Easter Sunday 2025

Easter Sunday - He Is Risen!

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Amen and Happy Easter! Okay, we gotta do it one more time. I know Pastor Andre did it again, but we gotta do it one more time. He is risen! He is risen! Amen and Amen. That is why we are here, right? We are here to celebrate, to acknowledge, to show our gratitude that not only did Jesus die for us, but He didn't stay dead. He rose from the grave and gave us power over sin and death, so we can have eternal life with Him. Again, I am so glad you are here today. I am Pastor Lauren, if I haven't had a chance to meet you. We have a packed service today, so we are just going to dive right into the Word. If you would turn with me to John 20, you can pull it up on your phones or Bible. We got Bibles in the seats in front of you. It will also be up on the screens if you need it as well. We are just going to read through. It is a good-sized chunk of Scripture, but we are going to read through when the disciples discover that the tomb is empty.

Read along with me. John 20, verses 1-18. Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put Him." So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there, but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus' head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally, the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him." Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni," which means "Teacher." Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news, "I have seen the Lord," and she told them that he had said these things to her. Amen? Amen.

The disciples have just been through a really tough weekend. They saw their Lord crucified and buried, and then they discover that his body has been taken. Jesus had told them that he would rise again, but they did not fully understand it. They go off and tell the other disciples what is going on. Mary is here, still at the tomb. She is weeping. She is distraught. She is in such deep grief. She is so involved and consumed with finding Jesus' body that she does not even recognize Jesus. I do not know, maybe she had tears in her eyes, or she was not even looking at him. She was just frantic. Or maybe his physical appearance had changed after the resurrection. But for whatever reason, she does not recognize him. Until he says her name. She was distracted and disoriented and grieving, but then Jesus said, "Mary." In only the way and tone and inflection that Jesus could, I imagine that she was not even looking at him, and he said her name, and she turned and she knew. Just because he was the only one who could say her name, just like that. Jesus called Mary's name, and she recognized him. One commentator about this passage that I was reading this week said, "Jesus revealed himself, not by who he was, but by who she was." You see, our identity is wrapped up in the resurrected Jesus. Our identity is who he says that we are. That because he rose from the grave, because he is resurrected, he has changed us. We become a resurrection people.

Because of his death and resurrection, we experience true freedom and a new identity in him. We are changed. We're a resurrection people. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone. The new is here." That is good news. It is good news. That because he died, because he paid the price for our sins, and then because he rose from the grave, we experience true freedom that can only come from him. And we have a new identity in who he says we are. On Good Friday a couple nights ago, we gathered together for a service to honor and reflect on his death. We read scripture, and we talked about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. Because the reality is the resurrection is amazing, but there is no resurrection if there is no death first. In our modern day, I think sometimes we forget how gruesome the crucifixion was, or we try to maybe separate ourselves. We read over the passages, and it's like, "Okay, he was crucified. The end. Move on." We don't necessarily let it sink in, the level of pain and anguish that he endured. But the reality is that it was awful. Jesus endured the cross for us. And only love would go to the cross for someone else. Only love would endure such excruciating pain for people that hated him, and despised him, and mocked him. Only love, only divine love, would stay on a cross when he could have gotten himself off. He chose to stay on that cross for us. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." He did it when we were still sinning, when we were still outside of relationship with him.

He died for us. What he did was this deep, beautiful, only God kind of love. And because of his sacrifice, our sins are forgiven. The price has been paid. There is no more price to be paid. Through his death and resurrection, he restored what was broken. He made us new, and he put his righteousness on us. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That means that we have now direct access to God. We can approach the throne of grace freely. There is nothing there to block us. Because of his death and resurrection, he put his righteousness on us. But we couldn't do this ourselves. He did it because he was the only one who could do it. He is perfectly God and perfectly man. He was sinless. And the reality was that God is holy, but he wanted a relationship with his people. And because God is holy, he cannot make himself less holy to stoop down to our level. He can't become less holy, so he had to make a way for us to be holy in order to be in relationship with him. He had to make us right. And only Jesus qualified as the perfect sacrifice. But now, because of that sacrifice, we have been set free, and we can have a direct relationship with God. But because Jesus was the only one who could do this, we have to remember that it wasn't by anything that we did. There is nothing that we can do that can save us. There's no amount of good works or living rightly, performing, producing. There's nothing we can do that we can earn our salvation. It's only by his sacrifice. It is only by the death and resurrection of Jesus that we can be saved. Now, for most of us, this is really good news. That we can't do anything to earn our salvation. We can't do anything to save ourselves. That's good news. But I imagine there's some of us in this room that maybe have a slightly different response. Maybe your initial reaction is, "But I don't deserve it. I've sinned too much, or I've been gone away from him for too long. I don't deserve that kind of gift." Or maybe you're thinking, "Okay, yeah, sure, but I have to do something to earn this, right? Surely there's something that I have to do to get this incredible gift. Or if nothing else, I have to do something to keep it. Maybe he'll give it to me, but I have to keep striving in order to keep hold of this thing that he has given me." Well, if you're in the first group of thinking that you don't deserve it, I'm here to tell you today, you're right. But that's the point. You don't deserve it. None of us do. But here's the thing, if you deserved it, you wouldn't need it. You wouldn't need the gift because you'd already saved yourself. And if you're in kind of that second group of thinking, it's just another, the other side of the same coin. You can't do anything to save yourself. There is no catch. There is no, "Okay, yeah, but." No, there is no, no, there's no, "Yeah, but." It just is a gift. Again, if there was a way for you to earn it, you wouldn't need his gift of salvation. I heard a pastor this week on a podcast talking about the things that we do as Christians. Good things, like, you know, praying and going to church and the good things we do out of our love for Jesus. And he said, "When we do those things, we are not earning, we are inheriting." We're not earning, we're inheriting.

Because the reality is when we accept Jesus' gift of salvation, we become adopted into his family. We are the sons and daughters of Christ. We are co-heirs with Christ. So by the power of his death and resurrection, we are adopted into the family of God. I had never caught this before, but in the John 20 passage we read earlier, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "Go tell my brothers," meaning the disciples, "Go tell them what you've seen." But before this, he had never called them that. He had called them servants. He had called them friends. But he had never called them brothers. But because of his sacrifice and his resurrection, they are now family. Their identity, again, back to that idea of identity, their identity has changed. We too are family. We have been adopted into the family of God. If we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, we are part of his family with all the rights and privileges of a son or daughter. When we have a legal adoption in our country, the child becomes part of that family. They have all the same rights and privileges of any other person in that family. Their parents are their parents. They get the same inheritance. They are a sibling. They are part of that family with all the rights and privileges of a natural-born child. They are brought in. They take on that name, their last name. They are part of that family. Galatians 4:7, "So you are no longer a slave, but God's child. And since you are his child, God has made you also an heir." There's nothing we have to do to earn this adoption status. Because we're not earning, friends. We're inheriting. If Jesus declares that you are forgiven and righteous and made new, and he does, then the literal only thing you have to do is to not fight against it, to not resist it. If you believe that he died and rose again and paid the penalty for your sins, then you're a follower of Jesus and you get to spend eternity with him in his glory and in his presence.

Friends, if you've already made the decision to follow Jesus, if you've declared that he is Lord of your life and received his forgiveness, then let this day be a day of celebration, like a birthday. Just a reminder of his goodness and his sacrifice and his love for you. Because it's such a powerful day. We get to celebrate Easter whenever we want as Jesus followers, but today is extra special, right? We get to really just focus in on it and celebrate it. But I have a little bit of a challenge for us as we wrap things up today. I want us to ask ourselves this question. Maybe just kind of take it into your week, think about it. But for those of us who call ourselves Christ followers, the challenge for us is how does my life reflect that his death and resurrection changed my life and my identity? How does my life, my words, my actions, my decisions, my priorities, my responses to things, how does that reflect his death and resurrection changed my life and my identity? Because it should. Your life should look different than the world's. Your life should look different than it did before. And friends, if you've never made the decision to follow Jesus, if you haven't surrendered your life to him, and you're wondering if Jesus maybe is for you, I just encourage you to consider that today. Consider that maybe he's calling you and he wants to change your identity. Jesus wants a personal relationship with you and he went to the cross for it. We are going to head into our time of baptisms today. But as you watch these people get dunked underwater and representing raised to new life, consider what that would maybe mean for you. That maybe today is the day that you surrender your life and enter into a relationship with Jesus.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for who you are. We thank you for raising from the dead. We thank you that not only did you sacrifice for us, but you chose not to stay dead. And we can declare that we serve a living God. We thank you that we get to celebrate your resurrection today through worship and the word and through the testimonies of those being baptized today. We love you, Jesus, in your name. Amen.

Palm Sunday 2025

Palm Sunday - Ushering In A Kingdom Unknown

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We're doing well? Yeah? Good, good. I see a lot of smiling faces today, which is always good, helpful for me. We just wrapped up our series called "The Ministry of Jesus" and looked at different aspects of His ministry in a three-year span, all to gain a deeper understanding of who Jesus was, what He did, so that when we come to the cross, when we come to Easter, our praise could be all the deeper, all the louder, having this deeper understanding of Christ's ministry. This week is Holy Week, Passion Week, as you know, I'm sure. This is the final week of Jesus' life before the cross, and it's a week packed with a lot of things. It's packed with important conversations, intense moments between Him and the opposition, the Pharisees, the religious leaders. He has in this week some final preparations to be made with the disciples. And then there's also a lot of emotions, painful tears that are shed as He readies His heart for what He is about to do. All of this leading up to the perfect Son of God being on the cross, taking on our punishment of sin and death, one that He didn't deserve. But we know that the story doesn't end with the death of Jesus. Obviously, we have Easter where we celebrate His resurrection. But this week, I just want to say, before we get there, it's important to go through this week. This week is a rollercoaster, ups and downs. We start with a good moment, but then we go into some lowest of lows before getting to the highest of highs. This is a week where the King of Kings, Jesus Christ, is treated like a criminal, a public nuisance, a problem that needed to be taken care of. But the beginning of Holy Week starts with this moment where He is, to some small extent, He's actually treated like a king. And as we'll see, it's a significant moment, not for reasons that people thought, but because it signifies our proximity to the cross. We're getting closer and closer to the most important moment in history.

So if you guys will, would you guys open your Bibles with me to Mark 11, Chapter 1. We'll have it on the screen as well. Mark 11, chapter 1 verse 1. It says this, "As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of His disciples saying to them, 'Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' say, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, 'What are you doing untying that colt?' They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, He sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, 'Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our Father David! Hosanna in the highest heaven!' Jesus entered Jerusalem, went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.”

Just pray with me one more time. God, as we open up your word, I pray that you would reveal your truth to us. God, that we would better understand this moment, what Jesus went through, and what it meant for this holy week. God, I pray that through your word that we would be encouraged and empowered to give more of who we are to you. So be with us during this time. We pray this in your name. Amen.

This is, of course, famously known as Jesus' triumphal entry. Merciful entries were a practice more done in the ancient world, where celebrating someone of significance, often a ruler or a military leader, they had a procession or a parade recognizing that person's accomplishments and celebrating what they have done. So in the Old Testament, we do have an example between David and Solomon, where King David is pretty much ushering Solomon in as the new king, also riding on a mule. That's a little important. We also have, later on in history, if you think of some of the greats, Alexander the Great, he had a procession into Babylon. Julius Caesar had one returning after a military campaign into Rome. Napoleon into Milan in Italy. More modern day, we think of maybe the royal family. I don't know if you guys follow the royal family, but King Charles had a procession ushering in his new reign as king. My mind, you guys know me, I'm a sports person, and I think of our modern day triumphal entry as probably going to be for a sports team. The tradition is, if that team wins a championship, they go back to that city, and they get on the double-decker bus or some cool sports convertible cars, and they have their trophy, and they bring it with them around the city as everyone's cheering, all the fans are there. We in Sacramento have no idea what that's like, because we have never won anything. Maybe if you come from the Bay Area, you celebrated those, I know it hurts, I'm like, I don't know what that's like, I would love to be there. We'll get it on, if the Sacramento Kings ever win a championship, I think Pastor Chris and I will be downtown celebrating that triumphal entry. Jesus's triumphal entry is probably the most famous in history, though it had a lot less pomp and circumstance than some of these other ones I mentioned. It still though is quite a scene here in the Bible, and it's a beautiful moment that demands a further look, because as we celebrate Jesus's triumphal entry, when we really peel back the layers of this moment, what Jesus went through, we'll find that it's a little more complex than just a hallelujah moment. Not everything is as it looks on the surface.

Instead, when we really look, we'll see that there's a people here with a misguided hope. We begin to see Jesus as that suffering servant king. And then also while everything is kind of going against him, that doesn't stop God from executing his plan, as his kingdom, God's kingdom, is a subversive kingdom. So our passage this morning sets the stage, harkening back to that triumphal entry from Solomon in the Old Testament, which is considered to be this golden era of Israel's history. And so the people are experiencing this, are there, and they're making connections. They're thinking, "Oh, this is from our history, I've seen this before, we know about this, this Jesus is important. This Jesus could be the one." But let's start to peel back the layers. So the people of Israel, the crowds, the religious leaders, and even the disciples, were a people with a misguided hope. As the people are shouting, verses 9 and 10, "Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David. Hosanna in the highest heaven." They are praising Jesus, that's a good thing, they can always praise Jesus, but for reasons that were not completely accurate, or not fully realized. They're praising him, but they don't even realize fully who Jesus is, or what his kingdom will look like. So we get this beautiful triumphal entry, praising Jesus as king, but not of a kingdom that they think of, that they know of. We talked about this in our series, Ministry of Jesus, this analogy from a few weeks ago. They walked into a Home Depot wanting to build a home, and they came out with all the wrong pieces and instead built a doghouse. So if the Old Testament is the Home Depot, it's got everything they need for the people to understand who the Messiah will be, they grabbed all the wrong pieces and they were looking to build the wrong thing, a lesser model, assembling the pieces of scripture, the prophets from the covenants, even past experiences, they came to their own conclusions about who the Messiah would actually be.

Let me ask you this question, do you guys know why on Palm Sunday, the people at this time waved palms in the air? If you were here for the morning huddle, you can't cheat and shout out the answer, because I gave it already. But the people waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna" because they have this genuine desire for liberation, but they also have this human propensity to control the means of salvation. See 150 years prior to this moment, there's a man named Judas Maccabeus who led the Jewish people to a victory over the Seleucid dynasty, which is the dynasty that was overruling Israel at the time. And after that victory, the crowd celebrated by waving palm branches in the air. And to commemorate that victory, Judas, whose nickname was the hammer, which is a pretty sick nickname, Judas the hammer, he stamped an image of palm branches on all of the Jewish coins to symbolize a victory for the Jewish people over their oppressors. So now we come back to Jesus' time, 150 years, and the Jewish people are again under foreign rule, this time by Rome, and they wave their palms in the air, shouting "Hosanna, save us!" And they're saying something to Jesus. They're in effect saying, "Rescue us, but do it like it's been done before. Do it like we know of that military campaign, of a revolt. Lead us again and deliver us." They had hope in Jesus, but it's a misguided hope, constructed from their limited ideas of what Jesus could be. They were thinking merely just of a better earthly existence, a better here and now. Maybe a king to elevate their status as Israel to be recognized around the world, or maybe a warrior to fight back against Rome, maybe a diplomat to get the nation ahead politically. They were limited in their expectations of Jesus, which led to this misguided hope. As we know, God had so much more for them in store, and for us. God sent his son Jesus to save. He came into the world to give so much more than just another golden era for Israel. He came to undo what sin had done, to defeat sin and death, to give salvation, to invite those who believe into an eternity with God. There would be no greater gift, but the people could not see this in that moment.

Pastor Richard Viotta says this, "On Palm Sunday, the crowds wanted deliverance from the power of Rome, but Jesus was about to deliver the entire world from the power of sin and death." Even the disciples, following Jesus year after year now, they did not fully understand what Jesus was about to do. And he had very open conversations with his plans with them. When we think about this tendency to have a misguided hope from Jesus, we are often guilty of this. We can be. We have a small mind or immediate limited view of what's happening. We don't always see how it's all fitting into the larger picture of God's plan for our lives. We get caught up in wanting the better earthly existence, the better here and now. And we want Jesus, we praise Jesus for what he can do, but sometimes we get our expectations fixed and maybe he won't do it the way that we think he will or should. So if we were to ask, you know, who has perfect perspective over everything, who sees the world with perfect wisdom? It's God. It's only God. It says in Isaiah 55, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declared the Lord, "as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." This is true of those people right there in the triumphal entry, that they're thinking only to this level, but Jesus has plans that are far greater.

So I want to ask us right now, do we have a misguided hope? Maybe at times. Are you expecting one thing of Jesus hindering you from seeing maybe the other things that he's doing in your life? Are you looking at scripture and only looking for things that affirm what you hope for, what you believe, quietly in your hearts demanding God to do something or to be someone that you deemed as the only possible solution? We might need to take a step back and continue to put our hope in Christ, but allow him to work in the way that he deems best, which we may not understand. We may not see as it's happening, because God is often working behind the scenes. That can be hard. It can be hard to be patient and to wait and to trust. I know for me, sometimes I am one who thinks between me and God, I'll have a conversation and say, "God, I figured it out for us. I figured out the plan. If God, if you could just do X, Y, and Z, if you could just follow my plan, you got the power. I came up with the plan." And I say it now and it sounds ridiculous, but I think we can kind of get into that habit of praying, "God, just do this. I figured it out. If you could just do this." We limit God and what he could do. It can be hard. It can be discouraging to go through that and not see how God is working. David writes about this in Psalm 42. It says, "Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." David has a little pep talk with himself, questioning why he's so down and feeling so anxious. And he reminds himself, he commands himself, "Put your hope in God." So do you have a misguided hope in Christ? And how can you trust God more fully in your life and your situation right now? All right, getting back to our scene here. Jesus is riding that colt. He sees the crowds. He hears their cries and knows that their hope is misguided, but he keeps riding. And what is he riding into? What situation is he entering into?

