WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:14.140 Thanks to all of you for your patient indulgence as we all relearn how to be together in worship. 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:20.500 What a great thing to get to do to remember how to be together and praise the Lord together. 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:25.519 And I'm delighted to be here this morning. I'm delighted to continue the series that we started 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:31.359 at the beginning of the summer looking at the book of Acts, which is essentially Luke, volume 2. 00:00:31.519 --> 00:00:37.480 This is the story of the early church. And as we are relearning how to be together in the church 00:00:37.480 --> 00:00:42.239 and worship on Sunday mornings, we're also remembering how to be the church in the world. 00:00:42.620 --> 00:00:46.219 And that's why we're looking at this book. What is the church? What are we called to be? 00:00:46.219 --> 00:00:53.379 What are we meant to do? Why are we here? And so we've been looking at this final section 00:00:53.380 --> 00:00:59.240 of the book of Acts. And this is essentially the Apostle Paul facing a series of trials. 00:00:59.460 --> 00:01:07.579 He is literally on trial facing all of these political leaders. And what we see in these 00:01:07.579 --> 00:01:15.159 confrontations is the Apostle Paul who has no power, no influence, no pull whatsoever, 00:01:15.379 --> 00:01:21.379 having to stand before these powerful leaders who have literally the power of life and death 00:01:21.379 --> 00:01:27.579 over him. And he is confronting them with the gospel. He's telling them about Jesus. And it 00:01:27.579 --> 00:01:33.739 doesn't always go over that well. And in some ways, I think this is a picture of the church in the 00:01:33.739 --> 00:01:41.319 world. Especially in the West, it feels for many Christians as though we are like the Apostle Paul. 00:01:41.319 --> 00:01:50.579 We have very little cultural influence. And yet we are facing the world and having to speak the truth 00:01:50.579 --> 00:01:58.420 about Jesus in ways that sometimes delight people and sometimes offend people. And it's the calling 00:01:58.420 --> 00:02:03.259 of the church to be faithful witnesses in the world regardless of how the world might respond. 00:02:03.379 --> 00:02:06.979 And some of us are here this morning and we're here as Christians. And we're thinking, what does this 00:02:06.979 --> 00:02:10.900 mean for me? And some of us are here and maybe you're not Christians and you're thinking, this is 00:02:10.900 --> 00:02:15.439 what I don't like about Christians. They're always talking about their faith. And they're always trying 00:02:15.439 --> 00:02:22.000 to shove it down people's throats. So what does it mean to be a witness? What are Christians called 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.740 to do when we talk about being witnesses of Jesus confronting the world with the truth of the gospel? 00:02:27.099 --> 00:02:32.900 We're going to look at Acts chapter 24 verses 22 to 27 and we're going to see the Apostle Paul 00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:39.439 confronting Felix, who's a local governor. And we're going to see here some of what it takes to be 00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:45.020 a faithful witness. So we're going to look first at the messenger himself, Paul, and then we're going to look at 00:02:45.020 --> 00:02:51.380 the message. What is it that he's actually saying to Felix? Messenger, message, what does it mean for us? 00:02:51.560 --> 00:02:58.640 Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word and we thank you for its inherent power. We thank you 00:02:58.640 --> 00:03:02.980 that you promise in your word that it never goes out from you and returns void, but it accomplishes 00:03:02.980 --> 00:03:08.260 all that you set out for it to accomplish. Lord, I'm here, we're all here with all kinds of different 00:03:08.259 --> 00:03:15.079 things on our minds. But our great hope is that you're also here. Whatever might be on our mind, 00:03:15.179 --> 00:03:21.340 whatever our agenda might be, you have an agenda. You can do things in us that are unexpected, 00:03:21.979 --> 00:03:29.180 unexplainable, miraculous. We pray that you would do your work in us this morning for your glory. 00:03:29.539 --> 00:03:37.299 In your son Jesus' name, amen. So first of all, let's look at the messenger, Paul himself. Let me give 00:03:37.300 --> 00:03:42.080 you some context of what's happening at this point in the story. Paul's being held under house arrest. 00:03:42.140 --> 00:03:46.100 If you were here last week, you remember there was a big riot in Jerusalem. They were beating up Paul. 00:03:46.200 --> 00:03:53.000 They were trying to kill him. Some of the soldiers come down and rescue him. Lysias comes down the 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:59.840 tribune to rescue Paul before they kill him. And they end up putting him on trial in front of Felix, 00:04:00.080 --> 00:04:05.100 who's the governor there. And the Jews have cooked up all of these trumped up charges against Paul. 00:04:05.099 --> 00:04:09.560 You know, the riot was his fault. All of this is his fault. Of course, none of that's true. 