John 20:30-31 (Covenant Renewal Commission)

different journeys Come with different kinds of purposes And when we understand the purpose for the journey, then we'll understand much about what

God has for us now there's sometimes where we go on journeys where The purpose is pretty clear.

We know why we're going we know what we would like to see accomplished and there's not very many surprises but then there's other times where we go on a particular journey or do a particular thing and then the

Purpose doesn't come until later or we start with a purpose that we think is the right purpose and then something happens where more

Meaning or a richer purpose is revealed to us later that ends up changing the way that we think about a particular situation

Now a great example of this would be Frodo Baggins Frodo leaves

Bag End after he finds his uncle's ring and He realizes that he needs to go to Rivendell.

His purpose is to go to the council maybe you don't know anything about what I'm talking about, but he finds this really powerful ring and he has to go and Hand it off to the big people and they're gonna deal with it.

And that was his purpose until he got to Rivendell and Until a new purpose was revealed to him by Providence that he would be the ring bearer that he would take it

Not to the big people, but he would deliver it to Mount Doom and there He would be the one to deliver it over to the fires kind of now

If you know the story, I'm not telling you the spoiler Now he didn't see his purpose at first.

He thought his purpose was minuscule and then it became maximal his purpose changed and because of that The whole story changed and he got to see the hand of God on his story

Now this is sort of like the gospel of John where John is the only gospel that doesn't reveal his purpose until the end

The synoptics actually are quite clear Matthew is about the kingship of Christ and starts with a genealogy that leads to him being

King Mark is about the gospel has come immediately and he says that immediately But yet Luke or not

Luke John puts his purpose all the way at the very end Where you have to wade through 20 complete chapters to get there before you see what it is

That John is wanting us to see the purpose is at the end of the book now there's a reason for that John is not just hiding the ball and John is not just trying to tell a different kind of story

Although there there is some of that but there's a covenant reason for this there's a

Covenant renewal reason why John would put the purpose statement all the way at the end of the book and for us to understand that We do need to do a little bit of work

The whole I think purpose statement of John will open up rather quickly for us once we've done that work

But we have to do a little work before we get there and we have to talk about covenants Why does

John put the purpose at the end of the book what has to do with covenants? You're like how well Let's draw that bridge.

Let's make that connection What is a covenant a covenant is a relationship that is bound in blood sovereignly administrated between God and his people and in covenants

God does five things and We do five things so that that covenant is maintained

God establishes a covenant with five specific actions and we do five specific actions to maintain that covenant

What are those actions? Well number one God defines the rules We don't

When we come into relationship with God, we don't dictate to God the stipulations for the relationship.

That's what God does Number two, he outlines the blessings. What will life look like if you obey his rules?

Number three, he defines and enumerates the curses. What will your life look like if you don't obey the stipulations?

The fourth thing that God does is he tells you about the signs of the covenant. He gives you Visible physical tangible things to show you that he loves you for instance

Noah the covenant with Noah was the rainbow Abraham covenant Abraham was circumcision in Christ The sign of the covenant with us is baptism in the

Lord's Supper These are signs that God gives to let you know that you're in you're a part of the covenant people

They're his gifts to you not your gift to him that's a whole sermon in and of itself and Then finally the fifth thing that God does is after he has

Initiated this relationship. He throws a party. He gives a feast every time. There's a covenant

God gives a meal To consecrate the relationship that's the five things that God does what are the five things that we do?

Besides break covenant all the time Well in order to maintain covenant with God we have to do five things

When God calls us we come into worship, so we're called Every week we do a call to worship for this reason

What else do we do? Well, we confess our sins because we're covenant breakers if we're gonna be in relationship with God You're not gonna do so by perfection.

So you must have a mechanism by which you can be forgiven. That's repentance confess your sins

And then we're consecrated By God that means we're built back up by God after we've bared our soul after we've been stripped of our sins, we need to be reclothed in his grace and Then every covenant has an element where the people of God after they've been called into his presence after they've confessed their sins and been consecrated and communed with God and Feasted with God.

There's an element where they're sent out and they're commissioned to do what God has called them to do Every covenant follows this formula.

