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.

The Book of Jude: Part 3

The Book of Jude

Part 3: Building for Eternity

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

All right, like I said, today we're going to be wrapping up our series in Jude. And so far in our series we've talked about this overall theme of contending for our faith and this plea that Jude has to guard against false teachers. We've learned about recognizing the counterfeits, which highlighted the corrupted character of the false teachers and told us of examples of God's judgment, which Jude mentions as a warning for the church and for the church today. It's been a series that has called us to be proactive in our faith, warned us of the dangers of those who are intentional in their corruption of God's truth, the gospel. And we're reminded throughout this book, this short letter, of how seriously God takes His gospel and therefore how seriously we should take protecting that gospel. We need to value keeping the integrity of the gospel whole and intact. So far we've covered the why. Why is it important to contend for the faithful? Because of those corrupted teachers and the immorality that spoils the gospel that they preach, the false gospel. And now we're going to learn today, the very end, about Jude's instruction of how to contend. And so this instruction, written to the early church, is also meant for us today, the modern church. And it's going to help us here at Spring Valley be a strong, growing, and healthy body of believers. Again, at the end now, in the last few verses here, Jude is wanting the believers to be equipped to strengthen their faith, to rely on God's power, and to live with this assurance of the ultimate victory provided through Christ. Before we jump into our text, I just want to remind us this morning that the tone of these letters in the New Testament, the epistles, is one of, it's got a communal tone to it. So maybe unlike us in the modern day West, where we often think of ourselves, we hear something, we think individual first, how does that pertain to me, and then we think, how does that pertain to the community around us, in that time they would have done the opposite. They would have thought, how does this pertain to our community, how does this pertain to our church? And then secondly, they would have thought of how does this pertain to me. And I don't think there's a right or wrong in that. I just don't want us to miss the second part for us. We often think individually, right, how does this text apply to me? But sometimes then we just stop there, and we don't think, well then how does this fit into my church? How does this fit into the community that I belong to? And so as we hear the words of Jude, we want to hear this instruction and understand that we are meant to carry this out and do this together as a church. The early church and the apostles writing these letters knew that their faith was not just an individual faith, but the strength of their faith correlated to the strength of their faith community. So I think we need to remember that. And if we're thinking, hey, I'm in a good place with God, are we thinking how do I help others and share my faith with others and bring them along with me? And if we're in a place where we're struggling in our faith, are we correlating that with our community? Am I close to my community? Am I going to my church community as a way to strengthen my faith, to build up my faith?

So let's keep that in mind as we finish out our text in Jude today. If you guys want to open up your Bibles or you can follow along on the screen, we're going to be starting in verse 17, and we just want to go verse by verse as Jude ends this quick powerful memo with some very important truths. Verse 17, I'll read the first couple. It says, "But dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, in the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the spirit." In this section right here, Jude is telling the church to remember the warnings. He reminds them to stay vigilant in the face of division. His instruction is to be on the lookout, be on guard, be ready. It's this little image of a guard, and those guards, they cannot be lax in their job. They can't be sleepy, they can't be nonchalant, they can't be relaxed. They have to be on guard. And if that guard were to be tuned out, just zoned out, not there, would it be any surprise that on their watch something bad would happen? He's like, "No, that makes sense." He wasn't even doing his job. He wasn't ready for what could happen. In the same way, are we surprised if someone who is not intentional, not on the lookout, not guarding their faith, is led astray from the gospel? Or communally, as a church, if we are all asleep in our faith, not proactive, not vigilant, not intentional to pursue God with everything that we have, will not our church suffer? Remember the warnings given by Jesus, by the apostles, and by Jude. Watch out for those who bring division. Notice that so far Jude hasn't criticized the bad theology of these leaders, which is often what we do today when we're trying to figure out who is preaching truth and not, and that is fine, but he hasn't even talked about their theology. Rather, he's talked about their immoral way of life, most notably in their character and how their character causes division in the church. And he states that these people who bring division are the ones who are following mere natural instincts. He's referencing our natural sin nature that we all have, our sin nature that makes us prone to serve our selfish hearts, makes us prone to serve our pride, to desire control, to feed our egos. The church is to be known as a place of unity in Christ, but these false teachers are prone to divide people. These false teachers are the cause and they encourage this us-versus-them culture and mentality, which is unhealthy in the church. Jude makes it very clear that these people do not have the Spirit. And how informative for us in today's church, right, to know this is what we should be looking for. The opposite of that, those who are uniting people in Christ. We need to look for those leaders who are bringing people together under the love of God. Jude is saying, in other words, look for those who show evidence of the work of the Spirit within them.

And in a way, he's referencing Jesus' own words, which we find in John 14:15, which read, "If you love me, keep my commandments." These false teachers are not doing this and he's saying it's very clear. Those false teachers, you can tell, by the way, that they're not keeping God's commandments and this is what's happening from them. This is the fruit that they produce. But if you love me, keep my commandments. For Christians of every age, how we live is the most reliable indicator of what we actually believe. In some ways, it doesn't matter what the words that we say. If the fruit, the character that we produce doesn't match that, then our words are pointless, right? We have to be living a life that shows the fruit of the Spirit at work in our hearts. So while we internalize that and hold ourselves to this standard, making sure that we are loving God by obeying Him, we can also be putting other people through that same filter, specifically the leaders that are claiming to follow God. We can see, are they living a life of obedience to God's laws? Are they keeping His commandments? And therefore, do they truly love God? This whole section, remembering the warnings and being vigilant in our faith, is about being on guard. I don't know if you've...this example in this week kind of came to my mind. I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news, but there's been a lot of airline mishaps recently. And if you've flown, God protect you. And maybe we're just seeing more of them. But there's one in particular, that one plane that flipped over. Thank God everyone was safe. Everyone made it alive. But I thought of...I heard the reports that the people, the stewardesses, the airline attendants did their job wonderfully. They got everyone out. And it was because of them that that situation went so well after the tragedy of the plane flipping over. But if you've flown before, you know that they go over those safety protocols every time. And they're up there with their little flaps, and they do the little examples. And usually, either we're tuning out, we're like, "I got a text message before I got to turn my phone off." Or you're one of those people that like, "I am giving them my full attention. I want them to see that I am like a type A student, and I am giving them everything." But they go over everything. And whether we understand it all perfectly or not is...who knows? But they know what to do. They are ready for whatever situation happens. And so when the worst of the worst happens, and these situations where that plane flips over, they knew exactly what to do. And they got everyone out. And they got the exits, and leave everything behind, and leave. And everyone got out. And the people in the news reports afterwards were thanking them that those people took care of us. Because they were on guard. In the same way, we have to be ready. We have to know what to do when we hear something that isn't true, that doesn't align with God's Word. We have to be ready for these situations. We must be vigilant.

