God’s Cup of Wrath – Christ’s Substitution on our Behalf – WHO IS GOD? - Jesus is our Substitute
Jesus Knowingly stepped in and took on the wrath of God on our behalf
It was May 21, 1946. The place - Los Alamos. A young and daring scientist was carrying out a necessary experiment in preparation for the atomic test to be conducted in the waters of the South Pacific at Bikini.
He had successfully performed such an experiment many times before. In his effort to determine the amount of U-235 necessary for a chain reaction--scientists call it the critical mass--he would push two hemispheres of uranium together. Then, just as the mass became critical, he would push them apart with his screwdriver, thus instantly stopping the chain reaction. But that day, just as the material became critical, the screwdriver slipped! The hemispheres of uranium came too close together. Instantly the room was filled with a dazzling bluish haze. Young Louis Slotin, instead of ducking and thereby possibly saving himself, tore the two hemispheres apart with his hands and thus interrupted the chain reaction.
"By this instant, self-forgetful daring, he saved the lives of the seven other persons in the room. . . (A)s he waited. . for the car that was to take him to the hospital, he said quietly to his companion, 'You'll come through all right. But I haven't the faintest chance myself' It was only too true. Nine days later he died in agony.
We read this story and we are moved by this man’s willingness to step in and give his life for others.
We also know that as Christians we have sinned the book of Romans tells us that all men have sinned.
Paul speaks of a day of wrath that is coming for those that do not believe in Christ and have not obeyed the gospel.
Romans 2: 5
5 But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
God’s wrath stands against this world because of Sin. There is a day that is coming and that day will be terrible for those that don’t know Christ.
Today I want to talk to you about the wrath of God and a lesson we can learn from the OT that illustrates how Israel escaped God’s wrath and what we can learn from this.
The time that we are talking about is the Exodus – a new pharaoh has come to power that does not know Joseph and he enslaves Israel.
The Israelites cry out to God and God sends a deliverer named Moses to rescue His people.
God’s wrath is against Egypt and He is going to show Egypt His power by bringing about 10 plagues.
There is much detail to this story but today I just want to focus on the 10th plague that God brings against Israel.
This 10th plague is the most horrifying one of all and that is the death of the firstborn son.
God gives Israel specific instructions about this plague.
“On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn—both men and animals—and I will bring judgement on all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord” (Exodus 12:12).
They were to put the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts of their house that night of Passover.
The first Passover was a deliverance from the wrath of God.
If you had the blood on the door posts of the house you would be passed over by the death angel. Imagine the suspense but there is more to the story.
All of the 1st 9 plagues Israel had been an innocent bystander but the 10th plague would require Israel to be part of this plague.
God tells Israel to go get a lamb or ram and tie it up outside their house for 4 days and then on the 5th day they would sacrifice the lamb and roast it so that everyone in Egypt could smell the roasting Lamb.
There is one problem with this. Killing a lamb in Egypt was illegal.
They saw the Lamb as a protector of Pharaoh. Engravings in Ancient Egypt show Pharaoh under a lamb and the lamb acting as a protector.
Aman-RA, the chief god of Egypt, was symbolized by a lamb.
To kill a lamb, to tie one up in front of your house, to roast it so the entire city would smell it would require some guts and faith.
It break it down and make it simple God is saying this to Israel:
MY WRATH IS COMING – GET READY – PUT YOUR FAITH IN ME, FAITH THAT IS SO ALIVE THAT IT WILL RISK EVERYTHING AND YOU WILL BE SAVED.
ISRAEL IS REQUIRED TO DO THIS ACT OF FAITH TO BE SAVED.
WOULD THEY HAVE FAITH THAT TRUSTS TOTALLY IN GOD OR WILL THEY COWER IN FEAR OF THE EGYPTIANS?
We know this story – the Death Angel comes and passes over the houses of the Israelites with the blood on the doorposts.
God shows his gracious love to Israel but shows Justice to Egypt.
Israel knows God as a Redeemer but Egypt knows God as a God that takes retribution on those that do not do His will.
But this story goes further. It goes to the very ritual of Passover.
The Jews would celebrate this feast for many years to come.
Every year the Israelites would celebrate their deliverance from Egypt and would do so by sacrificing a Lamb, eating bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and cups of wine.
The ceremony at one point in Israel’s history was very concise. It had four cups of wine that would be celebrated.
4 CUPS OF WINE IN THE PASSOVER
The night of Passover as it gets toward evening and sunset the Jews would have the 1st cup of wine.
This cup is called the cup of Sanctification – it was to consecrate and the make the night holy unto God.
The prayer prayed over this cup read:
“Blessed are you O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who creates the fruit of the vine”
2nd Cup was the cup of Proclamation
This was the Cup in which the story of the Exodus would be told to the family and children
3rd Cup – The Cup of the Meal
The third Cup would be drank with the Lamb and unleavened bread
The prayer prayed at this time went something like: “Blessed are you, Lord God, who brings forth bread from the earth.”
This is when the Lamb was consumed completely and the Lamb became simply THE BODY
4th Cup – The Cup of Thanksgiving
At this time songs of thanksgiving would have been sung and celebrated.
The Psalms of the bible that were sung at this time were called the Hallal Psalms.
Now take this idea of the four cups to the New Testament.
Jesus celebrated the Passover with His disciples when He instituted the Lord’s Supper-
It was during the Cup of Thanksgiving that Jesus instituted our Lord’s Supper
He didn’t have a lamb to eat because He would be the Lamb.
He said take eat this is my body. – remember the Lamb had come to be called the Body.
So now the body of sacrifice would be tied to the unleavened bread and the blood of the covenant tied to the cup of thanksgiving.
As a matter of fact the early Church started to call the Lord’s Supper The EUCHARIST - this comes from the Greek word for Thanksgiving.
But what were the early Christians thankful for?
Of course Jesus died for our sins on the cross and we are thankful for that but what does that really mean.
To answer this we need to introduce you to the 5th and final cup of the Passover feast.
There came to be a fifth cup that Israel would celebrate in this ceremony. This fifth cup would be set off on a Table to the side but would not be drunk from.
This cup would be called the cup of Elijah. The 5th cup of Passover or the cup of Elijah was the cup of God’s vengeance on the world. Just as God poured out His wrath on the Egyptians, the Jews believed that God would one day pour out His wrath on all the nations.
Malachi the Prophet foretells of this time when Elijah would return before the Day of the Lord.
Malachi 4:5
"Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.
The great Prophet Elijah would return right before this event. The cup of wrath would come when Elijah came back.
If you remember Jesus tells us that in the ministry of John the Baptist Elijah the prophet had returned to Israel. The Messiah would be coming soon and God’s wrath would come against the nations.
This cup of wrath would be identified with Messianic times.
Jeremiah the prophet speaks of this wrath to come against the nations that have rejected God.
Jeremiah’s prophecy was against Judah, the surrounding nations, and also Babylon.
Except for a couple of points of interest, this passage reads like a typical judgment chapter in the Old Testament prophets, so it is tempting to pass on its significance.
First of all, it goes to great lengths to describe not only God’s heavy judgment, but the depth of sin as well. We learn, through the weight of the judgment how weighty sin is: the punishment fits the crime, so to speak.
It is a lesson throughout the book of Jeremiah that judgment is neither arbitrary nor pleasant for God. It is always the just response to rebellion after God has pleaded with His people over and over to repent. Secondly, Jeremiah uses the image of a cup of wrath.
A fairly common image for the Old Testament prophets, it is designed to give us an image of a goblet filled to the brim and overflowing with wine.
Jeremiah is vivid in his description of this cup.
Jeremiah 25: 13-16
13 'I will bring upon that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book which Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. 14 '(For many nations and great kings will make slaves of them, even them; and I will recompense them according to their deeds and according to the work of their hands.)' " 15 For thus the LORD, the God of Israel, says to me, "Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand and cause all the nations to whom I send you to drink it. 16 "They will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them."
27 "You shall say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Drink, be drunk, vomit, fall and rise no more because of the sword which I will send among you."' 28 "And it will be, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, then you will say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts : "You shall surely drink !
These are images, not of someone who has had “one too many,” but of something akin to alcohol poisoning.
The rebellious decisions made by these people have destroyed them.
This, however, is not all there is to be said about this cup or wrath.
Isaiah 51:17-23 also describes this time in history for Judah with the same image. But near the end something drastic and unexpected is recorded.
Isaiah 51: 22
22 Thus says you Lord, the Lord, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more…”
How is it the cup is simply taken away from sinful and rebellious people?
The answer lies in a prayer spoken by Jesus moments before his trial and crucifixion.
Remember that Jesus accomplishes His Atonement at Passover.
It was at Passover that the mystery of the 5th cup of Wrath was celebrated. They wanted to know about this Cup.
There was a mystery to the Cup, how would it be given to the nations but not to Israel? In the prophets the wrath of God’s judgment was promised to all that were disobedient.
Then answer is found in Matthew’s Gospel.
In Matthew 26:39 He prays, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
You see, Jesus saw this cup of wrath, being poured out on Him, and shook.
At this part of the Passover ceremony, the door is opened, and the head of household says, “Pour out your wrath on the world!”
In the traditional ceremony, this cup is filled but not drunk — not until the coming of Elijah. But Jesus drank the cup.
Jesus has not only taken away this cup of wrath, He has provided a cup of a new relationship, the one provided by his blood shed on the cross.
Jesus drank the cup of God’s wrath against the nations
What we see in the passion of Jesus is the wrath of God that was reserved for the nations poured out on Jesus. Jesus willfully accepted the separation from God the Father by taking on that wrath that we deserve.
Jesus became sin on our behalf.
2 Corinthians 5: 21
21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
The imagery from the story of the Exodus comes to its fruition in Jesus. Jesus takes on the wrath of God.
Scripture promises that there are two ways we are going to know God. We can KNOW GOD’s Wrath or we can know GOD’s Deliverance.
In Jesus we see the true LOVE of God. God is perfect and Just and out of His love He has provided a way to escape the wrath of our sin.
Jesus allowed that wrath to come crashing down on HIM.
Boarding the SS Dorchester on a dreary winter day in 1943 were 903 troops and four chaplains, including Moody alumnus Lt. George Fox.
World War II was in full swing, and the ship was headed across the icy North Atlantic where German U-boats lurked. At 12:00 on the morning of February 3, a German torpedo ripped into the ship. "She's going down!" the men cried, scrambling for lifeboats.
A young GI crept up to one of the chaplains.
"I've lost my life jacket," he said. "Take this," the chaplain said, handing the soldier his jacket.
Before the ship sank, each chaplain gave his life jacket to another man. The heroic chaplains then linked arms and lifted their voices in prayer as the Dorchester went down. Lt. Fox and his fellow pastors were awarded posthumously the Distinguished Service Cross.
We hear this story and we are stirred by the great courage of these chaplains that gave up their life jackets.
WE applaud them as we should but we are forgetting something – Jesus the most innocent person that ever lived, the perfect lamb of God, willfully died for us.
I believe it was so much the pain of the nails on the cross and the gasping of air and the severe beating that was the worse for Christ.
It was literally experiencing Hell while He was on the cross. Jesus took on the sins of all of the world.
From the sins of Herod the Great to the sins of Hitler, to the Sins of Me and you, they all were put on Him.
He was crushed for our iniquities. The cup of wrath that was stored up for us and the sin of the world was poured out on Him.
Romans 5: 7-9
7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man ; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him
There are two type of people here today -
Sinners that are forgiven and have accepted Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Sinners that are not forgiven and are on a collision course with God.
Scripture makes it clear that it is a terrifying prospect to die without Christ Jesus.
Paul tells us in Hebrews 10:
Hebrews 10: 29-31
29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace ? 30 For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE." 31 It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
This is a sobering passage and one that is so neglected.
Paul paints a terrifying picture of those that have rejected Christ’s sacrifice and he speaks of terror of falling into the hands of the living God.
This is the same God that struck Nadab and Abihu down for offering strange fire.
The Same God that would kill the high priest on the day of atonement if he entered the Holy of Holies without making atonement for his own sin.
We forget that salvation is an act of Love but if we reject the gift of the Gospel our punishment is just and deserving.
If anyone falls into the hands of God without Christ it is a terrifying prospect.
The Bible tells us that we are to put our trust in Jesus
Galatians paints a beautiful picture of what it is like when you are baptized. It says that we are clothed with Christ.
Now when we are clothed with Christ and His righteousness, meaning His perfection and grace that He has offered to us, this is put over us like a blanket.
When God the Father looks upon us He no longer sees sin but sees the work of Jesus draped over us.
Just like the Passover, the death angel passed over the house where the blood was on the doorpost, the person that has the blood of the Lamb of God – Jesus Christ will be admitted into Heaven and God’s wrath will not fall on that person.
We beg you to respond today to the Gospel – If you are not a Christian do not leave here today in a lost condition.
Just as the Hebrew writer tells us It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Who Is God? Part 2 - A God that Loved Even Unto Death
Identity is an important thing.
Coaches- Clinic Derek Dooley – putting your signature on something is important – about your identity
Was 2-6 and invited Bobby Bowden to come speak to his team. Bowden affirmed all that Derek Dooley was doing and just encouraged the players to buy in to the system and keep working.
When Bowden was leaving the team meeting he called out to Derek Dooley and said thanks Daryll for having me.
Dooley said it was hard to stand in front of his team after coach Bowden called him by the wrong first name but they all got a good laugh about it.
Last week we started a new series of Sermons that are entitled “Who Is God?”
This is a fundamental question that must be answered for the Church to advance the cause of Christ.
This also a muddled and confused view with man creating God in his own image.
In other words we have created God as a middle class American God that is comfortable with us being in our comfort zone.
We have painted a picture of God as one that is okay with lukewarm Christians, a God that is happy with folks that don’t spread the Gospel, a God that is happy with folks that don’t spend their money on God and His kingdom.
This is really not God but an idol.
These are really people that gather for worship on Sunday’s across this country and worship themselves and not God.
So in laying out these sermons I stated that we have three goals.
3 Goals in our study of Who God is are the following:
1) To see and know the glory of God
2) To understand who God is and experience his glory from His Word.
3) When we understand who God is and His glory we will want to Advance His kingdom.
Today we are going to look at attribute of God that is so neglected and will take us out of our comfort zone.
This is a God that is very concerned with sin and wants to bring salvation to this world.
We will see at the end of this sermon that that this is a God that will call us out of our comfort zone and possibly to a like of suffering that leads to fulfillment.
Last week we also laid down the fact that the only way can know God is through Divine Revelation as we saw in 1 Corinthians 2.
In other words, we only know about God what He has made known to us.
Today we are going to talk about an attribute of God that is neglected in the Church but if understood properly will radically transform the way we live our lives.
We remember in the Old Testament that God was Israel’s King and that had always been the plan. Israel asked for a king like the surrounding nations and was not content for God to just be their king.
That attribute is caught up in an expectation of the Israelites.
That expectation is that one day the God of Israel – will become the King of the entire world.
This expectation is wrapped up in a promise made to David. David was promised that one of his descendents will sit on the throne of Israel forever.
The Jews had a hard time with this promise because it seemed that the Davidic line or the family of David had been cut off.
2 Samuel 7 made it clear that on of David’s family would sit on the throne forever but it seems like that was not going to happen.
When Babylon invaded almost 600 years before Christ it seemed that David’s family had been cut off like a stump to a tree.
Imagine a family tree that was cut to the stump and you can visualize what had happened to David’s family.
So what would God do? Would He keep His promise and reestablish the nation of Israel.
To get an answer we need to look at the book of Psalms. Psalms had been written over a 1000 year period and reflected the hope of Israel over that 1000 year period.
The Psalms were divided into 5 books. And the Psalm I want to look at is found in Psalm 89. Psalm 89 is in Book 3 of the Psalms. Book 3 of the Psalms paints a somber picture where the writers are asking if God is going to be faithful to His promise to them.
This Psalm was written while Israel was in Exile and the Kings of David had been killed or his descendents were in hiding.
Psalm 89: 34-39 and 49-52
34 "My covenant I will not violate, Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. 35 "Once I have sworn by My holiness ; I will not lie to David. 36 "His descendants shall endure forever And his throne as the sun before Me. 37 "It shall be established forever like the moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful." Selah. 38 But You have cast off and rejected, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed. 39 You have spurned the covenant of Your servant ; You have profaned his crown in the dust.
49 Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness ? 50 Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants ; How I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, 51 With which Your enemies have reproached, O LORD, With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD forever ! Amen and Amen.
Do you hear the anguish of the Psalmist. He knows God is faithful to His covenant but it seems that David’s line has been cut off.
When will God reestablish this King and Kingdom?
When we turn to Book 4 of the Psalms which begins with the very next Psalm 90 we see a change in tone.
Book 4 is much more positive and brings Praise to God for His faithfulness.
Psalm 93 gets to the point. How will God be faithful to His Promise made to David?
Psalm 93 – God will be King
1 The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty ; The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength ; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old ; You are from everlasting. 3 The floods have lifted up, O LORD, The floods have lifted up their voice, The floods lift up their pounding waves. 4 More than the sounds of many waters, Than the mighty breakers of the sea, The LORD on high is mighty. 5 Your testimonies are fully confirmed ; Holiness befits Your house, O LORD, forevermore .
Psalm 95: verse 3 also tells us that God will be their King
How will God fix this dilemma? He will be King of Israel and of the entire world.
But that still leaves a mystery – how will God be both fulfill the promise that someone from the family of David will be their king but also God will be their king?
How will God combine this idea of a Davidic King and the idea of God being King.
We should be excited because we already know the answer – Matthew 1:1 tells us that Jesus is the Son of David.
Jesus is from the family of David. Jesus will be called Christ which is NOT His last name but is a title. Christ means Annointed One – He is the anointed King of Israel.
This morning I want to show you how this all comes alive in the Gospel of Mark. I hope you will be of fire for God when you hear this message and what we are called to do.
Now you may think Mark’s gospel is a funny place to answer this question but Mark tells his story from an interesting perspective.
Mark is written by someone from Rome – according to church history John Mark was from Rome. We also know that Mark was written to the Church at Rome.
John Mark was familiar with many things Roman and their customs.
At the time of Jesus the entire world that they knew was ruled by Caesar. By the time Jesus was born the cult of Caesar was in full swing. The cult of Caesar was the religion that worshipped Caesar as a living god.
That might sound crazy to us but in the time of Jesus the Caesars saw themselves as part of the pantheon of gods that included Zeus, Athena, Jupiter, Mars, and Dionysius.
John Mark and the Christians in Rome would have been very familiar with a service that took place in Rome and that was the crowing or the coronation of Caesar.
When a new Caesar was crowned there was an elaborate service and procession that happened.
The ancient would was know for its processions through the streets. For example, before the time of Christ pagans would take the statue of Zeus out his temple and parade it through the streets in joyful triumph.
By the time of Christ the only lawful procession that you could have is one for Caesar and his coronation.
When a new Caesar was coronated as King it would follow several steps.
These steps are important because they are going to be used in just a minute:
1) Caesar – the new candidate – was brought to a building called the Praetorium. The Praetorium was where the Praetorian guard was located.
These were the elite forces of Rome –t he navy seals of their day – they were assigned to protect Caesar and were sent to the most dangerous parts of the world.
2) The Praetorian guard would surround him – all 6000 in a company would surround this new Caesar to pay tribute – Hail Caesar would be cried out.
3) The Praetorian Guard would go to the temple of Zeus and get a purple robe on him, give him a septer, and a crown of gold.
4) They would form a procession in the street and along with that procession a bull would walk with them that would be sacrificed. A servant would walk by the bull carrying the instrument of execution.
5) They would walk Caesar up a hill to the Capitoline – the Capitoline was Latin for Head Hill. The reason it was named this is because in Roman legend, when the hill was first found, a complete head was found buried their intact.
6) Once Caesar came to Head Hill- he would have his 2nd and 3rd in command stand on either side of Him.
7) Last in this step – Caesar was offered a cup of wine mixed with Myrrh and he would pour out this wine as a libation and the bull would be killed to consecrate his coronation.
The coronation of Caesar was two fold in that it crowned him as king and a living god.
He was declared literally a son of the gods.
Now imagine you are a 1st century Christian living in Rome – under persecution from a man that claims to be a ruler over you as your king and a living god.
How do you respond to that claim?
Well imagine a God that shapes historical events and sets everything up perfectly.
Galatians 4 tells us that in the fullness of time God sent His Son – in other words when the world situation was set up right God sent Jesus.
What I am about to share with you is not mere coincidence but is God’s providence in helping our brethren in the 1st century see something about Christ.
IN Mark’s Gospel we see something interesting.
Mark 1:1 starts off telling us that Mark is presenting the Gospel of Jesus as the Son of God.
We will see that in Mark’s Gospel the next time we will see that phrase son of God used by a human being to refer to Jesus, it will be at the cross of Jesus.
It will be interesting too at the cross who declares Jesus as the son of God.
Let us turn to the crucifixion account found in Mark’s Gospel – We pick up with Jesus after He has been scourged and just before His crucifixion.
Mark 15: 16-21
16 The soldiers took Him away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium ), and they called together the whole Roman cohort. 17 They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him; 18 and they began to acclaim Him, "Hail, King of the Jews !" 19 They kept beating His head with a reed, and spitting on Him, and kneeling and bowing before Him. 20 After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him. 21 They pressed into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus ), to bear His cross.
1) Do you notice where they took Jesus – Praetorium – wherever these elite soldiers were stationed – an Palestine as volatile as it was would be a good place to have them – This is the only gospel that tells us that Jesus went to the Praetorium.
Remember –when Caesar was coronated he went to the praetorium in Rome.
2) Mark is the only one to tell us that all 6000 of the cohort of soldiers gathered around Him to mock Him. When Caesar was crowned all 6000 of the Praetorian guard would surround him and shout accolades to him
Now these same elite soldiers are surround the true king and making fun of Him in jest.
3) They give him a purple robe. Probably in Israel only two people were allowed to wear purples and that was Pilate and Herod. Only royalty or the equestrian class of Rome could wear purple.
They are putting the regal colors on Jesus.
4) They give him a crown of thorns with his regal garments. Just as Caesar was crowned with a golden crown these soldiers have crowned him with a crown of thorns.
5) Instead of a bull as a sacrifice – the sacrifice will be Jesus Himself. Not only is he being coronated as King but he is also being sacrificed.
