Jeff Gokee 7/25/21 Jeff Gokee 7/25/21

The Lord's Prayer

Thank you, thank you. I’m actually having a really hard time. That song, you know, Jesus we love you, Jesus we love you. I’m really struggling in a beautiful way. I do love him. I do sense his presence. I don’t even want to transition. I just want to sit in that moment for a second and just feel it. Do you know how much he loves you? Do you know how much he loves us? Do you? He loves you so much.

Series: Sermon on the Mount
July 25, 2021 - Jeff Gokee

I can’t even imagine what so many of you are going through in this time of your life. But just know he loves you. Please know he loves you. Don’t forget that. Don’t forget that. He loves you. He loves you. He loves you. He loves me. I sense it. I feel it. For so much of my life just longing to find other loves that only he can give me. And man, that messed me up. I hope it messed you up. I hope the love of Jesus messes you up, because it’s messing me up right now. I’m like, Dude, I’ve got to preach. What am I doing?

Matthew 6:7-13

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
“This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
    on earth as it is in heaven.
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 the evil one.’

Eight years ago my son was diagnosed with leukemia. Thankfully, last week we celebrated six years off of chemotherapy, which was like a huge celebration for our family. He’s healthy and doing great. Seventeen years old. He’ll be eighteen in a couple of months.

For the first three months his protocol was a certain chemo and that chemo set him into anaphylactic shock. It was very painful, very hard, very scary. So they draw us into this back room and they say, “Hey, without this chemo his chances of surviving drop dramatically. But we have another option and that other option is not approved by the FDA. It’s going to cost you an arm and a leg. It’s going to be very, very expensive, but we think it will save his life.”

Basically, the option was, for three times a week for about six months they had to give him leg shots, deep tissue leg shots right in the muscle. Very painful. So we brought him in for that first one and that happened and it’s so painful, so overwhelming. Now we’ve got to do this three times a week for the next six months. How do we do this?

What ended up happening was, I would show up to the hospital with him and he would start freaking out because he’s thinking about the pain. He’s thinking about the hurt. So I ended up taking laps with him on the inner part of the hospital and just talking to him. “Buddy, you’ve got this. You’ve got this. Come on. Stay focused.”

One of the things Cooper said to us early on in his diagnosis was, “God and I have got this.” Right? So I was like, “You and Jesus. You and God. You’ve got this. Just stay focused in on him. You’ve got to stay loose.” Because if he didn’t stay loose, his muscles would get tight and it would be even more painful. So I’m talking through him, kind of rallying him toward this thing that he has to go through, this difficult thing. Then he’d go in the room and try to calm his heart and get the shots.

I realized something this week as I was thinking about all the study I’ve done around the Lord’s Prayer over the last month or so, and actually diving in deep into the Lord’s prayer is this: I used to think of the Lord’s Prayer kind of like this very somber, quiet thing. I realized this week it’s a rally cry. It’s like a war cry. It’s this anthem that we are in the kingdom of God right now. We are his children. He is our Father and we are coming up against all that our culture is deeming appropriate. When he’s going, “It’s not. That’s the kingdom of this world. I want to invite you into kingdom mentality, kingdom thinking.”

So it reframed the way I was reading and praying through the Lord’s Prayer. It’s a rally cry. Culture shaping, life shaping, day shaping, mind shaping, spirit shaping prayer that Jesus is inviting us into.

I want to tell you this, it’s going to radically change your life, if you don’t just say these words, but really apply them to the way you live your life. This is the kingdom of God life, the kingdom of God prayer that he’s inviting us into.

And much like me taking Cooper around the inside of the hospital going, You’ve got this,” Jesus is going, “I’ve got you. Stay focused. My kingdom’s here. I’m your Father. I’m hallowed. I’m going to take care of your needs. I’m going to provide for you. I’ve got you.”

And it’s a rally cry. So I hope as we go through this together that it is this very personal, somber thing, but it’s also this rally cry that’s coming up against the kingdom of this earth. He is introducing us once again to his kingdom and what exists there.

The Lord’s Prayer is a framework not just for prayer, but for life. I don’t know if you know this but so often we get caught up into the idea that this is a prayer. This is a framework for life and the way that we are to live this life.

Over the last couple of months we’ve been trying to learn what it looks like to live in the kingdom of God. Once again Jesus is providing us a framework through prayer that is actually a wholistic, a whole life thing that he’s inviting us into.

Before we move on, kind of the background of the Lord’s prayer, and we see it all throughout this passage in Matthew 6 — and we talked about it a few weeks ago — what happened is the Gentiles had all these complex prayers to the gods. Basically those complex prayers were filled with uncertainties. So they used all these words more and more, because they’re trying to get the gods to interact with their lives. And of course Jesus says, “Don’t be like that.”

In my mind I had this image of Elijah on top of the mountain, and the prophets of Baal, all day long cutting themselves and saying tons of words. That’s the image that comes to my mind. And Elijah’s kind of mocking them, “What? Is he going to the bathroom? Eh - I guess your god’s asleep.”

This is what Jesus is trying to help his disciples understand. “Don’t be like them. Don’t just continue babbling on and babbling on with this level of uncertainty. I’m here in your presence. I’m Emmanuel, God with You right now. You don’t have to be babbling on. I know what you need. Because I know what you need and I know how I want to love you, I want to present for you a structure in the way that you can live your life and a framework in which you can pray.”

William Barclay, he is a commentator, he says this, and then we’ll move forward. He says:

We need to bring our whole life to the whole of God and bring the whole fo God to the whole of life.

This is so important as we move forward in understand the Lord’s Prayer and what he’s actually inviting us into. It’s all of him. It’s all of him. But it takes all of us. Are we willing to be obedient to who he’s called us to be because of who he is?

So he starts off by saying, “Our Father in heaven…” Right there we have these two beautiful things. “Our Father.” This is love. Then “in heaven.” Power. He is loving. He is our Father. But he is above it all. He is both far away and very near. And we live in that tension. Right? He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He is the beginning and the end. But he is so near to us right now.

He starts off with our “Our Father in heaven,” and you’ll see this word occur all through this prayer: our. Because I think what happens so often in the Christian life is, it doesn’t say “My Father,” it says, “Our Father.” Jesus is inviting us into the Ecclesia, the Body. This is why Church is so important. Church is not just something you attend on Sunday. It’s who we are because of who he is. And Jesus is trying to help us understand that this myopic way in which we approach him is misguided.

So he starts off by going, “No, this is a corporate declaration, not just an individual declaration.” It’s a corporate declaration. Why? Because it’s resisting and revolting about what Satan wants to do to you and me. And what he wants to do is have it all be about you. He wants the individualism that our culture loves to seep into your mind.

I find it so interesting that the pieces of technology we have in our life are literally drawing us away from one another. We have an iPhone. Right? An iPhone. When I grew up, we had our phone. We only had one phone in the house. How many only had one phone in the house? Now y’all got a phone, individually, in your hand. It’s your phone. It has your preferences. You call whoever you want.

What we don’t realize is that we’ve applied that to our understanding of who God is. And it’s false. He’s our Father. All Satan wants to do is pull you away from the flock, pull you away from the body, because there you are most vulnerable. All throughout Scripture it’s talking about a body with many parts: “A three cord strand cannot be easily broken,” “Where two or more are gathered In his name there’s — what? There’s much power.” Because there’s power in the Body, in the Ecclesia. This is what he’s inviting us into.

The power of the Lord’s Prayer is not just in personal petition, but corporate declaration. This is who we are. This is what we’re praying. This is what we believe.

He then says, “Our Father.” Everything starts here. For over two decades my father and I have been kind of on the outs. I love my father. He’s a good man. But there’s been a lot of hurt. There’s been a lot of pain. What I realized was my view of my heavenly Father has been dramatically impacted by my experience with my earthly father. This is where, for a lot of you, it breaks down.

This is why you struggle with prayer. This is why we continue to struggle to live and be obedient, because we don’t really know him as Father. I know for so many of you, you’ve had really painful experiences with your earthly fathers. They’ve not set a great example of heavenly Father. We know that most of the social problems in our world are as a direct result of fathers who have abandoned families. Fathers who have hurt and abused and all these different things.What we end up doing, whether we know it or not, is start applying that. So this term, “Our Father,” we sort of struggle with. But everything starts there.

A.W. Tozer, a great theologian, says this:

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

The Lord’s Prayer starts here. It has to start here. Because if we don’t know him as Father, the rest of it’s not going to follow. The rest of it’s not going to make sense. We’re going to continue to battle in this world. So we really do have to get honest with how do I believe? Who do I believe God to be? Do I believe him to be this distant diety who’s sitting on a rocking chair up in heaven? Or is he my — our — Father?

We have to deal with that. Otherwise the rest of the prayer we’re going to continue to struggle with. Otherwise I’m going to continue as a pastor to hear over and over, “I just don’t feel God. I don’t sense God. I don’t see God. I don’t hear God. I don’t feel God.” Because we’re struggling with who he is as Father.

So the question is do you really believe he is your Father? When we sing, Jesus, we love you, there’s something inside of you that just longs. That’s who he is to us. And it starts here. You have to start here.

And then you have to transition into this next part, which is “hallowed be your name.” Holy is who God is. It’s who he is. Holy is who God is. Isaiah is having a vision of the throne room of God, where the angels are falling on their faces and they say, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” And as a result of that, Isaiah says, “I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people in the same way.” As a result of understanding that God our Father is holy, holy, holy.

But I think where we’ve moved as a culture is we’ve moved away from that vision, that very sacred vision that Isaiah is inviting us into. We’ve moved to a very sacreligious vision of the holiness of God, where we’ve made him our home boy — like, “Jesus is my home boy,” — where we use the name of God as if it doesn’t have any reverence behind it. As if it isn’t holy. We use it in common phrases.

I think there’s something about us that needs to back up. We need to back up, back into that sacred space. Not a legalistic place, but a sacred place to go, “God is holy.” Our Father, yes, he’s loving, but he is holy. Jesus wants us to pray in a way that says, “Our Father is hallowed. He’s holy.”

R.C. Sproul, another theologian, says:

If you don’t delight in the fact that your Father is holy, holy, holy, then you are spiritually dead…

And I believe that to be true because I’ve experienced it in my life.

…You may be in a church. You may go to a Christian school. But if there is no delight in your soul for the holiness of God, you don’t know God. You don’t love God. You’re out of touch with God. You’re asleep to his character.

Like smelling salts, Jesus is trying to awake our souls, that God is our Father and he is holy, holy, holy. And that should bring a reverence. It should draw our hearts into who he is, his whole character, and that we would desire him deeply in that way; because hallowed, as it’s translated in the Greek, isn’t just about knowing the name of God. Satan knows the name of God. The demons know the name of God. Hallowed is, at least in the Greek, it’s pulling us in. It’s for those who intimately want to know the character and the nature of God and they trust him. This is what it means to live into the holiness, the hallowed ness of God.

Here’s the reality: The holiness of God does not keep us at an arm’s distance. Because who is teaching us to pray this way? Jesus. And where is Jesus? Emmanual, God with Us come to earth. How beautiful! And then Jesus dies and resurrects and who does he send? The Spirit of God who is here right now, near to us. This holy, holy, holy God is not keeping us at an arm’s distance, but drawing us near. But do you want to experience the holiness of God? Because we see, even in Old Testament and New Testament, he’s inviting us into this. But we have to be available to deal with who God is in the invitation that he’s provided for us.

Psalm 9:10 was really helpful for me this week in trying to work through this. It says this:

Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.

How beautiful. How beautiful for you and me to have this understanding that he is our Father and he is holy, but he loves us and cares for us and Jesus is inviting us in, to the point where now he transitions and he says, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Whose kingdom? His kingdom. Whose will? His will. Not our kingdom, not our will. His kingdom. His will. We want it to be done. As we read through this we find out something really interesting. We find out there’s something very right that’s happening. We find out also that there’s something very wrong.

I hate that I love McDonald’s. I hate that I love their French fries. Because there’s something so good about it and there’s something that’s so, so very bad about it. Do you know they put sugar in their salt on the fries? Right? To just draw us in. “Come, come, have my magical, delicious brownness in your belly.” But it’s so bad for us. It’s going to clog up our arteries and give us heart attacks. But we’re like, “Arrrh..” Because there’s something very nostalgic about it, at least for me, right?

There’s something very, very wrong that Jesus is exposing, but he’s also talking about what’s right. What’s right is we’ve neglected the kingdom of God. We’ve pushed it away. That’s why we have to invite it in. Our sin nature, our depravity is continuing to push against God’s plan, his kingdom come, his will be done. It’s pushing up against it.

Jesus is like, “We need to invite it in.” So there’s both a negative and a positive here. It’s a problem for so many of us. We talk like this, but we don’t really want it. It’s a very dangerous thing to invite into your life because it’s going to transform you. It’s going to help you and open your eyes to the holiness of your heavenly Father. This is what it means to pray for this.

Here’s the other thing. I find this so interesting. And you’re going to have to allow me to rant for just a little second, okay? I find that, especially during the last eighteen months, honestly, for most of my life, any time when stuff gets hard, everybody’s like, “It’s our time to get out of here.” Our ecclesiology gets all crazy, right? Our end times stuff. We go, “He’s coming back! He’s coming back! He’s coming back!”

And that may be the case. But sometimes we’re so busy trying to get out of here instead of inviting him here. He’s here. This is his kingdom come and his will be done on earth — not get out of here — as it is in heaven. And sometimes we’re too busy trying to get out of here when he’s inviting us to be here with him.

All right. Rant’s over. I feel so much better. Thank you.

The other thing I’ll say around this that I think is really important — Peter’s going to draw this out for us. We tend to always think about the negative things that are going to get us out of here, right? Peter goes, “Do you know what hastens the day of Christ? When believers in Jesus Christ choose to be obedient to the call of Christ.” That’s what hastens the day of Christ. That’s a positive thing. We’re always looking at all the negative. I want you to look at the positive.

As we move forward in this way of thinking, we’re hastening the day of Christ. Instead of going, “Hey, God, get me out of here,” we’re going, “I’m here, baby. I’m going to be obedient to what you’ve called me to do and where you’ve called me to go.” That’s empowering. Do you feel empowered by that this morning? You should be. You should be.

You matter in the kingdom of God and we should be saying, “Please come. Please come. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth. We want to bring heaven here. Not get out of here. We want heaven here. We want more people to come to know Jesus as Lord and Savior through the way that we obey and follow after him.” So maybe this would shift the way we start thinking about “kingdom come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

So the question that arises, Are we living in a way that says kingdom come? Are we living that way? Is it impacting every part of your life? The way I’ll describe it is, do we live in a participatory lifestyle? Which simply means this: I know some of you in here are teachers. You start school tomorrow. Glory be to God. God bless you, okay? You start school tomorrow. What would it look like to invite the kingdom of God into your classroom? Come on! What would it look like for us to realize there’s a bunch of kids in there that desperately need to see Jesus through the way we live this out.

You know all these prayers are a daily thing. He’s going to move on to Matthew 6 and he’s going to talk about, “Don’t worry about tomorrow.” This is how we need to live today. So what does it look like to anticipate the kingdom of God today? This has been so convicting to me this week. I’m always thinking about tomorrow, when he’s like, “I’ve only given you today.”

And what does it look like to invite the kingdom of God into your workplace, into your family, into your finances? Get micro on this. We’re always thinking of it on a macro scale. “Come on. Rain it down.” And he’s like, ‘What about your finances? What about your marriage? What about your parenting? What about your job?” Invite the kingdom of God into that to redeem that as it is in heaven. This is what we’re being invited into. This is a declaration to get earth out of us. To get earth out of us.

Paul says, “I’m crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I but who lives in me? Christ! He lives in me.”

This is what it is to invite the kingdom of God, his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is what he’s wanting us to do.

So now we transition into this other part. But these are more little practical things. But actually, they’re very important things, wholistic things. He says, “Give us today our daily bread.” I find something really interesting. Costco is like Disneyland for adults, right? You walk into Costco and you watch a bunch of adults go, “Whoo! I didn’t know I needed four thousand batteries. I didn’t know I needed six toothbrushes.” And there’s a guy in there selling knives. And you go, “I didn’t know I needed Ginsu knives. I didn’t know I needed that. I do need that.” “I need four trillion bagels for my family.”

All of a sudden we get all — I call it the Costco complex. We get in there and we go, “Whoo!” Right? Nothing against Costco but I think it’s actually framing up for us this very consumeristic thing. It’s exposing something in us. “I want all this.”

How many of you have filled up your Costco cart, paid for it, got in the cart and go, “I over-bought. I overdid that.” How many of you? Be honest before the Lord. All of us have. If you’ve been to Costco, you’ve over-bought.

He’s revolting against this. Why? Because, remember in alms giving, he’s like, “Don’t be like everybody else.” And he says, “Our daily bread.” Which I find again is very interesting. What does it look like for us to simplify our lives. Because there’s a bunch of people in the world that don’t have. What does it look like to remind ourselves to be mercy-minded. That’s what it means to be an alms giver. To go like, “Do you know what’s been done for us? Now I just want to do that.”

See, something like Costco is going to bring that into conflict because all we can think of is more, more, more, more, more. And who is it that’s providing our daily bread? God is providing our daily bread.

This word daily in the Greek is actually one of the most complicated words in the Bible to translate. It’s one of the most complicated words. The reason is because it’s not found anywhere else in Greek literature. So recently they found a shopping list on a piece of papyrus and the shopping list was basically things to do. This word occurred.

Here’s what’s really interesting about this word daily. It literally means, help me get the things that are on my shopping list daily. That’s what he’s inviting us into. It’s a daily reminder that he is the one that provides for us. He is the one that cares.

And it cannot only be preached once or prayed once to yourself. You don’t just pray it once and go, “Hey, once and done.” This is a daily thing.

I went to Kenya three years ago. I go in this dung hut. We walk in and the lady is so excited to see us. So she invites us outside and we walk outside and I was asking about her daily life. “Tell me about your daily life.” She goes, “Well, I get up and I pray every morning, ‘God I need food. I don’t have any food.’ And do you know, some days he does it and some days he doesn’t. And he’s so faithful.”

And she was so happy and we were just so humbled that this connection that she had with her heavenly Father that he was the one that provided for her. She found so much peace in it. I find it so bizarre that, as it relates to our daily needs — and by the way, this is not just about bread. This is about all our needs in our lives — when we bring those before the Lord, this is a submission. This is as humble declaration that, “God, you’re the one who cares for me. You’re the one who loves me. You’re the one who sees me. You’re the one who provides for me.”

We’ve seen God do this all throughout scripture. Manna. A cloud by day. Fire by night. Water. He’s providing for the Israelites to say to us, are we living our lives in a participatory way of going, “You take care of me. You love me. You see me.”

Here’s the thing. God doesn’t need to be reminded to care for you, but we need to be reminded who’s caring for us. God doesn’t need you to go, “Don’t forget to take care of me!” What we need to do is remind ourselves who’s taking care of us. Isn’t that so important.

