Tough Questions: Part 3

Tough Questions: Part 3 - Why Didn’t God Answer My Prayer?

John 14:13-14, Mark 11:24-25, Matt. 5:23-24, 1 Peter 3:7

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Sermon Transcript

We are continuing in our series, Tough Questions. And so far, it's been tough question after tough question. And I'm really enjoying it because we say this every week. But these are questions that I really do think we have all wrestled with, struggled with. Maybe still we have this question lingering in the back of our minds. And so I love that we are creating time in our service, in our church life, to cover these things together. And so I want to ask you this morning a tough question. Have you ever felt like you have had a prayer go unanswered? Have you ever felt like in your life, however long you've been walking with Jesus, and however long you've been talking with him, have you ever felt like you've had a prayer go unanswered? This part of our faith can be confusing at times. Praying and not getting an answer. It can be a place of doubt, of insecurity. It can be confusing because we read in the Bible stories where God answers prayer. We read stories like Joshua in Joshua 10, who's battling the enemies that God has called him to battle, and it's not going well, but Joshua knows, hey, if I just get a little bit more daytime, I can finish this battle. And so God, he prays to God, and God holds the sun still for hours, letting them continue to battle so that they can get the victory. And we read that. We're like, okay, God, you do miraculous things. You have done insane. You've answered prayer in amazing ways. And then we pray for good weather on a trip, and it just rains the whole time. We're like, all right, God, you did it then.

How come you didn't do it for me? We read stories like 1 Kings 18, where Elijah prays to God and asks for fire to come down to an altar that he's built when he's going up against the false prophets of Baal. And their altar, nothing happens, but God sends fire down. And he answers this prayer, again, in amazing ways. And so we know that God does that. But when we pray, maybe for finances and a promotion, because we're struggling with paying our bills, nothing comes. The promotion doesn't happen. and month after month, bills are starting to pile up. Or maybe we pray for that friend of ours and their marriage because we know it's a bit rocky. And we're praying for them. We're praying, God, can you keep them together? But in the end, they actually get divorced, and it's very sad. And we're like, God, how come you didn't answer that prayer? We read stories in the Bible like Daniel facing the lion's den and being thrown into the pit with lions, starving lions, who would have devoured anything, but by a miracle in Daniel's prayer, he survives, he spends a whole night in there without being touched by any of the lions. So we know that God answers that. There's power in praying. But when we pray, maybe for someone that we know, for healing, for a miracle, the cancer is still there and takes that person away from us. The medical intervention wasn't enough. And we're left wondering, God, why didn't you answer my prayer? Why didn't God answer my prayer?

That's our tough question this morning. We know, again, that prayer is an important part of our relationship with God. We know that prayer is powerful, but it can also be confusing at times. Maybe you've prayed out. Maybe you've been praying for days, weeks, years, the same prayer request over and over to God. I think we've all been in that situation. And I find it comforting to know that I'm not alone in feeling that. I find it even more comforting to know that the very one who God called a man after my own heart, David, felt similar things. David was a king in the Old Testament, wrote some very important scripture. And so if you want to turn in your Bibles to Psalm 13, we're going to be there this morning. We had our family movie night last month, and we watched the movie, David. and I loved, I hadn't seen it before. I love the tension. It's an animated movie. I recommend it to all of you. It's great. But there's some tension when David is anointed king by Samuel, but Saul is still king. And so David knows, okay, God wants me to be king, but I'm not the king yet. And he, David goes and serves Saul. And so there's this tension there. And Saul knows that David is favored by God and Saul becomes paranoid. Doesn't like that there's this king. He can tell from God has moved from him to David, and David has to run from Saul because Saul wants to kill David. And there's a time in David's life where he's running for his life, Saul and his army out to kill him. And there's a point where David is hiding in a cave, desperate, alone, frustrated, trying to make sense of everything that's happening. Because what is happening doesn't seem to line up with what God told him. And in that pain and isolation, maybe fighting a sense of betrayal, David writes. He writes Psalms. And I love that through his words, he's able to articulate so many of the feelings that we still have today when it comes to our desires and what God has in store.

So let's go ahead and read Psalm 13. It says this, “How long, Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart. How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me, God. Answer, Lord, my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death. And my enemy will say, I have overcome him, and my foes will rejoice when I fall.” We'll pause right there. Maybe you've prayed something similar to God in your time. Verses one and two, David prays over and over again, how long, oh Lord? Nowhere in the Old Testament is this question asked with such emotion and urgency than right here. Repetition is huge in the Old Testament. So when you see things repeated, it's trying, the author's trying to say, hey, I'm getting your attention right now. This is important. And David asked four times in a row. How long? How long? You can almost read it with the energy and the more frustration that he's getting along the way. How long, God? And then in verses three through four, David is begging God to answer him, asking for deliverance from death, from his enemies, asking God to do anything. I brought this, I brought us to this passage this morning, and it doesn't answer our question yet, but I think it gives validation and credit to our feelings that we may have at times in life when we're praying over and over again, and we feel like God hasn't answered us. And if you felt that, again, you are not alone. I think many of us in this room have felt that, and David has felt that. All right, this is the part of our series where we're creating and allowing space to ask hard questions, to voice our doubts and struggles. There's that misnomer that if you have faith, you cannot ask questions or feel any frustration towards God. Well, this psalm shows that you can, and it's good to let God know how you feel. And as Pastor Lauren and Pastor Chris have said, our doubts and struggles can actually draw us closer to God. And for David, it did. It brought him closer to God in his darkest, most challenging moments. So again, I'll say prayer is powerful, and it can also be confusing. We know that it's powerful because Jesus says in John 14:13-14, says, “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” So from Jesus, pretty straightforward. He's saying, hey, just ask me, and I will answer you. I will do it. so what happens when we ask God and what we prayed for doesn't happen what's going on is is God not listening. Is God mad at me? Does God not care? Is He busy somewhere? Else why didn't god answer my prayer?

Well in order to answer that question we need to understand two things. First is the nature of God and then is the purpose of prayer in regards to the nature of God. Let me take a moment to just give a gentle but firm reminder to all of us in the room. You guys ready for this reminder? You are not the main character of the story. Some of us need to hear it. Some of us know that, but some of us need to hear it. You are not the main character of the story. That would be God. And God doesn't exist to serve us. We exist to serve him. We have to understand that as we pray and that affects our prayers, the nature of God. God doesn't exist to serve us. We exist to serve him. And so with that understanding of the nature of God, then comes the purpose of prayer. And Pastor Craig Groeschel puts it this way. And I completely, I just love how he says it. So I'll just quote it. It says, “The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer is to know God so that we can do his will.” I'll read that again. “The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer is to know God so that we can do His will.” God isn't a spiritual Santa Claus. If we're just a good boy or a good girl, and then at the end we'll just get what we want. And he's going to check the list and be like, oh, you've been good enough. I'll answer your prayers. Oh, but you swore a couple times and you lied, so nope, not answering your prayers. Not how it works. Not how Jesus, it's not how he does things. He isn't a drive-through either. We can just go through life and pull up and say, hey, I'd like this, this, and this. And then we drive through and God gives us what we want and we just go on with our lives. Not how God works. God is not a button to be pushed. He's a relationship to be pursued.

The purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer is to know God so we can do his will. But Pastor Andrei, Jesus says in John, You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it. So why can't I just ask for stuff, maybe good stuff even, and expect God to give me what I want? Well, here's my second reminder, right? So you're not the main character. Love you guys. You're not the main character. Second reminder, it can be dangerous to just pluck a verse out of Scripture and just come to a theological conclusion that that is exactly how it works all the time. We need to use Scripture to understand Scripture. So there's other Scriptures in here that we're going to cover right now that explain a bit of how the relationship with prayer and our relationship with God works. Four possible reasons why God didn't answer my prayer. The first one is maybe you have a broken relationship in life. Maybe you have a broken relationship in life. Mark 11, this is where Jesus is talking to the disciples to have faith in God. He says, if you have enough faith, you can throw a mountain into the sea if you have enough faith. And then he says in chapter 11:24-25, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” And then this part, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” So Jesus seems to be saying that our relationships with other people matter. And this makes sense, right? If you're a parent, you've got kids, and your kids are being mean to each other. They're hitting each other. They're just being terrible to each other, right? And then later that night, they ask you, hey, can I go over to that friend's house? Can I stay up late to watch that movie? Well, you're going to say, no. Look at who you've been today. Look at you. Your sister's mad. They're hurt by you. Your brother, that broken relationship matters, right, into what they want. And so likewise, our relationship with others impacts our relationship with God.

Matthew 5:23-24 says, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar to God, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them. Then come and offer your gift to God.” Again, our relationships with others impact our relationship with God. And God may be wanting you to do something about a relationship that isn't where it should be in life. 1 Peter 3:7 says, "Husbands, in the same way, be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner.” I'll get to that in a second. And as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. Talking about strength there, okay? Just the general, that men are usually stronger than the women. That's a separate sermon, but that's what he's talking about. But the author of 1 Peter is saying, practice love and consideration, else your relationship with God, if it's not good between your spouse, your relationship with God isn't going to be where it should be either. So the first reason that if you're praying and you felt like God hasn't answered your prayer, maybe the first filter to think through is maybe you have a broken relationship in life and God is trying to get your attention, wanting you to restore, to reconcile, to forgive. Secondly, maybe you have the wrong motives.

Matthew 6:5, Jesus is instructing people on how to pray. He says, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full." He's talking about the Pharisees there, and they had this habit of making a scene and a spectacle out of their prayer times. They'd be out in public, they'd say these long, elaborate prayers just so that people would think they're so holy. And she's just saying, look, the motive in praying has got nothing to do with my will and aligning their hearts with what I'm doing. They just want all this attention, that selfishness that they have to be seen in a certain way. Similarly, today, maybe we have prayers that are selfish. We just want God. We treat them like that button, that drive-through. We're like, God, come on, I just need some stuff in life. We can pray, God, I have this business or whatever I'm doing. I pray that you would make me successful. Bring me more of that financial stability. But maybe we're not even tithing. We're not honoring him and have a relationship with him and obeying him in a way that we're called to. We want glory. We want attention. We want money. We're treating God like that, but not pursuing him like the relationship that he wants to have with us. So maybe you've got a broken relationship. Maybe you have wrong motives.

Thirdly, maybe you don't believe that God will do it. Let's take a look at Mark 9. Mark 9 is the story of a father who brings his son to Jesus, and his son has been demon-possessed. And just an absolute tragic story of a boy who's grown up with this demon, and this demon has tried to kill him multiple times by throwing him into fire, throwing him into water. And the father had brought the boy to the disciples. The disciples couldn't cast out the demon. It's a separate question of where their faith was at. But we get this conversation in Mark 9:22. “And Jesus asked the boy's father, how long has he been like this? From childhood, he answered. It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” And note this from Jesus, if you can. Some gentle rebuke right there from Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes. Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, I do believe. Help me overcome my unbelief.” The more I read this this week, the more I related with that father. And not in a good way necessarily, but in a very human way. I think when we read this story, we're quick to go to that end sentence that the Father has. But help me in my unbelief, which is a good prayer. We want to have that. But we forget that first part where he says, if you can, Jesus. Doubting Jesus and who he is. Can Jesus really do it is what he's saying to Jesus. I don't know if you can. If you can. And I'm sure we can relate to this father who's desperate at this point in life, right? Having this boy who's been tormented, but his faith comes into question. And Jesus is redirecting the conversation from the question of his ability to the need for faith, right? And we believe in God, not just because of what he does, but because of who he is. So this line from this dad is real. It's an admittance of lack of faith and a genuine desire for more.

I spent this summer I spent a summer, not this past summer this was many years ago, I spent a summer in the Philippines for missions work and I was brought to this place called Smoky Mountain and it's just outside Manila Manila is the main city there and Smoky Mountain for 50 years was the city's main dump and it's all the trash and it houses 30,000 people that live in this dump and I cannot tell you how, I cannot emphasize enough just how poverty stricken world this place is. And it's called Smoky Mountain because of all the trash that's been dumped there. There's random fires that are just always going off, all the waste and the materials there. And also the main way for those people to make money is to sell charcoal. So they're always burning stuff, bagging it up, trying to sell it. Well, when I was with the church that I was interning for, they took me for a day to take a tour of Smoky Mountain to kind of show the humanitarian work that was being done. And it was shocking. Like it was absolutely shocking the filth that these little kids were just living in, walking around in every day. And this guy took me up to a boy who couldn't walk. And he said, hey, could you pray for him? Could you heal? Maybe God will heal him if you pray for him. And immediately I had doubts. And there's a part of me that's a shame to admit this, but I didn't believe that my prayer was going to make a difference in this boy's life. I prayed, the man translated, nothing happened. Day just continued. Said God bless and just kept on with the tour. I don't know what God's will was in that moment. I don't think it was completely up to me and my faith because I believe that God can do anything. If God wants that boy to be healed and walk again, he'll make that happen, whether with my time there or with someone else. but I do know that I didn't believe I had a huge lack of faith in that moment and I felt guilt even as I was praying I could hear my inner voice saying this isn't going to do anything and when I said amen and I looked up that inner voice also said see see you knew the whole time and it's this mixture of insecurity on my part and self-doubt and but ultimately I was just doubting God. And I did not believe in that moment. I had a serious lack of faith. But like I said, it's not just on me. I don't necessarily mean that faith guarantees answered prayer. If I had just had more faith, God would have healed. I don't know.

But what scripture does tell us is that faith matters in our prayers. Matthew 9:22 is the woman who was bleeding for 12 years and touches the hem of Jesus' garment. And he turns to her and says, your faith has healed you. Luke 7:50 is the immoral woman. And Jesus says, your faith has saved you. And there's an interaction with two blind men. And Jesus said, do you believe? And they said, yes. And Jesus says, according to your faith, let it be done to you. And their sight was restored. It's in Matthew 9. So your faith matters. I'm not talking about the prosperity gospel here where you name it and claim it. This isn't saying that however much faith you have equals how much you're going to be healed or how much your prayers are answered. It's not some kind of equation that I can give you. But what I can say is that your faith matters when you pray. We need to believe that God can do what we're asking him to do. And we can even expect God, please do this. I would love for you to do this. Understanding that if it's his will, he'll do it. But we can't determine what God's will is for him. And this is key. If he does it, if he answers our prayers, we worship him. And we say, God, thank you. You deserve all the praise. That was all you. And if he doesn't answer our prayer, we worship him. We say, God, you are good. And I love you. And I need you. so this is a reminder for us to look in our hearts and to ask do we actually believe that god can do what we're asking him to do now you may be sitting there and saying okay my relationships are good my motives are right and i have faith god still hasn't answered my prayer for the fourth is this maybe god has something different this is kind of a catch-all right this is everything else that we put into this category of God's timing, God's will, how he's going to answer our prayer.

Maybe he's saying, no, all of that can just fall under this. Maybe God has something different. 1 John 5 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.” Maybe he has something different for us. Maybe his plans and the way in which he'll meet our needs is just different than how we drew it up in our minds. And it's that line, according to his will. Either way, whether it's how we did it or maybe it's a different way that he's addressing it, we can be assured of his involvement in our lives, that he hears us. He hears our prayers. Paul knew this and lived according to this. So Apostle Paul, he writes, references a couple times in his epistles, a thorn in my side, a thorn in my flesh, this thing that bothered him over and over again in life that he asked God to remove. He said, God, can you just take this away? Some theologians have guessed at what that was. Maybe it was an eye problem. Maybe you couldn't see really well. Some have said it was malaria or migraines, epilepsy, speech disability. He said that he was not the smoothest order. Or maybe it was just another person in life that was a situation that was toxic. He says he pleaded with God for three seasons, three times. He preached the gospel for 30 years in major cities around the Mediterranean. He was shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, imprisoned. He wrote a third of the New Testament. And he prayed three different times, God, can you take this away from me? And I don't think it was just like there was a Tuesday back in that year that I prayed once and then two years later. I think it was like seasons of prayer of something on his heart, and he's just over and over again laying it before God, and then maybe coming to a place of contentment, and then another season of his life, he's like, no, God, please, can you take this away? And Paul, God doesn't take it away. But Paul realized that God's grace is sufficient, and God's power is perfect in our moments of weakness. That's what he says in response to God not answering his prayer. So we pray God help us get that house. Help me get that job. Help me find a partner for life and when they don't happen it may feel like we're not getting what we want. But over time I think we often see that God actually just had something different in store. And we can praise God for that we can thank him maybe it's a relationship that you were really wanting it to work out. But over the years you're thankful it didn't because maybe it led to you meeting your spouse. And you're like you know what God I did pray for that a long time ago thank God you did not answer that prayer. Now I found the person i'm supposed to be with and it's wonderful. Maybe it's a job and you're like God I really want this job and you don't get the job. And you get a different job and come to find out that job would have sucked and it was like God, thank you for sparing me something I thought i wanted. But you knew better. Maybe God's got something different and you just have to trust him and ask for a holy patience in the waiting.

Now sometimes this leads to us asking, why why bother praying if God's got his own plans? Why why pray why do I need to pray at all? Well let me remind you again the purpose of prayer isn't to get God to do our will. The purpose of prayer so we know God so we can doHis will. I want to come back to that Psalm of David if you're still in psalm 13. If not it'll be on the screen. This is how David right he said how long he's pleading with God. He's got all that frustration and then verses five and six. “But I trust in your unfailing love my heart rejoices in your salvation I will sing the Lord's praise for He has been good to me.” I love that! I love David's heart that he can have both emotions, right? He's holding this frustration and this, God, why aren't you doing anything? And the next verse says, but I trust you, God. I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. He hasn't been saved yet. He's still asking God, but he knows that God will do it. In whatever way, in whatever timing, David knows that God will answer that prayer. No matter what happens, we should be able to pray and praise God. You are good and you are deserving of my praise.

Another prayer that teaches us this is the Lord's Prayer. This is how I want to close this morning as the band comes up. I just want to cover, maybe you are familiar with the Lord's Prayer. Maybe it's been a while since you've prayed it. And I think we have it on the screen. And this is it. It says, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. That's just like holy be your, all the reverence to you, God. And this is the line. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That is our prayer. That's the whole idea of us getting on board with God's will. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven is a place where God's will is carried out perfectly, where God is acknowledged as God by everyone, where he has completely His sovereign will is being carried out. And that's what Jesus is saying. We're praying that that would happen here on earth. And we are a part of that happening. So God, help me understand your will. And help me to carry out your will here on earth. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

If you guys have a program, I want you to pull it out right now. And there's a part on there. There's an action step that says, I'm committing to praying the Lord's Prayer every day this week. And I'd love for you to join me, and I'm going to pray that every day this week. I'm going to do it. You guys are welcome to join me. Because if you're struggling with this question, if you're wondering, God, God hasn't answered my prayer, I think instead of leaning away from God, I think it's time to lean into him. And to pray just as he taught us, to ask those questions, to run through those filters. Maybe, God, is there a relationship that's broken? God, are my motives in the right spot? God, do I have faith? Is there something else? Are you going to do something else? And in the midst of it, to trust God in the waiting. So if you would mark that and drop it in the bucket, we would love to know if you're praying that with us and connect with you this week, if you're going to pray the Lord's Prayer every week.

