David Stockton 5/9/21 David Stockton 5/9/21

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 5 if you want to grab a Bible and turn there. We’re also going to be in Galatians chapter 3 if you want to make a mark there as well. It’s Mother’s Day. My mom is not around anymore these days. She was awesome, though, in a lot of ways. She had an interesting experience of becoming a mother. She was 17 when she got married and 18 when my brother showed up, and then had another one of my brothers at 19-1/2…

Series: The Sermon on the Mount
May 9, 2021 - David Stockton

We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 5 if you want to grab a Bible and turn there. We’re also going to be in Galatians chapter 3 if you want to make a mark there as well.

It’s Mother’s Day. My mom is not around anymore these days. She was awesome, though, in a lot of ways. She had an interesting experience of becoming a mother. She was 17 when she got married and 18 when my brother showed up, and then had another one of my brothers at 19-1/2 and had me by the time she was 23. So three boys by the time she was 23.

And my dad was actually 27 when I was born, but he was probably going on about 20 as far as his maturity level. So my mom really had her hands full with a bunch of boys in the house. And yet, my mom, she was strong. She was small but she was strong. And she did set us in line and taught us a lot of things.

I was thinking, you know, we’ve been talking about the law as far as when Jesus was saying in Matthew 5:17 that he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. So we’ve actually spent a couple of weeks talking about the law of God as brought to us through the Mosaic covenant. And we’re going to be talking about the law again today.

I was thinking about my first interaction with any concept of law was my mom. She was the one who laid down the law in our house. And like that little film was joking, I mean, all those are rules, right? Those are laws that moms come up with that kids violate continually, that’s why they never say those things.

One of the things that came to mind real strong was my mom got a couch one day. I don’t know if it was a nice couch and she had always wanted a nice couch and finally got a couch. I have no idea what the couch was, I just remember the law was we weren’t allowed to sit in it. So I thought, okay, there’s a nice couch coming. We destroy everything. She doesn’t want us to sit in the couch. But the couch was right in the middle of our house in our living room. So it wasn’t like a couch in her bedroom, it was a couch in a room where people sit a lot. And we weren’t allowed to sit on that couch.

I can still picture that couch and how pristine it was, in my mind, just wondering what it would have been like to sit on it and to feel that couch underneath me. But that wasn’t enough. I don’t know exactly what took place, but that rule of not sitting on the couch quickly became we weren’t allowed to go into the room that couch was in. So the entire living room, we were not allowed in, me and my three boys. There weren’t a lot of other people living in the house besides my mom and dad. But we weren’t allowed in it. We were allowed in this tv room, but I actually can picture the difference of those two rooms. This room the carpet was clean and still was sticking up, you know. Then the tv room where we were allowed to go was rough. It was a rough space in the house.

Those are some rules. We used to get a nickel for every pair of socks we could put together. Anybody else have something like that? And you’d think, “Wow, that seems like a lot of money.” We’d get like four pairs is all we could ever find each. It sounded like this really big deal but it never worked out that great for us. We had some interesting things.

Then I remember my mom came up with this real clever, like legal system for us as far as chores goes. Every time we’d do a chore we’d get a thumbtack on this little tack board she put up there. So clever and trying to get us responsible and all those things. We’d get a certain amount of money for every thumb tack that we got when we completed a chore. Sounds very normal. I just remember, because I was the youngest, it didn’t matter how hard I worked or how many chores I did, I couldn’t get more thumbtacks on the board. It would always stay the same few numbers. But my brothers, who never seemed to do any chores, just kept growing thumbtacks all the time. It took me a while. I was a little dense as a kid. They’d just walk up and it would be like bam, bam. They were just stealing them.

It didn’t matter what rules my mom made, we violated them and made a mess of them. But somehow we got through.

Talking about the law. Matthew 5:17. Let’s read Matthew 5:17-20. This is super, super important passage of scripture, passage of the Sermon on the Mount, as Jesus is trying to help the people he gathered understand what it’s going to be like if they follow him. Understand what’s it’s going to be like to walk in his ways. Understand what he was on earth to do was to bring in something new, something different. So this is what he says:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;

Which is a past thing. He’s speaking to Jews primarily. He’s speaking about this covenant that God made with Moses. That the people had basically been participating in for thousands of years.

I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

So again, he’s just saying this is so important. All of those commands, all of the stuff you learned in the Law and the Prophets. The Torah, the Prophets, all of those things. So important they are from God. They are good. And they will not pass away.

Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

So the law is good. It’s not going to be abolished. It’s super important and yet, you need to have a righteousness that’s better than the Pharisees or you’re not even going to make it. So this is what we’ve been talking about.

It’s funny. I’v been finding a lot of help for this sermon series from a guy named Jonathan Pennington, super-cleverly on the Sermon on the Mount and it’s called The Sermon on the Mount. You can check it if you want. But he wrote in there about this passage of scripture, which just kind of confirms so much of why I just felt we needed to camp out here. He said this:

The compactness of Matthew 5:17-20 is at once its power and its difficulty. By virtue of its pithy, contrastive statements we get a large-scale snapshot of the issue; but its brevity and super-concentrated collection of weighty terms and ideas mean that every sentence is a spark that sets off a fire in a different direction. Like good poetry, this short passage is thick with meaning and in need of deep reflection.

So we’ve camped out here and you might be sick of these verses. You might be saying, “Why are we talking so much about the Law? I thought we were Christians living under grace.” And all of that is true. But I’m really trying to make sure that we hear from Jesus in this time as best we can before we go forward.

So we have been doing a lot of affirming of the Law, because that’s in here. Jesus is doing that. Affirming of the commands that God had given us. Now again, that’s a tricky, complicated thing. Because what is Jesus really referring to when he says the Law and the Prophets. There’s a lot of debate. There was a lot of debate at that time.

There were four main sects at that time: Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots and Essenes. They all had different worldviews, different philosophies on how to do that. Kind of like what we have today with Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, progressives, whatever you want to talk about. They even had these Zealots. And the Zealots were basically like, “We just want to fight. We just want to find the Romans and get rid of them because they are oppressors.” It’s kind of like the social justice warriors of this time.

They were all trying to unpack this in a different way. And then you had schools of thought. You had the school of Hillel and the school of Shammai. One of these was taking a little looser understanding of the scriptures and kind of giving a little more room to wiggle. And others were tightening it up and making it really, really strict.

So there was this constant challenge of, well, what is the Law? In the Mitzvot was the 613 confirmed commandments that came through the Torah. Torah is the first five books of the Bible, which another name for it is Pentateuch. But then it gets even a little deeper because those 613 Mitzvot commandments that came from the written Law of the Torah needed interpretation and commentary to figure out how they really applied to life.

So they came up with something called the Oral Law. The Oral Law eventually gave way and became something called the Talmud. The Talmud was basically the most general adopted orthodox traditions and teachings and commentaries on the Mitzvot which came out of the Pentateuch and the Torah. Then the Talmud was broken up into two main kind of documents. One was a little bit prior and one was a bit little after that. That was the Mishnah. Then the Gemara.

You see the complexities? This is the stuff we’re trying to do. We’re trying to gain a vision of the righteousness of God for our time. God, what do you want us to do with the issues that we are facing today? And last year, 2020, a lot of these issues came to the surface because a lot of us were feeling real insecure. And what happened was a lot of people started shouting and preaching about what righteousness and justice really were. And they were coming up with their own backing of those type of things, their own reasoning for those things. But not a lot of them were coming from a scriptural point of view, a Judeo-Christian ethic. In fact, I would even call them anti-Biblical.

So we really did have to kind of all of a sudden say, “Okay, God. I’m being pulled in so many different directions. These are some powerful ideologies being passed out. Some of them sound so good. I don’t know what to do.” So we dove into the scriptures, the safety that’s there. And we affirmed the goodness of the Law of God. And we unpacked it and tried to understand. We went back to 1 Kings and really looked at what was the idolatry of that day. Where did they go astray so that we won’t fall into the same traps. And we really affirmed the Law.

We’ve been doing that the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, remember Kenny? He was here preaching about those who relax on the Law of God are the least in the kingdom. We don’t want that. We don’t want to be the least in the kingdom so we’ve got to be careful we don’t relax on the Law of God or teach others that they can relax on the Law of God. We talked last week about how we don’t want to mess with the truth because the truth is what sets us free. Then if we mess with the truth we’re really messing with our freedom. And if we diminish or water down the truth, we’re really diminishing or watering down our ability to be free as the Lord as prescribes it.

All of that is good and right and wonderful. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have done that. But I’m saying that is partial. And you’ve got to track with me here. And I don’t even know if I’m going to do a good job of explaining this, but I’m trying. I’m trying and I will keep trying until we can understand it. Because the New Testament is full of this relationship. What is the role of the Law in the life of the believer? Where does it stop being a good thing and become a bad thing? Because that happens.

And that’s where Jesus brings in the example of the Pharisees. Because the Pharisees knew the Law. They loved the Law. They searched the Scriptures constantly. They put them in little boxes on their head and wore them around. They put them on their doorposts. They were trying to really unpack and understand how to live righteously according to God’s standards. They committed themselves to it.