Let's keep reading. Verse 20, it says, "But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt. Save others by snatching them from the fire. To others, show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh." This is where we're getting into the how-to. This is Jude's step-by-step explanation of this is how to contend for the faith. He's waited to the very end to show us. And he's doing it through a series of metaphors. So we're going to unpack this together and put together this visual that he's laying out here. So the first thing is that the community of believers is God's new temple, the church. It's no longer a temple like they have in Israel where you had to go to the physical temple. Now it is a gathering of people, unified in Him. We as a church are the temple of God. And then he says the community, this temple, is to build their lives on the foundation of the most holy faith, which is the gospel, the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. I can't think of a better foundation to have. So we have a foundation, the gospel. You builders know, that's where you start. You start on your foundation, let's build up from there. On that foundation, the church is to build itself up. Well, how? Through dedication to prayer and by devoting itself to the love of God through obedience. So as a community of believers, as God's church, as his temple, we build up, we strengthen the church by building yourselves up in the faith. We do that by knowing God, by reading his word, by following the ways of Jesus. It says by praying. Praying is this act of submission. Praying is the key way in which we commune with God. Praying is how we make our desires known to him and how we align our hearts with his. Praying is where we express gratitude and where we ask for guidance. So build yourselves up in the faith by knowing him, by praying, and by keeping ourselves in God's love.

That goes back to that John 15 passage of abiding in him, abiding in him daily, talking with him, meditating on his word. In the Old Testament, we would say this phrase, "walking with God." And you can see if you read the Old Testament, you see these stories of this person walked with God. That doesn't necessarily mean that God's right next to them walking, but it gives us that visual of every day in their life, step by step, they are following him. They are walking in the way of the Lord. And that's what we are called to do. In every situation that you find yourself in, whether at work, at home, with family, with friends, you are walking with him in that moment. We keep ourselves in God's love by obeying him, following the way in which he told us to live. Then it continues, "to be merciful to the doubters, to save others from snatching them from the fire." We'll get to that in a second. But by doing these things, we ensure that the temple of God, this church, right, we have our foundation of the gospel, then our church, our hearts are interlocked with God and his gospel. And this is important. The integrity of that building, of our church, will be maintained by staying alert for the truth of Jesus, as well as by helping each other stay faithful. In this analogy of our building, the building's integrity is weakened if there are people within our church, within this structure, who are acting out of selfish ambition, who are trying to corrupt the gospel. Are we tracking still? Are we putting this together? I'm understanding Jude's metaphor here. Another way of looking at these instructions is how these instructions relate to us, and how there are certain things that we focus on inwardly and other things that we focus outwardly. So inwardly, we build ourselves up in the faith, right? That's pursuing our relationship with God, praying in the Spirit, keeping ourselves in God's love. These are things that we do within ourselves, in our own lives. This with others, but maybe first and foremost with ourselves. We are putting effort and being intentional to ensure that we are participating in this way.

And then there's this outward focus of what to do with other people. Be merciful to those who doubt. Rather than just accepting that some people are lost, we should feel the responsibility and the burden to try and convince them of the truth. It then says, "Save others by snatching them from the fire." These false teachers that can be in churches are on the path to experience God's judgment and wrath. And as they gain followers, they are bringing other people into God's eternal fire, into his eternal wrath and judgment. And so we are to help, again, convince those people, "Don't follow that way. Come back to the truth of the gospel." And then it says, "To others, show mercy mixed with fear." Jude just said, "Be merciful to others." So what does he mean, "mixed with fear"? Well, sometimes we need to exercise caution towards those who have succumbed to false teachers. It's a good desire for us to want to play a role in bringing people to the gospel, bringing people to their Savior, but we have to remember that we are not their Savior. That role is for Christ and Christ alone. So we want to exercise caution. And then this metaphor at the very end of the clothing stained by the corrupted flesh, this just conveys how Christians are to hate how sinfulness brought on by false teachings has ruined the lives of those who do not resist. There should stir up in us a certain anger of someone whose life has succumbed to a false gospel. Because we know what really happened, that someone purposefully twisted God's truth to hurt someone, to rob someone of the true eternity spent with Jesus. And so there should be an anger, there should be a sadness within us when that happens. So all this, in this short, just three verses, this is how to contend for the faith. This is how to fight against false teachers. This is how to strengthen the church to build ourselves up in the truth of the gospel. As Pastor Chris mentioned last week, this is a short letter, but there is so much here, so much instruction for us.

And he ends with one final encouragement, verses 24 through 25, says, "To him who is able to keep you from stumbling, to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore. Amen." This is my favorite part. I love these two verses. He so eloquently yet simply states that a relationship with God is the ultimate safeguard against false teachings. God is the only one who can keep us from falling victim to the lies and the heresy in this world. And again, it serves as a reminder that you cannot simply on your own strength and ability keep yourself from stumbling. Can't do it. If you want to try, as vigilant as you may be in your relationship with God, you can't do it on your own. We are all sinners. We all fall short. We cannot on our own strength keep ourselves from stumbling. We can't keep others from stumbling. But God can, and He does. It is God who keeps us. As I mentioned in the beginning, it speaks to this necessity of a community of believers. God works through the church, works through each of us together as we pursue Him together to keep us and protect us from falling too far from His grace. So trust that God is the one who keeps us from stumbling.

And then the next part, the next picture is a beautiful picture, an eternal perspective as Jude brings us to the moment that we will be with God in heaven. It says, "He will present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy." This is temple sacrifice language from the Old Testament, where a person would have to bring forth a perfect animal, which was a spotless animal, and you present it before the priests, which meant before God. And there was a joy in doing this because it meant that they would be made right before God. And so it was a moment of worship. It was a moment of joy going to the temple, bringing your sacrifice. Now we no longer have to make animal sacrifices, thank you, Lord, but we are still able to appear blameless before God, not on our own doing, because even as believers, right, we still have sin within us, but because of Christ, because of the sacrificial death that He died on the cross. He functions as our sacrifice to make it able that God sees us blameless before Him. So instead of seeing our sin, God sees the perfection of Jesus. What love God has for us to send His Son, Jesus, who died for us, and that will bring us with Him into heaven, where there is no sin, where we can commune with God for eternity. And then Jude ends with this beautiful affirmation of Jesus and God being one, to the only God, our Savior. Be the glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jude testifies to both God's character as one worthy to be praised, and to God's right to rule all things, both now and forever. What a way to end this letter. A letter full of warnings, full of encouragement, full of truth, and then he ends with this protective blessing and prayer over the church. And to me, it's moving, it's inspiring, it's powerful. So as we close, I want to take a moment to reflect on our own lives, and as a community of believers, right?

So I have a couple questions for us. I want you just to think and answer these to yourselves. Be honest in your own heart. First one is this, are you living vigilantly? Are you attentive and astute to the truth of the gospel? We should take that warning to the false teachers seriously. And as Pastor Chris said last week, we should also be taking an internal inventory of our own lives, of our words, our actions, and hold them up to the truth that Jude says here and has instructed us. Are we contending for the faith? Are we on guard? Or as John 14, 15, do we love God? Are we following His commandments? So are you living vigilantly? Secondly, are you living with the hope and assurance of victory? Are we living in a way of anxiously awaiting the new mercies that we will experience with God in heaven? Are we expectantly anticipating and living in the light of God's future deliverance? Do we have that hope? Do we have that divine peace with us? Do we live with, yes, being present here in the now, but also with a part of our minds on the future and the glory of being with God? And then lastly, are you living with your trust in God? This is easy to say yes to and a lot harder to actually implement and live out every day trusting God fully. Do we have that peace in our heart that He is keeping us, that He is protecting us, that He has us, He's taking care of us? Are you letting selfish ambition or anxiety control and drive you? Are you living out of fear? Is any of your trust, are you trusting yourself in any part of your life more than you are trusting God with that part of your life? Some areas are easy. We're like, "Yeah, in this area, God, all you. Trust you. You got this." And in other areas of our life, we're like, "God, I think I know what I'm doing." So you can just hold on a second and we don't have these conversations with God, right? But this is how our actions play out. So I just want to ask, are you living with your trust in God? And this week, how can you take a step toward trusting God more? And I pray that as you answer these questions to yourself between you and God, that the Spirit will convict where conviction is necessary, that He'd encourage you where encouragement is necessary, maybe you're doing a great job and you would feel encouraged in your faith, and that in other areas, He would guide you and that you would listen and follow Him.

The Book of Jude: Part 2

The Book of Jude

Part 2: Recognizing the Counterfeits

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, I am excited to be bringing part two of Jude to you this morning, and if you haven't heard of the book of Jude, I don't blame you. It's only, what, 25 verses long. There isn't even a second chapter. It is so quick and short, but we felt that God had something for us to learn even in this book, and so we're taking three weeks to go through the book of Jude, and then we're gonna start on a journey to Easter together called the Ministry of Jesus, and we're gonna follow Jesus' journey to the cross, to Easter together, and we're really looking forward to that series starting in a few weeks. But this morning, we're gonna be jumping into Jude, but we're gonna start, I believe, around verse five. Pastor Andre did a great job last week kinda giving us an intro to the book and really talking through the first four verses of this letter, and what's really cool is Jude here is encouraging people to continue to contend for the faith, to remember who you are at your core. He talked about how we are called, we're loved, and we're kept, and that because of that we're called, we're loved, and we're kept, we have a new identity. When we ask Jesus to come into our lives, to change us, to transform us, to make us new, to put the sin away and to put on the new identity in Christ, God transforms us. He changes who we are, and this is foundational that in this, when we know as not ourselves, not as Roy or Matt or Carolina or Eric or anybody else, but that we are now in Christ.

We are in Christ Jesus, and this is foundational to know how we stand to contend for the faith. What do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that in standing up for the faith in Jesus Christ, we have to be able to decide what is true and what is not true, and the greatest thing in the world, we have two amazing things in our lives that help us with us, and we don't have to figure this out. We have the Holy Spirit, we sang about this morning together, and we have the Bible, we have God's word for our lives to then help us know how we stand for the faith. When other things come at us that aren't of God and try to throw us off, we're able to stand for the faith for God. But first, I wanna pray real quick before we jump in. Jesus, we thank you for this morning. God, we continue to invite you into this space. Jesus, I pray for myself that you would give me the words this morning to share, Jesus, that you have, through your servant Jude, written a letter to remind the church how to stand for truth. And so, Jesus, I pray that we would be open to what you have for us. God, I don't believe it's an accident that anybody is here in this space this morning, but Jesus, you have something for every single one of us. And so, God, I pray we have open ears, open hearts, open minds to truly understand what you want us to hear today, not what we brought in or what we're looking or any agenda we have in our lives, but you, Jesus, would speak truth into our lives this day. Amen.

Jude here is telling us that as we stand for the faith, that we have to be able to recognize counterfeits. We have to recognize things that aren't true, things that are false. This summer, every summer, if you guys have been around the rhythm of Spring Valley, we have a fireworks booth that we host in our parking lot, and all week, we out there and we sit in the hot and we sweat and we sell black powder is essentially what we're doing. Just be honest. We're selling miniature explosions as much as the state of California will allow us to sell. You have to go to the other states for the really good stuff, sorry. But as we're out there selling, we're making lots of transactions. And I remember at the end of the week, we gathered up all the cash that we had and we took it to the bank to deposit all of our sales. And as they're counting all the money up and going through everything, this $100 bill pops out of the machine. And I think, oh no. And so she pulls it aside and she starts to investigate why the currency machine kicked this $100 bill out. And all week, if you know, Shelly, she is the champion. She is the queen of fireworks. She runs that booth like a well oiled machine. She takes care of us so well, she's sick today. We miss you, we love you, we're praying for you, Shelly. And we had been so careful all week. We had the pens, you know where you can draw, you make sure, we even had the UV light out there to be able to look at everything. And this $100 bill passed the pen test and it passed the UV light test. But as we're sitting there at the bank, I'm talking to tell her, there's just something about this $100 bill that isn't sitting right. She takes the pen, she tests it, it passed. She puts it under their UV light, it passed. But the more that she began to investigate this $100 bill, we quickly began to understand that it was counterfeit. It was a fake. And that somewhere along the way, in the busyness that can be out there in that booth, we did what we were supposed to do. We took the checks, we looked for truth. We hit the pen, we hit the light. But she began to show me on the backside of the $100 bill, right near the bottom of it, the printing was blurry. It wasn't crisp. And the more that she touched that and rubbed it, the ink actually started to smudge. And I said, "How often do you get this?" And she goes, "Hardly ever." She goes, "Honestly, it rarely happens." She goes, "Most people who work in businesses and jobs have touched money so much through transactions that they just know when they touch it." And that's true for the Secret Service who deals with counterfeits, the FBI, local law agencies. How they train for counterfeits is they do nothing but trust and touch real paper money. They look at all the details. They look at the nuances. They look at the UV lighting that's on it. They look at the printing. They look at the smallest details and they just touch it time and time again. And so the moment they begin to touch something that doesn't feel right, a red flag goes up and says, "Hold up, time out. Something isn't right."

You must know the real thing to be able to spot counterfeits and part of contending for the faith means that we have to discern false versus what God said is true. It's spotting the counterfeits that are disguised so well as truth around us that actually begin to hurt our faith. That $100 bill passed the pen test. It passed the UV light test. It did everything that we thought we had done to set up to prevent this. And yet, because we do not touch money regularly and handle it, know the details, know the nuances and all the little details, we weren't able to catch this counterfeit. And Jude here is basically saying in this section that there are false teachers out there. That isn't something we're debating today. There are false teachers out there. There are ungodly people who are trying to do what they want to do, making their own selfish decisions. And Jude here wants to make a point.