Tough Questions: Part 2

Tough Questions: Part 2 - A Voice From Hell

Luke 16:19-31; 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Romans 5:8-9; 2 Peter 3:9

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, there's an unwritten rule in churches that if you want your church to be happy, to enjoy Sunday, to come back, and to be with us next week, you don't talk about hell, you don't talk about politics, and you don't talk about money. Well, some good news for you this morning. We're going to save politics and money for another Sunday, but we're going to be talking about hell today. Whoo. Sorry, I got some bad news. There is, I would say, kind of a cultural awkwardness around hell, especially this word. Growing up, I wasn't allowed to say that word. I would get in trouble, the old soap in the mouth kind of a thing. I was raised a little old school, but I wasn't allowed to say the word hell, so we replaced it with H-E, double hockey sticks. Anybody else? Yeah? H-E, double hockey sticks. And maybe to date me a little bit, we had physical calculators in school. And if you wanted to, you could type out 7734, flip the calculator upside down, and it would say, hell. We thought we were so cool as kids. Look at that. There were also other words you could type out with numbers and flip it upside down, but we'll save that for another sermon. The word hell gets thrown around a lot today, right? There's some common casual uses of this word. One might be something you could probably say to something. It'd be one of the meanest things to say to them, but you could tell them, you, you could go to hell. Maybe you would hear our society and world to say, ah, this world's just going to hell in a hand-basket, right? Or maybe you're out here driving on 65 or 80. You're trying to go through the past the malls, the worst traffic in Northern California right there. And you get cut off and then you do the WTH finger hands. You're like, what's going on, man? Why are you doing that? Or maybe if you've ever spent any time in the South, you might've heard from time to time, “Ah hell no!”

It's easy to laugh about hell because the topic is weighty it's complicated it's scary and as a child growing up i grew up in the church and uh i had a little bit of a fear of hell i don't remember the church really talking about hell on the regular but i knew it was a bad place It was for bad people. It was hot and I did not want to go there. Absolutely not. And this would come up from time to time when I might have an anxious prayer of God, please don't send me to hell. Please. And it would come up quite often as I would get in trouble. Shocker, I'd get in trouble as a kid, okay? I would pray, God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. Please don't send me to hell. And we're in a series today called Tough Questions. Pastor Lauren kicked us off last week. And we're going to wrestle with some of these questions today, and one specifically around hell. And I want to give you some scripture and kind of some understanding to help us kind of unpack this topic a little bit. But the big question comes up, and I get asked this a lot as a pastor, and maybe you do as a believer or a Christ follower, that why would a loving God send people to hell? Why would a loving God send people to hell? Because there's some tension here, right? We talk about how God is great, how he's loving. We sing about that this morning. Won't forget all your mercies and your love. Your love is unfailing. Lord, I'm grateful. You're amazing. So we see that, and yet hell involves an eternal fire, this weeping and gnashing of teeth, and it gets stuck because it's like, I hear that, but then we talk about loving. There's just one of these things is not like the other, right? These aren't lining up.

And so I want to talk and kind of address hell today, if that's okay with you guys. Hell is indeed a real place. But if I wasn't sure if hell was a real place, and maybe if I was the devil himself, wow, that sounded really strange there. But if I was the devil and hell is a place, I would try to convince people of this. This would be my strategy. I would try to convince people that hell is not real and doesn't need to be taken seriously. Because if I ended up being successful in that, we could live and you have the mindset that I can live however I want. I can justify all my sin. I can reject Christ with no fear of God. I can live a self-centered life. I can crave comfort. I can reject sacrifice. I can avoid persecution. And I can love this temporary world. sadly this kind of describes culture to a bit right so we're going to talk about hell today and hell is actually a subject that is as very profound and found all throughout scripture and in fact it's interesting that Jesus was the one who who talked the most about hell than anybody else and it's surprising because when we see the life of Jesus we see how loving and caring and compassionate of a person he was. And so a thought for you, I want a key insight, is that when Jesus talked about hell, he never used it as a scare tactic to frighten unbelievers into heaven. If you look at the scripture, what he actually does is he uses hell to motivate believers or the spiritual people of that day to live more holy and obedient lives. I want you to hear anything about hell this morning. This is what I want you to hear, okay? Listen to me right here. Jesus doesn't want anybody to go to hell. He doesn't. Jesus deeply, deeply, deeply does not want anybody to go to hell. And Jesus even has a radical teaching on hell. We read in Matthew chapter five, it says, Jesus says this, if your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. Oh, you say, what? It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. This is an extreme metaphor, guys, okay? Like, could you imagine us following this? Like next week we show up and everybody's wearing an eye patch. Like, oh, you too? Yeah, me too? Okay, cool. Stop the page. Like, this is crazy. But that's how much he doesn't want people to go to hell. Jesus said, get rid of part of your body. Jesus here, he's actually talking about lust of the eyes. He's like, if your eyes are stumbling, Just get rid of it so that you can't even see, so you don't even struggle with that. He wants to remove anything in your life that keeps you from serving God. That's his heart. He wants people to avoid hell at all costs.

Jesus uses a very particular word here for hell in the Greek, or Aramaic when he was speaking to the people, here in this chapter in Matthew chapter 5. he reversed to the word meaning Gehenna. And this is actually an actual place. It's actually the valley of, let me get this right, Ben Hinnom. And it's in the southwest region of Jerusalem. We got a picture I want to show us. And this place has an incredibly dark history. This place was actually a place that began to have its origination centuries before Jesus. So this is a new thing Jesus is talking. He's talking centuries earlier. And what happened in this place is that the evil king Ahaz, sacrificed children to a false god, Molech, by burning them in this place. Can you imagine? We read this in Jeremiah 7:31. They said, “They have built the high places of Topheth in the valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in fire.” You can't believe this. Today, this is actually still a real place and you won't find any homes or businesses or anything in this valley because it is believed to be solely cursed. a place to be completely avoided at all costs, a place cut off from God. Later in life, they had to find a place to put their garbage, and so they chose this location. And they began to fill this valley with their garbage, their human waste, dead animals, sewage, even bodies of executed criminals. And it had a horrendous smell, as you could probably imagine. And there was a smoldering fire in this place that never ceased to burn. A place that gained the nickname, "The land of no more.” No more beauty, no more laughter, peace, friendship, joy, hope, chances. And Jesus' picture of hell here, not just as a basement dungeon in heaven where the bad people go, but a place completely cut off from everything good, cut off from God's presence. And this is our core definition today. So what is heaven? Heaven is defined as the presence of God. And so in turn, hell is defined as the absence of the presence of God. It's a horrible place. the land of no more. So why hell? Why would God even begin to create a place like this? Why does hell exist? Something we have to wrestle with.

And I think there's two reasons, the first of which I think you guys will be on board with, and that is that hell exists for God to righteously punish Satan. Hell exists for God to righteously punish Satan. Satan is the embodiment of all that is evil. Not just a harmless cartoon we might think about, right? Red suit, pitchfork, something that would be very, very not so harsh, right? Maybe we see cartoons or something funny with it. But that's not the reality. The reality is that behind every addiction is Satan. Behind every abuse is Satan. Behind every fear is Satan. Behind pain and shame is the evil one himself. He has titles he used in scripture all throughout the Bible of destroyer, deceiver, dark angel, accuser, tempter, wicked one, thief, father of lies. And his mission is simply this. To steal, to kill, and to destroy. That's all he's about. To steal, to kill, and to destroy. to steal your faith, to kill your joy, to destroy your health or your finances, to steal your marriage, to kill your friendships. This is the father of lies. And hell is a place to punish the embodiment of that evil. It says this in Revelation 20:10, “And the devil who deceived them was thrown in the lake of burning sulfur where the beast and the false prophets had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” In the end, Revelation tells us the end, that Satan is defeated and thrown into this place forever and is tormented day and night. And this punishment sounds just and fair, right? As you would probably agree that this is where the devil should go. For everything that he has done since the beginning of time, this is fair.

The other one is a little bit harder to walk through and this next verse i want to share with you is is really hard because it's really not what we like we don't want to hear this and especially in our culture today we don't like about it when someone talks about something called sin i don't want to talk about it but this word sin is actually a greek word “hamartia” which means missing the mark. It's actually an archery term. That means that you do not get a bullseye. Anything outside of a bullseye is not God's will. It's not God's best. And doing something that is not God's will, his best plan, wrong in the eyes of him, is sin. And our culture doesn't like that word. Culture prefers to have maybe a view of God that would kind of turn a blind eye to something, right? Be like, okay, I know you're doing that, but I just don't, just don't let me see it. As long as you're not hurting anybody, like, that's fine. Or a view of God that was just like, hey, I saw that. Wink, wink. Hey, don't do that again. Don't do it. But as long as we're not hurting anybody, right? Sin's not that big of a deal, right? It's okay. You do you. You do you. I'm going to do me. We'll not talk about it. Just let it be. But the truth of the matter is that Scripture says that there is a standard to life. And that's holiness. And when we don't hit the mark, it's called sin. The truth is God is a holy, perfect God. Therefore, he must be just. and wickedness and evil must be punished. And you feel and understand this when someone does something wrong to you. You think and say, that needs to be punished. There should be a consequence for their action. And you agree with this.

And so for reason one, hell exists for God to righteously punish Satan, but hell also exists for God to righteously punish evil. And for those who have sinned without Christ, this is the destiny. Paul tells us this very clear, but there is hope in the gospel, okay? Don't go downer on me, just stay with me here. It says this, 2 Thessalonians chapter one, says, “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut up from the presence of the Lord and from the glories of his might.” So what is hell? Hell is being shut out from the presence of God and his glory. Man, Chris, that sounds harsh. Yeah. It is. It's painful. It's not fun. I don't like to talk about this. You know me. I've never preached a sermon on hell. This is the first time in my ministry career I've ever preached a sermon directly on hell. I don't like to talk about it. There's no joy in it. But if we don't accept the reality of hell, we will never appreciate the depth of God's goodness and grace. Because he is good. God is good.

I want to tell you guys a story. Jesus told this story first. and it's about two guys. And this is the title of today. If you're taking notes, I think it's on your program. But the title is of the story is A Voice from Hell. And Jesus says this in Luke chapter 16. He says, “There is a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every single day.” So here's character number one in the story. This rich man. This rich man, based upon this description we just had in this short verse, was most likely royalty. He was the rich of the rich. And how do we know that? We know that when he says he was dressed in purple. Purple was the most expensive dye in the first century. And only the richest of the richest of the richest could even afford to purchase the dye to have their clothes stained that color. And when they would walk around, you would immediately recognize, that guy's loaded. But you would also know and see that it talks about he was dressed in fine linen. Linen was the creme de la creme of fabric in that time. And that it was said that a single outfit of linen would equal the wages to feed a person for an entire year. So not only is this guy rich, he's wearing the linen, He's also loaded because he stained it purple and he's living in luxury every single day. This is how rich this dude was. We're probably talking equivalent billions dollars equivalent, okay? Jesus continues on, verse 20. “At his gate, the rich man's gate, there was a beggar named Lazarus.” Now this isn't the same Lazarus that Jesus raised from the dead. He's a different bro, but Lazarus. "He was covered in sores, longing to eat from what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.”

Here's character number two, Lazarus. Poor dude's had a rough life. He's had it handed to him. We don't know the history or the story, the background, or anything more than behind this. But he's just outside just trying to survive. He's just trying to make it, not even day to day, he's just trying to make it hour by hour. The guy's got some sort of disease that's got sores on his body. He's sleeping on the streets. He's outside this beggar's house, just hoping that something would get thrown out to him. And in that culture and time, people would eat with their hands. And so after a meal, their hands would be great, messy and nasty. And so they would take bread and actually clean their hands with the bread. And then they would gather up the bread that had fallen on the table and on the floor. The servants of the house would then just go outside and throw it outside the gate. And the dogs, the ravaging dogs of the city would run around cleaning up that food. And so Lazarus is out front of this rich man's gate trying to compete with dogs for scraps of bread that had been wiped on the rich man's hands. Let's just say Lazarus probably had some better days in life than when he is right here now. He's starving. He's living among the dogs. And the dog's even to a point licking his source.

Jesus continues on, verse 22. “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried.” So both of the bros die. Don't know the context, but they're both dead. Lazarus, the beggar, he's carried by angels to Abraham's side, which we understand as heaven or a place of comfort finally for him. But the rich man, he dies and he goes to Hades. Scripture says this in verse 23. “In Hades, where he was, the rich man was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.” He recognizes the beggar. So he called to him, The rich man goes to Hades. Hades was known as this place of the dead, a place of punishment. And he's in torment. You can read here. He's in agony. And he cries out, hurting, asking for just a little tiny bit of relief. I don't know about you, if you've ever been just thirsty as all get out, a little drip, you might as well have not given me anything. But that's how desperate this rich man is, just for something. And he's begging for a drop of water. He continues on. Jesus, He says, the rich man says this, “Then I beg you, father, the rich man, send Lazarus to my family for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they do not also come to this place of torment.” The rich man is begging Abraham to send Lazarus back to his family, to his brothers, to warn them so they don't end up in the same place as he did. And this is the story. This is what Jesus teaches us.

I see four different kind of thoughts or images I want to pull out from that scripture for us this morning. The first of which is that the rich man was fully conscious and aware. This is scary. He had memory. he remembered the rich man. He remembered his family. He felt pain. He was in agony. He was hurting. And he was full of regrets for his life. Number two, his eternity was irrevocably fixed. It was too late for him. He knew it. There was no more chances, no more do-overs, no more, oh, wow, this is scary, God. Let me try life again. The land of no more. forevermore. Three, he knew his suffering was just. How do we know that, Chris? Well, we knew his suffering was just because he complained about the pain, but never about the injustice. You catch that? He said, this place is horrible. Please help me. But he never said, this is unfair. Send me back. I deserve to be in heaven. He never says that. and finally he begged and pleaded for someone to help his brothers come to know Jesus he begged he pleaded for someone to go tell his brothers about Jesus so that would be saved so that they wouldn't all end up in the same place someone go tell them he's crying out tell them about god's grace his goodness his forgiveness his mercy Jesus doesn't want anybody to suffer like this he doesn't so if i were the deceiver the destroyer the prince of darkness the evil one i would try everything that i could to convince every single person that hell is not that big of a deal don't take it seriously these are fairy tales it's not a real place so that you could then live your life any way that you wanted justify your sinfulness reject christ live a life of no fear live a life ridiculously self-centered reject sacrifice avoid persecution love this world all there is it it's like so many people today but when Jesus talked about hell. It wasn't to scare people to heaven. It was used to motivate people to act like the believers that they are.

And a lot of people will still say, hey, it's not fair that good people go to hell. Pastor Lauren talked about this last week. We need to talk about it again right now, Okay? It's not fair. It's not fair to send good people to hell. Here's the reality. In your purest essence as a person, none of us, including me, are perfectly good. It says in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned.” How many is all? All. “And fall short of the glory of God.” Nah, pastor. Mm-mm, mm-mm. Not falling for your tricks. I know my heart. My heart's good. All right? I'll ask you some questions. A little back and forth interaction, okay?

I want you to raise your hand. I'll be the first person to raise my hand. Have you ever lied? Raise your hand if you've ever lied. I've lied. Okay? I've lied. If you're sitting next to somebody right now who doesn't have their hand up. Uh-huh. Yeah. Hey. Liar, liar. Pants on fire. hang on a telephone wire 7734, upside down okay, okay, okay, okay raise your hand I will raise my hand again first if you have ever stolen anything pastor's stolen before? yes, he has story for another day, it's actually really funny I'll tell you someday, okay I was a kid, I didn't know about it no, no, just kidding, but I still stole, okay okay, so I got one more for you do not raise your hand, okay keep your hand down on this one but uh raise your eyebrows at me okay okay all right have you ever lusted have you ever yeah don't look at the person next to you i'm not starting anything in church right now okay save it for the ride home i'm just kidding okay so we think about that but here's You think, oh, I've never done it. Jesus and his teaching equates, if you have lusted, it's as if you've committed adultery in your heart. Whoa. So, we all are lying, thieving adulterers in the eyes of God. Yikes! Welcome to Spring Valley Church. We're so glad that you're here with us. We want to be a loving, welcoming church with no judgment. We want you to be here encouraged today.

You are not good. So you can't say, why would God send good people to hell? We're not good. It's the reality. We're not. But God is. God is good. God is holy. God is just. And so because of that, he must punish sin. I'll say it again. God is holy and just. He must punish sin. But here's the good news. Good news. You guys held on to good news. I love this. God is not only just, but he is also love. God is love. It's not just what he does. God just doesn't have an action of love. It's actually a character of who he is at his core. It says this in Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” Still sinners. Continue John verse nine, and since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation. For all of us, we are not saved by our own works, our own righteousness. We don't have any. We are saved by the grace of Jesus and the blood of Christ. And that, therefore, there is no condemnation. Guys, this is something to be excited about. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And because of the death of Jesus, he paid the full price for our sins. He satisfied the requirement of God's justice. He displayed his grace. He shows his unquenchable love. That is who Jesus is. That's who Jesus is. He doesn't want anybody to perish or go to hell. Who did Jesus come for? Jesus came for sinners, not the righteous. He came for the sick, not the healthy. He came for to give us and present to us a brokenness to be redeemed from, to be freed from our lies and our lust and our cheating and our envy to bring death to our sins and to give life to our now.

2 Peter talks about this. I love this. This is such a great scripture. 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient. I love that Patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” He's patient Maybe you're here and you're like, I don't know why I'm here I don't know why this God thing, this Jesus He's waiting on you He's drawing you to him You being here this Sunday, this moment right now In that seat, ain't no accident or coincidence He wants you to know this He's drawing you to him He's sending people your way. God is patient, not wanting anybody to perish, but everyone to come to repentance in him.

A loving God doesn't want to send us to hell. In fact, he sent Jesus to save us from hell. This is the mission of Jesus. The enemy mission, kill, steal, destroy, end you, put you down, pull out anything good from your life. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the King of Kings, the Lamb, the Lion, the Judah, the Alpha, Omega, the Beginning and the King of Kings, everything he is, he came to give us life, to give us joy, to give us peace, to give us hope, to give us mercy. This is who Jesus is. This is why he came. And I want you to know everything within me wants you to know him. That's what I want. I want you to know him. He's amazing. And believe it or not, there was a time when I didn't know Jesus. I thought all pastors were born perfect. No. No. there was time in life where I had to choose Jesus. And I would put him on like a mask and I'd wear him around church and I'd go to school and I'd be around friends and I would take the mask off. Depending on where I was, there was a different mask that I was putting on and it was getting exhausting. It was so hard. And the harder I tried to be like God wanted me to be, the worse I got. And it was exhausting. He smacked me across the face one day in his loving grace that he is. He said, Chris, what are you gonna do? bro, you in or you out? And I said, well, I said, I like when I'm in church. I'm around good people. I like that. I don't like this other Chris. I'm hiding it and I'm playing this game and it just, it's exhausting. Jesus came to me in that moment. in my lies and in my hiding and in my sin and my gunk and my in life.

