Note: This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for accurate information and meaning.

Introduction: Turning to Philemon

Thank you, Jesse.

Turn to a little book from the Bible. So little, it’s only one chapter long. If you can find it, Philemon. It’s right before a bigger book, Hebrews, if you have a Bible you’re looking through. If you want to just follow along in the passage that we have here in the—or in the bulletin that we have here, you can do that, whichever you’re comfortable with. And your device will get it if you just simply type in Philemon.

These last bunch of weeks, we’ve been looking at the ways that God communicates his grace to us. The way that he displays himself, the way that he makes himself known to us in greater, more tangible, more intimate ways. The premise we’ve been operating under is that God’s not trying to play hide and seek. God is not sort of, you know, “If you can find me, come find me.” He’s not wandering through the world hiding behind things, hoping you’ll bump into him randomly. That’s not how—at least, you know, that might be how spirituality works, but it’s not how the gospel works. It’s not how Christ works. He tells us the ways by which we can enter his presence, we can understand his grace.

Captivation vs. Consistency

Now, that sense of what we’re looking for, I think, when we want God’s grace, when we’re looking for God’s grace—I think there’s a sense where—and this again is how Christianity distinguishes itself from all the other religions—is that I think when we say, “I want to know God,” or “I want to explore God,” “I want to have more of his grace,” “I want to understand more of his intimacy,” we’re looking for a sense of captivation. We want that sense of gasp, you know, that “aha!” That sense of it’s all sort of making sense and that warm, fuzzy feeling.

That is not—that’s not controllable at all by doing the things that we’re saying. But that doesn’t mean that God’s not tangible. Okay? There’s a sense where when I—you know, I’ve been married to my wife for 40 years, but I’m like, every day is not like the first day. But we’re definitely more together, we’re definitely more connected and intimate. There’s a definite sense of knownness and a belonging that occurs over that, even though the relationship ebbs and flows. But I know how to connect with her in that capacity.

The same with a relationship with God is that he’s telling us that our relationship will ebb and flow in terms of captivation. It will ebb and flow in terms of warmth and love. It will ebb and flow in terms of that sense of euphoria. But here are the ways that you and I—there are known conduits through which I am giving you those opportunities to be filled with my grace.

He tells us over and over again, and we’ve followed some of those: the scriptures themselves, prayer, service, giving things. The early weeks, we talked about the ways that we sort of—are predominantly the ways that we receive or the ways that flow into us. And then these last few weeks, we’ve been talking about the ways that God gives us his grace by things that are predominantly sort of flowing away from me.

Last week, we talked about generosity. We experience God’s grace, we get more sense of intimacy with him by being generous, and that generosity is flowing away from me. We get more of God’s grace, we get a greater sense of his intimate connection and his love for me when I serve and when I have mercy, and that flows away. Today, we’re talking about another thing that generally flows away from us in Philemon, if you will, verse 4.

Scripture Reading: Philemon 1:4-7

Follow along as I read the section out loud:

“I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the heart of the saints.”

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.

Prayer

Lord, be with us this morning as we contemplate your word. Lord, I pray that the meditations of our heart might reflect you, might become more like your character and image. I pray that you might give us a sense of your grace today. Even as we do, as we worship, Lord, you have chosen worship to be a place where we engage you, where you are present. You long to be with us. You desire the times that we can be with you and that we can have a sense of connectivity. Lord, our failure to—Lord, we put up with time with you sometimes, and Lord, you don’t hold that against us. But you’re converting us into people who just long to be with you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

As I’m praying that, I’m thinking of my kids. Going, “You know, I love hanging out with my kids.” I don’t think they love hanging out with me as much as I love hanging out with them. And I’m going, “You know, isn’t that relationship the same way with God?” He honestly, he actively loves hanging out with his people, his children. And yet, it’s almost drudgery. “Got to spend time with God today. Oh, got to go be with God.” You know, it’s almost that way. And it’ll be different someday. Yes, it’ll be different when we see him face to face. It’ll be very different when all of the filters that get in the way, all of the captivations that get in the way, and my heart is bent towards myself rather than towards him.

The Great British Bake Off and Delivering News

Becky and I follow a show that comes out regularly from Britain, The Great British Bake Off. Is that what it’s called? The Great British Bake Off. And basically, it’s regular folk from Britain, from the area, who sign up and then you bake. Every week, you do a new baking challenge—several challenges. Each show is a different sort of thing. I think they start with like 12 or 15 or whatnot, and then they work their way down to one. Then that person becomes the champion of The Great British Bake Off. The kinds of things that regular folk—these aren’t professionals, these are regular folk who just have a hobby of baking—and they bake, is incredible to me.

But one of the things that they do every week, obviously, is there’s a winner every week and there’s a loser every week. They come out and the two hosts are comedic in some fashion. They come out and the one will say, “I have the pleasure of telling us who our champion is this week.” And then they say, “It’s Nigel is the champion for this week.” Great. And then the other comedian has to come out and say, “Well, I have the not-so-pleasant experience of telling you who the loser is and who will be leaving us, who will be leaving the tent,” because it happens in a big tent. “Leaving the tent today,” and then they tell the person who will be leaving the tent that day, and then everybody cries and they go off to their next piece. And they do that every week.

Which would you rather do? Would you rather be the one to tell the winner? Would you rather be the one telling the good news, or be the one telling the bad news? Do you like telling good news more than bad news? Which is better: telling the bad news or telling the good news?

I know several people who are long-time professionals in the HR department of their companies. They run the HR department. I know several people like that, and I’ve always marveled because I feel like that is a job where all you do every day is tell people bad news. You’re dealing with the bad news of situations. Now, that’s not the total job, that’s not the whole thing, but it’s often not good news.

And even the good news, you know, HR: “Got a great health plan going, happy to pass that out to you. Don’t forget to sign up, health plan.” It usually comes at more cost, though, or less benefits. So it’s like, good but bad. And so, when you get into HR, is that why you got into HR? So you could be—or if you get to be, you know—

I worked in retail for a bunch of summers, a bunch of years when I was in college. I did a lot of different things. They often would have me do the store announcements for obvious reasons. And then, every once in a while like at holidays, they would put me at the return section. I hated that. I hated it because it’s just bad news. It’s just always, “I’m sorry, we can’t take that back. I’m sorry that it got damaged. I’m sorry you didn’t get the product you wanted.” Generally, the people coming to the return department, they’re looking for good news, but they don’t want any good news—they just want satisfaction at some level.

There’s a sense where I prefer to tell good news. As a matter of fact, when I hear good news, it’s hard for me to keep it to myself. Some of you tell me good news, and you say, “But let’s just keep it on the down-low for the minute.” And I go, “Oh my gosh, are you serious? You’re in remission! Why am I waiting to tell? You got the job you thought you were going to get? You’ve got three job opportunities that are at your disposal? You got a windfall in some capacity? Your mother’s out of the hospital? You want me to what? You want me to hold—you want me to keep—how in the world? Why would you want—”

Now, people have different reasons, and I’m not telling you that—and I certainly do, if you tell me to keep it, I keep it a secret. I am a dead-end street when it comes to news. And I will ask permission, you know. People tell me good news. Somebody got pregnant the other time, and they said, “Just keep it because we want to…” You know, now don’t look around, it’s already happened in the past. And I’m not telling anything that hasn’t been—that you don’t already know. This is an old story. But there was a time where somebody got pregnant, they said keep it on the down-low. And I go, “Are you serious?” And they go, “You know,” and I go, “Can I tell Becky?” “Well, yeah, yeah, you can tell Becky.” Great! Fantastic! At least I can tell somebody! That’s just bursting out.

When somebody gets engaged, “Shh, don’t tell anybody. We haven’t, you know, we got the ring, we want to keep it on the, you know, this kind of thing.” Or, “In another six months, I’m to ask her.” Years ago, this happened. Some college student was telling me that in another few weeks they were going to ask somebody to marry them. “But don’t tell anybody. I haven’t talked to her family yet.” I go, “Oh my gosh, then why did you tell me?”

Because he’s living the very nature of what we’re describing here: good news wants to burst out. Good news wants to burst out. And why? Why? Ever thought about that? Why is good news—why does good news want to burst out? Why do you want to tell good news as opposed to tell bad news?

Because in the telling, you get something that you don’t get in the receiving, right? When you tell me the good news in your lives and then you tell me to keep it a secret, it doesn’t change the nature of the news, right? It doesn’t change—I mean, it’s all still very good. Somebody’s out of remission, somebody got a job, somebody got pregnant, somebody’s going to be engaged. The news remains the same. The news and the energy and what was infused in that seed, but there’s something about telling. There’s something about sharing it that just makes the whole other—it brings on another layer of excitement.

Why Teachers Teach and the Philemon Context

I think that’s predominantly also why teachers become teachers. Teachers become teachers because initially, they want to become teachers because they don’t know anything about teaching, what real teaching is like. Real teaching is a pain in the neck. Real teaching, to be a real teacher in a system of teachers, is absolute self-suffering. It is unconscionable. But when you don’t know that, you want to get into teaching because you want to tell something that you know to be true. You want to help someone get the same feeling.

When, you know, I remember sitting around a dining room table when algebra made sense to me. My aunt—and up until then, I was getting nowhere with algebra. Because algebra is when they start adding letters to math, and that makes no sense. And it didn’t make any sense to me. And then my teacher’s up there doing stuff. You know, now all the arithmetic problems, all the arithmetic rules like the transitive property and all the things that you couldn’t describe to me if I asked you today, they matter a lot. Because that’s what my teacher was doing up here. You got letters and numbers up here, and then suddenly down the bottom, all you have is a letter on one side and a number on the other side. And I don’t know how that happened. It’s because of all those transitive rules.

And I remember when it made sense to me, because my aunt was taking me through—it was a long, long day of tutoring, and she was so patient with me. And it clicked. It clicked. The click was, “Oh, so you put all the letters on one side, you put all the numbers on the other side. Oh my gosh, that’s fantastic!” And once I realized that you could do that, and that there were ways to manipulate the letters and the numbers so that the equal remains the same, it all made—oh my gosh! Then I was a math major. That’s what I ended up getting my degree in.

But it happened at a dining room table with my aunt, who taught me how to do algebra and unlocked the secrets, which weren’t secrets, but they were unlocked—the way that math occurred in my brain, and she helped me. Teachers want to have that moment with people. They want to tell people the good news. They want to tell something that they’ve had an experience of. Normally, teachers have been infected by teachers. And so, we want to tell something that’s good, what I find valuable. There’s something in the telling that isn’t there in the receiving.

And that’s what Paul, who wrote the book of Philemon—he wrote, and this is a personal letter. Most of Paul’s letters are letters to churches, they’re letters to churches he planted, some he planted, some that he didn’t plant. This letter is unique in that this letter is a letter that Paul wrote to one guy named Philemon, who was a believer.

And the reason he’s writing the letter to Philemon is because Philemon had a slave. He owned a slave in that context, and I’m not going to get into the whole complication of slave ownership in that day and age. Suffice it to say that the Bible is not against slavery as we understand it—it’s not against slavery as we would interpret it. The Bible is tragically—fantastically against it in every capacity. The kind of slavery, the Bible and the gospel is against all of that.

But the kind of what was going on here was that his slave, Onesimus—Philemon’s slave, Onesimus—had become a believer. And Paul is writing the letter to go, “Okay, how does the gospel relate to that relationship? You know Christ, Philemon. You know it as a wealthy man who has people who work for you. And Onesimus, he knows Christ. Now how does it affect the way we’re going to relate to each other in the future?” That’s really what the letter is all about.

But what he’s describing in this instance is the thing that he’s telling Philemon: “I thank God for you. Your faith is renowned. You’ve refreshed all the saints in this capacity.” But don’t lose sight of the necessity—I want you to grow in your ability to share, to share your faith.

Verse 6:

“I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith…”

Why?

“…so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing…”

In other words, that you’ll enjoy the good things we have in God, that you’ll be blessed by the good things we have in God, that in the sharing you’ll discover something that you don’t experience in the receiving.

Onesimus was a believer. He’s fleshing that out. I mean, Philemon, he was fleshing it out. He says, “I hear about your faith in the Lord and your love for all the saints.” Verse 7, “Your love has given me great joy. It’s an encouragement because you, brother, you refreshed the hearts of the saints. You’ve done this.” And this is all a reflection, so he’s living in that external way. He’s living in that “pass it on” way. He says, “But don’t lose sight, I pray that you would—that you’d be active in sharing your faith with those who don’t have it, who don’t share your faith.”