So as you come to this particular place in the Lord’s prayer, remind yourself he’s the one who’s doing it. Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. He is doing it.

Transitions into “forgive our debt as we also have forgiven our debtors.” So convicting. We need to practice what we preach. Remember, this is what Jesus is saying all throughout this. “Don’t be like the hypocrites. Don’t be like the hypocrites. Stop acting.” Remember this from last time? “Stop acting.” We’re acting. Many of us are acting, pretending. He’s like, “Stop. stop. Stop.” We need to practice what we preach because we do for others what has been done for us. Jesus is inviting this into our lives, that we would confess this out loud.

In fact, the literal translation of this, according to William Barclay — this was so convicting for me this week — forgive us our sins in proportion as we forgive those who sin against us. In proportion.

And we would say, “Oh, oh, hold on. Hold on.” Because this is what I did this week. “ Wait. Wait. He’s already paid our sins.” Right? He died and our sins are washed away. We’re white as snow. Right? Yes! Except that he also says, “To whom much is given, much is required.” That those of us who have received that redemption have an expectation to live that out in the spaces and places that he’s called us to. “To whom much is given, much is required.”

We should be known for forgiveness. Is the local church, is the ecclesia, known for forgiveness because of what’s been done for us? I don’t believe so. In fact, Keith Green, many of you might know who Keith Green was. Back in the ’70’s he was this kind of prophetic worship leader. He had a song called Asleep in the Light. I grew up listening to Keith Green and he says this in this line in the song, it always gets me.

O Bless me, Lord, bless me, Lord.
That’s all I ever hear.
No one aches. No one hurts.
No one even sheds a tear.
But He cries. He weeps. He bleeds.
And He cares for your needs.
And you just lay back and keep soaking it in.
Can’t you see it’s such sin?

That’s super convicting. Because “to whom much is given, much is required.” So what does it look like to live like people who are forgiven? That the death and resurrection of Jesus has covered a multitude of sins? Therefore, now, we go out. I wonder what this would look like for you this week. What would it look like — because what I know about the last eighteen months is there’s been lots of division, lots of pain — what would it look like to go on social media and say, “I’m so sorry about the divisive comments I’ve made over the last eighteen months. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

And then, what about forgiving people who have an opposing view to what you believe, and forgiving them for the way that they’ve maybe treated you? Can you see how beautiful that would be? That’s redemption! That’s redemptive because we know what’s been done for us. We know that there’s a people out there watching the body of Christ and saying, “Will they actually do and be who he’s called them to be? They speak the Lord’s Prayer but do they really live it out in their lives?”

So this was really convicting for me. And I hope it’s convicting for you. But it’s also beautiful and liberating and freeing. And that’s what he’s inviting us into.

So he ends with this part, “And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.” People get hung up on the word tempt. Test is probably a better word, because people are like, “Well, wait. Can God tempt me into sin?” No. But if you remind yourself when Jesus was baptized, he was baptized, Father God said, “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased.” And then it says this in the passage, “And then immediately the Spirit of God took him to the desert to be tempted (or to be tested).”

Really, what this prayer is saying is this. It is a humble declaration of our vulnerability. We see how Jesus was tested, how overwhelming and hard that is. What we’re saying is, “Hey, God, “I’m not Job! Please don’t test me. God, I’m not like Elijah. I’m not like Moses. Please. I need your help! Because that overwhelming testing, I need your help.”

This isn’t about winning. This is about God sparing us and asking him to spare us from that testing. And ultimately what this passage is about, what this declaration is about is about rescue. “Deliver us from the evil one. Rescue me from Satan.” That would be a cry of your heart. “Rescue me from my depravity. Rescue me from my sin. I’m not the one who can do it. Only you can do it. I can’t do it on my own. I need you.”

What I love about the Lord’s Prayer is that it starts with a focus on a holy Father who is in heaven and it ends with Emmanuel, God with Us, and inviting us to beg him to free us from evil, which by the way, Jesus would say, “I’m going to defeat evil. I’m going to do that. I have the kingdom of God. I have brought the kingdom of God to earth. I am going to die for the sins of the world because my Father is holy. And because he’s holy he needs a perfect sacrifice and I am going to be that perfect sacrifice for all who are not willing and cannot make it on their own, I am going to be the propitiation for your sins. And I do all of this because he is my Father. And I will do the will of my Father.”

This is a prayer of redemption and rescue, but the posture of our heart should be, “Come, Lord, Jesus, come. I’m a man of unclean lips and I live among a people that are unclean. And we need you. We need you.” This prayer is, “We need you.” It’s inviting us into a right understanding of the kingdom of God and who we are in that kingdom.

Twelve years ago — I told you a little about this a few weeks ago — I went to India FOR the first time. I told you I talked to a bunch of pastors there. And that was a deeply impactful thing. But the other thing that was really impactful is I met a little girl. That little girl, we were going to sponsor. But what transpired as a result of that is we started an adoption process. Her name is Wasunta. Wasunta is a true orphan, abandoned by her mother and father. And she, as a four-year-old, lived on the streets with her younger brother.

The place where I went actually brought her in. So, again, I was just going to sponsor her, but then what happened was we began a two-year process to adopt her. It was a really crazy process. But every year I would go back to India and I would bring people with me because I wanted to be with the pastors and I also wanted a bunch of other people to see and experience what I had experienced in India. The other reason I would go was to spend time with Wasunta. She’s going to be in our home someday so we want to figure out what this looks like. I want to learn more about her.

That second trip I came back, she’s sitting on my lap and we’re eating chicken. If you know anything about the Indian culture that should not be surprising at all. They eat a lot of chick. So she’s sitting on my lap and we’re eating chicken. We get through eating the chicken and she starts eating the chicken bones. I’m like, “Whoa, whoa! Don’t do that.” And she gets angry at me. She takes the chicken bones. She eats them all and leaves.

I look to the guy she’s living with, because we’re paying for somebody to take care of her. And I’m going, “Hold on. What’s going on here? I’m taking care of this little one. I’m sending you money to take care of her and make sure she goes to school. And she’s eating chicken bones. What’s going on?”

And said this. “My friend, this little girl still thinks she’s an orphan. She’s not come to understand that she’s a daughter.”

That just broke my heart. He said, “She’s stealing mangos. She eats so much she gets sick and throws up, because she’s nervous.”

It just broke my heart because there’s no words I can say, nothing I can do. So I come back the next year and Wasunta’s getting older. And she sits on my lap again. And we start eating chicken. I’m like, “Here we go.” You know? And she eats the chicken, she leaves the bone and she runs away. I’m like, “Huh. What happened?” He goes, “Oh, my friend. Your daughter has finally understood she’s not an orphan, that she’s a daughter, and it’s changed the way she’s lived her life.”

Here’s the interesting thing, I think, that applies for us. So many of us are still living like orphans, when this prayer starts off with saying you’ve got a Father and he’s in heaven and his name is holy. And you can pray that his kingdom is come and his will would be done on earth as in heaven. And guess what? He’s got you. He sees you. He knows you. You can pray for your daily bread. You can pray for your sins to be forgiven, and you can pray that you will not be tempted and that the evil one will leave. Because we have the Spirit of God and he lives into us because he is our Father. You are loved.

My question for us, and I would love to end here with this: Do you know Jesus? Do you know him as your heavenly Father? The King of kings and Lord of lords. Because this prayer will transform your life. It is a framework for life but you have to understand who he is and who you are in order to really allow it to be transformational.

So what I want to do is slow down in this prayer. And I want to say this with you. So we’re going to corporately go through the Lord’s Prayer. So say this with me and we’re going to go slow:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed by your name.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
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 the evil one.

And I’ll end as we have historically ended for so many years, all these years of church history:

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory,
Forever and ever.

And God’s Church said: Amen.

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David Stockton 5/2/21 David Stockton 5/2/21

You Have Heard It Said

How’s everybody? Yeah? We doing okay? We’ve got the month of May now, which is fun. You heard new service times for the summer. Woo? You don’t have to woo it. It’s just business. Yeah, for the summer we’re going to do 9 and 10:30, so you right here will have to split. Somehow figure out what you’re going to do. The 8 am is easy, they’ll just come at 9 am. The 11 am it’s easy, 10:30. But you guys have the big decision.

Series: The Sermon on the Mount
May 2, 2021 - David Stockton

But, we’re doing that not next week. We’re doing it the week after because next week is Mother’s Day. And Mother’s Day is the day we’re expecting the mothers to use all the power of Mother’s Day to bring their families together for church next week. And I mean that jokingly, but I also mean that sincerely because I know there’s a lot of division within families, there are a lot of people who have decided different things over topics last year. I know the heart of a mother is to see everybody join together. I really do encourage you to have them join together and come to church, whether they like it or not. You’ve got power. Be bold. Be courageous and use that power wisely to bring your family together and we’ll have a good time next Sunday. Then the following Sunday we’ll get down to two services for the summer and see how that goes.

Thanks for everybody tuning in online. You do whatever you want to do. You can go to both services, you can do one service. You can just watch it later, too. No problem there.

We’re going to be in the Sermon on the Mount again today. This is our fourth message on the Sermon on the Most. If you want to grab a Bible and turn to Matthew chapter 5. You’ve got Bibles in the pew in front of you or you could use your phone app Bible if you want, as well. Matthew chapter 5. We’re going to be talking about murder and adultery today. Woohoo! Yeah!

This has been a real fun message for me to get all prepared for. Yeah. So let me read the words of Jesus. Don’t get mad at me. If you’re going to get mad, get mad at Jesus, it’s his words. Just sharing his words. But yeah, here we go. Jesus is teaching on murder and adultery. Ready for it?

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago…

Think Moses’ day, bringing the Ten Commandments…

'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’
But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother [or sister] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'Raca, '

Anybody done that recently? It means ‘idiot’ or ‘moron.’ “You idiot!” “Oh, they’re just such idiots!” They didn’t have cars back then. “Idiot!” You know? Yeah.

is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

And continuing about adultery…

"It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Yeah. How’s everybody doing? Yeah? Are we done? Are we done already?

So, a couple of things before we start to unpack this a little bit, that I think it’s important for us to remember. First of all, that Jesus just said prior to this section, “I have not come to abolish the law.” Now, if you spent time with Jesus, if you listened to the teachings of Jesus, you probably would start to think because he’s not like the Pharisees, because he doesn’t teach like the Pharisees and teachers of the law at that time, that he doesn’t even care about the law of God.

But Jesus is saying, “Hold on a minute. I have not come to abolish the law. I’ve come to fulfill it.” Because Jesus’ understanding about the law of God given through Moses was that it was good and it was right and it was true and it was helpful. And he’s later on said this little passage that many of us have heard, that it’s the truth that sets us free. So Jesus is making sure that his disciples understood, “I am not messing with the truth. I am not diluting the truth. I am not changing the truth. I’m not giving you a new truth. It is the truth that sets you free and I don’t want to give you anything but the truth because I really want to see you free.”

In our world today, we’ve talked about this much, we are wanting to minimize the truth or dilute the truth, or because the truth that comes through God’s word is hard, we want to decrease it a little bit. But what we need to understand is, if you mess with the truth, you mess with your freedom. If you decrease the truth, you decrease your freedom.

And what Jesus says is that those who want to relax on God’s law and teach others to do that, they are the least in the kingdom of heaven. But those who hold on tight and teach exactly what Jesus taught, they’ll be the greatest in the kingdom.

And then you have the Pharisees, who are teaching about God’s law in a way that’s going to keep them out of God’s kingdom. Some big time words, where Jesus is really trying to teach that the righteousness of God, the righteousness that is taught in the Law, the way of God taught by the Law is good and right and helpful for us learning about righteousness and living in righteousness.

So that’s the first point. The truth is important. So even though emotionally or culturally we want to shrink the truth a little bit, or be a little bit sheepish about the truth, then we’re really just shrinking people’s freedom and being sheepish about the freedom. If you want someone to get healed of a disease, you give them the full medicine and treatment. And you tell them to take that treatment even after they feel better, right? Finish that antibiotic round. You don’t lighten it up, because you really to see them whole.

So that’s what Jesus is doing here. He’s trying to really help people understand the truth and get the truth in them. That’s the first thing we need to understand.

The second thing we need to understand is that Matthew 7:28 is the verse that comes after the Sermon on the Mount. Don’t ever forget this. If you don’t get anything out of this whole series, just remember this, Matthew 7:28 says that, after the people heard the words of Jesus, they heard the sermon, it says they were amazed at his words, that he didn’t sound like the Pharisees who always made them feel bad and far away from God. Instead, his words were substantial and actually gave them hope that maybe, just maybe they could be close to God.

So we have to remember that. After we read through some of these things, we’re going to be like, “Ugh, that’s heavy. Whoa. I don’t know if I should be here anymore. I think it’s time to leave or check out, because he’s describing me right now, but it’s not the good way, it’s the bad way.”

But that’s not the way these people heard the words of Jesus because of the smile on his face and the tone of voice that he talked with. They heard Jesus teach these things and they thought, I think he’s teaching us because he thinks we can actually get it right. Which, for these people, no one had ever done before.

Now think about this: Jesus is on the side of a mountain and he’s talking about the Law of God. He’s teaching those who are gathered to him as disciples. Matthew’s made a really big deal of talking about the genealogy of Jesus and how he’s a king. He’s talked about Jesus actually going to Egypt and coming out of Egypt into his ministry. So Matthew is really trying to connect Jesus to Moses. And Moses, if you remember, when he was talking about the Law and he was interpreting God’s Law for the people and sat in judgment, he continued to tell the people about this One that would come and help them know fully what God was talking about when he gave us the Law.

It’s called that prophet. There’s kind of this theology of that prophet. There’s this prophecy, this promise given way back when that there would come One who would be that prophet. And he would come and he would make clear what are the ways of God.

So Jesus, on the side of this mountain, who has come out of Egypt, is teaching his disciples in a very Mosaic type way. Jesus is stepping into his role as the Master Rabbi, the actual authority on the way of God, who’s now coming as that prophet, fulfilling that scripture, to help make it clear what is the way of God for people.

And in that moment, Jesus is doing something really special. And the people he’s talking to are — I was trying to figure out the best way to describe these people. Anybody here ever been to Gila Bend? Why are you laughing? There are people who live in Gila Bend and you’re laughing because I said Gila Bend. No, I get it. They’ve got the Space Age Lodge there. Right? Which has been there forever. And the Space Age Lodge, believe it or not, I know a guy who took his wife there honeymoon night and they’re still married. The Space Age Lodge. Too much?

Gila Bend is about — we’re starting to get to a little bit of who Jesus is talking to. These are not people from the big city of Jerusalem. These are people kind of from the outskirts, back woods, hillbillies, who, all their life under Roman oppression have had nothing but extensive taxation and poverty. Their souls have been beaten down. Any time they do anything good it’s ripped right from them by Roman oppression. And, not only that, but any kind of hope they’ve had to be right in God’s eyes have been completely stripped away from them by a Pharisaical hierarchy of religious system. And they’re just out there, completely impoverished.

And remember, Jesus was talking about “Blessed are the poor in spirit”? These people were poor in every way imaginable, including spirit. And Jesus talked about those who are hungry for justice. These are the people who have experienced nonstop injustice for generations. And he comes to them and he teaches them about the Beatitudes, basically saying, “Hey, just so you know. God’s really paying attention to you. And you’re a lot closer to the kingdom of heaven than you think.”

And then he starts to teach them and give them time, give them attention. The way he’s teaching them is making them think, He’s telling us to come closer. He’s calling disciples to follow him and if they follow him then he’s going to lead them into God’s kingdom. Us? Gila Benders, Bendites, Gila Bendonians, I don’t know what you call them.

Again, when they heard this they were amazed. “No one has ever talked to us like this before. Every time the Pharisees come out we just feel like we get a whooping. But when Jesus talks to us, it’s still truth, and actually even more intense, but it makes me believe. It fills me with hope that maybe, just maybe no matter how broken or messed up I am, if I stay close to Jesus, I might end up in the right spot.”

That’s the way we have to hear this. Even the intensity of what’s being said today. Really, Jesus is trying to give us the difference between the true righteousness that God desires, the lesser righteousness, and then the actual fake righteousness of the Pharisees. So he kind of gives us that little teaching in verse 17 through 21, Kenny talked about that last week, and now we’re going to get examples of what he’s talking about.

The fake righteousness, or the lesser righteousness is that which is external. You’ve heard it said if you don’t murder, you’re righteous. That’s great. But I want to talk to you about something much more. So I’m going to tell us a few things about the true righteousness. Five things, actually.

True righteousness, first of all, if you’re taking notes, is internal over external. It’s the inside out kingdom, remember?

The second thing is true righteousness doesn’t delay. There’s an urgency to it.

The third thing is true righteousness seeks rewards in the next life over the now life, which is really hard for us, especially living in America and the prosperity that we have.

Someone texted me after first service. I’m saying it because I should have said it in the first service, but I didn’t think of it. He said it. So now I’m saying it to you and maybe you’ll think, Wow, that guy is so smart. But it actually came from somebody else who texted me because my message didn’t have it in it. It’s the concept that we, as Americans, in right desire we seek for our children that they’ll be successful, they’ll be powerful, they’ll be safe. But really, what God is interested in is making us holy and righteous. And there’s a reason for all of that. But seek rewards in the next life over this life.

Then true righteousness brings peace. We’re going to see that in a really special way.

And true righteousness comes from staying close to Jesus.

1: True righteousness is internal over external. We have Jesus’ examples here. It’s very simple. He says, “You’ve heard it said that if you don’t kill someone, if you don’t murder someone, then you’re righteous.” And Jesus is like, “Well, that’s a lesser kind of righteousness.” He’s not saying that it’s okay to kill people. He’s saying that’s not the whole deal. The true righteousness, the kind of righteousness that God is wanting to produce from our lives and see from our lives is an internal righteousness.

And so he goes on to say, “Hey, if you have anger in your heart toward a brother or sister, in God’s eyes, you’re committing murder. If you’ve lashed out at someone and called them an idiot, in God’s eyes, you’re guilty of murder. If you in your anger have lashed out and called someone a fool, you now have the judgment of God on you as a murderer.”

I’m just saying what Jesus is saying here. And there’s a reason for this intensity, because God really does want us to be holy. In just a bit, Jesus is going to say, “Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.” So we can’t go lightly on this stuff. We can’t say, “Well, it’s not that big a deal that I have this,” or whatever. No. Jesus is going after your heart because he wants you free.

Right now in our culture of virtue signaling, where if I wear the shirt or if I post the post, or something like that, I’m somehow accomplishing the righteousness of God or justice. The Pharisees were the best at that. And Jesus is saying it’s a real empty righteousness. God’s coming for your heart.

2: True righteousness doesn’t delay. Here he says, “Don’t wait.” When he talks about if you’ve found yourself with some of that trouble with the neighbor, an adversary that wants to take you to court. “Do it while you’re still with them on the way.” Don’t wait. Don’t delay until you get to the court. Don’t wait for the judge to tell you what’s righteous. You know what’s righteous. Go ahead and do that right now. And if you wait, it’s not going to go good. It’s not going to be right. You need to do it now.

