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Giving Prosper Christian Reformed Church Giving One Another Mitchell Leach Sunday, May 3, 2026 Audio Giving Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 32:03 Sermon Transcript Scripture Reading 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that, having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. This is the word of the Lord. There's a story of a man who gets this incredible offer. It was set in the 1800s in Russia and this man is a peasant. He has one day to claim all the land that he could ever want. As much land that he could claim in one day, he can have. So he goes out in the morning, starts walking, and the land is good. He keeps walking and walking and pushes further and every chance, every time he thinks, 'Oh, this is good,' he'll turn around here. The land just in front of him looks even better and so he goes and gets that. By late afternoon, he realizes that he's gone way too far and so he desperately sprints back all the way to where he started and gets there just as the sun sets. He collapses at the finish line. He turns up dead. This story was written by Leo Tolstoy and the title of this work was 'How Much Land Does a Man Need?' The story answers that question by saying, 'Six feet. Just enough to be buried.' The scarcity that our world shows us is embodied in this story. There's a voice in our culture that says, 'We need more. It isn't enough. Hold tighter to what you have.' It's a voice that we bring into this room every Sunday and it's the reason that a sermon on money makes us feel uncomfortable. It's the reason that we don't publicize that we're going to talk about money because the truth is when we publicize that, people don't show up to church. The mood in a room changes when we talk about money, unfortunately. And so we're just going to say the quiet part out loud. Big Question Why is the church always talking about money? Everyone knows when we start talking about money, walls go up. You feel like you've heard it before. And I get it because most of us have either been in a church context or we've heard of churches where a giving talk feels like an old western stand-up. It feels like we're getting guilted into giving more. The implication is almost like this: if you loved God more, you'd give more. So let me be straight with you. I'm not here to guilt you into giving. In fact, that is the opposite of what the passage we're going to look at this morning says. I want you to look at what you trust because money is one of the most honest things in our life. It shows us what we love. It shows us what we trust. And that's what Paul wants to show us this morning. He wants to show us a God that's worth trusting. So why is the church always talking about money? Fortunately, the Bible has an answer. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 9:6-8. Outline A Principle of Sowing and Reaping (2 Corinthians 9:6) A Call to Willing and Cheerful Giving (2 Corinthians 9:7) A Promise of God's All-Sufficient Grace (2 Corinthians 9:8) A Principle of Sowing and Reaping (2 Corinthians 9:6) What we're going to be doing is looking at more than just money. This is a framework for us to look at any possession, anything that we could have here on earth. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:6, 'The point is this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.' Paul's using two contrasting words here: 'bountifully' and 'sparingly.' He picks these two words on purpose. This is a way in which we see the world — either sparingly or bountifully. The word for sparingly really means to save from loss. It's an economic term, used as a job description, like someone who is an accountant. Paul doesn't just pick any word here. He's not saying whoever sows a small amount. Paul is using a word specifically about protecting yourself from losing something. The sparing giver isn't giving just a little because they have a little; he's giving a little because every gift feels like a threat. John Calvin, unsurprisingly, has something great to say about this passage. He says, 'The flesh is always ingenious in devising excuses. And some will plead that they have families and it would be unkind to neglect. And some use the fact that they cannot give much as an excuse for giving nothing.' The truth is we calculate. We look at what we have through the lens of what we can get back. Everything is an opportunity to gain more. What happens is we end up trusting in our security that money can bring rather than the God who gives it. And that's why Paul says that we need to sow bountifully. The word 'bountifully' means the one sowing with blessing, the one who gives as a benediction, as a blessing, as a gift. The contrast here isn't between giving a little and giving a lot. It's those who give in a calculated way versus those who give as a way to bless — not only themselves but others. So don't hear benedictory giving as something that's only easy. In fact, if your generosity never hurts, never touches something that you'd rather keep, the truth is you haven't given; you've tipped. If we can give in a way that is just comfortable for us, we haven't embodied what it means to sacrifice in the way we've been called to. In Hebrews, the author says that Jesus, for the joy set before him, endured the cross. Jesus went to the cross, paid the ultimate price, and the writer of Hebrews says this was done out of joy. Joy and cost coexisting in the same act. The model for Christian generosity is not painless giving; it's costly giving that trusts God the Father on the other side of the cost. Our culture revolts against this kind of thinking. We live in a culture — not just in America, but here in northern Michigan, in Falmouth, in McBain, in Lake City — steeped in a scarcity mindset that believes there is only a finite, limited amount of resources and that we need to run and chase after every single one of them. This is a world without God who provides. If there is no God who multiplies loaves and fish, then every dollar I give is just gone. If that's the way we see the world, then the only way to rationally respond is to live sparingly, to be calculated with everything we have. Living sparingly is not simply a financial decision. This is a theological one. When we live sparingly, it shows us who we worship. Our money is a gauge on our heart that shows us what we truly value. And that's why we're talking about money today. Not because we're short on money as a church. Not because the deacons have come to me and said we need another message about money. We're talking about money today because it is actually important for our spiritual lives; it is actually important to our souls. Human wisdom says: evaluate everything you have for its return. But divine wisdom says the opposite. God commands the most radical self-denial. Jesus tells us, 'Whoever would save his life will lose it.' And then he turns and tells us that this self-denial is the very path to the deepest joy we could ever possibly know. If you look at any organization, any family, any budget, they'll show you what they value. That's why people say, 'Follow the money.' In fact, in America, it shows us some pretty scary things about what we love. The average American spends $1,097 on coffee annually. Families earning over $100,000 spend more than $2,300 per child per year on youth sports. Entertainment accounts for 5.2% of household spending, which is nearly double what goes to charitable causes. Not only that — the average evangelical donor gave $2,500 to church in the prior 12 months, down 15% from the inflation-adjusted figure of just under $3,000 in 2021. Just over a third of regular church attenders do not give any money to their churches at all. Christians are giving at a rate of 2.5% of their income. During the Great Depression, that was 3.3%. I'm reading these numbers not to guilt you into anything. I'm reading them because money is a gauge on our hearts — and the truth is we will always fund what we trust will deliver. Right now America trusts comfort, experience, and security more than it trusts the God who promises to provide. A Call to Willing and Cheerful Giving (2 Corinthians 9:7) That's why Paul gives us a call to willing and cheerful giving in 2 Corinthians 9:7: 'Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.' The phrase 'decided in his heart' is a phrase in the Greek that implies someone who came to church knowing what they were going to give — had decided, had prayerfully decided. It wasn't last minute, it wasn't impulsive, which is why giving online is just as much an act of worship as giving in person. The cheerful giver is deliberate in what they give. The one who has looked at their resources, obligations, and opportunities, and made this decision on what they will give — in stark contrast to the one who gives reluctantly or out of grief. Charles Hodge has this to say: 'Many gifts are thus given sorrowfully, where the giver is induced to give by a regard to public opinion or by stress of conscience. This reluctance spoils the gift. It loses all its fragrance when the incense of a free and joyful spirit is wanting.' So if reluctance spoils the gift, what then makes it fragrant? See, the motivation in giving here is not transactional. It's not about getting something back. It's relational. If you hear 'Give cheerfully' and hear that as 'I give cheerfully so that way I can get something back,' you're still hearing this as a transactional relationship. But if you hear 'God loves a cheerful giver' and see that as a relationship, that relationship will be worth everything — enough that it will be a reward in and of itself. A cheerful giver is simply someone who has come to look like their heavenly Father. And the Father loves to see himself in his children. When we reflect his generosity, he loves seeing that in us. When we let go of our idols in order to grab more of him, that is what he loves to see. So the takeaway from this isn't just, give more cheerfully, try harder. That won't work. The invitation is this: see the kind of Father that you have. The heavenly Father who gives you everything you've ever had — every breath, every meal, and yes, every dollar. A Father who's invited you to sit at the table with him, to laugh with him, to enjoy him. A heavenly Father who wants to see you embody the same life-giving action of giving to other people things that they don't deserve. A Promise of God's All-Sufficient Grace (2 Corinthians 9:8) Here we'll see the power of this passage. 2 Corinthians 9:8 says: 'And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency, in all things, at all times, you may abound in every good work.' The word here for 'able' is the word we get our word dynamite from. It only shows up 3 times in the New Testament, and it comes here in a passage about giving. It means to display capacity, to be powerful, to be effective. Paul's whole argument about giving hinges on this characteristic of God: that he is a God who is able. The appeal to give is not some specific promise that every dollar we give, we're going to get 10 back. The appeal to be generous is in who God is himself. God is infinite and eternal, unchangeable in his being. He does not change and there is no end to him. It is in God's very nature that he would never run out. We live in a world where we believe I have to go and get mine, otherwise someone else will go and get it. And yet we believe in a God who we will never find the edges of. There is no way to exhaust who God is. We drink from a well that will never run dry. James 1:17 says it this way: 'Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.' God is the one who gives. And the grace in 2 Corinthians 9:8 is not just merely the grace to receive forgiveness or the grace of the gospel. Specifically here in this passage, this includes God giving us the grace in order to be generous. You might be sitting here thinking, 'I'm barely able to pay the bills. What do you mean God's going to give me this ability?' We've all been through financially hard seasons — and this isn't a promise that God's going to make everything right tomorrow. And yet, the promise is that God will give you the grace, the ability to give yourself, to give your time, your hospitality, your care, and yes, even your money. But you will only do those things if you believe that God is the one who supplies them. That's the decision this passage puts in front of us. Main Idea Trust God rather than scarcity The appeal to be generous is in the very nature of who God is — not what you'll get back, not the return on your investment. So the question isn't, 'Why is the church always talking about money?' The question this passage is really asking is, 'What does my money reveal about who I trust?' That's what it comes down to. Your money is one of the most honest things about you. It shows what you trust. It's not about what we confess on Sunday morning. It's not about what we profess about giving, about generosity, about God. Our actions show what we believe, especially our money. And Paul is telling us that generosity is good for your soul. It's not about the church's budget. It is the thing that pries your fingers off the idol of security and puts them toward a God who is able. Now I want to be clear: tithing is an important part of what it means to belong to a church. This whole series we've been going through is about what it means to belong to a church, to be a member of a church. And tithing is a part of that. I believe that if you call this church home, you should be giving to this church. The Bible doesn't apologize for that. But if the thing you've heard this morning is that the church needs more of your money, you haven't been listening to the passage or what I've been saying. This passage is not about what the church needs from you. It's about what generosity does in and through your life. For some of you, you've been sitting here waiting for me to say a percentage, waiting for me to say an amount. Don't hold your breath because I'm not going to tell you. That's not the point. The point is not, 'Here's the minimum amount — here's what you have to do to be a good Christian.' God loves a cheerful giver. The point is that we would give bountifully; that we would be generous with all of who we are. This is not a call to figure out the floor or the basement. It is a call to look at your heavenly Father, see what he has given, and ask, what does a life of gratitude actually look like? Not just with my bank account, but with my time, with the talent God has given me, with the other resources he's entrusted to me. Application Audit your giving for the manner of it — not just the amount This week, your application is this: sit down and look at what you give — not to see whether the number is big enough, but to ask yourself, how did it feel when I gave this? Did you decide in your heart before you got there, or was it an afterthought? Did you give it freely, or did you grieve it all the way down to your core? The amount might be fine, but the manner might be telling you something else. $100 given with a clenched fist honors God less than $10 given with an open hand. So don't start with a number; start with where your heart is in giving and do some assessment of that. Look for when scarcity starts talking this week And I don't just mean about your money. Scarcity is something that talks to us all day long, every day of our life. It's the reason you don't call a person you've been meaning to call because you feel like you don't have the time. It's the reason you drive past your neighbor who's mowing the lawn alone and don't stop because you've got your own lawn to deal with. It's why you eat dinner in front of the TV rather than at the table because you're convinced you don't have the energy for a conversation tonight. It's the reason the meal never gets dropped off, the visit never gets made, the invitation never gets extended. Not because you don't care, but because something else is saying, 'I don't have enough. You need to take care of you first.' That's not the voice of wisdom. That's not the voice of stewardship. It's a secular creed we've embodied — the belief that if you live in a world without God who provides, then you need to get exactly what you need to take care of you. Scarcity will start talking about your money. It will talk about your time, your energy, your attention, your hospitality. So when you hear it this week — and you will — name it. Ask, why is scarcity talking right now? Maybe even track what it is that scarcity talks about in your life. Is there a pattern? I think if you pay attention, that pattern will show you an idol that you're maybe holding onto too tightly. Everything Paul has said about generosity — the sowing, the cheerfulness, the all-sufficient grace — none of it makes sense unless we understand where it comes from. Earlier in 2 Corinthians, Paul says this: 'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.' Jesus Christ was rich — not in the kind of rich like a big house. Jesus was rich in the sense that he had created everything and everything belonged to him. Every star, every atom, every breath we've taken belongs to him. And yet, he became poor. Not just inconvenienced, not just slightly diminished — Jesus became poor. He was born into one of maybe the most impoverished families in all of human history. On the cross, Jesus became even poorer than that because on the cross, God the Father took every sin that you've ever committed, every act of greed, every clenched fist, every dollar that you've worshiped instead of him, and laid it on his Son. Jesus paid the price fully in your place. The one who owned everything was forsaken by the Father so that you, who deserve nothing, would become rich. Not money rich — rich in grace, rich in forgiveness, rich in a relationship with God that can never be taken from you. This is the foundation on which everything else that we've been talking about is built. You are not generous because you have to be. You are not generous because the church needs your money. You are generous because you have been made impossibly, eternally rich by a Savior who became impossibly and completely poor for you. Scarcity has no claim on the person for whom Christ has already paid the price. So give — not out of guilt, not out of obligation, but because you know the grace that you have found in your Lord Jesus Christ. And that grace has made you rich beyond all comparison. So church, hear this: trust God rather than scarcity. That is the foundation for our generosity. Closing Prayer Father God, we praise you that you are a God who is not just generous, but God, you gave yourself to us. The greatest gift we could ever experience was you. God, let that reality — that you came, that you left your throne in heaven to be with us, to take the miseries of this life and to die on the cross for our sake — let us respond not just today by singing, but with a life of generosity, knowing that we are a beneficiary of that generosity from you. God, we love you. Let us sing your praises here. 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

Greater Than You Know Prosper Christian Reformed Church Greater Than You Know Consider Your Ways Mitchell Leach Sunday, May 24, 2026 Audio Greater Than You Know Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 01:04 Sermon Transcript Haggai 2:1-9 In the 7th month, on the 21st day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to all the remnant of the people, and say, who is left among you who 'Who saw this house in its former glory? How do you see it now? Is it not as nothing in your eyes? Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel,' declares the Lord. 'Be strong, O Joshua son of Jehozadak the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,' declares the Lord. 'Work, for I am with you,' declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt. My Spirit remains in your midst; fear not. For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine and the gold is mine, declares the Lord of hosts. The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the Lord of hosts. This is the word of the Lord. In 126 BC, there was a Roman general who conquered Carthage. It was a 3-year campaign and finally after the city fell, he stood there looking at the city as it was in its ruins and he started to weep. And there was a historian there, it was his good friend, and he asked him why he was crying. He said, "This is a foreshadowing of what's going to happen to my city someday." Looking forward, looking toward the city that he had just conquered, it should have been a victory, should have been something that was a happy moment for him, but he looked at it and knew that one day this too would come for him. And that's what ruins do to us. They don't just tell us about the past. They make us afraid for the future. You don't have to be in ancient Rome to know this, to see this. You can just drive really anywhere, you see this. You've driven past a barn 1,000 times and one day it's leaning and then one strong spring storm hits it and it's down. Then it's just a pile of wood in a field. And something in us sinks in, not just because we feel like we needed the barn, but the landscape tells us that something's missing. Big Question Are things getting better or are things getting worse? We realize that things are in decay. Brings us to a question that we all ask, either out loud or in our hearts: "Are things getting better or are things getting worse?" Things getting better or things getting worse? We all ask this question and yet, as a people, we have a united answer to it. It doesn't matter what ethnic group you're from, it doesn't matter what location, socioeconomic status, what political party you voted for; we're all united in this. It doesn't matter what time period you're from; we can go back throughout history and see the way We've always said things are getting worse. Talk to somebody on the left. They'll tell you that institutions are failing, the planet is dying, or the system's rigged. If you talk to someone on the political right, you'll hear that morality is gone and the family is falling apart and that there aren't values like we once had them. Talk to a parent and they'll tell you that kids aren't safe in the way that they used to be. Talk to a grandparent and they'll tell you nobody knows their neighbors anymore. Talk to a 20-year-old who's trying to buy a house and says they can't, everything's too expensive. Talk to someone who's retired, and they'll tell you that the world they built is unrecognizable. Here's what's remarkable in all of this: nobody thinks the arrow's pointing up. Nobody thinks that things are getting better. Left, right, young, old, rich or poor, one thing that Americans all generally agree on is that the— our best days are behind us. Declinism isn't a political position, it's the air we breathe. And if that's the air we breathe out there, It's almost certainly the air that we breathe in here too. The church is not immune to this. And so are things getting better or worse? Fortunately, the Bible has an answer for us. So if you would, keep your Bibles open to Haggai as we're going to look at two major movements in this passage, in these 9 verses. First, we'll see God meets discouragement with his presence, Haggai 2:1-5, and then God promises a glory greater than the former in Haggai 2:6-9. Outline God Meets Discouragement with His Presence (Haggai 2:1-5) God Promises a Glory Greater Than the Former (Haggai 2:6-9) God Meets Discouragement with His Presence (Haggai 2:1-5) So let's look at that first section, God meets discouragement with His presence. This is all happening in a certain time and that time is important for us to understand. This is happening, this, "The word of the Lord came to Haggai the second time during the festival of Sukkot." This was a festival that was celebrated in Israel all the way up through Jesus' time. Jesus actually celebrated this. It was called the Feast of Booths. What would happen is Um, people would move out into the desert. They would sit in booths, they would sit in tents to remember Israel's journey through the wilderness. But this was also a harvest festival, which would have had to make people feel uneasy. Harvest is a time to celebrate bounty. It's a time to celebrate what God has done, what God has provided. And they've been in a time of scarcity. In Haggai 1, we saw God had given them pestilence. He had given them a plague. He had given them, uh, a drought on the land, and that they had not been able to harvest what they wanted. Haggai 2:3, God then asks 3 important questions, all 3 leading up to the last one. The first question addresses those who saw the last temple. The middle temple there that got destroyed in 586 BC. Some of those people were children when they saw— who were alive during this time in Haggai's life. They would have been children that saw the temple and had a memory of what it looks like. The last question that Haggai asks, or that God asks, is rhetorical. It's this: "Is this nothing in your eyes?" As they're looking at the new temple that had just been built, God's telling them it looks like nothing. God is naming discouragement that already exists. He isn't here saying, "Well, this isn't too bad. Let's look on the bright side of things." Why don't we just be optimistic here? Why don't— why don't we look at this as a glass half full moment? God does not dismiss their grief. He names it, but he doesn't let them— he doesn't allow them to sit in their grief or to let it be the lord over them. I think it's something important for us to understand. Oftentimes, I think in Christianity when hard things come our way, we so often want to be the people who respond by saying, "Well, God's on the throne and things are okay and it's going to be alright." And it's okay to feel that, to know and to trust that God has everything, that he holds the world in his hand. But Haggai, the book of Haggai, allows us to recognize when things are disappointing. When things aren't the way that they're supposed to be. The temple that was built was a shadow of what it once was. It was not nearly as glorious as what Solomon had built. Their grief was specific. Not just grief about the future in general, but grief that the future would not match the past. A belief that the best days of their people are behind them, that their building and what they're building now will never be what it once was. This is a moment where we have to pause as a church and recognize that God is speaking to us in this moment, not just the universal church, but here at Prosper. If you haven't felt those same temptations about this place, it's probably your first time here. You might be a visitor. I haven't been here long enough to hear every story, but I've been here long enough to hear the heartache. Prosser's been through a lot in the last 5 years. You've lost some tragically We've lost some pillars of this community. Some of your cousins, relatives, children, maybe they don't worship with us anymore. I've heard that a lot. I've heard that we've lost a lot. I've heard that there aren't as many children in the children's message. Each of those things are Haggai 3:3. Just dressed up in modern language. Does this seem as nothing in your eyes? See, there's a way to honor the saints who came before us, before us, that strengthens our faith. There's also a way to honor them that quietly accuses God of being less faithful now. To be faithful, to do this, to do this right, we must believe that God is still present, still speaking, still shaking, still building. Because I know this to be true: that the best days of this church are not behind her but in front of her. I know that we believe that too. I know that I've heard little things here and there and I've heard some of those heartaches But overwhelmingly, I have heard of the amazing things that God is doing here. Elderly people setting aside their preferences, praying that God would set aside their preferences in order to reach the next generation. Young people loving and coming to love the hymns that their ancestors have sung for generations. People stepping out of their shell and out of their comfort zone to serve. People who are battling addictions seeing victory over those same addictions. I've seen elders genuinely care for the people here. I've seen deacons serve widows and take care of widows and shut-ins unlike any other church I've been in. I've seen so many things here that are proof that we believe the best days are ahead of us. The God of Haggai 2, does not allow us to sigh over what used to be. He promises what's coming. That's what he does in this next section. He continues by saying, "I am strong and I am with you." He says, "Be strong." But that's not a strength that comes somehow from finding it within us, right? This isn't a Disney movie. This is not, you know, the end of the story is not, "You had it in you the whole time." The story here is be strong because I am with you. Be strong in the work, not because your work looks promising, because I am the one who is with you. The promise is not that the work will always even look impressive. The promise is that his presence will make the work worth doing. The person who loves their idea of being strong will eventually collapse because the idea has no power to sustain what it promises. The person who trusts God, trusts what He commands, that strength will endure, not because that they are impressive, but because of the One who they rely on. All throughout the Bible, anytime that there's been a command to have courage or to be strong, it is never one that says, "Find it within you. You have the courage. If you just unlock these things, if you just try these tips, and you can finally become the man that you're— man or woman that you're supposed to be." Whenever God commands strength, whenever he commands courage, He does so and then immediately after he says, "For I am with you." This biblical pattern is not for strong people to do big things. It is for a strong God to, to use weak people. That weakness is the point. All throughout the Bible, God uses the weakest. The overlooked, the people who have no, no right to be able to be used that way. If God were to only use the smartest, the strongest, the fastest, the people with most, the most power, we would say, well, God's good at picking a good team. But because God uses those who are overlooked, who no one would pick to lead, who no one would pick to do the things that God picks them to do. All throughout the Bible, it shows that God is the one who's glorious. It puts his power on display, not ours. So why, why can God be with his people here in Israel and during this time but here with us today? It's because he is a God of covenant. He is a God who is faithful. That's what we see in Haggai 2:5. Haggai 2:5 says this: "According to the covenant I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my Spirit remains in your midst. Fear not." Another way to say that would be like this: This is the covenant commitment I made to you in Exodus. God is telling Israel that my promise to you is stronger than anything that you could have done to kill it. And that's the foundation of everything that God says next. Before God tells them what he's going to do, he reminds them of what he's already promised that he will do. His future glory rests on his past faithfulness. The same God who brought them out of Egypt, is the same God who kept the covenant with them in the wilderness, is the same God whose Spirit remained with them after the exile, the same God who promised that he would be with them as they rebuild his temple, is the same God who says now, "I'm not finished." So the next words are not merely comfort for us; it's a promise. God Promises a Glory Greater Than the Former (Haggai 2:6-9) God does not merely meet their discouragement with his presence. He meets it with future glory that is greater than anything that they lost. And that's what we see in this next section. God promises a glory greater than the former, Haggai 2:6-9. Haggai 2:6 says this: "For thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land.'" God continues by saying, "I'm about to do something. I'm about to upend history itself." That word that he uses for shake here is important because it's the same word that he used and that Moses used when he described what happened on