Second Corinthians 4:1-18 [NLTse]
Therefore, since God in His mercy has given us this new way, we never give up. ² We reject all shameful deeds and underhanded methods. We don’t try to trick anyone or distort the Word of God. We tell the truth before God, and all who are honest know this.
³ If the Good News we preach is hidden behind a veil, it is hidden only from people who are perishing. ⁴ Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, Who is the exact likeness of God.
⁵ You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, Who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.
⁷ We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
⁸ We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. ¹⁰ Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.
¹¹ Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. ¹² So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.
¹³ But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” ¹⁴ We know that God, Who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to Himself together with you. ¹⁵ All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.
¹⁶ That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. ¹⁷ For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! ¹⁸ So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Sermon – “God’s New Way”
How many of you have been reading through the Bible with me since the beginning of the year? [Let people respond.] How many of you have been trying but have missed some days or gotten behind? [Let people respond.] I want to encourage you to keep on trying. Don’t let missing a day, or a couple of days, or even being weeks behind discourage you. Start fresh tomorrow morning, or whenever it is that you read and pray and spend that precious one-on-one time with the Lord.

We’ve read through the Gospel of John, the Book of Acts, Paul’s Letter To the Romans, Paul’s First Letter To the Corinthians, and now we are in the middle of his Second Letter To the Corinthians, this past week reading from 1 Corinthians 15 to 2 Corinthians 6.

2 Corinthians shows us the trouble Paul had impacting the Corinthian fellowship. Even though he was the one who started the church – being the first one to teach those living in Corinth about Jesus, and helping those who believed to begin living Jesus’ Way – Paul was not able to stay in Corinth very long that first mission trip, and so he wasn’t able to help disciple and grow the new believers there. Part of the reason for Paul’s not being able to stay very long seems to have been related to Paul’s injuries and poor health after being almost stoned to death in Thessalonica while striving to plant a church there. (The same Thessalonica that 1 & 2 Thessalonians is written to.) After Paul left Corinth, a very gifted preacher and evangelist named Apollos came to the city, preaching to and teaching the new church. The Christians in Corinth had come to faith through Paul’s ministry, but he had been weak and not at all well during his time ministering among them. But Apollos was commanding and authoritative, and he impressed them, and some among the church started discounting Paul’s teachings in favor of what Apollos had brought and taught.
So, we see in the beginning of 2 Corinthians Paul’s argument for their full attention and their full submission to his authority as an apostle. He didn’t need a letter of recommendation from other churches or from the other apostles – like Apollos did and others who weren’t apostles. No, the Corinthian church was Paul’s letter of recommendation. Their faith, hope, and love, and their lives following in Jesus’ Way, was all the recommendation anyone should have needed to have been assured of Paul’s calling and credentials.

In our reading from chapter 4 this morning, Paul makes clear that all the world has been blinded to the light of the gospel by the devil himself. That is, that Satan is spiritually preventing people from believing that Jesus is God and that, although He was killed, that God raised Him from the dead. Of course, Paul goes on to say that God the Father has opened the eyes of some. God is stronger than the devil and has overwhelmed the devil’s power so that some have come to believe in Jesus. And Paul speaks of this as ‘God shining His light into their hearts’.

Notice that Paul is making clear that this is all a completely spiritual phenomenon. Look at verses 7 and 8: The Corinthians did not come to believe in Jesus because of anything special in Paul or Apollos. They believed because God the Father shone His light into their hearts: Almighty God broke the devil’s chains that had been spiritually locking up the Corinthians’ minds. And now, set free, they were able to understand the truth of the gospel and put their trust in the Lord.

Does anybody know what this is? It is the world being in such a place that it can’t see the full reflection of the sun on the moon. During a full moon the Earth is in a place where we can see fully the sun’s radiance reflected on the entirety of moon’s sunward-facing surface. The phases of the moon reveal the fact that during any given month the moon slowly – night by night – moves to where we, here on the Earth, can only see smaller and smaller portions of the sun’s reflection on it, until it reaches “new moon” phase (so it’s called) where none of the sun’s reflection can be seen. And then the opposite begins to happen as, night by night, the moon keeps moving so that we, here on the Earth, can see more and more of the sun’s reflection upon it, until it’s back to full moon phase.
There’s nothing in the moon that generates light, and yet, at full moon it shines so brightly, reflecting the sun’s radiance, that you can walk around and be about your business in the middle of the night by its light, almost as though it were daytime. It’s not the moon’s work; it’s merely the moon fully reflecting the sun. Paul is saying, it’s not his and Apollos’ power at work in the Corinthians: its God’s work through them.

In verses 8-10 Paul talks about all the hardships and persecutions he’s had to face for Christ’s sake, but notice how he speaks of them – not as a weakness, but – as a badge of authenticity and honor! Paul’s trials parallel the Lord Jesus’ Own trials. And it was the same power that raised Jesus from the dead that had been working in Paul to help him face and overcome with faith, joy, and hope all that had been set against him.

And here Paul reminds the Corinthians (I’m at verse 12, where he says, “So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you,” and verse 15, where he says, “All of this – that is, his hardships – is for your benefit”), he reminds them that it was the manner in which he faced his injuries and wounds, and the infirmities and troubles that resulted from them, that drew them – by God’s grace – to trust in Christ. The Corinthians saw Paul trusting in Jesus although Jesus had allowed Paul to be almost killed. The Corinthians saw Paul hope in Jesus’ promises of life and a reward after this life even though Jesus had allowed Paul to go through such suffering, hardship, and pain. The Corinthians saw Paul loving Jesus Christ and saw him believing that Jesus Christ loved him, too, even in midst of all his difficulties, problems, and misery. Paul reminds them that that – his attitude in the face of hardship and suffering – that that is what had drawn them to put their trust and hope in Jesus Christ themselves, and to love Jesus, too.

And Paul ends, in our reading, telling the Corinthians that he continues to face his trials and the aches and pains of his bruised and broken body, by not looking at the troubles he can see around him now, but by fixing his gaze on that which cannot be seen – the presence of God with and within him, the power of the Holy Spirit that assures him of success in everything Christ calls him to, and the promises the Lord has made him (and us all) of grace and peace here and now, and new life – perfection! – in the new Heaven and the new Earth in the resurrection to come.

Let me close by highlighting three things for us all.
First, this new life we have and share in Christ is a spiritual phenomenon. Our enemies are not people – flesh and blood – they are powers – demons and devils – mostly invisible to most people. And the Word of God and prayer are our most basic weapons in standing and fighting against them. You must be reading the Bible daily, and you must not give up reading the Bible even when you’ve missed a couple days or even weeks. You must pray. Join us at these Prayer Meetings to ask God to stand with us and for us and his area- and worldwide-church against these unseen powers and forces that are so intent and determined to tear down and destroy you and your families and everything you love and everything that is good.
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Because it is all a spiritual phenomenon, our obedience to all that God commands results in our life and the lives of those around us being transformed by God’s power. We obey Him and serve and love those around us because God uses our words and actions in the spiritual realm to bind up devils and demons and to set captives free.
It’s all a spiritual phenomenon. We can only live it fully and successfully by living it God’s Way.

Second: God has chosen you. If you believe that Jesus Christ is God, and that, although He died, that He overcame death because He is stronger than death, then God has picked you to be the recipient of His grace, because you can’t believe these things on your own, not unless Almighty God Himself has lit-up your heart. God the Father has set you free from Satan’s bondage so that you can draw close to Him through the cross of Jesus Christ, and so that you can live Jesus’ Way – loving and serving Jesus and loving and serving those around you – empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so. God Himself has chosen you to live this new life!

And lastly: You and I were created and made new in Christ to be full moons. The power is not ours. We are “clay vessels”: Fragile, weak (oftentimes), and easily hurt and broken. Even so, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has chosen to do His work here on the earth through us, His beloved, chosen people. It is our calling, yours and mine, to not focus on the troubles we can see or hear or feel around us now, but, rather, to fix our attentions on those things that cannot be seen: God with us, Jesus in us, the Holy Spirit upon us; counting each and every one of the Bible’s promises, trustworthy and true; and living surrendered and submitted to Jesus in every area of our lives, not by the power of our human nature, but because the Lord has chosen to place His Own divine nature within us, by His grace, so that our lives might fully and brightly reflect the Son. (God’s Son, that is, Jesus Christ.)

Will you pray with me?
Abba, Father, God Most High: Remind and empower us to be strong in Your Spirit and by Your Spirit. Grant us the comfort and full assurance of Your choosing us to be Your Own through Christ. And help us to fully surrender to Your Holy Spirit, living by Your Word, so that Your Son, Jesus, might be more and more famous, trusted, and followed on account of our fully reflecting His glory. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen?

1 Corinthians 13:1-14:1 [NLTse]
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. ³ If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;^[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
⁸ Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages^[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ⁹ Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! ¹⁰ But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.
¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. ¹² Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.^[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
¹³ Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
^14:1 Let love be your highest goal.

