is a covenant bearer. And so that thing, that's a distinguishing mark between us and the understanding of the Catholicism is that the, for our understanding is that sacraments again, are those things that apply to everyone who's a covenant bearer. That's why we baptize infants. And that's for the, and then for those who confess faith, we do have the Lord's Supper, but they're not special, unique things for certain situations. Sure. Like we said, like holy orders and marriage. Jon Yeah, so we've talked about, so there's a difference in the number of sacraments, there's a difference in the context of sacraments, but if I may even go right to, I think some of the very core difference, I think, in how we think about sacraments comes to that, where does grace come from? How do you get saved? How do you get right with God? Those kind of questions. So I want to read, I've got a couple of books here next to me, and... Ryan I just want to, I really want to emphasize this because I know where you're going and it's really important, especially for the person who answered this question because they'll see where we have some, quote unquote, overlap in our sacraments, right? We have two, the two that are in the Catholicism, so that must mean we believe the same thing about those. And we would say there's gonna be some overlap belief, but there's a key fundamental difference that separates what we believe, not just about the individual sacraments, but the entire notion of sacraments, and that's where you're getting in. So I just wanna just go back, this goes back as far as you possibly can to the differences between Catholicism and Protestant believers. Jon Yeah, there's some surface level differences, and then there's some really deep, important differences, and this is really what led to the Protestant Reformation, things that separate out the separation of us from the Catholic Church. So let me read, this is section 1263 out of the Roman Catholic Catechism, and it's about baptism. So here's what they say about baptism. By baptism, all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn, nothing remains that would impede their entry into the kingdom of God, neither Adam's sin nor personal sin nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God." Okay, so I think that's just one kind of sample of things that they say about the sacraments, but I think for me that makes it really clear the difference. We actually, in our baptism services, are really clear every time to say baptism does not save neither child nor adult. Ryan Yeah, yeah, exactly. Whether it's a family presenting their child for baptism or it's a person themselves being baptized, that act is not what saves them. Jon Yeah, what saves somebody is faith in Jesus, God's grace that comes to us through faith. Whereas in the Catholic system, the sacraments are really, that's grace comes through the sacraments. I mean, they of course believe you need faith in Jesus, but they believe sacraments is how the grace comes to us. It's where you're, I mean, it just says it really clear, by baptism all sins are forgiven. Whereas you would say, no, it's by faith that sins are forgiven. So one of the, just to break out, as long as we're talking about Roman Catholicism, we might as well break out some Latin, right? So, the Latin phrase ex oper, operata is how the Roman Catholics, that's what they would say, that's how the sacraments work. They just, they work. So we would say the sacraments only do something for you if they're accompanied by faith in Jesus, faith in God's word, a personal relationship with Jesus. Whereas they would say, whether or not you have those things, the sacraments just work. Baptism, confirmation, last rites, these things do work all by themselves. Whereas we would say, nope, they only work because they're right there with the Word, they're right here with somebody's faith in Jesus. So the other part of the question was about how. How is our practice different in how we do the sacraments? Yeah. Can you discuss why or why not you believe in the sacraments and how you practice them? So do we believe in the sacraments? We do believe in the sacraments. We have a different list than they do. And we've talked about how we have a, Jonthere are some very core distinctions in what we mean when we say sacrament. But yeah, how do we, how do we practice them that's different from Roman Catholic churches? Ryan I think when it comes to practice, as far as like how they play out in a church service, quote unquote, I think there's probably some commonalities, happens in a church service among the body of believers as part of the celebration of the gospel. That's how we would say we do it. We do it among the company of believers, something to be celebrated as we are seeing the sign and seal placed out in real life on the covenant family. Mitchell But that even can be different, right? You go to a Catholic wedding and they do communion and it's only for the first, you know, for the bride and groom where we would. Ryan That's interesting. Yeah, because, because I mean that they would say that the marriage is the sacrament. So yeah, I think the biggest thing is that where we start from that these are signs and seals of the covenant of grace. But then also there's the notion that we only have two. We only have the two. Mitchell Well, and I think even like, we would never do a wedding where only two people could take, you know, Have you ever performed a wedding and done communion at the same time? Jon No, I've always said no to that, just because I think, you know, the sacraments are for the church. Have you had people ask? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Ryan I've never had someone ask, but I would say no as well, too. Not unless you're gonna do it for everybody. Jon That would be kind of it, yeah, sure. Mitchell Yeah, I think even like you look at the difference, this determines our architecture in churches, right? You go to a Catholic church, there's the altar is at the center. And in a Protestant church, if you go to a peace church, you'll see the pulpit. And it's kind of saying, what is the most central part of this service? Ryan Right, and then we talk about that a lot. This is a little bit of a side note, but the reason I use a pulpit is there's a utility that's where my notes and manuscript and where I place my Bible, but there's also even more than that, what's more important than that is it's the symbol that the word is central. Jon Right. Totally. And that's also reflected in how we spend our time during the service. You know, in Roman Catholic churches, the message is usually like 10 to 15 minutes. The homily. Yeah, the main focus for them in the service is the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper. Whereas for us, the main focus is the preaching of the Word. Lord's Supper is really important, but the main focus is the preaching of the Word. Mitchell All right, let's jump into our next question. Can you discuss the Catholic belief of transubstantiation, the Lutheran belief of consubstantiation, and the bread and the wine as symbols of Christ's body and blood? Question #2: Can you discuss the Catholic belief of transubstantiation, the Lutheran belief of consubstantiation, and the bread and the wine as symbols of Christ's body and blood? Mitchell Where do you fall on this spectrum? Jon We'll be right back after this break. Elizabeth Hi, I'm Elizabeth, one of the co-hosts of Mom Guilt, a podcast with new episodes every Monday. Mom Guilt is a podcast about the daily struggles of 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. Jon So this is where it gets back to what you were starting to say about that there's even a spectrum within Protestant churches. Ryan So yeah, we could lay that out. Yeah, so we're talking about the Lord's Supper here, the bread and the wine, the bread and the grape juice, and what actually is going on, I think is the nature of the question is. So transubstantiation would say that when you perform the Lord's Supper, that the bread and the drink literally, physically become the body and blood of Jesus. And obviously you're taking Luke 22 pretty literally when Jesus says, this is my body and blood, do this in remembrance of me. And so that's what transubstantiation means, that in that ceremony, the bread and the drink become the literal body and blood. Consubstantiation, think of congruent along with, that the bread and the drink remain bread and drink, but they also take on elements of the physical body and blood of Jesus, that they're con, they're with, they're congruent. And we would say that neither of those is happening, that this is a symbolic act while a real spiritual thing is happening, no physical change is brought to the bread and the drink. And then even within more Protestant circles, I would say that our view is actually, so yeah, so you got transubstantiation on one side, so that's the Roman Catholic view, and then you move over to Protestant views. Consubstantiation is one, that's the Lutheran view, and then although I heard, I was reading online before this that actually Lutherans don't like that phrase, even though that's classically how they're... Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know if I've ever heard a Lutheran say, use that phrase. Jon Yeah, yeah. Ryan It's been, I've always heard it. So it's been applied to them. Jon Yeah, I've always heard it. Which is important to say, we want to be fair. Right. In the understanding. Yeah, yeah. So they would frame it a little bit differently, but that's the word that's just always been kind of used to describe their position. Then you've got sort of far over, on the other side, you've got what's like the Baptist position of it. There are ordinances, not sacraments. It's the Lord's Supper. There is no special presence of Jesus. These are just bread and juice. Ryan It's just a celebration, right? I don't want to use the term ritual because that sounds like cultic, but it's... Jon Yeah, it's like a commemoration. Ryan Yeah, commemoration is probably a better way to say it. Mitchell Remembrance, I've heard. Remembrance, yeah, yeah. Jon Which it is. Ryan I mean, that's what we're saying. I mean, that's what Jesus said, do this in remembrance of me. But we are also saying that while no physical change happens in some mystical way to the bread and the drink, we're still saying something spiritual important is happening there. Jon Well, that's what I was going to say. The Reformed view is actually the middle view in Protestantism. So you got Lutherans on the one side saying consubstantiation, physical, human nature, presence of Jesus. You got Baptists on the other side saying, you know, no presence whatsoever, this is only symbols. Then you got us in the middle, Reformed view, saying that there is no physical presence of Jesus, but there's a spiritual, there's something spiritually special about Lord Sephar. Ryan Yeah, I'm completely comfortable saying that as the bread and the drink nourish the body, in that act through faith, grace continues to nourish the spirit. Right. I've heard it described too, Catholic and Lutheran is God condescending again in the sacrament. And the Protestant view or the Reformed or Baptist view would be that it's more of us being brought up. I think either way, I think we're all going to agree that it's something Jesus commanded us to do. We do this to honor him and to remember the sacrifice that he performed on our behalf. But as far as the question of what actually is going on, we would say there is something spiritual that is actually happening. This isn't just a commemoration. This isn't just a ritual. We're not just going through the motions so that memory is evoked in our brains, but something actual is happening as far as in terms of the spiritual elements of grace. Jon So here's a question. One of the things that historically has been said by many is there's been the accusation against the Roman Catholics that the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, communion is a re-sacrificing of Jesus. John Calvin, no, not, well, the Heidelberg Catechism talks about it as an idolatrous thing, as sin, as something we shouldn't partake of. You guys want to talk about that? What do you think? How far do we go with that? Ryan Man, well, I mean, I was also thinking in terms of when Jesus says, this is my body, when he says, this is my blood, it's after he's broken the bread. It's after he's poured out the drink. When he breaks the bread, that's when he says, this is my body. When he pours out the drink, that's when he says, this is my blood. Do this in remembrance of me. Jon And so, yeah, so this is very interesting to me. So this is Roman Catholic Catechism, section 1367. This is them explaining that whole aspect of the sacrifice and what happens in the Eucharist. So here it is. The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. The victim is one and the same. The same now offers through this ministry of priests who then offered himself on the cross. Only the manner of offering is different. And since in this divine sacrifice, which is celebrated in the mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and offered in an unbloody manner, this sacrifice is truly propitiatory." Ryan Whoa. Jon That last line really gets you, doesn't it? Ryan That, I mean, I was already not liking it, but that just went, they doubled down on that. Jon Yeah. So , that's the thing. A propitiation is an atoning sacrifice. So, that's what the Bible says Jesus did on the cross. He atoned for our sin. He gave a sacrifice himself that atoned or took away our sin on the cross. So, it's a huge deal. That's what we believe. That's the gospel. That's what happened on the cross with Jesus. And right here in the Catholic Catechism, they're saying that this sacrifice, talking about the Eucharist, is a sacrifice and it is propitiatory, meaning it's an atoning sacrifice, that what happens in the Mass when they celebrate it. That sounds a lot like a re-sacrificing of Jesus. Ryan That's what it sounds like to me, and that just goes against what Jesus himself said on the cross when he said, it is finished. When Jesus said it is finished, I don't think he's meaning for now until you do it again. Like, I mean, that was a once and for all statement. Mitchell Yeah, to be fair, they say it is the same sacrifice that they just say in some supernatural way it happened both in the first century AD and then it's also happening, that same thing happens when they do. Jon Yeah, so they definitely don't use the language of resacrificing. They would say, no, it's not a resacrificing of Jesus. But I think once you start to say that what happens in the Mass is propitiatory,I think you start to get into a place where... Ryan Or at any level that it's the same, it carries the same spiritual, sacrificial, saving weight, I just can't draw that argument from Scripture. Mitchell I think when you hear that, when you hear that this is propitiatory, That can be really confusing for someone who hasn't gone through this catechism and memorized it verbatim. Jon Sure, but more than confusing, I think it's theologically problematic. Kevin DeYoung has a book on the Haberberg Catechism, and I wanted to see what he said about question and answer 80, which talks about this. And they're like, they're wrestling with this idea wrestling with this idea of when they kneel in front of the Lord's Supper. That if it really is Jesus, the body and blood of Jesus, you know, if it's really been transubstantiated, then kneeling is the appropriate response. But if that's wrong, then it's actually idolatry. And so I think, and that's where it comes down to for us is we're saying that they're wrong, that it's not the actual body and blood of Jesus and therefore, you know, you're bowing down to something that's not Jesus. Ryan And this is why we're, this is why we say theologically practically matters. Is what you believe and how you behave, if those are mismatched, it's going to lead you to some dark places. So , yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's, I think that's why it was viewed as idolatry, right? Because it's, you're, you're bowing to something that's not God. Jon Right. Yeah. So, again, plenty of room for modern-day Catholics to, you know, they've got some explanations, and I don't want to move past their explanations. There's some nuances there that are important, but also for us as Protestants, just going to go back to there's some core ways in which we definitely disagree on how we view some of these things. Ryan And again, we want to say to the people who are listening, this is all by way of introducing a topic that we're going to continue to address. And so as you listen to this, submit more questions. It's going to help us as we formulate a resource that we want to provide. Again, because we have a number of people who are steadily coming into Peace Church from a Catholic background, or from the Catholic Church, or from a Catholic background, and we want to be able to address all of the questions that are relevant to there. Jon We love you. We're happy to hear your questions. We're happy to have you come. We want to walk it through together, think through what does the Bible say about these topics, how has maybe what you grew up with or what you've been taught, how is that different from what we're teaching and what we're seeing in the Bible? Well thanks guys, great conversation. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks for the great questions. Again please submit some more questions and especially we'd love to hear some more questions about Roman Catholicism and how you're wrestling with that as you're moving to Protestantism so that we can continue to provide good resources on that topic. Have an awesome week everybody! that topic. Have an awesome week everybody! You can find That's a Good Question at resoundmedia.cc or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Beyond the Heart Theology Jon Delger Multiplication Pastor Peace Church Published On: April 10, 2024 Maybe you’ve been asked the question before - “have you made a profession of faith?” Maybe you are part of a church where occasionally people stand up front and “profess their faith.” What does it mean to make a profession of faith? Is it biblical? Is it an old church tradition? How does it relate to church membership? How does it relate to baptism? Profession & the Bible Scripture is quite clear that if you have faith in Jesus, this faith should not only exist in your heart and mind, it should also be expressed outwardly. For example, Romans 10:9-10 says, If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. Belief in the heart is to be accompanied by confession of the mouth. Likewise, Jesus says that anyone who is ashamed of him (ie. ashamed to profess their faith in him publicly) will be denied by Jesus before his Father (Matthew 10:33; Luke 9:26). So while the Bible doesn’t give explicit instructions for how to profess one’s faith (ie. How many people have to be present? Should they be Christians or Non-Christians? Should this be a public ceremony?), we can see the importance of such an outward act. Profession & Church History Throughout church history, Christians have held ceremonies for new Christians (1st generation believers) or Christian children coming of age (2nd generation believers) to profess their faith. One example is the catholic practice of confirmation, which is a rite of initiation. Reformation leaders like Martin Luther and John Calvin affirmed the importance of educating young believers and then providing an opportunity for them to profess their faith. For children in believing families, John Calvin believed this should happen at ten years old and that children should not be permitted to partake of the Lord’s Supper until after making a public profession of faith. Today, Reformed and Presbyterian churches continue this tradition by asking children coming of age and new members who have not made such a profession in a church to make a public profession of their faith. In Baptist churches, this profession of faith is paired with baptism. Profession, Membership, & Baptism Some of the confusion that sometimes arises about profession of faith has to do with how it relates to membership and baptism. At Peace Church, where I serve as a pastor, we sometimes find adult believers offended at the idea that we would ask them to make a profession of faith before the church in order to become a member. They will say, “I’ve been a believer for many years, I profess my faith in conversations with my family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. I’ve never stood in front of a church and done it, but why should I have to profess it now as if my faith were something new?” Others will ask, “Why are some people baptized when they make profession of faith while others are not?” Let me try to answer these questions and then share a way we have tried to simplify the conversation. First, the relationship of profession and membership. At Peace Church, we stand in the Reformed and Evangelical tradition of Christians that believe standing before the church to profess your faith is an important thing for the individual and the church. We also pair this act with the covenantal making of promises - promises to God and the church to walk with the Lord, to help other believers walk with the Lord, and to accept loving correction in one’s own life if one’s walk falters. We ask all new members who have never taken this step before to do so. For most, it is an exciting opportunity (despite some natural stage fright). For some, it feels strange because they are not a new believer or a child coming of age. In this situation, my encouragement is to view it more like a testimony. No, your faith is not new, but you are giving glory to God and encouraging the body of believers by proclaiming your faith in Jesus and perhaps sharing a little of how he has worked in your life. Second, the relationship between profession and baptism. At Peace Church, we believe in covenantal infant baptism . So most children growing up in the church will have been baptized as children and will make a profession of faith when they come of age and have a firm understanding of the gospel. We don’t set a necessary age for this, but it is often in the range of 10-18. Some of those coming of age may not have been baptized as children. In this case, they are baptized at the same time that they make a profession of faith and become a church member. Here are the main questions our elders ask in membership interviews. The first is where the bulk of the time is spent, and the rest are usually short answers to clarify the situation they are coming from. Tell me about your relationship with Jesus. Are you currently a member of another church? Have you ever stood in front of a church and declared your faith in Jesus? Have you ever been baptized? Are you currently under church discipline in another church? More Blogs You'll Like Do the Resurrection Accounts Contradict? How differences in the Gospel accounts strengthen rather than undermine the credibility of the resurrection Read More What is 'Probably' Missing From Most Nativity Sets Miracle, Myth, or Meteor? Identifying What the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ Truly Was Read More Is The Bible Really Without Error? A Closer Look at Scripture’s Reliability, Inerrancy, and Historical Trustworthiness Read More

