In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I was for some reason, maybe reading these readings, I was reminded of a song that We played, uh, I played it with the band like to open youth group one night. It wasn't a Christian song.

I don't know why we played it to open youth group. It wasn't like a bad song. It was by fuel. The band Fuel and it was called Shimmer. And the repeated line was all that glimmers in this world will surely fade away. Again, right? You got those of you who remember that song that song's?

Almost 30. So uh, we're getting old. Uh, so if you're uh, like me, we're getting old that song's, almost 30 years old now and Maybe that's a sign of Even with the Was saying you know he was he was writing like this angsty song about having lost someone. He was in love with just out of high school or something like and it was that and all that you know shines in the world Fades away and maybe the song getting old is a sign of that.

Um the the songs fading away uh like everything else in this world, right? Everything that shines and everything that glistens and I think I was struck by the words of the song. Even just sitting here freshly this morning, just We live our lives for 70 years, perhaps in strength, 80.

But the whole of them is sorrow. Wow. Glad what a bright picture, right? And and this picture of what it means to live in light of a short and fleeting life. But I was thinking about today is what it would be, like to be 80 or 90. And hear those words, we live 70 years and perhaps But the whole of them.

Is sorrow. You know, um, what a I mean that's the reality that we find ourselves in is this? Shimmering. Yeah, beat the odds. That's right. And and and maybe this, that's what we rest. I think what we look at and really all these texts today Is, what does it look like to live in a world where all that shines Fades?

All that is shining Fades away. What we see in this Psalm is that God and his kingdom are the only things that endure. God. And his kingdom are the only things that endure. Our Psalm introduces us to God, as a, as a refuge, a refuge, is some place that you go to, like, stay for a while because the outside is, maybe scary or things are happening.

Like a refuge, is a picture of I go somewhere and I'm A fort. Like I'm, I'm holding up in here. It's a refuge, right? A safe place, and one that endures. In the sixth verse in the first six verses of the psalm were presented with a God who's enduring.

God has been a refuge from one generation to another in verse one, God, has been around since before the mountains and all the world in verse two. God is God from Everlasting. A thousand years in God's sight, or as yesterday, we're getting this picture of a God who's always been, who is enduring And that's contrasted with a people.

Who are fleeting, right? Verse 3, you turn Mack man back to dust you say return O children of men maybe reminds us of what we hear. Every Ash Wednesday, Those words from the curse, remember that you are dust into dust, you shall return, right? You turn men back to dust and say return.

In verse 5, we have that men fed fade away and they come quickly to an end in verse six. They are like grass. And that, what they're what they're saying about the grass isn't like, hey grass is pretty like like uh but what they're saying about the grass? Is that it's fleeting.

It's green today. It's pretty now but it's brown and it dies tomorrow. Right? It's gone tomorrow. And and what we see is that our temporality Is a result of our sin. That's where verse 7 kind of transitions. So, we've just talked about God being like, Enduring. And people being fleeting and then verse 7 as this shift where it's talking about hey, the reason we're fleeting is because of our sin.

God's anger is mentioned in verse 7, twice verse 9. Once verse 11 twice, God's angry, in our Amos reigning. Because of the people's unwillingness to seek the Lord to seek the good. Verse 11 tells us about why they're, they're fleeting because of that. You have built houses and of hewn Stone, but you shall not dwell in them.

You have planted Pleasant Vineyards but you shall not drink their wine. The labor of their hands is fleeting that because they'll go into Exile but because all of us because of death, right? Their temporality. And the reason that they are not enduring like God is in this Psalm is because they have sinned.

And when they've sinned, they've sinned against the only one that can give enduring life. Right. As the people of sin, they sinned against the only one that can give the enduring life. The only one that has enduring life

And so, In the Dire Straits, the psalmist asks that the Lord will teach us to number our days. Teach us how to number our days. Teach us how to recognize that we are fleeting that this, that all that shimmers in the world and glimmers in this world is going to fade.

Everything that shines. Fades away. Teach us to number our days. Teach us the truth about us. But ultimately the Solomon, these these verses in verse the last verses of the psalm verse 13 to 16 or 17. Remember the Solomons these these uh, these verses Call on God. And they call on God to show us Mercy to look upon us in this.

And they say, Turn. Turn to us just like God. Or man turns back. To dust. We're asking God, same word to turn to us, turn to us in the state that we're in this state, where we're temporal, where we're a dying people where we fade away, because of our sinfulness because of God's anger.

It says, we the psalmist is saying, but God turned to us, show us, Mercy, turn to us and save us turn to us. Behold us? Look at us. State that we find ourselves in.

And God does turn. And God does look at us. And when I, when we read the gospel reading today, I think, perhaps we're see, you know, Jesus prayed the Psalms As he walked the Earth. And he heard people in their temporality, in the, in their sinfulness in the, in the fact sitting, in the fact, with the fact that our days are 70 years and perhaps in strength 80 and yet that some of them is sorrow.

He prayed that prayer along with that, with all the people, right? But, but called out to God, turned to us. And here we see. Jesus turn to this man and look at him. We see Jesus turning to a man or turning toward a man who's in the same problem as everybody else.

Turning and looking at him. See we meet this man. Who finds himself in the same problem as all of us. He desires, eternal life. He said, what must they do to inherit eternal life? But because of his sin, He is fleeting. And not enduring and fading like everybody else.

We finished our song, asking God to turn toward us. In this Gospel reading, we see God answering that prayer. Yes. I'll turn toward you. And it says Jesus looked at him. And loved him. Jesus looked at him. And loved him. The advice that Jesus gives this man is motivated by love.

However, you understand this advice. What comes out of Jesus mouth next because it's a challenging passage to read, understand. This Mark is the, he's in such a hurry. He's, he write the most repeated word of Mark, besides, like the or and or whatever would be immediately. Immediately like everything's happening immediately in Mark.

It's like, we are in a hurry, we are running everywhere we go, except Jesus never runs. He always seems calm, but everything's happening around him. Immediately immediately this happened immediately that happened. We don't see immediately In this passage. But what we see is this internal motivation of Jesus. That we don't see anywhere else.

Like I can't think of other places in Mark where he slows down long enough to tell us what Jesus is thinking about. And he looks at him and he loves him. Motivated by love for this man. Who desires eternal life, but knows. That his life is fleeting like everybody else's.

Jesus looks at him and loves him. We're only told the man is Rich at the very end of this encounter. So, like, this is one of those places where those little subtitles in your Bible. Cause you to read the story differently than the story was shown to us. The story is shown to us.

We don't know anything about this man until the very last word. Very last phrase or Clause of this story. He had great possessions. That was the, that's the first time we're told anything. About this man. We're supposed to experience this as just a man who wants eternal life and and he knows his life is fleeting like everybody else.

And so we're supposed to read the story and wonder what is he lacking? Just like he is wondering, what am I lacking? We're supposed to ask the same question. And one thing that's shocking to me about this story is that Mark? Just says, For, he had great possessions. And that seems like enough explanation for why he walked away.

When Jesus said sell. All your things, give them to poor and come follow me. He walked away. And it just has 40 ad. Great possessions doesn't give us anything else. Just the fact that he had great possessions was enough explanation at least according to Mark.

He loved his possessions, the ones that were fleeting, he loved them. And he walked away from the only one who can give the eternal life he was seeking because he loved them. He loved his things. Money is. Actually in our possessions. It's so closely tied to our sense of well-being.

And provision. Isn't it? Like, we we we can recognize when we think about Money. Like I go to work, I receive money and like we pray to the Lord. Give us this day, our daily bread but the way that we experience that isn't God. Reigning Manna from Heaven Like he did for God's people.

It's usually by him providing money because we've worked, right? And and we pray. And so what the reason like it's really easy for that to become really Really closely aligned. With our sense of like I'm I'm provided for, I have enough. I'm not running out. Money's really closely tied.

We're tempted to love our things and our money more than we love God. And to see those things as the things that provide for us. Because it's it is really closely tied with how God provides for us. So, it's important that like Jesus looks at him and loves him in this situation.

This wasn't a good Ministry, funding strategy. You guys know that, right? Like Jesus wasn't trying to like raise some money for his ministry, he wasn't looking at the coffers. And being like, man, things are a little low. Um, I bet now I I you know, I got a whale on the line, I better try to get him for all his money.

Like that wasn't what was going on here. This wouldn't even be a good one. I I teach fundraising to people that are Church planting What I don't say is go to like one guy and ask him for all his money. Like ask him to sell everything and give you all his money.

That's not really a great strategy for like law enduring funds, right? So he's not doing fundraising right now. I prayed evening prayer with a group of you this week and we discuss tithing because we happen to fall into Malachi 3. We, we discussed giving To the to the church.

As a sign of our trust in the Lord. And tithing is not about. Funding Ministry. Churches and organ organizations. They, they might need your money, but I'll tell you who doesn't God doesn't need your money. God's not like, Oh no. What am I gonna do? If you if if you don't get like he tells us that in a different Psalm, right?

He tells us that the cattle on a thousand Hills are mine. If I were hungry, I wouldn't come to you. That's what he tells. That's what he tells his people. If I were hungry, I wouldn't come knock on your door. I own all the cattle.

The acna Works through this like 10 10, principle where People the members of the church give 10 percent of their income to the church, the churches. Give 10 percent of their income to the diocese, the diocese gives 10 of its income to the province. That's a Ministry funding strategy.

Okay, that's Ministry funding. That's getting Ministry funded, which is fine. There's nothing wrong with having Ministry, funding strategy, that's a Ministry funding strategy, kind of, based on the principle of tithing In your personal life that tithing isn't about Ministry funding. It's about Breaking Free of the love of money and recognizing the love that money is our provider, that's what it's about.

And I all I can tell you is from my own experience that when I, when I have been faithful to give money away, The love of money has decreased in my life and my stress about money has decreased. I'm not saying I gave the money and now I'm like wealthy because like, all this money showed up, that's definitely not the case.

If you add it up all the times, I found like a check at just the right time that I needed, which has happened. A lot of times in my life, but if you add it all up and like, put it on a balance sheet, next to the money, I'm giving away the church.

I promise you I've given more money away the church, it's not an investment strategy to like get rich. This. When I've been faithful to give to let go of money, God has used that To help me to think about money, less. And they'll love it less. What Jesus was doing with this man wasn't about raising money.

It was about freeing him. From what he loved more than eternal life at that moment. Was it because he loved him. He did this because he loved him.

So this man loved his stuff more than God. And when Jesus offers him the opportunity to sell everything and give it to the poor, It was an opportunity for him to turn away from that false love and turning toward the what the only life that endures eternal life following Jesus.

In verse 27, we have Jesus looking at people again, he looks at them but this time it's his disciples because they are watching this story unfold and they're wondering who can get in like this guy. Didn't seem like like he said, I've kept all these Commandments from my youth.

Who can get in if that guy can't is what they're wondering, right? And Jesus tells them, hey, It's not possible for anyone to get in. Only God can do that Miracle. No one could get in, but by like no one can sell their stuff and pay God off. No one can do enough righteous things to pay God off.

The only thing that can get someone in is that God might change their hearts and cause them to love. It's truly lovely, instead of the things that they're tempted to love. The stuff that Fades away. Right. So what we're all invited to do is to follow him. It's what Jesus said to the rich, man, because he loved him.

He said, sell all you have give it to the poor and come follow me. Were invited to follow Jesus. And if we're willing to give up our claim on fleeting things, We find a gracious God. Willing to give us. All that we truly need and all that we truly seek in this life.

The stuff that doesn't flee away or fade away and isn't fleeting. Right. I in my own life I Mark it especially every time I read this passage. And every time this passage comes up, Sometimes some of you guys know like um we we Ilina and the family moved here.

We only had four kids at the time. Now we have added a fifth but we had four kids at the time, Malachi was like a newborn. So we moved here in 2018 Um, And, About like, A week after we got here. Um like our house was like in boxes.

I got a phone call that director of the church I was at before was accepting a position somewhere else. It was a week after I got here, my house was in boxes. And so, I was like, Kind of weepy, like, my whole family was down there, like, my whole life was down there.

We, um, We built a church with a bunch of like young families down there, like, There was a lot going on down there, that was good for A family with four kids that from six to down to like a baby, right? And so with the boxes still in my house not unpacked yet.

I get that phone call and And the Lord just um and and so I was like, weeping a little grumpy. Um, about that. Um, and about that unexpected turn in my life, right? Because this was just The situation we were in then um some of you were in the room then but not almost all of you were not.

Um, And it was different and it was, uh, it was high risk. It was scary. It was small. It was, um, In a cold Hospital Chapel, it was a lot of things that were scary um for making that move with a big old family. And I was hanging out with the guys at a church planning retreat in a monastery.

Late into the night. So I had no idea why at 5 55 a.m. the Lord woke me up, right? He woke me up out of a dead sleep and I was like why am I awake right now? I had like four hours of sleep. Why am I awake right now?

And but I was awake and so I said, oh yes. The Lord wants me to go with the monks and they're gonna do their matins or whatever. The morning one is the most morning one is lods. I don't remember the one where they don't sing but they like go like when they do the Psalms but, uh, So like it was great, you know, I but the Lord I was there with the monks and this passage was the one they read, where Peter stands up?

And says, we gave up everything to follow you though. And Jesus says I tell you, That no one who gives it up for the sake of the Kingdom, won't receive it all back and mentions Holmes, and family, and like, I'm and I'm crying. But the deal is that. Like, I don't share this as an example of, like, my extraordinary faithfulness.

I don't, I don't think Peter's an example of extraordinary faithfulness here. Um, He's trying to say no but you see that we like we we got this ironed out right? Like we we did the thing like so you knew OS something right? You know that you owe us something Jesus, right?

Like I think like I don't read Peter here and be like wow he's just this extraordinary example of faithfulness but it is an example of what we walk through as people of God. When he asks us to like a call towards something is always a call away of some from something else, we can't do a bunch of things.

Well, so a called towards, something's always a call away from something else, and this was something that our our family experienced as like, A major shift in our life, right? And a scary one. And all I I share that and as example, like, hey, this was like, I was so faithful, but an example of how faithful God is to wake me up.

In the morning, on four hours of sleep, to say, go hear from me. That I'm with you. And then I look at you and I love you. And all I can say is, like, I found him, so faithful. God is good and God is faithful and like, following him is scary and money.

Looks like it provides for us and we turn toward all the we're like we're like people in a casino with all the and we're just turning from thing to thing that's blinking and shining and making noise and they all and it does it and it all Fades away. But I'll tell you, God is faithful.

And he's enduring and I found God to be faithful. I've found God to be worth giving up the things that fade away. Anyway, I that's all I can share with you is that I found him to be faithful. So, It's not like I haven't become a person. On this journey who never gets afraid or attached to money, or Houses or relationships anymore, trust me, I can get attached to anybody else but what I have found is that God is good and he is faithful and and when we're willing to lay these things down, God, proves himself.

Faithful time, and time, and time, and time again. He's good. He's worth it. And it's all that endures. Anyway, the the rich man's stuff was fleeting away. There's not like a monument to the rich man's stuff right now that endures. He held on to it all. It's all faded away.

Like everything else in the world. So he so I invite you today, like, Jesus invited this man because he loved him. Come. Follow Jesus. And he will give you all that truly endures. Amen. 

Unedited Transcript Follows:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. As we hear the kiddos leaving, it's I, we had, uh, we got together with a family after church last Sunday. Um, our children were like a train wreck uh and which sometimes happens and uh and so they were Be in a pain.

Um, really all of them but particularly the youngers, which is kind of normal. But um, Like, it's so easy to be in a spot where we say, hey, like the kids are in the way. Uh, like like if you've worked from home you've probably experienced the feeling of like, can you keep the kids quiet?

So I can get something done like Uh, like can can we just like keep them quiet for a minute so I can get something done and forgetting that, like, they are the something to be done, you know? They, they, they're, they are like, the thing to accomplish and, uh, the The crown of Our Lives, you know, in a lot of ways.

So like and the fruit of what God's doing through us which is a beautiful thing and I I it got me reflecting on the readings just reflecting on my life, as a dad, and having five kids and living life on hard mode. Is just recognizing. The, the beauty of children and their place in the Kingdom of Heaven.

So what we really see in these passages particularly in the psalm, it just jumped out of me but is that God has chosen to make himself the co-creator of babies. He he co-creates with babies is what he does and and that's what our Psalm tells us, the psalm is this powerful proclamation of co-creation with The Sovereign Lord, who rules the entire world?

That's what this Psalm was Psalm 8, right? It's a good one and and Yahweh is addressed as our governor, right? Because of the, we follow the tradition of not pronouncing. The Divine name, when we see it in Hebrew, in, when we in our translations, I just said, Yahweh. But in our translations, we don't pronounce the Divine names.

We're following that tradition. We have something like Our Lord. So what we're seeing is this like Both this objective element and this subjective element. So like oh Lord Sovereign King over all the universe. Our Lord, my Lord. Lord of my life. Lord of Our Lives. So we have both this objective.

God is Sovereign over all subjective. And then, how great is your name? Over all the world, right? The Lord, the one who's objectively Lord is our Lord. Our Lord. He shines gloriously reigning above the heavens. And he chooses to relay. With his creation. And ultimately, he pulls his creation into being co-creators along with him.

They're invited to be co-creators along with him. Verses 5 through 6 say what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you visit him yet. You made him lower little lower than the Angels to Crown him with glory and honor. You have made him have dominion over the works of your hands and you've put all things in subjection under his feet.

Now, these words are about Jesus. Right? We should learn to read the Psalms crystallogically. That's how the church has always read them. So the songs are songs about Jesus, Jesus taught us that we don't understand the law of the prophets or the writings the Psalms. If we don't understand them to be a book about him, they're a book that testifies to him.

So this is uh, this is definitely about Jesus The son of man. Who has made little lower than the angels, in order to be crowned with glory and honor and have all things put in subjection under his feet. Obviously, that's about Jesus. But they're also about all of humanity.

They're also about all of humanity. And the words in verse 2 are also about all of Humanity, too, and all of Humanity's role, Being co-creators with God and they jumped out of me. In bold in italics out of the mouth of babes and infants. You have ordained strength because of your enemies.

So again, obviously we think of Jesus The one who came as a babe and an infant and because and dispelled the enemies of chaos and darkness and death and Satan, right? So obviously this is about Jesus. But what does it mean? That God ordained strength to come from the mouth of babies because of his enemies nearly a thousand years before.

Jesus, these were the first people to read this Psalm, what's it mean that God had babies, he put strength in their mouths because of his enemies. God's not only co-creating. With Humanity. He's a co-creator with little babies. With the weakest among them. And he's ordained strength and honor. To come out of the mouths of babies and he's ordained to.

To be the type of God to push forth Darkness With babies. Listen, every single baby is a sure sign that God isn't finished with Humanity yet. That he's not done. You want a sign that God is for us and that he's not just wrapping up the project and saying, never mind.

Look at the swollen bellies of expectant mothers. Look at the crying babies. In the hospital Wards God hasn't left us yet. He can't he couldn't have because he's still bringing forth children, he's still ordaining strength in the mouth of babes. Because of his enemies. And God told human beings to fill the Earth and subdue it, right?

That's what he said. To the man and the woman. Fill the Earth and subdue it and God set things up. So that there's a relationship between the extension of human beings people and the extension of his creative work to push back chaos and darkness and to bring forth order and light.

And it's the way he chose to do it, and it's wonderful. He chose to expel darkness and chaos. By image, bearers bearing children. It looks so. Impossibly ineffective. And pushing forth the powers of darkness and evil, right? I mean like these big ominous powers and yet, God saw fit to make this.

The very way that he pushes back. The darkness is through babies and infants and extends his kingdom over the face of the Earth. Because of his enemies through the mouths of babies and infants. And he ordains to bring this strength about And to birth it out of holy matrimony.

That's what the rest of our passages are about, right? Now the rest of our passages talk a lot about holy matrimony. One flesh. Union between a man and a woman, right? And we, we see. Several things from these passages. But the first thing we see is that marriages enduring It's meant to be this enduring institution.

When Jesus is approached in Our Gospel passage today, he asks them What Moses said to them about divorce, right? Their response is really telling because they quote Deuteronomy, 24, Deuteronomy, 24 is a law to protect women, from frivolous divorces at the hands of men. So what it says is like they they only hold on to one part of it and it's actually the premise of the argument.

So the premise of the argument is You can't do this, right? And so they they jump on the, if you do this part of it, where it says, give someone a certificate of divorce, they say see, ah, Moses permitted that we could give a woman a certificate of voice.

What the law actually was is, if you give a woman, a certificate of a bors, you don't get any takebacks if she ends up going and marrying someone else and he decides, he's just gonna pass her along. You don't get her back. You like, if you give her a certificate of divorce, no take backs.

And what that was meant to do is to make the men who had the only means of provision and strength in their culture to take seriously, if they're going to offer a certificate of divorce and not do it because you didn't like dinner one night, right? So, so, it was looking at the men and saying, hey, take this seriously, if you're going to divorce a woman, don't think you can just have her back on a win.

Is he said you could give her a certificate. Of course, and send her away. It's good telling, right? Maybe missed the point. Maybe they missed the point. Yeah. And so, what Jesus does is he raises the stakes? On marriage. And he does it by dealing with the real issue that God is dealing with in the law, which is Hardness of heart.

He says God gave you this law or Moses gave you this because of your hardness of heart. Holy matrimony is a serious call, that ought to be discerned. Well, It's like it's much like a call to the priesthood or the diaconate like we should be thinking about it as a vocational calling marriage is a vocational calling and it's not just one that we should assume that everyone is called to like in our culture we just assume everyone's called to get married.

Like when your kids being antisocial, You're tempted to say, oh, how will they ever find someone? Not even to ask the question? Are they meant to find someone? Maybe they're meant to be celibate which would be wonderful and a wonderful calling, right? But it because it's a vocational calling to be called into holy matrimony, to be called into a one flesh Union.

