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

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

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

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

Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, May 26, 2024 What Do I Do With My Guilt? Isaiah 53:4-6 What Do I Do With My Guilt? 2 Overview Main Idea: God had to treat Jesus like us to treat us like Jesus Sermon Outline: 1. Where does guilt come from? 2. What can we do with our guilt? 3. What was done for our guilt? 3 Pre-Questions 1. What challenged you the most from this message? 2. Why do you think guilt and shame are hard topics to address as Christians? 4 Questions 1. What is your "go-to" way of avoiding guilt (deny, distract, become numb)? 2. Read 2 Corinthians 7:9-13. How does this passage help us understand guilt? 3. How should guilt draw us closer to God? 4. How will you allow substitution to invade your life? PDF Download

PODCAST That's a Good Question In God We Trust: Christian Perspectives on Our Response to the Election November 4, 2024 Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen to this Episode Hey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church and Resound Media. You can find more great content for the Christian life and church leaders at resoundmedia.cc. That's a Good Question is a place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon, I serve as a pastor as well as a host on this show. You can always submit questions to peacechurch.cc slash questions. I'm here today with Mitch. Yeah, I'm feeling patriotic because if you're listening to this when it comes out, it's election day, November 5th, 2024. It's okay if you're listening to this afterwards, it's still going to be applicable to you. But we are having this episode really talk about some of the things that are going on with this election and elections in general. We've already done an episode and a whole teaching video series on the topic of Christianity and politics, and I really highly suggest that you go find those videos. John did such a great job in talking and tackling those issues. And so we're not gonna be addressing that again, but we do wanna address some theological and just some real Christian life questions that relate to the election. So for example, what do Christians do after an election, whether you're a candidate that you voted for won or lost. How does God's sovereignty relate to that and our agency in voting? So I'm really excited for us to jump into that. So let's jump into our first question. And I got to say, it's going to be great for today on election day, but also our leaders are already telling us that we're not going to know the results for several days. So a lot of the stuff we're going to talk about is going to be applicable potentially for a few days, for a while. And also on top of that, I would say, highly suggest that you share this with someone who you feel like this would be applicable for or who might find this episode of value. Because that's also how we get this out is mostly by word of mouth. So we'd love for you guys to share this with someone you know. But let's jump into that first question. If God is in control, does it really matter who I vote for? Or on the flip side of that question, if voters decide, is God really in control? So, I think this is an age-old question, really, about God's sovereignty versus human responsibility. God's in control of everything, and yet you and I think, speak, act, make decisions every day. And so, how do those two things relate, especially in an election? How does democracy itself relate to God's sovereignty? And unfortunately, I've heard a lot of people, even Christians say, you know, God's in control so I don't need to vote, you know, it doesn't matter. But I think that's clearly not what scripture teaches. You know, one of the things that I've said many times is that, you know, I don't think you should treat that, you know, don't take that mindset to your seatbelt when you get in your car, right? And just say, well, it doesn't matter if I wear my seatbelt because God's in control, he'll control if I live or die. Well, he does control if you live or die, but he uses means for an end, right? If he's gonna save your life during a car accident, he might use the seatbelt in order to save your life. So, that's an important decision for which you have some responsibility. And the same thing is true for an election. You have a responsibility. So, I think of some classic passages when we think of God's sovereignty and human responsibility. One of the best examples is, of course, Jesus going to the cross, who's responsible for that action. You and I know that it was God's plan for Jesus to go and to die on the cross to take away our sins and to rise again. But we also know that human actors were at play. We know that the Jews, the Romans, we know that people were involved in sending Jesus to the cross. I think of a classic passage, Acts 2.23 says, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. So Peter's preaching during Pentecost, he says Jesus was delivered up according to the foreknowledge of God, and then he also says you crucified and killed him. Okay, so he's saying both things are true. God's in control, it was God's plan, and also you human beings who sent Jesus to the cross are responsible for your actions. Yeah. Yeah. I was just listening to a little bit of Charles Spurgeon today. He was talking about that idea of human agency and God's sovereignty are like the two rails of a railroad track. And that they're separate, right? They're two different things and yet off in the distance they converge together. And so he was saying, you know, how they come together, we don't know, but in eternity, we'll see that kind of touch together. And it is kind of a mystery, but we know God commands us to do certain things. And at the same time, we do know that he's sovereign. And that can be hard, but. Totally, we don't, yeah, there's some mystery in knowing how God's sovereignty and human responsibility come together. But we just, we have the clear teachings from the Bible that both of those things are true at the same time, even if we don't fully understand how they go together. So yeah, you've got a responsibility, Christians, to go out today, election day, and to vote. You've got a responsibility to pray for the Lord, to bring about the outcome that is good for the United States of America, what's gonna lead to flourishing for human beings, what's gonna lead to the furthering, the advancement of the gospel for our country. We love God and we love our neighbors, so we want to pray for what's best for them. We want to vote for what's best for them. Yeah, absolutely. Let's jump into this next question. Will I have to give an account for how I voted? And then this, maybe the follow-up is, what if I don't know everything that someone who I voted for stands for? What if they're some school board members, maybe that I don't know exactly what their position is on things? Right, right, good question. So in general, a couple of passages come to mind. I think of Matthew 12, 36, where Jesus is saying that every careless word we're gonna have to give an account for. I think of passages like Romans 14 that say, each one of us will give an account of himself to God. They give it in Matthew 16, Jesus says, he will repay each person according to what he does. So scripture is pretty clear that you and I will be judged for our words and our deeds, all of them. And I think like voting very clearly falls into, it's one of our words or deeds. It's something that we do. So we're going to give an account to God for how we used our influence, our voice, our vote, this chance to speak into who leads our country. So yeah, we will be judged. Now you brought up the interesting question of what about when we don't have all the information? I think that's where, even going back a step further, you say, well, maybe I had information, but maybe things changed, or maybe that candidate didn't do what I thought they were going to do. You know, so there are different factors that come in. You mean politicians sometimes don't do what they say they're going to do? That's right. Pretty sure. Oh my goodness. So that's the thing, right? You know, we've got to, I think God's going to hold us responsible for, you know, the information we had, the way that we used our wisdom at the time to make the best decision that we could. I think that's true. Yeah, unfortunately I think in some of these local elections some candidates don't supply as much information as we would like. I ran into that and when I went to the polls beforehand I was looking at one of my more local races and I was trying to make a decision and two of the candidates just didn't provide any information online. So I texted a couple of friends who knew those people and I tried to gather as much information as I could, but I was voting on very little information and I was a little frustrated by that. It's hard. I mean, in your case, maybe you knew some people who knew them, but I think in a lot of cases you're just like, I don't even know who this is and what am I supposed to do with that? Right. I had the advantage of living in the community for a long time and knowing some people who happened to know them. So I had that advantage. But yeah, for some people, they just, they had no idea. And so, yeah, I think that's the thing. I think God in his infinite wisdom and knowledge and goodness and justice, you know, knows that, you know, we are not omniscient, that we don't know everything, that we don't have access to all information. And so we've got to make the wisest decision we can with the information we have at the time. Yeah. Speaking of finding good resources, today, it's really exciting that we have, for the first time, a sponsor. We have an ad that we'd love to share with you. If you're looking to dive deeper into faith and to grow in wisdom, we'd love for you to discover books that inspire change and transform you with Moody Publishers. From trusted authors to fresh voices, Moody offers resources that equip you for life's journey with Christ. And right now, we have an exclusive offer just for you. If you use promo code RESOUND40, you can get 40% off your next purchase. Whether you're searching for devotionals, study guides, or impactful reads, Moody Publishers has something for everyone. So don't miss out. Visit moodypublishers.com and use Resound40 at checkout. That's moodypublishers.com and use Resound40 at checkout. Enrich your faith today. Just as a side note, we had an opportunity to look at some resources from Moody Publishers. And man, they've just been super great enriching things for us, whether you're a pastor or whether you're just someone who's a Christian trying to find good resources. It's been really good. You did an interview just the other day for a different podcast, Retiring and Inspiring, with Gene Getz, who's been a great faithful pastor for many, many years, talking about his experience. So great podcast to listen to, awesome author. He had a book that just came out recently, Moody Publishers. I also knew Moody Publishers just released in modern English another version of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. So great resource. So great resources there, moodypublishers.com, resound40 at checkout, 40% off, great deal. Get some great resources. Yeah, we'll put their link in our show notes with that promo code too. Let's jump into this next question. A lot of people say that persecution would help the church grow and bring us out of some sort of lazy cultural Christianity. Should voters lean into that and vote for greater persecution? Have you ever heard someone say that? I have. I've heard that many times actually. Very, very interesting perspective. So yeah, I sympathize a little bit with the feeling because, you know, throughout the history of the church, we have, I think we've spent more time than not being persecuted. I think of the worldwide church. And by God's grace, the church flourishes under persecution, which is awesome. But to say that we should go after that, I think is another thing. We don't have any examples of that in the Bible where the church was like, hey, we think the church will do better if we're all getting persecuted, beaten and killed. So let's go get that. Let's go figure out how to make that happen. Yeah, you're saying the disciples didn't gather around and said, let's think about a church growth strategy and let's figure out how to make the Romans angry. Yeah, let's really get them upset. Yeah, the church has, God's people have been persecuted a lot throughout their history. See if we can take them off so much that they kill us and our families and everyone we know. Right, it makes me think a little bit of, you know, there's been some talk and some studies on, you know, how amazing it is, how resilient children are, even when they grow up in bad environments, you know, a violent neighborhood, a broken home, whatever it is. You know, some of them turn out really well, and they not only survive, but they thrive. They go through adversity, and it makes them a stronger person in their adult life. And that's great. But I don't think anybody's saying, as a result of knowing that, we should on purpose raise our children in violent neighborhoods, broken homes, bad situations. That's not the conclusion. Just because by God's grace, human beings are adaptive and resilient and good things can come out of bad things, doesn't mean that we should make bad things happen on purpose. Yeah. So, and yeah, like I said, we don't have any example of that happening in Scripture. So, no, I don't think that we should on purpose bring about persecution. I think it will likely in our country happen increasingly in the United States of America. We're already seeing, you know, threats on freedom of religion, freedom of speech, those kind of things. And so I think Christians are going to probably face more persecution because of our, because our worldview is so much different from what the rest of the world would say. So we're going to face that anyways. We don't need to bring it about on purpose. Yeah, no, absolutely. Jon, are there any situations in the Bible that help us inform us in this current situation? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Actually, the first thing I thought of when you said that was that we don't have any specific parallel situations to an election, like election day, like we're in right now, because in Israel, in Judah, in Rome, God's people under Assyria, God's people under Babylon, God's people under the Roman Empire, in each of those situations they didn't get to vote in their leader. It wasn't an election. So in that way, this is a unique time in history, a unique place in history that we're, and in the world that we're in, and we thank God for that. We do get to have a voice. We shouldn't waste it, we should use it. So there's that. But there are certainly similar situations where we're looking at leaders, and we're looking at good and bad options, some that go from good to bad, some that go from bad to good. You think of the judges, you think of the kings. I think of one of the refrains in the book of Judges, Judges 21-25, in those days there was no king in Israel. Everybody did what was right in their own eyes. So when we lack... And that's not a positive statement. Right, that's a bad thing. That's not an anthem for expressive individualism and freedom of choice. That's not like, yeah, we all did our own thing and it was great. And it was right, you know. Sometimes I hear that and it's like, oh, maybe that almost sounds like, people could take that as a good thing. Yeah, don't put that on a poster and hang it on your wall. If you've ever read the book of Judges, incredibly dark example of human depravity, of human sin. Right, right. When God's people don't have, or when people in general don't have a good, healthy leader that's leading them in the direction of God's good design for them, yeah, then things aren't going to go well. Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah. In 2024, I've said before, I'll say it again, I wish we had some better choices for candidates. Yeah. I still think that there is a clear choice between the two parties, the two platforms, which one is advocating for things that are at least closer to a biblical worldview. One party is clearly headed away from things that are of a biblical worldview. And yet the candidates themselves, I do wish we had better options. And I think, yeah, throughout the history of the world, I think people have faced that problem many times. Yeah, it reminds me right now at Peace Church, we're going through a Bible study in men's, and women's Bible studies doing the same one through the book of first and second Kings, and looking at some of the different Kings, and it just looks so similar to kind of the situation that we're going through, where you see these kings rise to power, and some of them are good and some of them are bad, and it's just this kind of downward spiral when Israel looks to a man, and men can abuse power. That's part of our fallen nature, is that we typically find something that God's given us that's good, and we find a way to misuse it. And so, you know, you know, sometimes there's good kings, sometimes there's bad kings. But the real mistake that Israel made was not having good or bad kings. It was that they weren't putting Yahweh as their true king. Yeah. I think that brings up a really important point. So if you're, you know, whatever happens today, whatever happens over the coming days, you know, whenever we have the results of the selection of 2024, whatever happens, your vote matters. It is important. You know, I don't want to undermine that. And I want to say whatever the outcome of the election is, God is the one who is ultimately on the throne. Yeah. Jesus is the king over all kings. Yeah, I guess. So that leads me to a question. Say our candidate doesn't win, the one that maybe I'm voting for or whoever the listener's voting for, whatever. If that's something that tears me up inside, if that makes me almost lose control, what would you say to someone like me in that situation? Well, being sad about that is appropriate. In this election, we're facing just a total two worldviews that are very different up against each other. And so, yeah, I mean, I think Christians will either be celebrating or mourning, depending on the outcome. So there's some mourning is appropriate. But like you said, to almost lose your mind or to just lose all hope or something like that would not be appropriate because of this bigger picture that we have as Christians. That our ultimate hope is not in any man or woman and not in any human being on this earth. It's in Jesus. It's in God. He's the one who's ultimately on the throne. Book of Revelation paints a beautiful picture of God being on the throne for all ages. We know that Jesus is going to return and make all things new and right. So as Christians, we have hope. Times might get harder. That's certainly true. We might worry about what's going to happen for our kids, our grandkids. That's certainly true. And yet, one of the things that I think about with our kids is that sometimes I look at things going on and what could be in the future and I worry for them. But you also got to remember God designed them for exactly this time. Yeah. You know, God designed them to be lights in a dark world, whatever is going to come. Yeah. That's that's that's who they are, that's what they're going to be. You know, it's not our job as parents to just fear for them. It's our job to equip them, disciple them, prepare them to go and do God's mission in this world. Yeah, no, that's really good. How do I love my neighbor when we see the world in two opposite ways? How do I love my neighbor when they have a banner or a yard sign of a political candidate that maybe I see as doing something that's wrong? Or if they see one that I have as seeing something that's wrong. Right. Right. In the coming days, yeah, your neighbors might, you know, you might be celebrating or mourning and they might have the opposite result after the selection. So how do you talk to them? Well, I think teepee is probably the first option, right? Toilet paper their house. I hear John that you're pretty good at toilet paper. Oh no. Is that a confirm or deny those rumors? They can step up from my past. Back in high school, I may or may not have partook in that activity many times. I heard your nickname was King Teepee. Oh boy. Well, that was for a different reason entirely. Oh, man. No more questions. That's right. So God calls us to be people of truth and love, right? So our neighbor who sees the world entirely different, who is not living in God's truth, okay? So we got to love them, and loving them doesn't mean compromising on truth. So that can be very tricky in conversations. I think, you know, oftentimes one of the first things you wanna do, especially if it's literally your neighbor, being somebody that you either, that you live near, or that you work with, or somebody that you really do see on a regular basis, not just you run into once. But you see them on a regular basis, you've got the opportunity to demonstrate that even though we disagree entirely on things, that I still treat you with respect as a human being that I still care about your well-being I can still ask How you're doing I can still ask how I can pray for you I can still I don't know bring you gifts or you know do good things for your kids or you know, whatever Yeah, you still be a good neighbor and I think then hopefully that opens the door For some respect when you bring an alternative worldview and a alternative perspective in a conversation about real issues. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's super good. I think oftentimes people can feel even ashamed of some of the positions that they hold on to, like being pro-life. I think that can be something that, no, I think internally they believe that's true, but professing that that's something that they believe to their neighbors can maybe even make them feel like, you know, uncomfortable, but I would just want to say that it feels very uncomfortable. Yeah, I just want to encourage listeners that when you hold to a biblical stance and people reject you or reject what you're saying, it's not rejecting you or somehow thinking less of you, that what you're holding to is truth. And that's something to be proud of. If we really believe true, you know, believing in biblical, having a biblical stance on a political issue isn't necessarily something that's dividing the world. It's trying to come back to the truth, and that's where people ultimately need to come back to. It's not about trying to find a middle ground. If we're going to stand on truth, we have to stand on truth. Right, right. Trying to compromise is not actually the way to go about it. Yeah, you know, so instead of fighting fire with fire, you want to fight fire with water. I think one of the most impressive things that Christians can do with their neighbors, you know, especially this year, there's so much emotion and passion wrapped up in people's positions. You know, especially like on the life issue, you know, if somebody comes at you who is pro-abortion, they're going to come at you usually really strong with strong emotions about how could you possibly restrict the rights of a woman, that kind of mentality. And if you can, you know, if you can, instead of, you know, taking the bait and becoming emotional yourself, if you can stand and calmly, kindly, you know, listen and then respond by, you know, even asking a question like, well, you know, what about the rights of, you know, do you believe that the baby in the womb is a human being? Yeah. Do you think that it's possible they might have rights as well? You know, just, you know, just kind of very kindly, calmly presenting an alternative. And they might not believe you in that conversation, and that's fine. That's not the job, but you're sowing some seeds of truth that might begin to undermine what's in their mind, you know, a false worldview. Yeah. I also think another respectful thing to say is, you know, this is what my God tells me in Scripture. And so this is something that I'm going to be obedient to him on. I know that you might disagree with me on that, but this is something that I believe, you know, what I believe is the God of the universe is telling me and how to live my life and how to operate. And I think if people can't understand that, you know, maybe it's time to find a different conversation partner. Because if they can't respect one of our most fundamental rights in America is freedom of religion. If they can't respect your right to believe in something, in a higher power, that they can't respect your holy text and what it says, even just allowing you to believe that, there's something wrong with the person you're talking to. Yeah, you can appeal to – they would claim that they have a value on tolerance, right? Now, we've talked in other episodes about kind of how the modern idea of tolerance isn't really tolerance, but you could try to at least appeal to that in them that, hey, you know, I have a different worldview here. Can you can you accept that? Can you tolerate that? Yeah, and it's not just a different worldview because I decided I like it, right? It's a different worldview because I believe this is what the infinite God of the universe is telling me to believe, right? And that's, you know, if people can't be charitable in that circumstance, you know, right? And I've had that conversation even about evangelism or hell, you know, saying, you know, somebody gets frustrated with you about you sharing the gospel with them. You can kind of say, well, well, hey, just, you know, just understand it from my perspective for a minute. Yeah. I 100% believe that the Bible came from God and it tells me that if you don't believe in Jesus, you're going to hell. Yeah. So I'm not saying this to you to be mean to you. I'm saying this to you because I believe it. And if I believe it, that I would, how unloving would I be if I don't share that with you? Yeah, absolutely. What would you say to people who say that Jesus came back not to establish an earthly kingdom to establish like a political kingdom, but he came to establish the church and that is a reason not to vote. Is there any truth in that statement? How would you? Well, I was tracking with you until you got to that last part. It's true. He didn't come to establish an earthly nation or kingdom. The church is transnational, it's across nations, it's not one nation. I won't say the joke again. So I was tracking with you until you got to the not vote part. Yeah, so it's true that the church is not one nation, a political nation, but it's also true that we as Christians are called to be good citizens. I think of many passages in scripture like Romans 13 talking about our role in relationship to the state. I think about simple summaries of the law, love God and love neighbor. If we're going to love our neighbors, we've got to participate. When we're talking about officials and laws and things like that that's going to govern our nation, if we love our neighbor, we've got to participate. We want what's best for them. We've got the instruction manual, we've got the blueprint from the architect, from the creator. What's good for human beings? And so how could we as Christians not be involved and give a voice to that? I think even bigger than just our nation, but some of the local elections, right? To love our neighbor, like literally our neighbor, would be to try to vote people who are going to be good people on school boards, good people for some of those local elections who are going to have maybe even a more significant direct impact to you and your community than say the President of the United States might have. Right, we give all of our attention to the President, the presidential race and it's really important. It's important. Yeah, but don't forget on the other ones and remember too that people who start as school board people or you know state representatives or things, they eventually end up in those bigger races. I mean you know you and I get a chance to have a voice on these elections that affect us on a local level. And we're talking about politicians who could have careers that lead them to different places. And so us having an influence in that is really important. Yeah, I think it's a lot like generosity. I've heard a pastor say that he wants Christians to make the most amount of money possible, not because that's a good thing just in general, but because when Christians are the ones who hold the money, they're going to be the most generous with it and in the best way. I think people with a biblical worldview should know best what to do with money. I think also the same is true with voting. I've heard statistics saying that about 50% of Christians aren't going to vote in this election. I think that's crazy to think that we wouldn't come with the best way to vote moving forward. And that we would allow someone else to have that influence in our country, our state and our neighborhoods. Right, you're standing in a circle of people and you gotta make a tough decision. And one of you has the answer from God. And you're gonna say, no, I'll sit this one out while you guys decide. What a silly way to approach it. Yeah, and it's not that everything dies on elections, but why wouldn't we, if you could go back into the book of Kings, why wouldn't we want a good king? Why wouldn't we want to have the right, a good leader for our nation or our state or our neighborhoods? So I think that this is an election that can be maybe anxiety driving for a lot of people. It can be one that can really cause a lot of concern for people. It's unsettling this election, maybe even divisive. How can we anchor our hope as Christians? How can we anchor our hope in Christ? Yeah, well, one of the things that we have to have in mind is the big picture. God created this world good, sin made this world broken, but Jesus is not abandoning us. He is returning to rule and to reign to make all things new. So I wanna just read, this is Revelation 21, a passage I take great comfort in all the time. Here it is. The Apostle John, he's writing his vision that he sees. He says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away. And he who is seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new. Yeah. So there it is. That's the picture the Bible gives us is that Jesus is on the throne. When he returns, he'll make all things new and God will finally be here fully, completely with us. Praise God. So that's the great hope is that that's what's coming. In the meantime, no matter what happens, you and I have a mission. We gotta remember that we're not here for our comfort, we're here for our mission. Our mission is to go there for and make disciples of Jesus. That's what we're here to do. And so, whether times are good, times are bad, whatever's going on around us, that's what we exist for. That's what we raise our families in order to be able to do. We want to go out and share the message that Jesus lived, he died, and he rose, and that people who are living in darkness and in sin can find hope, they can find eternal life in and through Jesus. Well, hey, thanks everybody for listening. I hope you have a great election day. Make sure you get out and vote and be praying for the Lord's will to be done, for the Lord to use his church to make disciples of Jesus no matter what happens next. You can like, subscribe, and follow us, resoundmedia.cc. Have a great week. Bye!

