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Get Even Sermon Series: It Had To Be Said Aaron Lewis Wayland Campus Pastor Peace Church Wayland Main Passage: Matthew 5:38-48 Transcript Well hey, good morning Peace Church. It's good to be here with you all. I love being able to open up God's Word together over at Peace Church Wayland and so I'm excited to do that with all of you here this morning. And so Matthew chapter 5 verses 38 through 48 is where we're going to be for this morning. And so we're in the middle of our summer series, It Had to be Said. Quotes from Christ that changed the world. Now what we've been talking about in Wayland is that as followers of Jesus, as followers of the way of Jesus, His words matter. Meaning, we must hear His words and they must impact the way in which we live our lives. We don't get to hear what Jesus has to say and then think to ourselves, yeah, no. We don't get to hear the words of Jesus and then think to ourselves, oh, that's too hard. I can't do that. That's asking too much. No, we don't get to choose which of his words we want to follow. And so I must that these words this morning are difficult. Especially in light of what happened last night, these words are difficult. And the title of the message is, Get Even. Get Even. And so with these difficult words, they are going to rub us the wrong way this morning. And so if you feel as if these words are rubbing you the wrong way and you want to send an email, go ahead and do that to pastorryan at peacechurch.cc and he will take that from there. But no, these words are going to rub us the wrong way. We're going to feel collectively, personally attacked. We're going to want to defend our actions or the way in which we've acted previously. We're going to argue with Jesus. Jesus, if you knew my situation, Jesus, if you knew the people that I have to deal with, Jesus, if you knew what they've really done to me, or Jesus, if you would have seen this go down, you would have said these words differently. But let me assure you, he would not have said this any differently. No, these words that Jesus said needed to be heard in his day, and they need to be heard in ours. And it is my hope that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can hear these words, we can feel conviction, we can repent, which means turn the other direction and we can live a fuller freer life so What did Jesus say that was so difficult to hear? What did Jesus say that they needed to hear in his day and we need to hear in ours? Well, I'm glad you asked we're going to read that together Matthew 5 verse 38 through 48 again picking up verse 38, Matthew 5:38-48 38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic,[a] let him have your cloak as well. 41 And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers,[b] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. This is the word of God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you with grateful hearts, grateful for the words of Jesus. Lord, we trust that Christ came into this world to save us, yes, but also to lead us into the abundant life, into a full life, into a free life. So Lord, help us wrestle with these words to that end. Help us to see clearly how we are to live as followers of the way of Christ. And Lord, we ask that the Holy Spirit would be here with us, guiding us in all of these things and understanding His words. And Lord, we ask that the Spirit would shape and mold us into the image of Christ as we wrestle with His words. And it's in His name, Jesus Christ, we pray. And all God's people said, Amen. Amen. All right, so here's where we're going this morning. It had to be said that followers of Jesus express their Savior's heart towards others. They do not retaliate against those who wrong us or are unkind to us. And so to be a Christian, to be a follower of the way of Christ, this is non-negotiable. We don't get to pick and choose whether or not we are called to these actions. But how? What does it mean to express the heart of Christ? What does it mean to not retaliate? Well, number one, we express our Savior's heart by turning the other cheek and being willing to go the extra mile. 1. We express our Savior's heart by turning the other cheek and being willing to go the extra mile. See, in verse 38, we see Jesus gives an antithesis statement. "'You have heard that it was said, "'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'" And so Jesus is going to take this teaching from the religious leaders and he's going to use it to teach the exact opposite meaning that they use it to teach. Jesus says, you've heard it said, you've heard it taught. And now Jesus is about to reveal how they've heard this taught wrong and how they've misapplied this principle. So now the religious leaders get this teaching from the Old Testament law, specifically Exodus 21, Leviticus 24, and Jesus quotes directly Deuteronomy 19, 21 here. And in these Old Testament passages we see the principle which is known as Lex Talionis, which means the law of retaliation. Now the law of the retaliation is a legal remedy ensuring the just punishment for a crime regardless of one's social standing. But the religious leaders taught this and misapplied this principle and they taught this principle in much the same way we think They taught something like don't get mad get Yeah We should fight fire with fire. Mm-hmm. I want my pound of flesh. Yeah The religious leaders taught that that was an accurate application of this principle and what Jesus is saying here is that this is not it's It's not about getting even. It's not about revenge. Jesus is telling us that this law, the purpose and meaning of this law, had been twisted to justify or affirm sinful, wicked hearts of men. And the spirit of the law had been lost on the practical application of the law. Now I know you've heard it said, you've heard of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and the way in which we use that today still misses the point of the law as God gave it. God gave the law to limit revenge, personal revenge, to limit and to control angry outbursts from men. Again, God gave this law to ensure that the punishments levied by the courts was just, that it fit the crime, and that it would work as a deterrent, meaning that people would understand what the just penalty is to a particular action and then choose not to act in that particular way, thus limiting crime and keeping people from taking vengeance into their own hands. So why is this important? Because if we're honest, we know that the tendency of the human heart is to strike back, is to get even, is to hit them harder than they hit me. See, and we see this in our culture, right? You hurt me, I humiliate you. You say something mean, I punch you in the nose. You take an eye, I'll take your life." And I know, I know that sounds intense, but that's how people were living in Jesus's day, and that's still our go-to condition of our heart in our day. Now don't raise your hand, but I wonder how many of you felt similarly after news broke last night. You heard what was going on on the news and something rose up within you. Okay, all right, it's time, let's go. But Jesus is saying, that is not how we as followers of Christ are to live. We are not to seek our own justice. We are not to seek our own revenge. See, we are called by the power of the Holy Spirit to crucify our flesh. See, and our flesh will always want to hurt them for hurting me. Our flesh will always want a pound of their flesh as revenge. Oh, but Christian, we are called to something different. We are called to something better. We are called to model and display the heart of our savior. Proverbs 20, 22 says, do not say I'll repay evil. Wait for the Lord and he will deliver you. The apostle Paul, when writing to the church in Rome said this in Romans 12, 17, he writes, repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. See in our flesh, our natural desire will be to strike back, to lash out. But what Jesus and the Apostle Paul is calling us to is a greater sense of strength, a greater sense of self-control, one that is not enslaved to the actions and the behaviors of others. No, we stop. We act intentionally, not out of, not uncontrollably. And we act with kindness as Christ did. What is honorable? I think we have to first think about in any and all situations, what would bring the most honor to God? And what would bring honor to everyone involved? I think that's a good question for us to ask. See what Peter had to contribute to this conversation here. 1st Peter 3.9. And remember, in this context, Peter is writing to Christians who have been persecuted, beaten, and killed. So much so that has driven them out of their homes into foreign lands. And this is what Peter followers of Jesus. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling. But on the contrary, bless. What? Are you serious, Peter? Bless those who do evil to me? Bless those who do evil to my family? This is too high of a calling for those who follow Jesus. But listen, I want you to hear how this verse ends. It says, do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless. For to this you were called that you may obtain a blessing. Listen, followers of Jesus, These words are where peace, hope, and joy are found. This is where our blessings come from. Not in being sinless, but in blessing those who have done evil against us. Blessing those who have been unkind to us. The Apostle Paul continues on in 1 Thessalonians 5 to 15. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. See, the law was given, the law was a principle given by God to ensure just punishment for a crime in a court of law. Not too harsh, not too lenient, but fair. And this allowed people to trust that revenge, vengeance, justice would be found in the courts thus not sought after personally. But therein lies the problem. See the religious leaders and the Jewish people took this principle and taught it as a practical application for personal disputes, for personal offenses, as something that be handled by them individually, not by the courts. See, and this quickly grew out of hand as a regular practice, and it became a personal duty, a matter of honor to retaliate against anyone who had wronged them. So the principle of an eye for an eye had been misapplied and taken as license for personal revenge. And so here are these words that would have shocked those listening. These words would have just hit them extremely hard. But notice verse 39, Jesus continues, he says, "'But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. "'But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, "'turn to him the other also.'" So I wanna pause here and make something extremely clear. This verse is in no way saying that Christians should be pacifists or that we're to sit back and endure physical abuse. That is not what Jesus is saying here. Physical abuse is never to be tolerated. And men, we are never to be passive. Part of our role is to meet and end a physical threat to those we love and those less physically able in our communities. It's part of our job. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. No, Jesus is referencing something that would have been culturally well-known to his original audience. And verse 39 has little to do with physical violence. Brian, can you come up here real quick? So Jesus said that if someone hits you on the right cheek, turn to them the left also. Turn to them the other also. Why so specific? Well, in Jesus's day, just like ours, the vast majority of people were right-handed. So if Brian came up and he was a threat to me, or I wanted to just punch Brian in the face and give him some physical violence, I'm coming up and I'm squaring up like this. And so if my intention is to harm him, I'm like this, I'm right-handed, just like the majority of people. And so if we're like this, I'm going with the jab and bam. And so my right hand hits his left, the left side of his face. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. What Jesus is talking about here is that in our social dynamics, I am so superior in my social standing and I get to humiliate him in front of a crowd of people with no fear of retaliation, with no fear that he's going to come back at me because I am so dominant. That's what I'm trying to display, is I will actually backhand him. And so it's not a physical violence, I'm going to model and display how humiliating it is to be you in front of everybody. Does that make sense? Thanks dude. And so me, in the example as higher class than Brian, I had such little respect and disdain for him, then I would backhand him to show and model and display that disdain. Showing my position of superiority or his worthlessness to everyone present. And so culturally, this is one of the lowest forms of disrespect. And historians will tell us that slaves would choose to be whipped on their back in front of a crowd as opposed to being backhanded because of how low a form of disrespect that was. And our culture, we're familiar with this kind of thing, right, when we say that was a backhanded compliment, or when we say, oh, well, that was a slap in the face. We're not talking about somebody came at us with physical violence to harm us. No, we're saying somebody tried to humiliate me. Somebody was trying to show me their position of authority. So what is Jesus saying here? Jesus is saying that there are gonna be people who say awful things about you. They're going to insult you. They're going to disrespect you. And Jesus is saying that the way Christians respond must be different than the way in which the world around us, around us responds. How do you respond differently? In light of what happened last night, how are you going to respond differently than the world around you? How are you gonna model and display the heart of our Savior through your social media activity, through your prayers when you go before the King in prayer? What's going to be uttered by you? Is it going to be vengeance? Is it going to be God of peace come? How do you respond differently? See, as followers of Jesus, we cannot play into this. We must turn the other cheek. Think of all the ways Jesus was insulted. He was called a glutton, a drunk, a blasphemer, an illegitimate son, a madman, many other scandalous things, and he didn't retaliate. In fact, 1 Peter 2 tells us that when Jesus was reviled, he did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but he continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Follower of Jesus, who do you entrust yourself to? What do you do differently than the non-believing world? And how does that reflect the heart of our Savior? Jesus continues in verse 40, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And so here again Jesus is speaking against an Old Testament law. He's speaking against a law that said if someone sued you for your your tunic, they couldn't sue you for your cloak, but Jesus is calling the believer to hand over their cloak. What is Jesus doing? Jesus is saying disarm those who come up against you. Disarm those who come up against you. See we're told by the world's standards that if someone comes up against us, we're to make it as difficult as possible for them. That we are to meet them in a tit for tat. They sue us, we sue them. They smear us, we smear them. But again, we do not operate as followers of Jesus. We do not operate the way in which the world operates. We operate according to the words of Jesus, trusting that it's these words that lead us to the blessings, to the abundant life that he came to give us. See, I think we as Christians, we're far more influenced by the world around us than we care to admit. These are the ways that it comes out. And as Christians, we're to be consistently seeking reconciliation in all things. This idea or this passion to do whatever is necessary to bring about resolution to matters of conflict, to live out the calling placed upon the Christian by the Apostle Paul in Romans 12, 18, and if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.See Jesus just continues to hammer home this point He gives two more examples of first 41 It says if anyone forces you to go one mile go with him to to which I know of many of you finally Got one got one. Whoo Thought about my My girls I have all girls in my family wife two daughters and they went to the mud girl run yesterday over in Flint. And they got back yesterday and I sat there, I was working in the yard all day, they get home, I sit down and I listen to my wife, Jessica, tell me about her experience and all the things of the Mud Girl Run, then I listen to my oldest daughter, McKenna, tell me about her experience and all the details of the Mud Girl Run, which was very similar to what her mom just told me. And then I listen to Lila, my youngest, telling me about her experience of the Mud Girl Run and all the details which mimicked the first two and I just thought man I am killing it. I just went three extra miles listening to my wife and my daughter. I'm killing it. That's not what Jesus is talking about here. No, Jesus is speaking about a Roman law that stated that any person could be forced to assist a Roman soldier in anything they needed done, anything they deemed necessary. And so do you remember when Jesus was carrying the cross and he fell to the ground and Simon of Cyrene picked up the cross? Have you ever thought about why he did that? A Roman soldier ordered him to. See, a common thing in this time would have been for someone to be asked by a Roman soldier to carry their armor, but not because they were tired, not because they actually needed the help. The soldier would ask the civilian to carry his armor to humiliate him, to again show place in the social hierarchy to show and display his power. They would carry the armor, they would carry it what's known as a Roman mile or about a thousand paces, which is about a half mile in our measurements here today. And again, this was simply to show their dominance or control over them. So Jesus is saying, someone forced you to go one, go two. Are you beginning to see the radical calling placed upon the life of the Christian? That to be a follower of Christ, we cannot ignore these words of Jesus. We cannot pretend like he's not giving us these commands to follow. We can't pretend like he didn't say them. No, we see this modeled by Jesus too, don't we? That any possible offense is an opportunity to display the grace and mercy and love of God to those who don't believe in it. That for us, the believer, knowing full well that we are children of the King and he has us in his hands, we get to offer mercy and grace to those who don't believe in it. I can't tell you how many testimonies I hear from people say something like this, like I couldn't figure out why they were so nice to me after the way that I've treated them. Or two weeks ago I heard this, it bothered me that they would forgive me when I was so nasty to them. See, what are we as followers of Jesus, what are we showing the unbelieving world? Could you imagine an arrogant Roman soldier coming up to a Christian and saying, hey, carry my armor. They walk that mile. The whole time the Roman soldiers walk in, the Christians carry in the mile, modeling and displaying to everyone who's in control, who's in power and who is to be humiliated. Then all of a sudden the Roman mile finishes up and the Roman soldiers like, all right, you can put it down. And then the Christian says, no, let's go. Let's go another mile. How would that jack with the Roman soldier's head? Are you serious? I'm trying to humiliate you and you can't be humiliated. Not only that, think about if the Christian actually showed a genuine interest in the life of the Roman soldier. How would that completely mess with him? That is the calling of the Christian. That is what we are to do, that we are to show genuine care, genuine love. We are to emulate our King. We are to follow the way of Jesus. Now for time's sake, I'm gonna skip verse 42, but feel free to do your own study on this. I think you'll see it falls in line with the point Jesus is trying to make, but give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you We'll move on to point number two. 2. We express our Savior's heart by loving our enemies by loving our enemies. We express our Savior's heart by loving our enemies by loving our enemies. So let's pick this up in verse 43 says you have heard that it was said you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." So Jesus is not saying this is how salvation is to be achieved. He again is correcting a wrong or bad teaching from the religious leaders. Leviticus 19, Moses writes, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord and so the call to love your neighbor The religious leader said no problem with but then they added apart. Let's hate our Enemies and so as followers of Jesus we are we are called not only to love our our Neighbor, but we are called to pray for those who persecute us for those we disagree with. For those who wish to do you harm. I wonder how many of you last night, again, as that news rolled in, this was your initial response to pray for those who wish you harm. So, you know, we think, how can this be possible? How can this calling be so high that we are to pray for our enemies. Well, I want you to picture this, Christian, that God loved you when you were his enemy. I know we don't like that, but it's true. I think most of us, we tend to think of ourselves prior to meeting Christ as kind of neutral in the sight of God, but that's just simply not true. I was his enemy. You were his enemy. And what did God do? He came for us. He rescued us. He redeemed us. He adopted us as his sons and his daughters. He saved us. And so we know from our own lives and our own experience. We know that our Lord loves his enemies. As Romans 5, 8 says, but God showed his love for us that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us. See, God is a God of mercy and grace and he is kind to those who don't deserve his kindness. And we are recipients of his kindness. Amen? And this is what Paul's talking about here. This is a gape love. A love that is only possible as a reflection of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, to be clear here, loving our enemies does not mean we agree with their sinfulness. No, it means that like the Father, because we ultimately care for their souls, we love. As Romans 2, 4 talks about, it's God's kindness, it's his forbearance, it's his patience that leads people to repentance. And we are to follow the example of Jesus as set by the Father. Amen? One last thing I want to leave you with, so we're going to skip down to verse 48. Jesus says, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. You therefore, in light of all that we just talked about, be perfect. The word for perfect here is not about being without sin. It's the Greek word, teleos, and it means to be mature, to be complete, or to reach the goal. And that's what we're after, maturity, to grow in our own faith, to be complete in Christ. That's how all of this is possible. You cannot do this in your own power. See, I think most people tend to believe that what makes Christianity so hard is that we're to be morally perfect. No. What makes Christianity so hard is that we're to act and respond like Jesus. Because Jesus, when we were his enemy, chose to come and he didn't only turn the other cheek, but he gave up his entire body to be beaten. He didn't only walk with us one mile, he walked all the way up the hill to Calvary to be crucified. He didn't only give up his tunic, he gave up his cloak, he gave up his life, he gave up everything. And for followers of Christ to accurately reflect the agape love, the heart of our Savior, it had to be said that followers of Jesus express their Savior's heart toward others. They do not retaliate against those who wrong them or are unkind to them. Amen? Amen? Let's pray.