You think about Abraham? He was an error called out of her Confesses his sins before the father then he is consecrated by God He's given the promises of God he then he communes with God and then he is commissioned to do

God's work Every single one of them follows this pattern it shows up in Abraham's life Adam and Noah's life

Moses Israel Judah David Solomon's life God does five things to initiate a covenant with us a relationship with us and we do five things in order to Reciprocate and be renewed in that relationship.

That's what we call covenant renewal Now every week we do covenant renewal every single week at this church and there's a reason

Because we're mimicking the pattern of Scripture in the actual way that we do our worship service

We don't think that worship services are just you know, willy -nilly we get to decide whatever we want couple songs

Skinny jean -clad guy give a sermon couple songs go home We don't think that we think that though that we worship according to what

Scripture has regulated that we must do worship in the way that God has prescribed a relationship with God is not like your relationship with your child where they bring you a very

Very cute stick figure family or a or an elephant that looks like an amoeba and And you say oh, that is incredible.

Let me put that on the fridge That's not the way that we worship God nay dab and a by who found that out

They brought strange fire into the presence of God Unregulated fire undescribed, but I don't know what it was

But there was something about the fire that they brought that God had not commanded and they were toasted

You think about Uzzah Uzzah was the worship leader the one who swayed his hips and raised his hands and all that and he was

Struck down dead because why because he reached up and touched the ark of God and that was not permitted

Annihilation Sapphira lied in the presence of the Holy Spirit died. God cares about worship

And he cares that we worship him according to his standards So every single week our liturgy liturgy just means the order of our worship.

We go through a call We realize that we're like Abraham and we've been living in her and we need to be called into God's presence

It is a grace that God has called us. We don't come bumbling in and God's like, oh there you are

He calls we respond and then when we come and we come into the presence of this

Holy God, we realize that we're sinful. He is holy and we are not therefore we must confess our sins and we must be reclothed through the creeds and through the catechisms and through the

Psalms that we sing and through the preaching and through the words that we read in Scripture every element of that middle section of Scripture is about reclothing us and reshaping us back into the image

That our sin mangles and corrupts and at the climax of the

Christian service This is something that I've been convinced of since shepherds was born

At the climax of a Christian service is not a sermon There are days when

I will have prepared my best but the sermon will be an absolute stinker There are days when

I will do my best and I'll say something really stupid and the

Lord will use it But there is never a day that you come to the

Lord's service where Christ has served you anything other than perfectly I Am NOT perfect I do the best that I can to deliver

God's Word to you and the Lord blesses it But when you come to the table, you're served by Christ The climax of a

Christian service is you Fellowshipping and dining with Jesus at his table That's what the whole service is building towards is that now after we've went through all of this

We've been we've came in we've been reclothed. We've been washed. We've been we've been we put on the wedding garments now

We're at the table Jesus himself serves us the meal and Jesus himself is the meal

What a glorious thing that we get to fellowship and dine with the risen Christ nothing else compares and then as We close our service every week.

This is not the little cherry on top This is not the bow tie where we say you are dismissed in order to give closure to everyone who's wondering when

I'm gonna stop speaking We give the Commission We give the

Commission that God now in light of everything that has happened is Commissioning you to take these truths throughout your week and To live these things to the glory of Christ Every part about this is covenant

This is what our worship service looks like this what every covenant the Bible looks like and I discovered this week

This is how the gospel of John is organized Did you know that? That the gospel of John is organized in this fivefold covenantal pattern and maybe you're like no, it's not really that exciting.

Yes it is Think about it. I gotta tell you the beginning of the book

John 1 1 through 18 is called the prologue begins with in the beginning was God the

Word was with God and the Word was God and it says in verse 14 That and the

Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory the glories of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth and then you see

Jesus dining and Fellowshipping with people in Cana at this wedding and then you see him coming to Jerusalem to the temple

Revealing himself what we have is a worship service We're being invited into the

God the presence of God who has been ever has been revealed from the beginning

This is the eternal matchless God that we've been called in the presence to and now he's dwelling with us

That's what worship is is when humans are dwelling with God called into his presence And then we go to the second section of the gospel

In a covenant renewal service you had your called into God's presence and then God calls you to repent

What is the next section of the gospel of John all about? Well, the first thing he does is he meets with Nicodemus and he calls

Nicodemus to repent to repent of his lack of faith He says truly truly

I say to you unless one is born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God He's giving him an option here to repent and Nicodemus is confused.

