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Beyond Bluey Christian Life Stephanie Delger Podcast Host Mom Guilt Podcast Published On: July 10, 2024 One day while scrolling on social media, I stumbled across a meme that said, “Never have I felt so seen as a parent as the first time I saw the backseat of the car in Bluey.” I had never seen the show before, but reading this made me eager to check out this new show - Bluey. I went home with my kids, and we watched the first episode of Bluey. I instantly understood why everyone was talking about this show! The more I watched, the more I loved it. However, after some time, I began to walk away frustrated rather than refreshed. “Why don’t I play with my kids as much as Bluey’s parents play with her?” “Does that make me a bad mom?” “Everyone talks about how messy the backseat of the Heelers’ car is, but that’s actually clean compared to mine!” What started as innocent family TV time turned into a guilt session for me as a mom. I was no stranger to the comparison game we play as moms, but this was absurd. I was comparing myself to a fictional character! I texted a friend asking her how she felt about the TV show. It turns out, I wasn’t the only one who was struggling with comparing myself to Chilli Heeler. My friend was struggling too! As moms, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others. But how can we break the habit? How do we resist this temptation to compare ourselves to others? Embrace Your Calling God doesn’t make mistakes or accidents. This means that He chose you specifically to be the mother of your children. In His divine wisdom, He knew that it was best for you and your children to be placed together. As moms, we need to embrace our calling. We shouldn’t compare ourselves to other moms, both real-life and imaginary. We need to faithfully follow what God has asked us to do rather than trying to copy our best friend. When we get to Heaven, we’ll be asked how we raised our children, not how our best friend raised hers. In Deuteronomy 6:5-7, God tells us how we should live. God says, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” As Christian moms, our primary calling is to love the Lord. The natural overflow of that love results in telling others about Him. As we grow closer to God, it will naturally overflow to us teaching and telling our children about Him. The day-to-day ways moms live out this calling will look differently. That’s a beautiful thing. God has given each person and family different life experiences that uniquely equip them to share the gospel. Rather than lamenting that our life doesn’t look like someone else’s, we should celebrate that God has chosen to give each of us a unique way we can share the gospel. Find Strength in God After reading that we are each asked to live out the gospel differently, if you are like me, you may be left feeling more pressure rather than less. But God hasn’t asked us to do this on our own. We have been given the Holy Spirit. Jesus, when telling His disciples that He would be returning to heaven, gave them comfort saying, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” (John 16:13) We are not left alone. We have the Holy Spirit guiding us in how we should live. Not only does the Bible tell us that the Holy Spirit guides us, but the Holy Spirit also intercedes for us. Romans 8:26 says, “The 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.” On days when life is crazy and everything is spiraling out of control, this is incredibly comforting. We might not know exactly what we need, but the Holy Spirit does. As moms, we can cry out to God for help. When we do this, we can feel comforted knowing that the Holy Spirit is standing before the Lord, praying on our behalf and asking God to give us exactly what we need. Keep Your Identity Rooted in Christ Another way we can fight the temptation to compare is by embracing our identity. If you have placed your faith in Christ, when God looks at you, He doesn’t see our sins and failures. He sees Jesus. Our identity is secure in Christ, and our value isn’t dependent on how well we parent. Jesus doesn’t love you more on good days, and He doesn’t regret saving you on your bad days. Your standing before the Lord is secure. We can live unburdened from this guilt of feeling inadequate or feeling like a bad mom because that is not what defines us. We don’t have to tire ourselves out trying to keep up with the newest parenting trends on social media. We shouldn’t be comparing ourselves to others and basing our worth on if we are a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ mom. As Christian moms, we need to look to the Bible for how we should raise our children. We should strive to honor God with our lives and stop focusing on how others around us are parenting. As moms, we should strive to do what God has asked of us. This is how we live out the calling of being a faithful Christian mother. We are not defined by what we think about ourselves or what the world tells us. We are defined by God and who He says we are. So the next time we are tempted to compare ourselves to another mom, remember that we are asked to faithfully raise the children God has given us. We can draw on the strength and guidance God has given us and rest assured that He will always love us and that our identity is secure in Jesus Christ. If you would like further encouragement and help on how you can fight comparison in motherhood, please listen to this episode of the Mom Guilt Podcast - Bluey Guilt here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2177117/12696885-bluey-guilt More Blogs You'll Like Is Prioritizing Love Un-Christian? What Does The Bible Say? Read More More Than Meets the Eye Discovering God’s Purposes for Motherhood Read More Mom Guilt and How to Fight It Read More

PODCAST That's a Good Question Exploring Faith and Fossils: A Journey Through Creation, and Evolution November 28, 2023 Jon Delger & Stephanie Delger Listen to this Episode JonHey everyone, welcome to That's a Good Question, a podcast of Peace Church, this place where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. I'm Jon, I can serve as a pastor here at Peace Church, I also get to serve as the weekly host of this show, and you can always submit questions at peacechurch.cc/questions. And I'm here today with a very special guest who I'm excited to get to share this episode with. My guest here is one of the hosts of the Mom Guilt podcast. She also teaches in our women's ministry here at Peace Church. She's also a mother of four, a homeschool teacher, and she's my wife. My wife, Miss Stephanie Delger, is my guest here on today's show and I'm excited to have her on because she is someone who has done a lot of reading and study and thinking about the topic that we're going to talk about today. So let me read our question for today. All right, the question that came in is this, I assume you guys don't believe in evolution. Question #1: If you don't believe in evolution, then what do you say about Neanderthals or dinosaurs? And so Stephanie, you have read a lot of books about dinosaurs because since a young age you have wondered this question yourself. As a Christian, I read the Bible, but scientists say, you know, some different things about dinosaurs. How do dinosaurs fit into the whole timeline? And so we're going to talk about that a lot. We're also going to talk a little about Ken Ham and answers in Genesis, which is a key resource that we use. But thanks for being here. And I'm excited to talk about the question. StephanieYeah, me too. JonSo we're going to break it down a little bit and we're going to start by talking about that big question of evolution. So Stephanie, what do we think about evolution? StephanieYeah, so I think it's important when talking about evolution, what do you really mean by evolution, right? So I would say evolution, there's two different types of evolution. I would say there's micro evolution and there's macro evolution. So one of those I would say I would agree with and say yes, and the other one I would say no. So first, if it's okay, we can talk about microevolution. So I would say microevolution is where there's some type or some kind of organism that is going to maybe change over time. So I was a nurse and I worked in the healthcare field. And so one of the things that I was thinking about, how do I give you an example of what this would be, was bacteria, right? So in health care, they don't like to give out antibiotics a lot for certain bacterias because the bacteria can change and actually become resistant to that medication or that antibiotic. And so I would say that's actually a great example of micro evolution. It's some type of organism that is changing or adapting to its environment to survive. JonMm hmm. That makes sense. StephanieYeah. So then macro evolution would be some type of living organism changing into a whole different type. And I think talking about kinds or types, I get that from Genesis. So if you read in Genesis 1, the creation account, you're seeing God created things to their kind. And as you read that, you see he created according to their kinds, according to their kinds. And so right there in the creation narrative, you're seeing there's a certain type compared to a different type. And so what I would say is microevolution is the same type of organism that's maybe just changing or adapting, whereas macroevolution is some kind changing into a different kind. JonRight. And we have evidence of microevolution. Absolutely. We have, you know, verifiable cases of that, but we don't have evidence of verifiable cases of macroevolution, right? There's no case of that that we know of. So evolution itself is a scientific theory, right? It's one theory about it looks at data and it tries to put together that data and make sense of it. It's one theory about how we could get put together some different data of basically how are there all these different kinds of organisms on the earth and how did we get here and how did it happen over a span of time? You wanna talk about evolution as a theory a little bit? StephanieYeah, so when talking to our kids about it, you know, there's this idea that what the scientists are doing in this, like the creation scientists, they're looking at it saying, how did all of this come to be? Well, some of them are looking at this, and they're making guesses, right? We were not there at creation. So they're taking these things and trying to make sense of it. And so what they're trying to do is sometimes they will say, well, we're not believing in God. So if you take God out of the equation, how do we then explain how everything has came to be? And so what they'll say is well, there's no God so something has to happen And so this is just a theory that they're saying oftentimes trying to pass it off as fact, right? A lot of times they're not saying this is a guess. This is our Idea that we've came up with but rather I mean we just need to be honest about that because sometimes I think they can be Kind of deceptive and how they talk about it. JonYeah, and we're not being anti-science in saying that. We're pro-science, right? Absolutely. Christians are in favor of science as the work of looking at God's created order, looking at things in creation and studying them so that we can understand them better. In science, we make hypotheses about how the different things that we see might work together and what might happen after different experiments. So it's important that we do that hard work of science, but we're saying, looking at evolution, I think honest scientists would say, hey, we don't, this isn't a verifiable fact. This is one theory about how things may have come to be. Right? Is that fair to say? StephanieYeah, I think that's great. JonYeah. So, as we think about that, we're saying, okay, let's think about the biblical evidence as well as the evidence that we see in creation. Now, let's think about what is the best way to bring those together. And so, thinking about that ourselves, now, you know, neither of us are science experts, but we have done a lot of study of the Bible. And so let's come at it from the biblical side. What are some of the biblical problems with evolution? You want me to go first? StephanieI would love you to go first. JonSo what are some of the minor problems? Minor, not minor. So what are some of the biblical problems with evolution? So I think one of those that I think of right away is death before the fall. So the whole idea of evolution is predicated on that things have to die in order to, you know, death has to happen in order for evolution to happen. StephanieYeah, evolution is coming, one animal is dying and turning into something else. Death has to be part of the evolution as they're trying to describe it. JonYeah, it happens over the course of generations. Whereas in the Bible, we see that death doesn't come into play until after Genesis 3, after the fall, which is after animals and human beings have all been created. And so that just doesn't line up, I think, both with the scriptural chronology as well as with God's character. That if death happens before Genesis 3, before the fall, then something's out of place, right? The idea is that before sin enters the world, everything is perfect, everything is good, there's no sickness, there's no death, that's the state that we're actually going to be returning to at the end of all things when Jesus returns. And so death before the fall is a major problem with evolution. What else we got? StephanieYeah, so I think of passages like I was able to teach on Romans 8 this last year in the Women's Bible Study at our church. And in Romans 8, it talks about the creation groaning together along with us and it's longing for this restoration. And so I think even in Romans, Paul is pointing back saying this was perfect and it was then broken by sin and it will be restored. And so I think even in the New Testament, you see that pattern of everything was perfect and then sin entered the world, it was fallen, right? God's good design was broken and then it will be restored and you look forward to Jesus coming back and doing that for us. JonYeah, yeah, definitely. Another problem that comes up is just the biblical account that, you know, for evolution to work, you know, so if you look at some of the, some of the work there done by scientists, they would say that evolution, you know, has to make sense, you have to start with a large population of humans at the beginning. I think from what I've heard is there has to be about 10,000 people to sort of to start with. And so, and when we look at the Bible, it says that there's Adam and Eve, two people, two human beings. And so, we've got kind of some contradiction there that those two can't be true at the same time. So, I think for evolution to work, evolution to make sense, we'd have to say that Adam and Eve were not really the first humans like the Bible says, which is a problem. Yeah. One last one that I want to point to is, because this goes right to the very heart of the gospel, and for me this just brings up how important of an idea this is. This isn't just sort of a secondary or side issue in theology, this is a real issue of the issue of evolution. So I think about Romans 5 verse 12, let me read it and then we'll just kind of explain how it relates. It says, therefore just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned." Okay, so in Romans 5, it's making the case for how sin came into the world through Adam and death through sin and through Adam. And then it's going to make the case later that through Jesus comes life and righteousness. And so you've got this core problem for the gospel that if Adam wasn't a real person, and if Adam didn't sin, and if he's not the father of all mankind, and all mankind died with him, you know, that all mankind is born into sin ever since Adam, if that's not true, then we've also got the problem of, well, what does that mean for Jesus, and how can Jesus be the leader, the father of a new humanity that is freed from sin by his death on the cross and his resurrection. So this really does affect the very core of the gospel. StephanieYeah, I think this is a great example of how sometimes we can kind of pass something off and say, oh, this doesn't really matter. But I think as you were just explaining that verse, these things in Genesis that we're talking about of how God created us, these are really important and it impacts how we view Christ and how thankful we are for our salvation from that. You know, if we don't think that Adam was a real person and that through him entered sin into the world, then we're gonna take that less seriously than that Christ came to save us from that. And I think that this is just one example of how these things really do matter. We can't just cast them off and say, oh, just forget it. Yeah, right. JonCool. Well, let's get into some of the specific questions that were asked about dinosaurs. Rawr! StephanieI didn't see that coming. JonI didn't think you would. StephanieThat was awesome. JonAll right, so the other perspective is what has been called the old earth perspective. And so when they look at Genesis, they would look at that word day and they would see that not as a literal 24 hour time period, but as a long period of time, an undisclosed amount of time, many years during that period of time. So and a lot of that is looking at what some scientists are telling us, looking at the age of the earth, looking at things buried in the ground, carbon dating, different methods like that, fossils, and they're trying to estimate the age of the earth. And we're trying to figure out how does that work with what Genesis is telling us. So those are the kind of the two different perspectives. And that comes into play when we talk about dinosaurs. So we're talking about did dinosaurs live millions of years ago? And we have to ask the question, did the earth exist millions of years ago? So you got to ask kind of that question. You're going to come down on one of those two sides of that coin. And like we said earlier, again, I think, you know, Christians who are faithful to the Bible can disagree on this topic. But the next issue we're going to talk about is the fall. So how that comes into play is for dinosaurs to die, for dinosaurs to have cancer, as we've found evidence of, things like that, this means that sickness and death was in the world. StephanieYeah, and I think, I mean looking at fossils, there are some that I will show our kids or even looking at preparing for this episode that you see fossils of like a fish eating another fish or like you were saying dinosaur fossils having cancer or tumors or broken bones, that's then showing that if the earth is millions and millions of years and dinosaurs existed before humans, that you then have cancer, you have broken bones, you have this death that came into play before sin entered the world, which I don't see that in scripture. Jon Yeah, what we see in scripture is that those things didn't happen until after Genesis 3, until Adam and Eve eat the fruit, which means if dinosaurs didn't die or have cancer until Adam and Eve ate the fruit, that means that they were actually on the earth at the same time together. So to fit with the biblical storyline, I think we have to say that dinosaurs and people have to be living at the same time. So, all right, let's talk about our take on this, and we don't declare to be the experts on this topic, but we've done some good study and some good reading on this topic. Stephanie, you want to kick us off? What's our take on this? How did dinosaurs fit into the biblical storyline? StephanieYeah, so like you were saying earlier, dinosaurs were created on day six with Adam and Eve with humans, so they coexisted. Now what I think probably makes the most sense of how come there's not dinosaurs now, I think really is the flood. So we read in the Bible that there was the global flood, that Noah and his sons and their wives were on the ark along with two of every animal. And so a majority of the dinosaurs, along with other animals, were wiped out pretty much by the flood. JonYeah, but how come, but didn't God save each kind of animal? StephanieYeah, so Noah was instructed or God sent two of each type of animal to the ark to save. So I would actually say there were probably dinosaurs on the ark along with all of the other animals. And for some reason, after the flood receded and they all got off for whatever reason, they became extinct at that point. But there were most likely dinosaurs, I would say, on the Ark. JonBut wouldn't they have been too big? StephanieYeah, so in some of the stuff, like, I immediately, when I think of dinosaurs, I like to think of the big T-Rex, like all of the toys that our boys love to play with, like the huge ones. But looking at all of the dinosaurs, it's talking about type. So it's not saying every single type of fossil that we find is on there. It'd be a kind of dinosaur. So I think that then limits a little bit as to how many dinosaurs maybe were on the ark. But also I think it also makes a lot of sense for him to not have like the big, huge, like at their biggest that they're going to be. It actually makes more sense to have some of the younger ones, especially thinking about how the animals that were on the ark are the ones that are responsible to repopulate their entire population post flood. And so it doesn't really make a lot of sense to have like grandma and grandpa dinosaur on the ark. No offense, but it does make sense to have like teenage dinosaurs on and so those younger ones are going to be smaller in size too. JonYeah, that makes sense. So the reason that, so what is the reason that fossils look so old? StephanieYeah, so I think with the Bible we read about again the flood and I think the flood actually makes a lot of sense to explain a lot of the fossils. So, thinking about how fossils are formed, yes, they can be formed over long periods of time, but we also see that fossils can be formed over a very short period of time under the right circumstances. And I think looking at the circumstances that you need to create a fossil, like all of that is found in the flood. And so, when you have all of these different circumstances coming together, those things actually create the perfect circumstance for fossils to be formed. And so what they're maybe saying is millions of years really under the right circumstances, specifically the flood, that's a great way that fossils, I believe, would be formed. JonRight. And this is one of the things that I found most compelling in our trip to the Creation Museum. So, Ken Ham, Answers to Genesis, great organization. That's kind of our go-to resource on this topic. And so they make a great case for how this could have worked. And one of the, they point to some more modern examples. So Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, and they talk about just the, everything around Mount St. Helens and kind of how if you were to grab that stuff and look at some of the trees that got buried, animals that got buried, things that would appear to be fossils, and you pull those up and you date them the way that we date dinosaurs, you would think that they were millions of years old. But actually they're only, you know, 40, 50 years old. The reason for that is because of how quickly they were buried and under what conditions, you know, the conditions of heat and cold and, you know, a volcano, just all that kind of stuff. And so, one of the other examples they use is of these World War II planes. I forget what kind of plane, but there were some planes that were on some kind of mission flying over a frozen area, and they went down, and then we found them, maybe, I forget what it was, 40, 50 years later, they were discovered, they were found, buried in the ice. And the same thing was true, using the methods that we would normally use to date things buried in ice. We would date them at being millions of years old, but we know that they were World War II planes. They're from the 1940s. StephanieYeah, I think there's a lot of fossils that you can find that to me I would just I would want them to answer. So you find clams of fossils. Now normally when a clam dies there's that little muscle that like holds the two sides of the shell together. Well, when that dies the the muscle falls apart and it opens up. But you find a lot of clams that are fossilized in a closed position, which points to a rapid burial, like with the flood. You find fossils, there's one of a dinosaur that they found that's actually giving birth. You know, if that was millions and millions of years and it was really slowly, that would have decayed, that wouldn't have fossilized in the position of that dinosaur giving birth. So I think a lot of reasons there's fossils that make a lot more sense of like a rapid burial, which is explained by the flood. JonRight. So again, this is us trying to be faithful Christians, but also to do good science, right? We're looking at the data and we're trying to make sense of it. Now, some look at the data and they make sense of it saying that this is millions of years old, others look at the data. And there's also a scientific reason we say, we'll look at the biblical story of the flood and what that would have done to the whole earth if there was a flood and how that would affect the sediment layers and all that kinds of stuff that we use to do dating. StephanieI think part of the science too is you want to replicate it, right? And so when you replicate something over and over, you should be guaranteed that same result. And so if you're saying that there are these items like the planes that you were talking about where if you're going to figure out their age, and we know that it's not millions of years, and yet the same dating that you would use for dinosaurs is showing that it's millions of years. To me, that just maybe shows that there's a level of error or that you're claiming something as fact, which might not be fact. JonRight, might be theory. StephanieYeah, theory. JonGood, all right, so the other part of it was this question of Neanderthals, and I think essentially they're asking the big question of, you know, so Homo sapiens is the term used to refer to what modern humans are. So how does all of that work? What do we do with these other forms of human life that have been found? And how does that all fit together? StephanieYeah, so I think one of the things you were saying earlier is really important that they're finding these things and they weren't there at the time of when like the Neanderthals were there. We're taking something old and we're making guesses as to how it came to be. Now, some of the things that we found with Neanderthals is that they were able to have babies with what they would call current humans. And in the Bible, it talks about each kind being with its kind. Well, if something is mating with a human and having a child, that's a human, right? And humans are made in God's image. And so I would say just kind of on a really simple thing is Neanderthals were humans that maybe have some genetic differences than what maybe you and I do here today. But because specifically because they were able to have babies with what they would call modern humans, they were a human. Jonconversation is how do we explain Neanderthals or this bigger category of different types of humans, human remains, human fossils that are found that are older and that look different from each other. You know I've heard different names given to them Homo sapien, Homo erectus, different you know should I say that differently? Yeah I said it last night. I said different Homos. Okay, I'm going to say it again. I'm going to say it. All right, so one other question. So the other part of the listener question was about Neanderthals, or I think they're asking the question about, you know, there's different human remains, fossils that have been found and they look different from each other. How do we explain that? You know, some have been given the label of Homo sapiens, some of them given the label of Homo erectus, other types. Just how do we explain all those differences in these human remains that are older? StephanieYeah, so I think it's important. Some people will say that they're not human, that they maybe are like an in-between. But I would say that, especially with some of the scientific journals that I have read is that they know that these Neanderthals were bred or had children with modern day human genes. And so I think that right there, like Neanderthals are human. So I just want to kind of come out clear and say that because some people will disagree on that. And so again, looking to the Bible, you see at the Tower of Babel, what happens there. So these people are building a tower, God then comes down and he separates the people and gives them different languages. And so there's all of this genetic code that is then spread out in small people groups, right? Because you're not going to choose to bring somebody with you if you're speaking a different language. I think it makes a lot of sense that some of the genetics are going to then go and be formed in specific ways based on who they're with, which is a small population. And so the Neanderthals, I think, would be best explained as a people group that broke off of the Tower of Babel that had a similar language that then had a certain set of genetics that are gonna breed, and as they had children, that genetic code is passed on. And so you're going to then have maybe different characteristics, like the defined bridge row, or like a thicker body or skeletal structure. And I think that would just be a genetic difference, but still within like the human race. JonSure. So you're saying, yeah, if they just split off in a different group. So if you've got a small group of people, a few characteristics, a few traits could become dominant quickly and take over a group of people. And maybe that's the differences between these different remains that we found. I remember you telling me, what is the percentage of DNA difference between the different remains that we found? StephanieYeah, so I think researchers were saying that the Neanderthal DNA is 99.7% identical to modern human DNA. So this is a really small difference. JonRight, so it makes sense to say that it's explained not by being a lesser evolved version of human beings, but to say that it's actually that they're humans, they just they went their different ways after Babel and different traits became dominant or something like that. And they're just different forms of human beings. StephanieAnd I think looking at that, too, it's a great way that we can see God is just this amazing creator that within Adam and Eve, he had this vast genetic code that will then go on to repopulate these people will go and repopulate the world. And so you're gonna see differences. And I think just seeing even how the defined bridge route, the bridge brow, bridge? JonI don't think that's it. StephanieNope. JonBrow line. StephanieBrow line, defined brow line. Okay. So I think even seeing how these genetic differences play out, I think just shows us how great God was when he created Adam and Eve, that in Adam and Eve, he gave all of this genetic code that could then go and create different characteristics and different people groups like we see with this to me. I just think I look at this. I'm like wow God you are just so good and you had everything in under your plan that this is what you decided to do before you even made Adam and Eve. I love seeing the differences because I think it just points to how great God our creator is. JonYeah, yeah, amen. So great, well hey, we're about out of time here, but thanks Stephanie for talking about evolution and dinosaurs and Neanderthals. It's been awesome to get to talk. You wanna share a little bit more about Mom Guilt, the podcast that you lead? StephanieYeah, so the Mom Guilt podcast is something that my friend and I started, because we realized as moms, we have mom guilt. Now talking with you and with our husbands, we've realized dad guilt isn't really a thing, but mom guilt is. And so, you know, how do you, how do you figure out what to do when you are struggling and you feel guilty about something? Well, I would say what we do in that podcast is to compare it to the Bible. How does God view this? And so we can then kind of become unburdened by that mom guilt that we feel, that we feel specifically through the gospel. And so that's the goal of our podcast. JonAwesome. Awesome. I would highly recommend it. Not just because you're my wife, but because I think it's great stuff. Awesome. Well, hey, thanks everybody for listening. Well, hey, thanks everybody for listening. Hope you have an awesome week.

Caring For Widows Sermon Series: From Womb To Tomb Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Exodus 22:22-24 Transcript Hey Peace Church family and friends, it's awesome to be with you, even if it is mostly online. Let me start with these words, the words that we always start with. Today is the day that the Lord has made, so let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. So welcome to our first of our two-part series, From Womb to Tomb, as we look at what it means to really be pro-life. This is a two-part series that we'll be walking through together as we have church online for the most part, while we wait for the final touches to be put on our brand new worship center. Who's excited? I don't know if I could be more excited. And so when this is played for our church, so when this is viewed for the entire church family, the very next week will be Sanctity of Life Sunday, a Sunday where churches and those who love life pause and recognize the value of the unborn lives that are among us. It's also all life, because we recognize that all people, born and unborn, are made in the image of God, and this makes life a sacred thing, which is why we are pro-life. But there's often a criticism that we hear against the pro-life movement and those who are pro-life, is that we're not really pro-life, we're just pro-birth. That we don't care about kids after they're born, we only care about kids when they're in the womb. And of course, those who are pro-life emphatically refute this because we are pro-life from inception to the end of our life. And so this is all throughout scripture. This is a call that we see woven throughout the pages of scripture that comes from the heart of God. And one of the ways that we see this is this repeating phrase that we see throughout scripture that we have to care for the widows and the orphans, or often the widows and the fatherless. Two groups of people who are on opposite ends of the human lifespan, two groups of people who are often neglected and are in need, and God calls us to care for those people because that's his heart. And so next week on Sanctity of Life Sunday, we'll talk about us leading the charge in our cause, in our care for the fatherless, for the orphans and for the unborn. But today we're gonna talk about caring for widows and God's call and unique call for that. And so would you please turn in your Bibles to Exodus chapter 22. We're gonna look at three verses today, 22 to 24. Now as you're turning there and as you're turning there online, some context for our passage. Moses is leading the people, the Israelites, the Hebrews. He's led them out of Egypt. God has freed them from slavery. They have crossed the Red Sea and now God has led them to the foot of Mount Sinai. And there God calls his people into a covenant relationship with them. He's going to lead them and they're going to be his people. And God is calling them to be a kingdom of priests They are to be the pastors of the world there to be the priest who share about God and his goodness with the rest of The world and so in Exodus chapter 20 what we see is that God gives the ten commandments these ten overarching rules which have sort of Sort of embody all of the rules and statutes and laws that God has for his people that that his people are to live by as they embody God's character, his goodness, and his holiness. That's Exodus chapter 20. But then in the next couple verses, God gets more particular about laws for the Israelites. Now these laws are to show them how they are to live and function as a society of people. And then we get to Exodus chapter 22. And we're going to look at verses 22 to 24 that we in in this we're gonna see that God's heart comes out in his care for others in his care for people And this is going to show us and inform us how we are to continue to live this out and care for others here today and so Exodus chapter 22 verses 22 to 24. Would you hear God's Word? You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows, and your children fatherless." Wow. God's word is serious here. So let's pray, prepare our hearts, and we'll dive in. Father, we come before you. Father, we know that your word and your heart remain the same. So please, by the power of the Holy Spirit, help us to know both here today, your heart, your word, your truth, that we, the people of the new covenant, would come to know how you are calling us to care for the orphans and for the widows, how we are called to uphold life from womb to tomb. And we pray this in the name of Him who was also born of a woman. In the name of Jesus we pray these things and everyone said, Amen, Amen. Alright church, let's consider just one main idea here today from our passage. God's people are to share God's heart to care for those who can't care for themselves. Let me say it again. God's people are to share God's heart to care for those who can't care for themselves. Next week we'll focus on the orphans, but today we're going to focus on the widows. And we are to care for those who can't care for themselves, because this is God's heart. Listen to me, God's heart is not soft or stoic. God's heart is sovereign and sincere, and that's the heart that we are to have. So let's look at just two thoughts from our passage here today. And we're gonna start with this, this thought here. God has concern for those who are neglected. God has concern for those who are neglected. So God has led his people to freedom and he's going to be leading them to the promised land and he will establish them as a people and as a nation. And he will set them as a light for the world as a light for the Gentiles. And he does this this by setting particular laws before them, laws that are meant to help shape their culture so that they may stand apart from the pagan religions around them. And God says this, verse 22, you shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. The widow was the most vulnerable woman, if not the most vulnerable person in that society. Typically they were aged women who were fully dependent on any family They may have had left and certainly the people around them and God tells them not to mistreat them But I wonder what did you think when God says do not? mistreat them This may sound like just a simple prohibition, but God isn't saying just simply leave them alone You have to understand what God is saying here. What his heart is saying here. God wants them treated rightly. Allowing them to suffer is mistreating them. Neglecting them is mistreating them. Acting like they are a burden or that they get in the way is mistreating them. Complaining about them is mistreating them. Letting them go hungry is mistreating them. God has concerns for his people and for particularly the widows neglected in any other ancient society. God is saying not here, not among my people. You're going to be different than the rest of the world. God wants his people to be a better society, and a better society is one that takes care of those who can't take care of themselves. This is the heart of God throughout all scripture. God is so adamant about this that later in the New Testament, the Holy Spirit leads the church in the earliest of days to formalize a group of men to ensure that the widows are properly cared for. In Acts chapter six, I'm sure you're probably familiar with this. In Acts chapter six, when the church is beginning to grow, you're seeing more Jews and more Gentiles come together into this one faith and now they're having to coexist together. And as they come together and they're blending their cultures, one of the things that kind of came to the forefront where some of the people felt like the Hebrew widows were being cared for more than the other widows and the rest of the women. So the 12 disciples convene and they get together and they say, okay, let's ensure that all the widows are being cared for equally. And not just that, but let's make sure that all of the needs of the church are met and so they say this in Acts chapter 6 verse 3 they say therefore brothers pick out from among you seven men of good repute full the spirit and of wisdom whom we will appoint to this duty but we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word and the Bible goes on to list the seven men they chose and they prayed over them and what we see here is this is the first inception of the role of deacon. Men called to ensure that the physical needs of the church is met so that the spiritual leaders can continue to work spiritually to pray and preach the word. But what is amazing about this passage is look what happens right after these deacons are formalized. The very next verse, Acts chapter 6 verse 7 says this, And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem. It is so simple, my friends. God will grow the church if the church is faithful to care for one another, starting with the oldest and the most vulnerable among us, the widows. And so today in our modern era, things are different, and it's okay to recognize that. We have longer lifespans and not only that but greater social safety nets. And we may not have or see the dire need of widows like the ancients did, like we see in the Old Testament. So let's put this before us in two different ways. Today, our care for the widows is still as strong, but it may look a little differently, or at least have some different nuance. Today our care for widows is to be relational as much as it is meeting their material needs. The widows in our church need to feel as enfolded into the life of the church as anyone else in the life of the church. This is one of the ways that we care for the widows if their financial needs are secure. But I also think the word widows, I think of that term and that notion here today, as far as the desperation of needs go. Yes, this goes for any woman in their older years, any woman who is alone. And I would say by extension, it also goes for widowers in our church family. But when I think about the women who have desperate needs, how can we not think of single moms? I think our call in our day to live out this heart of God may look a little a little different in the sense that we also have a great burden to focus on single mothers. Moms who are on their own and have a hard time caring for their children while also holding down a job or two or three. When we care for them this is one of the ways that the church can step up to care for some of the people who are the most vulnerable among us, those who are quote-unquote the least of these. And this shows, this shows them and this shows the world that we care not just for the child in their womb, but for the woman who carries that child as well. This is why we are so adamantly in support of places like the PRC, the Pregnancy Resource Center, and Alpha Women's Center, places that are fully pro-life, showing that this also means, to be fully pro-life, means that we come alongside the mother, ensuring that she has the physical needs so that she can confidently choose life. Why? Because God is pro-life. God is basically saying, I have a heart for the orphan who are young in years, and I have a heart for the advanced, those widows who are advanced in their years. And God is saying, if you are to be my people, then you are to have that heart as well. And God is desperately serious about this. Look at verses 23 and 24 as we look at this notion, that God has condemnation for those who are unjust. Verse 23, God says, If you do mistreat them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. God says, I will hear them. Listen to me, this is how you know if you truly have a heart for someone. You're willing to listen to them. You're willing to hear them. A pastor loses his heart for his church when he stops hearing them, when he stops listening to them, but not God. God says, if they cry to me, I will hear them. And then look at verse 24. And my wrath will burn, 24 and My wrath will burn and I will kill you with the sword and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless what What is going on for this patriarchal society God is saying if you don't care for the women who are alone God tells the men that he will kill them God says to neglect the widows and the orphans is a capital offense. That is the heart that God has for his people. He will make sure that they are cared for. God is saying, if you don't care for the widows and the orphans, then I'll turn your wives and children into widows and orphans. Think God takes this seriously? You think we should take this seriously? Listen church, I hear this and I hear this warning as I leave this church and so should you. Listen to me, I am thankful. I am really thankful for the well-produced and powerful events that we have at this church. But if we're not gonna get our hands dirty, if we're not gonna get on our knees and serve the least of these, I wonder if God's gonna say to us, if you're not gonna be the type of church that shares my heart, why should I keep you around? Do we have the ears to hear what God is truly saying to us? May I say that again? Do we have the ears to hear what God is truly saying to us? What he's calling us to do? I've come to realize that sometimes when I say things to my kids, they're not listening to hear my heart. They're listening to try and wiggle out of what I'm asking them to do. Like when I say to my kids, say to one of my kids, hey, why don't you go take the trash out right now? You know, sometimes they'll respond like saying, sure, dad, I can take the trash out as soon as I'm done playing my video game. At which point I have to say, oh, hold on a second here. I'm sorry, I wasn't actually asking you a question. I was telling you to do something. So turn off the video game before that video game becomes part of the trash that you're about to take out. God is not asking us to take care of the widows and the orphans. He's commanding us to. You know what also makes us so powerful is that there's a gospel truth to be shown in this. When we care for those who can't care for themselves, this reflects the gospel that Christ saved us when we couldn't save ourselves. That God certainly does have condemnation for those who are unjust. Those who are unjust in this world will be held to account. God has condemnation for those who are unjust, but the reality is that's me and you. That's all of us lost in our sin. But the condemnation that we deserve was not given to us. It was given to Christ. He stepped in to take our punishment by dying on the cross in our place, and he does this only to rise again victoriously to new life. And this new life is now given to us by faith in him. It's new life. It's eternal life that we don't deserve. And therefore, how much more should we be living for God? Knowing God's goodness to the point where we get what we don't deserve, eternal life, how much more should we be living according to God's commandments and his standards? Church, we have some amazing widows in our church family with incredible stories. Sandy, Gani, Judy, Miss Patty, who taught my kids Sunday school, and many more who helped make our church such an incredible place. But listen to me, our church is only as strong as the care we give to our widows, the seniors and the lonely. And if you're a man listening to this message right now and you're thinking, what does this really have to do with me? Here's what I'd say what it has to do with you. Husbands, this is why you need to lead your families to be involved and make connections at church. Because when one day, when God takes you home and your family's left here, the church is meant to take care of them. And so make sure that your family has the connections at church, so that that's not a weird, awkward interaction when that finally happens, that they're already unfolded into life of the church family. Men, get your families to church because you may not always be there. Again, our church is only as strong as our care for those in our church who can't care for themselves. So yes, let's let God establish in us a new type of society to show the world something better. People who care for life from the inception of life to the old age of life. This is how we are going to be distinct in this world. This is how we're going to truly show that we are pro-life. This is how we're going to model God's heart. And listen to me, it starts with the widows who are among us. Because, remember, God's people are to share God's heart to care for those who can't care for themselves. So let's do that. Amen? Amen. Let's pray.

Retiring and Aspiring "Retiring and Aspiring" is a unique podcast that bridges the wisdom of experience with the enthusiasm of ambition. Hosted by Mitchell Leach, a pastoral candidate with a vision to lead, this podcast delves into the insightful world of retired pastors who have completed their journey in church leadership. Each episode features candid conversations with these seasoned leaders, uncovering the rich tapestry of their experiences, challenges, and triumphs. Listeners, whether aspiring pastors or those interested in the dynamics of spiritual leadership, will find a wealth of knowledge and inspiration. The podcast not only celebrates the legacy of retired pastors but also offers guidance and wisdom for the next generation of church leaders, making it a valuable resource for personal growth and spiritual enrichment in the realm of pastoral leadership. Listen to the podcast 1 2 3 4 5 1 ... 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 ... 100

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The News To His Enemy Sermon Series: Go Tell It On The Mountain Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Matthew 2:1-16 Transcript It gives me a lot, a lot of great joy to say these two words to you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. So I wonder what was the word? What word did you think of? What word do you think of when you hear Christmas? Do you think joy? Do you think nostalgia? Do you think tradition? Do you think Jesus? What do you think? What is your one word response? You know, when it comes to Christmas there are a lot of different ways that people respond. And as I just said, here at Peace Church, what we've been doing during this Christmas series is we've been looking at the Bible and we've been looking at how different people responded to the news that Jesus Christ was born or was going to be born, and we've looked at how their response helps us to understand how we might respond. What is the best way to respond? Now we've looked at the news given to his mom, given to his dad, Joseph, given to his people, the shepherds, given to his relatives, but every instance that we've looked at so far in Scripture has been a positive example for us. We've seen the Holy Spirit work through different people in a positive way, and it's helped to encourage us to think about how do we rightly respond to Christmas. But today, tonight, we're going to look at the opposite of a positive response. We're going to look at a really hard, negative response as we look at the news given to his enemy, to the enemy of Jesus Christ, as we look at how King Herod responded to the news that a king has been born. So here's what I'd love for you to do. Would you open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 2. We're gonna read a longer than normal section tonight, but hey, this is the crazy crowd and we're gonna get into our Bibles here today. Here's the setting for you. We are looking at how King Herod reacts to the news. Now Herod was not a good guy. Murdered one of his wives, murdered a couple of his sons, just so that he could maintain and hold on to power. He was desperate to hold on to power. And we're going to see how he responded to the news that a king, a new king has been born. So here's the setting. Jesus has been born. And the star that marked his birth has guided the wise men from their country to Judea, to Jerusalem. And when they get to Jerusalem, they're like, so where is he? Where's the newborn king? And nobody has any idea what they're talking about. And so everyone starts getting on edge, everyone's wondering what's going on. And King Herod especially is troubled by this, because Herod is a man who's obsessed with his own power, and he does not want another king in the country. And so with that, let's look at Herod's response. Let's read the gospel according to Matthew, chapter 2. We'll read verses 1 to 16. So would you hear God's word? Now, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born the king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose, and we have come to worship him. When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. And they told him in Bethlehem of Judea, for it is written by the prophet and you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem saying, go search diligently for the child. And when you have found him, bring me word that I may too go and worship him. And after listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. And when they, when the wise men saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother and they fell down and worshiped him then opening their treasures they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh and being warned in a dream not to return to Herod they departed to their own country by another way now when they had departed behold an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said rise take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him. And when he rose, he took the child and his mother and departed by night to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophets out of Egypt. I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was tricked by the wise men, he became furious and he sent and he killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all the region who were two years old or under according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. This is God's very sobering but very powerful word. Let's pray and then we'll continue but let's start with prayer. Father we gather here tonight to glorify you for the birth of your Son and our Savior. On this eve of the celebration of his birth, would you please send us the Holy Spirit to be with us, that we may know your word and by it know your Son all the more this Christmas. For it is in the name of the newborn King that we pray these things and everyone said Amen and Amen. My friends, Christmas is about good news. And so let me give you some good news here tonight. It may be challenging, but it's good news nonetheless. And it's this, the result of Herod's reaction to the news of Christ's birth shows us that Jesus can't be stopped. And so what we're going to do is we're going to take a few moments. Let's do a good old fashioned Bible study. Let's look at Herod's response, Herod's reaction to this news, and then we're going to look at our response. So we're first going to look at Herod's reaction, then we'll see how that might inform our response. So first thing, Herod's reaction to the news of Christ's birth. First thing, he feels threatened. So the wise men roll into town talking about a newborn king, and verse 3, when Herod the king heard this, he was troubled. He was troubled because he's a man obsessed with rule and obsessed with power. And he sees this prophecy. He sees this news of a new king as a threat to his power. And you know what? I'm pretty sure a lot of us sit here and we think, yup, exactly. That's how it's like. That's what it's like with those who are in power. All they care about is keeping their power and eliminating those who oppose it. And you know what? Yeah, that actually is what's happening here. But don't be too quick to judge, because here's the reality. Jesus does come to upend ungodly rule and power. Herod does not want to give up the authority over Judea, but so many of us do not want to give up authority over our own lives. And Jesus comes to upend ungodly rule and ungodly power. So you better believe Jesus is a threat to the power structures that do not glorify God. He has come to take his throne upon this world, upon his creation, and yes, upon our own lives. Herod understood this in many ways that we don't even. So let's hold that thought, we're going to come back to it. So Herod reacts to the news of Christ's birth by feeling threatened, and the second thing we see is that Herod reacts to the news of Christ's birth by spreading, speaking lies. So Herod hears about this king, and he doesn't know his own Bible very well, so he calls the biblical scholars around him, calls them together, and he asks them, where's this Messiah going to be born? And they say, well the prophets say that he's going to be born in Bethlehem. And so this is what Herod does, verse 8. And so he, Herod, sent them, the Magi, the wise men, Herod sent them to Bethlehem saying, go, search diligently for the child. And when you have found them, bring me word that I may too come and worship him. But we all know that this is a big fat lie. He has no intention of doing that. But listen to me for a moment. The wise men sincerely, genuinely want to worship Christ. And Herod only acts like he does, but he has no intention of doing this. And I want to ask you, how many of us are really that different? For so many people, maybe even you gathered here tonight in front of people, in front of church people, you act and talk a big game. I too want to worship Jesus. But when it comes time to do it, you don't show up. Don't judge Herod so quickly. Herod responds to the news of Christ's birth by spreading death. So God, God in his goodness warns the wise men, don't go back to Herod. Go back to your own country. And they do. Now, we're pretty certain that the wise men came from Persia, which is modern day Iran. So God tells them don't go back. He's not a good guy. It's not going to end well. Go back to your own country. So they do. But when Herod finds out about this, he's absolutely livid. Verse 16, then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious and he sent and killed all the male children of Bethlehem. This is nothing short of absolute horror. And it shows the utter depth of what one man will do to maintain power. Now listen, there were actually many Herods in the Herod dynasty. It can be really confusing to try and follow this lineage here, but what you need to know is this is not the same Herod that Jesus meets with during his trial right before his crucifixion. That's one of his sons. This Herod, this is the original. This is Herod the Great. This is the OG Herod. This is the Herod that was installed to his kingship by the Roman emperor himself. This was the Herod, the great Herod, who rebuilt the second temple, expanded it, and made it the crowning jewel of Jerusalem, how could a man who did such an amazing thing for God turn around and kill children? Here's how. Because Herod didn't do it for God. Herod built the temple for himself. He did it to garner favor among the people to maintain power, and in this we are seeing the true extent of Herod's obsession with his own power. He's willing to kill innocent children rather than see God's good prophecy fulfilled, even if that means having to give up his own authority. And right there's another challenge for us. How many of us are willing to do things for God, even great things for God, as long as we don't have to give up our own authority? How many people will say things like this? They'll say things like, God, I will do great things for you as long as you bless me and don't tell me what to do with my life. That that's the spirit of Herod. That's the spirit of Herod. This is God. I want to serve you. I'll do good things for you. Just don't tell me how to live my life. That is the spirit of Herod. And I'm telling you, it is alive and well in America. And unfortunately, even in the American church. We love to serve God, we just don't like to follow God. We love to serve God, but we don't like to submit to Him. And so, I'm asking you, would you look into your own soul tonight? I fully recognize on a day like today, I'm speaking to people who I will never see again, and you will never hear me speak again. I am thankful to the Lord on high for the moments I have to be able to share something with you. I hope and I pray is of eternal value. So let me just ask you, would you look in your own soul? Do you have this spirit in you? Because if you do call it out, reject it and embrace Christ, because when you do, you realize that what God has for you is better than what you have for you. And so let's see what that is. Let's contrast Herod's reaction with our response. First thing is this. Where Herod feels threatened, we are liberated. Where Herod feels threatened, we are liberated. Let me ask you a question. Do you know what the Stockholm Syndrome is? Let me explain. The Stockholm Syndrome is this condition where a person falls in love with their captor, meaning a person who has been kidnapped or is held in bondage, they will actually develop feelings of love and protection for the very people or person who keeps them enslaved. It's an unhealthy mental condition. And for so many people in the world, we've developed Stockholm syndrome for our own sin. We've fallen in love with our sin. We love our sin, but sin keeps us enslaved. Sin keeps us away from God and away from the freedom that's only found in the Lord. Christmas, let me remind you, if anything, Christmas is a heavenly invasion where the Son of God left His throne in heaven, stepped into creation, born in that little manger, and He came on a rescue mission to save you, and to save me, to save us from sin, to save us from the grip and the bondage of sin and the reign of Satan. I know we all have lots of different opinions on what sin is, but let me tell you what the Bible says. Sin is slavery, and yet we've come to love it, and we celebrate it, and we protect it. And so when a power comes into our life that wants to free us from that, we, like Herod, we feel threatened. We feel threatened when this power comes in, even if it's a power to liberate us from our sin. Herod feels threatened, my friends, but when we accept Christ, that's liberation. That's freedom from our sin. That's salvation. And with it, we come to know the truth. And that's the second thing we're going to see, is that where Herod speaks lies, we receive truth. If you know your Bibles at all, you'll know that there's actually not a lot of ink spilled talking about the birth of Christ. Of the four Gospels that we have, only two of the Gospels actually even mention the story of Jesus' birth. Talking about Jesus' birth isn't something the Bible does a lot about, but there is this one very rare occasion where Jesus himself speaks about his own birth. You may know what I'm talking about. It's when he's on trial, when he's looking at possibly being crucified and he's standing before Pontius Pilate, the governor, and Pilate calls Jesus aside and Pilate's trying to figure out, should I crucify this man or not? So Pilate pulls him aside and is having this conversation with Jesus. And we see this amazing, amazing interaction. It's in John 18. Here's what it says. Then Pilate said to him, to Jesus, so you are a king. And Jesus answered, you say that I'm a king, but then listen to this twofold response. It's powerful. You say I am a king. And then Jesus says for this purpose, I was born and for this purpose, I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. So on the one hand, Jesus says he is born. On the other hand, Jesus says that he's come into this world. This reminds us that Jesus is both the son of Mary and Jesus is the son of God. But then Jesus follows up with this line, with this next line. And let me tell you, this next line is a line in the sand. I know we like to think about Jesus as that guy that draws big circles around everybody and brings us together. You have to understand that Jesus said things that at times that was nothing short of a line in the sand. And this is one of those. And let me remind you, my friends, Jesus says this to a man who is trying to decide whether or not to kill him by crucifixion. This is how amazing Jesus Christ is. Jesus says this to Pilate, everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. Of the truth, because Christ is Emmanuel. He is God with us. Jesus is the truth and by Jesus we know what the truth is. That's what we get at Christmas. We get to know the capital T truth that transcends all of our opinions, all of our cultures, all of our societies, all of our language. We get to know the truth that will be true even when we're not here. For Jesus is the truth. Herod responds by speaking lies. We respond by receiving truth. For Jesus powerfully said this line, and if you went to Sunday school, you probably know this line. Jesus said, I am the way and the truth. Anybody know the last one? And the life. And that's the last thing that we see. Where Herod spreads death, we have life. King Herod was the enemy of the Son of God. I'm going to say something hard, but we, until we receive Christ as our Savior, we are also enemies of God. And I know you're thinking, that is a horrible thing to say, especially on Christmas Eve. Hold on a second. It actually, yes, it's hard to hear, but it actually reveals something pretty amazing. That even as we are enemies of God, God still loves us enough to send his Son to save us. Yes, understanding that until we accept Christ we're an enemy of God, that's a hard thing to hear. But with it, you also have to understand, it also kind of shows us the magnitude of God's great love, that even for those who hate God, who revile Him, who spit on Him, who mock Him, God still sent a Savior to save us. That's how amazing God's love is. Romans chapter five, verse 10 says, for while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more now that we are reconciled, how we shall be saved by his life. His life. My friends, it's an odd thing to consider all the things that you've worked for in your life. It's an odd thing to consider all the things that you think you've earned in your life. It's an odd thing to consider all that you have accumulated and yet your very life was given to you. You did not earn it, you didn't work for it. It was given to you, as is the breath in your lungs. But you have to understand that Jesus, Jesus comes to give us so much more life. True and everlasting and eternal life marked by salvation in his name. And the Bible says here, says that we are reconciled. Don't get put off by that word. I know it sounds like a religious word. It simply just means to be reconciled, means to be put back into a right and proper relationship So by the death of Jesus we are brought back into the relationship with God that we should have not as enemies but as friends as Friends of God and even more than that We are adopted By Jesus God adopts us into his kingdom and looks at us and calls us his sons and his daughters And he welcomes us into his kingdom. He welcomes us to His table. That's what we get to have at Christmas through Jesus. Christ came to give His life to save you. True and everlasting life. And we can have this life because Jesus gave His. For the child that was born at Christmas, as we're going to see here and reenact here in a moment, Jesus Christ is the light of the world who came into this dark world to give up his life on a cross and His death on the cross was the payment for our sin Because sin is death but yet in Christ we have life for the death of Christ means life for us So this Christmas remember this especially if I will never see you again, especially if you'll never hear me speak again. If I could leave you with one thing, let me leave you with this. This Christmas, remember that Jesus can't be stopped, not even by Kings, not even by lies and not even by death. Herod tried and failed. Herod lied, and yet the truth still went forth. Herod killed and murdered children, yet Jesus still lived. This Christmas, remember that Jesus Christ cannot be stopped. And this was not the only time that death tried to stop Jesus, but couldn't. Death couldn't stop Christ as a child. And death couldn't stop Him even after He was killed on the cross. For three days after his death, Jesus Christ got up and walked out of his grave. The child that was born at Christmas is the Savior who rose again. That's who we are here to celebrate, because Jesus can't be stopped. Amen? Amen. Amen. Let's pray.

The Lie of "Follow Your Heart" Sermon Series: Calling Out Cultural Lies Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: Jeremiah 17:9 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, Amen. So as we continue this sermon series, calling out cultural lies, I want to address two quick things as we get going. First one is this. I got a communication in light of this sermon series, and it basically went like this. Oh, here we go. Another self-righteous pastor wanting to call out culture when he should be calling out his congregation Now I got that I immediately thought You clearly haven't heard me preach brother I Have no problem calling out this congregation to live more faithfully and fully To God do you agree with that? Amen. And I start with myself. Which leads to the other thing that I want to say. And I've said it before in this sermon series, but I definitely want to say it again. And that's the reason that we're doing this sermon series, calling out cultural lies. We're not doing this to pick on anyone. See, God, through Jesus Christ, calls Christians to love everyone. We're not called to agree with everyone, but we're called to love everyone. So we love people. And see what these lies are doing is that they're keeping people in darkness. And I don't know about you, but I don't like it when people I love are lied to. So this sermon series is not about picking on people, it's about pulling them out of darkness and into God's glorious light. That's why we're doing this, amen? Amen. Which leads to the lie that I want to discuss today. And I'll just tell you, this lie, this cultural lie, is not exclusive to any one group or any one American demographic or either political affiliation. I've heard people left, right, up, down, black, white, we all have said this probably at some point, and it's this lie. The lie of follow your heart. Now, this will be a hard pill to swallow, but my hope is that coming out of this sermon, you will never again tell someone, follow your heart. And so we're going to look at just one verse today, just one, but I think it's very powerful and I think it sums it all up. So please, if you have your Bibles, would you turn to Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9. Now if you do want to use the Bibles we provided we are very happy for you to do that. Quick reference that's on page 819. But as you're turning there let me just remind us and show us why this nearly 2,500 year old passage is still relevant today. It's helpful if we know the context. So here let me just lay the context as you're finding that passage. This of course was set in the Old Testament. Now this was during a time when God's people were divided into two nations, the northern kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom called Judah. Now when the prophet Jeremiah comes on the scene, the northern kingdom of Israel has already been destroyed by Assyria and only the southern kingdom, Judah remains, and this is where Jerusalem was. And God sends Jeremiah to tell this nation, he tells them, if you don't change course, you're headed for the same fate as the northern kingdom, except it won't be Assyria that comes to destroy you. It will be Babylon. See, God had made a promise with his people, we call it a covenant, that they would follow him as their God, and he would love them as his people as he called them to be a light in the world. But here's what was happening. They were taking their status as being God's people and they got lazy and they stopped following in his ways. God had told them, take care of the poor, stay pure and distinct from the world around you. But these people were beginning to look only to themselves and they were beginning to assimilate to the cultures around them. And God is like, if you're not going to follow me, why would I protect you? God is saying, if you're going to openly sin against me, why wouldn't I judge you? And so God sends Jeremiah to deliver this message. And Jeremiah is like, listen up, my kinsfolk, we are way off path and it's because our hearts have led us there. Rather than following God, we have followed our sinful hearts. Nothing at all like what is happening today, right? There are so many similarities. But I'm not talking about the culture at large. I'm talking about Christians. Let's look at some of these stats. Only 44% of Protestants attend church weekly. That means on any given Sunday around 55% of the people aren't there Only 5% of churchgoers give 10% of their income and Did you know that if Christians would tie 10% of their income God's Church would have an extra Brace yourself. I hope you had your medication this morning God's Church would have an extra $139 billion annually. Imagine the impact the church could have, because listen to me, that $139 billion is going somewhere, more than likely to Disney, Verizon, and the big three auto companies. Only 40% of Christians pray, 40% of Christians only pray when they are at church. Only 45% of those who attend church actually serve at church, which means the vast majority of Christians are more than happy letting someone else do all the work. Now listen, I'm citing national trends here. I'm citing national trends. Peace Church, I fully believe that we are bucking those trends at every turn. But there are still people who call themselves Christians who only show up sporadically, they only give when it's convenient, they don't serve, and then we all sit and wonder why the church doesn't have more of a positive influence in our society. Because here's the moral of the story, the state of the church is not pointed in a good direction and it's a heart issue. We look back on these people for the Old Testament. We can't believe that they would behave the way that they did But let me ask you are we really any different? In love I ask you are you any different? For those who went to Sunday school, you know how the story ends the people did not listen to Jeremiah or to God and And Babylon does come in and destroys the kingdom and men women or children and children are carted off to Babylon Where they have to live in exile among the foreign people with a foreign culture But at this point in our passage The verse we're gonna read today Babylon hadn't come yet and Jeremiah is warning them He's pleading with them, but they aren't listening. And this is what he says. So would you hear the Word of the Lord? Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it? This is God's Word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Let's pray. Father, we thank you, Lord, that we get to be able to gather here today so freely. Lord, we want to give you glory this morning as we lift up the name of Jesus and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. Lord God, we need you to continue to mold and shape hearts more and more into the image of Jesus. For it's in his precious, perfect, and powerful name that we pray these things. And everyone said, Amen. So church, the world and the culture and many of us are saying even to our kids, follow your heart. But I'm here to give you this one main idea today. The rebuttal to follow your heart is very simply this. Follow God, not your heart. Follow God, not your heart. And we're gonna look at just one verse. We'll look at some other verses. But we're gonna primarily look at some at one verse today. And we're gonna try and siphon out three things from it. Here is ahead of time. Follow God, not your heart, because our hearts are liars, our hearts are lacking, and our hearts are lost. Alright, first thing, let's see what God's truth says about all of this. Our hearts are liars. Listen to this first part of this verse and tell me that this doesn't fly in the face of everything our culture is saying. Jeremiah 17 verse 9 starts off by saying, the heart is deceitful above all things. I'll tell you this, when I have a bad day, my heart says, go get a box of donuts. My heart says, when someone treats me bad, treat them bad back. My heart says, if someone's going to be snarky to you, be snarky back. I don't know what it is for you, but I guarantee if you followed your heart 100% of the time, your life would not turn out well. Why? Because our hearts are actually broken. I don't mean broken as in your boyfriend dumps you. I mean broken as in they do not function properly. They are broken. They're missing pieces and they're broken by sin. This is why we need God not just to make all things new, but we need God to give us a new heart. Because our heart is broken by sin and because it's broken because it's broken. It's deceitful It lies to us. So no do not follow your heart follow God Why because he wants better things for you than what your heart does But this is so hard this is so Impossibly hard in our world, especially here in 21st century America. There is not much that's not available to you that you don't have the means to get It is so hard to say no to our hearts in the world that we live in Our hearts lie to us and they tell us that what we desire is a good thing when it's not but we must Remember our hearts are broken. They lie to us a Broken clock lies to you about what time it is Even though it may not mean to and our broken hearts lie to us even about what is truly good for us. And let me just remind you of something. I think many times our own hearts can speak sweeter lies to us than even the devil himself. Sometimes we blame the devil when we need to blame our hearts. The heart is deceitful above all things. Listen to me. It's not just that it's deceitful. It's deceitful to you. Your own heart will lie to you. This is why we need to hide ourselves in the Word of God. So follow God, not your heart, because our hearts are liars, but also because our hearts are lacking. Our verse says the heart is deceitful above all things and then it says and desperately sick. This doesn't just mean sick as in your heart has COVID, but sick as in it's twisted. This is why the old King James would translate it like this. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Our hearts are wicked and it's wicked in full. But understand the picture here. It's not just that our hearts are unwell. It's not just that our hearts are unholy. Our hearts are un-whole. It's broken with missing pieces. Our hearts are lacking. They lack health. They lack wisdom and discernment. They lack the righteousness to make decisions that are truly best for us. And one of the biggest things they lack, which is also the biggest reason why we shouldn't trust them, hear me, hear me, especially you teenagers. Our twisted hearts want to serve our own passions rather than God's glory. If our hearts were true and well and trustworthy, they would lead us to do the greatest good. Listen to me, not just the greatest good for ourselves, but the greatest good that there is, which is bringing glory to God. But our broken hearts seek to bring glory to ourselves, but we're not meant for that. We can't handle the weight of glory. It crushes us because we are neither worthy nor able to handle the glory that our hearts desire. Our hearts seek to glorify ourselves. And so what do our hearts do? Our hearts give ourselves to our passions. But when we do that, with an unsanctified heart, giving ourselves to our passions, we don't get glory, we get pain. And when this happens we see the final truth. We need to follow God, not our hearts, because our hearts are lost. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, leading to this both love and hate. It says this, who can understand it? If you've lived any length of time, you can look back and say, I can't believe I did that. If you've lived any length of time, or maybe you're in that moment right now, you're like, I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I'm doing that. Why am I doing this? I know it's wrong. The reason you say that is because your heart's lost. It's lost, it's wandering, it's looking for what it wants, but it doesn't know what it wants because it's broken. And don't forget the context here. Please don't forget the context. This was spoken 2,500 years ago to a different people at a different time, but it shows us that people are the same no matter when, no matter where. This was originally spoken to a people who were called to look at their life and make change or suffer the drastic consequences. God was using Jeremiah to call his people back to himself, back to his plan, which was for their good. He wanted something better for them than what they were chasing after. God was saying, stop following your heart. It's leading to your own destruction. Turn and follow me. Return to me and have life. Church, one of the clearest times in Scripture that we see God say, do not follow your heart, if not the clearest time, comes from Numbers chapter 15, a book of the Bible we rarely get to. Now, I will read it for you, but here's what's going on. At this point in Numbers chapter 15, God is speaking through Moses to the people. Numbers chapter 15, verse 37 on down says this, the Lord said to Moses, speak to the people of Israel and tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations and to put a cord of blue on the tassel of each corner. And it shall be a tassel for you to look at and remember all the commandments of the Lord to do them not to follow after your own hearts and your own eyes which you are inclined to whore after who would love to say that in church well God said it verse 40 so shall you remember and do all my commandments and be holy to your God I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord your God. Did you hear that language? I want to be your God. It's all over this. A couple of things from this passage. We see God use some pretty strong language here and it's to wake us up so we can understand the reality of what it means to follow our heart. When we follow our hearts, it's like being a prostitute. You know what a prostitute does? A prostitute gives herself to that which does not love her back. And that's what we do when we follow our hearts. We give ourselves to things that will not love us back. This is why our main idea is follow God, not your heart. Why? Because God will love you back. Because God loves us. And I love how God called his people to put a blue cord on their clothes, a symbol, a constant symbol to remind them not to follow after their heart, but to follow after him. Now listen, I don't know if anyone in here actually has a tassel on their clothes with a blue cord running through it. Maybe we should, but I'll tell you what many of us do instead. We have Christian tattoos. We have WWJD bracelets. We have cross necklaces. We have fancy faith shirts. Christians, listen to me. Yes, adorn yourself with reminders of what God has done. It's actually kind of biblical, but don't do that. And then laugh in God's face by following after your own hearts, following after things that won't love you back, no one will love you like the Lord himself. So follow God, not your heart. We can see the folly of following our heart even before the Bible gives us the wisdom not to do it. And so as we've been looking at in this series, we've been looking at how lies, true lies crumble under the weight of truth, but true lies actually crumble under the weight of their own deception if we are wise enough to stop and actually analyze the lie that we're buying into. So let's talk about how the lie of follow your heart falls short of everything it promises. See, the world and even some well-intentioned people and parents will tell us, follow your hearts. And you and I have said this because the heart behind it is at least well-intentioned, but it's very similar to live your truth. It seems good, but it's misleading. Here's what it means. Let's look at this from two different angles here. So, first thing, follow your heart, meaning, what we try to mean is only you know what you want, so go after it. People, people, is it not entirely possible that others might know you better than you know yourself. Is it not often said that part of growing up is realizing that your parents were right? And your pastor. I'm waiting for my kids to get to that point, too, by the way. We need to learn that others can see things in us that maybe we don't see. But listen, it also goes another way. It also goes for the things that we want. Maybe others can see things in what we want more than what we can see. For instance, a girl likes a guy. If others know this gentleman better, isn't that something that she should listen to? Or what about a career? Do you follow your heart or do you listen to the advice of those who may be actually in that profession? Even before we bring the better answer of listening to God, we can already see that following your heart has a number of holes in it. Another angle is this. Follow your heart, people mean, don't follow the crowd, do what makes you happy. Listen, these statements seem nice and encouraging, and it's just what our selfish, pride-centered world wants to hear. But listen to me, just because the crowd isn't worth listening to, that doesn't mean that your heart is. There's a third option. God. I was recently listening to this presentation that this gentleman was giving, and it was on following your heart. And the presenter said some things that I could not disagree with more. He said this. He said, following your heart is the very definition of what it means to be human. Now listen, you have to understand the context from which this man was saying these things. Part of his story was that he was a cancer survivor. He had gotten very sick and was on the brink of death, but he overcame and he got strong and he overcame cancer, which is amazing and commendable and I'm very thankful for it. But that experience tainted his perspective and led him to craft this presentation that he goes around and gives. It led him to give this advice. He said this, he said, the secret to following your heart is one thing. Plan your funeral. The realization of our place in this world, that all of this is temporary, can become a lens through which matters of the heart are most easily viewed. Listen, I think that really deeply resonates with so many people. But if I could summarize how I heard this and why I think it's so popular, I think it'd be like this. I think this is kind of what he was saying. This life is all you got, and soon you will be gone. So follow that passion because what matters is your happiness in this fleeting moment that we call life. We love sentiments like that. I'm even feeling the warm fuzzies here. But let me throw a monkey wrench into this. What if the end of your life isn't the end? What if, yes, life is short, but what if it's not temporary, but eternal? So this puts us at an existential crossroads here. Church, listen to me. If, if the greatest good and the highest purpose is our own personal happiness, I would still tell you don't follow your hearts. But that's not the highest good, that's not our greatest purpose. We were made for more than this momentary life. We were made for more. And not just made for more, I'm telling you, we were made for the most. The greatest good and purpose is the glory of God. And from that, listen to me, from that we get the greatest joy because that's what we were meant to do. We were designed to love God and to worship Him. But when we put our, when we put ourselves first, we will never be happy because you'll never have enough. But if you put God first, that's when the greatest joy comes, because He's more than enough. But we don't get, and I get it, we don't get the greatest joy out of bringing God glory or through worship while we have broken hearts, which is why God says this, says, And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. This is powerful and somewhat graphic imagery of God ripping our stony heart out of our chest and giving us a new heart and a new spirit. But here's what's going on. Ezekiel is pointing to the new covenant which we are now in and it's in this fulfilled promise that we get this new heart and this happens when we place our faith in Jesus and we trust in his life, death and resurrection which we call the gospel and then also we get a new spirit which by the way is the Holy Spirit who fills us, indwells within us so that we could live the life that God has called us to do. But this happens when we place our faith in the gospel of Jesus, Jesus Christ, who gave up his body to death on the cross so that we could have life, so that we could have a new heart. And by his resurrection from the dead and by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, living this new life with this new heart, we can truly not just love God, but truly understand, experience, and receive the love of God, from which we can truly worship into a season and a moment, an experience of joy that our dead hearts could never bring us. A joy that can only be found in God through the gospel of Jesus Christ as we rejoice in Him and we love Him and we worship Him with a new heart given to us by the gospel, as we experience the greatest good which is bringing God glory glory that he deserves Which our hearts were made for And this doesn't happen through following your heart. This happens through giving our hearts to God. And so let's Let's do that now. Amen.

Psalm 23 for the Idolatry-Prone Minister Christian Life Logan Bailey Family Pastor Peace Church Published On: August 7, 2023 When I was young and excited about starting in ministry, my youth pastor gave me a warning: “too many pastors let ministry become their identity.” He explained to me that when we let ministry become an idol, it drains our spiritual health and consumes us. I became terrified that I would make that mistake, and I vowed to fight against the temptation. After a decade of church ministry, I’ve failed miserably. The problem does not persist from lack of caring. I still heed my pastor’s warning and am constantly fighting the temptation to make an idol out of ministry. However, idolatry always finds a way to slither back into my heart. And idolatry is not pretty or godly. I become discontent. I become restless. I become easily irritated with the shortcomings of others, yet blind to my own. I am blind to God’s presence. I am nihilistic. I am pessimistic about the work of the church. Idolatry takes hold whenever I start to treat ministry like it gives my life meaning. This is extremely dangerous. Ministry cannot create purpose; nothing I accomplish could ever do so. Ministry is certainly meaningful, but only as much as it connects us to Something deeper. On those days (or in those seasons of life) when I have made an idol out of ministry, I am forgetting where my true identity and confidence lie. Whether you are a minister or not, your identity is in Christ . It is sobering to realize that idolatry doesn’t happen without our permission. We sadly often fail to depend on Jesus to do what he has promised to do. Psalm 23 is invaluable to me because it has continually reminded me of where to place my confidence. Whenever ministry dominates my heart, Psalm 23 redirects me to the Caretaker of my soul. Simply put, I struggle with idolizing ministry because I forget about Jesus. I lose sense of my identity in Christ because I neglect the Good Shepherd . King David wrote Psalm 23 using two images: the Lord as a Shepherd and the Lord as a host. That makes us the sheep in his pasture and the guests at his table. These metaphors are no accident; it is God’s intention to care to for his people. Psalm 23 reminds us that God intends to: meet our needs, give us rest , restore life to our souls, lead us in righteous God-glorifying living, embolden and comfort us by his presence, heap blessings on us, and prepare a place for us in his house. Psalm 23 reminds us that Jesus intends to care for our souls . He is set on it for the sake of his name and the sake of our good. In Christ, we are no longer slaves to sin and death. In Christ, we can find contentment no matter our circumstances, successes, or failures. In Christ, we have a Shepherd who gives our lives eternal meaning and significance. If Jesus intends to care for our souls, why do we look to our ministries to do it instead? Our ministries cannot sit on the throne of our hearts if Jesus is already sitting there. We won’t be begging our ministries to “fill our cup” if our cups are already overflowing by the grace of our God. This is why Psalm 23 is so important for ministers: if what you need most is to be reminded that Jesus is your Shepherd, then it is what your volunteers and students need the most, too. Despite all our talk about models, philosophies, and vision statements, only Jesus can meet the needs of a soul. Every so often, Psalm 23 has been used by the Holy Spirit to pick me up out of a pit of idolatry and allowed me to once again worship my Savior, the Caretaker of my soul, rather than worship ministry. My ministry (and my overall spiritual health) is always strongest when I am most dependent on Jesus for my identity and purpose rather than what I accomplish through ministry. May it be so for all of us as well. More Blogs You'll Like Is Prioritizing Love Un-Christian? What Does The Bible Say? Read More More Than Meets the Eye Discovering God’s Purposes for Motherhood Read More Mom Guilt and How to Fight It Read More

PODCAST That's a Good Question Wrath and Rescue: Unpacking the Mystery of Atonement December 17, 2024 Jon Delger & Mitchell Leach Listen to this Episode Hey, welcome to That's a Good Question, the place 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 on the Christian life and church leadership. You can always submit questions that we answer on this show to resoundmedia.c/questions. If you find this resource helpful, do us a favor, rate and review the podcast so more people can encounter the life-changing truth of God's Word. Also, if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode or that has questions like the ones that we're answering on the episode, please share this episode with them. My name is John. I'm here today with Mitch. Yeah. And this week's episode is a really good one. We're going to address something maybe even a little controversial. We're going to be talking about the atonement, but I want to ask this question first. John, is there anything that God isn't able to do? Is there something that limits God's ability? Like a mountain, like can he make a mountain so big that he himself can't move it? Yeah, I think that's maybe one of the ways that we can think about answering that question. But are there other things that God isn't able to do? Like, forgive sin without somebody paying for it? Yeah. Could God have just simply forgiven sin by snapping his fingers and not sent Jesus to die on the cross? Right. Is God able to do that, or is he limited somehow? I think that's a good question. I think that's a great question. And not everybody agrees on the answer to that question. It's true. Which is why today we're gonna talk about what is commonly called the theories of atonement. I'm not a big fan of calling it that because I feel like theories is a weird word. You know, theory feels like, you know, we don't know exactly how it works, so we've got these different theories about how maybe it works. I think perspectives is maybe a better word. Sure, yeah. A view or a lens of what happened at the cross. Yeah. But yeah, historically in theology world, there is three theories or perspectives on what happened at the cross. And they all kind of come back to this question of, yeah, how does God deal with sin? Is sin actually the problem that the cross is addressing? And this is one of those things that I feel like a lot of people assume that all Christians agree on this, but actually they don't. You know, you say, well, John 3, 16, this is like one of the most basic things, you know, that Jesus died for our sins to bring us to Him. And I would agree with that, obviously, that that is basic, that is the gospel, that is core to the Christian faith. But actually, not everybody who calls themselves Christian agrees on this. Yeah, and I hope that if you're listening to this and you're starting to roll your eyes going, oh my gosh, they're gonna make, you know, the cross even something that not every Christian agrees on. Don't stop listening because this is really important not just for understanding more theology, right? This isn't just about us cramming more theology into your head. This is about understanding who God is and that impacts how we worship, right? The more we know God, the deeper we can fall in love with Him. The more we love God, the more we want to know Him. So today we are looking at how Jesus's death and resurrection saves us, right? That's the idea of atonement, right? That's what we call atonement. And so atonement is kind of a weird word. We don't really use it a lot in our everyday language. John, what does the word atonement mean? Yeah, to atone for something is to appease the wrath of usually a deity is kind of the language, you know, it's taken from kind of older language when we talked about appeasing the wrath of a god, of a deity. It's making up for something to take away the punishment or the anger or the wrath or something like that. Yeah. So why do we need atonement? Why is that important as we have this discussion? I think that understanding, why isn't the idea of atonement necessary? Sure. Well, therein lies part of the controversy of the three theories. So we'll get into that some more. But yeah, the Bible tells us, Romans 3.23, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So all of us human beings are sinners. We've fallen short of God's perfect standard. Romans 623 says the wages of sin is death. Okay, so there's a standard, there's consequences for not meeting the standard. All of us as human beings have sin in our lives and therefore by our nature on our own without Jesus, we are deserving of death. And so we need an atonement. If we don't want to suffer eternal death, if we want to instead have life and joy with God, be reunited to Him the way it was before sin entered the world, then we need an atonement. Yeah. Is this just a New Testament thing, the idea of atonement? No, this is all throughout the Bible. This is Old Testament. This is going all the way back. You think of the sacrificial system. It was a foreshadow of what was going to be needed ultimately through Jesus. Yeah, this has been around for forever. And this is around even in non-Christian, non-Biblical religions. Think about pagan religions, right? They even have – I think it's just kind of innate to human beings that we have this idea that there is a deity and that we're not perfect, we've done something wrong, and even thinking like it modern-day Orthodox Jews practice the day of atonement, right? The day of atonement is something that we see in the Old Testament If you've ever seen that that holiday on your calendar that says Yom Kippur, that's yeah, but I guess 16 Yeah, that's the Jewish Day of Atonement I always as a kid growing up saw that and I'm like what in the world is that like I thought that it was somebody's Name, but it's a Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, right? Yeah. So it's deeply biblical. It's not brand new in the New Testament. It's something for us. So there are a couple different pictures of what happens on the cross. John, could you walk us through what they are? Yeah. So the three most popular, like I said, theories or perspectives on the cross would be the moral example theory, that Jesus is dying on the cross in order to be our example of what a good moral person does. The Christus Victor theory that Christ on the cross is being victorious over his enemies, he's conquering his enemies. And finally, there is penal substitutionary atonement, which is that Jesus is, so those three words there, penal being like punishment, and then substitution, that Jesus is our substitute, so he takes our punishment as our substitute in order to make atonement for our sins. That's that one. And I'll be honest, whenever you hear, whenever I say the word penal, it makes me think of something other than what it actually means, which is punishment. So I might just for the rest of this episode refer to it as substitution theory. We'll see. When you hear penal, think about penalty. Yeah. I was a youth pastor and asked a bunch of middle schoolers what they thought penal sounded like. And I quickly realized that they didn't- You probably didn't need to ask. They didn't think about like the, like penal corrective system or penalty. They were thinking about a different thing. And you can imagine what they were thinking. So substitution. That's the concept. That's the concept. Yep. Jesus paid our penalty, he was our substitute, and he atones for our sin. So why are these important as we are diving into those? Why is it important for us to understand these things? Is it wrong for us to believe in some of these things? Where's the danger here? Where's the controversy? Yeah, great. So I think the controversy lies in that some people throughout church history have said that we should believe in one of these or two of these to the exclusion of the others, or to the exclusion specifically of one. So the least controversial in this conversation are moral example and Christus Victor. The most controversial is penal substitutionary atonement. So some people throughout church history have said that, yeah, we should understand at the cross that Jesus is being a great example of, you know, you think of John 15, right? Love knows no better than this, that one would die for his friends, right? So Jesus is setting us the best example. He sacrifices himself, he dies for people that he cares about and therefore you and I should do likewise. And that's the point of the cross. Yeah. So that's not very controversial. No. It's also true. Yeah. We wouldn't deny that. Yeah. The problem is when you exclude one of the other meanings. So Christus Victor, same way. I think of passages like in Colossians towards the end of Colossians 2 talks about Jesus triumphing over the rulers, the principalities, the cross is him completing, Genesis 315, that through defeat he accomplishes victory over the evil one, over Satan. So it is Christ's victory. So it is. So Jesus is a moral example. Jesus is having victory. Those things are true. Problem is, people in church history have said, those things are true. But it's not true that he bears our penalty as our substitute to take away our sins. Yeah, absolutely. So there are some people even in modern modern theology that are opposed to the idea of penal substitutionary atonement. One of the authors that is probably more famous, maybe you've heard of him, is Brian McLaren. In his book, The Story We Find Ourselves In, he presents a character who says something like this. That sounds, or penal substitutionary atonement, sounds more like injustice in the cosmic equation. It sounds like divine child abuse. What is Brian McLaren saying? What is he getting after and what does he mean? Yeah, that's a pretty steep claim to say that, yeah, what most of Christianity and, I mean, historically and worldwide, I mean, just most of Christianity has said that this is the meaning of the cross, right? That Jesus dies as our substitute. So he's posing that idea that actually that if that's what it is, that that's God the Father abusing his son Jesus. It's a pretty big claim. Yeah. Yeah, I guess let me ask this question and maybe this would help understand why he might say some of those things. Does penal substitutionary atonement, or does substitutionary atonement portray God as a wrathful God who needs violence in order to forgive? I mean, in some ways, yes. What it portrays is a God of justice. The whole Bible portrays God that way. That God is a God who cares about right and wrong. That there are things that are evil in this world, that there are moral goods and moral bads, and that those who do things on the side of moral bad, that there are consequences. And I think that's innate to us as human beings. We know that inherently. When something terrible happens, we want justice. We want the bad guy to go to jail or whatever it is. Yeah. As long as the bad guy's not us, right? Yeah, right, right. Well, that's the, yeah, there's some irony in our innate sense of justice. Our innate sense of justice has some that's right and some that's kind of warped by it, right? So we especially don't want justice for ourselves. Sure. We want justice for others. So it's true that God is just and that there is consequences for those who are on the wrong side of justice. We should understand God that way. And actually, I mean, I think that's maybe a great place to start is that we have to understand that's a good thing, not a bad thing. You know, one of the, I think I did a video a while back asking the question, what if hell didn't exist? You know, so what if there was no eternal consequences for evil? You know, what if Hitler ends up in heaven? You know, is that right? Is that fair? Are we okay with that? You know a lot of people complain about the concept of hell the concept of eternal punishment But then when you really think I mean what they usually mean is I don't think I should end up in hell Yeah, or I shouldn't get consequences But you know you just you just think boy that doesn't seem right I don't sound like heaven at all if Hitler is there if some of the you know, just the evil People from from earth are there? Yeah, I think if you're a listener hearing this and going man I really don't love that you know we just said that God is a God of wrath who needs this in order to forgive We have to understand that wrath is a good thing that God being a God of wrath is a good thing I would I would let me let me even interject this so I say wrath is a necessary Result of love right I say it that way. So people want to say, well God is a God of love, so he can't be a God of wrath. Well, have you ever had somebody that you love be harmed? Yeah. How did you respond? I think it's right for you to be wrathful. If somebody hurts one of my children, and not by accident, you know, if somebody is harming one of my children, I have wrath. Yeah. And that is appropriate for me as a father to have wrath anger to want justice Yeah, those things are right. So so yeah wrath is a result of love. Yeah, I don't even appeal to our love of superheroes, you know you love the fact that Batman or Superman has wrath when he encounters his you know, the villain, right? We love this because we know that Superman is a good guy who's gonna, he's gonna take care of business, he's gonna institute justice. Because the bad guy's done bad, evil things. He's harming people. Yeah. The problem with us is that we don't love that God is a God of wrath because we're the bad guys. Right. And so it's like, you know, there's some sort of a, you know, I don't know, irony or paradox that we have in ourselves that we're like, yeah, we love this idea of even our superheroes having wrath when it in instituting justice, but as soon as we're like, wait, we might be the bad guy. We're like, no, no, God can't be a God of wrath. We got it. We've got to get rid of that or that's some sort of archaic or antiquated way to view God, but that's not how the Bible talks about God. That's not how God displays himself to us. So God being a God who is full of righteousness and is provoked to wrath against sin is a good thing. So let me ask this question. Is God able to forgive sin without the cross? Could God? Is there something that would limit God? No. And I say that thinking of passages like Romans chapter 3 that talks about God being the just and the justifier. Yeah. So this is from a guy named Steve Chalk, and so he's explaining a different view of the cross that doesn't include this substitutionary atonement that we're talking about. So he says, The fact is that the cross isn't a form of cosmic child abuse, a vengeful father punishing his son for an offense he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith. Deeper than that, however, is that such a concept stands in total contradiction to the statement, God is love. If the cross is a personal act of violence perpetrated by God towards humankind but born by his Son, then it makes a mockery of Jesus' own teaching to love your enemies and to refuse to repay evil with evil." Hachimachi, that's not a great quote. Quite a statement. Yeah. Just to be clear, that's a statement that we would disagree with. Sure, yep, yep, for sure. So I feel like I've already kind of addressed the side of, it's not contradictory to God is love because love results in wrath against those who are harming those who you do love. We were beginning to talk about the justice of God, Romans 3, just in the justifier. Okay, one of the things that they say in there too is that this makes a mockery of Jesus' own teaching to love your enemies, to refuse to repay evil with evil. Okay, why is it that God tells us not to repay evil with evil? It's because he says, vengeance is mine. Vengeance is mine, thus says the Lord. He's going to be the one that settles the score. Yeah. Not us. Yeah. So he's not just saying evil should go off, you know, scotch-free. It's not just, you know, good luck, let it go. It's don't repay evil in this life because I will repay it in the next life. I'm God. That's where the comfort comes. God is a God of justice. I think it's hard, and sometimes this actually makes me frustrated with theologians who really try to deny this idea of substitutionary atonement. Because it is so clear that God's justice is evident, not just in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, right? At the end of time, the saints will gather around as God is pronouncing judgment on everyone who is opposed to him, everyone who didn't turn to him, everyone who isn't saved, right? And he casts them into the lake of fire and the saints gather around and worship God for his righteousness, for his justice. And so if you're having a problem with God being a God of wrath and justice, it's not that, well, you know, we're just distorting one way that the Bible talks about. No, the Bible is pretty clear that this is who God is. The thing that you're offended by is the whole of the Bible, right? Sure. This isn't us distorting this. This is the way that God is portrayed. Yeah, so let's make that case. Because it's a hard thing to swallow, but it's an important thing for us to say, this isn't just our idea. It really comes from the Bible. Yeah, so let's walk through some passages of Scripture and say that. So to your question that you had asked about, can God forgive without the cross? My answer was no, because that makes God a God who is not just. Correct. Somebody has to pay for sin. Yeah. Otherwise God is just winking at sin. Yeah. He's just saying, yeah, that's bad, that's evil, you did that, but oh well. And he shrugs his shoulders. Yeah. Without the cross. Can I give an example here that might help and then we'll get into the passages. I've heard this example before. Like imagine if I come over to your house, John, and as I'm leaving, I actually, you know, I run into the door with my car, right? Your garage door, right? And it breaks your garage door. There's two things you can do, right? You can say, Mitchell, you're an idiot and you shouldn't have hit my garage door and you're gonna pay for it, right? And that would be your right to do that, right? I've broken your garage door and you can demand that I'll pay for it. That'd be justice, right? Or you can say, Mitchell, it's okay. You don't need to pay for it. Like, you know, go ahead and you can go home. And that would be forgiveness, right? But at the end of the day, somebody still has to pay for the garage door, right? Either you or me, right? If I pay for it, that's justice. If you pay for it, that's forgiveness, right? But somebody still absorbs the cost. And so that has to happen with our view of what happens on the cross. We can't just say God could snap his fingers because there is no forgiveness without a debt being paid, without some sort of penalty, some sort of cost. Right, absolutely. So, let me walk through just a couple of passages that I think make this point clear. And again, so then our point is to say that this is something the Bible teaches and we have to figure out how to make sense of it. You know, you can't come to the Bible and just say, the Bible is wrong because it violates my sense of what's right. You know, we have to hear God on his own terms, right? We live underneath the Bible, not above the Bible. Yeah, that would be a pretty dangerous worldview to have. Yeah, that would not be good to be able to say, well, you know what, God says that he's like this in the Bible, but I know better. God wouldn't be like that because that violates what I think about God. I think that's exactly what Adam and Eve did. Yeah, right. They said, I know better. Yeah, yeah. So we sit under the Bible. So we have to hear what the Bible says, God, you know, tell us who he is in his own terms and how it works, and then figure out, make sense of it. Yeah. So let's try to do that. So this is Acts chapter two, this is Peter preaching at Pentecost, and he puts a couple of things together here that I think are important to hear. So this is verse 23. He says, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Okay, so he's speaking to a crowd of people in front of him in Jerusalem. Okay, and so on the one hand, he's saying that you all crucified Jesus, you killed him at the hands of lawless men. Yeah, but he's also saying in the same verse that Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. So he says those two things are true at the same time. At the same time, it's true that the Jews killed him. It's true that the Romans killed him and it's true that God killed him, delivered him up to be killed on the cross. Yeah. So, you know, if you say, I can't believe that the Father put Jesus on the cross in order to pay for sin. Well, but the Bible says that. So you've got to wrestle with that and figure out how does that work within what else the Bible tells us about God. Let me share another passage from Acts chapter 4, jumping ahead a couple chapters here. This is starting in verse 27. It says, For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel. Okay, so everybody who's involved in the conspiracy to murder Jesus, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place." Okay, so again, Peter does the same thing as he did before. It's to put in the same sentence, you all are responsible for killing Jesus, and this happened according to God's foreknown, predestined plan. The Father did this. I think those are great, and grounding us in Scripture is so helpful because it's how we understand who God is and how he acts. This really got this idea of penal substitutionary atonement was really well-defined in the Reformation era. One of the Reformation documents that we hold to as a church at Peace Church is the Belgic Confession and Article 20 is such a great way of seeing this substitution in our theology. So I'd love to read this. We believe that God, who is perfectly merciful and just, sent his son to assume that nature in which the disobedient was committed, to make satisfaction in the same and to bear the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. God therefore manifested his justice against his son when he laid out our iniquities upon him and poured forth his mercy and goodness on us who were guilty and worthy of damnation out of mere and perfect love giving his son unto death for us and raising him for our justification that through him we might obtain immortality and a life eternal." It's a little bit wordy, but it's beautiful. And we'll actually link to that article in the show notes. But it just clearly lays out that phrase, that God therefore manifested his justice against his son when he laid out our iniquities upon him. I think there's just such a clear way to see that. This isn't just something that John and I were pulling out of Scripture, but this is something that Christians have been seeing forever. In fact, one of the criticisms of substitutionary atonement is that it is, it was invented or it was created in the, during the Reformation. But there's passages in Scripture that would show us, you know, is that a true thing that this is something that was made up in the Reformation. Right, yeah, I mean I could add to the case we've already been making, I would add passages like Mark 10, 45, that I came not to be served but to serve, Jesus says, and to give my life as a ransom for many, in exchange for many. That's what's going on there. Jesus, you know, Jesus came voluntarily to sacrifice himself for his people. Think of in John chapter 10, no one takes my life from me, I lay it down. Jesus says, Jesus and the Father, the Son and the Father are on a mission together. They are committed together to save their people, to save God's people. Another one, 2 Corinthians chapter five, says he who knew no sin became sin on our behalf. So Jesus went to the cross, took on our sin, he became sin and was nailed to the cross. Yeah. That sounds like a pretty clear passage describing substitutionary atonement, right? Yeah. Are there any other places that you'd see substitution? I'm thinking of one in the Old Testament with Abraham and his son. Yeah. I don't know if you guys have the Jesus Storybook Bible. Yeah. But they have a story of that in there and I can't read it to my kids without crying because it's just such a picture, a perfect picture of the cross. Yeah. Yeah. Abraham and Isaac. Yeah. Yeah. The Old Testament, you know, tells a story in a different way. It tells us through through pictures really through foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to have to do. Yeah. Abraham and Isaac is a great example. Yeah. Like we already mentioned the Day of Atonement. Leviticus 16, you know, the animal sacrifices. The book of Hebrews spends a lot of time in the New Testament talking about how the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament are a foreshadow coming up to Jesus, that the sacrifice of the blood of bulls and goats can't actually take away sins, but it was a picture of what was going to happen through Jesus. Yeah. So I want to be kind, I want to be gracious to those who are maybe struggling with this concept. So if you're struggling, if you're wrestling, you know, sometimes it does take some time to wrestle through this, to see it, to understand it, to grasp it. If it's initially kind of something that you've been maybe trained or maybe just culturally struggle with the concept, so I wanna be generous. But I do wanna say, I think if you ultimately don't land in understanding that Jesus was your substitute, then you haven't embraced the gospel. And thus, you haven't received salvation. That's what we put our faith in. When we say you've got to put your faith in Jesus to receive salvation, when you think of John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him would have eternal life. He gave him over. He delivered him over. Think of Acts 2, Acts 4 that we've already read. Think of Romans chapter 8, verse 32, right? Again, He's been delivered over. If you don't embrace that, if you don't say, I'm taking hold of Jesus, that He has taken away my sins, and I'm not going to pay for my sins in hell. Jesus has paid for them for me at the cross, then you haven't embraced the Savior. Yeah, it reminds me of a conversation I had with someone once where they asked me, what would it look like for us to have a theology where we don't believe in substitutionary atonement? It reminds me of another interview that I saw where someone, a flat earther, was asking a scientist about what would it look like on earth if it was a flat earth? And he just go, he was just like, I don't, it just wouldn't work. And that's kind of where I'm at with this. Like to try to construct a theology that says Jesus did not pay for something. He did not take God's wrath. He did not trade places with me on the cross. He did not get what happened on the cross was not him getting what I deserved. Like, I don't I don't know what that that looks like. I have to discount so much to the Bible. Yeah, totally, no, I totally agree. Let me, because I came across this article earlier, I'll try to, this gave me a little bit of a picture of somebody trying to live that theology without the substitution. So this is an article, a blog, it's available online, written by a children's ministry pastor. So she, let me just, she's writing about Easter. So the piece is called The Trouble with Easter, how to talk and not talk about Easter. So that's already a title right there. Our favorite holiday. So I'll read you some snippets. So she starts, this is the opening, she says, public execution, child sacrifice, rising from the dead, just the kinds of stories you want to tell your kids, right? Yeah, me neither. So she goes on to say, as a children's pastor in a progressive Christian church, so progressive is kind of a label for that type of theology, what we would also call liberal theology, so, and I think they would embrace titles like progressive, she's saying it herself. So she says, Easter is, well, it's rough, for me anyway. I'm responsible for children, and teaching this central Christian story to kids is one of my biggest challenges. No matter what I do with the Easter story, someone is likely to be upset. If I tell it flat out, I not only go against my ethos in regard to nurturing children's spirituality, but I'd also be confusing boatloads of kids and the message of my ministry as a whole." Woof. Man, that's a... So she goes on later in the article and says that there's some things that I don't want to teach. And then she lists some different statements that she doesn't want to teach children. One of them, the first one listed is this, that Jesus died for your sins. Man, you're a children's pastor and you don't want to teach the maybe the most central part of our belief. That's a crazy thing. Just trying to wrap my head around this worldview. So she says, something I don't want to teach that you decide for your sins. She then says, Well, I realize that statement won't psychologically damage every kid. If it damages one, it's not worth using, period. To that end, I can list hundreds of people for whom this sentiment was harmful. We have to find better words and be very intentional with our language. Man, I don't mean to seem dismissive, but man, oh man, I guess that's at least consistent, right? I guess. It's departed from scripture though, right? Very clearly. Yeah. You know, she opened by saying, if I tell the story... That's a really kind way to say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She said, if I tell the story flat out. Okay, so what she, and what that means, she said, if I read the Bible story of Easter... If I read the Bible to children. Yeah, if I read, if I read them the story as it's written in the Bible, then I'm going to offend them. If I tell them that Jesus died for their sins, I might psychologically damage them. So, a pretty wild perspective for us. I think a pretty wild perspective for biblical Christianity, for historical Christianity. Yeah, I think it's borderline heretical. I mean, maybe not. Borderline. I think it's, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's, that is a hard thing for me to be like, yeah, this is a sister in Christ. To say that kind of stuff and claiming to be a pastor, I mean, man, oh man, being able to preach about the crucifixion, being able to preach about Jesus's resurrection is beyond a privilege. It is one of the highlights of my ability to be a pastor. And to say that, and to share that with children, I mean that's even better. Right. To say that we're gonna pull that because sounds weird. I mean I used to work at a church where they weren't allowed to say certain words from stage, they weren't allowed to say things like the blood of Christ, and I just think, man, like what what are you, what are you neglecting your congregation if you can't say that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I know a lot of people want to say, want to think that that's just way over out in some crazy place, but actually I was an ordained pastor in a denomination that had other pastors. I remember reading in writing, one pastor in that denomination that I served in, writing that he found nowhere in scripture that embraced the view of substitutionary atonement. He wrote that in a letter, an email or something like that. He must not have read much of the Bible. Yeah, yeah, right. For sure. But just to say, it's not, this is not in some kind of crazy far off place. You know, I share a denomination with a pastor who believes that. Yeah, no, this is far reaching, the implications of this. I mean, if you're at a church in the United States, more than likely there's somebody in your church who is impacted by this theology, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so while some might be listening and think it's kind of crazy that there would be other perspectives or that we'd even spend time talking about this, I think you've got to know it's so important that we don't lose the core of the gospel. And therefore, we have to continue to talk about it. Somebody might be listening to this and thinking, yeah, this is what I'm wrestling with right now and glad to hear about it. Yeah, and if that's you, please ask us follow-up questions. We'd love to do a part two to this. Yeah. We've got more questions. Yeah, if you're listening and you object or have struggled with this, I'd love to hear further questions, what it is that is a struggle, how we could explain better or more, that'd be great. Yeah, I got a question for you, probably as we wrap up. What do we miss? What do we lose by abandoning this? We, not to be too simplistic, but we lose our salvation. Yeah. We, as human beings, have fallen short of God's perfect standard. We live in sin and we need a savior. And so if we don't, you know, Jesus came preaching the gospel and telling people to repent and believe. You know, if you don't accept that you're a sinner, then I don't know how you can repent and believe in a Savior. He's not just your example. He's not just victorious over his enemies, although both of those things are important. He is also your substitute. Sin is like surgery. We need someone else to take care of it. Yeah. Well, thanks everybody. We hope you have an awesome week. Again, feel free to send in more questions on this topic. Do us a favor and like and subscribe. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Have an awesome week, everybody. Have an awesome week, everybody. Bye!

A Faith That Drives Our Lives Sermon Series: A Faith that Endures Ryan DB Kimmel Lead Pastor Peace Church Main Passage: 1 Kings 18:7-16 Transcript Today is the day that the Lord has made so let us rejoice and be glad in it and everyone said Amen and amen The night That I became a Christian The night that I I repented and placed my faith in Jesus. It was during the fall of my senior year of high school Now I had like grown up going to church, but it wasn't until I was a senior that like a group of friends kind of like pulled me in and really shared the gospel with me and told me about this personal faith in Jesus that I could have. And so, one night after youth group, we were hanging out after youth group, they called me out and just said, are you ready to repent and place your faith in Jesus? And I said, yes, and I gave my life to the Lord. Now, the number of friends who were part of that experience was very small. It was a small group of my closest friends who all loved me and loved the Lord and they were ministering to me. It was a very small group. But 25 years later, only half of those group of friends. Only half of those guys are still Christians. I was a youth pastor for 10 years. 10 years I saw these classes, these amazing classes of teenagers, come and go through the ministry. I saw God do amazing things. I saw Him change hearts. I saw kids come onto leadership teams and do great things. And now, ten years later, I'm watching so many of them on social media rejecting the faith, walking away, have no interest in God, or going to church. And at Peace Church, we want to be real and raw. And so I'm just going to be real and raw with you for a moment. These are ghosts to me. These are ghosts that haunt me on a regular basis. And I look at people who I thought had such thriving faiths, are no longer walking with God, don't even care. And I'm haunted by this. And it forces me to ask the question, like what does it take to make faith endure? Endure through the changing values of our culture? Endure through personal pain? How does faith endure when we have questions that we just can't seem to find the answer to? What does it make to have a faith that endures? Today we're starting a series on the Prophet Elijah. And one thing I can tell you about the Prophet Elijah, he's from the Old Testament. He had a faith that endured. He's talked about later on in the Old Testament. He's talked about in the New Testament. He actually makes an appearance when Jesus is dying on the cross. They think he's calling out to Elijah. Elijah has a faith that endures. How can we have a faith like him? His story is monumental throughout scripture. I'm really sad that we have to miss an entire sermon in this series because I want us to get to know this guy. His story is found at the end of 1 Kings and at the beginning of 2 Kings. So I'm going to ask you if you have your Bibles, please turn there now, would you turn to 1 Kings chapter 18. We're going to look at verses just 17 to 16 today. But because I know you may not be in the know about Elijah, we missed a sermon. Let me try to quickly catch us up to speed as you're turning to 1 Kings 18. Here's the back story. This setting comes during the time in biblical history known as the divided kingdom. When God's kingdom, which was united under King David and King Solomon, it's now broken in half. It's divided into two, the Northern kingdom and the Southern kingdom. Now the Northern kingdom is called Israel or Samaria. The Southern kingdom is called Judah. Now our story takes place in the northern kingdom. And one thing you need to know about the northern kingdom, it didn't last that long. It had a series of just terrible kings who brought the kingdom into the ground and eventually Assyria comes in and decimates the kingdom. It's a great lesson that God kind of shows us that if it's the world you want, then the world you shall have and the world will kill and destroy you. And so this story happens during that time before the kingdom is destroyed. Now this story takes place during the reign of King Ahab. Now I already told you that every king in the northern kingdom was a terrible king, but what the Bible says about King Ahab is actually pretty profound. It says that he was the worst king yet. In fact, the Bible says that no other king angered God as much as King Ahab did. This is the setting. And not only was Ahab a bad and wicked dude, he was married to a bad and wicked woman. In fact, this woman was so wicked that her name has now become like a title for for other wicked women. You may have heard of her, Jezebel. So Ahab is married to Jezebel. Now Jezebel was a foreigner. She brought in Baal worship. Worship to a foreign god. So with Ahab and Jezebel together, they demolished the faith in the true God Yahweh of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they set up Baal worship. That became basically a state-sponsored religion, and they're setting up these places to worship Baal throughout the land, and they're calling people to worship Baal. Now this is apostasy. That means they're turning away from the true God to a false God, and this anger at God, because the king and queen were leading so many people astray. They were wicked, they were pagan, and it's in this moment that God calls Elijah. First Kings 17, Elijah comes just out of nowhere. Like like biblically speaking and geographically speaking. He just kind of shows up on the scene. No introduction, just and Elijah came. Now the Bible does say that Elijah came from a place called Tishbe. Now we have no idea where that is. Probably because it was such a small town in a small village that it just kind of got forgotten in the pages of history, kind of like Orangeville. Or our favorite, Freeport. So what you need to know is that in very strong likelihood, Elijah's just a roughneck from the sticks who just kind of comes out to take a stand against a wicked king and trying to spark revival in the land. And Elijah goes on to do crazy, amazing things. So this guy from the sticks just comes out of nowhere. He goes straight to the most wicked king to date. And he tells the king, there's going to be a drought. He brings a prophetic curse. There's gonna be a drought in the land. Now, of course, the king doesn't wanna hear this. This puts Elijah's life in jeopardy. So God takes Elijah and he sends him out into the wilderness and he says you need to stay there until I tell you to come out. And so Elijah goes and he lives by this little brook where he can get fresh water, because remember there's gonna be a drought and a famine in the land, and God has ravens come and bring Elijah food on a daily basis. So during that entire time Elijah had to rely on a daily basis for God to supply his needs. After a amount of time, God calls Elijah to actually leave Israel and go to Phoenicia to this place called Sidon, where he's supposed to stay with this widow. Now, back in those days, if you were a widow, if you didn't have a husband, that meant you were destitute, you were without any sort of safety net. So he stays with this widow, and she doesn't have a lot of supplies, she doesn't have a lot of resources, and she starts to run out of food, and there's this time where God miraculously provides them enough flour and oil every single day for them to have food together. This woman's child, her son, dies and Elijah goes over and prays over him and we see resurrection. These are all like the amazing stories that we're supposed to have talked about on Ash Wednesday, but we can't. But all you need to know is that God's already doing an incredible work, seeing amazing things happen in the life of Elijah. And then after three years, the word comes to Elijah and God says, it's time to go back and have your meeting, your confrontation with King Ahab. Now remember for this three years, there's drought and famine. And at this point, the Bible says that the famine was severe in Israel. So what Ahab does is he calls the administrator of his household, kind of like the manager over his affairs, who was a good and godly man named Obadiah. Now, he says to Obadiah, he's like, man, this is such a terrible famine, even the animals are gonna die. We gotta do something. So Ahab says to Obadiah, okay, you go this way and I'll go this way and let's just keep going until we can find some fresh grass and some water so that we can at least save the animals. So Ahab says, I'll go this way, Obadiah, you go that way. And on Obadiah's journey, that's when he meets Elijah on Elijah's journey back to meet with the wicked king Ahab. And that my friends, is where we're gonna pick up in our story. So would you hear the word of the Lord, 1 Kings chapter 18, verses 7 to 16. 7 And as Obadiah was on the way, behold, Elijah met him. And Obadiah recognized him and fell on his face and said, “Is it you, my lord Elijah?” 8 And he answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord, ‘Behold, Elijah is here.’” 9 And he said, “How have I sinned, that you would give your servant into the hand of Ahab, to kill me? 10 As the LORD your God lives, there is no nation or kingdom where my lord has not sent to seek you. And when they would say, ‘He is not here,’ he would take an oath of the kingdom or nation, that they had not found you. 11 And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here.”’ 12 And as soon as I have gone from you, the Spirit of the LORD will carry you I know not where. And so, when I come and tell Ahab and he cannot find you, he will kill me, although I your servant have feared the LORD from my youth. 13 Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the LORD, how I hid a hundred men of the LORD’s prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water? 14 And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here”’; and he will kill me.” 15 And Elijah said, “As the LORD of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” 16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah. 17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the LORD and followed the Baals. 19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.” This is God's word. Let's pray and we'll continue. Wherever you are, let's pray together. Father, for your glory and for our good, Lord, would you please challenge us today by the story of Elijah and by the truth of your word. Help us to see here and know the gospel in this story that we might be filled with a faith that endures. Please, oh Holy Spirit, would you lead and guide us during this series and during Lent as we prepare for Easter to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? In whose name we pray. And all God's people, wherever you are, said very loudly, Amen. Now in this series, we're going to walk along Elijah and we're going to see throughout this series the markers of a faith that endures. Because here's my sincere hope. I look back 25 years and I see people in my life who are no longer walking with the Lord. My prayer is that in 25 years, everyone who's in here now will have an even more vibrant faith then than you do now. Do you want that? Do you want that, people? I want that, too. So let's learn from Elijah if we can see the markers of a faith that endures. And right off the bat, I think the lesson we can learn right from this first story is this. A faith that endures is a faith that drives our lives. A faith that endures is a faith that drives our lives. If you're new to Peace Church or you're just visiting, here's what I want you to know. We are going to be raw and real here at Peace. And so with that, let me just say this. These days, when someone tells me they're a Christian, I'm like, okay, what does that mean? I can't assume that means anything these days. I mean, we have Christians walking around who don't believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. We have Christians, so-called Christians, who walk around who don't believe that Jesus is the only way into salvation, who don't believe the Bible is God's Word, people who call themselves Christians who are not walking in step with the Holy Spirit. There are people who call themselves Christians who speak so negatively about the church, which is serious business because the church is the bride of Christ. And I don't know about you men, but nobody gets to talk negatively about my wife. Imagine how Jesus our Lord feels. Like when someone says they're a Christian, I'm like, I got one question for you. Is faith the driving force in your life? When someone says they're a Christian, what I want to ask is very simple. Have you repented? Is Jesus Christ the ruling and loving Lord of your life and your soul? Is faith the driving force in your life? Here's what I'll tell you. If it's not, then your faith is misplaced. If faith is not the driving force in your life, then it's misplaced. And when I talk about faith, I mean your personal relationship with God, your belief in Him. If that's not the pinnacle and primary point of your life, hear me, it's misplaced. Correct me if I'm wrong, but God is the biggest thing there is. He's the biggest thing there is, He's the biggest thing in the universe. So how can it be that people say they have God in their life, and He's not the biggest thing in their life? I mean, how can God be the biggest thing there is, and then not be the biggest thing in a person's life? I'll tell you how. Because it's not God that they have in their life. It's an idea of God. And probably a God that they've made in their own image, who obey them rather than them obeying God. A God that they've made in their mind, a God that they've made in their image, rather than a belief in a God in whose image they are made. If you have a relationship with God, but He's not first in your life, then you have a relationship, I would say, with a false God. A God probably you've created. And I'm going to tell you right now, that God will fail you. And your faith will fail then. We are to have a living, breathing, active, driving force in our life, faith in the living God. But so many who call themselves Christians don't. And we see this man, Elijah, who honored and followed God. And what you see about him so quickly is that faith was the driving force in his life. And what I love about Elijah is that in the New Testament, in the book of James, it says something really cool about Elijah. It says Elijah was a man just like us. That is both so encouraging and so challenging. So as we look at this passage in this story, I think we're going to pick up a couple of things today. I wanted to give you three points. I'll go easy on you. I'll just give you two here this morning. Here they are. A faith that drives our lives calls us to follow through. A faith that drives our lives calls us to something costly, and a faith that drives our lives calls us to follow through. I told you we're gonna ask real questions and we're gonna be raw here at peace. So I want to ask you a question, you here in the worship center, in the chapel, in the venue, online, and I want you to answer this in your own heart. What has it taken or what would it take to awaken your faith and move you deeper? What has it taken or what would it take to awaken your faith and move you deeper? Being diagnosed with cancer, the death of a loved one, being served divorce papers, your nation being pulled into war, disease, death, divorce, destruction, often it takes pain to awaken our faith. But hear me, pain is a product of our broken world and our sinful hearts. What should awaken our faith is the Holy Spirit bringing an awareness of the seriousness of our sin to our hearts. A sin that we know is against the God of all creation. A sin that we know makes us stand condemned before God. A sin that has broken and ruined our relationship with Him. And knowing this, and knowing that even in the midst of our immense sin, sin that makes us worthy of the flames of hell that God in his great mercy and love for us has provided a way back to him but that way back comes at great cost the cost of the life and death of his son Jesus Jesus who died on the cross in our place paying the penalty for our sins, assuming the punishment that should have been ours, realizing that now Jesus has completely taken care of our salvation, there's nothing we can do to add or take away from that, all we can do is just receive it because it's now a free gift, that's why we call it grace because Jesus has done for us in our place what we could not do for ourselves. But here's the problem, and here's what has led so many people to call themselves Christians who really aren't one. In their lives, there's no repentance. There's no awareness and a turning from sin. There's no repentance in our life. Repentance is the right response to our sin. But we don't repent, and then we don't walk in step with the Spirit, and because we're not walking in step with the Spirit, we don't have the gift of the Spirit or the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. I'm not saying you can't be a kind and good citizen, but I'm saying you're not a Christian. Because Christians are the people who bear the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, who use the gifts God's given us to see His kingdom built. See, Christians are those people who follow Jesus, and to follow Jesus means we are on mission. That is what it means. I think a lot of us Christians, we just, we accept God's free gift of salvation and we sit down. There's no repentance and no walking in step with the Spirit and yet we think we're Christians because we've taken this notion that salvation is free, which it is. We call it grace because grace is connected to the word for gift. Salvation is a free gift we receive. But we've taken this free notion and rather than freely enjoying it, what we do is we take this free thing and we make it cheap. And we put it in our back pocket. We pull it out like a credit card when we want something. We say, thanks for dying on the cross for me, Jesus. And then we go on our merry way, rather than picking up our cross and following Him. And in this, we've exposed that we've forgotten something critical about faith. And that's that a faith that drives our lives calls us to something costly. So back to our story, here's what's happening. Obadiah is a good and godly man. He's working in a wicked administration, but he's a good and godly man. And just a side note, this is not the same Obadiah who wrote the book in the Bible called Obadiah. Those are different people. But Obadiah is a good and godly man. And for three years, Ahab has been on a rampage looking for Elijah in every kingdom all over. He wants to find Elijah so he can kill him. Now, Elijah runs into Obadiah. And he tells Obadiah, go tell your king that I'm coming. And Obadiah is like, you don't know what you're asking me to do. He could kill me for this, like actually kill me. If I say that you're coming and you don't show up, I'm a dead man. You don't know what you're asking me to do. This is serious business. Yeah, because Elijah knows that a faith that drives our lives calls us to something costly. So here's what I ask you, church, who in your life is calling you not just to something more but to something costly that's going to put your faith to the fire to see if it's genuine and it's true and it's been refined? Who in your life is calling you to something costly, someone who will let you know if faith is truly the driving force in your life, rather than just something hanging on the walls of our Magnolia-inspired houses. Elijah is giving Obadiah news that he is to share, news that is a matter of life and death. Who in your life is calling you, not just to something more, but to something costly, something that shows that our faith is alive and at the forefront of our life, not in the background. And being real and honest today, as I thought about this message and sought the Lord in the midst of this, I was asking myself, as the lead pastor of this church, have I been calling this church to something costly? Or have I, in my flesh, been keeping us too comfortable? Have I been challenging this church enough to seek and pursue what is right in this world, even if it brings great cost to your life? Have I been a leader doing that. Here's what I tell you, where I have failed you, Jesus Christ has not. In the scriptures, we see the one who has done this for us and calls us to this. Jesus paid the ultimate cost himself. And now he calls us to pick up our cross and to carry it and to follow him, not in order to receive salvation, but in response to the salvation that we already have. Christ calls us to the great commission. That means bringing the gospel to the end of the street and to the ends of the earth. And he gives us the Holy Spirit to fill us and to fuel us and to guide us as we live on mission for him, to reflect him in every aspect of our life, because faith is the driving force in our lives, strengthening us, strengthening us for the battle that we are in. Obadiah, in case you haven't picked up, Obadiah doesn't want to do this. God calls us to things that we do not want to do in our flesh. Obadiah doesn't want to do this. But Elijah knows that if you have faith as a driving force in your life, that will not allow you to stay comfortable. If you are comfortable, that is because faith is not the driving force in your life. And I'm not talking about the security that we have through faith in Jesus. I'm talking about are you called to things that you may not necessarily want to do for the Lord. Maybe for some of us in here, it's time to start being faithful and generous with our finances. Maybe for some of us in here, it's time to start committing to praying with our spouse. Maybe for some of us in here, it's time to start sharing the faith. And when I say sharing the faith, I mean speaking the name of Jesus to your coworkers. Does your faith call you or cost you anything? Our Wednesday night program for our young boys is called Bold Boys. Our Bold Boys and our Brave Girls program are I think some of the most special things we do here at the church. And every other Wednesday night, we have our Bold Boys program. Now God's been bringing a lot of great change and growth to Peace Church, and last year we realized, hey, we need a part-time position. This ministry is getting so big. We need to hire someone to help lead this on a part-time basis. And quickly, this man kind of like rose to the front as a possible candidate. His name is Samuel Thaler. Now Samuel Thaler is known to a lot of the boys in our program, but they don't know him as Samuel Thaler, they know him as Mr. Thaler. Because Mr. Thaler is the PE teacher at Lee Elementary for TK public schools. Now I liked Samuel. I thought he could be a great leader. I'm thankful he is a Christian in the public schools, but I wanted to have an honest conversation with him. Because here at Peace Church, we are not shy about proclaiming our beliefs that we know are very counter-cultural. And I wanted to have an honest conversation with him, so we went to the Mexican restaurant in Caledonia and I just said, man, I think you could do a great job in this position, but I want to have a real conversation right now. You're a public school teacher. Peace holds some very unpopular, but I believe 100% true beliefs. And I just want to have this conversation now because those could bump into one another and cause some friction. And I just want to have a real conversation now. And I'll never forget what he said. He said, maybe it's time I start feeling some pressure for my faith. And I said, you're hired. You're exactly the type of man that I want leading this program for our boys, which by the way, my two sons are in. You're exactly the type of guy that I want to see disciple my boys. Maybe it's time to start feeling some pressure for my faith. Amen. Church, as you rejoice in your faith and you celebrate what Christ has done, do this, but don't get comfortable. And I can tell you this, one of the things I know about the people in our area, I'm from this area, I'm born and raised, I bleed the same blood. Like, one thing I know about people in our area is don't mess with our time and don't mess with our money. Don't cost me either of those things. The other thing I know about, I'd say specifically the men in our area, is if I was to tell a man in our church, you are lazy at your job, Here's the left hook. But how many are hardworking at their job but lazy in their faith? Which do you think the world needs more of? Which do you think our culture needs more of? Now I believe that if you are hardworking at your faith, it'll lead you to be hardworking at your job because we're faithful in all aspects in our lives. But men, you can't be hard working at your job and lazy at your faith. You've got that backwards. And I'd say also you may be dealing with some idolatry in your life. Now listen, there are a thousand ways that every individual person could be challenged by a message like this. I know that I am. So here's what I'm going to allow to happen. I'm just going to let the Holy Spirit challenge you where you need to in the midst of this. Because a faith that drives our lives calls us to something costly. If your faith is not calling you to something or caution you anything then my estimation is that you're pretty comfortable. And that makes me wonder if you're on mission. That makes me wonder if you're actually pursuing Christ and following your Lord and Savior. Because a faith that drives our lives calls us to something costly. And secondly, a faith that drives our lives calls us to follow through. So Obadiah, back to our story, Obadiah is like, Elijah, you don't know what you're asking me to do. If I tell him you're coming and you don't come, I'm dead. I'm actually dead. He's going to kill me. I've seen it happen. And then Obadiah adds another layer to this story, kind of complicates it, and he confesses something. He says, I've already defied the king and queen. Listen to what the Bible says in verse 13. It says, Has it not been told to you, my Lord, speaking to Elijah, what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, and how I hid a hundred men of the Lord's prophets by fifties in a cave, and I fed them with bread and water? And now you say, Go tell the Lord, behold, Elijah is here. He will kill me. I'm already on thin ice see what had happened was that this wicked Queen Jezebel she had been clearing and cleaning house she wants to make bail worship the place of that like the worship for the people so she's killing the prophets of the true God and Obadiah rescues a hundred of them hides them in secret splits them up splits them up and then he personally takes care of them during this time. This would have been an immediate death sentence if this had been found out. Obadiah knows he's already on thin ice, but then listen to what Elijah says, verse 15. And Elijah said, as the Lord of hosts lives before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him, to Ahab today. And then look at this, verse 16. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him. He did the very thing he did not want to do. So Obadiah went to meet Ahab and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah. The confrontation, the face-off is going to happen next week. So make sure you come back because it's tremendous. So Elijah makes a commitment and then he follows through. He doesn't just call Obadiah to something costly. He puts himself on the line as well. Elijah follows through. So yes, Christians, church, yes, have people in your life who will call you out, who will grow your faith, who will challenge you to something costly. But listen to me, only if they themselves are doing it. It's a two-way street here, people. Make sure that I'm doing it too. Don't allow me to stand up here, elevated by everybody behind a pulpit, telling you to do something I'm not doing in my own life. You call me out as well. Because we are to do this together. We are all to follow through. Only have people who call you out, who they themselves are setting this example in their lives, like Elijah did for Obadiah. I wanna speak to the members of Peace Church for a moment. If you're visiting or not a member yet, you can listen in, but I want to speak to the members of Peace Church. Are you following through with your membership vows? Are you praying? I mean like praying, like pleading praying. Are you a praying person? Are you serving this church? Because the Holy Spirit has given you a gift to be used to build up his church. Are you serving? Where are you serving? Are you financially invested in the ministry of this church? Or are you happy letting someone else buy the heat that you get to enjoy every Sunday? Are you a person who is pursuing Jesus Christ with every breath you breathe? That's who the members of Peace Church are to be. That's the vows. We are comfortable in the sense that we are satisfied in Christ and we are secure in our salvation, but we're not comfortable when it comes to the mission. We get out there and we do the Lord's work because he's called us to. And don't you want a church like that in your community? That's who God has called this church to be and to continue to be. I look back and I think about those friends of mine who were there, who prayed with me to receive Jesus, who are no longer walking with Him. I think about all those teenagers that I went on mission trips with and knelt down in the slums of Tijuana and the backwoods of Kentucky and we prayed and we did the Lord's work, who are no longer walking with Him. I have these ghosts in my life that haunt me and I just am forced to ask the question, what does it take to make a faith that endures? Because here's what I'll tell you, that was 25 years ago. In 25 years, I want every person who can hear my voice right now to have a stronger faith then than they do now because you have a faith that endures. Do you want that too? When Jesus Christ was dying on the cross, actively taking the punishment for our sins, standing in the place where we should be hanging. When Jesus was dying on the cross, the last thing he said was, It is finished. Those are three words in English. It was one word in Greek, but in this phrase, do you know what Jesus was saying when he said, It is finished? He says, I have done what I set out to do. He was saying I have kept my promise. I have finished my mission. When Jesus said it is finished, you know what he was saying? He was saying you can follow me because I follow through. And because he does, we can trust him with our lives, every aspect of our lives, from our children to our health to our finances, because he's a God who follows through. Don't be a fake Christian. Don't just claim the name of Christ and faith not be the driving force in your life. Turn to the One who's calling to you. Repent. Turn from your sin. Place yourself in the arms of Jesus, the One who saves you, who invites us in, who stands us up, who cleans us up, who gives us a seat at his table in his house. I want to know, not just from a West Michigan quiet, mm-hmm, I want to know for real, who here knows that they are not a perfect person but they have a perfect Savior? That still sounded West Michigan of you. Who here knows they're not a perfect Savior. Amen. He is calling us to so much more but being comfortable is not one of them. Being silent is not one of them. He's calling us to a faith that drives our lives because He followed through. He's calling us and giving us a faith that endures. Amen. Would you please stand up. If you're looking at your life right now and you're realizing faith is not the driving force, if you're feeling challenged right now, then my prayer is not my words, it's the Holy Spirit working in you. So here's what I'm going to ask. For the people in this room, for the people in the chapel, for the people in the venue, let now be the moment where we let faith take over. Where we pursue Christ, we let it be the driving force in our life, where we develop a faith that endures, and one of the ways we do that is prayer. So make sure you are praying. Come and pray with someone after church, go into our prayer room, pray with someone, pray for someone, but also worship. Right now, if your faith is the driving force or you want it to be, then here's what I'd say, sing. Sing that the world would know who your Savior is. Sing so that the gates of hell would tremble. Sing because we have a Savior who is triumph, who is on the throne. Father, we come before you and I just pray, God, that here and now, by the power and presence of the Spirit and our faith in Jesus, you'd lift up this church to sing praises unto your name. Lord, we are in the house of the Lord, and the house of the Lord is where your people are gathered. That's here and now, so whether they are in the worship center, in the chapel, or the venue, Father, I pray that your church right now would lift up praises, because we are in the house of the Lord, our Lord, our good and gracious God, Savior and Spirit. It's in your name we pray and everyone It's in your name we pray and everyone said amen. Peace Church Sermon