This powerful study will provide answers to the central truth, the scarlet thread of the Bible. Preach it as a sermon, teach the lesson to your class or use it as a Bible study tool for your own personal devotions.

Why did Jesus Have to Rise Again? The Why’s of Easter Greg Lavine and John Beeson So we begin this Easter Sunday with this declaration. He is risen. He is risen indeed. One more time. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen. Now we respond in that way, not just because it's some religious thing that we do, some, some little thing that the church, churchy thing that we do on Easter Sunday. It is us repeating the most outrageous claim in all of history that a man came who is fully God and fully man and lived among us 2,000 years ago. His name was Jesus Christ and he died a humiliating death at the hands of the Roman government and then rose again to conquer death and sin forever. And so when we say he is risen, he is risen indeed. We, we step into an outrageous and audacious claim. Now there have been outrageous claims made throughout history, each with their own set of implications. The Buddha said that there was no permanent self that radically changes our lives, our way that we view humanity. If that is true, Muhammad said, I am the final prophet. An outrageous claim that gives him the utmost authority of anyone who's ever lived radically changes reality. But none made a more audacious claim than Jesus Christ himself, who claimed to be God, a human being. There's an interaction. Jesus made this claim throughout his ministry. There's one interaction that he had with the religious leaders at the time who said, hey Jesus, just we've heard rumors that you're saying this, but just say it plainly. Are you the Messiah? And he one ups them. Jesus over in John 10 returns and he's going to say, I'm not just Messiah. He says this, I and the Father are one. The God that you worship is now here with you in the flesh. An outrageous claim. Now how can a man prove such a claim? You look to Jesus in his life and you could see the powerful teachings that he gave us that still resonate 2,000 years later. You could say, well that's some proof. You can look at his life and see a life of righteousness and humility. And you could say, well that's some proof. You can look at his miracles changing the fate of those who are blind to see. Lame who walked even demonstrating the power over death in raising up of Lazarus, the expelling of demons, the declaration that he can forgive sin, all of those things are proof. But there is no proof more powerful than than the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. He knew it and he shared with the disciples over and over, I am going to die, I'm going to be laid in a tomb and three days later I will rise from the dead. On seven different occasions in The Gospels, we read those exact words. Consider just one with me out of the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 17. As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, the Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him and he'll be raised on the third day. And they were greatly distressed. They didn't get it. They didn't understand it. Jesus knew his greatest proof of being God was going to be rising from the dead. And they had to grasp this. They had. This is a foundational aspect of the Christian faith. At its very base, Jesus Christ is God and rose from the dead. Paul, Paul says this is of absolute first importance. Consider these words in First Corinthians, chapter 15, First Corinthians, chapter 15, beginning in verse 3. For I delivered to you as a first importance, this is, this is number one on your list. I'm giving this to you as the most important thing of the Gospel. Who I also received, I delivered to you. I went back to verse one. For I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received. That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Well, this is a big deal. This is foundational. Jesus Christ was not simply a prophet. Jesus Christ was not simply a good teacher. Jesus Christ was not simply a great moral man of God setting an example in this world. Jesus Christ is God and he proved it by his resurrection. This is why we need to address this. He says he appeared to Peter. That's great. He appeared to the 12. Fantastic. Then he appeared to more than 500 people at one time. And most of them were still alive. Go check it out. There's, there's all these theories that people put out there. Well, maybe, maybe Rome hid his body. That's, that's what happened to Jesus. He didn't rise from the dead of any government on earth that wanted to squel a rebellion and offer up the body of Jesus, it was Rome. Well maybe, maybe the Jews stole his body and hid it away, that it actually is one up over the Romans. If there's any group on earth that wanted to provide the body to stop this movement, it was the Jewish people. Some people say, well maybe it was the disciples. Paul said, don't you understand? The disciples gave up their lives for the truth that they saw the resurrected Jesus. And it's not just 12 of them. He appeared to over 500 at one time and most of them are still alive. Go check it out. He is saying, this is so foundational, it's verifiable fact. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Yes. So here's the turn in the sermon. You could sit there and say, okay, all right, I'll follow with you. That Jesus rose again from the dead, but what does that mean for me? How does that impact my life? That's the question we've been asking the last few weeks. What does the life of Jesus mean for you? For me, what does the death of Jesus mean for us? And today we ask this question, okay, if it's true that Jesus rose again from the dead, what does it actually mean for us? What's the impact in our lives? We want to begin here. We're going to give you three reasons that it impacts our lives. And the first is this, that it confirms that Jesus is God. It confirms that Jesus is God. And if Jesus is God, it changes the way in which we encounter him. It changes the way that we listen to his words, that we respond to his words. Jesus makes this claim himself. I want to take us to another time that he makes this claim. It's actually the most highest stakes moment of his life. His life is on the line and he can easily wriggle out of it if he just gives up this claim because he's on trial for blasphemy, on trial for claiming to be God. Listen to what happens as Jesus is in front of Caiaphas, the high priest and the Sanhedrin, verse 59 of Matthew 26. Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death. But they found none. There were many false witnesses that came forward at last. Two came forward and said, this man said, I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days. Jesus is speaking of himself as the fulfillment of the temple. He is the one who's going to be destroyed and raised again in three days. And the high priest stood and he said, have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you? But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, I adjure you by the living God. Tell us if you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus said to him, you have said so, but I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven. Jesus, in the face of judgment, with his life on the line, says, this claim that you're making about me, you have no idea the implications of it. It's absolutely true, says I. The Son of Man. It's his favorite way to refer to himself. It's back from a prophecy in the Old Testament that speaks of the Divine one who will come. The Son of Man. I will come. You judge me today. But on that final day, I will sit in judgment over you and over everyone. I am the Almighty, I am the judge. I am God. Jesus says, if I had a time machine, that's one conversation I would like to have witnessed. Jesus appears to the disciples. There's 11 at this point. And he appears to them and shows himself to them. But Thomas is not with them. And the other disciples go to Thomas and they say, thomas, Jesus rose from the dead. We saw him, we were with him. And Thomas says, when I see him with my own eyes, in fact, I want to touch the wounds in his hand. Then I'll believe that he rose from the dead. Eight days later, Jesus appeared to the disciples again. And Thomas is there. And Jesus doesn't wait for Thomas to bring it up. Jesus sees Thomas, says, thomas, I heard you. Come and touch my hands. And Thomas gets up and touches his hands and listen, listen to these words. This is out of John, chapter 19, in verse 28. John, chapter 20. Yeah, John 20. Next page, verse 28. Thomas answered him. These are Thomas words. My Lord and my God. You rose from the dead. That, that proves you're not just my Lord. You're my Lord and my God. The resurrection of Jesus Christ shows that he is God. It. It proves that he is God. It's meaningful to me because we all have doubting Thomases inside of us. There's oftentimes I think Jesus didn't have to rise from the dead publicly. He paid for our sins on the cross. He was laid in the tomb. He could have just risen and gone up to heaven without rolling the stone away, without visiting anyone. He could have just ascended into the, into the heavens, but he didn't. Why did Jesus rise from the dead visibly, tangibly, so that human beings could see him, so that we would believe, so that we would see it and know he's God. It's tangible, it's provable. He is God. And this is a foundational truth. Had a friend that I met with for a while, that was Mormon, and we began pouring into each other's lives, trying to understand each other. And I will never forget early into that conversation, I looked at him and I said, okay. Do you believe Jesus is God? He said, yes. That wasn't the answer I was expecting. And I kind of backpedaled and I. Oh, I didn't know you thought that. It was a month later, before I slowly started to realize we were using a different vocabulary. We were using words different. And I came back to it. I said, okay, remember when I asked you if Jesus was God? And you said, yes. Is he God, like, supreme above everything, Creator of heaven and earth, the one God of Gods, Lord of Lords, King of kings over everything? Oh, no. He said, I believe he's a God, like I'm a God. I thought, oh, okay. So that's the difference. Here's a truth. This truth divides all religions on the face of the earth. This truth divides all denominations. If you are Christian, you believe in this. If you don't believe in this, you. You're not Christian. I don't care what name you put on the wall of your building. Jesus Christ is God, died for our sins, and three days later rose from the dead. It is a foundational truth. Foundational truth. Consider these words out of the Book of Romans. I have a lot of Roman. I turned right to it. I'm so proud of myself. Romans, chapter one. In verse eight, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because of. I didn't. Verse 1. Skip verse 8. It's a great verse, but let's go back. Verse 1. Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning his Son, Jesus, who was descended from David according to the flesh. In other words, we know he's a human being because he descended from David. We know his ancestry. We know his parents. We know Mary, where he was born. We know he was a human being because he descended from David. And verse four was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness. By his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, he proves he is God by the power of the resurrection. Jesus Christ is alive today. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen. The first thing that the resurrection means for you and me is that it proves that Jesus is God. The second thing it means for us is that it guarantees a resurrection. It guarantees a resurrection. When we speak of resurrection, we're not talking about some spiritualized thing. You might have been to a memorial service where they say the deceased will live on in our memories, right? That's not what we're talking about with Jesus, what we're talking about is a true bodily resurrection, a conquering of death. Paul puts it all on the line earlier in the sermon Greg was in First Corinthians 15. He continues that line of reasoning and he pushes all of his poker chips into the center of the table. He says, listen, if this is false, this Christianity thing isn't some nice little thing. It's ridiculous. It's absurd. It's to be mocked. Listen to him in First Corinthians 15:17. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. Death awaits you. You are trapped by your sin, trapped by your flesh, trapped by the bentness of your own heart. The resurrection of Jesus Christ must be true for any of those things to be untrue. But he says he has been risen. And because Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, all of that has changed. Listen to him continue down in verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as man came, death by a man has also come, the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. Let me explain what he's saying there. He's saying, listen, every single one of us, we all have the same Father. Way back at the beginning, the first man, the first bearer of God's image, and his name was Adam, and he walked with God in perfect union. He was given a perfect life by God, and yet still he chose to rebel, he chose to disobey God. And in so doing, he not only cut himself off from God, he cut humanity off from God. Every one of us lives in the reality of Adam's bent away from God, his sin, his pride, his selfishness. And all of us are born in sin. And for all of us, death awaits us. Until a new Adam appeared, the beginning of the turn of all things. Jesus Christ, who overcame death, overcame sin. And in him we can experience new life. Life not under Adam, but under Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man. And in him, if you die to yourself, you will rise again, and you are guaranteed a new resurrection. I don't know if you picked up that little word in there. He called Jesus the first fruits. So angel and I are doing our first little Arizona gardening experiment this year. So we have a little garden bed. Things are growing, right? And when we really got excited was just about a week or so ago when our zucchini, the blossoms started little. Itty bitty zucchinis at the bottom, we're like, hooray, there's going to be crops, real crops, because little zucchini become big zucchini and one zucchini becomes many zucchini. When the first fruits appear, when Jesus resurrection comes, we don't just look back on that as some inspiring moment in history. Well, good for Jesus. No, In Jesus, our resurrection is guaranteed. If we are in him, what difference does it make that Jesus Christ rose from the dead? Number one, it proves he's God. Number two, it guarantees a future resurrection, a future eternity. Any of us who have been to a memorial service, you gaze into eternity, you look past this life. We realize this life is fleeting, this life is short. You gaze into eternity and all human beings, what's on the other side of that, it guarantees eternity. If you have ever lost a loved one, this is the great glorious hope. Not that they're just gone, not that we just remember them. Jesus Christ is going to come back. And the saints who have gone before are coming with them in a train. We will rise up and meet them in the air. And glory is going to take place. A grand party in heaven is going to take place. Consider the simple little words, a very famous verse, John 3:16. Would you read let's put John 3:16 up on the screen. I want to read this together. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. Eternal life. That's the gift in Christ. Eternal life. And we can bank on it, we can rest on it. Those who have gone before, who knew Christ, they are in eternal life. We, when we get there, will join in eternal life. You can look to your loved ones, say, hey, let's meet by the north wall in the west corner. We'll have a barbecue, we'll get a get together. We're going to praise Jesus. It is a good thing. It's a guarantee of a future resurrection. A guarantee. Number one, it proves Jesus is God. Number two, it guarantees a future resurrection. Number three. Number three, we receive resurrection power. He gives us resurrection power in his resurrection, resurrection power. This is a big deal. In John chapter 16, Jesus is talking with his disciples and he says some, some startling words. This is just before he is going to go. I said, I'm all over the place. John 16, verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will Send him to you. You don't know this yet, but I'm gonna rise from the dead. And the spirit that rises me from the dead, I am going to send to you. And he will dwell in you. This is much better that I go or you won't have that power. When I was a kid, used to pump water with my great aunts. We'd go to their house, we'd walk down to this lake and there's a pump there. We'd pump jugs of water to bring back for drinking water at the house. And if you got down to the lake and no one had pumped the water before you, you knew. It's like a couple of minutes of pumping before that water's coming up. And if you start going and your shoulder gets sore, you stop and rest just for a second, you hear the water gurgle back down. If you keep pumping until the water comes and you stop, like celebrating, oh, there's water. It stops. You gotta keep pumping and pumping and pumping. Jesus is saying, hey, if you try to pump your way through the Christian life, two things are going to. You'll be eternally frustrated and you will fail. We don't have it. We need supernatural power inside of us in order to live the Christian life. If you've ever been in a relationship that's had strain, if you're married, if you're a parent, if you have parents, if you've ever faced an addiction that's been like a shackle and over and over and over, you stumble, you've had a habit that you have tried and tried and tried to get past, you know this truth. We don't have it. We need supernatural power to flow through our veins. And the promise of Jesus Christ is he is giving us his resurrection power. His resurrection gives this to us. And it is a grand, glorious thing considering. Consider the disciples. The disciples while Jesus was alive are kind of bumbling fools. Peter, the chief of the apostle, had Jesus say these words to him, get behind me, Satan. That's not a sentence you want God saying to you at any point in your life. When Jesus died on the cross, all of the disciples had run away, but one. John was the only one left. Peter denied him the three times the night he's arrested. The rest weren't even there when he was arrested. They're running away scared. And after the resurrection, he sends resurrection power in the Holy Spirit to them. And from that moment on, you read of the apostles, you think, what got into these guys? What made these guys such stalwarts of Faith, Godly men. At one point, they're preaching at the temple. They're arrested, they're told, don't preach at the temple anymore. They go back, they preach at the temple. Miracles are happening. They're arrested, they're brought in again, they're beaten, they're told, don't go, do it again. And listen to these words in Acts chapter five that define them as they go. Acts, chapter five. I am all over the place. Verse. I'm really there. Verse 41. It's on the wrong page. Acts, chapter 5, verse 41. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. What takes a group of bumbling guys who don't get it and turn them in to a group of men who are honored to suffer for the name of Christ. Resurrection power. Not just bumbling. They were arguing months ago. Who is the greatest, who's going to be honored the most, have the biggest throne. And here they are throwing themselves headlong. Who is going to have the opportunity to suffer the most? This is the transformed life in Jesus Christ. And here's the reality. We can't do it on our own. We can't do it on our own. There's a promise God gives to the prophet Ezekiel. God had come, covenanted with his people. He told his people what his heart was, the way in which they were to walk, the guarantees in which the covenant would offer them blessing if they walked in that way. And yet, generation after generation failed to follow the heart of God. And God said, don't worry, one day your hearts will be changed. Listen to Ezekiel offer this promise. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Are you weary? Are you tired of trying to break that addiction? To uproot the web, the roots of bitterness from within your heart, to repair relationships on your own strength. The promise of the resurrected Jesus Christ is that he is our power. He is our power. So this week I had to get a new battery in my car. It's the plight of any Arizona driver, right? Like, they give me the new battery. They're like, three year guarantee. I'm like, yeah, right, see you in 18 months, right? Like, that's just the reality, right? So, like, a car without a battery is worthless. I don't care how nice that car is. You could drive up in that front circle, say, pastor John, got you a Bentley. Got you a Maserati, A Tesla, whatever it is, right here are the keys. You throw me the keys. By the way, the battery's dead. I mean, you might as well hand me a pair of skates or bicycle. It's worth more to me to get home today than that car is. We need power. And Jesus Christ's resurrection brings that power. Paul makes this very point as he opens up his letter to the church at Ephesus. The first chapter is just a glorious chapter as he talks about the implications of Christ for us, what does it mean for us? And near the end of that, he talks about the implications of the resurrection for us. And he's going to say this. He's going to say the same power that God worked in that resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's the same power he's working on in your life if you're in Christ. Listen to Paul. He says this in verse 19 of Ephesians 1. And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places? That's not just a little power in your life, the working of God's power in your life for those who believe, the same exact power that rose Jesus from the dead, now that's a battery. That. That's life transformation. And Jesus Christ, his resurrection guarantees it for all who are in Him. I love it. I love everything you said, except for this dilemma. And this might be a generational thing. I don't know, maybe it's my childhood. When you say that, I immediately think it is going to be a generational thing. I just know that this afternoon I'm still going to be picturing Joe Walsh plugging away my Maserati. Does 180, you know, mention Maserati in the story? And that's just I. That's where my brain goes and it's stuck in my head now, all because Burt Reynolds drove that car in the Longest Yard and I watched it with my dad when I was a kid. What do we do with this? How do we. How do we take this home? Two practical takeaways. The first is enter into relationship with Jesus. Enter into relationship with Jesus. It is the foundational reason, the foundational gift of everything. God sent his son. His son died on the cross, rose from the dead for a foundational reason that God wants a relationship with you and with me. Today, if you want, you can travel and you can go visit Confucius tomb, take pictures in front of it. If you want, you can go visit Buddha's tomb, take pictures in front of that. If you'd like, you can go to Muhammad's tomb, stand out in front and take pictures, selfies. But if you. If you want to go take a selfie in front of Jesus tomb, you're going to find that it's not really possible. You'll go to Israel, you'll walk around, you'll see some people. Well, it could have been here. This is a site. It could have been here. This is another site. We don't know exactly where it is because he is not there. He is risen. He is risen indeed. Amen. He's alive. He's alive and he's here. He wants a relationship with us. Now, it might be that you're curious about God. Maybe you came because it's Easter and you're interested. Maybe you're not even interested. Just the person that loves you, that you came with, wanted you to come. But you hear this and maybe you wonder, could Jesus, Could Jesus be God? Is he here? And the answer is yes. And I would invite you to follow those nudges and turn to him and enter into relationship with him. It's also possible. You've been a Christian for a long time, but you've. You've drifted from relationship. God is not interested in us standing up and singing songs if we are not in relationship. What he's after is our hearts, not our words. He wants our lives. He wants to be in relationship with us. So I would encourage you follow those nudges and spend time with Jesus. Enter into relationship number two. Walk in resurrection power. Walk in resurrection power. When we say that the resurrection power is given to us, it's not just an idea. And here's the poison of it. I'll be the first to raise my hand. So God has given me natural abilities. He's given me a brain to think like, I kind of assume really well, better than it really does. I can coast on my own strength in life oftentimes, but I can't be the husband he's calling me to be without resurrection power working in me. I can't be the dad he's called me to be. Without resurrection power working in me. I can't be the friend. I can't live a godly life the way he calls me to without resurrection power. So if you've been walking on your own strength, I plead, I beg on this day of all days turn, to have the supernatural power of God, the Holy Spirit, of God, bring the power of resurrection into your life, to break chains and set you free. If you've had a habit, you've had a generational habit born in your life, something you can't get past, your hope. And my hope and anyone's hope is not that we'll eventually get strong enough, it's Jesus. Would you fill me with your Holy Spirit and have your way in my heart and my mind and my life, and break the chains that bind me and set me free to live for your glory today? Resurrection power in you and me. Amen. Amen. So we have the blessing of doing something special here on this Easter Sunday, which is responding in taking the Lord's communion. And if you are in Christ, if you've placed your trust in him, and maybe even just that's, that's fresh for you, that's. That's real even in this moment, we invite you to the Lord's table to respond in faith. Part of the communion place is a declaration of this is me in Christ. This is what Christ has done for me. And so we would invite you to partake with us. We have tables up here. We'd invite you to come. We have tables also in the back, back there is our gluten free elements. And so I invite you to partake. If you are joining with us online, we're so grateful you're with us. We invite you to grab whatever elements you have, maybe some Easter bread and some drink, and to join with us as well as we reflect on the Lord's death and resurrection. For us today, as you're gathering communion elements, I'll just share this. Sometimes in tradition, sometimes here at New Life, we pass communion. Communion comes to you. And maybe you've been in church where that is the tradition. There's a richness in that, in the symbol that Jesus comes to us, he meets us where we're at. We are now in the practice most of the time of getting up and coming forward to get communion elements. But there's a symbol in that, that there is a response that Jesus is calling us to. He's calling us to respond to him, to run to him, to join in relationship with him, to have his Holy Spirit flow through us. He's calling us to take steps towards him so we can reflect on that as we grab the communion elements. Today, the power of the resurrection is this, that Jesus Christ entered into our pain, to our suffering, to our brokenness. He took our sin on his shoulders and he healed us from the inside out. That was his declaration. The night before he was crucified, he took the bread and he broke the bread. He said this is my body. Broken for you, broken for you. Jesus Christ came as the passover lamb and he took our sin on his shoulders. He took our brokenness on his shoulders and he became broken on the cross that in his healing we might be healed. He said whenever you eat of it, do so in memory of me. Lets eat in memory of Jesus. Jesus, we thank you. We thank you for your brokenness that we might be healed. We thank you for the cross. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Likewise on that night the he was betrayed, he took the cup. So this is the cup of the new covenant poured out in my blood for the forgiveness of sins. One of my favorite old time gospel songs is there's power in the blood. There's power, power, wonder working power in the precious blood of the lamb. There's power to wash away our sin and there's power to make us new. So Lord Jesus, I ask that you would anoint this cup that spiritually become for us your blood, wash our sins away. We all have selfishness and pride in us darker than we even realize. So wash us, cleanse us, close us, clothe us in white robes and then Lord Jesus, would you give us your resurrection power afresh and anew in this day that we might live obedient chivalry, honorable, kind, loving lives for your glory in this world, the blood of Christ shed for you and for me. Amen and amen. Can we go ahead and stand as we come before the Lord and close in song?