When I think of this kind of urgency to this, I think a little bit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I don’t know if you know his story. He grew up as a contemporary of Adolf Hitler in a lot of ways. And he grew up and kind of was watching what Adolf Hitler was teaching and he was watching the church and their response to it and realizing that none of that was good. He came over to America because he was brilliant and he was teaching ethics here in America, and really talking about the right way and what is good and what is pleasing to the Lord, and all these different things. The whole time he was hearing reports about what was happening to the Jews and what Hitler was up to and what the church was not doing in Germany. He eventually decided, “I can’t stay here. I can’t stay here in this place. I need to go back.”

So he left and went back to Germany. And it ended up costing him his life. But he came back and was trying to wake up the church to the urgency of the matter at hand, that evil had come and they needed to rise up and stand against it.

I think also Martin Luther King, Jr., if you ever read the letters from the Birmingham prison, they are so incredible, not only what he does with words and the literary excellence of it; but, basically what was happening was the pastors around him were saying, “Just chill out, Martin. Chill out. You’re in too much of a hurry.”

His response was so beautiful. “How long are we supposed to wait? Don’t you know that the righteousness of God has an urgency to it? It demands that we act. We don’t wait until it’s convenient. We don’t wait until it’s comfortable. We don’t wait until we can figure out how to make it come out to our good. We do it and we do it now to see that justice come.” There’s an urgency to it. That was true of Jesus, as well.

3: True righteousness seeks rewards in the next life over the now life. This is where we go to the part that’s so fun about it’s better for you to lose part of your body now than for your whole body to miss out on what’s next. Even gouging your eyes out or cutting your hand off. Whoa. I see everybody’s got two eyes in here today, so you haven’t really taken this verse literally Everybody got their hands, you know? Maybe not everybody. I have both of mine, just so you know. I have both eyes, both hands.

But what Jesus is getting at here is just really trying to help us shift our priorities. There are things in this life that you should go without because it will affect your next life. And you should have an intensity to this. I mean, obviously — I have to be very careful here — the Holy Spirit will make you understand what it is he’s wanting you to rid yourself of. But obviously you could think of things like Netflix. Maybe Netflix is something that does cause you to stumble. It causes you to kind of have some thoughts or some feelings that you don’t want or shouldn’t have. Just cancel it. I don’t have stock in Netflix. Just kidding. Just cancel it. It might be your phone. Maybe your phone. It’s like it’s so convenient to have your phone and all these things, and to put all those different blocks and all those things are so inconvenient. A little inconvenience in this life could have great impact in the next life.

Jesus is saying you need to be serious enough about this stuff, intense enough, that it would almost be like you would cut out your own eye to try and help out; so that you don’t stand before God every day as an adulterer.

There are things that we need to cut out of our lives to help us in our pursuit of righteousness. No doubt about it. Jesus is teaching that. We don’t hear the story of his disciples going and cutting out their eyes or cutting off their hands. So, obviously there’s more to it than just that. But there needs to be an intensity to this. There needs to be an evaluation of what’s in the next life over this life. Because that life is more real than this life. Remember we talked about the rope? This seventy years is just a blip on the radar compared to everlasting life. So we do lose things in this life to gain things in that life. That’s true of the righteousness of God.

4: True righteousness brings peace. Here again, Jesus is talking about the anger in your heart. He says that if you have this anger in your heart toward your brother or sister, you need to make it right. If you’ve been calling people idiots, if you’ve been calling people fools, you need to deal with that. Even if you’re not killing them. Even if they don’t know about it. God does. The true righteousness that he wants to see in the world and produce in your own soul is something that really does resist and fight against those things so that you can be free of those things.

When I think about this, I think about how easy it has been this last year to foster contempt for “the other.” Whatever the other might be. The other could be the other side of the aisle. You continue to watch certain news or listen to certain podcasts and it just breeds more and more “Raca!” You fool! They’re so stupid! They’re idiots!

I’m not saying there isn’t right and wrong. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be passionate about those things. I think there is. But we just can never do it motivated from anger. Paul the Apostle was a guy who was very zealous for the Law, zealous for the Lord. And Jesus came and slapped him in the face one day and said, “Your zeal is driven by your murderous anger in your heart, not from the Spirit of God.” And we’ve got to watch that.

Now, again, there is right and wrong. So when you’re persecuted for righteousness’ sake and that stirs up anger and frustration, that’s different than if you’re doing something wrong to somebody and it’s causing you the frustration. So the Beatitudes give us that little caveat. Blessed are you when you’re persecuted for righteousness. So if someone has something against you, but it’s not because you’ve done anything, and you have no anger in your heart, that doesn’t mean you have to go make it right. Instead, you can rejoice with a quiet confidence that God is with you in that moment. Then you have to keep watching out that your heart doesn’t pick up anger, contempt or bitterness or pride in that.

Here’s what the scriptures say about the righteousness of God. In Isaiah 48, it says:

Thus says the Lord,

your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

“I am the Lord your God,

who teaches you to profit,

who leads you in the way you should go.

Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!

Then your peace would have been like a river,

and your righteousness like the waves of the sea”

The righteousness of God produces peace in our lives and through our lives like a river.

Isaiah 32:17

And the effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever.

And then, lastly, from Hebrews 1:9 (ESV):

You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness. Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness more than Your companions.

The true righteousness of God produces peace in the face of anger and adversaries, and joyful, quiet confidence in the face of lust and unwanted desires. That’s the righteousness of God.

As I’ve said things, I think all of us are feeling a little more unrighteous maybe than we came in with. That’s okay. We’re face to face with Jesus. And everybody in the Bible who comes face to face with Jesus, you know what they do? They fall on the ground and they say, “I’m an unclean person with unclean lips.” And it’s not a bad thing for us to have that. Our hearts get pricked and feel the need for repentance, when face to face with the true righteousness. How far we are from it.

But remember, these people, after Jesus was done, did not feel like they had no options. Did not feel like they were stuck in their unrighteousness. Did not feel like Jesus was telling them, “There’s no shot for you.” Instead, somehow what they heard from Jesus was, “Okay. He sees me. He knows me. He’s not playing games. I can’t trick him. He knows what’s really going on in my heart. He knows that I have anger and lust there that I’ve been trying to get rid of on my own and haven’t been able to do it. He knows that stuff is there, and yet, he’s still spending the time with me. He’s still talking to me. He still has that look in his eyes and that tone in his voice that makes me think if I stick around him long enough, maybe I’ll be able to see myself the way he sees me.”

The reason that Jesus was able to feel that was because Jesus knew what was going on. Jesus knew he had to teach them about the true righteousness. But Jesus also knew that he was going to make a way for them to become true righteousness.

Now, remember, we’re on this side of Jesus. We’re looking back to the life of Jesus, so we have the New Testament perspective. We have the cross. We have the resurrection perspective. So Jesus is teaching this message. It’s heavy, but Jesus had this hope in his voice that caused these people, especially the twelve, maybe seventy, maybe one hundred and twenty, that were disciples gathered around him that were saying, “Hey, we’re going to try and follow him and spend time with him.”

Because Jesus knew that he was going to do something to make righteousness possible for them. He knew that he wasn’t going to be dependent on them getting it right. He wasn’t dependent on their energy, or effort, or wisdom, or smarts, or skill, or self-control to produce that righteousness. He said, “I haven’t come to abolish the law. I’ve come to fulfill it.” And here’s how Jesus makes you and I accomplish the righteousness of God. You ready for it?

First of all, we are made righteous by the work Jesus did in his daily life of fulfilling the Law. So first of all he came and walked it out so we could know what it looks like. So we could know and understand the righteousness of God. It’s important for us to learn the Law of God, the commands of God, the decrees of God. It’s important for us to rejoice in all of those things so we can better fully understand the righteousness of God, especially when everyone is telling us what the righteousness is, what the high moral ground is these days. We really need to see Jesus and walk with Jesus so we can know the righteousness of God.

But secondly — please don’t miss this — we are made righteous by his death on the cross where he paid for all of our unrighteousness. This is a really big deal. Jesus was talking to these people, teaching them the way of God, teaching them about righteousness, not so they would never get there. But he knew there was coming a day where he will have fulfilled all righteousness and was going to lay down his life as a payment for all of their unrighteousness and ours as well.

The way the New Testament says it is, He who knew no sin became sin, dying on that cross so that you and I could become the righteousness of God. So, somehow, because of what Jesus did on the cross, all of our unrighteousness is forgiven, it’s washed away, it’s cleansed, it’s gone, it’s removed forevermore. Actually, “Your sin and iniquity I will remember no more,” God says. He doesn’t even remember it. This is the good news of the cross. This is why Jesus could share with these people in a way that invited them in closer. Because he was going to pay the price for all their unrighteousness past, present and future.

So, first we’ve got to learn and understand the righteousness of Jesus. And when we do, we all fall short and we all go, “Oh, no.” But then we’ve got to understand that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, which gives us a fresh start every single day, to walk out in his righteousness. But he didn’t stop there. He rose from the dead. He rose from the dead and he poured out his Spirit on anyone that would come to him.

What his Spirit does is his Spirit comes into our lives and continues to teach us the way, continues to remind us of our forgiveness and then gives us the power to get it right sometimes. He gives us the power to overcome our sinful nature and disordered desires.

So, ultimately, Jesus has done everything we need. So here’s the really complicated thing for you and me. How do we walk in this? How do we navigate this? How is it hopeful for us? If you’ll just stay close to Jesus, he’ll make something beautiful out of your life. That’s what these people heard.

“I don’t get exactly all he’s talking about. Am I supposed to cut my hand off now?” They didn’t get all the intricacies of all Jesus was saying bout the Law. These were unlearned and ignorant people in some ways. But what they got from the Sermon on the Mount was, “This guy knows what he’s talking about. If I stay close to him, maybe, just maybe I’m going to find the kingdom of God.”

And, sure enough, at least twelve of them did. Eleven of them. Sorry. And those eleven “Gila Benders”, they literally turned the world upside down. You and I are in this church building today talking about Jesus, seeking Jesus because of those “Gila Benders.” Not because they mustered their own strength, not because they finally figured it out. No. It’s because they stayed close to Jesus and for them it got a little weird. Right? They stayed close to Jesus in person, in the flesh. But then Jesus died, rose again, showed up in this new form. And they received the Spirit of God, Acts 2. And they stayed close to Jesus by walking in the Spirit.

Walking in the Spirit, which is what we are trying to learn how to do. We don’t get the opportunity to be with Jesus in the flesh like they did, but we get to walk with Jesus in the Spirit, which Jesus and the disciples all attested to that it was better. It’s better what we have because God is with us everywhere we go. And he can produce in us a heart of righteousness. And our world so desperately needs people who are living out true righteousness. Not the fake or the lesser kind. We got a lot of that last year and it didn’t bring any peace. Stay close to Jesus and you’ll find the true righteousness.

Let’s pray. Again, just a reminder that, when we say “let’s pray,” it doesn’t always mean “Let’s talk.” A lot of times it’s a lot more listening than it is talk. Right now it’s important for us to listen, to listen to see what the Spirit might say. Those of you who know Christ and have the Spirit living inside of you, maybe he’ll bring up the name of someone, a brother or a sister, or maybe even an adversary that you’ve got some anger or contempt or bitterness for. He’s wanting to meet you there, wanting to give you his righteousness and help you walk in it to overcome the unrighteousness.

Maybe you’ve got a lot of lust in your heart and you’re losing the battle in your mind. Please hear what Jesus says. He’s not saying therefore you’re an adulterer and there’s no hope for you. He’s saying, yes, it’s true, and it’s going to lead you to less freedom, less flourishing and destruction. But if you take his hand, you’ll find his wisdom, you’ll find his forgiveness, and you’ll find his power to live a different way when you stay close to him.

Maybe some of you don’t even have the Spirit of God in you. You’re kind of new to this thing. Well, today would be a great day for you to say: Jesus, come into my life. I need your help. You can whisper that prayer even now and know that he hears and loves to take that which is unrighteous and make it righteous, that which is broken and make it beautiful.

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David Stockton 4/4/21 David Stockton 4/4/21

Stories of Defiance

Yes, Jesus, we praise you. We thank you. We turn our eyes toward you. And Lord, we just really want you to be lifted high. We want you to be honored in this place. Let’s shout it out one more time. Jesus! Jesus!

Series; Easter

April 4, 2021 - David Stockton

Yes, Jesus, we praise you. We thank you. We turn our eyes toward you. And Lord, we just really want you to be lifted high. We want you to be honored in this place. Let’s shout it out one more time. Jesus! Jesus!
Lord, we need you now more than ever. We know that you are alive and we know that the grave has no victory and death has no sting anymore. We want to be able to live in the truth that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Lord, we need your help. We need your Spirit to come and help our fear give way to faith and our heartbreak give way to hope.
And so we look to you, because there is no one else who can do it. You alone can turn graves into gardens, Lord. You alone are the rescuer, the redeemer. And so we do, we run to you. We leave everything else. We even leave our own pride, independence, self-centeredness. Lord we leave all that behind and we run to you.
Jesus, we do pray that this would be a great morning. Lord, I thank you for those who are getting baptized today. I pray that they would just really sense your Spirit and you would seal their hearts for you. Give them the strength that they need for the journey. I pray that there might be some others that would be willing to just surrender their lives to you this morning. That they would feel you knocking on the door of their hearts and they would say yes to you, and they would get to know what it means to have your hope, your defiant hope, your defiant joy and your defiant love. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I pray all these things in your name.

And everybody said ‘Amen.” You can have a seat. Make yourself comfortable. If you’re online at home, make yourself comfortable. It’s great to have you. Thanks to al the Living Streams family that are here. Thanks for coming at 8 o’clock and not 9:30. Been through that before. Thanks for all the visitors who here. Thanks for coming out and joining us, whether that’s online or in person. It’s great to have you. You’re welcome in this place. It’s a good day to be here.

We had a service last night, which was like a pretend Easter service. I mean, it was like full on Easter service, but it was just on a Saturday. We had Good Friday services, and some interesting times, but really good times. It’s been awesome.

I love this church. This is a great place. I love what the Lord’s doing here. And I’ve just been so encouraged because I really do think there is a turning away from Jesus that is happening in our society, whether it’s post-Christian, secularization, whatever you want to call it. I do see that and you hear about that. But there is also a great turning toward the Lord. There is a great hunger that is being stirred up within the Bride of Christ, within the Church, but there is also a great hunger being stirred up with people who are just kind of sick and tired of what the world has to offer. And they are hungry for Jesus.

So don’t miss them, you know, getting caught up in all the people turning away. Just look, because the Lord is bringing people right to you that are just ready to receive what he has for them. That’s what we want to do today is receive what he has for us.

Easter is a great time to party. Easter Sunday service should be like a party. It should be fun. Everybody’s dressed up. Everybody is gathered together. It is a little early in the morning, so it is weird in that regard, like an early morning party. But it’s a great time to party. There are other great times to party, whenever you’ve conquered something, you’ve finished something, you’ve overcome something, it’s a great time to party.

I think of graduation. Anybody going to graduate soon? Yeah? Nice! Very nice. You’ve kind of thrown off. You’re like, “Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone,” kind of deal. You’ve overcome. There’s no more testing. You just can throw that thing off. Throw it behind you and move forward.

Retirement I think is another one of those things. Anybody retired? Yeah! You show-offs! Yeah. Retirement. I just image that being a time when you’ve conquered this journey. You’re at this place and you can kind of say to everyone, “Take this job and shove it. I ain’t working here no more.” The old song.

Then I also think of when Baylor is going to win the championship tomorrow. I mean, Gonzaga is going to win the championship tomorrow. You’ve conquered all the teams. There’s no one left to conquer. You’ve beat everybody and it’s all behind you. It’s good time to celebrate.

But there is no time like Easter to party. Because this is the time where the two foes of humanity, sin and death, who have never been defeated, our greatest champion, Adam, succumbed to it all. And we’ve been living under the curse. And the devil and the flesh and the world have been in authority from that day on.

Yet, Jesus came as the second Adam. He came as our Champion. And he came to take on sin and death. And he took on sin every single moment of his life, as he was tempted in every way that we are, yet never succumbing. Ultimately the world, the devil and the flesh threw everything they could at him on the cross. And all of man’s evil and wickedness, all summoned together and they fired their guns as the same time. And man’s unrighteousness was on its fullest display.

Yet, Jesus rose from the dead, proving forevermore that the unrighteousness of man is not more powerful than the righteousness of God. And that is such great hope for us. Because all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory. But the righteousness of God is enough to bring cleansing, forgiveness and redemption to even us. And sin and death, they have no claim. They have no authority on the people of God anymore. It’s a great, great day to party.

Luke 24 is the story of the first Easter and the party that was thrown in honor of what Jesus did and all that he accomplished. It wasn’t a great party, by the way.

1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

So here we have the beginnings of the party. Mary and some of the other women have gathered the spices and they’re going to the tomb where Jeuss has been buried. Now Jesus has already told them, “I’m going to die at the hands of sinful men, but then I’m going to rise. It’s going to be awesome.”

So they’re coming to the tomb with the expectation that Jesus is going to be risen, because he told them that. No. False statement. Not true at all. They knew what Jesus was going to do. He had told them. And when he said things that happened, he had never given them any reason to mistrust what he said. So when they come to the tomb with the spices to mourn and to grieve, and when they’re met with a stone rolled away, which was a miracle, and they’re met with the body not being there, which is a miracle, what it says is they were troubled and then they’re met with these men, angels, whose clothes look like lightning, and they’re going, “What are you doing here? Why are you looking for the living among the dead? Remember? Jesus told you what was going to happen. This is why you come to the party?”

And it says that they were very frightened by these guys. “Oh, this is even worse.” And he says “Don’t you remember? Jesus told you this, that this was going to be the greatest day in history. He told you all about it.” And then they remembered his words. That’s the summation of that part of the party. But maybe it gets better. At least you know, the disciples will get this right.

9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven …

Judas wasn’t there. He had taken his life.

…and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.

So these are Jesus’ guys. They’re ready to party. They know what Jesus said.

11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Jesus had told them. In fact, Jesus had been so clear on this fact that, actually, when Jesus went through all the different courts where he stood before all the different people, before going to the cross, as they were trying to figure out something wrong with him, as they were trying to pin crimes against him, one of the things they brought up is that he counted to talk about how, if you destroy the temple of his body that in three days he was gong to rebuild the temple. It was troubling. Even they knew what he was claiming to do. And here the eleven hear what these women have to say, they hear the message, the gospel being preached for the first time, and they’re like, “These women are crazy. These women don’t know what they’re talkinga about. They’re troubled. They’re blubbering, crying all the time.” I don’t know what they’re saying.

12 Peter, however,…

Come on now! Peter. He gets it right all the time.

… got up and ran to the tomb.

He was so moved. He’s like, “Let’s go to the party!”

Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.