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:14.120 We know from the text that Paul is clearly innocent. He's not done anything wrong. But the Jews are 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:18.779 trying to get him punished. They're trying to get him shut down because they don't like what he's 00:04:18.779 --> 00:04:25.199 saying. The governor, Felix, hears some of this, and then he decides to put everything on hold. He 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:31.680 suspends the hearing, presumably so that they can wait for this key witness to arrive, a man named 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:36.340 Claudius Lysias, who's the key witness in the investigation. He was there when the riot broke out. 00:04:38.040 --> 00:04:43.439 If you know the context, you know that what Felix should have done was simply to let Paul go. He's 00:04:43.439 --> 00:04:48.100 not done anything wrong. But he says, no, let's put him under house arrest, but make sure he's 00:04:48.100 --> 00:04:51.899 comfortable. Make sure that, you know, his friends can come and visit him, and he's got a certain amount 00:04:51.899 --> 00:04:57.639 of freedom. But just keep him under guard. And you say, well, why would he keep Paul around? What's his 00:04:57.639 --> 00:05:05.759 ultimate agenda? And we find out a little bit later in verse 26, Felix is hoping that Paul will offer him 00:05:05.759 --> 00:05:13.219 a bribe in exchange for his freedom. He mistakenly thinks that Paul has money. He knows that he's the 00:05:13.219 --> 00:05:21.039 ringleader of these Nazarenes, as the Jews accuse him of being. He's the ringleader of this Christian 00:05:21.039 --> 00:05:27.620 rabble. And they also know that he came to bring alms to the church in Jerusalem. And so it seems, 00:05:27.639 --> 00:05:32.279 that Paul may very well have access to money. So Felix says, well, if I keep him around, 00:05:32.860 --> 00:05:38.879 maybe he'll figure it out, figure out how things work around here, offer me a little money, and then 00:05:38.879 --> 00:05:45.479 I can let him go. So that's what Felix's ultimate agenda really is. And Paul's response shows us 00:05:45.479 --> 00:05:52.419 something very important about Paul and what it means to be a witness. And that is that Paul has 00:05:52.420 --> 00:05:58.140 tremendous integrity, his tremendous integrity. You need to understand it would have been very 00:05:58.140 --> 00:06:07.200 justifiable, very easy to justify offering Felix a bribe so that Paul could be let go and be free 00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:13.400 again, right? Think of how many conversions could be happening. Think of how many baptisms could be 00:06:13.400 --> 00:06:19.300 happening. Think about how many churches Paul could be planting if he weren't locked up in this house. 00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:26.060 Think of all of the good that Paul could be doing for the kingdom if he wasn't sitting here waiting 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:32.280 for Felix to make a decision. So it would be easy to justify offering the bribe. Well, I'm doing this 00:06:32.280 --> 00:06:38.139 for the kingdom. I'm doing this for Jesus. Surely Jesus would understand. But Paul doesn't do it. 00:06:39.439 --> 00:06:47.240 Nor does Paul make any attempt to ingratiate himself to Felix or his wife, Drusilla, which he easily could 00:06:47.240 --> 00:06:55.579 have done. Instead, Paul voluntarily stays under house arrest for at least two more years. And then 00:06:55.579 --> 00:07:03.079 after Felix, even longer. And then Paul uses the opportunity not to befriend or ingratiate himself 00:07:03.079 --> 00:07:10.980 to this man, but to preach the gospel to him. And, you know, this is something that we want to think 00:07:10.980 --> 00:07:18.939 about. Paul's response to this sort of invitation, this tacit invitation by Felix. You know, in his 00:07:18.939 --> 00:07:26.040 commentary on this passage, Willie James Jennings says this. He says, Felix is of the world of empire 00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:36.560 politics. He's of the old world of empire politics. You know, there's a certain way things get done in the 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:43.839 government. And Felix is very well versed in those sort of behind-the-scenes dynamics. So he invites 00:07:43.839 --> 00:07:51.160 Paul into the dance of money and power. He offers Paul the opportunity to gain his freedom by becoming 00:07:51.160 --> 00:08:00.459 captive to the way of empire politics. And I love that phrase, the dance of money and power. That has 00:08:00.459 --> 00:08:06.199 always been a temptation for God's people. It has always been a temptation for the church. There's always 00:08:06.199 --> 00:08:11.800 been the temptation to sacrifice just a little bit of your integrity, to sacrifice just a little bit of 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:18.379 your character, your credibility, in order to gain more influence, to gain a little more freedom, to gain a 00:08:18.379 --> 00:08:23.099 little more prestige, to gain a wider audience, to gain a little more money. There's always been that temptation. 