Life Lessons from a Donkey: Palm Sunday Skip Heitzig The luckiest donkey in the world was the donkey who carried Jesus on his back. He was fulfilling Old Testament having the Messiah . Donkey’s favorite pastime: rolling on the ground. Why do they long ears? Cools them. Hears up to miles away. More people are killed by people annually that in air crashes. Month of Nissan select the lamb for Passover. In that day it was Aprii 6, 32 A.D. This Palm Sunday message by Pastor Skip Heitzig (0:39) explores Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem, focusing on the final week of His life as detailed in John 12. The message contrasts the superficial nature of religion with a genuine, personal relationship with Christ. Key takeaways from the message: Jesus over Religion: People are drawn to Jesus more than to rigid religious systems (7:13). While religion focuses on outward rituals and prohibitions, Jesus emphasizes the inward heart and offers a relationship based on grace rather than works (12:59 - 15:47). • Scripture vs. Opinion: The Bible is a more reliable source of truth than human opinion (17:41). The message highlights how Jesus fulfilled specific Old Testament prophecies, such as entering Jerusalem on a donkey as predicted in Zechariah 9:9 (20:00 - 20:30). • Following vs. Inspecting: It is more important to actively follow Jesus than to merely observe or study Him from a distance (31:12). The disciples had to move from simply witnessing miracles to truly understanding and surrendering to Christ after His resurrection (28:50). Life Application: • The message challenges listeners to trust God with their struggles and surrender their lives to Him, just as the compliant donkey carried Jesus (36:59). • The video concludes with an invitation for viewers to accept Christ as their Savior and embark on a new way of living (40:02). You know, sometimes it's good to compare things with other things. Does that look familiar to anybody? But what a comparison -- the old and the new. And when you make these comparisons, 1:28 1 minute, 28 seconds you start understanding how far you've come from and which is mroe preferable to the other. 1:35 1 minute, 35 seconds I'm going to give you out of John Chapter 12 today three comparisons. We're going to compare three things to three other things, 1:44 1 minute, 44 seconds and see why those things are more preferable to the others. Now we're in John Chapter 12 and this is interesting. 1:53 1 minute, 53 seconds Already in John Chapter 12 we're dealing with the final week of Jesus Christ on the earth. 2:00 2 minutes That's Chapter 12. 2:02 2 minutes, 2 seconds There are 21 chapters in John, so almost half of John is dedicated to the final week of Jesus' life on earth. 2:13 2 minutes, 13 seconds If you were to look at Matthew, two-fifths of the gospel of Matthew is devoted to that final week. 2:19 2 minutes, 19 seconds Three-fifths of the gospel of Mark is devoted to that final week. In the gospel of Luke, one-third is devoted to the final week, 2:28 2 minutes, 28 seconds and in John, just about one-half. 2:31 2 minutes, 31 seconds that just lets you understand the kind of importance that gospel writers placed on what is called Passion Week, 2:39 2 minutes, 39 seconds the week that we are entering into starting today. 2:44 2 minutes, 44 seconds So in the four gospels, there are 89 chapters all together that are written in those four gospels. 2:51 2 minutes, 51 seconds Of those 89 chapters, four of the chapters cover the first 30 years of Jesus' life, 2:59 2 minutes, 59 seconds while 85 chapters cover the last 3 and a half years of His life, and 29 of those 85 cover the last week. 3:08 3 minutes, 8 seconds So we begin the Passion Week with an event that is mentioned in all four gospel records, 3:20 3 minutes, 20 seconds We're going to begin in Chapter 12 beginning in Verse 12. 3:25 3 minutes, 25 seconds It says, "The next day a great multitude had come to the feast when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 3:32 3 minutes, 32 seconds They took palm branches or branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him and cried out Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, 3:41 3 minutes, 41 seconds the King of Israel. Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, 3:46 3 minutes, 46 seconds sat on it as it is written, fear not daughter of Zion behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt. 3:57 3 minutes, 57 seconds His disciples did not understand these things at first, 4:01 4 minutes, 1 second but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him. 4:11 4 minutes, 11 seconds "Therefore, the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. 4:18 4 minutes, 18 seconds For this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign. 4:24 4 minutes, 24 seconds The Pharisees, therefore, said among themselves, you see that you are accomplishing nothing. 4:30 4 minutes, 30 seconds Look, the world has gone after Him." 4:35 4 minutes, 35 seconds Now can I just say for the record this is like the luckiest donkey in the world. 4:40 4 minutes, 40 seconds To have on its back the Son of God fulfilling Old Testament prophecy while He is being led into Jerusalem on this beast of burden. 4:51 4 minutes, 51 seconds We have a gal on staff who owns a couple of donkeys, and I med this week donkeys live between 30 to 40 years of age. 5:01 5 minutes, 1 second Some can live up to 60 years old. And so I did a little donkey investigation this week. 5:10 5 minutes, 10 seconds And I made some interesting discoveries about these creatures. Guess what a donkey's favorite pastime is? 5:18 5 minutes, 18 seconds Eating is what most people say, but it's actually rolling on the ground, rolling in the dirt. 5:23 5 minutes, 23 seconds It's his favorite pastime, which helps me understand Eeyore now in Winnie the Pooh, why he's always grumpy. 5:31 5 minutes, 31 seconds Donkeys have long ears. Why do they have long ears? For two reasons. It keeps the animal cool sort of like donkey radiators, 5:39 5 minutes, 39 seconds and it helps that animal hear up to miles away. 5:45 5 minutes, 45 seconds And then the most bizarre fact I discovered comes from the London Times where they reported more people are killed annually by donkeys than in airplane crashes. 5:57 5 minutes, 57 seconds I don't know how on earth they discovered that, 6:00 6 minutes or why anybody would want to investigate that but that's a fact. So this is traditionally called Palm Sunday. 6:09 6 minutes, 9 seconds It celebrates this event that we are reading, the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. 6:15 6 minutes, 15 seconds But in the Jewish calendar it was the 10th day of Nisan, not the car, the month. 6:22 6 minutes, 22 seconds The month of Nisan in the Jewish calendar on the 10th day of the month was the day when Jewish families would select the lamb 6:31 6 minutes, 31 seconds that on the 14th the day of Nisan they would sacrifice for the Passover. 6:37 6 minutes, 37 seconds Interesting that it's on this very day that the Lamb of God is riding into Jerusalem on a donkey presenting himself, 6:45 6 minutes, 45 seconds as it were, to the nation. That's the 10th of Nisan. In our calendar, it would be April the 6th, 32AD. 6:56 6 minutes, 56 seconds Now we're going to look again at some of these verses, and I want to give you some lessons that I've discovered, 7:03 7 minutes, 3 seconds some observations and principles that come from this little donkey ride that Jesus takes. And here's the first. 7:11 7 minutes, 11 seconds Jesus is more appealing than religion. 7:16 7 minutes, 16 seconds Jesus Christ, the person, is more appealing to people then religion. 7:23 7 minutes, 23 seconds It was then, it's the same today. Look at Verse 12. "The next day a great multitude had come to the feast. 7:31 7 minutes, 31 seconds When they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took branches of palm trees, went out to meet Him, and cried out Hosanna! 7:38 7 minutes, 38 seconds Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." Now who's this crowd? It's a crowd of religious people, 7:47 7 minutes, 47 seconds therefore, here in Jerusalem for a religious festival, the festival of Passover. 7:52 7 minutes, 52 seconds There were three mandatory feasts that every Jewish person was required to be in Jerusalem for if you lived in a certain distance from the city-- Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles. 8:05 8 minutes, 5 seconds This was their Passover. 8:08 8 minutes, 8 seconds This is when they celebrated the deliverance of their forefathers from the bondage of Egypt through a succession of 10 plagues that happened in their past history. 8:18 8 minutes, 18 seconds It had now become the focal point of Jewish history. But every year it was the same thing. 8:28 8 minutes, 28 seconds Every year they took the same routes up to Jerusalem. Every year they went through the same rituals. Every year they made the same prescribed prayers. 8:37 8 minutes, 37 seconds And, frankly, for a whole lot of people, it had just gotten old, 8:41 8 minutes, 41 seconds and they were clamoring for something more than what their religion was offering. They found out Jesus was in town, 8:50 8 minutes, 50 seconds and they all gravitated to Him. And they spontaneously start shouting, Hosanna, save now. 8:59 8 minutes, 59 seconds Deliver us now. Give us what our religion cannot give us, because Jesus is more appealing than religion. 9:08 9 minutes, 8 seconds You know, Jesus was a breath of fresh air in a climate of stagnant, stale, religious experience. 9:19 9 minutes, 19 seconds One of my favorite verses of scripture is in Mark Chapter 12. It's a simple verse. 9:25 9 minutes, 25 seconds It just says, "and the common people heard him gladly." 9:31 9 minutes, 31 seconds The everyday folk heard him gladly. In that chapter he gives parable after parable, 9:38 9 minutes, 38 seconds story after story, and then has a confrontation with the religious elite, and the common people we're hearing and seeing it all. 9:46 9 minutes, 46 seconds And they listen to Him gladly. 9:51 9 minutes, 51 seconds Jesus was to them much more appealing than even their hollowed religion itself. 9:58 9 minutes, 58 seconds I've always loved what General Booth of the Salvation Army used to say. He said, I want my religion. I like my religion like my tea. 10:07 10 minutes, 7 seconds I want it hot. And I think if you were to ask most people, they would say if I'm going to have any spirituality at all, I want it hot. 10:16 10 minutes, 16 seconds I want it real. I want it authentic. I want it vibrant. I don't want just some makeshift ceremonial stuff. 10:24 10 minutes, 24 seconds I want my religion like my tea, I want it hot. 10:29 10 minutes, 29 seconds And because of that, there was a clash between the old and the new, between the old religious system and the new stuff Jesus was offering. 10:40 10 minutes, 40 seconds There was a clash and it happened more than once, but a classic highlight is shown in Matthew Chapter 15. 10:48 10 minutes, 48 seconds You don't have to turn there. I'll just tell you the story, and you'll recall it when I do. 10:54 10 minutes, 54 seconds In that chapter Matthew 15, the religious leaders come and they find Jesus and they're miffed. They're upset. 11:01 11 minutes, 1 second This what they say, your disciples are transgressing the traditions of the elders. 11:10 11 minutes, 10 seconds Because they don't wash their hands ceremonially before they eat bread. 11:15 11 minutes, 15 seconds I love Jesus' response to them. 11:21 11 minutes, 21 seconds He said, why is it that you transgress the commandment of God by your traditions? 11:30 11 minutes, 30 seconds And then he said this, well did Esaias prophesy of you hypocrites, saying this people honors me with their lips, 11:40 11 minutes, 40 seconds but their heart is far from me. 11:41 11 minutes, 41 seconds In vain do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. 11:46 11 minutes, 46 seconds There was this clash between Jesus as a person and the religion that people were practicing. 11:54 11 minutes, 54 seconds And we see it over and over again. And do you know, because of that, people like tax collectors, and prostitutes, and murderers, 12:03 12 minutes, 3 seconds they found it easy to hang out with Jesus. They gravitated toward Jesus. 12:10 12 minutes, 10 seconds And we so often find Jesus soothing, forgiving, loving words to the very lowest people in society. 12:19 12 minutes, 19 seconds While our Lord Jesus most scathing words weren't to murderers, weren't to prostitutes, 12:25 12 minutes, 25 seconds weren't to drunkards, but to religious people. Matthew 23, several times in a row, whoa unto you hypocrites. 12:34 12 minutes, 34 seconds And He unloads on them. And the common people heard him gladly and hear, 12:41 12 minutes, 41 seconds once again at Passover, Jesus is in town let's go find Him. And they surrounded Him. 12:49 12 minutes, 49 seconds Question, why the appeal? What's really the big difference between Jesus, the person, and the practice of religion? 12:57 12 minutes, 57 seconds Well, there are several differences. Let me give a few to you. Number one, religion emphasizes the outward, Jesus emphasizes what? 13:06 13 minutes, 6 seconds Tell me. The inward. Isn't that right? He always emphasizes the inward. He said, why are you thinking evil in your hearts? 13:16 13 minutes, 16 seconds Or from the abundance of the heart the mouth speak. 13:19 13 minutes, 19 seconds Jesus was always more concerned with what was going on on the inside of a person than how a person looked on the outside. 13:29 13 minutes, 29 seconds Religion is about the outward, Jesus was always about the inward. Here's the second difference. 13:34 13 minutes, 34 seconds Religion is often about what you can't do. Jesus is about what you can do. 13:44 13 minutes, 44 seconds Religion is about prohibition, thou shalt not. It seems like Jesus' approach was, you know what? 13:50 13 minutes, 50 seconds Just come as you are, and watch what I can do through your life. That's what we find. 13:57 13 minutes, 57 seconds That's the big difference. 14:00 14 minutes I know some people, their whole spiritual experience is one of negatives. Well, I don't do this, and I don't do that, 14:07 14 minutes, 7 seconds and I don't do the other thing. Like the old fundamentalist poem. 14:11 14 minutes, 11 seconds I don't smoke, and I don't chew, and I don't go with girls that do. And I say, what whoop-de-do. 14:20 14 minutes, 20 seconds What do you do? I mean, if you're just talking about what you don't do, but there's nothing in your life that shows what you're doing, 14:30 14 minutes, 30 seconds that's the big difference. There's a third difference. Religion puts up barriers, Jesus pulls down barriers. 14:38 14 minutes, 38 seconds If you and I were in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and we went up to worship at the temple, we couldn't go anywhere we wanted to go. There were certain courts for people like us. 14:48 14 minutes, 48 seconds Us non-Jewish people like me, I couldn't even get close to the temple itself. 14:52 14 minutes, 52 seconds I would be confined to the outer court known as the court of the Gentiles. People that are spiritual cooties like me, that's where I hang out. 15:00 15 minutes If I was a Jewish woman, I could go further. If I was a Jewish male, I could go further. If I was a Jewish priest, I could go even closer. 15:07 15 minutes, 7 seconds But there were courts and there were walls that kept people out. 15:12 15 minutes, 12 seconds And I've discovered that religion is really good at keeping people out. 15:18 15 minutes, 18 seconds How different is Jesus who said, Come unto me all of you who labor and are heavy laden, 15:28 15 minutes, 28 seconds and I will give you rest. So willing to include people. 15:35 15 minutes, 35 seconds And fourth, religion typically says you have to work your way to God where Jesus 15:43 15 minutes, 43 seconds will say I am the way to God. I have seen, I have talked to religious people, 15:51 15 minutes, 51 seconds I have been a religious person long enough to know that most all world religions are all about what you have to do to work your way to God. 16:03 16 minutes, 3 seconds Things you have to do, prayers you have to say, et cetera, et cetera. That is the religion of human achievement. 16:11 16 minutes, 11 seconds That is not the gospel. The gospel is the approach of divine accomplishment. 16:19 16 minutes, 19 seconds Religion says you must do. God says I have done for you. It is finished. 16:26 16 minutes, 26 seconds Now you've just received as a free gift what I have done, and there will be a transformation in the process. 16:35 16 minutes, 35 seconds So Jesus is more appealing than religion. So they gather around Him, and they shout Hosanna. 16:43 16 minutes, 43 seconds As I mentioned, the word in Hebrew, 16:45 16 minutes, 45 seconds Na Hoshiah Na, Hosanna translated in English means deliver us now, save us now Lord. 16:53 16 minutes, 53 seconds The crowd clamors around Him so much so, did you hear what the Pharisees said in Verse 19? 17:01 17 minutes, 1 second "You see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look the whole world has gone after Him." Jesus was their biggest nightmare, 17:10 17 minutes, 10 seconds because what they have discovered is that people are more attracted to Jesus then their religious system. 17:17 17 minutes, 17 seconds And now there's competition. 17:20 17 minutes, 20 seconds Jesus was that tipping point that drove people to a personal relationship with God through Him rather than through that ritualistic system. 17:31 17 minutes, 31 seconds Here's the second observation, second life lesson on this donkey ride. 17:37 17 minutes, 37 seconds Scripture is more reliable than opinion. 17:42 17 minutes, 42 seconds So Jesus is more appealing than religion and now scripture's more reliable than opinion. 17:48 17 minutes, 48 seconds Look back with me at Verse 14 if you will. 17:52 17 minutes, 52 seconds "Then Jesus, when he had found a young donkey, sat on it as it 17:59 17 minutes, 59 seconds is written, fear not daughter of Zion behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt." 18:09 18 minutes, 9 seconds His disciples did not understand these things at first, 18:12 18 minutes, 12 seconds but when Jesus was glorified then they remembered that these things were written about Him, 18:19 18 minutes, 19 seconds and that they had done these things to Him. 18:22 18 minutes, 22 seconds Have you found that just about everybody you meet has some opinion of Jesus? Everybody has an opinion of Jesus. 18:29 18 minutes, 29 seconds People had opinions of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago. 18:32 18 minutes, 32 seconds Do you recall when our Lord took His disciples up to Caesarea Phillipi, and He said, who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? 18:41 18 minutes, 41 seconds And immediately they spouted off all the opinions. Some say that you're John the Baptist. 18:45 18 minutes, 45 seconds Some say you're Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. Those are all opinions as to who Jesus Christ was. 18:54 18 minutes, 54 seconds John the Apostle in this book shares a few more opinions that people had. 19:00 19 minutes In John Chapter 9, for example, some were saying this man is not from God. Can you imagine saying that about God? 19:09 19 minutes, 9 seconds This man is not from God, because he does not keep the Sabbath. 19:13 19 minutes, 13 seconds Others had this opinion, he's a prophet. 19:20 19 minutes, 20 seconds In John Chapter 10 another group said, he has a demon and is mad. Now let me ask you a question. 19:27 19 minutes, 27 seconds Of all those opinions that I just rattled off to you, were any of them accurate? Not really. 19:34 19 minutes, 34 seconds I mean, the closest most accurate was a group that's said He's a prophet, but He was much more than that. 19:41 19 minutes, 41 seconds So there was a myriad of opinions, but notice what John does here. He twice quotes scripture from the Old Testament. 19:50 19 minutes, 50 seconds One, in Psalm 118 when the people said, Hosanna. Blessed is He who comes in the name the Lord. That's a direct quote. 19:59 19 minutes, 59 seconds And then Zechariah Chapter 9, Verse 9, where it says, 20:02 20 minutes, 2 seconds "Fear not, daughter of Zion, behold your King is coming sitting on a donkey's colt." 20:09 20 minutes, 9 seconds So whatever opinions people had of Jesus, here's what the scripture says about Jesus. 20:15 20 minutes, 15 seconds And here's why I'm bringing this up because what the scripture says He is more reliable than what people think He is. 20:25 20 minutes, 25 seconds God's revelation is more reliable than people's estimation. 20:28 20 minutes, 28 seconds Scripture is more reliable than opinion. Question. 20:37 20 minutes, 37 seconds Why a donkey? What's up with the donkey? You know, in the other gospel records, 20:44 20 minutes, 44 seconds Jesus actually tells His disciples as they're on the Mount of Olives, 20:47 20 minutes, 47 seconds you know, stop, go to the next town and you're going to find a donkey. Bring that donkey here. Why? 20:55 20 minutes, 55 seconds Did He just like donkey rides? Why a donkey? Now listen carefully. The donkey showed His identity. 21:03 21 minutes, 3 seconds Listen again, and you can read it for yourself in Verse 15 21:09 21 minutes, 9 seconds quoting Zechariah 9, "Behold your King comes to you sitting on a donkey's colt." 21:19 21 minutes, 19 seconds In other words, you have a King, He is going to come to you, and when He comes to you, He's coming to you on a donkey. 21:28 21 minutes, 28 seconds So Jesus asked for a donkey, because He is presenting himself to them as their King. By the way, King's road donkeys in times of peace. 21:38 21 minutes, 38 seconds When they wanted to offer terms of peace to a people group, they would mount a donkey. It was considered an animal of peace. 21:46 21 minutes, 46 seconds When a King would come to wage war, he would ride a horse. And this is why in Revelation 19 when Jesus comes again, 21:54 21 minutes, 54 seconds He rides a horse. And the Bible says He comes to judge and to make war. But here He is, the Prince of Peace, 22:02 22 minutes, 2 seconds and He's offering terms of peace to them. 22:05 22 minutes, 5 seconds So the donkey represents the reliability of scripture 500 years before Zechariah predicted your King is coming to you on a donkey's colt. 22:19 22 minutes, 19 seconds OK, so this is John's rendition of this event. It is mentioned, as I said, four times in all four gospels. 22:27 22 minutes, 27 seconds This one of the few events of Jesus' life that all four gospel writers have recorded. I want you to go back one book to the gospel of Luke. 22:35 22 minutes, 35 seconds Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke Chapter 19. And that is because John records the event. 22:43 22 minutes, 43 seconds Luke records what Jesus said to them during this event, and it's important that you get this at this point. Luke Chapter 19. 22:51 22 minutes, 51 seconds Are you there, Luke 19? Look at Verse 41, Luke Chapter 19 Verse 41. 23:00 23 minutes "Now as He drew near, He saw the city of Jerusalem, 23:07 23 minutes, 7 seconds and He wept over it." 23:09 23 minutes, 9 seconds You know, we were just on the Mount of Olives a couple weeks ago, some of us, and before us was the city of Jerusalem. We weren't weeping over it. 23:16 23 minutes, 16 seconds We were smiling and taking pictures of it. But not Jesus. He comes and He sees it, and He starts crying. 23:23 23 minutes, 23 seconds He starts weeping out loud, saying Verse 42, 23:30 23 minutes, 30 seconds "If you had known, even you, especially," 23:35 23 minutes, 35 seconds watch this, "in this your day the things that make for your peace. 23:44 23 minutes, 44 seconds But now they are hidden from your eyes for the days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you, and close you 23:52 23 minutes, 52 seconds in on every side, and level you and your children within you to the ground. 23:58 23 minutes, 58 seconds And they will not leave in you one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation." 24:05 24 minutes, 5 seconds Jesus, get the scene, He's weeping over the city that He's seeing from the Mount of Olives. 24:09 24 minutes, 9 seconds He weeps over it, and He predicts their fall, their destruction. 24:14 24 minutes, 14 seconds Somebody's going to level this to the ground and destroy the city and the people in it. That happened, by the way, in 70AD. 24:21 24 minutes, 21 seconds Years later it happened. The Romans surrounded Jerusalem and leveled it to the ground. 24:26 24 minutes, 26 seconds And notice what Jesus said in Verse 44, "because you did not know the time of your visitation." 24:34 24 minutes, 34 seconds What on earth is He talking about? When he says, your day, , this is your day, Verse 42, 24:42 24 minutes, 42 seconds this is the time of your visitation. 24:44 24 minutes, 44 seconds What Jesus is referring to is a prediction made by their own prophet, the Jewish prophet, Daniel, 24:52 24 minutes, 52 seconds in Daniel Chapter 9 where Daniel gives in two verses an exact precise timetable for the coming of their Messiah. 25:04 25 minutes, 4 seconds Daniel Chapter 9 Verse 26 and 27, a heavenly messenger tells Daniel this from the going fourth of the commandment 25:15 25 minutes, 15 seconds to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, 25:21 25 minutes, 21 seconds will be 483 years. Then it says, and the Messiah will be killed, 25:29 25 minutes, 29 seconds will be cut off. It's a very odd but precise scripture. 25:34 25 minutes, 34 seconds From the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, will be 483 years, 25:40 25 minutes, 40 seconds and then the Messiah will be killed. 25:44 25 minutes, 44 seconds So that must mean that you would be able to count at whatever time the commandment was given to restore and build Jerusalem, you'd 25:52 25 minutes, 52 seconds be able to count 483 years and you should come to some event about the Messiah after which He would be killed. 26:00 26 minutes It's plain. 26:02 26 minutes, 2 seconds Well, several scholars have looked at this, including this brilliant criminal investigation guy, Sir Robert Anderson. 26:11 26 minutes, 11 seconds He was the head of Scotland Yard's criminal investigation. And he wrote a book on that prophecy called, The Coming Prince. 26:19 26 minutes, 19 seconds So he discovered that the date in history when a commandment was given to the Jews to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, after it had fallen, 26:30 26 minutes, 30 seconds was March 14, 445BC. On that date, Artaxerxes, the Persian monarch, Artaxerxes Longimanus, told the Jews, 26:39 26 minutes, 39 seconds go back and rebuild Jerusalem. Nehemiah and his buddies did that. 26:44 26 minutes, 44 seconds And then he decided, I'm going to count from March 14, 445BC 483 years and find out what date that is. 26:53 26 minutes, 53 seconds Not only that, but he did it in precise numbers in this book, The Coming Prince. 26:59 26 minutes, 59 seconds He took not the Julian calendar, our calendar is 365 and a third days per year. The old Babylonian/Jewish calendar has 360 days. 27:09 27 minutes, 9 seconds It's a lunar year, not a solar year. So he took years of 360 days, 483 of those years, 27:17 27 minutes, 17 seconds according to the prophecy, discovered that equals to 173,880 days. 27:26 27 minutes, 26 seconds Follow me so far? So he began at March 14, 445BC and counted 173,880 days, 27:35 27 minutes, 35 seconds and he decided now what day of the year was that on? 27:40 27 minutes, 40 seconds It happened to be April 6, 32AD, the 10th of the Jewish calendar 27:48 27 minutes, 48 seconds month of Nisan, the day when Jesus with his disciples comes to the Mount of Olives, and he goes, OK, boys, now wait a minute. 27:56 27 minutes, 56 seconds Don't go yet. There's a donkey next door. Bring that donkey to me. 28:01 28 minutes, 1 second And for the very first and only time Jesus presents himself as their King to the nation. 28:08 28 minutes, 8 seconds You see, up to this point, every time Jesus did some miracle that would have made Him famous, 28:16 28 minutes, 16 seconds you know what He told people? Shh, don't tell anybody. It's not the time yet. The time hasn't come yet. 28:23 28 minutes, 23 seconds It'll be revealed in the time, but not today. Don't tell anybody this. He kept telling people to keep it quiet. 28:29 28 minutes, 29 seconds But now, on this day, on this day He presents himself as their King according to the prophecy of Daniel, 28:36 28 minutes, 36 seconds according to the prophecy of Zechariah. He presents himself. Now the disciples didn't get it. 28:45 28 minutes, 45 seconds They didn't understand what is happening until after Jesus' Resurrection and ascension. Look at Verse 16. 