But Jesus said their righteousness wouldn’t even get them into heaven. So something was missing. In some ways the picture in mind as I’ve been trying to understand this for myself, is picture a bunch of logs on a fireplace. There’s no fire, but the logs are in there. For me, I love bonfires in a little bit of a too much way. At least that’s what my mother-in-law says to me all the time. But the kids that I have and the cousins that are around a lot, they don’t think so at all. They think it’s awesome.

But I love to build these bonfires, build them, and you can build a box one. You can lean things together and make little teepee. It’s really fun to build these things. Basically, that’s what it seems like these Pharisees were doing. They were building all these things and in some ways it seems like they were building their own Tower of Babel trying to reach to the righteousness of God.

And was Jesus was saying was, “I haven’t come to get rid of all that but I’ve come to set fire to it. I’ve come to bring the fire that will actually make this thing come alive, make this thing good, make this thing bring warmth to the people who need warmth; and healing to the people who need healing.” But the Pharisees had no fire. They had none of the Spirit of God or the Spirit of the Law. They just had the substance and their righteousness was completely empty, according to Jesus.

So we’ve talked about that. Now we’re trying to shift into this understanding of what Jesus was moving into. “I’ve not come to abolish the Law, but I’ve come to fulfill it.” That word fulfill means complete or satisfy. And that’s what I like. It’s like, “I haven’t come to get rid of this bonfire, but I’ve come to actually bring fire that will now ignite this thing in such a beautiful, world-healing, individual healing way.” That’s the righteousness that he’s really after. Not these empty towers of righteousness that often religiosity brings about; but a true relationship with Jesus that causes justice to flow into the world out of each one of us. So that’s what we’re trying to move into.

So let’s go to Galatians chapter 3, because here is where Paul — who is just such a perfect example of what was happening here — Paul was writing to the Galatians about the Law of God and what its purpose is and what it was supposed to be about. He’s trying to help them shift from this understanding of walking in the Law to now walking in the Spirit. This kind of thing that Jesus ushered in, moving us from an old covenant to a new covenant reality.

Paul is coming, not just from a person who’s understanding this from revelation from God, but he’s coming because he’s actually experienced all of this in his own personal life. We first meet Paul as someone who is so filled with anger and murderous threats in his pursuit of righteousness. He was someone who was zealous for the Law. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he says of himself. He said, “According to the Law, I was blameless.” Yet what he had inside his heart was anger and frustration and murderous threats. Literally, he was trying to go kill people who were following the way of Jesus. That’s what all of that religiosity, that’s what the Law brought him until Jesus came and said, “Hey, what are you doing? What you’re doing is not righteousness.” And Jesus began to interact with him and teach him the way of Jesus.

It’s kind of interesting. We did mention last week, remember, how Jesus was trying to help people understand that murder, according to the Pharisees and according to the law is if you don’t kill somebody. But Jesus is saying that’s not the righteousness that God’s after so you won’t kill somebody. God’s actually wanting to see that the anger in your heart, you call people Raca, you call people fool, something in your heart turns from anger to love. He’s wanting to get at these divisions and bring unity and peace.

And Paul experienced that firsthand in his own heart. When he met Jesus, Jesus stole his anger. And the very people that he was trying to kill, literally, he now became a champion for, someone who served them and cared for them and built the Church of God. Which is so fascinating that that shift happened because the Spirit came. He went from old covenant to new covenant in a beautiful way.

Let’s read what he says in Chapter 3 about the Law. Now verse 2 is where we’re going to start:

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?

So, first of all, we’ve got to understand that the Law is actually a covenant. So when these people were hearing Jesus talk about the Law, I mean, when we talk about the law, we think cops and robbers, right? We think of courtrooms and all of those things. We think of governments trying to pass laws, which they’re doing right now. That’s where our mind goes.

But when these people were hearing about Law, they were hearing a lot more the word covenant. Because that’s what the Law was. The Law was where God, who had set the Israelite’s free from slavery in Egypt, had sustained them in the wilderness, had led them to the Promised Land, had been so kind and good to them, had been so close and faithful to them, was now saying, “As you go into this new place, here’s the relationship I want to have with you. I will be your God and I will give you blessing and I will watch over you and I will prosper you. And here’s what I want you to do in return. I want you to love me, have no other gods before me. Don’t take my name in vain. And I don’t want you to kill each other. I don’t want you to commit adultery.”

He gives them the Ten Commandments. This is basically the relationship. It’s almost as if you’re at a wedding. What happens at a wedding? You have a guy standing up there. You have a girl standing up there. They look at each other before the authority, the priest or whatever, and they give vows. “I promise that this is what I’m going to do. I promise that this is how I’m going to be. I promise that I’ll never leave you, til death do us part.” We make all these promises. That’s a lot more, when they hear the Law, they think more of vows, of covenant, of relationship.

That’s ultimately what God was trying to do with the laws he was giving to Israel. He was trying to draw them in close to say, “Hey, this is how we’re going to have the best relationship.” But what happened in Israel was they began to make the laws all about the laws. They began to just focus so much on the laws, they forgot to even focus on the Lord. They started focusing on doing all the things God was asking them to do, and really gave no attention or care to God at all.

We have to remember that all of the laws that we’ve been given, all the commandments are ultimately to cultivate a relationship with Jesus, which produces righteousness. Not a righteousness that, someday if we get it all right, God will bless us. It’s such a challenging thing for us to not fall back into those things.

The Galatians, when Paul came there, the Galatians didn’t know the Law. They didn’t know what God was up to. And Paul preached to them and he shared with them about who Jesus is. and he basically told them that the world has all been set up and your life is just going to be empty until the Spirit comes. The Spirit’s going to bring fire to all of this and then your life can be shining bright.

And they were like, “Yeah, we believe. We know we need forgiveness. We’re stuck in our sins. We can’t stop doing that. We have hatred. We have all these things you’re talking about. We need forgiveness. We need the Spirit.” They received it. They received what Jesus did on the cross. They received his Spirit in their lives. And signs and wonders broke out in Galatia. People were being healed. People were being set free. Beautiful things were happening. And it was wonderful.

Then, shortly after that, the people started to just kind of be all about rules. And they started to create just religion. And they really forgot to just kind of be walking in the Spirit in relationship with Jesus. And Paul was saying that you’ve got to remember that the Law is a covenant with a person, the person of Jesus Christ. That’s what it’s all about. It’s not to make you righteous. It’s to make you closer to Jesus, because Jesus is the one who makes you righteous.

The second thing he says here is the Law is a measure for us. 3:10 through 11:

For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”

So here, what he’s saying is basically the Law given to us, the Ten Commandments — all of these things — one of their purposes in our lives is to help us know what righteousness is and, therefore, to know that we’re not righteous. That’s literally one of the reasons God gave the Law to the people, so that they would know what righteousness is, but then in the very next breath they would remember that they are not righteous, because they’re not fulfilling those things. They have the hatred in their heart. They can’t get free from the lust. When somebody does something to them they lash back. They don’t love their enemies. They don’t stay faithful to their contracts and vows, including marriage.

These are the things that Jesus was describing and unpacking. When we measure ourselves against all that God desires, all that God asks of us, if we’re honest, we fall short. And he’s saying here, if you even do one, you could nine out of ten and your righteousness is still not enough to get into heaven. That’s the way he finishes up this little part of it. He says, “Be perfect, even as my Father in heaven is perfect.” That’s the kind of righteousness that he’s requiring.

So when we’re face to face with the Law, it’s totally appropriate for us to affirm the goodness that is described there, but then we also have to acknowledge that we are sinners. That’s bad news for just a second, right? Everybody’s feeling a little heavy right now. Everybody’s like, “Why is he saying this? Is he trying to be mean?”

It’s important. This is one of the reasons the Law is there, to help us know we can’t make it, which then makes us then go, “God, I need you.” And he’s like, “Cool. I just sent my Son. Bam. All your sins are forgiven. Righteousness just like me. Bam. We won.” It’s all there. But we have to understand our insufficiency if we’re ever really going to be able to receive the sufficiency that Christ is.

If we keep falling back to just saying, “Well, maybe I’ll get it right this time,” and not rely on his strength, not fall into his grace, not live out of grace, we’re going to be brutal to ourselves and we’re going to be brutal to those the Lord has around us. We need to be full of his grace in the face of his Law.

So the Law is covenant. The Law is a measure for us. Then this one is interesting. The Law is a tutor. I’m going to read from The Message translation (MSG), but it’s the same chapter 3 verse 23 through 27. This is what Paul says about the Law:

Until the time when we were mature enough to respond freely in faith to the living God, we were carefully surrounded and protected by the Mosaic law. The law was like those Greek tutors, with which you are familiar, who escort children to school and protect them from danger or distraction, making sure the children will really get to the place they set out for.
But now you have arrived at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with God. Your baptism in Christ was not just washing you up for a fresh start. It also involved dressing you in an adult faith wardrobe—Christ’s life, the fulfillment of God’s original promise.

Basically, what he says is the Law is kind of like a tutor. The Law was given to us to hold us there, to keep us safe until the day something else kicked in. When I think about my mom’s laws, that’s exactly what they were. My mom was basically trying to provide a little structure, a little shelter to these three boys that were insane, until the day — and she prayed a lot — that maybe a little maturity would show up, maybe a little common sense would kick in, the tiniest bit of self-control might be there. She had to war with us. She had to fight with us. She had to try to get my dad on the page, because she would make the laws and he would enforce the laws, but he would also break a lot of the laws. It was like the enforcer/breaker. We were just the breaker/receivers of the enforcement. Anyway.

