Saturday 7PM Live: Shane Willard

[Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] good evening everyone how are we all you are the serious people serious to learn serious to grow that's really exciting i'm glad you're here we're not having any music tonight because we just want you to tune in and hear what god's going to say through the word because the word is quick and powerful sharper than any injured sword cuts right through some some of you're going to enjoy this somebody got to be challenged with it at the end of the day i think what shane says is this not meant to be agreed with or disagreed with it's meant to be wrestled with so grab a hold of her your thinking caps get your heart in order because we are really blessed we have this great opportunity because of the relationship we have with shane and and what he's doing and and as a man of god and the minister of the gospel i love what he does i love what we're doing i love his fellowship i love the teaching and i'm excited that we can still keep getting him here especially since coverts kept him in australia in one sense thank you jesus but but uh it's amazing so i hope you're ready i would love you to give a good bundy welcome to pastor shane willard thank you all right so on everybody put your thinking caps on tonight all right this is saturday night and you're in church and i've put i've put aside a special sort of teaching that's going to make us think all right this is never something i would do on a sunday morning but it's saturday night and you're in luck all right so if you'd like to follow along in an actual bible we're going to start in philippians chapter two um if not it's okay i always create slides to make it easy to follow along as always our resource table set up out there as always we give all the profit away all right so if you'd like to learn more about this topic tonight it's it's a part of a 10-part series out there called the nature of christ and it's trying to answer the question what is god actually like that if god is like jesus exactly like jesus god had always been like jesus then what do we do with some of the crazier scriptures that we can find in the bible and so what does that mean for how we live our life now um you could come out if you want something please do so quickly afterwards like in the first 10 minutes and if you want something at part of the weekend it's not like you can't get it tomorrow but it does help me with traffic control tomorrow if you get it tonight alright so just check some of those things out so i won't solve all the problems tonight okay as a matter of fact i might create a few but i want definitely won't solve all of them but you will leave tonight with jesus being bigger the cross working better the resurrection being central and scripture is getting bigger not smaller the people who put the bible together in the 300s the first caveat they said when they put the scriptures together is they said scriptures could potentially do damage if we don't make a rule right up from the beginning that all scripture must be read through the lens of the cruciform christ for the cruciform christ is the final and fullest way to see god so in other words even if you can find a verse back here that says god hates moabites if the god revealed in christ accepted and blessed moabites then the final and full way to see the whole story is through the lens of the risen christ not the one verse back here does that make sense okay so so even if you can find something now here's what happens right i've traveled the world and here's here's what i'm guessing is that your faith is important to you i'm guessing that it's saturday night you're in church but it's not just that i've been coming here for i don't know 17 years or something and i've been a part of some of you were kids when i first started coming right i was sort of a kid when i first started coming and so what happens is it's not just that saturday night your faith's important to you i know some of you personally and then if i don't know you personally i know people who know you personally and what they would all tell me is is our faith is important to us okay that's first second i'm gonna make an assumption because your faith is important to you then your children's faith is also important to you right so so in other words what would it be worth to you that your eight-year-old when your eight-year-old is 95 years old and at the end of their life that at the end of their life they're still a fully devoted follower of christ what would that be worth to you today if somebody said okay how much money would you pay to guarantee that when they're 95 they'll still be fully devoted followers of christ the answer would be that's the wrong category it's not really a monetary thing it's actually worth more than money right and so your children's faith are important you know with that in mind let me get let me let you in on something if you haven't been paying attention that the under 30s are not buying okay so nobody under 30 is buying this part of the christian faith and they don't they don't know how to say it so here's what they say and then they say it on the internet i'm not a christian anymore right and then people instead of listening to them they panic and they go what what then you'll go to hell so like they so instead of listening to them instead of saying what is it you're not i'm not a chris anymore why i just don't believe that anymore and instead of asking the right questions like what is it you were told you had to believe to be a christian and then let him define it i asked that to everybody that says that if a 25 year old says i used to be a christian i'm not a christian anymore i just say why and they always say i just don't believe that stuff anymore and then all i do is say what is it you were told you had to believe and it's never anything about jesus it's always i don't think a guy actually got swallowed i think that story's probably made up right or i don't think a fig picker from toccoa named amos actually got an audience with the king i don't think that's true or i i don't think i don't think the flood was global i think it was local which leads me to this question who told you you had to believe noah's ark was actually literal to be a follower of jesus do you ever see jesus doing that hey follow me and believe noah's ark's literal no you just see jesus going follow me and so what i found is is that we've made it harder than it needs to be and one of the primary things that they say they don't believe anymore is they say i don't believe god is an angry all-powerful person who's torturing people and i'm going i had an atheist tell me i'm an atheist and i said why they said he said i just don't believe in a god that actively tortures people for 50 billion years in his infinite wrath i was like is that what an atheist is is an atheist somebody that doesn't believe god actively tortures people for 50 billion years in his infinite wrath well yes