Share your faith because there’s something that you will receive. You’ll receive an understanding of God’s good things, grace. You’ll receive the grace of God—that’s another way of putting the grace of God. You’ll experience the grace of God when you share it with people who don’t already have it. Share your faith with the others.

The Nature of Sharing the Gospel

It’s like sharing good news, is really what he’s getting at. It’s like sharing good news, you know, because the word for sharing faith, the word for witnessing, for evangelism in the Scriptures, is the word euangelion, which means to resound the good news, to go on telling the good news. It’s good news. It’s like there’s a something that there’s something that’s happened that is good.

Now here’s the thing. There’s a way to share good news, right? Is good news always good? You don’t have to respond, just think about it. Is good news always good? Suppose someone says, “I just won the lottery!” Is that good news? Yeah, it’s great news—for one person. For that one person. But how does it come to you? How does it generally feel to you?

The way that we predominantly share things anymore—as a matter of fact, it’s called sharing—is by clicking that button, isn’t it? We share. What are we sharing? We’re sharing the good news. And I have friends who share their pictures in Europe. How does that feel? How does that sit with you when you get shared by them of a picture in Europe? Or the new car, or the new house, or the new experience that they had, or the opportunity that they went to. How is that good—and they’re sharing good news, right? Isn’t it good? Doesn’t it feel good all the time? No, it doesn’t. Why? Because the sharing—because sharing, you know, when Paul says, “Be active in sharing your faith, be active in sharing the good news,” there’s a sense where how we share it, when we share it, what we share, the context of who—who is it good for?

We’re good at sharing good news for me. We love sharing good news for me because I’m talking about me. And that’s basically what Facebook and Instagram and TikTok profiles are all about: good news for me. That, obviously, you want to know about, don’t you? That’s why you follow me. You follow me and you follow all of my stuff because you want to know about my good news, right? Even if my good news ends up being a great sandwich I’m eating at the moment.

But sharing the good news of the gospel isn’t predominantly that I found—it is about something I found, but it’s something that anybody can have that can be good news not just for me, but for you. Good news for you. That’s really the essence that the gospel is something that I’ve experienced.

And Paul says, “Share your faith.” When you share your faith, it is a personal experience. He doesn’t want us to share—he’s not sharing about concepts. He’s not sharing about the faith. Okay, there’s a difference between sharing about the gospel and your gospel. Okay?

I will sing the praises of—my son-in-law and I—my son-in-law bought a trash can for his kitchen that I ended up buying because it is the greatest trash can of all time. And I will sing its praises in terms of how just everything is ergonomically and this and the other and the thing, and the quiet and the virtue. It’s unbelievable. And he and I go back and forth with each other. “Did you know that this thing—and you know, they sell customized bags for this thing that are less costly than the stuff that I buy in the store. Oh my gosh!” And we’re just sharing back and forth about this great experience that we’re having. I’m not sharing about the thing, I’m not sharing about the trash can—I’m telling people about my trash can and my experience of that trash can. And that is a whole other animal. So Paul is not telling Philemon, “I want you to become active in sharing the faith,” a generic, outside-of-you, mechanical process. “I want you to share about your faith.”

Your faith. And that’s good, but it’s scary. Do you know why? And this is why—this is why the church gets a bad rap, and they get a bad rap for a good reason. The church—and not just our church, I mean the church everywhere—gets a bad rap because they’re mostly Christians mostly share about the faith, they don’t share about their faith. And there’s a difference.

Because the faith is about the specs part of the product description. How do you feel about the specs part of anything you buy on Amazon? You might look at it, you’re happy to know it, but generally speaking, you skip right to the reviews, don’t you? I do. Why? Because now I’m getting real-life, everyday, hopefully, experiences of people who’ve used it. The specs don’t talk to me.

But most of what the church universal does is talk about the specs. When Paul says that I get to feel God’s grace, I get to experience the wonder of his blessings when I talk about my—when I share my faith with you, my faith is different than the specs, than the faith. Here’s why, and the reason I say it’s dangerous, the reason I say it’s vulnerable, is because if you have to share about your faith, you’ve got to share about all the elements of it: the ups, the downs, the ins, the outs, the fuzzy aspects of it. And sometimes, I don’t have it.

That’s real Christianity. If you ask me how my marriage is, I can talk about the specs, or I can tell you about my marriage. And I can tell you, and I have told you, this woman’s the woman I love more than any other human. She’s also the woman I hate more than any other human. She’s experienced more hate from me than any other person on the planet. Because that’s the nature of intimacy! When you get let in, you get let in, and you get all the beauty and the love, but you get all the mess and the dysfunction.

And that’s the nature of a true faith, of a true relationship with Jesus. And the vulnerability of letting people—if the church were to be vulnerable like that, if the church universal were to be honest and share about their faith, I believe the culture would be far more attracted to Jesus. Because Jesus exudes that vulnerability.

The reason that Jesus was so—it said that he spent his time, he lived his life in the presence of publicans and sinners. That’s what he spent his time with. Why would they be so attracted to this man who’s the essence of holiness, who’s the essence of perfection, who’s the essence of a man so perfect, a man so glorious, a man so absolutely holy? Yet, when faced with publicans and sinners, they didn’t feel like they couldn’t spend time with him—they wanted to spend time with him. They longed to spend time with him.

Why were they so attracted to him? If there’s a person in your life who is the—who you would describe as the essence of holiness, the essence of perfection, do you want to spend time with that person? Not really. Why? Because they’re not being honest. They’re not being transparent about who they really are. I don’t want to spend time with a machine, I want to spend time with a real person who has ebbs and flows, who’s a real authentic human. And sometimes real authentic humans, real authentic faith looks messy.

And that encourages me, not because I’m encouraged in the mess, but I’m encouraged that my process—why was Paul encouraged by him? Because he was loving all the saints and he’s sharing that vulnerability with the people around him. And that’s the nature of what the church ought to be practicing: is sharing my vulnerable faith. And sometimes I love God with all of my heart and with a lot of my soul, but there are other times I just don’t love him. I just don’t want him. It’s just not convenient. And I sin, and I break, and I drag myself. That reality speaks. That reality expresses. You know what it expresses? It expresses that I am—having met Jesus, I am still a creature in need of Jesus. That although I have received the good news, I am still desperately in need of more good news, just like you, just like the world in which we live.

Getting Off the Treadmill

The other problem with sharing good news—you ever share good news that the people you share it with don’t think is good? You ever have the experience of trying to—that almost when you share it, you almost have to convince them, “Oh, no, no, no, it’s a good thing.” Yeah. “I’m going into HR. Hey!” And you go, “No, no, no, it’s a good thing. I mean that in a good way.” Okay?

The gospel’s sometimes that way because something that I receive that’s good for me, sometimes it doesn’t come across immediately as good news as a shareable moment with the people around us. And that’s understandable. And I think the church is caught in that capacity. The church universal is caught in that capacity where sometimes when we talk about the gospel with the culture, it doesn’t come across as good news for everybody.

And I think some of it has to do with the way our faith comes across. Here’s the thing. I’ll refer to the story of the Prodigal Son. Two sons, right? Father. At the beginning of that story, if you take all that we know at the end of the story and we infuse it at the beginning of the story, of the three, is there anybody worth emulating in that story? Of the three of them, only the father. Because the younger brother resented his father and left—at least he was honest. The older brother resented his father but stayed. And we know he resented his father because he says, “I’ve slaved for you all these years and you’ve given me nothing.” That kind of resentment is maddening.

The younger brother’s transition from running away to coming home, that moment for him was when he realized, “I could be home with my dad if I just was a slave. I should never have left, and the only way to get back is to go home and be a slave. Be more like my older brother,” who described himself as a slave. “I’ve been slaving away for you all these many years. I didn’t do what he did.” What turned the younger brother around, what became good news to him—here’s the thing—what became good news to the younger brother was the realization that “I can have what my father offers if I just become a slave to him.” And that was good news to him. The good news was, be more like your older brother.

But that’s not the gospel. The gospel is better than that. The gospel is what he got when he got home, which was, “You don’t have to do anything to be my son. You’re already my son because I’m going to make you my son. I’m going to turn you from a wretched rags-to-riches story. I’m going to do that. I’m going to give you a ring, I’m going to give you clothes, I’m going to give you shoes, I’m going to give you a feast. I’m going to make you something that you are not and have not lived right now.”

I’m going to make you something that you aren’t. The gospel isn’t to wretched, run-off sinners, “Be more like your older brother.” The gospel, the good news—see, if that would be good enough news, but it’s not the good news. It’s not really great news. In other words, the good news for the younger brother could have been understood as, “In order to have a relationship with me, in order to experience the things that I offer, just get on this treadmill of performance with your brother. And if you run as fast as he does, and you jump as high as he does, then you get all the things that we get as a family.” That’s what a lot of people think the gospel is! When what the gospel really is, is you can get off the treadmill.

You don’t have to run on the treadmill. The treadmill isn’t even the system anymore. You know what the system is? Just sit here and receive the gifts from me, and I’ll love on you. And I’ll love on you, and we’ll have this deep and utter relationship, and I will give you all the things that I require of you to accomplish in my world. I will give for you what you can’t give to yourself. I will be for you what you can’t achieve for yourself. That’s the gospel. It’s a freedom from—

Most of the time when people come into my office to talk about, you know, somebody’s dragging somebody into my office to talk, whether it’s a parent and a child or a spouse with another spouse or a work associate, and they’re trying to tell me, “Here’s the problem, and okay, pastor, tell them what to do.” And the first thing—and often the first thing I tell them to do is stop doing a lot of things. And I can feel the shoulders drop in people’s experience because they don’t need more to do, they need less. And the gospel is the essence of, “Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” That’s the gospel.

Share it. Share it because in the sharing, you get something you don’t get in the having. You get to see the light bulb come on, you get to see the opportunities, you get to experience the joy of the rest in a new way that you never had beforehand.

Conclusion: Living the Good News

Thank you, Father. Thank you that you give us rest. Thank you that the news is good. Thank you that you are freeing us from the burden, and that there is—there is joy, there is encouragement, there is vitality, there is an experience of you and of your grace in a new and different, unique way when we express it to others, either through words, deeds, or activities. Lord, I pray that you—I pray that we all might be active in sharing our faith and coming to a full understanding of all that we have in Christ. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

The Means of Grace: Generosity

Thank you, Jesse. We are going to look at another section of God’s word today in 2 Corinthians. You can be turning to it. We are looking at these places in the scriptures that show us God’s methods—God’s means—by which His grace can be found.

God is a God who reveals Himself from the very beginning. He is constantly showing us Himself. He wants to be found, He wants to be known, and He is not hiding from anyone. As a matter of fact, we are running from Him from the very beginning. That is how we got into this problem—we ran from Him. Rather than live a life of dependent devotion, we ran in our first parents, and we have been running ever since. We have been allergic, and He has been running after us.

So, how do we experience the grace of God if we desire it? If God has placed within you a desire for His grace, that is a grace of God—an awareness of my need for grace. Growing up, sometimes the worst thing that I could have been known for was to have needed help. I don’t want to need anybody’s help. I don’t want to be known for help. I don’t want to ask for help. Why is that? Because in those moments, I don’t want grace. I don’t want to receive; I don’t want to be the gift receiver. I want to be the one who does provide. Again, that’s more about control than it is about surrender.

Look, if you will, God tells us that scriptures, prayer, fellowship with God’s people, worship, the sacraments—all are mechanisms. We’ve looked at these over all these weeks. They are the mechanisms and conduits by which God is ever flowing grace to us. Today, we’re looking at another place where God ever flows His grace, His satisfaction, and His joy to us.

Look, if you will, at 2 Corinthians 8, starting in verse 1. I’ll read down a few paragraphs, and you can be following along:

“And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the Lord’s people. And they exceeded our expectations; they gave themselves first of all to the Lord, and then, by the will of God, also to us. So we urged Titus, just as he had earlier made a beginning, to bring also to completion this act of grace on your part. But since you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in complete earnestness and in the love we have kindled in you—see that you also excel in this grace of giving.

I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

And here is my judgment about what is best for you in this matter. Last year you were the first not only to give but also to have a desire to do so. Now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it, according to your means. For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: ‘The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.'”

