Grace Makes You a Charity Case We want to work for what we receive. We want to pay our own way and earn our place. This is true in nearly every part of life, and it often becomes true of the way we relate to God. We begin to think that if we work hard enough, obey consistently enough, or become useful enough, God will be pleased with us. This is the question that will wear out your soul: Am I working hard enough for God? Paul addresses this directly in Galatians 3: Heading 5 Why the Lord's Supper Does What Believer's Baptism Doesn't Mitchell Leach July 27, 2026 Theology, Bible Most of us don’t want to be charity cases. We want to work for what we receive. We want to pay our own way and earn our place. This is true in nearly every part of life, and it often becomes true of the way we relate to God. We begin to think that if we work hard enough, obey consistently enough, or become useful enough, God will be pleased with us. This is the question that will wear out your soul: Am I working hard enough for God? Paul addresses this directly in Galatians 3: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”—Galatians 3:1–3 The Galatians had received the gospel. Jesus Christ had been publicly portrayed before them as crucified. They understood that they were saved through faith in Christ. Yet now they were living as though Christ had begun their salvation, but they would need to finish it through their own effort. Paul’s question is simple: Did God come to you as a boss paying wages, or as a Father giving gifts? Grace Is Offensive to Hard Workers Grace is difficult for hardworking people because grace makes you a charity case before it makes you useful. Legalism affirms that we can save ourselves. It says that if you somehow work hard enough, God will say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. This is what you deserve. You’ve been good, so I’m happy with you.” But the reality is that Christians can hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” only because the Father treated Jesus like us in order to treat us like Jesus. For us to insist on getting what we are owed is to insist on our destruction. Paul writes: “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’”—Galatians 3:10 The problem is not God’s law. God’s law is good. The problem is our attempt to use the law to make ourselves righteous. If we want to stand before God based on our obedience, we must obey everything. We do not get to present our best moments and ignore the rest. We cannot offer God sincere effort and demand that he call it righteousness. The law requires perfect obedience. We have not given it. God Loves Obedience Before you write an angry email or comment, hear this: God is delighted when we are transformed by Jesus trading places with us on the cross by taking our sin, then by coming to new life with him through his resurrection, and then responding by obeying his laws and commandments. This is precious to God. First Samuel 15:22 says: “Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice.” This isn’t only confined to the Old Testament. In John 14:15, Jesus says: “If you love me, keep my commands.” God loves when we obey what he has told us to do because his law reveals part of who he is. When God commands us not to worship other gods, it’s because he is saying, “There’s only one God, and I’m him.” When he tells us not to worship carved images—not just of false gods, but also of the one true God—he is saying, “I’m infinite and eternal. I cannot be contained in something material. Not even your mind.” God wants us to obey because he knows what is right and true. Every time we don’t follow him, we break away from our Creator. God loves our obedience when it is done with the right intention. But when we try to leverage our obedience toward God as an act to earn God’s favor, it is disgusting to him. My Kids Are Bad Artists My kids are bad artists. It is a hard thing to say, but as I step back from my emotional connection to my kids and their art and critically look at what they’ve made, it’s not something an art gallery would hang. Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing better or more precious than when my children make art out of their pure, childish imagination and give it to me out of pure love. I still have a misspelled card that my son made me in my office from two years ago, simply because when he gave it to me, it was him saying, “I made this for you because I love you, and this is the best that I can do.” But later, this same son of mine—in an attempt to get out of cleaning the playroom—made me a crayon drawing and said, “Here is a picture. Now I don’t have to clean the playroom.” At that moment, that artwork wasn’t something I wanted to cherish or even keep. It was a worthless piece of paper because of the heart behind it. Our children’s art doesn’t have any monetary value, nor would it win any awards. When it’s given out of a heart that is trying to earn something from us, it actually disgusts us—or at least it did for me. But when it is given as an act of love in response to the love we’ve given them, it is priceless. This is similar to the way God feels about us trying to earn his favor or love through our good works. Our works aren’t impressive enough to place God in our debt. Yet when they come from a heart of love in response to the love he has given us, they are precious to him. The difference is not the quality of the artwork. It is the heart behind it. Our Obedience Can Become Rebellion Isaiah 64:6 says: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” This passage uses clearly strong language against our righteous deeds. The original Hebrew is even stronger than many English translations communicate. The polluted garment Isaiah describes was a ceremonially unclean rag. Why does Isaiah describe our righteous deeds this way? Because we have perverted what God designed for our good and turned it into evil. We take obedience, which should be a loving response to God, and turn it into a way to twist God’s arm into loving us more or blessing us more. Just like a child who tries to trick his parent out of cleaning the playroom, God is greatly displeased when we use his law as a weapon against him. Our obedience becomes an act of rebellion when we use it to replace grace. Religion says, “I obey; therefore, God accepts me.” The gospel says, “God has accepted me in Christ; therefore, I obey.” The order matters. Abraham Believed God Paul continues his argument by pointing back to Abraham: “Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’ Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.”—Galatians 3:6–7 Abraham was not made righteous because he had done enough. He believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham brought no credentials. He came with faith in the promise of God. Paul’s argument is that this has always been the way God saves his people. God does not save people because they have earned his blessing. He gives the blessing through faith. The gospel was announced beforehand to Abraham when God said, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” This blessing would not remain within one family or one nation. It would come to all those who share Abraham’s faith. We are not brought into God’s family through our ancestry, our religious background, or our performance. We are brought in through faith in Christ. Christ Became a Curse for Us The law does not save us. It exposes our guilt. Paul writes: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.”—Galatians 3:13 The cross is where your earnings go to die. Christ did not come to help us pay the rest of our debt. He came because we could not pay it. We stood under the curse of the law. Jesus took that curse upon himself. He traded places with us on the cross. He received what we should have received, and in return, we are treated as he deserves to be treated. Paul says this happened: “So that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.”—Galatians 3:14 Christ took the curse so that we could receive the blessing. We do not receive the Holy Spirit as a wage. We receive the Spirit as a gift. We do not become God’s children because we have proven ourselves useful. We become useful because God has first made us his children. Bleeding Charity One of my favorite dialogues from all the books I’ve read is a passage from The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. In this dialogue, the Ghost—representing a soul from hell—clings to a sense of self-righteousness and entitlement based on his own deeds and perceived moral standing. He believes he deserves certain rights because of his actions and life choices. He explains that he has gone straight all his life. He admits that he was not religious and had faults, but insists that he did his best. He paid for what he took. If he received wages, it was because he did the work. He wants nothing more than his rights. The other man tells him that getting his rights would not be good news. He says, “I haven’t got my rights, or I should not be here. You will not get yours either. You’ll get something far better.” Still, the Ghost insists that he does not want anyone’s “bleeding charity.” The response is: “Then do. At once. Ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking and nothing can be bought.” Christianity isn’t a marketplace. It’s a mercy seat. As Christians, our hope eternally is based on the reality that we are charity cases. We need the bleeding charity of Christ. This is the understanding that we are poor in spirit. Insisting on earning our favor or our righteousness is—as Tim Keller said—“being middle class in spirit.” The poor in spirit know they cannot pay. They know they do not have enough righteousness to bargain with God. They do not ask for their rights. They ask for mercy. Everything Is Here for the Asking The question is not whether you have worked hard enough. You haven’t. The question is not whether you have obeyed enough, prayed enough, served enough, or made yourself useful enough. You haven’t. The question is whether Christ has done enough. He has. The Christian life begins when we stop bargaining with God. We come before him without leverage, without credentials, and without any claim that he owes us something. We ask for the Bleeding Charity. Everything is here for the asking, and nothing can be bought. Whether or not prayer is effective (and it is effective), we are called to be followers of Christ. The question shouldn’t be “Does prayer change things?” But rather “Is Jesus God?” Because if he is in fact God, then what he says goes. Questioning God on whether his commandments make sense to us is a grievously offensive practice. In doing so we (as finite creatures) are inferring that we — somehow — have a better perspective... If God Is Sovereign, Why Pray? Read Learn More About What We Believe Prosper Christian Reformed Church holds that the Bible is the inerrant, divinely inspired Word of God and the highest authority for faith and life. We believe in the centrality of the gospel: that all people are sinners in need of salvation, which comes through Jesus Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, by grace alone through faith alone. We practices infant baptism as a sign of covenant inclusion and uphold traditional biblical teachings on marriage, gender roles, and sexuality. We affirm Reformed theology, including the five points of Calvinism, and embrace an amillennial view of Christ’s reign and the end times. What We Believe

He Gives Himself: A reflection on Matthew 26:26–28 and the Lord's Supper Before the meal ended, Jesus said something remarkable. He said he would not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day he drank it new with them in his Father's kingdom.⁹ He said it knowing Judas was about to leave to betray him. He said it knowing Peter would deny him before morning. He said it knowing the cross was hours away. And still — he was already looking past it. Already speaking of another meal, another table, a feast on the other side. Heading 5 Why the Lord's Supper Does What Believer's Baptism Doesn't Mitchell Leach April 7, 2026 Bible, Theology, Position Paper The Night He Changed the Sentence There is a moment every year in the Jewish Passover seder when the presider lifts the unleavened bread and says, This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the wilderness. ¹ It is a moment of memory — a reaching back across centuries to the night Israel fled Egypt, when bread was baked without leaven because there was no time to wait, when a lamb died so that a nation might live. Jesus was at that meal the night before his death. He knew the words. He had said them every year since childhood. But on this night, he did something no one expected. He took the bread, and he changed the sentence. This is my body. ² Not the bread of Israel's affliction. The bread of his. What he was doing — what Matthew wants us to see — is that Jesus was not merely observing a feast. He was reinterpreting it. The Passover had always pointed somewhere. The lamb, the blood on the doorpost, the angel of death passing over — all of it had been a shadow of something larger. On that Thursday night, Jesus announced that the thing it was pointing to had arrived. You think the Passover was significant , he was saying. What I am about to do will change the world. Then he took the cup. The One Who Walks Through Alone In the ancient world, when two parties entered a covenant, they would take animals, cut them in half, and walk between the pieces together. It was a binding oath — you were saying: if I break this, may what happened to these animals happen to me. In Genesis 15, God made a covenant with Abraham exactly this way. He laid out the pieces. But then he put Abraham into a deep sleep, and God alone walked through them.³ Abraham didn't walk. God did. The meaning is staggering: I will take the full weight of this. If this covenant is broken, it falls on me. At the Passover table, Jesus took the cup and said, This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. ⁴ Moses had once thrown blood on the people to seal the old covenant.⁵ But this is different. Jesus doesn't throw blood. He invites them to drink it. And he doesn't merely represent the covenant — he becomes the sacrifice that seals it. He is the one who walks through the pieces alone. The bread tells you who he is. The cup tells you what it costs. More Than a Symbol, More Than We Know For centuries the church has wrestled with what happens when we hold that bread and cup in our own hands. The Catholic tradition says the elements become his literal body and blood. The Reformation pushed back. But then the question became unavoidable: if it isn't literal, is it only symbolic? Just a ritual, a memorial, a solemn act of remembrance for a man who died two thousand years ago? The Reformed tradition says no — something real is happening. Something the word symbol is too small to hold. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we aren't eating and drinking Jesus with our mouths. But we are with our souls. The sixteenth-century Scottish theologian Robert Bruce put it this way: in the Lord's Supper you receive what you receive in the Word — but better. We get Christ better. ⁶ Not a new thing. The same thing, more fully. A communion with the living Christ that is not merely cognitive or memorial, but real. The living bread comes down from heaven and gives life to the world, and faith receives him — not only in the ear, but in the eating.⁷ This is why Jesus, in John 6, speaks of the bread he will give as his flesh, and why he says that unless we eat of it we have no life in us.⁸ The language is jarring on purpose. He is not describing a casual exercise. He is describing an act of intimate union — a receiving of Christ into the soul that is as real and as nourishing as food is to the body. Between Two Tables But there is one more thing happening at that table that we might miss if we stay only at the bread and cup. Before the meal ended, Jesus said something remarkable. He said he would not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day he drank it new with them in his Father's kingdom.⁹ He said it knowing Judas was about to leave to betray him. He said it knowing Peter would deny him before morning. He said it knowing the cross was hours away. And still — he was already looking past it. Already speaking of another meal, another table, a feast on the other side. There is a table behind us and a table ahead. The table behind: a Passover meal, a lamb, bread broken, a cup poured out, a covenant sealed in blood. The table ahead: a kingdom banquet, face to face, no more symbols, just him — the Lamb who died as the host. Every time we come to the Lord's Supper, we are living between those two tables. We remember what it cost. We anticipate what is coming. We receive the living Christ into our souls and are reminded that this meal is not the last one — only the foretaste of a feast that will have no end. Receive the King who gives himself for sinners. That is what the table is. That is what we are invited to do. Don't miss it. This reflection is based on a Maundy Thursday sermon preached from Matthew 26:26–28 at Prosper Christian Reformed Church. Notes ¹ From the traditional Passover Haggadah ( Ha Lachma Anya ), recited at the beginning of the Maggid section of the seder. ² Matthew 26:26, ESV. ³ Genesis 15:9–17, ESV. The image of God passing through the pieces as a smoking fire pot and flaming torch is a theophany — God himself binding the covenant oath unilaterally. ⁴ Matthew 26:28, ESV. ⁵ Exodus 24:8, ESV: "Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words." ⁶ Robert Bruce, The Mystery of the Lord's Supper , trans. Thomas F. Torrance (London: James Clarke, 1958), 82–83. Originally preached in Edinburgh, 1589. ⁷ John 6:51, ESV: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." ⁸ John 6:53, ESV: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." ⁹ Matthew 26:29, ESV. You’ve probably heard the term legalism, or legalist used — not just in the church — but in culture abroad. Legalism carries a clearly negative connotation (and for good reason). Yet legalism isn’t a word found in the English Bible, but that doesn’t mean the Bible doesn’t say anything about it. Paul uses the phrase “works of the law” eight times in his writings (Romans 2:15, 3:20, 3:28, Galatians 2:16, 3:2, 3:5, 3:10). Drawing the Line of Legalism Read Learn More About What We Believe Prosper Christian Reformed Church holds that the Bible is the inerrant, divinely inspired Word of God and the highest authority for faith and life. We believe in the centrality of the gospel: that all people are sinners in need of salvation, which comes through Jesus Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, by grace alone through faith alone. We practices infant baptism as a sign of covenant inclusion and uphold traditional biblical teachings on marriage, gender roles, and sexuality. We affirm Reformed theology, including the five points of Calvinism, and embrace an amillennial view of Christ’s reign and the end times. What We Believe