And he loved me. And he loves you just the way you are. There's no prerequisite. We just read a scripture that said, while we were still sinners, he died for us. He's already paid it. He has life for you. so so Jesus coming and dying on the cross is way more than just for us to avoid hell Jesus dying on the cross isn't fire insurance it isn't a get out of jail free card he wants to give us an eternal life he wants to give us abundant life now here in this moment to bring the presence of God into your life. He wants you to experience that, to give you a peace that scripture says passes all understanding, that people around you aren't gonna know. Like, what? That doesn't make any sense. You're like, yeah, I know. Doesn't either for me. A grace that covers our repeated failing and screw-ups time and time again in our sin. Because those are who in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation, friends. There's none. There's no levels to heaven. While you lived a Christian for these many years, you get this mansion. But, oh, you're a latecomer? you got the apartment down around the corner on the bottom floor oh you accepted him on your deathbed yeah you're a four-story walk-up no love what it says that Jesus tells the story of of of a farmer who hires people throughout the day to work and some show up at sunrise and work all day some show up at noon some show up in the afternoon and some show up just at the and help the guys put the bushels into the cart. You know what? Every single one of them was paid a full days wage. You know, the ones who had the most stink about it were the ones that were there at dawn. And Jesus is like, that's just how my love works.

So when you start taking heaven, the presence of God, and hell, the absence of God seriously, it changes how we live our lives today. You no longer live for the temporary world. You live for God in heaven forever. You live for his glory because the devil wants to take everything from you, to kill, to destroy, to steal, everything in your life. But Jesus wants to give you not just your life back, but an abundant life. That is greater than anything we could dream or imagine. But it takes a full surrender. It takes full trust for Jesus to come in and bring the freedom and to remove the worry about eternity. And he strengthens us up for this life. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Father, we thank you for your word. God, as we come before you right now in prayer, God, I thank you for this sermon. That is a hard thing to pray. God, but I thank you for the opportunity today for us to be reminded, or maybe here for the first time, about a God who loves us. Not a God that we think we know that would send good people to hell, God, but a good God who sent Jesus to save us from hell.

And so God, right now, I don't wanna be scaring people. I mean, this is the reality of where we're at, but I think I would be remiss, God, if I didn't give an opportunity for people to choose you and say yes to you for the very first time today, Jesus. And so God, as you stir hearts, as you pull people to you, as you draw people to you right now in this moment, maybe you would say, yeah, Chris, you know, I want this Jesus. I want this life. I want this hope. I want this grace, this joy. I need this. You said something about a peace. That doesn't make any sense. God, I need some peace in my life right now. And so maybe for the first time, you would say, yeah, Chris, I want Jesus for the very first time. I want him in my life. If that's you, just look up at me. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Jesus. And so I would encourage you, I'm going to put a prayer on screen. It's really simple. There's nothing magic about this prayer. It's just a prayer that reminds us of who Jesus is and you calling out to him for forgiveness and safety and life. And so if you would, if you're one, they want to pray that prayer, I'm going to read it out loud. You just pray it in your heart and accept Jesus and accept this grace and this mercy today. It says, it says, Father in heaven, I know that I've lived for myself instead of you. I've sinned against you. But I believe that Jesus died for my sin. So I confess my sin and I ask you to forgive me. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Help me to live from this day forward. In Jesus' name.

As we continue to pray, God, I want to also think of those who have maybe made this decision sometime in their life ago. Maybe it was recent, maybe it was a long time ago, but you've been wrestling with some stuff. Maybe God's been calling you out throughout the sermon or recently of some things in your life that just aren't the way that God wants them to be. You're missing the mark in life. You're sinning. And so I just want to give the opportunity, I'd love this week to intentionally pray for you. And so if that's you, if you would say, hey, pastor, I just need some prayer. I'm fighting some stuff right now. I know I'm not going to hell. I have Jesus, but this life right now, it's just a fight. If that's you, just look up at me. I want to be praying for you this week. Thank you. I need your prayers. I'm fighting. I'm going through it. So Jesus, I thank you for this day. God, I thank you for hard sermons to preach through. But God, I see these as necessary. And so do you. You didn't shy away from this topic of hell when you were here on earth teaching and healing and drawing people to you without ultimately the reason you came, Jesus. And so God, we thank you for this day. We thank you for another Sunday to worship you, to give you praise and glory. And everybody said, Amen.

Tough Questions: Part 1

Tough Questions: Part 1 - Why Did God Let It Happen?

Psalm 73:11-26; Philippians 2:6-8; Deuteronomy 38:8; JOHN 3:16

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Welcome. Happy to be worshiping with you all this morning. I'm excited. We are kicking off a new series, as Pastor Andre said, tough questions, honest answers. And we are going to hit some pretty tough questions. I know the questions that are coming, and I know what we're talking about today, and we're going to hit some hard ones. But I'm excited for it because I think that dealing with these questions will actually help our faith grow deeper. I think a lot of times we approach these questions with some fear or some worry that maybe we don't know how to answer these questions. We don't know where to get the answers. Maybe we just, ignorance is bliss. We would just rather not know the answer and just kind of go along with life. Maybe we've tried to find answers, and in the past we have talked to leadership in churches or fellow believers and we haven't gotten really good answers. They haven't satisfied the question. Or maybe they haven't, you just knew that something wasn't right. They weren't biblically sound. They weren't theologically sound. Perhaps you even maybe avoided the questions because you're afraid of the answer. Maybe you just aren't really sure that you want to know the answer to this question because it could impact the way you live. It could impact the decisions that you make. It could challenge some of beliefs. And so it's just easier to not address the questions. Maybe you're like me. I was perfectly, just to be honest, I was a little nervous when I saw that we were doing this series. I'm like, wait, we have to answer these questions? Like that's what we're doing? Because I, for those of you that don't know, I'm not great at confrontation. I get nervous. I don't love that. I can think of a really great response in about three to five business days. But in the moment, I'm not great at it. I just, part of it too is I think that I feel like the confrontation is threatening our relationship. And so I get nervous.

And what I realized in preparing for this is that some of these questions feel like they are threatening our faith. That if we are like, well, if I don't have these answers or if I'm not sure what these answers are, If I'm asking these questions and I don't know, then maybe it's threatening my faith. And I'm telling you, it is not. Pastor Chris set us up great last week with our Easter service and talking about doubt and how Thomas doubted and how doubt was not the problem. It's what we do with the doubt. It's taking those questions to Jesus. It's asking him for help. It's being like the father who had the demon-possessed son that said, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. That's what we do with these questions and with this doubt. So some of the questions we're going to hit on, does God love me? Why didn't God answer my prayers? And the one we're going to focus on today is why did God let it happen? There's an old church tradition where I say God is good and you say all the time. And then I say all the time and you say God is good. So we're going to try, okay? Right? God is good all the time. Okay. It was fine. It was all right. But we're going to do it again, okay? God is good all the time. There you go. Much better. All right.

Well, we say this. We say God is good all the time. But do we actually believe it? Do we actually believe that God is good all the time? Or maybe a more specific question is, do we believe God is good to me? I think a lot of us can think God is good. He's good to other people, but he's not always good to me. So the question that we got to look at is, do we believe that God is good? And if he is still good, why does he let bad things happen? Do we believe that he is still good when we lose the job? When a loved one dies? When we have financial stress, relationship issues, children struggling, do we still believe that he's good? What about bigger than that, like nationwide issues or global problems, wars, famine, children starving, political turmoil? Do we still believe that God is good? And is he good? If he is good, why does he allow suffering? Why does he allow bad things to happen? This is an important question that I think we really need to wrestle with. 300 years before Jesus was even born, there was a Greek philosopher named Epicurus, and he was asking some of these questions, and he came to a few conclusions. He said, if God is not able to prevent evil, then he's not all-powerful. If God is not willing to prevent evil, then he's not all good. If God is both willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist? So today we're talking about the problem of evil and suffering, but really it comes down to what we believe about God. The problem of evil and suffering is not new. I mean, Epicurus lived 300 years before Jesus, and we can go even further back, back to the garden. When sin entered the world, the problem of suffering and evil existed. And many have tried to reason with it, figure it out, understand it, reconcile it with who God is. And it's a tough thing to wrap our mind around. But ultimately, it comes down to what we believe about God and his character. See, I think a lot of times we struggle with that. we struggle with God's character and suffering because we think it's contrary. But evil and suffering is not contrary to the story of the Bible. Evil and suffering is actually central to the story. Once sin entered the world, the overarching story of creation or of redemption involves suffering, involves evil. We would have nothing to be redeemed from if there wasn't evil and suffering in the world.

So Christianity, our faith, actually makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and suffering we experience. I'll say that again. Christianity makes sense of, gives meaning to, and offers a solution for the evil and suffering we experience. The Bible doesn't avoid the topic of pain and suffering, so we shouldn't either. It actually addresses it in a variety of ways. We can look at many different examples. You think of Jeremiah, who was known as the weeping prophet. And he cried out to God, questioning why there was so much suffering. But it was because of the unrepentant hearts of the Israelites. You have King David. He was a king. He was loved. He was known as a man after God's own heart. And he wrote many of the Psalms, much of which were prayers crying out to God, asking, why? Where are you? Be my refuge. Be my strength, be my shelter. But why is this happening? We look in the New Testament. We just celebrated Easter that we talked about with Holy Week. Jesus is suffering. He understood suffering. He died for us. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, experienced immense suffering throughout his ministry. Both suffering at the hands of Romans and at the hands of Jewish leaders. but he also talks about a thorn in his flesh that he asked the Lord to take away from him, and the Lord said no. We don't know specifically what that is, but we know it caused him to suffer, and yet these people time and time again, person after person, experience after experience, suffered, and yet they stayed true to who God was. They followed him. They continued to trust him. Why is that? Why were they able to do that? Well, we see another instance of a person who was struggling with these questions.

We're going to be in Psalm 73 today. If you want to go ahead and turn there, it'll be on the screen, so you can look there in your Bible as well. We're going to be talking about Asaph. Asaph was a poet. He was a worship leader in the tabernacle for the Israelites. And he and his sons wrote many of the Psalms, including Psalm 73. In this passage, Asaph is talking about the arrogant, the arrogant people, the wicked people. And he says that he even envied them. Earlier in the passage, he said that he envied them because of their lives, that they could just kind of live however they want, do whatever they want, and yet they didn't have the consequences that he was dealing with. They didn't suffer the way he did. So we're going to pick up in verse 11, Psalm 73, 11. It says, “They, the wicked, say, How would God know? Does the Most High know anything? This is what the wicked are like, always free of care. They go on amassing wealth. Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence. All day long I have been afflicted and every morning brings new punishments.” Our buddy Asaph here is having a little bit of a pity party, but I don't really blame him because we've all been there too. Right? In his defense, we've felt these feelings as well. We've questioned why is this happening? Why does their life seem fine, but all this bad stuff keeps happening to me? Why, God? Why is this happening? Maybe we're even trying to live rightly. We're trying to do what's right, follow the word, go to church, do the right things, and yet bad things still happen. Maybe it's the diagnosis that we weren't expecting. Kids making poor choices. A fight with our spouse, another bill coming through. It just feels like it doesn't stop. But if we're honest, I think many of us are asking, why does God allow bad things to happen to a good person like me? I think we're really, that's what we want to know. And we're going to come back to that question, so hold on to that. But first we have to answer the other question. If God is loving, why would he allow suffering? If we say God is good all the time and we believe that he is loving, he is good, why would he allow suffering? Well, it was out of his love for us that he gave us a choice. He gave us the choice to love him in return or to reject him.

But here's the thing. If love is a choice, suffering is a possibility. We can look at this issue of suffering and evil from a variety of different angles. We can look at it theologically. We can look at it emotionally. But God also gave us a brain. So we're going to look at it logically. Because there is a logical explanation here for this. Logically speaking, the only way to truly love someone is to have the choice to do it. If someone locked you in a basement and said, I will only give you food and water if you love me, what are you going to do? You're going to say I love you. Do you actually love that person? Absolutely not. But you want your food and water. You don't have a choice, so it's not actual love. God wanted a relationship with his creation. He wanted a relationship with his people. And so he had to give us the choice. He didn't want robots. He didn't want a pet rock collection. He wanted people to be in relationship with him. So he gave us the choice. It's called free will. He gave us the free will to choose love, to choose to love him, or to reject him. But in giving us this choice, it made loving God possible, but it also made choosing evil possible as well. so in order to have the freedom to choose we also had to be given the freedom to reject him to choose evil and honestly there are times when we will we will sin we will make poor choices and it will always lead to suffering so if we say we want God to remove all suffering and evil we if we say if you're good you would get rid of it all, well then he would have to remove our choice. He would have to take away our free will. And to be sure, he is powerful enough to do that. We believe he is all powerful, so he could. But he wants a relationship with us and he wants us to be able to choose him, so he's not going to remove that free will from us. Because the only two options to get rid of sin and suffering is to remove our free will or to wipe us out completely. Neither of those options seem great to me. We have the choice to love him, but that just, it comes at the risk of suffering. It comes knowing that we could cause suffering because we have the choice. We also often think that suffering is a lack of God's love. We think, okay, if God is loving, why is there suffering? But we just associate that with a lack of love, that he couldn't possibly be loving if we suffer. But we see this played out daily in our lives.

See, suffering isn't evidence of a lack of love. It actually can be proof of it. It's not evidence that he is not a loving God if we suffer. As parents, we discipline our children, not because we want to cause them suffering, but because we want to correct the behavior. We don't enjoy seeing them hurt or suffering the consequences of their actions. But if we love Jesus and we want to disciple them towards Jesus, we're going to allow those consequences to play out. We're going to help point them to Jesus. We're going to allow that suffering to happen because we love them. A couple of years ago, I got a piece of glass stuck in my foot. And I was very hopeful that it was going to work itself out. It did not. And after a couple months, I finally was able to get surgery scheduled in order to get this glass out of my foot. And about a week before surgery, it actually got infected. And I was very grateful that I had surgery scheduled because it was so painful. I could not walk on it. I couldn't touch it. It was just excruciating pain. And so I go and I go to have my surgery. But the reality of surgery is the doctor has to cut you open. He has to create a wound in order to bring healing. now that might feel a little backwards but that's the only way to go through it you have to suffer a little bit in order for the healing to come well after surgery he came up to me and he said you know I was not very confident I was going to be able to find this piece of glass because it was very tiny he said but the infection had created a pocket around it and I was able to see exactly where the glass was and pull the whole thing out. So my pain, my suffering for that week leading up to surgery where I could not even walk on my foot, I got to see the good of it. I got to see the purpose in that pain, that it actually made my healing more successful.

Now, we don't always have the good and the luxury of getting to see that play out like that, but I had to experience this pain in order to get to the healing. You see this in things like physical therapy. You know, you got to regain your strength and your movement. You see it in setting broken bones. If you don't set a broken bone, it will not heal properly and you will have many more issues down the road. Maybe even things like reprimands at work. Those are never fun, usually pretty awkward, but it helps you push you in the right direction, gets you going where you need to go. Maybe even like going through therapy or counseling, oh, those conversations can hurt. Bringing up old trauma, old wounds. But when we do it, it allows us to process through it to bring healing. All of these things, all of this suffering and pain is actually necessary. And in fact, it would be unloving to not address those issues. It would have been unloving for my surgeon to look at me and say, you know what, I'm to have to cause a wound to get the glass out, so we're just going to leave it there. That would be a bit unloving. It would be unloving as a parent to not correct my children's behavior. Because like a parent or a physical therapist or surgeon, God knows that good can come from our suffering. He loves us enough to allow the suffering to exist and then bring good from it.

Romans 8:28 says, “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” He is so good to use our suffering for our good and for his glory. So we understand why God allows suffering in general, because it has to be allowed if we're going to have free will. But back to our other question. Why do bad things happen to good people? Because that's really what we want to know, right? That's what Asaph was asking. In Psalm 73, we want to know why does God allow good things to happen or bad things to happen to good people like me? The answer here is pretty simple. We're not good. None of us are good.

Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All have sinned. How many is all? How many is all? All of them. Every single one of us. All have sinned. None of us have met the standard. We've all missed the mark. Pastor and theologian R.C. Sproul Jr. said, “Why do bad things happen to good people? That only happened to one person and he volunteered.” Jesus was the only one who lived a perfect life. He was the only good person who didn't deserve to suffer and yet he suffered for us on our behalf. Philippians 2 talks about Jesus' suffering. It says, “Who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”

So not only did Jesus willingly give up the glory of heaven for a time, That was suffering already. But then he came in human likeness and had to put up with all this humanness, more suffering. But then he died the most excruciating, gruesome death on our behalf. If the God of the universe in human form, who was perfect and good, suffered, why do we think we're exempt? He was misunderstood. He was hated, betrayed, beaten, tortured, hung on a cross for us. He suffered. He literally cried out to God, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He gets it. He gets our suffering. But he's the only one who was truly good. So why do bad things happen to good people? They don't. they only happen to broken people. Not since Jesus. They only happen to sinners and broken people like us. So then we go back to our original question. Why does God allow suffering? Unfortunately, there is some mystery to this question. And I can't answer this question for every individual situation. We don't know. We don't always get to know why we suffer specific things or certain circumstances.

But I do know this. God allows suffering, but not because he doesn't love you. John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” He loves you so much he literally sent his son to suffer and die for you. I also know that he doesn't or he allows suffering but not because he's abandoned you Deuteronomy 38 8 the Lord himself goes before you and will be with you he will never leave you nor forsake you do not be afraid do not be discouraged so why was he willing to allow his son to come and suffer why is he able to promise that he will never leave us or forsake us, it's because he knows something better is coming. Even though we suffer here on this earth, he knows that something better is coming. I've heard it said before, I think I've even said it up here, if it's not good, God's not done. If some circumstances your life is not good, God's not done. Now here's the thing, that could just literally mean heaven, that it's not good until we get to heaven. There are going to be times when issues are resolved and things, suffering ends, those seasons end, and there is goodness here and now. But we also know heaven is coming. The Bible says we will suffer. Jesus says it himself. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. We know the end of the story. We know what's coming. There will be a day when those of us who have chosen to use our free will to love Jesus will get to meet him face to face in eternity. That we will be in eternal glory with him. And we get to live with that hope of heaven right now. Revelation 21:4 says, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.”

Something better is coming. No more pain or abuse or trauma or tragedy or addiction. Something better is coming. Unfortunately, we're not there yet. at any given moment we could enter another season of suffering something could happen we don't live in fear because of it but we we just know that that is just part of being human it doesn't seem fair it doesn't seem right we don't always have the luxury of of of hindsight and knowing why they're what the purpose of our pain is or why something happened I still have plenty of questions for the Lord. But we know that in all of it, God is still good.

