The Most Important Theological Lessons (part 3)

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The Most Important Theological Lessons (part 4)

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Well, if you're a visitor, you don't know how idiosyncratic I am, but if you're a regular member, you do. And so you probably aren't surprised when
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I have object lessons for my kids that are strange, but hopefully memorable.
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When I went overseas the first time to teach in India years ago, Kim said, do me a favor, stay safe and don't bring home any little idols.
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And so of course, don't touch wet paint. I, of course, wanted to go get an idol then. I never thought about it before she mentioned anything.
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And so I bring home every trip now some kind of little idol, and I'll set them in my house on the windowsill.
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I set them up upright, and then every time I get home from work, from church, they're laying face down, kind of like Dagon and the
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Ark of the Covenant and all that in the Bible. And so I know they're nothing, they're made of nothing, they're false gods.
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And I thought I want to give a little illustration of the kids. And so this week we were having dinner. I just sat one of the little goddesses right there in the kitchen table, and I said, begin to tell me everything you know about this
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God. What can you describe about this God? And they would say it's fake, it's blasphemous, it's false.
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And then they started to get around to it, and they said, it has ears, but it can't hear.
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It has eyes, but it can't see. And then the one that I was waiting for arrived.
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It has a mouth, but it cannot and does not, what, speak.
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If you think about it, and Al Mohler was right when he brought it to our attention in his new book, all false gods, you're able to see them, these kind of fake gods, you can see them, but they don't speak.
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But the one true, the one real, the one authentic God of the universe is invisible.
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You cannot see him, yet he, what, speaks. He reveals himself.
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He shows who he is by speaking in scripture. He condescends to reveals himself so we might understand him.
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And so in light of that revelation, in light of God knowing something about himself and he did not have to tell us, when he does tell us something about himself, would it be good for us to know what he told us?
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He didn't have to say anything except, look at creation and you'll think, power, wisdom, might. But beyond that, there are other things that he has decided to precisely tell us through scripture, and it would be valuable for each one of us here to understand everything
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God has said, true? Every minor detail. And so over the last 20 years of being a Christian, I've learned many things besides Jesus loves me and died for me, and I was a sinner.
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I've learned many things, and so I thought, while we're waiting for the verse -by -verse exposition of 1
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Corinthians to start, what could I tell the congregation that might encourage them and convict them to make the comfortable convicted and the convicted comfortable?
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And so we're in the middle of a series, part three today, on the most important theological lessons I have learned in the last 20 years.
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In the last 20 years of being a Christian, the last 16 or 17 years in ministry, important theological lessons.
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Yes, it is a topic, but each topic, we'll go to passages and work through them as we're approaching 1
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Corinthians. Someone said, when will we start 1 Corinthians? I don't quite know, but it'll either be next week or the week after or the month after, but we're getting close, because once I start,
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I don't want to deviate. We want to just work right through that book that will be good for our church, the study of 1
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Corinthians. It'll probably take me about three years to get through, so the things that I want to say now in between, that's what
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I'm doing, because once I get to 1 Corinthians, if I've got some hobby horse, I can't really tell you the hobby horse if we're in chapter one of 1
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Corinthians unless that hobby horse matches 1 Corinthians. So now while I have the opportunity, I almost said chance, chance
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I guess is a word Jesus used, and I have an opportunity, so to speak, to tell you some important theological lessons that I think
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God has helped me with to understand Him better and that will help you as well.
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If I need to know these, you do too, because they're not for pastors, they're for Christians. So in review, so far we've learned, number one, that God is utterly sovereign over everything in the universe, including who goes to heaven and who does not.
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After all, we've learned that salvation, as Jonah said in chapter two, is from God and of God, and if salvation is
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God's prerogative to grant, and we know that there is a hell and we know not everyone's going to heaven, we aren't universalists, then that means it's
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God's decision who goes ultimately and who doesn't. We're not saying people aren't responsible, they don't have a duty, they don't believe themselves, that's all true, but at the end of the day,
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God is the sovereign one. We do not believe in this church, God votes for us to go to heaven, Satan votes against us to go to heaven, and we cast the deciding ballot, because we would always cast the ballot that says we love our sins and we don't want to go.
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So God has to intervene, He has to send His Son to rescue those who were lost.
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Number two, there are no shortcuts for holy living. We love shortcuts, we love to have the idea that we work smarter, not harder.
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When it comes to theological sanctification, that is growing in Christ, looking more and more like Christ, saying yes to sanctification and righteousness more often, and saying no to sin more regularly, it comes through the
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Spirit's work as He applies the Word of God, and we use words like Paul when he said we sweat and toil and labor, kapi 'aho, where it takes energy.
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You begin to work out with weights or you begin to run, and all of a sudden, after just a few short moments or maybe minutes, you can tell your body is getting ready for this run, and you begin to sweat and the heartbeat goes up.
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It's no different when it comes to sanctification. God in His wisdom could have said, the second you become saved, you walk perfectly, you'll never sin again, but we know perfection and glory isn't until glory.
