Romans - Part 12

Adopted in the Spirit - Romans 8:1-17

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in Romans. We got two more weeks and then we're taking a summer break. And so thank you for everybody who has been jumped in, who has engaged, who's been with us through, this is week 12, we're gonna be one more week next week. Pastor Rhonda's gonna wrap us up before break, so week 13. And so we are moving and grooving. And from everybody I've talked to, everybody's enjoyed this Roman series. And if you haven't, you haven't said anything to me. So we're just gonna say you enjoy it. So we're just gonna take that as your answer. So sweet. So yeah, so if you want, open up your Bibles, click, tap, flip over to Romans chapter eight. And this is where we're gonna be. We're gonna hit about halfway through chapter eight and then Pastor Andres is gonna wrap up chapter eight next week. And this chapter, chapter eight, some scholars would say is the pinnacle of this book of Romans. Paul, since the beginning, amen. Paul, since the beginning of his letter, literally opening verse, hi, my name is Paul. Boom, here's some theology. Paul has dropped some wisdom on us and he has been building this argument and has come to the point that I think if you're sitting in a courtroom, the attorney is putting this whole defensive case up to this point.

And after this chapter eight, he's gonna sit and say the defense rests. And he has been building to this massive point because after we get through chapter eight, Paul rolls into, so if all of this is true, all of this stuff that I've been talking about, saying this argument and this one and building and building, if all of this is true, this is how our life is different. And Paul's gonna roll the next set of chapters through practical application of what it means to live our lives out in the power of the gospel.

But before we get to that, Paul has one final big thing that he wants to say to us in this chapter. And so today we're gonna be walking through some incredible truths about our lives and how we physically, personally, intimately are changed by this power of the gospel. And what do I mean by the gospel? I mean the gospel is that Jesus came, he lived a perfect life, he went to the cross on our behalf, died, God raised him three days later and he conquered death. The one thing that was never defeated up to that point, he rose again and we live in his new life. That is the gospel in a nutshell. Is there more to it? Absolutely, there's so much more. If you just read Romans with us, there's so much more to it. But that is the nutshell. And so I wanna jump in this morning. We're gonna go to the first four verses and then we're gonna go kind of section by section and explain some of these things that Paul, this truth that Paul is laying out before us. And so here we go, Romans chapter eight, We're gonna start in verse one. I talk for a living, it's okay. Therefore, all right, you remember this? Therefore, what's it there for? Well, Paul again has been building this argument up to this point.

He says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Remember the gospel, those who are in Christ Jesus. Because through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did. I could just stop right there, amen, we go home, right? God did, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, 'cause Jesus came human, lived this life, but yet was blameless, right? Sinful flesh to be the sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who did not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

So it's right there, Jesus, he lived in the flesh, Jesus here, fully God, fully human, divine and earthly, and lived this perfect life in his resurrection, in his sacrificing, his death, His atonement, we might say, that we have new life in His blameless life, okay? Paul is gonna go really deep here, but he starts with this piece of the law. And what does he mean by that? Well, he means this word law, meaning the 10 commandments or the law of Moses that in itself, Paul, we talked about this last week. Remember this battle we have between wanting to be like God and yet we got this tension in us and that Paul is saying, I do not do what I want to do, but I do it and I do it and I don't wanna do it, but I still do it even though I don't wanna do it. Guys remember that? Paul here is saying that this idea of he didn't even know what was wrong until the law. And it was in the law that he understood, oh man, I'm sinning. I'm not living the life that God has called me to live and I'm not living in his truth. I'm living this life that's apart from that. And so in a sense, we see here this argument that in the law calling out sin, the law brought death. This is the law that called out those actions, brought death. But then Paul here is saying, no, no, no, no, there's something new here that I'm calling you into. There's something new that I have for you. And this is the law of the Spirit in Christ. And it takes what was this limited law of the 10 commandments and those laws that we read about in the Old Testament. It takes those and it fulfills those. And it actually in the fulfillment actually brings us to a new life, an eternal life, an everlasting life. This is the power of the Spirit in our life. This is what Paul is talking about. But how what was once a limited, hard hitting, calling us out. I don't know if you've ever read the 10 commandments. calling us out for what we had done, takes us into this place of life. Takes us into this new calling that we have for us. And it goes from this limited focus to this mobile ever present with us. What do I mean by that?

Well, there's two perspectives you can have on law. And it depends on your understanding of what is going on around you. I think of it this way. No offense. I recently, our kids got to take horseback riding lessons this last year and the year before. That's been awesome, they love it. But I went to them to see them ride for the first time a couple of weeks ago. And we went and there were these, at the farm you have the fences, you have the pens, right? And that keeps the horses where they're supposed to be. So we have this idea of say the law is offense. And if you had the perspective of the horse, The horse going, "I don't wanna stay in here." And they get creative. They get crafty. They start figuring out how to knock the latch on the fence. They figure out how to weasel their way through a little tiny opening. They get absolutely creative. Why? Because they don't wanna be confined. A lot of us look at the Bible and go, "Ah, just a bunch of laws, just a bunch of rules. God doesn't wanna let me live my life. He's trying to hold me down. He's trying to pull me back. He's controlling, he's just pushing into me, trying to keep me in my place because God, he just wants to control us. But there's another perspective. The second perspective of the law would be one of protection, of life, of security. What if we saw this fence or the law in our life of a place of keeping us safe from the outside? We went from seeing law as a way of holding us in to a law of there's protection. And this isn't just a fence, we're talking about a fortress. We're talking about secure, tall, thick, robust, strong walls. And when we understand that perspective, when we live inside of that, we don't worry about what's out there, right? We actually forget what's out there because we find ourselves comfortable. We feel safe. We're in a space where we know that God has got our back, a place without fear, a place where we can sleep in peace. How about you? I'm notorious at night for going around and checking all the doors. I have my routine at night. I go check, check, check, go all the way around. Why? So I can sleep in peace, not going, Oh, did I unlock that? Did that get locked? Is that? Oh man, you know what? Oh, I got, you know, that's, that door's gotta be unlocked. It's good. I can't sleep in peace. I'll get up, drives my wife nuts. I'll get up sometimes multiplying 'cause I'll get into bed, I'll lie down, I go, did I? Oh, dang it. All right, back up. Do my routine, hit the perimeter again. But I know where it takes me, right?

And that's what Paul here is saying. maybe another perspective would be stoplights, okay? We're trying to get where we wanna get, right? We're trying to go down the road, and especially if we're running late, notorious, we're hitting every stoplight, right? I think we've all been there. I think we can all agree with that, especially over here at Costco. Oh, Lord Jesus. That's Stanford Ranch intersection. The Lord is not present there, I tell you that much. All right? That's horrible. I'm kidding, the Lord is there, okay, so refreshing. But we have our singular perspective. We're trying to get from point A to point B, and the only way to do that, the fastest way to do that, is every single green light. But what about perspective from elsewhere? What about the perspective of the kid trying to cross the street, wanting that stoplight to safely cross? What about the family wanting to be able to turn and to make the left in their car. And without the stoplight, they would kind of be chancing it, right? And we see that when people don't obey what's going on, what happens? Accidents, mess, crunch, ouch, insurance. And this is the law. That if we see this as ways that God is trying to protect us to lead us into a place of living in a new life in the spirit, there's not only protection for us in our own car at a stoplight, but there's protections for others and there's cars at the stoplight as well. See this word, law, is a Greek word called nomos. And really what this Greek law word means, not just law, but law that brings life. A law in a sense that leads us to a place of where we are better than we were before without it. And Paul here is using these words to explain that it's not necessarily a law to hold us back, but it's a law that would rather lead us to a place of life within the Spirit of God.

Paul says this in chapter 8 verse 5, "Those who live according to the flesh have their mindset on what the flesh desires but those who live in accordance with the spirit have their mindset on what the spirit desires the mind governed by the flesh is death but the mind governed by the spirit is life and peace the mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God it does not submit to God's own law nor nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

This law, this life rather, leads us to a place where we live in accordance with the Spirit. It leads us to a place where we're now in parallel with what God desires for our mind, but we have to change our mindset. We have to change the way that we think and bringing us into alignment with the heart and the leading with the Spirit. I love this quote by Hwee Hwee Tan, a Christian author and coach. She says, "You are what your mind looks at. You are what you contemplate." Hmm. Little quick self-assessment. What does your mind dwell on? What do you often find yourself thinking about? It's a perspective, it's an opening into our hearts. Is it the Spirit of God? Is it the Spirit of ourselves? And if that is true, then what Paul says there, that that Spirit is opposed to God. You've got to be careful what we're thinking about because the reality is when you and and I accept Jesus into our lives, and to say, I believe in this gospel, I want to receive this, I want you to change who I am. Jesus does that.

And he does that by giving us a new mind through the indwelling of God's spirit. Did you know that? If you believe in Jesus Christ, you call him Lord and leader of your life, you have the indwelling of God's spirit in you. You do. That God's in you, with you, forever continuing to be with you. And that in this, it takes us away from the flesh spirit and gives us God's spirit.

Romans eight, verse nine says, "You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but you are in the realm of the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God lives you, and if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.

Last week we had Paul's do, do, do, do, do. This week we have Paul's quadruple if, if, if. And it goes like this. It says if, so this is conditional logic here. If you guys know what that is, maybe computer programmers in the room, you know, the if, then, little JavaScript action here. If, Paul, the original writer of JavaScript, If the Spirit of God lives in you, then if Christ is in you, then even though you have this battle, remember this battle in life, back and forth of the sin nature pull, this pendulum, you still have life in the Spirit, why? Because of God's righteousness in you. And if the Spirit of God, whose side note here, raised Christ from the dead, the gospel, remember we talked about that, is living in you, then he, being Almighty God, who raised Christ from the dead will also give you life because of the Spirit that lives in you. You guys follow that? Paul here is setting up this understanding of, If all of this is true, all the way back, beginning Romans 1, 1, up to this point. Now remember, there's the letter read at one moment, one time, one sitting, not 12 weeks sittings. One sitting. So all of this stuff that Paul is just saying is so fresh in their minds, they're getting to this point and they're gonna like, okay, so that's true, that, okay, that means you're there, leads me there, therefore, therefore, therefore, Therefore, therefore, the Spirit of God indwells you. And we have new life because of that truth.

Paul continues on, verse 12, "Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh to live according to it. For if we live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misty to the body, you will live.

Here is Paul's final giant, therefore. I could see Paul writing it, taking up like half the letter across the scroll. Therefore, therefore, there is victory in the Spirit. There is victory. Paul says this idea, this word consequences, it's hard for us in our mind to wrap around consequences being good, right? We always think about all consequences are bad. Paul, you're saying there is a consequence of when we accept Christ in our lives, take on the title of Christian or disciple, there is a consequence in a good way that we have this new relationship and it affects our day to day as a believer. Paul isn't saying at this moment, maybe someday you'll have victory. Maybe future down the road, if you live your life perfect, you'll have victory. Or if you go to church every single week, you read your Bible, you tithe, you pray, you serve in the church, you love your neighbors, you serve in the community, maybe you'll find victory. Paul says, no, you have victory right here, right now, in this moment and forevermore. Come on. That was your moment to give an amen if you wanted to. All right? Paul here is saying that we have no obligation anymore. No obligation to live in the flesh, to live in the sin nature, to be, I'm caught up in this, oh, oh, I'm so, no. Stop it. Paul here is saying, stop it. You don't have to follow the way that your sin dictates. You no longer have to obey its will. This is huge, guys. This is huge. This is true freedom. And in this mindset change, remember the fence? We find ourselves now inside of a gated community full of protection and safety, and we get to live our life in victory in Jesus. Exactly. Thought of it this way. I don't know where I thought of it. I think I heard another pastor say this 'cause this is too smart for me. But I heard this. They said, "We've been given a new boss." That's Jesus. And it would be foolish to still show up to our old job, to return old emails, to put in office hours for an old boss, to punch the clock for them, to get their lunch, to get them their dry cleaning, to do your stuff for an old boss, is ridiculous. You no longer are employed by that boss anymore. You have a new boss. And yet what do we do? We find ourselves still working for the old boss. We still get caught following sin. I'm guilty of it, guys, I am. It's a struggle, it's a battle. Ask anybody in this room who's been a Christian for 500 years, they're gonna say, "I'm still fighting it." Because Paul here says it would be foolish, right? We would find ourselves for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. Think about that. You have a new boss and you're still working for the old boss. Now you got two jobs you got to figure out. You're trying to balance the stuff. You're over here, you're over there, you're doing this. You're a late night, early mornings, you're running all over the place. What's it gonna do? It's gonna kill you. It's gonna kill you physically. It's gonna kill you emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And Paul gives us this warning here that you cannot live like this. You have a new boss, so act like it. Right?

Paul says in the second half of 13, "But if you live by the Spirit and you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live." This is the good news, guys. This is the great news. This is the power of the gospel and Paul here is stressing our personal responsibility to conquer this domain of sin in our lives but Paul wants us not to forget that this is only possible by the power of God in Christ through the Spirit. A big word we might use here would be holiness in life. We come from a tradition here at Spring Valley Church of a holiness movement we call it and we focus on this that every single day is an opportunity to say more yes to Jesus in your life. That every single day is this moment for God to show up in our lives and for us to say yes to him. A big term here would be sanctification. That in this constant living out of the life that is placed before us and is led by the spirit, we have taken up residence in him.

A.W. Tozer has this wonderful quote. It says, "Faith is not a once done act, but the continuous gaze of the heart at the triune God. Believing then is directing the heart's attention to Jesus. It is lifting the mind, remember, the mind or thoughts, to behold the Lamb of God and never ceasing that beholding for the rest of our lives. At first this may be difficult, but it becomes easier as we look steadily at His wondrous person, quietly and without strain.”

This saying no to ourselves, every single step of the way, saying yes to God's Spirit will take us on a journey to a place that is absolutely incredible. It'll take us to a place where we are so focused and in tune with God's Spirit, we're not even really there anymore. that we just fade into the background and we live in lockstep with this continual saying, yes, I love that part, the continuing yes to the activity that does not even originate in ourselves, guys. It's just a spirit of God, which takes us to a place that God desires to change us at our core. So how is this even possible? Paul finishes up this section with three crucial, crucial verses that is as part of our core and our doctrine of who we are as Christians.

And he says this, he said, "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you receive does not make you slaves "so that you live in fear again. "Rather, the Spirit you receive brought about your adoption to sonship, and by him we cry, Abba, Father. And the Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.”

This is our new spirit we are given. It's a spirit of adoption. And it's this new spirit you and I are brought in and welcomed into our new family. Did you guys know that? You have a new family. Some of you, that's better news than others. All right? But you have this new family and we are not only are given a family, but we are actually given an heir. We are brought in at the level of inheritance, sharing in God's full glory. But how do we get there? We are led by the Spirit. And when we are adopted into the family of God, our life is different, right? Our life is different in the way that our choices and how we conduct ourselves change, right? If we're brought into this new family, there's an expectation of how we conduct our lives. Are we living up to the family name? Or are we out just being led by our own spirit still? This whole new life in this new direction is determined by the spirit of God. I see this as an image in the Old Testament, okay? You guys, God saves the Israelite people out of slavery in Egypt, okay? Leads them across the Red Sea, and then they find themselves in this place in the desert, the wilderness, but they are continually led by God. The Bible tells us that at day it was a cloud and at night it was a pillar of fire. My goodness to see that today. But this idea of being led by the Spirit of God where? To the promised land, their inheritance. And so Paul here is making this connection with those who have been listening to this letter that may have been from a Jewish background ago and said, I remember my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa told me through the generations of stories about that pillar of fire and that cloud. And that Paul here is saying, "We are led by the Spirit into our inheritance, "which is eternal life with Christ Jesus in heaven "for eternity." That is our inheritance. And a part of this journey, just like the Israelites went through, was God leading us and teaching us and growing us and changing us and strengthening us and persevering us and protecting us and to this place that God says, "This is what I have for you. This is what I desire for your life." And it takes us to this place with, and somehow, I don't know how God does it, it's amazing.

God takes these twists and turns, ups and downs, surprises and blessings in life. and he is slowly taking us and morphing us and changing us and molding us into who he desires for us in our lives. But this isn't something that can be taken lightly, guys. This is some serious thing that I want you to talk about because it's not just in name only. So it's not just Chris the Christian. It's not just Andre the Christian. It's just Eric the Christian, Gloria the Christian, Donna the Christian. This is, there's something deeper here, and it's in that word that said Abba Father. Paul here is using this word that is so personal for God. No other religion or belief system out there has anything close to this, 'Cause I think there is truth in this that says, you know God at a deeper level, at the same personal level that would be similar to a child crying out for their father to help them in a time of need. If you're a parent, you know that cry from a child. But you also know this other part of I love you, Daddy. You're the best dad ever. I love you, dad. This is the level of adoption, inheritance, personal relationship that you and I have through the spirit in Jesus Christ to say, "Hey, dad, thanks." Abba, Father. There's this closeness of personal, intimate, knowing and a connection. Does this line up with your view of God in your life? Maybe we need to change some things. I was reminded of this on Wednesdays. We've been just finished four weeks focusing on prayer and the practice of learning how to pray and to go deeper in our prayer life. And one of the sessions specifically was talking about learning the voice of God and listening to God.

And it was this beautiful image of understanding and how God knows us personally and desires to sit with us. How do we know this? Well, it says this. It says in John 10, 27, Jesus says, "My sheep listen to my voice and I know them "and they follow me." Did you guys know that sheep understand and know the voice of their shepherd? Sheep specifically know the voice of their shepherd. So in a moment when a fraud shows up to try to say, "Oh, come on sheep, come here sheep, sheepy, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep." They know to run away because it's not their shepherd. God here and Jesus is reminding us of He knows who we are and we know His voice to the intimate level level of dad. And for some of us it's hard. We didn't have the father figure that was supposed to be the father figure in our life. And we struggle with this. But God shows up here and says, "That was that, that's not me. "This is me. "This is who I am." And this talking about Pastor John Mark Comer reminds us that in this prayer, we begin to learn the voice of our Father and the Father knows our voice. And there are so many ways that we believers in Christ and disciples of Jesus hear the voice of God. You've probably heard the voice of God and you didn't even know it. 'Cause the voice of God shows up in our lives through Jesus, through scripture, through circumstances, through desire, through the prophetic and through listening prayer. And it's when we take time to focus and listen to God that we are learning more and more, getting to know our new family, our new father, our Abba Father deeper.

And I love what verse 16 here says. It says, "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." There is this deep, spiritual, heartfelt, inner soul, truth level that we are constantly reminded of our status with God. We're God's children. You're gonna hear one thing today to walk away. You are a son. You are a daughter of God. Do not forget that. And this is a beautiful truth. That's something that can never be taken away from us. And that's something that is ours here both on earth and in heaven for eternity. Because why? Because we are heirs. Verse 17. Now if we are children, then we are heirs. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Guys, you've been given a name change, you've been given a status change, you've been given an inheritance change, You've been given a mindset change. You are set free from slavery to sin, and you share in the glory of Jesus Christ. Live in your newfound adoption. That's what Paul is saying here. Live in this newfound adoption. So what does this mean for us?

Well, I have a couple questions I want to close here, and the worship team is going to come up. What might need to change in your life to live with this newfound understanding of being an heir with Christ? What might need to change? You ask yourself, are my actions each day one that is in lockstep with being in God's family? And then two, what might need to increase in your life knowing that you are a child of God? How can I live more freely in this truth as one who is inheriting the glory of Jesus? Because if we are led by the Spirit, our our actions are gonna be different than when we were led by ourselves, right? Should be different. So live in your newfound adoption into the family of God.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for your word. Jesus, we thank you for our new family. God, we thank you for the spirit that leads us every single moment of every single day, God. And that Jesus, I pray that this week we might live differently in this newly found understanding of you who is our Abba Father. who is our loving, caring, ever-present dad. And Jesus, that might come with some behavior changes. That might come with some different ways that we set up our calendar. That might come with different ways that we start our day or end our day. That might come with different choices that we need to make to live in this newfound family in you God so Jesus I pray even right now that your Holy Spirit would guide us in the areas that you want us to change that we no longer have no obligation to sin but we have victory through Jesus Christ God I may be led by the spirit each and every day of our lives to live in lockstep with what you have for us, God, which is the power of gospel to transform our lives. We love you, Jesus. Amen.