That’s what he must have done. And we know by their actions what the disciples did. They went into hiding. They were like, “This is not good. People are going to think we stole the body and they’re going to come after us. And they’re going to do to us what they did to Jesus.” And they hid. They were scared. They ran away.

When I read this and I think about today and what we’re supposed to do. It’s Easter. We’re celebrating that Jesus conquered sin and death. We’re celebrating that the gates of heaven got flung open wide to pieces of junk like you and me. All of our sin and all of our failing — what the resurrection was is Jesus saying, “I want all of you.” And the gates of heaven were flung wide open to you and me. No matter what we’ve done, no matter what we’re going to do, his righteousness can overcome all of our unrighteousness if we let him. This is a great day and we’re supposed to celebrate.

Like these disciples, we have the same problem. We are conditioned in this life against faith, against hope, and against joy. The heartbreaks that we experience in this life have caused our hearts to be so hardened. Sometimes we can even miss Jesus. Sometimes we can miss what he wants to do. Like I said, our fear does not give way to faith, it just stays as fear. And our heartbreak does not find its way to hope, it just remains heartbreak. Even with all the evidence that they saw, even though they were face to face with an empty tomb, they were face to face with angels declaring this, reminding them of what Jesus had already told them, they still had so much trouble believing.

I’ve been thinking about some images that came to mind as we were preparing for our Easter weekend, you know, some months ago. Trying to figure out what the Lord was wanting us to say and how to frame it all. One of the images that came to mind when we were thinking about it was I was remembering going with my family to QT one time. We were going to get some health food and stuff. It was by our house. We were walking down the sidewalk by Greenway. It was a busy street. It was summertime and it was hot. It was this concrete and asphalt everywhere.

As we were walking, I remember seeing through this tiny little crack there was this flower that had come up. Like, in the midst of the summer heat, so oppressive, in the midst of this concrete jungle and asphalt laid over everything, this flower was like, “What’s up?” And it was in full bloom. We have an image, and obviously this is more beautiful than the one that I saw. There was no filter on the one I saw.

I just was looking at it and it struck me like, “What a defiant little flower!” We did our best to just say, “You will not grow here.” And we laid out our concrete and asphalt just to make sure no life, nothing could get in the way. Yet this flower just had the audacity to just believe that what God had made it to do could happen in the midst of whatever situation it found itself in. And it just popped right up. And it was shining bright and it was beautiful.

God used that little flower to give me a little hope, that no matter what kind of hardness, no matter what I feel buried under, with Christ all things are possible. And the resurrection declares that it does not matter what the world, the devil and the flesh throw at me. What God has put in me can come into full bloom.

That’s the message for you. I don’t know what you’re buried under. Addiction, debt, heartbreak. If you allow Jesus in, he will come and you will experience this defiant hope rise up. This defiant faith in the midst of fear. A defiant joy at times.

There was another image that came to mind as I was thinking about this. I remember making a decision in my life that really just kind of ruined everything. I thought I was doing the right thing. I had done something and it really put me in a place where I was about to lose everything that I held dear. It was very heavy. I remember I was in a seminary class. I should have been listening but I didn’t listen that much in those classes. And I just started drawing this tree. I was so troubled, I just felt like all I could do was draw this tree. I drew this tree and making it as barren and dead looking as possible. Like, “This is how my soul feels.” As I was doing this, the one thing that I did learn in seminary is to hear God’s voice. I felt as I was drawing this tree with no leaves, I was making sure there wasn’t a leaf on it I kept hearing the Spirit of God saying, “:ut a leaf on that tree.” And I was like, “No. I’m not putting a leaf on this tree. I’m not feeling good about anything right now.” I was feeling the, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And it was real. It was like, “Put a leaf on it” I was like “No.” I was fighting with God . In the end, I was like, “Oh man.” And I had to put a leaf on. It was true. Even though outwardly and inwardly I was feeling crushed and so unsure and so uncertain and so insecure, I just still had this defiant drop of hope that I could not quite shake. It’s weird that I was even trying to. But I just could not shake it

I found this image later on. This is not what I drew. My tree was really lame looking. But I have this in my office to remember that moment where God wouldn’t let me give in. What is cool is I love this bird in this tree too, because it was like the Holy Spirit saying, “Put a leaf on that tree.” I had to wrestle with God but are enough, you know, hanging onto Jesus and allowing his hope to grow, that decision I made has actually turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And God knew that. I did not. But he knew what was on the other side.

Then, even just more recently I was thinking at the beginning of this year, we had gotten through 2020. Whew. There’s a little celebration right there. 2020 you can’t come back (I don’t think). And 2021, we kicked it off and did our fasting season where we were just trying to get a hunger and a vision for the righteousness of God.

By the way, next week we’re starting a whole sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount. We’re going to hear from Jesus what he thinks justice and beauty is. So, if you aren’t going to a church somewhere, it’s time to get in here and get the word of God into you. And, oh, it’s going to be good.

I got done with that kickoff of the year and I remember going home, and, I’m always wiped out after Sunday mornings. And I usually about Monday afternoon start to bounce back. But this time, Monday afternoon came and went and there was no bounce. Then Tuesday, then Wednesday, then Thursday, and I was like, “Huh. This is different.” I was numb. Even in m prayer life there was no passion, no excitement. Thinking about preaching another message felt like death. I was just kind of stuck.

I had a picture. You know that bottle cap, once it’s pressed down, it stays down. I was depressed. I was like pressed down and couldn’t find any bounce back. It just kept going. Then what was crazy was, at some point, I thought, What if I never bounce back? And I know some of you who deal with depression, that’s kind of the cycle. Then once you get to that point where, Maybe I’ll never bounce back, there’s kind of a new level of depression that sets in.

It continued on for a few weeks. All I knew to do was to keep hanging on to Jesus. Then sure enough, I did bounce back. But I know some of you have been in that spot for a long time. But the resurrection’s message is there will always be a bounce back. There will always be a leaf on the tree. It doesn’t matter what kind of a thing you are buried under, Jesus can always bring out beauty and flowers.

That’s kind of been a little bit of a theme for our whole church. My daughter Bella, who’s had to overcome a lot of adversity, she was praying about this year 2021, and she said she still felt there was a lot of adversity, but there were flowers everywhere. So that’s been something we’ve continued to talk about. We’re looking for the flowers in the midst of the pain.

That’s that defiant hope, that defiant faith, that defiant joy that show up. And, sure enough, for the apostles, as they continued, they didn’t get it right away. They didn’t come to the party very well prepared. But Jesus showed up to them multiple times. Eventually they allowed their faith to overcome their fear. They allowed that hope to once gain come into that place where disappointment reigned. They allowed his joy to come and be his strength. And these men and women, because of that fact, not only were the now fearless, not only were they walking in triumph and victory in a very adverse situation, but their lives even became evidence to the resurrection.

Those that got to be around them and discipled by them, they followed suit, and their lives became evidence that Jesus is alive. And on and on and on and further and wider, until the gospel, the message that Jesus was alive had spread over the entire Roman Empire And there have been saints that have come throughout every generation from all over this world that have witnessed for themselves the evidence that Jesus is alive. And they have received it into themselves, experiencing a defiant hope and joy and love and peace that he brings. And one and on until today.

I’m just one person who can tell you stories of when my dad took his life and how the hope of God held like an anchor in my soul. And when my mom died of cancer way too young, and how the presence of God and the peace of God came. And how over time my heartbreak has turned into hope. It’s given way. And as the challenges continue to come, the presence of Christ in my life, the living Christ that I walk with day after day, that I carry my burdens to, that I receive from, it has given me what I need to continue to overcome in my battle with sin and temptation, to continue to overcome when fear comes banging down the door .

Last year it was so awesome to see all the people in this fellowship who were unwavered by all of the disruption and uncertainty that came upon us. So the offering is to you today. If you don't know Jesus, today is a great day to look at the evidence and to receive him, to allow your fear to give way to faith, to allow your pride to give way to surrender, so that he can come in and he can lead you on that path of the just that shines every brighter to the perfect day. And then, ultimately, the greatest joy of all is that one day, because of what Jesus did, we will die but that will only be giving us access to resurrection life.

Death no longer ends man’s story. But death is actually something that helps us get to fullness of life that Christ is preparing for us even now. And all of that can be yours. If you hear Jesus knocking on your heart, you can let him in and receive all that he has.

Let’s do that now. Let’s pray. If you’re on line or if you’re in person, I’m going to say a quick prayer and you can repeat it after me if you’re ready to say, “Jesus I need you. Jesus take control. Just repeat these words after me:

Lord Jesus, thank you for loving me. Thank you for dying for me. Thank you for rising from the dead for me. Please come and wash away all my sins. Please come and fill me with your Spirit. And help my heartbreak turn to hope. And help my fear turn to faith. And help my pride turn to holy surrender. And when I die, Jesus, please take me to be with you. Amen.

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Guest User 7/26/20 Guest User 7/26/20

Forensic Faith and Scandalous Grace

Good morning, Living Streams. Another Sunday here, July 26. It’s good to be with you. It’s real important that we continue to do this. I’ve been thinking about this. It’s so different. I mean, I’m here talking to a camera—you’re looking at your phone or a TV, something like. It doesn’t necessarily feel the same, but I know that, at least in the spiritual realm, but I also believe int he natural, it is bringing us together when we take the time to do this: worshipping together, hearing from the word of God together, having this common experience together. I really think it’s important we continue to push into this.

John 4
David Stockton - July 26, 2020

Good morning, Living Streams. Another Sunday here, July 26. It’s good to be with you. It’s real important that we continue to do this. I’ve been thinking about this. It’s so different. I mean, I’m here talking to a camera—you’re looking at your phone or a TV, something like. It doesn’t necessarily feel the same, but I know that, at least in the spiritual realm, but I also believe in the natural, it is bringing us together when we take the time to do this: worshipping together, hearing from the word of God together, having this common experience together. I really think it’s important we continue to push into this.

I know we’re going to be getting a new Executive Order or some new details from the governor as this last 30-day deal comes to a close. I want you to stay tuned to our website, and also on Sunday mornings we’ll be announcing what’s going on, what’s next for us at Living Streams. But please continue. I know summertime is going and school’s going to fire up, and all these changes, it’s easy to let this type of thing slide. But it’s really important we stay together as we go into whatever the Lord has for us, but also whatever the world’s going to throw at us. We need each other. Thanks for sticking with us.

Today we’re going to be in the book of John again. As we’re trekking through, as we’re trying to hear from the Apostle John about Jesus. John actually was writing his gospel, his book about Jesus long after the other three writers. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are called gospels, written about Jesus. And the three of those, Matthew, Mark and Luke were written probably a little closer to about 60 A.D., thirty years or so after Jesus was gone. And yet John was more like 90 A.D. It was the end of his life. The Roman persecution of both Jews and Christians had just been rampant. John and many other Christians had been forced out of Jerusalem. He landed up in Ephesus where there was a church going on up there.

As he was writing this book he had probably had that cultural context in mind. It was not necessarily Judaism he was writing into. He was probably more writing this gospel for the Greek mind as he was trying to translate to them who God is. We see that in John Chapter 1 when he says that Jesus is the “word.” The “word” in Greek is “logos” which is this powerful, intense Greek word that basically has to do with God’s logical argument used to convince the world that he is loving and just. That’s one of the definitions of it. It’s a logical argument.

The Greeks really valued philosophy and all those things. So he’s appealing to them saying, basically, the word, Jesus was God’s logical answer to all the questions humanity could ever have. In another place it says that the logos is the universal principle, the controlling principle of the world. Again, that’s a real ode to the Greeks that would be reading this later on.

We know from the book of John that his whole premise in writing this book, the thing that he wanted so badly—and he says this in John 20:31: “that you may believe. I have written every single word of this book, I’ve written all these stories, these signs and wonders that have taken place, these ‘I am’ statements of Jesus. All of this eyewitness accounts of what I experienced. I interacted with Jesus. I’m writing these things down so that you may believe in him.”

We’ve done some work to try to define what belief is. Obviously there are a lot of different things people say when it comes to belief. Is is more of a heady thing? Is it more of an experiential thing? And the way I really believe John and the New Testament writers try and define faith or believing in Jesus is to have a pledge of allegiance.

We do the pledge of allegiance to America. We know our country right now is experiencing a lot of division, a lot of unrest, a lot of challenge, a lot of stress, a lot of anger, even guilt. There are a lot of those things going on. And yet we pledge allegiance to this country that we will stand up for her, that we will fight for her. Though I don’t think that’s bad, the Scripture calls us to pledge our allegiance to Jesus and his kingdom. It calls us to no longer associate ourselves as Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free is what Paul was writing in his day and age. And we could say we’re not supposed to be identifying ourselves and camping primarily in black or white, Democrat or Republican, rich or poor. None of those matter when we come to the cross of Jesus Christ. We are now a new creation. We are now people of God. We are now citizens of his kingdom and we have to remember that that is our call. We are pledging allegiance—not to some political party, not to some social justice organization. What we’re called to do is pledge our allegiance to Jesus and his Spirit and what he’s at work in this world.

I want to remind you, church, to make sure and be careful not to get all caught up in the vain jangling, in the convincing philosophies of our day. But remember to keep about the gospel. Keep about what the Bible teaches and make sure that we’re really citizens of his kingdom above all else. It’s not wrong to be Irish. It’s not wrong to be African or to celebrate those things. That’s great. But when we come into the house of God, what we are is One. We are all the same at the foot of the cross. We’ve got to remember that as we go forward into this divisive time.

Not just pledging allegiance to God, but in some ways we order our lives in accordance with his, with his word. That’s what faith means. We reorient our lives. We set up our lives in accordance with who he is and what he did.

Ultimately, I love how John has this idea of building trust over time. When he first met Jesus he was the Son of Thunder. He was this fiery guy. But towards the end of John, and as we go on, he’s the one laying against Jesus’ breast. He’s the one that Jesus loved. That’s how he was identifying himself. No longer this fiery kind of—maybe even arrogant or whatever he was—but now this person who is totally thankful to be part of the family of God, to have known Jesus.

I hope that’s what stirs in us in this time. We’ve called ourselves to this. From the very beginning of this COVID season, that God is asking us to be humble and to be generous. I really want us to be good at that and known for that as we through this. Both in our individual lives and as a church as a whole as well.

John 3:31-36 kind of sums this up, this whole concept of faith. Once again John reiterates what he’s trying to do:

The one who comes from above is above all;

Again, philosophical. You can see him speaking to Greeks here. The Logos.

the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard,

Only Jesus knows what is true because he has been with the Father. He has been outside of this corrupt world.

but no one [in this corrupt world] accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.

Has basically pledged their allegiance. They’ve stamped their card in the truth. They’ve basically said, “I’m for the truth.” If we put our allegiance, if we put our faith in Christ.

For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God[ gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.

So that’s the heaviness of what happens. Our faith really does determine our standing with God. By faith we can enter into his love and grace and mercy because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross, the price that he paid. Or without faith in Jesus we find ourselves remaining under the wrath of God, where the punishment that was poured out on Christ is not taken on our behalf. So the wrath of God remains.

Faith is so important, so valuable. It really is what pivots us for all of eternity. So we need to continue to learn about faith, practice faith, teach our kids about faith. All of that.

That being said, let’s go to John 4 and we’re going to get another story from John about a person who came to faith in Jesus. He’s already given us John the Baptist, who came and put his faith in his cousin, that he was the Messiah. The reason he did that is because God spoke to him and said, “The one that you see the dove descending on, the Holy Spirit descending on, that is the Messiah. And John was out there one time and he baptized Jesus and, sure enough, the dove came down and descended. The Spirit like a dove descended on him. So John knew at that point, “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”

The next story we have that John tells us about is he and his disciple friends were going with Jesus to a wedding at Cana. There, at the wedding at Cana, Jesus turned water into wine. It says right after that story, “This is when the disciples began to believe in Jesus.” Because of a sign that he had done. They had been following and hanging out with him and listening to him because of the things he was saying and teaching. But now they knew there was something more than this being a man who was doing something special. They knew that this was God in the flesh. They knew that this was the Logos as John would later call him.

Now many believed on him after the signs and wonders and cleansing of the temple that he did. Which is interesting because they’re not hearing Jesus speak about the things of God. They’re not seeing some miraculous sign that we get recorded. They’re just seeing the righteous indignation of Jesus as he’s cleansing the temple, as he’s standing against the oppressors. He’s fighting with them. It says many began to believe that he was more than just a man, more than just someone who was coming doing something good. That he was the Messiah. He was God’s answer. He was God’s one that was coming to save and redeem the world.

So we have all of those and then today we get a story about a woman that Jesus meets at a well. So kids, before we jump into it, I want you to draw me a picture of the Samaritan woman at a well. I’m so thankful again for all the pictures that you’ve drawn. And adults, you could draw me pictures any time you want. One time I had adult draw me a picture. It was pretty cool. I liked it.

Just so you know I’m taking this seriously, I drew one. And you’re going to have to beat this, okay? This is my drawing that I’m going to show you right now Bam. What are you going to do about this? I would like to say my kids drew this, but it was me. I’m not great at it. My wife, she’s really good at it. This is my woman at the well and it ain’t pretty. But that’s okay. You’ve got to beat that. If you do, if you give me the picture and it’s the best one for whatever reason, you’ll get a little something in your mailbox. Many of you have already. And thanks for telling me thanks for that, but I’m really thanking you for what you’ve done, so we’re good there.

All right. John Chapter 4. The woman at the well:

Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

So after talking to Nicodemus, after cleansing the temple, Jesus had a lot of people following him. And he did exactly what his cousin John the Baptist was doing, he would baptize them. There’s something very significant about baptism. I’m not going to talk a lot about baptism, but I do want to say, if you are someone who wants to pledge allegiance to Jesus, you believe in Jesus, you want to associate your life with Jesus, you want to hide your life in Christ, baptism is something that is all over the New Testament. In the life of Jesus, Jesus himself was baptized. So please don’t hesitate. Don’t wait. Contact us. Let us know you’re ready to get baptized. Bam. We’re going to do this thing. I know guys are getting baptized this week. I know there’s a few people we’re going to do a baptism for in the next few weeks. I think I might be baptizing one of my daughters tomorrow, which is exciting. Baptism is real, it’s biblical, it’s Jesus and if you’re ready to follow Jesus, Jesus would say, “Come into the waters. Die to the old life and be born again to the new life.” That’s the death under the water and resurrection coming out of the water. We’re following Jesus. You gain something in the waters of baptism you cannot gain any other way. So get baptized.

Verse 4:

Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

So it’s hot. Not a great time of day to be hanging out. And yet, he’s thirsty. So he stops at this well. And then it says:

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

So here we’ve got to really understand some context. Jerusalem is here. Galilee is here. Right in the middle is this place called Samaria. Samaria was a place that, basically, when the Assyrians came down and took all the northern ten tribes into exile, and later the Babylonians took the two southern tribes of Israel (twelve tribes of Israel) and took them into Babylonian captivity, the people that were left—they left the people that were impoverished, the people that were unable to make the journey, they left the people that basically, they rejected certain people and said, “You stay here. We’re not worried about you at all.” And those people ended up intermarrying with nations around that started to come into that time, as the Jews evacuated that place, people of other nations came in. So this is where the Samaritan group became part of Israel’s history.

