Take Heart (Part 2) - God the Protector and Defender

hi I met Chandler here pastor of the village church just want to thank you for streaming this sermon on your device I I wanted to just before we get going here just lay before you a deep conviction we have that this video sermon that we've prayed really stirs up your affections for Jesus and shapes you and mold you into the image of the son would just be supplemental to your relationship with the Lord and in no way would replace the church you should be plugged into or the pastor that God has put over your life to Shepherd and care for your soul and so please enjoy the next hour or so of this message we have prayed that God would use it in a profound way in your life blessings hey good morning how are you doing well awesome a few it sounds like you're doing great if you have your Bibles grab those we're gonna be an exodus chapter 15 if you don't have a Bible around you there should be a hardback black one you don't own one that's our gift to you while you're turning there I want to spend some time as a community of faith praying while most of us left I know not all of us but while most of us slept last night in Orlando Florida occured the worst mass shooting in US history and so a man went into a gay bar called pulse and there shot and killed 53 people before the police shot and killed him this man is of Muslim descent and so there's all this conversation going on right now about whether this was an act of terror or this was a hate crime or what exactly this was but but I want to talk about this event on on two levels first I want us to pray because it's horrific and awful secondly I want to lay before you two things that are occurring right now one if you have a friend or family member in the LBGT community it would be a good time just to make a call check in see if they're all right most of us will not live in the kind of environment where you're nervous about you being murdered as a hate crime in any moment or anything like that and so if you want to call and touch base how are you in light of this news how can I pray for you that that's a good thing that the second thing to consider is that every Muslim neighbor and co-worker you have right now is going oh great because once again they're gonna feel like we think they're all terrorists and we think and maybe you're ignorant enough to actually believe that but in reality as a fishing Zia fad taught us back in January as a man who moved here with his family from Iran and and faced really the cultural distrust and hatred at the hands of Americans it was literally someone who counseled him in English who gave him a Bible that led to him becoming a Christian and so if you have friends or family members in the LBGT community this is an opportunity for you to call and check in see how you can pray encourage them and if you have neighbors who are Muslim family members who are Muslim co-workers who are Muslim this is also an opportunity for you to love and be the presence of Christ for them and so what I want to do is give us a few moments here to just pray to put humanity on this there are 53 moms and dads who just lost their child there are 53 brothers and sisters who lost sisters and brothers there's all sorts of loss that just occurred in Orlando and we should grieve the brokenness of this world and and so I want to give us an opportunity to mourn with those who mourn and lament the brokenness of the world that we live in because in no level can you look at what happened in Orlando and think anything about it is good and and so I want us to be mindful of the brokenness of the world that we're in today will be a heavier day even by topic but I want us to start just by praying for these family members praying that God would be at work in the mess that's what we believe as Christians that the world is messy but the God is at work in the mess and so we want to pray and ask for comfort for these families ask for mercy for those involved and really just ask the Spirit of God to be at work and so maybe how we do that here at the village is if you've come with some people that are Christians you can kind of group up with them and pray we'll just full-on embrace awkwardness here so you don't even have to know them just lean and go praying with you guys here by myself and we'll love that if you're not a Christian and you're here just because some wacko religious nut job family member drug you then we're glad you're here also and you can awkwardly stare at me or you can pray or happy thoughts to the higher power whatever you want to do I want you to feel welcomed and comfortable we love that you're here with us today so let me give you just a couple of moments here to pray for these families for this terrible situation the Saints in the first century would often cry out maranatha which means come quickly Lord Jesus makes sense of this madness and so let me give you a couple of moments to pray here and then I'll close us out father we thank you for your sovereign reign and rule but we confess this morning much like the Apostle Paul confesses in the scriptures that we are perplexed but not crushed so we pray for these families we pray for those who have suffered great loss today well we pray that we might be marked as a people of compassion and grace that that whatever we read about on Facebook or whatever foolishness gets echoed out and other social media platforms that we not join in with stupidity and foolishness but rather we be marked as your people those who mourn with those who mourn ask father that where this touches those near and dear or around us as you've uniquely wired and placed us in the world that we might be agents of salt and light compassionate helpful encouraging and father we ask that this madness might come to an end father that you might work according to your good pleasure for justice for freedom and and ultimately so that