Sower Church

Luke 17:20-37

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:11:21 +0000

Luke 17:1-19

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 00:58:38 +0000

The Law of Love

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 26 Feb 2023 21:47:20 +0000

Thank you, Alex. Would you buy your heads in prayer with me? Oh, good and heavenly gracious father. We are so thankful that you are wise and almighty. Even now, Lord, all of your plans are being unfolded in history on the earth and at the very center of it is your people. You have called us to play a part. God. I thank you for your people here in the city, your church here in Lincoln where the gospel is being preached, where those who are endeavoring to glorify Christ in all things are proclaiming your word this morning and your people gathering around the ministry of your word this morning. I thank you for your people all over the city and the unfolding of your plan all over the city as well as the world. And so God, would you help us in this time to take away from this meeting with you? The very truth that you which to plant deeply into our hearts and to shape us with and to make us more and more like your son Jesus Christ. It’s in his name that I pray. Amen. Good night. Well, this morning, if you are curious whether or not we are crazy here at sewer church. Why would we combine a passage on divorce and remarriage with a parable about a man named Lazarus and the rich man. Like, what’s the connection there? Where are these guys going? Why would they even do that? Well, there’s a couple of reasons why first we do like to teach through the Bible and so that’s in the Bible and we have to deal with it. That is our posture here. We want to teach the word of God. We don’t want to run from or shy away from passages that make seem difficult or maybe at first glimpse may not appear to make a whole lot of sense to us. We want to be faithful to the word of God because it is the word of God. That’s why we stand at the reading of the word of God. Secondly, though it appears that the two, the passage on divorce and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, though it appears there is no connection, there actually is a connection. They are very much related. In fact, the key is looking at verses 16 and 17, which we did not read, but I’ll read them briefly here to you and you’ll see why the two fit together. And verse 16, Jesus says that the law and the prophets were until John. Since then, the good news of the Kingdom of God is preached and everyone forces his way into it. What he’s saying is basically the Old Testament Revelation was given up until the time of John and John, the Baptist had prepared the way for Jesus to begin his earthly ministry proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God, which was taking place then now and he said everyone was forcing his way into it. And that’s a reference to the very tax collectors and sinners who were repenting and turning to God and the Pharisees are watching all of this and their charge against Jesus is that he has no regard for the law of God. So therefore, the reference to the law and the prophets, the law of God. And then in verse 17, Jesus says, but it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the law to become void. I think we need to let that sink in for a moment because as evangelicals, I know we love the gospel and we do. It’s one of our core values that Christ would be exalted and everything because he has come. But the gospel is not an enemy to the law. That’s what Jesus is saying. And so Jesus is proclaiming good news and the tax collectors and the sinners are forcing their way into the kingdom of God. They are doing so not because Jesus is laying aside the law, but because Jesus is fulfilling the law on their behalf. Furthermore, Jesus is showing the Pharisees that though they were entrusted with the teaching of the law to prepare the people for his arrival. They were failing at it massively, they did not understood, they did not understand the law. They didn’t understand the purpose of the law and I would submit to you that that’s still the problem today. We just don’t understand the purpose of the law. It begins from the time we were young kids. It’s time to go to bed kids. Why do we have to go to bed so early? Why do we have to get up so early? Why do we have to eat our vegetables? Why do I need to clean my room? It’s gonna get messy again. We don’t like being held to a standard. We don’t like being told what to do from the time we were born. It’s been all about us. King me. And so we don’t understand law and then we grow up and we elect officials who also don’t understand the purpose of law. And so at a federal level, we have thousands of laws for this country and I’m guessing many of us don’t have a clue as to what all of those laws are. And then even on a state level and I did this fun thing, maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But I went and I researched some of the silly laws that are still on various state books. Want to read some of them to you again illustrates the point that we just don’t understand law in Alabama. It’s illegal to drive blindfolded. I mean, when did that law become an issue? And, and, and who, who was the poor soul that forced that law to be written? Right in Arizona. It’s still illegal for a donkey, for donkey to sleep in a bathtub. I don’t even want to go there. Right. I mean, an episode of Shrek or something in Kansas tire screeching is illegal. I mean, I don’t even know how you enforce that law. Okay. Then this one is crazy. In Kentucky, A woman cannot marry the same man four times. It’s a law. Evidently some poor soul needed four failures to realize like, man, you gotta stop this in Missouri. It’s illegal to wrestle with bear. I don’t know, the younger boys would like to see that one. Right. Me too. I’d pay good money for that. But I’m guessing a couple of guys lost and that didn’t work out, right. Got eaten by a bear or something. Okay. Last one in Montana. It’s illegal to give a rat as a present a wrap. Hey, I ain’t mad at that one, but I’m trying to figure out why is that a law? Okay. So again, you know, what’s the purpose of law? Like, why do we have laws? Why do we need laws? And I’m telling you human nature just doesn’t get it because we are so driven by desire to please self. But when you look at God’s law, when you look at His law and why he gave his law. God’s law reveals the character of God. The holiness of God. God’s law teaches us what we are supposed to love. It teaches us to love what God loves. That’s what His law does. It teaches us what to love. And when you look at how Moses in Deuteronomy six, summarized all of God’s law And then Jesus quotes Moses, right in Matthew 22 says the summary of all the law of all the law and the prophets is this that you would love the Lord, your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself, not king me God, and then allow for others, the law being given for that purpose. And so Jesus recognizing that the Pharisees think that he is disregarding the law, Jesus shows them that you don’t even understand the purpose of God’s law. And so he highlights an example of where they were disregarding the law as it relates to marriage. And then he tells a parable for how their own character was, a betrayal of the character of God, which would have been clearly seen had they rightly understood God’s law. So we look at the first one in verse 18, it says everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. Now Jesus is recorded in Matthew five and in nine in Matthew 19 as giving more details um surrounding the subject of marriage and divorce. And then first Corinthians seven has some more instruction on this subject of marriage and divorce. And typically the church has landed in history on the position of the acceptable reasons for divorce, being adultery, abuse or abandonment. Now, the last two requires much more discussion and, and time to kind of unpack. Like what exactly do we mean by abuse and abandonment? And so we don’t have time for that today, but all of this flows from the seventh commandment which says, do not commit adultery, do not commit adultery. And the 7th commandment was put in place to help us protect our own purity as well as our neighbors purity as it relates to the heart, speech and behaviors. The 7th commandment is a restriction teaching us that you must place a fence around your own heart, desires your own speech and your own behavior as it relates to the marriage covenant, you must protect your own as well as your neighbors. The Pharisees didn’t understand, they simply did not understand it. And so what they were doing as they were granting certificates of divorce for very trivial reasons, extremely trivial reasons, let’s say a man. And this is based on looking at some of the first century and second century history, some of the writings of various rabbis, parasitical rabbis during that time. Let’s say a man had a dinner party, invited his friends over and his wife prepared the mill and the mill was terrible and it embarrassed the man he could then go to one of these Pharisees and require certificate of divorce. How hard is a person’s heart must be to divorce their wife because you had a dinner party and the mill didn’t go as planned. They do things like this on other occasions if a man just saw someone else that he thought was prettier or maybe even younger than his wife and divorce, his wife, seek a certificate of divorce. And the Pharisees would grant these certificates. Number one, if the man was wealthy and had influence and they granted him the divorce, then he’d be in the pocket of that particular person. By the way, this whole story, Jesus talking about divorce and remarriage and then talking about the rich man and Lazarus being laid at his gate has led some people to think that Jesus was talking about Herod who you know, John, the Baptist lost his head because he called him out on his divorce and remarriage, right? But I don’t think that’s who Jesus has in mind. He has the Pharisees in mind here. So they were allowing men to make a mockery of the law of God, granting certificates of divorce for various trivial reasons. And they missed the very character of God, the very righteousness of God. They missed the love of God that was supposed to be embodied through that lifelong commitment of marriage. You see, God speaks of Himself as being married, having a covenant relationship to his people. And in the context of that marriage, he gives laws to teach them what they are to love. And so I like to think of it like a train, a freight train because God is infinite. And when the scripture says that God is love and infinite. God having love is an intense and a very powerful love. But that freight train needs train tracks needs rails to, to ride on. And what the Pharisees were permitting was for the freight track, the freight train to get off of the tracks and to cause harm, which is what often divorce does a lot of heartache, a lot of pain. Many of you maybe you’ve experienced it, maybe someone you know, has experienced it. You know what I’m talking about that relationship between husband and wife, such a picture between God and his people meant to be a lifelong covenant and commitment to show us what the love of God is like through the good times, through the hard times various circumstances because that’s what we want, right? We want to know that in our frailties and our weakness that God doesn’t abandon us, that he’s with us, that he’s faithful. And that’s what we demonstrate in that covenant relationship, kids said, neighbor said, and it creates a stability. So this relationship was supposed to portray the faithfulness of God because God is faithful and these men were disregarding the law and therefore unable to show the faithfulness of God in that way. So then moving on from a practical example of how the Pharisees misunderstood the law. Jesus then tells a parable in verse 19, it says there was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day on a pause there for a moment. Second parable that Luke records where Jesus uses the character, um uses a rich man as a character. Last week, Pastor Ben covered the rich man and the dishonest manager. And in that parable, the rich man represented Jesus or represent God. In this parable, the rich man represents the Pharisees. He’s rich and there’s a, there’s an air royalty to him. That’s why he uses purple and fine linen and says that he feasted sumptuously every day. I mean it plenty is well taken care of. And then in verse 20 says at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus covered with sores who desired to be Fed with what fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, even the dogs came and licked his sores. No, Lazarus, the second character in this parable, he has a physical disability. He can’t even walk. Someone has to carry him to the gates of this rich man. When it says that Lazarus is looking at the rich man in his abundance. And he doesn’t even want really the mill that the rich man is enjoying. He wants the crumbs, he wants the leftovers. He wants the leftovers. Kids, sometimes kids don’t like to eat leftovers. I think somehow a leftover has changed the food. You know, like the quality, the goodness of the food has changed. It’s leftover now. It’s not the same mad. And then you get to college and you’re starving, you’re hungry, you’ll take leftovers anyway. You can get them right. But this poor man Lazarus, he’s, he’s physically disabled. He’s starving in his physical disability. He’s developed sores all over his body. And in the mercy of God. God has supplied this rich man with all of the resources to be able to help Lazarus. Enjoy just a piece of comfort in this life. God gives it to this rich man. Hey, you are made in the image of God and this man laid at your gate is made in the image of God and I’ve given you my law rich man and it teaches you what you are to love your neighbor, your God and your neighbor brought him to your gate. The man had all that was necessary to help Lazarus to treat his medical condition, make sure he was bandaged and cared for plenty of food. And every day, this man just ignored Lazarus dying outside of his gate. How hard does a person’s heart need to be to watch another image bearer die starve to death outside of his own gate. We’re not talking about the rich man needing to get into a boat or an airplane and travel across the world were saying, walk outside of your property and show the mercy and the compassion of God and you can’t, you won’t. But God is still merciful. And I love the contrast and the irony in the way that Jesus presents this parable, the man won’t show mercy, but it says that dogs came and licked his source. Now these aren’t like domesticated pets. He’s talking about, he’s not talking about the dogs that you have in your house, that you treat for fleas, that you make sure well taken care of that you make sure they have plenty of water and you’ve trained them. These are wild animals, wild dogs who otherwise might have been a bit aggressive towards Lazarus and his helpless condition and yet they come and they lick his sores to give him a small measure of comfort. What contrast and irony there an image bearer suffering, another image bearer having all that he needed to not only take care of his own family, but to also help the suffering man and he wouldn’t even do it. And so God has to use an animal to show mercy In verse 22. It says the poor man died and was carried by the Angels to Abraham’s side. We’re not even told about a burial he’s too poor and no one cares about his life. But in verse 23 I’m sorry. Um The second part of verse 22 it says the rich man also died and was buried proper burial into a tomb. But in verse 23 but the rich man in Hades being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side and he called out Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus, send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger and water and cool my tongue for I am an anguish in this flame. Wow, Lazarus not even able to have or receive a proper burial, but in death, he enters into the ultimate palace in paradise. When it says Abraham’s bosom is a reference to heaven when it says Hades is a reference to hell. So Lazarus carried in to heaven to be comforted by God. And the rich man suffering in hell is crying out and saying Abraham, send Lazarus the same Lazarus that stood outside of your gate, send him to have mercy on me. The one you didn’t even have mercy on the law teaches us to love what God loves. And through these examples, we see that God is faithful, we see that God is merciful, but right here, we need to see something else about our God. He is just God is just In Verse 25. Here is the justice of God but Abraham said, child, remember that in your lifetime, you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner, bad things. But now He is comforted here and you are in anguish. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who have passed from here to you may not be able and none may cross from there to us. God is just God gave the rich man every opportunity to show the faithfulness of God, the mercy of God and the love of God. And he would not because of his hard heart. And so God gives him his reward. He says that in this life, you received all of your good things. And I want to tell you as one modern day theologian puts it if in this life, if this is your best life ever, and I fear for you because there’s a hell of an eternity awaiting you as Christians for us. We know, but this life is temporary, it’s passing away. But the one that we were ultimately made for that we’ve been redeemed for it’s far greater. And so we aren’t beholden to possessions and things because we’ve got an eternal mindset to quote another theologian says, the wheels of God’s justice. They may grind slowly but they grind exceedingly fine. Does not miss a thing just like last week with Pastor Ben. The reality that we must give an account. God is a good accountant, he’s not gonna miss a thing. So reading on here in this passage, the man said to Abraham, he says, and I beg you father, send him to my father’s house where I have five brothers so that he may warn them unless they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. They have the word of God. They have the law of God which shows the holiness of God which convicts of sin, which drives us back to God. Let them hear them. Some people can’t hear the word of God. Some people don’t even like the word of God being taught. They just kind of want to feel their way into the kingdom of God. And I’m gonna tell you right now, you can’t feel your way into the Kingdom of God. But this word, it will prepare your hearts for eternity. That’s why we teach it. That’s why we call you and challenge you to read it to allow it to shape your language, your prayers, your behavior, every aspect of your soul, allowing the word of God to be living and active in you in that way. It always baffles me because some people just don’t understand biblical history. God has been so serious about putting this word in print, writing it. And when he gave the law to Moses, he was so serious about it that he wrote it how with his own finger. And what does he do, Jesus? After he has ascended into heaven, he commissioned his apostles, his disciples to do what to pin these letters so that we can be clear so that we can be sure the very rails that God has given us to run on. That’s love. So he says, let them hear them. And so the rich man said, no, Father Abraham in verse 30. But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. And Abraham said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead, if their hearts are so hard that they will not receive the plain teaching of God’s law and word, even if someone was raised from the dead, they will not believe even if a miracle like that occurred, they would not believe. And Jesus is speaking of what here, his own resurrection. And what happened when the guards reported back to the Pharisees that he’s not here, that he’s been resurrected. What did the Pharisees do? If you know your bibles, you know that they paid those men to be silent. Even if one were to rise from the dead, they still wouldn’t believe how hard must a man’s heart be? He doesn’t want to hear the word of God if he’ll divorce his wife for very trivial reasons, if he’s willing to allow a man to die outside of his own property without giving him basic needs. How hard must sin make our hearts to act that way. And I love it that Jesus uses as an example and as a parable people who are in close proximity to you, a spouse somewhere near your house. He’s not talking about hating someone on Facebook, which people do all the time or hating someone. You know that you think is the boogeyman thousands and thousands of miles away. He’s talking about people. You look at who you’ve become familiar with. There’s a spouse taking up resentment in your heart towards your spouse as a child, taking up resentment in your heart towards your parents as a parent, taking up resentment in your heart towards your child, that co worker that’s wearing you out, that neighbor who’s wearing you out. He’s talking about that context. Remember because the summation of the law is that you would love the Lord, your God and love your who your neighbor, the one closest to you, those around you. So what’s secure for hard and unloving heart? Well, based on the passage here and the multiple references to Moses and the prophets and the law, I would say the first step in curing a hard and unloving heart is to go to the word of God to hear it and allow God’s word to drive you back to the foot of the cross. Allow the word to indeed be a living and sharp sword towards your own heart towards King me, that brings you to the foot of the cross so that you look up and see your savior who paid the price for your selfishness and your sin, man. This is what that deserves me and he paid it for me. Secondly, while you’re looking at the word of God, while you are allowing the word of God to soften your heart, to convict you of sin, to expose to you the true rails that love is supposed to run on that you would then pray for others that love. Jesus said, even for your enemies is acted out and prayer for them that you pray for them, that you keep your heart soft because you’re praying. If you and your spouse are constantly at one another, then pray more, more, more pray for them. Pray, pray, pray, pray until something in new changes and then pray that something in them changes as well. Pray and then lastly be quick to obey God’s word. So one of the things we try to teach little kids, delayed obedience is disobedience, delayed obedience allows you to think that it’s not that important that it’s okay that you know, it really doesn’t matter if I go through with this. God really isn’t paying attention. God really doesn’t care that God really isn’t keeping account of how I live my life and it really doesn’t matter and maybe this person really does deserve my resentment. I’ll be quick to obey, be quick to put the word into action, be quick to do what it says. And I know the emotions, man, the emotions can be like the Missourians who like to wrestle bears, right? That the emotions can be like that bear. It’s like it did. I don’t want to put down this bear to do what God says. Um You need the grace of God in that moment and that’s why you, you look at His word. That’s why you pray and God, God takes care of that bear for you. So if you want to cure heart and unloving heart, you gotta be in the world. And you got to let the word afflict you, you gotta let the word teach you what it means to pick up your cross and to follow Christ and to deny yourself so that you can love God so that you can see others the way that God wants you to see them and you gotta be praying, you gotta be willing and quick to obey. And the reason why this is important, it’s because you and me, me and you, we were poor Lazarus, we were poor Lazarus outside of the kingdom of God. And before God’s law, we had no feet to stand on. We had no righteousness before holy and just God, we did not deserve to be brought inside of His kingdom. And then the good news was presented to us and the love of God picked us up, bandaged our wounds, cleaned us up, gave us a new heart, a new identity and made us Children of God. So let’s act like it. Amen. Amen. Let us pray. Father. I thank you that you are indeed merciful. You are a merciful God from that very first dreadful day and the history of this world when Adam and E ate from that tree and caused all of humanity to be placed outside of your royal and holy kingdom and palace. You didn’t leave us, you didn’t abandon us. You didn’t turn your back on us. You sent your son to come after us. You are merciful. You are loving God. I pray that every day that we have on this earth, that your love would change us and that others would be able to see how your love has changed us. It has made us love you and love our neighbors. God. We know, but we can’t do this in our own strength. But that’s why we look to you. We depend upon you. It’s in Christ’s name. I pray. Amen.