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So we want to, by the Spirit's power, work hard at holy living. Number three, still in review,
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God does not love me more when I obey. As a Christian, God doesn't love you less or more when you obey or disobey.
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We learn in John chapter 17 specifically that when Christ dies for you, there couldn't be a greater manifestation of God's love for you, and if He gives you the greatest gift salvation,
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He'll give you everything else, which is less, and that if you are in Christ, God sees you in Christ.
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He loves His Son to the uttermost, therefore you are in Him and you are loved to the uttermost, John 17.
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We live in a society where if we obey, we get the blessings, and if we disobey, we don't, and somehow we think
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God is different than a good dad, and that good dad, relatively speaking, would say, of course, son, even though you disobeyed me, you're still my son.
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Number four, still in review, anxiousness is a sin and a signal of my prayerlessness.
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I can tell when I'm anxious and disobeying Philippians chapter four and other passages that I am sinning.
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The opposite word of anxious is to trust. I'm not actively trusting.
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When it comes to thinking about holy living, we're always to say no to one thing and replace it with the right thing, and when
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I am sinning anxiously and I am fretting and I am concerned about things and full of stress,
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I know I'm taking the weight of the world and the church and the ministry and my marriage on my own shoulders when the
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Lord says you are to cast your cares upon Him because literally, 1 Peter chapter five,
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He cares for you, and I am to actively trust in Him. Number five, my feelings should never lead me.
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Instead, they should serve as a barometer to my actions and attitudes. You know the slogan in society.
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It's a selling marketing slogan. If it feels good, do it. That's exactly wrong.
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I guess that's a good way to market something, you know, just do it the opposite. We do the right thing and then
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God rewards us with the feelings afterward. And we looked at that in Proverbs chapter 29 verse 18 and Genesis chapter 4, happy is
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He who keeps the law. Don't go by your feelings. We're not asking you to be a robot. God the Son had feelings.
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We ascribe feelings to God the Father with language. We are to have feelings, but they are never to lead us.
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For instance, if you say I'm going to be led by, I won't make a decision unless I have a piece about it.
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When was the last time you had a piece about getting up and giving a presentation and teaching Sunday school, knocking at someone's door to discipline them for church discipline, to going down to the common and preaching the gospel when somebody's standing there saying
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I'm going to punch you unless you say something good about Satan or whatever the situation was for Jim here at the church.
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I don't know if Jim had a peaceful, easy feeling about it. I'm not sure Eagle's tunes were going through his mind.
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I digress. Number six, the key to sanctification is thinking.
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We don't do enough thinking, in other words, in Christianity. We looked at Romans 6 .11, even so consider or think or calculate yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
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We want too many formulas in this Christian life. How to do this? How do I be a better husband? Well, I just go buy this teddy bear and put it in the freezer and one day she'll open the thing to get those old blueberries out and out comes a teddy bear and life is solved.
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For the disobedient husbands, MacArthur used to say then the bad news is that she'll take that frozen teddy bear and use it as a weapon against you.
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Number seven, last review, when it comes to evangelism, the most important three things to remember besides the message obviously is man is depraved, you preach for the glory of God and evidentialism is for Christians.
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That is to say when we preach, we realize we're preaching to dead people, spiritually dead.
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So the only thing that can make them alive is not suggestions, is not padding them and encourage them but it's the word of God that makes alive like Acts chapter 16 with Lydia.
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The preaching discipleship class, we have eight guinea pigs this year and yesterday we went to the cemetery right across the street, met here at seven o 'clock,
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I told them about scripture reading and I said, it's time to read the scriptures out loud. So follow me and we walked right up to that Catholic cemetery right there and I made them stand in front of the tombstones and read
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Acts 2, Acts 3, Acts 7, Isaiah chapter 5, Jeremiah chapter 5, proclaiming the truth of God to dead people.
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That's real evangelism with a twist and you think, yes, you're right, you are idiosyncratic.
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The answer is I am but I hope they remember that unless God the spirit intervenes, they're preaching to dead people.
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You can't run up and begin to rub the tombstone and say, come on out, come on, we're all here for you, let's all clap them out of the grave, one, two, three, clap.
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Three cheers for those in the grave, come on, get out, we know you can do it, we just give you five easy steps to get out.
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No, we proclaim the truth to spiritually dead people, God makes alive through the message of Christ, Romans chapter 10.
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Number eight and now new information, theological lessons that I think you ought to learn as a congregation.
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And if you've learned them, you can be thankful to God that he's already taught you. Number eight, you must be content with God's revelation in the
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Bible. You must be content with God's revelation in the Bible. Please turn to Deuteronomy 29 .29,
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you probably know the verse but I'd like you to see with your own eyes, it's in the Old Testament, last book of Moses, Deuteronomy 29 .29.
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The sooner you can learn this lesson, the better it is. There are certain things that God has purposely not put in the
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Scriptures. There are certain boundaries that you ought not to go past because God has not spoken of these things.