All those laws were put there to try to protect, until the day she was just hoping and praying, one day we would be able to make a good decision all by ourselves. That’s what that was. Basically, that’s what Paul was saying the Law was. God gave the Law to his people to kind of hold them together, to teach them the way, to keep them from falling off the cliff until the day that something much better showed up. That “something much better” is the Spirit of Go, who wants to not just teach us about what God’s ways are, but he wants to write them as desires on our heart. He wants to come inside of us and navigate us. Not only that, but the best part of it is to empower us to walk in those things.

Jesus was, they said of him, that John came to baptize with water, but Jesus came to baptize with the Spirit and with fire. He was saying, “I’ve not come to abolish that whole Law, but I’ve come to fulfill it. I’ve come to put the fire in it. I’ve come to release my Spirit into you so that you can now walk in this righteousness.”

It’s a major, major thing. I know it’s so hard for us to grasp totally what he’s saying. I’m not saying you. I’m saying me, too. The intensity of what he’s saying. But the rest of the epistles in the New Testament are all unpacking this new covenant, this new thing that God created in Christ Jesus, where we can be made just as righteous as God the Father. Justified. Just as if we never sinned — by the life of Jesus, by the death of Jesus, and by the resurrection of Jesus. All the work that he did applied to us gets us into the fulness of righteousness.

Now the Law of God, for the life of a believer, is now we’re going from righteousness to the Law to be guided. Not trying to use the Law to gain some sort of righteousness. So now we have to figure out what it means to walk in the Spirit, that there is a much more important Law, a greater Law over our lives than the Law of Moses or the Law of the old covenant.

So we’re now living into what does it mean to live in this new covenant life? This new relationship with God. Walking by the Spirit. This is what we’re trying to unpack. I’m saying this because I know it’s hard to understand what that’s like, to walk in the Spirit. Paul is continually trying to help people understand what it means to walk in the Spirit. So I’m going to give you a couple of examples to finish up here. But more importantly than anything, I want you to start figuring it out on your own, what it means to walk by the Spirit.

Like I said, for Paul, what it meant when the Spirit came in was he no longer living according to the works of the Law, but now he was trying to follow what God was asking him to do. He just started doing what God asked him to do in this relational way. He wouldn’t go to the Law, necessarily, to figure out what God would want. He would go to prayer. He would go to his relationship with the Spirit to figure out what God wanted. And yes, more often than not, what God wanted him to do was totally in line with the scriptures. Absolutely. This is God’s favorite tool. But don’t ever make this God. Don’t seek this God where you think you have eternal life by doing this or you’ll fall way, way short like the Pharisees. This is just trying to help us know about Jesus and the relationship we’re supposed to have with him by the Spirit.

But going back to my mom, my mom had to really figure out what it meant to walk in the Spirit. She had to figure out how to live by the Spirit because her dad took off on her when she was really young and left her to try to figure out some things on her own. Then her mom kind of went super cold because she was trying to figure out how to raise some kids and pay the bills. So my mom was really kind of left alone to figure out a lot of things on her own.

Then, when she was seventeen, she met my dad. Through my grandmother, my dad’s mom, she ended up meeting Jesus. And she invited Jesus into her life and she began to learn of his ways. She began to navigate this exact thing that we’re talking about, not falling back into the antinomism of no law, but not falling into the legalism of too much law. Trying to learn how to walk in the Spirit. She loved the scriptures. She loved to teach them.

I remember the day when my dad took his life and her having to navigate that situation. Yes, the scriptures were helpful, but what she really needed was something a lot more powerful than just the scriptures. She needed God to show up. She needed the Spirit of God to be enough for her at that time. I watched her lean into Jesus and cry out to Jesus. And I watched Jesus be enough and give her peace and comfort and strength to keep going.

Then, shortly after that, she ended up getting cancer. That cancer was going to be something that was easily taken care of, but then it metastisized to her brain. And real quickly, her life was leaving her. I remember staying with her on her death bed and I knew she had a relationship with Jesus. I knew what the scriptures taught and I knew God could work all things out to good, but that wasn’t doing anything for me. So I asked her a question. I said, “Mom, what’s Jesus saying to you?” And she just smiled and looked at me and said, “Jesus told me that his power is over me to heal me.” And she had so much peace as she said it. That’s not a bible verse, by the way. I mean there are Bible verses that affirm that, for sure. That’s why the Bible is so important. But she was just having a conversation with Jesus in this place. And the Spirit of God made it clear to her that God’s intention was to have his power all over her to heal her.

I was like, “Does that mean he’s going to heal you?” And she said, “No. He just wanted me to know how close he was. That he could do it if he felt it was the right thing, but he has a better plan.”

That message to her right there gave her so much peace in the face of death, in the face of leaving this world, in the face of leaving us, her sons, who still needed a lot more common sense and self-control and maturity. But the Spirit of God was enough. It was more than enough. If all she had was just a tower of wood and structure and religiosity, it would have been dead and insufficient. But what she had was, she had a living, real relationship with the living, real Spirit of Jesus Christ, who rose from the dead.

So Jesus didn’t come to abolish the old covenant, the old Law. He came to fulfill it, giving way to something new. And you and I, today, we have a decision to make. Are we going to completely forsake all that God teaches and says and come up with our own way? Because the world around us is dong that like crazy. Or, are we going to really dig into this and try to earn some sort of righteousness by following the works of this law? Because there have been Christians like you and I who have wasted so much time and energy and left themselves raw and exhausted trying to do that. Or are we going to receive the Spirit of God that is a gift of this new covenant that Jesus purchased by his blood and begin to learn to walk in the Spirit, day in and day out? Begin to hear what he has to say each day, and trust that and go.

Yes, look to the scriptures and community to confirm that we’re not just hearing whatever weird pizza put in us last night. This is still an important thing. It’s still a tutor for us. But this is not what you really, really need. What you need is a relationship with Jesus. You need the Spirit of God to come in with his fire and consume your disordered desires, and speak to you and teach you and sustain you and empower you to walk in righteousness, so that those around you can really know what it means to be in Christ Jesus, so that the fruits of the Spirit, the love, the joy, the peace, the patience, the kindness, the meekness, the gentleness, the self-control can show up in our lives, not because of our effort, but because of our connection with Jesus.

Lets pray:

Jesus, I’m sorry that I so often just fall back into religiosity and rule following and I leave you. But, Lord, I really do pray that you would help me to learn to walk in your Spirit every single day, not only so that I will have the guidance and power that I need for my life, but so that I could actually help the people around me with true guidance and power that comes from you.
And I pray for the people who are facing really tough decisions or really struggling with some disordered desires or addictions, or maybe they had someone that they really love come to them and say something that was really hard and they don’t know how to handle it. Lord, I pray you would visit them by your Spirit. I pray that they would be still and they would seek you and your Spirit would speak to them. That they wouldn’t just live off past scriptures or past experiences, but, Lord, they would seek you new and fresh every day.
Let this be a church that, yes, is full of your word, but Lord, more so, way more so, let us be filled with your Spirit. I pray that your Spirit would really break out in this place, that you’d come with your baptism of fire and of Spirit and baptize us anew, Lord.

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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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Serve the Lord

Some of the things we’ve talked about, we’re longing for this hunger for this God. And whether it’s happened or not, I love what Meister Eckhart says. He says: The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love;… It’s true. It’s wonderful. That’s what we’re praying for. But then I love this. He says: …but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing.

Series: As for Me and My House

David Stockton

Some of the things we’ve talked about, we’re longing for this hunger for this God. And whether it’s happened or not, I love what Meister Eckhart says. He says:

The soul must long for God in order to be set aflame by God’s love;…

It’s true. It’s wonderful. That’s what we’re praying for. But then I love this. He says:

…but if the soul cannot yet feel the longing, then it must long for the longing. To long for the longing is also from God.

I love that. It’s a little bit of ease, a little bit of comfort a little bit of saying, “It’s okay, young one. It’s okay if don’t have it all figured out. Just come close. Draw near to the Lord and he will draw near to you.”

We talked about what John Tyson says:

The soil of secularism doesn’t have the nutrients for the human heart to flourish in environments like this. We need more for times like this than our culture has the capacity to give us.

And that’s something that’s been so evident and true and on grand display last year, 2020 in particular, how there was so much energy, effort and ideas being offered, and yet there was no real satisfaction in anything that was being offered to us by our culture. That’s why we need the Lord and his word.

Then Mark Sayers, a guy from Australia who’s kind of like a cultural prophet in some ways, he describes the progressive vision fo the word that’s been inundating us as:

We want the kingdom without the King. We want all of God’s blessings—without submitting to his loving rule and reign. We want progress—without His presence. We want justice—without His justification. We want the horizontal implications of the gospel for society—without the vertical reconciliation of sinners with God. We want society to conform to our standard of moral purity—without God’s standard of personal holiness.

So there are all of these visions of what righteousness looks like, what justice looks like in our world. We’ve been told over and over and over again by many different people, “This is what justice looks like,” Then we have people saying, “No, that’s wrong. This is what justice looks like. This is what righteousness looks like.”