6) We see that just as the servant carried the instrument of execution in Caesar’s procession we now see Simon of Cyrene carry the instrument of execution.
7) Simon’s sons are named – Why would Mark give us the names of Simon’s Sons? Alexander and Rufus? Rufus is mentioned in Romans 16 as a member of the Church at Rome and Church history tells us that both Rufus and Alexander were Roman Christians.
Mark puts this fact in this story to show the connection between the Roman Church and the crucifixion narrative – imagine being at church and there Rufus and Alexander sit on the front row.
Lets turn back to Mark’s story of the crucifixion and see what else we pick up from the story
Mark 15: 22-27
22 Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. 23 They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh ; but He did not take it. 24 And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified Him. 26 The inscription of the charge against Him read, "THE KING OF THE JEWS." 27 They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left.
8) Golgotha – here it is translated from Aramaic to English as Place of the Skull
If it were literally translated it would be place of the Head.
Now remember that Caesar was crowned and taken to the Capitoline which is called Head Hill and Jesus is now taken to the Place of the Head.
9) Jesus is offered wine mixed with Myrrh just as it is offered to Caesar. Jesus would not take the wine.
10) Jesus is declared King of the Jews by the sign on His cross
11) He is flanked to his right and left by two criminals.
It doesn’t take long to figure out what Mark is telling us. Imagine you are in Rome at a Church service and all the sudden a messenger comes with Mark’s Gospel to be read in the assembly.
The reader gets to this section – what do you think the people would understand is going on.
They get it pretty quick – Jesus is being crowned King by the cross.
The one thing that Pilate was firm on was that the Title on the Cross would be King of the Jews.
The Romans had unwittingly proved God’s point – Pilate in the sign and the soldiers in the coronation ceremony of Jesus.
12) Now notice who is the one human being that gets it right – which man finally acknowledges that Jesus is God’s true Son.
Mark 15: 39
. 39 When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God !"
The Pagan Centurion of Rome recognizes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Now compare the coronation and enthronement of Jesus to that of earthly kings like Caesar. Jesus came to love us to the end.
Jesus came to be crushed for our iniquities – He came for the Life of the World
Now let us go back to our original proposal – God has kept His promise – A child of David will sit on the throne of Israel forever but at the same time God would be their king.
Jesus is God in the flesh – he is both the fleshly son of David and the Divine Son of God. This is dense and hard to grasp but it is an amazing game changer.
Now Who Is God?
God is Love – God is ultimate Love – God loved us so much that His power was gained by sacrifice.
Revelation 5: 11
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders ; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
This King – this lamb – is exalted because He was slain.
This is a God that is willing to be crushed for our sin so that we can be brought back to His family and share in His divine Life.
Application:
1) Our God is so powerful that He can shape history – he used the Romans to teach a lesson to His followers that Jesus is the King and Caesar is not
2) Our King is strong through sacrifice.
This changes everything for us.
Jesus calls us to come to him and forsake all the cares of this world
Jesus calls us to come and take up our cross.
Now if our God is this type of God and not one that we have invented in our heads then we need to change?
Do you think the God of the bible is content for people that just show up on Sunday and never think again about God and His Kingdom?
Lets be totally honest and open about this? The God that was willing to become flesh and die on a cross and be beaten brutally – do you think the status quo is okay?
Do you think Church being all about our comfort and us not sharing the gospel and living comfortably in our Middle Class lives of riches and affluence not caring about the Kingdom is the true God’s wishes. That sounds more like a God that we have invented in our heads.
The God of Scripture calls us to get out of our comfort zone, get excited about worship, get excited about mission, get excited about helping the poor among us, getting excited about visiting those in prison.
Our life must change – we must no longer go with what is comfortable but what is right.
We cant just float along thinking that it is okay not so be on fire for Christ – because it is not. Christ’s blood is too precious, hell is too terrible, and Heaven is too wonderful to sit here like the status quo is okay.
Coaches- Clinic Derek Dooley – putting your signature on something is important – about your identity
Was 2-6 and invited Bobby Bowden to come speak to his team. Bowden affirmed all that Derek Dooley was doing and just encouraged the players to buy in to the system and keep working.
When Bowden was leaving the team meeting he called out to Derek Dooley and said thanks Daryll for having me.
Dooley said it was hard to stand in front of his team after coach Bowden called him by the wrong first name but they all got a good laugh about it.
Last week we started a new series of Sermons that are entitled “Who Is God?”
This is a fundamental question that must be answered for the Church to advance the cause of Christ.
This also a muddled and confused view with man creating God in his own image.
In other words we have created God as a middle class American God that is comfortable with us being in our comfort zone.
We have painted a picture of God as one that is okay with lukewarm Christians, a God that is happy with folks that don’t spread the Gospel, a God that is happy with folks that don’t spend their money on God and His kingdom.
This is really not God but an idol.
These are really people that gather for worship on Sunday’s across this country and worship themselves and not God.
So in laying out these sermons I stated that we have three goals.
3 Goals in our study of Who God is are the following:
1) To see and know the glory of God
2) To understand who God is and experience his glory from His Word.
3) When we understand who God is and His glory we will want to Advance His kingdom.
Today we are going to look at attribute of God that is so neglected and will take us out of our comfort zone.
This is a God that is very concerned with sin and wants to bring salvation to this world.
We will see at the end of this sermon that that this is a God that will call us out of our comfort zone and possibly to a like of suffering that leads to fulfillment.
Last week we also laid down the fact that the only way can know God is through Divine Revelation as we saw in 1 Corinthians 2.
In other words, we only know about God what He has made known to us.
Today we are going to talk about an attribute of God that is neglected in the Church but if understood properly will radically transform the way we live our lives.
We remember in the Old Testament that God was Israel’s King and that had always been the plan. Israel asked for a king like the surrounding nations and was not content for God to just be their king.
That attribute is caught up in an expectation of the Israelites.
That expectation is that one day the God of Israel – will become the King of the entire world.
This expectation is wrapped up in a promise made to David. David was promised that one of his descendents will sit on the throne of Israel forever.
The Jews had a hard time with this promise because it seemed that the Davidic line or the family of David had been cut off.
2 Samuel 7 made it clear that on of David’s family would sit on the throne forever but it seems like that was not going to happen.
When Babylon invaded almost 600 years before Christ it seemed that David’s family had been cut off like a stump to a tree.
Imagine a family tree that was cut to the stump and you can visualize what had happened to David’s family.
So what would God do? Would He keep His promise and reestablish the nation of Israel.
To get an answer we need to look at the book of Psalms. Psalms had been written over a 1000 year period and reflected the hope of Israel over that 1000 year period.
The Psalms were divided into 5 books. And the Psalm I want to look at is found in Psalm 89. Psalm 89 is in Book 3 of the Psalms. Book 3 of the Psalms paints a somber picture where the writers are asking if God is going to be faithful to His promise to them.
This Psalm was written while Israel was in Exile and the Kings of David had been killed or his descendents were in hiding.
Psalm 89: 34-39 and 49-52
34 "My covenant I will not violate, Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. 35 "Once I have sworn by My holiness ; I will not lie to David. 36 "His descendants shall endure forever And his throne as the sun before Me. 37 "It shall be established forever like the moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful." Selah. 38 But You have cast off and rejected, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed. 39 You have spurned the covenant of Your servant ; You have profaned his crown in the dust.
49 Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness ? 50 Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants ; How I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, 51 With which Your enemies have reproached, O LORD, With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD forever ! Amen and Amen.
Do you hear the anguish of the Psalmist. He knows God is faithful to His covenant but it seems that David’s line has been cut off.
When will God reestablish this King and Kingdom?
When we turn to Book 4 of the Psalms which begins with the very next Psalm 90 we see a change in tone.
Book 4 is much more positive and brings Praise to God for His faithfulness.
Psalm 93 gets to the point. How will God be faithful to His Promise made to David?
Psalm 93 – God will be King
1 The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty ; The LORD has clothed and girded Himself with strength ; Indeed, the world is firmly established, it will not be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old ; You are from everlasting. 3 The floods have lifted up, O LORD, The floods have lifted up their voice, The floods lift up their pounding waves. 4 More than the sounds of many waters, Than the mighty breakers of the sea, The LORD on high is mighty. 5 Your testimonies are fully confirmed ; Holiness befits Your house, O LORD, forevermore .
Psalm 95: verse 3 also tells us that God will be their King
How will God fix this dilemma? He will be King of Israel and of the entire world.
But that still leaves a mystery – how will God be both fulfill the promise that someone from the family of David will be their king but also God will be their king?
How will God combine this idea of a Davidic King and the idea of God being King.
We should be excited because we already know the answer – Matthew 1:1 tells us that Jesus is the Son of David.
Jesus is from the family of David. Jesus will be called Christ which is NOT His last name but is a title. Christ means Annointed One – He is the anointed King of Israel.
This morning I want to show you how this all comes alive in the Gospel of Mark. I hope you will be of fire for God when you hear this message and what we are called to do.
Now you may think Mark’s gospel is a funny place to answer this question but Mark tells his story from an interesting perspective.
Mark is written by someone from Rome – according to church history John Mark was from Rome. We also know that Mark was written to the Church at Rome.
John Mark was familiar with many things Roman and their customs.
At the time of Jesus the entire world that they knew was ruled by Caesar. By the time Jesus was born the cult of Caesar was in full swing. The cult of Caesar was the religion that worshipped Caesar as a living god.
That might sound crazy to us but in the time of Jesus the Caesars saw themselves as part of the pantheon of gods that included Zeus, Athena, Jupiter, Mars, and Dionysius.
John Mark and the Christians in Rome would have been very familiar with a service that took place in Rome and that was the crowing or the coronation of Caesar.
When a new Caesar was crowned there was an elaborate service and procession that happened.
The ancient would was know for its processions through the streets. For example, before the time of Christ pagans would take the statue of Zeus out his temple and parade it through the streets in joyful triumph.
By the time of Christ the only lawful procession that you could have is one for Caesar and his coronation.
When a new Caesar was coronated as King it would follow several steps.
These steps are important because they are going to be used in just a minute:
1) Caesar – the new candidate – was brought to a building called the Praetorium. The Praetorium was where the Praetorian guard was located.
These were the elite forces of Rome –t he navy seals of their day – they were assigned to protect Caesar and were sent to the most dangerous parts of the world.
2) The Praetorian guard would surround him – all 6000 in a company would surround this new Caesar to pay tribute – Hail Caesar would be cried out.
3) The Praetorian Guard would go to the temple of Zeus and get a purple robe on him, give him a septer, and a crown of gold.
4) They would form a procession in the street and along with that procession a bull would walk with them that would be sacrificed. A servant would walk by the bull carrying the instrument of execution.
5) They would walk Caesar up a hill to the Capitoline – the Capitoline was Latin for Head Hill. The reason it was named this is because in Roman legend, when the hill was first found, a complete head was found buried their intact.
6) Once Caesar came to Head Hill- he would have his 2nd and 3rd in command stand on either side of Him.
7) Last in this step – Caesar was offered a cup of wine mixed with Myrrh and he would pour out this wine as a libation and the bull would be killed to consecrate his coronation.
The coronation of Caesar was two fold in that it crowned him as king and a living god.
He was declared literally a son of the gods.
Now imagine you are a 1st century Christian living in Rome – under persecution from a man that claims to be a ruler over you as your king and a living god.
How do you respond to that claim?
