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I Am He (Woman at the Well - Part 2 of 3) Sermon Series: It Had to Be Said Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: John 4:15-26 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And all of God's people said, Amen. So this summer we are in a sermon series. That's basically what they'd call like a red letter series. We're looking at the words of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, and we're calling it, it had to be said. As we look at quotes from Jesus Christ that changed the world. And I'll just tell you right now. I know, I know that we love it when things are said that had to be said. Right? I know that we love it, especially in our wacky world right now. We love it when people say the quiet part out loud. Right? Isn't there something kind of refreshing when someone actually says what we're all thinking? You know I'm talking about? I think when we talk about the fact that it had to be said, we generally think, yes, finally, someone said it. We think it's a good thing. But when you look at the words of Jesus, especially when the words of Jesus are like pointed at you, are you so happy to hear things that had to be said? Because here's the hope behind it all. The things that Jesus says, while hard to hear at times, the things that Jesus says always bring us to a better place. Amen? Amen. So in this sermon series, all summer long, we're looking at just the teachings of Jesus. But for the three weeks that I have with you, before I go on sabbatical, I wanted to do within this series a little three-part mini-series looking at the famous interaction that Jesus has with this woman at a well, found in John chapter 4. So we're on week two of three of that. I'm preaching for you this week, I'll preach next week, and then I won't see you for a number of weeks until later in the summer. But right now, would you please turn to John chapter four. If you want to use the Bible as we provided, that's on page 1131. Now last week, we were introduced to the story of Jesus having this encounter with this woman at the well. She's a Samaritan woman. And last week we looked at this powerful declaration that Jesus says that he offers living water. And we talked about like, who gets to offer that? Like who gets to offer that, not deliver and still be considered a good person? See, Jesus is speaking spiritually. That that when we put our faith in him, that what happens is that within us is produced this well a well that constantly is producing fresh spiritual water and so the challenge for us Christians in the house is if we ever feel spiritually dry that's an indication that we've stopped going back to the well of Christ that Christ is have put not just outside of us but within us so Jesus says that he offers this living water and this woman says tell me more about that and that's where we're going to pick up here in our Bibles as we look today. We're going to see that Jesus claims something absolutely groundbreaking amazing Something that should and eventually will get him killed But let's read our passage first. And so would you hear the Word of God? The Gospel of John chapter 4 we will look at verses 15 to 26 today. And so would you hear God's Word? John 4:15-26 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” This is God's Word, let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father God in heaven above, Lord, we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you that it fills us, fuels us, and forms us to live more faithfully, joyfully, and ready for you. Holy Spirit, by the power and presence, by your power and presence, we ask that you would be with us here and now, here this morning, helping us not only know and understand these truths, but that we'd be transformed by them into the image of our Savior. And Father, we ask, I ask, Lord, that you'd guard my mouth from teaching or saying anything that is not true, that's not glorifying to you or helpful for the people gathered here this morning. And it's in his name, the name of Jesus, that we pray. And everyone said, Amen. Amen. So we're in this two-part, second part of this three-part miniseries. Part one, we looked at how Jesus reveals that he offers eternal life. And so today we're going to follow up with this simple main point here today and it's this. Jesus reveals he is the Christ. Jesus reveals He is the Christ. If anyone ever says to you that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, you bring them right to this very passage here today. So it's a good one to have bookmarked in your Bibles. This is an incredible passage. In it we see that Jesus clearly says that he is the Messiah, he is the Christ. And so let's keep it simple today as we look at this simple truth that Jesus reveals he is the Christ. And as you, as we look at our passage here today, we're gonna pull out three points as we journey through this passage. If you want to know where we're going ahead of time, here's the structure of today's sermon. Jesus reveals he is the Christ, and in the first part we're gonna see that Jesus sees the sinner's hurts. We'll see how Jesus reveals the sinner's hearts. And finally, we'll see that Jesus is the sinner's hope. All right, church, let's learn from our Lord and from the Bible here today. 1. Jesus sees the sinner's hurts. I love this story. This is a awesome, powerful story that gets played out. I hope that you are just diving in. I'm hoping that you're learning this story so that you could go and tell it to someone else because it's so beautiful. Let's just stick to what the Bible says here today. So Jesus says that he's offering living water and this woman, rightly in my mind, responds correctly by saying, she says, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come back here to draw water. But then look here, Jesus takes her request and he brings it into a different direction. And this different direction is going to reveal things about herself and about himself. Things that need to be known. Jesus said to her, verse 16, He said, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. And then he, he exposes. He looks into her heart, he sees it. He says, for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you've said is true. Now listen, this is, this has got to be a hard truth for this woman. Because here's the reality, I doubt that she's been widowed five times. The truth is that these men used her and then left her. And the one who's with her now doesn't even have the decency to put a ring on her finger. And as we talked about last week, we were reminded that the fact that this woman is coming to the well in the middle of the day by herself culturally shows us this woman's an outcast. If you remember that traditionally in that culture, in that society, women went as a group early in the morning to draw the water while it was still cool in the day. She's going in the middle of the day by herself. She's clearly an outcast in her society. She's not welcomed into the friend group. And then Jesus, and then Jesus basically announces to her, yes, and you've also been bounced around from guy to guy to guy. Listen, in any culture, that would have been embarrassing. In any culture, that would have been hard, very hard for a woman to hear. How painfully obvious the truth of this woman's life is coming to the forefront. She's been with five guys and the guy now doesn't even love her enough to marry her. How lost and how hurt this woman must have felt here in that moment. No one to care for her, no one to take care of her, no one to love her, no one to even befriend her. No friends, no social circles, no one to walk and talk and get water with, a track record of constantly choosing the wrong guy. And let me just tell you right now, church, if you're thinking in your heart right now, well, I would have been a friend to her. No, you wouldn't have. Don't make yourself the hero of this story. You're not. You would have rejected her just like everyone else did. There's a reason she was completely alone. And Jesus calls this out. He says, the guy's now, it's not even your husband. Where is he? It would have been very, very easy for this woman to feel judged by what Jesus just announces. But I want you to see that even though Jesus sees into her hurt, and in a sense, he's revealing her heart, we'll get to in a second. 2. Jesus reveals the sinner's heart. I want you to see how Jesus, he has such an open and honest conversation about her past, about her sin, yet he does this without condemnation, without judgment. You're gonna see how Jesus masterfully, carefully speaks to this woman, and for me, I'll just tell you right now, this is like a master class in being a pastor. He is pastoring this woman right now, and yes, pastors need to have hard conversations about people's real sin. But you'll see that one of the things that makes this woman so distinct, it's that she's willing to talk about her sin. She's being honest with Jesus. I think some of us here, love you, some of us here, you come here with a church face. And if that wasn't even enough, you put on your church face when you pray. You don't even take the church face off to have an honest conversation when it's just you and Jesus alone in the quiet of your room and praying. And yet this woman, an outcast rejected by literally everyone, is showing us what it's like to encounter Christ. Because she's being open and honest and real. And Jesus speaks to her, and in ways that many of us will feel judged, but yet Jesus doesn't judge her. In fact, he is calling out her sin, but he's going to call her to something better. Why? Because Jesus is the true shepherd. He's bringing out painful truths, and in doing so, Jesus is going to show her that yes, he sees her hurt, but he won't judge her. He's calling her to something even better. Jesus commends her honesty. And I think for many of us, we probably do judge that woman. But I'll tell you right now, as a pastor, I sit with many people who simply won't recognize their own sin. Who don't and won't and refuse to acknowledge they have any faults. And I'm telling you right now, as a pastor, my ability to pastor people goes as far as they are willing to be honest with me. And that's what we see here with Christ. Your relationship with Christ will only go as far as you're willing to be open and honest with Him. And this woman is so honest with Christ. And Jesus, the Christ, God incarnate, the Son of God, speaking to her, sees into her hurt, has an open and honest conversation about her sin, and yet she doesn't feel judged. That's a powerful, powerful statement, that you can call out sin without seeming like a judgmental jerk. Guarded my word there for a second. Again, some of you need to have this level of heart-to-heart with Christ. Jesus is seen into this sinner's hurts, and He sees into ours as well. There's a reason that you need to be honest with Christ, it's because He sees you anyway. The reason we've got to be open and honest with Christ because he sees into our heart anyway. He knows our past and yet he still approaches us with such a pastor's heart. I love this beautifully raw conversation where Jesus reveals that he sees into our hurts. Listen to me, my friends. Jesus sees us truly before we see him fully, and yet he still seeks to rescue us. I can't tell you a better reason why you need to follow him. I can't tell you a better reason why you need to lay down your life for him. He is the King on high, stepped down into his creation to save us when we didn't deserve it, and yet rescues us, and then welcomes us into his kingdom where he sits enthroned where we are welcomed as sons and daughters into his kingdom forever. I don't know why you would pass on that. So don't accept what Christ has offered to us. You get a God, you get the best pastor, you get a friend, and you get to be with the King. And this is a king who sees into our hurt, but he also reveals our hearts so so this woman Her sin and her life has been brought wide out into the open and mind you we're reading this 2,000 years later billions of people have read this woman's story. Her story has been known Jesus reveals that he sees into her heart that he sees her hurt, but he sees into her heart and he also sees the sin that's there. Right? He's not condoning her past. He's exposing that it's sin and her heart is riddled with sin, but she quickly realizes that no mortal man could know everything that Jesus knows. She knows that something else is going on here. And look how she responds. I love this. Verse 19, please have your Bibles open here. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Okay, okay, okay. I'm not a super big fan of the way that's translated. I perceive that you are a prophet. I mean, who is she, Sherlock Holmes? Nobody speaks like that. Let alone a rejected woman at a well. Now listen, there's a reason that the translators who are infinitely smarter than I am chose to use that word, but let's talk about that word when she says, I perceive that you are a prophet. The word there in the original Greek is the word theoreo. And it means to gaze or behold. And for you word geeks who like this sort of thing, that Greek word is the root word for our English word, theater. Now here's how one resource put it. Theo Retto is about concentrating on the meaning of an action like when we watch a play or a theater. Meaning she's seeing something play out in real life before her and she's captivated. She's drawn in, she's watching intently. She's like, okay, you got me, I'm hooked. I don't know another word to say. I'm just saying, I perceive that you are a prophet. Just doesn't sound like what a woman at a well would have said but you get what's going on here now this woman's response is is is utter fascination it's intrigued there's focused which is why we then see her take this conversation and she goes she goes spiritual with it i love this she realizes that jesus is a prophet a true blue prophet right before him and look at her very next question. Her very next question, she says this, verse 20. She says, our fathers, meaning her ancestors, worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Okay, so we don't have time to get into it here this morning about the history of the Samaritans or the conflict between the Jews and the Samaritans. But here's what she's basically saying. She's saying, my people and my tradition say to worship here on this mountain, but you Jews say to worship in the temple. So which is it? Listen to me. We do, we do that all. We do that same sort of question with God all the time. We want to know, is it this or that? God is it this or that? Is this right or wrong? We, we, we like black and white language. We like clarity of that. We like this or that, and we want God to choose from our selection that we provided. Need I remind you, Jesus is never a slave to a conversation that he's in. He's always the master of the conversation. He's going to answer it, not in the way that she's posed, but in the truthful way that it should be answered. that this woman has a true blue prophet who just said her sins with precision. She realizes he's a prophet and her very next question has to do with worship. I wonder, my friends, if you had a true blue prophet who knew the mysteries of the universe right before you, what would be your first question? What would be the very first thing that came to your mind? If you could find out any answer of anything that was ever posed, what would be the very first question you asked? And yet this rejected, lost, lonely, sinful woman, her very first question is about worship. She wants to know how to rightly worship God. Where to worship? Would you ask such a faithful God-centered question? Because this is what an encounter with Christ does. It reveals our heart, and there's something amazing that's being revealed in this woman's heart, which is a sinful heart. She asks a theological question, but as we'll see, Christ is not going to be bound by the parameters of her question, but He is going to answer it. So she asks this either or question because we like those types of questions But listen to how Christ responds verse 21. He said to her woman believe me the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem Will you worship the Father you worship what you do not know we worship what we know now listen that may sound a little sharp Okay, I I know we Midwesterners, we like things to always be couched in utter niceness, but sometimes the truth just isn't so conducive to niceness. Sometimes we have to just be okay with things feeling a little sharp as long as they're true, right? Because we'd rather have truth rather than kind lies. Or is it just me? He says, you worship what you do not know, we worship what we know. And then he says this, he says, for salvation is from the Jews. Okay, let's, let's clarify here real quick. I know this is a very hot topic right now. Rather than trying to set up, set up a superiority of one race, what Jesus is actually doing here is he's setting up a conversation that's going to end with him revealing something about himself. That's the object. That's the trajectory of this question. He's not trying to elevate the Jews above the Samaritans because he's about to smash both of their traditions and religiosity. This is so powerful church. Hear the words of Christ here. Verse 23 and 24. He says, but the hour is coming and is now here. Everyone say now here, now here, when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirits and truth. Okay, hold on a second here Hold on a second here. Jesus Jesus just laid some groundwork here. He just he just put up some walls here Jesus just said you don't get to worship in whatever way you connect with God in. You worship according to God's way. God is looking for those who worship according to the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and truth, the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Spirit who inspired the truth of Scripture. You come to God through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the truth that He's revealed, not through your own emotional preferences. This is a very anti-American church way to worship, that we don't get to worship according to our preference, but to a way that God has called and revealed, because he's showing us what type of worshippers he wants. Does he say passionate, emotional worshippers? No, he says those who are filled with the Spirit and truth. Okay, let's get into this though, because there's other things going on here. Jesus is saying it doesn't matter if you're a Jew or a Samaritan, doesn't matter if you're black or white, doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman. This is not about a people's story or history or location or tradition. This is about the spirits. This is not about the temple. This is about the truth. Jesus is saying to worship God is to worship God according to the ways that God has revealed, which is by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. And you can do that anywhere, with anyone who looks to approach God rightly on his terms. Not our terms, but His. God wants those who worship Him in spirit, and in, say it with me, truth. But far too many people, far too many people worship God, not in spirit and truth, but in style and preference. And we expose ourselves when we see this, when people won't worship according, when we see this, people expose their own heart when they won't worship because they don't like the style of worship being presented to them. And that exposes your heart, you're more concerned about style or tradition or preference than the Spirit and the truth. The question should be, is this Holy Spirit led? Is this, is this according to the truth of God's word? Now listen, song is song and there's poetic license and we have to leave room for that. Otherwise we'd have a really hard time reading the entire book of the Psalms. Not saying that, but I am saying there is a standard that we have to adhere to as long as it is in accordance with God's word. Spirit and truth is what not simply place and space. Now I'm going to say something that's true, but I hate to qualify stuff, but here's what happens. Sometimes if you say things that are true, but don't give some clarity, people will take it in the wrong direction. So here's what I'm going to say to you. You can truly worship outside of this wall, outside of these walls on Sunday morning. Yes, you can worship from a deer stand. Yes, you can worship around a bonfire, but it has to be according to spirit and truth, not as an excuse to not come to church on Sundays. Because if you truly do worship according to the truth of God's word, you're gonna see that there's a priority of the church gathering on Sunday mornings, that we don't forsake the gathering of the saints, that we come and worship among fellow believers. But the beauty is, it's not the only time we are to worship. That's not the only time we can worship. So don't take this excuse that you can worship anywhere as an excuse not to worship here with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Brothers and sisters in Christ on Sunday morning. Amen? Okay, I saw who said that. I'm gonna hold you to it. Come November 15th. I'm watching. Let me talk about something else here. It's about spirit and truth, not style, preference, or song choice. So, I often hear this phrase, Man, worship was so good today. Now unfortunately what that means is I was emotionally moved and the whole church was singing. That's typically our litmus test of what's good worship. That I was personally moved and it seemed like everyone else was singing. Does that, is that what we just read? Is that the litmus test for what's actually good worship? No, no, no. What matters is that it's spirit-led and it's according to the truth of God's Word. That's what matters. Now listen, I know that we are culturally conservative and we think the best form of worship is to stand there like a statue and to never clap and never be expressive because we don't want to, you know, draw attention to ourselves or those sorts of things. I get all that, but here's the thing. Don't be so bound by the parameters of tradition or culture that you don't actually engage in true spirit-led, truth-centered worship. The Holy Spirit is our true worship leader. And the true worship, what is quote-unquote good worship, is when he leads us according to the truth that he's revealed. True worship is not defined by how emotionally moved you were. It's not even defined by how much of the church congregation was engaged in worship. Listen, I know you in the back calling you out right now. I know it can very easy feel like you're the spectators and what's happening is really up here. Do you think this Holy Spirit is regulated only to up here? He's back there. He's everywhere. This is why we all need to, and sometimes I want us to hold hands just to make sure that we're all connected. I know I won't do that, but it's this notion of making sure that we are rightly approaching God, not according to our preference or comfortability, but according to the Spirit and truth. Now listen, listen, listen. I do love it. I do love it when all the church is singing and when it seems like everyone is engaged. Yes, I I love that. But that's not the litmus test of what's good worship. What's good worship is that the Holy Spirit is present, making sure that we are worshiping according to the way that God has revealed, according to the truth of His Word. And that may not make us the sexiest church on the block, but I'd rather be faithful. I'd rather live according to the scriptures. I said this yesterday at our elder orientation I don't want to be known as a church that just preaches the Bible I want to be known as a church where we actually live out the truth of the Bible. Worship is defined by God what is glorifying to him because it's truth focus and spirit led. Let me man I don't want to be on the soapbox here, but I let me hit on another hot topic Some of you probably don't know this is a hot topic, or maybe you're the ones stirring the pot. Either way, here's what I'd say to you. Spirit-led doesn't simply mean spontaneous. The spirit can just as much work through a worship, quote on quote, worship set that's rehearsed as one that is spontaneous. Amen? When I was 22 years old, I literally packed everything I had into an old Saturn and I drove to Nashville, Tennessee without knowing a soul to pursue a career in songwriting. I know many of you, you don't think of me as a musician, you don't think of me as a songwriter. Those days are beyond, I'm beyond those days now, but there was a time in my life, a dark time in my life, where I would have literally sold my soul for music. To tell you, I can't even begin to express to you how deep, deep music expression of worship is to me. I take it very serious, and on the other hand, I also know it was a great idol of my life at one point. I love to worship in the form of music in ways I can't even begin to describe. But here's what challenges me here, that Christ calls us to worship in spirit and truth. He's revealing something about our hearts here because that's what Jesus does if we let him challenge us. I think many of us, we need to realize something here. It's going to be really hard for some of us here, but I think the modern church loves to worship more than the one we do worship. Because like me, many of us, we just love music so much. Make sure you don't love to worship more than the one that you do worship. Because Christ calls us to worship in spirit and in truth. To many of us, we love traditions of hymns rather than the truth of Him. To many of us love the hymns more than we love Him. Too many of us love our style more than the spirits. The woman wanted to know, the woman asked Jesus, Jesus, is it our tradition or your tradition that's the right way to worship? And Jesus just says, no, not neither, but no. No, worship isn't about a space and a place, it's about the truth and the Spirit. So church, I hope you are led by the Spirit to worship. That the truth of God's Word and the power of the Gospel simply compels you to worship. Yes, we have a Savior who sees our hurt. We have a Savior who reveals our heart. 3. Jesus is the sinner's hope. But it doesn't stop there. I pray that He's the King who's taken His place in your hearts. He's not just a prophet. He's the Savior. And this concludes, when we see this, that Jesus is the sinner's hope. Look at verses 25 and 26, they are among the most powerful verses, at least in clarity of Christ declaring things about himself. And he said this, take note, Jesus said this alone to a woman at a well. Yes, Christ knew this was going to be revealed in the scripture later on, but in that moment, this was the first time in the gospel of John we see Jesus declare who he is and he does it alone to a woman who's been rejected. He doesn't hold a press conference, he doesn't do it during a sermon, he doesn't do it when the masses are there while he's on the side of a mountain, he does it intimately, personally with a woman at the well because that's the kind of God that we have. He doesn't stand at a distance calling the masses to submit. He is a Savior who steps into our lives and calls us to something better. This is why we don't care what people think about us when we worship. Because Christ calls you by name into his kingdom. He's the one who left the 99 to seek the one. And this is why you as the one respond and worship. The woman said, I know the Messiah is coming, who's called the Christ, and when he comes, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, and he, I tell you right now, I think Jesus said that with authority. I mean, I wasn't there. I can't tell you the tone of his voice, but something in my soul just says he just declared with authority who he truly is. And there it is. Jesus just told us he's not just the Messiah, He's the coming Messiah. This is the first time in Scripture we see Jesus explicitly do this. And to clarify, when the writer of John wrote this down, he clarifies that this is the Messiah. That's the Old Testament Hebrew word, same exact word, that He is the Christ. This is why John makes that clarification. Christ is the Greek New Testament word here, but it means the same thing. He's the anointed one, He's the Savior, He's the coming Savior who is here. Because what we see here in this beautiful declaration of our Savior is that Jesus is the sinner's hope. And let me tell you, that's us. We are the sinners who need a true hope. And not only is Jesus our only hope, He's the greatest possible hope that we could have. Because He is the hope that's a revealed guarantee. He's the coming Messiah. He is the Christ. He is the anointed one. He's the one who takes our shame and then turns us into saints. He's the one who gathers a bunch of sinners, pays for our sins so that we can be welcomed as sons and daughters into the kingdom of God. We stand, there's a reason we stand in worship, it's because we are sons and daughters. We are princesses and princesses Princes and princesses in the kingdom of God. That's who we are And that's not because of we've earned it. That's because Christ has bestowed this upon us when Christ announced that he was the Messiah That was his way of saying yes. He is not just the prophet, but he's the final prophet to fulfill all prophecy He's the last one there is and the last one we need. What that means is that Christ said He is the one who would fulfill all the Old Testament prophecies, to take our sin and shame all the way to the cross, taking our punishment so that we wouldn't have to. But church, here's where it gets good. The reason that He is our hope is because His bones are not decaying in some grave in the Middle East. But He rose again on the third day, where He now rules and reigns from heaven on high, and he is coming back again. And I'm telling you right now, when Christ returns, I want him to find me doing one of two things. Either worshiping him, or ministering in his name. And right now, we get to do one of those, and that's worship him. And right now, we get to do one of those, and that's worship him. Amen.

Fulfill Commitment Sermon Series: Take Courage Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 2 Chronicles 15:16-19 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And all of us said with all of our heart, Amen. Amen. So it's been great over the last few weeks here at Peace to be reminded of what God is doing through this campaign as we are on the eve of a new season at Peace Church. It's pretty exciting because I really think that right now, right now before us, we are seeing history play out before our eyes. What we are doing right now, the next generation will talk about. And hopefully they'll be thankful for what we're doing. And not only that, but hopefully they'll be inspired by this. Today we are beginning year two of our two year proclaim campaign. As we look to yes, raise the finances to continue to expand building, but also so that we can unite our hearts and prepare for increased ministry. Because that's what we want to do. We want to see more people come to know the power of the gospel and the love of God through Jesus. That's what we are doing here. And John already prepped you. So with that, we also say amen to that. But before we get into talking about our financial and spiritual commitments at the end of the service, we want to spend some time in God's Word. Sound good? So if you've been with us, you know that we've been journeying through 2 Chronicles chapter 15. We've been looking at this phenomenal story, at least I think it's phenomenal, the story of King Asa. Hopefully you've liked to know, getting to know this guy a little bit better. So if you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 15. We're going to close up this chapter today as we bring conclusion to this three-part sermon series. If you've been using our devotionals, we're excited for you to do that. Here's your first fill-in, and that's the title of today's message, which is simply this, Fulfill Commitments. God has fulfilled His promises, God has kept His promises towards us, and God has called us to respond. And that's what we're doing here today. We're talking about fulfilling our commitments. So that's on page 57 if you want to use the devotionals we've provided. Otherwise that's on page 467 if you want to use the Bibles that are around this room. And so before we read our passage, let's just recap what's happening here. We are looking at the story of King Asa. King Asa was the king of the southern kingdom. If you remember at this point in biblical history, God's people, unfortunately, are broken into two different kingdoms, the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. The southern kingdom was called Judah. The northern kingdom was called Israel. Jerusalem was in the southern kingdom. And at this point we see King Asa assume the throne. Now Asa is recorded as a good king. His father, Abijah, was not a good king. King Abijah, the king before, had allowed all sorts of wicked practices to come into the kingdom. But when Asa, his king, assumes the throne, he seeks to bring the heart of people back to God. What happens early on in King Asa's reign is that his kingdom is attacked by another kingdom to help them out? No. Does he kowtow to this new army? No. Does he run away? No. He seeks the Lord. He goes before the Lord and says, Lord, will you grant us a victory? And then he trusts the Lord and he brings his army into battle and they have this massive upset of a victory. And so they're coming back to Jerusalem, they're coming back as victors, and the city in Jerusalem is waiting for them, they're waiting to receive their victors. So the king and his army come back after this battle, the city is there waiting, and then right at this moment, the prophet Ezraiah stands up before his king, before the army, and before the city, and he calls them to make sure that they don't use this victory as a time to get lazy in their faith. He says, now is the time to press even further into God. Yes, God gave us an amazing victory. It'd be very easy to sit back and say, oh, okay, all good. We're good, God. We got it from here. But Ezraiah says, no, this is the time to press even further into God. This is the time to rely on God all the more. And I think there's an incredible parallel, an incredible warning for us specifically at Peace Church Yes, things are going well here are we perfect no But things are going largely. Well, we are meeting and surpassing budget people are coming to faith in Jesus. Our church is growing We're building a building that's gonna be twice the size of this room I mean like God is doing amazing stuff here and we should be very, very thankful. But it'd be very easy in this moment to look back and say, wow, God, thanks for all you've done. You can take it easy. Now we got it from here. It'd be very easy for us to say, wow, Lord, 2000 people come into a medieval campus. That's insane. No, no more though. God, we're good. We're good with this. That's not the type of church we are. And that's not the type of church we're going to be. We're not going to get lazy in our faith. We're going to press in even harder. God has been so good to us in year one of this proclaim. We want to seek Him all the more in year two. Amen? Amen. So, Azariah calls King Asa and the people to do the same thing. Take courage, press into God. And what does Asa do? He responds. In the moment. He responds to the challenge and so he brings the heart of his kingdom back to God. He goes and cleans house of his kingdom, removing all the places of false worship, and he makes commitments and a covenant with God. And the people rejoice, and the people give their heart back to God. But that's not the end of the story. And so that's what we're going to pick up as we continue. And so with that, would you hear the word of the Lord? Second Chronicles chapter 15, verses 16 to 19. Would you hear God's word? 2 Chronicles 15:16-19 16 Even Maacah, his mother, King Asa removed from being queen mother because she had made a detestable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the brook Kidron. 17 But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true all his days. 18 And he brought into the house of God the sacred gifts of his father and his own sacred gifts, silver, and gold, and vessels. 19 And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa. Amen. This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father God, as we consider commitments and fulfilling commitments, I ask that today that you would please send the Holy Spirit to illuminate our hearts and our minds to your beautiful truth. Holy Spirit, we ask that you would take this truth of Scripture and use it to transform our lives, we'd be in more in alignments with the image of our powerful Savior, Jesus Christ. For it's in His name we pray. And everyone said, Amen, Amen. So church, as we conclude this sermon series and this little spiritual journey that we've been on together, as we look to the second half, to year two of the Proclaim campaign, let's focus on this one main idea. If you have your devotionals, you can go ahead and fill this in. Here's our main idea for today. In a world turning from Him, God calls us to fulfill our commitments to Him. In a world turning from Him, God calls us to fulfill our commitments to Him. And as we journey through these last couple verses of this chapter that we've been walking through, there's just two points we want to pick up on here today, and it's these. To truly fulfill our commitments, we go all the way. And secondly, to truly fulfill our commitments,we give all to God. So let's go ahead and jump right in. First point here this morning is this, to truly fulfill our commitments, we go all the way. With your Bibles open, let's look at these verses. So when you look at verse 16, you're seeing Asa do exactly this, he goes all the way. Now you may say, he's being kind of ruthless here. He's kind of being cutthroat. I don't think so I think he's being courageous and a faithful leader look at verse 16 even Mecca his mother King Asa removed from being Queen mother because she made a detestable image for Asherah So who's Asherah? What's Asherah? Asherah was the name of a false and fake goddess that the surrounding cultures and societies would worship. And the worship of Asherah had crept into God's people, even to the point where his mother, it probably actually was his grandmother, she set up her own place of worship to worship Asherah. But Asa, Asa has no tolerance for false worship of fake gods. He wants his kingdom to be pure. And there was no nepotism for King Asa. Even his grandmother gets the boots. That's how committed he was to his kingdom being holy and pure before the Lord. Asa looked at the places of worship of Asherah and the idols of the land and he said, not here, not on my watch, not among God's people. And then look what he does back to our verse. And I got to be honest with you, the second part of this verse, I love this. I love the second part of this verse. This is awesome. Asa cut down her image, Meacah's image of Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the brook of Kidron. Now a little Old Testament factoid for you here, the brook of Kidron, also called the Valley of Kidron, that was the place where you would take the idols in the false worship of a false god, these false images. That's where you were to properly dispose of these things. This is how you officially took care of the false gods. You didn't just destroy them, you didn't just burn them, you brought them to the Valley of Kidron and that's where you disposed of them. us that to truly fulfill our commitments we go all the way. Some of you, you say you have rejected your sin, but to truly repent means you remove it from your life. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some of you know that, that sin. That sin that you are particularly vulnerable towards. That sin that is especially sweet to you. Oh, you say you've repented of it, but you keep access to it. Oh, you say that you've repented of it, but you keep it in your back pockets. Listen, there is no repentance until there is removal of it as far as you are able. Asa removes all access to the temptations to worship another God from his kingdom, even to the point where he kicks his grandmother out of her own seat of authority. He breaks this image, he burns it, and then he brings it to the Valley of Kidron to show the people, we are properly gonna do this. We are properly gonna clean house in this kingdom because it's leading us astray. But look what goes on. It says in verse 17, it says this, it says, "'But the high places were not taken out of Israel.'" Now to clarify the high places, those were other places of worship to false gods. So you may be thinking, I would understand it. You may be thinking right now, wait a second, pastor. Asa didn't go all the way, because the Bible says here that some things were left intact. This is where we need to also know our Bible geography. No, actually Asa did go all the way. Israel is referring to the northern kingdom. Asa is the king of the southern kingdom. Again, what's the southern kingdom called? Anybody remember? Judah. And that's where Jerusalem was. The northern kingdom was called Israel. The southern kingdom was called Judah. Asa is king of Judah, the southern kingdom. So Israel was outside of his jurisdiction. So what Asa could do, he did do. And the Bible is drawing a huge contrast here between the southern kingdom cleaning house and the northern kingdom keeping their demonic practices. Now listen, listen to how this verse ends. Look at the end of verse 17. This is so powerful, this is so beautiful. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true all of his days. I tell you what, right there, right there, at the end of your days, let them say that about you. I have done and probably will do a number of funerals in my life and time and time again people get up and they share funny stories and they reminisce and they do these sorts of things. But the funerals that I like the best are when people stand up and they say, this person loved the Lord with all their heart. That's what needs to be said about you at the end of your days. I don't care how many trucks you bought. I don't care how much money you earned. I don't care how powerful your business was. I don't care how influential your social media was. I don't care how big of a worship center you built. What I want to know is, is your heart right with the Lord. Is your heart holy, true? And you may ask, holy, true to what? Great question. That's exactly what we figure out with this next section. To truly fulfill our commitments, we give it all to God. So not only does Asa purify the land, he gives it all to God. Not only does he get rid of demonic practices, he gives his heart to God. Look at verse 18. It says, And he brought into the house of God the sacred gifts of his father, which clearly his father didn't do but should have done. He brought into the house of God the sacred gifts of his father and his own sacred gifts, silver and gold and vessels. Now, okay, honestly, there's a little mystery here as to what this is exactly referring to. Sacred gifts could be things that they won from war, we don't really know, but either way we get the notion here that Asa brought things of immense value into the house of God. And I love how it says the sacred gifts of his father, because if you remember what we said in the beginning, his father's Abijah. Abijah was a bad king, did not worship God. And what you kind of see here is Asa, he wants to set a new trajectory for his family. He's saying, with my kingdom, with my family, we're starting something new. We're going to come before the Lord and bring things to the Lord. But I love the contrast here. Here's your tweetable. The things of false worship Asa cut down and brought to the Kidron Valley where they could be properly destroyed. But the things of value Asa brings into the house of God as a true act of worship. Again, you can't just get rid of things. You have to also give things to God. This is a great model for us today as we consider our commitment to God through proclaim. Do not bring your least, bring your best. Do not bring your leftovers, bring your most, bring your first. Church, we've said it before and it's a very challenging thing, but we can tell God's place in your life by where He is in your finances. If God is first in your finances, that's a pretty good indication He's first in your life. But if God is not first in your finances, you have a hard time convincing me that He's first in your life. Asa brings the sacred gifts before the God, the gifts of his Father and his own gifts. And look what God does in response. He gives them peace. Look at verse 19. And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa. So to clarify for those who are just joining us, this whole setting is happening around 900 BC. This story takes place in the fifteenth year of King Asa, which means, and if there is no more war until the thirty-fifth year, that means for the next twenty years in a world riddled with constant war for the next 20 years, Judah has peace. Now listen, King Asa, while he is recorded as a good king, he was not perfect. If you read ahead in his final years, he makes some pretty big mistakes, but all in all, the Bible records him as a good king. But I have to say real quick, I just love what it says about King Asa's funeral. This is in the next chapter, in chapter 16, verse 14. It says that after they buried him, it says, quote, they made a very great fire in his honor. They had a bonfire at his funeral. Would you do that for me, please? That is, that is awesome. They built a bonfire at his funeral. I love this. But did you also know that Asa's successor is one of his sons? And do you know what the son's name is? Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat. Okay, so follow this. They throw a bonfire at his funeral. His son Jehoshaphat, he names his son Jehoshaphat, takes over for him. Do you know what the Bible's trying to tell us in Asa was a redneck. His son was Jehoshaphat, bonfire at his funeral. That's a life that I want to replicate right there. He was a straight up redneck. He did amazing things. He's recorded as a good king. Yes, there was faltering at the end, but that, my friends, listen to me. Asa's faltering at the end is just another reminder that we don't ultimately look to King Asa. We look to a different king, actually one of Asa's descendants, who would come around a thousand years later, and his name is Jesus Christ. That's who we ultimately look to. Asa was a good king, but he was not a perfect king, but Jesus is a perfect king. The book of Matthew records the genealogy of Jesus, and in Matthew chapter 1 verses 7 and 8, it says that we see that Asa is recorded as a distant grandfather of Jesus Christ. We see this because Jesus is the fulfillment of everything the Bible builds up to. Jesus delivers on this fulfillment. Jesus is the Son of God who has come as the perfect King. Jesus does what every bad king should have done and he is better than what any good king could have been Our king goes all the way, but he does not give silver and gold Jesus gives his own flesh and blood Jesus shows us what it means to truly give it all to God for he gives of himself He gives up himself when he dies on the cross as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. He gives it all to God for us. He gives up his very life and he is the reason that we gather. He is the reason that we've named this campaign Proclaim because we don't worship a dead king. We proclaim the name of the one who rose from the dead, who even now rules and reigns from heaven. We live out what Colossians chapter 1 verse 28 says. Colossians 1 28 says, him, meaning Jesus, him we proclaim. That's why we named this campaign Proclaim, because the world needs to hear the name of Jesus. Amen. In a world turning from him, God calls us to fulfill our commitments to him. And that's what we're trying to do with this Proclaim campaign. pain. So in a few moments, in a few moments, our church will enter into a powerful time, that I believe a spiritually powerful time, where we spiritually hold hands and we promise to commit to recommit or recommit to God's work through proclaim. And so to help you prepare for that, I want to give you a couple of points of encouragement and challenge as we consider making this commitment together, because now is the time. The commitment, the time of commitment is here and now. Listen here, when Asa heard the call of God, he didn't wait. When Asa heard the call of God, he didn't say, you know what, let me go, let me go process this with my mentor. He didn't say, let me go and do a time of prayer. When Asa heard the call of God, he knew it was the call of God, and he responded right there in that moment. And my friends, that moment for us is now. Now is our time. As a church, we've been diving into God's Word for the last couple weeks, as we've been going through the spiritual journey together, seeking the Lord. We're about to enter into a commitment or a time of recommitment that we've been spiritually preparing for. For those of us who are part of the Peace Church family, you probably fall into one of two camps. You were either here last year and you were given a chance to commit to proclaim, or you weren't with us, you've come since then, and now is your chance to join on to the Proclaim campaign. So depending on which one you are, I want you to think about one of two things that we're going to look at here real briefly. First one is this, maybe for you now is the time to recommit and see it through so that we can finish strong. This means that you've already made a pledge and it's time to recommit your pledge. If that's you, then I join you with that because me and my wife and family, we've already made our pledge and it's time for us to recommit to that, to make sure that we end stronger than what we started. And if you remember, we had a really strong start. Maybe it's time to recommit to finish your pledge. Or maybe you're new to the church family and this is now your time to jump on to a commitment what God is doing. Maybe for you it's simply now is the time to commit to bring your gifts and take courage. Asa was called to immense courage and when the people responded in faith and courage the kingdom became secure. They entered into a time of prosperity. Peace fell upon the people as the king led the way and he brought his precious gifts before the Lord showing that his heart was right before the Lord. Asa did this. Now friends, you really have to understand this part. Asa did this knowing and trusting the promises of God, but we stand in the promises of God already fulfilled. We stand in the gospel of Jesus Christ who is the fulfillment of every good promise that God made to us. Asa looks forward to the promises of God. We get to look back on the promises of God fulfilled. Therefore, how much more should our gifts be than Asa's? For those of us who have been saved by Christ, who are now in a covenant, the new covenant with God, then let's fulfill our commitments to Him and invest in the work that He's doing in this world. Because in a world turning from Him, He calls us to make our commitments to him church. I know you know this This is this is not about sticks and bricks This is about Kingdom work with a generational legacy This is us showing the future generations what it's like to take a courageous step of faith.

The Place and Power of Sin in the Christian Life Sermon Series: The Church Never Preaches On... Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 1 John 3:1-10 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, amen. So if you are joining us for the first time here at Peace Church, I want to let you know we're in the midst of a kind of a unique series, not something we typically do, but we're in a series where we ask the congregation what they wanted to hear be preached on. So a couple months ago, we asked our congregation to submit topics that they think that you all think the church never preaches on, whether that's peace church or the church in general, because here's one thing I want you to know about peace church. If it's in the Bible, we're going to preach on it. Bible talks about a lot of great stuff. We want to get to all of it. And so we asked the church, what do you think the church never preaches on whether here or across the nation or wherever. And the church submitted a bunch of topics. We consolidated those down, put them back to the congregation and asked the congregation to vote on the top six. And so I would say some of the topics that came in, no surprise. A couple of them were a surprise, but I'll tell you this about this topic, the one here today. If I can, if I can say this, I got to say that this question, this topic that the church chose, this one made me really proud of the church. I hope I can say that. And the reason is, this wasn't like a hot topic. This wasn't like some newsworthy thing that's just our little moment in history. This was a great, eternal, biblical, Christian question. I was so, so pleased that it made it to the top, and I'm excited to preach on it today. So here's what it is. The church never preaches on the place and power of sin in the Christian life. I think that is a very mature and thoughtful, great question. And there's many places in the Bible that we could go to investigate and answer, but this morning we're going to look at 1 John 3, verses 1-10. Would you go ahead and turn there now? If you want to use the Bible to be provided, that's on page 1303. Let me just clarify real quick. This is first John, not the gospel of John. The gospel of John comes early in the scriptures. This is a set of three letters that come later in your Bible. So it's first John written by the same guy, not John the Baptist, but John the apostle. John writes three letters. And the one we're looking at today, first John, this is really a letter that John writes to Christians and he's calling Christians back to the true faith back to the true doctrine see at this point John John was living old enough to see how some false teachings were beginning to creep in among the church and with him being the last living Apostle at this point he wants to write and make sure that Christians are not following their own thoughts about God but they are following what God has revealed about himself they want to make sure that Christians aren't creating a God in their own image but we're worshipping the true God who sits on the throne. And so John writes this letter calling Christians back to the truth and essence of the Christian faith so that we might rightly know and worship the true God. And he comes to chapter 3 of his first letter and it hits on I think exactly what we're asking here this morning. And so with that, would you hear the word of the Lord? First, John chapter three, we'll look at verses one to 10. Would you hear God's word? 1 John 3:1-10 1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. 4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's[b] seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Some heavy things here, but this is God's Word. So let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray Father in heaven above. Lord, we ask by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that you would help us to rightly understand the truth of this word We'd know the power of the gospel to overcome sin and what Jesus has already done for us and so we ask this here and now for your glory for our joy and for the good of our neighbor. And it's in Jesus name that we pray. And everyone said amen and amen. So church, as we look at this one passage here today, here's, here's one thought I'd love for you to chew on. And it's this. Christ victory over sin gives us a new identity from sin. Now, as we walk through this passage here, verse by verse here today, we're going to pick up three things here that I want to let you know where we're, where we are going to be going ahead of time. And it's this, with this new identity that we have in Christ, we also get a new trajectory, we get a new morality, and we get a new family. 1. With our new identity, we get a new trajectory (vv. 1-3) So, with this new identity that we have because of Jesus, we get a new trajectory. I'm gonna tell you now, we always say this, and I mean it every single time, but I mean it here today too, keep your Bibles open as we walk through verse by verse. So, with our new identity, we get a new trajectory. Go back to verse one of chapter three. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we shall be called children of God. And I love this little phrase, and so we are. Church, listen, by the power of the gospel, God not only loves us, but he's adopted us. He's welcomed us into his house as his children. Through Christ, we are now adopted into the family of God and with this new identity as God's children. Did you see what the passage says? We've adopted this new identity. We're made new. We're welcomed into God's house. But did you notice what this passage says here? It's going to be hard for the world to recognize us. With this new identity that we have, the world is gonna have a hard time recognizing us. Look it, it says, the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him, meaning Jesus. So here's how it works. Many of you know I've adopted son named Will. We adopted Will from Ethiopia about 10 years ago. Now listen, we flew over to Ethiopia, we adopted our son and we brought him back and we are raising him as our own. We've given him our name. We are instilling our values in him. He is assimilating to our family's culture. All the weird quirks about the Kimmel family, he is adopting to himself. And so here's how it works. If we were to take Will and fly back to Ethiopia with him, the Ethiopians would not recognize him. Culturally speaking, they would say, he's not like us. He's got a different value system. He has a different language. He has a different name. They wouldn't recognize Will anymore. They would say, this kid is an American kid. Because, I'll tell you right now, Will is, he's owned the whole American thing. I mean, not only that, this kid is about as Midwestern as it gets. Will puts ranch on his steak. Ethiopians have no category for that. And neither do we. Some of you are judging me right now as a father. But here's the reality. They wouldn't recognize him because he's not, he doesn't belong to them. He's part of our family now. And the same goes for those of us who are in Christ. That we've been welcomed into God's family that he's raising us now. We're he's instilling his values and morals into us his culture into us. So the world around us that doesn't know Christ They're not going to recognize us They may say yeah, you wear somewhat of the same clothing, but we don't recognize you. You're part of something else You are foreign you are alien your other and that's how it should be The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him, Jesus. So, you have to understand, the world doesn't recognize us because of who we belong to, that we're part of a different family, we're part of God's family, but also the world does not recognize us because of who we are becoming. Look at verse 2, beloved, we are God's children now. And listen to this, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know that when he, when Jesus appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. Okay, again, this is why you need to have your Bibles open here. I love what the apostle's getting at here. The apostle's getting at the fact that the truth here is that we, the people of God, we are ever becoming more like Jesus, right, Christians? We are to ever becoming more like Christ. But listen here, the transformation won't be complete until we are fully with Jesus. Because we are still locked in this mortal body of sin to an extent. That transformation is ever happening, but it won't be complete until we are with Jesus himself. Either through our death and entrance into heaven, when we leave this mortal body of sin, or as the apostle alludes to here when Christ returns. As the Bible says, it will be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Which by the way, for those of you who are curious, we're closing up this series next week and we will be looking at the end times. We are in serious times and that's an important topic and so we're gonna be looking at what does it look like? What does that mean for Christ to return? Part of it is the Bible says that we'll be changed to be like him. Because Christ, who died upon the cross as the atoning sacrifice for sins, is the same Christ who three days later was resurrected from the dead, which was the victory over Satan, sin, and death. The resurrection of Christ is the promise and the guarantee that he is who he said he is. And his promises are true, that we have eternal life that starts now. And Christ's resurrection points to our own resurrection when we will eventually inherit new bodies New bodies that will be finally fully and completely and forever free of sin. That's our trajectory That's who we are becoming. We are heaven-bound and ever becoming more like Christ. Amen And a trajectory is a direction. That's the direction of our lives. That's where we are headed And we are to live like Christ unto Christ ever becoming more like him. And so sin, back to our topic, sin has no place in that trajectory other than, listen here, sin has no place in that trajectory other than to be an ever-diminishing aspect of our life. What place does sin have? An ever-diminishing place in our life. That's the trajectory, that's our trajectory, that's the trajectory away from sin that through Christ we are free from the judgment of sin but the effects of sin still linger until we are fully with Christ but our trajectory is less sin and more Jesus every day so Christians it's hard to do but it's time to look in the mirror can you look at your life and can you say over the last year, yeah, I have become more like Jesus. Because if you can't, if you've been a Christian for some time and you can't look over the last year and say, yep, over this last year, I have grown in faith. I have become more like Jesus. If you can't say that, then here's my question. What are you doing? What are you doing with your life? Are you falling back into the, to the ways of the world that Jesus saved you from? Are you starting to blend back into the world so that they see you as one of their own rather than something different? What are you doing with your life? What trajectory are you actually on? Because here's the thing, we say this, and I'm saying this, and I want you to think about this, not to judge you, but to challenge you, to challenge you to see if you lost hope. Because look at what John says in verse 3. It says, Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. So let me put it like this. The focus of your hope is what hones you. Like your hope is that grinding stone that you press yourself against that sharpens you. So if you're not becoming more like Christ, my question for you is, have you lost your hope? Have you lost sight of your true hope? Because look what the Bible says, everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. The more we place our hope in Christ, the more we grow in him and more like him, and he is pure. And so the more that we press ourself into Christ, the more that we will become pure. But this is if we stay in Christ on that trajectory. 2. With our new identity, we get a new morality (vv. 4-7) But with this, with this new identity, we get this new trajectory, but we also get a new morality. And John absolutely lays down the law here. Look at verses four, five, and six. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he, Jesus, appeared in order to take away our sins. And in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Listen, I know what Christians like to do is we like to, we like to reduce sin down to that thing that we can't help but do. Like the sin, I'm sorry, we don't want to do it. We don't like to do it. But sin is that thing we just can't help but do. But here's what I'm going to say to you. That's not exactly how the Bible talks about that here. Look at here. John talks about how sin is lawlessness, meaning sin is what is outside God's plan for what's glorifying to him. Sin is what is outside God's character. Sin is what is outside God's instructed plan for human flourishing, for moral order and for our good and our joy, sin is lawlessness. So rather than sin being that thing that you can't help but do, John speaks about sin as that thing that is you doing whatever you want, living as your own authority, meaning that there's no external force or there's nothing external that informs your values or your morality. Let me just stop right there. Modern people, especially Americans, we would say, whoa, that sounds like freedom. That sounds like freedom to me. Nothing, nothing outside myself is going to tell me how to live. That's freedom. What I'd say to you is that is a lie. That's not freedom. That's death. It's that age old picture of the fish outside of the bowl. Some people say that's freedom. I say that's death. Sin is lawlessness, meaning that we're outside of God's law. And again, God's law is good and it's what brings us joy and flourishing. It brings order. Yeah. Because sin is outside God's plan and it's destructive to our souls. Because it's outside of God's good plan for our flourishing, it's destructive to who he's calling us to be, to our soul, to our lives, to our family, and to, obviously, to our culture. That's not bringing freedom, that's bringing death. Doesn't bring unity, it brings separation. So, where are the parents in the house? Let me see, parents, raise your hand. So let me ask you a question, parents. If your kids go against what you say, are there consequences? But actually, you know what, now that I think about this, maybe this isn't the generation I should be asking you millennials in your never-say-no gentle parenting. Let me, oh, so. Let me ask the parents from 30 years ago. If you were a parent 30 years ago, if your kid went against what you said, were there consequences? Yeah, because that's how good parents parent. Same goes with God. Sin is against God's law. It's lawlessness. As our passage says, it's lawlessness. And so when you break a law, if there's not consequences, how good was that law? Sin is lawlessness and that comes with consequences, namely separation from God. But I wanna do something here for a moment. I wanna take some precious time and I wanna explain something. And I wanna call out something. See, you've heard me say, and I will continue to say, because it is true, that sin separates us from God. Okay, that's a very popular notion about sin that you're gonna hear from me and other modern-day preachers. But I think I've come to realize something about that term. Is we really like to say sin separates us from God? Because it doesn't sound as bad as what it actually is. When we talk about how sin separates us from God, do you know what that actually means? Do you know what separation from God actually results in? Condemnation, death, judgment, hell. Now, we'll shorthand and say separation from God without actually explaining what that means because I think in some way it keeps God in a light that we like to look at rather than the reality that when we are separated from God that means we are separated away from light into darkness away from salvation into condemnation not on a trajectory for heaven but a trajectory for hell and so when we break God's law there are consequences and it is separation from God but when you hear that you need to understand what that actually means that's eternal final and permanent. It's condemnation. It's not a nice thing to think about. It's a terrible, horrendous thing to think about. Sin also brings brokenness. Brokenness to our families, to our souls, to our lives, to our world. But church, that's not who we are to be or what we are to bring into the world. We are the one who don't live according to lawlessness, but we live according to the good law that brings joy and flourishing and glory to God. As the Apostle Paul, look at what he says in verse 7, or the Apostle John here. Look what he says in verse 7. He says, little children, not actually toddlers here, he's speaking about all God's children, both young and old. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous. I know the only time we use the word righteous in our vernacular is when we say self-righteousness. Righteousness sounds like an arrogant thing, but here's what I'll tell you. Here's your definition for righteousness. Righteousness is living out what is morally right in God's eyes. And so we are given a new sense of morality because of our heavenly father now. I know some of us here don't like the word code So let me put it this way and I'm completely fine with saying it this way too You could you could say as God's children we follow God's culture of righteousness That's who we embody as a church. We embody the culture of righteousness. What is morally right in God's eyes? Now let me just say, there are many things that we are losing in our world. There are many things that are washing away in our culture, and there's some things that need to go. But I'll tell you right now, there's something that's being lost in our culture, I'm afraid it already might be lost, and I lament over this. And it's this. It's when a father, as the man of the house, stands as the head of the house with his wife by his side. And he starts a sentence with these four words, in this house we. And then he proceeds to lay out a vision for what the standard of the home should be, not in a domineering way, but in a way that demonstrates his loving authority and his inspirational leadership. And so when kids go wayward, he reminds them of the values and the morals of the home and he calls them back to that. Such as like this you got to figure out a way to stay in your own home and your own family But so here's an example such as when a father says in this house. We serve the Lord speak the truth and help others Or in this house, we worship God work hard and walk the extra mile Men, does your family know what your vision is for the family? Men, does your family know what the standard is, what the culture of righteousness is like? Do you articulate it here? Whatever it may be, the notion here is that the Father sets the cultural and moral direction of the home. But listen, He lives that out firstly Himself. Just like our Father in heaven does for us. Parents, listen to me, don't do, oh man. Parents, don't buy into this whole idea that your job is to help kids discover who they want to be. Christian parents, your job is to help kids discover who God has created them to be. Because that's better. I'm telling you, that's better for your kids. They will choose a lesser version of themselves every single time But God has called them to something greater. This isn't about restricting them This is about blossoming them bringing freedom to their life that they are to be all that they're called to be Don't buy into the lie that your job is to help kids discover Who they want to be or who they are your job is to help them discover who God has created Created them to be a good parent and stills good values into their kids like our Heavenly Father does for us. God is our Father. We are His children. And with Him being our perfect Father, He has stood and said to us, in this house we. And then He has told us, His culture of righteousness, that He Himself lives out first and we are to follow. And with this new identity we have in Christ, we have a new trajectory for our lives, we have a new morality, which makes us distinct from the world. 3. With our new identity, we get a new family (vv. 8-10) And with it, as we've been talking, we also get a new family. So let's take these last three verses, verse by verse, because here's what I'm gonna tell you right now. These last three verses are black and white. So let's look at them. Verse eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. So here's the deal church Jesus has come to undo what the devil does in our lives yet. So many of us keep playing the devil's game It's like this Let's say there's this dog that keeps being aggressive towards your kids. So what you do is you go and you take this dog and you tie it up to a post But your kids go and grab a stick and they keep going up to this dog and they keep poking it. Now what would you say to that kid? Now listen, that's Christians when we willfully give ourselves to sin. God has destroyed the works of the devil, but when you sin you keep going back to it and keep poking with it. And for whatever little bit of just anger you got towards a kid who would poke a dog that you What's God supposed to think? When we've been saved from the very thing that we keep giving ourselves to. That's basically a picture of what happens when Christians make a practice of sinning. But Jesus, by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, he's destroyed the devil's stronghold upon us. But if we keep choosing to sin, it's like we are saying, I belong to the family of the devil, not the family of God. And that's simply what the scriptures are pointing to. John continues in this very black and white language. Look at verse 9. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he's been born of God. Born of God, meaning born into the family of God. We're now his children. We have a new identity as we are now part of God's family. So let's get something really clear here because I already hear the objections. Some of you are already writing an email. So let me just hit something here real quick. John is warning against what we would call living in sin, living in a way or in such a way that we know displeases God and is against his good plan for our lives. John is warning against conscious and continual sin. That is, knowing what's wrong but choosing to keep doing it. John is saying you can't live like that and still call yourself a Christian. Listen, Christians, becoming a Christian or confessing Jesus for the first time, let me tell you what that does. That makes you justified before God. God that gives you a salvation that nothing can take away, but it doesn't make us perfect. At least not yet. We still live in this mortal body of sin. We are ever being sanctified. That means we are ever becoming more holy. And yes, that's a trajectory. Some of us who are newer in the faith are not as sanctified as others, but none of us are perfect yet. Here's the reality. Christians will still sin because we are not yet made perfect. We are still being sanctified. The difference, though, is between those who fall into sin in moments of weakness because it's all around us versus those who consciously, continually sin in rebellion to God. Those who keep on sinning. The apostle says that he, meaning the born-again Christian, he cannot keep on sinning because he's been born of God. The notion here is keep on. We cannot keep on sinning, cannot keep on doing what we know is wrong in God's eyes. So here's a question I often get. I get this as a pastor and it honestly breaks my heart. So we'll talk about this, we'll talk about how Christians need to reject sin in our lives and that you can't keep on sinning and call yourself a Christian. And then here's a question that comes up. What about those who are enslaved to addiction, such as alcoholism or pornography, that they are addicted? Chemically so, they are enslaved and they cannot help themselves. What about them? Well, here's what I would say. If you are to the point where you know you are truly addicted to the sin and you cannot break the habit, then you need to realize you can't do it on your own and you must seek help. Here's what I'd say. If you are addicted and you know it, but you're not seeking help, if you are addicted and you realize it, but you're actively choosing to not seek help, are you really enslaved to sin or are you just giving yourself to it? We are the church who stand to care and love for one another. I have sat with people in the throes of grievous addiction and I will tell you, I do not judge them. My heart breaks for them. I want them to know the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome. And as a church, we're gonna lock arms and lift each other up and move forward together. If that's where you are, I'm telling you, God has brought you a church to help you get out of the sin that Christ has already broken. So, if you're caught in addiction, reach out to the church. We are a family. We won't judge you, we wanna help you. Romans chapter eight says that we need to live by the spirits and put to death the sinful deeds of the body, and then we will live. When Romans says put to death, you rednecks know how to translate that. Put to death means to kill. We kill our sin. Or as John Owen said back in the 1600s, be killing sin or it will be killing you. Now I'm gonna read our last verse for today, and I'll just tell you right now, you can't be mad at me. This is what the scriptures say. Look what John says in verse 10. It says, by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Let me summarize. Your life makes it very clear whether you follow the ways of the devil or the ways of God. No one is saying you're going to do it perfectly. Stop using that scapegoat answer. No one's saying you're going to do it perfectly, but your life shows are you pursuing the trajectory of Christ or the direction of the devil? Your actions show which path you are on. I need to stop and say something to you Midwest people. I'm Midwest myself, speaking to my own people, gotta call something out here. We're not talking about niceness. We're not talking about kindness here. There are plenty nice and kind people who do the devil's work. If your response is, well, they're so nice or they're so kind, it's like, okay, that's great, but that's not what we're talking about here. Christians are the ones who pursue not niceness, but righteousness. Kindness is wonderful, it's a fruit of the Spirit, but it's one of the fruits of the Spirit. It can't be the only defining factor of who we are or the only prevailing ethic in our culture. We need to be the ones who model not just niceness and kindness, but righteousness. And that will put us in opposition. That's when the world says, I don't recognize who you are. The question is not, are you nice? The question is, do you pursue righteousness? The question is not, are you perfect? But do you pursue Jesus? Here's a down-home way to put it. What family are you part of? Like, what family do you model that you're part of? God's or the devil's? So let's wrap it up here Let's look at these questions. What is the place and power of sin in the lives of Christians number one? Sin has no place in our lives Sin has no place in our lives. We are not to be marked by defined by or give ourselves to sin We are given a new identity in Christ. This is a new trajectory. This is a new morality This is a new family sin has no more place in our life than a hippo does in your living room. It don't belong there. It's not becoming of who we are. It's got no place in our life. Sin has no place in our life other than to be an ever diminishing aspect of our life. So the question is, what power does it have? Well, in a sense, you know the answer to this. The reason that the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. So for those of us who walk in step in the power of the Holy Spirit, who live according to God's Word, sin has no power over you. Let me tell you right now, you have the cheat code for this. Let's see if there's anyone else who recognizes what I'm about to say. Up up, down down, left right, left right, VA start. Old Super Nintendo cheat code for video games. My friends, you've been given the cheat code. I hope I don't get emails over this. The cheat code is the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives withinside of us. Jesus has destroyed the works of the devil, and when he returned to heaven, he said, I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit to fill, fuel, and guide your lives. So when the devil tries to come at you, when sin tries to come at you, you just apply the cheat code, which is the Holy Spirit inside of you, empowering you to live according to God's word. What power does sin have? It doesn't have any power over us. Romans 6 says it has no dominion over you, but listen, sin is still very powerful. Sin is still the bent heart of the culture around us. Sin is still the environment that's ever around us. It's like this. There's a room filled with smoke, and we have to live in this room. We as Christians. Now there's some of us who think, well, I'm redeemed, I'm saved, I can breathe this air all day long, and just constantly breathing it in. What you do when you're just giving yourself to sin. Listen, Jesus has extinguished the fire, but that smoke remains. Versus the Holy Spirit being our oxygen. And that's who we breathe in an environment of sin. The best example I can put is like this. The poison ivy plant is dead. It's been killed. It's been uprooted. Jesus has killed the poison ivy plant, but its effects still make us itchy. Sin has no dominion over you, but its effects linger. Christ has overcome Satan, sin, and death itself. And so by the power of the cross and through the resurrection of Jesus, through the truth of God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit within us, as we live according to the gospel, you need to know that the stain of your sin has been removed. Yes, we are to wage war against our sin, but it's only Christ who is ultimately overcome. When you sin, you shouldn't feel like guilt shouldn't be the dominating factor, because you're gonna sin. We live in the world, we fall short. The difference is that Christians don't give ourselves to it. We don't live in it. When Jesus died on the cross, he paid for your past, present, and future sins. That's not an excuse or license to sin. That's so that you would know that the power of the cross covers it all. Which is why, no matter what hurt or pain or sin you do fall into, we are the ones who can still stand and sing, it is well with my soul. Because Christ has control. Because we've given ourselves to Jesus and nothing can separate us in him, nothing can separate us from the love of God when we are in him. So here's my hope for you Christians, that by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit and through the message of the gospel, may you understand that Christ's victory over sin should empower you to wage war on your sin, to put to death and kill what Christ has already removed, so that you may live righteously before God, because Christ's victory over sin gives us a new identity you may live righteously before God, because Christ's victory over sin gives us a new identity from it.

David and Bathsheba Sermon Series: Nate Harney Executive Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 2 Samuel 11 Transcript Well, 12 years ago, almost to the exact day, I remember getting an email that I opened that set me on a path that set me for one of the most surreal and strange experience of my life. I was graduating college, I needed a summer internship at a church, and so I was going to this little, what was a little country church in Middleville, Michigan. And I got an email saying, right when you get into town, you're gonna get right close to VBS week, and we need some more helpers, would you jump right in? So I wanted to make a good first impression, of course. So I said, yes, I'll jump in. And they said, well, we have a couple different major needs. What are you willing to do? And so I made the mistake of saying, whatever, anything you need, I hope you make that same mistake that I did for our VBS coming up because we have a lot of needs. No, it's a blessing from God, but they gave me the role that would be the last thing I'd ever choose for myself. And they said, great, you're gonna be on the drama team. So I got an email from the drama director of VBS and she said, perfect, just a couple things. We're just finalizing the scripts, plural, okay? And she said, we're gonna be sending them to you. What we know is you're gonna be playing a character named David, and so you'll see his lines that you can memorize on the scripts, great. So I pull up the email eventually, looking through the scripts, and I realize the title of the full week is the life of David and my character named David is David King David from the Bible and as I continue to read through these I see that as we near the end of the week they're gonna have us act out dramatically on the day where we want to see the kids introduced to the full gospel of Jesus that he lived, died, rose again, that gospel that Pastor John just talked about, that heartbeat of what we proclaim, what we want every single child in our church, in our community to know and follow. To bring that point home, we are going to be dramatically acting out 2 Samuel 11, which is the story of David and Bathsheba. For kids. And I thought it had to be a mistake. Turns out it wasn't. And I did what I will never do again. This is my guarantee to you as a church, but we acted out the story of David and Bathsheba. And if you are kind of new to the Bible, new to church, and you don't know why people are laughing, the reason why they're laughing is because that is absolutely insane to do. Because I think there's probably young adults gathered here today that I introduced to you at a very young age, the concepts of adultery and drunkenness and the gross misuse of positions of authority, and maybe just generally how babies are made. So I am sorry, and I can tell you as the executive pastor now of that same church, is my promise to you, if something like that came across my desk again, it would get my fastest back to the drawing board, to our kids team. That is my promise to you. I think it's the least I can do after all I've done. I'm still working through it. And I remember that and I can joke about it, but in all honesty, that chapter, that passage in God's word has stuck with me. And in a lot of ways, it has been a life-saving place that I've had to return time and time again because it paints this hard to look at at time this grim but clear view of the power of sin. So I want to go there together today to 2 Samuel chapter 11. Turn there in your Bibles. It's on page 333 in our provided Bibles. And as you turn there, just know, so we're coming into the life of David here. The first 10 chapters of 2 Samuel, everything has been going great for him. Military triumphs, spiritual successes, but chapter 11 presents a turn where sin shows up on the scene. Gross, deep, dark sin. And it affects David for the rest of his life. So 2 Samuel chapter 11, I'm gonna give you a heads up, this is a longer chapter, it's a story that I wanna read from God's word for you, but if you are able, you can stand now for the reading of God's word. 2 Samuel 11. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all of Israel, and they ravaged the Ammonites and they besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. And it happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And she was very beautiful. And David sent and inquired about the woman. And one said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent and told David, I am pregnant. So David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite. And Joab sent Uriah to David. And when Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing, and how the people were doing, and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of the Lord and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, have you not come from a journey? Why did you not go down to your house? And Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, in tents. And my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.' Then David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and he ate in his presence and drank, so that he made him drunk. And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord, but he did not go down to his house." So in the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. And in the letter he wrote, set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die. And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite also died. Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting. And he instructed the messenger, when you have finished telling all the news about the fighting of King David, then if the king's anger rises, and if he says to you, why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jerubbeth? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebes? Why did you go so near the wall? Then you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. The messenger said to David, The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall. Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.' And David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it, encourage him. And when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." Pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. We thank you for the wisdom and the warnings that it provides us. And our prayer today is that we would learn from the life of David and be transformed by your spirit here and now to live differently as we leave this place. We pray all this in your son's name, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Please be seated. So what do we take away, what do we learn from this sad and this strange story from the life of David? Well, as we just read it and as we now study this passage, again, the Bible is going to paint this clear, horrible picture about the real power of sin, which is what you and I are up against every single day. So as we jump into this first section of the chapter, I want us to see from the scriptures that God is being clear that sin is attractive. So back to verse one, it's the spring, the season we're hoping for right now. The weather is just lightening up just right for war. David's army's out fighting. He's back in his palace lounging around and scholars kind of debate on whether or not this is, David's doing something wrong already. If this was his first mistake, some say, you know, he's just staying back because at this point in his life, he's older. He's 50, which I don't think is old, just for the record. Old for professional sports, maybe for battle, but I actually think the Bible is being very intentional and God is telling us already an important detail that starts off this sad chapter, that David is already shirking his duties. He should be out with his men fighting and he's already making bad decisions, staying home, lounging around, walking about the palace on the hilltop in Jerusalem, looking out over his kingdom. And we read in verse 2 that it happened, happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch, he was walking on the roof of the king's house, in his high position on the palace, he saw something. He saw a woman bathing. And the Bible tells us that that woman was very beautiful. In fact, the Hebrew here really emphasizes Bathsheba's beauty in a way you don't see almost anywhere else in Scripture. And I think in our, through our modern lens, which has these progressive influences on us at all times, we can read that going, well God, you're fully aware of what's coming next. Why is this detail even important? David's abusing his position of power. He's about to enter this grotesque cycle of sin. Do we really need to preface it by talking about how beautiful Bathsheba was? Is that even relevant to the story we're about to hear? This is someone's daughter. This is someone's wife. This is a king taking advantage of a woman. His position, not just in the palace, but his position as king of the kingdom. position, not just in the palace, but his position as king of the kingdom. Abusing that, he calls her in and he sleeps with her. Why make the point of talking about how beautiful Bathsheba is? Well, God's word doesn't hide the fact that sin is actually attractive. And don't misunderstand or please don't misquote me here. In no way am I saying that Bathsheba was sinning by being attractive. No, beauty is a gift of creation. It's a gift from the hands of the Creator, from God. And in no way am I or is the Bible excusing David's behavior. No, what it's painting is a real picture of the attractiveness of sin. David was a man who saw a very, very beautiful woman. He wanted to be with her. So he gave in to his temptation and he gave in to his sin. It was actually attractive to him. I just read for the first time this classic Christian work of fiction. And I've always felt a little guilty being a pastor and having not read it, but it's called Pilgrim's Progress. And it's a story of, it's this kind of story that paints a picture of the Christian walk and the Christian life. And so the main character, whose name is Christian, which is a little on the nose, but I'll give it to him. But he's being given directions to the celestial city. And this is what he's told. It says, that is the way you must go. It was built by the patriarchs, the prophets, was built by Christ and the apostles. And it is as straight as could be. Walk that path. And to be honest, I read that and the first thing that started going off in my brain is going, you know what, they're not actually characterizing the Christian walk of obedience properly because that's too simple, that's too easy, that's too clear, even I could do that. I can put one foot in front of the other and walk in a straight line. I just don't go this way, don't go that way, just go that way, I could do that. And the Christian walk of obedience is so much harder than that, right? But it hit me, just like King David in this instance, most of us know God's law, we know right and wrong. That's typically not the problem. It's simple, it's clear. But if obeying Christ is that easy, just walk straight, how do so many of us mess up? Well, even though the way is clear, there are so many tempting, attractive, sinful distractions that come at us from all sides, aren't there? And oftentimes, even though the path that God wants for us is clear and we know it. Sometimes the destination feels farther off and less gratifying than what's right here in front of us, off the path. Sin is actually attractive. It's okay for us to acknowledge that. We need to acknowledge that. Because if we don't, we become ignorant to its power, we become arrogant to our strength to say no to it if we're doing it on our own will, and where we become ignorant or arrogant, we become vulnerable to sin. Because it is attractive. And part of the reason it is attractive is because in the short term, in ways, sin is enjoyable. David saw what he wanted and he went after it to provide short-term satisfaction and he gave up so much more. Sin is attractive, but that's not the only reason it's powerful. It's also powerful because sin is relentless. And we see that in the next section. As we keep reading, David learns, as we do, that Bathsheba is pregnant. And that's a big, big problem for David because her husband, Uriah the Hittite, is off with David's armies fighting David's battles. And we know, they actually know, the Bible includes that, what might have struck you as a strange little sentence in the parentheses in your Bible about Bathsheba and her purifying herself from the ritual from her uncleanness. What that is clarifying is what David knew and what they knew at that time. Because of that there's no way it could have been her husband who made her pregnant. We know definitively that this baby is And so David's sin, his one night of sin, is going to be exposed by this pregnancy. Unless, if he just sins just a little bit more, maybe tells a lie or just dives a little bit deeper into it, all this can get covered over, it can get put behind us. You know and in fact if he sends just a little bit more right and in some ways it could be seen as a Blessing to some because there are things that happen that can't be taken back now That are gonna hurt people to know about that. It's just not gonna be good for the kingdom It's not gonna be good for anybody here, right? So if we just send a little bit more we can get through this It's behind us and we can close this dark chapter and start fresh, right? It's not how it works, is it? We see that in the life of David. I won't read through every verse between 6 and 25 again, but to summarize, David calls Uriah back from war, saying that he just wants an update from him, which is a lie, another sin. He tries several times to get Uriah to go to be with his wife so that maybe David could get off the hook for this terrible thing he did. He even goes so far as to try to get him drunk so he's not thinking in his right mind. Another sin, but it doesn't work. So David then dives deeper and this dark web of sin that he is weaving and David writes and signs and seals by his own hand Uriah's death warrant and places it into Uriah's hands to deliver himself unto death. More sin. Sin after sin after sin after sin. And we see it as a passing sentence, but you might have noted it wasn't even just Uriah that David murdered, but many of his other servants and soldiers died as David was trying to get rid of the sin and prevent the exposure of it. And for David, and when we read it, it's one short sentence, it's just some collateral damage for him, but for Israel, they lost fathers and husbands and sons. Sin is relentless. It's like the pounding waves of the ocean. When we get caught in that sin cycle, sin leads to sin leads to sin. And so we have to read here that a hero of our faith, King David, a man who we read as after God's own heart as he looks across the wreckage that he's caused. How does he respond? Verse 25, David said to the messenger, thus you shall say to Joab, do not let this matter displease you for the sword devours now one and now another. Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it and encourage him, encourage the troops. He says, do not let this matter displease you. Remember that line. You'll hear something like it again. So God's word doesn't sugarcoat it. Sin is powerful because it's relentless. And this last point we see about sin, I think it's gonna be hard for some of us to even see these words up on the screen in our church, but sin is attractive, sin is relentless, and sometimes sin actually wins the day. Often in our failed, fallen world, sin is victorious. Look at the final verses of the chapter with me. Verse 26, when the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah, her husband, was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the mourning was over David sent and brought her to his house and she became his wife and Bore him a son and stopped there with me This is just a couple of short verses But they contain a lot of time passing within them Bathsheba mourns the loss of her husband for a season and then there's a wonderful royal royal wedding. And finally, months later, months would have had to go by, right? And a son is born. And for a time, it seemed like David's lies and his deceit and his murder, it's all behind him, right? It seemed to be the end of the story. Sin is victorious. And for some of you today, you might feel like you're sitting in one of those seasons, maybe even in your own life. You were attracted to the sin, it's been relentless in your life and you're stuck in a cycle that you just feel like you can't get out of and it feels like sin is victorious in your life, day after day. Some of you might not be there, but you might be being harmed, being affected by someone else in your life who is there, and their sin is causing you day after day to feel like sin is victorious. But we gotta finish the verse and finish the chapter because there's one more tiny little sentence here at the end of this chapter. It says, but the thing David had done displeased the Lord." Do you notice where God had been mentioned earlier in this chapter? Because he wasn't. But was God absent? No. David was ignoring him. He was ignoring his will and his ways. He was ignoring the law and what I'm sure was a lot of conviction that a man after God's own heart would be feeling throughout all these actions, relentless sin after sin after sin. God was ignored, but he was not absent because God is always present. He is always knowing, he is always seeing. And in fact, the most literal, like you'd say the wooden translation of this verse from the Hebrew, this last sentence, sentence is that, but the thing David had done was seen as evil in the eyes of the Lord. The most laughable pursuit that we ever go after, and that unfortunately many of us go after often, as we deal with attractive, relentless, what feels like victorious sin, is that we hope, we think, we kid ourselves that we can hide it. If I just tell one little lie about this, it'll be behind me. Or if I just quick delete my history, then nobody will know. Or even just as simple as, hey, come here, come here. I gotta, okay, you gotta close the door. You gotta hear this. God sees, God knows, there is no hidden sin. You know, I, at the last church I worked at, I unfortunately, I was approached by a person who brought some hidden sin from another one of our pastors sin that he thought was hidden and only this one person knew who was Essentially helping him and they said, you know The reason I haven't brought this forward is because this pastor when we talked about it He said hey if this gets exposed you're gonna ruin my ministry And you're gonna ruin my family and you're gonna ruin my life. If anyone knows about this, then I'm ruined. If anyone knows about this, someone knows. God knows. God always knows. And that's scary, but it's good, because it's freeing to know that this endless pursuit of hiding our sin from our family, from our friends, from co-workers, even we try to justify our sin to in a way hide it from ourselves. We can maybe convince ourselves that this isn't a problem or that it'll never happen again. But our sin is never hidden from God. And in David's case, God actually exposes David's sin. If you have time this week you can read the next chapter chapter 12 God brings the prophet Nathan to Give a parable to David that will expose the sin David as thought was covered up and in the rearview mirror and Then if you want to keep reading you can read Psalm 51 because by God's grace David who was a man after God's own heart. Even after everything we read today, even after everything we know, he asked for forgiveness. And he pled with God for mercy for what he called his blood guiltiness. You can read about that in Psalm 51. Even though David and the saints of old, they didn't know about the bloodied cross and they didn't know about the empty grave, but they did know to look forward to a future sacrifice to a Messiah, someone who would cover their sins, not because of their good works or faithfulness, but because the grace of God. And when King David failed and gave in to sin, do you know what he couldn't know but what we know now? That the true King, the King of Kings, King Jesus, he never gave in to the attractiveness of sin. He never got caught up in the relentless cycle that happens when we do. And Jesus shows us once and for all that sin is not ultimately victorious because Jesus was victorious over sin. So much so, he didn't just not sin himself, but what he earned was the opportunity to take our place, to trade us all of our sin for his righteousness, to take our punishment if we believe in him, and if we repent of our sin and give it to Jesus. Stop trying to hide it and give it to Jesus. Sin is attractive. It really is. And it's relentless. We know after even receiving freedom from the penalty of sin, when we have faith in Jesus, we still wage war with it in our daily thoughts and our words and our actions. But because of Jesus and because of the Spirit he sent to dwell in us, sin will not be victorious. Not eternally, of course, but not, doesn't even need to be each day of our lives because we have the calling and we have the power to say no to sin. And when we don't, we can be forgiven, just like David was. But as we launch into the season of Easter expectation. We're launching into a series starting this next week where we're looking at the life of Jesus and the gospel of John as we follow Jesus to the cross and eventually to the empty grave and celebrate that on Easter. What we can continue to remember is that we can both receive forgiveness for sin and continue to battle sin. Because sin is attractive, but Jesus is more attractive. So when temptation is at your door, focus your eyes on Jesus and dig into his word every single day. And remember that he offers more true and more deep satisfaction than any temptation to sin could ever dream. Jesus is more. And when sin is relentless, we need to remember that Jesus is more relentless. We might feel like sin has surrounded you on all sides, and how can I get out of this mess, or how can I ever say no to it? But while sin surrounds you, Jesus sent His Spirit to dwell within you. So you pray every day for the strength to know that I can walk this path of obedience. And even when we do forget, we ignore and neglect God, he is relentlessly pursuing you. Jesus is more. And here and now, it can feel truly like sin is victorious in our own lives, in this broken world, but we know, we followers of Jesus know that Jesus is more victorious. The sacrifice doesn't just cover our sins, but walking with Jesus every day, we have the power to say no to sin, walking in the victory of Christ. And so I ask you every time you think of the sad story of David and Bathsheba, you remember that sin is actually attractive and its pull, its path, just feels relentless at times, but ultimately remember that sin is never victorious when Jesus shows up on the scene, amen? So if you walk away with nothing else today, remember this, that Jesus is better than sin. Would you stand and pray with me? Remember this, that Jesus is better than sin. Remember this, that Jesus is better than sin. Would you stand and pray with me?

Proclaim for the King of Creation (All) Sermon Series: Proclaim Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Colossians 1:15-23 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, amen. So this past summer in 2023, an important mile marker was hit for humanity and for our planet at some points this past summer, our human population reached 8 billion people. That is an incredible number. And especially when you kind of put it in context it took humanity, all of humanity, all the way to 1804 just to reach 1 billion people. And so over the last roughly 200 years. This is phenomenal, unbelievably rapid growth to our planet. And for Christians, there's an interesting aspect to this. This means that the Great Commission, it's getting harder and harder for us to keep on pace with that. Our goal is getting bigger, and the job is getting more serious and dire by the day. Now you may be sitting there going, wait a minute, what's the Great Commission? The Great Commission is essentially the mission statement that Jesus Christ gave the church. He gave it in all the Gospels and it's even recorded in the book of Acts. Let's walk through real quick and just see what Jesus has called his people to do. This is how it's recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. It says, And Jesus came and said, Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[ b ] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And another account, Mark records Jesus saying this, Mark 16:15 And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation". Luke at another point records Christ saying it like this, Luke 24:45-47 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. That's an important phrase, we'll come back to that. Now John, John also records an interesting form of the Great Commission when he records Jesus saying this, John 20:21 Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” So meaning as Jesus was sent into the world to bring the gospel of peace, we are sent into the world to bring that gospel of peace. And even the book of Acts, now the book of Acts is an interesting book. The book of Acts records the start and the launch of the church. And in the first couple pages we see Jesus' presence right before his ascension. And Jesus gathers his disciples and he says this when he gives them the great commission. He says, Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. And so what we see here is that in every instance of Jesus giving the Great Commission, it has two components. One, that we are to go into the world, and second, that we are to proclaim the gospel. We reached 8 billion people this past summer, and all the introverts got real sick to their stomach. But of the 8 billion people that are now on the planet, 3 billion of them, 3 billion of them have never even heard the name Jesus, let alone hearing that he saves us from our sins. And of all the amazing global missionaries who take up the call to go out into the world, of all the global missionaries, only .37% of them go to the people groups that have never heard or don't have access to the name of Jesus. Now listen to me for a moment. Supporting, financially supporting global missions is on the one hand, I dare say, attractive. Christians in large part, we feel better about giving money to global missions than we do giving to, you know, say, paying the church's heat bill, even though we all want the heat bill paid come January, right? Many Christians jump at the chance to support gospel-sharing efforts across the globe, but very few Christians will share the gospel with their own neighbor. What's very interesting about the Great Commission is when Jesus gives it, Jesus calls us to start where we are. Like how Luke recorded it, that the repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name, speaking in third person, Jesus speaking about himself, in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem. Why beginning from Jerusalem? Why is Jerusalem so special? Well, here's the reality. It's not that Jerusalem is so special. It's just that that's where they were. You start with you where you are in your community. And from there goes on and on and on to the ends of the earth. I dare say Jesus doesn't want us to send money across the globe for someone else to share the gospel if we're not willing to go across the street and share the gospel with our own neighbor. As we continue in this Proclaim campaign, I am telling you now as the lead pastor, my heart's desire is that you would know this is about seeing our church continue to get stronger so that we can continue to be a church that both reaches our own community and reaches the world. We want to reach our community and the world at large. Proclaim, hear me on this, proclaim is about fulfilling the great commission. The call of Jesus that both starts with us where we are at and as it continues and as it continues even to the end of the end of the earth. And so let's get into our passage today. If you've been with us, you know that we have been walking through Colossians chapter one. Go ahead and turn there. Now, if you want to use the Bible as we provided, happy for you to do that. That's on page 1251. As you turn in there in your, in your Bibles, go to Colossians chapter one, we'll start at verse 15. Here's the context, some real quick context for you. The apostle Paul wrote Colossians. He wrote it to a church in a town called Colossae. Paul is writing it from prison and he's writing to this church in essence to talk about number one, how amazing Jesus is to give us a nice Christology, some doctrine of the Christ, how amazing it is what he's done for us, and how we are as Christians to rightly respond to the gospel message. And so hopefully you are now to Colossians chapter 1. We're going to start at verse 15 and we will read down to verse 23. And so with that, would you hear God's word? Colossians 1:15-23 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father as we continue through this proclaim journey father. I pray God you will use this to make your church stronger and more united Father we believe that you are calling us to expand this facility so that we can continue to reach more people both here in our community And beyond so father we pray God that you would provide all that we need. Father, we pray that you'd light our path, calling us to deeper levels of reliance on you. And would you please send your Holy Spirits to be with us now as we look at your word. Father, we do love you. We're thankful. We pray these things in Jesus' mighty name. And everyone said, amen, amen. So if you have your devotional packets that we've been using for this Proclaim journey, here's your first fill-in. It's a simple title of today's message, Proclaim for the King of Creation. That's what we are about. Every message in this series is about we proclaim for some reason, and today we're talking about how we proclaim for the King of Creation. And as we look at our passage, I want to give you our main idea here this morning. And I'm going to go off script for a second, I want to share something. This entire campaign has been a tremendous amount of work for our leaders and our staff and our church. And we had to get prepared well in advance for this. And so we actually outlined the messages for this sermon series way back in the summer, early summertime. And I'm gonna share with you the main idea from this passage, which I believe is a key idea. But I'm gonna tell you now, I did not feel the weight of these words over the summer like I do right now. I fully believed it then, but in all honesty, there's a greater weight that I feel right now to say these words than this past summer. And it's this, this main idea I'm telling you, it is embarrassingly simple, but strikingly profound. And it's this, the world needs Jesus. The world needs Jesus. When we outlined this message series in early this summer, we had no idea we'd be on the brink of World War III at this moment. But I'm telling you, the world needs Jesus. Israel needs Jesus. The Gaza Strip needs Jesus. The Palestinian people need Jesus. The world needs Jesus. Your neighbor needs Jesus. We need Jesus. The world needs Jesus. So as we look at our passage today, I want to give you three points that we're going to be walking through. 1. We proclaim because Christ is over all. 2. We proclaim because of what He's done. 3. We proclaim because we have hope to share. 1. We proclaim because Christ is over all. There are some very important phrases about Jesus in this passage, and I want to make sure that we dial in and we understand what Paul is saying because if we don't understand it, these phrases can sometimes take us in the wrong direction. So let's look at this. Look at verses 15 to 16. Keep your Bibles open. It says, He, speaking of Jesus, He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. Now let's clarify a couple things. Number one, when it says that he is the image of the invisible God, it does not mean that he is a replica. It means that the invisible God was made physically present with us in Christ. God, the Son, who existed from all eternity stepped into the world that he created when he was born that baby boy at Christmas time and don't worry we'll be celebrating that soon enough no Christmas songs in the next couple weeks or so but we will get to it it's coming it's coming so God the Son the second member of the Trinity who existed from all eternity stepped into creation born at Christmas and he was forever given the name Jesus but when it says that he is the firstborn of all creation, that's not stating that Jesus was created. Again, God, the son from all eternity, took on human nature when he was born at Christmas, taking down the name Jesus. But that's not to say that he was created. It's a simple statement of his primacy. His place is the head of all things. And I am telling you now, this is good news because Jesus is a good King. And the more people come to submit to Christ, the more people who come under His gracious, loving rule and reign, the more that this happens, the sooner we'll have peace on earth. But this next verse here, Colossians 1:17, I'll tell you now, it's a very special verse to my wife and I. See, when my wife and I were engaged and we were going through premarital counseling, the pastor asked my wife and I to search the scriptures and to come up with a verse or a passage that we would use as kind of like the bedrock to our marriage. An important task. And so my wife and I, we scanned the scriptures, my fiance at the time, we scanned the scriptures and we found Colossians 1:17 and we said, this is going to be our verse. Colossians 1:17 says this, it says, and he is before all things and in him all things hold together. That's the verse we wanted over our marriage. Why? Here's why. Because we knew that love as a feeling comes and goes. And all God's people said amen. Love as a feeling comes and goes, but if Christ is above us, if he's above our marriage, if we submit to him and he comes as the authority in our marriage, guiding our direction, if our marriage was found in him, then he will unite us in marriage. You know what that means? It means he will hold us together. That when that feeling of love waxes and wanes, that Christ is the one who will hold us together and if he's the one who holds us together. We can make it through. During our engagement, some people threw a wedding shower for us. Let me just tell you, I just love me some wedding showers. It was just so much fun. At this wedding shower, we shared that we chose, we had chosen Colossians 1:17 as our as our verse. And I remember this one person and we read the verse and this one person said. In a very depressed and slightly confused and somewhat, I'd say, snarky voice, they said this. Oh, but that verse doesn't say anything about love. And it was a stark reminder to me that when it comes to marriage, our world cares more about love than Christ. And I'm not talking about God's love. I'm talking about this worldly, emotional love that's more selfish than selfless. In our world, we want to feel the feels. That's more important to us than the truth when it comes to marriage. I'm here to tell you, if more marriages were built on the truth of Jesus rather than the emotion of love, we wouldn't see the divorce rates that we do. And that's not to shame those of you who have gone through a biblically sanctioned divorce. That's simply to state out the fact that our world cares more about feeling the feels than knowing the truth. People, we need to know that Jesus isn't just over our lives, He's over our marriages. Why? Because He's over all. And both, husband and wife, need to submit to Him. He sits as King and Creator, and it's Him we proclaim to the world because of who He is, but also because of what He's done. 2. We proclaim because of what He's done. Let's look at our verses 18-20. Look at your, keep your Bibles open. It says, And he is the head of the body. What's the body? The church. The church is the body of Christ. It goes on to say, He is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Here it is, people. Such an important truth. The church is the body of Christ and Jesus is our head. Now, what does this mean? It means that we're connected to him. That is clear and obvious and beautiful. But here's what I think we forget at times. If we are the body of Christ and we're connected to the head, who is Jesus, you know what that also means? It means we're connected to each other, that we are one in Him, that we are to serve and love and honor and respect one another. And I think people have forgotten that. I think especially if the American church realized that we are connected to each other, that our faith isn't just this personal, silent, secret relationship between us and God, but it's something we share together. I think if more people realized that, we would see much stronger attendance patterns than we do today in the American church. And as a church, we are connected to Christ our King. But listen here, it also says, this is an interesting phrase, it says, He is the beginning. Again, this is to highlight that Jesus is not on equal footing with anyone, but He is first, meaning He rules, He reigns, it means He's ahead of the stars, when you look at the beauty and the wonder of nature and creation, Christians, we sit and we take it all in and we say, Jesus is over all of this. Let's do a little Bible study here because there's some competing verses here that aren't really competing, but we want to make sure they work together. Verse 15 says, He is the firstborn of all creation. Now verse 18 says, He's the firstborn from the dead. Creation to dead. Okay, what's going on here? Well first, he's the firstborn of creation. Listen, listen, we already stressed this. Not that he had a beginning. This is about his headship. He's the, and then it goes on to say, he's the firstborn from among the dead. Born from the dead, meaning, meaning he was raised to life. So Christ is the author and the beginning of life, but he's also the guarantee of our birth or our life after death. This is a profound and prophetic and poetic way to say exactly what verse 18 says. Look at the end of verse 18. It says that in everything, he might be preeminent. When's the last time you used that word? You haven't. I know you haven't. Ain't none of you used that word before. Preeminent. But you know what? Don't worry about it. Here's why. This word here in the original language, the original Greek, this word, pro-tu-o, pro-tu-o, pro-tu-o. My Greek professor's going to fail me now. I already took Greek, by the way. Pro tuo. That word. It's the only time we see that word in all of scripture. So not only do you never use it, but the Bible uses it only once. Why? Because it's such a strong and profound word that we don't just use it for any old thing. We use it for very rare cases, like announcing that Jesus is over all. Paul goes on to say in verse 19, it says, for in him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Let me say it again. Paul says in verse 19, for in him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. This is so key. Follow this. The fullness of God. Let's explain this for a moment. So, whatever it is that makes God, God, I'll just go ahead and just dumb it down and I'll say whatever the God stuff is, whatever the stuff is that makes God, God, Jesus is made of that. The fullness of God is in Christ. Now we have a theological term for it, we say essence. The essence of God is within the essence of Christ. God's essence is in Christ's essence. They are made of the same "stuff". This is why we talk about God being a Trinitarian God. That we have one God in three persons. Father, Son, and Spirit. That they are one in essence, three in persons. And we use the word persons because we just don't have a better word than that. We have one God in three persons, all made of the same essence, all made of the same fullness. Now listen to me, when we talk about the Trinity, when we talk about the very nature of God, we do this with the utmost humility, we do this with profound mystery. We are three-dimensional momentary beings trying to understand the 11 dimension eternal God. There's no way we could possibly fully understand what it means for God to be one in three, but yet that's what we see Scripture reveal to us. And so we approach God and the doctrine of God with humility, but also holding mystery in hand. But this God is not a God who sits up in heaven, eating popcorn, watching events unfold like some movie. This is a God who steps into his own creation to take control. Jesus stepped in to our world to do something about our predicament. And look what it says in verse 20. It says, And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. So we proclaim who he is, but also what he's done. And what has Christ done? There it is. He's died on the cross for our sins. And when he died on the cross for our sins, he satisfied true and eternal judgment and justice. Our sins are now paid for. See, our sins are crimes against God and crimes need to be punished, they need to be held to account. And we're all going to face that one day apart from Christ. But what Jesus does is He steps in our place, goes to the cross, and when He was nailed to the cross and tortured and died. That was him stepping into our place, taking our sin and our punishment. Your crimes have already been held to account. Your crimes in Christ have already been punished, which means there's no more punishment left for you, for those who are in Christ. That we have new life and a fresh start. We have, the Bible says reconciliation. Now what's reconciliation? Let me clarify. Here's a simple definition. Reconciliation is the restoration of relationship. So when it talks about how we've been reconciled to God, it means that our relationship with God has been restored. Because that sin problem that was between us and God, that kept us having a relationship with God because we had that sin, Jesus took care of that. He removed that barrier. So now we have full access to God for a deep and profound relationship marked by love and grace and forgiveness. And this is the result. It's peace. This church's namesake that we have peace with God because the sin that's ruined our relationship and caused strife between us and God that's been removed so we can have a relationship. We can have peace with God again. That's what Christ has done. And that's the hope that we share. We proclaim because we have a hope to share. 3. We proclaim because we have hope to share. Paul goes on to clarify exactly what Christ has done. As he does this, he encourages us to stay the course. I know so many Christians who go off course. We're called to stay on course. Look at verses 21-23. It goes on to say, And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach.So not only is our sins removed, we are seen as clean, as holy, as righteous, as blameless before God. But listen here, look at verse 23. You can't just accept what Jesus has done and go on your own merry way, going back to your own life of sin. If you've truly repented and placed your faith in Jesus and he's truly come in and taken away your sins and washed you white as snow and he's made you new again, you've got to stay on course. Look what it says, verse 23, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. So Paul's reminding them of who they were and who they are now in Christ. And that is the hope we share, that we have been made clean, we've been made new. That even us, as we were hostile towards God, spitting in his face, doing evil deeds, even as we were doing this, Jesus died for us. That's a love you're not gonna find anywhere else. That's why I follow him over anyone else This is why Paul tells us continue in the faith stead stable and steadfast not shifting from the hope of the gospel That you've heard The hope of the gospel the truth of the God truth of God. This is the hope that we have to share This is the mission and message that we have before us that Jesus himself gave to us that we would go and proclaim. But it starts with you. It starts with you, dear Christian, where you are, and then it goes from there. And so proclaim is not just about building a building. Proclaim is about building what we have here so that we can continue to do ministry here and beyond and everywhere else. And you know, most of you probably know, that we're not waiting for sticks and bricks to continue this mission. We've already continued this mission We've started something new in a new community. We've planted a church in a neighboring community We planted a church in Wayland a couple weeks ago It's going amazing. I want to share with you an update. So would you please watch the screen? Hey, peace church, hey here we are in Wayland. I'm here with Pastor Aaron Lewis. Hey Peace Church family. Hey we want to give you an update on what's going on with our new Wayland plant. Awesome things are happening. So Pastor Aaron is going to give us a tour and find out what's going on here. Absolutely, come on in. This is a pretty awesome place, just the way it looks. Clearly it's not set up for church right now. But give us a tour of what it's like for someone attending the Peace Church Wayland Campus. They park outside, right, and then they come in and how's it go? What's the flow like? Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have two main points of entry. So the door we just came in is one of them, and then over here on the backside, and so we've placed our guest services spot right here in the middle of everything. So it's the very first thing people see when they walk in and where we do coffee, cookies and lemonade afterwards. And so this is kind of like our lobby area here where lots of connection happens after church. It's a really cool space. Where do you stand? Where do you preach from? Where do people sit? How do people sit? Yeah, so right down in this area on the cement, this is kind of like our stage area. And so this is where the worship team sets up. The worship leaders lead worship from this space. Whoever is given the message actually preaches out to the congregation. So Aaron, Peace Church has had a call and a vision to multiply for a long time. We talk about the need here. Is Wayland a growing community? Why did we plant Wayland? Yeah, well, absolutely. Wayland is a growing community. We have new construction going up all over the place, businesses coming in. But then there's also a family-focused sense of Wayland itself. It just meshes so well with our core value. So to have a church come alongside families who are really looking for that family-focused church is really important. Yeah. The launch is now, what, five, six weeks in? Yeah. And we're already having over 250 people coming every single week. It's been a little bit more than that, right? About 270, which is amazing. For a church plant, only five, six weeks in the mix. God's obviously doing something awesome. Absolutely. So as we said, family focus is a big deal for us. So where do the kids go? Yeah, I'll show you. Sweet. So kids are in here. Yes. So on Sunday, we actually deck this place out with toys and carpets and small kid tables to be able to craft that, all of that kind of thing. We worship together. We have a large group teaching. And then we actually break off into separate smaller groups, discuss the teaching and that kind of thing. So let's go back inside and talk a little bit more about the ministry and what's going on here. So when we talked about the vision for Planted in Wayland, around 140 people from our Middleville campus signed up to come and be a part of the seedbed congregation to help get this going. This Wayland campus is having almost double that amount of people come each Sunday, which is amazing. So the question I kind of have is, what makes up this other segment of people? Yeah, well I think we're across the board. There are Christians who were kind of displaced and kind of left out in the cold, not really knowing what to do or where to go next. And they've really found a home here. And then we've had people who have been running from God hard, that just our presence and showing up gave them that moment to ask, is this God reaching out to me? And so they're here as well. And so we have everybody across the spectrum that this church is reaching. That's awesome. So Aaron, this is an awesome place. God really delivered for us in letting us use this space, which is really cool. We know that what we want to see happen in Waylands, we want to take some of the DNA at the Middleville Caledonia campus, see it transplanted here, talking about being gospel-centered, family-focused, and kingdom-minded. So just as we close up, what's something from your heart, something you're really excited about with what God is doing here at the Wayland campus? Well, we just announced that we'll be moving to two services come November 12th. And it's incredible to see all that God has done and the people that he has just sent. And so we want to make sure, as we ask people of Peace Church Wayland to be kingdom-minded and to invite people, we need to do our due diligence and make sure we're providing the space necessary. You know something about struggling with space, right? Yeah, we know a little bit about that. And so for us, that step is moving to two services on November 12th. We want to be a kingdom-minded church. We want to be beyond the walls of our church and even beyond the boundaries of our community. We want to plant in Wayland. We want to plant beyond. We want to see God's work continue. So this is a real-life demonstration of Peace Church being kingdom-minded. It's why we're going to Proclaim. It's why we're planting in Wayland. It's part of who we are. It's something we want to see God continue to do. Absolutely. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's pretty amazing what God's doing over there. I thought we, I thought we might have at least a year before we considered two services and we're moving to two services over there even before Christmas. And that's because God is on the move over there. It's just a further confirmation that Wayland needs the gospel. We need the gospel everywhere. The gospel is needed. And Peace Church. I want to remind you, this is, this is God's work God is the one doing this and he allows us to be a part of it and God used the financial investment of this church That we were willing to make in a community not our own to see the gospel continue to flourish and it is We want to see this happen both here in Wayland and we want to see it continue into Grand Rapids and beyond into the ends of the earth Church We are given a great commission. And so our response must be great, because it's a great call. So I'm just going to say this. I know, listen, I know, nobody likes to hear a pastor talk about money. I'm with you. I don't like it either. But I'm going to say this to you. We have a great commission before us. And so I'm going to call on the people who call this church home. I'm speaking to you. If you call this church home, I'm praying that you will make a great contribution in response to God's great call, his great work and the great commission. So I want to give you a thought to think about over this next week as we consider what God's calling us to give towards this. Here's a spiritual and financial challenge. Are we ready to realize our money actually belongs to the King and therefore it should be honoring to Him firstly? We can't talk about how Jesus is over the galaxies and over the lilies of the field without also realizing he's also over your finances. They belong to him. He just lets you use some of it. And here's what I'd say to you. Because they are his, we can trust him. God is doing something amazing in this church. He's been doing something amazing for nearly 60 years. But I tell you this, I believe our best days are ahead. And I believe that our most effective days for the kingdom are right before us if we have the passion and the commitment to give to see that happen. Church, a generation has gone before us that's been so sacrificial to produce what we all get to enjoy now. It's our turn in the history of Peace Church to do this for what God's doing now and what He's going to do. And so I'm calling on Peace Church, do this for God, do this for the church, do this for your neighbor, do this for the world. Because the world needs Jesus. And so church, with our hope to share, we want to let the world know how amazing Christ is. We want to demonstrate that through our faithfulness and our generosity, but we also want to demonstrate that through our worship. So would you please stand and let's prepare our hearts to worship. Would you please put your hand up in the air? Father God, we come before you asking that you continue to fill this place with the power and presence of your Holy Spirit, that we'd be a people who respond in worship so that when the watching world looks at this church, at least they will be able to say that church believes what they say It's a father. I pray God that you would fill this place again Continue to do so that we would respond and worship for who you are and for what you've done God you are good and you are good to us Be with us now as we worship you in Jesus name. We pray these things and everyone said amen. Amen.