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for your grace to us. Lord, show us yourself. Most of all, we need you and your presence. We need you to show us these things, to comfort us in these moments. Lord, I pray that you would do this for your benefit and for the expansion of your kingdom. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

The Cry of Insecurity and the Father’s Voice

This week, I saw a video clip of a father showing his newborn child. The child was just minutes old, right after birth. It was a picture of the baby in the scale where they weigh them, and the baby was wailing—just completely crying out. Which is to say, normal! But just crying out.

Some comedians have said that when a baby is born, of course they’re going to cry. Look at where they were compared to where they are! It’s not a great place. There are days I want to go back to where it was; I don’t want to be an adult anymore. So, you come out, and the baby is wailing. Then you hear the father in the background talking to the doctors. I can’t hear what he says exactly, but then he comes over and he says, “I’m here. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.” And utter silence comes from the child. Utter silence from the child.

Then he says something else on the video, and it cuts to the next minute after they had weighed the baby and put them under the heat lamps to keep them warm. The baby is wailing again, just going crazy wailing. The father comes back over and says, “I’m here. I’m here, I love you. I love you, I’m here.” And boom—the baby’s eyes widen, the eyes are blinking, and there’s this sense of contentment.

That struck me because you and I are like those little babies. Especially when it comes to money, it makes us want to scream and cry. What we need to hear is God the Father come over to us and say, “I’m here. I love you. It’s going to be okay.”

The Temptation of Independence and Hoarding

How do you talk about money in church? How do you talk about generosity in the church? Paul had the same struggle. Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church. Corinth was a church that was very affluent. It was in a major metropolitan area, so the church here was probably very affluent in some capacity.

Paul is gathering an offering. He’s urging them to care for others. The Corinthian church is a Gentile church gathering resources for the Jewish congregations in Jerusalem who are under oppression. You remember that the Book of Acts begins with everybody running from Jerusalem in Acts chapters 6 and 7. They are running because a great oppression and persecution occurred, and the Jewish church was in need—the Jewish church was impoverished. So, Paul is getting a gift to send back to them, urging all kinds of generosity in that capacity.

The principle he’s presenting here is a principle of how we talk about money in the church. Often, we don’t. How do we talk about generosity in the church? Often, we don’t. But yet, when you look at the parables that Jesus told, and when you talk about the topics that Jesus dealt with, the single most regular topic Jesus talked about in His ministry was money, treasure, or possessions. If you put them all together, you might think, well, what did Jesus talk about a lot? Love, maybe? Or worshipping God, or sin, or immorality? Well, yes, immorality, but specifically, it was about possessions, treasure, and money.

Why? Because we are in bondage to it. We are in bondage to our possessions and our money. We are born with that bondage. That’s why little children don’t need to be taught to hoard their own stuff or to protect their own stuff. As a matter of fact, the mindset is, “That’s my stuff, and what you’re playing with is my stuff because I had it first, and now that’s mine and I want it back,” even though they have another toy right in front of them. We’re constantly trying to find a way, from the very minute we hit the ground, to hoard.

That nature, that idea of hoarding, is because we live with an internal mechanism that needs to self-preserve. We need to self-regulate. We have to be the ones to control our lives. We have to be the ones who make it happen. We’re all about: How am I managing? How am I caring? How can I ensure I don’t want to depend on anybody?

The world doesn’t help us because the culture is trying not to depend on anybody either. What’s the biggest thing that you find out on these psychological video clips that you’re watching today? “No one’s coming to rescue you.” That’s a very popular psychological idea these days. The motivation behind that sort of advice is trying to provide responsibility—don’t expect to be rescued because no one’s coming to rescue you.

But it comes from a cynical standpoint of the way we live in this world, thinking, if I’m ever going to make it, I have to rely on me. What Jesus has always been trying to teach us since the days of old is about dependence, not about independence. He wants us not to rely on ourselves, but to rely on Him in the process. That needs to be the nature of our lives, not just the nature of moments. It’s our ongoing need. That’s why the Lord’s Prayer says, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Lessons from the Old Testament: The Manna Principle

Even that is an allusion back to the Old Testament. Paul, in this section, ends with an allusion to a story back to the Old Testament when the Israelites were in the desert. They had no food, and they complained, “We have no food.” So God said, “All right, I’ll give you some food.” Every morning or overnight, it would rain manna—little coriander seeds, they said it looked like, on the plants. They would go out and gather it, shaking it off into their basins.

God said, “Just take what you need for today. Just take what you need for today.” Even then, He said, “I’ll give it to you every morning. I’ll provide it every day, so don’t worry about tomorrow, just take it for today.” So they did take it for today, but there were some—and I think I would have been one of these people, I really do, because I’m a “manage your life, plan ahead, get it together, store it up, hoard your things” kind of temperament growing up—who gathered more than they needed and kept it overnight. In the morning, it smelled like rot, and it was covered in maggots.

This meant my hoarding was of no value to me. If I hoard it, it’s only going to rot. That principle is true. If we hoard what we get—if we hoard whatever we get: time, money, our abilities, our opportunities, our truth, our grace, the love that we have—anything you hoard will rot in your possession.

The manna rotted. A gift from God, the bread of heaven, came down, and the reason someone gathered the extra was because they didn’t trust. They gathered extra because they didn’t trust that He would have it there the next day.

God said, “I’ll give it to you every day. Just take what you need for today. Don’t take any more, don’t take any less.” Equity all around. Nobody gathered too much, nobody gathered too little; we all had what we needed, just for today. But if you take more than today and you store it overnight in order to protect yourself from the potential that there wouldn’t be resources the next day, it rots.

What that’s trying to teach, what God was trying to say in that moment is, “I want you to live and breathe in your dependence on Me. I want you to live and breathe in your dependence on Me.” Our human nature doesn’t want to depend on anyone. There’s a sense where, if I depend on someone, then someone else is God. I would rather be God in my life. Many people live in a world where you can be a mini-god by the resources, the experiences, and the property that you own. You can live in this world, be successful, and be a mini-god in this world by hoarding unto yourself. Yes! That broken culture teaches us that we need to compete the same way the world operates if we’re going to live in this world.

Jesus says, “No, no, no. My people will be characterized by dependence. My people will be characterized by trusting Me, not trusting in the resources you can hoard for yourself.” Hoarding those resources puts you in bondage to those resources. You become a slave to the thing you hoard—the thing that you possess, the thing that provides you with a sense of stability. That becomes your god. That becomes the prison in which you survive.

Scripture, and what Paul is trying to say, is, “I don’t want you to be in bondage to the things of this world. I don’t want you to be in bondage to your resources, to your money.” Generosity is the thing that frees you from that. Generosity is the grace of God.

That’s why he says in verse 1: “And now, brothers and sisters, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. In the midst of a very severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity.” God’s grace turns into generosity. Generosity is of the very nature of the gospel. If you are not generous, you are not truly getting the gospel.

The Ultimate Example of Generosity

Paul is not saying, “Why can’t you be more like the Macedonian churches? Why can’t you be more like your sister? Why can’t you be more like the church down the street?” He’s not doing that. What he’s saying is that the very nature of generosity is the gospel, and he quickly runs on to say, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ…” He goes right back to the gospel, right back to Jesus.

Jesus was the rich one who surrendered all of His resources, who hoarded nothing to Himself. He’s never hoarded anything in His life. He’s always given; He’s constantly giving, constantly surrendering, constantly being generous. He was generous all the way down to His own death—the surrender of everything.

Even in the end, what did He have? He had no clothes. He was naked, hungry, and thirsty. What did He say from the cross? “I thirst.” God thirsted. How is that possible? How can someone so rich, how can someone so immense—having created everything else, the resources, having the cattle on a thousand hills—experience thirst? God Himself experienced the abandonment of every provision. It was said of Jesus, “He did not have a home or a bed in which to lay his head.” He was intentionally poor.

What do you think of poor people? You don’t have to tell me out loud. Do you think they’ve done something wrong? Do you think they just need to get their lives together, that they made some sort of mistakes, or that they’re not living responsibly? Something must be wrong. Before we start going down those roads, we have to realize that Jesus intentionally identified Himself with poor people. He validates the impoverished experience because it’s a life of dependence. It’s a life of surrender; it’s a life of resting in God.

Some people’s poverty is due to oppression or systems that get in the way. Ultimately, poverty is a problem resulting from cosmic sin that exists in our world. But Jesus was intentionally poor. Jesus put on poverty to communicate dependence on His Father for daily bread. That’s what He’s calling us to.

Motivated by Grace, Not Law or Guilt

The things that you don’t see in this passage are just as important as what you do see. What you don’t see here are a lot of rules. Paul doesn’t say, “Give this much, give this time, give this amount.” As a matter of fact, what does Paul say? He says in verse 8, “I am not commanding you.” You can’t command this. It’s not something you legislate. The law cannot produce these things that God really wants.

What is the fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no law? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. This is the kind of thing that God wants for us, the kind of thing the Spirit is developing.

What motivated the people in Macedonia? They were impoverished, they were oppressed, and they gave out of joy. Paul says later that they were begging him, “Let us help. Let us do it. Let us be generous. Let us jump in. We want to be a part of this process.” Where does that come from? There are no commands here. He’s not motivating out of a sense of command—do this because you’re supposed to do this. The other thing that you don’t see in here is guilt. Paul’s not motivating them to give or to be generous out of a sense of guilt, meaning, “You’re such bad people. Why lack generosity? Look at these people over here. Why can’t you be more like the Macedonians?” He’s not comparing them in that respect. He’s saying, “I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.” In other words, he is asking if their love manifests itself the way the gospel does, because the gospel is generous.

Jesus, for our sakes, became poor to make us rich, and from that poverty, grace results. Poverty, surrender, and generosity produce grace and joy. The sacrifice of that leads to more grace. Paul says, “That’s the pattern I’m trying to create in My people.” It’s not guilt. He’s not trying to say, “Shame on you.” There’s no shame on you here.

As a matter of fact, he even says, “Last year, you were the first ones to give.” He’s commending them, encouraging them, and saying, “This is in you. You are of the very nature of givers. You gave last year. Not only did you give last year first, you were the first ones who wanted to give.” So he’s going not just to the level of their activity, but to the level of their heart because the heart and the treasure go together. Jesus said that: “Store up treasures in heaven because where your treasure is, there will your heart also be.” Heart and treasure go together; they are linked.

I can know about your heart by the way you use your treasure, and I can know about your treasure by the way your heart is. That’s why when you look at the Macedonians, it’s this thing where they’re giving. Paul says, “For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability.” Another translation puts it, “They gave what they were able, and then beyond their means.” I don’t know about you, but that seems reckless. My father taught me, if he taught me anything about finance, he said, “Always live within your means.” And now here we have this Macedonian church not living within their means. And Paul’s going, “Yeah!” The Spirit of God, the generosity of God, leads you to places where you live beyond your means.

It makes you wonder: Is our generosity determined by our standard of living, or is our standard of living determined by our generosity?

Flipping Our Categories

That thought challenges our conventional thinking. When I was planting the church and learning some things about how to share Christ with someone, one of my mentors was talking about developing relationships. He said, “Now, when you go to the grocery store, which line do you pick?” And I said, “The shortest one.” He says, “Yeah. But what if you picked the line based on who was the checkout person? What if you chose based on the relationship with a woman or a man who was working, and in order to have a moment with them, you chose their line?” It flips your categories.

Here is the category being flipped: They gave what they were able, which was within their means—their generosity was based on their standard of living—but then they gave beyond their means, meaning they let their standard of living be determined by their generosity. Jesus let His standard of living be determined by His desire to be generous. Generosity might mean—for the Corinthians, he says, “See that you also excel in this grace of giving.” Don’t forget that we’re called to be generous.

Paul says, “I can’t make any rules about this. I can’t tell you there’s a 10% tithe down here,” even though that was the pattern of the Old Testament. Jesus says in the New Testament that you’re not bound by that 10% limit anymore—you can give more!

Generosity may affect what else I’m able to do for myself. It does affect how I have to live. If I am giving it away, I have to depend on God to give to me a grace to do the other things that maybe I wanted to do—the car, the vacation, the furniture, the house, the dinners out, the entertainment, or the mortgage. God is asking: How much are you willing to depend on Me for? And He will not leave you. He will say, “I’m right here. I love you. I’m right here.” It will produce grace and joy in your life.