Sermon – “Keeping Money from Keeping You and God Apart”

Once upon a time there was a pastor who was in the Sanctuary praying. While he was praying, he asked God, “Lord, how long is a million years to You?” The Lord replied, “To Me, a million years is like one second.” The next day as the pastor was praying again, he asked God, “Lord, how much is a million dollars to You?” And the Lord replied, “A million dollars to Me is like a penny.” The next day, as the pastor was praying, he asked God, “Lord, can I have just one of Your pennies?” And the Lord replied, “Just give Me a second…”

Those of you who know me well know that I can come across as a fairly calm and easy-going person. Different people I’ve known have told me how “chill” I seem to be, seeming to take so much of life in stride.
That being said, I go through times of intense temptation. (They don’t tend to last all that long anymore, at least, they don’t when I respond to the temptations God’s way, because, as the Lord has promised, when we stand with Him, Satan does, indeed, flee.) That being said, the temptations I do face, though often short-lived, are intense and do seem absolutely overwhelming in those times! Sometimes, those temptations have to do with money…

You see, my family and I live in a house about a mile outside of town. We have our bills and our taxes to pay. Our oldest is in college. Our middle is going to college next fall. We homeschool, so we have to buy all our own school supplies and course books and materials for art projects and science experiments, even though we have to pay school taxes like everybody else, as well. And we’ll be doing all that for our youngest, who’ll be going into ninth grade in the fall. Amy’s and my parents are in their seventies. My folks live about five hours away and Amy’s mom lives about fifteen, and, especially as they’re getting older, we want more and more to honor them, and that includes more regularly visiting them. And, of course, our house needs work, and Amy’s been going through one medical trial after another, and our son, Noah, needs dental implants this summer, and on and on: You know the drill!

I’m not saying any of these things because my life or my family’s circumstances are so unique or special. As a matter of fact, it’s just the opposite. I share all this with you because you’re all facing your own version of these same kinds of circumstances, too, aren’t you? I think you know what I’m talking about when I say that I can be tempted to be afraid that I won’t have enough money to pay my bills during any given month! I think you know what I mean when I tell you that I’m afraid we’re going to rack up so much credit card debt on account of all the surprises and emergencies we’ve been facing in our lives that we won’t be able to ever pay it off! I  think you know what I’m talking about when I tell you about the knot that twists in my stomach when my wife tells me about needing another test or procedure, or about our kids not having seen the dentist or doctor in a couple years. Maybe you respond like I do, because I want her to be well, and I want our kids to be healthy and well, and I tell her in those moments, “My love, make the appointments. That’s what money’s for!” And it is! Because it’s just money!

But maybe you know what I mean when I talk about that knot that tightens in my gut when I hear about such things, because it can seem to be so overwhelming sometimes: One important thing after another. And during those times I can be tempted to fear that we won’t have enough money to pay for it all! And I can be tempted to think that money, and more money, is the answer to it all…

But the Holy Spirit tells me, “No! Jesus is the answer to it all.” (And, of course, that’s how I win these bouts with temptation, when I am finally able to sincerely trust Jesus as being the answer to all my troubles and trials, and when I am finally able to sincerely entrust all my troubles and trials to Him.)

So, when I am feeling most afraid about money I tithe. (Don’t get me wrong. I tithe all the time. Amy and I have been tithing for about twenty years, beginning just after we moved here.) But when I am being most tempted to be afraid of not having enough money, and when I am being most tempted to put my hope in money, I consciously and intentionally remember that I tithe. Because in the middle of my temptations, when the devil is mocking me, “Do you really trust God, Ben? Really?” one thing that tithing does is prove my faith in Christ: It puts my money where claim to trust Christ is. It can be easy for me to say, “I trust the Lord,” and to then have the devil point out to me that my actions show that in truth I trust in something very different.

But when I tithe, and seek to be generous on top of that, then the devil has to keep his mouth shut, and he has to leave me alone…

It’s at such times that I recognize the power of Jesus’ words when He said, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24) I recognize the truth of these words at such times because, whenever I start to consider not tithing I begin feeling more and more concerned about money. The temptations towards worry and fear increase, and guilt gets added to it. And I can start to feel bitter towards God for not giving me more and for not getting me out of my situation…

But when I tithe, it’s like opening up a pressure-release valve in my chest. When I tithe I’m not only telling Him but I’m showing Him, too, that I trust Him. And somehow, in that act, the Lord does something miraculous in my spirit. He takes the burden of all my fears and worries off of my shoulders. I’m no longer bearing it. I don’t know where the money is going to come from. But it always has come. And what my Father’s been so faithful to do in the past, I know I can trust Him to do in the future, because He’s a good father!

And yet, tithing is not just a shield to protect us from self-doubt, worry, fear, and the devil’s accusations. Tithing also plants seeds of hope and expectation about the future!

The prophet Malachi spoke these  words of the Lord: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in My House. Test Me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of Heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it!’” (3:10)

“Test Me in this,” the Lord says. It is one of the few places in Scripture where the Lord calls us to test Him. He knows the power of money! He knows it’s power to tempt us toward worry and fear, and burden us, and wear us out! So the Lord calls us to test Him: Tithe, He says, and if nothing’s changed in your heart or mind or life in three months, six months, a year, well then…

Proverbs 3:9 echoes the exact same thing: “Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing.” The “firstfruits” was the very first reaping of the harvest, the estimated first 10% of the entire crop. “But what if you harvested 10% and then the rest was eaten by locusts or burned by bandits?” you might ask. Yeah, that might happen, said the Lord, but trust Me. Trust Me with the tithe and just see if I don’t fill the barns of your soul to overflowing!

(Notice how I said that the Lord would fill the “barns of our souls” to overflowing if we tithed, and not necessarily the barns of our bank or investment accounts. I say that because the Lord doesn’t promise us material riches. He promises us “enough”, that we will always have enough to live for Him. There are a lot of Christians out there who tithe but are not necessarily wealthy, and the Lord takes care of them. He gives them their daily bread, as He’s promised. There are a lot of Christians out there who don’t tithe and are wealthy, and they have to take care of themselves. So, you may not become rich by testing the Lord and tithing, but I’ve never met someone who tithed and regretted it.)
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So, whether the Lord has plans to grant you wealth so that you might support and fund His work around here and around the world, or whether His plans for you are more modest when it comes to money, but are riches beyond measure in faith and character and in the fruit of the Holy Spirit, tithing nurtures a sense of expectation as we invest in Heaven and in the wealth of our souls.

I share this message with you because I think that many of you might want to tithe, but you’re afraid to, and because I think that others of you want to tithe but believe that you need to get out of debt first. As I’ve shared, I believe that God’s given us the tithe to help us face and overcome our fears about money. And, I believe that God desires us to tithe as a part of helping us get out of debt more quickly and more assuredly.

For what it’s worth, there are two things I would change (and am planning on changing) as Amy and I continue this spiritual discipline of tithing into the future. First, I would (and plan to) have Amy write out every other tithe check. I get paid twice a month so, instead of giving weekly, we only write two tithe checks, the first checks we write as soon as I get paid. I would (and plan to, from now on) have her write one of the checks each month because there’s power in our actions: Putting our faith into practice, as I’ve already said. And I would let Amy benefit from the grace that comes from that action, as well.
Second, I would (and plan to) begin praying with Amy over our tithe check each time one or the other of us writes it. This would be a change for me because sometimes I treat the tithe like any another “bill” to pay: I don’t offer it to God in any kind of special way, nor do I offer myself and my worries and fears to Him specifically, either. I hope (and plan) to change that so that I might intentionally cooperate and partner with the Lord in all of the good things He has for me and for us in the tithe.

1 Corinthians 3:1-17 [NLTse]
Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. ² I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. ³ You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
⁵ What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶ I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, Who makes things grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. ⁹ For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. ¹¹ For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. ¹⁴ If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
¹⁶ Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.

Sermon

First Corinthians is an interesting book. Where Paul’s other letters are often filled with teaching and encouragement – building up the faith of the Christians to whom they were addressed – First Corinthians is all correction: From beginning to end Paul is tearing down their faith and their practices in order to rebuild something better. It’s unclear whether this reflects the quality of Paul’s original teaching (since he was the one who planted the church, and because he did so during a time when he was not well and recovering from a near-death beating), or if it reflects the quality of Apollos’ teaching. (Apollos was a gifted preacher and evangelist who came through Corinth shortly after Paul left, growing the church there, and teaching, for quite some time.) It may have had to do with Simon Peter’s influence (since Paul mentions him as having been involved in the Corinthian fellowship at some point). Of course, the troubles in what the Corinthian Christians had come to believe or not believe may also simply have had to do with the believers there themselves. God only knows. But there were lots of troubles. And Paul deals with the troubles one after the other after the other across First Corinthians.

We began reading First Corinthians in chapter 3 this past week, and read through chapter 9, if you’re reading through the New Testament with me this year. (The reading plan is in our Bulletins.) Paul begins chapter 3, as Rich has already read, reminding the Corinthian believers about his time among them, saying, “Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly.” Paul goes on to criticize the divisions they’ve allowed within their fellowship: “I follow Paul;” “I follow Apollos;” “I follow Cephas,” (Cephas being the Aramaic word for “rock”, the new name the Lord Jesus had given Simon Peter.)

He then speaks against the different sexual sins he’s heard were going on among the believers, including they’re going to prostitutes and they’re not doing anything about a man in the fellowship who was sleeping with his step-mom. (As though letting the sins continue was showing how great God’s grace was!) Then He speaks against their suing each other in the public courts. (“An embarrassment to Christ!” he says.) He corrects their understanding of sex in marriage, and about whether or not to get married, and staying with or divorcing an unbelieving spouse… (All this about marriage and marrying is in chapter 7. Read it. It is straight-forward and good-as-gold advice for Christian couples today.) And he ends correcting their understandings of leadership in the church: How mature believers should help and serve and sacrifice for weaker believers, not lord themselves over those newer and more fragile in the faith.

I’ve skimmed through all of these conflicts and the details of First Corinthians so far to take us back to where we started at the very beginning of chapter 3: Paul’s comments to the Corinthian believers about they’re not being spiritual but they’re being worldly…

What does it mean to be a spiritual person? That phrase gets thrown around a lot today, “I’m spiritual,” people like to call themselves. But what does that really mean, at least as far as the way the Bible defines being “spiritual”? And on the other hand, what does it mean to be “worldly”?