This is a vocational calling So marriage shouldn't be assumed. And In this passage here, we should recognize remarriage shouldn't be assumed after divorce. You know, the acna doesn't even permit remarriage after divorce without special permission from the bishop. A priest can't just decide to marry two people who have been married before.

He has to get special permission from the bishop to do that, right? And the point of all, this isn't to discourage people who have been divorced or even those who have been divorced and remarried, it's not the point. The point is to discern on the front end of marriage.

So it's not about looking back in the rearview mirror of your life and Condemning yourself like for something that you can't change today, right? This is about Discerning, on the front side of marriage. It is a unique vocational calling that's enduring And lifelong. And we discern that on the front end of marriage, right?

That this is a lifelong vocational call. One thing really cool about this passage is that they When they're talking about marriage and divorce, they immediately bring a child to Jesus. Connecting, you know, marriage and children, right? Which shouldn't be a surprising connection, our culture, it's becoming a more and more surprising connection of marriage and children being and I think it's telling Because God ordains like we talked about strength from the mouth of babies.

Because of his enemies. Marriage is about creating a stable environment for babies to be born, grow and Thrive. Who is impacted by temporal marriage with quick, frivolous divorces more than children. Who's impacted more than children with, from that being the flavor of the culture? That we have frivolous divorcing and people divorcing.

Talk to anyone with a blended family and talk to them about it, go deeper than asking them. Hey are you allowed to get remarried after divorce? Ask This question, ask them about the difficulties of co-parenting through children through divorce and how hard it is. It's challenging. It brings a lot of challenges and difficulty.

Marriage is meant to be enduring. Because marriage is meant to produce. Stability. For Generations, right? Because out of the mouths of babies, God ordained strength because of his enemies. And so he's created an institution that's enduring that's meant to last so that it can be stable for for who for the babies that he's ordained strength uh, to go forth.

And because of his enemies like this is why marriage is enduring. This is why divorce shouldn't be frivolous. This is why Serious. And it should be looked at, as a vocational call, that is lifelong. But related to that marriage being enduring for the sake of the babies marriage is also meant to be fruitful this whole passage in Mark, the last two chapters in Mark has been surrounded with children.

There's children everywhere. People are bringing children to Jesus. Jesus is holding up a child. They become like, one of these to inherit the kingdom. There's children all over the place in these two chapters. Right? And right In this passage, we read, let the little children come to me. Is what Jesus says, let the little children come to me.

Now, I'm a weirdo. I have five kids and we like homeschool them. We're weird. Now, it isn't that weird in Utah. You know. That's a, that's not. I'm a lot less weird in Utah than I was in California. I assure you. But I was weird in California. I, I was a weirdo with five kids.

Now you should see the looks when we get like when we say, hey, we're gonna We're gonna stop, we're gonna have a cheap room in, uh, in Circus, Circus in Vegas. And so that we can not drive through the through the night with five kids, right? Uh, and we're parading our five kids through the Vegas casino and they have their blankies.

And like look at us weird. And maybe that's weird because it's a casino. But it's also weird because we have five kids and really anywhere except Utah, right? Or even in the grocery store. The looks that you, you get anywhere in Southern California, like when we added a third kit people looked at us like we were out of our minds.

Like three. What are you like, like are you crazy? Do you know where that comes? How they come? You know. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? You know, how that happens. You know what I like to do? When someone does that? Is I say, no. Can you tell me? And then they walk away.

Yeah, I know. Can you explain it? As Saint Augustine right? Saint Augustine. Said this, he said these this is a challenging quote to listen to well. He said, it would hardly be the case that he talks about this helper, that's made fit for him for made for the man, right?

And he says, it would hardly be the case that she would be made to till the Earth with him. For there was not yet any labor required, to make her help necessary. In any case, if there were any such need a male Harper, would be better. And the same could be said of the comfort of another's presence.

If Adam were perhaps weary of solitude how much more agreeably could two male friends rather than a man and a woman, enjoy companionship and conversation through a shared life together. Surely no one will say that God was able to make from the rib of the, man, only a woman and not also a man if he had wished to do so consequently, I do not see.

In what sense, the woman was made a helper for the man, if not for the sake of bearing children. Oh now I just made you guys all mad right now. Here's the now, but listen. I don't need a redeem Saint Augustine for, you see, one of the beautiful things about reading the church fathers.

Is that we don't see them as like, prophets that spoke the word of God. So like giving us unquestionable word of God. So if you think he's wrong, you can just say he was wrong about that last bit about what's the best way that they could be a helper except by bearing children.

You could just say oh, he was crazy about that, but I'll tell you this. I must admit that I find that the way he's saying that the way he just said that was maybe crude and Grading to Modern ears. But just With that being said, just a cursory, look at the body.

And at the differences between male and female, Should lead us to say that one of the main ways and likely the main way that the man and the woman correspond to one another in creation is in the procreation of children Like that if we just look at our bodies, the way that we're different, the way that we correspond each other is For pro-creation of children.

So that should come out to us in that, you know, in the chapter Right before. This is spelled in right before the one we're reading in Genesis. This is spelled out even more explicitly. When right after God makes a man and a woman, he tells them be fruitful multiply and fill the Earth.

Right. Make babies. Make babies together. Augustine and our fathers other Church, fathers had things to say about the one flesh Union and I'd be willing to Grant that. They May have been a little bit too preoccupied with Union between man and woman in a negative way. They were a little unsure about the bodies and all that.

And a little distrustful. That being said in our age, the preoccupation was sex is every bit as strong and the error is that we almost always view it positively. So ICS Lewis told us every age has its own Outlook. It's especially good at seeing certain truth and especially liable to certain mistakes.

We all therefore need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period and that means the old butts. So they might have made that they might have had their problems in. Saint Augustine might have said it wrong, but we have our problems and reading the old books.

Helps us see where we have our own blind spots. Right? That's what C.S Lewis told us. So, read the old books, read Augustine. Even if you think he's wrong, see somewhere down the line. Two. Major shifts happen. First, we saw the union of man, and the woman is primarily about personal fulfillment.

Fulfillment of appetite. And divorced it from procreation. And secondly, we saw babies and human beings as liabilities rather than assets on the on the balance sheet. And that's what happened over the course of the last 50 years or so. These ideological changes have a wide range of impact. It runs the gamut from abortion and sterilization to restrictive immigration policy.

If people are viewed, as co-creators of God with God, we welcome both the baby and the Sojourner with open arms. If they're viewed as another mouth to feed. Then we want them away whether they're the babies or the sojourners, right? Satan and the Demonic forces hate babies because God has ordained strength to come from babies and infants.

Sterilization, either through hormones or surgery or from inspiring sterile unions between people of the same sex or any other form of sterilization that makes Union all about meeting and fulfilling our desires. That's a Playbook of the Demonic. When you see moves towards sterilization, you should oppose them with every ounce of your being, Because God ordains strength to come from the mouths of babies.

Reading old books would help us out here. So I'm not going to give any hard and fast rules. But realize that the intent of the one flesh Union between, man and woman is to produce the fruit of children. And that questions about individual Family Planning or family sizing or actually discipleship questions.

And one that should not be viewed as completely privatized in a matter of individual conscience, which we just said, hey you do you on that? The church doesn't have anything to say about it. And that's cuz marriage is a picture of Christ in his church, right? We know this.

Scripture lays out this connection between God's Union and with his people. As as a husband's Union and his wife, all over the place, all through the prophets, right? And what we see in this Pat in these passages is that imprecisely what we've been talking about that? Marriage is a perfect picture of Christ.

And his church, our Union with God is enduring, nothing can separate us from God's love it lasts, it's stable. Our Union with God's, also fruitful bringing forth disciples who will fill the Earth and subdue it and extend God's Reign and rule over the face of the Earth. Our Union with God, works out God's plan to ordain strength from the mouths of babies because of his enemies.

So God is pushing back, darkness and Chaos. He's bringing light in order to the world and he chooses to do this and maybe one of the most surprising ways imaginable through the mouths of babies, he's ordained strength because of his enemies. When he sends his Christ, he sends his eternal son to take flesh as a helpless baby.

And when he does that, he points us toward the purpose for all babies to be part of making the world new. Every single baby is a sign that God hasn't given up on us yet. Because it's God's plan to work together with babies, he set up, stable fruitful unions to bring forth these babies Marriage is something that is supposed to endure for life and is something that God's intends to bring forth the fruit of more co-creators.

For him to co-create along with more babies. May we participate with our Lord Jesus in pushing back the enemies of chaos and darkness participating with our God who was willing to make himself a co-creator with babies. Amen. 

Unedited Transcript Follows:

Name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Amen. Well, this week shohei Otani. Became the first player in history. To steal over 50 bases and hit over 50 home. Runs in the same season. So, he did it with kind of a A a ridiculous stat line completely unprecedented.

So he went six for six. He had two stolen bases, two doubles, three home runs and ten RBIs. No one in the history of baseball has even. Come close to a game like that. Now, I mean he was playing the Florida Marlins and they're kind of like a minor league baseball team.

But it was definitely the greatest individual game in the history of Major League Baseball. Um, and in sports. There's a lot of talk about greatness, right? Athletes work around the clock, to become the best. They can possibly be at their sport. Show. A seems like he might be on track to be the greatest baseball player to ever play the game, right?

But what I was considering this week is that. This kind of pursuit of greatness is actually a good thing. It isn't bad to pursue. Greatness. It's what every coach is coaching their teams to do. It's what every teacher is exhorting, her students towards It's what every homeschool mom is challenging her family toward That being said, Greatness looks completely different in the Kingdom of God than in a sporting event.

Or in a chess tournament. And it's because Christians pursue greatness in the shadow of the Cross. In this passage, we see the Disciples of Jesus pursuing greatness by the world standards in the shadow of the Cross. And it looks rather foolish, doesn't it? As Jesus gives a prediction of his death, the disciples discuss, who is the greatest?

That's pretty funny actually like, uh, when you when you see that contrast happening, One thing that's interesting though is that Jesus doesn't condemn the pursuit of greatness instead. He teaches his disciples in the Kingdom what the pursuit of greatness looks like So he acknowledges the pursuit, he doesn't condemn the pursuit of greatness, right?

He acknowledges. It's a normal desire. And in fact in verse 35, he says, if any of you desires to be first, Before he goes on, right? This isn't, this isn't the only time that Jesus acknowledges the pursuit of greatness. He speaks just a couple chapters later. I'm sure we'll read it in our lectionary.

But of lording, it over the Gentiles lording it over when they pursue greatness rather than the way that the disciples are to pursue greatness, right? Why is that? Because The reason Jesus is like this is because human beings are great. You know that human beings are great. You and I were made in the image of God.

We were made to look like God. The creation mandate is to fill the Earth and to subdue it. This is how. The glory and beauty of God is extended over the face of the world in the program and this is how God designed it. Is that as human beings?

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it. They're extending God's glory and his Beauty over the face of the world. And the reason why we look at human beings and we see such creativity and such beauty and such intelligence and such strength. Is because God made them.

And he put his image in them and he caused them to shine with all the radiance that comes from being made in God's image. And it's plenty. Human beings are great. Now, this was Mart of the fall when we rebelled against God, but it wasn't lost. Human beings are still great.

So the problem isn't the pursuit of greatness pursuing greatness. Is good pursuing greatness is what we were made to do. We were made great and made to be great. Okay, that's well in good. Father James but if you're not a complete moron, You can tell that the disciples aren't commended for what they're doing in this passage, right?

It's not like like we all read it and it's not like they're like, it's not like Jesus is like hey good job with that arguing about who's the greatest when I'm talking about how I'm going to die, right? The passage has them arguing just as Jesus. The one who is the greatest has told them that he will be delivered over and killed in a horrific way, right?

The text tells us the disciples were silent. Because they knew how stupid their discussion was. So much that they didn't even want to answer him, right? So if the problem isn't the pursuit of greatness is what, which is what I'm telling you, it's not that they wanted to be great.

What is it? Because I think we all know we're certainly not supposed to look at this text and say I want to be just like the disciples are being right now, right? So the problem is that they didn't recognize the way toward greatness in God's kingdom. The way toward greatness in God's kingdom is.

It's actually getting lower. Because being great in the shadow of the Cross means, Getting lower. The way to our greatness in the world is completely opposite of that. The way toward greatness in the world is get higher be better. The fact, the only way that we Define greatness is in comparison with other people, right?

When you look at the Olympic podiums, One, two three. Right? The whole point is to be higher to be the highest one. And even number three, on, that bronze medal is higher than everyone else, right? It's this is how we Define greatness in the world get higher be be better than other people, right?

Have you ever thought about why someone can't say they enjoy the Harry Potter series without immediately? Being asked if they think it's better than the Lord of the Rings? It's not by the way, definitely. Uh, but but you realize, like you can't just enjoy something in itself. There's always a comparison element, right?

You say someone's the greatest baseball player of all time immediately, you think they're better than this person, right? This is how this is, how we do greatness. This is how we Define. Greatness greatness is defined in relationship to others. And in a comparison game, that's how we do it.

That's why the disciples weren't just discussing, the idea of greatness, they were wondering what who's the greatest. Because this is how the world defines greatness. Greatness is defined by being better than someone else and there's only one greatest of all time. That's why it's called greatest, right? And so like that, you can't have two

In this world. That's how we measure greatness. And Saint James tells us what this type of pursuit of this type of greatness results in. And he says, what causes quarrels And what causes fights among you, we write a day. Is it? Not this that your passions are at war within you?

You desire and do not have so you murder. You Covenant. Cannot obtain. So you fight and quarrel And this here's the deal, when it comes to Greatness, this is where Christianity asks us to think entirely different than the world system about what greatness looks like.

Why does Christianity ask us to think entirely differently? And instead of making a comparison game It's it's it's about something else. It's because like James tells us our passions are at war within us. None of us are great on our own. This is what this is, what makes Christianity different from every system in the world.

They're saying, hey, none of you can be great. None of you can achieve Christianity tells us to recognize that our achievement isn't intrinsic to us. None of us can distinguish ourselves in a single way that matters, why? Because James tells us your passions are at war within you. You're a victim of the fall.

You've received the same disease. Everyone else has. You will rebel against God. You will turn away from him. You're not distinguished, you're not special, no one is All of us. Are in the shadow. Of the Cross. Greatness in the Kingdom. Doesn't look like our own self-actualization at all.

The words of Rihanna's 2012. Hit, tell us tell listen tells listeners to shine bright like a diamond right? Shine bright like a diamond over and over. Uh yeah, over and over goodness but uh but she tells us to shine bright like a diamond. But here's the deal, the shadow of the Cross in Christian in the Christian faith.

It's so powerful that even a diamond has nothing left to shine brightly. The shadow that cross looms and it's dark. The shadow of the Cross puts us in our place. It helps us to recognize that despite being made for greatness our sin makes shining bright impossible. And it makes it necessary for the only one with intrinsic greatness.

The only one that is truly great to die in our place. And they gave us his greatness. So our, so our like pursuit of greatness is fine, but the pursuit of greatness isn't by comparison without like, I'm a little bit better than the other people that are in the shadow of the Cross pursuing greatness is about.

Identifying with Jesus. That's what it looks like to be great in the shadow of the Cross. It looks like throwing in our lot and identifying, with Jesus, he describes, Jesus tells us how to be great in this shadow of the Holy Cross, right? He describes greatness. As being first, but he tells us to be first.

We have to be last And then he tells us we must be servants. He does something pretty cool after that, right? He brings a child in In our culture that, uh, that might not have the same effect that it would have in his when a, when like a baby comes in the room, they're kind of the star in our culture.

It's just how we kind of built it. So like, if I brought a baby up here, right now, all you guys would be like, oh, baby, you know, you'd be like like looking at the baby making funny faces the baby trying to get the baby to laugh, but you'd be doing all that we do with babies.

That wasn't necessarily the case in their culture, they were like excited about a baby or a child. The child was more representation of something weak vulnerable, which is still true. I mean babies are obviously weak and vulnerable and dependent right? But that was more what this was a relationship about and so when him bringing a child wasn't like hey let's bring a cute little baby.

It was more like let's bring an example of someone that's weak and vulnerable and needy. Looks like to be great in the Kingdom. Weak. Vulnerable needy. So don't think like cute. Yeah. Happy innocent. He's saying no weak, vulnerable needy, that's what it looks like. Making yourself, lower and making yourself, weak, and vulnerable and needy.

Or recognizing your weakness, your vulnerability, and your neediness is probably a better way to say it, you know, make yourself that you just are that, and it's about recognizing that and that's what greatness looks like in the Kingdom.

So he tells us to be great, we have to become less. This doesn't mean false humility. It doesn't mean to be pretending to be bad at things. We're good at, right? But it's about a proper recognition of where we are. We stand in the shadow of the Cross. Our sin is taken away, any hope of us being standouts, can you imagine something over there?

Like, can you imagine a burning building? Someone's a firefighter rushing into a burning building to save someone right to save someone who's trapped in the burning building. And can you imagine that as they're being saved from the burning building? They're like, am I the best rescue you've ever had?

Like, I'm super good at this getting rescued bit, right? Like I am. I am the best at getting rescued. I'm way better at getting rescued than anyone else. You've ever rescued, right? Can you realize that like that would be so stupid, right? And this is what this is, what arguing about who's the best in the shadow of the Cross.

Looks like, like, in the shadow of the cross, we recognize all of us are the ones who need someone to come in the burning building and rescue us. We all realize that without God like coming and saving us and dying in our place, putting his life in our place.

None of us can take a single step toward God. All of us are desperately needy and in need of rescue and so it takes away any hope of us being like look, but I'm a little like less needy than that person, right? All of us just need God to come save us.

Look without him. And so it means when we pursue greatness, we don't pursue it by trying to distinguish ourselves from other people. But by identification with the man who's hanging on the cross that we stand in the shadow of

Jesus tells us do you want to be great? Good. I made you to be great. But there's one way. Toward greatness in the shadow of the Cross. Identify with me. Throw in your lot with me and make your life. About pointing toward me. Rather than you. See, it's a pretty funny passage.

We read today, we had we seen Jesus, Describe his coming death for the sins of the world as the disciples argue amongst themselves about who is the greatest, right? The pursuit of greatness isn't the problem here though. God created something great when he made human beings and it's perfectly natural for us to desire to achieve greatness.

The world's way of understanding greatness though, is all about being distinguished from others. There's no understanding greatness a part of being better than someone else and comparing ourselves with them, right? But Jesus tells us that in the shadow of the Cross that route toward greatness will never work. True, greatness is unattainable for all people who have fallen into sin, whose passions are at work within them and you need a redeemer to save them.

People who need saving like, all of us do are not in a position to Define greatness in relation to other desperate people who are in need of saving. Instead greatness in the Kingdom comes by getting real, it comes by being aware of the desperate. Need that all of us are in because of our sin, it comes from standing in the shadow of the Cross.

Recognizing that in the cross's Shadow, no one stands out or shines bright. As we get real. We necessarily get lower and we're willing to take the role of servant or last because there's no other role to take. More importantly, when we get real, we identify with the man who is hanging on that cross and the, the same cross that overshadows all of us.

This man, although he had all riches became poor, although he was the author of life, he took on death, and although he had all righteousness, he became sin in our place. May we strive to identify with him. So that we might achieve. The only true greatness that exists in the shadow of the Cross.

Amen.

Unedited Transcript Follows:

The name of God, the Father, the Son. The Holy spirit. Amen. Amen. So, as I reflected on, today's story in Mark, I was actually brought to a moment from when I was much younger. Uh, the year I think it was 1990 and it was in the rural Countryside of France.

And I was there on a mission trip with my parents. And I remember during a worship service. Something interrupted everything and a woman started screaming. There was definitely not a normal scream. It was very deep. Guttural, masculine voice. Very loud and very, very Unforgettable. Um, and I remember feeling very scared, hearing it.

Uh I think I was 12 at the time so you could probably do the math to figure out how old I am but do that later. Um, But it was an unforgivable scream and it was was really clear to me, was that was a very evil scream and it shook me to my bone.

And the worship leader told the spirit to be silent in the name of Jesus in French. Of course. Um, But the the whatever it was understood Fringe because the evil sound stopped, It was my first memory of encountering an evil. And still leaves me unsettled today. Now. In that episode, I was encouraged that the power of Jesus was stronger than that Spirit.

But also showed me that there really were deep spiritual threats, uh, that could harm us. But I'd say that today's passage still feels awkward for many of us, because those kind of really outward, demon manifestations seem far. Less evident to us in today's time and place. Now, there's multiple reasons for this.

One reason might be Were perhaps too quick sometimes to medicalize things that might be manifestations. We could be suppressing, real spiritual torment, that is happening right now. Amongst us. But I think there could be other reasons too. I had an interesting chat with a youth. Pastor up near Layton who uh, did a mission strips in South Africa, said in South Africa.

It's very different. You see a lot more demonic manifestations. They're very clear, but he said, it's He believes it's because people there actively cooperate with those Spirits. So those Spirits are incentivized to operate out in the open. And his argument was a reason you might not see him act in the same way here is because we still have a lingering Christian Heritage and if we saw stuff like that it actually could probably drive a lot of people back to church which is definitely not an outcome.

Those Spirits are seeking so um but whatever. The reason his experience in South Africa, my experience in France. And today's passage shows that evil forces really do exist that can harm people. How might we as Christians deal with them? What about anything else? We need God's help. What do we do when we don't get Deliverance?

We want when we pray, What do we do when we have doubts? When that happens. Hopefully, today's passage and Mark will help a little bit with this. And as we'll see, it shows that when facing trials, that shake your faith, bring your doubts, to God, let them transform you to be more like Christ.

