Okay. I've written a lot of stuff
through the years and, you know, I go back and read things and
I think that's garbage and I throw it away and that's alright. I
take a little piece here and there. But this time of year
things come back up in my blog and stuff and I start reading
articles that I wrote five years ago, ten years ago, fifteen years
ago. And there's always a recurring theme in the holidays. And that
theme is depression. That theme is blues,
loneliness, loneliness. And then there's another part
of that theme that comes along with it. It's also a very common
thing to receive a lot of calls about domestic problems. When
I say domestic, I'm not talking about the GDP or any type of
stuff in the State Department. I'm talking about in your house.
Domestic violence, domestic arguments, problems in relationships. And
the reason that that happens is because we're together. All these wise PhDs through all
the years and all the psychiatrists and psychologists and all these
people that have all the expertise in these things and have done
a lot of studies in these things are like, well, I don't know what's going on in the holidays.
There's something that goes on in the brain. I know it's because we're together.
We're together. We don't like each other. We're together too much. There's
too much time off. We're not busy enough. And the next thing
we know, we're at each other's throats. It happens. And so here we are, the church,
and we've come back, it's the holiday season, everything's
Christmas, everything's great, and for some strange reason,
there's churches that aren't gonna be meeting next week. That's fine, you want a holiday,
great, it's a holiday, but I mean, it's the holiday that supposedly
centers on the birth of the God-man, and the God-man teaches in his
word to be together with the saints as a simple foundation
of a means of grace to which we find the center of our joy
and the utmost promises of God after salvation, which Trey has
been doing a great job of undergirding for you. And so here we are this
morning, we come to assemble together as a family of faith.
And beloved, we've all come, as I say, many times over with
different attitudes, different mindsets, different problems,
different thoughts, different things that are going on in our lives.
Some of them good, some of them bad. I've had a particularly better
week than I've had in a long, long time. Physically, mentally,
emotionally, spiritually. But I'll tell you, there was
a time there a week before last where I was two days not picking
up scripture. You ever been two days not picking
up scripture? Driving in the car. I'll listen to the Word. Now,
you know what? I'll just do a podcast. I'll poison my brain. That'll
work. Let's do four hours of some podcasts about what doesn't
matter. Could be anything. And at the
end of a day without the Word of God, who I really am is very
evident. And then day two, what do you
do? Ah, no sense in going back to it now. I haven't eaten in
a day. Why eat now? Doesn't matter. It's just who I am. I'm miserable. I'm miserable forever. Everybody's
miserable. The world stinks. Everything stinks. You stink,
and you're ugly, and your mama's ugly, and everybody's ugly. I
mean, you know, and you just get, that's my mindset. I get into
an extreme melancholy state, and it poisons everything that
I am. And you know what's crazy? The
phone calls, you go, I don't want to talk to that brother.
But I got nothing else to do. I'm on the road. Hey, what's
happening? Bah humbug. Merry Christmas. I don't want
to hear it. That's what I told this guy. I just want to tell
you, man, I'm so encouraged. By what? By what you posted on
Facebook. You don't even know why I posted
that. That's passive-aggressive meanness. You know, not in reality. But the Lord is so faithful.
I'm going, golly. But just in those little tiny
moments of celebrating the intimacy that we have in Christ, there's
this supernatural work that comes in us. It's like, well, you know,
life is great. I need to get the Bible out. Everything's awesome.
Sun is beautiful. You know, the sun's hot. We hate
it. And then the sun is beautiful. It's too hot. Well, now it's
cool. It's too cold. It's wet. It's damn hot. Well, that's a
nice, cool, crisp day. We're schizophrenic at heart, depending
on the mood that we're in. And for me, my physical well-being
is directly tied to my emotional and spiritual state, my mental
state. And if I can stay healthy in my body, if I feel rested,
if my nutrition's good, man, I feel like amazing. But when
those things, and they haven't been, and you all have had those
same experiences in life, when those things go bad, we have
to be extra disciplined. And let me tell you the foundational
discipline of the body of Christ is to be in this service on Sunday
morning. Can I use the phrase, come hell
or high water? You may not understand that, but, you know, hell comes
and it's like, oh no, apocalypse, what are we gonna do? You know.
Well, we come to church. High water, we get in the boat.
I mean, after Matthew, we didn't have power for four days, we
had service in the dark. Some years ago we were standing
here and the power went out. And we just kept on teaching,
kept on praying. It's not about the niceties or the environment.
It's about what we do as a people. And we're here this morning so
that the Word of God can teach me to teach you that we together
can do things that God has called us to do because of what we know
about who He is and who we are in Him. And so preaching exposition
is something that we often use the phrase and the terminology
when we talk about exposition. And it means, you know, just
basically exposing and elaborating and illustrating and showing
and revealing what is in the text. And we talk about the context
of the Bible. So we don't just say, I'm going
to take Mark 6, 3 and I'm going to preach an entire series on
that one verse. You may be able to, but the way
we understand what we read in anything written, is the context
in which it's written. And there are different types
of approaching and administering teaching to the church when it
comes to preaching. Exposition, and more importantly, verse-by-verse
exposition. Exegeting, which is letting the
text speak for itself, taking out of the text the meaning rather
than reading into the text the meaning. is the standard practice
because if Paul wrote the letter as it stands, we do well to read
it as it stands. If John wrote the gospel or a
letter and James and so forth, we do well to read it as it stands
rather than just jump into parts of it. Now we can go into parts
of it when we're familiar with it. So this is a review, beloved,
but if we're not familiar with the Bible, then coming out of
text and context can be dangerous, even for the preacher, teacher,
pastor. So we find in one of the little
tropes that people run and the things that sort of, it's been
funny through the years, but you know, I can't read a verse.
