The Irrationality Of Unbelief [Luke 8:22-39]

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Morning, everyone. Great to be gathered in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, wanting to see him exalted.
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Thank you for your kindness and your generosity to me. I'm so thankful for this church, and I'm thankful that you love my brother.
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It's amazing. It's difficult, I know. It's a hard journey, but trust me,
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I know. I love my brother, and I love his family, and he loves this church, and so I love this church, and I'm super thankful for the
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Lord Jesus Christ, and he's the one that brings us together and gives us great and sweet fellowship, so let's ask for his blessing one more time.
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Father, thank you so much for the way you give us relationships, and we're grateful that you give us family in the body of Christ, and we come from so many different backgrounds.
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We look different. Our accents are different at times, and we're grateful that the lamb who was slain did indeed redeem people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and we're grateful to experience a little bit of what heaven will be like even here on earth among our diversity.
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May we be quick to boast in Christ, the one who brings us all together for his exaltation and honor.
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He is indeed a great and wonderful savior. With the psalmist now, we would pray and ask that you would open our eyes to see wonderful things from your word.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I wanna begin by asking you an important question.
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It's a little bit on the heady side. It's not even noon yet, so bear with me. The important question is, is faith rational or irrational?
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Is faith reasonable or is faith unreasonable? To put it another way, is faith nonsense or does faith make sense?
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If your friends are anything like mine, whether they're churchgoers or not churchgoers, evangelical or not evangelical, your friends would say it's irrational.
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Most people I know, even professing Christians, the way they explain faith is, in essence, they're saying it's irrational.
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It doesn't make sense. It's a blind faith. It's where you turn your mind off and say, don't confuse me with the facts.
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I know what I believe. Is faith rational or irrational?
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Now, you're expecting me right about now to say, it's rational. And I'm gonna say, it's neither.
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Faith is not irrational and it's not rational. Faith means trust.
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Faith means trust. And if faith means trust, think with me. I realize, again, this is a little bit heady.
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If faith means trust, then it makes sense to have faith if you're placing your faith in something that is trustworthy.
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And faith doesn't make sense if you're putting your faith, your trust, in something that's not trustworthy.
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Faith is neither rational nor irrational, depending on what you're trusting in.
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This is super important when it comes to understanding Christianity, what we call the Christian faith.
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And that's what we're going to be doing this morning. If you have a Bible, you can turn with me to Luke chapter eight. We're going to look at two historic accounts regarding Jesus as a trustworthy object of faith, therefore making faith in Jesus rational.
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It makes sense to trust in Jesus. We're not turning our brains off. He's shown himself to be trustworthy, so we trust in him.
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And conversely, on the negative, if we don't trust in him, the one who's proven to be utterly trustworthy, we're not reasonable.
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We're not rational. It's irrational. It's nonsense. Now, before we actually get into the passage, maybe a couple of illustrations, just to think about this and make sure we're on the same page.
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This morning in coming here, most of us came by car.
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First hour, I saw one guy get off his motorcycle. A little bit of a wet ride today. Maybe you walked.
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Most of us came in a car, a truck, a van, and we drove here in a vehicle. And if you got in that car and it was running fine yesterday, there was fuel in the tank yesterday.
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All four tires were inflated yesterday. And you got in, turned the key and drove here and you did all that.
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Was that a pretty rational thing to do? It's pretty rational, pretty reasonable. The car has a track record of being trustworthy.
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It worked yesterday. It probably is gonna work today. Not infallibly so. You put your trust in the car to get you to church.
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It's reasonable. Your faith was in the car to get you to church. Yesterday, I noticed close to Mike's house, there was a boat up on blocks.
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An old boat. Looked like somebody was gonna restore it. An old wooden boat. And if the parents of that home were to say, okay, boys and girls, let's go ahead.
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We're going to church. We're going to Bethlehem Bible Church. Everybody get in the boat. Put your life jackets on. We're just gonna have faith that the boat will get us to church.