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The News To His Relatives Sermon Series: Go Tell It On The Mountain Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Luke 1:39-45 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said amen. So here we are at Christmas time and it is a joyful time for so many people. And many of us grew up with Christmas being a very joyful time. So let me ask you this question to get started here today. If Christmas was a joyful time? Or maybe I should ask it like this. Who, who made it such a joyful time for you? Now I'm willing to bet someone just immediately came to your mind, so go ahead and just share that real quick with your neighbor. Who was it that made Christmas a joyful time for you? Real quick, go ahead and share with your neighbor. I think I heard it a couple of times. Let's see if you have the same person that I do. If you listen to me preach long enough, I'm going to bring this person up. Massive, massive impact on my life. But the person that made Christmas such a joy for me growing up was my grandma. My grandma just, she knew how to do Christmas right. We did every Christmas Eve at her house, and she always made it such a fun, joyous, happy time. She just, she did not care if we trashed the house. At least she didn't let us know if she cared that we trashed the house. She always made sure that we only had a great experience at Christmas. It was wonderful. And then, and then I turned 16, and I got my first job and I ended up having to work for the first time on Christmas, Christmas Eve. And I was, and I had to miss part of the Christmas party. Most of the family Christmas party, I, I had a job and I was bagging groceries for people who are too irresponsible to get their groceries the day before I'm there missing grandma's Christmas party. So you can get your pumpkin pie. I'm not resentful at all about it. I've let it go, but I remember getting to her house on that first Christmas Eve, 16 years old. And the party was basically kind of winding down. Party was basically over. And I kind of fell into that whole polar express mentality that you know, when kids are young and little, they hear the Christmas bells, but when they grow up, they no longer hear the Christmas bells. Like, you know, that's where that I kind of fell into that for a while. And then I realized, yes, yes, family can definitely add to the beauty of Christmas or take away sometimes. There are many things to, there's many reasons to celebrate Christmas and there's many things that make it wonderful. But what makes Christmas truly joyous year in and year out is this one simple, profound, beautiful truth, and it's this, that Jesus Christ, the King, is born. That is what makes Christmas such a joyous, wonderful time. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to talk about joy here today. Everything going on in the world, what we need to be reminded of is that Christ has come, he's on the throne, and we have nothing to do but to be joyous over that. And so let's turn in our Bibles to Luke chapter 1. You heard me talk about my relative, my grandma, and the way that she celebrated Christmas. What we're going to do now is we're going to see how Jesus' relatives heard and received and responded to the news of Christmas as we look at the news to his relatives. So Luke chapter one, jump down to verse 39. We'll be on page 1088 if you do wanna use the Bibles that are provided. Now as you turn in there, just quick context. Last week we learned that Mary has been told that she is pregnant with Jesus Christ, the Christ child, the Savior of the world. And so during her pregnancy, she goes to live off with a relative of hers named Elizabeth. Now, one thing you need to know about Elizabeth is that Elizabeth has experienced her own miraculous pregnancy in a sense. See, Elizabeth in her old age is pregnant for the first time. After a life of being barren, God opened up her womb to be pregnant with her husband, Zechariah. And now she is pregnant. And for those of you who grew up going to Sunday school, do you remember who Elizabeth is pregnant with? John the Baptist. Mary is pregnant with Jesus Christ. And they come together and it's an incredible interaction that we want to look at here this morning. And so, Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. And when she gets there, that's where we're going to pick up on our story. So, I would ask you here now, if you are able, and if you are not, that is perfectly okay. But if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's Word. You here in the Worship Center, and of course in our other venues. So with that, would you hear the word of the Lord, the gospel according to Luke, chapter 1, verses 39 to 45. Luke 1:39-45 39 In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, t“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.” Amen. This is God's word. Let's start with prayer and we'll continue. Let's pray together first. Father in heaven above or during this Advent season, would you please remind us of the joy that can be had when we remember what Christmas is truly about the birth of our savior and king. Father, please do this by the truth of your Word and by the power of the Holy Spirit, for it's in Jesus' name that we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen and Amen. Please have a seat. So let's have some good news here in this Christmas season. Here's some good news we're going to look at here today, and it's simply this. The reaction of his relatives show us the right response to Christmas is joy. And yes, relatives plural, because it wasn't just Elizabeth reacting in this moment. But of course, John the Baptist in utero is joining the party. So let's look at the reaction and see what's going on here. We're going to first look at how Elizabeth responds to what's going on and we'll see how that's going to inform us and challenge us as we enter into the Christmas season. So first thing, Elizabeth's joyful reaction to Christmas. First thing we see is that Elizabeth is moved by the spirit. I said it last week. I've said it before. I'll say it again for those in the back. When we talk about the true spirit of Christmas, the true spirit of Christmas is not generosity. It's not the spirit of giving the true spirit of Christmas is the Holy Spirit. So we have this interaction between these two pregnant women, each pregnant with absolute pillars of our faith, and the Holy Spirit is all over this interaction. But it wasn't just Elizabeth, it was her baby, John the Baptist, who's also filled with the Holy Spirit. Verse 41, look at verse 41, says this, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. It's both scientific and scriptural to say that women are pregnant with human babies. You can't be pregnant with one thing and then give birth to a different thing. What you give birth to is what you are pregnant with. You give birth to a human baby. That means you are pregnant with a human baby. And what's beautiful about this story is that this reminds us that God can work with your baby even in the womb. Here in our church family, there have been a number of families, a number of women who have experienced miscarriages recently. And I don't know why God allows what he does, when he does, but I can tell you this. God is present with your baby in the womb. And if you've had a miscarriage your baby is present with God right now and While that may not turn the tides of our emotion Hopefully at some point in our soul That's the seed of joy that we'll be able to experience in full one day the baby in Elizabeth's womb leaped for joy. As we said, this is John the Baptist. When Jesus Christ enters the room, even in the womb of Mary, John the Baptist leaped, Elizabeth shouted. I'll tell you what, those are true markers of celebration. Those are two markers of joy. When it comes to the fact that Christ the King has defeated Satan, sin, and death, I'm telling you, the church should respond with celebration and joy marked by physical movement and loud shouts. I don't know how a church can be filled with the Holy Spirit and stand there like a stone statue. I don't see that at all in scripture. Now, I'm not saying that we bust out the tambourines and banners and run up down the aisles. I'm not saying that, but I am saying men, bow your heads, raise your hand, lift your voice. Christ the King is on the throne. Be more concerned about what God thinks of your worship. By the power of the Spirit, Elizabeth shouts, John the Baptist leaps, this is what we do for the newborn King. But Elizabeth also shows us something else. She's humbled by the moment. It's an amazing moment of celebration when these two people come together. And Elizabeth makes this very profound statement, verse 43, and why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Of course, there's some remarkable things that we see here in our passage. The firstly being Elizabeth knows that Mary is carrying the Christ child. That's a spiritual natural revelation given to Mary in that moment. But the thing I love about this is maybe something a little bit more subtle. I hope to point it out to you right now when it's the level of humility that Elizabeth shows is profound. How many other women would have just been jealous in that moment? How many other women would have said something like, what's so special about you that you get to carry the Savior of the world? But not Elizabeth. You want to know what Elizabeth shows us? She shows us how to be happy for someone else. Elizabeth shows us this because of the humility that is in her heart. Because of the humility that Elizabeth has, she gets to experience the fullness of the moment, and with the fullness of the moment is pure joy. And this happens because of her humility. Pride so often gets in the way of our ability to be joyous or experience joy. But Elizabeth's humility allows her to experience the blessing of gratitude and joy. And because of that, she gets the full experience of the moment. She doesn't let herself, her prerogatives, her pride get in the way of celebrating an incredible moment. She sets herself aside to experience something wonderful. Some of us here, some of us in here, the reason that we can't get more out of Christmas is simply It's simply because we've put ourselves in the way. Our own expectations of perfection, our own insecurities, our own jealousy and pride that we've got this vision of how Christmas celebrations are supposed to go and it's supposed to be perfect, and if the house isn't perfectly in order, then we have a problem celebrating Christmas. If our special Christmas dish doesn't turn out perfect like it does every year, we think all is lost. Or if the family shows up a little late to the Christmas party, now we're all have this anxiety because the food's getting cold. Come on! That's not what Christmas is about. Christmas is about the fact that Jesus has been born. It may not be perfect because you know what? It won't be. And it never will be perfect until Christ returns and makes all things new. So don't let your vision of perfection sour what could be an incredibly joyous time. As long as we celebrate the fact that Jesus has come, please take a cue from Elizabeth. Let humility and gratitude overwhelm you this Christmas. Elizabeth is simply humbled that she gets to be in the presence of Jesus Christ. How much more should we be humbled, church, now that we have the salvation of Jesus Christ. This leads to the last thing that we see from Elizabeth. Elizabeth is blessed by the Lord. Look at verse 44. She says, For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Immense joy for Elizabeth and her baby. And if you read the New Testament, you'll find this word joy actually comes up a lot. Over 60 times we find the word joy in the New Testament. Why? Because joy is to be a marker of a Christian faith. And for around 60 times we see a very common word for joy. It's a beautiful word. Kara is a wonderful word for joy. We see all the time, but there's five times in the New Testament we see a very rare word given for joy that just adds a little extra dynamic. And that's one of the times we see this word is in this passage here when Elizabeth says this baby leaped for joy. This isn't the standard word for joy. The more direct translation for this word would be exaltation. Another way you could translate that for your rednecks is simply wild joy. It is a perfectly okay to say it's just the baby couldn't contain himself. It's a wild joy. It's a moment of blessing. Elizabeth is blessed by the Lord. She feels her baby move. And then so what does she do? I love this. Elizabeth, in her moment of blessing, she bestows a blessing upon Mary when she speaks a blessing over Mary. I'll tell you this, this is one thing I've come to know, is that people who are truly blessed and they know they're blessed, they are a blessing to others. Because when you experience the true blessing of God, you set your pride aside and you realize all that He's done for you, you can't help but share that and extend that to someone else. So here's my challenge for you this Christmas. Bestow a blessing upon someone else if you realize that you are blessed this Christmas. I mean words of blessing. Speak words of blessing. Listen to what Elizabeth says. She says this. She says this blessing over Mary. She says, blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. That's words of blessing over Mary. So you speak words of blessing over someone. And let me just say this to you, West Michigan men, because I'm one too. I know how hard it is for us to actually enter into a moment where we have to set ourselves aside. So I'm going to challenge everyone in here, but I really want to speak to the West Michigan men. Speak a word of blessing and don't try to put in some subtle jab. Be a man enough to enter into a moment and open yourself up and speak a blessing over someone else. Because if you do that and you don't undermine the moment by trying to make fun of them, of them or the moment, if you do that, I guarantee that person will remember those words for the rest of their life. And you get to share something beautiful, like what we see in scripture, which is a blessing. If you've been blessed, be a blessing to someone else. So ask yourself, who can you bless this Christmas? Who can you speak words of blessing over? Elizabeth and her baby show us that joy is the way to respond to Christmas, and blessing others is a way to respond to Christmas. And so, as we think about Elizabeth's beautiful example for us, let's just take a moment and let's just put ourselves in the hot seat, see how we might be able to experience more of the joy that God has for us through the birth of his son. Let's talk about how joy is from the Spirit. Now listen to me, listen to me here in the other venues. This isn't some subtle thing we see in the text. The Bible is clear that when the Holy Spirit works in our lives, he will produce these things, these various qualities called the fruit of the Spirit. We find this list given in Galatians chapter five. And so let me ask you real quick, who here remembers what the first fruit is listed in the fruit of the Spirit? Anybody remember? It's love, love, a defining quality of what it means to be a Christian, that we are people of love. Now, who remembers the second one? Joy, love and joy. Are there two more beautiful markers of what should embody a Christian in this dark and broken world that we are people of love and people of joy. The other night I was watching this documentary on Scientology and none other than John Travolta was speaking about why he loves Scientology. Now there's some question, there's some question as to whether or not he's still involved in it, but during this interview he was talking about his great admiration for Scientology and he he said, you name me another philosophy, religion or technology where joy is the operative concept. Now listen, some of you may be intrigued by that, but I'll just tell you right now, that feels very cultish to me. It feels very culty. So let's make something clear about Christian joy. Christians are not meant to fake it. We're not meant to put on a show. We're not meant to force a smile. Yes, we are to be strong, but we're not meant to be fake. Don't put on a plastic happiness and call it Christian joy. That's not what we're called to do. Christians have a joy that's that's deeper than that. In the last week, literally in the last week, two of our staff members here at Peace Church had family members who suddenly, unexpectedly, tragically passed away. Actually two of our staff members from our Wayland campus. And even though even though Christmas is meant to be a joyful time, mourning will be a definitive marker of their Christmas this year. Other emotions and other ways to respond to what's happening may come to the surface. But the Christian joy is a bedrock. It's found in a truth that can't be taken away based on the circumstance. And the truth is that Jesus has been born. So on the flip, on the flip, though, if we are never joyful, if we're never joyful, then the only thing left to believe is that you're not walking in step with the Holy Spirit. Because to walk in step with the Holy Spirit is to have love and joy. So let's ask the question, what is the base operative for Christianity? If it's joy for Scientology, what is it for Christianity? I will posit to you, it's not love. It's holiness. Holiness is the base operative of what it means to be a Christian, that we are something other, that we're different than the rest of the world. That's what holiness means, that we're called out. And one of the ways we show that we're called out is that we have a love for those who hate us, and we have a joy that can't be taken away by even death. And so, my friends, as we think about this, don't let the holidays list of to-dos keep you from experiencing joy. Don't let it keep you from showing the world what joy looks like. Elizabeth shows us that joy is from the Holy Spirit. It's about knowing God, encountering Christ, and being filled with Him, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Christmas is meant to be a joyful time because we celebrate the birth of our King. Children being born is such a happy time, isn't it? We get to celebrate that every year with the birth of our savior. So let's show it. Let's leap for joy like John the Baptist and let's shout for joy like Elizabeth. But also let's be challenged by this. Joy is found through humility. Let me say a few things about humility and how we can experience joy through it? Let me give you some ways that pride may be getting in the way of the joy that God wants you to experience through the birth of his son First as you said before If you can't be happy for another person Then you can't experience joy If you can't be happy for another person who gets something that that maybe you want or you think you deserve You'll never experience true joy. Likewise, if you can't be happy unless things are exactly the way that you want them to be, then you've kind of made yourself an idol, number one. But secondly, if you can't experiencing unless they are perfect, you'll never experience true joy. Or how about this one? If you can't find