Sunday School: Synoptic Gospels Section 254 continued

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for Sunday and I was just like, that's not right, that's, that's, oh it certainly would, but we've been breaking a number of them recently, so yeah, well remember it's been, it's been 100 well into the end of October, so finally, yeah, that's what, that's what forced me out of the valley yesterday morning, left at 510, drove up to Flagstaff and parked my car and started riding.
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A little cooler, it was still, I got up to almost 80 as in the shade, so in the
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Sun it was about 90, so yeah, I just,
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I just rode Lake Mary Road and it's, it's interesting between 6 ,800 and 7 ,255 feet altitude when you're climbing, well,
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I climbed almost 3 ,600 feet and rode 130 miles, so yeah, yeah, that was, that was, that was an effort and then you get back in the car and drive all the way back home again, so when
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I laid down last night, I figured out every single muscle in my body tried to ramp all at once, but we survived it, so.
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All right, we are in the blue book. If anyone would like to grab the text, we will finish this someday.
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We are in section 254, so I'd like to sort of pass out the few that we have left there and these sections are sort of important to have them because we are definitely in synoptic material here.
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Last week, we looked at the Rich Young Ruler. We started to, we didn't really interpret the text, we were just dealing with the common usage of this text as an attack upon the validity of the
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New Testament as a whole. I'm not going to go back over that today. If you want to review that, we now, hopefully everybody in the congregation realizes that all of our materials are being placed on sermonaudio .com.
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We should probably put that in the bulletin a few times, but we switched over to sermonaudio .com
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a couple months ago and so the Sunday school lessons and the sermons are available there and in fact,
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I could just fire up my droid here, hit an app and play for you what I said last week.
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Mr. Callahan is shaking in the front row, but the neat thing is that means anybody across the
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United States or the world could do the exact same thing, listen to, I think what
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Mr. Callahan is shaking about is that we do his that way too. I don't think he likes the idea of someone in Botswana, you know, running across the
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Serengeti Plains listening to his Sunday school lesson on his droid.
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You know, it's a different world, you know, it's a thing to change. There's no two ways about it.
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Remember cassette tapes? I mean, that's how I got here was a cassette tape display over at Berean Christian Bookstore, back by the, where you had the
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Bibles stamped. There was this display that we had and Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, free tape, and it was on election and predestination, like, hey, who are these weird people?
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And I remember I had to go to, there used to be, what was it called?
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It was called the Christian Discount or Christian Emporium. It was not far from your house. It was over here on 7th
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Street and, was it Osborne? Something like that. Something, yeah.
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There was a Christian bookstore over there. I think it's a beer store or something. I don't know. But I went in there.
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Hispanic Tax Service. Okay, well, great. All right. So anyway, I went in there and I picked up the handbook on denominations and looked up Reformed Baptist.
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I said, what's that? And that's what eventually led to our, my visiting in July of 1988,
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I think it was. Anyway, Roxy could tell you and she remembers what I was wearing, where I sat, you know, the whole nine yards.
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It's frightening. But how do we get on that from this? I have no early idea. Oh, I was saying, if you want to, if you want to catch up, you can either do it the old -fashioned way and put your name on the list back there and get a
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CD, you know, if you're still sort of back in that age. But if you're an iPod totem,
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MP3 listening geek, then you can get everything on Sermon Audio.
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You can download them to your computer, listen live on your phone, however you want to do that. So we are looking at the
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Rich Young Ruler. We've looked at the key issues in regards to the beginning, but we didn't really look at the whole text as a whole.
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Let's look at Mark's version, Mark chapter 10, and as he was in section 254 in the
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Blue Synoptic Gospels. For those who are visiting, we've been studying the Synoptic Gospels seven, eight years, something like that.
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I don't know. All I know is some of your Synoptic Gospels books are supposed to be this dark blue, and they're now like white.
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I think, I know that's one of the the Phlox versions of that Synoptic Gospels.
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It's like pretty much white now, I believe. So good timing, right?
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It's right as she walks in. Isn't one of you guys' copies of this like white now? Pretty much, yeah.