00:08:23.339 --> 00:08:29.599 It can be very seductive. And you see it all throughout history. The dance of money and power, this is what 00:08:29.599 --> 00:08:34.620 sits behind the corruption of the medieval church that made the Reformation possible. This is what sits 00:08:34.620 --> 00:08:41.299 behind all of the sexual abuse scandals and the motives behind covering those up. 00:08:43.100 --> 00:08:48.620 Right? This is what sits behind the transformation of the evangelical movement in our country from being 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:56.200 a theological affinity group to a political voting block. The dance of money and power. This is the thing 00:08:56.200 --> 00:09:02.600 that you see in the recurring headlines about celebrity pastors who ascend to the heights of wealth 00:09:02.600 --> 00:09:10.340 and power and power and influence only to come crashing down like Icarus, wings of flame, leaving a trail of 00:09:10.340 --> 00:09:17.860 dead bodies and devastated churches in their wake. What sits behind that is the dance of money and power. 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:24.840 It is very seductive. It is very alluring. It is always there. We see it in the local church. 00:09:24.840 --> 00:09:33.340 You see it in local churches when people who lack character, who lack maturity, have an outsized 00:09:33.340 --> 00:09:37.320 influence on the mission and the direction and the priorities of the church simply because 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:44.240 they're the biggest givers or because they have very impressive job titles. Right? You see it when the 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:50.360 preaching and teaching of the church is driven more by market research or partisan talking points 00:09:50.360 --> 00:09:56.800 than by faithfulness to scripture. The dance of money and power. We see it in our own lives. I see this 00:09:56.800 --> 00:10:03.860 in my life. Far be it from me to stand up here and act as though I'm somehow immune. We see it all of the 00:10:03.860 --> 00:10:10.879 times that we're tempted to minimize our faith or compartmentalize our faith or compromise our standards 00:10:10.879 --> 00:10:16.320 or nod our heads and agree with things that we don't actually believe just to gain a little more status 00:10:16.320 --> 00:10:22.860 or approval. Just to gain a little more respect at work, just to avoid rejection by our peers. The 00:10:22.860 --> 00:10:29.740 dance of money and power. These are the seeds of it right there. But what we see in scripture is this 00:10:29.740 --> 00:10:36.220 is not the way of God's kingdom. That's the way of the empire. That's the old way of doing things. 00:10:37.020 --> 00:10:43.460 But God's kingdom is breaking in and there's a new way of being human therein. And there is no dance of 00:10:43.460 --> 00:10:48.740 money and power in God's kingdom because God's kingdom turns everything upside down. And Paul 00:10:48.740 --> 00:10:54.860 knows this. His central message is the kingdom. And if he doesn't embody the kingdom, how can he 00:10:54.860 --> 00:11:00.600 possibly preach the kingdom? And so Paul knows this and so Paul stands firm. I will stay in prison and I 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:05.920 will continue to talk to you about the kingdom. So that's the first thing. That's the messenger. 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:16.099 Now I want to look at what Paul actually says. Felix and his wife Drusilla, they summon Paul and then 00:11:16.099 --> 00:11:22.919 Paul uses the opportunity to preach to them. It says in verse 24 that they heard Paul speak about faith 00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:30.719 in Jesus Christ. So, you know, the sermon header would be faith in Jesus Christ. So Paul's going 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:37.580 through probably one of his typical sermon outlines. And it says that when he gets to the part in his 00:11:37.580 --> 00:11:44.480 sermon, in verse 25 it says, when Paul gets to the part about, quote, righteousness and self-control 00:11:44.480 --> 00:11:50.800 and the coming judgment, Felix is alarmed. You know, Felix is like blah, blah, blah, going along, going along, 00:11:50.860 --> 00:11:54.519 going along. And then Paul says something about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment 00:11:54.519 --> 00:11:59.600 of Felix. Well, all of a sudden, Paul's got his full attention. And you say, well, what's going on here? 00:11:59.600 --> 00:12:05.460 Well, Paul's using, as I said, one of his standard sermon outlines. You can see examples of this in 00:12:05.460 --> 00:12:11.159 places like Acts chapter 17. When Paul talks about righteousness, or you could also translate this 00:12:11.159 --> 00:12:17.019 justice, probably what Paul would be saying, he's probably starting with the idea that there is a 00:12:17.019 --> 00:12:24.060 way that things are supposed to be. There's a way that the world is supposed to work because this 00:12:24.060 --> 00:12:28.820 world was created by a holy God, a righteous God. And so there's a way that the world is meant to 00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:34.680 reflect that righteousness. That's point one. There's a way things are supposed to be. And this 00:12:34.680 --> 00:12:39.140 is not it. Then he would have talked about self-control. Maybe a better translation would 00:12:39.140 --> 00:12:44.680 be moral virtue. Moral virtue. Not only is there a way that things are supposed to be, there's a way 00:12:44.680 --> 00:12:50.260 that people are supposed to be. There is a right and wrong. There's a certain definition of what it 00:12:50.260 --> 00:12:55.100 means to be human. And there are lots of ways, lots of things that we can do that depart from that. 00:12:55.100 --> 00:13:02.000 Right? And then finally, the coming judgment. Things are not the way they're supposed to be. 