SPEAKER_01: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Philippians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on page 981.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest today, let me just say welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for uh looking into a new church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what you see is that uh we have we're a church that observes Advent.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just give you a brief history lesson about Advent, what Advent is, uh what are all these candles down here?
SPEAKER_00: Advent uh is a Latin word that means arrival or coming.
SPEAKER_00: And basically uh it's the four Advent in the history of the church is the four Sundays that lead up to Christmas.
SPEAKER_00: And so each Sunday, like we have a theme for Advent every year.
SPEAKER_00: This year, our theme for Advent is hope on the horizon.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that's not a that's not a form of escapism as much as engagement with the culture.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and each Sunday has a theme.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this this this Sunday's theme is hope, and then next Sunday will be uh uh uh uh peace and then joy and then love.
SPEAKER_00: And each Sunday we'll light a different candle on our Advent wreath here in our Christmas Eve service.
SPEAKER_00: We light the Christ candle, the white one in the center, uh, to signify the incarnation that God has left the sanctity of heaven to come be with his people here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And so let me tell you kind of the backdrop, the historical backdrop to Advent, because if you read the Old Testament, uh a lot of times, like I was talking to a friend this week, he said, Hey, uh, I mean, I I I read the Old Testament, it kind of scares me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really like the Old Testament, so I read the New Testament mostly.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because he asked me, he said, Do you what do you preach out of?
SPEAKER_00: Which part of the Bible do you preach out of?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I preach out of all of it.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, I don't like the old part.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You mean the old testament?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Yeah, he said, God seems ticked off.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and I said, Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, But I like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He he hung out with hookers and forgave people.
SPEAKER_00: And I like that.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, How hard is it to not like a guy that hangs out with hookers and forgives people?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, You just said hookers, and I'm like, I'm not getting in trouble for that or anything.
SPEAKER_00: Relax.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and but but I said, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: What if I told you that it's the same God in both places?
SPEAKER_00: And he went, Oh, I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so here's the beauty of Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Advent signifies and symbolizes and reminds us that between the Old Testament, the close of the Old Testament, and the beginning of the New Testament, there was 450 years of silence.
SPEAKER_00: God just didn't speak.
SPEAKER_00: God just kind of said to people who were stiff-necked, hard-hearted, and didn't want to listen, he said, You don't want to listen, and I don't want to talk.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: God got so mad at his people in the Old Testament, he said to them at one point, You cats have played the harlot on every high hill and under every green tree.
SPEAKER_00: He was beside himself.
SPEAKER_00: So you see a cycle in the Old Testament of God gets mad at people, his people for sinning, and then God says, That's enough.
SPEAKER_00: And then they say, God, we're sorry.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible word for that is repent.
SPEAKER_00: They repent, they come back and say, God, we're sorry.
SPEAKER_00: We've sinned against you, take us back.
SPEAKER_00: And God takes them back.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's a cycle of breaking up and making up, breaking up and making up.
SPEAKER_00: And it gets to a point where God realizes these people are not learning what they need to learn.
SPEAKER_00: They're not trusting me.
SPEAKER_00: So God uh moves from asking them to have convictions to bringing consequences.
SPEAKER_00: And so God says, Hey, let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: If you guys don't start listening to me and my word, I'm gonna raise up the nations around you, and I'm gonna use other nations to punish you if you don't listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, God's still the same way.
SPEAKER_00: That's free.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, back to Advent.
SPEAKER_00: Hope.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so uh and it's a great day because I want to talk to you about the absurdity of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but but but but but the Old Testament, if you read the Old Testament, if you notice you get closer to the end of it, God seems to get more and more angry.
SPEAKER_00: You get to that last part, it's called the minor prophets, Obadiah, Hezekiah, all those kind of got Malachi, the part where homeschoolers go to get names for their children.
SPEAKER_00: That part back there, whoo! God is not in a good way with the time.
SPEAKER_00: I love we by the way, we have all kinds of people in our church.
SPEAKER_00: Homeschool, private school, but I don't care, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Just relax.
SPEAKER_00: So you get to the back, the guys with the funny names, okay, like Malachi and Habakkuk and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God is like, I'm gonna tell you what, you better, and then all of a sudden, whoop, radio silence.
SPEAKER_00: 450 years.