men and women might see you as beautiful and delightful it's for your beautiful name I pray amen aw Tozer said what you think about when you think about God is the most important thing about you now let me try to explain toasters argument toes are saying that when you think about God what you think about God will shape everything about you it'll shape how you interact with others in your relationships it'll shape how you interact with your finance it will literally shape everything about your life and so I'll I'll expand on toasters argument not knowing whether or not he would agree with my interpretation of what he said because he's dead and so that creates some license for me because he's not here to argue but but reading this book here's the conclusion that I think tozer is making if in your mind when you think about God you think that he is gracious and kind and loving and forgiving then then when you think about God that that's thought about God then shapes your ability to be gracious and generous to others so if I believe that God is generous and gracious then I am more likely to be gracious and generous to others because to be a recipient of grace to be a recipient of generosity usually shapes and forms us to be the same kind of people that we have been shaped and molded by the guy that we believe in on the flip side of things if you believe that God is perpetually disappointed in you but every time God sees you he just kind of has just a kind of a retching kind of reaction like you're just so weary of you and your nonsense then then more than likely are I far more likely than if you believe God is a God of grace and mercy you're going to have kind of low-grade agitation because you're never quite able to measure up and you don't know what the standard is and how dare ye and and then that bleeds into your relationship with others and how you handle your finances so to see God properly correctly in his context in the the scriptures is to have really the whole of Our Lives ordered in a way that that I would argue is beautiful and right and good and to see God wrongly means that that men we we will make a mess of things even with our best intentions and and so when we tend to think about God and that's a complex idea like right well pops in your head when you think about God I mean that that's pretty big and so what I've noticed is in 2016 and last weekend if you're I spent 27 minutes on the Enlightenment in my intro right who does 27 minutes of intro on the Enlightenment well what I was trying to get to the bottom of because I knew where I was going this week it is to show you that that at at its core and the Enlightenment seeks to boil men and women down to brains on a stick that we are purely our intellect and and we know from history and we know from our own experience that this is simply not true there are all sorts of things we feel in ways we behave that are contrary to what we know is true in our minds were not brains on a stick we're far more complex than that as human beings and one of the things one of the ideas of who God is a character attribute of God that is completely vanished in 2016 for all sorts of various reasons I that but I think is an important one is the idea of the Lord being a warrior so when we think about God we tend to think about Nickelodeon not HBO right we took it we tend to think about Bambi not Braveheart we tend to like the God who's a lot more like Tinkerbell than anything else what we want is feathered hair Jesus a lot of product to hold that thing in place he's got a bag of pixie dust and all he does is he wrinkles it never gets upset about anything you can't do anything wrong we're all awesome and his sprinkle dust is there to help you understand that by golly you're amazing and and that that tends to be the only palatable version of Jesus that culture at large will buy into and although you cannot out preach the grace mercy long-suffering patience and kindness of God make no mistake the gut the Bible paints God also as a warrior and so we're gonna talk about that today and and so hang in there because it might not mean what you think it means so to 2-under let's look at this text Exodus 15:3 it's simple it's a sentence that's just one sentence the Lord or Yahweh write the the Lord is a man of war the Lord is his name okay so if we're gonna understand the Lord is a warrior in any kind of real biblical way we've got to kind of back up and see the whole narrative the whole story of what God is up to in the world that we live in so the the Bible tells us that when God created everything that existed he created it perfect that he created it with not balanced but but honest perfection that there was Joey he describes the relationship between the man and woman like this they were naked and unashamed that had nothing to do with nudity and everything to do with the state of their heart that they were naked and unashamed right so there was no guilt and there was no shame like can you imagine never feeling guilt or shame that's creation as God created it the man and woman were naked and unashamed which means they had nothing to hide they projected no false image of themselves they were what they were there was innocence Beauty the Hebrews called this idea Shalom think of a symphony with all the instruments playing their part it was beautiful rhythmic it stirred the senses and the affection it's called Shalom and this is how God created the world to function no shame no guilt so guilt is the breaking of a law shame is just brokenness of human spirit you can feel shame over all sorts of things some things that are shameful but sometimes you can just feel shame because your hearts broken like you can be ashamed what you drive or you can be ashamed of how you look or you can be ashamed of your friend or you can be ashamed of where you live or you be right but but that's not rooted in the breaking of a