Romans - Part 11

A Battle for Life - Romans 7:1-25

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Yeah, happy Mother's Day to all the mamas here. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We are continuing in our Roman series today, and I'm excited to share with you and maybe take a little bit of a different path through scripture than most of the time. I don't tell my seminary professors, but I'm gonna go backwards through the chapter today. I mean, most people, you start verse one, you work your way through, I'm actually gonna go backwards today. And so I feel like Paul here in this chapter of chapter seven of Romans is setting up a really cool picture and image for us. And I love honestly how he finishes up the chapter. And so I kind of wanna start there and then we're gonna kind of work our way back up through and then end with actually the beginning of chapter seven. And so if you would, before we jump in, I'd love to pray for us and over us and we'll dive into God's word.

Heavenly Father, Jesus, thank you for today. God, thank you for being present here. Jesus, as I bring your word forward this morning, God, that you would ultimately be glorified, that you, Jesus, would be lifted and raised up from these scriptures, and God, that you would use me to communicate, God, what you desire for each and every one of us. God, you have a word for each of us this morning in this space. There's a reason that we're here today for this moment and for this time. So Jesus, I pray that through your Holy Spirit, you would reveal that to each and every one of us. Jesus, we love you, we thank you, amen.

So Paul here in chapter seven is talking about this two odds that are fighting one another. These two sides, this good versus evil side here that are fighting and constantly pulling back and forth. If you guys are familiar maybe with Paul's letter to Rome, you've kind of heard Paul write this before. He talks about how I want to do good, and yet I find myself not doing good. And because of that, I don't like myself. And it's interesting to find, because Paul here, I would say is one of the spiritual superheroes of the Bible. If we were to put up there some of those people that would be like, if I was to pattern my life after summoning the Bible, Paul would be pretty high up on that list. And Paul here yet admits, I don't always do what is right. And I have these two tensions inside of me that are pulling back and forth. Paul says this starting in verse 21. So I find this law at work. Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law. But I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord. I want that to be our focus here this morning. That even in the midst of turmoil, whatever we're fighting, whatever we're going through, whatever we find ourselves in the face of this, that is only through Jesus Christ who delivers us. So if you wanna hear one thing this morning, Jesus Christ wants to deliver you. That's what I want you to hear this morning. That's what I want you to remember today.

But I see this illustration of Paul saying here, I got these two sides that are pulling on me. Someone say, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, but I myself would say the Hulk. This is where we find ourselves. That Paul here on the good side, Bruce Banner, a mild mannered brilliant scientist, finds himself at odds with himself and the fact of inside of him is this creature, the Hulk. This giant monster of a human that is just unbelievably strong at times comes out And to say the least is feisty, we'll say that. That in this moment, Bruce Banner and Hulk are fighting with each other. And if you guys have seen any of the movies or know anything about the Avengers series, that there are times when this Hulk character comes out at the worst moment possible. And then there's other times where they need this Hulk person to come out and it's just Bruce sitting there, this tiny little lanky guy that's like, "Hey, Mr. Hulk, guy inside, we need your muscles. Like where are you at buddy?" But this tension that Paul here says, there's two sides that are at odd with one another. And Paul here is saying, "At times I'm Hulk and I don't wanna be Hulk. At times I want to be Bruce Banner, but there's just something inside of me that pulls me and turns me into Hulk and I smash stuff. Paul here is saying that there is this battle that is going on in each and every one of us. And Paul is here to raise his hand saying, I am fighting this battle. Paul here isn't saying, well, you guys need to do this and you need to do that. I've already figured this thing out myself. No, Paul here is saying, I struggle with this immensely. And there's two battles that are going on right here. The first of which is the battle lost. This is the battle of the opposition that is coming out. That's at times, no matter how hard we fight, no matter how hard we try our best, we do everything that we can to set ourselves up for success, we lose. Paul says this in verse 14, "We know the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do for what I want to do. I do not do, but what I hate, I do. For if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but the sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is my sin nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. That's a lot of dos in there. (laughs) I would get lost here as Paul's scribe. I'd be like, bro, bro, bro, slow, slow it down, man. I do not do, do, do, not what, do, do what do? But Paul here is saying that I have this inside of me. I really want to do good. I really, really want to do good. I wanna do what God wants me to do. I want to live his life that he's called me to live. I want to live these things out. And yet I find myself this battle inside that I keep losing time and time and time again. And Paul says, I hate myself for this. Don't raise your hand, but I can relate with this. I can relate with this. Even this week, Lord Jesus, come on. I can relate that there are so many times I find myself with the absolute best intentions, the desires to do exactly what God wants to do. And I find myself in the midst of after my actions going, What did I just do? And this is what Paul is trying to communicate in the letter here going, we're all battling through this, but don't lose heart, okay? We gotta kind of get through some of this hard stuff here to try to get, we're gonna make a turn here. And I wanna talk about here specifically the battle that we cannot lose.

And what do I mean by that? I mean the battle that we are guaranteed to win. I'm talking about the victory in Christ Jesus. Guys, remember that verse, verse 25? "But thanks be to God who delivers me through Christ Jesus our Lord." Newsflash, credits have scrolled, everything is done, life's over, everything you've done. At the end, the post credit in the theme of Avengers, like they always have those post credit things, you're victorious. If you call Jesus your Lord and leader of your life, you will find yourself at the end being victorious in battle. And here's what Paul, this is exactly what Paul is trying to tell us in this letter. That even in the midst of this fight that we feel like we keep losing time and time and time again, Paul says, "Uh-uh, it doesn't end like that." You may feel beat up, you may feel frustrated, you may just be so overwhelmed with your own self in these moments that Paul says, don't lose hope. Because in the end, you're victorious. You are covered under the grace and the mercy of Jesus Christ in your life. So matter whatever you're facing, when you run into that next battle, know that you're victorious. - Amen. - We'd fight different, wouldn't we? We'd fight a little bit different. if we remember that ourselves, but we forget it, right? I'm right there, I'll admit it, I forget it. It's so easy to forget 'cause we get so beat up and we're like, how, what, I don't know. But we are victorious and Paul wants to remind us that we are victorious, not in ourselves, but in Jesus. Well, how does this victory come about? How does all this come about? Well, there's this incredible thing that Paul here that talks about, it's the law. It's this, the gift of the law that gives us understanding. Verse seven in Romans, "What shall we say then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not. Nevertheless, I would have known what sin was, excuse me, I would have not known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would have not known what coveting really was if the law had not said, you shall not covet. Paul here is taking this and summarizing down. I never caught this before, but Paul here, if you were to take, say, go simple, law, 10 commandments, right? Think Moses coming down, tablets. I can't remember the guy's actor in the name. I'm just thinking of Moses. Charleston Heston, all right. You got Charleston Heston in your head. He's got the tablets, thou shalt not, right? We all, thou shalt, thou shalt, thou shalt. written in old English. I don't think Moses wrote it in old English, just saying, but they had the thou shalt nots, right? And Paul here in a sentence, whittles it all down to coveting. And I'd never taken time to think through that before, but that makes sense, right? Adultery is found in coveting. Stealing is found in coveting. Murder is sourced in coveting. You walk through these 10 commandments, I'm not saying all, I'm saying the majority of them dwindled down to this idea of covenant. And Paul says, "If it wasn't for the law, I wouldn't even know what sin was. I would just gone on about my business." 'Cause deep down inside, there's this fight, this selfishness that we counteract and we battle through every single day. And most of the time, right?

We just choose what we wanna do. Well, I want lunch. I'm gonna go get lunch what I wanna get. I wanna go on vacation. I'm gonna go on a vacation that I wanna go on, right? And we just choose what we wanna choose. And Paul here is saying that it's really the law that it breaks us down and shows us what is actually wrong. And it's because of that, that the law is great. Paul here is making an argument for some that might come at it. Well, if you're saying the law says this and the law says that, then really the law is the one that's bad. Paul here is saying, no, no, no, no, no, that's not right. Paul here is saying the law is actually what guides us. The law is like those guard rails on the freeway that we go down, flying down way over the speed limit, right, amen? And those guard rails are there not to stop us, but to bunk us back onto the road so we don't go flying off the road into somebody's backyard. That's what the law is. The law is here to guide us and lead us in the direction that we are supposed to go. And Paul here is saying that without the law, without the guard rails, I'd be way worse off. 'Cause I would know, have idea where the end of the road is at. Paul here is saying that the law is good. In fact, it is the law is how we know what wrong actually is. But not only that, the law actually brings us loss. God has this image of an idea of what our lives, he wants our lives to look like. And that is shaped, that is guided, that is put together, is guardrailed by the law. Sometimes in our selfishness, we wanna go off the road, right? We'll love some off-roading, okay? This is a bad analogy here, so we're not gonna talk about it. But there are times when off-roading is good, not in your spiritual life, but in real life up in the mountains, amen? All right. God wants to keep us on this path to life that he desires for us. And that is the structure of the law. And at times we go, well, if the law is calling what sin is, therefore the law is bad because the law, it's just, it's trying to control us. Law is just trying to pull me down. The law, it just rules that are made to be broken. You get some laughs from rebellious ones in the room. But that's not what Paul here is saying. Paul is here saying is that the law actually leads us to a place of life. And that's the law that shows us what is wrong. It's not the law that brings forth the sin 'cause it calls out transition, but it's my actions that are sin. I love this quote from Ignatius of Loyola that says, "Sin is unwillingness to trust that what God wants for me "is only my deepest happiness." God's not this God that's controlling from on high. God isn't this God that's just a mean brute of a person that wants to just smash us down. God isn't this one that throws lightning bolts from the heavens. We read Old Testament, sometimes it has to get to that point to get some people's attentions, but God is a God that ultimately desires nothing but the best for our lives. And it's really us that gets in the way of that, right? It's really us and what we want that gets in the way of that because God ultimately wants to bring about life to our lives, true life.

I think of it this way. One of the aspects of God, I think, and I see, and I read in the scripture is coach God. Coach God. That is that God that deeply wants the best for us. I'm a big sports guy, and so I get into coaches and teams and coaching philosophies and leadership examples and all these different things. And the reality is that God just wants the best for us. And that's the same for a coach. Coach just wants the best for us. I don't know if you grew up playing sports, but a coach there who cares for us calls us out, right? Calls us out on our laziness, calls us out on our lack of preparedness, calls us out on our lack of effort, calls us out when we mess up not doing what we're supposed to do, or when we try to cheat, or when we try to cut corners, the coach there is saying, "Knock it off." That's not right. And they're really dangerous places to be when the coach stops calling us out. 'Cause that's when the coach goes, "All seems lost. They're just gonna do whatever they wanna do anyway. They're not receiving my coaching." What I love about God, He doesn't do that. God doesn't do that. God comes to us and shows us what it's like to be successful, to have this ultimate joy, this peace, this everlasting hope in our lives. And the law is like the playbook. The NFL just had their draft, and I think it was last weekend, they had what they call rookie mini camp. This is where all the rookies come in to the training facilities of all the teams across the nation, and they're handed a playbook. It's not really a book anymore, it's more of an iPad or a tablet, no rule of digital, but they're handed this and they're told memorize it. Every single document on that tablet is there to bring you success on this team in the National Football League. It breaks down all of their offense, all their different plays that they run. It breaks down all of the defense, all the schemes, all the trick plays, everything that they try to do, all the special team stuff from punts and kickoffs to returns to all of this stuff. It breaks it down into the simplest terms that says, run this far and turn. Run this far and stop. Go over here and stand. It breaks it down in the simplest terms, but it's up to the players to decide, am I gonna pay attention to what that has been given to me? I think this is what God communicates to us when he hands us this thing. He goes, here's your playbook, memorize it. Here's the offense, here's the defense. And even to the point, unlike the New England Patriots with Spygate, it actually has the opposition's schemes. It has the enemy's playbook in here as well, so that you not only can know how you are supposed to act, but you can also know how the enemy or the other person that you're facing, remember this inner battle, this fight of two sides, how they're gonna come at you so you can be even that much more prepared. And Paul says what? He says, practice it. Practice it, get together, run through your plays, get into the weight room, get stronger spiritually, study this, learn from your coaches, learn from those specialty trainers, learn from everybody in your life that is set up in this moment to bring you success. That's the biggest obstacle to most NFL players in the league, is whether they decide to go all in or not. They might have the greatest talent. They might be the strongest on the team. They might have the fastest time running a 40 yard dash. They might be able to jump the highest, run the longest, have the greatest stamina in the world. But unless they memorize that playbook and understand their piece in the greater picture of the role on that team, they will fail. And Paul here is telling us that I've given you a playbook. I've put you on a team and I've set you up for success with coaches and leaders and spiritual mentors and mamas in your life to help you succeed, to get to a place that is about complete understanding and purpose full of joy and hope.

But it's for us to decide. It's for us to decide ultimately, will we engage with worship? Will we take prayer seriously? Are we in the Bible every single day? Are we living life in a community? Have we faithfully committed ourselves to a church family? 'Cause the law gives us guidelines and the law gives us understanding, but ultimately it comes down to that victory is found in Jesus Christ, not ourselves. 'Cause that's the biggest factor here. Some of these most talented players will come into the NFL and they'll look at the play and go, I don't need that. I know exactly what to do. I was all team top pro, first draft, blah, blah, blah, blah. but this is the big leagues. And Paul is saying here in this idea, this phrasing he's using, this analogy of a battle is that this is serious stuff. This isn't a game like the NFL. This is our lives that are at stake. And that in this, we can find victory in Jesus Christ. Paul says this, starting in verse four through six. So my brothers and sisters, You also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to one another, in him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit of death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code. Paul here is saying that this victory in Christ is actually a rescuing from ourselves. Paul here is saying that we are the ones that actually pull ourselves down. We are the ones that limit our own potential by having the thoughts that we have. We are at times can be the limit of the amount of Jesus that we let him live in our lives. That we are the source of the biggest struggles in our old life. This battle lost. And we have to change our understanding, we have to change our minds. That's what Paul says. He had to change our minds to understand this battle that we face is a battle that we cannot lose because of the victory in Jesus.

You know the greatest part about this? We've done nothing to earn it and we do nothing to receive it. We let Christ come in and he takes care of it all. That's it. He takes care of it all and we find victory. I love this verse, verse six, "serve in the new way of the Spirit." That's what Paul is saying here, is that no matter when we face ourselves in this battle, no matter what side, whether we're Bruce Banner or we're the Hulk, that we have this victory in Jesus Christ. And not only that, not only victory, but to the victor goes the spoils.

And this is how Paul starts the chapter. He says, "Do you not know brothers? "For I am speaking to those who know the law, "that the law is binding on a person "only as long as he lives. "For a married woman is bound by law "to her husband while he lives, "but if her husband dies, "she is released from the law of marriage. "Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress "if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. "But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, "and if she marries another man, She is not an adulteress. Paul's main point at the beginning of all this, okay, we get all the way to the beginning of this chapter, Paul says this, he says, "I want you to point out that death separates someone from a legal obligation." That's what Paul is saying here. That in this moment, if you had traffic court next week, and you died tomorrow, you don't have to show up for traffic court. (congregation laughing) Don't know if you guys know that, but if you find yourself in a big, nevermind, just kidding. But Paul, you're saying, because we are no longer bound to the law, because we have died to its power over us, we now belong to another. Paul talks about marriage and a whole other part in all of his letters, so don't get lost in that point right there, okay? get focused in on this, is that we belong to Jesus, the one who was raised from the dead. And that's why they said, Paul is talking about this idea of dying to ourselves. 'Cause if we die to ourselves, like Paul is talking about this, then that obligation, that legal binding that we had to our sin nature is no longer binding, therefore we are then united with Christ. And not just united, but I'm talking about a united in a marriage that is loving, that is a committed relationship with our rescue or our deliver, our savior. That's what Paul is talking about here. Some of us need to have a little DTR with our sin. DTR stands for define the relationship. We need to have a serious talk with our sin because this relationship we have with sin is dysfunctional and this ex just won't go away. I love, Pastor Andre had this quote last week. It says, "Sin promises life, but gives death." Sin is stepping out on us. It's using us. It's telling you lies. It's manipulating us. and we need to break up with sin. Because we have the opportunity to be united in this beautiful marriage with Christ that leads us through the law to give us victory over our struggles and ultimately life, eternal life. Paul just uses this illustration of marriage just because it's very well understood in the early church.

Paul here is saying, I want you to have this kind of relationship with Jesus that is like a marriage that is healthy, that is life-giving, that is caring, that is truly loving. This is the kind of relationship that Jesus wants to have with us. And when we step into that relationship with him, we've died to our old self, we've died to our sin, we've died to our selfishness, and we find guaranteed victory in an abundant life that is even more than we ever could have imagined. I've talked to some of you here and in the different worlds that I've had of people who have been married for like 50, 60 plus years. And I sit there and I go, how? Usually the husband cracks some joke, the wife pokes him, it's usually how it goes. But ultimately deep down inside, there is this loving commitment of care for one another. That is what makes a marriage last. And Paul here is saying, Jesus wants to have this relationship with you that will last your entire lifetime. And it's even greater than what you could even think or come up with in your own mind. A kind of love that you can't even put into words. A kind of peace that the Bible says that passes understanding. The kind of joy that doesn't let anything knock it off. That keeps on going and going. and going and going, that gives us guaranteed victory, no matter where we find ourselves in the battle of life. That's the kind of relationship Jesus wants to have with us. So the question for us, when we close and the worship team can come up, are we committed to Christ as much as Christ is committed to us? That's the question. 'Cause a relationship is 100% and 100%. You probably heard 50/50, that doesn't even get you close, you're short still. Relationship is 100%, 100%, and Jesus here is 100% in. Always has been, always will be. The question for us, is that us? Are we committed as a lifelong, forever kind of relationship? That's what we have to answer for ourselves. 'Cause Jesus has this life that he wants for us. We have to figure out, are we 100% committed to Jesus? Paul here is saying there's a life out there greater than you ever could imagine, full of victory and love. We gotta say yes to Jesus every single day.

Let's pray. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for your servant, Paul. God, sometimes we get so caught up in his words and get lost sometimes in this train of thought, but I think it speaks to a level of excitement that he knows what's at stake. He understand what is on that other side when we finally say no to ourselves and yes to you, this kind of abundant love that isn't found anywhere else in the universe, but only found in you. And so thank you for your word today. God, I pray that this week we would think through this, that we might find ourselves in different battles and struggles and remember that we already have victory in you, not because it's something that we've done, not because it's something that we've earned, Not because it's something that we're so talented and gifted and we're so amazing, but it's because of our united love to you, Jesus, that we find victory. So Jesus, help us to be encouraged today. Help us to remember what you did for us on the cross. We thank you, Jesus. Amen. - Thanks for listening. And if you would, please take a moment to subscribe and leave an encouraging review to help others find our podcasts on whatever platform you are listening on. We hope you have a wonderful day. We'll catch you next week.

Romans - Part 10

Captives for Life - Romans 6:15-23

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing our Roman series. And I wanna start today with a little history lesson. I don't know how many of you are history buffs or appreciate a good story, but you're about to get one. So, long time ago, I'm not a history person, so this is fun, but it's not my thing, but it's helpful. In the year 207 BC, long time ago, there was a war. There was multiple wars. So in the end of the Second Punic War, we're in Italy. just give yourself some geography, we're over in Italy, and the Roman army was pinned down into southern Italy by the ruthless general Hannibal of Carthage. And so by the way, if you are a history buff, I'm repeating someone else's account of this story, so if you have a problem with it, I am copying JD Greer, who's a pastor, who's the one who's doing this Roman series that we talked about every Sunday morning before the service. He gets the benefit of he's in Rome when he films it, so he's got like the historical background behind him. I have this wonderful stage so you can't see where the battle actually happened. So he's got to envision it. So we're in 207 and there's people that are pinned, the the Roman army is pinned down by general Hannibal of Carthage. But Hannibal's troops are exhausted, they've been fighting this war, they're depleted of supplies and so he's sent for his brother, has Drupal, who entered his armies from the north. So we have Rome pinned down in the south and we have an army entering from the north and so they do something unexpected and kind of risky. They rush all their forces to the north to meet Hasdrubal and they defeat him. They defeat Hasdrubal and just outside of Rome in 207 and historians will agree that pretty much at this point the war was over. Rome had won. It didn't officially end but pretty much this was the turning point, right? Rome defeating has Drupal in the north did not mean good things for Hannibal in the south. So everyone knew it, Rome had won, but for years small groups of Hannibal's forces would terrorize the Roman countryside in the south, still being present there. And so even though Rome had won, their victory had not yet been applied or recognized across every town and hamlet in the south south of Italy. And so, like I said, Pastor JD Greer shares this story to point out that this is exactly what sin does in the lives of believers.