it in your heart to be grateful with all that God has given us with what you have, then you'll never experience true joy. Now, that's not to say that some people aren't dealing with some extremely painful and difficult things right now, but I'd say for the vast majority of us, our lives should be marked by nothing but sheer gratitude. Enjoy. This is the difference with true Christian joy. We can have joy in the pain. We can have joy in the storm, but if you have Christ, then you have all that you need to be joyful. But if you can't be grateful, and again, I'm going to speak to the vast majority of people in here, I recognize some people got some really dark times about them, but I'm gonna speak to the vast majority, and you know who you are. If you can't be grateful with what God has given you, then I suggest you go spend the holidays Or those or the or those who are still captive a year later The vast majority of us in here have nothing nothing to complain about Are things perfect? No, and they won't be until the king returns and makes all things new but many of us have no joy Simply because we've lost perspective But Elizabeth shows us that if we have humility, then we have the ability to enjoy the moment that God has given to us, even when things don't go according to our plans. So be humble. If there was ever, you know this, if there was ever a symbol of humility, just look at your nativity set and that little boy born in a manger, the son of God came and was born in a stable. His life from the moment he was born was marked by humility. The Son of God born in the stable was laid in straw that was already used by the animals. The King of Kings came in a manger, so tell me again what you think you're entitled to? It's a wonderful and joyful thing to celebrate Christmas because it's a great reminder of all that the Lord did for us. Yes, we love the fact that He died on a cross, the pinnacle of our faith, but He was born in a wooden manger to show us something about humility. Christ came in humility. He rose again in victory after His death on the cross so that we could have life to the full. Listen to me, not just a full life, but a joyful life that's marked by faith for so much joy is to be had through faith. That's the last thing I want to look at. Joy is fulfilled in faith. I love the story from Elizabeth earlier when our worship team was practicing. We're going through some things. I told him that I think Elizabeth is the most underappreciated character of the nativity story. She's just amazing. Elizabeth can come to my family Christmas party whenever she wants. But the reason I say that joy is fulfilled in faith is because faith is what gives us perspective for the moment we are in and for the eternity that's around us. Faith gives us the ability to have joy beyond the immediate. Verse 45 says this. Elizabeth said to Mary, blessed is she who believed that there would be Fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord powerful words of blessing over Mary Now there's this man from the 1800s. His name was JC Ryle He was he was writing a commentary on this very story on Elizabeth And he and he takes this verse and he reminds us that if there's one thing that is true for all people of all ages, all races, all religions, it's this, is that all of us will one day pass from this life to the next. And when we do, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. When he's writing about on this verse, this is what It says, it says better a thousand times to be rich in faith than rich in gold. When the great white throne is set, when the dead are called from their graves and receiving their final sentence, the value of faith will at length be fully known. And he says this, men will learn then if they never learned before, how true are the words blessed are they that believes. When we die, and you will die, when we die, we will stand before the throne of God in one of two states. You will stand either naked in your sin and your shame, or you will stand clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. I don't long for death, but when that day comes, my joy will be fulfilled in my faith because I have faith in Jesus Christ. I will be clothed in His righteousness. My joy will be complete. Christmas is a joyous time because through Christmas we get to look back in joy on the fact that our King has come and we also get to look ahead in joy knowing that our King is coming back for us. When we look back on Christmas, we see the newborn King. But when we look forward to his coming again, I'm telling you, he will not come again as a newborn King. He will come again as a conquering King. Your path will come before his throne. You may die before he comes back and get there ahead of time, or you'll be here when he returns. Either way, prepare for that moment now by calling on the name of Jesus Christ. Recognize your sin against God. Receive what Jesus has done with you and for you. And be filled by the Spirit so that you could have true love and true joy, peace, patience, kindness, and all the rest of the fruit of the spirits. Have joy. Have joy before the manger. Have joy before the throne. Because remember this, the reaction of his relatives show us the right response to Christmas is joy. If it's not joy that you are experiencing at this Christmas, something else has gotten in the way. And I encourage you to bow before the manger and be reminded that Christ has come to save you and let that fill you with joy, a joy that cannot be taken away this Christmas. Amen. Amen. With that, you with joy, a joy that cannot be taken away this Christmas. Amen. Amen. With that, let's stand and let's prepare to worship the Lord.

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The Burden of Friendship Sermon Series: Philemon Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Philemon 8-20 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. And everyone said, Amen. So I'm going to warn you, today's message is going to feel a little bit heavier. It's going to prep us for what will feel like a very probably different message next week, but we can't feel the great beauty of next week's message if we don't also feel the weight of today's message. We're talking about friendship and we're in week two of a three-part series looking at friendship and so I'm going to start with a pretty heavy question for you right now. When was the last time you heard something and you thought, I don't want to hear this but I need to? When was the last time you heard something you thought, man, I really don't want to hear this, but I need to hear this. And even more than that, who said it to you? Now listen, if I'm doing my job, you're going to hear that from me every now and again. Amen? No, no, no. Amen? Amen. But more than that, more than just a guy behind a pulpit, do you have friends in your life who can say those sort of things to you? Things you may not want to hear, but things you need to hear. If you can't remember the last time you thought that, then my gentle encouragement to you is either A, you're not opening yourself up to friends who will speak like that to you, or you're so prideful you can't hear those things, which is probably why you don't have people speaking like that into your life. Things you don't wanna hear, but things you need to hear. Now listen, I have pockets and pockets full of stories of where I could tell you about me getting sit down and getting my talking to. And I could share lots of those stories of friends speaking into my life and bringing that challenge, but here's the thing. I don't want you going home remembering a bunch of stories from my life. I want you to go home being challenged by the Word of God. And so that's what we're going to do as we continue walking through this very short biblical book called Philemon. But before we turn there, I want to go back and look at one Bible verse. Now this Bible verse is like 3,000 years old. For three thousand years the Bible's been telling us this one particular verse, and I wonder if we've gotten the message yet after three thousand years. And it's this, it comes from Proverbs chapter 27 verse 6 and it says this: Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy. Let me translate this for you. Meaning, it's better to hear something that's hard but true from a friend than it is to hear something that's kind but false from someone who doesn't have your best interest in mind. Words, you know this, like you know this, words are many things but but many ways words are like knives. Now someone who's not your friend could use words like a knife to stab you in the back. But a friend will use a knife to cut the sin out of your life or to cut the pride or hypocrisy out of your heart. And that's what we're looking at today. We're looking at the weighty burden of friendship where friends have to come together every now and again and there's some friction. Now let's get into this. So go ahead and if you haven't yet, please turn in your Bibles to Philemon. Now Philemon is so short it only has one chapter. So we're just gonna look at verses 8 to 20 today as we look at the burden of friendship. Now let me lay some context here. Philemon is the name of a man who received this letter. The Apostle Paul actually wrote this letter to a man named Philemon. And the whole letter actually centers on another man named Onesimus. Now Onesimus was a bond servant of Philemon. Now bond servants were like slaves, but not the type of slavery that we have in our history as Americans. It was not a race-based slavery system. In fact, in the ancient world, in ancient Rome, 35 to 40% of the population were bond servants, and yet many of them could still hold jobs and even work their way out of slavery. But to understand the fuller context of that world, go back and listen to last week's message, because there's some important nuance you need to know. But right now, here's where we're at in our story. So this bond servant named Onesimus, he actually ran away from his master Philemon. He runs away and he runs to Paul. He goes to Paul, and Paul at this point is actually in prison for preaching the gospel. So Onesimus runs to Paul to visit him. Now Philemon, and by extension Onesimus, probably lived in the ancient city of Colossae, which is in modern day Turkey. The Bible refers to that land as Asia Minor. Now Paul wrote this letter. Paul was in Rome, imprisoned in Rome. So this means that Onesimus probably had to run away from Colossae to Rome. I know you don't know, you probably, biblical geography, let me fill in the gaps here. That's a 1300 mile trip. He traveled through modern day Turkey, again, then called Asia Minor. He probably went through Greece, all the way to Italy to see Paul in Rome while he was in prison. And this was all during the first century while he was also a runaway slave. They need to make a movie about that guy's journey. But check this out, while in Paul's care, one is visiting with Paul, clearly probably trying to go there to get out of his bondage, out of his slavery, what happens is that Paul actually leads Onesimus to Christ. Onesimus becomes a Christian while visiting Paul. And this is where the story gets really interesting. Rather than granting his freedom and sending him on his merry way, what Paul does is he packs up Onesimus and he sends him back to Philemon. Back on this 1300 mile trip after running away trying to seek his freedom. Now, I think that is incredible, and it lays the groundwork for an amazing letter that Paul wrote. And when Paul wrote this letter to Philemon, the nature of this letter is so thick and so weighty that it's gonna challenge the fabric of Philemon's faith and also challenge the fabric of the society and culture that Philemon lived in. Today if Second Service is anything like First Service, there'll probably be a silent hush over the congregation today as we feel the weight of this. Because here's the reality, you guys know this, social media has absolutely hollowed the word friend. And my concern is that many of us have a lot of quote on quote Facebook friends, but maybe by today you'll realize you don't have very many true friends. And that's gonna be a challenge. But I pray that God's word kind of fills us and encourages us to open ourselves up to some deeper friendships. And so, if you haven't yet, please turn to Philemon chapter, we're gonna look at just verses eight to 20 today, there's only one chapter. And so with that, would you hear God's word, Philemon verses 8 to 20. Philemon 8-20 8 Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, 9 yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you—I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus— 10 I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus,[ a ] whose father I became in my imprisonment. 11 (Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me.) 12 I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. 13 I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel, 14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. 15 For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, 16 no longer as a bondservant[ b ]but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 17 So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.18 If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. 19 I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—to say nothing of your owing me even your own self. 20 Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. Amen, this is God's word. There's a lot here we need to unpack. So let's pray that the Spirit would guide us into that and we'll get going. So let's pray together. Father God, we are thankful for the truth and the power of your word that has lasted through the ages. We're thankful that we who were once enslaved to sin, we are no longer. And this is because of the saving and atoning and the atoning work in the blood of Jesus, who gave his life for ours, dying on the cross and rising again to new life that we might have that very same new life. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who guides us now into better knowledge of your word and your will for us and it's in Jesus name we pray and everyone said amen amen and amen. So church and friends if I can give you one main point about friendship from this passage from this very challenging passage it would be this: Being willing to challenge one another in love is a burden of real friendship. Being willing to challenge one another in love is a burden of real friendship listen to me it stings i don't like saying it but it is a marker of real friendship and so with this this heavy notion we're gonna walk through our passes together and as we do i just want to pull out two points for us here this morning it'd be this here's where we're going. Friendship burdens us with a challenge. Firstly, to be the bigger person. And secondly, to see a bigger picture. Now, before we dive into our passage, let's go back and look at another proverb real quick. So the book of Proverbs from the Bible, it was collected and composed around the year 1000 BC. And if you know your history, that's right in the prime of the Iron Age. And so it's no wonder that one of the most famous Bible passages on friendship found in Proverbs speaks about iron. I'm sure you've probably heard this verse before. Proverbs 27 verse 17 says this: Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another. So no surprise that this comes from the Middle East's Iron Age. But here's an obvious question. Does iron sharpen iron? Well, truth is, since 1000 BC, we have found a lot more effective ways to sharpen iron. But does iron sharpen iron? Yes, it can, but it's very laborious. It's not easy, it takes work. But here's the notion here. When iron sharpens iron, it affects both pieces of the metal. It affects both pieces of iron. Unlike when you use steel to sharpen iron, iron only gets the brunt, not the steel. But when you use iron to sharpen iron, both of them get sharpened. Both of them feel the friction. Both of them are shaped. And so when we talk about the burden of friendship, we need to think about it in the sense of two pieces of metal shaping each other. They are both affected by the friction, which makes both pieces better. And so with this notion of iron sharpening iron behind us, which I think you'll really see play out in real time in real life between Paul and Philemon. I think Philemon is a great example of iron sharpening iron coming out but let's look at the first part here. 1. Friendship burdens us with a challenge to be the bigger person First point, friendship burdens us with a challenge to be the bigger person. Look at verses 8 and down. So we need to make sure we understand the story that's going on here. Follow me on this. Onesimus runs away from his master and Paul sends him back. And while Paul's Paul, Paul could command Philemon to release Onesimus. He says, Paul says, I could command you to release him. I could command you to do this, but he doesn't. Paul is saying that he's not going to do this because he doesn't want to be a master to Philemon. He wants Philemon to act in love, just like Paul was doing. Paul was setting an example for Philemon, that he wants Philemon to live out of his own accord. Verse 8, accordingly, Paul says to Philemon, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, release Onesimus. He says, yet for love's sake, I prefer to appeal to you. I, Paul, an old man now and a prisoner, also for Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment." So again, Paul had led this man, Onesimus, to faith in Christ. And so by doing so, had become a spiritual father to him. And that's a bond forged in God's love. Because God's love is the foundational ethic of the Christian faith. It's what unites and binds us together. The Bible says that faith, hope, and love are the things that are going to last beyond everything else. And of those three things, the greatest of those is love. We don't talk about love nearly enough. This is a bond forged in God's love that makes it almost impossible to break. Love is how we can have disagreements without breaking the relationship. Now, Paul continues in verse 11. He says, Formally, he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. Now, I know we don't pick this up in English, but in Greek it's pretty clear. This is a clear play on Onesimus' name, because Onesimus means useful. Paul's saying that now he's a Christian, he's even more useful to what we want to see happen in this world, to what you want to see happen, to what I want to see happen. Paul continues in verse 12, he says, now I'm sending him back to you, sending my very heart. Do you hear the utter love in this? Men, do you speak about love for another man? Or are you too scared someone will call you gay? God owns love, people. It's His deal. And as Christians, we are to share that love with one another, to hold it up as the thing that binds us together. He says, I'm sending you my very heart. This is how much Paul loves Onesimus. Verse 15, he said, I would have been glad to keep him with me in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. For the gospel. Because a friendship forged by the blood of Jesus through the truth of the gospel, that's