then i'm an atheist like what what the heck are you talking about that's not that's not what this thing is all about and then i realized that the same question kept coming up over and over and over again and if it's coming up over and over and over again in my life it's coming up over and over again in yours at least to a look maybe probably to a lower degree than mine but it's definitely present in our families and in our faith and that is this shane how do you reconcile all of the passages around love keeps no record of wrong the grace of god covers all sin love covers a multitude of sin as far as the east is from the west your your sins will be thrown into the sea of forgetfulness and god will never bring them up how do you reconcile that with these passages that clearly talk about god being ticked off and let me phrase that simply how do you hold intention and reconcile the obvious love of god which we find compelling and the obvious wrath of god which we either choose to ignore or we double down on it and we create another system of us and them like god's going to be nice to us but he's going to torture them which leads to all kinds of questions about how psychologically healthy can you be to want to spend eternity with somebody torturing somebody right like if i said to you hey i want us to go we've been invited to lunch down here there's this guy he's invited us all to lunch now please keep in mind he does have a torture chamber in his basement he's actively torturing people but don't worry he's not going to torture you you're just going to have dinner while he's torturing someone that that would make us lunatics right the problem is is that you have these scriptures that say certain things that should make us uncomfortable and we should take them serious so there's two there's two ditches to avoid one ditch is to double down and say that god is an infinite being who's throwing a meteor of infinite wrath in an act of anger towards people and we double down on that because we can find this one verse that says that the other ditch to avoid is to say because that makes me feel uncomfortable i'm just going to ignore that i'm going to act like that's not there the problem with that is that might actually work for you but it doesn't work for your children it doesn't work for the people around you whose faith matters to you as well and when they take you to coffee and they go i'm thinking about becoming a christian but i just found i found this very disturbing thing and can you explain it and it's something we just ignored right and so i want to try to put some language around this okay so let's start with philippians chapter two and once again the goal by the end of the night is for jesus to get bigger the cross to work better the resurrection to be central and scriptures to get bigger not smaller okay philippians chapter 2 is a hymn it's a song that was written by the first century christians and let me this let me be clear because this is important it was written by the first century christians before the gospels were written paul died in 56 or so a.d the gospels were written in 70. paul wrote this hymn into his letters in the mid 50s it was around for 15 years before that in other words this hymn was written about the meaning of jesus before the gospels were written in other words this hymn was not based on what people read this hymn was based on what people experienced and that is two different things and it is profound it became the critical scripture around a study called christology uh that was written by athanasius and when they were trying to um sort of talk about the meaning of what does it mean for christ to be incarnate what if god is actually like jesus what does that mean and this was the critical scripture next slide so this is uh philippians chapter two have this mind in you amongst yourself which was yours in christ jesus who though he was in the form of god did not count equality with god a thing to be grasped but he emptied himself the theological word for that is canosis it's very it's a very important word it means to purposely humble yourself so that someone else can experience more life it means to purposely get smaller yourself so that someone else can be a bit bigger that's the word canosis so the god revealed in christ is a god that verified his godness by choosing not to be as much god in order so that other people can have life so that he could relate to humanity in other words we do not serve a god that sits above the story choosing to judge it condemn it criticize it or banish it rather we serve a god that insisted in the story in order to make a better narrative that the god revealed in christ was not one that was too holy to be involved in the sinful thing rather he was too holy not to involve himself in order to make a better story and the word for that is kenosis one that's willing to empty himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself that's again the idea of kenosis by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross so the the writer makes a distinction and paul did not write this paul's quoting this this was a hymn that was around years before paul wrote it and paul the writer of the hymn is pointing out a distinction between death and death on a cross and the reason is is because in the first century death on a cross was considered to be cursed by god in other words the idea is is this is how humble god revealed in christ is so humble that he's willing to engage the broken story even if the broken story condemns him by god the idea the word there is starus starus was a swear word you wouldn't have said it in the first well you could have said it but if you said it it would be like oh the reason is is because death on a cross was so heinous and so awful it was considered swearing to talk about it so when this was read in first century churches they would have went that far like starus like a crucifixion was not drawn or depicted or put on jewelry or anything like that until the 500s which was a hundred years after the thing was banished for being too cruel in other words no one who ever drew a crucifixion ever actually saw a crucifixion it was considered to be it was like saying you're damned by god or condemned by god it was that far now watch what happens next site therefore god has highly exalted him and bestowed on him a name that is above every name said the name of jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that jesus christ is lord not caesar to the glory of god the father now there's this isn't my point tonight but i just want to point out one thing that the the christ-centered world view is not a world view that says there's no place for suffering the christ center worldview is not a worldview that says if you have enough faith you'll get out of everything the christ center worldview is one that gets clear place for suffering but it declares that the suffering never gets the last word that even though god revealed in christ allowed