So what we’re saying is we don’t want to hear anything else. We want to silence our own hearts. We want to silence the world around us, because we want God to speak. We want to hear what his vision of righteousness is. We want to be like Jesus said in the Beatitudes. We want to hunger and thirst for his righteousness. We want to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness; because that’s the only righteousness that comes with the promise that you will be filled.

So that’s what we’re doing. We’re just really jumping in there. I’ve already got our next two sermon series dialed in. It’s all going to push us further into getting that vision for the righteousness of God. I’m excited about that. I’m not a planner so this is really weird for me to have the next few months all planned out. But I feel like it’s because the Lord is guiding us.

This is more personally, and as a church, as a pastor I felt there were a few things the Lord wanted us to focus on first. They come from 1 Thessalonians 5. They are:

As for me and my house, we will cultivate gratitude. Something so necessary ad we’ll see that in the scripture. And we talked about that two weeks ago.

As for me and my house, we will consecrate ourselves. We see that in Thessalonians 5. We talked about it last week. It was kind of a serious message. I had to shave my mustache because I didn’t feel like I could preach that message with a mustache. It just didn’t seem to fit for me. I’m weird, I know.

And then, today we’re going to be, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

So 1 Thessalonians 5, let’s jump in there:

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

And then he says in this next section, what we talked about two weeks ago, cultivating gratitude:

16 Rejoice always,
Anybody joyful today? Well, you all have to be, because the Bible says.
17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances;
Does he say that because things were great in Thessalonica? No. He says that because they needed a reminder because the circumstances were rough.
for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

Again, that last part we talked bout last week. The sanctification, what that means, the being blameless, the testing everything, avoiding evil, clinging to what is good; and then the beautiful promise at the end there is at the end of the day you’re going to fail, but you’ve connected your life to someone who is faithful beyond measure and he will do it. He will do it. It’s such a relief to fall always into the hands of God’s grace.

Now we’re going to look at this first section. Serving the Lord. This is what Paul is writing again to the people of Thessalonica. He didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them, so I think he was a little nervous as a father in the faith, as a pastor. He wanted to give them some final instructions at the end of this letter to try to help them. This is how you keep going. This is what you put into practice after what we’ve experienced together. And in this first part, he says, “Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you.”

Now some of this might be coming because t he people that were put over the people in Thessalonica were pretty new. Paul, as far as we know, only got to spend a a few months in Thessalonica. As he was doing his missionary travels, he would go to a town, he would go to a synagogue, he would preach the gospel. And everyone int he synagogue would get all fired up and half of the people would be like, “We want to hear more.” Half of the people would be like, “We want to kill you.”

He would talk to the people who want to hear more and he would kind of form a little bit of a fellowship. And they would meet regularly. In that time, over time, getting to know the people, he would recognize who had authority, or who was really getting the gospel in clarity and he would appoint them as elders or deacons in those fellowships. And they were supposed to continue on in the Lord. And then Paul would move on. But he would be able to write back letters. They would be able to interact and he would be able to support them from afar. That was kind of the rhythm he was in.

So when Paul is saying this to the people in Thessalonica, he’s probably going, “Hey, you know those two people I put in charge? You need to be okay with them. They might be new. They might not get it right. They might not be perfect, but I’m putting them in charge over you and I want you to respect those who work hard among you. I want you to respect those who admonish you.”

Now, this is a very anti-American thing, where we have to set ourselves aside and be able to live into the kingdom culture described in the scriptures. Because we rebel, right? No taxation without representation, man! Give me some tea, we’re going to throw that in the river. We have this rebel spirit. It’s been a good thing. We have this rugged individualism. In some ways it’s served us well, but in some ways it’s really, really served us poorly.

Because, if someone, especially nowadays—and I’m sorry millennials, but this is true of you—if someone was to admonish you, you would react very interestingly. You would “unfriend” them or something. It’s true within all of us, though. If someone wants to admonish us, if someone sees something that is lacking in us and brings that to attention, whether they do it in the right way or the wrong way, in our culture these days, we don’t receive any correction at all. We just rebel about it. We make excuses for it. Or we call them some sort of bad person. Or we find fault in them and we say therefore everything they say doesn’t count. It’s an absolutely foolish way to live.

Paul is saying, “You guys need to be receptive of those admonitions, those challenges that come to you.”

Then he says, “Hold them in high regard because of their work.” So the people who are working for you. You can think about this. The leaders. Whether those are church leaders—hey! —or civic leaders or you know, people within your organization. Your bosses, those type of things, employers. This is a consistent theme throughout scripture. Whether they’re getting it right or wrong, you still honor them.

One of the key commandments in the Ten Commandments, the ten boundaries that God gave his people, right at the core of the Judeo-Christian ethic is “honor your father and mother.” And then there’s a caveat: if they get it right. No, that’s not in there. It’s not. It’s just honor your father and mother.

Now, honor, obviously you have to define. It’s not do everything they tell you to do even if it’s going against God’s law. No. Absolutely not. But even if you had to go in a different direction from them, you would do it in an honorable way. We’re supposed to honor those in authority over us. There’s a lot of humility necessary for that. And we don’t do it necessarily to make those people feel good about themselves. We do it because we love Jesus. We do it because he’s worthy and he’s asked us to do it. It’s a way that we can serve the Lord.

It’s important in our day and age, right now while there’s so much animosity built up and there’s so much frustration built up. And I’m not saying that everything our leaders have been doing and saying is right. Please. No way. But we still need to figure out how to be that alternative community, that kingdom culture, that finds a way to honor those in authority over us.

Then he goes on to say, “Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”

I asked Dan Riccio, our resident scholar to kind of unpack these things. He said these really come out to disciplining the ones who do anything unhelpful and also the ones who aren’t doing anything that is helpful. Right? You have both kinds of unhelpful. Ones who don’t do anything. But also the ones who are doing things that are unhelpful and damaging. And we need to admonish them. We need to give them a piece of our mind. There’s a time and a place for that. We need to speak out against, stand against, bring correction and discipline. It’s absolutely true.

But then he goes on to say we need to encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure nobody pays back wrong for wrong. Try to be kind to each other and everyone else. There’s this moment of, yes, we need to give people a piece of our mind, but then he almost goes into a much fuller and longer exhortation that we need to give people a piece of our shoulder.

And what I mean by that is, so often we come to people and we see some of the struggles they have, we see some of the things that they’re doing wrong and we’ll just kind of blast them. And though there is a time and a place for that, I think what overarchingly you see in the scriptures, and even in this little passage, you see what God really wants us to do is lend people our shoulder, to figure out what’s really hard for them, what burden they’re carrying. Instead of just saying, “Why are you doing that?” Or “Why is that so bad? What decisions have you made to bring you to this place?” Instead to just come alongside of them and say, “Can you put some of that burden on my shoulder and we could walk to gather for a little while?”

So there’s that little imagery. Serving the Lord, yes. There is a time to give people a piece of your mind, to give them the truth. But so often it’s much more important to give people a piece of your shoulder, to get your shoulder under the burden they’re carrying. Because then, over time, you’ll start to realize things. Walk a mile in their shoes and then you’re admonishing, or your piece of mind might change, and how you might change what you would speak to them.

That’s 1 Thessalonians talking to us about serving the Lord. Some practical things from Paul there. We have a whole Bible that’s always continuing to challenge us and call us to serve the Lord. Actually, the phrase, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” comes from way back in the Old Testament, where Joshua had led the people into the Promised Land. He formed them into a nation. It’s carrying on the work of Moses, delivering the people who were slaves into a nation. At the end of it he says for them blessings and curses. He says, “If you follow the Lord and do these things you’ll be blessed. If you don’t follow the Lord and do these things, you’ll be cursed.” So he said, “I set these things before you. But as for me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord. We’re going to serve the Lord.”

Then you have all this time through the scriptures. Basically, think about the very beginning. What did it mean to serve the Lord for Adam and Eve, who were basically gardening. Right? Gardening and then not eating of that one tree, which didn’t work out so good.

But then you have the very next story that we kind of come across. You have a guy who’s serving the Lord, building a big boat. I guess for his family, serving the Lord was not thinking their dad or husband was an absolute fool, but kind of joining in the work.

Then you have a guy that serving the Lord for him meant leaving his father and mother’s household and the ways that would worship, and going to a place and becoming a sojourner. In some ways Abraham was the first missionary, just going to wander around and helping people know what it looked like to have a relationship with this God that he knew very little about.

And you continue on. And you have Moses. Serving the Lord meant going back to face past demons and helping to set slaves free and lead them into a Promised Land. And on and on it goes. All these different ways. The reason I’m saying this is because serving the Lord has so much creativity. There’s so much diversity. God has made you and fashioned you as a specific tool, unlike anyone else in the world. And, what the scripture tells us in Ephesians 2, he’s also formed works for you to walk in. He’s formed opportunities. He’s set things up in your life that you’re going to stumble into. And you’re going to realize you’re the only person that has been uniquely designed to actually serve in this way. God loves to see those moments when you are able to serve him in the way that he’s created you to serve.

But I can’t get up here and say that, if you really want to serve the Lord, you’ll become one of the singers. And sometimes that’s the way we feel. If you really wanted to serve the Lord, you’d be up on this platform preaching. The rest of you are just kind of so-so servers. In the scripture, the preachers? Usually not doing so well. Usually God’s having to yell at them. But each one of us is called to serve the Lord. And each one of us has to find what the Lord’s calling us to do. It’s actually a very exciting thing, a very wonderful thing.

Isaiah 58, right here in the middle of the Old Testament, we have this passage in the Message (MSG) Translation. I think this is really helpful to help us understand the heart behind serving the Lord. He says:

1-3 “Shout! A full-throated shout!
    Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives,
    face my family Jacob with their sins!
They’re busy, busy, busy at worship,
    and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—
    law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
    and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
    ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
    Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’
    “Well, here’s why:
“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.

Basically, you’re seeking the Lord as kind of a genie. You kind of rubbing the lamp with your fast to get what you want instead of really submitting to the Lord.
You drive your employees much too hard.

You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
    You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
    won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
    and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
    a fast day that I, God, would like?
“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

That’s the kind of fast that God is after, that he longs to see us. You get on to the New Testament. You have Jesus, who comes on the scene, representing the perfect reality of what it looks like if God were to be here and to walk among us and to serve. He said he came to seek and serve. And what he says is the Spirit of the Lord was upon him and because he had anointed him to proclaim good news to the poor. He said, “He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for he blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. “

That sounds like a lot of shoulder work to me. A lot more so than giving people a piece of his mind. And guess what? He saw clearly. And he did. He definitely stood against. He definitely spoke out against. He gave people the truth. But he got his shoulder underneath the burden of the people he walked with. It’s so amazing.

One of the most fascinating things about Jesus, I think, is when it says that the common people heard him gladly. It was like the people that have their stuff together, the people that weren’t educated, they really liked to be around him. And I think that’s fascinating because Jesus is God, totally. He knows everything. If they really could see who he was in some ways they should shudder in fear. But instead, the way he came off, full of grace and truth, it caused people to just want to be around him. I think that’s the way Christians should be, too. People that others really want to be around.

And then, James 1:27. James, the brother of Jesus, kind of sums up for us real simply what it looks like to serve the Lord, as far as he’s concerned. He says:

27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

This is kind of a joke I always say in our Explore Class—that’s a big part of what our Explore Class is—just so you know, it’s coming up soon—is to kind of help people move through a process where ultimately they’re done with those weeks and they know what God is calling them to do at this point of their life. They know what gifting the Lord has given them, and they know, maybe, how they can put those into play right now in 2021 at this church, or in this city, or whatever situation they’re in. So, if you’re not quite sure, if you have some of those questions, it would be a great class to go to.

But in there I always talk about how, at the end of this class, if you’re still not quite sure, just find some orphans and some widows and start there. Literally. I mean you’re just not going to go wrong if you go there. And if you need help finding those, we can help, for sure. But I mean, at least you could start there and you know you’re getting it right. It might be that God has something else for you, or something more specific, but that’s a great place to start. It’s a great place to start.

So, with all that being said, that’s the biblical perspective of this. The way that this has been kind of fleshed out in my life really comes down to these three words. When I think about what it means to serve the Lord, what I’ve discovered serving the Lord is, the first one is sacrifice. We actually kind of played with changing the title from “As For Me and My House We Will Serve the Lord” to “As For Me and My House We Will Figure Out What It Means to Do Sacrificial Love” but it’s a real long title. But sacrificial love is really something that we need to think about when we talk about what it means to serve the Lord. Then support. That’s when we’ll talk a little more about the shoulder. And then faithfulness. Faithfulness.

So when it comes to serving the Lord, sacrifice. That was a big deal for me. Because all of my life, growing up, until I was about eighteen years old, I was really important to myself. I mean, I still am, more so than I want, but I was one of the most arrogant, condescending individuals you could ever meet. My brothers, I have two older brothers, and they called me The Tyrant. Which is a little strange, right? Because I was small and weak. They were big and strong. And yet, still they would call me the tyrant. Because I had a lot of confidence. I had a lot of arrogance. I thought I was better and what I thought I wanted was more important than everybody else.

I had one friend. I won’t mention his name. But all my life I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him because every time we would hang out, he would start to get so uncomfortable in all these situations. But I realized, literally, what I thought was wrong with him, was actually him uncomfortable with me being so arrogant and condescending everywhere we would go. And I never realized it until later on. So, anyway… enough about me.

That was a huge shift. When I gave my life to the Lord and said, “Okay, Jesus, I want to follow you,” that was the salvation that came to my life. All of a sudden I actually was aware of others. Now, again, I know this sounds so ridiculous and horrible—and it really was. But it was like, all of a sudden, someone else’s pain mattered to me. And I cared about it.

Here, this super arrogant, self-centered, condescending individually, Jesus came and totally took over my life. I look back and this is so silly, but every Friday night when I should go try and hang out with my friends, or go and try to meet a girl or something, all I wanted to do was I wanted to go hang out with thees like fourth through sixth grade. I was working at this church and I was in charge of the fourth through sixth graders. And I just wanted them to make sure they had the funnest Friday night they could.

So I would go round up like ten of them. We’d go to Peter Piper Pizza and we’d go out there. And I thought it was so fun. I was loving it. To try to help these kids have this wonderful time. And on and on it went. I just wanted to give my life away. I just wanted to prop somebody else up. It was like this salvation had come. I just wanted to serve the Lord. And whatever they were going through was more important than what I was going through. I really did happen. This shift. And now sacrificial love was now a joy for me. I did want to decrease so the Lord could increase. It was fascinating. It was cool.

Yesterday I was watching some basketball. And I don’t know if you follow college basketball, but Baylor is like number two in the country. They’re undefeated and they’re really good and all that. They were doing an interview with one of the main guys. He’s going to go NBA and he’s going to make millions of dollars. He’s amazing. They were doing an interview with him. One of the questions this guy asked him was, “Hey, you know, we heard that on Sundays you do something very different and interesting.”

And he was like, “Yeah, yeah. I’m glad you brought that up.” What he does is, he goes and works at his church. He teaches the second and third graders every Sunday at his church. It was just so shocking for me to be sitting there and being like, “Oh, this guy. He’s so cool. This guy is so big time.” And he’s just talking about how he loves Sundays, how he just learns so much from those kids. It is just so cool to be able to do that. He feels like it’s the biggest gift in his life.

And I’m just like, “Yeah! He’s serving the Lord!” He’s actually going to have a challenge because he’s going to have a lot of other opportunities to do things. So he’s going to need to stay grounded. But he’s serving the lord. He’s serving the Lord in the face of all of those other things, which is so beautiful to see.

I remember one story too, that was so interesting when this was happening. So I had gotten serious about serving the Lord, and, like I said, I was up in Oregon, I was like a worship leader. That’s what I did all the time. Down in Phoenix, they’re like, “You’re not very good at it so we don’t want you.” But that was cool. It’s cool. So I remember I had signed up to go, they asked me at the college I was at if I would lead this concert of prayer. They needed music at this concert of prayer. And I knew it was going to be. It was basically like senior citizens, kind of going there and doing that. And I was like, “Yeah, I want to serve the Lord.”

I didn’t realize that it was Valentine’s Day. And I was invited to this party where this girl that I liked was going to be at. I didn’t know her very well, but I had been trying to get to know her. So it was this opportunity. Valentine’s Day party. And guess what? You know—same time. You know, like, am I going to go lead this concert of prayer for the senior citizens or am I going to go to this party with this girl that I wanted to get to know more?

So I decided I was going to go for the concert of prayer. And I was walking across campus and—just to add insult to injury—I was walking across campus and we crossed paths, as she was going to the party and I was going to—just randomly crossed paths. And I was like, “What the heck are you doing here?” And it was so funny just to go through that experience. But just fast forward a couple thousand years—I’m married to Brittany and I like her so much. And guess when her birthday is? Valentine’s Day! So it all worked out great for me. So now the Lord’s like, “Hmm? I got you, man. I got you.” So it was kind of fun serving the Lord.

Because, you know, when you’re young, you’re like, “If I serve the Lord he’s going to give me everything I want.” And it is true, but it’s just way down the road, way down the road. So, anyway, so sacrifice. That’s sacrifice. Think that.

If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love. If it doesn’t cost you something it’s not worship. Those are important things to remember.

Support. This book, Tatoos on the Heart was super helpful for my wife and then she taught me and I read the book. Here’s what he says about serving the Lord:

Here’s what we seek. A compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry, rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.

So this is that concept. He’s just realized. He works with gangsters in L.A. He calls them home boys. And he realized that, really what they needed—more than someone to tell them they’re bad and doing it wrong, which they were already very aware of—what they needed was someone to just get their shoulder under their burden and feel what it was like to be loved in that way. Then they could see life change.

Then the last thing is faithfulness. Faithfulness. 1 Corinthians 4:2 says the one thing God requires of his servants is they be found faithful. And moms and dads, what your kids need more than anything else from you is they need you to be faithful. What a friend needs more than anything else is someone who’ll be faithful. Faithfulness.

It doesn’t count as faithfulness until it goes against your desires or will. If I went to the Valentine’s party instead of the prayer service no one would have described me as super faithful. But when you’re tired of doing something and you keep doing it, that’s when it becomes faithfulness. When you’re afraid of doing something, but you do it anyway, that’s when it’s called faithfulness. When you won’t gain anything and maybe even be criticized or ridiculed for doing something, but you do it anyway, that’s faithfulness.

And as Jesus said that when we live and die seeking God’s will and his desires to be done instead of our own will and desires, one day we’re going to stand before him, and he’s going to look us in the eyes and he’s going to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest.”

Whether or not that’s a big deal to you now, to be able to hear those words from Jesus, I promise you, please understand that there will be a day where you will stand before Jesus and that will be the thing you long to hear more than anything you’ve ever heard before. When you stand before your Maker, who loves you so much that he served you, he gave himself to you, he sacrificed, he shows support, he’s faithful to you. And on that day, for the first time in your whole life, everything will make sense, and you will long to hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” And you won’t regret one sacrifice that you made. You’ll be so thankful for every time you denied yourself for his name’s sake. Every time you got your shoulder under someone else’s burden and walked with them. Every time you served the Lord.

Just to share a little bit of a vision with you—we have a lot of opportunities for you to serve here at the church. We’re going to be laying those things out more and more. But if the Lord is stirring your heart and you know you’re not really serving the Lord, but you’d like to, please let us know. Please contact us. And we can help you. We won’t just throw you out there, but we can help you get to a place where you feel like you are serving the Lord. But also don’t need us. You can pray and see what the Lord would lead.

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Consecration

We’re going to continue in 1 Thessalonians 5. We’re in the middle of a twenty-one day season of fasting and praying for God to light a fire in our hearts that creates a hunger and a thirst for God as well as a hunger and a thirst for his righteousness. We’re doing this because Jesus promised that, if we hunger and thirst for righteousness, we’ll be filled.

Series: As For Me and My House

David Stockton

The message today that we’re going to be talking about is consecrating ourselves. I was so impressed by the Lord—and I want to say this now because we’re going to say a lot of things over the next four hours of being together (that’s a joke)—but I don’t want to miss this. Some people, I think, have forgotten that maybe ninety percent of our Christianity, ninety percent of what it means to follow is Jesus is denying yourself. It’s acknowledging that you have disordered desires that you have to say no to every single day of your life.

Jesus said, “If anyone wants to follow me, come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me.” It is so easy—I mean I feel like I forgot this last year, and many of us have—it’s so hard in the culture we’re living in to remember that you shouldn’t just “do you.” That will lead you to selfishness and emptiness. But you should do what Jesus is asking you to do and be who Jesus knows you can be.

It’s this challenging thing that we’re in, but denying ourselves is a huge part of our relationship with God for now. So, this message has a little bit to do with that. So, again, you should leave right now if that doesn’t super exciting to you.

I will say, denying yourself is not just a matter of God wanting you to be miserable. Denying yourself is actually a sign of your love for him. So he receives that as love for him. It’s a beautiful thing. He is worthy of that. And also, denying yourself gets you into the place where you’re going to be able to be with him forevermore. And every single thing that you’ve denied in this life will count as a reward in the life to come. And the glory that shall be revealed to be worthy to be compared with the sufferings that we go through now. These verses are in the Bible for a reason, because denying ourself is such a huge part of our relationship with God.

We’re trying to cultivate this hunger. We’re trying to stir up this hunger. I heard someone say recently, that challenged me a bunch—when the prodigal was hungry, remember the prodigal son who took all of his father’s stuff and spoiled it on licentious living, then he got to a place where he was hungry? When he was hungry, he went to the pigs. But when he was starving, he went back to the father. When I say we’re praying for a hunger, I’m not just praying for a hunger that will get us back to the pigs, I’m praying for a kind of hunger that will actually get us to go home to the father, because we’ve all gone astray.

And our world is full of counterfeit righteousness. Tables have been set before us, full of humanistic ideologies and popular political propaganda claiming to have the high moral ground, claiming that they can satisfy the hunger and solve the problems. But communism, capitalism, socialism, nationalism, progressivism—and all of their friends—have left us high and dry just like all of the societies who looked to them before us. They will never, can never satisfy the human soul and solve any of the problems that we have. Though we try to satisfy our souls with many things, we only truly live, grow and progress by feeding on God’s nutrient-rich word.

Amen? Amen? Scream ‘amen’ kind of deal I think is the only way I think we’re going to counteract the marketing and the propaganda and the populism of our day. In case that happens again, you can scream it.

Augustine said:

“You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

Pascal, who liked to follow science, said:

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made known through Jesus Christ.”

And Ronald Rolheiser, who is a Catholic priests who wrote about longing, said:

“There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire that renders us incapable, in this life, of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of the soul. Spiritualty is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire. What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality.”

We have appetites. We have hunger. We have deceptive ideas in our world that play to disordered desires within us that are normalized and even celebrated in our central society. The challenge is great. The way Mark Sayers says this:

Mark Sayers describes the progressive vision of the world as “the kingdom without the King.” We want all of God’s blessings—without submitting to his loving rule and reign. We want progress—without his presence. We want justice—with his justification. We want the horizontal implications of the gospel for society—with the vertical reconciliation of sinners with God. We want society to conform to our standard of moral purity—without God’s standard of personal holiness.

Yes. That’s where we’re at. That’s where we’re at. It’s a problem. It’s a challenge. And those who deny it or try to ignore it will succumb to it. We're called to consecrate ourselves.

So what do we do with the dis-ease and unquenchable desires that we have within us? Well, 1 Thessalonians 5 is Paul, who spent just a few months with these people in Thessalonica, and God did something so supernatural and wonderful that it like stoked a fire in their hearts. And they all decided that they wanted God instead of what the world offered them. They all came together as a community and Paul was teaching them. But, because of persecution, Paul had to leave.

So this young church was just a few months old and Paul had to go on to the next town. But he wrote this letter, 1 Thessalonians, to help encourage them and give them what they need so they could go forward. He tried to give them the nutrients of God’s word so they could go forward and navigate the challenges of life. And these are some final instructions as he’s kind of summing up.

He says this in 1 Thessalonians 5:

12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.

Then, as we talked about last week, we’re supposed to cultivate gratitude.

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil. 23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

We’ve broken this section into three weeks. Last week we talked about how to cultivate gratitude and how that can help stoke the fire within us, the hunger within us. This week we’re going to focus on verse 20 through 24, the last part, as this is some way that we can continue to make sure the Spirit is not quenched within us. And we’re going to talk about what consecration means. Then, next week, we’ll look at verse 12 through 15 and talk about what we’re going to do to serve the Lord.

So we’ve kind of housed this all as As for Me and My House. Going into 2021, we will cultivate gratitude. As for Me and My House, we will consecrate ourselves. We’ll figure out what that means for us in 2021. And As for Me and My House, we’ll serve the Lord. We’ll talk about that next week.

So, consecrate ourselves. This is one of the things that we have to do to make sure that the Spirit’s fire is not quenched within us and within the ones that God has given us. Ultimately, God has called you not to change America and make sure all the laws of the land are perfect. I’m not saying that’s a bad work. I’m not saying we shouldn’t put effort there. But what I am saying is that what God has called us to do is take care of the ones that he has given us.

Remember Jesus? Jesus came to this earth and had a big job. And yet, he was extremely small town. Extremely small town. And in the end, when he prayed in John 17, he said, “Father, I have kept the ones you have given me.” And that’s ultimately what God is calling you and me to do. And we are so connected, supposedly, with all of the federalists, nationalistic and even global situations that are in the world—and again, I’m not saying that’s wrong or that’s bad. But sometimes it can make us feel like that’s what we’re supposed to be engaging in. And we spend all our effort doing that and we get discouraged when we don’t see things go our way. We forget to do the really most important work, just to take care of the ones the Lord has given you, that are right there in your own house.

That’s why Jesus didn’t say, “Love everyone.” He said, “Love your neighbor.” And if everyone would just love their neighbor, guess what? Everyone gets the love of Christ.

So we’ve got to take care of the ones the Lord has given us. Start there and that will make a huge difference.

Just look at Jesus’ life. He took care of the ones the Lord had given him. And Christianity’s done pretty well the world over, yeah? He just took care of the ones the Lord gave him and — bam— the single most dominant force for good the world has ever seen in every area, every season of time, every age, every nationality, every language. It has been the single most dominant force for good in the world. It’s encouraging. So, if we can do that, we can take hope that God will take that and use it to make something great.

But here we have, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all.” This is something we learned last year, for sure. There were all these people claiming to speak the truth or speak what was right. And we learned how important it is for us to hold on a minute and test these things. We all got duped. We all got fooled quite a bit last year by very powerful marketing campaigns that really housed something that was more poisonous and toxic. And we had to do some research. We had to test everything. We had to develop our filters so that we could hold on to the good and reject what is evil. That’s something that we need to continue. We need to develop our filters.

How do you develop a filter so that you will not be fooled? You get to know the word of God. It’s that simple. I mean, some people say you’ve got to climb up the mountain and stare at your belly button for a little while. You could try it. I don’t know. But I know this will work. This right here will work. It’s served a lot of people for a lot of time that were in much more dire situations than us. It withstood the test of time. It’s trustworthy. It’s true. And it can help us so much filter out what is not good and what is not right. The Bible actually describes itself as a sword that can cut through joint and marrow and really get to the heart of everything. So we’ve got to know the word of God, absolutely.

“May God himself, the God of peace sanctify you through and through.” I love what Paul is saying to these people. He’s not saying, “You need to go and sanctify yourselves.” He’s saying, “I pray that God will sanctify you.” Just like when Jesus said to his disciples, “If you follow me, I will make you into fishers of men. All you have to do is stay close to me. I will do the work to make you into the person that you’re supposed to be.”

So sanctification is an important process of consecration. We need to be set apart. We need to be holy. We need to be other. We need to be alternative. We need to realize that following Jesus is going to require us to go against the grain. And it may require that more and more and more, depending on how our society goes. But that’s what we’re called to be, a peculiar people.

Then, lastly, he says, “May your whole spirit, body and soul be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus.” All of those matter. Body, soul and spirit are all extremely important. Your whole being is to be kept blameless.

Now this is tricky, because we think, “How am I going to be blameless? You don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know what I’m dealing with.” It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter to God because your unrighteousness will never be more powerful than his righteousness. And through the blood of Jesus Christ, his righteousness is applied to you. How about some good news right there? The blood of Jesus, applied to your life washes out, cancels out everything. In fact, now when God sees you, he sees you as blameless, he sees you robed in the righteousness of Christ when we come to him.

And his whole goal, the work of the Spirit, the work of the word of God in our lives is to get us to the day when we go stand before Jesus, we are presented as a spotless bride. I know it’s a little weird for some of us guys, but just take the analogy. A spotless bride. Blameless. It’s what God’s plan for your life is, if you’ll hold on to him. So this is what Paul was encouraging them with.

So I want to kind of unpack consecration a little bit more. We’re going to do three things. We’re going to think biblically, which is so important for us these days. Think biblically. Think theologically. We’ve got a lot of help. A lot of people have fought some of these battles and sorted through some of this chaos before, and they’ve got some good things to say to us. And we’re going to think practically, because it’s 2021 and we’ve got to leave this place. I mean, leave the church, that’s all I’m saying. You have to walk out of this place. Not like, whoa, leave this place. Not being crazy. Test those prophecies, you know? Whatever. But think biblically, think theologically, and think practically.

First of all, biblically. It’s so important for us to be thinking biblically these days. The Bible has a lot to say about consecration. First of all—brace yourself—when I say consecration, thinking biblically, you should be thinking about circumcision. Now, it’s very rare times where any pastor is going to tell you you should be thinking about circumcision. But if you think about what God was doing in his people, he said to Abraham, “I want you to circumcise every male in your household, and this is going to be a sign that you belong to me. This is going to be a sign of my relationship with you. This is going to be part of your consecration. This is going to be part of your sanctification. I’m calling you out. I’m calling you to be different than all the other nations. The reason I’m doing it is because I want you to be an example of what it’s like to be in a relationship with me, for all of the other nations.”

So Abraham circumcised everybody, including himself. Whoa. And that circumcision carried on as a sign of God’s covenant with the nation of Israel. And there are all kinds of ramifications you can make, but absolutely, one of them is sexual. God wanted his people to be very different sexually than every other nation. Because every other nation didn’t have any boundaries as far as sexuality. Even in their worship of their gods, there was often a sexual element. But God said, “My people are going to be very different sexually.”

Sexuality is a hugely important reality for the flourishing of human society or the demise. When God created the world and there was nothing but goodness, what he did to make sure that goodness could be maintained was he created something in his image and he called it male and female, nothing else. And as soon as we start messing with male and female, we lose the greatest picture of the image of God that he gave us. And then he said that male and female, to even take this further, “I’m going to put them together in some sort of sacred, holy covenant of marriage, where they’re going to become one. And they’re going to produce family. And if everyone will just take care of their own family, then everyone will be taken care of and the goodness can be maintained.” It’s that simple.

Yet, we’re moving the boundaries. We’re wanting to change what God has set in order for our greatest freedom and our greatest flourishing. So he calls his people to consecrate themselves in what seems like very radical, even challenging, self-denial, sacrificial ways, but it’s not because he doesn’t love us. It’s because he’s creating the boundaries that we need for the greatest freedom and the greatest human floushing.

So not only think about circumcision—we’ll move on—think about Samson. Samson was called to be different, to be set apart. So he had this Nazarite vow in the scriptures, which was, he wasn’t supposed to cut his hair, he wasn’t supposed to go near any dead thing, and he wasn’t supposed to —anyone? Anyone? I’m saying that because I can’t remember the third one right now. I remembered it first service. No alcohol! He wasn’t supposed to go near any fermented thing. Whew. Almost had to quit the message right in the middle there. Just kidding. Samson. Nazarite vow.

Think about Daniel. Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego. They’re taken from their place. They’re young men. They’re pulled into Babylon and they’re getting to see what basically, you know, total indulgence looks like. Babylonian culture was powerful, luxurious, all of those things. And these young men just felt this need to consecrate themselves. They said, “We will not eat the king’s meat and we will not drink his wine.” And they consecrated themselves against all the others. And, in the end, they were shown to be wiser, stronger and faster, but they had that call to consecrate themselves. They understood the need, in that moment, that they would be completely overcome by the power and persuasion of that culture if they didn’t real quickly figure out how to cultivate hunger for God. They consecrated themselves.

In the Old Testament, think about Sabbath. Think about tithing. These were things that set apart that community, that they would give a tenth of everything that they made. They would just go and give it to the priest. They would give it to the community at large. That was so bizarre, so different. And that carried on.

And Sabbath. Every once in a while, one day a week they would just chill, and just rejoice and thank God for all that’s been given to them. And there were times where those lines were blurred in Israel’s society and it ended up causing them to go into exile. God was very serious about those things. God considered it robbery when they would not give him a tenth of what they had produced. These were things that would set them apart.

Now go to the New Testament. In the New Testament, the best thing, I think to do is to think about the book of Acts community. And, again, if this is hard for you to understand, you need to read your Bible more. I know I’m going through these things quickly, but you should be reading your Bible. You should be cultivating that in your life, so that when we talk about these things, you’re, “Oh, yeah, yeah. I know what you’re talking about. The book of Acts community.” This is basically the first church, and they were set apart. There was one time where it says that all the people around that first church were in awe and in fear of them, and none of them dared join them. I know that sounds a little weird. They weren’t saying that no one was joining them. They’re saying that people were a little unsure of what to do about them. And daily the Lord was adding to their number those that were being saved.

They were such an alternative community. They were a city on the hill. They were the salt and the light in their communities. It was tangible and evident. And the four things that stuck out were, they would gather together, all of them. And it wasn’t just gathering together that was so fascinating. What was fascinating is that they would gather together as rich and poor and everybody felt the same. They would gather together as Jew and Gentile. But they would love each other. They would gather together, though they all had different political backgrounds or ideologies, but it was no problem when they met together, because there was something that was stronger than all of those. That was the bond of the Spirit and the unity of Christ. And it was remarkable to everybody else who couldn’t get along. Can I get an amen here? You see how this is working out, right?

So the second things was they shared everything in common. Again, a further explanation of this tithing idea. They constantly brought things in together to make sure everybody was okay. They were generous. They were kind. They were not greedy. And it was a puzzle. It was confusing to all those who were trying to get ahead and get rich. And they cared for the sick and the poor. Like, literally, they would go and take care of lepers, even though, at that time they thought leprosy was contagious and could kill them, it didn’t stop them. When the plagues would hit and those type of things, they would go and get the dead and bury them, risking all of that danger. To where Roman writers were saying, basically, “Those Christians are taking better care of the Roman dead, poor and sick than we are, and we’re the empire.” Amen? Amen? Amen?

And then the last thing, and probably the most fascinating to everybody at that point that caused them to be so set apart and so different was the concept of enemy love. When the experienced persecution, hatred, disadvantage, whatever it was, they would respond with love. They would respond with the good news of Jesus Christ. Enemy love. Picture better than anywhere else when Stephen is being martyred and the religious leaders are throwing rocks at him. And they will keep throwing rocks until he’s not breathing anymore. And as the rocks are hitting them, he just cries out, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.” He’s full of love for them.

It was radical. It was beautiful. It was alternative. It was different. It was set apart. It was consecrated. And it’s our inheritance. It’s our heritage to live up and into that. It’s so necessary for us to figure out consecration.

So that’s thinking biblically. Now let’s think theologically. This might be a little bit painful, but hopefully not. Theologically. Basically, when we talk about soteriology, that’s the study of salvation, we know that Jesus is the Savior. He came. To save us. But the salvation that is unpacked in the scriptures anymore through theology has three different aspects to it. Salvation that we experience with Jesus first of all is justification.

That’s what we receive. When we receive Jesus, when we confess our sins and say, “Jesus, I need you,” and we call on his name, we are saved. But the first step is justification, which basically, now God looks as you just as if you never sinned at all. His righteousness, the blood of Jesus is that powerful, that it completely wipes out all debt, all sin forevermore. Even to the extent where, if you sin in the future, bam, his price that he paid is counted for that as well. And so you are justified, you are seated in heavenly places. It’s done. Your names in the book. Over. Justification. It’s one of the greatest things to unpack and understand.

But when I hang out with you, I don’t see you that way. There is a reality. We all know inside of us, though we have been justified, though we are saved, though we know our place is in heaven, we’re all good to go with God, we look in the mirror and say, “There’s still some things wrong.” I hang out with you a little while and I’m like, “There’s some things wrong.” You get to know me and you’re like, disappointed.