Well, he's riding into the climax of history here, where he will embody being a suffering servant king. One of my favorite tropes in stories and movies and books is the character that has the slow reveal of their true identity in the story. Specifically someone usually like high regard, nobility, who downplays their identity, keeps it a secret as to why they should be revered and instead chooses like the lowly, humble path. I think of my favorite book, Lord of the Rings. I think of Aragorn, maybe King Arthur in ancient history, or maybe Luke Skywalker for you sci-fi fans of someone who had an identity that wasn't known, but then as the story progresses, you see them enduring some injustice. They should be seen in a certain light, but they're not, until a moment or a couple of moments where their true character is able to shine and you get a cheer for them. You're like, "Yeah, that's right. That's what I'm saying. It's been amazing this whole time." I think we see that here with Jesus a bit. In this moment, there's a bit of everything. We see people who are giving him a royal entry. That's good, as we said, but it's not nearly enough for the God of the universe, for the Messiah who will give them eternal life. It's a little short-lived. As he rides into the praises of the people to a grassroots royal entry, because typically these were given by the city, the city would kind of order, "Hey, here's what's happening." But this one just kind of happened. The people gathered, they started raving the palm branches. He's not riding into the glitz and the glamour of everything, but into a moment where he will suffer in a way that no one has ever suffered, bearing the weight of all sin while being crucified. It says in verse 11, "Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12." Again, usually following these royal entries, this figure, whoever was being celebrated, would be housed and entertained, wined and dined. It was a big thing. It just didn't end with the procession. It was like, "Let's welcome you into our finest house. Let's throw a party." And one scholar writes that Jesus, not doing any of that, and instead departing, suggests that this city and his house, as Malachi had warned in the Old Testament, they're not ready for him. The people, again, are expecting an earthly ruling king, but Jesus is a suffering servant king. He's going to suffer, and every sense of the word will suffer emotionally, spiritually, physically, mentally with what he will endure. And yet he serves. He washes the nasty, stinky feet of the disciples. He teaches with compassion and love. He gives food to the hungry. Heals the broken. He serves by giving of himself. He is a suffering servant king. With all this on his mind, as he rides into the city, Jesus knows. He knows that his own people will turn on him. He knows that his own disciples will betray and deny him. He knows that he's going to be tortured and beaten, mocked and scorned, and that he would have to give his own life. And knowing all of this, feeling the weight of all of this, he rides forward. He enters the city, and he continues that redemptive plan. What a king. What a king. What a leader, someone who would suffer for his own people, who would endure pain and death, who would give his own life for a people who had no knowledge that this is the plan.

Now while that leads us to praise Jesus for all that he did, it should also make us ask something of ourselves. Are we prepared to suffer and serve like Jesus? We are called to be like him. Philippians 2 5 says, "Have the same mindset as Christ." And later in that same chapter, Paul writes, "For it is God who works in you, to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." You have to have the same mindset as Jesus being ready to suffer and serve for God's kingdom. Because God is working, continuing his redemptive plan through us today, as we live like Christ. First John 2 says, "Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did." Again, ready to suffer and serve. And then Peter connects the dots for us even more clearly. First Peter 2 says, "But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps." We are adverse to suffering. It's true, we don't like it. We often build our lives around how to, we build our lives being able to suffer as little as possible. And I'm not saying that we need to seek out suffering, and don't hit me on that. But we should expect and be prepared and know that we will suffer for his kingdom if we are following Jesus. It may mean being betrayed by people, being mocked and scorned, hopefully not torture or beaten. But, I don't want to say this lightly, but if that were the case, would you be ready to do that, to follow Jesus, to follow his example? And we need to serve, not just be served. Jesus the Messiah, God overall, again, served in so many different ways, got dirty with his disciples washing their feet. Are you looking to get your hands dirty to serve those in need for his kingdom? And our reward may not be an earthly one. We're not doing this to say, "Hey, if I do this, again, my here and now, my life on earth is going to be better." It may not. It probably won't. But our reward is in heaven. And the goal, I hope you have this goal, this desire that when you get to heaven with God, he's going to look at you and say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." And he's going to have those moments in mind where you suffered and you served, and he's going to be thanking you. "Good job. That's exactly what I wanted." So are we prepared to suffer and serve for Jesus and like Jesus, who was our suffering servant king?

Something so different than the Israelites were hoping for, something so different than our world today values and admires, which leads us to this point that God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom. As I was studying this week, I was struck by the way that God continues to move his kingdom forward. Even when on the surface things are so chaotic and misunderstood or even against him, his kingdom is a subversive kingdom. His will and his power, his goals keep happening underneath the surface. If you think of it like a river and on the surface and the waters are flowing downstream are chaos, misunderstanding, confusion, opposition. Yet underneath all of that, God's will keeps moving upstream. Doesn't matter. We may not see it. We may not see how he's doing it, but his will is going to happen. He's able to do amazing things all underneath the surface. As the misguided hope of the people is desiring Jesus take an earthly throne, God is still at work to establish his heavenly throne. As the religious leaders are plotting against Jesus, getting everyone with influence and power to join force and to take Jesus down, God is still at work, still moving upstream. And even while Jesus will face his death and his time on earth will come to an end, God is still at work. On the surface, things may look confusing, chaotic, but underneath it all, God is still at work. God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom. This is a theme that goes all the way back to the Old Testament. Quick story in the Old Testament. We think of Joseph in Genesis and he's the one that was sold into slavery by his brothers, seemingly to his death, but God amazingly brings what was intended for misfortune to bring Joseph to be second in command over all of Egypt. And there's a moment where his brothers come to Egypt for food because they're about to die and Joseph has this to say to them after he has that big reveal like, "It's me, your brother. I'm alive." He says, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." Despite all the things working against Christ, God still uses it for his good. God's kingdom is a subversive kingdom, disrupting this world of sin with his love, undermining the selfishness and pride with a kingdom of humility and service, challenging the elite and the strong by valuing the poor, the lost, and the least, fighting against corruption and deceit with truth and divine authority. God and his kingdom persevere, endure. They cannot be stopped.

Proverbs 21, 30 says, "There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan that can succeed against the Lord." Do we believe that today? Do you guys believe that? That nothing, nothing as awful as this world is and the things that go against God and how he created things, nothing can stop him. I hope and pray that that is comforting and brings you hope. I want to ask you this. Are you partnering with God in his subversive kingdom? As the currents of society, of culture are heading one way, are you trusting God as we followers of Jesus head the other way? Do we believe and hope and know that despite all the chaos of the world and all the efforts of humanity to pursue selfishness and pride and pleasure, do you know that God is still at work? But there is always hope in him that nothing can succeed against him. Are you confident and assured in God and his kingdom? Or are you prone to fear? Are you prone to anxiousness, to worry, to doubt, to division? God encourage you to partner with God, work with him, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in ways that are unseen for a time before the plan is really made known, but to trust him, to pray about those opportunities where he's going to use you and be ready for that opportunity. As we look around at the messiness and the unknown and the brokenness of this world, it's easy to be all doom and gloom about it. But instead, we can see an opportunity for Jesus to save, for God to work, to know that the God we serve can take what is intended to harm and use it for his good, that no scheme or plan that goes against his kingdom will succeed. How does that change your outlook? Knowing that, how does that change your day to day? How might that help us to join in, not on the fear mongering, but on sharing the gospel? Instead of continuing to pass down fear to other people as they're sharing fear with you, how might you combat that with, "You know what? I'm actually not worried. And my hope and my security comes from something not of this world. It comes from God. Because I know that he has me, I'm going to be okay, that he is working through the midst of all this around us, sharing a hope that is found in Christ." We know that Jesus rescues us in ways we often don't understand at the beginning. We look back and are able to see, "Oh, that's what God was doing. I didn't know this at the time. I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't know." But after this, this, and this, that brought me to Jesus. That brought me to this place where I could see that I needed him, that he could rescue me. Jesus rescues us in ways we often don't understand. The biggest in history was through the surprising and apparent powerlessness of the cross. If someone were to draw up the rescue plan, I do not think that they would have themselves dying to save everyone on the cross of all things, not a noble, glorious death, but as Pastor Chris said, a criminal death. And yet, we all know today, we live in the power of the cross.

So as we close, I just want to say this. There were those with a misguided hope in this crowd on Palm Sunday at the triumphal entry. They had a misguided hope in Jesus. They forgot that he was, or they didn't know that he was a suffering servant king. They didn't see how God's kingdom was a subversive kingdom working things through all this opposition. But we can learn from Christ's triumphal entry all these years later that during Palm Sunday, as they're welcoming Jesus with the triumphal entry, again, they were ushering a kingdom unknown to them, but it's a kingdom that's been made known to us today. Through his word and through the power of the Holy Spirit, a kingdom that we who believe in Jesus as our Savior are a part of and get to be partners with God in this kingdom. We can help make this kingdom made known to more and more people today. So our prayer as you enter, again, we have those cards. We have, and really that's just an exercise of, we hope you're doing that all the time, that you are praying for opportunities to share the gospel, that you have friends, relationships that are forming there. You're praying for a moment where maybe they bring it up and they say, "Hey, I want to meet and talk to you about something." Or maybe Spirit's going to prompt you to have that conversation. But partner with God in this kingdom and making it known to other people. And through this week, through Holy Week, and if you're on our email list, you're going to get some emails about what each day of Holy Week means and where to maybe spend some time in prayer and reflection on those Holy Days. But at the end, we'll come together next week praising God for the fact that he has risen. Amen?

Let's pray. God, again, we come before you just thankful for this, for your scripture, God, for your truth and a chance that we get to learn from it. And we look back knowing that the people at that time didn't know what kind of king you would be, why they were fully praising you. But God, we know today. So on Palm Sunday, as we look back at that triumphal entry, we want to give you all the praise for the king that Jesus is. The suffering servant king who gave us eternal life, who took on our sin and punishment of death for us so that we could have eternal life with him. And God, as we walk forward in this week, I pray, Lord, that we would spend time each day reflecting on what Jesus went through. The cleansing of the temple, to the teachings with the disciples, to the night that he was betrayed, to the death that he faced on the cross. God, I pray that we would be okay with mourning a bit, with recognizing our sin and bringing it before Jesus, knowing that without him and his sacrifice on the cross, we would be doomed. There is no hope. So God, be with us, give us hope, help us to see that hope and to have a mind and to see opportunities to share that with other people this week. I pray that you would give us boldness, the words to say, and you would bring about those opportunities, God, and that your spirit would be so strong in that moment that we can't help but say something. Just invite them to church, invite them to hear the truth. We trust you, we love you, we give you our everything. We pray this in your name. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 6

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 6: The Opposition of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, I'm excited today to be with you guys and to wrap up this series that we've been in for the last five weeks, six weeks now, focusing in on the ministry of Jesus, going from the past and what he did and changing and shifting that into how does that apply for us in our today's world. The first week we kicked off, we talked about the parables and a third of everything that we have recorded of what Jesus said is actually a parable. That's pretty impressive. And how Jesus would find these simple stories and yet take deep theological complex concepts and ideas and be able to break them down for us and make them really simple for everybody who was there listening. And then the week after that we had Pastor Phil here and he talked about the calling of Jesus and how that is to follow him and to go. And he shared with us the missional movement of Eastern Germany in the 1700s called the order of the mustard seed and the order and the vow for the order of the mustard seed was to be true to Christ, be kind to people and to share the gospel to the nations. And they are even now today still active around the globe. And then Pastor Lauren shared with us about the healings of Jesus and how they demonstrate his power. They demonstrate his compassion and they show the coming kingdom of God. And when we truly put our faith in Jesus, healing happens. It's either here on earth or on the other side of heaven in eternity. And then Pastor Andre talked about how Jesus fulfilled scripture and focused in on the story of the temple where Jesus showed up and called out some crooks that were trying to take advantage of people worshiping. And Jesus shows us that in that there is no place in the church for commercialization, monopolization or any humans being stopped in any way from being able to worship God. It revealed who Jesus was and his purpose here on the earth to die on the cross for us. And then last week Pastor Andre shared about the signs and wonders or the miracles of Jesus. And that the purpose of Jesus' miracles were to reveal his divine identity. To strengthen our faith and to just demonstrate the kingdom of God in our world today. And he asked a really good question. He's like, "Do miracles still happen today?" Yes, they do. Maracles still happen today. You and I are actually a living, breathing miracle. And that we are to have faith in his power, trust in his compassion and have hope in his resurrection.

Today we're going to wrap up talking about Jesus and the oppression that Jesus faced during his time here on earth. But I want to ask you, have you ever faced opposition when you knew you were doing the right thing? Have you ever fought against that in your life? Well, I'll tell you that Jesus did. Jesus had opposition from friends, from family, from those who should have supported him. And he knows exactly how that feels. Throughout the ministry of Jesus, he faced relentless opposition. From the very start of his ministry to the final breath that he breathed on the cross. It wasn't random. It was direct opposition to who Jesus was. And he shows us how to stand firm in that purpose that God has for each of our lives. Jesus faced opposition from the enemy, his family, his hometown, the religious leaders of that day, the elite of the church. And yet in every instance, he triumphed over it with divine wisdom, authority, purpose. Specifically using scripture as his weapon. Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, your presence has been felt in this place. So I pray, Lord, as we dive into your ministry and the life that you lived here on earth. God I pray that you would transform our lives. You would speak to our hearts. You'd pull back the layers of our soul. We would learn deeply from you today of how you want us to live our lives. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

Right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry was when Jesus was 30 years old. So Jesus lived his life up to 30 and then had this incredible moment in the Jordan River. His cousin, John the Baptist, was in the river baptizing people. And Jesus shows up and gets baptized by his cousin. And it's this powerful moment in the Bible, if you were to read it. And where we see the trinity of God and his three personhood revealed. Jesus in the Jordan River. God the Father vocally speaks from heaven. And the Holy Spirit descends down as a dove. This is a powerful, incredible moment in the ministry of Jesus. And immediately after that, he heads out into the desert. And he's starting his ministry focusing in on fasting in the desert, listening to God as he begins this next three years of his journey on earth. And immediately he's tempted by the devil. How fitting is that, right? How many of you have had like these powerful God moments in your life? And I remember a professor in college, he called it thin spaces. Where you felt like the distance between you and heaven or you and God was just so thin. It was just like God was right there in that moment. And then maybe later that day, maybe that next week, soon after, the enemy is just pouncing on you. Right? That's how it works, unfortunately. And that's what the enemy tries to do when we have these spiritual highs, these incredible moments with God that deepen our faith. The enemy doesn't like it. And Jesus isn't immune to that either. It says this in Matthew chapter 4. When Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, after fasting 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry. I would think so. I would be hungry after four hours and four hours. The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." Oh, that's tempting. Jesus answered, "It is written," right back at you with some Bible, Satan, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the truth of God." Then the devil took him to a holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. "If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, and he will not let you lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'" Jesus comes back at him again. "It is also written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and all their splendor. "All of this I will give you," the devil said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan, for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.'" Then the devil left him and the angels came and attended him.

Immediately following the baptism of Jesus, the enemy comes at Jesus. Right after, opposition, moment one, boom, hits. And hits him at a weak point. Forty days, forty nights fasting. I don't know if you guys have ever done an extended fast. Forty days. And there's a direct assault from Satan. Satan tempts him with physical needs, with food, with bread. He tempts him with pride. Jump, the angels are going to catch you. And power to have the kingdoms of the world. Jesus didn't flinch. Even being tired and hungry and weak and worn out, he didn't flinch a second. But threw the word of God back at the devil. I love that. It wasn't his words. It was a word of God from the Bible. It's from Deuteronomy. For food, he said, "It is written in Deuteronomy 8:3, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'" Deuteronomy 6:16 is also written, "Do not put your Lord to the test." Deuteronomy 6:13, "Away from me, Satan," he says. For it written, "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only." Satan attempts to quote scripture, to throw it at God. And yet, he's twisting it. He's manipulating it. He's making it look and sound good, right? I don't think anybody would have blamed Jesus for doing any of these things. He's Jesus. But he understood what was at stake here. There was something more going on in this moment. And the enemy knowing that he had just had this incredible moment in the Jordan River, beginning his ministry, knowing that for the next however many years, Satan was going to have to attack this guy and attack this guy and attack this guy. If he said, "If I can knock him down right here, I can have victory." But Jesus stood his ground. It was no surprise to Jesus. And I love... Satan tries to use scripture to attack Jesus. And what does Jesus do? Comes with the truth of scripture. It's like using exactly what your enemy is using against you. You just turn around and go on it right back the other way. It's amazing. I love how Jesus does this stuff.

And see, what the thing is that Satan's tactics haven't changed. He does the same thing to us. He does the same thing to me. He gets in my head. He comes at me. And he says, "Oh, yeah. You're a pastor, right? You're supposed to have it all figured out. You're supposed to know all this Jesus stuff. You're not doing it right. Oh, you messed up over there. You messed up over here. How could you call yourself a pastor?" Satan does the same thing over and over again. And he loves to come at us when we're vulnerable, right? He loves to come at us in those moments. But I love how Jesus uses the power of God's word to resist. We have access to that. We have God's word. Jesus didn't come up with some new tactic to come after Satan. Jesus used Scripture from the Old Testament, hundreds of years old, words of God. Jesus uses in that moment against Satan. And unfortunately, this was just the beginning.

Opposition didn't stop with the devil, but it came a little closer to home. It says in Mark 3:21, "When his family, being Jesus' family, heard about this, they went to take charge of him, and they said, 'For he is out of his mind.'" Isn't family supposed to be that one that loves and cares and nurtures you and is the most supportive of you, right? If you don't have a supportive family, Jesus didn't either. It says on in Matthew 13 57, "And they took offense at him, being Jesus. But Jesus said to them, 'A prophet is without honor, except in his own hometown and in his own home.'" Those closest to Jesus, who knew Jesus growing up, little baby Jesus, tiny, tiny toddler Jesus, junior high Jesus, high school Jesus, carpenter Jesus, but then it stopped there. All they could see in this man was a carpenter from Nazareth. They didn't understand the bigger thing that was happening in the life of Jesus and in their world that was right in front of them. His family thought he was crazy. His hometown couldn't see or understand who he was. He was hated. And yet, he didn't stop. It hurt. It had to hurt. Being Jesus growing up with, say, I don't know, Uncle Steve around you, and you become Jesus and Uncle Steve rejects you for who you are. You're like, "I built your dining room, Seth." Don't you see? Jesus faced rejection from those who should have known him the best. See, I think it's one thing to be rejected from people who don't understand you, who have no idea who you are, or what you're doing, or know nothing about you.