Back to our friend Asaph in Psalm 73. He struggled through these tough ideas. He asked, am I keeping my heart pure for nothing? Is this all for naught? Am I trying to be good for no reason? Because everybody out there who's just living their own life, doing whatever they want, doesn't seem to be suffering. But then we get to verse 16. When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God. Then I understood their final destiny. Jumping down to verse 25. Whom have I in heaven but you? and earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Asaph didn't understand until he entered the sanctuary of God. When he entered the presence of God, that's when he got clarity. Friends, in the presence of God, there is peace. Even in the midst of our suffering, he was able to understand what truly happens to the wicked god made that clear to him that in the end there will they will have suffering too but more than that he was able to understand who god is that he is his Asaph’s strength he is Asaph’s portion and he is that for us too nothing in this world no amount of good things and no lack of suffering could satisfy us like God can. Nothing can satisfy us like God can. And when we go into his presence, when we seek him, when we read his word, when we pray, we find peace. Even in the middle of our trials, even in the middle of our suffering. Our flesh and our hearts, they will fail. They will because we're human and we often choose the evil thing. We choose sin. We choose the wrong way. We will suffer either at our own hands or the hands of others. But God is our portion. In his presence, there is peace.

I encourage you to memorize verse 26 this week. I'll read it again. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. We actually have a little option on the program on the Connect card to check that you're going to memorize it this week. We'll just all memorize it together because I think it's really important, especially when we're going through suffering, to be able to recall God's faithfulness, to remember how he has been faithful in the past, how he has brought us through our suffering. So if you would memorize this with us this week, check that box and you can drop it in the back with the ushers on your way out so we can pray for you as you're doing that. But when you are experiencing suffering, it allows you to call this scripture to mind in order to walk in that faith. It deepens your faith so that you know that he is with you. He is your portion and your strength, even during your suffering.

So again, these are big questions. The problem of sin and suffering of evil in the world, it's a hard one. But it's not contrary to the Bible or even to God's character. It doesn't count him out. It is central to the Bible and the story of redemption that he has written for us. Our faith in Jesus, our Christianity, it gives meaning to the suffering. It brings purpose to the pain, and it actually offers us a solution as we walk through suffering that we will face. He is a good God who loves us. And so if you are hurting right now, if you are experiencing suffering in some way, physical, mental, emotional, relational, whatever that may look like, Maybe you are just one of us living in a broken world, wondering where God is in all of this. I want you to know this. I need you to know that God is still good and he loves you. He is right there with you and he will never leave you. He understands because he suffered too. And in his presence there is peace. As Christians, we are living in the now and not yet. We have Jesus now. We have been saved. We have been redeemed. We have the hope of eternity, but we're not there yet. Something better is coming.

Let's pray. God, we just thank you for who you are. We thank you that you are good, that you are good on your promises, that despite our suffering, you don't change. You stay the same. We praise you that you are always with us, even in our suffering, in our struggles, in our trials. God, help us to remember how you have been faithful in the past and trust you that you will continue to be faithful going forward. Give us strength when things don't make sense. Help us not to be afraid of these tough questions, but bring them to you, bring them to your word. Seek out answers so that we can grow our roots deeper in you. That we can walk more confidently in our faith and in who you are. We love you, God. We praise you and thank you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Easter Sunday: He is Risen & Alive!

Easter Sunday: He is Risen & Alive!

Matthew 28:16-17; John 20:24-29; Psalm 23:4

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Happy Easter again. How's everybody doing? I'm glad you are here. And I'm excited this morning to be able to share some thoughts on our risen Savior today. And I want to kind of dig us in today to remind us that today we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the cornerstone of our faith, and the ultimate proof that Jesus Christ defeated death. because he rose, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And Christianity does not rise or fall on a set of teachings, but it rises and falls on a single event today, Easter, an empty tomb, and a risen Savior. And it is our heart, it is our desire that you know more about this risen Savior. And I wanna share in a little bit more about what this means for us today. But if you would, I'd like to just quickly pray again. Heavenly Father, God, we thank you for today, a day to celebrate you. And I pray today that we'll be honored by our worship and the preaching of your word. We ask God that because of what you've done to help us in our faith, in your goodness, in your grace, your power, and your love, that you would transform lives through the risen Jesus. We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Well, Easter Sunday is the day that Jesus rose from the dead. And he made, if you guys know, 13 post-resurrection appearances that is recorded in the New Testament before ascending back to heaven. He appeared to the women at the tomb. He appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He appeared to the 10 disciples. He appeared to over 500 brothers and sisters at one time. He appeared to the disciples during a meal. He appeared to disciples while fishing, and he appeared to disciples on a mountain. If you want to know, yes, Jesus is both a beach guy and a mountain guy, okay? He appeared. There are so many accounts of when Jesus appeared post-death on the cross and resurrection that we know that it is true.

But today I wanna focus in on the appearance on Matthew 28 on the mountain of Galilee just before his ascension. See, this post-resurrection Jesus, I think this verse is sometimes often missed. Jesus, so I'll walk you through it. Jesus comes in, we celebrate last Sunday, Palm Sunday. He enters in Jerusalem on a donkey. Why a donkey, not a horse? Well, donkey symbolizes peace and healing and hope. And so Jesus comes in. It's a little bit different than what they thought it would be because the disciples and the people who were following, they thought he was going to overthrow the Roman Empire and become the new Caesar, the new king that would rule on earth. But that wasn't Jesus' plan. He had a much larger plan in store. And so he'd go through the week. And then on last Friday, if you were here with us, we celebrated a Good Friday service. And if you know what a Good Friday service is about, it's the recount and the moments when Jesus goes, He is arrested, and then he is taken before multiple governmental leaders. He is tortured. He is then executed on the cross, a criminal's death. We call it Good Friday, but I tell you, it's not so good if you're Jesus or you were a follower of Jesus that moment. But we know it's good because we know Easter is coming, right? And so Jesus goes in the grave. He dies. He is buried. And the world thought this was it. The world thought that's the end of the story. But we know Jesus is like, uh-uh, I still got more. I still got more I wanna share. I still got more I gotta do. I still got more I have to redeem. And Easter Sunday, when the women, Mary and the other Mary went to the tomb just to check on and see what was going on, they found an empty tomb. They found a stone rolled away and they met an angel, A couple angels, I believe. And it says, why are you here? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? I love that line. Because Mary and Mary, they thought it was over. They were just coming to pay respects to the one that they loved.

But Jesus had another part of the story to tell still. And so then Jesus appears multiple times, like I just said, but he has this one moment when he appears before the disciples on the mountain of Galilee before he ascended into heaven. And I always thought that this ascension moment when Jesus goes into heaven was just like slow motion, epic, like Hans Zimmer movie score, just crescendo of a moment. But what if it was like Iron Man? What if Jesus was just like, peace out guys, and just bolted. And then you get like the camera angle from his head down to earth. like what okay sorry i was just that's random thoughts with Chris in his office prepping a okay right there transition but Jesus is meeting with the disciples and he gives them their divine assignment in this moment and that is to go into all the world and tell everybody about Jesus tell them about the gospel tell them that the Jesus the son of god was sinless who became our sin died on the cross and was raised again. Anybody who believes in him will be forgiven and transformed.

So it says this in Matthew 28, then the 11 disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. They saw Jesus, they worshiped him, but some of them doubted. If you want to take any notes this morning, you want to write something down on that program you got when he came in, you might want to write down today's message, and it's dealing with our doubt. Dealing with our doubt. I've come to see an honest observation about human nature is that it's strangely encouraging when we see other people struggle. And I would add to that, it's strangely encouraging to see when even those who saw the risen Savior Jesus, the disciples, struggled. And seeing that the disciples struggled and still had doubts, I don't know about you, but that makes me feel a little bit better about myself. There have been times in life when I've really struggled. There's times in life when I've had a lot of doubts. Whether it was a tough season of parenting, those hard times in my marriage, difficult moments of leading churches as a pastor. And there have been moments in those times when people have asked me, hey, Chris, how you doing? And I'm honest with people. I won't put the face on. I won't be like, hey, I'm great, fantastic. Everything's great. That's not who I am. I can't be that guy. I'll be honest. And there have been times when I've had surprising responses. They'd ask me how I'm doing. Hey, you know, just really hard season of parenting right now. Well, that makes me feel so good, they said to me. I'm like, what? Yeah, just in a really hard season with the church. Well, you know, that makes me just feel so thankful. What? And it's a funny realization is that sometimes our pain blesses other people because it reminds them that they're not alone. People have even responded to me and were like, I didn't know pastors had bad days. And I'm like, what kind of pastors you've been hanging around? Because I want a little bit of what they got, right? I miss that day in Bible college when they're like, okay, here's your card where you never have a bad day. Do you take that? I miss that day. But there's something profound when we see other people who struggle and who have a hard time in life and have doubts. That's okay. Because I think the reality of doubt is just life.

Reality of doubt is the Christian life. And many of us have experienced these seasons in life where God feels so incredibly close to us. Like almost you can just reach out and you can just touch him, right? What I would call these, I would call these thin moments where we feel like this gap between heaven and earth is just so thin that God is just right there. But the reality is there's other times where we go, hey, God, are you even out there? Are you even there? Can you even hear me? Are you real? Is any of this stuff in this book that we say is supposed to be the book, is any of it true? God, you feel so far away. and doubt can feel so incredibly scary and lonely, especially in the church. And then questions begin to arise. Are we making all this stuff up? What if God isn't gonna show up? And it's sad to see that many people leave the church not because God isn't good, but because they have questions that they don't feel safe asking. So can I ask you a question today? Do you ever battle with doubt? I've been wrestling with this this week, and I kind of took a step back from that question and asked, why do we doubt? Like, where does this come from? Sometimes in life we have questions of the Bible that we can't fully understand. We have situations that just seem unfair. Good people suffering. Bad things happening to innocent people. Global suffering. Wars. Children hurting. And we get to these moments and we begin to think of like, where's God? Where's God in the midst of all of this pain and this hurt? Maybe we have some unresolved pain that Christians maybe we looked up to growing up in life that they let us down. Or maybe where church was supposed to be the safe place, you were wounded in that safe place. Maybe it was with a lack of grace from other Christians. I call this bumper sticker theology. You ever seen those? God said it, I believe it, that settles it. This is black and white with no room for bend. And you know what happens to a stick that won't bend? It breaks. And that same thing happened to those people when there was no room for honest, real, authentic conversation and the church broke them and it breaks my heart. but I think the hopeful truth about doubt is that there's something on the other side that our doubts when handled properly can become a huge catalyst for a stronger faith in Jesus and that doubts don't have to take you away from God but rather doubts can actually draw you to God that when you have your doubts and you're honest about those, that you can become closer to God as you wrestle with those because faith is a journey, not a destination. I want to say that again. I want you guys to get that today, that faith is a journey, not a destination. You will never graduate with a PhD in faith. You never will. You will never arrive at a perfect doubt-free faith life. there is no such thing as a flawless faith 24-7. It just doesn't exist.

If you've ever been a parent, been around a parent, there have been struggles. And parenting, I tell you, the more I go through it, is not for the weak of heart. And there'll come a moment when they begin to ask questions about your faith. don't panic. Okay? Don't panic. But what they're doing is they've watched your faith, consistent or inconsistent, whatever it is, and they're trying to figure out if your faith can be their faith. And I would say that the church and the home should be the safest place in the world to ask the hardest questions. That's where they should go to. Not to Google, not to AI, not to some podcast, some YouTube channel. You should be the place where they can come and be honest, be like, I don't know, let's figure this out together. I have people come ask me theological questions and I'll say, I don't know, but let's figure it out together. We're starting a new series, Pastor Andrei talked about next week, tough questions. Because we got to wrestle with this stuff, right? Because sweeping under the rug just doesn't help anything. We have to wrestle with it. Because faith is a journey, not a destination. The strongest faith is not a faith that doesn't doubt. The strongest faith is the faith that grows through your doubts. Guys, the disciples saw the living, the very much dead, and then the living against Savior, and what? They had doubts. That's okay.

And there's one in particular I want to talk about a little bit this morning that I think gets a bad rap. And then he had the nickname, the Doubting the Disciple. and there's some rough nicknames in the Bible. You guys ever like looked at the nickname? There's some good ones and there's some really bad ones. This one's up there on the really bad side. And I wanna start a campaign today to change the perspective on doubting Thomas. You go on a journey with me? But I wanna be honest here about who Thomas was. He gets a bad rap. He's the one who doubted. And yet that Bible verse says, the disciples doubted. He's not the only one, okay? But I want to dignify doubting Thomas today. We're going to be in John chapter 20. We're going to have it on screens. But I want to introduce you to Thomas. It says, but Thomas was one of the 12, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were telling him, we've seen the Lord, we've seen the Lord, we've seen the Lord. But he said to them, if I don't see the mark of the nails in his hands, put my finger into the mark and put my hand into his side, I will never believe. See, here's the thing with Thomas. He wasn't with them when Jesus appeared. So I don't blame the dude for saying, hey guys, that's great, but I'm not too sure about this. Because the others are telling him, we've seen the Lord, we've seen the Lord, we've seen the Lord. There's actually a Greek term in this, which is mean an active, repeated tense. It's like when you're in the car and the kids, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? The disciples are like, we've seen the Lord, we've seen Lord, we've seen the Lord, we've seen the Lord, we've seen the Lord don't know. And this is why they call him Doubting Thomas, but he's getting a bad rap.

The other's disciples only believed because they had seen Jesus. Thomas is just being honest. He's a realist. Here's why I don't believe that Thomas really deserves the title Doubting Thomas, because when we go back and we see other moments when he is mentioned in Scripture, he's actually really strong in his faith and his courage there was a moment when Jesus was going to back to see his friend Lazarus who had died it'd been 10 four days since he had died and Thomas says hey Jesus let's go it's time to go back that we may die with him it's courage it's not fear there's another time in john 14 when when Jesus said he was going to prepare a place and Thomas goes, hey, Lord, where are you going? We don't know where you're going. How can we know the way to get there? Thomas wasn't doubting. He just wanted to know a couple of details. He just wanted to know the route. He was ready to put it into his GPS to get there, but Jesus hadn't given him the destination yet. He just wanted to know details. Questions don't make you bad. They make you human. questions don't make you bad they make you human. Oswald Chambers has this great quote that said “Doubting is not always a sign that man is wrong it may be a sign that he's thinking”

And so Jesus i i would love to have been where Jesus was when he when because he's almighty he's all present he's everywhere he's he's hearing Thomas talk to the disciples and say Like, he's alive, he's alive, he's alive. And Thomas is like, no, no, not until I touch and until I see him face and I put my hands in. And I bet Jesus was just like, bet. Jesus is like, okay, I see you. I hear you, Thomas. I see you, Thomas. I'm coming. So verse 26 says, “A week later, his disciples were indoors again and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and look at my hands. Reach out your hand, put it in my side. Don't be faithless, but believe.’ And Thomas responded, ‘My Lord and my God.’ Jesus said, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’”

So a week later Thomas shows back up even though he doubts check that a week later Thomas is still hanging around those people still with his doubts but he's showing back up so I'd encourage you today maybe you came to church willingly maybe you didn't but you're showing up okay it's half the battle you're showing up Jesus appeared to him, looked him straight in the eye and said, touch and see. Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand on my side. Stop doubting and believe. Jesus gave Thomas exactly what he asked for. Thomas said three very specific things and Jesus says the exact same things to him. Whoa. What a gift. How amazing. Have you guys ever had a moment where you were praying for something in life and then Jesus shows up and gives you that exact same thing, maybe even more? That blows our minds, right? Thomas's response, what does he say? My Lord, my God. I love it.

Jesus is not a standoff savior. Jesus is not a standoff savior. He is willing to be touched and he meets us in our doubts. And one of the coolest things I think that comes out of this is Thomas's legacy. We don't really talk about what happened to Thomas after this moment very much in the church, But actually Thomas goes on to serve faithfully as one of the first missionaries in the world. He goes and he preaches the gospel in India for about 40 years. And then he is martyred for his death. He is stabbed multiple times in the stomach and dies a painful, painful death. Guys, Thomas doesn't do that without walking through doubt. That Thomas is proof that doubts do not disqualify your faith. And if you've ever been told, maybe in the church before, or maybe by another Christian or something, you can't have any doubt, you have to believe everything, I want to tell you, Jesus says, bring your doubts. Come on, let's go. Jesus wants them. And God is so much bigger than them that your doubt, you might think, is the biggest doubt in the world. God ain't scared of it. He's not afraid. Thomas's martyrdom reminds us that the same risen Jesus who met Thomas in his doubt still needs ours. So here is what I know. here's what I know. I don't know nothing. I don't. I don't know what later today is going to bring or tomorrow or next week or who knows next year. We may be back here a year from now celebrating Easter again. We might not be. Some of you might be celebrating Easter face-to-face with Jesus. That's just the reality. We just don't know. Even the last 30 days has radically changed our world. But here's what I do know. That Jesus' resurrection empowers us to keep walking. Empowers us to keep walking through the highs of life and in the celebrations, but especially through the darkest and hardest valleys of uncertainty.

Psalm 23, David writing this to God, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me.” Here's the realization. Faith is not an absence of doubt, but faith is a means to push through doubt. And the resurrection of Jesus makes all of this possible. So maybe you're in that valley of doubt today. Keep walking. That valley is no place to set up a camp and start roasting some marshmallows. Keep walking. The resurrection of Jesus Christ makes all of this possible. Don't let doubt be a dead end. Keep showing up. Keep asking questions. Keep pressing into God. You don't need a faultless faith. You just need a little bit of faith. Guys, I'll be honest. I don't know all the details of the resurrection. I don't know how Jesus did it. I don't know how God did it. What I read in the accounts and people who have done way deeper research on this stuff, even medical doctors, I was listening today or this week to a podcast was talking about the physical pain and agony that Jesus went through. I was like, there's no way he should be alive. There's honestly no way he should have made it even to the cross still breathing. And yet he did. So there's times I will be honest. I wrestle with doubt there's times i'll come in here during the week and i'll sit here on this front row and i'll just pray and i'll ask god I don'll under I don't know I don't understand it I don't get you. I don' know what you're doing None of this makes sense I see what you're doing over here in this place and that'S awesome and I love it I see what you're doing over here. I see what you're doing over here. I see what you're doing And I wrestle with doubt, but I'm reminded of Thomas. I'm reminded of Thomas who saw Jesus and yet still had doubt, but Jesus met him in that place. And he believed so strongly, Thomas did, that he gave his life for Jesus. Hebrews 6:12 says, “Faith and patience inherit promises.” Faithfulness begins when our faith seems insane. Faithfulness begins when our faith seems insane.