Polarizing Division vs. Gospel Peace Sermon Series: Withstand Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Ephesians 6:15 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. Gun laws, climate change, abortion, governmental power, immigration, public education, Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, marijuana, gay marriage, transgender, and taxes. Need I go on? These are the issues that we have not just disagreements on, but they say these are the issues that Americans are divided on. And as recent polls show, they say that the polarization is getting worse. After an August 2023 polling, which was showing the widening of the American divide since 2003, that was roughly 20 years ago, after they did this poll comparing this year's results from 20 years ago, this is what one Gallup polling analysis said. It said, this confirms the fundamental foundation for any analysis of UF's politics. The fact that individuals' political identity is highly correlated with their views of social and policy issues, resulting in substantial differences in how issues are viewed across political segments. This in turn reflects the fact that the two major political parties have staked out widely differing positions on the type of issues included in this analysis. Now that was a mouthful and I'm a simple man so let me just say to you simply what was just said. It's basically in America all coming down to whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. That is unfortunately the biggest indicator of where you stand on various issues and in our world today Because apparently the contrast is so drastically clear I just want you to know I want to work extra hard To be known by my allegiance to jesus before i'm known by how I vote. So I'll say it plainly to you I am an ambassador of the kingdom of heaven Sent to this wonderful country to represent my king. And I am an American. And I am thankful that I live in this country and I care about its future. I love being an American. I love being an American citizen. I love raising my kids here. There's no place else I'd rather live. I count myself fortunate to be able to live and raise my kids here. I will not rag on this country. We are not perfect. I'm not saying that but I believe this is the best country There is and I'm allowed to have that opinion. I Am old enough to say that I was an adult 20 years ago. I Remember 03 who here remembers 03 who here wasn't alive don't raise your hand, please don't I don't want to know I don't want to know. I remember 03 and I will tell you this and if you've been around you've known this things have changed. Social norms have changed. COVID changed everything. There are many factors and as we look at the divide and the polarization, this is what both sides do that I think does not help. We see where people stand on one issue and then we think we know everything about them. But for the Christian, when we see someone, whether they are a transgender person with blue hair wearing a mask or they are a redneck with the red cap who's open carrying, do you know what is the first thing that we Christians think when we see someone? That right there is a person made in the image of the Almighty Creator. That is the first thing we think, or at least it should be. That we see a person standing before us. And I'm just gonna put this on the screen, until we see the humanity in people, before we see the difference in politics, we'll never be the people to bring the message of peace this world needs to know. Because that shows something about our heart posture towards other people. We need to see them and their humanity, and more than that, the fact that they are made in the image of God. And that's what we're going to be looking at today as we continue our series called Withstand. We're going to see how the culture war, the political war, is at its root spiritual. We're looking at Ephesians 6. If you've been with us, you know that. So please open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 6. We are looking at what the Bible calls the spiritual armor, that we've been given spiritual armor to take our stand and to fight spiritually against the true enemy, who is the devil and the way that he's having sway and influence in our world. And the piece of armor that we're looking at today is shoes. The boots that we wear for battle as we are looking at polarizing division versus gospel peace. Now as you turn to Ephesians, just to remind you, if you haven't been here, Paul wrote this letter. This actually just was a letter that one man wrote to a church in a city called Ephesus. And in this letter, he's teaching them about certain doctrines of the Christian faith and how to live out the Christian ethic in our day-to-day life. But then he closes up this letter by talking about this deeply spiritual issue, talking about the spiritual armor, because he's reminding the people in Ephesus and the Holy Spirit's reminding us that our battle is spiritual. That our neighbor is not our enemy, the devil is our enemy, and the influence that he is having, that's what we take our stand against. And so, Paul and the Holy Spirit talks about this spiritual armor, and this spiritual armor is composed of essential aspects of our faith, and that's what we are dressed with as we look at Ephesians chapter 6, verse 15. And so with that, would you hear God's word? Ephesians 6:15 And as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. That's what we're looking at today. So let's pray and we'll get started. Let's pray together. Father God, we come before you. Lord, we just ask that you would help us to find our rest, our assurance, and our strength in you. Would you protect us from the evil one during this series and in our lives and help us by pouring out your Holy Spirit upon us. That Holy Spirit, you would fill us and guide us to live lives, live lives, knowing the truth, that we might live as we take our stand. We pray these things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus and everyone said Amen. So our verse very, very simply says as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace here, the notion here is quite simple. Our feet carry us as we carry the gospel message. And so if I was gonna give you a main point, I'd put it like this today, very simply. The gospel makes us ready to bring peace in a polarized world. The gospel makes us ready to bring peace in a polarized world. And as we look at this one verse, we're gonna take it phrase by phrase, and here's how we're gonna break it down today. Point one, like shoes, the gospel gives us what we stand in and on. Second thing we'll look at is like shoes, the gospel makes us ready to face the world and the third thing We'll look at is like shoes the gospel brings us back home. Like shoes, the gospel... Gives us what we stand in and on makes us ready to face the world brings us back home I will go ahead and just warn you with this disclaimer today, and I hate disclaimers, but I think it's important I will warn you that today some of you will think that I'm going to be too political Some of you will wish that I would talk on a broader range of topics than I am going to this morning. Some of you may choose to leave the church. I will tell you now, this sermon will fall short for many people. But I am preaching for God's glory and for the good of this church, not for any political party. My challenge here will be to those who are on the left and on the right, make sure that you have not so connected and immersed your identity with your political affiliation that you have lost all ability to think objectively about the truth that's around us. And so what I'm going to ask you to do is please don't walk out at the first statement that you don't like or disagree with. I'm going to do my best to represent some facts here this morning and some data that I think is relevant to the discussion, but I will submit to you right now, it's by no mean exhaustive. We could spend a lot more time talking about a lot more topics, but through it all, in this divided world, we're going to see how we as Christians are to respond to a world that's so polarized. And I will just tell you now, it is by being firstly people of the gospel. 1. Like shoes, the gospel gives us what we stand in and on And as the Bible shows us, first point here we'll look at, is that like shoes, the gospel gives us what we stand in and on. All right, I need everyone, and you in other venues, I need you to finish this sentence for me, if you know it. Finish this sentence. If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for... I think that's so true. But here's what I'm going to say to you. We raise our kids, but do they know not just what to do or how to behave, but do they know why? Are you giving your kids not just morals but a mission? Do they understand why we are to behave in the ways that God has called us to? Because it's glorifying to Him, because it's ultimately what's best for us, and it's what makes us effective in our mission. The last thing that the Gospel of Matthew records is Jesus giving his disciples the Great Commission. A pathetic number of Christians don't know what the Great Commission is. The Great Commission is the last great mission that Jesus gave his church before he returned to heaven. It was simply this, go and make disciples. Go into all the nations, proclaim the name of Jesus and make disciples, but how are we to do that? Yes by loving them, of course with the love of Jesus. We are to love others But it cannot just be that We have to also share the name of Jesus if we are to make disciples They need to know who they are going to be a disciple of and that's why Christians in this day and age, as with for all time, we can never not say the name of Jesus. We need to always be able and willing and be brave enough to speak the name of Jesus Christ. "We need to always be able and willing and be brave enough to speak the name of Jesus Christ." I was way enough to go on a tangent, I decided not to. I'm going to stick to my notes. So here we go. As for shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness, the readiness, or you could say the preparation given by the gospel of peace. I love this. I love how the Bible ties together the gospel and shoes, because the gospel is not just to be lived out in our home, it's to be shared with the world, it's to be brought into the world. And like shoes, like boots, the gospel gives us something to stand in and stand on. And the gospel, what is that? Very simply, very purely, the gospel is good news. So why are we afraid to share it? The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place for our sins. By so doing that, he took our punishment so that we wouldn't have to pay the penalty for our own sins. And He died on the cross. And then, in the greatest miracle there ever was, greater than the formation of the cosmos, the greatest miracle, Jesus rose again on the third day. And thereby granting eternal life. Thereby proving He was who He said He was. And giving us eternal life that does not start when we die, giving us eternal life that starts now. And Jesus calls it new life. In fact, it's so new that Jesus says it's literally like being born again. That's how much of a fresh start it is when you become a Christian, that your slate is wiped completely clean and you are seen as righteous before God. And that is good news. Amen. There is no more eternally important news than that. The gospel is the foundation of what we stand in and on. It's our heart and it's our backbone. And that truth, the gospel truth, the good news is more important than any political, social or cultural division we may have. No matter if you are red or blue, one thing I can tell you about us all is that we all are sinners in need of a savior. And I'm happy to tell you his name, it's Jesus. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Jesus never got into a screaming match with those who opposed him, and neither should we. Why? Because we don't stand against them, we stand for the gospel, we stand on the firm foundation of the gospel, and it's what we put on our feet, like shoes. The gospel gives us what we stand in and on. 2. Like shoes, the gospel makes us ready to face the world And the second thing is like shoes, the gospel makes us ready to face the world. Our verse continues, having put on the readiness, having put on the readiness by the gospel of peace. You guys know, probably know that I have got four kids and when it's time to leave the house, do you know what we say to our kids? All right, kids, go put your shoes on, time to leave. And then we spend the next 10 minutes fighting about getting their shoes on because they're distracted or they lost one But here's the reality when you have your shoes on that's like the last thing we put on Before we walk out the door whether it's cold You need a coat the last thing we put on and there's our shoes and when we have our shoes on when I see the Shoes on my kids feet, then I know that we're ready to leave shoes Make us ready to leave and face the world, just like the gospel makes us ready to face the world. You cannot just understand the gospel and its certain aspects of the gospel in your theology. You need to have the gospel impacted your heart and in your life. "You cannot just understand the gospel and its certain aspects of the gospel in your theology. You need to have the gospel impacted your heart and in your life." That's when you're ready to face the world, when it's impacted who you are at your identity level. And until that point, I dare say, you may just add to the divide and the polarization because we are the people of gospel and not just gospel, the gospel peace. The Bible says that we are to withstand the evil day. Do you know what that means? It means we're going to have to face it. We can't hide from it. We can't run from it. We stand and we withstand in this evil day. And thanks be to God, He's given us exactly what we need to make our stand. He's given us the spiritual armor, which is a call to fight spiritually. I stand up here and fight spiritually every Sunday when I stand up here and preach. You, you do this every week when we gather and we celebrate God's word and we respond in worship and we lift up the name of Jesus. That's why it's so important for Christians to still gather in this world where it's so easy to stay home and watch online. This is why it's so important for us to gather. Because when we gather, we together are taking our stand. When we gather, it's showing the world and the forces of evil that we are making our spiritual and peaceful protests. So don't. I mean, I'm thankful for the opportunity that technology gives us when we're away and when we're sick, but don't forsake gathering. This is one of the ways that we make our stand and take our stand, is when men bring their families and we worship together and we listen to the preaching, and men and women and children come together and we lift up the name of Jesus. It's one way that we stand and fight our battles. And yet, what's funny is that with this piece of armor, shoes readied with not just the gospel, but listen here, the gospel of peace is part of our spiritual armor. Anyone feel the conflict of interest there? We're wearing armor, but yet we're meant to bring peace. How is that so? That's so because our fight is a spiritual fight, that we fight spiritually with a peace that transcends all comprehension because our peace is greater than the divide that's before us in our culture. Now listen, we're about to get into it. Let me just say this, in our last election, our governor lost Berry County by only getting 37% of the vote. She barely won Kent County with only 54% of the votes. And so I know that for me to stand up here and talk about how crazy the left has become would be like preaching to the choir. I'll tell you right now, I have no interest in doing that. I am here to speak truth to this specific congregation. I neither have nor want a larger platform than this pulpit here to this church family because I'm a local church pastor called to equip this church family with the knowledge and the truth of God so that we can go and represent the King out there. I am not here to make friends, I'm here to make disciples. Drink it, let's go. Mm . We're about to, we're about to, sister. I will say this though, if you wanna get coffee, I'm always up for that. Here's what I want you to do. Take a deep breath, and let's all get uncomfortable here for a minute. Again, Gallup Poll did a poll last year comparing the results from 20 years ago. Now listen, polls are polls and numbers are numbers and I'm not a pollster, I'm not an analysis. I'm just reporting on what's been reported. And these polls I'm going to cite, and I'm happy to share with you the documents I use, it's about the stance of Republicans and Democrats. Again, which unfortunately appears to be the clearest divide in this country. And it should be noted that what these polls did was they asked those who identify as independents to indicate which way they leaned, left or right, and then they lumped their numbers in with Republicans or Democrats respectfully. Other polls separate out independents,which is why you may find some discrepancies. Now, I'm not gonna get into political issues, I just wanna stick with what I believe is clearly biblical issues. And as you see here, it's clear that the political divide, it's clear that in this political divide, the blue party is most aligned with some key views that are the most blatantly unbiblical. But they're not alone. Let's see what I mean. Abortion. Yeah, let's just start there. The killing of the life of unborn babies in the womb is something that the Democrats have gotten more radical on. In 2003, the percentage of Democrats who believed abortion should be legal under any circumstance was 32%. Today it's at 59%. That's a 27 point increase. Republicans have stayed largely the same over 20 years, actually slightly dipping from 15% to 12%. But listen, while the left is more aligned with some views that are the most clearly unbiblical, the Republican side is growing in acceptance of things the Bible does not stand for. I'm sorry, my friends, smoking pot and getting high is a form of intoxication. The Bible is not opposed to alcohol, but it's opposed to getting drunk and intoxicated. And that's what typically a person seeks to do when they smoke marijuana. If you don't think getting high is spiritual, let me just tell you, as a teenager in the 90s, it certainly is. In the last 20 years, Democrats approval of marijuana has gone from 48% to 83%. Republicans have gone from 23 to 55%. Let me do the math for you real quick. This means the rate of increase of acceptance has been the same for both sides of the aisle. Or take the acceptance of the normalizing of having children outside of marriage, that focus is no longer supposed to be for a two-parent household, but the normalizing of children outside of marriage. Twenty years ago, Democrats were at 49%, they are now at 82%. That's a 33-point jump versus Republicans going from 37% to 61% a 24 point jump that is trending away from the biblical moral foundation. Or take gay marriage and mind you President Obama got elected while saying He believed that marriage was for a man and a woman 20 years ago 52% of Democrats approved of gay marriage almost divided now to 85 percent. Another 33 point jump versus Republicans who went from 30 percent to 57 percent. A 27 point increase, again, trending away from the biblical standard. And when it comes to the moral acceptance of divorce, I'll be the first one to say that this one needs more nuance than what the polls allow. But if we just want to speak in very broad ways, here's the data. 20 years ago, 61 percent of Democrats said divorce was morally acceptable. It's now at 88% a 27-point jump Republicans have gone from 53% to 69% a 16-point increase That's trending away from the biblical hope for marriage now. Listen marriage is a deeply spiritual thing It's also essential to the life and the health of a culture This is an important one the Bible does reserve divorce for very specific in situations But the biblical hope for marriage is that marriages are to be fought for If you're taking notes, let me let me summarize something here for you church in Many of the moral issues if you listen to what I just said The Republicans in general are more liberal on these issues than the Democrats were 20 years ago, with abortion being a noted exception. What I'm trying to tell you is that if you are a lifelong Republican, I hope you see that it's not just the blue party that's changing. Now, this isn't a sermon that both parties are just as bad. That's not what I'm saying here. But if anyone thinks that the Republicans or the Democrats fully represent the kingdom of God, let me tell you they don't. The church represents the kingdom of God. I am an ambassador for God's kingdom. You know what that does? That allows me to take an objective look at both parties to see where they are getting strong and where they are falling flat. And I understand, believe me, I completely understand that people cast their vote for a wide range of political and moral issues, way more than what I've just talked about here, many more than I can describe here. I'm not attacking anyone for how they vote. I'm just asking everyone to see that when you look at both parties, in many respects, both of them are trending away from the biblical standard. So let's be clear on the data here. One party is perfect. The church isn't perfect. I'm certainly not perfect. But I will just tell you, when I'm looking to cast my vote, it's for a party that's advocating for rational immigration policies that welcome people legally into this country, as many as we possibly can do, but not an open border. I'm looking to cast a vote for a candidate who's not for killing children in the womb or the sexual mutilation of children who feel uncomfortable in their bodies. I'm looking for a party and a candidate that I fully understand will be imperfect, but I'm looking for the one that's the closest to the values I hold, the closest that the Bible teaches, because I believe that's what is best, not just for me, but for all of humanity. Because in our system, we need to remember that in many ways, the thing that a politician does will last longer than their tenure. But the way things are trending, I have to ask, I wonder if 20 or 30 years we'll be able to tell the difference between the two parties. And because of that, the church better awaken themselves to what's happening on both sides of the aisle. And even more than that, we need to wake up and return to our original mission which is to go and make disciples with shoes laced up with the gospel. Let me tell you Peace Church, I'm happy to say this, we have quite a few people in our church family who are very active in local government. I want to honor them and we need to pray for them. Amen. So if you are involved in local government, I've got a rolling list. I would love just to make sure that you're on the list so I can be praying for you. If you are involved in any form of local government, would you please shoot me an email and just let me know how you serve so I can put you on my prayer list. So here's the question. How does the gospel make us ready to face the day? Here's how. By reminding us that we are citizens of a country for a lifetime, but we are citizens of heaven for eternity. And because of that, we should be objective about politics as we speak the presence of Jesus and peace into both sides of the aisle. How does the gospel make us ready to face today? By causing us to remember who we truly represent, by reminding us what we really stand for. As you remember that our fight is not with our neighbor or our political opponents, but it's with the spiritual forces of evil in this world that are moving everyone away from the biblical standard. How does the gospel make us ready to face the day? By reminding us that our symbol is not a donkey or an elephant. It's a dove that comes in power. It's a lamb that was sacrificed. Our symbol is the lion of the tribe of Judah. How does the gospel make us ready to face the day? By reminding us that our identity is not in any political party. It 's in our Savior who shed his blood for us. It's in our Savior who does not come from either side of the political system, our Savior who comes from heaven. And so we need to stand. Stand ready with the gospel for the gospel. And if you're like me, you get weary of the divide sometimes. If you're like me, you get angry at what's happening in our world. And so if you're like me, let me leave you this last point. Like shoes, the gospel brings us back home. 3. Like shoes, the gospel brings us back home The gospel of peace. I don't want this division. I don't want this divide. I don't want this polarization. Do you know what I want? I want to go home. My ultimate citizenship is in heaven and the gospel is my ticket there. Because it's the gospel of peace. And the most important peace we can have is not peace between the two sides of the aisle in America. The most important peace we can have is peace with God. And that's what the gospel brings us. It brings us to a peace that we can have with God because Jesus has removed the barrier of sin that separated us and God. And when we share that gospel with people and they enter into that peace, then we share in that peace with them. Because you know what the gospel does? The gospel turns our neighbor into family. Sometimes family has disagreements on certain parts of politics. But you know what a family is united in? A family is united in values, in who our father is, and where our home is. And just like how my boots will bring me home at the end of the day, the gospel will bring me home at the end of my life. And between now and then, we have to fight. Between now and then, we wear our spiritual armor and we stand for the truth this world needs to know. We fight spiritually against the forces of evil as we speak the name of Jesus to those who need to hear it. So when this world seems dark and the bitterness seems so strong and the divide seems to be only getting bigger, just remember when it's all done the gospel will bring us home. So let's stand and fight until then. Until that day with the hope of heaven in our hearts, we are to stand and we are to fight. Fight with truth and love, because remember, the gospel makes us ready to bring peace in a polarized world. So may you represent your Savior to a sinful world, holding Him out as the only hope we have as we stand with shoes readied by the gospel. Amen. Would you please stand? I think in this time of all this newness and this divide and all the craziness, I think it's probably very appropriate for us to go back and sing an old hymn together. And so here's what I'm going to encourage you to do. If you are a follower of Jesus, we are singing for the glory of God in response to what Jesus has done for us, and we are singing as a church united in our peaceful spiritual protest against the great enemy. That's what we get to do here now as we raise our voices. So let's pray. Father, we come before you. We ask here now, Lord, that as you have and you'll continue to pour out your Holy Spirit upon us, the Holy Spirit, as our ultimate worship leader, will you call us into a deep, deeply united time of worship as we sing with one voice of the truth of the gospel. God, we love you and we thank you. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen. And everyone said, Amen. Church, let's worship together.