Mount Sinai, that the mountain shook. God's using that language intentionally. He's saying what happened at Sinai is going to happen again. Sinai shook and God soon will shake the the world again. But not just them, not just Israel, not just everything around them, but the nations. He's saying the oppressors you have, I will shake, I will upend, I will disrupt history. I think we know this to be true. We know this to be true about what God promises us that he will come back one day and that he will make everything sad come untrue; that everything be made right in his second coming. I think we would confess that; we know that that's true. But it's so easy for us to live like it isn't. It's so easy for us to forget that. I think we have, without realizing it, stopped believing that God shakes things. I think we believe that God comforts, that he heals, that he inspires. We've forgotten that that he overturns, that he shakes the world. Haggai is telling us that the current arrangement of power is not final. It wasn't for Israel and it isn't for us either. The God who shakes the nations has not retired. Then he moves on to something even greater in Haggai 2:9. He says this: "The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the glory of 'than the former,' says the Lord of hosts. God had just told his people that the, the temple that they're looking at is a disappointment. And then he says something so encouraging here in Haggai 2:9. He's not telling them that the temple will be bigger or more beautiful, but he says, 'My presence will be made greater than it was before. One quick kind of thing that we don't get in our English version of this text, God is saying that this is one temple. He's saying this might be two different buildings, two different constructions, but this is one temple. There is one continuation of what God has promised to do. The building might have changed, but God's promises didn't. And that's how God does things. The temple is one continuous story from the garden to the tabernacle, from Solomon to Zerubbabel, from Jesus to the church to the new creation. Every step of the way is one promise, and that promise is the same one we see here. It is a greater glory in each step. Each step along the journey gets better and better. And I want to say this, make sure that you understand this clearly. I'm not saying that every step along the way is going to feel good. This is not a message saying that everything is going to be alright and everything's going to be fine. God brings disappointment in our life. He brings things that are hard. I don't want to move past the pain and suffering, the miseries that we experience in this life. So it doesn't mean that every congregation gets bigger, that every budget gets easier, or every generation looks more faithful than the last. But what it does mean is that the story God is writing is moving towards His glory, not away from it. The overall direction of God's— of God's story, of God moving is better and better. There's a reason for hope. We see this all throughout the Bible that Jesus is the greater temple. Jesus is the greater Jonah. He's the greater Solomon. The new covenant is greater than the old covenant. The heavenly tabernacle is greater than the earthly one. The latter glory of the gospel surpasses the fading glory of the law. And that's what this is about. It's about God's glory becoming greater and greater every step of the way, every step of our faith, every, every moment of our life. Everything that we do is about God's glory. I love the Heidelberg Catechism but the Westminster Catechism asks this question: What is the chief end of man? It's to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. That's our primary purpose as people is to glorify God because glory is the only thing that will be left throughout all eternity. Revelation 21:23 says this, I think this is beautiful, "And the city had no need for sun, of sun or moon to shine on it." for the glory of God gives it its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. We will have no need for sun in heaven. We'll have no need for the moon to illuminate where we go and what we do, because the glory of the— of God will be great enough, great enough for us to see. That's what we will use to see. God is promising this glory to the temple, but also to the church as well. Haggai 2:9 is the Old Testament seed of the entire pattern of God's glory and how it grows over time. The people in Israel's time in this passage were mourning the glory that they lost in the temple that Solomon had built. They were mourning something. That was always meant to be surpassed. They were weeping over a candle, right, right as dawn was about to break. The temple looked unimpressive because they were judging it by its components— how it was built, the stones that it was made of, the wood that it was made out of— and God was judging it by his promise. And that's what we need to hear. If ever our numbers feel small, if ever our budget feels tight, if ever we feel like culture has won and we have no hope, whenever we're discouraged, when it seems like everything is in ruins, God is telling us that he is about to shake everything up. Not to try harder, not to put more on our shoulders and just give a little bit more effort, Not to remember what used to be. He's imploring us to trust him, to trust him, to not look inward, not to look at us, but to look at what he's done, to look towards his faithfulness. Notice what God gives in the place that looks unimpressive. Haggai 2:9 ends with peace; not size, not wealth, not Not visible success; peace. The peace of his presence and the peace of his covenant. And ultimately, the peace that comes through Jesus Christ who makes peace by the blood of his cross. And that changes everything about how we look because if he can bring peace through a crucified Savior, then we have to admit that our eyes are not always a good judge of what God is doing. The cross looks like defeat. It looks like weakness. It looks like the end of the story. But God called it salvation. God called it victory. God called it glory. So the question is not, does this look impressive to me? The question is, what has God promised? And that leads us into our main idea. Main Idea Judge the work by God's promise, not by what your eyes can see. Because we worship a God who's faithful. Not just as a component of who he is, but that he is faithfulness itself. Look at your life. Look at what God has done all throughout the Bible. Has he ever failed you? Has he ever failed his people? All of God's promises come true. And yet, it's not just about being an optimist. The temple was disappointing. It was. And yet, God would use it for his glory and in even greater glory than what was there before. All throughout the Bible, God takes disappointments and turns them into testaments for his goodness and for his glory. Abraham waited decades for a son. David was anointed king and then spent years hiding in caves. The disciples followed Jesus and then watched him die on a Friday. Every single one of these stories looked like they were dead while they were living in it. And yet none of them were. And neither is yours. So what do we do with this? If God is the one who turns disappointment into glory, what does it look like to live like we actually believe that? Application Pray for What God Has for This Church — Haggai 2:9 Our first point of application is this: Pray for what God has for this church. If we judge by promise, not by sight, then our prayers need to match. Stop praying for what Prosper was or for whatever your home church is and start praying for what God says it will be. This is not the same prayer, right? One looks backward and the other looks at God. This week when you pray, when you pray for your church, when you pray for this church, don't pray, God, give us what we had. Pray, God, show us what you're building. Anytime God resurrects something from the dead, he doesn't bring it back to what it used to be; he brings it to an even greater glory. And that's Haggai 2 in a prayer and that's a prayer that God answers. Work Because God Is With You — Haggai 2:4 Second point of application is this: Work because God is with you. God commands us in this passage; God commands Israel to work. But not just to work because they've got great ideas and they can conquer, they can do the right thing. He says to work because God is with you. So teach children even when there are fewer than there used to be. So sing with conviction even when your voice seems stronger than it used to be. Invite a neighbor even if you think that they'll say no. Serve in the nursery, visit shut-ins, disciple a teenager, encourage an elder, give faithfully. Pray for someone by name. Not because prosper is impressive but because God is present. Haggai talks about God's glory filling the house. Everyone was expecting something like what had happened at the tabernacle. In Exodus 40, it says, "Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle, and everyone praised God." Everyone was weeping. But that didn't happen when this was finished. When this temple was constructed, Jewish rabbis have recorded that the Holy Spirit was missing and it seemed like God has broken his promise because he said there will be a glory in this, this place that is greater than what left it. But he hadn't broken his promise. 500 years later, after the temple was built, the presence entered it. Not with thunder, not with a cloud, not with an overwhelming display of power. It was a young mom carrying a baby. The glory came. Luke records, in the Gospel of Luke, he records Simon saying this: "Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation," that you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples a light for revelation for the Gentiles and a glory for your people in Israel. Simon said that when he met the baby Jesus as he entered the temple. The glory finally came. A greater glory did not come because the temple was more impressive. The greater glory came because Jesus walked into it. But it came far lower, far more humble than anyone had expected. Not a glory that kept sinners at a distance, but a glory that came so close that sinners could touch it. This is the greater glory. It's Jesus, the true temple, the presence of God with us, and the sacrifice for sinners. Because the glory of God is seen most clearly not in a building, filled with a cloud, but in the Son of Man lifted up on a tree. At the cross, the true temple was torn down and on the third day it was resurrected; it was rebuilt. So now, peace is not found in a place. It's not found in a physical location. Peace is found in a person—Jesus Christ crucified for sinners. That is why we judge the work not by God's promise, but by what we see. And not by what we see with our eyes, but by God's promise. Because our eyes would have looked at the cross and we would have said, "This is nothing." But God looked at the cross and said, "This is his glory." Church, hear this. Judge the work by God's promise, not by what your eyes can see. Let's stand and pray as we respond. And we're prepared to respond in worship. I'm going to invite the worship team to come forward at this time. Let's pray. Closing Prayer Father God, we praise you for who you are. We praise you that you are a God who remains with us, who promises and delivers on that promise. Father, help us not to rely on what our eyes can see but on who you are; that you are a God who is faithful and that your promises can be trusted. Father, I thank you for all of those who paid the ultimate price to serve our country so that way we could gather in a place like this, this morning. God, it's true, greater love knows nothing than this, that someone someone would lay down their life for their friend. Thank you that people have laid down their life for us to be able to worship in that freedom. God, help us to respond to your word this morning in worship and by glorifying you. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

More Concerned for the Plant Prosper Christian Reformed Church More Concerned for the Plant Jonah Mitchell Leach Sunday, November 23, 2025 Audio More Concerned for the Plant Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 43:26 Sermon Transcript Today's reading will come from Jonah 4:1 11. So please join me as we read the word of the Lord. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the Lord and said, oh, Lord, is it not that I. Isn't it not what I. Is it not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. For I know that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to live than to die. And then the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? When Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there he sat under the shade till he should see what would become of the city. Now the Lord God appointed a plant, made it come over Jonah that it might be shade over his head to save him from his discomfort. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. But when dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so it withered. When the sun arose. God appointed a scorching east wind. And the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, it is better for me to die than to live. But God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said, yes, I do well to be angry. Angry enough to die. And the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in the night. And should not I pity Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle. This is the word of the Lord. Introduction In 1914, a crew led by Ernest Shackleton set out to explore Antarctica. They were going to be the first group of people to cross the continent. His crew of 27 people and him boarded the ship called the Enterprise. This was a vessel specifically built for Antarctic navigation, trying to cut through the ice. And yet, because it was 1914 and the ship was made of wood before they hit the mainland, the ship stopped in the ice. It was seized completely. They tried for months trying to get this ship to budge free from the ice. And they lived on the ice for months as this huge ice drift, this huge sheet of ice drifted in the Antarctic Bay. This was an incredibly dangerous situation for them. This sheet of ice, because it was freezing and unfreezing, trying to budge them free, ended up. The pressure from the ice ended up smashing the hull of the boat, rendering it completely useless for them to get back home. They had no way back home. They had no radio, and no one was coming to save them. Imagine the feeling that would come over you, being in a place like that. They camped on ice floats and survived on penguin and seal meat, and they barely made it out alive. They made a daring escape on a makeshift life raft, and they made it to South America. At many points, if you read the account of them escaping and trying to survive, there were many points in this emergency that they should have all died. But incredibly, every single person made it out alive. And yet, by all accounts, this mission was a failure. They never made it on the continent. And yet, when anyone looks at this experience, no one thinks about it as a failure. Everyone survived. There's a tension in Jonah. Chapter 4. He had a plan. He had expectations. He wanted Nineveh to be judged, not forgiven. And then God relented. Jonah was furious. His expectations had been crushed like that of Shackleton's. He stood at the wreckage of his own plans. But unlike Shackleton, Jonah did not adapt. He got angry. He went outside the city. He sulked. He even said, it would be better for me to die than to live. Shackleton lost the mission that he dreamed of, but saved the lives that were entrusted to him. Jonah, on the other hand, got the mission that he dreamed of, but hated the heart of God, the outcome that God desired. Shackleton adjusted his plan to save life, and Jonah refused to adjust his heart to God's mercy. That's the tension in Jonah. Chapter 4. What happens when God's. When God ruins our plans. When God's grace ruins our plans. Big Question And that leads us to our big question. What happens when you don't get the outcome you planned for? What happens when you don't get the outcome you planned for? What happens when you get passed up for the promotion that you rightfully deserved? What happens when you lose your best employee, the one that had brought in so much business to you or had just been so loyal? What happens when you don't get the same class with your best friend? What happens when you miss that monster buck that you've been chasing all summer long? What happens when you don't get into the right college, or you lose a loved one? Or the person you thought you were going to marry ends up saying no to you. What happens when the tests come, come back with results that you were sure God was going to prevent? What happens when your spouse confesses the big secret to you? A secret that they had been hiding, or confesses that they had been having an affair? What happens when we hear heartbreaking, soul crushing news like that? When the earth seems to shatter, when the earth seems to stop spinning? And as Christians, there's even more tension, there's even more unrest in our soul because we know God is in control, that he is sovereign over everything, that he holds the world in his hand. And as Christians, we can sit there and think, God, why would you allow this to happen? We can feel the conflict in our own hearts. Here's what Jonah 4 shows us. That God's mercy is greater than our preferences. But when that mercy offends us, how will we respond? What will happen when you don't? Or what happens when we don't get the outcome we planned for? Fortunately, the Bible has answers for us. So keep your Bibles open to Jonah, Chapter four. As we see this outline or these movements in this chapter, we'll see when God's. Outline When God is too gracious for us When God's mercy corrects our misery. For the context of this passage, we've been looking at Jonah and this is our last, our last, our last chapter, our last sermon on this, on this, in this series. So if this is your first time here, you picked the very right time to come because you're going to get the entire series right here. In one nutshell, you guys were the smart people while everyone else had to spend five weeks listening to me. You guys got, you guys got one. So no, the context of this. In Jonah chapter one, Jonah runs and flees from the presence of God, hearing the word that he wants Jonah to go to Nineveh to preach repentance to them, Jonah flees to the end of the world. God appoints a fish. As Jonah is thrown overboard towards his near certain death, God saves him by the fish inside the fish. God, or God hears Jonah's pleas, his prayer, and he rescues him. He saves him. And last week in Jonah chapter three, we see Jonah finally goes to Nineveh and preaches repentance, does what God wanted him to do. Nineveh repented and God relented from the disaster that was for them. And in this chapter, God will reveal his heart to Jonah as Jonah revolts against it. So let's look at this first point, this first movement in this passage, When God is too gracious for us Verses 1 through 5, God gave Jonah a mission, a mission to preach repentance to Nineveh. He goes and does it, and guess what? It happens. They repent. God had used Jonah to preach repentance to bring an evil nation back from their sin. And that's what's so jarring about verse one. Look at verse one with me in chapter four. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, right? Chapter three, verse ten. God relents from disaster. It seems like everything's going good, but Jonah is unhappy. Jonah is exceedingly angry with God. This is written in a way to make the reader, to make us when we read this, go, how could this be? How could a prophet of God be upset with God saving people? This is a prophet's dream. Isaiah, when he gets the prophecy from God, when he gets a mission, his calling is to go and preach to. To Israel, who will never hear, who will never change. And Isaiah hears this and goes, how long are. How long am I supposed to do this? He says, until one stone is not stacked on another, until the end of time. Jonah gets a prophecy, he gets a word to preach repentance, and it happens. And Jonah is angry. And that leads Jonah to pray to God. He says in verse two and three, he says, or it says, and he prayed to the Lord. And he said, oh, Lord, is this not what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Jonah prays to God. He says, this is exactly why I wanted to run to the end of the world. This is exactly why I wanted nothing to do with your plan, nor your heart. Jonah is saying, I knew that this is what was going to happen from the start, and that's why I ran. What about for us? Have you ever felt frustrated with God because things didn't go the way you wanted, even if you knew it was right? Have you ever felt frustrated? Have you ever said to yourself, God, I knew that you would do that. That fits with your character. But I just can't get behind it. Jonah isn't shocked by God's grace. He isn't shocked by God's mercy. He's offended by it. So much so that he goes to quote Scripture against God. He quotes Exodus, chapter 34. He says this. This is a passage where Moses is hiding in the cleft of a rock. God is passing before him. And God says, this the Lord passed passed before him, Moses and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord, a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The irony that Jonah would quote this passage in this moment is unbelievable, except for it has to be from God. And I think it has to be that Jonah is also extremely frustrated with God. Jonah quotes this passage. This the context of this passage. The reason that Moses is hiding in the cleft of the rock and this is happening why? Why is it that God is proclaiming this message to Moses is that the Israelites had just built a golden calf. They had just broken the covenant that God had made with them. God, wanting to destroy them, relents from disaster of his own people and proclaims that this is who God is. He is a God who is gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. In the same moment where Jonah is furious with God that he would not save his own people, that he doesn't save his own people, that he doesn't care for Israel, he quotes a passage where God does exactly that. Jonah is furious. So Jonah tells God that it would be better off for him to die than to live. Verses 3 and 4, it says, Therefore, now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, do you do well to be angry? Jonah responds to God, I would rather die. I would rather die than be in a world where this is true. Have you ever felt so crushed by the unmet expectations that you didn't want to keep following God's will anymore, God's ways anymore? Not that you didn't believe in him, but that you didn't like what he wanted for you. Jonah is making a mistake here that too many of us make, too many people make about God. I have heard people say time and time again things like, well, if God could send people to hell, then I don't really want to worship him. If he would say that homosexuality is wrong, then I don't want to follow him. If he could make people, knowing that they would go to hell. I can't follow a God like that. Essentially, what people are saying is my version of morality, my version of what I think is right and wrong, is ultimate, is ultimately correct. If God doesn't fit my definition of good, then I'm out. I get to have the godlike standard of morality that everyone else has to submit to. Essentially, that's what we're saying. I've had Multiple people come up to me and debate about God. Usually atheists talking about whether God is real and passages like whether homosexuality is true or not, or, you know, whether, you know, creation was in six days or whether evolution is true. You know, these are the things that we get hung up on. And then I finally have to get to a spot where I say we can talk about those things after. But we have to answer this question first. Is Jesus actually God? Did he actually die for our sins? Is he actually risen? Because if that's true, if that's the point that we believe, we believe that he is God. He is seated on the throne right now. If that's what we believe, those things ultimately we can address later. Those things we can get to. But everything that we believe, everything that God then says we must submit to. Is there anything that we wouldn't do for God? These secondary things, I mean, if God. If God were to ask us to only wear the color green from here on out, or that we couldn't eat soup, or that we had to speak in Spanish from now on, or we had to hop on one leg, would we do these things for God? Or would we say, no, God, what you've asked of us is way too much. No, if he is truly God, if he's seated on the throne, there isn't anything that we shouldn't do for him. This feeling of self righteous morality, believing that he knows what's right, drives Jonah's anger into a deeper and darker place, into a place of utter distress, saying, God, it would be better for me to die than to live. And God responds with a question. He says, son, are you sure? Do you think that this is the right response? Where are these actions taking you? Are you on the right path right now? Verse 5 helps us to see furthermore what Jonah is feeling. So Jonah leaves the city in verse five and makes a hut outside the city or a booth outside the city. He does this because he's trying to get comfortable. He's trying to avoid the sun. The heat in the Middle east is not, it's not like the heat that we get in Michigan. It's not, you know, the sun isn't like, you know, in the Middle East. It's not like the first day of spring when we get sunburned. At least that's what I get because I'm the shade of sour cream. I'm pretty white and so I get burnt like crazy. But it's even more dangerous than that. It could take people's life. And so he's making this hut for himself. And he sits down. He's waiting to see God destroy the city. It's as if Jonah's outside or he's at a sports game and he's making a little booth for himself to watch, to become a spectator of what would become of Nineveh. Jonah makes himself comfortable in the hopes that he would see thousands of people suffer. God sees that Jonah is not getting the point, and that leads us into our second point, When God's mercy corrects our misery God is going to correct Jonah here in verse 6, God then appoints a plant to come up over Jonah to grow rapidly, and this results in Jonah going from exceedingly sad to exceedingly glad. And then in verse seven, God, it said, but God, or But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm to attack the plant so that it withered. Notice a familiar word that keeps coming up here that we saw in chapter one, the word appointed. Just like God had appointed a fish to rescue Jonah, the plant was more than rescue from the heat. It was there to correct Jonah. God wanted to show him something. And yet this frustrated Jonah. In verse nine, it says, but God said to Jonah, do you do well to be angry for the plant? And he said, yes, I do well to be angry. Angry enough to die, God. Jonah's essentially saying, God, I'd rather die than be in this discomfort, than be around you, who's not only not punishing Nineveh, but also forcing me to suffer in this way. Now, there's something before we move on, we have to examine here, because it's not in our English translations. It's this word raha. It's a Hebrew word that means disaster, displease, discomfort, evil, or even ugliness. This word pops up three times in this ending. It actually starts in Jonah 3, verse 10, and it pops up two more times in chapter 4. He says in Jonah 3 that the Ninevites were rescued from their disaster, or racha. In verse one of chapter four, it says, but it displeased, or Racha. It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and that he was angry that Jonah's heart was turning ugly, it was turning towards evilness, the disaster. In verse 10, it was the ugliness that would have been poured out on Nineveh. And in verse 6, Jonah is saved from his discomfort, from his raha, the ugliness that would have happened to him, the bad outcome that would have happened to him. Now, I'm not just bringing up Hebrew words because it's fun or it's Interesting. I oftentimes don't intentionally, because nobody knows Hebrew. Not even many pastors know Hebrew. It's a terrible language. Anyways. Greek I understand a little bit, but Hebrew, never mind. You guys don't need to know that. But the point in bringing this up, the point in any of this, is that Jonah writes this intentionally. The reason that this word comes up three times in this short section, the short amount of verses, is because Jonah wants us to see something here. He wants us to see something and not to miss it. The original reader wouldn't have been able to miss it. I don't want you to miss it. What Jonah is saying to the reader is what God did for Nineveh, he did for me. And I missed it. I missed it. I was wrong. I had this whole thing wrong about God. I only wanted what I wanted. I wanted what my heart desired. I didn't want God's heart. I thought that my ways were higher than his ways. I didn't see his mercy. I didn't see how beautiful he was. I didn't see how gentle he was being with me. And that's what we see in these last two verses. Verses 10 and 11. It says, and the Lord said, you pity the plant for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle? God is saying to Jonah, I saved you. I was the one who did it. I saved you in the boat. I saved you when you jumped into the sea. I'm saving you now. God's saying, I was the one who did it. But you're mad at me for doing the same thing for Nineveh. You don't even care about the cattle. You care about the plant, and you don't even care about the cattle there, let alone the people who bear my image in that city. Jonah was mad that God didn't destroy them. God was showing Jonah that he loves Nineveh, that his heart breaks for them. Jonah would have preferred for the plant to live and for Nineveh to die. He loved comfort more than compassion. And that's where God presses this question into Jonah that Jonah doesn't want to hear, that we don't want to hear. Do you pursue God's heart or just your own preferences? And that leads us to our main idea for today. Main idea: God's mercy is greater than our preferences. God's mercy is greater than our preferences. But essentially, God is asking Jonah this do you pursue my heart? Do you want to continue to act the way you think, the way you think you should? Or do you want something infinitely better? Too many people sit in church week after week feeling this feeling of God. I really just want to be able to do what I want. But I know that you, your word says that I shouldn't do these certain things, but I just. I see these as rules. And there's this tension in a lot of people's hearts who sit in churches week after week. This heart wrestling of going, these laws feel like they're keeping me from really what I want to do. The truth is, as we get to know each other more and more, I want to help you get to understand a little bit more of me. But I'm not going to be the kind of pastor who leads a moral reformation. The truth is, I don't really want you guys to leave here simply being more moral. I don't want you to leave being less moral. But if you leave here today with 10 tips on how to follow God a little bit better, you've missed the point. If you leave today here going, well, I need to try harder and be better, and God will love me for that. You've missed the point. If you want to run after your own desires, I'm not going to be the kind of pastor who stops you, because God won't stop you either. Romans, chapter one lays this out for us, actually, in some nice clarity. It says, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man. Therefore, God gave them up to the lusts of their hearts, to the impurity, to dishonoring their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. You might think, okay, that sounds pretty harsh. That sounds. It doesn't really sound that good. And yet I want to lay it on thick here. This is what God calls his wrath. I specifically left out verse 18, which is the intro to that section. It says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness. We think about God's wrath in a couple different ways. We think of it as hellfire and brimstone coming against judgment, against those who are doing wrong. But the New Testament lays it out for us like this. God is going to allow us to run after the sinful and evil desires of our heart, that is enough punishment. That's the same kind of punishment of hellfire and brimstone. And we think, wow, that seems pretty, pretty easy. Sounds like I can still do the things that I want. If you are thinking that you don't understand your sin. Our sin divorces us from our soul. It separates us from who we are. Our sin allowing us to run after our sin is torture in God's eyes. It will destroy us. This is what Jonah's doing. He's running after what he wants. God comes to Jonah and asks him, where does this path lead you? Where does living you do you lifestyle lead? How is it, how is it beneficial to you, Jonah, that you could do this? That you could run from me? Can't. The truth is you can chase what you want only for so long before you find yourself outside the loving arms God. I'm not saying that there's a place that you can run to that you can be so disobedient that you can be beyond forgiveness. That's not what I'm saying. But there is a reality that you can run so far from God that you find yourself permanently separated from him again. This isn't a try harder be better message. This isn't a if I do the things that God asks me to do, then I won't be outside God's loving arms. And that'll be good for me. No, the only way for you to follow God's law in joy, in a joyful attitude, is by pursuing his heart, is by loving Him. We can't do it any other way. A white knuckled trying to be obedient to God's law will not grant us anything except for resentment. We have to love the God who gives us his word, who gives us his law. When we love him, we'll fall in love with what he commands us to do. It's not always easy, it's not always comfortable. But it's always centered on what's true and eternal. There's a hymn by John Newton. He was the same person who wrote Amazing Grace. He wrote a hymn. It was never put to music, but it's one of my favorite pieces of literature written in all of Christianity. It says this. Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty are joined to part no more. To see the law by Christ fulfilled and hear his pardoning voice transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice. What this hymn represents is what it is talking about is at some point in our Life following our duty to God, being obedient to God was separate from our pleasure, was separate. It was a burden on us. But when we see Christ, when we become a child, when we are transformed from a slave into a child, that duty, that obedience, becomes something that's light. It becomes a choice, becomes something that we live into. That leads us to our points of application. First, we must remember God's goodness before suffering comes. One of the worst times to be given a book on suffering is when you're in the midst of it. If you've ever been there and a well intentioned Christian has given you that, it can feel, it can feel harsh. We need to prepare ourselves before suffering comes. Trials and suffering will come. This is a promise to all of us as humans, especially those of us as Christians. Are we ready? Are you ready to see God in the midst of suffering? Or will you be like Jonah and run? Jonah forgot that the same God who could be trusted, who rescued him from the sea, could be trusted with the city. If we remember God's goodness before the storm, we will forget him in the midst of it. Suffering can be hard for us individually, but some of the hardest things for us spiritually is not just our own suffering, but seeing those around us suffering, seeing our spouse, seeing our parents, seeing our children or our brothers and sisters, our friends suffer can be detrimental, can be so hard on us spiritually. My challenge for you this week is to take inventory of the things and the people in your life. Pray to God this week about how he can prepare you for suffering. That's what you got in your bulletin this week. It's a prayer, a prayer guide. I challenge you. Take 15 minutes this week, go through that, prepare your heart, because suffering will come. And if we're not ready for it now, it'll be incredibly hard for us later. Trials will happen. God will bring us through suffering. Will we pursue him or our own sense of what's right and wrong? And that leads us into our last point of application. Recognize the danger of loveless orthodoxy. The reality is that Jonah had good, good theology. He even quoted scripture. The problem isn't that Jonah didn't believe the right things. It's that Jonah didn't love God's heart. The thing about us as reformed people is that we don't just love being right, we love knowing that we're right. Probably more than any other denomination, that's true of us. I feel that I've. I had a professor say that to me once and I was like, oh, that cuts right to the Heart. It's easy for us to say that God is powerful and yet we don't fear God. It's easy for us to sing songs about God's mercy and yet demand justice of all the people around us. It's easy for us to say that God is infinite and yet try to force him into a box small enough, small enough that we believe we can control Him. Having good theology is often like obedience. If we do it out of a heart that is not in love with God, it is meaningless. You will not be able to be joyfully obedient or have good theology without loving God. And if you try, you will miss the point entirely. The truth is, Satan can pick up God's word and say that this whole book is inerrant, that there's not one word in here that isn't true. Satan can say that. He just hates that. It is true. He hates it. Jonah's theology was flawless, but his heart was frozen. He could quote Exodus, but he couldn't rejoice in it. Orthodoxy without love is idolatry. Don't pass up delighting in God, delighting in the heart of God for something so shallow as having good orthodoxy, good theology. It's an idol that leads us actually away from God. How is it that we can run in joyful righteousness? How is it that we can love theology and not be a shell? It's not idolatry. Why is it that we can pursue God's heart? It's because on the cross Jesus heart was was crushed. Jesus heart was pierced and water flowed out of it. God wanted, or Jonah wanted Nineveh to perish and Jesus died to save the Ninevites on the cross. God crushed the heart of His Son so that ours could be made new. This is why we can pursue God's heart. It's because his grace, his mercy, already pursued us. Jonah ran from God's heart. Jesus revealed God's heart for sinners. Jonah sat outside the city waiting and hoping for judgment. Jesus went outside the city ready to bear our judgment, the judgment for us. We can love good works, we can love righteousness, good theology, obedience, and not have it be idolatry. Because we can love the heart of the infinite, God of the universe, a heart that bursts forth with mercy for the undeserving Ninevites and for us as undeserving sinners, prosper as we leave here. But let's be reminded that God's mercy is greater than our preferences. Do you pursue God's heart? Would you stand with me as we pray? And prepare to respond in worship. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Thanksgiving Prosper Christian Reformed Church Thanksgiving Thankfullness Mitchell Leach Thursday, November 27, 2025 Audio Thanksgiving Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 32:46 Sermon Transcript Our scripture reading for today comes from Psalm 100. If you have got a Bible, please open your Bible with me to that. Psalm 100: 1-5. Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come into his presence with singing. Know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name, for the Lord is good, and his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. ' This is the word of the Lord. In 1944, Cori Tenenbaum and her sister Beste were taken to Ravensbrook, one of the most brutal women's concentration camps in Nazi Germany. They were cramped into wooden barracks built for 400 people, but now holding more than 1400. The stench was overwhelming. They slept on straw that was rotten. Their bunks were crawling with fleas. Cori wrote in in a book called The Hiding Place, that the first night that they arrived, she cried out, Beste, how can we live in such a place? But Beste, who had smuggled in a small Bible, opened it to 1 Thessalonians 5: 18, which says, Give thanks in all circumstances. Cori said, Not for the flees. Flees, never for the flees. But Beste insisted, Give thanks in all circumstances. It doesn't say just the pleasant ones. And so standing in a concentration camp, they bowed their heads and gave thanks. They gave thanks for the flees. They gave thanks for being together, that they had a Bible. And finally, with reluctance, finally, Cori gave thanks for the flees. Later, they discovered something astonishing, that the guards never searched or entered into their barracks because of the flees. They never checked on them. They never interrupted them. And because of this, because of the flea infested barracks, it meant that they could pray, that they could read scripture, that they could worship together and share Christ with hundreds of prisoners without interference. Later, Cori wrote, We could thank God for the flees because the flees kept the guards out and the word of God was read every day. This is not a vague thankfulness. It's not sentimentalism, but it's directed. A directed thankfulness at God because of his purposeful giving and ordaining the flees to them. That's the praise. That's the thankfulness that we see in Psalm 100 that it calls us to. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and give thanks to him. So it leads us to this question. I don't know if I've got this thing. Here we go. Our big question for this morning, what should a Christian do on Thanksgiving? What should a Christian do on Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving is one of the few days of the year that the whole country agrees on. Everyone thinks we know what it's for. For some, Thanksgiving is simply about being grateful for the good things in our life. Your job, your family, your home, your wealth. These are wonderful gifts. But being grateful for blessing isn't the same as being grateful to God. For others, Thanksgiving is a chance to pause and appreciate life. It's to take a breath, get a chance to rest, and to get some perspective. It's a chance to not see your boss for one day of the week. But appreciating life isn't the same as worship. Some people treat Thanksgiving as a day to count our blessings. It's a positivity exercise. But positivity isn't something that can sustain our soul. For many, Thanksgiving is mostly about family. And that's a beautiful thing. It shouldn't not be about family, but family isn't the object of our praise either. Others see Thanksgiving as a moment to look at how far things have come. It's a yearly milestone. How were things last year and how are things this year? To look at our hard work, our success, our resilience. But that Thanksgiving ends with us. And even in Christian homes, Thanksgiving can quietly become, Lord, thank you for this food and for all the things that are basically good. Amen. The world applauses all of these things, and none of them are wrong in and of themselves, but they don't answer the deeper question, do any of these things actually turn our hearts towards God? Do they shape us into worshippers or simply into people who feel vaguely thankful? Here's what I want you to notice. None of these things that I just listed are bad. Family is good. Gratitude is good. Pausing to reflect. Rest is good. Not seeing your boss is good. Except for Jolene, sorry, today. But none of these things lead us or require us to be thankful to God. You could do every one of them today and never once enter into his presence. And that's the danger. That's the danger of today, is to feel thankful without worshiping, to feel blessed without actually blessing God. And that brings us to the real question, what should a Christian do on Thanksgiving? Fortunately, the Bible has answers for us, so keep your Bibles open to Psalm 100, because we're going to find our answers there. Psalm 100 isn't just a way on how to give thanks. It gives us a God-centered pattern for worship on our best days and our worst. So let's walk through it together. Let's look at these two movements in this Psalm. Verses 1 through 3, we're going to see how to know the King. Verses 4 through 6, we're going to be invited to enter into his courts. We're going to summarize this chapter, these five verses into a sentence. It would be this, All the earth praises the steadfast God with a servant-based thankfulness. So let's look at this first section, verses 1-3, Know the King. You cannot give thanks deeply unless you know the one you're thanking. A little bit of history before we get into diving into this text. This Psalm would have been read as the Israelites would have made their way to the temple, into Jerusalem, as they made a pilgrimage into one of the festivals. They would have started with Psalm 90 once they got to the city and finished with Psalm 100 once they got to the temple. Imagine that scene. Hundreds, thousands of people worshiping God together, singing these Psalms as they are eager to enter into his presence. The temple was the fixture. That's where the holy place, the dwelling place of God was. Everyone excited to be close to it, to be just close to the proximity of where God would dwell on earth. These verses give us instruction on what it is we're supposed to do when we gather. It was giving the instruction on what the Israelites were supposed to do. Before we talk about what we're supposed to do on Thanksgiving, this psalm starts by telling us who we're doing it for. You cannot give thanks deeply unless you know the one who you're thanking. Thanksgiving grows out of our theology, out of knowing who God is and what he's done for us and why he deserves praise. This passage, it tells us what we're supposed to do when we gather together. As a pastor, I have the privilege of marrying. I've married more than, I think, 20 couples so far in my career, and the rehearsals are always the most fun, and They're the most nightmarish part of the whole scenario. The rehearsal is a fun time because it's the anticipation, and we get to mess up before anything actually is legitimate or needs to be official. But it's also a time because it can be chaotic because nobody really knows what they're doing. It's my job as a pastor to tell people and to give instructions on what the bridal party is supposed to be doing. The bridal party, oftentimes, if you don't know, Bridesmaids, they always have it figured out. They know exactly what to do, and the broomsmen are like, they're lost most of the time. Even if they're standing in the right spot, they look like just a lost puppy up there. My instruction is always look at what the girls are doing and just mirror them. But this Psalm tells us what we're supposed to be doing in worship as we gather together. This first intro section, the first three verses tell us this, that we're supposed to make a joyful noise, that we're supposed to serve God, that we're supposed to come into his presence and know that he is God. First, let's look at verse one, make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. This is a call. It's a command for Israel. It's a call and command for us. This language, the language of making a joyful noise, is the same language that would be used of someone when they were blowing a trumpet or a horn. That might sound like a weird thing to talk about, but I I want to stop on this just for a minute. In Israel, they didn't have microphones, they didn't have speakers, they didn't have the music that we had. They couldn't amplify sound. And so a trumpet, a horn would have been one of the loudest and a glorious sound as multiple trumpets rang out in harmony together, it would have invaded, it would have enveloped the space that they were in. A horn would have been a a glorious noise. And this call for us is to make a joyful noise all the earth. It is to make a noise that is so glorious, that is worthy of the God we worship. Think about the most moving music that you've listened to recently. Not just beautiful, but music that is loud, music that you can hear from outside the car, outside the building. That's the of feeling or emotion that this word is carrying. That all the Earth in harmony together would worship God in this way. That the rivers and the wind, the The trees and the animals would all make a glorious noise that praises God, that moves us, that stirs us into further worship. We make a glorious noise because our God is glorious. So who should do this? The call is for all the Earth to do this because our God is sovereign. He is sovereign over every single thing in this world, and therefore, every single thing on this rock should praise God. Jesus says this in Luke 19. He says, I tell you, if these were silent talking about his disciples, that the very stones would cry out. All of creation will praise God. Our God is so amazing that all of creation could make its best sound ever, and it still wouldn't be enough. It still would not be too much to glorify God. In these first two verses, God is assembling his people. He's calling his people to come to him. Verse 2, it says, serve the Lord with gladness, come into his presence with singing. The same word, this is the same word that God gives Adam for working the ground before the fall, that word to serve. It's a word that... It means work, but it doesn't mean toil. It means to joyfully and intentionally do something, but for it not to drain the life out of you. It reminds me of my father-in-law. He rebuilt a classic car, a classic pickup truck. When I asked him about the that he had to do to it because he built it from the ground up. Not a moment. I can see it in his eye. Not a moment of that was toil. Not a moment of that was labor. It was all joy. It built him up. Have you ever seen A woman with a great garden. My grandma used to keep an amazing garden. I remember talking with her about that, the joy that she had in that. She's out there tilling, she's out there working, and yet it's light, it's easy, it's a joy. This is the service that we're supposed to bring to God. Serving the Lord with gladness is not supposed to be something that brings us toil or is labor-intensive. Yet we're called to enter before the King and worship in a way that does take effort, that is intentional, that the final product is beautiful. It couldn't just haphazardly be put together. It was something that took work. But it wasn't labor, it wasn't toil. And that leads us to understanding who we belong to in verse three and where we belong. Verse three says, know that the Lord, he is God. It is he who made us, and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. We are to come before the King. Who's our king? Our king is the Lord. Our king is the eternal God. He made us We are His. We are His people. And he wants us. He wants us to be with Him. He wants us to dwell with Him. That's why he came back. That's something that we get to see and we get to worship in a different way than the Israeli who sang this Psalm originally. We get to know that we have God dwelling with us all the time. We have the Holy spirit who is living with us. That call for him to be with us all the time leads us into our second point, to enter into his courts, verses 4 through 6. That we come before God with thanksgiving. We enter his gates with thanksgiving. What does this mean? What does this mean to come before him, to enter with thanksgiving? It means that we come before him, that we seek him out, and we sing and worship and thank him for for who he is and what he's done. We don't just thank him for the things that make our life better. We thank him for what he's done in our life, for who he is. I think oftentimes we don't think about this, but our God does not have any requirement to be good. God does not need to be good, and yet our God is. I I think it's something that we overlook often. It's something that struck me this morning. But our God is good. He is good to us. He is faithful to us. And that's one reason that we can be thankful today. Another thing that I want to point out in this verse is that it is a command. This whole psalm is a command. It's not a suggestion because we were made to worship. The Westminster Catechism, the question and answer number one, says, what is the chief end of man? It's a reformed catechism. It's just Presbyterian. It's the same reform. I don't need to get into the history. It's good. I can tell you the history of it later. But Westminster Catechism says, What is the chief end of man? Or what is the primary purpose of man? It is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. This is how things should have been in the garden. This how we should have operated. We were made to be thankful. But to whom should we be thankful? It's to God. Ephesians 5: 20 says this. It's going too far. Giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today, we will talk about what we're thankful for, hopefully Probably gathered around some edible poultry. But rarely do we stop and talk about to whom we're thankful for. Who are we thankful to? This whole Psalm makes it very clear that God is about God, that he's for God, and that this praise is to God. Like a wedding, what I tell the bridal party is that if you get lost at any point, you can't follow the bridesmaids. Look to the bride. That's who you're supposed to be turning towards. That's who you're supposed to be facing the whole time. When she's walking in and when she's Standing up here, that's who you're supposed to be turning towards. But people, prosper church. Look to Christ. Look to God. That's who we're supposed to be looking towards. As we gather, we look to God. When we're thankful, we look to God. When we're in doubt, we look to God. When we have a festival or celebration, we look to God. When everything isn't going well, we look to God. Maybe this year has been heavy for you. Maybe this year, as you set your Thanksgiving table, there's an empty chair. Maybe your finances are tight or your relationships are strained. Psalm 100 isn't about pretending everything's fine. It's inviting you to bring everything that you have into his courts because he is good even when life isn't. He wants us to enter in. He wants us to come before him because he loves us. He wants us to be close with him. We are his creation. Whether we recognize it or not, the truth is there is a longing in our hearts that we want to be in his presence, too. Because we know deep down in each and every one of our souls that we are satisfied only and completely by him. Let's look at verse 5, our last verse in this psalm. For the Lord is good, his His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations. The great part about today, the great part about our God is that he is good, that he will never let you go. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Think about one event this moment, one event or one moment this year where you've seen God's thankfulness, or that you've seen God's faithfulness and that you can be thankful. Our main idea for today is to enter into God's presence with Thanksgiving. Enter into God's presence with thanksgiving. Enter into God's presence with thanksgiving. That's the heart of this psalm. Thanksgiving isn't just a feeling. It's not just something that happens to us when life is going well. Thanksgiving is an act a moment of the heart and body towards God. Come into his presence. Enter into his courts. Sing, serve, and know. The psalm is filled with verbs. It calls us to move. Not just hope that we'll be thankful or that we'll get it right. There's a part that we often look. Coming into God's presence requires effort. Israel saying this Psalm on their way to Jerusalem. Many of them had been walking for days through the dust, over hills, in the heat, possibly danger. And yet they made the effort to come to God's presence just so they could gather with God's people in God's presence. It wasn't convenient, it wasn't comfortable, but it was always worth it. The same question sits in front of us. Will Will you still worship when it's inconvenient? Will you still be thankful to God when it's inconvenient? When your body's tired, when your schedule is full, when your emotions feel flat, and when life isn't going like you hoped it would? Thanksgiving is not the reward of a perfect life. It is the response to a faithful God. The Psalm is telling us, make the effort, turn your heart, lift your voice, come near to him because he has come near to you. So the question becomes, what does this actually look like for us today? How do we live out Psalm 100 in real ordinary life? Not just during a holiday meal, but as people as God's people every week. The Psalm gives us a pattern, but now let's consider how we need to walk it out together. Let's move from the text of this Psalm into the lives, into some practical application. That leads us to our application. The first is to worship together. The Psalm clearly calls us to come, come into his courts with thanksgiving, enter into his presence, come together. This passage is talking about gathering God's people in the temple before God. And so now, it doesn't only mean coming to church, but it absolutely does mean coming to church. Means being in a local body and worshiping regularly with them. Hebrews 10: 25 says this, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near. Often people I hear people say, I can worship on my own, I can worship on the deer blind or on the golf course or on the lake. But worshiping together with fellow believers is a crucial part of our faith. If you physically cannot be with other Christians, absolutely You can worship anywhere. But there is something special about being with God's people in God's house on the Lord's Day. That leads us into our last point of application. Don't disguise idolatry as thankfulness. Today, we're probably going to go around the table and talk about what we're thankful for. It's a great thing, but there's a heart posture that can lead us into idolatry and disguise it as thankfulness. I like to call this the difference between cat and dog theology. If you have a cat and a dog, you'll get this. But a dog looks at their owner and says, I am so lucky that I have such a great owner. And a cat looks at his owner and says, You are so lucky that you have such a good cat. And oftentimes, that can be our attitude towards God. Not that cats are worse than dogs. I won't say that from the pulpit. But I encourage you to adopt the viewpoint that says that we are so lucky that have such a good God, not that God is so lucky or the people around us are so lucky that they have such a good person in front of them. That tone will change how we're thankful and to whom we are thankful for. On feasts in Israel, it was common to kill animals for sacrifice. It was common to enter into the temple and smell the aroma of meat roasting. It's probably the some of the same smells we'll smell later today. Why did Israel do this? Why would Israel have to do this? It was to be pure before God. As they were getting close to God's presence, they had to be purified. They couldn't enter his presence by being unclean. How is it that we can enter into his presence? That we can enter his gates with thanksgiving now? It's because Jesus on the cross became impure for us. He became the defiled one. In the Old Testament, no one entered into God's presence without a sacrifice. They needed a substitute. They needed cleansing. And that's still true for us today, but Christ has provided that for us once and for all. Jesus has become the sacrifice. He became unclean so we could be made clean. He was cast out so we could be brought in. He lost the presence of God so that we could enjoy it forever. So yes, enter into his gates with thanksgiving, not because life is easy, not because everything is going your way, but because Christ has made a way. Prosper Church, enter into God's presence with thanksgiving today. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for who you are, that you are good, that your steadfast love endures forever, and that you have faith gratefulness to all generations. God, I pray as we come together to worship you today, to be thankful today, I pray that we would not waste this opportunity to be vaguely thankful for how good life is or to just have a positive spin on this year. God, I pray that we would see you as our ultimate joy in Thanksgiving. God, help us to respond as we worship today, as people changed by your word. Father, we love you and we love to do your will, so help us do that. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Would you stand as we sing our closing song? When the Father is filled to your endless thoughts, when your heart is nourished, thinking all is lost, come, your many blessings, take them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. God, your blessing, take them one by one. God, your blessing, see what God has done. God, your blessing, make them one by one. Without your many blessings, see what God has done. Are you ever burdened with a lot of care? Does the crossing that you are called to bear? Not too many blessings, every doubt will find, and you will be singing as the days go by. Not too that others lift their hands and roll. They that Christ has promised you his love untold. No too many blessings might be cannot die. You're rewarded, then we're all on high. God, your blessings, give them one by one. Hear this blessing. May the Lord who made you and calls you his own, fill your heart with thanksgiving today. May his goodness be your comfort, his steadfast love, your song, and his faithfulness, your strength in every generation. Now go in the joy of his presence, and serve the Lord with gladness. Amen. Do not be discouraged, God is over all. Don't your many blessings, angels, care of me. How can comfort give you to your journey's end? How much your blessings taken one by one? How much your blessings be what's on God has done. God, He pushed me, gave them one by one. Not so many of us can see what God has done., give them one by one. Not sure any God since he would God have done. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