Building Eternal Wealth

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 17:19:09 +0000

Amen Herbert Dow, who is pictured here Uh is founded a company in 1895 called the Dow Chemical Company. And what he had done was he had invented a way that you could cheaply produce a chemical called bromine. And so he would sell it for 36 cents a pound around the US. He couldn’t sell it in Germany because there was a company there that also produced bromine and they had a monopoly on the market. And they uh and so so he was just constrained to the U. S. And so he did that for nine years. But in 1904 the business was kind of struggling and he knew, you know what, I really need to expand if I, you know if I want to make a go of this. And so he began to sell bromine in europe. And because he sold it for 36 cents per pound and the German company sold it for $0.49 per pound. He gained a lot of sales very quickly and started expanding like crazy. Now this german company was obviously outreach here, this guys coming in and so gaining all these sales and so they’re like, you know what, we are going to put this little guy in his place and we’re going to undercut him and put him out of business. So they began selling bromine in the United States for 15 cents a pound to just try to completely and utterly undercut this guy, make him go out of business. Now this is where Herbert dow demonstrated his, his shrewdness. So what he decided to do was he decided to take as much loans as he possibly could, and he began buying as much of the german bromine as he could for 15 cents a pound. Repackage it, put a new label on and then resold it in europe for 27 cents a pound. Now, the german company couldn’t understand why this guy wasn’t going out of business. They just, they kept selling all this product in the US and and he just kept hanging around. And so so they decide, you know what, we’re gonna lower it to 12 cents per pounds. He kept buying it and then they lowered it to 10 cents per pound and he kept buying it. And by the time they figured out what he was doing, uh he had broken that monopoly in europe and then they kind of came to this agreement that they’re both going to sell it at a good market price. And uh and so Del Dow chemical company still exists today because of the shrewdness of this man by the name of Herbert Dow. And that’s a fun story because we kind of like the idea of a small business taking on this giant company outsmarting them and this man becoming very wealthy, right? And and uh and it’s just kind of a fun story if you read uh stories of the richest people in the world today right now. What you find is you find people like this, who are very trude and who are passionately pursuing building wealth with all that they’ve got with all of their resources, with all their time with all of their energy. They are focused on making money and they’re good at it and they are extremely wealthy and that is how you become really rich by doing that. But here’s a question for you, what is better than being the richest person in the world? What’s better than being the richest person in the world as being the richest person in heaven? And today we’re gonna look at how to build heavenly wealth, Jesus provides lessons in this story for us and we’re gonna start going through the story here in the particulars. But before we do that, we have to remember the context that this takes place in and the last couple of weeks. So Jesus here is telling a series of stories in the book of luke and they are all linked together. First you tell the story of the lost sheep and then the story of the lost coin and then the Lost Son, which is what we looked at last week and then there’s this story about the shrewd manager and at the on the surface it seems like these stories are not linked together, but they are and jesus is communicating a clear point about what’s of true value in all of these different stories, he shows them that eternity is what matters and the that using your resources and money on this earth for an eternal impact is what is true value. So in the lost coin treasure, eternal finding eternal life is finding a treasure living for the kingdom of heaven is what we should do and and what we should use our resources for. And so these are all tied together. Okay so let’s go back to the passage chapter 16 verse one. Let’s start looking at this more. He also said to the disciples. So he had, he had been talking to the Pharisees now he switches to talk to his disciples to reiterate this point of what’s true value. There was a rich man who had a manager and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions and he called him and said to him, what is this? I hear about you turning the account of your management for you no longer can be manager. Alright. So the first aspect of this story that’s important is that the master calls the manager to give an account. Okay. And and so have you ever had one of those moments where your boss calls you in like hey did you do this report? You know or hey did you do this job? Uh and and you know you you can kind of have a couple of reactions when it happens right? And here the manager has one of those moments, the boss calls him in to give an account and he knows he’s corrupt, he knows he was doing a bad job and he has one of those moments where it’s like the sinking stomach and it’s like, okay, I’m in trouble, right? And so, um, but but when your boss calls you in, you know, you can kind of have to reactions if you know you did a good job, if you know that you’ve been doing a good job, you put your your effort into that report of that job and you did a good job, you’re confident in that work. Well, when the boss says, hey, did you do this? You can say, yeah, I did. And there’s no fear because you know, you put forward a great or a good effort, best effort. Um there’s no fear in that. And maybe the boss says, hey, great job on that, right? Or maybe that you find out you made a mistake, whatever, but but you put in your efforts, so there’s no fear when the boss says, hey, did you do this if you did a bad job and you know, you didn’t do a good job. Well then there’s this other response, this other reaction, like the man, the bad manager here says, um, and that’s the sinking feeling. The fear, like, oh, okay, what is going to happen? I know I’m in trouble. You know, right now, it’s it’s tax season, everybody’s doing their taxes right? And so if you do your taxes honestly and you turn them in. And the I. R. S. Sends you a letter and says hey we’re gonna audit you if you you know there’s no fear in that. If you did them right. If you did them honestly if you’re cheating on your taxes, which a lot of people do. And the I. R. S. Send you that letter then there’s this oh no this is going to be terrible. I hope they don’t find out what I was doing. Uh That kind of fear. So if you’re not being a good steward then there should be fear, guilt, shame felt and and the purpose of bringing about repentance and change. That’s the purpose of guilt and fear. And so the manager of this story, he experienced that second option that okay yikes this is not gonna be good. He was afraid because he was a bad manager. He’d been taking advantage of. His master had been taking advantage of his position. We don’t know exactly what he did. Maybe he cheated, Maybe he stole. Maybe he’s just lazy whatever the case, he was not doing a good job. And the master heard about it and called him to an accounts And we too will have to stand before the all knowing Holy God one day and we will have to give account. God sees all he knows all. Everything will be laid bare one day. And we too can have one of those two options of what we respond with. We too could have joy and peace instead of fear because we’ve done what’s pleasing to the master. We’ve been a good manager. We’ve done. We’ve been faithful with what he’s entrusted to us, where you could have this fear and terrifying type of response. Now the story jesus is sharing here is he’s telling us and giving us how to be able to have that first option. How to be able to come before the master and have joy. Okay, Let’s go to verse three. And the manager said to himself, what shall I do since my master’s taking the management away from me? I’m not strong enough to dig, I’m ashamed to beg I’ve decided what to do. So I’m removed from management. People may receive me into their houses. So summoning his master’s debtors one x one, he said at first, how much do you owe my master? He said 100 measures of oil, and he said to him, take your bill, sit down quickly, right, 50. And he said to another, how much do you owe? And he said 100 measures were, and he said to him, take your bill right down 80. And the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness for the sons of the world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of the light. So what happened here was this manager? The shrewd manager um used that last little gasp of his present position to prepare himself for the next stage of his life. And what he did was he cheated all the more he’s like, you know, all right, I’m all in on this cheating thing. He took advantage of the Master one more time. He had been a bad manager, he’d been taking advantage, had been cheating whatever stealing from his master. And so now he does it yet one more time and he did so in order to make some friends in high places, he uh he gave big discounts to these powerful people, these merchants, these business leaders, these wealthy men, he didn’t want to dig holes, ditches, didn’t wanna be homeless. So he cheated his master and some big favors, make some friends in high places. Now the story takes an interesting twist here. What what does the man the master say here, Jesus makes a point by saying the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Now what? It doesn’t say he, the master did not approve the manager’s conduct, but he did applaud his shrewdness and said that hey, business people here on this earth are often more shrewd than the sons of the light. Often more shrewd than christians. And so jesus, he’s telling this to his disciples not to the Pharisees, his disciples and he’s making the point in communicating and challenging his disciples to approach eternal wealth building with the same zeal and fervor and savvy as the best business people, the best people in business today. So think about in our day, you know, Warren Buffett Alice Walton, Elon musk, Jeff Bezos, those types of business people and the savvy and the fervor and the energy and the zeal that they put into making money, jesus is challenging disciples to, to put that same kind of focus into building eternal wealth. So the main point, Jesus communicating in this story, it’s not about shrewdness, it’s about truly using your resources to build wealth for the next life. He’s talking about becoming a wealthy person in heaven, so use your money, your resources to build future eternal wealth. That’s the main point, that’s the main concept, that’s what this story is all pointing towards, and this concept is not unique, Jesus talks about this elsewhere elsewhere, you’ve heard the phrase, you know, store up treasures in heaven, that’s, it’s from jesus, uh first timothy 6 to 18 through 19 says commend them and do good, be rich in good deeds and be generous and willing to share in this way, you will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age so that they may take hold of what’s truly life. So there’s this concept throughout scriptures of building a treasure building wealth building for the future for eternity, And that’s what Jesus is talking about, and then he goes on to describe, and to give us an idea of how to do so that we’re not left without some of these um ways to do this. Okay, so verse nine he says, and I tell you make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings. This is gonna go through a series of different points here, but the first one is use your money to make friends in the Gospel, use your money to build friendships. And it’s uh it’s very interesting, he says make friends like, what does that mean? He’s talking about how, you know, we’ve got money, we’ve got resources. And so can you use that to build some friendships? Can you take somebody out for dinner to build a friendship? Can you take somebody and buy something for someone? A gift makes way for a person, Right? So, so you’re you’re doing this with people who are not christians so that you have a chance to communicate christ with them. So you have a chance to have a friendship with them and to win them to christ right? Use money so as to communicate the gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven. And he also gives kind of the why behind it, which is a very interesting thing to think about. He says, if you do that, those who believe those who follow christ those who are saved and are and going to heaven will be the people that then welcome you into that eternal dwelling. Think about that, What an incredible picture. You know you you utilize your worldly wealth, the resources you have in this this life the money in this life in the gospel in making friends and then there’s people who give themselves to christ and follow and become disciples of christ and when they die they go into heaven and then when you die you’re gonna have this welcoming committee and I’m picturing in my mind, I have no idea what it’s gonna be like. But picturing in my mind, you know like you’re you’re coming in and there’s this, you know these people you’re seeing who they are. Oh yeah all these people that you know that you had an impact on and they’re they’re so excited that you’re there welcoming into eternity, cheering screaming, you know that like the sports kind of thing, right? Like come on in and and it’s an incredible picture friends with which you will have for all of eternity because of what you’ve invested in this earth, eternal rewards, treasure in heaven. Okay, He also describes using money to bless and to serve people. And this has also found out so proverbs 1125, whoever brings blessing will be enriched and the one who waters will himself be watered this concept of generosity and blessing and using your your your money and resources to bless and serve other people, it is so good. Not only does it um build eternal wealth, but there’s also a blessing here in this life to you bring blessing you’ll be enriched. The wonder waters, will himself be watered. This. This concept is it’s good to help others. It’s good to give and to bless feels good for sure. But it also builds this eternal wealth too. Okay verse 10. He goes on to further explain what it means to be a good steward, a good manager. One who is faithful and very little is also faithful much and one who is dishonest and very little is also dishonest and much if then you who have not been faithful with the unrighteous wealth who will entrust you to true riches. And if you’ve not been faithful in what is another’s who will give you that which is your own. So the third point he is making here is a good manager is faithful with the responsibilities. We’ve been given a good manager is faithful with the responsibilities we’ve been given. Now what are some of those responsibilities God has given us a lot of responsibilities. We’ve got friendships, we’ve got marriage kids, if you’ve got kids, there’s work responsibilities, church community group and money, there’s others. But those are ones that I thought of that responsibilities God has given us that we need to be faithful with. And if we can’t manage what God has given us. If we can’t be faithful with the little things God has given us. We won’t have more significant responsibilities given to us and provided to us. But notice here it’s not the amount, right? And he’s talking about money if you’re faithful little be faithful with much. It’s it’s not the amount whether you have a lot or little, it’s how you manage what you’ve been given. God is the master. He’s the one who owns it all. He’s he has it all. And he’s entrusted some to us. And there’s some of us in this room who come from privilege and have a lot. There’s some of us in this room who have very very little. It doesn’t matter whether you have little with you a lot. Are you being faithful with what you’ve been entrusted? How do you manage what God has given you? That’s the question here. He says. If you’re faithful with that a little bit, God won’t trust you with more your faithful that little bit. You’re demonstrating that you are a good manager. A faithful manager, a good steward and there’s and you’re building wealth from the life to come Verse 13. No servant can serve two masters for either. He will hate one and love the other or he’ll be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. So a good manager is one who serves gone want to build wealth for this life to come serve God and not money. Now listen up. You can have both God and money. But you cannot serve both God and money. You get that. You can have both. God and money, but you can only serve one. You can only serve God or money can serve them both and how you spend shows what you treasure. Right? So look back, think back have you been spending the resources God has given you? Who did you serve? You don’t have to be rich to serve money. You don’t have to be poor to serve God. It’s a matter of the heart. How who are you serving? That’s the question verse 14 The Pharisees who were lovers of money that reveals where they were at heard these things and they ridiculed him. They were listening and jesus communicating to his disciples but they were listening in and they loved money and so their response to this was making fun of them ridiculing and he said to them, you are those who justify yourselves before men by God knows your hearts. But what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God, God knows your heart. It’s impossible to hide from God. Now. You may be able to hide your heart and motivations from the people around you. You may be able to hide that from the people in this room. You may be even able to hide it from your family, but you cannot hide your heart motivations from God. He knows he knows whether you serve him or whether you serve money or possessions or security or wealth or the bank accounts size or the retirement accounts, God’s value system is different than what we see around us the world around us. It’s like how’s your how’s your retirement account doing right? The world values the new car, the six figure salary, the big house, the investment portfolio, the bank account, all that kind of stuff. But God looks at the heart, are you being faithful? Are you serving him? That’s what matters. And so jesus lays out here, these different aspects of what it means to build wealth for eternity and to be a faithful manager. Now, as you’re sitting there having gone through this story, you may be feeling a variety of things. You may be feeling guilt. You may have realized that your priorities have become misaligned. You may even be wondering, okay, yeah, I want to be a good manager, but how can I possibly do that? I want to be faithful with little things, but I struggle with that. Right? There’s good news and the good news is the Gospel. Even if you’ve not been a good manager, even if you’ve been serving money or been unfaithful with what you’ve been given, jesus offers a better way through, The Gospel has offers us an opportunity to turn from those things and to turn to him and to receive his grace and his power and his help to turn away from the power of money and to follow him. So then we have by his grace the ability and the power to build eternal wealth. It’s not found in ourselves, it’s found in him and his grace. And so the first step is to really to yield and to surrender to him. That’s the action point. Surrender and serve the Lord can’t do it on our own. We cannot be these good managers, these faithful stewards, faithful servant. We can’t on our own. We need jesus. And so some of you have realized maybe you’re not a great manager or you’re more like the bad manager here who serves money um instead of the Lord and I encourage you and I challenge you, surrender to him, embrace his grace for a better way, a way that leads to true reward, not just money here in this earth a true reward. Building wealth for eternity serve the Lord and invest in the eternal bank. Use money and faithful actions to build wealth in this life to come by being a good manager, a good steward in his power and his strength turn and surrender to serve him. Some of you who are serving the Lord right now have realized that your heart is maybe drawn towards worldly wealth, those kinds of things, I encourage and challenge you to surrender and serve the Lord jesus can help you so that when you give an account to the master and you stand before him, you can be filled with joy knowing that you have served him, can you feel with joy knowing that you devoted your life and your resources and your time and your effort energy to building wealth for the life to come. What’s better than being the richest person in the world, being the richest person in heaven and jesus. The Master can help you the money here in this earth like it’ll it’ll burn, it’ll go away. You cannot take a single dollar with you when you die and enter into attorney, you can’t it stays all here may benefit some others, may benefit your descendants etcetera. But it will not help you one single bit size of your account when you die. Absolutely is no longer any value when you die. What will be revealed is your the balance of your bank account in heaven, right? You’ll see how much treasure you’ve stockpiled in heaven and and there will be incredible joy. We will be astounded and overwhelmed I think as God pours forth his blessing and reveals, hey, your faithful here, your faithful there and there’s just gonna be this astounding reward that you’ll be shocked and filled with joy at because of these actions and how you use your money here in this earth God values those things and it’s building an eternal treasure. So surrender to him and serve him by his power. Use the resources, you have to build eternal wealth. Let’s pray Emily, Father, We thank you for these stories. They’re so powerful and they help us help us to connect and to understand what is of true value. And that building wealth for the for eternity is what we really need to be about. We’re here on this earth. We need you, we need your help, we need your grace. We cannot do it on our own, so we surrender ourselves to you. Lord. Once again, we say, fill us with yourself so we can serve you in jesus name. Amen.

Family Matters

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 12 Feb 2023 17:11:42 +0000

Two things I regularly pray for my Children, my wife and I have five Children and two things that I regularly pray for them is first that they would know the Lord that they would know the love of God, that they would know it in such a way that it would change them, that it would ruin them for anything else other than a life committed to the Lord, jesus christ. And then the second thing that I’m constantly praying for them is that they would know how much the mother and I love them. I pray these things because I’m reminded of how I grew up, ignorant and oblivious to these two realities. Um I didn’t know the Lord growing up as a young child. So his love was not something that I was well acquainted with, although his blessings were all around me and although a very real sense this love kept me and kept me to a place where I would eventually come to know the Lord. But then when I also think about my relationship with my parents, the ingratitude, the inability to see the small sacrifices and the little things that they did that were tokens of their love for me that were expressions of their deep care and concern for my life that I took for granted. But later in life I realized how special it was. And so I’m thankful by the grace of God that I have a very good relationship with both of my parents and so when I think about today’s teaching and this story, the parable of the prodigal son we are dealing with family matters. We have a wayward son a forgiving father and a prideful brother and we have in this story, jesus telling it wrongly. I might add, when you think of the cultural circumstances, the cultural realities of his day, he tells it intentionally wrongly to drive home one point and that point is this, that God is more willing to embrace repentant sinners than you and I are even willing to admit that we’re sinners. This is the third parable that he has told to the same group of people in the same setting to make that point clear. And he uses family Story of a family, a father with two sons. And so before I impact that more, let me pray for you, let me pray for us. Let me pray for our time, Father in heaven, this is your world, you are God Almighty, you rule and you reign and this is your word that you’ve given to your people. I pray Lord that as your faithful ministers all over the globe on the sabbath day, open your word that many would be reminded of your great love, the great truth and power of the gospel of your son, jesus christ who gave his life to save many. I pray God that in places where there is great darkness that the light of this word would penetrate and have lasting impact, pray God that you would raise up faithful servants in every single place on this globe who will run the race with endurance, who will make disciples, who will continue to carry on this legacy of proclaiming, christ God, we want to see you glorified in our lifetime and in the lifetime of our Children’s Children. So God, this morning with our time work mightily, we ask it in jesus name, Amen, Amen again. This parable known by many as the parable of the Prodigal son. It may be the famous or the most famous of the parables that jesus told the parable of the good samaritan might be up there. A lot of people know about that when people, even outside of the church are familiar with that parable, but this parable here is incredibly popular. It is quite famous this story of the Prodigal son and again, it is a story dealing with a family and a family situation and now Jesus tells it based on a relationship with the father and two sons and I want to say from the onset that ladies don’t check out because this story and the principle behind it applies to everyone. It applied to everyone in that crowd. But jesus specifically chose to tell it in this way because the history of God and his people was one that they understood as a father with his son. That’s why even the prophets would utter from Egypt or out of Egypt, I have called my son Speaking of the people of Israel led out of Egypt by moses by moses, but eventually jesus would also fulfill that that picture again, he’s only telling it and using a father and two sons to illustrate a point and that being the relationship between God and his people. And as we think about the characters in the story, the younger son obviously identifies with the tax collectors and sinners. This is early on in chapter 15 of Luke. They are the ones who are being drawn to Jesus and then the older brother in this story, obviously he relates to the Pharisees and the religious leaders. They are the ones who are offended. They are the reason that Jesus has told three consecutive parables driving home the same principle that God is more willing to receive repentant sinners. Then you and I are willing to admit that we’re sinners. And it is the reason why I say to you that Jesus is intentionally telling the story in a way that is culturally wrong because he wants to make a point so clear. So let’s look at it. He begins by saying that the younger son Verse 12 comes to his father and says give me the share of property that is coming to me and he the father divided his property between them. And then not many days later the younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country and there he squandered his property and reckless living and when he has spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate and no one gave him anything. So we have here the wayward son, he comes to his father. He essentially says, I cannot wait until you die to receive my inheritance. I need it. Now that’s offensive. That is the wrong way to do things. And the father obliges. He gives him the inheritance. That is the wrong thing to do. But he does it, it gives it to him based on the old testament, Law and covenant? The older son would have received the double portion and the younger son, and this situation would have received one third of his father’s inheritance, which two thirds then would go to the older son. So it gives him a third of all that was owed, or all that belonged to. The father gives it to the younger son. But then it says that not many days later this younger son gathered all that he had and took a journey into a far country and there he squandered his property in reckless living. Now, why does he go to a far away country? Well, what do you do when you want to do something that you know you shouldn’t do. You go away from people who know you people who might tell you that what you’re about to do is wrong and you hide so that you can get away with it so that you could indulge your sinful heart. That’s what he’s doing. He understood that if he were to sell any of his family’s holdings, that would have been given to him that that was against old testament law, that he wasn’t permitted to do that. That’s what the whole story, the book of ruth is about dealing with property in exchange of property. He goes to a far away country so he can get away with it right in that human nature. Isn’t that what we do? How many times have we seen the cookie crumbs leading to a corner or closet? And some kid has taken a cookie without asking before dinner and it’s eating in secret why he knows it’s wrong. So the younger son knows he’s not supposed to get rid of his family’s property, Goes to a far away country. No one who might possibly be able to identify him with his family and call him out on the wrong that he is about to engage in and to live and indulge all of the sin that he desired to indulge in this younger son has a love for the world. He in his selfish and gratitude. He is blind to the vast ocean of his father’s love for him. He cannot even see it. He has offended his father by demanding his inheritance before his father’s death. His father has given it to him. His father has been good to him, his entire existence. He cannot see it. He doesn’t have the gratitude to give thanks to his father for all that his father has done for him. And so he goes and he squanders it because he loves this world. He wanted the pleasure of this world. He wanted to be accepted by this world. He believed that this world would satisfy the deepest longings of his soul. But as the story goes on, the money didn’t last. The pleasure didn’t fulfill like it, promised circumstances of life begin to pile up and to overcome him to the point to where he goes and hires himself out to a pig farmer. He’s so hungry that he’s eating the pods that are to be given to the pigs. Again, this example, this illustration by jesus is so offensive to a jew, pigs are unclean to work in that industry meant to be unclean to eat what pigs would eat. This man had fallen so far from his father’s graces and to be in that situation, when you hear me use the term unclean to a jew, that meant he could not step foot into God’s temple, He could not come and be among the congregation of God’s people because his lifestyle had rendered him unclean, he was outside of the fold Continentally, He’s dead to God. So in verse 17, the wayward son says he came to himself, wow! He came to himself. I love what jesus is getting at here. He was so entrenched in his rebellion and love for the world that he lost himself. He lost sight of where he had come from, who his father was. He lost sight of what was right and what was wrong. He lost his mind, that’s what it looked like, right? Not intentionally insane. But he’s at a place where he is not looking like the same human being that others understood him to be. And it says he came to himself, his mind change. That is code for repentance, wow, I am messed up. I have lacked gratitude towards my father, towards the goodness of my father. And when I think about the days of living in my father’s house, even his servants are well compensated, well fed and they are joyful. If I could just be in their place, I would be better off. And so he comes to himself, he begins to rehearse as it were a prayer of repentance, Verse 18, it says he he says, I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you and in the original greek that last phrase, father, I have sinned against heaven and before you could actually be translated to say, my sins are so many. They reach all the way up to heaven. His mind has changed. His heart has changed. He says, I’m no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me as one of your hired servants. And he arose and he came to his father, the forgiving father, the wayward son. And I’m going to forgiving father says. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him again, jesus, You’re telling the story wrongly. No dignified, wealthy individual would have endured that type of family Shane brought upon his name because of the ways of that younger son and then would have had the audacity to run in his dignified state to greet him a long way off. What are you getting at, jesus? It’s getting at the fact that God is more willing to receive a repentant sinner than we are even admitting, acknowledging that we’re sinners. The father has been watching the father has been waiting for this moment when his son’s eyes would open to the love of the father and he saw it. He remembered it in the context of a hired worker, hired workers, a joyful, well fed, well compensated in my father’s house. Some of you think to have a great influence for jesus. You need a massive platform. You think you need to be, you know, have a great following, but it was a hired worker full of joy at working in the father’s house that turned a wayward son back to the father, your faithfulness to God, your ability to have contentment in christ right where you are, have an amazing impact on the people around you, but back to his father, dignitaries didn’t do this, they didn’t run like that and and then to embrace a guy who probably looked and smelled like he had worked with pigs. He embraces him, kisses him, I want him to know he loves him. The sun isn’t even given an ability to express his prayer of repentance, that he’s been practicing all the way there and the fathers already embracing him. It’d be like that sometimes, you know, it’d be like that sometime. I know that’s not grammatically correct, but you’ve been a place where you realize you’re in sin, that kind of sin. That makes it hard for you to hold your head up or lift your head up or to open your lips and utter a prayer. And in that moment when you you finally decide, I got to confess this to God, I’ve got to go to him and immediately just a sense of peace. God reminding you, bringing to memory gospel truth that jesus paid for that sin are you are now a son in his kingdom and how just disarmed all of the condemnation. That’s why we can say therefore now there’s no combination for those who are in christ jesus, I’m telling you it be that way sometime. So the father embraces him, the sun praise his prayer. He says Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Now, before we moved too quickly to correct the sun here, let’s stay here for a moment because this is true. He had dishonored. The father’s name is squandered. Whoa of his possessions that the father had given him. He was not a beaming and shining, shiny example of righteousness and goodness. He was far from that. But you know who else was like that? The same tax collectors and sinners who are in this crowd that the Pharisees don’t even want to be near. They were like that. Possibly some of us felt like that been there. You know what it’s like. Maybe even now some of you are in that place when you look at your sin and you consider the holiness of God and the goodness of God, just don’t feel worthy. I think it’s important to not just move on too quickly there to correct the sun, but to do what jesus did in telling this story, allow the father to work through the holy spirit to bring the correction because that’s the lasting correction. We can’t change that God can know and God will because he’s so willing to embrace repentant sinners. And so the father said to his servants, bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. The best robe, put it on in, jesus, you’re telling the story wrong, this man does not deserve that. The best robe was reserved for the distinguished and honored guest. You know if, let’s say some celebrity was coming to your house to watch the super bowl later today, right? You you want you you want to preserve like this comfortable chair, you’d want the proper setting, you want your friends to know that he was coming and then you would want them to know that he is the distinguished guest in your home, right? Not a guy who’s been working with pigs, living like a pig. And yeah, the grace of God, the goodness of God, the love of the father. We just can’t comprehend that martin Luther said, you know the first line of the Lord’s prayer, our father in heaven, he says if I understood that prayer would change my life if I could just understand it, I don’t think we understand it. I mean we understand the love of God, the Pharisees. The religious leaders clearly didn’t understand it. That’s why jesus is telling the story in this way to try to help them to understand it. This is an incredible display of love and forgiveness. I’m gonna be honest with you. People have offended me for far less than what his son has done to his father and it’s been hard to forgive them. Can you relate to that some of you are holding onto unforgiveness right now for things far less than this. It brings out the best robe he puts a ring on his hand. This is more than just some bling bling kids is more than just that, right? There’s some bling to it. But this ring signified authority. He was being charged with making decisions on behalf of the father. So yeah, it was some bling, but it was some legit authority to to put shoes on his feet. Another luxury. The father is removing all condemnation. The father is removing all sense of unworthiness. The father is restoring, receiving an unworthy sinner and he’s pouring out all of his love upon him with these small tokens and expressions of that love. If you and I could see it, you and I could understand it. That this is what God has for us, this is what he has for us. In christ it goes on and it says that the father commanded that the fattened calf be brought. They were to kill it. They were to eat and celebrate, you know, people didn’t eat meat every day. I need meat every day. My wife has learned to love me in spite of the fact that I need meat every day. But people would take a calf and they would fatten it up and they would save it for a special occasion. And so this calf had been being prepared for special occasion. And the father, seeing the center return says, we must rejoice, this is it. This is the occasion for the son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found. And it says they began to celebrate. That was a party. I love it, jesus, I love it. He tells his stories and it’s a picture of a heavenly reality. How many times does he speak of banquets and feast in the kingdom of God? Yeah, have a glorious hope. We have a glorious hope. So this is the wayward son returning to the forgiving father and now enter entering the scene is the Prideful brother Verse 25 says. Now his older brother was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing and he called one of the servants and asked what these things mean. He has what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back, safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him. But he answered, his father, look these many years, I have served you and I never disobeyed your command yet. You never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad for this. Your brother was dead and he’s alive. He was lost and is found the prideful brother. He’s blind to the vast ocean of God’s love. He’s unable to accept and to receive the fact that God is so willing to receive repentant sinners and in the process, he’s unable to see his own sinful pride and says that he was in the field and he drew near to the house, but he wouldn’t go in himself and inquire and find out what was going on. He would much rather call to one of the servants tell me what’s going on cause I don’t really want to go in there. That in and of itself is an indication that he had a problem with the father. Just didn’t understand. The father probably didn’t understand the goodness of the father. The love of the father was something he certainly did not understand. But the real hero of this story is the father. He’s waiting for the wayward son to return. And now he leaves a party. A party. That is an expression of his joy of the returning of this wayward son. He leaves that party to go and try to win a prideful and obstinate son who won’t come in, who won’t come in. He goes out to him when I first began to see what jesus was saying there. It humbled me? Because clearly the prideful son is an analogy for the Pharisees and religious leaders. A man who are jealous of jesus, men who have slandered jesus, men who have nothing but bad things to say about jesus men who would go on and plan the arrest and murder of jesus. And Jesus represents the father in this story. And what does the father do to those very men? He goes out to them and invites them to come in to the party, the same man that he knows all these things about. He knows that they are doing these very things. He knows this because he is not only fully human, but he is fully God. And he is pleading with these Pharisees, come and celebrate what God is doing. He extends an invite to them knowing their sinful hearts. You ever met someone that you thought, man, I would never invite them to church? Of course, I don’t expect you to say that out loud, but in your heart, you heard me right? You heard me right? God is more willing to receive a repentant center then you and I could ever imagine there’s just something about his divine nature. It says that God is love is so much deeper, far more wider reaching than we could ever imagine. So Jesus is demonstrating the heart of the father and he’s appealing to the Pharisees and the Pharisees are clueless. They are blind to the love of God, which ultimately reveals that they’re not really Children of God until they repent. Do you understand that? Because the Children love what the father loved. One of the interesting things and cool things about attending a husker football game. They got this new thing now, what they call it, like Simba cam or something like that, you know, Simba the little Lion Lion King. And it’s all these parents holding up their Children that they’ve brought to the husker game, football game. Little kids, little kids who can’t tell you what um you know what, what plays are being run on the field, Who can’t tell you, you know, the score of the game, don’t know what’s happening on the field, but are being shaped by what their parents love and who will one day grow up and be what lovers of husker football kids just love what the parents love when they see their parents taking joy in something, when they see something having an impact on them, emotionally impacting them, whether good or bad they sit, kids are impacted by, that reminds me of, you know, my dad’s Jamaican and like growing up around my dad, guess what I love Jamaican culture and now my kids have a love and an affinity for Jamaican culture and the younger kids, even though not all of them enjoy Jamaican food. They will try it and they might respond to dad, I’m not that Jamaican, but but they’re willing to try because they see the love and the joy that that has about it. That’s why it’s so important for your dad’s to be in church and to bring your kids with you and to open your bibles at home and to read the word and to show that you have this love for God, he’s more important to you than anything else. Henry Skakel, he’s a old, dead christian saint, but a wise one, he said this, he said. But if God is the object of our love, we should share in his infinite happiness without contamination or the possibility of it being diminished, we should constantly rejoice and beholding the glory of God and receive comfort and pleasure from all the praises with which men and angels extol him? It should delight us beyond all expression to consider that the one who is beloved in our own souls is infinitely happy. Code word. Get into that party and celebrate the joy and the happiness of the father. That’s what I saw last night with these dads and their daughters dancing on the dance floor here, no rhythm in the room at all. Dads who you couldn’t pay in any other circumstance to do that. But man, were they joyful, were they passionate and it just added more and more joy and celebration to the room because their daughters were happy and the daughters saw that their dads were happy to be there. No dad made their daughter feel like it was a chore to be there. It was amazing and the dad is happy that his wayward son has come home and his prideful brother, he can’t participate in the happiness of his father. Likewise, the Pharisees can’t. They are struggling. They have a hard time participating in the love of the father and seeing how God was accomplishing his plan of redemption through jesus drawing back to himself all of these wayward sons and daughters, they couldn’t celebrate that. They couldn’t celebrate it. They bought into a way of thinking that led them to value separation from centers in a way in which was more condemning and judgmental. What do I mean by that? So for the Pharisees, if someone was lost in that particular situation, there was no way back and you needed to stay separate from them as a christian, we are called to come out of the world, but coming out of the world doesn’t mean that we just hit a button and say beam me up scotty, you know like I don’t need to be around people anymore. It means that the values of the world no longer drive our lives. The things that are most important to this world are no longer the things that are at the top of our list of priorities. But christ is obedience to him, walking faithfully with him and in him and with his people. The Pharisees couldn’t see that. I mean jesus was not condoning the sin of the tax collectors and sinners of his day. He was not cheering them on on the path to destruction in hell. He was calling him back to the father because God is more willing to receive a repentant senator. Then we are at acknowledging our own sin. So in closing I want to leave you with this with these questions to ponder are you like the wayward son? I mean I get it. You may be here this morning, but in your heart you are far from the father. You have a love for this world. You’re blinded by his love for you until you lock the gratitude and the devotion to him. That follower of jesus is expected to give because your heart has wandered far from him. So do you need to come home? Are you one that needs to come home this morning? See man, I know I’m here, but mostly it’s because I’m obliging people. I’m smiling kind of getting along. But I know in my heart of Hearts man, if I’m honest, I’m in sin, I love my sin and I don’t know a way out your life the younger son and it’s time for you to come home others of you. You have a faith in christ where you struggle in relationship in community with others. I think you need to hear that it’s time for you to join the celebration. You need to learn how to love people who are at different places in their walk with christ than you are or maybe a bit quirky and weird, but you need to learn how to join in on the celebration, what God is doing and how to draw more of that out of people. I’d encourage the good that God is doing in people’s lives, learning the grace and the wisdom of speaking the truth and love and building others up, spurring them on to do good works for christ. Lastly, we all need to consider what needs to change in our lives. That would help us to be in a position like the father to be on the lookout. For those who need to come home have the ability and the capacity to care about those who aren’t in the room. What needs to change? Let’s go back to the love of the father, a set of hearts and our minds on that. Let’s stay in there and allow that to be the driving force. Amen. I mean, let me pray for us that close this out father. We sang a song this morning declaring that your mercy is more for some. That’s too good to be true for others. They can’t comprehend the value of such a declaration. But Lord all of us desperately need you to make this clear to make it obvious, but there’s far more to you and to your love for us and to your love for your, your people, then we have understood. so father, if that means some in this room this morning hearing the call to come home Lord, I pray that that phrase, we’ll just ring out over and over again in their soul, come home. And if it’s slower to love to love to to learn how to love to have an enduring love towards others in your family. God I pray that love Love would just continue to echo and echo and echo in our souls love the Lord most importantly and pray that as we wrestle with these things as we consider these things, the reality of jesus christ, suffering on that cross for our sin would come into higher definition for us. It would be the foundation of our love and our doing in this life. God we ask that you would solidify all of this in christ’s name. Amen.

God’s Heart

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:36:52 +0000

Thank you bro. Thank you, john, good morning, welcome. My name is Mike, one of the pastors on staff here at sewer church. It’s an honor to be with you this morning and I’m excited to look at this passage. I just disclaimer, I spent my childhood with sheep, my dad had market lambs at the Adams County fair, we would show market lambs sheep in colorado and and I spent many summers of a bad teenage attitude grumbling and complaining about sheep and what they were doing. And the thing about me is I was this size in high school and you have to get like really low to show a sheep. So they flex their back, it’s like a bodybuilding contest for sheep. And and I always lose to these, this little batik blonde girl would beat me every single year. Um and so I, this is sheep, my childhood, there’s a lot of memories in this passage for me. And so it’s good to, it’s good to spend time look at this passage. And if you look with me at parables, there’s a parable, the lost sheep and then the parable, the lost coin. And then next week dan will button up this three parable story set, jesus is rolling out with the parable of the lost son. So I get the honor of looking at the first two parables, the lost sheep and the lost coin. And so how do you read parables? How do you get handles of what’s up of a parable, jesus parables and what do you do with them? And so the parable is supposed to have one short 10.1 short point And so the short point from today’s passage is that I’m looking at that. I hope you can grab onto and walk away with is you should be able to see the heart of God towards sinners. The heart of God towards centers and these two parables. And so if you bow your heads, let’s let’s pray. And I’m gonna ask for some help to do this. Well Lord, I thank you for luke 15 verse one. I thank you for all of these verses. We gotta look at the word of God is powerful and effective. It’s alive and it can change our lives. Lord, I ask that you just help the word of God to fall in hearts that are soft and tender that want to hear from you. I ask that you just really instruct us, convict us, challenge us and change us. Lord, I ask that the Holy spirit would genuinely change our hearts and our disposition. As we look at these passages as you see where we were, what is happening in the all the characters in this. In these scenes, we look at Lord and we hear the story at the heart of God would ring loud and clear through this word into our eyes and we would see that and make that part of our lives. I pray you just really just imprint our souls as a congregation with these parables Lord, we love you and commit this time to you in jesus name. Amen. Okay look at me at luke 15 verse one page 5 10. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him and the fair season describes grumbled saying this man receives sinners and eats with them, this man received sinners and eats with them. So if you remember last week we looked at some of the most hardest statements, jesus said some of the hardest words and hardest soundbites, jesus dropped about the cost of discipleship. I have to deny your own life, have to give everything you have have to you know, expect persecution from even your close family relationships. He laid an incredibly high standard of discipleship and the cause and effect of those hard words created a bunch of soft hearted centers who were sitting and gathering and spending time with jesus. So why were the tax collectors and sinners drawn to jesus? You should think that way. He says mean things to them, he calls them out on their stuff. He’s he’s got a very hard stance on sin and their famous sinners. The notorious sinners of their cities and they were drawn to jesus just had a morality that was more demanding than the religious leaders of the day. He had a higher standard for morality of what it meant to be following God and right in God’s eyes and what God valued than the religious leaders of his day, there’s that preaching saying hard words make soft hearts, but soft words make hard hearts, Jesus had plenty of hard words and he had a high standard. He called his people too. But the people couldn’t. They heard he was there and they came running. Jesus drew sinners. If you think even back to the same hard words to sin, Jesus’s sermon on the mount, his public address, his first grand opening massive sermon that you hear soundbites through throughout the rest of the gospels. Matthew 56 and seven. He takes the more a lot that the religious leaders were teaching about public sin and he made it even more higher, unreachable and made it the private sin, the private sin of lust, the private sin of coveting the private set of anger. And he said the end of that sermon, the sermon on the mountain, You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, but we all know no one’s perfect. Jesus had incredibly high standard when it came to sin. And he was very tough on sin. And the biggest wildest centers of the city would flock to him. Just didn’t draw people to him because he was soft on sin. And he had soft squishy sermons. He drew people to him because he was hard on sin and called them out. And they loved, they felt loved by him, Jesus has a purpose statement in Luke 1910, he said the son of man came to seek and save the lost and this is evident all throughout the gospels, Jesus seeking and Jesus seeing these people saved those who were once lost. Verse three. So he told them this parable. What man among you, having 100 sheep if he had lost one, does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing and when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them, rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost. And if you hear that and you hear my story about some childhood memories and you’re like, what are we talking about sheep? For I haven’t seen a sheep in years, I haven’t touched a sheep since I was a kid at a, at a petting zoo and it almost bit my finger and I got scared. I mean sheep, what’s with these christians, sheep could have picked a better animal. We’re talking about sheep. We don’t see sheep in Nebraska. But you have to realize that this this, this context of this historical, you know, lens that these people are hearing these, this parable through, it was very common that shepherds would have communal shepherding. So they hang out and talk like we see when, when the angel visits the shepherds, they would be together if all their little flocks and the amount of pasture land that was gray Zobel was very limited and like it is today, like it is back in this day and they would have multiple flocks with multiple shepherds in this area. And if one of them lost a sheep, he would say to the other shepherds, hey, watch my, watch my, watch my sheep, I’m gonna go find that stray. And at the end of the day, the other shepherds would bring all the flocks to where they need to be kept at night and the city would hear mike’s out looking for that sheep again. I wonder if it’s that, that your link, I wonder if it’s Betty that, that you lamb got lost. We’ll see. And here comes Mike late in the evening carrying his bed and we’re like, well, well done shepherd, you didn’t lose that sheep, Good job, do your job. This is a normal celebratory part of life in Israel at that day. Even today, a friend told me from first Service, he remembers doing a tour of Israel and he looks over, he sees a random shepherd chasing a random sheep that’s running away. Even today, men and women. So there’s this cultural lens that this was common for them, The seeking, the finding and the celebrating of that which was lost. But who is jesus speaking to, jesus target audience of who he is speaking to? Is it the, is it the fair, is it the Pharisees it describes. Is it the famous centers, is it the tax collectors? Who is his target audience? Is it us today in the year 2023 jesus target audience. The scandal of this parable of who he’s speaking to, is he speaking to the religious people, the scribes and the Pharisees? So Jesus is self declared good shepherd and john 10 14, the good shepherd and the scandal here in this parable is that the scribes and the Pharisees were considered the under shepherds of the shepherd God. These men had a total apathy and a lack of care for the sheep of Israel. If you contrast that with Jesus who cared too much. These men cared too little. There’s a famous saying among the day of historians will tell you that the Pharisees said there’s great rejoicing in heaven when one sinner is obliterated, obliterated. There’s this, there’s this hatred towards famous sinners in the city, they would not teach them the word of God describes, will not teach them with the word the law says the Pharisees, the culture hated them and ostracized them. The Pharisees will not eat with people who are famous sinners. The only with good people, jewish people, not people who fell out of the jewish faith. They, if you are a notorious center, a tax collector, you wouldn’t, your witness in court was considered invalid? Your canceled by your culture, your canceled by the religious leaders of your cultures religion and they had nothing to do with you. They talked to me about you and they wouldn’t spend time with you. A new contrast that with jesus, who cared too much for these sinners, these tax collectors who spent his time with notorious sinners. But the fact the scandal is, these shepherds of the scribes in the fair seas were failing at their job. I don’t know if you get a job reviews, I get job reviews and if you got this scathing job review that God gave the Israel the leaders of Israel in in Ezekiel 30 for you would be worried. Ezekiel 34. It is on page 4 21 in your house bible And when I was writing it, reading it this morning, I underlined all of it so that no verses would feel left out. I underlined all of it. But Ezekiel 34 is a scathing reproach of God to the shepherds of Israel at that time. It is one of the most brutalist passages to read. If you’re a pastor and as we read it together, you’ll be like dang, that’s not fun. Let’s read it together. Ezekiel 34 picking up in verse one, the word of the Lord came to me, son of man prophesy against the shepherds of Israel prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds. Thus says the Lord God, oh, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves should not shepherds feed the sheep, you eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool. You slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep the wick. You have not strengthened the sick, you have not healed the injured, you have not bound up the strayed, you have not brought brought back the Lost. You have not sought, and with with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beast. My sheep were scattered. They wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them, verse Seven. Therefore you shepherds hear the Word of the Lord as I live, declares the Lord surely, because my sheep have become a prey and my become a prey. And my sheep have become food for all the wild beast since there was no shepherd. And because my shepherds were not searching for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep. Therefore you shepherds hear the word The Lord. Thus says The Lord God behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep. I will require my sheep at their hands and put a stop to their feeding the sheep no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths that they may not be food for them, verse 11 for thus, says the Lord God behold I, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out and my shepherds seeking out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered. So I will seek out my sheep and I will rescue them from the places they have been scattered on on the day of the dark of clouds and thick darkness, and I’ll bring them out of the places the peoples and gather them from the countries will and will bring them into their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the ravines, and then in all the inhabited places of the country, I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. They shall lie down in good grazing land and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel, I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will may Make them lie down, declares the Lord God, I will seek the lost. I will bring back the straight, I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong, I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. If you look at verse 22, I will rescue my flock. They shall no longer be pray and I will judge between sheep and sheep, and I will let and I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David and he shall feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd and I, the Lord will be their God and my servant. David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord. I have spoken if you were a jewish leader in the day of Ezekiel when that was said, you would take that very poorly. You would not appreciate the words of the prophet Ezekiel. If you are a jewish leader and you hear Jesus calling himself the good shepherd and hearing him using this parable, it would be a scandal. He is calling you out on your hypocrisy, your hatred and your apathy and your general discontent for people who are far from God. So what kind of sinners are in this parable? What kind of sinners are we looking at? Well we have sinners and sinners, sinners and so we’re gonna start with sinners. Sinners. It’s funny, Jesus knows all and and he knows that all have sinned and and to me it seems funny that if you’re a little sinner or a big synergies isn’t really concerned about being with you like in this global pandemic of sin, everyone’s contagious, everyone’s caught sin. And jesus not worried to worry about sin. He’s walking and he’s got the antibodies of sin in his blood and he’s not worried about being a uh center that has a mask or center that has vaccinated or a sinner who’s not mask and not vaccinated, jesus not concerned because he sees everyone as sinners and he’s there to fix the biggest problem. They have their sin problems. But the first group, the sinners, their their thoughts and their attitudes are far from God and they heard about this christ who has a strong standard against their sin, their morality and they want to spend time with him and their famous sinners. They’re the kind of people that everyone in the city knows their dirt. Everyone in the city knows their story, Everyone the city knows what got them here and everyone, the city is surprised that jesus, a religious man is spending time with these sinners. This this famous prophet, this rabbi, this guy who knows so much about God, can’t read the book in front of him that this is a famous center sitting across from him having a meal. So you have sinners at this parable. We also have tax collectors which are career sinners, they’re considered traitors to their jewish culture. They’re working for the occupied occupied country of wrong that’s oppressing them. They are taxing, extraordinarily taxing their coworkers. Kind of like Black Hills. Energy is doing some things to us right now. It’s your utility bill and you’re like what the heck! That’s, it’s amazing what is happening in our, in our city. It’s amazing what’s happening in these cities by these career centers, these tax collectors and they had an immoral lifestyle that went along with their occupation. They had to work with Rome roman occupying forces. And I’m assuming the win in Rome phrase came from tax collectors when in Rome, go to or jesus my boss when in Rome, get drunk at the temple with my boss. I mean the romans were notorious centers and they work for them and they spent time with them on and off the clock and they were sell outs for their local jewish people, oppressing them, taking their lands, their their crops, their homes, they were they were taking advantage of their people and they were barred from giving alms at the jewish temple. They weren’t allowed to come to church and give money. These jewish people, their their testimony in court was invalid. Their hated at every place they turned except for when they turned to jesus. And the next in this parable we have the scribes and the Pharisees, and these are career religious people. And they were not associated of sinners. They didn’t teach sinners the law, they were taught not to care about godless sinners. And they were mad that jesus associated and cared for and taught godless sinners. So in this purple, we have all kinds of sinners, proud and humble sinners and private and public centers. We have it all. And why are the Pharisees and the scribes offended by jesus. Well their denial denial sinners, the people that had an inflated view of self and their goodness and a deflated view of God and his righteousness. Next, Jesus jumps into a second. Parable verse eight We read or what woman having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Biblical scholars connect the dots for us that these coins were just 10 days wages, it’s two weeks of income and she lost a day’s wage. It wasn’t just that they said these 10 coins probably represented a marriage dowry, she needed to have these 10 coins to get married. This is a life altering 10 coins that would change her status in her country and her social status and her financial security. This was a life altering coin that she lost. And there’s some similarities in these two past. These two parables, a lost sheep. The lost coin. One thing is just the structures are saying both have, there’s a lost nous, there’s a searching, there’s a finding and there’s a great rejoicing, there’s also another similarity about both these that both these in the high level of the economy of the day. We’re not very pricey objects. One day’s wage and one sheep were not that high end thing wasn’t like they lost their Tesla. They didn’t lose anything fancy here. This is like that. It’s unfortunate. You’ll live with it. Move on. It’s not like this is earth shaking wealth exchanging hands that is lost. But the difference between these two parables A lost sheep. The lost coin parables a sheep is a pitiful, helpless animal. Its instincts are virtually useless and it’s got pathetic defenses. You’ve never seen a sheep do a good job of defending itself against a predator. Both had great value to the people that were searching for them. The man spent his time pursuing his sheep. The woman spend her time practically pursuing a good thing. I’m gonna skip the gender joke because none of us laughed at the first service about men and women’s differences and what we lose and stuff. They’re lost sheep. Pastors jokes don’t always work, guys, I’m sorry, lost sheep. The lost sheep wandered away, lame struck weak and it wandered away. The coin lost touch with the woman unintentionally got lost. But let’s let’s notice the last part of these. This passage in this parable. The rejoicing parts verse seven is the first rejoicing part in the first parable. Just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who need no repentance. That is flying in the face of the opposite of that, that the jewish teachers were teaching at that day about annihilating Centers and 99 angels rejoicing and that is not an accident, that is intentional flying in the face contrasting the heart of God vs the heart of these people. And then verses nine and 10 and when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and saying rejoice with me for I found the coin that I had lost. Just so I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents this whole rejoicing doesn’t sound like only people that repents need to rejoice all need to repent and rejoice the sinners. The scribes the Pharisees, the tax collectors all need to repent. All have sent all have gone astray. Like we looked at in Isaiah 53 back on christmas day, both parables have an immense amount of joy found in them. If we want to have the hearts of God towards God’s heart, when he sees humanity, when he sees people, he sees the world and he sees people when we have a heart for God, When we want to have the same heart that God has, we should have the same joy. The same excitement that new faith, new converts bring into a community group, bring into a church, when people in your community group are trying to share their faith and people become saved and they’re making mistakes, saying things, christians don’t say when their testimony includes swear words, it’s exciting for me to hear people share their faith And if it’s a person sharing their testament for the first time and you’re like, yeah, that’s great. Maybe a few less customers, but that was great brother, you know, like kids say the darndest things, Baby christians say the darndest things and they’re cute. Hold them, kiss those little baby christian cheeks, take photos with them, give them space and pack them full of food of God’s word. And don’t be mad at christians, baby christians, people new to church new to Christianity that make mistakes. If we have a heart for God for the lost for the lost sheep, the lost coin, we should realize the reality that there are people that come to our church that have never heard that community devotion before. They’ve never sang that song before. They’ve never heard that prayer before. They’ve never looked at that passage before in luke or x Ezekiel, they’ve never done that before. That’s why we try to give some problems to help them navigate through this book. That’s a big book. It should remind you of where you were when God first called you and just celebrate the fact that there’s new converts, baby christians, pre christians coming to your community group coming to this church. And that’s a good thing, people that hear the word of jesus, they are drawn to it. It’s a bigger scandal for us to have a church with no baby christians in it than it is for a church that has baby christians coming and doing what baby christians do. If you have the heart of God for the people around you, you should rejoice greatly when you see people and these two parables from the Lost are being found, you should rejoice greatly because jesus came to seek and save the lost. Your heart is the same as your saviors to seek and save the lost. The last nine months. I was reflecting on this with some of our pastors about just what is happening in our culture of evangelism. It seems like our world, the world is so bad at friendship. It is shocking how bad friendship is in this world. People can have a horrible thing happen in their life. They post something online. And if I’m a friend that’s lost, supporting a lost friend ought to do is send in a sad face of teary face emoji, I’m done. That’s it. People in our world are such poor friends because of technology. They think they saw a picture, sent a quick little text message. Sorry, hugs and kisses sad face emoji, that makes them a good friend. Our world is is aware of the loneliness and the depravity of what’s happening on the country around the world. Our world is aware and they’re looking for answers. Our world is struggling and they’re looking for answers, they’re lost sheep and they know it, they’re lost coins and they know it and they intentionally walked away and they intentionally walked away. They walked away because they’re wounded and a predator got ahold of them or they just got distracted and people moved on and life moved on and they are lost and they’re looking for help. I’m amazed if just some analogies, if the evangelism isn’t your thing, you don’t like swimming in the waters of evangelism because it’s too cold and people are too harsh and mean, the pool got warm the last nine months. It feels like a jacuzzi in my opinion, sharing with people and I’m not, I am not an evangelist. Like you’re an evangelist. I am not, I have a spiritual gift assessment Many of you guys took and it wasn’t high on that either. But I’ve been jumping into the water and it’s warm. It’s like if you play basketball and the rims 10 ft high, 10 ft high and someone lowered it at the Y. M. C. A. To that six ft thing. And like I am the man. You know, that’s what if Angela’s like right now people texting calling, you know, befriending people saying, let’s go grab coffee. No one does that. We had a, we had a family over for a house for dinner and it wasn’t that great and my opinions are, you know, and they’re like, that was the best meal I’ve had in like years. That was amazing. Men and women. It is amazing how low the bar is for friendship and just relationships in our culture. The waters are warm. The hoop is lowered. If you’re not a baller, get on the court. This is the time. This is our time christians because there’s lost sheep and lost coins and no one’s looking for them, no one’s pursuing them. If you have the heart of God, the sea can save the loss like This passage talks about, come on church, this is our time. The point of this passage is God’s heart towards us. God’s heart towards us and we should see that heart and get excited about that heart. I my father is a pastor and he’s preached sermons growing up and he multiple times. He’s used this story, the hound of Heaven. This poem from Francis Thompson, talking about the Holy Spirit pursuing us, the hound of Heaven. I like to read it to you. It says this. I fled him down the nights and down the days I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinth of ways of my own mind and in the midst of tears I hid from him and under running laughter up vista hopes I sped and shot, precipitated a down, titanic gloom of charmed fears from those strong feet that followed followed after ah found ist blind ist weakest I am. He whom thou sickest! The Holy Spirit is still pursuing people today. And christians that are following and walking humbly with the Holy Spirit are joining him in that pursuit. Today, God’s heart towards us is to seek and save the lost. We see that same heart in psalms 1 39 verses eight through 10. We see a seeking suffering savior. If I ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed and she’ll you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell on the uttermost parts of the sea. Even there, your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me. God’s heart is to seek and save the lost and in that seeking and saving, there’s a suffering that follows. I understand that I know that jesus carried the cross of calvary so that he’s able to carry you and I the lost sheep. But the heart of God is you and he’s coming for you, we see the heart of God to reach the nations all throughout the bible. The heart of God to reach the nations later in Ezekiel 36 and that same vein, you see that about him, gathering the lost sheep and all over the nations of the world. And it’s a beautiful passage. I put a new spirit in a new work in the people’s lives. I I love the heart for the nation that God is helping grow in our church here today. If you if you look at these three prompt visuals, one is from the Joshua project. It looks at the amount of money and man hours that are being sent on the mission field America is the largest mission agency on the planet America, the second largest one is South Korea, the second largest country that’s sending money and people and the amount of green countries are fairly saturated with a significant church christian presence over North America. South America, Southern africa, Australia. You get what you see. The green on the map is from the Joshua project. You can download the Joshua project app or the website. This is where 99% of the money and missionaries are going is green and yellowish countries. Yellow is just beginning new works and red is unreached, unengaged people groups. I don’t know who you hang out with and Lincoln this week. But if you say to your friends and people you see this week, hey, you know anything about jesus Christianity, Your friends aren’t gonna look at you like who’s jesus? I haven’t met him. You know, Christianity, they have no idea what I’m saying. So red countries, they have no clue, jesus and Christianity is the statistical disproportionate amount of money and man hours, men and women hours that are being sent overseas as missionaries heart to seek and save the loss. If you go to the next slide here, this is the United States in our population and the amount of saturation we have of who prescribes to be christians. Obviously we’re not checking out of trying to reach locally here. We sent out sam a couple of weeks ago, we’re gonna keep reaching out effort in Nebraska, that’s not changing. We’re not checking out, we’re not spiking the Gospel ball and saying we’ve arrived, there’s plenty of work to do in our backyard, but if you contrast the United States, which is more saturated with, with the, the next slide here, this is Thailand, this is where I think seven people are going in our church for a 10 day mission trip in Thailand how they’re the population and like 1% of the country adheres to be christians, which is amazing who is jesus, They never heard of him before. What is Christianity? They have no idea there is a disproportionate amount of money and man hours that are spent overseas and we want to be strategic as a church and invest in the four corners of the outreach all over the globe. I think it’s not a coincidence that there’s a 3.5 story cross in front of our church. This is a massive cross. None of us bought and paid for, installed the church before us that gifted us this building. Someone in that church had the heart to buy and vision and pay for that cross. That is the tallest structure in the neighborhood and the four corner crossing is designed so that the gospel go to the four corners of the world, that is the heart of jesus to seek and save the lost the heart of God is for the lost nous that they would know him, we’re gonna try to lean into that more as a church, Isaiah 53 all have all of us like sheep have gone astray, we have all turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. If you’re here listening as we conclude, there’s different camps you can be in, you might be here saying like you know like I am that stray sheep, I am that lost coin christians in this church are pursuing me and I think the holy spirit God guys pursuing me and I’m figuring things out and that’s good, that’s okay, we want to celebrate that process of where you are, we have some great resources out there, there’s a great are you born again, resource out there, we can give you that’s been very helpful for people to kind of understand vocab and language and definition of what’s happening. It is a great tool out there. We have we have people here that love to buy a cup of coffee if you can talk and hear your story and continue to have conversations with you many are coming to christ and that’s encouraging but today is the day of salvation count the cost way the cost, but commit christ committed to you. If you are a teenage christian, you’re not an old O. G christian, but you’re not a baby pre christian, you’re you’re an adolescent teenage christian, I challenge you to have the same heart that God had for the loss when you see and hear lost nous in your community groups, in your church rejoice like those bridesmaids with the lost coin rejoice. Like the community of people rejoice when the shepherd brought back that lost sheep be rejoicing when baby christians act like babies and say baby things, rejoice with them. There’s a great spiritual multiplication class that we offered last summer in august uh Dallas led it for us. It we’re gonna offer it again March april and may, I think I’ve done like niners so tan ish evangelism courses to like learn how to share your faith in effective ways and this class has had the longest standing implications in my life. I am texting Dallas a couple of times a week, like sharing the, sharing my testimony as the kids piano teacher today, oops shared with one of my neighbors again today, oops, you know, like it’s actually happening and I’m not like making myself do it, I forgot all about the class, but the principles of the bible and what we learned in the Book of acts as we spent those 10 weeks looking at it have impacted my personal life and when I open my mouth and share people, I’m not like conjuring up courage to say things the word of God, understood rightly apply in your life rightly gives you the same heart of God for lost Nous. If you want to jump in that class, we can sign you up, just let us know we’re bugging you to sign up for those classes. Church doesn’t have to be your top gift to sign up for that class. If you’re mature christian continue to chase strays like the the good shepherd, jesus, the heart of God is chasing strays, the heart of God is finding lost Nous. If you want to join us with praying like luke tend to saying to pray to the Lord the harvest to send out more workers, more laborers into the field, you can set your alarm on your phone and be praying that prayer with us with me also that God will give us more workers more labors to reach and disciple more people. If you want to get alarms on your phone from the bible Joshua project app or the International Mission Board, I have to pray for unreached, unengaged people groups, you’re welcome to do so. But in this parable in these passages, we see the heart of God on full display and it’s a heart that loves and values you, you are immensely more valuable than a lost sheep or a lost coin, God sent his son, his very best jesus christ to reach you, it is in the B team or the C team he sent the A team jesus christ to find you and lead you to him, God’s heart for people is you to seek and save the lost as we follow God and we know more about God, we’re going to develop that same heart as christians as we mature in our faith, a lack of evangelism in your church and apathy to the gospel outreach and sharing of new people is not a theology problem. It’s a it’s a theology and live ology problem. It’s a discipleship problem and I love the heart that is happening and growing in our church, the heart of God is becoming your heart church of seeking and saving the loss of fishing for men. And that’s the thing we should celebrate. We should always celebrate people become new and take first baby steps in their faith and we should pay that God helps us take baby steps of opening our mouth and serving and texting a friend, calling someone, sending someone a funny mean that you haven’t seen for a while think of all of your faith journey, you you met God and got saved and really that happens in a vacuum where you’re walking along and like what’s this? Oh, it’s a book, I’ll read it. I’m gonna pray to receive christ. I’ve heard that testimony once in my life, heard a lot of testimonies many of you, there’s an on again off again, start stop relationship you had with God and there was people that came along beside you in front of you and behind you, showing the way pushing away, chasing you down God’s heart is for the nation’s God’s heart is for you, your neighborhood. God’s heart is for the lost. That’s about our heads. And pray Lord thank you for today as my personal prayer has been in our, my, my prayer time. Lord, I pray. We would be a church, that whole has a burden for the lost this heart. For evangelism, Lord of opening our mouth and sharing our faith with people I think, for the people who have gotten saved things, for the people who are in the process of getting saved or to ask that you just do work in people’s lives, especially all of us here in this room. Help us to hear and understand and obey and have the same heart as you do, jesus. We pray this in jesus name. Amen.

Discipleship Will Cost You Everything

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 29 Jan 2023 15:53:07 +0000

Thank you Chloe, thank you for coming this morning. My name is mike when the pastors on staff here at church, it’s honor to be with you this morning. It’s my honor to be able to spend some time looking at the word of God with you. I’ve spent some time this last week studying and praying preparing some thoughts for this passage and I just really do think it seems like if you think of the messaging of Christianity to non christian people, they’ve they’ve heard about a Christianity and they heard about it and they tried something they’d like, I tried that when I was younger, I tried that and I didn’t get that job or I tried that Christianity and then my dog got sick or I tried that Christianity and then I found out there’s hypocrites in church. I found I tried out Christianity and they seem like they just won a lot of time. I tried Christianity, talked about money, I tried Christianity and it didn’t work for me. And as I studied the passage and think about this passage and think about all the different paradigms, what you’re thinking, what you’ve said as people, I really do think we have been sold to Christianity that doesn’t exist biblically, we take american Christianity and we really try to doctor it up and round off the rough edges and take Christianity and package it and distribute it at mass consumption political, politically correct Christianity, a Christianity that like looks good, feels good, plays well with others. There’s this Christianity that I think is an american Christianity, especially on Youtube that is not biblically sound. Um, and I find this passage jarring, sobering, humbling words of our savior, jesus talking about what to expect. So there’s no gotcha, no hooks, no, but wait, there’s more, there’s none of this. I tried this before he lets you know exactly what to expect as you go along your christian life. I find it very sobering and heavy to work through this passage individually. I like to pray and commit this time to the Lord and ask that he would multiply if you bow your heads with me. Let’s pray and ask God to show up in this passage here and encourage our hearts. Lord, thank you for thank you for laying out the cost of discipleship here in luke 14 I ask that you just really instruct us. God help us to have our expectations calibrated correctly on what you say, christ help our, our spines to stiffen our resolve to settle, help us to know exactly what it looks like following you and we wouldn’t be surprised or taken, you know, or distracted or just discouraged and feel defeated as these challenges come along. That christ highlights for his would be followers. I said should encourage us and instruct us and convict us and open our eyes. We can see wonderful things in your work. If you don’t show up God, it is not worthwhile showing up here. We just love you and commit this time. You just name, we pray amen, I love the doctor luke who wrote this book luke 14, page 5, 10 in your house bibles, I love dr luke’s uh technicality as he goes through this passage in verse 25. If you look at me now, great crowds accompanied him, jesus and he turned and said to them and he jumps into a scathing reproach. It seems a very brutal passage, some of the most challenging things that jesus said, we’re looking at this morning and you see this rhythm jews would preach and do miracles and more and more crowds would come and then jesus would raise the expectations as the crowds expected as the crowds rose, the expectations rose and jesus goes and he goes right at it. That’s just straight initially. Let’s just acknowledge that is different than what we see in american Christianity. The larger the church, the easier it is to go. I’m reminded of uh messaging and branding. I’ve heard about some churches and it reminds me of a gym here in town. Uh, zero entry fee, zero cancelation fee if you like, you know, drop weights, People, you know, judge you. There’s like, you know, no judge, free zone. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s really doctored up, like anyone can be here and it’s okay just to be here. And if if you’re healthy or unhealthy, that’s fine. We’re just glad you’re here. Uh and if you stay unhealthy, that’s fine. We’re just glad you’re here. You get what I’m saying. So I, I I love how jesus raises the bar as the crowds rise, he raises the standard, uh look at verse 26 if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and Children, brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple, jesus laying out, there’s a cost, there’s a relational cost is how I package this first liability of being a follower of christ, it’s like you’re driving down the interstate on the highway to heaven and there’s an exit ramp here and it’s like get off here, if family and friends and relationships are gonna matter to you more than christ and many people hit the hit the blinker and get off on that, that exit and you’re like, I hate my family, preaching pastor, I, I don’t have good feelings about my family, that’s easy for me, I I don’t, you should meet my family mike, this is, but the jewish culture had this huge honor shame thing as a primary large jewish audience and it was incredibly important for these jewish boys and jewish girls to care for their father and their mother, their father in law and mother in law, honor and shame is incredibly honoring, to take care of your parents, incredibly shameful to not take care of your family. And so jesus went after the highest human loyalty, they could have to their culture, to their country, into their home family nucleus unit and said, if you love those people more than me, you cannot be my disciple. Do you understand what I’m saying, jesus saying, if you love those people more than me, you cannot be my disciple. Now, obviously the bible not saying hate your family all throughout the bible, there’s all this strong family values, God created the family, he created men and women in the south, the institution of marriage, which is, which is a huge hallmark institution in the bible that is living throughout the whole bible into our society today, it says honor your father and mother, it says, just got down and welcome the kids to him, paul said, if a man does not provide for the needs of his family, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever Ephesians four and five say respect and love and care for your spouse, like God, care for the church, like husbands, care for your wife, like God, care for the church, there’s a high standard of family care and Godliness in the home throughout the whole bible. So jesus not saying hate, he’s speaking in hyperbole, which is a shocking, jarring, memorable statement to just really kind of shake his large jewish audience to think our relationship is going to be more important to me than falling christ family relationships in their context, just relationships in our context. If you were to take this passage and put a modern spin on it would be like if you if you if anyone wants to come after me and does not hate his instagram his facebook, his youtube, his social media, his phone, his ipads earbuds uh he cannot be my disciple, our entertainment, self centered american society moving on. But the first exit, the first exit ramp seems to be a relational cost of following christ if you’re gonna follow across, there’s a relational cost. Now some of you, you might have grown up in the church and mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, all your friends, they’re christians so this doesn’t relate to you, this relates to old testament, new testament jewish people. But it’s like if all your jewish friends are going this way, your people, you party with people, you’re hoping to get married with your friends, your family, they’re all going this way and then you turn and you start to follow christ as a jewish person, There’s relational offense, you’re stepping through that that matter. There’s a relational cause and effect of following christ for those people. People from the first service came to me afterwards and said mike yeah, that relational cost to fall in christ as the first convert in my family that hurt tears in their eyes emotions is a real thing when you’re the first to turn and become converted and follow christ in your family there’s a real cost because they didn’t sign up for that you’re their son or their daughter and it’s like that’s not how I raised you, that’s not what we value as a family, what are you doing? You betrayed us, you’ve abandoned us, we’re going this way and you’re what you’re judging us, you’re better than us, there’s a relational cost in following christ christ, want to highlight that for you as a follower, so you’re not alarmed or taken back by the relational cost of following christ, I know he doesn’t want you to hate, but was that your love for him to be so supreme that all other loves look like hates compared to your love and your loyalty to him, that’s the first exit ramp. The second exit ramp Is a personal cost to following Christ or personal cost of following Christ. Um the beginning of verse 26, if anyone does, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his family, relationships, compared his love for me and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple verse 27, whoever does not bear bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. There’s a deep personal cost in following Christ. So initially the first barrier, the first exit ramp, you can take in not following christ, being a disciple is relationships. The second barrier, the second exit ramp you can take is relationships with yourself because my life as a baby, my life as a kid, my life as a teenager in my life as a college person, very self centered vain the world wrapped around me and then my brain fully group and I decided to get married and then I realized I had more sin and selfishness in my life and then we had some kids and there’s even more and then it’s like as you grow older it seems like people can follow more of their own desires, their selfishness or they can become different, they can become more selfless christ says that your love and your loyalties to him has to be supreme even over your own desires, your own ambitions, your own selfish ones. You yourself are a barrier to fall in Christ. He says pick up your cross and follow me right verse 27 does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. So across its drill really wear its tattoos, we get, we don’t realize what the cross was you’re like. Yeah, it’s that smooth tan thing at church that is over there on the south wall, the cross just then and out the cross. Then it was mainly viewed as the for this context was the top bar of the cross. It was rougher and they had to carry it with them up to where they were being crucified and they were either tied to the cross or they were nailed to the cross and then they were suspended up above the ground where they slowly died from exposure asphyxiation bleeding and they slowly died on that cross so pick up your cross and follow me a modern equivalent is pick up your execution chair and follow me that’s dark but the idea is that daily dying, so that’s then now the idea of a cross for a christian is taking my needs, my desires, my wants, my hopes, my dreams and burying them in christ so deeply that I want and I dream and I desire what christ wants and dreams and desires for me, christ is the only one that can give me hope for my life but my whole life is defined by laying my life down, not picking my life up, I wake up in the morning and it’s not about me, it’s about jesus, it’s about the kingdom of God, it’s about christ, that’s the call for all disciples, not just the Uber christian disciples, that’s the cost of entrance for all disciples and if we’re honest, most christians check out at door number one exit number one of interstate of following christ exit number two of self really hits home. I know our culture loves me time taking care of myself, my comfort culture picking up your cross and following christ is like poking the eye of a comfort culture christian, I’m very aware of that, my house has blankets cause we’re cheap and keep it really cold. My kids wake up and they grab their blanket, they eat their cereal because mom and I are cheap and we, we don’t keep our house really warm, but I know there’s this comfort culture in my kids and myself and it just grows, you feed your comfort and just keeps growing and growing, but the cost of admission for discipleship of jesus christ is to pick up your cross, suffer bleed, be ashamed and humility like christ and die, that’s the expectations crisis paying for us, that personal cost of following christ, if you’re like me, you’re at this part of the passage, you’re like this is heavy, this is hard, how do you do that? This is depressing while I come, I should have stayed online and watched at home like the other people, I could turn it off, you know just kidding, we love you christians that are online, but there is no chance in the world, you can accomplish this on your own, you have to have something happen in your life to live out real authentic discipleship really following christ, you have to have something called a new life, a re ginger re rebirth in your life, your soul has to be born again, you have to be a real follower of christ, the old you died and the new you was alive and I knew you was living on the power of the spirit that makes you didn’t want to do this Verse 28, Jesus pauses and jumps into some illustrations for which of you designed to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost about whether he has enough to complete it otherwise when he has laid a foundation, is not able to finish all finish all who see it will begin to mock him saying this man began to build and was not able to finish. So it’s like you’re driving along on the interstate to heaven and you see buildings that aren’t completed in Lincoln we have a lot of buildings are being torn down and rebuilt but we don’t have a lot of half built buildings in our city. I saw a bunch of half built skyscrapers when 30 some of us went to Dominican republic for spring break mission trip a couple years ago. It was wild and everyone knew the stories of those people skyscrapers, the bottom floor like homeless people were using. And then the second story on up was just empty, concrete and steel and there’s no windows, no glass, just a skeleton of a building. And they all knew this guy got embezzled in government, government money got in trouble and this guy had a divorce and his wife took his money could afford to finish these things. They all knew or they’re making up stories of the sad stories of the business people and why they didn’t finish their high tower sky rise thing. The world walks by and sees a christian that started out, build a skeleton of Christianity and then just checks out and quits because they didn’t count the cost and they know the backstory. Gianni christian, I became a christian, didn’t have a lot of family relational ties but he was not able to conquer himself and he checked out. And then the last point we’re getting to the world knows and they see a christian that didn’t quite get the job complete, that didn’t build his house and his life completely and totally and count the cost ahead of time and then just goes onto another illustration here, Verse 31 or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not first sit down and deliberate whether he’s able with 10,000 to meet to meet him who has 20,000 and if not while while the other is yet a great way off to send a delegation and ask for terms of peace. So there for anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple in biblical battles back in the day it was total war or total surrender and you had to make that decision early on and you had to hire mercenaries and get a real big battle plan and and beef up your armies because the 2 to 1 ratio was basically a chance you’re gonna lose. So you have to make some decisions either you surrender, they don’t completely come and occupy and take over your country or you go and find mercenaries to beef up your numbers two for one odds were bad odds in the bible days, but these are like obvious things where you can’t have half measures, you do it or you don’t do it, you build the tower, you don’t build a tower, you win the battle or you lose the battle and you lose everything. That’s what our discipleship should look like in our mind’s eyes as we’re going along and he says, count the cost personally relational, e count the cost, relational and personally count the cost. Don’t be like the tower, don’t be like the person who started and got tooken apart by war. But look at verse 33 there’s a third principle of things that take people out a third exit ramp there in verse 33 so therefore anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple, all that he has is a wealth thing, wealth. So I’m just gonna say finance in our context, but they gave wealth. The early church began with wealth. The Book of Acts is filled with crazy general stories of people giving all that they had finances, your finances is a barrier to fall in christ your finances is a barrier of your discipleship. So let’s review there’s a relational cost, there’s a personal cost and there’s a financial cost of following christ christian, there’s a financial cost, we have many members that are very generous and very correct Biblical perspective on what God talks about generosity, I’m very grateful for you all of us, Pastors are very grateful for you. It’s amazing what we can do and we have done because of your generosity. There’s many people that are counting the cost on what it means to be a member. I’m saying this to you. There’s a cost of following christ in your finances. We talk about your time, your talent, your treasure, but christ was all in on his finances. He was born poor, he was raised poor, he grew up in a very poor region of Nazareth Where everyone knew those people had a draw and they sounded poor. He was an educated fancy. He surround himself with a very non, you know, affluent disciples. He died penniless preacher like those poetic people dramatically say and all of his early apostles, all 11 of them went around the whole entire known world and they died the same dive, persecuted, suffering martyred and they all died. Poor Christianity is at its best when people have a correct crest, correct grasp on money, Christianity is that it’s worse when when finances and money is abused. That is a thing in american Christianity. That is the thing on the global christian christian world where different people groups are, are, are using Christianity to weaponize to take finances from different people groups. That is wrong, that is evil. If the pastor, you know and love is worth $100 million you probably listen to a pastor who doesn’t have verse 33 in his bible who doesn’t have this chapter 14 in his bible. Therefore, anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple exit ramp of finances, exit ramp of your, yourself, an exit ramp of your relationships. All three of those are serious liabilities, serious cost. You have to evaluate when following christ christ knew what was going to come from all the followers of christ was the perfect disciple who perfectly modeled all of these things for us. Think of christ, his relationships, he had family and friends, think he was losing his mind. They sent a delegation of his siblings to go get him and his ministry was taking off saying he’s lost his mind. Go get your brother, jesus and bring him back here. He’s embarrassing us shame on our family, he’s dishonoring us, Go get him and bring him back here. We already have a scandal of our family, go get him and bring that kid back. He had that scandal relational cost. He had to pay to follow God’s will for his life. Moving on, christ suffered more personally than any person that’s ever existed on this planet. He suffered for you, but he suffered a model for us, a perfect disciple of laying down his rights and his life and suffering through obedience so that you and I might have a faith in God christ model perfect obedience and his personal walk of God, and then christ obviously like I just said was not a health and wealth, prosperity best life. Now preacher, you get what I’m saying, men and women, it is a sobering thing that christ said and these are some of the most difficult, challenging passages in the bible scholars say, but it is a sobering, difficult thing that christ lived for us and a model for us and his disciples model for us. Let’s let’s look at these last few verses 34 and 35, salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use neither for the soil or for the manure pile, it is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear if you think of christians who start out strong on that road to god of discipleship and then they lose their saltiness. Well let’s stop and start back up the context of salt back in that day, you’re like salt mike, I have table salt and then there’s that thing called salt that I’m supposed to put out on my sidewalks and I never remember until my neighbor does it for me, like there’s a bucket of salt out there that were spread on the sidewalks and the parking area so that you don’t fall and you’re like that salt, if you put that salt on your hamburger this afternoon, you get really sick because that salt is like saturates like chemicals and compounds to make it not table salt, but it’s like don’t let stuff free salt, so I get what I’m saying, there’s but in that day and age they had salt that’s lost its its purity, it lost its its potency and had other things mixed into it and it didn’t taste like salt, it tastes like someone doctored up their salt pile to get a little bit more salt price out of stuff to preserve meats and whatnot, and if it’s like it, it looks like salt, it doesn’t taste like salt and it doesn’t have the chemical compounds of salt, this is worthless, let’s throw it out the preliminary pilot, just get rid of this thing to fight, we’d just get rid of this thing to keep, it’s not, we can’t use our meat will spoil, we’ll get sick, they added limestone or something with the salt, so that’s the historical context of salt because we don’t worry about our table salt, get what I’m saying, so back to the passage, salt is good, but if it’s lost its saltiness, how shall its saltiness be restored? So just just talked about discipleship and the cost of discipleship, he talked about the relational cost, the personal cost and the financial cost of being a disciple, so think of christians, you know maybe yourself who you’re good in one of these areas, but you’ve lost your saltiness in another area, you’re like, I’m good at neglecting all other relationships, just me and you jesus, I don’t like people anyway it’s just me and you jesus that’s fine, that’s fine but me time, God that’s king time and I’m the king of that time not you God, I’m the king of that time Oh and money, I’ll give a little bit of money but don’t make me hang out those christians two out of 32 out of three is not jesus standard discipleship, two out of 31 out of three you get what I’m saying, the goal is three out of three christians and if you see christians that are bad representation of christ and Christianity that are those half build towers, those kings that go to war and just get destroyed. That they tend to get taken on only three areas the world when the world when you look at salt it tastes like salt. When the world looks at Christianity you should look taste feel and sound like christ. If you don’t look taste feel and sound like christ, you might not be in christ the bible says the bible says broad is the road and many are on it that leads to hell. If you 56 and seven jesus at the end of that server on the mount he said you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, he warned his people that I, there’s many that will say they did this, this and this is my name and I’ll say depart from them. You evil, wicked servant. I never knew you all over Lincoln people get up and go to church, but yet broad is the road and many are on it that lead to hell. Are you a real christian? I’m serious. The real Christianity is spelled and flushed out in this cost of discipleship, relational personal financial, not that you’re earning your salvation through giving or hanging out with people or you know, having a disciplined life, not that you know that you’ve heard us preach before. We don’t say that at this church, but men and women. Salt is good, but you’ve lost your saltiness. How shall how shall its saltiness be restored is of no good either for the soil or for the manure a pilot, This will be thrown away. He who has ears let him hear, ken Hughes has a great quote. He says the entrance of Christianity is free, but the annual subscription is astronomical cost of becoming a christian is free by God’s sacrifice by jesus sacrifice. But the annual prescription subscription of being a christian, it cost you things brother and sister. We should celebrate that. That generosity of ourselves. Generosity of our relationships, Generosity, our finances because at the end game at the end of the road, we know we’re not just going to heaven. We know there’s more than that were rewarded for every couple of cold water. We give away everything we do. We’re rewarded generously by the God who made everything, the God who made this entire cosmos and universities there to reward us generously were living, not for this life but for that next life. God will open her eyes eventually and you will see what you live for. Jesus is presenting this cost of discipleship. So you know exactly what you’re getting into and your eyes can be opened today to see the game that’s played for the hearts and souls of mankind all over the city and all of this nation. He has ears. Let him hear if you’re not a christian, If you’re not a christian. I was, I was encouraged by the way some scholars wrapped up this passage, who can ask for all of your relationships, all of yourself and all of your finances, who could ask for those three things. Then they quoted Deuteronomy 65 that says love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the perfect son of God who came to take away the sins of the world. Just came to seek and save the lost. If you’re lost. You christ desires to find you this morning, he didn’t lose you. You lost him christ desires that you might know him and come back to him. If you don’t know what I’m talking about. You don’t know about the deity of christ who lived and died on a cross. You don’t know any of that stuff, we have tons of resources, tons of people, tons of time will give you to spend if you help you understand and connect those dots and just sort through this, there’s podcast, there’s youtube channels, there’s websites, there’s so much defense of the faith of christ came, he lived and he died and he rose from the grave like that is like the hallmark corner storm gold standard of Christianity that christ rose from the grave, christ lived, he died and he rose again, he’s God his signs and miracles and wonders. He did all those three years of ministry leading up to his death, burial and resurrection proved that he’s gone. The god of the universe says the cost of discipleship is your relationships yourself and your finances. God can ask that if you don’t know christ know christ today, start that conversation with people here today, many of us have been having combos with you and would love to continue to have conversations with you about who this god jesus man is, if you’re, if you’re a member or you have been following christ and this is not crazy new that I just shared a few this morning, there’s a paul talking to the church, he said it’s good for me to remind you of things, it’s good to endure. Well and be reminded of truce that I can grab the wheel and start to drift to the relationship so I can drift to my personal me time, I can drift to my finances. It’s good to have a re correction that’s good for my soul. Good for your soul. If you’re a baby christian and you’re like I was this way when I got called by God I want to stay this way until jesus comes back, I would warn you is that Christianity that you subscribe to fire insurance Christianity if no fruit in your life, I would not want to live that life and stand before a holy and just God on judgment day where after giving comfort we thought word indeed I’ve ever done. Can we pray and we’re gonna close the communion, let’s let’s pray God, I thank you for today thank you for these men and women, I thank you for what you’re doing in their lives, you’re busy and active in their lives, you have a plan, you’re executing your plan, I said you just encourage us Lord thank you that there is hope and encouragement in the work of christ christ lived the perfect discipleship life and model the way and plowed the way and will pave the way for us to follow you. We all have and will mess up in these three areas. God the goal is not that we never mess up the goals that we look to the one who knows how to fix our mistakes. I think that there’s hope in christ we love you and just commit this time to you in jesus name Amen.

Luke 14:12-24

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 22 Jan 2023 15:43:33 +0000

Thank you Alex. Hello, Good morning. Um, if you are someone who’s brand new to seller, you might not know me. Um, but I would still love to meet you after the service. If you’re around. My name is Sam, I am the church plant resident here, which means I’m never here. So, so if you recently star start attending, you probably haven’t met, but I’ve been tasked to help to plant a church with a great cooperating church located in Bennet Nebraska called country bible church. And we’ve actually got some representatives here from country bible today. So if you happen to see them, uh, say hello, give them a big sewer welcome. Uh, because I love them. I’m not gonna ask them to stand up or anything like that because I love them or wave or anything. But if you see anyone who is, you know, wearing like a light plaid shirt and cowboy boots or one of them decided actually to wear a nice salmon sweater today. He’s the only one in attendance who’s, who’s doing that And he pulls it off really well but make them feel at home. This is the, these are some, some amazing guests, some elders who have uh, come with their wives. And so we’re so happy to have them today. Um, I’ll update you guys a little bit on our church plant. So we’re endeavoring to start a church plant a church in the city of Hickman and we feel that the Lord has called us to do this because there’s not a um, there’s not enough gospel presence in that town right now, we need, we need the gospel to be there. And the Lord has been raising up some incredible servants, uh, to bring the gospel there in new and profound ways. And as we look at what the Lord has prepared, it’s really amazing. Um, it’s obvious that he’s had this on his mind infinitely longer than any of us have had it on our mind. And so, uh, we’re so thankful for that as we’re progressing into things we are praying about and, and searching for the best possible place that we could all meet. Um, and so you could join us in praying for that pray that we’d be able to raise up some leaders pray also for just for country bible church in general. It’s a difficult task in sending out some of your best leaders also pray for us as we, uh, we’re trying to decide on a good church name, which probably happened this week or so. Um, much to mike’s dismay, we’re not gonna call it irrigation church, which was his first idea. Um, and I also have some insights from Pastor john here as well. Pastor john said you need to pick a name. Uh, that would encourage you to storm the gates of hell. And so we might name it church or something. Probably not, But uh, we thank you all for your, your ongoing prayers for us and for all the support that you’ve given us. I feel like a man must be the most supported church plan out there with all these people who care about us. So thank you very much. Um, I’m gonna go ahead and pray and then we’ll launch into uh, into the message. So father, we thank you for what you’ve done for the people that you brought together for the work that you’ve done for, the work that you um will do and father, we just thank you for bringing us all together for sort of a celebratory. Uh sunday I pray that you would just use your words here to speak to the hearts of all the people who have come today. Lord, we pray this in the name of jesus christ amen. So we’re gonna start off actually just where you guys left off last week. And so this is luke chapter 14 starting in verse 12 and jesus is in the exact same place he is in a meal that he’s been invited to buy some Pharisees sitting around the table uh and he begins to speak to them. So I’ll go ahead and read the first part here. This is starting in verse 12, he said also to the man who had invited him when you give a dinner or banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors unless they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled the lame the blind and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you for, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just and as I’m thinking about that the first time I read that part of the passage remind me right away of the Starbucks, pay it forward lines, you ever been stuck in a Starbucks, pay it forward line, It started off and it was really kind of cool, like someone would pay for the person behind them and so then that you get up to the window and they say your your drink is free and you think wow, that’s that’s great, free coffee. Um but what started to happen is you know us culturally if someone gives us something we feel like we better just pay it forward, like now I have to give something to someone else and so we would have someone pay for the drink behind them and continue and continue and continue on and these things would go on for days and it got really weird after a while because if we’re honest, this is just someone who can afford a luxury coffee drink, buying a luxury coffee drink for someone else who can afford a luxury coffee drink. Um so it’s not really generous at all, but um but what what would be generous is if they pull up to the to the window and maybe order a gift card along with their drink and then the next time they see a friend who maybe can’t afford Starbucks, they give them the gift card. So it’s like, no, you’re actually getting a free coffee, I’m sacrificing something for you. Um So you can sort of see it in a first glance at this passage that jesus is talking about generosity, you think be generous, but when jesus says something like that, rarely, is it just this one little snippet of information be generous rarely, is it just that. And in this situation, he’s sort of confronting the Pharisees who would go from house to house together, eating with wealthy people and they wouldn’t have to pay for all the meals themselves because they knew their other wealthy friend would just pay for them when they went to his meal and they could just sort of go round Robin and always be eating these expensive luxurious meals and they really never had to pay very much for them. They could main their wealth and they never had to invite anyone who they actually have to serve and worse than that, uh they didn’t have to like invite anyone who they’d be dishonored to be seen with. So someone who’s poor someone who could never afford that meal. But when jesus is talking to them about inviting people up, he paints this sort of glorious picture about, you’ve been gifted with so much you are seated at a high place. What I want you to do though is to go into the streets and invite those who would never be able to experience this type of luxury, They’d never be able to buy a single meal that you’re eating, let alone have it every single week. So he’s saying bring them up into an undeserved grace and so that’s the picture that he’s painting here, it’s of grace and it’s really a beautiful picture of the gospel. Um So it’s beyond just generosity, but in the most pure and beautiful form of generosity that we’ll ever know which is the good news. Um and then some commentators think it got a little bit awkward in the room, We don’t know for sure, but a man decided to speak up um maybe he was trying to lighten the mood, maybe he was just one of those guys who says things. Um we all know that person, but man speaks up when one of those who reclined at the table with him, heard these things, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God sounds pretty good, Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God. And jesus does something amazing. He takes this comment and he turns it into a question. He says, you say blessed are all those who will eat bread in the Kingdom of God who will eat bread in the kingdom of God because there is this massive assumption in that phrase that the man saying it will be in the Kingdom of God and everyone around him as jesus can see their hearts, the Pharisees sitting around the table, they are all convinced that they will be eating bread in the kingdom of God and jesus, if some of those undesirable people also are there, that’s fine. But we know we’re in and so we’re gonna, we’re gonna sort of rejoice um about that. And the Pharisees make this assumption and it’s it’s cultural for their time. But I’d argue it’s also cultural for our time. So, um, in those days, what they would do is they would look at themselves and say, okay, look at me, I’m educated, I’m wealthy, I’m clearly blessed to be in this position and God must take special favor on me. Like I am above those people in the streets. And it’s because God loves me more. And uh, it reminded me when I read that of something that we found when we were doing research into the church plant. And so we uh, country bible basically looked at the area. They paid to have some analytics done on the people in the place, we’d be planting the church. And they got some demographic information and they wanted to see what um, you know, how would people maybe react to us planting a church in their community. Uh, some of the things weren’t shocking. Like it’s a lot of white people like that was pretty obvious. Um, could have told you that affluent whites, Yep. Um, but then there was something sort of interesting that we found in the statistics. So we looked at it, it said within the past six years. So since 2017 there had been a 400% increase and people who believed in multiple gods. Mm that’s puzzling. I didn’t think that was based on a large and growing hindu population in Hickman. Nebraska, probably not. But what we could draw from that is probably that people in that area have gone over and are believing in, uh, in new age beliefs. So they would mark themselves if you have a religious spectrum, they would say, I am spiritual, might hear someone say, well, I’m not religious, I’m spiritual and new age sort of takes, uh, takes from Eastern religions in some ways and some stuff is, is more just made up to be new age. But to just summarize this belief that they have is in karma. And so just broad summary of karma, you put good things into the universe and get good things back out of the universe and then you put bad things into the universe and then bad things are gonna happen to you because you put bad things into the universe. Um, but if that is your worldview, that’s really what you believe, then why would you serve anyone in the streets, Why would you serve anyone who’s less fortunate than you because they clearly deserve it. You should just let them stay in their, in their punishment forever. There’s no reason You don’t want to ruin your own Karma. Um, Jesus deals with this belief, not new age, but the cultural belief that those who are wealthier were somehow had a special favor with God, that others didn’t, he deals with it in John Chapter nine and this is one of my favorite passages in all of scripture, I’ll summarize it really quick, Jesus and his disciples are going through a town and they come across a man who was born blind and the disciples of jesus, they say, was it this man who sinned or his parents? Those are the only two options that they give jesus because that’s what they believe. Surely it was either him or his parents who sinned and he’s suffering for it. And Jesus said, and I have to read this one exact because these are words I do not want to butcher, Jesus responded, It was not that this man’s sin or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. So we don’t have time to unpack the depth of that passage right now. But the quick and obvious takeaway is don’t let unbiblical cultural beliefs rule your thoughts, but look to the providence of God in all things. So other religions, we can draw a line sort of in the sand here, we have um, on one side is get close to God. So if you get close to God, if you’re good enough, you can climb this ladder to heaven and then you will eventually, if you’re good enough reach God whatever your God is, maybe it’s a tree, maybe it’s a dog, whatever it is, you can reach him, jesus is on the other side of the line and he’s saying, you will never reach God, I have come to you. And so he takes this man’s comment and he springboards into parable, I’ll go ahead and read the first few verses of it. A man once gave a great banquet and invited many and at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is now ready. They all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, I’ve bought a field and I must go out and see it, please have me excused. And another said, I bought five yoke of Oxen and I go to examine them, please have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come and I gotta be honest, that last one tends to get more empathy from all of us, but it might be the worst excuse of all, We’ll look at that here in a minute. So, um, and I’m sure looking at this, I’m sure that these guests, if you’d asked them the week before, I’m sure that they would have said of course we’re coming to attend the banquet, we’ve been looking forward to it for so long. Of course we’re looking forward to going out to this wonderful party. Um and really they had been looking forward to it for a long time. So if we think back to biblical times, it takes a long time to get a feast together. So if you were gonna throw a truly amazing party or banquet, it’s gonna come with two invitations. So the first invitation go out to everyone and you say, we are gonna throw a banquet, it’s gonna be amazing. Can I count on you to be there? And then the second invitation is the banquet has been prepared. Please come and enjoy with us And to the Pharisees. This is sort of an exact mirroring of what their beliefs were because if we look way back and I’m talking way back to the beginning of time when man first sins in the garden in Genesis three and the Lord’s reaction is to slaughter an innocent beast to clothe the sinful nakedness of man. In doing so. He sends an invitation. He says, I am not gonna be in the destruction business with all of you right now. I’m in the restoration business, I’m going to restore you and it is going to culminate in a glorious banquet. Will you come? You’re invited will extend an invitation to you and he kept sending servants people to remind the people of Israel about this coming banquet, it captivates the majority of our bible throughout this entire uh group of scripture and then we come to the time of the banquet when jesus shows up and that’s the rest of scripture. But will they attend now is the question the Kingdom of God is at hand, will you attend? I don’t think the three excuses that the men made are pivotal to the story, but I think they are important. They do teach us some lessons. So we look at the first excuse man says, I bought a field and I must go and see it. So this guy’s got his real estate portfolio, he’s building up, his kingdom is looking real nice earth side and he can’t stop looking at it. So when the invitation comes to go to this banquet, he says, I’m busy, I’m looking at my kingdom, can’t you see it? It’s beautiful. And then the second excuse about five yoke of Oxen and I must go examine them. So if you have ever studied livestock in the ancient near east cultures or if you’ve ever played Oregon trail, you know, You know for a fact that a yoke of Oxen is a pair of oxen. So that’s two. So this guy’s talking about, I have 10 oxen means he’s extremely affluent, he’s been blessed with a lot of cash and what he’s gonna go do is he is going to go look at his things, he’s gonna go look at his possessions and marvel at them. And he’s so infatuated with these things that he does not have any time to go to the banquet. Have you ever had something that was so nice and new that you just couldn’t stop looking at it, You got a new iphone and you go, oh did I get a text, nope? You ever do that? I do that sometimes. What these men is, they’ve been so, so just fascinated with their things. They love their things and it’s caused them in their selfishness to turn away from the giver of the feast. And then we look at the third excuse, I have married a wife. Therefore I cannot go pretty straightforward. Um what he is almost guaranteed to be referring to is in Deuteronomy 24 5, God lays out the law or moses in this letter, but through the inspiration of God lays out the law um about marriage. And I’m gonna read it off to you and since we’re talking about a wedding and it’s romantic, I’m gonna read in the king James um when a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go out to war, nigh, shall he be charged with any businesses, but he shall be free at home one year and shall cheer up his wife, which he has taken. The man takes one of the most beautiful and precious gifts that God has ever given to man. And he uses it against him. He used it against the giver of the feast and this is something that the Pharisees were sort of known for, they would take the law and they would distort it to mean whatever they wanted it to mean and to place them at higher places within society, they would distort the law that God gave to them and for them for his glory and make it into something that wasn’t that um, I think there’s one quote that really just sums us up very well. This is, this is from john was a pastor. He says we aren’t lost because God hasn’t bothered to find us. We’re lost because we’re determined to look for lasting purpose in passing things. So ask yourself what captivates your affections. Jesus is telling this to the Pharisees because he sees their hearts, they’re infatuated with their riches and indifferent towards the god that they say they worship. Are they invited to the banquet of course, but they do not accept. Have you guys ever watched the Bachelor? I know you’re lying. I know this because some of you added me to a bachelor group chat last year. And so I watched a little bit of it and it actually correlates very well with this part of the message. So every single season on the bachelor, it goes there’s this cadence where it goes in the same order. It’s like a liturgy if you will and what happens is you got um if you haven’t seen it, then that’s good. You don’t have to like I’ll just sum it up in about 30 seconds. Um You have a bachelor and you have a bachelorette and they have about 30 suitors that they bring for them. And they sort of speed date the people until they find out which ones they like. And then they begin to to tell them things about their relationship. So they’ll say um I like you To about 30 of them, I like you. And then as they whittle it down a little bit, they move on and they say, I have feelings for you. Like you know, I have feelings for you, right? And then they move a little further and they say I’m falling for you, that’s the next step. Um which is the most annoying step also because you’re thinking brother, get those banana peels off your feet and commit already stopped falling. And then eventually they do something really embarrassing. They go to their uh the hometowns of the women and they visit them and uh the man has to ask the father for her hand in marriage. And most of the fathers do what any man should do, who’s worth his salt? And they say no, you may not have my daughter’s hand in marriage for a reality show, but eventually they get past it. They say I’m falling, I’m falling for you and then the last two and they say I love you and we’re at the next level that I love you level and there’s a dramatic breakup for one of them and one of them gets proposed to, they say will you marry me and then there’s this pageantry in this fanfare and they make it as romantic and as beautiful as possible. And you really convinced at the end of every season that this is a legitimate love story that these people really love each other and then consistently you find out two months afterwards they broke up and not just they broke up, but from the beginning they were always just in it to be an influencer and to get big on social media and instagram and to have some fame and some fortune. Now obviously our romantic relationship is, is not with God, but we do have a relationship with God in the most pure and meaningful sense of the word relationship. And so the lesson I bring out of this is man, don’t have feelings for God, don’t have feelings for jesus, we love him, wet ourselves to him, don’t have feelings for jesus, everyone has feelings for jesus, you guys, anyone on the street, if they feel good about jesus, 99% of them are gonna say yes, I love jesus, but they don’t mean it, so love him ultimately we must make that decision, I’m gonna go ahead and read sort of the last half of this parable um says so the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant go out quickly to the streets in the lanes of the city and bring in the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame and the servant said, sir, what you commanded has been done. And still there is room and the master said to the servant, go out to the highways and the hedges, couple people to come in that my house may be filled for I tell you none of those men who are invited shall taste my banquet. It reminds me of sort of a corresponding verse. This is in Matthew, it’s chapter 3 8 and nine says therefore produce fruits consistent with repentance. And don’t presume to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father. If we desire christ we must die to ourselves and live for him and to die to ourselves, means to sacrifice our worldly kingdoms and service to God to tell him that whatever he would have us do, jesus is always worth it guests who made the excuses were invited, but as his passion says, they shall never taste his banquet. And yet we turn ourselves to the others, we see a completely different story. The servant is sent out first to the streets to invite the undesirable people. People who are blind, poor blame and crippled. And I’ll tell you these people are easy to look down on. But they sure do understand reality better than almost anyone else. They understand Grace when they see it, and that’s what this invitation is. This invitation, Miss Grace, God’s Grace to a broken and a sinful people and his Grace doesn’t stop with the people in the streets. The servant is sent to the highways and to the hedges. And this is to say not only to the jews, but also to the gentiles. And I always get excited when it says gentiles in the bible because that’s us. He’s come also to us. And even as we sit by the roadside and we’re blind and lame and crippled and poor, we received this invitation of Grace were summoned to the king’s table and not just as a one time thing, but as an eternal guest and a family member, a chosen people. I have a favorite word actually in this passage. My favorite word is compel, he compels the service servant says, I compel them to come. He doesn’t suggest it’s not a light, you know, come on, if you if you can, he compels them to come. He desires the presence of all those in the streets of all those in the hedges and along the highways. The master of the feast desires your presence. He wants you to join this feast because of the ultimate joy that he knows is only found in him. William. Barclay is a Scottish theologian and he said this about feasts about attending feasts. It is the most significant thing that jesus thought of the kingdom in terms of a feast. We must always remember this. There’s no healthy pleasure which is forbidden to the christian. For a christian is like a man who is forever at a wedding feast. Another pastor kevin de Young, sums it up. Well, he says the question every grateful christian should ask, is this, why was I made to hear God’s voice be given a place at his table? He made a part of his family. So back in sort of more traditional times and really traditional churches, all of the hymns that they would sing on the day of the sermon would be about the passage and there’s one that I find particularly beautiful and it’s about this uh passage in luke chapter 14 it’s called How sweet and awful is the place. And of course it means full of awe. Doesn’t mean awful is the place. How sweet and awful is the place with christ within the doors while everlasting Love displays the choicest of her stores while all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast. Each of us cry with thankful tongues. Lord, why was I a guest! Why was I made to hear thy voice and enter while there’s room when thousands make a wretched choice and rather starve than come. Twas the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in else we had still refused to taste and perished in our sin, pity the nation’s o our God constrain the earth to come. Sendai victorious word abroad and bring the stranger home. And in closing I want to draw our attention to the servant and as jesus is telling this parable, the servant is nameless, but we can be so thankful to know his name today, the servant’s name is jesus. And to be a follower of jesus is not simply attend the banquet, but to show up to the banquet and surrender at the feet of the master of the house. To tell a master I am here. Please take me as your servant. Send me wherever you desire and I will go from the streets in the lanes of the city to the highways and the hedges that your banquet may be full. His invitation is grace. Will you accept this invitation to the feast? Says in Romans 10: verse nine. If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you’ll be saved. Will you endure the trials of this world and fix your affections upon jesus and to all that do there is a great feast and all of us will have a seat at the table If we accept that invitation, let’s pray together father. We’re thankful for we thank you for sending this message to us. We thank you for all that we find in scripture and most of all we just thank you for making us a desired guest at your feast. Not because of anything that we’ve ever done, but because of you and because of your grace Father, we thank you for your forgiveness for your mercy, for allowing us to be a part of your household, even though we’re not deserving of such an honor. We thank you Lord and I pray that if there’s anyone here who has not decided to follow you Lord with all their heart that they do so, and we pray this in the name of jesus christ. Amen.

What Are You Looking For

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 14:58:39 +0000

Let’s pray father. We thank you for this day. You’ve gifted it to us. We thank you for this word that you’ve given to us. This is your word. It reveals who you are. It reveals what your character is like. It reveals your will for us and God, we are thankful for this revelation. And so Father, we ask that in the moment that we have together this morning on the day that you’ve gifted to us with the words that you’ve given to us God, that we would leave here with every everything that you intend for us to understand about this word. And lastly, the Lord, we give you thanks for jesus, christ your son our savior, who shed his blood for our sins, that we might be forgiven. It’s in his name, that we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, good morning. So our church. Some of you are awake this morning. Welcome to sword Church. If this is your first time, I haven’t met you. My name is dan. We’re glad you’re here. We hope that we can get connected with you and learn a little bit about your story, how God is working in your life and what drew you here. And so we’re glad that you’re here um church this morning. My question for you is this what are you looking for? What are you looking for? I think we’re looking for rest and by rest. I mean assurance and peace. We want some assurance about the future. We want some peace in the midst of everything we’re dealing with in life. Peace and assurance. Piece that everything that we’re dealing with? Everything that we’re facing isn’t going to overtake us or overwhelm us or set us back too far that we won’t ever be able to recover an assurance that there are good days ahead. There are good things waiting for us. I think we’re looking for that. Are you looking for that? That’s something I’m looking for. That’s something that I believe I found in jesus. And this morning, I hope that you’re able to see that some people are looking for peace and assurance and they aren’t looking for it in jesus. And so they can’t have it. They don’t find it, they don’t experience the benefit of it. And as we read this morning in the passage in Luke 14, everybody is watching, everybody is looking at someone, starting with the Pharisees, looking at jesus and then the rest of the hosts that were invited to the dinner party, looking at one another. Everybody’s watching everybody’s looking and everybody is looking for something. What do you think they were looking for? Have you ever been to a carnival? County Fair State Fair? It’s okay. You’re you’re not going to God’s not gonna be discouraged or upset at you for raising your hand saying that you’ve been to a carnival before in the past, Right? Um Some people might think that clowns were, you know, the invention of the devil, But, but carnivals are okay right there okay, Right, Cotton candy, right, ferris will, right? That’s okay. Right, so again, have any of you ever been to a carnival or a county fair or state fair? Yeah, there you go. We’re here this morning. We’re right here this morning. Have you ever been to one of those funhouse mirrors? You know, you walk in and the entire room is full of mirrors and each one presents a distorted image of yourself, right? Your eyes right like right here and massive, your chin is hanging down to your toes. You know, it’s made you look like a figure eight or something. I mean, just completely distorts the image. Right, Well, that’s what send us. It distorts the image. It distorts how we view God Ourselves and one another. Sin has distorted the view of the Pharisees as they’re looking at jesus, they’re watching jesus, but sin has distorted their view of him. They think that jesus is a lawbreaker, not man’s law, God’s law. They think that he is a lawbreaker. So what do they do? They invite him over for dinner? Now, this was a custom, jesus more than likely spoke at the synagogue. Probably the same situation that we dealt with in Chapter 13. Sorry. So it was a custom for the ruler of the synagogue to have over for dinner. The one who spoke at the synagogue that day. If a guest came and taught at the synagogue, he would be invited over to the house of the ruler of the synagogue and they would have dinner. And so the ruler of the synagogue affairs see, invites, jesus over invites over some more distinguished guests. And then they plant a man there with a medical condition that the scripture calls dropsy. Why do we believe that? Well, because the Pharisees, because sin has distorted their view of God and themselves and others, they don’t really want to be around people with medical conditions. They don’t want to be around people who have serious problems going on in life. They view that as a form of God’s judgment on that person. two, Why is this man in the dinner party? Because they’re watching jesus and with their distorted view of jesus, they think that jesus is a lawbreaker? So they try to set him up. But again, Jesus being the son of God, dual nature, right, fully human and fully God, and the two exists in the same person without confusion. So he knows that they’re trying to set him up. So the pastor says one sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of the ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully and behold there was a man before him who had dropsy and jesus, knowing that they’re watching him carefully responded to the lawyers and the Pharisees saying is it lawful to heal on the sabbath or not? Is it a violation of the law of God to heal on the sabbath or not. And the fair season would say yes, you should do that on the other days of the week, not on the sabbath, and sin has so broken them, it has so distorted their view of God, that they can’t see that the sabbath is about the ultimate healing for mankind. God healing us from sin that has fractured our relationship to him, and the same sin that fractures our relationships to one another. God giving a true rest. They can’t see it, they can’t see that jesus isn’t a lawbreaker, and neither does the law of God prevent a person from doing good on the sabbath. The law of God does not restrict or refrain. A person from showing mercy and compassion on the sabbath. You’re fundamentally misunderstood the law of God if you think that way, and why do they think that way? Because they have a distorted view of God themselves and others? Because the summary of the same law says, you are to love the Lord, your God with all your heart mind, soul and strength, and you’re to love your you know, neighbor as yourself. And so man being used to try to take down jesus, a man with dropsy man with something that would be similar to, you know, Dema where like there’s a massive amount of fluid in the tissue inflammation, painful, probably painful to walk probably painful to stand up, taking this man and trying to use this man to take down jesus boy that’s distorted, that’s sinful, but jesus, there’s no fear of man in him, even though he’s an invited guest into this home, even though he knows that these guys are trying to take him down, he will not back down from demonstrating the heart of God the goodness of God and the righteousness of God. He won’t back down from that. No, he even tries to show mercy to those guys, these same guys who are trying to sabotage him. It does so by asking a question, is it lawful to heal on the sabbath or not? The question is designed to reset the paradigm of thinking is to challenge their accepted and assumed paradigms about the law is an act of mercy to unsettle this faulty way of thinking. Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath? But they remain silent, seeing that their hearts were hardened and having mercy on the man that they have tried to use in his pain to take him down. It says that jesus took the man and healed him and sent him away. Again, another act of love and mercy removing his pain and yet also sending him away so that his healing would no longer be controversy for the rest of the dinner that night. Then again, showing mercy to the same hard hearted people, he says, which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out and they could not reply to these things. Some Translations will say in verse five, I’ll say which of you having a donkey or knocks, not necessarily a son. The reason why there’s a bit of variance. There is when we look at the thousands of copies of translations of luke’s account, it may have been a slight scribble air, but the principle and the point is still clear, you do good, you do good. If it were an ox, a creature not made in the image of God that fell into a well, you would do good. You wouldn’t simply just leave it there and saying that he’s saying that God means to do well by us by giving the sabbath as the ultimate gospel rhythm in our lives. That sin has pulled us all into a deep muddy pit and we can’t climb our way out of it. God saves us. God doesn’t simply just leave us. He makes it possible for us to be saved. He does good. The reason why this is hard for the Pharisees to see it is because the heart and the mind affects everything that we see. The heart and the mind affects everything that you see affects everything that I see and sin has corrupted human nature. That means that our hearts and our minds are bent. They have a bias towards sin and selfishness and we’re not equal to God. So we we can’t know everything. We can’t see everything. We can’t anticipate everything. And so we’re limited. So sin has made it difficult for these men to see the goodness of God in the Lord, jesus christ sin has made them biased towards their own way of living. It is an act of God’s grace for the human heart to rejoice at the will of God being done, especially when the will of God involves crossing our own wills. It is an act of grace for us to see that, to experience that and to rejoice, edit. It takes God doing that kind of work in us, left to ourselves. We all walking in uh a clown house with distorted mirrors and distorted images with distorted views and thoughts about God and ourselves and others text God stepping in to clear things up for us. So jesus is trying to do that for the Pharisees here And then he moves on to the distinguished guest of the Pharisees Verse seven, it says now he told the parable to those who were invited. He’s speaking to the guest next week. We’re going to look at the parable, he tells again to the Pharisees. Now he’s speaking to their guests. He says that he noticed that they chose the places of honour, saying to them when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast. Do not sit down in a place of honor less someone more distinguished than you be invited by him. And he who invited you both will come, will come and say to you, give your place to this person. And then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes he may say to you friend, move up higher, then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. Let me describe the setting for you a bit. This dinner party probably a dining room that shaped the settings kind of shaped like a U. With the host being in the center part of it and the more distinguished guests to his left and right and then leaning back on cushions what they call couches and eating and conversating and so you want to be closer to the host and the more distinguished guests. Why politics? You wanna talk politics, not politics like hey, I want to become mayor or commissioner or senator or something like that may be. But politics in the sense of I have an agenda, I need favor, I need someone to scratch my back. I need you to give me this, I want to see promotion. I want to advance. And so these guys jesus noticing that they’re all flocking, fighting trying to get closest to the more distinguished gas. He said you need to be careful. It may be in one of these days that you asked to give up your spot to someone else and then you will really be embarrassed. You thought to honor yourself. But then you’ll be embarrassed. The principle here for us is the kingdom of God has no place for any man or woman who seeks to grasp that power and position and influence over others is not a place for that. You may succeed at it. Even you may accomplish some of your earthly or worldly goals of having this position of influence and power over others. But God doesn’t miss a thing. He will demote you. You will make you give that place up to one more deserving. That’s what Jesus is saying in the case of this story here. Looking at the Pharisees and and the lawyers, they were the religious leaders of Israel. Israel is to be God’s covenant people. Jesus has went out and he’s called a collection of fishermen, tax collectors and social deviants, so to speak. Who have been redeemed brought back into the fold of God and they will replace these men as leaders among God’s covenant people. God doesn’t miss a thing. He didn’t miss the fact that those men were trying to use a man with a medical condition against his son and he won’t miss men trying to assert power over others and misusing that power being heavy handed and authoritative in that power. He won’t miss, he doesn’t miss those things. He is a just God. He heals the man with the medical condition and at the right time. He will demote the one who has wrongfully promoted himself as an ambassador of his kingdom. But again, I ask the question, what are you looking for? Because these men are looking for a type of assurance and peace and they’re willing to do anything they can in their own strength and being motivated by their own central flesh to get there. But it won’t yield the fruit of peace and assurance. It will never yield it. Because at the root of their driven nous, at the root of their inability to see jesus correctly, to see others correctly is pride. Pride and pride does not yield rest. Pride is the equivalent of looking for a needle among the haystack. You just can’t find it when it comes to rest. You’re not going to find it. You’ll never have enough. You’ll never achieve enough. You’ll never accomplish enough. Someone will always threaten your position. Someone will always be a threat to you because of pride. You will have no rest. So the rest you’re looking for. You can’t arrive at it. The heart full of pride, but humility, it flows from a place of rest. It begins from a place of rest. I am who I am. Because of the grace of God. I’ve been redeemed by the Grace of God. I’m a son of God. I don’t feel threatened when I see other sons and daughters of God succeed. I don’t feel like I’m gonna miss out. I’m not judging their slice of the pie with my slice of the pie? You never know his kids doing that. Why is this cake so big and my is only this big again. The heart and the mind affects how we see everything. And pride. That’s really the sin that keeps these men from seeing jesus correctly, from seeing a man in need of desperate relief correctly. Pride is what is causing them to jockey for position. That sin, that sin of pride. That’s what keeps them in that deep muddy pit where peace and assurance is so elusive, keeps them there. But what we have here in jesus is a testimony to the patience of God and the goodness of God and ways in which our sinful hearts and minds just don’t understand. He knows that these men have tried to set him up. He knows that these men aren’t his fans and yet he would appeal to them and yet he would boldly demonstrate what the love of God looks like and call them to pursue it. He demonstrates the patience and goodness of God and the way in which we just don’t understand. And yet we need to see it. He comes to them. They are the ones and the deep muddy pit unable to climb out. He comes to save them and they won’t take his hand. Some of you may be like that right now, you’re in a place of sin, you’re in a place of you know, you’re not living the way that God would have you to live pride, what have you tried to climb out? Try to figure it out your own way. And just when it looks like you’ve made a little progress, what happens? You fall right back down because you can’t climb out of this. You need a savior and you seek rest, but you’ll never find it in your own efforts. So if you’re struggling with secret sin or if you’re struggling with just rebellion towards God, jesus is the only way you’re gonna climb out of you confess your sin to him, you humble yourself before him, you submit to what his word says and you’ll find that he is able to pull you up and out of that deep muddy pit. Others of you, you’ve fallen into that pit because something has happened to you, it wasn’t necessarily your fault, but something has happened to you. And the pain is louder in your mind and in your understanding, the pain is louder than the goodness of God. You can’t experience the peace of God because you’re distracted by the pain and the suffering. Have you ever been in that place before? Hey, we’re human? I’ve been in that place numerous times. It is hard in that place to find rest. But do you know how you get out of that place? You get out of that place again. Turning to jesus, responding by turning to jesus, we think that we’ll get out of that is simply the pain if it’s just removed and and if we get the miracle that we have been praying for that somehow that will get us out of that place and we’ll have peace and assurance. Know the peace and the assurance comes from jesus. Even if the circumstances don’t change, you get the peace and the assurance even in the storm, even in the fire, you get the peace and the assurance, even as you’re dragging that cross around and it feels heavy, you get the peace and the assurance from him. If it be his will, he’ll take that obstacle, he’ll remove that pain. He’ll give the healing. But the piece and the insurance can be had can be a real experience for you. It’s just resting in here, accepting that he’s still good. No matter what’s happening to you right now, no matter what you’re feeling right now, he is still good. That’s the fight. The pain will distract you from his goodness. The adversity will distract you from this goodness. I think it was C. S. Lewis that said the pain was like a megaphone in the air. The louder the pain seems to sound, the more passionately, the more desperately we looked to him and cling to him 10. It’s him. We need. And lastly some of us we don’t have rest because we secretly desire earthly rewards and promotion. We secretly want that place of prominence and I want you to hear me clearly here. We’re not anti success in life. There are many of you in this room are very talented and gifted and work hard at what you do and you’ve earned legitimate success because of your labors. But if you don’t have peace, if you don’t have a sense of assurance even with all of your success, the answer isn’t more success. It’s jesus humility begins from a place of rest in him. Assurance and peace comes from resting in him. He shows us that he is good, he’s willing be patient and to come to us and to make salvation available to us When we are in that place, when we are in that deep muddy pit. Unable to climb out comes what is your response? What will be your response? I pray that it is to cry out to him that it is to look to him and to see a good loving and just savior has come to give you his peace. So let me leave you with this verse as we close first peter 56, it says, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you brothers and sisters in christ there is a heavenly crown and a heavenly name for those who have made jesus their reward in this life. There is a banquet feast where you will be God’s distinguished guest were all the privileges and all of the blessings of christ being distributed to you. That’s what we live for. That’s the hope that anchors us in the storm. That’s the piece that keeps us in the face of challenging circumstances and challenging relationships and people. We look heavenward at our savior and we say there is our salvation a man and then let’s pray jesus. You gave your life that we might find life in you. You endured the shame and the scorn and the ridicule of the sinful world that we might receive the joy of peace and assurance from you. Lord, for those who bow their need to you, we belong to you. For those who aren’t sure God opened their eyes to see that your mighty arm is extended in their direction. Right now Lord do a work of grace in her heart to see it and to cling to it. God, we desire to be a kingdom minded people, so God empower us by your grace, according to your word, to the praise of your glory, to live out our days seeking first the kingdom of God and your righteousness. I pray this in christ’s name. Amen

Kingdom Perspective

Sower Church, Lincoln, NE — Sun, 08 Jan 2023 14:44:53 +0000

Good morning sir Church. So good to be with you all this morning. Want to start by asking a question, Z one here have any idea what it’s like to live in an earthly kingdom under the rule of an earthly king, anybody have any clue what that’s like. You grew up, you were a citizen of an earthly kingdom and you had an actual earthly king that you had to be subject to anybody. And the first service we had at least one person, You can always count on some of my international friends to bear witness to what I’m about to say today. But um, none in this service. No one isn’t it ironic that the Kingdom of God, probably the most dominant theme in all of the bible. It’s something we have very little context for. Do you find that ironic? The Kingdom of God throughout the scriptures, the Kingdom of God, a dominant theme And we are people, we have no context for what it means to live in a kingdom and be under a king from an earthly perspective. We have in many ways redefined what a kingdom is and what a king does. We’ve done it in cute little subtle ways, but we have for instance, we live in big red Kingdom husker kingdom. Right? And if you tuned in last night to some NFL football, you saw the Chiefs Kingdom secure their spot, you know, into the playoffs with the first round Bye. We think of kingdom as being a collection of followers or fans who are rowdy about the team or the individual or the thing that they support that they are excited about. That’s how we tend to define a kingdom. And then we redefined what it means to be a king. We think of the entertainment industry, there are various types of kings of various different aspects of entertainment. You think of little kids playing a game, What’s the title given to the person who’s the best the king we crown, that person, the king. So we’ve made a king, the person or the thing that we think is the best a kingdom is a collection of rowdy supporters and a king that which we think is the best. We have no context for the Kingdom of God. And yet it’s the most dominant theme in all of scripture. We need kingdom perspective and that’s my goal for this morning, is to give you some kingdom perspective from the bible, that’s also the title of the sermon, kingdom perspective. And you need kingdom perspective because if you believe in jesus, he is a king and you’re believing in him has brought you into his kingdom and you need to know how to represent him Well, you need to know how to live as a citizen of his kingdom. You need to know what that entails. You need to understand it. You need kingdom perspective. R. C. Sproul had a great quote about the Kingdom of God, the late dr R C Sproul, he said this, he said when jesus speaks of the kingdom of God, he speaks of a place where God reigns. Absolutely and that and that absolute rule is carried out according to justice, Mercy and righteousness. That’s kingdom perspective as kingdom perspective that we need the absolute rule and reign of King Jesus his mercy, his righteousness is justice. So let me pray for us and let’s look at this passage this morning and let’s look at the kingdom perspective that Jesus provides us. So let me pray Father in heaven. We seek kingdom perspective this morning. We understand that we don’t live under the Dominion of an earthly king and kingdom and we’re so thankful for that. But we seek kingdom perspective because you have made us through jesus christ citizens of your kingdom if we believe in him. So this morning helped me to preach your word with clarity and give us an earnest heart to receive kingdom perspective. I pray this in jesus name amen, come in sometimes. The way of the kingdom seems unimpressive and yet it’s filled with eternal significance. Sometimes the way of the kingdom seems unimpressive, insignificant of little value, not that important and yet to God eternally important, immense value. And that’s what Jesus is trying to get across today in our passage, he begins by telling a parable, let’s look at it again, He said therefore what is the Kingdom of God like and to what shall I compare it. It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden. And it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air made nests in its branches and again he said to what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like 11 that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened. Now the other gospel accounts, the synoptic gospel accounts of Matthew, mark and luke. They all cover this particular parable Matthew 13 and 17 and Mark four, we see references to the same parable, this illustration of what the Kingdom of God is like being like a mustard seed, a very tiny little seed. Wondered if you were to, you know, not be careful with it, you might drop it, lose it and have to really scrounge around to find it. That’s how small it is. Unless you drop it and you know, a dark surface, but it’s small. And looking at that seed, you don’t anticipate it doing great things, You don’t anticipate it having such a big impact. So he says, the Kingdom of God is like this little seed that from the natural mind, it’s small, what can it do? And yet when you place it in the garden, it becomes the largest tree in the garden. Now pay attention to what he said, he said, the largest tree in the garden. Not the largest tree in the forest, but a garden. Imagine your own personal garden and imagine a 10 or 12 ft tree in your garden. And that 10 or 12 ft tree originated from a tiny little seed. That’s impressive. That’s amazing. And that’s what his hearers needed to hear because they were like that tiny little seed. They are a small crop of people in a vast and powerful roman empire and they are beginning in a tiny, insignificant little country, Israel or galilee and in a city like Jerusalem, which is where he’s headed. They are small, they are powerless, they are no match for Rome and its legions, they don’t even have the ability to really to confront naturally the power and the influence of the Pharisees. They are small compared to the power that the Pharisees are wielding, he says. But the Kingdom of God might seem unimpressive, might seem insignificant, but over time it will become the largest tree in the garden. Less than 1% of the Roman Empire. For most of the 1st 200 years of Christianity, less than 1% of the Roman Empire was Christian, Less than 1%,, Far, less than 1% to be exact, far less than 1%. And today, which kingdom is still feeling nearer the Kingdom of God, but it began in a very unimpressive and seemingly in a significant way. He also said that it was like a woman who took 11 And hit it three measures of flour. Now 11 typically is used in a negative way when jesus is making illustrations about the harder character, what it’s like to live for God. He normally speaks of Levin in a negative way. And he speaks of the Pharisees of being, You know, on guard, on watch against 11 of the Pharisees. The hypocrisy of the Pharisees, the greed of the Pharisees. But here in this particular illustration, he says that, think of what levin does to the flower, think of what the yeast does to the dough. Now, I’m gonna be honest with you, I’ve never in my life baked one piece of bread. The closest I’ve come to baking bread is putting toast in the toaster. And some of you said that don’t even count and you’re right. It don’t. But I am aware of what happens when you put that yeast on the dough, especially if you put too much yeast on that doe it rises, it can get out of control. It’s crazy that in this illustration, jesus is helping these men to see what the kingdom is like by using something that they were quite accustomed to seeing and witnessing. He said, imagine a woman taking 11, hiding it in three measures of flour. It would feed over 100 men. Something so small would allow that bread to be able to feed 100 men. He’s saying don’t despise the beginnings of the Kingdom of God. Don’t despise the beginnings of the work of God in your life. Don’t despise what seems small and little in terms of progress in your life as you pursue God give it time if you’re on the right track. If you’re pursuing jesus, if you’re all in for the Kingdom of God, the kingdom will begin to reveal itself in a mighty way in your life. The elements of the kingdom will begin to be observable in your life. Very real ways. So he says it may seem small, it may seem unimpressive, but it’s packed with potential packed with power packed with kingdom growth, explosive growth. Remember? Mm hmm. Back in the day playing sports, whenever you you had a guy on the team, you know, playing football is a very physical game. And some of you guys saw that pretty horrific thing that took place on thursday night with the football player. But you know football is a very physical game and sometimes you know, not not everybody that plays is massive or big. And I remember when I first started believe it or not, I wasn’t this big, I was pretty small, it was really small. One of the smallest guys on my team for most of my athletic career until I got to high school. But I remember someone trying to encourage me, guy said to me, he was he was an upperclassman. He says, look man. TNT can come in small packages like yeah, that’s what I want to be. Sometimes God will call us to do something, Sometimes he will give us kingdom responsibility or he’ll put something before us, that involves our walk with him? And it may seem small, it may seem insignificant man, but don’t underestimate its value to God. So important that we be faithful, so important that we trust God to accomplish what he intends to accomplish and then through us, so jesus preparing his apostles, gives an illustration of a mustard seed and leaven to give them kingdom perspective. And then as he’s traveling on, it says in verse 22 he’s journeying towards Jerusalem, but on the way he’s stopping in these small towns, these small villages and he’s teaching now this entire portion of luke. If you were to go back to chapter nine, this is where it began, I believe we began, we taught on chapter nine maybe what, two years ago and then If you were to jump ahead all the way to chapter 19, that entire portion is called the traveling section where Jesus is moving towards Jerusalem and on the way Luke is telling all these things that are taking place and small insignificant villages and towns. Now we will get to chapter 19 probably in two years, but I just wanted you to know that we are gonna be looking at this travel section for a significant portion of time as we walk through the gospel of luke. But here in this particular setting, someone asked a question, he said, Lord will those who are saved be few. Now, why do we do this? Why do we feel the need to know the things that only God can know why we do that. Why do we feel like we’ve got to ask this question, you know, I know this is something that God knows and God knows it because he knows all things and he’s God. Right? So why do we then have to ask this question that only God can know and that only God knows as if somehow we deserve to know that somehow we are, you know God and I were buddies. So God tell me, you know, you know this, so let me know, Will there only be a few people saved? Look man, you won’t even live long enough to to be able to see all the people that God is saving in your lifetime. Why would you ask that question? Do you realize that you might be around an environment where there aren’t very many believers and you’re thinking the same way like man, there’s probably not that many people that are going to be saved. You won’t even be able to see all of the people of God is saving during your lifetime. That’s just a fact, jesus he obliges the man, but not without first doing what I like to describe as jesus, Jedi mind trick. So he said to the man strive to enter through the narrow door for many. I tell you will seek to enter and will not be able when, once the master of the house has risen and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, Lord open to us. Then he will answer you. I do not know where you come from. Then you will begin to say we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets, but he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you come from, depart from me, all you workers of evil. And in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the Kingdom of God. But you yourselves cast out. The man asked question. Lord, will those who are saved, The few jesus answers with strive to enter through the narrow door. I want to know how many people are gonna get saved. Lord think about your own salvation. Think about your own relationship with God. Are you entering through the narrow door? You’re worried about what God is doing over here and there and there and that person, and will that person be saved? Can God save a person like that? He says, You strive to enter through the narrow door. He begins to answer the man’s question by directing it back to him. You strive to enter through the narrow door, he said, don’t think that because you heard jesus preach a sermon or saw jesus do a miracle or ate some of the food that jesus miraculously provided that somehow you’ll be able on the last day say to the father, I deserve to be there because I saw him do these things. He says that kind of presumption lead you to hell. Let me translate it for us. Well, I went to church, I gave some money to the church, I gave some money to the poor, I like christian music, I like being around christian people. I want my kids to grow up in a christian environment so therefore I deserve to be in the kingdom of God. And what is the response from the master of the house? I never knew you, I never knew you. You know why I never knew you because he wasn’t in you, there was no christ in you, so therefore he doesn’t know you. So it’s not just about playing in a christian environment or doing christian things, it’s about christ being in you. That’s the purpose. That’s the point of a relationship with God of knowing God christ in you. And so he says strive to enter through the narrow door. And that word stride means to agonize give effort from your insides deep down inside. If you believe that you’re believing cause you to pursue God with all you’ve got to the best of your ability. He doesn’t say that you’re saved by your striving. He’s saying that your belief leads to you striving after God. He says forgive, I’m going to forgive, it’s hard, but I’m going to do it. He says come and worship me on the sabbath and he says, I’m gonna get there, I’m gonna do it because I believe in him. He says, live Holy, he says, this is hard, but I want to do it and I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna try to do it and I pray God help me to do it. I’m striving. It’s a life of repentance and faith. It’s humility before God. We strive out there. A lot of other things in life. We do, we strive, we strive to be accepted by people, we might say, man, you know, I really don’t care what other people think. And then a few minutes later we worked really, really hard to make that statement look like we don’t care what other people think about us and then judge how other people evaluated our craftiness and cleverness and stating it, therefore proving that we do care about what other people think about us. Ergo we are striving. So we strive we take great efforts for so many different things whether it’s to get people to like us, whether it’s to have a certain level of success that we think we deserve. We strive, we strive, we strive sometimes it’s it’s good to strive for good things in life, but the most important thing, the thing that matters the most to walk with God if you know that you trip up over various things here and there striving is that you go through great efforts to make it difficult for you to trip up in that area if you know that sometimes you have a hard time controlling your tongue striving as you’re practicing when no one is around what you need to say, how you need to respond to things you need to focus on, You are striving honor God and don’t forget the most important part of that striving to enter the narrow door on your knees in prayer, pray praying, admitting your weakness, admitting your need for God, admitting you need his grace and his help to strive to enter through the narrow door, don’t allow yourself to become complacent and presumptuous thinking that because you’re around christian environment because you do some christian things, things that you should do, but somehow that faster confidence, it’s all christ was nothing for jesus eventually answers the man’s question verse 29 he said, people will come from east and west and from north and south and they will recline at the kingdom of God and behold some our last will be first and some are first will be last, essentially he’s saying though it looks insignificant now though it looks like not many are responding to the message now though, it looks like not many are sold out to christ now oh yeah, it’s gonna happen the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, people will respond, disciples will be made, the kingdom will advance, it will grow like a mustard seed like Levin, it will And though it’s less than 1% at this particular time, far less than 1% the entire Roman empire. It grew and it’s larger than that empire today and it’s still growing and that’s important for us because we look at our circumstances today, we look at this environment today and we think that somehow this is the darkest era ever in history, Less than 1% of the whole world is Christian at this time and in Rome they allow people to be murdered in the colosseum for fun, they called it entertainment, that’s a pretty dark time and yet the kingdom still advanced and so he says those who will be last will be first and some who are first will be last and what he’s saying there is this, there’s some in this life right now who are christian, their brothers and sisters in christ but they have received their reward, they’ve received their reward in this life, they’ve received the applause of man, they’ve received a crown from man and they shall be last and then there are those who seem insignificant, unimportant overlooked, they will be first, I like to say it like this, you know sometimes it’s easy, especially when I first began pastoring to think that the pastor with the biggest church is going to receive the biggest crown and the most honor. On that day, jesus saying to him, look at you, you did all this in my name and then later realizing it’s probably going to be a guy pastoring a small church in a remote place in the world that no one has never heard of, that God gives the biggest crown to. That’s humbling. That’s a heart check. What do I do, what I do? Why do you do what you do? Is it for eternal significance or is it for an earthly crown sometimes the way the kingdom seems unimpressive. Yeah, it’s got eternal significance. Moving on as he encounter some Pharisees and they said to him, get away from here for Herod wants to kill you. Now that’s an interesting statement, we know that the Pharisees feel threatened by jesus, we know that the Pharisees don’t really like jesus so they could be making this up. People are wanting to hear the teacher, jesus, but nonetheless jesus, he responds to their statement, he says behold, well, first of all, he says, go and tell that fox, go and tell that fox, he doesn’t even call him a wolf. Now we know from a christian perspective a wolf is pretty bad, the scary, dangerous animal, right? And it’s pretty bad, no wolves in the church, we don’t want wolves in the church, he doesn’t even give him that decency calls him a fox a critter, not to be trusted, vile, shady critter. Some theologians believe he referred to him as a female fox being promiscuous. Either way, he ain’t got good things to say about harry, but jesus does something and if you read your new testament, this is something. Look, look, I’m gonna say something that you probably aren’t aware of, but you need to hear it. It’s important we’re talking about here in this particular passage, the kingdom coming under persecution. Here’s what you need to understand. Here’s what you need to realize, jesus does not over spiritual eyes. His enemies, he does not say, You go and tell shame. You go and tell fear. You go and tell condemnation that I’m going to do my work in three days. He says, you go and tell that fox Herod. There are real enemies to the kingdom and what we like to do because that makes us uncomfortable is over spiritual ISAT. There are spiritual enemies. He says, I’m going to cast out demons and perform cures today tomorrow on the third day, there are spiritual enemies and there are real earthly enemies to the kingdom. Don’t over spiritualized shame, fear condemnation. Those are feelings. Those are emotions that’s something you feel because something has been done to you or something has been made you to think a certain way, but there is an actual enemy. Either it is the devil or there’s an enemy of the gospel or there’s someone who’s just sinning against you. They may be a brother and they need to repent either way. Don’t over spiritual eyes, it, no, what we understand as christians and this is the part where we have to mature in our thinking was that though there are reel earthly enemies. Our prayer is for those enemies. That’s why Jesus says pray for your enemies. But if you over spiritualized, what are you gonna pray for shame? God, I pray for shame that you forgive shame, I pray to, you forgive my fear. That’s how you pray for your enemies. Those are the enemies God told you to pray for. No, there are real enemies to the Gospel. And so you pray for them and when you pray for them, you ask God God save them or stay their hands so that they don’t bring further harm to your people and to your gospel work, God save them or stay their hand so they so that they don’t bring further harm your people, your ministry work. But if you over spiritual eyes that you can’t pray, those kind of prayers because you aren’t gonna pray a blessing for feelings of shame and guilt and condemnation are you, That makes sense. Our Christianity is rational, it makes sense. Jesus does not over spiritual eyes. It he knows who his enemies are, Some of them are Pharisees and some of those Pharisees will be safe, they were converted. He says today and tomorrow on the third day, I will finish my course, speaking possibly of his resurrection, but we definitely know it speaks to the fact that he will complete the mission? Re being a number of completion, I will complete, it will be done. But then he understands where he’s headed and what will happen to him. He understands his faith. He says, oh Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones, those who are sent to it even said that you know, it can’t be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem. He’s saying he understands he’s going to dangerous and yet church here is your king not a coward, not a man that’s going to back down, not a man that’s overwhelmed with the fact that death, imminent death is awaiting him. He presses on, he is moving towards Jerusalem and to his mission is complete to he has shed his blood and ransomed your soul. That is your king. That kind of kingdom perspective helps us to endure and hold up under persecution to hold up under suffering. Our king is courageous. Our king is a champion, Our king overcame so shall we, but in the process of Jerusalem, the Mount Zion, the mountain of God, Jerusalem being on the mountain, the place, the center of, of worship and religion for the whole world, it was designed to be, is falling short And in its unbelief, judgment would come in the form of 70 A. D. And jesus said that there will be a moment in time. He quotes psalm 1 18 where many will say blessed is he, who comes in the name of the Lord? In other words, God gave them time to repent, received the gospel, they didn’t and then they came under judgment even after jesus went to the cross, they still had time, they still had time and psalm repented and some didn’t. We don’t live under the rule of an earthly king. We don’t live in an earthly kingdom, but we, if we believe in christ, we’ve given our life to him. We live under the rule and the Dominion of a heavenly king, the eternal kingdom. And we need kingdom perspective, Jesus gives it to us today as we think about walking out of here with this kingdom perspective, I want to revisit this idea of striving to enter through the narrow door. This life committed to repentance and faith and trusting God and and and looking to see God do and accomplish what he intends to accomplish in and through our lives. As I think about that there really are only two options for us. The first option is humility, trusting God and being faithful. Even with the small, seemingly insignificant matters of life, it could be something as small as hey forgive your brother, be something as small as trusting the Lord with your finances, something as small as committing to walk with God’s people so that you can together reflect his kingdom. I don’t know, it could be a lot of things. What what things are you overlooking that seems small but have eternal value to God. The second option is to live a life of pride and self confidence, neglecting the small commands and duties all the while waiting for bigger opportunities to shine. You’re gonna miss the kingdom. If that’s your perspective, you’re gonna miss it, you’re gonna fall short, you’re gonna drift away, You’re not gonna live the way God has called you to live. My hope for us is that we will together stride to enter through the narrow door. A life of humility and repentance and faith before God walking through that door together as we see the kingdom expand and grow in our lives. Amen, man, let me pray for us, jesus, Thank you. You gave your life and we might become kingdom people. God. I pray that we would never ever take that for granted. I pray that as we consider what it means to be an ambassador of your kingdom here and now I pray that the same spirit that raised you from the dead would remind us that you are indeed in us and give us the courage to live with the same courage that you showed in the face of whatever it is that we have to face in life. God, I pray, if there be any in here today who realized that maybe they have been overlooking small things that you would remind them of the truth of the gospel, but today is the day of Salvation. If they will repent and believe, strive to enter in, let their belief, producing them a desire to live differently. I pray this in jesus name and that.