For those who don't know, my father is a retired fire captain, and I grew up around the firehouse. And actually, my mother's father, my grandfather, was a firefighter as well. And so growing up, I would get asked the question, "Are you gonna go into family business? Are you going to also be a firefighter?" And I thought for a while, maybe I was. And in junior high, I tried it. I joined the cadet program and did the workouts and got CPR trained and first aid and did drills and do all this stuff. But it just wasn't what, there's just something missing about it. And because at the same time, God had begun to grow inside of me a passion, a heart for the church and for people and for people to know Jesus and to find hope in his gospel. And so I'd try it, and I would be around the firehouse a lot going on calls, being able to shadow and do ride-alongs with my dad. And people would ask me, other, his fellow firefighters would ask me, and I would just politely smile and say, "No." And they didn't understand. But that's okay. They didn't understand what God was doing in me to bring me to where I am today. All they saw was the generational firefighters and that I would just follow in suit. If I was becoming a firefighter, I couldn't have a sweet beard, so it was like a deal breaker. Unless I joined Cal Fire.

But the reality was that Jesus was rejected by people who didn't understand him. But Jesus was also rejected in opposition of those that he cared about. His blood, his family, his people, his cousins, his aunts, his uncles, those around him. They called him crazy. Maybe you're in that place in your Christian walk. Maybe you're the only Christian in your family. Or maybe your family is the only one who are Christian. I experienced this growing up. My aunts, my uncles, my cousins, they don't understand why I do what I do. They don't understand that our family of why we attend church, why we take time from a perfectly good weekend to come inside and sit down and to sing songs and do karaoke together. And then to listen to some dude talk about this old dusty book. They don't understand it. And there's opposition there. So if you face that in your family, don't feel alone in that. Jesus lived that. He walked that journey. And yet, he kept going forward. He understood the purpose, the calling, the reason why he was here on earth.

See, if family opposition stung, the religious leaders turned into their opposition as a campaign. It says in Matthew chapter 22:15, it says, "Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words." They said, "Tell us then, what is your opinion to Jesus here?" Trying to mess with him. Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? The Pharisees did this relentlessly. The scribes, the epitomized leaders or religious greats of the day came after Jesus time and time again, trying to discredit him at every moment that they could. They tried to trip him up with questions to mess with him. They would throw misquoted scripture. That sounds familiar, right? The enemy? Misquoted scripture. They would throw man-made Jewish rules at Jesus. Ain't nothing that God ever commanded it. But what they decided to use to control people, they would throw cultural sayings at Jesus. They would try to make these things sound biblical or scriptural, but they were far from the heart of God. Because they didn't like what Jesus was doing. Jesus was bringing the word of God to the people. The religious leaders wanted to control the people. And Jesus came to stop them along the way to his journey to the cross. Twisting scripture. Trying to get Jesus to say something to reveal that he really wasn't the son of God. To prove that they were smarter than this guy. That they were more religious or they were elite. They were better than just this carpenter from Nazareth. But Jesus always had the absolute perfect answer. I love this. Sometimes he would answer with a question. Not only to answer their question, but to kind of dig a little deeper. Sometimes the question would sting in return. Jesus would have such eloquent words to say that he could just put people in their place and humble them with a simple sentence.

He does this in Matthew 22:21 in response to that question of Caesar. He said to them, "Get back to Caesar's," what is Caesar's? "And give to God what is God's." This is an ultimate mic drop moment from Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Boom. Booyah. NBA Jam. Boom Shakalaka. Alright? In this moment, Jesus corrects their misuse of God's word showing them his authority and his purpose. And over time, there were people in the religious world that saw his truth. Saw the way he handled himself and conducted himself and were drawn to it. Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee himself, began to come to Jesus as knight and fear for his own ridicule from the others. But ultimately, in the end, came forward in public and said, "Jesus is the Son of God." People are drawn to the truth. It says in John 8:32, "Jesus says, 'Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.'" Truth is enticing to people, right? I think deep down inside we all want to know what the truth is, right? Jesus' truth is the truth that will set you free. Jesus turned their traps into testimonies of truth. And in every confrontation, there was a battle with sin that was going on. Whether it was selfishness, whether it was pride, whether it was just pure evil, Jesus never backed down.

See, when we look at the responses of Jesus, we see divine wisdom. We see God's authority. And we see God's purpose. Against Satan, he quoted the book of Deuteronomy to affirm his dependence in God and on God's words. Against the family in his hometown, a rejection. He accepted as a part of his prophetic call. Against the religious leaders of the day, he interpreted scripture rightly, truthfully, and rejected and exposed their hypocrisy. And every single time that Jesus did this, whether it was with opposition or confrontation, each encounter was straightforward. It wasn't desired or wanted. I don't think Jesus would wake up every day and go, "Okay, which Pharisee am I taking out today?" Like, that's not Jesus. That wasn't his heart. But Jesus also wouldn't back down. Jesus wouldn't shy away. I don't know about you in this room, I don't like confrontation. It's one of the things that I despise most in this world. But sometimes God asks us to confront people in the name of Jesus. And when we look at his example of how he conducted himself, it was amazing that every single time through his mission and his purpose, that he revealed to the world who he was and continued to point people towards the Heavenly Father. It was never about Jesus. It was always about God. And ultimately it was about him humbling himself, getting himself freely on the cross for our salvation and redemption, which we will celebrate here in just a few short weeks. But along the way, there were people who wanted to get in the way of that mission. There were people who didn't like what Jesus stood for. The enemy did not want Jesus to be successful. And yet at the exact same time, Jesus spoke with truth in defending himself. And at the same time he advanced God's kingdom. This is incredible. It's this combination to teach with love and to set people straight, all wrapped up in truth. It's like the perfect one-two punch. I think of a boxer who doesn't just sit there and just defend himself and just get into the corner and take it. But I think of an elite boxer who is able to defend and turn it into an offense. Christ had this amazing way to size up to the opponent. Because Jesus wasn't always compassionate or soft, and Jesus wasn't always aggressive and over the top. Jesus had this way to meet people where they were, whether it was the woman caught in adultery that he just had compassion on her. When he could have thrown scripture in her face, he knew what she needed. And yet at the same time, like Pastor Andre talked about a few short weeks ago, Jesus rose up to the occasion of the temple and went after those who were trying to manipulate worship for their own advancement, for their own profit, for their own selfish gain. Jesus would not back down. He was not pushover. He was not timid. But at the same time, he wasn't over the top, aggressive in your face. His response was always perfect, warranted, and appropriate.

So what can we learn from Jesus, from then for our world today? I think we can take a look at ourselves and ask us the question of, when we face opposition, how will we respond? When we face temptation or misunderstanding or outright hostility, how will we react? I think our response should be threefold. Our response should be what Jesus did and to arm ourselves with scripture. Are we memorizing scripture? Are we in his word daily? Are we seeking God with his wisdom and everything that he's given to us? Do we search for his truth in the Bible? The second thing, we need to trust God's wisdom and his authority. We need to take steps of faith to when we get in these moments, that maybe we just need to keep our mouth shut because God's the one who needs to do the talking, not us. That's hard to do. That's really hard to do. And I think the third thing in this is we need to shine God's light. We need to let these moments in which we trust in God, in our opposition, to begin to think about how can God be glorified through this moment? I think a practical step for us this week would begin to memorize scripture even from what I talked about today. Whether that's Matthew 4, "That man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God." You can memorize that this week, no problem. Write it on a post-it, put it in front of you, stick it in your car, stick it on a mirror, put it by your bed. Change the screen wallpaper on your phone so every time you go to your phone, you're looking at God's Word. Put it in front of you every single moment. Or maybe Deuteronomy 6:13, "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only." Or maybe it's Matthew 22:37, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind." Put those words on our hearts. There have been times when I felt attacked and oppressed by the enemy. And thankfully growing up, my mother helped me to memorize scripture. And so I can draw back on those moments to remember those words to use against the enemy. And the enemy goes away, guys. The opposition isn't forever. The enemy can't stand against the Word of God.

See, Jesus faced all of this and he won. He's with us in our battles. We talked about battles this morning in worship. We talked about breaking chains. We talked about the power of God. Don't pick these songs flippantly. You've already sung it this morning. You've already proclaimed truth against the enemy if you were singing with us this morning. If not, the words of God have washed over you and have anointed you. Even if you're not singing, the Word of God is still penetrating your heart. And Jesus said, "Of that which will not turn void." I love what it says here in Hebrews. It says, "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we do have one who has been tempted in every single way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." From the wilderness to his hometown to the streets, Jesus faced the enemy, family rejection, and religious leaders. Yet, every single time he triumphed over them with divine wisdom, authority, purpose, all rooted in Scripture. The opposition couldn't stop Jesus, but it was revealed in him. How about we have a week of letting Christ be revealed in us against all of our opposition? Amen? Amen.

Pray with me, Jesus, we thank you for your truth. Jesus, we thank you for your gift of just you living your life here on earth, going against all sort of opposition, and coming up victorious in the end. Jesus, we thank you for your example, and we thank you for the truth that you are with us in all of our battles. That you are fighting for us, you are carrying us, you are sustaining us. And no matter what tactic or trap or trick or whatever the enemy has to try to come at us, from whatever angle through whoever that is, God, we know that you are with us and we will come out on the other side victorious. And so, Jesus, I pray over us this week as we go, as the enemy attacks, God, that we will not fall for his tricks. That we will stay focused and rooted in your scripture to let your truth cover us and protect us this week. And to guide us, Jesus, in the way of your salvation and in your grace and your mercy, ultimately standing strong to shine the light of the glory of Jesus in our lives to saturate our communities around us. Jesus, we thank you, we praise you, we love you this day. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 5

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 5: Miracles of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I want you guys to imagine witnessing someone be able to heal the blind, someone that could calm storms, someone who could feed thousands and even raise the dead back to life. And if you were there witnessing this person day after day doing these incredible, miraculous things, how would you respond? Would you be just in awe and wanting to follow and give everything to a person displaying such divine authority? Or would you condescend or jeer or doubt who he says he is and what he's doing? You know, it's true that when we witness something amazing, even today, we'll see that for those who have faith, God is one of the first things that comes to mind. You see something incredible, you see something powerful, you see something miraculous. As Christians, our first thought is, "God?" Or if it's not first, it's like, "How did this happen? Okay, God, is this you?" For those who don't believe, the miraculous leads to nothing. There is no explanation or any thought that they can think of robs them of seeing the divine. So we're going to look at today these moments where people who were following Jesus at that time were met with this decision. How are they going to respond to someone that is doing miraculous things? For those of you who are new, just a reminder for everyone, we're in our Ministry of Jesus series. We're almost to the end. And again, as we progress in our series, as we see more of who Jesus is, his purpose of his ministry, we are being pointed to the cross. Hopefully we're being drawn further into his presence and desiring to worship him even more as we come to a deeper understanding of who he is.

So far, we've covered the parables, Jesus is teaching how he often taught. We've covered the disciples being discipled, the 12, and then also the call for us today to be discipled by Jesus and his word. We've talked about his healing ministry, and then last week we talked about how Jesus fulfilled scripture and is the fulfillment of scripture. And again, hopefully throughout this series, you've been challenged to think this is what the Ministry of Jesus looked like, and the Ministry of Jesus is continuing today through the church, through us as the church. Am I participating in the Ministry of Jesus? Are these aspects of the Ministry of Jesus alive in the church, and am I partnering with God to do the work that he has for the world today? So we're going to continue in our learning of his ministry and reflecting on that being true of our faith today, and today we're going to get into the miracles of Jesus. Would you guys pray with me one more time really quick? God, thank you again for our time together. Be with me right now as you have a word to share, God, and I pray that all of us would hear your truth. And again, as we study your word, God, I pray that we be brought closer to you and just -- for those who have been walking with Jesus all their lives, or if it's just been a recent endeavor -- God, I pray that you will continue to pull us towards you, reveal more of who you are, that we will come to a place of further worship, further awe, and giving you more and more praise. We pray this in your name. Amen.

So, again, we're talking about miracles today and how they aren't just supernatural events, but they are divine, they are purposeful, and they reveal who Jesus is, the power and authority that he has, as well as the compassion that he has on the people, and also the fact that miracles are this invitation for people to know him more. We've been covering a lot in this -- let me just pause for a second. Have any of you been to California Adventure? Or -- yeah, some of you? Yeah, like recently? Yeah. One of my favorite rides is Soaring Over California, though I don't know if it's always that, but Soaring Over California, if you don't know, it's that you're in a ride, your feet dangle, and you're just going over all of California, and then my favorite part is when you go over the orange grove and they would spritz that orange, and you just smell it, and you're like, "Oh, I'm there." But that's kind of what we're doing in our series, all that to say that we are just soaring over the ministry of Jesus. Each week could be its own series of going into the parables of Jesus, going into the healing, and the miracles today, we are just soaring over the miracles of Jesus, okay? So I would really encourage you, in your time, if something sparks your interest, to take time in your personal study to dive deeper into the miracles. Let me start with just a definition of miracle. I think that will be helpful for us today, right? So we have a definition, which is, "A miracle is an unexpected outpouring of God's power in an event that defies ordinary explanation, which occurs for the purpose of the advancement of God's kingdom." I'll read that again. "Miracle is an unexpected outpouring of God's power in an event that defies ordinary explanation, which occurs for the purpose of the advancement of God's kingdom." Miracles are probably one of the most famous aspects of Jesus' ministry. Even people who do not believe in Jesus recognize that there was a guy who did amazing things that were unexplainable thousands of years ago. But I want to remind us really quick that miracles didn't just happen in the time of Jesus.

Our entire Bible is full of miracles. So I want to take a moment just to gather some history. If we go back into the Old Testament, there are plenty of signs and miracles. I'm going to be using signs and miracles interchangeably this morning. So in the Old Testament, there are plenty of signs. Signs in the Old Testament were given to warn people. They were given to execute divine judgment. And they were given to deliver people from oppression. They were also used to guide and mark sacred times. Each of those reasons points people back to God. If you're thinking of like your Old Testament history, think of Exodus. Just page after page of miraculous signs, signs, signs. God saying, "I'm trying to get your attention. Look at me. You can trust me." And he had to do that often with the Israelites in the Old Testament because they would get distracted a lot. They would be like, "God, you're awesome." And then they just start wandering away. I don't know if you ever like taught Sunday class here or been around little kids and you have their attention and you're teaching them something and then all of a sudden, like two minutes in, they're like, "What's this?" And you're like, "Hey, come back. Hey, come back." And God's like doing that with miraculous signs. Like, "Hey, look at me. Look at this water coming out of a rock. Pay attention to me." The signs that God intended, that he used were intended to teach his people to know and rely on him. It was never about the powerful signs themselves. Instead, it was about bringing the people of Israel to a place where they trusted Yahweh and saw that he was worthy of their trust.

And now we go to the New Testament, similar intentions of the miracles that we see in the New Testament to deliver from oppression to mark sacred times, to bring God to all nations. And we see this, but there is actually more because in the New Testament, we get the ultimate sign. We'll get to that later in a second. A little teaser. Miracles and signs are all throughout every one of the gospels. I'm talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. However, these authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, vary slightly in their approach to explaining and writing about the miracles. So Matthew, the book of Matthew, uses miracles to portray Jesus as the fulfillment of God's promise to raise up a prophet like Moses. Matthew uses miracles to develop his themes of Christology, discipleship, and faith. In the book of Mark, if you were to do a study of miracles, you'll see that Mark treats miracles as a symbolic demonstration of God's kingdom doing battle with the kingdom of Satan. So he's using every miracle as like down with the enemy and look at God. They reveal the identity of Jesus as God and one empowered by God. In the book of Luke, miracles reveal the character of Jesus to be aligned with God. Luke's really trying to say, "Jesus is God. Look at the power. Look at what he is doing." It's the same as Yahweh in the Old Testament. For Luke, the miracles do not just illustrate or demonstrate the good news, they are the good news. In the book of John, he describes Jesus' miracles as the centerpiece of Jesus' life. Jesus' ministry, again, not merely illuminating the message of Jesus, they are the message of Jesus. In John's gospel, he writes intentionally so that from the beginning to the end, the miracles are increasing in magnitude, bringing the reader to see more and more of who Jesus is and what he can do as God. It's actually from John's gospel that we'll take our theme verse for this morning, which is John 20.

You can turn there if you would like, John 20 verse 30, which reads this, "Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book, but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." This is a broader point about the entire gospel, that it is written that we could read and believe, but it applies to the miracles too, that everything that we know about Jesus, including his miracles, points us to belief and leads us to say, "This is who he is. Will you believe he is who he says he is?" The miracles of Jesus point to Jesus as the Messiah, and there's so much more that we're going to get into. We're going to cover this morning, again, we're soaring, right? This is really high view. We're going to cover the purpose of Jesus's miracles.

We're going to cover different types of miracles that Jesus performed, and then we're going to talk about miracles today, and really leave it in a place where I hope you can dive deeper into this topic and be challenged to continue that conversation with you and God about what does it look like today. So, let's start with the purpose. I've got three purposes for miracles. The first is to reveal his divine identity. Again, in the Old Testament, it was clear that God was the one who was working signs of wonders. You know, think of, again, Moses and all the things that Israelites saw. They saw the plagues, the pillar of smoke and fire, the parting of the Red Sea, the water out of the rock, the manna from heaven, all of this pointing to God. It was God doing these signs and miracles, and that's a clue as readers of Scripture to say, "Oh, that was God in the Old Testament, and we see Jesus come into the story, and it's still God." So, Jesus is identifying with God the Father as one who has divine power and authority. He's revealing his divine character that he is the Messiah, that he is the creator in the midst of his creation, that he is the bringer of salvation. So it reveals his identity as the Son of God, being one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, and these miracles, when they happen in the ministry of Jesus, it's like Jesus opening the door to those people and saying, "Hi, it's me. I'm God. You've heard of me from the stories from your ancestors from before. Look at what just happened. You might have had that thought. I'm here to confirm it. I am God." Beautiful, powerful moments where the author of life shows that he has entered the story of humanity, where he brings wholeness and put things right, where the way that they were intended to be, where he restores and he renews. It is God walking amongst his people, loving them through supernatural means and supernatural moments.

