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Grace in the Gap Christian Life Stephanie Delger Podcast Host Mom Guilt Podcast Published On: “Hey, Mom, I am starting to feel really sick. Is there any way that you could come and watch the kids for me while I lie down?” I was so thankful to have my mother close by. I felt blessed that she was able to come over and watch the kids while I took a much-needed nap. But at the same time, I felt defeated. Asking another person for help felt wrong, even if it was my own mother. I was already annoyed that I was getting sick and my ‘to-do’ list wasn’t going to get accomplished. I felt guilty, I should have been able to handle it. Other moms who don’t have family close by are forced to continue taking care of their kids while they are sick. It seemed like I was somehow cheating. What started as a head cold quickly turned into the flu. The afternoon childcare quickly turned into an overnight stay at Grandma’s house. I sat down in my abnormally quiet home to catch up on my bible study. I read 2 Corinthians 12:9, “ ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” I stopped. Moments like this really make us wonder if God has a sense of humor. Here I was, sick, exhausted, and needing help watching my own children, and God says that I am supposed to boast in my weakness. Yuck. Toughing it out, getting my ‘to-do’ list accomplished, and keeping up with laundry sounds like something to boast about, not needing help from others! At that moment, I was struck that this wasn’t a coincidence. God coordinated this moment for my good. It wasn’t an accident that I read this verse while sick. What does this verse mean, and how am I supposed to boast in my weakness? God’s grace is sufficient The thing I need most in life isn’t physical health. It isn’t the ability to take care of my kids while I am sick. It isn’t being able to drink my morning coffee out of a mug inscribed with “Super Mom.” It’s not even the ability to make a sourdough starter and keep it alive and well. What I need most in life is God’s grace. I don’t deserve God’s grace. You don’t deserve God’s grace. Grace is a gift, and a gift, by definition, means it cannot be earned. It is freely given. God chooses to love and bestow grace on His people not because of what they have done but simply because He has chosen to do so. I am not more deserving of grace when I am on top of my game, than when I need to reach out and ask others for help. God’s grace isn’t dependent on my actions. His grace is given freely, and it is all I need; it is sufficient. Our identity and worth need to be grounded in the Lord and what He has done. When I am weak, my identity and standing before the Lord doesn’t change. This is because it isn’t based on something that I have done. And if it isn’t based on my merit and actions, it means that my standing before the Lord is secure - regardless of what I have or haven’t done. What we do matters, but our actions should flow from a heart of worship, not from trying to earn favor with God or to impress Him. God’s grace is sufficient. My weakness magnifies God’s strength So often, I try to do things on my own. I want to be strong, to persevere through trials and sickness. I don’t want to let things derail my perfectly planned day. I don’t want to be weak, or even worse, for others to see my weakness! Being weak seems like something to run away from, not something to boast about. Asking for help admits that I don’t have what I need. This goes against our individualistic culture. In our culture, we strive for independence and being able to take care of things ourselves. We are taught to try harder and to do better. To ask others for help is looked down upon. We view self-reliance as a goal to be admired above all others. But this isn’t the gospel. The gospel, at its core, is a cry for help. We are a sinner who cannot save ourselves. We cannot try harder or do more to get into Heaven. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” We cannot boast about our salvation because it doesn’t come from us. Our weakness, our inability to save ourselves, must be understood. Only then can we cry out to the Lord to save us? Our weakness magnifies God’s strength. We have the opportunity as moms to magnify Christ in our weaknesses. When we are vulnerable and ask others for help, we are showing them that we have limits. We are finite beings who cannot do all things and be all things. We have limits placed upon us, which sometimes include catching a cold. In these moments, I need to not boast in my strength but rather lay it down at the feet of our Savior. I need to admit that, unlike Him, I need to rest. Unlike God, I need to ask someone else for help. Unlike God, I have limits and need to acknowledge them and live within them. How do we boast in our weaknesses? Boasting in our weakness isn’t posting pictures of our overflowing laundry baskets or sinks full of dirty dishes to social media with the caption #BoastingInWeakness. While I appreciate the attempts to be real and seeing moms strive to debunk the myth that we should be able to do it all and be it all, it doesn’t capture the heart of what God is asking us to do. Boasting in our weakness doesn’t mean that we are prideful when we don’t have our lives all together. It’s the opposite of pride. We shouldn’t be prideful or arrogant in our actions but rather seek to humbly point others to the Lord. We are not promoting laziness or a slothful lifestyle. When we are struggling and need help, we need to ask for it. When we do this, the Bible tells us that we will have the power of Christ resting upon us. This is something I desire, don’t you? God is working in us and through us in our weaknesses. When we try to do things in our own power, in our own strength, we are on display. Others look at our lives and might say, “I want to be like her.” But when we are weak and let others see that, they will say, “I want what she has.” We have the opportunity to tell others about Jesus, their Lord and Savior. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses. More Blogs You'll Like Is Prioritizing Love Un-Christian? What Does The Bible Say? Read More More Than Meets the Eye Discovering God’s Purposes for Motherhood Read More Mom Guilt and How to Fight It Read More

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Stephanie Delger Stephanie is the co-host of Mom Guilt, a podcast on the Resound Podcast Network. She and her husband Jon (host of That's a Good Question) live in Hastings, Michigan, and have four children. Most Recent Content from Stephanie Delger More Than Meets the Eye READ MORE Beyond Bluey Embrace your unique calling as a mother. God chose you for your children, knowing exactly what they needed. Your worth isn't based on comparisons but on God's eternal love and the divine role He has entrusted to you. READ MORE Divine Discipline or Unfair Treatment? READ MORE Redefining Helpmate In Marriage We can hear God’s design in the Bible, and yet when it comes time to work itself out in our lives, we think that there must have been some mistake and perhaps we misunderstood or read something wrong... READ MORE Mom Guilt and How to Fight It READ MORE When Mother’s Day Hurts Encouragement for those who face Mother’s Day with a heavy heart, offering a message of resilience and hope. READ MORE Saved From What? READ MORE Bearing the Burden and Beauty Our job was and is, to be like a mirror. The job of a mirror is not to draw attention to itself, but to reflect an image. Just like a mirror, our job as human beings is not to call attention to ourselves, but rather to reflect... READ MORE Nurturing Faith We will fail. We will mess up. But we are still asked to continue discipling our children. There will be times when our children ask questions that we don’t know the answer to. In these moments, we can pause and tell our children READ MORE Grace in the Gap READ MORE Baking Up Easter Joy READ MORE From Ketchup Stains to Salvation Does what I do really matter? How can picking up Cheerios off the floor for the third time today really make a difference in eternity? Being the mother to my four children is one of the best, hardest, and... READ MORE

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Justice For The Fatherless Sermon Series: From Womb To Tomb Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Psalm 82 Transcript The call to stand for life is one of the great calls upon the church for all time, but especially in our day. With that I say welcome to the second half of our two-part sermon series, From Womb to Tomb, as we look at what it means to be pro-life. And before we move on, I must remind us that this is the last online message before we get to meet in person for the first time in our new worship center. Who's excited? Yeah. I couldn't be more excited. But right now, let me start with these words. Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And can I get an amen? Amen. Today is not just the day that the Lord has made. This is also Sanctity of Life Sunday, a day where churches and people who love life pause and recognize that all people, born and unborn, people who are part of your religion or not, people who are part of your ethnicity or not, that all people are made in the image of God, making all human life a sacred thing. And so we do value life, from fertilization to our final breath, from womb to tomb. And that's our call. That's what it means to be pro-life. Last week we looked at our great call to care for our widows. And so on the Sanctity of Life Sunday, we're going to talk about what it means to bring justice into the conversation for what it means to care for the most defenseless among us, the fatherless, the orphans, and specifically today, the unborn and the issue of abortion. So please, in your Bibles, would you please turn to the 82nd Psalm as we look at justice for the fatherless Now Psalm 82 is unlike any other song the Psalms are songs for sure But Psalm 82 at just eight verses long is not a song of praise a sense Thanksgiving or laments It's not speaking to God. It's mostly God himself speaking and as you're going to see in a moment, it is also one of the most confusing, confounding settings of any passage in the Bible. Again, we'll discuss that in a moment. But if there is a theme to this psalm, it most certainly is one of judgment, but more than that, justice. And so, without further ado, would you hear God's word, the 80-second psalm. Psalm. God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah. Give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, sons of the most high, all of you. Nevertheless, like men you shall die and fall like any prince. Arise, oh God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit the nations. Amen. This is God's word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father, we need your help this morning. As you call us to stand for the defenseless, for the weak and for the needy, we need your grace, truth, and your spirit as we seek to be people who uphold the value of life from womb to tomb. And we pray this in the name of Him who was also born of a woman, in the name of Jesus, amen and amen. So we are to be pro-life from womb to tomb. And I think a beautiful way that the Bible helps us to think about this is in the Bible's numerous calls to care for the widows and the orphans. Let me remind you of our main idea from last week as we looked at this. Last week we talked about how our main idea is that God's people are to share God's heart to care for those who can't care for themselves. And today on Sanctity of Life Sunday we're going to complement this thought by looking at this one main idea. That God's people are to share God's heart to give justice for those who can't defend themselves. And as we consider God's judging in true justice we're going to see three things from our passage and we're gonna start with this one, as we consider God the God of justice. And this first one is this, that God is the supreme judge. Now, before we talk about the cultural debate surrounding abortion, let's talk about the God overall, the supreme judge. But as we get into our Psalm here, we have to ask what is verse one even talking about? Let's read it again. Psalm 82, verse one, says this. Says, God has taken his place in the divine counsel. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. So what is the divine counsel and what does the scripture mean about in the midst of the gods? So there is so much more than what can be said for our purposes here today. But briefly, here's our options as we consider this. The Bible's either talking about the divine counsel as a group of spiritual and or angelic beings which God presides over, hence the lowercase g, gods, lesser gods, other spiritual beings who are under God's command. That's maybe an option here. And when we look at incredible scenes from Isaiah, Ezekiel, Job and Revelation, this certainly makes it plausible if it's even a fantastic notion or the divine counsel here is a poetic way to talk about the human rulers of the world National leaders may be from Israel or the surrounding nations who God's given authority But did not uphold that call to maintain justice Or maybe God is speaking to all of his people to all the Israelites Meaning that lowercase g gods referred to the fact that God's people were meant to be his agents on this planet But they fail to uphold God's justice on earth. And so God is going to bring judgments. But wait, you may say, if you've read your New Testament, doesn't Jesus quote this song? Does that shed light on this? He certainly does. In John chapter 10, we see Jesus say the epic line, I and the father are one. This was a clear claim to be God and so the Jewish leaders they pick up stones to immediately kill him for blasphemy but Jesus he goes on to defend himself by quoting this song by quoting Psalm 82 and John 10 34 to 36 here's what happens Jesus answered them and said is it not written in your law I said you are gods and then he goes on to say, If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him who the Father sent into the world, you are blaspheming? Because I said, I am the Son of God? Now listen, there's a lot to unpack right there. But what's important to know for right now, is that it appears that Jesus is assuming that Psalm 82 is written to human people. Which leads many people to think that Psalm 82 is about God judging human authorities for their lack of ensuring justice for all. Clear as mud, right? Again, there's a lot, there's much to unpack here. I know this is confusing. So what's, what's the simple answer, Pastor Ryan? Well, what I'd say for us right now is that I think we have to step back and consider if we are asking a question the Bible isn't seeking to answer. Are we looking for details to the detriment of actually missing the actual point? It's not, is it not that the larger idea that whoever the divine counsel is, isn't the point here that God is the Supreme judge who wants to see justice prevail over the earth? Because that's where I ultimately land, at least for our purposes today. Maybe I'll join Pastor John for that's a good question We can talk more about this because it's a fun discussion but ultimately where I land here is that the notion the emphasis here is that God wants justice upon the earth and He is given his people the responsibility to be his agents to see this justice enacted on the planets Why because God is good and that's the second thing that we see first God is the supreme judge, but we also see that God is the righteous judge. So in verse one, we see God assert his authority over all. And then we see God himself speak. Verse two, how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? So here in verse two, for you Bible students, we see here that God gives the thesis statement for his concern that he wants justice on the planet. But in the next verse, in the next verses, God lays out specific directions for this because what ends up happening is that people hijack justice. They hijack the word justice and we want to apply it in our human way. God certainly wants justice but he wants it done his way and so he's going to detail for us what he means by justice. Verse 3, give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. So God wants justice, and listen to me, that's not just a cultural buzzword. Justice is a true biblical word, and Christians should be champions of justice. When people are exploited, it's unjust. When orphans are not taken care of, it's unjust. When orphans are not taken care of, it's unjust. And we're not just to take care of them. The Bible says here to rescue them. Verse four. Verse four says, rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. And right there we see God draw a line in the sand that those who commit unjust acts are wicked. And the Bible says this about them verse 5 says that they have neither knowledge nor understanding they walk about in darkness all the foundations of the earth are shaken meaning they have no moral grounding they are immoral they have no sense of right and wrong but God doesn't just judge the wicked we like when God judges the wicked but he doesn't just do that God also He also judges those who do not uphold justice. Yikes. God says to them in verses six and seven, he said, I said you are gods, sons of the most high, all of you, nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. God is saying, I gave you authority, mission and an identity, but you failed. And so you will fall from your special place that I've given you. And so we must ask ourselves here and now in our day, are we guilty of the same? Have we violated, verse 3, have we denied justice to the weak and to the fatherless? A child in the womb is most certainly weak, and in a sense, it's fatherless, for a father has no rights as to whether or not a woman decides to have an abortion. Our culture has said it's her choice. Listen to me. I love our freedoms in America. I am thankful for those who fought and died to maintain them. We should continue to fight to maintain them. But I have to wonder at times if our freedoms have blinded us to what is ultimately right before God. In our desperation to give women the right to an abortion, have we thus denied children the right to be born? This is the moral dilemma of our time. This is the moral dilemma. Is it an injustice to deny women the right to an abortion or is it an injustice to deny children the right to be born. Our new president, who starts in January, has not taken a true stance on this. His mantra is to throw it back to the states. If we're going to end abortion, the abortions that happen every day, if we're going to bring justice to the weak, to the fatherless and to the unborn, it will not ultimately be through laws. For the justice that we, the church, are to bring isn't something that can only be enforced by the police, by judges, or by the courts. We are to bring and model a greater justice in the world. So hear me on this. The longer that the discussion around abortion centers around laws and access to abortion and women's rights, the longer and the more bitter it will become. This conversation needs to shift from what is lawful to what is loving. Hear me on this. Yes, changing laws will help save the unborn, but changing hearts is how we end abortion. I want to live in a world where if life is an option, then life is always the choice. Because this is right. This is good. And because of the last thing that we see in Psalm 82, and it's this, that God is the final judge. This last verse of Psalm 82 is a dangerous cry. Verse 8, Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations. I don't want God to judge the earth. The US has around 1 million abortions a year. And the state of Michigan accounts for almost 30,000 of those, roughly 30,000 of those. God will not see this as a victorious display of women's rights. He'll see it for what it is, the unjust and innocent death of the unborn, infants who are placed upon the altar of our own rights and ambitions offered in sacrifice of the pursuit of our own self-fulfillment. God will judge those who take innocent life. The Bible says here that God shall inherit the nations because we see this in scripture that the earth is the Lord's and it's his to judge but listen it's not the Father who judges the earth it's the Son. I think sometimes we forget this Jesus Christ is the judge and he will judge with all righteousness for Jesus Christ himself says John chapter 5 verse 22, He says this, For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. I thought Jesus was the all-loving guy. Well, He is. But He's also the righteous judge. God the Father has entrusted the judgment to the Son, to Christ, for it is Him that we will stand before. And Jesus himself says on that day that he will separate people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. It's Christ that will stand before at the end of days. Abortion is a grievous injustice. It's the mutilation and destruction of those who are the weakest. And God will judge the unjust nations that not only allow this, but who celebrate it and champion abortion. My friends, and He'll also judge those who He sent to be His agents of justice, but failed to do so. For those of us who fail to stand for and uphold God's justice, God will bring judgment. The world is wicked, and we have failed, and woe is us. But, but thanks be to God that the gospel does not end with our condemnation, for there is yet hope for all of us. There is hope for all of us, those who have had abortions and those who fail to stand against it, those who are silent in the face of it. For Jesus continues in this very same passage, the very next line, Jesus says this, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word "'and believes him who sent me has eternal life. "'He does not come into judgment, "'but has passed from death to life. "'There is hope, and that hope is Jesus Christ and Him alone. Because of the life, death and resurrection of our Savior, our sins can be atoned for. Our destiny is not lost to the fires of judgment. We can believe in Jesus, all of us, and have eternal life, for His blood covers any and all blood that we've spilt. All the injustice that we've committed in Christ, we see that His grace is greater than all of our sin. Christ saved us when we couldn't save ourselves. And now we are called to be part of God's gospel work in this world, which means spreading His message of love and forgiveness and working towards His justice on earth, because, because God's people are to share God's heart to give justice for those who can't defend themselves. Amen? Amen. Amen. Let's pray.