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You're giggling going, that would be stupid. That would be irrational. Just have faith.
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Just believe. But mom, dad, there's no water between here and there.
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Well, you just have faith. Believe. We're Christians. See, this doesn't even make any sense.
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It's nonsense to put your faith in that boat to get you here. You're trusting in the chair you have, okay?
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It doesn't infallibly hold us up. Chairs break. But generally speaking, if you were here last week, you sat in the chair.
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You were here the week before. You sit down in the chair. You're trusting in the chair to hold you up as a track record of worthiness and reliability, okay?
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I don't want to suggest and belittle the significance of Christ, but I do want you to understand and know and remind you that we are trusting people.
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We all have faith on many different levels. Most people who hear you talk about Christianity and hear you talk about faith don't mean what you mean.
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You mean trusting in the reliable Lord Jesus Christ.
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And they think you mean trusting in the fantasy, trusting in the non -historic, trusting in superstition.
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And that's what we're not talking about. I want to help equip you as a missionary, okay? This isn't going to make your friends
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Christians, but at least you can help them understand what Christianity is so they can embrace it or reject it.
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When we're talking about Christian faith, we're talking about confidence in the reliable, the certifiable, historic, reliable Jesus.
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We're going to look at two accounts this morning where he shows that he's trustworthy. One would be when he calms the storm, showing his power and authority over nature like no one else has.
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The second one is going to be where he casts out a demon and we see his power and authority over the supernatural like no one else has.
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Ready to go? Okay, let's jump right in and get into it then. First, the calming of the storm as we look at the unreasonableness of unbelief or the irrationality of unbelief.
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Let's begin in verse 22 of Luke chapter eight. One day he, Jesus, got into a boat with his disciples and he said to them, let us go across to the other side of the lake.
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And we won't keep pausing like this incessantly but I need to pause there just for a second to remind you or to tell you, to inform you what this might look like, what it did look like.
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The Sea of Galilee. Sea of Galilee is about roughly 13 miles by about seven miles, 13, 14 miles, seven miles.
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It's a sizable lake. It's a significant lake. It's not the biggest lake in the world but it's sizable.
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If you've been there, you know it's sizable. And so that's what's going on here. And it says that Jesus wants to go across to the other side of the lake.
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And the lake is also known as, I already said it, what? The sea, the
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Sea of Galilee. Now I want you to know that the Bible talks about it as the
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Sea of Galilee and the Bible talks about it as the lake but it's for good reason.
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It's for good reason that happens. It's not that, well, you know, in Sunday school we learned that it was the
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Sea of Galilee but now we know so much more and now we actually know that it's actually a lake because it's not a sea because it's not, in Bible times they called it a lake and they called it a sea.
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Guess what they call it today? A lake and the sea. Why would you do that?
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The first time I ever went to the Sea of Galilee I was going there to wakeboard. I love to wakeboard.
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My son is a competitive wakeboarder and I talk about wakeboarding every sermon if I possibly can so I'm gonna do it now, okay?
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But it actually makes a point. We're going there to wakeboard and how cool is that?
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I mean, that's like the epitome of Christ -likeness, right? Jesus walked on water, Sea of Galilee.
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I can't do that, I'm gonna glide across on a wakeboard. So all of this in the name of Christ -likeness and so it proves
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I'm more Christ -like than you. Who else here's wakeboard, nevermind. So we show up and we come to the marina and we're supposed to meet a certain man there, this
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Jewish wakeboarder and he knows we're coming and so my friend and I show up and we ask for him.
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I think his name was Yusef and we said, is Yusef here, we're here to wakeboard with him and he said, no, he's actually not.
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I'll need to call him. He right now is out at sea.
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I thought, hmm, interesting. He's out at sea, I just drove around it, it's a lake.
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But they still, even unbelieving Jews today call it a sea, they would also call it a lake and in part, it's because we know, if we've read our
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Bible more than once, we know or once, it's because it's known to storm.
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So here we are out wakeboarding and it's awesome. It's just butter, water, having a great time.