Secondly, another purpose is to strengthen faith. Each miracle was an invitation to trust Jesus more. If we look at John 2, this is the passage where he turns water into wine. It says, "What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory and his disciples believed in him." So just as our end of chapter in John, that verse states, "The miracles performed, the gospel message is to bring people into belief." This also means that faith is required to understand Jesus and his miracles. His miracles provoked both acclamation as well as hostility and criticism. I asked you that question this morning. How would you respond if you witnessed something? Well, there were people in the time of Jesus who witnessed that and turned away. They witnessed the supernatural, the miraculous and said, "That's not who he says he is. That can't be." And they turned the other way. For those who don't believe, no sign can create faith. And there are accounts throughout each gospel, again, of that happening. But for those who do have faith, miracles strengthen that faith. When you see the God that you believe doing something miraculous, your reaction is to praise him. To say, "God, I knew that you could, and now I've seen you do it. You deserve even more praise." So it strengthens faith.

And thirdly, miracles are to demonstrate the kingdom of God. His miracles were glimpses of God's kingdom. Again, we think of the healing and the wholeness that he brought or creation yielding to its creator. God is on full display through Jesus as people recognize him as God, giving him praise and glory. The miracles preview a world where sin no longer taints the world around it. And this broken world is under total submission to God. Miracles demonstrate the kingdom of God by showing God's compassion, his provision, his care, his healing power, and by revealing his power over death and darkness. When we think of the kingdom of God and being in heaven one day, how many stories do you think we're going to hear about people who experienced his redemption, his restoration, of those who were lost or last or the least, and how God drew them in? Maybe through normal means or something that we would consider standard, and others who are going to say, "It was this amazing thing that my faith was deepened, that I was brought closer to Jesus." Again, this is an overview. So those are the three purposes. Those are all that could each be like a sermon or sermon series. So go farther in and invite you to do that in your own time. Those are the purposes that we see to reveal his divine identity, to strengthen faith, and to demonstrate the kingdom. And I want to look at some of the types of miracles that we see throughout the New Testament, specifically in Jesus' ministry. And so as again, as we go through these miracles, I want you guys to be thinking, "Do I see this today?" Not necessarily in miraculous ways, it could be, but what these miracles did. If we see that occurring in the church, as we today are the continuation of Jesus' ministry, do we see these types of things happening?

All right, the first type of miracle is a healing miracle. Pastor Lauren talked on this a couple weeks ago, and she covered the passage in Mark 5 where Jesus heals a woman who needed healing from bleeding, and then also a girl who was raised from dead back to life. Today I'll just mention another healing. There's so many healings, but I'll mention Mark 1, 40 through 45, where Jesus heals the leper. And it's where this leper comes to him and it says, "A man with lepers," this is Mark 1, verse 40, it says, "A man with lepers, he came to him and begged him on his knees, 'If you are willing, you can make me clean.'" And Jesus reached out his hand, touched the man, and said, "I am willing. Be clean." And immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. And this is just one small moment which shows Jesus' compassion for the outcast. He touches those who were literally untouchable and says, "Be whole. You are healed." Again, bringing wholeness, physical, spiritual, mental, emotional healing to people. There are many, many miracles of him healing. The blind, the lame, lepers. Amazing, amazing part of his ministry. It's one type of miracle.

Second would be provision. Miracles of provision. Demonstrating that he cares for our needs. We can think of Jesus' first miracle, the book of John, where he turns water into wine. And again, the situation is there's a wedding party, this wedding feast, which would actually last like a week. It wasn't just enough wine for an evening. It was wine for a whole week. And the wedding party didn't have enough. And so his mother, Mary, classic mom, is like, "Son, do something. Come on, do something." Jesus is like, "I wasn't going to do anything." But he does. And he turns water into wine to save those people, that host family, from the embarrassment for their village, wherever they are. It would have looked very bad on them. And so he provides. Says in John 2, Jesus said to the servants, "Fill these jars with water." So they filled them to the brim. And then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." And they did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. And it was the best wine. It was like, "What's the strategy here?" So we see that Jesus cares for those who are in need. We also, another miracle of provision would be feeding the 5,000. This is found in Matthew 14. So in this situation, Jesus had been teaching for a long time. And he retreats to have some quiet time, but the crowds followed him, wanting to hear more, wanting to learn more from Jesus. And they were bringing their sick, and Jesus has compassion. And he began healing them. And this went on all day. And the disciples, everyone's getting hungry, maybe hangry. And the disciples are trying to usher people away, saying, "Hey, we don't have enough food. Maybe we should just stop this whole thing, and everyone can go get dinner." And Jesus replied, "They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat." And they said, "We only have five loaves of bread and two fish." "Bring them here to me," he said. And he directed the people to sit down on the grass and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. The disciples picked up 12 basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. So from two fish, five loaves, he feeds at least 5,000, if not more. And again, it just shows that Jesus meets our needs. We can trust him with what we need. And he will provide, oftentimes in abundance. So we have miracles of provision.

Next, we have miracles that are over nature, displaying Jesus' authority as creator. Mark 4, 35 through 41 describes Jesus calming the storm. The disciples and Jesus are crossing over the Sea of Galilee. I love this story. It says, "A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. And Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion." Oh, love it. The disciples woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" Now, you can take this however he got up. You can fill in if he's excited, if he's grumpy, whatever it is. He gets up, and he rebukes the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet, be still." The wind died down, and it was completely calm. I don't know of a better example than to reveal that he is the creator, and in the middle of the storm, literally saying a couple words, and the whole world changes to be still and calm, obeys his voice. We also have, later on in his ministry, Jesus walking on water, Matthew 14. It says, "Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. And after he dismissed them, he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray." Jesus is often, by the way, looking for some alone time. He's in the stern of the boat looking for a nap. He's like, "You guys go ahead. I'm going to take a solo walk. I need some alone time." It says, "Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land. He was by the waves because the wind was against it. And shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake." Again, it's just so cool that Jesus is like, "Oh, they're out there. I'll go meet them by walking across water and joining them on the boat." So these miracles of him displaying that he is the creator in the midst of his creation.

We also have miracles of deliverance, where Jesus reveals his power and authority over darkness. Look, whether we realize it or not, even today, we engage in a spiritual battle. While sin has been defeated, meaning we who believe as Christians no longer have to face the eternal consequences of sin, we still deal with the consequences of sin in our daily lives. We deal with sin and darkness here on earth, and Jesus showed that he has power over sin and darkness. Think of Mark 5, 1 through 20, which describes a demon-possessed man and Jesus taking the demons out of that man, casting them into the pigs, and those pigs throwing themselves into the water. Or Mark 9, where Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit. This is a boy who had been plagued by a demon for most of his life, and this demon was trying to kill this boy by ruining this boy's life. And this father brings the boy before Jesus and says, "If you can do anything," and in Mark 9 Jesus says, "If you can," said Jesus, "everything is possible for those who believe." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief." And Jesus rebukes that demon spirit. This is another moment of healing, a moment of deliverance, revealing Jesus' power over darkness as he is the bringer of life, restoring life to that boy.

And then lastly, last type of miracle is miracles of resurrection, where Jesus reveals that he has power over death. Maybe most notably we think of Lazarus, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, who was a close friend of Jesus, and again this could be a whole sermon, so this is just bullet points, but Jesus goes to the tomb after he's heard the news of Lazarus and he kind of takes his time a bit later than expected. And he tells them to roll away the stone, which is not done. You don't do that after someone has been buried. But he tells them to roll away the stone, and then in John 11 it says, "Then Jesus said, 'Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?' So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, 'Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here that they may believe that you sent me.' And when he said this, Jesus called out in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' And a dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen and a cloth around his face. And Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'" This is a moment of ministry, a miracle that brought a man from death to life. And it showed to those around him, to his disciples, to the crowds, truly this is God because God is the only one who has the power over death. And as we also know, it foreshadows Jesus' own future, his own resurrection. Matthew 28, verses 1 through 10, "After dying on the cross, being buried in a tomb with a stone rolled over the entrance, on that third day Mary and Mary go to the tomb." And it says in Matthew 28, "The angel said to the women, 'Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.'" This is the biggest truth that I want us to hear today. I know we're not at Easter yet, but can we really get too much resurrection talk? No, we can’t.

The point is that Jesus is the ultimate sign of the New Testament, and really of the entire Bible. The Bible Project puts it beautifully. It says, "Jesus absorbed divine punishment of sin to provide an exodus from sin's oppressive powers. He fulfilled every covenant promised to Israel and began a new covenant that marked the beginning of an eternal Sabbath. He is God with us and the Messiah for all nations. His death and resurrection serves as a sign that his message was trustworthy." He is the ultimate sign. His birth, a miracle. His life, a miracle. His death, a miracle. His resurrection, a miracle. All of it pointing us to God. All of it the pinnacle acts of furthering the kingdom of God. As we move closer and closer to Easter, we see that every aspect that we've covered of Jesus' ministry, including miracles, points us deeper into who he is, the Son of God, the perfect Son of Man, the source of our redemption, and the bringer of our salvation. This morning, again, we soared over the Old Testament. We soared over the New Testament.

And I really want to cover what about miracles today? Does God still do miracles? I think it's important as we answer this to have a well-rounded and informed view of the Bible and church history. It's not like miracles suddenly ceased after Jesus left. We have accounts and acts of more miraculous things happening, but it does seem less and less. In the early days of the church, teachings weren't always accompanied by miraculous signs. Why? Well, again, because those who are looking for signs to trust God, saying, "I'll believe if God does something," rarely do they actually receive anything that would actually convince them. Remember, there were those who witnessed Jesus' miracles in person and did not believe. For those who do trust God, we don't necessarily need a miracle or a sign to confirm who He is. It helps, it furthers our faith, but we don't need it to believe. All this to say, yes, God still does miracles, all for the furthering of His kingdom. And I asked about, do we see any of these types of miracles happening today? Do these occurrences today still happen in the church? Because it's often how God works, is through the church, through us. Who's to say that God can't use you to work a miracle in someone's life? Often through provision or compassion, story after story of modern day people who said, "I was praying for this and miraculously it showed up at my doorstep." That's God working through His people to do a miracle. Which leads us to the next part of signs of God today. We are signs. Each and every one of you who believes in Jesus is a sign. You are pointing people to Jesus. When we trust Jesus, we ourselves become a sign of God's reality and promises. When we trust in Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. As it says in Ephesians, "In order that we who were the first to put our hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory." We were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. We are empowered to be a light to the world, to embody and reflect Jesus' teaching in our lives and then literally live out the kingdom of God. The miracle of a new life that the Holy Spirit generates within us is a miracle. And then we can partner with Jesus to be a miracle for other people, to point people to Jesus.

I want to draw your attention to something that I believe was on every seat. And if you're sitting on it or if you have it in your hand, but you all should have received a card today. It says, "I'm praying for an opportunity to invite blank to SVC this Easter." I'm going to walk you through this card. We're going to be intentional this next three weeks about bringing people to Easter, about praying about who we want to bring to church. And we're going to do it together. You're not going to be alone in this. You're not going to say, "Oh, I'm supposed to bring someone," and then no one knows. So let me explain this card. You're going to write on this, just one person or a family, if you think of a family of mine. I want you to write that name, that family up there. And then on the bottom line, you're going to write the same name, same family. And then you can do this now. I would love for you to do this now. Think for a second who God's putting on your heart. And then what you're going to do, I'm going to do it right now. You guys can still write, but you're going to tear this off. They're all perfect, should look so clean like this, two beautiful pieces. You're going to keep this top one. This is for you. Put that in your Bible, put it somewhere you're going to see it. You're going to be praying for that family, that person that you're going to bring. This other one, at the end of the service, there's a bucket in the back, a little, it says drop off, tear off cards here. You're going to put this in that bucket and we are going to join you in praying. We as our prayer team, we as pastors, our staff, we're going to join you in praying for these people. So you don't need to put necessarily like their full name and address and just a name. It could just be like this family, John, whoever you want to pray for. But we want to join you. There's going to be a bit of accountability here that we as a church are praying for people to be here on Easter, to hear the gospel message. And if you have more, like if you're like, one card is not enough, I have 10 people, by all means, there are more cards, there's some empty seats here. So hang on to those. I'll remind you at the end to put those in the bucket. But this is a way that we are living out the kingdom. We are instruments of God's kingdom. We're partnering with Jesus to reach the lost, to reach others and say, "Hey, I have some good news. Here's how it's changed my life. I think it can change yours." We want to be modern day signs pointing people to Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate sign. And we are invited to unite with him in his work.

I want to wrap up with just a few things to help us understand a couple of encouragements. One, have faith in his power. Do you believe that God can still work miracles, most often through his church? Do you have faith in his divine authority and power? Maybe you need to be reminded of that today. Have faith in who God is and the power that he has. Next is to trust in his compassion. Just as so many did out of faith in the New Testament, so many people bringing their sick before Jesus and saying, "Help me. You of all people, Jesus, are the only one who can heal." We today need to trust in his compassion. Do we bring our weaknesses, our struggles, our sins before Jesus and say, "Help me." "Jesus, you are the only one who can help me. I need you." Trust in his compassion. And lastly, hope in his resurrection. As we'll talk about again in three weeks, the greatest miracle is salvation, the gift that Jesus gave to us through his sacrifice on the cross and the new life that we have in him. And so do we hope daily in Christ who is resurrected? No matter what we're going through, no matter what situation we face, do we recognize that Jesus who overcame sin and death is going to help us overcome whatever we have going on in our lives? We'll leave it there for now. But again, the miracles of Jesus were more than just displays of power and authority. They were an invitation to know him. So accept that invitation today and then days to come. Walk with him daily. Partner with him in being a sign, a living miracle, pointing people to Jesus.

Would you guys pray with me? God, thank you again for your word and for your example and for these stories of miracles that you did, all to bring people closer to you, to deepen their faith, to reveal who you are, and to give us a glimpse of your heavenly kingdom. God, I pray that that glimpse of your heavenly kingdom will give us hope today, that it would bring us a sense of joy for the future and excitement and anticipation of what's to come. I pray that it would help us to endure whatever life is right now for us, the hardships that we face, the difficult seasons, the sickness. God, I pray that we would trust that you are able to give us what we need in your perfect timing. But God, we want to give everything we have over to you and trust you with our lives. Continue to work in us and through us, God, for your kingdom. And may we all be signs to the world around us pointing them to you. We pray this in your name. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 4

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 4: Jesus Fulfilling Scripture

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Continuing in our series today of the ministry of Jesus, where each week we're taking a look at a different aspect of Jesus' ministry. Every moment of his three-year ministry was purposeful and so impactful, and it provides an invitation to us today to learn more about who God is in the person of Jesus and what he's done and what he can do. Each week as we learn more about his ministry, our goal is to better understand God's heavenly kingdom, to better understand Jesus and his life's purpose, and then to reflect on how we can therefore live like Jesus in our day-to-day lives. Our hope and prayer is that as we go through this Lenten season, this is a season of acknowledging and leaning into our depravity and our appreciation and need for Christ, and as we approach Easter, we will have this deeper understanding of the life of Christ, the mission of Christ, and the sacrifice that he made on the cross. And therefore, come Easter Sunday, have a fuller celebration. Having spent weeks and weeks studying about what Jesus did for us, what he's doing for us now, our praise on that Easter Sunday will be all the louder. So far in our series, this is week four, the first three weeks, we've covered parables, which is Jesus' primary way of teaching about God's kingdom, a kingdom that is about the lost, the lonely, and the last. Then we had a guest speaker, Pastor Phil, come in and talk about being called and commissioned. And he talked about the disciples and the intentional ministry and mentoring that Jesus did with those 12, but also how that pertains to us today, that we are also called and God has plans for us to continue in his ministry. And then last week, Pastor Lauren talked about the healing part of Jesus' ministry, which I thought was so good, talking about how his healing spoke to his power, his compassion, and also pointed us to the kingdom of God. So I'd encourage you, if you missed any of those, please go back on our website, watch them.

And then today we're getting to our fourth aspect of ministry. And these were by, just as a side note, no particular order. These are not priority. These are just different aspects of his ministry. So today, before we get to what that aspect is, I just have a question. For those of you who grew up in the church or grew up reading your Bible, how many of you have a preference between the Old Testament and New Testament? How many of you like the Old Testament? Raise your hands if you're Old Testament. Oh yeah, that's right. Just kidding, I have no preference. That's great. That's great. How about New Testament? Any New Testament? I would expect a few more. Yeah. How many of you hate that question? We're like, I don't like picking New Testament. Yeah, okay. That's fair. Those are the real winners. I'm just kidding. Yeah, New Testament, Old Testament, they're different, but all good. So I've heard some summarize that the Old Testament is basically rules and the New Testament is all about Jesus. I don't know if you've heard that or something similar, a very condensed, boiled down summarization of the Bible. And I would say to them that the Old Testament is also all about Jesus and the New Testament also has plenty of rules of how we should live. What I'm getting at is that there can be this misnomer that you just need to read the New Testament. It doesn't matter today because it's got the words of Jesus or a misnomer that the Old Testament has some good basic rules, but it's outdated and it's old. It doesn't matter anymore. Again, go to the New Testament because that's where you learn about Jesus. But what we know to be true is that all of scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament points to Jesus. All of scripture, the Old Testament and the New Testament informs us of how to live the way that God has called us to live. Scripture tells us, all of scripture tells us about Jesus. And then what we see in the life of Jesus is that he points back to scripture. He says this, and he's referencing the Old Testament. And he said, "This is so important. This is what this means." He did this himself often.

And so this is our aspect today of Jesus' ministry where he fulfills scripture. What do I mean by that? Well, these are moments in his ministry where he intentionally brings to the disciples' attention, to the crowd's attention, and then to us today, the reader's attention, where he is fulfilling promises and prophecies that are found in the Old Testament, which is why we should know our Old Testament. What is Jesus talking about? Sometimes he makes it very apparent by prefacing in that moment. He says something like, "As it is written," and that clues everyone in as, "Oh, he's referencing something else," or, "It is said that." These are the phrases that if you're reading your Bible, if you see that, you know that he's talking about an Old Testament reference. And then he'd do something or say something to complete that Old Testament reference. Other times, he would just do it. He wouldn't preface it. He would just say something or do something, and then the disciples had to put it together later. And it'd be like days later or weeks later or even years later, and it would click. And they're like, "Oh, that's what Jesus meant when he said that." Or when he did this, he was fulfilling the Scripture. Now you may be wondering, "What parts of Scripture is he fulfilling?" Well, these are passages in the Old Testament where God spoke through leaders, through prophets, and promises and in covenants made to his people about the salvation from sin, being saved from affliction and death and suffering. These are promises to be made whole, promises to be in the kingdom of heaven.