Well imagine a God that shapes historical events and sets everything up perfectly.
Galatians 4 tells us that in the fullness of time God sent His Son – in other words when the world situation was set up right God sent Jesus.
What I am about to share with you is not mere coincidence but is God’s providence in helping our brethren in the 1st century see something about Christ.
IN Mark’s Gospel we see something interesting.
Mark 1:1 starts off telling us that Mark is presenting the Gospel of Jesus as the Son of God.
We will see that in Mark’s Gospel the next time we will see that phrase son of God used by a human being to refer to Jesus, it will be at the cross of Jesus.
It will be interesting too at the cross who declares Jesus as the son of God.
Let us turn to the crucifixion account found in Mark’s Gospel – We pick up with Jesus after He has been scourged and just before His crucifixion.
Mark 15: 16-21
16 The soldiers took Him away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium ), and they called together the whole Roman cohort. 17 They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him; 18 and they began to acclaim Him, "Hail, King of the Jews !" 19 They kept beating His head with a reed, and spitting on Him, and kneeling and bowing before Him. 20 After they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him. And they led Him out to crucify Him. 21 They pressed into service a passer-by coming from the country, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and Rufus ), to bear His cross.
1) Do you notice where they took Jesus – Praetorium – wherever these elite soldiers were stationed – an Palestine as volatile as it was would be a good place to have them – This is the only gospel that tells us that Jesus went to the Praetorium.
Remember –when Caesar was coronated he went to the praetorium in Rome.
2) Mark is the only one to tell us that all 6000 of the cohort of soldiers gathered around Him to mock Him. When Caesar was crowned all 6000 of the Praetorian guard would surround him and shout accolades to him
Now these same elite soldiers are surround the true king and making fun of Him in jest.
3) They give him a purple robe. Probably in Israel only two people were allowed to wear purples and that was Pilate and Herod. Only royalty or the equestrian class of Rome could wear purple.
They are putting the regal colors on Jesus.
4) They give him a crown of thorns with his regal garments. Just as Caesar was crowned with a golden crown these soldiers have crowned him with a crown of thorns.
5) Instead of a bull as a sacrifice – the sacrifice will be Jesus Himself. Not only is he being coronated as King but he is also being sacrificed.
6) We see that just as the servant carried the instrument of execution in Caesar’s procession we now see Simon of Cyrene carry the instrument of execution.
7) Simon’s sons are named – Why would Mark give us the names of Simon’s Sons? Alexander and Rufus? Rufus is mentioned in Romans 16 as a member of the Church at Rome and Church history tells us that both Rufus and Alexander were Roman Christians.
Mark puts this fact in this story to show the connection between the Roman Church and the crucifixion narrative – imagine being at church and there Rufus and Alexander sit on the front row.
Lets turn back to Mark’s story of the crucifixion and see what else we pick up from the story
Mark 15: 22-27
22 Then they brought Him to the place Golgotha, which is translated, Place of a Skull. 23 They tried to give Him wine mixed with myrrh ; but He did not take it. 24 And they crucified Him, and divided up His garments among themselves, casting lots for them to decide what each man should take. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified Him. 26 The inscription of the charge against Him read, "THE KING OF THE JEWS." 27 They crucified two robbers with Him, one on His right and one on His left.
8) Golgotha – here it is translated from Aramaic to English as Place of the Skull
If it were literally translated it would be place of the Head.
Now remember that Caesar was crowned and taken to the Capitoline which is called Head Hill and Jesus is now taken to the Place of the Head.
9) Jesus is offered wine mixed with Myrrh just as it is offered to Caesar. Jesus would not take the wine.
10) Jesus is declared King of the Jews by the sign on His cross
11) He is flanked to his right and left by two criminals.
It doesn’t take long to figure out what Mark is telling us. Imagine you are in Rome at a Church service and all the sudden a messenger comes with Mark’s Gospel to be read in the assembly.
The reader gets to this section – what do you think the people would understand is going on.
They get it pretty quick – Jesus is being crowned King by the cross.
The one thing that Pilate was firm on was that the Title on the Cross would be King of the Jews.
The Romans had unwittingly proved God’s point – Pilate in the sign and the soldiers in the coronation ceremony of Jesus.
12) Now notice who is the one human being that gets it right – which man finally acknowledges that Jesus is God’s true Son.
Mark 15: 39
. 39 When the centurion, who was standing right in front of Him, saw the way He breathed His last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of God !"
The Pagan Centurion of Rome recognizes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Now compare the coronation and enthronement of Jesus to that of earthly kings like Caesar. Jesus came to love us to the end.
Jesus came to be crushed for our iniquities – He came for the Life of the World
Now let us go back to our original proposal – God has kept His promise – A child of David will sit on the throne of Israel forever but at the same time God would be their king.
Jesus is God in the flesh – he is both the fleshly son of David and the Divine Son of God. This is dense and hard to grasp but it is an amazing game changer.
Now Who Is God?
God is Love – God is ultimate Love – God loved us so much that His power was gained by sacrifice.
Revelation 5: 11
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders ; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.
This King – this lamb – is exalted because He was slain.
This is a God that is willing to be crushed for our sin so that we can be brought back to His family and share in His divine Life.
Application:
1) Our God is so powerful that He can shape history – he used the Romans to teach a lesson to His followers that Jesus is the King and Caesar is not
2) Our King is strong through sacrifice.
This changes everything for us.
Jesus calls us to come to him and forsake all the cares of this world
Jesus calls us to come and take up our cross.
Now if our God is this type of God and not one that we have invented in our heads then we need to change?
Do you think the God of the bible is content for people that just show up on Sunday and never think again about God and His Kingdom?
Lets be totally honest and open about this? The God that was willing to become flesh and die on a cross and be beaten brutally – do you think the status quo is okay?
Do you think Church being all about our comfort and us not sharing the gospel and living comfortably in our Middle Class lives of riches and affluence not caring about the Kingdom is the true God’s wishes. That sounds more like a God that we have invented in our heads.
The God of Scripture calls us to get out of our comfort zone, get excited about worship, get excited about mission, get excited about helping the poor among us, getting excited about visiting those in prison.
Our life must change – we must no longer go with what is comfortable but what is right.
We cant just float along thinking that it is okay not so be on fire for Christ – because it is not. Christ’s blood is too precious, hell is too terrible, and Heaven is too wonderful to sit here like the status quo is okay.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Who Is God?
When Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany, he came to America and bought an old two-story house within walking distance of Princeton University.
There he entertained some of the most distinguished people of his day and discussed with them issues as far ranging as physics to human rights.
But Einstein had another frequent visitor.
She was not, in the world’s eyes, an important person like his other guests. She was a ten-year-old girl named Emmy.
Emmy heard that a very kind man who knew a lot about mathematics had moved into her neighborhood.
Since she was having trouble with her fifth-grade arithmetic, she decided to visit the man down the block and see if he would help her with her problems.
Einstein was very willing and explained everything to her so that she could understand it. He also told her she was welcome to come anytime she needed help.
A few weeks later, one of the neighbors told Emmy’s mother that Emmy was often seen entering the house of the world-famous physicist.
Horrified, she told her daughter that Einstein was a very important man, whose time was very valuable, and he couldn’t be bothered with the problems of a little schoolgirl.
And then she rushed over to Einstein’s house, and when Einstein answered the door, she started trying to blurt out an apology for her daughter’s intrusion – for being such a bother.
But Einstein cut her off. He said, “She has not been bothering me!
When a child finds such joy in learning, then it is my joy to help her learn!
Please don’t stop Emmy from coming to me with her school problems. She is welcome in this house anytime.”
In the Same way the One that created Einstein and that great brain of his has invited us to come to know Him.
So many times we look at those that are famous and well known and say, man it would be awesome to get to meet that person.
I had a friend that went to Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and I hated when he told of getting to meet famous people. He once got to talk to Arnold Swartzenneger and I was jealous of him.
When I was in college I thought that would be the most awesome thing to meet Arnold.
Once at Allison’s place of work she got to meet Rick Flair the Nature Boy and she didn’t even know who he was. I was so jealous of her.
But today we have been invited to learn about Who God Is. We have been invited into His presence to learn truly about Him.
We live in a time that there is a false perception of God.
Wall Street Journal entitled Redefining God and listen to the thesis of the article.
"Across the country the "faithful" quote, unquote "are redefining God, dissatisfied with conventional images of an authoritarian or paternalistic deity. People are embracing quirky, individualistic conceptions of God to suit their own spiritual needs."
This is not what the world is doing but this is what the Church is doing. We create a God that looks a lot like us.
A God that is an American middle class God, that is comfortable with lukewarm Christianity, that is comfortable with materialism, that is comfortable for people that don’t care about the Gospel.
We create a God that will not punish sin but will give universal salvation to all.
We create a God that is just like us.
I would propose across the country today and all around the world people will go to places of worship in the name of Christ and claim to worship God but they will be worshipping a creation of their own.
In reality they will be worshipping themselves and not God.
Now hear me clearly, we are not here to redefine God, God will not be redefined and He is not a God to be trifled with.
3 Goals in our study of Who God is are the following:
1) To see and know the glory of God
2) To understand who God is and experience his glory from His Word.
3) When we understand who God is and His glory we will want to Advance His kingdom.
Jeremiah 9: 23-24
23 Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches ; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth ; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD
Jeremiah the prophet invites us to try to understand and know God.
What comes in to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Our understanding of Who God is will shape everything about us.
The way we worship, live our lives, and view salvation will ultimately be shaped by what we think of when we consider God.
“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him”
—A.W. Tozer
II. We can know truly about God but we can’t know every thing about God.
Psalm 145:3
3 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable (NASB)
In some sense God is unknowable.
We can never know God is fullness but only what He chooses to reveal to us. God is inexhaustible and even when we get to Heaven we will not be God and will never be able to fully comprehend his greatness.
1) We cannot know God because of sin
Through Christ’s redemption we can know God by the cross and the blood shed for us.
When are sins are removed we can start to understand and know God but even with the sin gone in our lives God will still be all powerful and infinite.
2) Even when we get to Heaven God will still be infinite and we will be finite.
We cannot know God inexhaustibly but you can know God truly
Some people might be depressed by this reality. If Pride leads our lives then we will have a problem with this.
In humility we must accept this fact.
Some say if Heaven is perfect, wouldn’t be perfectly boring.
That is a problem, we can never exhaust God – for eternity we will get to know more and more of His grace, love, wisdom and might.
For eternity we will get to know this.
III. God Must Reveal Himself to us. God initiates His communication with man.
The good news is that God is knowable – He does show us truth about Himself.
I Corinthians 2:9-16
9 but just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit ; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
Only the Spirit of God knows the fullness of the glory of God.
If we want to know God, then we need the Spirit to reveal Him to us.
Therefore, a people who are desperate to know God will be desperate for His Spirit.
If we are not desperate for His Spirit, it is a sure indicator that we have grown content with knowing little about God.
Do we want to know the glory of God?
Then let us be a people desperate for the Spirit of God.
And when we’re desperate for the Spirit, our hearts will begin to understand God with the very perspective of Christ.
Do you want the mind of Christ?
John 16 Jesus tells us that He has revealed to us everything that the Father wishes. We should crave the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ.
This will bring a total transformation on how we see the world.
“We have but to want Him badly enough, and He will come and manifest Himself to us.”
—A.W. Tozer
Paul makes it clear that God’s nature and God’s attributes are
IV. Routine Religion is no longer tolerable when you know God.
A guy named Charles Misner, scientific specialist in general relative theory who commented on Albert Einstein's life.
And I want you to listen to what he said as a commentary on Albert Einstein as it relates to religion. Albert Einstein, obviously a genius.
Listen to what he said "The design of the universe" Misner said, "Is very magnificent and shouldn't be taken for granted.
In fact I believe that is why Einstein had little use for organized religions although he strikes me as a very – basically very religious man.
He must have looked at what the church said about God and felt that they were blaspheming.
He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined and they were just not talking about the real thing.
My guess is that he simply felt the religions he had run across did not have proper respect for the author of the universe." You think about what a scientist knows.
A scientist knows that our galaxy and our solar system is 100,000 light years in diameter. It contains 100 billion stars.
This was just one galaxy among innumerable galaxies that are among the range of our best telescopes, our galaxy alone, 100 billion stars.
The sun is a modest star burning at a minor 600 degrees centigrade, traveling 150 miles a second, and it will take 200 million years for it to complete a revolution around our galaxy. That's one star among 100 billion. Scientists know this.
Isaiah 40: 25-26
25 "To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal ?" says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name ; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing
All of these stars are named one by one by God.
100 billion stars and He can call them each by name.
How can you have routine religion when you realize this God is the God that created the world and the universe?
Consider the following when you think about the Greatness of God.
Think about an object in the Universe that is traveling at 67,000 miles per hour
This same object is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour- Welcome to Planet Earth
Earth 99 percent of our energy from the Sun and the Sun converts 4 million tons of energy every second –the energy output varies less than 1 percent over 11 years. If this energy output ever varied more than 1 percent – life on earth would not exist.
The Sun is 93 million miles away from earth. If it were 94 million miles away there would be no life, 92 million miles away no life on earth – it must be exactly where it is located for life on earth to exist.
The Earth’s tilt is 23.5 percent and this tilt is vitally important to our planet.
Without our tilt we would be tidally locked and one side of the earth would get too much energy
23.5 percent tilt is perfect tilt – if we had a tilt of 24 degrees or 22 degrees there would be no life on earth.
How do we get our tilt? 40 percent of our tilt comes from the Sun’s gravity and 60 percent from our Moon.
Our moon serves a vital function in that it regulates our tides and keeps our tilt. Without the perfect size moon and perfect distance from the Sun we would have no life on earth.
Our atmosphere is 21 percent Oxygen and this is the perfect amount of oxygen, 23 percent Oxygen no life, 20 percent no life.
Our Oceans have 3.4 % salinity and this is the exact same amount in our blood stream. If you changed either one of these percentages in our blood stream or the ocean there would be no life on earth.
There are hundreds more of these- these are like dials that made and adjusted just perfect for life on earth to exist.
If you take the largest object in the Universe and the smallest subatomic particle in the universe and measured them, guess what would be the midway point between these two sizes? The average human adult height is the exact midway point between the largest object in the universe and the smallest object.
Does that tell you something? Do you think all of this is coincidence?
Is shows us that someone has adjusted these dials.
Does this sound like a weak Creator?
A universe this big? Does that sound like a puny God?
Does this seem like an impersonal God?
From this we realize that we serve a Creator that is infinitely powerful and infinitely caring and loving for us even so much that He set our planet up perfectly for life to exist.
V. Routine worship is no longer possible when you know God.
If Christians understood how great their God is they could never come to worship him and be bored by the experience.
How can we come here and not want to put our entire self into our worship and praise.
How we worship God shows exactly what we think of God.
VI. Knowing this Great God tells us that we must come in total submission
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book the Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”
When we consider the greatness of God the only response to Him is to totally submit to Him and take up our cross and follow Him.
When we realize that God is Real and He is The Truth then it will make all the difference in the world.
There is a tale of the great English actor Macready. Macready was once asked by a preacher; "What is the difference between you and me?"
You see the actor appeared before crowds night after night proclaiming fiction and people listened with delight.
The preacher spoke of the essentials and the unchanged truths of God, yet, most listened with no passion upon their hearts.
Macready's answer was this, "I present fiction as though it were true; you present truth as though it were fiction."
VII. We will have a heart for Mission to share the Gospel with others.
WE will be so excited about this great God that we will want to share with others. We will have a heart for global mission.
To reach those that don’t know about God with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We will start to think about the Animistic tribes in Africa that do not know this God.
We will start to be concerned for the 350 million Buddhist in places like Japan, Laos, and Vietnam.
We will grow concerned for the souls of the 950 Hindus in places like India and Pakistan.
We will want to share the gospel with the 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.
To understand God means that we will want to share Him with everyone that doesn’t know Him no matter the cost.
When I think of mission I think of a man that I met at Riverside Christian Academy a few years ago.
I was very convicted in my lack of heart for missions.
This man had every reason to make excuses as to why he could not go on missions.
He started off by saying:
“I have everything I need for joy!”
Robert Reed His hands are twisted and his feet are useless.
He can’t bathe himself.
He can’t feed himself.
He can’t brush his teeth, comb his hair, or put on his underwear.
Strips of Velcro hold his shirts together. His speech drags like a worn out audiocassette.
Robert has cerebral palsy.
The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk.
But it didn’t keep him from graduating from high school or attending Abilene Christian University, from which he graduate with a degree in Latin.
Having cerebral palsy didn’t keep him from teaching at St. Louis Junior College or from venturing overseas on five mission trips.
And Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.
He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972.
There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese.
He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language.
Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ.
Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa.
I look at Robert Reed and I realized that this guy gets it. He really understands who God is.
I believe this morning that all of us, if we understood the greatness of God we would go into the world and boldly spread the Gospel.
Conclusion:
1) Humbling Journey to get to know God
We are not investigators setting out to learn about God – we are servants sitting at His feet.
Psalm 25: 9
“He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”
Isaiah 66: 2
“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.”
If we want to learn to know God – it must be from a humble and contrite heart.
2) This is about knowing God and not knowing about God.
This is a journey – our goal is to know God – not know about God
We are not seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake
John 10: 14-15
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
Like a sheep knows the shepherd in John 10 – this our goal or aim – to know God to be in relationship with Him.
This morning we want to invite you to get to know this shepherd.
There he entertained some of the most distinguished people of his day and discussed with them issues as far ranging as physics to human rights.
But Einstein had another frequent visitor.
She was not, in the world’s eyes, an important person like his other guests. She was a ten-year-old girl named Emmy.
Emmy heard that a very kind man who knew a lot about mathematics had moved into her neighborhood.
Since she was having trouble with her fifth-grade arithmetic, she decided to visit the man down the block and see if he would help her with her problems.
Einstein was very willing and explained everything to her so that she could understand it. He also told her she was welcome to come anytime she needed help.
A few weeks later, one of the neighbors told Emmy’s mother that Emmy was often seen entering the house of the world-famous physicist.
Horrified, she told her daughter that Einstein was a very important man, whose time was very valuable, and he couldn’t be bothered with the problems of a little schoolgirl.
And then she rushed over to Einstein’s house, and when Einstein answered the door, she started trying to blurt out an apology for her daughter’s intrusion – for being such a bother.
But Einstein cut her off. He said, “She has not been bothering me!
When a child finds such joy in learning, then it is my joy to help her learn!
Please don’t stop Emmy from coming to me with her school problems. She is welcome in this house anytime.”
In the Same way the One that created Einstein and that great brain of his has invited us to come to know Him.
So many times we look at those that are famous and well known and say, man it would be awesome to get to meet that person.
I had a friend that went to Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA and I hated when he told of getting to meet famous people. He once got to talk to Arnold Swartzenneger and I was jealous of him.
When I was in college I thought that would be the most awesome thing to meet Arnold.
Once at Allison’s place of work she got to meet Rick Flair the Nature Boy and she didn’t even know who he was. I was so jealous of her.
But today we have been invited to learn about Who God Is. We have been invited into His presence to learn truly about Him.
We live in a time that there is a false perception of God.
Wall Street Journal entitled Redefining God and listen to the thesis of the article.
"Across the country the "faithful" quote, unquote "are redefining God, dissatisfied with conventional images of an authoritarian or paternalistic deity. People are embracing quirky, individualistic conceptions of God to suit their own spiritual needs."
This is not what the world is doing but this is what the Church is doing. We create a God that looks a lot like us.
A God that is an American middle class God, that is comfortable with lukewarm Christianity, that is comfortable with materialism, that is comfortable for people that don’t care about the Gospel.
We create a God that will not punish sin but will give universal salvation to all.
We create a God that is just like us.
I would propose across the country today and all around the world people will go to places of worship in the name of Christ and claim to worship God but they will be worshipping a creation of their own.
In reality they will be worshipping themselves and not God.
Now hear me clearly, we are not here to redefine God, God will not be redefined and He is not a God to be trifled with.
3 Goals in our study of Who God is are the following:
1) To see and know the glory of God
2) To understand who God is and experience his glory from His Word.
3) When we understand who God is and His glory we will want to Advance His kingdom.
Jeremiah 9: 23-24
23 Thus says the LORD, "Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches ; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth ; for I delight in these things," declares the LORD
Jeremiah the prophet invites us to try to understand and know God.
What comes in to our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
Our understanding of Who God is will shape everything about us.
The way we worship, live our lives, and view salvation will ultimately be shaped by what we think of when we consider God.
“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him”
—A.W. Tozer
II. We can know truly about God but we can’t know every thing about God.
Psalm 145:3
3 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable (NASB)
In some sense God is unknowable.
We can never know God is fullness but only what He chooses to reveal to us. God is inexhaustible and even when we get to Heaven we will not be God and will never be able to fully comprehend his greatness.
1) We cannot know God because of sin
Through Christ’s redemption we can know God by the cross and the blood shed for us.
When are sins are removed we can start to understand and know God but even with the sin gone in our lives God will still be all powerful and infinite.
2) Even when we get to Heaven God will still be infinite and we will be finite.
We cannot know God inexhaustibly but you can know God truly
Some people might be depressed by this reality. If Pride leads our lives then we will have a problem with this.
In humility we must accept this fact.
Some say if Heaven is perfect, wouldn’t be perfectly boring.
That is a problem, we can never exhaust God – for eternity we will get to know more and more of His grace, love, wisdom and might.
For eternity we will get to know this.
III. God Must Reveal Himself to us. God initiates His communication with man.
The good news is that God is knowable – He does show us truth about Himself.
I Corinthians 2:9-16
9 but just as it is written, "THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM." 10 For to us God revealed them through the Spirit ; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, 13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15 But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. 16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ.
Only the Spirit of God knows the fullness of the glory of God.
If we want to know God, then we need the Spirit to reveal Him to us.
Therefore, a people who are desperate to know God will be desperate for His Spirit.
If we are not desperate for His Spirit, it is a sure indicator that we have grown content with knowing little about God.
Do we want to know the glory of God?
Then let us be a people desperate for the Spirit of God.
And when we’re desperate for the Spirit, our hearts will begin to understand God with the very perspective of Christ.
Do you want the mind of Christ?
John 16 Jesus tells us that He has revealed to us everything that the Father wishes. We should crave the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ.
This will bring a total transformation on how we see the world.
“We have but to want Him badly enough, and He will come and manifest Himself to us.”