So your doubts, when handled properly, do not have to drive you away from God. They can actually draw you closer to him. And faith is a journey, not a destination. So can I give you an invite this morning? Come to Jesus. Bring your doubts to him. Come to Jesus. Bring your doubts to him. If you have doubts, come to Jesus. If you're struggling, come to Jesus. If you have questions, bring them to Jesus. If you have baggage, addictions, pain, hurt, bring them to Jesus. If your life is full of unfair situations, church hurt, friend hurt, life hurt, take them to Jesus. Cast your cares on him because he cares for you. If you wanna hear anything today, cast your cares on him because he cares for you. And that the enemy wants to use your doubts to put a wedge between you and drive you away from God, but God wants you to use your doubts to draw him to himself. Faith is a journey, not a destination. Keep walking to Jesus. Keep walking, keep walking, and keep walking especially when you have doubts because the risen Jesus is waiting to meet you right in the middle of all your doubt.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you. God, we are so grateful that you rose again. And Jesus, today, we celebrate Easter with the entire globe shouting in unison that he is risen. He has risen indeed. and that even though the disciples who were so close to you still had doubt, you still met them in that doubt. And that Jesus, you even showed up in Thomas' life and said, hey, I heard you had some questions. I heard you needed to see some stuff. I'm here. And so God, I pray for us today that whether we've been walking with Jesus, doing this church thing for a super long time, that we might have some permission to have some doubts and to wrestle with those. Or maybe you're new to this Jesus thing and you're like, yeah, I know this doesn't make sense and this doesn't make sense. I don't get what you're doing here. I don't get this over here. God, I pray that they would just come to you and just have that conversation, that you would treat them just as you did Thomas hey, let's talk. I heard you got some questions. Or maybe you're here this morning and you're saying, Chris, I don't know, I'm here because I was dragged here. And I have a lot of doubt. Maybe you were in the church before and you've been hurt and you walked away and you're like, I never found myself back in a church again. Well, thanks for showing up. I wanna tell you about a Jesus who loves you. A Jesus who cares for you. A Jesus who wants something greater for your life. And he's here right now in this moment, ready to talk with you.

As we continue to pray with your heads bowed and eyes closed, I just want to provide an opportunity for those who have not yet placed their faith in Christ. I want to give you an opportunity to do that right now. And so, again, everyone's heads are bowed. If that's you, if you would like to put your faith in Jesus for the very first time, would you just lift your head and look up? We're going to say a prayer. I'm going to pray. You can say it out loud or you can just say it in your heart. And it goes like this. Again, if you've never put your faith, this is how you can do. Say, Father in heaven, I know that I have lived for myself instead of you. I have sinned against you, but I believe Jesus died for my sin. So I confess my sin and I ask you to forgive me. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Help me to live for you from this day forward. In Jesus' name. God, we praise you for what you are doing. We praise you for the work that you do through your Holy Spirit, for the salvation that we have from Christ's death on the cross and that he rose again. If you prayed that prayer, with everyone's heads bowed, would you just look up and raise your hand really quickly if that was the first time you've prayed that prayer? Thank you. God, again, we just give you all the glory. We pray this in your name. Amen.

Palm Sunday: The Triumphal Entry

Palm Sunday: The Triumphal Entry

Luke 19:28-44; Matthew 21:1-11

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, it's Palm Sunday and we are excited to be here with you guys. Palm Sunday is kind of like a loud, joyful, celebratory day, as it should be. And when we look at the scripture of when Jesus is coming into Jerusalem, the title or the heading in most of your Bibles say the triumphal entry. That's worth celebrating. It was triumphant. And so the crowd that we see here in the story is celebrating. They are celebrating the arrival of who they believe is the king. And so we honor that And we celebrate that with Palm Sunday in preparation to leading up to Easter. We are going to be in Luke today, in Luke chapter 19. If you want to turn there in your Bibles, it'll also be on the screen. But we're going to look at this story of Jesus entering into Jerusalem from two different perspectives. Because the reality is, even though the people were celebrating, they didn't fully understand what it was that they were celebrating. But they didn't fully grasp it. So we're going to talk about that today. If you will turn with me to Luke 19, verse 28. It says, “After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethpage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, why are you untying it? Say, the Lord needs it. Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, why are you untying the colt? They replied, the Lord needs it. They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt, and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven. Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, rebuke your disciples. I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

So in this passage, it starts off with Jesus telling his disciples to go procure a donkey or a colt. And honestly, maybe it's just my sense of humor, but I would love to know how that conversation went. They're like, oh, just taking the donkey. And the owner's like, I'm sorry, why are you taking my colt? And they're like, oh, it's fine. The Lord needs it. Oh, okay, sure. Go ahead, take it. I don't know if there was some prearranged agreement about this or maybe the man knew who the Lord was and believed he was who he said he was. So he was fine with them taking it. Maybe they had some sort of like donkey rental service in the first century. I'm not really sure how that worked. But we don't know specifics, but we know he was willing to let them take this colt. The thing is, the choice for Jesus to ride in on a colt was very intentional. This was not haphazard or a mistake. It was very intentional. He chose to ride in to Jerusalem on a colt because it symbolized two main things. It symbolized peace and it symbolized royalty. and this time often donkeys were used to pull carriages carrying royalty so it kind of pointed to Jesus being the king they thought he was but it also symbolized peace they thought he was coming to overthrow the Romans and he was saying I'm coming to bring peace he could have ridden in on a stallion or a war horse and that would have sent a different message but he was saying no I'm coming to bring you peace. So this was pointing to the type of king Jesus was claiming to be.

See, Jesus is king, but he's not the kind that we expect. He is king, but not the kind we expect. He's a different kind of king. He's one who brings peace to his people. Interestingly, it also fulfilled one of the prophecies that were written about him. Jesus hundreds of Old Testament prophecies in his personhood and who he was and the things that he did. And this is one of them that we find in Zechariah 9.9. It says, rejoice greatly, daughter Zion. Shout, daughter Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Not only is he fulfilling this prophecy, but he is saying and declaring, I am your king, just not the one you expected. or the kind you expected. See, we often want things done a certain way. We want things to work out or our desires to be fulfilled or expectations to be met in a really specific way. And Jesus is here and he's saying, I'm coming and I have what you need, but maybe not what you think you need or not what you want.

He's the king. just not the kind that this crowd who was celebrating was expecting him to be. The crowd had the right energy, just the wrong expectations. They were rightfully celebrating. They were throwing their cloaks down and raving palm branches and praising him and blessing him. That was good. That intention was good, but their expectations were wrong. They shouted, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. They were worshiping him. In Matthew's biography of Jesus, he writes that they shouted, Hosanna. It says the crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, Hosanna to the son of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest heaven. Hosanna means save us now. Save us now. They were saying the right words, and they were celebrating with the appropriate amount of gusto, but their expectations were off. They wanted to be saved from the Romans. And Jesus said, I'm going to save you from so much more and for so much more. I have bigger and better plans for you. They wanted political rescue, not spiritual transformation. They wanted Jesus to fix their circumstances, not their hearts. We, you and I, can be close to Jesus and still misunderstand him. We can know about Jesus. We can read our Bibles and go to church and have Bible study and all these things, and that's great, and we should. We can even believe he is who he says he is and still misunderstand him.

Because if we are only celebrating him and worshiping him because we think he's going to fix our circumstances or answer our prayers in the way that we think he should, we're missing it. We're missing him. We're missing who he is. The same crowds who were shouting, Hosanna and blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, just a few short days later, are going to turn silent and even hostile. Their words are going to change from worship to crucify him. The reason they were so easily swayed and changed their tone so quickly is because they were not worshiping who he was. They were worshiping what he could do for them. They were celebrating what they thought he was going to do, their expectations, not who he was. They knew him. They were in close proximity to him. But they misunderstood him and his mission. And sometimes we are in close proximity to Jesus. Maybe we feel close to him. We feel like a relationship with him is going well. But when we celebrate Jesus for what we think he's going to do for us, or what we hope he'll do, we're going to miss it. We're going to miss him. so we can be close to Jesus and still misunderstand him. Perhaps we're celebrating the arrival of the king today, but maybe our expectations are a bit skewed. We have the right energy, but we're thinking wrongly. We don't want to miss what he's already done for us on the cross. We're going to celebrate that next week. But even as we are celebrating his arrival, his coming, we have the opportunity to be resurrection people. We are on this side of resurrection. We have hindsight in our favor. We know that Sunday is coming. And so as the people on this side of the resurrection, we get to celebrate rightly. We get to celebrate him for who he is, not just what we think he can do for us. See, he may not show up in the way we expect. He may not look or act like the king we think he should be. But he is still the king. And while the crowd is celebrating and shouting and praising, Jesus is doing something unexpected. 

Let's continue reading in our passage this morning from verse 41. It says, “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you.”

Notice the difference here, right? It's the scene that Pastor Lauren just covered. We have the people celebrating, rejoicing. They are hyped. This is a big moment for them. We juxtapose that's Jesus who is weeping as he enters the city. This is their king, their savior, God's own son, sent to earth to be a part of the greatest rescue plan in history. But this second part of our passage this morning has a very different tone than the one that we might expect. And it's in this interaction that we see the heart of Jesus, the heart of our king. And it's about the king, again, that we didn't expect.

The first part is that Jesus sees what others miss. Jesus the king has an eternal perspective, a heavenly perspective, an infinite perspective. He sees everything and everyone. He sees people's hearts. He sees how fickle they are. how set on their own ways the crowds are. He sees how fixed and focused they are on being saved in a way that they've conjured up. And he also sees what they can't see, what they won't see, and what they end up missing. He knows destruction is coming. And so while others are celebrating in this crowd, he sees the personal hardship that he's about to face. He sees the pain and hardship that the people are going to face. And he sees that this triumphal entry as he's being ushered in with palm branches and cloaks and shouts of Hosanna is actually directly leading to his death. Directly leading to the cross, his sacrifice, which is the culmination of that rescue plan. He sees that the people in this moment don't really want or can conceive the salvation that he brings. They are seeing, as Pastor Lorne mentioned, a king coming to deliver them from oppression into a worldly kingdom. But he sees a spiritual battle being won. God's eternal kingdom being opened. He's looking over the city, Jerusalem, where God dwelt in the Old Testament. He's looking over these people oppressed and wanting to experience being on the ruling side of being a part of a kingdom. And he's looking over this crowd who's going to turn on him.

And he sees what they miss. Their spiritual reality, their spiritual future coinciding with what will actually come to pass. And he weeps over it. That's the second point, is that Jesus weeps over missed opportunities. There's not anger yet in Jesus. That's coming later. He'll have a moment of anger. But right now it's sorrow. Verse 44 says, you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you. There's sadness in that. Sadly, the tragedy for so many, even today, isn't that they reject Christ. That can be true for many. But for others, it's that they just miss him altogether. I don't know if we think of God, the God that we worship, as one who weeps. We've been encouraging all of you to invite people to Easter Sunday. And when someone misses that opportunity, I think there's a sadness in God that says they didn't even get the chance. They're not even able to comprehend what is in front of them right now. And he's saddened by that. And I think to have a heart like God, we also want to be saddened by people who are missing their opportunities to encounter God. In the weeping, we see the heart of a king who knows what's best for his people and has to go through the heartbreak of watching and witnessing and being on the other end of a real consequence of them missing it. And that consequence, again, is him dying on the cross. If you were to read through all of Scripture, you could see the momentum building to this moment. From the moment of the fall and sin entered into the world, God had a rescue plan in place, and it was to bring about Jesus, the perfect human with no sin, his own son, the spotless lamb, to sacrifice and restore relationship with humanity to God. And so it is a celebratory moment. That is something worth praising.

But as Lauren mentioned, they're praising him for the wrong thing. And it's a celebratory moment for us because we know how the story ends. It's a somber moment for Jesus because it's a missed opportunity for the people in that crowd there with him to be on the same page as him as to what's happening, what's truly happening. But praise God, they get to hear about it later from the disciples. Praise God that we can understand it now. But in this moment, as Jesus is entering in Jerusalem, they're missing the point. And that is that peace, the peace that they sought was right in front of them and they missed it. I think it's ironic that as he heads into Jerusalem, which is the city that means the city of peace. I think it's ironic that Jesus says this, which I think is kind of one of the most haunting lines that he says in verse 42. “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it's hidden from your eyes. As Pastor Lauren said, they were just looking for the wrong thing. They were shouting for peace by saying, Hosanna, save us.”

Thinking that the man in front of them was going to have to do some things in order to bring about peace. And they were right. He was going to have to do some things, just not the things that they thought he was going to have to do. Not the politicking, no battle plans, no campaign against Rome. Instead, Jesus was going to have to endure shame and suffering, torture, excruciating pain. And he was going to have to die. nothing that they had seen before from a leader, just an innocent man, the son of God dying on the cross. True peace, the source of all peace, as Paul tells us in Philippians, was right in front of them, and they missed it. And church, we can do the same thing today. We can attend church, sing songs, hear sermons, and still miss Jesus. We want him to fix things, heal us, provide for our needs, but we're not willing to surrender to him. Not just the king that we want him to be, but the king that he truly is. With all the anxiety that we have in our lives, all the stress, we can want him to bring us peace. And maybe we've come up with some kind of plan. God, this is how I need peace. If you could just do exactly this. But we miss, again, as Paul says, that Jesus himself is peace. And him being in our lives, being in his presence, changes things and brings about peace. And so Palm Sunday asks us, do we actually recognize Jesus for who he truly is? And will we surrender to him? 

So we have the crowd celebrating. They are worshiping him and welcoming him because they think he's going to save them from the Romans. And again, they are correct in worshiping him. But they still missed who he was and what he was all about. And then on the flip side, we have Jesus coming in, seeing all of these people worshiping him. And he weeps for them. We have weeping and celebration, two different perspectives on the same moment. Two different responses to the same moment. The people wanted peace, but they missed the fact that the actual Prince of Peace was standing right in front of them. We don't want to be like the crowd. We don't want to miss what Jesus is doing. He is doing so many things here and now. Yes, he walked the earth and he did miracles and he made ways that didn't look like they were possible, but he is still moving now. Miracles still happen today and we don't wanna miss it. We don't wanna miss what he's about because we are so caught up in what we think he's going to do for us. Should we pray about our circumstances? Yes, please do that. But we don't worship him because of what he can do for us. Rather, for who he is. So let's celebrate his arrival. Let's honor that and remember that. But we need to keep our focus on who Jesus is. That he is the right and true heavenly king. Not the king that we decided he should be. So our question for you today is, will we welcome Jesus as the king we want or the king that he actually is? Will we welcome Jesus as the king that we want or the king he actually is? 

See, if we truly recognize Jesus as the king, who he is, it changes everything in life. It changes life for us. We begin to live life differently every day. We become people who reflect his glory in our communities, who want people to know him and have their own personal relationship with him. We want to bring people into our faith community and say, hey, I'm walking with Jesus. It's changed my life in ways you can't even imagine. Come with me as he changes your life. In the everyday stuff of life, it changes it. So we want to invite people in, just like it says on our wall, the everyday stuff of life, like a movie night tonight. Jesus is working through all of that. And so this week, we want our focus to be on being people who reflect his glory through inviting others to Easter. Really want to push and encourage you guys. You guys have been praying, hopefully praying for people in your life that need Christ. And maybe the Spirit's going to prompt you this week to finally have that conversation. Say, you know what? I want to talk to that person and just say, hey, why don't you come with me to Easter? Why don't you hear about our risen Lord? if we know who Jesus is if we worship him as king if we surrender to him it changes how we go about living our everyday life so we just don't want to be people who wave the branches if we're being back in that scene and worshiping a god who we think this is who god is we want to truly surrender to him say god i want to know more about who you are who you truly are i want to recognize you as the king of my life.

Let's go ahead and pray. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the life of Jesus, the sacrifice that he made, the humility that he lived with, and for the emotion that he expresses in this scene as we see the heart of a king who loves his people. Even when his people are missing it, even when we miss it, God, when we miss opportunities, when we miss your presence, you still love us. God, I pray that you would open our eyes to all the ways in which you are working in our life, that we could praise you, that we could know you in a deeper and truer sense, and that we could share with others how you are changing our life, how you are blessing us, sustaining us, providing for us. God, I pray that you continue to transform us to be more like you. And as we head into this holy week, that our hearts would be sensitive to the Spirit. We would listen and obey. And God, we just want you to be glorified in all things that we do. We pray this in your name. Amen.

A Place To Belong: Part 2

A Place To Belong: Part 2 - What does it mean to Belong?

1 Corinthians 10:31, Ephesians 1:12, Isaiah 43:7, Matthew 28:18-20

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I'm excited today. We're going to be wrapping up our series called A Place to belong. And the main part of the series is to really explain what the church is, why we exist, and why we, Spring Valley, why are we here? What are we doing? What's the thing we got going on here? And so Pastor Andre last week, he kicked us off and asking why the church. And he went into detail. He talked about the universal church, which is more like the greater church. If you were to kind of take a zoom back from the area, you see all the different neighborhood churches and all the churches around the globe and around the world, they are all a part of what we call the universal church. And then you have the local church, which would be us here. Spring Valley Church is the local church. And so he answered the question of why is the church even necessary? It's just really good questions. And the church is necessary for the advancement of the gospel. It's to make disciples, to be in the family of God, is to reflect God's glory and to continue Christ's work that he began when he was here on earth. And so then what does it look like to belong to a church? And he gave us four good reasons of why to belong to a church. And it is to attend, is to connect with others, is to serve and use what God has given us, and then is to care for one another.

And so today, we're going to continue in the same light and to walk through some of these questions of why the church or why to belong to the church. And I've been asked from time to time as a pastor and conversations I've had with different people of what church should I attend? Well, I love to tell them you should come to Spring Valley Church. A little bias there. I love this place, but I have probably like five different things I like to tell them every single time. And when people are looking for churches, especially if someone in our church we love and we care for and their job is maybe taking them somewhere and they're moving somewhere else, they have a question of, Pastor, how am I going to find a church like Spring Valley? What does that look like? So I have a couple things. I always tell them, I tell them, find a church that preaches the gospel. Find the church that preaches the gospel. And I mean the whole gospel, all of it, the whole thing, the whole Bible, that sermons come from Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ and that Jesus himself is central. Because if you were to go maybe to a church and to attend and you hear a whole sermon and a whole teaching and the word Jesus is never mentioned, I would argue to say that you probably just went to a TED Talk. And I'm sorry to say that and maybe call out some of my peers and other pastors, but that's the reality, that if we don't share the gospel of Jesus every single week, then we're just giving TED Talks every week. And there's plenty of those on YouTube for you to watch whenever you want to. But the church should preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Number two, I pray and I hope that we are this, but that we are warm and friendly. I think a church that you should attend should be welcoming, should be hospitable, to live in a way that we have been transformed, right? If Jesus comes into our life and transforms us, we should live that out. There's a big fancy word for that term with this that would be called sanctification. It's an idea of every single day is an opportunity to live more like Jesus. And as we live like that, we should treat other people in the same way. And so when people come in, when people are here, a part of our church, I pray that it's friendly and warm.

I think the members should be spirit-filled. Those who are part of the church, I think there should be what we have been talking about lately, abiding and being part of the vine and seeing spiritual fruit. There should be some essence of feeling that there is something here that the Holy Spirit is doing. People should reflect things of God like his love and his care, his grace, his mercy, which also ties in again with the whole being hospitable and welcoming. I think what we members of a church should be concerned about what God is concerned about. There are things in life that God really cares about. And sometimes the church is silent on that and it breaks my heart. And I think we need to be bolder in our faith to speak into those things. And I think that people that we have been transformed, we are continuing to be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit.