Even though Jesus has defeated sin and death, sin still fights back in our lives and attacks the towns and hamlets of our lives. You didn't know that you had hamlets in your life, but you do. In Romans six, Paul is talking about this ongoing battle with sin for the believer. And Paul is really bringing the people of the church of Rome to this pressure point, helping them make a true and honest self-assessment of their spiritual status, making them look at what is in their hearts. This is such an important concept that Paul is gonna take as much time as he needs in this letter. So he's talked about the beginning of chapter six, we're continuing the same thought because it is so important. We also have to remember that Paul is writing to a certain Roman culture, and there are two rules when it comes to religion. The first is that everyone under the Roman Empire can worship any god that they want. Whatever religion, whatever god you have, you can continue to worship that god. The second rule is you just can't say that another god isn't a god. You can't say that there is only one god. You must accept the plurality of gods that is under the Roman Empire. Now, when I was prepping this sermon, I just thought, that's maybe similar to what we're going through today, right? Many religions are accepted or must be allowed to be present at the same time, but as soon as Christianity says that there's one God, then all of a one looks at us angry, and says, what are you talking about? No, no, no, and we're like, well, it's what we believe. It's the truth. And so we can maybe share in this reality with the early Roman church that Paul is talking to. He needs to make sure that the believers in the church of Rome, truly acknowledge, believe, and worship one true God. So if you guys would read with me, it's gonna be up on the screen, but Romans 6:15-23, you can follow along as I read out loud.

Paul says, "What then? Shall we sin, "because we are not under the law but under grace? "By no means. "Don't you know that when you offer yourself "to someone as obedient slaves, "you are slaves of the one you obey? whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, "So now, offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness, "leading to holiness. "When you were slaves to sin, "you were free from the control of righteousness. "What benefit did you reap at that time "from these things that you are now ashamed of? "Those things result in death. "But now that you have been set free from sin "and have become slaves of God, "the benefit you reap leads to holiness, "and the result is eternal life. "For the wages of sin is death, But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Would you pray with me? God, thank you again for your holy word given to us that we may know you, know your truth, know the pattern of truth. And God, I pray that you would open it up to us, open our hearts to receive your truth and your word. God, that it would form us to be more like Jesus and that we would leave this morning empowered and encouraged to live a life fully for you. Be with us this morning. and we pray this in your name, amen. Last week, we talked about a throne in our hearts. I don't know if you remember that. I mentioned this little throne that metaphorically sits in our hearts, and whoever sits on that throne controls our lives, right? They control our thoughts, our actions, our desires. And Paul starts off with a similar thought process as he, in verse 15. He says, "Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace by no means?" Do you remember what we said about "by no means"? This is the strongest way to say "no" in the Greek. This is an emphatic "no, definitely not." Verse 16, Paul is setting up the rest of this passage here. He says that no matter what, we are slaves. Now we might be naturally repulsed by that statement. On top of the negative feelings around slavery, We innately also have a natural response of, I am the captain of my own ship. I don't like, don't tell me that someone else is in control. It's not what I like. We don't like being controlled. We don't like when someone else is calling the shots for us. We want to be at the helm. We want to be making the decisions. We like a certain independence. The Bible, however, is pretty clear that that mindset, that desire, comes from sin. It comes from a place of rebelling against God, who we were made to be in partnership with, not independent from. So this is the question that Paul presents. Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey? Whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness. Paul is starting at the assumption that all are slaves to sin. There is no neutral starting point. I think this is often how we think about it. Well, I was free, and then I became a slave to sin, or I can become a slave to righteousness. Paul is saying no.

The starting point is we are all slaves. From the very beginning, we are slaves to sin. Theologian Leon Morris writes this. He says, "For Paul, the basic assumption is that "all are slaves before they become believers in Christ. "They are not free to do as they will, "for they are subject to the bondage of sin." Notice that he, Paul, is not saying that slaves are required to obey their master, he is looking at it the other way around. The master we obey shows who's slaves we are. Unbelievers are slaves to sin, and this leads inevitably to death. But believers are slaves to obedience. So he is saying our actions, our choices, the decisions we make reveal who we serve. Paul is very clear that there are two options here. There's just two. We talked a little bit about this last week too. It's either being slaves to sin, which leads to death, or being slaves to obedience, or to God, which leads to life. So I just wanna ask us this morning, whom are you serving? What do your actions, your choices, the decisions you make, who do they reveal that you are serving? We'll continue in verse 17. It says, "But thanks be to God, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey." This is a high moment in the letter to the Romans. This is a moment of encouragement. This is great. Paul is encouraging them in what has happened in their lives. And there's a couple of things I want us to process in this verse, specifically about the transformation that has happened within the believers. The transforming work that yields obedience to God comes in two parts. First, it is the work of the Spirit, and it also comes from knowing the truth. So the first part is the work of transforming hearts is the work that only the Spirit can do. As believers, we cannot work on our own hearts and make it into something good. That's the work of God, to come in within us, form us, to sanctify us. Ezekiel 36:26 says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. So the first part is the work of the spirit.

The second part is the pattern of teaching. The accepted Christian teaching, the truth of God. This is the knowledge that is transforming our minds, renewing our minds, rewiring how we process and understand the world around us, how to process life as it happens. So first we have the work of God in our hearts, and then through the teaching, through his scripture, our minds are also transformed. These are two essential ingredients for believers, a heart that has been touched by God, and a mind that is learning God's truth. They are present here in the Church of Rome, and Paul is expressing encouragement and gratitude, saying, "Hey, your church has experienced God. "I see it in your lives. "This is good, be encouraged." And a question for us this morning, is that present here at Spring Valley Church? I believe it is. Have you experienced the transforming work of the Spirit in your heart? Are you also learning the truth, the knowledge that renews your mind? Again, I hope the answer is yes. And now in the rest of the passage, Paul explains their reality to them with a bold new imagery He puts before them the situation that they have gone through. In verse 18, it says, "You have been set free from sin "and have become slaves to righteousness." Now I know, we read that and think, they went from slavery to slavery. That doesn't sound that great. That doesn't sound like a great situation. Slavery is bad, yes, slavery is bad. But again, Paul is using the situation they are familiar with to express their spiritual reality. So this is what he says at the beginning of 19, and he's building upon some assumptions here that make the situation more palpable and make it make sense to us.

In Paul's scenario, again, he's emphasizing, we didn't start from freedom and fall into slavery to sin. We were always slaves to sin. And I said that before, you're gonna hear it again. Paul's gonna say it again. It's so important for us to think that because we will always have this natural tension of control in our lives. It's part of the biggest issue with sin that we have. We want to be in control. It's the original sin of Adam and Eve, of Satan falling from, we want control. We want to be like God. And so we were always slaves to sin. That was our starting point. And Paul's also saying, we will always be slaves to something, either sin or obedience to God. So in verse 18, he is rejoicing that they are now slaves to God, meaning they will have eternal life. Their decision from their heart, from their mind, all those, their life now bends towards God. Verse 19, he says, "Just as you used to offer yourselves "as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, "now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness, leading to holiness. Paul needed to exhort them, instruct them to obey God, because just like that story at the very beginning of the enemy attacking, even when the war was, you know, pretty much over, that is our reality. Sin is still attacking. Sin is still looking for ways to get at us. And that thing, that person that you might have served before you were saved, that you might have worshipped, that might have dictated your life, isn't completely gone. So let's say you worshipped success in life, you valued success. You would make, even though maybe you are no longer a complete slave to success, you're now a slave to obedience, you can still struggle with that sin. And you can make every decision to experience success, even if that meant breaking God's law. If you worshiped money, that sin, that hold of money over your life might mean that in a moment you would do whatever it takes to maybe make more money, even if it meant breaking God's law. Or let's say there was a person that you wanted to please in life, you would do whatever it takes to make that person happy, even if it meant breaking God's law. So even though the believers in Rome are experiencing the transforming work of God in their hearts and knowing God's truth, they are still struggling to choose to obey God. They are still going back to old masters. That's a reality that we experience today too. If you are saved, if you believe in Christ, you are still dealing with sin in your life. The old masters still calling. And there are moments in our life where we choose to go and listen and obey that instead of God. I don't know if you've ever had a pet. Maybe some of you have pets, or specifically a dog. But you've probably had to train that dog. And training dogs, I only have one experience. I have one dog, only for six months. It's not about the dog, that was more about me. Dog was great. It was a season. But I started training that dog, and that was very hard. There was a lot of bad habits or natural habits for the dog to break. So like peeing inside or outside for the dog. You know, obviously outside. And it would get rewarded every time it did the right thing. You get a little treat, good job. Or something like chewing on furniture. It was puppy, so puppy phase of chewing on everything. My dog, I didn't necessarily give it a treat for not chewing, but it experienced my transforming love every time it did not chew on furniture. But still-- that's a joke. I don't know if I have transforming love for a dog. Obviously not, I don't have a dog anymore. But the dog still, even though if it knew the right thing, it still would tend to do the old thing. And I think that's what Paul is, it's going through Paul's head right here. It's like you still, you know, you've experienced the goodness of obedience in God, but we still, everyone smiles, still go back to sin.

Paul is coaxing them along in this letter saying, "You guys can do it, I know you can. "I see you slip every once in a while "and listen to that old master, "but keep doing the right thing. "Now that you know your minds are being transformed, "your heart has been touched by God, "keep choosing obedience to God." In verse 20 and 21 it says, "When you were slaves to sin, "you were free from the control of righteousness. "What benefit did you reap at that time "from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. Paul makes it very clear that you are enslaved to sin from the beginning, and that being enslaved to sin only leads to death. Even if those things, those sins, where some brought you pleasure, felt good in the moment, it still leads to death. Wouldn't avoiding sin be a lot easier if there wasn't any pleasure involved? if it wasn't like, usually sin starts from a good thing, or something that we enjoy, and then there's too much of it, usually, most sins. It would be so much easier if sin was just like bad all around. It's like, no, of course I'm not going to do that. It's terrible. But experiencing success, wealth, pleasing a person, eating good food, all these things bring a certain level of pleasure to our senses. At some point God created those things for us to enjoy, but when we chase and serve and pursue Pleasure, we are no longer chasing and serving and pursuing God. God has become secondary to our desire for pleasure. Paul explains, again, their situation. He says that the believers in Rome used to be slaves of sin, and where did they get that? Or where did that get them? On the fast track to death. And this didn't mean a physical death necessarily, maybe, but more importantly, it meant the death of their soul. You see, sin corrupts, eats away at, and destroys our soul. What's that saying when you eat sweets? It's like a moment on the lips and forever on the hips. That's like sin, but like a million times worse. Like a moment of goodness, and then like your soul is destroyed. It's terrible. That will make you think twice next time you have that sweet. You're like, "Oh my goodness." Paul then again expresses this other option. So a moment of pleasure or sin, but at the cost of your soul.

The other option, verse 22, "But now that you've been set free from sin and become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." So what does being slaves to righteousness get you? Being made holy. Being made more and more into the image of Christ. Living a life that is closer and closer to what God intended. being the men and women that God created us to be. Whereas sin rots our soul and destroys and kills our soul, being slaves to God is life-bringing, renews our hearts and our souls. So obeying God, following God, brings life. Psalm 16:11 says, "You make known to me the path of life. "You will fill me with joy in your presence, "with eternal pleasures at your right hand." And then 1 John 5:12 says, is whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Scripture is very clear that pursuing God brings life. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, there are stories upon stories of God bringing life. Sometimes it's a physical life. In the Old Testament, from Noah to Abraham to Moses to the Israelites to David, the only hope of a future, of a life even on earth was through Yahweh. He provided the only way for more life. And now in the New Testament, we talk about our eternal life and the only way is through Christ. For us today, entrusting our everything, our entire life to Jesus, is what brings life into our souls. On our own, without Jesus, our souls naturally just rot away and wither and die. And there was only one remedy. The only thing that can bring life to our souls is Christ. There's nothing else, nothing in this world, nothing that we can do on our own. The only remedy to sin is Christ. He is the source of life. Paul ends chapter six with this verse, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul is wrapping up this thought and trying to make it abundantly clear. German theologian H. W. Heidlin wrote, "Sin promises life but gives death." I love that summary, that what sin is actually doing. It looks good, right? Just like Adam and Eve in the garden. There's something appealing about something else. Again, we wouldn't want to sin. We wouldn't make that decision to sin. So sin promises life, but only gives death. Death isn't an arbitrary sentence, but the inevitable consequence of sin. It's a literal ending point for our lives. The other option is a gift, a free gift from God. And Paul uses the term gift here to emphasize the freeness found in this option. It's not a reward for the life that you have lived. You didn't earn it, but it's a complete gift from God. Paul is emphasizing the reality that slavery is not just a status, but a living experience. There's not just like in the book of life, your name, not the book of life, whatever book that, forget that analogy, it's not gonna work. (audience laughing) Whatever status is next to your name, it's not just slave to sin or slave to obedience. It is what you live, it is your experience. Dr. Gary Brashears, a professor and theologian, writes, "We have the first taste "of a number of eschatological blessings, "but the consummation and final fulfillment "is yet in the future." This is the idea that as believers, Heaven is already, but not fully yet. We have a glimpse, but not the full thing. And I think that's true of both eternal destinations, heaven and hell. For those living in sin, they are currently getting a taste of hell, a life void of God without His love and truth. Part of that reality is present. And for those who are enslaved to righteousness, they are getting a taste of heaven, a life full of God's presence, full of love, full of truth. I don't think we today often live in that reality, even as believers. The reality that our eternal destination is not so far in the future, that it doesn't affect us now. We tend to put it off and say, well, that's at the end. That's not right now. It's, I don't even think about it. Some of us are really future thinkers, future oriented, and we're great planners. You might have like a 5 to 10 year plan. You're like, I know general direction, where I'm going, and what should be happening. Others of us are not that way. Like, hey, what are you excited about this year? And you're like, I'm just trying to figure out dinner for tonight. I have no idea. I'm like somewhere in the middle, but lean towards what's for dinner tonight.

What would it look like for you to live your life with your eternal destiny, your presence with or without God at the forefront of your mind? How would your day be different if you were more present and aware of the life that Jesus is giving your soul each day? Or if you were choosing sin in that moment, or that day, or that season of life, what if you were more aware of the destruction and the corruption and the ruin that that sin was bringing to your life? Might we be more conscious of the decisions we make? And might we strive to take better care of our hearts and our minds, and be more intentional in what we allow in our hearts and what is coming out of our hearts. Maybe we'd be more thoughtful and careful about who is sitting on the throne within us. We might be more aware of the possible attacks of the enemy and how sin might be creeping back into our lives. So as I close, I just wanna ask these questions again. From verse 16, whom are you serving? What are your actions, your choices, the decisions you make, who do they reveal you are serving? And then from verse 17, have you experienced the transforming work of the Spirit in your heart? And are you learning the truth, the knowledge that renews your mind? And then from this last verse, 23, what would it look like for you to live your life with your eternal destiny at the forefront of your mind? Church, as you answer these questions right now, throughout this week, you ponder them, I wanna remind you that in your pursuit of God, you are not alone. The people in this room are also with you. This is your community, these are your people. And we are all looking to pursue God. We're all looking to chase after God. And I love this image of all of us, wherever we're at, some of us, 30 years of following God, some of us, six months of following God. All of us are heading towards him. And what an encouragement to see when someone slips to be like, "Hey, I got you. "Let me help you up. "Let's keep going." As we live to be more like Jesus, as we pursue him together, what a glimpse of heaven here on earth, where his kingdom is at the forefront of our minds. These are people in this room who you can be vulnerable with, you can open up with, who can encourage you and who you might need to encourage. So that's our prayer today, that God would use this church, this community for His kingdom. As it says on our wall, that He would saturate this community with His glory. Amen?

Let's pray. God, again, thank you for your Word. Man, we are so thankful for the work that you are doing in our lives. When you transform our hearts, God, in the continuing sanctification that we are going through, making us more and more like Jesus, we're so thankful for that. There's nothing we can do but allow you to work in us. And then, God, we just pray that you continue to put forth your patterns of truth, your word, God, through teaching, through reading, through singing, all these ways that we soak in your truth. I pray that it would truly transform our minds. The way we look at the world process would all be more like how you see the world. God, fill us with your love, with your grace, your compassion, and I pray that you would reveal to us who is sitting on the throne of our hearts. You would make that clear, and if it demands a change, God, help us to make that change. God, we wanna offer our lives as a sacrifice to you, that you would use us as instruments of righteousness, instruments for your kingdom. God, thank you for this church right here, Spring Valley. I pray that we would be emboldened and strengthened to come together to pursue you and chase after you. This is not a journey that is meant to be done alone, but to be done together as a body of believers. So help us to love our friends, our family, sitting next to us and across the room. God help us to have a mind and a heart that reaches out to them and wants to encourage them and help us to be open to receiving encouragement from others. God continue to transform this entire church that we may be a light into this community here at Rocklin. We know that you are working and we're thankful for it and we take joy and get excited about the work that you will continue to do as we look forward into the future. God, we give you all this. We sing your praises. Amen.

Guys, thank you for being here this morning. And we look forward to continuing our series. Look forward to seeing you midweek, but we hope you have a great weekend. All right. Be blessed. - Thanks for listening. And if you would, please take a moment to subscribe and leave an encouraging review to help others find our podcasts on whatever platform you are listening on. We hope you have a wonderful day. We'll catch you next week.

Romans - Part 9

United with Christ - Romans 6:1-14

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are continuing in Romans, Pastor Chris, & I hope that you are enjoying this series. Even though each week we can only speak so far, we have 30 minutes each morning to talk about the passage, and there is so much. We hope that you are continuing your own study, that you're joining us for the Sunday mornings, where we can dive deeper and deeper in. There is just so much, but we pray and hope that it has been rich for all of you.

Just a little bit about myself. You may know this, I keep mentioning it. I do love movies, I love shows, I love movies. There's a theme of movies that has been common in the last decade, I would say, it's these origin stories. I love a good origin story. I think most often we see that in the superhero genre. You know, you're familiar maybe growing up with like Batman or Superman or Spiderman, whoever they are, and then the movie will come out called the origin story. And you get to tell, you get to learn in their story how they became who they are. This start, you know, where it all began. This transition of when did they go from ordinary person to superhero? You know, what happened in that moment? I think it's interesting to know, it's really fun. I'm also a sports fan, so I get intrigued with sports documentaries, like the 30 for 30s that come out. And you get to learn, you know, how did Jerry Rice become Jerry Rice? Or how did Michael Jordan become Michael Jordan? And again, there's just something intriguing about a good origin story, because I think that there's a part that we want to relate to. You know, if it could happen to them, could any part of that also happen to us? Not that I could have gone pro in any sport, but just, it's fun imagining, like, yeah, man, if I had worked hard, just like Michael Jordan did 24/7, yeah, maybe me too. There's just something relatable there. Like, could that happen to me? It's entertaining to think about an origin story. And again, it's that part of, they were just like a normal person at one point. And then we know them as the superstar or the superhero, And there's a period of time where they're learning and they're discovering that they're different. And there's something changing about them.

And that's kind of what we're covering here in our section this morning of Romans. That's where Paul is talking about in chapter 6. In chapter 5, Pastor Chris last week talked about how, again, sin infected humanity. And Pastor Chris was sharing Paul's words that the problem was dealt with. Sin was addressed through Jesus, Jesus' death, sacrifice, and resurrection, and now humanity can experience freedom. There's new life found in Jesus, one that is no longer bound by sin. And where last week was all about understanding the role of sin and humanity and its effects, and what we are to do to be freed from sin, today we're going to shift a little bit to cover the Christian's origin story, the new life that we have in Christ. We want to talk about the transition from ordinary sinner to blessed believer. For people who follow Jesus, hopefully this morning is a reminder of their new life, the new status, the transforming work that God is doing within you. And for those who may not yet believe in Jesus, this will hopefully shed some light on what it means to be united with Christ, to be a follower of Him. So if you could turn in your Bibles to Romans 6, I believe even though we're in new seats, there are still Bibles underneath some seats, if you want to pull that out, it'll be on the screen. But we're in Romans chapter 6, and you can follow along as I read aloud 1 through 14. Paul says, "What shall I say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, for we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life He lives, He lives to God. "In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, "but alive to God in Christ Jesus. "Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, "so that you may obey its evil desires. "Do not offer any part of yourself to sin "as an instrument of wickedness, "but rather offer yourselves to God "as those who have been brought from death to life, "and offer every part of yourself to him "as an instrument of righteousness. "For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

Would you guys pray with me really quick? God, we are again thankful for our time of gathering this morning, and we are thankful for your word, your truth. And God, I pray that you would open that up to us, that our hearts and minds may be ready to receive your encouraging word and your instruction. I pray that we'd be drawn closer to you, formed more like you, and that we would walk away from this morning encouraged and empowered to live a life that is living in your freedom by your grace. We pray this in your name, amen. Paul has just finished his thought of sin abounding in life at the end of chapter five, and we can't fully get rid of sin. But he says, "But where sin increased, "grace increased all the more." So there's a lot of sin, but there's always more grace. And Paul, as he's done all throughout these chapters, does that thing. when he's writing this letter, he's going to anticipate the thoughts of the readers. They're gonna be like, hey, sometimes they anticipate this and that's good, I want them to go in that direction. And other times, he's anticipating their thoughts and they're like, they're gonna think that and I do not want them to think that. That's one of these times. So Paul's reading, anticipating their thoughts and he's saying, he's thinking that they're gonna say, okay, Paul, so no matter how many times I sin, no matter how much sin there is, God's grace is more. Oh, that's great, that's really nice. So glad that God's grace is more. And then he's anticipating that some of them who are drawn towards sin, that the wheels are going to start turning. And they're going to say, "Oh, so that means though, that however much I sin, God's grace is more. That's kind of convenient. That's kind of nice. That's great. I don't have to worry about anything. No matter what, I sin. God's grace is more." And Paul wants to combat that thought, because that really becomes a heart issue over sin and grace. And that's the first focus, place I want to focus this morning, is the sin and grace in verses one through three. So one says, "What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?" And Paul says in verse 2, "By no means." Now, we read that in English, and it's "by no means." Okay, that's great. But J.D. Greer, a pastor, and we watch his videos on Sunday morning, he brings up the point that this is the strongest way to say "no" in the Greek. This is as if Paul had added some expletives. Like, heck no! This is not what you were supposed to be doing. Heck no, just not very strong. But you get the point. Just because we know that God's grace is there to always cover our sin does not mean that we keep sinning. We just don't assume that God's grace is going to cover and forgive us. This would be an abuse of God's grace. It's not a free, get out of jail free card that we can just flash over and over again. It'd be like, "Oh hey God, it's me, your boy. Hey, I'm sorry, here. Yeah, I'd mess, I said some things, I did some things. You know me though, and we're good, right? Yeah, you're covering me again, here's my card. Sweet, I'll see you next time. No, that wouldn't be good, that wouldn't be right. That would be an abuse of God's grace. And we don't wanna be abusers of anything in this world. To abuse something is to misuse something, to treat with cruelty or violence, or to, it's the improper use of something.

God made us, humanity, to be representatives, to be as partners and coworkers in this world. And when we treat anything with cruelty or violence or misuse something that God intended for one purpose and we use it for another purpose, we are acting in direct opposition to God. We do not want to abuse God's grace. We don't wanna selfishly take advantage of God's grace because that would reflect a heart that is not united with God at all, but still serving self. own desires. So Paul says in verse 2, "No, how can we live in it any longer?" That's sin. He's just saying, "How can we live in sin anymore now that we have this other option?" We must understand the goodness of God and the evil of sin. He wants the readers to have this, how far away these two are, how good God is, and how evil sin is. If we don't have a proper view of God and a proper view of sin, we're never going to want to be in God's presence and we're never going to feel the need to stop sinning. I want us to pause and really think about that. If we don't have a proper view of God and a proper view of sin, we're never going to want to be in God's presence and we're never going to want to, we're never going to feel the need to stop sinning. We don't understand how evil sin is. We don't feel the priority or the need to get rid of it in our lives. if we don't understand how good God is, how necessary his presence is in our lives, we're never gonna make any effort to go towards him. Often people think of the transformative work of God, the process of being sanctified, being made more and more like Jesus. They think of it like dieting. And I'll explain in a second, there may be some truth to it, there's also ways to think of that that's not helpful at all. If you've ever been on a diet, I have, so I'm speaking from experience, not right now. It can be easy to justify certain cheats in foods and really bend the definition of your diet to benefit you in a certain moment, right? Yeah? I was on a diet and there was no sugars. I wasn't supposed to have any sugar. But I remember having this conversation often, especially the longer the diet went on, where I was like, the whole point of it is just to have less sugar than I was before. So some sugar right now is still overall better than where I was. And we can do something similar with sin, right? We can't view sin like dieting. So in this conversation, if you're having some processed sugar, isn't gonna kill me, I'm still being healthier, just not as healthy, I'm getting there. That works out fine in the dieting conversation.

If we apply that to our sin context, it might sound like, well, just some sin won't be bad, right? Jesus isn't expecting me to be perfect, but I'm getting better. I'm getting more and more holy. He's working in me. And there's some truth to that, but now we're on a slippery slope, right? And the next thought that can come later on could be it's just some sin. I'll be okay because of God's grace. And now we're not in a good place at all because we're starting to justify the sin in our lives. The diet mindset of sin in our lives is doing us a disservice. It doesn't take into account how we were enslaved to sin. Slavery is a loaded word and comes with a lot of its own history. But the point being that you had no control over your heart and your life because sin did. Paul reminds the believers in Rome that they are ones who have died to sin. Death being the only thing that would free a slave from their captivity, from their bondage. The only way out of slavery was death. And Paul is pointing back to Jesus' work on the cross, that His death and His defeat over sin signals the same for us. Paul is using baptism as the way to convey what is happening. The Bible Project, if you've seen any of their videos or listened to their podcast, has a great video on baptism. And I want to share this quote. It says, "Just as Jesus died, so going into the water becomes this personal connection that you now have with his death. And in coming out of the water, you, so to speak, come back to life with Jesus. So baptism is this sacred ritual that joins us to Jesus' death and resurrection. I just love that connection that it's making, that we are, it's a symbol, yes, but what it symbolizes is so real for us. So if you've been baptized or if you're planning on being baptized, or if you just wondered about baptism, Hopefully this will clarify some things for you. We are joined with Jesus in his death and resurrection, and baptism is the way in which we symbolize that new reality. And from here, moving forward in our passage this morning, Paul puts the reader together with Jesus in these significant moments in the believer's life, where Jesus and believers share in transformational moments full of rich spiritual implications.

So in verses four through nine, Paul lays out for the believers how we are connected to Jesus. Not just that we acknowledge and worship Him and He is our God, but how the actions of Jesus are also our own. So in the following, we are with Jesus. And the first is that we are with Jesus on the cross. This is another way of saying for the believer that the power of sin is broken over them. Paul says this in multiple letters. We have it here in Romans, also in Ephesians and Colossians. Ephesians 22 says, "You were taught with regard "to your former way of life to put off your old self," which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. In Colossians, he says again, "Do not lie to each other "since you have taken off your old self with its practices. "The old man," as Paul says, or the old self, "was a slave to sin." And now that is no longer the case. Christ has delivered us by his actions on the cross. So our old sinful enslaved self was crucified on that cross. We are also with Christ and that we died with him. You get that from verses 8 and 4 in our passage and buried with him. He also says this in 2 Timothy, he says, speaking to a significant moment in the process of becoming a believer, he says, "If we died with him, we will also live with him." So the death of Christ is a part of the basis for a whole experience of salvation. There's such an emphasis on Jesus's death and how it's connected to us, because that's the moment that Jesus turns away from sin. Not his own sin, but his relationship to sin, right? He bore all the sins of the world. And in his death, he has a final turning away from that. And for us, we also, in dying to sin, are turning away from sin. We would call that repentance, right? We repent every day of the sins we commit, but in a moment of salvation, there was a bigger repentance of saying, God, I'm no longer gonna live this life that is following sin. I'm gonna turn from that and I'm gonna head towards you. So we too die to sin. It is no longer having a hold over us. And our connection in our death with Christ is not the end because we are also with Jesus in his resurrection. It's found in verse five, Paul says that we are made alive in Him. Our spiritual lives are resurrected. He writes about this, again, in some of the other letters. Colossians 2:13 says, "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all of our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross." In Ephesians, Paul writes, "God who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions." Paul is saying we are united with Jesus in His death and resurrection. And that brings us into being with Jesus in new life. We were raised with Him and made to sit with Him in the heavens. I'm going to keep reading Scripture to you because it's just so good and so essential.

Ephesians 2 says, "And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms with Christ Jesus." Paul also says later, we'll get to it in chapter 8 of Romans, "We are co-heirs with him." We share in his glory. He writes, "If we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in his suffering, we will also share in his glory." This is one of the most beautiful pictures in the gospel, one of the most exciting and glory-filled situations for the believer to think about. Remember, we've been saying this throughout our series that it's like Paul is teaching a course. And the first four chapters were Christianity 101, and now we're in Christianity 201. And so before, he would say that we have a life in Christ, but now he's expanding on that. And he's letting us into the reality those new layers of our new life. They are intricate ways in which, when we believe our lives, everything about us, our hearts, our souls, our minds, undergo a transformation. And we are then woven together in a special way with Jesus. To where what Jesus did on the cross, He did for us. To what Jesus experienced in His death and resurrection, we too experience that in our spiritual life. What Jesus experienced in his resurrection, we know that we will ascend to be with God in heaven. And to the ministry that Jesus accomplished after his resurrection, we know that we too have a new life and a new purpose once we have found him. I mentioned at the beginning that this is kind of the believer's origin story. And so if our spiritual journey was playing out as a movie, there'd be a scene where someone were to ask you, "How did you get to who you are today as a believer, as a Christian?" And you'd have to tell that story. There'd be flashback scenes of like, "Well, when I was this age, it'd be all hazy around the edges. It'd be really cool." We all have unique stories and experiences that bring us to God, but the work that God does is all the same. And so this part of every one of our movies would play out the same way. And we could share with this in this movie scene with whoever's asking well it started when Jesus reached me and I responded and my sin was on that cross with Jesus my old self died with Jesus on that cross and I was buried in the same tomb with him and I have new life just as Jesus has new life and I know that in my future I will ascend to be with God just as Jesus ascended. I get to be co-heirs with Christ. I get to be with God, my Father, reigning over just as God intended. That's the part that is true of every one of our stories. If you are a believer here today, that's the scene that you get to, that is part of your history. And every believer needs to understand the reality of their story, that they are dead to sin and alive to Christ. That's where Paul goes in the last four verses. Paul tells us once again that we should be dead to sin and alive in Christ. Now while Christ's death to sin speaks to the end of Christ being in the realm of sin and the death to his whole relationship with sin, for believers that's not necessarily our reality.

We still have a contest every day. We are still tempted by sin every day. We can still choose to sin. But before we didn't have a choice, right? We were enslaved. We only knew sin. Now we have a choice to follow God. And every day, multiple times a day, we're faced with this decision. Are we going to let sin rule our lives again or are we going to be alive in Christ? You may be asking like, Like what does alive in Christ even mean? It is a life that is singly devoted to God. It means seeing things the way that God sees them. It means living like Jesus. Well, how do we be like Jesus? Paul says in verse 12, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal body." I really like this imagery of something reigning in our lives. It speaks to this part of humanity that we don't often think about anymore. And that is that we were made to worship and to serve. Paul knows that we as humans are meant to serve something or someone. And as sinners, we might have served a multitude of things, right? Might have served money, ourselves, success, power, whatever it is. And really, Satan's okay with any of those as long as it's not God. He's like, "You just worship anything but God, that's fine, I encourage it." But for the believers, this is a part of our humanity that is in process of being fully redeemed as we are now able to worship and serve God. We were made to be in relationship with God and sin ruined that, right? We were meant to be in close, loving relationship with God. And that imagery of that relationship brings us back to the garden, right? He created Adam and Eve in the garden, and that was the ideal. God partnered with Adam and Eve ruling over this earth. Sin breaks that relationship and that reality, and now humanity is enslaved to sin. And Paul is saying, for the believer, that reality has changed. Now the believer can choose to serve God. That relationship with God has been partially restored. It will be fully restored in heaven, where it'll once again be like the garden relationship. But there is a throne in our hearts. Just imagine, like a little kingly throne, whatever kind of throne you like. It's a big chair with like the big arms. You can sit and rule. There's one of those inside of you. And whatever's sitting on there dictates everything that you do. So if it is money on there, if it is success, if it is power, if it's yourself, it's a little you sitting on the throne of your heart, it will serve whoever's sitting on that throne. All of your actions, your thoughts will evolve around that thing in your heart. And if it's anything other than God, it will lead us astray, it will lead us into sin, and it'll lead us into ruin. But God, now for the believer, gets to sit on the throne of our hearts. And then we are alive in Christ. So it's at that moment when God is reigning in your life that you are alive in Christ.

Paul is exhorting believers to serve God because he is the best thing in their life. And someone who doesn't think that God is the best thing in their life, they probably don't have a proper view of who God is. There's a misunderstanding of who God is. Because if we do have a proper view of God, an understanding of who God is and what He does for us, we would choose to stop sinning. We would choose to follow Him. And we want other people to say, "Hey, I want you to be a part of this life. This life is amazing. God is the best thing in this life. You need to know about this." Verse 13, Paul says, "To offer everything of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness." This is about laying everything you have down before God for His glory. And again, this speaks to the partnership that God desires. This should be a part of our daily prayers, that God would use us for His kingdom, that we might be instruments of righteousness. So in whatever situation you're in, whether at work, at home, with friends, family, in whatever situation, ask yourself, how can you be a vessel for God's righteousness and blessing and grace and love into that situation? How can you be the source of Jesus for the people around you? And then Paul says in 14, we can even think, we can start to think like this and ask these questions all because sin is no longer our master. Paul is doing his layering thing here where he's building from earlier chapters and he's reminding, he just wants to keep putting it in front of the Romans, in front of us today, that we are no longer under the law, but under God's grace. So these 14 verses at the beginning of chapter six of Romans are meant to be filled with hope and to bring us joy and help us see how our spiritual origin story is really tied to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And I want us to right now lean into the work that God is doing, the transformational work that is happening in our hearts and souls. So I just want you to reflect right now and think, if it helps to close your eyes, feel free to close your eyes. But I wanna ask you a few questions. Is your heart enslaved to sin? Who is on the throne of your heart right now? What master are you serving? Is it God or is it anything other than God? Just take a few seconds and answer honestly. Be vulnerable with yourself. Are you living each day alive in Christ, devoted wholly to his purposes? And then ask yourself, what needs to change today in order for me to experience being united fully with Jesus? What needs to change? What is the Spirit prompting in your mind and in your heart that needs to have work done on it? I want to end by reading Jesus' prayer for all believers. This is a prayer that Jesus prayed. He prayed for His disciples, the 12, and then He prayed for every believer. And I want Jesus here connecting the dots for us that a spiritual connection we have and unity that we have as believers with Him and with God. So this is found in John 17. It's not gonna be up there. So I just want you, this is a prayer.

Close your eyes. This is Jesus praying for you. And He says, "My prayer is not for the disciples alone. "I, Jesus, pray also for those who believe in Me "through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, "just as You are in Me and I am in You, "May they also be in us, so that the world may believe that You have sent me. I have given them glory that You gave me, that they may be one as we are one, I in them and You in me, so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that You sent me and have loved me, even as You have loved me. Father, I want those You have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me, because you have loved me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them." So God, that is our prayer this morning, that we would be one with you. We are so thankful for the ways in which we are united with Christ Jesus. We want to be instruments of You, for You, in Your kingdom. Use us to show others who You are, that they may come to love You and know You. And God, I pray that as we reflect on those questions, that there would have been something that came to the surface, that we would lay before You and say, "God, I need You to work this part of my life. I need your Spirit to refine me, to grow me. I want to keep putting that old self, those sins that I was once enslaved to, I want to keep putting them on the cross, that I don't serve them anymore, but I serve you, Jesus. For that you would do that work in all of us today, the next day, and the next. God, we want to give you our everything that we have. And we trust and know that you will use us for your kingdom, God. And we want to take such joy in that. However hard it may be, we're just thankful to be a part of you, God, and your church and your family. So it's with joy that we pray all these things in your son's name. Amen. Thanks for listening. And if you would, please take a moment to subscribe and leave an encouraging review to help others find our podcasts on whatever platform you are listening on. We hope you have a wonderful day. We'll catch you next week.

Romans - Part 8

A Story of Comparisons - Romans 5:12-21

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Paul here is gonna tell us this story of comparisons. And I don't know about you, but there are a lot of comparisons in life. Or maybe, maybe put it this way, that there are a lot of different camps that we like to find ourselves in, different spheres. Maybe it's this place where you're, okay, so I'm gonna do this and I normally don't. As Pastor Tips have been told to me in public speaking, you don't ask people to raise their hands, Okay, I'm gonna ask people to raise some hands this morning. Okay, and when I'm talking about this I'm talking about coke versus Pepsi All right So we're gonna we're gonna have some relationships here put on put on watch But our cake team coke, let me see it. Let me see it. Oh, yeah All right. All right. How about team Pepsi? Oh Okay, okay. I see some relationships. They're looking at each other going, "I thought I knew who you were." All right? That would be the only one I'll make you raise your hands. But we have comparisons. We have Chevy versus Ford. We have Mac versus PC, my fight with all my tech people here. We have Apple, Android, or Google when it comes to our phones. We have, I love going to the beach. We were at Santa Cruz a couple of weeks ago. I love the beach. It fills my soul. But maybe you're a but maybe you're a beach person or you're a mountain person. My wife and I booked an anniversary trip to Lake Tahoe. I'm a both and when it comes to beach or the mountains. How about living in the city versus living in the country? We have David versus Goliath. We're gonna get spiritual here. Get really spiritual, we have Backstreet Boys versus NSYNC. All right? We got Day versus Night. How many night owls do we have? Yes, early risers? Okay. He should be preaching every single Sunday. We have a hot versus cold. Some people love summer. Some people love winter. It's a perfect balance right now. I love it. It's perfect. Absolutely perfect. We have sweet versus sour. And the most important game number four today, kings versus some other team that lives closer to the water. Okay. Yeah. We don't even We don't even want to mention their name in church. All right? But it's kings versus the world. All right? That's what it is right now.

But in all seriousness, Paul here is talking about these contrasting worlds. And we have to answer the question of where do we find ourselves. And Paul here in chapter 5 now, the second half of chapter 5, is bringing this conversation about sin and sickness to this kind of this point, okay? So he's bringing to this point where he has been talking about for the last two chapters, he's been talking about justification, he's been talking about righteousness, he's been talking about faithfulness, he's talking about law versus grace, he's been talking about humanity versus God's perfection. And we've been coming to this point. And so Paul here says, "Therefore," Pastor Andre talked about that last week. And you see "therefore" in the Bible, pause and say, "Hey, what's that there for?" All right? Very theological, deep nuggets I'm giving you this morning. But Paul here basically is saying everything that I've said up to this point applies in this letter. You gotta remember that this is a letter that was written that would have been read in its entirety. We've taken a couple months now and we're through chapter 5. But the listener of the church in Rome would have heard this letter read in its entirety. So they, just a few minutes ago, heard about what Paul had been talking about on this topic. And so he says, "Therefore," so we peek up and we listen.