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Maybe that issue is, do babies go to heaven? I need a verse. How do
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I reconcile the complete sovereignty of God and human responsibility? How do
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I know who wrote Romans? Is it the Holy Spirit? Is it Paul? Did Paul write in verse one and the
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Spirit of God wrote in verse two? How do I say to the personality of Paul, the Spirit of God bore this man along and exactly what we have in Scripture is
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Scripture. How can Jesus be fully God and fully man? I can't quite get it and when
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I read one section of Scripture in John 17, it almost seems like he's not God but I know he is and I need more answers.
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Friends, if you want to mature in Christ, one of the best things you could do is to be content with God's revelation.
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There is a reason he hasn't put everything in here. Doesn't that make you feel good, by the way, that you realize you're not infinite?
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If we could figure it all out and we could have all the information, we would be infinite but we are finite, frail, fragile human beings who have also been affected by the fall.
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We are not God. We are not sinless and holy and infinite. We learn. God never learns.
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And here in Deuteronomy 29 .29, you probably know this verse but my suggestion is, in light of my comments today, that you allow the secret things to belong to Yahweh but you do the things that are written in Scripture.
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Let's read the verse, Deuteronomy 29 .29, the secret things belong to Yahweh, the covenant -keeping
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God of Israel, our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever with a purpose.
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What's the purpose of the revelation of God that we do have? That we may observe all the words of this law.
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And like Israel, so too should you say, I waste too much time trying to figure out how to unscrew the inscrutable versus this is what the
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Bible does say about how I'm to love my wife. This is what the Bible does say about how I'm supposed to submit to my husband.
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This is what the Bible does say about how I should work hard for my employer even if he's perverse. This is what the
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Bible does say about using my spiritual gifts and stop trying to make yourself crazy figuring out what
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God purposely does not want you to know. Isn't that freeing by the way? We don't have to have it all figured out.
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Listen to what John Calvin said, Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit in which as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know.
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So nothing is taught but what is expedient to know. In other words, he left certain things out on purpose.
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He put certain things in on purpose, obey what you do know and let the rest go.
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Submit to God and say, God, you've got to figure it out. You know how human responsibility and divine sovereignty reconcile.
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I can't reconcile them, but you didn't reconcile them for me in Scripture. So I will affirm both. Calvin goes on to say, let us treasure the following observation in our minds.
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Never to feel the least desire to attain any other knowledge concerning doctrine save what is taught us in Scripture.
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Listen now, when the Lord shuts his sacred mouth, let us also stop our thoughts from advancing one step further in our inquiries.
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That is really good advice. And as you mature in Christ, you'll say, I don't have to force mental closure and create this kind of perfect box in my mind so I can completely grasp this.
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Instead, we say to ourselves, I affirm both statements. Jesus is God. I affirm the statement that Jesus is fully man.
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I know I can't go that he's somehow less than God or less than man. He is affirmed in Scripture to be both and I will accept it.
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And everything else that's in here, I'll just get busy doing it. I think you'll sleep better at night.
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Number nine. Number nine, the ninth lesson, all eschatology is ethical or maybe let me rephrase that.
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Real end time study should change the way you live. Real end time study, eschatology, the study of last things should make you more holy.
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Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Peter chapter four and I do want to do some exposition in 1 Peter chapter four.
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If you love to study end times and you run around with charts and graphs and flow charts, you probably better be the most holy person around here.
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That's all I do is I study Daniel, I study Ezekiel, and I study Revelation. When friends, if you do that, you ought to be ultra holy.
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When you study end times, if you know Jesus is coming back soon, it's for a purpose and that purpose isn't for a chart or a graph or to read the
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Jerusalem Post with new insight. It is, I'm trying to be careful today, it is so that you'll say,
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Jesus is coming back, I ought to live in light of that truth. For the theologians in here, and you all are theologians, end times indicatives come with end time imperatives.
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In other words, Jesus is coming again, statement of faith indicative. In light of that, I am commanded to do
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X, Y, and Z. And so when you study prophecy, your holiness should increase.
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After all, think about it from the human level. My father worked for Northwestern Bell in Nebraska and he had to go to Tulsa for some work and he would be gone for a week or two weeks.
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When my mother would say on Thursday night, your dad's coming home, there was a tornado of activity going on in that house.
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Things were getting done. I hadn't watered the dog for a week or whatever. Dogs can get their own water, they know what to do.
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Whatever it was, cleaning your room, watering the dog, getting things done that were my responsibility, they got done that night and they got done with what?
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Excellence, dad. So if the son, the king is returning, the return of the real king, it's going to happen.
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We don't want to be found in a lazy position, sinful position, a who cares position,
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God will work it out anyway, I'm just going to do whatever I want. We need to be about the father's business.