I'm all like, well, let's go back. Well, let's read the whole
chapter. Well, let's read the first three chapters. You know, to make a two minute
point, we spend 15 minutes reading material. And that's basically
what you're gonna get this morning. You're gonna get the whole chapter
two of Philippians. You're gonna get pretty much,
you know, 20 verses of Luke 22. And you're probably gonna get
the whole chapter of Hebrews four. And some people would say,
well, that's not exposition. It absolutely is exposition.
For example, if I want to talk to you about Paul's passion and
foundation to understand the sovereignty of God and his power
in the gospel, I can take you to Romans 1.16, right? For the
gospel is the power of God unto salvation, first of the Greek,
then the Jew. I mean, first of the Gentile.
You know the point. First of the Jew, then the Gentile.
I'm favored. I have favoritism. It's the power of God. But that
doesn't, he just asserts that. It's not an explanation, is it?
And even then, there are other places in the scripture where
Paul gives explanation of that. So I can, because I have familiarity
with the whole of the scripture and with each letter written
therein and continue to become familiar with it, I am safe to
say I see a pattern. And the pattern then, I can go
to this text and this text and this text and say, look what
Paul does in each of these texts. Now we've learned something interesting
about how Paul applies his faith. For example, grace to you, grace
be with you. Paul makes those introductions
and exits of all of his letters. Isn't that amazing? And then
he tells Timothy, as we'll see sometime when we get to second
Timothy, as we'll see, he says, God's grace will strengthen you. And so Paul, by the way he writes,
thinks that God's grace is found in the letters he writes. Isn't
that something? Now, does Paul teach that? Yes,
he teaches that by way of application of his own writing. To the point
he tells the people of Thessalonica in the second letter, he says,
listen, I'm telling you how you ought to act, and I'm telling
you how you ought to approach these issues, and I'm telling you what you
must do according to the gospel. And if anybody doesn't listen
to what we say, count them not a brother and get them out of
your life. Put them on the side of the curb until they come to
their senses. Do not feed them, do not talk to them, do not high
five them, do not fish with them, do not message them. Because
they are ruining, they are terrorists amongst the brethren, you see? And I think that's another reason
that sometimes so many Christians feel oppressed, depressed, and
all the other est. Whichever one you want to put
in there. It's because we are not submitting to the simplicity
of God's instruction. And we're not learning the overall
reality of the humanity of Christ. The mind of Christ. So this morning,
I want to show you just using three different things. And John
17 comes to mind too. I'll probably talk about some
things there. But Christ's humanity is completely human. Did you
know that? Fully, truly, only human. Christ's humanity, his
human person, his human nature, his human body, his human mind
was human. It wasn't this hybrid divine
superhero thing. Jesus wasn't a man with God sprinkled
in. He was God, literally, fully,
truly man, and at the same time, always, truly, fully, eternally
God. We can't fathom how that works,
but the scripture teaches us that Jesus was hungry, that Jesus
cried, that Jesus was scared, that Jesus suffered, that Jesus
worried. Why? Because these are natural
human emotions. In 2006, I was told by I won't even say a mentor, I
was told by a spiritual authority over me that basically if I didn't
have absolute joy and excitement about coming to church every
day and the ministry we were doing, then I wasn't called of
God. And of course I had grown up
a little bit enough to know that that was nonsense and I'm thinking,
you like this stuff? Your email, you know what I learned
is that people with problems weren't calling him, they were
calling me. And it was no fault of him. It's
just his perspective. But for me, I'm a different type
of guy. People come to me with the problems. That's great. Here's
a solution. Christ is the only joy that we
can hold to, that we can sink teeth into, that we can tether
ourselves to. And if that isn't your joy, you're going to have
a hard time. So what's the discipline? The
discipline is to understand that we're in good company. We're
in good company. And the Christian life is not
about woe is me. We're not Eeyores walking around
with clouds over us. Clouds are chasing us, clouds
are there, but Eeyore has a reason to be upset because he's got
a thundercloud over his butt all the time. And he's purple,
gray, or whatever color he is. I mean, I'd be upset too. But how odd would it be if this
thundercloud and lightning bolts and he kept getting damp and
struck, would he be joyful? People would say, you're nuts.