What's the next thing? He does he goes to the woman at the well in chapter 4 calls her to repent He says to her go call your husband and tell him to come here and she says

I don't have a husband Jesus said you're saying rightly that I have no husband for you've had five husbands and the one you have now is not your

Husband Jesus calls her to repent. She's the only one that does Nicodemus doesn't the man in John chapter 5 that we'll talk about a second

He doesn't she repents and she takes that message to the community and the whole town repents

The third one is the sick man that we talked about who's sick for 38 years which is the exact same amount of time that the people of Israel wandered in the wilderness and He like they

Failed to see who Christ was he called him to repent of his sins and Then that man is the one who turned in Jesus to the

Pharisees and the Pharisees From that moment on and the gospel want to kill him So you've got

God calling us into his presence the presence of Christ who is holy from the very beginning and you've got

Jesus himself calling his people to repent What's the third thing well in a in a covenant renewal worship service, we're called we confess and then we're consecrated so you would expect

That Jesus is preaching a lot in the third section that he's teaching a lot that he's healing people that he's

Consecrating them into his purposes and that's exactly what he is doing He goes to Galilee and he feeds the 5 ,000 in John chapter 6 with an exodus sermon he preaches and tells them that he is the bread of life that he is the one who came down from heaven like manna from Heaven and his preaching caused many to reject him

But for those who are his for those who belong to him Like Peter they said

Lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life Jesus is preaching

He's consecrating them into his vision He goes to Jerusalem in John chapter 7 through 8 at the

Feast of Tabernacles and he preaches He preaches that he's the one the true water who will bring who will quench the people's thirst

He says in John 7 37 if anyone comes after me and let him drink Jesus is consecrating his listeners.

He is sanctifying them. He's setting them apart by the preached Word of God some reject him because Anyone who does not it was not a

Christian who is not elect when the preaching of the Word goes out will reject the

Word But for those who are elect for those who know Christ for those who the Spirit of God has come in They will rejoice like Peter.

Where else can we go? You have the words of life in John chapter 9

Jesus Heals the blind man and he teaches the blind man where true sight comes from in John chapter 11

He heals Lazarus and he tells them that he is the resurrection and the life that no one can come to God without being

Born again, and the only way to be born again is through him He even calls

Lazarus out of the tomb with his own words and the spoken power of Jesus words brings life into the dead man

The man who they were afraid to open the tomb beforehand because he stunk. Do you remember? What happened there in John chapter 11?

However many years ago it was when we were in John chapter 11 Not everyone responded well to the preaching of Jesus some hated him

John 7 through 10 is One story after another of them hating him. Jesus said that they were sons of the devil

That's why that they could not love his words but for the elect The consecration brought them closer to Christ.

It made them love Christ So there you have the first three points in this structure have happened one right after another we're called into Jesus's presence confess our sins like Nicodemus and like the woman at the well and We're consecrated by the preaching of his word.

What about communion? The very next thing that happens in John's gospel is Jesus in John 13 sets the table

He sets the table he gets down and he washes the disciples feet and Then he sets the table of the

Passover in front of them. And then what does he do? He teaches them at the table and then he becomes the meal

John chapter 19 the one who served them lamb is the Lamb of God Who died for the sins of his people and was crucified on the cross?

John 13 through 19 is Jesus setting the table for not just his disciples, but for all of us to be in relationship with God and Then what?

John chapter 20 were commissioned. Do you see all five of those? called into his presence confessing of sin

Consecration communion and now Commission John chapter 20 is all about Commission The first thing he says to Mary is go tell your brothers.

That's a Commission and Then when he gets in and then when he gets into their presence without the without the method of opening doors

He goes through walls He stands in their midst and he says receive the Holy Spirit and just as the father sent me

I'm sending you He's commissioning them and then Thomas shows up and then he commissions Thomas You've got this five -fold structure.

That is not happenstance in the Gospel of John because this is the way God does relationships in John John would not give you the purpose statement at the beginning of the gospel because that's a part of your commission as a

Christian which we're gonna see now How is the purpose statement of John our commission?

Well, let's turn to the text and let's see it Will be in John 20 30 through 31 today is going to be one of those sermons where the introduction might be longer than the sermon, so don't be afraid we're

We're moving along steadily John 20 30 through 31 therefore

Many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples Which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ The Son of God and that by believing you may have life in his name. Let us pray

Lord we thank you that you enter into Relationships with us in specific ways and you call us to participate in those relationships in specific ways

Lord, thank you that every single week at this church You have called us into your presence

Graciously, we have not deserved to be here and yet by grace you have called us and we have responded

Lord let us love the call Let us not easily miss the call

But Lord, let us come joyfully into your presence and Lord. We thank you that After we are here that you've given us the grace of confession

Lord Let us never look at confession of sins as a burden or as a bother or as a as a hardship

It is a grace Let us look at the confession of our sins as the discarding of toxins or cancers or poisons

What a grace that you have allowed us every week through your law to confess our sins

Lord we thank you that you build us back up Through your word and through singing and through prayer and through all of the different means of grace that you offer to us as your church

And Lord we thank you that after the word has been declared through song and through preaching and through reading through responses

After the word has gone forth and has built us up That we come to your table forgiven

Purified and ready to fellowship with you and your presence For this great climactic moment where we feast with you and upon you

And then Lord, thank you that after the meal you've loved us so much to feed us before you've sent us out

You send us out to the nations to be the hands and feet of Christ to bring this ugly world

Into conformity to your vision and God. Thank you that you've not just done that once for us

You do it every week for us because we are forgetful the moment we leave with all the joy and the passion as Disciples who are ready to go conquer the world for Christ by Saturday After being beat down with life another week

We are ready to stumble back in here again and be reminded all over again of the good things that you have done

Lord thank you for your weekly grace of bringing us into your presence as a church

Lord we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen So the just as the worship service is building to a commission

The Gospel of John has been building to a commission to commission God's people to God's work in the world

And that's where John chapter 20 has been. So the purpose statement for John chapter 20 happens here

Because you can't have the purpose statement come to you before You've been called or before you've been consecrated or before you've gotten rid of your so this is why it's here and I'll read it to you once again these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ the Son of God and that by believing in him you may have life in his name. I love the first part of that in chapter 20 verse 30 where it says there's many other signs that Jesus performed, but they're not written here

I think the first part that I'd like to discuss today with our Commission is that we've been given a

Sufficient word We've not been commissioned in confusion

Jesus did not call us to be his disciples and have us guess what we are to do He's given us a sufficient word a complete word a word that has no mistakes and no errors and no gaps and no

Things that were meant to be in there that weren't John tells us there's many things that I could have put in my gospel to you but they weren't there and they weren't there for a reason because the things that were there were written so that you may believe in Christ and That you may have life in his name

That means that everything that was written in John's gospel is there for us and it is a sufficient

Word if it's not in there God did not intend for it to be there There's nothing superfluous in the word.

We have exactly what we need and with that We've been commissioned not just with a sufficient word, but that sufficient word helps us have a living faith

I remember I heard a pastor one time say that a wordless

Christian will be a dead Christian and I remember thinking to myself how important it is to be a

Christian who's in the word who's reading the word Who's studying the word who's memorizing the word?

This is the words of life that Christ has given us that will help us in everything that we do a sufficient word

Brothers and sisters if I could encourage you in anything Be a Christian who's in the word

Read it sing it pray over it teach it to your children men if there is anything that I can encourage you if you're already reading the word to do

And And if you're not doing it, please begin doing it. You'll see what God is doing through that teach your wives the word

Take on spiritual leadership in your home Teach your children the word This is what

Christ has given our family so that we will be faithful godly families Do not neglect the treasure that is the word

John says these things have been written so that You may believe and that you may have life in his name

Don't neglect the word brothers. Don't neglect the word sisters It is life for you everything in John's gospel the prologue

John the Baptist the calling of the disciples the wedding miracle the feeding of the 5 ,000 Jesus walking on water the attendance at the festival

Every aspect from every chapter in John's gospel and by extension The entire Bible is for you and for your good and for your life

Why? So that as you're a person who submits to the word you'll also be a person who grows in faith.

That's what John is arguing What kind of faith? What's not just head knowledge?

The word for faith here is pistou. Oh Can I pistachio but pistou? The word for faith here is not cognitive

Only it's not believe in him mentally It's not be able to tell me all of the theological terms and to be able to spit them out with great acuity the faith

That Jesus is talking about here is allegiance loyalty It's loyal to Jesus in your mind and your heart and your will in your body

It's having no other loyalty structures. It's that it's the kind of faith that I believe what

Jesus has done. Therefore. He's Lord of everything He's Lord of my life. He's Lord of my marriage.