—A.W. Tozer
Paul makes it clear that God’s nature and God’s attributes are
IV. Routine Religion is no longer tolerable when you know God.
A guy named Charles Misner, scientific specialist in general relative theory who commented on Albert Einstein's life.
And I want you to listen to what he said as a commentary on Albert Einstein as it relates to religion. Albert Einstein, obviously a genius.
Listen to what he said "The design of the universe" Misner said, "Is very magnificent and shouldn't be taken for granted.
In fact I believe that is why Einstein had little use for organized religions although he strikes me as a very – basically very religious man.
He must have looked at what the church said about God and felt that they were blaspheming.
He had seen much more majesty than they had ever imagined and they were just not talking about the real thing.
My guess is that he simply felt the religions he had run across did not have proper respect for the author of the universe." You think about what a scientist knows.
A scientist knows that our galaxy and our solar system is 100,000 light years in diameter. It contains 100 billion stars.
This was just one galaxy among innumerable galaxies that are among the range of our best telescopes, our galaxy alone, 100 billion stars.
The sun is a modest star burning at a minor 600 degrees centigrade, traveling 150 miles a second, and it will take 200 million years for it to complete a revolution around our galaxy. That's one star among 100 billion. Scientists know this.
Isaiah 40: 25-26
25 "To whom then will you liken Me That I would be his equal ?" says the Holy One. 26 Lift up your eyes on high And see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name ; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing
All of these stars are named one by one by God.
100 billion stars and He can call them each by name.
How can you have routine religion when you realize this God is the God that created the world and the universe?
Consider the following when you think about the Greatness of God.
Think about an object in the Universe that is traveling at 67,000 miles per hour
This same object is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour- Welcome to Planet Earth
Earth 99 percent of our energy from the Sun and the Sun converts 4 million tons of energy every second –the energy output varies less than 1 percent over 11 years. If this energy output ever varied more than 1 percent – life on earth would not exist.
The Sun is 93 million miles away from earth. If it were 94 million miles away there would be no life, 92 million miles away no life on earth – it must be exactly where it is located for life on earth to exist.
The Earth’s tilt is 23.5 percent and this tilt is vitally important to our planet.
Without our tilt we would be tidally locked and one side of the earth would get too much energy
23.5 percent tilt is perfect tilt – if we had a tilt of 24 degrees or 22 degrees there would be no life on earth.
How do we get our tilt? 40 percent of our tilt comes from the Sun’s gravity and 60 percent from our Moon.
Our moon serves a vital function in that it regulates our tides and keeps our tilt. Without the perfect size moon and perfect distance from the Sun we would have no life on earth.
Our atmosphere is 21 percent Oxygen and this is the perfect amount of oxygen, 23 percent Oxygen no life, 20 percent no life.
Our Oceans have 3.4 % salinity and this is the exact same amount in our blood stream. If you changed either one of these percentages in our blood stream or the ocean there would be no life on earth.
There are hundreds more of these- these are like dials that made and adjusted just perfect for life on earth to exist.
If you take the largest object in the Universe and the smallest subatomic particle in the universe and measured them, guess what would be the midway point between these two sizes? The average human adult height is the exact midway point between the largest object in the universe and the smallest object.
Does that tell you something? Do you think all of this is coincidence?
Is shows us that someone has adjusted these dials.
Does this sound like a weak Creator?
A universe this big? Does that sound like a puny God?
Does this seem like an impersonal God?
From this we realize that we serve a Creator that is infinitely powerful and infinitely caring and loving for us even so much that He set our planet up perfectly for life to exist.
V. Routine worship is no longer possible when you know God.
If Christians understood how great their God is they could never come to worship him and be bored by the experience.
How can we come here and not want to put our entire self into our worship and praise.
How we worship God shows exactly what we think of God.
VI. Knowing this Great God tells us that we must come in total submission
Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book the Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”
When we consider the greatness of God the only response to Him is to totally submit to Him and take up our cross and follow Him.
When we realize that God is Real and He is The Truth then it will make all the difference in the world.
There is a tale of the great English actor Macready. Macready was once asked by a preacher; "What is the difference between you and me?"
You see the actor appeared before crowds night after night proclaiming fiction and people listened with delight.
The preacher spoke of the essentials and the unchanged truths of God, yet, most listened with no passion upon their hearts.
Macready's answer was this, "I present fiction as though it were true; you present truth as though it were fiction."
VII. We will have a heart for Mission to share the Gospel with others.
WE will be so excited about this great God that we will want to share with others. We will have a heart for global mission.
To reach those that don’t know about God with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We will start to think about the Animistic tribes in Africa that do not know this God.
We will start to be concerned for the 350 million Buddhist in places like Japan, Laos, and Vietnam.
We will grow concerned for the souls of the 950 Hindus in places like India and Pakistan.
We will want to share the gospel with the 1.8 billion Muslims in the world.
To understand God means that we will want to share Him with everyone that doesn’t know Him no matter the cost.
When I think of mission I think of a man that I met at Riverside Christian Academy a few years ago.
I was very convicted in my lack of heart for missions.
This man had every reason to make excuses as to why he could not go on missions.
He started off by saying:
“I have everything I need for joy!”
Robert Reed His hands are twisted and his feet are useless.
He can’t bathe himself.
He can’t feed himself.
He can’t brush his teeth, comb his hair, or put on his underwear.
Strips of Velcro hold his shirts together. His speech drags like a worn out audiocassette.
Robert has cerebral palsy.
The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk.
But it didn’t keep him from graduating from high school or attending Abilene Christian University, from which he graduate with a degree in Latin.
Having cerebral palsy didn’t keep him from teaching at St. Louis Junior College or from venturing overseas on five mission trips.
And Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal.
He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972.
There he rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese.
He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language.
Then he stationed himself daily in a park, where he distributed brochures about Christ.
Within six years he led seventy people to the Lord, one of whom became his wife, Rosa.
I look at Robert Reed and I realized that this guy gets it. He really understands who God is.
I believe this morning that all of us, if we understood the greatness of God we would go into the world and boldly spread the Gospel.
Conclusion:
1) Humbling Journey to get to know God
We are not investigators setting out to learn about God – we are servants sitting at His feet.
Psalm 25: 9
“He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”
Isaiah 66: 2
“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.”
If we want to learn to know God – it must be from a humble and contrite heart.
2) This is about knowing God and not knowing about God.
This is a journey – our goal is to know God – not know about God
We are not seeking knowledge for knowledge’s sake
John 10: 14-15
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”
Like a sheep knows the shepherd in John 10 – this our goal or aim – to know God to be in relationship with Him.
This morning we want to invite you to get to know this shepherd.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Government By the Good Book 7/3/11
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Quickly, God was faced with a class action suit for failure to file an environmental impact statement. God was granted a temporary permit for the project, but was stymied with the “cease and desist” order for the earthly part. Then God said, "Let there be light!"
Immediately, the officials demanded to know how the light would be made. Would there be strip mining?
What about thermal pollution?
God explained that the light would come from a large ball of fire.
God was granted provisional permission to make light, assuming that no smoke would result from the ball of fire, and that he would obtain a building permit and to conserve energy, He would have the light out half the time.
God agreed and offered to call the light "Day" and the darkness "Night". The officials replied that they were not interested in semantics.
God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plant yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit."
The EPA agreed, so long as only native seed was used. Then God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth."
The officials pointed out that this would require approval from the Department of Game coordinated with the Heavenly Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. Everything was okay until God said the project would be completed in six days. The officials said it would take at least two hundred days to review the applications and the impact statement. After that there would be a public hearing. Then there would be ten to twelve months before...At this point, God created Hell.
Upon hearing this story many us understand the absurd nature that government has taken on these days.
We as a nation are celebrating our 235th birthday tomorrow. We have been blessed as a nation beyond belief and all joking aside we have to admit that we are the best thing going in the world today.
I thought it would be fitting to talk to you this morning about the Biblical role of Government and our role as citizens.
The Bible has more to say about this than you realize.
Before we tackle this question we have to start off understanding that God has ordained three institutions to bring stability and blessing to our society.
The 1st institution was the family. God ordained the family as the building block of our society and culture.
2nd God ordained human government to ruler over the affairs of man. Because of the fall into sin that began in the Garden, God had to institute civil government to keep things in order. I hope today to help you understand that government is a gift from God when it is done properly.
3rd – God ordained the Church to be the vehicle of salvation and to be the place where God would reign through Christ and reclaim part of humanity.
We can see and all agree that Satan has attacked all three. I would propose to you that today in our Country Satan is in a full court press mode against all three of these institutions.
1st of all we are sitting ringside to seeing the disentigration of the family in the U.S. So many kids now no longer have both parents at home and this past year our country tipped the 50 percent point in the number of single parent homes.
2nd – the Church is being ripped asunder by false doctrine and liberalness. Churches are relaxing standards and are actually calling what is evil good.
3rd – and today we will look in depth that in our time there is a decline in good government.
We don’t like the direction the government is taking: legalizing gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion, taking away our freedom and these rightfully alarm many Christians.
Now looking at these attacks and declines do not mean that we should say that these institutions are bad.
As a matter of fact God’s plans are always perfect it is man that messes them up and turns them upside down.
I would like to focus on a passage this morning that tells us a good bit about our obligation as citizens and then, in turn, the obligation of the government.
Romans 13 is the most in depth Biblical teaching on the Christian’s response to government.
It applies today as much as it applied back in the 1st century
Romans 13: 1-7
1 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God ; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority ? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same ; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid ; for it does not bear the sword for nothing ; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; honor to whom honor.
1) Government is established by God and by His Divine Decree
Paul makes an unequivocal statement that – Paul says that there is no authority that exists that is not established by God.
There is no authority except from God – those which exist – those authorities are established by God.
Civil authority and governmental authority come from God.
The Bible backs this statement that all power and authority comes from God.
Psalm 62:11 Power belongs to God
Acts 17 –Paul tells us in his sermon at Athens that God has established the nations and their times
The prophet Daniel tells us
Daniel 4: 17 - ", In order that the living may know That the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, And bestows it on whom He wishes And sets over it the lowliest of men."
There is no governmental structure given in the bible but does lets us know that rulers are subject to God and they are there for God’s purpose.
We don’t have a manual in the Bible on how to set up a government but we do have rules for the government.
Earlier I mentioned that there are three institutions that God has established and they are there for good.
PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT
For government to fulfill its purpose under God it must do a few things and do those things only. The government does not have the Biblical right to do anything other than these points:
1) Government is there to deter and punish evil.
Just as a healthy marriage stems evil
Just as a healthy church stems evil by teaching and upholding what is right.
A good government will deter evil doers and punish them swiftly.
Verses 3 and 4 of Romans 13 make it clear that government is here to punish evil.
Part of this deterring of evil is found in the following:
By Punishment the following things will happen in a culture:
1) Declared what was right
By punishing evil the government upholds what is right and true.
Right now we have a problem in our country calling things illegal that are illegal. For example, some people don’t want to call people here that have crossed our border illegally Illegal Aliens.
You have some people that have waited years to be American citizens and they do things right and follow the Law of the Land and then you turn around and watch the government turn a blind eye to people that are here against the law.
This is not a Biblical worldview. The bible teaches that the Government is here to uphold what is good by punishing what is wrong.
When the government stops punishing what is wrong many people will stop doing right or right will become something muddied.
This also goes under the principle of not rewarding what is bad.
For example, Paul says that a man that will NOT work should not eat. In other words, if a man is capable of working but refuses then he should not get to eat.
A good governmental system should never reward laziness or slothfulness by subsidizing it and allowing it to occur.
A good governmental system should encourage its people to be virtuous by working with their hands and the sweat of their brow for a decent wage.
2) Swift – Deuteronomy 25:1-2 Punishment must be swift and immediate.
In Israel if a man were convicted by the court the punishment would be metted out immediately. There would be no appeal system or lengthy court proceeding. The punishment would be swift and I propose to you that this model of swift punishment is a Biblical principle.
The same would even be true of child rearing – how effective is punishment that occurs days, months, or years after the crime or offense has been committed?
The idea of delayed justice or locking people up in prison for the rest of their lives is part of the heritage that we accepted from the Greeks and Romans and not the Bible.
No prisons in Judaism, the Genitles had plenty of them – they didn’t need them in the Old Testament.
Puritans – there were no prisons – physical punishment, restitution for the crime, banishment, and even death for more severe punishment.
Puritans – the jails were temporary
In early America the punishment was swift and immediate and there was no need in locking someone up for long periods of time.
PENNSYLVANIA WAS THE FIRST PRISON -Walnut Street Jail – Penitentiary– they will become penitent if they are locked up long enough
We punish about 25 to out of 500 that commit a crime. – latest statistics
Prisons are affective in producing more crime and a fostering a crime culture.
Now we are learning that our prison systems are becoming breeding grounds for radical Islam and the spread of hatred and more crime and anarchy.
3) Government must hold evil at bay. We know as Christians that man’s heart can be full of sin and deceit.
If you doubt the human heart can be capable of evil and does not need government just think about Katrina and when the social order broke down in New Orleans.
Would you want to be in that Superdome at night when the gangs of thugs roamed at night killing people?
For Government to keep Evil at bay we can learn a few things from Scripture about how God saw the government of Israel:
Deuteronomy 19 – without pity
Deuteronomy 13 – without partiality
Punishment when it is without pity – that might sound harsh but the government has the right to punish evildoers without having pity for them.
And this punishment cannot be with partiality. Just because you are OJ Simpson and have a lot of money doesn’t mean you are allowed to kill people and get away with it.
Justice must be blind and not partial for a good government to stand for the people.
4) Means of rehabilitation
The government must allow for people to pay retribution for that they have done.
Our criminal justice system has lost sight of this today but it is important that Government must see to it that men are rehabilitated.
They will never learn the value of what they stole or the property that they have destroyed unless they had to repay the lost goods or work until the repayment is made.
You may think that sounds absurd but the Bible paints this out clearly
Exodus 21 and 22 – thieves could work to give back what he had stolen – In Israel a thief would work to repay what he had stolen.
5) To prevent private vengeance
There is no place of vigilante justice in Christianity. We are strictly commanded as Christians that we cannot take vengeance.
In the temporary of this life the government has the mission of bringing about vengeance and justice for the oppressed.
This job of the government looks forward to the ultimate justice that God will bring when He brings the world to rights at the end of time.
6) Government is in place to protect life and property.
Thou shalt not steal or covet is a universal command that carries over to the New Testament. Part of the role of the government is to protect man’s rights, his property, and his life
The Bible makes a place for the holding of private property by the command of Thou shalt not steal.
Life is a precious thing to God.
I will propose to you this morning that the Death Penalty is a Sanctity of Life issue. The reason murderers are put to death is because murder is serious and the spilling of innocent blood is has cosmic significance that CRIES out to God.
Numbers 35:33 . 'So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.”
When someone is murdered it is clear that the only way that the land can be cleansed is that the man that committed the murder in the first place has his life taken away from him.
The only way society learns from its government that life is precious is when people that take innocent life are punished by giving their life.
Some may argue that this is just an example of the OT and the OT wasn’t about grace like the NT.
Lets go back to the Genesis account and see how universal this idea of the death penalty is:
Genesis 9: 6
6 "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
Did you catch the end of that verse – we are made in God’s image – that is a universal that is not going to change. Because we are made in God’s image we are special and life is precious.
By another man their life will be taken – that is the responsibility of the government and those that have the authority given to them by God.
In Acts Paul is no trial and he says the following that is very interesting:
Acts 25: 11
11 "If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die ; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar."
Did you notice what Paul said, he had no problem being put to death if he did something wrong.
Don’t you think if the Apostle Paul had a problem with the death penalty he would have never said this?
Also in Romans 13 verse 4 we see that the Government is a minister for good and wields the sword
THE PHRASE ‘WIELDS THE SWORD’ IN GREEK LITERALLY REFERS TO THE ROMAN CONCEPT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT –THE PRHASE ACTUALLY MEANS THE RIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT TO CUT OFF A PERSON’S HEAD BECAUSE OF A CAPITAL CRIME.
This carries over in the police force by the taking of life if necessary but also the military.
Remember that when soldiers came to faith in Christ they were never told to stop soldiering. There is not discontinuity between being a warrior and a Christian.
The woman caught in adultery was told to go and sin no more but Jesus, John the Baptist, nor the apostles ever told a soldier to stop being a soldier.
Our military forces have the God-mandated right to protect innocent life and perpetrate force against evil doers that would hurt innocent civilians.
But before we move on to the next point we need to point out
Woe to a nation that doesn’t punish murder and winks at blood shed.
Also woe to any nation that allows the killing of innocent children and turns a blind eye to abortion which is an abomination to God. Remember that blood of the innocent cries out to God and if don’t want to find ourselves on the other side of God’s retribution for that blood.
II. What is our responsibility?
WE are to live in subjection to the Government.
We are to be the best citizens we can possibly be. Paul tells Timothy that we are to pray for our government officials and also pray for peace and tranquility in our lives.
We are to be subject to the government in all things until the government tells us we must do something that contradicts the commandments of God.
WE must always do what God says before the government but unless that is the case we are expected to be subject to God.
If we don’t find ourselves in the case that the government tells us to do something that is against God’s word we must practice CIVIL disobedience.
Christians are never to take up arms against government officials but should always peacefully protest. This is becoming more and more difficult these days but I want to propose some good news to you this morning.
There is great hope for us because America is connected to these very principles that I have talked about.
Imagine if you picked up the paper tomorrow and read the following:
#1 - “The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has just issued this statement: ‘Divine Providence (that’s God) has given to our people the choice of their rulers, & it is the duty… of our Christian nation to select & prefer Christians for their rulers.’"
#2 - “Legislation was passed today in Congress to affirm that, ‘The Congress of the United States approves of & recommends … the Holy Bible for use in the schools.’”
Imagine the public outcry if any three of these happened in modern day Washington D.C.
But here is the kicker these are all true historical events that happened in the early 19th century.
You see, around 1730 only 5 percent of Americans were in Church and the nation was in a moral decline.
About that time something started called the Great Awakening and people started turning back to God in mass numbers.
Our country was transformed and when our founding Father’s started to lay out a government for the United States of America they did so under the influence of the Bible.
The University of Houston recently did a study that looked at the writings of the founding fathers concerning our constitution and bill of rights.
Do you know that they found 94 percent of the principles and laws were based on the Bible and particularly in Deuteronomy.
Here is why I propose to you they had some idea what they were doing:
We know that man is sinful and is fallen and must have government. That means that the people must be government but the government itself is capable of evil.
This is why there is a Bill of Rights to protect people but also a checks and balances to keep our government in check.
These men had a brilliant idea on how man could be governed.
Like I said earlier the bible doesn’t lay out a New Testament type of government but the principles are in place to establish a government that uses the principles that God has laid out.
I believe people that such a system exists and should be upheld and made better.
So what do we do?
Like I said the three foundations of society are Church, Marriage, and Government.
We are called to be a Kingdom of Priests and we are called to bring God’s wisdom to the world.
We as Christians should be able to teach those around us what are God’s plans for a good government.
They are simple:
Evil should be punished
Good upheld and championed
Life held sacred
Property and rights should be protected against tyranny.
These are all easy principles to find all over the Bible and teach others.
We need government because people are fallen and are sinful. Humans are incapable of perfection and need government.
1) So our attitude should not be that the Government is our enemy but our mission field.
We want to win people over to the cause of Christ and prove to them that Scripture is true.
The best way we can do this is to be the best citizens that we can be and when necessary be the best elected officials we can be.
Be the best law enforcement officers that we can be that uphold the letter of the law
Be the best military officers that we can be that uphold what is good and true.
2) This is a grassroots campaign.
Remember how this country came about in the first place.
Without the great awakening our government would have never occurred. It began with a grassroots return to the saving Gospel of Christ.
If men are converted and made new they are able to see that God’s word is true and in turn we have a good government because we have a good country.
I will say to you this morning that usually a nation gets the government that it deserves. A good country will usually have a good government and an evil country that has turned its back on God will get a bad government.
How many of you would like to move to the Middle East now and live under any of those governments? I guess when you think about it that way it makes sense.
Immediately, the officials demanded to know how the light would be made. Would there be strip mining?
What about thermal pollution?
God explained that the light would come from a large ball of fire.
God was granted provisional permission to make light, assuming that no smoke would result from the ball of fire, and that he would obtain a building permit and to conserve energy, He would have the light out half the time.
God agreed and offered to call the light "Day" and the darkness "Night". The officials replied that they were not interested in semantics.
God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation, plant yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit."
The EPA agreed, so long as only native seed was used. Then God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth."
The officials pointed out that this would require approval from the Department of Game coordinated with the Heavenly Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society. Everything was okay until God said the project would be completed in six days. The officials said it would take at least two hundred days to review the applications and the impact statement. After that there would be a public hearing. Then there would be ten to twelve months before...At this point, God created Hell.
Upon hearing this story many us understand the absurd nature that government has taken on these days.
We as a nation are celebrating our 235th birthday tomorrow. We have been blessed as a nation beyond belief and all joking aside we have to admit that we are the best thing going in the world today.
I thought it would be fitting to talk to you this morning about the Biblical role of Government and our role as citizens.
The Bible has more to say about this than you realize.
Before we tackle this question we have to start off understanding that God has ordained three institutions to bring stability and blessing to our society.
The 1st institution was the family. God ordained the family as the building block of our society and culture.
2nd God ordained human government to ruler over the affairs of man. Because of the fall into sin that began in the Garden, God had to institute civil government to keep things in order. I hope today to help you understand that government is a gift from God when it is done properly.
3rd – God ordained the Church to be the vehicle of salvation and to be the place where God would reign through Christ and reclaim part of humanity.
We can see and all agree that Satan has attacked all three. I would propose to you that today in our Country Satan is in a full court press mode against all three of these institutions.
1st of all we are sitting ringside to seeing the disentigration of the family in the U.S. So many kids now no longer have both parents at home and this past year our country tipped the 50 percent point in the number of single parent homes.
2nd – the Church is being ripped asunder by false doctrine and liberalness. Churches are relaxing standards and are actually calling what is evil good.
3rd – and today we will look in depth that in our time there is a decline in good government.
We don’t like the direction the government is taking: legalizing gay marriage, stem cell research, abortion, taking away our freedom and these rightfully alarm many Christians.
Now looking at these attacks and declines do not mean that we should say that these institutions are bad.
As a matter of fact God’s plans are always perfect it is man that messes them up and turns them upside down.