So, the passage starts off by describing Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John, it doesn't name him, but we know from the previous passage where they're at. Showing up and rejoining the rest of his disciples where they had just been, was experiencing the Transfiguration. If you just turn the page to the left in your Bible, that's where they were.

They had basically those three disciples that just experienced the full power and Glory of Jesus. It is a little ironic that as they're coming down, from this literal Mountaintop experience, they're seeing their fellow disciples Uh, see me looking kind of Clueless powerless and frustrated. Uh, when they had just seen all the stuff that with with Jesus on the Transfiguration, Um, and they're arguing with scribes.

So an obvious question is, what are they arguing about? Which Jesus asked them? And then a man comes up and says, I brought my son to you to be healed of a spirit that makes him mute now, what's interesting? He says, I brought my son to you when I just explained Jesus was not there, he was at the Transfiguration with those three disciples.

So why did he say you? I think he assumed rightly that Jesus had conferred his power and authority to Jesus, Um, and I say you assumed rightly because this happens in chapter six, Jesus commissions, the disciples to proclaim the coming of kingdom of God to the region. And it's explicitly includes giving the authority over unclean, spirits, and Mark tells us, that his disciples did go on to cast demons and heal the sick.

So basically, Jesus had told his disciples to act as his hand and feet and they had repeatedly done so by this point And that explains why the man brought his disciple. His sick, man, too. Though, makes sense. It also makes sense why it was pretty frustrating for all involved.

That despite the disciples trying to drive him out, they were unsuccessful. And this is undoubtedly, the reason why the scribes are arguing with the disciples A good chance they're arguing about well, maybe you weren't using the right techniques or More importantly, they were probably challenging the source of their authority to drive out those evil spirits.

So that's the context that Jesus arrives there. And his response wasn't just to the whole man, but the whole crowd and he says o faithless generation. How long am I to be with you? What this shows is that Jesus recognized that the people's lost confidence in their disciples ability to heal had transferred also to him.

They lost their, their fate in Jesus ability to heal. And we know from, uh, Jesus. Visit to his hometown. There's a correlation between lack of faith and lack of Jesus. Being able to perform Miracles. But regardless of this, he apparently still sees some evidence of Faith because he asked the father, bring the boy to me.

And when the boys brought to Jesus, it goes berserk, because it clearly recognizes Jesus, unique Authority as Son of God, and is rightfully threatened by that. Jesus. Then asked the man how long this has been happening. And the father said it was like this from childhood. And I just want to pause here for a second because when I read that, I got a little uncomfortable, I'll be honest.

As Christians, we all affirm, all humans are sinful including children. But demon possession for a kid, seems like That seems like a big stretch. I I mean, we know Well we know all people sin, we do view children often as more innocent than adults. I mean think about we even have laws that protect kids from not being legally.

Accountable for their actions. Like we do adults. So like the temper tantrum, your kid throws at the grocery store. Um you it's just immaturity, it'll work itself out when it gets older sure, it's a reflection of his sinful nature, but it's not really a serious just immaturity and there is an element of Truth here.

Children are less mature in their faculties than adults, and that makes it just harder for them to see outside themselves and their immediate desire. Like when they want that candy bar at the store, And but I would say often the reason those kids stop throwing temper tantrums is not because they naturally just stop doing it.

It's because they have parents. They help build character through discipline and instruction. If that didn't happen, it's much harder for kids to grow out of sinful behavior. And that definitely leads to much bigger problems as adults. You're probably hearing that saying. Okay, fair enough. But it's still still demon possession.

Still a big, uh, hurdle for me to walk over. How do we make sense of that? I so first we're not told how the evil spirit entered. The boy, Jesus just asked and he said it was, he's been like this since he was a kid. Um, so I don't want to spec, I want to be very cautious with speculating too much.

But we do know that evil spirits, don't enter people accidentally, they do have to be invited in. So in that sense we do have to find that a bit unsettling. It says that none of us including children are just automatically immune from this kind of thing happening. It 10 and does happen.

But as Christians, I also need to stress. It's not something we need to live in fear of Things like baptism regular communion confessing sins fellowship with other believers prayer. These are all robust Safeguard that God protects us from things like that. But it does mean we need to be viligent when we interact with the outside.

There are evil happenings out there. That don't discriminate based on age, gender, ethnicity, ethnicity. They're really big on diversity and inclusion. They don't discriminate. Uh and that's a, that's a problem that's in a bad way. So the father then pleads with Jesus to rescue his boy saying if you can do anything.

Have compassion and help him. By saying if you can, it's it still shows. He has some doubts that Jesus can save his boy. Now it's interesting. Please respond by flipping that right back at him. If you can, all things are possible for the one who believes Again, Jesus stressing that lack of faith was keeping the boy from being healed.

God's powers made real for the one who trusts in him. And being uniquely fully human and fully. God, Jesus is the only human capable of having complete trust in God, on one hand and being aligned with his will. And that's why the results of our prayer. Like those disciples don't always match the results.

We desire. In this case, it's cure. The boys will did align with the boy's father. God always desires, evil spirit us to be freed of evil spirits. But in this case it was it was a father's faith. That was lacking and then we get to the man's just incredible response.

I believe. Help my unbelief. It's just a really powerful and encouraging statement. He's basically admitting here, he both believes, Jesus can heal his boy but also still has doubts. He's making an expression of a faith. For a faith. He doesn't fully have What's key, though, is, instead of allowing his doubts to paralyze him, he just moves closer to Jesus.

He acknowledges the limits of his own power and asks, Jesus, to do the rest, What's cool is instead of Jesus saying, you need to just try harder in your faith. Jesus cures his son. It shows that the man's Faith had been strengthened. When facing trials, that shake your faith, bring your doubts to God, let him transform you to be more like Christ.

Jesus response here. She just is just a huge encouragement for all of us. For many Christians throughout history, especially in our very skeptical times doubt is often a frequent companion of Even some of you may have never experienced serious doubt. But it still may come even when you least expect it.

But what it does instead of being guilt or fear when it happens, this passage shows that doubt is just part of our normal walk with Christ. And regarding this verse John Calvin said, there's none of us that does not experience both faith and doubt in himself even Calvin doubted and guess what?

He was absolutely not alone in the fathers of the church. Some of their best writings came out of their doubts which continue to enrich us today. Now Mark, finishes by focusing on the disciples who go to Jesus afterwards and ask him why they couldn't cast the spirit out. That's a very valid question especially since chapter six makes it clear.

The disciples had a track record of doing that previously. So it's a fair question. Why didn't it work this time? Now, we're told when we're told earlier that the disciples drove out, demons, Mark doesn't say how they did it. Maybe they just been commanding the spirits to come out just like Jesus did.

But somehow, whatever they were doing, didn't work here. What's important to know is? Jesus doesn't chastise them for lack of faith here. It just indicates that this particular kind of spirit may have required a more intense form of prayer than what they've been doing. Now being God, Jesus is able to directly exercise his authority over the spirit.

He just commands it to come out. But for the disciples, and for us for that matter, this episode shows that certain challenges might require more Focused prayer than others. Might involve inviting others to pray with us for a situation. It might require us spank some intentional time in a room praying.

Our clergy, for example, entered a period of intense prayer for a premature deathly ill, baby in Idaho and praise God. God, brought miraculous healing. So there's definitely power in intentional praying and sharing prayer requests. What's another application of this passage? Well one, I I think it definitely forces us to wrestle with the reality.

We are all prone to doubting. It could come like in this passage when God doesn't respond to prayer in the way that we want. Like when he feels to heal some, someone needing help. But also could come, when we encounter scripture, we don't understand or don't I have trouble accepting.

We hear a compelling arguments from Skeptics that we just don't know how to respond to We can't wrap our minds around why God seemingly allows certain evil people to flourish. Well, righteous people are struggling to pay their bills, all of these types of things can trigger doubt, and when it happens to you, it's important to remember, that doubt is an invitation to move closer to God.

That's what happened to the man in the story, by admitting his doubts to God and praying for help God, strengthen his faith as evidenced by the subsequent healing. When facing trials, that shake your faith, bring your doubts to God, let him transform you to be more like Christ. So, When we enter a season of Doubt, what can we do?

Well, let's let's take a look at unanswered. Prayer. First, we may pray with genuine faith, that God will do something, and sometimes it doesn't happen. A, a an example of this, a good example of this is, is serious illnesses. Doubt here is totally understandable because that kind of suffering that we've all seen, is simply heartbreaking.

There's just no getting around it. But if you're in a situation like that something important to reflect on is that the point of Jesus Earthly Ministry was never to heal every single Universal ailment of every human on the planet that they would. So that they would never suffer or die in the present age.

First off, Jesus didn't heal everyone and even those he did heal that had Faith. They all eventually died even Lazarus. He rose from the grave. Would eventually die? When uh, that's because his healings were not the end in and of themselves, they served as a sign. That's why John's gospel calls them signs.

They were pointing to the Future resurrected life. He desired for all Humanity. When sickness and death will finally and fully be abolished the life. He gives in those healings They're temporary, but they point to that Eternal future. And invites us to participate in that future right now. So we certainly should pray for healing and Rejoice when God does heal.

But never forget that the primary purpose for us being on this Earth is to be shaped to be more and more like Christ to have our lives modeled more and more into one's prepared, for eternal life, not to never experience suffering. So when God doesn't respond respond to our prayers, in the way we prefer, it could be as in the story today.

A case of lack of faith but there could be another reason beyond our understanding. But however, God responds to our prayer. We could be confident. It's aligned with his will that we are moved to become more and more like Christ. So as we wrestle with disappointment prayer requests, we need to keep this will of God Central in our minds.

We should pray that God show us. How in light of tragic situations, he wants us to move closer to him. When facing trials, that shake your faith, bring your doubts, to God, let them transform you to be more like Christ. Now, some of you might be experiencing intellectual or spiritual doubts, And I first want to point out there are some really really good first-rate apologetic resources in print and especially online right now that are a huge value.

It's it's actually pretty incredible. Trust me. Whatever you're struggling with other Christians throughout history have wrestled with them as well. Let God speak to you through how he helped them wrestle those issues. But also, please talk about with other believers. Certainly Father James or I pray with us. Some of, you know, I went through some very serious intellectual doubts just over a decade ago and I really, really lament.

The fact, I bottled up a lot of my thoughts and issues inside. I did it far too long. It takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable to someone. But yeah, but God really, really honors that courage. You're allowing him to do important work in you. And it, it takes courage, because it's scary.

You don't know what you're gonna end up at the other end of that Journey. But it's a way God is preparing, you for an everlasting life with him. Never lasting life of comfort and peace. So please give God all your doubts. Allow him to keep transforming you more and more and the person he designed you to be.

The person that will spend eternity with him, amen. 

Unedited Transcript Follows:

The name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Amen. I was doing some reflecting this week. I've been ministering in Utah for just over six years now. So, it's interesting um, as I shared with you guys, Uh, two weeks ago, I celebrated 12 years.

As an ordained priest. Um so it means as of this month over half my time as a priest has been spent in the state of Utah, so I I spent more than half of my priesthood here in the state of Utah. And our church looks totally different than when we can't than when our family came out here.

Many of you have joined the church in the last year, or so, Uh, but I'll tell you, six years in. I still feel like a newbie. Like Utah is, uh, such a wonderful place to do ministry. It's gorgeous, it's interesting, it's I awe inspiring. Um, the beauty is partially found in the starkness of the landscape.

We get the, we get pretty extreme heat and cold. We experience being at the foot of the Rockies, the Wasatch Front. And we get, we deal with the very Swift changes in temperature and weather that comes from being in the high desert, right? A Ministry here has these Stark changes too quick changes, right?

It's unlike anywhere else. It feels a bit like waves that rise and crash hard. Momentum builds and attacks. Come really swiftly. And um I think this is season that we're in as a church right now is one that leads me to a lot of excitement and gratitude. We're building something really cool here guys.

As we're coming together to build a church, that's centered on the Gospel of Jesus, that's grounded in ancient liturgy, and it's reaching people of multi-generations. I mean, it's a beautiful thing that we're building. I love being a part of it. As the kingdom of God extends, it puts us in contact and in un like inevitably into conflict.

With the power structures of the world. And I'm trying to learn to see this quickly and to call it out. Now next week's gospel reading is going to put us into more direct contact with conflict with demonic forces. So I won't, I'll do my best not to preach Deacon Andy's sermon this week.

But today's Gospel reading puts us in contact with the type of conflict that maybe seems more. Down to earth more fleshly, less, obviously spiritual. That being said, I'm what I'm learning. Is that there's little separation between those things? As Heaven and Earth come together in the Kingdom of Jesus.

We're confronted with how broken sin has left things. Both in the physical and in the spiritual Realms. This week, I've been perceiving, some spiritual attack, we dealt with three sicknesses in a row in the family, it was which was weird. So like we had coveted, then we had some cold, then we had a stomach bug and like we were sick for the month of August and even as I was resting and preparing for worship last night, Malachi woke up at about 10, 30 scouting, my name and puking all over his bed.

So, uh, yeah and we had, we had been this was after a day where we've been running around playing soccer games, and he seemed fine. So, yeah. And I was like, okay, here we go again. Long gone and in these moments, I'm just trying to be an example. To the people in my flock but also just learn for myself.

Just had a call out to God sooner I we in the west are so late to call out to God. We'll come up with everything else. Like I got, I'll get out the essential oils and we'll run the little and we'll run the humidifier and we'll come up with everything that we can and all that's fine.

But with like, I'm trying to learn to call out to God sooner. And today, we're going to see that the Kingdom's extension always leads us in conflict with the power structures of this world. And with the Brokenness of God's creation, And we'll look at why we have in the midst of it as we're building.

Something really cool here. Hope for great Victory, like we and expectation of Victory. So first of all, the conflict, I mean, the Brokenness of the Fallen World puts us in direct conflict as the people of God with the kingdom of God. We don't know very much about the man that encounters Jesus In this passage We really only know about his ailments.

We know that he's deaf in mute. We don't know how long he's been deaf in mute. We don't, uh, we we don't know really anything else except that. He's deaf and mute. And he was sinsic. He was sin sick. We're confronted with Brokenness as as bad as it gets here.

And what do I mean by that? He's sin, sick do? I mean that he's responsible for his ailment I don't know. Um, we don't like I said we don't know much about him, sin sickness is always twofold. So like like when we talk about sin like the effects of sin in our life, it's always a two-fold reality.

We receive it And we walk into it and participate in it, this is always the case with sin and the way that it's impacted the world. It's received and it's participating. So what do I mean by? It's received, like all of us because we're born in a fallen world and we have a fallen nature that we get from our parents.

All of us receive sin sickness, we all receive it. We didn't vote on it. We didn't say like, hey, I choose this, okay? We didn't, like, we didn't vote Adam to be our representative when he rebelled against God, like, none of that happened and because of that, we receive sin sickness.

When he, you sinned, we recognize this is the Christian doctrine of original sin again. We talk about that last week too, but we see it coming up again. This Christian doctrine of original sentiment, when Adam sinned, he wasn't like his nature wasn't left unchanged. He passed on that problem to his children and Children's children and all of us receive it.

This might not seem fair but we know it's the way it is. Right. We know it's the way it is. That like if I'm if I'm born into a family where my parents are drunks and abusive I didn't vote for that. But I experienced that, right? I received the results of sin, right?

And so, all of us receive Some aspect of our sin sickness, we didn't vote on it, we didn't choose, but also, all of us, every one of us walked into that. And we make decisions that contribute to that Brokenness and we we make decisions. We make decisions to Harbor anger.

Bitterness lust infidelity Uh, you name it. I mean the the host of it sloth laziness. We we make we make choices, various addictions that To participate in what we received and we and we and we do that by our own. Will we do that on purpose and we do and we walk into this.

Sin sickness. So yes this man's ailment was a result of sin, we don't know when it started for him. We don't know how responsible he was for it. We don't know the relationship between The evil spirits and what he has. We don't know any of it, we don't know.

How if it's a result of like how responsible he is based on some act, he's committed for this, but we know it's a result of sin because in a world that's not broken. People talk. And people here, In a world that's not broken by sin.

And ultimately, like all of us, this man was impacted by a world. That's not how it's supposed to be. In a world that is broken.

And the Kingdom of Heaven is meant to set every bit of that, right? Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is meant to make what's broken unbroken. The Kingdom of Heaven, is meant to set it, all right? The Isaiah reading we read is so instructive here, it was short, right? But when Isaiah encourages God's people to take heart because God is coming to save them and recompense them, right?

Look at the signs of God saving. All of them are physical. All of them have to do with the physical world that we live in. Deaf people here. Lame. People dance. Blind people. See and mute people. Sing praises to God. That's what it looks like when the Kingdom of Heaven extends when Heaven and Earth meet, when, when Heaven and Earth come together in a collision.

Deaf people here. Lame. People dance. Blind people. See and mute people. Sing praises to God. That's what Isaiah tells us. Everything broken is not broken anymore. Wholeness comes. That's the kingdom. And this man because of the sinful fallenness of creation was experiencing all the Brokenness and his very presence and his ailments were shouting loudly.

Can the kingdom of God really be here as Jesus said, and as John, the Baptist proclaimed. Can the kingdom of God, really? Be here. There aren't supposed to be mute, and deaf people walking around when Heaven and Earth meet.

His very presence. Is evidence that hey maybe things aren't working how they're supposed to be yet or maybe of the not yet that goes along with it already. We don't have it all yet, right? But what we see here by his presence, and what we see here in this miracle, is we see The conflict that comes but the route to Victory and why we should have an expectation of Victory, the route to victory over overall, that is broken in the world over demonic forces and all, that is a result of sin in the world.

Is a touch from Jesus. It's a touch from Jesus. Every time I read this passage, I'm struck by verse 32. They begged him to lay his hands on them on this man. They begged him to lay his hand on him. That's interesting. They begged him. Hey, touch this guy.

Jesus touched this guy. They all knew something that I attempted to forget. All this man needed was to touch Jesus. All this man needed was to touch Jesus and all could be right. It's not the last time that Mark's going to emphasize touching. Two chapters later in chapter nine, a woman is going to be instantly healed from an unceasing flow of blood when she just touches the Hem of His Garment.

She's healed. So this man who's experiencing all the result of Brokenness in the world needed a touch from Jesus and that's all he needed. And this was this touch. Um I know we can speak like really metaphorically like I need to be touched. I was touched by something and we could use language that way and that's fine, but this touch was physical.

This touch was physical. Jesus goes all in on physical here. He spits in his hand and grabs the guy's tongue. And then he like sticks his fingers in his ears, like he's touching this guy like so they asked him to lay a hand on him and he's like, no, that's not gonna do it like we're.

We're gonna spit on our hand and grab this guy's tongue. Like he's all in on the touching like and uh and Mark in, in a very short, passage does a lot of description of all the touching that's going on. And it's enough touching to make all of us feel uncomfortable.

Right. Uh, it's a lot and uh, and so and here's the deal. He's, he's, it's a physical touch. We need like, we need to touch Jesus. We need to actually touch him. Remember what had just happened earlier in chapter 7? Jesus has challenged some of the extracurricular. Purity codes that it had just come out.

You didn't wash your hands. Properly before you ate and that will make you unclean. And now he's spitting on his hand and grabbing a guy's tongue. He's saying hey this is like it's really important that we're we're going to make you really squeamish with all like bodily fluids. We're not something that we're shared.

And they're not today. Um, without the people very close. We don't share our bodily fluids with each other. Like that's not really something we do, right? And here he is doing and he's pushing hard on this Purity culture. That's like, hey, what it's all about. Is keeping the outside impure, influences away.

Keeping ourselves pure. And what he's doing here is he's flipping the script on their entire world view. Something. We're so tempted. To walk into is the belief that it's impurity. That's contagious. Rather than Purity and Holiness. They walk their lives and we do too. Believing like hey, um, if I can keep away from the wrong influences, if I can, if I can just keep the wrong influences out because like Their impurity, I can catch it, I can catch their lack of Holiness.

I can. If I touch these people, I can catch their Brokenness and that's and what Jesus is telling them. No, it's not the unclean that's contagious, it's the clean. If my people will go out and touch people, it's the Purity, it's the Holiness, it's the cleanliness, it's it's all that's the part that's contagious.

So like the part that passes on The good part. So there is contain like contagions happen when when the people of God touch people are when Jesus touches people. But it's past Purity passes to the unclean. Holiness passes to the Unholy to the secular. And God starts making all things, right.

And holy So again, I have perceived spiritual attack both in our family and in our church, It's true but understand this it's not discouraging to me. It's not discouraging to me. Because I know that as we come in contact with Jesus and we touch Jesus, he will win the victory.

GK Chesterton as a quote that I I love in his in his book Orthodoxy He says, fairy tales, do not tell children. The dragons exist children, already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales. Tell children, the dragons can be killed. That's it. That's how the kingdom works. So when my kids, um this week, um, one of my children, Called me in the room and said, I need you to pray in my room because every time I lay in my bed, I feel like there are monsters under it or I think there's monsters under the bed, you know what I've learned to do.

I you know what, I don't do in that moment I don't say. Hey look there's no monsters under the bed. There are monsters under the bed. I just assume it. There's monsters under the bed. There's monsters everywhere. There's all sorts of evil, spiritual forces and people starting. So like she already knows there's monsters in the bed.

What I tell her is Jesus is stronger than any monster. Let's kick out that monster Let's kick out out. He can't stay. If Jesus tells him to go, and I'm teaching her to find the one who kills the dragons. That's all I want to teach you. I don't teach her, there's no dragons.

What a waste of time there are, there are all sorts of things in our lives that are scary and hard and also and and broken and messed up and some of those are Physical or more part of the physical world. Some of them are spiritual and unseen but they're all over the place.

