WEBVTT 00:00:02.548 --> 00:00:02.668 Amen. 00:00:02.668 --> 00:00:12.269 Let us pray, father, I give you thanks this morning for your presence here and we thank you, lord, for this book, this letter from Peter. 00:00:12.269 --> 00:00:29.471 And we pray this morning, god, that you would give us fresh eyes to see this idea of salvation, and I pray that, as we explore it, god, you'd open us and expand our consciousness, our knowledge, our insight into this and what you're doing in the world. 00:00:29.471 --> 00:00:32.649 And I pray that you would give us a glimpse, even a deeper glimpse, of what you're up to. 00:00:32.649 --> 00:00:35.390 And I pray, god, you'd give us faith to see it. 00:00:35.390 --> 00:00:45.512 That by your spirit, you would empower us to have the eyes to see, and by faith, god, we would pitch in and join you in this mission. 00:00:45.512 --> 00:00:53.468 And, god, may we receive all the good and perfect gifts from you that come only from you, as gifts, god, that you would lavish upon us. 00:00:53.468 --> 00:00:57.777 I mean you enable us to let go of all the things that we want to hold on to. 00:00:57.777 --> 00:01:06.060 Instead of these gifts from you, may we indeed join you in this beautiful relationship with the divine. 00:01:06.060 --> 00:01:06.340 God. 00:01:06.340 --> 00:01:08.046 Give us the capacity to do that. 00:01:08.046 --> 00:01:10.140 You bless us this morning, god. 00:01:10.140 --> 00:01:18.525 Bring us clarity where we need it and peace where we lack it, and help us to have love for our neighbors in Jesus' name. 00:01:18.525 --> 00:01:20.769 Amen, amen. 00:01:20.769 --> 00:01:21.269 You can see it. 00:01:21.269 --> 00:01:22.010 Good morning everyone. 00:01:22.010 --> 00:01:23.513 My name is Ryan. 00:01:24.040 --> 00:01:26.661 A couple of quick housekeeping things this fall. 00:01:26.661 --> 00:01:33.527 We're not super-duper full right now, but this fall, and from fall until next spring, this is going to be a packed house. 00:01:33.527 --> 00:01:35.305 We're going to keep two gatherings. 00:01:35.305 --> 00:01:43.066 We might in the future, if needed, to throw in a third one, but we want to pack this place out, and so the fall will be when that happens. 00:01:43.066 --> 00:01:51.992 So I'd love to ask you even now We'll keep asking, but if you're a longtime, a tender member or whatever, I'd love for you to consider one of two things. 00:01:51.992 --> 00:02:00.334 One, start moving closer to the front, because in the fall, all of our guests if you're kind of just checking it out or want to, you know, maybe come in late. 00:02:00.334 --> 00:02:06.926 We want to leave the back open for them and just allow them, not trying to enable their late attendance, I just mean that we want to be gracious. 00:02:06.926 --> 00:02:12.680 It's tough when you walk in late anywhere, you're going to like parade through everybody and like, oh it's me, you know. 00:02:12.680 --> 00:02:18.347 So I'd love to invite you to be a missionary and kind of scoot forward not right now, but later on and scoot forward. 00:02:18.347 --> 00:02:29.651 And then also, if you're here like I don't really care, I like the 832 and the 10s, find their both good, maybe consider going to the 830 just for a season and making some room for this gathering. 00:02:29.651 --> 00:02:32.810 So if you would love to consider that, pray about those. 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:33.985 I would love to ask that. 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:39.346 And also, if you're a guest here, you have a kid and your kid wasn't signed up for a Pathfinder, as you can do that? 00:02:39.346 --> 00:02:43.740 Well, I guess not now, but you can just do that at any time and just contact the offices. 00:02:43.740 --> 00:02:48.211 And we also have childcare available back here If you've got a little one who gets a little too rowdy. 00:02:48.211 --> 00:02:51.246 We don't mind rowdy kids, but sometimes it can be distraction for you or whatever. 00:02:51.246 --> 00:02:56.028 So you can sneak out there and drop them off or just go run around a little bit and then bring them back. 00:02:56.028 --> 00:02:56.569 It's fine too. 00:02:56.569 --> 00:02:57.711 We love having kids around. 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:03.091 So, all right, this morning we are in the end of our journey through First Peter. 00:03:03.091 --> 00:03:04.542 I've enjoyed it and this whole. 00:03:04.542 --> 00:03:10.468 My one regret is that I wish we could have taken a whole year to preach through First Peter, because there's so much in there. 00:03:10.468 --> 00:03:15.825 I mean, you heard Katie, my beautiful wife, read that passage this morning, it was like just incredibly long and dense and incredible. 00:03:15.825 --> 00:03:17.030 The whole book is that way. 00:03:17.030 --> 00:03:19.027 If you read the book along with me, it's pretty. 00:03:19.027 --> 00:03:22.584 It's got tons of dynamite like one liners and memorable verses. 00:03:22.584 --> 00:03:26.906 And so we went through thematically, so we did one theme at a time. 00:03:26.906 --> 00:03:30.649 So this is actually a verse from First Peter, but we're at the end of First Peter. 00:03:30.649 --> 00:03:31.030 So there you go. 00:03:31.719 --> 00:03:33.806 But week one was about being born again into a living hope. 00:03:33.806 --> 00:03:34.387 What does that mean? 00:03:34.387 --> 00:03:35.711 Week two is about suffering. 00:03:35.711 --> 00:03:40.114 Peter just assumes that life is about suffering and is only not only. 00:03:40.114 --> 00:03:47.508 His best advice is to like sort of plant your suffering into the sufferings of Christ, like, hey, christ also suffers. 00:03:47.508 --> 00:03:55.806 You're in good company and know that there will come a time when you will experience, as Sonia mentioned with her father, like resurrection life and that's our hope as Christians. 00:03:55.806 --> 00:03:59.449 And then, last, we're talking about the holiness, or about holiness. 00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:03.209 So Peter calls the people to be holy, for God as holy. 00:04:03.209 --> 00:04:20.130 And what he means is not like be perfect or be I mean not per se or like be some morally upstanding, good person that's going to be difficult, you should try that but rather like be whole, be integrated, be, receive the healing you need from God as a gift from God, and live out and in and through that. 00:04:20.130 --> 00:04:22.927 Today I want to engage in salvation. 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:24.786 This is a prominent theme in First Peter. 00:04:24.786 --> 00:04:27.331 It goes throughout the whole of well scripture. 00:04:27.331 --> 00:04:28.418 Really, it's very much throughout. 00:04:28.418 --> 00:04:36.358 The whole of scriptures is a common thread, but especially in First Peter, and he mentions it four times in First Peter, three times alone, as you heard. 00:04:36.358 --> 00:04:38.399 Katie probably read it in that first introduction. 00:04:38.701 --> 00:04:45.644 Remember Peter's writing to a bunch of exiles not literal exiles, I don't think, but people who are living in a culture. 00:04:45.644 --> 00:05:01.012 They're brand new Christians and they're Gentile Christians probably, and so they're living in this place that's sort of contrary to the way of the cross and so the way of Jesus they've adopted, their culture and their society around them is contrary to them. 00:05:01.012 --> 00:05:08.889 So you might not have that hard of a time imagining living in a culture that's sort of going the opposite direction from your vision of the cross. 00:05:08.889 --> 00:05:17.528 And so you're in good company and in our case, probably many of you, in this part of the world anyway, are not suffering from immense persecution as they were. 00:05:17.528 --> 00:05:18.100 They were suffering. 00:05:18.100 --> 00:05:22.531 Their lives were in danger, their daily, their economic systems were in danger. 00:05:22.531 --> 00:05:24.204 A lot of things were up in the air for them. 00:05:24.204 --> 00:05:39.470 We don't probably have that in this part of the world, but there are places in China or in the Middle East or in places around the globe where Christians really are in danger for professing Christ, and so thankfully, in our country we don't have that all the time, but you get the idea. 00:05:39.839 --> 00:05:46.899 There's a cultural movement that's sort of contrary to the way of the cross, and my encouragement to you is always to look like Jesus when you engage the culture. 00:05:46.899 --> 00:05:54.610 I mean, you don't have to hide from it or sort of, you know, cow-toward the culture, but we want to be loving in our engagement of the culture. 00:05:54.610 --> 00:05:57.348 It's fine to disagree and push back do that great. 00:05:57.348 --> 00:05:59.365 But look like Jesus when you do that. 00:05:59.365 --> 00:05:59.685 Okay. 00:05:59.685 --> 00:06:05.345 Sometimes we're just as mean and nasty as everybody else, but we just slap Jesus' name on it and it's like that's not really what. 00:06:05.345 --> 00:06:06.904 So that was the last. 00:06:06.904 --> 00:06:10.790 So today I want to engage in again salvation. 00:06:10.790 --> 00:06:14.105 Now here's my thing I want to propose from the jump. 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:27.249 I think, as many of us think of salvation, we might fall into one of two camps, and the first one is that this idea of salvation was a one-time event that happened to you in your life, probably prior to now. 00:06:27.249 --> 00:06:30.163 Or if you're here and you're not, you wouldn't call yourself saved. 00:06:30.163 --> 00:06:34.747 Maybe it'll happen later, but it's like a one-time deal, like if I said, hey, when were you saved? 00:06:34.747 --> 00:06:39.850 You might say, oh, when I was 14, I was at summer camp, and you know that might be how you view salvation. 00:06:39.850 --> 00:06:40.713 Fair enough. 00:06:40.713 --> 00:06:46.786 Another kind of, I think, rut on the other side of the road might be the idea of, oh well, salvation is yet to come. 00:06:46.786 --> 00:06:58.555 It's sort of this idea of heaven after I die, and for many of us it might be like you might envision, like a disembodied soul floating around in the ether, somewhere else other than here on planet Earth. 00:06:59.110 --> 00:07:18.257 Okay, so those are the two kind of like, I think, polarizing options in many ways, in many cases for many people, even non-Christians, like either it happened one time and that's that, but it does not happen when you die, or it's just heaven when you die and it's some disembodied spirit thing, that's sort of the end of time and space, and you're kind of floating around doing who knows. 00:07:18.257 --> 00:07:23.899 Well, I want to propose this morning a sort of additional or supplemental view of salvation. 00:07:23.899 --> 00:07:26.129 If you're with me and I got 25 minutes to do what somebody's doing. 00:07:26.129 --> 00:07:29.252 I'm doing my very best, but if you have any questions or want to talk or come and grab me. 00:07:29.252 --> 00:07:30.716 I'm always open for that kind of thing. 00:07:31.999 --> 00:07:35.298 But here's the deal and here's how I think Peter addresses salvation. 00:07:35.298 --> 00:07:37.293 For sure he mentions it again four times. 00:07:37.293 --> 00:07:39.233 The word he uses is the word soteria. 00:07:39.233 --> 00:07:41.750 Everyone say soteria, soteria. 00:07:41.750 --> 00:07:49.740 It's just a Greek word that means salvation or to be saved, and Peter, I think, knows a thing or two about being saved. 00:07:49.740 --> 00:07:54.555 So Peter, of course, now he's an older, a more wise and well established Peter. 00:07:54.555 --> 00:07:57.951 He has a 401K, he's got a place on the lake, you know, he's got. 00:07:57.951 --> 00:08:01.276 He's kind of, he's lived his life and he's riding up to these exiles. 00:08:01.276 --> 00:08:07.959 But I imagine he's thinking back over his own life and the myriad times that he was saved. 00:08:08.529 --> 00:08:27.053 One of my favorite stories in the gospels is one night Jesus sends the disciples out into the lake to go across it and he leaves them and goes somewhere else and they go out there and they're out there on the lake when it says the storm rolled in and these waves begin to batter their small little boat and they're terrified. 00:08:27.053 --> 00:08:30.517 I mean, how could you not be, and in fact these were fishermen some of them. 00:08:30.517 --> 00:08:32.796 So like the fact that they're scared. 00:08:32.796 --> 00:08:35.293 If they're scared, I mean I would have been really scared. 00:08:35.293 --> 00:08:45.095 But they're out there and it's dark, it's the middle of the night, waves are bashing their boat and they're horrified, they're afraid, they're gonna die, like really they're thinking they're gonna die. 00:08:46.250 --> 00:09:00.539 Then it says early that morning, so I imagine Don just breaking or about to break, and it's like the darkest part of the day maybe, and they see Jesus come walking out on the water, which is crazy, towards them and they don't recognize him. 00:09:00.539 --> 00:09:01.975 In fact, who do they think he is? 00:09:01.975 --> 00:09:03.375 Or rather, what do they think he is? 00:09:03.375 --> 00:09:18.322 They think he's a ghost and they're terrified, which is awesome, because anytime in scripture and maybe in life, whenever there's an encounter with the divine, fear and terror and wonder often accompany him. 00:09:18.322 --> 00:09:27.097 So don't be surprised as you encounter the living God if it feels frightening or terrifying and you're full of wonder all at the same time. 00:09:27.097 --> 00:09:29.216 That's what happens when you encounter the divine. 00:09:29.216 --> 00:09:38.895 It sort of deconstructs your worldview and everything you thought was true is like, radically, it's unstable when you encounter the divine and strange, mysterious God. 00:09:38.895 --> 00:09:42.274 So there he is, and then Peter recognizes him. 00:09:42.274 --> 00:09:43.138 Oh, it's Jesus. 00:09:43.138 --> 00:09:47.355 He's like, if it's you, call me out on the water and I'm gonna come out there with you. 00:09:47.355 --> 00:09:49.554 And so, jesus, all right, come on out here. 00:09:49.554 --> 00:09:55.855 And Peter gets out of the boat and says, walking on the water, how many of you have ever walked on water? 00:09:55.855 --> 00:09:57.312 I didn't think so. 00:09:57.312 --> 00:09:59.876 And Peter does it. 00:09:59.876 --> 00:10:01.011 He goes out there. 00:10:02.049 --> 00:10:07.418 Now, of course, the winds pick up and the waves begin to sort of roll again. 00:10:07.418 --> 00:10:08.640 And what happens? 00:10:08.640 --> 00:10:11.558 Peter looks to the side and what happens? 00:10:11.558 --> 00:10:18.594 Yeah, he becomes afraid, unlike before, and he starts to sink. 00:10:18.594 --> 00:10:28.436 He cries out master, save me, master, save me. 00:10:28.436 --> 00:10:40.410 I would propose to you, I would ask you this morning, and feel free to yell out an answer what did Peter need saving from Drowning? 00:10:40.410 --> 00:10:43.592 Yes, he was gonna die, he was drowning. 00:10:43.592 --> 00:10:44.576 He needed to be saved. 00:10:44.576 --> 00:10:46.855 What else might Peter have needed to be saved from? 00:10:46.855 --> 00:10:48.580 What's that? 00:10:48.580 --> 00:10:50.573 Yeah, it's unbelief, his doubt. 00:10:50.573 --> 00:10:55.979 No doubt, no pun intended, without a doubt, he needed to be saved from his lack of faith. 00:10:55.979 --> 00:10:57.311 What else? 00:10:57.311 --> 00:10:59.571 Fear? 00:10:59.571 --> 00:11:01.316 He was terrified. 00:11:01.316 --> 00:11:05.177 What are the things that you need saving from this morning? 00:11:05.177 --> 00:11:07.673 Now, peter, hang on. 00:11:07.673 --> 00:11:08.537 Oh yeah, hang on, sarah. 00:11:08.537 --> 00:11:09.332 We're not there yet. 00:11:09.332 --> 00:11:09.914 We'll get there in a minute. 00:11:10.830 --> 00:11:17.056 Imagine Peter's life before this moment and imagine Peter's life after this moment. 00:11:17.056 --> 00:11:17.518 I love it. 00:11:17.518 --> 00:11:19.964 Jesus saves Peter. 00:11:19.964 --> 00:11:21.714 Okay, now you can go ahead, and, sarah, they've already seen it, so we're gonna. 00:11:21.714 --> 00:11:25.091 He saves him. 00:11:25.091 --> 00:11:27.157 He saves him in every way. 00:11:27.157 --> 00:11:34.836 Peter cries out to Jesus master, save me, because Jesus isn't sinking. 00:11:34.836 --> 00:11:36.932 Peter is sinking. 00:11:36.932 --> 00:11:38.558 Peter needs help. 00:11:38.558 --> 00:11:49.359 So he cries out to Jesus and through the faithfulness of Jesus and the stability of Jesus, he's saved, because Jesus remains faithful even in the storm. 00:11:49.359 --> 00:11:55.839 Even when Peter's faith is wavering or when Peter loses his solid ground, jesus doesn't. 00:11:55.839 --> 00:12:02.177 So he cries out, but the one thing he knows can help him, and that's Jesus, and he saves him. 00:12:02.177 --> 00:12:05.169 Peter cries out and he saves him. 00:12:05.210 --> 00:12:11.777 Now, there are all kinds of moments like this in Peter's life, which is they're hilarious and some are just moving and compelling. 00:12:11.777 --> 00:12:24.014 And I wonder if, when Peter's an old man writing this letter to these people in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and he says, hey, you have a hope and a salvation through Jesus, I wonder what he's thinking about. 00:12:24.014 --> 00:12:28.173 And I wonder if, in part, this image doesn't cross his mind. 00:12:28.173 --> 00:12:33.616 At least once he cried out to Jesus and Jesus saved him. 00:12:33.616 --> 00:12:36.716 How could this not cross his mind? 00:12:36.716 --> 00:12:37.633 I have no way of knowing. 00:12:37.633 --> 00:12:48.716 I just wonder if this morning out there he thought of this See for Peter, salvation was an experience first and a doctrine second. 00:12:48.716 --> 00:13:02.120 I'm afraid sometimes we turn it into a doctrine first, a disembodied, removed from story sort of statement, when salvation almost every occurrence in the Bible is about an experience, about being saved. 00:13:02.230 --> 00:13:08.759 I was saved when I was seven years old and my mom left my dad for the final time. 00:13:08.759 --> 00:13:17.898 My dad was an abusive alcoholic and their marriage was chaos and utter turmoil for many years and it was tough. 00:13:17.898 --> 00:13:20.929 We left many times and I don't know why this time this was the final time we left. 00:13:20.929 --> 00:13:26.596 That's me, on the left there, a young handsome boy with the side part. 00:13:26.596 --> 00:13:30.929 That's my brother in the middle there. 00:13:30.929 --> 00:13:35.869 He's actually my half-brother and my sister and we were all saved when we left him that final time. 00:13:35.869 --> 00:13:41.485 I don't know why again, it stuck that time, but we left him and never came back and it saved our lives. 00:13:41.485 --> 00:13:46.909 I'm convinced of it and my mom would tell you it was only through the grace of God that it happened. 00:13:46.909 --> 00:13:48.984 So Jesus saved me. 00:13:48.984 --> 00:13:49.929 When I was about seven years old. 00:13:49.929 --> 00:13:52.929 I was also saved, I think around like 11, 12 years old. 00:13:53.594 --> 00:13:55.527 We found a church when we had left my dad. 00:13:55.527 --> 00:13:55.909 It was years later. 00:13:55.909 --> 00:13:57.929 That was a life-giving church. 00:13:57.929 --> 00:14:00.437 Here's a picture of me with some friends of mine at this church. 00:14:00.437 --> 00:14:02.696 I'll give you one guess as to which one's me. 00:14:09.950 --> 00:14:14.929 This was one of our leadership teams and it was a church in Denver called Heritage Christian Center. 00:14:14.929 --> 00:14:15.974 It was awesome. 00:14:15.974 --> 00:14:18.677 I loved it and I fell in love with Jesus in a very real way. 00:14:18.677 --> 00:14:22.195 And these were my friends and we did ministry all over the place. 00:14:22.195 --> 00:14:25.017 We were like a drama troupe, like a drama theater. 00:14:25.017 --> 00:14:46.283 We'd preach sermons, we'd pray it and we had adults there wasn't just us kids, but and we'd go to juvenile detention centers, we'd go to inner city churches, we'd go to jails and it was incredible and I saw God move in mighty and powerful ways and I met people whose very lives depended on the saving grace of Jesus and I was saved. 00:14:46.283 --> 00:14:54.899 No doubt my life is forever different because of those days and those years of that church heritage Christian center and my youth pastor, andre Cooper, who was here. 00:14:54.899 --> 00:14:59.616 If you remember, years ago when I got ordained, he came to visit me I think it was when I was installed as lead pastor. 00:14:59.616 --> 00:15:03.457 He came, him and his wife, moana, flew up from Florida and they came to be with me. 00:15:03.457 --> 00:15:05.643 It was a wonderful gift and I was saved. 00:15:06.572 --> 00:15:09.119 I was saved years later when I met Katie. 00:15:09.119 --> 00:15:20.599 I know, right, yeah, and saved my life and I don't know, I don't think I would encourage people to get married to solve your problems, but it helped my problems. 00:15:20.599 --> 00:15:22.254 It really did. 00:15:22.254 --> 00:15:24.216 It stabilized me. 00:15:24.216 --> 00:15:26.909 I was 19 or I was 20 years old, about to be 21. 00:15:26.909 --> 00:15:33.735 And it was like the best time of my life to get married, because my life was like going eight different directions and Katie really saved my life. 00:15:33.735 --> 00:15:38.416 So Katie's from Elk River she's the one who read the scripture, by the way and, yeah, saved my life. 00:15:38.416 --> 00:15:44.623 And Katie, I will always undoubtedly tell you, was a gift from God to me in every way. 00:15:44.623 --> 00:15:54.857 Even you know, back then I didn't have a clue because I was young and dumb and but now I look like, oh my gosh, this is a gift from God and Jesus, I think, saved me through this union. 00:15:54.857 --> 00:16:00.139 And I was saved again many years later when these four crumb snatchers came into my life. 00:16:02.735 --> 00:16:04.929 This picture is funny because I was so tired that day. 00:16:04.929 --> 00:16:09.860 I came home from work, I was exhausted from doing whatever I was doing and I just wanted to lay down and like rest. 00:16:09.860 --> 00:16:14.225 And I lay down and I was so tired I didn't go to the bed or the couch, I was like in the carpet. 00:16:14.225 --> 00:16:16.878 I'm like I'm just tired and they wouldn't leave me alone. 00:16:16.878 --> 00:16:18.857 I'm like you guys, I'm super tired. 00:16:18.857 --> 00:16:20.889 Can I just have like a minute of peace and being alone? 00:16:20.889 --> 00:16:23.929 No, they wouldn't, and they just sort of dog piling onto me. 00:16:23.929 --> 00:16:26.205 This was not stage, this was like real life. 00:16:26.205 --> 00:16:29.929 I'm like dad, come on and I'm like I should take a picture of this, you know. 00:16:29.929 --> 00:16:32.326 And then I had to laugh. 00:16:32.326 --> 00:16:32.929 I saw that picture. 00:16:32.929 --> 00:16:36.860 But you want I mean man, you want to talk about salvation. 00:16:36.860 --> 00:16:48.929 Jesus rescued me with these kids and I can tell you copious stories again and again and again about the ways, but I don't want to bore you but just to say that these four kids saved my life. 00:16:50.331 --> 00:16:57.423 See, the dictionary defines salvation as this preservation or deliverance from harm or ruin or loss. 00:16:57.423 --> 00:17:00.217 What do you need to be saved from this morning? 00:17:00.217 --> 00:17:07.844 See the primary, primarily the meaning of the original Greek and Hebrew words that we translate as salvation. 00:17:07.844 --> 00:17:10.659 They were primarily not a religious term. 00:17:10.659 --> 00:17:19.719 They literally meant being saved from dying, physically saved from danger or death or destruction, like an actual, literal, physical salvation. 00:17:19.719 --> 00:17:25.863 It meant, in the most general sense, rescue, to be rescued from something that was dangerous. 00:17:26.251 --> 00:17:35.930 And so NT Wright, the famous New Testament theologian, in his translation he writes first Peter, like this is what he says, he uses the word rescue this has brought us into an incorruptible inheritance. 00:17:35.930 --> 00:17:38.195 This inheritance you've been given. 00:17:38.195 --> 00:17:42.737 It's not corruptible, just so you know that this is good news. 00:17:42.737 --> 00:17:53.281 You can't damage it, which nothing can stain or diminish it, this inheritance that Christ is going to give to you, you can't stain it or diminish it. 00:17:53.281 --> 00:17:57.297 So, just so we're clear, what can stain or diminish this inheritance? 00:17:57.297 --> 00:17:59.623 Okay, good, just so we're all clear. 00:18:00.511 --> 00:18:06.295 At the moment, it's kept safe for you in the heavens, by the way, the heavens it's best to think about that the place where God dwells. 00:18:06.295 --> 00:18:10.559 But in Scripture and in Jesus it's not somewhere else. 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:19.642 Sometimes in our we have this sort of platonic, dualistic kind of mindset where, like, like heaven is somewhere else, or like Jesus or God is like somewhere else far away. 00:18:19.642 --> 00:18:26.910 Rather, it's like no, he's somehow here, very intimately connected to this time and place, but it's just we can't fully experience him yet. 00:18:26.910 --> 00:18:29.076 There's like a veil or something that sort of. 00:18:29.076 --> 00:18:34.714 But it's not somewhere else, it's right here now, while you're being kept safe by God's power. 00:18:34.714 --> 00:18:36.721 It's God's power that keeps you safe. 00:18:36.721 --> 00:18:47.075 I think Peter knew that Through faith for a salvation or a rescue, that is already and it's waiting to be revealed in due time. 00:18:47.075 --> 00:18:51.038 So it's a rescue from danger or defeat or distress. 00:18:52.310 --> 00:19:31.673 And in my experience and I've talked with many folks professionally here in the office after services, even just privately or publicly, out of the baseball fields or in a gym or out at the grocery store a number of people I know Christians, non-christians, people, a faith people that don't like to have faith, all kinds of people and there seems to be this deep longing and need for salvation and they talk about it a lot, unknowingly, many times, that I hear in their voices, in their stories, in their lives, a hope for an end of the despair and a salvation and a rescuing from a number of things in their life. 00:19:31.673 --> 00:19:36.910 So I hear in conversations you can look on social media and see it any different direction. 00:19:36.910 --> 00:19:39.527 You can throw a stone in any direction. 00:19:39.527 --> 00:19:41.930 Five feet from you You'll hit a social media post. 00:19:41.930 --> 00:19:46.258 It's about a longing to be saved or rescued from something. 00:19:46.258 --> 00:19:53.186 I hear it in, see it in movies, in all kinds of pop culture, and I hear it in songs. 00:19:53.339 --> 00:19:59.909 One of the greatest songs, nay, the greatest song of all time Wonderwall, by Oasis let's go. 00:19:59.909 --> 00:20:01.143 You know what's up. 00:20:01.143 --> 00:20:04.807 It says all the roads we have to walk are winding. 00:20:04.807 --> 00:20:08.327 How many of you have ever walked a winding road in your life? 00:20:08.327 --> 00:20:12.665 Yeah, we took a poll, and all the lights that lead us there are blinding. 00:20:12.665 --> 00:20:14.964 Sometimes you can't see where you're going. 00:20:14.964 --> 00:20:18.125 These brothers were prophets, am I right? 00:20:18.125 --> 00:20:20.884 Too bad, they couldn't get along. 00:20:20.884 --> 00:20:35.512 There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I don't know how, because maybe you're going to be the one that saves me and after a while, yummab what's a Wonderwall anyway? 00:20:35.512 --> 00:20:39.741 But anyway, great song, man, I hear it. 00:20:39.741 --> 00:20:41.146 I hear it. 00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:50.885 There's this strong undercurrent in our culture of people longing for salvation, and if you listen, you'll hear it and you'll see it in all kinds of places. 00:20:50.885 --> 00:21:17.449 And, unlike Peter, who knew exactly who to cry out to, I think many folks don't know who to cry out to or who can help them, and so, as I've often said, they will reach out for all kinds of other things that are unstable, not faithful and cannot save them, whether it's a new job or a new spouse, or money or fame or sex or any number of addictions. 00:21:17.449 --> 00:21:22.186 We grab onto these things as though they can save us when they're just as unstable as we are. 00:21:22.186 --> 00:21:32.647 And so it's one drowning person grabbing onto another drowning person and it doesn't work and the ache and the despair and the longing only is amplified even further. 00:21:32.647 --> 00:21:39.230 And I think if you ask a lot of people in modern day, hey, what is Christian salvation look like for you? 00:21:39.230 --> 00:21:44.930 They would probably say, oh, it's Jesus saving us from the consequences of our sins. 00:21:44.930 --> 00:21:50.009 So saving us from hell, probably, as they would say, and in order that when we die we can go to heaven. 00:21:50.009 --> 00:21:56.967 And in their minds you can look at any Hallmark card and see it it's some disembodied floating on a cloud, ethereal, playing a harp. 00:21:56.967 --> 00:21:58.305 Maybe it's a weird image. 00:21:58.305 --> 00:22:00.746 That's what they mean by salvation. 00:22:01.299 --> 00:22:07.630 The problem is, this is not a Jewish understanding, or even a biblical understanding of hope or of salvation. 00:22:07.630 --> 00:22:15.929 In the Jewish story there was not any kind of connotation or any kind of illusion or image of an end of the space-time universe. 00:22:15.929 --> 00:22:21.645 This idea of a non-physical spiritual bliss is not in the Jewish story at all. 00:22:21.645 --> 00:22:23.724 Rather, they were concerned. 00:22:23.724 --> 00:22:36.828 Their salvation concerned God's activity within time and space, within history, saving us right here and right now, what the Jews would say, and saving them in whatever sort of calamity they were in. 00:22:38.019 --> 00:22:58.448 Because to say that we are going to be rescued and saved out of here to some disembodied place was a rejection of this creation of monotheism that they embraced, that God had called this place good and had filled it with goodness, and then, for Christians, the incarnation was an affirmation of this time and place. 00:22:58.448 --> 00:23:03.808 God becomes a human in the here and now, and so why would we be saved out of here to go somewhere else? 00:23:03.808 --> 00:23:23.868 That would reject this very Jewish theological idea and also imply that the creative order was evil innately, or that the human body so noctisism, if this is interesting for you or platonic dualism, is the idea that the body is evil or bad innately, or even a second right version of something else that's better. 00:23:23.868 --> 00:23:33.567 That's not Jewish theology, and even early Christian theology would have rejected that idea that well, some noastics didn't, but that this is an evil place. 00:23:33.567 --> 00:23:38.846 I don't mean that it doesn't have sin or consequences of sin, but that innately it's this evil thing. 00:23:38.846 --> 00:23:47.625 That's not how the Jews saw this place For them being rescued or being saved, and being saved from their national enemies, which everyone's at might be at the time. 00:23:48.200 --> 00:23:50.366 So in the first century, when Jesus shows up, it'd be Rome. 00:23:50.366 --> 00:24:01.828 They wanted to be saved from the real oppression of the Roman Empire, which is a physical embodiment of this dark evil that it also exists in the world, very real, but it's embodied by the Roman Empire. 00:24:01.828 --> 00:24:03.865 And they were oppressed, they were murdering people. 00:24:03.865 --> 00:24:04.824 It was a horrible time. 00:24:04.824 --> 00:24:24.086 They wanted a restoration of Shalom, so that these images of their men and women sitting under a shade of a vine or a fig tree and the temple being restored and, by the way, jesus calls himself the temple and then later he calls you the temple and restoration back to the land. 00:24:24.086 --> 00:24:26.605 So salvation was always in history. 00:24:26.605 --> 00:24:30.788 Right here and right now, in fact, in Exodus, the people of Israel are saved. 00:24:30.788 --> 00:24:44.800 Here's how they're saved that day, the Lord saved them from the hands of the Egyptians, like they were literally saved from dying and being slaughtered, and God, of course, saves them Now. 00:24:44.861 --> 00:24:52.489 Early Christians would also add that for them being saved, and being saved from the ultimate and final enemy, the enemy of death. 00:24:52.489 --> 00:25:04.587 See, death meant the end of this God given bodily life, that God breathed into us this life, a gift from God, a beautiful gift, and that wasn't gonna last forever. 00:25:04.587 --> 00:25:15.844 That death had somehow had sway over our lives and it's sort of, for many theologians, tied up with sin and the devil, the evil one and all these things, kind of coalesce in death and what death means. 00:25:15.844 --> 00:25:18.267 And for early Christians salvation meant. 00:25:18.267 --> 00:25:22.404 And hey, the end of death itself and rescuing from death. 00:25:22.404 --> 00:25:35.286 In other words, resurrection, life and life everlasting, ongoing life, not just now but also now, but also in the sort of the age, what they would call the age to come. 00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:49.405 And for Paul, if you read Romans eight, paul and others thought, not just in the human individual life, although that, but also the whole of creation, the whole thing would experience a resurrection, a renewing, a recreation. 00:25:49.405 --> 00:25:52.268 Something brand new would happen in the whole of creation. 00:25:52.268 --> 00:26:05.588 Paul says that the whole creation has been groaning and longing for salvation to come, and then that, of course, that hope is fulfilled and the salvation comes to us through who? 00:26:05.588 --> 00:26:08.240 Jesus? 00:26:08.240 --> 00:26:09.747 Yeah, some of you got it it's always Jesus. 00:26:09.747 --> 00:26:11.184 If you don't know the answer, just guess Jesus. 00:26:13.500 --> 00:26:20.817 These stories are all fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in the first century the prophets. 00:26:20.817 --> 00:26:25.359 Peter writes if you heard Katie read it, I know it's a longer passage, but Peter reminds him. 00:26:25.359 --> 00:26:35.304 The prophets of the Jewish people were longing for a restoration and it's come to us in Jesus, the Messiah. 00:26:35.304 --> 00:26:38.838 So all the things the prophets were waiting for. 00:26:38.838 --> 00:26:42.299 The prophets were famous men and women of the Jewish story. 00:26:42.299 --> 00:26:47.817 They were waiting, they were longing for salvation to come, and Peter, it came in Jesus. 00:26:47.817 --> 00:26:54.540 It's been here, it's Jesus, and also in the resurrection of Jesus it's brought forward. 00:26:54.991 --> 00:27:00.630 And so John, his gospel, reminds you on a number of occasions that Jesus was resurrected on the first day of the week. 00:27:00.630 --> 00:27:02.329 It's like it's almost ad nauseam. 00:27:02.329 --> 00:27:03.690 It's like, oh, it was the first day of the week. 00:27:03.690 --> 00:27:04.714 He says it several times. 00:27:04.714 --> 00:27:05.231 Why? 00:27:05.231 --> 00:27:12.329 Because if you're watching and paying attention, that means it's the first day of a brand new week, a brand new day at the beginning of a brand new week. 00:27:12.329 --> 00:27:14.217 Something brand new is happening here. 00:27:14.217 --> 00:27:15.232 Watch it. 00:27:16.050 --> 00:27:21.369 And then he says oh, this Mary, who knew Jesus, sees him and thinks he's a gardener, which is kind of silly. 00:27:21.369 --> 00:27:22.314 Like why would he do that? 00:27:22.314 --> 00:27:28.897 Well, in Jewish lore, gardens are very prominent images and the most prominent is, of course, the Garden of Eden. 00:27:28.897 --> 00:27:40.215 So what John is saying is like hey, it's a new day, a new era has dawned right now, and it's gonna look like the garden Now you're cooking with some gas. 00:27:40.215 --> 00:27:46.357 That was salvation, and it was brought in Jesus, for the individual, but also for the whole of creation. 00:27:47.250 --> 00:27:53.005 And so in Matthew 1, 21, it says that she will give birth to a son and she'll name him Jesus. 00:27:53.005 --> 00:27:53.450 It's always Jesus. 00:27:53.450 --> 00:27:54.875 I told you, I warned you guys. 00:27:54.875 --> 00:28:02.317 The answer is always Jesus, and in the Hebrew it's Yeshua or Joshua, which means the one who saves. 00:28:02.317 --> 00:28:06.404 And then it says he will save us from our sins. 00:28:06.404 --> 00:28:07.210 This is what they call Jesus. 00:28:07.210 --> 00:28:09.157 They call him the saving one, the Savior. 00:28:09.157 --> 00:28:09.913 I love it. 00:28:10.631 --> 00:28:15.462 In his life, we get a vision of what true humanity looks like. 00:28:15.462 --> 00:28:19.820 If you're confused, what it looks like to live a full life. 00:28:19.820 --> 00:28:20.692 Look at Jesus. 00:28:20.692 --> 00:28:22.214 How do he treat others? 00:28:22.214 --> 00:28:24.076 How do he engage with his enemies? 00:28:24.076 --> 00:28:25.134 How do you talk? 00:28:25.134 --> 00:28:29.518 How did he approach the powers, the evil powers of the Roman and so on? 00:28:29.518 --> 00:28:34.496 How did he hang out with folks who were marginalized or cast out of society? 00:28:34.496 --> 00:28:36.416 How did he respond to violence? 00:28:36.416 --> 00:28:39.499 His life is an image of the ideal human life. 00:28:39.499 --> 00:28:41.696 In coming with the Father. 00:28:41.696 --> 00:28:43.022 It's this beautiful picture. 00:28:43.707 --> 00:28:44.390 So read those stories. 00:28:44.390 --> 00:28:46.617 We were saved in the life of Jesus. 00:28:46.617 --> 00:28:50.212 We're also saved in the death of Jesus On the cross. 00:28:50.212 --> 00:28:57.539 Jesus absorbs all of the sin, we're told, and all the violent evil that the powers have to dish out. 00:28:57.539 --> 00:29:04.490 There are all these powers at work and at play on the cross and they all kind of coalesce in and on Jesus and he absorbs all of them. 00:29:04.490 --> 00:29:12.467 He never retaliates and sort of unmasks the powers or the violent sort of the enemies and all the violent tendencies of the world. 00:29:12.467 --> 00:29:15.609 They're all unmasked right there on the cross. 00:29:15.609 --> 00:29:17.650 And we're saved in the death of Jesus. 00:29:17.650 --> 00:29:21.945 But, as Paul writes, if Jesus doesn't resurrect it's all for nothing. 00:29:21.945 --> 00:29:38.541 So it's the resurrection, the culmination, the victory of God in that moment where he overcomes sin, death, the devil, darkness, despair, hopelessness, all these things, and he overcomes them, absorbs them and then comes back and he conquers sin, death and the devil. 00:29:38.541 --> 00:29:48.627 So, friends, you were saved then in the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus. 00:29:48.627 --> 00:29:50.356 You were saved back then. 00:29:51.174 --> 00:29:56.029 One of my favorite theologians is German named Karl Barth, says he was asked one time hey, when were you saved? 00:29:56.029 --> 00:29:59.729 And many times our response and I get it is like oh, I was saved when I was 14. 00:29:59.729 --> 00:30:03.769 I went to summer camp and there was this preacher there and I said this prayer, great praise God. 00:30:03.769 --> 00:30:06.458 But Karl Barth's response. 00:30:06.458 --> 00:30:07.441 They said hey, when were you saved? 00:30:07.441 --> 00:30:09.837 He responded I was saved around 33 AD. 00:30:09.837 --> 00:30:14.981 Yeah, dang right, you are and were. 00:30:14.981 --> 00:30:17.472 That's when you were saved. 00:30:17.472 --> 00:30:18.999 Jesus saved you. 00:30:18.999 --> 00:30:21.939 He even says it is finished. 00:30:21.939 --> 00:30:25.779 So you were saved back then on the cross. 00:30:25.779 --> 00:30:27.114 The work is done. 00:30:27.114 --> 00:30:38.808 Also, I would say you're saved now and now, and now and now. 00:30:38.808 --> 00:30:43.228 You get the point, because really all we have is the now and now. 00:30:43.228 --> 00:30:48.308 Right, I don't have that moment of moment of go, but I have the now and I'm saved right here. 00:30:48.308 --> 00:30:48.440 Now. 00:30:48.460 --> 00:30:49.404 I was at a wedding yesterday. 00:30:49.404 --> 00:30:58.747 My friend's Greg and Barb, their son Jacob, got married to Brianna and we were outside the certificate and I held it and I go hey, I've got one last piece of advice for you two. 00:30:58.747 --> 00:30:59.829 You're like what? 00:30:59.829 --> 00:31:00.952 So never forget this. 00:31:00.952 --> 00:31:08.909 This certificate makes you legally married, but this piece of paper does not make you married every day, from here until whenever one of you dies. 00:31:08.909 --> 00:31:19.887 It's not how it works If you never saw each other again, or never talked or bought each other flowers or made breakfast together or went on a vacation and yet you said we're married because that license was signed 50 years ago. 00:31:19.887 --> 00:31:21.003 We all think you were crazy. 00:31:21.003 --> 00:31:23.567 No, you have to work out your marriage. 00:31:23.567 --> 00:31:30.585 Every morning you wake up and I go okay, I'm gonna go love that person again, I'm gonna go make them breakfast, I'm gonna go buy them some flowers, I'm gonna love them, I'm gonna treat them. 00:31:30.585 --> 00:31:32.663 You know, whatever the case might be, you're married every day. 00:31:32.663 --> 00:31:35.882 That certificate was like the beginning of it and it's important. 00:31:35.882 --> 00:31:38.063 I mean great, but you would never like. 00:31:38.063 --> 00:31:39.248 That's why I'm married. 00:31:39.248 --> 00:31:40.464 No, you're married every day. 00:31:40.901 --> 00:31:42.125 Salvation's the same way. 00:31:42.125 --> 00:31:55.806 We're sort of always working out our salvation with fear and tremble and we're saved now and every day I wake up and have a chance to submit my life to Jesus in the here and now, not just when I was 14, or when I was five or when I was 10, or at baptism. 00:31:55.806 --> 00:31:59.983 Those are all wonderful, but I submit my life every day to Jesus and that's where I'm saved. 00:31:59.983 --> 00:32:02.547 Again, we take communion, like every other week here. 00:32:02.547 --> 00:32:08.948 It's a reminder, it's this ongoing process of Jesus saving me From whatever calamities I'm encountering and facing. 00:32:08.948 --> 00:32:20.528 So you were saved back then and you're also saved now, because you're invited to participate every day in the eternally full life of the triune God. 00:32:20.528 --> 00:32:36.626 Every day you're invited to be a part of this thing, this wonderful dance, to live in the ways of Jesus every day, to respond accordingly to your enemies, to take care of those who are poor, to reach out to those who need it, to bring a casserole to your friend who's suffering. 00:32:36.626 --> 00:32:43.028 That's the salvation of God working out in you and in your life and you can choose it every day and live in tune with that. 00:32:43.028 --> 00:32:45.047 You can be awake or not. 00:32:45.047 --> 00:32:49.028 You can be holy and healed, whole and shalom. 00:32:49.490 --> 00:32:51.547 Now A couple of verses to back me up here. 00:32:51.547 --> 00:32:54.147 I want you to know who you are and where you sit today. 00:32:54.147 --> 00:32:57.569 So, according to the Bible, you've been seated with Christ. 00:32:57.569 --> 00:32:59.506 You are with and in Christ. 00:32:59.506 --> 00:33:02.823 Paul writes it a number of times You're in Christ. 00:33:03.619 --> 00:33:09.650 I know some mornings you wake up and you feel kind of crabby and your hair looks a little bit off and you don't love your outfit. 00:33:09.650 --> 00:33:10.663 I get it, I've been there. 00:33:10.663 --> 00:33:13.366 But I'm telling you you're seated with Christ. 00:33:13.366 --> 00:33:14.123 That's good news. 00:33:14.123 --> 00:33:17.307 You've been made a participant in the divine nature. 00:33:17.307 --> 00:33:20.125 You're like oh, my makeup look kind of bad today. 00:33:20.125 --> 00:33:21.040 Fair enough. 00:33:21.040 --> 00:33:23.844 But, hey, you've been made a participant in the divine nature of God. 00:33:23.844 --> 00:33:24.883 So how about that? 00:33:24.883 --> 00:33:26.064 It's pretty good. 00:33:26.819 --> 00:33:30.144 Somehow you are invited into this divine dance to try you in God. 00:33:30.144 --> 00:33:33.303 I can't explain it much more than that, but that's what it is. 00:33:33.303 --> 00:33:37.229 And you've been blessed with all these blessings in the heavenly realms. 00:33:37.229 --> 00:33:44.040 And I don't mean a brand new porcelain 11, twin, turbo, black one with a convertible soft top, and I don't mean, like all the fruits you pull you can eat. 00:33:44.040 --> 00:34:06.482 I don't mean that there are these blessings, real riches of life, blessings you can have, and God's own life is my favorite has been placed in you and often well up like a well of living water, because you've got living water in you and so you're being saved every day and living water might just pour out of you any moment, because all we have is the. 00:34:06.523 --> 00:34:11.507