a better friendship than a friendship forged on the basketball court. That's a better friendship than simply going to school together. When the gospel is the root of your friendship, there is a deeper relationship available to us. I'm telling you that the friends that I can pray with are naturally going to result in a deeper friendship. I'm going to have a deeper friendship with them. And because we have a deeper friendship, this allows us, me and my friends, to give godly challenges to one another challenges that we need to hear But listen look at verse 14 here. Verse 14 Paul lays it down He says but I prefer to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness Might not be by compulsion but of your own accord Paul is saying in a very iron sharpens iron moment He says okay my friend. Are you going to be a Christian through and through? This faith that you have is it gonna invade every aspect of your life every area of your life or Only when it serves you I love this section Let's be clear here Paul is wanting Philemon to release on isthmus from his bondage and again, like this was this was an accepted part of their society. Like having slaves, having bond servants, as far as the culture was concerned, Philemon wasn't doing anything wrong. Philemon could have appealed to his culture and be like, what am I doing wrong? This is all accepted. And yet, Paul is challenging his friend to rise above where his culture is at in order that he might be the bigger person, the more Christ-like person in the midst of this. Philemon could have appealed to the culture, to the ways of the world, to the society at large and say, I'm not doing anything wrong here, I'm obeying the laws, I'm not violating anything. And yet Paul is telling Philemon, you're violating God's law, you're violating God's love. There's a better option for you, and that's what you need to live into. But listen here, Paul, he's not bullying Philemon. He's laying a challenge, because that's what friends do. He's saying to Philemon, now you get to demonstrate the full extent of your faith, even when it drives you to confront the base assumptions of your culture. You get to either be a Christ-like man or a man of your culture. Which one are you going to be? And that's the type of challenge we all need. Ladies, you need friends to challenge you like that. Men, we need friends to challenge us like that. To challenge us to do the Christ-like thing. Something bigger than what our society is allowing.Because here's the gospel root in all this, and I'm sure you probably know this. Jesus himself came to set us free eternally and spiritually. And now Paul is telling Philemon, now you get to do the same for Onesimus, just physically and relationally. And let's not forget, if you weren't here last week, Paul led Philemon to faith. Philemon's a Christian because of Paul's ministry. And so, that further forges that bond here. So here's a lesson here. When we challenge our friends, one of the things that we've got to make sure that we're doing is that we are living out what we are challenging our friends with. Paul is doing that. Paul is saying, I'm a prisoner just like on this mess, but I'm challenging you to rise above. I'm going to rise above you rise above. When we go to challenge our friends, we have to make sure that we are living out the challenge that we are going And I know that when we look at the world today, I know many of you are seeing your friends fall away. I've seen friends fall away. I've seen kids who were like all-stars in youth group when I was a youth pastor fall away, whether through deconstruction or we simply let the busyness of life keep us from church. I know many of you look at your friends and you want to pull them back in. So here's what I say to you, go do it. But make sure you look in the mirror first. We need to live out the varied challenges that we want to bring to our friends. But I also want to say this to you, don't wait till you're perfect. Don't wait till you're perfect, right? But listen to me, like when you are challenging a friend with something, it's entirely to say to them, and this is entirely okay to say, you may say to them, listen, I'm not great at this either, but let's do it together. Like, you may, it's okay to say that. And do you know why that's such a powerful statement? Because iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another, and that challenge is challenging us to something deeper, to something better, calling us to be the bigger person, to be the more Christ-like person in this world, that we might rise above the low bar that this world is setting. It seems like in all facets of our life, like we just try to, as long as we reach the lowest common denominator, then we're okay. And that unfortunately spills even into the church world. I don't have to give to be a Christian. I don't have to go to church to be a Christian. And what do we do? We lower the bar to the lowest possible common denominator. We feel no obligation to rise above. When the Bible is constantly calling us to demonstrate more and more and better and better Christ-like behavior, because that's proof of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. Calling us and sanctifying us to conform more to God's will. The challenge that we see here is profound, and it calls us to something deeper, something better, and we need friends in our lives to keep us on that path, giving us and reminding us of the values to live out, but not just the values that we are to live out, a vision to live that out. 2. Friendship burdens us with a challenge to see the bigger picture That's the second thing we're seeing here. Friendship burdens us with a challenge to see a bigger picture. So check this out. Back to our story. Paul challenges Philemon to do the right thing, to be more Christ-like, to be the bigger person, to set Onesimus free. But he doesn't just give, people hear me on this, he doesn't just give Philemon the what to do, he gives him why. He gives him the why you should do this. He gives Philemon a bigger perspective. Look at verse 15. Paul says, For perhaps this is why Onesimus was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bond servant, but more than a bond servant, as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both now in the flesh and in the Lord. Paul is reminding Philemon of God's doing something. And that's a perspective so many of us lack. And I'll just foreshadow our next sermon series is going to drive looking right at that, helping us to have the spiritual lens to see what's happening in the world. But we'll get to that in a couple of weeks. Paul is saying to Philemon, Philemon, once you get Onesimus back, if you release him, you get him back better than what he was before. So he's saying to Philemon, he's like, you need to see beyond the accepted norms of your culture. If you're going to be Christ-like, you can't just wallow in what's accepted in your society. You need to rise above that. You need to even see beyond the immediacy of your own situation. You need to see something larger at play. Church, when we have a spiritual perspective to what's happening in our life and in our world, when we understand what's happening spiritually, that gives us a bigger perspective. Such as the hardships in your life. The hardships in your life may not just be the things keeping you down, but they may be the very things that God is using to draw you closer to Him. So listen to your church friends. So listen to your friends, church, and your church friends. Listen to your Christian friends who help you to see a bigger picture. The passage goes on to verse 17. Let's walk through this together. So Paul says this. He says, so if you consider me your partner, receive him, receive Onesimus as you would receive me. If he's wronged you at all or owes you anything, charge that to my account. Okay. So Paul goes from being a friend to to Onesimus. In this beautiful picture of friendship, Paul is now taking Onesimus' burden. He's taking his penalty. He's taking his fine. And to further remind Philemon what's happening here, listen to verse 19. Now, this is a massive challenge here. This is like a left hook. Verse 19, Paul says, I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. All right, stop there real quick. Side note, typically you might have had a scribe who would write down what you're saying, like you dictated to someone. Paul probably had a scribe, and he was just saying this, and a scribe is writing it down. But very likely what happened is that Paul interrupts the scribe and takes the pen and then writes this part with his own hand. You would have seen a change in the handwriting at this point. Paul says, I, Paul, write this with my own hand. I will repay it. But then listen to this challenge. To say nothing of your owing me, even your own self. Paul's saying, I led you to Christ. You have salvation. You have freedom because I shared the message of Jesus with you. perspective right here. Paul is basically reminding Philemon, Jesus gave his life to save you, so remember Philemon, that your life is not your own, so how could you own another person? That was the left hook. Now here comes the right hook. Verse 20, it says, Yes brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ. Church, if you're in one of the other venues, I don't think you understand the enormous challenge that was just laid right here. This is the type of challenge we need to hear if we are going to grow stronger in our faith. If you're not getting challenges like this, it's going to be very hard for you to convince me that you're growing in your faith. We need people sharpening us, iron sharpens iron, bringing us this sort of challenge. Check it out. The word here for benefit, the King James uses the word joy, but there's something else going on here. Philemon is saying, Paul is saying to Philemon, he's saying, Philemon, I led you to Christ, but now I need to see how it's actually changed you. I need to see if the faith that you profess actually means something into the hardest parts of your life. Like, you need to give me some benefit here. I need to know that my ministry is actually effective. Show me that what I'm doing is worth something. I need to know that this faith thing that you profess actually has changed you in ways that will make you reject the culture and conform to a more Christ-likeness. I need to see that benefit from you. And I'll just be honest with you right now, church. As a pastor, I really resonate with that. It's one thing for me to stand up here and proclaim the gospel and have you all nod your heads and a couple of you people be like amen amen you're a little too scared to say it out loud but like I need to know that what I'm saying to you right now is going to matter to you tomorrow morning at work. I need to know that what I what we're saying that this this faith you profess is actually going to change your behavior tomorrow at school or this afternoon you get home. Like, when I hear stories like that, I understand why King James used the word joy. There's a benefit there. Paul is saying something we need to hear from our friends. He's saying, if I live in you're a brother in the Lord, but now you need to prove your faith. If you're truly a follower of Jesus, you need to do it in every area of your life. Again, it's one thing for me to say it from the pulpit, but you need friends who will stand with you face to face and say it to your face. Now, they need to challenge us. We need to hear the challenge. If the faith that we profess is something that just comes out of our mouth, or something we're gonna live out in our life. What the world does not need is more people saying they're Christians who aren't going to act like it. The world and the church needs Christians who are going to do the things that Jesus did. We're going to pursue Christ in the ways that He pursued us. Now listen to me. Now when you bring a challenge like this to a friend, I'm not promising it's always going to go good. So let's talk about that for a second here. Because the way a person responds to a challenge shows a lot about the trust that they have with you or the foundation of your friendship. If you say to someone, as a Christian to Christian, if you say to someone, you say you're a Christian but you're not acting like it, for a prideful person, that could end the friendship right then and there. Or if someone responds by saying, who are you to judge me? Again, that shows that either that person is full of pride or your friendship isn't as deep as what you thought it was. But I'll just confess something to you right now. Now you tell me if you resonate with this. Like when someone brings me a challenge, I'm telling you now, I am a master at flipping it on their head and making them the bad guy. Like I am the undisputed champion of when someone brings me a challenge and they want to challenge me, I'm a slippery little snake and I can find a way out of that challenge and make them the bad guy for bringing me the challenge. You know what I'm saying? Anybody like that? down and take our talking to by people who love us. Not someone who wants to condemn us, but someone who wants to call us to something greater. That's a burden of friendship, that we do that for one another out of love because of love. Bearing the burden of challenging a friend is revealing to the nature of the friendship that you have because nobody likes to do it, nobody likes to hear it, but at times we need to. Because being willing to challenge one another in love is a burden of real friendship. Paul took on a huge, listen to me, Paul himself took on a huge burden with the letter of Philemon. He bears the burden for Onesimus. He speaks on his behalf, he challenges his friend in gospel love. He assumes the debt for Onesimus He goes on to challenge the very fabric of Philemon's faith and while also challenging the very fabric of the society that they live in Because being willing to challenge one another in love is a burden of real friendship and as we go through this message series Every every sermon in this message series is going to end with a friendship challenge a way to challenge our friendships to call us into Deeper levels of friendship. And here's this week's friendship challenge. Friendship Challenge: In an unfriendly world, we are to bear each other's burdens, and no one did this greater than Jesus Christ. So let's talk about this for a second. When your friendship develops to the point where you can challenge someone's faith, don't do it by standing on a high pedestal. Do it on their level, because you are on their level. If you challenge someone from a high pedestal in a condescending way, you're not being a friend. But if you bring a challenge to someone in love, not condemnation, then listen to me, then by bringing that challenge, you are also placing that burden on yourself as well. Because you can't just stand there and just challenge someone and stand back with your arms crossed. If you are a true friend, gonna bring a challenge to someone, then the burden you're going to place on them, you're going to help bear. You can say, I think you are called to something greater and I'm going to help get you there. If you don't have the time to do that, then don't bring the challenge. Friends are ones who walk alongside one another, bearing each other's burdens. In fact, Galatians chapter six, verse two says this, bear one another's burdens and then so fulfill the law, then so fulfill the law of Christ. That is like a thesis statement for how a church should operate. That we bear each other's burdens. That if someone's going through a hard time, we come and we pick them up. Let me just state the obvious here. Burdens are the hard things in life. It's the things we don't want to do. It's the things we don't want to say. It's the things we don't want to hear. But let me just speak to the teenagers here. Teenagers in the house, I know it's much easier to talk about the Lions not making the Super Bowl than it is to bring a challenge to a friend that they act like one person at youth group and a different person at school. Men, I know it's easier to talk about the weather than to challenge a friend as to whether or not he's loving his wife like Jesus loves the church. So let me ask again, when was the last time you heard something and thought, I don't want to hear this, but I need to, and then it also led you to be the bigger person who sees a bigger picture? Yes, you need to hear it from the man behind the pulpit, whether me or if you go to another church, but you also need to hear it from a friend who will stand face to face with you, who will not just condemn you, but who will share that burden with you. And let that picture of friendship start with and be embodied by Jesus Christ, who did not just share our burdens, he took our greatest burdens. The greatest burden that we have is the sin in our life that separates us from God. That is the greatest problem you have in your life, is that you've got sin that separates you from God. And that's a chasm, that's a sin, that's a burden that you cannot bear or carry or take care of yourself. But Jesus steps in the gap and does that. He carries our burden and stands in our place, taking the punishment for our sins that should have been ours. And so that sin that had separated us from God, when Jesus died for it, he removed that barrier so we could be brought back to God. The barrier and the burden of sin that makes us stand condemned before God, Jesus has removed it and paid it in full. What Paul was doing for Onesimus, Jesus did for us spiritually and eternally. And when Jesus Christ rose again on the third day, not only was our relationship with God restored, but our new life was granted, because that's what our best friend did for us. He took our shame, he took our guilt, he bears our burdens, and then he walks alongside of us all the way through. That's who we have, because remember, in an unfriendly world, we are to bear each other's burdens and no one did this greater than Jesus Christ. Amen. Would you please stand? Again, with all things in this message series, we're not using this to see where your friends are falling short. We're seeing this to where you could be become a better friend. Where do you need to bear some of your friends' burdens? Where do you need to step in the gap? Where do you need to show love in the hard places? We're going to close with a song called How Marvelous. And I love this amazing line. He took my sins and my sorrows, he made them his very own. He bore the burden of Calvary and suffered and died alone. When you sing that, remember the greatest friend you could possibly have fulfilled that verse and that passage for you, those lyrics. So let's pray together. Father, we come before you right now, and we ask God, I ask God, on behalf of this church, that your spirit would come and unite us through the great ethic of Christian love, as we are reminded of the gospel and what Jesus did for us. And so, Father, I pray that this church would stand as friends to one another, singing and worshiping our greatest friend in Jesus. Be with us now by the power and presence of your Holy Spirit, in Jesus' name. Amen .