They're everywhere. The world's Enchanted. It's a scary place but I'll tell you what Jesus is mighty. And he can slay the dragons. And it's not even hard for him. So what I want to teach my kids is not hey there's no monster stop it. There's no Boogeyman. No. All right.

Yeah, it's all real. And God's bigger and mightier and stronger and you can trust him. To win the battle. The effects of fallenness are everywhere we go. There are monsters under the bed. Don't tell them, there's not they're not under the bed. Of course they are. But I'll tell you this, Jesus is bigger than the monsters.

Jesus is mightier than them. Jesus can crush them with just a snap of his finger. And a touch of Jesus is all they need. A touch of Jesus is all they need.

Because when Jesus touches us, the lame dance for Joy, the blind sea, the deaf here, and the mute sing praises to God. That's what it looks like when the kingdom of God extends. What's really cool about all this? Is at the table, We Touch Jesus. We're about to come to the Lord's table.

And at the table, we will touch Jesus. Jesus will grab our tongue. He'll grab a hold of our tongue. As we, as we, as we eat the body of Jesus, eat his flesh and drink his blood, right? He'll grab onto our tongue and he'll, he'll heal the sin sickness that we all have.

Whether we've, whether we've it's sin sickness, we've received or sin sickness, we participated in, or as it always is. Both Jesus is gonna come and bring healing. Do you need a touch from Jesus today? Because he means to touch you. He means to grab your tongue and hold on to you.

And he means to make all of us who are broken by the world in all these various ways sing praises to God. As he heals us and makes us new. So Ministry is a battle. A Ministry in Utah is a particular battle there, arises and Falls. The enemy is on the prowl.

And he does look to devour us. He can't win though. He can't win. He can't destroy the work that God is up to. To set all things, right? And to set the world right from everything that is broken. So be encouraged Saint John's. The enemy will take his shot.

The monsters will crawl under the beds. But God is so much stronger than any monster and he is ready to touch you today at the table. And whatever he touches, he heals, so come to the table. Let's ask Jesus to touch us. And empowered by him. Let us touch others with his love.

Amen.

Unedited Transcript Follows:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Oh man. It's presidential election season, everyone's favorite time, right? Every four years, we all get to uh, Be mean to each other and act like something that matters. Very little matters. A lot for a while.

And then, uh, and then hopefully all our relationships aren't destroyed. By the time we come back together at the end of it all. But here we are and election season is always interesting. Because you'll hear a lot of campaign promises on both sides, but you want to know what you never hear.

More of the same. You never hear someone's campaign slogan say We're gonna just keep doing things like, we're doing even if they're the come incumbent, they never say that, right? They never say, hey, you know what? Just more of what we're doing. It's working well and everything seems to be flowing well and going.

Well, we're just going to keep doing it. Uh and so vote me in and I'm gonna just keep doing what I'm doing because it's working. Right that never happens. Why? Why has that never happened, no matter how well things are going. Sometimes things are going well. Um, and But I think always within us, we have this.

Desire and this need to see things reformed to see things, make new. Because we know things are actually Broken that we're looking for change. We're looking for reform. We're looking for something new. We know, no things aren't aren't right yet. It's why we never hear a politician say more of the same.

Right. Some people even point to the phrase, simple refermanda or always reforming. To say that the church is always in need of re-examination or Reforming of some kind. We know that reform is necessary. No one's ever can content just saying hey, it looks like we made it. Yeah, we're there.

We've arrived. All the problems are fixed. And the reason for that is, we know that it isn't true. We know that everything isn't okay. Everything isn't right. Things are broken things aren't the way that they're supposed to be? So we know we need to be reformed and made new.

And what we see laid out in our readings today is a conflict between two different routes of Reform. Both routes recognize that things aren't how they should be. Right. But they diagnose the problem differently and therefore they diagnose the route toward healing. Differently. And they do this because they fundamentally disagree on God's purpose in setting, aside of people And in giving them a law.

So we'll start by just looking at the gift of the law and why it was given the law was given to create a unique people for the sake of the Nations. The law was given to God's people to create a unique people for the sake of the Nations. So in Deuteronomy 4, it's one of my favorite passages in scripture God discusses why?

He gives this people a law. The people are called to be faithful to God. They're called to show loyalty to him and not be like the people who before them who worshiped Baal and went after Baal, right? So they're called to be faithful. That's numbers. 25, if you want to read about that story, But they're called to not be like those people and to be faithful to God.

And God tells them. The reason for this. The reason that they're called to be a faithful that there's this unique set aside people of God, that's going to be unique. Is that all people might see what a, why is an understanding people this people are There to see that.

There's not another God like this God. God is not, it's really important. God didn't wait until Jesus to start being until Jesus came in the flesh, right? To start being concerned about the Nations. So like it's not like when you read the old Covenant, the vast majority of the scriptures.

You're not reading about God didn't really care about the Nations or was worried about the Nations. He was really only worried about the people of Israel until later, but when, when Jesus came In the Flesh, and walked the Earth, and then all of a sudden when Jesus in Matthew 28 says go and make disciples of all Nations.

Now, something new has happened entirely and God has all of a sudden concerned for everyone on the earth that isn't Jewish. That's not the story we see in scripture that's not why God set aside a people and gave them a law. He gave them a law Deuteronomy, 4 tells us so that the peoples so that the Nations might say look what a wise and understanding people this is and look, there's no other Nation that has a God like this God, who dwells near to his people and gives them such wonderful laws to follow.

Verse 7 is striking the people have a Near to them.

A God. It dwells with them. From the very beginning at the call of Abram. God is telling his people that my relationship with this people is to bless all the nations of the world. From the very beginning that was the purpose when God sets aside a temple. Solomon prays in front of the temple.

But would you answer when a foreigner prays at this Temple? Would you answer his prayer? So that all might know that there's a special that there's a God in Israel that there's no God like him. All over the old Covenant. We're going to see That God's concerned for the Nations.

And what? And and the way he sets aside a people is by dwelling near to them and by being with them so that they might bless the world because they have this close relationship with God. But when I think about God being near to them, there's a fly. He was really interested in me.

Um, when I think about God being near to them, right? I think about us in our relationship with God, who has a God nearer to them than the people of God in the New Covenant who are fed the body and blood of Jesus, who was it? God nearer to them than us who receive Jesus body and blood every time we come together in worship who has a God nearer to them than us.

Who's like that? Who ingests God. Other than the Christian people of God who as a God that dwells is near to them as our God dwells near to us, who is it God near to them than a people who know and understand the message of the Loaves as we've been talking about for the past several weeks, right?

God has set aside a people. He's made them unique, he's given them a law to that they are to obey. This is not a law. Into them to pit them against the other nations. It was the opposite. It was a law given to them that they might bless the Nations.

By displaying a unique relationship and nearness to Yahweh. And we have that same gift given to us. Where our unique relationship with God, our closeness to God. The fact that we Dwell in Christ and Christ in us sets us apart, not against the world, but for the sake of the world, that we might be a blessing among the peoples and among the Nations that they might see what a wise and understanding people.

This is And who has it? God is near to them. As this people has or is near to their God. So what went wrong? So what went wrong is God set aside a people that they might be a blessing to the Nations and what we and what we see in this conflict with the Pharisees in Jesus, Is really a challenging of the world view of the Pharisees.

Like God's covenant people do like they do in the New Covenant just like in the old Covenant. Right. The Jewish leadership, misunderstands the goal of setting aside a people for the sake of the Nations and tends to understand themselves, especially the leadership, as it was a setting aside instead of the nation.

So we're people set aside instead of the Nations. This happens in Christian theology when we get so excited about election and sometimes talk about election as if it's a setting aside of people instead of the others rather than a setting aside of people for the sake of others. So it's not this isn't just Covenant problem.

This is a New Covenant problem, but they seem to misunderstand that this was this setting aside wasn't for the sake of the Nations. But instead It was. In like instead of the Nations and over and against the Nations. God chose us. Instead of them. Right. And the Pharisees are upset.

That the disciples don't do these ceremonial Washings. When the, when the Pharisees talk about, um, Eating in verse 5, the Greek text says, eat bread. So we're still learning the message of the Loaves in Mark that the disciples didn't understand, but they're talking about eating bread. Right. And the Pharisees did they did desire.

True reform. They did desire, true reform, they knew things weren't as they. It wasn't hard to know things weren't as they were supposed to be. They were a people. In a land that was occupied by a foreign leader. They had a cute little Temple. That wasn't anything like the temple.

They had before that. The Romans just let them have, you know? Uh, so there there was no sign that. Wow, this is like for all the nations to be blessed by by what we're doing, right? And they believe that the way toward reform to get things right was to get a community of people to be pure.

And to keep outside influences from making them impure, So this is how they and this is how they interpreted the law. We need to be pure and we need to like, hold out the outside influences that will make us impure. So that God will bless us and hopefully kick out donations kick out the Romans and anyone else that wants to be in charge of this land and give us our land.

Like he promised us and this is the goal. Hold ourselves up live a Pure Life. Keep the outside influences out so that God will bless us because of our Fidelity and faithfulness to his Covenant, right? And Jesus condemns them as Hypocrites. Talking to them about holding the tradition of men instead of God's Commandments.

What he's really doing is he's turning the Pharisees world view on its head. Saying that the defilement like coming together and trying to wall put walls around you. And live a Pure Life so that you can be faithful to God. And so that he'll bless you can't work. Because the problem comes from in you not outside, He's telling them, the problem is.

Within you.

The defilement comes from within and it's housed in the human heart. And for my kids, if you need armor in a or if you need weapons in a fight with Mommy, he makes a poop joke to do it, right? Uh Jesus makes a poop joke in this passage so he says uh hey all the the impurity.

Doesn't come from without whatever comes from outside. You just poop it out. That's what he says like. It's that it's gone. But the problem is actually within the impurities coming from within. It's coming from inside you not outside you. The problem is on the inside. The problems within This is the Christian doctrine of original sin.

So, the Christian doctrine of original sin, Teaches us that when Adam rebelled against God, that he didn't just become guilty before God but his nature was corrupted and he so he had a problem with his nature that he passes on to his children and we're all born with it.

So we're all born with a nature that will inevitably cause us to rebel against God who made us. Were corrupt from from our very birth. And so, because of that, our hearts is where Evil comes from, It's not we're not otherwise neutral and we got around the wrong crowd and that's why we're engaging in sinful behaviors.

Nope, the problem is in us within us.

So we try to whitewash this in various ways, right? We focus on other people's sins, rather than our own. Like, The sins that people are loudest about. That all you learn is that they're the sins, that that aren't a struggle for them, you know. Um, so like when Or sometimes you learn that, they are a struggle but it's secret, and they're pushing it down.

But but what we often learn is like, when we say, oh, the problem is all fill in the blank. What the real problem is out there, all we're learning about the person is that these are the sins that aren't their issues, but they bring plenty of their own because the problem is within we focus on other people's sins, rather than our own sins.

Or we might focus on getting what we want. Politically, if we can just get the right person, voted into office. Everything will be fixed. Or we try to do religious observance to clean ourselves up. And it's if we can just Observe religion, purely enough. We'll get this all worked out.

But the problem is with Our own heart. Eminem dropped a music video with jelly roll this last week. So, uh, And he he was writing from the perspective, he he almost died of a drug overdose in 2007. And he was writing from the perspective. Of what he would be saying to his children.

Had he died. So a lot of regret, a lot of things that he missed, right? A lot of things that Um, he he would have missed out on. And the chorus is from with jelly. Roll is somebody saved me? Save me from myself? I've spent so long living in hell, they say my lifestyle is bad for my health.

It's the only thing that seems to help. And there's just this desperation of. People experiencing what it looks like to. Lose their life to drug addiction. People in our own Community lose their lives to drug, addiction drug addiction takes and and All of us are losing our life to addiction to sin.

Like this is the story of Our Lives. We're broken. And the things that are worse for us, are things that we find ourselves engaging in and the things like, and we like the problem is us. Like, the problem is us. The problem is, my greatest enemy is me and your greatest enemy is you and it's not the things outside, it's not the power structures, it's not the governments.

It's not, it's not the the immoral people filling the group that that you're most likely to blame for the problems in your life, but it's not that the greatest problem that you and I face in our life,

Because, It's from within Jesus tells us that we get defiled not from outside. It's a true genius of Christianity. Is it leads us to not be focusing on outside or other people? But to recognize the problems that we all carry within, So, your problem with anger is not your spouse's fault.

Your problem with anger is not your spouse's fault. Your problem with bitterness is not your in-laws fault or your family's fault.

The problems in our society aren't the politicians we disagree with, they're part of it. I mean, they are They are part of the problem. So, But our our deepest problems are right. They're housed right within our own bellies that. It's it's from within That's the problem. This is hard problem, but I'll tell you, it's freeing when you're a parent.

I'll tell you. I I have five kids. It's a gift to me to reflect on this truth when I'm a parent. So when your kids do something awful and they do, they will Um, You might be tempted to say, how could my kid? Do this. Like, how could this, how could my child?

My beautiful child. Do this. Like they can and they will again because the problem is within them, just like the problem is within you. And so as we live our lives, we recognize

Even when we're asking the question, how could I have done that? It's because you got this problem, all the impurity and all that, your greatest enemy comes from within. So instead, what we could be asking is Lord, help me. Or as we prayed, may your grace continually proceed and follow after me that I may be given to good works.

Otherwise, I have no hope. Without you entering in and help somebody save me. Save me from myself, right? That's just right? And that's the story that we all find ourselves in. So we need, we do need To seek reform. But we receive reform within our own souls. And this affects how we approach God and how we approach others, right?

We approach God as humble needy people. Seeking the true reform that comes from within and that heals the greatest problem we have, which is within us. But it also, Impacts how we approach other people. We don't approach other people with someone standing above them. We approach people as humble and needy people who have found the grace that goes before and follows after us and that just leads people.

Into the presence of the only one that can help heal any of us. We just lead people into the presence of the only one that can give any of us healing.

We come to Jesus attempting. You know, like the woman with the impurity they were so concerned about impurity in this passage, right? Continual. She was ceremonial and clean cuz her continual flow of blood, right? But we attempt like we are just as impure and we attempt to touch the hand of Jesus garment.

We may be healed and that's our only hope. To look within your heart seek, the true healing that comes from within God wants to offer us. True healing don't get distracted by believing things on the outside. Are the problem, the greatest problem that all of us face comes from within us.

So let us go to God for True healing. Let us go to The God Who can save us. Save us from ourselves and then transform us into a wise and understanding people that dwell nearly with, so closely to God that people say, what a wise and understanding people Who as a people as who what other people is as close to their God as this people is to there.

Let us be a people that seek reform so that we can be a light to those who are outside. Amen. 

Unedited Transcript Follows:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. Well today, so, 12 years ago today, I was ordained, a priest. So uh, people were crazy enough. To lay hands on me and make me a priest in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic church. Which Uh, when you think about the audacity of that, Uh, it's a, it's a little insane.

Uh, that that the that the Lord um, Paul's ministers. To minister the gospel when he is perfectly capable of doing it himself. Uh, he he doesn't need our help. Um, he's not like man. If I just had some more people that could lift that, like I it'd be easier to move that.

Like that's not how God is. He can move heavy things without our help. He can he can do all the work that we do without our help. So it's a beautiful thing that but one of the things that we hear, And and in a few months, we'll be hearing it with Deacon Andy.

Um, as we hear the exhortation, Um, and the exhortation That is, um, offered to a priest before he's ordained. Uh, is enough to talk anyone out of it, really? But uh, but one of the things that is said, is these are the sheep of Christ. And they are purchased with his own blood.

It is a great do not underestimate the gravity of. If one of these sheep were to walk away because of your negligence or the Grievous judgment, that will result So this is what's told, if one of them walk away because of your negligence, um, that uh, that God's gonna hold you accountable because he purchased them with the blood of his son.

So it's a weighty thing to hear. Um and I I think reflecting always every time I go to ordination, I always reflect on those words, it's always really interesting too because When they put the chasable, Or it might be the stole on on the priest. They'll say remember Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I was like, were you here for what? We were just saying, you know, because I who doesn't feel that light, I'm not feeling light right now at all, right? And so, I can relate with the disciple I think, as I was just reflecting this morning, I was relating on the disciples saying to Jesus, man, this is all this is a hard saying And this is where they started like we're coming to the end of the bread of life discourse.

We've just walked through a whole lot and the disciples open open up by This is a hard sale. Um, this is the language that they choose for what Jesus has just been saying. This is a hard saying A new character is introduced here in verse 60. So in the, in the narrative, Um, the better life discourse Begins by addressing the people.

So it's addressing the people. And then there's a section where it starts. There's a spar between Jesus and the Jews, right? So, um, the Jews, there are to be associated with like it's not like, just like Jewish people. Jesus is Jewish all his disciples are Jewish all the like so everyone there is the Jews in that sense but when it when Narrative is talking about the Jews.

They're talking about Jerusalem leadership, Jerusalem, religious leadership and often a sparring partner with Jesus, right? And then we now we have this new character introduced. And it's his disciples. His disciples. These are his followers. They're not the kind of indifferent people. They're not the combat combat Partners in, like, in debate.

They're his people. There are people who have said, I will follow Jesus. I have decided to follow Jesus. There there are those people that have said that, right? Um, Yeah, it was, it was powerful for me to sing those words when the cross was processing forward. The World by me the crossed before me, you know, and These are the people that have said I've decided to follow Jesus.

Right, they're his disciples. The circle's getting smaller and smaller by the end of what we read today, he's going to be addressing the 12 in particular. So he's talking about a larger group of his disciples before that, and now he's turning to the 12 by the end and no matter how small the circle gets, there are some who lack faithfulness or loyalty to him.

Is what we're finding. Um, this cut off two verses early where he spent more time discussing Judas, but Judas is even mentioned in the part we read and so even within the 12th, there's going to be people that are lacking faithfulness and loyalty to him and that's kind of the theme.

So now we're turning to people who have said, their followers of Jesus. And we're still seeing that many of them aren't showing loyalty. So, the text says, this is a hard saying, Who's able to listen to it, right? I think it's worth reflecting on what this is referring to.

What do they mean? When they say this is a hard saying The nearest context. Is that Jesus has just said, You have to eat my flesh and drink my blood, or you have no wife in you. So, that's the near like, that's what he's just now. Said, that was kind of a big deal, right?

That, uh, that he's just said to us. Like, that's when the story got kind of weird, like you're following the guy. And about the time when he says, you have to eat my flesh and drink. My blood is maybe about the time that you're like, okay, maybe different guy to follow, right?

And a lot of them did that, that was about the time. They're like, all right. That's that just got weird. That was a turn. I didn't expect right. And so that's like the nearest context is. He's just said that. Right. Uh, Saint Augustine said, but the people did not perceive That what he had said had a deeper meaning or that Grace went along with it, rather receiving the matter, in their own way and taking his words in a human sense, they understood him as if he spoke of cutting of the Flesh of the word into pieces for distribution, to those who believed on him.

So Saint Augustine is pointing out. Yeah, there's probably some people who definitely misunderstood him here. I think there's more at play though. I mean, that's definitely the nearest context, but there's more at play. There's an entirety of a message here. He's given a sermon, right? And it said he's had many things, he said that are maybe hard, we've been covering the sermon for four weeks, so maybe that makes it feel deceptive or make it feel longer, but it takes probably five to seven minutes to read John 6 in its entirety.

So it's not like so you could just read it in one sitting and it wouldn't

Your bring your uh bring your Bible to the bathroom and you could read the run of life discourse you know so like so it's it's short and so probably all of the sermon is in view here. So remember all that Jesus has said, stop laboring for food that perishes Right, even though you can't live very long, Yeah, if you don't receive that food that bears is right.

You can't live very long. He says, I am the true food. I came down from heaven. Right? He said that and they're like, don't we know his parents, remember that? So I came down from heaven to give people life that endures and receiving that bread, the flat, my body has something to do with eating, my flesh, and drinking my blood, the entire thing.

Is a hard saying, It's hard to come to grips with our absolute neediness, our contingency, like we've been talking about, it's hard to hear that our Rebellion against God. The God who made us was a rebellion against the only one who's capable of giving us life. It's hard to hear a teacher make himself, the content of the message.

And seem to be the only one in the area who's excluded from this whole contingency and morale and mortality thing, right? It's hard to hear that part of participation in this life involves eating his flesh and drinking his blood. So among even among his disciples, the people who have said, I have decided to follow Jesus.

No, turning back, right? The word we hear is. This is a hard saying, who is able to hear it? Right. And Jesus's answer might be interesting to ask. Jesus answer is that. Understanding this requires spiritual. Enlightenment. And it requires Enlightenment from the Holy. You know, in the face of this criticism that's coming from his followers, it's pretty surprising and astounding, to me to reflect on Jesus response.

He doesn't revise or soften up the message at all. It's not what he does. In fact, he answered up amps it up, right? He says, you think this is hard. You think what you just heard? It's hard. What about when you see the son of man ascending to where he was before?

That's when it's really going to get hard, right? Like when you when you see me like fly up into the air and get hidden by the clouds, that'll be hard. This is nothing compared to that. So he even amps it up. He doesn't revise or soften anything that he said in the slightest, He tells them that the way forward.

Is spiritual enlightenment. Verse 63 tells us, the spirit gives life. And the flesh is no help at all. Right. This isn't pitting when he says the spear gives life and the flesh is no up at all. It's not pitting invisible versus the visible, okay, so sometimes we are A tendency to see those words that way when we hear like oh it's a spirit, not the flesh.

We think like oh it's the invisible stuff, not the stuff, it's of Flesh and blood. Some people want to see this as softening. What Jesus has just said about gnawing his flesh and drinking his blood right and say, oh no, he's really taught. He tells us here, it's really about whatever's happening invisibly or spiritually but that's not that's not what he's doing or else.