Does that mean the grace that you do get is going to look the same as the grace you gave away? If I’m generous with my money, does that mean God will be generous with His money—money for money? I’m sure you’ve heard of preachers and churches that tell you that—that if you give this much, God will give you that much. There’s no such rule. Grace comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes, experiences, and opportunities. You might give grace away through money, but grace might abound with you in satisfaction, peace, relationships, or opportunities.

Or money! It might be any of those. But the idea is: Are you willing to let God be your provider? We can’t control grace, and we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like. Generosity is the way that we pass it along. It’s not so much the grace that God wants to give us; it’s the grace that God wants to give away through us. We become conduits of God’s love and grace to other people and other lives.

We are living a life of dependence. Can you depend on God to give you everything? As Paul reminds us in Romans, “He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” He’s not just interested in giving us Jesus; there’s an abundant life that floats above the circumstances, that is not in bondage and dependence on the rest of this world. What if you could cut the cord to all the things you depend on and just depend on Jesus, and then watch Him show up?

Sometimes we don’t depend on Jesus because we don’t think He’s going to show up. Or, on the other hand, we don’t depend on Jesus because we’re afraid Jesus will show up—and that He’ll show up in a way that isn’t comfortable in our world, in a way that is a little disheveling or shaking. God showed up in the Bible in both of those extremes all the time. He showed up in the still, small voice, and He showed up when He landed on Mount Sinai and the people were terrified, saying, “Tell God to stop talking, we’re afraid.” So God shows up in dynamic ways, in a small voice, or in ways we might not immediately expect.

Generosity creates the space for that. Generosity creates the opportunity for God’s grace to show up and change your perspective. It’s scary, though. I think that’s partly why Paul is bringing up the Macedonians and the Corinthians. He’s trying to say, “We’re all doing this. I know it’s scary. But they did it.” He’s also trying to break down the barriers that exist. Here is a Gentile church giving to the Jewish church, breaking down walls through shared sacrifice. He is asking: Is your empathy so great that you’re willing to give? And he says, “You are. You gave, you were the first ones to give and want to give. I know this is possible. Jesus is in you. Let Him out! Let Him out. He seeks to be generous.” The gospel is all about sacrifice, surrender, and giving away. For the rich young ruler, when he asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, Jesus told him to follow the commandments. The man said, “I’ve done all that since I was a child.” What a thing to think! Jesus says, “Okay, well then how about this? Sell everything you have and give it to the poor.” The man walked away sad because he was a man of great wealth. He struggled—as we all struggle—with dependence.

But the gospel allows us to live with dependence because Jesus will never let us go. He will always be there in the midst of our tears, our struggles, and our vulnerability, saying, “I’m right here. I love you.”

Conclusion and Prayer

Thank you, Father. Thank you for your grace. Teach us these things, Lord. Even though you don’t command us, you implore us, you woo us to yourself. You are a God who loves to give. As a matter of fact, it’s been said that we cannot out-give You. Father, I pray that you would make us people who receive generously and give generously out of dependence on you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

Thank you, Jesse. Turn to 1 Peter; we’re going to look at a passage this morning related to the series we’re briefly walking through—short as it is—looking at places where the Scriptures tell us where to find God’s grace. This week, as I meditate on these things each week, it strikes me as odd. It’s like trying to tell toddlers where their socks are. They never know where they are, and as soon as you go into the bedroom, they’re right there. Or like trying to tell your husband where the leftover chicken is. “It’s right there!” “I can’t find it.” “It’s right there. I put it in there, I marked it, it’s on the shelf, it’s right behind the milk.” “Yeah, I looked behind the milk.” Then you go in, look behind the milk, and there it is. “Oh, okay, I didn’t see it”.

How broken are we that we have to be reminded again that God’s grace is everywhere? You can’t not see it. Our eyes are God’s grace; the creative world is God’s grace. But specifically, the way that God, in determinative ways, has not left us without knowing where He can be found—where His grace can be experienced. He’s told us that in various places so that He’s not trying to play hide-and-seek. When we live in our world and we go, “Where is God? Where is His grace? How do I know where He is?”—well, He tells us.

We’ve looked at a number of those:

• Prayer: The connectivity of prayer is a tangible interaction.

• The Scriptures: His tangible, living, and breathing words—the Bible—says to us every day.

• Worship: This experience we’re doing now collectively; God is present, and He’s even more present in this moment, in a sense, than when you have private worship.

It’s like when I met Lamar Jackson, the quarterback for the Ravens. I didn’t know I was meeting him. I just saw these two guys come into the Apple Store where I was getting my phone fixed. The guy working on my stuff said, “Oh, that’s Lamar Jackson.” I went over to meet him and I said, “Mr. Jackson, I’m just grateful to meet you, thank you for all you’re doing and hanging in there.” We took a picture. As exciting as that was—it was a great, private moment—it’s way different than when I watch them on television or when I’m at the stadium with everybody else.

Worship is a place where God says, “I can be found there.” He also tells us in the Supper, He’s there. Today, we’re going to look at another place where He says, “I’m found there; you can find my grace there.” The stuff we’re going to look at coming forward is a little different than the stuff we’ve looked at in the past. The stuff we’ve looked at previously are kind of the things that flow in our direction—where God tells us grace can be found in the experience coming towards you. The word of God coming at me, prayer coming at me (it’s my experience), worship is sort of “I’m here and I’m receiving,” and the Supper, I receive and it comes at me. Now we’re going to look at some stuff where God says, “Not only do you find grace when it comes at you, you can find my grace in the stuff that goes away from you.” That’s important stuff.

1 Peter 4:7-11

Look, if you will, at 1 Peter 4, verses 7 and 8:

“The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful servants of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen”.

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for your goodness to us and thank you that your grace can be found and experienced—that we trip upon it day by day. Lord, you give us regular conduits, regular avenues, concrete places where you tell us that you can be found and that your grace can be experienced, enjoyed, and will lead to our nurture and love. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

The Importance of Balance

When I go to the gym, I don’t like to go after 3:00, and I don’t like to go on Saturdays. It’s more crowded, but it isn’t really the crowd I’m worried about; it’s the people. All of the really “good” exercisers go then. The body types are all different then, and I just get real jealous of the men and the body types that I see. It’s all an internal struggle, but when I do go, the thing that gets me is there are patterns. People let you see a part of themselves that they don’t realize they’re letting you see. I see who likes each other, where friendships flourish, and I know, “Oh goodness, so-and-so is here, I’m never going to get a chance to work on that piece of equipment because he’s always on it”.

One thing I notice is that hardly any of the men are working on the leg stuff. These big guys come in—massive shoulders rolling, arms rippling, chest bulging—and tiny little legs. Fine, I still covet everything they have that I don’t have, but it proves you can work on a lot of different things and you can get built up and have that sense of vitality from any piece of equipment in there. Every piece of equipment. But if you don’t use every piece the right way, you’re going to look funny. It’s going to be out of balance. It might be functional, but it’s not beautiful in the way that we want it to be beautiful. When we have contests where we exalt the body, it’s about balance.

My dad had a potassium deficiency a bunch of years ago. The doctor said, “I need you to up your potassium, but I don’t want to do pills yet. Let’s try to change your diet.” My dad is kind of a meat-and-potatoes type guy. He said, “What do I have to do?” Well, everybody knows: eat some bananas. My dad doesn’t like bananas. He asked about potatoes, corn, or rice. Well, yeah, they have potassium, but you’d have to eat a thousand cobs of corn to get the potassium you need out of one banana. One banana provides you with the nutrient you need.

These conduits of grace that God gives us—these means of grace—are different venues. The kind of grace that He wants to give you that you can get out of Bible reading versus, in this passage, serving others—He says you can get God’s grace from both. But how much Bible reading do I have to do to get the same grace I get out of one act of service? It’s like potassium: one banana versus a thousand Bible verses. Yes, there’s grace; yes, that’s valuable and vital. But we have to be balanced in our diet, balanced in our exercises. You’ve got to work the legs sometimes. You can’t just look good coming at me; you want to look good going away from me.

Grace in Giving Away

There’s beauty in the whole process, and that’s why God gives us not just the stuff when it’s “coming at me” grace, but the stuff where it’s “going away from me” grace. This is the grace God says comes in the “going away from you.”

Verse 10 is the central verse I want to focus on here: “Each one of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms”. Do you see the beauty of that verse? God has given you a gift. The very word “gifts” is the same word He uses elsewhere for “grace.” God gives you grace, and that grace—that gift, that ability, that skill, that natural affinity, that sense of joy that you get out of serving—now give it away. You don’t get the grace until you give it away.

A year ago, my daughter moved into their house. My daughter and son-in-law love plants; my son-in-law even does a part-time job as a plant servicer in businesses and knows a ton about them. They love to fill their home with plants. This was their first spring, and she’s out there growing some peonies. We were down there not too long ago and we saw the sprouts of the peonies coming up and she’s like, “Look at them, they’re growing!” It was fantastic. Then, like two days later, I see her post on her Instagram a vase of peonies on her table. I made fun of her later: “You just grew them, and now you’ve killed them!”.

But not really. Because the very essence of what we know through planting and nurturing is that plants grow to be harvested. In the harvesting is where the nurture occurs. Otherwise, they just go to seed; otherwise, they just die in that state. A plant—especially vegetables and flowers—blooms in order to be harvested, and then new growth occurs in the harvesting. If you let your tomatoes go and you never harvest them, it’s going to be bad for the plant. The harvesting, the giving it away, the serving, the providing life for the next person, the next opportunity—that’s what we are.

Our lives? God made us to be harvested. That’s what redemption is about—getting back to the Garden of Eden, back to how it all was supposed to be. He made us to be givers and harvesters. “Take dominion and now go live. I’ve given you life, now let the life come out of you and keep the life going.” Service. He gives us gifts when He redeems His children. He gives His children abilities, opportunities, and skills to serve others as faithful stewards of God’s grace. So, not only is He giving you grace, but He wants you to be the steward of His grace—the giver-away of His grace.

Ponds vs. Rivers

We are not ponds in the hands of God; we are rivers. Do you know the difference between a pond and a river? One is where algae grows, where stagnation occurs, where spoiling happens, where flies and mosquitoes harvest. A river runs fresh, rambling, providing life all along its path. That’s the life that God wants to give His children. We aren’t just supposed to be a dead end of the waters. In a pond, all the water runs down into it and then it sits there and does nothing. It’s beautiful in and of itself, but ultimately if it sits there long enough, it’s going to spoil. God gives us His grace in order to be given away, and in the giving away is where the life occurs. Where the wonder happens. Where the beauty manifests. That’s what He made us to become. He gives us these means as a conduit of His grace, but in order to turn us into conduits of grace.

You can’t experience His grace in these ways until you’ve flowed out, until it’s been flowing out of you. And here’s the wonderful joy of it: He says He’s given us each gifts. What kinds of gifts? We don’t have time to talk about all the kinds of gifts He’s given His kids—all kinds of stuff. When we give gifts to my grandchildren, we don’t give them the same gifts. If I gave Jack a ream of construction paper, glue, and markers, he would not have a clue what to do with that; he wouldn’t care. If I give it to my younger one, Liam, he would spend hours making cards and little punch-out hearts. They’re different people; they’re made differently and wired in a different fashion. That’s why he says, “in the various ways, serve,” so that you become the ambassador, the manifestor of God’s grace in its various forms. It takes everybody to give away God’s grace because everybody doesn’t have the same.

Word Gifts and Deed Gifts

Then He says in verse 11: “If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God.” Peter goes into two large categories of gifts: speaking gifts (word gifts) and serving gifts (doing gifts, or deed gifts). Speech gifts and serving gifts. We can’t get into all the details under those, but for the sake of example, since I’m the center of attention at this moment, what category do you imagine my gifts fall into? You don’t need to know me long before you realize I generally fall into one category: the speech ones, the word ones. Not all the time, not everywhere, but yeah, that’s what I do. And so, God says, “Give it away.” And I do. Sometimes that’s too much, and then sometimes it’s not enough, but when I do it—I can talk, I can preach, I can tell you—I’m a steward of God’s grace. When you serve, when you do the thing that God’s gifted you to do, it’s like you’re giving God away. You become a mini-transporter of God to the people in those lives. You’re giving away God’s strength through serving, or you’re giving away God’s words through speech. What a great job! What an amazing thing you get to do! I think that every Sunday.