SPEAKER_00: Advent, it commemorates the time between the close of the Old Testament when people weren't listening, so God just kind of said, All right, I'm gonna just let you guys figure this out yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And the incarnation of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: What was it like?
SPEAKER_00: There was a guy in the Bible, the weeping prophet Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah said this uh way back in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He witnessed this, he saw this happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is what it was like.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I read this today, by the way, just as a reminder that uh I'm not saying we could go back and recreate these circumstances, but if we're not careful, we'll have the same sense of alienation, isolation, and darkness that God sent on his people, he sent on uh the the the the world uh in the Old Testament because God told them, hey, you guys better listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna raise up these other nations, and they didn't listen.
SPEAKER_00: And so God raised up a nation called Babylon and the Babylonian captivity.
SPEAKER_00: They besieged Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: This is how dark it was.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, wrote these words about that time.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I am the man who has seen affliction.
SPEAKER_00: Under the rod of wrath, he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light.
SPEAKER_00: Surely against me, he turns his hand again and again the whole day long.
SPEAKER_00: He has made my flesh and my skin waste away.
SPEAKER_00: He has broken my bones, he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: He has made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by way of reminder, he's talking about God.
SPEAKER_00: He's lamenting.
SPEAKER_00: See, if you're here today and you're like, you know, I just get sad different parts of the year.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity is not about being happy and clappy all the time.
SPEAKER_00: This is a man that loved God very much.
SPEAKER_00: There's a book in the Bible called Lamentations.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't worship being depressed.
SPEAKER_00: It acknowledges that, hey, if we don't get it right with God, we're gonna experience a lot of sadness.
SPEAKER_00: And even when we have it right with God, we live in a world that's gonna be besotten with sadness.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah continues.
SPEAKER_00: He said, He has made my flesh and my skin waste away, he's broken my bones.
SPEAKER_00: He's besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: He's made me dwell in darkness like the dead of long ago.
SPEAKER_00: He has walled me about so that I cannot escape.
SPEAKER_00: He has made my chains heavy.
SPEAKER_00: Though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He has blocked my ways with blocks of stones, and he has made my paths crooked.
SPEAKER_00: He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding.
SPEAKER_00: He turned aside my steps and he tore me to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: He has made me desolate.
SPEAKER_00: He bent his bow and he set me as a target for his arrow.
SPEAKER_00: He drove into my kidneys the arrow of his quiver.
SPEAKER_00: I have become the laughing stock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
SPEAKER_00: He has filled me with bitterness, he has sated me with wormwood.
SPEAKER_00: He has made my teeth grind on gravel and made me cower in ashes.
SPEAKER_00: My soul is bereft of peace.
SPEAKER_00: I have forgotten what happiness is.
SPEAKER_00: So I say, My endurance has perished, so has my hope from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall.
SPEAKER_00: My soul continually remembers how it is bowed down within me.
SPEAKER_00: But this I call to mine, and therefore I have hope.
SPEAKER_00: Steadfast how the love of the Lord never ceases.
SPEAKER_00: His mercies never come to an end.
SPEAKER_00: They're new every morning.
SPEAKER_00: Great is your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I will hope in him.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
SPEAKER_00: It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is a time where we acknowledge that there are going to be periods in your life where it gets hard, it gets dark.
SPEAKER_00: You look around you and the culture and you and fatalism haunts the human experience.
SPEAKER_00: The thought begins to go through your mind that just kind of says, What's the use?
SPEAKER_00: Am I the only person who cares about the right thing?
SPEAKER_00: Do I work with just a pack of liars who care about nothing but profit in the bottom line and making more?
SPEAKER_00: This is lonely, God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Advent is a time where we have to ask ourselves, Am I willing to embrace the absurdity of hope?
SPEAKER_00: Surrounded by a culture of darkness?
SPEAKER_00: Am I willing to be the woman that kind of stands up and speaks the truth?
SPEAKER_00: Or am I going to become that negative Nancy that just the glass is always half empty?
SPEAKER_00: Everyone's wrong, and it's always going to be this way.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, it's just going to get worse.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just eat dirt and die.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get your hopes up because you're just going to be disappointed.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be the guy whose flat screen TV gets bigger, your truck gets bigger, your garage gets bigger, your man cave gets bigger because you really don't have that many friends.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have to increase the space where you escape from culture.