Start, okay, starting in verse 12. "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people because all sin." Really light topic this morning for church. Thanks for joining me here. Verse 13, "To be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone's account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from this time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who is the pattern of one to come." So Paul here in this beginning paragraph is basically saying that he's reminding us of everything he's written. He's reminding us of what he's already stated in this letter and that is that all have sinned. There's nobody perfect in the room. That includes me. Nobody here in this space is perfect. That's just the reality of where we're at. What we are trying to do is we're trying to figure out this calling that God has on our heart and for our life and how do we get in line with his perfect, perfect plan? So Paul here is reminding us that no one is perfect. Everybody has sinned. And he's pointing us to when this specific moment where it all started, and it started with Adam. If you were to flip in your Bibles all the way to basically page one, Genesis 1, God begins and creates the world and creates everything in the world and the animals and all the and all the stuff and all the fish and all the trees and the ocean and the sun and the moon and stars and the universe, all this stuff. And then he creates man, he creates Adam. This all dates back to that dude who messed up for all of humanity. And Paul here is reminding us that Adam, if we were to read the account in Genesis, talks about that Adam technically becomes this representative for all of humanity. So when Adam fell, unfortunately, everybody fell and everybody became struck with this sickness or disease called sin that entered into our lives. And we were stuck with this sickness.

You might say, "Hey, hey, Pastor Chris, that's not fair. That's not fair that some dude all the way back then messed up. I don't even know who this bro is." Like, don't even don't even try to associate him with his no belly button self that I don't even want to deal with this dude. Some of you are getting it. It's slowly creeping through the room. But don't associate me with that person. But what Paul here is articulating that Adam who is all of humanity's representative who himself brought sin to the world brought it to all of us. And all of us are sinned and we're not perfect. I heard a pastor once say this, I thought it was brilliant. It wasn't me, so I can't take credit for it. Adam brought sin in the world, but we have kept it in the world. That's the reality of what we're facing. Paul talks about in Romans 3:10, as it is written, no one is righteous, not even one. Or Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sin was first brought with Adam, but it has continued with all of us. You see, the results of that sin and the sickness, as hard as it is to talk about, is death. Paul here is saying in Romans 5:12, "Death came to all people because all sinned." The reality is of the sin sickness that we have, we know that we have that. Why? Because we see the results of that and the results of that is death. The results of that is we see conflict in society. The results of that we see is war. The results of that we see is hurt and pain and suffering. The results of that is we see people try to lord over other people. The results of that, of sin in this world, is the way that we can't interact with one another without yelling at each other. That's where we find ourselves. And Paul here is saying that it all started with Adam. That everyone since Adam, minus a few miraculous moments that we can read through the Bible, that all humanity has experienced is death and because of that, we are all affected by this sin. And that even Jesus suffered death as a result of sin. Not his, but ours. But he was still affected by it. Paul points out that this death has reigned from Adam to Moses.

Why is that important? Why is he talking about that there? Well, it's important because there was this time in the world between Adam and Moses that sin existed in the world because of Adam's choices and conflict and pain and suffering in this world. But there was no law yet. the one who Mount Sinai came down, the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not." You probably heard that before in the church. We have a lot of "thou shalt not"s in the church. But the law came through Moses. So there's this time before then where scholars would try to make an argument to go, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Paul. There was no law then, so therefore there's no sin, death, punishment," because they didn't even know what they were doing. And Paul here goes on to say, "Hold on, time out. He's like, "They might have not had the definition of what they were doing, but they still had instilled in them the way that God created humanity with an understanding of right versus wrong." Let me explain this a little bit. You find yourself driving through a neighborhood. You're going 80, 85. You're flying past people's houses. Kids are outside playing basketball. You're just flying through the neighborhood. There's something deep down inside of you that says, "I "I should not be driving this fast," right? Whether there's a posted speed limit or not, there's an understanding of, "Hmm, maybe this isn't right." That's what Paul here is saying. That even before the speed limit was posted, there's kind of a basic understanding of how to live our lives, and yet people still live the lives in the way that they wanted to based upon their plans and their selfishness, all about me. And Paul here is saying, so you can't even talk about this situation because when God gives us the law, we're able to further understand the specifics of our sin. Paul mentioned that some did not sin in some way like Adam did. Adam's sin was a specific moment, a specific choice against a specific command, If you know the story of the Old Testament, Adam was told specifically not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was basically the one rule that God gave Adam in the garden, said, "Do not do this. "Do anything else, but do not do this." And yet, Adam chose wrong. And there are so many that have lived after Adam, but before Moses, when the law was given, They sinned but didn't break a specific law, but there was still an understanding that they knew what was going on. Because the reality was too, that they were too sick with this sin and rejected God's rule in their life to reign over them. He says in Romans 5:13-14, "Sin is not charged against anyone's account where there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses." So that means, as a whole here, that death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, that sin was present, even when the specifics of the sin were not yet fully understood or detailed by the law. I got a little lawyer legal jargon speak there, and I started to lose some of you in the room. I'm coming back around, okay?

So here, Paul is ultimately saying, summarizing his, all of his argument, it is in this that we are made aware of our sin and the sickness that has been present in our lives even before we understood what we had broken. Right? Mom says, "Do not take a cookie from the cookie jar." We sneak in, what do we do? Take the cookie. We knew what we were doing. We knew deep down inside whether that was a big warning sign for us or a tiny little, "Hey, maybe." There's something deep down inside that we understand that when we make a choice, we know what we're doing. So Paul here is saying, "This is what I'm talking about." And then he gets real deep, okay? You ready for this? He gets real deep, and we're gonna jump into 15 to 21 here. But he begins to have more of these contrasts. He's gonna highlight two specific contrasts here. It's not gonna be kings versus warriors, say. That's for 1230 today, tip off. Beam team, let's go. But he's talking about these two different contrasts, the first of which being this idea of this trespass and this gift. So verse 15, "But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of one man, how much more did God grace and the gift that came by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, overflowed to the many. Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man's sin. The judgment followed one sin and brought commendation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification." Big word, "just if I had never sinned." That's what that word justification means. For if by the trespass of the one man death reigned through the one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in the life through one man, Jesus Christ. Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteousness act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man, the many will be made righteous. The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more. Remember that. So that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Whoo. Okay.

That was a heavy section. You guys hang in there. That was great. Paul here is talking about these two contrasts. He's talking about this contrast of the trespass versus the gift. See, the trespass is breaking God's law. That's what that word trespass means there. That means sin. That means this selfish act act is allowing the sickness to rule our lives. That's this trespass. But then also this gift. What's this gift? Well, this gift is what Paul is talking about is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Remember just a few short weeks ago, celebrated Easter. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Like Jesus conquered death. That is the gift, the forgiveness of our sins. And so let's talk about this trespass a little more. This idea of this trespass was brought on by Adam. Adam messed up right there in the garden, right at the beginning. God had this perfect plan and Adam just throws it off the rails. Adam messes up. And in that moment when Adam trespasses, breaking God's law, the one rule, death comes as a result of that trespass. And that him and Eve then are kicked out of the garden because of that. And humanity starts on this downward slope and slide for a really long time. All the way into the moment that Jesus shows up here on earth. So for thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years, humanity is just going down in the garbage, essentially, what's happening. And there's nothing they can do about it. God gives them the law, God gives them instructions, God gives them rituals and moments to pause life, to try to celebrate who God is. He gives them that Jesus, or God in their present, in the moment, in like, in the tabernacle. Like, God tries to do everything that he can to say, "Wake up, I love you, I have a better life for you, "this is how you live it." And yet time and time again, failure after failure after failure, trespass. And that all of humanity is affected because we all come from Adam because of that initial trespass. Let's talk about the second one. Let's talk about this gift. What does this gift mean? This gift is Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. I talked about that moment earlier. Talking about how Jesus went to the cross with our sin, but yet He was perfect. He becomes this moment that is completely different than this trespass. This downward slope of humanity all to this point is finally chopped off and stopped in this moment that Jesus goes to the cross, not for Himself, but for us. To this point where He on the cross takes all of the junk and the garbage and the sickness and the sin and all the stuff in life that just pulls us down. He takes that on and says, "I am going to take care of this." And He gives Himself for us. See, as mankind brought the trespass, the gift is brought from God through Jesus Christ. And Paul here is talking about these two polar opposite camps. Whereas the trespass brings death, the gift brings life. Whereas in the trespass, God gave Adam life initially, but then Adam broke it and brought death. And in the gift where the son of God has to give his life in death, actually through that comes life. And so we find this place in this moment where this one sin of one dude, Adam, breaks the plan for everybody and it leads to sickness of generation after generation of trespass, after trespass, after trespass, comes to this point where the righteousness of one man, Jesus, breaks this cycle and the single act of a sacrifice covers every single one of these trespasses in a moment. Paul here is saying that the world is flipped upside down in this moment, that never before this single place, since the beginning of time before Adam's bad choice, the world has never had the opportunity to live in this new life, like God first set up in the garden. And God here is telling us that death reign through the trespass, but life here reigns through the gift. That's what's going on. See, the trespass is terribly widespread and terribly dangerous. And it's taken humanity and put them in the pit forever.

However, Paul here is reminding the church in Rome that however this gift is wonderfully being made available to all who decide to receive it. And sometimes we have to understand where we came from and where we were in order to truly understand and receive the gift. We don't fully comprehend where we are or what has happened in our life unless we truly begin to understand and define the trespass of where we are. And Paul here is saying, no matter how far gone, no matter how far lost, no matter how far deep or buried or stuck, Cheryl's talking about carrying burdens, no matter how heavy that burden is on your back, Paul here is reminding us that Jesus reigns and that in Jesus reign, there's life. Paul says in 520, "Where sin increased, grace increased all the more." I love this translation here. It says, "Where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more." So wherever you find yourself walking into this space in this moment, in this time, maybe in life, maybe you're going through it right now. God's grace can multiply even more. And we have to look at where we've been to understand how God is moving us to something new. That sin, yes, is powerful, but grace is more powerful. And no matter how ever deep in sin that Israel, God's people, the Jewish nation, had sunk, that God's grace was deeper yet. That's true for us. He is always there waiting for you with open arms. If you want to hear something this morning, I want you to rewind this. He is ready and wants to overwhelm you with His love and kindness. To show up in your life and blow your mind with His love. They're always welcoming you home. The gift is way better than the trespass every single time. The second contrast that Paul talks about here is this idea of the disobedient one and the obedient one. And Paul contrasts this idea of, even back to verse 14 that he sets up before this section, he says this, that Adam, who is the pattern of the one to come. What does that mean? Well, Adam here, in theological terms, is the representative of all of humanity. He was the first, he was the beginning, he was given that responsibility and that role in the garden and has that. So He represents all of us. Well, in this story, there's also somebody else who represents us, right? That's Jesus.

That Jesus on the cross is the one who represents us before God. So that when we get to that point, when we get to heaven and we have to account for what happened in our lives and the choices we made and the way that we treated people, good or bad or ugly or awesome, wherever that is, Jesus comes alongside of us and puts his arm around us and says, "Hey, God, he's with me. I already took care of his stuff." So just as Adam in the garden, representative of all humanity, failed, Christ in his sacrifice on the cross represents us and all of humanity that says, "You have had righteousness put on put on you. You have not failed. You have not sinned. You have not broken the rules. You have lived a perfect life. Jesus puts that covering over us. Romans 5:17 that says, "By the trespass of the one man Adam, death reigned through that one man. But God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. See, the act of the disobedient of Adam, of this one disobedient person, yes, is powerful because it affected all of humanity. However, the act of the one obedient man, Jesus Christ, is more powerful over all the earth. And that in this, in verse 19, it says, "For just as through the disobedient of one man, the many were made sinners. So also through the obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ, the many will be made righteous." The disobedient one brought the reign of death. But Jesus, the obedient one, brings the reign of life. That's what Paul here is saying. Taking all this information, all this stuff, putting it all together, and he basically says that the disobedient one brought this death, but the obedient one brings life.

And this gift of Jesus Christ is so much more powerful. I heard it said that there is dynamite power in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Maybe we should change our subtitle here where it says, "The Power of the Gospel." I just want to say it like, "The Dynamite TNT Power of the Gospel." That is how powerful this gift of life that Jesus brought for us. So the bottom line here, one takeaway this morning, is that yes, sin is powerful, but grace is more powerful. Sin is powerful, but grace is more powerful. Sin is and will always be a reality for us here on earth. But grace can be a greater reality for us for those who trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord. Jesus is lightning years better than Adam and this gift exponentially greater than the trespass. that grace and love is better than sin and sickness. So the question becomes for us today, what camp are we in? Where do we find ourselves today? The reign of sin and death, or the reign of grace through righteousness in Jesus Christ. There's no cost to join this camp. It's already been paid for you. It's already taken care of. Jesus took care of it 2,000 something years ago on that cross that very first Easter and said, "Your sin is defeated. "Life is yours." Or did we find ourselves over in this place, just caught up in what we want to do in our pity party, in our choices, in our control, in our rule, which is sin, which leads to death.

Who's leading my life, death or life? That's a question for us today. If I give you one takeaway or thought, A little application here for you to take away this morning. Then we're gonna move in time of communion together today. This question is, what do I need to change in my life this week to live more in the power of Jesus? Jesus's power isn't the problem. The problem is us limiting Jesus's power in our lives of having wrong priorities, of making wrong choices, of as Pastor Andre was here talking about being too busy in life, too busy to take a moment to talk to God every day or to step into His word. How can you allow the power of Christ, of this life, of this gift, to fill you up even more this week. Jesus is more powerful, life is more powerful, grace is more powerful, love is more powerful, peace is more powerful, forgiveness is more powerful, joy is more powerful, grace is more powerful, this gift of life is more powerful, Jesus is more powerful. That's what we gotta figure out this week. That's perfect. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we thank you for your servant Paul and his reminder for us of this two polar opposite places that we might find ourselves in, either death or life. And so God, as we prepare to go into communion this morning, Jesus, I thank you for this I thank you for this, the salvation that you provided for us, the forgiveness of sins, there are justification, our initial sanctification into you, God, that you gave that very first Easter. Thanks for listening. And if you would, please take a moment to subscribe and leave an encouraging review to help others find our podcasts on whatever platform you are listening on. We hope you have a wonderful day. We'll catch you next week

Romans - Part 7

Edified Through Enduring - Romans 5:1-11

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Question, just totally random. Any marathon runners in here? Anyone run a marathon? in life. No, no, it's gonna be like current. You're gonna be like, that was a former self. No, no. Alright, cool. So I'm just part of the gang here then. I have never run a marathon. Never. Probably will never do that. But I get these targeted ads on my social media for like the at-home marathon. Have you guys heard of those? We're like at your own pace. Like it's like from couch to marathon. You can like run and it's like whatever distance you cover in one day, that's fine. But when you get to that marathon Distance you they will send you a medal to be like you did a marathon your own marathon, but you did one and I think it's kind of cool especially the targeted as I get it's like okay I know I've only been here since September, but you guys learned like I'm a kind of a nerd So I get targeted ads for Lord of the Rings marathons We're like you can journey to Mount Doom as you run so it's like oh the distance you covered you went from the Shire to This mountain and then from this mountain to the file. I know okay, I know and And is it bad that I'm really tempted by that? Like, I love that. And I'm like, I kind of want all the medals. But the whole, like that whole thing intrigues me because I love the idea of getting something that you have to earn that you just can't buy. So if you see, if I saw someone with that medal, I'd be like, I know exactly what they did. They ran that marathon and therefore they have this thing. And I just, I love that part of it 'cause there's a certain reverence that I can give. Like, man, that person worked hard for that thing. Or a pride of like, man, I did something that I did a marathon over a year. Like I just ran just a little bit every day. But I love the idea of gaining something that you have to endure, some kind of challenge or hardship. Similar to why I love the show Survivor. Any Survivor? I know one Survivor fan. I know Survivor was like 20 years ago and everyone's like, I have not watched that show in so long. But my wife and I only got introduced to it like five years ago. So we've binged everything and we love, we're still watching it today. There's a season ongoing. I'm not sponsored, but Jeff Probst, if you want to sponsor Spring Valley. So I love the idea of the premise, basically, is 29, or I don't know how many people, I forget how many people, they're dropped off in an island, they have to endure all the elements, right? They have only the clothes on their back, they get very little food, if any, and they just, whatever storms come, then you have to endure all that. And there's physical obstacle courses. And then on top of that, there's a social aspect where you might get voted off the island, Your peers might not like you, and then you're gone. So the sole survivor at the end of 29 days, I think 29 days, which is a long time, gets a million dollars. Pretty awesome, but you have to endure so much. You have to go through that challenge. And so when someone, if I were to ever meet like, hey, I was a winner of Survivor, I would know like you endured a lot. Like you went through a ton, and yes, you got a million dollars, but like also like that's a pretty cool thing that you were the last survivor of that season.

So, again, this idea of earning something that cannot be gained in any other way, I just think is really cool. And today, in our chapter in Romans, Paul is talking about something like that in the Christian faith. Something that has to be earned, that you have to endure. So just to recap, I know we were taking a break for Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday. We're diving back into Romans today. And so, so far, we've covered chapters 1 through 4, and Paul has been teaching Christianity 101. We've learned things about sin, God's attitude towards sin, atonement, justification, grace. And right now, just start clapping. Give yourselves a hand. You just graduated Christianity 101, 1 through 4. Yeah, good job, people. Good job. That's no small thing. Those are a lot of things that we covered. And today in chapter 5 we are beginning Christianity 201. So you're still in school, you're still learning, there's more to know. Paul's letter is divided into these sections and they're usually broken up by the word "therefore" and I know every pastor and theologian loves to say, and I will say it now, that whenever you see a "therefore" in Bible you gotta ask, "Why is the 'therefore'... What is the 'therefore' there for?" And so, just a good mental note when you're studying the Bible to maybe look back and say, "Alright, this is hinging upon everything that came before it, and what is happening now is based on that previous section." So we covered one through four, talking about sin, talking about how everyone is sinful, and how God, his attitude towards it, and he can't stand it, but he did something about it. He sent his Son, and we have salvation in Christ. And now Paul is going to build a little bit more on that foundational premise in Romans 5. So let me go ahead, if you could turn in your Bibles, I'm going to read Romans 5. We're going to cover verses 1 through 11. Follow along as I read aloud. Paul writes, "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person. Though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him? For if, while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life? Not only is this so but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Let me pray really quick. God thank you for your word. Thank you for the role that it plays in our lives of teaching us, encouraging us, edifying us and I pray that today through your word God that we would experience just that. That we'd be drawn closer to you. That we would be encouraged. That we would realize the hope that we have that is found only in you. Be with us this morning. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.

So, I kind of want to break up this section in two sections, Romans 1 through 5 and then the second half. And so in this first section, Paul talks about the Christian life and what can be gained only by being a believer when enduring hardship. Remember the first two verses, Paul talks about a hope and a peace that we have in Christ. And it's a hope and peace that we can boasting, not a selfish boast of, "Hey, other people, look what I did," but it's a boast in what Jesus has done in our lives. When we share, when we witness, we're not boasting about us, we're boasting about the work that Jesus did in our lives to transform us. So Paul is talking about that, "Hey, we can boast in what Christ has done." And the hope and peace that we have is not just for the good times, right? As Christians, some people think that the Christian life is happy, happy all the time. like happy you have God that means you're happy and I think most of us in this room know that that's not true we are not happy all the time just because we have Jesus doesn't mean that things in our life aren't challenging aren't difficult aren't hard and so to make sure that people don't think that the Christian life is happy happy all the time Paul says next in verse 3 but we also glory in our suffering now what does Paul mean by glory in our suffering is he some kind of masochist who just loves like pain like all the pain, like bring it on, I love it. No, he's not. But like on that show Survivor or the person who runs the marathon, Paul knows that whoever endures suffering has the opportunity to grow in a way that is only experienced in suffering. Paul was speaking to the church in Rome who dealt with persecution. They lived in the city where the Colosseum was, where Christians were put in there pitted against other animals or warriors to the death. So he knows full well when writing about glorying and suffering what his audience is going to think of about suffering. J.D. Greer, a pastor, says, "How well we understand the gospel is demonstrated by the attitude you have in suffering. What you truly believe comes to the surface when put under pressure. It's in those moments that we see what's inside our hearts, or if someone else is suffering, what's inside their hearts. They can say all the right stuff, they can be doing a lot of the right things, and have excitement and happiness and an attitude that is positive in life, but when the going gets tough, what's inside of them? when their wife gets cancer, when the husband loses his job, when their child passes away, when someone close to them or in their life, maybe even a pastor or a mentor, has been accused of some kind of immorality, something that will rock their faith, what happens in that moment? When life gets flipped upside down, what do you believe then? What attitude do you have in the midst of suffering?