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They just got a brand new wakeboard boat. They had like four other ones, they didn't need a new one. They were loaded and they had a brand new wakeboard boat, great equipment, they treated us like royalty because they were under some kind of illusion that we were great
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American wakeboarders and so we're out having a great time, awesome.
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And so all of a sudden, I'd wakeboarded once, my friend had, some of the other guys had and the head guy goes, okay, we're done.
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And I thought, done? I thought to myself, I'm not done. Now, kind of weird because I'm a guest and this is all gratis, so I guess whatever.
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And I said, well, what do you mean we're done? I'm thinking I need to go again. I'm on the Sea of Galilee wakeboarding.
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I need to make sure I get some good pictures. What do you mean we're done? He said, look down there. And he pointed to one end of the lake.
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I can't remember which one it was. Where we were, it was butter water and down there, seawater.
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The swells were starting to come and he explained to us how the wind comes down through the canyon and how this is pretty common and sure enough, we were done.
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By the time we got back to the marina, the lake was a mess. It was all blown out and we needed to be done.
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He was wise. He knew what he was doing. When we got back to our hotel or whatever we were staying on, on the other side, couple hours later, we were back there.
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I kid you not, we were body surfing. We don't body surf in Omaha on the lakes.
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Body surfing? We're catching waves. It was awesome. And there was no storm.
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It's an ordinary day. It's the Sea of Galilee, which is actually the
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Lake of Galilee. And here we're gonna see a storm. No wonder we're going to see panic.
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Okay, no more wakeboarding stories. Let's go on to the, let's keep reading in verse 22. I think it helps us to see it though.
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So they set out, verse 23, and they sailed. And as they sailed, he,
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Jesus, fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger.
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Now, just as a reminder, who is Peter? Peter's the tax collector? No, Peter's not the tax collector.
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That's Matthew. Peter's a farmer? No, Peter's not a farmer. Peter's a what? Peter's a fisherman.
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Peter's a fisherman, and his dad was probably a fisherman, and his dad's dad was probably a fisherman, and his dad's dad's dad's dad was probably a fisherman.
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And so he knows what he's doing. He would be the authority in the boat. Maybe there are other ones, but he would be the authority in the boat.
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He knows what he's doing. And so they were in danger. Keep reading in verse 24. And they went and woke him.
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They woke Jesus saying, Master, Master, we are perishing. Then verse 24 says, and he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was calm.
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Not they redistributed the weight and they moved the ballast. By the way, they had ballast back then.
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I told you I wasn't gonna talk about wakeboarding, but they actually did because they can control the boat and they can control how it's heaving and moving.
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But it doesn't say that. They didn't do their expert nautical techniques to stable things out.
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It's so good and clear to see what it says there in verse 24. Rebuked, ceased, calm.
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Rebuked, ceased, calm. Like that. And then it says in verse 25, this haunting kind of question.
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He said to them, Jesus said to them, where is your faith? Where is your faith?
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Where is your trust? Where is your confidence? Now let's pretend for a moment that we can read this like Christians.
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Being a little facetious. Let's pretend like we can read that question like we're not 21st century
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Americans. Let's pretend like we can read it like we're not people who've been reared and raised on Oprah theology.
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Okay, because Oprah is, after all, America's theologian. Don't read that as, where is your self -confidence?
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Don't read it that way. Don't read it as, where is your faith in faith?
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Where is your commitment to superstition? Don't read it that way.
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Where is your faith? Where is your trust? Jesus has just put
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His supernatural power on display. Yes, but He's been doing that.
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He already has a track record of being this great, supernatural, powerful
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One. He's in their boat. He's made these grand claims, and they're terrified. And then He says, where is your faith?
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Point being, you're trusting in something or someone other than the true ultimate object of faith, who would be me.
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You're trusting in yourself. You're trusting in your circumstances. You're trusting in something, but you're not trusting in me.
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Where is your faith? It would be utterly and entirely rational. Rationable is another good word we're gonna make up this morning.