As a whole, the Bible describes three different types of people: There are natural people, spiritual people, and worldly people. Here’s a fairly famous representation of a “natural person”. (All human beings are born “natural people”. In Psalm 51 King David sings about us all this way: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” So, sin isn’t just about the things we’ve said or done. Sin is a state of being, a state human beings are born into on account of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace. And, again, here’s a representation of us in that natural state.) The throne represents what’s in control of our lives. And the “S” stands for “self”, so with a “natural person”, our self is in control of our lives. And the big and little dots are our interests, and they are going whichever this way and that according to our changing whims and desires. You can see that the cross is completely outside the life of the “natural person”. The “natural person” isn’t necessarily against Jesus or God or faith. The Lord and all He’s done just doesn’t have anything to do – not personally, anyway – with natural people.

For the “worldly person”, Jesus has become a part of their lives, but they are still in control. Their interests and desires are influenced by Jesus’ presence, by their faith in Him, but they are still under the control of “self”, and so there’s still a large degree of frustration, a lack of clarity, little sense of focus and purpose (at least having to do with Christ) in the “worldly person’s” life.
With the “spiritual person”, Jesus is on the throne. He is Lord of the “spiritual person’s” life. And so the “spiritual person’s” interests and desires are ordered by Jesus. They serve His Kingdom purposes and His purposes for the “spiritual” believer, and if they do not those interests and desires have been left behind.

Notice that the apostle Paul did not deny that the Corinthians were believers, Christians. He didn’t say that they didn’t have faith. But Paul said that they weren’t living by their faith. They weren’t living with Jesus as their Lord; they – themselves – were still in charge of their lives. And the result was their many, many troubles: Troubles in their own lives; and troubles in their fellowship together…

This seems so important for us to talk about today because of the influence of the Prosperity Gospel on the Church of Jesus Christ, and the dominance of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism among Christian teens.

The Prosperity Gospel basically teaches that God sent Jesus to die on the cross for us so that we can all be healthy, wealthy, and wise. Prosperity rarely talks about the cross, Christ calling us to take up our cross and follow Him, Christian service, or the reality of persecution for the faith. God the Son was sacrificed so that you and I could have a big house, fancy cars, glittering wardrobes, and live a long illness-free life lean and muscled or curvy and slender. Pastor Joel Osteen has become the best-known preacher of the prosperity gospel here in America.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a little more subtle. MTD believes that a god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth. (Sounds good so far.) This god wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. (That’s a little soft. Not quite the “Be prepared to die and follow Me,” that Jesus called us to, but I guess that summarizes the Golden Rule – “Do to others what you would have done to you,” okay…) The central goal of life, according to MTD, is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. (Here’s where things start boldly going bad.) God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life, MTD says, except when god is needed to resolve one’s problems. (So, this god is near when I need him, but he doesn’t bother me otherwise.) And, according to MTD, all “good” people go to Heaven when they die. (Yuck!)

I hope you see how insidious both of these teachings can be. They both have some truth in them: God has created all there is; God does want good things for us; God does want us to love Him and others; God does want us to know joy and be at peace; God does want to help us with our problems; and, we have been promised Heaven when we die. But can you see that with the Prosperity Gospel and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism the believer is on the throne? They both, and other New Age thinking like them, make our faith all about us: God wants me to be rich and healthy; God wants me to be happy and feel good about myself; God will take care of all my problems; and I will get to go to Heaven when I die.

However, with true Christianity, when a person is living by the Holy Spirit of God – truly “spiritual people” – have Christ at the center of their lives and Christ in control of their lives. And Christ sacrificed Himself and went to the cross, and He calls us to follow Him – to be ready to die, if we must – following where He leads.

If I get sick, it’s not that God doesn’t love me. It’s because God needs me to be about His work in the doctor’s office or hospital. If I’m out of work, perhaps He needs me in the unemployment office or to have me available to Him during that time I’m more free. Of course, if I’m sick or out of work our Father may also be trying to get our attention and speak to us about whether or not we’re making good choices and taking good care of ourselves; He may be trying to show us that we haven’t been very good employees – that we’ve become lazy, or not doing our work excellently, or something else.

But do you see the difference? “Spiritual people” are centered around Christ, not around themselves. Jesus is in control. “Spiritual people” seek to look at their lives through the lens of Christ, asking Him to tell them about their circumstances; asking Him to direct their steps next. In this life I may not be healthy or wealthy, but that’s okay, because He is with us. As a matter of fact, we remember that Jesus had a lot of warnings for those who were wealthy, and so we know that that’s not always a good thing for those of us who’ve chosen to follow Him.

You see how close it all is, and yet how far? Do you see the difference it makes having Jesus at the center, Jesus in control, versus having ourselves?
So, I ask you: Are you in control of your life? Or is Jesus? Are you at the center? Are you on the throne? Or is He?

What does this look like, practically speaking, to let Jesus be in control, and to let Him stay in control?

Here’s an exercise for us all to do. Go home today and get out your calendar and to-do list for the coming week. Look at your appointments and commitments and ask Jesus what He wants for you among them. You know why you have those appointments and commitments on your calendar. But why has He allowed them there? Ask Him what He wants you to be about for Him in these activities and events. Write what the Holy Spirit reveals to you down on your calendar.

Do the same with your to-do list: How does Jesus want you to get these things done? Are there any tasks or to-dos that He wants you to remove from the list as a waste of time? Unimportant? Too focused on “you” and on “the world”? What kind of attitude is He calling you to as you tackle these tasks? If the tasks involve working with others, does He have anything He wants you to know about these folks, or that He’s highlighting to you about your time with them?
Second, (back to your calendar) ask Him what is not on your calendar that He wants there? Is there anyone you might visit or call for His sake, or anything you should schedule or take care of that’s not already planned for, because He’s thought about it while you’d forgotten? Now, the same with your to-do list…

Do this for a week. See what it’s like to have Jesus in control; Jesus in the center…

There was a lady in the church who needed help. Her sister could help her, but it was a sister whom she hadn’t spoken with for years and whom she’d had much conflict with the last time she had spoken. I encouraged her to call her sister anyway, but before she did, to pray and ask God to go ahead of her and help her connect with her sister. The woman did. Then she made the phone call. Her sister answered the phone and was immediately so happy to hear from her and offered her all the help she needed…

I find that when I’m on the throne I’m doing stuff for me and getting what I want done. When Jesus is on the throne I’m much more focused on others, doing things that serve, bless, and show my gratitude for those around me.
?
Are you doing your own thing or are you doing Jesus’ things? Are you on the throne or is Jesus? Are you in control or is He?

INTRODUCTION

Pastor Ben has invited us all to read the New Testament together across 2016, and he’s committed that he would preach every Sunday from a passage we’ve read the week before. So, this past week – if you’ve been following the Reading Plan on our website, in our Worship Bulletins, or as a part of the Closer Walk devotional – you know that we finished reading Paul’s letter to the Romans, and have begun reading his letter First Corinthians.

Romans ended with St. Paul encouraging us to live our lives for Christ and to not let the differences we have with our fellow Christians make us proud. That is, if we worship God one way and others worship God another way, we shouldn’t spend all of our time trying to get everyone to worship the way we do. No, Paul writes, we should honor the differences between us and strive not to hurt other’s faith by the things we do. It’s about Christians living in relationship with God through Christ that matters, Paul proclaims, it’s not about all Christians living out their relationship with Christ the same ways I do (or you do, or we do). We should spend more time making sure we are faithful as we follow Christ, and less time judging whether or not everyone else is faithful as they follow Christ. We should spend more time making sure the church is reaching out to and serving the needs of others and those who are new to Christ, and less time making sure the church is the way we want it and serving our own needs.

And after a rather lengthy goodbye, Paul ends his letter to the Romans reminding us all of the goal of his efforts and all of our efforts in preaching and carrying out the work and service of the gospel: The goal is to have God’s people living in obedient-relationship with God the Father through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit!

We also read the first two chapters of First Corinthians, and that’s where Ben’s going to be preaching from this morning:

1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-31 [NLTse]

The message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God. ¹⁹ As the Scriptures say,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”

²⁰ So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. ²¹ Since God in His wisdom saw to it that the world would never know Him through human wisdom, He has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. ²² It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from Heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. ²³ So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.

²⁴ But to those called by God to salvation, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ This foolish plan of God is wiser than the wisest of human plans, and God’s weakness is stronger than the greatest of human strength.

²⁶ Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. ²⁷ Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. ²⁸ God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. ²⁹ As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God.

³⁰ God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made Him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; He made us pure and holy, and He freed us from sin. ³¹ Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”

SERMON

Doug has finished up our reading and study through Romans, so let me introduce our reading and study through First Corinthians. The apostle Paul first established a fellowship of Christians in Corinth during what’s called his u “Second Missionary Journey,” a mission trip Paul went on to check on the Christian fellowships he had planted during his “First Missionary Journey.” And during that second trip he traveled farther and planted more.

After traveling through what was then called “Asia” but is now called “Turkey” (where his existing church-plants were located), Paul traveled to Greece and began for the first time preaching and ministering there. Northern Greece in Paul’s day was called Macedonia, and Paul established two Christian fellowships there: One in Philippi and the other in Thessalonica. But some of the Jews whom Paul was preaching to in Thessalonica were so offended by the gospel that they ran Paul out of town and stoned him nearly to death.