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That's what I thought. So it's sort of like the rest of us aged a little bit along those lines.
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So we've been saying the Synoptic Gospels, and we're getting toward the end, believe it or not. The farther we go here, the more we're going to run into stuff we've already covered before.
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And so all of a sudden, we're going to accelerate to the end of the book here, because there are only a few chapters left before we get into Passion Week.
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So that will be a challenge. Anyhow, Mark chapter 10, and as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, good teacher, what must
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I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus asked him, why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments, do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.
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And he said to him, teacher, all these I observed from my youth. And Jesus looking upon him, loved him, and said to him, you lack one thing, go sell what you have and give the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.
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And at this saying, his countenance fell, as he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. The problem, of course, is that this particular incident, its meaning is crystal clear in all three
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Gospels. There really isn't any question about what is going on here, especially when we recognize the background.
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We talked last week about what Jesus is doing. He's not denying his own goodness or his own deity.
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He's trying to get the young man to recognize that he's probably been going around, I would imagine, I mean
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I can't prove this, but why would this man run up and kneel before him and ask him this question?
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There are Jewish teachers on every other corner. Are we really to imagine this is the first time this young man has asked this question?
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It seems like we have a young man, he is described as being rich, he has many possessions, and he recognizes those many possessions are not providing him with what every generation thinks having many possessions will provide you with.
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And so, is he on a great search, or is he one of those many, many people that having great possessions, loves those possessions, realizes that that's wrong, and is trying to find some mechanism to, in essence, excuse.
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He's chopping opinions. I was reading an article this morning about James Cameron, and what was the name of that big movie he just did?
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Avatar. I refused to see it for numerous reasons. The primary reason
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I will never see a James Cameron film again, is that he hates the nation that has made him a filthy rich man, and the man is a glowing hypocrite.
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He was just up in Canada lecturing the Canadians about how they need to live with less. Of course, he flew up there in his own private jet.
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He lives in an 8 ,000 square foot home, with a 6 ,000 square foot home for his servants next door.
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Will himself make 350 million dollars off of Avatar alone, and yet he's running around telling everybody else how they need to live with less.
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I'm sorry, but the man is a buffoon. He makes interesting movies, but he's a buffoon.
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I was thinking about the rich, and how riches can so often twist and contort the thinking of individuals.
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Now, here is a man who clearly is religious, because Jesus' response to him is, you know the commandments.
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And certainly, one would question what the young man says to Jesus.
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Teacher, all these I've observed from my youth. All these I have observed. In Matthew, he says, what do
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I still lack? Now, Jesus doesn't say, you glowing hypocrite.
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How dare you even say that you have kept all these commandments from your youth? You have not.
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He could have gone through all the times that he had adultery in his heart, and he had been dishonest, and lied, and everything else.
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But it seems like the young man really thought he had. And we have to recognize that we encounter people, on a fairly regular basis, that think they're pretty good people.
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I'll give you a good example. It just struck me. I did a debate
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Friday night, sort of a debate Friday night. It was via Skype, and it went alright. But the callers, well the callers just ruined it.
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It was amazing. But it was on assurance of salvation in Islam and Christianity.
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And the fellow that I was debating is a young medical student at the
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University of Sydney. Well, I debated him at the University of Sydney. I'm not sure the school he goes to is associated with the
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University of Sydney, or just what. But I debated him last year, down there in Sydney, Australia. And he's still there.
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And we were doing this via Skype on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network. And it became very, very clear to me, during the course of the discussion, that he really does believe that he has done sufficient righteous deeds to be right with God.
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He has no sense of, really, a debt before God in regards to his own sin.
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And you will encounter people who will just look at you with honesty. I've kept all those things since my youth up.
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Now, you and I are constantly speaking about how often, you know, unclean thoughts and things like...
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And yet there are people who go, I've kept all these things from youth up. How can that be? Well, you may know that the commandments that Jesus mentions is the second half of the
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Decalogue. It's the you and me stuff. It's not the you shall have no other
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God but God stuff. It's not the stuff about purity of worship.
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It's not the stuff about the centrality of God. And it's interesting that the way
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Mark puts it, the way that Matthew puts it, what do I still lack?