Redefining Helpmate In Marriage Christian Life Stephanie Delger Podcast Host Mom Guilt Podcast Published On: February 11, 2024 I don’t want to be a helpmate In Genesis 2:18 we read, “Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” God then created Eve and presented her to Adam. This is God’s good design. As I was sitting down to write, my husband just called me into another room to help him. He has been remodeling our bathroom and has been working on tiling around our shower. He had unknowingly been dripping white grout water onto our new bathroom floor. What he was doing was time sensitive and he wasn’t able to stop what he was doing to clean up the floor. He needed my help to scrub the floor and lay down cardboard so that if he dripped more water, it wouldn’t wreck our floor. As I did this, lots of things were going through my head, but none of them were praising God for this design that is laid out for us in Genesis. I am conditioned by culture to think that a wife being a helper to her husband is demeaning. I am tempted to question if this is really what is best for me. Is it degrading to women for God to say He created women with the intention of them being a helper to their husbands? It is okay for us to ask questions. God invites us to ask questions and find the truth. And to find truth, we must turn to the Bible. The Bible shows us that God is good and His design is what is best for us. If we approach this verse with those things in mind, we can see God’s goodness in this design, instilling in us a deep desire to worship Him. Husbands and wives are equal in value yet distinct in role Scripture starts by telling us that God created humans in His image. Adam was created first and then Eve, but both were created in God’s image. We read this in Genesis 1:27-28, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them . And God blessed them . And God said to them , “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (emphasis mine) God ends this passage by saying that not only was this design “good,” but it was “very good.” (Genesis 1:31) Adam and Eve were created equal in dignity, worth, and value. They were both given the same goal. Both of them were to fill the earth with followers of God. They were both blessed with the command to subdue the earth and have dominion over it. In Genesis 2:18, God zooms in and shows that while Adam and Eve have the same goal, they will have distinct roles. Eve was created as a helper to her husband. This does not make her inferior to her husband because both were made in the image of God. We are tempted to say that a helper is inferior to the person they are helping, but this is not what the Bible says. Human beings have value not based on their role, or what they do, but rather because they are made in God’s image. This means that a doctor does not have more value than their patient. A president does not have more value than a citizen. A husband does not have more value than his wife. All humans are created in God’s image and role does not determine value. Helpmate implies the need for help God had told Adam that it was not good for him to be alone and that he needed a helpmate. I can imagine as all the animals walked by Adam thought to himself, “Nope, not my helpmate.” This story is presented with the tension of Adam trying to discern who his helpmate would be. As the line of animals started to dwindle, I wonder if Adam grew both increasingly anxious and thankful that none of the animals would be his helpmate. It was then that God caused Adam to go into a deep sleep and from his rib, God created Eve. God presented Eve and it was a joyous celebration. A design is given by God himself. God knew that Adam lacked the ability to follow God’s instructions by himself. God in his sovereignty created Adam to need a helper. It’s interesting that as a woman, I have read this verse and thought that calling a wife a helpmate is demeaning. Yet, I have never heard a husband complain about this verse. But the design of helpmate means a husband needs help. Needing help is at the core of the gospel. The entire Christian faith rests on the understanding that we are all in need of help. Romans 3:23-24 says, “ for f all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Paul in Romans doesn’t shy away from the fact that we are all in need of help and that God is our helper! Marriage is a parable of God and His people. The point of marriage is to point us to something greater. God is so good to have built into the marriage relationship a reminder that we all need a helper, our Savior Jesus Christ! Wives are designed with skills and abilities to share Only those who are lacking in something need help. But is someone a good helper if they don’t have what you need? If my car breaks down, would I take it to my local grocery store and ask them to fix it? Of course not. I would take my car to a mechanic. Why? A mechanic has the skills that I lack, which makes them the helper I need. A wife is a good helper when she uses her skills and abilities to help her husband. When God has designed wives to be helpmates to their husbands, it means that men and women are given different strengths, skills, and abilities. God’s good design for marriage is that a husband is the head of the household. Husbands will have to stand and give an account to the Lord for how they have loved, led, and provided for their family. Wives, will also someday stand and give an account of how they have helped their husbands. God will ask each of us how we have used our gifts to help our husbands. Being a helper to your husband means using the gifts that God has given you. If you have discernment, aid your husband in his leadership. If you have the gift of encouragement, use this to build him up, telling him how you see God at work in his life. Whatever gifts God has given you, should be used. Sometimes Christians mistake submission for silence. We can see in scripture that biblical submission doesn't mean that at all. Women were designed to be a helper to their husbands, which means using the gifts that God has given them. God is our helpmate One final reason why being a helpmate doesn’t equal inferiority, is that the Bible speaks of God being our helpmate. In Psalms 54:4 David praises God saying, “Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.” In Isaiah 41:10 God speaks to His people saying, "fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Being a helper to our husbands does not make us inferior, just as God is not inferior to us by being our helper. As a wife, we have the privilege and gift of being the helpmate to our husband. Rather than shying away from passages like this in the Bible which at first glimpse can seem harsh or demeaning, we can dig into them and study them. We can do so with the full assurance that we will encounter our all-knowing, compassionate, and loving heavenly father. God has revealed Himself and His good design for our lives through the Bible. We can trust God, love Him, and worship Him for who He is and all that He has designed for us. 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Yes and Amen to the Promise of Peace Sermon Series: Always Yes Jon Delger Multiplication Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: John 14:25-27 Transcript Have you here whether you're here in the worship center over in the chapel downstairs in the venue How many people got sunburned from spring break this morning? little word of advice if you're new to Michigan if you're going back to school or work tomorrow and You're talking to your friends who didn't go away on spring break. They don't want to hear about your sunburn. Just just a heads-up John 14 we're gonna read verses 25 to 27, then we'll pray, then we're going to get to work. Here we go. John 14:25-27 25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. This is God's word, amen? Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you so much for your words, your truth. Thank you God for the story of Jesus' teaching. Thank you for your Holy Spirit. God, I pray that you would fill me with your spirit this morning to preach your word to your people, a broken instrument to bring your perfect word to your people. God, I pray that you would work in our hearts this morning. that we'd be able to hear what you have to say to us, that we would have open minds, open ears, and God, that we would be changed by your truth. God, we thank you for all the amazing work that you did over the last week on that high school spring break trip as students studied your word each day and they were changed by it. God, I pray that they would come home and that that would go with them, that it would change the rest of their lives. And God, I pray that also for us this morning. Pray that in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Well, once upon a time when my daughters were much younger, very little, and when I was a young pastor, just getting used to my role, I remember one time coming home from work from work and sitting at dinner with my family before I had to go back to church for a meeting. And I remember during dinner, my girls asked me a question, Daddy, will you read us our bedtime story tonight? I remember looking at my watch and I remember looking at them and thinking, it's still early. I know the topic of this meeting. It shouldn't take too long. And I said, yeah, I'll come home and read your bedtime story to you tonight. And then they said those words that every dad of daughters is afraid to hear. Do you promise? Daddy, do you promise? And I said, yeah, sweetie, I promise. Well, many hours later, after this long meeting, I came home and girls were asleep, and the next morning I had to explain how it's not daddy's fault that other people really like to talk a long time in meetings. I swear it's not my fault. But I learned a valuable lesson that day about the words I promise and I also was humbled and realized that I am not a perfect father. But we all do have a perfectly perfect heavenly father. Amen. Amen. God is a good father who always keeps his promises. And that's exactly what we've been talking about in this sermon series called Always Yes, the promise and proclamation of Easter, that we have a good father and all of his promises are yes. All of his promises are yes and amen through Jesus, who died and rose again to secure the answer to each of those promises. Today, we're going to talk about the promise of peace. Yes and amen to the promise of peace here in John 14. And our main idea is this, that the The Holy Spirit is God's yes to the promise of peace. And we're going to walk through three points from the text this morning. That Jesus' peace is the spirit of truth. That Jesus' peace comes from heart change. And that Jesus' peace casts out fear. So would you look with me at point number one, and let's start by reading again those first couple of verses, verse 25 and 26. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you, so this is Jesus speaking, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. So if you can picture with me kind of the context of what's going on right now, Jesus and the disciples have just finished the last scepter. It's Thursday night, Maundy Thursday, last week, Holy Week, just before Jesus's death on the cross. Between supper and the middle of the night when Judas comes and when Jesus gets betrayed and arrested, somewhere in that few hour window, Jesus has some time to give his last teaching to the disciples before he leaves the earth. And that's what we have recorded for us in these chapters of John about the Holy Spirit. He's trying to comfort them. He's trying to talk about the time when after he's gonna die and rise and ascend back to heaven and he's preparing them for that moment when that's gonna come. He's talking about the last gift that he's gonna leave with them to help them after he's gone. It's sort of the classic passing of the baton, right? Jesus is gonna complete his mission after dying and rising and now the Apostles mission is gonna start where they're gonna now tell the story, the gospel story of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection. It's one of those classic passages where the mentor passes the baton onto the mentee, right? You think of Obi-Wan Kenobi before he passes away. He's passing on the lightsaber down to Luke Skywalker. You can imagine him from one of the other movies sort of saying, this weapon is your life and he passes it on and he moves on and now Luke takes up the mission, right? Jesus is getting the Apostles ready for what is going to be the next 2,000 years of mission and he gives them no cheap magical trinket. He gives them the very God of the universe, the Holy Spirit. The God of the universe, the God of the Bible, exists in a Trinity. Now that's something we can't fully comprehend but he's three persons in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And Jesus says, I'm leaving, but the Holy Spirit, and he actually says the Holy Spirit is going to be even better to have with you than I was. The Holy Spirit is coming, and he's going to be with you. Now the rest of the passage tells us about some of the roles of the Holy Spirit. If you look at verse 26, it gives us at least two. The helper of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and he will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." So Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is a teacher, and he gives us some reminders. Now there's some unique parts of this that are just for the apostles, right? This is actually how we get the Bible, the New Testament. The Holy Spirit helps Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, as well as the rest of the New Testament, writers remember things that Jesus taught and said and did so they can write them down so that we can receive them. You and I, it's not quite the same. We're not called to write a book of the New Testament. That's done, that's over. We now study, read, preach, hear from this book. But the Holy Spirit's role as a teacher and a reminder was not just for the apostles, it's also for us. Now, as you hear that the Holy Spirit gives us reminders, you might think that doesn't sound very special. A reminder is like when mom reminds you that you forgot your lunch. Right, it doesn't get us real excited. This is actually a common thing among preachers that we sort of joke about with each other because inevitably after a sermon, one of the things that people tend to say to preachers is, oh man, pastor, thanks for that reminder today. And we look and we say, that's right. Don't forget your lunch. Don't forget your keys. Don't forget to pray. That's what I'm here for. That's what we do, right? But it's okay. I'm not offended by that phrase. Thanks for the reminder, Pastor, because I know that that's my job. That's what the Holy Spirit has entrusted and empowered me to do. It is not my job to come up here on a Sunday morning and proclaim, hey, I've got some new ideas that nobody's ever heard of before. Let me tell you all about them. Right. That's not what preachers are for. If you ever, if you ever listened to a preacher that says that you should probably run away, it's probably not good stuff, right? The preacher's job and what the Holy spirit does is takes this book, this book, the old, old story of Jesus's life, death, resurrection, and all that God's word has saved and reminds us of those truths. Reminds us of those old, old truths, because old truths can change our lives. Reminders can change our lives. I think of the Apostle Peter. Remember Peter, before Jesus dies, Jesus tries to explain to the disciples that he's going to die. He says, so then I'm gonna die, and on the third day I'm gonna rise. And remember, Peter comes to him thinking that he's got it all figured out. And he says, Jesus, no way. You can't do it. You're not gonna die. I won't let it happen. Remember, Jesus says, get behind me, Satan, because Peter doesn't have a clue what's going on. But just six weeks after Jesus' death on the cross, we've got Peter at Pentecost, this guy who tried to tell Jesus not to go to the cross He now preaches a sermon to thousands of people explaining using Old Testament passages He doesn't have the New Testament He's taken Old Testament passages and explaining to thousands of people How it is that the Messiah Jesus had to come and he had to die and he had to rise and that you can now Have salvation from your sins through him and three thousand people get saved. The Holy Spirit has been working on that guy. Reminders change lives. The entire Old Testament, we could say, is a story of God tells his people something, they forget it, and then they usually get brutally reminded in some kind of way. That's essentially, that's the whole Old Testament. One big cycle. God tells them something, they forget it, He comes back with a reminder. And unfortunately, I think that's the story of my life, I think that's probably the story of your life. God tells us something, we forget it, we need a reminder. And that's what the Holy Spirit does. He takes truth that we've already heard from God's Word, and He reminds us in our hearts and it changes us. One of the greatest miracles I think you can ever experience is when the truth comes into your heart and it changes your life. I can think of a story that my wife told me once about when she was working as a nurse at a nursing home and there was this this elderly woman who they referred to as Aunt Bertha and Aunt Bertha would always play these old great beautiful hymns on the piano and She remember one day she came into Aunt Bertha's room and Aunt Bertha was just sitting there in Tears just crying and and my wife asked her what's the matter and she said Jesus died And he had to die because of me But he died And she just she just kept crying and just kept saying that Jesus died. And eventually my wife had to sit and just say, but he's not dead anymore. He rose. And the smile that came over this older woman's face as she was reminded of that truth, that not only did he conquered the grave in the resurrection. When a couple who's on the edge of divorce remembers their marriage vows, prays together, God, help us figure this out. When somebody laying sick in a hospital bed has a friend or a pastor come and read a passage from the Bible that they've heard a million times, but now it hits them in a totally new and a totally fresh way. And it gives them the hope, the peace to continue and to go on. When somebody who grew up in the church, they heard lots of sermons, they heard the Bible read, but they drifted away from the church and they haven't been back in years, but they come back and they hear the word preached and all of a sudden it clicks with him and everything changes and they want to follow Jesus and they receive eternal life and their whole family comes to follow Jesus. Reminders of old old truth changes lives. The Holy Spirit's the Spirit of Truth. He himself is Jesus's peace which he gives to us point number two Jesus's peace comes through heart change Take a look at the beginning of verse 27 Peace I leave with you my peace. I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you? Now what in the world does that mean? What is Jesus saying? Why does he say I give not as the world gives do I give to you? Well Thinking about that. I think there's a lot of things we could say about how the world gives But I thought of at least two ways that I think the world Gives and the first is this I think the world gives by saying things like I wish you well Best wishes I Hope you feel better. I don't intend to do anything about your sickness, but I really hope you feel better. I wish you better. I wish you the best in your next endeavors after you get turned down for that job. I think one of the ways that the world gives is through empty promises, empty wishes. I wish the best for you. I hope the best for you, but unfortunately those are just words. But this is not how Jesus gives peace. What Jesus gives is absolutely certain. Let me show you a couple of passages. Romans chapter 5 verse 1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus wants to give us peace and he doesn't just want it for us, he went and died for it. Because Jesus died on the cross for our sins, he went there and he became our substitute. All of us are sinners. The wages of sin is death, the Bible tells us, and we needed somebody to die for us if we weren't going to have eternal death. Jesus died in our place so that if we put our faith in him, we can have eternal life, eternal peace. We're no longer at war with God, we're at peace with God. We have a relationship with God. Philippians chapter 4 says, do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Jesus' peace is certain. It was costly. It is concrete. Because he purchased it with his own blood. And we can count on it. The second way the world gives peace, I would say, is by force. I think of, in Jesus' time it was called the Pax Romana, the Roman peace. In Jesus' day, a Roman citizen could walk from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth without much fear because they knew that the full weight of the Roman military would come to get them if another country tried to harm them. They knew that the greatest military in the world in history up to that point. It was their country. They were a citizen of that people. The full might of the Roman Empire put fear into the hearts of other nations that protected and gave one kind of peace to people. Within the empire, the same thing was true. Within the empire, they had a lot of order. They had a lot of what looked like peace. Why? Because people would walk every day through town squares where they would see what happens. To people who didn't follow the law, who tried to stir up trouble, they would be crucified, hung on crosses. Public executions were one way of the Roman Empire. One way to get quote-unquote peace, what looks like peace, is by force. Muscle, might, torture, blood, public execution. It's one way to create order. But it's not how Jesus gives peace. What He gives doesn't come at the cost of others' blood. It comes at the cost of His own blood. Jesus accomplishes peace by His life, death, and resurrection. The Old Testament prophets were always prophesying about a future day when everything would be at peace, when everything would be at harmony, shalom. I want everything to be in right relationship to each other. Things should be the way that God made them to be, the way that they're supposed to be. But that doesn't come by force. It comes by changed hearts. Hearts that are changed only by the gospel. If you want peace in your life and in the world, then what you need is a change of people's hearts. If you're looking for peace in your own life, you're not going to find it in a successful career, you're not going to find it in a spouse, you're not going to find it in money, you're not going to find it in your kids, you're not going to find it in living out an identity that's different from what God made you to be, you're not going to find it in Oprah, yoga, or a big bag of weed. Real peace only comes through faith in Jesus. When you put your faith in Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit, the God of the universe to come and dwell inside of your heart. That's where real peace comes from. If you want peace in the world around you, now I'll tell you what, I am all for Christians being very active in the world around them. We're not called to sit back and do nothing. We're called to be a part of this whole thing. I mean, if you want to run for office, if you want to be on local government councils, I am all for you. I work the polls. Please go and vote. Do all those things. Christians should be active in the world around them, trying to work towards a world that is more like God's design. I'm all for that. That real world peace Only comes when human hearts get changed and that only happens When we preach the gospel When people meet Jesus, that's how real change happens. That's how real hearts Get changed so brothers and sisters if you want peace in your life and in the world and what you need is heart change That's what Jesus peace brings number three Jesus peace also casts out fear listen to verse 27 again Peace I leave with you my peace. I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you? Let not your hearts be troubled neither. Let them be afraid What is it that the Apostles would have a lot of things to fear. Right, Jesus, their leader is gonna die and rise and nobody's gonna, nobody's gonna like that. The Romans are not gonna be happy about that idea. The Jews are not gonna be happy about that idea. They're gonna receive a lot of persecution. They're gonna receive pain. There's gonna be humiliation. There's gonna be rejection. There's gonna be torture. There's gonna be death. Do you know that every apostle died as a martyr except for the apostle John, who writes the book of Revelation? Only one of these guys will not be painfully killed because they spent their life preaching that Jesus rose from the dead. There's a lot of things the apostles had to fear. fear and Jesus knows I think Jesus knows that fear would be possibly their greatest temptation fear can be an incredibly powerful driving force in a person's life how many of you have ever been afraid how many of you were too afraid to raise your hand and admit that you had ever been afraid okay thanks for your honesty right you can imagine the Apostle Peter on Good Friday, right? The Apostle Peter has been told by Jesus, you will deny me three times. Peter says, no I won't Jesus. Like five minutes later, he denies Jesus three times. Why does he do that? Because he's standing in front of people that he's afraid of. Whether he was afraid of them rejecting him, or them hurting him, or him somehow getting wrapped up in this and then getting crucified himself, whatever it was, fear drove Peter to deny the Lord three times, even though he was warned. I think you and I are driven by fear, especially, I think in the different stages of our lives are often defined by the fears that we have, right? If you can imagine when you're a kid, one of the things that defines the kid's stage is that you think there's a monster under your bed and you're afraid of it right when you're a teenager you're afraid of whether other people will accept you your peers will like you when you become a college student you're afraid am I going to make it through this when you become a parent your whole life suddenly becomes I'm afraid of is my are my kids gonna be healthy are my kids gonna be successful? Will my kids follow Jesus? I think every stage of life is largely defined by the fears we have. But the opposite of fear is peace. And peace is what the Holy Spirit gives to us. I wanna just read you some scripture. Just let these truths from God wash over you about how the Holy Spirit brings us peace. Let me just give you these. When we don't know what to pray for, the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Romans 8.26 says, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Have you ever been in that spot where you know you're in trouble, you know you need help, but you don't even know what to ask for. I don't even know how somebody could help me. I don't even know what to say. Have you ever had that dream where you're trying to scream but the scream won't come out? You need help, you're trying to call to somebody for it, but you can't even get the words out? The Holy Spirit comes and He understands what you need even more than you do and he brings that to the father Think of Ephesians chapter 1 it says when we doubt and need hope for our inheritance He is our guarantee that our inheritance is coming Bible says in him you also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and believed in him We're sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it. When you doubt and wonder, is there a life after this one? Will it ever get any better? Things are so broken, will they ever be made right? The Holy Spirit is your guarantee, your guarantee that that day is coming. When we doubt, we need to be reminded that we are God's dearly beloved children. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of adoption Romans 8 15 says For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons By whom we cry Abba Father The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the very children of God If we're ever put on trial for our faith, Mark 13 says, when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but it's the Holy Spirit. He gives us peace, even if we are put on trial for our faith. Acts 1.8 tells us that when we need help to share the gospel, the Holy Spirit is our power. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses When we need help to fight sin in our lives and walk with Jesus The Holy Spirit is our weapon Romans 8 13 if you live according to the flesh you will die But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live When you know you need supernatural help to conquer the sin in your life, the addiction in your life, whatever it is, the Holy Spirit is the one who promises to be there with you and to help you. I think of Ezekiel 36 that says that we get a new heart when we put our faith in Jesus. The prophets prophesy and promise, 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 give you a heart of flesh and my spirit will be within you. Last one. When you're praying for a friend to come to faith, you've invited them to church a hundred times, you've told them about Jesus, you've prayed for them. The Holy Spirit says that he is the one who can bring real change in their heart. I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. Jesus says it's actually better for the Holy Spirit to be with you than even me in the flesh. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Jesus says the Holy Spirit is the one who can change the hearts of your friends and your family who you pray for day after day that they would come to faith. The greatest gift that God can give us is God Himself. And that's exactly what Jesus does when He leaves and leaves with us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God's yes and amen to the promise of peace. Would you please stand with me as we pray and continue to worship God? Let me pray for us. Father God, we give you all the praise and thanks this morning for the Holy Spirit who has come to live inside of us to give us peace to create real change in our lives and in the world. God I pray that this week that as we walk through this world we would know that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us and that we would experience your peace. We pray this all in Jesus precious and powerful name. Amen.

That's a Good Question That's A Good Question is a podcast that answers questions you have about the Christian faith from pastors at Peace Church. This podcast is published on Tuesdays each week. Listen to the podcast February 25, 2025 When the Church Hurts Instead of Heals: A Conversation with Steve Midgley Jon Delger & Listen January 28, 2025 Stone to Spirit: The Law Fulfilled in Christ Jon Delger & Stephanie Delger Listen January 7, 2025 Life on the Line: Why We Must Fight for the Unborn Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen December 17, 2024 Wrath and Rescue: Unpacking the Mystery of Atonement Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen February 18, 2025 Who Are the gods? The Unsettling Reality of Psalm 82 Jon Delger & Ryan DB Kimmel Listen January 21, 2025 When Vows Break: The Hard Truth About Divorce and Remarriage Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen December 31, 2024 Be the Hands and Feet: A Conversation with Jeff Medders Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen December 9, 2024 Mom Guilt, Power Struggles, and the Bible's Solution Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen February 4, 2025 Divided by Man, United in Christ: A Conversation with Krista Bontrager and Monique Duson Jon Delger & Listen January 14, 2025 Jesus vs. Culture: The Hard Truth Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen December 24, 2024 Unwrapping Christmas: Lies, Legends, and the Light of the World Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen December 2, 2024 Are We Still Sinners After Salvation? Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen 1 2 3 4 5 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 ... 5

Sermon Discussion Questions 1 Title Sunday, January 5, 2025 A Season Is Ending & Beginning Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 A Season Is Ending & Beginning 2 Overview Main Idea: Whatever season we are in, what matters is that we glorify God forever. Sermon Outline: 1. ...ending because nothing lasts forever (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) 2..beginning because God reigns (Ecclesiastes 3:8-15) 3 Pre-Questions Can you share a personal experience of a significant transition in your life? How did you see God’s hand at work during that time? As we prepare to move into the new worship center, what hopes and expectations do you have for this new chapter in our church’s journey? 4 Questions Ecclesiastes speaks of a time for every activity under heaven. How do you interpret the timing of our move to the new worship center in light of this passage? Change can bring both excitement and uncertainty. How can we, as a church community, support one another in embracing this transition with faith and unity? Verses 11 and 14 highlight God’s sovereignty and the permanence of His works. How does acknowledging God’s control over our church’s journey influence your perspective on this move? As we prepare for this transition, let’s each identify one way we can contribute to making the new worship center a place where God’s presence is felt and His name is glorified. Share your commitment with the group. PDF Download

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PODCAST That's a Good Question Stone to Spirit: The Law Fulfilled in Christ January 28, 2025 Jon Delger & Stephanie Delger Listen to this Episode Hey, welcome to That's a Good Question, the podcast where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. We are a podcast of Resound Media, a place you can trust to find great resources for the Christian life and church leadership. You can always submit questions that we answer on this show to resoundmedia.cc . If you find this resource helpful, please rate and review the podcast so more people can encounter the life-changing truth of God's Word. Also, if you know somebody who can benefit from today's topic or has questions like the ones that we're answering, please share this episode with them. My name is Jon, I'm here with Stephanie. Hey everyone. And we're gonna have a great conversation about a topic that comes up time and again and is very important for Christians to think through. And that topic is Christians and the law. So we're gonna talk about questions like, should Christians follow Old Testament law? Should Christians wear clothes made of two different kinds of cloth? Are Christians allowed to eat pork? What does it mean when we say Jesus fulfilled the law? Were the Israelites saved by keeping the law? And lots more. All good questions. Yeah. Yeah. So I think to start us off, would you be able to tell us what do you mean when you're using the phrase the law? Yeah, great question. So it can mean a variety of different things. Actually, I think the Bible itself means a few different things when it says the word law. So in the Old Testament, we can break the Old Testament into three categories, just like the Israelites did, the Jews do, the law, the writings, and the prophets. So when we say law, sometimes we mean that part of the Old Testament, the first five books, Genesis through Deuteronomy, those five books. Sometimes we mean like all the commandments in the Bible. There's over 600 commandments in the Old Testament. So sometimes we mean that. Sometimes we just simply mean the law of Israel, the Jewish law, laws that they followed, like the 10 commandments, all those kinds of things I think we could mean when we talk about the law. Yeah, that makes sense. So then moving forward, because we want to talk about how do we relate to the law, but I think sometimes it's really helpful before we say how do we relate to this, how did the original audience relate to the law? Because you were saying it's Old Testament. So how did the Israelites relate to the books of the Bible or the different aspects of the law that you just talked about? Yeah, yeah, great question. So one of the most common misconceptions that I hear is that people think that the Old Testament people of God got saved by keeping the law, like doing the Ten Commandments, doing all the 600 plus laws in the Old Testament, that's how they got saved. Now we know that's not the case for a few different reasons. One, if you've been listening to the show for a while, if you've been studying the Bible, you know that there's only one man who kept the law perfectly, his name is Jesus. We also know that from a few specific verses. Think of Romans chapter three. Also, I'll read just a little bit of it. This is starting in verse nine, but actually, I'll tell you what, let me give you, I'll give you some passages that you can look at later and I'll just read a few short selections. Here's some passages you can look at later about this. Romans 3, verse 9 through 20. Galatians 3, verses 10 to 14. Hebrews 10, specifically verse 4. And then I'm probably also going to reference here, Romans chapter 5, verse 12. All right, so in Romans chapter 3, it says, what then, are we Jews any better off, as he passes Paul talking, who is himself a Jew? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, so now he's going to quote the Old Testament about how we relate to the law, he says, no one is righteous, no not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, no one does good, not even one. So he's quoting the Old Testament there, so that idea is not new because you're saying he's quoting the old so it was never meant to be that way and even the Old Testament itself says that yeah, okay. Yeah Yeah, it should have been clear even for ancient Israel that the law was not something they could keep perfectly So here's a little bit from Galatians chapter 3 says all who rely on works of the law are under a curse For it is written curse would be everyone who does not abide by all things Written in the book of the law and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law for the righteous shall live by faith." Also an Old Testament quote. Galatians 3 is the Apostle Paul expounding on some Old Testament passages so several of these things that I'm saying here are actually him quoting the Old Testament. He goes on and he says, the law is not a faith rather the one who does them shall live by them. That's Leviticus 18 he's quoting. So the basic point he's making there is that if you wanted to be saved by the law, you can't just do some of it. Like God doesn't grade on a curve. You got to do all of it, all the things in the law. If you do all of them, you could live by them, but of course we know that none of us actually do that. Here's Hebrews 10, verse 4, it says, it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Okay, so let me just real quick break down. Here's four points that I think we see from some of the passages I just referenced. Here we go. Number one, in order to have life by the law, we would have to keep all of it perfectly. God doesn't grade on a curve. Okay, so we'd have to do it perfectly. Which we can't. Right, right. So I think that's the point that Galatians 3 makes. Point number two, we don't do that. I think that's the point that Romans 3 makes, that we don't actually do those things. Point number three, the blood of animals doesn't actually take away sins. I think that's the point that the book of Hebrews makes, especially chapter 10 verse 4 says it very explicitly. We're going to get more to what the point of animal sacrifice was later, but we know that ultimately the blood of bulls and goats doesn't actually take away sins. And then point number four, I think this is where Romans 5.12 comes in and it's important for us to remember. So even if you could live perfectly, still, what Romans 5 tells us is that we are born as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. They sinned and so we actually inherit theirs. We're born into sin is the way that we often say it. So we're actually born guilty of our first father's sin. So even if you lived perfectly in this life, which again we've already said is impossible, let's just say that you hypothetically could, you've still got Adam's sin on you that you have to get rid of. Okay, so for all those reasons, nobody can get saved by the law in the Old Testament or the New Testament. So then the question is, well, what was the point of the Old Testament law for the ancient Israelites, right? Yeah. Yeah, so if they couldn't get saved by it, then what was it for? We could say at least three things. Number one, it shows us who God is. Okay, when we read the laws, what we're seeing is God's heart, God's design, right? This is God's, this is us seeing God's character in the form of commands. You know, God tells us to be like him, and that's what we see in the law. These are things that represent holiness and righteousness and everything that's good in God and that he wants us then to live by. So it shows us who God is. So would it be fair, like with the 10 commandments, those would be things that we could see, these are things that shows us what God is, who he is, and how he wants us to act? Yeah, yeah, totally. So, it shows us who he is, and then, like you started to say, it shows us his design for us. He wants us to be like him. You know, we're supposed to be like our Father, our Heavenly Father. So, it shows us who he is, shows us how we're supposed to live, and it's not arbitrary, right? It's not just God's prescriptions for you should do these things simply because I say so, even though that would be enough, of course. It's God saying this is the best way for human life to work. This is, you know, the Creator saying this is the design. This is how it should work out. And then finally, the third thing I would say about how the law should function, it functioned in ancient Israel and it functions now, is that it shows us our sin and therefore points us to our need for a Savior. So that's not just true for, you know, that's something you've probably heard New Testament Christians talk about, but also in the Old Testament, that was true, that they should have been able to see through the law, see how they fall short, that I can't live up to this perfectly and I need somebody to save me. And that's actually, you know, all of the Old Testament is longing for, waiting for that coming Savior, which of course we now know is Jesus. That makes a lot of sense. So thinking a little bit more about the law, I think some of them can seem kind of out there or odd to our ears. So what do you think, what was the purpose of maybe some of the more ritualistic laws, like feasts and sacrifice and things like of that nature? Yeah, right. So yeah, there's some interesting ones in there, right? Like even at the beginning, I mentioned, you know, the law about not wearing clothes woven of multiple kinds of fabric, or, you know, don't cook a goat in its mother's milk, or some of these things that seem kind of strange and arbitrary to us. I think some of those ones that appear to us to be kind of weird are a little bit more symbolic. They kind of show us something, a reality, a spiritual reality. They point us to something. So it makes me think of going through the Bible, there was a law that I've really struggled with lately, and it was talking about how a woman on her menstrual cycle is considered unclean. And I think that's what you were just saying. It's almost like a parable because the New Testament talks about how it's not anything that we put in our body that makes us unclean. It's what comes out of our body. And trying to figure out what did that law mean, because to me, it automatically made me feel like, well, that's not fair to women. Like, that's just something that happens in our body. We can't control that. But I think through different research of trying to figure out what was the heart behind this law, I think it instilled almost in a parable in our minds of, it's, we are in a constant state of uncleanliness and we need somebody to save us. Right. Right. Yeah. The, the cleanliness ritual, cleanliness laws were, yeah, a really important symbol that people saw day in and day out about the fact of sin. Yeah, totally. So to think about even the storyline of how all this comes together, and I'm just thinking more about how we can get really mixed up on thinking about the Old Testament law as a method of salvation. Just to show even more so that's not the case, I think when you bring in the storyline of Scripture—so I quoted some very specific passages that make that point. But just to think about the overall storyline of the Bible, right? It's one story from Genesis, Revelation, not two different stories, Old Testament, New Testament, one story. Just think about that whole story and how the law falls into it. A simple way I think about it is this, that Abraham came before Moses. Okay, so Abraham, when God and Abraham start their relationship, it's not that Abraham was a perfect law keeper, and therefore he started this relationship with God, and God decided to love him because of the things he had done. The Bible tells us that's not at all how it worked. So I think of like Genesis 15, six, talking about Abraham, it says, and he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. So God actually chooses, we find out in the book of Joshua that Abraham actually before God called him out was an idolater. He worshipped other gods that were not the God of the Bible. And so God chooses Abraham out of all the peoples in the world. And then he counts Abraham's trust in him, his faith, as righteousness. So Abraham is not saved by works. He's saved by grace through faith. And then the people of Israel are Abraham's children. It's the fulfillment of God's promise to Abraham that the people of Israel comes about. So they're living in the covenant relationship under Abraham. And then God adds to that covenant relationship the law of Moses. So they're already walking like husband and wife. That's the imagery we get with a covenant. So God and his people are already walking like husband and wife. And then added to that relationship of love and grace through faith is these specific stipulations in the law through Moses that says, this is God's design for you, this is God's will for you, not in order to be saved, but to show you this is what God wants you to do, this is what he tells you to do, calls you to do, and it's what's good for you. So those things get like brought in and added to the covenant. It's not a separate covenant. It's not separate terms. You know, it's something that's added to help and make sense. Yeah. So it's a step further in clarity of pointing towards Jesus. Yeah, totally. Yeah. It's a step along the way that ultimately is going to bring us to Jesus and be fulfilled in him. So when we talk about the law, I think you before, as you and I have been talking about it, you can break the law into different distinctions, whether it's a ceremonial or moral. Would you mind sharing some of that? Because I felt like that was really helpful for me to understand how I relate to the law. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something Christians have been saying for a long time. It's even in the Westminster Catechism, just an old reformed document that helps us teach, you know, what the Bible says. So the breakdown that people have been given is moral, civil, and ceremonial laws that we see in the Old Testament. And of course, they're not labeled that, you know, they're not different colors in the text or anything like that, but we can kind of look at them and kind of understand, all right, these are laws that had civil laws are things that had to do with Israel as a nation, you know, civil nation. So that's kind of how they functioned as a nation. Ceremonial laws, things that had to do with their ritual life, things like animal sacrifices, things like feasts and festivals, some of those more symbolic kind of things. And then there's what we call the moral laws, which are things that carry through beyond the nation of Israel, beyond how they did worship before Jesus, kind of beyond those things carry into New Testament life, into today are the things that we call the moral law. To give a very obvious example, do not murder. That's a law that transcends Old and New Testament. These are things that are true all the way across, and there's many more than that. So what do you think, because I think those distinctions are really helpful, what do you think, what was the purpose behind God giving each of those three sections of the law, of the moral, the ceremonial, and the civil law? Yeah, so the civil and the ceremonial serve a distinct function for that period of time in the history of the world and in the history of God's interactions with human beings, right? Israel as a nation is a unique thing. It's part of God's developing story. You know, today we would say that God's people are no longer a unique nation. They are people of all nations, not one unique nation. So, you know, the civil served a specific purpose for how God's people worked at that time in history. That is no longer the case today. I think some of the laws in reading them, I know there are some laws about like mildew and different things that you can find on tents. Would those fall in that category because it was a good thing for those people just for their safety practices, right? If there's a really, really bad type of mildew or mold that's growing on their tents, God's going to try to protect his people so it doesn't spread from tent to tent to tent and now everybody is homeless without tents. Yeah, that would be either civil or ceremonial. Yeah, totally. And the ceremonial ones, to talk about that one. So, you know, like the sacrificial system is a prime example. You know, those things existed. We'll talk in a minute about, you know, how Jesus comes into play. But, you know, those things existed up until Jesus, who is, of course, the final and ultimate sacrifice. But they reminded the people of Israel day in and day out, right? Unlike you and I, where it's, unfortunately, I think it's easier for us to not feel the gravity of sin. For them, morning and night, they could hear the noise of the animals, they could smell burning flesh and hair, they might smell or see blood, right? In ancient Israel, it was very clear and obvious, day in and day out, morning and night, that sin has consequences. That sin leads to death, that sin leads to blood, that sin must be paid for. And so the ceremonial law served a huge purpose in just showing people the consequences of sin, showing them their need for forgiveness, for salvation, which ultimately will point them to the Savior Jesus. So I think you've said before that the point of the law is really it points towards Jesus. And I know in some of the verses that you read earlier, it talks about Jesus fulfilling the law. Would you be able to expound a little bit on what that means or just maybe even in different words how you would explain that? Well, let's go to the key passage that says this. So this is in Matthew chapter five, verses 17 and 18. Jesus himself, he says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." Okay, so in that really important passage, Jesus says there's something that he did come to do, and there's something he did not come to do. So he did come, he says, to fulfill the law. He did not come to abolish the law. So we got to try to understand exactly what Jesus is talking about when he says that. And I think that's where the categories become really helpful of moral, civil, ceremonial. So Jesus does fulfill the law in several senses. One, he's the only man to ever actually obey it. He does it perfectly. He's the only perfect human to have walked the earth. He is God and man, 100 percent God, 100% man, but he is thus the only man to ever walk the earth and fulfill God's law perfectly. It also, he fulfills it in the sense that it always was pointing to him, you know, showing his character, he is God, it was showing his character, his obedience, of course, fulfills it. But then some of it even pointed specifically to his death and then resurrection. So you know, that's where the ceremonial law comes in specifically. He's fulfillment of all of those those rituals, those symbols, all those those things that God was using to show people their sin, their need for a Savior, then He is that Savior. He's the fulfillment of that. So I think I've heard some people say, yes, that is so true. Jesus has fulfilled the law. That means that we don't have to deal with it anymore. Why are we reading it? It's in the Old Testament. It doesn't matter. I know you and I disagree with that, but what would you say to that argument? Yeah, yeah, I mean that's so important to understand. Yeah, we as Christians, we don't throw the law out the window. You know, one of the things that I've heard Christians say is like, well, we just are supposed to love God and love neighbor. Well, if you read your Bible, you realize where that actually comes from. That's a summary of the law. That's in Jesus' conversation in the New Testament where he's asking for a summary of the law and the summary of the law, not a replacement of the law, but the summary is to love God and love neighbor. So if you were to say, okay, great, we're supposed to love God and love neighbor. How do we do that? Well, open up your Old Testament, read the law. That's going to explain this is how I love God, this is how I love neighbor, right? So yeah, we can't get rid of it. Jesus didn't come to abolish it. He came to fulfill it. So we're still called to do it. So here's a couple more passages that say that same thing. So here's Matthew 5, 19, going right after a couple of verses that I just read. Jesus continues and he says, Therefore, anybody who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Okay, so Jesus talking pretty highly about the law and how it continues and its continued importance. Romans 7 verse 7, "'What then shall we say, that the law is sin? "'By no means. "'Yet if it had not been for the law, "'I would not have known sin, "'for I would not have known what it is to covet "'if the law had not said, you shall not covet.'" Okay, so Paul's saying law is still important, goes a step further and even explains one of its important uses, which is to show us this is sin. So in short, I would say the law still applies, but there are some ways in which it applies a little bit differently because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. That's like the center point of all history, right? So things change on the other side of that. So I think, so we're recording this at the end of January. For people that are going through the read a Bible in a year, we're not hitting like the law books of the Old Testament yet, right? But when we get into reading Deuteronomy and Leviticus and a lot of these books where these laws are going to be recorded for us, is there a way that we would be able to know as we're reading through the Bible what laws fit in what categories or what ones are we supposed to continue to keep because they are the moral laws and what ones are we able to praise Jesus for, for fulfilling and how do we navigate when we're reading those books, what we should still be doing or how it relates to us? Yeah, great question. Well, like I said, they're not, you know, they're not labeled, they're not in different colors. Be nice if it was, maybe we could come up with one. That would be nice, that would be nice. But I think you just got to kind of ask yourself the question of, you know, was this unique for the nation of Israel, or was this unique in that it was a ritual, a ceremony that was intended to ultimately point to Jesus versus a law that says something about God and human beings and human conduct for all of time. I think that's kind of the question you're asking yourself. And I would also add this. The civil and the ceremonial law, here's what I would say. Somebody would say, well, what you're saying is that some of the law matters and some of it doesn't. No, again, all of it applies. Some of it just applies differently after the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. So we can still learn a lot of things from the civil and ceremonial law. They still teach us important principles. They just don't apply in the same way because we're not the nation of Israel living in the land in the Old Testament. We're not pre-Jesus. You know, we're post-Jesus. Jesus has come and things have changed as a result. So for the laws in the Old Testament that give consequences, like if somebody does this, you cut off their hand. If somebody does this, you stone them. Those are things that we would say was for the country or the nation of Israel and it's not up to us as Christians to be going and cutting off hands and stoning people in the streets. Because I think I've heard that before, where people are arguing saying, well, you Christians, you pick and choose what you follow. This isn't a religion of love. Look at all of this evil in the Old Testament. And I think I've heard a lot of criticism that people will use the law to say that we're not doing what God tells us to. Sure. Well, yeah, I think that's an important example, actually, where some of the laws I'm thinking off the top of my head, the law is still in place, it still makes sense. It's still, you know, this is still a law we should follow. But the consequence we should issue is probably not to cut off somebody's hand or to execute that. Yeah, yeah. More than probably. You know, yeah, we don't we don't stone people for certain offenses. Actually, we put that that power, that that level of judgment in the hands of government, of the state instead of in, for example, the church's hands. And like I said, I think that's, you know, the time has changed. You know, today as the church, where I heard another pastor say this very wisely, you know, whereas in the Old Testament, they might execute you for something, in the New Testament, we might excommunicate you. And I think that's just representative of the different time period that we are in. In the Old Testament, you know, the church and the state, if you will, were one, the nation of Israel. Today, the church and the state are separate. They're not one, right? The church is of all nations. And so it just works a little bit differently. I think as we were talking too, it's so life-giving to actually view the law of this is going to lead to life change. And it's also going to lead to worship because you're either going to look at the law and you're going to look at the moral law and you're going to say, I can't measure up to this. But praise Jesus that he took my place on the cross so that I can still be with him, even though I can't keep this law perfectly. Or if you're reading through the laws that are ceremonial and things like that, you can say, praise the Lord that this was just pointing towards him that way back thousands and thousands of years before Jesus was born as a baby, God knew what he was going to do. And he put all of this in place so that you and I, like as we're sitting here in 2025, we can look at this and be like, that is so incredible that God knew way back from the beginning and did that to show us really his love, which I think so often I can view the law as rules and regulations, but really I think it was all done in love. Absolutely. Yeah, the law could show us the beauty of man, Jesus, Jesus did this. So now I think to turn pace a little bit, we just talked about what to say to people that thinks we shouldn't follow the law. What about people who look at it and say, as Christians, it's still so important that we do follow all of the Old Testament laws? Right, right. Because they're both sides, I think I've heard them. I've heard of both sides of that, yeah, for sure. For sure. So again, obviously, we want to start by saying there are, you know, the Old Testament still matters. It still applies. Some of it just applies differently. So if they're talking specifically about, you know, the feasts or about certain rituals, you know, I mean, one of the things I would say is, you know, where are you even, you know, if you're still saying, for example, that we should still follow the feasts, you know, how do you draw the line between the feasts and the animal sacrifices? You know, because I think most Christians would say, obviously, we're not still supposed to sacrifice animals because Jesus has come. If you're wrestling with that, read the book of Hebrews, especially chapters like 9 and 10. Think about what Jesus does on the cross. It is finished. He is the final and ultimate sacrifice. To have continued sacrifices would be to say that Jesus' death was not enough to cover our sin. But I would say, how do you separate even the feasts from the sacrifices and stuff? So you might start there. I think some of them just in our perspective, because some of them included both, like the Passover included sacrificing an animal lamb. So if they're advocating for we still need to do this, then really, if you're doing all of that, it will include both. Right. So I would say, if Christians wanted to celebrate the Old Testament feasts sort of in memorial, sort of to say, hey, we just want, we want to remember our Old Testament history. And these are still great moments we can praise God for. I think there's something great about that, you know, to remember, you know, we do this on Good Friday, on Easter, you know, we remember the Passover and we think about the significance of what happened in the Exodus and God rescued his people out of slavery. And ultimately, you know, that's a picture now for us today that God rescued us out of slavery to sin through Jesus. You know, so, you know, we can still celebrate in the sense of remembering why they're important. You know, we can even, you know, do some practices. I've been a part of services before we brought in somebody who is, you know, maybe formerly a Jewish rabbi who's now, you know, following Jesus, what we'd call a Messianic Jew. We had a great interview several episodes ago with the CEO and leader of Juice for Jesus, a great guy that got to talk about that a little bit. And we walked through what a Passover meal would have looked like. Yeah, you and I did that together. Yeah. That was really impactful for me. Yeah, and we got to see how that points to Jesus. So I think you can use those as great things, but to say, this is God's command, we must do this, we're disobedient if we don't do this, I think you're missing how Jesus has fulfilled that part of the law. Another one is maybe somebody might be thinking about the foods we eat. There are actually some specific verses that talk about that. We could go into that. Mark chapter 7, Jesus is making the case about how, like you mentioned earlier, that what makes us unclean is not what comes into us, but what comes out of us. And so he's teaching on that, he's making that point, and then actually Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit, adds to the— let me see where it is here. Here we go. This is Mark chapter 7. I'll start reading in verse 18. He says, heart but his stomach and as expelled. Thus he declared all foods clean." Okay, so it's Jesus speaking, then the inspired writer writes, you know, right behind Jesus' words, thus he declared all foods clean, you know, so inspired by the Holy Spirit, he's interpreting Jesus' words for us. You know, not only that, you've got Acts chapter 10, the story with Peter, and God comes to him in a dream. So, about the foods, we've even got some very specific instruction from the Lord about, hey, no, this is, you know, this is not how I'm calling you to live anymore. I think, do they call that the bacon blanket? Is that the Acts 10? A bacon blanket? Have you ever heard of that before? I have not heard of that before. Oh man, you're missing out. That makes sense. Yeah, it's the bacon blanket. Yeah. Yeah. So going back to the beginning, because at the very beginning of the episode, you listed very concrete questions. And just to make sure we answer those really concretely for people, I'm going to go back and rapid fire. Can I throw them at you now? Sure. All right. So, should Christians follow Old Testament laws? Yes. Why? Yes, and you need to understand how some of them work on the other side of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. The obedience to them or application of them looks different. So, should Christians wear clothes made of two different kinds of cloth? Yes, I think that's okay. I think that that falls in the ceremonial category of, you know, symbolic and trying to teach us something. And that kind of goes to the next one. Are Christians allowed to eat pork? Yes. Thank you, Jesus. Praise the Lord. To get that bacon for breakfast. That's right. So then what does it mean when we say that Jesus fulfilled the law? I know you've addressed this, but kind of as coming through, just to summarize. Sure. It means that he fulfilled it by obeying it perfectly. He fulfilled it by, in the civil and ceremonial case, he was the ultimate. He ultimately fulfilled actually Israel's calling as God's Old Testament people, and he became the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. I think that last one you asked too was, were the Israelites saved by keeping the law? No, they were not saved by keeping the law. They were saved by faith actually the same way that we are and like us as people following him by faith. God still gave them instructions about how to live just like he does for us today. Awesome. Well, thanks Stephanie for the great conversation. Thanks everybody for listening. It's been an awesome chance to talk about Christians and the law such an important topic can be a little bit complicated encourage you to go back through some of the passages that we referenced. So much more we could talk about, especially passages like Galatians 3, the book of Hebrews, Romans chapter 3, you know, not even just the verses I mentioned, but you know, those whole chapters and sections and books, you know, pour over those, see what God, you know, is sharing and helping to understand about our relationship with the law. But hey, have a great week, everybody. Do us a favor, like, follow, subscribe, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, resoundmedia.cc. Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, ReSoundMedia.cc. Have an awesome week. you

Think Tattoo Not Nail-Polish Ministry Cheyenne Werner Women's Ministry Director Peace Church Published On: November 1, 2023 Women’s Bible Study books are as numerous as nail polish color options. But unlike lacquer that can be removed with a swipe of acetone, Women’s Bible studies have a tattoo-like imprint on ladies’ lives. With that kind of enduring influence, curating curricula is worthy of careful consideration. So what factors should Women’s Ministry leaders consider when choosing a curriculum? Two categories come to mind: Structure and Substance. Details like time, duration, and “homework load” often make a difference in how invested women can be. And yet if the content is confusing, overwhelming, unsound, or distracting from the Gospel – then women will leave with a counterfeit understanding of God’s Word, of who He is, and of what He is like. Let’s walk through three factors from each of these two categories, starting with Structure. Time . There’s a reason why kids’ sports seasons are typically limited to 6-8 week sessions. As a busy mom, 1.5-2 months feels like a feasible commitment, and allows for a couple weeks’ break before the next busy season. In Michigan, where the school year starts at the end of August, 8 weeks is the sweet spot to give ladies a few weeks to get their families into the school-groove before adding on Bible Study and still ending before Thanksgiving. Most Bible study books fall in the 6-10 week range. Consider your context. Do seasons, school years, or holidays impact the availability of your women? While it may seem “unspiritual” to make such a big deal of this factor, you may be limiting the population of women able to attend if duration isn’t taken into account. Type . Some Bible studies use Christian non-fiction books that have discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Other Bible Studies use workbooks that have daily passages to read, along with commentary and/or questions to guide women to an understanding of the passage. Both are instrumental in discipleship. Generally, however, they are the difference between “giving a [woman] a fish” (i.e. using non-fiction chapter books) and “teaching a [woman] to fish” (i.e. using Bible study workbooks). A beginner fisherwoman is going to get pretty hungry and despairing if she’s expected to only eat the fish she catches herself. But if she never learns to “fish” by studying the Bible on her own, she’s always going to be dependent on others to tell her what to get from God’s Word. A thoughtful strategy to what types of studies you use at your church matters! Teaching-format. Video-teaching has become pretty standard for women’s Bible study curricula. One of the greatest benefits to using video-teaching is access to insight from the author themselves! This can help create aha-moments for women who were stuck on a particular question or passage during the week, and it also helps women feel more connected with the person behind the written word. At the same time, don’t write off digital-free Bible studies! One of the most compelling and well-received “teaching” formats we have used at Peace Church is having two women on stage share about the “highlights and hard-things” they encountered while reading through that week’s passage. Considering these structural factors will help narrow down your selection base. Now let’s filter these options through the lens of Substance: Scripture . A “Bible study” should (drum roll please…) study the Bible (and not just an inspiring topic with scattered, isolated verses)! While there are topical Bible studies that are well anchored to scripture, women are more likely to do those studies on their own or with a friend. Structured, scheduled Bible Study is a chance to train believers to build Bible-literacy by digging into whole chapters and books of the Bible at a time and grappling with tricky passages together that they might otherwise skip over. In fact, there is a massive misunderstanding that the Old Testament is disposable. As you’re considering what part of scripture to study, remember to teach and model that “ all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man [and woman] of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever do topical studies. But be strategic about what topics and books of the Bible you choose! Source . The only cover-feature more alluring than an illustrated sprig of eucalyptus is the name of everyone’s favorite Christian female author. But before you appease the mob of women requesting a certain book by a certain source, do your research! Make sure that any source you are using is trustworthy and written with sound theology. Invite your pastors to make author suggestions or evaluate books you’re considering. Find articles, podcasts, or interviews of both male and female authors who have written studies on the book of the Bible or topic that you want to dig into with your ladies. Scope. If you’ve narrowed down every one of these earlier categories, then the next thing to consider is whether the scope of the study is a good match for the span of your women. A curriculum should always include an explanation of the Gospel; a demonstration of the cohesion of Scripture through faithful cross-referencing; contextual information to help guard ladies from misinterpretation; questions that reach both the heart and mind; teaching that addresses both sin and grace; and content that magnifies God over and above all else. While these are essentials for your scope, other aspects should be determined by the makeup of your participants. If your women’s ministry is comprised of a lot of newer believers, be cautious about choosing a study with an intense amount of “homework” or that uses a lot of theological vocabulary without explanation. If your population is older, be sure that the application questions aren’t primarily geared towards young moms. But don’t think a diverse population poses a problem for picking a curriculum! If you have a mixture of ages and stages of spiritual maturity, err on the side of a simpler (but engaging!) curriculum that still encompasses all the essentials. The women in your group who have more Bible knowledge will most likely dig deeper into the passage on their own and then share what they learned with their discussion groups. In this way, you are creating a Titus 2:3-4 environment with “older women teaching the younger women.” While these 6 factors will help you narrow down your top picks for Bible study curricula, don’t be paralyzed by fear. Unlike tattoos, there is one last factor that can redeem even a poor curriculum choice: Prayer. As women’s ministry leaders, even our most faithful attempts at picking the perfect book are limited because we are not omniscient or omnipotent. So while it’s important that we use discernment, ultimately it’s God who knows exactly what they need and who inscribes His Spirit on their hearts (1 Cor 3:6-9, Is. 55:11, 2 Cor. 3:3). Commit to pray for clarity and entrust the women in your ministry to your faithful God. More Blogs You'll Like What Is a Deacon? Exploring the Role, Qualifications, and Purpose of Deacons in the Church Read More What Is An Elder? 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