The key is: what is your thing? Being a steward of God’s grace doesn’t just mean you say “spiritual” things or that you do “churchy” God things. Every tree that grows leaves and produces the fruit that God’s given them doesn’t have a Bible verse on every leaf, right? They’re just green. And that’s glorifying to God. That’s beautiful in God’s economy. So, everything you and I speak and everything that you and I do—the way we serve—doesn’t have to have a Bible verse or have a religious purpose to it. It can simply be “green” in His world, because we need green. God needs more color. He needs more brushstrokes on the canvas. He needs more love injected into the atmosphere. He needs more grace in motion. He needs more beauty and expression, regardless of what the service is, because He’s trying to overcome hunger, He’s trying to overcome fear, He’s trying to overcome anxiety, racism, and hatred. Yes, that’s why at the beginning of the chapter He says, “Hey, be hospitable. Don’t grumble about it either. Love!” Let your love out in speech, let your love out in service, because when you do that, it’s covering the mess. It’s covering the sin. It’s overcoming the struggle that our world is in.

Finding the “Light”

How do you know whether you’re a word person or a service person? Well, the predominant way you know is when the “light” comes on. You can tell I’m a word person because when I speak, the light goes on. But there are also people who the light doesn’t go on when they speak. “Don’t tell me to say anything; I don’t have to be up front as long as I don’t have to talk about it.” Yeah! But those people love projects, they love serving, giving, demonstrating, active involvement.

Years and years ago when we first started the church, we were renting in various places. When you rent a place, you have to turn it into the place you want for worship and then you have to “un-turn” it to get back to the place it was. Some of the things we had to do to convert it were hanging things, moving things, changing chairs, putting out songbooks. It can be a lot of work to start a church. What we did was have small groups, and each small group would take a month of doing those “menial” tasks so that everyone else could welcome, care, love, and relate to each other. Genius, right?.

Until one Sunday, a gentleman came up to me—about the third Sunday of the month—and he said, “I’ve got to stop. Take me off the list.” I normally try to be curious. “What’s going on? How you feeling? You traveling?” It wasn’t that he wanted off the list for now; it was off the list. He said, “I’m so frustrated. All I do is this work and everybody else is standing around doing nothing!” I said, “That’s kind of the point,” but I got where he was feeling. He wasn’t grumbling, really—I mean, his human heart needs redemption as much as anybody else’s—but what he was telling me was, “I’m not shining.” Not about the center of attention, but the light’s not going on for me in these “duty” things. He was a word guy. He loved to talk and share, and if I’d asked him to do any of those, he probably would have. But he was discovering, “I don’t find the shine; I don’t find the light coming on; I don’t find the grace when I serve in that capacity”.

But in the other, you do. Now, that doesn’t mean you get to pick and choose. I’m a word guy, but I’m setting up chairs and breaking down chairs. I’m not naturally a prayer person—prayer is also another word gift—but I work on it and I grow in that aspect. But there are others of you who prayer is like this beautiful moment and the light is on and you are energized by more prayer. Others love mercy work—caring for the people who are in the most difficult shape. It takes a lot of effort to be there. God’s telling us that He’s given us these gifts to find and then to use, and in the using, we get Him more. We get to experience Him in a greater fashion. Not by simply doing nothing, because to simply do nothing, we get stagnant, we rot, we get into an “algae” situation. But when we become the ambassadors of His various grace flowing through us to the rest of the world, we manifest Him to the glory and power of His name.

Conclusion

What Peter is describing is only what Jesus told him. Jesus said this, and Paul referenced it: “Let your attitude be the same as that of Jesus Christ, who being in the very nature of God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, made himself a servant of all, sacrificed all”. Even here in verse 1 of Peter’s chapter: “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin”—meaning that our attitude is the same as that of Jesus. What we’re reflecting in our serving is me bearing the brunt for you. Me lifting the load for you. Me giving of my abilities and sacrificing what I have for you. That is the shift in the human heart that occurs. Because until Jesus comes in, I live my life with the mentality of “What do you have that can aid me? What position, what options, what can you provide for my benefit?” I go through life looking and networking to find the best place to climb up on your stuff to get higher on the ladder for my own ability. But when Jesus comes in and tells me I can get to the top of the ladder—I can have His favor, be free from my own sin, have His righteousness, have a relationship with Him—now I don’t have to use you, I can simply give.

Now it’s “What do I have that can benefit you?” That’s what service is. And the grace is graceful—it’s a means of grace—because it’s the very nature of what Jesus was about. He gave up everything of Himself for you and me. The cross is the very symbol of service, of sacrifice, of “full of grace and truth.” Jesus came speaking words of truth—the very words of God—and healing the sick with the strength of God. We become the “little Christs” as He gives us the gift of His grace to change the world through the power of the cross.

It doesn’t happen instantaneously. When you go to the gym, you don’t immediately come home that next day or that afternoon and go, “Yeah, look at that!” You don’t see it for weeks. I had a trainer say once, “Don’t look on the internet and don’t look in the mirror for a month.” She knew you can’t make visual fitness changes until you give it time. The same thing is for us. We step into this direction, but it sometimes takes a little energy, a little work. You’ve got to start small. Start with something regular, start with something that fits your “light coming on,” your brightness pattern. Maybe you need to experiment with some of that; maybe you haven’t found that place where God provides you with grace through service. Experiment, explore. There’s plenty of place to do that around the church, plenty of ways to do that in life. Only when you do will you ever be able to experience the immensity of the infusion of God’s love for you—that He would let you take part in this massive work.

Tyler, for several short months of his life, loved cutting the grass with me. He was five. He got to push the lower bar of the lawnmower while I pushed the bigger bar. His face lit up because he was cutting the lawn. My face lit up because my son was cutting the lawn with me. That’s you and Jesus when you serve—not just the first time, but every single time. Because He’s giving you the grace; it is His strength that’s pushing the mower. You’re holding onto the middle bar, and your face is glorious, and He is glorious in that transaction with you.

Let’s pray.

Thank you, Father. Thank you that you love to serve us, but you love when we serve you because it’s with you. We’re serving with you, not just for you. Our service doesn’t earn us anything; it’s simply a way to give away what we’ve received, because there’s no need to hoard it. I pray that you would work in our hearts to trust that and to step towards that trust by activity. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

Note: This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for the most accurate information and meaning.

Introduction: Finding Grace

Turn to the book of John. We’re going to focus on another place in the Scriptures where Jesus tells us, “How do we find more? How do we get? Where do we get more grace?” What is the conduit through which He applies grace to us? The places where He’s not hiding, the places where we can see Him and experience Him in some capacity.

So we’re looking at John chapter 6 today. We’ve looked at—just for the sake of those who haven’t been here for a while—we’ve looked at how God is not playing hide-and-seek with people in terms of how to find Him. Even though sometimes people in the world—and sometimes we, sometimes people in the culture—get sort of, “Where is He? What is He doing? How…” He hasn’t made it hard. He says, “I’m out there. You can see Me in all the stuff I made,” just like an artist. I can know something about the artist by what he paints or what she sculpts. Yes, not everything, but enough.

So that’s one place. But then, and that’s not the predominant place, He says there are other places:

• Prayer: You get grace, you find Me in prayer.

• The Word of God: I’m there. The Word of God—that’s a place that I’m trying to help you find grace, find Me.

• Worship: I’m there. I’m in it.

And they’re not intangible; in many senses, they’re not even ethereal. You might think to connect with God, it’s got to be very transcendental in some fashion. He says, “No, it’s not about transcendental.”

The Sacrament of the Supper

Especially today, the one we’re talking about is the one that’s most non-transcendental, the least “spiritual” of all of them. It is in the sacrament of the Supper. It’s the most tangible, concrete, touchable thing we have that God has given us. Even though we can touch the Word of God, as it were, we mostly hear it. And prayer—we mostly speak it, and it’s an internal experience. And even with worship, it’s a felt experience and certainly collaborative.

But God’s trying to get to us; He’s trying to show us His grace and give us His power through a lot of different avenues. Let me stop talking and get onto the reading.

Scripture Reading: John 6:48–69

John chapter 6, verse 48 to start, right in the middle of Jesus’ experience with the disciples:

“I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”

Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Jesus said to them:

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?”

Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them:

“Does this offend you? Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of spirit and life. Yet there is some of you who do not believe.”

For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. He went on to say:

“This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”

From this time on, many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

“You do not want to leave me too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve.

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.

Father, I pray that You would be in our thinking and feeling and doing today. That You would transform us by the hearing of Your word, by the experience of Your spirit and of the gospel of grace. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Sermon: Life through Consumption

The Ubiquity of Food

Do you ever linger on the idea of how much of our lives are consumed with food? I mean, it’s almost ubiquitous to think about that concept. We’re constantly talking, we’re constantly doing food. When I meet with folks for a casual meeting—”Let’s go get some coffee,” or “Let’s grab lunch,” or “We’ll go to the coffee shop.” Even just to do that, there’s a sense where if we’re together, there’s going to be food, right?

That’s why we go out when we want to celebrate. Next week is Mother’s Day. How much of next week celebrating mothers is going to be food-based? Probably going to get food. Even if it’s so she doesn’t have to get food for everyone else! Food is all just… it’s why we’re obsessed, as it were, with this idea.

I think it’s because—and I don’t know if it’s an innate thing or something we’ve just learned—but food is so central to our very living. We eat because that’s how we live. If I stop eating, I start to die. And if I stop eating for a period too long, my death has a name: hangry. I’m not just hungry; I’m exhibiting my hunger through a death-like experience, which is anger, unease, our brains get a little fuzzy. You need a cookie. That’s the essence of the Snickers commercial: you’re not yourself unless you get a snack. Have a Snickers, eat a cookie, something to get you back to the real life of who you are.

Dependence on Creation

Jesus is doing the same thing. He made us this way—that we cannot live without food. He made us to need food. Even in the Garden, before we wrecked it, we still had a need—a symbiotic relationship with creation. A relationship where we had to grow, plant, manage, take dominion of the world, provide my meal. The life He gave us wasn’t this perpetual life where my system never ran dry. He made me to live in dependence on the world around me, dependence on Him.

Before sin, there was a collaborative experience: you give to the earth, and the earth gives back life to you—food. And so you eat it, and then you live, and then you work, and then you care. It was this beautiful symmetry of organic connectivity. And then it broke. Now, it’s hard work to get that food. Sometimes that food is eight dollars a pound! Hard work to get life in the process.

Internal Injection: The Car Illustration

Jesus is utilizing that experience by helping us understand Himself and the gospel through the process of eating and drinking. The people who heard Him were going, “That’s crazy!” Their response was, “This is a hard saying, who can fathom it?”

“What? I’m supposed to eat your flesh and drink your blood?” Keep in mind the oddity of that for an Israelite. A predominant element of the dietary kosher laws of the Old Testament was: No blood. Don’t eat the blood. Get rid of it. So here is a Jew, Jesus, saying, “Okay, here’s the deal: drink my blood.”

Jesus is saying, “I want you to find life in it.” We know there’s life in the blood. In the Old Testament sacrifices, they’d bring the sacrifice to the altar, and the priest would take a hyssop branch, dip it into the blood, and the family would get covered with the blood—to prove a point. You need to be covered by the blood.

But now Jesus says, “Not just covered by it; I want it to get in you.” It’s like the activity with your car. There’s energy in the gas, but it doesn’t power the car by covering the car with gas. The only time the car gets energy and movement from the gas is when the gas gets in the car, circulates through the car, and then explodes inside the car. Then we get movement.

That’s the same thing Jesus is describing. In order for you to be empowered, in order for you to find life, He’s describing an internal injection, circulation, and explosion.

Real Bread from Heaven

He goes completely organic, completely biological, yet tangible. He says He’s the bread. You know the bread in the desert? They had the manna. That manna was only illustrative of what Jesus is saying: “I gave you an illustration in the past for what I am now.” That manna was incomplete. It came from heaven and it fed them in a place where there was no food, but everyone who ate it died. There’s nobody He’s talking to who was still living who ate the manna.

He says, “But I’m the bread who came from heaven, and if you eat Me, you’ll never die. You’ll have so much life it will perpetuate you.” Jesus is acknowledging that this is not simply a mental experience, a psychological experience, or an emotional experience. It’s a physical, biological experience. We are not disembodied; we are whole creatures.