So now, as the diasporas come back, as the exiles return, and Israel is filled with Jews who returned, now there’s this kind of separation. There are the Jews that would call themselves purebred Jews and then there’s the Samaritans that would be like halfbred Jews. And so there was this real separation, segregation. There was this real prejudice, racism, whatever you want to call it, that was taking place at this time, even to the extent where now, Jesus, who was a Jewish man, was sitting at a well and he’s thirsty. It’s noon. There’s a lady coming who’s a Samaritan, to the same well. She’s got a bucket and Jesus says, “Can I have a drink.

That seems very innocent. It seems innocuous. However, for this woman, it was startling. It was scandalous. And Jesus would have known that. His disciples had gone and so, now there’s one man, a single Jewish man, with a single Jewish woman, and you could only imagine what the tabloids would say that were following Jesus, how they would spin that. But this is a little bit scandalous all by itself, because of the way the traditions the culture of that day would have viewed the situation.

So Jesus actually extending this invitation to say, “Hey, can I have a drink? Can you and I join each other in this,” is actually a very, very provocative type thing. You can only imagine what started to spin in this Samaritan woman’s mind. She could have thought, Maybe this guy’s hitting on me. She could have thought all kinds of different things. But Jesus is asking her for a drink, obviously with pure intentions, and you will see all of that as it goes on.

But she kind of says, “How could you do this?” And maybe she’s being a little coy. Maybe she’s really offended. We don’t know any of that. But we know it’s startling. She just basically says, “How could you do this?”

John Piper, as he was unpacking this a little bit, he has this quote that I think kind of helps us understand a little bit about how intense this was.

He is standing by the fountain marked “colored”…

He’s harkening back to that segregation time, before the civil rights movement.

He is standing by a the fountain marked “colored” watching a black woman fill her water bottle and then, for all to see, says, “Can I have a drink from your water bottle?” She says, at the end of verse 9, “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.” But more literally it says, Jews don’t “use together” with Samaritans…

We’re trying to create a separation. We don’t want anything do with each other.

…You can’t be asking me to use the same bucket. That isn’t done. –John Piper

And so here, I’m just trying to give us a little context, but to ultimately say Jesus didn’t play by these rules. Jesus was someone who saw people for who they were. He knew that all people were created equal and he valued them. He loved them. He was not worried about maintaining culture or maintaining really stupid cultural ideals He saw through all of that. He saw people as people. We, as the church, in particular, we’ve got to be better than this. We’ve really got to watch out for the divisions that are in our society seeping their way into our church, our family. It is not to be for the people of God. We are to be united. We are to, like we said, be citizens of heaven. We are to be at the foot of the cross. And all men are equal, all woman are equal at the foot of the cross. There is no difference. No difference at all.

We’re trying to say, “We’re on the good side. They’re on the bad side.” But here’s a news flash for you. All of us are on the wrong side. God is on the right side. God is the only one who’s not corrupt. God is the only one who sees things clearly. All we can do is hope to land ourselves on his side by his grace and mercy. By the filling with the Spirit and the revelation that he gives us in the word of God. We might be able to be on his side here and there, off and on. That’s the goal. But we should never try to villify each other or start to speak ill of each other. We just need to realize that we all come to the foot of the cross the same.

And here’s Jesus just shooting right through all these prejudices, all of this racism. He just shoots right through it and goes straight to the heart. And we’re going to see this unpacked a little more here. Verse 10:

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

So in this next section Jesus is basically saying to her, “Hey, I know what the world has told you. I know what maybe your own soul has told you. I know that you feel like I think I’m superior. You think you’re superior. There are all these arguments that go back and forth between Samaritans and Jews.” But he’s saying, “Look, if you had any idea of this moment that we’re in right now. If you had any idea who it is that is offering you living water, you wouldn’t be worried about buckets. You wouldn’t be worried about prejudices, stereotypes, you wouldn’t be worried about all of those things. You would be able to receive water. You would be able to receive refreshment that would last forever. Not just today. Not just a few hours.”

He’s obviously speaking to her of the spiritual water that comes when he brings salvation to a person. That, like we said, with faith, she could pivot into eternal life. That’s what Jesus is offering her. She doesn’t get it at all yet. She’s still caught up in theology, or the political stances of the day. But Jesus is saying, “No, no. It’s not about that.”

He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
“I have no husband,” she replied.

We don’t know the emotion that she says that with. We know because of what’s about to happen that it was a loaded statement.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.
“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

You can see this moment where all of a sudden the air gets so thick and so tense, as Jesus says to her, “Hey, go call your husband.”

Whether he knew because of something he’d observed, or she’s coming a strange time of day so he knows there’s something off there, whether it’s a revelation the Spirit has given him, but he speaks to her about this place in her life that is painful. And she has had five husbands that either she has left, but that’s probably not true in that society. It’s more likely that she has been rejected by them. And maybe she’s a very beautiful woman. We don’t know. Maybe she’s really given herself to these men physically. We don’t know exactly. But we know that five times she’s been rejected. And here she is in a new relationship. Thirsty as can be. Trying to find some satisfaction. Trying to find something in what a man, what a husband can give her. And the one that she has now is not legitimate.

In this moment you can see her eyes probably were widening a little bit. She might have started sweating a little bit more. And she says to him, “I see you’re a prophet.” And instead of saying, “I would like to know more about living water. I do need help. I have a problem,” she says, “Well you Jews say this and that. And we say this and that.” So she goes to kind of this religious, theological division, and philosophies that have gone on. Again, totally missing the point. Totally deflecting.

In the New Testament it says that we are supposed to watch out for “vain janglings” in the King James Version, which I think is such a funny phrase. But we’re also supposed to watch out for endless genealogies and cunning philosophies. And you guys, please know, what you’re seeing on your social media feed, what you’re seeing on the news, it really has to be taken with a lot of filtering. You can’t get caught up in what’s going on. It is exhausting. It is humanism. It is not of God. Jesus speaks of things of God that are not corrupt They’re not human. They’re not temporal. But right now we have just go so many “vain janglings” going on.

So please remember to every once in a while get out of there. Take a deep breath. Read some scripture. Put on some worship music. Just cleanse your mind. And before you go into those worlds, before you turn on the news, before you do social media, pause, relax, say, “Am I ready for this?” Pray before you go in. I really think it’s an important practice that we’re doing because of how powerful these things are in our day and age right now.

She’s got Jesus in front of her and she’s still not able to connect because she’s so caught up with these things. Then they go on and Jesus begins to talk to her. He says:

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”

I am statement. Jesus is using this powerful Jewish language to say, “I am he.” That’s this moment of truth right there. Where Jesus kind of just drops the bomb and he says, “Look. We talked about living water and what I can offer. We talked about where you’re at truly in your life. Now I’m telling you you’ve got to get off these things. What God is interested in is you and your worshiping him in Spirit and in truth.”

In Spirit and truth, there’s a lot of ways to define it. It simply could be worshiping with your emotion, with your expression, all of that. And truth could be more your mind. I think that’s the safest way to unpack a little bit of Jesus’ teaching in the other gospels, that we should worship the Lord our God with all our heart and our soul and mind and strength. I think this is the way that God is saying to this woman, this is what God is after. He wants you to worship him. As you do, you will find in him all that you need to satisfy your soul.

Really an intense moment. It’s funny. Just then the disciples come back. We’re not going to get into that. But I want to pick up in verse 39. The disciples just got back. They were totally wigged out. Why is Jesus talking to this woman? What’s been going on? This is not going to look good in the press reports. All this stuff. Then the woman, she’s wigging out because of this moment. And she runs back into town. And then it says in verse 39:

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

So many more began to believe. At first ,they believed on her word as she was wigging out. Again, this lady in that society was probably not known as someone who was very trustworthy as she’s gone from husband to husband. But here she comes. And there was something so compelling about what she was saying about her interaction with Jesus. And many more believed. But they did the right thing. They didn’t leave it at that. They actually went out to where Jesus was. They sought him out and said, “We want to know for ourselves. We don’t want to just live off the testimony of someone else. We want to know for ourselves.”

So they came and they got to spend two days with Jesus, the Logos. The guiding principle of the world. God’s logical argument. To show that he is loving and just. Jesus, God in the flesh. They got to spend two days with him. And according to his words, they heard his words and they really started to believe. They even declared that. “We no longer believe because of what she said. We believe because we’ve heard with own ears, seen with our own eyes who you are.”

This week, again to try to unpack this idea of faith, my wife was actually listening to a podcast. I’ve told you before she’s my teacher. She teaches me almost everything I’ve ever learned. As I was listening to it, there was this concept that this guy was putting forward. He was saying there’s reasonable faith, there’s blind faith, and then there’s forensic faith. This guy actually was a forensic scientist. He was a cold case detective. He sought to disprove Christianity but ended coming to Christianity because he said it’s the most logical, reasonable thing he’s ever experienced.

I think it’s important for us to unpack. Unreasonable faith is the kind of faith where, against the evidence you see, you continue to believe. Flat earth. Sorry some of you out there. I know you still love it. But it’s against all the evidence that we’ve seen. Now you can discredit the evidence or whatever. But the evidence shows that the earth is round. We’ve seen pictures and all of that. But if you continue to believe in that flat earth, you’re going against what evidence would say. So it’s an unreasonable faith. I would apply to that to people who believe that there isn’t a Designer, all those type of things. But again, that’s a whole other thing.

Blind faith is where you’re believing based on something you’ve heard from somebody else, or something you haven’t experienced or you haven’t known firsthand. Or something you believe without really caring about evidence. Maybe it’s just the way you were raised so you continue to go that way, believing in Jesus, or believing in whatever else you believe or you were raised to believe. Or, like these people, some them could have believed according to this woman’s testimony. Blind faith is not necessarily bad, because sometimes you end up in the right spot by blind faith. But it’s still not the faith that I think John is writing to help people experience It’s not the faith that I think the New Testament writers and Paul would really encourage.

Forensic faith is faith that is based on evidence. It’s, “I believe and yet I’m going to test this belief. I’m going to try these things out. I’m going to try and go get my own experience and understanding and revelation.” I think this is an important thing to remember as Christians in our day and age, that we need to spend time with Jesus.

Right now you can go online and you can hear the greatest bible teachers. You can hear worship songs that really are powerful and somebody you know, out of the secret place with the Lord they’ve brought these things out. You can feel like you’re having a secret place experience with the Lord based on a song. Nothing is wrong with these things. But if that’s all there is, it could be that our faith is a little blind. And my fear is that, as our faith gets tested, and I believe testing has come and will continue to come for a season, if our faith is not really forensic, if it’s not rooted and grounded and deep and strong, then it’s going to get blown away, washed away. Like Jesus said, “Those who build their house on the sand, when the storm comes, it’s over.”

So I really want to call our church to really try and dive into a forensic faith. Really put our faith to the test. Really study the scriptures. Really search things out. When you hear somebody say something, don’t just take it because they’re cool looking or whatever. But actually process it through. Put it through the filter of the scriptures. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral. You can look that up later if you want. It’s really helpful to filter it and help us understand truth.

That’s the call from John. He’s really trying to get us to grow in faith. My call as a pastor, and to myself and my own family, is to help us grow in faith, not just have easy answers or kind of, “This is the way it’s always been.” I’m always trying to tell my kids, when they say “Hey what do we believe about that?” I say, “Well, your mom and I have decided that we believe this because the scriptures say this, but you’re going to have to decide what you believe.” I’m trying to encourage that because the faith that we have, I think for a season might cover them, or sanctify them as the scripture teaches, but there’s going to come a day when they have to express their own. They have to have their own relationship with God. So we need to be helpful in that regard, as well.

We’re going to wrap things up. We’re going to have a response time. A slide will appear on your screen. You at home, if you’re in a group, you can interact with that. Someone step up and be bold and say, “I’ll take the lead and do this,” If you’re by yourself you can just interact with it as well. As always you can put comments down below. We love to hear from you in any way, shape or form, what the Lord’s been speaking to you, what you need a prayer request for. We love all of that. Go ahead and take a little time to let this word settle in and respond.

Jesus is pursuing you just like the Samaritan woman. He has time for you and wants to give you living water.
Take amount and see if you feel pursued by Jesus. If not, ask Him to show you His love.
Take another moment and assess if your faith in Jesus is strong right now. If not, ask Jesus to help you believe.

©️2020 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson

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Guest User 7/19/20 Guest User 7/19/20

Cleansing and Zeal

Well, we’ve got 2020 still going on. In 2020 we’ve got the COVID-19, the death toll, the quarantine, the Donald Trump, the liberal, the conservative, the Black Lives Matter, the cisgender privilege. We’ve got riots, defunding police, it’s 115 degrees out there sometimes, and Disneyland is closed!

God is Good, Evil is Real, and the Devil is a Liar

David Stockton
Series: John
Chapter 2

Well, here we are again. Welcome, Living Streams! It’s good to be with you. I want to say a prayer real quick as we jump into this. It’s kind of a wild world out there. Sometimes it dan be a wild world inside our own bodies. Let’s take a little moment and pray.

Lord Jesus, we do thank you for today. Lord, we want to hear from you. We need your word. We don’t need anymore words from mankind. We just need to hear from you—truth. We need heaven’s perspective. Lord, we’re hungry for your word. We don’t live by anything but the words that come from your mouth. We want to live, Lord. We don’t want to just exist. So please come speak to us.
Thank you for your Spirit that can speak to us. Thank you for the scriptures that have so clearly laid out for us your plan and how you work within humanity. Be with us, Lord, I pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

So. Yeah. All of those words probably make you kind of catch your breath a little bit, or lose a breath, or your heart pace quickens a little bit. I understand that and I want to end that kind of wildness that we’re all experiencing day in and day out.

I want to say these words. This is 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 from the Message. Just let this wash over you:

The world is unprincipled…

As my grandpa used to say, “God is good, evil is real, and the devil is a liar.” And that’s an absolute truth.

The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.

You remember that commercial that used to just go, “Ah, the power of cheese.” When it would talk about satisfying your hunger, I just feel like reading the scriptures these days has been just like, ‘Ah, the power of God’s word to just come in and satisfy a weary, thirsty or confused soul.”

And I just love this verse. We’re going to get into a whole bunch more verses. But right now, as this message is going on, as you’re listening to this, in our Sanctuary, there is what we’re calling kind of a “worship attack” going on—a “prayer attack” going on. That sounds kind of weird. I understand that. But basically, the concept is we’ve been opening like we said in the announcements, our sanctuary for in-person, on-campus gatherings for a limited capacity of people that are coming. The whole point is they are coming to just pray. They’re coming to intercede. They’re coming to engage in spiritual warfare as the Bible teaches us. They’re coming to kind of see what we can do. Like Moses, Aaron and Hur, to lift our hands to turn the tide of the battle that’s going on in our society, and to make sure that all of the division and corruption that is in our society doesn’t find its way seeping into our church, let alone the Church of God as a whole.

So I’m so excited about what’s going on there. And with the homeless stuff that’s going on. I had some great conversations with some homeless brothers and sisters that have been coming. They’re very thankful for the relief. They’re very thankful for being able to kind of take a nap and then wake up without some startling thing where someone’s kind of hitting them, telling them they’ve got to get out of here. Or someone’s trying to steal their stuff. They can wake up in peace. They keep mentioning, “It’s just so quiet in here. So comfortable in here.”

It’s been a real blessing to be able to spend time with those men and women and to see maybe if there are some ways we can help them in a more longterm way.

We’re going to jump into John Chapter 2 here. We’re going to start in verse 13.

When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

And so here we have again this concept that God is good and evil is real. Mankind has a problem. It’s got this depraved nature within us. And then we have the devil and the deceit that comes from that regard as well.

So Jesus is here in the temple courts and he does something fascinating. He does something wild. He’s watching this gathering take place. It’s the Passover time, so there are probably close to two million Jews that have gathered in Jerusalem. So the city is just bustling. And there at the temple, which is the central focus, people are coming to make sacrifices. According to Judaism that’s what was required. A sacrifice needed to be made to kind of show penance—to get forgiven of your sins. That was the deal that God had made with the people.

So they would come to the temple courts with some sort of offering. That was to admit that they had been guilty, they had sinned. It was to admit that God is good and God is right, and they want to be right with God. And they were thankful that they could do something to actually make themselves right with God. So they would come and offer these sacrifices. And they would come with a dove. Or they would come with a cow. Or they would come with sheep, or whatever it might be.

What they experienced as they got there, though, was the people who were running the temple, the priests, all those, had realized that they could make some money off of these people. So one of the things that was required is your animal would have to be perfect. It would basically have to be inspected by the priest. And if there was any fault found in it, they would not let them sacrifice that. So what the priests did was, they came up with their own kind of priest-inspected cattle, sheep and doves. So, if you wanted to come and purchase one of those, you wouldn’t have to carry an animal from wherever you came from. You wouldn’t have to worry about the unscrupulous priests who would come and find fault. You could just come and pay for an already-approved animal to sacrifice. The only problem was, it was a lot more expensive. There was quite a service fee added to it.

So Jesus was watching this take place. And not only that, but the money changers that Jesus was dealing with, they would also say, “We as the priests, we can’t receive that money that has Caesar’s image on it because it’s not holy money.” So they actually made up their own money. So not only did you have to purchase a priest-approved sacrifice, but you would also have to exchange your money into priest-approved money so that you could purchase your priest-approved sacrifice. Basically, people were just getting totally, totally ripped off.

So Jesus has come with his family. Jesus is thirty years old. Jesus has not gone public with his ministry. We talked about two weeks ago in John 2, at the beginning, really the first kind of revelation outside of his own family structure was to his disciples and to the people at the wedding at Cana when he changed the water into wine. That’s how John introduces us to Jesus. The first miraculous, first revealing of his glory wasn’t in some grand standing way. It was a very small town.

So now, here’s this other kind of revelation that’s happening, where Jesus is revealing a little bit more of who he is and the authority that he does have. So he’s just pulling out this whip as he’s watching person after person getting ripped off. Maybe he was getting to the front of the line. Maybe he was just thinking of his own mom and what she has done as she has come and been ripped off. We don’t know what it was that finally just kind of broke free in him. But he actually went over and found a cord and made a whip. And he just started making a scene. He was wild. He was whipping…I don’t know if he was whipping people or just kind of cracking the whip. We don’t know.

We know he was throwing the tables over and he was just really attacking this whole enterprise that was going on. He was driving all the animals out, kind of causing all of that commotion. People running out watching for the stampede. He comes over to those with the doves. I guess he didn’t want to just let them go, so he just pushed them all out, got them all out. He threw the tables over, got the money changers out. He just basically went on a rampage.

Then, when it all settled, or whatever happened as he was walking out, we don’t know exactly when security came. We don’t know exactly what happened, but they said, “What authority do you have to do this?” Like, “Who do you think you are coming in here and doing this?”