After only a brief time to recover, Paul fled from Thessalonica to another Macedonian city called Berea, before having to flee again to the southern part of Greece called Achaia. In Achaia, Paul traveled through and preached in famous Athens, before finally arriving in Corinth. But Paul was not well when he arrived in Corinth. He was still recovering and badly shaken by his near-death in Thessalonica. And in chapter 2 of First Corinthians, Paul reminds them how, “I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling.” His proclamation of the gospel didn’t come to the Corinthians through boldness or cleverness because he was injured and beaten-down at the time. But the Holy Spirit used his simple preaching about the cross. And as Paul trusted in and obeyed God, the Holy Spirit empowered Paul – even with his injuries and frailty – to work miracles and to do wonders that validated his message.

First Corinthians is actually Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Christians, and he writes because of the many troubles the Corinthian church was facing: Church splits, sexual immorality among the members, forbidding women to lead in the church, different spiritual gifts making different groups proud, and some denying the resurrection of the dead while others teaching that the resurrection had already occurred. The Corinthian fellowship was a pretty messed up church. (And we thought these kinds of headlines only happened in our modern day!)

With that as an introduction, let me take us back to the opening words of this letter. As he does in most of his letters, in verse 3 Paul prays for the Corinthian believers, “May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.” He follows-up that blessing in verse 4, saying, “I always thank my God for you and for the gracious gifts He has given you, now that you belong to Christ Jesus.” To which, a couple verses later in 7, he adds, “Now you have every spiritual gift you need as you eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I draw our attention to these verses because of the picture they paint about God’s grace: We need God’s grace, and so Paul asks God to bless them with His grace; and yet, we’ve been given God’s grace, even as Paul thanks God for the grace that has already been given them; and, we have and exist in a state of God’s grace, in which we live as we wait for Jesus’ return in the future, empowered with every gift from God we need to accomplish His work here in the world.

So, what is grace? Like the picture before us has been showing: u Grace is God’s great big gift to us of salvation, taking away our sins and giving us Jesus’ Own righteous. And grace is also the little gifts God gives us, the ways the Holy Spirit makes us more and more like Jesus in our Christian character and moral qualities over time, and the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit empowers us with to speak the words of God and do the works of God when He calls and needs us to. And grace is also the state of these things: Us “resurrection people” live in God’s grace; it’s like our air to us, just like we don’t think about breathing nor our lungs taking the needed nutrients out of the oxygen we breathe in, likewise we Christians don’t tend to think about applying to our moral defects the grace that is ours in Christ, nor do we tend to think about reaching out to Him for the grace required in our moments of need. No, we live in grace, and so we, Christians, find that we grow in Christian character without trying. The Holy Spirit does the work in us as we live for and enjoy our relationship with Him. And we don’t have to try and stir-up the special abilities we need to accomplish what God calls us to do in a given situation. The abilities are just “there” when we need them, the Holy Spirit empowering us at all the right moments, even when we don’t realize He’s at work.

You might be wondering, “If our salvation is by the grace of God, then how can He judge those who don’t believe in Christ? They can’t believe in Him apart from His grace, right?” You might be wondering, “If our faithfulness in any given situation is by the grace of God, then how can He blame us when we deny Him or don’t do what He wants? Isn’t it His fault for not granting us the grace we needed in that moment?” You might be wondering, “If this state of grace we live in is a gift of God’s grace and something we do not deserve and something we can-not ever deserve, then isn’t it God’s responsibility and not ours to bring people to this state of grace? Can’t we just mind our own business, keep Christ to ourselves, and let the Holy Spirit bring people to Jesus Himself?”

We didn’t look at this while we were reading through Romans together because we were celebrating Palm Sunday the week we read it, but St. Paul addresses these very questions in Romans chapter 9 when he’s acknowledging and mourning for the many Jews who were going to be damned because they had not trusted Jesus as their Savior. By the Holy Spirit, Paul writes, “Why does God blame people for not responding [to Christ]? Haven’t they simply done what He makes them do?” (It’s Paul’s version of the same questions we’ve been asking.) And Paul answers these logical questions with this logical argument. He responds,

“When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? In the same way, even though God has the right to show His anger and His power, He is very patient with those on whom His anger falls, who are destined for destruction. He does this to make the riches of His glory shine even brighter on those to whom He shows mercy, who were prepared in advance for glory.” (9:21-23)

The Word of God is telling us that God has created some human beings who will go to Hell in order to show those human beings who will go to Heaven just how glorious and merciful and wonder-filled He is! And, although that makes me sad to think of it, haven’t we all experienced the truth of it? Isn’t it when we look at those around us who have no hope that we realize how glorious and merciful and wonder-filled is the hope we have in Christ? Isn’t it when we look at those around us who have no peace that we realize how glorious and merciful and wonder-filled is the peace we have in Christ? Isn’t it when we look at those around us who have no joy that we realize how glorious and merciful and wonder-filled is the joy we have in Christ?

And so, the question might come into your head, “That means that God is choosing people around us to send to Hell?” All I can tell you is that before you let yourself start thinking about that and letting the thought of it pollute your soul, remember that God is good, that God is love. We are speaking of great mysteries here since we also read in the Scriptures that God desires not even one human being to perish and go to eternal death! You and I do not and can-not fully understand these things, so we must not let our hearts and minds be polluted with the confusion and malice that such thoughts can inspire, or we will stop sharing God’s goodness with those around us. And then how will they hear the good news? And then how will they believe and trust in Christ? And then how will God’s grace be shown in them when they are saved?

No, such questions and temptations to think ill of our Father is all the devil trying to tempt us back in the Garden of Eden again. We human beings always want to be in control: Making our own choices, controlling our own destinies. But the Scripture makes clear that God alone is in sovereign-control, even over the lives and salvation of human beings! “It is by grace we have been saved,” Paul writes to the Ephesian-Christians. We’ve had nothing to do with our salvation, so we cannot “boast” about it because we’ve had no part to play in it!

No, the great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that you and I can rest in our salvation knowing that it’s not up to us! God is the One Who began the work in us. He called us to Himself! So, whether we’re having a good, obedient day or a bad, selfish day, we can be at peace knowing that u God is the One, not you or me, Who will bring this work in us (and in our friends and in our loved ones and in those we’ve been given compassion for) to completion! Your and my part is to seek Him earnestly, to love Him wholeheartedly, to cooperate with Him fully, and to surrender our will and plans over to Him daily. And yet even then, trusting that it is His Spirit energizing us to want to work for and to do the work for all that pleases Him.

As Doug read at the beginning, it was God Who had united the Corinthian believers to Christ. The only boasting they could do about their salvation, and about the abilities and giftedness God gave them, and about the life of hope, peace, and joy they were living was to boast in the Lord! The Lord can and does call us to live with Him and live for Him is because all we have is the result of God’s grace. All we are is the result of God’s grace.

The Lord calls us to tithe – giving 10% of our income to His work through the church – so that He can keep doing through the church for others what He first used the church to do for us. He calls us to give even more than the 10%-tithe sometimes when He has especially blessed us or when He is doing an extra-special work requiring our special support. We can do that because all we have and all we are is on account of His grace.

He calls us to be serving – using our abilities and expertise – in and around the church to bless the people of the congregation as a whole and, again, to enable the church to do for still others what it has already been doing for us. And we can do that because all we have and all we are is on account of His grace.

Of course, He calls us to love Him and enjoy Him and to share Him with our family members and friends. He calls us to live for Him and to draw near to Him and to cry out to Him and to let Him comfort and guide us and encourage and direct us, not because He’s so demanding of what is ours, but because He’s been so generous in sharing with us what is His by His grace!

My brothers and sisters in Christ: It is God Himself Who has united us with Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ made us right with God; He made us pure and holy, and He freed us from sin. None of it has been our doing. From start to finish, it’s all been God’s gift; it’s all been grace.

To the Romans 3:21-31 [NLTse]

²¹ But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the Law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. ²² We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.

²³ For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. ²⁴ Yet God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins. ²⁵ For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, ²⁶ for He was looking ahead and including them in what He would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He himself is fair and just, and He makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus.

²⁷ Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the Law. It is based on faith. ²⁸ So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the Law.

²⁹ After all, is God the God of the Jews only? Isn’t He also the God of the Gentiles? Of course He is. ³⁰ There is only one God, and He makes people right with Himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles. ³¹ Well then, if we emphasize faith, does this mean that we can forget about the Law? Of course not! In fact, only when we have faith do we truly fulfill the Law.

According to Luke 15:11-32

¹¹ To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. ¹² The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.

¹³ “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. ¹⁴ About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. ¹⁵ He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. ¹⁶ The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.

¹⁷ “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! ¹⁸ I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both Heaven and you, ¹⁹ and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’

²⁰ “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. ²¹ His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both Heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’

²² “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. ²³ And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, ²⁴ for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, ²⁶ and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’

²⁸ “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, ²⁹ but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. ³⁰ Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’

³¹ “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. ³² We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’”

Sermon

Many of us have been reading the New Testament together here in 2016. The daily reading plan is listed in our weekly Bulletins and on the church’s website. We’re currently reading through Paul’s letter To the Romans.

As a part of this past Monday’s readings, Paul wrote that God has shown us a way to be made right with Him that doesn’t involve keeping all of His commandments. Paul writes that we are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ.

He says that although every human being has sinned, although we all deserve condemnation and death in our perfect God’s eyes, that God, in His grace, freely makes us right in His sight. That God freed us from the penalty for our sins when He presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin on the cross. God makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus Christ.

If the Apostle Paul is right (and we believe he is, that the Holy Spirit of God used Paul to speak God’s very Word) then you and I no longer need to be forgiven our sins. We have been forgiven. We need to keep telling God and others we’re sorry when we continue to fall short, when we continue to realize that we’ve sinned. We strive to show God our love for Him by not sinning any more, but when the Holy Spirit shows us that we have, yes, we need to admit it and tell God we’re sorry, but our sins are forgiven. Jesus did the work. “It is finished!” He said from the cross. When our Abba-Father looks at you and me, when we’re trusting in Christ, He sees us absolutely flawless!