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And 1 Peter chapter 4, Paul writes to these suffering
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Christians and he tells them what to do when there's end times coming. This would be good for you to read if we were in 2004,
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Y2K. You will not see, well, let's look at the verse first, 1 Peter 4, 7, the end of all things is at hand, therefore, stockpile rice and beans, therefore, let's see, what would
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I stockpile if I could? I remember when we had the big snowstorm last year, I was almost a wreck without coffee because I needed to take the beans and grind them somehow and I thought,
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I have not anticipated this contingency. So, I'm downstairs, I'm boiling water out on the grill outside, so we got that for tea and then
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I'm down there with a hammer, smashing in this little bag, my coffee beans, just fine enough for the
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French press and I thought, so, hoard coffee, buy some kind of extra oil tanks and get all the gas ready, you know, if the end times is going to come, let's all sit up here on the roof and just kind of sing
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Kumbaya and just wait. You'll find that it's different, you're not allowed to laugh this much, this is an important theological lesson, laugh when appropriate.
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It's just so different, that's why we laugh, what the world does and what the Bible teaches is exactly the opposite.
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The end of all things is at hand, it could happen right now, the eminent return of Christ Jesus, therefore, be of sound judgment, that's the first thing he says, be of sound judgment.
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He says, I want you to get your mind and I want you to get it right and I want you to guard it and I want you to keep it and I want you to think with a cool, balanced mind.
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I don't want you to run around hither thither, pell mill, listening to every kind of person, get your kind of radio out to know what to do and crank the little radio batter thing and whatever they do,
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I'll do, think about things biblically and spiritually. After Jesus cast the demon out of a man, he was sitting clothed in his right mind, same word here.
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Thinking about things properly, taking every thought captive, Jesus is going to return, my mind better be on things like,
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I need now to have an eternal perspective. Jesus is coming back soon, I ought to make sure that I'm not so heavenly minded that I'm no earthly good,
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I need to be working out who I am in Christ Jesus. Jesus is going to return,
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I better think properly about the true rewards for Christians at the behemoth seat of Christ Jesus.
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Jesus is going to return, I better start thinking that I better hold on to my materialistic things with loose hands because as Luther said, one, two, three, four slits in a hand and that is so money can go through them very quickly in people.
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I just have to hold on to things lightly in this live and grab the gusto kind of life.
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Then he says, look at what else he says, moving further, the end of all things is at hand, therefore be of sober spirit.
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Don't be drunk with the world of the age, don't have some kind of mental intoxication, be in full possession of your faculties.
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Very similar to what he's just said. Live life correctly in light of Christ's return.
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Why? Why do these things? Why think properly? Why be sober spiritually? For the purpose of prayer.
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Who knows, maybe Peter is thinking when I was in another trial and I ought to have been sober in my spirit and having sound judgment and been praying,
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I was sleeping while Jesus was praying in the garden. Then what does he say?
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Very very interesting. End of all things is at hand BBC, what should you do? Number three found in verse eight, love each other.
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That's so odd. Verse eight of first Peter four, above all, highlight this he says, put this at the top.
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Didn't start with the right order, this is at the top. Keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins.
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Love love love, you search this section here, love one another. Love covers.
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And that fervent love there means to stretch and to strain. If you ever drop something behind a couch and you try to reach over to it and you don't want to move the couch because you're afraid of what you're going to find under the couch, so you're just going to kind of lean over and you can just feel like, if I could just stretch a little bit farther to kind of get that little piece of thing there.
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That's that word fervent, to stretch, to strain. Say there's a bunch of people at the church that maybe aren't so lovable and the
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Bible says it's the end days, stretch out to love them anyway. Interestingly, because love covers a multitude of sins.
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In other words, there's a list of sins that you keep against someone else possibly, a list of the things that they've done to you and they've offended you and they've gotten you and they've done sinful activities against you and he basically says
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Jesus is coming back. Get rid of the list. Who needs the list?
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Jesus, I know you're coming back, but I've got to keep this list. People don't know who they've offended.
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I think of the world when they say, you don't know who you're messing with. Some people say in marriage, love is blind.
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I would say no, love covers sins. I used to call it a big asbestos sin blanket.
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You just need to throw that blanket on the other person. Jesus is coming back. Oh, you say,
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I've been hurt. Maybe, but the Bible teaches you to cover sins. Show me a bitter person and I'll show you someone who needs to cover sins more.
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Proverbs 10 is where Peter gets this. Love covers all transgressions.
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Cover and keep covering and keep covering. Number four, look in verse nine.
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If you thought the last one was odd, this is peculiar. The end times is coming.
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What do you do? Quick, go to the Mount of Olives so you're closer upon the Jesus return, because that's where he's coming back.
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Get there close, sell it all. No, be hospitable to one another without complaint.
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Be hospitable to one another without complaint. I don't know if you're a hospitable person, but I know that when people stay at my house for longer than a few days, it can be problematic.
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After all, poor Richard's almanac says fish and visitors smell in three days. See, you know that.
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This is not entertain. This is not, well, I'm going to open my house up on Saturday for my friends. The word here in Greek is what?
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Be a lover of strangers. Be a friend and a lover of someone you don't even know.