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Does Pastor Mike make up words? Bet he does. I bet he does.
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Nothing like that, pushing the cursor and just putting add Microsoft Word.
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Anyway, it's amazing how that works. It would be reasonable to trust in Jesus.
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It would be unreasonable to not trust in Jesus. Their faith is not where it should be because it's not ultimately residing in Him.
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Verse 25 says, "'And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, "'Who then is this that He commands even winds and water, "'and they obey
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Him?' Who is He? Who is
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He? He's the reasonable object of faith. He's the one to have your confidence in.
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He's the one. Realize too what's happening in Luke chapter eight, in Luke's gospel account, in all the gospel accounts.
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Jesus is doing these kinds of things, proving that He has power that no one else has so that when we get to that ultimate climactic event and Jesus is crucified and Jesus is raised from the dead bodily and we're called to trust in Him, to believe in His bodily resurrection for our resurrection, for our justification, it doesn't just come out of the blue.
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He's been doing these sorts of things all along throughout His ministry.
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And so when He does what He was ultimately going to do, it only makes sense.
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You trust in Him for the greatest thing. You trust in Him for the ultimate thing, for redemption, for salvation, for justification, for resurrection, for new life.
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By faith, by trust, by confidence in Him, trusting in Him. Now, before we move on,
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I suppose I would just wanna add that something that you can figure out yourself, but sometimes we just miss the obvious.
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This is not a promise that nothing bad would ever happen to them, is it? It's not a promise that nothing bad would ever happen to them.
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Because sometimes we kind of make this into some sort of application that it's never meant to have. And it's sort of this serendipitous kind of thing.
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And dearly beloved, what we would like to remember from this is that through the storms of your life, you can always trust in Jesus.
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And if you do, nothing bad will ever overtake you. You'll never capsize.
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Last time I checked, all of these disciples are dead now, right?
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In fact, some of them died pretty brutal deaths.
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He's not... That would be the wrong takeaway, the wrong application. The right application is to remember that this is a portion of a bigger story, and He's going to do the ultimate in providing resurrection.
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And so we trust in Him for everything, but we trust in Him ultimately for the ultimate.
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And He's trustworthy. And we also remember that He's faithful. And we remember things like promises to disciples like you and me and these, that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
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This is not proof that you will have your best life now, is it? They didn't have too good of a life after this.
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They had a pretty hard life. The main point is kept in check when we remember the big picture.
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We can make the Bible say anything out of context, but we can't make it say anything in context. And the big context is, oh, there is suffering.
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We heard scripture reading this morning from 1 Peter that helps Christians understand that they're gonna suffer in this world. It's a sin -broken world.
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But the big idea and the big picture is He is worthy to be trusted in and what
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He promises to His children will take place. And so this morning, remember.
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Remember to trust in Jesus. And remember that it only makes sense to trust in Jesus.
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We're not talking about a phantom who never came here. We're not talking about a philosophical construct, idea.
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We're not talking about someone that we just imagined in our own minds. We're not talking about someone who's not a real person, but just is in our hearts.
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You know what? That's irrational. It doesn't make sense.
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This makes sense, because He really came here. And I like to say it more and more all the time.
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You know why you really needed Him to come here? You know why you really needed Jesus to come to earth and do this on the lake and then to go to the cross outside of the city and actually do it?
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You know why you needed Jesus to be real? Because you're real.
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And you need a real substitute who is trustworthy. Jesus is trustworthy.
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So take that to heart yourself. Application point number one, indeed. Application point number two, be a better missionary in light of this.
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When you say faith, your friend thinks fantasy more than likely.
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Maybe use synonyms like trust, confidence. This past week, Molly and I, my wife and I, were having a
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Bible study with some friends. We've been meeting with them for a number of years now. I think they've finally understood the gospel and things make sense to them.
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And they're starting to talk about this as if it's their own trusting in Christ and in Christ alone.
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It's just awesome. I'm so happy. I'm so thankful. But we're all works in progress.