The Blessing of Abraham Prosper Christian Reformed Church The Blessing of Abraham Come Thou Long Expected Mitchell Leach Sunday, December 21, 2025 Audio The Blessing of Abraham Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 31:16 Sermon Transcript Our scripture reading for this morning comes from Genesis 12: 1-9. If you have a Bible, or you can use the Bible in the seat back, if you don't, that is our scripture reading for this morning. We are in the third, fourth sermon in this series called Come Thou Long-Expected, where we're looking at the journey through Genesis of the promised seed or the promised offspring of the one who would come and crush the head of the snake. And this morning we're going to be looking at the call of Abraham. So Chapter 12, verses 1 through 9. This is God's word. Now the Lord said to Abraham, 'Go from your country and your kindred in your father's house to the land I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abraham went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Heron. And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their possessions in Hairan, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the Oak of Moroth. And at that time, the Canaanites were in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring, I will give this land. ' So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. From there, he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, and Bethel on the west of AI, on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abraham journeyed on still going towards makeup. This is the word of the Lord. Our world is broken. And it's not just us as Christians who see this. Secular writers and authors have seen this same thing, this problem that plagues this human project that we're a part of. In 1945, an author noticed this, and he wrote a book commenting on the human condition. The author, George Orwell, wrote a book, The Animal Farm. It's a story of a group of animals who revolt against their human owner to overthrow his power. They believe that the problem in their world was external. It was the farmer. That if they remove him, they can create a fair and just and equal society. And at first, everything looks good. The old rules are torn down. Equality is promised. But slowly, the pigs are the ones who are leading the revolution begin to change. They take more power. They rewrite the rules. They claim that everything that they're doing is for the good of everyone else. But the book ends by saying this, the animals looked from pig to man and from man to pig and could no longer tell which was which. The corruption got so bad at one point that one pig says, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell wrote Animal Farm as a warning, as a warning that removing oppression does not remove sin. And And that revolutions fail when the human heart remains untouched. And that leads us into our big question, can our world be fixed from the inside? If we just change the systems, if we replace leaders, if we educate people better, if we rearrange power, if we pass the right laws or advance far enough in technologies, would this bring a just society? Would this fix our world? This is our modern cred that humanity, given enough time and refinement, can heal itself. And we see it everywhere. Every election promises a turning point. Every movement says that this time it'll be different. Every generation is confident that it sees with the last one missed. We don't just believe in progress. We need to believe in it. Because if our world can't be fixed from within, it means that the problem isn't just out there, but our problem is here. History interrupts our optimism. New systems produce old sins. New leaders repeat ancient failures. Power changes hand, but corruption stays put. The faces change, but the hearts remain. Animal farm isn't shocking because it's extreme. It's unsettling because it's familiar. The revolution that promised equality in the book ended up finding the same heart, the same desires, quietly climbing back to the top, which raises an uncomfortable question for us that we rarely ask. What if the problem in our world isn't simply bad structures, isn't simply having the right people in power? But what if it's our brokenness? What if the reason that every attempt at utopia collapses isn't because we were not trying hard enough, but it's that the human condition seeps into every new experiment, every new world we try to create? That's the tension that we're left with after the flood in Genesis, a cleansed Earth, and yet it's the same old story. So the question remains not just for scripture, but for us. Can our world be fixed from the inside? Or do we need help that is from outside our story altogether? Unfortunately, the Bible has answers for us, so keep your Bibles open to Genesis 12: 1. We're going to be looking at a large swath of scripture today. Our first section will be who will bless the nations. We're going to look at verses one through nine. And then the second section, we're going to look at the rest of the Book of Genesis. We're not going to go verse by verse, but we're really tracing what happens with this family and what will happen with this family. Before we hear God's promise to Abraham, we need to see the space that we're in. We need to remember how desperate the story has become. Genesis 3 starts off by showing us the fall that Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. But we don't get to move on further without God promising that he will bring someone through the offspring of Eve who will redeem all of humanity. But in the very next chapter, the offspring, Cain, murders his brother Abel. The promise line does not bring rescue, but it brings bloodshed. Sin becomes such a problem that by Genesis 6, God sends a flood to cleanse the Earth. And the people that we're left with after the Earth, unfortunately, look a lot like the people who were there before. What we're left with, still no savior. From Eden to exile, from family to flood, God has shown us a pattern. God keeps making promises, and humanity does almost everything it can to try not to fulfill it. The question hanging over the story is no longer, is this world broken? We know this world is broken. The question remains whether God will keep his promise to fix it. So let's look at who will bless the nations, verses one through nine. Where we're left at in this story after the flood is seemingly hopeless. There is no savior, is no redeemer, no one to crush the head of the snake. We're left in a world that has failed every test from God. And yet we see a God who speaks not in anger, but in promise. So let's look at verses one through three. They say this, Now the Lord said to Abraham, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I'll bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you. I will curse, and in you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Notice what God is doing here, what he's saying, what he promises Abraham. He promises him a people, a place, and a purpose far bigger than anything Abraham could have dreamed of. We see now, again, in the story of Genesis, God is doing something. It's not just that something is happening. It's not just that the plot is moving forward, but God is doing something again. Notice what God doesn't say to Abraham here. He doesn't say, I will bless you so you can be more comfortable or that you can have an easier life or take these blessings and make them work for you. No, he says, I will bless you so you can be a blessing. I think that forces us to ask a question of ourselves, do we treat God's gifts as a way to bless others or as a way to become more comfortable? When blessing stops with us, it's actually no longering. This is not what God wanted for us. This is not the blessing that God wanted, or it's not what God wanted us to use his blessing for. It's not what God wanted Abraham to use his blessing for. His blessing. Is far bigger than that. It's not just that he will become a good nation or that he'll bless other nations. It's that he will be a blessing to the entire world, to all of humanity. It says that all the families of the earth will be blessed. This is not God choosing one family instead of the world. It's God choosing one family for the world. If God brings blessing to the world through ordinary obedience, I think we should ask ourselves, or maybe we shouldn't ask ourselves, Am I changing the world? But rather, Am I being faithful where God has already put me? I think we need to ask, How do we speak to people when we're tired? How do we handle frustration? How do we treat people who have nothing to give us? How will we handle those ordinary moments of quiet obedience? Because God will work mightily through them, far more than we think. I think that's how God changes the world through those little moments. Finally, in this passage, what we see is that the one who will reverse the curse from Genesis 3 is going to come from Abraham. The promise will happen. This is God reaffirming that his covenant is true, that God is sending a rescuer. This is a better sound. It should be a better sound in our ears than if we were stranded on a desert island and we heard a rescue plane, we all presently today, we all feel the after shock of the fall reverberating through our lives. Every time we see death in our world, every time we experience heartache, every time we're betrayed, every time we long for true satisfaction, and we can't find it, we can see that our world broken. Deep in our souls, we know there has to be something better than this. For the first time since Eden, the future sounds hopeful. Imagine being Abraham hearing this. Imagine what joy would have over load in his heart. We can narrow the scope on where the savior will come from. And yet there's a problem. Sarah is barren. Yet God will intentionally choose to use an unlikely woman in an unlikely way to bring forth the child of promise, just like he would hundreds of years later in a little town in Bethlehem. And that's what she does. She conceives miraculously and gives birth to Isaac. But even here, Genesis teaches us to hold our breath because God promises the blessing will come through Abraham, not from him. It forces us to ask, what will happen with this family? We get to this spot where Abraham is finally given a son. We have to think, is this it? Imagine you're an Israeli child hearing these stories for the first time. Maybe you're at some festival and your uncle is telling you about the story of Abraham. Moses writes the Book of Genesis in a way that forces us to ask every time we come to a new character in the Book, Is this going to be the one. He carefully authors this in a way that strings us along to force us to ask that question. We ask that with Cain and Abel. We asked that with Noah and his sons. And now we ask that with Abraham, who later becomes Abraham. But it isn't him. Later in the story, Abraham disqualifies himself. He has a child with his wife's servant. He lies about his wife being his sister. We see the fall reverberating through Abraham's life. We see him choosing to define what is good and evil in his own eyes. From this point on in Genesis, Genesis begins to repeat itself like a drum beat. Promise, hope, failure, death. Promise, hope, failure, death. And so now our attention turns to Isaac, Abraham's son, Abraham's son, who as a child, is part of a story that points directly to the gospel. Abraham is asked to bring his only son up on a mountain and to sacrifice him, and yet God provides a ram as a substitute. It's an example of how the Old Testament continually points to the need of a better savior. The Old Testament points to the need of the advent story. So Isaac grows up, and through his wife, Rebecca, gives birth to a boy. Isaac, the child of promise, grows old, dies, still waiting for the promise. And so now we look at his children, Jacob and Esa. God tells Rebecca that These two will be at odds, and they are. Jacob tricks his brother into selling him his birthright. Later, Jacob tricks his dad, Isaac, into giving him the family blessing. Jacob becomes the one who will carry out the promise he will be the new covenant representative, even though it disqualified him from being the one who could complete it by tricking his dad and his brother. It leaves us wondering, is this just another failed experiment. Jacob wrest with God and has renamed Israel. Jacob is the one who has 12 children. And at this point, the reader has to surely think one of these 12 has to be the one. Just a law of big numbers. It's got to be of these guys. A lot happens with these sons. They're important. They become the 12 tribes of Israel. And this is where we get the story of Joseph in the multicolor coat. A lot happens with these brothers that we can't cover this morning. But in the remaining chapters, what happens is that the promised family leaves the promised land in exile and moves to Egypt. And the story ends here in chapter 50, it's the last chapter, the last section of the book. It says, So Joseph died being 110 years old. They involved him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. The Book of Genesis ends not with a throne, but with a coffin. The promise alive, but the people are not. Joseph dies in Egypt. Like animal farm, Genesis ends with a dream still written, the world unchanged, staring death instead of deliverance. Hebrews 11 is the famous chapter where it recounts all of the Old Testament saints. It's called the Hall of Faith, all these people who had exemplary faith. It talks about Abraham and his family. It says this in verse 13, talking about these people, These all died in faith, not not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth. All the Old Testament, all of Genesis, the lineage This family looks from afar, not seeing the promise come through. No snake crusher. Every single person dies being disqualified from being the one who can defeat what Adam and Eve brought into the world. That's what we've been doing in this sermon series. That's why we've been tracing the seed of the woman, the offspring, the promise. It's all throughout Genesis. It's as if each character we interact with is crying out, 'Come thou long-expected Jesus? ' Genesis ends in death. No savior on the horizon. Time after time, people choose to define what is right and wrong in their own eyes rather than trusting God. Genesis is a genealogy of humanity's failed attempt to save itself. We cannot fix the world from the inside. We do not have the ability to. No matter how hard we try, no matter what tactics we employ, Genesis is clear, no one born in sin will be able to save themselves, let alone save anyone else. That leads us to our main idea. We long for a redeemer who will defeat what we couldn't. We long for a redeemer who will defeat what we couldn't. This longing is not accidental. It's not weakness. It's design. Genesis shows us that we were made to live in blessing, not under the curse, to flourish under God's rule rather than trying to grasp and to scramble for control. So when the world feels fractured, when relationships break, when our bodies fail, when justice ends. Don't stop longing. We can't stop longing. The problem isn't that we hope. The problem is where we aim our hope at. Every generation in Genesis feels the ache that surely this will be the one. And every generation ends the same way with another coffin. So we learn something crucial. If redemption is going to come, it has to come from outside the story. And yet we, as a people, continue to try, try to save ourselves. We try to redeem ourselves through success, through family harmony, through control, through being right, through getting back to how things used to be. I mean, especially in Christmas, that desire is there. The expectations intensify. Christmas tempts us to believe that this year, finally this year, Something will save us. Something will bring us what we truly need. But it doesn't. It can't. Advent, it's not what advent's about. Advent doesn't train us to hope harder. It trains us to hope rightly. And that's where Genesis presses on us, not to condemn us, but to prepare us. Because if we cannot receive a savior, or we cannot receive a savior if we are trusting in a substitute, and that leads us into our points of application. I've got to mix up here, but we're going to start with the second one. Let advent expose our false messias. Advent has a way of bringing out the false things we like to worship. And especially, especially this week, as we are just a couple of days away from Christmas, it reveals what we truly believe will save us. When time runs out, when emotions rise, when expectations peak, Whatever we believe, whatever we're counting on to make things okay, that's what you believe in. Ask yourself, what do you think would finally make things right? What would be the one thing that would happen that would ruin Christmas? What outcome are you quietly hoping will justify you? Advent doesn't shame us for these answers. It clarifies these. Whatever you ask to save you will will one day ask everything from you. This season, we don't just celebrate Christ coming. It reveals everything that we hope would have come instead. An advent doesn't end by telling us to try harder or to be better. It ends in pointing us to a savior who came anyway, who came even though we could not save ourselves. When the calendar fills and the pressure rises, our saviors, our false saviors, will reveal themselves. And it leads us to our second point, have hope bigger than your lifetime. Genesis teaches us something uncomfortable. Sin is never private. Adam's disobedience did not stay with Adam. Cain's worship did not just affect him. It fractured a family, then a culture, and then the entire world. Cain's legacy. His lineage is marked by violence. Lamech, his offspring, boasts about that violence generations later. By the time we reach Noah, it has invaded every aspect, every corner of creation. It travels quietly. Sin goes and multiplies when it goes unrepented. This is why scripture never lets us say, This is my life. I get to do with it what I want. I'm in control. Yes, our choices are personal, but they are never isolated. What you normalize today, someone else will inherit. What you excuse, someone else will... They will repeat. What you refuse to repent of, someone else will suffer from. But Genesis also shows us something hopeful. That grace is generational, too. God promises blessing through Abraham to a people Abraham will never meet. Faithfulness plants seeds whose fruit grow long after they're gone. And that's why Adam's hope is bigger than one lifetime. God works through families, through communities, through histories, not just single individual people or individual moments. So ask yourself, not only what am I allowed to do, but what am I allowing to pass on? Because your repentance today may interrupt cycles tomorrow. Your obedience may become someone else's safety. Your faith today may spare generations, wounds you will never see. So hope bigger than your lifetime, because both grace and sin echo far beyond us. Genesis ends with a death. But advent begins with a birth. Hope has come. Heaven meets Earth. Love has come down. Grace is clothed in skin, pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel. Jesus comes as our long-expected redeemer. The death that ends Genesis confirms terms the curse, but the death we see on the cross was there to end the curse. This is why we celebrate Christmas. This is why we celebrate Advent. Our savior has come. Our savior has come to take our place. Jesus came to be the better Adam, came to be the better Abraham, the better Noah, the better Joseph, the better Isaac. We talked about that earlier in the story that Isaac followed his father up a hill, carrying wood on his back, obedient even to the point of death. And yet a ram was caught in the brambles as a sacrifice. Jesus would come, and he would be the lamb who would be our substitute, following his Father up a hill, carrying wood on his back to take our place. We could not reach up to heaven, and so heaven came down to us. This is what we remember this advent season. We long for a redeemer who will defeat what we couldn't. Let's stand and pray together as we prepare for worship. Stand and pray. Father, we thank you for who you are, that you are a God who condescented, who came to us. You sent your son to take our place. Thank you for being our substitute, our savior. Thank you for humbling yourself to being born here on earth, humbling yourself to being put to death on a cross. God, we love you. We love to do your will. So help us do that as we respond in worship here this morning. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Before we get to our song, you guys can come up. Before we get to our song, I want to read this closing benediction, and then we will sing our closing song. May the God who calls us out by grace keep you from trusting in in what you cannot save. May your hope rest in Christ alone, the one promised to Abraham and given for the life of the world. Go in faith, hope, in peace. Amen. Go tell it on the mountain, the one that we've been waiting for, the King of our salvation. Born on this day, our savior, Christ the Lord. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere, that we can be forgiven. The weight of all our sin he came to bear. Emmanuel God with us, Emmanuel King Jesus, the savior of the world is born. Emmanuel God with us, Emmanuel King Jesus, savior of the world is born. Go tell it on the mountain. Humbly in a manger lay. Mercy sent from heaven. Angels till the sky with highest grace. Emmanuel, God with us Emmanuel, King Jesus, the savior of the world is born. Emmanuel, God with us, Emmanuel, King Jesus, the savior of the world is born. We tell it on the mountain. This baby born of Virgin birth, the ruler of all nations, the glory of our God has come to earth. Emmanuel, God with us. Emmanuel, King Jesus, savior of the world is born. Emmanuel, God with with us, Emmanuel, King Jesus, The savior of the world is born. We'll tell it on the mountain. This baby born of virgin birth, the ruler of all nations, the glory of our God has come to Earth. Emmanuel, God with us. Emmanuel, King Jesus, the savior of the world is born. Emmanuel, God with us. Emmanuel, King Jesus, the savior of the world is born. The savior of the world is born. The savior of the world is born. The savior of the world is born. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Lord's Day 12 Prosper Christian Reformed Church Lord's Day 12 In Life & In Death Mitchell Leach Sunday, February 1, 2026 Audio Lord's Day 12 Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 22:33 Sermon Transcript Our scripture reading today comes from 1 Peter 2: 4-10. So if you would open your Bibles with me to 1 Peter 2: 4-10. Verse 4. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built up a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it It stands in scripture, Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone of stumbling in a rock of offense. They stumble because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to do. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness, in into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. This is God's word. This passage answers a belonging question. Who are we? Where do we fit? And what makes us secure? And it does this by putting Jesus at the center, not as an accessory, but as the stone we build on. It leads us to our big question for tonight. How do you become someone who belongs without pretending? How do you become someone who belongs without pretending? Most of us answer by auditioning. We pick the room, we learn the lines, we hide the parts that don't fit in. In the world, belonging comes with conditions. We have to be impressive, be useful, be interesting, be unproblematic. So we curate a picture of ourselves. We achieve, we signal the right signals to the people around us. We live with a low-grade fear that if people really knew me, I'm out. But it's not just out there. The church has its own form of auditioning. You can start to think, I belong if I'm put together, if my marriage looks stable, if my kids behave, if my sins are vague, if I'm serving enough to be considered safe. So we keep things general. We say, I've been struggling or I've been busy, or I could use some prayer. We say anything except the truth. And here's the diagnostic for us. Where do you feel the pressure to edit yourself? Where do you make sure? What part of your life do you make sure that no one sees? What would it cost you to be honest, to be really honest? Because if belonging requires pretending, the truth is we never get rest. You either perform or you pull away or you judge those who seem to fit in. So the question remains, how do you become someone who belongs without pretending? Peter's answer is this. It's not by cleaning yourself up. It's to come to him. A rejected stone. A rejected stone who makes rejected people. Feel safe. So let's watch Peter answer our question in three movements. We'll see, first, he tells you who you are or who Jesus is. Then he tells you who you are. Then, he tells you how to live. So let's look at that first section, verses 4 through 8, the title, Come to the Anointed Stone. Jesus is not a helpful teacher here. Peter says, As you come to him, look at verse four. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God, chosen and precious. As you come to him, this is not a one-time visit. This is a direction. Christianity is coming again and again to the same person, Jesus Christ. And look at how Peter describes him, rejected and at the same time, chosen and precious in the sight of God. The world makes a judgment, a vote against Jesus to say no. And yet look at the verdict that God renders on Jesus. You are mine, precious. That's the answer to the belonging question right there. Whose verdict gets to name you? Because if your life is built on human approval, you'll always be managing, always editing, always being afraid of being found out. But if your life is built on God's verdict, well, you can't hide. There's no sense in doing that. He sees everything. So we can stop pretending. We can finally find rest in a God who knows all things. Peter proves it from scripture, Whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. That's what verse 6 says. This This isn't a motivational slogan. This isn't something that we put on a bumper sticker or sew into a pillow. This is safety. Safety for the exposed, honor for the ashamed, in a solid place to stand. Peter also says that the same stone does two things. For those who believe, the cornerstone holds you up. And for those who refuse him, it becomes a stone of stumbling, something you keep colliding with because you keep colliding with him. No one gets to approach God and leave Jesus neutral. You either see him for who he is, and it totally transforms you. We have to walk away and say, I don't know if I really like that guy at all. But you can't walk away from him neutral. You either build on him or you trip over him. And don't miss what savior this is. Jesus knows rejection. Jesus was rejected. He walked straight into it on the cross. He was cast out. So people like you, people like me, people like us could be brought in. Not because we've cleaned ourselves up, but because he's been chosen. He's precious. And by faith, we belong to him. So Peter's first word to us isn't perform. It's come. Come to the living stone and watch what happens next. You don't stay alone. Verse 5 says, We get built in. And here's where Peter gets very specific. What do we get built into? Who do we get built in? That's what we see in this next section. Be built into an anointed people. 1 Peter 2: 5-10. Peter moves from the stone to stones, from Christ to the church. Notice the grammar here. You are being built up. You are not the builder. We are not the builder. God is. Christianity is not self improvement. It is making or it is God making a new people. It's plural. Living stones don't float. They fit. They belong. Peter says, We're being built into a spiritual house, a place where God God dwells into a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. These sacrifices, they're not a payment for sin. They are thank you offerings from people who understand what it means to be forgiven. Then Peter gives the church a name. He says that we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people for his own possession in verse 9. Those four titles are straight from Israel's story. This is Exodus language. This is covenantal language that we see here. Peter is saying something massive. God's people are now defined by union with Christ, not an ethnicity. In other words, God didn't scrap his promises. He kept them. He kept them by centering every Everything on the cornerstone, the rock of Christ. He gathered then Jew and Gentile into one people connected in unity around Jesus. When Peter says a chosen race, he's not talking about ethnicity. Diversity anymore. It doesn't matter what group of people you've come from. He's talking about a new people, a new family line defined by Jesus. Verse 10 is proof. He says, once you were a people, now you are God's people. That means your belonging with God did not start with you finding him. Started with God claiming you. And catch the purpose here. Verse nine, that you may proclaim the excellencies. It's that order. First, identity, then mission. You don't proclaim your way into belonging. You proclaim your way You proclaim because you belong. And verse 10 seals it. Verse 10 says this, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you've received mercy. Verse 10 is Peter's before and after picture. Verse 10 makes it clearer than ever. Peter is using Hoseia's words, not my people, my people, and applying them to the church. That means the church isn't a religious club that showed up later. It is a reformed people of God, built on Christ, made up of all who believe. That reality kills all boasting. It is not our effort. It is not what we do. It is God bringing us together in this beautiful thing he calls the church. Peter is saying something specific here. The church is the true Israel, not earned, but that we are bought with his mercy. If you understand verse 10, you can't be arrogant towards anyone. It eliminates any hierarchy that we can place on ourselves, Jew or Gentile, elite, any educational status, any socioeconomic status. We have We have been received by grace. We are here by grace. We are built into one spiritual building together by the builder. So when Peter calls you or Paul calls the church, royal and priesthood, and proclaiming. He's saying, In Christ, the calling of Israel becomes the calling of the church. Peter doesn't leave it with those words as poetry. He turns them into a vocation. To proclaim is what we see in becoming a prophet, priesthood, being the priests and royal and the king. And that's what we see in our third point, live out the shared anointing, prophet, priest, and king, from question and answer 31 and 32. Peter does not just give us new names here in verse 9. He gives us a new calling. Proclaim, priesthood, royal. The catechism isn't adding anything to what first Peter is saying. It is naming what first Peter has already said. The prophet isn't someone who needs to be right. When we think of a prophet, we think of someone who maybe who's a little bit brash. Prophet's not that. Prophet's not somebody who argues with people online. Prophet is the one who confesses Christ clearly. Verse nine says this, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him. Prophets We don't need to win arguments. Prophets make Christ clear. They proclaim who Jesus is. So the challenge for us is to do this in your home. Name God's mercies out loud. In your relationships, speak truth and grace, not vague spirituality. And in the church, encourage, admonish, disciple each other. The diagnostic for us as we look at what it means to be a prophet, If someone followed you for a month, would they know that you belong to Jesus, or would they think that you're just a good person? When was the last time you said the name of Jesus out loud with someone who doesn't already agree with you? If we never confess his name, we might be people who admire Christ, but we're not yet sharing the name of Christ. We're not proclaiming the name of That doesn't mean that every Christian needs to be bold. They don't need to be on the corner shouting apologetics to people passing by. But it means that silence can't be our settled posture. Because mercy makes Jesus speakable. Now, for some of you who are quiet, you're not quiet because you don't believe in Jesus, but it's because there's fear. It's scary sharing our faith. My challenge to you would be this. Bring that to Jesus. Bring that to God. Ask the King for courage. Start small. We don't need to speak to the masses. Think of one clear sentence you could use this week, someone you know. As we move on to what it means to be a priest, priests are ones who offer sacrifices. And yet when it looks When we look at what it means to do that in the New Testament, our sacrifices don't pay for sin. Christ did. Peter's phrase is everything here in verse 5, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. That means your obedience It's never a stand-alone offering. It's always carried in by Christ. Your sacrifices are thank you offerings, not guilt offerings. So that means that we have to stop treating repentance like self-punishment. Repentance is agreeing with God and returning to God because the sacrifice has already been made. We need to be a people who practice repentance, prayer and worship, generosity, service that costs you, and reconciliation, one of the most easily recognizable Priestley acts. We don't offer sacrifices to get God to love us. We offer ourselves because Because the priest has already brought you here. Because Christ's sacrifice is once and for all, and his intercession is ongoing. You don't have to keep trying to make yourself seem acceptable. The Christ has already made you acceptable. Now your obedience comes as gratitude, not panic, not as a way to try to twist God's arm into doing what you want him to do or to accept you. We are already already firmly found in Christ. As we look to what it