I would like to focus on a passage this morning that tells us a good bit about our obligation as citizens and then, in turn, the obligation of the government.
Romans 13 is the most in depth Biblical teaching on the Christian’s response to government.
It applies today as much as it applied back in the 1st century
Romans 13: 1-7
1 Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God ; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority ? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same ; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid ; for it does not bear the sword for nothing ; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. 5 Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. 7 Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom ; fear to whom fear ; honor to whom honor.
1) Government is established by God and by His Divine Decree
Paul makes an unequivocal statement that – Paul says that there is no authority that exists that is not established by God.
There is no authority except from God – those which exist – those authorities are established by God.
Civil authority and governmental authority come from God.
The Bible backs this statement that all power and authority comes from God.
Psalm 62:11 Power belongs to God
Acts 17 –Paul tells us in his sermon at Athens that God has established the nations and their times
The prophet Daniel tells us
Daniel 4: 17 - ", In order that the living may know That the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, And bestows it on whom He wishes And sets over it the lowliest of men."
There is no governmental structure given in the bible but does lets us know that rulers are subject to God and they are there for God’s purpose.
We don’t have a manual in the Bible on how to set up a government but we do have rules for the government.
Earlier I mentioned that there are three institutions that God has established and they are there for good.
PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT
For government to fulfill its purpose under God it must do a few things and do those things only. The government does not have the Biblical right to do anything other than these points:
1) Government is there to deter and punish evil.
Just as a healthy marriage stems evil
Just as a healthy church stems evil by teaching and upholding what is right.
A good government will deter evil doers and punish them swiftly.
Verses 3 and 4 of Romans 13 make it clear that government is here to punish evil.
Part of this deterring of evil is found in the following:
By Punishment the following things will happen in a culture:
1) Declared what was right
By punishing evil the government upholds what is right and true.
Right now we have a problem in our country calling things illegal that are illegal. For example, some people don’t want to call people here that have crossed our border illegally Illegal Aliens.
You have some people that have waited years to be American citizens and they do things right and follow the Law of the Land and then you turn around and watch the government turn a blind eye to people that are here against the law.
This is not a Biblical worldview. The bible teaches that the Government is here to uphold what is good by punishing what is wrong.
When the government stops punishing what is wrong many people will stop doing right or right will become something muddied.
This also goes under the principle of not rewarding what is bad.
For example, Paul says that a man that will NOT work should not eat. In other words, if a man is capable of working but refuses then he should not get to eat.
A good governmental system should never reward laziness or slothfulness by subsidizing it and allowing it to occur.
A good governmental system should encourage its people to be virtuous by working with their hands and the sweat of their brow for a decent wage.
2) Swift – Deuteronomy 25:1-2 Punishment must be swift and immediate.
In Israel if a man were convicted by the court the punishment would be metted out immediately. There would be no appeal system or lengthy court proceeding. The punishment would be swift and I propose to you that this model of swift punishment is a Biblical principle.
The same would even be true of child rearing – how effective is punishment that occurs days, months, or years after the crime or offense has been committed?
The idea of delayed justice or locking people up in prison for the rest of their lives is part of the heritage that we accepted from the Greeks and Romans and not the Bible.
No prisons in Judaism, the Genitles had plenty of them – they didn’t need them in the Old Testament.
Puritans – there were no prisons – physical punishment, restitution for the crime, banishment, and even death for more severe punishment.
Puritans – the jails were temporary
In early America the punishment was swift and immediate and there was no need in locking someone up for long periods of time.
PENNSYLVANIA WAS THE FIRST PRISON -Walnut Street Jail – Penitentiary– they will become penitent if they are locked up long enough
We punish about 25 to out of 500 that commit a crime. – latest statistics
Prisons are affective in producing more crime and a fostering a crime culture.
Now we are learning that our prison systems are becoming breeding grounds for radical Islam and the spread of hatred and more crime and anarchy.
3) Government must hold evil at bay. We know as Christians that man’s heart can be full of sin and deceit.
If you doubt the human heart can be capable of evil and does not need government just think about Katrina and when the social order broke down in New Orleans.
Would you want to be in that Superdome at night when the gangs of thugs roamed at night killing people?
For Government to keep Evil at bay we can learn a few things from Scripture about how God saw the government of Israel:
Deuteronomy 19 – without pity
Deuteronomy 13 – without partiality
Punishment when it is without pity – that might sound harsh but the government has the right to punish evildoers without having pity for them.
And this punishment cannot be with partiality. Just because you are OJ Simpson and have a lot of money doesn’t mean you are allowed to kill people and get away with it.
Justice must be blind and not partial for a good government to stand for the people.
4) Means of rehabilitation
The government must allow for people to pay retribution for that they have done.
Our criminal justice system has lost sight of this today but it is important that Government must see to it that men are rehabilitated.
They will never learn the value of what they stole or the property that they have destroyed unless they had to repay the lost goods or work until the repayment is made.
You may think that sounds absurd but the Bible paints this out clearly
Exodus 21 and 22 – thieves could work to give back what he had stolen – In Israel a thief would work to repay what he had stolen.
5) To prevent private vengeance
There is no place of vigilante justice in Christianity. We are strictly commanded as Christians that we cannot take vengeance.
In the temporary of this life the government has the mission of bringing about vengeance and justice for the oppressed.
This job of the government looks forward to the ultimate justice that God will bring when He brings the world to rights at the end of time.
6) Government is in place to protect life and property.
Thou shalt not steal or covet is a universal command that carries over to the New Testament. Part of the role of the government is to protect man’s rights, his property, and his life
The Bible makes a place for the holding of private property by the command of Thou shalt not steal.
Life is a precious thing to God.
I will propose to you this morning that the Death Penalty is a Sanctity of Life issue. The reason murderers are put to death is because murder is serious and the spilling of innocent blood is has cosmic significance that CRIES out to God.
Numbers 35:33 . 'So you shall not pollute the land in which you are; for blood pollutes the land and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.”
When someone is murdered it is clear that the only way that the land can be cleansed is that the man that committed the murder in the first place has his life taken away from him.
The only way society learns from its government that life is precious is when people that take innocent life are punished by giving their life.
Some may argue that this is just an example of the OT and the OT wasn’t about grace like the NT.
Lets go back to the Genesis account and see how universal this idea of the death penalty is:
Genesis 9: 6
6 "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
Did you catch the end of that verse – we are made in God’s image – that is a universal that is not going to change. Because we are made in God’s image we are special and life is precious.
By another man their life will be taken – that is the responsibility of the government and those that have the authority given to them by God.
In Acts Paul is no trial and he says the following that is very interesting:
Acts 25: 11
11 "If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die ; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar."
Did you notice what Paul said, he had no problem being put to death if he did something wrong.
Don’t you think if the Apostle Paul had a problem with the death penalty he would have never said this?
Also in Romans 13 verse 4 we see that the Government is a minister for good and wields the sword
THE PHRASE ‘WIELDS THE SWORD’ IN GREEK LITERALLY REFERS TO THE ROMAN CONCEPT OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT –THE PRHASE ACTUALLY MEANS THE RIGHT OF THE GOVERNMENT TO CUT OFF A PERSON’S HEAD BECAUSE OF A CAPITAL CRIME.
This carries over in the police force by the taking of life if necessary but also the military.
Remember that when soldiers came to faith in Christ they were never told to stop soldiering. There is not discontinuity between being a warrior and a Christian.
The woman caught in adultery was told to go and sin no more but Jesus, John the Baptist, nor the apostles ever told a soldier to stop being a soldier.
Our military forces have the God-mandated right to protect innocent life and perpetrate force against evil doers that would hurt innocent civilians.
But before we move on to the next point we need to point out
Woe to a nation that doesn’t punish murder and winks at blood shed.
Also woe to any nation that allows the killing of innocent children and turns a blind eye to abortion which is an abomination to God. Remember that blood of the innocent cries out to God and if don’t want to find ourselves on the other side of God’s retribution for that blood.
II. What is our responsibility?
WE are to live in subjection to the Government.
We are to be the best citizens we can possibly be. Paul tells Timothy that we are to pray for our government officials and also pray for peace and tranquility in our lives.
We are to be subject to the government in all things until the government tells us we must do something that contradicts the commandments of God.
WE must always do what God says before the government but unless that is the case we are expected to be subject to God.
If we don’t find ourselves in the case that the government tells us to do something that is against God’s word we must practice CIVIL disobedience.
Christians are never to take up arms against government officials but should always peacefully protest. This is becoming more and more difficult these days but I want to propose some good news to you this morning.
There is great hope for us because America is connected to these very principles that I have talked about.
Imagine if you picked up the paper tomorrow and read the following:
#1 - “The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has just issued this statement: ‘Divine Providence (that’s God) has given to our people the choice of their rulers, & it is the duty… of our Christian nation to select & prefer Christians for their rulers.’"
#2 - “Legislation was passed today in Congress to affirm that, ‘The Congress of the United States approves of & recommends … the Holy Bible for use in the schools.’”
Imagine the public outcry if any three of these happened in modern day Washington D.C.
But here is the kicker these are all true historical events that happened in the early 19th century.
You see, around 1730 only 5 percent of Americans were in Church and the nation was in a moral decline.
About that time something started called the Great Awakening and people started turning back to God in mass numbers.
Our country was transformed and when our founding Father’s started to lay out a government for the United States of America they did so under the influence of the Bible.
The University of Houston recently did a study that looked at the writings of the founding fathers concerning our constitution and bill of rights.
Do you know that they found 94 percent of the principles and laws were based on the Bible and particularly in Deuteronomy.
Here is why I propose to you they had some idea what they were doing:
We know that man is sinful and is fallen and must have government. That means that the people must be government but the government itself is capable of evil.
This is why there is a Bill of Rights to protect people but also a checks and balances to keep our government in check.
These men had a brilliant idea on how man could be governed.
Like I said earlier the bible doesn’t lay out a New Testament type of government but the principles are in place to establish a government that uses the principles that God has laid out.
I believe people that such a system exists and should be upheld and made better.
So what do we do?
Like I said the three foundations of society are Church, Marriage, and Government.
We are called to be a Kingdom of Priests and we are called to bring God’s wisdom to the world.
We as Christians should be able to teach those around us what are God’s plans for a good government.
They are simple:
Evil should be punished
Good upheld and championed
Life held sacred
Property and rights should be protected against tyranny.
These are all easy principles to find all over the Bible and teach others.
We need government because people are fallen and are sinful. Humans are incapable of perfection and need government.
1) So our attitude should not be that the Government is our enemy but our mission field.
We want to win people over to the cause of Christ and prove to them that Scripture is true.
The best way we can do this is to be the best citizens that we can be and when necessary be the best elected officials we can be.
Be the best law enforcement officers that we can be that uphold the letter of the law
Be the best military officers that we can be that uphold what is good and true.
2) This is a grassroots campaign.
Remember how this country came about in the first place.
Without the great awakening our government would have never occurred. It began with a grassroots return to the saving Gospel of Christ.
If men are converted and made new they are able to see that God’s word is true and in turn we have a good government because we have a good country.
I will say to you this morning that usually a nation gets the government that it deserves. A good country will usually have a good government and an evil country that has turned its back on God will get a bad government.
How many of you would like to move to the Middle East now and live under any of those governments? I guess when you think about it that way it makes sense.
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