commandment that that's just the brokenness of our hearts or giving ourselves over to what is shameful right and and so in this the Bible says this is Shalom this is the world as God created it to be on top of that we see that that before things break before we get to the world that we live in now that even the creative order is wired in such a way that that it's perfect that what we see now as beautiful is just a shadow or a shell of what it once was and what it eventually will be again we know this because the Bible is gonna tell us in Romans 8 that creation groans to be free from the bondage of decay which means that at at the beginning that creation somehow did not need to die for more life to spring up in its place and if you're asking me biologically how that happens I got a great answer for you no clue right I'm 42 God's infinite we're not gonna see the same way all that much but I can look to the cross and I can trust that he is faithful and good and so if we're gonna understand now the world we live in cuz can we just agree real quick that doesn't sound a lot like our week right unison purity beauty no relational strife even the creative order humming the praises of God most of us are going not my we got my wife and I fought three four five thousand times dog chew got my favorite book kid apparently can block out my voice right there this is I've struggled some anxiety I've had some fears I don't know what this is that's the world that we live in we live in a world where a guy walks into a nightclub and kills 53 people that that's the world that you and I live in so how did we get from Genesis 1 and 2 to 2 where we are now I'm glad you asked that was actually the next part of my notes so but we you have to actually get before Genesis 1 and 2 in ears well I'm gonna start talking and you're gonna think this sounds a lot like late-night-tv specifically on the sci-fi channel but but I would say once again that shows how marked we are by the Enlightenment how marked we are by modernity that would consider everything a matter of empiricism can I touch it can I taste it can I feel it can I hear it can I smell it if I can it doesn't exist we know that's not true but but any talk of supernatural realities and cosmic powers makes us think more of late night sci-fi than it does cosmic realities and so the Bible tells us that there is war in heaven and that an angel named Lucifer and a group of demons jealous of the glory of God leads a battle against God in heaven and they lose and they're cast out now back to our perfect garden you have Adam and Eve walking in the cool of the garden naked and unashamed and here comes the serpent and the serpent says to Eve did God really say that you should not eat of this fruit really what what God is up to his God doesn't want you to become like him he doesn't want you to be your own God and so he's telling you not to eat of this because he doesn't want you to be God Eve takes the bait or husband just stand-in there bird-watching or something who knows what he's doing right but he's definitely not paying attention right now cuz Eve's being lied to and they're like well I named that blue J and then she eats of the fruit hands it to him heat so but the fruits not magical is about obedience and the joy that comes and obedience and at that the Shalom fractures and the symphony and beauty and rhythm of God's created order spins off into chaos in fact relational harmony fractures in a moment the second they eat the fruit the Bible says they realized they were naked and they ran and hid what a heartbreaking passage of Scripture for the first time shame takes hold of the human heart and what they do they ran and hid and man has been running and hiding ever since so they hear the Lord walking in the garden and they're anxious about that they hide most futile game of hide-and-go-seek in the history of mankind it's not gonna hide from an all-knowing God it's like little kids when they lay on the floor and think they can't see me so you know I can't see them because my eyes are closer they can't see me you're like in the middle of the for but yeah I'm I'm standing over you right now so Adam and Eve they go and hide and and God finds them because God finds us and then in that moment there's this weird act of compassion despite their fact the fact that Adam and Eve had sided with the enemy and had foregone their allegiance to the Creator God who created this beautiful symphony of enjoyment and praise and worship and and they instead joined the rebellion God made them close not a strange moment like you're betrayed by the by the apex of your creative order man and woman alone made in the image of God viceroys stewards of your creation sided with your enemy they feel naked they feel ashamed and God made him close now God's response to his creation siding with the enemy wasn't now hear this redeem and reconcile all things to himself that's God's big play it's the most infinitely powerful thing in the universe does not set out to now destroy and annihilate his creation that joined his enemy but rather to seek and save and redeem them any talk of God being a warrior must be plugged into that narrative because that is the story of the Bible and so when we talk about God being a warrior I'm gonna I'm gonna talk this grid that I'm using is a man by the name of Tremper long men who is a historical biblical researcher PhD you just hear smarter than me much much much smarter than me he's gonna divide God's warring into five cosmic stages I mean even doesn't even that Sennett sound like a sci-fi Network right five Kosmic stages it's sound like somebody should be like doing the intro like of a trailer God's five cosmic stages deep right but but here's where what they are well it will just outline them and I'll try to explain why this is such good news and not bad news Stage one God fights for Israel and then what long long ones gonna