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He senses this. Jesus simply says, there's one thing you still lack. In Matthew's version, you lack one thing.
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You lack one thing. And then he puts his finger directly on this man's real problem.
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And if he had done it in a different way, you have to wonder what the young man's response would have been.
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Because if the man had come up and said, oh, I've kept all these things, and Jesus his immediate response is, yeah, but you're an idolater.
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I don't know that he would have understood that he was an idolater. But the way he does it exposes what he really loves.
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Greatest commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. He doesn't. He's an idolater.
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He has put something else in the place of God. And I think that explains why Jesus doesn't focus upon, you haven't kept these things.
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Because to a person who doesn't love God, to a person who does not have as the central aspect, the ordering aspect of his entire life, love for God, love for his truth, embracing my call to be his servant, the person who's just outwardly religious thinks, oh,
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I've kept those commandments. There's no inward spiritual light to shine on the reality of one's own heart.
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And so there's something tragic in this text, because he hears the call to discipleship.
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He hears the reference to treasure in heaven. And he doesn't care about treasure in heaven.
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His love for his stuff is so much that the idea of treasure in heaven, following Christ, so look at the look at the way that the
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Gospels put it. Matthew, when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. Mark, at that thing his countenance fell.
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His countenance fell. That's not exactly terminology we use today.
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I can just imagine talking to our kids today, wherefore has thy countenance fallen?
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You know, I think I said that once. It didn't work well. You know, but you can tell when, you know, some people are transparent.
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Some kids, you know, they hide things pretty well. Some people are just transparent. They're just, you know, just like, you just tell immediately, what?
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I thought I was doing well here. That thing, his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.
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When he heard this, he became sad for he was very rich. Now, this text has been abused from every which direction.
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It's been the foundation of asceticism and the monastic system, you know, vows of poverty, which never ever work.
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You know, it's funny to look at church history and realize how many different monastic movements started, and start off with, we're gonna be different than everybody else, and then what would happen is people would die and leave things in the monastery to say prayers to them after they were dead or some such thing, and no matter what, they'd keep getting reentangled with the things of the world.
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The first few generations might do all right, but eventually, you know, you can't, you're in this world, you can't get out of it.
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You can try, but you ain't gonna make it. So, it's been used for that, and it's been used, my
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Muslim friends use this text all the time, but to say, see, the real
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Jesus taught the way that you have salvation is you just keep the commandments.
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You just do good works. That's what Jesus said to the young ruler, the fellow that I debated, and then he backed out of the second debate the next day in Detroit, back in June, shake a wall.
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Constant part of his presentations is that, see, we Muslims, we follow Jesus because Jesus said, just keep the commandments.
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That's how you have eternal life. That's all there is to it. He would never quote the last part of the story. I got to point that out to him.
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I would have had more opportunity had he not backed out of the second debate, but just very, very common for people to do this.
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That's not what it's saying. Jesus is not saying it is sufficient that you've done these things, because we've already read the
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Sermon on the Mount, and we know that no one has done those things. He hadn't kept them from his youth, but that was because he's an idolater, and idolaters can make very good religious hypocrites, because if you don't know
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God, if there's no passion in your heart for God, then you're walking in darkness, and in the dark you can whistle nicely and make it sound like you're quite confident.
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Oh, I've kept all these things. It's when the light shines that you really see yourself as you really are. I remember the first time
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I read Calvin's Institutes back in seminary, and that section at the beginning where he's talking about what comes first, knowledge of ourselves or knowledge of God, because the tendency of mankind is to keep his eyes down, and to stare at the earth, and just become accustomed to what's down here, but if he will just for a moment raise his eyes and see the glories of the heavens, the sun, and the moon, and so on and so forth, all of a sudden he sees that what he's been staring at on the ground isn't much at all, but we just like to look at this and compare ourselves with what's down here.
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He's exactly right. A person who doesn't have that kind of spiritual light can say to Jesus, I've done all that stuff since I was a child, and actually think he's telling the truth.
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Now, we don't know what happened to this rich young ruler, and Jesus is showing love to him.