himself to suffer for the good of humanity the last word is always resurrection it's always something else okay so that that's that so next slide this is first john anyone who does not love does not know god because god is love in this the love of god was made manifest amongst us that god sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him what if the purpose of the cross was not jesus saving us from an angry god what if and i realized listen some of this if it wasn't said it was clearly intimated when we were kids like when i was seven my good-hearted well-intentioned sunday school teacher who was a volunteer who gave her life on sundays to telling kids that jesus loved them i honor her okay but she said this hey shane isn't it good that god loved you enough to kill jesus for you god killed jesus for me at seven i said why would he do that oh because you were bad and instead of punishing you for your badness god beat up jesus isn't that wonderful i'm thinking i don't know like like even at seven i'm thinking couldn't he just let it go right then she would took a step further she said i love you and i might die for you she wouldn't have i might die for you but i would never kill my kid for you but that's how much god loves you is not only did he love you enough to kill somebody he loved you enough to kill his own kid for you now why don't you say a prayer right now and accept him in your heart as your personal lord and savior and i'm thinking even at seven i'm like god couldn't like a god that commands us to forgive for free turns out he can't forgive without hurting somebody what if the good news is better than that according to john jesus was not saving us from an angry god god was in christ showing the world how much he loved them in other words jesus did not come to change god's mind about us jesus came to change our mind about god and that's two different things right and so we have these things in tension so a couple couple thoughts about this next slide god does not change so let's just put that up front god does not change but what we have in the bible is not a static record of god what we have is a dynamic progressive moving revelation of what people thought god was leading to the final and full revelation of god in the risen christ for god was like jesus exactly like jesus god had always been like jesus we did not know that but now we do that's the whole new testament in one sentence god is perfectly revealed in christ now if those statements are true then wrath does not involve or require active punishment the wrath of the father is a self-inflicted experience of rejecting his loving care which leads me to this i want to give you the first church's definition of the wrath of god when i say the early church i'm talking about when we talk about like the early early church i'm talking about like gregory of nisa athanasius um aryan like you know clement um john the theologian that the people who who put the bible together right they had to in my opinion the best definition of the wrath of god i don't think anybody's ever come up with one better than this so i'm going to show you their definition of the wrath of god and then i'm going to make a case for it by showing you all the scriptures where we can look at this from okay next slide so the first the early church definition wrath of god was this that the wrath of god is a metaphor for being handed over to the self-inflicted consequence of non-consent to consent i cannot say that any more poetic or better that the wrath of god is a metaphor for being handed over to the self-inflicted consequences of non-consent to consent the idea is is that if god is love then love's ultimate ethic is consent and so we can never present god as coercive god must be consensual and what makes christianity unique is the god revealed in christ consents first and then humbly waits for your mutual consent but if god is consensual then there has to be a place of non-consent in other words there's going to be people who consent mutually and there's going to be people who rebel or non-consent to god's consent and when they non-consent to god's consent there's going to be consequences that ensue and the metaphor for what that happens is is called the wrath of god so when the first church talked about the wrath of god it was never god's active anger because remember words matter less than how we picture words functioning we talked a bit about this last night since half the room was not here last night because half of you have a beard let me review okay words matter less than how we picture words functioning there's a way to say something that's true that creates a not true imagination or not true picture let me give you the same example i gave all the ladies last night if i said something true like jesus is the judge that's true but for almost everybody in the room we picture a court official some judicial officer we're in a holy courtroom and jesus is wearing a black robe and he's got a gavel and he's declaring guilty or not guilty so we tell people that's all right one day you're going to stand in front of jesus and he's going to be your judge is that true yes the problem isn't the words we say it's the picture of how that word works the problem with seeing jesus as a judicial officer is the word in hebrew for judge is not a judicial officer it's chauffeut which is a defender or one who's anointed by god to set us free from whatever is oppressing us right so the pro and you knew that already why because there's an entire book in the bible called the book of judges and those people are not courtroom officials there are people anointed by god to set people free from whatever is oppressing them the problem with saying jesus is the judge is not the truth of the statement it's the untruth of the picture that statement creates and then what we say is we say come on press in get close to jesus no one wants to be in court you got to be a lunatic to want to be in court but what if we said hey jesus is your judge and we want you to be close to jesus because he's the one anointed by god to finally set us free from whatever is holding us back that is a better story same with the wrath of god if we read a passage that talks about the wrath of god that statement doesn't matter what matters is how we picture that statement functioning so if we think the wrath of god is this all-powerful being ticked off at something we've done and he's going to send a meteor of his wrath towards us right what's good news about that well jesus right so jesus is wearing a superman suit and he sees the meteor of the active wrath of his father coming at somebody he's like not on my watch father he steps in front of it he lets the wrath of god bounce off him even that is ridiculous right but we don't we've come on haven't we all at least heard it intimated that way that god's really ticked like god's grumpy and then he became less grumpy because he hurt somebody as if that makes him any more loving right what if the story is better than that and what if the wrath of god is a metaphor for the self-inflicted consequences of being handed over to the consequences of non-consent to consent now let's put some language around this next slide so one of my favorite authors is a guy named dr brad jerzac dr brett jerzac um it was a pentecostal pastor for 20 years he left that to become an eastern orthodox uh priest and scholar he is the dean of academics at st steven university um he's written lots of good books namely amore christ like god and he talks about the wrath of god as a hammer throwing contest here's the story he tells it's a true story he said that him and his friend were in the backyard when they were kids and two boys are often wanting to see who's biggest who's strongest what kind of whose dad could beat up who's dad you know this is stuff we do right because we're sort of dumb right so what happened is is they were think about dumbnesses it's a and let's just be honest isn't it amazing that any of us survive childhood seriously like the fact that we're all still here is a testimony to the grace of god so what they decided is they said how are we going to decide who's stronger normal kids arm wrestle or they push weights up or whatever case speed now they were taking hammers and throwing them as high in the sky as they possibly could and then they were trying to gauge from the ground who threw the hammer highest now you all know where this is going correct so brad jerzec's dad sees this happening and in his loving consent consents to wisdom in the situation and says hey don't throw hammers in the sky it's potentially a really bad idea now those kids have a choice to mutually consent to loving wisdom or to non-consent and of course you know where the story is going because if they can send it it's not a good story they non-consented and as soon as he wasn't looking they started throwing hammers in the sky again well of course one of those hammers comes down on his friend's head and splits him wide open he ends up needing like 27 stitches or something and so dr brad jerzy talks about he thought his dad was gonna what he what do you think he thought his dad was gonna kill him right and so he went and hid in his room and he was shaking with stress because his friend was being rushed to the hospital with to get stitches and his dad came and got and said come on we got to go check on the your buddy in the hospital so they take him to the hospital and he was just waiting for for the wrath hammer to fall and he said you know what my dad never said anything because my dad knew that the consequences of my non-consent had cons enough consequence there was enough pain built into that whole experience to know that any more wrath from him was not going to help the situation that the wrath of his father was the non-consent to the loving wisdom and that's exactly what we see in scripture god's wrath can be described as repulsive actions let me give you an example if you ever have somebody that doesn't believe in christianity anymore one of the key google hits is lamentations chapter 2. lamentations chapter 2 is written by a guy named jeremiah jeremiah is watching what nebuchadnezzar is doing to jerusalem and he is distressed about watching a foreign army kill fellow israelites burn things to the ground raise this is just horrible right and so he's writing he's processing his feelings in a journal in a poem that happens to get added and included into the bible and it's called lamentations and in lamentations chapter 2 he thinks that god is doing this and he is describing it as if god is doing this but the poetic authors generally land on the loving presence of god in the pain which is lamentations chapter 3. instead of reading it all i summarized it trust me all these statements are in there next slide in lamentations chapter 2 this is how jeremiah describes the pain he's seeing this is god's anger god has thrown us down god has forgot us god burned us up god is our enemy now god has killed us god has caused the grief god destroyed us without mercy god let your enemies laugh at you god is making women eat their own babies by the way that one's actually in there god has made it to where no one escapes now if you read the bible statically you can come to the conclusion that god did all those things god's mad god threw us down god let our enemies do this to us god has killed us god has turned his back on us god is our enemy now god is making women eat their own babies and you can see where if somebody googles horrible things said about god in the bible those things come up you can see why they would have questions because if they didn't have questions that would make them lunatics correct right that's not how you read the bible you don't read the bible statically just because jeremiah said god did something doesn't mean god did something it means based on what he was looking at that was his first thought and it might have been ours as well that's lamentations chapter two i would bet almost no one in here has ever heard a message on lamentations chapter two it's not one of these it's never it's never been a christian meme ever there's never been like a loving hippie looking jesus quoting it right right but we always quote lamentations chapter three always let me show you lamentations chapter three this is gonna sound real familiar by the way this is the next chapter next slide yet this i call to mind and therefore i have hope because of the lord's great love we are not consumed first compassion never fails they are new every morning great is your faithfulness anybody ever heard a song that sounded very similar to that he keeps going for no one is cast off by the lord forever hang on lamentations chapter 2 god has destroyed us god turned his back on us god has cast us off forever god has become our enemy god is making women eat their own babies god god has turned his back on us god has let our enemies do this to us do you see the difference in tone in lamentations chapter two and lamentations chapter three were they different authors like you you understand the problem by saying god wrote the bible right like if god wrote the bible then god needs medicine right like god doesn't even know what he's up to but this is not god writing it this is jeremiah inspired by god to be honest and authentic about how he's processing his pain and when he looked at the situation he's like the only thing i can think of is god has turned his back on us god is really ticked hey the only thing to describe this level of suffering is god must be really ticked off but then as he's processing it we get the whole book here's what he says actually it's actually god's love that we're not totally destroyed for no one is cast off by the lord forever just stop and meditate on that sentence for a second no one is cast off by god forever no one is cast no one is no one is cast off by god forever though he brings grief listen to that sentence though he brings grief he will show compassion so great is his unfailing love for he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone now notice the process of thought here ready here it is lamentation chapter two god's our enemy god left us god's ticked off god is destroying us god is burning us to the ground god is making women eat their own babies lamentations chapter three upon further review i actually think god's the loving one here and if it wasn't for his love we'd be utterly destroyed because he gives us mercy that's new every morning that god is not that which saves us from all suffering god is that which engages the suffering with us and removes some of the sting of it actually upon further review um no one is cast off by the lord forever actually even if he does cause the grief it it's actually brief and momentary and he's working our way out of it actually upon further review god does not willingly cause grief for anybody what i'm witnessing is the results of our own rebellion and god is still faithful to be in the middle of that even though we sort of deserved it now that is how you read the bible is you read it as a dynamic whole not an individual static part let's put some language around that next slide are these portrayals of god's wrath consistent with what god disclosed about his nature in christ in other words according to the people who put the bible together can you find a verse that says god was so angry he made women eat their own babies can you find a verse that says that yes you can but the god revealed in christ is not that way so if we read it through the lens of the cruciform christ what that means is when you come across things like that you got to keep reading keep keep seeing how the process grows and how somebody was processing this stuff could the real conundrum be rooted in our misperceptions about how god is present in the tragic consequences of our sin that actually our non-consent brings consequences and then god doesn't abandon us in the consequences he actually engages the consequences with us to remove some of the sting of it how great and the writer of lamentations jeremiah goes how great is god's faithfulness that even when we deserve it he engages the consequences with us that is better next slide is jeremiah wrestling with the same irony that we do what if lamentations chapter three is not a contradiction to lamentations chapter two if you read them as static statements they're definitely a contradiction god did this god burned us to the ground god did this god hates us god's turned his back on us actually no one cast god doesn't cast anybody off god doesn't cause grief he engages the grief we caused in order to remove some of the sting of it what if lamentations chapter 3 is not a contradiction to lamentations chapter 2 rather the holy spirit giving a message of enduring mercy as a counter narrative another way of perceiving the reality because let's just admit something okay it's just in us to describe oh hang on it's just in us to ascribe things to god that aren't necessarily god at all right let me give you an example if somebody came in here right now with a gun right in a crowd this size it'd probably take three people with a gun right so three people come in with a gun and they're like give us all your money all your wallets phones everything in these bags and they've got masks and they're yelling and scaring everybody and we're like oh man it's not worth our life so we're like throwing our wallets and phones and everything in these people's bags and then they're all like paranoid right like none of you move nobody get up until we're way gone set a timer for 15 minutes and if anybody moves we're going to make sure you pay the price right shoot right so we sort of stand still but they're so paranoid that they back into the road which happens to be a main road in bundaberg right there right and the traffic's horrible you can see it right so so they so they back into the road and a truck runs one of them over splat right somebody in this room right now would look at that and go that's right god got him right but but god didn't get him you can't back into a road right let's say it this way next slide if god operates in the world by consent then we see wrath not as the retribution of a willful god but as a metaphor for the consequences of god's consent to our non-consent that god's wrath is not is god's wrath is that he allows us to resist him that's god's wrath god's wrath is that he allows us to resist him which includes our experiences to the fallout that ensues from it and then he's loving enough to be in the middle of that with us next slide when we interpret old testament prophetic poetic language is strictly literal with no consideration of the metaphor of being handed over we can place our faith in an untenable situation jesus and the new testament writers interpret the wrath passage always through a cruciform lens in other words let me explain what i mean by that even obvious and i mean obvious in context scriptures in the old testament that clearly says god was angry and hurt somebody when jesus or a new testament writer reinterprets that passage through the lens of jesus they always reinterpret it let me give you one there's six seven eight examples i'll give you one just because for time's sake you don't want me to give you all eight okay here's one numbers 21 22 23 25 like that that here's the story right there's a group of slaves that have done nothing but slavery for 430 years a guy named moses rises up and gets them out of slavery into freedom and do they appreciate him do they say thank you so much no they don't this guy has brought ten plagues got them out of egypt parted the red sea and brought water out of a rock you would think that gives you a lot of credibility money in the bank but when you read the story they complain and if you remember the story what did they complain about the food was not spicy enough it wasn't that there was no food it was the food was bland to the tongue now moses has had enough right and can you blame him seriously right all of that and you're complaining about the flavor of the food and if you read the story they lie they say you brought us out into the desert to give us no food but then the next sentence is the food you're giving us tastes bland right so they're like and moses has had enough and he like sort of you fatherless people you wicked generation no longer you children of god it's this kind of stuff well it just so happens that they're in a desert in some snakes show up and start biting the people and what does moses conclude that's right god got you i like it god killing me some grumblers right now who wrote the torah moses so moses writes down they grumbled and god sent the snakes to bite them but if you keep reading when god when moses actually inquired of god as to what to do god says i want you to put a snake on a pole and offer healing for anyone who looks upon the pole for free so when moses actually prays and asks god what he's doing he finds out that god is a life giver not a death dealer but in the moment he's so ticked at the people he's like that's right it's like the people who robbed us that's right god got you right but moses writes this thing now now a guy named paul quotes that passage in first corinthians 10 and he tells the people do not be like the children of israel who grumbled and the destroyer sent the snakes to kill them so moses clearly says god sent the snakes to kill them paul laters like actually from what i understand about god is revealed in the risen christ god did not send the snakes it was the destroyer that sent the snakes that we always read scripture through the lens of the cruciform christ for the cruciform christ is the final word of god let's put some more language around this next slide here's some problems when metaphors become literal so if the wrath of god is a metaphor about being handed over to the to the self-inflicted consequences of non-consent to consent if we read that literal then what you have is an all-powerful being sending a meteor of his wrath and somebody's got to save us from that wrath and who would that be jesus so he steps in front of us says no right but then jesus offers hey please spend eternity with the guy i just saved you like what um human experiences are then deified and our our wrath is projected onto god's character that becomes a problem because we're mad at something we assume god is mad right there's a whole book in the bible about why that's a bad idea the book is what jonah so jonah does the exact opposite thing god wants him to do god goes to great lengths to save his sorry behind even by sending a fish to a random spot in the ocean to save him from drowning hoping that jonah will be inspired to be nice to people but jonah gets to nineveh and he gets mad because they repented and then god chose to be nice and then jonah lets god have it he says i knew it i knew you were going to be nice that's why i ran i knew you were going to be compassionate gracious slow to anger abounding in love and forgiveness i want you to hate the ninevites because i do what jonah had to learn is that god is not nearly as interested in getting his enemies as he was and he's not nearly as interesting as you as your as your enemies are actually what we don't want is for god to become we don't want to say the word god but god is a giant projection of it's us with a giant megaphone because if we think god is angry actively then we'll justify being angry actively at other people because we become like what we worship next time so what about reading it through the lens of god revealed in the cruciform christ what does that mean i've said that a lot we have to read it through the lens of crews from christ but that doesn't we got to put language around that so one god is good how do we know god is good because the god revealed in christ is good is there a verse that says god was so mad he made women eat their own babies yes there is but the god revealed in the crucified christ is good and that god is love which means god is patient and kind and doesn't envy and doesn't boast and god keeps no record of wrongs it also means that god is not violent why because if god was violent if there was any place to express that violence would have been on the cross where everybody was tempting him every temptation of jesus on the cross was lose you use your infinite power to be violent and get even with us and even in that kind of distress jesus was like now it's not worth it i'm not going to do that why because god is love god is good god is not violent next slide in refusing to exercise violence god nevertheless consents to our freedom which we then abuse through violence that god's consent though is not complicity just because god lets humans act in free will doesn't mean that he's complicit in what they're doing accepting someone and affirming every choice they make is two different things next slide god may appear complicit in our violence because he is consented to our will but in love god bears the guilt of maintaining relationship with violent people and that does that's not revealed anywhere more clearly than the cross of jesus christ see people say why doesn't god just control covet control covet because god doesn't do control he laid that down from the beginning like it depends on what you mean by control you mean like this all-powerful being is choosing to act or not act that's not god god is that not that which controls human freedom or natural law god is that which engages the brokenness that human freedom brings and then wraps himself around it in order to ultimately bring a better story so if you say god is in control and what you mean is is that god is in the middle of all things unveiling and unveiling and unveiling and unveiling and unveiling to a final and full restoration of all things that he meant yeah but if you mean god is up there going yep control not control like god is stopping people from doing what they want no way here's the problem we look at we look at things that happen that are a result of human will and non-consent and then we attach that to god and if you've ever done that you're not alone isaiah prophesied it in isaiah 53 listen to these words next slide surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering this is a prophecy about jesus on the cross surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering watch this next line yet we considered him punished by god in other words we saw jesus on the cross and the only reasonable conclusion we could come to is god must have done that to him god did that to him yet we considered him stricken by god stricken by him and afflicted but no he was pierced for our transgressions he was crushed for our iniquities the punishment that brought us peace was on him and by his wounds we are healed in other words people will look at the cross of jesus christ and assume that was god's anger being poured out on jesus but it wasn't that it was jesus it was god in christ exposing himself to the broken narrative of human non-consent and that creates a lot of pain next slide in love god consents to undergoing and enduring our wrath on the cross and as isaiah says we thought god did it in other words i can summarize this whole part in this one statement his consent is wrath and his consent is love in other words god's love is consensual and his wrath is his consent to our ability to non-consent and when we non-consent god does not coerce relationship he humbly allows us to non-consent and hands us over to the self-inflicted consequences of that non-consent to consent and then agrees to be a part of the suffering in the non-consent to remove some of the sting of it for his mercy is new every morning that is the wrath of god next can you see where this starts to make sense held intention as the love of god and the wrath of god i would say it even more explicitly that god's love and god's wrath is exactly the same thing god's