Father, we give you thanks and praise that as we gather as your people in your presence
to sing your praises, to pray to you, and to hear your word, we give you thanks and
praise that you desire us to have a true and accurate knowledge of ourselves in the context
of the gospel and the context of hope.
We thank you, Father, that you want us to know ourselves in the context of hope, that
you can and will work within us to make us more whole, more free, more at one with truth
and goodness and justice.
So we ask, Father, that you would do that gentle but deep and powerful work in our midst as
we enter into thinking about your word.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior.
Amen.
Please be seated.
I've shared this with you before.
It's one of my character flaws, of which I have many.
And I'm not very good at telling people off.
When they've been doing something which is wrong and it needs to be corrected, I'm just
not very good at it.
I think I'm better at it than I was 10 years ago and better at it than I was 20 years ago,
but it's just never been something that I've been very good at.
And those times when I do finally confront a person about what they've done wrong that
needs to be corrected.
I can usually tell within, I was going to say a minute, but really it's probably within
less than 30 seconds.
I can tell within less than 30 seconds whether this is going to go really well or really bad.
You can tell just by the way the person starts to receive it, whether they're going to be
sort of penitent, whether they're going to acknowledge that they've done something wrong.
And it's often, you can almost see them, if you were to videotape it, you can almost see
them not slumping, but almost like puffing up their chest and moving forward and almost
clenching their hands because they're going to fight you over this.
They're going to point the finger at you and, or me I should say, and really be aggressive.
And I can tell fairly quickly in a conversation whether it's going to go bad or not.
Why is this?
Not that why am I bad at confronting people?
That's a whole, you know, that's a whole other topic of conversation.
But why is it that, why is it that sometimes, not just others, but us, when we're confronted
of something that we do wrong, why is it that we don't feel guilty, or maybe we do feel guilty,
but our response isn't to say that we're sorry.
Our response is to lash out, to get angry, to push back in a very, very hard way.
And why is it at the same time, like in a bit of a similar type of thing, why is it that
sometimes if we've been having a discussion with somebody, a friend or a family member,
and we've made certain types of claims about things being true, and then maybe the next
day you see it, that you see, you know, some really, really solid evidence that what you
said was true is wrong.
And what the other person was saying was true was correct.
And when you see that, it doesn't make you happy.
It makes you sad.
And in fact, actually, not only might it make you sad that you've been incorrect and they're
correct, but it might make you want to do things to try to, well, to make it look like
either you didn't say it, or they didn't say it, or they're still wrong, or whatever.
Like, why is it that that goes on in us as individuals?
And of course, we can then extend it to what we see in politics and in culture and in the
media and everything like that.
But why is it that those two types of things is part of the human experience?
The Bible text that we have today, the two texts, the two stories or incidents that we
have in, we're going to look at today in the Gospel of Mark, is actually a very interesting
meditation upon these two questions.
And it's a meditation that actually has, it both is quite confronting, but it's actually
also very deeply filled with hope.
Hope that we can be better than that, or a way to be a little bit, or be a lot more better
than that.
So let's have a look at it.
If you're following along in these, which we've given out, if you don't have one, there's
still a few left, you can pick it up either now or after the service.
It's Mark chapter 11, verse 27.
And if you're following along in this booklet, it's page 70, at the very bottom of the page.
And just a reminder, Mark, it looks all fancy now, but it's an ancient eyewitness biography,
eyewitness-based biography of Jesus.
It's one of four ancient eyewitness-based biographies of Jesus written, while literally thousands
of eyewitnesses were still alive and could have refuted it.
And in terms of, he tells it like a story, and in the story, sort of a bit of a climax
or a low mat, depending on how you look at it, as a climax, or maybe it's like a bit of
a pit, that he announces he's going to go to Jerusalem and he's going to be captured,
he's going to be killed.
And that's in chapter 8.
And now, just we looked at last week, he's finally come to Jerusalem.
And we now know, but the people in the stories don't know, that within a couple of days, he'll
be dying on a cross, and then he'll be buried.
And so this story is written within that context.
We know that, maybe some of you don't, but we know it.
But Jesus has predicted that he's going to die in Jerusalem.
And it didn't maybe look at that at first because of the triumphal entry, but we know
that he's predicted it.
So what happens?
Look here, verse...
Oh yeah, the other thing here that is important, just to know if you don't know the Bible very
well, is that what's just happened before this is what's called the cleansing of the
temple, where there were a whole pile of merchants taking up the area where pagans were supposed
to be allowed to come and worship God.
And Jesus has driven them all out.
He's caused chaos and driven them all out of the temple area with just overturning tables
and everything like that.
And that's just sort of happened the day or two before this.
And now we have this incident.
Verse 27.
And they, that's Jesus and his disciples, came again to Jerusalem.
And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came
to him.
And they said to him, by what authority are you doing these things or who gave you this
authority to do them?
Now just sort of pause here for a second.
This is, I've said this many times, but it's an important thing to remember.
However, we live in a, unless you're a conspiracy theorist and think the World Economic Forum
or, you know, Jewish people or, I don't know, Davos people or whatever, or, you know, is controlling
all of the different groups in society.
Apart from that, what we have in our day and age is we have very, we have separate types
of elites.
But that didn't exist at the time of Jesus.
So when it talks about chief priests and scribes and elders, it's not talking about sort of
like a Roman Catholic priest, a scribe being like a writer of a newspaper or a writer of
novels and an elder being an old person.
What it is, it's actually describing what's called the Sanhedrin.
So Jerusalem, Israel, the Jewish people are under Roman occupation.
And the Romans, they actually gave a lot of leeway for local management.
And as long as the peace was kept and as long as tax dollars kept going up to the Romans,
they allowed the Jewish people to basically govern themselves.
And so what we have here is we have the three leading groups all together.
It's called the Sanhedrin.
And what you need to think of, it would be as if the spiritual elite, the literary elite,
the political elite, the cultural elite, the intellectual elite, the commercial elite,
the legal elite, the educational elite, that all of those elites are just one body.
Like in our culture, there's lots of different groups.
But in that time, there was just this one group that was all unified.
And so that's the representatives of that one unified group.
So in our days and age, it's Amazon and Apple and the Globe and Mail and the University of Toronto
and McGill, the representatives of that one group all coming and saying to Jesus,
by what authority are you doing these things?
And it's a very interesting question because just to remind us,
there's a difference between authority and power.
Like a little bit of an illustration and maybe make why they're bothered.
You know, the last little while, there's been odd things going on in England.
People throwing tomato soup, cans of tomato soup or mashed potatoes on works of art.
And then after they've done that, they glue themselves to the seat or the wall or whatever.
And we might say, by what authority are you?
But you don't ask them by what power you do it because they just did it.
Like you don't ask Jesus by what power did you drive them all?
Well, we know you did it.
Authority is a different type of question.
Like what justifies it?
What gives you the right to be able to do something like that?
You know, and I don't want to get you on the sideline as to what the climate change people would say,
but that's the same type of thing.
Like you just did this, caused this huge, huge big mess.
Like what gives you the right?
What gives you the authority to do that?
That's the question which they ask.
So how does Jesus answer the question?
Well, let's look.
Verse 29.
Jesus said to them, I will ask you one question.
Answer me.
And I will tell you by what authority I do these things.
Here's the question.
Was the baptism of John the Baptist from heaven or from human beings?
Answer me.
Now, this is not an evasion.
This is not him cloaking.
This isn't trying to deflect the question.
This isn't him trying to buy time.
He's actually doing something which is very profound that we can learn from.
One of the problems that we have often is that we just merely answer questions,
but we don't answer the questioner, the person.
And I don't mean in a bad way, like going after the questioner,
because Jesus isn't at all threatening here.
But it's very important in life that you don't just think of the question.
You think of the person asking the question.
And you don't want to just merely answer a question.
You want to answer the person who's asking the question.
And that's what Jesus is modeling here.
And his question is a way to help the questioner, the person,
come to a certain degree of self-knowledge,
and also actually for Jesus to learn a little bit more about the questioner
so that there can be, in fact, a really good answer
that not only answers the question, but the person.
So this is an evasion.
And some of you might be thinking,
what exactly is it that John the Baptist said?
So if you just flip in your Bibles to Mark chapter 1,
and if you're using this, it's actually the page doesn't have a number.
It's at the very beginning, obviously, page 6.
And this will help to refresh our memories
as to why it is that Jesus says to them,
the baptism of John the Baptist,
was it from heaven or was it from...
And heaven means from God.
And here's how Mark begins his story of Jesus,
his biography of Jesus.
The beginning of the gospel, which means good news,
the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
And Mark quotes Isaiah,
as it is written in Isaiah the prophet,
Behold, I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way,
the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
So just pause.
What Mark is saying here is that
as you're going to read the rest of the gospel,
we're going to meet John the Baptist,
and John the Baptist is fulfilling this prophecy
from 600 years earlier.
John the Baptist is that messenger who's come
to prepare the way of the Lord.
And, you know, to our Muslim friends,
I would say this is one of many texts in the Bible
which is showing you that the Mark
and the Christians in the Bible
teaches that Jesus is God.
John the Baptist has come to prepare the way of the Lord.
What exactly did John the Baptist say?
Look at verse 4.
John appeared baptizing in the wilderness
and proclaiming a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sin.
And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the River Jordan,
confessing their sins.
Now, John the Baptist was clothed with camel's hair
and wore a leather belt around his waist
and ate locusts and wild honey.
He was a bit of a hippie.
And he preached, saying,
after me comes he who is mightier than I,
the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy
to stoop down and untie.
I have baptized you with water,
but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
And so what he's saying here is that
this person he's about to introduce,
we're going to see that in the next few verses,
is vastly greater than him.
And John the Baptist is a prophet.
And only God can send...
The baptism of the Holy Spirit
is this idea that the Holy Spirit
can actually flood you.
You can be immersed in God the Holy Spirit.
And only God can do that,
not a human being.
And now look at the next page,
the actual baptism of Jesus.
So part of what we've just seen
is the message of John the Baptist
and his baptisms.
And then we see the actual baptism of Jesus
and John the Baptist,
who's going to be bearing witness
to what happened.
Verse 9,
In those days,
Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee
and was baptized by John in the Jordan River.
And when Jesus came up out of the water,
immediately,
and now actually the he,
it's not clear in the original language
whether it means Jesus
or whether it means John the Baptist,
or it could mean both,
immediately he saw the heavens being torn open
and the Holy Spirit descending on him.
That's now Jesus like a dove.
And a voice came from heaven,
You are my beloved son.
With you, I am well pleased.
Now, every one of my children
has the same nature as me.
We're both human beings.
And if a dog has puppies,
those puppies have the same nature
as the mother and the father.
And so here we have another very clear claim
that Jesus is actually God.
He's God the Son.
God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit
bearing witness
that Jesus is God's Son.
Now, let's go back to our text
now that we've sort of been reminded
about what it is that John the Baptist said.
If you turn back to Mark chapter 11,
verse 30, 31.
And by the way, just so you know,
one of the things which is so interesting
about the time of Jesus
is that John the Baptist
was well-known to historians.
The Jewish historian Josephus
has a lot of information
about the life of John the Baptist.
John the Baptist really was viewed as a prophet.
He really was wildly popular.
He really is known to history
outside of the New Testament.
And so Jesus says,
you know, back to what the question is,
okay, John the Baptist,
you've asked me by what authority
I've done these things.
I'm going to ask you the,
you know, the question is,
does the baptism of John from heaven,
in other words, from God
or from human beings answer me?
So verse 31,
we get what goes on
now in the questioners, right?
Jesus isn't just going to answer the question.
He's answering the questioner.
Verse 31,
and they, the elite,
discuss it with one another,
saying, hmm,
if we say from heaven,
he will say then,
why did he not believe John the Baptist?
But if we say from human beings,
they were afraid of the people,
for they all held that John the Baptist
really was a prophet.
So, they answered Jesus,
we do not know.
And Jesus said to them,
neither will I tell you
by what authority I do these things.
Now,
there's several things in here,
of course, which is very important.
John the Baptist is really telling us
that when we see Jesus dying on the cross,
we're seeing God die on the cross.
But what's really going on here,
just for now, very briefly,
is that it's not that they don't know.
Right?
It's not that the questioners don't know.
What is it?
The questioners don't want to know.
They don't want to know.
And that means they cannot know.
And if they cannot know,
there's no answer that Jesus can give them
that would allow them to know,
other than to puzzle over
how he asked them a question
which revealed,
if they're at all attentive,
that the problem is inside of them.
They don't want to know.
So, here's part of the thing,
which, remember I said,
this is a profound meditation.
It's opening to us something
which the Bible teaches in many places,
is that there is a part of you
that finds the truth a threat.
There is a part of you
that finds the truth a threat.
And that part can grow and grow and grow.
In fact, that's what we're going to see here
with these particular people.
They find the truth a threat,
and it's going to grow.
And it's going to grow to the point
that they killed Jesus.
But it's not just saying that,
it's not just saying this
about how bad these guys were.
It's making a far more basic comment
about every single one of us,
that if we're honest,
remember I gave you that opening thing,
why is it that sometimes if we hear,
we've been in a conversation,
maybe even an argument with somebody
about what actually happened
or what was true,
and then we discover later on
that we're wrong and they're right.
And that fills us not with happiness
that we know the truth,
but with sadness
that we're wrong.
And all of us have had experiences,
and probably if we were a married couple here,
we could each look at the other,
because we can all think of a time
when they did that,
and they're looking back at us
and thinking of a time
that we did that,
where some type of truth is given,
and it's obvious that it's the truth,
but we fight back against it.
We reject it.
We push it away.
We try to use our cleverness
to reinterpret it
or give a different lens
or just insult the person
that they're too stupid
to possibly know.
And this text is not saying,
like if you say,
George,
are you saying that Christians
then are sort of better
than other people,
that we're immune to that,
that we've been able
to figure out the truth,
and no,
that's not what Christians,
I mean,
some Christians say that.
And all I can say
is that the Bible says
that Christians who say that
and think that
are deceiving themselves.
The Bible here
is revealing a human problem,
and it's revealing
a human problem
that helps us to know
why it is that
I need a Savior,
because there is a part of me
that will reject the truth
and find the truth a threat.
And that's why,
one of the many reasons
that I need a Savior.
And it's an invitation
for us to look at this
and say,
Lord, how much is this true of me?
Like, am I not even aware
of the fact that
when certain things come my way
that I react in such a way
and I push it away?
Like, is it me, Lord?
Help me to understand
that it's me
and help me to not be like that,
to be changed.
I don't want that
to be the story of my life.
In fact, actually,
what the Bible is telling us
is another thing
which is very,
even, you see,
part of the thing
is this truth itself
is going to be offensive
to many,
because for many of us,
our identity is that
we're not like those naive people.
We're people who suspend judgment.
We're not like those naive people.
We're a skeptic.
We're not like those simple-minded people.
We're too intelligent
to actually believe such simple things.
We're not like those simple people.
We're open-minded.
But these are just actual ways
that we flatter ourselves
and deceive ourselves
that we find the truth a threat
at times.
Not all the time, obviously,
but at times.
And that that part can grow.
See, by the way,
just a bit of an aside,
that's one of the reasons
why science
is a moral project,
not just a technical project.
Engineering.
There has to be the desire
to know the truth
and to not be threatened by it.
Now, the Bible here is very wise.
It doesn't just say
this is an intellectual problem,
but it also is actually
a problem connected
to how we relate
to what is right and wrong
and how we relate
to justice.
That the Bible is very wise
and it connects things
which we separate.
Because we tend to separate
as if we have like the mind
and intellectual things.
And then there's the
how we know right and wrong.
And then we know
how there's justice
and injustice.
And we tend to keep
these two things,
the right and wrong
and justice and injustice.
We might connect those.
But often we think
that right and wrong
is just sort of over here
and not really connected to this.
But the Bible
constantly pushes us
to understand
that how our mind
and how our conscience
and how our will
and our emotions
and our appreciation
of beauty
and our understanding
of justice,
that those all ultimately
come down to one central
fundamental root
which the Bible
calls the heart.
And that these things
aren't different,
but they're all
in a sense
co-inhere with each other.
They're all connected
to each other.
And you can't put them
in separate bubbles
at water-type bubbles
or areas.
That they're all
connected to each other.
And the Bible shows this
not by just describing
it the way I do,
but just by the flow
of the story
because the very next story
touches on how we relate
to right and wrong
and how we relate
to justice and injustice.
Look what happens
in chapter 12, verse 1.
And Jesus began
to speak to them
in parables.
Now what's going
to happen here
is he's going
to give a parable
and then he's going
to ask a question.
He's going to give
the answer
and he's going
to give the Bible
passage.
And the Bible
passage is the hope.
And then we're going
to see how
the original questioners
who are still there
and their moral,
their intellectual,
in a sense,
refusal,
their feeling threatened
by the truth
is also now connected
to these being threatened
by justice
and by goodness.
So let's see the story.
It goes like this.
Verse 1 again.
And he began to speak
to them in parables.
A man planted a vineyard
and put a fence around it
and dug a pit
for the wine press
and built a tower
and leased it
to tenants
and went into
another country.
And just pause.
The commentaries tell me
this was very,
very common
economic arrangement
at the time
that Jesus was speaking.
Like we might look
at it a bit off.
It was very common,
very, very common.
Verse 2.
When the season came,
that is the harvest,
he,
that is the man,
the owner,
he sent a servant
to the tenants
to get from them
some of the fruit
of the vineyard.
In other words,
they have to,
they've leased it,
now they have to
make their lease payments.
And,
but how did the people,
the tenants react?
Well,
should they pay
the lease payments?
No.
Verse 3.
They took the messenger
and beat him
and sent him away
handed.
So the owner,
verse 4,
sent to them
another servant.
And the tenants
struck that fellow
on the head,
treated him shamefully.
Don't give him
any money.
So the owner,
verse 5,
sends another.
And this person
they kill.
And it goes on
and on and on.
So,
verse 4.
And so with many others.
The owner keeps
sending people
and the people
that he sends,
some of them
they beat
and some of them
they kill.
So verse 8,
he thinks to himself,
okay,
I still have one other
that I can send.
It's my,
look at this,
a beloved son.
Remember chapter 1?
This is my beloved son.
And if you go back
and you look at
Mark chapter 9
where God speaks again
at the transfiguration,
Jesus is described
as my beloved son.
And so now we have here
for us who are reading this,
a beloved son is sent.
Finally he sent him,
he sent him,
the beloved son,
to them,
the tenants,
saying,
they will respect my son
like surely,
good grief,
they'll respect my son.
But those tenants,
verse 7,
said to one another,
this is the heir,
the only heir.
Come,
let us kill him
and the inheritance
will be ours.
and they took
the beloved son
and killed him
and threw him
out of the vineyard.
Now that's the story.
And by the way,
what Jesus is doing
is in some ways,
this is one way
to summarize
almost all
of the Old Testament.
What our Jewish friends
call the Torah
or the Tanakh,
where God sends,
I mean,
the whole fall
begins because
Adam and Eve
want to dethrone God
and become,
in a sense,
the owner
of the garden.
And time after time,
prophet is sent.
Some of them
they ignore,
some of them
they listen to,
but most often
they ignore them,
they beat them,
and some of them
they even kill them.
And Jesus is saying
he's the end
of that process,
the beloved son.
So what's the question?
Jesus asks them,
what will the owner
of the vineyard do?
Then he gives an answer.
What's the just answer?
Now we as Canadians
don't like capital punishment,
but the answer is
he will come
and destroy the tenants
and give the vineyard
to others.
And we would ultimately
all say
that that's the right thing.
Like, I mean,
if one of us
owned a house
and we were leasing
it out to somebody
and the people
never were paying,
we would want
eventually the police
to go and
arrest those people
and sue them
and we'd want
to get their money
and even if it means
that every last penny
of theirs is taken away,
we'd want to get
what was ours.
That's just and right
in terms of the story.
And now Jesus quotes
the Bible
and here's what he says,
verse 10,
have you not read
this scripture?
And he quotes
from Psalm 118,
which was recognized
in Jesus' day
as a Messianic psalm.
And here it is,
the stone
that the builders
rejected
has become
the cornerstone.
This was the Lord's doing
and it is marvelous
in our eyes.
And I'm going to explain
in a moment
what this means.
But notice here
how it is
that the same people
who found truth
a threat,
how they hear
this description
of right and wrong
and justice
a threat.
Verse 12,
what's their response?
Their response is,
and they were seeking
to arrest Jesus
but feared the people
for they perceived
that he had told
the parable against them.
So they left him
and went away.
Now,
the fact of the matter is,
Jesus is predicting here
that he's going to die.
And in fact,
he's correct.
Within a couple of days,
those very same people
will have figured out
a way to conspire
with Rome,
pressure Rome
and conspire
with Judas
to have Jesus
isolated,
falsely accused,
falsely condemned,
killed unjustly
for political expedience
reasons
of the Roman imperial power,
crucified,
and die.
That's all going to come true
in a couple of days.
It's very interesting
that their response
to recognizing
that this story
is against them,
that they're plotting
to kill him.
It doesn't go,
good grief,
is that me?
Like,
am I really
so blind
to what's right?
Am I really
so blind
to injustice
that I would respond
with anger at this?
Is that me?
me?
No,
the fact of the matter
is there is a part
of you
that finds justice
and finds the good
a threat.
And me.
I'm not just saying
you and me.
There is a part of me
that finds at times
justice
a threat,
that finds the good
a threat,
and that part
can grow.
There are some
very important
thoughts here
that are
captured in this
whole story.
If your center,
if a person's
center,
or if a
significant part
of your personality,
if a significant
part of your
thinking,
if you're
centered on
your personal
power,
or the power
of your group,
your center
isn't really
on what's true,
your center
isn't really
on what's good,
your center
isn't really
on what is just,
but the fact
of the matter
is your center
is deeply
connected
to personal
power.
What the Bible
is suggesting
to us
is that you
will always
be anxious.
You will
always
be fragile.
You will
always
be insecure.
You will
always
feel
threatened.
And you
will never
find
peace.
Never.
Because if
it's all about
your power,
you're always
under threat.
Like good grief,
it's all about
your personal
power,
you'll notice
every,
you know,
it's all about
your beauty,
and that personal
power from beauty,
you'll notice
every zit,
you'll notice
every wrinkle,
you'll notice
every little
bulge.
It's always
about you
being,
not just
knowing the
truth,
but being
the smartest.
You're always
going to be
threatened by
some little,
you know,
irk,
some 12-year-old
who's way
smarter than
you,
or some new
hire that's
way smarter
than you.
You will
always be
insecure and
anxious.
You will
always be.
But you
know the
thing is,
and we all
know this
at a very,
very deep
level,
you see,
because the
very nature
of my
personal power
is that
others are
now going
to be a
threat,
but the
truth is
shareable.
Goodness is
shareable.
Justice is
shareable.
And the
truth doesn't
make you
anxious.
I mean,
it does when
it's threatening
your power,
but when you
actually just,
well, that's
just the
truth.
Yeah, yeah,
yeah,
I'm not going
to be very
popular if I
say that.
I'm not
going to be
very popular
that I
believe,
but it's
just the
truth.
It's just
true.
And why
is it that?
Why is it
that power
makes you
anxious,
but truth,
and knowing
what's right,
and walking
with what's
right, and
walking with
what's just,
and walking
with what's
true, why
is it that
those things
don't create
anxiety?
It's because
you were
made for
it.
You were
made for
truth.
You were
made for
justice.
You were
made for
goodness.
Augustine,
many years
ago, said,
you have
made us
for yourself,
and our
hearts are
restless till
they rest
in you.
You see,
Christians,
once again,
aren't saying
that we don't
have any of
these problems.
No,
Christians are
saying we
need a
Savior.
It's proof
that we
need a
Savior,
and it's
an invitation
for it to
say,
Lord,
in what
ways is
this me?
But why
is this
all set
in the
context of
hope?
Look again,
if Claire
can put it
up,
look again
what verse
10 and
11,
the Bible
passage that
Jesus shares,
that they
don't listen
to because
they're
threatened by
what's right
and wrong.
They're
threatened by
justice,
and they
respond by
anger.
But listen
to what
Jesus says.
He quotes
the psalm,
the stone
that the
builders
rejected.
You know
they're
looking for
stones.
There's a stone,
throw it out.
But it's
actually the
cornerstone of
something that
God wants
to build.
And this
thing,
which was
rejected,
and it
looks like a
tragedy,
and it
looks like a
defeat,
but it's
actually the
Lord's doing.
And it's
marvelous in
our eyes.
This act of
rejection,
this act of
evil,
God uses for
good to
build something
new,
and strong,
and stable.
Because on
one level,
every single
person would
want to say,
I want to
be a person
of the
truth,
not a
person of
the lie.
I want to
be a person
of the
good,
not a
person of
the evil.
I want to
be a person
of the
just,
not the
unjust.
That's
where I
want to
live.
I want
to live
in that
country,
in that
land,
where truth
is what
we feed
on,
and what
we live
out of.
I want
to live
in that
place where
goodness is
what I
live on,
and what
I feed
on,
and where
I live,
and justice,
and beauty,
that's where
I want to
live.
And Jesus
is saying,
you know,
when you
see me
dying on
the cross,
you see me
being rejected,
but actually
what you
really need
to see is
that I'm
doing something,
God is doing
something marvelous,
and is building
something different
and marvelous.
You're seeing
truth,
truth itself
dying for
lies,
so that we
might be
one with
the truth.
You're seeing
justice dying,
in a sense,
for the unjust,
so that we,
by accepting it,
can enter into
his justice.
We see goodness
dying for evil,
so that when we
trust in him,
we enter into
goodness,
because he desires
to build a
people,
a kingdom,
through faith
in Christ,
that is
characterized
by the good,
the true,
the just,
and the beautiful.
people.
And it's not
just ideas,
because he
really did
die,
and he really
did rise,
and he is
really coming
again.
So it's not
just these
ideas,
but it's his
presence,
and his
power,
and an
invitation to
be a member
of his
people.
That is the
gospel.
one of the
reasons why
church is so
important,
and I just
want to
encourage you,
first of all,
I want to
encourage you,
if you haven't
given your
life to Christ,
there's no
time better
than right now
to say,
you know,
I understand
that there's
part of me
that finds
these things
a threat,
and now I
need a
Savior,
and a call
out to Jesus
to be your
Savior.
He is your
hope,
the only
hope,
and he
will move
you and me
as we
draw closer
to him,
and he
draws closer
to us,
to feel
more
uncomfortable
when we
find the
truth a
threat,
and to
want to
repent,
and more
uncomfortable
when we
find goodness
a threat,
and want
to repent,
and find
when we're
uncomfortable
by justice,
to want to
repent of
that.
He will
come into
our lives
and begin
to rebuild
you in
the context
of his
people,
into one
who,
well,
he wants
to invite
you into
his kingdom
of truth
and justice
and goodness
and beauty,
and he's
asking you
to say,
let me
in,
let me
in,
be my
Savior.
One of the
wonderful
things about
coming to
church is
the church
is not
where we
pound our
chest and
wave our
fists because
we're always
right and we
always love
the truth and
we always love
justice and we
always love
goodness.
It's time for
us to be
refreshed by
God's word
and the power
of the Holy
Spirit and
the presence
of Jesus
to win the
creed,
to say,
you know,
Lord,
this week
it's not
always been a
good week,
maybe it's
been a terrible
week,
but I once
again,
it's like the
pledge of
allegiance,
I pledge
my allegiance,
I believe
there's just
one God,
I believe in
the Father
and the Son
and the Holy
Spirit and
it's time for
us to get on
our knees
and remember
and to
recommit
ourselves in
a sense by
a covenant,
renewing the
covenant,
remembering that
Jesus said,
I'm going to
die on the
cross for you,
I'm going to
break my body
and shed my
blood for you
and I want you
to feed on me
and to remember
that it's me
who makes you
right with God
and we can
come together
in the midst of
our failures,
in the midst of
our successes
and recommit
and to know
his favor
to face
the rest of
the week
and it's so
important that
you're able to
come here and
be part of
that,
it really is,
you and I
need it
and I'm very
thankful for
this technology
and the fact
that for some
who are old
and ill
and maybe even
incarcerated
and there's no
other opportunity
and I'm really
thankful we can
do that but
there is something
about being
together.
And eating
the bread
and drinking
the wine
and hearing
the beautiful
children
and helping
with Sunday
school and
making a
difference in
people's lives
and being part
of the women's
ministry and
the men's
ministry and
small groups
and we need
each other.
We need to be
together in the
presence of
Jesus as he
builds not just
us as a person
of the truth
but a people
of the truth.
I invite you
to stand.
Please stand.
We close in
prayer.
Let's bow
our heads in
prayer.
Father, thank
you so much.
Father, thank
you so much
that you are
the truth.
You are true.
You are good.
You are just.
You are beautiful.
Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, three
persons, one God.
Thank you, Father,
that you love us.
Thank you that you
sent Jesus to die
on the cross for us.
Thank you, Father,
that you know how
conflicted we can be
about the truth
and we don't want
the truth to be
true sometimes.
We don't want
justice to be
just sometimes.
We don't want
goodness to be
good sometimes.
Father, you know
how that can be
so conflicted
within us and
you know, Father,
the ways that we
can allow those
things to grow
and grow within
us.
Father, we give
you thanks and
praise that
seen us,
still you love
us, that your
son died for us,
that we might be
made one with you.
We ask, Father,
that your Holy
Spirit would bring
your word home to
us in a deep
way and bring
the gospel home
to us in a deep
way, that we
might know that
sense of security
in the gospel,
so that we might
hear texts like
this and say,
Lord, is this me?
Show me those
times it's me,
and Jesus, please
come and help me
and use your
people to help me
to repent of
that, so that
each of us can
grow more and
more day by day
as a person of
the truth, not a
person of the lie,
of a person of the
good.
Not the evil, of
justice, not of
injustice.
And we ask all
these things in the
sweet and precious
name of Jesus, your
Son and our
Savior.
Amen.