I think the church should emphasize missions, not only local, but around the globe and around the world, that we can focus on the kingdom of God outside these four walls that we call Spring Valley Church. And we're going to be doing a series in May. I've been having Zoom calls with some of our missionaries, and we're getting to hear some stories from them. And so we're going to be doing a series after Easter that we're going to be able to share some of the stories of what God is doing through them around the world. It's some really cool stuff. I can't wait to share it with you guys.

And I think the final thing that a church should be, it should be evangelical and doctrine. There's some really big churchy terms. Let me break that down for you. There should be a strong emphasis on a personal decision to commit your life to Jesus. There should be a push and a regular calling of those who come in here because the reality is sometimes it's easy to go, well, I've been in church my whole life. That's great. But have you made a decision for Jesus? Sometimes we can attend and be a part of a church for a really long time have Jesus. But the reality is we actually haven't made that decision. And so sometimes I get asked, and we here at Spring Valley will regularly present the gospel and I'll get people who say, pastor, why are we doing it? Everybody here is Christian. Everybody here has been coming to church for five, 10 years. I was like, you don't know, man. You know what God's doing in their lives. You don't know where they're at. I'm glad they've been faithfully attending here and a part of the family, but maybe they never made the decision. We just don't know. And so there should be always and emphasis to move people towards making Jesus Lord and leader of their life. And then we celebrate with that. We celebrate through baptisms. We celebrate through sharing stories and testimonies of what God is doing in people's life. Because I think without that key element, we're a social club. We're nothing more than, and no dig on them, but a country club or the Kiwanas or any other local group, the Elks Lodge. Like, love them. They're awesome. They do great things in the community, but they're not doing that in the name of Jesus. We do that in the name of Jesus.

So what does it mean to belong? What does it mean to be a part of more shifting towards Spring Valley Church? Well, our vision and mission on the wall every single Sunday is to see our community saturated with the glory of God, and we do that through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Our vision is our why, to see our community saturated with the glory of God. So what does that mean? What does it mean, this term, saturate? Have you ever spilled water at a table with other people around? You can really test people and how quick their reactions are, of how quick they can move when that water cup gets knocked over. We have four children in our home, some of which are very wanting to be independent. And so we offend them sometimes with lids and straws on their cups. and so every now and then we'll gamble we'll roll the dice and we'll give them a cup of liquid with no lid and it doesn't go well we love them they're amazing kids but it just doesn't go well it's just not there and so we always have the test okay who's gonna knock it over at dinner time who's who's gonna be the one and i've done it myself i i will be guilty i've knocked it over myself quite a few times. But when you knock over a cup of water, what happens to it? It goes everywhere. It goes everywhere. It finds every single little nook and cranny. It finds the edge of the table so fast. I don't know. It's just like, I'm out. I'm free. There's the edge. It's like making a jail break. And it just goes everywhere. It gets on the stuff on the table. The napkins are soaked. Like it just goes everywhere. And I love this idea of seeing our communities just saturated with the glory of God, that it just goes everywhere. That Jesus himself fills us up. He talks about that in scripture, that then we go out with our cup of water of Jesus in our lives. Maybe not actually a cup of water, but we go out with Jesus in our lives. And I pray and I hope that as we interact with people in our lives, we leave maybe a couple drops of Jesus with them. We maybe leave a little imprint, a wet spot of Jesus on their lives because you and I might be the only Jesus that they ever get to experience in life. I hope and pray that there's more people in their lives that are Christ followers and speaking truth into them, but we might be the only people to share Jesus with them. So what does it look like? Well, spreading the glory of God in our community looks like sharing and showing up, showing up in people's lives when they're hurting, sharing kindness, sharing in generosity, praying for people, even if they don't know that you're praying for them. I love that. It's like undercover prayer. Like you're praying for your neighbors and your friends and your co-workers and they don't have no idea. And they'll come tell you stuff that's going on in your life. And you're just like, all right, God, add it to my list. I'm praying for And it's amazing what God can do. But this is meeting a very real practical need in people's lives. And we're not doing it for us. We're doing it for God.

I love what it says in 1 Corinthians 10.31. It says, so whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God. Everything that we do at Spring Valley Church, and I pray that that trickles into your life too, is for the glory of God. But who are our communities? It says, two communities are saturated. So who are our communities? Well, our communities are really simple. It's where we live, where we learn, where we work, and where we play. That's our neighbors. It's our coworkers. That's our friends. That's our family. That's our classmates. It's anybody in our life that we interact with on a regular basis. And maybe sometimes just random basis. There's times in my life where I'm having a conversation with a random person, and God says, just tell them that I love them. And I'm like, God, just tell them I love them. I just, hey, I know we just met. God loves you, man. Just want you to know that. And I get to turn around and walk away, and I just left a little Jesus on him. But that's what we're called to do.

Ephesians 1.12 says, So that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be to the praise of his glory. God fills us up. When we receive Jesus, we are filled up. So then we will go out and be the ones to be the praise for his glory. I love how it talks about in Psalms chapter one, where it talks about the person that is planted by streams of water. That's who we are. Jesus is our source of everything. We just talked about this in Corinthians in our series about Christ, who is our life. Christ is our life. He is our source. He is our everything. And so as out of that flows streams of living water, as it says in John 7, he fills us up to overflowing. We gather regularly together, but that's not the end all be all. Sometimes it's easy to just get caught up in Sunday morning, right? To just be like, I come in, I sit down, sing some songs, maybe take communion, maybe somebody prays for me. I hear an encouraging word from the Lord. I'm filled up, I take my cup and I go out and I hold onto my cup all week. I just walk around, I'm like, oh, I got my Jesus. I love it. Got my Jesus. Oh, don't want to spill it. Oh, I have to share this with somebody else? No, this is my Jesus. They can go find their own Jesus. But that's not it. Our gathering, our Sunday morning is actually just the beginning. If you've played sports, you know the game doesn't happen in the locker room, right? It doesn't happen on the practice field. It doesn't happen in a training session. It doesn't happen in the gym. It happens out on the field. And everything we do around that prepares for that moment on the field together. Because the reality is the world is watching and the world is looking. The world takes on these false promises that society and things and other religions and groups and communities promise to give them, but fall short time and time and time again. And we are out to go to saturate our communities with the glory of God.

So how does this happen? How do we go, okay, that's our why, our what? Well, our what is making disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Jesus gave us this commandment called the Great Commission to go and to make disciples. And see, our vision here at Spring Valley will only be brought about when each of us strive as a lifelong learner in the way of God. To understand how he's uniquely created us, how he's called us, and how he's commissioned us. Isaiah says this in 43 verse 7. Anyone who is called by my name, whom I'm created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Jesus has a calling for each and every one of us, and that is to first be a disciple of him. But it doesn't stop there. Each of us are included in God's great redemption plan. And each of us have a part to play in that. And the reality is that we are plan A and there is no plan B. That we are called. And being a follower of Jesus leads us into being a disciple in the everyday stuff of life. So Chris, that's great. What does that mean? Well, what it means is a disciple.

And the definition of disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. You see how like Jesus is kind of part of the whole thing there? That being a disciple is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and is committed to the mission of Jesus. Matthew 4.19, Jesus calls disciples at different times and he calls us and he says, Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. I always thought it was very interesting how he used this term and this phrase. But when we break it down, there's three parts here of what Jesus is actually doing. Jesus says, follow me. Change your head. Or, yeah, change your head. Who are you thinking about? Who are you looking at? What are you striving for? Jesus says, follow me. Change how your head is thinking. Then Jesus said, you will be changed. He says there, I will make. Jesus is the one that's doing the transformation. This is our heart. Jesus is transforming our heart through the Holy Spirit. And then what does he say? He says, I will make you fishers of men. He says, you are being committed to the mission of Jesus. That's our hands of how we do it. So it's a head, our heart, and our hands. And some of these final words of Jesus he's giving to the disciples is exactly what he asked and is calling us to do as well.

He says these. These are some of the final words of Jesus before he goes back to heaven. It says in Matthew 28, it says, Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I commanded you. And surely I'm with you always to the very end of the age. There is one imperative large command in that, and it is to make disciples. But then there's three participles that describe how we do that. The first of which is go. So that is the everyday stuff of life. As you are going throughout life, you are a disciple. You are to baptize. You are to publicly declare with your faith that you are a follower of Jesus. And then you are to teach. You are to teach those and to grow them up, to spur them on, to take them deeper in their walk with Jesus. And the disciple making is about entering into relationships to help people trust and follow Jesus. This is what it's about. It's to enter into intentional relationships with Jesus to help people find and follow and trust him. It's all about him. It's all about Jesus. But we have to change our mindset. We have to focus on Jesus who is working in us, allowing him to work, and to fulfill the way that God has uniquely created, called, and commissioned us.

So Chris, this is great. Great vision, great mission. That's awesome. How does this rubber meets the road? How does this practically play out? We call it our four Gs, and it is just so that easy to remember, is to gather, grow, give, and go. these are the four four focuses to help make the vision and mission happen here at spring valley church the first one gather what does that mean well gathering means to commit to gathering together regularly with the church body what does that look like well that looks like worship that looks like discipleship that looks like evangelism these larger big churchy words but what it means is Jesus matters, prayer matters, God's word matters, and Sunday matter. That's what it's all about. And that when we gather together, we will have these different elements when we gather. Again, if you guys have picked up on that, but every time that we have gathered together as a church, whether it's a men's ministry, a women's ministry, all of us together on a Sunday or some other spot. There is an element of this that is happening every single time. We don't gather just for the sake of gathering. But it's about being together with one another, with the presence of the Holy Spirit, living on mission and on vision for Jesus Christ.

The second way we do this is we grow. We meet regularly with a few others to encourage and equip you in growing up in Christ. because the reality is that growing people change. And I was thinking about this last night as I was walking through my notes of, I always thought of it as in the sense of a positive, growing people change. Sometimes we can grow in the wrong ways and we change in the wrong ways, right? But we are to grow in Jesus, to grow up in Christ because transformation truly matters. I think sometimes we sit around and go, I'm good with Jesus. I'm set. I'm good. I got my routine. I'm set. But the reality is that each of us can be transformed even more into Jesus. Some of the most seasoned veteran Christians that I looked up to and respect, you could ask them, hey, when did you arrive? And they go, what do you mean, when did I arrive? I said, well, when did you arrive when you were like, I'm a Jesus follower. I'm a disciple. I'm transformed. There's always something more to grow and to learn and be sanctified into Jesus Christ more and more every single day. Creativity matters. I think there's some awesome ways in which you have tradition and you do the same thing the same way in a church sometimes, and I love it, but I think also it's great to shake things up. We here at Spring Valley try new things all the time. And you guys are awesome. You run with us on some things. Sometimes it's like, wow, they came up with that idea. But we like trying new things because sometimes we learn and we grow and things connect with different people at different times. That's why we have a few different voices that teach on the regular. Because every person brings a little bit different perspective and understanding with their training, their knowledge, their experience with scripture, and it speaks to a variety of people. I think it's a huge, huge way that we can continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus.

The third thing is that we give. And yeah, I'm going to talk about it, but we support Spring Valley and we serve the larger body with the things that God has blessed us with. Maybe you've been around in the church. You've heard it before, time, talent, treasure. And I'm talking about everything because the reality is that God has blessed us with everything, right? Everything that we have received in life is from Jesus himself. God blesses that with us. And so then his calling in us as we are to be a disciple is how do we use what he has given us to further his kingdom? We desire to have a generous impact here at Spring Valley Church. And that for some means tithing. for others it means tithing and it means to use everything we have for his glory to give back to him to make a generous impact with everything we have because gratitude matters Jesus has given us everything he's taking care of our eternal salvation right everything else is just gravy right he's taking care of our biggest need and so how do we be generous the way he has been so generous with us. We serve one another. Service matters. Saved people serve people. Because if we're truly saved, then we should have the same heart of Jesus. And he was the ultimate servant of giving up of himself to the cross in his death. So we serve one another. We talk about that regularly, serving on teams. Some of you we probably reached out to at times said, hey, can you serve in this way? How can you love on our church congregation?

And so then finally, our fourth G is to go. As Jesus said to go, to be a disciple of Jesus who makes his disciples with others. We want to live in relational community with one another, but not just fun, not just dinners, not just movie nights or vacations or pool parties or fun times, but to live life together missionally, that we are intentionally encouraging one another, loving one another, saying, hey, how are you doing with Jesus? What are you learning? What's he teaching you? How are you growing in him? Evangelism matters. Unity matters. We have a church care team here that you may get a phone call from them randomly from time to time that just checking in. How are you doing? And it's beyond just the pastoral staff, but it's another team that really cares for our church because you guys matter. Pastor Lauren talked about it earlier, but these invite cards during Easter, during this season, to take time to intentionally pray for an opportunity to invite somebody to come with you on Easter Sunday. Because we're all called, When you became a disciple, you accepted Jesus, you became a minister of the gospel. You may not carry the title pastor, but neither did the 12 disciples or apostles. But they're all called to share the gospel and ownership matters and that we need to own that.

The reality is we can't accomplish all of this without you. that's the reality and that we are all called to be together on this team we are called to be part of this family and so what does that mean for you well we've been talking about it for a few weeks now and that means membership and membership in this church means about engaging and partnering with us who is the local church another way of saying it is hey i'm all in this is my church and it's a two-way street sometimes it can get thought about well church membership is just the church wanting something from me no no no this is a this is a mutual relationship this is a two-way street membership is about the church also saying to you we are committed to you we are committed to your faith journey we are committed to you in the every day this is a mutual thing it's not just a person to the church, but it's also the church to the person. And I don't know what you grew up in. There's different churches of different models and some you utilize membership and some don't. And that's fine. They don't have to have membership at all. But I believe that there is something that is missed for both the church and the body when there isn't membership. And you can attend and you can be here at Spring Valley without being a member. This is not a It's a hope and a desire from us. But you can serve here. You can be here. You can give here. You can be a part of Spring Valley without being a member. Now, there are some ministry and leadership roles that membership is required of. But we will never, ever stop anybody from not being able to be here at Spring Valley Church. The church is a gift from God. It's a beautiful thing. And it's a beautiful thing when you have believers who are committed to that gift. And it's something really special when all of that comes together.

So what does it look like? What does it look like to be a member here at Spring Valley Church? It's just five areas. First of which is engagement. What does that look like? Well, that means attendance. It means being present. It means praying for our church, praying for our pastors, praying for those who are walking through different situations in life, encouraging one another.

It means discipleship. It means spiritual growth. They used that term earlier, sanctification, or a pursuit of holiness to allow Jesus to transform us. You're committing to saying, I'm going to walk deeper in my faith with Jesus in a community, and that community is going to be there with me. It means service. It means attending to the needs of others in our community. Spring Valley, Rocklin, Roseville. There are over a quarter of a million people in this region of 65 and 80 from Roseville, over the edges of Lincoln, up to Loomis, down into West Roseville, over a quarter of a million people. There are not enough churches. And not everybody is attending church every single week. And so we have to serve and care for the needs of others.

It looks like generosity, giving of God's blessing that he's given to you in practical needs. Maybe it's through tithing. Maybe it's a special giving project. Maybe it's supporting our missionaries around the globe. Maybe it's giving of your time. You're like, hey, money is super tight right now, but I got time. I can volunteer. I can be here. What do you need? I need help. I'm here to help. It means being generous with the talents that you've been given. What I love about our worship team is these guys are incredibly talented and gals. They're so gifted. They could probably, and most, some of them are on a stage regularly in bands, performing and being paid to do a lot of stuff. They donate all their time and talent to be here. because they love this church. Guys, we are so blessed by them.

And it looks like inviting, like we talked about these invite cards, to pray for people. And we've said it here before, and I wanna continue to say it, that if you come in on church on a Sunday and it was encouraging for you, it was uplifting for you, it was special, God spoke to you, God, Jesus gave you something, Why not invite somebody to come experience that with you? Don't hold back on that. Don't hold your little cup of Jesus and just walk around and don't spill it. But share that freely with others because somebody at some point invited you in, right? Somebody at some point said, hey, come to church with me. I want you to find Jesus. And you found Jesus. And then you found Spring Valley. And we want to keep doing that time and time again. Membership is about finding a place to belong.

And SVC is better with you. SVC wouldn't be the same if you weren't here. And there's people who are going to become part of this church and are going to find this church soon, and they get to be a part of that. And it just continues to grow and expand. and we grow God's kingdom for his glory through making disciples in the everyday stuff of life.

Pray with me. Jesus, we thank you for the many blessings, God, that you give us every single day. Jesus, we thank you for how you died on the cross for us, for our sins. The biggest problem in our life, you took care of as a servant, as a humble, humble sacrifice for our lives. And Jesus, you gave this gift that is the church. And God, I pray as we move into after service to have our membership class, God, that those who are trying to figure out what all this looks like may stick around and just have some question and answer, Jesus. But I pray that they would see the church as this beautiful gift to them in life. And I pray, God, that if you were leading them into, that they would step into becoming a member. Then they would see how, God, you have provided a community and a place for them to belong. and that membership is not only them committing but the church also committing to them saying we are all in on you and that we will be here for you. We will pray for you. We will care for you. And so Jesus, I pray that Spring Valley would truly be a place that is warm, that is welcoming, that is caring, that stays focused on the gospel, stays true to your word, and has a heart for lost people to find you, Jesus. For us to see our community saturated, your glory, Jesus. And that we would step into being true disciples in the everyday stuff of life. Thank you, Jesus. We love you. Amen.

A Place To Belong: Part 1

A Place To Belong: Part 1 - What is the Church?

Romans 12:10; 15:7, Galatians 5:13; 6:2, Ephesians 5:21, 1 Thessalonians 5:11

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are starting a new series, very excited for this series, called A Place to Belong. And I think that's true for all of us, right? We long for a place to belong in a world that's increasingly disconnected, transient, individualistic. God has given us something that is intentional and beautiful, and that is the church. Not a building, not an event, not a weekly obligation, but a people. So our series, A Place to Belong, is a two-week series exploring what the church truly is, why it matters, and why it's essential for our lives as followers of Jesus. When Jesus said, "I will build my church," he wasn't talking about just a structure, but a spiritual family. And together we're going to look at what the church is and what it isn't, why it's necessary for our growth, why gathering together isn't optional but vital. And in a culture that often asks, "Can't I just follow Jesus on my own?" We'll discover God's design for community, for accountability, worship, mission, and belonging. So next week we're going to bring that conversation even closer to home, as Pastor Chris is going to talk about the mission and vision of Spring Valley Church specifically, who we are and what we value and what life looks like as a committed member of this body. And he's going to talk about why the global church is a beautiful thing. God places us in local contexts. And so what does it mean to not just attend but to truly belong, to serve, to give, to commit, and to build a spiritual family here at Spring Valley? Because again, the church isn't just somewhere you go, it's something you're a part of. We believe God has created a place for you to belong. So you guys ready to dive into the series with me as we kind of step back and take a general view of the church? Yeah? Okay, I saw it. That's good.