So he says, starting in verse five, he says, "Though you already know all of this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling, these he has kept in darkness, bound everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. And in a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer "he punishment of eternal fire." Whoa. Jude just comes in with like the one-two punch here, right? He's like, I got a short letter, guys. I said, I made a joke that Jude is like the text message of communication in the early church, it's so short. Like Paul's writing like theses over here and mailing off these giant letters. And then you got other ones that are shorter, like 1st and 2nd Timothy is kind of like an email. And then Jude is like a text message. So I mean, you only got so many characters to use up, right? We want to get to the point here. And Jude jumps in and he says, "You have to watch out for false teachers." Because what happened? He goes, "The Israelites didn't obey God. "God redeemed them out of Egypt, rescued them, saved them. "And yet they didn't obey God. "And because of that, they had to wander "in the desert for 40 years." He said, "Then the angels." This is kind of interesting. If you guys know any story about this, the angels is the story of Genesis 6. That there were these angels that rejected their dwelling with God and actually said, I want to go to earth. And so God said, okay, you can go, but that is your life. There is no coming back from this. So the angels left and came down and they glorified themselves among humans, having relations with them and dwelling with them. And because of that, the angels chose to glorify themselves. And then Sodom and Gomorrah, if you guys know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, they were two powerhouse cities. I mean, I'm talking about powerhouse, the top of the top, the most GDP, the greatest. They had the armies, they had the wealth, they had everything, but what happened? They rejected the way of God's living. And because they rejected and they tried, they tried. God sent angels, God sent leaders, God sent so many people to Sodom and Gomorrah said, turn away, there's a better way to live your life. You're living for yourself, but yet they rejected it. And so in the end, their own selfish decisions led to their demise. So Jude is giving these three pretty powerful stories. So people that are reading in this context, they come from a Jewish background, they would immediately understand what he is talking about comparing to false teachers. And we can see what their choices actually ended up costing them. God's judgment. We don't like to talk about this side of God, right? We want the loving, the caring, the gracious, the blessing, the merciful, we want that side, we like that God, but you can't have that side of God without the other side that says, there's a line in the sand, enough is enough.

And so I see two warnings for our church today. Today's modern church, number one is this is an encouragement, okay? You're like, what, how, what? No. These examples, they confirm that these false teachers, no matter how much they get away with what they do, no matter how much they hurt people, no matter how far they lead people astray, there will be consequences. God is the king. God is Lord. God is on the throne. And they will be judged and condemned for their actions. Maybe this side of eternity or after, it's up to God. The Israelites, they were punished here on earth. The angels were bound in chains as darkness, as the scripture says. And Sodom and Gomorrah suffered destruction under fire. I mean, fireballs from heaven, talking about a fireworks show, holy buckets, crazy. These, all these people preached a false gospel.

Second thing I see is that we must take this message to heart and to be on our guard, always aware, always looking around, always paying attention to guard our hearts against these false teachers. Time and time again, it breaks my heart when I hear and read about stories of pastors who have just fallen from the faith. And it breaks my heart because it's not just them, personally, it's not just their families. It's communities of faith, churches that just lie in ruins in the wake of these false teachers as they led their people astray. And it makes me so sad and my heart goes out to them because I know people personally who have been hurt by the church. Some God had been able to redeem and bring back to the church and say, that was not my way. This is my way, come back. Some are like, I want nothing to do with this God ever again for the rest of my life because of false teachers. God isn't messing around when he talks about these. Being a good Christian doesn't mean we aren't susceptible to falling for these false teachings. The enemy is the master deceiver. He twists things, he puts just little drops of truth along the way so we think, oh, okay, this is gonna be okay. It's gonna be all right. But we must continue to walk faithfully daily with Jesus and to know his word, to have this. So I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you, God. To his word deep down inside of us that'll never go away, that we have the truth inside of who we are, to understand, to stand against these false teachings and to contend for the faith.

Jude continues in verse eight, he says this. “In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams, these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority, heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the Archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses did not himself dare to condemn him for slander, but said, the Lord rebuke you. Yet these people slander whatever they do, do not understand. And the very things they do not understand by instinct as irrational animals do, will destroy them. Woe to them. They have taken the way of Cain. They have rushed for profit into Balaam's air and they have destroyed in Korah's rebellion.” What's going on here? He talks about Cain, he talks about Balaam and Korah. What's the story here? Again, some background history here. Cain ended up bringing an offering to God, however, it was without faith. And in turn, out of his jealousy, which God rejected his offering and took his brothers, he went and killed his own blood in anger. His own brother, he killed him. And Jude here is saying, this is dead religion. How do you say that? Well, the Bible tells us that faith without works is dead. Cain brought his offering without faith. So he had the works of the offering, but didn't have any faith, it was backwards. And because of that, it was a dead religion that Cain was actually practicing. False religion, incorrect religion, untrue religion and worship. Well, what about Balaam? Well, Balaam, he was intentionally, intentionally led others into sin. He was in control in leadership and he intentionally led people into sin. Why? For his own profit. He was making money off of leading people into sin. And then Korah, Korah rebelled against God's authority and even against the mediator who is Jesus. There's so much here in these three stories. I don't have time this morning. But Korah rebelled against authority and rejected God's given authority at that time in Israel.

Now Jude is really honest here. If you thought he was hitting hard, he's about to continue to hit a little bit harder here. Says this in the next section. It's really poetic. It's kind of beautiful the way he says this. But he said, "These people are blemishes at your love feast, eating with you without the slightest qualm, shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind, autumn trees without fruit and uprooted, twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea foaming up their shame, wandering stars from the blackest darkness has there been reserved forever." Jude isn't holding back here. You know, guys, you caught some of that stuff. But he talks about some key things here. He talks about these love feasts. What is he talking about this? Well, in the early church, they would have called these agape feasts, which would have been what we know today as potlucks, right? Next Sunday, soup and salad Sunday, sign up in the back, be here for our love feast. No, I'm kidding. But our church meal is next week. But they would gather together. And what this actually was, was it was a moment for the church to all come collectively to bring food, to invite the community in, to then provide a meal for those who didn't have any food. And for some, that was their only meal of the week, was Sunday. And they would go a whole week without food, looking forward to that next Sunday, to go to church, to be fed spiritually by the word of God, but physically by a meal shared together. And what does Jude say? Jude says, "They're hanging out at these gatherings. They're among you. You may not see them. You may not understand them. They may be putting the face on and saying all the right Christian words, right? We have a language that we speak in the church. They're saying all the right things, but they're there to manipulate. They're there to connive. They're there to leverage people for their own personal gain." He continues on, "Clouds without rain." What are clouds made to do? They're made to bring rain. They're made to bring what came this morning, water, nourishment, life to earth. But a rain with, or a cloud without rain is kind of useless, right? It's just blown away by the wind. He continues on, "Autumn trees without fruit and are uprooted. They're twice dead." Well, if you guys know, autumn time is harvest. I love going up to Apple Hill. Autumn time, oh, just such a best. All the apples are out there for harvest. The trees are bearing fruit. But what happens when a tree doesn't bear fruit? Gets cut down. Why? The purpose of the tree is to bear fruit. And so in these orchards, when a tree ceases to produce fruit, it's chopped down, it's uprooted, it's burned, it's tossed away, and a new tree is planted in hopes that it will produce fruit.

Jude here is also saying a little bit of a test here. If you find people and you're not too sure about where they are or where their faith is, test them for fruit. Look for results of God's transformation in their lives. To see the fruit, to see the transformation, to know, because false teachers don't have fruit. Continues on, "Wild waves of the sea just bashing up against the coast." Bash, that does nothing good, right? All it does is break down the coast. It breaks down, creates cliffs and rocks and treacherous waters. Wandering stars. You guys know about anything about the North Star? We've had some field trips with our kids lately, and I started to learn more about the stars, and it's pretty amazing about the North Star and how the reason they use it for navigation and how they do it, because basically the way the earth rotates, that star doesn't move in the sky. Every other star, as the earth spins, we move around those stars, and the stars are moving around us. But the North Star stands still. It is what they call, by definition, true north. And that's how sailors would navigate waters before GPS or coordinates or maps or anything. They would know where they're plotting based on the trajectory and the movement of them compared to the North Star, because the North Star is true. It doesn't change, it doesn't move, it doesn't do anything but stick right there. What a blessing from God, right? What a blessing from God to have that truth.

Jude here is making it clear that these false teachers are pointless at best and wreak havoc at worst. Yeah, they may make waves. They may draw attention. They may make noise, but it's short-lived. It leaves behind them a wake of shame, uncertainty, and chaos. But when we are on guard, contending for the faith, looking out for the false, looking out for the counterfeits, paying attention, we're able to see truth. We're able to see the truth of God moving in people among us. It's sad, the latest study of, I think it was a bar in a group or something, they do a bunch of church studies, that the reputation of pastors and Christians is the lowest it's been in basically the history of the church today. Because of the false teachers, because of the hypocrisy, because of the manipulation, because of the greed, because of the sexual immorality, because of the sin. Now, you have to remember that pastors are people too. You can't be putting people on pedestals. But it also means that we have a higher calling to teach the truth. I love what Pastor Andre said last week. If you find one of us preaching something that is not true to scripture, that is hypocrisy, call us out. 100%. Because if we don't lead in the way of the truth, we're no greater than any of these people that Paul or that Jude is calling out here in this letter. We have to use discernment. We live in this world of manipulation and deception, right? Social media, nothing we see on social media is true, right? Nothing we read. The 24 hour news cycle that just does not stop. Other religions around us trying to say, this is truth, this is what this means. Half truths, manipulated truths, where they're packaged up and they look beautiful, right? And we go, there it is. But when we begin to open it up and discover that's not truth, we have to use discernment to see what is true. The theologian, Erdman writes this, he said, "There is no other gospel. There will be none. Its content will be more fully understood. Its implications will be developed. Its predictions will be fulfilled, but it will never be supplemented, succeeded, or supplanted." Did you guys catch that? This is truth. The gospel is truth.

Says in 2 Timothy 3:1-5, "But mark this, there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power, having nothing to do, have nothing to do with such people." This could have been written this week. But this was written in the early church 2,000 years ago. World doesn't change much, does it? Just new generations, and new generations, and new generations. Paul makes it clear, have nothing to do with these people. So Jude wraps everything up in this section. He ends it with a quote from Enoch, which is kinda interesting. If you guys know the story of Enoch in Genesis, he was only a handful of generations separated from Adam, the original human being created in the garden. And even though Enoch's writings are highly regarded with their truth of being grounded in scripture, this is actually not scripture itself, but it says this. “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, so the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied about them. He said, See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness. And all, and all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These people are grumblers, faultfinders. They follow their own evil desires. They boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.” Jude really, really, really wants to make it clear to the point that false teachers or anybody preaching any other gospel other than the gospel of Jesus Christ will be judged and punished. God ain't messing around when it comes to the gospel. That is a black and white issue. There ain't no gray in there whatsoever. And ultimately, our responsibility as followers of Christ in that gospel is to be on the lookout and on guard against all of these false teachers. False teachers are everywhere. They're in churches, they're in communities, they're all over social media. They're online, everywhere to be found. And we have to be on guard knowing what truth is so we can hold it up against the counterfeit to go, does this feel right? Does this look right? Is this printed correctly? Is this exactly how the Bible says is truth? Or is it off course? False teachers come all spectrums from just a little bit to wonky. There's some wonky ones out there. But we have to be on the lookout. Not allowing even just regular sinfulness to come into our hearts. We just finished a series, Habits of a Healthy Heart. And we talked about what the word repent means. Re, to turn away, to pent, penthouse, higher. To turn away from the lower being of false teachers and false truth and false religions, turning away from that to the higher, greater calling that God has for each of our lives. To repent, to turn to God's life, to see the truth, to follow his teachers that he's blessed us with that lead us in the truth of the gospel. We have to be on guard against choosing rote obedience rather than living by faith that leads to dead religion. We have to be on guard choosing to follow not our own selfish desires that lead us astray in our own sin. We have to be on guard, as Jude said, choosing not to grumble or constantly find fault in anything, in any act of rebellion against a good and righteous God. So we contend for the faith by being on the lookout for false teachers, fighting to find the truth in the pulpit and in public places. And we fight for that truth to be preached in our own hearts, in our own homes, and in our own churches, right? The first step in turning from rebellion is to confess anything that we got going in our heart that isn't up to truth of God's scripture.

So question this morning as we wrap up. What rebellion in your life or in your heart do you need to confess? Jude's not pulling punches. Jude's coming straight at us. Sometimes we need that, right? Sometimes we need somebody just to come at us and tell us how it is, right? There's enough fluff in this world. Jude ain't no fluff. (laughs) So I want us to take just a moment right here. I want you just to bow your head, go before God, and just ask God to do an inventory on your heart and your life. And to go, God, where am I believing a false religion? Where have I unbeknownst, succeeded, succumbed to false teaching? Or maybe where do I have just a little bit of rebellion in my heart? Where I'm flirting with that line of sin, or maybe you've stepped into it, and maybe you're walking alongside it. We talked about have we befriended sin in our last series? But let God search your heart. Let him take inventory and begin to reveal to you right now in this moment.