He wouldn't have chosen to say gnaw On My Flesh and drink my blood right? So so he's he's telling them something else. He's saying like you need spiritual enlightenment. About the need for the Holy Spirit to provide insight into spiritually grasp realities, so Saint Augustine again. I'm quoting him a lot today but says he is talking there about flesh that is alone by itself.

Let Spirit be added to flesh and it profits very much. For a flesh. Profited nothing. The word would not have become flesh to dwell Among Us. So he says, I so he's saying like, it's not like He's not saying flesh doesn't matter at all or else the word wouldn't have bothered taking on human flesh.

What he's saying is Add to the flesh, add to the stuff, we see spiritual enlightenment and then it's profiting flesh. By itself is worthless. This is very it's it's almost like Saint Paul followed Jesus. When he talks about The fruit of the spirit versus the way of the flesh, right?

So it's it's very similar language. Jesus is using here. So, to perceive that, the man Jesus is the Eternal Son of God In the Flesh. We need the holy spirit's guidance in Revelation, to perceive that we receive the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. We need spiritual understanding given by the Holy As a preacher, Jesus example is instructive.

I preach a lot of sermons. Right. And I might revise my teaching in the face of criticism and sometimes there's a good reason because I'm wrong a lot you know like like I'm wrong a lot. Jesus wasn't though and He doesn't like revise in the face of criticism. He he he doesn't soften his message.

He doesn't soften the blow. And I think it's important to recognize that as preachers of the word, as people are just telling your friends about Jesus criticism, and misunderstanding is not a clear sign that the truth hasn't been spoken. Okay. Like criticism and misunderstanding people being mad at you Um is not a sign that you haven't spoken the truth necessarily.

It could be so we should be humble and reflective and all that but it's not a sign that the truth hasn't been spoken

So Saint Jerome says, Isaiah goes naked, without blushing as a type of the Captivity to come Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the Euphrates and leaves his girdle to be marred in the, Chaldean Camp among the Assyrians hostile to the people. Ezekiel is told to eat bread made of mingled seeds.

And sprinkled with the dung of people in cattle, To see his wife die without shedding a tear. Amos is driven from Samaria. Why is he driven from it? Surely in this case as in others, because he was a spiritual surgeon who cut away the parts diseased by sin and urged people to repentance the Apostle Paul says, have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth, the Savior himself found it.

No different. Many of the disciples left him because his sayings seemed hard People leave, because There are things about the gospel that are hard and in our culture today, just like in every culture forever. We'll run into various things that are hard sayings. And that people will leave because the sayings are hard.

And every age has it. So it's not like we're not like further from God today than we were in other ages. Every age has their things, that are things that will cause people to walk away. And say this is a hard saying who can hear it Right. So, we're saying Jesus sermon was the whole sermon was a difficult saying.

Saint, Jerome tells us all the truth is a difficult saying. So, what's this mean, for those who would want to follow Jesus Faithfully? What's the way forward? Toward following Jesus in this situation. In a situation where the truth is maybe hard to hear. The way forward. That we see here is Faith seeking understanding.

It's faith that seeks understanding Jesus turns to the smallest Circle in his sermon here, right? When people start walking away, he turns to the twelve. And he gives them a choice. Do you want to go away?

He hasn't answered their questions for them. He hasn't cleared up the problem.

And yet he turns and asks them do you want to go? You can go. If you want to, He hasn't kicked them out, he doesn't cast them away from him. But he also doesn't hold him there against their will. He says do you want to go? You can go.

And Peter's answer is incredible. It's just incredible. He comes. What's he say to Jesus? He says, where else are we gonna go? Like, where, where else do we got to go? I mean, we're stuck with you, you're the only one with the with life to give you're the only one that can give eternal life away.

You're the guy. I have nowhere else to go. And Peter talks about two things, he talks about belief and knowledge. Right. He says, I I've come to believe and no. That you are the Holy One of God, right? Peter remember? Nothing has been cleared up for him. He's just heard, Jesus say you're going to have to eat my flesh and drink my blood.

But he true, he he believes Jesus. He believes Jesus, he's loyal and faithful to Jesus even without understanding. What he could have meant by that. He also knows Jesus and he knows that Jesus is leading him into fulfillment of the law. He knows that Jesus is leading him into faithfulness.

He knows that Jesus is leading him in the right way that connects him to the god of his fathers. And he know. So he knows that he might not get it, but he know he knows because he knows Jesus that they're not actually going to eat his by, cut him up and hand him out and and eat him like cannibals.

Like he knows that because he knows Jesus. Cleared it up for him, not because Jesus has answered all his questions, but because he knows Jesus, Any trusts Jesus. And so, he remains loyal to Jesus even without The book being opened. Right.

And what we're seeing here is a laying out of what Christian epistemology looks like. That's that study of how do I know what I know, right. Even before gaining full understanding. Peter's displaying Covenant, loyalty and faithfulness. And that can be done outside of full understanding. So, this is the last time I'm quoting Saint Augustine.

I think, uh, he said Saint Augustine says for we believed in order to know, Had we wanted first to know and then to believe we could never have been able to believe. If we wanted, all the question answered before, we could believe We had never been able to believe.

There's a great myth in the enlightenment that we all have this like common sense that's actually you guys probably use that language with each other. Um we like that comes from philosophers talking to each other Common Sense. Realism people might say oh this is just common sense, right? And we're even using language that says like hey there's this like sense that's like everyone is rational and everyone has like if they can just be objective and look at the facts they can put to the puzzle together, right?

That even comes across in how we're taught um to study the scriptures sometime the scriptures is just like data and we just get the data out and if we just like All our emotions and turn off all our presuppositions, then we can just look at the data and let it lead us.

Right. This is like, this is the myth of the Enlightenment. You know. Christianity doesn't agree with any piece of that story. We believe that we are contingent. We believe that we are Fallen. And we believe that when we fell even our knower got broken like the way that whatever that thing is that we used to know things the knower.

I like to call it that knower. It's a broken. You got a broken knower. I got a broken knower all of us do, right? And so like even our knower got broken that thing that tool that we used to know stuff is jacked up. And the only way forward, Is trust in Jesus is coming to know Jesus.

Coming to know that he he is trustworthy coming to find him trustworthy rationalism as a system. Says, prove it to me, and I will believe it. Christianity says believe, and then come to Fuller understanding. Now, this isn't a turning off of our brains, as if like reasoning is bad, Peter had some obvious Experience with Jesus.

So that that led him to believe what he believed about him, right? It wasn't like, he like turned off his brain. It doesn't matter what's going on and I'm just like, like he'd seen Jesus. Do kind of a lot of really cool stuff like make a bunch of wine.

Uh, feed 5 000 people with a couple lows and some fish like he'd see. Like he'd come to know by experience who Jesus was so it's not like a complete turning off of our brain, but it is an understanding that our knowledge is helplessly limited and marred by the Fall and without submission Intellect.

To the testimony of Apostles and the prophets. We cannot follow Jesus. Peter didn't wait till Jesus. Cleared up what he meant by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Based on what he already knew. He trusted that Jesus was leading him in the right direction, the way toward eternal life.

So we come to the end of the bread of life discourse here. It's my favorite sermon. It's my favorite sermon that Jesus gave. He gave several of them and it's my favorite. He starts by exhorting us. Hey, don't labor for food that perishes right? It just leaves us hungry again, but seek the food that leads to eternal life.

He tells us that food that that food that we should be seeking, is his flesh and he's going to give it for the sake of the world that we may feed on him and live forever. We participate in that food which endures to endure. Eternal life by faith in Jesus, by putting our trust in Christ.

Trust in Christ, and we follow him. We participate in that food as faithful people, loyal to Jesus. He gives us his very body and blood in the Eucharist. He, he gives that to us as a gift which is the medicine of immortality. The food that endures to eternal life according to Saint Ignatius of Antioch?

Following Jesus requires us being willing. To take a leap though. And say. I've come to believe and know what I can I recognize that I'm not going to have everything lined up, all my ducks in a row that that's not even possible in this life. And being willing to submit.

And follow Jesus. The one who we know can give life. Let us follow Jesus, and let us eat the bread that came from Heaven, to give life to the world. Amen. 

Unedited Transcript Follows:

God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. Well, here we are in the climax of Jesus Bread of Life discourse. We've been going through his brighter life discourse for the last two weeks now. And now we're at the climax. Um and Jesus opens us up by giving actually the harder.

It's interesting. Maybe, the hardest word that you heard from him was unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood. You have no life in you or at least, it would have been hard for them to hear. At that time because they would have no idea what he was talking about, but The hardest word that Jesus gives us.

Um, is actually right at the beginning. Um he he it's really the basis for all that he has to say about communion about all that he has to say about our Reliance on him. So, What we see here is we we see his like, his default position as he describes people.

What's their default position that they kind of sit in? And then he talks about the way to kind of the way to move toward healing. From that default position. And then talks about some of the effects of the meal that he gives us. So we'll we'll start by just looking at that default position, he says you have no life in you.

That's our default position. So that's the main clause for you nerds out there. So he gives a subordinate clause, unless you eat the Flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, but the main Clause is you have no life in you. He's describing. A reality about us.

That we have no life. In us. Now we've talked about this, some already. This is like Foundational to the bread of life discourse. That's why we've talked about it kind of a lot that this isn't even something that Is not true about us. Before we sinned before before we sinned, we still had no life in us.

Meaning that we had no life. That wasn't derived, we have nothing. Um, we have nothing that isn't a gift to us. Every breath is a gift. That's true of human beings. Even without sin. Right. It's what separates Creator from creation. It's the idea of contingency Only one thing that exists is not contingent.

And that is God. God is the only thing that exists that doesn't derive existence from someone else, right? So God exists, just as he is. Everything else is made by God and derives its existence from him including people. So what makes the Triune God of Christianity completely and utterly distinct from you?

And I Is that he is uncreated, and he is not contingent and we are created and contingent. So, When people look at the language in the scriptures that says, that that you are like God, so you'll become like gods. Always understand scripture means something different by God. When they talk about the God, who is not created and who has always been and who exists apart from any contingency, then when he talks about everyone else, and that we can participate in the divine nature, we can be invited in to this immortality, but it's a gift to us.

It's not something we have by Nature. So we have no life apart from what is derived from God? With sin. And this is true, even before there was sin with sin, the situation worsens. Cuz we have no life apart from what is derived by God, but here's the deal that God that gives us life.

We have rebelled against him and chosen wickedness and chosen to use the life. He gave us as a gift and use that life to rebel against him. Uh-Oh, right. The only one that we have any hope, not only. Uh, for eternal life and all the blessings that come but just for life itself.

We've rebelled against him. We've used the life. He gave us as a gift. To rebel against him. And that's our situation. So, it creates a problem for us. Jesus told us at the beginning of this of this sermon. Stop laboring for food, that perishes. But labor for food that endures to eternal life.

Remember that? And yet. We are people who are perishing. We're a perishing people. What good is food that endures to eternal life to a perishing person? It if I'm going to die. I'm a perishing person. It does be no good to eat some magic food, right? So so what good is it if we're giving out food to a bunch of mortal people that's supposed to endure to eternal life?

And that's why Jesus tells so he gives it. I mean, he gives like pretty strong words. Might be hard to hear the words, you have no life in you. That's what he tells us. You and I we have no life in ourselves. But he tells us a way toward healing from that situation.

And the way toward healing. That'd be interesting. Depending on what tradition you found yourself in growing up, but the way toward healing According to Jesus, here is faithful participation in the Eucharist. Wait, what? The way toward healing from the that condition where we have no life in us is faithful participation in the Eucharist Proverbs 9 which we read.

Also today gives us a type of the Eucharist. It's pointing a type is a Biblical thing that's pointing towards something else. So there's a real reality. There's there's a reality being described in Proverbs 9 but it's pointing towards something else. Eucharist hadn't been given yet, right? As a gift and yet Wisdom, who is a type of Christ.

Giving offering a banquet of Bread and Wine. And somehow eating this Feast leads us. According to Lady, wisdom to gain Insight that we receive something we receive Insight as we eat this Feast of Bread and Wine. Swinging forward. To something and to the Eucharist to this meal, that Jesus would give us thousands of years later Everything about this passage.

Is obviously Eucharistic. When we say that though, when we say that, the only way toward life is faithful participation. In the Eucharist, it's important to recognize the Eucharist isn't this Standalone meal? It's a part of a life of following Jesus. So you might wonder why we would require baptism in the name of the Trinity before we give access to the Lord's table, right?

You hear me every Sunday? Say this meal is open to all Christians who have been baptized in the name of the Trinity. What are we doing there? It's not saying, do this magical thing before you can do this magical thing, right? It's not just putting the order of magical things in line.

It's saying, baptism is our entrance into the household of God and it's saying this meal is a part of a holistic, reality of a of participation in Christ. It's a this meal is offered to the converted. This meal is offered to the people who are a part of the household of God.

This meal is offered to those of us who are Christians. Who are walking with Christ. And baptism is nothing more nothing less than an initiation into the household of God. So the Ukraine, so when we say faithful participation in the Eucharist is the way toward healing from the fact that we have no life in It's important to recognize.

This is a holistic participation in worship and communal life with and in Christ. And in his Some like Traditions, I grew up in might not want to see the language as referring to the Eucharist here. Right. Um, The there's the real, the main reason they uh there's there's a main reason that they're not saying but the reason that they'll give that they'll say is from the text Um, in this passage is the the communion meal hasn't been given to the people yet.

Okay, they'll say like, Here. How could he be talking about communion when he hasn't given them the meal communion, right? Um, There's several reasons. What we have to see this as Eucharistic. Um, the two reasons we'll talk about is Is there's this use of this participle, trogon So trogon, is this, he changes from like the lest graphic verb for eating fagete, unless you eat, um, he changes to this other verb trogon and the big difference between that is it's like super graphic.

So think of it like, like, it's like we have the, we have different verbs for eating, right? We have like eating and then we have like nine, right? Right? Like and so like when you think of like how someone eats a steak, If they didn't even want to cut it off the bone, right, if they just like grabbed the steak and I got vegetarians in the front row.

Sorry. If I'm making enough. Yeah, they're just grabbing the steak and they're just, ah, you know, like like they don't even want to cut it off the bone, there's gnawing on it right? Uh, like it's that type of language that Jesus is using the the one who gnaws on my flesh and drinks, my blood has life in him.

Language and not and not language that lead us to say, oh, he means that they like, think about Jesus, right? Like like, he's he's using really graphic language here to say, you gotta like, no, you're it's about what you do with the body. Uh, b dag, which is like, which is a lexicon of, of all the Greek words that you could imagine and many that you couldn't Um, their quote here is John uses it to offset any Tendencies to spiritualize the concept, so that nothing physical remains in it.

In what many hold to be language of the Lord's Supper. So he's saying like the reason he's using such a graphic word is to tell us this isn't just like some invisible reality, like you're gonna eat something. And you're not gonna like, just eat it in your heart, you're gonna eat something, and you're gonna drink something.

The other reason that you have to see this is Eucharistic Is that you have to remember the original readers of John's gospel. So, Saint John's gospel is the latest of the gospels, okay? It's the latest one that is written. It was written. Community of Christians already gathered. They got together.

We know what they did when they gathered to they got together. They Read from the scriptures, they proclaimed the gospel, they ate bread and drank wine that they believed was the body and blood of Jesus. When John writes his gospel. This is the community. He's writing to, they're already doing this.

There's absolutely no way that anyone would have thought of anything different when Jesus says, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, then they would have said, oh yeah, that's what we do. Every time when we say this is my body, this is my blood and then we eat that.

So that that's what everyone would have thought of that's and which is why every Church father that I can find a quote on that. Wasn't like In in the last hundred years, just talks about how this is communion like this is talking about communion because it it really clearly.

Language about eating flesh and drinking blood. That it's Eucharistic. So it's it's all really obvious. We might not need to say it, but the reason that people don't always want to see this is referring to communion when they read it. Is that Jesus teaches? That faithful participation in the Eucharist is a normative requirement.

For receiving eternal life. It's what he teaches here unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you. It's why question 123 in our catechism. Says that the Eucharist is generally necessary for salvation. Baptism in the Eucharist. Are the two that are generally necessary for salvation.

Now listen, I took vows Uh, that I would teach nothing as necessary for salvation, except what can be proved from Holy Scripture. And yet I'm saying, this is generally necessary for salvation. Why do we say generally? Because God can do what he wants, he can save whoever he wants, he can do, he can do whatever he's in charge here.

So, uh, if he wants to save someone, he can do it. However, he wants. But generally, People who are saved are baptized and they are Faithfully participating. In the Eucharist. And, It's what Jesus is teaching here. It's why we teach that Couple caveats. The Eucharist assumes atonement. It's important to recognize that so it's not the Eucharist isn't, like I said, it's not this Standalone thing.

But but the Eucharist isn't a thing except because of what Jesus did on the cross, The Eucharist is a sign pointing us toward and appropriating the gift, that Jesus gave us on the cross, right? So, it assumes That Jesus died for our sins. It's just the way that Jesus has chosen to Give us that gift and to appropriate it to us.

Also, an important caveat is that Faithful participation in the Eucharist is not a work. Meant to inherit like to Merit eternal life you and I can't do a single thing to Merit eternal life. Okay, like Really Faithfully participating in the Eucharist gives you no merit. To receive eternal life.

You can't earn anything from God. You can't like we can't take a single step toward God that he doesn't. Begin and initiate for us. So this isn't a gift to Merit baptism either. We don't do Works to Merit eternal life. What we do is we participate in this meal that Jesus gave us as because this is the way that he's chosen to give that gift to us.

Okay. It's like if you like, if you If you gave your kid a car on their 16th birthday, Right. They'd have to go out and start the car, right? Right, it doesn't mean they like merited it But what if they said, oh man I can't do a work or else I'm trying to earn it so I'm not going to start the call.

Would they go anywhere? No, right? So what they do is they go and they receive the gift in the way that you intended them to receive it which is by getting in the car, starting it and driving, okay? This is how this is, how the Eucharist works, is how the sacraments works about baptism works.

Well, we're not meriting anything, but what we're doing is we're saying, okay, I'm going to receive this gift in the way that you've given me to receive it and the way that you've intended me to receive it, right? You know, Ignatius of Antioch right? After the New Testament was written.

He wrote. He called the Eucharist, the medicine of immortality. It's what he called communion. The medicine of immortality. Like, And I'm telling this is before anyone knew that they were allowed to or supposed to fight about this stuff guys. This is like like they were no one was fighting about it.

This everyone was just like yeah that's what it is. Yeah medicine. Immortality Jesus said unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood you have no life in you so that's it. So we are we who are in Christ, eat and drink, Jesus flesh, and Blood by a miracle of him giving that to us.

And this is a means of Grace. Meaning it's the way that God has chosen to apply the gift of Grace to our lives. What happens when we Faithfully participate in the Eucharist there? Few effects. We'll talk about one is resurrection. That's verse 54. So just as a language he's I will raise him up on the last day, right?

Just as the language of the Eucharist shouldn't be just spiritualized and and talked about as if it does it. There's nothing physical about it. Salvation should not be spiritualized in such a way that there's nothing physical about. It. Our bodies are raised up. We eat the bread with our bodies, that same body that we eat the bread with and drink the wine with is raised up that same body.

A lot of confusion in our day and age around the gospel, is our tendency to spiritualize salvation or think it's about this invisible place. I float away without my body to Cloud place and there's heart music playing. Jesus is gonna undo death. Pulling us out of a grave. That's that's the end of our story.

So I gave us a physical meal to tell us about it, right? Also, what happens when we Faithfully participate in the Eucharist is we have indwelling. He Jesus says, in verse 56, whoever feeds on My Flesh and drinks. My blood abides in me and I in him. Biting is a really important Concept.

In John, if you think like John 15, I am the vine. You're the branches. The one who abides in me bears fruit, right? For John. That's the purpose of why the word became flesh and Tabernacled Among Us. Is that he could be with us. And in. Jesus took on flesh because he wants to be United with us even though we rebelled against him and this happens beautifully in the Eucharist when we receive his body and blood And we ingest.

The Son of God. And then we digest the Son of God. Unified with him, one with him, United with him. Inseparably.

In the Eucharist, we nurture that Union with Jesus. We also participate in the Divine Life in 57, in verse 57. Jesus talks about how just as he participates in life with the father. We participate. We're invited in to the Divine Life. What Saint Peter calls becoming partakers of the divine nature?

We're invited into sharing life with him.

Because of our deep abiding with Jesus, by virtue of the Union, he has with the father and the spirit. We're pulled into Union with the Trinity. When we participate with him in worship, That's we already. Pray all this. Every Sunday, when we pray the prayer of humble access, right?

None of this is surprising to us because we always pray grant us therefore gracious Lord. So to eat the Flesh of your dear son, Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood. That our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most, precious blood, and that we may ever more dwell in him, and he in us right.

Pray that every week, And all of this is made available to us in this meal. That we are about to eat. It's why it's normative for us to do that weekly. It's why it's normative for even lay people, you know, do you realize the promises we make as lay people?

Um, is that we will worship the Lord on the on every Lord's day unless reasonably hindered That's what we promised. Why do we say that? Because we say the things we're doing, here are so important that we need to do it. We need to do it over and over.

We need to come back. Reaffirm our faith reunite with Jesus. Come receive the gifts. He's given us. It's why it's important for us to do it weekly. It's why we do it here weekly and it's why To the people of God were intentional about gathering weekly. So we're at the climax of the branolife discourse here, Jesus gives us that difficult truth.

We have no life in We don't have life in ourselves. Not only are we completely reliant on God for life. We have rebelled against the only one who can give us life And we've earned a death sentence, there's no way out. But he gives us the treatment plan. It's a strange treatment plan.