SPEAKER_00: And escape from the fact that everything in your life is big except your circle of friends.
SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to be the person who chooses to live as a beacon of hope in a dark culture?
SPEAKER_00: One thing you'll notice is it doesn't you don't have to be a cube or a spotlight, even a lighthouse.
SPEAKER_00: The smallest expression of light in a room full of darkness draws everyone's attention.
SPEAKER_00: This is the hope of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the privilege that we have to bear this hope into a culture that prefers darkness over light.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray this morning as we talk about the absurdity of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we acknowledge that one of the things that's always distinguished your people from the culture around them is our obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's not anything else about us, it's just our simple obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, say something today that has our name on it.
SPEAKER_00: Say something in a language that we understand.
SPEAKER_00: We realize, God, when we look around, that fatalism is a vain hope.
SPEAKER_00: It's a vain substitute for obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we understand today and we come today to accept and believe that we are the expression of hope that the culture is looking for.
SPEAKER_00: And so remind us today of what makes this possible and why it's personal in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: The absurdity of hope from Philippians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: I'll start reading in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says this, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: So let me just stop right here and say this.
SPEAKER_00: When I talk about the absurdity of hope, I don't mean being the happy, clappy person that you see on TV or the late-night TV preacher that looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, everybody.
SPEAKER_00: I don't trust anybody that smiles all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And neither does the Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so just relax.
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting today, you're kind of like, you're gonna tell me that I just gotta like just fake it till I make it?
SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
SPEAKER_00: I just read to you out of the Bible about a man that said, God, it's like you don't even hear my prayers.
SPEAKER_00: You built a brick wall around me.
SPEAKER_00: All I can hear is my voice bouncing off the ceiling and coming back to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even gonna pray anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And I am saying, in such a culture as that, that hope feels like this absurdity.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here's what the Bible calls us to.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life.
SPEAKER_00: So that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll just stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: What do we mean when you talk about the absurdity of hope?
SPEAKER_00: Basically, it involves three things that I'm gonna ask you to embrace this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, it involves obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It involves obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verses 12 and 13.
SPEAKER_00: Hear these words, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but much more in my absence.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever noticed how much easier it is to obey when everyone's watching?
SPEAKER_00: And how easy it is to disobey when no one's watching?
SPEAKER_00: And that's what Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Hey, not only my presence, but now much more in my absence.
SPEAKER_00: And don't miss the fact that he refers to these people with this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't you like that to be said about you one day?
SPEAKER_00: As you've always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm writing to people that always obey, not only when I'm around my presence, but much more in my absence.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I want you to think about today, this morning, when it comes to obedience, is look at me, not just right and wrong, and don't don't go back and revisit all the times you screwed up and disobeyed.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to go, that's surface.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think structurally and ask yourself this question: hey, kind of what is in my theology of obedience?
SPEAKER_00: What do I think about obedience?
SPEAKER_00: Because what you think about something informs how you relate to something.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you think about obedience, the problem, it's not that you you obey or don't obey, it's just that we think wrongly, we think insufficiently about the reality that the Bible calls obedience.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what I mean is that according to the Bible, obedience is just the expression of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: It's our Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: The way you know who is a Christian is not the people with the fish on the back of their suburban.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying take the fish off, because when there's a long line of traffic, I pull out and I look for you so I can honk and wave and cut in.
SPEAKER_00: So keep the fish there, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just profession.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just, hey, hey, I profess to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you know who a Christian is: it's the people that obey.
SPEAKER_00: You should not think, listen very carefully, you should not think that I'm a Christian just because I pastor a church.
SPEAKER_00: You should watch my life and you should say, does that man's life match up to the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Does he live what the Bible talks about?
SPEAKER_00: Said differently, is he obedient to the truths of Christianity?
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is just an expression of our Christian faith.
SPEAKER_00: And biblically speaking, it's as simple as these two phrases.
SPEAKER_00: It's work out, work in.
SPEAKER_00: Work out, work in.
SPEAKER_00: If you look there, you see Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of times that gets a bad rap.
SPEAKER_00: We say, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, but you have to see that against the backdrop of the next phrase.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For it is God who is at work in you.
SPEAKER_00: Both to will and to work according to his good pleasure, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about mutual pleasure in just a minute, all right?