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And they're a little younger in the faith if they're in the faith than we are. And the woman sat down in the chair at the
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Starbucks and we're getting ready to read Ephesians 1 for our Bible study. And she said something about something that makes no sense whatsoever.
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And she said, well, you know, we're Christians. And so we have blind faith, right? What would you say to her?
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It's a great opportunity. Just a great opportunity. Hopefully nice. I think
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I was nice about it. And I said, but you have to remember, Mary, that the Christian faith is not a blind faith.
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We're not talking about faith in faith. We're not talking about faith in self. We're not talking about faith in things that are made up or anything like that.
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We're talking about trusting in the historic person of Jesus, the real
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Jesus. We're not talking about, as I like to say, I said this weekend, we're not talking about Narnia faith.
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Narnia is wonderful, but it's made up. We're talking about the historic
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Christian faith where Jesus actually did these things on our planet in the
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Middle East. And he did them for us, bodily resurrection for us.
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I would pray for you that God would help you to be a better missionary, to love your neighbor even better, to be able to communicate it in a way that people can understand.
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Let's move on to the next one just to help us to see how significant this is. The casting out of demons. It says in verse 26, then they sail to the country of the
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Gerizim, which is opposite Galilee. Still on the Sea of Galilee, by the way, now we're just on the other side.
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Verse 27 says, then when Jesus had stepped out on the land, there met him a man from the city who had demons.
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You would just put your finger there for a second. It's not like we say when I'm fighting some demons today. Not just demons in his head.
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It's a little different situation going on here. Real demons, as we'll see. For a long time, he had worn no clothes and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs.
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And just one interesting theological Bible historical point to help you read your
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Bible hopefully, and that would be to make the observation that many have made over the years.
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This is extraordinary. This is unique. This isn't what's normal.
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For example, you read through the Old Testament and you see demonic activity not as the norm.
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You'd see it as the exception. And then you have Jesus and all of a sudden there's this radical spike in demonic activity on earth like we don't see.
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And then you even see less of it after. Just helpful to remember that.
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And the conclusion that most would draw who've made this observation over the centuries would be it makes sense because what's the ultimate?
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The ultimate is, as we've been anticipating throughout all Old Testament history, that Redeemer who would come, who would save his people from their sins and he would rescue us and he would be the great deliverer.
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If there's anything you wanna fight and you wanna pull out all the stops against when it comes to Satan, it would be that.
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And so when Jesus is on earth, you see demons and demon possession like you hadn't seen before.
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Just so you don't take my word for it, Leon Morris, respected New Testament scholar said this, demon possession is rare if it occurs at all in the
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Old Testament. And there are very few examples after the Gospels. In the Bible, demon possession is part of the upsurge,
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I like that word, upsurge of evil, opposing Jesus in the time of his incarnation.
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And that's an example that we see of that very thing, I think, this is an example of that very thing that we're seeing right here.
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This crazy demon oppressed, demon possessed naked man living among the dead, the unclean man living among the unclean place.
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How about verse 28? Let's keep going. Then he saw Jesus or when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, what have you to do with me,
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Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg you, do not torment me.
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For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of a man. For many a time it had seized him.
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He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.
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Verse 30 says, Jesus then asked him, what is your name? And he said, legion, for many demons had entered him and they begged him not to commit them to depart into the abyss.
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Ever so quickly notice that this demon has really good theology, right? Good theology to know who
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Jesus is, good theology to understand eschatology well enough to know that the abyss would be where he would ultimately go.
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He understands the book of Revelation and how the story ends. Don't do it yet. We don't wanna go there yet.
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Let us enjoy some sort of freedom in the meantime. 32 says, now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside and they begged him to let them enter these.
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So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
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And Peta protested for months. Okay, maybe not. There's a lot of discussion as to why this happened.
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Ultimately, I'm gonna say, I don't know why it happened. Why did
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Jesus kill those poor little pigs? I don't know. He's sovereign, he does whatever he wants to do ultimately.