do is it's gonna look at Exodus the conquest of Canaan and then the Davidic Kingdom as this stage of God warring and so let's think about it the people of God are enslaved in Egypt right they're enslaved they are oppressed and God begins to war to free his people in fact we'll get into this a lot in the fall when we're walking through the book of Exodus but every plague that God pours out on Egypt corresponds with an Egyptian God so God is actively warring destroying killing false gods and idolatrous worship that enslave chain and break mankind's potential to be all that he designed them to be in worship joy and gladness so the Egyptians worshipped the Nile so he turned the Nile to blood they worshiped cattle and so God killed the livestock they worship the God of the crops and so God sent locusts to devour the the crops they worship the Sun God rah right if you even watch movies you would know that one right and and yet God then blacks out the sky and makes it pitch black right for every and this is what makes the people of God so insufferable when they get into the wilderness and immediately form a golden calf to worship had God not already flexed his might over that false non-existent God well they absolutely yeah this is God making war now if we're looking at him them being delivered out of slavery really if you're familiar with any of kind of the New Atheism or kind of the arguments of those who refuse to kind of enter into dialogue about Christianity what really kind of the ace of spades that'll get played over and over again is the conquest of Canaan they were like oh your God maniac right he's a Genesis Idol maniac he kills women and children and slaughters whole people grooves can't believe you would worship that God in fact I'll let Richard Dawkins say it he says it better than I and this is from his book The God Delusion the Bible is a blueprint of in-group morality complete with instructions for genocide enslavement of out groups and world domination now now a couple of things I think Richard Dawkins was a brilliant intellect I would also probably like to argue that I'm not sure that he ever read the Bible now I am fully convinced that he has pulled some text out of the Bible but I'm not quite sure that he actually read the Bible and and and here's why he tends to favor in all of his writings he tends to favor pulling these two verses out of Joshua this one verse out of Exodus and ignoring the narrative in which those verses find themselves so what he does is he goes to June 6 1944 and he finds a 20-something year old storming the beach at Normandy killing everything that's in front of him and going see he's a monster this kid is a monster when that's not what's happening at all that's not what's happening at all in fact the long-suffering patience of God is stunning when it comes to the Canaanites this July next month the United States will heard two hundred and forty years old should be a pretty epic party two forty right I mean that's a big year it's not like your 40th or fiftieth that's your two hundred and fortieth and so we've got that coming next week celebrate well the Bible tells us that God gave the Canaanites four hundred years to repent repent of what the type of idolatrous worship where babies were sacrificed to gods where elderly were killed because they lacked no good purpose in society where anyone with any deformity was put to death the idea of being a mountain baby they would they would look and see if there was any defect and then flinging you off of a cliff down into your death and so for 400 years overtures are made towards the people of the Canaanite lands to repent of this idolatry to disavow their allegiance to what's called the Dominion of darkness and line up with the good graces of God and they refused this is stage one gods warfare stage two and this is interesting no God then begins to fight against Israel in judgment so stage one he fights for Israel stage two he fights against Israel so what happens is as Israel kind of gets into the Promised Land is now they actually began to worship these pagan gods and so they take on the rituals of those who God had sought to destroy beforehand right they began to do the same things that these peoples judged by God we're gonna do his own people betray mean think about foolish the people of God are right God destroys livestock in Egypt to show his power over the little G non-existent Idol of the livestock God and what happens as soon as I get into the Promised Land we don't know what to do make a golden calf so we can worship it not the sharpest knives in the drawer and and don't we are among them brothers and sisters and so then God sends prophets and pleads with the people to return to the good design of gods thou shalt and thou shalt nots for human flourishing for joy for justice to return Bible's clear that the people of God were stiff-necked people they refused and so God Ward against them and that takes us to stage three stage three and again if you know your Bible this is the Exile and the latter prophets who within like Jeremiah declare listen if we do not repent God is going to scatter us across the world we will no longer have a place of our own we will be scattered and sure enough if you know your Bible that the people have got are scattered throughout the ancient world in fact what we see when Jesus comes and walks the earth is the people of Israel are spread across the Roman Empire there are little communities of faith that are in almost every major city and in almost every major town in the ancient world that's why when the Apostle Paul who hated Jesus actually tried to stomp out and kill Christians and then became a Christian himself actually went to those synagogues first to share the gospel this is all a part of God warring against Israel and dispersing them out of the promised land across all of the known world and that brings us to stage