…

And yet you can often see many Christians wearing a starving sort of look: The face of those who’ve spent a lifetime striving to be the person they think they should be, chasing the approval of God and others, but never really feeling like they measure up. You can see those expressions on people who follow the rules, do everything leaders ask them to do, are seldom acknowledged for all their efforts, and who feel guilty when they slack on a diligent devotional life. The look betrays the deep recesses of their hearts: They can’t seem to outrun the gnawing ache that they aren’t good enough. When honest, such folks will admit the lie that drives so much of their life: God is disappointed with their performance, just like everyone else is, just like their parents, their teachers, their spouse, and their bosses were and are.

In working with people for a number of years, I’ve heard a lot of stories… and secrets. I’ve come to believe that behind the fronts and facades, that most people live with a sense of self-disdain. Of course, the details of the stories are different.

For some it’s what they’ve done or not done, for others it’s who they have or haven’t become, but the self-condemnation is almost always there. I don’t think most people really like what they see in those honest, vulnerable moments when they look at themselves in the mirror.

It makes sense. We live in a culture that defines our value by what we accomplish, what we own, and how we look. I’m struck with the awareness that for the first time in the history of human existence, the majority of our social contact comes in the form of someone telling us we are in need and so trying to sell us something. Is it just a coincidence that the basic message of the most dominant voice in our society is that we are in some way lacking?

I believe this self-disdain drives the many of addictions that affect almost everyone. Whether it’s drugs, food, porn, video games, or our phones, we are obsessed with finding new ways to disconnect from life.

O, to be significant!

O, to be loved!

I have similar wounds. I know all about the not-good-enough speech. With the Prodigal Son parable in mind, anybody here ever wonder what the father’s response might have been had his son gone “prodigal” again, and again, and again? Anybody here ever wondered what the rest of the kid’s life was like? Anybody here think that, because his father had been so reckless in his forgiveness, that the kid likely spent the rest of his life trying to prove he was now responsible and worthy of his dad’s crazy decision to lavish him with love despite his rebellion? Anybody here ever thought that, if the son ever chose to return to his life of excess that he would likely never be welcomed back home again.

Or would he?

For many Christians, forgiveness of sins means they have to immediately begin doing spiritual and moral activities. For many Christians, God’s gift of grace has to be repaid with their works. (I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do spiritual activities and direct our movements to pleasing God, but many Christians assume that God’s continued love is contingent upon their behavior, and they don’t want to risk doing something to make Him stop loving them.)

But God’s love for you is unconditional. God’s love for me is unconditional. Right here. Right now. He is not waiting for us to become as we should be. He loves you, He loves me, just as we are.

My friends: God is not mad at you! Jesus has paid for your sins. The Father aches for you to come home and crawl up into His arms of total acceptance and unconditional love and peaceful rest. Neither you nor I can wear out God’s love. There is nothing we can do to keep Him God from loving us.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I tell you that if the prodigal son had left again that he would have been welcomed back again, and again, and again. Of course, I tell you, if the prodigal son could receive the grace, love, and acceptance of his father, he would never want to leave!

Every advertisement, website, and infomercial these days seems to have a singular, simple solution to life’s problems, but I have continually found that a clear and deep knowing of God’s love for me has been the key remedy I needed to untangle many of the problems I faced. Whether it was resentments, guilt, relational conflict, obsessive or controlling behaviors, people pleasing, greed, lust, withdrawing, negative self-talk, anger, or trying to find my identity in what I did or in other people, these were all at least in part rooted in my desire and striving to be significant – to be loved.

Through the years since I have begun trusting God’s love for me, when I felt my actions didn’t measure up or I struggled with sin, I found myself greeting my failures with a gentle smile. I didn’t have to achieve or be perfect. I am loved. And contrary to what I have heard many others argue, the Father’s reckless grace has not made me complacent. Being accepted – just as I am – has motivated me to give and to love. The more and more I realize that I don’t have to strive, the more and more I find I want to.

God’s love is the central message of Christianity. Living the Kingdom life can only truly be born out of an active response to a deep knowing of one’s place as a much-loved daughter or son of the Author of Life. In Jesus Christ, you are accepted. In Jesus Christ, you are loved. In Jesus Christ, you are free to achieve and to fail. Jesus Christ has shown us that we do not have to prove that we are worthy of love and forgiveness: In Jesus Christ, we are worthy of love and forgiveness.

Justified, redeemed, atoned for: In the cross of Jesus Christ we have been made flawless.

So, come… If you are ready to accept the love of God today, I invite you to come up here, light a candle, and stand or kneel here at the steps, as you choose. If you are ready to lay down your strivings and your performing to prove yourself worthy, and are ready to receive that acceptance and worthiness that comes by faith, come…

We live in a culture that badgers us to keep our faith private, personal, “Keep it to yourself!” But the Lord Jesus calls us to make Him and our faith and trust in Him known to all those around us. “Whoever acknowledges Me publicly here on earth,” Jesus said, “I will also acknowledge before My Father in Heaven.” So, come: Personally and publicly. Come.

Come with the big or little bit love you have for Him. Come with your faith – great or small. Come with your questions not yet answered. (We all have them.) But come…

Of course, if your faith has been on cruise control and you’ve just been going through the motions of faith for a time, come: Recommit; re-consecrate; renew your vows, your promises to love Him, to follow Him, that wherever He leads you’ll go…

But, come…

The Praise Team is going to lead us in hymn #504, “He Touched Me”. And as they lead us, come: Come light a candle; and, whether standing or kneeling, come give your life a-fresh, a-new to Jesus Christ. Commit yourself to accept His label of “beloved”, of “precious”, of “son” or “daughter”, of “flawless” by claiming Him as your savior… Commit  yourself to follow Him obediently, lovingly, joyfully, always as your lord…

Introduction

As our reading begins, the apostle has been talking about the ways that human rebellion against God has led people-groups and nations to make up all sorts of different ideas about what God is like and all sorts of different ideas about what the life He has for us looks like, as well…

To the Romans 2:1-16 [NLTse]

You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. ² And we know that God, in His justice, will punish anyone who does such things. ³ Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? ⁴ Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that His kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

⁵ But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. ⁶ He will judge everyone according to what they have done. ⁷ He will give eternal life to those who keep on doing good, seeking after the glory and honor and immortality that God offers. ⁸ But He will pour out His anger and wrath on those who live for themselves, who refuse to obey the truth and instead live lives of wickedness. ⁹ There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. ¹⁰ But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. ¹¹ For God does not show favoritism.

¹² When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. ¹³ For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in His sight. ¹⁴ Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know His law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. ¹⁵ They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right. ¹⁶ And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.

Sermon

The first Christians in Rome were likely Jews who had been converted on the Day of Pentecost during the famous sermon the Apostle Peter gave that day. After the Pentecost festivities, they would have returned to Rome continuing to practice their Jewish food, ceremonial, and morality laws while proclaiming that Jesus, their Messiah, had come and was with them! That would have been in AD 33. Over the years that followed, Gentiles would have likely joined them in their faith, but since Gentiles weren’t required to keep the food and ceremonial laws, the Gentiles would have practiced the faith somewhat differently.

Sometime in the 40’s (ten or so years later), the emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from Rome – even Christian Jews – and so the Roman churches came to be made up of only Gentiles for the next ten years until Claudius’ death in AD 54, when his edict was repealed and Jews were permitted to return. This letter, from the Apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome, addresses the tensions the congregations in Rome were facing as the Jews returned, and as the Jewish and Gentile Christians began to clash on account of their culturally different ways of expressing their faith in Jesus.

As we are reading the New Testament together in 2016, and as I’ve committed to preach on something we’ve just read the week before, we’ve only gotten to the middle of chapter 3 in Romans so far. So, let me summarize that part of Paul’s argument that we have read:

Whether you are a Jew who knows and has always had God’s laws, or whether you are a Gentile just getting to know God’s story-with-humanity and striving to live in-step with the Holy Spirit, you are a sinner: A rebel against God and against His ways; perhaps a big sinner or perhaps a little sinner, but “no one is righteous – not even one.” (3:10) You are not a better Christian if you had or didn’t have God’s law. You’re not a worse Christian if you had or didn’t have God’s law. “No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (3:11-12) Whether Jew or Gentile, whether Jewish Christian or Gentile Christian, the only hope for anyone – for everyone – is the Lord Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross making a way for us back to God. Bragging about your ancestry or what you do or don’t do, having confidence or putting your hope in anything other than Jesus Christ crucified-and-risen is foolishness and emptiness and death. But bragging and having confidence and hope in Christ is glory, peace, and everlasting life!

Let me unpack this a little bit more.

The Lord Jesus once told a story about two men who came to Jerusalem to pray. He said, “One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank You, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to Heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’” Jesus said, “I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home [declared innocent] before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10-14) What’s Jesus getting at here?

He gives us a picture of one guy who knows his Bible well, who has really cleaned up his life, and who practices spiritual disciplines and gives money to the poor. And He gives us a picture of a second guy who’s a liar and a cheat and who steals from his family. They both go to church one Sunday and are praying, and Jesus tells us that the “good guy” goes away still in his sins (though they may be few) and that the “bad guy” goes away completely forgiven (though his sins had been many). Why?