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They're not made in his image and he's gonna help one of his image bearers. And it does show us that these weren't just demons in this guy's head.
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There's something extraordinary going on with this man to the point where when he is set free from this bondage, countless pigs die.
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Something significant going on here beyond what would be the norm. I remember hearing somebody with some corny joke saying, you know, they went off the bank and they did a swine dive.
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Thanks for the courtesy laughs. You didn't even give me a courtesy laugh, but I'm gonna keep my day job.
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I think, I hope. Let's keep going. Let's go to verse 34. When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it to the city and in the country.
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Now watch closely, you need to see this. Verse 35, then people went out to see what had happened and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind and they were afraid, reminiscent of 825 where the disciples saw
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Jesus do the supernatural. They were afraid. And then verse 36 says, don't miss this 36 and 37.
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And those who had seen it told them how the demon possessed man had been healed.
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Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerizim asked him to forgive them of their sins and they repented and believed in Jesus, the trustworthy one.
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Is that what it says? It doesn't say that. They asked him, if you see there in verse 37, to depart from them for they were seized with great fear.
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So he got into the boat and returned. Another example of the utter and absolute irrationality of unbelief, right?
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They should believe in Jesus. They should trust in Jesus. That's what would be rational here.
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And instead Jesus shows his power to do what can't be done for good. And they say, get it, get out of town, beat it.
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No more, no more help. That's irrational.
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To not believe in Jesus, to not trust in Jesus. I don't mean believe that he was an historic person.
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Everybody in their right mind knows that. They knew that. He's staring at them, but to not trust in him, to depend upon him is irrational, isn't it?
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It's not even what's good. We'd rather have
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Mr. Naked Man tormenting us than to acknowledge that Jesus is who he claims to be.
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He has the power to free. He has the power to deliver. He has the power to do good to human beings and for human beings.
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He's just done it. And they say no. And so they embrace nonsense, the nonsense of unbelief.
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And sadly, you know and I know this happens now. As a footnote, it's proof that all the evidence in the world doesn't change somebody's heart.
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We need to know that. And by the way, I'm not trying to promote a rationalistic approach to evangelism this morning.
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What I'm trying to do is help you and remind you that Christianity is rational. Sin so blinds our eyes though that we embrace the irrational instead of the rational, but you do need to know that Christianity is reasonable.
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Faith in Christ is the most reasonable thing ever. We know that, we see that.
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They didn't see that. Now think with me of what it would have been like and we'll relate this to today as well.
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Think of what it would have been like if you were living there, if you were a parent, whether you're young or old here today, just pretend like you're a parent for a moment and if you are a parent, you can pretend like you're a parent too.
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But imagine what it would be like. Here you are living in this region. You're probably either a compromising
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Jew because you shouldn't be living around the pigs and the cemetery and the crazy guy.
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So there's a problem. The cemetery is a problem and the pigs are a problem. Or you're a
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Gentile and you're living in the area. But think about being a mom or a dad.
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This guy's been a problem for a long time. You've got to explain to your family, what's the deal with Mr.
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Naked Guy, Dad, anyway? I mean, why do we, when we want to go to the market or when we want to go do trade with our neighbor or we want to go worship at the synagogue or wherever it is, maybe compromising
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Jews aren't going to do that, but you get the idea. Why is it that we have to take the long route all the time?
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We can't go the way we want to go when we're going that direction because of Naked Demon Guy, right?
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And by the way, it'd be better if you get rid of Naked Demon Guy and he's gone now. And so now you can take the straight path and you can see
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Jesus has power to help people and you can believe in Jesus, but they don't do that. And we have to do some guesswork here, so I want to be careful.
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But you know, up until this point in time, they've had an explanation.
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I don't know what that explanation was. What's wrong with that man that he acts that way? You would have had some kind of explanation for it.
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And so now, and you would have had an explanation if your kids had heard anything about Jesus, this growingly, wildly popular teacher.
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You would have been giving your children and your family an explanation about him too. Well, I talked to Johnny and I talked to Sally and they're going to go hear
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Jesus teach. We think we want to do that. And you know what? Jesus actually teaches kids too, and we want to go?
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No, we're not going to go do that. And mom and dad would give an explanation why. And now you're at the crossroads because Jesus has proven to be who he claims to be.
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He's extraordinary. He does the works of God. And so now we have to say something maybe different about what we were saying about Jesus to our family.
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And now we also maybe have to revise our explanation for naked demon guy. Because it could have been some kind of weird superstition or some kind of different explanation.
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And now you've got to say, here's what was wrong with him. Jesus has helped him and there's nothing wrong with him anymore.
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Jesus has helped us in our community too, by doing that. But you know what?
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Traditions die hard, don't they? Our authoritative explanations that are exposed to not be true, die hard.
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Because you got to say as mom and dad, we were wrong.
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What's right is to trust in Jesus. Still happens today, huh? Don't confuse me with the facts.
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I know what I believe. Tradition, right? Fiddle around the roof.
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Does Mike usually sing during the sermons? Wait till I step over to the piano and do a little something for you.
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I won't. So we pray for people.
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We pray for people that God by a supernatural work would help them to say they're wrong.
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To repent of wrong thinking about who Jesus is. God has to do it. God has to do it, but it does need to be done.
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It does need to be done. It's utterly and completely irrational what these folks are doing.
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It's contrary to fact. It's not contrary to fact to trust in Jesus. It's contrary to fact and not trust in Jesus because he really did these things.
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And we have multiple historical accounts of them. How about verse 38?
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The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him. But Jesus sent him away saying, return to your home and declare how much
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God... Just put some emphasis on that for a moment. Declare how much God has done for you.
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Well, that's interesting because Jesus is the one who's done it. Declare how much God has done for you. Then keep reading.
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And he went away proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus... Oh, there's another title.
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He's talking about the same one. How much Jesus had done for him. How much
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Jesus had done for him.
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There's no moral of the story. There's a point though.
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Jesus is trustworthy. Jesus is trustworthy.
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It's what Christianity is about. The work of Christ. The historic work of Christ.
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And we call people to trust in the historic work of Christ. The provenly reliable one whose name is
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Jesus. And then you think in terms of, we go from here to the end of the story as I've already made mention of.
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And he goes and he does that climactic work, that great substitutionary work and that great resurrection work.
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And we're called to believe in him for our resurrection. And he could have just done that and that would be one thing, but he doesn't for multiple reasons.
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But for now, I'll just mention, he doesn't because he's been showing us all along more and more evidence.
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Trustworthy. So we're called to trust in him.
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It's not blind faith. Christianity is not faith in faith. It's not blind faith.
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Jay Gressam -Machen, the author and theologian, said, faith is only as good as its object.
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Little heady, but it makes tons of sense. If Jesus had not been raised from the dead and he claimed he was gonna be, faith in Jesus would be irrational.
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Bodily raised from the dead. It's reasonable. It's right. It's good. Necessary. So now we can trust him for not just calming the storm, not just casting out demons.
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We trust in Jesus to pardon our sin, to provide atonement for pardon, forgiveness, for our death problem and resurrection, our condemnation problem so that we could have peace with God, our enslavement problem so that we could be set free to do what we were created to do, worship and serve
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God. He's proven himself. Proven himself with a great, great, ultimate climactic work of resurrection.
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One more thing I'd like to do before we close and that would be to turn to the book of Romans. So if you would turn in your
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Bibles with me to Romans. In Romans chapter three, in Romans chapter four, in Romans chapter five, we could do this with Galatians.
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We could do it with other books of the Bible as well. And the reason I wanna do this is to help you even see fuller, bigger picture.
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We've got the historic accounts of Jesus' life and ministry on earth.
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We're called to trust in him. Then we move beyond to some of these more theological books that are explaining the meaning behind his works.
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And we hear something similar when we're called to believe, which is another way of saying have faith.
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Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. We're justified by faith.
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Well, what's important to remember is it's talking about faith, not in faith. It's not talking about faith in yourself.
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It's not talking about faith in anything other than the historic, perfect work of Jesus.
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Have faith in him. So we won't take time to do the full exercise, but do know when you're reading through like Romans chapter three and you look for all the times faith is used and belief is used and trust is used.
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Some of my Bibles I've just gone through and highlighted and underlined every single time so that I can see and understand.
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It's by trusting in him, not in myself. But even in those contexts, remember the greater context of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to providing the foundation for understanding what it means to have faith.
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And then also if you read enough in those other passages like look at Romans chapter three, verse 26.
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It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier, the one who is righteous and declares righteous of the one who has faith in Jesus Christ.
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Well, we know all about that because we know what Jesus did, but Paul might not go into all the depth of those things.
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He's just using shorthand, but we've got to remember shorthand is there for a reason to serve us, but we can't forget we're not talking about faith in faith or faith in self or faith in something that didn't really historically happen.
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We're talking about faith in the real historic work of Jesus. And so time and time again, it is in verse 22 through faith in Jesus.
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Well, remember that because then when you're in verse 25 and it goes and says received by faith and it doesn't say faith in Jesus.
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Well, in context, it is faith in Jesus. And then we move through the passage and it's the same thing in verse 30 in two different places by faith through faith or chapter four, verse three,
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Abraham believed God. Well, object of faith is not just himself or something like that. He believed
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God. If you move throughout chapter four, verse nine, for we say that by faith is counted to Abraham as righteousness, but it's faith in God, the object of his faith, the faith in the
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Lord. Same thing in chapter four, verse 11, it's by faith. The same thing there again in verse 11, the father of all who believe.
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Well, we know it's those who believe in the Lord, object of faith. Verse 13, the righteousness of faith, but we already know he's just using shorthand there.
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It's faith in the historic work of the Lord. Verse 16, that is why it depends on faith.
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Well, we know in context, it's faith in the Lord who's the trustworthy one. Verse 16 ends with the faith of Abraham.
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It's not blind faith. It's faith in the historic God that he's trusting in. Verse 22, faith was counted to him as righteousness.
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Well, it's faith in the righteous one, none other than the Lord. Verse 23, we who believe in him.
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Oh, I'm glad he doesn't only ever use shorthand, believe in him. Or let's end with chapter five, verse one.
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Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through, oh, object of faith, through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. And so we talk so often and we say, we believe in justification by faith alone.
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I'm so glad we talk that way, but be careful. We believe in justification by faith alone, yes.
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In Christ alone, because we're not talking about faith in an illusion.
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So let's leave, if we're not trusting in Jesus, let's leave trusting in Jesus.
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But let's remember, let's remember that he is trustworthy.
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And so it makes sense to trust in him because he's trustworthy. And let's also remember that we can be better ambassadors if we learn to communicate these things clearly.
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It won't mean people become Christians, but people who reject the
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Christian faith should be rejecting, if I can help it, the Christian faith and not something else that they think is the
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Christian faith. And if they trust in something that they think is the
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Christian faith, I want them to really be trusting in the Christian faith and not something else. And we're called to be ambassadors and we could love our neighbor by being better at communicating these things to people who don't even know what we're talking about when we say
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Christian, we say Jesus, we say faith. Pray with me if you would. Father, thank you so much for your loving kindness and your grace and your mercy.
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And all of these things are ours in Christ. We're thankful that we're part of the family based upon what he has done.
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We're thankful that he perfectly obeyed the law on our behalf. We're thankful that he acted and took the place as if he were the law breaker so that atonement for our sins could be made.
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We're thankful that he is bodily raised from the dead. He has ascended, he is at your right hand, even right now, claiming us as his own because we are his own by virtue of his work on our behalf.
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May we leave more impressed with Jesus Christ. May we leave with a commitment of being clearer in our own understanding so that we can be clear as ambassadors.