PODCAST That's a Good Question How to Forgive When It Hurts: Navigating the Path to Healing December 5, 2023 Jon Delger & Bob Hudberg Listen to this Episode MitchellBefore we jump into this episode of That's a Good Question, this week's episode addresses a sensitive topic that might not be appropriate for young ears. This would be a great time to put in headphones or to listen to the episode before you let young ones listen. Let's jump in. JonHey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church. This is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm John, I serve as a pastor here at Peace, and I also get to serve as the weekly host of this show. You can always submit questions to peacechurch.cc/questions. And today I am here with PB. PB Hey, so good to be with you, John. Thanks for asking me to come. Yeah, thanks for being here. Jon So PB, just so everybody knows, stands for Pastor Bob. We call him P.B. Sometimes when I see Pastor Bob written somewhere in an email or something, I don't know who they're talking about. PBWell, you know, people have said to me, too, oh, hi, Pastor P.B. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's like, it's all right. JonIt's all right. PBWe'll double them up here. It's a little confusing sometimes. Yeah. JonThat's good. Well, thank you. Yeah. So P.B. serves as our care pastor here at Peace Church and has just had a long career of serving as a pastor, getting to walk people through difficult life situations, and especially thinking it through a question like what we're talking about today. So, producer Mitchell, you wanna give us a question for today? MitchellYep, here we go. How do we forgive someone who has hurt us badly? Abuse, affair are two examples they give. Question #1: How do we forgive someone who has hurt us badly? PBWhat if a person doesn't want anything to do with us? JonYeah, powerful question. And basically, to me, two parts, two key parts that we'll talk about is, you know, the first half is how do you forgive somebody? And then, so let's tackle that. And then we'll get to what do you do if after you've forgiven them, if they don't want anything to do with you. So let's just talk about that first part there. How do you forgive somebody? PBWell, I think that's a really fair question. But I also was wondering, and I think we got a little bit of background, is it someone who is still around? Is it a relative? Or is it someone who's passed away? Or whatever it may be, but I think there is that possibility when you say, how do I forgive this person? Let me go to the negative first. The negative is sometimes we say forgive and forget. And that's not healthy. And secondly, from a negative is that we think we need to forgive because we're a Christian which is true But I don't think it really solves the issue of even dealing with repentance and everything else that comes with that, too So if we just gloss it over sometimes as a follower of Christ We don't really forgive. Yeah. Yeah, it's not as simple as yes or no, right? Do I forgive you and it's a process forgiveness isn't just a one-time act, but it's a continual process. When Jesus said to Peter, seven times seven, even more, it just meaning when there's repentance, then you have the opportunity to forgive and continue. Forgiveness never negates the natural consequences of the act. So unfortunately, whatever has arisen from this person has affected them and where they're at in their walk, too. JonYeah. So, to talk about, just real quickly, you mentioned a Scripture passage, and I was going to bring it up. So, some of the key passages that you could look at, you referenced already. So, Matthew 18, verses 21 to 35, is Jesus' parable about the unforgiving servant. And then right before that, what leads into that parable is his comment to Peter. Peter says, you know, how often should I forgive my brother when he sins against me? And Jesus says, I do not say seven times, but 77 times. So that's that passage. And then there's a few other passages in Scripture that talk about this. One is Ephesians 4, 32, where the Apostle Paul says, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. So Scripture, you know, grounds it in God's forgiveness for us, leads to us forgiving other people. So there's some key passages that come into play. PBCan I give one more? Yeah. Luke chapter 17, verses 3 and 4, and it says, Pay attention to yourselves, if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. You know, and then it says, And if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, I repent, you must forgive him. Those are powerful passages. Because when you look at the word, even rebuke, it's all about reconcilingation of relationships. And I think sometimes we don't know when that person, that we've hurt someone, and other times, like this question, they know pretty much when it was done to. Right. So you brought in a really key element that I don't think it gets talked about enough in forgiveness is the idea of repentance. You want to talk a little bit more about how that fits in? My word, repentance is such a hard thing. It is about saying, I was wrong and I'm not going to go that way again, but it's our sinful nature that leads us to do it again, unfortunately. So I must confess, I have had to repent quite a few times over some things. I know the rest of you two guys are perfect. You've never had to do that. But just to say, when God convicts you of something, then it becomes necessary that I go to that person. Even though I didn't mean it with the intent to hurt, there's sometimes that I have to repent from that too. In fact, when I was kind of just reviewing this today and thinking about this, God brought up a situation that I need to approach a man and ask him for forgiveness. But I thought I had dealt with it, and God was saying, hmm, you didn't deal with it. You need to get this right. And it really came with the fact that of rebuking, which is a loving charge. It's not a harsh thing. It's about loving. God loved that other person so much that he just willingly went to rebuke and restore the relationship. JonSo let's talk about that. Would you mind walking us through an example? And, you know, the example given by the listener question here is a very intense, powerful one. But let's just start with like, I hate to call it lesser, but a lesser, you know, maybe a lesser example. Let's say, you know, let's say, you know, there's a there's some kind of conflict in a relationship between you and another person. Somebody says something hurtful, something mean. OK, and you got to walk through the process. You might just kind of like walk us through what that looks like. PBI think part of it is and this has just been what I've tried to learn over the years is I have to determine why am I offended by that? What really happened? And was it with malice that they said that? Or was it just an offhanded thing that they did? If it was with intent, then I think the responsibility I have on my part is to approach that person. When I am hurt, I need to go to that person because if I value the relationship enough, I want to restore it. I want it to happen in such a way. So it is the fact of saying, okay, God, why am I hurt? Why am I being defensive here? And then if he reveals, like, okay, you have legitimate cause to do that, then approach that person and say, okay, you know what? What you said hurt me. And either they'll say, well, I didn't mean it or whatever. I've been known over the past so many years, I won't tell you how many, to be the one to use a phrase, I was just kidding. And in Proverbs 26, it says, like, the man throwing firebrands and swords is the one who says, I was just kidding. And God really convicted me of that, because my words, I would say something, I would say something to you, John, and then I go, oh, I'm just kidding. Well, there's always truth in jest, right? There's always truth in jest. So it is that fact of saying, you know what let's go on and let me approach that person in a way that is loving and caring. Yeah, that's the difference too, a sin. So if it's a sin, then you have a route to go with Matthew 18. But if it's just an offense, like maybe it wasn't a sin, then I think there's a choice on my part to say, you know what, Lord, I'm going to give this to you, and I'm not going to pursue it any further. I can't allow it. Because I have let things in the past, when there has been something that someone has done to me, dominate my life and control my thoughts and it's there every day until I, it can really offer forgiveness. So I think once we can give it away and say, okay God, it's yours, I'm done. Now, let's be honest, it may take every day to do it. It may take 10 times a day, but at least you're going to the right place with it. JonYeah, yeah, definitely. That's really good. So, I think that's a great kind of just a walkthrough of how we handle that kind of on an everyday basis. So, now to kind of ratchet it back up a notch to where, you know, the person asking the question brought it of, you know, what if you've got such a painful, grievous situation as abuse or an affair, you know, in that situation. So, what do you think? How do you face that situation of forgiveness? PBI was molested when I was a child and he was a friend of the family, my parents, and I knew him. But for many, many years he molested me and it wasn't until I was probably, I don't know, in my early 30s that I was so angry at him and what he did. But God said, you need to forgive him. I said, but he never asked for repentance. He's never asked for forgiveness. He didn't think he did anything wrong. So what did I need to do? I just had to say, in fact, I ended up writing him a letter and spelled all the things out that he did and then said, listen, I forgive you. And I never mailed it to him. Never mailed it to him. But it was really healing and cathartic for me to be able to verbalize it to him. Well, there is a price to pay when you offend or you sin in such a situation like we have right now. And so that relationship that I had with this man was never restored to where it was. In fact, at one point, he wanted to take my boys with him on a road trip, and I said no, not going to happen, because so you reap what you sow. And so because of that, so I think forgiveness for this person, obviously God ordained, you have to really seek, don't do it because it's the thing that you have to do, but really wrestle with it and then be able to say, if you can approach that person, but if you can't, then you have to make that conscious decision to say, I will forgive. PBAnd forgiveness, we've heard this too, forgiveness doesn't make what you've done right, PBAnd I think that's the whole thing. I can think of many people who have offered forgiveness, they still remember the situation, but they don't remember the pain of the situation. Mitchell So, PB, would you say that the goal of seeking forgiveness is restoring the relationship back to how it was or can that be different in a biblical context? PBI think it number one depends on the relationship, obviously, and I think it can be different. I don't think that all relationships are going to be restored to where they were once. You know, if there is an abuse, I'm sorry, that person has to pay the price for what they did. If there was an affair, yeah, there can be, you can be healing, I know of couples who have healed tremendously from affairs. But that takes time, you know, for that to happen too. And so, but I do think that there are some people that you're never gonna have the relationship that you had before with them. JonYeah, and that's that's only wise right? I mean if somebody has proven that they can do Something terrible like that then it's only wise to say I'm not gonna Put that put myself or you know in your case your children in us another situation where that could happen That's just that's good wisdom to not put it and I've heard some people unfortunately say Well true forgiveness would be to act as if it had never happened and not have any of those boundaries PBBut that's just not the case no no no and I think I think it's a protection thing for us personally And then obviously it's a protection for them even though they don't want that protection the offender. It's to protect them from Just being aware and and saying okay, you're oh, why are they putting up these boundaries? Well, here's what you've done. And I think it means that we have to confront when we can. And no one, the offender doesn't like that, but it needs to happen if it's very possible. And I'm sure you two have known other people where someone has done something and then the person has passed away that has done it and you can't forgive. But if there's any way possible to forgive and they don't offer repentance, you still need to forgive. JonWell, and like you said, some of that is between you and the person. That's kind of the person-to-person reconciliation aspect of it, but some of that is simply between you and God, having a right heart before the Lord that is offered up, at least, by forgiveness, even if there's not reciprocation on the other side. PBYes, exactly. Exactly. So forgiveness is tough, but I don't think we should minimize the offense either. I think sometimes we go like oh They didn't really mean that or then all of a sudden you see the relationship change and it's like oh Maybe they did mean that so never minimize it And then I think I said this before but in a different way forgiving for our own sake You know, okay. I'm just gonna forgive. Well, I think that's a little bit passive-aggressive, too You know, we don't really forgive and we just move on and don't really deal with it either. JonYeah, that's a great point. You know. Yeah, totally. So, in thinking about if somebody's listening to this and they're they're in the tragic and painful situation of they, you know, they have an abuser in their life, some of the things I just want to be clear about that we're saying to them is, number one, we're saying, you know, abuse is not okay. You shouldn't continue in that situation, submit to that situation. We want you to get help, find a place to go, whatever it takes to get out of that situation. And after that, we're saying that there are some steps to consider and how you can offer forgiveness and yet also protect yourself, not enter back into an abusive situation. PBRight, right. And you, and obviously that person will know there will be some telltale signs that they would say, I'm not getting back into that at all. Because if you don't deal with the situation at all, you're really able to fall back into a situation and maybe not with that person, but with another person. So you really wanna be careful to say, what was it, think it through. And then if I can encourage, find someone else that you trust that will walk with you through that. Don't try to do it alone. Oh, it's so hard. I don't care if it's a guy or a gal. Try to find someone else or a group of people that will help you that you can be vulnerable enough with to say, I need some help. And don't keep it silent. Please don't keep it silent. Just make sure that they are aware and other people are aware of it that they will walk with you through it too. I think there's great support. Proverbs tells us that there's great confidence in the wisdom of many counselors, you know, and so when you have other people walk with you and The reality is other people will see some things that we may not see in the relationship either And so they can help in that way. Yeah, those are really wise steps Jonone last thing and then let's talk about the second half of the question one last thing obviously to Keep in mind and then we talked about this at the beginning was all the passages about forgiveness and scripture point us back to the original story of forgiveness, which is God's forgiveness for us. That we were forgiven of immense sin. And so because of that, God calls us likewise to forgive others. But as we've said, there's some wise steps you can also put in place to prevent future harm. PBYeah, the whole God gave us the plan. He demonstrated the plan, said here's how you're going to forgive, because I'm going to send you my son to die for you, and you will have forgiveness of your sins." And he's like, this is a process that you go through. Now walk in it. You know, you read the passage in Ephesians 4, which I think is a wonderful passage. You know, and when we talk about forgiving one another, it's one of those great reciprocal promises and commands that we have to do, as hard as it is. I will tell you, there's been times in our marriage that I would say to my bride, well, you need to forgive me because the Bible says you have to. And she would look at me and says, you haven't repented yet. PBSo, but it's been really good to walk with her in this time is because we both have experienced things. As a pastor, unfortunately, I think I was hurt more by the sheep than I were by people outside the church. But, and practice forgiveness from that standpoint. But I think forgiveness also involves humility. Being humble enough to be able to say, okay, I know I need to forgive and not be prideful. JonSo definitely. That's great. So briefly, with the time we have left, the second half of the question is, so what if you have forgiven somebody? What if you have forgiven somebody? And even though we've forgiven them, they don't want anything to do with us. Are we supposed to do something about that? What is sort of my part and what is their part in healing the relationship after forgiveness? PBSo there's a verse in Romans, I think, that says, as much as possible, be at peace with all men. So if they've done their part and asking for forgiveness and being able to demonstrate all of that and the other person doesn't want it, then there's not a whole lot that you can do, in my opinion, to restore that relationship. Yes, you want it to be there, you want it to happen, but you do your part. God does the changing of the heart. You can't do that. I can't change anything about another person and this person can't either. It's unfortunate that it's not restored, but as long as they're confident in what they've done, it's as much as they can do. And it may be saying, God, is there more than I need to do? Or just saying, I know what I've done, not going to go any farther. And that makes me sad. That that relationship is just totally gone. JonYeah, but that's kind of the, you know, we can each only own our part, right? There's the part that you're responsible for and that's the part you can own. So if you've offered up forgiveness, you would love further reconciliation, but that takes two parties. PBWell, and I think that's the goal, you know, is just total reconciliation, but it's not real. I shouldn't say it's not real. It's not always attainable in the relationship. JonPB, brother, thanks for the conversation and thanks so much for sharing. We appreciate it a lot. PBThanks for having me. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. JonThanks everybody for listening.