He's Lord of my children. He's Lord of my job He's Lord of my the way that I drive He's Lord of the ways that I joke of the movies that I watch of the websites

I go to he's Lord of Faith in Christ is not

I believe that Jesus rose from the dead the demons in hell believe that and They have the good sense to shudder about it

Faith in Christ is loyalty to Christ in every aspect of life. It is a faith that is characterized by recalibrated allegiances

It is a faith that is centralized all of your affections onto Christ So that everything you now love is now loved through the lens of Christ It's not like that.

We have a list of competing affections. I love Jesus and I love lamp Or I love

Jesus and I love ice cream. It's a reference there. It's everything that I love.

I now love as a Christian So that I love my wife like Jesus loves my wife or at least

I'm trying to grow into that. I Love my children not as an end unto themselves.

I Don't love them because of who they are and their unique peculiarities.

I Love them because Christ loves them and I now try to love them as Christ loves them.

I Love my job Let's use another job because mine can get a little sideways because I actually am preaching the word right now to you

But every job is important and sacred you go to work. You love your job Why do you love your job because it's always fun.

No Do you love your job because you're making a boatload of money? No, do you love your job because you like your co -workers?

no, you love your job because Christ loves your job and Christ loves the way that you do your job

So that now the way that you do your job is an act of worship Whatever you do whether you eat or whether you drink you do it to the glory of Christ That means that the way that we love everything is an expression of the way that we love

Jesus Everything if you're a graphic designer make Incredible and beautiful graphics to the glory of God if you're a shoemaker make the world's best shoe

If you're a technology guy make technology that brings Christ into every sphere of life

The way we love Christ our faith Is centered upon the word and it's expressed in a loyalty and allegiance to Jesus in all things

So that we bring all of Christ into all of life for all the world We are to shine as lights in a darkened world and we're be and we are to be salt in very unsavory times

This is something I learned when I moved to New England Did you know the further you move north the less salt that people use there's a direct correlation

It's true I Salt my food because to the glory of God.

I'm southern and it's savory

The Bible calls us. I'm on the right side of this. I'm on the right side of this. The Bible calls us to be salty

The Bible doesn't call us to withhold Salt from culture the

Bible calls us to pack it into culture if you remember They didn't have frigerators back then

So the way that you preserve meat is by packing it full of salt So salty that you can't even eat it without washing it

That's the way we're supposed to be with culture The purpose that Christ is giving us is to be called into his presence confessing our sins consecrated so that we commune with him so that we can go to the world and In our going to the world.

We remember that his word is central It's expressed in loyalty and allegiance to Jesus, which is a going faith

Which takes his love and his righteousness to the nation's

Commission is not what we do. Ultimately. I do want to make that clear Commission is who we are

Commission is not a list of I need to go do this this week. I need to serve at this soup kitchen I need to go tell my friend about Jesus for five minutes and 37 seconds on my lunch break and then it's not that Commission is now who we are in light of what

Christ has done. We are a going people. We're a telling people we are a worshipping people we are a a

Visible people. We're not a private people When we walk into restaurants, we don't walk into restaurants as people we walk in as new creations

When we fold our hands to pray We bring the light of Christ visibly don't bow your head and be ashamed of Jesus and whisper a prayer

I remember I learned this at Chipotle one time. I prayed I'm half deaf

So I pray everything loud or I say everything loud and a person came over to me and said said you're a

Christian We pray for me and I said absolutely we are we're supposed to be visible Living examples of who

Christ is everywhere. We go. We're Christians You don't check your Christianity at the door anywhere that you go because you're loyal to Christ But that doesn't mean that there's no content to our faith there is content to our faith

We have to believe certain things in order to be a Christian if you don't believe those things you're not a Christian Jesus says it here that these things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ the Son of God So therefore if you don't believe that Jesus is the Christ And if you don't believe that he's the Son of God, you will not have life in his name

You will not be a Christian. Those are two Essential truths you must believe if you're going to be a

Christian that he's the Christ That he's the Son of God, what does that mean that he's the Christ? Well, that means that he's the anointed one.