Because there is another aspect to our salvation that is called sanctification. And sanctification is the journey. It’s the work of God every day in the life of a believer to renew them, renew them back into their original design, to get them back into the image of who God wants them to be. Ultimately, the image of Christ. And it’s this daily work. Sanctification. Sanctification. Where God is renewing, he’s setting us apart, he’s making us holy. And that’s the work that God does every day.

The way the Westminster Catechism says it, again, a theological document. It says sanctification is…

“…the work of God’s free grace,…”

Hallelujah! God didn’t make us figure this out. He said, “You’re not going to figure it out, so let me send my Son to do it.

…whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God,…

I just explained some of that. And catch this, this is so important:

…and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.”

This is where what I said in the beginning comes into play. Ultimately, the goal of the work of the Spirit of God, yes, it’s to get you to be able to live beautifully and wonderfully and experience all that God has for you; but one of the main things that the work of the Spirit in your life is supposed to do is hep you win the battle with your disordered desires. It’s to help you deny yourself so that you’re not overcome by the sinful nature and desires that are housed still within you until the day you die or Jesus comes back.

I mean, that’s good/bad news, right? It’s bad news because the truth of the Scripture is, until the day we die we’re going to have some of these desires. We’re going to have some of these things within us that long for the things that will kill us and destroy our relationship with God.

But the good news is, you’re not alone. The good news is God puts his Spirit inside you, puts his community around you. He puts his words in you to help you combat those things so that you don’t have to succumb to those things.

And just because you have some of those disordered desires does not disqualify you from living under righteousness and being extremely fruitful in your life. And, somehow, even those disordered desires, the only reason the Lord leaves them there is because he knows they’re going to work in you a dependency on him and a sympathy for those around you, or an empathy for those around you, that’s going to be very, very fruitful.

But you’ve got to understand, there are deceptive ideas in our world that play to disordered desires within us that are normalized and being even celebrated in our sinful society. And we need that sanctification process.

The really great news is there’s one more aspect to the soteriology, the salvation, is glorification. You’ve got justification, sanctification, glorification. Glorification, summed up real easy, is when Jesus comes back or we go to be with him, no more sinful nature. No more disordered desires. We are free forevermore to just live into the righteousness and goodness of God. Amen? Amen.

Lastly, thinking practically, I’m just going to give you a little illustration here of thinking practically about consecration. Where I live, some of you have been over at my house, by where I live, there are thirteen humans, including me. Most of them are smaller. There are twelve chickens. There are two little goats. There are two giant tortoises. I think they’re still there. They’ve been underground for a while lately. There’s a bearded dragon. I don’t see him very much, but I guess he’s there.

One of the things we’ve had to do is we’ve had to build some pens, right? Chicken coop, a goat pen, built some fencing around. And we’ve done this because we’ve had animals before that haven’t made it. They haven’t made it because we have coyotes and we have bobcats and we have raccoons. They’ve got to eat too, you know?

One of the things that I’ve had to do is I’ve had to get really good at building these coops and these pens to make sure the bad guys don’t get in there to get the animals, right? And I build them, and that’s fine and all, but raccoons are smart. They’ve got opposable thumbs and they’re like, rrrrr rrrr, little by little, rrrr, rrrr, and so I have to go and do boundary maintenance. I have to continue to mend the fences. I have to continue to check and see where the holes are and build those things back up.

And I also have to do something else. I had to get a German Shepherd. It’s actually my daughter’s dog. His name is Lucky. And I leave him out there at night. He wants a job. He’s a German Shepherd. He loves jobs. And he goes out there at night and he sits in a chair. Literally, this big comfy chairs and he just sits there and watches. It’s a cartoon, but it’s my life. And we’ve got no problems. If I’ll mend the fences, if I’ll do the boundary maintenance and I’ll keep Lucky out there, we don’t have any problems. And what we’re supposed to do for our own souls and four the people that the Lord has given us, is we’re supposed to be people who do boundary maintenance.

And our society now is wanting to completely erase all of the boundaries. They think that freedom is “no boundaries.” They think that, if we really loved the chickens and the goats, we would get rid of all of those things that are holding them in. And what has happened to every society before us who’s done that, who’s tried to throw off the old, archaic, oppressive word of God and biblical boundaries—they get decimated. They get destroyed. God knows what he’s doing. He has set the boundaries in a place, not to limit our joy, but to give us the most freedom possible in this life, and to set up the greatest chance for human flourishing. But the boundaries are important.

And we, as people of God, are to be about boundary maintenance. I don’t know how to legislate righteousness. I don’t know how to vote in this or that. I mean, obviously the Democrat and Republican parties are both lost. Neither of them house the word of God. You might think one does more than another. But go ahead and talk to another Christian, and they’re going to convince you another way. We’re not building that. We’re building the Kingdom of God. And I think we should fight the federalist and nationalistic battles. We should fight for Arizona. We should fight for the things we believe in, absolutely. But, at the end of the day, what we’re measured on is what we’ve done with the ones that the Lord’s give us.

As for me and my house, we will consecrate ourselves. We will do boundary maintenance. As for me and role as a father, I will let my daughter have a phone. And I will do boundary maintenance every half hour for the rest of her life. And I do. Because there are coyotes. There are raccoons. There are bobcats. And way worse.

And it’s not that I just create these boundaries and suffocate her. But I have to figure out how to create boundaries and do boundary maintenance, and then teach her to do that for her own soul. Because, at some point, she’s gone. And if I haven’t helped her learn how to do boundary maintenance and see the beauty and wonder of it all, it doesn’t matter what I said or didn’t. And that’s what we need to be doing.

Just to unpack it a little bit more, as we’re thinking practically here. Ten Commandments. Start there. Start there. But not in King James Version. Like, start with “You shall have no other Gods before me,” and figure out what that means. “Remember the Sabbath.” Figure out what that means for you right now. “Honor your father and mother.” And on and on. Unpack those things. Those are boundaries that God has given us for human flourishing. And, ultimately, those things have become the Judeo-Christian ethic.

And the Judeo-Christian ethic is the best thing that has ever been given to a society. Wherever the Judeo-Christian ethic has been applied and embraced as a society, you have experienced freedom and human flourishing. Ever heard of Israel? Against all the opposition and challenge that they have experienced, if you go there, there is flourishing and there is freedom. And the American experiment was that same thing. Let’s apply the Judeo-Christian ethic in a Constitutional governmental form. And what has it caused? It has caused freedom and flourishing, no doubt about it.

And yet, we want to get rid of it. We want to throw it off as oppressive, abusive and archaic, and call it progressivism. As for this house, Living Streams Church, as long as I have breath in me, no. It will not live here. I don’t care if there’s two people left in this church, it will not live here. I don’t care if they shut us down. I don’t care what happens, that’s not going to happen here. We’re going to be about boundary maintenance. And we have really good boundaries, and a really kind God, who knows how to get us where we need to be. And I’m so thankful that, ultimately, I’m going to lose the breath in my lungs. And, ultimately, I can talk big, but I’m nothing. But the last verse in this section says, “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.”

So, in my daughter’s life, ultimately, I can try, but it’s a promise of my father that he’s going to do it. And it’s a promise of the father that, if you let him, he will do it.

If you’re working ninety hours a week in pursuit of the almighty dollar, understand that you move the boundaries. The boundaries in your life are in the wrong place. There may an underlying issue that’s driving you to move the boundaries in the wrong place. So boundary maintenance would involved moving the boundary back to the right place, as well as addressing the underlying heart issues that drive you to move the boundary to the wrong place.

If someone has a sexual partner outside the boundaries of scripture, the covenant of marriage, one man, one woman, then boundary maintenance would be to end the out-of-boundary relationship, deal with the issues driving you to engage in that behavior, and do the ministering of healing the heart of everyone affected by the moving of those boundaries.

None of this disqualifies you. It’s not like God said, “Hey, you moved the boundary. Sorry.” It’s just a matter of coming home. It’s just a matter of returning to the Father, and he’ll say, “Okay, let’s get the boundaries back in place. Let’s start doing the healing. Let’s get back on track.” And here we go. That’s the good news of Jesus.

Let’s pray. Let’s just bow our heads and listen in as we close. And as you’re trying to hear from the Lord, I want to read this verse and just see if something pops out as maybe the Spirit is highlighting this. It’s Galatians 5 [paraphrase]:

The things your sinful old self want is sexual sins, sinful desires, wild living, worshiping false gods, witchcraft, hating, fighting, being jealous, being angry, arguing, dividing into little groups and thinking the other groups are wrong, false teachings, wanting something someone else has, killing other people, using strong drink and wild parties, and all things like this. I told you before and I’m telling you again that those who do these things have no place in the holy nation of God. But the fruit that comes from having the Holy Spirit in our lives is love, joy, peace, not giving up, being kind, being good, having faith, being gentle and being the boss over our own desires.

Jesus, we are undone before you. As we hear this, we are reminded of how weak and frail we are against the challenges in our lives. But Lord, we don’t lose heart. We don’t despair because you, you are able and you are willing and you are for us and you are with us, no matter what we’ve done. So restore unto us the joy of our salvation and renew a right spirit within us. Create in us a clean heart, God. And show us where we’ve allowed the boundaries to be moved and help us put them back in place, Lord. We pray all this in your name, Jesus. Amen.

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