Well, beloved, I think that Paul says the same thing. I think
the scripture, Dr. Luke says the same thing, doesn't
he, in the book of Acts? He talks about how the apostles
and they came out of imprisonment and they were excited to have
been whipped, flogged, cat and nine tails. Their bodies ripped
open for the sake of Christ. Can you believe that we were
persecuted for the Lord? I remember when I first learned
about fasting in a particular ministry, and they were trying
to teach me. I was in college, actually, and
they were like, oh, we're going to fast next year, next month, or whatever,
and we're going to fast, and we're going to give God this,
and we're going to give God that, and we're going to, you know,
and everybody walked around like, oh. And I made a joke, I said,
we need to make t-shirts during this fasting week. He says, don't
bother me, I'm fasting. That's not the point, to walk
around mopey dopey. But we're not supposed to fake
like everything's okay either. We're not supposed to put on
a happy face. Silliness, turn to the scripture,
Philippians chapter two. So this week and next week, I'm
going to talk about Christ and his humanity, his mind, his mission,
and his message. This is all repeat, but I want
us to focus on this because a lot of us are like, yep, January,
I'm going to make some changes, right? No, you're not. You're going to make some assertions. You're going to make some assertions. Philippians 2. So if there is,
see I can't stand starting a conversation with so, but there you go. So
if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love,
any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete
my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love. being in
full accord and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility, in lowliness, count others more
significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only
to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Now
stop there for a second. That's a tall order, isn't it? That's a tall order. For the
first time in my human life, I can feel a root of bitterness
in my spirit that I don't want to move out. Have you ever had
that? That blows my mind. It scares
me to death. Because by nature, I'm talking
about just my character and personality, as long as I can remember, even
in great, I'm an empathetic person. People treat me badly, I must
have done something wrong. People accuse me of something,
there's probably some truth in it. And now, like, I don't care. There's certain areas in my life,
I don't care. That's a bad place to be for
a guy like me. So I see this and I'm going,
hmm. Do you mean this person, Lord? Do you mean this situation,
Lord? Yes. Well, Paul wrote that. Well, the Lord gave it to us
through Paul. Yes, this situation. And then
in verse 5 of Philippians 2, he expresses why this is important. Have this mind among yourselves. And then he says, which is yours
in Christ Jesus? So when we say, well, I don't
have that mind, of course we don't in our flesh, but in Christ
we do. How do we know it? We read the word of God. We come
to the assembly. We're instructed. What good does
it do us, church, when we have the details and the theological
structure of the mind of Christ but no call to act on it? You
know what it does? Zero. Nothing. It does no good for us. So the
call is not to act in guilt and fear, but to act in celebration
because of grace. Grace upon grace upon grace upon
grace. We have been given the mercy
of God when we deserve the wrath of God and the very Son of God
has taken the wrath in our place. So what in the world is different? We look to the gospel, we look
to the person of Christ, we learn Christ, but it's not the learning
of Christ and getting everything correct in our minds cognitively
that causes us to have the experience of what's called born again.
It's being born again and then in God's timing as He wishes,
He teaches and trains us in time through the teaching of the scripture. And in the first century the
scripture was taught very in very small pockets by a very
small number of people in comparison to the population. Now you just
do a search on any medium and there's nine billion trillion
trillion theologians spouting, spewing, saying things that are
not even correct nor the application nor are they qualified to speak
to the people of Christ. Why do we listen to those who
are not qualified that we ourselves are also not testing in real
life and intimacy? We love the be a Berean. No,
we don't. We love the my way, right away,
right now type. Was that Burger King's old slogan?
Or Wendy's, I don't remember. We like the fast food theology.
Just give me the list. Tell me what I need to know.
Let me put it in there. Let me take a screenshot. And
now I got it. Get out of my face. But see, that's not the mind
of Christ. So what that you know the truth? Who cares? And I'm
not saying that in a reality. I'm just saying that that that's
really how the Lord will look at it. There are a lot of I've
had professors through the years. Brilliant people could articulate
the gospel of grace. in ways I never thought possible. The depths of the sacrificial
system and the expression of how the gospel and the cross
of Christ satisfied all of those requirements, all 619 or 13 or
14, I can't remember now, of all the laws of Moses. And then yet, they didn't trust
in any of it. They didn't trust in Christ at
all. They did not have a resolve. They trusted in their understanding
of these things as their way to eternal life. Because I have
discovered, you know what that is? Gnosticism. What is Gnosticism? We find higher knowledge and
higher knowledge makes us better. No, it doesn't. Higher knowledge
puffs up. And what does higher knowledge,
what does that puffing do? Causes us not to depend upon the wisdom
that comes from Christ. We can learn about things and
we can engage with things, and I think as believers we need
to do more to engage in the biblical context with the things that
we deal with in our lives, whether it be politics or economics or
social issues. We need to engage in them as
they come along, but we need to do so through the lens of
the gospel, not the lens of the culture that's saying it's the
gospel. And if I ever started teaching
us how to appropriate that discernment, some of you may leave the church.
I'm not kidding. Because idols don't wear name
tags that say idol. If they did, we'd be like, oh,
that's an idol. So the mind of Christ is ours. Have this mind, which is yours
in Christ, who," now he's talking about Christ, verse 6, Philippians
2, Christ, who, though He was God, He wasn't the form of God, He was
God. He did not take equality with God. He did not take being
God, a thing to be grasped, something to push up, something to express. I'm God. That's a when we lived
in the Bay, that that was a common Muslim apologetic against Christianity. Tell me where Jesus ever said
he was God. I said he did better than that. He said before Abraham was, I
am he took the name of God alone. And that's. That's that's better. Because anybody who was in leadership
or who was in authority or an elder or a teacher would be considered
God, the highest. The word God is not a name. The
word God means what? The highest of all. So in the
Supreme Court, we have the justices. They're the gods of the court.
That's a good use of the term. The word God is not his name.
The leaders, the God, the CEO of the presidents, they would
be called, in antiquity, they would be called gods. Jesus is
the God of gods, the Lord of lords, because Caesar was lord,
right? And all through history, we see lords and ladies and serfs
and peasants, all sorts of different things. He's the Lord of lords.
He's the God of gods. He's the highest of all highs.
He's the King of Kings. He's the highest of all kings.
His name is the Lord Saves. Joshua, Yeshua, Esau, Jesus. Whatever language it was written
in, whatever language it was translated from, there's no magic
in the actual language or the tongue of a particular season
or time. That's that's a bunch of nonsense
I've heard recently. Well, that's really not his name.
OK. You get that right. See if that'll
get you into eternal life. It won't. Have the smile among
yourselves. which is yours in Christ, who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count that equality
with God a thing to be made much of, a thing to be grasped. He
didn't hold on to that. But, in turn, verse 7, he emptied
himself. So now, what we see there at
the beginning of verse 7 is exactly what Paul has taught us to do.