The Hebrew word is Mashiach in The Old Testament there were three anointed roles that the

Hebrews were called to play the anointed King the anointed priest in the anointed prophet the prophet was the one who brought the

Word of God to the people the priest is the one who brought the law of God to The people and the king is the one who brought the rule of God to the people

There was no one in Hebrew history who occupied all three offices not one Moses held to He was sort of a priest and sort of a king, but there was no one who held all three until you get to Jesus Jesus is the only one who held all three offices.

We've already done this in a sermon before I'll better refresh I'll refresh your memory. Jesus is the true prophet. He gathered his disciples around him like a prophet in John 1

He did miracles like a prophet in John 2 He called the leadership to repent like a prophet in John 3

He preached and he taught like a prophet in John 4 through 8 and he healed people like a prophet in John 9 and 11

John is revealing to us that Jesus is the true prophet. He's also the true King He's the one in John 12 who rode into town on a donkey and received the kingdom

He's the one who was elevated on a cross instead of a human throne That cross is where he got his greatest glory glory as of the king and in John 13

He serves his people as priest he gets down and washes their feet. He serves them a meal He anoints them and as the true priest he sacrifices himself as the true sacrifice in John 19

He's the prophet priest and King which means that we need to believe in him in that way

How do you believe in Jesus as prophet priest and King what Jesus is the one who brings the Word of God?

He's the one who says thus saith the Lord He's the one who makes us his disciples who calls us to repent who teaches us who heals us and who commissions us as prophet

How do we worship Jesus as King you obey him? because he's the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth and You go for him and you stand up with courage for him

We don't cower at the world because we have a true and great King. We have courage as those who serve the

Living King and As priests we know that he heals us he cares for us and he's brought us into covenant.

He's offered himself as sacrifice Because Jesus is prophet priest and King you can be saved and Without his prophet priest and kingly mediation for you.

There's would be no hope you must believe he's all three and You must believe that he's the

Son of God Jesus is the one who Told us that he's

God in the very beginning through John's Word in the beginning was the Word and Word was with God and the Word was God so Jesus is

God. You can't get past it right there in the first verse Jesus gives seven

I am statements You remember at the mountain of Sinai where God reveals his name? I am that I am

Jesus says seven times in John's gospel. I am He says I am the door.

I am the Good Shepherd. I am the resurrection I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father, but by me

I remember in John chapter 858. He says before Abraham was

I am and then the Pharisees He's not even 50.

They missed the point He was given the tetragrammaton the

Word for God the name the unique covenantal name Yahweh He was given that he said

I am he Prophet priest King Messiah Lord God a living faith in those things

Produces faithful living if you don't believe those things you won't live Not in the biblical sense

But if you believe those things if you have a living faith, you will have faithful living

That is the causality that John is talking about a Living faith produces faithful living a living faith produces faithful living

What does that look like it invigorates everything about us

If you have a living faith your faithful living should invigorate you You should be the kind of person who has joy peace patience kindness goodness gentleness self -control the kind of person who loves

Jesus's church and loves his word and loves to sing and loves to pray and loves to be with the

Saints The kind of person who hates the things you once loved and loves the things you now used to hate

It should invigorate you personally even in the hardest times in the worst days in the darkest hours you have joy why because Christ is in you and Christ had joy on his darkest day

It should invigorate our marriages It doesn't stop with just us. We don't have a privatized faith

It should invigorate our marriages Christians should not have divorce rates on par with the pagans

Our marriages should be the sweetest holiest healthiest most beautiful marriages because we have

Christ Marriages that are spotlights of grace in a world

That is ugly and confused It needs to invigorate our families a living faith will result in faithful living in our marriages in our families

Our families will be thriving worshipping communities that flourish in the gospel Where future men and future women are raised up in an incubator of grace

It should invigorate our neighborhoods it should not start and stop With us it should explode out into our neighborhoods causing us to let our light shine

In the lives of people who see us if people who know you and have known you for years have no idea that you're a

Christian Repent of that. It should invigorate our cities

What would happen if all the Christians in Massachusetts started living joyfully vibrantly

Passionately and publicly like Christians with no fear of reprisal. What are they gonna do to us?

What are they gonna do? They might want to throw us in jail because we pray outside of a

Planned Parenthood or we preach outside. Who cares? Honestly, I mean that I've been to jail

Seven years I worked there It's not that bad

It's actually really not compared to like the jails that Paul were in like Paul would laugh

They sit around all day and play cards and eat Cheetos. It's not that bad Like what do we have to fear?