A Gospel Worth Defending Prosper Christian Reformed Church A Gospel Worth Defending Christ Alone Mitchell Leach Sunday, February 1, 2026 Audio A Gospel Worth Defending Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 55:38 Sermon Transcript Introduction We're in a longer section of scripture today, but in order to get through this in eight weeks, we are going to have to cover some longer sections. This is all one cohesive thought. This is leading us one place in this passage. What we're going to see in this is one gospel, defended by faith and unified in Christ. There's a familiar story in scripture that parallels what we're talking about here. It might not seem like it at the beginning, but it's a story of Pilate. When Pilate washes his hands, it's this innocuous moment in the crucifixion narrative. Pilate knows that Jesus has not done anything wrong, and yet he fears the people. The people have become dangerous, and so he tries to compromise. He tries to keep his job. He tries to keep the peace and try to keep his conscience clean at the same time. So he calls for a bowl, dips his hands in it as if to say, This isn't This isn't my fault. This isn't my responsibility. I'm innocent of this, but there's the tragedy in it. He's trying to perform and to become clean without actually being clean. This isn't just a pilot problem. This isn't just a Roman governor's issue. This is an issue for all of us. This is a human heart problem. We feel dirty. We feel dirty when shame comes up. And yet we don't run to God. We often run to something that we can do ourselves. What makes you feel clean? I'm not talking about a shower. I'm talking about the things we do to make ourselves inside feel clean. Most of us have ways to feel clean. Sometimes it's out loud, but oftentimes it's quiet. It's in our head. For some of us, it's having a good week, doing the things that we said we were going to do and not doing the things that we know we're not supposed to do. For some of us, it's being needed or being right. For others, it's comparison or religious effort. And you can tell what it is by what you do when you fail. Do you run to God? Or do you wait to feel respectable again? Do you wait until, Well, I better get my life back together. I better try to clean myself before I go back to God. When you pray, do you feel like you need to bring receipts to God? When someone exposes you, does it crush you? Not because it hurts or they were wrong or you were wrong, but because you feel dirty again. Galatians isn't mainly a warning about open rebellion. It is a warning about religious drift, about Jesus plus something. In the moment your conscience needs something besides Jesus alone to feel clean, that's the sign that we've accepted a counterfeit gospel, one that isn't truly the gospel we find in scripture. So the question is, what makes you feel clean? And Fortunately, the Bible has answers for us, so keep your Bibles open to Galatians 1 and 2. We're going to see these three movements in this this letter, in this section of this letter. Divine origins of Paul's gospel Gospel unity without gospel addition Gospel truth confronted publicly What we see in this passage is Paul saying, If you want a clean conscience, you need a gospel with a clean source, one that comes from God and not from man. Divine origins of Paul's gospel Why does Paul go through the trouble of explaining who he is and essentially trying to tell the Galatian church, Hey, I'm an apostle. Why is he putting so much effort into this? It seems like a weird... I remember reading this for the first time as a kid and going, This feels like a boring section of this letter. Usually Paul's are filled with good information, and who cares that he's an apostle, right? Well, it's really important here. Paul says this for one reason. If the gospel comes from God, then churches in Galatia, you can't edit it. This is from God. It's not from you. If it's from man, you can pick and choose what you want. But if it's from God, you have to take the whole thing and you have to believe it. There were teachers pressuring the Gentile believer, these Gentile believers at this church, appealing to Jerusalem, to some authority coming from Jerusalem. Later on, we'll see that these were men coming from Jerusalem who said that they were coming from James. And you have to think how persuasive that must have been, right? These men in the Galatian churches going, Man, these are men coming from the brother of our savior, Jesus. These people must know what they're talking about. They were telling the Galatian churches that they needed to add on actions, adding on rituals on top of the gospel. Specifically, in order for a non-Jewish man to become a Christian, he must be circumcised. And this is why Paul is saying all of this. Paul is saying, I saw Jesus. I saw the truth. He revealed to me the gospel. Anyone who comes and tells you something different is telling you a lie. These men have distorted something. Paul says, I'm not here to say something that's going to make you happy. Look at Galatians 1:10 with me. Galatians 1:10 says this, For am I now seeking the approval of man or God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Paul is saying, I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to be a servant of Christ. I'm here to serve the church. I'm here not to make friends, but to make brothers and sisters. Paul is making it clear not only what the gospel is, but Galatians 1:11-12, For I would have you know brothers or brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul stacks three be claims on top of each other. This is not man's gospel, not received by man, and not taught by man. This is not a preference issue. This is a source issue. Paul then says, If you're wondering whether I made this up, if you're wondering whether or not this is true, look at my previous life. I used to be called Saul. That's who I was. I wasn't spiritually curious. I was violently oppressive of the church. I wasn't on some spiritual journey. I was on a mission to destroy the church, to persecute the church. I wasn't drifting from any tradition. I was exhaling in it. I was the best Galatians 1:13-14 say that he was persecuting the church. He was advancing in Judaism beyond his peers, more zealous for the traditions of his fathers than anyone else around him. In other words, if Christianity were just another version of the law, Paul would have loved this. But it's not. It's not law with gospel sprinkled on top of it. This is grace that radically transformed, and it radically transformed Saul into Paul. Paul wants to tell the churches in Galatia that he didn't make this up, that he didn't hear it from somebody else, that he's not a disciple of the Apostles. He's not like the men that came from James or said that they came from James. He's not someone who is discipled. He was not someone who was taught what to believe. He says, I heard this from Jesus himself. Jesus taught me this. What I know comes from God and God alone. And that's why he goes to great lengths saying, I didn't go to another person. I went to Arabia. I went to all these places. I spent 14 years before talking to anyone. No one taught me this. I was preaching this And what I was preaching, I heard directly from God. This is why Paul was so adamant in what we saw last week, that if anyone else comes to you to preach to you another gospel, whether it's an angel, or if I come back later and I teach you something that's contrary to what this is, let them be cursed, let them be anathema or condemned the gospel. It doesn't matter if they're from James or not. If they're preaching something contrary to what is true, they're preaching a different gospel. Paul's argument is simple. You cannot edit the gospel that you did not author. This message didn't come from a committee, didn't come from a tradition. It came from Jesus Christ. That's what makes us different from Catholic churches. Catholic churches hold scripture up the same with tradition. They believe that they're the ones who put the Bible together rather than what we would say is men recognize scripture. They recognize God's word, and we collected it, we bound it together. We didn't invent it. We cannot add scripture. We hold God's word to be the most authoritative thing here on Earth because it is God's word. This message isn't put together by man. The gospel wasn't authored by a committee or a smart group of people. It came from Christ alone. And the proof is Paul himself. The gospel didn't fit his old life. It demolished it. It radically transformed it. I mean, he had an incredible encounter with Christ on the Damascus Road in Acts 9:18. Here in Galatians 1:15, he says, But when he who had set me apart before I was born, in order that I might preach, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. Notice what Paul doesn't say. He doesn't say, Well, I was in a really spiritually dark place, and I found God. I went out and found him. No, he says, God set me apart. God called me. God revealed his son to me. And that's not Paul trying to brag about some spiritual achievement. That's God bringing a dead Dead man, bed, pulse of life. That's what Paul is talking about. The point isn't one, how important I am. I'm really special. Paul is saying God is the way. Jeremiah, he did it, initiates salvation. He's the one who initiates calling He always has. He always will. He did it with me. And what he says here, he'll do it with you. In fact, his call and what he says here is so similar to what we see in Jeremiah 1:5. It says this, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. Before I appointed you. And he knew profit to the nations. Paul's not waiting for a confirmation. This was that he was called. He was set apart Before his birth, he knew that he made him for, he was supposed to do. Looking back on his life, this is what God had meant. He went and... He didn't go and get confirmation from other people. He went and preached the gospel that Jesus had given him, and that this had been the plan from the beginning, that the gospel would go to the Gentiles, that the gospel would go to the nations. From Genesis 12, the covenant with Abraham was all about being a blessing to the nations. Paul's preaching then led to people glorifying God. That's what we see in Galatians 1:24, and they After he's talking about his former life, he said, You glorify God because of me. When you response that you get, share your testimony, when you talk about God, is that the response that you get, that people glorify God because of what you said. This is what our words about Jesus should do to other people. And this is why, as a pastor, it sometimes drives me crazy when I'll ask people to maybe share a testimony or to do some form of public speaking, and they say, I can't do it. I would be terrible at it. Well, in verse Galatians 1:24, the passage shows us something really important. It doesn't say here that they thought that Paul was so eloquent or that he had a neat story. Or Paul, they didn't marvel at cool in some way. They glorified God because of him. They didn't compliment Paul. They didn't marvel at how smart or how well-spoken he was. They glorified God because of the gospel he complained, because of what he was saying about God. When the gospel is real, it doesn't end in applause for the person speaking it. It ends in worship for the savior. That's what sermons are about. That's what makes a sermon different than a TED talk or a motivational speech. A motivational speech leaves a TED talk, might think to... With a set of to-do lists, maybe a worshiping. Feel inspired. A sermon leaves you worrying to you, inspiring to worship the God who's revealed this message to you. The question isn't whether you've had an experience and whether you've had a cool enough story to tell people. The question is, did communicate that gospel to people? People will want to worship that God. Gospel Unity Without Gospel Addition Paul goes to Jerusalem to defend the gospel and to guard unity. He's not checking his notes. He's not trying to compare what's What's going on here. He's confronting a threat. Let's look at verse one and two in chapter two. He said, I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. He then talks about he went on for 14 years. Paul wasn't looking for permission. He was protecting the church. He's not going to Jerusalem to see the Apostles, to see if he was right. He was going to ask, Will we be unified? I firmly believe that Paul, if he would have got there, and even the Apostles had been preaching something different, he would have confronted them saying, No, I got a revelation. This is what the gospel says. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. But Paul puts his gospel, the gospel that he has been preaching on the table, he says, It's Christ alone. The good news of the gospel is believing in Jesus, is that Christ came to be your substitute, that he died in your place. Not so that way you could add things onto the gospel, not so that you could have a pleasant life, not that you could be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. He didn't do this so that way you wouldn't have to go to hell and that you could get into heaven. That's not the gospel. The gospel is that we get God. The gospel is that we get to have the savior. It is Christ alone. So that way we could be declared clean in his presence, not by our effort, but by his finished work. John Piper has this to say, The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven. It is a way to get people to God. The gospel is about getting God. Salvation is the cherry on top. God is the Sunday. It is the thing that we strive for. That is the price of belief of our salvation. Paul wanted to meet with the leaders to make sure that they were believing the truth, because even if the leaders added one thing on top of the gospel. The mission to the nations would have been collapsed. It would have collapsed into confusion. The problem that was happening in the churches was one of ethnicity. It was about Jews and Gentiles. The good news of the gospel that Paul is proclaiming is that it is for all kinds of people. There's nothing more that you have to do. You do not have to become a Jew in order to be a Christian. The good news is for all kinds of people, Greeks, Romans, people from Africa, people from China, Democrats, Republicans, Michigan State fans, and those God-forsaken Michigan fans. Yeah, thank you. Paul is preaching. This is for all kinds of people. You don't have to be a Jew to be saved. So Paul brings a living test with him. He brings Titus. This is what we see in verses three through five, that Titus is a Greek. He's uncircumstised, and yet he's a real believer. What will happen? That's the question that Paul is bringing. He's bringing Titus along to answer. What will happen? Is Jesus good enough for him? So let's look at this, verses three through five, or three through four, and then we'll get to five in just a second. But even Titus, who is with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek, yet because of false brothers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they might bring us into slavery. Notice the strategy here. They don't deny Jesus. They're trying to add to him. Christostom says this about this passage, Their object was not to teach good doctrine, but to subjugate and enslave them, enslave Paul and Timothy. They call it a deeper devotion. They call it more steps of obedience. Paul calls it something simple. He calls it slavery. That's what it is. This also paints one One of the strangest word pictures that we see in, I think, all of scripture, that Titus, in order to find out who he was, that he wasn't a Jew, somebody had to, they say, they spied on him, and I can only imagine what that took to do that. But I think that's just a crazy word picture that is going on here. Any gospel that needs your contribution is not a deeper gospel. It is a different gospel entirely. The Belgian Confession says something really clear about this, and I wanted to put this up here. "To say that Christ is not enough is a most enormous blasphemy, for it then would follow that Jesus Christ is only half a savior." We do not believe in half a savior. Christ Alone is what we proclaim. Christ alone is what Paul wants the Galatian churches and us to know. We are saved by grace alone through Christ alone. We were brought to him by faith alone. Galatians 1:5 says this, To them we did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. Titus was not a Jew. He was Greek, and yet he is a Christian. Christians don't have extras that they have to add on top of the gospel in order to receive grace. This is why the Apostles accept Paul as an apostle, because Paul refuses not even for a moment. He refuses to waver on this gospel because one moment sets a precedent, and precedents become prisons. They enslave us. The gospel is good news that cannot be wavered on. Even in a situation where Paul could have tried to appeal, tried to seem more influential to seemingly a group of people who had some influence. Paul doesn't try to cut a compromise. He stands firm on the gospel. Paul is defending the faith, preserving the truth, and preserving correct doctrine. I think sometimes we talk about correct doctrine, and we feel like it's cold, it's stuffy, or it's boring altogether. But it isn't. Doctrine is what we're talking about here. Having correct doctrine is so important to our faith. Our faith is like a map, or I guess today it's really more like a GPS. I don't know how to read a map anymore. I think it's just a generation It's a professional thing. Anytime I go into a city, about every two years, I go to a conference down in Indianapolis. When I'm down there, I lose all sense of direction. I'm usually pretty directionally aware. I'm facing north right now. I feel like I am a walking compass sometimes. But when I get into Indianapolis, I am lost. I have no idea where I'm going. I absolutely live by my GPS. If I don't have my GPS in front of me, I could be going from the same hotel to the same Convention Center, and I'm lost. If I don't have that, I'm gone. I need it. A GPS or a map helps you get to where you're going. That's the point of it. But it would be silly for me to take my GPS out and put it on the ground or take a map and say, Okay, I'm back at the hotel now. It doesn't make any sense. The GPS is not the destination. The map isn't the destination. It helps us get to where we're going. It's a lot like doctrine. I think oftentimes we want a faith that is emotion-based. It is spirituality without doctrine. But good doctrine, it's like the phone. It isn't enough, right? I I can't stand on this and say, I'm there. I can't only believe in good doctrine and have a good faith. Doctrine points us. It gives us the directions to go to get to where we're supposed to be. It gives us the direction to get to an authentic faith. And yet, if we don't have good doctrine, if we don't have good directions, we will never arrive there. We will never arrive there without having good doctrine. Doctrine isn't a cage. It's a map that gets us to God. Augustine says this, The law was given in order that grace might be sought. Grace was given in order that the law might be fulfilled. Good doctrine shows us how we pursue grace. Truth without spirituality is just... Or Without truth, spirituality is just motion. It's no direction. It's just wandering aimlessly. We won't get to our destination. Bad doctrine doesn't just lead to bad worship. You'd think that that's what it would be. If we had bad doctrine, we'd get bad worship. Bad doctrine leads to a different God. It gives us directions to a different God altogether. Satan tries to use this against us. Satan tries to make us believe. That doctrine's boring, that it's cold and stuffy, and sometimes maybe that's on us for making it seem that way. Doctrine is not boring at all. Doctrine is what gets us to see the deepest glories of the The Creator of the universe, the God who saved us. Doctrine is not boring at all. It is more than information. It is a reality that allows us to see the infinite God of the universe, the infinite God of the Bible. It is beautiful. Bad doctrine leads to a different gospel all together. A different gospel that says either everyone's saved, that sin really isn't important and you can do whatever you want, or it leads a gospel that says, yeah, you need to be saved, but it's really based on what you do. It's really based on how you earn it. If the gospel includes your performance, then you will never know if you've done enough. But if the gospel is Christ alone, you'll finally be able to breathe. It'll give you rest. I think that's something that we need, something that we don't realize that the gospel can give us rest. And yet, no one is immune to drifting from the gospel, not even Peter. Gospel truth confronted publicly Paul could stand up to Peter, the man who walked on water with Jesus, the man who walked for three years following Jesus around, the man who saw our savior die, the man who saw the resurrected Christ. And he can confront him because Paul says he stood condemned in Galatians 2:11. This is pretty serious. Peter or as Paul calls him Cephas, because I think he was acting more like Cephas than Peter, he was distorting the gospel. And yet he wasn't demanding that people become Jewish in order to become Christians. All Peter was doing was saying there were certain Christians that couldn't sit with them. It seems like a middle school drama that you can't sit with me at lunch, and you can, but it's more than that. He's distorting the gospel because Peter drew back when he feared the circumcision party. He feared man. And that fear of man can even make someone like an apostle. Gospel, acts like Christ isn't good enough. Peter didn't verbally speak and preach a new gospel. He wasn't adding anything verbally to the gospel. He was practicing a new gospel. He didn't say that Gentiles aren't saved, he acted like they weren't clean. The problem was in eating, the reason that this is such a big problem is that Jews believed that Gentiles were unclean and that they couldn't eat together. And if they ate together, that they would make all the food unclean, they would make those Jewish people unclean. But if we're saved by Christ alone, if we are truly saved, This shouldn't be an issue. This is why this is such a critical issue. This is why Peter is not just making a bad choice. He stood condemned. He acted like they weren't clean enough to get close. This is Antioch, where Gentiles and Jews would eat together, one family united in Christ. And yet then pressure comes from these men, the circumcision party, which just branding-wise is a horrible name, but just doesn't seem like a party at all to me. These people weren't denying Jesus. Instead, they were just insisting that Gentiles needed an upgrade. Instead of standing up for the gospel, Peter blinks. In that culture, meals communicated belonging. Who was in, who was out, who was clean, who was unclean. The table drew the line. Peter, in doing this, had denied the gospel, essentially setting up two different kinds of churches. There's those who are really in, the Jews, and those who are just barely in, the Gentiles. Yeah, they're both saved, but we know who really God loves. In essence, Peter is saying, God is good, Christ is good, but not quite good enough to make you truly clean enough to eat with us. Peter's withdrawing wasn't just hurting people's feelings. It was rewriting the basis for belonging. It said that Christ, yeah, he can forgive you, but you must do other things in order to qualify for his love. Paul Paul says that there were more people that joined in in this hypocrisy. Even Barnabas got carried away. When leaders of the church falter, when they move away from sound teaching, whole churches crumble, whole churches move with them. So when Peter withdraw, he wasn't just avoiding tension. He was preaching a new gospel, but with his feet. That's what Galatians 2:14 says, But when I saw their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. Essentially, that The word that says in step here was ortho padeo. Ortho means ortho, meaning straight, and padeo, like podiatrist, like a foot doctor. It means feet. Paul is saying these people were not just doing something. Their walk was wrong. In Greek culture, your walk, how you walked, it wasn't just a physical action. It was how you lived your life. It was living your life straight, living your life right. Paul says the conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. Their conduct, meaning being not in step with the gospel, literally meant that they weren't walking straight. Their behavior made the gospel look crooked. And so Paul confronts him publicly because what he was doing was public. Peter was such an important figure. He an apostle. People looked to him to do the right thing. Paul says that he opposed Peter in front of all of them because the whole church was watching the gospel being played out. When something happens and it's private, we absolutely should confront people privately. But if I come up here and start preaching a different gospel, if someone falls publicly, doing something public, public in making the gospel vain, in adding to the gospel, in making it a different gospel, it needs to be confronted publicly. Everyone needs to hear the truth that what was said wasn't true. When you add anything to Christ, you don't just burden consciences, you break fellowship. And that was what was happening in this church. When you do this, you rebuild the wall that Jesus died to tear down. So in denying this, Peter has stood condemned. So Paul defends the gospel because he was defending the church. Main Idea: One gospel, received from God and defended without compromise The gospel is worth defending because it's not a minor doctrine. It's how dead people get transformed from death to life. It's how people go from guilty sinners into being declared righteous. It's how outsiders become full members of the family. The danger in Galatians is not that they stopped talking about Jesus, it's that they started adding to him. Jesus plus circumcision, grace plus law, faith plus proof. The moment you add anything to Christ on the basis of your standing right with God is the moment you don't add an upgrade to Christianity, you replace it, you take away from it. Paul doesn't call it a replacement that leads to injury or unhealth. This isn't something minor. Paul says that this leads to slavery. It takes you captive. Martin Luther, in commenting on this passage, says that we should respect Paul. We should follow Paul in his teaching. We should honor our parents, honor our rulers, even our pastors. But if any authority asks you to do anything, to bend the gospel, Paul is telling us here, we absolutely will not obey them. We obey Christ. We have a higher authority because the gospel outranks every voice, including our own. This isn't just a controversy for theologians. This isn't just some niche theological passage that's interesting to Bible nerds like me. This is a daily temptation salvation for Christians because our hearts love a plus religion. It makes us feel like we're in control, that we can take control and we can say, God, aren't you so glad that I did the right thing this week? Aren't you happy with me? It feels good to be able to say that. Yet if that was the basis for our salvation, we would never be able to be saved. Anything that we lean on to feel secure before God becomes a counterfeit. And so before we talk about false Gospels, we need to ask what plus religion is sneaking into our own heart, and that leads us into our application. Application 1.Refusing respectable slavery The danger in the Galatian church isn't that people stop using Jesus-centered language. It's that they started using something besides Jesus to feel clean, to feel safe, to feel accepted. So we need to watch the plus that tends to feel normal for us, especially in a place like this. It's not usually loud. It's not rebellion. It's not overtly a denial of the Trinity or a denial of Christ's Deity, but it's respectable substitutes. Things like competence, saying, I'm good. I've got life handled. Finding confidence in our reliability. I do my part. I don't rock the boat. Or maybe we use theology like armor. I believe the right thing. I'm informed. I can spot theological error. Maybe it's our busyness. I'm okay because I'm involved. I'm serving, I'm helping, I'm producing. Or maybe it's being the strong one. I'm okay because I don't need help. I'm not messy like anyone else. Or maybe it's comparison. I'm okay because I'm not like those other people that I see. None of these things are automatically bad. But when they become our confidence, when they start functioning like our own righteousness, that's when they become deadly. So here's the test. When you fail this week, when you blow it this week, what will you do? Will you run to Christ like he's enough? Or Will you pull back? Will you pull back trying to be clean yourself? And then when you feel clean enough, then you can go to God. Respectable slavery sounds spiritual, but it's hiding. It's hiding like Adam and Eve did in the garden. Well, I'll pray when I'm doing better. I'll go to God once I've calmed down. I'll feel close again when I've proven that I'm not that person. That's Jesus plus. That's Jesus plus a cleaner week, plus control, plus proof. And yet the gospel says something opposite. You come to Christ to be cleansed, not because you already are. Jesus has cleansed you. You cannot clean yourself enough to go before him. He's the one who has to clean us. So we must refuse respectable slavery when we see it in our life. Repent quickly. Stop performing for God. Receive mercy as a verdict. And make it right when you can. Apologize. Ask for forgiveness and take the next steps of obedience not as a way to pay back God, but because it's in devotion to him. A church is protected not by pretending we're clean, but by being the people who know where our cleanliness comes from. That leads us into our next point. 2.Practice table fellowship on purpose Practice hospitality. Now, what happens in the heart eventually shows up in our life. It shows up in our relationships, in the life of the church. In Galatians, Peter didn't preach a different gospel. He practiced one. He didn't make a doctrinal statement. He made a relational decision. He pulled back from the table and distanced himself. That was the preaching. It said, You're not quite clean enough. You're not quite one of us. And That's why table fellowship matters. It's because the table is where the gospel becomes visible. The question isn't only what do we confess, it's what do we practice. What does our life altogether communicate? What does the life of our church altogether communicate? There's a repeating danger in churches like ours. We can say everyone's welcome. We can put it on our website. We can put it in our bulletin, we can say it all the time. We can say everyone's welcome. But if we don't live that out, it doesn't really matter what we say. The patterns of our life communicate something something strong without maybe even intending to mean that. The issue is so subtle. The hidden social barriers, the relational things that make people feel like outsiders even before they get a chance to sit in the room with us. Belonging can quietly start feeling like you have to already know how things work here. You have to already know the right people. You have to know the names and the stories and the rhythms. You have to keep conversations light and pleasant. You can't bring your complicated, your messiness into a place like this. That's what it can feel like. No one writes up these rules, but When you're from the outside, you can feel it. You can feel it. It feels like maybe Christ welcomes me, but maybe I'm not sure as people do. There are people in our church, people in our community that desperately need to hear the gospel. There is something beautiful about this church. It's one of the reasons that we're here. There is a sense of family here that That is unlike any church that I've been a part of. And yet the danger is that we start to love the people so much here that we forget about the people out there. There are going to be people who visit our church. Being people who are radically transformed by the gospel makes it so that way we invite them in, that we don't make them feel like second-class Christians when they walk in. It means that we choose closeness over comfort, that we walk towards people that we might walk past normally, that we interrupt our default cycle. It doesn't mean that we can't talk to people that we love, that we've grown up with, that we've known forever, but we intentionally take a break from that sometimes to talk to people we've never seen before. I think that we should be a church that if you walk in here, that you've never been here before, that it's impossible to leave here without meeting people here. That it would be impossible to sit in here and walk out without knowing somebody. That we ask real questions more than, How are you doing? But how can I pray for you? And really waiting to hear truthful answers to that. If we're going to be a church that welcomes people, we have to live with messy. We can't pretend that we have it all together. None of our lives are together. People have messiness. That's part of church. That's part of the beauty of the church. We're a bunch of broken people that got redeemed by Christ, and we could live that faith out together. We don't have to pretend that we have it all together. We don't have to require that people come in already clean. Let the table preach what our mouths confess, that Christ is enough, enough to cleanse sinners, enough to unite strangers, enough to bring us together. We are a family here, united in one faith, united in Christ, not united in that we grew up here or whatever it is, that we were from the right family. We are united in one thing. This is one church made up of one family, not one church made up of multiple families, made up of multiple different groups of people. I want to push us on this because we have something so beautiful that ties us together. When the church practices that fellowship, it'll be impossible for us to not preach the truth of the gospel. Our actions will communicate it. When we preach the gospel verbally, it will be an exclamation point on how we've treated people. That's what I want for us. This brings us back to the question underlying everything. How do unclean people become clean? Because if we miss that, table fellowship just becomes being friendly. But if we get it, table fellowship is a living sermon, not only clean people, but cleansed people together. Landing The Bible gives us two pictures. The one we talked about before at the beginning was of Pilate, of trying to become clean yourself. Pilate washed his hands, trying to make him clean in the story of the crucifixion. But there's another story that we see in the Gospels of Being Clean. It's a little story that you could almost miss in all three of the synoptic Gospels, but it's in Matthew 9. It's so small. It's a story within a story. Jesus is going to to resurrect a little dead girl. And on the way in the middle of a crowd, a woman reaches out and touches his clothes. In Jewish culture, in Jewish law, a woman like that, touching anyone, touching anything would have instantly made it unclean, except with Christ. Instead of Jesus becoming unclean, he cleansed her. Do you see it? Jesus, when he makes us clean, he cleanses us so deeply that there is nothing we can do to dirty ourselves again. This is the good news of the gospel that we are cleansed wholly and totally, not by what we do, but what Christ has done for us. Christ takes our impurity. He took it to the cross. He became defiled for us. He became dirt. He became nothing for us on the cross so that way we could be cleansed, so that we could become exaltet. The gospel doesn't say, Come or become clean, and then you can come in. It says, Come to Jesus. He is your purity. He is your cleanliness. And that's exactly why the Book of Galatians matters. The moment that we add anything to Jesus on the basis of our cleanliness, whether it's circumcision, performance, respectability, we're not protecting wholeness anymore. We're denying the cleansing power of Christ. Prosper Church, we believe one gospel received from God, defended without compromise. Would you stand with me and pray as we prepare our hearts to respond in worship? Let's pray. Father God, we you and praise you for who you are, that you are a good God who has given us good things. You have cleansed us. You became dirty in our place so that we could be cleansed forever. That we don't have to come to church every Sunday questioning whether we've done enough good this week or whether or not we've done enough bad this week. We can come confessing, God, we haven't. We haven't lived to your standard, and yet we can still be accepted in. We can still be one with you. We can still have unity, not just with you, but with each other because of what you've done for us, because we were crucified with you and we've been resurrected with you. Let us sing your praises here and now as people cleansed, as people redeemed in your blood. It's your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Blood on the Ground Prosper Christian Reformed Church Blood on the Ground Come Thou Long Expected Mitchell Leach Sunday, December 7, 2025 Audio Blood on the Ground Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 40:57 Sermon Transcript If you'd please join me and by opening your Bibles as we hear God's word from Genesis 4. It's on page four in your Bibles. We're going to read the whole chapter 1 26. Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And again she bore his brother Abel. Now, Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also brought of his firstborn, of his flock, and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and of his offering. But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And the Lord said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. And whoever finds me will kill me. Then the Lord said to him, not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad. And Arad fathered Mehujael. And Mehujael fathered Methushael. And Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zilhah, Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal Cain. He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal Cain was Naamah. Lamech said to his wives Adah and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech. Listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77fold. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called him Seth. For she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. To Seth also, a son was born, and he called him his name, Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Genesis4 is one of the most tragic chapters in the Bible. We move from the hope of new life to the horror of the first murder, from the joy of a child being born to the grief of a son being buried. But from the beginning, the question that Adam and Eve would have had in their minds is, is this the one? Is this the child who was promised in Genesis 3? Is this the one who will crush the head of the snake? When Cain was born, the hope must have been electric. This is the firstborn, the miracle child, the one whom God helped bring forth into the world. But Genesis 4 tells us something sobering and important. Not every child of Eve is a child of promise. Not every sacrifice is acceptable. And not every worshiper worship rightly, worships rightly. Genesis 4 is not just the story of two brothers. It's the story of two ways to live, two ways to worship, and two lineages that would stem from here in Genesis 4. All throughout Scripture, as the dust settles, we see sin move from the garden into a family and into culture. And eventually it threatens everything. Sin does not just disappear after the fall, it follows into our worship. Because the first story we see after the Garden of Eden doesn't focus on work. It doesn't focus on marriage or politics. It focuses on worship. And this is why we need Christmas. Genesis 4 shows us that sin does not just break Eden. It breaks families. It breaks communities, breaks culture. And Advent is the story of God stepping into the world, that world that Cain built, a world of blood on the ground, a world where anger is in Our hearts and worship has gone wrong. It forces us to ask a question and wrestle with a question we often ignore. Does God care how we worship? Because if we. I think because most people assume that worship is simple, that if we are sincere, then that's enough. If I show up, then God will be happy. If I give something, well, God will accept it. But Genesis 4 shows us the opposite. Two brothers come to worship. Two offerings are given, yet only one is accepted. And here's the uncomfortable truth. Both men believed that they were worshiping God, and yet only one actually was. Genesis 4 shows us something that we would never guess on our own. Sincerity is not the same thing as obedience. That brings us back to our main question, our big question. Does God care how we worship? Fortunately, the Bible has answers for us. So if you would keep your Bibles open to Genesis chapter four as we see these three movements in this passage. First we'll see worship and warning, the story of Cain and Abel. And then we'll see judgment and culture, Cain's legacy and a new beginning with Seth. And worship. Even after the first murder, Cain, God appoints a way to redeem his people. And that's what we'll see in this chapter. Let's look at this first section, though, as we see worship and warning through Cain and Abel, verses one through eight. So Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden. That's where we find. And that's where he starts this, this chapter. They have two children, Cain and Abel. And it's easy for us to look at this story through our lens of understanding the end of, you know, we see the whole context of the Bible. We even know the end of this chapter. But for a moment, I want you to think about what Adam and Eve must have been thinking when these two boys were born. Remember the prophecy that came from Genesis 3, that from the seed of the. From the woman an offspring would come to crush the head of the snake. They must have been thinking, it has to be one of these two boys. Cain was the farmer and Abel was the shepherd. Cain is the likely candidate here. He's the firstborn. In fact, look at how he is talked about in verse two or in verse one and two. For Cain says, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And Abel, he's only mentioned really as Cain's brother that she bore his brother Abel. Imagine that being your epitaph on your, you know, so and so's brother. You know, that's. That's all you were remembered as. But Cain seems to be the Likely candidate here. They grow up together, and clearly they're instructed on how to worship, right? They're told how to bring offering to God, that this is something that God delights in. So they bring an offering to God, and one brings something good and the other brings the best of what he had. But only one was appreciated. We'll see later, the heart posture between the two. But before we move any further, I want us to look at verse seven. Verse seven is a confusing passage, or it's a confusing verse, not just in the English, but in the Hebrew. This is a grammatically weird verse. It reads weird in English and it reads even weirder in Hebrew. So let's camp out here because I think this unlocks a lot for us. Verse 7 says this. If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it. I think at first glance, when we read this, we read the if you do well, and it sounds like God is giving Cain a second chance. If you do well, if you bring another offering, then I will accept it if you do it in the right way. But that's not what this passage is saying. So what does God mean here? He's talking to Cain and he's saying, respond from this moment and act like the firstborn. In fact, that's what to do well means. The Hebrew word for to do well actually carries the connotation of act. Acting like the firstborn, acting in integrity, acting in a way that brings honor to your family. And at the same time, this word isn't about action, but it's about character. It wasn't about physical actions. This word to do well meant. To. Have the character that is honorable, to have a heart change. God isn't rejecting Cain's vegetables. He's exposing Cain's heart. Worship without obedience is not worship God. God gives Cain a choice here, an option to rule over sin, or it will rule over him. God's saying essentially to Cain, this is the moment to change your heart. Please change your heart, and I'll be right here. But Cain has that choice. And it says, sin is crouching like a vicious animal. And this is how sin works. It starts off small and it grows. It's actually what we see in James, chapter one. This is what the brother of Jesus says about sin. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then desire, when is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown. Brings forth death. This is how sin works. It starts off small, it starts off as a seed, and it grows if we don't stop it. Cain becomes or believes that he has become like a train on tracks, that he has no option except what's set before him. And God is saying, no, stop, turn around, come back. You can come back from this. And yet he continues on the path set before him. And he kills his only brother. He allowed Satan to plant an idea in his mind and let that mature and become full grown. And sure enough, it brought forth death. Some people have commented on this word that sin is crouching at the door, and that it really should be translated as the crouching one in reference to a demonic presence or in reference to a demon. I think that there's something interesting here with that, to read this passage in that way. And if you do not do well. Sin is the crouching one, waiting at the door. And its desire is contrary to you. God is almost coming to Cain and saying, do you remember the enemy who tempted your mom and dad? Do you remember what that did? Do you remember how that tore? Tore a rip in the fabric of the universe. Look at what he did to the world. Imagine what he will do to you. God is gently calling Cain and asking him to come back to him, asking him, where does this path lead you, Cain? This is the first time in scripture that sin is mentioned. And how we are introduced to it is that sin will take you captive by force. Sin will dominate you. Sin will take its desire. Its desire is to go contrary to you. It's not to be a contrarian. I almost think that that language is too weak. The desire of sin is to go against you. It's to work like a parasite. It's to come inside you and absolutely take you over, to eat you from the inside out. This is true for us as well. For Cain, sin is there to do us harm. Sin always wants mastery over us. Sin never stays small. You cannot pet what God calls a predator. What you refuse to kill will grow up and kill what you love. Cain's story reminds us that no human being, no child of Eve, can reverse the curse. The serpent wasn't going to be crushed by the next generation. We needed someone greater. We needed someone born of a woman. But unlike Cain, sin is something that we must rule over. We cannot play with. We cannot believe the lie of Western civilization, that as long as it's not hurting someone else, that it really doesn't matter. No, sin will destroy us. Sin destroys us. It destroys culture. It destroys our community. The serpent may have spoken to Adam and Eve in the garden's ruin, but here his voice grows stronger. Sin was born in Genesis 3. It matured here in Genesis 4. And next week we will see it grow and take over the entire world and consume it. In Genesis 6, that leads us into our second point, judgment and culture. Cain's legacy in verses 9 through 24, so God comes to Cain like he did to his parents before, gently, with a question. He comes to Cain and says, where's Cain? Or where's Abel? Where's your brother? And Cain retorts back almost, I imagine, almost cutting God off before he can get the question out. I'm not my brother's keeper. I don't know. I don't know where he is. What God had just told him in verse seven to act like the firstborn. Cain retorts back so fast, saying, I'm not in charge of him. I will not act like the firstborn. I will not act in a way that honors my family or honors you. Cain lies to God and God will have none of it. And so he rebukes him then and there and gives him a curse. Cain's curse is that the ground will not produce what it used to and that he will be a wanderer. And Cain's response, I think, is so ironic here to say to God, this curse is too great. And that's the reality of sin. The consequences of sin are always greater than what we think that they're going to be. And the promises that sin make never live up to what it says it will. This is the reality for Cain. It's the reality for us. And even so, God promises to make sure that Cain will not be killed in his. In his obstinance towards God. God still promises to take care of him. Yet in Cain's, Cain's response to God, God's anger or God's gentleness is anger. He says that he longs for God's presence, and yet he went away from the presence of the Lord so quickly. What follows in this section? In this chapter, in verses 9 through 24, we see the line of Cain. I think oftentimes we get to a section of scripture, like a genealogy here, and. And we gloss over it and we move past it, and I listen, I get the impulse to do it, right? Genealogies are not super fun to read, except they're incredibly important. And you might still be thinking, of course he's got to say that he's a pastor, right? Genealogies, right. But they are important. Especially in Genesis. Genesis. The genealogies serve to point to something. In fact, Genesis itself as a book, is a genealogy with stories listed in between them. And the point of listing this genealogy, the point of listing these people, is to show the line of the promise. Where would the Savior come from? It's to list that line, and it's also to list the line of the serpent. That's what happens here, listing the line of the seed, Cain. You look at the way that he was talked about at the beginning of this chapter. He was the Promised One. He looks like he was the one who was going to crush the head of the snake. Or at least he was going to be the one that the line of the promise would come from. Right? And now how do we end the chapter? He's furthering the curse. And now he becomes the surrogate for the line of the serpent. The first murderer produces a culture of murder. Sin is not stagnant. It grows. It multiplies. Look at the last descendant that is listed. Look at verse 23. Lamech says, Ada and Zyla, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I've killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77fold. Lamech talks to his. His. His relative, his. His ancestor, almost, you know, making fun of him, saying, you think that Cain was hard. No, no, my heart is even harder. Look at how harsh my revenge is. Cain's descendants, they don't make it out of the book of Genesis. In fact, they don't make it out of Genesis 7. They will die in our next sermon in the Flood. Cain's descendants are notable, right? They look like they've got some things going for them, right? They are the ones who forge instruments of bronze and iron. They build culture, they contribute, they build cities. But Genesis 4 tells us that you can be gifted, you can be productive, you can be culturally impressive, but if you worship wrongly, your descendants will inherit that worship. We think as people, that we can act as individuals, and that what we do will not affect anyone around us. Time and time again, story after story, not just in scripture, but in the world we see. What we do follows us in our children and our grandchildren and those around us. If Genesis 4 ended with Cain's descendants, the story of the promise would die in the very next chapters. But God refuses to let darkness have the last word. God raises up a new beginning. And that's what we see in our last section here, a new beginning. With Seth and worship. Verses 25 and 26. Here in the middle of this tragedy, God keeps the Christmas promise alive. The line of the snake crusher does not die. With Abel, God appoints another seed, Seth. A whisper that the promise is still moving forward, still alive, still moving towards Bethlehem. Notice how this chapter started. Notice how Cain is talked about as he's being born. I really look at how Eve talks about Cain. I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord, emphasizing that she's done this. Almost a clear and evident result of the fall, the first inclination of works righteousness. I have done this. God helped, but I did this. Now look how she talks about Seth. She says, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel. She comes to this realization, seeing what sin has done in her two boys. And she realizes that any gift from God, any gift that she's been given is from God. This isn't just another child, that this is the seed, that this is the offspring from which the promise will come. God promises to make right what man made wrong. The Heidelberg Catechism, question 6 reminds us of what humanity was supposed to be, is supposed to be. God created man good and in his own image so that he might truly know God, his creator, love him with all his heart and live with him in eternal life, happiness. Genesis 4 shows us how far we've fallen. But Seth's line shows us that God is still restoring people to what they were supposed to be. Worshipers. Instead of following the line of Cain, the line of achievements, the line that the world would follow. The rich, the powerful, the educated, the artistic influencers, the people who build cities. God will use the most unlikely people. God will go through the line of Seth, the third born. God will work through the seed of a woman, through someone totally unlikely, through a baby. This is to contrast everything that Cain has done. Cain's line is a story of downward descent into sin and misery. And Seth will go on to worship the Lord. This goes back to the beginning of the chapter. God is seeking true worship, something that Cain could not do, could not give God. But now sess line will. It's interesting. Enosh, his son. The name Enosh means mere man. This line will not be people who are impressive. This line will be the nobodies. It will be the shepherd boys, the ones who slay Goliath, the ones that come from nowhere. It will be kings born in a manger. But the beauty of this is that God is made perfect in our weakness that leads us into our main idea. Sin seeks to master us But God provides a new beginning marked by true worship. Sin seeks to master us, but God provides a new beginning marked by true worship. God is making a way a new beginning by giving us someone who would master sin by defeating it itself. And that would result in us worshiping God the Father. That's what Genesis 4 points us towards. That's what this whole story is about, about worship. God wants us to worship him not with external signs, but with our heart. I think we can come to church week after week doing the right thing, singing the songs, kind of playing church, but miss the heart of God. God looked at Cain's offering and he saw something. He saw something that no one else would have seen to anyone else. If Cain were sitting here right now giving his offering, no one would have batted an eye. It would have passed the eye test. And yet it was not good enough for God. Cain exposes a frightening truth that you can be in the right place doing the right rituals with the wrong heart and believe that you're worshiping and yet you're not. You can be standing in church, singing the songs, placing something in the offering, serving in ministry, all the while quietly withholding the very thing that. That God wants your heart. Cain wasn't trying to please God. He was trying to manage God. He brought an offering, but he did not bring himself. He participated outwardly, but resisted inwardly. He performed all the right rituals without surrendering the rule of his life. This is about worship. This is about your heart. That's why when God talks to Cain before he sins, he doesn't say, give me a better offering, bring me better fruit, bring me better produce. He's saying, I want your heart. True devotion means wholehearted devotion. We cannot come to God and give 15, 16 of our heart. We can't let him have a majority of our of our life. He has to be the Lord over it. He cannot be a mere consultant. We need to let him rule and reign over every aspect of our. Of our heart. One aspect of this leads us into our application that we must worship how God wants to be worshiped. This is the regulative principle in worship. This is. That's the nerdy theological word for it, but really in essence, saying that God gets to tell us how he wants to be worshiped. Yes, absolutely. We need to do the right things with the right heart. That's what this passage is showing us, that it's not merely just doing the right actions, the right rituals, and it's not merely just having a sincere heart, but doing them both together. Some churches will Say things like, as long as you're genuine God, God will be happy. I've seen churches over and over kind of water down the gospel, say, well, if your heart's in the right place, then that's, that's good enough. It sounds nice and loving. Sounds like trying to throw off legalism. It sounds like an attempt at trying to be genuine or authentic, one of those buzzwords that we like to say. But the truth is it makes worship about us. God has told us how he wants to be worshiped. I think in worship, our natural reaction, our natural response is to say, well, this is the way I want to do it. This is what connects with me. These are the songs I want to sing. This is the kind of stuff that I want to do. These are the types of worship elements that I think should be included in a worship service. These are the ways in which I'm going to worship God. Even outside of church, we say, this is how I want to do it. But have we ever asked God, how do you want to be worshiped? We become like people who plan a birthday party for someone else and yet plan things that only we want to do. I don't know if you've ever been around one of those people, but it's awful. I had a birthday party like that once. It was terrible. What happens when worship becomes about something we like rather than what God likes? Well, it becomes self serving, it becomes about the individual, it becomes about, I don't know, it takes that saying of that Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship. It takes that to its furthest extra extent. It becomes something that says, well, you don't really need to come to church if you want to worship God by yourself in your deer stand or at home or you know, on the golf course, wherever it is. Right. You can do that. That's fine as long as you're sincere. We have a heart shift here. God has given us things that need to be a part of our worship. Specifically, what need to be part of our worship in church. I think sometimes these are things that we overlook. And so my challenge initially, more than just knowing exactly how God wants to be worshiped, I want to challenge you to these things in a worship service that God calls us to, maybe you're not doing these things and that's the first stepping stone, is to do some of these things. God calls us and commands us in scripture to sing, to give, to pray, to read scripture, to, to sit under teaching and to serve one another. If you're not doing these Things. This is not a suggestion. This is a command from God that these are the things that we must be doing. I don't want to be mean, but if your heart right now is saying man, that seems like too much for me. I just want to say I'm so glad that Jesus didn't say that when he was hanging on the cross. I'm so glad that he didn't say man, this is too much for me. When we see what God calls us to do in light of our salvation, it is nothing. It is light. It is easy. It is an easy burden that we bear. It should be a joy. In fact, true worship is not giving God what we prefer. It is giving God what He has prescribed. And that leads us into our second point of application, mistake turn into two. This is something that has become a life principle for me. I learned this phrase when I was playing football. And yet it has spiritual relevancy. Cain didn't bring his best to God. He wasn't given a second chance either. God was trying to correct him. God was trying to tell him, cain, don't let your mistake turn into another. We all will make mistakes. It's part of our nature. We'll probably make a mistake today. But. The call for us is to recognize it, unlike what Cain did, to recognize our sin and to not take it one step further. We always have the option when we are letting in sin. Let us not turn our back to the Holy Spirit who's convicting us and calling us to repent. Don't allow sin to become full grown. This is a call to kill sin while it is still in seed form. I think sometimes we read passages like Genesis 4 and we think, well, sin isn't, you know, that bad because I would never murder. I could never do something like that. I mean, that would be so far outside what I'm capable of. And yet to see that is to minimize the sin that is inside you. Murder is anger all grown up. Adultery is lust all grown up. Stealing, embezzling is greed and envy all grown up. It's a seed form of the later thing. What is easier if you have to kill an oak tree? What is easier to kill it as an acorn or to try to chop it down when it's full grown? We have the ability to walk away from our sin when they're small, but it becomes much harder when they are ruling over us. Cain's story ends in wandering, but the story of the Gospel ends in worship. Genesis 4 shows us how deeply our sin has mastered us. But Advent shows Us how Christ has come master sin. And this is where the Christmas story becomes personal. The baby in a manger didn't come merely to inspire us. If that's all that we get away from Christmas this season, we have totally missed it. He has come to rescue us from the sin that mastered Cain and the sin that threatens to master us. In this story, we see that the ground drops drank Abel's blood. The world learned the cost really how costly sin really is. But centuries later, another son would bleed, not in a field this time, but on a hill. Not as a victim of jealousy, but as a willing sacrifice. Abel's blood marked the beginning of human ruin. Jesus blood marked the beginning of human redemption. Abel's blood cried out for justice. Jesus blood cried out to satisfy that justice. Abel's blood announced the spread of sin and death. Jesus blood announced the end of it. This is the wonder of Advent. The long promised offspring has come. The one whose heel would be bruised so the serpent's head would be crushed. Sin seeks to master us, but God provides a new beginning marked by true worship. Let us worship this morning. Let us stand and would you pray with me as we sing our closing song? Let's stand and pray. Father. God, we thank you for who you are. God, we thank you that you have given us a way to resist our sin, to run from it, to flee from it, to not let it rule over us. Father, I pray that you would convict us of our sin through your Holy Spirit, that we wouldn't feel condemnation because we know that your son was condemned for us. God, help us. Help us to stand and sing in worship longing for your second coming. God, help us to sing this next song. O come, oh come, Emmanuel. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Freedom That Bears Fruit Prosper Christian Reformed Church Freedom That Bears Fruit Christ Alone Mitchell Leach Sunday, March 8, 2026 Audio Freedom That Bears Fruit Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 38:20 Sermon Transcript Introduction In the year 2000, two researchers from Stanford set up an experiment. It was an experiment to see how we respond to different amounts of options that we have. What they did is they set up two different stands in two different grocery stores where they were selling jam. They were allowing people to sample different types of jam. I don't know why they picked jam, but they did. One stand had 24 different options. The other had six. The one with 24 had tons of people come up to it because there's lots of options. It drew a lot of people in, but nearly almost no one ended up buying any of the jams from that stand. When there was as a contradiction or as an opposition to that, the stand with six, only six jars of of jam had tons of people who ended up converting and buying the jam. The researchers concluded that the reason for this was when we have too many options in front of us, we actually become unhappy with either the choices we make or we get this idea of decision fatigue. Almost no one bought anything from the place that had more options. But when there were six people decided. We believe as a people that when we have more options, we have more freedom to choose, to choose what we want, that we will be happier. But research shows, and I think the Bible is going to show us that that actually is the opposite, the opposite of the truth. The truth is that we are a people that need some restrictions on what we can and can't do. Having more options, we know, leads us to being more unhappy. If you've had kids and you've given them more than one option, and even then, even when you give them one option, they tend to still not be happy. It's true with us, too. We believe that we want the ability to do whatever we want to do. But when we experience that, we know that that's not freedom. Big Question How can you truly be free? How can you truly be free? One of the dominant stories, one of the rising cultural phenomena or cultural movements in our world right now is to say that freedom means having no authority. In fact, any authority is oppressive. Our modern impulse is to think of the word danger or to feel danger when we hear the word authority rather than safety. Some of the most prevailing thought leaders in our culture, some of the most secular prevailing thought leaders in our culture affirm this idea, affirm the idea that any authority is oppression or that it's an intentional effort to take away our rights, our free, or it's just a power grab. This is why there are these undercurrents rising up. It's an increasingly popular idea, to say things like to have a boss is bad. Any parents or family structure is oppression. Spiritual authority is manipulation. Political officials we increasingly call dictators. Police become something that we talk about as a machinery of our own oppression. But is freedom devoid of authority? Is Is it fair for us to have structure? Is it fair for us to have rules and for us to have people that we listen to? Or is true freedom individual autonomy? Sociology, psychology, and God's word argue against that, argue that authority is a good thing in our life. The right authority is a good thing. So our question, how can you truly be free? Or how can you be truly free? Fortunately, the Bible has an answer for us. So keep your Bibles open to Galatians 5 and 6. Outline Freedom Must Not Be Surrendered to Legalism (5:2–12) Freedom Must Not Be Abused by the Flesh (5:13–26) Freedom Must Be Lived Out in Community (6:1–10) As we look at this passage, this longer passage, to summarize it in one sentence, the guts of what this passage is saying is this, Christian freedom is not freedom to serve the flesh, but freedom to walk by the spirit, fulfilling the law of love as a spirit forms community that bears one another's burdens and does good to all. This passage is in a context. We've been going through the Book of Galatians in this series so far. This is our second to last sermon, our second to last passage in this series. But the end of Galatians 4, Paul has just gotten done comparing two different things, two women and two mountains, Mount Sinai, where the law was given, where the Ten Commandments was given, and Mount Zion or Jerusalem, where God's promise is given. He also compares Hagar and Sarah. The reason that he does this, the reason that Paul compares these two women, is that he's trying to say, he's trying to tell us that when Abraham received the promise, there were two things that he did. First, he tried to take hold of the promise himself. He tried to, in essence, bring the promise to fruition by himself. He tried to actually save himself by having a child with the servant of his wife with Hagar. Later on, then he steps into trusting God, trusting God's promise by faith and that the salvation would come through God's promise and having a child through Sarah. The passage ends by saying that we are no longer slaves to the law, that we cannot try to save ourselves. And now that we have this freedom, it leads us into this section. Freedom Must Not Be Surrendered to Legalism (Galatians 5:2-12) So far in the Book of Galatians, we've talked a lot about works, righteousness, a lot about faith, faith. Because the Book of Galatians talks about this, that's why we've been bringing it up in this series. And circumcision is the issue that represents this tension between works and faith in these churches. So why is this such a big deal? Paul says that it nullifies the gospel. And Paul isn't just nitpicking a ritual here. He's protecting the gospel. Because once you add anything, whether it's circumcision or baptism or whatever it is, to say that in order to be saved, you must do these things. You must believe in Jesus, but you must also do these things. You're not simply adding another step for someone to climb. You're adding, you're replacing embracing Christ. And that's what Paul says in Galatians 5:2. Paul says this, Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumvision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. Paul is essentially saying, If you say that this thing must happen in order to be saved, Christ is meaningless, which is, it seems like an overreaction by Paul, right? This is one thing, right? Who cares, right? It's just one thing, one more thing. It's not changing the religion. Obviously, still believe in Jesus. But Paul's point is brutal. You make circumcision necessary. You add one small aspect to it. You're subtracting the whole savior. Christ cannot be part of your plan. He has to be your only hope, or there's no hope at all. If you want to replace Jesus, Paul is saying, if you want to replace Jesus, if you want to add God works to your salvation, fine, but you must keep the entire law. That's what verse three says. And then James 2:10 comments on that same point. He says this, For whoever, for whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point has become guilty of it all. Legalism always sounds nice, right? It sounds like we're putting up more rules or we're just safeguarding. We're putting up guardrails so we don't get close to the edge. It's just add one more thing. But the law never lets you add just one more thing. The law demands everything. See, either you obey all of it or you're guilty of breaking all of it. If you want a law-based righteousness, you don't get partial credit. It's not like school where you can get an A, B, C, or even D to pass. It is a pass fail. And if you fail one thing, you failed it all. Trying to add Jesus, to your rituals of what will make you whole will not work. Jesus is not a commodity. He's not an object. He's not some philosophy that we add to our life to make it better. We add to our life to make it feel more meaningful or to feel righteous or to feel like we're good enough. He's not some magic salve that we put on ourselves that somehow makes us holy. Jesus is a person. We don't believe in a philosophy Christianity isn't a philosophy, it's a history. That's the good news of the gospel is that Christianity is not 10 tips to be holy. Christianity is Jesus died. It's a historical event. It happened. And believe. Paul is not saying that obedience to the law is wrong, but what he's challenging us against is adding something to our faith in order to subvert the gospel. Galatians 5:5-6 say this, For Through the spirit by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything but only faith working through love. That Galatians 5:5, when it talks about hope, is a different hope than what we talk about in America in our modern culture. When we talk about hope, we're saying we hope that it doesn't rain tomorrow. We hope that there's good weather. When Paul talks about hope, what he's saying is there is something He promised there is something sure that we can put our hope and that we can be sure of. Notice here in this what Paul counts, what Paul is moving towards. He says it's not circumcision, not uncircumcision, not badge wearing, not virtue signaling. It's only faith. And real faith is not alone. Look at what Paul says. He doesn't end it by saying faith working towards being happier for something He says, faith working through love. Our freedom comes not by being self-reliant. The law tries to promise you things that it cannot come through on, that it cannot deliver. It tries to promise that you can do it yourself. It tries to promise and tell you, you know so many other people have let you down. Everyone else in your life has let you down. If you just add enough rules to your life, you can be the one you count on. You can be the sure and steady anchor, the thing that holds you to righteousness. You won't need to rely on anyone. If you can do these things right, then you can finally be good enough. But that's not what Jesus says. That's not what scripture says. That's not what Paul says. Paul says, the Bible says, Galatians says, Freedom comes through the spirit of God. Paul is so frustrated with the slavery that comes from believing that Jesus is not enough that believing that you need to add Jesus plus circumcision, that he says this in Galatians 5:12, I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves. Paul is saying, If they want to believe, if you want to believe that circumcision can save, then I wish that you would just take one step further. If you believe cutting part of it off is good, is going to save you, then just keep going. To sprinkle Jesus on top of the other things that we believe will save us or just to make our life better is to have a different Jesus. Again, it nullifies the gospel. Yet this grace that we've received cannot be abused. Freedom Must Not Be Abused by the Flesh (Galatians 5:13–26) Paul shifts from finding life in the law to requiring us to be obedient and not abusing it. The good news is that we hold on to and that we can hold on to is that we have been forgiven of all of our sins through Jesus Christ. Mark talks about this. He records Jesus saying this to a crowd. He says, Truly, Jesus says this, Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphèmes they utter. We all who have put our faith in Christ have this promise that all our sins will be forgiven. We are people who have been set free from the burden of trying to save ourselves to keep the law. And all of our sins have been forgiven. So to now live as people who do not care about the sin that we commit, to live like sin does not matter is essentially to look Jesus in the face on the cross and to spit on him, to absolutely disrespect him. Jesus has paid, paid it all. Our sins are forgiven every a single one of them. And then to continue to live, to heep on more sin that Jesus had to pay for on the cross is to totally disregard what he went through. Galatians 5:13 says this, For you were called to freedom, brothers. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Opportunity here is a military word. You 're almost talking about a military installation, a military base, a temporary military base. Paul is saying, Don't use grace as a base of operations for the flesh. Flesh is not just your body. It is the old you. It is being self-centered, being self-ruled, being allergic to God. And notice Paul's direction here. It's not through freedom to serve yourself. It is through love, serve one another. Freedom is new life in the Holy spirit. The world says, freedom means having no master. Paul says, freedom is having a new and gracious master. Not sin, not self, but the Holy spirit. Freedom isn't what we think of when we hear it in an American context. Freedom is not being able to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do, and no one can stop you. Freedom, biblical freedom, is the ability not not to live our lives running after the sin that our flesh desires, running after our sinful nature. It's the ability to resist the lie that Satan told Adam and Eve in the garden, that you really can't trust God, that you are the one who needs to make the decision for yourself. There's no one better than you to decide what's right for you. So where does this ability, where does this power come from? The ability to resist sin, where does it come from? It comes from the spirit of the living God, the one who resurrected Jesus from the dead, the one who's inspired scripture, the one who changed every heart of stone to a heart of flesh, to be able to love God. You don't beat sin. You don't beat the flesh by gritting your teeth, by trying harder, by having more discipline in your life. You beat the flesh by walking with the spirit. The Holy spirit doesn't just point you to Christ. The Holy spirit pours Christ's life into you. And what comes from this new life in Christ while being formed in the spirit? It's one of the most famous passages in scripture. It's the fruits of the spirit. Galatians 5:22 says this. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. Paul says, Against such things. That word such really means that there are more fruits of the spirit. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are some of them. Notice Paul does not call it the work of your willpower. He calls it the fruit of the spirit. Fruit is what grows When new life is inside you. His fruit is what true freedom looks like. Love that serves, self control that resists, gentleness that restores. Paul is saying, Galatian churches Jesus, you have got it all wrong. Trying to save yourself, trying to add more things to the gospel will not work. Good works do not earn your salvation. If you want to do great works, You have to confess that you've done evil works, that you are evil. And through that, through the faith in Jesus Christ and confessing our sins, we will be given a Holy spirit, who produces good works in us that only he can do. The gospel is clear that you cannot do anything to be saved. But the other side of this is that those who understand the gospel are filled and filled with his spirit desire to see good works pour out of us. People who understand the gospel produce good works from the Holy spirit. Those good works are not just meant for you individually. They are meant for the community, not just how we live behind closed doors. They are meant to be a blessing to the people of God. And that's why Paul goes straight to community in chapter 6. And that's what we see in chapter 6. Freedom Must Be Lived Out in Community (Galatians 6:1–10) One of the clearest proofs of the gospel is not private feelings, but how we treat sinners. As people who understand that we, too, are sinners, that we are only saved by someone else saving us, that we can't contribute anything to our salvation other than the need to be saved. When we see people fall, we don't let them fall alone. We do not let them, we do not ostracize them. We do not cast them out. We love people. We bring them back. We embody the gospel when we love others like Christ has loved us. Someone says this, Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Caught here does not mean caught by someone else. It means being tangled in sin when someone is stuck. The goal of this is not punishment. The goal of this is not to make people feel more condemnation. The goal of this is restoration, to restore people, to prepare what is broken, to bring them back. It is more than just the goal of the church to do this. It is the duty of the church and all of its members to seek right relationships with others. When we have been wronged, we don't have a right to isolate from people, to cast people away from us. It is our duty to seek right relationships with people. If Christ came to us while we were still sinners, we do not have the ability, we don't have the right, we don't have the permission to run away from those who have hurt us, who have sinned against us. We have to restore them. That doesn't mean that every part of the relationship goes back to the way it used to be, but it means that we have a right relationship with those people. That's what forgiveness means. Paul guards against us. Every part of this passage, what it means to live in the spirit means to live in community. Look at verses 25 and 15, and in this whole section. Paul is talking about loving each other in community. How will people outside of the church know that we are Christians? They will know that we are Christians by how we love. This is our natural response to being liberated from believing in ourselves, from believing in our own efforts, from believing in Old Testament rituals, from believing in our own ability to earn our salvation. Mission. The gospel naturally causes us to love our neighbor. It says that we cannot try to rank ourselves with other people in the room because we are saved not by something that we did. We cannot withhold community from those who have sinned and repented. This passage says that we cannot be passive in trying to grow our faith and obedience to God. This letter in this section takes a strange twist. This whole book, this whole letter has been Paul almost yelling at the churches in Galatians, You can't save yourself. You can't add anything to your salvation. It's only by faith. And then here at the end of the book, Paul is demanding almost that we are obedient in these categories. Why would he do this? Why would he spend so much time saying, It's not about your obedience that saves you, and then demand our obedience? It's because to love God is to obey him. When we've responded to the gospel, obedience is a good thing. Paul is never against obedience. He's saying, Obedience in order to save is worth nothing. This section is actually almost a perfect retelling of John 14. Jesus is talking to his disciples, and over and over again, he says, If 'If you love me, you will keep my Commandments. ' 'Whoever has my Commandments and keeps them, them he it is who loves me. ' Verse 23, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. ' I think I got another slide. Chapter 15. Later on, it says, If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, it will be done for you. By this, my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit, so prove to be my disciples. The point of our salvation, the point of being saved, is that we glorify God in obeying his Commandments, in obeying his word. Good works are what we were created to do. They are not what saved us, but they are what we were created to do. Ephesians 2:10 says this, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. This is what Paul is saying in Galatians 6:9-10 of Galatians. Let us not grow weary of doing good works. And so then let us do good to everyone, and especially the household of the faith. Freedom creates a new community, persistent, patient, and doing good, especially to those inside the church. So Christian freedom is not a private possession. It is a spirit formed love that shows up in a church. Freedom looks like gentleness with sinners, humility about yourself, and a burden bearing love for one another. Main Idea Freedom in Christ expresses itself through spirit formed love Freedom in Christ expresses itself through spirit formed love. Freedom isn't about putting on an act. It's not putting on a performance. We can't dress up and play Christians. Galatians gives us no permission to do that. Freedom is believing the gospel and experiencing it through the Holy spirit. Too many Christians come to church because they know it's the right thing in their head. They believe it's the right thing, more of a knowledge belief. But our flesh becomes a salesman selling slavery advertised as freedom. Internally, too many people will come to church today in the global church, and they will sit in a service, and they will wish that they really weren't there, wishing that God's rules for them, God's call for them to be obedient was different. They wish that lying wasn't wrong, or wishing that God wasn't so strict about sex, or God would relax his rules on gossip or greed or coveting. Oftentimes, we wish that God would allow us to do the things that we desire to do in our heart, the wrong things. In some in some twisted way, we believe that that is what freedom is, but it's not. God's word is clear that that's not freedom. Paul calls it slavery in Galatians and in Romans, he calls it the wrath of God. When God delivers us over to the desires of our hearts, to the desires of our flesh. Paul calls that the wrath of God. Freedom isn't the ability to do whatever you desire. Freedom is the ability to say no to the sins that once were the master over us. Not new rules, not better habits. It is about total life transformation. There's a power through the spirit that comes into our life. St Augustine, he's an early church father in the 400s AD. Before he was a Christian, before he was a prolific pastor and author, he was incredibly sexually immoral. After becoming a Christian, after In his conversion, he later ran into a former lover who was passing him on the street trying to get his attention, and he was walking past her. Finally, she came up to him, trying to get his attention, trying to pull him back into some relationship. She goes up to him and says, Augustine, it's me. And he looks at her and says, I know. Yes, but it isn't me. That's what happens when there is a new power, when there is a power that comes through the Holy spirit. We do not have to say yes to the old sins that once mastered us. We get to look at the sins that once ruled our lives, and we get to say, yes, but it isn't me anymore. The Holy spirit's power allows us to see sin as something we mourn over. It's not about what we can get away with anymore. It's not about what we need to do to get right again with God. It becomes something that we wage war against. The first proof that the Holy spirit is at work is not its intensity, it's not our intensity, but it's love. Because the spirit does not just free you from sin, it frees you for others. Application Restore those who sin Galatians 6:1 I'm taking my applications right from the text. I feel like when Paul gives it to us this clearly, when God's word gives us applications this clearly, it's better than anything I can come up with. So let's go with what God's word says, and I think we'll be all right. Restore those who sin. This isn't optional because the gospel has restored you. If Christ moved towards you when you were caught, then we cannot move away from others when they are caught. Sin isolates, sin hardens people. Leaving someone alone is not kindness. It is spiritual solitary confinement. It lets the wounds fester. So practically, what this means for us is is that we move towards people who have fallen. We don't gossip about them. We speak truth plainly to them. We don't gloss it over. We don't try to hide it. We don't sweep it under the rug. We call for repentance, and we offer a path back, but we also stay with them on this path as they rebuild. We do this with gentleness, not minimizing sin nor crushing the sinner. It's why when this happens in the church, if this happens here at Prosper, we won't just hope that someone walks alongside with someone. We will dedicate one or two people to walk with them in love, in gentleness, because sin is truly bad for us. Do not believe that you are immune to certain sin Galatians 5:3 The passage says, If anyone thinks that he is something, he deceives himself. It is It's easy for us to see in our culture unspeakable evil. It is all over the news, especially now. And it's easy for us to look at that and say, there is no way that I could ever do anything like that. There's a story of a Jewish man who was part of a trial to capture and to convict one of the Nazis who had absolutely decimated his family, killed every single person in his family, all of his friends, one of the people who had served in the concentration camps. And it was later I think it was in the '60s or '70s. And this man whose family had been slaughtered by this man, he walked into court when this Nazi soldier was coming under trial. And this man absolutely wept. He became undone. And a reporter came to him later and said, why was it seeing this man again and the memories of all of your family and friends? And what was it that caused those emotions? And he told a reporter, it wasn't any of that. It was, I saw him and I saw myself. I realized that I am absolutely capable of doing everything that that man did. I am no better than that person. To look past someone's humanity, or to say that you could never commit whatever sin that they did, whatever crime that they did, is to look past their own humanity. Most brutal sins do not show up as random. They start off as small sins, and then they grow and grow. They are acorns. They are sin in acorn form. Then if we don't kill them early, they become full-grown oak trees. It's the minor sins that are all grown up. Small compromises, small secrets, small lusts, small dishonesties. Unchecked, they do not stay small. Whenever you say, I could never, you have fallen for the first lie of Satan. You believe that you are better than others. You believe that your humanity is somehow different than those wicked subhuman people who could do that. No, no, no, no, no, That temptation. That's how people fall. That's how people become corrupt, being overconfident and not watchful. There are so many stories in the Bible of people who in power end up becoming corrupted and falling. You look at the story of David who kills one of his best friends in order to marry that man's wife. You look at that and you go, well, look, there's a clear example of how all power corrupts, how all of this is wrong, how authority is somehow an evil thing. That is not why that story is in the Bible. That story is in the Bible to show even the greatest people can fall when they don't kill sin, when they are not absolutely vigilant to the small sins in their life. Paul says this, Keep watch over yourself. Stay humble. Take temptation seriously. And when you see someone fall, don't ever say, That could never be me. How do we resist the desires of our flesh, these sins that show up small? Maybe they've grown big. How do we deny our flesh? How do we die to our flesh? It took a better flesh, a greater flesh sacrifice. On the cross, Jesus gave up his flesh. In a moment, we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper, and we're going to hear a familiar phrase. We're going to hear a familiar verse. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and broke it, saying, This is my body. This is my flesh broken for you. ' It took a better flesh. It is our flesh that should have been broken as a payment for our sin. And yet our savior, the word became flesh. Absolutely and totally for the single purpose of that flesh being torn to shreds, so that way we could have freedom over the desires of our flesh. Prosper Church. Freedom in Christ, expresses itself through spirit Let us not forget this, especially as we turn to the Lord's Supper. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

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Can unbelievers understand and interpret the Bible? "So anyone who thinks he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding buildup this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them”(Augustine, On Christian Teaching, 1.86). St. Augustine — accurately — describes that true comprehension of the Bible comes through a combination of prayer, faith, and an attitude of submission to God's will. It is by loving God and being compelled into action, Heading 5 Why the Lord's Supper Does What Believer's Baptism Doesn't Mitchell Leach September 15, 2024 Theology Imagine it is your senior season of high school football, and the school you attend has historically been — let’s just say — less than excellent. So this year your school has hired a computer to be your head coach that is programmed to perfectly analyze each play. But there’s one glaring problem. While it could technically call plays based on trends and relevant data, it doesn’t love the game. There is a huge difference between understanding the game — technically — and actually calling the plays — in reality. You can’t simply expect theory to translate into intuition. What is missing is a love for the game. At this point could you just replace the coach with a computer? If you’ve ever played a sport before you’ll answer emphatically, no! Imagine getting into halftime, anticipating a rousing speech on overcoming adversity from your coach, only to be met with statistics on rushing yards verse their cover three concepts. You could hate football and become an analyst, but you can’t coach without loving the game. The same is true for biblical interpretation. St. Augustine, an influential early church father, wrote, "So anyone who thinks he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding buildup this double love of God and neighbor, has not yet succeeded in understanding them”(Augustine, On Christian Teaching, 1.86). St. Augustine — accurately — describes that true comprehension of the Bible comes through a combination of prayer, faith, and an attitude of submission to God's will. It is by loving God and being compelled into action, by the text that shows that we truly understand the text. All of this is impossible without the work of the Holy Spirit regenerating one's heart to love the God they once hated and hate the sin they once loved. But Can unbelievers understand and interpret the Bible? True biblical interpretation must include the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Sometimes a straw man can be made of this statement, where people will — incorrectly — conclude that this means biblical interpretation (via the Holy Spirit) relies wholly on one’s discernment of the text.Therefore it could have infinite possibilities for interpretation. Much more than this could lead people to falsely interpret scripture because they falsely interpret or misjudge the HolySpirit. To this, I would say that the pendulum has swung too far. Never should biblical interpretation become a sort of fortune-telling-like practice where the text itself is mostly disregarded for feeling. Rather, the text has a concrete main idea and transformational intent from the original author. Where the Holy Spirit comes in is to quicken us to respond in application to this inspired work before us. While biblical interpretation — in the technical sense — can be done well by anyone because there are clear steps in its approach, it fails more seriously to faithfully interpret the text holistically. This is because it will fail to see the very nature of the text itself, let alone what that text insists it to be. The Bible declares itself to be the very word of God. It is a story about God revealing himself to his creation to enter into a relationship with them. It's about a God who loves his people so deeply that he would die in their place. To technically interpret the story of Elijah, but failing to be transformed into worship by God working to bring sinners to justice and salvation to his chosen people is to fundamentally misinterpret the story. Why? Because worship was the author’s (and authors’) transformational intent. Take, for example, the story of Ruth. You could spend a multitude of time and research to bring great analysis to the four chapters in this book. You could; breakdown the narrative arc, identify the historical context in which this is placed, and how that shows an even dire situation for Ruth and Naomi and exemplifies the character of Boaz, you could trace the cross-references to other parts of scripture, or get to the root meaning of theHebrew word for Kinsman redeemer. But to do all of this — and to miss being in awe of the subtle sovereignty of God working to uphold his covenant to his people while sustainingRuth and Naomi, and how that leads to King David and eventually King Jesus — is a gross failure of proper biblical interpretation. Luther's Four Stranded Garland Only a regeneration of the Holy Spirit allows the Christian to interpret the text correctly. Martin Luther coined his hermeneutical tool "the four-stranded garland." In which he told people to think of four things while reading a passage of scripture. First, What instruction is God teaching me? Second, What in this passage causes me to praise God? Third, What causes me to confess in this passage? Fourth, what guidance do I now feel that I need from God? Luther's questions were giving the Christians a way to allow themself to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit during their biblical interpretation. A non-Christian may be able to technically answer the first question, but they cannot answer the last three without faking their answer, or at minimum pretending to act as they believe a Christian should. The work of the Spirit to convict us of our sinful nature and our daily sins is something the non-Christian doesn't have access to. God's work to make me fall on my knees and beg for mercy because He has convinced me that I do not open my heart up to God as the Psalms do, is not on the surface of the text. Therefore it isn't something a non-Christian can authentically do. This is even more true with the last question in Luther's strand. This is the question of application. This is the most spiritually significant, and dependent question. What the Holy Spirit is calling you to do in response to his word is ever-changing. This is one of the reasons Christians have loved scripture over the centuries, and equate a living aspect to it. It's not the meaning of the text that changes, it's the depth to which it calls us to be more connected to the image of the Son. This is the role of the Holy Spirit in interpretation. My question would be why would you want to interpret this story if you don’t desire to see the supremacy of Christ? Why would you care to work on scripture to get to its technical meaning without worshiping a Holy God at the end of it? What use is that literary analysis? Who will you present this to, if not to preach the Word and to exalt the most precious and glorious God of which it is most certainly about? My conclusion is that not only is a true biblical interpretation not possible for those who don’t believe, but it is also a waste to perform literary analysis on scripture without believing the whole story of which it is about. It would be as nonsensical as hiring a computer as a football coach. The danger of believing scripture was primarily written by man, is that it can then be wrong since to be man is to err. We would relegate ourselves to a few of scripture that shows us that we may question parts of scripture. Right around Christmas time, you will start to hear all of the amazing prophecies about Jesus concerning his birth life, and death. But did those prophets really know what they were saying? The short answer is no. How Did Jesus Understand Scripture? Read Learn More About What We Believe Prosper Christian Reformed Church holds that the Bible is the inerrant, divinely inspired Word of God and the highest authority for faith and life. We believe in the centrality of the gospel: that all people are sinners in need of salvation, which comes through Jesus Christ’s atoning death and resurrection, by grace alone through faith alone. We practices infant baptism as a sign of covenant inclusion and uphold traditional biblical teachings on marriage, gender roles, and sexuality. We affirm Reformed theology, including the five points of Calvinism, and embrace an amillennial view of Christ’s reign and the end times. What We Believe

Graphic Designer About Peace Church Peace Church, located just south of Grand Rapids, Michigan, is a vibrant community of believers dedicated to spreading the gospel and serving the needs of our congregation and the wider community. Founded in 1965 as an RCA church, Peace Church has since transitioned to a nondenominational congregation. Our theological roots are deeply Reformed, and we pride ourselves on being conservative and gospel-centered in our teachings and practices. Our commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ drives us to create an environment where everyone feels welcome and spiritual growth is nurtured. We are proud to share that our dedication to spreading God's word and our community outreach efforts have not gone unnoticed. Recently, Outreach Magazine recognized Peace Church as the 29th fastest-growing church in America. This accolade is a testament to the hard work of our congregation and the grace of God. Our church is not just a place of worship; it's a community. From our passionate worship services to our engaging community events, every aspect of Peace Church is designed to bring people closer to God and each other. Function Peace Church is seeking a part-time Communications Arts Graphic Designer. The Graphic Designer (part-time 20-25 hours) assists Peace Church’s Communication Arts Department with graphic design elements including, but not limited to, ministry design needs, slides, signage, social media elements, web graphics and print layout. Accountability Qualifications · Have a growing relationship with Jesus and agree with the Peace Church’s statements of faith. · Actively support the mission, vision, and leadership of Peace Church. · Humble, Hungry, and People-Smart (see Patrick Lencioni, The Ideal Team Player). · Able to work within the organizational structure of Peace Church. · Able to effectively work with volunteer teams. · Passionate about working with a team. · Able to independently organize, plan, and execute projects within a given deadline. · Possesses strong organizational skills. · Possesses strong conflict-management skills. · Possesses strong communication and interpersonal skills. · Flexible and adaptable. · Able to maintain confidentiality as needed. · Education: Bachelor’s degree in graphic design preferred but not required. · Proficient in the Adobe Creative Suite and task management software. Responsibilities · Works alongside other ministries for their events/needs for graphic design (slide decks, postcards, devotional books, etc.) · Use provided graphics from the Communication Arts Director to incorporate necessary design elements (for high priority/tier items) · Create signage and print materials for services, conferences and events · Create social media graphics (for Peace Church & Round the Table online platform) · Organize files inside of system designated by Communication Arts Department Professional Expectations • Participate as a member of the Peace Staff, attending staff chapel, retreats, meetings, etc. • Participate in the life of Peace Church, attending worship and important events. • Be (or become) a member of Peace Church. • Exhibit character consistent with a follower of Jesus in a church leadership role. Apply Now First name Last name Email Phone Position Cover Letter Upload File PDF Only Resume* Upload File PDF Only I am in agreement with the beliefs of Peace Church . * Submit

Infant Baptism At Prosper CRC, we baptize infants because we believe baptism is a sign of God’s covenant, just as circumcision was in the Old Testament. Throughout Scripture, God’s promises extend not just to individuals but to households (Genesis 17:7, Acts 2:39). Just as Israelite children were marked as belonging to God, we believe the children of believers should receive the sign of baptism, recognizing them as part of the covenant community. Baptism doesn’t save—only faith in Christ does—but it is a visible declaration that God claims us as His own. It reminds us that salvation is by grace, not by our own efforts, and that God’s promises extend to the next generation. Jesus welcomed children and declared that the Kingdom of God belongs to them (Luke 18:16), and the early church baptized entire households, suggesting that children were included (Acts 16:15, 33). In baptizing infants, we affirm that God’s grace comes before our response, just as He loved us before we loved Him (1 John 4:19). This practice is not about what we do for God, but about what He has done for us. It’s an invitation for parents and the church to raise these children in the faith, pointing them to Jesus as the only source of salvation. Baptism is not the finish line—it’s the starting point of a life lived in response to God’s grace. Infant Baptism Process To schedule an infant baptism at Prosper CRC, please fill out the form, and a staff member will be in touch with you. Infant Baptism Form