four and we're gonna spend a lot of time in stage 4 stage 4 of God's warfare Jesus comes as the divine deliverer and he defeats the power of evil Satan and death and so let me kind of talk about how this works here all right first John chapter 5 verse 4 it says this for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith this is an interesting statement coming from John right right John is saying anyone born of God has overcome the world what does that mean overcome the world were certainly not overcome the world in some sort of military way certainly and overcome the world in some sort of violent way this certainly does not look like stage 1 stage 2 or stage 3 this is all together different Christ has entered the scene he has lived he has died he is resurrected and now as men and women come to know and put their faith in Christ they are set free not from the brokenness of this world but through the bondage of sin death and decay that what it means to be the people of God is not that we do not sin but that we are free from it are you tracking with me like the people of God are not perfect people do you know any of them are you one do you know yourself well you're not perfect I'm not know there are no there's a perfect save you're not any perfect church folk we'll talk more about that in a second but at the coming of Christ now warfare looks different we have overcome the world because the power of Satan sin and death no longer holds anchor in our hearts and that's how the victory is won and you get a greater sense of this when the Bible starts talking about cosmic realities again we're children of the Enlightenment cosmic realities are hard for us it's not hard for us for watching them the matrix we love that nonsense on the matrix but if we actually think about the world working that way then then all some were filled with skepticism Colossians chapter 2 starting in verse 13 he's very much gonna talk about personal salvation at the beginning of this I think you'll be able to relate to that if you're a Christian if you're not a Christian this is what we mean by personal salvation Colossians 2 starting in verse 13 you can plug your in here if you would like I'll plug mine in as Irene and Matt Chandler was dead in his trespasses and the uncircumcision of his flesh of my heart but God made me alive together with him having forgiven Matt Chandler of all his trespasses and by canceling the record of debt that stood against Matt with its legals demand this he set aside nailing it to the cross so all that I am guilty of nailed to the cross of Christ with Jesus Christ that's great news that's personal salvation in that text we read about how God saved me and redeemed me we read about in this text what David was talking about in Psalm 40 and then bono would sing about later on the u2 album with the song 40 that God heard my cry and he lifted me out of the muck and the mire and he set my feet on a rock he put a hem of praise in my mouth him a praise to my god that's personal salvation but yet there's something that happens here also look at verse 15 in this he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him now what rulers and authorities are put to open shame when we become Christians it's not a governmental authority it's not a parental authority what Authority is it that's put to open shame when we become Christians well I mean he's talking about cosmic realities here so I'm not Satan and demons and spiritual powers so think about here's what being laid open to shame means we are born broken born with Vince right that are far moving us far from God not moving us towards God right nobody's born going I'm gonna be fully submissive to the God of the Bible nobody's born that way we're all born with vents towards rebellion every one of us David says I was brought forth in iniquity right if you've been around kids you know that it's not always environment I can tell you this I have never bit my wife or another human being to get what I want ever so my children did not learn that by watching Lauren and I get in arguments give me the remote boo I'm gonna give me the remote I mean that did not happen they did not watch Lauren and I'm that's how you do it no no it's just their little hearts are evil right there's little hearts are broken they need to be redeemed and if you go on that's not the way my child acts my child yes Father sure mother then I'd keep your eye on that kid even more maybe lock your door at night that's stuff like it it's in like paranormal activity right there right here we are talking about demons I'm anyway it in the end what's been disarmed well what's been disarmed and what's been laid to open shame is that in our flesh drawn by demonic powers and forces we give ourselves over to all sorts of wicked and depraved things and then when we are saved and baptized we testify to Christ's power over those things and in that God then triumphs over Satan in a very public way and so one of the things I love about the village churches is historically we've just been a really grimy place right I mean we I use these illustrations all time when we've had a guy in the bathroom with a needle stuck in his arm and had to dial nine one our baptism services are always almost nc-17 you know you sometimes I want to get up before and go okay probably want to take your kids out for these services right unless you want to try to explain why swinging is a bad thing and really kind of what happens when drugs and other type of wicked things rule and reign over the hearts of men what happens when somebody gets in the water and says I cheated on my spouse what happens when they get in the water and say I gave myself over to drunkenness and licentiousness when they say those things to strangers 1,500 strangers what they're saying to all is that the love of Christ triumphs over the sin and then what Satan meant for evil and destruction what our