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:06.080 People are not the way we're supposed to be. Why? Because human beings have rejected God. 00:13:06.700 --> 00:13:11.940 Human beings live in the world that God made as though God doesn't exist. And so Paul would say 00:13:11.940 --> 00:13:17.759 because of that, because things are not the way they're supposed to be, and because God is a God 00:13:17.759 --> 00:13:23.200 of justice, one day God's going to come and put the world right again. And he's going to give everyone 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:27.520 their due. That's what justice means. Everybody's going to get what they're owed. 00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:33.620 Right? So right when Paul gets to that point, no, God's one day going to come. He's going to put 00:13:33.620 --> 00:13:38.140 things right. Everybody's going to get their due. That's what Felix says. Okay, I've had enough for 00:13:38.140 --> 00:13:43.340 today. Right? Because Felix, you know, you say, well, why would this make him uncomfortable? Well, 00:13:43.340 --> 00:13:52.300 Felix is notoriously corrupt. The Roman historian Tacitus described Felix as, quote, cruel, licentious, 00:13:52.299 --> 00:14:00.839 and base. Cruel, licentious, and base. And it's as though Paul's words shine a spotlight 00:14:00.839 --> 00:14:09.319 on his corruption. Right? They shine a spotlight on that corruption. One day God is going to judge 00:14:09.319 --> 00:14:15.639 you and give you your due. And so Felix, you know, he doesn't openly freak out. He does what a lot of 00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:19.559 people do when they're made to feel uncomfortable and exposed. He plays it off like he couldn't care 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:24.919 less. He goes, okay, that's enough for today. Go away now, little Paul, and when I find it 00:14:24.919 --> 00:14:29.919 convenient, I'll sin for you again. Right? But we know from Scripture inside he's deeply disturbed. 00:14:30.039 --> 00:14:36.199 He's alarmed. And as far as we know, Felix never repented. In fact, I think after historians tell 00:14:36.199 --> 00:14:41.619 us that after he ended his post, he actually went to Rome and was put on trial in Rome, and he was 00:14:41.619 --> 00:14:48.519 accused and found guilty of corruption and cruelty. So it doesn't end well for Felix as far as we know. 00:14:49.559 --> 00:14:56.799 But the implication for us is this. Again, you see Paul's integrity. That he's willing to say the 00:14:56.799 --> 00:15:01.539 things he knows are going to upset Felix. He could be ingratiating himself to this man. 00:15:02.719 --> 00:15:06.919 But he's saying things that he knows are going to upset Felix, which means risking further 00:15:06.919 --> 00:15:13.939 imprisonment or worse. In other words, when it comes to his witness and his message, Paul is willing to 00:15:13.940 --> 00:15:21.300 cross the pain line. He's willing to cross the pain line. That's a term I first came across in the book 00:15:21.300 --> 00:15:30.340 Honest Evangelism by Rico Tice. The pain line. There comes a point when you are sharing the gospel with 00:15:30.340 --> 00:15:37.020 people when what you say will be offensive to the person that you're talking to. That's the pain line. 00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:42.180 Right? Up to that point, you're talking about vague spirituality. You're talking about God's love. 00:15:42.179 --> 00:15:47.019 You're talking about, you know, all of the things that people want to hear. And then there's this point 00:15:47.019 --> 00:15:51.479 where you kind of got to get to the bad news of the gospel. Because the gospel, at some point, 00:15:51.519 --> 00:15:57.399 before it can be good news, it starts out as bad news. And you have to take the plunge and you have to, 00:15:58.979 --> 00:16:07.359 okay, I'm going to say the hard thing now. What's the hard thing? Well, almost no one in our culture 00:16:07.360 --> 00:16:13.000 is really a moral relativist. You know, I hear a lot of people say, oh, everybody's moral relativism 00:16:13.000 --> 00:16:17.300 is everywhere. No, no, no. That's not at all true. I've never really ever met a moral relativist. 00:16:17.560 --> 00:16:21.800 Because everybody has a sense of the way things should be. Everybody has a sense of the way people 00:16:21.800 --> 00:16:26.300 should be. Everybody has lots of opinions about what's right and wrong in our culture. It doesn't 00:16:26.300 --> 00:16:30.060 matter if you're religious. Everybody has strong opinions about that. But what we do is we typically, 00:16:30.059 --> 00:16:36.399 whenever we draw the line between right and wrong, right and wrong, we typically like to draw the line 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:42.559 in such a way that we are comfortably on the right side. Right? So I know there's a right and wrong, 00:16:42.619 --> 00:16:48.439 there's bad people and good people, but compared to most everybody else, I'm on the right side of 00:16:48.439 --> 00:16:54.459 that line. You know, we may have a sneaking suspicion of our own badness deep down, but most people think, 00:16:54.699 --> 00:16:59.019 you know, relative to most other people, I'm a pretty good person. Here's the line, I'm over here. 00:16:59.019 --> 00:17:01.960 You know, Hitler is over there. And then everybody else is kind of in between. 