Our faith should invigorate our cities our faith should call some of us to become the CEO of our company for no other reason

Than to bring Christ into our corporation Not for our glory for his Our faith should become living and active so that some of us become mayor's

Some of us become city councilman some of us become The HOA person who handles your household stuff, whatever it is.

Our faith should lead us to be publicly visibly and vibrantly Christian so they will see our good works and glorify our father who is in heaven

Our faith should invigorate our politics our politics are a mess right now because Christians have abandoned them we have gotten to a place

Where we've become so Gnostic Where we think that that's the public space and we don't do that Why do you think that our politics are so disgusting right now because we've abandoned them

That where the Wilbur forces Where the the men of God who would bring righteousness and justice to the political sphere they've been told for 50 years that that's not godly and That biblical masculinity is not welcome.

We need a revival We need a revival We had a former president shot yesterday because Christians have abandoned the public sphere

We have a president right now in office who has the mental acuity and personality of a sleeping cactus

It's funny because it's true We have a

DOJ that is weaponized and godless. We have an IRS that is tyrannical We have a health and human service director who is a transgendered

Person, how is that healthy? We have a governor in Massachusetts the first governor in the country's history.

That's a lesbian We must own the fact

That the majority of the blame is at the feet of the church We abandoned the world and as we abandoned the world they abandoned

God We must have a faith that reinvigorates masculinity masculinity is not a disease

Courage righteousness is not a disease. We need men not the kind Like gospel coalition sweet spice and everything nice kind of men

We've had enough of that too much sugar makes people diabetic. I think our culture's become diabetic because we've been too sweet We need men

We need men to stand up and be men to stand up for righteousness sake to have courage.

I told her I Told our consistory this morning in prayer I've not always

I've not always been the biggest fan of Donald Trump. I've made that clear

I think Donald Trump III I'll even go as far as to say I'm voting for Donald Trump because Joe Biden is evil

But I've crit I've criticized and critiqued Donald Trump for his immorality at times

And I've bemoaned the fact that we can't have a godly Christian man in the White House.

I 've Bemoan that It's sad to me that yesterday the greatest display of masculinity.

I've seen in decades Had to be from Donald Trump because Christians won't do it he stood up He pumped his fist and he showed the world what it means to be a masculine leader and it invigorated my heart made me love

That man, why is the church not showing that to the world?

We have to and it starts with us Little church in Chelmsford, but it starts with us What about godly femininity?

Why have we let the world tell us that women are the ones that have to take bullets for men? Like the

Secret Service or women are the ones that we deploy to foreign countries or women are the ones that go out and make

A living while stay -at -home dads play at video games in their pajamas at home Why have we done that?

We need to repent our women are precious and The reason culture is decayed is because of cowardly men and lumberjack women and We need to repent our life our

Christian life needs to invigorate our entertainment choices our health care our education

The point of it is that we would make everything Christian Why are we afraid?

To bring Christ into all of life Would Christ be better than what we have? Imagine health care if health care bowed the knee to Jesus Christ Imagine if the almighty dollar wasn't

God in America, but Christ is Listen people are afraid of Theocracy because they've seen the ayatollah weird beards and they have thought

I don't want beheadings in my state But that's not the way Christ would have us lead when

Christ comes into reign Things get better life increases

Flourishing increases every society that has ever submitted to Christ has gone through years centuries of flourishing

We're falling apart because we've abandoned that brothers and sisters It's time that you and I reinvigorate that and be obedient to that and let our light so shine so that they may see our good works and glorify the

Father in Heaven not for our glory for the glory of Christ not by our power But by the power of the

Holy Spirit at work in us. It's time for revival That is our purpose

These things have been written so that you may believe and that you may have life and may that life extend also to our society

Let's pray Lord Jesus We thank you so much for such a succinct and beautiful statement of purpose these things

The Word of God has been written So that we would have life And that we would have it abundantly

And that that life wouldn't stop with us But it would extend to those around us

To the glory and praise of God Lord. Would you invigorate your church to be the church again? Would you invigorate your church to be on mission again?

Would you invigorate your church to be the dynamic? passionate visible people that they were in the first century when the

Roman world was turned upside down and Lord may it be so again For your glory for your honor and for your praise and we pray this in Jesus name.