What Defiles A Person? Sermon Series: It Had To Be Said Jon Delger Multiplication Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Mark 7:1-23 Transcript Awesome. Hey, if you got a Bible, would you grab that and open with me to Mark chapter 7. Mark chapter 7, that's where we're going to be this morning. We're going to look at verses 1 through 23. A little bit of a longer reading, so I invite you to have a Bible open and follow along with me as we go. We're in the midst of our series called It Had to be Said, the quotes of Christ that changed the world. And if you've read a lot of scripture, you know that Jesus quotes some of them are really Great sayings that you want to just hang on the wall and memorize and look at every day and some of Jesus sayings just punch you right in the gut, but all of them are absolutely true and we need to hear them. Amen Amen, and so we're gonna get into another one of those this morning in Mark chapter 7 as we hear an answer to the question, what defiles a person in an argument between Jesus and the Pharisees. So we're gonna read it, then I'll pray, then we'll get to work. Mark chapter seven, verses one through 23, here we go. Mark 7:1-23 1 Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5 And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, 13 thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.” 14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” This is God's word. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we give you thanks this morning for the truth of your word. God, I pray that you open up our hearts, that we would receive it, that we would be changed, convicted, encouraged to walk with Jesus. God, I pray that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit, a broken instrument to bring your word to your people. And God, I pray that you would be glorified as we hear what you have to say to us. It 's in Jesus' name we pray all these things. Amen. Amen. Well, one of the things that you might know if you're a homeowner is that home ownership comes with home projects. One of those things they should tell you before you buy a house. I usually enjoy projects on our house. I like to problem solve and figure things out, but there's one kind of project that I always hate doing on our house, plumbing projects. I always find that I end up in a tight space and wet It's not what I what I enjoy in the house that we owned before this one that we own right now We had one in particular plumbing problem. The main problem was that our kitchen sink was in the opposite corner of the house from the main drain that went down into the ground And so there was a really long run It would go all the way down one wall and then down the other wall in the basement And so because it was such a long run it would kind of get flat and things would get stuck. And so the kitchen sink would back up and I'd pour some Drano in there and I'd do the snake thing and all that. And I'd do whatever I could to try to approach the problem from the top instead of getting on down in the basement and getting into the, into the pipes and that kind of thing. But inevitably, eventually it got stuck and I couldn't fix it from, from above. So I had to get down in the basement and you slide over those ceiling tiles and you reach up in there. And I know that I'm going to open up this pipe and some stuff's going to come out. And so I sort of plan and prepare. I lay down a tarp. I got a five-gallon bucket and I'm kind of looking at the pipe. I kind of look at the bucket and I kind of calculate. And I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's in the right spot. This is going to work out. And I go to cut into the pipe and open it up. And of course, I was wrong. I underestimated just how forcefully the fluid would come out of this pipe, and it comes out and it hits the bulkhead in front of it and bounces back right onto me. Because it's like way up here, and I'm standing on a bucket, and I'm up here like this, and it just comes right down on my head. It's like one of those moments where you want to scream, but then I would have to open my mouth and some of the stuff might get in there. Thankful that it wasn't a toilet, but it was the kitchen sink, which some nasty stuff goes down. Lovely experience. Nonetheless, Jesus tells us in this passage that what defiles a person is not the stuff that comes to us from the outside. It's actually the stuff that comes up from inside of us. So that is what defiles a person, makes them dirty, disgusting, unclean. And that is the problem. The main idea this morning is just that it's not what goes in, but what comes out that matters for a person. The key quote comes from verse 15 in the text. Jesus says, hear me, all of you, and understand that there is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him. So this morning, we're going to talk about the source and the solution to contamination. The Pharisees and Jesus each have a different answer to the question of what causes people to become unclean and what is the solution to uncleanness. And so we're gonna look at each of those things, starting with the source. So let's talk about that. Take a look with me at the first couple of verses of Mark chapter seven. It says, when the Pharisees gathered to him with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled that is unwashed All right, so you got some guys come from Jerusalem Which is the central religious hub of the nation of Israel in particular you got Pharisees and scribes So these are the elites the professionals the religious leaders of Jesus's day These are the guys who people look to for religious wisdom and teaching and you got Jesus this teacher who comes on the scene and Is gathering huge crowds to hear him and people love him and they follow him. And so the scribes and the Pharisees come and they're jealous of Jesus. Right? This is a guy who is gathering much bigger crowds to him than they are. He's a threat to their way of life, to their authority, to their position. And so they're jealous of Jesus and they come hoping to trap Jesus, they notice that the disciples of all things don't wash their hands before eating dinner. How many of you force your kids to wash their hands before every meal? It's okay. A lot of you are bad parents just like I am. That's great, that's okay, it's all good. I rarely make my kids wash their hands before dinner. The one time that I usually do is when we go to like the mall or a big store. When they come in from outside, I always say God made dirt and dirt don't hurt. When their hands are all muddy and nasty, you know, that's no big deal. But when you come home from the store and you just got like all that stuff all over, you know, that's the stuff that I worry about. Unfortunately, that makes me a little bit like the Pharisees. It says in this passage that they especially washed their hands after coming back from the marketplace. So they were scared of the germs and stuff they get from other people, namely the Gentiles. So unfortunately, bad for me. I think like that a little bit. But the Pharisees think to themselves, here's our chance to get them. And so they asked Jesus, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Now we're gonna look at Jesus' answer in just a minute, but before we do, we gotta understand the question that the Pharisees are asking. And we're gonna do that by asking two more questions. What are these traditions of the elders that they're talking about. And what do they tell us about how the Pharisees think about the source of contamination? So let's tackle that first question. What are the traditions of the elders? Are they, are they asking about the disciples obedience to the Bible? Is this a Bible command or is it something else? Is it a man-made religious tradition? Well, let's look at the Bible says according to the old Testament, some of the rules about hand washing were for priests. Priests had to wash their hands before going into the tabernacle. If you want to look up some of these passages later, you're welcome to. It's Exodus 30 verse 19, Exodus 40 verse 13, and Leviticus 22 verses 1 through 6. All talk about how the priests have to wash their hands before they go into the tabernacle, the place where God dwelled and where they go in to be with him. The only other passage that talks about the washing of hands is Leviticus 15 verse 11, which does say that anybody has to wash their hands after they've come in contact with a bodily discharge, like blood or something else that came out of the body. Okay, so that's what the Bible says about washing of hands. Those are all the verses. It doesn't say that you have to wash your hands before every meal. Good news for all of us, right? Us bad parents made it through that one. So it's not the Bible that the Pharisees are appealing to is something else. It's the traditions of the elders, man-made religious traditions. Now we'll talk about that more in a minute, but let's talk about the second question of what does this tell us about how the Pharisees think about the source of contamination? The Pharisees invented these traditions, man-made traditions, because of a certain way of thinking, a way of thinking about how somebody becomes unclean, about how somebody becomes dirty, about how somebody becomes not right with God, separated from God, the very problem of the human race. The Pharisees believed that the source of the problem, the source of contamination was not in here, but was out there, somewhere out there. The Pharisees, I would say, are kind of like spiritual germophobes, right? They walked around everywhere with their hand sanitizer and the air purifier and the essential oils and the diffuser and they wouldn't shake anybody's hands and they just said, you know, everybody just kind of stay back, right? I don't want to get near anybody. I don't want to touch anybody. You're sick. I don't want to get near, especially the Gentiles, the outsiders, other people that might get me unclean. Now, in the Old Testament, there were these things called purity laws about how to be ceremonially clean to be able to go into the temple, but the Pharisees misunderstood the point of these laws. They thought the point of these laws were to say that human beings came into this world and they were good, and you just need to keep bad things away from you. But that's actually not the point of the Old Testament purity laws. The point of those laws was actually as a grand visual aid to show that human beings are actually not good, not clean on our own, but in fact we need to be washed in order to be with God. That was the point of the Old Testament purity laws. So the Pharisees read the text, but they came to the wrong conclusion. They believed that the source of contamination was out there, that if they could just keep it away, then they would be good. What they didn't understand, what they failed to realize was that the problem was not out there. The problem was in here. And that's exactly what Jesus goes on to explain and point out to them. He says it most clearly in verses 14 and 15. Take a look with me. And Jesus called the people to him again and said to them, hear me, all of you and understand, there is nothing outside of a person that by going into him can defile him. But the things that come out of a person are what defile him. And if you jump down to verse 21, he gives some examples. He says, for from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these things come out of a person. So Jesus says, the Pharisees, you entirely missed the point. The real problem is inside of a person. Makes me think of Jeremiah 17, nine, says the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it? The Bible tells us that we have a problem and it's not somebody out there, it's actually in here. Going all the way back to the very beginning of the Bible, human beings are born with a sinful nature. I think at one time, before I was a pastor, during seminary, I was working a job and the guys knew that I was training to become a pastor and so they would ask me sort of tough questions about Christianity sometimes and they'd try to get me and I remember one time, one guy coming to me, and he explained a bad thing that he had done. And he had said, John, I bet you think that that makes me a sinner. And I said something to him that actually kind of startled him. I said, actually, and this is an original to me, you guys have been saying this for a long time, but I said, actually, you're not a sinner because you sin, you sin because you are a sinner. You see, we often get the problem upside down. We think that we come into this world and we're good or we're at least neutral. And then until we do something bad, we're in good shape. And then we do something bad and that gets us messed up. But actually, the Bible tells us that ever since Adam and Eve, ever since our very first parents, they sinned against God and all of their children, which includes are born into this world with a heart that is broken, that is tainted, that is corrupted, that we actually have these two sides of us, a sinful nature and a nature that wants to follow God. The Bible tells us about it in a couple of places. Romans 5, 12 says this, "'Sin came into the world through one man,' that's Adam, "'and death through sin, "'and so death spread to all men.'" Romans 7, verse 21 says this, "'I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, "'evil lies close at hand.'" Doesn't that sound like us? I want to do the right thing, but I also really want to do the wrong thing. Evil lies close at hand, for I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Right, the German folk runs around saying, the problem's out there, I just gotta keep it away, right? I'm just gonna sanitize, I'm gonna purify, I'm gonna do the diffuser, I'm gonna just, you know, just keep it at bay, put up my defenses, keep it away from me. But Jesus says, actually, the real problem is that you have a disease, a cancer growing inside of you. G.K. Chesterton, a famous theologian and writer, back in his day, he got a letter from an editor of a newspaper. The editor had written letters to several famous writers and had asked the question, what is the problem in the world today? G.K. Chesterton wrote back with four words. Dear sir, I am. What is the problem in the world today? I am. The human heart is the problem in the world today. It's not out there somewhere else. The real problem in the world is not somebody else's fault, it's not in somebody else, it's right here. It's me, it's you, it's broken, sinful people. If you've ever looked for a perfect church, you've probably been disappointed. You walk in the door and guess what? If it was a perfect church before you got there, I hate to say it, but once you walked through the door, it became an imperfect church. Right, because it's me, it's you. We are broken, sinful, imperfect people. There's no such thing as a perfect church. There are just collections of sinners, saved by Jesus, trying to follow him. The real problem in your life is not somebody else. It's not your circumstances. It's not where you work. It's not the amount of wealth you have. It's not the family you were born into. It's not the color of your skin. It's not the level of education that you have. It's your heart. You and I come into this world with a heart that is tainted by sin and actually against God. So let me just ask you this question. For what are you blaming? Who in your life are you blaming for your problems? Now I'm not saying that you don't go through tough circumstances. I'm not saying that there aren't other people in this world that are hard on you. But at the end of the day, the root of all of your problems is actually right in the mirror. The root of all of your problems is inside of your own heart. So that leads us to ask the next question. What is the solution? Let's look at both the Pharisees and Jesus' answer to the solution to contamination. All right, so we've already seen about the Pharisees that they believe the source of contamination is out there. And if that's the case, what do they propose as a solution to the contamination? They propose that the solution is a strong defense, right? Fences, walls, keep the contaminants out, outside of there. Rules upon rules. The Pharisees look at God's law and they say, we've got to draw the line even further back so that we don't even get close to that. They want to ensure that they can check all the boxes, make sure they got it all right and all figured out. One type of rule the Pharisees were famous for was their rules about the Sabbath. They had all kinds of rules. You guys know the commandment about the Sabbath is you shall not work on the Sabbath, it's supposed to be a day of rest. The Pharisees said things like, well, that means that you can't walk through a field on the Sabbath because your sandal might clip a grain of wheat and it would fall to the ground and that would be harvesting. And that's work on the Sabbath and you can't do that. They would say things like you can't spit on the ground on the Sabbath day because that would disturb the dirt and that would be like plowing on the Sabbath and that's work and so you can't do that. They would say you can only walk three-fifths of a mile. That's as far as you could walk before it was work. But if you stash some food three-fifths of a mile away, then you could walk to your food and then you could walk another three-fifths of a mile. So they would actually make food stashes so they didn't break these Sabbath laws that they made. Check in those boxes, make sure they get it right. I've never been to Israel but I've been told that actually still today, there are Sabbath elevators in Israel. So when you go in the elevator, you don't have to push the button. It just goes up and it stops on every floor. Now you might be thinking, all right, that's crazy. That's a little absurd, but at least it had good intentions, right? The Pharisees wanted to obey God's law. They just drew some crazy senses around the law Now here's the thing even if it did come from good intentions We are sinful broken people and whenever we stray from God's Word Even with good intentions it lands us in a bad place Jesus is going to point that out to them, you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition. You hear that? Jesus doesn't say, hey, you went too far. Jesus says you actually rejected, violated God's command by your so-called fencing of the law. Verse 10, Moses said, honor your father and your mother. Whoever reviles father and mother must surely die. But you say, if a man tells his father or his mother whatever you would have gained from me is Corbin that is given to God then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother So just to understand what's going on back then kind of like now, but much more so Parents and their older age would depend on their kids, you know today We have some mechanisms like like retirement accounts and things like that so that we can help ourselves out a little bit back then Parents and their older age were really dependent upon their kids to take care of them. Okay, and so the Pharisees said, hey, kids, if you get to that point where you're supposed to be taking care of mom and dad, but you got this nice field, you got this nice house, you got this nice boat, and you don't want to give them up to take care of mom and dad, here's what you can do. This is really holy. You can say, I dedicate this thing to God, which means that you can use it all the way until you die, but when you die, it will go to the temple. And if you do that, if you call it Corbin, dedicated to God, then you don't have to sell it to take care of your parents. Mom and dad have no access to that part of your property. There you go. All taken care of. Perfect. If you want to keep your boat, that's great. You just, you just call it God's. It's God's boat. Quite the, quite the work around religious maneuvering to get around God's intention. You see, the Pharisees may have started with good intentions, but whenever we stray from God's word, we have a sinful tainted heart and it lands us in a bad place that actually violates God's law and not keeps God's law. Now, I think there's another really important point to be made here, and I don't want to skip over this. What the Pharisees did was bad, but that doesn't mean that all rules are bad unfortunately today I've heard people reason this out they said you know the Pharisees they were legalists and the problem was that they followed the rules all rules are bad that's not really how it works unfortunately I think people are throwing out the baby with the bathwater right I think they think that the air of the Pharisees that they tried to follow the Bible's commands they think that the error of the Pharisees is that they tried to take the Bible too seriously. But what does Jesus say? "'If you love me, you will obey my commands.'" Jesus would say, you can't take this book too seriously. The problem isn't that you were trying too hard to follow what God said. The real problem of legalism is not that it takes the Bible too seriously, it's actually that it abuses the Bible. I'll say that's true in at least two ways. Number one, as we saw already, the Pharisees tried to make their own rules. And whenever we try to make our own rules, whenever we stray from God's word because we have sinful broken hearts, it gets us into trouble, even if we have good intentions. So that's the first way, we saw that in the Corbin rule. The second way that legalism abuses the Bible is that legalism tries to use the law to earn salvation. The Pharisees, other people today, even you and I, are tempted to look at God's laws and say, all right, you look at the 10 commandments and you're like, all right, there's 10 boxes. If I can just check these off, then I am a good person. I'm right with God, I'm all set. But you know what, that was not the point of the law. The law shows us God's great and moral character The law does show us God's design for life and how it's best to live But you know what else the law shows us and this is super important the law shows us that we fall short One of the major points of God's law is that you can't do it I can't do it in fact You can't do it. I can't do it. In fact, it shows us that we are unclean and what we need is to be washed. One of the points of God's law is to show us just that, that we are dirty and that we need to be washed, that we need a savior. That's one of the major points of God's law. And that brings us to Jesus' solution to the problem of contamination. Would you look with me at verses 6 through 8? Jesus responds to the Pharisees, he says, he's going to quote the Old Testament, he says, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." Jesus says these rituals, these traditions, these man-made rules, they won't cut it. If outward action is separated from inward heart change, it won't cut it. Outward actions do come out of the heart, but your heart has to change. God wants your heart. We heard earlier that unfortunately the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. So what do we do? What do we need? We actually need a new heart. We need a brand new heart. And praise the Lord, that's exactly what God promises. This is Ezekiel 36, verse 25. God says, I will sprinkle clean water on you. You shall be clean from all your uncleanness. And from all your idols I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart. And a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh, a heart that's soft, a heart that's been humbled, a heart that knows that it needs the Lord. Friends, the bad news of the law is that you and I can't do it. The bad news of the law is that you and I are contaminated, that the problem's not out there, it's in here. That we have a disease growing inside of us and it's called sin. And that what we need is a new heart. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ, He did live the law perfectly. Jesus Christ, He died the deaths for sin that you and I deserve to die. Jesus shed blood, blood that washes over us. Just as we take a bath and the water washes the dirt off of our skin, Jesus' blood washes the sin out of our heart. When we put our faith in Jesus as Lord and as Savior, we get cleaned. We get saved from our sin. We get made right with God. He solves the problem. We can't solve it ourselves. Only Jesus can solve it. He came and he lived and he died and he rose to give us just that. And that's the invitation he gave that day. It's the invitation that we offer today. That if you come to this place and you find that you can't measure up, that you are dirty, have sin, Jesus offers a cure. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, but Jesus offers a new heart if you would just receive it by faith in him. This is the good news of the gospel. Amen? Amen. Awesome. Would you please stand This is the good news of the gospel. Amen? Amen. Awesome. Would you please stand with me as we pray and close?

Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, July 7, 2024 It Had To Be Said Mark 8:31-38 Take Up Your Cross 2 Overview Main Idea: Jesus' disciples follow the way of the cross, not the way of the world Sermon Outline: 1. Save It vs Lose It (vv34-35) 2. The World vs Your Soul (vv36-37) 3. Shame before God vs Shame before People (v38) 3 Pre-Questions Can you share a moment in your life when you had to make a difficult decision that went against popular opinion or societal norms? What was the outcome? 4 Questions 1. Read Mark 8:31-38. What did Jesus predict about His own future in verse 31? How did this differ from the common expectations of the Messiah at the time? 2. How does Peter’s reaction in verses 32-33 highlight a common misunderstanding about the nature of Jesus’ mission? 3. In what ways does Jesus’ call to “deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me” (v. 34) challenge contemporary values of self-fulfillment and personal success? 4. What does it mean to “gain the whole world but forfeit your soul” (v. 36)? Can you think of examples where this principle is evident in today’s society? 5. Reflect on a time when following Jesus required you to deny yourself or make a sacrifice. How did you respond, and what was the outcome? 6. What are some “crosses” you might be called to bear in your daily life? How can you find strength and encouragement in these challenges? PDF Download

Make Covenant Sermon Series: Take Courage Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 2 Chronicles 15:8-15 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. I hope you in the venue and the chapel and online, you said Amen as well. Because I'm very excited about today. I'm excited that we are in the midst of a journey, a spiritual journey, where we as together as a church, coming together around God's Word, seeking His face, following the Spirit to see what He may have for us. We are in the middle, as Pastor John said, we are in the middle of this two-year campaign And we look back on year one we say thank you God for what you've done. It was amazing and Lord we want to see you do even more in year two, and that's why we're pressing into God That's why we are moving forward in faith because we want to see God do something amazing in year two of this two-year campaign So let me ask you this if you want to be a part of expanding God's kingdom if you want to be a part of proclaiming the name of Jesus, would you say amen? Amen. That's what we are about here at Peace Church. And in this halfway mark, we are in the middle of a sermon series, yes, but also spiritual journeys. We study God's word and we seek the Spirit, allowing Him to move in our hearts and our lives. And so, let's get to studying God's word right now. Please open your Bibles to 2 Chronicles, chapter 15. We're going to pick up where we left off last week. If you do want to use the devotionals that were provided, we are excited for you to do that. Go ahead and turn to page 29. In those devotionals you'll find an outline and some fill-ins. Otherwise, page 467 if you want to use the Bibles we've provided. Now as you're turning there, that's your first fill-in. That's your first idea. Here's today's sermon. It's about making covenant, about the covenant with God. So as you turn in there, let's just remind ourselves of the setting Second Chronicles chapter 15 we find ourselves in the year roughly 900 BC. We are located in the southern kingdom known as Judah King Asa. The good king has come to the throne He's been leading for a while. He is coming back to Jerusalem after a massive military victory that didn't look good going in, but they sought the Lord. God provided them victory. King Asa and the army coming back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is waiting there to meet their heroes. They meet and then the prophet Azariah stands up with a very bold, very timely, very important word. Azariah stands up before the king, before the army, before the people. And Ezraiah says, thank you Lord for this victory, but let's continue to press into God. Because it's so easy to forget God when things are going good. And in the kingdom, things were going good. And so Ezariah is like, this is the time to press farther, even more so, into God. And I would say to you, that's a word for us. We look back on year one of this campaign and we raised far more finances than what we thought possible. We've seen God do incredible things. The construction is ahead of schedule. Things are going amazing. It'd be very easy as a people to say, hey, thanks God, you did great. We got it from here into year two. But we're gonna say no. We're gonna continue to bow ourselves before the face of God and ask him to continue to do good work knowing that it is his work and we just get to be a part of it. And so, as a reminder, the devotionals do have spaces for you to fill in if you want to do that. Today's title is Make Covenant. And so, with this, let's open up God's Word, let's read it, and then we'll press in. So would you hear God's Word, 2 Chronicles, Chapter 15, we'll read verses 8 to 15. Would you hear God's word? 2 Chronicles 15:8-15 8 As soon as Asa heard these words, hthe prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded, he took courage and put away the detestable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from ithe cities that he had taken in jthe hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the LORD kthat was in front of the vestibule of the house of the LORD. 9 And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, land those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him. 10 They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. 11 They sacrificed to the LORD on that day mfrom the spoil that they had brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep. 12 And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul, 13 but that whoever would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, oshould be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. 14 They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice and with shouting and with trumpets and with horns. 15 And all Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, pand the LORD gave them rest all around. Amen. This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray together. Father God, we thank you for your Holy Word, and we ask that you send your Holy Spirit to help us to know your Word, that we might live out your plan for our lives. And Father, we are thankful, Lord, that we don't stand under the umbrella of the old covenant anymore. We are thankful for the new covenant, the covenant that Christ has ushered in by his life, death, and his resurrection from the dead. And it's in his name that we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen. So church, as we walk through this spiritual journey together, as we look at our passage, let me give you one main idea to consider here today, and it's this. In a world turning from Him, God calls us to make covenant with Him. And as we take that truth and we see it throughout the pages of our passage here today, I want to give you three points that we're going to walk through together. Three things, as we talk about in our covenant with God, we are to number one, remove ungodly influence. We are to renew heart-filled faith. And lastly, we'll look at how we are to remember we are gods. Oh, church family, don't ever forget that. You belong, body and soul, in life and death, to your faithful Savior. Don't ever forget that you belong to God. So, first thing we're gonna have some times of extended awkward silence. Just preparing you, just preparing you. Alright, Bible's open, verse 8. So Asa is given a word from God through the prophet Azariah and he responds and Asa responds rightly. Look at verse 8. As soon as Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah, the son of Odad, he took courage, and he put away the detestable idols from the lands. So right there, Asa is laying down the law. He's removing things that are opposed to God. You know what we call this? Cleaning house. Asa is looking at his kingdom, and he's cleaning house. And I don't mean preparing it for HDTV. There are plenty of houses on HDTV that are full of demons. Asa is cleaning house in his kingdom. Remember that, because we're going to come back to this. So Asa, it says he's taken out the idols. Now, idols were those statues and also like little figures that were found throughout the land and in people's homes that were used as objects of worships to fault God. Asa is removing those from the land and from homes. But then look at what it says here. It says, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the Lord. So what's that? So this was this. This was a stand that was made of bronze at the front of the temple where sacrifices were made in offering to God to atone for sins. And the fact that it was broken down just shows how much the house of God was in neglect, but it also shows us symbolically that God's people were in spiritual disarray. They weren't seeking the Lord, they weren't keeping up his house, they weren't making sacrifices, they weren't trying to atone for their sins, they were far from God. And Asa is seeking to correct this. Asa's not just removing the demons from the land, he's preparing the people to worship the true God again. Men in the house, let me speak to you for a moment. Yes, get your family to church, but you also gotta get them right with the Lord, and that starts with you. King Asa stands up and he declares what's gonna happen. He's saying this kingdom is going to be the Lord's. So he clears out the idols and he prepares the people to worship the true God again. Now look at verse nine. It says that, and Asa gathered all Judah and Benjamin. Now just a reminder, if you missed last week, we are in the Southern Kingdom. The Southern Kingdom was given the blanket name of Judah, but the Southern Kingdom where Jerusalem was encompassed the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin of the twelve tribes of Israel, but not just Benjamin and Judah. Look what it goes on to say, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Sinai, who were residing with them, for great numbers had deserted to him, to Asa, from Israel. Again, Israel, the blanket name of the northern kingdom Heading to the southern kingdom why? Because God was there and God was doing something amazing So they were leaving a place where God wasn't working because they wanted to be where God was working Says when they saw the Lord their God was with him That's when they went so that the people of the northern kingdom were seeing that God was on the move in the Southern Kingdom, and they rightly said, that's where we want to be. We want to be where God is alive and doing something amazing. And God was moving in the Southern Kingdom because firstly and foremost, because God is good and that's what he decided to do. But also you can say it's because the people were being faithful. And one of the ways, church, hear me on this, one of the ways that we show ourselves to be faithful is that we remove ungodly influence from our lives. So let me give you permission, in this modern day, to do some radical things. Some of us seriously need to consider actually canceling the cell phone. I lived through the 80s and I lived through the 90s. I can tell you, there was a time in human history that we did kind of okay where we didn't have cell phones. Don't make the excuse to say that you need it. I think you're resourceful enough to find a way without it if it is doing nothing but providing ungodly influence. Some of us need to actually cancel the cell phone. Or maybe some of us just simply need to get off social media. Listen, it's driving some of you crazy. And I don't wanna make light of this. It's literally driving you crazy. It's bringing to the point where you're not acting rational anymore because you're being so inundated with all the insanity that's out there. Your psyche wasn't meant to handle that. And it's driving you crazy. Some of you need to actually just get off social media because it is an ungodly influence in your life. Preach, brother. Maybe some of us need to cancel those subscriptions to those channels that are ungodly. Some families need to stop binge-watching TV shows and start playing board games and having conversations as a family again. Asa said, we are removing ungodly influence. That is not happening here anymore. As a king, that's what he did for his kingdom. And as people, as men, maybe we need to start doing that for our homes. If we want to be in covenant with God, that means a true relationship with him, built on his promises that he's made to us, then that means that we are in relationship with him, not with the things of the world. And so like Asa, maybe it's time to clean house, but we can't just clean house. In order to do this, we need to open up our hearts to the Lord again. And so in our covenant with God, we need to renew our heart filled faith, renew heart filled faith. And so let's just make sure we're on the same page here or something, about something. According to the old ways of the Old Testament, we see King Asa lead his people into what was then a massive time of worshipping God, dare I say, a time of revival. Verse 10, look what it says. It says, they were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the 15th year of the reign of Asa. I know you don't know what that means. Here's what it means. It was probably actually October of the year 896 BC. Verse 11, they sacrificed to the Lord on that day from the spoil they had brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep. Now listen to this. This is not just about sacrifice and worship to God. This is about covenant and relationship with God. Look at verse 12. And they entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all of their heart and with all of their soul. That's beautiful. But then we see verse 13. We see verse 13 and we think to our modern ears, there's a massive disconnect here. Verse 12 is all about seeking the Lord and being in a relationship with Him, and we all said, Amen. We love that. But then we look at verse 13. But that whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. Wait, what? Wait, wait, wait, what? Put to death, young or old, man or woman. Again, we wonder, we wonder, how can they go from loving God in verse 12 to killing people in verse 13? And then what we often do is we put our modern spin on it and we say, how could they go from, how could they go to killing people just because they think differently? Listen, you have to understand what was going on. You have to understand what was happening in the cultures that were at their borders. The religions and the culture that were around them were engaging in true demonic worship, incest, orgies, child sacrifice. And Asa is like, we are not going to tolerate that here. We are not going to let that into this kingdom. We're here to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and we will not tolerate those evil practices. We will not allow them to creep in and corrupt the society again. And that, the only way to ensure that was to make sure that every heart that was there was given fully to God. He was leading people into a faithfulness and a pure relationship with God between them and the Lord, because this is what it means to renew a heart-filled faith. Now listen to me, be clear, be students of the Bible Don't listen to what people say read what the Bible says in this covenant that Asa was making God didn't tell them to do that That was part of what Asa was doing here. This was Asa's way of ensuring Religious purity moral clarity and national unity, but don't get ahead Listen, we are now in the New Testament the new covenants Our calling now is no less to seek covenant with God But the new covenant is now not restricted to a piece of land or a particular ethnic group What Jesus has done is open to all who will place their faith in him Amen, because Jesus shows us the more fulfilled in eternal and true and better way to relate to God our dedication now to a pure faith My friends should be all the more powerful because we live on this side of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christ ushered in the new covenant, which again is a deeper, even more personal relationship with our father, which leads to the third thing. In our covenant, we are to remember that we are gods. If you're following along in your, in your devotionals, there's a little misprint here, but this is your, this is your final point. So King Asa leads his people into a renewed covenant and a deepened relationship with God. He's cleaning house, but let's finish our passage looking at verses 14 and 15. Verse 14, they swore an oath to the Lord. I love this. Man, I hope you have your Bibles open around. They swore an oath to the Lord with a loud voice, with shouting, with trumpets, and with horns. Let me say that again. Loud voice, shouting, trumpets, horns. They were making a racket. Man, that must have been a beautiful noise too. Loud voice, shouting, trumpets, horns. Notice, it does not say, with every eye closed and with every head bowed, no one looking around. If you would like to give your life to Jesus, would you please just raise your hand? Are you kidding me? This is how you enter into relationship with God, with immense praise and thankfulness, knowing that His work is what He has done for us on our behalf. My friends, we should be making a racket here. I'm not saying we go crazy, but I am saying loud voice, shouting, trumpets, horns. And guess what? No one had to die because look at verse 15. In all Judah, in all of Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and sought him with their whole desire, all their heart, their whole desire, and he was found by them, and God was found by them, and the Lord gave them rest all around. Church, this is how it should be. We seek the Lord, we are reminded that we belong to him, we are reminded that he gets the glory, we are reminded that salvation is his and his alone, and we stand in that truth, and you know what we True, rest, peace, shalom, rest. Isn't that what we're all trying to seek at the end of the day? To go to bed after a good day where we can just rest, where we are at total peace, no need to try to please anyone because our satisfaction is found fully and only in God. That's what He was giving to these people. He was giving them rest. This is the power of a covenant with God. And when we think about this from 900 years ago, we have to wonder, well, what does this mean for us here today? And so I want to close up with some questions for our church family in the midst of this campaign. And here's what I'd say real quick. These are questions for our church family. If you are visiting with us, I'm so, so happy that you are here. But I'm going to give some maybe sharper questions for our church family. Because we're in the midst of a journey together and we want to seek the Lord and we want to make sure that we are undistracted and fully committed to where God is calling us. So, here's the question I want to ask with the time we have left. Is the covenant evidence? Now let's talk about this and let's ask this question not theoretically or philosophically, let's think about this practically and real specifically. Here's the first question. Is the covenant evident in your home, specifically your house? So yes, does your home embody the fact that it is a Christian home? A home where the covenant, again, a relationship with God built on the promises that are made, a relationship with the Almighty, is that made clear in your home? If someone were to walk into your home when you were not there, would they be able to say, this looks like a Christian house, this is clearly a Christian family? Because remember, King Asa removed the idols from the land and from their homes, and he rebuilt the altar of the Lord. So listen, listen to this. This is not just about what is in your home, this is about what is not in your home that you have removed the ungodly influence Yeah, yes by all means have Christian decor have your Bibles on your shelf have a cross on the wall have those beautiful Pinterest verses hanging up by all means do all that But remember what Asa so bravely demonstrates in God's kingdom, you can't have an altar to the Lord alongside idols to false gods. And so Christian homes, you can't have Christian decor in your home alongside ungodly imagery and influence. I need you to consider right now what needs to be removed. Where do you need to clean house? Is your home a place of relationship with the Lord or a place of influence from the world? Maybe it's time for some of you Christian parents or grandparents to clean house. Maybe some of you young adults who are out on your own for the first time need to look at wherever you're living and clean house, not so your house can be featured on HDTV, but so that it can be spiritually clean. So you can call it a holy place. Is the covenant evident in your home? Let's also look at this. Is the covenant evident in your life, specifically your calendar? I'm going to say something and I'm going to let there be an awkward amount of awkward silence so that you can truly listen to the Lord here. I can show you what's important in your life by looking at your family calendar. I drink a whole pot of coffee right now if there's one available. I can show you what's important in your life by looking at what's on your calendar. Is it awkward enough for you? Parents, here's what I need you to consider. If this is true, then what I want you to think is what takes up most of your time, and is that truly what is the most important thing? If it's not, why does it take more time than what's more important? Listen, my friends, more than raising money for a campaign, I want to see families be right with the Lord. I want parents showing their kids what truly matters the most. And the way that families order their lives, the way that most families order their life, when you look at many families' calendars, it simply reveals they are not in a covenantal relationship with God. It reveals that they are over-committed. I'll say that again. The way that most families order their life, when you look at their calendar, it reveals they are not in a covenant relationship with God. It reveals that they are over committed. And so we talk about cleaning house. We're not just saying objects in your house. We're talking about obligations you have on your calendar. Sometimes it's time to cancel what's lesser important so you can have more of what's more important. So what does this mean for a family of faith? A family of faith, a family that says they have faith, but they're putting lesser things above more important things, what it shows that they're probably more cultural in their faith than relational in their faith. And it's no wonder that kids are growing up and this next generation is leaving the faith because they never saw it truly embodied in the home. They were never taught about a living covenant with the living God, where God truly comes first in everything. Because that's what it means to be in alignment with God. Raise your children not in a culturally Christian home, but in a covenantal Christian home. And what that means is that you pray together. You actually use words like the gospel. You talk about what it means to bring God glory. You say these things as a family so that you can show your children what truly comes first. So again, Christian families, I ask you, is the covenant evident in your life, specifically your calendar? And if you think I'm overstepping or stepping on toes, I haven't even started yet. Let's get more personal with this last one. Is the covenant evident in your generosity, specifically your checkbook? This is what we've been talking about in this sermon series and this spiritual journey, that until faith has total influence over your finances, you can't say it has total influence over your entire life. By all means, please be generous with your time and your talent. Go out there, serve, serve in the community, serve at church. Please share the gifts that God has given you with your time and talent. But don't try to say that you're generous with your time as an excuse not to be generous with your finances. If you think volunteering is a replacement for giving financially, let me just say this, you cannot make that argument from scripture. This campaign is a call to everyone who calls Peace Church home to get involved and to donate. Be generous, be faithful, be sacrificial so that this church can continue to stand as a testament to the gospel and for God's kingdom for generations to come. Amen? There are many of us in here who are sitting in a room and sitting on seats that the previous generation paid for and now it's time for you to do the same for the next generation. The last generation said yes to the call of God, now it's our turn. And church, we don't want this to happen if it's not God's will. We don't want this to happen if God isn't the one who provides and presides over it. This cannot happen. We do not want this to happen without God and our faith in Him. And yes, this calls for us to take courage and seek the Lord. That's what this series is all about. A God-given courage from the Holy Spirit because we know what Christ has done for us. And we take faith in Him as we take steps of faith to see that the Holy Spirit is already doing something amazing. And so let me just speak from my heart for just a moment. From my heart to your heart, to enter into sacrificial generosity leads your faith into such deeper levels that you will experience God's goodness in incredible and new ways. And so let me ask you this. If you have felt the goodness of God as a result of being financially faithful, would you say amen? I say amen to that too. The chief way I feel God's goodness is through the gospel. But when God fills me with faith to respond, I see Him move. Asa took a stand and said, in this kingdom, Yahweh is Kona, come first. In this kingdom, we are going to put God first. It's time some of us do that with our lives. Take a stand and say, in my life, God is going to come first. Why? Because in a world turning from Him, God calls us to make covenant with Him. To put God first means that you are in a covenantal relationship with Him based on His terms, not ours. But that new covenant is not like the old. The new covenant is not marked by continual sacrifice of animals on a bronze altar It's now marked by the final and complete sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a wooden cross. Amen Amen, Jesus Christ not only died on the cross in our place for our sins so that we could live eternally But he did this so that he could usher in the new covenant Which is his promise kept so that we could be an eternal right relationship with God again, and we are reminded of this gospel every time we celebrate communion Which we're gonna do right now Amen Amen Would you please bow your heads and let's prepare our hearts for communion?

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

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