00:17:03.899 --> 00:17:07.940 You know, that's the way we like to think. But the gospel says, and here's the pain line, 00:17:08.000 --> 00:17:16.400 the gospel says, no. You drew the line in the wrong place. Don't you see, the gospel says, 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:22.299 you along with all other human beings, you're on the wrong side of the line. You thought the line 00:17:22.299 --> 00:17:26.599 was here. The line is a lot higher than you thought it was. God's definition of righteousness 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:31.079 is a lot higher than you thought it was. Don't you see that you're alienated from God right now? 00:17:31.159 --> 00:17:36.759 Don't you see that you're a part of what's wrong with the world? Now, we might sneakily 00:17:36.759 --> 00:17:44.379 suspect that we are, but for somebody to just say it, it's alarming. Because you live in the world 00:17:44.379 --> 00:17:49.599 that God made and you ignore him, don't you see you're on the wrong side of the line? 00:17:49.599 --> 00:17:55.439 And Rico Tice says, this is the main reason that Christians don't share the gospel. 00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:03.619 Right? It's because it's offensive. You know, a message like this does not sit well in modern 00:18:03.619 --> 00:18:09.679 Western culture. We live in what sociologist Philip Reif calls a therapeutic culture. What's a 00:18:09.679 --> 00:18:16.539 therapeutic culture? Well, it's a culture where people value their sort of right to feel a sense 00:18:16.539 --> 00:18:22.259 of psychological well-being above everything else. You know, the ability to feel good about 00:18:22.259 --> 00:18:26.819 yourself, to feel good and satisfied and fulfilled about your life, that is treated in our culture 00:18:26.819 --> 00:18:33.220 like a basic human right. And if you do anything or say anything to rob somebody of that sense of 00:18:33.220 --> 00:18:38.059 psychological well-being, it is a violation of their rights. And people get really upset about that. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:44.980 If you were to challenge someone's worldview or worse, their lifestyle, that is seen as an attack 00:18:44.980 --> 00:18:51.240 on them, an attack on their well-being. It's seen as a form of traumatic abuse. People talk more and 00:18:51.240 --> 00:18:59.200 more about the trauma of having their worldview or their choices challenged. And so what many 00:18:59.200 --> 00:19:04.140 Christians and churches have done in a therapeutic culture is to simply change the way we talk about 00:19:04.140 --> 00:19:11.120 the gospel. We remove the pain line. We talk about the gospel purely in terms of God's desire for you to be 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:17.500 happy and to be fulfilled and God's promise to help you live your best life now and God's desire for you 00:19:17.500 --> 00:19:23.239 to have the things that you want and the fact that good people do ultimately go to heaven and most of us 00:19:23.239 --> 00:19:31.459 are good people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this cheap grace. You remove the pain line and what you're 00:19:31.459 --> 00:19:37.399 left with is cheap grace. It's knock-off counterfeit grace. Here's what he says about it. Cheap grace is the 00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:43.320 preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. God loves you. God forgives you. 00:19:44.360 --> 00:19:51.660 End of story. It's baptism without church discipline. It's grace without discipleship. 00:19:52.940 --> 00:19:58.759 It's grace without the cross. It's grace without Jesus Christ. You don't need this if you don't have 00:19:58.759 --> 00:20:04.460 a pain line. It's irrelevant. You don't need the cross. You don't need Jesus. God loves you. God made you. 00:20:04.460 --> 00:20:10.940 God wants you to be happy. End of story. You don't need the cross. The thing is cheap grace sells books. 00:20:11.340 --> 00:20:20.680 It fills out stadiums. It drives up ratings. Cheap grace is utterly inoffensive and that's the problem 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:28.039 because that also means it's utterly impotent. Right? Offense is part of the point. And you say, 00:20:28.039 --> 00:20:34.680 well, that sounds, are you, you know, just like making people sad and angry? No. Offense is part of 00:20:34.680 --> 00:20:41.619 the point. It's necessary. Right? Only after, here's the point, only after you're confronted with the bad 00:20:41.619 --> 00:20:47.440 news of your own sin, are you ready for the good news that follows. And the sad thing about Felix is 00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:52.259 he never let Paul get to the good news. He cut him off at the bad news. That's enough for today. 