And these are, again, all throughout the Old Testament. And so we see, even going all the way back to Genesis 3, at the very beginning of your Bible, God tells them of Jesus who's going to come and defeat the enemy. Or Genesis 12, talking to Abraham, where God promises Abraham that he will bless the entire world through Abraham's descendants. Or in Exodus 19 with Moses, where he talks about the Ten Commandments, and he says, "If the Israelites obey me, they will be my people, a priesthood that will shine my truth and my light." And then the promises that he makes to David in 1 Samuel 7, promises to establish his line from David's line. Or all the minor prophets in your Bible, every prophetic book in the Bible is the call for the people of God to turn back to God, but also to look forward to the one who is to come. God promises to the people of Israel that he will send someone from the moment sin entered the world to save them. And throughout these years in the Old Testament, spanning hundreds and hundreds of years, the anticipation built for the people of God. And the people of Israel were wondering, "Who was it?" We get a little bit more of God's plan. We hear from a prophet, from a leader saying, "This is what God is doing." And they'd be like, "All right, well, who is this person?" And then someone would come along, maybe like a Moses, and they're like, "Is this it?" Because Moses wasn't the person. And then someone like David would come along and they're like, "Is he the one? Is he the one that the prophets and God has been talking about?" "No, not David." Or maybe Elijah, not Elijah. Closer to Jesus' time, people were wondering if it was John the Baptist. Is John the Baptist the one that all these prophets, that the Scriptures have been talking about? It wasn't John the Baptist. And then Jesus came into the world, and he is the fulfillment of Scripture, the one that the Old Testament has been pointing to, the one that the people have been waiting for. Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of the world, the rescue plan in full effect. And the tragedy is that many of the people walking with Jesus at that time, at that time in history, they were missing it. They didn't see it. The people of Israel had all the information. They had all this, but they weren't putting the information from the Old Testament together in the right way to come to the conclusion that Jesus is that person. My professor used to say, "It's like going into Home Depot. You have everything and more that you need to assemble whatever it is you want to assemble." And the Israelites were coming out of Home Depot with the wrong parts, trying to build something that wasn't going to work. And Jesus had to come and say, "No, let me tell you how to, in the Scriptures..." You guys try to believe that the Old Testament is Home Depot in this analogy? Okay. Yeah. You go into the Old Testament, and here's how you come out with this. This is how you land at Jesus being the Savior. They just had assembled it wrong. And they kept waiting. They were like, "Okay, you're an interesting person, Jesus, but I'm waiting for what Jesus is telling me, or for what God is telling and foretelling." And it's like, "Jesus is saying, 'No, it's me. I'm right here.'" Jesus is that expert, the fulfillment of Scripture, and He had to tell them how He fulfilled Scripture. So He has to tell the people, and He's telling us today, "Here's how to put Scripture together in the way that God intended us to understand.”

So we're finally going to get to our passage this morning. That was a very long intro. Connecting the Scripture, we're going to see in our passage, if you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to John chapter 2, verse 13, or you can follow along on the screen, which reads this. It says, "When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts, He found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves, He said, 'Get these out of here. Stop turning My Father's house into a market.' His disciples remembered that it is written, 'Zeal for your house will consume Me.' The Jews then responded to Him, 'What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do all this?' Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.' They replied, 'It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you're going to raise it in three days?' But the temple He had spoken of was His body. After He was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what He had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken." Would you guys pray with me? God, as we dive into Your Word, God, I pray that You would, through Your Spirit, help us to understand what it is You're trying to get us to see here and to see Your truth. I pray, God, that we would come to a better understanding of who You are and what You're doing and part of Jesus' ministry that is so important to understand. Our desire truly is that we would understand Scripture the way that You mean for us to understand. So give us eyes to see in Your Word. Give us ears to hear. We pray this in Your name. Amen. I want to catch us up briefly on where we're at here, which is, we know, taking the four Gospels and looking at the timelines, that Jesus is in Jerusalem. This is after the triumphal entry. So this is in the midst of Holy Week or Passion Week. This is at the very end of Jesus' three years in ministry. And Jesus' attention has turned toward the cross. He knows what is coming, and He has a series of very confrontational conversations and experiences with the leaders who are against Him, this being one of them. And so, as is the custom, Jesus, during Passover, went to the temple. And what happened was not your everyday temple scene, but rather a very intense moment where Jesus makes a conscious decision to address a few things that He doesn't like.

So the first of our three points of the cleansing of the temple is as Jesus addresses the problem of worship. Jesus addresses the problem of worship. During this time in Jerusalem, we see in verses 14 through 16, people were selling cattle, sheeps, and doves, others sitting at tables exchanging money. Now, if you just had that right there, is that what you would imagine God's temple to be? This place of commerce, this place where people are making money off of worshiping God. No. I also just want to explain here that I don't know if we all know our temple really well, the blueprints here. So there is an outer court, which is everyone had to go through the outer court, and that was a place of worship for the non-Jewish people. The inner court is where the Jewish people would go to worship. And so John gives us this detail that, and also we know from the other Gospels putting together, this was happening in the outer courts. And so this was happening to the people the non-Jewish people could not worship. There's too much going on here that people were being hindered from worshiping God. That commerce happened in the outer courts. And this is Passover week too, so it's just crowded, it's packed. There were people who had traveled long distances to get there, and those people who traveled, it wasn't practical to bring your animal sacrifices with you. So they're traveling for days. The people who lived in town, sure, maybe they could just walk their goat over or whatever it was that they were sacrificing. But for people who were traveling, they had to come to the city and then find an animal to sacrifice. And so, the business-minded people of the time were like, "Oh, this is perfect. Let's set up shop and we'll sell all these animals." And you already can see where this is going. This was just a moment that was ripe for selfishness and greed. And so those merchants had a monopoly on the market and likely charged exorbitant prices for the convenience of buying animals at the temple. So was Jesus upset that they were making money on the practice of worship? Yeah, I think so. Is he upset at their exorbitant prices? Probably. But I think there's an Old Testament scripture that tells us truly the deeper issue, which is Isaiah 56, verse 7, which reads this, "These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." That's that last part right there. My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations. God's desire is that the temple is a house of prayer for all people, that no one would be hindered from coming before God to worship Him, to have their sins atoned for, to be made right before God. That's the heart of God in the Old Testament and it's the heart of Jesus in this passage. So what upsets and angers Jesus the most is that people are hindered from worshiping Him, worshiping God the Father. Jesus is saying that this isn't at all what God had in mind when He gave the blueprints for the temple. So Jesus is addressing this problem with how His Father's house was being run and how some could not worship the Father. And just what a good reminder for us today that the priority above all else, no matter what earthly barriers we may experience today on earth, God doesn't want anything to come between a person who is bringing themselves before Him. In other words, we better not get in the way of someone trying to come before God and worship Him. So that's the first insight.

The second from our passage is that Jesus moves Himself to the crucifixion. Jesus is 18, after He said, "Get out of here, stop turning My Father's house into a market." He says, "Then the Jews respond to Him, 'What sign can You show us to prove Your authority to do all this?'" And I don't think, by the way, that's like a curious tone. They're like, "Oh, what authority do You have? Can You show us Your badge?" No, I think they got some attitude. They're like, "Yeah, what are you talking about? Who are you?" And then verse 19 says, "Jesus answered them, 'Destroy this temple and I will raise it again in three days.'" Now we have the context of the whole passage, what He's talking about, but I'm pretty sure that came across as fighting words. He was like, "Destroy this temple." He's engaging. They step forward with this verbal joust, and He steps right back and said, "Destroy this temple. I'll raise it again in three days." This passage is in all the Gospels, and I want to read Mark 11:17, because I think it hits better on the tone of the heat of this moment. So Mark 11 is the same Jesus clearing the temple, but it says this, "As He taught them, He said, 'It is not written, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations," but you have made it a den of robbers.'" That's definitely fighting words right there. "The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill Him, for they feared Him, because the whole crowd was amazed at His teaching." You see, many people reference this Jesus clears the temple courts or cleanses the temple as an example for Jesus' righteous anger, as if He came across something randomly and unexpected in the temple and reacted in the moment. But when we take a deeper look, that doesn't seem to be the case. John Mark Comer, a pastor and an author, says this was something He planned. He had been to the temple several times. He knew what He was doing. It was not, "One day, Jesus' anger got the best of Him," but it's okay because it's Jesus. No, He knew that this would get Him closer to the cross. It says back in our John passage in 15 that He made a whip out of cords. I don't know if you've ever had an angry moment where in that moment, something happens and immediately you have the urge to react in a certain way. Maybe you're like, "Oh, if there was a wall, I would punch that wall or I would throw something." But you have an initial reaction of, "I am so angry that I would..." whatever it is. But maybe in your experience, you've just taken a second or a minute and all of a sudden, even like 30 seconds later or a minute later, you're still angry, but that urge is gone. You're like, "Oh, glad I didn't punch that wall. I'm upset, but I can handle this in a mature way." Any of you? No? Okay. Sometimes? You guys are too scared to admit that you've wanted to punch a wall before. Yeah, but when we sit in it just for a moment, usually that anger dissipates or the urge to react in a certain way goes away and we're just left with our anger and emotions. So I say that Jesus didn't accidentally come across something and just be like, "Oh, I'm suddenly angry. Let me just make a..." He made a whip. He sat there and braided a whip together, which took time, and he still, after that, used it. So this is not just filled with anger and it's okay because it's Jesus. This is very intentional. He's sitting there like, "I know. I've been planning this. I have been... This is going to be so good." Jesus was deliberate, purposeful, intentional in his ministry, this moment included. He knew that this would rile up the opposition so much that it would bring them closer to taking action against him, meaning he would be closer to being crucified. And just as it said in the Mark passage, it worked. After he overturned the tables and ran out the money changers, they wanted to kill him. And like Isaac up on the mountain with Abraham in the Old Testament, Jesus, the Son of God, knew that he was going to be sacrificed. Jesus knew what he needed to do, what needed to happen, that this rescue plan that had been in place since Genesis was coming to the culmination here in just a few days, which leads us to the next point.

Jesus fulfills the Scriptures. This is the most important part I want us to take away from this morning. Again, what do I mean by "fulfills the Scripture"? Well, Jesus performed or upheld that which was required by the law of the Old Testament, met the expectations or the predictions about him in the writings of the prophets. Just really quick, when I say "Scriptures," I'm referencing a New Testament person who Scriptures to them at that point would have been the Old Testament, right? They were living the New Testament. They didn't have the second half of this book. They had the first half. And it was considered short-term laws and prophets. Let me bring it somewhere. We have the law of Moses and then the prophets. So Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and of the prophets. This is first brought up in verse 17 when the disciples remembered, right, that they put this together, "Zeal from your house will consume you." This was found in Psalm 69. So Jesus had a desire to see God's temple being held in highest regard, approached with the proper humility and seen as a holy place, not as it was in this moment, twisting into a mode of income. So that was expected and predicted about the coming Messiah, that God would see the temple and hear Jesus doing that very thing, seeing it. He has a zeal and a passion for that place to be as God meant it to be. From the Mark passage, we're not there anymore, but Jesus in that passage quotes Jeremiah 7-11, "Has this house which bears my name become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching, declares the Lord." That's Jeremiah 7-11. God has been watching. And Jesus, who is God, knows not just what is happening, the corruption and the commercialization of worship, but also knows the heart of those people and the lowly view of the temple that they have to treat it in such a way. So that was expected and predicted about God in the Old Testament. And here is Jesus claiming to be God doing that very thing.

Again, why is Jesus bringing up the Old Testament? And he doesn't just do this all throughout his ministry. He is helping the people here and us today understand correctly, connecting the dots in the right way. This is what the Bible says. It's about Jesus. It's about his kingdom. He's doing the work. He's interpreting it for us, helping us see and understand. Again, remember, he's going into Home Depot with them and saying, "Let me fill up your shopping cart with what you actually need to build this correctly." They had this question, "By what authority do you have?" And John, brilliant writer, he gave us that authority in the very beginning of his book. John 1, 1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, who is Jesus. And the Word was with God and the Word was God." And then in verse 14, it says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus is God. That's the authority that he speaks with. He is the author of life, the King of Kings. He has all the authority to say what he is saying, to do what he is doing. He is the fulfillment of Scripture. Obviously, the religious leaders don't like it. They want to kill him. They thought Jesus was trying to get rid of their laws and their traditions. They didn't like that. They thought he was acting against them, that he didn't care for them. He wanted to take away their power and authority. And this is where, again, this is a different passage, Matthew 5, I think we have it on the screen. Jesus didn't want to take away the law. He says, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished." What's he saying? He's like, "It's me. I am the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. I am the law and the prophets reaching their fullest expression." That the old covenants, with all their significance, have been found in the fulfillment of Christ, that in Jesus, the law was perfected. He lived a perfect life, no sin, so the law was fulfilled. Because of Jesus, we no longer need the physical temple, but God is in us through the Holy Spirit. That in Jesus, these prophecies that for so long pointed forward and said, "You can't wait for this person, be waiting for this person," and Jesus is saying, "There's no more forward. It's me right now." He is the pinnacle of the Bible. And understanding that takes time. And for the disciples, it took time. They weren't... That was a lot, right? In the moment, they're like, "This guy that we follow, our teacher, our rabbi, he's saying a lot of big things." And sometimes it took them days. Don't look down on the disciples. We would be the same way. We'd be like, "Oh, this is... What is happening right now?" And I love that in verse 19 and 20 and the rest of our passage, John just explains that this is how it clicked for us. The whole thing about the temple being raised, and everyone at the time was like, "Why are you gonna destroy this temple?" And then later, after Jesus resurrected, they're like, "Oh, he was talking about his body. He is the temple that he was talking about." It clicked. And then verse 22b, it says, "Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken." I love that. They had this moment where it just... they understood. And I'm sure we've had those moments too of wrestling with something, not understanding, and all of a sudden, God makes it clear and we're like, "Oh, that's why he did this." That's what it says in his word is that it clicks for us. So one of the biggest aspects of Jesus' ministry was fulfilling scripture, to help people see that he is the fullest expression of the law and the prophets, and that it all points to him.

And so as we're letting this all sink in and our attention is being drawn to God, let me just ask a few questions of us this morning. First one is this, do we value the Bible in its entirety? That's my question this morning, right? I didn't mean to trick you, Old Testament, New Testament. All of it helps us to understand the person of Jesus, the kingdom of God, the work and the miracle that he is doing, how we got here, the problem of sin. All of it is needed to understand God's perspective. All of it is helpful in our pursuit of knowing and loving him. And so just practically, do we value it? Do you, in your time of reading, do you always stick to one passage or do you, I would just say challenge yourself, go read something different and try to see how does this connect to the person of Jesus? How is this pointing me to Jesus? That's the first one. Do we understand the work of God in our lives? Oh yeah, I have a different, okay. Let me be more specific. Which personal experiences do you, that you look back on and you understand the significance that they've had on your life? Maybe you look back on something, be it a good moment, a challenging moment, you can clearly see what God is doing. You're like, God did this, I am so grateful. You can see his provision, how he worked a miracle, how his work benefited you. Praise God for those moments. Honestly, cherish those. But the follow-up is which personal experiences do you look back on and you're still waiting for God to make sense of it all? It may be a moment like these disciples where something happens and you don't understand until later what God is doing. You don't understand, it may not be till heaven, you may be waiting a long time to fully understand. But just as the disciples did, we want to keep clinging to him, walking with him, waiting on him, lean into him, rest in him, continue to put your faith in him. As you don't understand yet, you will one day, but in the meantime, walk with him. Don't leave him because you don't understand. But we have moments that we just, we don't, God, why did you do that? I don't understand. And our hope is that we have a moment like the disciples did that later on we'll be like, oh, it clicks. I get it, God. I get what you were doing. You connected the dots for me. Hopefully, my encouragement would be to take time to reflect and see where God has been at work and praise him for the good that you see. And maybe if you do this, maybe there's something new that comes up and say, God, I never thought about this before, but I think this is what you were doing. I want to praise you for that.

Lastly is this question of do you hunger for a deeper understanding of Jesus? I'm going to tell you something you may or may not know, you in this room, you are all theologians. You may not call yourself that, but you are. You are all people who are engaging in the study of God, aka a theologian. Also you're biblical scholars. Pretty cool. I wish I had the diploma, you could just all have like a little certificate. You guys are. You are studying his word as a biblical scholar. Some of you, I bring this up to say some of you need encouragement to press into that. Be eager to learn, to look throughout the entire Bible to understand God. I want to share a brief highlight. The other week in youth, we were, after Lauren and I were doing youth group and we were talking with a student who shared that she just started reading, I can't remember if it was 1st or 2nd Samuel, the encouragement of her dad said, hey, I've been reading this. And we were like, oh, that's so great. What are you learning? What are you gleaning from your readings? And her answer was like, yeah, I keep noticing this phrase of the favor of the Spirit of God being over someone, and then it leaves that person, then it goes to another person, and that person has the Spirit of God over them. And I just, I don't know if outwardly I did this inside, I just started jumping up and down, I was like, this is so awesome. She gets it. She's reading scripture and she is putting it together. She's leaving Home Depot with the right supplies. She understands. We should all strive to better understand God. No matter how long you've been walking with Him in the faith, there should always be a hunger to know Him deeper, more, and understand Him in a deeper way. So as we approach this Easter, as we continue through our Lenten season, again, that deeper understanding of Christ helps us to worship, appreciate, and celebrate Jesus all the more.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 3

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 3: The Healings of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I am excited to be back with y'all. I haven't had the opportunity to preach since December. Well, I take the back. I did have the opportunity, but then I got sick. I am so excited to be with you guys this morning. We have been in our series on Jesus' ministry. We're walking through different aspects of His ministry during His time here on earth. We know He was here for about 33 years, but He had about three years from 30 to 33 where He had active ministry. So we started it off, Pastor Chris talked to us about His parables and the way He was teaching, and how through these parables He teaches us too how we can reach the least, the last, and the lost. And then last week, Pastor Phil brought us the mentoring disciples, how Jesus mentored this group around Him, and how we too are also just like the disciples. We are called and we are equipped, and then we are sent out to build the kingdom of God just like they were. That's our calling as well.