We're just gonna take a moment pray together, quiet in our hearts. Search our hearts, Father. Show us if there is any wicked or wrong way in us, Jesus. Not in a sense to control us or to put us down or to bring shame onto our hearts, 'cause that's not from you, God. But that part of this salvation piece of transforming our lives is changing things in our hearts, changing the way maybe we see those around us, changing the way that we might act when nobody's looking, change the way that we have for our priorities in our life that are not God-honoring. God, maybe it's a specific sin that you've placed on our heart this morning, Jesus. I pray that we would repent from that, that we would turn away from the lower, the false, the less, and turn to receive your greater love, your greater hope, your greater mercy. Jesus, I pray this week that this introspection would not stop here, but that it would continue on, God, throughout this week and throughout this series as we finish up Jude next week, God, that you would truly take an inventory inside of us. It's easy to look around at those in our lives and to go like, oh, they're messing up. They're not doing it right. They don't have their stuff together, that they're a false teacher, and I'm doing okay, God. I'm not as bad as them. But this isn't a comparison game, God. This is holding up truth, scripture, your word against our lives, not comparing us to anybody else. And we need to take a moment to pause our lives, to look at what we have going, and to ask ourselves, are we living the way that God commands us to? The higher, the greater, the better, the victorious, the gracious, the merciful, the loving life that you've called us to live, how does our life match up? I pray maybe even in the midst of this, God, we would be encouraged in areas that we're doing really good or areas we used to struggle with that we're still fighting through, God. Help us to continue to fight. We haven't given up yet. Fighting is good. Fighting means we're still trying to push forward through all this mess, God. But God, I pray you begin to drill deep down, deep, deep down inside of us, and to change us, mold us, God, into who you created us to be. God, I'm grateful for today. I'm grateful for this day. God, we pray for those who weren't able to be with us that aren't feeling well. God, I pray that you would heal their hearts, you would bring health and full restoration back to their lives, restore their bodies. God, give them sleep and rest. And God, I pray that you would bring all of us back together next week for a church lunch, you know, to hang out, to eat, to eat, to hang out, to wrap up Jude and just have a great afternoon of friendship and laughter and encouragement, God. We praise you for this day. We love you. Pray all this in Jesus' name. Everybody said, Amen, Amen.

The Book of Jude: Part 1

The Book of Jude

Part 1: The Call To Contend

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Finished a series called the habits of a healthy heart. We did that for five weeks. And now we're starting a new series and something that we do here at Spring Valley Church is that we'll kind of go back and forth between a topical series and something more expositional, just going through verse by verse a book of the Bible. And that's what we're going to do now for the next three weeks. We're going into the book of Jude. If you've not heard of Jude, that's okay. It's like one of the shortest books in the Bible. It's tiny. It's the second to last book in the Bible. It's right before Revelations. And we are going to be diving in just three weeks and kind of the theme around Jude is contending for the faith. We'll get into what that means today. But I want you to, let me start with this question here. Can you think of a time in the church history where the truth of the gospel was under attack? Where the truth was taught by people whose lives actually promoted sin? A time in church history where the truth of the gospel was being polluted, where the truth had been hijacked for corrupt purposes and selfish gain. The reality is we may be thinking of multiple times in church history because this is a common problem and it was a problem all the way back in the early church. It existed even in the time of Jesus' ministry. As Jesus was going around, this problem started rising. And multiple authors in the New Testament had to address this issue. And Jude is one of those authors. He sees what's going on in the early church and says, "This is not okay. I got to say something about it.”

And so again, in our three-part series in Jude, we're going to look at how Jude calls believers to stand firm in their faith, to discern truth from falsehood, and to persevere and walk with God. And through this series, our hope is that we as a church will be inspired to live boldly for Jesus, living a life that is founded in truth and filled with hope. So before we again get into it, I just want to give a little bit more about the background is that Jude was originally going to write a long letter. We see these short letters and we're like, "What happened there? Everyone else's New Testament book is a little bit longer." So he was going to write something longer, but he saw the issue of this false teachers and he said, "I got to address it right away." So I'm going to write this short little memo, but it's still very thoughtful and very powerful. And what Jude does, pardon my voice, by the way, sickness is going through our family. Wife and baby aren't here because they're sick and I'm getting over it. So I'm here, don't worry. I'm okay. But this is new. I haven't sounded like this yet. So yeah, Jude in his message, he doesn't just get into how to address false teachers, but why we should address false teachers. Psychologists today have a preference for people understanding the why over understanding the how, because it reaches humans, it reaches us on a deeper level. By knowing the reasons behind events or behaviors, people feel more equipped to navigate situations more accurately. So Jude is saying, "Hey, you believers, you church, if you understand why these false teachers are doing what they're doing, you're going to be more motivated and better equipped to navigate those situations. Rather than me just telling you how to navigate it and how to do everything, let me tell you why." We see this in parenting often, right? At a certain age, there's a need to simply say, "Don't do this. This is how you do it." But when they get a little bit older, you start to tell them why we do it so that they can understand, so they can make that decision in the future on their own. "Wow, thank you so much. All the service. Lead pastor right there. That's a lead pastor just serving. Is there honey in it too? Just a little bit? Oh, there's not. Okay. That's just me. It's just our water. It's great water. Okay." It's like I said, when we parent, you tell your kids at a certain age why we do something because you want them to understand so that in other situations they can do it on their own. The why is important. We'll see in the next couple of weeks, Jude explains what is happening, why it is so important to address this and how to take action.

So if you guys want to open your Bibles or follow along on the screen, you're going to flip all the way to the end of your Bible. Well, not quite, Jude. I'm going to read the first four verses of Jude. Also, there's no chapters. I put one in there just so we don't confuse us if you're looking in your bulletin, but it's just one chapter. All right. One through four. It says, "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, to those who have been called who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance. Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God's holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign Lord." Let's pray together. God, thank you again for our time. And God, I pray that you would be with us this morning and help us to understand your word and that we would understand why it is so important to have a true grasp of your gospel and why it is so important to constantly be growing in our faith and our understanding of who you are and what you do. And God, I pray that through your word this morning, we'd be drawn closer to you. We'd be encouraged to live boldly for you and that we would be filled with hope. We give this morning to you. We pray this in your name. Amen. All right, let me just drink a little bit more. This is good. Yes, thank you. This morning, just short verses right here.

There's a few truths that I want us to focus on and meditate on together. All right. So here's this, in the first two verses, we see Jude address our identity in Christ, our identity. As I mentioned before, we can learn something important about knowing the identity of Jude himself. So Jude says, "Is a brother of Jesus Christ." Well, he's a brother of James, but we know that James, we do some research. I did the research for you. James is a brother of Jesus. And so you're wondering, why didn't you just claim to be a brother of Jesus himself? I think it's showing humility, right? It'd be easy for us if we were the brother of Jesus. Wouldn't we want to put that on every book we wrote? To be like, "Hey, by the way, we all love him. You guys love him. You'll love me too. I'm the brother." But he shows humility by saying, "I'm a servant of Jesus." And there's really even a deeper story behind that. If we go to John 7-3, we understand that Jesus' family was not always so supportive of Jesus. It says in John 7-3, "Jesus' brother said to him, 'Leave Galilee.'" This is the brothers telling Jesus, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea so that your disciples there may see the works you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world, for even his own brothers did not believe him." So they are mocking Jesus right here. Jude is one of the brothers that is mocking Jesus, saying, "I don't believe." If you want to go do this thing, go show the world who you think you are. They're not encouraging. We can read them and be like, "Oh, they just want him to go." No, they're mocking him. They're saying, "Go do your thing if you want to." They're doubting who he claims to be and saying, "Yeah, go show the world. Maybe they'll accept you." And so there's unbelief and there's a failure to understand who Jesus is and what his kingdom is about. And we don't know the story, but we now know that Jude wrote a book. So somewhere in between, there's a transformation that happened in him, going from doubt and disbelief to belief and the utmost belief to say, "I'm a servant of Jesus. I believe so much about who he is that I am wanting to be a part of his kingdom now." So what a beautiful picture of transformation and redemption. And he writes this knowing that other people will have felt the same way. They'll relate. They'll say, "I once had doubts. I didn't believe, but now I do." And he wants to strengthen their faith.

So then he turns his attention to the audiences, which is us, to our identity, to those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. Called, loved and kept. This is about the church then and it's about us today. Called shows that our salvation begins with God. Loved shows that his love, God's love for us is the foundation for everything that we do and how we live our life. And then we are kept. I love that. We will see how our eternal security can empower us to be bold in our faith. We don't have to fear anything in this world because we know that we have a future in heaven with God. You see, our identity changes as believers to be united with the person of Christ. This is our identity today. And other New Testament authors talk about this. Galatians 2 says, "I've been crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." 2 Corinthians 5 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old is gone, the new is here. All this from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ." So all throughout the New Testament, we see, and Jude puts it right here, so compactly as believers we are called, we are loved, and we are kept. Your entire spiritual life is initiated by God, is sustained by God, and your eternal future is promised and kept for by God. Our identity is found solely in him. We live in a world today that is vying to say, "Hey, put your identity in this. Put your identity in work, in your family, in your success, in sport," whatever it is, all these things that are vying for like, "Hey, plant your flag of identity, put it here." And Jesus is saying, "No, your whole identity is in me. Once you believe in me, your whole life has changed, all of it." So I just want this to wash over us today and to give us comfort, to be a good reminder, to give us security in our faith and hope for our future. So church, God has called you. God loves you, and God is keeping you. Your identity is aligned with Christ, who was the suffering servant, the one who loved the orphans and the widows, who ate meals with the outcasts and the rejects, who defeated sin, who conquered death, who ascended into heaven and is seated on the right hand of God. This is who our identity lies in. We are first reminded in just those first couple verses of our identity in Christ.

Then Jude moves on to something else. In verse 3, he gives us the need to contend. Says "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith." He's being a good shepherd here, looking out for the flock of the church, and he knows that wolves are on the attack, threatening the flock, threatening the church, something that many of the disciples and the apostles addressed, giving the early church a playbook. Believers need to know their faith. They need to mature and grow in their faith, to truly understand what Jesus says is truth and what's not true. Other authors put it this way. Hebrews 6 says, "Therefore, let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from accidentally to death and faith in God." Ephesians 4 says, "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming." This one speaks to me. I'm a visual person. I don't know if you've ever been to the ocean and just been on an inner tube or floating out there, and you let the waves take you. They will take you. You will go farther and farther out, and you don't really have control. You're just letting the ocean take you where it is. That's what it can be like if we don't know our faith. The minute we hear something, we're like, "Oh, that sounds good," and we go in that direction. Someone else teaches this, "Oh, you know what? That sounds good too," and we're just being tossed back and forth. In this analogy, Jesus is saying, "I want you to be anchored. I don't want the waves to take wherever they're taking you. I want you to know what is true. I want you to stay right there." What does it mean to contend? To contend for the faith. Well, the word in Greek here really means to convey a struggle, a wrestling match. And we're not so much wrestling with someone else as much as we're wrestling with our faith to understand it more. We have to know that the faith we have in God is something that is living. It's not static. It's a relationship with God, and as we grow and we know more about God, there'll be things in the faith that are new, and we need to wrestle with those things. We have to wrestle with situations that arise where we know the truth of God, hey, to love other people. And we find ourselves in one situation, and we figure out, "All right, in this situation, this is how I love other people." But then, maybe 10 years down the road, you find yourself in a new situation. You say, "I need to love. I don't know how to love these people. I knew how to do it in that situation, but I need to wrestle again with the faith to figure out what it means to love others in this situation." Here's a couple of tools to keep in your back pocket when we talk about contending for the faith. As you wrestle with Scripture, remember these things. One, always use Scripture to understand Scripture. Does that make sense? Use Scripture to understand Scripture. If you read one passage and you say, "I think this is what this is saying," go find other passages that talk about the same thing and see if that is true. The Bible is consistent. It will not say, "Do this thing," and then do the complete opposite. So use Scripture to understand Scripture. Next, ask the Spirit to help you discern. Pray about it. "God, is this what you're telling me to do? Is this what your word is saying? I think in this situation, I understand your truth from the Bible, and I want to apply it in this way. Is this what you want me to do?" He'll tell you. And then use the body of Christ. Use the church. We all have different experiences that the Bible tells us the body of believers is made up of different parts to help each other. You may have lived through a certain situation that I haven't been through yet, and I'm going to go to you and say, "Hey, what did you do? How did you walk through that in such a Christ-like manner? Tell me how to do that. We're here for each other. How did you apply God's truth in that conversation? That was a hard conversation you had. How did you do that?" So he's urging the early church to wrestle with their beliefs, to understand how some things are true and some things are clearly not true. The call here is for believers to be proactive in their faith, not passive and nonchalant, but proactive in their faith. This faith we have, this gift of salvation, this relationship with God that we have is precious, it's powerful, and it needs to be prioritized in our lives.

So why do we do this? When we aren't proactive in doing these things, Jude addresses what may happen if this doesn't occur, and that is the threat of false teachers in our faith communities. Verse 4 says, "For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign Lord." There's a reality that within church, people don't know the truth and don't understand the truth. That's a given. The scarier truth is that there are people who will rise up in leadership and start to preach and teach not truth, falsehoods. And we as a church are to hold each other accountable. If Pastor Chris or I ever got up here and said something that was a heresy, I would hope that you guys would see that, hear that, and do something about it. That you guys would not be just tossed to and from and be like, "I guess what he said is true even though the Bible clearly says otherwise." No, you guys, yeah, come on, call us out if that ever happens. And that's what wasn't happening in the early church. These churches didn't know the truth, didn't wrestle with their faith to understand, so that when false teachers got up, they were just going along with it like, "Oh, okay, sure." It's a scary truth when this happens because those people, Jude makes it clear, they're doing this knowingly. These false teachers do it knowingly. They know that what they're saying is a lie, that they are perverting the truth of the gospel and that they are giving license to sin. Their false gospel doesn't just allow it but might even encourage people to sin and also deny Christ. Here's a couple of thoughts. Next week, Pastor Lauren's going to really get into a lot of false teaching, so I'm only going to give like a tease right here because her section of Jude is all about it. But here's a couple of things to remember about false teachers from this one verse. False teachers can be subtle. It says they slipped in, right? This wasn't a came in with a big like, "Oh, we should have known because it was..." No, they slip in. It's subtle. While sometimes their teaching is outright wrong, oftentimes it twists the truth. So there's a nugget of truth in there, but they twisted in some way. And so you recognize like, "Oh, that part of it, yeah, that sounded good." And then some other part is obviously wrong. But it's small and it can be subtle. Something like, "Hey, a closer relationship to God should mean me experiencing more blessing in my life." You hear that and you're like, "Okay, not necessarily wrong, but I have some follow-up questions. What does that mean?" Are we just talking health and wealth prosperity gospel here? Are we just talking about God's going to be good to me despite whatever I go through? It can be small. We have to be careful. We need to be proactive in listening to what is being taught. We need to know the truth in order to recognize the falsehoods. This is why Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4, it says, "Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction for the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine." He's already saying this is going to happen. "Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them with great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." You cannot just show up to church and just listen and like half listen and be like, "All right, got my fill of Jesus. I'm good." No, you need to listen, do the work, compare what we say to scripture, make sure that this is exactly, this is lining up with what God has said in his word. All right, so first false teachers can be subtle. False teachers look at the fruit they produce in their life.