Failing to Feel: Mistake #2 in Teaching the Bible Ministry Shannon Popkin Author & Podcast Host Live Like It's True Podcast Published On: January 18, 2024 Hey, fellow leaders. Do you ever have the vague sense that you’re making avoidable mistakes while teaching the Bible—yet you can’t put your finger on what they are? A while back, I got to attend a workshop where Jeff Manion , who has preached for over thirty years, pointed to three common mistakes Bible teachers make. As I listened, I thought, “Check. Check. Check. Yep, I do all of those things!” Jeff has graciously agreed to let me share these most common mistakes. (Here’s the first one LINK, if you missed it.) Mistake #2: We Fail to Feel Perhaps because we think of the Bible characters as “saints” or as some select group of people who are totally unlike us, we sometimes forget to consider their emotions. We lift the bare facts from the pages of our Bibles and fail to feel the pain jealousy regret or boredom that these people experienced—just like we would if we walked in their shoes. Jeff said that he received hermeneutics training on studying the culture, context, and grammatical structure of Biblical text, but he wasn’t often taught to do emotional analysis. Yet to fully understand any text of the Bible, we have to ask, “What’s it like to be them?” This question is key for applying passages of Scripture that involve people—which is all of them, actually. (See my post from last time about “Killing the Characters.”) Emotional Archeology After visiting the Middle East last fall, the land of the Bible became three-dimensional to me. I can picture the distance between Jerusalem and Caesarea. I have a mental image of the Sea of Galilee. Of course, I always knew it was a real place, but somehow climbing the actual steps of the temple made it feel more real. As Bible teachers and study leaders, we need to not only help make the places of the Bible feel real; we need to let the Bible’s people be real also. Abel and Abraham and Benjamin and Hagar were real people. So were Mary and Matthew and Silas and Lydia. They had reputations. They had families. They had history. They had expectations. To truly understand the Bible’s message, we must try to understand the Bible’s people. We have to do “emotional archaeology.” If we carefully dig beneath the surface story recorded in our Bibles and brush past the centuries that separate us from the people we’re reading about, we will find carefully preserved emotions that make sense to us today. We’ll hear their emotions rising naturally in their words and responsive actions. These emotions help us connect. They help us find ourselves in the Bible. It’s true that the Bible is a story about God, and when we open its pages to teach, our main objective is for listeners to learn about Him. But God was pleased to reveal His character through the stories of three-dimensional Bible people. We learn about God as we see Him interacting with them. And by doing the work of understanding how these characters must feel , we help our people—who have the same feelings—learn about God in a way that engages their hearts. Here are two examples. Example 1: Our God is a shame-lifter (Luke 1:5–25). Zechariah and Elizabeth were faithful, godly people who had served God for decades. If something went missing in the neighborhood, Zechariah and Elizabeth were the last ones you’d suspect. They had character. They had honor. But they had no child. The Bible teaches that God will bless faithful people ( Prov. 28:20 ), yet God had not blessed Zechariah and Elizabeth. In the early years of their marriage, they had endured monthly disappointments. As the couples around them added baby after baby to their family count, Zechariah and Elizabeth remained a two-person family. Why, God? they surely wondered. Why have you given children to others but not us? But these doubts did not deter Zechariah and Elizabeth from serving God or observing His commands blamelessly ( vv. 5–6 ). They could choose their own response, but they couldn’t choose the response of their community. In a culture that equated God’s blessing with a full nest, Elizabeth especially bore the shame of not being able to bear a child. For years , she silently endured the disgrace of her watching community. How do we know that Elizabeth experienced shame? Because of the words we find in her mouth. When she “who was called barren” (v. 36), learns that she is expecting a baby, she says, “The Lord has done this for me. . . . In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people” ( Luke 1:25 NIV ). Listen carefully to what she’s saying. Everyone had considered her barren, which was disgraceful in the eyes of her community. Yet those days are over. “In these days,” she was certain of God’s favor—which was there all along! And that means that the shame she felt earlier was unfounded. Are there any in your group who, like Elizabeth, is feeling undue shame? As you teach the Bible, there may be someone asking, God, are you punishing me? I’ve served You faithfully! I don’t understand. Encourage them to persist in waiting on the Lord and faithfully observing His commands. Through the emotions of Elizabeth, let this listener encounter the God who takes away disgrace. Example 2: Our God is the one who sees (Genesis 16:1–14). Hagar was pregnant and a long way from home. She was an Egyptian slave—the property of Abraham and Sarah, who were living in Canaan. They’re likely the ones who told her about the Lord, but they didn’t represent Him very well. Sarah made the faithless suggestion that they involve Hagar to make God’s promise of a son come true. And Abraham went along with it. The plan worked; a baby was on the way. But the emotional aftermath was complex. Hagar’s new position as mama to the coming heir had gone to her head, and she allowed her contempt for Sarah to show. As a result, Sarah went nuclear and started beating Hagar, while Abraham stood by and let it happen. So Hagar ran for her life. Hagar, who was forced to leave her home and family in Egypt, had spent the last decade serving the family of Abraham and Sarah. She had become pregnant to make their dreams for their family come true. Did they even see her? Hagar had been treated so poorly. In Sarah’s eyes, she was small and deserved no dignity or respect. Hagar's life was consumed by what Sarah needed and wanted. Yet, where had her reaction of rising in contempt taken her? To the wilderness of desperation. It’s one thing to cry out to God as a completely innocent victim. But what if you’ve contributed to the brokenness of the situation? What about when you’ve also done wrong? Hagar had. Yet even so, when Hagar cried out to God in the wilderness, He met her there. Finally—after so much pain—she felt seen. She felt cared for. She knew she was being looked after by God. How do we know that Hagar felt this way? Consider her own words. “You are a God of seeing. . . . Truly here I have seen him who looks after me” ( Gen. 16:13 ). Are there any in your group who, like Hagar, are in “the wilderness”? As you teach the Bible, is there someone facing consequences they helped to create? Is anyone asking, “ God, do you see me? Do you care about me? Encourage that person to cry out to the Lord for help. Help them, through the emotions of Hagar, to encounter the God who sees. Digging Up the Emotions In both of these examples, we could tell our people the stories of God providing and God seeing, without spending much time on the embedded emotions. We could skip right past Elizabeth’s decades of childlessness and cut right to this verse: “After these days his wife Elizabeth conceived” ( Luke 1:24 ). Or we could skip right over Hagar’s degradation or her contempt and just offer the facts: “He went into Hagar and she conceived” ( Gen. 16:4 ). Our listeners would still be hearing the inspired words of God, and they could still make applications. But by considering the emotional implications, we help our people to connect with these Bible characters—and to God. Here are a few more tips for you, as you work to dig up the emotions of Bible characters in your message prep: Consider each fact. Facts offer possible clues about emotions. For instance, Luke 1:6 says, “[Zechariah and Elizabeth] were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.” When the Bible describes you as someone who’s kept all the commands, that’s saying something! So how does it feel to do what is right, yet not receive the blessing you hope for? Righteous living is the fact. Disillusionment is the natural emotion that accompanies the fact. Consider timelines. Genesis 16:3 tells us that after ten years in Canaan, Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham as a second wife. So Hagar—who is obviously in childbearing years—has been their slave for at least ten years. She’s likely grown up in this household, performing tasks like taking out Sarah’s trash and brushing out her hair. So what happens in a household when a low-standing youngster suddenly gets catapulted to high-profile surrogacy? When over a period of one month, the ten-year “bearer of the trash” becomes the “bearer of the heir”? The timeline helps us consider how the characters were feeling. Be careful about balance. Yes, we can draw connections between what happened and what the characters felt, but let’s not get carried away. For instance, perhaps Hagar was homesick and running toward Egypt. But do we know this is true? No. Or perhaps Elizabeth stayed hidden away for the first five months of her pregnancy because she knew that losing this baby would be exponentially more devastating if her community was aware. But do we know this is true? No. It’s fine to make suggestions and to imagine; it’s not okay to state our assumptions as facts. Give special weight to the character’s words. Jesus taught us that, “Out of the abundance of the heart [the] mouth speaks” ( Luke 6:45 ). This means that we can listen to someone’s words and know how they were feeling. Their lips offer a mirror to their heart. So direct quotes—like the ones we considered from Elizabeth and Hagar—are an emotional archaeologist’s gold mine. Look at songs and poetry. The Psalms, along with other songs and poetry in our Bibles, are particularly packed with emotions. Psalms are songs; they’re the ballads of the heart. When we consider the introductory ascriptions of the Psalms, we can often come to understand the circumstances prompting the songwriter’s emotion. Tying these together as we consider the emotional component of the song can provide powerful instruction. So are you ready to get back to your Bible study prep? Wherever you turn in God’s Word, remember that it’s written about real people with real emotions. Learning how it felt to be them offers insights about God when we’re feeling the same way. Read Mistake #1 in Teaching the Bible: Killing the Characters Read Mistake #3 in Teaching the Bible: We Villainize the Villains More Blogs You'll Like What Is a Deacon? Exploring the Role, Qualifications, and Purpose of Deacons in the Church Read More What Is An Elder? A biblical definition of those who are called to lead Read More Why Church Membership Understanding the Biblical Foundations of Church Membership Read More

Be Unified Sermon Series: Hate Speech Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Ephesians 4:1-6 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. You know, when we say that, that's your moment just to kind of like center yourself, prepare yourself for God's word. So let me start with a question here this morning, who has or has ever had backyard chickens? Raise your hand. Let me see. Okay. My family and I, we have, we have backyard chickens, uh, way too many eggs in the summer. Not enough in the winter. We're still working on that. So figuring that out. But let me ask, let me, let me paint a mental picture for you. Okay. We all know chickens. I want you to their legs tied together. Imagine that scene for a moment. Now, if this was youth group, I'd probably have a couple kids come up on stage and demonstrate what that would be like for us. I won't do that today. But I want you to think about what it would be like for two chickens to have their legs tied together. Okay, now take that mental picture and take these two chickens and throw them over a clothesline. What kind of chaos are you seeing in your head right now? Now, this mental picture, it shows us that it's possible to be united but not have unity. It's possible to be united but not be unified. We are called the United States, but we have red states and we have blue states. And while the country being divided may be a reality, that's not my primary concern here this morning. My primary concern is that the church is divided. I mean, the capital C church, at least here in America. Now, listen to me. Unity does not have to mean conformity, but disunity always means weakness. Jesus Christ himself said a house that is divided will not stand. The world is divided but I tell you this it is not silent. My fear is that the church is divided and silent. And I think part of the reason that we are so silent is because we don't feel unified. What I mean is that I think more Christians, more churches would stand up and speak the truth if we felt more unified, not just united, but unified. What I mean is that we would not just say that we believe the same things, that's united, but that we truly, sacrificially love each other. That's unified. And as we were discussing in this series, so much of the gospel, the gospel, Christians in the house, help me out in the other venues too, the gospel is also what we call good news. The gospel is good news, it's the message of Christ, it's the message of Christians, but so much of the gospel in our world is seen as hate speech. Why? Because we live in a world where truth in love is no longer tolerated. For instance, to hold to the biblical principle that all human life is created in God's image, that leads us to be pro-life. But in our day and age, pro-life comes with the accusation that you hate women. I'm going to tell you now, that's absolute insanity. That's not our heart. That's not our message. How has it come to this? How has it come to the fact that the good news is hate speech? Well, I hope that you see that in the truth of scripture, the gospel always rubs up against the culture. The gospel has always pushed back against the societal norms. This is nothing new for our day and age. The gospel, God's truth, has always had friction with larger society. That's nothing new to our time. We're just feeling it like we've never felt it. But I'm telling you now, the church worldwide, the church universal, the church throughout history, they've always lived in that tension. The question is, is what are Christians to do? Well, that's what we're gonna begin to find out through this sermon series. So if you would, would you please turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Now this entire sermon series we're gonna be walking through this chapter of the Bible together. Last week we zoomed in on one particular verse. One particular verse. For the rest of the series we're gonna zoom out and walk through this chapter together. But here's what I'm gonna tell you, Peace Church people, and if you're not a member of Peace Church, if you're not an attender, if you're not, if Peace Church isn't your church family, number one, thank you so much for coming. You're welcome here. Love the fact that you're here. Peace church family. Here's what I'm going to say to you. Here's your warning. Throughout the rest of the series, every message is going to be from Ephesians chapter four. Go ahead and just put your bookmark there. When you get to church, open it up. Today, we're going to be looking at verses one to six. Now, as you're turning there, a reminder about the book of Ephesians. We call it a book, but it's actually a letter. The apostle Paul wrote this letter from prison to a church in a city called Ephesus. That's why it's called Ephesians. But listen here. Why is Paul in prison for preaching the gospel? So check this out. Paul's in prison for preaching the gospel and he writes a letter to a church. And what's the main part of this, this whole letter. He's telling the church to live out the very message that got him thrown in prison. That's bold. That's a high calling. Do you understand what that means for you? Oh, dear Christian, you are to live in a way where the authorities take notice and may toss your behind behind bars. I just came up with that in my head. It was really good. It's a bold call. It's a bold call that this man writes from prison. So with that, would you hear the word of the Lord? Ephesians chapter four, verses one to six, Paul writes and he says: Ephesians 4:1-6 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. This is God's word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father, we do come before you this morning, thankful for the chance to gather so openly and so freely. Our prayer today, Lord, is that as we look at this passage, I pray that we would stand as one in unity. May this happen for your glory by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the strength of the Holy Spirit. And it is in Jesus' name that we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen. All right, so last week we looked at the great call for Christians to be holy in an unholy world. And again, just to clarify, that doesn't mean that we're perfect. Holy means that we're set apart. That when the world, when the culture looks at Christians, they just see something other. They see something that doesn't fit in. That's what it means to be holy. But today if I can give you one main point, it'd be this: When truth and love is no longer tolerated, we must be unified. The church must be unified. The call for unity in scripture is a primary call. Jesus Christ, in his final prayer, right before he was tortured and crucified. His final prayer when he knew his death was coming, what did he pray for? He prayed for our unity. He prayed that his people would be one. That's what Jesus prayed for. The call for unity is a primary call. So if we're going to be effective in this world, if we're going to be faithful in this world, we need to be unified. The church needs to be unified. So as we look at our passage today, there's just two key ideas I want us to take away from as we flesh this out: 1. We must have unity between our walk and our talk. 2. We must have unity between our Christian faith and our church family. 