SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: We like Peter have gotten our eyes off of you.
SPEAKER_01: We got out of the boat with great intentions, and then we got our eyes off of you and got them on ourselves or our surroundings, and we sank.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're here today to confess that all of the ground is sinking sand.
SPEAKER_01: Seems like a very appropriate song for the past couple of days that we've had.
SPEAKER_01: When the rains come down, then we all, it's revealed what we trust in.
SPEAKER_01: And so we confess today, we begin our day communally together around the communion table, saying that we're tired of trusting in less wild lovers and insufficient ideas and things that don't hold water and lose their worth when the water begins to rise.
SPEAKER_01: So, Holy Spirit, lead us into the truth today about ourselves, about you, and about the church with a capital C.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to be the people of God?
SPEAKER_01: Once we were not a people, but now we're the people of God, which is why we do the things we do.
SPEAKER_01: It's also why we do the things we don't do, the things we don't do.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to get our head around that today in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, I want you to open it and take it and open it up to Hebrews chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a guest today, uh we are observing communion, which is the entire service here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm going to give a brief homily.
SPEAKER_01: Homily is a big word for a short sermon.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, So let me begin with this.
SPEAKER_01: I told somebody over here, I said to my friend Al, today you're going to find out who the beer drinkers are.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody on that side kind of turned to look like, what?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: My mystiology professor in seminary, Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Bud Frey, told he was a missionary in Kenya for like 38 years, 39 years, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And um he said that one day they had heavy rains, and the villagers sent word, they said, Hey, we don't want to go down the little mud trails from my slip and fall.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna cancel church.
SPEAKER_01: And so they canceled church that night.
SPEAKER_01: And so he said, Hey, I wanted to help the people.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so I went down to the river to see if I could help anybody across.
SPEAKER_01: Usually it was knee deep, it was up to about your chest.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Well I was standing there by the river, a man walking across the river had a five-gallon pot of homemade beer on his head.
SPEAKER_01: Water was up to his neck, and he looked at Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Frey and said, See, missy, the water too high for the church goers, but not too high for the beer drinkers.
SPEAKER_01: So today we find out who the beer drinkers are.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are nervous in ways you don't need to be right now.
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, uh, I thought since we're in the book of Exodus, that I would take the communion homily from uh about the people that we're reading about in Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: This is Hebrews chapter 3, starting in verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk to you briefly about entering into the rest of God.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: On the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, I was provoked with that generation and said, They always go astray in their heart.
SPEAKER_01: They have not known my ways.
SPEAKER_01: As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.
SPEAKER_01: Take care, brothers, lest there be any uh excuse me, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.
SPEAKER_01: But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
SPEAKER_01: For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
SPEAKER_01: As it is said, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: For who were those who heard and yet rebelled?
SPEAKER_01: Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses?
SPEAKER_01: And was it and with whom was he provoked for forty years?
SPEAKER_01: Was it not with those who sinned whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
SPEAKER_01: And whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?
SPEAKER_01: So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when Jesus on the night he was betrayed, and by the way, what we're going to do this morning took place originally in the context of betrayal.
SPEAKER_01: So the next time you're betrayed by your appetites, by your friends, by your company or whatever, you're in a very Christ-like position.
SPEAKER_01: But on the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, and when he broke it, he gave thanks and he says, This is my body offered for you.
SPEAKER_01: Do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: And after that, he took the cup and he held it up and he said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
SPEAKER_01: As often as you do this, do this in remembrance of me.
SPEAKER_01: Later on in the book of 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Paul gives different instructions to the church at Corinth and to the church universally.
SPEAKER_01: That'd be us.
SPEAKER_01: And in one of those passages in chapter 11, he gives instructions about here's how you do this.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, Hey, when you do this, one of the things you do, he says, let a person examine themselves.
SPEAKER_01: Let examine ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean set yourself to this morbid, introspective self-hatred.
SPEAKER_01: That means examine yourself so that you don't receive the elements.
SPEAKER_01: You don't remember the body and the blood of Christ in an unworthy manner.
SPEAKER_01: To receive it in an unworthy manner doesn't mean, well, I don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: None of us deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: But but it means you calibrate your head around what you're going to do.
SPEAKER_01: See, we enter in, what what what the writer of Hebrews talks about in chapter three, we enter into the rest of God because of the body and blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But I want to go back to early on, he said something that I think it's easy for us to miss.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verse 10, therefore I was provoked with that generation and said, they always go astray in their heart.
SPEAKER_01: Before you go astray in your life, you go astray in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want us to spend some time examining ourselves before we come to the communion table this morning around four questions that come out of Hebrews chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: And the first one, they'll come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: The first one is simply this: Is there any part of your heart that's not believing the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Is there any part of your heart that's not believing the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Second question I want you to think about this morning is: are there any sinful appetites that need to be made to surrender to the truths of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Are there any sinful appetites that need to be made to surrender to the truths of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Sin, and when we sin, it is really an act of unbelief.
SPEAKER_01: We're not believing something about the good news of Christianity, of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we say, are there any sinful appetites that need to be made to surrender to the truths of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: Be honest with yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Probably the greatest compliment I get is phone calls I get from some of you.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's early in the morning, like 6.15.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's early in the morning, like 2.12 in the morning.
SPEAKER_01: And it's one of you saying, I'm not in a good way.
SPEAKER_01: And I always say, back into the phone, back into my cell phone, where are you?
SPEAKER_01: I'll come to where you are, stay where you are.
SPEAKER_01: And it's always, usually when I get there, it's a person that's kicking themselves, you know, I gave in to my addiction or I did things I shouldn't have done, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the questions that I always ask, not right out of the bat, but later on in the conversation, maybe after the second cup of coffee, is this sinful appetite?
SPEAKER_01: How does this, how do you surrender this to the truth of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: And one guy looked at me when I said that, and he went, If I knew that, you think I'd be talking to you right now?
SPEAKER_01: See, sometimes you guys are much better than we are at this.
SPEAKER_01: And what that man was saying was, I just need you to be here right now and help me.
SPEAKER_01: Third question I want you to think about is simply this: Is there any area of your heart that has been hardened by the deceitfulness of sin?
SPEAKER_01: How does sin harden our heart?
SPEAKER_01: Well, because it's deceitful in nature and it tells us one thing and delivers another.
SPEAKER_01: Sin is always deceitful.
SPEAKER_01: It's never, the ROI on sin is never what you need it to be.
SPEAKER_01: The return on investment, it's deceitful.
SPEAKER_01: And our hearts get hardened because we just think, well, I mean, I've been this way, I've done this since I was 14 years old, or I've been.
SPEAKER_01: And the gospel comes in and says, it doesn't have to be that way.
SPEAKER_01: So let's think today and ask ourselves, is there any area of our heart that's been hardened by the deceitfulness of sin?
SPEAKER_01: And finally, let's ask ourselves, are you as spiritually confident now as when you began?
SPEAKER_01: And that comes from the latter part of the passage when he says in verse 14, for we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
SPEAKER_01: If we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
SPEAKER_01: See, we've come to be in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just uh point out it's it's not just a little distinction, it's a huge reality.
SPEAKER_01: He says, for we have come to share in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We've come to share in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's being a Christian is not something I decided to do when I was 18.
SPEAKER_01: Uh my heart was regenerated.
SPEAKER_01: And the way I knew that was because I was able to repent and place my faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And when that happened, the Bible says that I was grafted in.
SPEAKER_01: I was put in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that there was something external that I was trying to make fit into my life.
SPEAKER_01: I was brought into a whole new reality.
SPEAKER_01: I was set down in Christ, in the kingdom, in the church.
SPEAKER_01: I became a part of all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: And the church helps me to live out the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: The church, that'd be you all, helps me to conform my life to the teachings of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The church helps me to think about my life in terms of the kingdom, grounds my life in something bigger.
SPEAKER_01: So when I'm tempted to believe the lie that says it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody has to know.
SPEAKER_01: The bigness of what you're a part of is a cleansing ethic if you let it be.
SPEAKER_01: And so just ask yourself, am I spiritually confident now is when I began?
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what happens: the older you get, the longer you go to church, the harder it is to move the needle.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean when I say move the needle?
SPEAKER_01: You come and you're just kind of like, eh.
SPEAKER_01: You look at your wife and go, where do you want to go to lunch?
SPEAKER_01: And you begin to evaluate things based on what was it worth the effort?
SPEAKER_01: Well, I drove 25 minutes.
SPEAKER_01: And see, really, it's not what takes place in this room, it's what takes place in here.
SPEAKER_01: That's really bothering you.
SPEAKER_01: And so, are you as spiritually confident now as when you began?
SPEAKER_01: The writer of Hebrews just uses two little words, your original confidence.
SPEAKER_01: The hardest thing to do, and I'm not saying be as eager and zealous, I'm not talking about zeal.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about a confident certainty.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the Bible calls us to.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want us to do what the Bible instructs us to do.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, hey, let's examine ourselves so we don't receive the elements in an unworthy manner.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we like to do here is just take some time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna voice a prayer, and then Clyde's gonna come and sing something over us.
SPEAKER_01: And then after that, I'll come and lead us in a corporate confession, and then we'll open up and we'll celebrate and receive communion this morning together.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Let me voice a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Father, thanks for the purifying simplicity of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John or Hebrews, or Philemon, or 1 Thessalonians, uh it's it's all the good news.
SPEAKER_01: And the good news today is that you've reminded us that we first go astray in our heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've come today to take account of our heart, to think about the body and the blood of Jesus that was shed for us.
SPEAKER_01: And to ask ourselves in my heart, where am I not believing the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: To subdue my sinful appetites through mortification or confession or whatever's necessary, to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We've come today, Lord, to look at our heart and say, is there any part of this that's been hardened by the deceitfulness of sin?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, don't let us confuse confidence with zeal.
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes when we're young, zeal makes fools of us all.
SPEAKER_01: But confidence has a way of sustaining us over the long haul.
SPEAKER_01: Confidence is when we throw the towel in and you throw it back.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't yell at us.
SPEAKER_01: You just kind of smile.
SPEAKER_01: And we know in that one little moment, okay, I can do this.
SPEAKER_01: Not I can do this in and of my own power, but I get it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't need anything else.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: And so this morning, Lord, I want to pray for those that are jaded and cynical and are tired.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray, Lord, you'll just take them back to their original confidence.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit, search us as we search ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: See if there be any hurtful way in us and lead us in the everlasting way.
SPEAKER_01: We think, we reflect, we listen, and we prepare in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to his disciples, I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends.
SPEAKER_01: And this is before he died, because he knew that in dying he was going to earn the right to change what he called them.
SPEAKER_01: And so as a result of that, we need to all change what we call ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe the gospel, you can't just call yourself a sinner anymore.
SPEAKER_01: You're saints, you're the redeemed of God, you're the people through whom God tells his story.
SPEAKER_01: I asked little Grace Golson, I said, Who's your best friend?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And I told all the old people down here, shame on all of you for having a different answer.
SPEAKER_01: He changed what he called you.
SPEAKER_01: So if you believe the gospel, you have to change what you call yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Because to continue to call yourselves the same things you've always called yourselves is an offense to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, do I believe all this?
SPEAKER_01: Because if you do, then it changes what you call yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you, you call yourself noble things like servants.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a servant.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends.
SPEAKER_01: One of those you control what it looks like, and one of those he controls what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: So even in our humility, there's so much pride.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a servant.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you need to be in control.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, No, you're my friends.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, great.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe today the biggest takeaway you have is that you walk out and you change what you call yourself.
SPEAKER_01: So take a moment and look around the room.
SPEAKER_01: See people you know and people you don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Because in just a moment I'm gonna speak a blessing over you, and then I'm gonna ask you just to practice being the church.
SPEAKER_01: There are things that only the church does.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want you to just practice being the church to each other.
SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
SPEAKER_01: You're smarter than that.
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: For those who are far off, you're closer than you think.
SPEAKER_01: For those who are close, you're more loved than you can imagine.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now, you heal the friends of God.
SPEAKER_01: And live who Jesus knows you to be.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you, dismiss.