Today we're going to be talking about Jesus' healings. His healing ministry was a huge part of His ministry, of the things that He did, the way He taught His disciples, the way He revealed Himself to people. So we're going to dive into that today, but before we do that, before we dive into the actual healings and some of those stories, I think it's important for us to have an understanding or a theology of the problem of evil and of suffering. Because I don't really feel like we can have a full conversation about healing without talking about why we even need healing in the first place. And so I think some of us, whether it's consciously or subconsciously, we think that if we're following Jesus, we're doing all the right things, we're doing what the Bible says, that maybe we shouldn't have to suffer. That we shouldn't have to have pain or trials or deal with this sickness and whatever else may come to mind. That we should be exempt from that. And unfortunately, the Bible actually tells us the opposite. It promises us that we will have trouble. It promises us that we will have hardships. But the reality is we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that has evil. It started back in the garden with Adam and Eve in the fall when they chose their way over God's way. So we have this understanding that there is a problem of evil. We have a problem of evil in this world. And Jesus and his sacrifice is the only answer. Thankfully, God has a redemption plan. We haven't gotten to the end of the story yet, but we know that he has a way to redeem and restore. But in the right now, in the not yet, we have this problem of evil. And because we have a problem of evil, there will be suffering. Now, thankfully, because we are Christ followers, our suffering is not in vain. Our suffering is not pointless. For those of us who are in Christ, our suffering has a purpose. Now, if you're in the middle of a trial or you're in the middle of suffering, that may not be as encouraging as I would like it to be, but it's true. Our suffering has a purpose. The Bible says that God works all things to the good of those who love him. All things. Not just the good stuff, not just the stuff that feels good, but all of it. The good and the bad. The beautiful and the ugly. The righteous and the evil. All of it he works for our good. And so our suffering has purpose. And he also promises not to leave us in our suffering. It says that he will never leave us or forsake us. So we can know that even while we're suffering, he is with us. And our suffering can be used to strengthen our faith or to grow us closer to Jesus. Or, Lord willing, that as we come through or come out of that, that we can use our testimony to help walk with someone who's also going through a similar situation. But regardless of how the Lord uses that, we know that our suffering has purpose.

So that's kind of the foundation I want us to work with, is that we live in a fallen world and there will be suffering, but we do serve a God who has the power to heal. So we're going to dive into some of these stories today. And I was doing some research and I found that there are 42 different occasions of Jesus's healing in the Gospels. So the Gospels are the first four books of the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And so some of these stories are repeated throughout their Gospels because they're different perspectives on Jesus's life. So they repeat many of the same stories. But there are 42 separate occasions where Jesus healed. Now, that doesn't include the times where there's verses that say like, "And he healed the people." Like these mass healings or these instances that weren't recorded that maybe the authors chose not to put in the Gospels. But 42 that we know of. So this is a really important part for Jesus's ministry, is his healings. And we know that there are a variety of reasons why Jesus healed, but we're going to focus on three of them today. All right. There are three areas that I think are important for us to focus on when we're talking about Jesus's healings. I believe that he healed to demonstrate his power, to demonstrate his compassion and to demonstrate the coming kingdom of God. A little spoiler alert. This is where we're going today. Okay, so but I'm just giving you all right now to demonstrate his power, his compassion and the coming kingdom of God. And again, there are many stories throughout Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

But we're going to focus on three that are just right back to back in the book of Mark, chapter five. So if you want to go to Mark five, we are going to park it there today. It'll be on the screens. There's Bibles in the chairs in front of you. If you don't have one, you can pull it up on your phone, whatever you like and prefer. But we are going to be in Mark five and we're going to walk through three stories of Jesus's healing today and how they reveal more of him. So first, we're going to start with Mark five, verse one, right out the gate. They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?" "In God's name, don't torture me." For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you impure spirit." Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "My name is Legion," he replied, "for we are many." And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. The demons begged Jesus, "Send us among the pigs. Allow us to go into them." He gave them permission and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about 2,000 in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. Those tending the pigs ran off and reported this in the town and countryside and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there dressed and in his right mind and they were afraid.

We see this very tortured man. Not just possessed by one demon, but a legion of them. From what I understand what a legion is, that's like thousands. So, very tortured. Physically, it says he was cutting himself with stones. He was breaking chains which would cause probably lesions on his arms and legs. There was physical healing that was needed, but there was also spiritual healing. So, here we see Jesus demonstrating his power. Because when he chose to heal this man, he showed his power not only over the physical, but over the spiritual. He was healing his body and his soul. We see here that the demons know who he is. It said, in verse seven, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?" They knew who he was. They knew, the demons knew his power. Many of the people watching didn't know yet, though. So, Jesus used this opportunity to heal this man that very much needed healing and also to display his power to those who were watching. He was showing that he wasn't just a man. He wasn't just a prophet or even just a rabbi. He was divine. He was showing his divinity, that he was fully God and fully man, and he had the power to heal physically and spiritually. There's always purpose in Jesus' healings, as we know, but in this instance, it was to display his power. So, we see power over spiritual and physical. So, after he healed this man, he went on his way and marked in his gospel, he leads us right into two more stories of healing. They're a little bit in different order in the other gospels, but here, he immediately goes into two stories.

Many people call it the story of the two daughters. It's one of my favorite stories in the gospels, especially about Jesus' healing. It is so beautiful. But we're gonna jump down to Mark 5, 21, and we're gonna pick up where Jesus is walking through town. It says, "When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue leaders named Jairus came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, 'My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.' So, Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years." So, we're gonna come back to Jairus' daughter, but here we have this other story coming out. "She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better, she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak because she thought, 'If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.' Immediately, immediately, her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.”

This woman was an outcast. She was likely unmarried, or if she was and had, maybe had a family, she couldn't touch them without making them unclean in their culture. Because of her bleeding, because of the hemorrhaging, she could not touch anything without making it unclean. And there was a ritual and a process that they had to go through in order to become clean again. So, she couldn't just go out in public and be around people without risking making someone unclean. She couldn't go worship in the synagogue because she was unclean. She was alone, broken, discouraged. She was desperate for healing, but also because of what her issue meant for her, she was desperate for restoration. She knew that it would be a risk to go into a crowded street, potentially make everyone she encountered unclean, and touch just the robe of Jesus' cloak. But she was healed. Immediately, she was healed. It goes on to say in verse 30, "At once, Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, 'Who touched my clothes?'" You see the people crowding against you, his disciples answered, and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet." Notice this is the third time these people have fallen at his feet. "Came and fell at his feet, and trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’"

So as he's on his way to heal a daughter, he encounters another woman who is an outcast, who very likely has been ostracized from her family, or at the very least can't touch them, and he calls her daughter. This story so beautifully demonstrates Jesus' compassion. He had compassion for her. We saw that she was already healed. He could have just kept walking. He was already on his way somewhere. He had a job to do. He had healing to get done. She was healed. She'll be fine. He can go on his way. But he knew it wasn't done. Her body may have been healed, but he still needed to restore her soul. His compassion went beyond her physical healing. He looked for her. He turned around, and he looked for her. He saw her. He called her daughter. He commended her for her faith. He made sure that she was seen and known. The world saw her as less than. Not good enough, not clean, not allowed to be in mainstream society, an outcast. But he saw her for who she was, and he gave her her value back. That is compassion. So he has displayed his power. He has displayed his compassion. And now we get back into the story of Jairus' daughter.

We're gonna pick up in verse 35. It says, "While Jesus was still speaking, "some people came from the house of Jairus, "the synagogue leader. "'Your daughter is dead,' they said. "'Why bother the teacher anymore?' "Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, "'Don't be afraid. Just believe.' "He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James, and John, "the brother of James. "When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, "Jesus saw a commotion with people crying and wailing loudly. "He went in and said to them, 'Why all this commotion and wailing? "'The child is not dead but asleep.' "But they laughed at him. "After he put them all out, "he took the child's father and mother and the disciples "who were with him and went in where the child was. "He took her by the hand and said to her, "'Talitha koum,' which means, 'Little girl, I say to you, get up.' "Immediately, the girl stood up and began to walk around. "She was 12 years old. "At this, they were completely astonished. "He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this "and told them to give her something to eat.”

A few things here. She was 12. So, Scripture was written very intentionally. The woman had been bleeding for the entire life of this girl. She had been struggling for the entire life. And there were two, they're both two daughters here. So while he was on the way to heal this daughter, he healed his other daughter. But here in this story, with the little girl that he raised from the dead, he demonstrated the coming kingdom of God. Now, you can make an argument that this is very much demonstrating his power and compassion, and that is true too. They're not all compartmentalized. But here, he is showing what the kingdom of God is going to be like. He was pointing to what is to come. In the kingdom of God, there are no more consequences of sin. There is no more brokenness. There is no more suffering or problem of evil. There is wholeness. There is life. There is new. There is restoration. In the coming kingdom of God, he will call all of us to rise from our sleep. And as he told them to give her something to eat, he will prepare a feast for us at his table in glory. Death and evil has been defeated. And he wanted to show that. Look, I have the power to raise from the dead, and one day, everyone will be raised with me. There will be no more sin or crying. There will be no more pain. And as we see his power, his compassion, and his coming kingdom.

There's a passage in Matthew 15 that says, "Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee. And he went up on the mountain and sat down there. And great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. And they put them at his feet, and he healed them." This is one of those times where just a general healing that he did. So he healed them so that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. All of his healings were to point to the Father. His power and his compassion came from God the Father. And he wanted them to glorify and worship him because of their healing, just as we will in eternity. Now, I think something that we should take note of that I think is important is this, Jesus kind of displayed this pattern of faith when it came to healings. There's this, throughout many of the healing stories, there is some sort of belief and then wholeness, faith and then healing. He talks about the woman in our story today. She had, he said, "Your faith has healed you." Jairus had faith. He sought him out and came to him. That was faith. But then Jesus told him to keep believing, even after he had the news that she was dead. There's another story, I think of Luke 5, that there was a group of friends that had a friend that was paralyzed, and they wanted to take him to Jesus, but that Jesus was preaching in a house, and it was totally packed. They couldn't get to Jesus. So they problem solved, and they went on the roof, and they cut a hole in the roof, and they dropped their friends down at Jesus' feet. They were gonna get to him one way or another. But Jesus credited their faith for his healing after he healed the paralytic man. No, this is not always the case. There are instances where maybe faith came later, like there's John 9. There was a man who was born blind, and Jesus had healed him more or less to make another point, but then afterwards, the man put his faith in him. So there's some aspect of faith, either from the person being healed or from an advocate, a friend or family member, or even from the person doing the healing, but there's always an aspect of faith that is connected to the healing. Now, please hear me on this. This doesn't mean if you are not healed or the people you are praying for are not healed that you didn't have enough faith. I'm gonna say that one more time. If you are not healed or the person you're praying for is not healed, that does not mean you didn't have enough faith. While faith is connected, and we see it demonstrated multiple times, there is no measurement of how much faith these people had in order to receive healing. We don't know that they have this much faith, so they got their healing, but they only, that is not biblical. That is not in the Bible. It was God's mercy and His kindness and His grace that allow for those healings this side of heaven.

So healing or praying for healing does require faith. But our faith does not always equal healing. Here's the good news, though. When we put our faith in Jesus, healing is inevitable. For those of us that are in Christ, healing is inevitable. There will be healing either in this life or in eternity. Revelation 21, 4 says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain "for the old order of things has passed away." Amen. Sometimes when you're going through the thick of it and you are in the trial or the suffering, hearing someone say that healing is inevitable, whether now or in the time to come, that sounds a little bit like a platitude and I know it has been used as one, but I promise you it is good news. God will heal us now or in eternity. There's so much about this world and my own body that I can't wait for the Lord to heal and redeem and restore. So I wrote some things down that I thought, "What's not going to be in eternity?" In the coming kingdom of God, there will be no broken bones, no colds, no flus, no autoimmune disease, no infertility, no acid reflux, no weight issues, no cancer, no anxiety, no seizures, no autism, no higher load blood pressure, no strokes, no cuts or bruises, no splinters, no degenerative diseases, no sleep apnea, no blood sugar imbalances, no depression, no blood clots, no miscarriage, no headaches, no medications, no insomnia, no ADHD, no back pain, no joint replacements, no allergies, no digestive issues, no tendonitis, no comas, no fevers, no death, no more pain and no more crying. Can I get an amen? I can't wait. So for those of us who don't get the healing now, we can remember that heaven is coming. It feels far sometimes, but it's coming. And there's grace and there is purpose today and in our suffering now. And for those of us who do get the healing this side of heaven, we can celebrate and give God all the glory for that. We should celebrate. And we can also look towards the coming kingdom where all things will be made new because the reality is even if we get the healing now, something else could happen. We're all still going to die. That little girl he raised from the dead still died eventually. So while we're waiting, we can look towards heaven, we can look towards eternity and we don't have to worry about the cancer coming back or another traumatic experience or for the other shoe to drop. We can know that he is with us here and that we have eternity waiting for us where all will be made new, all will be restored and redeemed. So today I just encourage us to allow the healing ministry of Jesus to remind us of who he is, of his power and his compassion and the kingdom he's creating for us and to keep pursuing wholeness through faith even today.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for your power and your compassion and your kingdom. We thank you that you do heal. Miracles and healing happen today, right now. Right now in their world. We thank you for that truth and we pray for those. But God, I also just thank you that heaven is coming, eternity is real and you will make all things new and you will bring restoration to all of our hurts and all of our pain and all of our sufferings that there will be no more crying or mourning or pain. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 2

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 2: The Calling of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I do want to invite up our speaker this morning, which is Phil Stevenson. If you've been around the church long enough, you know him, but many of you I know are new. Phil Stevenson used to be a pastor here, used to be a pastor at many different churches in our district, in our area, and was even our district superintendent, which is all fancy terms. This is a great man and we're so privileged to have him here giving our sermon. Thank you. Thank you, Andrei. When Andrei started to say he's pastor of many churches, I thought, "That guy can't keep a job." That's what it sounded like to me, but I don't think he meant it that way. You are blessed to have a great pastoral team with you. I know you know that, but it's always good to hear that from others. Then some of you may not know this, but Pastor Chris, when I pastored down in the Sacramento area at a church that is currently named Faith Legacy, I knew Pastor Chris since he was just a little teeny kid. It's fun to see what God's done with him and to realize that only one of us is aged. It's not me; it was him, by the way. Anyway, I'm so glad that you set your clocks ahead. In pastoral ministry, you always hate the time change. You don't hate this time change as much because if you don't skip ahead, you just get here really early. So that's something wrong with that. I'm glad that you're here. I celebrate Daylight Savings Time. The reason for that is because probably five or six years ago, I had a little virus attack my right eye, and it scarred my cornea. So if I just close my left eye like this and look at you, it's like looking at you through a water glass. You're all kind of blurry, but both eyes working together works great. But as a result, I don't drive at night much because it just gets weird with all those lights up. And my wife, sometimes I'll just--in fact, it just happened a few days ago--I said, "I'm going to be at this thing." She goes, "Well, that's going to be after dark." I said, "Okay." She goes, "Well, you can't drive." I said, "Yeah, I think I can make it. I think I can do this one." She would not let me drive. And now, with Daylight Savings Time, I am a free man. I know it's only going to start with another hour or so of daylight, but we know what happens in June. It doesn't get dark until nine or so. I'm just going to drive around town, what I'm going to be doing during Daylight Savings Time. So, just so you know, I'm just rejoicing that the time has changed. I feel privileged to share with you this morning.

Back in 2023, December of, I was introduced to a--I guess it's an organization I had never heard of before. It is called StoryWorth. Have any of you heard of this thing called StoryWorth before? I'd never heard of it, and then all of a sudden, just like anything, I hear about it, and you feel like everybody has heard about it. And what it is is I like to write, and so my kids got me a StoryWorth for a Christmas gift. And what it is is that I got it in 2023 for Christmas, but then, for the whole year of 2024, every week, I got a question that came emailed to me. It could come from my kids, it could come from my grandkids, and then I would answer that question. And so, over the course of the year, I had 52 questions, and therefore, the book is 52 chapters, because each chapter is a question. And then, at the end of that, then of course you go through and edit and rearrange, whatever, then you pick out a title and a cover and whatever it might be, and then you have a book. And so, this is my book that my kids got for me. Help me write it. It's called The Curious World of Pappy. I guess my grandkids call me Pappy. And my youngest son, who lives in Arizona, he came up with a name. He thought that would be a good name.

And so, I share that with you because one of the questions that was asked was, "What is the most adventurous thing you've ever done?" That was the question. So, I thought about that, and here's what I wrote. And then, of course, this is just kind of the introduction, but then the rest of the chapter's more about that. But here's what I wrote. Clearly and concisely, it was when I accepted Jesus into my life at age 12. I didn't know that it would lead to life-altering experiences and opportunities. The moment I accepted Christ, I began a journey of transformation and growth. I've seen Him change my attitude, help me overcome my anger. Jesus has readjusted my perspective. He continues to reform me. If I had not accepted Christ and chose to follow Him, come what may, I would have never accepted His call on my life. It was in the context of ministry, doors of adventure opened wide. So, it's been a while since I've been 12. We don't have to go into how long, but it's been a while since I've been 12. But as I thought, I thought that truly was the most adventurous thing that I've done is accepted Christ into my life. Because everything in my life from that point on has flowed from that relationship with Jesus. And we're going to talk this morning about the call that all of us have and then how that call leads us into participating in the commission, the great commission of Jesus. See, now my call, as a result of the initial call, it resulted, for me, going into full-time ministry. But the call is not to that, although it could be. There are some here sitting here today, young, old, in between, where God may tap you on the shoulder and say, "I have for you a call into more full-time ministry with me and for me." But that's not the whole call. The whole call for all of us is what? To follow Jesus. That's the call, to follow Jesus.