We're going to answer three important questions this morning. The first is, what is the church? Second is, why is church necessary? And the third is, what does it look like to belong to a church? And again, this is just going to be for general. I mean, whether you go here or whether you've been going to other churches, this is just for churches across the globe. And we're going to then next week get specific about Spring Valley Church. Let me go ahead and pray one more time and then we'll continue. God, thank you again for our time together this morning. And I pray that you, as you have been this morning preparing our hearts, I pray that we'd be ready to listen now, that our hearts will be able to receive your truth. And God, I pray that we'd be able to maybe just pause on all the other things going on in life, whether they're good, but maybe they're just distracting at the moment. I just pray that you'd help us to be present. And I pray that you would speak through your word. Give me the words to say and how to say them. And I pray that we would all be encouraged and drawn closer to you. We pray this in your name. Amen.

All right. So the first question, what is the church? As I already said, it's not just a building. We call this church and it is church, but that's not all it is. When the Bible talks about church, it's talking about a people, a group of believers. Paul does a lot of explaining about what the church is because he was alive and he was an apostle during the time when the church was just beginning and Jesus had ascended. And so I'm going to be bouncing around a lot of Paul's writings because he does a good definition of explaining to everyone at that time, here's what you guys are. You group and community of believers. This is the church. Here's what you are. Here's what it should look like. So I'm gonna be referencing him. But I want to start by explaining some terms that I think are going to help us.

And the first is the universal church. What we often call, if you've been around Spring Valley for a while, we've said the big C church. That means capital C church. And we don't mean just this church. We mean all the churches that are founded on Christ around the world. That's what we call the universal church. A definition could be all believers in all times and places. So throughout history, from the early church into the future, when we say the universal church, we're talking about every believer of every, over the decades and centuries, thousands of years. This is the universal church. And some things about the big C church that are true is one, the church is united in Christ. It's holy, it's set apart for Christ, and it is the body of Christ. First Corinthians 12 says, "Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all of its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ." He's talking to all the individual believers. We are all part of the body of Christ. And then First Corinthians, Paul also tells us that the church's foundation is built on Jesus Christ himself. The church is the representation of God here on earth. As we are all being formed individually, to be made more like Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit inside of us, we then share his light and his truth and his hope and love to the world around us. The other thing about the universal church, every church that, again, has its foundation in Christ, it began at Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So I just think it's so cool to know that even these local churches, this church has only been around for 20-something years, I think. But we can trace our history from other places on Sunset, where we were, to being planted by Faith Legacy, which used to be called Arcade Wesleyan in Sacramento, to earlier churches in America in the 1700s, to the medieval times, to all the way back to Pentecost. Our church history is tied in with all of that. I think that's beautiful. So that's the universal church, all believers in all times.

Then we're going to get to the local church. So we are a local church here at Spring Valley Church. Local church is all believers in one place and at one time. So it's an expression of the universal church. Our church here in Rocklin is going to look different than the local church in the Czech Republic or the local church in India or even the local church in San Francisco. The local church is an expression of the community that it's in. We might have different songs that we sing, different applications to our sermons, given the circumstances that are surrounding that church and what they're going through, made up of different people, different looking buildings, different emphasis and focuses on Bible passages. But we are still united in Christ, set apart for his purposes and have Christ as our foundation. God created humanity and appreciates the different cultures and tongues around the world. Says so in scripture. And the church is going to be made up of those different cultures and people. And that's a good thing. Another way of saying it is that the local church is the local community of people who have been indwelt by and empowered by the Holy Spirit. So we see examples of the local church primarily in the Bible and just even in the epistles, in the New Testament. A lot of Paul's writings are called Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians. Those are all local churches. The local church in Philippi received the letter of the Philippians. Colossians is written to the local church in Colosia. Ephesians, the local church in Ephesus. Corinthians, the local church in Corinth. So on and so forth. Some of the Bible is addressed to these local churches, each with their unique flavor, not necessarily theologically, but just in the people that make up that church. Some were more diverse and were around port cities. Some were made primarily of Jews. Some were made up primarily of Romans. Others had more upper class. Others had more working class. The local church reflects its local community. The local church is all about glorifying God by carrying out his redemptive mandate in a specific local area. That mandate I'm talking about is Matthew 28 when it says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." So each local church is trying to do that in their local area. The local church is about serving people, and that work is done by the entire body of believers. Not just a few, it's supposed to be the whole church who is looking to serve others in the church and outside the church. And the local church is equipped by Christ through its church leaders for the purpose of equipping all the saints. Pastor Chris is going to go into that next week in more details. He shares the mission and vision of Spring Valley Church and the mission and vision that God has given him and shared with its leaders. And then we're sharing with you as we equip you for the work that God has given you individually in your life, but also as belonging to this church and the work that we are doing together as a community.

The Bible tells us that the local church is characterized by a few things. Romans 12 10 says, "Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves." So the local church should be about honor and devotion to each other. Romans 15 says, "Accept one another, then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God." So the local church should be about acceptance of one another. Galatians 5 13 says, "Serve one another humbly in love." And Galatians 6 2 says, "Carry each other's burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." So the local church should be about admonishing, serving each other and bearing one another's burdens. Ephesians 5 21 says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." So in the local church, now we're getting a little bit tougher here, we should be submitting to each other in some way, shape or form. And 1 Thessalonians 5 11 says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up." So in the local church, there should be an encouragement and we should be experiencing and partaking in building each other up in Christ. So what the local churches should be characterized as should be known of local churches, there should be true of their community and true of their people. And finally, when it comes to the local church and to the universal church, I just want to mention the two sacraments that Jesus gave us and instructed us to carry out. And these sacraments are the visible signs of an invisible spiritual reality that were given and instructed and that is communion and baptism. So in the church, we practice communion, the Lord's Supper, we share in the Lord's meal and obedience to what Christ told us to do as we gather. And then we also practice baptism with those who are new believers, and we get baptized. Now, we believe that you can take communion in any church, not just here, you don't have to belong, you can only take communion here at this church, you can take communion in other churches. You can be baptized in any church as well if you're a believer, though I think we believe that it's really nice if you belong to this church family that you would practice those things with the people that support you and love you and are walking in life with you. So that's what the church is. This was a huge flyover. We can go into more deeds of all those things, but I only have about 20 minutes this morning. And so we could have spent six months on what the church is, but I just want to remind you that this will be on YouTube and the transcript will be there. And if you want to have further conversation about what the church is or clarify anything, you can find one of us after the service or at that membership class next week, you can stop by and ask your question.

So I know I'm going quickly, but that is what is the church? Next I want to answer why is the church necessary? Why is the church necessary? There's quite a few people these days who might have a personal relationship with God, but don't really want to be involved in church. They may say something like, "I'm not okay with organized religion, but I'm a Christian, I believe." But that isn't quite what God desires or wants. I met a guy over at the park over here one time and he said, "I'm a Christian, I'm a former church goer, and I have my own faith community with my friends." This was after I introduced myself as a pastor, which, you know, we get all these sorts of answers. And he had that down, like that was something he said over and over again. He just had that off the cuff. "I'm a Christian, former church goer, but I have my own faith community with my friends." And it just makes me want to ask more questions. And I didn't really have time to go into it, but I said, "I'm sure there's a story there." He said, "Oh, there's definitely a story there." I said, "Oh, okay." Makes me curious. It's more common now, I'm a Christian, I don't want to go to church, but God wants us to go to church and to belong. And being a Christian technically means you are a part of the universal church. The universal church, again, is the body of Christ. Once you believe and you accept Jesus as your savior, you are a part of the body of believers, the body of Christ. So if you're a part of the universal church, why not be a part of the local church in your area? The purpose of the church, again, is to make visible God's glory. And we do that in primarily two ways, to love God through worship, through prayer, partaking of sacraments, being in obedience with God, by making disciples. The church is how Jesus chose to continue the ministry that he started, to have his believers be together in life, ministering and sharing his truth and his love with the rest of the world. In John 20 and John 17, we hear that from Jesus as he empowers the disciples to say, you are going to continue the work that I have begun. And that is to us today too, as a church. So if we were to parse that out a bit more, I think we see some more specific purposes for the church.

The first one is the advancement of the gospel. While God can work miracles, and there are stories of people in remote places of the earth who have not heard from missionaries or anyone who received dreams and visions of Jesus and come to know and believe in him, and that is amazing. That's incredible. I think the more common route, especially in our context, is by hearing from someone about the gospel, someone sharing with someone else God's word. And that is the purpose of the church. That's why the church is important, is that we are tasked with sharing the gospel to other people. The truth of God will be shared by us. And that can happen in so many different ways. That can be Sunday morning and you invite someone to church and they are here and they hear the gospel message. Or it could be through a Bible study, that someone attends a Bible study and that discussion that's happening around God's word. It can be in outreaches, it can be in men's and women's groups and informal gatherings. It can be in a church setting, it can be something like a VBS, a vacation Bible school, where we invite kids and they are there for a few days and they are going to hear Bible lessons. But the church is about advancing the gospel.

Secondly, the church is important because it's there to make disciples of Jesus. Right after advancing the gospel is to make disciples, make followers of Jesus. And we want to make disciples who make disciples. We want to be leading people to Jesus and then they are with the same heart saying, "Hey, I need other people. There's other people who need the word of God too." Just as the 12 did, the 12 who followed Jesus and they continued the work of Christ and spread the gospel around Jerusalem and beyond. We are to share the gospel with our community, with the people that we have in our life. So the church is about making disciples for Jesus. Again, we are not saying, "Come follow me." We are saying, "Come follow Jesus. I'm following him too. Come join me in following Jesus. We will follow Jesus together.”

Thirdly, the church is important because we are called to be a family of God. So we want to commune with each other, have fellowship with each other, have that community. God created community. And his truth, the gospel, I think this is important to know. His truth is meant to be understood in the context of community. Our culture is such an individualistic culture and it's true that we have a personal relationship with Jesus, but we are also meant to be in community. We are meant to hear God's word in community. We are meant to encourage each other. We are meant to live life alongside other people. It's in this group setting that we are encouraged by others, edified to be more like Christ, where we pray for each other, walk with each other through hardship and difficulty, support each other through crises, and love each other with the love of God. So church is important because we are meant to be a family of God. Church is important.

The fourth reason is to reflect God's glory. As I mentioned, we are a representation of Christ in this world. We just talked about this in our Christian-ish series. We are supposed to abide in him. And as we abide in him, he abides in us. And when we do, and when he abides in us, we reflect his character, his light, his truth, his hope, his love to the world around us. We are that representation of what is true and good, not just individually, but as a church as a whole. We pray that each local church is a light in the darkness, in the chaos, in the confusion and fear of the world.

And fifth is, the church is important because we are continuing Christ's work in us and for others. This goes beyond just making disciples. This speaks to the care that we have for the poor, for the widowed, for those who are treated unjustly, unfairly. We come alongside as a church, we come alongside the broken. We love like Jesus did, those who are in pain, who are hurting, who are alone. We want to have a mind and a heart like Christ, who didn't judge and didn't just say, "Here's what needs to be fixed," but comforted them, walked alongside them, had a meal with them. The church is a place where individually we are refined and transformed and made more like Christ. But it's also a place where together we strive for Christ together. And it's in this group setting as we continue Christ's word that we can better know His truth, we can study God's word, iron sharpening iron, we can care for those who need others, who need love and need someone else to walk with them. So you know what the church is, we know why it's important.

Now what does it look like to belong to a church? Again, these are general, but we see these in Scripture and they are informative for us today and I think transformative for us today. The first one is, what does it look like? Well, it begins with attending, right? You are a part of a church family, which means you got to show up to be with the church family. Your presence matters, you being in church matters. You are missed when you are not here. Church life is not as full when people are not here. Now it's not just attendance, because I think people can attend but not belong, if you know what I mean, right? People can show up but not truly be a part of the church, but it starts with attending. You got to be here at church.

Secondly, connecting with others. That's what it means to belong to a church, is connecting with others. It's a two-way street. We are there for other people and we let other people be there for us. Now some of that is really hard for us. Whichever one, maybe it's easy to be there for others but we don't like to let people in. You say, "Hey, I'll show up, I'll help out, but as soon as we're in a hard time, we kind of disappear. I'll come back when I've figured it out." No, being a part of a church and connecting with others, having that relationship means vulnerability, letting other people in, letting other people care for you, and it requires sacrificial living, doing things and being there for others even when it's not convenient. Even when you may be busy or when you don't get to do that thing that you wanted to do because now someone's asked for your help. That's real relationship. That's what the church should be about, where we connect with others, where we build relationship with people based on Christ's love for us.

So attending, connecting with others, and then belonging to a church means serving with and using your God-given talents. Whatever God has given you, time, talents, resources, how are you using that for his kingdom and in the local church context? Again, whether that's time, talents, or money, but I would say it's not less than money. We serve each other. We use whatever God has given us. We give our time to show that we care. We give our skills because God has given them to us to use for his kingdom, and we give our money as a way to be generous, out of obedience, and as an ongoing way to exercise trust in God. So what do you have? What has God given you? And it may change. Maybe at one season of life you have a lot of time, and maybe you're called to be involved with the church. Maybe in another season you're really busy, but God's blessed you with some finances and you say, "Hey, I'm going to give a bit more during this time." Or maybe God's given you some kind of talent skill that the church can use, and you can offer that and say, "Hey, I want to do this for the church." Then lastly, I want to say that belonging to a church means caring for one another. This just goes beyond connecting. It's actively looking out for one another, and we love that that happens so organically in a small church. When you know each other's lives, when you know what's going on, and when something arises, you can say, "Hey, I heard this, and I want to be there for you. I want to cook this meal for you. I want to show up. I'm going to mow your lawn for you," whatever it is. Pastor Chris is going to share more of this next week, I think, but we have a care team here who checks in with people. Whether we hear something or when we just haven't seen you for a while, you might get a call and say, "Hey, how are you doing? You just want to make sure everything's okay. Is there anything we can be praying for?" But it's actively looking out for one another. Part of caring for one another is also providing encouragement. Through word or deed or by the Holy Spirit, we want to encourage one another to follow God in whatever situation we are in. That may be by providing answers and conversation, or it may just mean praying for each other. Say, "Hey, I heard this, and they're not ready to hear anything right now, but I'm just going to be praying for them." Or it may mean, "Hey, I know this person. I know what they're going through, and I'm going to invite them out to coffee because I think we need to talk it out. I think they need someone to listen to them, or maybe they need to hear some encouragement right now." But we're actively trying to do that. Lastly, the thing about caring for one another is welcoming new people. Again, if the church is doing what the church is supposed to do, we're going to be seeing new people in the church, receiving Christ and starting their faith journey, or returning to church, maybe after years of not walking with God. We are here to welcome them in, back to the family of God. You're here to welcome them, not to judge, not to be gatekeepers of the truth or our community. We are here to welcome people, just as Jesus welcomed people.

So I would say belonging to a church looks like these things. You're attending, you're connecting with others, you're serving the church and giving to the church, and you're caring for one another. Now, given all those things, I want to ask, do you belong here at Spring Valley Church? Do you feel like you are doing those things and this is the place that you belong? Or do you sense, "I'm not doing all these things, and I want to belong, and here's a couple more things now that I can do, that I can improve, that I can work on." I want all of you to pull out your programs, as Lauren mentioned. If you've been here for a while, you might have noticed that we changed a couple of things down here. There's something new. And I want to point this out to you. Now there's a little section that kind of pertains to today. It says, "Sign me up for membership class on March 22nd." If you're not yet a member here at Spring Valley, but you're hearing what church is, and what it means to belong to a church, and you want to belong to Spring Valley Church, I would encourage you to write your name, contact information, and check that box. I am signing up for membership class. If you're here, and you're still wondering, and you've got questions, like, "I've heard this, I've understood what the church is, but I have some more questions," I'd still encourage you to write your name down, attend the class. The class next week is not a, "I'm for sure becoming a member." So don't worry, there's no pressure there. But just, it's time to ask questions, to clarify anything, for us to explain some more things. So I'd still encourage you to attend. There's going to be a bucket in the back, and at the end of the service, when we dismiss, I want you guys to drop those in there. Even if you've been attending church a long time, I'd still encourage you. This is a chance to, again, we've had local churches, but we're going to talk next week about Spring Valley Church specifically, and so I'd love for you guys to be there to hear specifically what God is doing at this church. All right, I know that was, you have your tear-off sheets, I hope I, did I hear some of this, did I hear this happening right here? Did you guys do this yet? Oh, okay, yeah, okay, I heard one. Great, there we go. I know that was a lot, and hopefully some of it was familiar, hopefully some of it might have been new, or a good reminder of why the church exists, and hopefully it's guiding you closer to why, just going week after week, again, not out of obligation, but because you belong to a family, a church family, and that is such a good thing. And again, the sermon will be posted online, if anything, if I went too fast over anything, feel free to go back.

Lastly, I just want to put this in front of you, something that we're trying to stress more is how we can be more intentional, be mindful of those who need Jesus in your life. So who in your life could benefit from being a part of a local church? Who in your life needs to hear the truth, needs to be encouraged, needs to connect with warm and loving people who love God? Who do you know that you can reflect God's glory to? And if some names are coming to mind, good, if you don't have anyone, and everyone in your life is a Christian, praise God for that, but I think it's time to pray that you meet some new people. And I think it's time to pray for a new opportunity, say, "God, bring someone in my life that I can be a Christian to, that I can witness to." But if you don't, if you have names swirling in your head, that's good, I want you to bring out, there should have been a card on your screen, I'm having you fill out a lot this morning, that's a good thing. There's a card that's the Easter service invitation card. And if you have a name that is on your mind, on your heart, I want you to write that down on the top and on the bottom. The top is for you, you keep that section and you're going to put that somewhere in your wallet, your purse, your car, your Bible, somewhere where you're going to see and say, "That's right, when I see, I'm supposed to be looking for an opportunity to invite this person to Easter service." So do that. And then you're going to write the same name on the bottom, you're going to put it in the bucket, and we're going to pray for you. And we're going to be praying for these names. We don't know who belongs to who, we're just going to be praying, "Hey, for this person, we pray that whoever is in their life that knows Jesus, they're going to invite this person to Easter service." So we're going to partner with you in praying for people to come to a church service.

And the great thing about this, about praying about an opportunity, is you guys do not have to be super confident in that moment. It's okay to be nervous, it's okay to just have a little anxiety over it, but I want to tell you this, it does not depend on you. Their relationship with God, their attendance, and what they do with church does not depend on you. I know for some people it takes a while, it takes multiple invites to say, "You know what? I'm going to go." And so you might be the first invite, and you might get rejected, and that's okay. You're priming the pump and making them think about church, and making them think about God. And God is doing so much work that we cannot see in their hearts. Now you also might be the invite that they say yes to. And so just know that, be at peace, pray about it, and say, "God, give me the words to say and help me to be okay as I invite this person to church." But I want you to pull that card out, fill that out, and drop it in the bucket in the back. And if you are, have already done it, do it again. We want to keep seeing those names, okay? If you're like, "Hey, I did this two weeks ago." That's okay, still do it, fill it out, drop it in the back. Well, I'm looking forward to next week, I'm looking forward to what God is going to do in the series in our church, and what he's going to do on Easter and beyond. So looking forward to next week as Pastor Chris is going to share more about the mission and vision of Spring Valley. Hope you guys will join us for that. And again, stay after for that membership class right after.

So just pray with me this morning. God, thank you again for your word. Thank you for the church that you have given us. It is a gift that we have people that we can walk through life with, that we have a community that we can share in our belief in, and have common faith in you that you are the thing that unites us, that gives us life, that gives us love and grace to have on other people. God, thank you for how the church can support each other. I know that so many in this room feel the love from other people in this room who have gone through a hard time and other people in this church have prayed for them, have supported them, walked alongside them. God, I pray for those of us who are in a time right now, you would help us to be vulnerable and say, "Church, I need you." God, I pray that you would help those of us who have the capacity to be there for other people to live with the sacrificial love that says, "You know what? I was going to do this, but I'm going to go be there for this person. I'm going to show up." And God, I pray that you would put on all of our hearts an understanding of how important and vital it is to belong to a church. And I pray that you would help us in our belonging here at Spring Valley Church. Give you all the glory and all the praise. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.

Colossians: Part 5

Colossians: Part 5 - Living Faith Where It Matters Most

Colossians 3:18-4:6

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are wrapping up our Colossians series, so we have been walking through Colossians from chapter one all the way through chapter four. And so we are finishing that up today. And it has been a really powerful series as we dove into this book of Colossians, into this letter from the Apostle Paul, and really kind of got to see how Paul shares who Jesus is and how He's above everything. And throughout the book, starting all the way in chapter one, he's been teaching us and reminding us how we can live a life that is worthy of the Lord. He gives really clear theological arguments for who Christ is, that He is the Son of God, that He did come in bodily form, that He did die and rise again, that He is who He says He was, and then because of that, we should live our life differently. He goes on to say that Christ is our life. He is everything. He gives us a new identity. He takes off the old and puts on the new. He just outlines this so well throughout the passage. But really, because of this, because of who Christ is, and because we are transformed and have this new identity, the natural progression is that our lives, our everyday lives, would be changed. Our behaviors, our attitudes, our actions, our words. Everything is impacted by Jesus. I shared a quote on the first Sunday of our Colossians series. I wanted to share it again because I think it's really powerful, but it also just really applies to how we're going to wrap up the series today. It's from the guys at the Bible Project. It says, "No part of human existence remains untouched by the loving and liberating rule of Jesus. We're invited to live in the present as if the new creation arrived when Jesus rose from the dead. With Jesus, no part of the human existence remains untouched." No part is untouched. This means that we are completely made new. No part of us is exempt. We don't get to just kind of pick and choose what parts are impacted. Or maybe what certain parts we'd like to change. Every aspect of our lives is put under the authority of Jesus Christ. I said in week one that a person can encounter Jesus, and when they do, they will never be the same in some shape or form. Even if they choose not to follow Jesus, they will be impacted in some way. They won't be the same. But when a person is truly transformed by Jesus, everything is different. Everything changes. What we read, the content we consume, the food we consume, the relationships we have, who we surround ourselves with and allow to influence us, how we take care of our health, how we spend our money, how we treat other people. Everything is impacted and needs to be submitted to the authority of Jesus.

Now here's the thing. Jesus isn't just trying to be a fun killer, and as soon as you decide to follow Jesus, you have to get rid of everything you love. That's not the point. But if you are actively surrendering every aspect of your life to Jesus, some things will stay. Some things will have to change in some shape or form, and some things will have to go. Maybe forever if they're a sin issue or something the Lord has convicted you on, but maybe it's just for a season. But when you are living the surrendered life, He's going to make it clear to you of what can stay, go, or be changed. But it all, everything has to be surrendered to the Lord. And that is easier said than done. Honestly, it's an ongoing process. There's times when we are in a new season or we're in a new part of life or something new comes up for us. Maybe we have new information or we learn something new from the Bible and the Holy Spirit convicts us on something and we have to re-surrender. We submit it to Him and say, "Jesus, what do You say about this thing? How can I surrender this? What do You want me to do with this thing? Is this okay for me? Do I need to change it or do I need to let it go?" Paul spends a lot of time talking about who Christ is. And then because of that, how we as individuals are changed. And just to kind of recap some of the things we talked about, he talks about how we should grow in our knowledge and wisdom and understanding. That we should allow the Holy Spirit to produce good fruit in us. That we should grow our roots deeper into good soil of the truth of who Jesus is so that we can be strong in that. That we should build our lives on the truth of God's Word so that we can stand firm when false teachers or other ideologies that go against the Bible come up against us. And we should remember that Jesus is enough, period. He is enough for our life, for our salvation, to sustain us. He is our very life. All of these things are good and necessary for us to live a life worthy of the Lord. But then Paul gets a little bit more practical in chapter three, as we saw last week. He said that we should put to death our old selves and put on this new identity. Get rid of the old self, the sin that is mixed up with that, and put on this new identity. We should clothe ourselves with the characteristics of Jesus. And we should live in holy community, in Christian community with other believers. These are just some really practical things that Paul is saying, "You can do this because you have been made new. These are the steps you can take.”

So we're picking up in chapter three, verse 18, and Paul moves into even more specific and practical things. He's gonna talk about relationships and how even those must be surrendered to the authority of Jesus. So today we're gonna talk about everyone's favorite topic, submission. Everyone loves the idea of submission, right? We love the idea of learning how we can be better about submitting to someone else. But really with this passage, Paul is kind of overhauling the family. He's overhauling the dynamics of the home and family, and then also the workplace. He's teaching us and showing us how the authority and love of Jesus should impact these relationships. In the first century, the readers who were originally reading this, they understood and believed that the man was over everything. The man was the head of the house. He was the head politically. He was the head socially. He had full control and authority over his household. Everyone just submitted to him because that's what you did. And Paul is going to flip the script, not in taking authority away from the men, but in how they behave with that authority. He's gonna turn some things upside down for these first century Christians, but in the upside down kingdom of God, relationships should look different than the world. It would be a problem if they all look the same. So Paul is reshaping the Roman household and the Christian household around Jesus who rules with this self-giving love. He leads and has authority differently than human authority typically operates. Some of these things that we're gonna talk about to our modern day ears may not actually sound very revolutionary. We have progressed in civil rights and human rights, and we have learned how to treat people differently in our Western culture. So they may not seem crazy to hear, but I think it's still a good reminder because just because we know something doesn't mean we always live it out. And so it helps us to remember to shape or reshape our relationships here and now around the rule and authority of Jesus.

So first, he starts with the husband and wife relationship. We're gonna be in chapter three, starting in verse 18. We'll have it on the screens, but if you want to turn there with us. Verse 18 says, "Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands as is fitting in the Lord." Little caveat here. This is not all women to all men. This is specific to the husband-wife relationship. This says, "Wives, submit to your husband." Okay? Just wanted to just make that clear. So wives, submit to your husbands. We are called as wives to submit to the husband. But here's the thing. The word in Greek here is referencing, it's similar to a military term, that is referencing to be under in rank. This is not talking about value. It's talking about position. A soldier could have more ability. They could be stronger or more intelligent than their superior officer, but that doesn't change their rank. They still have value as a human being. They still have value in their abilities, but they still have a certain position. And that is under the authority of their higher ranking officer. So in this case, Paul is not lowering the value of wives. He is saying you have a particular position to take. This is your position. Genesis 2 references this idea. And when God made Adam, he said, "You need a helper." None of the animals or anything else in creation was suitable for him. So God said, "You need a helper." Well, this word helper, it's the word "easer." E-Z-E-R. And the only other times, besides in Genesis 2, as far as I understand, the only other times that is used in the Bible is in reference to military, when they would come to help or support the nation, or referencing God himself, that he is the helper, the "easer" of Israel. That God is the helper of his people. So to me, to reference the wife as an "easer" shows strength. It shows stability. It shows support. This is not lowering a wife's value. It is giving her value. It is just putting her in the proper position. It also, this idea that Paul shares, it connotates a willing or a voluntary submission. This wife is allowing her husband to be in rank over her. She is submitting to his authority voluntarily. She is allowing him to rule over her in this marriage relationship. In the verse it also says, "As is fitting to the Lord." So this is not, this "as is fitting to the Lord" can be a little confusing of what this actually refers to. Well, it is not referring to an absolute submission as we submit absolutely to God. It is not the same. We don't say, "Well, I'm going to submit, or wives should submit to your husbands as you would submit to the Lord." It is not the same. It is not this complete absolute submission. It is also on the flip side, not a caveat for wives that says, "Well, if you are fitting to the Lord, husband, then I'll submit to you. If you are doing what is right in the Lord's eyes, then I will submit." It is saying that wives should submit because it is fitting to the Lord. It's part of our duty as Christian wives to operate in this way. It's one way that we as wives can live out our lives worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we do this, it honors God. God is not a God of chaos, but of order. And he has created order in the marriage relationship. So it honors him and it honors the order of authority he has placed in our lives. Really, submission is, this idea here is more about submitting to Christ than it is about submitting to your husband. You submit to your husband in order to also show how you submit to Christ. And it honors God when we do that.

So then Paul goes on and addresses husbands in the next verse. He says, "Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them." So wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. The word here is agapeo, for love. You may have even heard a different form of it called agape. This love is a specific type of, we have the word love for just about everything. I love tacos, I love my husband, I love my children, I love this show. We kind of just use the word love interchangeably. But in scripture, we see different types of love. And this one, one commentary states that agape can be defined as a sacrificial, giving, absorbing love. The word has little to do with emotion and has much to do with self-denial for the sake of another. This love is a sacrificial love that gives without expecting in return. A person who has agape gives because they love. Now, Paul is not lessening, again, he's not lessening the husband in any way, or lowering his value, or softening him. I think a lot of times we connect like lovey-dovey or feelings or emotion with like a soft man. He is not softening the husband. In fact, I would say the husband has a greater obligation put on his shoulders because of this charge to love his wife. He is called to put her first, to put her needs above his own, even to his own self-denial. It also, in the definition, it said an absorbing kind of love. I picture that when life's hardships and things come at you, at your marriage, the husband is the one on the front line absorbing the hits. That's the sacrificial kind of love. But that takes a strong man, someone who is surrendered to the Lord in order to love in that kind of way. He's calling husbands to love your wives as Jesus loves his kids. It is not self-serving. It is sacrificial. It is absorbing in the sense of you take on, you take the hits. It is, brings care. So husband, or wives, submit to your husbands, husbands love your wives.

And then he goes on to the parent-child relationship. Verse 20 says, "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children or they will become discouraged." Now, Paul is affirming that children should obey their parents because children, especially those who have already surrendered their lives to Jesus, they are capable of also living lives worthy of the Lord. And so this is part of that, is living in obedience to their parents. But he also addresses the parents. He says, fathers, or fathers and mothers, do not discourage your children. Parenting is one of the most refining things I have ever experienced. It is wonderful and beautiful, but it is also refining. Because when you parent these tiny humans that look and acts like you, it shines a magnifying glass on your own life. And it is not all pretty, unfortunately. So Paul is admonishing parents and he is saying, don't discourage your children by being too rigid or too overbearing. By being too controlling. Care for them. Expect obedience. Require respect. That is all good. That is all part of parenting. But don't be so harsh with them that you discourage them. That you make them bitter. So children, obey. Parents, don't discourage. My translation is, kids, if you live under your parents' roof, you need to obey them. Parents, don't be jerks. That is the Lawrence Nader translation. Honestly, this was pretty radical. Again, in this first century world, because children were just kind of along for the ride. No one was really concerned about hurting their feelings, or if they were discouraged or not. Kids just did what the parents said. The parents had the, really the father, but the parents had the final say. But Paul is saying, look, these are human beings made in the image of God. They have needs and desires and preferences just like you. So as a parent, as we are growing, helping these kids grow, and we are discipling them towards following Jesus. Again, we do require respect and obedience, but we do it in a way that is loving and caring, and points them to Jesus rather than brings them discouragement, or distress, or bitterness. Because that can impact your relationship. That could impact their relationship with Jesus. We care for them, again, just like Jesus would want us to, and how He cares for us.

So then the final relationship in this section is the relationship between slave and master. It's actually the longest part of this section, if you look at the different relationships here. It's actually the longest part, and I feel like in the first century there wasn't a plethora, nobody was typing up these letters, right? So if they took this much time to write out some words and use this much ink and paper, it's something we need to pay attention to. We're going to look at verse 22. "Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything. Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, and do it not only when their eye is on you, and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism." So what does this have to do with us modern readers? Because slavery is illegal, it still exists, but slavery is illegal, we don't have slaves anymore in our homes. So what does this mean for us? Well, we can look at it in comparison to our jobs, to our workplaces. Even if you maybe volunteer, if you are a stay-at-home parent or retired and you do some volunteer work, you can even look at it in that regard. If you are an employee or under someone's authority in some type of workplace situation, this applies to you. The first part is really talking about integrity. We actually just discussed integrity at Youth Group this last week, and I asked the students to define, or tell me how they would define integrity, and they said, "It's doing what's right even when no one is watching." And they're right. It's doing what's right regardless if anyone sees you or not. We are called to be good workers. We are called to be good stewards of what has been entrusted to us, even when no one sees it. So worker, operate with integrity. We may have bosses or superiors, managers over us at work, but everything we do must be done unto the Lord. He is the one we're working for. We do have humans that we serve or work under, but He is the one we're working for. So instead of trudging along through your day or seeing how early you can dip out, you're watching the clock go by, instead we're called to work to our best, do our best and work to the best of our ability because we're called to live and work with integrity.

Again, verse 23 and 24 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving." It says, "You will receive an inheritance from the Lord." Slaves did not receive inheritances. So what is Paul talking about here? Well, another translation says, "You will receive the inheritance from the Lord." He's talking about an eternal reward, that when our work and our jobs are surrendered to the authority of Jesus and we are operating with integrity, there is an eternal reward waiting for us. Now, let's be completely honest. I don't know if an eternal reward is going to be enough motivation on a Monday when you're walking in and you're ready to go home before you've had your first cup of coffee. But knowing that we have this eternal reward with Jesus when we live a life worthy of Him, it helps us to do better work. It helps us to work with integrity. It helps us to remember to work for Him. That when we surrender our work, we can do everything as if He's literally sitting right there. We work for Him.

Then in a really weird chapter division, we jump to chapter 4 where Paul finishes his thought on this topic of relationships. So chapter 4 verse 1 says, "Masters, provide your slaves with what is right and fair, because you know that you also have a master in heaven." Bosses, employers, supervisors, managers, owners, any one of you that has authority over others, this part, they're talking to you. So authorities, do what is right and fair. You also in your role are being called up. You are being called to submit in this position. You're called to do what is right and fair. Right in the last verse, Paul said, "Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism." Yes, he is referring to the slaves or the workers that he just referenced in the previous section, but this also applies to the masters that he's talking to. God does not show favoritism just because you have a higher rank or more authority. You also must live in submission. In the Kingdom of God, last week we learned that there is no Jew or Greek slave or free. I've heard it said, "The ground is even at the foot of the cross." The ground is even at the foot of the cross. When we are living a surrendered life and we are submitting ourselves to Jesus at the foot of the cross, we're all on even ground there. So if you have a position of authority in your workplace, in your home, in whatever space of life, don't abuse that. Do what is right. Do what is fair. Because you serve one who has more authority than you. We, again, we work unto the Lord. So even in our work as the authority figure, it should also be done unto the Lord. It should also be submitted to him.

Well, with these verses, Paul has really flipped everything. He's flipped the script for these first century Christians. And he's challenged them to live differently, to surrender these relationships. But then Paul's not done. In true Paul fashion, he has more words. It's kind of like throughout Colossians, he's worked in concentric circles. He started at the middle, our internal transformation, and then he went out to the closest relationships, our family relationships, and then he moved out to the workplace.

And now he's finally going to talk about the churches, the church relationships, and beyond. So Colossians 4, verse 2 says, "Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful, and pray for us too that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." Paul tells the Colossian church, "Keep praying, be watchful, be thankful." So church, pray, watch, thank. This is our call too. We are called to pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, for those that we live in community with here at Spring Valley and in our greater Christian community here. But we're also called to pray for the global church, for the spread of the gospel worldwide, and for those that are doing the work of spreading the gospel. Pray for your pastors, pray for ministry leaders, pray for missionaries. Pray that the gospel would continue to spread. He says to watch. As followers of Jesus, we have to be on guard. We are in an information world. We have all the information we could ever want at our fingertips. But that also means that we have to be on guard against false teachers, against untruths or half-truths, against blatant lies from the enemy, against ideologies that are nowhere near what scripture says. We have to be watchful to be on guard against this. And then Paul tells us to give thanks, always coming back to thanks. He says, "Be thankful. Constantly give thanks." He says this over and over and over again because he knows it changes us. It changes our hearts, our minds, our perspectives. So we should always be giving thanks, regardless of our circumstances, because of who God is, His sovereignty, His provision, His love, His transforming work in our lives. And then he finishes with the final circle, the outsiders, the ones who have not joined the family of God yet. He says, "Make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone." We're called to be gracious and careful with our words so that we can continually point people to Jesus, to show them His love and grace, that in the everyday stuff of life, we're making the most of every opportunity.

Christ is above everything, and we have a responsibility to tell the world about it. Y'all have cards on your seats. We want you to take these cards, put someone's name on there that you want to invite to Easter, put their name on it twice, you're gonna put it on the top, and you keep that part to pray for them, and then you rip off the bottom, you can drop it in the back when you leave so that we can pray for the same person. That you would not only have the opportunity, but then you would have the courage to take it. That you would take this opportunity and make the most of it. 'Cause we get to go tell the world that He is above everything. He's above our past, He's above our failures, He's above our current circumstances. Nothing is left untouched by the transforming work of Jesus. We get to go into all the world. We get to tell others what He has done for us, so that all may know Him and His greatness. We're gonna head into a time of prayer, as Andrei said earlier. The band's gonna come up, and they're gonna play a song. You are welcome to stay in your seats and worship and pray where you are, but Andrei and I are gonna be up here. We are just gonna be available to pray with you. If you have something you want to pray about, or be prayed over, or maybe a praise, we would love to do that for you.

But before we head into this time of prayer, I just want to read you a group of scriptures that I think really exemplifies the idea of Christ above everything. You'll recognize some of the scripture from our Colossians series, but there's also passages from Philippians and Ephesians as well. And I felt like it was an appropriate way to end our series, to keep our eyes on the one who is above all things. So as I read this, I invite you to close your eyes and make this your prayer as you listen to these words of scripture. "We pray that the eyes of your understanding will be enlightened, that you may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us, word, who believe. And according to His might, the working of His power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, and He set Him at His own right hand in heavenly places. He's far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in the world that is to come. And God has put all things under His feet and given Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness which filleth all in all, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by Him were all things created, whether in heaven, whether they're on earth, whether they're visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things. And through Him, all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who was the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell. And wherefore God hath also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen.