SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grant Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantProquay.org.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, thanks for the very beautiful lyrical and musical reminder that glory awaits that which the Bible says that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: You've come to restore, so much so that it becomes the deciding factor in our life.
SPEAKER_00: It's why Paul says, whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: It is most like you to make preeminent that which we could never uh establish or accomplish on our own.
SPEAKER_00: And so we fell short of the glory of God, and you restored us to such a degree that you say, hey, now live, do business, love your wife, spend your money, hunt deer, everything you do, whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is our privilege today to live and do what we do for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: We just want you to know that.
SPEAKER_00: That's a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a burden.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't like drop a weight on us and say, try to lift this.
SPEAKER_00: It is this thing that kind of buoys us.
SPEAKER_00: It's this thing that sustains us, that compels us and propels us.
SPEAKER_00: That's what your glory does.
SPEAKER_00: And as much of it as we can know in this lifetime, the Bible says that here we just look through the glass dimly.
SPEAKER_00: You can't take it all in.
SPEAKER_00: There's so much more to come.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to live fully alive in this world, realizing that there's more and better to come in the next.
SPEAKER_00: We're grateful for that.
SPEAKER_00: Speak to us now from your word, we pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a scene.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, open it if you would to Romans chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, the passage we're going to read will come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: After a song like that, I'm tempted to say, be sure and tip your waitress and thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the House of Blues Sunday brunch.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, Romans chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: We've been, if you've been here for any length of time, you realize we've been preaching through the book of Romans, and then uh the past two months we did Romans 9, 10, and 11.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul kind of comes to this last section of Romans chapter 11, and it's kind of like he catches himself thinking or he kind of looks back and he kind of summarizes it.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, it's kind of like on Thursday after you commit heinous gluttony and you sit down on the couch and you take those first two really deep breaths, and then you realize, oh, oh, I'm going down, I'm going down, someone throw a blanket on me.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what Paul is like.
SPEAKER_00: He gets this part and he's kind of like, oh, I just can't take it in.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Romans chapter 11, verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways.
SPEAKER_00: For who has known the minds of the Lord, or who has been his counselor, who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
SPEAKER_00: For from him and through him and to him are all things.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of this uh Paul is kind of bursting at the seams and he thinks back over all he's been writing for the past three chapters as being one continuous strain or train of thought.
SPEAKER_00: It started in chapter 9 with him saying, I so love my kinsmen, I so love these people, the Jewish people, I wish they could get this.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, I could if I could wish myself accursed for the sake of them, if I could go to hell so they could go to heaven, I would do it, but I can't.
SPEAKER_00: So I gotta preach the gospel to these people.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean I gotta beat them over the head and cram it down their throat.
SPEAKER_00: It means that I gotta live it in my life and I gotta say it to them in a language that they understand.
SPEAKER_00: And he gets to the end of this section in chapter 11, and he's like, oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, nobody can scrutinize the way God does things.
SPEAKER_00: No one can stand in judgment of what God does.
SPEAKER_00: He says, for who's known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, who did God ask for advice?
SPEAKER_00: Then he goes on and says, or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that just for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I have a friend in my life that every time we get together, whether it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner or coffee at Starbucks, he always pays.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, why don't you get the ticket sometime?
SPEAKER_00: I tried.
SPEAKER_00: He gets there early, and I'll I remember one of the last times I had a meal with him.
SPEAKER_00: He got up after we ordered, went to the restroom.
SPEAKER_00: I called the waitress over and said, Hey, bring me the ticket, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And she smiled and said, Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Got him.
SPEAKER_00: Got done eating, talked about 20 minutes after the meal.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I gotta go.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Me too.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I appreciate you making time.
SPEAKER_00: I said, ma'am, can we get a check?
SPEAKER_00: And she smiled and said, He's already taken care of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, there is no way.
SPEAKER_00: And finally I just said, Hey, dude, I'm starting to feel like a freeloading mooch, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I want to pay for this sometime.
SPEAKER_00: And he reached and put his hand on the table.
SPEAKER_00: I thought he's put his hand on my hand.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, watch yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But he put his hand on the table and he said, Neil, you got enough people in your life that you're always paying.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I know you're a pretty generous person.
SPEAKER_00: You're always picking up the tab.
SPEAKER_00: He said, You are never going to pick up the tab when you and I meet.
SPEAKER_00: For whatever it is, okay, I'm always going to pay.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: When you think about spending time with me, I want you to know you're going to get blessed and it's not going to cost you nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't know if you've got any men in your life that talk to you that way, but that was kind of creepy and awkward.
SPEAKER_00: And when he said it, I was kind of like.
SPEAKER_00: And there was like 10 seconds of just silence, and I'm like, creepy.
SPEAKER_00: Weird.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a part of me that was like, just come around the table and just hold me just for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be better.
SPEAKER_00: Because here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: I got friends when the ticket when the ticket comes, they turn into astronomers.
SPEAKER_00: They start looking at the ceiling.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how are Marcy and the kids?
SPEAKER_00: How's the church going?
SPEAKER_00: And finally, I'm just like, give me the ticket, I'll pay for it.
SPEAKER_00: But it was weird.
SPEAKER_00: So when I when anytime I read this, or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
SPEAKER_00: Translation, you're never going to do anything that's going to put God make God indebted to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're never going to do something and go, scoreboard, God.
SPEAKER_00: There you go, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Take that.
SPEAKER_00: Now you owe me.
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: It's never going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Never going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, to get how preposterous it is in the Psalms that people are kind of like, hey, God, we kind of send a lot.
SPEAKER_00: We keep screwing up.
SPEAKER_00: We know better, but we do it anyway.
SPEAKER_00: And we want to somehow show you that we get it.
SPEAKER_00: How what a big deal it is that you just keep on loving us.
SPEAKER_00: And God says this, hey, Lebanon, the cedars of Lebanon are not sufficient for altar fires.
SPEAKER_00: Now you hear that and you're like, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Crazy talking.
SPEAKER_00: Who says stuff like that?
SPEAKER_00: Translation, God says you could take all the cedar trees in Lebanon.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been to Lebanon?
SPEAKER_00: That's all there is is cedar trees.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you could cut down all the trees in this whole country and pile a big brush pile.
SPEAKER_00: And then that wouldn't be a sufficient altar fire.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, that's not a big enough sacrifice for how screwed up you people just keep on sinning despite.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I tell you, don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: You keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to like do something for me, there's not enough trees, my man.
SPEAKER_00: And so what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: There's just one tree.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about it last week, this mercy tree.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul refers to it, he says, For from him and through him and to him are all things.
SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory forever.
SPEAKER_00: For from him and through him and to him.
SPEAKER_00: See, when he says, from him, he is the source, and through him, he is the means, and to him he is the goal or all things.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul finishes this one continuous train of thought that he started back in Romans 9 by saying, To him be the glory forever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next section, which we'll pick up after the first of the year, is in chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, in view of God's mercy, I urge you, brothers, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God.
SPEAKER_00: You're made holy and acceptable to God because of the mercy tree.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_00: So we come today to this communion, to this meditation, to this thing.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want us to think about.
SPEAKER_00: The communion, there's two things happening here, and Clyde uh alluded to it earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's a celebration of the fact that you're forgiven for all your sins.
SPEAKER_00: And don't just think all your sins like sins that you've done in your past, you're forgiven for sin, period, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_00: You see, he didn't, Jesus died and didn't make up, didn't create this religious system whereby which you kind of sin and then you confess and get forgiveness and then you go try not to sin anymore.
SPEAKER_00: No, no.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian, you have a relationship with Christ, the Bible says the once for all sacrifice of Christ on the cross has made you right with God forever.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: At some point you gotta think maturely about sin and ask yourself, if I'm forgiven, why do I keep doing this?
SPEAKER_00: It's like the man who beats his wife and apologizes every time.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, come on, dude, at some point no one believes you anymore.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says the same thing is true about our sin that, hey, you you're forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Done deal.
SPEAKER_00: But also it looks back in gratitude, but it looks forward in anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Looks back in gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: And it looks forward.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense of celebration about that.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, someone stopped me in a store went down a couple months ago, and the guy said, Hey, you you're the guy.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I said, Yeah, I'll see you in my church.
SPEAKER_00: And what your name he told me we were chatting, and he said, Hey, the way y'all do communion is kind of different.
SPEAKER_00: You know, like singing and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about that.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I like it, but when I was a kid, I grew up in a church and we all sat there and the deacons passed out the elements, and and and we just kind of sat there and he said, It just feels weird to sing while people are receiving the elements.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What what what feeling do you have when you're reminded that all your sins are forgiven?
SPEAKER_00: Is that a morbid thing for you?
SPEAKER_00: I said, That's why we sing because it's a celebratory.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yes, thank you, God.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, So we sing every time, yeah, we sing during communion.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Right, I knew there was a reason we did that.
SPEAKER_00: It's just, I like it, but it's a little different.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You want us to just sit there and go, hey, you stink, feel bad?
SPEAKER_00: You did that all week.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, okay.
SPEAKER_00: See, it's a r it's you're looking back with gratitude, but you're also looking forward with anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: Because it it's, hey, there's something better to come.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible calls it the marriage feast of the Lamb.
SPEAKER_00: You look in the end of the last book in the Bible, Revelation, and and you see that God is He's got, hey, I'm gonna have this feast with all the redeemed.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, it's that line from that great old hymn that says, When all the redeemed of God are saved to sin no more.
SPEAKER_00: When you get to heaven, you won't have the capacity to sin anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, I sinned on the way here today.
SPEAKER_00: In heaven, you won't have the capacity to sin anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll be in God's presence forever.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that's refers to that as a feast.
SPEAKER_00: Not the dysfunctional holdown you're gonna have on Thursday.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what it's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: When the people show up at your house that you don't like and eat the food they didn't pay for.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not that you're keeping score or anything, but you're like, for the fourth year in a row, then people brought nothing and ate everything, and their kids stole some stuff out of our guest bathroom.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to having family.
SPEAKER_00: Yet the Bible says we look forward.
SPEAKER_00: We look forward to this time.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says in Matthew 26, he says at the it it it at the Lord's Supper, he says, I will not drink the fruit of the vine again until I drink it anew with you in my father's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, this is good, but there's gonna be a time we're gonna do this again, and it's gonna be even better then.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in just a moment, the Bible tells us, it says, hey, so when you when you receive the elements, don't receive them in an unworthy manner.
SPEAKER_00: It says, let a let a man, let a woman, let a person examine themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Not so we can feel worthy.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We're like deserving, but think about this.
SPEAKER_00: Don't don't do this as just an empty ritual.
SPEAKER_00: He says, anyone drinks the cup or partakes of the bread without discerning the body.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's the part that we miss it up, we mess it up on, okay?
SPEAKER_00: When he says without discerning the body, that's not talking about your body or the body of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about discerning the fact that you belong.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a member of this church, I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting today, you got to haul a pass.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're a member of this church, because it's easy to say, well, when I sin, my sin's not hurting anybody.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just hooking up with this person, or I'm just stealing money here, or I'm just making individual choices, it's not hurting anybody.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says if you're a part of the church, you're part of the body of Christ, and your sin affects the body of believers that you're a part of.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe me, read in the Old Testament about a man named Achan who took some gold and hid it under his tent, and he said, No, I'm not hurting anybody.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just ensuring I'm gonna have a little on the side in case things get.
SPEAKER_00: And the people of Israel were thwarted.
SPEAKER_00: They went up against a town, a little town called Ai, and got slaughtered.
SPEAKER_00: This is after they'd overcome Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: They got their heads handed to them like Baylor did last night up in Stillwater.
SPEAKER_00: Whoopsie.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my wife's a Baylor grad.
SPEAKER_00: She kept like, you think they're tired or something?
SPEAKER_00: No, they're getting beat.
SPEAKER_00: Like a drum.
SPEAKER_00: There's Indians outside the stadium.
SPEAKER_00: What am I saying?
SPEAKER_00: He says, hey, if you drink this and eat this and you don't discern the body, here's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't remember that you're a part of something bigger than you.
SPEAKER_00: Our last service went long because it's packed in here at the 10 o'clock service.
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't get in a hurry, but we don't want to just preach to people.
SPEAKER_00: We want to pastor them.
SPEAKER_00: We want to remind them you're part of the body.
SPEAKER_00: You're not just consumers of religious services.
SPEAKER_00: You're a part of a group of people that care about you.
SPEAKER_00: And so one couple that came to our wife's station, the lady said, Pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, How can I pray?
SPEAKER_00: We're about to kill each other.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, How bad is it?
SPEAKER_00: She goes, I think about it on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to marriage.
SPEAKER_00: My wife's married to an almost perfect man, and she has the same thought sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what her deal is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, come on, lady.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing you can be that honest when you're a part of the body.
SPEAKER_00: When you're part of the church, and you go, These people love me.
SPEAKER_00: I can confess my sin to these people.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to change their mind about me.
SPEAKER_00: They're not going to go, oh, you struggle with that?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he means when he says, hey, don't eat or drink this without discerning the Bible, but without reminding yourself, I'm a part of something.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a movement, it's a people.
SPEAKER_00: And so how I live my life matters.
SPEAKER_00: And how you live your life matters.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you're the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's why.
SPEAKER_00: Let me ask you if you would just stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Your loving God always picks up the tab.
SPEAKER_00: Not to make you feel indebted to him, but to remind you that you're enjoyed.
SPEAKER_00: You're loved.
SPEAKER_00: You're expected and anticipated.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now.
SPEAKER_00: And live as if you really believe these things are true.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you dismissed.