Now let me just illustrate this idea of a call, the general call, which is for all of us, when we accept Jesus into our life, the call is to follow Him from that point on. My oldest son, Ryan, when he was in about ninth grade, he went on a short-term missions trip with the high school group of the church that we were at. And one of the responsibilities of all the kids that went on those trips was they had to come up with a little devotional to share it with the group. And so he did his due diligence and put this thing together. And he comes home, and evidently he did a good job. And here's what he said to me. He said, "Dad, I'm kind of frustrated." I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Well, I did this devotion when we were on this Mexicali-type trip, and people kept coming up to me and saying..." Now, I was pastoring the church, just so you have context. "And they came up to me and said, 'Are you going into, are you ready for this, the family business?'" I didn't know we had a family business. That's cool. And he said, "They want to know if I'm going to be a pastor." He said, "I don't want to be a pastor." I think, "I don't blame you." But anyway, no. I said to him, "Ryan, first of all, you need to know, the only reason people are saying that to you is because I happen to be a pastor." I said, "My dad, your grandfather, was a roofer, and I can't tell you how many times people said, 'Are you going to be a roofer?'" It just goes to the territory. If I had been a doctor, you fill in the blank, they would ask you the same thing. I said, "But here's the deal." I said, "Nothing would thrill me more if God called you to be a pastor." But you know what? That's between you and God. I'm not going to pressure you about that. I'm not going to ask you constantly. That's between you and God. Because here's what I know, Ryan, about you.

Whether you're a pastor, an architect, a dentist, whatever, fill in the blank. Here's what I know, you will serve God with who you are, wherever you are. That's what's important. So that's what we're talking about. Yes, for some people, it may turn into that more of a full-time ministry type of thing, but for all of us, the call is to follow Him. Last week, actually, Pastor Chris mentioned this. He said we are to follow Jesus and live on mission. And so in reality, what I want to share with you this morning is kind of flesh out that statement that Pastor Chris mentioned last week. That we are to follow Jesus and live on mission. And I want to start, of course, with the call. The call to follow Jesus. In Mark chapter 1, verses 16 through 18, here's what we find. "One day, as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water." And I love this phrase, catch this. "Throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living." I kind of chuckle at that, kind of like, okay. It's like Mark when he wrote it said, I just want you to know that they just weren't throwing a net into the water for fun. That's what their job was. I'm like, okay, I only find amusement of that, you may not. Okay. "Jesus called out to them, 'Come, follow Me.' And I will show you how to fish for people. And they left their nets at once and followed Him.”

Now there are some observations that I would just like to make about this call of following Jesus. Here's the first one. The call happens in the midst of our daily life. What were they doing? Well, we know what they're doing. They were fishing, it was very clear. They were throwing nets in the water because that was their job. They were just doing their job. And so often the call to follow Jesus doesn't come in the confines of a wall of a worship gathering like we are today. It can happen while you're at work. Well, God's Spirit reminds you, you're called to follow Him. So it's in the everyday stuff that we get that call to follow Jesus. And then the call is to follow Him, not anything else. Follow Jesus. And as we follow Jesus, this call refocuses our purpose. Not only were they going to, in essence, He put it in context for them, you're a fisherman and now you're going to fish for men. You're going to repurpose what you do so that you can follow Me and my name can be glorified and the kingdom of God can be brought into the world. And the fourth thing is observation, is simply this. It necessitates a sacrifice. They left their nets. What were their nets? The tool of their trade. That's what they used to make a living and so that was going to necessitate a sacrifice for them. Now, the sacrifice for you or for me may be different than that. It's not necessarily called to leave your livelihood and go do something else. We're going to talk about what the commission really looks like for us today, 2025. But regardless, when we follow Jesus, it necessitates some form of sacrifice. We may have to sacrifice an attitude. We may have to sacrifice an activity. We may have to sacrifice a belief that we have. There's going to be something that we're going to have to sacrifice. I don't want to water it down for any of us. Following Jesus takes sacrifice. Takes us a reconfiguring of who we are and how we see ourselves, how we see the people around us. And they had no idea, I believe, they had no idea what that decision to follow, the call of following Jesus would mean for them. No idea. In fact, the reality is at this moment, they didn't know that much about Jesus.

Now in John chapter 1, you read a little bit more about this and you discover that Andrew actually got aware of Jesus through John the Baptist. See, John the Baptist had followers and Andrew was one of those followers. And when Jesus came along, John the Baptist said, "Hey, hey, hey, that guy there. That's who you really want to follow, right there." So Andrew went and got his brother, Simon/Simon Peter, and told him about Jesus. So they didn't know all that much about Jesus. And so they come and they follow this call. And then when they did, I believe that put them on a pathway that we're all on the pathway ourselves. Because something has to continue to happen in our lives from the time we accept the call to follow Jesus, and we get on this pathway of growth and learning and discovering about Jesus, and then we begin to understand the commission, the great commission, which we're going to talk more about, but that one to go and make disciples. That commission that all of us should be a part of. And just like the disciples ultimately and Andrew and Simon right here, they didn't know all that that meant when they simply accepted the call to follow Jesus. And there are several things that happened on this pathway as Jesus began to prepare them for what was going to be their lifetime journey of going and making disciples. The first thing was simply this, he gave them a taste of what it would be like in Luke chapter 9 verses 1 through 6. We see where Jesus sent them out. And he sent them out with power and authority to proclaim the kingdom of God. It was just a taste of what they were going to do as they fully embraced the commission to go and make disciples. He taught them. Last week, Pastor Chris spent a lot of time talking about parables and how Jesus used those to teach truth, but just a story that most people hearing them could understand the story and that he would make that application for their lives. And he taught them through parables. He led them through his example. He modeled for them the power of God when he did miracles. He mentored them. He prepared them for when he would no longer be here physically on this earth. He was preparing them for that call to go and make disciples.

In John chapter 14 verses 25 and 26, we read these words. Jesus says, "I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as My representative, that is, the Holy Spirit, He, the Holy Spirit, will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you." You know that Holy Spirit that they weren't that familiar with, frankly, at that time that Jesus said the Father is going to send when I am gone? That Holy Spirit? Same Holy Spirit we have access to. Same one. Through all our history, that Holy Spirit to come and empower us, and we're going to talk about that in a moment, and lead us. It's available for us and so essential when we get ready to fulfill and go after the commission, the great commission, to go and make disciples. And when you think about a commission, in general, here's what a commission is. It's when a group of people are directed to perform some duty. That's a commission. I commission you to go out. I commission you to go out, to do whatever. And the commission that Jesus gives us is to go and make disciples. And what we have to understand is that as we read about this, the commission was not just for the disciples that were physically present with Jesus through His earthly ministries. It is for you. It is for me.

In John chapter 17, 9 through 20, Jesus is praying for His disciples. And this is not a prayer, you know, what we call the Lord's prayers, where we have it where the disciples say to Jesus, "Teach us how to pray," and then He gives them that. This is just Jesus praying for His disciples. A few hours, not too long after this, He is going to be arrested, quote-unquote, "tried and crucified." And, as we know, because we're going to celebrate in a few weeks, the resurrection is going to happen. But here, none of that has happened yet. And He's praying for them. And I'm not going to read the whole passage, but I'm going to pull out some things for us to understand. The first one in verse 11, "I am departing from the world." They are staying. They don't get to go. He's departing. We're staying. These guys are staying. Verse 13, "I told them many things while I was with them in the world, so they would be filled with joy." Verse 14, "I have given them Your word," and we have His word. I saw this little reel. This guy walks in and sits down, and he says to a guy who's next to him, who's reading the Bible, and he sits down next to him and he says, "How do I hear God's voice?" And he said, "Read the Bible." He said, "Well, how do I hear God's voice out loud?" He said, "Read the Bible out loud." I thought that was funny. Anyway. But God's here. He's given us the word. Verse 15, "I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one." He's not asking you to be plucked out of the world, but to be in the world, but protected as you live out this life. Verse 18, "Just as you sent Me," Jesus is praying, "into the world, I am sending them into the world." See, you and I, we are a sent people. What does the Great Commission say? Go. Not stay and make disciples. Go and make disciples. We are a sent people. And here is the key verse, in my opinion, to this passage and for you and for me today. It says this in verse 20. Jesus says, "I am praying not only for these disciples," the one gathered right in that space, "but also for all who will ever believe in them through their message.”

That's us. That's us. Back there, God's word, many years ago, Jesus is praying for you and me, those who have believed in me, because ultimately, because of the witness of the disciples who led people to Jesus and made kingdom people, and people were going and making disciples. Ultimately, it's us. We, I don't want to assume all of us here, but I'll just make that assumption for our next few moments. We, when we ask Christ to come into our life, forgive us of our sins, and restore our relationship with God, we were accepting at some level of a call to follow Him that ultimately will be played out and are living out the Great Commission. So the commission is for everybody. It was for them. It was for us. And then we know this. This is so important. He commissioned, His commission is for imperfect people. Imperfect people. We'll all fulfill the mission when I am perfect. Forget it. That'd be like saying, "You know, when I get in shape, I'm going to the gym." That's not how it works. And look what it says here in verse 16 and 17 of Matthew 28, before we get to the exact Great Commission. Then the eleven disciples, now this is after His resurrection, by the way, so remember that. Then the eleven, remember, there were twelve, minus one Judas, now there's eleven. The eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but ready for this, but some of them doubted. Wow. Guys have been with Jesus for three years, seen a lot of things, lots of experience. They're showing up where Jesus had told them to show up, and then after all that, they doubted. Now, we have to understand something. Doubt is part of our faith journey. Doubt is not sin. Doubt is a means of us trying to understand our faith and what it means. In your faith journey, if you have not had a time where you doubted God and His faithfulness and His ability to work in and through your life, just hold on. It's coming. I've gone through seasons like that more than I care to remember. And good thing because the older I get, I don't remember much. But they doubted. So know that these people who were doubting are going to be the ones that are going to fulfill the commission, to run after the commission of going and making disciples. Also, we need to understand that the commission is the fruit of the Easter story. The Easter story that we're building up to when we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ because in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, He puts a stamp of approval on all that He said. Everything He said He could do, the resurrection is a fact that He can do what He said He could do. Who Jesus said He was, the resurrection is a fact that who He was is who He was. It's His stamp. All the things that I said I could do by my resurrection, I can fulfill. So it's the fruit of the Easter story. And then we come to the Great Commission, the call to follow Jesus. As we walk through our lives and Jesus begins to form us and transform us, put us on this life of adventure, then in the meantime we're accepting not only the task, the call to follow Him, but to live that following out by fulfilling the Great Commission.

It says in verse 19 of Matthew 28, "Therefore, go," and actually a more literal translation, and you may have heard this before, a more literal translation of the word that we translate "go" is "as you are going." So He says, "Therefore, as you are going, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." End of the age. So that Great Commission, how do we live that out? How do we live that out? If you've been following Jesus for much time, if you've been in the church for much time, you probably have heard that, that we're to go and make disciples. So how do we do that? We do that by simply living each day in the power and leading to the Holy Spirit being available when called on. That's living out the Great Commission, that's going. We are Spirit-empowered, Acts chapter 1 verse 8, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the end of the world." So we're Spirit-empowered to live daily. And then we also are Spirit-led, Galatians chapter 5 verse 25, "Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives." Not just on Sunday when we gather together or we do other things with our church family, our church community, but in everything we do. The Great Commission has lived out in the context of our everyday life. We go to work, we go to school, we go to a place like a gym or we have other sense of community. We go get coffee, we go to our homes, we go to our clubs, we go to our neighborhoods. We go. When He says, "Go and make disciples," you know what? We're already going. Every day we're going. Sometimes it's like we're going way too much, but we're going. I discovered even though I retired about, oh, I think, I don't know, six, four, I don't know how many, not very long ago, I'm still going.

I work out at this place called Plyometric. It's just on top of the hill over here by Safe Credit Union, if you know the Rocklin area back there. And I had a guy come up to me one time, and I've been there since September, and he came up to me, and I understand, when I went there, I didn't know anybody. I only just very carefully knew the owner/operator, the coach of the place. But when I walked in, I didn't say, "Hey, just want you to know I'm a pastor. I'm here to fulfill the Great Commission." I didn't know anybody. But over time, evidently, word leaked out. So this guy comes over to me, and he says to me, "I understand that you're a pastor." And I heard this other voice who I had talked to about some of the things at the other end of the club. I told him, "Okay, thank you very much." And here's what I said to him. I said, "Yes, I am, but I'm retired, but I'm still a follower of Jesus." I wanted to make sure it wasn't tied to that position. So for me, part of my going is there. Trying to be available, spirit-led, spirit-empowered, to do whatever might need to be done. And again, to reiterate and undergird the fact that it needs to be lived out where we are.

There’s a wonderful story in Luke, chapter 8. You may have read it, you may have heard of it, but basically, Jesus goes to this area, and there's this guy who is just filled with evil spirits. He's out of his mind. He was scary to his community. People knew him. And Jesus ended up taking the spirits, casting out the spirits from this man that they were called Legion, because there were many. He put them into the pigs. The pigs ran and went off the side of the cliff. Disrupted the whole community. They were freaked out. But this guy was saying he was in his right mind. And after that, it happened. The people came to Jesus and said, basically, "Would you just get out of our town? Just get out of here." Because they were fearful. And so Jesus went back to get in the boat with his disciples, and the man who he had delivered came over and said, "I want to go with you. You changed my life." And here's what Jesus said to him. In fact, it said that he begged Jesus to go with him, but Jesus said, "Go home, go back to your family, and tell them everything God has done for you." So he went all through the town proclaiming the great things Jesus had done for him. See, he wanted to go with Jesus, but Jesus wanted him to go for him. And to a place that he was not welcomed. He said, "That's where I want you to go, because you know what? I'm expanding a bit here. You know those people. They know you. They've seen what's happened. Now you go tell them your story." That's the great commission. Living each day in the power of the Holy Spirit, power led, being able to use where you are. I've shared this phrase before because I share it as many times as I can at the places I have a chance to opportunity to share, and even sometimes talking with people who are followers of Jesus in different contexts, and I always tell them this because it's a kingdom principle. I've shared it here. Some of you may or may not recall it, but it was simply this. You, we, are God's investment where we are. That's it. That's a kingdom principle. Where you are. That's where God's invested you right now. You know what? God's kind of expecting a return on that investment to be used by him in that context of where you are.

I came across a book not too long ago. It's called The Lord of the Ring, not The Lord of the Rings. Just The Lord of the Ring. It's the story of a guy named Count Zinzendorf. Born in 1700, lived to 1760. And he was born into wealth and into power. His family, who lived in the eastern part, I think, of now Germany. It wasn't then Germany, but it is now. And he had wealth. He had power. In fact, he was scheduled for great things in the area of royalty. And his preparation for that, when he was 10, he was sent to religious boarding school. And during the time there when he was 10, he stayed there until through his teens. When he was in his early teens, he and some friends got together and it says this about them. They fully intended to commit their lives to the service of Christ. And started to look for ways to express their commitment and practice. Out of Zinzendorf's commitment came what is called the Moravian movement. And everybody in this room, whether you know it or not, I'm going to tell you why you're a part of this, have been influenced by that. And the reason is because a guy named John Wesley was very influenced in his spiritual life by the Moravians. And John Wesley and his movement that he started, that's where the Wesleyan church comes from. And whether you know it or not, Spring Valley is part of the Wesleyan movement. So all of us in this room have been impacted by the ministry of Spring Valley and in essence have been impacted by the ministry of the Moravians. He also started this, what was called the order of the mustard seed. And actually still exists in some form through the 24/7 prayer movement. Some of you may have heard of the prayer, 24/7 prayer movement is still influenced by that. And the order of the mustard seed had three vows, and this is what I'm going to leave you with. Three vows, be true to Christ, be kind to people, take the gospel to the nations parenthetically, play your role in expanding the kingdom. Those three vows. Those three vows in essence somewhat sum up the great commission to go and make disciples. Be true to Christ, be kind to people, take the gospel to the nations, play your role in that. So the question would be for us today, where are you or where will you live out the great commission?

Father, we are grateful that you have called us and we have responded to follow you. And as we follow you, Lord, may we live that following out through fulfilling the great commission to go and make disciples. Lord, remind us that where we go is simply where we are. And help us to be influences on the people that we come across. We praise you and we give you honor and glory in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Ministry of Jesus: Part 1

The Ministry of Jesus

Part 1: Parables of Jesus

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, I'm excited you guys are here with us today. We are kicking off a brand new series. And as Cheryl talked and prayed this morning, as we begin our journey to the cross in Lent, and that begins in the traditional church holiday this week on Ash Wednesday. And we're gonna kind of parallel that in following the journey of Jesus and through his teaching and his word. And we're gonna journey to Easter together through the ministry of Jesus. And I'm excited today to kick this off with us. And in this series, we're gonna be looking at various aspects of Jesus's ministry. We're gonna be looking at healings and miracles. We're gonna look when he raised people from the dead. We're gonna look at these supernatural moments that Jesus had. We're gonna look at his parables and his teachings, his stories. There's a powerful moment when he actually cleanses the temple. We guys know the story of Jesus when that happened. We're gonna look at the times where he just sat with his disciples and just had kind of a one-on-one conversation, very biblical, like we're gonna do around a fire pit this Thursday, guys. They just kind of just doing life together, hanging out. And then we're gonna look at times when Jesus faced opposition, whether that was from outside pressures, if that was from people of the religious world, whether that was from the government. There's all sorts of different places we see where Jesus faces opposition. And we're gonna look at each of these different aspects of his ministry in order to better understand God's kingdom.

See, God's kingdom, there's a purpose in it. God's kingdom is upside down. When we look at the world around us, we see life, we know that that's not God's desire. That's not the way that God wants it to be. And in contrast to the world, God's kingdom is kind of an upside down kingdom. And we're gonna look at how Jesus lived so that we know how to live today. And as we journey through this, we're gonna see and kind of answer some of these questions. It's gonna have us look at and see the aspects of Jesus's ministries and what is our purpose here on earth. Jesus lived 2000 something years ago. That's a long ways away from where we are today, right? And so sometimes we gotta sit here and go, how does that relate to me now? How does that relate to me in 2025? And what does that reveal about God's kingdom today? Is it still alive? Is it still present? Is God's kingdom still important even today in our lives? Is gathering together as a faith community, is that important? What are our priorities in our lives? And do they line up with the priorities and the decisions and the teaching and the leading of Jesus that he did that first time when he walked on earth all those years ago? Are we participating in the ministry of Jesus and he wants for us in our lives?