Any encouragement, complete my joy, same mind, same love, being
in full accord, one mind, nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,
but in humility and lowliness, count others more significant
than yourselves, looking out not only for your own interest,
but the interest of others. This is the mind of Christ. Beloved,
this is not something we can just wake up and go, yep, I'm
gonna do Jesus things today. I'm gonna be the mind, I'm gonna
have the mind of Christ. It's not possible. So we must
invest ourselves in the hearing of the word of God that we might
be reminded, not taught, this isn't new, this is an epiphany,
we know this. We don't move into this from guilt or shame, we
move into this out of adoration. And that adoration comes through
time. How do we adore people? By spending time with them. And
sometimes, as I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon,
the more time we spend, the less we realize we adore them. Because
it's too much time. The holidays. You people need
to go back to school. You people need to go back to
work. You need to go do something. And being found, well wait a
minute, he emptied himself, verse 7, by taking the form of a slave. Being born in a human body. Being born in the likeness of
man. That's what that means. He was born in a human body. God the
Son created a human body for himself. That's something else. We're not gonna be able to fathom
that. We just have to accept it as
it's taught. He emptied himself. He stepped out of glory. He stepped
out of the cosmos. He stepped out of the ethereal
realm of the heavens. He stepped out of overseeing
creation, and he stepped into creation, and he made himself
human. And being found in human form,
he didn't just show up and say, look here, I'm God. Watch this. Worship me. No, he pointed to
the father to the one that was in heaven to the one that sent
him from where he came and He submitted to him and he obeyed
him. This is the mind of God Almighty the Lord Jesus Christ
the Son of God And He came here not to be worshiped
and adored. He came here to be crucified
and die and be raised from the dead. He came here to be despised
and hated. He came here to be the propitiation
of the sins of His people, to satisfy the wrath of the Father
in justice and righteousness. That's His mission. That's what
Christmas is all about. That's what the season of Christmas
in its construction is supposed to point to. It's not a biblical
holiday. It's just something that historically
people have done. That's what the church did in
antiquity. Well, look at all this crazy
stuff that's not Christian. Let's just make every one of
these about Christ. All Saint's Eve, Easter, Christmas,
and so on and so forth. Any people that they invaded
and forced faith on by the sword, They adopted all their holidays.
You got devil worshiping? Well, let's call it deviled eggs
fellowship. All right, there we go. It's
the deviled egg fellowship. So if we choose to participate
in cultural things, it's not wrong. It's our conscience. But my goodness, have we lost
sight of the birth of Christ? on January 1st and February 5th
and July 8th. Jesus came in human form, verse
8, humbling himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross, which was the worst death that could
be imagined at the time. And not only that, it was the
death of a condemned, guilty, wicked, vile, grotesque, horrible
person who needed to be removed from society. So the God of the cosmos, the
most perfect person to ever walk the earth in human form, submitted
to being charged and seen by the masses as the vilest of vile. Therefore, verse 9, God highly
exalted him and bestowed upon him the name that is above every
name, so that at the name of Jesus every name should bow,
every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father." So here's the mind of Christ, a lowliness in His
humanity. You know what's crazy? Is that
we aren't even like that by nature, are we? As empathetic as I can
be, I'm not a lowly person. I care, but I can hurt your feelings. I can get upset. I can push my
weight around. I can yell and scream. I can
dominate verbally. If I wanted to, I can get physical. And here's this mind of Christ.
It's the mind that we're supposed to have. And when we stop there,
we go, oh wow, golly, oh my goodness. Then we find ourselves in this
turmoil going, how am I supposed to engage this in my life with
the life that I'm living, with the issues that I'm going, I've
got more on me right now that I can handle. I just can't practice
this. Well, then let's look at another
text. Then we find ourselves being
guilty. Go to Luke 22. We find ourselves being guilty,
and then that guilt overrides everything that the Lord is doing.
When I say stuff like that, people go, oh Lord, you can't override.
Yes, you can. You cannot override your salvation. You cannot walk
away. But did Jonah not override the
call of God? Did he not run? Did he not despise?
Did he not get on a boat? And eventually, what did God
do? Swallowed him up, spit him out on the shore where he needed
to be. The question is, do you want to go there peaceably or
do you want to just get there? By any means necessary. The Lord's
not going to let us go, beloved. We're not going to be tossed
aside. We're not going to leave the faith. And it is okay to
contemplate leaving the faith. It is okay to sit there in your
mind and go, this stinks so bad. Is this crap even real? Can you
say crap in the pulpit? When I was 23 I said that one
time. This is garbage. Is it real?
And the Spirit of God teaches you that it is. And then you
wake up and you're like, you know what? I've got to resolve.
There's no way of getting away from this. There's no way that
this isn't truth. Because Christ is my truth. It's
not the data of Christ. It's not the printed material
of Christ. It's Him. He's the truth. And
so the Spirit of God testifies to my spirit that I'm his child
and there's nothing I can do. I try to argue against it. I
try to say, no, probably not. But yes, I am. Nothing can separate
me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And beloved, nothing can
separate you. Jesus has this last supper. with
his disciples, and the gospel, the synoptics, that means Matthew,
Mark, Luke, those that sort of walk together. And then we got
John, which I think is the best. But, you know, it's definitely
my favorite, because it doesn't make me cry so much. It doesn't
just rip my soul out, because there's not so much interaction
with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. I don't have to see all that
damnation and that rebuke and that reprobation preached. I
don't like it. But in Luke 22, starting in verse
28, Jesus is done. He's had a little conversation
with the disciples and He says these words, You are those who
stay with me in my trials. Now think about that. Here's
Jesus and His humanity. He's had trial after trial after trial.