Of course, Jesus tells us. He tells us that the “good guy” went away still in his sins because he knew about all the changes that had happened in his life – that is, he knew he knew the Bible pretty well, he knew he’d left behind him a lot of terrible sinning that he used to do, he knew that he gave money to the poor – he knew all these things and he was proud of the man he had become. And because he was proud of himself he went away still guilty in God’s sight.

But Jesus tells us that the other guy was so convicted of his own sin as he came into the church that he wouldn’t even look up towards Heaven as he prayed, but was sad and ashamed for all he’d done. And, because he kept God high and himself low, Jesus tells us that God forgave him his sins and that he went home that day declared innocent of sin by God. Because those who make much of themselves will be made little of by God, but those who make little of themselves will be made much of by God!

It is so great to be loved and adopted by the Father! But if it leads us to be proud and a “holier than thou” attitude then even our righteousness is causing us to sin. No, the only way to be truly great and to stay truly great is for us to humbly recognize our own sinfulness, and for us to humbly recognize that only Christ has made us and can keep us declared innocent of sin on account of His once-and-for-all sacrifice on the cross. Not I, but Christ; if we’re going to boast let us only ever boast in the Lord.

The kindness of God in the cross of Jesus Christ can lead people to think too little of sin. But it is intended to lead us all to greater and ever-greater turning from sin. The kindness of God in the cross of Jesus Christ can lead people to take God’s love more and more for granted. But it is intended to fan the flames of our hearts into greater and ever-greater love for Him. The kindness of God in the cross of Jesus Christ can lead people into seeing their own sin as small and far less offensive than the sins of others around them. But it is intended to highlight to us our identity as sinners – whether our sins are grievous or mild – and to drive us to Him as our only our only hope for rescue and peace.

Acts 28:17-31 [NLTse]
¹⁷ Three days after Paul’s arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders. He said to them, “Brothers, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Roman government, even though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors. ¹⁸ The Romans tried me and wanted to release me, because they found no cause for the death sentence. ¹⁹ But when the Jewish leaders protested the decision, I felt it necessary to appeal to Caesar, even though I had no desire to press charges against my own people. ²⁰ I asked you to come here today so we could get acquainted and so I could explain to you that I am bound with this chain because I believe that the hope of Israel—the Messiah—has already come.”
²¹ They replied, “We have had no letters from Judea or reports against you from anyone who has come here. ²² But we want to hear what you believe, for the only thing we know about this movement is that it is denounced everywhere.”
²³ So a time was set, and on that day a large number of people came to Paul’s lodging. He explained and testified about the Kingdom of God and tried to persuade them about Jesus from the Scriptures. Using the Law of Moses and the books of the prophets, he spoke to them from morning until evening. ²⁴ Some were persuaded by the things he said, but others did not believe. ²⁵ And after they had argued back and forth among themselves, they left with this final word from Paul: “The Holy Spirit was right when he said to your ancestors through Isaiah the prophet,
²⁶ ‘Go and say to this people: When you hear what I say, you will not understand. When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. ²⁷ For the hearts of these people are hardened, and their ears cannot hear, and they have closed their eyes—so their eyes cannot see, and their ears cannot hear, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.’
²⁸ So I want you to know that this salvation from God has also been offered to the Gentiles, and they will accept it.”
³⁰ For the next two years, Paul lived in Rome at his own expense. He welcomed all who visited him, ³¹ boldly proclaiming the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. And no one tried to stop him.

Sermon
The Kingdom of God is the main theme of Jesus’ life and ministry.
At the beginning of His ministry on Earth, Jesus said, “The time promised by God has come at last! The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!” (Mark 1:15) The majority of the Lord Jesus’ parables described the Kingdom. The sign Pontius Pilate had posted on Jesus’ cross read – in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek – “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” And even after He was raised from the dead, as the Lord was preparing His disciples for His return to Heaven, Luke wrote of Jesus, “During the forty days after His crucifixion, He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and He proved to them in many ways that He was actually alive. And He talked to them about the Kingdom of God.” (Acts 1:3)

But the Kingdom is not just a “Jesus” or a “New Testament” reality. Israel saw itself as the Kingdom of God.

When the Lord had brought Israel safely through the Red Sea but had drowned Pharaoh’s chariots in the waters, Moses and his sister, Miriam, sung a victory song that ends, “You will bring Your people in and plant them on Your Own mountain – the place, O LORD, reserved for Your Own dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, that Your hands have established. The LORD will reign forever and ever!” Moses and Miriam and the Israelites saw their victory over Egypt as the victory of God’s Kingdom over Pharaoh’s kingdom! “The LORD will reign forever and ever!”
Before Saul and David became the first kings of Israel and Judah, judges ruled over the united tribes of Israel. The prophet Samuel was the last of those judges, and when he was growing old the leaders of the people came to him and asked him to appoint them a king like the nations around them had. Samuel was not happy with their request, but he took it to the LORD. And God told him, “Do everything they say to you, for it is Me they are rejecting, not you. They don’t want Me to be their king any longer.” (1 Samuel 8)

Of course, the kings of Israel and Judah were always supposed to govern in God’s name. And sometimes they did. (King David sang of God’s Kingdom: “The Lord has made the heavens His throne; from there He rules over everything.” [Psalm 103:19]) But most of the time the kings didn’t.

So the prophets began expecting a day when God would again be their king, and yet with Israel having the human king they’d asked for, as well. The prophet Isaiah foretold this most specifically when he said: “A Child is born to us, a Son is given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders. And He will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of His ancestor David for all eternity.” (9:6-7)

Jesus Christ has established the Kingdom of God, and He also makes the Way for human beings to enter into it. “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) And the Lord Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) And speaking about being baptized with water and being baptized with the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.’” (John 3:5)

The Kingdom of God is made up of every created being, both in Heaven and on Earth, that has willingly subjected themselves to the Lord and is in fellowship with Him. So, the Kingdom of God includes created angels and human beings, as well. It is eternal, as God is eternal, and it is spiritual—found within and among all born-again believers. We enter the Kingdom of God when we are born again by our faith and trust in Christ, and we are then part of that Kingdom for eternity.

The gospel of the Kingdom is the good-news message of repentance, redemption, and restoration offered by God to all who will receive Jesus Christ. Those who accept Christ become part of God’s eternal Kingdom (John 1:12). Those who choose to remain in their sin cannot be a part of this Kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:9–10; Galatians 5:19–21). Although God’s grace makes Christ available to anyone who will receive Him, even so, Jesus warned that it would be very difficult to enter His Kingdom, and that few would do so (Matthew 7:14).

The gospel of the Kingdom is the news that there is freedom from our slavery to sin if we will repent of our sins and turn to God, that is, changing our ways in favor of God’s ways (Romans 6:18–19). Our Redeemer has come! But it is difficult to enter God’s Kingdom. Not because God has set impossible standards for us, but because human beings don’t want to repent and change. In John 3:19, Jesus says that humanity tends to love the Darkness more than the Light. Many would rather cling to their old sinful identities than allow Jesus to create them anew (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Those who receive the gospel of the Kingdom become citizens of Heaven and are freed from bondage to this world (Galatians 4:3–9). In 2 Corinthians 5:20 the apostle Paul refers to God’s children as “ambassadors” for our heavenly Father. Just as an earthly ambassador retains his national identity when representing his country in another country, we who are the spiritual ambassadors of God’s Kingdom owe our allegiance to God even as we live in this world. We must follow our heavenly Father’s code of conduct while dwelling on earth. We don’t need to conform to this world’s habits, values, and lifestyle, because this world is not our home (Romans 12:1–2; 1 John 2:15–17).
Jesus said to Pontius Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). So, although we must live here until God calls us home, we are not to live for ourselves or according to this world’s value system. Those who have been bought by the blood of Jesus have been given the right to live according to God’s value system and to call upon God’s empowerment as we carry out the assignments given us by our Father the King.

Of course, this empowerment comes from our being filled with and cooperating with God’s Spirit. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,” Jesus said (Acts 1:8). And we’ve been reading about God developing His Kingdom as we’ve been reading through the Book of Acts. We’ve seen the Church growing in loving, practical fellowship with one another (Acts 2:42-47), and, we’ve seen the Church growing in empowered witness and ministry to show the love, grace, and reality of Jesus Christ in all they said and did, inviting people to receive salvation and join the Kingdom as they’ve gone along. (Acts 3, 4:1-21)
And so the Lord Jesus charges us to seek God’s Kingdom first, and God’s righteous-lifestyle, promising that, as we do so, that God will then take care of all our needs.
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But, as we close, how do we know if we’re truly seeking God’s Kingdom first? I charge each of us today and this week to look at our lives and ask ourselves. “Where do I primarily spend my self and my stuff? Do I spend my time, money, and energy on goods and activities that will certainly perish with this world? Or do I live for and invest in the service and priorities of God—the results of which live on for eternity?” Christians who have learned to truly put God first can truly rest in the Kingdom’s promised economy: As Jesus promised, “…He will give you everything you need.”

Acts 18:24-19:7 [NLTse]

^18:24 Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the Scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. ²⁵ He had been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John’s baptism. ²⁶ When Priscilla and Aquila heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue, they took him aside and explained the way of God even more accurately.

²⁷ Apollos had been thinking about going to Achaia, and the brothers and sisters in Ephesus encouraged him to go. They wrote to the believers in Achaia, asking them to welcome him. When he arrived there, he proved to be of great benefit to those who, by God’s grace, had believed. ²⁸ He refuted the Jews with powerful arguments in public debate. Using the Scriptures, he explained to them that Jesus was the Messiah.

^19:1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. ² “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them.

“No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

³ “Then what baptism did you experience?” he asked.

And they replied, “The baptism of John.”

⁴ Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the One Who would come later, meaning Jesus.”