The treatment plan is a meal. It's a meal where ordinary Bread and Wine. Miraculously, give us the Flesh and blood of Jesus. It's not a meal. We eat to Garner favor with God, but instead is God's mean means of giving his favor to us. When we receive this meal in faith, we receive Resurrection Life, as we feed on the Flesh of the Risen Lord.

We start walking toward Resurrection Life. We also receive Union with Jesus. We're made one with Christ. We're invited into the life of the Trinity. So today, let us eat the Flesh of Jesus and drink his blood. Let us be United with him and walk with him and receive the gift of eternal life. 

Unedited Transcript Follows:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit. Amen. In the last couple weeks Eileena has actually shown me two different movies with Ryan Reynolds in them. And it had been a while. Since I'd seen him in movies, I don't watch a ton of movies, I'm more like a show guy.

Uh, but it got me thinking about the first time I saw Ryan Reynolds in a movie. Uh, it it was a movie that came out in 2002. That was the year, I graduated high school. So, uh, we're we're multi-generational. So, some of you are thinking, wow, James is old and some of you are thinking.

Wow, I'm old, you know? So, but that was the, I graduated high school. It was called, uh, Van Wilder. So the movie was called Van Wilder, Uh, I'm not endorsing the movie. It's dumb. Seriously. Don't it was a dumb movie. But I had, uh, I just graduated from high school, and as, as a young man, freshly graduated out of high school, I found it hilarious.

Ryan Reynolds plays a wildly popular frat boy. Who's really actually a frat grown, man, because he's been in college for 10 years. So he's been in college for 10 years, he's cocky, he's confident, he's very popular. And while he's talking in the movie, he'll randomly say, Write that down.

Uh, like in the middle of a conversation with his friends, he'll say write that down, like that was really good. You're gonna want to hold on to that. So, write that down. He's just had this arrogant cocky. Uh, popular guy. And, We might know people like that. I mean maybe not that extreme where they're saying, write that down in the middle of when they're talking but so maybe not quite that extreme.

But people that come off like really arrogant or cocky or like know-it-alls, they like the sound of their own voice. They love it and it's precisely the accusation that Jesus receives In this passage that we have today. Yeah. Is that who's this guy think he is talking this way about himself, right?

One thing that is inescapable when you're reading the Book of John, Is that Jesus talks about himself a lot? In the Book of John, he talks about himself a lot. He's talking about himself like the whole time. So not only does John have him talking more than any of the other gospel writers.

If you have, like one of those red letter editions of the Bible, A lot of the Gospel of John is red. Because Jesus is talking a lot, but not so not only does he have a lot to say, but he's talking about himself a lot. Listen to the statements Jesus makes about himself in the Book of John.

I am the bread of life, I came down from heaven, I am the Good Shepherd. I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way, the truth and the life. I am the light of the world before Abraham was I am I am one with the father. I am the True Vine.

Pause for a second. See, these things are really familiar to us. So they might not strike us the same way. But put yourself in the place of hearing Jesus teaching for the first time. Imagine a teacher. Teaching these things to you saying these things about him or herself. To you if someone's T like The self-centered teaching of Jesus is part of the reason, the church has always confessed the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.

Jesus was like, not only. The Giver of the sermon. He was the sermon. He was what the sermon was about. He he's with the whole story was about. So if if Jesus is like other teachers, just another man he is a fraud and he's not worth listening to Other teachers, don't talk about themselves.

The way that Jesus talked about himself. Right. Jesus didn't Point people toward the way. He said he is the way. Right, he said I am the way. So what, what? So, so, what's going on with these claims of Jesus, these audacious claims of Jesus, in the Book of John last week, we began four weeks talking through Jesus bread of life discourse.

My favorite ceremony game sermon of the Mount's awesome. Some of you like like that. One more, that's fine. My favorite is Bread of Life. This, this bread of life sermon this, this sermon. He gave we learned yet. Last time we were together to stop laboring after food. That perishes, but seek food, that lasts forever.

We we learned that although God has made us for immortality. This was an immortality that was always conditional and based on our Fidelity to him. And we learned that we chose perishing instead of immortality, when we chose to rebel against him, we are a perishing people because we are a sinful people and we rebel against God.

This week, the discourse moves. And it makes a really cool turn, because Jesus means to give us immortality. That he always intended for us, right? He ends up telling us that he does give us that immortality. But he gives it to us by giving us his very flesh. He gives us immortality by giving his himself his very body to us.

We can only have immortality if we get it from the only one who is Immortal, in other words. And Jesus is showing us, he intends to give it to us. All of it is ground in that reality that led to these people grumbling though because it's based on the claim of Jesus, that he has access to immortality and that he can actually start giving immortality away.

It's surprising. When someone starts saying I have access to immortality and I can give it away. And so, it raised some eyebrows. So today, we'll look at this occasion for grumbling why people are grumbling That was present here and then we'll look at how Jesus responds to that grumbling.

And we'll look at his call to us in light of who he is, right? So first, let's look at the occasion for grumbling. Why are they grumbling They're they're saying, who does Jesus think he is. Who does this guy think he is? Jesus is actually saying, I came down from heaven.

Have you ever heard anyone say that? Hey, hi. I, I came down from Heaven, just now, like I I came out of heaven. Right. And so they're like, wait what? You know you came out of heaven. So he said he comes and says I came out of heaven. I came down from heaven from my father and everyone who looks at me will live forever.

That's what he says. So they start asking Who does this guy think he is? We know he isn't from Heaven. We know his parents. We know this guy's parents isn't this guy? Mary and Joseph's son? Like we know this guy's parents. What do you mean? You came down from heaven.

I know your mom and dad. Right. Now their reaction should make it abundantly. Clear that the scriptural view denies pre-existence of people Right. If if in other words, if everyone came down from heaven, They wouldn't be surprising for someone to say, I came down from heaven. But the reason they're grumbling is because people don't come down from heaven, that's not where we come from, what we don't exist until God makes us right.

And so, when he At that, at that moment says I came down from heaven. They're freaking out and they're wondering And they think Jesus must be either out of his mind or just like, pulling a fast one. If he's saying that he's the bread that came down from heaven.

And look how he responds to them. Um, his response might be surprising to us, he doesn't explain. Well, I'm the second person of the Trinity. I've always existed. Right, he doesn't like walk them through that. Instead, he, he teaches that God's people are the ones who respond rightly to the father's initiation.

Verse 44. Is no one can come to me. Unless the father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. So what Jesus does, when these people don't respond rightly to his message, or they start grumbling.

Because his message is hard to hear, frankly, he that he came down from heaven and he's the bread that you can look at and get eternal life, right? But Jesus responses to relieve himself from all responsibility. For people's response to his message. He relieves himself from all responsibility. For people's response to his message.

Ezekiel 3 is one of my favorite passages in scripture to talk about that, verses 18 through 19. We get the the son of man being told that he's a Watchman and that he's not like. And that what he's going to be accountable for is announcing the judgment that is coming from God and he's not accountable for people's response.

So he says, if you announce Ezekiel, if you'll announce To my people that I'm going to bring judgment and they don't repent. That's on them. But if you don't announce to them and then they don't repent. That's on you. I'm gonna hold you accountable for that but he's saying your job is to announce that God's bringing judgment.

Your job isn't to concern yourself with people's response to that judgment And in the same way, the son of man here when he says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. He's showing us. This son of man. Ezekiel was the son of man.

This is the the Fulfillment of the son of man and he's showing us that he isn't responsible. For how people respond to God's message. That's not what he's responsible for. I think as we extend God's kingdom in Utah. A place where very few people know the Lord. One of the most freeing sayings that you can say to yourself.

Is no one can come to God apart from God's revelation to them. And I'm not responsible for how people respond to the message. Like, I'm not responsible for that. Now, sometimes we misunderstand this word, this isn't about an in-grouping and an out grouping, a lot of people, Um, Like want to make their theological systems make really good sense.

And so the, the what they read here, when they say no one can come to me except except if the father who sent me draws him, is they're saying, okay, the reason some people come to God and some people don't, is that God draws some and he doesn't draw others, okay?

The Greek word here is Tran the Greek word. That's translated. Draws is El Cusse? El Cousce. It's only used eight times in the New Testament, and five of those times are in the Gospel of John, but it's only used one other time to talk about people. Um, so only one other time, is he talking about people?

A lot of times inanimate objects, things like that. So the only time it's used to talk about people is in John 12 32 where Jesus says, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. I will. So whatever drawing is happening. It's happening to everybody.

Every like the the father drawing is happening to everybody, at least here in John. So the thing that distinguishes, godspeed over those who aren't God's people is not whether God draws them or whether he reveals himself to him but it's whether They respond rightly to God's revelation. Jesus tells us that in the next sentence.

He says, the people who learn and hear will come to me, the Learners and the hearers will come to me, the ones who win the father is drawing. When the father is initially initiating, our learning and hearing will come to me.

But, So, what we're really learning here is that God initiates And that people respond. Uh, us being saved or being drawn to God, is all a work of God. God does the initiating? We do the responding and that's because we can't initiate a thing. Why we're dead in our sins.

We can't take a single step to our God. We can't initiate anything to our God. He has to take. God, has to come to us, and all of it is a gift of God, when God draws us, So, It doesn't mean that hey, God's like picking some to draw and he's leaving others and deciding not to draw them, but make no mistake.

It is telling us that it is quite natural to people to respond, wrongly to God's revelation. Like when they do this, they are doing what comes naturally to them. So we shouldn't be surprised as the gospel goes forth. When people don't respond rightly to the gospel. When people don't respond rightly to the message of God.

They're doing what comes naturally to them. What comes naturally to us. In our fallen state is to rebel against God and turn away from God. So, if you were to present the gospel to someone and you, you thought you like killed it like, man, like I I did a great job presenting the gospel and then they just laughed in your face and said that was dumb.

That would sting, right? What Jesus is saying is That happens like a lot. Okay. That happens a lot because it it's people doing what's natural to them. Two weeks from now we're going to actually see people walking away from Jesus. Because of this very sermon. So like, people are going to be walking away from Jesus at the end of this sermon.

And and he's going to turn to his disciples and say, are you going to walk away too? He's not gonna try to fix it and say maybe if I would have said it differently maybe like he's gonna say, are you gonna walk away too? So, we recognize That as as the good news is proclaimed.

We're proclaiming it to people who can never take a step toward God, apart from his initiation. And, And that we should expect that we'll reface rejection. Jesus did like you're not going to give a better gospel presentation than Jesus. Right. So then Jesus gives a call to us in Of all this, in light of what he's saying, he is that he's the one that can meet these needs, right?

His call is to receive the bread from Heaven. To receive the bread from Heaven, which is his body. He says. I am the bread from heaven and the, the one, the bread that is given for the life of the world, which is my flesh. It's a similar message. To the gospel reading that we had last week where he said I am the bread of life he except that was focusing more on food that's perishing or that goes away versus food that endures to eternal life.

This is focus. This this does something a little bit different where it's focusing Us in on Jesus body. Because the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. He says, it's my body. He links the bread with his flesh. So what's it mean to eat the bread which Jesus gives for the life of the world, which is his flesh?

Well, obviously, we think of the Eucharist we, we do that, we think of that eating, Jesus body, and drinking his blood, but we're going to save that sermon for next week because he's going to get real and like real in depth about that, so that that's next week's sermon.

So obviously you think about the Eucharist, But the people who come to Christ, Are the ones who respond rightly. To God's revelation. When he tells them who he is, they respond rightly when he reveals himself to them, they respond rightly so think of your posture before God this morning.

That's what we when we think of how do I receive the bread, which is Jesus flesh. We come before God and we think about our posture, you know, one of the things that is always striking to me and John does, this is a, John 6 is the only place where John explicitly teaches on the Eucharist, um, the other gospels have it have the institution of the Lord's table, right before.

Jesus goes into the garden, John has the washing of the disciples feet, right? Instead but he does have them receiving the bread. And one of the things that always stands out in the Gospel of John is Judas receiving the bread. And then the devil entering into him. So he's receiving Grace from God.

God's handing our Grace. He's handing out the he's handing out his body. He said this is my body. He's handing it out. Judas is receiving it, he's receiving the grace, but he has a heart that is turned away from God. He has a posture. That is not receiving Grace, and fall, and falling after Jesus.

He has a heart that is turned against God, and so what happens, it says, when he ate the bread, the devil entered into him, When we receive God's revelation with a heart that's not turned to him, it's not a blessing to us. It's a curse to us. And so, what we ask ourselves when we see this is how's my posture before God today.

That doesn't mean, did I behave myself? Good enough this week. Okay. Like am I am I like Do I feel good about myself right now? That it's not that it's do? I have like am I am I repentant of known sin and do I have a heart that is faithful to the Lord?

Who wants to follow after the Lord Jesus. So how's our posture today before God? Because the people who come to Christ are the people who respond rightly when God's revealing himself to them? Also the flesh language should lead us to the Cross. Jesus gave us his flesh on the cross before he gave it to us in the Eucharist, right?

So he gave it to us on the cross first, how are we responding to the just the simple truth that Jesus died for us? That when Jesus gave his body for the life of the world, he's talking about giving his life for us. See. So Jesus teaching was entirely centered on himself.

For good reason. He's our only hope as the only one who came down from Heaven, who can give away immortality, which he always intended for us. He is the only way to overcome death and perishing. We receive this life when we receive Jesus. With right, with hearts turned toward him, Who is the bread of life.

So I invite you today at the table and as we walk and just in our hearts to receive the bread from Heaven, which is Jesus flesh. Amen. 

Unedited Transcript follows:

I'm excited to be with you guys today. This is like, my favorite Passage in scripture. So John chapter 6 is right up there with, like if I were to have like, If I were to have a tattoo of like a Bible verse, It would it would be like John 6 uh something from it.

Probably not all of John six because you need a lot of your body covered with that. But But if I, we're gonna get a Bible verse on me, that would, that would be the one. So, uh, I'm excited to be doing this, but I wanted to ask of you ever had an all-you-can-eat brunch.

Have you ever gone out for an all-you-can-eat brunch before? It's first meal of the day use. I mean if you're unless you're a rookie and like you shouldn't eat before the all you can eat. Brunch guys. But it's the first meal of the day and you're eating all that you can eat.

Okay, if you're like me, you care too much. About getting your money's worth. If you're uh, if you're like me in a situation like that, you care a lot about making sure you get your money's worth. It's like my goal that the restaurant loses money on me. Like, I'm like, you're you're good.

If you're if you're gonna let me in to eat all I can eat, it's gonna cost you so so I I give it my best shot, right? And the reason I asked about brunch and not a different meal, is that if you like me, went out for an all-you-can-eat brunch and you really ate all you can eat So experience something else that's maybe kind of strange.

You got hungry again, that evening, didn't you? That wasn't your last meal of the day. It was your first meal of the day, but it wasn't your last meal of the day, think about it. You went out to an all-you-can-eat lunch, you ate until you couldn't eat another bite.

And you couldn't even make it to the end of the day without needing to eat again. See so much of Our Lives. Are spent laboring after things that don't endure. And and we have real needs that need to be met forever. They have to be met forever. And so what do we do to find lasting fulfillment?

If it's not just Gorge ourselves more and eat more, what can we do to find that fulfillment that lasts that endures? Today in that Gospel reading, Jesus was calling his people to be a people that stopped laboring for the stuff that perishes for the food that perishes But to receive.

Him by faith, which is going to meet all the deepest needs that we have. I think it's important to recognize that this laboring about things that perish it points to one of the most important truths about us, I think, right? So these these verses verses 24 through 47, I think it's important to talk about like our 24 through 27, I apologize.

I think it's important to recognize that. They're dealing with a people that are seeking Jesus. If you look at verse 24, right at the beginning, they're they're looking for Jesus. They're seeking Jesus. Now, Jesus is going to challenge their motives later and it's going to get More and more contested as this sermon goes on right.

But they were seeking Jesus. They knew that something was incredibly unique about this man. Who seem to be able to make bread? Right. That's weird. So he seemed to be able to make bread where there wasn't bread or multiply bread where there was bread and they were chasing after him.

Jesus tells them the reason that they're chasing him is that they ate until they were satisfied. He tells him the problem with seeking for this need only Is that they're going to hunger again that it perishes. See, this is true, right? These people who ate until they were satisfied and then there was bread left over.

We're probably already hungry again. Right. They were already coming to grips with the fact that they were going to need to eat again. This was true. Even for the Israelites. Remember we read about, we read about the Israelites getting Manna and and receiving bread from Heaven. By the way, this is why they were so worked up about Jesus doing the miracle.

He did it on the Passover. Um, John chapter 6 tells John is the one that makes a big point to talk about Passover, a lot and he did it on the Passover, we have a guy on the Passover out in the wilderness making bread they're like they were looking for a prophet like Moses.

They were excited. That's why they were about to make him King all this had just taken place, right? And so now they they find him Working on water, which we talked about in Mark last week, but but he had just walked on water. And then they find him and they're saying, wow, this might be the guy that we're waiting for.

He's on the Passover. Bread's showing up. Maybe he's the prophet like Moses. He's doing Moses-like stuff. But those Israelites, Got hungry again. Every day. They had to go out. And gather more Mana. They had to gather it because they needed it and they and every day they had to gather and remember what happened when they tried to store up extra so that they wouldn't have to go out the next day.

It all we got worms in it. It rotted like it didn't carry unless it was But uh, I guess it would have been Friday morning. Yeah, unless it was Friday morning because the Lord wasn't going to rain Manna down on the Sabbath, and so then, they were going to gather up two days.

And then you might remember the story they some of them go out on the Sabbath and God's like, hey, what is going on? Why are you out here? I told you you needed to gather up two days worth and that this is a day of rest, right? And so like, God, put even his people Israel when he was miraculously providing for them.

He put them in this Perpetual reminder, that they were going to need more that this even the Manna from Heaven was bred that perished All of it. Is bred that perish and it's important to recognize that no one had ever done anything, like, what Jesus had done. No one had ever.

Made the bread from nothing. Or multiply bread from bread. That was sitting there. No one had done this before. This was new. And they were. Amazed. And we also like, labor for things. That perish. Don't we? How much of your paycheck? Is spent before you get it. I mean, think about it.

Like uh, like, uh, like I know. Every I mean I have a budget. Is down to two dollars and Seventeen cents I think. Like I think that's what I like. Like I think that's the end of like what's left over. Like I know what everything's going to before I get paid like before payday.

I know it's not like I'm like it's payday like now I have a lot of money like I like it. I I know where everything's gonna go right. And don't you like like and this is our lot. I I joked that like I S a lot of our life is like if we if we spend a lot of time like opening our banking apps, what you're gonna see is like you work a lot and all that happens is the numbers go up and down.

Just forever. They just go up and go down. I mean and maybe that's what we work for the pleasure of watching the number go up and then go down. I don't know. But like that. That's really that's that that is what it's like because We are needy. We have need like, I, I think the trunks of cars are about to get a lot smaller.

Right, uh, like I I'm gonna guess that in 2030. There's not going to be the cars with the huge trunk space. Um, that that's why because it's discouraging with how many groceries like Uh, how much money you'd have to spend to fill your trunk with groceries. Now, like I think it's, it's just discouraging like, and and so I think trunks will get smaller.

I honestly believe that that's gonna because we don't have to who needs all that trunk space, like, we can't afford it, right? And so this is the reality that was like we're a needy people. When your house is paid off, how much of it is going to be original.

It's all perishing as you pay for it, guys. The needs never quit. And I think Jesus is asking people, if this is what you're seeking is to meet those needs. Are you tired yet? They don't go away. They continue. They're Perpetual. And it points to a reality. That's true about us that never goes away.

We are incurably needy. Incurably needy. Everything about us is contingent, none of us can ever create anything. All we can do is receive what God has created. All we can do is receive what God gives us a gift. None of us can gen. We even talk about like when we talk about money, we talk about generating wealth, none of us can generate anything.

All we can do is receive what God gives us. He is the only one with power to create. He is the only one with power to breathe life. He is the only one who has ever created anything from nothing. This is our real and I wanna and what's important about recognizing we're incurably.

Needy is, this isn't even a result of the fall. This is just how God. Designed it, I mean there's no other way to make contingent people except that they're contingent. So like if you're not independent, if you don't exist independently of God and you don't and I don't Then you're needy, then you depend on it, you depend on him for everything, you depend on him, for every breath that you breathe, you depend on, we depend on God for everything.

And it's not even because we're sinful, it's just because we're created. Were created beings and so were dependent. We need and the needs never, ever, ever, go away, and the physical needs are only a piece of the puzzle. They point to a more important reality that We're unable to connect with God, we're unable to meet our deepest needs.

Apart from his grace, and apart from him meeting us and apart from him saving. See, Jesus is the only one. Who meets the needs of the incurably needy. It's really the message of the bread of life discourse. See. Look what Jesus has the audacity to say in verse 35.

Whoever comes to me, shall not hunger. And whoever believes in me, shall never thirst. Well, on its face like it's just not true. You know, people that come to Jesus and do they get hungry? Yep. You know, people that come to Jesus, do they get thirsty? Yep. Listen, Jesus got hungry.

Jesus got hungry, Jesus got thirsty, right? And the only one who was ever not contingent. The only one who wasn't created as he took on human flesh. Took on himself. The ability to feel hunger and thirst and need. And so Jesus himself, got hungry and thirsty. He's needy. He became needy for our sake, but obviously people do get hungry and thirsty and Jesus is pointing to something else.

He's pointing to some deeper needs. He's pointing to the needs that we're all seeking that. Never that also never quit. Needs like, acceptance. And significance. Intimacy. Purpose. And what he really gets at here and pushes toward and when all these things are a subset of anyways, immortality. Glory. Decided to live forever as God created us to, right?