A Psalm of Solomon Sermon Series: Honest To Goodness Logan Bailey Family Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Psalm 127 Transcript If we have not met yet, my name is Logan Bailey. I am the student pastor here at Peace Church. I oversee our student ministries. I am also the pastor over our young adult ministry and friends at Peace. It is an honor to be with you this morning to read God's word and give this morning's sermon on Psalm 127. Before we get into the message, though, I have a quick announcement. On July 8th, 2023 at 210 in the afternoon in Hastings, Michigan, after nine months of pregnancy and almost two days of labor, my wife and I met our son, Hezekiah James Bailey. If you were on the church prayer chain, then you already knew that because on July 8th, a prayer request went out asking this church to pray for a baby who wasn't breathing. So thank you for your prayers. His name is Hezekiah. We call him Kiah. Kiah had incredible nurses at Helen DeVos in Grand Rapids. We had incredible medical staff at Pennock in Hastings, and we had an incredible prayer team through the brothers and sisters of this church. So thank you for your prayers. This morning, I have the honor of not only preaching my first sermon as a new pastor, but preaching my first sermon as a new dad. Today's sermon is on Psalm 127. We're going to ask three questions. First, we'll look at verses 1 and 2 for the main idea of the psalm. What is this psalm saying? Second, we'll try to make sense of the rest of the psalm. Why does the psalm mention children? This is a very famous psalm for mentioning children, but why does it mention children when children have nothing to do with verses one and two? And then lastly, I hope that we will all ask ourselves what God wants us to do in response to this message. In both my job and now as a father, I feel the heavy weight of responsibility. Responsibility always comes with accountability. I will need to give an account for what I have done and how I have done it and whatever responsibilities you have you will need to give an account as well for the things that you did or didn't do and so we all worry if we're doing enough. That means we all know very well, anxiety. We are all anxious. We don't like that we're anxious, but yet we all keep coming back to anxiety. Anxiety is the heavy, sinking feeling that maybe everything we do is worthless in the end. We worry that the things we do are in vain. If something is in vain, that means it's worthless, it's empty, it means nothing. We worry that the things we do ultimately are in vain, and the things that we care about are important things. And yet, the deeper we care about something, actually the worse our fears and anxieties become. I am not here to tell you that all of our fears are unjustified, because that would be a lie. Jesus doesn't do that. I'm not going to do that. Some of our fears are substantiated. And when the storm is real, Jesus never says to ignore the storm. So I am not here to tell you to ignore your storm because there is a storm that's very real in all of our lives. Our anxiety makes us think that our efforts aren't enough. And the Bible says they aren't. We all have a lot of responsibility in life and we worry if what we accomplish will be enough for our finances, for our stability, for our legacy, for our marriages, for our family, for our health. The Bible enters this conversation and says at the end of the day all of your hard work, everything you do for your family, for your marriage, for your career, for your eternity is worthless. That's what today's passage says. So welcome to Peace Church. We are just being honest this morning, honest to goodness. In this series we're giving each pastor a chance to preach a different psalm by a different biblical author. And this morning we are looking at Psalm 127. Psalm 127 is going to be brutally honest about our fears and anxieties. But please keep leaning in because God does have more to say about our anxieties. As we jump in I want to point out that I think Psalm 127 is the perfect Psalm for me to preach this morning. Not just because it's only five verses and the other pastors had like over 80. But at our wedding we sang a song that quotes Psalm 127. All glory be to Christ by King Scaliatoscope. It opens with, should nothing of our efforts stand, no legacy survive, unless the Lord does raise the house in vain its builders strive. Not only that, but also given I'm a new father, this psalm is a very famous one for how it mentions children, but the Lord actually put an exclamation point on this psalm for us because while my son was being born, the song that was playing quoted Psalm 127. On a playlist 11 hours long and on shuffle. The song that happened to be playing when Hezekiah was born was a song that opens with Psalm 127. It's called Establish the Work of Our Hands by the Porter's Gate. And it says, If you don't build it, we labor in vain. Without your spirit, we stand with no strength. I know my life is passing away, but the works of your hands are what will remain. Let the favor of the Lord rest upon us So as we read Psalm 127 this morning I Pray that we will all remember that Jesus says if you abide in my word You will know the truth and the truth will set you free Psalm 127 1 through 5 Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb of reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. Let's pray. Father, thank you for guiding our time this morning. Jesus, we pray that you soften our hearts, you soften our minds, and Holy Spirit, we pray that you speak through your word. In your name we pray, amen. Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Our provision is in vain. This verse mentions building and labor, and so I immediately think of the man who has a reason to build, to provide a shelter, to provide a home. I think of the man who labors to provide food for his family, to provide for those he loves. Build, labor, provide, provision. We attempt it all in vain. This verse says, unless the Lord builds the house, but it is silent on whether or not he does. We all labor. Most of us have jobs. Most of us have projects that we care about. We all strive towards something, whether we physically sweat or not, we all strive forward for some purpose. And so we all know what it means to labor in an attempt to provide for something. We labor as mothers, we labor as fathers, we labor as friends, sons, daughters, students, players, coaches, mentors. Our labors, our provision in the end, the Bible says, is in vain. Those who build it, labor in vain. This verse also says our protection is in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. So here we see the idea of watching. This word watchman is a biblical role that had a particular responsibility for protection. The protection always took a different form at different times, but a watchman was always responsible for protection. Some biblical roles are really weird and hard to explain. This one is super self-explanatory. A watchman is a man who watches. Watch for the enemies coming. Watch for friends coming. A city would have someone at the gate watching. A guard tower would have someone in the tower watching. A field might have someone around the perimeter watching. A simple job but a taxing one because you can't fall asleep. You can't be distracted, you have to be alert, and if you don't do your job, everyone knows. Physical watchmen would have a very important part to play in protecting everyone, but here's where it gets interesting, because the Bible also has spiritual watchmen in Scripture. There are prophets in the Old Testament, they were watchmen for the people, spiritual watchmen. Ezekiel 33, seven, for example, mentions prophets as watchmen, they would stand at the gate and they would watch God's people and then God would speak through them in response to what they watched, sin or disobedience or repentance. So the role of a watchman was to be on constant lookout in order to protect people. So it's not hard to see what modern day watchmen are. We have parents who watch their patients and the tests of their patients diligently in order to give a proper diagnosis. Even something as simple as a lifeguard constantly watching the water. And for us in this room, the watchmen of our church are our church leaders. Hebrews 13, 17 says, and submit to them for they are keeping watch over your souls. But lastly, the Bible encourages us each to be the watchman over our very own lives. To look at your life and be vigilant. The role of a watchman at every level is necessary for protection. Watch, protect. But note the final word of this verse. The watchman stays awake in vain. How many times have you been the watchman over your own life and yet you fall asleep on the job and sinful desires come in and take over without you on the lookout? How many of us have been the watchman over our own lives and yet we fall asleep on the job and we, as Paul says in Romans 7, 15, we do not do what we want, but we do the very thing we hate We are no match for the powers of sin and temptation the Watchman fails the enemy enters the city the Watchman stays awake in vain our Attempts at protection are in the end in vain. It is in vain in vain. That you rise up early, that you go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil. All of our work is in vain. It is in vain. All of our efforts, building, providing, watching, protecting, rising up early, going to bed late, striving forward for the things we care about, working and working and working with the anxiety that we all know, terrified that everything we Everything we do will amount to nothing, and the Bible says it is in vain. Your suffering, your pain, your passions, your accomplishments, your best efforts for your family, for your friends, for your career. Scripture says all of our work is in vain. Unless. Unless the Lord builds the house. Unless the Lord watches over the city. Unless the Lord gives sleep to His beloved. So even our best efforts amount to nothing, save one thing, if God gives sleep to His beloved. And the good news this morning is God does give sleep to his beloved. We can rest knowing that God is also at work. We can rest because he gives to his beloved sleep. The sleep that God gives to those he loves is the restful assurance that is only possible through divine hands. Rest, assurance. The work of our own hands will always amount to dust, but divine hands can reach into eternity. This message is the calm whisper that says, God is at work. He is laboring, He is building, He is protecting. He does not ever sleep. He is always working. He doesn't let any moment go to waste. Rest assured, the Lord is at work. Rest assured. Even when your efforts fail, you can have assurance. The Lord is always working for the good of those who love Him, even through our failures and our sufferings. That's what Romans 8, 28 tells us. He works all things together for the good of those who love Him. So, we can either strive forward with anxious vanity or restful assurance. Vanity and anxiety versus rest and assurance. Anxiety makes a lot of sense unless the Lord is at work. And since God is at work, strive forward with assurance. Since God is at work, our work doesn't have to be in vain. We can have blessed assurance. If you're familiar at all with wisdom literature in the Bible, so what the Bible has to say about wisdom, biblical wisdom, then this core dilemma should sound familiar to you, because this is a question of biblical wisdom. Do we live in anxiety, living on our own power, relying on the results we create, or do we live in assurance, trusting God to be faithful to His promises in the end? This is the question of biblical wisdom. This entire psalm is actually a psalm of wisdom. Who wrote this psalm? Solomon. Solomon is known for his insight into biblical wisdom. So in order to truly understand what this psalm is saying, we need to understand the basics of what the Bible says about wisdom. So I want to point out two things, two very important things in regards to biblical wisdom. First, the Bible says in many places, the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. What does that mean? And there are a lot of opinions on what it means to fear God, but Jesus says it best. In Matthew 10, 28, he says, do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Jesus says, be afraid of the one who can damn your soul. We stand before an all-powerful God, and we should stop trying to sugarcoat that or soften it. That is terrifying. We are in an entirely different category than God. God is holy. We are not. That isn't a small issue. That is the most important issue for all of humanity. We are, in our sinfulness, enemies to a holy God. So if you have an ounce of wisdom, you would fear God more than all of your other fears combined. And you would give everything to avoid God's anger. So if you don't take God seriously, you don't take your life seriously. The first step of wisdom is to fear the all-powerful God. To be concerned about his opinion of you. But the Bible does not stop there when it talks about wisdom. Wisdom says we should fear God because it is true that He is all-powerful, but wisdom also says that we are loved by that same God. Psalm 127 calls us beloved. We are the beloved of God. So the Almighty is looking at us with the intention to bless us. Wisdom says God is almighty and God is love. That means that he has promised to bless our work according to his eternal purposes. If you are in Christ, you can rest knowing that the almighty is after your good. So we can either strive forward in anxious vanity, not thinking about God and His work, or we can strive forward in restful assurance and wisdom, knowing that the Almighty has promised to bless us. The good news this morning is that we can have assurance. The all-powerful God calls us His beloved children. It's not just, it's not, we cannot see ourselves as the one in control. It's not just us putting in effort. God is also at work to bless us and bless our work according to his eternal purposes. So we can either strive forward in anxious vanity or restful assurance. That is what this Psalm is saying. That's the main idea. So it's curious why this Psalm then seems to make a strange change in topic and starts talking about children. What do children have anything to do with verses 1 and 2? Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate. So children are talked about here as a great thing. Fine-crafted arrows. Children make life better. Better for the warrior, better for the young parent, better for the mature parent. Children are a net positive. But what do children have to do with verses 1 and 2? It can feel a little strange to be talking about assurance and anxiety and wisdom and then switch to children. But this is not strange at all. It is actually a perfect example of what this psalm is talking about. The gift of children is a prime example of the Lord's blessing. As a new parent, I'm beginning to see this very clearly and how deeply true this is, that children are a gift from the Lord. And this applies to the kids in your family, but also the kids in our entire faith family, the covenant children of this community. Our church is blessed by the kids in our kids ministry. Our church is blessed by the students in our student ministry. And so no matter what your circumstances in regards to kids, we all experience that blessing that kids are, that the Lord has blessed his people. And children are a prime example of that blessing, of his building, of his watching, of his provision, of his protection. And this creates an interesting situation for us because how are we going to respond to that blessing? How we respond to the gift of children is a prime case study of choosing anxiety or choosing assurance. As parents, we have a massive responsibility, we have an unquantifiable love, and yet we have no power. We can never force our children to be exactly who we want them to be. It's their lives, their struggles, their choices. So how will we respond? This is the prime case study of choosing anxiety or choosing assurance. Trusting our own efforts or trusting in the Lord's providence. I'm not saying it all work out the way you want it to. It almost certainly will not. I'm saying that God is working all things according to his eternal purposes. And since he, the Almighty, loves us, we can close our eyes at night and leave the heavy lifting to him. Rest in the blessed assurance of his love. Perfect submission, all is at rest. I and my Savior am happy and blessed, watching and waiting, looking above, filled with his goodness, lost in his love. We can rest knowing that God is also at work, so we can either strive forward in anxious vanity or restful assurance. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, because he gives to his beloved sleep. God is saying that ultimately the success is on his shoulders and that should feel like a relief because we know we can't handle the weight of it all but he can and he has promised to. Wisdom is resting in that truth. As Jesus says in 15.5, apart from me you can do nothing. If you are in Christ, rest assured, you're not apart from Christ. And He does do the heavy lifting. And if you are not following Christ, please take a moment to consider the eternal weight of your anxious toil. Jesus can give you rest. Church, we can rest knowing that God is also at work. We must not see ourselves as the one in control. Jesus is a better builder. The Holy Spirit is a better protector. And for all of those other anxious fathers out there, the Heavenly Father is a better father. The results of our efforts are on His shoulders because He has promised to do the heavy lifting according to His eternal purposes. As a father, I have a whole new way of viewing the world. I have a whole new set of responsibilities, which means a whole new list of reasons to be anxious. The role of a father is to provide and protect. My anxiety of whether I can is very real. Building the house, watching the city, provision, protection, things that a father wants to bring his family, things a father must do, things a father is going to be held accountable for. And as a father, I was powerless when I sat in a hospital chair next to my exhausted wife and we were told that an ambulance was on the way to take our son. As a father, my fears were becoming true. When the ambulance was going north through Middleville, some of our friends heard it go by, and our community group sent us a text during it all and said, Kaia has never left God's hands in the last nine months, and he won't today either. Kaia has never left God's hands in the last nine months, and he won't today either. That meant the world to me. Not because it was a sweet sentiment, but because it was true. Two days, after two days in recovery, my wife was able to be discharged and could come and see him. And then shortly after that, Kaia was discharged from the NICU. We were headed home. We had felt like we were awake for four days in the whirlwind. The whole experience was incredibly sobering and not at all what I assumed would happen, which I know is very relatable. But the thing that I have been stuck on more than anything else is the fact that we could have lost him sooner than we ever could have prepared for and that that is still true. It is true for all of us and all of our children. The anxiety we have for our kids are real, but it is more real and true that none of us or our covenant children are outside the divine hands of a heavenly Father. I am not saying I understand all that God does or how More true than our fears, that we all can have assurance. God is working. God is working. And the best thing for us to do, especially in the midst of our powerlessness, is to trust in him to provide and protect, most importantly of all, to provide for and protect the eternal life he has promised us in Christ Jesus. He does not say to have assurance so long as things are going the way you think they should. He actually confirms our fears and says the storm is real, you are not enough, but He also says I am enough. Our assurance is dependent on Him and His eternal promises, not our anxious toil. In Matthew 11, 28, Jesus says, "'Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, "'and I will give you rest.'" Jesus is saying, you labor anxiously, eating the bread of anxious toil, but I want to give you rest. Keep building, keep watching, keep working, but rest assured, when you're working, so am I. And my work is never in vain. The message for us today is this, rest. Rest, knowing that the Lord is working. We know assurance when and only when we know that our hope is in Christ. That is restful assurance. That is blessed assurance, knowing that our hope isn't in ourselves, but totally in Christ. And he wastes nothing, not our failures, not our sufferings, not even our weakest moments. He gives to his beloved sleep. He builds the house. He watches the city. Do not eat bread of anxious toil, but eat the bread of life. Live in light of the hope of God's promises and above all, the promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ. If God is involved, which he is, we can have assurance that our work will never be in vain, but will be used by God for his eternal purposes. So, we can either strive forward in anxious vanity, not thinking about or relying on God and his work like a fool, or we can strive forward in restful assurance knowing that the Almighty is at work on behalf of his beloved. So what does this mean for you today? Ask yourself what is the Holy Spirit wanting you to do with this message in your life? Maybe God is encouraging you. He's encouraging you to see his purposes in your life more clearly, encouraging you to pray more purposefully, encouraging you to lean deeper into family devotions and meaningful conversations as a family, or to stop letting you have a bad habit get in the way of where he is leading you. Maybe he's challenging you and challenging your restlessness, challenging you to slow down, especially as summer comes to a close, our calendars get more full, school starts back up, to stop filling your calendar with so much of the wrong things and to start taking your Christian life more seriously. As 1 Corinthians 15, 58 says, this has become one of my favorite verses if you're taking notes, please write it down 1 Corinthians 1558 It says be steadfast Immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord Knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain Peace church your labor is not in vain. In the Lord, your labor is not in vain. Rest in that blessed assurance. Let's pray. Father, thank you for inviting us to this restful assurance, knowing that our hands, the work of our hands will always turn to dust, but the work of your hands can reach into eternity. Father, you are calling us to this for your glory and our joy. Jesus, you are the way, the truth and the life. And so we look to you for assurance and for rest, knowing that we're not the only one's working, but God, when we work, even in our failures and our sufferings, Father, you are also at work and in the Lord, our labor is not in vain. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Transcribed with Cockatoo

PODCAST That's a Good Question Exposing the Truth Behind "As Long as it Doesn't Hurt Someone Else" September 17, 2024 Jon Delger & Logan Bailey Listen to this Episode 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 get to serve as a pastor at Peace Church and I also get to serve as a leader at Rezound Media. We love to hear your questions at peacechurch.cc slash questions so feel free to leave them there for us we can address them in later episodes but today I'm here with Pastor Logan. Howdy! Yeah we are in a series called Calling Out Cultural Lies and the lie we're talking about this week Jon I'm interested in your thoughts is as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on this. Why is that so bad? It sounds really nice it actually sounds like a pretty helpful guiding principle. And I know those listening believe it or know people very close to them that believe it. Why is that not a good guiding principle for our lives and decisions as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else? Well, it sounds very American, actually, I think. At least from when I was growing up, I remember people kind of talking that way a lot about what does liberty mean? And they would kind of describe it that way that, you know, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Well, that means that you can do whatever you want in America as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. Kind of like the, your freedoms and or someone else's starts or something along those lines, right? You have your boundary line on your property and within those boundaries you can do whatever you want, but the second it goes into someone else's yard, then it's you're on their yard. Yeah, sort of logic. And so it sounds very It sounds like something, you know, a champion of freedom would say, right? It sounds like man Yeah, this is this is what Americans ought to believe. I can do whatever I want As long as it doesn't hurt somebody else and and I kind of get that You know, I think a lot I think I think myself, I sort of have that temptation towards that, I would call it in political terms, a libertarian mindset. Yeah. Just wanting to go that direction, wanting to be able to do whatever I want. Nobody can tell me what I want. I think there's something even in the human nature that we want to be able to go that direction. But as Christians, I think – so we could talk about how there are some advantages to that kind of in the political sphere. But also as Christians, how that is less than the ethic that we want to live by. I think that's a good way to put it. It's less than what we're called to. And it's good to see the truth that is present in a lie because most lies have something about it that's true and something about it that's off. And I think there is something, you brought up like political aspects to it of a libertarian like that. It is good that we have agency and self-expression and a level of independence. But there is a such thing as too much, so much independence from the wrong things. Like you don't want to be independent from something that grounds you and guides you. And yeah. Yeah, I think that's actually one of the really important balances when we talk about the philosophy of government is that balance between freedoms and limits is how some would say it. Or, you know, we're going to talk in a minute about what true freedom is. But you want some regulation and authority in your life and in the country, but you don't want too much. There's this balance in between too much and too little, and you want to find yourself right in the middle of that. So anyways, all that being said, coming up very soon, actually launching this week, we have a class at Peace Church called Christianity and Politics. That's also gonna be available on ReSound Media. So if you wanna hear some thoughts, some Christians think through, what does it mean to be a Christian in a political world, invite you to tune in on that, resoundmedia.cc , all the videos are gonna be available there. Four session course we're gonna be going through, so lots of time to talk about that more in depth. But for today, let's hone in on kind of that idea of freedom. Because I think if you're thinking about being engaged in a conversation with somebody who says to you, well, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else, I'm going to do it. And that's my ethic. Let's think about how we can think about it as Christians. So I think one of the ideas that I would put forward is that that's not a real definition of freedom, or that's not a Christian definition of freedom, I should say. It's not the best foundational belief, like guiding principle. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A Christian view of freedom would say that actually freedom is to be free from sin. Freedom is to live the way God designed us to live. That's where real freedom is found because we believe that there is a creator, we believe that there is an order and a design to the universe, and so the best human life isn't humans getting to do whatever they want to do because we know Jeremiah 17, 9 says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it. So our hearts actually free to do whatever they want are gonna take us in the wrong direction, bring us to unhappiness, bring us to death actually. So actually what we really want, the best thing for us is to go God's direction, God's way. And so I think that's probably the first way in which that phrase falls apart. Right, and that's a very theological, philosophical, like large picture way of viewing things. And I know for some people that can feel insulting that you're saying, you don't know me, you don't know that person and what's best for that person. But we're not necessarily saying like you need to fit in this box right here and we've built it. We're just trying to say plainly like God has built us and designed us in such a way and he knows best of how we ought to live. And we're talking very big picture just in general. We should be connected to that. Like we should seek after and be guided by God's design for us rather than be misguided by our own desires. Because we can be, especially with the verse you brought up. We do sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot with the things we want. We all know that. So it's not that hard to think that. There's been a lot of movies made out of the idea of you get what you want and you realize it's not really what's gonna make you happy. Yeah, the point we're saying is God knows what we need and what's best for us to flourish and we should be oriented towards him and what he wants for us. And we can fool ourselves into thinking that what we feel like is best isn't actually best. Yeah, I think of, so I'm prone to at home when my wife brings me a new appliance or something and I'm supposed to put it together, I am the guy who's always tempted to throw the instructions out the window and just, I'll figure this out, it'll be great. But I have learned over the years that it is usually better when I follow the directions. And the reason for that is because the guy who designed the product is the guy who gave me the directions. And so it's best when I use it the way that he designed it to be used. I like that, talking about freedom, liberty, independence. If you're on a boat, it's not a good thing to be independent and free from the boat because then you're in the water and you can drown. There are certain things that you don't want to be free from or independent from because those are the things that you're meant to be connected to and guided by and use the word limited by or honed by. There are certain things that are supposed to help guide our thoughts and the ways we view things and live. The way God designed us is an example, like in a big picture level, we should want to not be free from God's design. We should want to be under God's design. And by that, we are then free from sin and the things that are hard about life. So I think this is actually similar then to the lie that we talked about last week. Last week we talked about live your truth as a lie that is often sold and shared out there. And we said that actually one of the foundational world views in that idea is relativism. That there is no one truth and therefore you live your truth, I'll live my truth, we each do our own thing. We talked about that last time. I think that idea of relativism is still evident here in the as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. Because I think another foundational idea is that there is no one right way to live, there is no one best life, and so you do yours, I'll do mine. Who are you to say? Yeah, yeah, it's so you know philosophers going way way back always the question of philosophy is what is the good life? You know what is the best thing? What is the best human life? That's what everybody's trying to answer. This approach sort of says, well, there is no one right answer. You do it your way, I'll do it my way, and we'll just, as long as we don't hurt each other, call it good. As Christians, we're saying, no, actually we can do a lot better. We're not saying we're the arbiters of this. What we're saying is God is, and we're trying to just point to him. Right. Yeah. Right. So I think there's an interesting conversation about how do you live in a country that doesn't necessarily have Christian – that doesn't have Scripture as your law for life, and so you could make some arguments about how – we've got to be able to sort of draw lines of what is liberty, what is – how do you let people do what they think is the good life without establishing Christian truth as the truth for the country. So I think that's like an interesting conversation we could have about law in our country and how all that works out. But if you're talking with somebody about doing life as a human being and how to have the best life, what we're saying is that this mantra, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else, is far below what Christians should aspire to. I think a, I like the politic ones you brought up. When you think about the angle of policy, I think that that's just another good place to advertise the class that you're dealing with the politics and Christianity thing. We're going to have some fun. Yeah. And then when you talk about like just day in, day out, that's where this kind of lives is just among friends with different beliefs about different things like homosexuality or something like that. This is where this mantra kind of just enters into the conversation and then it kind of kills conversation. It's like, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody, which I think what's best, and we've heard this, is what is that really saying? Because it's not as simple as like, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else, then that's the guiding principle. What we've been trying to say here is, that's not the best guiding principle, we should look at scripture for the guiding principles in our lives. That's less than what we're called to, we're called to more, we're called to not just what hurts people, don't do it, but what helps people, what's loving to people. But I think what's helpful in calling out cultural lies, that lie, as long as it doesn't hurt someone, as if that should be our guiding principle, what that's really saying is, I think that's a good place to take this conversation, what is that really saying, why do people say it? Well, you brought up relativism. Yeah. Like you can be your own God. Yeah. You can be the one to hold all the authority and let me also be my own God and hold my all of my authority. Yeah. That's a great point. So underlying the philosophy of relativism is actually idolatry saying I'm God. There is no God or at least I get to I get to make the rules. That's kind of what relativism really does. So let's actually play out, you brought up an example. I think it's helpful to play out some concrete examples. I think the way that the homosexuality one comes into play is like, well, what do you care what they do in their bedroom? Yeah, so let's play that. Let's say that you're sitting across the table from another believer, because I think that's what we want to talk about, is how to live as Christians. So if you're sitting across the table from another Christian and another Christian makes the argument to you, well, hey, who are you to judge? Who are you to say this? Let them do what they want to do. It's not hurting you. You know, let them live their homosexual lifestyle, have a same-sex partner. They get to do that. It's not hurting you at all. You know, what's the big deal? Just let it happen and leave it alone. Right. Assuming, I like that you brought up that we're both Christians, assuming we both look at Scripture as what should guide us in life, the word of our king that we should follow. I think that the best response is, I'm not called to ignore my neighbor, I'm called to love my neighbor. So that means that I should want the best thing for them. And I want us to live within God's design for our lives, including relationships. Yeah, so one of the definitions I've given before of love is if you love somebody, you want God's best for them. Right. I don't think that's original to me. I think lots of people have said something along those lines. So if you want God's best for somebody and you've got a good friend coming to you and saying, well, hey, I would really like to live a homosexual lifestyle, you have an obligation to say to them lovingly but truthfully, man, you know what? That's really not going to make you happy. That's really not the best thing for you. So yes, you can go to God's word and talk about, well, the Bible says don't do that. We can also talk about the consequences. We can talk about sin and its consequences. But also, you can just simply talk from the aspect of, man, I'm here to tell you, this is actually not what's best for you. This is not gonna be good for you. It's not gonna make you happy. I know this conversation can go in a million directions and is hard for different people for different reasons. But you could enter fill in the blank with a lot of different things that have to do with sex. So you could say premarital sex or extramarital sex or polygamy, any of those things. You could even get into darker things. But when we are trying to say – we're not trying to say we're the arbiters of what's right and wrong. We're just trying to say the word of the Lord is, and we are trying to put ourselves under it as well. And so I'm not saying, I think it's important for brothers in Christ, sisters in Christ, when there's disagreement, to be humble and say like, I don't live perfectly into this either. I've been corrected by Scripture. It's hard to bring correction. So just being open and honest about like, I've been corrected by Scripture too. That's what we both want, just to get back on the common ground of right. We both want to follow what scripture says we're under scripture and so then if you just go back to Basics God has a design and if he does have a design for marriage We need to ask ourselves what is that design for marriage and on the homosexuality piece like God one of God's designs for marriage is for us to flourish and have children. You need a male and a female to have children. And so just on the face of it, that's clearly at odds. If that is God's design for marriage, if one of his designs for marriage is for children, then a homosexuality relationship is on the face of it at odds with what that part of God's design for marriage. So we should be honest about like, hey this is a conversation about are we following God's law? Are we following God's design between Christian and Christian? That just be humble and honest about that. That's one concern I have about that one part because we're not trying to say as long as it doesn't hurt somebody. What we're trying to say is how do we follow God's law? Yeah. And how do we love our neighbor in the midst of those disagreements? Yeah. Yeah. So one of the passages we've talked about in relationship to this cultural lie around Peace Church is from 1 Corinthians 10. Let me just read a part of it. This starts in verse 23. The Apostle Paul says, all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. That's a great verse. There's so much to talk about there. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience. For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. If one of the unbelievers invites you to dinner and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience. But if someone says to you, this has been offered in sacrifice, then do not eat it for the sake of the one who informed you and for the sake of conscience. I do not mean your conscience, but his, for why should my liberty be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks?" So there's a lot we can talk about here. I love that first verse. Yeah, there's a lot of things that you can do, but not all those things are helpful. And in the midst of this disagreement, again, just being honest, like what we want is to follow scripture and to be humble about differences you see of how to go about that. Just, I'm just, I want to be honest. I want to love my neighbor and I don't view that thing as helpful. It's not, and I think that them doing that is hurting them, or at least stopping them from getting more flourishing, or at least living more into God's design. Just to be honest and open about like, what I want is the best for my neighbor, and I don't view that as helpful. Yeah. And that's amidst, I think, even things that aren't sinful. I think that's where the passage gets into. It's almost more tricky. What about for things that aren't sinful? Well, that's what I was gonna say. It's a matter of conscience, right? Yeah, so Paul Dix is an interesting director. He talks about some of the ideas that we're talking about here. Conscience and liberty. I think this is an important passage to think about in this conversation. So conscience and liberty, and he also says even if you are allowed to do something, maybe you should refrain from doing it for the sake of somebody else who has a weaker conscience, who doesn't think you should do it. I think in the Christian world, we tend to talk about alcohol is an easy one. There's nothing in the Bible that says that you can't drink. Drunkenness is sin, but having a moderate amount to drink is not sin. But if you have a friend, a brother in the Lord, a sister in the Lord who is not comfortable with drinking or has struggled with alcoholism in the past, then sure, it's not sin for you to drink, but maybe it's better for you to just not do that in front of them. Yeah. I think this is a good just to recognize I'm not responsible for your actions. I'm going to express the things to you that I think are right and wrong for me to do and for you to do, but I can't, I'm not gonna be judged by what you do. I'm gonna be held accountable to how I love you and telling you what I think is right and wrong as a brother, but I don't need to worry about what you're going and doing then. I've told you, that's my role as your brother. Yeah. Sure. Especially in the matters of, oh, is that sinful, is it not? Well, I might feel like it is. And so I'm responsible towards you and how I act towards you. I'm gonna tell you. But I don't need to be thinking about now what you're going to do and because I'm just responsible for me. Yeah. Yeah. So I think one way in which this passage makes the the point that we've been making is that, so if the ethic of the world is this cultural lie, well, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else, if that's their ethic, instead the Christian ethic is love God and love neighbor. So it's a higher ethic. We have a higher power than ourselves. We are trying to do something that is honoring to God and honoring to other people around us. Okay. But then, you know, Paul gives this stipulation about, you know, about maybe not doing something that you would normally have the liberty to do in front of somebody else. So let me ask this question, is there limits on that? If a brother or a sister in Christ feels uncomfortable with something you're doing but you know it's not sin, Right. Is there ever a place where you should say, well, you know what, I am still gonna do this. And I was putting myself in the shoes of the person with the conscious problem. Like if I'm the one that thinks this thing that you're doing is wrong, then I should tell you, but then not – I'm not sinning by you sinning if it is sin, if I think it is and I tell you. So like in that stance, but on the other side of the one being told, hey, I think you're sinning, but you don't think you are, you brought up to drinking one of – obviously, we do think being drunk is a sin, but just drinking alcohol isn't. Jesus did. Sure. And so it's the Christian liberty thing of I can do it, but my brother, Jesus didn't drink grape juice. Well, it's just, so it'd be wise for me not to drink in front of a brother who considers it sinning. Yeah. Even though we would, does the passage use the phrase weaker brother? That's usually the phrase we use from this passage. Or maybe it's a different passage we're thinking of. But what I've heard, actually I've heard R.C. Sproul talk about the tyranny of the weaker brother. Of the one who believes doing A is sin, even though you would consider doing A not sin. And you believe it's a matter of Christian liberty whether you do it or don't. And so when you're with that person, you don't do it. But they're insisting that you should never do it. And they're trying to make sure that the church enforces that no member does it, that sort of thing. That's right. That's why the question I'm asking is where does that line come in? Right, and that's why I put myself in the seat of that weaker brother of saying, well, just to help guide to that person, like you are not responsible for, like what you're responsible to do in that moment is to lovingly say what you think and then you're responsible for your actions. But if that person continue presses the tyranny of the younger brother, the weaker brother, and is trying to. I think of John Piper. He told a story once of when he first went to his church. But the church had a very strong no drinking stance in the membership. And he said, I will not be a pastor here as long as you keep that rule. And he didn't personally drink, but he thought that it was wrong for the church to tell the concordance. You cannot do something. That wasn't simple. I think something of of a matter of Christian conscience. And yet they were telling the members that couldn't do that thing. He said, I won't be a pastor here, even though he himself did nothing. And so, man, he put his foot down. Yeah. In a personal relationship though, rather than church politics, I think if a brother is really insistent that something I'm doing is sinning that I don't think is, I think the first thing to do is just get back to the common ground of in conversation about let's just talk. We both want to follow the Lord. Yeah, so you know, in one-off instances and stuff, I think that makes total sense. But yeah, I think there are boundaries and lines to which, man, at a certain point. So the example you gave, I think, is exactly what I had in mind of, at a certain point, maybe the brother needs to be confronted about legalism. Yeah. You're asking others to do something that is not asked for by Scripture. You're putting something in the middle that shouldn't be the middle or in the middle, shouldn't be the focus. Yeah, in some ways it's, I hate to use the word because it's used so flippantly, but in some ways it's Pharisaism, right? It's legalism. You're fencing the law. You're saying, well God's Word says we stop here, but I think we should stop ten steps sooner. And so I'm gonna draw the line there. So let's talk about some other kind of weaknesses of this approach to ethics of saying as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. There are some ways in which it might not hurt or you might not think it hurts somebody else, but somebody does get hurt in the act. I'm thinking of things like suicide, for example. You know, how does that fit into this ethic? Euthanasia, assisted suicide, abortion. Yeah, we think how to, so. So the goal of this podcast is just bring up every controversial thing we can think of. Well, that wasn't the goal, but you know, we're talking about these big cultural lies and I think, you know, there's a reason they're so big and popular. They get applied to all of these big, hot topics of the day. And so I think. As long as it doesn't hurt somebody. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think we I mean, we've said it. It's not a good guiding principle because we're called to more. I'm not called to just ignore my neighbor unless I'm called to love my neighbor. I'm not called to just to think, well, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else, then they're free to do that, do them and live their truth. And then I can live mine. I'm called to love my neighbor. And in the case of abortion, for example, that's my neighbor in there. Or in the case of euthanasia, that's my neighbor over there. Even if it's themselves, or you know, if it's person A trying to kill themselves, that's, he's my neighbor, she's my neighbor. So if I came to you and said, Logan, I would like to end my own life, you wouldn't respond with, do you? Well, hey, as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. Absolutely not. Right. Well, also, that's hurting you. Yeah, well, but I think that people- And that's sending a signal of like, I'm not going to just try to stop you from, and if you're my brother, especially if you're in my church, I'm not called just to stop you from hurting yourself. I'm called to love you to get into a better place. Right, and that's where the whole thing we're saying is that the Christian ethic is higher than this ethic that's being portrayed. So we, yeah, you know, because you could make the argument all day long that, hey, me, you know, me ending my own life doesn't hurt other people. It's just damaging myself and so it should be allowed. It should be fine. You know, people are making that case about assisted suicide. But as Christians, we say, no, human life just has too much value for that, that there is a higher ethic than saying as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else. If as long as it doesn't hurt somebody else is your guiding moral principle, then it's hard to stop someone from getting to a place of like, yeah, euthanasia, why not? Yeah. It's not hurting someone else. I should be able to be free to do that. It's like, well, no, you're my neighbor and you're called. I want you to have a life that's full. Jesus promises life to the full. I want you to follow that one, that man, that God. Yeah, and I think, man, this is where people want to deny, relativism, people want to deny the existence of moral absolutes, but I think every human really knows that there are moral absolutes. There is such a thing as good and evil. We talk in terms of good and evil, right right and wrong, just and unjust. And so we know that we need something higher. And not to bring it back to politics again, but I think this is where in the United States of America, I think there is some need for some kind of recognition of some of the principles that we were founded on, that we were founded on some basic Christian principles, that there is moral absolutes. And this is the problem, I think, when you drift away from that, is that when you come down to relativism, when you lose a sense of moral absolutes, some of these Christian principles, then your ethic becomes unsustainable. Just a thought I'm thinking of is, and you probably even had this conversation on this podcast in the past, but we're a bad Holy Spirit. Like you're not a good Holy Spirit. If, because we know as long as it doesn't hurt someone is a bad guiding principle. We know that a better one is love your neighbor because we're trying to say we're not an arbiter of what is right and wrong. Each and every person by themselves doesn't get to define their own truth, but the truth is in God's Word. We ought to be oriented towards God's Word and following Jesus and following his moral principle. We don't want to just shift away from, well, you can't decide for yourself. We don't want to shift into legalism and say, so I should be the one to decide. Again, like we're trying to emphasize, we're not saying we're the arbiters of this or even your pastor is. We're trying to say the word of God is and the Holy Spirit himself, he's going to be the guiding principle. And so just if we're on the side of, I wanna bring correction to my brother, then tell him, and then pray about it. You know? Yeah. Don't try to be the Holy Spirit in someone else's life. All right, so wind it down here. Last question. For the person who is hearing this and is saying, yeah, I love my neighbor, and I know what's best for them. So I'm going to go actually listen to this podcast and tell them what's what. Because I love them so much. It comes full circle. We're talking about freedom and limits. Talk a little bit about the right kind of idea of freedom and the right kind of idea of limits. I mean, what we've been saying so far is that we want to have the best guiding principle and ethic possible. And as long as it doesn't hurt somebody, and ethical, and doing something that I, according to the scripture, believe is not right for them. I think you should say your piece sincerely and get on that common ground of like we both want to follow God's Word. Well, so you're saying if you believe it's something that's against the Bible. Yeah. Okay, so then they should go with chapter and verse, right? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but and that's my conviction. That's the level of my conviction, but if my neighbor then says, I don't think it's that clear. I think this, I think watching Harry Potter isn't as bad as you're saying it is. I'm trying to bring up a real example. That's a very real example. I would say like I want brothers and sisters to follow their conscience and don't do things they think is sinful and tell their brothers things that and sisters things that they think they're concerned about for them, but you're not the best Holy Spirit. So like just we need to be prayerful and let the Holy Spirit be the one to convict each other. Share our peace, go to Scripture, and share everything. You're not the Holy Spirit. Yeah, and then and then and continue to pray if we're convicted about it. But like we said earlier, like you're responsible for you and you're responsible towards your brothers and sisters but not for their actions. And so there has to be some level of peace there. So not only do we not get to be our own gods, we don't get to be somebody else's god. Oh, man. What it says, love your neighbor. You don't get to decide what's best for your neighbor. Yeah. That's a good answer. So yeah, we're called to love our neighbors and yes to everything we've said thus far. And there are some times when you're in a gray area, when you might think you know what's best for your neighbor, but maybe you do, maybe you don't, and maybe you need to just let your neighbor figure that out. Well, and be, in all sincerity, be sincere. I think people appreciate sincerity of like, I wanna be very honest that I think this is sinful and here's why, and then respond and be patient with each other as you work that out. Because it might be really good for someone to think, oh, let me, I didn't even know that could be an issue. Let me think about the issues that you brought up and that even if they don't get on the same page as you on that thing, it could bring up some good thoughts in their mind of how they can better follow Jesus and that's what we want in the end. Yeah. Yeah, there's some areas where scripture speaks very clearly too and there's some other areas where it leaves some openness. Right, and have Christian charity in that. Yeah, that's good. Awesome, well thanks so much Pastor Logan. Yeah. Thanks everybody for listening. I hope you have an awesome week. That's a good question. Always tune in, resoundmedia.cc. You can always send in questions and follow us on social media. You can always send in questions and follow us on social media. Bye!

Rachel Bailey Rachel Bailey is the Executive Director at the Alpha Women's Center. She has written an article for The Gospel Coalition. Her and her husband Logan have a son. Most Recent Content from Rachel Bailey How to Handle a Difficult Small-Group Member Small group Bible studies are a joy to lead. Any chance to study Scripture in community is a gift. But they can also be challenging to... READ MORE

PODCAST That's a Good Question When Vows Break: The Hard Truth About Divorce and Remarriage January 21, 2025 Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen to this Episode Hey, welcome to That's a Good Question, the podcast where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. We are a podcast of Rezao Media, a place you can trust to find great resources for the Christian life and church leadership. You can always submit questions that we answer on this show to resoundmedia.cc . If you find this resource helpful, please rate and review the podcast so more people can encounter the life-changing truth of God's Word. Also, if you know somebody who can benefit from today's topic or has questions like the ones that we're answering, please share this episode with them. My name's Jon, I get to serve as a pastor, I'm here also with Pastor Mitch. Yeah, and I'm really excited for this episode. It's a heavy one, but we're gonna jump into it. Jon, what is the biblical, or what does the Bible say about divorce and remarriage? Yeah, it is a very heavy topic. I imagine people are asking this question and are maybe listening today because they, well, it could be in any one of a number of situations, right? Maybe they've already been through a divorce and are asking questions now about what does the Bible actually say about that, this thing that they've been through in the past. Unfortunately, maybe some are even considering divorce right now. Maybe it's somebody who's got parents who are divorced, a friend, a family member, something like that. Unfortunately, I think in our world divorce is something that touches almost all of us, right? I think everybody's got somebody connected to them or themselves that have been touched by divorce. It's a painful, brutal thing, but we want to talk about what the Bible says about it. We want to talk about the gospel and how the good news of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection speaks to it. And so, yeah, we want to lay out the Bible does say some things about in what situations the Bible permits a divorce, how that relates to remarriage, all those kind of things. So let me just say a couple of things to get us started here. First and foremost, God loves marriage. God hates divorce. Yeah. God designed for men and women to be united forever, exclusively, together, unbreakable covenant relationship, Genesis 224. The man and the woman become one flesh. That's when God institutes marriage at the very beginning of the Bible. So that's God's design, that they would come together forever in a covenant relationship, and the divorce is the breaking of that. So even though we are going to talk about some verses in the Bible where Scripture talks about permissible situations in which divorce can happen, it's never recommended, right? It's not what God wants to happen. The other thing I want to say right away is that divorce is not the unforgivable sin. So again, if you're listening to this and wondering about maybe a divorce that you've already had and you're listening for, you know, was that biblically permissible? Was it not? If you find out that the divorce that you had was sin, it wasn't within the bounds of what God allows, what we want you to know is that the gospel of Jesus, faith in Jesus, repentance, coming to Jesus covers all sin. Divorce is not the unforgivable sin. So even if you find out that hard news today, I want you to know, and we're going to remind you again at the end of the episode, that the blood of Jesus covers all sin. Yeah, let's jump into that first part. Where does the Bible talk about divorce? How does the Bible talk about divorce? When is it permissible? Yeah, let me just start by reading, yeah, probably one of the most key passages for this topic comes from Matthew 19, verses, let's see here, 1 and going on through 9. So let me just read some of that. Now, when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, and large crowds followed him and he healed them there. And Pharisees came to him and tested him by asking, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? He answered, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. They said to him, why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away? He said to them, because of your hardness of heart, Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery. And then, get this, this is actually right after the passage but verse 10, right after verse nine, the disciples said to him, if such is the case of a man with his wife, is it better not to marry? What a verse. That's crazy. Jesus just says some things about how much God does not want us to get divorced. And the disciples' conclusion is, well, then maybe we shouldn't get married at all. Yeah. Like if you can't leave your wife, yeah, might as well not do it at all. You know, I mean, unfortunately, that's a terrible way to think about it. Right. But at the same time, it kind of, I feel like the disciples kind of grasp the gravity of marriage, right? They're getting like, oh, you know, if this isn't something we can get out of, we should be pretty thoughtful when we're getting into it. It is also funny to think about that in the context of all of the disciples, except for Peter, weren't married. Like all of them were just single guys. And so they hear this and they're like, I don't know if I want this actually. If there's no escape hatch for me, I'm out. Yeah. Just it's a pretty wild moment. But it is like a normal conversation with a bunch of single guys who are, you know, you know, early twenties or teens, whatever. Sure. It's kind of a funny, I don't know. Yeah. That's my sanctified imagination of how the conversation went down. I know, right? Yeah, totally. So if we kind of break this down and think about what Jesus is trying to say, okay, remember the Pharisees come to Jesus and they're asking the question, is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause? Okay, and Jesus is sort of saying like, no, you know, for any cause, nope, that's not it. God made marriage in the beginning. He designs for us to be married and to stay married. And then they're going to talk about another key passage, which is Deuteronomy chapter 24, verses one through four. Okay. So that's the Old Testament passage. They're talking about really important passage in the Old Testament. You got to understand if you're going to talk about this topic. Let me just real quick, read those four verses. Moses writes in Deuteronomy, when a man takes a wife and marries her, if he finds, if she finds no favor in his eyes, because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house. And if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance. All right, so lots going on there. Yeah, connect the dots for me. Yeah, totally, right. So, and this is why I'm reading these passages, just because I think we gotta understand what's actually being said in scripture and what the context is before we jump to some conclusions. So, in the book of Deuteronomy, essentially what's going on is God, speaking through Moses, is laying down some laws, some rules to protect women. So, a woman in the ancient world, she depended entirely upon her husband, right, to provide for her, to provide her a home, to provide her security, all those kind of things. And so, a woman could find herself in this really tough situation where if she's being very mistreated by her husband, and if he leaves her, if they get divorced, then she's in this tough spot where, okay, now she has no one to provide for her. So there's a few different bad things that could happen. He could hold that over her head. He could say, if you get out of line, then I'm gonna divorce you, and then you're gonna be stuck, and you won't be able to provide for yourself, and that'd be a terrible situation. Or you could see the situation where they do have a divorce. She gets remarried and then she essentially just gets in this tough spot where she's kind of getting almost like traded back and forth between between men because she has no legal protection for herself. So this certificate of divorce as scripture names it, is created in order to give her some freedom in order to give her something to be able to say, yeah, I'm out of this marriage. I now have a certificate that says that I can remarry somebody else. And then Moses, of course, gives the law that she can't, after remarrying to somebody else, go back to the former husband. So one of the things you hear pastors say is that, even if you've been divorced, you can reconcile. And that's absolutely true. But not if you've already married somebody else and then been divorced again to that person, you don't go back to the first person. That's specifically what Deuteronomy 24 is talking about. And again, in order to protect the woman from this bad situation. Yeah, absolutely. So when we go to Matthew 19, and Jesus and the Pharisees are talking about this, we gotta understand, and this is what Jesus is pointing out, is that Moses is not giving a command, a recommendation, you all should do this. What he's saying is here's a terrible situation, and we created this concession, this stipulation to try to protect women in the middle of a bad situation. Yeah. That's the short answer of what Jesus is doing in Matthew 19. So he goes on from there and then he goes at the very end is kind of the key part that I think a lot of people latch onto and have questions about, right? Is in verse 9 he says, I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another commits adultery. Okay, so we've got some principles, right? God designed man and woman to be together. Divorce is not something we want. In the Old Testament, there were some protections for women that did permit divorce and at least protected the woman in the situation of divorce. Okay, and so now Jesus adds or further clarifies and explains, all right, he lays out at least one exception in which divorce can happen. He says, in the case of sexual immorality. The Greek word is porneia, which could be translated kind of, you know, to talk about any sexual immoral sin as laid out in Levitical law in the Old Testament. Yeah. What would you say to people who say things like there is no biblical justification for divorce? Yeah, I mean, I'd love to hear their argument. What have you heard them argue based on this passage? It's usually not based on that passage, but saying things like, you know, this is a covenant and that it's never meant to be broken, that this is something that God has instituted and that this is a forever kind of thing, that there's no justification for it. Well, hearing that, I mean, I'd say they're mostly right. I mean, God did design it to be lifelong. It is supposed to be unbreakable. Divorce is not the recommended out thing. So they're right about that. But then I think you've got to look at a few passages like Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7, which we'll look at in a few minutes, Deuteronomy 24 that we've already looked at. Look at some of these passages and say, okay, God did allow, it's not recommended, but God did allow for divorce in some terrible situations. I think that's on one end. What about on the other end where there are some churches, some Christians who don't see this as a command that is relevant for today in the 21st century that this is kind of one of those passages we put away and that the verse really isn't that bad. Right. What would you say to that? Yeah, well, they're missing what the Bible has to say to us. Right? Jesus calls us to a higher standard. I think about actually, so a parallel to what's going on in Matthew 19 here is in Mark chapter 10. I won't read it, but the context of Mark chapter 10 is actually Jesus talking about how difficult it is to be one of his disciples. He's talking about suffering, he's talking about servanthood and in the midst of suffering and servanthood, he talks about marriage. Yeah. And it becomes kind of an example. And that's really, I mean, if you're listening to this and you're married, right, you're married to an imperfect person. You never tell them that, right, but it's true. And so you know that marriage is not the easiest thing in the world. Right, it can be difficult, can be painful. Yeah, if it's not difficult and painful for you, that means that your spouse thinks that about you. That's right, if it's not difficult and painful for you, it probably is for somebody else. It definitely is for your spouse then. Or by God's grace, you've been growing and this has been getting a lot better, right? I don't know any people like that. So, that's the thing. God calls his disciples to a higher standard. Yes, the world accepts no fault divorce. Divorce in any situation, for any reason, have at it. Jesus' followers, they don't. We just don't do that. Yeah, it's something that we've talked about with our kids even, like, you know, this is God's good design for families, right? I remember talking to my son, my eight year old, and saying, imagine if I could just leave whenever I wanted and just not come back. That would be an awful thing. And you know, how sad would you be if you never saw me again? But the truth is, I've made not just a promise, but a covenant with your mom, my wife, that I'm never going to leave, that I'm always going to be here, not just for you guys, but for her too. There's a beautiful aspect of this idea of this covenant that you're never walking away from. Yeah, you know, looking at culturally if we fight, you know, we fight as, as people who are married, we disagree with our spouse. But the beautiful thing about marriage is that it's bigger than fights, it's bigger than disagreements. It's a covenant. And that's, that's a beautiful thing to say, hey, I'm sticking through this, even when someone wrongs me, even when I feel like, you know, I'm not being treated well or whatever. I mean you can throw everything at that. But Jesus gives us two things. A couple things to say. This is why, these are the only reasons that are allowable to leave. Right. So, you know, when we finish hearing what Jesus says in that passage, then I think we've got to ask the question, alright, so adultery. So adultery is, you know, what we'd say is a permissible situation in which divorce can happen again. The first recommendation is that you work through it, that there's reconciliation, that there's forgiveness, that there's repentance on the person. The person who committed adultery comes back repentant, that hopefully that can be worked through, reconciliation can be had, all those beautiful things. You know, that's the number one desire, right? You think of, I mean, that's even how God handles his covenant with us. Yeah. Right. Hosea, the prophet, is a great example of that. But, you know, we sin against God and we come back in repentance and we receive his forgiveness and grace, which is amazing. Yeah. Can I ask, why is adultery on this list of permissible reasons for divorce? Yeah, I remember asking that earlier in my life. But I feel like that's probably a question some listeners have right now. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I think the reason is because adultery kind of gets to the heart of breaking the covenant. You know, I mean, sex is, you know, we call it consummation, right? It's consummating the marriage covenant. It's like essential and central to what it means to be married. Yeah. Right, it's an expression of that, to becoming one flesh. Yeah, in Jewish culture, it wasn't official until they had sex. Right, so I think that's the reason is that adultery is just like it tears at the very heart of the covenant. Yeah. So then that raises the question, Jesus gives that exception. Is that the only exception? You know, what does this now mean? Yeah. And so that's where we have to then look at the rest of Scripture and see what it says. And so actually another, what I would say is another exception comes in 1 Corinthians chapter 7. So the Apostle Paul writing in a letter. So this is 1 Corinthians 7, 12 to 16. I'll read it real quick. We'll talk about it. All right. So Paul says, to the rest I say, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever and she consents, or he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children will be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife? All right, so Paul's writing a letter to the Corinthian church, and he teases out the situation where you've got a husband or a wife, you know, one member of the couple becomes a Christian, gets saved, becomes a follower of Jesus, but the other one hasn't. And so now what do you do? Because that's a huge difference in your marriage, right? I mean, if one of you is trying to follow Jesus and the other one's not, that's a massive difference. So what do you do? And what Paul says is, if you're the Christian, if you're the believer, you should stay married. This is still a covenant. You should stay married. Hopefully the unbelieving spouse is in it too. But he says, if the unbelieving spouse leaves, abandons you, even though you're striving to have a healthy marriage, if they can't do it and they walk away, he says, quote, you're not enslaved. Okay. Or we would, I mean, what we take that to mean is that then you're not bound any longer to that covenant. You don't have to consider yourself married if that person has, you know, essentially divorced you, has abandoned you and walked away. Yeah. So we look at that, that term as abandonment. How do you define that? What does that mean? Yeah, you know if I go away on a weekend trip with you know my brother right is that abandonment or right? No, no, and that's the thing is you know scripture doesn't give us some super clear exact Parameters on it, so I think just to be clear with in trips with the boys. That's good, right? You should ask your wife before that you could really take her off. That's true. Yeah, it could end up badly for you. Yeah. It's not abandonment. Right, right. Now, I don't think we have any exact parameters on it, but I mean, using wisdom and discernment and thinking also about Matthew 19, right? It's, you know, if adultery was the situation, a radical, total, breaking, forsaking of the covenant. Yeah. You know, I think this would have to be that. Yeah. Right. Yeah, so which is another extreme situation, right? So I think, you know, they've, you know, especially in the case of a husband to a wife, you know, he's no longer providing, protecting, all those things that he's called to do as a husband. Yeah. Yeah, if those things have been given up, then yeah, we would say that you've been abandoned by an unbelieving spouse. Okay. What if it is someone who professes to be a Christian? Does that change anything? Yeah. Yeah, I think it does. Well, I think then you got to ask the question is, is this person a Christian? Right. If you're willing to just walk away from your marriage and abandon your spouse, then I think that's the question of even though you say you're a Christian, are you really? Because you're not living like Ephesians 5 describes marriage. So we have a couple like this, two people claiming to be Christians, one person separates. You know, you've said that the person who leaves, we would consider a non-Christian, an unbeliever. How do we get to that conclusion? I mean, really, what would the church do in that situation? Yeah, yeah, I mean, we wouldn't come to that conclusion lightly, right? Like you said, this is an extreme situation, you know, however exactly, you spell that out, but this is an extreme situation that we find ourselves in, right? And yeah, I mean, like for me, if I were to just walk away from my family, praise the Lord, I have some brothers in my life that I think would track me down, whether they had to get on a plane or whatever they had to do, they would come and find me and punch me in the face. Pull up with a white van and put a hood over your head. And duct tape and drag me back. Yeah, and remind me of what Jesus has called me to do and who he's called me to be. So yeah, I mean, this is, yeah, if you're in the church, if you got brothers and sisters in the Lord, then they're gonna come after you and not let this happen, God-willingly, hopefully. But yeah, you could end up in a situation where despite those calls to return, you're what we would call unrepentant, right? You refuse to repent of your sin and come back. Yeah. I think even like the role of the church, a good healthy church should walk alongside, should call a husband or wife, whoever has left, back to their spouse to say, you know, you're being unfaithful here, you're walking away from your covenant, come back, and if they refuse to, I think that's where we see even the role of church discipline come in, right? They're, like what you said, being unrepentant and yeah, yeah. What about in cases of abuse? I know that a lot of churches have that clause in when they talk about divorce being permissible. How does abuse fit into this category as being permissible? We don't see that expressively written in scripture. So how do we get to that conclusion? Right. I would say we get to it in, I mean, one of two ways. We can look at it either coming from, yeah, I think anything you're going to say that's besides adultery or abandonment by an unbelieving spouse, you basically got to, it's got to kind of fit into one of those categories. I think those are the categories that Scripture gives us. So I would say, you know, that Jesus and Paul have not given us a blank check to say that there's all kinds of exceptions now. You can get divorced. I think it's got to fit into one of those categories. So I think what you could say is that abuse is tantamount to abandoning your spouse and acting like an unbeliever. Yeah. You know, you could say that, yeah, you've totally failed the marriage covenant. You've broken the marriage covenant by doing that. Yeah. You know, by abusing your spouse, you have essentially abandoned them and become as an unbeliever. Yeah. Because of just what a radical, awful thing that is. Yeah. I've heard some pastors even talk about it like you've become an outsider in the marriage. You're acting as if you no longer belong in this marriage. You're acting like a stranger who's an enemy coming off the street who would come in and abuse people. I think that's an interesting thing. come in and abuse people. I think that's an interesting way to think. I mean, for a follower of Jesus, it should be unthinkable to abuse your spouse. Yeah, even Ephesians talks about that, like no one hated their own flesh, right? That he nourished his spouse. I think that's a huge part of it too, but yeah. You talked about blank checks earlier. Is this stipulation for adultery a blank check And so they commit adultery in order to get out of the marriage, so they can get remarried. Great question. Well, so I think that brings us around. Is that the loophole? No, no. Nice try though. That's inventive. I've heard people say that before. Totally. I know. Yeah, I have as well. So let's think. So let me maybe like circle up these, these three categories. You know, so we've talked about is actually, they all happen to start with A, so adultery, abandonment, and abuse. So traditionally, that's what I would say are the three exceptions that the Bible permits, allows, again, not recommended, but permits. It's the AAA you don't want to pay a monthly subscription to. That's right, that's for sure. So again, the recommendation from Scripture is always to reconcile. Hopefully there's repentance on the behalf of the spouse who's living in sin. They repent, they come back, you guys can reconcile, forgiveness happens, work it out. Hopefully you get some help from your church, your brothers and sisters, all those kind of things. So to go to your example and to talk about, I think that brings us around to then, when is it permissible to get remarried after divorce? So then now I think you got to talk about, is the divorce permissible or not permissible? And then which side of it are you on? Are you the person who violated the marriage covenant and led to the divorce or are you not? And of course it always takes two people. It's not just one. So it does get messy and complicated. But to give you the short answer, no, you can't go and commit adultery. So then you have a quote unquote biblically permissible divorce. Yeah. It doesn't work that way. I mean, to be fair, your spouse, yes, they have biblical permission to divorce you, but no. Yeah. So what would you say to people who maybe are hearing this and feeling like, wow, that's really unloving or this, you know, this is the church, you know, preaching forgiveness, but not actually living it out? What would you say to that? Great question. Yeah. So like I said, the beginning divorce is not the unforgivable sin. So yeah, you can absolutely find forgiveness with Jesus. It's up to your spouse, but hopefully you can find some forgiveness from your spouse. But that doesn't mean that there aren't also consequences for your actions. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think in all of society this is true too. Just because you do something doesn't mean that you can't be forgiven, right? The Bible says that all sins and all utterances out of the mouth of man is forgivable except for the unforgivable sin, blaspheming the Holy Spirit. We won't get into that. We've got another episode on this. So everything can be forgiven, yet that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences for that, right? That there aren't things that then you're disqualified from, right? If you've committed some sort of sexually heinous act, broken a law, you've sinned sexually against a minor or against somebody else, there are rules on things that you cannot then participate in. There are jobs that you cannot have, and we don't see that as unloving. We think that those are our good things. And so, right, I think in the same way, it's not a question of forgiveness at that point. It's a question of just of wisdom and of just, yeah, there are some consequences when you do things in life. Yeah. Same for like, you know, we've talked about this, I know, as pastors, but pastors who commit these types of sins, pastors who committed altery or have a moral failure. We've said, you know, there's forgiveness for that, but that doesn't mean that you get to hop back up in the pulpit, right? There are things that you're disqualified from, and that's an okay thing. And I think that's also something that we need to think about when we're being tempted by these things, that there are serious, serious consequences here. This isn't something that we can just brush aside and that we'll go back to life as normal. There's something really significant on the line for us to break these types of things. Right. Yep. So to talk about it practically, so if you are the party in the relationship that committed adultery that then led to divorce. that spouse or former spouse as long as is possible, which essentially means until they pass away or they become married to somebody else. So you don't get to go and marry somebody else. You should continue to pursue them, again, until either they pass away or until they marry somebody else. And then if they've married somebody else, then now your opportunity has ended to reconcile the marriage, to restore the marriage. And so then you're at a point where then you should think and talk and pray with a pastor and think about what does that mean? Where are we at? Yeah, I think this is a big thing. Like this is a significant thing. And this is something that we talk about when we do premarital counseling, the idea of covenant, right, the original idea of covenant comes to us spelled out when God makes a covenant with Abraham and he splits the animals and he walks through them, kind of signifying if one of us breaks this covenant, this is what's going to happen to us. And I think that there's something beautiful in that. I've actually, I know some people who, they signed a prenup before they got married. And it was this, I don't recommend prenups, but I think this was a neat idea. This is the only prenup that I would ever be like, okay. Before they had kids, before they had any sort of wealth, before they had anything, they signed a prenup that says, if I cheat, if I abandon you, you get everything. All the rights to the kids, the house, the bank accounts, the cars, everything. And the idea was, and they said, in talking with them, they said, the idea is I want a legal document saying that if I break this covenant, my life is torn to shreds. Sure. Again, I don't think prenups are a great idea, but I think that there's something neat about that. And that's how we should enter into marriage. That's how we should think about marriages that we're in, that if I leave this thing, my life should be torn to shreds. If I abandon my wife, if I cheat on her, I hope my best friends come and beat me up. I hope that they teach me a lesson. This is one of the worst things that you can do to another person, a person that you've promised that you're gonna love them until you die. It's a really significant thing. So we've talked about adultery. Does this apply to the other two areas that we've talked about before, both with abuse and abandonment? Yeah, that's the general principle I think carries across all three. But if you are the party that has been offended against, then essentially it's on you to be able to pray and think with the Lord. You can offer forgiveness and reconciliation or yeah, you are not enslaved as 1 Corinthians 7 says and can move on and become remarried. Yeah. Last thing, last question. Is this a command or is this an allowance? Is this something that if your spouse has done this, you have to do or is this something that then you are allowed to do? No, it's an allowance, it's an exception, it's a concession, it's not a recommendation, not a command to get divorced in these situations. And again, one of the things I always want to say when we talk about this topic too, is that we talk about how much divorce is not prescribed in the Bible, and also we never want to encourage anybody who's in an abusive relationship to stay in that relationship. We want you to get help, get out. Seek authorities, yeah. I think this is a topic that we're going to have to revisit because there's so much that we could talk about in this episode. And I think it's good for us to save some of that and talk about it later. But I think that's a great place for us to leave off. Yeah, yeah, great questions, heavy questions. Feel free to ask more questions along those lines. I'd be happy to dive into it further in a future episode. Everybody, thanks for listening. We hope you have an awesome week. Do us a favor and like, subscribe, follow, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. Have an awesome week, everybody. ♪♪ ♪♪ Bye!

Christians Judging Others Sermon Series: The Church Never Preaches On... Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Matthew 7:1-5 Transcript This is the day that the Lord has made so let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, amen. Amen. So as lead pastor, one of the things that I get to do that is one of the great joys, but also one of the hardest things is I'm primarily in charge of coming up with the sermon series and what sermons we're going to preach on every week. Now I typically let the elders know a year in advance what's coming in the preaching schedule, but it's one of the great things that I get to do. It's also a very weighty thing. I understand the importance of this, that we have the Bible, God's enormously beautiful book, and we have to think about what timeless message do we need to bring to a timely situation? As you think about our moment in history and our cultural moment, what's important to hear from God's word on a weekly basis? And I love to do that. I love to think about sermon series and what's gonna best serve and feed the church here at Peace Church. But for this sermon series that we're starting today, we decided we're gonna let the congregation have a concrete say. Now you kind of always do them, always talking with people and listening to what they have to say. But we said we're gonna let the congregation have a concrete voice in this. So we solicited from you suggestions on topics for a sermon, for sermon, for the sermon series. Now we had one parameter, that it had to be something that the church never preaches on. Not just something that you wanted to hear, but what is something that you think the church never preaches on, whether here at Peace Church or any church across the globe. And so we got like well over 250 suggestions for different topics and myself and a team of people, we came together and we tried to sift through all these topics and try to categorize them and we whittled them down to 17 topics. We put that back to the congregation and the congregation chose the top six. And that's what we'll be looking at for the next number of weeks as we make our trek to summer which is on its way. But I'll just, I gotta say though, it was really close. So we chose the top six, because there's six weeks, but the difference between number six and number seven was one vote. So there's a lot of opinions on all of this. And so, today, the topic that you chose is a very interesting one. I didn't see it coming. But let me just say this real quick. We're not gonna share ahead of time what we're preaching on. Just know that it's the top six, and in no particular order, that came from the congregation. So if you are really curious, if you really want to know what we're gonna be preaching on, if you happen to stop into the church office this week with a delicious vanilla milkshake, I may fall into temptation and share that with you. But today, the topic that this congregation thinks that the church never preaches on, and I think there's a lot of truth to it, is this. The church never preaches on... Christians judging others. So would you please in your Bibles turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 1-5. Now as you turn in there, a couple quick things about this passage. This comes right from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself. This comes near the end of one of his most famous teachings, the Sermon on the Mount, meaning Jesus spoke this from a mountainside to a group of people that had gathered before him. It wasn't just the Pharisees, it wasn't just the crowd. This is a teaching that is meant for everyone. But I'll tell you this as you turn in there, this particular passage of Jesus, I think is, it's not just loaded, it's not just a loaded statement, but I think it is often grievously misunderstood, and because of that, it's misapplied in our lives. So let's spend a moment looking at what Jesus says, and then we'll take some time today digging in to see the full breadth of our Savior's message. So would you hear God's word, the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 7, verses 1 to 5. Would you hear God's word? Matthew 7:1-5 Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. This is God's word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father in heaven above, Lord, we come before you asking in the name of Jesus that you would send us your Holy Spirit, that we would rightly understand and apply what our Lord and Savior is saying here. We ask this for your glory, for our joy, and for the good of our neighbor. And it's in Jesus' powerful name that we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen. So I'll tell you this, when it comes to the Bible, Christian, non-Christian, pagan, the like, this verse, verse 1, chapter 7, verse 1, I think is everybody's favorite verse these days. It's this one, judge not that you be not judged. Oh, we love this verse. But you know what? We don't love the whole verse. We just love the first part. See, that's the whole verse, judge not that you be not judged. We don't like the whole part. We don't like that second part. We like this part. Oh, we love this verse. Judge not. Tell you what, Christian, non-Christian, pagan, atheist, we love that Jesus said, judge not. I'll tell you why. I think it's because pride is the epidemic of the American culture. We never want to be told that our actions are sinful in the eyes of God. I'll tell you, I think I can summarize the American ethic for the 21st century in one statement, and it's this, and it's this. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. I think that is the fundamental ethic for the American culture, and I would say basically for all of Western moral philosophy. This is what we've come to. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone else. That's our base basic morality. Our culture says, who are you to tell someone what they can and cannot do if they're not hurting anyone? Even some of you right now are like, yeah, yeah, that's true. Some of you right now are hearing that and you're thinking, well, I did agree with that, but now when you put it like this, with pride being the epidemic of American culture, coupled with this as our base moral ethic, it's easy to see why judge not is our favorite verse. It's easy to see why judging others for the American culture has become the cardinal sin. But here's the thing, is that statement, is that really the essence of morality? Have we finally arrived as the progressive American culture, so arrived that we finally found the prevailing moral ethic that is to be applied across all people in all space and time? Is this line, is this really the distinguishing factor between what's right and wrong, what's good and evil? That everything is permissible as long as it doesn't hurt someone else? That you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn't hurt someone else? Has it really come to just this? Our world doesn't know very many Bible verses, but we sure know this one, judge not. But is Jesus really affirming this phrase? Is Jesus really affirming morality, this version of morality with the phrase judge not? Is there no higher standard? Don't you want a culture with higher standards than this? So let's get into this and see, what is Jesus saying when he says judge not? Now as we walk through this passage, I'm gonna point out three things for us here this morning. As we look at verses one and two, we're going to see this, that when Jesus says, judge not, more than a command against passing judgment, this is a caution against self-condemnation. As we look at the second point, verses three and four, we're going to see that more than forgoing a moral standard, this is a caution against self-assurance. And we'll close it up by looking at verse 5, and I think the point here would be this. More than a protection from rebuke, more than a protection from rebuke, this is a call for self-reflection. When Jesus says, "Judge not..." More than a command against passing judgment, this is a caution against self-condemnation. (vv. 1-2) More than forgoing a moral standard, this is a caution against self-assurance. (vv.3-4) More than a protection from rebuke, more than a protection from rebuke, this is a call for self-reflection. (v.5) 1. More than a command against passing judgment, this is a caution against self-condemnation. (vv. 1-2) So church and friends, keep your Bibles open, let's look at this first one here. When Jesus says, judge not, more than a command against passing judgment, this is a caution against self-condemnation. So let's go back to our passage, let's have it in front of us here, verse one, judge not that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. So here's a terrible thing that we do with scriptures. We don't ever put things in context. And what's even worse, many of the time we don't even finish the sentence, let alone the passage or paragraph that it comes from. There is so much here than simply judge not. Verse 1 and verse 2, judge not that you be not judged, for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. So let's take a step back here and let's clarify something here. Jesus is being clear, we will be judged, and it will be by God, but this begs the question, are we going to be judged by God's standard or by our own? What is Jesus saying here with this phrase, judge not that you be not judged for with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. Well, simply put, if we look at the entire breadth of the New Testament, we'll see this that God is definitely going to be judge us. We're going to be judged and we will be judged by his standard, but we will also in a sense be judged by our own standard. But the point here is the same. By whatever measure you are judged, you will fall short. You will fall short of God's standard. And the reality is, is you will fall short of even your own standard. You don't even live the way that you think other people should live. So judge not that you be judged. God is going to judge us by his standard and even by our own standard, we're going to fall short. So here's what we end up doing that we can't do. Don't sit there and think to yourself, well then, if I don't judge anyone, then I won't be judged. That's not the point. That's not what Jesus is saying. He clarifies we will be judged. He's saying don't stand there like a hypocrite, calling people to a standard that you don't even live by. I love how R.C. Sproul talks about this passage. He says that, what he's saying is that Jesus is warning us not against discerning right and wrong in the actions of others, but he's warning us not to have a judgmental spirit or judgmental personality that's just constantly walking around judging others. That we're more concerned with how others act rather than our own actions. Because here's the reality, nothing exposes our own hypocrisy like judging someone else. By standard, judging someone else by a standard that we don't even keep. So more than a command against passing judgment, this is a caution against self-condemnation. Because you'll expose your own hypocrisy when you judge others. So what's more to be said here? Well, more than the command against passing judgment, this is a caution against self-condemnation. 2. More than forgoing a moral standard, this is a caution against self-assurance. (vv.3-4) Second thing we see is that when Jesus says, judge not, more than forgoing a moral standard, this is a caution against self-assurance. Look at verses 3 and 4. Jesus says, why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye? The word speck basically just means like a splinter or a piece of sawdust. Why do you see the speck that's in your brother's eye but not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your own eye when there's a log in your own eye? Jesus is saying, don't worry about the piece of sawdust in someone else's eye when you have a two by four sticking out your own face. He's saying, before you get all concerned about another person's imperfections, you better take a good, hard, long look in the mirror. But listen, Jesus is not saying there's no moral standard. He's not saying that God doesn't have commandments that we are to live by. Jesus is warning us against self-assurance. He's saying you will be judged. All of humankind will be. So don't stand there thinking that you're perfect and everyone else is a sinner. This reminds us that this is part of the essence of the Christian life. We are not self-reliant people. We are people holy and fully reliant upon God and His grace. We are the people that realize that even the air we breathe is an act of grace upon God who allows us to breathe when He does not have to. I know as Americans we love to make your own way, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get to work, you can do it yourself, you can't. God is the one who nourishes and sustains us. We are not self-reliant people. We are people fully and wholly reliant upon God. We walk by faith, not by sight, which leads to this last point, when Jesus says, judge not, more than a protection from rebuke, this is a call for self-reflection. 3. More than a protection from rebuke, more than a protection from rebuke, this is a call for self-reflection. (v.5) Look at verse 5. Jesus finishes this statement by saying, you hypocrites, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will clearly see to take the speck out of your brother's eye. What did Jesus just say here? You, hypocrite. Tell you what, we love, we love it when Jesus says that to the religious leaders, don't we? We love it when Jesus says that to the Pharisees. Jesus said this during a sermon when everyone was there. I mean, you best believe there was moms with babies on their hips, bouncing a baby, listening to Jesus. But we love that Jesus said, judge not. But he literally just called everyone a hypocrite because everyone has pride and hypocrisy at some point in their heart. You hypocrites, first take the log out of your own eye and then you will clearly see to take the speck out of your brother's eye. No one is immune from pride and no one is immune from hypocrisy. Everyone needs to be called out on that. But Jesus here, he's calling us to self-reflection before we address another person's sins. But if you see here, if you notice what Jesus says here, he actually does speak about taking out the speck of another person's eye. And just so you don't miss the point here, let me just be very clear. This is a metaphor for addressing another person's sins. Jesus is saying though, make sure you look in the mirror and you see your need for God before you look at another person's life to see where they are falling short. But we need to stop here for a moment because here's what we do with the passage like this. We think about a passage like this and let me just say to you, Jesus was not saying this so we could proudly get a tattoo that says only God can judge me. If you truly understand that, that should be utterly terrifying to you. That's not something you celebrate, that's not something you're proud of, that's not something you promote. The notion of God judging you is terrifying because you will fall short of his standard and you will fall short of even your own standard of which God will hold you to against. We are not the prideful people who go around flexing. We are the humble people who are thankful for every breath we get to take that's an act of grace from our God who does not have to give it to us. But what ends up happening is what we see this passage and we see these words, judge not, and we think that that is like some protection from ever getting, from ever getting rebuked about our own sin. Here's what people do. They take this phrase, they take this phrase, judge not, and they use it like a shield to protect them from ever being told that they're wrong or what they're doing is sinful or not what God calls them to. But let me remind you, when Jesus says judge not, more than a protection from rebuke, this is firstly a call for self-reflection. Church, let me just tell you right now, you need, if you're in the venue or the chapel online, hear me on this. Christians, you need people in your life who love you enough to call out your sin. Not one amen on that one, no surprise there. You need people in your life who love you enough, who are humble enough to first look at their own sin, and then come alongside you and say, brother or sister, your attitude's been off lately. Brother or sister, you're not loving your wife or your spouse like you should be. We need people like that in our life. This is not a shield from rebuke. Church, we need fellow Christians in our life calling us out. And here's what I'll tell you. When you become a Christian or you become a member or if you make public profession of faith or if you stand in front of the church and get baptized, a couple things are happening. Number one, not only are you saying that Jesus Christ is your Savior, but you are also saying that the church is now your family. And when you say that, you are giving them permission to hold you accountable. So I want to be as clear as I can because this can, words can be very easily twisted with this. When someone says, when Jesus says, judge not, he is saying, do not put yourself in being in the place of a judge that condemns others. Let's take a step back and understand what's happening here. He's saying, you cannot be a judge that condemns others. You're not the judge. But we have to remember what Jesus in the New Testament teaches elsewhere. Jesus also says things like this, Matthew 18, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his faults between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. Look what Jesus also says in Luke chapter 17. It says, if your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. Is there any way to fulfill these commands of Jesus without at some level exercising a level of judgment? No, there's not. But we definitely have to look at our own sin first and then take an assessment of a person's life against the Word of God and in love, that's how we approach them, with gentleness and love. In fact, let's go on. I know that some of you, I know that some of you have people in your life, I know I do, I know that some of you have people in your life who say that they're Christians, but they're clearly not living like it. So what do you do? Upon talking with many people in that situation who have someone in their life that's not living like a Christian, a lot of times people are hesitant to address their sin, to address the sin in someone else, because they'll say things like, well, I'm not perfect either, or Jesus is not to judge, and we're kind of caught in this weird moment where we know something's off, but we're not sure how to address it. Now listen, when Jesus says judge not, Jesus is warning against hypocritical judgments. We just read two verses where Jesus specifically tells us to approach others about their sin and the rest of the New Testament keeps up this theme about Christians calling out sin in each other. I'm going to read to you some other passages just so you know this isn't isolated and I'm not just making this up. Galatians chapter 6, Paul says this, Brothers, if anyone is caught in a transgression, that means a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself lest you be tempted. Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. James the brother of Jesus writes in chapter 5 he says my brothers if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death. Or the unknown writer of Hebrews says this, take care brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort, exhort just simply means to strongly encourage. Exhort one another every day. Every day. Do you have brothers and sisters in Christ who are exhorting you every day? Look at what the Old Testament says in Proverbs chapter 31, open your mouth, judge righteously. Not hypocritically, not superficially, but judge righteously, not self-righteously. And again Jesus Christ himself says in John chapter 7, he says, do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. Hold on a second. Jesus just said to judge, but to judge with right judgments. Is this a contradiction with what Jesus says in Matthew 7? No, there's not. Because here's the overarching thing that you have to understand about all of this teaching. It all comes down to your heart posture. Why are you doing what you are doing? It's about your heart posture simply put we are not to be judgmental people But we are to judge with right judgment see a judgmental person judges to condemn But we are to bring a right humble gentle judgment because we care for people We judge not in order to condemn but in order to restore Meaning that we even if we have to take a firm stance and I've been in some settings with some brothers where we have to call out another brother and we have to take a firm, firm stance, but you still do it with a spirit of gentleness. That just like our gentle Savior, in His strength, He's going to pull us back to the kingdom. So what we see here in both the teachings of Jesus and throughout the New Testament is this. Yes, focus on yourself first, but we need to care for one another. We need to hold each other accountable to the path that God has so that we don't wander or get trapped in sin. And this takes discernment. You know what discernment is? Discernment is right judgment. Righteous judgment, not self-reflected judgments. This is, of all the messages that we're gonna be preaching on, I'll tell you right now, this one scared me the most, because of how easy it is to twist a teaching like this. I mean, we're gonna be talking about the place of Israel, we're talking about heaven and hell. Oh no, I'm giving away the topics, I shouldn't do that. This was the one I wanted to lead off with, because I wanted to get through this one. But this is such an easy one to twist. Jesus is saying to us, it takes proper, right, Holy Spirit, God's Word guided discernments, right judgments, but I want to be clear. The gospel tells us through the words of Jesus and through the teaching of the New Testament that we are to hold each other accountable, that we call out the sin in each other's life, not from a place of authority as a judge, but the place of love as a sibling in Christ. Amen. I'll say it for myself. Church, this is a topic that we get so consistently wrong, so let me break it down even further. I want to be as clear as possible here today. So let me give you a few things. First thing is this, is judge not is not saying that we shouldn't hold each other accountable. We just looked at a plethora of verses and there's many more that say this. Second thing, Judge Knott is not saying that we can't call out evil. The gospel calls us to. We can't stay silent in the face of evil. We just make sure that we're not committing the same evil that we're calling out in the world. Jesus is saying don't condemn the world for living sinfully if you are not going to pursue righteousness. And also, Judge Knott is not saying that we're not allowed to have an opinion on society. I know a major conversation in our world right now is what happened to men? Where have all the men gone? What happened to masculinity? Is there any difference between men and women? Does that have any true value to it anymore? So here's what I say to you. Don't worry about the absence of masculinity in our world if you as a man are not going to lead, love, protect, provide, and preside over your house with the strength and gentleness of God's immense love. We do that first. It's for reasons like this, that the Bible gives these calls like we find in 1 Thessalonians 4, when Paul says, Aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, to work with your hands as we instructed, that you may walk properly before outsiders. Bible's saying, focus on yourself, do what God's called you to do, earn some respect of people around you, and then after you take some major self-reflection and you humble yourself, then in love, approach others. So remember, a few other things. Judge not does mean that we are not the authority over another person's life. Yes, in the spirit of gentleness, with a heart of restoration, we are to call out the sin in one another. But remember, you're not their ultimate authority. God is, you're not their savior, Jesus is. Also, judge not does mean that we're not the arbiter of another person's conscience. You have to release yourself of this. You are not the convictor of their conscience, the Holy Spirit is. Yes, show them the way. Yes, share the truth. Yes, point to what the Bible says. But remember, at some point, you have to let the Spirit do what only the Spirit can do. And also remember, judge not does mean that we are not the attorney for another person's decisions. You will not give an account for what another person does, but you will give an account for what you do. Second Corinthians chapter five says, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one of you may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Now this goes back to what Jesus says, with the measure you use, it will be measured against you. Now let me just clarify this real quick because I know this isn't language we use a whole lot. See, nowadays we've got computer analyzed scale that weigh things out. But back in Jesus' day, it wasn't so precise. You kind of had to eyeball things. And so if you're gonna sell someone like a bushel of grain or a bushel of apples or something, it was very easy to prop up that bushel to make it look like it was fuller than what it was. And that was a certain way you measured things. And if you were gonna constantly try and cheat people out of a full bushel, well, Jesus is saying, well, if that's the approach you're gonna take, then that's the approach God's gonna take with you If you're constantly trying to cheat people and swindle them and and put things in your favor Well, God's gonna do the opposite. God's gonna use that same method with you So that's what Jesus is saying with the measure you use it will be measured against you meaning We should always approach people with charity and grace and love and give them the benefit of the doubt Because if that's what you want God to give to you, then you better be giving that to others. So rather than walking around with the attitude of Jesus says you can't judge me, you should be thanking God that he's put people in your life who will hold you to account, who they themselves first take an assessment of their own sins, have humbled themselves before God and then approach you to call you back to the ways of truth and righteousness. You should be thankful for this. But here's the question, do you? Do you? Do you have people in your life who love Jesus and love you enough to call you out? When's the last time you had a brother or sister in Christ call you out. Because I'm willing to bet you're not that perfect. So here's the thing, if you're thinking to yourself right now, I can't remember when the last time that happened. Maybe you need to start having less Facebook friends and more real friends. Maybe you need to start having some more genuine relationships where you're a little bit more vulnerable. Instead of walking around with this shield of judge not, judge not, judge not, judge not, never allowing people to speak into you. We need to be a people who show the rest of the world what true loving community is like. So let me just close with this. I know that the spirit of this whole suggestion for this topic was probably more something like why are Christians so judgmental? And so let me just say this. Some Christians are very judgmental. Some Christians are very critical. Some Christians, every time you talk to them, they only have a negative word to say. Some Christians are doing more harm than good. They come across as unloving, judgmental, opinionated, condescending, and unkind. There are some Christians like that, and I just want you to know we rebuke that. We rebuke that. That does not represent our King or the kingdom that he's ushering in. When we are out there and we're out there sharing the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died on the cross in our place for our sins and on the third day and the greatest victory our King rose from the dead. When we share that news, it's not to condemn people, it's in order that they may be saved. And if the world's response is, you can't judge me, then they just exposed something about their prideful heart because here's the odd cycle of judgment. You can't say someone's judging you without actually judging them. See how that works? This is why we must always approach ourselves first. That we have a humble spirit. So let me just take a moment and let me go to bat for the church here. Because I happen to think the church is a pretty awesome thing on the planet. Many times, it's not that Christians are judgmental. It's simply that the world is immensely prideful. And the world never wants to hear that what they're doing is wrong or sinful or actually is hurtful. So if you are confronted with your own sin and your response is, well, you can't judge me, then I caution you about your judgment back to that person. Because a true Christian will confront you because they love you, not because they want to condemn you, but because they want to see you restored. So what's the application? Let me close it up like this. What's an application for a passage like this? What do we do with this? Well, number one, I think it's pretty clear. Number one, don't be a hypocrite. Don't call other people to a standard that you yourselves aren't living. Don't call out another person's sin until you've reckoned with your own. Second thing is when you do make right judgments, and you don't make right judgments until you've made a right judgment about yourself first. But when you do make right judgment, it should be done in the spirit of restoration or salvation, not a spirit of condemnation. Because with the measure you use, it will be measured against you. The spirit of which you judge others may be reflective of the way that God judges you. Because it's true, we will all stand before the judgment seat. Christians, non-Christians alike will stand before the judgment seat. And you may be thinking, wait, Christians will be judged? Yeah, because your actions still matter. Like, what you do still matters. If you think that accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior is now a license to go sin and do whatever you want, say whatever you want, I think you just exposed you're actually not a Christian. We will stand before the judgment seat. The difference is that those who are covered in the redemptive blood of Jesus, we approach it as people whose sins have already been paid for. Because as Christians, we want to stand before God and say that we wanted to live for you. Father, we tried to live for you. And you will give an account for every careless word you speak. That's not my words, that's the words of Jesus. But the beautiful thing is that we face judgment not as people who are going to have to pay for our own sins, but as someone whose sins have already been paid for and been paid in full. Paid in full by Jesus who stood in our place of judgment, receiving our condemnation when he suffered and died in our place for our sins. And with that, Jesus took the judgment for our sins that we committed so that we would not face condemnation he already has, but rather so that we would have restoration, reconciliation, and salvation in Jesus' name. And that's what we're going to celebrate as we take communion together. So, amen. Would you do me a favor, would you bow your heads? And before we go to prayer, this is a moment for you to take a self-assessment. Scripture calls us to take a self-reflection before we approach the communion table, so we're going to give you a moment right now, in the quiet of your own heart, to do that between you and the Lord. If you have sins you need to confess before the Father, do that now.

Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, October 27, 2024 Take Courage 2 Chronicles 15:16-19 Fulfill Commitment 2 Overview Main Idea: In a world turning from Him, God calls us to fulfill our commitments to Him! Sermon Outline: 1. We go all the way (vv16-17) 2. We give all to God (vv18-19) 3 Pre-Questions Reflect on areas where you might need to renew a commitment, whether in your personal life, work, or faith. What steps can you take to align this commitment with God’s purpose for you? How does prayer and time in the Word help you stay grounded and dedicated to your commitments? 4 Questions Reflect on Colossians 3:23, which encourages us to work heartily as if for the Lord. How does this verse shape your understanding of fulfilling commitments in everyday life? Share an example of a commitment in your life that you see as part of your faith journey. How does God strengthen you to keep this commitment? Thomas Watson, a well-known Puritan preacher and writer from the 17th century, said, “We have sinned with our fathers; let us not be like them, but let us repent of our repentance. Hypocrites repent that they may sin no more, and that they may sin more. True repentance begins in the love of God, and ends in the hatred of sin.” What lesson can we learn from King Asa, not removing all the high places (or places of pagan worship)? Luke 16:10 reminds us, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” How do you see this principle applying to both small and large commitments in your life? How does fulfilling small, everyday commitments build your character and prepare you for greater responsibilities? How is God calling you to engage further with what God has called us to as a church? PDF Download

Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, March 10, 2024 Withstand Ephesians 6:16-17a Spiritual Doubt v.s. Faith and Salvation 2 Overview Main Idea: Don't wait for the devil to attack to get dressed in God's armor Sermon Outline: 1. Faith isn't for passivity, it's for activity 2. Salvation isn't for insurance, its for assurance 3 Pre-Questions 1. How does this passage of scripture - and the sermon preached from it - challenge your worldview? 2. During this series how have you seen God move in your life? 4 Questions 1. The consistency of spiritual warfare can vary. How might this inconsistency lead us to "leave our armor at home"? Discuss how we can remain vigilant and equipped with the Armor of God in our daily lives. 2. Reflect on areas of your life where you might be passive in your faith. What steps can you take to become more actively engaged in your spiritual journey? 3. Read 1 John 5:4–5. How does this passage inspire us to overcome the world through our faith? Share personal experiences where your faith has helped you overcome challenges. 4. Discuss how viewing salvation merely as an entrance fee can limit our spiritual growth. What practices can help us deepen our relationship with God and grow beyond just meeting the minimum requirements of faith? 5. While justified by faith, we're called to 'work out our salvation with fear and trembling' (Philippians 2:12). How can we balance the assurance of being saved by grace with the ongoing process of sanctification, especially when we know we aren't perfect? PDF Download