John 15 talks about abiding in Christ and we'll know, the Bible tells us that we don't know the heart of every person. We're not meant to know exactly their heart status and if they're saved or not saved, but we can look at the fruit of their lives to say, "Hey, are they showing the fruit of the spirit? Are they loving? Are they kind? Are they patient? Are they compassionate?" If we see those things, we can be like, "Hey, I think that maybe they're a believer. Maybe they're following Jesus because their life looks like it." For those false teachers, look at the fruit of their life. If they're saying one thing, but they treat people terribly, or look at how they treat the poor. Look at how they treat those who are struggling. There's signs there that could be like, "Hmm, they say one thing and they sound kind of good, but their whole life just seems like a wreck. Their life doesn't have it together. They're not loving other people like Jesus would love people." Paul says in Romans, "I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way. They're contrary to the teaching that you have learned. Keep away from them, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the minds of naive people." Again, Bible tells us there are going to be false teachers and they're going to deceive people. So the warning is, look out for false teachers. Also, don't be the one with naive minds, right? We want to mature in faith. We want to grow in our faith. Peter says, "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves." I once was at a pastors conference, and this is a room full of pastors, and someone was speaking to us. And I remember being a little bit shocked, because his message was, even in this room right now, and there was probably 3,000 of us pastors in this room, he's like, "Even among us, there are Judases in this room. People who are preaching, who think that they may be okay, or who know that they are preaching falsehoods. It is a reality that we deal with. We have to be vigilant, knowing we have to know the truth. And we have to know, that way, when we know the truth, this is a tease, this is going to get into next week, when we know the truth, we'll better recognize what's false. So, so important to know the gospel. And again, we're talking about inside the church, right? This is not, of course, there are false beliefs out in the world, that's to be expected. But inside the church, there are still going to be challenges that we face when it comes to false teaching, and heresies that lead people away from Jesus. And I think I've used this analogy before, but even if it's just a degree off, you think of being out at sea, and just a degree off, well over many, many miles, you're going to end up this far apart. Even though, it was just a degree off from the truth. And that's true of the gospel too. You hear someone's teaching, you're like, "That's just, it's a little bit off." That plays out in life, and they are miles away from Jesus.

So, in the opening verses here, just the four verses, we see that Jude has reinforced believers to understand their identity in Christ. He's encouraged them to be proactive and wrestle with their faith. And he warns them of false teachers. I want to end today with a question for us to think about this week. How can you, today, live as one called, loved, and kept by God in a culture of compromise? Are you secure in God's call in your life? Do you see that your identity is found in him first and foremost? Or is your identity compromised because you're wrapped up in, fill in the blank, or you're wrapped up in your job, your role as a parent, found in your success? It can be good things, but they can't be the first thing. Our identity has to be in Christ. Do you live every day firm in your understanding of his love for you? Are you loving others because God first loved you? Are you living as someone who is deeply loved? There's a saying out there, you know, hurt people hurt other people. Well, the opposite is true, too. People who are loved are better at loving others. Guys, we're loved by God. And we have a responsibility to love those around us. Keep the question up there. Keep it up there for the rest of the time. Do you have hope that emboldens you to live for Christ in every situation? Uncertainty in the future can bring up fear and anxiety. But because we know that God has us, that he's sustaining us, that he has the most perfect future for us, we can live confidently knowing that no matter what happens around us, God's got us. How can you live as one called, loved, and kept? And then in a culture of compromise, you guys know this, we live in a world today of, hey, live your truth, you do you. What, well, all the other sayings that include compromise. You know, when no one's looking, we think we can live a certain life, but maybe we just feel the pressure to do that when we're in front of other people. But when no one's looking, we live a different way. Or we think, hey, it's just this one time. Or it's not that often. We all have our things that we get into. Hey, I go to church on Sunday, so that's good. That gives me some freedom for the way I live my life the other six days of the week. Or we say things like, hey, no one's perfect, so we all have a past in a way. I don't have to do the entire Christian life, just overall I have to lean that way. I gotta make sure I kind of head in that direction. But I don't have to be pursuing Jesus with my everything. We say it out loud, and you're like, oh, that doesn't sound great. But we say these in our head, and we're like, oh, I mean, yeah, kind of. And it can even creep into our churches and how we live life as a church, as a body of believers. And we don't want that. We want this to be a place of intentionality, of purpose. That we are together, and individually, but together as a church, giving our everything, striving for, sprinting towards Jesus with everything that we have. We want to live as people who are called, loved, and kept, despite the culture of compromise. We don't want compromise to come into this church at all. As believers who know the truth, the truth of the gospel, this is capital T, truth, we can't compromise on that. We cannot compromise on the belief that we have in Jesus and how we are supposed to live. The words that we say, the actions that we carry out, the faith that is inside of us should all align with scripture. And if we don't understand it, we should seek to understand and figure it out.

So this week, again, just want to leave you with this. How can you live as one who is called, loved, and kept by God in a culture of compromise? Before we pray, I want to fast forward to the end and read this doxology that Jude writes at the very end that we're going to cover in the third week. But I think it's such a perfect wrap up to, now that we have learned a bit about the situation, his words mean so much more. So it says this, "To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God, our savior, be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore." Amen? Let's pray. God, thank you again for your word, for your truth that is uncompromising. God, I pray that you would help us to better understand how to live a life that is for you in all situations. And God, I pray that you would help us to know your truth, that we would grow in knowing your truth. And so when those false teachings come in front of us, whether we're scrolling social media and we hear something or someone says something and says, "Hey, doesn't Jesus say this?" And if it is at all false, we can know, say, "Actually, no, he doesn't." No, that's not what the Bible says. No, what it means to live like Jesus or to love like Jesus actually means this. God, we want to be witnesses for your kingdom, witnesses for your truth, a light in the darkness. And I pray that you would help us to grow in our faith and our understanding of who you are and what you do, that you would embolden us, God. Give us hope. Give us comfort. Give us peace. God, use us and give you all the praise and glory. Amen.