1. We must have unity between our walk and our talk. So first one, we must have unity between our walk and our talk. So my wife and I, we have this kind of weird quirk. We like to watch movies and TV shows with the subtitles on. Anyone else? Who does that? Who's really annoyed whenever that's on? Yeah, you people. I know it drives people crazy, but here's the thing, when you do that, when you watch this with the subtitles on, you pick up on something. Every now and again, what they say is not what is written. It's very interesting, it doesn't happen a lot, but every now and again you'll see that the dialogue they're having doesn't match what's written on the screen. And in some ways I will tell you, I think that points to the sin in our lives. We Christians say things that are not written. Things come out of our mouth that do not come from the written pages of Scripture. And people who are watching us, because the world is watching us, they see this inconsistency in our lives. And this leads to one constant thing, and I think you know this. If there's one constant name that Christians get called these days you might have guessed it hypocrites Christians are called hypocrites now a hypocrite is someone who says one thing but does another thing Like when when what we say doesn't line up with what is written Which is God's call scripture is God's call for our life, but you do know did you know that the word hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypocrite? Hypocrite is a Greek word and it actually meant actor or stage actor. It's this connotation that you play one thing in front of people but it's not who you really are. You're one thing on stage but you're another thing in real life. You're one thing on Sunday at church, you're another thing at your job Monday through Saturday. Christians are called hypocrites because we say that Jesus is all we need, and then we fill our life with every material possession we can afford, and then we go into debt to get things that we can't afford, that we just simply want. Christians are called hypocrites because we say we are the ones all about love, but we can be so crass and unkind and unloving and impatient. Are Christians hypocrites? We certainly can be. But for the watching world, they say to us, what you're saying isn't lining up with what is written. You don't really follow Jesus. You don't do what he says. You're not holy. You're just hypocrites. You're not holy. You're just hateful. And you know what? It's time that we need to stop saying, yeah, we're all hypocrites. We need to stop using that as an excuse and Christians need to start pursuing holy, erase the hypocrisy in our lives and according to what is written. The label of hypocrite is such a thing that so many people use as an excuse to continue in their sin. We need to be people that stop tolerating the hypocrisy in our lives and we start pursuing holiness. Until we do that in our own lives, the culture will never change. Look what Paul said 2,000 years ago. Go to verse 1, and here's the thing. If you're a Peace church, if you're part of the Peace church family, you best have your Bibles open right now. That's my loving call out to you now for the rest of the series. I already told you Ephesians chapter four is we're going to be at. Not going to put the scripture on the screen. You're going to have it open in your lap. So please would you turn to have it open? Look at what Paul says in verse one. He says, Ephesians 4:1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Or as we say around here, you need to walk the talk. So what is this calling to which you have been called? Well, he's saying, if you have been called by God, meaning if you've received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you believe in the gospel, that was a call that God's placed on your life that you have answered. And if you've answered that call, then live like it. Jesus died so that you could have a new life, not so that you could continue in your old ways, so that you could be holy, not a hypocrite. So I want to ask the men in the house a question for a moment. Men, I want you to be honest with me here. Now, when you get something like a new tool or maybe a toy for the kids that you've got to put together. How many of you, the very first thing you do is read the instructions? Like three of you OCD people, all right? All right, so let me just go ahead and call the other people. You know what? I don't read the instructions. It's not the first thing I do. Raise your hand. Let's just see it. You ever been out camping and see some dad try to set up a tent he's never set up before without reading the instructions? Absolute chaos until he makes a mess and then he reads the manual. Question, question for everybody in the house. How badly do you have to mess things up before you will humble yourself and read the instructions? People in the house, I'm telling you when it comes to the Christian faith, when it comes to the way that God wants us to live, you must read the instructions. You will not naturally find a way to follow God. You will not, it's not in your nature to just to be able to figure out on your own. You will make a mess of things. That's the whole notion of sin. Our hearts are oriented away from God. You must read the instructions. You can't do it on your own. In fact, that's part of the root of sin. God has given us life's instruction books, and you need to read it. We must read it, and it's called the Bible. And in this book we are called to live a life that is worthy. Not like Thor lifting the hammer to know what Paul means to live in a manner worthy of your calling. He doesn't leave us just to try to figure out on our own. He gives us clarity of exactly what he means. Look two and three. Here it is. Here's how to live a life worthy of your calling Ephesians 4:2-3 With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. You may look at that and you think, well, that's pretty simple, right? How are we doing with that? This verse shows us how we keep unity between our walk and our talk, between what we say we believe and what is actually written, between our lives and God's plan. How we keep unity is by following those two verses. It's so easy to say what we are, it's so easy just to say what we believe, but we're not allowed to just say it. We have to, we must live it, we must make it evident in our lives. These must be the markers of the lives of all Christians. So let's all of us here online, in the chapel, in the venue downstairs, lets all of us just venture into the realm of getting uncomfortable for a moment. Because that's where growth happens. Let's look at these. With all, all humility, everything you have, all humility. I think C.S. Lewis said it best, I'm sure you've heard this before. He said, Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. It's thinking of others more than you think about yourself. How are we doing in that area? Gentleness. Listen to me. Gentleness is not weakness. Because if you lack strength, you're not gentle, you're just soft. Gentleness denotes control. Gentleness, listen to me, Gentleness is a strength that is kind to others. That's gentleness. Patience. You know what patience is? I'll give you one of the clearest and hardest definitions of what patience is. Patience is willing to operate at another person's pace without frustration or resentment. I'll say that one again. Patience is willing to operate at another person's pace without frustration or resentment. And that is a hard, hard calling for our fast-paced, get-her-done world. And then Paul uses this very interesting phrase. Follow me on this. He says we are to bear, bearing with one another in love. That is such a powerful phrase. Do you know why? Do you know why this phrase is so unbelievably powerful? I'm going to blow you away for a second. Here's why. It's because of what Paul presupposes here. Paul presupposes something, and it's this. Paul presupposes that people are hard to get along with. And need I remind you, he's actually writing to a church. He's writing to a group of Christians. He's actually saying this to the context of a church. He's saying, Christians, hey, Christians in the church, guess what? Other people in your church are going to be hard to get along with. But you are to bear with them in love. I know this isn't like the actual, like, etymology of bear, but it gives me a picture of an actual bear. Strong, strength. It's going to take strength to bear with one another in love. He's saying, as a church, you won't always agree with everyone or with everything. That is going to happen. He's saying, people are going to annoy you. People are going to post things on social media that make you roll your eyes. Other people in the church are going to have bumper stickers for a politician you probably don't like. If your pastor is in his 40s, he's probably going to say some dad jokes every now and again. He's saying people fall short. They're going to forget your birthday. But you bear with them in love. In love. Why? Because we're eager. Look at your verse, it continues. Why? Because we're eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3 Eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Are you eager for this to happen? Are you desperate for this to happen? Or are you content just to sit there and not contribute to what God's doing here? We are to have unity and peace. This is central to the lives of Christians. This is central to the church. And what is to define our relationship to one another? Of course, we just saw it. It is love, love with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. That right there. In so many ways should be the defining sentence for the Christian life. This should be the defining sentence for church members. These verses show us how to live in a way that is worthy of the calling God has placed on our lives. But instead, here's a snapshot of the lives of Christians. 60% of Christians say that they can identify someone they have a hard time forgiving, with 23% saying there's someone in their life they can't forgive. Do you know that scripture says, if you don't forgive, God won't forgive you? An unforgiving heart is a one-way ticket to hell. We are called to forgive as Christ has forgiven us. 25% say that they don't give any money at all to the church. 80% say that they either give nothing or less than 10% of their income only around 20% of Christians Say they give to God a tenth of their income listen to me when Christians Actively choose. I know some are in a financial spot that that's different That's different, but I'm saying when Christians actively choose not to give to the church Something is off church family hear me on this a week in an unsupported church Result in a loss in an ungrounded society. Only 38% of Christians think that they should be serving or volunteering at church in some way. Apparently, over a third of us are very happy letting everyone else do the work. And listen to this one. 60% of Christians say they have unity in their church. Well, Jesus told us exactly what's going to happen to that church. It's going to fall. And this is so, so dangerous, which leads to our second point here, that we must have unity between our Christian faith and our church family. 2. We must have unity between our Christian faith and our church family. So let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, why wouldn't you want to have unity in your church? I will tell you why people don't want to have unity in their church. Ready? I'll tell you exactly why people don't want to have unity in their church, because they'd rather have it their own way. That's why people don't want unity in their church, because they'd rather have it their own way. But yet, look at this, Scripture is focused not on your preference, Scripture is focused on Christian unity. Listen to what Paul says here, go to verse 4. He says, Ephesians 4:4-6 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Church, three verses, one sentence with the word one mentioned seven times. Seven ways to emphasize the unity that we are to have with one another. So Church, let me ask you another question here. Have you ever seen a married couple fight in public? But clearly you've never been to Walmart. No offense to Walmart, got my shirt there. Not messing on Walmart here. But I'm telling you, I used to work in grocery store world for a long, long time. I tell you what, you see some things at a grocery store. I once saw this guy get so upset with his wife. This is a true story. He got so upset with his wife, he actually pushed his cart over. The whole thing fell over. They just were angry and he just shook it and just pushed it over. And I remember thinking even as a 17 year old, I remember thinking what in the world Get a hold of yourself man. That's your wife, dude Aren't you supposed to love her to like death be a part or something like that? How absolutely immature? That's what I thought as a 17 year old And listen, I did not gain respect for that person. I absolutely lost it. I Mean the physical feet of pushing the cart over was kind of crazy, but I didn't respect, my respect for him did not increase. I lost it. And I did not believe that man loved his wife. And so when Christians, when Christians get into fighting or bashing each other on social media, the watching world has the same reaction that I did to that married couple. But listen to me clearly. Let me, I'm going to take some precious time to say this. I'm not saying there are not times that we need to call each other out. We see this actually in the Bible. Paul publicly called out Peter. Paul called him out, but listen to me, he called him out to his face, man to man. He didn't do it from behind a phone, he didn't do it from behind a screen. Paul called out Peter and he did it when Peter's walk and Peter's talk did not line up and it was so, so broken that it was actually detrimental to the church and it was leading other people, it was destructive for other believers. And Paul was desperate to maintain the unity and the integrity of the church. And so he called out Peter, two apostles, church, we are one body to love and to care for each other. We are one group, no matter where you are on the cultural spectrum, wherever you are, on the financial scale, We are one body, meant to worship the one Spirit, following the same Jesus, in our common faith to our true God. Titus, chapter 3, Paul writes to Titus, who's a pastor, and he's giving him some coaching, and Paul says to this young pastor, he says in chapter 3, verse 10, he says, Titus 3:10 As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him. That's scripture y'all. That's scripture. Meaning the Bible would rather your church be small and unified than large and tolerate people who cause division. But let me ask you this, if you kick out a divisive person from your church you think they stop being divisive? No, they're going to write to social media and let all the world know exactly what they think. This call for unity is costly, but it's a paramount primary call for the church. And so if I could, I actually want to, as your pastor, I just want to take an aside for a second. And I want to share something that I think could be the seeds of this unity in many ways for not just peace, but I think especially the American church, and it's this. It's when we are more discipled by online personalities rather than in the context of the local church. When we are more formed by faces on screen rather than scripture in the company of fellow Christians in the church. When we are discipled primarily by social media influencers rather than a group of believers who live around each other, worshiping together in the same church. I'm telling you, when we turn to the internet as our primary source of discipleship, it's unhealthy. It's unhealthy. And before I get a flood of emails from all y'all defending your favorite online pastor, let me just clarify. I'm not saying you can't engage good Christian content. There are some amazing pastors who have great online platforms. But I'm saying as a general principle, if your primary mode of being discipled, if your primary shaping of your Christian faith comes from online voices and not the context of God's ordained church, local church, that's dangerous. That's so dangerous. We are primarily meant to be discipled. Hear me on this. I'm going to give you a really thick sentence. And if someone believes this, I need an amen. I believe we are primarily meant to be discipled by God's Holy Spirit through the right teaching of God's word under God ordained elders, under God ordained pastors who sit under the authority of God ordained elders as we sit in relationship with those who are in the local church. Let me say that again. I believe we are primarily meant to be discipled by God's Holy Spirit, through the right teaching of God's word, under God-ordained pastors, who sit under the accountability of God's ordained elders, as we all sit alongside one another in relationship in the context of a local church. Here's the problem. Pastors and personalities online often get us fired up about hot topics when we're meant to be on a path of formation by God's Word. There are so, so, so many bad theologians out there discipling Christians because they have a major platform and they engage bad hermeneutics and they have poor exegesis. What I mean is that they don't know how to read or properly apply the Bible. Here's a very specific way this happens, and I'm trying to train you to have ears to hear when you engage this online. This is what happens. Pastors use scripture to make a point rather than letting scripture make the point. This is why we're so key to read scripture first and make sure that everything we do say and teach comes from scripture, that I'm not teaching you something and say, oh yeah, I got a Bible verse to back that up. I'm not saying we can't engage topical times, issues of topics, but as a church family, you gotta have ears attuned to this. Our unity that we are to have must be grounded in the truth. So let me ask you a question. What's more important, that we are effective in our ministry or that we're faithful to scripture. Go ahead, class, anybody. Faithful to scripture, absolutely. Being faithful to scripture predicates the other. Listen to me, I want us to be great at both. I want us to be faithful to scripture and effective in our ministry. But faithfulness to scripture must come first. We cannot sacrifice a faithfulness to what God has revealed in scripture in order to get people in the doors or in order to get people to feel the feels. Too many times we get people in the door and then we say that's effective ministry. Our unity must be grounded in the truth and it must be displayed through our love for one another. This is probably the last time I'm going to say this publicly but I'm trying to make a point with this. Peace Church was recently named the 29th fastest growing church in the United States. That blows my mind. That's awesome. That's God's goodness to us. That's your faithfulness in being evangelists out there and sharing the good news and inviting people to church. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. But I will tell you, I wish we could say we're among the most unified churches in the United States, but unfortunately we don't keep those lists. So here's my challenge to you. Here's my challenge to you. We can't just be united by saying that we believe the same things. We must be united because our life and our faith and our practice is marked by sacrificial love for one another as we confess the same things stemming from the faith that we hold in common. So I'm gonna give you four questions. And I am not expecting you to respond to every single one. I'm just really hoping the Spirit uses one of these questions to challenge you. All right, so the first one's got like a couple questions within it, but you'll get what I'm saying. Four questions, just listen to the Spirit prompting your heart for one of these, or more, but really just one. 1. Are you in relationship with people of your church? Meaning, do you know your elders? Do you connect with any of our pastors? Or do you have community at the church and you serve with them? 2. Do you financially support God's work in this world, starting with the local church? I will tell you, my wife and I, we support many Christian organizations financially, but our first 10% of everything we make goes directly back to God's church and it always will. 3. What happens more in your life? That you get fired up by watching online voices or that you're formed by reading God's word? I think the Spirit's prompted me to say that one again. What happens more in your life? That you get fired up by watching online voices, or that you're formed by reading God's word? 4. Are you willing to submit to church leadership when it comes to secondary issues so that opinions and preferences don't become seeds of discord? Our passage says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another, and love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. Jesus Christ did this, modeled this, showed this, prayed this for us. He gave up his life for us, not just to the torment of a Roman cross. Jesus suffered the wrath of God in our place. He took our punishments. God poured out his wrath upon our sin, except Jesus stood in our place so that we didn't receive the wrath, he did. He did this so that we could be saved, so that we could have eternal life, so that we could have fellowship with God, and so that we could have unity with one another. And with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the most important event that ever happened in the history of the world, with the resurrection proving that Jesus is who he said he is, proving that God's promises are real, both for our eternal life, Jesus' resurrection is the promise for our unity that we can have through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirits. When we do not strive for unity, you cannot strive for something without letting something go. When we don't strive for unity, it's like we're telling Christ, your sacrifice wasn't all that it was cracked up to be. The world is increasingly calling our message, our ethic, hate speech. And we as a church, we cannot believe for a second that we will ever think that we'll be effective out there if we're not unified in here. So before we get out there and challenge the culture and win souls for Jesus, we must be unified as Jesus prayed. Because in a world where truth and love is no longer tolerated, we must be unified. Amen. Would you please stand up? We have a world watching us and they're watching to see if our walk and our talk line up They're watching to see if what we say is actually what we believe and one of the ways we can demonstrate this for the watching World is with our voices joined together and worship So we're gonna sing a song that in many ways declares exactly what we believe So we're gonna sing what we believe but as we sing we're gonna join our voices together Both those who can sing and those who cannot Because that doesn't matter. What matters is our unity. So I pray, even you, way in the back, to you, way in the front. Let's lift up our voices. If you call on the unity of the church, now is the time to demonstrate that. So, Father God, we come before you asking that you fill this place with the power, presence, and person of your Holy Spirit, who will bind us together in unity as we declare these truths alongside one another for God's glory. And in Jesus' name we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen. And everyone said, Amen.