Obviously they didn’t know—no one knew at that point, but Jesus just says, “You have turned my Father’s house into a den of thieves. Get out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a market.”

So he’s saying, “My Father’s house.” He’s starting to allude to this connection that he had with God that was very offensive to the people. What John writes here is that, he remembered later on as he’s kind of remembering the scriptures, in Psalm 69, in talking about this Messiah, it’s a messianic Psalm. It says that the zeal for his house will consume him. So they’re kind of putting these pieces together, that something is happening, that something more than meets the eye is going on with this Jesus guy. And he’s fulfilling these messianic prophecies. Zeal for his house and what takes place there. Righteous indignation and this rising up to stand against oppression. And to stand for the people of God.

I think about the times in my life where I’ve probably been most zealous, where I’ve been most enraged. As a grownup I don’t feel like I get enraged real easy. It takes me a while. But as a young boy, I had two older brothers and I don’t know if they loved picking on me, or if they loved seeing me lose it. I’m not sure which one they loved more. But they loved one of those very much. There were many times, as the smallest, and scrawniest of my clan, my brothers would pick on me and pick on me and pick on me. Ultimately, I would get to a point where I would just scream. I would just start throwing fists and they said it didn’t hurt bad, but my tiny little fists would hurt them, so they would go running as I was throwing my fists everywhere. I remember one time my brother locked himself in the bathroom. I was so mad that I got a butter knife and stabbed it through the bathroom door. I was so enraged. So enraged.

Obviously Jesus was not losing it in that regard. He was still under control. We see where he kind of comes to the birds and those people and he’s able to say, “Hey, you need to go off this way.” So he was still in control. But he was so filled with this outrage. Zeal is the word used in the Bible. Actually, in the Greek the word is zelos. It really is kind of righteous indignation. It’s jealousy, but not in the sick way, but basically like a husband and someone is coming to take his wife, or maybe even to rape his wife, and the amount of angst, the amount of rage that would be built up in a husband in that situation. It’s protective. It’s standing against. It’s this zeal that Jesus shows in this moment.

For you kids, real quick, before we go on. This is the picture that I would love to see you draw. It sounds kind of interesting to draw a picture of Jesus with a whip. But I think it’s important because I want you to understand this aspect of God. That he will fight for what’s right. He will stand against evil. So go ahead and try to draw a little temple, and maybe a picture of Jesus holding a whip. I think that would be a fun thing for me to see. So if you do that, go ahead and email it to me at david@livingstreams.org and I’d love to see that. Again, whoever kind of wins the day will get something in their mailbox. Some of you should be receiving some of those things if you haven’t already.

That’s what’s taking place. That’s the story. It’s so interesting to me because John introduces Jesus in John Chapter 2 as someone who turns water into wine, as someone who brings this conversion from water to wine. And then in the very next breath he shows Jesus as this one who cleanses.

In the commentary I was reading, they were talking about how that’s the way of the Lord. We don’t get cleaned up before conversion. First we come to Jesus and we are converted. And then as we walk with him we start to find the temple of our own lives cleansed. It’s so important to remember that.

And if you are someone that has not surrendered to Jesus, if you have not given your life to Jesus, if you have not said, “Jesus, I need you, I need you, please come and save me from myself. Wave me from my world. Save me from my family history. Save me from whatever it might be. Save me from my anger. Save me from my greed.” Whatever it might be. If you have not called out to Jesus and allowed him to come and convert you into one of his own children to transform your mind and heart, to help you be born again as Michael was talking about from John Chapter 3 last week, like Nicodemus.

It’s not enough to just try. It’s not enough to just fight, We actually need conversion. We actually need to be born again. We need the Spirit of God to come and dwell in us, to overcome our own sinful nature. It’s the only way we can go forward. As we do, as we make that pledge, as we make that pledge of allegiance to Jesus, as we put our trust in him, as we receive him into our life as Lord and surrender ourselves to him, then what happens is cleansing begins. That’s what happens in John 2, as well.

I want to talk a lot about the cleansing today. The cleansing of the temple. There are a couple of quotes here that I think are really helpful in helping us understand Jesus, which is the whole goal of every time we preach. To understand who God is. And understand a little bit of how this message can apply to us today.

But first I want to put up a quote from G. K. Chesterton. He is just someone who is really good with words. Here’s what he says about Jesus in regards to what he has heard about Jesus and what he reads in the scriptures. He says:

Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament, I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not of a person with parted hair in the middle, or hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like an angry God—and always like a God. The diction about Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is quite curiously gigantesque; It is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea. Morally it is equally terrific; he called himself a sword of slaughter and told men to buy swords if they sold their coats for them. … Here we must remember the difficult definition of Christianity already given; Christianity is a superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze beside each other.

I love the song that we were singing this morning, talking about there’s nothing stronger than the love of God. There’s nothing stronger than the love of God. And it is so true. God’s love for you is the most fierce, powerful thing the world has ever known. It is absolutely true. But at the same time, God’s desire for justice rages just as strong. In God we have this razor’s edge where he is perfectly loving and kind and good; but at the same time, totally, totally given to destruction of evil. And that’s in Exodus Chapter 34. We see the image of God. He is abounding in love and faithfulness to thousands of generations, but he will not leave the guilty unpunished,

Sometimes in our gospel message, sometimes in the reading of our scriptures, and sometimes in today’s preaching, we hear about the love of God. And it’s good and it’s right and it’s wonderful, but it almost becomes in exception to the justice of God, the zealous and jealousy of God for his nature, for his righteousness, for his people. And how angry and how wrathful he becomes when evil is allowed to prosper. Or when we play flippantly with sin. It’s very upsetting to him. Exactly what’s happening here. And the zeal of God… so it’s both together.

The words here, inside God, the dualistic nature, the opposite passions are love and justice. Or, as John Chapter 1 says, Jesus came with grace and truth. He came with eternal mercy and everlasting judgment. Both are valid. Both exist. Both are real.

It’s this razor’s edge that we find in the nature of God. So please don’t ever forget about Jesus with the whip. At the same time, don’t forget about Jesus turning water into wine. AT the same time, don’t look at the cross and forget about what wrath was being poured out. What suffering Jesus was going through. That the scriptures would actually say it pleased the Father to punish the Son. Those are hard, hard verses. But it’s the justice of God saying, “I need to deal with sin. I have to punish sin.”

And that’s what’s so amazing about Jesus. He stood there and said, “Then punish me, Father. Put it all on me so that David, and so that all those people at Living Streams Church would not have to feel the full vengeance of your wrath, your righteous indignation.”

So when you look at the cross, you’ve got to know it’s the love of Christ being poured out for us, absolutely. But it’s also the wrath of God being poured out and satisfied in the sacrifice of the Son. Some very important things to remember. So don’t forget about Jesus in this regard.

Another quote here comes from a guy named Alan Scot. He is saying about this cultural moment we’re in:

There is something about this national moment that is resetting the altars of our lives. It feels poignant. Everything is stripped back. It’s like a cleansing of the temple. God is resetting worship.
The reordering of worship overturns the current popular practices of worship. It delights those who value covenant above commerce.

Which is so true of these Pharisees and these religious leaders here, these priests.

It throws off everything not aligned with the heart of the Father.

Jesus is trying to bring them back into alignment with the heart of the Father.

It moves worship from he focus upon the horizontal to the vertical.

And then he does on to talk about how:

Every platform to man removed. Every effort at popularity removed. Every idol of promotion removed. Using ministry to gain wealth removed. Using ministry to increase visibility removed. Every exploitation of people to fulfill our dreams removed. Every ignoring of the poor and seeking the friendship of the powerful removed. The cleansing of the temple has never been more necessary. The idea that Jesus would be impressed by what we have built to make him famous, or that he would leave our models of worship intact is vain, We are too timid to tear down the temple ourselves, too afraid to confront the excesses, edifices for our own importance born from our ego rather than by his Spirit.
The cleansing of our modern temples has begun. It will continue with great acceleration.

That’s what has been so interesting about this COVID 2020, especially this summer. It’s not something that the church has to watch the world have to navigate. But it has drastically and dramatically affected the way that we go about our church services, our interactions with each other, our worship times, our prayer times. And that’s why we’ve spent the last two months trying to emphasize taking ownership for your own spiritual formation. If you’re whole religious activity, if your whole Christianity was based on that one hour a week of meeting at church, there is nothing left for you.

I love it because I’m hearing story after story about Living Streams’ people and how there is a lot of meat on the bones, even though we’re not meeting that one hour a week on Sunday morning. The life groups are thriving and meeting still, and ministry is happening here and there from our interns and other people volunteering here and there. And the evangelism that’s going on. And the care. Some of our police officers are seeing so many opportunities down at the police force to share the hope that is in Jesus, because they’re feeling pretty hopeless these days. And the outreach toward the black community and the kind of pain that they’re navigating right now, and all the messages they are being filled with, and helping them and loving them and making room for them. It’s just been awesome to see. I’m so encouraged. I’m so proud of you, Living Streams Church. But we are not through this thing. We have got to ramp up even more and let the zeal of the Lord fill us for more and more, as we go forward.

I want to talk to you quickly as we’re coming to an end here. The biblical concept of zeal. If you read in the Old Testament about zeal, it and be troubling. One of the main stories is this guy Jehu in 2 Kings 10. What he does is, he uses the sword. He actually is filled with the zeal of the Lord and he goes and he attacks people with the sword and he kills people. And he tears down idols and he comes against Baal worshippers. Obviously it’s a completely cultural lens that we’re looking through versus what they were. It was a dog eat dog world, way more so in that regard. Yet, the zeal of the Lord was causing him to want to come and fight to the death against the things that were set up against God.

Then you think of David in that moment where this Philistine giant is speaking evil of the name of the God of the armies of Israel. David just can’t take it anymore so he runs after this giant. And he hurls this stone at him and takes him out. He says, “You will not be able to sit there and defy the name of my God.”

He was filled with this zeal. Even to the point when Goliath falls, he goes over and he chops off his head and he carries it back to Jerusalem. This is gruesome, heavy stuff, especially from our cultural lens. In that day and age it probably would not seem that far-fetched. But the zeal of the Lord was causing people to rise up and stand up against the evil that was trying to pervade, trying to overcome.

Realizing that what Jesus said is “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence.” The evil is not unwilling to be violent or aggressive, and those who are of God need to understand that “the violent take it by force”, that we advance by enthusiasm, by aggression.

Again, now please hear me out. Please hear me out. Because this is Old Testament context and we’re talking about the life of Christ and he pulls out a whip. He didn’t kill anybody. He didn’t hurt anybody that we know of. But he was definitely causing a scene. He was definitely inflamed and he was making people really upset and challenging what they were doing and standing against them.

But we even times like when Hitler was on the rise. There was a guy named Bonhoffer. He’s definitely worth reading and studying about. He was a Christian. He was wrestling with this same thing. What is the church’s role in the face of this evil? Millions of Jews were being killed and others. It was so clear that it was evil. And yet most of the church just kind of stood aside and was passive in the face of it. Some of them were even complicit.

And yet Bonhoffer knew this was not right. And he actually ended up putting together a plot to assassinate Hitler. It didn’t work, but he got found out and he ended up losing his life because of it. But as he wrote, it was a really hard thing to wrestle with. But he knew evil had come and he needed to stand up against it. So he did what he could. He did what he thought was right. Only history can tell whether it was right. Only heaven will reveal what was really right,

I think of Rosa Parks sitting on that bus. And she just was so filled with indignation about what was happening in the society around here. She says, “I will not give my seat up. I’m not going to just play along anymore. I’m going to stand against, no matter what it costs.” The zeal of the Lord consumed her. And something beautiful was brought about. A shift was made because of her courage. And she suffered for it. And many others did, as well.

So we have these times where God calls us to stand up. I just really feel like this is a moment where our church, we need to not be passive or complicit. When there is all of this swirling around us. Evil, I really do believe is trying to come in to America, to our society and to our church. It’s coming in the forms of deceitful divisions. It’s wanting us to vilify the other, no matter what we do, and to put ourselves in different camps that aren’t necessarily Christian. We’ve got to stand against it. We’ve got to know better.

Romans 10 talks about zeal. Paul was talking about these Pharisees, these people that he was with. He said they had so much zeal but without knowledge. They were just pledging allegiance to all kinds of things that were not of God. So we need the zeal, but we need it to be with knowledge.

Here’s what I think we need to be zealous for right now. Please hear me out. I don’t think we need to go around and kill anybody. I’m not saying anything like that.

What we need to get zealous for is real simple. It’s always the same. We need to get zealous for prayer, We need to get zealous for God’s word. We need to get zealous for morality. We need to get zealous for evangelism. Church, it’s our time. This is what we need to apply all of our energy towards.

First of all, prayer. Prayer is listening to Jesus, worshiping Jesus, letting our attention, our affection be on Jesus, and interceding for others. Please schedule it into your week. Schedule it into your day—times for this. Don’t be caught with your hands down while the battle is going on. That’s that Moses, Aaron and Hur analogy.

We need to get zealous for God’s word. This is study the Bible. Don’t have zeal without knowledge. Don’t listen to all the different things happening the media, and social media. Don’t let them tell you what the Bible says. Read the Bible for yourself. Get to know this thing. Get solid in it, because if you don’t, you will be washed away by the cunning and craftiness of the deceitful schemes that are being perpetrated in our world. You’ve got to know the Bible. It’s our anchor. It’s what’s going to keep us steady in the storm.

Recognize Jesus’ voice among all the other voices and revelation from God’s Spirit. Seek for him to speak to you. I’ve been hearing some cool visions. I shared about it in the weekly email, something that God was speaking to me.

We need to get zealous for morality. We need to uproot the compromises we’ve been making in our lives, and uphold the personal convictions God has given us. I had someone tell me, “Now, you know what? I love Jesus. I’ve been doing great. But I’ve been allowing alcohol to have too much of a place in my life. I just need to take it seriously.”

We’re not going to get away with loose compromises and loose living, playing games with sin. It’s time for us to shore up. Like John the Baptist who had such intense morality and simplicity, but it caused his word and message to have such intense authority and clarity.

We need to take ownership of our own spiritual formation, as well.

Lastly, evangelism. There is nothing that makes Jesus more proud of us than when we tell people about him. There’s nothing that fills his heart more. There’s nothing that puts a party on in heaven like when one sinner repents.

We need to engage in society’s pain. Find out who’s hurting and go be with them. Try to find a way into their lives through hospitality and kindness and generosity.

We need to defend the truth of our faith. Don’t let people come and tell us we have to prove we’re not a racist by compromising our biblical values. That’s ridiculous,

Lastly, we need to proclaim the good news of God every day. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to be a message. But continue to just let people know that Jesus is the answer. Jesus has the answer. The gospel of Jesus is the power of God to actually bring about salvation. And everybody wants to be saved.

We’re going to have a time like we’ve been trying to do for you at home to take some ownership of your own spiritual formation. To practice being the priesthood of believers. Whether you’re at home by yourself or if you’re in a group, we’re going to put up a slide and we want you to just take communion in your home. If you’re in a group, have someone who’s supposed to lead, you can all just look at that person right now. And be like, “I think he’s talking about you.” And that person, you can go ahead and lead everyone in this communion time. We’re going to put up the slide and take three or four minutes for you to do that at home.

Slide:

Jesus, we pause to remember and thank you for the intensity of your love and justice towards the world.
Now we hold this bread and cup to remember the cross, when the fullness of your zeal for love and justice came together.
As we eat this bread please fill us with your zeal for love and justice. (Take and eat Jesus’ body broken for you.)
As we drink this cup, please cleanse the temple of our lives from greed and pride and deceit. (Drink the cup. This is Jesus’ blood shed for the remission of your sins.)

©️2020 Living Streams Church
7000 N Central Avenue ∙ Phoenix AZ 85020 ∙ 602-957-7500 ∙ https://www.livingstreams.org

Scripture marked MSG is taken from The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson

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Don't Get Distracted

David Stockton:

Rob Capaldi (www.capaldi.life)
Series: Ephesians

David Stockton:

He is apostolic. He has traveled the continents sharing the word of God, trying to spread God’s word and strengthen churches. He’s here to share his gift and his calling with us—his story. He’s been in Ecuador. He’s been in Canada. He’s been in the U.S. and now he’s currently living in Italy, trying to build the church there. I’m so excited to tell his stories. I told him he can’t speak in Spanish, he can’t speak in Italian. He has to speak in English. He could do any of those. He could probably speak Canadian, too, but nobody wants to hear that. What’s up, Roy? Here you go, Rob. Let ‘em have it.

Rob Capaldi:

Thank you, David, for that amazing introduction. I feel like I could just do a mic drop after that and just walk away. See, now, that’s why I wanted a handheld. You can’t mic drop an earpiece. That’s not right.

Thank you so much. I will do like Paul has done in some of the books of the Bible:

Italy brings its greetings to you.

That is definitely true for us today.

Now, for those who do not know me, which is most of you, I am a second-generation missionary. When I was six years old, my parents decided to sell everything, put some of their stuff in a container and move to Ecuador. I obviously didn’t have much say in this because I was six years old. We lived there for a while, church was growing and everything was going great.

But a little less than three years ago, with my family—I’ve been married fourteen years now, to my beautiful wife that is with me this morning, Karina. My oldest son is Robby, he’s twelve, and Angelina, she’s going to be seven, and my last daughter, Alia, she is four years old—we decided to move as missionaries, as David said, to Italy. I’ll be telling you a little about that story as we advance.

Something interesting happened to me when we were leaving Ecuador to go to Italy. There is this really popular Bible verse that people use when they are going to go somewhere else. You’ve probably heard it before. This verse is Acts 1:8. It’s one you know:

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere: in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Have you heard that before? Yeah. You’ve heard that, right? So, obviously, we were using that verse when we were leaving Ecuador. “We’ve got to go to the ends of the earth. This is our Jerusalem. We’ve got to go to the ends of the earth. So that’s where we’re going. We’re going to the other side of the world to the ends of the earth.” For us that is Italy.

We get to Italy and the church that received us there, were actually on this missions topic as well. And guess what? They put that verse up and they’re talking about that. And they’re saying, “We need to have a vision to send people to the ends of the earth.”

And I’m thinking, “Wait a minute. The ends of the … this is the ends of the earth! I just came from Jerusalem. This is the ends of the earth!”

And then it dawned on me. I just realized something. Now, I’m assuming none of you are flat earth believers. But I realized, “Oh my gosh. There is no ‘ends of the earth.’ The earth is round! So, if there is no ‘ends of the earth’—I’m coming to the ends of the earth—you’re gong to the ends of the earth and we’re crossing. Wouldn’t it just be cheaper and easier if everyone just stayed put?”