flesh meant to destroy us is now a treasure and a trophy of the grace of God it's why celebration service is such a big thing here because in it were reminded that God's triumph over sin and death in Christ is complete that there is no sin with more power than the cross of Christ there is no one that's gone too far you can't out sin the grace of God and that's what this is all about Satan and demons thinking they're getting the best of a situation only to have it flipped on its head to show Christ's triumph over it all and then I want to show you three eight through ten because I think it speaks to the truth the church in a way that's helpful I'm sorry I'm drinking water today some Dallas air quality poor Ephesians three starting in verse eight to me though I am the very least of all the Saints this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles that's us the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things look at verse 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known no I want to stop there if you've ever really just kind of looked up at the church I'm gonna be honest this looks like a really bad plan alright like if I'm looking at the evil and brokenness of the world if I'm looking at all the heinous horrific dark if I'm looking at poverty if I'm looking at sex trafficking if I'm looking at a billion just evil wicked grotesque dark things and then I look up at us I mean so you look around the room for a second go ahead don't stare one person in particular we just look around the room like this is God's big plan to push back that this like I just think we need to probably go back to the whiteboard on this just looking around just concerned that this this probably isn't the wisest plan and yet the wisdom of God is not being revealed to human eyes but rather to something else so let's look back at 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places so what God is doing in the church what God is doing in Christians and Christians in covenant community with one another is revealing his wisdom not just to mankind because we might look really foolish to mankind but to spiritual powers and authorities and rulers so one of my favorite authors CS Lewis he was actually a professor at Oxford and Kane bridge and medieval literature was kind of his specialty he wrote a book called the Screwtape Letters right and in the Screwtape Letters what he's doing he's just brilliant with storytelling and Lois is telling the whole book is about an older demon disciple in a younger demon named wormwood on how to deceive this man who's his client right and and wormwood allows his client to become a Christian and so the older demon in counseling wormwood says here's what you need to do when he is at church when he is at church not the church as we see it arrayed in splendor mighty as an army with banners time and space draw his attention to the woman who sings off-key draw his attention to the frumpy man with squeaky shoes draw his attention to and he starts to list out these things that are in every church always everywhere and he says and in seeing these absurdities he will surely consider that all of this is foolishness Lew Lewis was diving into this reality that the church as it's a scene in the heavenlies reveals the bankruptcy and futility of Satan's plans to muddy and destroy and that the victory already belongs to Christ so the game then is make people blind to cosmic realities right and the Enlightenment certainly helps with that right brains on a stick none of this really exists this sounds absurd there's no cosmic reality there's no red pill blue pill this is nonsense it'd make a great action movie but it's nonsense right and this is how we've been trained this is the air that we breathe and and yet the the Bible is telling us that the manifold wisdom of God is made visible in the church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places so since what we see in these texts is in Christ Satan vanquished and conquered and the triumph of Christ made sure in his people how then are we to live so here we are still in stage four and and here's what this means Stage four doesn't look anything like stages one through three in fact now the weapons of warfare are compassion mercy faithful presence we have been illuminated by the holy spirit to understand that Christ is king and and now we live intentional lives on purpose pushing back the darkness where we are now that's not overwhelmingly complex all right we're gonna talk about this at length next we have you've been uniquely wired and uniquely placed by God for these purposes right you have a bent you had natural gifting when you were born right you didn't work at it it was just their raw material there all right so I was born allergic to math but can remember almost everything I read I didn't learn to do that I could just do it right some of you were John towards the arts other of you business you just see it other you and just natural athletes you talk about how hard you work you came out of the womb just better than us all right get over yourself and and the same things true if you made straight A's right you like that you you're that kids like oh man that test crushed me and you got a 106 on it we know who you are all right you don't have to read anything you just touch the book and you become instantly smarter than everyone right that that's God wired you those ways and then he's placed you where he's placed you for this reason cuz we're caught up in this this is the only story there is and so in our neighborhoods in our workplaces wherever we find ourselves we find ourselves in this great cosmic battle pushing back what's dark with truth and life and love and hospitality and good food and good wine and loving conversation and rich compassion mourning with those who mourn celebrating with those who celebrated and being the people of God where we are this should be the eradication of boredom to all who claim the name of Jesus Christ because there's eternal significance attached to everything we're doing but that's not how most of us are why that's not how most of us to think about Christianity we think about Christianity it's kind of navel-gazing I wish I could stop doing these things I'm just telling you the least sexy version of Christianity in the universe is the one that says just be a better person so mission behind I know passion behind that no shaping force behind that if anything it makes you self-absorbed there's nothing uglier than self-absorption and narcissism right and I think that because we're not dialed in to these realities CS Lewis said something else about that and if you're thinking maybe I've got a thing for Lewis you might be onto something so Lewis also said this it is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses now what does he mean by that right because we're not Mormons we don't believe in nor did Lewis believe that we become gods but rather that we were adopted as sons and daughters of God so there's one God we will not be gods right but we were we will reign and rule alongside of God redeemed by the blood of Christ forever so what is Lewis mean well I'm glad he he defines it to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to anybody know a guy like that listen to what he says may one day be a creature which if you saw it now you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a and a corruption such as you now meet if at all only in a nightmare all day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations here here's Lewis's argument that you and I have been trained by the air that we breathe to not see people legitimate eternal people sitting in front of us the next line of this quote says you know no mere mortal that everyone you know is eternal that you've never met a mere mortal countries are mortal right businesses are mortal but you have never met a mere mortal everyone you know is eternal and Louis's argument is in eternity there will be something so beautiful and lovely that if you saw it right now you'd be tempted to worship it I think he's referencing first Corinthians 15 there and the resurrected body or they'll be so grotesque perverted and distorted that it would be the stuff of nightmares and I think one of the reasons we haven't embraced kind of being a people with compassion and grace that push back the darkness is because we have lost sight of the bigger picture here we've lost sight of the bigger picture and is the barista that gets you coffee the waiter that brings your meal and takes your order that the neighbor that lives beside you that the friend that you work with all are not mere mortals and got his place to you there to be a herald of the good news so if you're not a Christian and you're hearing you're like oh this whole God is a warrior thing man it making me feel condemned no no stage 4 is not about condemnation in fact the Bible is really clear John 3:17 the Christ has come into the world not to condemn the world but to save the world from condemnation Christ's coming into the world as a warrior was not about condemning you but destroying the enemy so that you might be saved so you can't go oh he's so mean Jesus is so mean oh no Christ has come to say to rescue from condemnation not to condemn that's what we're celebrating as the people of God that we have been rescued and ransomed that's the story of the Bible that he kicked open the door and drug us out that he placed our feet on the rock this is what we're celebrating this is the good news of the gospel and so now I'm not saying that you're like hey um can I get a large black coffee and and by the way I brought you a bottle when you open that up to Romans 1 let's talk real quick it's not what I'm talking about I know I think there are times where we're just your relationship with someone built over time lends itself to that or if you be so bold you can start spiritual conversations cold just like that but but I think it means more that our dinner tables are open and then we do life genuinely and deeply with people that don't believe what we believe that we love well and we have compassionate conversations that we seek to understand and we seek to lay before people what is good right and beautiful about the God of the Bible that means we never do drive-bys or or say really foolish things online that could isolate or spark up anger for controversy say this was not the way of Jesus Christ well he rebuked the Pharisees bro the Pharisee is us the woman caught in adultery how'd he treat her compassion woman at the well how do you treat her compassion Zacchaeus the wee little man did he not go to dinner at his house that day yeah it's with compassion empathy grace patience genuine friendship the darkness is pushed back and if you're not a believer we are in this stage for of warfare where Christ is pushing back with his people darkness and so if someone is in your ear talking to you about Jesus Christ that that is an act of cosmic violence but earthly love earthly love stage-four will only last so long so we live intentional lives until stage five and Stage five Jesus returns to fight the final battle against his enemies both spiritual and physical let me read revelation 19:11 through 16 then I saw heaven opened and behold a white horse the one sitting on it is called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war his eyes are like a flame a fire and on his head are many diadem's as many crowns and he has a name written that no one knows but himself he is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name by which he is called is the word of God and the armies of heaven arrayed in fine linen white and pure were following him on white horses and from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nation's and he will rule them with a rod of iron