00:20:52.259 --> 00:20:58.779 If he could have just waited a little bit longer, he would have heard the good news. And when you hear 00:20:58.779 --> 00:21:05.660 the good news, it's like the sun coming up on a dark morning. The shadows are dispelled and everything 00:21:05.660 --> 00:21:12.000 is seen in the new light of a new day with all of the hope that brings. Paul would have said, yes, 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:18.160 God is a God of justice. That's the first part, but you didn't let me finish. Yes, God's going to one 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:23.460 day come and put everything right. But the good news is God's not only a God of justice, he's also 00:21:23.460 --> 00:21:29.259 a God of mercy. And then Paul would have looked at Drusilla, who was a Jew, by the way. She was Jewish 00:21:29.259 --> 00:21:36.160 royalty. And he would have said, you know this, Drusilla. Tell him. Tell your husband. This is the 00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:41.360 dilemma that runs all the way through the Old Testament, that God is at the same time this God of 00:21:41.359 --> 00:21:48.379 justice and also this God of mercy. And even the greatest Jewish scholars couldn't reconcile those 00:21:48.379 --> 00:21:53.559 two. How can God sometimes mete out justice and then other times he promises that he's going to 00:21:53.559 --> 00:21:58.479 forgive and restore his people? How could both be true, justice and mercy? And Paul would have said, 00:21:58.519 --> 00:22:02.679 Drusilla, have you ever known how to reconcile that? And she, if she were honest, would have had to 00:22:02.679 --> 00:22:07.419 simply shake her head and say, no, it's one of the great mysteries of the scriptures. 00:22:07.420 --> 00:22:17.279 And Paul would have said, mystery solved. The only way to resolve this dilemma is for someone else to pay 00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:23.320 the price for all the sins of humanity, for justice to be done, but not to human beings. Because here's 00:22:23.320 --> 00:22:30.420 the dilemma. If God doesn't bring judgment, there is no hope for the world. Things are never going to get 00:22:30.420 --> 00:22:37.080 better. But if God does bring judgment, then there's no hope for us. Because who could survive that? 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:43.560 So Paul says, the only way to resolve this tension is for someone else to pay the price. And the good 00:22:43.560 --> 00:22:49.800 news of the gospel is that there is a God who loves us so much that he sent his son to do just that. 00:22:49.880 --> 00:22:54.480 I was talking to somebody this past week. We were having a confirmation interview. And I asked her, 00:22:54.800 --> 00:22:58.720 when did the penny drop for you and your faith become real? And she said, well, I was listening to 00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:04.200 somebody talk about Jesus. And this person said, you know, I have a bunch of kids and I would readily die 00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:08.480 just in a moment's notice. I would die for any one of my kids. Absolutely. I love them that much, 00:23:08.480 --> 00:23:16.539 but I would never sacrifice one of my kids to save someone else. And she said, she's sitting 00:23:16.539 --> 00:23:20.360 there listening. And it was just like the love of God finally made sense to her. 00:23:22.420 --> 00:23:27.000 Right? But you can hear this gospel a thousand times. You can hear Jesus died for your sin. 00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:31.180 And many of you in this room have heard this tens of thousands of times. 00:23:31.539 --> 00:23:35.660 But until you cross the pain line, it's never going to mean anything to you. 00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:41.599 Right? Until you're so offended by the truth of your own sin that it throws you into crisis. 00:23:42.740 --> 00:23:46.359 The gospel is never really going to hit home. Yeah, Jesus died for my sin. Yeah, Jesus died for my sin. 00:23:46.460 --> 00:23:50.539 You'll hear it a thousand times. You'll never care. It'll never connect because you're not in crisis 00:23:50.539 --> 00:23:52.220 over your own 00:23:52.220 --> 00:23:53.079 need 00:23:53.079 --> 00:24:01.720 for grace. The penny's never going to drop. There's a writer named John Shore, and I do not 00:24:01.720 --> 00:24:07.699 agree with a lot of what he says, but at one point, John Shore wrote about his conversion 00:24:07.699 --> 00:24:16.980 on Huffington Post. And the title of his piece was, I, a rabid anti-Christian, very suddenly convert. 00:24:16.980 --> 00:24:20.880 So, so he describes himself. He says, you know, I wasn't religious. 00:24:21.759 --> 00:24:25.019 He thought Christianity was immature and stupid. 00:24:26.019 --> 00:24:27.559 He's very honest about that. 00:24:27.680 --> 00:24:33.860 And he had totally bought into the therapeutic cultural ideals. You know, life's about being happy and fulfilled and loving yourself. 00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:40.259 And then he has this day at work, and there's something particularly immature and self-destructive that he had done. 00:24:40.259 --> 00:24:43.559 And he's sort of mulling over this and wondering why he had done it. 00:24:44.940 --> 00:24:48.420 And then he says he feels this strange feeling come over him. 00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:53.480 And he doesn't know what's about to happen. He sort of feels like he's going to start crying. 00:24:53.599 --> 00:24:56.220 And so he, he doesn't know what to do because he's at work. 00:24:56.299 --> 00:24:59.460 You know, this is back in the old days when people were in offices. 00:24:59.460 --> 00:25:01.960 And, and so he, he doesn't know what to do. 00:25:02.039 --> 00:25:05.200 And so he, he runs into the closet, like a broom closet. 00:25:05.799 --> 00:25:06.700 And he shuts the door. 00:25:07.900 --> 00:25:10.539 And he says, all at once, the truth was before me. 00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:12.400 He's sitting here in a dark broom closet. 00:25:12.940 --> 00:25:16.640 All at once, the truth was before me that instead of being a good guy, 00:25:16.740 --> 00:25:19.340 who's basically always trying to do the right thing, 00:25:19.340 --> 00:25:25.860 I was a selfish, emotional wakeling who was always doing and saying whatever best served my own needs at the time. 00:25:26.400 --> 00:25:28.860 He just has this wake-up call about himself. 00:25:30.039 --> 00:25:34.160 And then he says, I wasn't the great honorable person I started out to be, 00:25:34.340 --> 00:25:37.319 that I'd meant to become, that I actually thought I was. 00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:42.539 I was just another guy so busy thinking he's constructing the perfect home 00:25:42.539 --> 00:25:46.440 that he doesn't realize how long ago he stopped using a level. 00:25:47.660 --> 00:25:53.340 It's like my whole sense of good and bad and my own measure is off. 00:25:53.880 --> 00:25:55.640 I stopped measuring a long time ago. 00:25:55.640 --> 00:26:01.040 And so there sure is, standing in a broom closet at work, 00:26:01.540 --> 00:26:07.540 for the first time ever, seeing himself on the other side of that pain line, 00:26:08.220 --> 00:26:13.000 confronted with this. 00:26:13.040 --> 00:26:14.180 It throws him into crisis. 00:26:14.180 --> 00:26:18.940 And he says, you know, this is not only true about me now, 00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:23.380 but I was, he says, the truth is, I was, I realized I was never going to change. 00:26:24.039 --> 00:26:25.080 I'm going to die this way. 00:26:25.079 --> 00:26:27.279 And then he starts to cry. 00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:31.579 And you imagine this dude in a broom closet realizing this and just beginning to sob. 00:26:32.439 --> 00:26:36.240 And then he hears a voice say, isn't this what Jesus is for? 00:26:36.240 --> 00:26:40.180 And he writes, just like that, I stopped crying. 00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:44.240 And do you know what I knew at that moment, what instantly imprinted itself upon me? 00:26:44.380 --> 00:26:47.059 That the story of Jesus is historically true. 00:26:47.279 --> 00:26:48.099 That it happened. 00:26:48.380 --> 00:26:52.420 That God, desiring above all else to show the people he'd created that he loved them, 00:26:52.660 --> 00:26:55.799 became a human and came to earth and sacrificed himself 00:26:55.799 --> 00:26:58.140 and in every way did everything he possibly could 00:26:58.140 --> 00:27:02.839 to show people exactly how deeply and terribly he loves them. 00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:06.059 See, he crossed the pain line. 00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:08.579 He had heard that a thousand times. 00:27:08.699 --> 00:27:12.439 He had probably mocked people who believed that thousands of times. 00:27:13.099 --> 00:27:14.699 But then he crossed the pain line. 00:27:15.859 --> 00:27:17.799 And the gospel message about Jesus, 00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:21.259 that he had been mocking his entire adult life, 00:27:21.899 --> 00:27:23.480 all of a sudden became real. 00:27:25.959 --> 00:27:28.439 True grace, costly grace, 00:27:28.839 --> 00:27:32.220 can only be found on the far side of the pain line. 00:27:33.659 --> 00:27:35.299 You have to cross that line. 00:27:37.980 --> 00:27:39.500 So let's pull all this together. 00:27:41.259 --> 00:27:44.199 What does it take to be a faithful kingdom witness? 00:27:46.399 --> 00:27:50.459 Number one, integrity is essential for Christian witness. 00:27:51.939 --> 00:27:53.699 You know, you can say whatever you want. 00:27:54.639 --> 00:27:55.639 You can say whatever you want. 00:27:56.159 --> 00:27:57.599 But people don't have to listen to you. 00:27:58.579 --> 00:28:00.079 They don't have to respect what you're saying. 00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:03.619 You have to earn the right to be heard, 00:28:03.699 --> 00:28:05.079 and that depends on your integrity. 00:28:06.819 --> 00:28:07.179 Right? 00:28:07.259 --> 00:28:09.279 One of my heroes, the pastor John Stott, 00:28:09.339 --> 00:28:10.199 before he died, 00:28:10.879 --> 00:28:12.939 he gave his last little bit of advice, 00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:14.059 which was simply this. 00:28:14.059 --> 00:28:16.700 On his deathbed, he said to his assistant, 00:28:17.519 --> 00:28:18.960 do the hard thing. 00:28:21.079 --> 00:28:23.419 You know, often integrity means doing the hard thing, 00:28:23.779 --> 00:28:25.519 even if no one's watching. 00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:29.240 So integrity is essential for Christian witness. 00:28:29.500 --> 00:28:31.900 As the church, we need to get our house in order. 00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:36.279 We need to have integrity in our witness. 00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:39.119 The second point is this. 00:28:39.200 --> 00:28:41.960 The pain line is essential for Christian witness. 00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:44.039 Right? 00:28:44.059 --> 00:28:47.319 It can be so tempting to remove the offense of the gospel, 00:28:47.879 --> 00:28:49.259 to make it more palatable, 00:28:50.759 --> 00:28:52.879 right, to talk in vaguely spiritual terms 00:28:52.879 --> 00:28:54.299 and think that's evangelism. 00:28:55.079 --> 00:28:56.539 But when you do that, 00:28:56.740 --> 00:28:58.079 you think that you're being nice. 00:28:58.960 --> 00:29:00.619 You think that that's what you should do. 00:29:01.579 --> 00:29:03.939 But what you're doing is actually robbing people 00:29:03.939 --> 00:29:05.759 of the only opportunity they have 00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:07.799 to truly experience God's grace and love. 00:29:08.779 --> 00:29:10.000 You're robbing them of that. 00:29:10.959 --> 00:29:12.179 You know, there's this old saying, 00:29:12.299 --> 00:29:13.579 what you convert people with, 00:29:13.639 --> 00:29:14.559 you convert them to. 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:18.199 So there are many people sitting in churches right now 00:29:18.199 --> 00:29:19.299 who identify as Christians 00:29:19.299 --> 00:29:22.719 who've never experienced God's love and grace 00:29:22.719 --> 00:29:25.199 because they were converted with 00:29:25.199 --> 00:29:27.539 a very watered-down version of the gospel, 00:29:27.699 --> 00:29:28.739 an inoffensive gospel, 00:29:28.740 --> 00:29:31.039 which made it easy to swallow, 00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:34.019 but grace has never become real for them. 00:29:34.140 --> 00:29:35.480 Love has never become real 00:29:35.480 --> 00:29:37.500 because they've never crossed the pain line. 00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:40.240 And I will say this to those of us sitting here. 00:29:40.339 --> 00:29:41.299 Some of you may be Christians 00:29:41.299 --> 00:29:42.559 wondering this for yourself. 00:29:42.900 --> 00:29:44.680 Some of us may be, you know, 00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.279 here and not sure what we believe. 00:29:47.900 --> 00:29:50.279 Have you ever taken a good, honest look 00:29:50.279 --> 00:29:53.220 at the truth of your heart the way John Shore did? 00:29:53.220 --> 00:29:55.279 Have you ever really taken an inventory 00:29:55.279 --> 00:29:59.059 of the space between the person you want to be 00:29:59.059 --> 00:29:59.859 and think you are 00:29:59.859 --> 00:30:02.119 and the person that you actually are? 00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:04.420 Have you ever faced that? 00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:07.279 You know, this liturgy is designed to help us do that. 00:30:07.599 --> 00:30:11.839 When we hear the law at the beginning of the time together, 00:30:11.940 --> 00:30:14.839 when we hear God's standard for loving him perfectly, 00:30:15.420 --> 00:30:16.799 a little bit later in the service, 00:30:16.899 --> 00:30:18.859 when we confess together 00:30:18.859 --> 00:30:21.519 and you think about sins that we've committed, 00:30:21.740 --> 00:30:23.420 sins of commission, 00:30:23.420 --> 00:30:24.600 and then sins of omission, 00:30:24.720 --> 00:30:26.000 things that we've left undone. 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:27.480 Can any of us say 00:30:27.480 --> 00:30:29.380 that there aren't lots of things we've left undone 00:30:29.380 --> 00:30:32.140 that we probably should have done? 00:30:32.220 --> 00:30:34.779 You recognize that the Bible recognizes that 00:30:34.779 --> 00:30:35.539 as a kind of sin? 00:30:35.740 --> 00:30:37.060 Have you ever taken a good, hard look 00:30:37.060 --> 00:30:37.900 at the truth of your heart? 00:30:38.980 --> 00:30:40.019 Are you scared to? 00:30:43.640 --> 00:30:44.960 Like the voice said to John Shore, 00:30:45.080 --> 00:30:46.539 isn't that what Jesus is for? 00:30:47.820 --> 00:30:49.720 If you've never been offended 00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:50.980 by the truth of the gospel, 00:30:50.980 --> 00:30:53.120 you will never be overcome 00:30:53.120 --> 00:30:54.700 by the love of the gospel. 00:30:56.779 --> 00:30:57.339 Let's pray. 00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:00.440 Lord, we thank you for your word 00:31:00.440 --> 00:31:02.000 and we thank you for your gospel. 00:31:03.019 --> 00:31:04.759 There is nothing else in the world 00:31:04.759 --> 00:31:05.819 that gives us the courage 00:31:05.819 --> 00:31:07.220 to face the truth about ourselves 00:31:07.220 --> 00:31:07.960 like your grace. 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:10.799 But Lord, we don't do this 00:31:10.799 --> 00:31:12.559 because we like to indulge in suffering 00:31:12.559 --> 00:31:15.579 or self-flagellation. 00:31:16.779 --> 00:31:18.680 Lord, we do it because we know deep down 00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:19.779 there's a sneaking suspicion 00:31:19.779 --> 00:31:21.340 that we're not the people we think we are. 00:31:22.120 --> 00:31:23.420 But we're so terrified 00:31:23.420 --> 00:31:24.640 of what that would mean 00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:26.320 that it's easier to pretend 00:31:26.320 --> 00:31:27.160 like it's not there. 00:31:28.940 --> 00:31:31.480 Lord, I pray that as this time together 00:31:31.480 --> 00:31:34.019 is infused at every turn with grace, 00:31:34.860 --> 00:31:36.519 I pray that that grace would be enough 00:31:36.519 --> 00:31:37.680 to give us the courage to face 00:31:37.680 --> 00:31:38.759 maybe for the first time ever 00:31:38.759 --> 00:31:39.779 the truth of who we are. 00:31:40.920 --> 00:31:42.080 That we might come to see 00:31:42.080 --> 00:31:43.019 much more clearly 00:31:43.019 --> 00:31:44.660 the truth of who you are 00:31:44.660 --> 00:31:46.180 and the truth of what you've done. 00:31:46.180 --> 00:31:48.840 We pray this in your son Jesus' name. 00:31:49.000 --> 00:31:49.220 Amen.