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Jesus looking upon him, loves him, and said to him, it was an act of love to expose this man's idolatry.
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You've got to catch that, folks, because we live in a day that is absolutely putting an incredible amount of pressure upon us to not think this way.
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What does it mean to be loving in our world today? To just paper over people's sin, and their rebellion, and their lifestyle, and it's not all that, but you know
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God just loves us where we are, but Jesus loved him, and because he loved him, he told him the truth that was going to make his countenance fall, and make him go away sorrowful.
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That's true Christian love, and every time someone, you know, says to us, well, you're so unloving, we should think of this text and say, well, was
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Jesus unloving when he exposed the rich young ruler's idolatry in Mark chapter 10?
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It specifically says Jesus loves him, and the result of his loving him was to tell him the truth.
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It's extremely important. You lack one thing. Not, well, in my opinion, it might be better if you did this.
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You might give a little bit more of your income to the maintenance of the temple, or whatever else it might be. No, he realized this man had an idol in his life, and he had to get rid of the idol.
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Now, was this man saved later on? Nobody knows. God knows.
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Maybe someday we'll know. The Scriptures simply don't tell us, but what they do tell us is that love of this world, and love of the things this world, is nothing new.
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You got to realize, in comparison to the worldly possessions we have today, this was not a time period that the economy of the day produced real poor people.
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I mean real poor people. Our economy is so robust, even in a recession, that if everyone wanted to work, they could probably find something to do.
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I mean, there's a lot of people that aren't working because they don't want to work. I mean, you know that a lot of the studies, you know, the people living on the street, you know, you try to get them a job, and they say,
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I don't want a job. What are you talking about? There are just people that decide, I'm going to tune out. I'm done. I'm gone.
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I'm out. That's just the way it is. In this day, the economy was so bad, was so weak, that it could not produce enough stuff to keep people alive.
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And so, it produced real poor people who were willing to work their fingers to the bone, but there wasn't enough there for them.
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Now, part of this was due to the taxation system, and of course, the abuse of the wealthy, and all the rest of that stuff, but that's just the way that it was.
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And so, we have so many more people that could fall into this category than could possibly have existed in that day.
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We really do. And notice that this is what prompts the next section, 255. When Jesus looks at the disciples as a result of this, you know, they've heard it, and they're standing around.
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They see the guys counting his fall. They're probably thinking, there's probably at least one or two of them, at least
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Judas, is thinking in the back of their mind, oh man, he just drove away another great donor.
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Oh, how are we ever going to, you know, afford horses for all 12 of us, plus Jesus, if he keeps doing this?
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He keeps offending the very people that could support us the best. I'm sure there was probably one or two of them that were thinking along those lines.
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And Jesus looked around and said to the disciples, how hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. And the disciples were amazed at his words.
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Amazed. Shocked. Why? Because this was not the mindset of the day.
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The mindset of the day was, you have riches, that's a sign of God's blessing. You don't have riches, it's a sign of God's curse.
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And therefore, to hear Jesus go 180 degrees against the prevailing concept that was being taught by the religious leaders of the day, who weren't doing so bad, you know, they found ways to, you know, those were fine robes they were wearing, to go against that in this way, amazes the disciples.
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Now, you'll notice that John doesn't record this for us, but in the text we will be looking at in the sermons today, 1
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John chapter 2, in verse 15, as I recall, we are told that we are not to love the world, none of the things that are in the world.
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If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Now, this was said primarily in the context of people that had gone out of the church, and certainly we think of Paul's very, how would you like to have it, how would you like to have the name
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Demas, if you know what I'm talking about. Demas was involved in Christian work, but he's gone away, he's gone back, because he loved this present world.
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He had a love for the stuff of this world, and Christian ministry often means giving up a lot of the things you could have had in this world, and as John said, love the
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Father, love the world, they're contradictory things, and here we see it in Jesus' ministry.
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He loves his stuff, and so he goes away sorrowful, and yet Jesus would not allow him to come up to him and ask him these questions without pointing out to him what his real issue was.