means to be a king and to act in that kingly office, some of you might confuse this idea of freedom with comfort, but the idea of kingly anointing, it goes beyond those categories. Kingly anointing means that we In some regard, we engage in warfare, not coasting, because with a free conscience, because we can do it with a free conscience, not a condemned one. This warfare is not to earn our place. It's not to fight our way in. We wage war against sin, against evil, the sin and evil that we see in ourselves, the oppression that we see in the world, not because we're trying to find a place, but because we already have one. Your struggle is not proof that you're losing. It's proof that we're alive. As Christ fought, he's calling us to fight, and Christ guards what he has already won. The comfort underneath the fight is the King does not just command, he keeps. Your grip on him is real, but his grip on you is even stronger. That leads us into our main idea. Our main idea for tonight is this, the spirit anointed Christ makes spirit anointed people. The spirit anointed Christ makes spirit anointed people. Jesus is called Christ because the Father appointed him and the spirit anointed him, Prophet, priest, and King. He doesn't just give us information. As prophet, he reveals God's will for our deliverance. He doesn't just give us an example. As priest, he offers himself and keeps us as he intercedes for us. He doesn't just give us inspiration. As king, he rules and guards the freedom he won. And Peter says, When you come to this living Stone, you don't just get forgiven. You get built in. You become a holy priesthood, a holy priesthood, a royal priesthood, a people for his own possession. That means Christian isn't just a label that we wear. It is an identity we have been given. If we are united to an anointed one by faith, we share in his anointing. So the question isn't, do you have the name Christian? The question is, is the anointed Christ producing an anointed life? Do we confess? Do we see sacrifice in ourselves? Mercy. God's mercy makes a people, and mercy gives that people a mission. So what does an anointed person do this week? The catechism gives three verbs: confess, offer, and strive. So our application for tonight starts off with this. The first point, Confess his name, Prophet, verse 9, that we should proclaim the excellencies. This week, make Jesus audible, not just vague, but explain his name. Pick one person and say one clear sentence. Something like, I'm a Christian. I belong to Jesus. I'm grateful for what he has done for me. Or, I'm trying to follow Jesus, and I need his mercy every day. That's a good one you can use if you've messed up in front of that person. That's all right. We don't have to laugh here. It's a night service. It's all good. Why does Peter give us this? Peter says this, that God has made you his people so that you would proclaim him, proclaim the one who has called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. If you're thinking, I don't I don't know if I can do that. Don't start with a crowd. Start with a person. Start small. But we can't stay silent forever. The second point of application is this. Present yourself as a living sacrifice. Repentance without self-protection is what we're called to do. We're called to engage in generosity that costs us. We're called to serve, serve people when it's inconvenient, that we should be a people who initiate reconciliation, initiate peace with those in our life, and that we worship even when we don't feel like it. That leads us into our third point of application, strive with a free conscience against sin and the devil. Name one sin that you've been excusing this week and put it in front of the cross. Confess it to someone and resist the fear of man, which was Peter's temptation if you were here for the morning service. By remembering those... Or by remembering whose approval makes you clean. We are cleansed by Christ. As we strive for a free conscience against sin and the devil, remember, when you fail, don't run from Christ. Don't do what Adam and Eve did in the garden, trying to guard themselves and run and hide from God. Run to him. Kings, get back up because the King guards them. We've asked, how do you become someone who belongs without pretending? Peter's answer is not clean yourself up. It's come. Come to him. But why can we come? Because belong Our longing always has a cost. In our faith, we know Christ pays it. Our problem isn't only that we're wounded, it is that we are guilty. We have a record. And a Holy God does not just call evil no big deal. He has to judge it. So on the cross, Jesus does not suffer with us. He suffers for us. He takes the penalty that our sins deserve. The stone, the rejected stone, is rejected under judgment. So rejected people like us can be received in mercy. He gets your shame. You get his honor. He gets your condemnation, you get welcomed in. That's why Peter can say, whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So we can drop the mask, we can drop the resume, and we can come empty-handed to the true and perfect King. Don't leave tonight as an applicant, Grace, but as one who has received mercy and belongs. Because you can belong without pretending, because Christ has taken your place. Remember this, the spirit anointed Christ makes spirit anointed people. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for who you we are. We praise you that we get to share in your anointing because we take on the name of Christ. We are grafted in. We are yours. Father, I pray as we continue in this series that we would remember where our comfort comes from, that we can proclaim and know that we belong to you, body and soul, in life and in death. God, you are our comfort. You are our peace. God, I pray today on your Sabbath day that we would be able to find our rest in you. Father, help us to respond. Help us to respond in worship as we sing how How Great Thou Art. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Wrong House Prosper Christian Reformed Church Wrong House Consider Your Ways Mitchell Leach Sunday, May 17, 2026 Audio Wrong House Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 01:04 Sermon Transcript Scripture Reading Haggai 1:1-15 In the second year of Darius the king, the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Thus says the Lord of hosts: These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. Then the word of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet: Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the Lord. You looked for much, and behold, it came to little. And when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why? Declares the Lord of hosts. Because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce. And I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord. Then Haggai the messenger of the Lord spoke to the people with the Lord's message: I am with you, declares the Lord. And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts their God. This is the word of the Lord. There's a play written in 1948 by a man named Arthur Miller about a traveling salesman named Willy Loman. Willy does what he's told. He provides for his family, builds a name for himself, gets the house. And at the end of his life, he stands at the house he had worked so hard to pay off — and it's empty. Not because he failed. Because he succeeded. He succeeded at the wrong things. And at his funeral, a friend says one line. One line that should give us chills a little bit as we hear it. “He had all the wrong dreams. All, all the wrong dreams.” Not no dreams. The wrong goals. He had built the life he imagined — and it wasn’t the life he thought it would be. Big Question Why does the life you’ve built feel emptier than you imagined? Maybe you’re younger and you’re thinking, what if the life I’m building doesn’t measure up to what I’ve imagined? We’ve all asked this question — maybe not out loud, but we’ve felt it. And when we feel it, we usually reach for one of three things. We try to optimize. Culture says if you’ve built it wrong, you need a better system, a better strategy, a better morning routine, a better budget. The emptiness isn’t a spiritual problem — it’s a productivity problem. If you could just get the right framework, the right tools, the right software, then everything would click. Or we run for escape. If you’ve built it wrong, quit the job, book the trip, start over somewhere new. The emptiness isn’t inside you — it’s your environment. Change your scenery and you’ll feel changed. Or — and maybe this is the most dangerous — we medicate. If optimization doesn’t work and escaping isn’t an option, then usually numbing it is. Scrolling, binging, drinking, shopping, staying busy enough that you never have to sit with the quietness of this question. Every one of these assumes an answer. Wrong system. Wrong environment. Wrong feelings. Haggai is here to tell us none of those are right. It’s not a productivity problem. It’s not your environment. It’s not your feelings. This is a covenantal problem. Fortunately, the Bible has an answer. Keep your Bibles open to Haggai 1. We’re going to see three major movements in this chapter. Outline God Exposes Hollow Religion (Haggai 1:1-4) God Frustrates False Priorities (Haggai 1:5-11) God Revives Who He Rebukes (Haggai 1:12-15) God Exposes Hollow Religion (Haggai 1:1-4) The scene being set in Haggai 1:1 tells us a lot. It’s the second year of Darius — and that matters because Darius is not a king in Israel. He’s a foreign king. He’s the king of Persia. What we learn here is that Israel has no Davidic king. It has a governor — Zerubbabel, a man from the line of David. Which sounds nice, except “governor” is a Persian title. We have an illusion of a king. There’s a priest — Joshua — but there’s no temple. The structure is there. We have a Davidic ruler, we have a priest. But the substance isn’t there. And then Haggai continues. Haggai 1:2 says this: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, these people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.” Look at how God starts. He doesn’t say my people. He doesn’t say my chosen ones. He says these people. He’s talking to them as if they are so distant from him. And they say, “We’ll build a place for you — but it’s not right now.” This isn’t an ancient problem. We do this. We often look at people who rush into decisions as unwise — reckless, haphazard. And so we tell ourselves that wisdom is the opposite of that. But Haggai says otherwise. Sometimes saying “not yet” isn’t wisdom. Sometimes saying “not yet” is disobedience dressed up with better vocabulary. It’s the person who says, “I know I need to be in church, it’s just not the season for me right now.” Or, “I believe in God, I’m just trying to figure out what that looks like for me.” The intent sounds reasonable. And yet that heart posture keeps Christ at arm’s length. God presses further in Haggai 1:4: “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruin?” That word “yourselves” — God is stacking prepositions to press his finger on the contradiction. They live in paneled houses while his house is in shambles. And that word for paneled houses is the same word used for the interior of Solomon’s temple. This isn’t a call-out against wealthy people who have nice things. This is a call-out against people whose priorities are messed up — people who found resources for themselves and said that their leftovers were unavailable for God. These first four verses are not fundamentally about trying harder to get your priorities straight. Haggai 1:1-4 show us and point us to see the God whose house we’ve neglected. That same God has not neglected you. He sent his Son, and Jesus has built at the cost of his own life a temple that we could never rebuild. God Frustrates False Priorities (Haggai 1:5-11) Haggai 1:5-6 say this: “Now therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat, but you never have enough. You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes.” “Consider your ways” — that phrase is the heart of this series, the heart of this passage, the heart of this book. It means to look at the path in front of you. To look where you’re walking. To look where this path actually takes you. Another way to say it: stop looking everywhere else and look at your own life. Kids do this all the time, right? Something gets broken and — “It wasn’t my fault. So-and-so bumped me, this circumstance was out of my control.” But it’s not just an attitude that belongs to children. I’ve sat across from people in counseling who go jumping through hoops trying to convince me that the situation they’re in is really no fault of their own. Avoiding owning any part of their story. Owning any part of the responsibility. Augustine has this wonderful quote: “Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars — and they pass by themselves without wondering.” It’s our nature to look everywhere but inward. A philosopher named Philip Rieff wrote a book called The Triumph of the Therapeutic and he says that in a therapeutic culture, we never ask the question, “Have I disobeyed? Have I sinned? Have I done something wrong?” We ask, “Am I flourishing?” And if the answer is no, the diagnosis is always something like, “It’s my environment. Bad luck. A bad system. Bad chemistry.” It’s never covenantal. It’s never looking at our relationship with God as being broken. Haggai says the problem here isn’t bad time management. They don’t need a better calendar system. The problem is covenantal. And the only response is to repent. Haggai then points out that they have enough. They have a harvest, they eat, they drink, they clothe, they earn — but it’s never enough. Each of those things is worth sitting with. To harvest is to achieve. Today, that’s the person who has the career, hit the metrics, earned the promotion — and at the end of it feels a strange hollowness on the other side of those achievements. To eat is to consume. It’s the person who upgrades the kitchen, renovates the house, fills the Amazon cart, books the vacation — and still feels a low-grade hunger underneath it all. To drink is to experience. To clothe is to present — the curated image, the filtered feed, the outward life that looks warm but doesn’t feel warm. And he who earns wages does so to put it into a bag with holes. Everything is leaking out. That’s not a problem of effort. That’s a covenantal problem. Haggai 1:11 does something clever with language. The word “ruin” shows up in Haggai 1:4 and Haggai 1:9. The word “drought” in Haggai 1:11 is the same word. God is saying, if you think it’s okay to leave my house in ruin — watch what I do to your land. Everything in this section actually comes back to the covenantal curses in Deuteronomy where God tells Israel, if you disobey me, this is the curse you will see. This is not random misfortune. This is a father grabbing his children by the shoulders and saying, turn around. Look to me. God Revives Who He Rebukes (Haggai 1:12-15) Experiencing this for the first time would have been absolutely crazy. The temple is in shambles. The people have taken the cedar that was supposed to be used for the temple and built their own houses with it. The kingdom has an illusion of a king. There’s a priest but no temple. And then Haggai bursts on the scene and says, get your heads screwed on right. Consider your ways. He goes to Zerubbabel, the governor, essentially and says, you’re a joke. He goes to Joshua the priest and says, you let everyone steal from God. Fix it. Could you imagine being in that room? The odds of Haggai walking out alive were awful. Look at every other prophet who does something like this. Ezekiel ends up dead. Jeremiah ends up dead. Amos is told to go home. Isaiah is told by God that no one will listen to him. And then this happens. Haggai 1:12: “Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, with all the remnant of the people, obeyed the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet, as the Lord their God had sent him. And the people feared the Lord.” Can you imagine this? This is the theological equivalent of watching a middle schooler make a full-court shot. Not only did they not kill him. Not only did they not cast him out. They listened. They obeyed. And they feared the Lord. And this isn’t fear like we often talk about it — some vague awe or reverence. When the Bible says someone feared the Lord, it means they had a subjective feeling of terror towards Yahweh. Seeing his power and recognizing his might. This is the right response. A savior is only as valuable as the thing he saves you from. If the gospel is preached without seriously accounting for how evil our sin is, then the gospel cannot be comfort. Haggai 1:13: “Then Haggai the messenger of the Lord spoke to the people with the Lord’s message: ‘I am with you, declares the Lord.’” The solution to the fear they have is not simply, “Do not be afraid.” It’s “I am with you.” If you know your Bible, you know that this sentence carries the weight of the whole story. “I am with you” is what Jacob heard fleeing from Esau. What God said to Moses at the burning bush. What was spoken to Joshua as he entered the Promised Land. What Jeremiah heard in his call. What Isaiah declared to the exiles. It’s because it is the promise of the gospel. God finally puts on flesh and enters himself into the world. What do we call him at Christmas? Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel — God with us. And when he leaves at the Ascension, what does he say? “I will be with you until the end of the age.” Not a promise that everything will be easy. A promise that he will be with us. Haggai 1:14: “And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel.” Watch what this text is doing. We see two viewpoints of how this plays out. Haggai 1:12 is a look from earth — the people obeyed, the people feared. It looks like a human decision. Haggai 1:14 is a look from heaven. That word for spirit being stirred up is a person’s will, their motivation, their disposition. God did not merely command obedience — he moved their wills. Haggai 1:14 insists that even the obedience of Haggai 1:12 was a gift from God. I want to make sure you hear this. Don’t leave today believing that if you just get your act together, God will bless you. That’s not what this passage says. It is God’s sovereignty that allows us even to be obedient to him. John Owen, the great Puritan, says in his book The Holy Spirit: “The Spirit of God so works in and upon the wills of his people as not to destroy their liberty but to make their wills work freely according to their nature. He does not work upon them as upon dead instruments but as on living agents in the recovery of their true freedom.” When God works his sovereign will, it doesn’t trump what we want. It releases us to our true freedom. It doesn’t override human freedom. It restores human freedom. These people had been enslaved — not to Persia, but to their own paneled houses, to their misplaced priorities, to endless cycles of sowing much and harvesting little. The Holy Spirit was not manipulating them into being obedient. He was liberating them from that slavery. Main Idea The God whose house we left in ruins does not leave us in ours That’s this whole sermon. That’s this whole book. Actually — that’s the whole story of the Bible. God does not leave us in our ruin. In the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned, he didn’t leave. He came to them. In Egypt, he came to his people in slavery and rescued them. In exile, his temple was in ruin, his name was dishonored — and he sent prophets. He stirred up spirits. He said, “I am with you.” And when none of that was enough, when we had proven over and over again that we would keep building our own houses and leaving his in rubble — he came down himself. He took on human flesh and he built, at the cost of his own life, a temple that we could never build. He could have left us in our ruin. We deserved it. He had every right to say, “You wanted those paneled houses? Keep them. You wanted those misshapen priorities? Live with them.” But Jesus came as our rescuer — to free us from our true enslaver: sin and death. Application Stop saying “not yet” Consider your ways. Consider the path in front of you. What are you saying “not yet” to — and calling it wisdom? Maybe you’re saying “not yet” to consistent worship because the weekends are your only time for rest. Maybe “not yet” to joining a small group because your schedule is already full. Maybe “not yet” to a hard conversation because the timing isn’t right. Maybe “not yet” to generosity because things are tight right now. Haggai says saying “not yet” to the things God commands isn’t wisdom — it’s dressing disobedience up in comfortable clothing. What would it look like this week to stop saying “not yet” to one thing God has been pressing on your heart? Be the house As people of the new covenant, the house isn’t a building. It’s this — right here. It’s you. It’s what happens every Sunday when we gather. It’s the people of God. So what does it look like to stop leaving God’s house in ruin? The house is only as strong as our care for one another. You can’t build a house alone in your living room. You build it by showing up for each other. That looks like making the phone call you’ve been putting off. Sitting with someone after service instead of rushing to the parking lot. Noticing who hasn’t been here and caring enough to ask why — not to be judgmental, but because you love them and you miss seeing them. Building the house doesn’t start with a committee or a program. It starts with one person paying attention to another person, embodying what it means to be a little Christ. In the garden, God walked with his people — no temple needed. Heaven and earth overlapped. Then they sinned, and they hid. The house was in ruins. But God did not leave. He came walking through the garden calling, Where are you? He’s been building his way back ever since. A tabernacle in the wilderness. A temple under Solomon. Then exile, the temple destroyed, silence, ruins — and that’s where we stand in the book of Haggai. In the rubble, telling the remnant to build because God says: I want to dwell with you again. And they build. And God makes a promise — the latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former. How could this modest structure exceed the splendor of Solomon’s temple? Because one day a carpenter from Nazareth would walk through its courts and say, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will rebuild it.” He wasn’t talking about a building. He was talking about his body. Jesus is the true temple. On the cross, the temple was destroyed. On the third day, he rose. At Pentecost, the Spirit was poured out — and we became the temple. Revelation 21 tells us that in the new creation, there is no temple in the city. Not because God is absent, but because God is everywhere. No more separation. No more ruin. No more “not yet.” The God whose house we left in ruins does not leave us in ours. He never has. Closing Prayer Father God, we praise you — that you do not leave us in our ruin, in our destruction. That you condescended, that you came to us. You sent your Son to take on human flesh, to dwell among us, to die the death we never could, to live the life we never could have lived, so that we could have a life in you we would never have been able to have without you. Father God, transform us by your word. Help us to respond. It’s in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Christ Prosper Christian Reformed Church Christ Gospel In Three Words Mitchell Leach Sunday, January 18, 2026 Audio Christ Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 44:33 Sermon Transcript Most people have heard the name Martin Luther before. We learn about him usually in world history at some point. He was a German monk and a Bible professor about 500 years ago who became a key figure during the Protestant Reformation. As a young man, Martin Luther really struggled with this idea, and he was terrified of God's judgment and how to deal with it. He didn't take it lightly. Growing up, this was something that he thought about day and night, especially as a monk, he took this on himself. He prayed for hours. He fasted, lived with discipline. He confessed every day to the point where those he was confessing his sins to told him, You need to stop. You're confessing too much. But the strange thing was, the more serious that he took this, the more guilt, the more he couldn't let this go, the more he felt crushed by it. Later, Martin Luther would talk about this in saying, If anyone could save themselves, by doing the right thing as a monk, it would have been him. And yet he had no peace because he was enveloped with this idea, answering this question, What does a Holy God require? As Martin Luther began to translate the Bible from Latin into English, he started to find passage after passage that convicted him and transformed him. He realized that the righteousness that God requires is the same righteousness that he gives as a gift through grace, through faith. Luther later said that it felt like the gates of paradise opened up before him when he realized this. This is not just Martin Luther's story, though. This is our story. Our story that almost every philosophy, every religion, every worldview looks at, trying to answer this question, our big question, how can we be saved? How can we be saved? Our culture will give us a couple of different answers to this question, and yet they all come back to one commonality. They put the weight on you. An atheistic worldview would say, there is no God, there is no final judge, there's no final judgment. And so you don't need to worry about being saved. Just try being a decent human being. And yet the question doesn't go away. We still have a standard. We still feel this guilt inside of us, and we know that there are things that we can't undo. Even in a world where we try to convince ourselves that a judge doesn't exist, it doesn't erase the feeling in our soul. Other religions will say, Yes, there is a God, there is a standard. And so here are the rules. Here's how you should live. Practice them. Live by them. Do them. Prove yourself. And if you try hard enough, maybe you'll be accepted by this God or this spirit or whatever. The problem is you never know where you stand. You never know what What is good enough. And deep down, I think if we're honest with ourselves, we know we don't meet that standard. And then there's a third approach, which is very common in the American church. We wouldn't ever say, we never confess that we are saved by works. And yet we often live by it. We view Jesus as this ticket, this entry ticket into heaven. And once we've we've punched that ticket. Once we've said that sinner's prayer, believe that it's our job to maintain that standard. We really don't believe that we need to go any higher, but we need to maintain it. We need to be good. We need to serve hard. We need to know the right answers, vote the right way, parent the right way, anything to feel secure. So whichever path we take, whether it's know God, works-based religion, or trying to play the church performance game, The question comes back to, how can we be saved? But fortunately, the Bible has answers for us. So keep your Bibles open to Colossians 1, as we will see three movements in this passage. Christ's supremacy in creation Christ's supremacy in redemption Christ's supremacy applied to believers. We are in week three of our series, Gospel in Three Words, where we're just focusing on Christ. So far, two weeks ago, we looked at the righteousness of God, how God's standard is so high that even our own righteousness could never meet it. Last week, we looked at our sin. Not only is God perfectly righteous, but we are desperately sinful. That leads us to this week, a need for salvation. In this passage, what we'll see is Jesus Christ is the Supreme and sufficient Lord of creation and redemption who reconciles all things to God through the cross. John Calvin has this quote to say, he says, "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say true and sound wisdom consists of two parts: the knowledge of God, the knowledge of ourselves." That's what we've been trying to do in this series so far, understand who God is, understand ourselves, because that drives us into the wisdom of knowing we need a savior. In other words, if you want to know whether or not you can be saved, Paul says, you have to look at the supremacy of Christ because only someone who is truly God can reconcile you to God. So let's look at that first section, Christ's Supremacy in Creation Paul is answering a question, why can Jesus save you? He does this by showing us that Jesus is God. He's not a mere resemblance of God, but that he is the image God. He is God revealed. He is God. That's why he says in Colossians 1:15, the first half, he says, He is the image of the invisible God. The point is that Jesus is not a copy. Jesus is not some form of God. The point is, if you want to know what God is like, look to Jesus. He doesn't resemble God. He is God manifested. He's not a manifestation of God. He is God made flesh. In Greek thought, the idea of an image is that they would share in the reality of what they reveal. That's what Paul is trying to communicate. Jesus is the image. He is the reality, not just a mere resemblance of it. Not only is God, not only is Jesus God in the flesh, but that he has all authority. That's what we see in the second half of that verse, that he is the first born of all creation. This doesn't mean that Jesus is created. That's why we did the Nicene Creed a little bit before this. I want us to understand that this passage, a warning, that this passage is clear that Jesus is not created. The first born means not a literal son. It means someone who has the inheritance, who has the right The first born in the Bible means the supreme heir, the one with the right and rule, not the first one made. Psalm 89 says this about Jesus, prophesying about him, and I will make him, the first born, the highest of the Kings of the Earth. The first born is the one who inherited. He was the one who would be next in line for the throne. If it wasn't royal It would be the next in line to inherit the business or the farm. It wasn't just an inheritance of money or an inheritance of land. It was an inheritance to continue on what your father had done, to make the same decisions. Jesus has the authority over all of creation. He is not the first created thing. He is God. And in fact, if Jesus were part of creation, Paul would not say what he says next in Colossians 1:16-17. He says this, For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Paul makes it perfectly clear and impossible for us to think that Jesus is created because Jesus is saying, Jesus created everything. You can't create everything if you were created yourself. Jesus cannot be inside the category of created things. He is the creator. He created all things. That word all, right? Sometimes we break down the Greek. This isn't a simple one for us. It's the Greek word 'pos', the meaning of it is all. You can't take it another way. It just It means all. That's it. Which is why John says this, All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. What Paul, what John are trying to show us the proof that Jesus is God. They're saying, Look, look at what Jesus does. He owns everything. He is the creator. He is the one who does it. All things were made through him and for him. ' He does the very things that God does. Not only was everything made by him, And through him, everything was made for him. I think that's important for us to understand. Jesus is able to receive glory. That's what we see in Jesus being or everything being made for him. Any other place in scripture, when someone tries to worship an angel or someone else, the angel will say, No, you cannot worship me. But Jesus is able to receive glory because everything was made for him. That means that the universe is ultimately not about us. It is about him. Everything exists in creation to glorify God, and that includes our life. There's a great quote by Ironías who says this, The glory Of God is a human being fully alive, and the life of a human consists in beholding God. What he's trying to say is, Our lives belong to God, fully alive, glorifying God. Paul is creating an argument here about how Jesus can save us, and it's crucial that we see and understand that Jesus is God. Verse 17 says this, And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. That he has authority over all of creation. Paul is saying that Jesus isn't just the starter of the universe. That he is the sustainer of it. He is the one who holds all things together. He holds every atom of the universe together. Every breath that we have, every heartbeat is borrowed from God. So Paul starts by taking us all the way up. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the creator of all things, the one who holds everything together. But Paul isn't giving us theology, fun facts. He's showing us something. He's building an argument. Only the creator has the authority to redeem creation. And that brings us into our second movement here. Christ's Supremacy in Creation, Colossians 1:18-20. Verse 18 says this, And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the first born from the dead. That in everything he might be pre-eminent. He is not only the authority over creation, but he is the head of the church. He has authority over the church. And that The word head doesn't just mean authority. It means authority, but it also means the source of life. If Christ is the head of the church, then the church can only stay alive by staying connected to him, which means the church is not a book club. It's not a time where we can come together and passively observe God. This The church is the body. It is a living, breathing organism that gets its life from Christ himself. He also is the first born from the dead. It doesn't mean that he's the first resurrected person. In the Old Testament, there are people that were resurrected. In fact, Jesus resurrected Lazarus. It means that he is the first a new resurrection. He is the beginning of a new creation. The resurrection is this resurrection, his resurrection, is a guarantee that death will not have the final word for his people. It finishes by saying this verse, it finishes by saying, He is all of these things so that in everything he might be pre-eminent. That he's not one opinion among many. He's not a spiritual teacher that we can add on and hope that it improves our life. He's not a moral example that we can sit and view like we're at the movies. Paul says that Jesus is pre-eminent. He is first place. He is ultimate. He is supreme. He is unmatched. That's what pre-eminent means. He is first place in every category. If Christ is merely important to you, but not ultimate, you might not be seeing the Christ that Paul is proclaiming here, the Christ that we see in Scripture. Paul is trying to show us that Jesus is not just another person, that he's not like everyone else in the Old Testament that tried their best but ultimately failed. Paul wants us to see that he is God. He always will be God. He always has been God. It leads us into Colossians 1:19, For in him all the four God was pleased to dwell. This is Paul's way of cutting down every argument, every statement that would say Jesus was a good idea, or he was almost God, or he was a neat thing, he was a good teacher, he seemed moral. No. Jesus is not part of God. He can't be a fraction of God. He cannot be a slice or a manifestation or some other mode of God. Jesus is God. He's not a junior deity. All the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in him. The whole divine nature dwells in him. God has ensured that in Jesus is found all that makes God God. Colossians 1:20 says this, And through him to reconcile himself to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. When Paul says, To to reconcile all things. He does not mean that every person will be saved. This is not universalism, that everybody goes to heaven. What he means is that Christ's cross is the decisive act that will put the whole universe back together under the rightful rule, either through redemption or through final judgment. Through the cross, Jesus will make everything sad come untrue. Either way, Jesus will have the last word. This passage that we're going through is actually it's called the Christ hym. It might have been sung in early churches. But this Him reaches its apex, not in creation, but in reconciliation. That's why Paul has been piling up language, piling up this argument to say, what sin has destroyed, God restored through Christ. Sin isn't something that God could ignore either. Sin is not something that he could have just turned a blind eye to, turn the other way and let happen, let go unpunished. Sin had to be dealt with. And it was dealt with by God himself coming and bleeding for us. Our sin was paid for. It was paid for by the blood of Jesus. Because if Jesus is truly God and all the fullness is pleased to dwell within him, then his death, his blood is not just tragic. It is sufficient for us. The cross has the weight to truly deal with sin and shame. Paul won't let this idea stay out there, cosmic far off in the distant. He turns and says in this next section, And you, because reconciliation isn't just a theory, it's personal. Christ's supremacy is what we'll see applied to believers iColossians 1:21-23 God's heart is to save, but he saves through real justice, not by ignoring it. You were made by God and for God. We were created to be in relationship with God. And yet humanity's problem, like we saw last week, is that we choose everything but God. Colossians 1:21 says, And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, our problem isn't just that we were alienated. Our problem is that we are hostile, actively running away from God. Not neutral, not having some blemishes or mostly good, but we got a few issues that we just need to iron out. No, Paul says that we were opposed to God in our minds, our instincts, every flinch of our body ran directly towards hell, directly away from God. To get us back, he could not simply ignore the evil we've committed. Because if God could just turn a blind eye, could just allow it to go, it would mean that God is unjust, that he is not good, and that he's corrupt. There are some things that we've done, causing this rift in our relationship. That cannot go under the rug. They can't be swept under the rug. They have to be dealt with. And Jesus, we see in this passage, came to deal with evil by becoming sin for us. In fact, 2 Corinthians 5:21 says this, For our sake, he made him to be sin, who knew no sin, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Colossians 1:22 goes on to say, He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. Jesus reconciled us the Father through the cross. This is why it says the word body, flesh, and death, because reconciliation isn't a metaphor. It's not an analogy. It's not some neat teaching that we can draw something from. It is real. Reconciliation required a real substitute, a real death. It required a real death for us to have real life. If you want a one paragraph explanation of what reconciled his death means. Romans 3 might be the best passage for this. It says, For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. Because God is a Holy God. And what we saw in week one is that God cannot even look at evil. His Holiness is so complete, so good. And the bad news for us is that we are nowhere near his Holiness. All have sinned. All have fallen short of the glory of God. Something has to happen. God cannot turn a blind eye to it. It might seem weird that God can't, that he can't just let this go, that he can't just snap his fingers and make everything go away. That's not what forgiveness is. If I came over to your house and I broke a window, which isn't unlike me, but if that happens, there's two ways you can go about that. You can say, Dude, you broke my window. You need to pay for it. And you'd be right to do that. I broke the window. That's justice. The second option is to say, Don't worry about it. I've got it. Maybe get out of my house so you don't break any other windows. And that's forgiveness. But regardless, forgiveness is not just letting it go. The window has to be fixed. The window cannot go unfixed. Someone has to pay the price. Forgiveness means that someone has to absorb the cost. Forgiveness means that the offended is the one that has to pay. This is what happens on the cross. The offended took the place of the offender. God himself provided the propitiation. It's a word we don't use. What it means is to satisfy the wrath of God. Jesus bore the wrath we deserve so that he could be both the just and the justifier. Jesus, who is fully God, satisfies his wrath so we wouldn't have to. Jesus loved us so much that instead of demanding justice, instead of demanding that we pay the price, that he would pay it. Why? He does this. This shows us in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. If you're someone who circles in your Bible or writes in your Bible, circle that in order to... Paul is showing us the reason why. The reason why Jesus must be pre-eminent so that we could be presented, holy and blameless. This is salvation in one sentence, not just forgiven, changed, not just spared, presented, holy before God. God does not reconcile us and then leave us in our filth. It's in order that we could be saved, in order that we can be his again, that he could wash us of our evil, our sin, and that we could be one with him. The goal of salvation isn't merely to escape hell. It is to be reconciled. It is to be unified with God. And that's what leads us to our main idea. The God who made you is the God who died to save you. The God who made you is the God who died to save you. Think about how staggering that is. The one who spoke creation into existence is not distant from our mess. The one who holds the universe together did not stand back here with his arms crossed, scolding you, hoping that you would pick yourself up by your boots, traps, clean yourself off. No. Colossians says that all things were created by him, through him, and for him. And then in the same breath says that he made peace by the blood of the cross. It means that the greatest power in the universe is not just the ability to create, it's the willingness to suffer. And that's why we talk about the cross so much. It's not because as Christians, we want to be morbid. It's not because we're stuck on guilt. It's because the cross is the place where God's Holiness and God's love meet perfectly together. At the cross, God doesn't pretend that sin is small. He proves that it is deadly, that it will kill us. Rather than allowing it to kill us, he chose to die in our place. At the cross, God does not tell you to fix yourself. He does not tell you to try harder, to be better. He comes and rescues you. The offended, the offended one pays the cost. The judge steps down and bears the judgment that he just pronounced. This is the most beautiful reality in all of the world. The God that you sinned against is the God who was moved in love, moved in compassion to come to you, not with denial, not with sentimental tolerance, not just blinking at your sin and writing it off, but with blood bought peace. Do you see what happens on the cross? Do you see it? Jesus goes and bears the wrath of God. He was punished for you. He was tormented for you. That is what hell is. It's God's wrath poured out against sin against evil. And Jesus willingly did that for you. Do you know what love that takes? I think most of us in here have people in our life that we would die for, people we love, people that we would take a bullet for. But who in here would be willing to trade places with someone, to bear the wrath of God for all of their sin? Jesus did. Jesus did before the foundation of the world. He said, I do, I will, I love you that much. And if this is true, if God made you, the God who made you is the one who came to save you, then Christianity is not, first and foremost, an invitation to improve yourself. It's not some moral betterment program. It is an invitation to be reconciled, to stop hiding, to stop negotiating, to stop performing, and to come home. This changes everything for us. If salvation is earned, or if salvation is not earned, it is received, if peace with God is not achieved by effort but purchased by Christ, then it has to reshape everything about us. That leads us into our points of application. First, believe the gospel. If you've come here today, and you don't, this is my earnest plea not to leave here without believing the gospel, not merely confessing something. Belief is not mere confession. We can't believe in the same way. We can't believe in Jesus the same way we believe it's going to snow. We live in Northern Michigan. It's going to snow, right? Those two things are categorically different. Belief in Christ demands our whole life. It means whole-hearted transformation. It means surrender to God. It means putting God, seeding God, where where he belongs, treating him as if he's God. I think too many of us are all too comfortable with treating God as if he's only our provider, only our protector, only our healer, only our savior, not wanting him to be Lord of our life. Belief in Jesus has to come with relinquishing that, putting him, seeding him as Lord of our life. We cannot not say to God, Jesus, I want you to save me for my sin, but I don't want you to tell me what to do. That cannot work. Jesus must have total authority of our life. Belief means we trust him for everything. Not just simply using him as a get-out-of-hell free card. It means trusting him totally because we can. It means trusting his work on the cross even more than trusting our own emotions. I think too often in the modern church, our salvation is tied to how we feel. We come to church because the music makes us feel good. We like the way that the sermon makes us feel. Even our own relationship with God is tied to how we feel towards him, that we feel saved when we feel saved. The danger in this is that our salvation is then It's tied to an emotion. It's still tied to a work, to how we feel, to making us feel a certain way. Historic Christianity has always said, You are saved, not by a philosophy, not by some step program, not by emotion. You are saved by a historical event. Jesus came and died for you and rose again three days later. We know that we're saved because God tells us that we're saved. He tells us in his word that we're saved. And if we ever get confused on that, he's actually given us two really great things. He's given us our baptism and the Lord's Supper. Two means of grace that can remind us what God did for us. We cannot shift back into self-salvation. That's what we see in our next point of application. Continue in the gospel. Don't shift back into self-salvation, trying to save our self. Paul goes on to say, Continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel. The translation? Once you've been reconciled, you are going to feel tempted to try to measure yourself up by what you've done, by what you feel. Some of us will be tempted into pride, into saying, Yeah, you know what? I have done a good job. I've been to church every single week this month, and I've done the right things, and I've really avoided doing X, Y, and Z. I'm much better than that person out there. Or we'll be tempted into despair in recognizing the sinfulness in ourselves. No, I have failed this week. I haven't been around church. I haven't done these things. I am without hope. But both of these forms of shifting away from the gospel. It does this because it makes you the center. It makes you the auditor of whether you're good or not. Martin Luther has this to say. The law says, 'Do this, and it never does, and it's never done. Grace says, believe this, and everything is already done. We are saved by what Christ has done, not by working for it, not by trying harder. And we'll see that next week in Galatians. So practice this one simple thing this week. When you sin, don't hide, run to Christ, confess quickly, and receive forgiveness. Preach the same gospel that you would preach, preach the same gospel to yourself that you'd preach to any sinner. But you are saved not by what you've done, good or bad. You're saved by grace through faith. Believing the gospel is not moving from bad people to good people. It is moving from people who are proud, moving from people who are in despair, to moving to people who can rest in the work, in the finished work of Christ. That leads us into our last point of application, which has three subpoints. Live reconciled. These aren't ways to earn peace with God, but this is a way that our peace from God bears fruit in our life. We need to forgive. If Christ has absorbed the cost of our sin, then we need to, in our life, slowly, painfully, and truly absorb the cost of others' sin against us. I want to I'll ask you two questions. Who do you keep punishing in your mind? What have you refused to release? It's a great place to start in forgiveness. The next is to be generous. If everything that's been created is created for God, then what we have, possessions or money, it belongs to him anyways. It's ultimately not for us. And if Jesus gave himself for us, then generosity is not a negative on our balance sheet. It is an opportunity for us to worship. The last thing is to reconcile. Reconciliation is maybe one of the most clear pictures that we can give the world of the gospel. If Christ moved towards us while we were hostile, while we were enemies to him, then you don't get to stay distant, forever, and safe from people. Is there a text that you need to send? A conversation you need to start? A confession you need to make? Not to win, but to make peace. We don't forgive, give, and reconcile to get God to love us. He already does that. We do it because in Christ, he's shown us that he has. The beauty of reconciliation between us and God is that it is not not just for this life. Salvation isn't merely God's way of helping us cope with the here and now. It is him bringing us home forever. Because the end of the story isn't escaping a bad place. The end of the story is God dwelling with his people. Revelation 21: 3 says this, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, and he will dwell with them, and he will be and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. That is reconciliation complete. Not a temporary peace, not a fragile assurance, not a relationship on probation. That is God with us forever. How do sinners get there? Not by measuring up, not by earning it, only through the blood of the Lamb, because peace with God had to be purchased. So if you hear anything this morning, hear this. The God who made you is the God who saved you. The gospel isn't our way to climb to God. It is his way of showing us that he came to us and that he will be the one who brings us all the way home. Would you stand with me as we prepare our hearts to respond in worship? Father God, we thank you for who you are, that you are a God who came to us, not just for this life, but to bring us home that you loved us even while we were still sinners, and you came to purchase us back. God, we cannot live and leave here as the same people. God, let us be transformed by your word. Let us go out and live with the peace that you've bought for us. Live as reconciled people. 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

Crowned with Humility Prosper Christian Reformed Church Crowned with Humility Crowned Mitchell Leach Thursday, April 2, 2026 Audio Crowned with Humility Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 01:04 Sermon Transcript Scripture Reading Matthew 26:26-30 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, 'Take and eat, this is my body.' And he took the cup, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, 'Drink of it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.' And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. This is the word of the Lord. Big Question What is the Lord's Supper? Tonight we're going to be looking at the Lord's Supper. The question that we have for tonight is, what is the Lord's Supper? I think oftentimes when we hear a message or we talk about the Lord's Supper, we as Protestants have done such a good job talking about what it isn't — that we talk about that we're not Catholic, we don't believe that the elements literally become the literal body and blood of Christ. We've done such a good job of saying that that's not what it is. But I think that there is a more pervasive belief that has infiltrated into the church, and it's this really common belief in America — this idea of remembrance. And before you jump out of your seat and say, well, that's in the Bible — it is in the Bible, absolutely. Jesus says that we need to take communion, that we need to approach the table and to do it in remembrance of him. But oftentimes that's where it ends. That's all that happens, that it's kind of this weird ceremonial ritual act that we do and there's nothing more behind it. But as people who are Reformed or even Presbyterians, we talk about the Lord's Supper as having a spiritual presence, that the Lord is spiritually present in the elements. So what does it mean for the Lord to be spiritually present? Really, what is the Lord's Supper? Well, this passage is going to help us see that. What happens in this passage is that Jesus inaugurates a new covenant by giving his body and shedding his blood for many, for the forgiveness of sins. To give context of what's happening — this has been Holy Week. Jesus has ridden into Jerusalem as the Messiah, as the new king. Everyone's expecting him to be this new king. And while he's in Jerusalem this week, there's a lot of things that happen. He gives a lot of parables. He overturns tables in the temple. He's teaching a lot. And finally, he meets with his disciples in the upper room, where he washes their feet and promises that the Holy Spirit is going to come. Then we get to this part in the supper. The Table Jesus Sat At: Passover In order to understand what Jesus is giving us at this table, we have to understand the table that he is sitting at. When he is talking about this, there is something incredibly important going on. They are celebrating Passover. Passover was the celebration in the Jewish calendar. It was the thing to do. If you were a Jewish person and you had means to make it to Jerusalem, you absolutely would make the pilgrimage every year. This was the highest point of their calendar. This was like Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving all put together. Passover was a meal, a festival that celebrated when God rescued Israel out of the hands of Pharaoh, out of the hands of Egypt, and delivered them into the wilderness and eventually into the Promised Land. Up until this point, that moment in redemptive history was the pinnacle. This was the highlight. When they thought about what was the most important thing that God had ever done in history, if you were to ask a Jewish person, they would have said, 'It was the Exodus. It was the Passover. It was when God saved us from the judgment and delivered us into the Promised Land.' This meal had some elements to it. There would have been bread, there would have been wine, and there would have been lamb to remember the Passover lamb. There would have been a person too who presided over the ceremony. The presider would have led this meal almost like a service, would have led them through this Passover experience. And when he got to the bread, every Jewish child would have remembered this line repeated over and over, year after year. The presider would have got to the bread and would have said, 'This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the wilderness' — talking about the manna that God sustained them with. The Bread: Jesus is the Better Passover Jesus is the presider of this meal. He's leading his disciples through this meal, and he says this. He takes the bread, he breaks it, and says, 'Take and eat, this is my body.' Essentially, what Jesus is saying in this moment is not, 'This is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate in the wilderness.' He's saying, 'This is the bread of my affliction.' The room would have gone silent. They would have heard this like a theological bomb going off, seeing the correlation of what had been happening leading up into this moment. Every person knew this phrase. Every person was expecting it, and Jesus applies it to himself. Jesus is saying, I am the better Passover. He's saying, in fact, you need something more than Passover. God absolutely delivered you from the hands of your captors, out of your slavery, but you need something more. You need me. Passover, again, was a huge deal. The historical moment of Passover was so big. God had saved them from the angel of death. Breaking the bread meant that we're remembering that God had saved us from death, from the angel of death. But now Jesus is saying, you're going to break bread in a different way. You are going to break bread to remember that I have saved you from death itself. What makes the Passover meal that Jesus is celebrating different than any other Passover meal? It's because Jesus is the bread. John 6 says this: 'It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' He goes on to say, 'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.' How does the bread of life give life? He becomes the bread because the bread can be broken. We hear that Jesus is the bread of life and we think, oh, that is so great — he nourishes us, he sustains us, he gives us life. But in order to give life, Jesus had to become weak. Bread is breakable. Bread is vulnerable. Jesus had to become that. He had to become breakable in order to give us life. In order to be the thing that sustained us, he had to be able to be broken. The bread of life would die so that we could have eternal life. The one who holds all things together, every atom of the universe, the one who holds all things together would be torn apart. The Cup: My Blood of the Covenant We see the bread, we see the bread tells us who he is, but then Jesus moves to the cup and he tells us what it cost. Matthew 26:27-28 says this: 'And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, "Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."' I want you to notice the word 'my' in there. When the disciples heard this, this would have been unbelievable. What Jesus is doing is in some sense copying Moses. When Moses handed out the covenant with Israel, sprinkling blood on Israel, he said this in Exodus 24:8: 'Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you.' And Jesus is sitting here in the upper room and he's saying, 'This is my blood of the covenant.' 'My' seems like a little word — why are we focusing on this? But it makes all the difference. Moses was the intercessor. He was the middleman between God and people. In order to talk to God, you had to go through Moses. In order to be atoned for your sin, there had to be somebody standing in the way. And Jesus sits with his disciples and he says, I am the bread, I am the blood. This cup is my blood. Being sprinkled by blood was a marker of the people. It was an external marker. The new covenant says that Jesus will be the marker. He will be the intercessor. It is personal. But he will not sprinkle you with blood; he invites you to drink. Think about what that means. Being sprinkled with blood says that you belong to this covenant. Drinking it says that the covenant is inside you. Moses marked the people from the outside; Jesus wants you from the inside out. This is the shape of his whole ministry. Jesus goes after more than just the external actions of people. He's going after your heart. Think about the Sermon on the Mount. Essentially, Jesus is going over the law again with people. They thought that if they just did enough good, if they could just perform, do the right outward actions, that God would be happy. And Jesus gets up and says, 'No, God wants your heart. It's not good enough just not to commit murder, you can't hate. It's about your heart.' Jesus is saying, I want all of you. This isn't just a legal transaction. This is an eternal relationship that Jesus is instituting here. God isn't just declaring you clean by sprinkling blood. He is making you his and cleansing you from the inside out. Jesus, in doing this, becomes the new covenant representative and more than that, he becomes the sacrifice himself. When a covenant was made, in order to seal it, two people would walk through an animal that was cut in two. The symbolism of that is to say that a covenant is a promise against your own life. You would walk through this animal torn in two with someone else, and you'd say, 'If I break this covenant, let me be like these animals that we have cut.' This is what happens with God when he makes a covenant with Abraham. Except normally both parties would walk through. In this instance, it is only God. Abraham is put to sleep and he wakes up and he sees God walking in between the animals. And it leads us right into the upper room. What God is saying to Abraham and what Jesus is saying to the disciples is that I will take the full weight of this. When this covenant is broken, it will not fall back on man. It will fall back on me. I will be the one who's torn apart in order to make it right. That's what Jesus is doing at this table. He's saying, 'I am going to become the torn one. I am going to become the one who is pierced. I am the promise that God made humanity so the burden would not have to fall on you.' In this covenant, Jesus will make right what man could not do himself. The beautiful part about this is that not only is he looking right at the disciples as he says this, he's looking at you when he says this. This promise goes to you today. We do not have to fall. We don't have to be the person that all of these consequences fall on. Jesus is going to be torn to pieces in just a couple hours from when he says this, in order to spare us. Jesus will go and pay for your sins on the cross. This is why he says, 'This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.' This is not distant. This is not out there. This is not just a promise anymore. Jesus is saying, 'I am going now to the cross and I will take all of your sin with me.' He is giving himself for you. That word 'for' in Matthew 26:28, when it says, 'which is poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins,' what he's saying is, 'I'm going to the cross for you,' or 'I'm going to the cross instead of you.' His body is going to be broken in your place. His blood will atone for your sins in your place, instead of you. Every covenant before this depended on humanity. Every failure, every sin, every moment where we knew what was right and did the opposite — that's the weight that we carry into this room. And yet Jesus looks at all of it, and instead of turning away from the cross, he turns towards it. He says, I will carry this to the cross. Main Idea Receive the King who gives himself for sinners For centuries, the church has wrestled with this question of what actually happens when we come to the table. The Catholic Church says that the bread actually becomes his body, the cup actually becomes his blood, and that you're literally touching Jesus. The Protestant response since the Reformation has been, no, that's not right. Jesus is standing there in the room with the disciples — it can't be his blood, it can't be his body yet, he hasn't been pierced. It can't be literally. But if it's not literal, then is it just symbolic? Is it just a memorial? Is communion essentially just a spiritual Fourth of July, where we remember what sacrifice someone did for us so that we can have freedom from sin? Is that simply all it is? A weird ritual that allows us to remember? No. Something real is happening here. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we aren't eating Jesus with our mouth literally, but we are with our soul. When we take communion, it doesn't become the physical body and blood of Jesus, but it becomes that for our soul. This is why Jesus says in John 6:51: 'I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh.' Any non-believer could take these elements and yet it is only the true believer who gets the benefits. It's only the Christian who can receive Christ because Jesus is spiritually present in communion at the table. Robert Bruce has this brilliant quote: 'Why then are the sacraments appointed? Not that you may get anything new but that you may get something better, better than you had it in the word. We get Christ better.' We talk about communion as a visible sermon, as a tangible gospel. It isn't something new. It's not a different version. It's the same gospel, and yet we get to taste and see it. It is more intimate. It is closer. It is better than we had it just in the word. And if this is true, which it is, then this table cannot be what most of us treat it as. This isn't a ritual we sit through while we think about dinner. This isn't a box that we check in order to perform as a Christian. You are receiving the living Christ in your soul. Every time we come to communion. Application Examine yourself God says that we need to examine ourselves and make sure that we're not taking communion in an unworthy manner. This means that there are some qualifications in order to take Communion. You should not take communion if you aren't a Christian, if you haven't accepted Christ. If that's true of you today, I'd love to have a conversation with you in order for you to take your first communion tonight. You also shouldn't take communion if you're living in active rebellion against God. If you're living your life unrepentant, this is a time to seek repentance first. Another requirement is that if you have unresolved sin, an unresolved grudge, if there's disunity between you and another believer, God's Word says that we should go to them before we take communion. That is more important — the unity of the body — than it is that we participate in this tonight. The last thing is that if we are living in hypocrisy or a life contrary to the gospel that we believe. Why would I say all of this? I think sometimes pastors like me get the wrong connotations, that there's all these rules set up around the table. It absolutely is not that. I find no pleasure in saying these things. The reality is that I care about your soul. These things are what God tells us when we come to the table. I love you enough to tell you — I don't want you to walk into something that God says you shouldn't be walking into. Doing these wrong things are actually bad for your soul. The Lord's table is too important to simply go through the motions. I also want you to hear this because oftentimes this is the outcome that comes from saying something like this. There are going to be some of you who hear that and go, 'Well, man, I messed up this week once and therefore I shouldn't come to the table.' And then there are others of you who are actively living in rebellion and go, 'Well, he's not talking about me.' This is a moment to stop and pause and ask the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin and to help you discern whether or not this is the moment for you to take this. The point of this is not for you to feel more condemnation. The point is that it would draw you back into repentance and into a relationship with Jesus. Do this Jesus doesn't just warn about the table. He commands us to do it. That's what Jesus says. It's our application because it's the whole point of Maundy Thursday. It is a mandate. It is our duty to do this. Jesus doesn't just say, 'Do this in remembrance of me.' He says this: '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.' This is not just a Christian add-on. This is not an optional thing for a mature believer to do. Communion is where you regularly receive life that only God can give you. So we cannot passively take this, we cannot casually skip this. Communion is so important that it is worth rearranging our schedule for. It's worth missing our grandchildren's or children's sporting events on a Sunday. It's worth rearranging your schedule around. It's more important than visiting family. It's more important than making a day trip to wherever. Communion is not an add-on. It is an invitation. Jesus has set the table before you. He has given his body and blood so that we could have a seat at this table. So don't miss it. As we come to a close — the night of the first Passover, God said either a lamb will die or the firstborn son. Israel killed the lamb and painted that blood of the spotless lamb over its doorposts, and death passed over them. That's what happened. That's what is happening at this table. Jesus is the lamb, and Jesus is the firstborn son. He is the blood on the doorpost and death passes over everyone who is covered by it. And he is the firstborn son who takes the judgment. But here is what is remarkable about this night. Jesus knows that this is coming. He knows that Judas is about to betray him. He knows that Peter is about to deny him. He knows that the cross is only a couple hours away. And yet, he looks past it all. He says this: 'I tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom.' On the worst night of Jesus' life, he is already thinking about the feast that will be on the other side of this. He is sitting at the table about to go through the most anguish that any human being will ever go through or has ever gone through. And he says, another table is coming. Not a table of bread and cup, but a table where you will see me in all of my glory face to face. No more symbols, just him. A lamb who died will be the host. Every time we take communion, we are living between these two tables. We are living between the table of that Passover night, the table behind us where Jesus gave himself, and the table ahead of us where Jesus welcomes us home. This meal is how we remember where we came from and where we are going. Receive the King who gives himself for sinners. So come to the table knowing what it costs. Come to the table knowing that this will not be the last one. Closing Prayer Father, we praise you that we do not have to be the ones who were slaughtered for our sins, that we didn't have to be the ones who paid the price for our foolishness, for our lack of wisdom, and for our rebellion against you, but that you sent your Son to take our place. God, I pray that we would not look at this communion, at this table, the same. God, you loved us and took our place. God, help us to worship you, to see the gospel, to hear it now, and to taste and see that you are good. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Crucified with Christ Prosper Christian Reformed Church Crucified with Christ Christ Alone Mitchell Leach Sunday, February 8, 2026 Audio Crucified with Christ Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 46:03 Sermon Transcript Introduction/Big Question What brings people together? What brings people together? Or another way to ask that question would be, how do we determine where we belong? Culture says you belong if you perform, if you fit in, if you signal the right virtues. In the church, things can be similar. You belong if you behave. We can believe this. We belong If we clean up first, if we come from the right family or do the right thing, serve in the right ways. And yet both are the same move with the same motive, building our belonging based on our record. You can tell what you believe makes you belong based on what you're building it on. When you fail, are you sad or do you feel condemned? When you're criticized, do you feel humbled or do you feel erased? When you are excluded, do you feel disappointed or do you feel panicked? These are more than just emotions. They are a way for us to see where our standing is before God. What is our verdict system? What determines in our own hearts what we believe about where we belong? Galatians 2 is Paul saying that your belonging isn't built on your record, is built on something more. If our verdict is built on this, we will either become people who are crushed, people who are proud. And yet, either way, we won't have peace with that. And then Paul says something that's really shocking. In order for us to feel like we're in, in order for us to actually be in, our focus has to be on admitting that we're outsiders. Stop trying to get in by law keeping. What brings people together? And fortunately, the Bible has an answer for us. So keep your Bibles open to Galatians 2, as we see two primary movements in this passage. 2:15-16 — The Shared Problem: No One Is Justified by the Law 2:17-21 — The False Inference Rejected: Grace Does Not Promote Sin Paul is going to do two things here. He's going to tell us how people are made right God, and then he's going to protect that gospel from the most common misunderstanding that humans make towards it. In this section, what we'll see is that justification comes through faith in Jesus Christ because righteousness is not by law keeping, and to try to do so actually nullifies and denies the death of Christ. This passage that we're in today is a bridge between last week and next week. I think we could say that about all passages in this series, but specifically between Paul making a case for his apostelship to next week, what we're going to see is the truth of the gospel really clarified and explained. A Shared Problem: No One is Justified by the Law - Galatians 2:15-16. Galatians 2:15 says this, We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. I want to stop there. What Paul Paul is talking about, he's saying this ironically, he's saying to the Gentiles or to the Galatians, the way that you've been looking at this difference between Jew and Gentile, who can sit with who during mealtimes, is you look at them like Gentile sinners. That's what they would say about these Gentiles. Paul is saying, We're not like them. We are Jewish people, and yet we're going to see something here. And yet this is how the human heart works. It doesn't just break rules. It tries to use rules to create divisions among people. Rules are a way that we can say, Well, at least we're not like them. We don't break those rules. If you love rules more than you love what they're protecting, what you're doing is you're trying to use them in a way to leverage people. You're trying to leverage the law over people. It's a ladder for you to step above them, to get higher than them. If you're first instinct when you sin is not confession, but comparison, then you've turned the law into a tool for self-justification. The solution is not to hate the law. It's to see it correctly. God gave us the law in order to reveal who he is. Paul is not anti-obedience. He's not anti-law. He's anti-earning our salvation. Paul is essentially saying here, the the law is a good mirror. It's a good mirror. It's a terrible savior. The solution here is to see the law as good, and yet to see ourselves correctly as people who are law breakers. And that's what we see in this first part in Galatians 2:16. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith. Paul saying, Even though we were Jews, no one is justified by the law. And that's the core message of this letter, this epistle, is that of justification. Justification or being justified is a legal term. It was used in courtrooms. It still is used in courtrooms. And yet today, outside of the courtroom, outside of church, the word to justify something largely carries a negative connotation. Really, what it means is, and how it's used commonly today in culture, is to excuse bad behavior, to allow someone to get away with something that they shouldn't. You might say it in this way, somebody justified his friend's adultery because he, I don't know, fill in the blank. I don't know why there would be a good way to justify someone's adultery, but using it in that way. And it sounds like God is allowing bad things to go unpunished. When we read this word, it can seem like it's carrying this connotation. And yet this is what the Bible says, a good definition of the law or of what justification means. God declares a sinner to be righteous in his sight, not because the person has become morally perfect, but because God forgave their sins and counts them righteous on the basis of Jesus Christ. Justification is not a feeling. It is not a motive. It is not an emotion. It is a verdict. It is a declaration. It is a pronouncement over you. So the law, and what Paul is saying is the law is not something that can put you in a right standing before God. But why? Why is that? Why is it that we talk about the law cannot be something that we add onto scripture or it cannot be something that saves us? Well, first, no one can keep the law. We see that throughout scripture, but we see it in our own lives. We cannot even keep the laws that we make. If you had a tape recorder or someone had a tape recorder and they followed you around for your life, and they recorded every time you said, You should, whatever that fill in the blank is afterwards. You should eat your vegetables. You should obey the speed limit. You should, whatever. You would not be able to keep your own laws that you tell other people to keep, let alone the laws that God gives for us. The second part of why we can't use the law to save us is that the law, by its nature, is not something that saves us. It can't. Laws are there, whether by God or human laws. Laws are there not to save people. They are there to convict. They are there to reveal wrongdoing and evil. They show us when we've crossed the line. They don't bring us back towards it. See, God is pleased when we obey him, and yet when we obey him out of a heart of love. It's just like parenting. You love when your kids obey you the first time, when they do it out of a right motive, when you don't have to argue with them, when you don't have to try to twist their arm into doing the right thing. It's the same with God. Obedience can't reverse the damage that we've caused. It would be like speeding and getting into a car accident. Going the speed limit after that. There isn't an amount of going the speed limit after that that can reverse the damage done to your car. We need someone to take care of it. We need someone to fix it for us. Obedience can't reverse the damage. We don't need a second chance. We need a substitute. We need someone who will come and fix what we could not. We need grace. We need the gospel to rescue us. And that's why Paul continues on in verse 16, But through faith in Jesus Christ, so that we have also believed in Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ, not by works of the law, because by works of law, no one will be justified. It is in faith in Christ that saves. And so what is faith? It might feel like this is another work, that this is something that we're adding on to Jesus, that faith is something that's required. No, faith is not a payment. Faith is not leverage. Faith is not a way for us to earn good standing with God. It's not impressing God with our sincerity or with our devotion. Faith is going to God with empty hands. Faith is saying, I'm spiritually bankrupt. I have nothing to offer. I have nothing to bring. I need to be saved. I need to be raised from the dead. Faith is what allows us to reach to God after we've been resurrected, after we've been raised from the dead, to be able to wake up and receive the grace that God has given us. It's why Jesus says in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, who have spiritual poverty. Because it's only then that we can realize that we need a savior. If we think that we're good, if we think that we have it figured out, if we think that there's anything that we can offer God to make him want us, to make him desire us on our own, we don't have it. We've lost it. We have to say, God, there's nothing that I bring. Faith is not a work. It is a response to God's grace. It is a response to his grace. And anytime we think that we can add anything to it, we start to determine who gets to be in and who gets to be out. And that's the problem that the Jewish people had. That's the problem that we see in this book. The Jews thought they knew who was in, and they were sure that it was them. They knew that they could follow the law, that they could do whatever. They had the right relationship with God. And they knew that Gentiles, they were sinners. They were out. Yet the gospel says the opposite, not about Jews and Gentiles, but about that mindset. If you believe that you're in, you're out. If you know that you're outside, you're an outsider, you're in. If your confidence is in, well, I'm basically a good person, and I take my faith more seriously, or I take my devotion to God more seriously than others, I'm from the right background, I'm from the right family, I've cleaned up my behavior, God knows that I'm trying really hard and I do the right things. If that's where your confidence is in, then you're using the law like the pharisees used it, not to repent, but to essentially Collect a case together for yourself to try to declare your own verdict, to try to twist God's arm into seeing, See, I really am innocent. And that's not how justification works. If that's how you see your standing before your God, you can't come in. But if you know that you have no hope before our heavenly Father, if you see your identity outside of Christ, if you see your identity as As with the Gentiles, as a sinner, if you feel crushed by the weight of your sin so greatly that you believe you have no hope to get into heaven, then you're in. The doorway into Christ is not competence, it is confession. The only people who Jesus can justify are the people who stop trying to defend themselves, stop trying to be their own lawyer, their own advocate, and accept the advocate of the Holy spirit. If it sounds like what we were talking about earlier, that God is justifying or allowing sinful people to go unpunished, you're half right. God does let sinful people go, but he doesn't let them go unpunished. He does justify the ungodly, but he doesn't erase sin by just sweeping it under the rug or letting it go. He erases sin by placing it not on us, but on his son, where justice is satisfied, where mercy is sealed. The moment that we say free grace, the moment that we talk about free grace, there are two fears that commonly come up. The first is that the moral person feels chaos and that the guilty person will feel condemned. Paul answers both. He says, First, grace is not permission to sin. And second, grace is power to change. Charles Spurgeon says it this way, If Christ has died for me, then I cannot trifle with the sin which killed my best friend. The false inference rejected: grace does not promote sin - Galatians 2:17-21. In Galatians 2:17, Paul continues on. He says, But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners. I'm going to stop right there. Our natural posture of our heart is to put people into two camps, good guys and bad guys. It's always how we've seen the world. It's a human problem. We've always done this. We put two groups of people. It's us versus them, this group versus that group. Regardless of whatever group you find yourself in, the group that you're in is always the good guys, right? No one ever puts themselves in the bad guys side. Whatever side you are on, it doesn't matter what you've done or what your group has done, you're the good guys. Yet God is telling us, We cannot look at the world this way. This is not how the world operates. Every other works-based religion says, You can divide up the world into good and bad people because it is based on what you do. Christianity says, The whole world is running directly towards hell. We are all sinful. Verse 17 says, Whether you are Jew or Gentile, we too were found to be sinners. All of humanity is sinful. Sin is the great equalizer. It puts us all on the same playing field. It's the beautiful thing about Christianity. It's what makes Christianity different from every other works-based religion. See, if you're a Mormon, those outside of Mormonism, those are the Gentiles. If you're Muslim, everyone else is an infidel. If you're a modern day Jew, everyone else is goyam. If it's based on works, our salvation, our right standing with our creator, then they're There is a divide. There are good and bad people. There are people who obey the law, and there are people who don't. Christianity says, That is not how this works. We are saved by grace through faith in Christ alone. Christianity says, Everyone is an outsider. No one gets in. We are all running directly away from God. If you are a Christian, it is not because you are a good person. You are a Christian because Christ has died for your sins. You are not a Christian because you grew up in the right family or in the right church or said a special prayer at summer camp, whatever it is. Our right standing with God is not based on an I statement. It is based on what he has done for us. Christians are the only people who can say, We are getting into heaven without bragging about it. It is not a boast. It is not prideful to say that we get to be in heaven because we did nothing to secure our ticket into heaven. Christians are the only people who say, I get into heaven, and it's not because I'm a good person. It's because I've admitted I was a bad person and I was saved by an even better savior. So now the question is this, and that's what we see in the second part of Galatians 2:17, If Christ saves by faith, is Jesus then promoting sin? It says, Is Christ then a servant of sin? Paul goes on to answer, Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. Paul emphatically answers, No. Christ does not promote sin. In no way does he do this. Jesus already tore down the dividing wall of hostility, the barrier that was set up between the Jews and the Gentiles in the temple. Jesus tore it down. There was a literal wall that said only Jews could get closer to the Holy of Holies. Gentiles had to stay out. When Jesus died on the cross, he tore down that dividing wall for Christians, for the church. This is what the Galatian church misses, had missed so clearly. They this unity that Christians can have, this unity that the church has that is second to none. There's nothing that unites people, that brings people together, that makes them belong in the way that Christ does. There's a mission trip that I was on when I was a youth pastor. We were working on a 30-foot roof. We were putting metal roofing up on this. I don't remember if it was rainy or had rained earlier that day, or if it was early in the morning, they were still due on the roof, but there were places where we couldn't step because it was too slippery. I was at the bottom of this. I was on a ladder, and I was reaching to grab some screws out of my tool belt, and all of a sudden I heard three noises is three kids sliding down. They had stepped where they shouldn't, and they were coming directly at me. I grabbed the gutter. I had nothing else to grab, and it knocks me back. I almost fell. But we stopped these three kids from from falling. I mean, off of 30 feet, it would have been tragic. We sat down afterwards and just realized how scary that moment truly was. I don't want to say it was a near-death experience, but it was something It was something nearly dramatic at minimum. Of the kids I stay in contact with, I like to stay in contact with a lot of the students that I've had the chance to pastor, those kids, those three kids that fell, are some of the three closest kids I stay in contact with. And I would like to say we just had a better relationship, but I think it's largely due to that moment. It's true with men when they get out of the military. There is a relationship that they have with men that they've served that almost no one else can understand because the brothers that they serve with are some of the only people on Earth who understand exactly what they went through. There's nothing like a near-death experience that brings people together. And yet, as Christians, we don't have a near-death experience. We have a shared death experience. That's what Paul talks about in this passage. We have all died. We have all gone through the excruciating pain of died, crucifying ourselves, putting ourselves to death. What Jesus says in Matthew, that we go and sell everything we have to buy the treasure hidden in the field. We let go of all the passions that we once had. We let go of all the things that we held on to so tightly, and we've sold it all. There's something excruciating in that. But now we've been raised with Christ. That's what it says in Galatians 2:19, For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. Might be that I might live to God. Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. In the life I now live, I live in the flesh. I live by faith, sorry, in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. This is all set in faith, not faith in faith, but faith in a person, faith in the one who loved me, faith in the son of God. Look at the motivation here. The motivation is love. It's not a global love, although God absolutely loves the world. This love that we see here is individual. It lands on specific people. It lands on you. Christ loved you. God loved you. Not because we were lovable, not because we've cleaned ourselves up first, not because we've earned it, not because we bring anything inherently within ourselves. We don't have any special talents within ourselves that makes God go, Well, okay, he's got this How can I get it? Well, that makes me love him more. No. Love came first, and he gave himself for me, not merely as a teacher, not merely as a martyr, not merely as an example. Christ came as our substitute He came to take our place, taking what we deserve. So when you hear that grace promotes sin, that this theology that we believe gives us a license to sin, It gives us the ability to just say, Well, if I sin, well, Christ will forgive me. It'll be fine. That is clearly wrong. That's what Paul is saying. Absolutely not. No, certainly not. Grace does not lead to sin. If you believe that, you don't understand what grace is. Grace is not permission, it is power. Grace unites us to God. That leads right into Paul's Closing Line, Galatians 2:21, I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. You can nullify grace without denying Jesus out loud. You can nullify it by adding something to it. Jesus plus effort, Jesus plus law keeping, Jesus plus an improvement plan, Jesus plus my spiritual resume. If I can add to God, if I can add to Jesus, then I could have saved myself. There's no reason for the cross. If I can add one thing, if I believe that Jesus took me to the one yard line, he's handed me the ball, and he's saying, You go score. If it's just one yard, right? Because it's a Super Bowl Sunday. If it's one yard that I can do, then it needed to be on me the whole time. Then I could have saved myself. Then what Jesus did on the cross Essentially was divine child abuse. If I can save myself, if I have the ability to save myself, then it's on me the whole way. It's not just the last step. If I can get right with God by my performance, if my obedience can declare my verdict, then I need to be the one to make it right. Then Christ died for no purpose. The cross becomes unnecessary. It becomes an add-on. It becomes optional. Instead of Jesus being my own only hope, he becomes one of them. He becomes one way. And Christianity just becomes another ladder. It becomes, how obedient are you? How good are you? It makes our only boast not in Christ, but in ourselves. Paul's point is this, you do not get You get wholeness by climbing a ladder. You get wholeness by living out your union with God, dying to yourself and becoming alive in something better, in something new, alive in Christ. So the false inference is rejected. Grace does not make Jesus a servant of sin. Grace makes sinners new, and he makes Christ central. That leads us to our main idea. Main Idea: We are justified by faith and alive in Christ. We are justified by faith and alive in Christ. The gospel is not what we offer God. The gospel is what we receive from God. We don't seal the deal. Christ sealed it when he said, It is finished. There is nothing we add on. Jesus didn't get up on the cross and said, Well, now I've got it started. That wasn't his last breath. Jesus said, It is finished. To add anything on to Christ after that is to make him a liar on the cross. This is the wonderful part about being a Christian. If you feel like you've done too much, too much evil, if you feel like you're an outsider, congratulations. The good news of the gospel is that it's not on you. Whether you were good, whether you were born in the right family, you did everything right, or you lived the most morally corrupt life you could have. It's not on you. There isn't a single thing you can do to make you outside of the love of Christ that he has for you. This is the good news of the gospel, that we don't even hold ourselves to Christ, that he is the one who holds us to him. It simply does not matter what you have done. Paul was a murderer. Paul was a murderer. I mean, look at every character in scripture. God does a great job of painting every character, except for one, in a negative light. There isn't a single person in here besides Christ who isn't a total screw-up. If you think that he can't use you, he used Paul, a murderer. The Son of God loved you and gave himself for you. There isn't a sin that the blood of Christ cannot redeem, cannot make right. And that's a call for us as a church. There's something here, an application before we get to our application, for us as a church, because if Christ receives sinners by grace, we as a church cannot demand people to get themselves cleaned up before they can start worshiping with us, for people to start earning their seat before they sit down. We do not clean people up and bring them to Christ and bring them to Jesus. We don't clean them up first. We bring people, and Jesus cleanses them. Every church is tempted in two directions. First, to make people pretend they're clean or to invite people to become brand new. Church, we have to be that second church. We cannot force people to act like us, to do X, Y, or Z, to dress like us, to sing like us, to perform a certain way in order to be accepted here. Except for the gospel, which we will never move away from. We will never dilute the gospel. As long as I'm your pastor, that won't happen. We will never move from this. We will never lower the bar. But as a church, we can't ask people to perform. We can't ask people to pretend like they're not messy. If we demand that people aren't messy in order to come worship with us, Sunday morning, we'll have zero people. I won't be able to be here. We are all a mess. I'm not saying that we all have to dress a certain way. We don't have to all lower our dress standards. Sometimes I like wearing a suit and tie. I mean, I'm weird. I understand that, but sometimes I like it, okay? But we cannot pretend that dressing up, that looking clean on the outside, doesn't mean that we're not messy. One of my favorite things about this is my grandpa was one of the men who had faith that I aspire to. He was an incredible man. He was a farmer. And during harvesting season, he would come in straight out of the combine with a hat on, with overalls on, and he would be dirty. He'd be a mess. He'd be dusty. And I remember thinking, how awesome is that? He He would have looked at himself and gone, I don't have the right clothes on. I still have a hat on. I haven't showered today. And yet he said, I'm going to take an hour, I'm going to take an hour and a half to be here on Sunday to worship. If you have to debate whether you're going to be here because you feel like you're too messy. If you're wondering whether you need to... If you're running late and you're going to show up, you're going to miss the first part of worship, come. I'd love for you to be here for the whole thing. I think the whole thing is worth it, but come. If you're coming in your overalls out of the field, come. If you haven't showered today, If you're physically messy, come. If you're spiritually messy, even more of a reason to come. I would so much rather you come messy and experience Christ, experience the worship here, experience the God that we see in scripture, than to try to stay at home and fix yourself. That leads us into our points of application. Use justification as a weapon against guilt and pride. Justification means God's verdict over you is settled. It is God banging the gavel and saying, Innocent. It is not up for renegotiation today. So this gospel hits on two two opposite sins. It hits on guilt that says, I am condemned, and it hits on pride that says, I am better. When Satan comes and assaults you this week, when he comes against you and he says, I know what you've done, and you call yourself a Christian. I saw you in high school. I saw you in college. I saw what you did then. I saw what you did last week. How dare you call yourself a Christian? We can say, Satan, you're absolutely right. That was the old me. That was the old Mitchell. But I am raised in Christ, and you have no longer a claim over me. The gospel sets sinful people free, sets sinful people away from the condemnation that we feel from the judgment that we feel from the enemy. Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 60. The answer says this, part of the answer says this, Although my conscience accuses me, yet God, out of mere grace, imputes to me Christ as as if I never committed any sin. What beautiful language that encapsulates the gospel here. When your accuser comes and says, You are not good enough, we can say, Absolutely, I wasn't. But Christ was good for me. When your heart says, Prove that you're worth loving this week by trying harder, being better, you can say, If righteousness were through me We're through the law. Christ died for no purpose. Absolutely not. I will not try to make my obedience pay Jesus back. I could never pay him back. I will not nullify grace by doing it that way. And when your pride shows up by saying, Well, at least I'm not like them, you can say, We, too, were found to be sinners. I, too, was found to be morally corrupt, to be It's an absolute mess. The beauty of the gospel is that the cross is at a level playing ground. It is at eye level for everyone. We are all equally convicted of sin before God. It is only because Jesus was my substitute that I have even the faintest hope of being right with God. Live in union with Christ as the engine of Holiness and unity. Union with Christ means dying to the old self and living with Christ. So Holiness is not Earning acceptance. Holiness is living from acceptance. Use the gospel for your Holiness. When tempted to say, I will try harder and be better, tell yourself. That is not who I am anymore. I've been crucified with Christ. Fight sin from identity. Fight sin from identity, not for identity. Use the gospel for unity. Stop ranking Christians as somehow on a different letter, on a different rung in the ladder. There aren't JV Christians. In fact, there is no such thing as a good Christian. It's my least favorite heresy that when people say, Oh, so and so is such a good Christian. There's no such thing as a good Christian because a Christian is not based on what you do. If someone asks you why you're a Christian, you cannot answer in the first person. You cannot answer by saying, It's because I grew up in a Christian home, or I went to Bible camp and I said a magic prayer, or because I decided I wanted to get baptized. No, you are a Christian because Christ, because he. You must answer it in the third person. You cannot be a good Christian. Christianity is not based on what you do. Therefore, it cannot be based. You can't be good at it. You are either a Christian, you are either in Christ or you aren't. We are all justified the same way, so we cannot despise one another. We can't put each other into categories of good Christians and bad Christians. We are all equally in the same category. We are sinners, and some of us have accepted and received the grace that Christ offers. This is why the church has always had a radical unity. It's why some of you might have Some of you might have a struggle with people, even in your own family, connecting deeply with them, where you can connect with someone across the country, across the world, maybe even someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. You have nothing in common with. And your own brother or sister, your own father or mother, you cannot connect with them on that level because you have a shared death experience with that person who you may have never met. You can't talk about that with maybe even someone in your own family. We are called, we are bonded, we are unified in something radical. Why is it that we can be alive in Christ? Because Christ came to be death for for us. Through the law, I died to the law, meaning that the law could never save me. It put me in the grave, but God did not keep me there. The gospel is not, Try harder, be better. If that's at all what you've heard, get your hearing check, because that is not what this says nor what I have said. The gospel is, Jesus came to die for your sins, to be your substitute, to raise you from death to life. He came to be what sin deserved, to be death, to be the separation, to be judgment for us so that we could be what grace received. We can be life, forgiven and accepted. Christianity is not a moral betterment program. It is not behavioral modification. It is life transformation. It is a new source of life and identity. So here's why you can be alive, because he entered death for you, because he took your verdict, and now he shares his life with you. The gospel is not work your way to life. The gospel is: die with Christ and be alive with Christ. We are justified by faith and alive in Christ. Let's stand and pray and respond in worship for the God who has raised us in him in newness of life. Father God, we praise you and thank you that we are no longer dead, that we no longer are ourselves. God, that Satan has no longer a claim on us because we can say, We are alive in you. Father, I pray that we would live as renewed people, that we would live as transformed people, whether we've heard this the first time today or we've heard this a hundred times before. God, let this be a well of living water bursting out of our souls. God, let us declare in this next song that you are holy, holy, holy as people who have been radically transformed. Let us love one another because you first loved us. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link

Boast Only in the Cross Prosper Christian Reformed Church Boast Only in the Cross Christ Alone Mitchell Leach Sunday, March 15, 2026 Audio Boast Only in the Cross Mitchell Leach 00:00 / 34:04 Sermon Transcript To all who are weary and need rest, to all who fail and desire strength, to all who mourn and long for comfort, to all who sin and need a Savior, this church opens wide her doors with a welcome from Christ Jesus, a friend to sinners. Welcome to an online gathering of Prosper Christian Reformed Church. And I can say this now preemptively, man, the roads are terrible out there. Can you believe this weather? We're pre-recording this on Saturday so that way when we needed it, because if you're seeing this, we did, because we canceled church because we— the weather was just so bad. We wanted to include this last sermon in our Galatians series, Christ Alone, that really encompasses the totality of what we've been looking at in this series. And so we wanted to make sure that this was available for you because it goes along with the devotional series that we've been going through, the devotional plan that you've been going through, and we felt like this was a really good way to end this series. There will be some announcements that we'll send out in the email that comes along with this and some songs that you can sing at home that will go along with the service. But this is going to be an abbreviated message, abbreviated video service that will include the scripture reading and then the sermon. So let's jump into that scripture reading now. Scripture Reading Galatians 6:11-18 Hear the word of the Lord. See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised, and only in order that they might not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. But far be it for me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them and upon the Israel of God. From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Be with your spirit, brothers. Amen. In the past couple decades, baseball teams thought they knew exactly what made a good baseball team, what players made a good baseball team. They were certain of this. Things like batting average, pitching stats like ERA, RBIs, the look of a player, the sound that the bat made when it hit a ball. All of these things were key indicators that led a team to either choose or pass on a player, especially when replacing a player. And then came the Moneyball era. If you've seen the movie Moneyball, you'll know what I'm talking about. This, this idea of replacing players, not as a one-for-one, but replacing them with maybe a couple different players that, that kind of Frankenstein their way into making the replacement that a team lost. This happened with the Oakland Athletics. They were a team that could not afford to compete with the New York Yankees, the team that had tons of money. This team had hardly any. And so they figured out an algorithm, figured out an equation to make players, to make a team out of misfits, out of a team that really didn't seem to— that nobody wanted, players that nobody really wanted. And it worked. They were able to compete at a very high level and it changed the game of baseball. But it exposed something: old metrics were comforting but they were misleading. Things that teams were certain of were exposed. Even though they gave them a sense of control, even though those old metrics or a sense of control for these teams, they didn't actually produce results. They didn't actually produce wins. And once they saw that, they realized that you can be sure of something, but you can still be wrong. And that's not just true for baseball; that's true for us. You can be sure of things in your life and still be wrong. Because we all live based on a metric. We all have things that we try to trust in that tell us that we are okay. And that leads us into our big question for this morning: What are you sure of? What are you sure of? Big Question What are you sure of? We all live on something that we are sure of. Everyone has a righteousness. Everyone has a metric. Everyone has a boast. The question is whether or not you can hold onto those things, those things can hold you, while you suffer, when you suffer. If your certainty is built on performance, then your best day becomes your pride, will produce your pride, and your worst day will produce despair. Our culture offers dozens of different ways to produce these counterfeit certainties. Things like image: if I look put together, then I'm safe. Maybe it's morality. If I'm better than them, then I'm clean. It can be control. If I can plan it, then I can breathe. Maybe it's approval. If they like me, then I can feel secure. Maybe it's a religious marker. If I do the right things, if I obey the right laws, then God must accept me. But the reality is all of these things have the same flaw. They cannot carry suffering, they cannot carry guilt, and they cannot carry death. They never give peace; only more rules, only more things to check off our list, only more bars to jump over. And that's why Paul says false teachers want to show a good showing in the flesh. They want something visible, something measurable, a metric, a ruler, a proof that they can point to. That says, "Now I'm sure." So the question is unavoidable: What are you certain of? What are you sure of? The good news is that Christianity is not guesswork. God speaks to us. So keep your Bibles open to Galatians 6:11-18. We're going to see two major movements in this last sermon on Galatians. First, we're going to see false boasting exposed and then true boasting declared. This is the last all-encompassing kind of review of this sermon series that we've been going through in Galatians where we've been seeing Christ alone. That life in God starts in Christ Jesus, not in works. What we'll see in this passage is that the only legitimate boast for the Christian is the cross of Christ through which the world is crucified, a new creation has come, and peace belongs to those who walk by this gospel rule. Outline False Boasting Exposed: Confidence in the Flesh (Galatians 6:11-13) True Boasting Declared: Confidence in the Cross (Galatians 6:14-18) False Boasting Exposed: Confidence in the Flesh (Galatians 6:11-13) The Apostle Paul starts off by showing what false confidence looks like in real time—religious performance under social pressure. And that's what we see in this first section, this first section, Galatians 6:11-13. I'm titling this False Boasting Exposed. Confidence in the flesh. Let's look at Galatians 6:11. He says this: "See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand." Paul has been probably using a scribe to write most of this book and then he ends this last portion by writing it personally with his own hands. If you were to read the original letter from Paul, you would have seen larger letters. Scholars have speculated maybe it was the thorn in his flesh. Maybe it had something to do with his eyesight or maybe it had something to do with his hand-eye coordination. We don't know. But Paul is saying that he's writing this last portion himself. Paul wants the Galatians to feel, to see with their own hand, their own eyes, his handwriting and to know that this isn't a minor dispute. This isn't some secondary or tertiary church, you know, theology issue that we can brush under the rug. This is a gospel crisis and they must respond. It has to do with adding anything to the finished work of Jesus on the cross. And here's why people add to Jesus. Not because they're wicked always. But it's oftentimes because they're scared. And that's what Galatians 6:12 says, "It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh who would force you to be circumcised and only in order that they might not be persecuted for the cross of Christ." The circumcision party wanted men who weren't Jewish, who weren't born Jewish by birth, to be marked by the old covenant sign. This sign, circumcision, was to hold Israel, to hold God's covenant people until the Savior came. Why would they want this? Maybe it was because they believed that God would not accept them, accept these new Christians, unless they held to everything in the Old Testament. Maybe it was a love for traditions; they loved the Jewish culture. They loved some of these things that were emblematic of the Jewish faith and they felt like they were losing them as new Gentiles came into the faith. But one reason, certainly, and what Paul says is that they were afraid of persecution, specifically Jewish persecution. These Christian Jews who came to saving faith in Christ, were probably influenced by friends and family. These relationships that had been ongoing that these friends, these people in their family, maybe neighbors, having conversations with these new Jewish Christians. I bet you they were called unclean; being associated with Gentiles, outsiders, people that they weren't supposed to eat with, Jewish people weren't supposed to eat with. And I bet that these conversations weren't some thoughtful theological conversation. It wasn't some debate between Christian pastors and Jewish rabbis. I'm certain that this was everyday conversations between everyday type of people. People, Jewish people, not Jewish Christians, but Jewish people who weren't certain. They were already kind of afraid of this new Jesus thing. But now that they hear about these Jewish Christians mixing with these Gentiles who weren't forced to follow all of the Jewish laws, I bet you these people were kicked out of their families or kicked out of these social circles that they were once in. I'll bet you Jewish people would say, "You know, I can't believe that you would do this." Maybe, maybe if you ask them to become Jewish and, you know, celebrate all of the purity laws and become fully Jewish, maybe then you, who are a Jewish Christian, could come back in and be accepted; that it would be okay. Paul isn't trying to slander anyone. But this decision on what to believe should not be based on social pressures. It should not be based on these external things, these relationships that even we have in our life. The flesh does not just want to be good. It wants to prove. It wants to be seen as good. Legalism isn't just trying hard. It is trying to get a verdict without the cross. It is trying to get external validation to see people say, "Yes, you are good." People-pleasing isn't just wearing religious clothing. It is when you make faith a badge. You turn sinners into trophies. And that's what Paul continues on in Galatians 6:13. "For even those who are circumcised do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh." Boasting in the flesh here means this: it's the equivalent of what happens when Christians celebrate over conversion. When we see a sinner come to saving faith, we rejoice. But these people, these Judaizers, these Jewish Christians, would not celebrate over someone becoming a Christian. They would celebrate when someone would become a Jew. They do this not because they actually want more obedience to the law. The sad part about this is that they fear the persecution. They just want to avoid persecution. And Paul says this because we cannot have confidence in what we bring to the table. We can't— Paul's telling them that they can't say, "God, I know that you've saved me but I'm more faithful than those other guys who don't get circumcised." And maybe we don't struggle with this today; we don't struggle with circumcision today. We've kind of handled that issue. We know what we believe on this today because Paul has given us something. And yet, we struggle with other things like the idea of baptism or being rebaptized. So many people today believe, well, I need to be rebaptized again as an adult because I didn't make the decision as a kid. I've heard this over and over as a pastor. My question to them is, do you think that you had a choice? If you feel like you don't have a choice in baptism, in being baptized, do you feel like you had a choice in being saved? Did God choose you or did you choose God? No, God chose you even in your infancy. Our baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant, just like circumcision was for the Old Testament. And the beautiful part of our covenantal theology, our covenantal baptism as people who baptize infants, is that it doesn't have to be us saying we made this decision. We get to live into this reality that God chose us even while we were sinners. Our confidence cannot be in ourselves, cannot be even in our own decisions, but they must be in Christ Jesus. And Paul doesn't just criticize their boast, he shows you what his is. He puts it on the table as the only safe metric for the thing we can boast in. That's what we see in the second section, true boasting declared, confidence in the cross, Galatians 6:14. True Boasting Declared: Confidence in the Cross (Galatians 6:14-18) As people, we so desperately want credit. We want to feel like we did something, especially when it comes to our faith. We want to feel like we didn't leave Jesus alone on the cross. We want to believe that if we would have been in the crowd, we wouldn't have shouted, "Persecute him," or, "Crucify him." We wouldn't have been, if we were a disciple, we wouldn't have scattered when Jesus was crucified. If we would have been Peter, we would have never denied him. And this comes from pride. But the reality is we are sinful. We don't have hope. We would have exactly done the same things as everyone else. This pride that we have that makes us believe that we would have been different is a faulty one. It leads us to want to add to our salvation. To try to prove to Jesus that we really mean it; that we are truly his. But we owe a debt. The Bible says that we owe a debt. And if you've ever been in debt, you know what that feels like, especially if it's been significant. If you've ever found out that all of a sudden you're in some serious financial hardship, some serious hole financially. The dread that comes from that is overwhelming. It can cause you to lose sleep. It can cause you to become depressed. It can cause a litany of emotions. But there is no greater feeling than discovering that you've missed something; discovering that there is hope or finding out that there might be someone who can rescue you from this financial hard spot. And the same is true with our faith. It is never fun to admit that we are in such a spiritual or financial debt that we can't get out of it ourselves. It's humiliating, in fact. And yet, that feeling is dwarfed when we realize the freedom, the relief that comes from being rescued. Paul says this in Galatians 6:14, he says, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." When the cross becomes your boast, the world's scoreboard dies. You stop needing old trophies. Why would Paul say this? That our only boast is in Christ? Why would he have to say this? Because boasting in the cross in the first century, in the first century world, would have been a crazy thing to do. It would have been so, so weird. The cross was a torture method. It was a way to crucify, to kill criminals. It was shameful and everyone saw it that way. Every other person who had been crucified had been guilty in some right. You look at the people who were on the cross, who would be crucified, they were criminals, thieves, murderers. They were bad guys. Yet, for Paul, this wasn't shameful. It was the only reason for his boast. We cannot boast in anything. As people who are Reformed, who believe that God is sovereign over everything, even our own salvation, we can't boast in anything other than the cross. I won't be able to get to heaven someday and look at fellow Christians and say, "Well, you know, I came to saving faith when I was 15 and you waited until you were 18. Therefore, I chose Jesus a little bit sooner than you did and therefore I get a chance to boast." No, no, no, no, no. That's how people fall. That's how people become corrupt, being overconfident and not watchful. Because God is sovereign over everything. He chose the time, the exact right time for me to follow him. He chose the exact right time for my wife who was 18 to follow him. There will be no boasting for either of us. What is my only boast? Or what is my only comfort? That I with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. My only boast is in Jesus. My only comfort is in Jesus. My only hope is in Jesus. Let this be our prayer, Prosper. Let this be your prayer. Far be it from us to have anything pull us into confidence apart from Jesus. Life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by the law. And that's been our whole theme throughout this series in Galatians. Life with God comes by faith in Christ, not by the law. Far be it from anything to pull us into confidence other than the cross of Christ. Paul continues on in Galatians 6:14. He says, "By which the world has been crucified to me and I to it." Paul is saying, "I have a new allegiance." And that alludes back to Galatians 1:4. It says this, "He who gave himself," Jesus, "who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age." That present evil age is the same idea that Paul's talking about that the world has been put to death. There is this age, this era, that is no longer. We are now under the reign and rule of Christ. Paul continues on, "For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." The cross is the only place that pride and shame die together. The world says, "Prove yourself." The cross says it has been proven for you. The cross does not just forgive you, it frees you from needing credit. New creation means this: you don't need old markers to feel clean. You don't need old metrics to feel sure. Scars, for Christ, are not evidence that God has abandoned you. They are evidence that you belong to Jesus in a world that doesn't. And that new creation does not just change what you believe, it changes what you are willing to bear. It changes what will mark you. The only marker that counts is being sealed by the promised Holy Spirit. In fact, Paul continues in Galatians 6:17, "From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Paul is saying if you want a physical mark, if you want to mark your body physically, I'll show you one. Look at my scars. I am branded with the sufferings of Jesus. All of Galatians has been leading up to this point, has been leading up to this final paragraph, this final all-encompassing paragraph. Paul has been pleading with the churches that they cannot add anything to the gospel. They cannot require circumcision. They cannot require anything that would replace Jesus. Jesus. All, any of these things are things that people can do. All of these things that people could have pride in and use to rank themselves against other Christians, against other believers. If the way that we are saved is by any work of our own, then we have some reason to boast. I could have done more. I could be enough. For God to save me. You could get into heaven and say, "Yeah, we're all here in heaven, but, you know, I was the one who never missed church in 30 years," or, "I was the one who gave more than anyone else," or, you know, "I really, you know, I accepted Christ before you. You had waited until you're in your 20s, 30s, or whenever you did." No, that is not what we get to boast in. And this is our main idea. Paul says, "Boast only in the cross." That's our main idea. Boast only in the cross. Main Idea Boast only in the cross The gospel is not just how we start as Christians. It is a daily necessity. We are all sinful people, even after accepting Christ, even after being marked by the promise of the Holy Spirit. We need the gospel daily. We never graduate from the gospel. If you get tired of hearing messages or songs about the gospel, about the saving grace that comes from the gospel, then you don't understand the gospel. We are not saved by what we've done. We're saved and held to Christ by the cross. If we are saved by what Christ did for us, on our behalf while we were sinners, then what right do we have to claim that we are better than it or better or worse than any other Christian? How can I make rules for entrance into the kingdom if someone else has paid the price for me to get in? I can't. I get in. I get into the kingdom. I get in because he said so. He's the one who took my place. The cross is the only hope for every and any sinner. Application Stop letting the fear of people edit the gospel — Galatians 6:12 So what does boasting in the cross look like for us tomorrow? It looks like refusing people pleasing and it looks like reinterpreting our suffering. So let's look at our first point of application; it's this: Stop letting the fear of people edit the gospel. Just like in Galatians 6:12, Paul's saying that these Judaizers, they don't want you to get circumcised because they want you to be more obedient. They don't follow the law themselves. They want it because they don't want Jewish people to persecute them. They want to be able to be in relationship with their friends and families and neighbors who look down at them. When you feel the pressure to fit in, with your friends, with your coworkers, with your friends or your families. Ask yourself, "Am I avoiding offense of the cross to keep my approval?" This is the most dangerous way heresy creeps into our life. It's not through false teaching, mostly. It's through those everyday conversations we have with people that we don't really want to offend them. And maybe we know that what they're saying might not be biblical but it's easy for us to go along with them. We like the people that we're talking to. We want to stay in those same kind of relationships and so we subtly change what we believe in order to fit in. This is a dangerous, dangerous thing for us. And so the challenge for you is this: When you feel yourself going against what Scripture says? Well, stand up for the word. Stand up for what Christ did. Let your boast only be in the cross, not in your relationships with others. Jesus says that he comes not to bring peace but with a sword. He will divide us against the people we love because the world will naturally want to fight against truth. And we need to be people who believe in the Word. I've been in many conversations like this where people will say, "Well, you know, Paul said this and Jesus said this and they seem like they contradict. They seem like, you know, they don't get along. So we got to go with what Jesus says. We got to be red-letter Christians." And there hasn't been a bigger or maybe more subtle undermining belief system in the church. We are not red-letter Christians. Every word in God's Word, in Scripture, is spoken, is breathed out by God. The words of Paul are just as authoritative as the words of Christ. We have to be people who come back to his word and believe even if it offends the people around us. Reinterpret your suffering — Galatians 6:17 The second point of application is this: reinterpret your suffering. If you carry hardship, if you're going through a hard season, don't assume this is God punishing you. Sometimes the marks of Jesus are what faithfulness costs in a world that resists the cross of Christ. There are going to be times in your life where you're going through a trial, where you're going through hardship, but that doesn't necessarily mean that God is disappointed in you or something's wrong. Sometimes when we fix our eyes on the cross and we see the narrow road, the narrow path that lies before us that's marked with suffering, we have to choose it. We have to choose to walk through hardship knowing that the joy that is set before us in the cross of Christ is more beautiful, is more satisfying, than anything else. If your treasure, if your boast is only in Jesus, then the trials and sufferings along the way will be nothing, will be light, will be an easy affliction. Oftentimes, those trials are there as a filter to weed out people who are lukewarm in their faith. So persevere. Do not run away. Paul calls these marks the marks of Christ. The things that can refine us into the Christians, into the people that God is calling us to be. Why is it that we can boast only in the cross? Why is it that we can boast even in our suffering? It's because Jesus became a curse. He wasn't a boast; he wasn't something that people bragged about when he was hanging on the tree. In Matthew and in Mark, it says that we aren't supposed to look past people; it says that we're not supposed to call out, "Raca," against people. It was this word that meant You nobody. And as Jesus was hanging on the tree, that was what he was called. He was not a boast. He was not something that people had confidence in. He was something that people said, you no one. He took our place. We were supposed to be called no ones. We were the people who God was supposed to look at and say, depart from me, I never knew you. You are no one. Yet that's what Jesus heard while he was crucified. Jesus took our place. Jesus was treated like us so we could be treated like him. Therefore, we can boast only in the cross. Closing Prayer As you're sitting there at home, let's pray together knowing that we are bound more than just by being gathered together, but we can gather together in the spirit this morning as the weather prevents us from meeting in person. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for who you are. We praise you for this series that, that taught us that life in you comes only through the cross of Christ, not in our works. God, thank you that we are able to have faith in you and that it is separated from works; that we do not need to earn our way to have a right relationship with you but you have made it possible by sending your Son. God, I pray that if there is anyone who does not believe this, that they would come to this saving faith. God, that they would believe this gospel because it transforms every single part of who we are. God, whether we've heard this for the first time today and are accepting Christ or we've believed our entire life, let us be transformed not by my words but by the words that you've given us in this letter. God, your gospel, your good news, is so satisfying. God, let our only boast be you. Be the cross of Christ. A thing that should be a shameful thing, but God, it is the most glorious reality in all of human history, all of the world, all of eternity. God, let us bear these marks. Let us boast in you alone. God, we love you and we love to do your will. So help us do that today. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Hear this blessing, this departing blessing that comes right from the end of this book. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen. Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy link