Keep sharing good news without ads.
Sunday school from September 28th, 2014
All right, let's pray. Merciful God, we humbly implore you to cast the bright beams of your light upon your church so that we, being instructed by the doctrine of the blessed apostles, may walk in the light of your truth and finally attain the light of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen. All right. Now, we're back in Genesis chapter 1, and believe it or not, we're going to get out of verse 1 today. What I did for the last two weeks in theological terms, we call that prolegomena, you know, the first words trying to set the stage.
But today we actually need to get into the text and get far into it. And I'm going to do something that I'll do from time to time, but won't do every week. And that is I'm going to actually teach from my own translation.
And the reason being is there's certain little features in the text. Think of me as a good Jungle Cruise captain right now. I'm going to try to point out some of the things you may miss otherwise. And I think it's important.
And so, if you have your Bible, we're at Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. Here's what it says, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was brooding over the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. God saw the light for it was good, and God divided between the light and between the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
And there was evening and there was morning, day one. Now, fascinating in the Hebrew here, it says, it doesn't, the translation comes out, God called the light day. But actually in the Hebrew, it's a little bit more graphic than that.
God called to the light, day. God called to the darkness, night. That's kind of the impact of what's going on in the Hebrew here.
It's actually, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He named it, but it actually says he called to it. That's the funny thing. He called to the day, at the light, day. Called to the darkness, night. Now, notice here what hasn't been made yet. The sun, the moon, the stars, right?
So, God creates, first thing is light and darkness. And he does it without the sun or the moon or the stars. Well, see, that's kind of the thing. If you read it in the back of the book, you all read the book of Revelation, by the way, we win.
I hope that's not a spoiler word. Actually, Jesus wins, but. But if you read in the back of the book, in the book of Revelation, it talks about the fact that in the new earth, we don't even need the sun because the light that we have comes from God himself.
From his glory, okay? So, if you were to really think of it, God, in a sense, kind of bookends, you know, beginning and end. So, and what's funny is that you talk to an evolutionist, they'll say, see, this proves that the Bible isn't true because, you know, there was no sun or moon or stars, and yet there's light and darkness.
It's like, really? How does that disprove it? Well, whoever did this is a moron. You know, that's their argument. It's like, really?
Really?
So, are you saying that the only possible way for there to be light is if there's a sun or a star or the moon? Are there other ways for there to be light? You know, you start, you have to push back.
You got to push back.
Okay, so he called to the light, day. He called to the darkness, night. There was evening and there was morning, day one. God said, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and there was separating between the waters to the waters.
Now, this is kind of a fascinating thing going on in this passage. And Luther's commentary, he, Luther's, is just a scream on this. Okay, the Hebrew verb here for let there be an expanse is the word rakhia.
And what's funny is that Luther, when he tries to explain this to the people in his time, he says, well, rakhia is this expanse. It's kind of like when you take a pig's bladder and you inflate it.
It's like, what?
And so when I read that, I'm like, what is with the pig's bladder thing? Well, apparently, back in the day before there were balloons, you know, as part of the butchery type of things, you could take a pig's bladder and then inflate it and you could play with it like a balloon.
It was, yeah, yeah.
I was kind of hoping some of you farmers out here go, oh, yeah, yeah, that pig's bladder thing. We used to do that when we were kids.
Yeah, right, exactly.
Put helium in a pig's bladder and you put it on a string and...
Who first thought of that?
I have no idea who first thought of it. So, so the idea here is that there is a, there is an expanse and it's, in a sense, it's expanding outward. That's what rakia means. So what God did, so verse one, God created the heavens and the earth.
Think of it this way, is that out of nothing, all of a sudden, there's something. It's like God takes the dump truck and just dumps into the time-space continuum all of the matter and everything that's necessary to create the planets, the world, the seas and everything.
He puts it all there and it's just nothing. It's void. So the first thing he does is he creates this matter and then he begins to start to organize it, to put it into place. And so, this is, and let me back up a little bit here.
I want to point something else out on this text while we're thinking about it. I want to introduce you to the concept of biblical typology. New Testament specifically states that the Old Testament is, in there are types and shadows.
Tupos kaiskia. Types and shadows. There's types in the Old Testament that point to the fulfillment or the reality which is revealed in the New. And so, what's fascinating here is, I'll kind of give you a little bit of a primer here on biblical typology.
And here's what it says. We'll go back to verse two. The earth was formless and empty, darkness was upon the face of the teep, the tehome, and the spirit of God, and this is an interesting verb, was brooding over the face of the waters.
And the verb itself literally is fluttering, but because of the way it appears in this text, it's more than just fluttering, but it's a weird verb because it's a verb associated with birds. But it's fluttering in kind of a brooding sense.
You know, like a bird over, you know, a female over its egg kind of thing. There's a brooding going on here.
Yeah.
So, this is a distinctly avian way of talking. And you notice what it's attached to, the Holy Spirit. So, watch the themes, okay? So you got the spirit in a bird form, in a sense, fluttering slash brooding over the deep, over the waters.
Right?
Well, no. The brooding kind of has to do with how a bird protects its egg kind of thing.
So, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit was brooding over the face of the waters. Now stop for a second here.
Okay?
Let's draw a couple of dots, and you'll kind of see how this goes. So, right there in verse 2, spirit in avian form over water.
Fast forward now into the time of the flood. The flood, the whole world is destroyed by water.
Death and resurrection are the themes, in a sense, and in God's judgment. And in order for Noah to determine whether or not the waters have receded so that he can actually get out of the ark, what does he send out?
A dove.
A raven first, and that didn't work out. So he takes a dove, and the dove hovers, flutters, kind of broods, and then comes back. And eventually it disappears and comes back with a branch.
Now, so there's your second appearance. And this is, you have to, when you're reading a Bible, you look for these types of typology. So Genesis 1, Genesis 8 is the spirit, the dove, over the waters of a new creation.
Now you go into the New Testament. Jesus, when he's baptized by John the Baptist, what happens? The dove shows up, descending, brooding, fluttering. And where's Jesus? He's in the water.
So what's happening here is that this is all teeming with new creation typology. Here we got the creation with the spirit brooding, new creation and destruction in the noatic flood. Then into the New Testament, there's Jesus, the firstborn of the new creation, right?
And the spirit descends, and the waters of his baptism, all of these things are connected. So one of the things that God the Holy Spirit does is he puts these things together in such a way that as you're reading it, you go, gosh, that sounds a lot like, and it should, because all of these things are interconnected.
Does that make sense?
So that kind of our first introduction to that. So God said, let there be light. Let me fast forward here.
Yes, sir.
Now that is a good question. Did the authors know at the time? I can't tell you what was in the mind of Matthew. I can't tell you what was in the mind of Moses, but I can tell you this is that this is what we understand regarding inspiration.
There's 66 books, 40 something authors of the Bible, but there's one common author for every one of the biblical books, and that's God, the Holy Spirit. And so the idea then is, is that even if the author in writing these things wasn't aware of the theme or the types, okay, God, the Holy Spirit was.
So I don't know if Matthew was fully aware of the connection between Jesus's baptism and even in the new, the creation and the, and the flood. I don't know if he saw that, but I can tell you this, Peter knew it.
And the reason why Peter knew is because when you read first Peter chapter.
Three,.
Peter takes the flood and connects it to our baptism. And so then connect, so connect all the dots. New crew first, when the world is created, the spirit shows up over the waters, new creation after the flood, the dove typologically hovers over the waters with the new creation.
There's Jesus, the firstborn of the new creation in his baptism and the spirit shows up same manner as we see in the old Testament. Now, when you were baptized, you were baptized into Christ's death and his resurrection, and you've passed from death to life, new creation stuff, right?
So when you look at the church symbols, as it pertains to baptism, you'll have the shell being the means by which water is poured. And the spirit always is associated with baptism because the promises is that when you are baptized, your sins are forgiven.
They're washed away and you are filled with the Holy spirit, the Holy spirit and baptism go together. They're inseparable. And throughout all of scripture, when we see the dove it's always coming in connect in connection with the.
Water.
So this is, you know, how you kind of start to fill some of these things out going back to the expanding pig's bladder. That's correct.
Yep.
That's exactly right.
I mean,.
They talk about the fact that the universe is expanding.
They can,.
They can tell you how fast it's expanding from the center. You're right. And it's not until the last century that, that we've been able to observe that. And yet the orachia here in this verse talking about how God expands these things out in the pig's bladder.
This is,.
You know,.
Again,.
The visual imagery going on in the, in the Hebrew text does definitely argue in favor of kind of that expanding universe kind of concept.
Yep. Yeah.
Now this is an important thing too. When we talk about heavens,.
We'll get to this.
Hang on a second here.
Do I want to get ahead of myself? Yeah. I think this is probably a good idea to make this connection. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, heavens and the earth. This is important.
When we're,.
When we're thinking biblically, oftentimes we limit ourselves when our thinking, when it comes to heaven, it's thinking heaven is the place I go when I die. Biblically speaking, there's different distinctions when we talk about heaven.
Okay.
There's,.
They're actually the heavens. And so the idea then is this is in the, in the biblical way of thinking the sky outside, that is the first heaven. Where the stars and space and the galaxies and the planets are, that's the second heavens.
Third heaven is the boat of God. So the idea is when we talk about heaven, you know, understand that by the Bible itself, oftentimes we'll refer to the sky as the heavens or the stars as the heavens. And sometimes it refers to where God lives as heaven as well.
And we need to keep when we're reading our Bible, we need to keep these distinctions. Sometimes they're not interchangeable. And notice it says in the beginning, he created the heavens, plural and the earth.
That's kind of important thing to do.
Now,.
The question that comes up oftentimes is,.
Well,.
When were the angels created? It doesn't say,.
Yeah,.
It,.
It probably verse one, but we just don't know.
We don't,.
There's really very little scant information given about the angels. And we know, we know this from other passages of the Bible that God created the angels probably day one.
And notice here that we're, that in the creation, we've got time and space and our scientists today, they talk about the time space continuum,.
And even atheistic scientists have to agree that the universe is not.
Eternal.
It isn't. It had a beginning.
Everybody knows it.
If it had a beginning, how did that, how did something come from nothing? Because you can't,.
Nothing.
Oh,.
Nothing always comes from nothing every single time.
We've never observed something coming from nothing. It just doesn't make sense. And you talk to an atheistic scientist and they'll say,.
The fact that we're here proves that something had to come from nothing.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
And see,.
And this,.
And here,.
And here's the idea is I'll go back to something. I said week one, and I'll keep saying this where scripture speaks. We speak. We're scripture is silent. We're silent. I could not begin to explain to you how, when God speaks, it results in things coming into existence out of nothing.
Couldn't explain how it works, but I know this scripture says that's what happened.
So,.
Yes,.
Yes. Uh huh. Yes. Yes,.
Ma 'am.
Yes.
It's,.
It's implied from the idea that it, it says that before the foundations of the earth were laid, God preordained our good works.
So God knows, knows the end from the beginning.
And you,.
Well, yeah,.
Everybody. So the idea is God being infinite, God being all powerful, God being,.
He,.
And this is the other part of it. We actually are creatures who exist in a time space continuum. It's difficult for us to think outside of the continuum that we live in. But the reality is this. We live in a continuum where there's time and there's space.
And if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, that knows how we talk about that. Bad things can happen to you. That's the, the idea about the time space continuum. But eternity is not bound by the time space continuum.
And I don't understand how eternity operates, but I understand this. God is outside of time and he's created time.
Therefore,.
He being outside of time can actually look down and see the end from the beginning.
So he knew,.
He knew exactly what was going to happen. And all of this is happening because he chose to do this, this way.
Why?
I don't know. I don't know.
Exactly.
It's not that we tolerate. The mystery is as Christians. I think we should embrace it.
The idea is this,.
Is that God is something so otherly different than we are. So magnificently and infinitely greater than we are that we can't even begin to comprehend.
This,.
The God who is,.