SPEAKER_00: We'll just hold on to that.
SPEAKER_00: So I say work out, work in.
SPEAKER_00: When it's the Bible says work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: It's not saying try harder, get more determined, double down, hate yourself, hate the world, and just do what's right.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: And when it says work out your salvation with fear and trembling, it's basically saying give outward evidence to this inward reality.
SPEAKER_00: Here's why.
SPEAKER_00: Because God's at work in you.
SPEAKER_00: If God's not at work in you, there's nothing for you to work out.
SPEAKER_00: Remember a couple Sundays ago, I said there's a rhythm to creation where God does and we respond.
SPEAKER_00: You see it again right here.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to obedience, work out your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Demonstrate outwardly that God's at work inwardly.
SPEAKER_00: That's what obedience is.
SPEAKER_00: It's not taking something external and trying to make yourself do this regardless of how hard it is.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Because God's at work in you.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says this, not only is it God at work in you, it says God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: You have to ask yourself, this all this is under the banner of what is my theology of obedience?
SPEAKER_00: How do I think about obedience?
SPEAKER_00: Because if you think wrongly about obedience, you're not going to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Here's something that helps us think rightly or biblically about obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's this question, do I find pleasure in the things that God finds pleasure in?
SPEAKER_00: Obedience at the end of the day comes down to mutual pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Do I find pleasure in the things that God finds pleasure in?
SPEAKER_00: Because if not, you're not going to work with God.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible says that God's at work in you to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't find pleasure in the things that God finds pleasure in, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to go do your own thing.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible calls that disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you think about it, hey, work in, work out, all that kind of just work out what God's working in, it sounds easy, but yet it's not.
SPEAKER_00: You ever wonder?
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, it's not that I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that sometimes I just don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it comes down to.
SPEAKER_00: Because when you talk about, hey, just work out what God's working in, that sounds easy.
SPEAKER_00: But then you have to ask, why is obedience so inconsistent in our life?
SPEAKER_00: Two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: And I found right here in the same chapter, just look up if you would to verse 5 of Philippians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says it like this have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, just make a little note on that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to go into that today, but when the Bible says, have this mind in yourselves that is yours in Christ Jesus, it's a reminder that the Bible never asks you to do anything you can't do.
SPEAKER_00: Have this mind in you, which, by the way, is yours in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You already have the capacity to think this way as a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Have this mind in you among yourselves, uh, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: But he emptied himself by becoming, 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 a cross.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll just stop right there.
SPEAKER_00: Again, remember we're talking about why is obedience, if it's just simply, hey, work out what God's working in, it seems like that would be easy, but why is obedience so inconsistent in us?
SPEAKER_00: Two simple reasons.
SPEAKER_00: We just read them.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, we still count equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: We still count equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like this.
SPEAKER_00: What's my body?
SPEAKER_00: I can do what I want.
SPEAKER_00: All right, we're consenting adults.
SPEAKER_00: I'm old enough, I'm old enough to know what's right and wrong for me.
SPEAKER_00: You have your truth, I have my truth.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this sounds new.
SPEAKER_00: We call it progressivism, uh, social liberal progressives, progressive feminism.
SPEAKER_00: It's got a bunch of different labels on it nowadays, but can I just say to you, this is the oldest lie that humanity has ever believed?
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: We still count equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard, it's very helpful and it's very clear.
SPEAKER_00: He says, right there in verse 6, talking about Jesus, he says, Who, though he's in the form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to that phrase for just a second.
SPEAKER_00: Did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: I know we don't we don't put words together like that, but what is he referring to?
SPEAKER_00: He's referring to back in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, when the devil in the form of a serpent came to them and said, Hey, uh, surely has God said you shouldn't eat of any tree of the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, no, God didn't say that.
SPEAKER_00: God said that we could eat of any tree of the garden, but of this one tree we shouldn't eat.
SPEAKER_00: Because if we eat of that tree, we're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: The devil, the serpent, speaks up and says, Oh, you surely won't die.
SPEAKER_00: God's afraid that you'll be like him, knowing good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Translation, you'll be equal with God.
SPEAKER_00: We we still fall for that.
SPEAKER_00: It just has new labels and party, political parties crank out and put new labeling on it and say, Oh, we're progressive this and we're socialist this and blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: All it's trying to do is to get you to be complicit in your own destruction and to believe in your head, and it's in the water of our educational system in public schools that teaches our kids to say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I can be like God.
SPEAKER_00: I can be the master of my own destiny.
SPEAKER_00: You can't oppress me.
SPEAKER_00: I everyone's a victim, and so I'm gonna accuse you of something, and I'm going to advance my cause behind the accusation.
SPEAKER_00: And the devil, who's real, has been so successful.
SPEAKER_00: He's convinced us that, hey, by the way, equality with God is a thing that can be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: Why should you submit to God when you can be God?
SPEAKER_00: That's why obedience is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Because we still count equality with God as a thing to be grasped.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the ways that Jesus is not like us.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says, though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the second reason that obedience is hard is because obedience is an expression of humility.
SPEAKER_00: He humbled himself by being obedient.
SPEAKER_00: I hear people all the time say, you know what, I just want to be more humble.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, watch yourself.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, preacher?
SPEAKER_00: You should like it when I talk like that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like it when you say that, but then when I tell you what's required to be, you want more humility?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: I just I just think it means, you know, being quieter, not interrupting my wife and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_00: That'd be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, while you're praying, pray my wife don't interrupt me because I'd like her to stop interrupting me because I got things to say.
SPEAKER_00: Like yesterday, our Christmas tree fell over.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Help me with this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here all morning building baby Jesus mangers with little kids who've never held a hand.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you men take your kids' phones up and give them a hammer and nails.
SPEAKER_00: Cause dang.
SPEAKER_00: And this kid was just beating me with a hammer.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, if you want to do this.
SPEAKER_00: One kid just took it and started just beating the children's building.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, we need to whip your parents, my man.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'm done with that, and I'm thinking, this is I've done so much good today.
SPEAKER_00: I could just coast until the new year.
SPEAKER_00: My wife calls me, hey, I had to leave.
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking lunch with somebody in our church.
SPEAKER_00: Our Christmas tree fell over.
SPEAKER_00: There's water and ornaments everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And so got it up, got it, and because I'm a redneck, I took some fish and string and tied it to the window so I wouldn't fall over again.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I didn't go to AM, but I is an engineer.
SPEAKER_00: My wife came back and she's like, Really?
SPEAKER_00: This is your solution?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I jacked it up, put some books under it, tied it to the, anchored it to the wall.
SPEAKER_00: It ain't going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And then I had another solution.
SPEAKER_00: How about we get rid of some of these ornaments that are weighing the tree down that my kids made in Mother's Day out in 2004?
SPEAKER_00: So she went to the two name thing, Neil McClendon.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, I mean, the MRS does not make us keep records this long.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the tree is crying out for help.
SPEAKER_00: Get them off of me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
SPEAKER_00: We have to save every one of those.
SPEAKER_00: It's if I don't know they're her children.
SPEAKER_00: My children made these with their own hands.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're my kids too.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we could throw most of them away and just keep the rest of the stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I think the tree wouldn't fall over anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
SPEAKER_00: Prop the tree up, anchor it to the wall of fishing line, and put it all back on there.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to get that woman to be more humble.
SPEAKER_00: And she's saying to me, maybe you need to experience some humility.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to obey.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said too many ornaments is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: No, apparently just having an opinion is the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Not bitter anything.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing if you want to be humble, and which by the way, humility, uh would to God that it were so easy as just gonna be like, oh, I'm mousy, and I don't talk a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the quietest people in this room are the most prideful people you'll ever meet.
SPEAKER_00: Because they're just like, yeah, I'm not a loudmouth like that person.
SPEAKER_00: You think that's humility?
SPEAKER_00: That you don't talk?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Humility is that you obey.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you do it.
SPEAKER_00: So, so what is the absurdity of hope?
SPEAKER_00: How do I be this beacon of light in this dark culture?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you go pick at the abortion clinic.
SPEAKER_00: It means that you obey.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, there's this little distinction.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 14 to all things.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what distinguishes us from the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: We do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.
SPEAKER_00: There's two sets of words I want to draw your attention to, two pairs of words I want to point to.
SPEAKER_00: And the first pair is simply this grumbling and disputing.
SPEAKER_00: Grumbling and disputing.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the difference in grumbling and disputing.
SPEAKER_00: Like in that same thing, no.
SPEAKER_00: One's internal and one's external.
SPEAKER_00: Grumbling is internal.
SPEAKER_00: It's what you do, men.
SPEAKER_00: If you're anything like me, and I hope you're not, I hope you're better than me, but you're probably not.
SPEAKER_00: When you're driving somewhere and like the road is shut down and we're crawling along five miles an hour, and you get up there, and it's somebody on the side of the road changing a flat tire, and everyone has slowed down to look at that.
SPEAKER_00: Because right when you get by it, traffic just speeds up.
SPEAKER_00: I just grumble.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: We've been sitting here for 20 minutes because somebody, you never see anybody change a flat tire.
SPEAKER_00: And then Pocahontas over here is just kind of like, babe, there's no sense in you getting mad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not mad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm just expressing my displeasure.
SPEAKER_00: You want me to swallow injustice.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Jesus wants that.
SPEAKER_00: And she just puts her hand on me and doesn't say anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, what am I, baby?
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to get me to go to sleep?
SPEAKER_00: And then she's like, no, I'm trying to get you to shut up.
SPEAKER_00: So I was reading the Bible this week.
SPEAKER_00: God said the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you don't need to grumble so much.
SPEAKER_00: You're not the general manager of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: You can't make everybody do things the way you would do it.
SPEAKER_00: Are you sure?
SPEAKER_00: Because wouldn't this be better if they did?
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're visiting today, you may be thinking, I can't believe he thinks that.
SPEAKER_00: You think the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: That's just human nature.
SPEAKER_00: We think, hey, man, they should do it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Do it like me.
SPEAKER_00: Grumbling is internal, disputing is external.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another set of words I want to point you to.
SPEAKER_00: Crooked and twisted.
SPEAKER_00: One is by nature, one is by choice.
SPEAKER_00: You're crooked by nature.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says we're all born crooked deep down.
SPEAKER_00: You have a sinful nature.
SPEAKER_00: That word crooked is the Greek word scolios.
SPEAKER_00: It's where we get our word scoliosis.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a curvature of the spine.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says your heart, your nature is crooked when you're born, incapable of fulfilling and keeping God's law.
SPEAKER_00: Twisted is a different word because it means this.
SPEAKER_00: It means to oppose, to plot against the saving purposes and plans of God, to turn aside from the right path, to pervert, to corrupt.
SPEAKER_00: Now, by the way, let me just be clear here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not claiming some kind of moral superiority for Christians as much as I'm reminding us of our moral responsibility in the midst of this crooked and twisted generation by nature and by choice, people that prefer darkness over the light.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just kind of saying we're not better, we're just more responsible.
SPEAKER_00: We have the capacity, even though it's just one little candle, you know, like, hey, dude, I work at Halliburton, okay?
SPEAKER_00: We're like a global power, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I there's no way I can make a difference.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It's just by being the woman that just kind of, just, just kind of you you embrace the distinction that comes with being obedient.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says it like this it's so strident, it's so different.
SPEAKER_00: He says, This is what happens.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Among whom you shine as lights in the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's a reference to the stars.
SPEAKER_00: You you shine like stars in the universe.
SPEAKER_00: The third expression of just this kind of hope the Bible calls us to is identification.
SPEAKER_00: It's that last part there.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 16, holding fast to the word of life.
SPEAKER_00: To hold fast to the word of life is to identify with everything it says.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, when it talks about the word of life, it's talking about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just holding fast to the word of life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not taking your Bible to work and browbeating your coworkers.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not even preaching to your kids, you know, like, okay, here's my dad again.
SPEAKER_00: It's enjoying God more than your children enjoy their sin.
SPEAKER_00: I sent a friend of mine a song the other day, and I said, You and your wife should play this on the sound system in your house and prance around like drunken Vikings with your hands aloft and just looking at each other, joyfully celebrating God.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids will freak out.
SPEAKER_00: Your kids will video it and put it on Snapchat.
SPEAKER_00: This is what I live with.
SPEAKER_00: But they'll lay in bed at night, kind of like, did you see my dad today?
SPEAKER_00: My dad had a soup pot on his head.
SPEAKER_00: And he was prancing around the island in her kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: And he and my wife and my mom were just like crazy.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you catechize your children.
SPEAKER_00: You don't read them old books by dead people and expect them to like that.
SPEAKER_00: You impale the insufficiency of their sin, upon the beauty and the joy of your obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And they walk away just and they say, What's the deal?
SPEAKER_00: And you just say, Hey, your mom holds fast to the word of life.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not parenting you out of who I was when I was 17, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But when I was 17, I did not hold fast to the word of life, but now I do.
SPEAKER_00: And it changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: The way you respond to the Bible is determined by how you think about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say that a recent survey uh uh revealed this is how we think about the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: 53% of 18 to 34 year olds in America believe this statement to be true.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible, like all sacred writings, contains helpful accounts of ancient myths, but is not literally true.
SPEAKER_00: It's like a book of stories, Aesop's fables or something.
SPEAKER_00: There's some moralisms we can extract from the Bible, but it is these ancient myths and not literally true.
SPEAKER_00: And 53% of the people breathing, just from 18 to 34, not to mention the other ones that have got old enough just to become a universalist and kind of go, hey, I think God's gonna let us all in.
SPEAKER_00: Not true.
SPEAKER_00: And again, look at me.
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna stand out in that?
SPEAKER_00: And it's not winning religious arguments at work, it's being the most winsome cat in your division, and people are kind of like, does he know that oil is like gas is under$2 a gallon?
SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's the head of the department, and he seems unfazed.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's holding fast to the word of life.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, I'm I I I don't mention this quote to throw rocks at those who don't believe the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I mention it here to invite you and I to think about how much the person who does believe it to be literally true, how much that person stands out.
SPEAKER_00: Not that it's just true, but it's it's life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not information, it's not principles on parenting.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stop reducing the Bible down to some manual for a better life and expecting your pastor to be your life coach.
SPEAKER_00: That cat's on TV this morning, he'll be on TV again tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Just pop psychology nonsense.
SPEAKER_00: And it's so popular because we don't believe the Bible's the word of life.
SPEAKER_00: We're afraid to be the minority.
SPEAKER_00: We're afraid to be the light in the darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And again, what if you're the hope that the culture's looking and longing for?
SPEAKER_00: We begin this morning with a reading from Lamentations, and I'd like to conclude with something that was written 180 years before Lamentations, before Jeremiah the weeping prophet, is like, oh God, you said this day was coming.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't believe you, because by the way, you know why they didn't believe them?
SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe them because the preachers back then were saying to the people, hey, nothing bad's gonna happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: God's a God of love.
SPEAKER_00: My God's a God of love.
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't let anything bad happen to you.
SPEAKER_00: And God said of those men, these are clouds without rain.
SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to these morons.
SPEAKER_00: And the people listened.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they wanted their ears tickled, they wouldn't endure sound teaching.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted people to tell them, you can just keep sinning and keep telling God you're sorry.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is a lofty ideal, but I mean, come on, we're all human here, right?
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Hey, you people aren't listening to me.
SPEAKER_00: And so, if you're not gonna listen, I'm not gonna talk.
SPEAKER_00: And so, 180 years before Lamentations, he spoke through a prophet named Amos these words Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will send a famine on the land.
SPEAKER_00: Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east, and they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.
SPEAKER_00: And in that day the lovely young women and the strong young men shall faint because of thirst.
SPEAKER_00: A hundred and eighty years before, he raised up another nation to punish his people.
SPEAKER_00: God said this, and the people are like, ah, nothing bad's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: My pastor told me on Sunday, uh, I'm a victor.
SPEAKER_00: God, God wants to bless me, God wants me to be rich, God wants me to be successful, God wants me.
SPEAKER_00: It's funny, God wants all the good things for me.
SPEAKER_00: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_00: God sounds a lot like me.
SPEAKER_00: And so when calamity came, and then when God at the end of the Old Testament just said, Okay, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: And there's 450 years of God being done.
SPEAKER_00: I had a professor in seminary that told us, he tells all the time, Men, your true character is revealed when you get the upper hand on your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Hear that again, let me demonstrate, and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: Your true character is revealed when you get the upper hand on your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: When you get the opportunity to pay back people who have hurt you, then who you really are comes out.
SPEAKER_00: And so I said that to say this.
SPEAKER_00: So years, hundreds of thousands of years of people not heeding the word of the Lord, and then God says, Okay, I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna talk to you anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Just enjoy some silence, and it is dark, and there's rebellion, and there's desecration that takes place, and all kinds of stuff in this intertestamental period, and then to end the silence.
SPEAKER_00: John's gospel tells us this in the beginning, these people have not listened to God's word, and he has the upper hand, and he can really lay the wood to them.
SPEAKER_00: These people who've not heeded his words.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was 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.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things I want you to know about God today is that he's full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: You say, How do you know that?
SPEAKER_00: Not just because the Bible says it, but because for people that did not heed his word, God sent his word into the world, in the incarnation.
SPEAKER_00: The word becomes flesh.
SPEAKER_00: God says, you've just heard it, maybe it'll help you to see it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus was born in a manger.
SPEAKER_00: Because God wanted you and I to see grace, the fullness of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Father, what the Bible tells us is that you're merciful, you're patient, you're long-suffering, you're all these things.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Father, we just want to think about our lives for a moment against the backdrop because we live in a culture that loves darkness more than light.
SPEAKER_00: And there's gonna be days that are incredible, that are just exuberant, and there's gonna be days like yesterday where just if anything can go wrong, it goes wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, when we find ourselves in the darkness, we want to be reminded that we're the hope.
SPEAKER_00: We're left here to be the hope to the world around us, to be that little beacon of light that kind of says, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's hard, it's difficult, but God is right.
SPEAKER_00: God's not mean, he's not hacked off at the world, he's not out to get everybody, he's just right.
SPEAKER_00: And when he calls me to obey, he is asking me and requiring me to live out who I really am, and more importantly, what he's doing and who he is inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: So I can only work out my salvation because God's working inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like us to take a minute just to think about your life, what it feels like right now.
SPEAKER_00: And then ask God, this God of hope.
SPEAKER_00: Ask Him for what you need in light of what you feel today, what your life feels like.
SPEAKER_00: Let's ponder these things for just a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we're thankful today that because of hope, the light, the darkness is not pervasive, it's not all-consuming.
SPEAKER_00: So I pray for anyone in this room today that just feels overwhelmed, just like, hey man, it's kind of the walls are closing in on me.
SPEAKER_00: God, because of hope, just kind of push that back.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let the truth arise.
SPEAKER_00: We embrace the privilege that is ours to be the hope that our culture is looking for, uh, to be your people, to live in obedience, to live in this winsome gladness that is ours because of the reality of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ came into the world, was born, and laid in a manger for people who've neglected the word of God to not only hear the word of God, but to see the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, we're grateful today that the word became flesh and has dwelled among us.
SPEAKER_00: That gives us an enduring hope, something to build and bank our life on.
SPEAKER_00: And so we do that gladly now.
SPEAKER_00: We say thank you for that privilege, and we say thank you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you're our guest today, let me say thanks for being part of our service.
SPEAKER_00: I know that it's important to find a church that you can feel at home in.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but let me just say this to you.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I would love for this to be that church, but we let people move at their own pace.
SPEAKER_00: But uh, I don't want to just be the guy that preaches to you on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I want to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be your pastors.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be people that walk with you through whatever you're going with.
SPEAKER_00: We're not afraid of getting the blood of your life on us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's not going to change our mind about you, one iota, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully, if you're our guest, you had an opportunity to fill out one of those guest cards that are in the seat pocket on your row.
SPEAKER_00: And as you leave here in just a minute, if you just kind of drop those wooden boxes by the doors, uh, we'd love to have a record of your visit today.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about anything you saw or heard, and this is to everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you say, you know what, I'm kind of going through a lot, I'd love somebody to pray with me.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be available down front as soon as you're dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: We'd be glad to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're visiting, just come introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_00: We just want to put a name with a face.
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to try to get you jammed up and keep you.
SPEAKER_00: We know you got a life.
SPEAKER_00: You need to get to stuff, okay?
SPEAKER_00: I just want to remind you that our churchwide family hayride is coming up in the middle of December, and they're selling tickets for that in the lobby.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions about that, we'd love for you to come experience that with us, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if today, if you this is your church and you consider this your church, and today's the day you worship God through obedience or generosity, uh, you can take care of that on your way out as well, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_00: Hope is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: It is the best of all the good things.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the Bible says that's who you and I get to be.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope is on the horizon, and our hope is here as well.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and live in this reality in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Bless you.