And Paul is saying, for Christians, you can still have joy. Again, joy is different than happiness. Happiness is this feeling that is based on expectations and circumstances. I wanted this to happen and it happened in that way. I'm happy. Smile on my face. Or this surpassed my expectations in this circumstance. I am now feeling the emotion of happiness. That's all good and fine. Joy is different than that. is founded in God and it's not just a smile, it means a peace and understanding that God is at work in whatever is going on around us. There's a joy and a peace and contentment that comes in knowing that God is at work in the midst of suffering. This is what Paul is talking about in being able to glory in our suffering. He continues into this process of being formed into godly men and women in this process of developing character. So he goes through these steps. He says, "Suffering, we endure suffering, which leads to perseverance. And perseverance leads to character, and character leads to hope." I love this process. This is so good. Maybe as you're looking at this screen, you're seeing, like, I have experienced that. I know, I recognize that process firsthand. So we've talked about suffering, and when enduring suffering, this builds perseverance. Having to go through something difficult over time, over a season of life or over a period of time, perseverance is talking about enduring something even when we aren't getting anything out of it in the world standards for ourselves. So right now, for instance, I have a bad back right now, a lot of pain, and I'm not getting anything by enduring this suffering. I'm just hoping to get better. There's nothing that I'm going to have in my hands at the end of having a good back. That's the kind of perseverance that we're talking about. Not like the marathon or survivor where you do get something out of it. But the Bible is full of stories of people having to persevere and probably none better than the story of Job. Job is one who had everything taken away from him. His riches, his family, his own health. And people think that the Christian life is all about being happy. And if you're not happy in life, then it means that you're probably doing something wrong. So a lot of Christians, and even the people around him at the time, would say to Job, "Hey, you just gotta pray more. You gotta get right with God. Something's off in your life, because look at your life right now. It's terrible. You just need to be a better believer." But Job was being faithful, and he had to persevere. The trials in our lives are tests in many ways. Can you keep going when nothing is working out? Can you believe that God is good even when you don't feel it?

There's a certain faith that a person can have when you follow God in just the day-to-day life. You follow God's word, you follow what he wants of you, and he blesses you. You just experience... This is the faith that most of us live in most of the time, and it makes sense, right? We do what God wants, and God is pleased and blesses us. Think of Job before everything bad happened. Job was a very blessed man. He had a great family, great wealth, and great health. He just had everything. It was great. He followed God, and God blessed him. There's also a faith that is found in desperation. In times of extremes, when we're at the end of ourselves, there's a faith that develops when we cry out to God, hoping and trusting that God will hear us. Think of Jesus in the garden that night before going to the cross. Or think of Job when losing his children, losing his wife, losing his own health, and the crying out to God, there's a faith that is being developed in that circumstance. Or think of something in your own life. At a time when you were crying out, everything around you was bleak. And you're just praying to God. You can't even put into words, but you know my heart right now. I'm at my end. And then there's a third kind of faith that comes from being fully content with just God. About understanding, sorry, about finding one's sufficiency in God. And this is the faith that Paul is talking about here in Romans. And it only comes having gone through trials and hardships. No matter what is around me, I know that I am okay because of God, and God in me through the Holy Spirit. Everything I have, I'm in an okay place. Everything could be falling down around me, my own life could be falling apart, but my sufficiency is found in God. Corrie ten Boom once said, "I never knew God was all that I needed until God was all that I had." In our suffering and in our trials and our hardships, and I know I look out on you people, I know that you have gone through those things or are still going through something, God is sufficient in every moment of every day in the midst of whatever you're going through. Will you remain faithful to God and find that God is all that you need? And that's a decision that has to be made over and over again, right? You wake up one day and you're like, "God, I'm with you." And the next day could be a whole other struggle, and you have to make that decision all over again. "Today, God, you are everything that I need." So that's perseverance.

And then comes character. One of the reasons why I love a small church community is that it has a multi-generational aspect, right? We have people from all ages. We have the little ones who run around and make noise and are just awesome and great and don't know what's going on. And we have people who are seasoned in life, who have gone through so many stages of life, and we're all here together. I grew up in a smaller church similar to this. Got the chance to work in it. And I remember in high school, when my faith really became my own, starting to realize the importance of a multi-generational church. And I developed this appreciation for, especially the elderly at the church. A group of people that as a high schooler I didn't interact with much, but they were there every Sunday, and they would come up and ask how life was doing. I was like, "Oh great, I don't know you much about your life, but I'm doing good, thank you." Elderly couples, widows, widowers, and I can still name them, but like they're imprinted on my heart now. I think of these couples like John and Faye Williams, George and Carol Dill, widowers like Betty Darflin and Peggy Nolan and Navarre race and all these people who I went to church with I did life with for so many years and I saw in them how they endured life in so many seasons whether it was good or the bad I saw them endure failing health I saw them endure their spouses passed away I saw them endure their own family start to crumble their kid who had grown up in the church no longer walking with God and how they had to wrestle with that I saw them follow God through everything that they went through. They had character. And as a high schooler, until the day that the church closed a couple years ago, or until they passed away to be with God, they taught me the importance of prayer. They taught me how important it is to remain with God in every situation. They taught me how to love someone, no matter what that person is like, or how they show up on a Sunday. They were always the first ones to say hi, to say, "Hey, God loves you." "Hey, you're welcome here." I was surrounded by people of the richest character who had endured and persevered through so much. And that's why I have come to love this church. Because you guys, I look out and I'm like, this is the same feeling that I got at East Parkway. I get here of people who are in all different stages of life and some who are Walked many more stages than I have and have that faith, have that character. That's why it's so important for us to be together, to show up for each other, to participate and belong in this community. Sundays are important, sermons are important, worship is important. But just as important is going to a Bible study, going to the prayer group, because that's where we start to share life. I was talking with Bob this week and he was saying that, you know, at one point in his life sermons were like that was that's what Sunday was all about. But now he's come to a point where it's the fellowship. It's the before and after service that that's what he values most right now. And that's what we should all value is the time together. Because it's when we share with what's going on that I can learn from you. We share with you, you can learn from each other like, man, I haven't gone through that. I haven't gone through that situation yet, but I see how you are following God and I want to do that in life, too. We don't get that if we just show up on a Sunday and say hi to each other and listen to the sermon. This is where younger families, younger adults, even teenagers, think of the teenagers we have here at this church, they're gonna see you walk through your stages of life, not just on a Sunday, but in every part of life, and they're gonna learn. It's gonna soak into them. And they're not going to necessarily, they can't pinpoint it now, but I bet later on in life, they're going to be like, "Man, I did learn the importance of prayer. I did learn from these people how to follow God when life gets hard." There is a character that can only be learned by going through life's hardships. And for some of us in this room, you've gone through some of those hardships you have that character it's important to pass that on to exemplify that for those who haven't yet it's important to be looking at other people and say man they do have character they the way they live their life the way they are faithful to God no matter what I want that this character isn't something that is just gained upon believing in Jesus that moment of salvation you don't automatically get this character it comes through enduring hardship persevering and as you walk through with Jesus through all of it you you build this character.

And this character leads to hope. This hope brings us back to Christ, because it's from Christ, it's sustained by Christ in our lives. In the midst of our suffering, we have hope that comes from Jesus, the one who endured all things, and was raised from the dead, who was crucified on the cross, and is living now. There is no greater hope than is found in Jesus, and He's the one that gives us hope. I mean, it was just Easter, right? And on the church calendar, we're still celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. The hope that Paul is talking about is a hope that is based on the resurrection. So hope that reminds us that God is still at work in this world, and He's working to redeem. He's working to make everything broken new and make it whole again. And part of that work is what happens inside of us. We are broken and we need to be made new and to be made whole. And that is what Jesus is doing. Theologian D.A. Carson said once, "I'm not suffering from anything a good resurrection can't fix." I mean, doesn't that just encapsulate the hope that we have in Christ? Whatever we endure, whatever is going on, we always have a hope. Because we know that we get, for those who believe, we will be in heaven with God in the end. The worst things that we could face were eternal punishment for our sin and a physical death that led to that eternal punishment. And Jesus redeemed both of those things. Our physical death now leads to eternal glory in heaven with God. And through his ascension, we too, That means that we will be ascended into heaven with God. So what does this hope look like? It's a hope that means that no matter what you go through, you can know that Jesus is present and is at work. In whatever situation is going on in your life, when you have that character within you that is only gained through enduring difficulties with God, then you can have a hope that whatever whatever you go through, you will make it through, and you will be with God. It's a hope that has an eternal perspective. You can make it through the current situation you're going through, and you can make it through the next, and the next, and the next, 'cause life is full of difficult situations, as we know, right? They don't stop. We can have hope, and a hope that grows as each one passes, that we are getting closer and closer to God.

All right, our second section is Romans 5, 6 through 11, and Paul is starting to put some pieces together and taking us further into Christianity 201, right? We're building on top of that layer. He says in verse 6, "When we were still powerless," Paul is wanting to make the connection in our minds about our former selves and our new reality, that we are undergoing a transformation in our lives. We were weak, we were powerless, we were helpless. But now our reality is that we have been reconciled to God through Christ. Christ sent his Holy Spirit to dwell in us as our helper, so we are now empowered by God, and Jesus is at work in us. We have a purpose, we have things to do, there's purpose to our lives. Paul continues, "We were God's enemies, "and yet Jesus still died for us." I want to pause here because this is just mind-blowing. We were God's enemies, and yet Jesus still died for us. J.D. Greer says this example, and it's uncomfortable to say, but it's so true. He says, "That would be like me laying down my life "for a terrorist who just murdered my child, "me sacrificing my life so they could go back "to their family and their kid." That does not make any sense. Paul says in verse seven through eight, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Who would do anything like that? No one on earth, but God did. And not just for the Jews who demanded His crucifixion at that time, all those years ago, but also for us as sinners, because it was our sin that held them there on that cross. Jesus died for His enemies, and we were once His enemies. He didn't wait for us to switch teams, to switch sides, to be like, "All right, now that you're good, now I'll do it for you. Now I'll make this sacrifice." Verse 10 says, "For if, while we were God's enemies, "we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, "how much more, having been reconciled, "shall we be saved through his life?" And saved by his life. If the blood of his death secured our forgiveness, now that we're on his side, how much more will he do in and through us in our lives? Again, J.D. Greer says that the fact that he lives and now stands as our advocate besides God's throne guarantees that he will watch over me and use every trial in my life to produce good in me and use everything the enemy intends for evil for good. What is more hopeful than knowing that no matter what happens in your life, no matter what, man, challenges or even attacks by the enemy, no matter what happens, Jesus is gonna use for good. Later in Romans, Paul will write, 828, he says, "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love them." Like in the life of Job or in Jesus' life and death, through the darkest times, God is at work in our hearts, in our souls, in our minds, working on us, doing good, when we walk faithfully with him through every trial. Paul is telling us, guys, we know how it ends. You don't have to wonder anymore. Going through the trial, will I make it? Is everything going to be okay? The answer is yes. God's given you the answer. I'm going to use everything that happens to you. If you stay faithful to me, I will use it for your good. Oh, work in you, I'll transform you, I will make you more like Christ. I will make you more whole. I will continue to do that sanctifying work in you.

We know that God is working all things for our good. Everything that gets thrown our way from the good and the bad, the painful stuff of life, the hurts and the limitations we face, we know that God is working through all of it. And the plans of the enemy will not prevail. We know the ending. Yes, amen. Praise God. Because of Christ, we can talk about hope today. And that's where I want to end. For those who have not yet put your faith in Jesus, I want to say this. You are going through life. You are going through the same difficulties and challenges and hardship, pain and hurt. But your hope is based on something in this world, something finite. Whether it's your own strength, your own abilities, your own situation. But what happens when that strength fails? When you're outside of your limitations? When you don't have control of the situation? What happens then? Where is your hope then? I want to say to you that you can have hope. You can have a hope that comes from the God of the universe, the King of Kings, the Savior, our Messiah, the one who defeated sin and death. He died for your sins. You can have a hope that comes from His resurrection. is available to you. You can have a hope that isn't dependent on how finite you are, but is based on how infinite God is. And for those who do believe today, live into that hope that you have in Christ. No matter what you're going through, and you may be going through a lot, and you're allowed to feel all the emotions, God doesn't say you have to be happy, The Bible is full of people venting to God. "God, I'm feeling this frustration. God, this is my emotion right now." There's frustration, anger, pain, desperation. You're allowed to cry out to God. But remember, through all that, at the end of that venting, the hope that you have in Him. The hope that you can carry through all of life's toughest circumstances. You have a hope that comes from a living God Who cares enough and has the power and intentionality to use everything that is going on for your good. To shape you, to form you, to develop you into a more Christ-like person. It's part of the redeeming work that Christ is doing in this world now, is in you. So be edified through your enduring of all things. And leave this morning with the hope that comes from Christ alone.

You guys pray with me? God, we give you all the praise. We give you all the glory. There are people in this room right now who are maybe in a good place in life. And we praise you for that. We praise you that they are enjoying life and they are feeling your blessings. And God, we know it's a spectrum because we know there are people in this room who are going through the hardest thing they've ever gone through. and you are still present with them, and you are still working in them, and we praise you for that. God, I pray that you would instill in us that joy, the joy in the midst of suffering, that only comes from you. God, give us that in abundance. And I pray that as we go through these things, as we remain faithful to you, that you would build in us that character, a character that is recognizable to other people, that encourages other people, that is its own form of witnessing. And God, as we have that character, may we recognize the hope. Each day, each moment of that hardship, may we recognize the hope that we have in you. God, continue to form us. Work all things for our good and ultimately for your glory. We love you, Jesus, with everything we have. We give our lives to you. We pray this in your name. Amen. Thank you so much for being here this morning. We have some, in the back of your announcements, we have some of those opportunities to be a church. I just want to say from a personal standpoint, I just want to do church with you. I want to be in community with you for each other and so that we can learn from each other. We can grow closer to God and closer to each other. So Seriously consider those opportunities those midweek things or the Sunday morning. I want to Want to have that feeling here with you guys. So thank you again, and we'll see you guys next week.

Easter Sunday 2023

HE IS RISEN - John 20:15-28

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well happy Easter everybody. Happy Easter. I gotta do it one more time. do it one more time. We got some more people who came in here. So I got to do this again. I get to do it once a year. Okay, so I'm going to say he is risen and I want to hear a shout back. He has risen indeed. Okay, here we go. He has risen. He has risen. He has risen. Oh, yes. That was good. Well, today we're going to talk about Easter or Christmas or Easter. Easter. Christmas. I'm just ready. I'm fired up. Today is awesome and exciting. I hope you guys have been enjoying yourself this morning. It has been an awesome, awesome Sunday. But I want to talk to us today about Easter and kind of have maybe a different perspective on Easter. We come in, we hear about the empty tomb, and we hear about Jesus not being in there, but we want to walk kind of through a couple different people and what their perspective was in Easter. And we know that context is everything. And sometimes that our view is not God's view, right? Our view isn't God's view because if you would have thought about Good Friday and Jesus dying on the cross, what would have been seen from below would have felt like all is lost. See, the view from below is all is lost, but God's view, respected from above, is all is one. And that's what we celebrate today. That's what we want to talk about this morning and to focus in on Easter being all is one. He is written. He conquered death on the grave and came out. And when that we share in his resurrection and because of his resurrection, we can have eternal life with God in heaven. And three people I want to talk about this morning. The first of which is going to be Mary Mary. This incredible, incredible lady here in this story. A person who loved Jesus deeply. And so we open up in the story on Easter Sunday and we're seeing this encounter. And Mary has gotten up early. She's gotten up way early. You think, "Oh, what a go-getter!" She's a first stop, go make it happen. But the thing is, Mary is actually breaking the Jewish ritual of grieving and mourning the death of a family member. They are supposed to, as the Jewish culture says, you're supposed to stay home for a week after death and to mourn and then you go out. So Mary here, we read, "Oh, look at Mary getting up early, getting things done." No, she's actually trying to sneak out early before anybody can see her because she was not able to finish as much as she wanted to bury Jesus in the proper way. She loves Jesus deeply and she's sneaking out here trying to finish the burial process that had to pause at sundown when Jesus died.

So I'm gonna go ahead and read our passage this morning is John 20. If you're in the Bible, the pews in front of you, it's page 1087. And so John 20 11 through 14 says this, "Now Mary stood outside the tomb, crying. And as she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus's body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said. "I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there. But she did not realize that it was Jesus.

How could Mary miss that this is Jesus? Having spent so much time with him, wouldn't she have recognized Jesus' face standing right there in front of him? Well, we know that this is a lot to process, right? This is a moment of grief for her. And in moments of grief, there's a lot of weight that people are dealing with. When people grieve, they're busy dealing with what's inside of them, right? What's inside the heart. And they don't have the capacity always to deal with what's going on around them. So while grief was a part of their lives in dealing with Jesus's death, it's not going to be the last emotion that they feel in this story regarding Christ. So the scripture continues on. It says in verse 15, "He asked her, being Jesus, 'Why are you crying? Who is it that you're looking for?'" Jesus is kind of messing with Mary here a little bit. Still got a sense of humor. I love that about Jesus. Thinking he was a gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him." And then Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him and cried out, "Aramaic, Rabbanai." She knew. She knew in that very moment, the voice of Jesus, that it was him. This wasn't some random gardener dude, hanging out, just doing, trimming some bushes, And cutting some weeds on an early morning like like this was Jesus there and when he says Mary She melts because she knows Jesus that's who it is Have you ever found yourself in a place where you didn't recognize somebody and then you heard their voice? I I've had this situation sometimes where I've been shopping in a grocery store And I've been going down the aisles and all of a sudden I get this feeling somebody's following me. And I'm like, "What's going on?" And I find out later, somebody who knows me and somebody goes, "I know that beard. I've seen that beard somewhere." But I'm out of context. You're like, "They let him out of that church during the week? He doesn't sleep in this back corner room here? Like, they let him out?" Yes, I go and I buy food. I'm a normal person, okay? But you're sitting there and then all of a sudden maybe you hear me say something. something. Maybe I walk into that ice cream aisle and they got my favorite pint there of just the, "Oh, so good," and I said, "Praise the Lord!" And then you go, "I know that guy! I've heard that voice! That's Pastor Chris! I've seen him!" That's what Mary happens here. Mary hears his voice and goes, "This is Jesus! Oh my gosh!" Continue on, verse 18, "Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news. Can you imagine? You just come, I can imagine, like a Kramer entrance on Seinfeld into the house, just pow'n in going, "He's alive!" And they're like, "Mary, pipe down, calm down, calm down." No. And she told them these things that had said to her. And on the evening of the first day of the week when the disciples were together and the doors were all locked for fear Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you," and they had to change their undercloaks. In that moment, the disciples are gathered in fear. They're afraid of death by association. Everybody knew this group of disciples were Jesus' crew, that they had walked with them, they had traveled with them, they had performed miracle wisdom, they had lived with him, they had sat under his teaching, they were they were associated with. And so these disciples, we read this and go like, "Why are they so scared?" Well, they're afraid they're gonna get killed. They just saw their Savior, their Lord, their King get killed before their eyes and they think we're next. But then Jesus shows up and he says, "Write there, 'Peace be with you.'" And after he said this, he showed them his hands and his sides to prove who he was. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. You've found yourself in situation where you were just on an emotional roller coaster. You went from a place to where you felt like all hope was lost, everything was gone, nothing was gonna write and be happening to you, and then all of a sudden, boom, you're overjoyed. This is what the disciples are going, they're on an emotional roller coaster right now these three days. But Jesus shows up them and loves them so much to show up in their lives and to show them His hands and His side, He goes, "I am Jesus.”