And he,.
According to his self-revelation, he lives in unapproachable light. I mean,.
To,.
To look on him in his glory is to die.
This is who he is.
But see, here's the other piece of it. You know what? The one of the most offensive words in that first verse is God created.
But you know what?
If the reason why it's offensive is because,.
After the fall,.
The fall,.
We were tempted to be like God. That was the temptation.
God doesn't want you to eat that fruit because on the day you eat it, you're going to be like God, knowing good and evil,.
There's the temptation to become deity. And what's the resultant? We have 7 billion people running around on the planet right now who all have a God complex, and none of them are gods. They're all creatures.
But in understanding that we're creatures,.
We're not gods,.
That makes us children. It makes us dependent. It means that everything we have, we've been given. And you know what?
That is actually freedom. That's real freedom. I mean,.
To kind of use a human analogy, I remember back when I was growing up. I remember being a kid. And I distinctly remember, several things kind of stick out in my mind, is that I didn't have to work for my food.
It was given to me.
I had chores and things that I was supposed to do, but still that didn't earn me,.
A place at the table. So my father worked and he provided for me.
My mom prepared the meals.
Christmas was wonderful.
The excitement of, you know, getting to that time of the year when there's presents. And being a kid was all about being given to.
Everything I had. I mean,.
If my parents didn't take me shopping, I would have no clothes to wear. And I kept growing too, which always drove my mom crazy.
It's like,.
I just bought these,.
But, but,.
So being a child is all about being provided for.
But see,.
That's the thing.
When we confess that I believe in God, the father almighty maker or creator of heaven and earth. I'm confessing I'm a creature. I'm a critter.
I'm made by God.
It's God's job to provide for me. And in the Lord's prayer, we pray our father who art in heaven.
You begin to get this idea that Christian spirituality, if I can use that term, is about being childlike,.
But not childish.
Childlike in the sense of understanding your total dependence upon God. Nothing that you have, nothing that you have is something that you can lay claim to and say,.
I have this because of me.
Everything that you have,.
You have because you've been given by God.
The air in your lungs that you're breathing,.
That's the air he created on the days.
He made the rakia, the expanse,.
The water that's inside of your body, that's part of your blood. That was there on day one when the spirit brooded over the waters,.
Right? Your eyesight, your eyes,.
Your limbs,.
Everything you have,.
You've been given.
The problem with sin is it bends us in on ourselves, has us be the focus of our own thinking and everything. And as a result of it, it deludes us into thinking that somehow I have earned something.
No,.
You haven't. You're a creature.
Live like one.
And you know what? That's real freedom. That's actually real, true, liberating freedom.
And notice when we pray in the Lord,.
Stop in the Lord's prayer, give us this day, our daily bread. God promises to meet our needs. We're his critters. And somebody,.
That doesn't sound bristles at my dignity.
Maybe you've got a wrong idea of what dignity is,.
Right? Yeah.
So there's a lot of freedom in all of this. And because God is so different than we are yet, we were made in his image. We embrace the mystery. And Luther talks about this too. Real quick is we don't ever want to climb up into heaven and peak at what he called the day.
Who's new dues at the naked God. So much of spirituality is about somehow spiritually climbing a ladder to try to peek into the secret thoughts of God.
Knock that off. You couldn't do it anyway,.
You're not going to catch God in the shower. So the idea is then is this, is that if we've been given everything, we've been given by God, what we're to believe, what to work to confess, what we're to defend, what we're to proclaim.
And where God is silent and hasn't given us the information,.
We just go,.
God knows.
It's that simple,.
There are some theological system where systems where what they try to do is get into the void where there's information missing and construct little syllogisms and things like that are philosophical arguments to try to get into the darkness where God hasn't revealed something.
I'll give you an example. In theology, we talk about what's called the crux theologorum.
The theologians cross and it's like the unsolvable conundrum in theology. All right. So if God elects,.
Those who are saved,.
They're truly elect. Scripture says they're elect,.
Um,.
How come some are saved and they have faith when they hear the gospel and others, their hearts are hardened and they persist in unbelief until death and.
They're damned. How come?
Scripture gives us two things that sound like they're at odds with each.
Other.
God wills that all will be saved and yet some persistent unbelief. So what we say is that all who are saved are elect. All who are damned are damned by their own damn fault.
Actually,.
If you want to talk about free will, this is a good place to probably talk about it. The Bible actually reveals that when it comes to the things of God, we don't have free will. I know this is kind of a little bit of a mind bender.
The idea is,.
Is that we have free will things temporarily. For instance,.
I have,.
I have free will to decide who I wanted to marry, whether or not I want to buy a red car or a blue car, a Hyundai or a Ford. I have free will on these things, but when it comes to God, because we're dead and trespasses and sins, we actually don't have free will when it comes to the things of God.
This is a little bit of a mind bender. Go ahead.
Okay,.
This, let's,.
Let's do a little bit of Bible study here. We'll go off on a tangent.
Bible's open.
Let's do a little bit of biblical study. Gospel of John chapter one. I'll read it from the NIV.
Does everyone have,.
Is everyone using the NIV here today?
I'll read it from the NIV. We're in verse 10, John chapter one, verse 10. Here's what it says.
That's Jesus, the Logos, was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Here's the important part. Children born, not of natural descent, nor of a human decision, nor of a husband's will, but born of God. Notice what's ruled out in this text.
Go ahead.
Sure, sure.
I'll start at verse 10 again. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Children born, not of natural descent, nor of a human decision, or a husband's will, but born of God.
It's not metaphorical. Let me give you some other passages here. Let's fill this out a little bit. That means you're not born because your father gave birth to you, and your father was a Christian, therefore you're a Christian.
There's no grandchildren in the kingdom of God.
Yes, you do.
Now let me lay the argument out. Take notes. And listen when I tell you this. You don't take my word for it. Go back and be a good Berean and test to see if what I'm saying is actually found in Scripture.
Let me lay the argument out for you so you understand how this works.
There we've got passage that says you're not born of God by a human decision. You're born of God because God is the one who birthed you. Let me give you another passage. John chapter 6.
All right,.
Let me start. We'll do this long form. Verse 25. There's two passages in particular, two verses in here I want to point out. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked Jesus,.
Rabbi,.
When did you get here? Jesus answered, I tell you the truth, you're looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
On him, God the Father, has placed his seal of approval. So then they asked him, what must we be doing to do the works of God? Jesus answered, the work of God is this, to believe in the one whom he has sent.
So they asked him, what miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our forefathers ate manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.
Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
Sir, they said, from now on give us this bread. Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe.
All that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never drive out.
Notice,.
Who's doing the giving? God the Father is doing the giving. We continue. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day.
So at this the Jews began to grumble about him because he said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. They said, is this not Jesus the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, I come down from heaven?
Stop grumbling among yourselves, Jesus answered. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. That's the important verse. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
Here's an important verb. The Greek verb here for draw is the Greek word helkouo. And it literally is used, this is the way the verb is often used. If you were to have like, say a statue of the mayor of Oslo,.
Right,.
Erected.
The statue can't move on its own,.
So they wanted to set it up in the center of town. What they would do is they would throw ropes around it back in the old days and they would helkouo it,.
Pull it. Helkouo,.
The verb itself, literally means that you're drawing something that cannot or will not move on its own. So no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
He's got to draw you.
Yeah. Yes. Now,.
Let me give you a little bit more. Let me give you a little bit more. Here's another cross reference. Ephesians chapter 2.
I know this is a little bit mind bending if you've never heard this before, but we're going to base this on what Scripture says. I'm going to read a large portion of chapter 2 in Ephesians. So we'll start at verse 1.
Here's what it says.
As for you, you were dead in transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work and the sons of disobedience.
All of us lived among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.
This is the important part. How many of you have gone out here and told these people in our graveyard that if they just make the decision they can climb out of that grave? Anybody try that? I would call that corpse harassment if you tried it, right?
The other thing is I've never seen guys who write those self-help books try to sell them to people in the graveyard.
But the strange thing is is that those are the people who vote in Chicago. I don't understand how that's possible.
But here's the idea. If you're dead in trespasses and sins, remember back in the garden, God said on the day you eat of the fruit, you will surely what?
Die.
So what is the death that humanity experienced? It's a spiritual death. Let's continue reading now. Okay, so you were dead in trespasses and sins. You were by nature objects of God's wrath.
Let's keep reading. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, watch this, made us alive with Christ. Who made us alive?
God did.
If you were dead,.
How do you be made alive? God makes you alive.
Keep working. Okay, watch. God made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.
Who raised us up?
The text did.
See,.
This is where you have to pay attention, close attention to nouns and verbs. in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Now here's the passage everybody knows. Watch this. For it is by grace you have been saved.
Through faith.
And this not from yourselves. It is the gift of God.
What's the gift of God? Look at the text. And what else?
Faith. Faith.
Listen to that. Watch it. It's both. For by grace you have been saved.
And this, the grace and the faith, it's not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Not by works so that no one may boast. For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.
So you're sitting there going,.
Whoa. But I believe. It feels like I'm exercising my free will to decide this. But see that's the thing.
If you believe,.
You have faith,.
It's not because of you,.
It's because God made you alive in Christ. Let me give you another passage. Romans chapter 10. Take a look at verse 17. We'll start at verse 14, but 17 is the one we want. So we'll keep this in context.
How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? How can they believe in one whom they have not heard? How can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?
As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. But not all the Israelites accepted the good news, for Isaiah says, Lord who has believed our message. Consequently, here's the important verse, faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
So here's the idea. Remember Genesis 1.
God said,.
Let there be light.
Boom.
And there was light.
Let there be sun, stars,.
Moon,.
And vegetation.
Everything he spoke, it created.
There's a creative word going on here. So each and every one of us were born dead in trespasses and sins. And by dead, graveyard dead.
Jesus says,.
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. So how does God draw us? The answer,.
We heard a preacher. A preacher was sent.
And the preacher said, the Lord says that you're a sinner. That you do not love God with your whole heart. That you do not love your neighbor as yourself and you deserve eternal damnation for your rebellion and sin against God.
And you sit there and go, yeah, I know that's right.
Because we have the law written on our hearts and it's condemning us. But then the preacher said this, but Christ bled and died for your sins. He was pierced for your transgressions. He was bruised for your iniquities.
The chastisement that brought us peace with God was upon him. By his stripes we're healed. We heard the preaching of the gospel.
And you know what happened?
That's not the preacher's words. Those are God's words in the mouth of the preacher. And you know what happened to you? God raised you from the dead. And you said, yeah, I believe.
Of course you believe.
You were just raised from the dead. You literally sprung out of a grave.
God regenerated you.
Gave you faith.
And that's all from him. We are his workmanship.
But Job wrote the same thing.
And there's the crux theologorum.
Yeah, and why? We don't know.
And just remember our gospel text this morning, what I just preached on. There are the Pharisees, the scribes, the chief priests. They saw Jesus perform these miracles. They heard the message of John the Baptist.
And they wouldn't believe. They refused to believe. And ultimately they crucified Jesus.
Huh?
That's a will.
Let's see.
Now that's what we call the bound will. So the idea is this. Is that because after the fall we're all sinners. That we're all dead in transgressions and sins. We call that the bound will. And it's bound towards God.
You cannot love God with your whole heart. You can't choose to do so. Okay, your will is bound. You are enslaved to sin, death, and the devil. But when the preaching of the gospel hits your ears, God raised you from the dead.
Now that same gospel went out. And there was others who hear it. Just like the scribes and Pharisees. They saw Jesus perform miracles. And they persisted in sin and unbelief.
Why? I don't know.
Mm, scripture doesn't say. It doesn't say.
Well, see the...
I don't know yet.
Uh-huh.
Well, hang on.
David, David.
How many kids have you got? How many kids have you got?
Two. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Gloria, you can confirm this, right?
Did you have to teach your kids to be bad?
He is a definite, definite empirical argument in favor of the doctrine of original sin. Here's the idea. If we made our own choices, then why is it that we have to, pardon the phrase, beat our children, spare the rod, spoil the child, why do we have to discipline them and teach them to do good rather than evil?
Our nature, according to what we just read in Ephesians, we are dead in trespasses and sins. We follow the prince of the power of the air. We are enslaved to darkness, and we do these things because we are by nature objects of God's wrath.
There is no good inside of us.
No.
It's bound. It's bound. Let me give you another passage. Let me give you another passage. Let me give you another passage. Adam and Eve made it happen for us. All of us who are descendants of Adam and Eve were born dead in trespasses and sins.
Let's take a look at another passage. We don't do philosophy here. We do biblical study. Romans 3. Listen to this description and see if this doesn't fit everybody except for Jesus. Romans 3, verse 9.
So what shall we conclude then? Are we any better? No, not at all. We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin.
Under it.
Okay, listen to this. As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one.
Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of the vipers is in their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin and misery mark their way.
The way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
On our own we are.
See, that's the thing.
On our own we are doomed. But the good news is this. It's the same God who said, let there be light, also took on human form and he suffered the punishment of our sin for us and he lived a perfectly sinless life.
He was perfectly righteous. Never sinned once. And so when we are brought by God to faith in Christ and that's given to us as a gift, there's this great exchange that takes place. All of your sin, David, it's on Christ.
But you know what? Every ounce of his perfect righteousness is given to you as a gift, as a robe for you to wear. You stand righteous before God because Christ doesn't need any righteousness of his own.
He's God.
So he gives you his righteousness as a gift and you have a right standing by God because of everything that he's done. He's died for you. He's risen for you. He's bled for you. He's lived perfectly for you.
And you're his creature. You're his son. And all of this is given to you as a gift.
Even the ability to accept it is given as a gift. That's what Ephesians 2 says. For by grace you have been saved through faith and it is not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Faith itself is a gift.
So if you can say, Christ Jesus died for me, you have been given the gift of saving faith. It's not of yourself. It's a gift from God.
That's what I've always been taught.
But notice Ephesians 2 says that faith itself is a gift. Correct.
We talk about being born again, right? How many of you guys voted to be born the first time?
I didn't vote to be born the first time. You are too old, Stephen.
You are too old.
All right.
Now if we're born of God, that's what, born from above, born again, same principle applies.
Let me give you a metaphor.
I don't particularly like Donald Trump's hairstyle, the comb-over thing going on. But I mean, the guy is wealthy, right? I would love to be in his will. And so I'm going to go to Donald Trump and I'm going to say, Hey, listen, I've exercised my free will and I'm now your son.
I know.
But see, that's why I'm telling the story.
Okay. Okay.
But listen,.
It's kind of a backhanded analogy here. Work with me. Sometimes I go this way. Sometimes I go that way. It's kind of a dance.
So work with, so here's the analogy. If I were to go to Donald Trump and say, Hey, Don, you know, listen, love the hair. Um, and okay. Maybe I don't love it that much, but you know, listen, I've, I've made the decision and now I'm now your son.
You've adopted me.
How would that go?
It wouldn't go well at all.
You're fired.
You fired. Right.
See the wild thing. The wild thing is that scripture teaches is that God is the one who does it. God is the one who elects. God is the one who gives faith. God is the one who raises from the dead. You are his workmanship from beginning to end.
Christ is the author and the perfecter of our faith. Faith itself, the ability to trust Christ is given to you as a gift. It doesn't have its origin within you. It has its origin in God. And he gives you that ability because on your own, you have not that ability.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
If you can decide who's God.
Well, Adam and Eve made us incapable.
But so here's. But here's. Yeah, exactly. That ability to believe is given to you as a gift. If you if your salvation depends on you exercising your will, who's God? You are. Yeah, you're God. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can give you that.
And the passages say that that faith is a gift. And that's this is how we are good Christian theologians. We stick to the text. The text and the verbs and the nouns say that faith is a gift. OK, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of Christ.
No, he came to you.
Mm hmm.
Why you and not and not Joe?
OK.
Remember, we're scripture speaks. We speak. We're scripture silent. We're silent. And this was all in the context of the crux theologorum. This is the unsolvable theological question.
I don't know.
And I don't know why. I would say, if you're looking for the answer, why read Job? He was never given the answer.
OK, we as we read Joe, we're in on the on the why. And it's not a very satisfactory answer. You want to know why Joe went through hell? It's because God and the devil were having a bet. That doesn't sound like the greatest reason for somebody to experience that level of suffering.
He lost his kids, all of his children. Man sat in boils and ashes for, you know, in agony.
He's not ever given the answer at this side of heaven. But we know that the answer is because the devil and God were kind of doing this. Seems very unsatisfactory, does it?
I don't.
The why's don't make any sense.
There's there is.
Now, here's the idea is that the people who had free will were Adam and Eve. And they chose to disobey God. And all of their descendants, according to Scripture, are born dead and trespasses and sins.
OK, and now we're in the situation where you have to talk about two kingdoms in a sense. Every human society has government. What's the purpose of government to punish punish evildoers and keep anarchy from running?
It's basically the sword is put in effect to basically get to curb to curb sin. And we need that curb because without it, if there were no government, there was no army, there was no police officers.
What would life be like here?
Anarchy, right? If everybody just did what they wanted to do, we all know what would happen. Man has this thing where they just go towards sin. That's because we're all corrupted. All of us are corrupted because of what's happened.
And so God is the one who gives us faith and indwells us in the Holy Spirit. And begins the process of breaking us of our sin and transforming our minds to be like the mind of Christ. And he does it to the preaching and teaching of his word.
But that is not a choice that was given to you. That was something that was a gift that was given to you. That ability to have faith in itself is a gift. That's what the text says. You are God's workmanship.
Now, the why questions, I don't have a biblical passage, so I can't answer the why.
I want to say why. That's where the devil went to help take away those dark souls that you were talking about. And there's plenty of people that will go into that and say, why can't I do it?
Now, let me give you, we're a little over time. I want to give you one quick admonishment. And I know that what I said definitely is one of those things that makes you go, whoa.
I want to read to you from Acts chapter 17. Here's what it says. Read the story starting at verse 1 so you get the context. And then we'll finish up and we'll be done for the day. We'll pick it up next week.
Here's my challenge to you. Here's what it says. When they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica. And there was a Jewish synagogue. And as his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue.
And on three Sabbath days, he reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ. That's the Messiah.
He said some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women. But the Jews were jealous. So they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city.
They rushed to Jason's house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials,.
Shouting,.
These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here. Quick commentary.
You preach the gospel, you preach Christ,.
You're going to find yourself in trouble. It's not that people... You see, if you're born dead in trespasses and sins, you're actually hostile to God. You're not Switzerland. You're not neutral. So those who believed, they joined Paul.
And those who didn't believe, they rounded up bad characters and they wanted Paul to basically die in a mob riot. Preaching the gospel is going to get you in trouble. Here's what it says in verse 6. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials,.
These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar's decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.
And when they heard this, the crowd and the city officials, they were thrown into turmoil. Then they made Jason and the others postpone and then let them go. As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea.
They had to leave town. They had to leave Thessalonica under the cover of darkness. On arriving there, they sent them to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of a more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness, examined and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
You've heard the phrase about being a Berean. You've never heard it? Being a Berean is synonymous with somebody who has biblical discernment enough not to trust any Bible teacher on the surface. And listen, if the Apostle Paul, who actually had an encounter with Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, if he doesn't get a pass, I don't get a pass.
Period.
What I did today is I laid out what the Bible says regarding the fact that faith itself is a gift from God. That no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. That we're born not of a human decision, but born of God, God's workmanship.
So here's my challenge to you. Don't take my word for it.
Be a Berean.
Dig into these texts and see if what I'm telling you is what this book says. If what I'm telling you is what the book says, then believe me, not because I said it, but because I'm saying the same thing as this text.
Does that make sense? That's what it means to be a Berean.
We'll pick it up next week.