love is consent and god's wrath is his consent to whether you consent or not let's say this way next slide what if wrath is the painful result of god letting us have our own way what if god is not actively getting retribution because it isn't necessary because sin carries its own penalty or wages the consequences built into the fabric of the universe next slide i have no right to deny you the consequences of your actions god laid that down that right from the beginning because two things have to exist in simultaneous tension the law of consequence we'll call that wrath and the gift of mercy if you don't like those two if you don't like those two words let's use two other words gravity and grace see one of the questions people ask me is if god's good then why do bad things happen well that's a bad assumption of the nature of god that god is this all-controlling being if god's an all-controlling being and god is good then bad things shouldn't happen but that's not god and that's empirically and obviously and experientially all of our experiences with god but what you see in god is something i think more beautiful than just controlling the narrative i think you see a tension between gravity and grace let me explain how many of you love gravity i love it right now we're literally upside down for my friends in america yet we all feel right side up that is brilliant we are on a rock hurtling around a ball of fire at 60 000 miles a second and that's somehow keeping us with our feet on the ground i love gravity i love it i can also tell you that within like point zero zero one percent of a margin of error the forces of gravity have to play ball with the rest of the universe so we would all implode right now it's pretty exquisite stuff i love gravity gravity is necessary for all of us to be somehow kept alive and all vegetation in all marine life and all everything that makes life work is due somehow to gravitational forces how many of us love gravity i love gravity but somewhere in the world today somebody took on gravity and lost either by doing something dumb like jumping out of an airplane climbing a mountain without a rope bungee jumping or by an accident they thought the jack was holding the truck up and they crawled under the jack and it gave way and the truck crushed them how many of you still love gravity well we better love gravity or we'll implode we say why doesn't god just control gravity because god doesn't do control but he does care and somewhere in the world today human freedom somebody took on gravity and lost or natural law somebody took on gravity and loss but the the god revealed in christ is not one that controls the gravity but one that gives the grace when gravity is crossed to be a part of the narrative in order to make a better story we can say this way where gravity abounds grace abounds much more you can say it that way we're human freedom of bounds mercy abounds much more if you're looking to get a tattoo maybe the tattoo you should get is gravity and grace to remind ourselves all the time wait a minute hang on this is a story of consent and mutual consent or non-consent it's not one of all powerful being controlling the narrative it's one of consent and non-consent and if there's a place for consent then there has to be a place for non-consent where the natural consequences of being handed over to the non-consent and then people will look at that and say god did it no the metaphor is the wrath of god let's say it this way next slide so here's a summary if you lost me in any of this and i realized this was deep teaching but i figured it saturday night you wanted some deep teaching okay so i realized it so here's a summary so if you lost me come on back now and summarize the whole thing that wrath is a metaphor for the intrinsic consequences of our refusal to live in the mercies of god that god's mercies endure forever he never shuts off his mercy and when mercy gives way to wrath it's because we hit the off switch by resisting the mercy not god hitting the off switch next slide enduring mercy can be received by consent or rejected by non-consent where intrinsic consequences abound mercy abounds much more now let's maybe next time so great sermons are not meant to be agreed or disagreed with they're meant to be wrestled with for application so let's wrestle a bit with some questions when difficult circumstances hit do we default to the imagination that god is angry and punishing us is that our initial thing like we get sick and we're like what did i do god what did i do you're so ticked off at me is that our dominant imagination and if it is it's not that you're a bad person it's just when you were seven somebody told you that the god of love killed his own kid just so he could love you and that dominant imagination gets in us and it's very hard to get that out but there's a better way there's a better way to think about it and the theological word is repentance it's thinking differently about these kind of things what if sin is the real punisher not god what if sin is the real punisher not god how has god's care manifested for you in pain like all of us and i don't want us to tell our stories because it would take too long but all of us would have a story where god consented and we non-consented and then we got the consequences of the non-consent only defined that god was faithful not to solve the suffering but to be present in the consequences to remove some of the sting of it and we came out understanding god just a bit better that when all of us have experienced the wrath of god it wasn't god being angry it was actually god being ultra loving and being present in the consequences of non-consent to consent if mercy endures forever and wrath does not endure what are the implications that god's endurance to consent and consent and consent and consent and consent what does that mean for us see there's a few verses that says something like this jesus died to save us from the wrath of god jesus died to save us from the wrath of god and to be fair if you're just reading that it sounds like jesus died to save us from somebody who's really angry at us and if you take that out it's more like hang on jesus died to say that god was grumpy and then got less grumpy by hurting somebody which is so strange but does the bible clearly say jesus died to save us from the wrath of god yeah it does so there's three ways to read it first way is that this infinite angry meteor was coming at you and jesus was like not on my watch father and in his superman suit he said i'll take the beating don't hurt them hurt me instead because that somehow makes you more compelling what a second way to read it is to consider how ancient rabbis and first century church people defined it and that would be this jesus died to save us from being handed over to the to the self-inflated consequences of non-consent to consent in other words jesus offered us an empowering way to always choose mutual consent in order to be rescued from the self-inflicted consequences that sin and death bring on us that's the second way to read it i'm not going to give up which way i think is smarter it might be the second one the third way to read it is to realize jesus this is romans chapter five jesus died to save us from the wrath of god the phrase of god is not there i can read it in greek if you actually are old enough to still have like a leather bound bible particularly a king james version when you read that they were honest the translators were honest enough to italicize it and when ancient when translators italicized ancient documents it meant those words aren't there but it doesn't read well without words so we added the words i can tell you that i can read that whole passage in greek that's what makes me a nerd so if you've ever wondered why don't you have a whole lot of luck with the ladies that's why i read greek and i can tell you that this is what it says jesus died to save us from the wrath that's it translators added of god why because to be fair it doesn't read well in english if i was to say hey take heart jesus died to save us from the wrath what would be your question of what you could have put any prepositional phrase there jesus died to save us from the wrath of sin from the wrath of death from the wrath of self from the wrath of satan from the wrath of god from the wrath of hell from the wrath of earth from the wrath of your mom from the wrath of jesus jesus died to say all it says is jesus died to save us from the wrath which leads to this question when paul wrote that what was he thinking well there was a book called ecclesiasticus an ecclesiasticus was in every bible on earth till 1511. so just a quick 30-second history lesson on how the bible came together there's a group of people in the early 300s there was a roman emperor named constantine constantine made christianity legal and he quit killing people for being christians the christian leaders were like hey the leader of the known world has now made us legal we should probably pounce on this opportunity and put our library of books together pretty good idea so they met because the next guy might not be that friendly so they got together and they put together a group of books and it was called the canon which we now know as the bible that was done in the early 300s 60 years later they added two books hebrews and revelation hebrews and revelation did not make the first cut made the second cut they added hebrews of revelation with the caveat that revelation must never be read as a prophetic book about the future but rather a theopoetic apocalyptic poetic call to worship in order to decide whether my life is a call to worship and an observance of a narrative of the lamb that was slain or something that honors the beast okay this was about the roman empire okay so anyway so i i digressed so you then at that point you had the whole bible the whole bible was then put together in the scriptures or in the in the canon in 1054 there was an eastern reformation a great schism the eastern orthodox broke off from the catholic church that was the first reformation in 1500s there was a western reformation and the western reformers took out the books they didn't like and put it in something called the ben sora and now western christianity has the bible that we have in eastern orthodox that's why somebody actually asked me the other day shane what's up with the eastern orthodox i know they love jesus and all but why did they add books to the bible and i'm going to add books to the bible let me just give you a quick history lesson they were here first and they have more books what do you think happened they said did somebody take the books out i'm like hello in the 1500s that's what happened right so why is that important well there was a book called ecclesiasticus that was in every bible on earth until 1511. and in the book of ecclesiasticus it gives a prophecy about messiah i will not get this word for word i'd have to look it up but try to be close it says this that messiah would come humble himself in order to engage the suffering of the human story even to the point of death in order to save us all from the wrath of death now that was in paul scriptures so later paul says jesus died to save us from the wrath what's he saying jesus is messiah and the wrath of what the wrath of death and how do you tackle the wrath of death you die and how do you defeat it you rise again you unite humanity by taking on humanity's common enemy and i don't care what color you are what race what creed what social economic background we all have one common enemy and that enemy is death and jesus conquered the wrath of death by dying and then engaging death plundering it and defeating it ultimately by resurrection that's how you defeat the wrath of death do you see now why in romans three sentences later what does it say therefore death now has no power so my brothers and sisters i want to bless you with the idea that jesus did not die to save us from an angry god rather god was in christ showing the world how much he loved us by taking on death by choosing to empty himself and dying himself even to the point of death death on a cross and then defeating it by rising in i bless you to know that god is not sending his active anger towards you in a meteor sort of form that god is present in us when we're handed over to the self-inflicted consequences of non-consent to consent and i think the thing we should wrestle with and should pray every day is lord jesus please give me the courage to always consent when the spirit of god nudges me may i never be handed over to the self-inflicted consequences of non-consent to consent i want to be a disciple i want to be a person of response i want to be a person of consent because when god nudges us may we all be people of mutual consent and be saved from the wrath thanks let me be part of your night everybody grace and peace well i hope that's changed some paradigms in our some thinking processes and maybe some perceptions about both christ and the bible and god uh just a couple of things before we go um there are some offering buckets there and look it's only right that we honor people and honor in the bible talks about uh finance as well so offering buckets on the side but in the foyer uh shane's product as you asked please if you weren't going to buy it don't wait till tomorrow if you're here tonight buy it tonight and get a hold of that stuff and get it into your heart get it into your life and uh continue with that and we will see you we've got meetings tomorrow morning and tomorrow night with shane willard anything else i need to say oh there is f pos giving in the foyer as well so thank you very much god bless you go with a new paradigm that god loves you and god is good you

Channel: Heritage Christian Centre

Views: 360

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: vJZOXgvEi7U

Length: 87min 5sec (5225 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021