he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty and on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written king of kings and Lord of lords this is a far cry from six-pound 3-ounce baby Jesus this is Jesus in a robe dipped in blood with a tattoo on his thigh that says king of kings and Lord of lords and the day of stage for warfare which has lasted for millennia of God's patience and mercy seeking to save and ransom finding many who go forget your salvation forget your offer to remove all condemnation we pick we choose our idols we choose the other side he will then the day of mercy dried up and the Bible says the sky cracks open and the return of Christ commences it's not a long battle Hollywood would like us to believe it's a long battle you know like the priest shows up the love of Christ compels you everybody knows that guy's gonna die right that poor priest the first one that shows up you can just check it I don't know how much that guy gets paid for his acting job but he's there for ten minutes and then he's dead right but but in the the final scene of this great war Jesus shows up and says I am and the Bible says it's over forever and then we return to what we read in Genesis 1 and 2 in fact the prophet Isaiah says that the deserts bloom with roses that the Wanda the mountaintops produce sweet wine wine and that the lamb and the wolf lay down together they dine together its creation remade creation remade for the earth to be death starred like many Christians think means that Christ would concede to Satan and give Satan victory that is not what happens here but rather all things are remade to the fullness of their glory now Dietrich Bonhoeffer said being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing the will of God or doing God's will so what I want you caught up in is this is what your life is caught up in like everything about your life is inside this story this is the story so it doesn't matter what you do if you're a welder or a businesswoman or doesn't matter a doctor or a teacher or a garbageman it just doesn't matter this is the story that you and I are fitting into and every man and woman on earth will bring glory to this God you don't get to choose whether or not you're gonna bring glory to this guy right you will bring glory to this God by being an object of his grace a trophy of His grace putting two open shame the enemy or you'll be an object of his just right wrath even the one that would shake his fist at the habit and go I hate you is still going to bring glory to God that's what makes this guts so terrifying this is what makes him not Tinkerbell but something altogether ferocious loving yes gracious yes merciful yes long-suffering absolutely Tinkerbell not at all not at all now again if you're not a Christian here's what I desire for you to hear me say my hope even in preaching this because I know how it strikes modern sensibilities is not to give you a mo to doubt or hate the God of the Bible but for you to hear that the Lord has made war on your behalf to ransom and rescue you from sin and death and idolatry and that God's patience is stunning if you think about the belittlement of his name the mocking and disordering of his creation the questioning of his character so I point out to those who are here all the time like a million planes will take off and land more than that today millions of planes will take off at land today and nobody's gonna go praise Jesus this plane landed unless you'd like to freak out flying and then you'll be the one that was like okay praise Jesus the plane landed right but that's not like a legitimate isn't God good but let one fall out of the sky and how cruel and where was God as if we use last night as an illustration or early morning as an illustration people club all the time and no one shows up and shoots it up but God gets no credit for peace sustained peace but let one incident break out and watch him come out mocking belittling questioning and gods response long-suffering patience sending us people to be salt and light to herald the good news to all who will hear this is what you're caught up in this is really what's behind your life to embrace it and live in it I think it's the greatest joy we can know as a Christian to reject it turns us into navel-gazing moralists few things least you know just terrible way to live life embracing it means we're marked by compassion empathy and love and we're salt and light whatever domain we're in placed there by the good pleasure of God for the glory of God to be seen it's a good use of our life let's pray father I thank you for these men and women an opportunity just to stand and I know so much of what we've talked about today is difficult it makes other questions kind of pop up in our head but I pray that just for a moment father we might consider whether these things are true if they're someone even in here now that they can just feel in their soul just a blocking just I'm not gonna consider this I'm not going to hear this I just pray even now a Holy Spirit of God that you would make them aware that they're doing that right now that it wouldn't be below the surface but they would become aware that they refuse to consider they refuse to think I'm gonna pray for my friends that aren't Christians they would hear this is good news and I pray for my brothers and sisters who are Christians but they would grow bold in their faith knowing that the war is won and that they would fight their battles with grace compassion hospitality genuine friendship and long-suffering love and patience help us we need you it's for your beautiful name I pray amen

Channel: The Village Church Resources

Views: 18,970

Rating: 4.9033818 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Chandler, The Village Church, 2016, Take Heart

Id: cXawHp1awRo

Length: 51min 49sec (3109 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2016