I mean, understand this. Jesus was born in a stable. Jesus was born in lowliness,
the God of the universe, born into the world in humanity. How
would the movies do it? It'd be the spectacular, it'd
be like Sinai with dancers. Halftime show. Jets flying over. 25,000 gun salute, fireworks. Beyonce or Celine Dion or some
diva singing some amazing, oh holy night, you know, that kind
of junk. And everybody will be like, oh,
so powerful. It's called amperage. It's called decibels. It's not
the spirit of God. I promise you. My emotional core
is struck when a symphony orchestra is tuning. It's like, oh, why am I crying? I don't know, but that was powerful.
It's just like, wow, it triggers some nerves. That's not divine. Here is this birth of Jesus and
there's nothing, no room for him because that's what the prophets
said. Nobody knew. The only people that did knew
were outcasts from society, were nasty shepherds, stinky herders. And then nobody heard anything
from Jesus in the Bible until he was three years old. After
that. When the men from the east come
following the star by the Spirit of God, don't even know this
God, but they're following this God, and they go and they bring
gifts to this king, and they go and they seek Herod, and they
say, Herod, where's this baby, this new king that's born of
Israel? Herod, I know no king. What are
you talking about? I can't, that cool, that cool.
Okay, here we go. You find him so I can thank him for coming.
And you can tell me where he's at. We're going to be like this.
See, that was Herod's idea. And he was going to chop his
head off. So when these guys got another leading by the Spirit
after they found the child, toddler, playing at the feet of his mother
in the house and give him gifts, it's like, what in the world?
This Jesus, this guy's coming from Asia and bringing all these
expensive gifts. What is going on? And you don't
hear anything else about Jesus again until he's 12. Because
what happens then? Because Herod then says, I tell
you what, every child from three to zero dies. Every firstborn
male child dies. I'll get him. So God the Spirit
sends Joseph, Mary, and whatever other children they have in Jesus
to Egypt. And then from there to Nazareth,
which nothing royal comes from Nazareth. Or Claxton. Or Statesboro? Now, where do you live? Polar. You see? Does that sound impressive? Manhattan. Oh, wow. You're a
writer? You're an actor? Hollywood. Los
Angeles. Polar. Pembroke. Nobody wants to talk to you.
You could be like on fire, shooting laser beams from your eyeballs.
Man, that's great. He must live in Detroit. He must
be from Chicago. He must be from, you know, Austin.
He must be from... Pooler. I mean, you know. Claxton.
No, no. I was like, that's not the place.
Mistaken. I mean, you literally lose credibility
in the world when people find out where you're from. I loved
being thought British when I lived on the West Coast. This ain't
British. But it sounded British to them.
Because none of them spoke English as a first language anyway. So,
you know, are you from London? Sure. To make you respect me
more, give me some biscuits. No, Jesus was nothing. A nobody
from nowhere. And he comes on the scene and
this glorious manifestation of God the Spirit with Elizabeth
and Zachariah and the whole world's like, wow, our Savior's coming,
what's going to come of this guy? And then John the Baptist
shows up out of nowhere 30 years later, bugs in his teeth, his
hair's all matted, looked like he's on, like he's, I don't know,
drugs, wearing animal clothes, not bathed. You've seen them,
they come into church. They've asked you for money.
You've seen what a homeless person, that's what John the Baptist
looked like. The kingdom of God is at hand. Oh, what do you see
when you, what do you think when you see people like that on the
streets? The same thing they thought about John. And so here
is this magnificent prophetic reality of Israel's redemption
and glory. Homeless man with grasshoppers
in his mouth. Hey, I'm from Puller. I mean, you know, nothing wrong
with Puller. It's a very, I mean, it's just,
it sounds funny. Nobody knows where it is. Savannah?
Huh, you know, I know where that is. That's a great little city. Is that when you first tell somebody
you live in Effingham County? Well, you don't have to be ugly
about it. I mean, Ham County can't be that bad. And then this crazy man says,
Behold, the Nazarene, the Lamb of God. Isn't this a cocktail
of ridiculousness? The whole system of Judaism is
going down the toilet. That's what the Pharisees thought.
The entire system, everything, our piety, our poshness, our
presentation, our place in the world, whatever alliteration
I can come up with. And all this stuff, we just, just, we are
ruined. We've got to put these people
on the peripheral. Can't bother them because look
at their crowds. We've got to play politics here. Got to keep them at arm's length.
So they had to get Rome involved to get rid of Jesus. And Rome
had to fear the ants in order to do what God had ordained for
them to do. You know the movie Ants. One or two can't hurt you, but
they all get on you, you're in trouble. Rome looked at Israel because
of their number as a threat if they didn't do what the political
heads of the Pharisees wanted. And that was God's design. So
here's Jesus now coming into this four-year ministry of public
teaching, hated and despised. And he's had this supper with
these men who have walked with him. Judas has gone to do that
which he was intended to do. And Jesus says in Luke 22, 28,
though you have stayed with me in my trials. And I assign to you as my father
assigned to me a kingdom. that you may eat and drink at
my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel." Now that's not a literal sense there. It's
an expression of rule and authority by sharing the glory of the rule
and authority of God the Son whom God the Father exalted to
be the name above all names because of his submission and lowliness
and suffering in this world in his humanity for the sake of
God's righteousness. You see how these texts tie together? And then Jesus says to his beloved
Peter, Simon, Simon, look here. So behold means look here. Look
at this. See this. Satan demanded to have you that
he might sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you. That your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again,
Peter's going, well, strengthen your brothers. And Peter said, Lord, I'm ready
to go to prison right now. I'm ready to die right now. What
do you mean when I return, when I've turned again? What do you
mean when I've repented? What do you mean when I've changed? Jesus said, I tell you right
now, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny
me three times that you know me. We don't get any more from that.
We know the story, right? What's the emphasis here? Look at the
mind of Christ. Jesus is suffering. Jesus is about to face the wrath
of God. Jesus is about to face human
crucifixion. Jesus is about to face the separation
of His soul from His body. Jesus is about to face things
that none of us will ever experience the way He experienced it. And
He talks to Peter and says, Peter, the enemy, Lucifer, wanted to
sift you, wanted to destroy you, wanted to pull you away because
you are the zealous one. but have prayed for you. Jesus is praying for Peter in
his time of need. See, there's the practice. The Spirit prays for us in our
weakness, Romans 8. When we don't know how to pray,
or what to pray, or we're so confounded in our despair that
we can't even speak words or think thoughts. And the expression
and the illustration, the imagery that Paul expresses in Romans
8 is that we groan with moanings deep as if or like when a woman
gives birth. Is that your spiritual groan?
Is that your emotional groan? Is that your mental groan? Christ
is praying for you. And he says, I sent you out with
no money or knapsack or sandals. Did you lack anything? They said
nothing. He said to them, but now, well,
the one who has money, take it and a knapsack. And the one who
has no sword, you need to sell your jacket and you need to buy
a sword. What's he telling them? Things are about to get real
bad. You want to talk about thieves
and robbers, because they had one sword. And he says, well, that's fine.
Y'all going to need some swords. And then later he says, we're
not going to live by the sword. The sword is for your protection,
to get from point A to point B. The sword is not for your
mission. It's another sermon. The scripture must be fulfilled
in me. And he was numbered with the transgressors. He was numbered
with the sinners. He was numbered as a worthless, vile criminal.
For what is written about me has its fulfillment. And they
said, look Lord, here are two swords. And he says, that's plenty.
So everybody doesn't need a pistol. As long as we got a couple. And then he came out and went,
as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives and his disciples followed
him. And he came to the place and he said to them, he said
to them, he was praying for them, he said to them, pray that you
may not enter into temptation. Do we pray that? You know, the
Lord taught us in the model prayer, he says, this is the model that
lead me not into temptation. Why that never comes to my mind
when I'm being led into temptation? I blame God for it. And then
James reminds me, God hasn't tempted you, that's your flesh.
Something caught the left side of your eye and you're going,
yeah, I want to get an attitude now. Lord, why'd you make me get an
attitude? Why'd you make me feel this way? No, that's me. Pray
that you may not enter into temptation and withdrew from them about
a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if
you're willing, remove this cup from me. Take away this plan. Don't make me go through this."
Now, is this something that sounds like somebody who's resolved?
Is this the hero of the stories of old? Is this the epic reality
of someone who really, really, really is a hero? No. See, we've
been lied to, beloved. And I have friends who are in
the armed forces, I have friends who are in law enforcement, I
have friends who are in the medical field, and I have friends who
have perished in all three instances. And I have friends who have survived
great things, and they all say the same thing, I was scared
to death, I did not want to do this, I did not know what I was going
to do, I was wishing there was another way, but I had to do
it, I had to go into the fire, I had to go into the wreck, I
had to go into the water, I had to go into the battle zone, I
had to go into the house. I had to save. It's not weakness
to be honest. I don't want to do this. I'm
scared to death. This is horrifying. No God, I
don't want this. It's not sinful to be honest
with our Father. But yet culture has taught us
the opposite. That sinful thoughts, stinking thinking. You know who
tells you that? People who have never had to do anything. or people who have been programmed
to just say that, that's part of the act. That's part of the act that we're
taught as pastors in the United States of America, in evangelical
culture. You've got to be strong. You
can't let people know that you're human. Would Jesus let us know
He was human? He says in the same breath, nevertheless,
not my will be done but yours. And there appeared to him an
angel from heaven strengthening him." If it were not for the
divine work of God's messengers, Jesus would have died in the
garden in his human body. And being in agony, he prayed
more earnestly, so much so that his sweat became like great drops
of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose from
prayer, he came to his disciples and found them asleep. for sorrow. Isn't that what we do? That's
what I do when I'm in pain. I just go to sleep. When I'm
depressed, it's better to just go to sleep. And he said to them, why are
you sleeping? Rise and pray. And of course, we know it goes
back in other accounts, but Judas comes and betrays him with a
kiss. Jesus, in His humanity, prays
for His people. Beloved, it is fitting for us
to know the nature of our Lord, that we might recognize the same
human nature in us, and the difference is that in Him, it was never
manifested from sin, nor did it manifest sin. Imagine that. He never doubted the Father's
promises. He never worried that he wouldn't
come out on the other side. He was fearful of it, and he
resolved to know that the Father's promises were secure. Why record
this stuff? This is just Jesus' personal
experience, because it's to encourage us, beloved. I think sometimes we do too much
damage to the church by trying to act like, you know, well,
you're in good company because of Paul and Peter and all that,
but you know what? None of us are, I think Trey
said this two weeks ago, none of us are ever going to experience
anything like those men. Ever. In our lifetime. Now, I
say that and God may tear the band-aid off of everything tomorrow
when we find ourselves on trains, but I doubt it. It's highly improbable. But I think every single day
we relate to the sufferings of Christ. That's what Paul says. I think every single day we have
a kinship with the human Lord of ours who prays for us to not
lose faith. who intercedes on our behalf,
that He drives us to the assembly, He drives us to the Word, He
drives us, because, beloved, I don't care what you came in
here with today, hearing the Word of God, even read to you,
is an encouragement to your soul. And there's a supernatural Word
that happens, and it may not last till 1205, but you got it
right now. We don't go chasing that spiritual
high. We discipline ourselves to maintain the disciplines that
keep us centered and grounded, not floating. Suffering is common. Suffering
is promised. First Peter, I love that. Go
over there. Go to First Peter. I'm going to just preach this
text this morning. Y'all know this text. Blessed
be the God, verse 3, of our Father and Lord Jesus Christ according
to His great mercy. He calls us to be born again to a living
hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
See, Jesus had to die. To an inheritance that is imperishable,
undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven by you, who you, who by
God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation
ready to be received in the last time. That means God doesn't
let us leave Him. In this you rejoice, what? The
suffering. Why? Because we have the testimony
of Christ. For a little while, though, if
necessary, you've been grieved by trials. In order that, your
faith is tested to be genuine, because what drives us to quit? Pain. And Jesus experienced every amount
of pain that any of us ever have or ever will exponentially greater
because He could not give in for He had no sin. He stayed
the mission. He kept the message. He is the
Messiah. And so when we are pressed, our
faith wins. Why? Because it's God-given. Successful faith is not avoiding
temptation, or avoiding doubt, or avoiding despair, or avoiding
wanting to quit, or avoiding making plans to quit, or avoiding
running away into the woods without clothes on, or whatever it is
that you do. It's in the midst of all those
things coming to our senses and going, I'm eating out of a pigsty,
I'm going back to daddy's house. That's the point of that teaching. The pig-style lifestyle, the
pig-eating lifestyle, the debauchery of the lifestyle of the Gentile,
it doesn't matter. God has called his people from
the Gentiles, too, to come back to the Father who dresses them
and bathes them, gives them a name, and throws a party on their behalf.
That's the prodigal son. That's the point. And your faith is more precious
than gold, and gold perishes when you burn it hot enough.
And the outside of that, so that the tested genuineness of your
faith may be found to result. What is it to result in? Praise
and glory and honor at the revelation of Christ. The reminder of Christ,
the waiting for Christ, the hope of Christ, and the day of Christ
when we see Him face to face. Though you have not seen Him,
you love Him. And then, do you not see Him
now? You believe in Him and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible
and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the
salvation of your souls. This is beautiful stuff. The promises and the power of
scripture, the prayer, the personal intimacy of the saints together
in the assembly, we find that our joy is in Christ alone and
that understanding comes through understanding the human nature
of Jesus Christ and its suffering and even in his mind. Because
I really think, and you've heard me say this before, I mean, you
look at the letter to the Ephesians, you look at Romans, you look
at all these instructive teachings, all this instruction, Paul centers
on the fact that the way we think and process things is 90% of
the battle. And I'm making the thing, I'm
just saying it's a majority of the battle. I don't want to put
a percentage on it for some of you technical people. I'm not quite sure how
you came to that number. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying
it's a large majority of our problems. It's here. It's in
my head. It's how I think. It's what I
say to myself. It's how I'm approaching the day. It's the attitude. It's the outlook. It's the perspective. Oh, you're teaching psychology.
I am not. Psychology, by definition, is
the process of how the human mind works, thinks, and does
and deals with ideas in layman's terms. Paul deals with how the
human mind thinks concerning the ideas of the world
around us and the world we live in and the life that we live,
but we filter it through the understanding of the grace of
God through the person of Jesus Christ so that our wisdom comes
from Christ, 1 Corinthians chapter 1. See, cults create fear. Christ's
people do not. Cults create fear by saying,
watch out. You see what's on the news? Is
there things to be fearful of in the world? Yes. Are there
things to be angry about in the world? Yes. And I think we ought
to stomp our feet and put our fists in the air when we need
to. We need to say that which needs to be said, but we need
to do it through the filter of knowing. It's not ultimate. Right? As it relates to our... We're
going to get up in arms. Get up in arms. We're going to be upset, be upset,
but at the end of the day, even if it's inexpressible, our joy
is found in the person of Jesus Christ, who suffered greater
than anybody ever will. Man, woman, child, old, young,
rich, poor, white, black, green, yellow, potato, potato, tomato,
tomato, carrot, or rutabaga. It doesn't matter. Christ has
suffered more. And therefore, He sympathizes.
The Lord Jesus Christ is not looking at us going, oh, these
people, they're so stupid, such little things. See, that's sometimes
how that's interpreted. Go to Hebrews chapter 4, we'll
close with this. Oh my goodness, all of the first
three chapters lead us here. Hebrews chapter 4 says, therefore,
while the promise of entering His rest still stands, let us
fear. Sounds a little contradictory,
doesn't it? Lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach
it. For the gospel came to us just as to them talking about
the Israelites in the exodus. They were promised exodus, they
were promised redemption, they were promised life, they were
promised a place as a picture of Christ and His church. And
the minute they got out by the power of God, they were complaining
about the food and the water and the walking. Good news came to us. through
Christ just as it came to them through the Spirit, but the message
they heard did not benefit them because they were not united
by faith with those who listened to it. For we who have believed enter
that rest, as he said, I swore my wrath, they shall not enter
my rest, although his works were finished from the foundation
of the world. For he has somewhere spoken on the seventh day in
this way, and God rested on the seventh day from all his works."
That means he completed it, it's over, it's finished, it's a done
deal. And again in this passage he said, they shall not enter
my rest. Verse 6, since therefore it remains for some to enter
it. And those who formerly received the good news failed to enter
it because of disobedience. Again, he appoints a certain
day. Listen to this. Today, saying through David so
long after in the words already quoted. Today, if you hear his
voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them
rest, God would have not spoken another day about another day
later. So then there still remains a true Sabbath rest for the people
of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from
his works as God did from his. Let us, therefore, strive to
enter that rest. I think that I talk about spiritual
rest more than any other thing in life because it is what I
want. I want rest from my mind. I want
rest from my body. I want rest from my relationships.
I want rest for you. I want rest from the labor, from
the toil, from the troubles, from the trials, from the temperature.
I want rest from it all. I want it to be done. It's not
a death wish, it's a wish of life and living. We strive to enter that rest
so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. What
was that? Unbelief. For the word of God is living and active,
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the vision of the
soul and the spirit and the joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts
of the intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from its
sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him who
must give an account." I love the fact that Paul writes that
in this argument in this way because that is a pretext, verses
11 and 13, is a pretext that a lot of people use to overshadow
their boisterous authority in misusing and abusing the Scripture.
Well the word of God says, you ever heard a person preach that
way? Somebody sent me a sermon from like the 1960s and I listened
to it in the audio last week and the guy was talking like
that for 38 minutes. And then God said, and I'm going,
what in the world is this guy doing? I sent it to a couple
of guys and said, who is this? I can't. And it was nonsense. It was hatred.
It was scare tactics. It was hell and this and that
and you're all going to burn. You're ignoring the word of God
and you're reading books about witches and you're doing this
and all that kind of stuff. And I'm going, what is this,
a parody? These girls wearing them skinny
hoes and high heels and what? Are you kidding? This is what
God was talking about. Grace be with you. Wear a sack. I mean, you know, no. And I'm
not saying we shouldn't contemplate how we look, but who cares? To quote a heretic, if my God
isn't bigger than a tube of lipstick, I'd like to find another one. Since then, verse 14, this is
to show us the power and the authority of God's word over
unbelievers in justice and over believers in justice and righteousness. Since then, we have a great high
priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the Son of
God, let us hold fast our confession, for we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Do you believe
that, beloved? If you hold true to that, and
I pray that you do, you will have a better experience with
your emotional weakness, with your mental weakness, with your
physical weakness, with your spiritual weakness. We all have
them. You'll have a better relationship. But we have a high priest, Jesus
Christ, who in every respect, listen to this, has been tempted
as we are, yet without sin. I've already said this. I'm just
proving it to you now. Let us then with confidence draw
near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find
grace to help in the time of need. How many illustrations
have I done over the last few years about that? We find ourselves weak, we find
ourselves broken, we find ourselves sinful, we find ourselves angry,
we find ourselves self-absorbed, we find ourselves in all this
mess. We feel as though we can't approach Christ or grace or the
Word or the people of God because we've done a really good job,
people of God, through the history of the church of making people
feel really bad about being human. And we've mocked it and we've
ridiculed it and we've made them feel bad about themselves to
the point that I don't know what's right or wrong anymore about
what to say about anything. But I know what's true concerning
Christ and his people, so I'll say that. And that keeps me safe. So we come to the throne of grace
when we're dirty, when we're broken, And we received, we're
embraced. I mean, imagine all the festal
gatherings of angels everywhere in the cosmos with an infinite
range of expression, showing adoration to God, calling out
the name of Jesus. Glory, glory, glory, glory to
the Lamb of God. and one of the children of God
who were broken and despised who took the gospel and ran with
it and trampled it under feet and lived in a pig pen and they
realized they have just done horrible things and they bust
in the back door and say, wait a minute! Father, I need mercy. We don't want our children to
talk during service, much less interrupt the worship of God.
Now, that's just an illustration. The point being is that our Father
is always welcoming His children. And when we are in the Word together,
God's power is working in us. I want you to see that. I want
you to know that. The mind of Christ is just like
yours, but without sin. Without sin. And if He suffered, if He worried,
if He feared, then we will too. And it proves our humanity. And it proves His humanity. And
the resolve that He had to be obedient unto death on the cross
proves His righteousness. And His death on the cross and
resurrection from the dead proves our righteousness. which is alien
to us because it's His on our account. Rejoice in that, beloved,
and rest completely. Pray for one another and engage
in any way possible to encourage our family to be together on
the Lord's Day. Let's pray. We thank you, Lord,
for the foundation of our hope, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
Lord, knowing that there is not a disease or disaster or anything
else that could take place in our life that can take us away
from you, even though we feel so far away, it is because the
nature of our own sinfulness The nature of our brokenness,
the nature of our fallenness. Not because we are engaging in
rebellion, but it's just who we are. It's what we are. We
can do nothing else. So we thank you for teaching
us through the scripture, for encouraging us through one another.
Help us to be encouragers and listeners. To have empathy for
one another rather than just trying to change each other. To trust in your work and your
timing. That Lord, we would never all be weak at the same time,
but there's always an opportunity for some of us to be strong.
While others are weak so that they will be strong when we are
weak. Knowing that Christ alone is our strength, that his work
is finished, that his heart and mind is unified with yours, and
we have his mind when we submit to what you've taught us in your
word, which is to think of others. Teach us, Lord, to pray for each
other so that we are being prayed for by others. Lord, give us the peace that
we so desperately seek, the rest in every aspect of our being,
which is found only in Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.