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Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, May 12, 2024 The Church Never Preaches On... 1 John 3:1-10 The Power of Sin in the Christian Life 2 Overview Main Idea: Christ’s victory over sin gives us a new identity from sin. Sermon Outline: A new trajectory (1-3) A new morality (4-7) A new family (5-10) 3 Pre-Questions 1. How has the presence of sin (post-salvation) affected you? 2. Why does it matter if we sin? 4 Questions 1. Read Romans 7:16-20. How does this passage help us understand the idea of sin remaining in our lives even after we are saved? 2. What dangers come with the idea that we can be fully free from sin in this life? 3. Often, we believe that the gospel message is only for non-Christians, but how does this message teach us that it is also for believers? PDF Download

PODCAST That's a Good Question Unpacking the Image of God & Defining a Healthy Church October 17, 2023 Jon Delger & Ryan DB Kimmel Listen to this Episode JonHey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast at Peace Church. This is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon, I serve as a pastor at Peace and I also get to serve as the weekly host of this show. And I'm here today with... RyanHey, I'm Ryan, I'm the lead pastor here at Peace Church. That's right. JonExcited to get to have a conversation. If you want to submit questions, you can do so at peacechurch.cc/questions. The big one we got to cover today is this, what is a healthy church? Question #1: What is a healthy church? RyanYeah, yep. RyanThis is an important topic, and it's a topic close to my heart because I am a lead pastor, but also because I'm a Christian and member of the church. And oddly enough, I just addressed this not too recently, or actually very recently in a sermon. And it is an important topic. And I think in our day and age when the world is so divided on so many issues, it's easy for the church to feel that and therefore, on health creep in and become part of the church's life, which is not what Jesus wants. I mean, if you look at Jesus' final prayer, hours before his arrest, torture and crucifixion, one of the primary thrusts of his final prayer was that we would be one, that we would be unified. And while he didn't use the term health, I think that's exactly what he's pointing at. That we would be unified, we would be healthy, we would be strong, effective for his mission in this world. JonYeah. All right, so let's start historically. So historically, going back to the Reformers 500 years ago, guys who started the Protestant church broke off from the Roman Catholic church. Those guys talked about some marks of a true and healthy church. They had three. First one was proper preaching of the word. RyanProper preaching of the word. They also talked about the proper or right administration of the sacraments. And then everybody's favorite topic, church discipline. JonThat's right. That's right. That's kind of unique to think about those three things. I think, you know, obviously if you know the history, you know that makes sense to you, but you know, thinking just from where we sit today, who would think of church discipline as one of the markers of a healthy church? RyanYeah, I think it's because discipline carries such weight in our world. And I think another way you might think about it is like just true accountability. Are church members being held accountable to the life that God's called us to live. And when we go wayward, the church is doing what God's called them to do, to bring back those wayward souls. JonThat's right. That's right. And that's such an important way, when we talk about church discipline, we'll have to do a future episode on that at some point. RyanYeah, we probably should, actually. Yeah. But for now, I mean, it's just important to realize that discipline has a positive goal. It has the goal of bringing back wayward people. Church discipline, you know, people might think of kind of just plain old kicking people out of the church, but that's not quite what it means. What it means is holding brothers and sisters accountable for sin in their lives and inviting them to follow Jesus more closely. It's not about reprimand, it's about restoration. Yeah, exactly, exactly, totally. So I think what I like about when the Reformers identified those three things, it wasn't, the qualification wasn't, is everybody happy at your church? Is everyone agreeing with what the elders are saying? Does everyone like what the pastor is preaching? It wasn't contingent on people's happiness towards their church or the direction of the church. It's, are the church doing the right things? Is the church preaching God's Word? Is it rightly dividing the Word of God? Is the sacraments being held to the esteem that they should be? And are members being held accountable to the life that they've signed up to live? As opposed to our day and age where we probably think things like the church is healthy because no one's gossiping, everybody's happy, you know what I mean? Those sort of markers. I love how the reformers kind of bring it down even deeper, just to the base level of, no, no, no, no, is the church doing the right things? Right. JonYeah. They're starting more with the Bible and what Jesus says the church should be. RyanYeah, exactly. JonInstead of just what puts smiles on people's faces, keeps them content and showing up. JonSo, cool.So, thinking about, that's kind of our historical perspective, but thinking about today and our unique situation of what it's like in the world today, what are some of the things that you think stand out most about a church that are markers of health in the world today? What stands out as like, oh wow, that makes a healthy church just pop out in the world today? RyanWell, let me kind of throw back a question on you. I remember in seminary we had a professor who had this sign on his door and it caused a lot of conversation and the sign said healthy things grow, healthy churches grow. And it was this notion of like part of the sign that your church is healthy is that it's growing. And I know in our world we're really averse to quantifying things down to numbers but that's a way to understand if your church is growing or not. Now you could also say there's also growth as in spiritual growth and spiritual death and those sort of things but I'm just kind of curious Pastor Jon in your estimation do you put numerical attendance growth as a marker of a healthy church? JonYou gotta just make it hard for me don't you? Yeah I wanted you to answer first. That's funny. Here's how I would say it. I would say that a numerical numerical growth is a byproduct of a healthy church. So in that sense, it's an important metric to watch, but it's not the sum total of being a healthy church. So I've talked with guys that have talked about, they started with a church of X amount, and they'll say, I grew it down to about 30 people or something like that. I think the biblical term for that is pruning. Right, right, totally. And the point is to say that, you know, they grew it in terms of spiritual health, but not numerical health at first. But then, so, actually I'm thinking of a specific of a church in our area that's very large, that the lead pastor, you know, 30 years ago or whenever, when he started that church, he talked about it was, you know, it involved pruning at first, but then once the church became truly healthy, it did take off in numerical growth. And so it doesn't have to look like, you know, going from 30 people to thousands, but yeah, I would say in general, it is true, yeah, that healthy churches are going to grow. RyanYeah, I would say, you know, attendance growth is a, it definitely can be a marker of health, but it's not exclusively an indication of health because we know plenty of unhealthy churches that are preaching a man-centered message. I was going to say man-centered gospel, I don't even believe in that term. A man-centered message that are growing and obviously that's not a healthy church. So we think it's a definitely it's a good indication like you're saying it's a metric that's helpful to understand you know as a church has to make certain logistical decisions but that's just that's one of the ones, that's a question that comes up immediately when we talk about church health. Church health must mean growth, growth must mean more people coming to your church, which is like, yeah, let's talk about that. It can be. I kind of, during my sermon, when I talked about how I believe that we are largely a healthy church, and I made a very clear distinction, I'm not saying we're a perfect church. I was very clear we're not a perfect church. We have room to grow. There's areas that we can become more like Jesus. But I said we are a healthy church and some of the indications I said to that was I did say yes because our attendance is growing but also even more so I'd say we preach the Bible, we seek to teach the Bible, our membership is growing, we're multiplying as a church, we're not just staying local, we're going regional. I believe that we have people who are out there sharing the gospel both relationally and also just through evangelism Just getting on the getting out there and talking with strangers about Jesus financially people are giving their Demonstrating a level of generosity our church is becoming more connected as people are finding a relationship with one another I mean There's there's lots of markers that help indicate growth and I'd say even when you look at some of the negative markers of growth Like what what are not growth? So what are some of the negative markers that would indicate a church is unhealthy? I would say I don't have a lot of examples of those. Things like, you know, a real vibe of cynicism in the church, or I don't think gossip is rampant in our church. Those sort of like, those real sort of, again, those what I'd say markers of unhealth, I can't point to a lot of that happening. And when it does happen, we address it, which is what a healthy church does. When we know people who are going wayward or being hurtful or detrimental, pastors or elders or leaders discipline or hold people to account. So those are some of the things I would respond to church health. JonYeah, well to that point, if somebody in our church or another church, church member, thinks that their church is unhealthy, what do you recommend they do? Who should they talk to? What should they say? Question #2: If a church member thinks that their church is unhealthy, what do you recommend they do? RyanFirst thing I would say is pray, and not because that's just like the quote unquote Christian answer, but because I think that's the right answer. Number one, pray, and then I think you need to go to your elders. If there's, I think if you're identifying one person who's the seed of unhealth, I think Matthew 18 says you probably should go and talk to that person one-on-one, but if a Christian just thinks in a general sense they don't see health in their church or they see unhealth, then I would say pray and then approach your elder or one of your elders depending on how your government structure is. That's what I'd say. What would you say? JonYeah, totally. I totally agree. For example, in our church, the congregation each has an elder, a specific elder that is part of their zone, their shepherding elder that they can go to. And so if you're going to contact that elder, I would recommend that phone call or that email ought to be full of questions. You know, you're sending an email to that guy and you're saying, hey, I've noticed this, can you please tell me why that's happening or what you think about that? Or... RyanAlso, I think 100%, emails that have questions are received so much better than emails that are full of accusations or statements. And also, I would say, it's very helpful to bring like some examples like if someone's gonna come to me and say I feel like Our church is unhealthy. I would say why do you say that and if they just say I don't know I just feel that way that does not help right like what do you actually mean? Like if you care enough to actually have the conversation with your elder then care enough to come with some specifics But I I completely agree with you. I'm so glad you said it and I want to underscore it again, come with questions. If you think one thing, seek clarification just to make sure that what you're observing is accurate. Or maybe there's a piece of the puzzle that you're missing that a question could help fill that in. JonYeah, awesome. Awesome, well hey, there's tons we could say about what is a healthy church. We'll have to talk more about that in the future. But I got one more I want to talk about, a question that came in from a fourth grader. That question is this: If God made us in His image, then why aren't we exactly like Him? Question #3: If God made us in His image, then why aren't we exactly like Him? RyanSo fourth grader, wow, what a profound, great theological question. I'm so, so I think one of the ways to think about it is when you talk about something that is imprinted or stamped, it's not gonna be what that thing is. It's just gonna be an image of that thing. If you think about it like a stamp, not like a postage stamp, but like when you stamp, what's the word I'm looking for? Like a rubber stamp or play-doh. Yeah, you press an image into something and it reflects that image, but it doesn't become that thing. And so that's what I would say to this fourth grader with such a phenomenal question. We bear God's image, which means we're imprinted with God's image. Not that we become his being. We don't become God. RyanThat's not what it means. It's we are imprinted with his image. And now we can talk about what that means and what it doesn't mean. We talk about there's communicable attributes and incommunicable attributes of God. And I know that's probably too big of a term for a fourth grader. But what that means is that there's qualities that God has. Some of those qualities we share. Some of those qualities, by the fact that he is God, we cannot share. The fact that he's all-knowing. We're not all-knowing. But there are communicable attributes, those attributes that we can share, such as we can know what love is and share love like God, not in the full God sense, of course. We can know things, we have intelligence, God has intelligence, wisdom, those sort of things. That's something we know when we talk about what it means to be made in God's image. It's not that we become God, we don't become the thing that God is, we just bear an image of what God is. And what we mean by that is that we share attributes, qualities of God. Some, but not all. Jon Yeah, I love that. That's really good. I was thinking also of just like a son or a daughter to their parent. You know, you often, kids look like their mom or dad, but they don't look exactly like them, but they look like them. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a, scripture talks about us being God's children. And so I think that's another way to talk about it. RyanYeah, and also, for instance, my son Jed, he bears my image in the fact that he's absolutely obsessed with the Legend of Zelda video game series. It's like all he talks about, and all he wants to do, and all he wants to play, and everything for Christmas is Link and Zelda related, and I'm like, my son bears my image. I love it. JonThat's awesome, yeah. So shared interests, I like that. RyanYeah. JonSweet, well that's awesome. That's all the time we've got for today. Finally, I want to say that several of you have sent in questions about Israel, asking about Israel. And so we're actually going to take time to answer those questions next week. So, next week's special episode, we're going to talk specifically about some of the world things going on over in Israel. And we are not political commentators, but we do want to talk about Christian worldview and theology and what the Bible says and so we're gonna spend next week Getting into that so look forward to that tune in next week. RyanYep. Yeah, we want to underscore This is this is near and dear to our heart We're obviously concerned as the world is But we're gonna be spending the next week kind of watching how things unfold praying Discerning searching the scriptures and we're excited to talk about that next week. That's right I want to take some time so we can talk about it intelligently. JonAbsolutely. Yeah. Awesome. Hey, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks Pastor Ryan. RyanThanks Pastor Jon. JonHave an awesome week.

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