⁵ As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶ Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. ⁷ There were about twelve men in all.

Sermon

Apollos is a great example from the Scripture of powerful, inspiring preachers, but who just don’t know the fullness of the good news that is ours in Jesus Christ. I don’t say this against any particular person or to put anyone down. But the truth is, we human beings tend to glorify people more than we should. And yet, the very best of us humans fall short. No matter our gifts and abilities – great or small – we are all sinners. Jesus Christ alone should be our standard for godliness and the fullness of the gospel.

And Jesus has given us a commission to “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” And to “teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.”

And of all the commands the Lord Jesus has given us, what was the greatest? [Let the congregation say it.] Yup: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind,” and, “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Has anyone else here ever felt overwhelmed by such a commission or by such commandments? Jesus has told us to make disciples everywhere we go. Not just for pastors to make disciples, but for you to make disciples – for each of us, for all of us – to make disciples everywhere we go. And to baptize them (in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit), and to teach these disciples we’ve made to obey all of the Lord Jesus’ commands, which the Lord Himself summarizes by ordering us to love God with everything we are and everything we have, and to love everyone around us, too.

And I don’t know about all of you, but it makes my head spin just thinking about that, and as my head spins I get all locked up and don’t know where to begin… And sometimes, feeling so overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin, it can lead me to just do nothing at all. Because how can human beings accomplish such things? It’s impossible! So then, is the Lord just setting us up to fail? No.

Paul makes clear that the Lord Jesus did not come just to baptize us for repentance, that is, He didn’t come just so that our sins might be forgiven. No. He did baptize us for that, so that we could be forgiven, and washed clean, and so be brought close to the Father once again. But that’s not all He came to do. Paul makes clear that the Lord Jesus also came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit – so that we might be empowered to accomplish His commission and enabled to carry out His commandments.  For the things of God cannot be accomplished by human force or human strength. They are accomplished by His Spirit, says the Lord. (See Zechariah 4:6.)

But many Christians don’t know such things. They’ve never been taught such things. And so they don’t expect such things: They don’t know that they can look to God for such capability, for such empowerment. But we can.

You see, we live in the overlap of the times:  On the one hand we live in this fallen world filled with wickedness, sin, and death; but  on the other hand, the Kingdom of God has come with eternal life, righteousness, and peace. King Jesus has established God’s Kingdom. The End has begun. But it has only begun. We continue awaiting the fulfillment – the completeness – when the Lord Jesus comes again, and when all those who follow Christ will experience the resurrection and get new, everlasting bodies, where all things will be made new, and where righteousness will not only be the law of the land but will be all that anybody knows or desires to do…

But that fulfillment is not here yet. We live in the overlap of the times. And to survive and to thrive in the overlap, we need the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the Father and the Son real on earth, and brings to each and every believer all that Jesus won for us on the cross. The Holy Spirit enables people to enter into the Kingdom of God through the new birth that comes by faith in Christ, and to have God’s life within them as is talked about as the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit gives Christians spiritual capabilities and manifestations of the Kingdom of Heaven so that we can show and tell those around us about our King Jesus and about His Kingdom so that all whom the Father is calling will come to Him.

There are three ways the Holy Spirit empowers us to accomplish all that the Lord Jesus calls us to so that we might draw people’s attention to God the Father. One way is that the Holy Spirit takes our natural abilities and “supercharges” them, if you will, so that what before we became Christians we were merely good at, now draws people to God through faith in Jesus Christ. These are listed in Romans 12:6-8, and are often spoken of as the “functional” gifts of the Holy Spirit because they serve as the framework so that the Church can effectively function here in the world.

Another way the Holy Spirit empowers us to carry out the Lord Jesus’ “great commission” is by giving us supernatural capabilities that we did not have before becoming Christians. These are the most spontaneous, dramatic, visible, and spectacular gifts. The ones most often misused and misunderstood. The Apostle Paul lists them in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, and writes extensively about how to use them appropriately in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 through 14, dedicating all of chapter 13 on the importance of using them in love. They are often spoken of as the “manifestational” gifts of the Holy Spirit because they manifest – they reveal and show people, as we’ve already said, in often dramatic and spectacular ways – the Holy Spirit’s power and the realities of the Kingdom of God.

The last way the Holy Spirit seems to empower followers of Jesus Christ to obey all that He has commanded is by giving His Church leaders who are to equip them to serve the Lord. These “gifts” are persons, who have been called by the Lord, or Whom the Lord has placed in various offices in the Church, in order to train up Christians who will strengthen and grow the Body of Christ, and Christians who will to take the good news of Christ Jesus and His Kingdom to all peoples across and around the world. These are often spoken of as the “vocational” gifts of the Holy Spirit and are listed in Ephesians 4:11-13.

We are not on our own. Nor has our Father in Heaven set Himself up as some far away divinity Whom we must kiss up to and beg in order to get His help! He knows we are weak. He made us that way. We were never intended to go it on our own, apart from Him, apart from His Spirit. We can boldly and confidently fulfill His commission upon us and the commandments He’s called us to by looking to Him, depending upon Him, by surrendering to and cooperating with His Holy Spirit. He has gifted us with His “functional” gifts. He will gift us – when we need them – with His “manifestational” gifts. And, by His grace, He has given you [pointing to myself] this pastor/teacher “vocational” gift to help equip and prepare you more and more for living His life in this overlapping time.

(We’ll talk more about the “functional” gifts of the Holy Spirit when we read Romans together next month. We’ll look at the “manifestational” gifts when we read 1 Corinthians after that. And the “vocational” gifts when we read Ephesians. Let’s keep reading together using the Closer Walk reading plan, which is also printed in our weekly Bulletins and is on the homepage of our website.)

The Acts of the Apostles 11:1-18 [NLTse]

Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the Word of God. ² But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him. ³ “You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said.

⁴ Then Peter told them exactly what had happened. ⁵ “I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me. ⁶ When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles, and birds. ⁷ And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’

⁸ “‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean.’

⁹ “But the voice from Heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’ ¹⁰ This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to Heaven.

¹¹ “Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying. ¹² The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us. ¹³ He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter. ¹⁴ He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’

¹⁵ “As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as He fell on us at the beginning. ¹⁶ Then I thought of the Lord’s words when He said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ ¹⁷ And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift He gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”

¹⁸ When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”

Sermon

The book of Acts is many things. It’s a history of the early Church. It’s a record of the acts of the apostles. It’s a record of the acts of the Holy Spirit through those apostles. But, as I was reading it this week (along with many of you) with Valentine’s Day in mind, I realized that the book of Acts is also a love story.

Acts is the love story of the Apostle Paul, who begins the book as an enemy – a persecutor of Jesus and His Church, but who ends the book as a lover of Jesus, and imprisoned for all the ways he has lived out His love and His faith in His one beloved.

If you’ve been reading the New Testament with me this year, last week we met Paul when he was still called by his Hebrew name, Saul, where we saw him holding the coats of several of the men stoning one of the Churches first deacons, Stephen, to death. We then see Saul (Paul) leading a great persecution against the Church, hunting down Christians who were then imprisoned for their faith by the Jewish authorities.

After much success in Jerusalem, Saul (Paul) seeks their authority to go to the neighboring city of Damascus to seek out any Christians there, and to bring them back to Jerusalem in chains.

He is given that authority, but on the way Jesus meets him on the road to Damascus, striking Saul (Paul) blind, and committing to Saul (Paul) that He, Jesus, loved him and that He wanted Saul (Paul) to love Him back, and to join His gospel-team spreading the Kingdom of God across the earth.

And as we continue to read, we see that Saul (Paul) did indeed fall in love with Jesus, recognizing Jesus to be the God he has loved and trusted his entire life. And Saul (Paul) commits to the Lord and covenants his life to Him in baptism, and then does join Jesus’ team spreading the Kingdom of God.

From then on, across Acts, we see recorded the love of God for a man and the love of a man for his God as (now just) Paul declares His love for Jesus over and over and over again, makes his beloved known to any and all who will listen, and makes sacrifice after sacrifice for his loved one because so many were deciding again and again to reject God’s Kingdom and to refuse His love that Paul was preaching.

It all got me thinking about what I have learned about love across twenty-five years of marriage to my wife, Amy, and across twenty-two or twenty-three years of living in covenant-relationship with our God and Father through faith and love for Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit has wooed and nurtured me in such faith and love. (I know that twenty-five years of marriage may seem like a drop in the bucket to many of you. Who’s been married here for at least twenty-five years? Anybody thirty years? Thirty-five? Forty? Do I hear forty-five? Fifty? Anybody here been married for more than fifty years? … And I know that many of you have walked with the Lord for far more than twenty-two or twenty-three years. But let me share with you what I’ve learned.)

Well, the first thing I’ve learned about love from across my studies given flesh in my experiences is that when you truly love someone you want everyone to know that you love them. A second thing about love that is embodied in Jesus, that I see in Paul’s life, and that I have experienced in my own life loving Amy and the Lord has been that you only truly love people when you love them the way they were made to be loved, not when you merely love them the ways that you want to love them. And, lastly, across the Scripture and Acts and across my love-relationships with my God and my wife, I’ve learned that love requires sacrifice because making our love and those we love known to those around us has consequences, and loving our beloveds the ways they want to be loved and were made to be loved isn’t always easy, convenient, or pleasant. But we need to be willing to make those sacrifices and suffer those sacrifices for the sake of love.

So, the first thing about loving another is wanting everyone around you to know your beloved and to know that you love your beloved. And we see this in Paul’s life: The Book of Acts relates that everywhere that Paul went and everything he did eventually led to Paul telling those around him about the Lord Jesus and His good news. Everywhere. Everything. That Paul’s heart was always and everywhere looking for ways to share his Beloved with others.