He incarnates God into a physical reality, into a physical person. And here’s the wonderful element of His grace: He will forever be physical. No longer disembodied. His resurrected body is the form He will share with us going forward. He will experience life the way you and I experience life for eternity.

The Multisensory Conduit of Grace

This Supper—the eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine—is the place where the body and the mind and the heart meet. It’s a complicated little organic thing, and He gives us grace in this place.

For centuries, the church has fought over the level of presence. Is He physically present? Is it a memorial? Calvin said, “What greater presence can there be than the presence Jesus said He would be when He left?” The spiritual presence is the greatest of all presences that Jesus can have in our world right now. The Supper manifests that in its most beautiful expression because we get to participate in a collaborative experience.

It’s like an amuse-bouche—a one-bite hors d’oeuvre. What’s the purpose of a one-bite hors d’oeuvre? It’s supposed to get me ready for the rest of the meal. It’s supposed to tantalize me for what’s to come. That’s what this Supper does. It gives me life, it gives me celebration, it reminds me of what’s to come: Eternal Life. Where He’ll be right there.

While I’m waiting for the rest of the meal, the one-bite hors d’oeuvre helps me to live patiently. Like when I was a kid at a restaurant, it seemed to take so long. My parents would use the “crackers on the table” to give me a sense of patience for the main thing. Eat this because it’s going to give you life for the minute. Jesus says we need regular, regular time where we can get the cracker and the wine to tantalize our senses in a tangible, physical way.

It is the one conduit of God’s grace that is most multisensory:

• We see it.

• We hear it (the glassware and metal).

• We touch it.

• We taste it.

• We smell it (the power of the wine).

All of my senses are affected. It’s supposed to be a drama. It’s affecting my tangible biological experience. Grace comes through those things.

Sin is an attempt in every case to get something that in that moment is going to give me life, hope, or confidence other than Jesus. If I lie to protect my reputation—to save my life—this Supper tells me everything I could ever need is in Jesus. I can give you that life. Your reputation with Me is unsullied because of what I did for you.

In the Supper, there it is. He says, “Do it all the time. Taste it.” Enough talk. Let’s eat.

Thank You, Father. Thank You for Your grace that You’re trying to come to us and give to us in so many different places. Let it ring true in our hearts, our minds, and our bodies. That this might be a small taste of what is yet to come. Do it for Your name’s sake. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Psalm 19: Conduits of Grace

Last week we looked at conduits of grace, means of grace. A mean is a pathway, a method, or a conduit—a process by which God communicates what Christ accomplished to humanity. Last week we saw that prayer—us talking to God—is one of the predominant places. This week we’re going to look at another place: hearing God.

I was headed to visit my mom in a new rehab center a few weeks ago as she was recovering from an illness. I didn’t know how to get to it, so I left my previous appointment, and I’m at the traffic light, waiting for the Google location to render. I said to myself, because I’m at the traffic light, “Do I go straight? Do I turn right? Do I turn left? Which is the best way to get there?” I need something right now.

There’s a sense where we’re all going, “God, I need something from the cloud; I need something from You right now.” He has encapsulated all of His best words in a book written over centuries so that you and I can go back and refer to it. God does intervene. There is a word from on high. He has spoken, and one of the predominant ways that God communicates His grace to us is in His word.

The Reading of Psalm 19

Let’s look at Psalm 19 as it relates to the word of God. This is one of David’s psalms. He was a songwriter, warrior, king, and poet.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.

The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous. They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.

By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression. May these words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Music as a Medium

Music is a powerful media. I was at a concert last night and I learned in song about a woman who lived near Gettysburg who was a kidnapped slave. When the man who she was the slave of died, his wife provided for her freedom and then walked her to the Mason-Dixon line and to the hills of Adams County where she lived out the rest of her life. I never heard her story, but I heard it through song.

Music evokes great emotion. It evokes a sense of excitement and enrichment. While that’s happening, I’m learning something I didn’t know before. Music teaches us. David, in this process, is evoking our emotions and captivating our senses with his poetry. This psalm was given to the director of music. What is he singing about? He’s singing about all the ways that God has communicated Himself to us.

David examines three things:

• The Heavens

• The Word of God

• Himself

The Heavens: General Revelation

The heavens declare the glory of God. God has been speaking to us and revealing Himself since creation. He wants to connect; He’s not trying to hide. God’s not trying to play hide-and-seek with us. The heavens declare it. All of creation was made to show you Himself.

As an example, think of the sun. David says the sun is like the bridegroom or the champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises from one end of the heaven and runs to the other. God made the heavens and the earth—He made the sun to care. He’s a God who provides warmth, light, and help. The glory of God is in the heavens. We can see Him, we can know Him, and we can understand Him.

When sin came, our filters and our grid became uncalibrated. Now when I see the sun, I don’t see the glory of God. We see everything through the lens of not God, but ourselves. It wasn’t until Galileo that we learned about this. Science and all the “ologies” are so vital because creation shows us more about the glory of God.

Before Galileo, people believed that everything revolved around them. But since the Garden of Eden, we’ve felt like we’re the center of the universe. Satan was offering Adam and Eve the opportunity to have the world revolve around them for the rest of their lives. Since then, we’re curved in on ourselves. Most of the problems stem from our own curvature inward. David says we don’t understand creation until we understand it’s meant to point us to God.

The created world is like the rose petals and the scent of perfume and the flickering candlelight which is meant to lead us to explore those places to discover the glory of God.

The Word: Special Revelation

God has been speaking since creation, but He’s also given us His word. Verse 7 transitions to the particular: the law of the Lord, the statutes, the precepts, and the commandments.

Why has He given us His word?

• To refresh the soul

• To make us wise

• To give joy to the heart

• To give light to the eyes

He’s aiming at the inner man and woman. He’s trying to bring a paradigm shift in ourselves: stop making yourself the center of the universe. Most of the problems I face when people come to my office—marriage troubles, depression, anxiety—are because we’ve become too curved in on ourselves and we don’t see the hand of God.

What creates a reaction? Circumstances have to pass through a big black box in our heart. What goes on in that black box is everything—what we believe, think, and value. The word of God is trying to change the inner curvature of the soul. Many people think Christianity is about getting it right on the outside, but Jesus says the only way you’re ever going to get it right on the outside is if you have Him change the inside of you.

Christ: The Word Made Flesh

David envisioned a day when he could be blameless if the word of God was in him. John took up this song in the first chapter of John when he says, “the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.”

The Word—capital W-O-R-D—who is Jesus, died. The Word that these precepts have always meant to reflect, embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, sacrificed Himself for us. God didn’t just give us an answer to our dilemma; He gave us a person.

When Jesus reflects the very center of our paradigm, everything else changes and the world becomes new. Then we begin to think: “He spoke to me. He sees me. He wants me. He loves me.”

Seeking God’s Grace Through Prayer

How do I experience more of God and His grace? How do I experience more of Him? The Bible and Christ don’t leave us with those questions unanswered. Historically, He has given us over and over again reminders and tangible, concrete ways that He says, “In these conduits, in these means, by these methods, you may find me.” Yes, He is everywhere, and He says that if you want to find Him, find Him in the least of these, our brothers. But He also says when you want to find His grace and experience more of His presence and interaction, there are means for that.

Today, we’re going to look at this relationship, this connectivity with God that He puts in our world through the person of Christ. He tells us the way is that we talk with Him. Talking with God—prayer—is a place where we find His grace more vividly, more experientially, and more powerfully.

Reading of Scripture: Matthew 6:5-15

Look, if you will, at Matthew 6. I’m going to start reading at verse five. The larger context of this particular text is the Sermon on the Mount, the longest section of speech we have from Jesus in one place in scripture.

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray:

‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.

Opening Prayer

Father, thank You for Your goodness to us. Thank You for the way that You aren’t hiding. Even as we’ve heard, Your goodness comes after us, it pursues us, it chases us down. You’re not hiding, Father; You want to be found by us. You want to be known by us, You want to be embraced by us, for You embrace us with Your love and Your grace. Let that saturate our hearts and minds as we come this morning—the way we think, the way we feel, the way we interact and live. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

A Lesson in Extroverted Processing

Recently, the Lord has convinced me of something—and when I say recently, I mean in the last couple of years. I don’t know if you have experiences with God convincing you of things over the history of your life. I have a couple of moments that are poignant. God’s always teaching me something, but there are these poignant moments.

As you may know, I’m an extrovert. I’m also extroverted in my processing. An extroverted personality is often understood as someone who finds energy in the social experience. Extroverted processing is a bit different. It means I can’t quite get my head wrapped around a decision-making process unless I’ve verbalized it in some fashion. Other people are more introverted processors; they need time personally and privately to go through it themselves. Usually, in a marriage, there’s one of each, which is a wonderful grace but also a living hell.

In my extroverted processing, I’ve always imagined that what we need here is words. Words and conversation—that’s what’s going to solve the problem. In our marriage, Becky is an internal processor. When she needs to make choices, she needs quiet, she needs to be alone, and she doesn’t need words. I, as an extroverted processor, felt the problem was always that there weren’t enough words. I gave her the impression that internal processing was “bad” and extroverted processing was “good.”

For decades, I went through life thinking my words were what would change things. But a few years ago, I had a shocking realization. I told my wife, “I think God has convinced me that my words aren’t the thing that’s going to solve this problem.” She looked at me, and it didn’t seem to impact her all that much. It was as if she knew it in advance! It took me decades to get to this place where I now have a new filter on my thinking. My words are not the most valuable thing in the moment. That’s a dramatic recalibrating of the human soul.

Re-calibrating Prayer

When Jesus is talking in this setting about prayer, it’s a recalibration of that idea. It’s a little counter-intuitive to our current culture. Our culture, in light of social media, says what I have to say and experience is the most important thing. Everyone has their own pulpit—Facebook, Instagram, TikTok—and we’ve been convinced that our words are necessary and most valuable.

But Jesus is saying prayer is different than that. Talking to God is something completely different than what you imagined, and it’s wonderfully gracious and empowering. Prayer affects our presuppositions, it affects us personally, and it affects our posture.

1. Our Presuppositions (Matthew 6:5-8)

Jesus starts by giving two examples of the way people pray in the culture. He’s addressing people who have an internal desire to know God. He says, “When you pray, you have underlying assumptions—presuppositions—that are radically wrong.”

First, He points to the hypocrisy of the religious leaders. They stand in the synagogues and on street corners to pray boldly. If prayer is an attempt to talk to God, why go to a street corner? The underlying hypocrisy is that their prayer is outward, meant to achieve an outward reward. Sometimes we do this too; our prayers become a way of teaching the people around us or seeking their approval.

Jesus says prayer isn’t about communicating horizontally; it’s about talking to Him. He says, “Go into secret. Go privately.” It’s about your personal involvement with Him, and the reward will be internal. For me, the internal reward was the Lord telling me to “de-centralize” myself and get off my high horse.

At the other end of the spectrum, He says don’t pray with babbling, repetitive words like the pagans. They think they’ll get God’s attention by persistence and unthoughtful words. But God doesn’t need to be pestered. He already knows what you need. You don’t have to convince Him.

2. Personal Connection (Matthew 6:9)

Prayer affects us personally because Jesus tells us how to pray: “Our Father.” He doesn’t say “pray this,” but “pray like this.” It’s a format. He wants us to pray with the mind that we are praying to our Father—Abba, Papa.

You’re not praying to an administrator or a distant, transcendent God, but to your Father. He wants you to pray to Him the same way Jesus, His natural-born Son, prays to Him. His desire is to hear you the same way a father desires to hear his kids.

I remember waiting for my children to say their first words. When they called me “Daddy,” it warmed my heart. But there’s something even better: when your grandchildren say your name. When my boys say “Papa,” my heart just soars. That’s how God’s ear is toward you.

Jesus always said “Father” when He prayed, except for one time: on the cross, when He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus was willing to lose His familial connection and be crushed for our iniquities so that we could enter the presence of God with familiarity and say, “Papa, I need you.”

3. Our Posture (Matthew 6:9-10)

Finally, prayer offers a change in posture. “Hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” It’s “You, You, You.” This recalibrates us. All of our failures are a failure of adoration. That which we “hallow” runs our lives—our emotions, our anxieties, our comforts.

If you walk away from prayer and don’t feel comforted, it’s often because you’re still hallowing something else. But when you hallow His name and His kingdom, you can step away from the tiny, small-minded story you’ve wrapped yourself in and get into the larger picture of what God can do.