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Was he eventually saved? I don't know. There were a lot of people saved, Pentecost. I mean, how many people were saved in Pentecost had heard
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Jesus' teachings before that? I don't know. I would imagine some had. Who knows?
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So, with that, we transition into Jesus' discussion with the disciples, and as we started reading it, how hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God, and the disciples were amazed at his words, but Jesus said to them, again, children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God.
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It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, and they were exceedingly astonished.
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So, they're amazed at first. Now, they are exceedingly astonished, and said to him, then, who can be saved?
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Jesus looked at them and said, with men it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God. Peter began to say to him, lo, we have left everything to follow you.
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Jesus said, truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and mothers, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children lands with persecutions and the age to come eternal life, but many that are first will be last, and last will be first.
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Now, again, words that we all know very, very well, words that we have heard preached on many, many times, so much so that it's easy for the mind to wander and we go off to happy places and don't necessarily hear what is being said.
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They are astonished because of their traditions. Their traditions identified physical blessing, riches, houses, health with the blessing of God.
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If you didn't have much, then you were under the curse of God or it was due to sin. Remember John chapter 9, and the man is born blind, whose sin this man or his parents, he should be born blind.
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This black and white concept had really become the traditional understanding in the intertestamental period.
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It's not that didn't have Job. If I didn't have lots of examples from the Old Testament, this wasn't the case, but Pharisaism, which had initially started off as a healthy zeal for God's law, had over time become encrusted with tradition and that's always a recipe for disaster.
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And so the disciples show their tradition and Jesus' statement, you've heard it many, many times, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
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Well, the eye of the needle was this one particular gate in the wall of Jerusalem where the camel had to get down on his knees and crawl through to be able to get through the eye of the needle.
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Maybe, I don't know, that's not really, I suppose there's got to be something to it or somebody made it up one day and it sounds good,
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I'm not sure which, but the point is that he's saying something that leads to the disciples going, then who can be saved?
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They certainly take it to mean, well, then how can anyone enter in the kingdom of God?
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If the people we think are the most blessed people can't enter the kingdom of God, then who can be saved?
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And Jesus' response is, of course, with men it is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God.
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Salvation is a divine thing. And just as that rich young ruler walked away sorrowful,
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God can certainly show mercy upon such a person and change that person's heart and mind.
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It's interesting that Peter's response to him is somewhat self -defensive.
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Catch that? Well, we certainly have, we've left everything to follow you.
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Well, in a sense he was right. I mean, there had been some cost involved.
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I would imagine Peter's fishing business was not doing all that well at this point in time. And one can hypothesize that there would have been pressures, especially upon the married disciples.
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Peter certainly was married. He had a mother -in -law, so he better be married. I mean, if you have a mother -in -law, you might as well get a wife out of it.
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Let you think about that one for a moment. So, the whole reason
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I mentioned that, some of you are chuckling going, well, you're going to get in trouble. No. One of the best lines
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I've ever heard in the debate was when Eric Svensson was debating geriatrics, and geriatrics is
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Roman Catholic. And he always wants, where does the Bible say that Mary had other children?
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You know, so you've got the brothers and sisters of Jesus, but that's not enough. Because we can interpret as cousins or kin's people or something like that.
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Where is the specific word that these were the sons and daughters of Mary?
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You've got to have those specific words. And Eric Svensson asked himself, Jerry, let me ask you a question.
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You're familiar with the fact that Peter had a mother -in -law, right? Because remember,
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Jesus healed Peter's mother -in -law. Yes, yes. Where does the
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Bible say that Peter had a wife? And he's like, well, what does that matter?
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Well, if he had a mother -in -law, don't you think it's a fair argument to say he had a wife?
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Words have meanings. And if we're going to talk about Jesus's brothers and sisters, and they're going along with Mary and Joseph, and don't you think words have meanings?
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And you can just tell, Jerry, never. It was one of those things that, you know, where they do the funny thing where they freeze frame a video, and then they put a dummy in, and then have a
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Mack truck go through. And it looks like the person just got wiped out by the Mack truck. That was a
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Mack truck debate moment. And there is Jerry, and here comes the Mack truck. So that's why
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I mentioned the mother -in -law thing, in case you all are wondering why I said that. So anyways, there was a rabbit we chased just far enough down the trail to, we'll get back to the real one here in a moment.
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So the point is that all this, you know, well, they have to get down on their knees.
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They have to be humbled thing. The point is, with men it's impossible, but not with God.
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All things are possible with God. And so Peter's response to that is, well, we've lost a lot.
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We may have, you know, there may have been pressures at home to the married disciples.
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I would imagine, you know, if Peter was a, Peter seems to be a hard -working guy. He seems to be one of the older disciples, which is probably why he takes prominence.
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He may even be the oldest disciple. And which might mean that he sort of had a, he wouldn't just be a regular fisherman.
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He probably would have been out long enough that he had his own boats and nets and probably had people working for him and stuff like that.
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And so, you know, when you give up all that stuff and all of a sudden you're following this itinerant preacher around who loves to offend the
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Jewish leaders, I would imagine there was some pressure at home. I can see that happening.
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We're not told anything about that, but I would think that would be a proper assumption.
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And so in light of that, you know, I can see Peter saying, well, you know, we've left everything and followed you.
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And Jesus's response is interesting. There is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children lands with persecutions and the age to come eternal life.
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Now, if you've ever dropped your remote control on your phone, had the knob break off while you were turning channels on the old style televisions we used to have, believe it or not, young guys used to have on televisions and the television used to, well, look at that, look how thick that thing is.
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I mean, that actually is a television, young people. I realized some of the young folks are like, what is that huge thing in the corner?
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That's television. You realize in just a decade or two, young people will have no idea if they saw that thing there, what it was because televisions are now, you know, this, this thick and, uh, that wide and that tall and, and there are no knobs on it.
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Uh, but I, I, I still remember, I still remember being fascinated as a kid by the fact that there was a light behind the knob.
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You could see it in the dark and it would go clunk, clunk, clunk, and you'd turn it over to, you know, 12, you know,
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Ooh, man, technology. But then, but then, then you took the rabbit ears and you, and then there we go.
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Don't move. Nobody moved. I got a clear signal now. Yes, indeed.
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It's still that way. Even with the digital one, unfortunately in our rabbit ears, but be it as it may, how'd
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I get onto turning channels? Where was I here? Um, oh, if you happen to have, you know, broken off the knob, right.
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As you got to channel, well, I never mentioned it's a channel between 20 and 22.
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Okay. Uh, just to give you an idea, um, it's that, uh, broadcasting network that's out there.
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Um, and, uh, you know, just by accident, you happen to turn it on.
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You may have heard this text being preached on. You may have heard this text being preached on because I've seen more than one guy stand up at a big old church with a big old
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Rolex on and, and, and gaudy rings and a, and a
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Armani suit, uh, stand up in front of the people sweating profusely.
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I'm not sure why rich people can't turn the air conditioning down their churches, but he's sweating profusely and, and telling folks,
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Jesus has promised to you right there. You will receive a hundred fold.
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Now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers, and somehow they get cars and everything else in there.
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Somehow lands, uh, they forget the persecution part, but, um, uh, and you need to come down here right now.
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And I remember once I saw some guy, I think it was a guy, maybe a guy and a gal may have one of them, one of those married teams, you know, that's, that's, that's all the rage these days.
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And, um, they were saying, you need to come down here right now and you need to put a check on the stage equal to your mortgage thing.
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That way, God's going to give you 10 times that amount to pay for your mortgage.
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So there are people getting up and walking down there and doing this.
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And I, you just, you want to reach to the, to the television and grab them and go, would you wake up?
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Uh, do you see what this guy is doing to you? But, uh, you know, what, what can I say? Is that what
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Jesus is talking about? What's he saying to Peter? Peter, dude, you, you think you've left something out?
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You are going to be 100 times richer, um, after the resurrection.
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Is that what he's saying? Of course not. Uh, no one who has left house or brothers or sister and mother, father, children lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold.
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What do you think Peter and others at the end of their lives? How would they have interpreted this text? As Peter, by tradition, we don't know this for certain, but, uh, tradition says that Peter was crucified upside down.
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He did not want to be crucified in the way his Lord was. And so he's crucified upside down, which
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I would imagine would hasten things just a little bit, uh, as far as the result. But we don't know that, but let's say that's what happened.
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If you were to stop him on the way to his own execution and said,
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Peter, Jesus, uh, and this is Mark and Mark, most scholars feel is representing
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Peter's viewpoint. Peter, uh, Jesus said that, uh, you'd receive a hundred fold houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lambs with persecutions.
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Peter, was Jesus lying to you? And I believe that Peter's response would have been, no, he did not.
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Because he could, as he goes to his execution, think of all the houses that had become his house, all the brothers and sisters he now had that he had never had before.
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Mothers in the faith, fathers in the faith, children in the faith, uh, you know, the biblical statement that the gospel divides families, husbands and wives, fathers and children, brothers and sisters.
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And it does. And many of us can testify to how that has happened. And yet, if we are really honest ourselves, we can think of the people who mean the most to us, who have encouraged us the most, the people we can depend upon.
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And I think of people all across the land, uh, that are just so important in supporting me in what
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I do and that I know are praying when I'm, uh, going into, uh, difficult situations.
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Uh, Peter would say, no, Jesus didn't lie to me. Um, those faithful brothers standing off over there who can't stop what's going to happen to me.
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Uh, but they're praying for me and they were praying with me last night and they visited me in prison before my execution.
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And there's, there's my family and we're closer than you can, you people could ever understand.
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So he would, he would not interpret it the way that the Armani suited rich guy on TBN, uh, interprets this particular text, but please know something.
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And I love how this comes up many times. It came up in Mark chapter eight, it comes up in Mark chapter 10 for my sake and for the gospel.
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That second phrase, um, has disappeared in our day.
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I'm going to be preaching both services today, so I won't start preaching now. But there are so many people today who call themselves evangelicals who have come up with such a reductionistic
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Christianity. Christianity light says to produce an ecumenical spirit where you can produce the largest voting block you can.
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Let's all get together. The world today doesn't like distinctives. The world today wants inclusivism, not exclusivism.
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And so let's create what they're calling mere Christianity, borrowing from C .S.
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Lewis. And let's boil it down to the absolute bare bones.
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Nothing about, we can't be any more specific than Jesus died upon a cross and rose again the third day.
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How you come to know him, who he is specifically, they'll stick with the trinity so far.
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Though there's some questions about even some along those lines. But the trinity, the crucifixion, that's pretty much it.
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Don't ask any more in -depth questions than that. What's clear from their perspective, the gospel cannot be allowed to be definitional of the
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Christian faith. Just can't. We can't produce a large enough voting block based upon that, and therefore you have this mere
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Christianity. And it's interesting to me that Jesus says, for my sake and for the gospel.
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Now Luke has the sake of the kingdom of God, which would include how you get into the kingdom, the gospel.
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My name is sake in Matthew. But by God's grace, we will continue to resist all of the temptations that are out there to abandon the distinctive of standing for the gospel.
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Because once you abandon that, you don't really have much left to say to the world. You really don't.
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Churches that have abandoned the gospel as being definitional of the faith, oh they may still preach it, may say it's good for you to believe it, but if you disagree on just a few of these things, it doesn't really matter.
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They are well on their way to becoming religious country clubs. Social groups, you get together, you feel good because you all get together and you sing together and you clap your hands and aren't we all nice together.
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But if that's all that holds us together, we've got a problem. What unites us is that gospel.
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And Jesus speaks of my sake and for the gospel.
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I think we need to keep that absolutely central in our thinking. All right.
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So with that, our time is up and we will press forward from there.
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Let's close the word of prayer. Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, we do thank you for this beautiful day and this opportunity you've given to us to open your word.
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We do ask that you would free us from love of things. Lord, that we would not be idolaters, that you would be first and foremost in our hearts, that if we were to meet you, you would not say this one thing you lack.
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Be with us now as we go into worship. Lift up our hearts and our minds to understand your truth. To your honor and glory, we pray in Christ's name.