It seems that all the disciples are on an emotional rollercoaster except for one. We skip ahead in our story to verse 24 and it says, "Now Thomas, also known as Didymus, one of the 12, "was not with the disciples when Jesus came. "So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord, but he said to them, "unless I see the nail marks in his hands, "put my finger where the nails were, "put my hand into his side, I will not believe. 26 says, "A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. And though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' And then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it on my side. Stop doubting and believe.' And Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God.'" Comprehending who God is and what he does, it's a lot, right? And we all process at different rates, some of us similar to others, but hearing the news that Jesus is alive again would be a lot to process for anyone. It's a lot for Thomas in this moment.

So why does this matter? Why are we reading about this? Why are we telling this to you? Why are we saying things? What does it matter? Because I think the reality is, as we are honest with ourselves, life is a lot harder than we want to admit. Life goes like this. You're born into this world crying. You're bullied on the playground. Your teen heart is broken. You go to college. The bank account shrinks. Bad reports back from your doctor about your health. You blink and your kids are grown up and then you don't have any more cartilage in your knees. And that's life. Right? Isn't that how life goes? And we are all somewhere on a different progress in that but life is really harder than it seems and God here in this moment is shouting to the entire world, there is hope. There's hope. But even what we face, no matter what we go through, no matter what's happening in our lives, no matter where we are with our level of cartilage in our knees, there is still hope in Jesus. And that first Easter, Jesus proclaimed to the world, "I am the resurrection and the life." I am everything that you need. I am everything. I love this quote from N.T. Wright. It says, Jesus' resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. Sometimes we get caught up in this Jesus thing of just going, "Okay, when I die, I'm going to heaven. Cool. All that." But Jesus has got work for us to do here and now. Jesus has got people in our lives that need to hear this message of hope that have never heard this hope. So story ever in their lives. They're just racing through life, counting down the days going, "This is the end." And Jesus here is proclaiming, "This is not the end," that He wants more of us. And in the midst of the hardness of our life, Jesus is here. Turn to the person next to you. I hate to admit it, but they're probably the source of the hardness of your life. You love them to death, right? You love them to death. But they add to that hardness. And God wants us to know that heaven is invading now. That even in the midst of that hardness, Jesus is here and now.

Well, he got me with the cartilage in the knee thing. I wasn't expecting that. Wasn't in the notes. I want to take us back. We're going to take some time now to kind of go encounter by encounter, the ones that we just talked about. So I So I want to go back to Mary Magdalene at the grave and talk about the fact that she overcame grief. Grief is something that we experience in the loss of something or someone that we love. And Mary's love for Jesus runs deep because it's wrapped up in her identity of who she is, what she's gone through. Luke 8, 1 through 3 tells of the story of who Mary Magdalene was in her first encounter with Jesus. And she is the prime example of experiencing the transformative work of Jesus in life. She was possessed by demons, and Jesus comes and heals her, casts those demons out. And from that moment on, her life is totally transformed. She goes from a possessed life to a life of freedom in Jesus, and goes to supporting Jesus' ministry and being a part of it. So the death of Jesus meant the death of the one person in her life who was able to and had the power to transform her. So why did Mary grieve? Well, she grieved because she lost her liberator. His power had freed her from darkness. She also lost her teacher. His truth freed her from deception. She lost her purpose. life had given her a direction. Mary grieved because Jesus' death became that identity crisis for her. And this is, we can probably relate to this and to some extent, right? Take an elderly couple or someone who is going through the end-of-life process and that spouse is caring for that person and that's their identity. Is being a part of that marriage through thick and thin, through better or worse? And in that moment, maybe at that end-life stage, you're taking care of that person. So the rest of life shrinks, right? The outings, the social events, friends, all of that may be on the back burner, and your life and your time and your energy and effort are going for caring for that person. When that person passes away, you're left with an identity crisis of who am I now? My life was totally invested in this person. And I've got to rediscover what my purpose is, what I do with my free time. And it can be a lot, it is a lot. And I think that's what Mary's going through here. She's grieving this identity, that person, Jesus, my whole life was formed around him and what he said for me to do. I supported him, I followed him and now that he's gone, I don't know what to do. Mary's grieving that anchor, that person who healed her and gave her a purpose.

Some of us may be in that same kind of grief right now in a grief of darkness. Maybe it's a grief of deception, Lies, you're dealing with lies that are keeping you from experiencing the freedom that is found in Christ. Maybe you're grieving a lack or lost sense of direction in life. You're not sure where you're supposed to be or where you're supposed to go. Or maybe you're grieving the loss of a loved one or in the process of losing a loved one. And Jesus wants to say to you, "Hey, why are you crying? There is more hope than you know of, and that you can feel in this moment. I can not only give you everything, but I can give you more than you've ever had. In this moment, Jesus helped reframe Mary's grief. That she could have hope that Jesus' victory over death meant that she too could experience that victory. John 20, 17 tells us that Mary was holding onto Him, embracing Jesus in this moment. And he says to her, "You can't, you have to let me go. I still have some work to do here, and then I have to go ascend and be with my Father in Heaven." And so, she still has grief, but Jesus reframes her grief. Mary, I think, wanted that life that she had. She wanted to go back to it. She said, "Jesus, you're back? Let's get back into our regular rhythm, our regular schedule. I was hanging out with you every day. Let's go back to that." And Jesus is saying, "It's going to look different now." But the grief that Mary might experience of Jesus leaving to ascend to be with his Father in heaven is different than the grief of seeing the Savior dead on the cross. Right? One situation instills hope. Seeing Jesus alive and ascending to be with the Father, that instills hope. It's still a grief of him not being with us in the day to day, but it's different. Compared to the grief that she experienced where her Savior is on the cross, dead. They say that the grief of losing a loved one never really goes away, but we just get better at coping with it day to day. And Jesus reframed that grief for Mary so that she could have joy and hope in her future as her life went on. And where her identity could still be in the living God, even if he wasn't physically walking with her day by day. Why is death so frustrating for us? It's because we have no power over it. but we can know the one and have relationship with the one who does. This is a story of victory in Jesus over sin and death. The resurrection means hope is possible. So if you are someone who has lost something or someone in life, Jesus wants to say to you, "Hey, why are you crying? I conquered a hopeless grief, but in me there is hope in what lies ahead.”

I don't know about you, but I don't like being scared. I don't like scary movies. I don't like being scared. My daughter is on this kick to try to scare me whenever she can. Dad's tally is above hers right now. But something I do love, which is kinda like on the verge is roller coasters. Anybody love roller coasters? I love roller coasters. There's just something about 'em. Like, I love, give me a, launch me out of somewhere, give me a loop de loop, throw me upside down, whatever. I love it. It's kind of on that verge of like you're doing stuff that you should never do like just with like Just some safety gear that you just trust like okay, but something I do not like whatsoever is ferris wheels I think they are a torture chamber okay, think about this you're sitting in an open cage with just a bar a Bar and you're going up you're like I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die I'm gonna die and then you look down and the guy who put it together just with no teeth smiles up at you and just Waves and says I'm torturing you right now, and he is loving it. I don't like being scared I don't do not put me in a ferris wheel. I'm sorry. I'm out Give me something with a loop-de-loop, but but don't even think about that But then I think about bungee jumping This is just a weird thing. Do you know they have to replace those cords? I Want to know the guy who's counting who's just like one jump okay, two jumps and then who's the last person who takes that bungee then they come back and say and That was a little sketchy there. We need to replace that bunch I'm like, how does this work who's counting this and who's keeping track of this because there is a point where that bungee is going to break and You don't want to be I want to be the guy in the middle like the guy who like has tested it already but it's still got like 500 jumps to go. Like that is where I want to be if I was to ever do bungee jumping. I don't think I will. I don't have a scare of heights or anything like that.

But when I think about what happened with the disciples, the disciples had to overcome fear. We talked about this earlier when we read. They were scared to death. They were afraid that they were going to be killed by association. We read that story sometimes. I think we get pulled out of context of what's really happening. We think, "Oh, "Oh, disciples, don't you know Jesus risen from the grave? Like, why are you such wusses? Like, why don't you just, like, rise up under the power of Jesus and just go and live your life?" But the reality was they didn't understand. They didn't get it. And Jesus shows up in their lives and removes that fear. He removes that fear. And I think Jesus, he wants to do that for us. He wants to do that in our lives to remove the fear of what we might be facing or what we're going through. We went through a season these last few years of just chaos. Of what we thought would never happen, happened. Right? I remember being on the phone just before the NCAA tournament with my brother-in-law. And it was just before the world shut down. And I was thinking, there's no way they're going to shut down the tournament. There's too much money involved in this pooling and the bets and the brackets and all. There's no way you're gonna do that. And when they shut that down, I knew something was real. There was something big that was happening. And here what happened, something big is happening in the lives of the disciples and Jesus shows up. Even in the midst of them in their fear, it wasn't like they had gotten to a place where they were like, okay, well, I'm not so scared anymore and then Jesus just kind of rolls in.

Jesus shows up in the midst of their fear and their anxiety and everything that they're walking through in that moment and he says what? "Peace be with you." Peace be with you. Alexander McLaren has this quote on peace that says, "Peace comes not from the absence of trouble but from the presence of God." Peace comes from the presence of God. There's a key word in there what Jesus says, right? He says, "Peace be with you." Peace be with you. I think there's two factors in this peace. The first factor is power. When we're afraid, we don't feel adequately defended, right? When we're in a place of vulnerability, even the smallest noise or something, creak, crack, Snap, pop, whatever can give us, put us on edge. But if we knew we were locked in a fortress with an army of thousands surrounding us and guarding us and keeping us safe, and even if we had an army coming at us, we would feel peace because why? Because we were safe. There was a power over whatever we were facing in our lives. The second of this with our peace is proximity. Sometimes we're alone. That's just part of life. Sometimes we're alone. Even sometimes when we're surrounded by people around us, we still feel alone. And God here is saying, "I am with you." You're not alone. I have the power to defend you, to be near you, and to put together this power and proximity on a whole new level that the world has never experienced. that nobody else has understood or gone through. Some of you do not have peace because you don't think that God loves you enough to defend you. And I want to tell you again, that first Easter, he showed up and said, "I love you in a whole new way." Acts 4, 13 says this, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John, and they realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. And they looked and took note that these men had been with Jesus. Ordinary, blue collar, run of the mill guys were the disciples. These weren't some amazing, educated, higher up, political figure, CEO, Fortune 500. These were your everyday guys. But they had been with Jesus. And that changes everything. See, the resurrection means today that courage is available. We can't get rid of our troubles. It's part of life. But what you can get is the power and presence of Jesus that He gives us.

Our last encounter is that person who had missed out on that original presence of Jesus with the disciples. Talking about Thomas. You know, the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament uses a lot of wordplay to convey some important ideas. One of those is nicknames. They give nicknames for something that happened, either good or bad, in that person's life. And sometimes that person is renamed to signify that moment, whatever they had done. I don't know. Survey here, who has had a nickname in life? Raise your hand. How many of you liked your nickname? A couple hands down. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sometimes nicknames were given. Yeah, I don't know. I never liked my nickname. My first name is Andre. That doesn't really flow into anything. Just nothing ever came of that. My last name's Yowakovsky. Just try. Just try to come up with a nickname. It never happened. So I just always wanted one. It never happened. I still crave for that today. So if you feel free on it, yeah on it. Yeah, but I got it. I got a pass, you know, you can't like start it without me approving it. Just nicknames can be cool and in the Bible. They're pretty cool. Use most of the time those nicknames in the Bible are for something good that person did like Peter Peter walks into the room. His name is Simon and the Bible helps us by saying Simon Peter because originally it was Simon and Jesus doesn't even shake his hand or sailors. She says you have the wrong name. You are now the rock. It's like, Dwayne Johnson is not the original rock. Peter is like the, yeah, the original rock. - It wasn't 'cause he sunk in the water in the storm? - Well, even if it was, it's just he's the original rock. Yeah, he renames him. John has some other, John himself, the writer of this gospel also has a nickname. He calls himself the beloved disciple, the one that Jesus loved the most. I just love whatever competitive spirit he had that as he's writing, he's like, I know the other disciples are writing, and I just want to make sure that the whole world knows that I was Jesus' best friend." So every time that he's mentioned, it's always like, "John, the disciple that Jesus loved the most, Jesus' best friend." So he gives himself a nickname, which is like a faux pas. You cannot give yourself a nickname. The other person in this gospel to have a nickname is Thomas. Maybe some of you know, Doubting Thomas. Now, previously what we know of Thomas is we wouldn't have thought of this nickname. in John's Gospel in a situation where Lazarus had died, Jesus' friend, he talks about how he's got to go back. So it happened, he finds out that Lazarus' friend has died, he's like, "Hey, disciples, we need to go back to the village of Bethany, and I got to deal with this situation." And his disciples remind him, "Hey, Jesus, when you left, they wanted to stone you. If you go back, you might get killed." And we find out in John 11:16 that Thomas said to the rest of the disciples, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." So, Thomas originally has got this courage, he's got this faith that he's like, "Hey, I run with Jesus, let's go. If we're gonna die, I'm okay with it."

And we fast forward now to this situation where Jesus has resurrected, and there's some tension going on with Thomas. He had belief in courage to follow Jesus, but now he's in a different place, and that courage has faded, and now there's doubt. And sometimes isn't that the way it goes when you're so invested into something or someone, and then in whatever way you lose it, in order to get reinvested and re-engaged in that thing or that person, doesn't it take sometimes even more energy than the first time around? For whatever reason, you have to invest more, and I think that's what Thomas is dealing with here. He's followed Jesus for years, and now that Jesus is back, he's like, "I don't know. I need a little bit more than I did the first time. I've never seen a resurrected body. I don't know if any of you have. But if I were Thomas, I would be very skeptical. Just hearing about someone who was raised from the dead, I would definitely be in the category of like, I got to see that with my own eyes. I just won't take anyone's word for it. I don't know who they are or where you've been. I want to be able to see and experience with my own eyes, my own, yeah. I gotta do it." So this is very relatable coming from Thomas. So we know the situation where the disciples come to him and say, "Hey, by the way, we know Jesus. Of course you know Jesus, Thomas. By the way, he's back. He's alive again. We all saw him." And Thomas is saying, "What? What are you guys talking about?" Just imagine what Thomas is going through in that moment. I think on top of the doubt that he's feeling of, "Okay, this has never happened before." Well, except it has, Lazarus. So he's just like, "Is that what this is going on?" But maybe he's also feeling hurt, the only one left out of this whole group of disciples who were like, "We were all following Jesus for years, and why was I the only one not to see him?" And just kind of like this emotion that he's dealing with in this moment. So Thomas, mentally and in his heart, just can't get there. He can't get to this point of belief on the disciples' words alone. And he says, "Unless I put my fingers in the hands inside of Jesus, I'm not going to believe." And we know what Jesus does, right? Jesus in life meets us where we're at. We could be struggling, we could be having a great time, but we know that Jesus meets us. He does all the work and he meets us with whatever we're dealing with in life. And so he goes and he meets Thomas where he's at.

So the next time the disciples are together, Jesus shows up and he doesn't rebuke Thomas, but he gives Thomas exactly what he's asking for. He's like, "You wanted to put your hands on my hand and my side. Well, go ahead. "Here's my hands, here's my side." He says, "Stop doubting and believe." And what history tells us of Thomas is a further transformation in his life. Thomas not only believes in that moment, but he goes on to be one of the greatest church planters in church history. He goes over to India, and he starts church after church after church, and he dies a martyr. He dies for his faith in Jesus. And the point that I'm saying here is that God is teaching that we all may have doubts to some degree. We all may have a little bit of Thomas inside of our hearts and in our minds. But when Jesus reveals himself to us, we can go from doubt to belief. Thomas overcame doubt and so can all of us here today. With Jesus' influence, Mary overcomes grief, the disciples overcome fear, and Thomas overcomes doubt. And don't you see the beauty of what John is saying in this chapter, is that it speaks to our deepest needs that we experience in life. We are people who walk with grief. We walk in fear at times. And we can walk through life with nagging doubts going on in our minds and in our hearts. We wrestle with our faith. Maybe it's our friends, our co-workers, even our family members who question our commitment to Christ. Some of you here today may not yet be committed to Christ. And if you're walking in doubt, He wants to say to you this Easter, "Hey, I want to reveal myself and who I am to you. I'm not afraid of your questions." God is saying, "Challenge me." Say, "God, I need to touch you. I need to know that you are real." This is what Thomas did. He got real with God. He said, "Hey, this is what it's going to take for me to believe." And Jesus, knowing his doubt, meets him where he's at. Jesus knows our doubt, and he'll meet you where you're at. But Thomas exemplifies this important part of you have to engage with God. You got to let God know, "God, this is what I'm struggling with. This is the hill that I'm trying to get over, but I can't do it on my own." And once you voice that, let God take care of the rest. Let God meet you where you're at. Thomas said, "I have questions, let me ask them." And God shows us in this moment that He will answer.

Jesus then says to them, in John 20:29, He says, "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So, in the grief, in the fear, in the doubt, whatever you're at, whatever you're going through in life, the question is, what do you believe? Do you believe in this story of Jesus that you can have anything that you're walking through right now overcome through his resurrection? That's the question for us today. Jesus says that you ask and you will receive search and you will find. There are times I've had doubt in my life and God's shown up, God's a big boy. He can take our biggest doubts and he hands them and takes care of them. It's how amazing he is. So the question for us is what do we believe? Do we believe that Jesus can take care of all of this stuff that we might be going through in life? And the fact that he rose that very first Easter Sunday conquered the greatest thing that nobody up to that point had been able to conquer, death. The most final of final things. Jesus took care of that and took care of that for our lives. So I say it would be safe to say that anything that we might be going through in life is probably a little bit less than death. Jesus is already taking care of that. He can take care of whatever we're going through. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet see.

Our context and our view was one of having to walk in faith, because we didn't get to be like Thomas and to touch Jesus and what He was. But Jesus said we can be just as blessed as those who have seen and believed. And it might be even a place where we are even blessed even more because we have not seen and yet believed. So what do you believe? Do you believe that this Jesus and resurrection stuff is real? Do we believe and hold that in faith? Do we believe that God is still working? something years later after his resurrection that God is still working. And he's working in every single person's life that is in this room. And I want you to walk away with that this morning. So whatever your grief, whatever your fear, whatever those doubts, just give them over to God. What's that saying, "Give it over to God, he'll be up all night anyway"? That's the reality. So the question is, are we willing to give it over to God? And to give our lives over to Him? And then say, "Jesus, you've got it all figured out. I don't. Help me figure this thing called life out.”

Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for this day, for this Sunday, to worship you, to praise you, to give you honor, the glory for the resurrection that you walked, that life, that very first Easter. Jesus, we're so grateful for you. And God, there might be some of us in here right now that need to step out into faith and to say, "Jesus, I need to trust you. I need to walk in this faith with you. I need to say, 'Here's my grief. Here's my fear. Here's my doubt. Here's my film of grief.’” So God, maybe this Easter would be that day that those would make that commitment to you to say yes to Jesus say yes to the one who overcame death yes to the one who overcame grief yes to the one who overcame fear yes to the one who overcame doubt Jesus I pray that that those who want to make that commitment God would quietly in their hearts right now. Just pray this prayer with them. Jesus, I'm sorry. I'm sorry for holding on to these things. I'm sorry for not giving these over to you soon. God, here is my life now. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Forgive me of my sins. Forgive me of my selfishness. Forgive me of my pride. forgive me of these decisions I've made that have been all about me number one. God, I place you rightly as number one in my life. Jesus, help me to live for you from this day forward, to love you God with everything I have and to love those around me in my life. Our eyes still closed and heads bowed. If you prayed that prayer today, I I asked that you would just take your ripoff card at the bottom of your program. You can just mark that box that said yes I chose Jesus drop that in the bucket on the way out For some of us We need to get God back into the right place in our lives To put him on the throne not us Give him hand over all the things that we're struggling through.

God, we continue praying and the power that we know comes from you, knowing that your son, his victory is our victory. So on this day, Easter, we give you all the praise that we get to share in that victory, doing nothing on our own. We didn't do any part. We get to put our trust and faith in you. We get to look forward to the hope that is in you now as we live our life and also to the eternal hope. Just as Jesus ascended, we too know that for those who believe, we get to ascend and be with God in heaven. So that joy that comes found in you, I pray that we would feel that joy to the max today. That we would continue to celebrate outside of church service, to go about our lives, celebrate with you and in you, God. So give us everything we need, fill us up with your joy, your grace, your love, and may our lives be a light and example to those in our lives of what you've done, the transformative work that you've done in our hearts. We give you all the praise and glory this morning. We pray this in your Son’s name. Amen.

Palm Sunday 2023

The Triumphal Entry - Luke 19:28-44

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We're excited for today and it's next week. stepping away from our Romans series where we're going through Paul's exposition and explanation of God's plan of salvation. And for a couple of weeks we're going to turn our attention to the story and the life of Jesus, specifically around his death and resurrection. And I think the timing is perfect because what a greater way to have a deeper appreciation for what Jesus has done, what Paul's talking about, than to go back and recount the story all over again. So as has been said, today is Palm Sunday, a day where we recognize the fulfillment of Scripture, that Jesus is sent by God, that the world will resist him, and that the judgment is coming, but that Jesus is King over all. Holy Week starts and it follows the timeline of Jesus, the week before his death on the cross. And so today Palm Sunday marks the day that Jesus entered into Jerusalem for the final time, being hailed as King. And as we'll learn today, what may seem, and mostly is, an extremely joyous occasion is also marked with praises of joy, but also tears of sadness. So today I want to tell the story of Jesus that happened 2,000 something years ago, and walk in His shoes. So if you want to turn in your Bibles with me, we're going to be in Luke. And you have some time, because before we actually read that passage, it's going to be Luke 19. But before that, I just want to kind of catch us up in the story of Jesus and how we got to this point that we'll cover. Again, because we're doing Romans and it's just perfect with the plan of salvation, I thought I'd start at the beginning and just start at Jesus' birth. So, as we know, long ago, Jesus was born, born into a virgin. We celebrate that at Christmas. And at that point, it's recognized by some that he is the Messiah. Some of them. Some people recognize that he is the Messiah. the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, the one who would come to rule over God's kingdom. We think of Isaiah 9, it says, "Wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of peace.”

And so Jesus is born. And then we have Jesus as a child. We don't know much about Jesus's life before his ministry, but we do get one story. And I love this story. And I think it's significant, which is why it's shared in one of the gospels. And that is when he's around 12 years old. And it's during this week that we're celebrating Passover week. And so him and his family go to Jerusalem to partake in the festivities and the feasts and the parties. And it's not just like what we do today where it'd be like, "Hey, family, pack up in the car and let's go." It was like the whole section of your neighborhood was like, "We're all going." So it was a huge crowd that would journey to Jerusalem. And they do the whole week, the Passover week, and on the way back, the whole contingent again makes their way together back to their home. and they realize after a day that Jesus isn't with them. 12-year-old Jesus is not with Mary and Joseph, and you're thinking like, "How could they not?" We don't know. But don't judge Mary and Joseph. It's crazy back then. Feasts, parties, and a lot of people, and they're like, "Our whole neighborhood's here. We think Jesus is here." But he's not. So they go back to Jerusalem, and they start looking for him. And they're looking for three days. I mean, can you imagine, like your child, and you're like, "I don't know where in this city our child is." where they find him back at the temple, and he's conversing with religious leaders. And everyone around as they walk up to the scene, they see Jesus and all these religious leaders, and everyone is so impressed with 12-year-old Jesus, as he is answering questions, asking deep questions, and seems to have this deep understanding and grip of the law, the Old Testament, and this holy life that they were all talking about.

And so we get this scene where Mary and Joseph walked up, as any distraught parent would, and they said, "Why did you do this to us? Why would you worry us like this?" And Jesus says, "Why were you searching for me? Didn't you know I'd be in my father's house?" Now our daughter is not yet a teenager, but I've done youth ministry for a while now, and this seems very much like a youth kid response. Little sassy, just a little sassy Jesus. He didn't sin, Jesus was perfect, but doesn't mean he couldn't be sassy. He seems like a little like, "Guys, parents, didn't you know this is where I'd be?" And so, we have this encounter and it's great. It shows Jesus being with his heavenly Father at the temple, and it's a great moment there. And then, so we have that, and that's all we kind of know of his birth, his childhood, and then he begins his ministry. We fast forward so many years and he's finally getting into his ministry, the purpose of his incarnation. Before he begins his ministry, he performs a miracle, turning the water into wine at a wedding. Side note, by the way, in the Bible, a lot of important things happen at festivities and parties, and so I just think that we should continue that here at Spring Valley. We should have more parties and feasts. Important things will happen. But during Jesus' ministry, we see that he is baptized by John the Baptist. We see that he's tested in the wilderness by Satan. Satan, he's rejected by his hometown of Nazareth. He calls his disciples, specific people, to come and follow him. He goes on to teach crowds about the kingdom of God, about the scriptures, the Old Testament, teaching them how to live for God. He heals many people, performs many miracles, and deeply changes the lives, both physically and spiritually and emotionally and mentally, of so many people that he comes into contact Jesus also solidifies the future of his ministry through his apprentices and teaches close followers, what you would know to be the twelve apostles, how to carry on after he's gone.

During his ministry he also has run-ins with the religious leaders, most notably the Pharisees, pretty much from the beginning. From his baptism until the end he is having encounters in this tension with the religious leaders. So we see that in his encounter with Nicodemus. Randomly throughout his time teaching, they'll come up to him and try to trap him, try to trick him. They do not like the truth that Jesus is sharing. It's different than their understanding of the law and really is calling them out. And so they just do not like Jesus at all. Throughout Jesus' ministry, Jesus taught his disciples how to live for God. So He's taught them how to pray. He's taught them how to love. He's taught them how to serve other people. They really are apprenticing after Jesus, learning how to live a life, learning Jesus' craft and his lifestyle. And again, most importantly, through this time, he shared about God's kingdom, about belonging not to the kingdoms of the world, but to a heavenly kingdom, Yahweh's kingdom. And he's done this mostly through parables. So the understanding of it is a bit tricky for some. but he's alluded to this kingdom into a time when he will no longer be around. He's talked about his death. And the disciples have not yet fully understood what Jesus is talking about. And so all of this took the span of three years. And now leads to the beginning of the end. And this catches us up to where we're at in Luke 19, to where Jesus will enter into Jerusalem one last time.

So now if you're in your Bibles, Luke 19, starting at verse 28, I'll go ahead and read. It says, "After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. And he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, and he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, 'Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you untying it?' say, 'The Lord needs it.' Those who were sent ahead went and found it, just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, "Why are you untying the colt?" They replied, "The Lord needs it." They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the mountain olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. "Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest." Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." "I tell you," He replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out." As He approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, "Even you, or if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you, and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.

Let me pray. God, thank you for your word. Thank you for your truth. And thank you that we get the opportunity to gather together, to study your word and to understand your kingdom, who you are and what you've done for us. So I just pray through your words, God, that we would be drawn closer to you, have a deeper understanding of today, the significance of it in this week, and as we approach Easter, that we would do so with humility and a deep, deep appreciation for what your Son did on the cross. We pray this in your name. Amen.

So, this story again, Jesus is on the donkey or the colt, and He's entering into Jerusalem, and people are laying down their cloaks, giving him a royal entry. Why? Why is this happening? Well, Israel's ancient prophets promised that one day God himself would arrive and rescue his people and rule the world. And other times the prophets spoke about a coming king who would ride into Jerusalem to bring justice and peace. And so this moment is monumental. In our midweek Bible study covering Daniel, we talked about how God's revelation about future events spoke of dark things and troublesome times. And for Israel, there was hope found in the person of God. In the book of Daniel, it was revealed that God had a plan, that God would be victorious, and for the people, there would be hope to endure such difficult times. And in other prophets like Isaiah, they are referencing specifically the person of Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah, who would rescue the people. And so the anticipation of a Savior has been building, as Pastor Chris said, for so many years. And it could not be higher than this moment, this hundreds of years waiting for the rescuer to come. And this scene triggers in their mind that this is something, we remember this being said. We remember that this is important. They recognize this moment that they've been waiting for. Their King, their Savior is here. So Jesus telling him to go get the donkey so that he could ride into the city. I'm sure he's like, "Oh my goodness, it is happening. Guys, get your clothes. This is happening. He's here. He's riding in our King, our Savior. It's happening." And they're so happy because they think that Jesus is here to implement a Jewish kingdom. I mean, what else would they think, right? They're thinking, "We've been suffering for so long. God told us about a kingdom that we would belong to. The rule that He would have over the world, this is it." They think that He's going to overthrow the Roman Empire. They think that He's going to have a physical throne to sit on. They're thinking of an earthly kingdom. Whereas Jesus has been teaching for years now of a heavenly one. So they're on different pages. Jesus is King, but not going to rule in the way that they expected. And this isn't lost on Jesus as He's riding in. But the people are so excited. They are full of such joy that their king is here. And again, they aren't wrong, they don't realize how they're not exactly right. Jesus is king. He is coming in the name of the Lord. And they should be praising Him. The other gospels say that the crowd is chanting "Hosanna," which means "save us." As their king is riding by, they're joyously praising, like, "Save us! We know what you're going to do. You're going to save us." This is such a joyous occasion for the people. And we see that Jesus not only allows it to happen, but wants it to happen. The Pharisees don't want it to happen. They tell Jesus to tell them to rebuke His disciples, "Hey, don't let this happen." But Jesus says, "Even if they are silent, even if I did rebuke them, the rocks would cry out." That's how much this needs to happen. I am God. The earth knows. The rocks know. I am their Creator. So, the praise of God, of Jesus here, needed to be shouted.

This is a good thing. Everyone seems to be happy except for two parties, the religious leaders and Jesus. The religious leaders, again, are unhappy because they sense that Jesus is this threat to their power. They see Jesus as a threat to their influence and dominion over the people. And this has been an ongoing tension throughout the years of ministry, and it's very present here as he's writing in. Just think of years of these two parties not getting along. And this moment, this monumental moment of Him being praised as King, is pushing them to the edge. And we'll see through the timeline of Holy Week that Jesus and the religious leaders are coming to a point of conflict, to a point of no return. The second party that is unhappy during this triumphal entry is Jesus Himself. We see that in verse 41 as He approaches the city, He weeps. Jesus is distraught. Now why? Why would Jesus, in this glorious moment, be crying, be weeping? I think it's because Jesus knows what is coming. He knows that He won't be accepted as Israel's king when they find out what kind of kingdom He's really talking about. That Israel will keep going down a destructive path, that they will neglect the poor and fail to love others as Jesus has been teaching them. And they're going to cause trouble with their oppressors, and it will lead to death. And Jesus in this moment is referencing what will happen in AD 70, the destruction of the temple. And it breaks him. The temple is a very special place. We know from even as a kid, and he's 12 years old, he's near his father's house. And the destruction of the temple breaks him. And it stirs him up, it riles him. And the next scene in the Bible, which we won't cover this morning, but he'll go to the temple and he'll turn over the tables, he'll get angry because they have turned his father's house into a place of corruption.

Jesus is distraught, because He knows why He has sinned. He knows the sacrifice that He will have to make. He knows that while people now are praising Him, and hailing Him as King, they will also demand His crucifixion. He knows that their cries of hailing Him as King will turn to cries of "Crucify Him!" You know, sometimes as pastors we do this thing where we encourage you to be inside the shoes or look through the perspective of the main character to help you understand, help us understand. And I think this one is just so hard. If I were to say, "Put yourself in Jesus' shoes," I don't, we can't fully grasp what it means to be the creator, the king, God, and to be going down, riding on a donkey, and knowing what is going to happen, and the mix of emotion that he may be feeling of, "This is right, the people should be doing this, but I also know that they're They're going to demand my death. So, there's so much going on within Jesus. Even though it's hard to do that, hopefully that gives us a clearer understanding as to why Jesus may be crying as He's entering the city. So this is the beginning of what we call Holy Week. And again, just a little bit of background information here. Holy Week is also Passover, where the Jews are celebrating how they were liberated from slavery by God and invited into covenant relationship back from Egypt in the book of Exodus. So all the way back in Exodus times, God saved them. And still, every year, they look back and they say, "God, thank you." And this is that time. So Jesus will use Passover language and symbols to help reveal God's plan of salvation. that His coming death and sacrifice are for them, to try and help His disciples understand what must happen. So just as the Israelites celebrate being freed from slavery from their oppressors and invited into covenant relationship with God, today, for those who are saved, we celebrate being freed from the chains and eternal punishment of sin, and also being invited into covenant relationship with God.

So simultaneously we have Passover week, God's miraculous saving of the Israelites, and a reminder of his covenant love and commitment and faithfulness to his people, and we have Holy week. This week that Jesus is being ushered in as king, where he will endure ridicule, rejection, and sacrifice in order to bring salvation to his people. Both are stories of God's covenant faithfulness and redemptive plan at work. So I want to spend the rest of our morning going over some Holy Week reminders to be present in this week and to hopefully help our hearts align with God's heart. So, Holy Week reminders. First Holy Week reminder is do not rush to Easter. I know it's hard. I know Easter candy went on sale a couple months ago after Valentine's Day or before that, and that there's bunnies everywhere and parties, and I know kids in school are having Easter egg hunt, whatever it is. But do not rush to Easter. Each day of this Holy Week holds important reminders for us. The good news of the resurrection is something to rejoice, but we must endure this week just as Jesus did. Today is Palm Sunday where we recognize Christ's triumphal entry, but as we saw Jesus weeping at the end of our passage, we too recognize the pain that Christ must endure before resurrecting. So let me just simply walk through this week in the life of Jesus. Tomorrow, Monday, Holy Monday, is the time where Jesus goes to the temple and expresses His anger towards the religious leaders who have let this holy place where God and humanity meet. The temple is very special, and it became a place of worshiping money and corruption. And expressing this righteous anger, he further upsets the religious leaders. Right? He pushes them. I think we know that Jesus knows what he's doing, so he knows that as he's doing this, he knows their reaction. But that's Monday. Goes to the temple, cleans out the temple, teaches at the temple. Tuesday, he continues to teach at the temple, continues to prepare people for his kingdom, and the tensions continue to rise. And then we get to Wednesday. And this is the day where plans were set in motion to capture and to kill Jesus. And again, just beyond knowing the storyline, we should recognize this week that our lives are a part of this story. This plan of betraying Jesus and going up to the cross, our sins are still at play. Even though it happened 2,000 years ago, what Jesus did on the cross is still relevant to us. So, plans are laid on Wednesday, and Jesus continues to teach. And then we get to Thursday, sometimes called "Mondy Thursday." "Mondy" comes from the Latin "Mondontum," which is English for our word "mandate." And this is the day where Jesus mandated, or told His disciples, to serve and love one another. Now, I know in our custom we usually pay attention to the other things that happen this day, which are also good, like the Last Supper and the washing of feet, and Judas' betrayal and exit from that meal. But the early church came up with this Maundy Thursday, because they wanted to put emphasis on Jesus' command to love and serve one another. And I think they had something right there. I think we should definitely remember and dwell and meditate on Jesus' command to love and serve one another. It's the biggest command that He gives throughout His teaching. And that happens on Thursday. And then Friday, Good Friday, this is the day that we mark the turn in the people. And one of the possible reasons that Jesus was distraught when writing again, when the people's words turn from Hosanna to crucify Him. From standing trial in the early morning to carrying His own cross to the hill that He be crucified on, after being beaten and mocked. to them being crucified, and darkness covering the earth, the earth trembling, the temple curtain being torn in two. This is the darkest day in history. The Son of God, perfect, died on the cross, bearing all of our sin. It's a very solemn day. It's a dark day. And then we come to Holy Saturday. And this is a day where we remember the in-between. We're in between lament and hope. We're in between sorrow and joy, loss and eternal gain, and death and life. We don't want to rush past this day. We want to sit and be present in that in-between. And then of course we come to Sunday, a week from today. We're on that day, we'll get to celebrate that Jesus rose from the grave, where they found the tomb that He was buried to be empty. Holy week and Lent are over, and the resurrection life is now ours to enjoy through Jesus. This is the best and most important day in Christian belief, because it means that Jesus truly is God, and it means for those who believe that we get to be with God for eternity. we too will experience the glorious resurrection and go be with God the Father at the end of our time. And as good as that is, as good as Easter is, don't rush to Easter. Be present each day what happened to Jesus and then consequently what God may be wanting to do with you. So don't rush. The rest of my reminders are really short. That was the longest one. Don't rush to Easter.

Secondly, remember God's covenant, faithfulness and love. The very God that the Israelites were celebrating and worshiping is the same God we worship and celebrate. For Israel, God's covenant faithfulness and love was the reason for their escape from captivity. And for believers today, it's God's covenant faithfulness and love that is the reason why He sent His Son to save us. So from Israel to believers, from escaping captivity to being saved from sin, from redeeming Israel to redeeming us, take joy in remembering God's covenant faithfulness to His people. You are His people and He loves you. Whatever place you're in in life, whether you're at peace and you're just living into God's purpose for you, life is really good right now, or you're in a place where you're just barely hanging on, remember that God covenantally and faithfully loves you. And may it give you hope this week.

Third Holy Week reminder is to ask God to transform you during this Holy Week. As we get closer to the cross, as we get closer to the darkest moment in history, ask God to expose the sins in your life in order to better undergo the transformation that the Spirit is trying to do within you. We see in this week, this Holy Week, that Jesus addresses the corrupt temple system in order that it may be what God intended. We see Jesus continue to teach at the temple, desiring that people would know the truth and would repent and accept Him. And we see Jesus teach and model His disciples to love one another. There's still such deep work going on in this week, in the hearts of people. And so, may we posture our hearts and minds this week to be teachable, to be ready to receive whatever God is wanting to do in us, to go wherever God wants us to go, and to be ready to receive how God wants to change us from within. Ask God to transform you this week.

And then fourth and finally, last reminder, is to recognize Jesus as King. On this Palm Sunday, Jesus was being hailed as King, but knew that the people wouldn't be accepting of Him in a week's time, and He knew that they didn't fully understand what kind of King He was. But we do. So let's recognize Jesus as King of our lives. And this week, pay special attention to your heart and who's operating your heart. Are you giving lip service and saying, "God, yes, you are King. "Yes, you rule in my life." But really, when it comes down to moments, we are calling the shots. Who's in charge of your heart and therefore in charge of everything in your life? Are you with Him? Are you truly following Him? Are you dedicating your life and your time and your energy to be his apprentice and to follow his way of life. Recognize Jesus as your king this week. So those are our four Holy Week reminders, and I hope they are encouraging to you.

Let me wrap this up by saying, this past week I had a conversation with a friend and mentor of mine, and we were just talking about how, as we're getting older in life, we're appreciating tradition more and more. And the tradition of Holy Week is a really rich one. It is so good for us to pause and remember what is happening in this week. It helps us better understand what Jesus went through, what God was doing in His plan to save humanity, and one that instills humility in our hearts. And so our prayer as pastors of SVC is that God would be stirring up in our hearts the desire and motivation to live for Jesus, It's not simply just to hear things on a Sunday and to know truth. It's good to know truth, but better to know the truth and to have your life be changed by it. To have a life of action and obedience, of ongoing transformation that God can use to reach others. So that's our prayer for this Holy Week, that God would take that knowledge of what's happening and put it into our hearts and our lives. The way that we live our life would truly be changed. Be intentional this week in your relationship with God. Let Him transform you. Remember that He is King in your life. Dwell on His covenant faithfulness, and don't rush to Easter too quickly.

Let's pray. God, again, we thank You. We thank You for everything that You have done, that You are doing. You're still at work, God. But this week we pause and look back at one of the biggest weeks in history. And today as we praise Jesus as King, we pray that that would not just be lip service, but that would be an honest reflection of how we feel about Him in our hearts. And throughout this week, God, we pray for your Spirit to continually transform us, to work in us, to bring us closer to you. God, I pray that we would recognize the sin in our life, the areas of our life that need work, and God, that we would willingly bring them and lay them at your feet and say, "God, please change me. Make my heart new. Make it white as snow." And each day as we get closer to the cross, I pray that you would fill us with humility and appreciation and true wonder, and that we would just be overwhelmed and praise you with everything that we have. And this time next week, I pray that we can all gather again with such joy, happiness, and excitement, getting to celebrate that Jesus rose from the grave. Be with us, each and every one of us, wherever we're at this week. We pray this in your son's name, Amen.