It’s funny though, because, you see, we all know when Jesus finished his ministry he left. He left the earth. And at that moment, I think that’s one of the coolest moments in the Bible, the disciples are there and they are watching Jesus leave. He’s gone on a cloud. He’s leaving and they’re just watching him. After a little while, he’s actually gone. But you know what the disciples are doing? They’re still just looking up into the sky. Then, all of a sudden, this angel appears among them and he says, “Uh, guys. What are you doing? Why are you looking up in the clouds? It’s time to pick up shop. Let’s go. It’s up to you now.”

If this angel was Italian, he would have said, “Hey, guys, salt in the salt shaker does nothing to the pasta. You’ve got to spread out that salt. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to go all around.”

That is God’s heart for us. No, we do not have to stay put. Yes, we have to go all around the world telling everybody about God’s love and everything that he has for us. That has to sound in every tongue, in every ethnicity, in every kind of person. It’s amazing when you hear it from different people around the world in the same place. We’ve really got to grasp that God is not just our God, here let’s say in Phoenix, but he is God of the whole world. So when we have people together speaking in Italian, in Portuguese, in Spanish, and they’re all talking about the same God. That is really power.

[A few sentences in Italian and then Spanish]

Okay, I’ll talk English. I’m sorry, David. Plus, I’m starting to sound a little like the candidates in the Presidential debates. We won’t get into politics this morning.

The point is, Jesus’ Body, he left, right? But his Body is still here. The Church, we are the living, breathing Body of Christ, amen? And Jesus still is serving everyone. He wants to do that through us. And now it is up to us to go all around the world. I am a witness, as David said. I’ve been around. Thank God. That is such a blessing. I’ve been to Spain. I’ve been to Switzerland. I’ve been to Italy. I’ve been to Canada. I’ve been all around. And you know what? God is everywhere!

Don’t believe the news. Don’t believe whatever you hear about Christianity. Let me tell you something. And I can tell you because I’ve been there. God is doing things all around the world.

If you could leave here this morning with just one thing, please let it be this: Do not get distracted. Do not get distracted from Christ’s love. Bear in mind, English is my first language, but it is actually the language that I use the least. It is a little rusty. So if I say anything stupid, please do not get distracted.

I would like to bring our attention to Ephesians now. Ephesians 3. Paul, in Ephesians, is giving us this amazing vision of what the church looks like in the future. He’s teaching the Church how it needs to act, and also the individual, how it needs to act in this broken world. But in Ephesians are also these amazing golden nuggets that Paul does. And he does something amazing. He pauses for a second from his teachings, and he says he gets on his knees and he prays for the church in Ephesians. This is what he says in Ephesians 3:14. I’m reading from the New Living Translation. Listen to this. You might be able to receive this as a prayer, because this was Paul’s prayer for the Church, and we are part of this.

14 When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

Let me repeat that:

Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Amen. What makes us complete? What makes us complete in him? It’s experiencing God’s love. And may we never, ever get distracted from that one thing: God’s love through Christ. Christ’s love in us. That’s what makes our roots grow deep and keeps us strong.

Before I got married, when we were about to get married, we went with my mother and father in-law to do some errands. Karina and I were in the back seat. My future mother in-law was driving, my father in-law was in the passenger seat. We were downtown and there was a lot of traffic. We were running some errands. So he jumps out to run some errands and my mother in-law was going to drive around the block to pick him up after he could do something quick.

So we’re in the back and she’s driving. Then, all of a sudden, as she was driving, somebody screams out, “Hey, be careful! Fire! Fire!” Like underneath the car. So she stops the car and jumps out. I also jump out because, you know, I have to show that I’m a responsible person, right? I hope that’s what she thought and that I wasn’t jumping out to save my life. So I jump out and I’m looking under the car and I don’t see anything. I’m like, “There’s nothing here.”

Then this guy comes around and taps me on the shoulder and says, “No, no. It’s in the back. Come and see!” And he touches my shoulder, he pushes me down a little and he says, “Look, look, look!”

So I’m looking at the exhaust pipe. I’m looking around. I don’t see anything. My mother in-law and I were both in the back of the car just looking like that and the guy says, “No, No. Look down. See? See? See?”

And after we’re looking a while, this girl comes up to us and says, “Hey, guys.” And I’m still looking, you know. “They just stole your purse.”

And I’m thinking, “What an idiot!” And so I get up and I’m like, “This can’t be. They just stole my future mother in-law’s purse. I’ve got to do something!”

So I start running. Right? I’m running and running and running. And then, as I’m running, I’m thinking, “What an idiot! Who are you running after? I don’t know what this person looks like. I don’t know where they went. I don’t even know what the purse looks like. I didn’t pay attention.”

And so I stopped and I turned around. I’m bummed out and walking back. And as I’m walking back, because I ran about a block and this is the longest block to walk back. As I’m walking back, I’m thinking to myself, “Wait a second. I saw the thief. I didn’t just see the thief, at least one of them, he touched me! The guy that was tapping on my shoulder, showing me where to look, pushing me down, he wasn’t trying to help me. He was distracting me. He was distracting me, making me look down so that I wouldn’t realize what was actually going on. That guy was in on it. That guy was the thief.”

That sometimes happens to us. We get distracted from what is really going on. We get distracted from what God really wants for our lives and for what God really wants for your life. Let’s not get distracted. You know what? Sometimes we think those distractions are going to be bad things, evil things. No, no, no. This guy was trying to help me, right? That’s why I was listening to him. He was trying to help me. Right? That’s why I was listening to him, because he was trying to help me. But it wasn’t true. So sometimes it can be apparently good things in our lives, but if they distract us from the love Christ has for us, then it’s not necessarily a good thing.

This reminded me of something in Matthew 13. I’m just going to mention it, you don’t have to go there. There’s a parable that Jesus was teaching. You’ve definitely heard it before. The parable about the farmer planting seeds. The farmer casts out all these seeds everywhere. All these seeds fall on all these different types of soil.

That’s a teaching in itself. That really shows us the Father’s heart. He’s going to throw seed everywhere. That sounds like a terrible farmer, actually. A good farmer would just throw seed where it’s going to grow. This farmer just throws it everywhere. It doesn’t matter if it lands on stone, if it lands on wherever it lands. But that’s God’s heart. He gives everyone an opportunity. And you might think, “Man, I’m not really good soil. But you know what? He’s throwing seeds at you because he wants you to grow.”

So these seeds fall on different kinds of soil. The first soil wasn’t soil at all. It was just stone. The sun came out and the seed didn’t have anywhere to grow. It burns right up. The second one has a little bit of soil. It starts to grow, but can’t put its roots anywhere. Dries right up, as well.

And then there’s the third soil. This is the one I want to talk about. This third soil terrifies me. At the same time that I’ve traveled everywhere, I’ve seen this third soil around the world, as well, and it terrifies me. There’s a reason why it terrifies me. I’m going to read directly from Matthew 13:22 (NLT):

22 The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced.

Why does this terrify me so much? Because this seed that grows, it doesn’t die. No. The soil is good. It starts growing, but it does not die. It grows among thorns and the thorns let it grow, but it kind of grows bad. It’s not growing properly, so no fruit is produced. You may think, “Thorns, those are like bad people in my life. That’s what those thorns must represent.”

But that’s not the truth. Thorns are just distractions. Thorns are things you worry about. Or thorns are things you really want, like wealth and riches or to be prosperous or whatever. Just distractions.

You know what happens when you have too many distractions in your life? You forget about the essential thing, which is Christ’s love for you and being in that love. When we lose that, our roots cannot grow deep to where they should be, and we will not produce fruit. We do not want that in our lives. We want to be good soil without these distractions.

What happens then? We can produce thirty, sixty, a hundred times that. It doesn’t matter if you’re thirty, sixty or a hundred. The important thing is that everything that is growing and is healthy will keep on growing and will produce fruit.

I thought I wasn’t a person that would get distracted from these kind of things. In 2016, my life was actually going pretty well. It was going really well, actually. I was super happy with my life. I had my own business. It took a long time to get that thing running, like years. But it was finally up and running. My family was growing. I had a beautiful family. The church—I was ordained pastor a few years prior. The ministry was growing. My ministry was growing. Man, I was loving it. It was going great.

So we decided to purchase a piece of property. So we bought this piece of property and we paid it off. It’s easy to buy things. It’s the paying off part that’s hard to do. So we paid off the property. So we decided to build. Oh yeah. This is like our all-time dream. We’re going to build our own house. That’s like a thing in Ecuador to buy land and build your home. That was our vision. That’s what we want to do. We were living temporarily—which was actually like ten years—in my father in-law’s house. They did not live there, so that was a good thing. That’s when a blessing starts to become a curse, right? When you’re overdoing it. So we were building our own house. This was going to be amazing.

So we start this amazing project. We were on Pinterest, checking out what the rooms were going to be like. We were putting this project together to give to the architect. So the week we had to do all that, it was a Monday morning, I was having breakfast with my wife. We were going over the last details so I could hand this over to the architect. And as we’re going over the details, having breakfast, talking, this idea just flashes through my mind. It gives me goosebumps. The idea was, “Is this the will of God?”

I’m thinking, “Well, come on. I mean, it’s the logical thing to do. We’re advancing in life. We’re supposed to be doing this.” And I’m thinking, and I ask my wife, “Honey, did we pray about this? Because this is a long term project.”

And she’s like, “No, I don’t think we have.”

I’m like, “Man, I don’t feel good right now. Let’s just pray about this.”

So I say a real simple prayer. I say, “Lord, I’m really sorry we haven’t put this into your plans first, but if this is what you want us to do, bless this. If it’s not, just let us know so we can do something else. Just let us know kind of soon, okay? Amen.”
It was as simple as that. Five minutes later—I am not joking—five minutes later I receive a phone call. It was my dad on the phone. And he says, “Son, I was just praying and meditating right now and this thought came to my mind. I’m just going to land it on you. Do whatever you think—but this might be a great time for you to go somewhere else as a missionary.”

“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it.”

So I hang up and I look at my wife. She’s like, “What’s going on?”

And I’m like, “How about instead of building our dream house, we sell everything and go somewhere else as missionaries?”

See, I warned her before we got married that I was going to do that someday. So she had to say, “Yes.” But she was surprised because she thought it was after we’d retire, or something like that.

That is exactly what we did. We sold everything. We took six months to really get the confirmation. It wasn’t just from that phone call. So don’t go do anything crazy if you receive one phone call. It took us six months to decide where we were going and all that, and then six months to sell everything and prepare everything. So exactly that same date that we received that phone call and prayed about it, we arrived in Italy one year later.

You know, the thing is that I realize in my life that sometimes we just go into autopilot, you know? It was obvious. I was supposed to advance in life. I was supposed to build a house. That’s true. They are all good things. But they are also distractions. You never know what the Lord wants to put in your path. You’ve got to just give it a second and let him talk to you. Maybe the life he has for you is slightly different than the one you are imagining for yourself.

You might be saying, “Rob, I hear you, but come on. Where do I start this kind of a life that just really trusts in God, that really loves Christ, that understands…? I just don’t know where to start so I just keep going back into autopilot.” If you don’t know what to do, don’t let that distract you from Christ’s love, either.

When we went to Italy, we actually didn’t know what we were supposed to do. We had no idea. I knew I was supposed to leave and that was about it. It was not like I had this five year plan of where am I going to be in five years? We didn’t not know what we were going to do. But the Lord put this verse in my heart that really got me through hard times. Genesis 12:1

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.

All right. That sounds pretty basic, right? But wait a minute. Listen to that verse. There’s something kind of secret there. This is when you realize Abraham truly was the father of the faith. He had to leave his father’s home to a land that God was going to show him. So, he actually had to leave to somewhere and he did not know where he was supposed to go. You know what that is? Those are steps of faith?

In your life, take steps of faith. They don’t have to start with huge steps of faith. Take small steps of faith. But start putting your faith in action. Because when you need to put your faith in action, you start churching Christ’s love for your life. When your faith is not in action, you don’t really need God’s love. You can do church life. You can do Christian life without Christ’s love. That’s the crazy thing. But you know what that is? That’s a plant growing with thorns around him. That isn’t producing fruit. You’re doing the thing. You’re living the life, but it’s not to its fullest. God does not want that life for you. He wants you to grow to that full plant, tree, whatever, that has tons of fruit. And we need Christ to do that.

You can start with small things, basic things. Ephesians tells us all about it. Start with your own life. Start living good. Get your act together. Start being a testimony for different people, just by the way you live. You don’t have to be a mega evangelist to do that. Just get your act together. Start with that. It takes faith. And it takes love in Christ to really be able to do that. Or serve in any way possible. There’s always something to do at church. Believe me, there’s always something to do in God’s kingdom. It doesn’t matter if it’s sweeping the floor. One door opens the next. You’ve got to start somewhere. Sometimes we only want to start if it’s something big. No, no, no. Start with something small. One thing will lead to the next.

This wise person told me something that really helped me throughout my life. He said, “If you only want to go in one direction, follow your vision. That’s it. There’s only one direction for your vision. But if you’re willing to serve someone else’s vision, the whole world will open up to you.”

That’s a profound statement. But you know what? That is true. Sometimes in periods, seasons of our lives, we need to be open to follow someone else’s vision. But one door will open up to the next and the Lord will use us.

Support God’s kingdom. Support a missionary, how about that? I can give you a few names, if you want. At the end of the service, my email and website will be there. Snap a picture, send me an email, say I want to be on your newsletter. We’ll be happy to do that. That’s not the purpose why I’m here. I want to talk about Christ’s love and don’t get distracted from that.

Don’t get distracted even when you’re in a desert. That’s going to come around one time or another. The Israelites were really surprised when that desert came around. They thought, “Promised Land,” but there was a dessert first. Things are going to happen in your life, but don’t let that distract you from Christ’s life.

Our time in Italy was rough at the beginning. I have never been at the hospital so many times. It wasn’t even for myself. It was for my children, for all these different things, so many things I can’t get into it. But it’s amazing how many problems you can get into when you’re loving Christ. It’s a strange thing. But you know what? He warned us about it. And in that desert, that’s not the time to complain, That’s the time to trust in God.

I woke up the other day with something in my heart that I just wanted to say: You are not your desert. Do not make that your identity. The identity of the Israelites was the “People of God.” It was not “Desert People.” And that’s the same for us. You are not your financial problems. You are not your confusions. You are not your troubles and your problems. That is not you. You are God’s son and daughter. That is your identity. Always go back to that identity. Because we are not our deserts.

Don’t get distracted from Christ’s love even when the Promised Land, that life that God has for you, looks a little bit different from what you imagined it to be. Those Israelites were surprised when they saw the Promised Land. You know why? Because they thought it was going to be flowing with milk and honey. And that’s true. It was. But there was also another surprise there. A little problem. Spies came back and they said, “Guess what? In this Promised Land, there’s giants!”

There are going to be giants in our Promised Land. It might look a little bit different. When we went to Italy, oh man, I thought this red rug was going to come out from the airplane when we walked down and everybody would coming running up, “Tell me about Jesus!” And when we got there, it was like, “What are you doing here?”

It looks a little different sometimes than what we imagine. And that’s okay.

Christ’s love. We should never get distracted from it. And that’s one of the reasons we do communion. And we and start passing that through. The reason we do communion is to remember the most important things in our lives. That is Christ’s sacrifice for us. Remember the love that he has because it is that love, Christ’s love for us, that is what is going to make our roots grow deep and keep us strong. That’s what it is.

As we pass out the elements, just let God start to talk to your heart for a second. What thorns do you have in your life? What thorns do you need to remove? What distractions do you need to remove? Are you on autopilot, my friend? I think God has a more adventurous life for you than just to worry about bills at the end of the month. Those are all part of our life. That’s okay. But I believe God has so much more for each and every one of us.

As we pass the bread and wine, we remember about what Christ has done for us. I want to say one last thing about these distractions. Don’t get distracted from Christ’s love, even when you mess up. You know, sometimes a relationship with God seems like this mountain. It’s a huge mountain. We’re building up, climbing up this mountain and, sometimes we feel great. “I’m on top of the mountain. This is awesome!” And then we mess up.

And we go and do it again. It takes us a while. We’re like, “Great! I’m back in this relationship. Yes!” And then we mess up.

And then next time, we kind of look at the mountain and say, “Meh. Maybe in a few years.”

Can I tell you something? That mountain doesn’t exist. Ephesians 3:12:

12 Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.

You know, God’s mercy is new every day. You’ve heard about that? You know what that means in our lives? It’s like when we mess up and we say, “God, I’m sorry I messed up.” And then the next day we mess up again. And we go back and say, “God, I’m sorry I messed up again.” And God says, “Again? What do you mean again?”

You see, God’s mercy is new every day. It’s like the first time every time. That’s too big of a love to comprehend. That’s what Paul’s trying to explain. It’s just too big of a love to comprehend. And you are righteous people. You know what righteous people do? Proverbs 24:16:

The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.

If you’ve fell, you’ve messed up in your life in any way, get back up. The ground is not a place for you. It’s also just a distraction. It’s the thief trying to get you to look at the ground instead of looking up to see what’s really happening. And you know what’s always happening? Christ’s love for you. And that is why we get back up.

And speaking about getting back up, let us all stand, please.

Father, we want to remember right now, Lord, all the goodness that you have for us. Most importantly, the love that you have for us, Father.

For I pass onto you what I have received from the Lord himself, on the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” I thank you, Father. I thank you, Jesus, for your body. You were the last sacrifice. Thank you for that love that you’ve had for us. In the name of Jesus. Let us eat the bread.

In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is a new covenant between God and his people, in agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as oft as you drink it. For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until he comes again.

We thank you, Lord, for this new covenant. A better covenant, m Father. Not by law, but by your grace, filled with your love. May we remember this every time we drink this cup. That it is your love that we seek. It is your love that keeps us strong, and may we remember that in the darkest times of our life, and also in the happiest, Lord. May we never be distracted and always come back to your feet, Father, and receive that love. Let’s drink the wine.

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Scripture is taken from Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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Church as the Bride

We’re going to be in Ephesians. We’re looking at Paul’s vision of the church. He didn’t have a vision for Living Streams Church. Living Streams is just an organization that has men and women who are leading it. And the Church that Jesus Christ gave birth to by his blood and the vision that Paul had is the Church organism. It is the thing that lives on beyond Living Streams. It is the thing that was there before Living Streams or whatever other church you might be a part of.

David Stockton
Series: Ephesians

Good morning. College football has started! But I’m an Oregon fan. It was a rough night for me.

But it’s good to be with you guys this morning. We’ve got baptism this morning—both services. About ten people getting baptized today, which is super exciting and fun. And we’re going to be working through Ephesians again. Ephesians 5.

Life Groups. Life Groups. Life Groups. Maybe it’s weird phrase: Life Groups. But it is small groups of people trying to get together outside of the Sunday morning context to check in on each other, pray for each other. The four things we’re dreaming and praying for you is that you’ll get raw authenticity and the healing that comes with that. You’ll get relentless encouragement from each other because we definitely need that. You’ll get Biblical counsel in those small groups. And you’ll get some genuine friendship. Not the online kind but the face-to-face kind. Online is cool. You can do that, too. But face-to-face is important, as well.