So this morning we're gonna jump in and we're gonna look at the parables and the teaching of Jesus. And I hope you brought your lunch. We're gonna read every single parable of Jesus this morning. I'm just kidding. That's like the token pastor joke there, right? We're gonna be here for hours. No, I'm just kidding. But the parables and teaching of Jesus are actually incredible. The more I did research on this and looked into it, over a third of everything that we have from Jesus is wrapped up in parables and his teachings. Which is pretty important if you asked me, that Jesus intentionally took a third of his time here on earth. So if you break it down, he has three focused years of ministry. If you were to wrap it all together, he has an entire year of ministry just on parables and his teaching. And parables are absolutely incredible. Parables take what is this massive, complex, deep, at times confusing, not making sense struggle of the kingdom of God. And I say he makes it fun sized for us. You know, you get the candies in the bag, you get the fun size, like the Easter candy is out at Costco, right? It's out and it's present. But they have fun size. And it's like these tiny little bite sized pieces of candy, which is great 'cause you can have like 12 and you don't feel bad about yourself, right? Right? But Jesus takes parables and he takes this big complex about his kingdom and his world and heaven and supernatural and things that in our human mind, we struggled out. And he breaks it down into little fun sized pieces for us.

And Jesus, after he tells a parable of the seeds to his disciples and those who are present, the disciples ask him this in Matthew 13:10. The disciples came up to him and asked, "Jesus, why are you speaking to them in parables?" The disciples say, "Hey, Jesus, you've been telling these stories for a while. Why do you talk like that? Why are you intentional in when someone asks you a question or somebody comes up to you and say, "Hey, Jesus, what about this?" Or you have someone who's trying to challenge Jesus who thinks they're all the hot stuff. Jesus turns around and he'll either ask them a question or he'll tell a story. And the disciples are like, "Yo, Jesus, why do you do this?" And Jesus responds with a parable, fitting, right? It says this, he talks about the kingdom of God. And he says the kingdom of God is different than anything that you've ever experienced or seen or even understand in your life. And because of this, we can only begin to scratch the surface of his world, God's world, and how we perceive it as upside down compared to the world that we see around us today. And because this kingdom of God is so vast and huge and different than the world around us, we need to be broken down into little bite-sized pieces so we can even begin to comprehend what Jesus is trying to tell us. A theologian reading a commentary says it this way. I thought this was really good. So lock in, this is a little long, but I want you to lock in with this. It says, "It is because people are so different," talking about parables, "and react so differently. A parable is a story which does not carry its meaning on the surface. It challenges the here to engage with it in an educational process, which, if the here brings to it the right attitude and openness, will result in their perceiving and responding to the truth of the parable. But it can equally be resisted and dismissed as a simple, mere story. In a situation where some are open to the truth and some are not, parables, as imaginative challenge, rather than simple proposition, are an appropriate way to communicate new ideas. For some, they will break through barriers to understanding. And to some, like Jesus says, as a disciples, "The secrets of the kingdom of heaven will be given to them. But others, who it remains unpenetrable, the meaning will be lost. Putting truth before such people only in the form of a parable is a way of implementing the principal knowledge in hopes of understanding.”

See, this is incredible, incredible power in storytelling. Did a little research into the psychological effects of hearing a story on our minds. And it's absolutely powerful what it can do for us. There are actual physical effects on our brain. And they've done this with this. Somebody tells somebody a story and they're running scans on their brain, that it physically changes our brain. We feel emotions, we feel passion, we feel empathy, we feel sadness, we feel joy. And it's in those moments when we experience those emotions that it actually opens us up to be able to soak up information, to learn, to grow, to be transformed. If you guys have ever done any history search on the story of Pixar, there's a great book out there. I can't remember what the title of it is, but it goes through the history of Pixar and how they began to be, and then how Apple and Steve Jobs came alongside of them, and then ultimately how Disney ended up buying them in the end. But the core of what they were about was to tell a story. We had movie night here, Friday night for family night, and we watched a movie. And at the end of the movie, I looked around in the room and I watched people respond to the end of the story. There was joy, there was happiness, there was sadness, there were tears. (laughs) But it was this story that drew us in, that we left changed. We left different than when we came in, when we saw that movie together. And Jesus does this masterfully in how he teaches and he talks in parables. And it begins to break down more and more and more of who God is and his character, but also his kingdom. And it reveals to those who are open and willing to listen and to learn how Christ begins to reveal himself through these stories.

We're gonna look at a handful of different ways and things that parables teach us this morning, but the first of which is parables begin to paint this image of a loving, gracious and compassionate God that we don't know a whole lot about. Jesus in a series of parables, one after the other, as are recorded in the Bible, talks about things that were lost then became found. He first says this. So he told them this parable, Jesus did. What man among you who has 100 sheep and loses one of them does not leave the 99 in the open field and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and comes home. And he calls his friends and neighbors together saying to them, rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep. Jesus continues on. Or what woman who has 10 silver coins and if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully until she finds it. And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me because I have found the silver lost coin, that coin that I lost. I tell you in the same way, there is joy in the presence of God's angels over one sinner who repents. Jesus continues to tell the story of the prodigal son, the lost son that goes off and spends his inheritance and finds himself just trying to eat with pigs just to survive. And he decides, I have to go home. Even if I go home and I just work for my dad, maybe he'll let me come home. I've squandered everything that he's blessed me with. And as the son comes home, the father sees him from afar and just takes off after him. See, parables tell us and teach us that God is loving, that he's gracious, he's merciful, he's compassionate. And without these stories that evoke emotions within us and tell us the story, we wouldn't understand who God is. God is a father who forgives. God is a father who loves. God is a father who cares so deeply for us more than we can understand or imagine.

Parables teach us loving, gracious, merciful, and compassionate God. And because this is who God is in his character, this love isn't limited, right? This love extends to the whole world, especially those who society sees as the least, the last, and the lost. Jesus, as he's teaching and walking around with people, he gets challenged from some time to time, where people will try to trip Jesus up by throwing a trick question out there to go, okay, if this guy thinks he's the son of God, he's Jesus, then he's gonna know the answer for this. And there's this one time in Luke chapter 10 that this well-educated, religious, pious man, he stands up and he asks Jesus, he says, what do I have to do to inherit heaven and receive eternal life? And Jesus masterfully throws it back at him, and he says, what do you think? And so in Luke chapter 10, verse 27, he said, he, being the religious man, answered Jesus, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus says, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live. But the righteous man wanted to justify himself. He's like, all right, I got Jesus right where I want him. And he said, who is my neighbor, Jesus? And so Jesus replies with a parable. He says, a man was going from Jerusalem to Jericho, taking a journey, one big city to the other. And when he was attacked by robbers, they stripped him of his clothes, they beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest, all right, priest, this is a good guy, right? A priest happened to be going down the same road. And when he saw the man, he passed on the other side. So too, a Levite, hey, okay, maybe the priest won't do it, but at least a Levite, this is a good guy, going back all the way to Jewish roots, this is right, this is gonna be the good guy. He came to the place and saw him, and also too, passed on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was, and when he saw him, he took pity on him, compassion. He went to him, he bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day, he took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper. Look after him, he said, and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expenses you may have. Jesus turns to him and says, which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell to the hands of the robbers? The expert in the law, humbled for the one who had mercy on him. Jesus told him, go and do likewise. See, the Samaritan went the extra, extra mile, right? Did you guys catch everything that he did? The Samaritan man went to him, went to him. It wasn't just walked up to him, went to him. Bandaged his wounds, put oil and wine on them. That cost him some money. He put the man on his own donkey, so he wasn't able to ride anymore. So he's walking to the town now. But the injured man is able to be taken by donkey. He brought him to the inn, and took care of him. Didn't just drop him off and say, see you later, buddy, good luck. He took time. He used his own personal time. That cost him. He paid for his care, that cost him. He gave financial commitment or guarantee to the innkeeper who said, take care of this man. That cost him. This is the love that Jesus is teaching for those who are listening. This is what God does for us. This is the picture of Jesus giving his life for you and for me. And Jesus says, go and do the same to your neighbor. Jesus teaches this with tax collectors, those who were greedy, who were hated, who were despised in society. He did it to beggars, people who couldn't do anything. Lots of them were injured or had disabilities, and all they could do was sit in the city streets and just ask for someone to give them money to try to bless them with food. The downtrodden, the outcast. Jesus did this with widows, who in that time, in that society, weren't able to work because it was the man's world, right? And so the widow would have to rely on family, children, neighbors to take care of them, to help provide for them. Jesus says, the kingdom of God is for the least, the last and the lost. And that we as followers of Christ, are to care for those people with the love of Jesus. And what I love about these stories is that those in society that are outcast in the parables of Jesus, actually become the heroes of the story. That is a great reversal. That is an upside down kingdom compared to the world today.

So if parables teach us in all of these things that we are to realign our priorities with God's priorities and joining God's kingdom, then our lives will look different, right? Our lives will look different than the world around us. If we follow these teachings and parables of Jesus. So the parables show us how to live on mission through love and justice. It says in Matthew chapter seven, that believers must bear fruit. It says, you'll recognize them, Christ followers, by their fruit. Our grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can't produce bad fruit. Neither can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that doesn't produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So you'll recognize them by their fruit. 'Cause there's another level of just not hearing, but there's a level of hearing and doing his will, right? He continues on in Matthew chapter seven. Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, didn't we prophesy in your name or drive out demons in your name and do miracles in your name?" Then I will announce to them, "I never knew you, depart from me, you lawbreakers." Jesus tells this story so clearly in Matthew chapter 25, where he talks about two groups, sheeps and goats. I think if we look at our world today, it's kinda hard to understand that, right? I don't think anybody here is a shepherd. Anybody got goats or sheep on property in here? No? But Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious thrones and all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put sheep on the right, goats on the left. Then the king will say to those on the right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." He continues on, "For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me." And the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when did we see you hungry? Or when did we feed you? Or when were you thirsty and we gave you something to drink? When did we see you, Jesus, as a stranger and take you in? Or without clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?" And the king will answer them, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Kind of a strange way to get there in that story, right? But Jesus explains that when we follow Jesus, when we take care of the least, the last, and the lost in our world, when we strive for love and we strive for justice and we live on mission with purpose, to share with the world around us this kingdom of God, we live on mission. We live on mission through love and justice, taking care of those who society says is not important. 'Cause in the kingdom of God, the least, the last, and the lost are the most important.

And when we live on mission through love and justice, we together collectively as the church, show the world that there is a greater way to live. I don't think it's coincidence that God created the church. That God created a group of believers who together can do so much more than an individual, but can bring people together from all different backgrounds, places on this earth, economical status, different communities and neighborhoods and streets, from different careers and backgrounds. He brings everybody together. And he shows this incredible picture and image for the world to see here and now that outside the church, there would be conflict, right? There would be fighting, there would be hatred. There would be such a dysfunctional relational community that it's only by the power and the grace of Jesus that we can gather together and care for one another. And it is a physical image to the world around us. Jesus equates this with two things he calls with salt and light. Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth. What does that mean? It says you are the salt of the earth, but the salt should, but if the salt should lose its salty taste, how can it be made salty again? It can no longer be good for anything, but to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. He says, you are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. You guys ever been out so far in the darkness somewhere that even a tiny flashlight miles away is as bright as day? That's what he's saying. No one puts a lamp, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lamp stand up high. And it gives light to all who are in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father in heaven. Each of us are a light. Each of us have light inside of us when we take on and accept Jesus into our hearts. We shine differently. And when you start gathering light together, it just gets brighter, right? Gets brighter and brighter and brighter. And it gets to a point where the world can't help but see how bright the light of Jesus is in our lives and in our faith community together. There's transformational power in community and being with one another. And Jesus shares this in this parable. Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify, give glory to God, Father in heaven. It's about pointing people to Jesus. That's all Jesus was doing. Telling these parables, going, it's God. It's God. It's God, my heavenly Father. It's God, it's God, it's God.

See, the life in the kingdom of God is countercultural. It's different. And that's why when the disciples first asked Jesus, why do you speak in these parables? Why do you teach in this way? See, Jesus had actually just shared the story of the seeds that fell on different ground. Jesus said that some fell on the path and the birds came and ate them. The other seeds, they fell on rocky ground where there wasn't a whole lot of soil and maybe they sprouted up real quick but because their roots weren't deep, deep down in the earth, that the hot sun came along and they withered away. Jesus said other seeds, they fell among thorns and the thorns came in and it choked them out. Still other seeds fell on good soil or good ground and grew up and produced fruit, some 100, some 60, some 30 of what was originally planted. See, I always thought that this story from Jesus was about people who hear about the gospel. That when people hear about Jesus dying on the cross for them, forgiving them, saving their sins, I always thought that that was just what this story was about. But right at the end, if you miss the final verse from Jesus, his words, you miss the meaning of this and he says, Jesus says, "Let anyone who has ears listen." The parables teach us about this countercultural kingdom of God and Jesus says with that, with anyone who has ears, listen, it says in verse 16, "Blessed are your ears because they do see." Or sorry, excuse me, "Blessed are your eyes because they do see. Blessed are your ears because they do hear." Following Jesus means that we are a lifelong learner. Notice what Jesus didn't say there, right? Jesus didn't say, blessed are those who have everything figured out. It's not what he says. And I think he's super intentional with that. But rather he said, blessed are those who keep their eyes open and their ears open. I think there's something incredibly profound about someone who keeps themselves in an open position towards God, learning more and more through seeing and hearing.

I recently saw this video clip on social media of a basketball player, I think it was a college player, and game's going on and coach calls timeout and everybody comes over to the bench and they kind of huddle up together. And this, I've never seen this before with somebody, a player, the player sits down and locks eyes with the coach. I mean, like uncomfortably locks eyes with the coach. And the coach is teaching him, he's talking about the game, he's talking about the, there's no audio, so I don't know what all coaches talking about. But this kid is locked in, he's like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep, mm-hmm, yep, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And the coach is pointing over at the whiteboard, he's drawing some stuff, he's looking at the whiteboard, he's looking back at the coach, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yep, mm-hmm, yep, yep, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That player had two options when he went to that bench. And I've seen it time and time again. The player comes over, sits down on the bench, crosses his arms, head down, doesn't even acknowledge that there's even a coach in front of them. But this kid came over, sat down, locked in to what his coach was trying to tell him, and listened and looked and was so focused on what was being said to him. I think that's the example that Jesus is saying here to us. Do we have open eyes to see what Jesus wants to teach us through his word? Do we have open ears to hear what he is trying to speak into our lives of what he wants to teach us through his stories, through his parables, about who he is, about his kingdom, about how to live our lives, about how to care for the least, the last, and the lost, of how to show up and to be the hands and feet of Jesus to our hurting and broken lost world around us? Do we take time to be with Jesus and go, "Uh-huh, yep, mm-hmm, yes, Jesus, mm-hmm, yes, God, yep, mm-hmm, I'm listening, I'm listening, yep, mm-hmm, yes, I'm focused, I'm locked in, I'm locked in." Do I think that that player knew everything that that coach said to him 100%? No. I guarantee you he didn't. But what I guarantee you happened was that later that game, or maybe another game later that season, maybe years down the road, did that player find himself in a situation, in a game, to go, "I remember what coach told me. I need to do this."

Love what it says in Isaiah 55. It says, "So my word that goes out from my mouth, it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." I'm gonna assume here, okay, taking assumption that that coach was a good coach. And that coach was trying to teach that player about the game of basketball. And that everything that that coach was teaching that player was for his benefit, for a win, for a successful career, for the success of the team. Question for us is are we working and learning about God's upside down kingdom to the point that we are so locked into who Jesus and God is that when we read his word, we go, "Yep, mm-hmm, I hear you, God. I'm listening, I'm listening, I'm hearing." Or when we take time to pray, to go before God, to go, "God, I'm here, I'm listening. What do you have for me today? What do you want me to know so that I am prepared, that I am ready for the mission that you have for my life today, this week, next month, next year, next decade?" 'Cause sometimes God will deposit these little truths into our hearts for a future time that we might not be in in the moment, but we need to make sure we're locked in and we're listening and we're hearing from God what he wants to teach us.

Do we continue to learn and to look and to listen and then take steps and faith in action towards God's kingdom in our lives? And what are we doing to bring about God's upside down kingdom to our world today? Are we learning more about God's kingdom and his world and his teaching and his way of right upside living compared to society today? Are we listening and looking to bring God's kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven? The parables of Jesus open up God's kingdom to us to reveal to us things that we did not previously know or understand or comprehend or anything at all. And he breaks it down in these little fun size, bite size pieces for us so we can understand his priorities and realign ourselves with what is important to him because what's important to him should be important to us, right?

Jesus, thank you for your teachings. Jesus, thank you for your word and your parables and God, everything that you did for us. Jesus, your kingdom is upside down compared to our world around us. And God, there's times where it can be really confusing and hard to understand what you're even beginning to talk about. You probably had a story of a parable we heard this morning. You're like, God, I don't get that. I don't understand that, but I'm open. I'm listening, I'm looking, I'm learning, I'm hearing. I'm trying to understand, God, what you want to teach me in this moment. God, it's so hard to take just a sermon and to cover an entire third of everything that you said on this earth, Jesus, for us. We could take one of these parables and go into it for six weeks, it seems like some of these. But God, I love how with this, in your parables, if we truly study, we truly look, we truly try to learn, you begin to reveal to us, God, what you want for us. And what's incredible is we can come back to these parables time and time again, and you have another nugget of truth for us in each one of these parables. So God, I pray that we would be lifelong learners, Jesus, that we would continue to every single day seek after you, God, that we would look, we would listen, we would be in tune, God, with what you want to show to us of how we are to live on mission, caring for the least, the last, and the lost in our world around us so that we ultimately can be a light to the world, being a beam to heaven, Jesus, showing God wherever we go. We love you, Jesus, we thank you for this time. Amen.