Jesus prayed in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” He was free to share His struggle, but His Father’s will was predominant. We get so concerned with our own kingdom, like Adam and Eve in the garden. They believed that because God wouldn’t give them one thing, He wouldn’t give them anything good.

But God is a Father who wants to give us all things. Romans 8 says, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” He wants us back in the garden where we have everything. Prayer is the place where we talk this out with God and learn to trust Him.

Closing Prayer

Father, forgive us for seeing You through the lens of a stingy religious leader rather than a loving Father. Work that out in us. Let our concern be more for Your glory and Your hallowedness than our own. Because of what You’ve done—the sacrifice You’ve given—we can trust that Your kingdom is intertwined with the beauty, glory, and love of Your children. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

IMPORTANT This transcript was generated using AI and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio recording for the most accurate information and intended meaning.

Introduction and Scripture Reading

Good morning and Happy Easter, everyone! You all look so wonderful today. We’re going to look at a passage in Luke together. If you’re joining us online and using the bulletin, or have it in your hands, you can find it in the back. If you have a device, please turn to Luke 24. We’ll start reading at verse 13 as we consider this experience on the day of the resurrection.

Luke 24:13-35 (ESV):

13 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. 16 But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 And he said to them, “What things?” And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. 22 Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, 23 and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

28 So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, 29 but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” 33 And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, 34 saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever. Let’s pray.

Opening Prayer

Father, I pray that You would be with us this morning. Open our eyes, even as You opened the eyes of Cleopas and his friend. I pray that You would open our thinking, our sensing, our feeling, and our yielding. Open our will and our stubborn motivations to You as well. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Reflecting on Modern Celebrations vs. the Original Resurrection

I was talking with my kids who are in town for the holiday, and my youngest daughter was commenting about an experience she had. She wondered, given how energized everyone was at a particular event, why she wasn’t as energized. She wondered if something was wrong with her because she wasn’t experiencing that same sense of engagement.

We talked about how that relates to personal thoughts and ideas, but it made me think. This time last year, there was a ton of energy about actresses like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande in the production of Wicked. For those not into musical theater, that may not mean anything. But for someone like me—a huge fan since childhood—the idea of turning that Broadway musical into a film with someone as amazing as Cynthia Erivo is exciting!

But if you don’t vibe with that, you’re thinking, “What’s the big deal? Why is all this energy being exerted for two women I’ve never heard of and a play that sounds bad?”

I think of that in terms of today. There is a lot of energy being exerted today. For many church people, today is the “Super Bowl.” It’s the Christian Daytona 500, the Kentucky Derby, the Final Four. There’s loud music, flashing lights, and smoke billowing from stages across American churches. Yet, if you come here this morning, maybe you’re wondering, “What’s the big deal?”

Jesus Saturating Our Lives, Not Just Our Ceremonies

There is a huge spectrum of how people experience the resurrection of Jesus. Here is where I think the American church sometimes gets in the way. As much as we try to pump up the volume so people get excited, you can’t get someone there just by telling them to be there.

While the modern church tries to make the resurrection “larger than life,” Jesus seems to want to saturate it into our lives. Most of the resurrection experiences in Scripture happen in low-key, quiet moments. Most of the time, people were convinced of the resurrection through relationships, not large services.

In the book of Acts and the Gospels, the first expressions of the resurrection happened almost quietly in the early morning. Jesus tapped into those who culture viewed as “outsiders”—the women and children. When Mary first saw Him, she didn’t recognize Him.

Then, on that same day, Jesus shows up while two guys are having a conversation on a seven-mile walk. It probably took them three hours to get from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Jesus shows up, and they don’t recognize Him.

What encourages me is that you don’t have to be part of the pomp and circumstance to “get” Jesus or the value of the resurrection. More often than not, Jesus is trying to ingrain the resurrection into your everyday life rather than a special ceremony.

Recognizing Jesus in the Middle of Our Struggles

How many of you are walking around, and Jesus is right there in your life, but you don’t recognize Him?

When I talk to people in my office about life issues, most of the time I’m just trying to help them see Jesus in their experience. I’m not bringing some new methodological change or psychological understanding—though those are valuable. Usually, when people end up in my office, they are at the end of their rope. Part of what I try to help them see is that Jesus is already there. The grace of God is already in your experience. Can you see it? Can your eyes be opened to the reality of it?

Cleopas and his friend didn’t get it at first. And look at how Jesus shows up—not like most “church people” do. Most church people show up with, “You know what you’re doing wrong? I’ve got an answer to a question you aren’t asking!”

Jesus doesn’t do that. He says, “Hey, what are you guys talking about?”

They ask Him, “Are you new in town? Have you not been here for the last three days? There have been riots, crucifixions, kangaroo courts, and women with crazy dreams!”

Jesus just says, “Tell me about it.” He uses questions to uncover them, to open their eyes, and to see where they are.

My dad used to say, “Boy, you’ve got two ears and one mouth. That means you should do twice as much listening as talking.” Jesus has more truth to offer than anyone on the planet, yet He enters the situation asking honest, thoughtful, engaging questions: “Where have you been for the last three days? What do you know about this? Where are you finding your hope?”

When He asked what they were discussing, they “stood still, looking sad.” If He hadn’t asked, He might not have discovered how downcast they were. When you come with more words than questions, you don’t uncover a person’s struggle. Jesus wants to elevate the struggle they are experiencing.

Redemption from Internal Slavery

The travelers answered, “We had hoped He was going to be the Redeemer.” In their minds, “Redeemer” meant setting them free from their Roman lords. They wanted a government, a culture, and a level of privilege that they desired. They wanted redemption from their circumstances.

If you come to Easter with that same sense, you’re going to miss Jesus every time. Jesus isn’t primarily trying to set us free from our circumstances because that’s not the biggest problem we have. He’s trying to set us free from our internal slavery—the slavery of self, of self-salvation, and the coping mechanisms we become enslaved to.

Whether it’s an addiction the world condemns or one the world applauds (like being a high achiever), these are often ways we avoid the “downcastness” of our hearts. Jesus asks, “How do you understand the resurrection? What’s been going on the last three days?”

He then spent three hours describing Himself from the Bible, starting with Moses and the Prophets. He used the Scriptures to show that the biggest problem we have is an internal one. Until you and I understand the depth of our need for freedom from the slavery of self, the cross and the resurrection make no sense.

I can’t get you excited on the outside about Easter if you aren’t passionate on the inside about what Jesus did for you.

The Peril We Face and the Cost of Grace

There’s a great word I learned as a kid from John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

The root of “perish” is peril. Jesus, by His death, saves us from the peril we are in. If you don’t have an internal sense that you are in peril, salvation means nothing. If you aren’t drowning, why do you need a lifeguard?

Jesus’ sacrifice can seem noble or “oddly crazy” until you realize you were the one in the way of the truck. If someone snatched you from peril and was placed under peril themselves in the process, now the cross means something completely different. Now, internal passion is greater than external force.

That’s why the resurrection experiences are personal. Jesus enters a personal conversation with two guys on a road. They spent three hours talking, and they invited Him to stay because it was getting dark. Jesus acted “as if” He were going further because He wanted to stay—He wanted to engage them more deeply until their eyes were opened.

The moment that clicked for them was a natural, ordinary, memorable moment. They sat down, He gave thanks, took the bread, broke it, and gave it to them. And they remembered Him.

Conclusion: The Meaning of the Table

That’s why He gave us the Supper. It’s why we have a big breakfast on Easter—to remember. Memories, drama, and storytelling are powerful; they are how God made us.

When we see the bread broken and the wine spilled, we are reminded of spilled blood and broken humanity. For humanity to find salvation, someone had to be broken. Freedom is not free; it is costly.

God isn’t simply merciful because it’s His character; He is merciful because the price has been paid. He told Adam and Eve that sin brings death, but rather than rejecting humanity, He took the peril Himself so we could take the freedom.

If you “get” that—if your spiritual eyes are opened—then come and receive the grace of God. If you’re still puzzled or it feels purely external, then wait and watch. Keep walking; maybe you haven’t finished your seven-mile walk yet.

But if today it makes sense, and you see Jesus sitting there offering the bread and the wine, then take Jesus. Trust Jesus. He is as powerful and resurrected today as He was that very first day.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank You for Your grace and the drama of Your word. These simple elements—bread and wine—reflect that You nourish us and change us from the inside out. Life comes to us through Your brokenness. We thank You that our records are cleared and replaced with the record of Jesus. Show up again, walk on the road with us, and make Yourself known through the message and the relationships. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

As we continue in worship, let’s turn our attention to John chapter 12, starting in verse 12, as we turn our attention to the word of God.

This morning is typically a Sunday in the life of the church where we consider the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem as he begins his journey to the cross in the final days of his earthly ministry. And so this morning, as we take a look at this, we are considering the work of Jesus on our behalf and the build-up to that reality. I think this passage encourages us that we can go to Jesus.

So as we look at this passage, we’ll consider that we can, in fact, go to Jesus and that we can do that because:

• Jesus first comes to us.

• Jesus comes with peace.

• Jesus comes with eternal life.

He comes to raise the dead. And so, because of those things, we can go to Jesus. With that in mind, let’s turn our attention to the word of God and give ourselves to the reading of it this morning.

Scripture Reading: John 12:12-19

“The next day the great crowd that had come for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet him, shouting, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the king of Israel!’

Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written: ‘Do not be afraid, Daughter Zion; see, your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.’

At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.

Now the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to spread the word. Many people, because they had heard that he had performed this sign, went out to meet him. So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him'”.

Sermon: Why We Can Go to Jesus

As we consider going to Jesus, maybe you’ve been a Christian for a while, maybe you’re new to the church, maybe you’re exploring Christianity, or maybe you’re here for some other reason this morning. Sometimes when we hear the phrase “go to Jesus,” we think of the phrase, “We had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment”. Usually, when that phrase is used, it’s in the context of somebody being at rock bottom. They got to the end of themselves, they’re in a deep dark place, and we describe a turnaround in their life by saying, “Well, they had a ‘come to Jesus’ moment and now look at where they’re at now”. Or maybe you’ve heard the joking phrase, “Y’all need Jesus,” on a t-shirt, a hat, or a Facebook post.

The context of those phrases are true; we do need Jesus. There is something broken within us—a desperate brokenness that we cannot fix. We cannot save ourselves from the reality of our sin. But often when we approach going to Jesus, we equate it with a moral transformation. We think going to Jesus is just going to help us mind our p’s and q’s and help us color within the lines better.

1. A Whole-Life Transformation

Jesus certainly does transform our morality, but he doesn’t just transform our morality; he transforms our whole being. In fact, he takes us from death to life. As the Apostle Paul describes the reality of salvation, he describes it as we have died to those former things and we are now made alive in Christ. Behold, the old things have passed away and the new things have come. To be a believer in Jesus—to truly come to Jesus—is not just slapping a band-aid on a problem, but instead is receiving a whole-life transformation characterized by us going from spiritual death to spiritual life through the power and the work of Jesus.

2. Jesus Comes to Us First

Maybe the question that comes to your mind as you consider going to Jesus is, “Why would I go to Jesus?” Maybe a doubt I hear from a lot of folks is, “Well, you know, I’ve done too much bad in my life. I’m too far gone. That would be too insurmountable of a process for me to go through in order to get to Jesus”. I think our sinful nature tells us that in order to go to Jesus, we have to make ourselves clean before we get to him. We need to make sure that we haven’t sinned any big sins with enough time before we go to Jesus. We need to make sure that we’ve done enough service at the church, that we’ve read enough of our Bibles, and that we’ve had enough of the sacraments before we’re acceptable to go to Jesus.

But as Jesus is descending towards the cross, as he’s going down into Jerusalem, throughout all of his ministry, he’s had the scribes, the Pharisees, and the chief priests following him around, trying to trip him up. And as he finally gets to the end of his ministry, he’s not fleeing those people, but he’s going down to the place where these people reside—to Jerusalem, where the temple is and where everybody’s gathering for the Passover festival. He’s going into the heart of those who are against him, and he does this willingly and with deliberate intent. He wants to save his people through his work on the cross.

What that shows us is that Jesus is not waiting for us to come to him, but instead, he’s coming to us. He goes to the cross for our sake; he goes down into Jerusalem for our sake. In this, he’s reflecting that first Passover instituted in Exodus 12 as the Israelites flee Egypt. Jesus is the true and better Passover Lamb. We need atonement; we need something to die in order for us to live. In order for our sins to be passed over, somebody needs to take the punishment that we deserve.