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Is it good to have guests over at your house? Absolutely. But when there's end times, you say,
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I've got to get to know people I don't know. One man said, did you know that in the
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New Testament, hospitality was a distinctive mark of Christians and Christian communities?
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And all the guys, if you're like me, you're like, that's my wife's department. Good to go.
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Wife, take care of that. Obey that vicariously for me. Did you know it is a qualification in 1st
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Timothy 3 for elders to be hospitable? Of course, ladies are to be hospitable, but so are elders.
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Be hospitable to one another. There was a Dear Abby column years ago.
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I'm presently completing the second of a three -year survey of hospitality or lack thereof in churches.
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To date, of the 195 churches I have visited, I was spoken to in only one by someone other than an official greeter, and that was by a person who asked me to move my feet, a lover of strangers.
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It's going to be hard, so he says, but don't complain. Practice hospitality. And then lastly, if it's the end times, found in verse 10, the fifth thing he says, there are other things in Scripture, but Peter focuses on these things to those scattered
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Jews. And each one has received a spiritual gift, employed in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
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Instead of hunker down, serve other Christians. Get out there and serve other
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Christians. Use your spiritual gift. Your spiritual gift, if it's teaching, is it for you. If your spiritual gift is help, it's not for you.
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Look at the language Peter uses. It's kind of, it's convicting. Use your spiritual gift because you want to be a good steward of God's grace.
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In other words, if you're not using your spiritual gift, you're not a good what? And when it comes to gifts, verse 11, he says, they're speaking and serving gifts.
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Whoever speaks, let him speak as it were the utterances of God. If you're a speaker, preach the word. Whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which
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God supplies, so that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.
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If you like to study end times, and you should because it's everywhere in scripture, it should promote your holiness.
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So if you want to have some kind of pet doctrine, end time theology, don't just study for the facts and the charts and the flow chart.
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I want you to study and say this, Lord, make me different in light of your soon return. Number 10.
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Number 10, the 10th lesson I learned that I think you should learn, and you probably learned this already at the church, let me say it in a negative fashion for teaching style, and then we'll fill in the positive.
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Justification is more than God treating you just as if you never sin.
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Well, I'm justified and we teach the kids, you know, kind of what is another little grace.
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We'll teach kids G -R -A -C -E, God's riches at Christ's expense, and we do some of those things, and there are good little tools to help.
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But it's not a helpful tool to only believe that God's justification means this. God treats me as if I've never sinned.
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What's wrong with that? Here's what the theologians do. They'll say there's two kinds of obedience of Christ.
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The obedience that says, I'll go to the cross and die on the behalf of those you've given me,
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Father. We believe that because we believe that Jesus was an atonement for our sins.
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He purchased redemption for us. He was the ransom price. He was not only the priest putting the sacrifice there, he himself was the sacrifice.
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But furthermore, we need to understand that Jesus lived a perfect life in our place.
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And so turn the Bible, your Bibles, to Matthew chapter 3. This is called the active obedience of Christ Jesus.
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This answers the question, why did Jesus not come on Friday, good Friday, die, be raised from the dead on Sunday?
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Why did he have to live a 30 -year perfect life, 33 years of perfect living? Why? Why not just come down and die here for humanity?
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The answer we'll find is that Jesus not only died for our sins, he was the sin bearer on our behalf, but also he lived a perfect life in our place.
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He obeyed. To obey is better than sacrifice, and you'll see this kind of language in the scripture.
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And it will make your slogan turn into Jesus' justification is just as if I've never sinned, to God sees me as just as if I've never sinned, and God sees me just as if I lived a perfect life that Jesus lived.
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So for instance, back to anxiety, I say to myself, yeah, I'm an anxious person, but I'm sure thankful that Jesus Christ was never anxious.
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Jesus died for my anxiousness. God's wrath was poured out upon that sin on Jesus.
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But also, I have the one who I'm found in, and Jesus never was anxious his entire life.
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It helps. Look at Matthew 3. We'll look up a couple of verses. Matthew 3, the Gospel of the King, it says in verse 13,
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And Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John to be baptized by him.
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Now, we all know that this is not because Jesus was a sinner. Did Jesus sin? No. So John understands that.
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He says, as he tries to prevent him, I have need to be baptized by you.
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I'm a sinner. You come to me. You're the one to be baptizing me, not the other way around. You don't sin,
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Jesus. I sin. But Jesus, to identify with humanity, certainly, and to then do everything that humanity was to do actively,
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Jesus says, Permitted at this time, for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
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Then he permitted him. Jesus comes not just to bear our sins, but he comes to live a perfect life in our place.
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A lifetime of obedience to God. Legal obedience is essential to true righteousness.
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And you can look at Deuteronomy 6 to find that out. Let's turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, and I want to talk about this a little further.
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You say, what good does this do? This is just theological nitpicking. Who here has ever heard of J. Gresham Machen?
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J. Gresham Machen. Some have. Machen's on his deathbed, and he writes a telegram to his friend
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John Murray. He's, I believe, in Philadelphia. Machen is in North Dakota.
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And here is his last words to John Murray. I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ.
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No hope without it. If it wasn't for Jesus living a perfect life in my place, there's no hope.
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And Machen knows if Jesus dies for our sins alone, that brings us back to neutral.
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That brings us back to Eden. That brings us not to heaven. We need an active righteousness to get us to heaven.
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So you say, he treats us just as if I'd never sinned, and if I never sin in the future. And he treats me like I perfectly obeyed every law that was ever written, because Jesus did that in our place.
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There's this double function. Our sins get credited to Jesus' account, even though he didn't sin. Jesus' righteousness gets credited to our account, even though we didn't act righteously.
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In 2 Corinthians 5, when John MacArthur was here preaching, this is what he preached. I think he called it 12
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Greek words or 15 Greek words. And it's so important, because in our culture today, it's not like 300 years ago in New England.
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It's not like France and Germany 500 years ago. We forget about this wonderful thing.
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I'm not only treated as if I never sinned. I'm treated as if I perfectly obey. 2
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Corinthians 5, verse 21. He made him who knew no sin.
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The Father makes Jesus who knew no sin. I mean, everybody's ruled out. We know it's not
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John the Baptist. It's not Daniel. It's Jesus. The Father made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.
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It's as if you take all of the sins of all the elect, of all those who'd ever believe, and you put it together in one big pile or one big clump, and then that's what
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Jesus is turned into by imputed sin. He knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.
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That word sin is not talked about sacrifice. Never talked about sacrifice in that regard. It's as if God says, here's this big clump of massive sin of all time for all those who'd ever believe, and Jesus is treated as if he did those, as if he was those, even though he never was because he never sinned, on our behalf so that we...
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Now, here's the positive side. It's one thing to be a sin bearer. It's another thing to be a righteous liver so that we might become the righteousness, not of Adam, not of Moses.
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You've got to have a righteousness that surpasses the scribes and Pharisees, don't you? The righteousness of God in him.
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The double function of Christ's death. He dies for our sins and lives for our righteousness.
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Machen said earlier, if Christ had merely paid the penalty of sin for us and had done nothing more, we should be at best back in a situation in which
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Adam found himself where God placed him. In other words, if Christ only paid the penalty for our sins through his passive sufferings, then we are merely transported back to the garden of Eden.
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Why did Jesus in Hebrews 10, why is it said of Jesus, as Jesus said in sacrifice and offering, you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear.
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Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required. Then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll, the book that is written in me.
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I delight to do your will. Oh my God, your law is written in my heart.
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Jesus perfectly pays for our sin. He lives a perfect life of holiness and righteousness in our place.
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Turn last for this point to Isaiah chapter 61. For those of you who just married, you'll get the point very quickly.
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Isaiah 61 is probably one of your favorite verses. I think it's Bruce Binney's favorite verses. If I had to guess right up there,
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Isaiah 61 verse 10. This is the language of covering the language of active obedience.
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The language of God sees you as if you've perfectly obeyed because of what Christ has done.
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We're not just back to moral neutrality. No, we have a righteousness, not on our own, based on the law, but through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God.
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Philippians 3 says Isaiah chapter 61 verse 10. What a glorious verse.
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The writer says, I rejoice. We will rejoice greatly in the Lord. My soul will exult in my
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God, for he hath clothed me with garments of salvation. He has wrapped me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with the garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
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If the actual sin of Adam was imputed to us, won't the active obedience of Christ Jesus also be imputed to our account?
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The answer is yes. And you say, well, I don't know if I really want to know that. Kind of moving on in life.
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Here's a children's catechism question that children 300 years ago were required to memorize. What is justification?
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If you ask your kid this, what would your kid say? If I asked this to you, what would you say? What is justification?
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This is what they were supposed to say at catechism. We are told that justification is an act of God's free grace, where he pardons all our sins and accepts us righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.
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Number 11. Number 11. The 11th lesson. Moving right along.
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Number 11. Providence is more amazing than biblical miracles.
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Providence today is more amazing than so -called biblical miracles today. Why don't you turn your
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Bibles to Genesis chapter 45? Some of us say, well, there's a lot of miracles back in the Bible days, and I don't see a whole lot of miracles today, except some sham artist down at the
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DCU Center, you know, lengthening some guy's leg or something, casting out some demon of, you know, post -nasal drip or something.
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I don't see those kind of things. When you study the Bible miracles, friends, you will see spectacular miracles.
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You will see verifiable miracles. The unbelievers came to Jesus and he said, take a look.
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You know I did it supernaturally. And they said, yes, we know. But the way you did it means you're from Satan.
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Satan made you do it. They didn't say, well, it was just some kind of fake, you know, I got a bad back and kind of get slain down and all this stuff.
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For us today, for those of us who say, you know, the miracles in the Bible were really in three main time frames.
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During the time of Moses and Joshua, during the time of Elijah and Elisha, and during the time of Jesus and the apostles.
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Three main time frames, there were a lot of supernatural miracles. I'm talking blind people who could see.
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I'm talking people's daughters raised from the dead. And if you compress that time frame together, you will see about 100 years of church history, of the history of Israel in the church.
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And you say, well, you know, why doesn't God do those things today? Friends, the reason why he doesn't do those things today through people, he can make any kind of miracle he wants.
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But he doesn't use people like he used Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the apostles.
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It's because those three times were distinctively times where the scripture was being written down.
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Moses and Joshua, the Bible's coming together, the spirit of God inscripturating the word.
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During the prophets, yes. During Jesus and the apostles, yes. So you have to say, well, these miracles are to point to revelation.
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It's true. Other people can't do these miracles. I should believe what they say. But for us today, here's what we do.
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Well, kind of God, God doesn't do those big miracles anymore. and, you know, raise up dead, you know, daughters and, and we kind of want that.
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But if you think about it, I want you to realize that how God works behind the scenes in a marvelous providence is almost as miraculous.
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It should blow your mind at minimum. Turn to Genesis 45. One day, I'll give you one illustration of providence.
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We don't need to be sign seekers. That's not a commendation from Jesus. We don't need to be miracles, signs and wonders.
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Never should you go to a place saying, we advertise signs and wonders here. You should go to a place. Always. It says we advertise the
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Bible here. And what comes after that is secondary. Signs were never primary. They were always secondary.
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But don't forget this. I had to learn the lesson quite some time ago that the most amazing quote, unquote, miracle today is the providence of God.
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How many decisions do we make it? How can God orchestrate all these things perfectly? Well, he orchestrates them perfectly, just like he did here in Genesis chapter 45.
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Perfectly. Genesis 37 to 50 is about one main Bible character outside of God.
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And who's that character? Joseph. And if you had to describe Genesis 37 to 50 in a test and a child said, what's the theme of Genesis 37 to 50?
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You would say providence of God. God working everything completely behind the scenes for his glory.
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Everything perfectly happening. Every Adam he's sovereign over and he's working through. Now, here's what
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I'll say about Genesis 37 to 50. Ask yourself the question, God, your providential hand doesn't seem so obvious in my life.
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I know you're the same God. I know you're working in my life, but it doesn't really seem so right. You don't seem close. You don't seem like you're doing the same things.
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But you look at Genesis 37 to 50 and you go, it's obvious that God was perfectly providentially making everything happen.
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So I asked you the question, why is it so obvious in Genesis chapter 37 to 50 that God's in charge of every detail, including sin?
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Why is it so obvious? Because when it's not obvious in your life, you'll realize, but it's the same
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God. It is obvious, but it just might not be obvious till I get to glory or till I get to next week.
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And look at Genesis 45. I just love this. God is doing his work and his will.
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We don't need miracles anymore. If God wants to do a miracle, fine. But I don't think
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God gives the gift of healing to humans anymore. At least if they did, they're a complete sham artist because they should be at children's hospital.
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How dare they not go there? Because a biblical person who had the gift of healing could heal every single person completely.
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But they want other things. They want something that the Bible doesn't want you to have.
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So anyway, back to this Genesis 45. Then Joseph could not control himself before all those who stood by him and he cried.
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I mean, read sometime Genesis 37 to 44. The pressure is building. Joseph's brothers don't know it's
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Joseph and all the intricacies behind the whole thing. He could not control himself. Everyone go out from me.
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So there was no man with him when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. He wept so loudly that the
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Egyptians heard it and the household of Pharaoh heard it. Then Joseph said to his brothers,
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I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?
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But his brothers could not answer him for they were dismayed at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, please come closer to me.
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They came closer and he said, I'm your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt.
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Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here for God sent me before to preserve life.
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The famine has been in the land these two years and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting.
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For the second time, God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth and to keep you alive by a great deliverance.
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Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but for the third time, do you see it? But God, God sent me here and he has made me a father to Pharaoh.
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He just didn't send me here. I'm basically running Egypt and the Lord of his household and the ruler over all the land of Egypt.
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Friends, if you can't read that passage and say to yourself, I am in awe of God as much as I am when
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Jesus heals Jairus's daughter, then I would beg you and I would exhort you to reconsider
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God's miracles and providence. What's the difference between an overt miracle where the supernatural comes into the natural?
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Our God with a sovereign, strong right arm working out everything, every minor detail.
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Friends, when you read the newspaper, you are seeing the unfolding glory and greatness of God, but we can't figure it all out, but we'll look back and we'll figure it out.
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Learn the lesson. Do not overlook providence today and somehow say, well,
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God's not working like he used to. Oh, he isn't working like he used to, but he's still working today.
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Well, the next one I have is a long one. And so I don't know, you thought maybe we're going to do three weeks, but we might have to go longer.
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Maybe there's some kind of wagers out there. You ought not to be betting on sermons. Lastly, jump ahead.
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Number 12. Lastly, for today, at least, number 12, a lesson you want to learn. And it's one of those shock value ones.
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It's like one of those things where you put your finger in the light socket by accident because it's broken and you've got some tool and it zaps you.
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You ever been zapped? Here's a zap for you. To understand God properly, you need to understand that he's jealous.
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That he's jealous. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 20. God is jealous. Now, what's the first thing we want to do?
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We want to start making excuses. Maybe we want to start thinking about, well, you know, jealousy is always a bad thing.
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Maybe we're starting to think about some of the books that are written about God's jealousy.
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One person said, this is a psychologist said, this view of God's jealousy is a great evil that is a result of territorial imperatives on the primal mind.
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Another person said, jealousy is often explained as a product of evolutionary process. So therefore, God must have been evolving.
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Another one said, God is the result of vestiges of our reptilian brains. If God is jealous, we've made him because we're jealous.
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What does it mean when God is jealous? Well, we know, obviously, since there's no stain or sin in God, that it must be a good thing.
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We would realize as finite creatures that sometimes God can do something that we can't. And so our minds begin to think that way as we try to solve the problem.
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And you need to learn this lesson. We started with idols and we'll close with idols. Exodus 25.
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God says, through Moses to his covenant people, you shall not worship them or serve them.
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For I, the Lord your God, am a what? Jealous God, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children, on the third and fourth generations of those who hate me.
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He says, do not worship them. The word worship means to bow down. Don't get on your face and go, oh, you great
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God of wood. And don't serve them.
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Don't make gestures to them. Don't genuflect to them. Don't sacrifice to them. Don't make vows to them.
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Don't get the incense out for them. Don't make altars for them. Don't make high places for them. Why? Because I'm Yahweh and I'm jealous.
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What real husband is going to share his wife with another? God declares that he wants exclusive devotion to his people.
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That's what jealousy is. Exodus 34. It says, God's name is jealous. His holiness is jealous.
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His righteousness is jealous. His compassion is jealous. There's a right anger that God directs towards those who oppose him and try to worship him along with someone else.
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It's not a good thing. Jealousy basically means in the Hebrew to be red in the face.
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And if God had a face, we can just imagine somebody getting jealous and their face just starts to change colors.
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That's the idea. God's name is jealous and he's a jealous God. For those that run around worshiping
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Asherah and Baal and all that, he does not want that. No toleration of rivals.
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No unfaithfulness. No spiritual adultery. God gets hot under the collar is where we would get that word.
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If you want the commentary, the Hebrew commentary, it says, it is a color produced in the face by deep emotion.
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When there's an infringement on God's property and people, he is not happy.
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He is jealous. One man said to have jealousy, you need this breeding ground for it to happen.
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A lover, a beloved, a rival, an infidelity, and a response to that infidelity.
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That's jealousy. A lover, a beloved, a rival, infidelity, and an emotional response to that infidelity.
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And that's the kind of situation we have here with God. He gives an emotional and actual response to infidelity.
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When God's people pollute themselves with idols, do not love him supremely. Do not want to obey him.
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What did John say? 1 John 5, verse 21. The nice, kind, grandfather -like apostle
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John. He used to be son of thunder, and now he's just this kind apostle of love. What's the last thing he told his people?
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1 John 5, verse 21. What did he say? He could have said, God is jealous, but what did he say instead?
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Little children, keep yourself from, with the meaning, don't infringe upon who
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God is and what he claims. We want to trust him.
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We don't want to have inordinate affections for idols. God is a jealous
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God. If you believe God is jealous, by the way, let me make a side comment and we have to close. People translate it zealous because they want to somehow make it look better, but zealous and jealous are two different words.
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We may have them as synonyms, but zealous with this kind of zeal in my house, you know, zeal for God's house, and you're just kind of this enthusiastic kind of zealot.
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That's a lot different. Zealous and jealous are two different ones, and the Hebrew in Exodus 20 and Exodus 34 is jealous.
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God is jealous for his people, and if you understand that, you won't go running off to every Baal or Asherah tree.
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We have a little God right here, and that God can't speak, that God can't hear, that God can't see.
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And why would we go worship a God like that? We make half of it and turn it into wood.
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We take the other half and we throw it in the fire and warm our hands. It's that kind of language. We're going to run from that.
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We have a God who we can't see, but he speaks. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for our time where we could get into the word.
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Lord, we look forward to the day where we could see you face to face, to see Jesus Christ still cloaked in humanity and heaven, still bearing the signs of crucifixion.
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We're thankful that we worship the lamb that was slain before eternity. We're thankful that Jesus always pleased you and came to do your great will.
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We're thankful that we stand before you today, those who are Christians, as forgiven people, but not just that, as forgiven people, but in Christ, perfectly righteous with the righteousness of God.
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Thank you that our hope is not Eden. Thank you that our hope is not moral neutrality. Thank you that our hope is with you in your presence.
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And I pray that you'd help the people today, not just to know more about the Bible, not just to have theological insight, but that you would change our lives, change our thoughts, change our minds based on what we know, because that's why you've given it to us, as you've revealed who you are.