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New Year New Life Sermon Series: New Year New Life Logan Bailey Family Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Ephesians 4:17-24 Transcript Good morning. How are we doing? I've said it before, I'll say it again, the front row is where the fire is at, but there are four front rows this morning and they are not all equal. So I will try my best, but we'll all leave here a little disappointed in my performance of how good I can spin and talk. So this is my best attempt right here. We'll see how I can continue to do that. Good morning, Peace Church. Good morning to those online as well. If we have not met yet, my name is Logan Bailey. I lead high school ministry here at Peace and young adult ministry here at Peace. My wife, Rachel, also works here. She's the community life director. So if you are new to Peace, she will be in the lobby after service ready to answer all of your questions. So don't forget that. Today, we are looking at Ephesians 4, 17 through 24, and we will see that we have new life in Christ, new life for the new year, may we walk in it. So I want to start with a story this morning. Many of you may recognize this story. It's the story of a good king, his page boy, and a winter storm. I had no idea what a page boy was a month ago now I do I'm going to tell you what it is so then we all know in the Middle Ages everyone wanted to be a knight and before you could be a knight you'd have to be a squire and before you could be a squire. You'd have to be Page boy it started around the age of seven a page was between the ages of seven and fourteen and the first step to becoming a knight started at age seven and pages would help run errands, they'd gather clothing and hold equipment and they would learn good manners as they watched the knights and kings that they aspired to be. So now we all know what a page is and we can get back to the story. So the story is a story about a page boy and a good king. And this king looked at the large feast that he was eating and he thought of all the people outside of his castle that were going hungry and He was warm in his castle and he was looking outside of the bitter winter storm And he was thinking of all the people that were cold outside of his castle and the story goes That this good king and his little page boy gathered gifts and supplies for the winter and they went out into the storm and handed it out to those in need. Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together through the rude winds, wild lament and the bitter weather. Raise your hand if you have any idea what I'm talking about right now. All right, amen. All right, cool. So as they walked through this winter weather, the young boy began to grow very tired. The snow was heavy. It kept getting heavier and heavier as they walked. The gifts he was carrying got more and more difficult to carry, and he got his king's attention and begged him to stop, to turn around, to go back to the castle. He did not know how much further he could go, and the good king looked at him, knelt down close and said, wasn't not much more difficult for our good king to journey from heaven to earth for us? He said, my child, use my footprints, walk where I walk, step where I step and the snow will be less of a burden to you. And so they walked, carrying the gifts, and that young boy found warmth and guidance in his king's footsteps. Life sometimes feels like that winter storm, and how often do we feel like a child just being tossed by the wind? But we are not alone. We are not left to figure it out on our own. We are given guidance. And Jesus tells us that if we abide in His Word, we are truly His disciples and we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. So my goal in the time that I have this morning is to point out the footprints in front of us. God has given us guidance in His Word. So let's go to His Word and receive instruction of life. Let's read Ephesians 4 together, 17 through 24, and we will be reminded that we have new life in Christ. May we walk in it. So please follow along, starting in verse 17. Now this I say and testify in the Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality greedy to practice every kind of impurity But that is not the way you learned Christ Assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus to put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Let's pray. Father Almighty we pray that you guide us this morning as we worship you. Jesus thank you for being our good shepherd who guides us. And Holy Spirit, we pray that you speak through your word this morning. May you be glorified in everything we do and in our hearts. In your name we pray, amen. So the book of Ephesians, if you've studied it before, you'd know this, that the first six chapters, the first half, the first three chapters are doctrinal and the second half is practical. Meaning, chapters one through three, they are stating true things about God. They're saying true things about God and about life. And then 4 through 6, the second half of Ephesians, are encouraging a way of life in light of those truths. What kind of things does Ephesians say in the first three chapters? It says that we have eternal purpose in God, that we have been given grace through faith, and that there is unity and peace in Christ. And then starting in chapter four it says, in light of those truths, therefore, live differently. In light of those truths, therefore, live differently. Christ has won for us new life, therefore, walk in it. And so knowing that background of our passage, let's go, I just want to go through these verses a chunk at a time to get a bit deeper. So starting in verse 17 it says, Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds. And so right off the bat this passage has a biblical command. It's telling us to do something. No longer walk as the Gentiles do. And if you know chapter 4, if you have your Bibles there you can see verse 1 of chapter 4. It's the same command. Walk according to the calling to which you have been called. The same command, just the other side of the coin. Walk according to the calling to which you have been called, and no longer walk as the Gentiles do. My paraphrase of this is, of this biblical command, stop living like you once did before you knew Jesus. The word Gentile is a biblical word for non-Christian. In this passage we could say pre-Christian. The way of life of someone who does not know Jesus and what follows in verses 18 and 19 is a description of the non-Christian, a description of who a Christian used to be before they met Jesus. And it is not easy to read. It's brutal to read. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous, have given themselves greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Futility of their minds. What does that mean? Well based on this passage, whatever it means, this passage is showing us that the non-Christian's mind and understanding alienates him from God. So that is the description of a non-christian The mind is hard-hearted and distant from God. And so now the word futility makes a bit more sense because futility means weak or Unable meaning those who do not have Jesus are without hope Because without Jesus we are unable to find what we're looking for. Because without Jesus we are unable to be who we are meant to be. The Bible is very clear that we are meant, we are created to find contentment in Him. That we were made to be who He has designed us to be. And if we are made to be who He has designed us to be, how could we ever imagine doing that without Jesus? How could we ever imagine being who God has made us to be without Jesus? Unable! Without Jesus, we are unable to live the life that we are meant to. So stop living like you used to before you knew Jesus. heart that causes you to distance yourself from your Savior, settling for things of flesh rather than eternal joys, settling for temporary joys rather than the ways of God. Walk as you ought, not as you used to. I want to reflect a bit more on the idea of futility, the inability that we see in the non-Christian. An old Christian mathematician once said something that I think is very important for us this morning. His name is Blaise Pascal and he said this, all men seek happiness. All men seek happiness. This is without exception. The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it, it is the same desire in both. This is the motive of every action, of every man, even those who hang themselves. All men seek happiness. I think this helps us better understand what the Bible is saying. That the ones who are alienated from God are actually attempting to do so. People aren't non-christians because they are being blinded. People are non-christians because we blind ourselves, covering our eyes to the glories of God, thinking it will help us find what we're all looking looking for which is happiness but it is in vain if we don't have Jesus we are all after happiness joy and contentment but the Bible isn't simply being poetic when it addresses these things in our hearts when it says that God gives us the desires of our hearts or when it says that the Christian is like a flourishing tree planted by the water, the Bible is always directly addressing the needs of our hearts because it knows that we long for joy, we long for contentment, we long for flourishing. Even Jesus himself came to us and went to the cross for the joy set before him. The non-Christian too is seeking to find joy and contentment, but the effects of sin are disastrous across all of life, most tragically on the mind. Sin's greatest deception of all is the deception of the mind, and it is as true today as it was then. The man who thinks the beginning of wisdom is the rejection of God is a fool. But the needs of humanity remain the same. We are still in need of the guidance of our Creator God whether we think we are lost or not. We are still in need of our Savior, whether we think we need to be saved or not, we are still in need of a renewed mind, whether we recognize the deception of sin or not. In my own story, my own testimony, I see the deception of sin pretty clearly. I just didn't see my sin until the Holy Spirit peeled my hands away from my eyes. When I was 16, I saw as if an audience member to the event, the Holy Spirit changed my heart. The Holy Spirit renewed my mind and to free me from this deception of sin that was over me. And not soon after that, I saw the deception of sin on the mind on display in someone that I brought to church as a high schooler. We sat there listening to the preacher preach the gospel, the holiness of God, the goodness of God, our sin and how it alienates us from Him and the repentance and forgiveness available in Jesus on the cross and resurrection and my heart was on fire as I heard the gospel message and in that moment the man I brought leaned over and whispered in my ear, hey where's the bathroom at? We heard the same message but with his hand over his eyes he just refused to see it and scripture is saying that we are all this way, but for those of us in Christ, we are sticks and twigs snatched from the fire, rescued, redeemed, bought back, our hearts and mind regenerated and given new life. And so if you are sitting here this morning and you don't see the deep joy in that then perhaps I'm doing a poor job of preaching but please consider perhaps your heart is darkened by sin and you're suppressing the truth consider it as an Yes, the Bible has harsh words to say against the godless lifestyle because the Bible knows the state of our hearts and doesn't hold anything back. The godless life looks a lot like, from the Bible's perspective, destructive rebellion to God and that shouldn't be surprising because whenever you wing it without the instruction manual it's not going to be pretty imagine if we were all the gun range and I decided I'm just gonna throw a blindfold on and spin around a few times and then then I'm gonna try to shoot the target get out of there, that won't go well. The Bible is going to be honest, it's going to be precise about the state of our hearts, especially when it's not going well. Just like how it would be completely unloving for God to hide a fatal diagnosis from you. Verses 20 and 21 bring out the gospel to the forefront and it says, but that is not the way that you learned Christ, assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him as the truth is in Jesus. So the non-Christian has alienated himself from his Savior, but not you, not anymore. You know Christ, you've learned Christ. You've been taught the truth by Jesus. And so this command and encouragement of the text is if you know Jesus, then live according to the new life you have been given. If you know Jesus, then live according to the new life you have been given it is no surprise it should not be a surprise at all that the Bible has an opinion on the right way to live we live in a world that is offended by exclusive claims and we are so saturated in that world that many of us cringe when we read a passage like this but it is right that the Bible has a stance on the right way to live. It isn't just a warning against destruction, it is an invitation to life. No longer walk the way you used to. You are different now because you've learned a new way of life. The Bible says, behold, the old is gone, the new has come. You are a new creation. This is the message of the gospel. The good news that Jesus came, took our sins, died on the cross, and then he rose to new life so that we too could walk in new life. Jesus rose from new life so that we too could walk in new life. We have new life in Christ. May we walk in a new life for the new year. So using the illustration that we opened with, the king and his page, I just think it's a powerful illustration because we know that life is constantly pulling at us, life is constantly nagging us, life is constantly beating us down. It is the winter storm and whether that is the suffering of life, the temptation of Satan or just the destructive sinful habits in our own hearts, this winter storm is brutal. And God describes it as brutal because it is and it's destructive. But we have been invited to a better way. We have a guided path. We have a better way through the storm. We have the footprints of our King. We have the guidance of our King. So stop trying to make your own path in this snow. Get on the path that God gives us in scripture for the joy set before us. May we see our good king as he kneels down to us and whisper, my child, hear my voice, see my guidance, use my footprints. And he says, this winter storm won't be worth comparing to the eternal joy I have for you. So how can we take this and apply it to our lives? New life, new year. Thankfully the Bible does it for us. So the Bible gives us a picture of what this looks like in our lives. It says to put off your old self which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to put on the new self created after the likeness of God and true righteousness and holiness. The Bible says put off. That's good news that we can we can remove our hard hearts because we have a savior who can take it from us and give us something eternally better, of renewed mind, eternal joy, truth that sets us free. So take it off. Jesus has brought you into a warm house, put you by the fire, take the jacket off. Take off the shame, take off the guilt. Jesus took it to the cross. Put off your old self, start walking in new life looks like is seen at the end of A Christmas Carol in the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge. If you know A Christmas Carol, the light bulb comes on for Ebenezer Scrooge at the end of the story, but not because of guilt and not because of fear of death, but because God Graciously shows him the way of life that gives true lasting joy That is the path that God wants for all of us to follow him into new life towards joy So So, your homework is to go home and watch the 1984 edition of Christmas Carol with George C. Scott. Second option would be the Muppets. So, consider what this all means for your 2023, to put off your old self, lifestyle, former desires, former dreams, the pre-Christ life that is dominated by hardness of heart towards the things of God and embrace the life that God has won for you. Follow your Savior. The Bible is saying if you know Jesus, if you know Christ, if you have heard His truth, then you have been renewed by your Savior. You aren't lost, you aren't blind, you aren't alone, but you are saved. You can see the truth and you can be confident that eternal joy is yours because He who began a good work in you is faithful to bring it to completion. You can be confident that eternal joy is yours because He who began a good work in you the odds lean towards God getting what he wants which is his glory and your joy so this new year I think our encouragement is to do some course correction to get back to the guidance guidance that God has for us. Yes, it would be a good thing to call Max effort tomorrow and get the gym membership to start the new year. It'd be good. But much more importantly, thinking of New Year's resolutions, infinitely more importantly, we need to be thinking about how we can better walk in his footprints. How we can better follow the guidance of our King. So here's a question for all of us. How often in a week do you read your Bible? Or listen to your Bible? Or listen to someone's thoughts about the Bible? Or think about the Bible at all? How will you submit to the word of God in 2023? How will we better submit to the Word of God in 2023? Read it before work, read it before bed, every day. Talk about it weekly with a friend or two. Join a Bible study or two. Don't try to do all of it, but please do something. When God found Adam and Eve after they sinned in the Garden of Eden, he was blunt about their sins. He didn't pull any punches. He didn't hold anything back about But God also saw the clothes that they made for themselves, the ragged clothes, and God made new clothes for them. So imagine this moment where Adam and Eve have to take off the clothes they made for themselves, set it aside, and put on the new clothes that God made for them. To do anything else would have been foolishness when a prisoner is released It would be unthinkable for him to keep wearing his prison clothes in other words Jesus doesn't save us merely to add to our life But to kill our old life and give us a new one the Bible says the old is gone He took it to the cross and the new has come so let's live like it So when Satan says, remember how ragged your clothes are, the gospel enables us to say, how ragged my clothes were. They aren't ragged anymore. So let's live like it. Let's read the word of God and think and believe that it really is true, that there really is a heavenly father who made a way for sinners. That is what it looks like to have a renewed mind and spirit, to let the word of God be your guiding light every week, every day, every morning, every evening. So in 2023, the greatest resolution we have to make is how will I better submit to the word of God? We have new life in Christ. May we walk in it. May we cling to the guidance of God's Word as if it were the footprints in front of us, guiding us in new life. Let's pray. Father, you are gracious, you are good. Father, you know each and every one of us in this room. You know where we're at, you know the storm that we're walking through and you go before us so Father, I just thank you for the beauty of your word the truthfulness of your word and I pray God that we are Joyfully willing to submit to it because we know that you have our joy in mind for your glory and our joy father I just pray for everyone in this room every family in this room father that we all can leave and see you clearer and have a conviction to read your word more and submit to it, be read by it and follow you. God, you are so good. and follow you. God, you are so good. We love you. In your name, we pray, Amen.

The Purpose Is Personal Sermon Series: Contender Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Jude 17-23 Transcript ;Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said with all of our hearts, amen, amen. My name is Ryan, I'm lead pastor here at Peace Church. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, sure would love to make that happen before you leave here today. And as we get going, I wanna start with this question for you. What would it take for you to step in? What would it take for you to get involved, involved in what you might say? You know what I mean. If there's something going on, what would it take for you to step in? You've all seen those hidden camera movies online where you see a situation happening, clearly fabricated, clearly staged, but the people around don't know. And there's some sort of conflict going on. They're trying to measure what would it take for people to step involved, to step outside their comfort zone or step into a situation that doesn't directly involve them, what would it take to get involved? What would it take for you to step in? Now, before you continue that thought, let me just play a little mentalist here for a moment. I'm willing to bet you're thinking about a situation that doesn't directly involve you. Because if it does involve you, if you're personally connected to what's going on, there's no question about stepping in and getting involved. Because, here's what I want you to remember, we are more apt to take action when it's personal. We're more apt to respond to an offense if we take it personally. It is one thing for men to joke about how wives are, right? Nick, you know what I'm talking about? You know how wives are, right? I mean, it's one thing to talk about that, but it's another thing to just talk about how your wife is. Yeah, we can have fun about how wives are, but don't talk about how my wife is, because suddenly we're gonna have a different sort of conversation. Amen, gentlemen? Because we're more apt to take action when it's personal. We're more willing to put ourselves out there. We're more willing to sacrifice when it's personal. A kid gets bullied at school, we feel bad about that. Your kid gets bullied at school, now the teacher's getting a call. Some of you will skip that teacher, leap frog the president, you're going right to the superintendent. I see you. A kid gets bullied, we feel bad, but our kid gets bullied. Well now we're more apt to take action when it's personal. And if that's true, do you think that's true? Okay, so if that's true, then I can show you how personal your faith is by how much action you're willing to take for it. I can tell how much you love Christ by how willing you are to put yourself out there, how willing you are to risk embarrassment, incur pain, how much you're willing to sacrifice. I can tell how much you love Christ by how much you're willing to put yourself out there. Do I really love my wife if I will only tell her that I love her but I would never tell anyone else? You're more willing to take action when it's personal. Our world has told us something and many of us have bought into this. Our world has said that faith is a personal matter, and what they mean is that faith is a private matter, so don't you dare bring it into the public square. And too many of us have bought into that, and so what we've done is we've hidden our faith with some sort of fear, or maybe you need to call it out and even say some sort of cowardice, but I'm here to tell you, we have all just agreed that you're willing to take action if it's personal. So how personal is your faith? Well I guess I can tell by how much action you're willing to take because that's what we just said. Are you willing to not just believe but are you willing to take a stand? Are you willing to not just love Jesus but contend for the faith? Because my friends that's been the call upon Christians since the very beginning. In fact, Jesus' own brother, Jude, right at the onset of Christianity, writes a letter, an open letter to Christians, and one of the main things he says is that we are to contend for the faith. And so I'd ask you to turn there, turn there now to the book that Jude wrote. It's actually a letter that he wrote, and here's a shortcut for you. It's the second to the last book of the Bible. Jump on down, we're gonna look at verses 17 to 23 today as we see this, that the purpose is personal. If you wanna use the Bible, it's happy for you to do that. That's on page 1308. And in this letter, Jude reminds us that if we're going to be faithful people, it will affect us personally. And we personally need to respond. So here we are, third week in our series on Jude verses 17 to 23. I would ask you, if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's Word here this morning. Would you hear the Word of the Lord, the letter of Jude verses 17 to 23. Would you hear God's Word? But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the spirits. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garments stained by the flesh. Amen. This is God's word. Remain standing as we say a quick prayer. God of heaven and earth, you have personally revealed yourself to be our Father. You are the master and designer of all creation. You are the Lord of the universe and yet you revealed yourself as our Father. I ask here now, Lord, that you continue to pour out your Holy Spirit upon us so we might know you more fully by the words you've inspired in Jude's letter. And we do pray these things in the name of the one who personally saved our souls. It's in Jesus' name that we pray these things. And everyone said, amen, amen. Go ahead and have a seat. Let me give you just one overarching thought here, church family, for today. As we think about our faith not being just an abstract thing but faith being that thing that literally drives every action of our life. Here's our main point for this morning. We are to contend for the faith because the purpose is personal. Our faith does not come with a blank check that gives you license to do whatever you want. Our faith comes with a purpose to be fulfilled because God has a plan and he has a purpose and that includes you. Seven verses, we'll look at three points here today. Let's take it verse by verse. First point is this, the purpose is personal so it will affect you. Look at verse 17. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. So the word you here is actually plural, meaning you all, but the point here is written to all of us so that we would remember this one thing, to keep in front of our minds what the apostles said was going to happen. They predicted this. Verse 18. They said to you, in the last time. Now let's stop there real quick. In the last time. Doesn't mean previously, like we would say, the last time I went to the grocery store. Last time here means the last times, meaning the end times. But Jude is also speaking of his time. So I may mess with a few people's eschatology here real quick. Meaning Jude saw the epoch or the period of time after the resurrection of Jesus as the last time, the end times, the time that he was living in, meaning the time between the resurrection of Jesus and the return of Christ. This is clearly also the time that we are living in. But listen to how Jude and what he says is happening in his time, and try to tell me this isn't also happening in our time. Look at verse 18. They, the apostles, they said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. Do I even need to translate this? Do I need to make an argument for this? Is this not happening in our day? There will be people who ridicule and despise faithful Christians as they themselves choose to follow their own ways rather than God's ways. The term Jude uses is even more explicit. He says ungodly passions, meaning they follow their feelings that are opposed to the things of God. Church, listen to me. Just because your passion is sincere does not make it right. Just because you have a sincere feeling doesn't mean it is right before God. You will be, as a Christian, you will be laughed at by people who they themselves sit in their own sin and Jude is warning us about this. He's reminding us of this warning because look at what he says about them in verse 19. It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the spirit. Church, and here comes the confrontation. You will be scoffed at. If you want to be a faithful Christian in this world, you will be scoffed at. Your beliefs ridiculed and attacked as people give themselves to the pleasure of sin while we ourselves remain in the joy that only comes through God's love and righteousness. They will bring division. They'll seek to do it in the church and they most certainly will do it in your lives. But if you have a true and personal faith, you must remember it will affect you. Of course it will. It's personal. Our faith is personal. When it's attacked, it hurts. You will be affected. True faith will come into true conflict with those who are immersed in the ways of the world and opposed to the true ways that God has revealed. Just like we don't let our children do whatever they want, God does not let us do whatever we want because he has a better plan for us, just like how we have a better plan for our kids. Jude calls them worldly people, meaning you'll see people who are more in love, involved, and interested in the affairs of this world and the entertainment they're in, rather than what God is doing in this world through his kingdom. Now these opening verses here, 17 to 19, you'll see that Jude is pointing out fake and wayward Christians that were in their midst, but then he turns with the rest of the letter and begins to address the true believers, exhorting us to continue in the faith, but not just continue, but to contend for the faith because our faith is secure if we remember this next thing. And this is point number two. The purpose is personal, so stay in God's love. Let me read verse 20 to you, and you tell me if something sounds familiar. But you, beloved, right there, Right there. For the second time in our passage today, and for a total of four times in this short 25-verse letter, Jude addresses Christians as beloved. My grandma was about the most down-to-earth person you've ever met in your life. She was just simply and always her awesome self. She was not prideful. She never gave a compliment that was actually some sort of backhanded jab. She was selfless. And she loved me. And she never said anything weird, like how grandparents sometimes do. You know what I'm talking about? She never said anything weird, except for this one thing. She didn't say it all the time, but every now and again she would say this weird thing. And I didn't understand it then, but I tell you, I understand it now. Every now and again, she would call me beloved. And she'd say it like that, beloved. I didn't understand it then, but I understand it now. Do you know what beloved means? Beloved is taking the sentence, you are loved, and turning it into a title. She would call me beloved, because that was her way of saying, you are loved, and I'm the one that loves you. Christians, you are loved by God with an eternal and flawless love. You are beloved, not just beloved, you are beloved. We need to say it like that because that just sounds more regal like what's befitting for sons and daughters in the kingdom of God who are beloved by the God on high. Verse 20, but you beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. That was a thick, rich statement, but there's some critical phrasing in there, so we want to make sure we get it right. Let's look at it piece by piece. Verse 20. Building yourselves up in your most holy faith, meaning you are ever meant to be growing in faith. You are not meant to get stagnant or stop. Faith is something that's ever to be developing in your life. So here's the obvious question for us all. Have you grown in your faith over the last year? Has your faith increased? If not, why not? What are you doing with your life that God, the most important thing that there is, is not the priority of your life? My friends, have you stopped contending? Do you no longer put up a fight? You are to ever be building yourselves up in your most holy faith. So simply ask yourself, I'm not asking you, I'm asking you to ask yourself, have you become a worldly person? A person who's, who can't see beyond this momentary life to see the eternal calling that God has placed on you. Have you become a worldly person? You just check your social media and find out. We are to stay in God's love. That's what keeps us separate. If you're not growing in your faith, then I'm willing to bet it's because that your prayer life is either non-existent or your prayer life is on life support. And it's no wonder that Jude says this in the next saying. He says, praying in the Holy Spirit. Yes, pray to the Father. Yes, pray under the name of Jesus. But be praying in the Spirit. He's not talking about speaking in tongues. He's simply talking about being in step with the Holy Spirit. That we pray in the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ has returned to heaven. He no longer walks among us. But what He has done is sent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who now walks among us as he fills the church and fills you, calling you to a more holy, holy faith. You can't grow in your faith without the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. So pray in him. And then in verse 21, we get what is the chief commandment of today's passage. This is the left hook. This is the imperative. This is the state of command. This is your great to do in light of today's message What are you supposed to do in light of today's message exactly what Jude says here in verse 21? keep yourselves in the love of God That's the primary love. That's the love that forms and frames all other loves that we have in our life right now I don't know if you've noticed this but it really seems like right now more than ever in our world There are so many calls to love your neighbor. I hear it all the time Clearly it's it's coming out of the political climate or the perceived political climate that we have in our world that we feel like there's This this need to constantly remind each other. We are to love our neighbor. Let me remind you my dear friends Yes, we are to love the Lord your God. And that is the love, the love that God directs and dictates. That is the love that forms our love for our neighbors. The left does not decide what it means. The right does not decide what it means. The centrists in our culture do not decide what love means. God does, because God's love is perfect. And it's that love that we are to stay in the love that was so great that God sent his son to die on the cross in our place for our sin and on the third day rise again so that we could not just experience God's love but so that we can have eternal life with which we get to experience this love and that's why Judah's so quick to end his thought like this keeping yourselves in the love of God waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life because there is no experiencing God's love that does not come through the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the bullseye of this passage we are to stay in God's love not the world's love not the love of self not your boyfriend's love but the love of God his personal love for you, which readies us for this last part. The purpose is personal, so remember your mission. Christians in the house, you are an ambassador of Jesus Christ in this world. Jesus has told us what our mission is to make disciples. And we do this by loving our neighbor and by sharing the gospel. And so yes families, hear me, especially dads in the house, this starts in your home. But every Christian is on mission and it is assigned without qualification by Jesus Christ himself. And it's called the Great Commission. It's the last great imperative that he gave us before he returned to heaven, that we are to go into all the world and make disciples to teach them about Jesus so that they might receive the gospel and come to know God's great unending love for them. And then Jude gives us a very important reminder about this. Verse 22 is so clear. Look at verse 22. He says, And have mercy on those who doubt. Now if you remember, if you're here on week one of this sermon series, I said something, and I was surprised about how many gasps I heard in light of this. In week one, I said that my strongest words are not for unbelievers, but for believers who sow discord in the church. Christians, we should hold a higher standard for each other, for those who should know better, but for those who don't, we extend mercy to them. Mercy, not because they don't deserve it. If they deserved it, it wouldn't be mercy. If they deserved it, that would be called justice. But they don't deserve it. But we give mercy to them anyway, just like how God gives mercy to us, even though we are undeserving. We extend mercy because they don't know better. Have mercy on those who doubt. And I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'll say it until you are sick of me saying it. But at Peace Church, we want to be a place where people feel safe to ask their questions and express their doubts. We invite that, we want that, we want to be a place for you to be able to talk about the faith and wrestle through questions. We want to engage that for however awkward it may be, but I'm telling you, we will be merciful to you in the midst of that because we love you and because we are commanded to. So express your doubts, express your concerns, ask great questions. We want that. And we will be merciful. We'll be merciful for those who doubt as we want them to work through their doubts and concerns so that they might come to know Jesus Christ fully. Or as Jude says in verse 23, as we are continued to do, as he says in verse 23, love your neighbor as your... Oh wait, that's not what he says. In this great moral imperative of what Christians are supposed to do in this world, did you see what he says next? Verse 23, it's not love your neighbor as yourself. Verse 23, save others by snatching them out of the fire. Because without the covering of Christ's pain for our sins, our destiny is judgment. Judgment for our sin. And with the guilty verdict already clear and pronounced, all that is left for us is punishment which the Bible has a name for and it's called hell. Hell is the eternal separation from God and it is the proper and just punishment for our sins. Don't get hung up if you think hell is an unjust, unjust place. No, no, no, you need to understand hell is a perfectly just place. It is the proper and right equal proportionate punishment John 3 verse 36 says this, whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. See, we don't know that verse because people don't post that verse on social media. The wrath of God remains on him because that's what those who are in their sin can expect. It results in the final right in eternal punishment, in eternal separation of God, as we will spend eternity paying off our sins because that's what our sins properly deserve. It will take a literal eternity to pay for your sins. And listen to me, my friends, you don't have to believe in a God who would send people to hell. Just don't say that you believe in the God of the Bible then. Jude is reminding us that our mission is even more dire than life and death. It is the difference between heaven and hell. This is no laughing matter, which is why Jude closes up his passage, continuing this serious vein, when he says this, to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. What does that mean, the garment stained by the flesh? It simply means that we just don't hate sin. We are to hate sin But we are to hate everything that sin touches Because sin separates us from God. What Judas is saying is that our love is meant to produce mercy for people But even in the midst of this we are still to maintain our identity in Christ as we pursue holiness We do not mess with sin, but our cell phones just keep us in such proximity to it. I'm saying this because I love you and I'm saying this because you need to hear this. We hate even the cell phones tainted by sin, don't we? So the question is, is are you doing this? Are you showing mercy? Are you sharing the gospel to save people from hell? Because listen to me my friends, if all you are doing is loving your neighbor, but not sharing the gospel with them, then all you are doing is holding their hand as you personally escort them to hell. Loving your neighbor is the second commandment, subservient to the first, which forms and fuels the second commandment. Here's the problem, here's the great problem with the human heart, and you find it even in churches, is we take secondary things and we make them primary things. And that's why things get all messed up, and that's why things rung amok, because we take secondary things and we make them primary things. Church, my friends, we need to make the primary thing the primary thing. The very first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. But these are the commandments, the commission Jesus has given us. The mission is to go and make disciples, to announce and share the name of Jesus Christ. If he's your personal Lord and Savior, then you must take this personally. And if it's personal, then you'd be willing to act. But too many of us are not on mission because it stopped being personal. Christians in the house, let me ask you, whose funeral do you have to attend before you realize you waited too long? Whose funeral do you have to cry at before you realize you waited too long to share the name of Jesus? Some of you are not contending for the faith simply because you need to realize, and I say this with love, I say this with the utmost love, some of you need to realize you're not contending for the faith because you actually don't have faith. I say this with the utmost love. Some of you need to realize you're not contending for the faith because you actually don't have faith. What you have is a tradition of going to church on Sunday and maybe even serving at that church, but if it was personal, then we all just agreed that would result in real action in our lives, action according to God's commands and God's outline, that we would contend for the faith, not just on Sunday, but Monday to Saturday. See, the letter of Jude does something that we don't like to do in our world. The letter of Jude is all about drawing contrast. Contrast between those who have fallen away, those who have stayed strong, between those who are in love with the things of the world and those who are walking in step with the Holy Spirit, between those who just maintain and those who are actually on mission. Yes, the purpose is personal. So let me encourage you again, contend. Contend for the faith because the purpose is personal. Don't just take it seriously. Take it personally. Take action. Contend for the faith. Listen my friends, this doesn't happen by faking it. Hate to tell you, but it's kind of easy to tell. This happens by first and foremost staying in the love that God has expressed to you through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Stay in his love, praying in the spirit. My friends, stop clowning around and start contending for the faith. Start taking it personally. Because we have a personal God who personally sent his son, who personally died for you, personally gave up his life so that you could have not just a personal hope but a living hope a hope realized because listen to me jesus has already done the work i am not talking about earning your salvation we don't live out our faith in order to hopefully one day gain salvation we live out our faith we take action because we already have it made secure. We don't follow God to earn salvation, we follow God because we already have it. Listen, my friends, the call is simple. Now is the time to contend for the faith, to take real action because Jesus took real action in pouring out His blood to save you. Let that encourage you. Don't feel condemned by that. Feel more empowered to contend for the faith. And one of the ways we do that, yes, is by standing shoulder to shoulder as we sing praises to the one who saved us. Amen. My friends, we're gonna sing a song that I've actually personally chosen that we'd sing because of the number of times we talk about the personal pronouns in this, that Jesus has saved me, he's my living hope. Not because we don't have a corporate faith, we most certainly do, but you also have a personal faith. And so here's what I'd say to you, listen to me. Before you start getting your purse ready and putting your Bibles away, listen to me. It does not matter what sort of morning you had. Does not matter what sort of week you had. If you feel worthy, something's off. God is not waiting for you to get cleaned up to come to him. He wants you to come to him right now in this moment. The devil will want to tell you, if you sing this song right now, you're a hypocrite. The devil will say to you, if you sing this song right now, you're just a massive hypocrite. Look at your life this past week. This is where you say, get behind me, Satan. And you turn and look upon the Father through the Son in step with the Holy Spirit and right now as a church we personally and together sing that Jesus is our, He's my living hope. So may you lift up your voice as we sing together a song that announces that there is one hope and His voice as we sing together a song that announces that there is one hope and His name is Jesus. Would you please stand

Christ & Confidence Sermon Series: Final Words Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 1 John 5 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. So it is a awesome morning at peace, as you've already heard. And I'm just going to add one little personal special detail to the, to the morning that makes it extra sweet. Just for me individually is, uh, today actually is my 10 year anniversary of being a pastor at Peace Church. It's been, thank you. It was 10 years ago this weekend that I started at Peace Church as the family pastor that over time grew into the executive pastor and then for the last two and a half years I've been blessed to be the lead pastor at Peace. It's been amazing to reflect on these last 10 years. That first Sunday that I preached for Peace Church, that 4th of July weekend in 2013, I did some investigating on our numbers and our total attendance on that Sunday, 10 years ago, is how many children we have every Sunday morning now, which is just amazing. And before I came to Peace, I was a youth pastor for seven years at another great church. And over my nearly 20 years being a pastor, what is very interesting to me is I reflected on my time, and there's been one question that I've been asked from Christians to their pastor. There's been one question that's risen above all the others that I've gotten the most. And it's this question. I wonder if you could guess it. The question I get the most is this. How do I know that I'm saved? Here's what they're asking. How can I have assurance in my faith? And I will be very transparent with you. That question breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that people who believe in the gospel could come to a point where they would question whether or not they are saved. I want people to know the promise and the guarantee that they have in their faith. I'm here to tell you this morning, the reason that you can have assurance in your salvation and confidence in your faith is not because of your faithfulness, it's because of Jesus' faithfulness to us. That's how you can have confidence and assurance in your faith and in your salvation. So this morning, we're going to be talking about those two things. We're going to be talking about Christ and confidence. Would you please turn in your Bibles to 1 John chapter 5. If you're using the Bibles we've provided, please do so. That's on page 1304. And as you're turning there, just a little context about what's going on here at Peace Church. We are in the midst of a sermon series called Final Words. As we're looking at the last three letters that John wrote, and to clarify, not John the Baptist, we're talking about John the Apostle, one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus, and in all likelihood, the youngest of all the disciples, of the original twelve disciples of Jesus. He's now the only one left. He's an old man now and he writes these three letters and we're looking at these three letters for the sermon series. And today we're gonna close up looking at his first letter. So we're gonna jump to the very end of that first letter he wrote, 1 John. We're gonna start at verse, we're going to start at verse 13 and just read to the end of the chapter. So again, like think for a moment. Engage your brains for a second here. This man walked and talked with our Lord and Savior. John was the last one alive. John was the only one there at Jesus' crucifixion. And this kid brother of the faith is now the father figure of the church. He's the only one left. He writes this seemingly open letter to the Christians back then, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, it's written to us here and now. And listen to how this giant of the faith ends his first letter. We'll read 1 John chapter 5, start at verse 13 and just go to the end of the chapter. With that, would you hear the word of the Lord? John writes and he says this. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the request that we have asked of Him. If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask God and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that does not lead to death. We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll get after it. Let's pray. Father God in heaven, Lord on this 4th of July weekend, we who are Americans, we celebrate our freedom and we are thankful for it, Lord. But for those of us who know your Son, we know that our freedom is eternal. And so, Lord, I pray that for those who can hear my voice, I pray that they'll come to know the voice of the Lord, that they may know and trust in Jesus for not just temporal freedom, but eternal freedom and eternal life. Holy Spirit, would you please open our hearts and minds today to receive your truth, that we would be transformed by it. And we pray these things in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And everyone said very loudly. Amen. Amen. Amen. So Peace Church, if there was a message that I'd want to give you here on a morning that's special to me, I think this would actually be it. Talking about Jesus and confidence. So here's the main point I'd leave for you this morning. If you just take away one thing, here it is. Of all the many things our faith gives us, it gives us confidence. That's our main point this morning. If you are in the faith, please hear and be reminded of this. And if you're not a Christian, number one, I'm so thankful you're here, but if you're not a Christian, would you listen this morning to hear what you are missing out on? In a world of confusion and corruption, Christians have Christ and we have confidence. So as we look at this passage today, I want to warn you, it's kind of a tricky passage, but here's going to be a path through it this morning. Of all the many things our faith gives us, it gives us confidence. Confidence in our salvation given from God, confidence in our prayers to God, and confidence in our relationship with God. I don't know about you, but I like to listen to sermons throughout the week. Anyone else listen to podcasts, listen to sermons throughout the week? So I do. And I can tell you, sometimes when I listen to other pastors, not the pastors of Peace Church, other pastors out there in the world, sometimes they tell stories, and I'll be honest with you, I kind of roll my eyes sometimes. Because sometimes when pastors tell stories, it sounds like a story that only a pastor could tell. Like it sounds like a story only a pastor would live. Like normal people don't do those sort of things. And so I'm going to tell you a story this morning that unfortunately sounds like it would come from a pastor. So here's how it starts. So I was debating this Muslim this one time on the streets of London. True story. True story. Actually it was on a trip that, it was a number of years ago, and actually we have a number of youth who are on that very same trip right now, over in London, if you are, if you know what I'm talking about. They landed safely this morning after some delays, but they're on the ground. And what it is, it's an evangelism training and a worldview development trip. So you go to London, in many ways it's kind of like the capital of the world. So many religions and cultures are in London. And they're studying how to evangelize, and they're studying other religions and other worldviews. It's great. So they study in the morning, then they go out and practice in the afternoon. And I was on this trip a number of years ago, and I found myself engaging in a robust, but a kind-hearted, a robust debate with a Muslim man. And the topic turned to the nature of salvation. And I basically asked him, how do you know that you're saved? And he said, I know, I believe that I'm saved because I trust in the mercy of Allah. And he basically told me that when he dies, that Allah or Allah will look at the good life that he's lived and then Allah will be merciful to him and grant him everlasting paradise. So I said to him, well, so it sounds to me like that it's partly you're saying that it's your God's mercy but it sure seems like a lot hangs on you living a very good life I said do you think that you're that good of a person and he basically said well I try to be and I said to him this is the difference this is the difference between your religion and mine this is the difference between your God and my God you ultimately put your hope and being rewarded by your good works But you won't really know until you stand before your God but I I Do I put no trust in myself? My salvation does not come from from me being a good life or God being merciful to me because I've been a good person My salvation comes from God's grace because I will never be good enough to inherit heaven. And I think if you all here truly examine and look at the mirror of your soul, I think we all know in our heart of hearts, we do not deserve heaven. I said, you know, this whole notion of getting what we don't deserve, this is called grace. And I'm telling you, the grace of Yahweh is better than the mercy of Allah. That is what we have in Jesus. See, this is what makes Christianity different from every other religion. We contribute nothing to what saves us. And oddly enough, that is the very thing that gives us confidence in our salvation. I am telling you, the second you add me to the equation of my salvation, that's when I start to lose hope. You take me out of the equation and you say, this is completely the work of God, I have a lot of confidence in that. This is the great difference between Christianity and every other world religion. In its basic sum form, every other religion basically says live a good life and maybe you'll get to heaven. Christianity says, we know you can't. That's why Jesus came and did it for you. This is the great difference between Christianity and every other religion. Church, I've said it before, I'll say it again. The second you add me to the necessity of my salvation, that's when I lose hope. But when you place it squarely at the foot of Jesus, that's when I have the utmost confidence in my salvation. Look what John writes. If you question your salvation like so many people have come to me and questioned theirs, I want you to hold on to this verse. 1st John 5 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. That you may know. Not so that you may question, not so that you may wonder, not so that you may doubt, not that you may worry or wonder if you're gonna pass the test when you stand before God, that you may know that you have eternal life. But you may know that you have eternal life if you believe in the name of Jesus. Not acknowledge the name, not respect the name, not acknowledge its prominent place in history, but if you believe in the name of the Son of God, Jesus, if you believe in the name of the Son of God, Jesus, may you know you have eternal life, because it's what Christ has done for you, not what you do for Him. I'm sure most of you would probably know the lyrics to this old song. I'll read the first couple lines, see if you can finish the last line. It says this, air of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. Washed in his blood. Like if you grew up singing that song, you'd probably forget how, like, utterly grotesque that may sound to someone who has no idea what you're talking about. Washed in His blood. Spiritually speaking, yes, the blood of Jesus washes us and makes us new. What's the name of that song? Anybody know? Blessed Assurance. Foreshadow the closing song. Blessed Assurance. assurance. Because that's what we have in our Savior. That's what Christianity has that no other religion can offer you. Blessed assurance in your salvation. Welcome to Jesus. It's because of Him that we have confidence. It's because of Him that we have assurance. It's because of Him that we have salvation. No matter where or how the world actually goes, goes for Christians we know it ultimately turns out all right. Of the many things our faith gives us it gives us confidence in our prayers to God is the second thing. Confidence in our prayers to God. Before we get into this I wonder for those of you who are married in the house for those of you who are online watching for those of you who are married here's the question I have for you. How often do you have real, rich, deep, faith-filled conversations with your spouse? How often do you have real, rich, deep, faith-filled conversations with your spouse. And here's, I said it, I'll say it again, not here to shame anyone, I've got a young family, I get it, life is busy. But, but, here's what I'd say to you. The depth of our relationships is intimately tied to the depth of our communication. Same goes for marriages, and the same goes for our faith. The depth of our faith is in so many ways intimately tied to the depth of our prayer life. And of the many things that our faith gives us, it gives us confidence in our prayers to God that by the blood of Jesus, we have access to God, that through the name of Jesus, we know that our prayers are lifted to God's heavenly throne room. Look at verses 14 and 15. I'm gonna tell you these next couple verses they get kind of tricky So stay with me We'll have it on the screen But it's best if you have an open in your Bible in front of you verse 14 Says and this is the confidence that we have toward him that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us And if we know that he hears us and whatever we ask we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him I get that's a little tricky here. So let's let's try to play it out for a second here again these two verses the next two Stay with me For verses 14 and 15 that we have here before us the point that John is trying to make is that through our faith as? We become more Christlike as we grow more into the image of Jesus We'll be more and more Conforming to the image of God's will the more that our lives will conform and that we will seek to have our lives conform to God's image and to God's will and our prayers will reflect this. I love what John Stott says about this passage here. I'll have a put up on the screen. I love this quote. Says prayer is not a convenient device for imposing our will upon God, but bending his or bending his will to ours. But prayer is but the prescribed way of subordinating our will to his. It is by prayer that we seek God's will, embrace it, and align ourselves with it. Every true prayer is a variation on the theme, thy will be done. Meaning, our faith, if we are growing in our faith, it will lead us into a deeper prayer life, and if we enter a deeper prayer life, we'll see our faith grow. And prayer is communication with God, not a God who is distant, not a God who doesn't have time for you, but a God who is present, who gave his very self for you. And he hears us. He hears us when we approach him in faith in the name of his son. John is calling us to a deeper prayer, a deeper prayer life where we walk with God and we learn to trust Him all the more. But then he takes this notion of prayer and he addresses something that is, he takes this notion of prayer and he addresses something that is, in all honesty, really confusing. And we don't have time to fully flesh it out because, well that would take centuries, because for centuries theologians have been trying to discern exactly what john's getting at here so let's look at these next two verses here versus 16 and 17 among the most confusing verses in all scripture I think he says this if anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death he shall ask and God will give him life to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I do not say that one should pray for that. All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that does not lead to death. Okay, again, like we don't have time to sort this all out because theologians have been trying to sort it out for centuries. So let me just point out a couple of things about this section here that I think is important for us. First thing, remember, this is a letter, while inspired by the Holy Spirit, this is a letter that a man wrote to fellow believers. And it feels very real because of that. So, it's quite possible that John is using known phrasing for the time that he was living, maybe a sort of like insider language that we've maybe lost over time. But again, this shows us that it's a real letter written by a real man to a real audience. And while we don't know exactly what he means, it's an all likelihood, maybe the original audience did. So here's what we can do. We can take some general implications from these two verses and apply it to our lives. If you want to talk about some of the specific debates about people's assumptions and guesses and study about what John means, we can talk about that later. But for for right now, let's just take some general implications and apply it to our lives. First one is this, sin is serious business. While we don't contribute anything to our salvation, I think what the wrong thing people do is, they think, well, then I guess it doesn't matter if I sin, because Jesus saves me anyway. And John's basically saying, real Christians don't talk like that. So number one, sin is serious business. But the other thing that we see is we see the power of prayer highlighted here. The power of prayer among Christians praying for each other. And this ties into a larger idea about how faith gives us confidence in our prayers. The moral of the story I think here is this, that if you see a fellow Christian You do not gossip about it. If you see another Christian in sin, start with prayer. Why? Because of our faith in Christ, we can have confidence in our prayers, which leads to the last notion here, confidence in our relationship with God. Please hear me on this. Confidence in our relationship with God. Church, I want you to hear from me, like this, this is what I missed out on for so long. I grew up in a sense going to church and I went to Sunday school as a little guy and I learned my Bible stories, but I can tell you this, I was never told or taught about a relationship with God. In fact, when I first heard that language as a teenager, that just, it didn't compute to me. Like, God, that being that's like way out in heaven or somewhere, like have a relationship with him? What does that even mean? This is what I missed out on for so many years. Christ has come to reconcile us to God. So follow me on this. See, sin, sin, all the wrongdoing we do in our lives, sin has destroyed our relationship with God. But one of the things that Jesus came to do is he came to restore what sin has destroyed. And so John, again, who walked with Jesus, who knew the texture of Jesus' hair, John who walked with Jesus, who stood by Him as Jesus was crucified. John says this amazing thing in verse 18. He says, we know that everyone who has been born of God, speaking about Christians, I want to clarify some things on the screen here for you. We know that everyone who has been born of God, meaning Christians, we do not keep on sinning. But He who was born of God, meaning Christ, talking about the incarnation when Jesus was born on earth, but He who was born of God protects Him, meaning Christians. And the evil one, Satan, does not touch Him. Let's unpack that for a second here. But before we do, I think it was last week, last week I was interviewed by a woman from Nashville, Tennessee, who works for a Christian magazine called Outreach Magazine. She called me to tell me something pretty cool. That among the 100 fastest growing churches. Isn't that crazy? And so she was writing some articles on these churches, and so she called me and she wanted to know, like, why? And, of course, it is all God. 100% God from top to bottom and she was very kind and she was like yes, yes, yes, but what are you doing? and I just said, you know, I Can't tell you anything. I can't tell you anything fantastic. I can't tell you anything sexy I can't tell you anything that's gonna like make a newsworthy article. We just try to preach the Bible and be a good church We want to love our neighbor and we want to glorify God and we want to reach out, we want to know the truth, we want to proclaim the truth, and that's really who we are, and people keep coming. And she was like, okay, but what are you doing? And I was like, okay, I thought really hard, and here's what I said. I said, okay, I think I can give you something that's maybe a distinctive, maybe. We'll see how, we'll see. I said, here's what I can tell you. This is one thing that constantly amazes me about Peace Church. I said, as the lead pastor of this church, I said, what's odd to me is that I cannot challenge this church enough. And not me, but, but scripture, like scripturally speaking, like I cannot bring a hard enough challenge to this congregation that they just don't rise to the challenge of, but they go on to exceed it. I said, every time I laid down a hard challenge, a challenge that I think would actually like prune the church, like a challenge that I think would like turn people off and make them like never wanna come back here, like every time I bring one of those messages, we grow by like 150 people the next week. I'm like, I don't get it, but I do get it. Because this is what I've come to understand. Our world is sick of the fluff. Our world is looking for something true and eternal and something that transcends what's going on in our wacky world. I said, our church wants to know the truth and they want to apply it to their lives and they're doing it. Like we just said, this is a side note here, like we just told you, we just did our year end, we just closed up our fiscal year 20% ahead of the budget and when we like approved this budget, it was enormous step of faith for us. And it's like church just continues to give and give and give. And I'm telling you right now, it's not because it's funding me or Pastor John's man cave, okay? I don't have one. It's called the furnace room in my basement. True story. But this church loves the Lord and they love to see a church equipped. We were able to purchase that house without even dipping into our reserves. And we continue to give to our missionaries and we continue to great ministry and this church just continues to do amazing, amazing things. And that's just financially speaking. I'm hearing constant testimonies of you reaching out with the faith and sharing the gospel with nonbelievers. And that pumps me up. I'm seeing I'm meeting new people every single time that you have been reaching out to and sharing the gospel with. And it just seems like I cannot lay down a hard enough challenge that this church just doesn't, it's like you're thirsty for it. Because we're sick of the fluff and we want something real. So if you want a challenge, John lays down a really good one right here. He says, we know that everyone who has been born of God, speaking of Christians, we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning. Do you feel challenged? That's a massive challenge. So let me clarify a few things. John is not saying that once we become a Christian we'll never again sin. What he's saying is that for those who become Christians, we will not willfully, continuously give ourselves to what we know is wrong in God's eyes. Because Christians don't live for the self, we don't live for the world, we don't look for the approval of man. Christians live for God. And so Christians, if you found yourself trapped in a habitual sin, if you found yourself constantly doing that very thing that you know God doesn't want you to do, I think one reason could be you've kind of strayed from Jesus. Christ is no longer first in your heart. You're not walking with your Savior. You're not spending time daily at the foot of the cross being reminded again of God's great love for you. It's because you've become distant from your Savior. It's like this. I think most people, most people are less likely to swear or tell dirty jokes the more that their kids are around. And it's not because kids are a buzzkill, it's because kids remind us of things that are more wholesome and holy, and let's just be honest, more truly joyous. And I think that's what it's like the more that we stay with Jesus, right? He's not a buzzkill. Jesus reminds us of what is more holy and wholesome and joyous. I'm telling you right now, for the Christians in the house, the true Christians who are walking with their Savior, they're the most joyous people I know. No matter how dark or weird the world gets, we are people that do not lose our joy because we stay close to our Savior who's ever calling us to Himself. He says, but we know that everyone who's been born of God, Christians, we do not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God, meaning Christ, he protects us from the evil one. Meaning, when we are closer to Jesus, we're not just saved from sin, but we're more protected from Satan and his influence in our lives. So let's talk about him for a second. Verse 19 says, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. I don't like talking about Satan, but let's spend a moment. I tell you what, the devil isn't even trying to hide anymore. He is on full display. Award shows public TV and award shows are showing men and women dressed up as Satan and demons acting out all sorts of atrocious things. Do you know that there are actual satanic after-school clubs put on by the satanic temple? By the way, the satanic temple just announced that they reached 700,000 members. The devil's not even trying to hide anymore, but we welcome him like it's comical and childish and kiddish. There is a real evil purveying our culture that's not even trying to hide in the shadows anymore. And Christians, you want to know the number one way to combat it? What's the number one way to combat the darkness? It's with the light. And that's what Christians are to bring to this world. We're to bring the light that casts out the darkness. The whole world lies in the power of the evil one. But we know one who is more powerful than him. So let's talk about him for a moment. And we know that the Son of God, Jesus, the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true, meaning God. And we are in Him who is true, in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God in eternal life. He is the true God in eternal life. So there is some ambiguity in the original Greek. We're not exactly sure, does He refer to the Son, Christ, or God the Father? We don't know. There's debate over that. Either way, John is saying to us, despite Satan's power in the world, we are protected because we are in God. And this gives us confidence, confidence in Christ. I'm not trying to speak anything into existence. I'm just trying to acknowledge what's real and what's probably going to happen. Satan clubs for kids will continue to grow in our world. The demonic will become more and more normalized and accepted in our world. But church, but church, do not fret. When this happens, do not run around like a bunch of chickens with your head cut off. Don't freak out on social media. We know one who is more powerful. We know how the story ends. So stand up, shine the light, and show people confidence. Not pride, we just got done with that month. Not worry, that's not who we are in Jesus. We are people of confidence because of God, because of what he's done and what he's done for us. Church, this is a time to be diligent and vigilant. And I think that call is actually summed up in this last little line that John ends with. It seems like an odd line to end with, but here's what John says. It says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. This is how John ends his letter. This enormous, beautiful, big, bold letter, John ends it with this weird little line that just says, it's just kind of abrupt, he just says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. I don't think John is speaking to six-year-olds here. I think him being the father of the church, he's speaking to all of us. We are to keep idols from our lives. And idols, what are those things? Hear me on this church, idols are anything that keeps our heart away from God. Anything that we place in our life that takes the place of God, or is more important than God. And I wonder, can you spot those in your own heart? I wonder, can you identify those in your own life? What is taking the place of God? What is becoming more important to you than Jesus? I wonder, can you name the idols in your life? Is it money? Is it sports? Is it a boyfriend? Is it that wretched little device we call a cell phone? Let me ask you, do you have people in your life who love you and love the Lord who could point those out for you? Because here's what I'm going to tell you, if you don't have those people in your life, I think it's going to be really hard in this world to grow in Christ. We are meant to have fellowship with one another. So back to the beginning. For those of you who have repented and believe in the name of Jesus, please do not wonder if you are saved or not. Don't add yourself to the equation. Don't let idols speak whispers into your ears. If you believe in the name of the Son of God, if you believe in the name of Jesus, He's taking care of your salvation for you. John says, I write these things to you, that you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Of all the things our faith gives us, it gives us confidence. And what better way to close a morning like this is with that old hymn, Blessed Assurance. Amen. Amen. Amen. Transcribed with Cockatoo

PODCAST That's a Good Question Reformed Roots: The Depths of Depravity and the Power of Grace February 5, 2024 Jon Delger & Logan Bailey Listen to this Episode Jon 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 Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon, I serve as a pastor as well as the weekly host of the show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions . And today I'm here with Pastor Logan. Logan Howdy. Jon Pastor Logan is our discipleship pastor here at Peace Church. So just to give some context, we are going back to a topic that we've talked about a few different times. Back in November we did an episode on this topic, and then last week we did an episode on this topic, and we're wrapping it up today by approaching the topic from a little bit different angle, kind of a systematic angle. The topic is Calvinism, which seems like a big, for some, maybe frightening term, but we're gonna try to break it down, make it plain and simple and get into especially, what does the Bible actually say about some of these concepts? Logan Amen. Yeah. It's gonna be fun. I actually think that there's a lot to this conversation that are some philosophical, some theological, and biblical, and all of them are so sweet and so fun to engage with, but I do love that we're focusing in on the biblical aspect of this topic more than anything else. Jon Yeah. And how would you, to put you on the spot, Pastor Logan, how would you summarize, what is Calvinism in a few sentences? Logan Oh boy, I was thinking about this too. And instead of going for like a complex answer, the answer I've kind of gone with is just God at work graciously saving sinners. Ooh, that's really good. That's the emphasis, I think, of Calvinism, of Reformed theology, of TULIP, anything you could say, doctrines of grace, is that God is graciously at work. And that's what we're focused on, that's what we're talking about. Jon That's a really good one-sentence summary. I asked just because I was curious, and we've tried to do that in the last couple episodes, and summarize it, and I just wanted to hear what you would say, that's a really good one. Logan I think that's my favorite, there's a lot of buzzwords for this conversation topic, and I think doctrines of grace is my favorite. Yeah, yeah. Man, these are the doctrines of pure, total grace of God. Jon The theology of how God graciously saves people. Yeah. Uh-huh. I like that Sweet. Well, hey, we're gonna talk through kind of the two big so if you're not familiar Calvinism is sometimes broken into five points summarized with the acronym tulip t-u-l-i-p and We're gonna talk about two of those one because it's the foundation and the second one because I think it's the natural outworking And so that's how we'll get into it today. So, producer Mitchell, you wanna guide us through the conversation? Mitchell Yep, we'll be talking about two topics, total depravity and irresistible grace. But let's jump into that first one first. What does total depravity mean and what does it not mean? Logan Yeah, I love the way that we're clarifying what it doesn't mean, because just Calvinism in general, I think it's important to talk about what it doesn't mean. But depravity specifically, we're not talking about being sick with sin, but we're talking about being dead in sin. Yeah. Inability to choose God, not because we're not choosing, but because we do choose and we do choose sin. That is the default nature of humanity, is that we are choosing and we're choosing sin. Jon I like that, that's really good. One of the things I was gonna say that it doesn't mean, and this is one of the objections that I commonly hear from people, is people hear total depravity and they think, well, I'm not as bad as I could be. They hear totally depraved and they think that means you must be the absolute worst person you could possibly be. Jon Right. That's not really what it means. Logan I've heard people rephrase it in helpful ways, and it's not that total depravity is insufficient, but it's just another way of saying it that helps clarify that is entire corruption. Like your entire person is touched by a sin. Yeah, I like the way you put it, though, too. Jon Yeah, so, in short, I could be worse. John Delger could be worse. I am totally depraved in the way that we're about to explain it, but I could be worse. Logan And unsanctified or unjustified people do show, can do good things or can do things that, that's what we call common grace, but that's a. Jon Right, right, right, totally. So, yeah, you used a great word, the ability. Here's kind of the way that I've summarized it in the past, I got it written down here. Total inability is another way to phrase it. I love that, that's good. Yeah, I mean, tulip is just an acronym somebody came up with to define each of these five points. They're not, you know, so we can deviate a little bit. Jon So total inability, meaning that the sinner is so spiritually bankrupt that he or she can do nothing pertaining to his own salvation. Logan And I think I was speaking specifically of total depravity, like we can't and we won't. We couldn't, we wouldn't. And can I say a verse? Jon Yeah, go for it. Logan Okay, I'm just gonna jump in. Romans 8, 7, for in the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Jon Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of where we're at. Logan Yeah. Jon And that's where we're headed, right? We wanna talk through some texts? Mitchell I was just about to ask, is this a biblical idea? Is this something that we're making up? Or is this something we're imposing on Scripture? Or where do we find this? But I think that's a great, that's a great, uh, yeah, that's a great one to start with. Jon Yeah. And yeah, and our point is that this is not something man made up. This is us trying to look at the text of Scripture and summarize it in a few different ideas. So I'll chime in a couple of verses. One is Romans 3 23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So Scripture is clear that all human beings have sinned. It's not just some, it's all of us are sinners. 1 Kings 8 46 says, there is no man who does not sin. So just stating it another way. 1 John 1 8 says, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. Logan I love that one. Jon Yeah, boom, roasted. Don't lie, you are a sinner. That's kind of the punchline of it. LoganIn a sense, too, scripture is just very clear. All are sinners. If you're saying you're not, you're calling God a liar. Jon Yeah, yeah. Another interesting one I jotted down, Romans 14, 23, says, whatever is not from faith is sin. I think that's an interesting one because it points us towards, sometimes when we think of sin, we just think of actions that we commit, but scripture's clear that it goes much deeper than that. JonIt goes into our thoughts and our hearts and our intentions. It's kind of like in Matthew 5, when Jesus says, you have heard it said or seen it written, do not commit adultery, but I tell you the truth, whoever lusts after a woman with his eyes has committed adultery in his heart. Jon So the Bible is upping the ante constantly, that it's not just outward actions that we do, but thoughts and positions of our heart that bring us into sin. Mitchell Well, I think even going off of the Sermon on the Mount, I've had people say, you're talking about sinning kind of constantly, or like this sin nature, and they're like, well, I'm not sinful all the time. Bring it back to when Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind, your strength. Mitchell I used to be a youth pastor and would talk with youth students about that and say, okay, let's try to love God with all, everything that we have right now, just for 10 seconds, just for 30 seconds. And there'd always be like two kids who would raise their hand and be like, no, I actually did it. And I'm like, well, I didn't see you lift anything. Like, we are physically possible, it's not physically possible for us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, strength, all the time. And therefore, we are constantly in a rebellion against God. Logan And I actually have a verse to read from Sermon on the Mount, which is what we were referencing. But I just want to say, like, the hard part when we're saying, hey, let's get after the biblical background and foundation for Calvinism and for these five points, is picking, like, the amount of options that we have to pick from. Because you just listed off so many verses, and I went through and was like, what are my top verses? And I didn't even pick any of those. I picked 12 other ones. But one of the passages that I did pick to kind of get after this depravity idea, and our entire corruption, or all of us, all of us is touched by sin in some way, all of our person. Matthew 7, 16 through 18, you will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbrushes or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. We are talking about not just your outward actions, but the state of your nature. And the point being, we have a corrupted nature about us. It's not something that you have to wait until someone is 12 or eight years old and then see, all right, now, do you mostly do good things or mostly do bad things? It's just, no, we are corrupted in our nature. Trying to say, this is both our actions and inactions, which is just, the more you think about that, the more you're like, oh wow, I really do fall short of this standard. Jon Yeah, so you're saying sins of commission and omission. So even when you're not actively committing a do not from the Bible, you might be failing to commit a command that says you should go do something. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Mitchell So can we jump on to our next question in this, talking about free will in association with total depravity. What is that all about? Logan I think I briefly touched on it earlier by saying we have will, we have agency, and we choose sin. We sin because we're sinners. Jon We'll be right back after this break. Elizabeth 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 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. Jon That's a really important point to talk about. I actually hadn't thought of that. We should talk through that. So you just said we sin because we are sinners, whereas I think the majority of the world would say it the opposite way, that we are sinners because we sin. Right, yeah. You want to explain that a little bit? Logan Yeah, well, I guess the one thing that's on my mind, and I might not fully explain it so we can come back to it, but just as we engage in the conversation, some people might be thinking, wow, these Christians really have a bleak view on the world. It's like, man, I'm a Christian, but these guys on this podcast are really making me think. Jon This episode has been kind of a bummer so far. Logan Yeah, but I think, man, if we don't get sin right, then we don't get the gospel right, and we don't understand the depth of God's salvation. So when we talk about the depth and the dire nature of our souls, that's just to say right back at it, and we are saved from all of it. And that's why we say grace of God. We don't merit any of the things that he did for us. What was your specific question? JonWell, so you're saying in a minute we're gonna round the corner, we're gonna talk about some good news. Yes, yeah, yeah. We've been just talking about bad news. Yeah, can you explain the, kind of the difference of perspective that we're saying that you are a sinner, hang on, I gotta make sure I say this the right way. Jon It's not that you are a sinner because you sin, you sin because you are a sinner. Logan The one verse I think of is Romans 5.12. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. So there is like a philosophical curveball here that you're saying. It's like is it we sin because we're sinners or we're sinners because we sin. And I just think the Bible's pretty clear that we called original sin, we are by nature sinful. Jon Right, Adam sinned and we are all Adam's children. Logan We're not blank slates, everyone's sitting, God's not sitting around waiting to see like, all right, is this one, oh, another one failed. It's like, no, our entire nature is corrupted. Jon Yeah, let me tell you, I wasn't planning on saying this, but let me read part of the notes that I've got written down here. I've said in the past, I think one of the best, I think probably the best lecture series on Calvinism is John Piper's five-part series just called Tulip. I think it's great, it's getting really old now, honestly, but it's great. Jon And I'm gonna just list, and this is, I can't remember, this is in some of my old teaching notes from the last time I taught on this, so I might have adapted his points a little bit. So, John Piper, forgive me, but these are basically coming from John Piper. Yeah, there you go, perfect. So, these are basically his five points on what is total depravity. He says depravity means at least five things. Number one, that depravity affects every human, so every human is affected by sin. It means that our rebellion or hardness against God is total, that is, apart from God's grace, there's no delight in the holiness of God, and there's no glad submission to the sovereign authority of God. So these are all ways that it's total. Number three, in his total rebellion, everything man does is sin. We've kind of gotten to that point, you know, it's actions, heart, thoughts. Number four, man's inability to submit to God and do good is total. So we are unable to do things that would be meritorious before God. And finally, number five, our rebellion is totally deserving of eternal punishment. Yeah. So, scripture is clear on all those accounts. So, as it reflects free will, like you were asking, Mitch, one of the things I've done when I've taught on this concept before is go back to Ephesians, chapter 2, that says, and you were dead in your trespasses and sins. Jon So, it's talking about our state before Christ. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, and I remember teaching this a couple of different times in youth group settings. I'd have a kid come up on the stage with me, and I'd whisper to him, hey, you're going to play dead, because that's the point of the passage here. I'd say, all right, so play dead. They'd fake their death, and they'd lay down on the stage and face down on the carpet. I remember one time, actually, a kid got up afterwards, and he had the carpet marks all over the side of his cheek because I made him stay there for so long. And then I would say to him, I'd say, hey, just get up, just come alive, and here's my hand, and all you gotta do is you gotta take it. If you just take my hand, you'll be alive. That's all you gotta do. And what did the kid do? The kid just laid there. Probably because somebody who's dead can't do anything. So if you say to them, all you have to do is this one thing, they can't even do that. And I think that's kind of the point of total depravity, is to say, we are so dead in sin, we can't contribute to our own salvation. I can't just decide I'm going to get up and do something to contribute to it. What we're going to get to in just a moment is that God has to supernaturally intervene for anything good to come of my situation. So then thinking about free will, people ask, do humans have free will? Well, I'd say if you have free will, then go and sin no more. Logan Hmm. Jon You know, if you're free, if your will is totally free, then you should be able to decide not to sin, to stop sinning. Yeah. Logan And I would argue that you can't do that. We're not free from the, the, how do I want to put it? Like the, the desires we have, we can't just pick them. Like we have these desires and they are sinful. Yeah. And you choose what you want. And the Bible's saying, and you want sin. Like, sin is fun, and we love it, and then we hate God. That's just the nature of humanity. Yeah. Jon I mean, one of the dominant images in the Bible about sin is that we are slaves. Mitchell It was Augustine who said something like, we had the ability in the garden not to sin and lost that when Adam fell. So, there was a time where we could, free will was the ability not to sin, but because of the fall, it's gone. LoganSin is choosing something that's antithetical to God's design and sometimes when we use this word sin, we think everyone knows we're talking about, and the gist of it is we're just saying sin is choosing your own way rather than God's way. Because God has a will and a desire for us, and we have a will and a desire. And the way it's ought to be is that those two things are in alignment. But the reality of the world, and that's just what we're saying, the reality of the world is we are not in alignment with our Creator God, and we're living in rebellion to Him because we choose things our own way. Mitchell Absolutely. Well, let's turn the corner and start talking about grace. So this next point is called irresistible grace. So I'd love to ask, what does that mean? What does irresistible grace mean? Logan Yeah, I think it actually piggybacks off well of what I just said, because when people hear the word irresistible grace, we think, oh, so humanity is in rebellion to God, and so what God does is he makes it, he takes humans and he forces them into, forces a square into a circle or something and makes it, just makes humans do what he wants. And that's not at all what it's referring to. Like we said, we, and I actually think that's a misunderstanding of Calvinism, when we talk about what Calvinism isn't. Calvinism isn't that it's God 100% just taking us like robots and moving us along, but it is we have we have a will, we have desire, God has a will and a desire and we're not in alignment, that's why we're in sin. And irresistible grace is saying His grace comes and He redeems our hearts, He regenerates our hearts so that we do want Him. He chooses us, regenerates our hearts, does a work of grace and now we want him, and we choose him. Jon That's the, yeah. Yeah, without which we'd be in deep trouble. Yeah, I've always really liked the name Irresistible Grace, because irresistible is a really positive thing. Logan Yeah, it's not removing your agency, it's actually giving it to you and saying, here's the grace that God has done. Jon So, what I've written down is that total depravity shows us that if grace were resistible, then we would resist it. If we could resist grace, then we definitely would. That's the point of total depravity. But irresistible grace, that doctrine shows us that we can only resist until God decides to overcome our resistance. Jon I think that's the case of the Bible. We'll look at some passages in a minute, but it's true that people do resist God. People resist God's grace. Logan That's total depravity. We are all activists. Jon Yeah, yeah. We are all activists. I've sometimes visualized it like arm wrestling. We're resisting God until the moment when God just decides it's over. It's over. And he just goes boom. You know, it's like when I arm wrestle my sons, they're four and three years old, I obviously could win at any moment, but I choose to let them, let it be a struggle for a little bit just because, and then at a certain point, I just throw down and it's done. Mitchell I've got a Steven Lawson quote if you want it, or am I talking too much? Yeah, go for it. Steven Lawson says that irresistible grace is when God chooses to raise one of his elect to life, he can do so without asking permission of the dead creature. Which I think is just such that cool idea of that arm wrestling. When God decides it's gonna happen, he doesn't need to ask permission. It just happens. Logan There's so many different places to go, because I do think talking about irresistible grace does get at one of the, all five points really do, but I think irresistible grace especially gets at one of the heartbeats of what we mean when we say Calvinism or doctrines of grace, because it is grace that God did this work and didn't ask the dead person's permission to save them and redeem their heart, regenerate their heart. Jon Because the dead person would always say no. Logan I know, there's so many. Jon Or they wouldn't say anything because they're dead. Logan There's so many different places I could go, and I just think it's important to say that this isn't, it's not like there's this opinion and then one other opinion, and you got like Arminianism, and you gotta choose between the two. It's like there's actually a lot of opinions on this and some are heretical, like open theism is wrong. Yeah. Pelagianism is wrong. I'd say Arminianism is incomplete and Calvinism I think is biblical. You know, there's so many different ways to go about this and the church has argued about this for 2000 years. You know. Sure. Yeah, I do think that at the heartbeat of it all it is God is working a grace and It's all him doing it and we receive it Jon That's good news. Mitchell Yeah, so what texts Talk about this again. You know, I think we gotta go back at peace. We love the Bible So let's yeah, I make sure this is Logan I think the you got to go here Genesis 50 20 Joseph sold into slavery, awful things happen because of the evil intent of his brothers. His brothers did that. His brothers chose that. And then at the end of the story, God raises him up in power in Egypt, and he actually winds up being the one who saves his family and many other families in the nation, right? And he says this in Genesis 50, 20, "'As for you, you meant evil against me, "'but God meant it for good to bring about "'that many people should be kept alive as they are today. "'As for you, you meant evil against me, "'but God meant it for good. "'Not God used it for good, God reworked it for good, "'but God meant it for good. "'You meant it for evil, God meant it for good because at every moment in reality, we are agents living and moving and breathing and desiring and willing and meaning things. And an infinite creator God is also actively moving through all the things that are happening. So it's not God is the only one and we're robots. It's not, you know, this open theism where he is dependent on all of our actions. But it's – and I'm not saying I fully understand it, but this is what the Bible says very clearly. God is working while we are also working in the same things. We mean things for evil and he means them for good. And the gospel is a picture of that. People killed Jesus and God laid his life down on the cross. So the worst thing that ever happened in human history was both intended by the people who crucified Jesus and intended by Jesus at the same time. Yeah, totally. Jon One I had was Ephesians 2, just a classic passage always on what is the gospel. Ephesians 2, verses 8 and 9 says, For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. So if you break down that passage actually and look in detail at what it's saying, it says, so by grace you've been saved through faith and then it's talking about faith. This faith is not of yourselves, it is a gift of God. So actually faith is the subject of the gift. Faith is the gift. Yes, yeah. So it's making the point that faith isn't a work that you do, it's not something that you actually conjured up, it's actually a gift from God. Now, that might seem at first like kind of a crazy idea and something people might not be excited about, but I think if you're a Christian and you look back on the moment when you got saved, I've told this story before that when I first became saved, I look at that moment and I would say, I decided to become a Christian at that moment, and that would be true. And you did. I did. I did do that. But I would look back years later after studying the Bible more and learning more, and I'd say, you know what, actually, as I look at that moment, it's true, I decided to become a Christian at that moment. But what was happening first was God was stirring in my heart. The Holy Spirit was doing something in my heart. Another way to say that would be that He was actually stirring up or creating faith in my heart. Yeah. I think that's kind of what Ephesians 2 is painting the picture of, that he was giving me that gift, but that God was moving supernaturally first. You know, I was dead, and the Holy Spirit was working in a dead man, and then I was able to respond. Logan Yeah, I'm gonna read two verses just in response. John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And then Romans 8, 28 through 30, just one of my favorite, Romans 8, 28, one of my favorite verses, and very important to this conversation, and the verses right after it. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. And then right after it says, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified. Yeah. He calls, he justifies, he chooses all the work of God, not on our merit, but purely his grace. Yeah. Wait a minute. Jon So the word predestination is in the Bible? I love that. So you got to do something with that. Logan I love being asked, do you believe in predestination? Because my response can always be, yes, every Christian does. It's a biblical word. Jon Yeah. You got to decide how to interpret it, but it's a word that's in the Bible. You can't just say, I don't believe in it. Yeah. Yeah. A couple more, I'll add real quick before we go on. Acts 11, 18 says, when they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God saying, well then God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. Oh, I love that. So just a perspective of the disciples in the early church looking at, they're saying, man, it's cool. The gospel is going beyond the Jews, it's going to the Gentiles. And how do they describe it? God is granting to the Gentiles. He's granting them repentance. God stirred in their hearts, enabling repentance. One more, Acts 16, 14. A woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Logan That's beautiful. I don't know if I ever caught that, or even have thought about that, but that's so to the point and beautiful. Jon Yeah, it's just a great description of what happens. The Bible's being preached, God's word goes out, and the Holy Spirit at the same time is working in somebody's heart. And as it says, the Lord opened her heart to respond to the word. Logan I think that when we get to the—when we talk about the theological order of salvation and the philosophical, like free will or all these things. It can rub some people the wrong way and they can think, man, it feels like it interferes with my sense of justice. But if then you take that and do something with it and like belittle God's sovereignty, then obviously you are belittling God's sovereignty and God's sense of justice. Logan And so I think that it's just wise and it takes a little bit of humility, but to say, I don't know, but I am gonna lean on whatever theology makes God the biggest, because we're talking about a big God theology. Right. But aside from all that, especially if you're listening and you feel that, you feel like, I just feel like what they're saying is like contradicting how I view God and my, just that passage, that rings true to my story. Can you read it one more time? Jon Oh man, I gotta scroll back to it. Logan I just feel like if you're listening and you're thinking, yeah, I just don't fully, I can't articulate the philosophical or theological problems I have, intellectual, emotional, just like, but listen to this verse, because I think it just, it rings true for my story. Yeah. Jon Acts 16, 14, a woman named Lydia was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Logan That's what we're talking about, is the Lord opening our hearts and regenerating our hearts is what we would call it. Jon And if he didn't, we wouldn't be able to respond. Logan That's what we're saying. That is what we're saying. Jon Yeah, and to what you're saying, to some, I think it feels, yeah, it just feels wrong in your, there's something in you that's like, this can't be right. I don't like this, I like choice. And some of that is, at least for us sitting here, we're Americans, some of that is just, this seems un-American, because we're all about that freedom means choice and I do what I want and that kind of thing. That's not really a biblical definition of freedom. A biblical definition of freedom would be more like the ability to choose to do what is absolutely best, which means choosing to do things God's way, which means being freed from slavery to sin, and that is what God's giving you. So what's actually happening in irresistible grace is God is freeing you from slavery to sin so that you can receive grace and live what is truly free, the way of God. Logan Yeah. We, the problem, we're not, Calvinism, if you think Calvinism is saying I don't have a choice in the matter, then you're not listening or thinking of Calvinism. You're thinking of what we would call hyper-Calvinism, which is a very unfortunate name for it. Jon Yeah, it doesn't mean super-Calvinist. Logan Yeah, exactly. Jon It means going beyond Calvinism into something unbiblical. Logan That's a great way of saying it. Calvinism is holding these two mysteries, and I'd say Arminianism is attempting to do it too, but just in an adequate way, I think I'd say, holding these two mysteries of how can finite beings have desires and will, and an infinite being also have desires and will and share the same universe? And the Bible just holds both of those out and says these are both true, that you choose and desire and so does God at the same time. And we're not saying you don't choose. We're saying, no, you do choose. You choose sin. Jon Right. Logan Yeah. So if you're hearing this and you're thinking, I've always thought Calvinism says we don't have a choice. We're saying, no, you do. You're totally depraved and don't choose God. And he regenerates your heart, so you do choose him. Jon And when you do make the good choice. Logan Yes, freedom, like we were saying. Jon Yeah, when you do make the good choice into freedom, it's because the Holy Spirit's working in your heart. Praise God. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's about how do those two things work together? We've we've come back time and again to that mystery God sovereignty human responsibility those things are both true taught in the Bible We don't know exactly how they work together, but they're both true. Yes Logan First John 4 19 is another verse you could go to we love because he first loved us Jon Romans 9 is another one of those passages we could spend hours and hours talking about but read that passage It's probably gonna raise a lot of questions for you But I think about these two doctrines is the statement that when we make our sin small, we make the cross small. Mitchell And so the idea of elevating or understanding total depravity is not a bad thing. and it was so bad what we did that it could only have been God himself dying. Logan Yeah, so bad of what we've done and so bad of our state, the reality we find ourselves in is so dire. Mitchell Yeah, so let's not minimize our sin. Let's see it for what it is. Right, yeah. And then worship in response to what the cross was. Amen. Jon Right, right. These doctrines should help, should have, bring about an even greater appreciation of the gospel and even more worship of God. Jon Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Pastor Logan. Oh, joy. Thanks, Mitch. Thanks, everybody, for listening. Logan Hope it's been helpful to you. Hope it's been helpful to you. Jon You can find That's A Good Question at resoundmedia.cc or wherever you listen to podcasts.

PODCAST That's a Good Question Can Christians Learn from Other Religions? November 7, 2023 Jon Delger & Ryan DB Kimmel Listen to this Episode JonHey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church. This is the place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon, I serve as a pastor here at Peace and I also get to serve as the weekly host of this show. You can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc slash questions. We love to hear questions about the Christian faith so we can answer them, help people grow in their knowledge of the Bible and their walk with the Lord. Today I am here with Pastor Ryan. RyanHello, and I just also want to say thanks to everyone who submits questions. Sometimes the questions come make us think in ways that we might not normally engage the faith. And so I appreciate some of the questions that come in. So keep sending them. JonTotally. And I feel like today is one of those. Yeah. One of those questions. I'm excited to answer this one. Last two weeks we spent talking about Israel. So if you have questions about Israel, refer back to those last couple episodes. But today we're moving on to a different topic from a great question that came in a couple weeks ago. We haven't had a chance to get to it. JonSo here it is. JonThey start by saying, asking for a friend, which I think is hilarious. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend. Classic. Which we don't have names, by the way, so it's okay. RyanYou can just honestly ask your question. JonWe don't know who you are, anyways. JonYeah, just, yeah. So asking for a friend, is it okay for Christians to learn from other religions or religious leaders outside of Christianity? For instance, can we post things on social media from the Dalai Lama or from Buddha? Shouldn't we spend time learning from their wisdom, too? So, cool question, great stuff. We're going to break it down because you asked several questions, I think, within that question, and they're all good questions. So, let's break it down. Or their friend. Yeah, that's right, right. RyanOr their friend asked them questions. JonYeah, that's right. Their friend asked several questions. So, we're going to address those. All right, so here, let's start with this, Pastor Ryan. Is it okay to learn from non-Christians at all? RyanYeah, of course it is. I mean, we do it all the time. And even when I was going through college and seminary, and Pastor Jon, I'm sure you probably had somewhat of similar experience. I took world religions class and actually went to other religious places of worship and sat with their religious leaders and learned about their religion, learned about their faith and what they believe about God. And so the notion of, can we learn from non-Christians or people outside the Christian faith? Yeah, of course we can. I mean, I'm sure at some point we'll talk about common grace and the notion that God's, there is wisdom to be had from people outside the Christian faith, I think. JonYeah, let's real quick talk about that and talk about what that is. So yeah, so you started to say it. So common grace is the basic idea that God has not only given knowledge and wisdom to Christians, believers, but across the board. All human beings bear God's image. All human beings have the ability to learn. They know some truth. They have some wisdom. And so we can learn not just from Christians, but from non-Christians. RyanYeah, absolutely. I mean, even the book of Proverbs, I don't believe Solomon wrote every single proverb that's in there and even says that this is a collection. And there's a great reason to believe that some of those proverbs, he might've even gotten from Egypt. There's records of Egyptian Proverbs that predate the Book of Proverbs that seem very similar that he might have picked up from there or just from traveling word. And so yeah, there's no problem learning from non-Christians. I think what we need to start to specify is obviously God's Word is our ultimate standard of what is right and wrong and God's Word is truth. But here's what we would say, all truth, all capital T truth, is God's truth, whether or not it's spoken from scripture or from someone quoting the Bible or a truth outside the Bible. If it's true, if it's truth, then it belongs to God. It finds its origin in Him. JonYeah, the Bible is unique in that it's the only word directly from God that we have. There's no other religious books that compare to it. We believe there's one God and that he spoke through the Bible And yet there are truths that exist outside of the Bible and we can learn them from people that don't even know the Bible Or the Lord so take it to the next level is it okay to learn from non-christians about religion? About God about how to relate to God. RyanYeah, that's where I think you're gonna start getting some You get into some dangerous territory. Of course we want to learn from other faiths about their faith. If I want to learn more about the Muslim faith then I should probably talk to a Muslim. So yeah, it's okay to learn from other religions about their religion of course, but to start learning from other religions about how to relate or find or know God, yeah that's where I'm gonna say, nope, not the way to go. JonRight, that's where, so in some world religion classes in a university or somewhere, you're probably, many people have probably heard the parable of the blind men trying to talk about the elephant. Yeah, yeah. Where you've got all these, they say that this is what the world religions are like, is there's this one thing, there's this one thing, and all these guys, they can't see, it's dark, or they're blindfolded, and everybody kind of can touch a part of it and they say, I think it's this, I think it's that. And they're actually all touching the same thing and describing the same thing, they just have different parts of it. So that's kind of how the parable goes. And they say, so, you know, so Islam and Christianity and Judaism and Buddhism and Hinduism and just all these different religions, they're all describing one God, it's just different perspectives. That's what some would say and we would obviously say no that's not case. Yeah, there's I mean there's a lot wrong with that analogy. JonYeah RyanI mean that's just the fallacy of like they're they're wrong about what they think they're touching and Also the notion of that there is something that they're touching but it's someone outside of that who actually knows what it really is But I know that we're not going to get into that analogy, but that that whole analogy is common, but it's terrible It's a terrible analogy. And so When we talk about learning from other religions, I think that's kind of what we're getting to, that God has revealed himself through the scriptures, through his son coming to earth, and that's how we know who God is, and that's how we relate to God. JonSo I think some of the things that we can learn from non-Christian religious people are things that are more what I would call proverbial wisdom, things about human life in general, or things about suffering, right? I think there's a lot of observations that, you know, so-called gurus or mystics, or those people can make some observations about life and suffering and death and things like that, that I think are interesting and helpful and insightful, and even like proverbial, meaning that there are things that human beings in general can be helped by and live by, but do they actually teach us something about God and how to relate to God? And that's where we come up against the problem that, so let's get back to the original question, Dalai Lama, the Buddha, here's the deal, they don't know God. They think that they do, but they don't know the one true God, the God of the Bible. They don't know Jesus. And so we're not, we can't really learn about the one true God and about how to relate to him from them. RyanYeah, and just to, I think one of the, was it phrased in the question of can we post, you know, quotes from them or something? Here's what I'd say, it's like the Bible and to lift up voices that may have some level of wisdom. But here's the thing, when Christians start elevating voices, in a sense we're affirming and pointing to those voices. And so we've got to be very careful which ones we do. And like I was just saying a minute ago, the Bible gives us enough truth and wisdom to quote from for the rest of your life. There's no real reason to go outside of that because whatever they have to say, whatever the Buddha or Dalai Lama or whatever these gurus have to say, what we see in scripture is better. What Jesus has to say is better. Why waste our time trying to elevate voices for some sort of cultural appeal when we have the essence of truth and love truly manifested through the gospel. Let's just turn our attention to the scriptures. The reality is that even most modern day Americans aren't familiar enough with their Bible. Let's just point to that. Let's lift that up. 66 books, around 40 different authors, 1500 years at least of experience across different cultures. I mean there is a wealth of wisdom and knowledge and examples of love in the Bible. Let's lift that up, let's post that. JonWell, yeah, right, there's an interesting point. So we already said, yeah, there's value in learning stuff about other religions, especially so we can share the gospel with them. But if you're saying, I want to read Dalai Lama, the Buddha, if you want to read stuff about the Islamic faith, have you read the whole Bible? RyanRight, yeah. JonYeah, that's a good place to start. RyanThat's what I'd say a lot to people, is like, man, I really wouldn't mind learning about the Quran. I'm like, yeah, that's great. I have a couple copies of the Quran, but have you read the entire Bible first? Right. And also, the notion of learning from other religions or learning about what they believe, I think there's an exercise there. If you can learn to be able to engage those other religions from a biblical worldview and see where there's deviation, see where there might be some commonality as far as kindness and the human experience, that sort of thing, but it's actually a great exercise to kind of just sharpen your own biblical worldview. Can you point out where there are some very distinct and or maybe subtle differences, and can you point those out because you know the scriptures so well and you have a biblically shaped worldview. JonTotally. Well, I thought it might be a little bit of fun, if you don't mind, to look at a few specific quotes from the Dalai Lama or Buddha and just see what we think and whether a Christian should post these on social media. RyanOkay, before you do that, when I was a youth pastor, I used to play this game called Doctrine or Disney. JonOh, nice. RyanAnd we would put up quotes from the Bible and quotes from a Disney movie and see if people could determine. JonJust follow your heart. RyanJust follow your heart, yeah. RyanYeah, yellow, yup. JonYup, totally. JonYeah, all right, well let's play a game that's a little bit like that. Okay. So here's a quote. JonI'll tell you who it's from. JonThis is from Dalai Lama. I just looked these up online. So it says, happiness is not something ready-made, it comes from your own actions. Happiness is not something ready-made, it comes from your own actions. So, here's one of those sayings that I think people might read and be like, wow, that's so wise. But as Christians, should we post that on social media and do we even agree with it? I'll start. Yeah, go ahead. So, happiness is not something ready-made, it comes from your own actions. So happiness comes from your own actions. As a Christian, I jump in and I immediately want to say, well no, actually happiness comes from God. It comes from outside myself. I can't, happiness isn't found by looking inward, happiness isn't found by something I do, happiness is actually found in God. That's where I get all of my joy. Now there are things that we can do to bring glory to God, to maximize our joy in God, but as a Christian, as you're thinking about what you want to write on social media, if you want to talk about where happiness comes from, this is definitely not how I would put it. I would want to point to God, to Jesus for happiness. RyanIt's the, see, I think the general, the worldview that springs from is that you can create and you are the source of your own happiness. And that's where you kind of go back to the more fundamental level that that'd be a distinction between what he believes in what the scriptures teach. And so on the one hand, at a very surface level, can you do things that make you happy? Sure. I at some point when all my work is done and my kids are prayed over and in bed, I find happiness in playing a little at the Legend of Zelda in the few hours at night before I go to bed. So yes, I mean, I don't necessarily disagree, but this is where it becomes dangerous. It's like, what's the world view that is feeding and forming the framework from which you can say those things? And so I would say, I think their framework would say that the human is the source of happiness. We just have to figure out the key to unlock that. And that's where we would say, yeah, no, I disagree with that. JonRight. All right. Just one or two more just for just for kicks here. All right. Here's another one. Dalai Lama, be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. RyanYeah, that's a great statement. I mean, that's a great statement in theory. Be kind whenever possible. And it's always possible. Well, on the one hand, Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. You know, I mean, like there's there's a principle there that is, it seems like it's fine. Is it always possible to be kind? In the sense of another person's actions don't mandate or dictate your actions. That we are, you know, one of the great ethics of the New Testament believer is that we have self-control. That with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are in control of our own actions that others don't dictate how we respond to them, but the spirit does. And so, yeah, I mean, it's great. Yeah. I got no problem with that statement. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, I think it's, there's, but that's just, it goes back to one of those things. It's like, what's the purpose of pointing that? And isn't there something better that Jesus said that we can point to elevate and lift up? Right. I, this is probably, I'm probably being judgmental. I'll say that, but it seems to me like when Christians want to point things, post things like that, or point to things like that, it's for cultural appeal, not for the truth of the statement itself. Not that the statement doesn't have value, but it just I always, I begin to judge motives, I guess, and I need to get beyond that. And I confess that and repent of it. But at the end of the day, I'm like, there's enough that Jesus said, let's just point to what he said. JonRight. So yeah, so we don't disagree with the statement, right? I mean, be kind, sure. We're all for being kind to people. RyanKindness is a fruit of the Spirit. Absolutely. JonSo, like, could you post it as a Christian? Sure, you could. But I think part of what you're saying is, you know, the people that you post, the names that you put behind quotes on social media, It means something. If you want to say to the world, your friends, hey, you should check out this person. Well, then I would pick Jesus over the Lama or one of these other people. Yeah, actually, before you throw this last one, RyanI have this non-Christian friend on Facebook and they posted a meme and it was this very kind, gentle looking older Asian man. And then there was a statement next to him and it was a biblical proverb. RyanI don't remember which one it was, but it was a biblical proverb. But it made it look like it was attributing to this older, kind-looking Asian man. And I pointed, I'm like, hey, that's a biblical proverb. And I decided what it was, I don't remember what it was. And like, the next day they took it down. And I was just kind of like, so it was okay when you thought it was a kinder-looking, older Asian man, but it wasn't okay once you found out it was actually from the Bible. Huh. And it just was again a reminder to me that people want to reject truth from the Bible. So that's what I'm saying. It's like if we're just posting things to get likes, man, the heart is wrong. Sure. But again, it sounds bad. I mean, I don't want to say like I don't disagree with that statement at all. I think it's a great statement. Again, that's one of those proverbial wise common grace statements be kind as often as you possibly can because it's there's always an opportunity to be kind and so. Here's the question though is like this is where I'm going to start getting probably too deep. Is there ever a time where kind the kindness isn't the proper response and that's where we start looking into some other principles of how do you respond to righteous anger. That's insane. Justice and that sort of stuff. Yeah. Or people's what people's definition of kindness actually is. Sure. So that's a good point. Maybe that's another podcast. Last one. And we've kind of already addressed some of this as we don't have to talk a long time. But here's here's one more. Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. Yeah. No, that's not our prime purpose in life. JonRight. JonIt's a little bit like the Hippocratic Oath, right, is what it sounds like. RyanYeah, yeah. JonDo no harm is kind of what it sounds like. So, yeah, I think like we've said before, it sounds really nice. We do want to help other people, but actually our purpose in life, the Bible tells us, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. JonAnd the best thing we can do for other people is actually to share the good news of Jesus. RyanWell, here's what ends up happening in the world, is we take good things and we make them ultimate things and we just turn them into idols. And then they become destructive. And when we make helping others over and above glorifying God, that becomes an idol and it becomes destructive because it then becomes self-serving. So again, I just want to clarify and I don't know where this is going to come in. I just want to clarify about this real quick. We are not saying that helping others is a bad thing. We're actually saying that's a foundational thing to the Christian ethic. That we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves. What we're saying is it's not the single greatest thing that we are called to do. It's very close, but it's not the single greatest thing. And that's what we're saying when you put things out of order, they become destructive. And so that's the caution we have behind this. We are 100% saying, love your neighbors, serve others, be kind to others, help others, whether you believe in Jesus or not. But for the Christian and the Christian worldview, our primary objective is to glorify God and live for Him and love Him. And from that, from that river flows out the love for others and helping helping other people. JonI think these have been some good examples. Hopefully, this has been good practical help for whoever's asking that question. Hopefully others who are thinking about it as well. RyanI just jump in real quick and say this is that's a great exercise to take if you're a parent with kids, especially kids with the capacity for abstract thought the whole notion of looking at things that are posted like good quotes, but filtering those through a biblical worldview and trying to discern what's actually being said, what's the worldview from which that statement springs. And so that's a great exercise for parents to go on with their kids, is pull up some good quote memes and then process that through a biblical worldview. JonYou brought up Disney movies before, we do that a little bit with our girls that are old enough that age where we can pause the movie and talk about what's going on. RyanOr, Pastor Jon, what might be good for your family is a Harry Potter or the Holy Spirit. JonHa ha ha ha ha! Oh, you're calling me out right here. RyanBiblical quotes or quotes from JK Rowling. JonYeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Well, the Holy Spirit always wins over Harry Potter. RyanHe does. Yeah, 100%. JonBut Harry Potter's a little bit of fun. Awesome. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Pastor Ryan. RyanWell, thank you, Pastor Jon. JonYou can always check out this podcast and ask questions at peacechurch.cc/question. Thanks everybody. Thanks everybody. Have a great week.