We actually have over 200 people that have signed up since last Sunday. Yeah. There’s a lot of “whoo-ing” going on around here. We think it’s really important. We are not trying to build a Sunday morning show. That’s the last thing we’re trying to build around here—where people come for an hour, watch a show and then go. We are not in that business. We’re trying to build a church. And it is so important that the church has more than Sunday morning to stand on.

I don’t care if you find life groups in another church. You’ve got to find ways to get together with people in smaller settings, where you can be known and you can impart the wisdom God is speaking to you and you can be supported.

Did I mention Life Groups? It’s very easy. You go online, livingstreams.org and we’ve got a whole list of them. They’ve got times, locations, what’s happening there. We’re asking everyone in our church—everyone—if this is your first Sunday—hey—you’re in. You came. It’s your fault.—to at least sign up for six weeks, starting September 15. We have leaders, we have groups, we have everything ready. We even gave the leaders their first snacks for the first night. We’re serious about this thing. And we’re serious about snacks, too.

Just give it at least six weeks. The leaders are going to be there and they’re ready to run past six weeks, but we just really want you guys to give it a shot and see what the Lord can do. We don’t want to miss anything that God has in store for us.

All right. We’re going to be in Ephesians. We’re looking at Paul’s vision of the church. He didn’t have a vision for Living Streams Church. Living Streams is just an organization that has men and women who are leading it. And the Church that Jesus Christ gave birth to by his blood and the vision that Paul had is the Church organism. It is the thing that lives on beyond Living Streams. It is the thing that was there before Living Streams or whatever other church you might be a part of.

And we’ve built these organizations, these churches that are hopefully going to help that organism prosper and thrive within it. But YOU are the Church if you are called by Jesus’ name. You are the Church. And the Church is the single most dominant force for good that the world has ever seen. Any era. Any age. Any place. No one can deny the power of what the Church, the true Church has done.

At the same time, no one can deny that there have been real good seasons and real bad seasons for the organization aspect of the Church. There have been horrible seasons when we look at the organization of the Church. But Jesus is not the head of the organizations. We do our best to make sure he is in control of this place, but at the end of the day, it’s got to go through people like me. And it’s going to come out a little squirrly. But he is and always will be the head of the Church, which is his Body here on earth. And everyone of you has a part to play.

So Paul is trying to impart to us this vision, this grand vision, this vision that, when he got it, he did not want it. But when he got it, he changed every single thing in his life. He threw away everything he had ever known and become—position, power, money, self-righteousness, pride. He threw it all away and said, “I just want to live into this vision.” And he spent the rest of his life traveling the world to tell Gentiles (people who are not Jews) about this vision that God has for them.

In Ephesians he tries to piece it all together in this letter that he was writing. And it’s so ridiculous. If you were to get this letter back in Paul’s day, you would think the guy is insane. You would think he’s absolutely crazy. Because, what he is putting forth in this vision, and what was in reality at that time of the Church are so far apart. If you get nothing else in our time in the book of Ephesians, I just want you to get this. That Paul was declaring something that had no chance of becoming a reality. The Church at that time was scattered, was living in caves and dens, was persecuted and dominated. It was a laughing stock. It was pitiful. And yet Paul could see something that Marty Caldwell gets to see all the time as he travels around. That other people—we have someone speaking next week who’s been around the world seeing the Church in action in all different continents. He’s going to share a little bit of the strength and beauty these days.

If Paul could see the Church today, he would do an old man backflip. Which is kind of like rolling over, I think, or falling down, maybe. What the Church has become, there is no way Paul could actually have believed that it would be what it is today. She is so beautiful. But Paul could see a vision. We talk about Martin Luther King, Jr., as he speaks to that crowd right before he was killed and he said, “I have no worries. For I have been to the mountaintop and I’ve seen the other side. I’ve seen the Promised Land. I know we’re going to get there.”

And that’s basically what Paul is saying in his day and age. He’s saying, “I’ve seen the vision. Jesus has given me the vision. And now I’m living into the vision. And I’m going to see us grow from this tiny, little, infant baby that is not even having a chance to live, forsaken in every way—it’s going to become the most powerful thing the world has ever seen.

It’s awesome what we are reading right now. And I’m hoping it will get in us. I’ve had a couple of visions in my life. When I first gave my life to Jesus, I was about eighteen years old. When I first gave my life to Jesus. I had received Jesus prior to that, but there was a big difference when I turned seventeen and eighteen, right in there, where I think Jesus was saying, “Okay. Now I’m going to ask something from you.”

And I went for it. Immediately (Mike, you can attest to this) I just, for some reason starting thinking about Ireland all the time. I had actually gotten to go to Ireland with my family right after I graduated, so I just thought that’s all that it was. And yet, this idea of going to Ireland and starting a camp, like a summer camp, and then also starting a church and having a school there kind of all on the same property. This vision just started coming.

Again, I had been to Ireland. My grandmother was Irish. I do have Irish citizenship—I have dual citizenship through her. So, I started thinking, “Maybe there’s something here.” And I just had a compelling vision of going to Ireland and getting rid of all the snakes. Not really. That was somebody else’s vision. But going to Ireland, trying to see the Lord do something. So I graduated college and I talked to some friends who were crazy enough to say, “Let’s do it.”

We came up with a plan. We were all going to go for three months. We bought a three month ticket. That was the entirety of the plan. And we were going to just see what the Lord would do. And I’m here in Arizona now. Right? Working here, you know.

But we did go there. We got to see the Lord do really great things. It was very strengthening for our faith. Within three days we had jobs and a place to live. And our names were being sent to all these different ministry clubs in Northern Ireland. We got to go two or three times a week. We’d get on a bus and say, “Can you take us to this place and do ministry?” And at the end of it, though, we were like, “Well, we should go home.” It was a great time. It was building my faith, but then we came back.

Then I had another vision. I was sitting right down here one time by Mark Buckley as he was about to preach. And we were singing the song, “For the sake of the world, burn like a fire in me.” And I can’t tell you how clear it was. I saw a vision of a bunch of Belizeans. My wife and I had lived in Belize a little before, so it wasn’t that far off. But I saw a room full of Belizeans and they were singing, “For the sake of Belize, burn like a fire in me.” And it was real clear. And it was a vision.

I remember talking to Mark about it and the elders, and saying, “You know, my wife and I are thinking maybe we should go to Belize again.” And Mark said, “Okay. Okay. Let’s figure this out.” And, sure enough, we ended up going to Belize for a little more than a year with our family. And step by step, we started a Friday Night Fire, is what they wanted to call it. Except, in Belize, it’s called “Friday Night Fi-yah.”

We started a little worship night. And my wife and I were doing music, which is not that impressive. We started using that song to close every one of the Friday nights that we had. We changed the word, I don’t know if we’re allowed to, but it was in Belize where you can get away with anything. We changed the words and I thought, “Wow, this amazing.” Little by little, the room started to fill up. And people were singing that song. And the Lord, just to make it so clear that I didn’t miss it, there was one night when it was totally jam-packed. This was probably about one hundred or so Belizeans. It was a small room so it was jam-packed.

We were singing that song and it was a great night. We were really leaning in to the Lord. And, all of a sudden the power went out completely. When the power goes out in Belize, it was dark. It was so dark you couldn’t see anything inside this room. And it was very hot. Yet, the power goes out, our mics, everything is gone, and everyone just kept singing. And we’re just at the part where we sing, “For the sake of Belize, burn like a fire in me.” And I just stepped back from the mic for just a second and just went, “Oh, my goodness!” It was like the Lord was saying, “No, no, no. We’re making a point of this. Exclamation point. Boom!”

There are these visions that the Lord gives us. Paul was so compelled by this vision of what he was going to see. I don’t know if he ever got to a point where he felt that he got to see it. I think he probably saw little pieces of it. But again, Ephesians is this grand vision that he’s trying to lay out for all of us.

He starts out giving a vision of the Church as a family—that we’ve been adopted into God’s heart. So the Church is one of the ways we can see this vision. One of the ways Paul saw it as it’s like the family of God. We’ve got the name of God on our jerseys, on the back. We walk around and are learning how to live according to his family rules and culture.

And then he goes on to talk about how the Church is the dwelling place of God. That somehow his Spirit is in all of us and, as we go about the world, God’s presence goes into all the world, and it’s a picture of what God can do. When people come and get to know us, it’s like coming over to God’s house and hanging out for a while.

Then we talked last week about how the Church is a body. That we’re this body. We’re trying to grow into this full stature, this amazing, powerful force that God has in mind for us to be. And we start at one point and try to grow into it so that we can be strong enough to withstand the winds of every deceitful scheme that comes our way. That we won’t be tossed to and fro by the waves. And that’s the dream that we have.

Today we’re going to talk about the Church as a bride. So all the girls are like, “Oh, yeah, that’s cool.” And all the guys are like, “College football, man. College football.”

So Ephesians Chapter 5. You’ve got to deal with it. It’s in the Bible so get ready. Get your wedding dresses out.

5:1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

So there you have fragrance, right? We’re already getting girly. But Jesus loved us and he gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering. And then he says:

3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.

Or, for God’s bride. Right? Skip down to verse 21:

21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body. 31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”

And then Paul says this as a little bit of a hesitation caveat:

32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.

So all this stuff about submission, all this stuff about two becoming one, he’s saying, “Now, I need you to pay attention here. I’m not trying to be weird. But somehow this is a mystery. All of this stuff that I’m talking about is actually about Christ and his Church—his bride—the people who follow him

33 However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Paul opens up this whole can of worms. He’s basically saying, “Now another way I want you to picture the Church is as the Bride of Christ.”

It is the people he has chosen. The people he has give his life for and will forevermore. The people that he is actually trying to love so well that they actually form into all the beauty that they can form into. He’s talking about how Christ and His Body are to become one in lovingkindness and mutual respect.

Again, John 17 is a prayer that, if Jesus didn’t pray it, I would never really teach it. is prayer is that those who believe in him would become one with him, just like he and the Father are one. It’s not saying that we’re going to become gods. But somehow we’re going to be included into the trinitarian love and oneness as we follow him.

It’s a profound mystery. And I’m not going to talk about it anymore because I no idea what else to say about it. One day I’m just going to die and—bam—in it. I can just call it a profound mystery,

We’re talking about this love. We’re talking about the romance. We’re talking about how God in Christ romanced us. Reckless love. However you want to talk about it. He wooed us. Romeo and Juliet. All of the stuff you want to say here.

It’s fun for me to talk to guys when we go on men’s retreats or Belize retreat. To get to know them, I love to just ask the question, “Do you have a girlfriend?” (if they’re not married.) And it’s so funny because, immediately, I feel like—bam—you are in. Unless they’re like, “No. Don’t talk to me about that. I don’t know you.”

But if they start to answer that question at all, they can’t help it. Their heart is coming right out of their mouth. You get to see their heart right away, whether it’s good, bad or whatever. Because that’s a big part of where their life is flowing out of. It’s that part of their heart that longs for that companionship.

And then I love to ask guys on our men’s retreat—we were in Belize and last time I asked the guys, “All right. What we’re going to do tonight as a kind of debrief, I want everyone to tell us how you got engaged.”

You could see all the guys were like, “What do you mean?” And then they’d start telling it. And they would be struggling, trying to make it not a big deal. But then as they would start telling the story they would start gushing a bit. It’s like, “Oh, you’re sappy! Yeah, you are a romantic guy! Look at you! Ha ha! We got you! Busted.”

But as they would tell the story, it comes out. And it’s so precious and beautiful. Even the guys who are like so tough, when they start telling about getting engaged, it’s just an awesome, awesome thing.

For me, I fell in love with this girl named Brit. And she and I were dating and hanging out. (This is my wife, by the way.) Yet, at the same time, I knew she also loved another. It was the kids in South Africa. She loved them a lot. She knew that she needed to go to them. So we started dating and we were hanging out and I was like, “Yeah, we love each other. But I know you love these little kids in Africa.”

So, we knew she had to go. And so she went. A big thing was, she was going to see. She loved the Lord above it all and she wanted to go where God was leading her. So she went for a few months to Africa. I didn’t know what was going to happen. Would she love me more than Africa? Would God put our paths back together at some point? It was a real moment of truth.

I remember talking to her while she was there. At one point it was pretty clear that what she was saying was that she loved me more than Africa. That was a big deal for my life. I was like, “I’ve got all of Africa beat! Yeah!” I was thrilled.

So knowing that, I ended up getting on a plane and flying to London where she was going to be flying back. I surprised her by being in London. She didn’t know I was going to be there. And I surprised her by looking like this (photo of David with long hair and beard). She was going and I said, “I’m not going to cut my hair while you’re gone.” I didn’t think about this part. So she was like, “Oh, hey! Oh, heyyyy!”

And I surprised her one more. I got on one knee and asked her to marry me. She said, “Yes.” It’s been almost fifteen years. It’s been a pretty cool deal.

I’m saying all of this because Jesus loves you in this way, if you can receive it. He loves you and wants so badly for you to love him. Not only for his own good. Somehow, mystery of mysteries, if you love Jesus, his heart is full. If you don’t, his heart is broken. God of the universe, Creator of everything, has somehow made his heart dependent on your love.

If you choose to love him, you will be loved well. There are some verses in Ephesians that bring this out. I want to go through these and I want you to maybe grab a couple of things out of these. Maybe write them down. Maybe just hide them in your heart.

There are some phrases that are key as we go through. Ephesians 2: I’m going to read this out of the Message translation. I like the way the Message says it:

1-6 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin.

You weren’t anything that special.

You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience.

That’s powerful imagery.

We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. We loved a lot of other things. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us.

He walked right up to our filthiness, our rebellion, and our anger, and he hugged us. He pulled us close to him and stole it all away.

He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7-10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.

That is what Jesus is longing to do. To bring you closer to him. To shower you with lovingkindness both in this world and in the next. And just so you know, there won’t be pain in the next. Here you get both.

Next is Ephesians 2:11-13 in the NIV.

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision”

(Those who are feeling like the upper class and you were called the lower class by them.)

(which is done in the body by human hands)— 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

All the way into his arms. Pressed against his own chest. Covered by his love. Never needing to fear or worry again. Perfect redeeming love is wrapped around you in Christ Jesus.

I defined it a little bit like this, the way that God treats us as his bride: Lovingly, romantically, faithfully, kindly. What happens is our vulnerability is met with his passionate, wholehearted, generous covering. He finds us naked and ashamed, and he covers us with his righteousness and love. His love really does redeem.

Ephesians 5:1-3.

1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity…

Why is the Bible so serious about sexuality? Why is the world disparaging and rebelling against the Scriptures right now because it’s too harsh or hard? Well, because the writers of the Bible are trying to help us understand that there are really two images that God has given us outside of Christ incarnate that teach us about him better than anything else.

Genesis 1 makes it very clear that God created male and female in his image. So if we get male and female right, then the world gets to see God. If we screw up or twist up male and female, we lose one of our most powerful demonstrations of who God is in full. God is not male. Never has been. Never will be. God is not female. He is somehow the fullness of both of those when we get it right. That’s why there’s a big attack right now. But it’s not the first time. We got through this attack generation after generation, where the devil tries to destroy our image of God found in maleness and femaleness.

We do need to sit back and weather the storm with love and kindness. But we also need to make sure people understand God put the fence there for a reason. If you move the fence, you’re going to find the lions, the tigers, the bears ready to devour you. Which we see over and over again. That’s why the world and society has never really been able to move on to this total free love thing. Because, ultimately, the consequences show up and we go back. This isn’t a new thing. This is just the latest wrong version of “woke,” that we’re going to have to wake up from with consequences all around us. The Bible is the only thing woke.

Not only that, but he also says that the second thing that is the best image of God is marriage. Marriage is the second best image of God. I’m talking about Christ and the Church. You want to learn about Christ and the Church, go look at someone’s marriage. That’s how you’re going to learn about the love of God. The faithfulness, the stick-to-it-ativeness, the patience, the kindness. That’s the way God loves you, except that he’s perfect and totally trustworthy.

So why would the enemy want to destroy marriage? Why would he want to get rid of that or call it crazy or too hard? Because he doesn’t want people to see the image of Christ and his Church. Because they might fall in love with him and experience his love.

The last thing I want to read as we close is Ephesians 5:21-33. The same passage, but I want to read it in the Message translation. I want to highlight a couple of things. I ask again that you try to grasp a couple of things for your own heart right now.

21 Out of respect for Christ, be courteously reverent to one another.
22-24 Wives, understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ. The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church, not by domineering but by cherishing. So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership, wives should likewise submit to their husbands.
25-28 Husbands, go all out in your love for your wives,

Be extravagant like Jesus was.

…exactly as Christ did for the church—a love marked by giving, not getting. Christ’s love makes the church whole. His words evoke her beauty. Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her, dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness. And that is how husbands ought to love their wives. They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.

And we’ll just finish with that. I love some of those phrases. That this is the love that Christ has for us. It’s the love that we’re supposed to show toward our spouses, toward our kids, toward our friends, toward our enemies, toward our neighbors. This kind of love that is marked by giving, not getting. The kind of love that makes the person that we’re loving more whole. It doesn’t point out their deficiencies, but it actually begins to fill those things, cover those things until they have a chance to grow in those things. And their words evoke their beauty.

I want to love my wife like that. And I’m so bad at it. I want to love my kids like that. And I know I fall short. I want to love you guys like that. It’s a beautiful love that Jesus has for us. It’s a life-changing, redeeming love. It’s a love that feels like vulnerability met with passionate, wholehearted, generous covering.

As I was worshiping downstairs with the team, there was a moment where I saw this picture of some people who are feeling pretty vulnerable, pretty gross, pretty bad themselves, pretty unsure, pretty weak—whatever it might be. And Jesus comes and actually covers you with his robes of righteousness, of love. He wraps this covering around you. And then, when you look in the mirror, you’re like, “Wow. I didn’t know I could like this.” But the story wasn’t over, because, at one point, that robe was removed, and no longer was there something disgusting underneath. Now it was like you had your own form of beauty. You had your own form of strength. It was Christ in you, that hope of glory. So the covering doesn’t just cover up your sickness and make you feel better for a moment. That covering actually redeems everything underneath the covering, stirs up, evokes the beauty that he made for you to be. His innocent love causes that kind of change.

It’s hard to abide in Christ. It’s hard to keep absorbing that love from time to time. But that’s the only way that we’re going to be able to love like him. We can’t do it in our strength. Never can. Never will. But Jesus knows that. So if we will set aside time to go sit in his presence and allow him to robe us once again—if we can put on Jesus Christ, be robed in his righteousness, we will absorb that love. It will reform us and fill us so that we can then go and clothe others in this world. That’s a beautiful vision of Christ and his Church. Christ and his Bride. You are the Bride of Christ.

Let’s pray:

Jesus, we do thank you so much that you love us, that you gave yourself for us in ways beyond what we can imagine. I pray, Lord, that once again we would allow you to cover us so that you can cleanse us and transform us and fill us, so that we can go into this world and we can cover others with that same love. Thank you.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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