Overboard and Overwhelmed by Grace Prosper Christian Reformed Church Overboard and Overwhelmed by Grace Jonah Mitchell Leach Sunday, November 2, 2025 Audio Overboard and Overwhelmed by Grace Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 34:49 Sermon Transcript Good morning. I am Alex. I serve as a deacon currently, and my wife and I have been attending gospel church for almost three years now. This morning's scripture reading comes from Jonah 1: 1-17. Please turn with me in your Bibles as we hear God's word. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son 'Emma' of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me. ' But Jonah rose to flee to Tarsish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Jopah and found a ship going to Tarsish, so he paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarsish, away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a wind upon the sea, and there was a mighty tempest on the sea, so that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried out to his God, and they hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone down into the inner part of the ship and had leaned and was fast asleep. So the captain came and said to him, What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call to your God. Perhaps the God will give a thought to us that we may not perish. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us cast lots that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us. ' So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. They said to him, 'Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? And what people are you? And he said to them, I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land. And then the men were exceedingly afraid and said to him, What is this that you have done? For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord because he had told them. Then And then they said to him, 'What shall we do to you that the sea may quiet down for us? ' For the sea grew more and more tempestuous. And he said to them, 'Pick me up and hurl me into the sea. Then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you. Nevertheless, the men rode hard to get back to dry land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more tempestuous against them. Therefore, they called out to the Lord, 'Oh Lord, let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not on us innocent blood for you. 'Oh Lord, have done as it pleased you. ' So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. This is the word of the Lord. What happens when we run from what we know we're meant to do? This is our big question for this morning. What happens when we run from what we know we're meant to do? Maybe it was forgiving someone. Maybe it was admitting that you were wrong. Maybe it was telling the truth when it would be easier to lie. Maybe it was answering a call from God that scared you. This issue is so pervasive in our human experience that it's been written about in nearly every culture throughout all time in history. One of the most famous examples of this is the play Hamlet. You're probably thinking, Man, I wish I would have read that in high school, too. Yeah, they're here with you. But the reason that we are supposed to read that is that this touches on some human experience that we all have See, in the play, Hamlet's father is murdered, and Hamlet knows who did it. He knows what he needs to do, but he spends most of the play putting it off. He at one point says this, O cursed spite, that I ever was born to set it right. And that, in modern English, means why me? Why this? Why now? We've all been there at the crossroads between, O obedience and comfort between trust and fear. We've all been there like Jonah, standing on the dock, ticket in hand, feeling the tug of the Holy spirit, begging us not to board the boat. And yet, time and time again, we find ourselves aboard. Like Hamlet, who knew what he needed to do but couldn't bring himself to it, Jonah knew exactly what God wanted and ran the other way. And that's the story we see in Jonah Chapter 1. So stay with me. Keep your Bibles open as we look at these three points in Jonah. We'll see that God calls, God corrects, and God appoints. In this chapter, we see a God who saves his disobedient prophet as he flees God's word. So let's look at that first point. God calls verses one through three. Last week, we said that asking good questions of the text is important, and there are some important questions that we need to ask this week as well in this chapter. First would be, who is Jonah? Jonah is our main character. In this story, he fulfills an important role. It's important to understand what he does. He is a prophet, and a prophet in the Old Testament fulfills a certain position in redemptive history. They They speak to people on behalf of God. They are the mouthpiece for God's word. And that's what Jonah is called to do. He is called to speak a prophetic word to Nineveh. And that begs the question, where is Nineveh? Where is Tarsish? Where is Japa? It's important for us to understand these things. It's more than just geography, but it shows the heart of Jonah. Nineveh is in modern day Turkey. Tarshish is in modern day Spain. And there's 2,500 miles that separate the two. Jonah, in running away, runs to the farthest point West in known existence at the time. This is the end of the known world. This is how far Jonah looks to run away. He's not running away to the city, the next door neighbor city. He is going as far away from God as he can. So why was Jonah running? Jonah likely saw Nineveh not just as a sinful city, but as a threat to his people's survival, to Israel's survival. Preaching repentance to the enemy felt like helping the oppressor. And remember, during this time in Israel's history, there's rampant idolatry. Oppression of the poor, people taking advantage of the least of these, and general disobedience to Yahweh. Nineveh would become the capital of Assyria. And later, just after Jonah would invade Israel and siege warfare against the Northern Kingdom. Another question that we need to ask is this. Let's go back. Why would the author say, Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord? ' This is an important question that we can probably ask of almost any text that we read. Why does the author say this in this way? Well, let's look at verse three. Why does he say, 'The presence of the Lord? ' Says this, But Jonah rose to flee to Tarsish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarsish. So he paid the affair and went down into it to go with them to Tarsish, away away from the presence of the Lord. It doesn't just say that Jonah fled what God wanted or even fled God. It says that Jonah fled the presence of the Lord. We know that we cannot get away from God's omnipresence. We can't run away from that. But we can resist intimacy with God. That's what Jonah is doing here. The reason that this word is used is because Jonah doesn't just dislike what God's asking him to do. Jonah doesn't want anything to do with God. Jonah hates God's heart. The main idea of this book that we talked about last week is Do you pursue God's Heart? Jonah isn't struggling whether or not God is real. He doesn't have doubts about his faith. He isn't questioning who he believes in. He hates who he knows. Jonah doesn't have a location problem. Jonah has a Lordship problem. And part of this problem is perspective. Jonah believes that he understands reality better than God does. So Jonah flees from God, from the presence of God. He gets in a boat and sails to the end of the known world. God called Jonah to Nineveh, a place that Jonah was saying, God, anywhere but there. Where is that for us? Where in your heart today might God be calling you to that you would say, God, anywhere but there? Maybe is it to a new job or to be honest with someone about something that might offend them, but it's important for them to hear. Maybe to confess a sin struggle you have or to serve people who annoy you or to be kind to people that you feel like you don't need to be kind to. Where would you say, Anywhere but there, God? Rather than running to God, Jonah runs away. Rather than trusting God. Jonah flees. Yet God isn't done with Jonah, and that's what we'll see in this next section, is a God who corrects. Verses 14 through 16. God's correction isn't not an act of anger, but an act of love. So let's see what happens in this section. God creates a storm so strong, it's looking to sink the ship. So the sailors or mariners start throwing cargo overboard. It says that the mariners were afraid. I was hoping that this was a prophetic word for the tigers this year, but that didn't seem to come true. Throwing the cargo overboard doesn't work. It doesn't stabilize the boat. And so they wake up everybody on board and they find out that Jonah has been sleeping, and so they wake him up and bring him on the main deck. And they cast lots, or this is an old-fashioned way of rolling dice, and it falls on Jonah. They ask, Jonah, who are you? Jonah says, 'I'm a Hebrew. I fear the Lord. My God controls the Earth and the sea. Jonah gets caught doing something as someone who follows the Lord that isn't very fearful of God. I don't know if you've ever been caught doing something as a Christian that wasn't so Christian-like. I, as a pastor, run into this maybe more than the average person. This typically comes out when I play sports. Sometimes I'm a little bit competitive. Whether it's cards or the World Series, I'm I'm pretty competitive. Sometimes I can smack talk and I'll play sports with someone and talk to them after the game. My friend will come out and rat me out and say something like, For a pastor, you played pretty good. They'll look at me like, Man, you said some stuff out there and I have to go, Yeah, you're right. I did. It's a little bit embarrassing. I don't know if you've ever been in that situation, but... Jonas in this situation. He looks foolish because he's acting foolish. The solution In verse 12, he says, To throw him overboard. So the mariners, they don't want to do this right away, so they try to row back to shore, but that doesn't work. So they know what they have to do. They know that throwing him overboard will stop the storm. So that's what they do. They throw him overboard. And as soon as Jonah enters into the water, the storm stops. And as soon as the storm stops, the mariners start to worship God. They offer sacrifices. This incident shows us where Jonah's heart is. Rather than repenting, rather than saying, God, I'm sorry. I get that if I don't turn back now, everyone If someone's going to die, he says, Throw me overboard. I'd rather drowned. I'd rather die than do what you want me to do. More than that, I'd rather die than be aligned with you, then be caught on your team. But like I said, God is correcting Jonah. God's correction, God correcting us, is there to save us from sin. See, sin matters to God. It's more than just breaking his rules. I think as parents, we can get these things convoluted because oftentimes our kids break rules, the rules that we make for them, and they can be frustrating to us. It can absolutely be frustrating. It is disobedient. It's wrong when they do that. But there's a difference between when kids disobey and when kids do something dangerous. The response can be different. You can be frustrated when your kid doesn't listen to you, when you ask them to stay in bed over and over and over. That doesn't happen in our house, but I can understand how that might be frustrating. But it's different than when your kid does something dangerous. If your kid climbs up on a ladder that they're not supposed to and slips. You don't run and scold them. You throw your arms around them and say, This is why we have a rule for this. There's a difference as parents between breaking a rule and doing something dangerous. But to God, these things are the same. To God, sin is dangerous. It's dangerous to our soul. God's correction isn't out of anger. It's not an act of anger. It's an act of love. Often when God creates a storm in our lives, it's an act of mercy, not an act of anger. And that's what we'll see in this next section. We see God's love, grace, and mercy as God appoints in verse 17, God sends a fish to swallow him, to swallow Jonah. And we need to see this here in this passage, that God God could have just not done anything. God could have left Jonah alone, and Jonah would have died. Jonah asked to be thrown overboard, not as some step out in faith, knowing, I know God's going to send me a big old fish that's going to save me? No. Jonah knew what he was doing, yet God wasn't done with him. The word 'appoint' will come up a couple of times in this story, mostly in chapter 4 after this, but it happens here in verse 17. It's important for us to understand this word, understand what it's trying to communicate. God wants us to see that he is in control, that he is sovereign over everything. The Heidelberg Catechism says it best, What do you understand by the providence of God? Providence is the Almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures And so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty, all things, in fact, come to us, not by chance, but by his fatherly hand. God wants us to see. God wants Jonah to see that he's the one who takes care of Jonah, that he's the one who sustains Jonah, he's the one who saves Jonah. God is reeling Jonah back in, out of his disobedience. Most of the time when you hear a sermon on this passage, we get to this point, and a pastor will say, This is God judging Jonah. This is God disciplining him, this is God bringing him back from his disobedience through punishment. And that's absolutely true, that this is discipline, this is judgment, but it's also saving. I don't think we talk about that as much. Jonah could have died. God didn't need to do anything. He saved Jonah by sending him this fish. And these two ideas, judgment and salvation go hand in hand throughout the entire biblical narrative, throughout the entire biblical story. God is glorified in salvation through judgment. Whenever there's salvation, God is judging. This happens in the Garden Eden. When Adam and Eve, they will surely die by eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. And when they do this, God doesn't put them to death immediately. He saves them. Though he judges them, though he kicks them out of the Garden of Eden. Instead of getting what they deserved, God saved them because he wasn't done with them. And instead of getting what Jonah deserved, God saved him because he wasn't done with him. And that leads us into our main idea. Our main idea for this text is to fear God and to run to him. Fear God and run to him. Remember that we are supposed to do the opposite of what Jonah did. Jonah fled from the presence of the Lord. Jonah writes this book to plea with us, to beg us to run into it. We have to recognize Like I said before, that this problem with Jonah is a perspective one. We have to recognize that God's perspective is so much more infinite than ours. If we're lucky, we'll get 100 years on Earth. So far, I have 30 years of perspective on this Earth. I know a lot of you guys were wondering about my age. I wanted to slip that in there. I'm 30. I've got 30 years on this Earth, and yet I have the goal, Jonah has the gall, we have the gall to question God or to say to God, God, if you only gave me the chance, I think I could bring out a better outcome. God has seen eternity past. He was there eternally before he created anything. He's going to be there. He's seen eternity future. He's seen how the world ends. He's seen what happens next. God has seen every second of every minute of every day, of every month, of every year since creation. And we sit here and say, God, I think that with my limited perspective, I actually might have a chance to show you something here. No. This passage isn't just about being good because the consequences are bad. That's not the point of the sermon. That's not the point of this passage. It's not to obey because God might discipline you. He might send you a fish to swallow you if you're disobedient. That's not the point. The point of this passage is to fear God and to run to him, not from him. That leads us into our point of application, one of our two. This ought to change the reality of how we parent. We cannot parent children to obey just because the consequences are unpleasant or are harsh. We parent our children to obey because it's right and good for them to obey. We parent our children to love what is good, not just to love what is easy. It's easy to teach children the punishment game, right? And I was guilty of this for a long time until Elizabeth, my wife, helped me see the danger of it, right? The punishment game is teaching your children to obey because the punishment is going to be uncomfortable or it's going to not be fun for the kids. But if we do this, what we're doing is we're teaching our children to find the path of least resistance rather than the path of obedience. And this bleeds into our children's spiritual life. It bleeds into how they see God. If we just teach them to do the path of least resistance, that's why people come to church only when things are hard. That's why we turn to God in prayer only when things are hard. We don't come just because it's right. We don't go before him in prayer just because life is good. We go because we need something from him. It teaches our children to be sneaky, to get away with what you can get away with if no one's going to hold you accountable. That has devastating effects for our spiritual life. We obey because obedience is good. We obey because we love what's right Punishments are necessary. They are a necessary way to reinforce that belief. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a gentle parent at all. But discipline when punishments cannot be the primary motivator. Again, otherwise, we're teaching children to be sneaky. Jonah didn't like God's decision, and he threw a fit. God's here to show us in this book, to show Jonah that obedience in action isn't good enough. We need obedience in heart. We need a heart change. This has to be built on love and trust. God wants to show Jonah that he knows what's best for him. And we need to show our children that what we want for them is best. This book, God could have come down and just said, Jonah, I know what's right, and you need to listen. You need to do this. You have no reason to question who I am. You have no reason to disobey, and you're going to obey. He absolutely had every right to do that. And yet at the end of the book, we see God gently asking Jonah questions. We have every right as parents to come down hard, but that doesn't lead to true heart change. Being gentle with our children will. This leads us to our last point of application. It's this, that we need to trust Godly men and women in our lives around us. Too many times as a pastor, I see people making horrible choices with no input from the people that love them most. The reason that we do this, and the reason that we don't seek out people who love us, Godly men and women around us, is because we know what's wrong. We know what we're doing is wrong. We don't want someone to come and correct us. In my last church, part of my role was to to oversee the Benevolence Fund, which meant that at least twice a week people would come in to request benevolence, and 99% of the time, those people weren't in. They weren't a member of a church. They weren't in a church home. I wrestled with that. I was just baffled that that was the case. In the more and more cases that I saw, I had to come to the conclusion that being in a gospel community, being in a part of people who love you, who care for you, who can speak into your life, that that was a correlation for these people. These people didn't have people in their lives counseling them against horrific decisions that would lead them into terrible situations. That's one of the reasons that I'm asking you guys to have this, to have godly men and women in your life, around you. Find a friend who can offer you wise counsel. Or this is just a tip for men. Men, just ask your wives when you feel like you don't know. I know we say that as a joke, and sometimes we talk about our wives as nagging, But I think the reality is that as husband, sometimes we just don't want accountability. We don't want the wisdom that our wife has to offer us. If you don't have anyone, if you can't think of anyone in your life that can offer you Godly counsel, I want to take that away from you. You might have seen that in the newsletter, in the email that goes out in the last couple of weeks. But pastoral counseling is an offer that I offer to anyone here. It's something that's free. It's something that historically the church has done for 2,000 years. I think we're too fast sometimes to go to therapists or counselors when there are sometimes spiritual matters that we need to. I'm not saying that going to a counselor, going to a therapist is a bad thing. In fact, it's an important thing in different stages of our life. But some things can get handled by free counseling from a pastor. Not only is it a good thing that you'd get good biblical counsel, but maybe you'll save some money, too. I don't know. There's two for one there. As we come to a close, we talked about this this reality of salvation in judgment going hand in hand throughout the Bible. We see this all throughout God's word. This happened in the Garden of Eden. This happened to the Egyptians. They were judged through the Pharaoh's army. They were judged through the Red Sea to save Israel. We ultimately see this on the cross. We ultimately see this on the cross that judgment came down, not on us, but on Jesus, so that way we could be saved. We see this in this story. God hurled a great storm at Jonah. He hurled a great... He hurled his son at the cross. Jonah was thrown into a sea to calm a temporary storm, and Jesus was thrown into death to calm an eternal one. This is why we fear God. We We fear God because he has the power to crush us, and he doesn't. This is why we love him, because he's the only one powerful enough to save us. My question for you today is, where are you running? What are you running from? Where are you running from God in your life? I promise you, Prosper Church, the storm that you're fearing is the one that he wants to save you from. Fear God and run to him. Would you stand with me as we pray and we prepare our hearts for our closing songs? Father God, thank you for who you are, that you are the one who saves us, that you sent your son to be judged in our place, that we would not have to bear that, that we weren't the ones who were crushed for our iniquity, but you sent your son to be crushed for our iniquity. Father God, I pray as we respond in worship for who you are, that coming off of the heels of Reformation Day, that we would worship knowing that you are our only comfort in life and in death, and that we would proclaim that truth throughout all of our life. God, we love you. We love to do your will, so help us do that. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

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Where Else Would We Go? Prosper Christian Reformed Church Where Else Would We Go? Come And Eat Mitchell Leach Sunday, August 9, 2026 Audio Where Else Would We Go? Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 36:11 Sermon Transcript John 6:60-71 In our culture, we love loyalty. It's something we talk about in the relationships we have. We see it most beautifully in the wife who stayed, the friend who never left your side, the person who committed to something and actually came through. But most of us, if we're honest, have conditions built around our loyalty: I'll stay as long as it keeps making sense for me, as long as I feel like I'm getting some end of the bargain. We'd like our loyalty to be immune to circumstances, but in the real world, if the person were tested, it's easy to follow someone who always tells you what you want to hear or gives you what you want or need. But what happens when they contradict you? What happens when they say something that crosses a boundary you had put up? Most of our relationships carry conditions — even with the people we follow, the people we're under authority to. If we reserve the right to decide what the people in charge of us are allowed to say, what they're allowed to lead us into, what we're actually doing is no longer following that person — we're following ourselves. And that's the crisis Jesus creates in this passage, in John chapter 6. Miracles. People like Jesus. They just got fed. They've seen him do miracles. And now Jesus says something that goes against almost everything they've believed — something they would have never wanted him to say out loud. Big Question What do you do when someone you trust says something you cannot accept? Fortunately, the Bible has an answer for us. So let's look at John chapter 6, where we see three major movements in this story: first, the word Jesus will not soften; then, the followers who turn back; and lastly, the faith that has nowhere else to go. Over the last three weeks in this series, we've seen Jesus do some incredible things — he fed thousands of people, walked on water, showed that he was the true bread of life. He pointed people back to the Old Testament manna and showed how it was pointing to him. And then he says something pretty hard: that if you're going to have eternal life, you must eat his flesh and drink his blood. Today we reach the morning after the miracle wore off, after the spectacle was no longer in the forefront of their minds. A crowd had chased him for loaves — now only a handful of people remain. Outline The Word Jesus Will Not Soften (John 6:60-65) The Followers Who Turn Back (John 6:66-67) The Faith That Has Nowhere Else to Go (John 6:68-71) The Word Jesus Will Not Soften (John 6:60-65) Let's look at who's talking right now. Look at verse 60: 'When many of his disciples heard it, they said...' — and look who's talking. It's not the crowds, it's not the Pharisees, it's the disciples — the people who had been traveling with him for months, maybe years. What do they say? 'This is a hard saying. Who can listen to it?' When they say this, they're not saying, 'Jesus, you've told us some kind of riddle we have to decipher, you're speaking a different language.' It's not that this was hard to comprehend in their minds. It was hard to accept in their hearts. What they meant when they said 'this is hard' is, 'This is intolerable. We can't accept this.' I think we can often move past how offensive what Jesus had just said to them was. When Jesus said, 'Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, there is no life in you,' imagine being an alcoholic reaching out to your sponsor — the man or woman who had answered your calls in the middle of the night, who had saved your marriage, who had helped transform your life. Imagine you're meeting him for dinner, and suddenly he pours a glass of wine and says, 'Unless you drink this, you have no life in you.' You wouldn't say, 'This is a difficult thing to understand.' You'd say, 'This works against everything you've told me not to do.' That's something like what's happening here in this chapter. The disciples trusted Jesus — they had seen the miracles, they believed, they had faith that he came from God. But they were also Jewish, formed by the Scriptures — Scriptures that forbade drinking blood. The difficulty wasn't merely that Jesus sounded strange. For a moment, Jesus sounded unbiblical. The question they now faced is the question every disciple must face: what will you do when Jesus, the one you know and trust, says something you cannot reconcile with what you thought you knew? So how does Jesus respond? It would have seemed natural for Jesus to turn to the Old Testament and say, 'Let's look at that passage — I'll give you a new understanding, show you how this didn't mean what it meant before, how there's a new covenant happening.' But Jesus doesn't do that. Or he could have talked about what he was about to do — Jesus talks a lot about how he's going to die, how he foreshadows the cross. He could have talked about the upper room, said, 'In a year we're going to gather, and I'm going to institute this thing called the Lord's Supper — I'm not being literal about drinking my blood, this isn't something you need to be offended by.' But he doesn't do that either. Instead, look at verse 62. Jesus says, 'What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?' His response isn't a rational argument. It isn't clever words to try to help them understand more clearly. Jesus forces them behind what he was saying, into the identity of the speaker. The question is no longer simply, can I accept these words? It pushes them into: who is the man who has said this? Essentially what Jesus is saying is, either I'm God or I'm not. What he's saying is that belief in me cannot be a cost-benefit analysis. We can't weigh the things we like about what Jesus says against the things we don't — 'well, he says awesome things about not going to hell and some pretty cool things about heaven, but he also says some things about human sexuality that don't jive with the culture we live in.' We can't say, 'In Shalom he promises to give us rest and peace, but on the other hand he's asking me to give up my Sunday.' Either he's God or he isn't. Either he was crucified and raised from the dead or he wasn't. Either he's the second member of the Trinity or he isn't. Oftentimes we look at our faith and say, 'There's some parts I'm just not going to read, not going to follow — I'm not going to spend much time in that part of the Bible because it's convicting for me.' How moronic would it be for us to believe that Jesus truly is God, and then say, 'I might walk away because I don't like this one thing he says.' If Jesus is God, who are we to determine what he can and cannot say to us? If he were simply a good teacher, we could weigh his teachings over time and see what stuck — take the good things, disregard the rest, the way we do with other teachers, other pastors, other philosophers. But he wasn't simply a teacher. If he is the Son of God, then we do not stand over his word and judge what he has to say. His word stands over us. Jesus will not soften the truth to keep people who only want him for the benefits. He would rather have a group of twelve than a stadium full of people ready to leave once the bread runs out. Jesus has been and always will be a stumbling block for people who cannot see beyond their own desires. But Jesus refuses to change his words, and many of his followers respond by making a different choice. They change direction. That's what we see in the next section — the followers who turn back. The Followers Who Turn Back (John 6:66-67) Verse 66 might be the saddest chapter — the 'disciples turn back' chapter. 'After this, many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.' Yesterday there were thousands of people on a hillside ready to make Jesus their king. Now some of the disciples walk away — not the Twelve, but people who had followed Jesus for months, maybe even a year. They'd had one-on-one conversations with him, they were regulars, they followed him wherever he went. That's why Jesus, in other places, asks the Twelve to prove themselves as his true disciples after this happened. A crowd of followers is not the same as a company of a few faithful. The thing that separates the two is not intellect, not zeal, not enthusiasm — the difference between those who are true disciples and those who left is whether they stay when the words stop being flattering. It says they 'turned back.' This phrase is a direct allusion to Israel wandering in the wilderness, when they kept desiring to go back to Egypt. Over and over in the Old Testament, the desire to turn back is almost exclusively a bad thing — Lot's wife turned back and looked at Sodom and Gomorrah. It also says they 'no longer walked with him.' That phrase is pregnant with meaning. Throughout the Old Testament, walking with someone wasn't just an activity — it was the status of a relationship. It showed who you cared for. Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. Enoch walked with God. And now these disciples will not walk with him any longer. The interesting thing is that Jesus does not stop them. He doesn't plead with them, doesn't run after them to bring them back. It shows us something: our staying, our showing up, isn't a favor we do for Jesus. Look at verse 67: 'So Jesus said to the Twelve, "Do you want to go away as well?"' Essentially Jesus is saying, 'Look, there they go — there's the door, if you want to join them, go ahead.' Our staying was never a gift we gave Jesus. Our staying was a gift he gave us. Only Jesus can hold someone fast, because it's part of his nature, because he's God. As humans, there are relationships we're dependent on — if you're married, you need your spouse; if you're a child, you need your parents. But God does not need a relationship with us to be complete. It's one of the beautiful things about creation — he didn't make us to fill something he was lacking. He was complete when he made the world, in relationship within himself — that's what the Trinity is. Out of love he created us. Jesus does not need to chase after them. God does not need people he manipulates into worshiping him. He doesn't need hostages. God is glorified when we see his beauty and desire to walk with him. This shows God's trust in the Father's faithfulness — it shows how Jesus trusts the Father's calling for the elect. Jesus knows the Father will bring to him whom the Father has chosen. Jesus is bringing them to the moment every disciple must face: if everyone walks away, who do you believe Jesus is? The question isn't to reassure Jesus — it's not asked to make Jesus feel better about himself. Jesus is giving the disciples an opportunity to stand their ground, asking if they're leaving too. And that's what we see in the next section — the faith that has nowhere else to go. The Faith That Has Nowhere Else to Go (John 6:68-71) Verses 68 and 69 say this: 'Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God."' Others had said this was too far, too much, and they left. Peter looked at Jesus and realized he had nowhere else to go with his questions — nowhere else had the words of life. The difference is not that Peter had fewer questions. The difference is that Peter knew who has the answers. He doesn't say, 'Jesus, I figured out your riddle, I get it, I've comprehended it, I understand what you have to say.' He also doesn't say, 'What else would we turn to, or where else will we go?' Peter says something very specific: 'To whom shall we go?' He's saying, 'We've looked around — there's no one else who has the words of life, no one else can give us life and life eternal.' He gets it. And if you read the rest of John's Gospel, Peter is certainly still confused about what Jesus had said. He makes some pretty boneheaded moves throughout the rest of the book. He's still confused. But he stays, because he knows there isn't another way. He stays because there is no better alternative. Christianity is not a system of ideas for us to adopt. It's not a moral code. Christianity is not a philosophy we apply to our lives to make us into better people. Christianity is, and always has been, a person. It's Christ. It forever will be. Peter is not saying, 'We have found the best worldview.' He is saying, 'We have found him' — the one that Scripture, that all of time, has been looking forward to. Where else can we go? To whom can we run? This is the faith of a cornered heart that has found the only open door. Peter does not have to understand every hard word to know that they are the words of life and that Jesus is the only one who has them. Then he says this beautiful thing — 'we have believed and have come to know.' That order is important. We are not people who understand in order to believe. We believe because it makes us understand. St. Augustine, a 4th-century pastor and prolific writer, said this: 'Seek not to understand so that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.' True faith is not the absence of confusion. Peter is still confused about much of what he has just heard. This is not about knowing it all, not about having all the answers — it's about running to the one who has the words of eternal life. There is nowhere else to go, so run to him. We often think faith means having no doubts, having absolute certainty, no questions, no hesitancy, no fear. But that's not what we see in Peter. He doesn't say, 'Jesus, I understand everything now, I've logically put it all in order and it makes sense.' No — he says, 'Lord, to whom shall we go?' Faith is not having every question answered. Faith is knowing where the answers are. Saving faith does not depend on the strength of your certainty — it depends on the strength of the one you're trusting in. Imagine you're falling off a cliff and you see a branch, and you're 100% certain it will save you if you grab onto it. You can study the branch, know exactly what type of wood it is, know it won't snap under pressure. You can tell everyone, 'This branch can save you.' But if you never grab it, you're doomed. But if, in the same situation, you're uncertain the branch will save you, and yet you cling onto it — you cling on with trembling hands — you will be saved. What saves you is not the confidence of your grip, not the perfect strength of what you are gripping. That's what Peter understands. He does not have a perfect grip on Jesus. No one ever has. It's not the amount of faith that saves you — it's the object of your faith that saves you. It's not the strength of your trust that saves you — it's the strength of Christ. Christ is strong enough to hold weak faith, even if we're unsure, even if we have just a mustard seed of questions. Maybe you grew up with questions. In this reformed world we live in, we love to be right, we love to know the right thing — we don't say that out loud, but we pride ourselves on it. Maybe you brought some questions with you this morning. Maybe there are things in Scripture you don't understand. Maybe you're going through a season of suffering and you don't understand what God is doing. Maybe you feel weaker than you used to. The answer is not to manufacture a pseudo sense of certainty — it's not to fake it. The answer, again, is to run to Christ. Weak faith in a strong Savior is still strong faith in a strong Savior. Peter is right: where else do we go? To whom shall we run? Who else has the words of eternal life? There's nowhere else to go, so run to him. There are two points of application. The first is this: stop. Verse 66 says many of his disciples turned back — and that's not something people just do with their feet. Turning back is something we do with our hearts. What they did was essentially repent from Jesus — turn 360 degrees and walk away. Some of us spend our lives trying to return to a season that's gone. We want to go back to when our children were small, when our marriage felt easier, when our bodies were stronger, when our parents were alive, when the church felt fuller, when faith felt simpler — back before the diagnosis, the grief, the disappointment. There's nothing sinful about missing what is good, about remembering the blessings God has given us. Grief often means we cared about something that was good. But nostalgia becomes dangerous when you begin to believe that life itself is behind you. You cannot follow Jesus while constantly facing backwards. Christ has not promised to take you back to the life you had. He has promised to lead you to the life he has now given you — he's our shepherd through the valley of the shadow of death. So stop asking only, 'How do I get back what I've lost?' and begin asking, 'How do I follow Christ faithfully from here?' Maybe faithfulness from here means learning to live with limits you did not choose. It means loving the spouse you have today instead of resenting the marriage you used to have. Maybe it means serving the church that exists now instead of comparing it to the church you remember, or trusting God in a quieter season when you no longer feel as useful as you once did. The past absolutely contains gifts we should thank God for. But the past is a terrible place to live. Trying to resurrect what is dead will only make us miserable. God is not calling you to look backwards. He is calling you to walk with him. The second application is this: do not demand that Jesus explain himself before you obey. We often say, quietly in our hearts, 'I will do this, God, but only once you make this clear to me, once you explain it.' But that kind of obedience is conditional obedience. Peter does not understand everything Jesus said, but he knows who Jesus is. Faith does not mean we stop asking questions, but there is a difference between asking questions and putting Jesus on trial. Sometimes Christ calls us to obey before we understand what it means to forgive, what it means to tell the truth, what it means to remain sexually faithful, what it means to give generously, or what it means to trust him in suffering — and yet he still calls us to obey. Saying 'God, explain it to me first, show me it's all going to work out, I don't know if I can do this, I'm still thinking about it, still praying about it' can be a respectable way of saying no. Obey what Christ has made clear. Keep asking questions, keep seeking understanding — but do not make complete understanding the price Jesus has to pay for your obedience. But there is nowhere else to go. So we must run to him, because the one who says the hard things is also the one who did the hardest thing for us. Jesus did not stand at a distance and tell sinners, 'Go save yourself.' He went to the cross for us, and on that cross he did not merely suffer — he stood in the place of sinners. He bore the guilt we deserved. He took the judgment, took the wrath that should have fallen on us, so that everyone who trusts in him would never have to bear it. The Holy One of God was treated and condemned as guilty, so guilty people could be declared holy and righteous. The Son was forsaken so that all who belong to him would never be abandoned. That's why Peter is right: where else will we go? Who else has carried our sin? Who else has borne our judgment? Who else has taken God's wrath upon himself? Who else has defeated death for us? Who else can look at every sinner and say, 'Son or daughter, you are forgiven'? And who else has the words of eternal life? Eternal life is not merely living forever. Eternal life is not merely getting a mansion or streets of gold — those are a cherry on top. Eternal life is life with him. One day, faith will become sight. The questions that confuse us now will not have the final word. The suffering that makes obedience hard will be gone. Sin will be gone. Death will be no more. And we will see the face of the one we trusted when we could not see the way. And on that day, in the presence of Christ, we will not say, 'I wish I would have turned back, I wish I would have trusted less, I wish I would have chosen another way.' We will see the one who brought us home — the Lamb who was slain, the Savior who bore our sin, the King who was worth it. So when the word is hard, when obedience costs, when you don't understand what he is doing, when the world offers a hundred other places to go — hear Peter's question again: Lord, to whom shall we go? There is nowhere else to go. So run to him. There is no one else you need. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link