Wedding rings are a part of doing that for married couples in our day. Wearing a wedding ring, ideally, sends a message to the whole watching world that we are married, we are taken, and because I’m making it so publicly known, please feel free to ask me about my beloved. And, of course, people often put pictures of their family members on their desks or cash registers at work, or carry pictures in their wallets or on their phones. When we’re in love we can’t help but want to let everyone around us in on it. It’s just what true love does!

And yet, I know some people who never speak about their wives or their husbands – no ring, no pictures – almost as though they want to keep their marriages – their loves – a secret; like they want to keep their options open, just in case. But that’s not commitment. That’s not being all-in. That’s not love…

The second thing I mentioned as having learned about love is that true love is about loving people the way they want to be loved and were made to be loved, not just loving them the way we want or have come to enjoy loving them. The Bible is the greatest example of this.

The Lord of Heaven and Earth, our Father, has spoken through all manner of prophets, priests, kings, and apostles to reveal to humanity across the generations what true love looks like and how He wants to be loved. The Lord Jesus says, “If you love Me, obey My commandments.” God doesn’t want to be loved on our terms. He wants to be loved on His. And make no mistake, Almighty God our Father and Savior makes absolutely clear that if we are not loving Him the way He has called and laid out for us to love Him in His Word then we are not loving Him! (No matter how warm and fuzzy we might feel.) And the same is true for those around us.

I am a touchy-feely kind of love-r. I like to show love by hugging and handshaking, holding hands and kissing, and by speaking words of affection and encouragement and affirmation. But my beloved, my wife, Amy, is different. Don’t get me wrong, Amy will give you a hug or shake your hand and say kind words to you, but that’s not her primary love language, it’s not the way she most readily shows love and it’s not the way she wants for me to show her love. To show Amy I love her I need to stop drinking soda, and I need to finish painting the bathroom, and to work out, and to finish some of the other projects we have going around the house. That’s how she likes to be loved.

[Holding up the Bible.] Just as the Lord has let me know how He wants us to love Him, Amy has let me know how she wants me to love her. And if, in my love for her, I want to let her know my love, that is the way I’m going to have to show it to her: Not the ways I want to love her but the ways she wants to be loved.

Lastly, true love requires sacrifice, because letting everyone around you know that you love God or that you love your wife or your family or your friends, will always have consequences: Sometimes good consequences; sometimes bad consequences. And, of course, loving others the ways they want to be loved – whether it’s the Lord, a spouse, our kids or our parents, or various friends or even strangers – can be a challenge when they prove to be different from us and when their needs for love are difficult or inconvenient to us…

And yet we are called by our Almighty Father to love Him, and He calls us to love others as a way of showing off to the world our love for Him.

When I first married Amy I thought that marriage and my love for her and her love for me was all about me and my being happy. Likewise, many Christians believe that when their sins have been forgiven and they enter into relationship with God through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, that everything in their lives is going to change and be wonderful: Their see relationship with God as being all about them and about God making them happy.

Well, call me a slow learner, but after all these years I have come to realize that God’s given me my different relationships and the different opportunities I have to love others – not to merely make me happy. No. God wants to use my marriage and my other relationships and choices to help me love Him better, to help me love my wife, Amy, better, and to help me love others and all those around me better. Whether or not Amy and those others around me are going to grow in loving me better is between them and the Lord. But He wants to use the situations and relationships across my life, not to have me be happy but to have me love better. Because He’s shown me that loving Him and loving others better is what will truly make me and you and everyone in the world – if folks would just love and trust Him – happy.

The Acts of the Apostles 4:1-12 [NLTse]

While Peter and John were speaking to the people, they were confronted by the priests, the captain of the Temple guard, and some of the Sadducees. ² These leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead. ³ They arrested them and, since it was already evening, put them in jail until morning. ⁴ But many of the people who heard their message believed it, so the number of believers now totaled about 5,000 men, not counting women and children.

⁵ The next day the council of all the rulers and elders and teachers of religious law met in Jerusalem. ⁶ Annas the high priest was there, along with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and other relatives of the high priest. ⁷ They brought in the two disciples and demanded, “By what power, or in whose name, have you done this?”

⁸ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of our people, ⁹ are we being questioned today because we’ve done a good deed for a crippled man? Do you want to know how he was healed? ¹⁰ Let me clearly state to all of you and to all the people of Israel that he was healed by the powerful name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, the Man you crucified but Whom God raised from the dead. ¹¹ For Jesus is the One referred to in the Scriptures, where it says,

‘The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’

¹² There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under Heaven by which we must be saved.”

Sermon

Have you ever wondered how something like this [a seed] ever turns into something like this [a plant]? And yet it happens every day, all around us, doesn’t it? Seeds turn into plants. Acorns turn into oak trees. Walnuts turn into walnut trees… And so it is with people.

In our reading from Acts today Peter and John are arrested by the Sanhedrin, the same ruling council that plotted to have Jesus crucified. And Luke (who is also the author of Acts), makes clear “these leaders were very disturbed that Peter and John were teaching the people that through Jesus there is a resurrection of the dead.” (v. 2) So, it wasn’t because they were followers of Jesus that they were arrested. And it wasn’t because they’d healed somebody, or because the ruling council was jealous. (That comes later.) No. The Sanhedrin arrested Peter and John because Peter and John were teaching that there would be a resurrection of the dead: That everyone who died would be raised to life again; that Jesus being raised was proof of it.

What does it mean that there will be a resurrection of the dead? It means that when Jesus Christ redeemed us that He did not just redeem our or souls so that we might live for eternity as a disembodied spirit in some immaterial heaven. No. That there will be a resurrection of the dead means that Jesus redeemed us as whole persons, and this includes the redemption of our bodies. It means that Christ’s work of redemption will not be complete until our bodies are entirely free from the effects of the Fall and brought to the state of perfection for which God created them which will only occur when Christ returns and raises our bodies from the dead. But as for now, the apostle Paul writes in Romans 8 that we wait for “the redemption of our bodies,” and then adds, “for in this hope we were saved” (vv. 23-24).

The resurrection of the dead is also called the “glorification of the saints”, because on that day our bodies – reunited with our souls – will fully share God’s glory, and the bodies of all believers will be changed into perfect, eternal, resurrection-bodies like Jesus’ Own perfect, eternal, resurrection-body. For those who have died by that time, the remains of their bodies will be taken by God and transformed into resurrection-bodies. For those who remain alive at that time, God will transform their living bodies into imperishable, resurrection-bodies. It will be a great day because on that day the last enemy, death, will be destroyed! When our bodies are raised from the dead we will experience complete victory over the death that came as a result of the fall of Adam and Eve. Then our redemption will be complete.

These perfect, eternal, imperishable, resurrection-bodies that are God’s gift to His children never grow old or weak and will never die again. These new bodies will not be subject to any kind of sickness or disease, but will be completely strong and healthy forever, having the characteristics of youthful but mature manhood or womanhood. Our resurrection bodies will show the fulfillment of God’s perfect wisdom in creating us as human beings who are the highlight of His creation and the appropriate bearers of His likeness and image. In these resurrection bodies we will clearly see humanity as God intended humanity to be!

For those who would argue that the resurrection of the dead is merely a Christian, New Testament teaching, Job says: “But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see Him with my own eyes.” (Job 19:25-27). The prophet Isaiah writes, But those who die in the Lord will live; their bodies will rise again! Those who sleep in the earth will rise up and sing for joy!” (Isaiah 26:19) Likewise, Daniel has a very explicit prophecy saying that “many of those whose bodies lie dead and buried will rise up, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting disgrace.” (Daniel 12:2).

Some enemies of the resurrection will quote 1 Corinthians 15:44 where the apostle Paul writes that the bodies of believers “are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies.” Except that when Paul uses the word “spiritual” (in Greek, pneumatikos) he never means it to mean “nonphysical”. When Paul speaks about “spiritual” things he speaking of things being “consistent with the character and activity of the Holy Spirit”. So when Paul writes about our bodies being pneumatikos he is not speaking of non-corporeal bodies, but is saying that our physical body will be raised to the degree of perfection for which God originally intended them.

Of course, the Lord Jesus is our model in all things. Just so, our resurrection-bodies will be just like His resurrection-body that is witnessed to in the Scriptures: He was able to be touched; He was able to eat and cook breakfast; His voice was audibly heard; and yet He could appear and disappear at will; He could make His body defy gravity in order to, well, basically fly (as we might call it when He was lifted up and up and up and through the clouds into Heaven); and He was not always readily recognizable in every situation.

That the Lord was not always recognizable to His followers after He was raised from the dead has always been a bit confusing to me, and yet the reality of such a resurrected body addresses such confusion. That is, although the Lord Jesus was only in His early thirties at the time of His earthly ministry, during those few years the Lord had no doubt aged considerably being “a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”, as Isaiah says He was (53:3). But after His resurrection, the Lord would have been restored to full and perfect strength and youthfulness of appearance. So, just as we sometimes do not immediately recognize a friend who has aged considerably since the last time we saw him or her, so the disciples may have had initial difficulty in recognizing the Lord Jesus because the opposite of aging had occurred! The Lord Jesus likely would have looked younger than He had only days before!

Maybe today you are thinking about a parent or a grandparent, or maybe you are thinking about a child or a grandchild, or maybe even a special neighbor or friend who has died and gone to be with Christ. Take a minute and think about what they might look like on the day of resurrection? … What will it be like meeting that person and becoming acquainted again? … How might your relationship be different from what it was in this life? …