3. Jesus Comes with Peace

Is this Jesus someone who can be trusted? Maybe you’ve heard rumors that he’s vindictive, a bigot, or judgmental. He is God, and he does come to judge the living and the dead at the end of all things. But for his people, he comes as someone who is lowly and gentle. He comes on a colt. He desires to draw close to his people. He’s gentle to us; he doesn’t reject us or deal with us with harshness.

There are many false characterizations of who Jesus is—that he is harsh and wrathful towards his people. But as you read through the scriptures, we see that Jesus is full to the brim with gentleness, humility, and grace for his people. There is more mercy in God than there is sin in us. We cannot extinguish the mercy and the grace of Jesus that is given to us by our sin; his grace and his mercy will always overwhelm the reality of sin in our lives.

4. Jesus Comes to Bring Life

Jesus does not come to invoke fear in you. We should be confronted with our sin and our need for a savior, but more than just being overwhelmed by the law, we also need the balm of the gospel. We need the reality that Jesus does not come to crush us, but to restore us. He doesn’t come to kill us, but to bring us to life—true life in him.

Jesus comes with peace for his people; he does not come with warfare for his people. The donkey imagery is helpful because he’s not riding in on a war horse; he’s riding in on a humble, plodding animal that speaks of humility. He doesn’t come in the garb of just a conquering king; he is the king of the universe, but he does not come in order to crush us and subjugate us, but instead to set us free, to draw near to us, and to heal us.

Conclusion

Our understanding of Jesus does not have to be perfect in order for us to go to him. The disciples missed these things when they were there with him as he went into Jerusalem. That’s instructive for us; we don’t have to have all the answers or have the Westminster Shorter Catechism memorized. Jesus comes to you where you are and he desires for you to come to him because he’s full of grace and mercy for you.

The central work that Jesus does—he doesn’t come to just fix our morality or just to bring justice—he comes to make the dead live. Because of our original sin, there is nothing in us that pleases God; we are dead in our trespasses and sins. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He came to reconcile all things to himself through the work on the cross. Jesus is not content to just put band-aids and temporary fixes on us; he comes to bring the dead to life.

This morning, as you hear the word of God, as you feel the tug of the spirit, Jesus is drawing you to himself. As we remember the work of Jesus, we place our hope not in just having our sins smoothed over, but instead, we rest in the reality that Jesus came to bring new life. To be born again, you must go to Jesus, and thanks be to God, Jesus has come to you. He comes with peace and he comes to make you alive. So friends, go to Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank you for your grace that you love us, and we pray that you would open our hearts and our minds to you this morning. We pray that we would respond to the work of Jesus, that we would rest in him, and that we would behold his faithfulness to us. We pray that that would give us great joy and delight in this life, that it would be bolstering to our lives, and that we would look ahead to him in all things. May you remind us that the work of Jesus is not just meant to patch us up and send us on our way, but is instead meant to transform the reality of all that we are. We ask all these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Farewell Discourse: John 14

Please turn to John 14. We are looking at a short series in relation to the coming season of Easter. Holy Week starts this Sunday, and the season of Lent historically precedes Easter to focus our attention on Christ’s atonement and the work He came to accomplish.

As we set our minds on that, there is no better place to look than what Jesus’ mind was set on as He approached Easter. We are looking at a section from His “Farewell Discourse”—the time He spent with the disciples in the Upper Room during the Last Supper.

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:15-18)

The Parting Gift

Usually, when someone leaves a company after 25 or 50 years, they are given a gold watch or an anniversary gift. The parting gift normally goes to the person who is leaving. But in this instance, Jesus is the one going away, yet He is the one giving the gifts.

As Jesus approached the cross, His disciples were predominantly on His mind. However, the disciples didn’t realize He was leaving. To them, this was an abrupt change in direction. Jesus gives them this information in advance so that when it happens, they will believe it was part of the plan.

The gift He gives them isn’t a substance or a force; it is a person. He says in verse 26 that He is sending an Advocate, a Counselor, the Holy Spirit.

More of Jesus, Not Less

Most people think that when someone goes away, you get less of them. Jesus says the opposite: “Because I go away, you get more of me.”

In John 14:12, He says, “Whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” This is why, after the resurrection, He tells Mary Magdalene not to hold onto Him. We often think physical proximity is the greatest form of connection, but Jesus argues that His spiritual presence through the Holy Spirit is a “greater” presence.

The Number One Attraction

I once met a woman who worked as a character at Disney World. I asked her who the most visited character was, assuming it was Mickey Mouse. She said, “Nope. It’s Cinderella.” People stand in massive lines just to be near her, to touch her, or to get a picture.

We have an internal affection for physical proximity. We see this with the woman who wanted to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. We see it in people who travel to Augusta just to “touch the grass” at The Masters.

But Jesus is saying: “You don’t have to touch me to have me.” His physical presence was limited to one place at one time, but His spiritual presence is available to all.

The Paradox of Self

Jesus gives us more of Himself so that we can have less of ourselves.

The paradox of the Gospel is that having “less of you” actually leads to the “greatest you.” The more we de-center ourselves, the more we become our fullest selves. Jesus says, “I will not leave you as orphans.” He isn’t abandoning us; He is empowering us.

Love and Obedience

Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In the Gospel, love and obedience are inextricably connected. You cannot have one without the other.

At its root, obedience is de-centralizing “me” for the sake of another. * When you love a child, you de-center your own needs.

• In a marriage or friendship, love moves away from “what I want” toward the other person.

This isn’t out of obligation; it’s a symbiotic relationship. Religion often teaches “do these things to get this result,” but the Gospel is about being so enamored with Christ that you naturally move toward His will.

Making a Home

In verse 23, Jesus says: “My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

When we think of “nesting” in a home, we think of minor repairs or decorations. But Jesus wants to turn the “fixer-upper” of our souls into a palace where He can dwell. He takes all His resources and creativity to make His people a beautiful dwelling place.

The Role of the Advocate

The Holy Spirit acts as our Advocate (an attorney or counselor).

1. He argues to our spirit: He reminds us daily that we are children of God when we forget our identity.

2. He argues to the Father: When we sin, the Advocate doesn’t just ask for mercy; he appeals to justice. He reminds the Father that the debt has already been paid by Jesus.

The Spirit of Truth frees us from the lies we tell ourselves about our sin and our position with God. This is the source of the peace that “frees our hearts from trouble.”

Note: This transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for the most accurate information and meaning.

Introduction to the Upper Room Discourse

Thank you, Jesse. I appreciate that. Turn to our text for today, John 14. It is in the bulletin, online, on a device that you have, or in a Bible in front of you.

As we approach Easter, part of the theme we have been focusing on to give our minds a sense of where we are aiming is looking at the things that were on Jesus’ mind as He approached Easter. As He gets closer and closer to the cross, Passion Week, and ultimately the resurrection, He is telling the disciples about Himself and providing for us what we cannot provide for ourselves.

John 14 is known as the Upper Room Discourse. It is Jesus’ final upper room discourse where, for three chapters, He tells the disciples what is on His mind. We cannot cover it all, but we will look at a piece of it.

Scripture Reading: John 14:1–14

Read along as I read John 14:1 aloud:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My father’s house has many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and you have seen Him.”

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Jesus answered, “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you for such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority; rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing His work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.”

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have done, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

This is God’s word. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will stand forever.

Opening Prayer

Lord, be with us as we contemplate Your word. Speak to the hurting places, the dark places, the suffering places, and the apathetic places. Speak by Your word to the places of pride and disillusionment, to the places of discouragement and fear. Speak to the center of who we are, even into those anxious, unknown places, that we might find the life You promised. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

The Desire for the “Inside Track”

I was talking to a friend last week about a job they are applying for in Baltimore. I am from Baltimore, and my son is particularly connected to various community agencies there. I told my friend, “Let me talk to my son; maybe he knows somebody who would be able to give a thumbs up or a word to help.”

Why is that something we think about? Why does my friend hope that is a good thing? It is because if I know someone on the inside, they might be able to give me the inside track. We live in a world that is more reflective of “it’s who you know, not what you know.”

If you don’t know anybody, that system seems unjust and privileged. But it shows how the human heart operates. I want to know the inside. Show me the secret path; give me the secret password; help me get on the inside without having to go through all the red tape.

Jesus says here: if you want to get on the inside and you don’t want to go through all the red tape, it’s about knowing Me. It’s about knowing My Father.

Christianity as a Relationship

Christianity is about who you know. At its center, the Gospel is about a relationship—a knowing, ongoing relationship with God.

The first words out of Jesus’ mouth to His disciples in this discourse are: “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” He says, “I know you, and I know your hearts are troubled.”

They are troubled because they don’t know where Jesus is going. Philip says, “Just show us the Father and it’ll all be good.” Humanity has been in a search for a connection with God since the beginning of time. Our stories and mythologies—Greek, Norse—are all about creating this world of gods and goddesses to find a way out of this world into that divine place.

Literature and art tell us more about the human condition than science sometimes does. Science describes what is going on, but literature and art tell me what I want to go on—the motivations of my inner world.

The Problem of the Troubled Heart

Why do we want this deeper connection? Why are our hearts troubled?

My wife, Becky, and I were having dinner this week. She mentioned she felt a little anxious and troubled. Later that week, I felt the same way. Neither of us could put our finger on why. There is an inner troubledness—a sense of unease—that everyone experiences. Whether it’s a lack of confidence or a question of identity, the human heart has been trying to overcome this since the beginning.

Even in the “theology of Barbie”—when Barbie goes to the real world, she is troubled and anxious. She only finds peace when she finds her connection to her creator and discovers what the creator put in her.

Restoration of Connectivity

In the beginning, God made everything perfect. But on day six, He said something was “not good”: that man should be alone. Even with a relationship with God, man needed a sense of connectivity where he could know and be known by others.

When that relationship with God broke down at the place of sin, humans didn’t feel like themselves anymore. Adam and Eve hid from God; they became “allergic” to Him. Adam said, “I was ashamed, so I covered myself.” This was the start of the hiding and the shame.

Jesus is saying, “As I approach the cross, I don’t want you to be troubled.” How do we overcome the troubled, uneasy heart? Jesus makes the connection: through belief.

The solution He offers is a person, not a philosophy or a strategy. He says, “Trust me.” The more trust I put in myself or in this horizontal world, the more unease I develop. Our problem is that we put our trust in the wrong place.

The “Secret Code”

Jesus says, “I can give you the secret code. The secret code is Me.”

When my kids lived in Las Vegas, there was a speakeasy called “The Laundry.” To get in, you couldn’t just look it up online. You had to have the password and the location from someone who had actually been there. They gave out these little pins that looked like laundry pins with the password on them.

When we went, we had to go past the main address, into the alley, down the stairs, to a door that looked like a maintenance door. There was only one way in.

Jesus is saying, “I’m giving you the one way in.” People object to Jesus being exclusive, but He isn’t putting it out there like He is “better”; He is putting it out there because it is true.

The Intimacy of Knowing

Jesus says to Philip, “How long have I been with you? If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” Jesus is claiming to be God. He says, “If you want the troubles of your heart relieved, believe in Me.”

The thing about knowing someone is that the more you know them, the more exclusive and intimate the relationship becomes. The more I know my wife, the more I say, “Of all the billions of women out there, I pick you.” If that exclusivity is broken, the relationship breaks.

For some people, Christianity is too personal. We fear that intimacy because of the loss of control. If you want to maintain control in your life, don’t get married, don’t have children, and don’t have friendships. When you enter a relationship, you lose power over your own life.

Jesus wants to go deep. He wants to heal the inner turmoil, the guilt, and the shame through an intimate knowledge of Him—not just an informational knowledge (facts and figures), but a personal one.

Conclusion: The Sacrifice for Connection

The amazing thing isn’t just that we can know God, but that God wants to know us. Jesus says, “I am going to prepare a place for you because I want you where I am.”

He signed that agreement in His own blood. Any religion that tells you that you can be connected with God without a cost or a sacrifice is a lie. Jesus proved His love by laying down His life.

He went down the road of the cross so that He could be abandoned by God, crying out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” He was abandoned so that you and I could have a way to know God and experience His connection. When you believe that truth, it creates life in us.