A Psalm of Heman Sermon Series: Honest To Goodness Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Psalm 88 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. The Christian faith is not all roses. Despite what perfect-looking pastors on a TV may tell you, the Christian faith can be a struggle at times. It can feel very dark at times. And yes while we do live and walk in the light of Christ We also live on this side of eternity and that means on this side of eternity. There's gonna be darkness There's gonna be brokenness. There's gonna be sickness. There's gonna be times of despair to be had even by those who love God the most and as we look to Unfortunately the back half of the summer. I know that right now we'd rather be talking about joyous wonderful happy things. But today we're going to talk about some of the hard realities of the faith And why are we doing that because that's where scripture has led us to at this moment We are continuing a sermon series through the book of Psalms, but we're taking a unique approach to that what we're doing is We're looking at a psalm from every one of the identified authors. Now there are 150 Psalms in the Bible and there's seven identified authors, 48 of the Psalms are left anonymous. And so what we're doing is we're looking at one Psalm from each of the authors as they show us in various different ways how to have an honest-to-goodness, real, and raw faith. And today we are looking at what is the darkest Psalm of them all. Would you please turn to Psalm 88? It is an infamous Psalm. And what makes this Psalm so powerful for me is not that it's just unlike any other Psalm in its death of lamenting, it's in its blatant rawness. As you read this Psalm, you just feel the pain and the loneliness, and the hurt that this writer is feeling. And because of that, it feels honest. Now hear me when I say that like all of God's truth is real, raw, and honest. But when you enter into this depth of lamenting, there's something unique, it just feels like it. And in this sermon series, it's called Honest to Goodness. As we're looking at how real honesty, being honest where you are, being as honest about your emotional state, being honest about your relationship with God, when you're honest about that, that leads to something good. That is actually how you continue to deepen in your relationship to God. Now this happens through joy and praise and thanksgiving and lamenting. It happens when we're honest. And this Psalm shows us this in very unique ways. We're going to look at an honest-to-goodness approach. And so this psalm is, the authorship of this psalm is ascribed to, at least in part, by this man named as, this man's name, Heman. H-E-M-A-N. Heman. Or because I was a child of the 80s, I like to call him He-Man. Glad someone got that. But Haman teaches us and shows us a very dark psalm. He's speaking from a very dark and raw and hurting place, and he's not ashamed to show it and it's actually a very wonderful thing. So if you are in that place, a place of bitterness, if you've gone through a dark place, if you've gone through a place where there's nothing but doubt and uncertainty, and you're unsure of God's plan, if you're unsure if God is even there or with you at all, Psalm 88 is one to spend time in. The writer of Psalm 88 is in a very dark place, and he writes from a very dark place. We don't know the exact context, but it's kind of irrelevant. Because it's a place that many of us have been to, and many of us will find ourselves in. And so with that, let's hear this writer's honest-to-goodness approach to a time of darkness. Would you hear the Word of God, Psalm 88? And this morning we are going to read all 18 verses. Would you hear God's Word? Scripture 1 O LORD, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. 2 Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! 3 For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. 4 I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, 5 like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. 6 You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. 7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah 8 You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; 9 my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you. 10 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Selah 11 Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? 12 Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? 13 But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. 14 O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? 15 Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. 16 Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. 17 They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together. 18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Prayer Let's pray. Father, as we come to this very sobering psalm, Lord, we are going to speak on lament today. Help us to learn to do this well. Help us to do this rightly. Father, even if things are going great in our lives, would you prepare in us a spirit that's able to lament when the time calls for it? Guide us, O Holy Spirit, into the truth of your word this morning, for we pray these things in Jesus name and everyone said amen. Main Idea So church as we look at this dark and infamous psalm here's something I want you to take home today here is the main idea Lamenting to the God of our salvation is good for the soul. And for those of you who don't know what lament is, lament means to mourn. It's a passionate expression of grief or sorrow. It means to cry out to God, cry out to God with your true and honest feelings. Even when you will feel hurt, mad, angry, or sad, lamenting to the God of our salvation is good for the soul. Church, my prayer for you is that life is good for you right now. That your kids are healthy, that you're enjoying the summer, that things are going well for you, that you're feeling good. But I can't promise you it'll always be like that. On this side of eternity, things won't always be like this. Sin, brokenness, sickness, pain is part of the equation at times. And so when those times come, this psalm reminds us to lament to God. And listen, like, I didn't know you could do this. Like when I came to Christ, like when I became a Christian, I thought that meant you always had to put on your church face before God. You always had to kind of present your best self. I didn't realize you could actually come to God in all your realness and rawness and all your openness with your sickness and everything before you and your depression and your death. I didn't realize you could actually do that. And yet this Psalm shows us this. You come to God as you are, letting him know how you feel. But the Psalm also gives us the right pattern to do this. And that's what we're gonna talk about. And I know that we don't talk about the word lament a lot, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, I love how one pastor put it. He said lament should be the chief way that Christians process grief in God's presence. I'll say that again. Lament should be the chief way that Christians process grief in God's presence. Lament means to cry out to God. And as we talk about crying out, lamenting to God, I want to give you our outline as we walk through this passage together. Eighteen verses. Dark, dark verses. Outline Here's our outline for this morning. Verses one to seven, we're gonna look at how we are to cry out to God in our despair. Then we're gonna look at how do we cry out to God in our depression. How do we cry out to God in our doubt? And then we're gonna look at crying out to God in our darkness. Despair, depression, doubt, darkness. Aren't you glad you came to church today? 1. Lamenting to the God of our salvation is good for the soul First one, lamenting to the God of our salvation is good for the soul. Let's talk about crying out to God in your despair. Please, we say this every week, but if you have your Bibles, whether on your lap or your app, whatever, have it open because you need to see the words here today. Verses 1-2 Psalm 88 verse 1, do not lose this opening. It's critical. Psalm 88 verse 1 says, Oh Lord, God of my salvation. So while this is the darkest psalm of it all, it starts out with a strong statement of faith. It only gets more dark, but the psalmist starts by crying out to the God of his salvation, the God who saved him. He says I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you. Incline your ear to my cry he's crying out and saying God listen to me are you there listen to me what's beautiful about this opening is that even though we start by feeling immediately this writer's pain he's writing out to God he's crying out to the Lord church so often in our pain in our despair we cry out on social media. We post out on social media to garner support and to be reminded that we are loved by the people who like and comment on our posts. But I'm telling you, that's not the pattern. We are to lament, to cry out to God. But here's what we do. We turn to addiction. We turn to something to numb us and to distract us from the pain. But we are to cry out to God. One thing I can tell you about the world that we live in is that we are a people who are so averse to pain. We are the most medicated people of all time, both legally and illegally. But we are sometimes called to just sit and in a sense feel the pain. Feel the pain in order that we might be reminded of the only one who can truly ease our hurts. But we don't. The second pain comes, we immediately try to mask our pain. We try to hide our pain. Like the second pain starts to come, we take a step towards it, and then we immediately recoil and we find something to numb the pain, to make us high, to make us distracted, to pull our mind off of it. Rather than entering into that space and letting the darkness consume us for a moment so that we would be reminded that there's a God in heaven and he's the only one who can truly bring light to our lives, who can bring healing to our pain. But we don't. We immediately try to mask the pain and we hide it rather than letting the pain draw us closer to God. We find other ways to relieve the pain, but it doesn't relieve us. It just postpones it. Verses 3-5 Look at verses 3, 4, and 5. It says, My soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol. That's a Hebrew word that simply means the grave, the downness away from God. It says I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more for they are cut off from your hands. This is despair. This is a writer calling out to God in the depths of despair. It's an emptiness and a loneliness that feels like death because despair feels like the end of hope. This is a person who has no hope left. So what does he do? He cries out to God, have you been in that place? Have you been in that place where you feel like there's no hope left? See, I think more of us should have been in that place, but the second we start to go there, we recoil and we find a way to drug ourselves so that we don't have to deal with the hard things of life, the loneliness, and the emptiness. But if we entered into those moments, I guarantee we'd be a people who are much closer to God. And I don't think our culture would be in the spot it would be. Because just like the world around us, we drug ourselves to keep us from pain. And we live in this fantasy land when Christians are the ones who are supposed to be the people of truth and honesty and what's real. And pain is real. And Christians, if we are to be people of truth in this world, that means we have to truly experience the pain at times and one thing we need to remember God has put these words in the Bible God is not scared of you coming to him with your lament and with your pain and with your hurt He's given us a prescription to do it. He's given us a pattern to do this We are meant to go to God when things go dark. The writer continues and he turns this psalm, he turns in the psalm to point to how God, he thinks that God is the one who's actually doing all this, bringing all this darkness. Verses 6-7 Look at verses six and seven. It says, you've put me in the depths of the pit and the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me and you overwhelm me with all your waves. See, this writer is poetically stating what many of us know, that when despair comes, and it comes to our lives, it can feel like all things are against us. It can even feel like God is against us. And that is the uttermost aspect of despair, is when you feel like even God himself has turned on you. But let me remind you, do not forget how this psalm starts off. Oh Lord, God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you. Church, even when things seem dark, even when it seems like God is the one against you, even when it seems like everything falls apart when your life doesn't go according to plan when your spouse cheats on you when you get that cancer diagnosis, when you feel betrayed when you fall when brokenness and sickness come when you've given everything and you feel like you get nothing back, this psalm tells us and reminds us, bring those cries to God, cry out to God in your despair. And then, and then we see this word, Selah. It's this word that you see randomly pop up every now and again in the Psalms. And there's not some super great way to translate this into English, but Selah is basically, it's a cause to pause. In the midst of whatever you're doing, whether rejoicing or lamenting, it's a call to pause and breathe. Because our life and our faith can't be all words. Sometimes we have to just stop and in a sense enjoy the silence. We need Selah, we need rest, quiet. We need peace. How many moms in the house know exactly what I'm talking about? So here's what I want to say to you. Next time the kids are acting up, next time things go crazy, just snap your fingers and be like, you know what kids, I need a Selah moment right now. Pastor Ryan said I could have it, so you're going to give it to me. Everyone's going to be quiet. This is me giving you a Selah card. You pull that out when you need it. And just say, we need to stop and breathe. And I'm not one to look for signs under every single rock, but it is kind of interesting that we're dealing with this Psalm on such a rainy morning. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna have a Selah moment right now. Just a brief moment where we're just going to pause. We're dealing with some heavy topics. Maybe you are in that heavy moment. Maybe you just need to practice. But we're going to have a Selah moment right now. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to breathe in. Here, other venues, let's breathe in. Breathe out. God is on the throne. You're being nourished by the word of God. Just have a moment of peace. 2. We are to cry out to God in our despair and we are also to cry out to God in our depression Now, I'll confess to you right now, I don't deal with depression. I have gotten depressed at times, but properly speaking, I don't deal with depression-like so many of my friends and so many from our church family do. So I confess to you, I don't speak to this section from experience, I just speak to it from the truth of God's word. What starts out as a sense of despair quickly moves to areas of depression. Verse 8-10 Look at verses eight, nine, and 10. Verse eight, you have caused my companions to shun me. You've made me a horror to them. I'm shut in so I cannot escape. Right here we see the writer beginning to express his feelings of abandonment and loneliness. And then he says this, verse 9, My eyes grow dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O Lord. I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Do you hear the heart of this psalmist? He's saying, I'm losing sight of everything good. God, I'm calling out to you, I'm opening my arms to you, and you're nowhere to be found. It's like he's saying to God, he's like God, I must be nothing to you. I must be dead to you. I'm at my lowest moment. All my friends have left me, and so have you. Have you ever been that real and honest before God? If you haven't, I wonder what the nature of your relationship is like with him. We are meant to enter into those times but notice something, notice who the writer of this Psalm is speaking to. He's speaking to God. My friends, that is a pattern that we need to incorporate in our lives. This is what you cannot lose, whether in despair, depression, whether your spouse has betrayed you, whether life has crumbled when it seems like God has forgotten you, don't just cry out, but cry out to God, even in your depression. Selah. Don't move past that moment. So let's do this. Wherever venue you're in right now, just let's breathe in, breathe out. God is on the throne and you're being nourished by God's Word right now. So let it nourish you. We're to cry out to God in our depression. 3. We are to cry out to God in our doubts We are also to cry out to God in our doubts. Verses 12-14 See, these next four verses are actually for questions. If you have your Bibles open, you'll see that. If you're wondering if God is even there and why he's not responding in the darkest of times, bring to God your questions. Bring to God your despair, your depression, and even bring to God your doubt. That's why I love the Bible. It's so unlike any other religious book in its realness and its honesty and its rawness. God is not scared of your doubt, so bring it to Him. Look at this. Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, God? Or your faithfulness in abandon? Now abandon is just, it's like a spiritual abyss. It's like a spiritual nothingness. Are your wonders known in the darkness or are your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But I, oh Lord, cry to you. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Oh Lord, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Church, church, do not forget, this is scripture. The Bible is letting us know that faith is going to have its ups and downs. And when those times of depression and doubt come, bring it to God. This is why I love the Bible and the Christian faith. The permission to be real and open and honest and raw is an invitation you're not going to find anywhere else. Because real Christians deal with real emotions and we bring it to a real God who really works in our lives. But this cannot happen if we mask it or we recoil from it or we drug ourselves or we distract ourselves. That happens when we enter into that space. See, there's this caricature of Christians that are out there, and I love to burn every image of it, but I can't. 4. We are to cry out to God in our darkness There's this character of Christians that we're this happy-go-lucky plastic people who aren't real. If we are truly Christians, then we're gonna be truly biblical people and truly biblical people cry out to God when we are in despair, depressed, and when we have doubt. And so church I'm pleading with you. Yes, we are the people who have a joy that the world both does not understand and cannot take away. A joy that's produced by the Holy Spirit working within us, but that does not mean you will not have times of depression and doubt and anxiety and darkness. But when we do, we are to bring it to God. And lastly, when all seems lost, we cry out to God in the darkness. Listen again to how this Psalm ends. I know we like happy endings here, but we don't get it in this Psalm. We get it left in darkness. It does not end in hope. Verses 15-18 Look at verses 15 to 18. It says, "...afflicted and close to my death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors, I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me and your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long. They close in on me together." And then look at the very last verse of the darkest of all the Psalms. Look what it says, verse 18. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. My companions have become darkness. That's where this Psalm ends. And so what do you do with this? With such a dark, helpless psalm, what do you do with this? Church here's what you do with this. We recognize that our faith does not prevent us from sitting in times of darkness. This passage reminds us that sometimes we are not supposed to medicate ourselves into a life masked by a happy haze of drugs, drink, and distraction. Sometimes the feeling of darkness is the very thing that God will use to bring us closer to Himself. Because the feeling of darkness in our lives helps us to remember that this is real. That we are the people of truth and reality and we live in those moments. We don't try to find a fake world to live in. We live in the real world that God has given to us. And while this psalm does end in darkness, the beauty of the scriptures is that the story ends in hope. But as we look at lament, there is no more beautiful example in all of history of faithful lamenting before God than what we see in Jesus Christ was on that Roman cross with nails through his hands and through his feet with the weight of his body Crushing in on him slowly suffocating him as he bled and died He cried out to God with these words and he said my god my god. Why have you forsaken me? Did you know that when he said that that was a moment of spiritually eternal? Weight as he was taking the punishment and the suffering that we should have been taking. It should have been us on the cross crying out those words, but Jesus took our place for us. The sin that we should be paying the penalty of, that's what Christ did on the cross for us and He lamented and He cried out to God. And do you know when He was doing this, do you know what He was actually doing? He was quoting the Psalms. See, we have two quotes of Scripture from Jesus while He was on the cross. The only Scripture that we have Jesus quoting from the cross, both of them comes from the Psalms, which is why Christians need to know the Psalms so well. At the moment of His death, Jesus quoted Psalm 31 when He said, Into your hands I commit my spirit. hanging on the cross, suffering for us. He quoted Psalm 22 when he said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In his darkest moment, Jesus quoted scripture and cried out to God because Jesus shows us how to lament. Because lamenting to the God of our salvation is good for the soul. And again, this is the key to lamenting. We lament to God. In your hurt, in your pain, in your sorrow, in your anguish, we first and foremost bring it to God. You know, Psalms say something else very interesting that's important for us to know. In Psalm 139, verse four, it says, "'Even before a word is on my tongue, "'behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.'" You know what the Psalm is saying? Like, don't hide your feelings from God because He knows them anyway. Don't try to hold back from God. He knows what you're going to say anyway. So just bring it all to God. Cry out to the God of our salvation. Cry out to the God who loves you. And while you may be in a moment of pain, while you may be in a season of pain, we know that the story for those who place their faith in Christ, we know our story ultimately ends in glory and hope. See, when Christ died on the cross, it's because he was nailed there, taking our penalty for our sin. And when we place our faith in him, we get his righteousness. We get his reward. We get eternal life with God because of what Christ did for us. And if you think this is all fancy fairy tale, let me tell you, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the proof of this reality. Because Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that's how we can hang our hope on this. That's how we can have hope for the future, even when the present seems so dark. So no matter if you're facing despair, depression, doubt, or darkness, we have something the writer of Psalm 88 doesn't. We have a knowledge of the gospel, that Jesus died for us and rose again. And because of that, we are the people who can say, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Whatever you're facing, and whatever you're going to face, if you place your faith in Jesus, I am telling you to repeat these words, because he lives, I can face tomorrow. So lament to the God of your salvation, because it's good for your soul. Amen. Closing Prayer Okay, let's stand up and let's prepare our hearts to worship. Let's bow our heads and let's pray. Father, we come before you. Lord, I know that there are people who can hear my voice right now where things are going so well. And I know there are people who can hear my voice who are unsure of a doctor appointment tomorrow. Father, wherever your people are at this moment, Lord, I pray you would draw us together by the Gospel, by the blood of Jesus. So whether we are in the moment of despair, whether we've gone through it, or whether it's yet to come, Father, I pray that your church would gather together, united by the blood of Jesus, celebrating His life, because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Spirit, I pray that you will fill this place now, helping us to sing these words louder than we've ever sang because they're true. Be with us now as we worship you, because of the gospel of Jesus. God, you are so good, and you're so good to us. We love you, and we thank you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen. Church, let's sing together.

Is The Bible Really Without Error? Theology Jon Delger Multiplication Pastor Peace Church Published On: November 4, 2024 Is the Bible really entirely true? Are there really no errors in this long book? Isn’t there an update needed about at least a few things? The Apostle Paul lived a long time ago. Moses lived even longer ago. Surely times have changed since their day? They didn’t know what we know now about the world, right? Traditionally, Christians have believed that the entire Bible is inspired by God, without error, and true in all times and places. However, in recent years, even many Christians have become less convinced [1]. Should Christians continue to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture (“inerrant” = without error), or should we give up on this doctrine? What are the consequences if we give up this belief? Does the Bible have errors? Over the years, many critics have claimed to find errors in the Bible. These alleged errors basically fall into three categories: apparent contradictions (“apparent” meaning they appear to be contradictions prior to deeper study), potential conflicts with modern science, and discrepancies over numbers. In addition to these alleged errors, there are also some passages that present theological or philosophical difficulties that some may call errors. While we don’t have the space here to address each of these alleged errors or difficulties, there is an amazing webpage where some great Christian scholars have provided answers to hundreds of these alleged errors. Is the Bible historically reliable? The Bible is not merely a book of philosophical speculation or religious sayings. It is a book of history. The theological truth claims of the Bible are built upon a historical narrative, a story of real people, places, and events. So can we trust the history recorded in the Bible? In order to evaluate the historical reliability of the Bible, we can apply the same criteria used to evaluate the reliability of any other historical document. These criteria include archeological corroboration, attestation from other historical documents of the events described, attestation of eyewitnesses, the nearness in time of the recording of the events to them actually taking place, the consistency between older manuscripts and later manuscripts, the number of manuscripts available, and more. When evaluated according to the standard criteria for historical reliability, we find that the Bible is the best attested ancient historical document we have. For an in-depth study of how the Bible measures up to criteria for historical reliability, there are many helpful articles and books available [2]. What would it mean if the Bible did have errors? In John 3:12, Jesus says - If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? To give up on inerrancy is to give up on the Bible. The Bible tells us about God, ourselves, metaphysical reality, and life after death. If it is wrong about physical things, how can we trust it to be right about spiritual things? We trust someone’s word because we trust their character, and we trust someone’s character because we trust their word. These are inseparable. One of the ways we know the Bible is without error is becauuse it comes from a God who is without error, perfect in his character. If the Bible has real errors (not just alleged errors), then this would give us reason to doubt the God of the Bible or to doubt that the Bible is a reliable source of truth about God. What was Jesus’ view of the Bible? It has become popular in recent years for some to say they follow Jesus but not the Bible. There are at least two fundamental problems with this philosophy. First, the Bible is God’s Word (Jesus’ Word). How can you follow Jesus but not His Words? Second, this is not at all how Jesus spoke about the Bible. Throughout his ministry, Jesus quoted the Scripture (“it is written”) as God’s authoritative word in order to preach, teach, and argue with opponents like Satan and the Pharisees. Jesus said “it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void” (Luke 16:17). Jesus not only argued from the ideas of the Bible, he made arguments based upon a single word (Matthew 22:41-46) and even from the tense of a word (Matthew 22:31-32). Every word of the Bible is from God (2 Timothy 3.16; 1 Peter 1.20-21), and thus, God’s Word is without error. [1] https://decisionmagazine.com/gallup-less-than-half-of-evangelicals-believe-bible-is-actual-word-of-god/ [2] https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/establishing-the-gospels-reliability?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADAe-6t5TkzlSL7n1YkLtadRt12uv&gclid=Cj0KCQjw4Oe4BhCcARIsADQ0cskTrhjSucruG9zShkyk1ii8D0FJrJAUyfTGS4vvD7VZdM26UxI-PHcaAiIFEALw_wcB https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-things-you-should-know-about-the-reliability-of-the-new-testament-writers/ Erwin Lutzer, Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust The Bible. Geisler & Turek, I Don’t Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist. Craig Blomberg. The Historical Reliability of the New Testament. More Blogs You'll Like Do the Resurrection Accounts Contradict? How differences in the Gospel accounts strengthen rather than undermine the credibility of the resurrection Read More What is 'Probably' Missing From Most Nativity Sets Miracle, Myth, or Meteor? Identifying What the ‘Star of Bethlehem’ Truly Was Read More Is The Bible Really Without Error? A Closer Look at Scripture’s Reliability, Inerrancy, and Historical Trustworthiness Read More