28:52 28 minutes, 52 seconds His disciples did not understand these things at first, 28:56 28 minutes, 56 seconds but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him. And that they had done these things to Him. 29:05 29 minutes, 5 seconds You know what? 29:06 29 minutes, 6 seconds When I read that verse, it was one of the best verses I ever read. 29:09 29 minutes, 9 seconds I read this week and for the first time I started really understanding it. I felt the sigh of relief that the disciples, 29:16 29 minutes, 16 seconds Jesus' own disciples, didn't understand it at first. The reason I get encouraged, because I read the Bible a lot, 29:23 29 minutes, 23 seconds and I don't always get it. It's not until the second, or third, or 52nd time I read it, 29:30 29 minutes, 30 seconds I go, oh, now I get it. Now I see it, and now I see how precise and accurate it is. 29:41 29 minutes, 41 seconds So the disciples weren't getting it all yet. But they will later. 29:46 29 minutes, 46 seconds And they will discover just how reliable the scripture is, especially when you compare that to people's opinions. Yeah, everybody had an opinion as to who Jesus was. 29:55 29 minutes, 55 seconds But these disciples would go back and read the scriptures and see how reliable and accurate they are. 30:04 30 minutes, 4 seconds I appreciate people's opinions, but I don't always have a lot of patience for it. They'll listen and go, yeah, I know, 30:11 30 minutes, 11 seconds you're talking about the Bible this and the Bible that. You know but my opinion is. I don't really care what your opinion is. 30:18 30 minutes, 18 seconds When your opinion is as accurate and reliable as the scripture I'm quoting to you, then we can talk. 30:26 30 minutes, 26 seconds But if you want a source of confidence in your life, and if you want real security, listen, 30:32 30 minutes, 32 seconds real security comes when your life is governed by God's word, 30:37 30 minutes, 37 seconds not when it's governed by man's word, not when it's governed by people's opinions. Everybody's always worried about, what will they think of me? 30:45 30 minutes, 45 seconds Does this look good on me? 30:46 30 minutes, 46 seconds And how-- the real freedom and security comes when you realize my life is governed by God's word. 30:54 30 minutes, 54 seconds So Jesus is more appealing than religion. Scripture is more reliable than opinion. Let me close with a third. 31:02 31 minutes, 2 seconds Thank you five for appreciating that. 31:06 31 minutes, 6 seconds Let me give you a third, a final observation about this little donkey ride. Following is more important than inspection. 31:17 31 minutes, 17 seconds Following, following Jesus is more important than inspection or observation. 31:27 31 minutes, 27 seconds Now in this little paragraph we're considering, 31:31 31 minutes, 31 seconds there are four different groups of people that John mentions here who are there that day. 31:38 31 minutes, 38 seconds And he shows the response of these four groups of people. By the way, this is a peculiar hallmark of John's authorship. 31:45 31 minutes, 45 seconds Often in his book we find Jesus doing something or saying something, and then John records what the different people who are seeing and hearing around, 31:54 31 minutes, 54 seconds what their response was to it. He does that here for us. The first group are the disciples. They're mentioned in Verse 16. 32:01 32 minutes, 1 second These are the guys who've been following Jesus 3 and half years. They're really followers of His. They're learners. 32:09 32 minutes, 9 seconds Verse 16, "His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered." 32:15 32 minutes, 15 seconds The second group were the eyewitnesses who were there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. They're mentioned in Verse 17. 32:23 32 minutes, 23 seconds They saw the miracle with their own eyes. 32:26 32 minutes, 26 seconds "Therefore, the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness." 32:34 32 minutes, 34 seconds Bore witness means they saw it. They observed it. They inspected it. They're checking this out. 32:41 32 minutes, 41 seconds The third group of people are those who heard from the eyewitnesses who were there when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. 32:48 32 minutes, 48 seconds They weren't there themselves but they heard their testimony. That's Verse 18. 32:52 32 minutes, 52 seconds "For this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign." 32:59 32 minutes, 59 seconds And then the fourth group that is mentioned is in Verse 19. Those are the religious folks, the Pharisees. "Therefore, they said among themselves, 33:07 33 minutes, 7 seconds you see that you're accomplishing nothing. Look the world has gone after Him." 33:13 33 minutes, 13 seconds So four different groups of people, all four groups were observing the same event. 33:20 33 minutes, 20 seconds They were all inspecting the same event, 33:24 33 minutes, 24 seconds but there was only one group that was really following Jesus. Those were the disciples. 33:31 33 minutes, 31 seconds They didn't quite get what was happening that day. They will get it later on. 33:35 33 minutes, 35 seconds They're going to have a time of their faith being tried but that doesn't matter. They're going to keep following Jesus throughout the years. 33:43 33 minutes, 43 seconds Listen, it's good to observe. 33:46 33 minutes, 46 seconds I commend an observer, but your observations must lead to your conclusions. 33:56 33 minutes, 56 seconds And the conclusion of these disciples is that He's still worthy of following. You know, I know some people who love to study, study, study, read, read, read. 34:03 34 minutes, 3 seconds I'm one of them. I love to do it. I love to study. I love history. I love language. 34:08 34 minutes, 8 seconds But a lot of us love to study, study, study short of actually following the one we're studying about. 34:16 34 minutes, 16 seconds Oh, no, give me more charts, man, give me more in-time stuff. I want to know more stuff. 34:21 34 minutes, 21 seconds There comes a point when what you observe and inspect must be translated into what you do. 34:28 34 minutes, 28 seconds Will you follow? 34:31 34 minutes, 31 seconds So my question is how will you respond in the day of your visitation when God, through His Holy Spirit, by His word, 34:40 34 minutes, 40 seconds makes this day your day? Just like Jesus said to those people, this is your day. This is the time of your visitation. 34:46 34 minutes, 46 seconds So following is more important than inspection. 34:54 34 minutes, 54 seconds And then there's this donkey in the story. You know it's interesting, think about this. 35:00 35 minutes The donkey is the most compliant one in the entire story. 35:03 35 minutes, 3 seconds The other gospel accounts show us that this is an unbroken donkey on which never a man sat. 35:14 35 minutes, 14 seconds Jesus gets on this donkey, and this donkey compliantly leads Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. The donkey's the most compliant one in the story. 35:23 35 minutes, 23 seconds There's a great old poem years ago written by G. K. Chesterton. Some of you remember him. A great writer, scholar, poet. 35:33 35 minutes, 33 seconds G. K. Chesterton wrote a little poem called, The Donkey. 35:36 35 minutes, 36 seconds And it's about this donkey, as if-- he wrote it from the perspective as if the donkey understood what was happening. 35:46 35 minutes, 46 seconds It goes like this. When fishes flew, and forests walked, and figs grew upon a thorn, some moment when the moon was blood, 35:58 35 minutes, 58 seconds then surely I was born. With monstrous head and sickening cry, 36:04 36 minutes, 4 seconds and ears like errant wings, the devil's walking parity of all four-footed things. 36:11 36 minutes, 11 seconds The tattered outlaw of the earth of ancient crooked will, starve, scourge, deride me, I am dumb, 36:20 36 minutes, 20 seconds but I keep my secret still. Fools, for I also had my hour one far fierce hour and sweet, 36:31 36 minutes, 31 seconds there was a shout about my ears and palms before my feet. 36:35 36 minutes, 35 seconds Now, I don't think this donkey in the story really got that. 36:41 36 minutes, 41 seconds But can you imagine if that donkey could understand? On my back is the one fulfilling scripture. 36:49 36 minutes, 49 seconds He's fulfilling Zechariah 9:9. He's the guy spoken about in Zechariah 9:9, and I'm the donkey of Zechariah 9:9. 36:55 36 minutes, 55 seconds Let me ask you this question in closing. 37:03 37 minutes, 3 seconds The same God who engineered this donkey and engineered these exact dates that Jesus fulfilled, 37:13 37 minutes, 13 seconds do you think He can take care of your life, your struggles, your issues, your problems? 37:22 37 minutes, 22 seconds Do you think of all the people, all of the persons, all of the entities, all of the belief systems, 37:29 37 minutes, 29 seconds do you think that this God it's worthy of you surrendering your life to? I dare say, yes and amen, he is. 37:38 37 minutes, 38 seconds He can handle you, and He can change you, and this is the day of your visitation. But you know what? 37:45 37 minutes, 45 seconds There's no difference between us and the people of ancient Jerusalem. Some were disciples and some were not. Some just observed and listened and some did not. 37:53 37 minutes, 53 seconds And so we conclude, after having made the observations, 38:05 38 minutes, 5 seconds we are led to the inevitable conclusion, this God is worth following. Would you pray with me? 38:12 38 minutes, 12 seconds Father, on this welcome weekend, we 38:20 38 minutes, 20 seconds can't help but think how welcoming you were and are to whosoever will let Him come. 38:29 38 minutes, 29 seconds To come all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 38:35 38 minutes, 35 seconds And you will find rest for your souls. Lord, with such invitations from this gracious one, 38:45 38 minutes, 45 seconds we hear and some will respond. 38:51 38 minutes, 51 seconds I pray there we will all, whether we have been following you for years and years, and studied, and inspected, and observed will trust more. 39:00 39 minutes And for those who have never really personally trusted Jesus would do so for the first time. 39:06 39 minutes, 6 seconds With our heads bowed, I now want to give those of you who 39:15 39 minutes, 15 seconds have heard this an opportunity to personally come to the one that we're speaking about. 39:25 39 minutes, 25 seconds The one who gave such gracious promises. 39:27 39 minutes, 27 seconds Jesus said as many as received Him, 39:35 39 minutes, 35 seconds He would give them the power, the authority, the right to become His children. To those who would just believe in His name, 39:43 39 minutes, 43 seconds if you've come here and you come from a religious background, 39:50 39 minutes, 50 seconds come from a very scholastic an observant background, 39:58 39 minutes, 58 seconds from whatever background you come from, if you haven't yet personally surrendered your life to Jesus Christ I want to give you the opportunity to do so. 40:07 40 minutes, 7 seconds It's very simple. 40:09 40 minutes, 9 seconds Others of you have had some experience in the past with the Lord. You've wandered away from Him for whatever reasons, 40:19 40 minutes, 19 seconds but your heart is, well, it's aching. It's empty. 40:26 40 minutes, 26 seconds And you've actually wondered, could this be true? Could this happen? 40:31 40 minutes, 31 seconds Is this just another religious experience that preachers' tout, or is this God real, and is He alive, and can He change my life? 40:40 40 minutes, 40 seconds Well you'll never know unless you come, unless you ask. 40:46 40 minutes, 46 seconds And so I want to give you the opportunity to do that. 40:51 40 minutes, 51 seconds If you've never surrendered your life to Jesus personally, 40:57 40 minutes, 57 seconds or if you've wandered away from whatever religious experience you have, but you want to come to Him and surrender your life to Him, I'll give you that opportunity. 41:05 41 minutes, 5 seconds I want you to raise your hand up in the air. Just raise it, keep it up for just a few moments, so I can see and acknowledge you. God bless you, ma'am, right there in the middle. 41:14 41 minutes, 14 seconds Anyone else raise your hand up high. You're just saying, Skip, pray for me, here's my hand. God bless you, right in the front. Who else? 41:22 41 minutes, 22 seconds Right over there to my right. It begins just with that simple acknowledgement. Anybody else? God bless you in the very back. 41:30 41 minutes, 30 seconds Anyone in the family room, just raise your hand up. Or in the balcony, raise that hand up so I can see it. 41:38 41 minutes, 38 seconds Right up here. Sorry I missed you. 41:44 41 minutes, 44 seconds Right up here and to my left. 41:48 41 minutes, 48 seconds And there in the middle and the back in the middle toward the front. In the middle again. Right on the side, right in the middle. 41:56 41 minutes, 56 seconds In the back to my left. Couple of you, thank you, Lord. It's a simple acknowledgement. 42:03 42 minutes, 3 seconds I need God, I need forgiveness. I want to go to heaven. Life isn't what I thought it would be up to this point. There's got to be something more. 42:11 42 minutes, 11 seconds I want to surrender my life to Him. Anyone else, raise your hand up. Anyone else? 42:16 42 minutes, 16 seconds Right up here in the middle toward the front. 42:23 42 minutes, 23 seconds Thank you, Father, for a number of lives that have made this indication. Lord, we pray for them. 42:31 42 minutes, 31 seconds We're so thankful for them. 42:33 42 minutes, 33 seconds We want to celebrate this, because this decision is more than just any choice. It is the choice. 42:41 42 minutes, 41 seconds And You have given us opportunity just like You gave people back then opportunity. 42:47 42 minutes, 47 seconds Lord, I pray for a peace, a joy that transcends even human experience, something that is felt in the very depths of their being, 42:57 42 minutes, 57 seconds their soul where there's a freedom as the burden, 43:04 43 minutes, 4 seconds the guilt is alleviated because of what Jesus has done for them. 43:11 43 minutes, 11 seconds Now do through them great things, we ask in His name, Amen. Would you stand up, please, to your feet? We're going to sing a song, close with a song. 43:20 43 minutes, 20 seconds If you raised your hand, and I saw a number of hands around this auditorium. You know, when Jesus called people, He often called them publicly. 43:28 43 minutes, 28 seconds And we believe it's going to do you a world of good when you have us cheering for you as you make this decision. I'm going to lead you in a prayer. 43:36 43 minutes, 36 seconds As we sing this song, I'm going to ask those of you who raised your hand to come right up to the front. Stand right up here. I'm going to lead you in a simple prayer to receive Jesus, 43:43 43 minutes, 43 seconds and then you can go back with your friends and family as we close. But just come right up here as we sing. Right up to the front. 43:50 43 minutes, 50 seconds Maybe a counselor could show us how it's supposed to get done. Just come and stand right up here. 43:55 43 minutes, 55 seconds [SINGING] 43:57 43 minutes, 57 seconds That's right. 43:58 43 minutes, 58 seconds [SINGING] 44:00 44 minutes 44:40 44 minutes, 40 seconds If you're in the family room, there's a door right up to the front on your right. If you raise your hand-- you know what? 44:48 44 minutes, 48 seconds Even if you didn't raise your hand, but you know, I need to be up here. I need a new start. 44:56 44 minutes, 56 seconds I need to know that when I die I'm going to heaven. I need to know that. Whether you're in the family room, or balcony, or in the main house, 45:04 45 minutes, 4 seconds or outside, or in the overflow, a pastor will walk you over. You come and stand right up here. 45:11 45 minutes, 11 seconds Listen, listen, let go of this. Let go of this. These days are over. 45:17 45 minutes, 17 seconds There's a whole new way of living here. So let go of the old and let God give you a brand new life. 45:26 45 minutes, 26 seconds Anybody else? Don't just observe today, come and follow Jesus. Come and follow Him. 45:35 45 minutes, 35 seconds Be a follower, be a disciple, stand up and be counted for Jesus Christ. 45:41 45 minutes, 41 seconds We'll sing it through one more time, give you that opportunity to come.

II Kings 5:1-14 What kinds of things can you accomplish with power and prestige? Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in the view of his master, and eminent, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but afflicted with leprosy. Now the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.” And Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “The girl who is from the land of Israel spoke such and such.” Then the king of Aram said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, “And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” But when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to keep alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me.” Now it happened, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why did you tear your clothes? Just have him come to me, and he shall learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and stood at the doorway of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you, and you will be clean.” But Naaman was furious and went away, and he said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will certainly come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the site and cure the leprosy.’ Are Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, not better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. Then his servants approached and spoke to him, saying, “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, in accordance with the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. What kinds of things can you accomplish with low standing and humility? BACKGROUND At first, when examining the passage, I was drawn to two things: Naaman’s leprosy and its miraculous healing. But the more I dug into the text, the more I realized that these were just settings for the real theme of this passage. It is a contrast of the humble with pride, power, and prestige. Consider the major players in the text. There is Naaman, a powerful general in Aram’s army with the appreciation of his king. There is King Ben-hadad of Aram, a powerful and wealthy figure. There is King Jehoram of Israel. And there is money, a lot of it, offered by Ben-hadad to Jehoram, as we will see. In contrast, there is a little servant girl, really, a slave of Naaman’s wife. A person on the lowest rung of society’s ladder. She’s a girl. Girls were not highly prized. She was foreign. She was a slave. She had everything against her. Yet, a few simple words from her changed the course of Naaman’s life. Then there are Naaman’s servants with him on the trip to Israel to see Elisha. They are servants, not military commanders or people of power. Yet, their words, like the little girl’s, carried great weight. Naaman was a man of pride, power, and prestige. Yet, none of these things could bring him a solution to his condition of leprosy. Leprosy was a term used to cover a variety of skin diseases. In the worst cases, leprosy could mean exile from the community. Naaman’s leprosy was not that bad, though it was a problem. It was a mark of his identity. Leprosy, in the Bible, is a type for sin. Just as nothing could cure leprosy, so too, nothing human can cure our sin. Naaman’s life is a picture of our life without a miraculous solution for our sin. Our solution doesn’t come through pride, power, or prestige, but through the humility of one man, Jesus Christ. Likewise, Naaman’s solution to his problem didn’t come through pride, power, or prestige. But through the humility of a little girl and a few servants. EXAMINATION (V.1) Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in the view of his master, and eminent, because by him the LORD had given victory to Aram. The man was also a valiant warrior, but afflicted with leprosy. Aram is associated with the territory of modern-day Syria. Aram had a complicated relationship with the northern kingdom of Israel, sometimes an ally and sometimes a foe. The relationship was an uneasy one. Notice the text said the Lord had given victory to Aram. Israel had been committing idol worship, a violation of the covenant, which God punished by giving victory sometimes to Israel’s enemies. Naaman’s leprosy was probably restricted to a small part of his body as he was able to carry out his duties as commander of Aram’s army. Verse 11 indicates the leprosy may have been restricted to a spot that one could wave a hand over. So, it was not debilitating. His digits and limbs were not in danger of falling off. The important thing to note here is that the text says that Naaman was “a great man in the view of his master and eminent.” Here we begin to see the beginnings of Naaman’s pride, power, and prestige. (V.2-3) Now the Arameans had gone out in bands and had taken captive a little girl from the land of Israel; and she waited on Naaman’s wife. And she said to her mistress, “If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! Then he would cure him of his leprosy.” WHAT KIND OF SOCIAL STANDING DOES A SLAVE GIRL HAVE? Notice the contrast to Naaman. “She is an Israelite, he is an Aramean; she is a ‘little maiden,’ he a ‘great man;’ she is a captive servant, he a commander; he has fame in the king’s estimation, … she has none, for she simply ‘waited upon’ … Naaman’s wife.” [1] God used a caring comment from the most humble of girls to initiate something great. (V.4-5) Naaman went in and told his master, saying, “The girl who is from the land of Israel spoke such and such.” Then the king of Aram said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothes. In ancient times, people believed in healing through magic arts. This was no less true in the Ancient Near East. Hearing of a prophet who could cure leprosy was taken seriously. Upon seeking permission to go to Israel to seek healing, King Ben-hadad assists Naaman with a letter to King Jehoram of Israel. Letters like this between kings were a common form of communication between kingdoms. To show the seriousness of the request, Ben-hadad sends a gift of ten talents of silver and six thousand shekels of gold. In today’s money, this is $383,000 in silver and $7.2 million in gold. Here we see the prestige that comes with great wealth. The king of Aram has great wealth, and he gives it to Naaman to use for his healing. (V.6-7) He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which said, “And now as this letter comes to you, behold, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” But when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to keep alive, that this man is sending word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? But consider now, and see how he is seeking a quarrel against me.” DO YOU THINK THAT KING JEHORAM OF ISRAEL IS CORRECT HERE? WAS BEN-HADAD LOOKING FOR AN OPPORTUNITY TO ATTACK ISRAEL? WAS HE USING NAAMAN FOR HIS OWN PURPOSES? At first thought we might agree with Jehoram that Ben-hadad is seeking an opportunity against Israel. But the size of the gift that Ben-hadad sent through Naaman would argue otherwise. Ben-hadad highly valued Naaman, as testified by the large gift he sent for his healing. We might be tempted to say that King Ben-hadad was using Naaman as an excuse to pick a fight with Israel. But we learned from the first verse that that is not the case. Because King Ben-hadad had high regard for Naaman. (V.8) Now it happened, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why did you tear your clothes? Just have him come to me, and he shall learn that there is a prophet in Israel.” In one sense, we might say that Elisha is using pride and prestige by declaring that he is the prophet in Israel. But that’s not really what is happening. Saying that “he shall learn that there is a prophet in Israel,” is the same as saying, “there is a God in Israel.” (V.9-10) So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots, and stood at the doorway of Elisha’s house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you, and you will be clean.” Notice Elisha’s response. Here was a king’s envoy with a large number of horses, soldiers, and chariots, and Elisha did not even come out to meet him. Rather, he sends a servant to relay the message on how to be healed. In one sense, this is insulting. On the other hand, it is humble. Elisha is not seeking payment or status. He simply declares what is to be done. He performs a miracle by proxy. We should not forget that in these ancient times, the culture was primarily driven by a shame-honor dynamic. In one sense, Elisha is shaming Naaman. He is humbling him. He is letting it be known that his pride, power, and prestige will amount to nothing when it comes to the things of God. And notice how Naaman responds. (V.11-12) Naaman was furious and went away, and he said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will certainly come out to me, and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the site and cure the leprosy.’ Are Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, not better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. There is a touch of pride in Naaman’s response. He is proud because Elisha offended him by sending a servant to relay the message rather than coming out himself. And he demonstrates his pride in his own country over Israel. If he had maintained his pride, he never would have been healed. (V.13-14) Then his servants approached and spoke to him, saying, “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, in accordance with the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Just like his humble servant girl, Naaman’s servants urge him to obey the prophet’s instructions. What made the difference in Naaman’s life was not the high and mighty. It wasn’t the two kings or the millions of dollars in gifts, or even his status and power as the commander of Aram’s army. It was the words of a little girl and a few servants. Humble circumstances and simple obedience is what made the difference in Naaman’s life. We’ll examine the second half of this story in our next lesson. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? Naaman was a man of great power and influence. Word of a solution to Naaman’s leprosy came through humble circumstances—a little girl. A king’s letter and millions in gifts had no impact on Naaman’s healing. Simple, humble obedience to a humble instruction brought about Naaman’s healing. INTERPRETATION What is the author’s big idea? God uses humble circumstances and people to accomplish great things. Consider our greatest example of humility, Jesus. He was born into a poor family. Worked as a carpenter, a common laborer. When he ministered, he had no home. His disciples were people on the lower end of the scale of society. He had no horse or donkey; he walked wherever he went. He was dependent on the gifts of others to make his living and provide for his disciples. Yet, this most humble man led the most extraordinary life, teaching thousands, healing disease, and raising the dead. What made the difference in Naaman’s life was simple humility and obedience. He was expecting magic, a show of talent or power. He was equipped with the gifts of kings. But none of that mattered. Salvation cannot be bought with money or influence. Just as Elisha’s miracle of healing was free, so is our salvation. Jesus offered what he offered at no cost. He even told his disciples, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). Remember that leprosy is a type for sin in the Bible. Just as Naaman’s leprosy could not be cured by anything but a miracle, so too, our sin cannot be cured by anything but a miracle. That miracle was the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. APPLICATION Great success cannot cure the deepest human problem. Naaman was powerful, wealthy, respected, and successful, yet he still suffered from leprosy. The passage reminds us that status, money, and achievement cannot solve the deeper problems of sin, brokenness, mortality, or spiritual need. Every person ultimately needs God’s grace. God often works through humble and unexpected people. The turning point in the story comes through a young servant girl taken captive from Israel. God used someone overlooked and powerless to point Naaman toward healing. We should never underestimate how God can use ordinary believers, children, servants, or people with little public influence to accomplish His purposes. Pride can keep people from receiving God’s blessing. Naaman almost walked away angry because Elisha’s instructions seemed too simple and humiliating. He expected something dramatic and prestigious. Often, people resist God because His way requires humility, repentance, and surrender rather than self-importance. Obedience to God matters even when we do not fully understand. Washing seven times in the Jordan River did not appear logical or impressive, yet Naaman was healed only when he obeyed. God sometimes asks believers to trust Him before they fully understand His methods. Faith is demonstrated through obedience. God’s grace is available to all people. Naaman was not an Israelite; he was a foreign military commander from Aram. Yet God showed mercy to him. This points to the broader truth that God’s salvation is not limited by nationality, ethnicity, background, or social standing. God welcomes all who come to Him in faith and humility. —– [1] House, Paul R. 1995. 1, 2 Kings. Vol. 8. The New American Commentary. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Why Did Jesus Live? The Why’s of Easter Greg Lavine and John Beeson You've all been a part of conversations like this where someone is super excited about what they're talking about and you have little to no interest whatsoever in what they're talking about. And so you kind of politely listen, but you're looking for a way out of the conversation. Essentially, this happens to me with John, especially this time of year. He starts to talk about this archaic type of sport that used to be popular way back when, in the days of horse racing and boxing and baseball. Those are the top three sports in the country. And he gets going on baseball. And I just like, yeah, yeah, I'm not opposed to baseball. There are so many games, none of them really matter. When they start to matter, when they start to matter in October, if the Diamondbacks are in it, I get interested. I play along with the pennant race. Understanding some terms, do you, Greg? Yes, a little bit. I'm thinking more like, hey, the draft is here for college battle. There's lots of exciting things than baseball. That's sometimes how people in the world can look at Christians. So Christians can. Can go out and be sharing Jesus with friends. And it's very possible to sit back as Christians share, especially on how they might share, but they're sharing about Jesus, and you'll be thinking to yourself, like, okay, what difference does it make a guy who lived 2,000 years ago, like, what difference does that make to me? As Christians go on and on. We're walking through a series as we gaze towards Easter just two weeks from now, consider, what does the life of Jesus have for us? What does the death of Jesus have for us? And what does the resurrection of Jesus have for us? Why do those things matter? And I would suggest to you that the life of Jesus has invitations to us that are powerful and beautiful. And that's true if we're a Christian. That's true if we're not a Christian. If we're not a Christian and, and we're hearing that, listen, Jesus is not just an idea, it's not just a myth. He is a human being who lived 2,000 years ago. And consider this from Scripture. Jesus is 100% man, a human being, and 100% God. So when we say that the life of Jesus is everything like Jesus, Jesus is the foundation of everything that, that we do if we're ever a part of a church. And Jesus isn't the center of everything, like, that's. That's not Christianity. There's a reason Christianity is called Christianity. There's a reason we are called Christians or Christians. We are followers of Jesus. We seek to glorify Jesus. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus is the One we want to exalt. He is the center of absolutely everything. He's God and he's man. Consider these words out of the Gospel of John, first chapter. He says, the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know Him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive Him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth from eternity past. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had perfect harmony, perfect unity, perfect love, as the Father exalted the Son and the Son exalted the Father, and the Holy Spirit lifted up both. There's affirmation and approval and encouragement pouring from one to another in absolute perfection. And then the Father sent His Son to this world. And in that moment, God did not change, but he added to himself humanity. God had never been a human. God in Jesus Christ became a human being. He set aside attributes of his deity in order to become a human being and live amongst us. And I would suggest to you that as we gaze into the life of Jesus as God and as man, there are invitations in him for all of us. And as we look towards Easter, may it be that we walk in these invitations. So we have two weeks till Easter. We want to spend these three Sundays, as we step into that, answering these questions, the whys of Easter. Why does Jesus life matter for me? For you? Why does his death matter? That's next week and on Easter Sunday, why does it matter that he rose again? And you've already heard Greg beginning to open this up for us, that the whys of why did Jesus live for us come from the heart of God reaching out to connect with us. And the first of four invitations that we're going to receive is this. The first invitation is jesus invites us into being human. Jesus life invites us into being human. You heard Greg share that Jesus retained full divinity. He's fully God, but also fully man. And I think sometimes we tend to diminish that. We shrink the fullness of his humanity. Now Jesus was fully human. He got hungry, he got tired. He navigated difficult relationships he had to forgive. Jesus was fully, fully human. I want to take us over to Philippians 2 where we see the fullness of his humanity on display in his humility and his obedience. Listen to what Paul says in Philippians 2. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Jesus. Life is a life of navigating humanity, the fullness of what it is to be a human being. Jesus lost, lost friends. He grieved that loss. Jesus sought God the Father's will in prayer. He reached out. He asked God what he was supposed to do. We see this as he's preparing to choose the disciples. Over in Luke 6 we see him seeking God the Father in prayer. In these days he went out to the mountain to pray. And all night he continued in prayer to God and. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose them from the twelve whom he named his apostles. Jesus. Jesus navigates these challenging places. Have you ever had to seek the will of God? What do you want from me? Jesus sought the will of God. I think for many of us, we think of Jesus life as though he had some sort of extra superpowers that are not locked, that are unlocked or locked to us. He had unlocked to him. I think of. So when I was. I was born two years after the first Star wars came out. So Star wars was a big part of my childhood. I remember we had our next door neighbor. He was the one with all the toys. He had all the cool toys. Okay. So I remember one morning, he's like, john, John, I got real lightsabers. And I'm like, really real lightsabers. Come on over. Come on over after school we'll play with my lightsabers. I was like, well, I can't think about anything else today except for the real lightsabers I'm going to play with after school. So I'm locked in real lightsabers. I'm imagining the duels we're going to have, you know, the danger we will be in as we weld these instruments. You know, mesquite trees will chop down, you know. And then I go and I see the real lightsabers and they're. Well, they're just not real, unfortunately. They're plastic. They make that Whooshing noise and they light up. I'm like, yeah. I think for a lot of us, we think that God gives us the plastic lightsaber and Jesus has the real lightsaber. He. I mean, yeah, it's Jesus, okay? Of course he forgives people. It's Jesus. Of course he has compassion on difficult people. It's Jesus. No, Jesus was fully human. He was even tempted as we are, tempted as we are. We're going to read a passage. We're going to come back to it, actually, two different times over the course of the sermon. I want to read the beginning. This is in Hebrews 4. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are. Did you catch the wildness of that? I don't know what your heart struggles with as it comes to sin. Lust, greed, anger, anxiousness. I don't know what that struggle is. But the author of Hebrews says he was tempted in every respect. He has felt those temptations. He has navigated through that place. And Jesus shows us what it is to be a human being. Image that I have of Jesus is of a baby inside of his or her mother's womb, connected to mom with umbilical cord. That Jesus in life was connected to the Father so that he would hear the Father speak before he spoke, that he would hear the Father direct him before he moved. The reason he went out in prayer so often was to be connected to the Father in all things. And that same dependency is given to us. Jesus was a human being. In the first invitation, he invites us in to humanity. The second invitation, though, is the opposite side of that is that he invites us into godliness. Consider that verse that we just read in Hebrews chapter four. It says, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Yet without sin. In other words, Jesus Christ was tempted in every way, just as we are. But he never crossed the line into sin. His anger never crossed the line into sin. His desires, his passions never crossed the line into sin. He wanted things that were opposed to God. At times you look at his prayer in the garden, Father, not my will, but yours be done. In other words, God, I don't want to die on the cross. I don't want to die on the cross. Yet not my will, but yours be done. He lived out his life without sin, not crossing the line. Once in utter purity. And he invites us into that same thing. There's three things that happen in the life of Christ in our life. One is we can have our sins washed away. The other is that he gives us his righteousness. He takes his righteousness and he puts it inside of us. So he washes our sins away. Then he gives us his righteousness. But the third thing, he gives us supernatural power to live victorious, godly lives. Listen to just a few verses. We see these playing it out In Matthew chapter five, Jesus is teaching. He says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. In other words, he obeyed the law because we could not. He obeyed the law in utter perfection we never could have. He obeyed in our place. He fulfills the law for us. He takes away our sin and he gives us his righteousness. Consider these words out of Romans, chapter 5. I'm beginning in verse 18. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, that's Adam's sin. As one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. He takes away our sin and he gives us his righteous. He credits it to us. The old King James I love. He imputed. He imputed his righteousness inside of us. But it doesn't stop there. It's not just that he takes away our sin. It's not just that he gives us his righteousness. Then he gives us supernatural power to actually become righteous, to live out victorious, godly, righteous lives. In the book of 2 Corinthians, in chapter 5, verse 21, we read these words. For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. For our sake, he, the Father, made him to be sin. Jesus, who knew no sin. Jesus was sinless, but God the Father made Jesus sin so that in him we might become righteousness of God. Our sin is washed away. His righteousness is credited to us. It's put inside of us. And then we are given supernatural power to live godly, victorious lives. I have been a little bit haunted recently with a command in Scripture. Husbands, love your wives as Christ does the church. I gaze into the beauty of that command and I think, what chance do I have? As Christ loved the church, on her worst day, on the church's worst day, Jesus loved her in the most deepest way possible. She's spitting on him, abandoning him, correcting him, looking up, oh, Jesus, if you're so special, why don't you come down from there? I've sometimes thought, I know I'm not Jesus. If I was somehow Jesus on the cross, and I had the armies of the Host of Heaven behind me, and some snot nosed little earthlings were looking up at me, saying, whoa, if you're so special, why don't you come down from there? He was saying, father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. So I think, what chance do I have of loving my wife like he loved? It's so pure. It's so beautiful. It's so incredible. I feel a million miles from it. But here's. Here's a thought. I'm not going to raise my hand, say, hey, I got this down. Deborah's right over here. You can check. I don't. But by the grace of God, I'm better at it today than I was 10 years ago. God gives us supernatural power to not only have it be some kind of external thing where our sin is washed away and he gives us his righteousness, but he actually changes us. He molds us. I put the toilet down by myself and everything now. Well, not everything, but that. I got that down most of the time. So if you've ever. If you've ever thought I'm not worthy or I can't measure up, remember, in the life of Jesus not only takes away your sin and gives us his righteousness, he has supernatural power for you today that can help you live in victory today more than you did yesterday. Jesus invites us into being human. Jesus invites us into godliness. Jesus is our invitation into the kingdom of God. I don't know. It really doesn't matter your political affiliation or leanings. Every single one of us has been disappointed in our life by human kingdoms, by human political parties, by human political leaders. But the kingdom of God never, never disappoints. Jesus Christ comes as the king of that kingdom, and he invites us. He doesn't just come to show us individually how to be human beings. He doesn't just come to give us an example individually and the power to walk into godliness. He calls us collectively from every tribe and tongue and nation into a new kingdom where he is the King. And he says, you collectively get to demonstrate a new way to live. You're the light to this world. You get to step into a new path New path of healing. Jesus steps in with the power of the king of that kingdom, demonstrating the power of the kingdom in miracles, undoing what was broken in this world, stepping into that world with teachings. Jesus doesn't just drop down on earth and head straight to the cross. He gives us a lifetime of demonstration of what this kingdom looks like. And then he explains it to us. He teaches us his word, explains that to us. How to live, how to love, how to walk in his way. I want to take us to a passage over in Luke 4. It's his first sermon. It's in his hometown. He's in the synagogue. He's going to unroll the scroll of Isaiah and he's going to read from that scroll. And then he's going to sit down and he's going to preach the shortest, most audacious sermon you've ever heard. Here's In Luke 4, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. He's reading from Isaiah because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. That little word, good news, by the way, if you ever heard the word gospel, that's what we're talking about, the good news. The good news. Now, the life of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. I've come to undo everything that was wrong. And he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back to the attendant. And he sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Whoa. You have been waiting generation after generation for the true king to come. It's me, Jesus says, and the spirit of the Lord is upon me and I am the good news. I am the in breaking of the kingdom that's going to liberate captives, that's going to undo the brokenness of this world. Come, follow me. Jesus is the invitation into that kingdom. He calls us collectively on his mission for undoing everything that is wrong in this world. So I'm old enough. If you know the movie Parent Trap, there's the old version and then there's the old old version. I'm old enough to know the old old version as well as the old version. You know, it's been around for a while. Here's the parent trap in a nutshell. If you don't know the parent trap, Parent trap. Two twins Separated at birth, one lives with mom, one lives with dad. They meet up at a summer camp and two cool things happen. Both reflect the gospel. One is that in meeting each other, they both begin to understand more deeply who they are. So it is with Jesus, when we meet our brother, Jesus Christ, we more deeply understand who we are. When we are separated from him, are reconnected to him, we understand ourselves. But it's not just that. They are then set on a mission. Mission to put mom and dad together, to reconcile what was wrong. And so too, we are set on a mission to reconcile, to make right what is wrong in this world. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus said. You are the light of the world. The city on a hill cannot be hidden. You are a reflection collectively as the people of God. To demonstrate my heart in this world, have you seen evidences of Jesus kingdom at work? In this world, have you seen two people that had no business ever reconciling who knew Jesus reconcile? Have you ever seen someone, through the power of Jesus in their life, break an addiction that was leading them into destruction? You've seen the kingdom at work, healing at work, the power of Jesus alive. Because Jesus is our invitation into the kingdom of God. Jesus invites us into humanity. Jesus invites us into godliness. Jesus invites us into kingdom. If you forget everything else this morning, I hope you hear this last invitation. Jesus invites us into relationship with God. The most foundational invitation he offers us. Jesus was teaching his disciples, and in this teaching he shares that he is the truth and the life and the way. Because he says that he is the way. The disciples start to ask him questions. Philip pulls him aside like, hey, show us the Father. Could you show us the Father? And when Philip asked this question, Jesus goes, you don't get it yet. You don't. You don't get it yet. And this is Jesus response to him. John 14, verse 9. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show me the Father? It's a truth we see spill out in the Gospel of John. Especially if you see Jesus, you see the Father. If you hear Jesus, you hear the Father. If you reject Jesus, you reject the Father. If you believe in Jesus, you believe in the Father. If you accept Jesus, you accept the Father. This invitation Jesus gives us. Remember the picture I tried to paint earlier of this perfect, beautiful unity from eternity past of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with a love and affirmation just flowing between them from One to another, Jesus invites us into that, that the love from the Father to the Son, through the Spirit into us back to the Father, that we would be in that place, invited into relationship with God. We're not invited into a set of doctrines, we're not invited into a religion. We're invited into relationship with God, a part of his family. A very striking moment or memory in my life goes back to college. So the senior pastor of the church I was going to in college had been there like 30 years. He had a son who was about 10 years older than I was that discipled me for a couple of years in college and I found myself at their house a fair bit and I was at their house one time and I don't know what. So the senior pastor, they both had the same name as Charles, but it was one went by Charlie. And then Chuck was the son, but Charlie Sr. Was in the room and we were visiting together. And Chuck, Charlie Jr. He must have ate something spicy. I don't know what happened. He was just very proud and disrespectful towards his dad. And not only disrespectful towards his dad, but he started to kind of puff out his chest with Bible knowledge, you know, trying to like, well, I know what this verse means. You don't even know that dad. And I'm like just kind of watching it. And at one point dad grabbed his son's Bible and chucked it across the floor. Dammit Chuck, you don't need more Bible knowledge in your life. You need relationship with Jesus. Now he loved the word of God as much as any human being that I've ever known. So he meant no disrespect to Scripture. The Bible though was not written for us to gain knowledge. If that was its purpose. You know, you could be a history professor at a university and teach the Bible without knowing Jesus. This was not given to us for doctrine's sake. It was not given to us for religion's sake. This was given to us that we might meet and know God in it, that we would taste and see the Lord in its pages. So all he meant was you need to set down your pursuit for knowledge. It's obviously puffing you up. Sit and rest with God in relationship with him. I was big eyed and soaking it in, but it's a truth. I remember to this day. The main invitation, the life of Jesus is relationship with God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit invites us in past religion, past knowledge, past doctrine, past all of those things, he invites us in to relationship with himself. I Hope you've heard that throughout this sermon. Jesus is not a force. He's not an idea. He's a person. Person with an invitation to each and every one of us. And if you don't know where you are with Jesus today, as you hear this, you're like, yeah, I've had respect for Jesus and he's been a nice person to learn from. From there. I want you to hear an invitation for you to put your trust in him today. Repent of your own paths of spirituality that have tried to establish your own way to go, to repent of your own kingdom, to repent of trying to create godliness, good deeds on your own, and receive the gift that Jesus has for you today. We would love. We'd love to talk to you right up front here after the service, our prayer team will be here, and we'd love to talk to you. If you're online, our online team would love to talk to you. I want to take us back to that passage in Hebrews. I want to land there with a call to all of us. Here's the passage, and read one final verse in it. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Okay, so what, what do we do? Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Every one of us. I want us to hear this invitation. These two weeks leading up to Easter, would these be weeks that you hear this call of Jesus saying, come, spend time with me. Spend time with me. I'm not a dusty historical figure out there. I am the Son of God who wants a relationship with you. Spend time with me. Okay. Okay. What does that mean? What does it mean to spend time with Jesus? Let me give you two footholds for that first time in his word, God has given us His Word, as Greg shared, to share his heart with us so that we can know him better. Over these two weeks, I'd invite you to pick up a Gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, and to spend time getting to know the heart of Jesus, to read. Not just to try to speed read through, but to read and. And reflect and react and to listen. God, what do you have for me? What are you showing me about your heart as I read the text? Second, spend time in prayer with God. Prayer is a conversation that God invites us in to meet him, to commune with him, to connect with him. He says come, come. I'm. I want to hear what's on your heart. Share with me what you're wrestling with, what you're struggling with. And then I want to tell you what's on my heart. So listen. Listen and receive. Listen again to that call. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Jesus life matters to every single one of us and he invites us to come and be with him. Let me pray. Lord, we are so grateful for your kingdom. We're so grateful, Lord, for the ministry of your life, Lord, that in your life we can see what it is to really be a human being. We can be invited into godliness, into following your path. We can. We can walk into your kingdom together as a community and God, that we can see the very face of God. Thank you, Jesus, for your life. We want to live more like you and we want to be like you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Why Did Jesus Have to Die? The Whys of Easter Greg Lavine and Dustin DeJong So diving into God's word, we're. We're focusing on Jesus. I know that sounds strange for a church to do. No, we're, we're leading up to Easter by specifically focusing on Jesus and asking, asking some why questions of why Jesus had to live, why Jesus had to die, and why Jesus had to rise from the dead. And I joke with focusing on Jesus. If you're ever a part of a church that does not focus on Jesus, find one. Because Jesus is everything. He is not only the way by which we are saved. It is his name that caused demons to shudder. It is his name that sets us free and forgives our sin. And so we're focusing on Jesus. And this morning we're considering why did Jesus have to die? And that can be an odd question. Death is kind of a gloomy, cold subject. In fact, we don't like to use the word die. Even if a loved one or family member dies, we don't say it. We say they passed away, they fell asleep. I like to say they graduated to glory if they knew the Lord. We don't like to say the word die. We avoid it at all costs. So why would we spend a week fixed on the question, why did Jesus have to die? And I would propose to you that it is enormously important. In fact, what we're going to do this morning is go through a top 10 list of reasons why Jesus had to die. And as we go through, there are truths in every single one. But I want you thinking, even as we go through all of these profound truths, there is one reason that I believe biblically rises higher than all the others. It is, it is the most right answer to the question, why did Jesus have to die? And we'll save that for number one. So I'm going to jump right in with the 10th reason. What's a reason that Jesus had to die? And I would say to fulfill everything that came before. To fulfill everything that came before. The shadows all through history were pointing to Jesus and even specifically his death. When Abraham took Isaac up out Mount Moriah in, in Jerusalem, that was a symbol and a picture that pointed to Jesus when, when Moses and the Israelites painted their door with the lamb that was slain for Passover. So they would sacrifice a lamb, they would take the blood, they would put it on their doorframe. And because of that, the angel of death would pass over their homes because of the blood of lamb. The blood of the lamb pointed to Jesus. The day of atonement, Yom Kippur, the most holy day of all of the Old Testament, it points to Jesus. The entire sacrificial system is pointing to Jesus. So I want to read just one passage. This is in the Psalm, Psalm 22, and it's David in the midst of suffering, and he's crying out to God and listen to the words that he writes. Psalm 22, verse 1 and 2. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. If you've been in church for very long, you might recognize those words as words that Jesus spoke on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And so I would suggest that even King David and his suffering, it's pointing to Jesus dying on a cross. Everything that came before points to Jesus paying the price on the cross. Why did Jesus have to die to fulfill everything that came before? Number nine. Why did Jesus have to die? He had to die to be fully human. I mean, think about your own human experience, something that we all go through. Jesus entered into that Last week. Pastors John and Greg were preaching and they shared out of Hebrews chapter four that we do not have a high priest in Jesus who cannot sympathize with our weakness. No, no. Jesus in every way experienced the human condition, and yet he was without sin. Jesus experienced triumph and loss. He experienced great glorious joy, and he experienced loss as well. These are all experiences that you and I share as well. Jesus came as both fully God and fully man. And in being fully man, he experienced everything that we experience. Read these words out of Hebrews, chapter 2, verses 14 and 15. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, that is Jesus, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death, were subject to lifelong slavery. Jesus himself partook. Of all the things that we experience in humanity, Jesus ultimately experienced death as well. Something that we are all promised to experience. Something that even though we know it's coming, still brings great, great hardship to us. Just a few weeks ago, I went and did a hospital call. I got a phone call in the afternoon, and they had requested that a pastor come out to do a visit. So I came out almost immediately. And as I walk into the hospital room, this lady was in her mid-80s. She, she coded like right as I was walking into the room. And her family was Just devastated. I mean, this, this is a lady who loved the Lord, who lived a great life. She was, you know, she was in her mid-80s. She. She was content with where she was at. She was content to go home to heaven. And yet her family was still experiencing the sting of death. They knew that she had hope in Jesus, and yet they still, they, they. They were still devastated. Death is all of our experience. It's all of our destiny. And Jesus being fully God and fully man, he didn't avoid death either. He stared death in the face and he defeated it. Death had power. And Jesus says, no longer will death have power. We just sang these words a few minutes ago that death once had a sting, that it once held power over us. And yet through Jesus life, through his humanity, he proved that death is not the end of the story. And so why did Jesus have to die to fully experience what it means to be human? Why did Jesus have to die to fulfill everything that came before to be fully human? A third reason. Number eight. To show us the cost of our own sin. To show us the cost of our own sin. As human beings, we constantly diminish the holiness of God and we constantly overestimate our righteousness. Consider the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. All of the blood. Sometimes I get asked, why the blood? Why the sacrifices in the Old Testament? When we ask that question, we acknowledge that we don't understand the significance of the gap between our sin and God's holiness and the stench and the vile offensive nature of who we are in our selfishness to a holy and pure God. Consider these words in Leviticus 4. So there are five offerings in the book of Leviticus. One of those five is the sin offering. These are a few words describing the sin offering. Beginning in verse four, he shall bring. Talking about the priest. He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. And the anointed priest shall take some of the blood of the bull and bring it into the tent of meeting. And the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle part of the blood seven times before the Lord in front of the veil of the sanctuary. And the priest shall put some of the blood on the horns of the altar of fragrant incense before the Lord that is in the tent of meeting. And all the rest of the blood of the bull he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering that is at the entrance of The Tent of Meeting. Now, you can read that verse and think of the blood like, that's a lot of blood. It's being sprinkled, it's being wiped down. The rest of it is being poured out at the entrance. Why the stench? Why the smell of it? Why the sight of it? Why the horror of it? To teach us the whore of our sin, that we would acknowledge God is holy and pure and righteous. And on our best days, we underestimate the blackness and selfishness of our own heart. We constantly diminish our own sin. We diminish God's glory, and we exalt ourselves. Jesus died that we would gaze up at the cross and recognize. My sin did that, My sin did that. Why did Jesus have to die to show us the cost of our own sin? Another reason that Jesus had to die was to practice perfect obedience. Now, Jesus, who was both fully God and fully man, he had to live, like I said, by the same human experience as we do, which includes a conflict of wills. Jesus, though he lived a perfect life, we like to elevate the deity of God in that moment and say, well, yeah, I mean, Jesus was God, so of course he followed God's will. And yet we lower his own humanity. I mean, consider these words out of Luke, chapter 22. This is Jesus the night before he was to be crucified, starting in verse 41. And Jesus withdrew from them about a stone's throw. And he knelt down and prayed, saying, father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Do you hear these words of Jesus? He doesn't want what's coming. He knows what's about to happen. He knows that he's going to be arrested, that he's going to be flogged and beaten and hung up on the cross. And Jesus says, God, if there's any other way, will you please take this away from me? I don't want to experience this. He was agonized. He was under distress. Let's jump down to verse 44. It says these words, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly. And his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Jesus, yeah, he was perfectly obedient, but at great cost. And yet, what did he say? The second half of verse 42, he says, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Jesus experienced the cost of obedience. He realized that he had to sacrifice his own will in order to follow the will of God in order to enact all that needed to be done on the cross. And so he stepped up. And where Adam failed He succeeded. We read these words last week out of Romans, chapter 5. That through the death, through the sin of one man, that all have now trespassed against God. And yet through the obedience of one man, that is Christ, that all now have a way back to God through Jesus obedience. We now see what it means to be obedient. Verse 43 says this. And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. This is the key. Jesus didn't depend on his own strength in order to obey Jesus, who is fully God and fully man. He did not depend fully upon himself and his own strength. He needed the strength of God. He needed the strength of the angels to come and to help him. And it was through his dependence on God that he could perfectly obey. And so we're fooling ourselves every single day if we think that we can be obedient our own will. No. Jesus proved that if he, fully God and fully man had to depend on God, then we too must fully depend on God for perfect obedience. Why did Jesus have to die to show us what perfect obedience looked like? Number six. Why did Jesus have to die for cosmic justice? Think about this for a moment. Before the cross, God had forgiven sin. Throughout the Old Testament, he forgave sin. He forgave David. His sin washed over his sin and didn't hold it against him. In fact, you could make the accusation God was not fair. By what right on a cosmic level did God have to forgive David? Consider this. Go back to Moses. God forgave Moses, but held Pharaoh's sin against him. It's unfair. Why? On what grounds? God forgave Jacob and holds Esau's sins against him. Why? It's unfair. It's unjust. Consider these words from Romans chapter three. He says, Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, as a. As a sacrifice, essentially as a sacrifice by his blood to be received by faith. This was. This is the reason. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. How did God forgive Moses and hold Pharaoh's sins against him? Because the blood of Jesus Christ was applied to Moses. The justice of God was on the line because God had been benevolent and forgiving up to that point. And no blood of a bull or no sacrifice while it pointed to Jesus, it couldn't forgive sins. Jesus died that on a cosmic level the justice of God would shine. There's times I picture an angel before that whispering in God's ear, how can you possibly forgive him? The answer, of course, is in Jesus Christ dying. Reason number five. Why did Jesus have to die? To die in our place. To die in our place. The doctrinal title for this is Substitutionary Atonement. That he didn't. He didn't just die as a blanket for all people. There's a sense in which he did. But he died. He died in our place. That when I gaze upon Jesus, I know that he paid my price, that I deserved to die for my own sin. And if I had faced that consequence, my own death wouldn't be good enough to pay for my sin. But Jesus then raises his hand to say, I will die in the place of Greg Levine in the place of. And you can fill in your name in he died in our place for us directly. Consider these words. You could go lots of places with this. I'm actually going to go back to the Old Testament. Poetically, this is portrayed in a beautiful way in Isaiah. Chapter 53 says this beginning in verse 4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. With his stripes, we are healed. You hear it in the language? Yes. He died in our place. In fact, what I'd like to do is go back and read those two verses, personalizing it. The words will be on the screen. Would you read it with me? If you're comfortable. Surely he has borne my griefs and carried my sorrows. Yet I esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for my transgressions. He was crushed for my iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought me peace. And with his stripes, I am healed. We can never forget to gaze up at the cross and recognize in that moment, he died for me. He died for you. He absorbed my sin. He absorbed your sin and paid our price. Why did Jesus have to die to die in our place? Another reason that Jesus had to die was as the ultimate display of selfless glory. When we think of glory, we often think of being on the highs of life, accomplishing all the things that we desire. Just last week in the NCAA men's and women's tournaments, they crowned champions and the athletes after winning the championship went up on the ladder and cut the nets. We often picture that as the picture of glory. And yet Jesus had a vastly different picture of glory. Read these words from Philippians chapter two. And being found in human form, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Jesus didn't consider glory being on top, being elevated above everyone else, no, he considered glory lowering himself to the point of death. Jesus went straight to the cross with joy in his heart, lowering himself so that he could elevate us. Now, the cross was Rome's greatest way to show dishonor, to dishonor another and to elevate Rome above all that they had the authority to completely embarrass and make somebody unhuman, subhuman. And Jesus says, no, that's not embarrassment, that's not the bottom, that's. See Jesus, he sees our version of glory and he flips it, says, it's not about being on top, it's about helping others to be on top. It's not about elevating myself, it's about elevating others. And so what does Jesus do? He descends. He lowers himself so that he can elevate us. That is what we experience in Jesus. That's what we see in him, is the ultimate display of selfless glory. We read these words in Mark 10:45, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. That is the picture of selfless glory. It's not in elevating yourself, but in lowering yourself in service to others. Jesus showed us what the ultimate true picture of. And it's not self seeking, no, it's self giving love. Jesus asks, you want to know what glory means? It's sacrifice, it's service, it's love, it's elevating others at your own cost. Why did Jesus have to die to show us the ultimate picture of self sacrificing love? Why did Jesus have to die to fulfill everything that came before, to be fully human, to show us the cost of our own sin, for perfect obedience, for cosmic justice, to die in our place as the ultimate display of selfless glory? Reason number three, perhaps one of my favorite. To triumph in victory over death, sin and darkness. To triumph in victory over death, sin and darkness. Colossians chapter three or chapter two, says these words beginning in verse 13. And you were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside nailing it to the cross. So we were spiritually dead and he makes us alive. We were spiritually in debt and he washes that away. He does it by nailing it to the cross. And he closes with these words in verse 15. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them. In Him. He took the sting out of death. He took the shackles off of sin. He sets us free in victory. He makes it so that Satan is bound on a tight leash and tweeted or tweeted, treated like the little twerp that he is. He took Satan and demons and he bound them and shackled them and pushed them under his authorities. The principalities and powers of darkness were total defeated. Why? Because Jesus Christ died on the cross. He gained victory over death, victory over sin, victory over darkness. In this we have nothing to fear. We have nothing to fear as we gaze into death. I get the challenge and I'm just a young pup, you know, I'm getting older all the time. Yesterday, weren't you invited to the seniors ministry recently? Yesterday there was a little joke going around campus during the extravaganza that there was a silver alert for me because I was lost. That's where it's going. I'm getting there now. I. You know, these things, they. Now what was I in this room for? What did I come in to get? Sometimes I've knelt down to pray with people who are near to death. And I always ask, are they afraid at all? Is there any. Is there anything that they want to pray about as they approach God. Sometimes people been saved longer than I've been alive will confess fear. I've never been in those shoes. I don't think it's wrong to. To wrestle. It's death. It's a big thing. Here's a sweet truth you should never forget. Jesus Christ's death on a cross proves victory over death, over sin and over darkness. And we can rest in that victory with nothing to fear, nothing to hide. Amen. Number two. Why did Jesus have to die? He had to die to forgive our sins. That is a great promise that we have. And yet it came at a great cost to Jesus. It came at his own life. Hebrews 9:22. We read this. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Jesus forgave our sins and yet he did so at a great personal cost. And think about this for a moment. Every time we forgive, it comes at a cost. I don't know how many of you have ever borrowed money before, especially money from family. It's usually not a good idea to borrow money from family. But if you do, have you ever had that debt forgiven? I don't know. I've never had a debt forgiven by a bank. But I have had a debt forgiven family before. I've borrowed money, and then I've been told these words, don't worry about it. It's our gift to you. Now, that money that was given, it was free to me, and yet it wasn't free to the one who gave it to me. And in forgiving the debt, they gave me a great gift, and yet it cost them something. It cost me nothing, but it cost them the full amount of what they gave me, the full amount of what they forgive. Jesus gave us a great gift in the forgiveness of our sins, and yet it wasn't a free gift. Not for him. It cost him everything. We often think that in Jesus forgiving our sins that, you know, that we ultimately don't have to, like, pay the full price. And the great thing is that we don't have to pay the price because Jesus stood in our place. And yet we still kind of get things wrong. We often think that it's not really about the blood of Jesus covering us, that it's more if our good outweighs our bad, that somehow the scales of justice tip in our favor. And yet the entire sacrificial system of the Old Testament shows us, and even in the New Testament, it proves the point that that is not the case. It says, only death can satisfy our debt. In the Old Testament, it required blood. We'd go before to the temple, we'd make a sacrifice, and that would cover our sins, and yet that would only cover the sins of our past. That wasn't sufficient for the sins that were to come. And what Jesus did on the cross is, he said, not only are your sins that are behind you covered, but the sins that, that you haven't even committed yet, those are covered as well. Jesus paid a great price for us on the cross, both for our past, for our present, and in the future as well. Jesus blood doesn't just cover the sins behind us, but it covers the sins ahead of us at great cost to himself. Jesus, why did he have to die to forgive our sins? There's aha moments all through there. Which brings us to number one and a Question like what? What reason would rise above all of those profound reasons? And I genuinely believe there is a reason that is woven all through Scripture, through all the reasons we just read. Kind of feel like we need a, you know, David Letterman drumroll or something. Coming into number one, what is the reason that Jesus had to die? Because God loves you and your neighbor. God loves you. God loves you. I used to think of the message, God loves you is just milk and cookies, the soft stuff. Like, you want a real meaty sermon. That's a sermon on obedience, on the Word, you know, that's a sermon. God loves you. That's a little kiddie thing. Jesus loves me. This I know. But it's the most profound truth we can go into. And it is ultimately the reason that Jesus died. In Romans, chapter five, we read these words beginning in verse six. For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person. Though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die. But here's the reason. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The song, beautiful name. We used to sing it a little more. It's a little more rare now. Has a line in it in one of the verses that says, he didn't want heaven without us, so Jesus brought heaven down. My sin was great. His love was greater. What could separate us now? Think of that. We just sang it in the song today. That was the first time I heard that. I forget the chorus. But it was like he was wildly. What was the phrase? He was wild. He wildly loves us. Madly. He madly loves us. Madly loves. That's a truth we need to receive. And if the truth. Oftentimes we don't. In this room there are many with voices of the accuser whispering in their ear, saying, God, God could never love you. You're not worthy enough of his love. We speak it over ourselves. God doesn't love me. God loves you. God loves you. God loves you. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. So that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. God loves you. Would you close your eyes just for a moment? Just receive. Speak it over yourself. God loves me. Speak that. God loves me. God loves me. Let that soak into your souls. God loves me. Now turn to a neighbor, someone on your right or left. Say, God loves you. God loves you. Turn the other way, across the aisle. God loves you. God loves you. God loves you. We forget this truth. Why? Why did Jesus die on the cross? Because he loves you and he loves you and your neighbor. It doesn't stop with us. In fact, he loves you and the person who cut you off in traffic this week. He loves you and the person who stole from you. He loves you and the person that you're fighting with, not talking to right now. He loves you and your neighbor. That's why Jesus died on the cross, that we would receive his love and share it with others. So how do we bring this home? What do we need to do in order to live out the truth of why Jesus died for us? Number one is this is to receive God's love. We just talked about this. To receive God's love. There's a hundred reasons why we feel like we're not good enough to receive God's love. And the truth is we're not. We can't earn God's love. There's no amount of good that we can put out into the world. There's no amount of good deeds or service to others that can help us to earn God's love, to earn the gift of Jesus sacrifice. That's what the cross is all about. The cross proves the point that we can't earn it, that we're not good enough. And yet Jesus died nonetheless. And so what does it look like then, for us to receive God's love? I'd say, for starters, it looks like to lay down striving because we can't earn it. We can't clean ourselves up enough to earn God's love, to earn his respect. I don't know about you, but that's a personal struggle of mine. I feel like I have to clean myself up first. I have to be presentable. I have to do the right things. There's got to be a track record of that before I am worthy of love, before I'm worthy of being honored or approved of. And yet the cross says it's not about that. No, we are to simply rest in the love of God. We often talk about like, I can't forgive myself. And I don't think that's the right question. It's not about can I forgive myself? It's can I receive the love and the forgiveness that God had died for, to offer for me freely? Will I receive the love of God? Will I receive the good gift of forgiveness of sins that I can step into being a child of God? For those of you who are parents, just think about it that way. Can your kids do anything to earn your love? Absolutely not. You love them because they're your kids. In the same way, we, as God's children can live in the beauty of knowing that we are God's love. I mean, that we are God's kids, and that we can receive and rest in his love. So, number one, we receive God's love, and number two, we share God's love. There's a thousand reasons not to share God's love with others, and yet God calls us to share it nonetheless. I was having a conversation recently with somebody who said, hey, Pastor, can you talk to my friend? I've been having conversations with them about God, and I think it would be better if you had the conversation. I'm like, no, you need to have that conversation. You don't have to be a Bible scholar. You don't have to have been a Christian for 50 years. No, all you have to do is offer yourself to say, this is what God has done in my life. 1st Peter 3:15. Always be prepared to share an answer as to the hope that you have in Christ Jesus. No, you just. You share the hope that you have. And let's be real, I can have a conversation with your friend. I can have a conversation with your neighbor. The reality is they're going to see the gospel lived out through you way more, way more legitimately than they'll ever have in me from listening on a Sunday morning. We are to share the love of God. I mean, think about that for a second. We share all sorts of things. We watch a good movie, we watch a good show on Netflix, and we go to the office the next day. Oh, my gosh, Greg, have you watched this yet? Have you watched the Quarterback show on Netflix? Yes, Yes. I have a lot of respect for Kirk Cousins after that. Yeah, I didn't feel as good about Patrick Mahomes after that. But, like, we do that kind of stuff all the time. I went to this new restaurant. Check this out. You should. We share it with meaningless things like food and tv, and yet we received Christ, Jesus and the forgiveness of our sins. And we're scared to share that. We don't have to preach a sermon. We don't have to lead them in prayer to receive the gospel. It can be as simple as bringing a plate of brownies. A couple years ago after day camp one one summer, the challenge was to share love with your neighbor. And so my kids made a batch of brownies and brought it to our next door neighbor and said, God loves you. It can be as simple as sharing a plate of brownies. Let's not just say simple. That's one of the best ways ever. Yeah. Yeah. It can be having somebody over for dinner and just sharing the love of God and say, hey, God loves you. God loves you. So I want you to think about that. Who is it that God's placing in your heart? Who is it that needs to receive and hear about the love of God? Who in your family, in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school, who needs to hear of God's love? I want to challenge you this week to go to that person. Whether it's a meal, whether it's, whether it's bringing them a coffee, whether it's just sitting down for a minute and saying, God loves you. How can I pray for you this week? Consider two things. One, that we need to each receive the love of God. And number two, that we then go and share God's love as well so we have the privilege. I'm glancing. Don't look at your watches. We have the privilege of closing with baptism this morning. A grand, glorious celebration. So for those being baptized, if you want to head back, you can. I, I, I, I will say this. Being baptized is receiving God's love. And then because you've received God's love, taking a step to give your life to him, you receive God's love. And because of that, you make a commitment to say, jesus, I will follow you all of my life. And when you do that, you pass through the waters of baptism. It's been there all through scripture. Noah received God's love, made a commitment, and passed through the waters. Moses set on the Nile passed through the waters. All of Israel passed through the waters of the Red Sea. Again, all of Israel through the waters of the Jordan River. Jesus himself talked about his own baptism as fulfillment. Baptism is, is this first act after you receive God's love to say, jesus, I want to follow you and obey you all of my days. We'll watch a video of some of the testimonies, and we'll join in the celebration of baptism.

The Power of the Indwelling Holy Spirit In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes, "to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (v. 7). He goes on to list various spiritual gifts like healing, wisdom and faith, and then explains, "All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ" (vv. 11-12). This is an insane truth! Meditate for a moment on the fact that the third person of the Trinity literally dwells inside of you. Then consider the promise that He has empowered you with a supernatural gift for the sake of blessing the church. It doesn't say to some is given, but to each is given a manifestation of the Spirit. False Humility Some of you reading this have a tendency to write off these promises. You don't believe that the church really needs you. And this can almost seem like the humble approach. Culturally, we often associate humility with timidity or reserve. But think about the story of Jesus driving people out of the temple with a whip and flipping over their tables. That doesn't sound very humble! And yet we know that Jesus was perfectly humble. So we have to understand that humility is not a lack of confidence or boldness. In fact, God is not casual about people who shrink back from their calling. When God calls Moses and Moses says he can't talk well enough, God doesn't applaud him for his humility. He responds, "who has made man's mouth?" (Exodus 4:11) When Moses still pleads with God to send someone else, it says that "the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses" (v. 14). Or when the twelve spies return from scouting out the promised land and report that it will be too hard to drive out the inhabitants of the land, God is not pleased with their meekness. He says since you spied out the land for 40 days, you will wander in the wilderness for 40 years, and the 10 of you who doubted my word will all die before the people enter the promised land. Doubting the promises of God is not humble—it's demonic. Doubting the promises of God is not humble—it's demonic. The enemy loves when the people of God sit back out of fear, insecurity or passivity. God loves when His people believe with all their hearts that He is faithful to His word. Like Jonathan and his armor bearer battling an army, or David taking on Goliath. "For without faith, it is impossible to please Him" (Hebrews 11:6). The truth is, if you are not using your spiritual gift for the good of your church family, they are crippled. Whether big or small, every part of the body has an essential function to perform. If you don't know what yours is, start asking, and start loving the people in front of you! Come to your church service looking for an opportunity to serve, bless, or encourage someone. Step out in faith and trust God to direct and equip you. Jealousy and Judgementalism Some of you may not struggle with doubting your own gifts, but rather with coveting other people's gifts. Maybe you find yourself longing for the influence, respect or praise that others get because of their gifts or position in the church. But James issues a harsh warning about this mentality: For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.(James 3:16) When the body operates with a spirit of jealousy, things end up out of order. If your hand decided it only wanted to be a foot, it would throw everything off balance and your ability to function would be seriously impaired. And when selfishness and pride are present, it poisons our relationships, leading to division and "every vile practice." Or perhaps you find yourself feeling frustrated or judgemental towards people who are not gifted in the same way you are. If God has graced you with a gift for evangelism, it may be hard for you to understand why others don't evangelize as much as you do. If God has made you an intercessor, it may be difficult to hear others talk about struggling in their prayer life. It is true that every Christian should be growing in evangelism, prayer and so many other things, but you have to recognize that some people have more or less grace in some areas than you do. And that is actually a great thing! We need our eyes to be eyes, and our feet to be feet. It's part of the beauty and diversity of God's design. Growing into Christ In Ephesians 4, Paul writes: We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.(Ephesians 4:15-16) I long to see the Church get out of the arrogant individualism that is so prevalent in our culture and be the loving, humble, interdependent group of people that God made us to be. Where every part works properly so that we build one another up in love, into Christ who is our head. This will require taking a godly view of ourselves and those around us—trusting God's promises, laying aside selfish ambitions, celebrating our differences, and using our gifts to serve one another. As you finish this article, take a moment to pray this over yourself and your church community.

Monsters Among Us - Judges 17:1-6 - Skip Heitzig Welcome to Calvary Church, with Skip Heitzig. Thank you for joining us today. As we walk through life, we begin to realize that not every monster lurks under the bed. For centuries, demons and dark spiritual forces have been downplayed as entertaining mythical figures, while insidious and destructive sins have been disguised as fun and freedom. This message with Pastor Skip will expose the hidden idols and dangers of our culture and reveal the true freedom that is found in Christ alone. [MUSIC PLAYING AND THUNDER ROLLING] This is a series that we're calling A Monster's In Our Closet." This morning, would you turn in your Bibles, please, to the Old Testament book of Judges, the book of Judges, chapter 17. This is a message I'm calling "Monsters Among Us." I think you'll see why. This is a message that has been on our hearts for some time. A quick announcement before we begin, and that is, with all of the appeals that we make to your generosity, and you are so generous with all these projects, there is another project we have been involved in for decades. And it is now the season for Operation Christmas Child. So those are the shoeboxes that we pack with toys and your address, if you so wish, or your picture of your family, if you so wish. And these will go to children around the world. 12 million of these shoeboxes will go to countries, different languages, different distribution sites. Children will open them up in a service of a church that is dedicated to have parents and children in the community come. The kids, open up the boxes. They haven't had presents, many of them, ever. They understand that there's people who love them because Jesus loves them. And it opens a door for the gospel. It is the most effective child evangelism tool I have ever seen in my life. That's Operation Christmas Child. And the boxes are available for you. So Judges, chapter 17 is where we begin. You've probably noticed that the past has a way of repeating itself, that things that were in vogue or practiced in the past find their way into the present, that everywhere you look in society, it seems that there are signs of ancient worship systems still around us, symbols of the gods and goddesses of antiquity. It's so prevalent we hardly notice. For example, I am confident that none of you are worshipers of Nike, the goddess, the winged goddess of victory from Greek mythology. But I bet a lot of you wear Nike shoes or sports clothing. I saw a few this morning on some of you as we came in. And that borrows from ancient Greek mythology, even the swooped wing from the worship of this ancient goddess of victory, Nike. The Goodyear Tire Company decided many years ago to use as its logo the Roman God Mercury, or at least a part of it, called by the Greeks Hermes. This is the God of travel, the God of speed, and hence, Goodyear tires. They thought that would be a great logo for us to employ. Ajax the Great was the warrior in Greek mythology, one of the heroes of the Trojan wars. He probably never knew that a grime cleaner would be one day named after him. But it is, Ajax. Some of you have that in your homes. Athena was the favored child of Zeus, the goddess of strategic warfare. Now a body wash is named after her and a lotion. It's a whole company called Athena. Zeus was the king of all the gods, king of the Olympian gods. He was the ruler of the sky. He was the master of the thunderbolt. And so many corporations have taken as their logo the thunderbolt, whether it's Gatorade, or Opel Automotive, from Germany, or Zenith Electronics, it's that idea of the thunderbolt from Zeus. NASA has used the name Apollo for its space program, one of its space programs. Apollo, of course, was a son of Zeus. He was the God of the sun and the light. Then some of you who drink Starbucks coffee, though you really should drink Solomon's Porch coffee. [LAUGHTER] But Starbucks uses as its logo this siren. And they will even state on their website-- they do it on purpose-- the siren in ancient times was like a super mermaid. She had two tails, but she had an alluring voice. And she would call to sailors and lure them to their deaths-- very appropriate, actually, for Starbucks. [LAUGHTER] Just kidding. But there are so many examples-- Midas Muffler, Trident Foods, Mercury Car Company, Pandora Streaming Service, art, literature, video games. All of them are filled with motif or ideas or logos from ancient worship systems. Now, I think we probably agree that most of that is benign. I'm going to put that in the relatively harmless category. I'm not all hung up on what logos companies use. There's something far more sinister going on. And that is philosophies, ideologies, from paganism, trends, that we have ancient gods dressed in modern garb. There are monsters among us. There are practices, beliefs, once considered aberrant in our culture, once considered abhorrent in our culture, now widely accepted by our culture. And not just accepted, but they're considered normal. Not just considered normal, but they're being considered as good. Not just good, but they're considered something worthy to be celebrated. Not just worthy to be celebrated, but if you don't think it's good and you don't celebrate it, you, in fact, are evil. That's the concerning thing. There are monsters among us. Now, they are not called by the same names that they used to be called. Nobody talks about worshiping Baal anymore. But they do worship the idea of hedonism, materialism, pleasure. Nobody worships Ashtar or Ishtar or Ashtoreth-- she goes by several names-- from the Babylonian pantheon, but transgenderism, which was a huge thing with them, is prevalent today. Nobody is worshipping at the feet of Molech, like they did in the Old Testament. But abortion on demand has been widely practiced in our country. Nobody's worshiping Chemosh or Mammon or Dagon or any of these other gods, but these philosophical and ideological practices, including gender fluidity and the like, are all a part of modern culture. And we're going to be talking about all of those things in this series. We're going to be talking about how these ancient systems have made their way into modern society. Now, let me just take you back without taking you all the way back through all of the scriptures. But in the Old Testament, whenever those gods that I mentioned or goddesses were being worshipped, the Bible places a different title on them than just worshiping Baal, or worshiping Ashtoreth, or worshiping Molech. The Bible says they were actually worshiping demons, worshiping demons. So it might appear that they're worshiping just Baal, but behind Baal is a demonic force. And the Bible says they are worshiping demons. You know how the scripture says Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Deuteronomy chapter 32, "They sacrificed to demons and not to God, to gods they did not know." 2 Chronicles, chapter 11, speaking of King Jeroboam of Israel, "He appointed for himself priests for the demons." Psalm 106, the psalmist says, "They worshipped their idols, and this led to their downfall. They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons." Now, just think about what that means for a moment. If you know your Bible, you know that demons are spirits. And if you know their spirits, you know that they don't die. So if demons don't die, then the same demons that were around thousands of years ago haven't gone anywhere. They've just figured out a way to reinvent themselves in new disguise. Jesus even said that if a demon leaves a man, he searches through the dry places to find something or someone else to inhabit. So that is a fundamental idea that we're going to build upon in the next several weeks. Now, in this first study, in Judges chapter 17, I want to show you how this trend develops. I want to show you how societies over time tend to shift away from God, from truth, from his authority. We're going to be looking today at Judges chapter 17, verses 1 through 6. Let's begin. "Now there was a man from the mountains of Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said to his mother, The 1,100 shekels of silver that were taken from you, and on which you put a curse, even saying it in my ears-- here is the silver with me; I took it. And his mother said, May you be blessed by the LORD, my son. So when he had returned the 1,100 shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver from my hand to the Lord for my son, to make a carved image and a molded image. Now, therefore, I will return it to you. Thus he returned the silver to his mother. Then his mother took 200 shekels of silver and gave them to the silversmith, and he made it into a carved image and a molded image. And they were in the house of Micah. The man, Micah, had a shrine"-- notice that word "shrine." It literally is "he had a house of gods, a house of gods." He was worshiping several idols. "Micah had a shrine, a house of gods, and made an ephod"-- this piece of clothing used for worship-- "and household idols. And he consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes." What I'd like to show you briefly in this passage are three notable characteristics that tell us how monsters gather around us-- corruption in the nation, confusion in the home, chaos in the heart. Those are the three characteristics. All three are inextricably twined. One leads to the other. One exists with the other, corruption in the nation, confusion in the home, chaos in the heart. Let's begin with the first, Corruption. In the nation. Go back to verse 6, which we just finished with. It says, "in those days, there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes." What days is he referring To The days of the judges, a very specific period of time in which the nation, God's nation, was falling away dramatically. The period of Judges was a 350-year period after the death of Joshua and before the United monarchy under King Saul, King David, King Solomon. That 350 years was a period of tribal confederation. That is, leadership was dispersed among the tribes of Israel, all 12 of them. There was no king in the nation, and it was a time of spiritual decline. So there's no central leadership. And the implication of saying there's no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes, is that had there been a king, had there been a godly king, especially, he could have, at least in part, prevented the wholesale outbreak of idolatry. And there were righteous kings in the Old Testament that did exactly that. But there was no king in those days, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The first thing, as I'm reading chapter 17, that stuck out to me is that we are dealing with God's people. These are God's people we're talking about. These are not Philistines or Ammonites or Canaanites or Amorites or Jebusites or termites. These are God's people, the Israelites, the covenant nation, the ones that he redeemed from Egypt, the ones that he gave the land of Canaan to, through which would come the plan of salvation for the world by birthing the Messiah, that nation. And that's a profound thought. And I want you to just see hints of this in our text. It says in verse one that this man was from the mountains of Ephraim. Ephraim was the second born son of Joseph in the book of Genesis. He became a tribal leader of a prominent tribe that got their land allotment right in the center of Canaan. So it is a very, very prominent Jewish tribe. Then I want you to notice in verse 1 his name. The name Micah means "who is like God?" or "who is like Yahweh?" specifically. So he had a great name, but he didn't live up to that name. Though his name meant "who is like Yahweh?" he is very, very unlike Yahweh. He is very ungodly. Then something else to make a note of that is noteworthy is that his mother, in verse 2 and 3, uses the covenant name for God, the very specific Hebrew Jewish covenant name for God, not just God generically. But look at what it says in verse 2. "May you be blessed by the"-- What does it say? "May you be blessed by the LORD." Notice something about that word, all capitals, all cap, capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. Whenever you find that in the Old Testament, you are dealing with the tetragrammaton, the four-lettered word of God in Hebrew, which we would transliterate Y-H-W-H, in Hebrew, yod, heh, vav, heh, Yahweh. It's a very specific name that God introduced himself to the children of Israel with when he made a covenant with them. It was the Jewish God, Yahweh, sometimes named Jehovah. But it's Yahweh. So she uses that in verse 2, and also in verse 3. "I had wholly dedicated the silver," she said, "from my hand to Yahweh, to the Lord for my son." Now let's just stop here and get a big picture. This is the book of Judges. The book of Judges can be divided into two sections. The first section is the chronological section. The second section is the biographical section. So chapters 1 through 16 is the chronology. Then it stops. Beginning here in chapter 17 to chapter 21, the second section, there's no more chronology. There's just little examples that are given. It's biographical. It is an appendix, if you will. The first 16 chapters describe the external threat to the nation, through the Philistines, through the Midianites, through the Amorites, and how they were delivered by these judges. That's chapters 1 through 16. But chapters 17 through 21, as I said, is biographical. And it is intended by the author to give example after example, to show the reader how far God's people have fallen into apostasy. And so he says, well, here's an example, and here's another example, and here's yet another example of just how far they had fallen. As if to say, this nation, that once marched triumphantly through Canaan to the glory of God, has now disintegrated so morally and politically, that they are bringing disgrace upon the name of Yahweh. That's what this section is intended to convey. And that's what is so shocking about chapter 17. We're dealing with idolatry, not among pagans, but among believers. You see, when Philistines carve idols and worship them, ah, no big deal. That's what Philistines do. When Babylonians carve little images to Baal, and they worship Ashtaroth, you go, OK, well, that's Babylon. That's what they do. When Canaanites bow to Molech and sacrifice their children to Molech, we have an understanding that is who they are. That's their practice, their culture, for years. But when Israel has molded images, when Israel is practicing idolatry, we go, oh-oh. And that's what we should say. You see, when sinners sin, we expect that. I hope you're not shocked when the world acts like the world. When sinners sin, I can't believe they did that. I can. It's what they do. But when Christians practice the same things, now that should take your breath away. That should give you pause. Why? Because we are supposed to be the transformed ones. We're supposed to be the ones that God changed. Romans chapter 12, Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. I love the Phillips translation of that. Don't let the world squeeze you into its own mold. Did you know that God calls New Testament believers to be nonconformists, to be transformers, to be world changers? We are not to act like them. But there's always a tendency. There's always a temptation. Because there's so much corruption in our culture. And I'm guessing that some of you have friends who are not saved. And the temptation is we want to be so accepted by our peer group, and seen as like them, and seen as cool, and seen as not stodgy. So we are tempted to compromise, to conform. But we are told, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed." Now, I believe that one of the biggest threats to the church isn't from the outside. But one of the biggest threats to the church is from the inside. Yes, there is a threat to the church from the outside. It's called persecution. We don't get much of it. You get some of it. People laugh at your bumper sticker. But I mean, as far as none of you lost your lives this week, like they did in Nigeria for being a Christian-- churches are being burned by the hundreds in that country. And that has always been an effective attack against the church by the enemy. But what we face is attacks from the inside, corruption of our culture that has made its way into the church. And when the church becomes like the world and parrots the world, that's when you have the real problems. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, a quote by Vance Havner. He said, "Satan isn't fighting churches; he's joining them." If you can't beat them, join them. So fill them with people who call themselves Christians, but act no different than those who they live around. You should also note that everyone who has deconstructed their faith or deconverted from Christianity at one time were solid evangelical believers, for the most part. So the first component, corruption in the nation, we're dealing with God's people here. Second, the second component or notable characteristic is confusion in the home. The corruption in the nation finds its way now into the home. There's confusion in the home. Now, we read through this text, but I think you'll agree there's a lot of mixed up activity going on in this home. Let me remind you. First, there's a son who steals money from his mom. Now, you may have done that as a young child. But this is a grown up kid who has his own son and somehow, living in proximity to his mother, steals a significant amount of money from his mother. That's first. Second, she pronounces a curse on the thief, not knowing the thief is her own son. Third, he confesses his sin to his mother because he's afraid of the curse that she uttered. That was a big deal, especially in those days. Fourth, she then blesses him. After she curses him, she blesses him, as if to counteract the curse that she had previously given. Then, fifth, she dedicates part of the return money to the Lord to make an idol out of it. And then sixth, he makes one of his sons a priest. Have you ever seen a family more confused. They broke most of the Ten Commandments. First of all, he coveted what his mother had and he didn't have. Then he stole the silver. Then he didn't honor his mother, like the Commandments say. Then he lied about it. So, so far, he has broken the fifth, eighth, ninth, and 10th commandment. And he-- no, let me rephrase that. They broke the first and second commandments, which says, you will have no other gods besides me. And by the way, when you worship me, you will not do so with an image. So the first two commandments, God's saying, I want to be worshiped exclusively, I want no competition, and then the second commandment, I am to be worshiped without an image, that is, not only no competition, but no representation, no physical, earthly molded image of God when you worship. Oh, so not only have they violated six of the Ten Commandments, they've broken the commandment of the priesthood. The priesthood says, it is only a Levite from the house of Aaron that is to be a priest in the central sanctuary. He's developing his own priesthood, and he thinks, I'm going to have my kid as the priest of my own kind of homespun, do-it-yourself religious system. Now, that won't last too long, because he's going to find a Levite. We won't have the time to get into it. But the chapter continues. He finds a Levite and hires him to be his next priest. Now, let me just touch on something. And that is the whole thing of images. Because I came from a religious background that employed lots of images in worship. Why is it that God makes such a big deal out of no images? Well, you need to know why. First of all, it's because images obscure the glory of God. Images obscure the glory of God. There is no true image of God that can be found in all the world, no true image of God that can be found in all the world. Every image of God that has ever been made is, by its very nature, limited. God, by his very nature, is unlimited. He is unlimited. He is boundless. And he is spirit. So to make something material, an image out of that which is material, is to deny his very essence. So if I place a crucifix in front of me, shows Jesus dying on the cross, that happens to portray the greatest act of love in history. But it's incomplete. It tells me about sacrifice, tells me nothing about majesty, tells me nothing about deity, tells me nothing about sovereignty. It shows a dying Jesus, not a living Christ. Now, I have no problem with what a crucifix depicts. The problem I have is what a crucifix fails to depict, what it hides. And a universe filled with images of God will not give you a complete picture of God, because his nature is holy, unique, separated, other than. There's no image that can contain that. So images obscure God's glory. There's a second reason why images are a big deal. Images mislead people. Not only do they not reveal God, not only do they not reveal his complete character, it's what they do reveal that is often problematic. Images give people impressions. Images give people impressions. And you know that what we believe will determine how we behave. And so it's a psychological fact that if you focus on an image of the one that you pray to, you come to think of him as what the image represents. So here's an example. This is Exodus 32. This is the golden calf thing, when Moses went up to get the Ten Commandments, the verbal and written word of God. They wanted something more visual in their worship, so they created a golden calf. This is Exodus 32. It says, "They began offering burnt offerings and peace offerings to the calf idol." Listen. "Afterwards, they sat down to feast and drink at a wild party, followed by sexual immorality." Now, do you ever wonder why they created a calf? A calf, they had come from Egypt, and one of the gods of Egypt was Apis the calf, the bull, that was a symbol of Egyptian strength. And they wanted a god that represented strength. So they created a golden calf. And they wanted to say, Yahweh is strong. And so they looked at it. They built it. They looked at it, and they worshiped before it. They felt the need to worship this strong God with a strong frenzy. So images misled them. Sometimes people say, well, Skip, when you pray, what do you picture in your mind? What image do you have? Here's the answer. Nothing, absolutely nothing. I'm not picturing a man with a beard and a halo, with robes and sandals. Or I'm not picturing God as a heavenly grandfather. I have no image in my mind whatsoever. So there is corruption in the nation. There's confusion in the home. But before we move on to the third, let's go a little deeper into this. Because she mentions in verse 2 and in verse 3, the LORD, and the name, as you know now, is Yahweh, the covenant name of God, the Jewish specific name of God. It could be that she really did once honor Yahweh, and she wanted to use that money to honor Yahweh in the right way. But her son did not worship Yahweh. Her son worshiped idols. He had, in fact, a house of idols. He had a shrine to several little deities in his home. Perhaps this mother, knowing this about her son and not wanting the curse that she uttered to fall upon him, decided to change the curse into a blessing. Blessed are you, my son, by the Lord. There is a sad trend where some people will actually change their entire belief system based upon their own sin or the sin of a loved one. They are willing to throw God under the bus. Norman Geisler said-- we'll put it on the screen-- "Fraternity will almost always overcome theology." Now, let's just keep that up for a minute. That's a very profound statement. Fraternity will almost always supersede or contradict or overcome theology. See, if I find something in the Bible that conflicts with something I want to do, or with what my child wants to do, or maybe a friend or nephew or niece want to do, I might just change what I believe about that. So, for example, a parent may raise a child to believe in right and wrong, good and evil, two genders, until they walk home one day, and they say, I'm gay, or I'm gender fluid, or I'm pregnant, and I'm going to have an abortion. Are you OK with that? And sometimes a parent will feel, because human relationships can be very, very powerful, as an incentive for eternity can overcome theology. They'll say, well, I really want to affirm my child and show my child that I love him or her. And the best way to do that is to let them do whatever they want. That is not love. And what you are doing is making your child God. If you're willing to say, everything I believed about God is now wrong because my child is practicing this, then you are making your child God and not God, or your family, or yourself. So there is this happening in the book of Judges, corruption in the nation and confusion in the home, leads us to a third. And that is chaos in the heart. And again, all three of these go together. There's chaos in the heart. "In those days, there was no king in Israel." And here's the phrase, I think you will agree, is like the perfect description of our era, our country, our culture. "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." That happens to be an editorial comment on the spiritual condition of that time. And I would also say this time. Here's the point. If you have no standard of objective truth, all you are left with is subjective truth. Do you understand that? Objective truth means that which is outside of us. Subjective truth means truth that is inside of us, what you feel. So when you have no standard of objective truth-- this is what is true. This is what is right. This is what is wrong, because we have a standard, because we have a God, because he has given us his revelation. If you throw that out, all you're left with is subjective truth. You're going to do what seems best to you. Now, would you not agree, that is the mantra of modern culture? You hear this everywhere-- Well, that's your truth, but this is my truth. Or, follow your heart. Or, go with your gut, some of the worst advice ever. Did you know there was a time in our society when there was a moral consensus that as a society, for the most part, it was very easy to say, that's right, that's wrong, that's good, that's evil. There was a moral consensus, a shared value system, right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error. There was indeed a framework of absolute truth. 2 plus 2 equals 4. That's not my truth. That's the truth. Because truth is ontological. Truth is based upon facts in reality. Smoking is hazardous to your health. That's not my truth. That's the truth. There are only two genders, not 42 genders. That's not my truth. That's the truth. Some of you have asked, well, why is it when I sent my kids to college, they came back thinking so differently? Well, it's because as soon as they hit the college classroom, the basis of truth was moved from something objective to something subjective. There is no universal absolute, right and wrong. It's all how you feel, what you want, what's within you, your gut, your heart. It became subjective. Now, if you wonder where this all started, it actually started in hell. But it started on Earth in the fifth century BC by a philosopher named Protagoras. Protagoras preceded Plato and Aristotle and those great thinkers who, by the way, contradicted what Protagoras said. But Protagoras is considered the father of humanism. And what he said is, man-- here's his statement. Man is the measure of all things. Man is the measure of all things. So, truth is here, inside you. You make your own reality. You decide what is right. You decide what is wrong. Man is the measure of all things. Now, again, Plato and Aristotle will come along and say, that's bogus. That's not right. There are some shared universal truths, et cetera. But in a world like ours, where our philosophy is Protagoras on steroids, any statement of absolute truth, right and wrong, seems arrogant to our culture. How dare you say that? What do you mean? You think you know the truth and nobody else does? You have a corner on the market? That's arrogant. And then when you insert into this pagan culture the truth claims of Jesus, who said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me," that's really narrow and abrasive and confrontational. Now, some of you have been thinking through what I've been saying. And I've left a lot out. There's a lot of history we haven't covered. But you're wondering, so if Protagoras was fifth century BC, and yet you said, in the United States of America, in our culture, we at one time had a moral consensus, a shared value system, how is that even possible that far down the line to have a moral consensus? Here's why. Because originally, the United States was formed with a Judeo Christian worldview, a Judeo-Christian worldview. It's even on our money, In God We Trust. We were making a statement. There is a moral consensus. There is a right and wrong because there is a God who says so. So we had good roots. But we have not progressed. We have regressed back to the philosophy of Protagoras, and fast. Let me put a scripture up, because I think it bears meditation as we bring this to a close. 2 Timothy, chapter 4, says, the "time is coming when people will no longer listen to right teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever they want to hear." Do you think that has been fulfilled in our culture, in our day? In other words, there's coming a time when people will say to you, how can you arrogantly think you have a corner on the market of truth? There is no absolute truth. Ever had somebody tell you that? Do you realize that when somebody tells you there is no absolute truth, that's a self-contradictory statement. Because they have just shared an absolute truth. There is no absolute-- how do you know? If there is no absolute truth, how do you know? Anyway, that's a philosophical discussion. We hold, as Bible-believing Christians, that objective truth exists independently of what a person believes, that it's not my truth, your truth, our truth, their truth. It's the truth. Truth exists independently of human belief. And though a person may change over time what they believe to be true, that does not, in fact, change what is actually true. Truth exists and is ascertained by reason and by evidence, not by feelings, and not by social pressure. The idea of your truth versus my truth is the core of philosophical absurdism. It is an absurd way to live, to say, this is my truth, that's your truth. And I'll tell you why. I'm not just being funny about that. It's ridiculous because it implies there is no objective reality, there's no shared truth. That makes life inherently meaningless. You cannot have a meaningful conversation or agreement on anything unless you agree that there are certain facts of reality. How are you going to teach math, science, history, unless you have common ground on what is true and not true? Christianity rests upon truth, absolute truth, objective truth, that certain things happened in history, most notably the death, the burial, and the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Moreover, the one who died and was buried and was resurrected said-- he made an absolute truth claim-- I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. And he said, he promised, You will know the truth, and the truth will-- finish it for me-- it will set you free. So yes, there are monsters in our closet. Because demons don't die. And ancient gods have just dressed up in modern clothes. We're going to be looking at those in the next few weeks, monsters in the closet, yes. And though there are monsters in the closet, there is meaning in the cosmos. Because there was a man on the cross who took your sin and my sin and offers a path to live life and say, I know that I know what is true and what is not. Father, we worship you as the only God, the only true God. And we realize from the lens of scripture-- we see clearly through that lens that there's not just different belief systems and different religions. There's the worship of the true and living God, and then there is satanically inspired demonic worship in everything but the true and living God, that Satan's master plan is deception. Help us to see clearly, to be equipped completely, and to live boldly, clearly, and godly in the age in which we live. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us for this message from Calvary Church with Skip Heitzig. We would love to know how this teaching impacted you. Share your story with us. Email mystory@calvarynm.church. And if you'd like to support this Bible teaching ministry with a financial gift, visit calvarynm.church/give.

I Kings 19:9-18 Then he came there to a cave and spent the night there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of armies; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they have sought to take my life.” So He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and powerful wind was tearing out the mountains and breaking the rocks in pieces before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire, a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of armies; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they have sought to take my life." The LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram. You shall also anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. And it shall come about that the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.” IN THIS PASSAGE, GOD SPEAKS TO ELIJAH IN A GENTLE BLOWING. HOW HAS GOD MOVED, INSPIRED, OR SPOKEN TO YOU? BACKGROUND We noted in our last study that Elijah was suffering from serious depression. He had fled for his life and asked to die. Not a combination that makes sense. But that’s part of what depression does. It confuses our thinking. As we approach this passage, Elijah’s depression is still there. He repeats his complaint to God twice. He seems to have little hope. As we will see, God will give him two things that will help Elijah to overcome his depression. This passage shows God reassuring Elijah that despite apparent spiritual defeat, God remains committed to his covenant promises and will continue directing Israel’s history according to his word. (1) The central comfort offered is God’s reliable word, which never fails. (2) The passage unfolds through a dramatic encounter. Elijah arrives at Horeb despairing that he alone remains faithful while Israel has abandoned God’s covenant and killed his prophets. He had expected the Mount Carmel victory to produce lasting religious reform. (2) But this was not to be. Rather than meeting God in spectacular displays—wind, earthquake, or fire—God appears in “a sound of a gentle blowing.” This shift emphasizes that God communicates through his word, not through power alone. God then commissions Elijah to anoint three successors—Hazael as king of Aram, Jehu as king of Israel, and Elisha as prophet—and reveals that through these leaders, judgment will come upon the unfaithful. Yet God assures Elijah that 7,000 Israelites remain faithful to the covenant. Elijah’s ministry continues through Elisha, ensuring that God’s purposes persist beyond any single prophet’s discouragement. (1) The passage fundamentally addresses the tension between apparent spiritual failure and God’s unshakeable commitment. Though Yahweh had won a great victory, nothing seemed to have changed. (1) The passage resolves this by demonstrating that God’s work operates through his word and covenant faithfulness rather than through visible triumph, and that a faithful remnant always remains even when circumstances appear hopeless. ELIJAH WAS SUFFERING FROM GREAT DEPRESSION BECAUSE OF THE THREAT BY JEZEBEL AGAINST HIS LIFE. WHAT KINDS OF THINGS DOES DEPRESSION DO TO A PERSON? HOW DOES IT CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE? EXAMINATION (V.9-10) Then he came there to a cave and spent the night there; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” And he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of armies; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they have sought to take my life.” Once Elijah arrived at Horeb, God speaks to him about his purpose. Elijah’s answer seems scripted. He’s had a lot of time to think about what he wants to say to the Lord. So much so that he repeats it word for word later in verse 14. Notice that Elijah says Israel has killed God’s prophets. But he seems to forget about the 450 prophets of Baal that he had killed. Elijah’s depression had only let him see the negative side of things and not the victories. God’s question is essentially a why question. Why are you here? In other words, why are you at Horeb? Horeb was where God called Moses, where he revealed himself to Israel and gave the Ten Commandments. Why are you in this spiritually significant place? Elijah is saying, “I’m all that’s left.” He is like Moses, seeking God’s presence when the nation has abandoned him. This encounter bears some resemblance to Exodus 33:18-22 where God revealed himself to Moses in the cleft of the rock. Moses had asked God, “Show me your glory.” Elijah is asking the Lord to show himself now, to what he believes is his last surviving servant. He has been faithful, like Moses, so God should reveal himself to him. But look at God's response. (V.11-12) So He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD was passing by! And a great and powerful wind was tearing out the mountains and breaking the rocks in pieces before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire, a sound of a gentle blowing. God’s response is for Elijah to stand on the mountain, presumably so God will reveal himself to Elijah. Then comes the powerful wind, the earthquake, and fire—but the Lord isn’t in any of these things. God is the creator of Earth, wind, and fire. And he uses these things, just as he used fire with Elijah and the false prophets. Just as he used the wind of the rain storm to blow rain on the earth. But these things are God’s works, not his word. There is a difference. Elijah recognizes the gentle blowing as a precursor to God revealing his word to Elijah. (V.13-14) When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of armies; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they have sought to take my life.” Again the Lord asks Elijah why he is at Horeb and Elijah gives the same scripted response. Elijah is only focused on the negative. He seems to have forgotten that he held back the rain, provided food for the widow miraculously, raised the dead, called fire from heaven, and ran in supernatural strength. This is what depression does, it focuses us on the losses rather than the victories. Everything that Elijah says is true, except for one thing. He had been zealous. Israel had abandoned the covenant. They tore down his altars. They killed the Lord’s prophets. And Jezebel was seeking his life. But one thing was not true. “And I alone am left.” This is the moment when Elijah joins the pity party. All these things are against me. I’m the last faithful guy left. HAVE YOU EVER FELT LIKE THE LAST PERSON STANDING? WAS IT TRUE? Look at how God responds. (V.15) The LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram. Notice what God didn’t say to Elijah. He didn’t say, yeah, you’ve had it bad. He didn’t say, yeah, you’ve been faithful. He didn’t say, yeah, you’re a standout guy, Elijah. But notice what he did say. God has him anoint a king of a gentile nation. Aram is, loosely, the modern nation of Syria. It has a long history. In fact, Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world. Aram had a complicated history with Israel. Sometimes an ally, sometimes an enemy. During the period of Hazael, Aram made regular attacks into Israel, with the prophet Elisha warning the Israelite king of what was coming. During his anointing, which was actually done by Elisha, it was revealed the violence that Hazael would do to Israel. (V.16) You shall also anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi king over Israel… Then he has him anoint a new king over Israel. Jehu was a violent man, as seen by how he took power in Israel. He executed God’s judgment against Ahab’s family and slaughtered the followers of Baal. Though he was a strong king, he was not a godly one. God commended him for carrying out his judgment of Ahab’s house and promised four generations of his family would sit on the throne. But he did not eliminate idol worship in Israel, but actually promoted it. Jehu lost Israelite territory to king Hazael of Aram in multiple skirmishes. (V.16) …and you shall anoint Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Then he is to anoint a new prophet in his place. What’s interesting about Elisha is that he was the one who arranged for the anointing of Hazael and Jehu, rather than Elijah, even though Elijah was commanded to do it. Why it fell to Elisha, we do not know. In all of these things God is showing Elijah that his purposes are still on track. God has a plan for these people, Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha, and Elijah is part of that plan. (V.17) And it shall come about that the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. Remember from an earlier lesson that Elijah’s ministry is one of judgment. That is true in this passage. Part of God’s plan is judgment. In the future, Hazael would attack Israel, kill many of its people and seize territory. Judgment. In the future, Jehu would kill Ahab’s sons and Jezebel. Judgment. The same with Elisha, he would act in judgment. Then God gives Elijah one little piece of information to show him that his purposes cannot be thwarted. (V.18) Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.” The reference to kissing Baal is not simply kissing an idol. Rather, it refers to someone bowing at the feat of a large idol and kissing the feat. It has an air of humiliation to it. Humbling oneself before the idol. Remarkably, there were only 7,000 in Israel who had not done this. There is a remnant of people that God has saved for himself. By saying he is leaving them he is saying he is securing them from spiritual harm. They will not fall away. They belong to him. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? · When we feel like we’re the last one left, God assures us there are others faithful to him. · God’s purposes cannot be thwarted, even though the nation abandons him. · God’s will someday judge the wicked but will preserve the righteous. · Just as Elijah’s ministry continued through Elisha, so too your influence can continue through those you impact. INTERPRETATION What is the author's big idea? There is always a remnant who follows the Lord, even when the Lord changes the course of things. We often are so focused on our own little world around us that we lose sight of the big spiritual picture. Sometimes we look at America as the last remnant of true Christianity left on earth. But that is not true. All over the world, hundreds of millions of Christian’s are serving God faithfully, even in oppressive cultures. In Iran, more than a million Christian’s serve God in that oppressive country. There are so many Christian’s in China that within ten years they will be the most Christian country on earth. 65% of Africa’s people claim Christ. And Jesus is appearing in dreams and visions to Muslims all over the Middle East and North Africa, leading thousands to faith in Christ. Roughly one third of all Christians in the Middle East have had a dream or vision of Jesus. We are not alone. God has saved a group of people’s for himself and we walk alongside them just as Elijah was not alone and walked with the 7,000 God had reserved for himself. APPLICATION Do you feel alone in your walk with God? Seek out other believers to share your burdens with. This speaks to the necessity of the church. There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian. We are all part of the body of Christ and need one another. Seeking to stay in fellowship and partnering with other believers helps us draw strength and experience the goodness of God in relationships. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let’s consider how to encourage one another in love and good deeds, not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another.” When it looks like everything is against you that’s when it’s time to start trusting the Lord. Overwhelming earthly circumstances don’t overwhelm God. God is greater than our circumstances. The scripture says, “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world” (I John 4:4). You may be overwhelmed for a time, but time passes and things change, and God’s favor is renewed. Part of overcoming defeat is a new focus on doing God’s will. After being told he was not the only faithful believer left, God gave Elijah a new three-fold mission to carry out. Sometimes a new focus on the task at hand helps us renew our attitude. Lastly, notice the special gift God gave Elijah. A new relationship. He was to anoint Elisha in his place. As we’ll see in our next lesson, Elisha would become a faithful aid to Elijah, and a friend, serving him closely. One of the most important parts of defeating depression is to maintain relationships with others. Look for the special relationships God has given you to help you carry out his will and experience his goodness. Sometimes those blessings are just around the corner. In thinking about this we should notice that God gives Elijah the two things he needs most to combat his depression. A purpose and a partner. He is to anoint new kings and a prophet. And that prophet would become a trusted ally. When battling your own downturns, remember to hold onto the purpose God has given you and the partners, friendships, he has provided you. —– (1) J. Gary Millar, “1-2 Kings,” in 1 Samuel–2 Chronicles, ed. Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., and Jay Sklar, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2019), 3:675–676. (2) Paul R. House, 1, 2 Kings, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 8:223.

Practical Application Choose one of the following: 1. Start a "Watchtower Practice" Identify one practice that helps you position yourself to hear from God (morning prayer, journaling, a weekly Sabbath, a physical place you can go, etc.) Commit to doing it at least 3 times this week 2. Write It Down Like God told Habakkuk to write down the vision, journal your current questions, complaints, or waiting-room situations Write down what you know to be true about God's character, even if you don't feel it right now 3. Practice "Yet" Worship Each day this week, identify something difficult in your life Follow it with "yet I will rejoice in the Lord because..." and list something true about God's character or faithfulness 4. Share Your Story Think of a time when you had to wait on God and He came through (even if differently than expected) Share this story with someone this week to encourage them in their waiting TRANSCRIPT: Well, hey there. We are back with the latest episode of the Nerd Out. My name is Lyall. I am Jack. We are looking at the book of Habakkuk today. Habakkuk. Depends on how you want to say it. Habakkuk. I've heard it both ways. Psych reference. Love it. Never even seen the show. That was for you. My heart is warm right now. Well, we're all warm. That's because there's still no air conditioning. Yes. And a fan that's just blowing, which is, you know, I will say pleasant enough for those of you who are not in the room. Uh, but it would be nicer to have air conditioning functioning again. Yeah. Sometime soon, Lord. Like, is this what French people feel like right now? Like the heat wave breaks across Europe? Oh, wait. I have seen commiserating with our Yeah, I heard Montana hit like a hundred. Wow. The uh two days ago I was like, "Good grief." That's true. Yeah. There's parts of the US, too, where they don't have cuz I know we did summer camps in San Diego a couple years. That's how we met was when you were youth pastor at Cassis and Yeah. our worship team from the church at the time. Air there. Nope. Yeah. It' get warm. And you're just like opening and hoping that a beach breeze would blow in and it did not always. Yeah, those were fun times. They were. So, good days. Cal Baptist University and Pointl as well. The first Cal Baptist is the one that had the best waffle makers. So,just the best breakfast in general of any camp I've ever been to. Actually, best food all around. It was really good. But anyway, still is really good. That's what I've heard. Yeah. Like cuz I know Zona Youth Camp is there and still say that their breakfast two three years ago. three years ago. Top notch for a camp experience. Top notch. To be honest, it's a student union for right university. But still, like you wouldn't expect that for the college kids to be that nice, that good. Yeah, if I was in college, I think I'd almost go there just because of the food and the class. And you're in California, so you're close to the beach. But there you go. Okay, rambling on. But rambling on. ll right, let's take a look at the book of Habakkuk. We're coming up to the end of our minor prophet series. We're nearing the final stretch, I should say. Yeah, we got your friend, our friend coming down in a couple weeks. Yep. Um Landon McDonald, pastor up at Mission Church in Gilbert. You don't want to miss that. That'll be the the last Sunday. Two weekends. 26th, I think. Yeah. 26th. So, he'll be down to us through Hagi. Yep. Mhm. So, yeah, it's been good. It's been encouraging to hear the feedback from uh many of you just how timely this has been. So, Mhm. I think for us, it's always cool just on the leadership side that you pray and you think things through and you try to kind of survey people and get an idea of where things are at and like what will serve people well. What do we need to do? And to see when you know like you feel like you've listened to the Lord, you do something and then to see it land. It shouldn't surprise us. It doesn't necessarily surprise us, but it is encouraging. Yeah. On our pers like just from our perspective to see how speaking to you all through it. It's been fun. Like I know you know you and I have taught maybe certain sermons out of passages. You did like we were just talking you did Habakkuk series 5 years ago. Yeah. Um so we jokingly said you know 30% of our people weren't even here. Um, and so it's been fun going back through a section, uh, what you call the crunchy chapters, crispy pages of the Bible, 3:58crispy pages of the Bible that most people skip over or don't drill down into enough because maybe they don't know the historical context, which can get confusing if if you don't study it enough, or you lose sight that it's poetry. Yeah. And so because it's written as poetry, there's stuff that just doesn't make sense. Yeah. So, Habakkuk, let's get to some takeaways and then we'll uh jump into I know there's a bit that you said you uh didn't have time for that we get through and then got a hand just a couple questions. Not not too many today. Yep. So, we'll see what happens here. We've got takeaways for you from Habakkuk. Number one says, "Bring your questions and complaints to God. He's not offended by them. Biblical faith is honest faith, not fake positivity." Takeaway number two says, "God is sovereign over history and our personal stories." Even when circumstances seem out of control, God is directing things toward his purposes. Number three says, "The righteous live by faith, not by sight." Faith means trusting God's character when we don't understand his ways. Number four, worship is the anchor in the waiting room. We don't worship our circumstances. we worship our God. Our last takeaway says, "God often does his best work in us during the waiting. The gap between promise and fulfillment isn't wasted time." Of course, that reminds me. I even mentioned it to you. It's a good summary. You didn't uh you didn't even use Andrew Murray, the famous quote from him of waiting uh no, what does he say? Um, waiting on God ascribes to God the glory of being all to us. Mhm. It's a famous one. Good one. First heard that when Louis Gigglio shared that when we went and saw him at Catalyst West when he spoke there. Gosh, that was I brought Chris Tomlin out and then Tomlin leads the song All to Us and debuts it and I'm just like this is one of my new favorite songs. It was just so good. That was eight years ago. Nine. Oh, might have been 10. M 13 years ago because that was after you. Really? Yeah, man. Cuz we went to passion. Okay. It was that many years ago and we were Yes. It was 16 years ago. Dang it. Anytime you feel like you're younger. So maybe you weren't at that and then you realized with me. I think I was there. I feel like you were. I'm pretty sure I was. Anyway, I remember going to Cat West a few different times. But anyway, yeah, moving on. We even when I was like Habakkuk was 5 years ago. What? That catalyst was 16 years ago. What? Cool. Now that we're old. All right, let's get a couple questions then we'll talk about uh what you trimmed and then we'll see if we have time for any more questions. Um, Habakkuk, he brings his raw complaints, his questions directly to God rather than walking away in disappointment. Uh, and this is a great question to start with. What prevents us from being that honest with God in our own waiting seasons? I don't know if it's a a hesitancy because we feel like maybe we can't be raw and real with God, which I still think is somewhat of our image management. like we're so bent in our culture uh of trying to manage our image that that maybe we feel like we have to manage it before God even though he sees us uh Ron real and knows everything about us and knows about our thought life that we don't even say out loud and like so I think there's a hesitation that maybe a sense of um the unhealthy side of shame of like I can't be raw or real with God or a religious this filter that says, "Hey, I've got to act like I have it more together than um to be this or if if I say too much, will God smite me or will his punishment?" It's like when you're a kid and you're irritated with your parents and you talk back a little bit and you're kind of like, "How far can I go with talking back? How how far can I push this?" Um, and yet and then maybe your parents have a temper that can flare up and and I've certainly had moments in my parenting journey where I have flared up and be like, "Whoa, okay, that's too far. Cross the line." Um, and now you're in timeout forever, whatever. But, um, I think God doesn't flare up. And that's our humanity. our the brokenness of our humanity is we can flare up in a way his anger can get aroused the scripture says um but even that's the the longsuffering of God doesn't want to get there wants his grace to be prominent and so I think in that sense the the beauty of Habakkuk is that uh I mean the great thing is this is in the canon of scripture these questions that he's asking weren't censored um like they weren't like okay that's too raw we can't have that in there um and we can't be real and the beauty I think is is understanding most of the minor prophets that we are looking at uh are speaking to God and speaking to the people on God's behalf but Habach really is only conversing with God um it's not like he was a prophet raised up to communicate okay here's God giving a message now go tell the people chapter 2. I was about to say, yeah, write it on the text. So that um so that people could see it but in understanding that even then it was to be written in such a way that um you may not fully understand it right now in this moment because this is a gap in the history. Babylon hasn't taken over Israel yet. They haven't been led off into captivity because that's still 15 years awayish. Um but yeah, so it it's that and that's we jokingly said, you know, Habakkuk goes up in this tower and he kind of has this emo moment of um sulking stubbornness, kind of the holy stubbornness, which I thought was a a great capturing of kind of probably what was in Habakkuk's mind and what's in your mind and my mind when we're going through the challenges we're going through and we're not happy about it and we're frustrated. and irritated and it's confusing and we don't understand and so we're letting God know and and I guess it's the invitation to know that we can be that real and that raw with God. It's interesting to make the So there's two people who really in scripture ask some pointed questions and God responds to both of them. Yeah. You've got Job, you've got Habakkuk, and maybe David in the Psalms, Job doesn't fully get the response from God that he wants. God just kind of steps in and in a very sarcastic manner, just reestablishes, here's who I am. Have you done this? Have you done this? Have you done this? But at least there's that hope that we can still bring our complaints to God in that way. God answers. And you see that in Habakkuk. And maybe the difference is Habakkuk goes straight to God, whereas Job is kind of griping with his friends. Mhm. And then there's like this back and forth. Yeah. You know, David at least he took it straight to God. And you see, you know, Nathan comes and the prophet speaks and responds, you know, God has heard your prayers. I just Yeah, it's interesting that and maybe drilling down on the idea you talked about with parents, you know, kids kind of like to test the boundaries. Maybe our limitation or the reason we don't go to God is we know that if we were to go to our boss at work and just fully vent, we may not have a job after that. Uh you know, if you go to your parents fully vent, you're going to be grounded for a while. Mhm. But is there something that may be helpful in us like to know that we can go to God and be real, but maybe we take like I think it's good that God is to be feared and we want to respect him. But doesn't it help us refine what we're saying to God if we think through what's going on and still find the respectful way to question God? Yes. I think and that's Solomon in Ecclesiastes is you know I forget the exact line but it's when you go to the temple um you know stay low and don't be quick um to rush in the sense of that that awe that fear that reverence that respect of who God is that that he is God and I'm not. Um, and so there is that remembrance, that understanding that God's big, I'm little. And so there is a healthy side to the fear and reverence of God uh that we are to maintain. And so that should maybe caution us to not be brazen uh against God. But I think it's the invitation that we can come to God with our questions, with our complaints, with our misunderstandings or our confusion that that he's the right place and right person to do this. This is 1 Peter 5:7. I can cast my anxieties upon him because he cares for me. And so I can bring my anxious thoughts. I can bring my confusing thoughts. I can bring my irritating thoughts um to the one that is big enough to maybe help me get a different perspective because that's what's going to unfold for Habakkuk is he's going to what he's praying for is revival. Um God bring revival and yet actually what's going to happen is destruction. um and a long timeout um basically for the people of God uh into captivity in 586 when Judah falls and Babylon captures it. So then they're led off into captivity. That's the story of Daniel. All this kind of stuff. So the remnant will come back and that's we've looked at that a few weeks ago. Um, but the reality is this is not an easy answer. And this is and that's kind of what God's telling him in his first response is, "Behold, I'm doing something in your day that you wouldn't believe me if I told you. I'm raising up the Babylonians." And and that sets um Habach off into like, "Wait a minute. Um, you're using a worse people, like the worst people on the planet right now um to bring judgment against us." And the people who we talked about the brutality last week in Nahim of the Assyrians and the Babylonians the and specifically the Caldanss put the brutality of the Assyrians to shame. Shame. Yeah. I mean the Caldanss were the most feared. I mean they were once the Assyrians kind of lost power of the whole region. M you know it was the Calaldanss who really established themselves as the dominant force for a short period of time. Yeah. It's true. God smashes them. Like he takes them out. Like when you look at history like it's interesting to see how often we can trace the work of God throughout Yeah. history and see his sovereignty in the midst of that uncertainty, which is what I call the Habakkuk sermon series 5 years ago, by the way. And there you go. Well, and the reality of okay, so the Babylonians are going to take over and then you got Nebuchadnezzar who goes wacko nuts, loses it, and then gets humbled to the way that uh actually comes to be looks like a believer in God in Yahweh. Um and then God begins to change that. So he begins to change a whole nation by So that's kind of the line in uh Habakkuk 2, I think it's verse three. Um where it's like, yeah, behold, uh the proud think they're going to get away with everything and there'll be a day of reckoning for them. And then but the righteous will live by faith. Um, and that's the main crux of what Habach gets to hear from God the second time of like, okay, uh, we're called to live by faith, which, uh, we didn't get a chance to camp on, so I don't know if we want to go there now, but, um, I was about to ask about that. Here to live by faith was so that that line from Habakkuk 2:4 uh, is called back in Galatians and Romans and Hebrews. uh the authors will call to that in the New Testament. It's also what Martin Luther in 1515 uh is so just a few years ago reading and dealing with the legalism of the Catholic Church and his upbringing and all that kind of stuff and realizing, hey, there's so much looks like corruption and pollution of the gospel in a way. And then he's reading through Romans trying to figure out Paul's take, reads Habakkuk, and then begins to say, "Okay, no, we got to live by faith." And that leads to 1517. And she nails the 95 thesis on October 31st in 1517 and the Reformation and the beginning of the Protestant church uh in a lot of ways. So all of that coming from Habakkuk 24. Um yeah, pretty crazy. like really the most important theological treatises in all of the New Testament. Like when you trace where it is in Romans and you look at where that's at in Hebrews. Oh yeah. In particular, those two in particular, like it's just who knew that this emo prophet who the only like he just starts out with a prayer session. Right. Right. And then suddenly God's like, "No, you're also going to be a prophet. Write this down. Make sure the people know about it." Mhm. And then so he does like who knew that that that one little verse would have so much theological richness that would be used to and call millions of people to follow Christ. I think um I have the quote from Martin Luther if you want me to read it. But so it's the verse Martin Luther read in 1515 that cracked open his theology. He writes in his journal. Uh this is the preface to the complete edition of Luther's Luton Latin writings. He writes this um I greatly long to understand Paul's epistle to the Romans. Nothing stood in the way that was uh that one expression the justice of God. Night and day I poured until I grasp the truth that the justice of God is that the righteous um by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith. Thereupon I felt upon myself reborn and I'm gone through the open doors into paradise that it isn't about my works. Um it is about the faith. It's about what God has said, not necessarily what I say or what I do. I have participation. That's my role is to be a participant, but I'm not the solver of the reality of my salvation. I'm not the provider of my salvation. I'm not the one who can manufacture my salvation. It's God who did that and he established it. And so, right. Well, in that you talked and I love the quote, was it Oz Guinness? I think. Yeah. Yeah. Faith is not believing in spite of evidence, but obeying in spite of consequence. How's that definition changed the way that we approach living by faith? Well, it's certainly the call to say I'm going to choose to be obedient to God and who he is and what he says. um that I'm going to trust what he says and I'm going to trust the way he says to live um better than my feelings and better than maybe a cultural norm or a cultural narrative that's out there that seems like that'd be promising if I just try that. No, God said actually here's the best possible way to way to live and I'm going to now choose to actually walk in that in obedience. And when I mess up, I'll fess up and I'll get it right and I'll continue moving forward. And I think that's the premise of despite what the consequences might be, that I'm going to choose to live in obedience to that. Um, but curious your thoughts. Well, I just it's not about my thoughts. I didn't preach this one. It's yours. No, I mean I the way I'm thinking of or just kind of what was in my mind um is how during biblical times and really the first hundred or so years uh after the early churches being established we have so many stories of martyrs and like to me that's you people who were obeying in spite of consequence. Mhm. So in our day and age where we want to be faithful to God and we want people to you know and part of that is because we live in a country that has established freedom of religion. So which is a beautiful the idea of freedom of religion separation of church and state really is saying that our government cannot make an official national religion and as a result we have the freedom to worship however worship however we want. Mhm. Um even if we choose that we don't want to worship, right? You know, so like we want to see that protected. I think it should be protected. Absolutely. And for anyone of any religion. Yeah. But because of that, I think in some ways we think that we should be given the freedom to worship without any sort of consequence. And in this, you know, that you've got consequences sometimes that because I'm following after Christ, I'm going to choose to not do certain things and that's going to get me I'm going to be ostracized. Mhm. And that doesn't necessarily mean that I change how I treat people or change how I love people, but there are certain things that scripture calls sinful and certain things that God says we should as Christians not participate in. And sometimes there is consequence to that. Whether that be relational consequences, sometimes it can be job consequences or tension, financial consequences of all of these things. And it's like that's where the faith is revealed, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Trust God to those lengths to Polycarp who gives up his life um as a martyr. And uh was he the one that was killed in the So he's the one that when they came to get him, he served them refreshments. Yeah, that's right. And his captors were weeping at the kindness and love that he showed them as they had to take him off to the execution. And then he was going to be burned to death. Mhm. Only he doesn't burn in the fire. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego moment. So, they have to literally kill him. Stab him. Yes. And then there's some pretty graphic descriptions of that um about the amount of blood that flowed. But yeah, it it that death spoke something to myriads of people. Yep. Yep. It's interesting to trace that and you can actually read the his epist I don't remember what they call it but basically in the apostolic father's Polycarp. Yeah. The martyrdom of Polycarp. Yeah. If you just Google Polycarp you'll be able to find quite a bit on him. I think there's a book called the book of martyrs. Yeah. Fox's book of martyrs. That's what it is. Fox's book of martyrs. um that I've skimmed I haven't read the whole entire thing, but skimmed portions and it's pretty um I think faith building uh to see this and it's actually you know we ended the sermon with Corey Tinboom's quote who if you don't know her uh she wrote the hiding place went through um they were hiding some of the Jews during the Holocaust movement and I think she ends up spending some time in a concentration camp and she has a conversation in the book with her dad um about hey I don't know if I have enough faith to withstand what I'm going to withstand um and her dad looks at her and she tells the story of hey when we get on a train when do I give you your ticket um and she said well you give it to me right before we get on the train when she was a kid uh and then you get on the train you hand it to the conductor and you're off and one and he said, "Listen, God gives the grace that we need in the moment that we're in. He gives us the ticket and if you need to be a martyr, he'll give you martyr's grace at the time of that. Uh persecution grace at the time of that. For some of you, perseverance grace at the time of where you're having to persevere through an ordeal that whether it's a health scare or a health crisis in your family. Uh whether it's a job loss, whether it's a different persevering scenario or season that you might be in that God's going to pour in the grace. He'll give you the ticket for that grace that you need in the moment that you're in. You don't get it necessarily ahead of time. Dad didn't give Corey the ticket a week ahead of time because she might lose it. You get it right then. Um, and I think that when you read the book uh the book of martyrs, you see these people who have incredible courage that probably seems superhuman uh in some ways. At least it would be for me sitting here in suburbia of 2026 and realizing I don't know if I could do that. Um but God poured in the grace that was needed in that moment. Uh and he'll do that for the moments that I have to walk through. He'll do that for the moments you have to walk through that you have to walk through. Um that we'll get the proportion amount of grace that we need uh for that season. Hence the righteous will live by faith. Yeah. And I think we forget Ephesians 28 and 9 when it talks about it's by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not from yourselves is the gift of God. Right. Not by works so that no one can. The gift of God we skip over. The gift of God is not grace. It's not salvation. It's faith. The gift that God gives his people is faith. Yep. And when we see that as the gift, of course, we would look back and be like, man, that's like supernatural. Yeah. It's meant to be. It's meant to point to the fact that it wasn't their human nature that enabled them to have that. It was walking in the spirit by the spirit through faith that gave them the grace for the moment that they needed. Yeah. Big. It's big. This is my favorite book, by the way, in the Old Testament, Habakkuk. Um, I love the arc of the story. So, you have a guy who goes from incredible internal tension and struggle and confusion and questions and complaints and he's irritated. Um, and he goes through and he gets a couple words from God and one of them seems even confusing. One of them seems like unrealistic like that can't happen and yet God's going to make it happen. And then the second one is like but I don't understand because it's like this gap between which we kind of talked about last night. But the idea of just maybe there's a time uh that this is not going to fulfillment from when the promise is given and fulfillment is there's a time gap and that's going to play out and he's probably not going to live long enough to see it and and so he's living in faith but then he goes through this perspective change where God gets a hold of his heart again while he's in the watchtower while he's kind of camped out going I'm waiting on God. God reforms his heart. So that verse two of chapter 3, you really could turn into a prayer for you when you're in a deep need season and you're waiting on God. Just make verse two your prayer and personalize it. And then he gets to the verse 17 through 19. It's like, okay, yet. And in fact, I think I don't know if it's Spurgeon or somebody that says yet is the three letter word that really sums up the entire book of Habakkuk. um that yet I will I will choose to worship God and so his whole perspective gets changed which is I know part of uh the beauty of what I know you love about um this book well but isn't like this is really uh it's interesting to see the legacy of David live on in Habakkuk really yes because you brought that up earlier you look at the psalms that David wrote the questions that he asked of God and it's the same pattern that David brings a real raw honest pray to God. And in his psalms of lament, they end with worship. Like it brings him back to a place of worship, recognizing God is still worthy of my worship regardless of my circumstances. So I'm going to choose to worship him even in the hard place, even in the difficult spot that I'm in because he's still good and he's still worthy of that. Yeah. Like just it's huge. And yeah, I mean I just the end of Habakkuk 3, I mean it spoke a lot to me just when I was in college, you know, to have my dad get diagnosed with cancer right before going to school. Um then I ended up taking a year off during my sophomore year to care for my dad at which, you know, during that part of the year he passed away and just dealing with the grief of that as I'm like entering my formative years of becoming a man, you know. Um, but I share the story because someone actually shared the that verse in a devotional a couple weeks ago before service. But that kind of became the life verse of that season for me that though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vine. The produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food. There be no herd in the stall. The flock be cut off from the fold. And there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. I like there's one that's I will joy in the God of my salvation like he Yeah. Um, and I just thought about that when, you know, that was being shared and it was so meaningful that, you know, my best friend at the time, uh, in college ran track at U of A and he was a pretty highly rated recruit and his career just never he never reached the heights that they thought that he would because he kept having hamstring injuries. And, uh, it was just, it was really disappointing. And I just I still remember his senior year. He's kind of, it's his last meet. He was trying to get fit to like have a good race and I feel like he ran but it just it still wasn't what he wanted it to be and we're just kind of sitting and decompressing and processing everything and he's just like you know Habakkuk 3 like you shared that being your life verse and for me like I made verse 19 my life verse that he makes my feet like the deer he makes me tread on my high places. I'm thinking as a hurdler, yeah, that's for me. And I didn't realize God anchored me in these verses because I needed verses 17 and 18 more than I needed 19. Yeah. Like just how meaningful that like it's just interesting like that that's a brother for life. Like we had to grieve stuff together and and God gave us that for a season. And um yeah, it's just another question here kind of along these lines. Hines feet on Hines Places come from Mhm. Yeah. Habakkuk 3. Yes. Forget who wrote that. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, very famous old classic Hines Feed in Hines places. Uh classic devotional type thing. But uh so you mentioned one line in there before we get to that. Uh maybe think of the Tim Killer quote uh walking through pain and suffering. This is from his book uh walking through pain and suffering. You do not have enough faith to generate joy in the dark, but you do have enough faith to get to God and he is the source of joy. Um, yeah. And so I think it's that invitation that Hippachic found that we can find in our seasons of being stuck in the waiting room or seasons of difficulty or deep need is okay, I can't generate joy in this moment. Um, but I can have enough faith to get me to God, which is what Habakkuk did. And God is the source of my joy. Um, and so I will I will worship the one who can be the source of my joy, the source of my comfort, the source of the wisdom I need, the source of uh the comfort I need, the source of the insight that I need going forward that I just got to get to the source and so God can provide enough faith for me to get to him which I think is the imitation of Habakkuk of why we can come to him and why we should go to him. So anyway, absolutely. Yeah. Well, I mean, in this we see uh and what you'd said this that God would rather hear an honest complaint than a fake prayer. So, where does that challenge maybe our understanding than of what acceptable prayer looks like to God? So, I took a lot of English classes in college for my communication major and and uh creative writing classes and speech classes and all that kind of stuff. And I've wrestled with that particular, okay, what is prayer? Um, and I actually think honest prayer does have words, but I think honest prayer is sometimes silence. And that's probably the contemplative in me that's been growing over the last decade. um that I think attention and searching and questioning and trying to understand I think all of that is prayer. Um and I think it's about a posture of the heart that's open toward God. Um, and that's why we made the phrase we uh used last night of I think it's people with immature faith rush ahead of God or they run away from God when things get difficult and they deconstruct and just give it up and Habakkuk could have done that um could have said God this isn't right uh and you shouldn't be doing it this way you should be doing it a different way and could have run away could have gone to the Baal temple down the Um but he didn't. Um he could have rushed ahead and tried to fix things on God's behalf. Instead, he just goes up at a watchtower and plants his feet and says, "I'm going to wait on God." And I don't know if there were a lot of words in those moments. I don't know how long he was up there. Um we don't know. But I think that's the beauty of what a moment of not a moment of silence like you know at a sports game where you take a moment of silence for someone but I think the practice of silence and solitude. Um gosh, I have had more deep interaction engagement with God in some of my silence and solitude that didn't have a lot of words to it that I think was uh a beneficial prayer session with very few words. Um and I think that's where Habach got his perspective changed and why we have verse or chapter 3 which is a psalm uh or a poem that that he that he sings. So you have a guy who is shouting in chapter one at God who turns into a singer to God in the arc of that. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. I think that we almost treat prayer as this performative thing sometimes. Yes. Where we do feel like we need a creative writing class and we do need some English lessons to compose a brilliant prayer. Right. And yet if God just wants the honesty, if God already knows what's in my heart, I don't need to do the performative thing. I almost just need to. It's the taking the deep breath. Yep. When you're just too tired to care anymore and you just you let it go. Yep. You know, like I think that those are the prayer moments that have been meaningful that Yeah. I want to be respectful of God, but sometimes in your prayers, you might let slip a four-letter word. And I don't like I have I think God knows our heart enough to know that we're not trying to diminish his holiness in any way in those moments. God just he sees the struggle of the soul. Yeah. So how meaningful is it to just know that the Holy Spirit already intercedes for us with prayers that we don't even know we need words. So yeah, like we may just be groaning in weeping and crying and the Holy Spirit's already translating all of that for us anyway and praying that on our behalf. I think the beauty is often occasionally I will say uh not often but occasionally when I have let the rawness come out um I get a four-letter love a four-letter word in return and that's love um that you just begin to see and feel and sense literally almost the embrace of God. That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool when you have those moments. So, may you have more of those moments in your life, especially when you're going through uh the deep end kind of pain and that season of um what feels like confusion and you don't know if you're going to get out of it. there's someone there with you in the midst of it. That's what Habakkuk learns. So, yeah, it feels like a timely message for our church that we've got families who are dealing with relational fallout. Yep. We've got people who are walking through divorce that they didn't ask for. We've got people who are walking through job loss, health scares. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you just It's been a season of uncertainty. Yeah. You know, and you said this that God changed Habakkuk long before he changed the circumstances. Uh and so for those who might be in that season where they're hoping for the change of circumstances and yet maybe God's trying to bring some change of heart, like why do you think God often works this way? And what do you think he might be trying to develop in us in these waiting seasons? H I've never been a a steel worker. I'm a Steelers fan. And so, but the steel worker when they're fashioning steel and it's like red hot and they're pounding away at it, but they form it into some beautiful artistry and incredible work of art. And yet the process to get to that is like a beating. Um, and yet the beauty of what you behold after the fact is an incredible thing. So sometimes the reality is to get to the beautiful expression of a deepened character with God or a deeper walk with God, it takes going through the pounding. It's the entering into the fellowship of his sufferings that Paul talks about. Uh I want to experience the resurrection power of Jesus. But you don't rush to that like you don't just get that like injected into you. Uh you have to go through some of the fellowships of his sufferings that actually pours in the power. So you get the ticket uh to the grace and the power that you need the moment that you're in it. Uh you don't get that ahead of time. Um so but it is the beauty after the fact that is worth uh going through the difficulties or the tensions and the stretching that's taking place. Yeah. So, and it's easy when you're in the midst of that again to want to rush ahead of God and solve it, fix it, find the shortcut, or to give up, run away, and say, "This is too hard." Um, but you don't get to see the beauty of the artistry and the character development uh within your own soul and your own heart without waiting and going through the process. If you're in the process right now, may I just recommend press pause on this video and look up Bibo Norman. Be ebo. Such a southern good old southern boy name. BBO. Bibbo Norman. He has a song from the early 2000s, maybe even late 90s called The Hammer Holds. And it is so good. That's awesome. Bibbo Norman, The Hammer Holds. I'm going to Google it. You said that word, didn't. So, um, yeah, last question here and then we'll do the application and wrap it up here. So, going back to Corey Tinboom, uh, you mentioned her story, but you quoted her at the end of the sermon said, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God." Isn't that great? What is it that we know about God's character that helps us trust him with unknown futures? I think we were talking I think about this before we started recording that uh sometimes we're encouraged I know you are too when you see the work of God throughout history and so you see the past historical workings of God uh through obviously through the life of Jesus the early church um some of the martyrs of the faith the leaders of the early church into the third fourth fifth century, you get to Martin Luther and you get to like modern day like Billy Grahams and things like that. And so you just go, gosh, God's been on the move and active throughout history for a long time. Uh long before I got here and he'll be at work long after I'm gone. Um, and so I take solace and hope in that that um the reason I can trust my unknown moment of history to a known God is a he knows me. I can know him through faith in Jesus. I can look back and go, "Yeah, she's been active and present and responsive and helpful and enduring through so much." Yeah. Yeah. He's earned my trust uh because of the of the past and the validity of how he's been faithful. So, it's his faithfulness uh not mine. it's his faithfulness that I can trust and go, okay, then that person, it's the same way in any relationship that you have that when you have trustworthy people, um, then you're okay trusting them. When you don't have trustworthy people, you shouldn't trust them. And so, when God has proven his trustworthiness, his faithfulness, then I can trust my unknown future to that known God. It's what led Paul to write that he who began a good work in you will be faithful completed. Yeah. And he's shown that in the lives of many, many believers ever since those words were pinned. So, yep. All right. A couple thoughts on application, some suggestions, things that you can practice this week if you want to uh find some sort of a actual takeaway, something that you can apply to your life. So, uh number one is this. Start a watchtower practice. Identify one practice that helps you position yourself to hear from God. Whether that be your morning prayer, uh writing in your journal, uh taking a weekly day of Sabbath, uh maybe it's a physical place you can go. You can escape up to Mount Lemon and go for a hike and bring some food into a picnic. um start a watchtower practice and then commit to doing that practice at least three times this week and then use that time to intentionally sit in silence and just wait for God to speak. Just wait and listen, asking God to speak to you. Number two, maybe it's this for you. It's write it down like God told Habakkuk to write down the vision. Journal your current questions, complaints, or waiting room situations. After you've written out the situation and just vented what's going on, write down what you know to be true about God's character, even if you don't feel it right now in this moment. Number three, practice yet worship. So each day this week, identify something difficult in your life and follow it with yet I will jo. and list something true about God's character or faithfulness. That might be a good one to write down, but even just to speak that out loud. What's something difficult that took place during your day? Mention that to God. And yet, I'll rejoice in the Lord because fill in the blank. So, side note to that one, I almost I didn't have enough time to pull it off for this Sunday, but I almost tried to recreate the yield sign uh and just cross out the red and the and make it yellow and just put yet. Um kind of like the Yeti thing that you see of the Sasquatch Rockman. Um and but I couldn't get it here fast enough. So, I was like, man, I was going to hand it out to everybody because you know me and props, I like props. Anyway, but so maybe in your own hand scratching on a scratching note or on a sticky note, just put a a yet sign up on your mirror. That could every time you you're getting ready in the morning and you go, "Okay." Yep. Yet. Yeah. Then last one here, share your story. Think of a time when you had to wait on God and he came through, even if it was differently than you expected him to come through. and then share this story with someone this week to encourage them in their way. So there you have it. Takeaways nerding out over the book of Habakkuk. Thanks for joining us for that. We uh How many K's are inHabakkuk? Three Ks. Three Ks. One B. One B. One B. Three Ks. Yeah. Habakkuk There you go. Yeah. Maybe we don't end there, but you know that's strikeouts. We're talking strikeouts. Strikeouts. baseball season. Any who, hope you have a great week. Uh, next week we'll be back. Zephaniah, and then uh we've got Haggi and Zechariah. That's it. Three more books. We'll cover Malachi at a time to be determined and Jonah we cover. So, but yeah, down the road. Appreciate you all and uh yeah, hope you have a blessed week.

Dear Roger and Friends, I came across your website while searching for information on who wrote Esther. Some of what you wrote led me to believe you may be open to a particular theory. Given that the book of Esther is a firsthand account, and since it includes a significant amount of detail regarding the events, why haven’t theologians and Bible scholars postulated that Esther may be the author? Why wouldn’t a woman be considered as a potential contributor to some of the books of the Bible? Thank you! Jenna Dear Jenna, Thank you for giving so much thought to a biblical question that isn’t often addressed but does have great significance. Before we dig into the nitty gritty of the text, history, and culture surrounding Esther, please note that we do NOT know with certainty who wrote the book of Esther. It is anonymous. Because of that, we must hold our conclusions with humility. INTRODUCTION The book of Esther is a wild ride with profound application to our lives today. In Mike Cosper’s book Faith Among the Faithless, Cosper argues that in this tale of sex, ego, and revenge set in a pluralistic, pagan society is relevant for anyone living in the modern West. Like other authors, Cosper also challenges some of our Sunday School readings that ignore the challenges of Mordecai and Esther’s own complicity in moral compromises. Like us, Esther is a complicated woman who, while being a hero of the faith, is not sinless. Your suggestion that Esther herself may have written all or part of the book is certainly possible. Unlike some biblical books, the book of Esther never identifies its author. The most prominent authorship possibilities that scholars have proposed are: Mordecai (based partly on Esther 9:20, where Mordecai records events connected to Purim). A Jewish court official living in Persia. A later Jewish historian or compiler who had access to Persian records and eyewitness traditions. Or, (less commonly) Esther herself. Most conservative scholars today tend to favor an author who lived relatively close to the events and who had access to Persian court customs and records. Could Esther have been the author? It's possible, though there is no direct evidence. Arguments in favor: The events which involve her specifically are written with much more detail than those that don’t (contrasted with the events involving Mordecai). The book contains intimate details about Esther's experiences and the workings of the royal court. At places, the narrative even shares Esther’s emotions. Some scenes reflect the perspective of someone close to Esther. It would be a mistake to assume Esther could not read or write simply because she was a woman. The events of Esther take place in the Persian Empire, and Esther became a powerful queen. While literacy was not widespread in the ancient world, women in royal households often had access to education, scribes, and administrative resources that ordinary people did not possess. Therefore, Esther's literacy is entirely plausible, even if it cannot be proven. Ancient works were often based on eyewitness testimony, even when another person served as the final writer. Arguments against: The book frequently speaks about Esther in the third person. The narrative style feels more like a historical account than a personal memoir. References to official records (Esth. 2:23; 6:1; 10:2) suggest the author may have been compiling multiple sources. Esther contains information that Esther herself likely would not have known firsthand (for example, conversations, decisions, and events occurring outside her presence, as well as details extending beyond her personal experience). The evidence so far leaves us uncertain about the probability of Esther’s authorship. What about tone and the lack of God’s name? Some have said that the portions of the story that include her are written with a noticeable humility compared to those typically written by men, which often seem more authoritarian, or which may possess a greater amount of certainty in their tone. However, literary style is one of the more difficult forms of evidence to evaluate. Readers can perceive the same text quite differently. Some may detect a feminine voice, while others may simply see the humility and restraint characteristic of biblical narrative generally (consider Matthew and John’s frequent admission of the lack of the apostles’ faith in the gospels, for instance). For that reason, most scholars are hesitant to draw conclusions about authorship from tone alone. I am not persuaded that the absence of God's name points to female authorship. The omission of God's name is one of the most discussed features of Esther, and scholars have proposed many explanations. Some believe it highlights God's hidden providence working behind the scenes. Others suggest the author was writing for Jews living in exile within a Persian context. Whatever the explanation, the book consistently points to God's providential care even though His name never appears. Most scholars view this omission as a literary and theological choice rather than evidence regarding the author's gender. For those reasons, many scholars conclude that Esther's testimony likely stands behind portions of the book even if she was not the final author. What about the historicity of Esther? This is where the debate becomes more significant. Critical scholars have sometimes questioned Esther's historicity because: Esther is not mentioned in surviving Persian records. The book contains dramatic reversals and literary features that resemble a novella. Some details cannot be independently verified. Conservative scholars generally respond that: Our surviving Persian records are fragmentary and omit countless historical figures. The book demonstrates remarkable familiarity with Persian customs, court procedures, and geography. Many details once questioned have proven consistent with what we know about the Persian Empire. The author repeatedly appeals to official records and archives, suggesting an intention to write history rather than fiction. Most evangelical scholars, therefore, view Esther as a fundamentally historical account, even while recognizing its sophisticated literary artistry. In other words, a book can be carefully structured, beautifully written, and theologically purposeful while still describing real events. Could women have contributed to biblical authorship? There are four notable possibilities of books with female authorship in the Bible: Esther, Ruth, Song of Songs, and Hebrews. Half of the verses of Song of Songs are spoken by a female, and some scholars have argued that the imagery centers on a woman’s perspective of romance and desire. While Samuel is traditionally ascribed authorship of Ruth, the book is anonymous, and some literary scholars argue that the intimate focus on female survival, mother-in-law dynamics, and domestic life indicates it may have been written or originally passed down by a woman. Hebrews is also anonymous. Scholars have suggested that the author could be Apollos, Barnabas, Paul, Luke, or Priscilla and Aquilla (although the masculine singular verb in Hebrews 11:32 makes it less likely). As for women contributing to Scripture more broadly, it is important to remember that women played a significant role in the transmission of biblical revelation even when they were not the final writers of biblical books. Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Mary, and others composed songs, prayers, and prophetic declarations that are preserved in Scripture. Luke's infancy and childhood narratives may well reflect traditions that originated with Mary herself. Mary Magdalene was the first person to see and proclaim the risen Savior. Christians should not assume that women were absent from the process by which God gave his Word to his people. Concluding thoughts The book of Esther never tells us who wrote it, so we cannot be certain. My own view is that the final book likely incorporates eyewitness testimony from people such as Esther and Mordecai, while neither of them probably served as the final author. The detailed knowledge of court life certainly suggests access to people who were close to the events. It does not seem probable to me that Esther was the book’s final author, but neither should the possibility be dismissed out of hand. As Christians, we do not need to choose between inspiration and the use of sources. Throughout Scripture, God often worked through human authors who used records, traditions, eyewitness accounts, and earlier writings. The doctrine of inspiration applies to the final text God gave his people. Regarding historicity, I believe Esther records real events. While some scholars view it as historical fiction or a novella, the book displays extensive knowledge of Persian culture and repeatedly refers to official records. For these reasons, I find the traditional view that Esther is a historical account written from reliable sources to be the most convincing perspective. Ultimately, the most important point is not identifying the precise human author but recognizing God's providence in preserving this account. The book's message remains the same: even when God seems absent, He is actively at work to preserve his people and accomplish his purposes. Well Jenna, we hope that this gives you some helpful truth and opinions to chew on as you continue to consider the role of Ester—and many other women—in the authorship of the Bible. Be encouraged! God accomplishes His will through His people, every time. John Beeson Brie Barrier Wetherbee