And the meeting of those most fundamental needs comes only through. In Jesus, it comes only through. Trusting in Christ. And it's not through doing more. It's really interesting. Faith isn't about doing more working harder. It's the, the, um, interchange between do and give is really interesting. So he says, don't continue, don't keep working for the food that perishes but receive the, the bread of life, which the son of man will give you A gift.

Don't keep laboring for food, that perishes receive the gift that I'm giving you the food that lasts forever and that leads to eternal life, right? And then what do they ask, what am I supposed to do? What should I do their answer? That was what do I do, right?

How what do I need to be working? Now, where do I need to turn my energy now to get that food, that doesn't perish, and he said, The work is to believe. Right. So belief isn't just like working harder Or turning our work in a New Direction. Belief is also not.

Site. It's not site. But they, they immediately turned him and asked for a sign. They ask for a sign. And Jesus says, Jesus had already said you're not seeking me because you saw a sign but because you ate till you were full, right? And now they they ask for a sign.

And I find it interesting that what like they say, they quote from Nehemiah chapter nine, they do an interesting thing with Person of the verb. They use the the third person. Instead of the second person that Nehemiah 9 is actually a prayer. Um to God and it says you gave us Manna from heaven or you gave your people Manna from Heaven.

Right? Or you gave them bread from heaven to eat, right? They quote and they say, he gave them bread from having to eat, which, there could be reasons they're doing that and still talking about God, but Jesus. Definitely took them to be saying that it was Moses who performed that sign right now.

It's interesting. They didn't learn a lesson because Moses didn't get to go into the garden. Why didn't he get in? Go to get to go, or go into the land? I mean, why didn't he get to go into the land? He didn't get to go into land because he said, do you want me to take make water come out of this rock?

To make water come out of this Rocky, stubborn rebellious people. He did that in the book of numbers, right? They maybe didn't learn the lesson. Hey Moses, gave us a sign so that we could know he was worth following. And then and Jesus immediately pounces on that Moses didn't give you anything.

Moses didn't give you anything. God gave you the bread from heaven to eat. That's what Nehemiah 9 16 says, that's what that like it was always God. It was always God giving you that

So, it's not site and and you know, So much of my life has been found learning. That faith faithfulness. Doesn't require. Everything to be worked out. In advance in an often, the Journey of faith is walking with God without understanding. We say to God all the time, like, our culture is all about understand.

And then all believe Prove it and then I will believe make me understand and then I'll believe and Christianity teaches us that. No, we take the steps of faith. It doesn't mean that we close our eyes to like seeking after evidence or anything like that, but we we have to take steps of belief.

In order to then, Begin to understand. And this is a really challenging thing for us to walk into, but even more than like is, is it true the Flames of the Gospel, that's part of it. But I think the, the big thing that the these people all believe there was a God.

So when he, when he's talking about believing in him He's not talking about just like intellectually. Coming to grips with the fact that there is a God. I think the big belief, like if we look back at what we learned last week that the that the disciples didn't know the message of the Loaves.

I think it's coming to believe that God is for us. When things are hard. And when we don't understand, Coming to believe that God is for us. Not only that God is there. But that God is favorably disposed towards us. And then following him showing Covenant loyalty to him.

Belief isn't really about. Is it mainly about this cognitive ascent to a fact? It's about Covenant loyalty. It's about faithfulness and so he says the work is to be loyal to me. The loyal to the one who God has sent.

So Jesus. Meets our needs in this life, obviously. Which is what they're talking about this whole time. He's the only way to get those deepest needs met and not only our physical needs, but our need for intimacy, our need for love. Our need for connection. Our need all those things that just won't quit.

He's going to meet those needs. He's ga, he talks about eternal life. He alludes to it, here. He's going to talk more about that as we move on in his sermon, but I think more importantly today, the message is like those needs that just won't quit today for your life today.

Those are found in Jesus, Those are found in him. So we believe in the Lord Jesus. Today. What we're being asked to do is believe in the Lord Jesus. Who Meet those incurable needs. We come to crisis people. That know we are hungry. We know that we have a hunger that will never go away.

We're physically hungry. Obviously, we need to eat regularly, but more importantly, we're spiritually hungry. We're dead in our sin and trespasses, we're needing Jesus to feed us. We're needing Jesus to save us. And Jesus is the bread of life. He is the answer. He is the bread. Physical and spiritual needs that we have no cure for, they aren't going to go away.

So what we're invited to do is to cast our hopes on Jesus, And find him to be the answer. That meets our incurable needs. Amen. 

Unedited transcript follows:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy It's not a surprise to you all that that I'm a big NBA fan. Uh, and a while ago, I was watching. An interview with, uh, with some absolute superstars, they were sharing Their first memory.

Of being dunked on in the NBA. So they were sharing the first time they got dunked on. And I remember most of all Shaq, telling his story about the first time, he got dunked on And the shock that he felt when he first realized that he was being dunked on, you know.

It was telling in a lot of ways you guys know about Jack. He was an absolute Giant and he really honestly couldn't remember ever getting dunked on in high school or in college. So no one had ever dunked on him which might not be surprising. If you know what an enormous man, he was that he he never was dunked on until he got to the NBA.

Much bigger and stronger than everyone, he ever played with. And it just never happened. And in some ways it was relatable. All of us can relate with a moment, even a split second, where we realize that we're weak in some way and that it's being exposed and it doesn't feel very good at all, right?

In another sense, it isn't relatable at all. The MBA isn't real life. Shaq was born with a set of traits that meant that moments that he would feel weak or exposed on the basketball court were few and far between It took being in an associate in an association with the top.

0.01 percent. Of basketball players to ever have the experience. And even in that context Shaq was the dunker, much more often than he was the donkey. Okay, so he was giving the dunks more than receiving the dunks, right? And I I get a kick. I I get a kick about the looking back.

When I think about the speech, I, I ate these speeches up as a kid, but like these NBA superstars would say things like, hey kids, if you just work hard and practice every day, like great things can happen to you, right? Uh, I ate it up, I like slept with my basketball.

I I like, you know, I like practiced all the time. And it it didn't work out for me. You know, the truth is, if Shaq who grew to seven foot one, uh, worked really hard. He could be anything he wanted to be in basketball but maybe not me. If I practiced every day and worked really hard, And probably this is even outside, but the absolute Peak of where I could have made it to would be like the 12th man on a varsity.

Basketball team that comes in. When the game's already decided like when we're up or down by 20 points with 2 minutes left, like that would have been like the absolute peak of where I would have landed, right? But again, it isn't real life, it's a game. These guys were well built for it and they worked hard at it and that ought to be celebrated and recognized that they really were well built and worked hard to, to hone their craft.

They maximized what they were given. In real life though, they're just like everybody else. They have a mixture of success and failure and they're good at some things and they're terrible at other things. And Christianity is a faith, that deals with the Stark reality that in the real game, the only game that matters the game where we learn to love God, with all our heart mind, soul, and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Everyone finds themselves getting dunked on. And getting dunked on a lot. There are always people better than us. There, there are always. We always have the experience of failures and setbacks, there are always grease and hardships. There is always self-doubt because there's not a single person other than the one man who was also God.

Who has ever had what it took. To live the way that they're called to live. And I think all that leads us to a proper place to, to Proclaim with the singers and dancers. In Psalm 87, all my fresh Springs are in you, Every nourishing sip of fresh water comes from God.

This is true of every nation and every civilization in history, All of it, all of it. That's worth celebrating comes from God. And on Saint Peter and Saint Paul day. We're looking at a couple absolute superstars of the faith. They're worth emulating because they're the absolute peak of Christian leadership and what it means to live the Christian Life.

Today we're going to take a few moments to look at and celebrate. These Superstars of the faith in the context of a baptism. Where we'll incorporate baby James. Into the church that these men started. We're going to see that these Superstars got dunked on all the time. And hopefully see that their story is in some ways all of our stories.

And we'll reaffirm our commitment to join this community of Misfits standing on the words of our collect, the one Foundation. Which is Jesus Christ. So it's important, is that Peter and Paul, they were absolute rock stars. They were they were superstars of the Fate. So if we talk about Peter Peter was the only one willing to get out of the boat in that stormy water and walk with Jesus, right?

He was the only one. He made a good confession of faith and he did it first. When there was a lot of people, a lot of vacillating opinions about who Jesus was, he was the one who said you are the Christ, the son of the Living God, right? And, and at the point where he makes this good, Good confession.

He's renamed. Peter, The Rock Petros. The The Rock who the church will be built on. God. Jesus chooses to build his church. On this confession of Saint Peter, right? Saint Peter preached, a sermon and saw thousands of people convert in a single day.

Saint, Peter gave up his misunderstandings and his racism that were those those things that were attached to the Purity codes? And he was, Uh, and he was the first champion of bringing the faith to the Gentiles often Paul is called the, the Apostle to the Gentiles and Peter, the Apostle to the Jews, but the first Gentile convert Peter.

Peter preached, the gospel to the first Gentile convert Cornelius. Peter is tasked with feeding the Sheep in the Gospel. Reading that we read today. All that Saint Peter, absolute Superstar of the faith and then Saint Paul Saint. Paul was a Pharisee and he was pretty good at it. Like uh, as far as being good at doing the Pharisee thing, he was up there, like he was pretty good at being a Pharisee.

It was working for him and his conversion. Is an absolute. I don't know. If we can appreciate. How rare it is? For someone to be willing to change their mind as quickly, and as radically as Saint Paul did. Like like, It's so rare. You guys have been in just arguments with people about dumb things and you've probably realized how hard it is for you to change your mind.

Uh, like at that moment when you realize you're wrong, You know, and how hard it is to just be like Oh I I was wrong. You know it it should be easy but that's not easy for us, right? And he wasn't just like a little bit wrong like he was like Ultra wrong, like the wrongness of the wrong.

Like he was on his way to persecute the church. And breathing out murderous threats. That's how the book of Acts describes him. And at that moment, God meets him with a light shining from Heaven, the Lord. Jesus meets him with a light shining from heaven and he converts immediately.

Turns. So with all the brashness and all, all that he had, Had this humility to turn on a dime. And to change everything about his life and to bring all the passion that he brought to being pretty good at being a Pharisee. To preaching the Gospel of Jesus. St.

Paul was a tireless worker. He described himself in Galatians as compelled to preach the gospel. I'm compelled. Like you say, don't celebrate me. I'm under compulsion. I can't even help it. Like, I like, I like, I have to preach the gospel of Jesus. He planted virtually all the churches among the Gentiles.

He he he started all of it. He preached the gospel. He converted thousands. He raised up leaders to keep these churches going. He was able to accomplish in a city in months, but it takes other ministers decades to do. So, Absolute. Star Superstar of the f. And the scriptures don't record these two men's, martyrdoms.

But both these men gave their lives and witnessed to the Gospel of Jesus. And this Feast is that if you Able to tune in quickly. Um, to the collect. When we prayed this Feast is actually a feast celebrating their martyrdoms, you know, and they're, they're giving of their faith.

And yet these two absolute superstars of the faith, they got dunked on all the time. They got dunked on all the time. Peter. So so all four gospels make lengthy mention of Peter denying Christ. Uh, they they don't do it shortly, they have a prediction, they have it taking place, they have him realizing that the rooster Crow.

They I mean like they lay it out there and it's thick like you you have a lot of time to see Peter denying Jesus. Peter, cut a guy's ear off. Right before that. To try to stop the arrest of Jesus, he cut a guy's ear off and Jesus had to heal the guy's ear.

Right. Saint Paul dunks on Peter. In his letter to the Galatians. He makes it a point to say, I oppose Peter to his face because he was clearly in the wrong. Right. He dunks on him in the Bible, right? John. The evangelist made sure to mention three times, three times.

That Peter was slower than him in the race to the empty tomb. Yeah, like he mentions it three times. Uh, Peter lost the foot race. Uh, so not so he Not only was he uh, Quick to act uh, deny Jesus, but he was obviously, he can't run at least not faster than John, you know.

So, John's faster than him. They got dunked on all the time. Paul. He didn't get dunked on as often in the scriptures, but he was forceful cocky. Um, And Brash. Often at times, right? Saint, Peter dunks on him. Once in his letter only once pointing out that some of his letters are difficult to understand, he wanted to make sure that that was clear.

So he writes, some of those letters are difficult to understand that come from Paul but he even in the same breath says and so they're used by people that are unstable to uh to distort the truth, like the other scriptures. So he he calls Paul's word scripture. In the same breath that he says, but some of them are kind of hard to understand, like, He could have mixed in a finite verb or a period somewhere so that we could we could find uh the end of a sentence.

Uh, Paul was like the the king of like run-on sentences. He just like wrote and wrote. And he said, I'll finish the sentence when I get to it, you know. So, uh, so Peter said that makes it kind of hard to understand sometimes, right? Saint Paul was wrong about John Mark, he was wrong about him and he had like and it made perfect sense.

So John Mark deserted them in their first missionary journey and he divided with Barnabas about not taking John Mark with him because it's hard to trust a guy who just deserted you in the in the thick of it but he was wrong about it. John Mark wrote The Gospel of Mark and by the end of his life.

Was commanding, John Mark, as one of the people that is is ministering to his needs, right? He he once killed a guy because his Storman was so long that he put him to sleep. And the guy fell out the window. And then he had to raise him from the dead.

Right. He once killed a guy because he just like talked too much. Right. And when the entire Christian Community in Acts is telling him not to go to Jerusalem, even in the spirit. Paul is hard-hearted and he's Brash and he's going And even though it looks like like when you read the book of Acts, it kind of looks like God was leading him to Rome the whole time.

Right.

So these are superstars. They really are however Easy to say, if you wanted to pick the most attractive people to get people to join your movement. You would hardly choose Peter and Paul. Why would anyone want to join a committee? A community. That's just full, or even. The superstars are just a bunch of Misfits.

They get dunked on all the time. Why? And this is what we do. We we join a community of Misfits. When we get baptized, And that's exactly how it should be. See, in the beginning of the homily, I compared Christianity to a game. Here's the thing about it though.

No one has what it takes? No one has what it takes. Christianity doesn't pull any punches about that. There are no Shacks in the game of Christianity. That people are just born with the right stuff, right? All of us are born with the wrong stuff. In fact, We're born with a tendency to rebel against God, to Center our lives on ourselves and to turn inward.

Why would we enjoy, why would we join a community of Misfits? Because we're all Misfits. The world is a big old community of Misfits Christianity. Is if they that only works for people that are ready to admit that, they don't have what it takes. You know, since Easter Sunday, we've been praying for an Archbishop and I assure you that from Archbishop.

Steve Wood, the newly elected Archbishop all the way down through every Bishop priest, Deacon and layperson. All of them are a community full of Misfits, and all of them would tell you that,

All of us completely bankrupt. But for the work of Christ. This is the first baptism we've had in a long time where we're only baptizing a baby. And having grown up an independent Evangelical tradition that I grew up in one of the most common questions I hear from people is why do you guys baptize babies?

They can't express Faith. Right. It's important to note that virtually all Christians throughout history as long as we can tell baptize their babies. Right. And the ones who delayed baptism were doing it for the wrong reasons. They were like, hey, let's let this person get their sinning out of the way and then we'll baptize them when they're done, you know?

But I'm so they're Wild Oats and then when that's over, we can baptize them and clean them up a little bit, right? Also nearly all um, Christians today, baptize their babies, the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, the lutherans, the anglicans, the Presbyterians, the methodists. All of them, baptize their babies.

Could everyone be wrong? Sure. Absolutely. Everyone's wrong all the time, right? But A lot of people are wrong about a lot of things, but the burden of proof is going to be on the five percent of Christians. Who are telling the entire church, they're doing it wrong, right? So, You can settle in, it's it's fine.

Like we're doing what everyone's always done, right? But today more than that, I'm more interested in pointing out what baptizing a baby actually does to communicate. And, and illuminate the gracious work of God in saving us. James, will contribute, nothing. To this process he may even cry when I pour water on him.

Like that, that very likely can happen. And yet God will save him. God will graft him into the family. James will be a member of this community of Misfits and he'll be invited to the table to receive the body and blood of the Lord. In this way, infant baptism.

As a picture of God, graciously saving people who can't contribute, anything to their relationship with God. May point in a unique way to that. This is a story of Salvation by Grace. None of us can contribute. See, here's the deal, he won't contribute anything. None of us can contribute anything.

To our Salvation. We can't take a single step toward God without him moving toward us. The only step we can take to our God. Is him. I guess what. I want to say is he takes all the steps. He comes down from heaven. He he comes down. He he takes on flesh, he reaches and then he Yanks us up into the heavenlies with him.

So I think maybe today the best way to honor, Saint Peter and Saint. Paul is to celebrate someone else. Joining the church. They founded recognizing that neither of them would be a worthy Foundation of the Today's Misfits were transformed by the Lord Jesus. So today we baptize James and reaffirm our baptismal.

Vows, we reaffirm the promises. We made to join the community of Misfits and call on God, to forgive us, transform us and heal us. Today, James joins us in the community of Misfits. We aren't a people who have the right stuff, who were born with the right stuff, who put together the equation in, just the right way because of our Keen intellect.

Or have the right mannerisms and temperaments to be fit for the kingdom of God. Instead, we The Misfits, recognize our desperate need, we join Saint, Peter Saint Paul, and all the saints in crying out to God, to save us and to knit us together in the one Foundation. Who is Christ Our Lord?

And today, more than any other day. As we reflect on the Waters of baptism, we join the singers and the dancers. In Psalm 87 saying, all all my fresh Springs are in you, Amen

Unedited Transcript Below

Name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. This morning, I was reading uh, Psalm. Uh, we actually just read Psalm 107 yesterday and evening prayer, if you're on the 30-day Salter cycle which is uh, Was making sure to comment on. We just read this yesterday.

But uh there's there's two lectionaries. So we have our Eucharistic lectionary and then we have our daily office lectionary. And we had the fun experience of those overlapping really closely. This week, which is kind of fun. But, but we read, uh, Psalm 109, no, no 111. Psalm 1, uh, 13 today and we read We read it, two years ago with the cleavers, uh which was kind of.

And the last verse of that song is he gives he makes the bear, he gives the barren woman children. And uh, and gives them a house to dwell and praise the Lord. So this is like and two years ago when we read that at the cleaver's house because we were visiting them.

She was weeping. And uh, and probably since then every month like for the last eight months I've uh, wept for Joy reading that verse just uh at God's answer to the Cry of her heart, really? I mean she's been crying out to God for a child for a long time and um so you guys got an email with a picture of the little dude and we're so excited about that, but it was just really cool to read that uh this morning and it'd be just reflecting on God's faithfulness and his answer to her prayers and the Cry of her and Max's heart.

More. When the answer doesn't come, sometimes doesn't seem to come for a long time, sometimes doesn't come for our whole life. Where we don't get the answer. And you guys probably heard life's not fair. You guys probably heard your parents say that. Yeah, life's not fair. Uh, and you guys grew up hearing your parents say that to you now.

Of course, that's true. But your parents, if they were anything like mine and all the other parents in the world, Applied that truth in the most arbitrary ways. Uh, most always your parents like mine. If they were good parents, they were actually concerned with fairness. They wanted to be fair.

Um, when you were a dispute with their, with your siblings, your parents, like mine, try to determine what the problem was and resolve the dispute with Equity. Forward over their Christmas shopping list to make sure that all the kids had enough gifts are like the same amount of gifts under the tree.

If other kids have more gifts than you, they took time to explain to you that the bike you wanted was really expensive and so that other kids had more gifts, but you had a really nice gift Right. So what my parents usually meant when they said life's not fair like that is I believe you are wrong in your claim of Injustice here.

That's actually what they meant. Uh, that I, I was claiming Injustice and they were saying Tough luck. But what they really meant is we think this is just and you're gonna have to get thicker skin on this, right? They didn't mean you were. Right, I'm not behaving justly but I'm teaching you a lesson about unfairness in life.

That's not what they meant. Right? And that's why I don't try to use that phrase. I try not to use the phrase in my household often. Um, because of course it's true that life isn't fair, but that doesn't change that. It ought to be fair. Right life. Ought to be fair.

It ought to it, ought to be right. If I am behaving unjusted or my children and playing favorites that's wrong, whether the world is fair or not, And in a world without any Brokenness, people would have a fair shot in life. They will be rewarded for the work, they put in the emotional Investments that they make in relationships would always be reciprocated.

There'd be a clear connection between what one deserves and what one gets. If the world wasn't broken. And despite our Brokenness in the world does lead to Injustice and inequity many times maybe even most times We actually do see a relationship between what we deserve. And what we get, don't we That's what most of the wisdom literature in the Old Testament in the Hebrew.

Scriptures is all about. Right? When you read Psalms and Proverbs you see a world where faithfulness to God and obedience to God, leads to blessing from God, hard work is rewarded and laziness is costly. When you're reading the Psalms in the Proverbs, right? But the pessimistic wisdom literature. In the Hebrew scriptures gives the Counterpoint.

Right? It's part of why I love the Hebrew scripture so much. The writings of the scriptures gives us both the rules. And the exceptions to the rules. Right, every culture has Proverbs every culture has wise sayings wise sayings that they say. And apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Every culture has things like that, right? However, because the world is broken, we all have to deal with exceptions to those rules. My friend ain't well and he worked out every day and he ended up getting cancer in his 50s and he died young Exception to the rule, right?

And Proverbs aren't promises. Um Proverbs or Proverbs they speak of general principles, right? Um and they speak of the way things generally work.

And these exceptions are a result of broken World Systems. A world system that we all live in that's impacted by sin and death and evil and in a world system like that injustice is abound sometimes the injustices are easily explained Human greed can limit opportunity for some people more than others racism.

Can make systems, unfair fight, but sometimes, and maybe even more times, the injustices are not easily explained. We just don't know why our situations is so unfair. And the story of Job gives us a situation like that. Gives us a situation where it's not easily easily understood, why it's things are not fair and why they're working out like this.

And we just heard what what I call the beginning of the end of the Book of Job Book of Job is a long book, but we read the beginning of the end. And we might have hoped that God was going to answer for himself and explain. How have you allowed this?

How have you done this to job? How have you allowed this to go on in job's life? We we might have wanted to explain for himself for this Divine counsel where he seems to single out job for Calamity. Precisely because job was righteous and because job did what was right.

And guys, from our perspective, there are a lot of stories like this. There are a lot of stories like this. There are lots of times that it's difficult to square. A God who Reigns over his creation and is all good, and is all-powerful With the Injustice that we're seeing in the world, the unfairness.

And in this beginning of the end of the Book of Job, God God doesn't give us the answer to the conundrum, he doesn't put the puzzle together. He puts us in our place and makes clear that he doesn't answer to us. So the problem of evil is uh is one that I've struggled with profoundly in my life, like the problem of Injustice, it's like kept me up at night, right?

And, When we talk about it today, like if it's a, if it's like a philosophical problem that you're wrestling with right now, the answer from the scriptures isn't going. To be satisfying um uh but because the only answer is actually an encounter with God who is good in the midst of it even when we don't understand and in these times of Injustice, perhaps the most obvious question with that we wrestle with is, maybe the same, is the question the disciples asked in the boat.

Lord. Do you care? That we are perishing? That's what they said to him in the gospel reading, right? Does God care? Maybe that's the fundamental question. So we're going to look at Injustice. We're going to talk about our confidence that God does care. But what makes this difficult is that we're first going to look at How he doesn't display how he cares to us.

A way that we seem to look for that doesn't seem to work. And then we'll look at how he does display to us that he cares. So first we probably need to lay out the extent of the problem. It really is unfair guys, it's really not fair. What happened to job is not fair.

When you try to explain that issue away, You actually miss the point of the whole book and people like will read job and they'll Want to try to like get God off the hook like oh yeah, he has a right to do what he wants. He's got, and listen, all that's true, but when you try to explain away the unfairness of it, you're actually like, that's the whole point of the book is that, it wasn't fair, that job didn't deserve it.

That was the point when you try to say, well, all people are born in sin, so job deserves, whatever he gets. If he if he has Calamity, he has Calamity again. Uh, everybody is born in sin. Also not the point of the book. The point of the book is this isn't fair.

This isn't fair. And so When we're reading it, we have to recognize. It's really not fair. See job recognized that God is on the throne and he questions his fairness because he knows he has been righteous. Right. That's why, that's why. Job questions, God's fairness. He says, it's all.

Therefore I say he destroys both the blameless and the wicked. When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the Calamity of the innocent,

And and what what we have in the Book of Job, if you if it's been a while since you read through it is you have The vast majority of job is this long. Discussion between job and his three friends, right. And they're all just like kind of wrestling with like, hey, this was a guy, he seemed righteous And calamities happen to him.

Why, you know why is this happening and job's friends? Believe that God's on the throne just like job. Does they believe that God's just and fair? And so they are saying no job, you're not as righteous as you think you are. All people are born in sin. You deserve what's coming to you That's really their argument, right?

You're a sinner like everybody else you deserve. What's coming to you, right? And so job's friend's, questioned job's righteousness and they say in 22 4. Is it for fear, for fear of him that he reproves you and enter into judgment with you. Okay. Your students that are learning literature, this is irony.

Okay. This is irony. So we're having dramatic irony. The now the the uh the speaker is speaking, they're saying the uh, they're speaking sarcastically, but they're they're they're saying the opposite of what is true. Is it because you're so righteous that God afflicts you? What's the answer? Yes, that we know that in the beginning we were at the Divine Council.

Have you considered my servant job who is blameless in all his ways? It actually is because he's righteous that he's being afflicted. That's actually what's happening? And so they're speaking. Ironically saying, oh, yeah, it's because you're so righteous that you're going through this right job. Right. It's because he's that righteous and that's why that's why he's going through Affliction, right?

So again, They're all doing their best. They're all wrestling with the Affliction that they're seeing in Joe. But we readers know, hey, this isn't fair. Like, Joe's, been righteous job's, been faithful to God. And yet, Lost everything. He's lost his family. Only one that's left. Is his wife, who's being a pain in the butt?

And, uh, like, like that's all that's left for him. Is someone to say, why don't you curse God and die, you know? Like that's like, that's it. That's all he has. And then, and then he's boils all over his body, like it's not good. And it's not fair. And the gospel reading May if we especially before we get to the end where Jesus calms, the storm may leave us in a similar place.

The disciples are in this tiny boat. Like, I don't know if you guys have ever seen like the pictures of the boat. They're small. Like these small little boats smaller than like the boats that you would like go water skiing in like they're and with no motor and like they're paddling and like it's a little boat and there were big waves.

Like you can have hurricane style winds Like, and like they're they had every reason to be afraid like the boat wasn't made for the waves that they were dealing with, okay? And so they had every reason to be afraid And and Jesus displays this absolute Authority or not only over the created order in this passage but actually right in the next passage the demoniac, he explains all the victory over the powers of Darkness.

Think about that repeated word begged. I don't know if you guys noticed it. So like this demoniac has a If your skin crawls, when you hear my name is Legion because we are many. Like, you know, it's like like he like there were not like a ton of demons.

He's speaking in the first person singular. My name is Legion because we are many, uh, you know, like it just like makes me want. It makes my skin crawl when he does that but like and they're in such control over his body that like, he can't like chains can't hold him down and like he like Power over this man.

And yet, right? When Jesus shows up, this Legion of demons is begging him. They begged him. Not to send them in away from the country. They begged him, right? The people begged, him, everyone's begging Jesus. And he just speaks. And these demons have to obey. So Jesus, who is mighty enough to calm the storm of the word, Mighty enough to set a legion of demons into begging, Let these disciples go right into a storm in a boat that wasn't designed for it and then took a nap under the deck.

So they wonder, do you care that we are perishing like we're going to die. Do you care? And we might ask the same question. Do you care? That we are perishing.

I've seen terrible people get extremely wealthy while. Wonderful people deal with unemployment again and again, and again, right? I've seen the wrong people promoted at jobs and at companies, I've seen couples struggling with infertility While other couples are procuring. Abortions for babies. They don't want And guys, you've seen all this too.

And with a God who is mighty enough to calm the storms and cast out the demons and win the victory. We may join in asking the question, God, do you care that? We embarrassing Are you going to help us? And God does, Displayed it. His concern for us. But I'll tell you.

The way he doesn't show us his concern for us. See, when we look at Job 38. We might be underwhelmed at the answer. Right. When there's good reason to ask God to explain himself, God refuses to do so. He says, where were you? When I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell me if you have understanding. Who determine its measurement, surely you know, or who stretched the line upon it. If there were ever a time to ask God, explain yourself to me, answer to me, this was it. And what we get is a rebuke Early in my marriage. I struggled with the question of whether God is good to the point that I wasn't able to sleep.

And at one point, God was speaking to me through the scriptures through job through Romans 9, if you're interested. But What ultimately what he said Was my goodness is completely independent of your assessment of me.

The scriptures communicate that that's what the Book of Job is communicating at the end. At the beginning of the end that we read. God's goodness. Isn't on trial with us. And he doesn't answer to us. God does care that we're perishing. It's true in a moment. We'll talk about how he shows us that But it's important to note that he does not display his Care by answering to us.

He does not put himself under our assessment, he does not allow himself to be measured by our sense of right and wrong. He is the creator. We are the creation. He's the judge. We are not and so he doesn't put himself under us to be assessed and he doesn't even put the puzzle together.

Sometimes when we're going through Calamity or our friends or neighbors are going through calamity, our family, we try to comfort one another with things. Like one day, you'll understand why you had to go through this. And you'll get to help others. And sometimes this happens. Sometimes we we get to look back and say, oh, I can see how God used this for good.

Often most times, it does not happen. It does not happen. The puzzle doesn't get put together. There is no biblical promise, that you will understand why God allowed a Calamity in your life. Please know that there's no biblical promise for that. If like it's not there. I'm not even confident that we'll understand after death.

I'm not even confident that in the next life. We'll be able to say, oh, this is why that had to happen to me we might not I don't, there's certainly not a promise that we will.

And when Joe Bends, he never tells them about the Divine counsel. He never tells the he never tells job, he never tells his friend and maybe that's instructive to us. Maybe we haven't, maybe we can have an understanding that God's priority. Is not for us to know why. That that's not the main priority of God in Calamity.

It's not for us to know why. But the, but God does display that he does care that we are perishing. And here's how. He gets in the boat. Jesus is in the boat when they ask, do you care that? We're perishing. If the bow went down, Jesus was going down with it, right?

Jesus was in the boat. He was in the boat. The problem of evil when treated as a philosophical problem, laid out as bear a motionless statements of fact, is actually pretty unhelpful and there's a reason why that's unhelpful. It's because first of all, that's not how we experience Injustice.

We don't experience Injustice as like, a bear proposition, like a math equation, that we work out. We experience it, deeply emotionally, and viscerally. But that's how we experience Calamity in our life and Injustice in our life, right? But maybe more than that, the reason that's not helpful, is there actually isn't an answer.

There actually isn't an answer that will add up. Because the answer to the problem of evil is not a proposition. It's a person. It's the person of Jesus. It's the person of Jesus. How do we know that? God cares, that we are perishing? He's in the boat. The disciples had no idea the extent to which they were perishing.

When they said, do you care that we are perishing? They had no idea. The extent that Not only was physical death looming, but spiritual death separation from God was looming. And we know that God cares. We are perishing because he came down from heaven, And he took everything all the evil could bring upon his own body in the cross.

He took all that was broken. All the weight of evil, as the power of Darkness, got to do their worst, Jesus, hung on the cross. We know he's perishing because Jesus came, he got into the boat, he got onto Earth with us, he walked the Earth. He experienced the worst evil imaginable, and then he won victory over it.

God doesn't flip back to the back of the math book. To give us the answer to the equation. How can a good God? Allow evil How it works, instead? He comes and he experiences evil in his own flesh. And he wins victory over it. We know that God cares because he is in the boat doing, battle and winning.

So there are tons of things in this world that lead us to look up to the heavens and ask the question God, do you even care if it hasn't happened to you yet? It will, it has, it's happened to all of us. It's a real question people have been wrestling with for a long time, but today we see that.

Jesus answers that question. If we're looking for an answer, that's like the answer in the back of the math, book that solves the equation for us. We're disappointed because God doesn't answer to us, he doesn't fix the problem of evil by giving us a proposition. He won't be subjected to our judgment.

Doesn't mean there is no answer. The answer is not a proposition, it's person. We know, God cares that we're perishing because Jesus is in the boat. The word became flesh. Because God cares that we are perishing. And God cares about us today, too. He displays his care for us even in the midst of the Brokenness of creation and giving us the body and blood of his son.

Jesus come to the table. Receive the body, and blood of Jesus receive the body of the blood of the one. Who got into the boat, who did the battle with demons? Who won the victory over sin death and evil in receiving him receive the answer to the question. Do you even care that we're perishing?

Maybe not by getting every intellectual question. We have answered. But by giving himself to us, Receive Jesus today. Amen. 

Unedited Transcript Below:

The name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Amen. The cards we pray today starts with this significant statement, it says O Lord.

From whom all good proceeds. Just posture mind. Think of what we're affirming. When we pray that I think it's worthwhile to reflect on whether we really believe. Those words. There are a lot of good things in the world, right? Lots of things that are good. In this world. There are talented people, the world is full of painters and Poets, and pianists.

The world is full of writers and leaders and athletes and teachers. It's full of linguists Engineers. It's full, it's it's full of sacrificial servants, philanthropists soldiers and entrepreneurs. There's a lot to celebrate in the world just and that's just some people, right? And then there are these relationships that are a blessing and a Wonder to us.

We have deep friendships and familial bonds. Their lovers parents daughters Sons and siblings. These are some of the deepest relationships, we have. Right, and something close. To the it, it's close to maybe the thing, we feel that defines love, maybe more than anything else. And in our collect, we're seeing all those things.

In fact, everything that can be called good proceeds from the Lord. All of it comes from God. And whether or not we believe that and truly believe that determines a lot about how we value the world that we inhabit. It determines how we Orient to the sayings of Jesus that trouble us.

Like the ones like unless you hate your father and mother and child and everyone you ever loved, you cannot be my disciple. Right. Jesus says that. If we don't really believe our collect. But I I just said that so like, hey doesn't mean like, I'm like I have this anger and hate like VM anger.

It's like disregard, he's saying, disregard these relationships, you know, in order to love Jesus or follow Jesus. And if we don't Really believe our collect that every good thing proceeds, from the good God, who made all things. Then those words may seem nonsensical to us. And what we see in the passages today has everything to do with that claim.

All good proceeds from God, The, the readings can trust two different ways to seek flourishing. We'll take a look at both those ways to seek flourishing and on the blessing that comes from seeking flourishing in God's way. Keep in mind though that the only reason that we seek, the kind of flourishing that God has in mind for us, is because we agree with the collect That all good things.

Come from God. So, two routes toward flourishing, the first route is striving. Are are Ezekiel passage gives us the the far limit of humans striving And I think it's important to note that the far limit, it's pretty good. The far limit of human striving is pretty good. So in verses 5 and 6, you have this cedar tree towering high above all the other trees, All the birds nest in its shade and the animals birth young under its branches.

God says it's even taller than the trees of Eden. This tree is taller than the trees in God's garden in second. It has all that it needs. As far as water and provision. Digging down deep planted by the water side. But verse 9 is the bombshell. God says, I made it beautiful.

I made it beautiful. Pause here for a moment because it's important to think about who God's talking about. Right. He's addressing pharaoh. So that's how he starts he's talking about Pharaoh, right? This is the quintessential enemy of God's people in the Old Testament. When you read about pharaoh in Egypt, you know, Bad guys, like read bad guys.

In the story, right? Because these were the people that God freed Israel from slavery to Pharaoh. Set himself up as a God, the whole book of Exodus is This battle, or at least the beginning of the book of Exodus is this battle between Pharaoh, the God and Yahweh the God and they got in a god off and there.

That's what the plagues are all about. Is that who got which God is stronger. Well, we're gonna find out. That's what the plagues are all about. Is this battle between the two gods. Right. This is who's being addressed, he's describing Assyria. Right, they've brought the northern kingdom into Exile.

So, the northern kingdom has gone into Exile. These are enemies of God and of his people. Pharaoh has set himself as a up as a god. And then, The Assyrians have brought God's people into Exile. And then God says, I made the cedar beautiful. I'm the one who empowered this nation.

I am the one who built this up. I'm the one who made it. Beautiful, everything good about. It came from me. Oh God, from whom. All good proceeds. Even the good in our enemies, even the God in his people's enemies. All of it came from me. He said I'm the one who set this Cedar up.

Because all things that are good proceed from the good God, who made all things, right. And so what is the great sin of Assyria or Egypt or Babylon later? All the Empire building peoples judged in Ezekiel. Comes down to one thing. Labeling, the good that proceeds from God. As something that is self-derived.

Or achieved in humans, driving, and in our own strength. That's why verse 10 says because it towered high and set its top among the clouds, and its heart was proud of its height. I will give it into the hand of the, my of a mighty one from the Nations.

So what was the sin? Got proud of its height and set its top among the clouds. It's almost language of Babel. Because remember the story of the Tower of Babel let us build a tower to the heavens and let it extend into the heavens, kind of very similar language because it was said, its head among the clouds and was proud of its height.

This is why it will be delivered and judged. This is a representation of what, all humans driving and human Empire Building looks like It's important to note that a certain level of flourishing does happen. By humans driving. Our Psalm tells us that in Psalm 92 8 though the ungodly or as green as grass and although all the workers of wickedness, flourish, that there's some flourishing taking place, there is true.

Good that proceeds from the good creation of God, Even when these creative peoples are rebellious toward God and and are have turned against the God who made them. There's still a level of flourishing that takes place. However, the strongest things and even the Empires that look immovable, and when you're talking about Assyria and Babylon, You're talking about Empires that don't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon.

So we think of like superpowers today and we think like they're immovable, they're not like they they rise and they fall Empires rise and they fall, our nation will rise and it will fall. If the Lord carries, this is how it works. Rises and Falls if Rome Falls everyone Falls, okay?

So it's just the way to to orient ourselves toward these Empires right? And all of them. Even Empires that are built while glorying in their own strength. Will ultimately perish. And that brings us to maybe the end of all humans driving. When we look at this way of flourishing, humans striving the end is destruction, Even the language of flourishing, in the psalm, Talks about grass, green grass.

Grass in the Old Testament is a picture of fleeting all. People are like, grass. They rise up like grass, they're here. Today gone tomorrow, the grass is here today so like We had, we had markings. Um, but we're gonna put a fence in, right? We had spray paint on our grass, right?

We had spray paint put on our grass in two months. The spray paint won't be there. Why the grass Grow. It'll be cut. The the whole picture is, hey, this is fleeting. This is a fleeting reality when you talk about grass. It's here today. It's gone tomorrow. This is the picture of grass in the scriptures.

So hear me? Everything built while glorying in your own strength in your own might is going to be burned up like grass. All of it. All the things we build that while glorying in our own strength in our own might Burns up like the grass, even the good works that we might label, Christian works.

In 1st Corinthians 3, Saint. Paul tells us that even the good works that are not built on the foundation of Jesus will be burned up. And those who did these Works will be saved but only through fire, right? That's what he's talking. He he's saying like if it's not built on the foundation of Jesus, it will not last.

It will not endure. So so if you and I are striving to make names for ourselves by our own strength, We're building on what is fleeting and dying. Parishes. But there's a second route toward flourishing that we see. In the gospel readings, right? And that's that of humble reception.

We get two Parables in the Gospel reading today, giving us two messages about the kingdom of God. One story tells us about kind of the scope of the Kingdom while the other gives us a description of the power of the Kingdom and where it comes from. So if we look at the scope of the Kingdom, we get this picture.

That's the second Parable, he tells of the Kingdom, starting small. Extending through the whole world. So, this is a, this is what Jesus is teaching in that second Parable, right? He Compares the Kingdom to a grain of a mustard seed that grows into a plant. That's massive, right? And when we talk about extending God's kingdom or preaching, the good news, many times we get a picture Of like kind of a private uninteresting set of propositions that we're trying to get people to believe.

Like, Hey, preaching. The gospel is like getting people to believe. Right. Boring set of information, right? And and this a lot of times how we picture evangelism, it's why? When we talk about evangelism, we don't like the idea of it. We think that the gospel spreading is just like Trying to get people to believe a couple boring facts.

But that's not so but the picture that Jesus gives is one that looks small. And then grows over the face of the whole world, right? And that expands and then it's this mighty thing that's that's towering over the whole world. Do you view yourself as like a mid-level or low-level salesman when you think about evangelism?

Or do you view yourself as a Herald of the Kingdom? That's extending over the face of the whole world. Remember the story people are in the garden, right? And the people Rebel, they they turn away from God. They as a whole we've all turned away from God and then God.

Enters the world as a savior, as a redeemer. And he, and he goes. And he says, uh, he calls it, his bride, right? He saves his bride. He saves the princess, right. He goes and he rescues them so that, so that they can be United reunited with him and made one with him.

He dies for them and then he rises again and wins a victory over all that is broken in the world and then he ascends and Reigns as king as extending his kingdom over the entire world, guys. Boring like it, I mean, it could be wrong but it's not boring.

So I, uh, so you don't have to view yourself as like a mid-level sales person. Like if this is true, this is like wildly good news. And important news.

And one day, the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the water covers the sea. That's what habakkuk 2. 14 tells us. So make no mistake every knee will bow. It's a completely. World encompassing Kingdom. All enemies will be placed under Jesus feet.

And this is not like worldly kingdoms. This is a kingdom that brings Justice and righteousness. All that is broken is fixed. All that is unjust is made, right? And so we pray to God. Every time we gather several times a day, your kingdom come your will be done on Earth like it already is in heaven.

But we realize here is that it starts small. Incredibly small Jesus says, it's the smallest of all the seeds in the world. Now people get weird. Um, and I think they've argued about whether they can think of a smaller seed. Now that other seeds have been discovered and then they want like, okay, this was not Jesus point, he was not making a point on like um, Botany.

Okay. Um, the the point is, it's, it's really small, okay? Like this is a very small seat, right? It's like it's the grit. It's very small. And, if you've seen a mustard seat, you know, it's small. I don't know if there's a smaller seat, you guys can go look it up and try to find that out.

But the point is super small. Certainly the smallest one that these guys known about have ever knew about it, right? That he's talking to right, really small C, right? And then it and then it extends throughout the whole world. So what's the Kingdom of Heaven? Look like,

It looks like a couple of people opening up their home. Or opening up a classroom. To start to do a study through a book. It looks like a parent. Rushing to get their kids to church. Or to try to get to the school bus on time and wrestling with them through the prayers during the Eucharist, right?

The kingdom of God might look like an educator pouring over how to impart the gift that he or she's been given to the Next Generation. The kingdom of Heaven might look like a small group, Bible study meeting in a jail. It might look like a barbecue with your neighbors.

Sharing a meal in your life together. The Kingdom of Heaven might look like laying hands on a sick person and asking God to heal them.

The Kingdom of Heaven looks like a small group of Believers, gathered around the Eucharist, Where we see. The intersection of Heaven and Earth. Happening. Right at the table. So we don't despise small beginnings. Not if we're Christians. Because the kingdom of God always starts small, and then it extends throughout the entire Earth.

So that's the scope of the Kingdom. We also had a parable about the power of the Kingdom, right? And the power is God's. The power had solely so it solely belongs to God, the first three verses that we read are unique to Mark. So Mark is the shortest gospel.

So when you see something a unique to Mark take note of it it's like wow because he's all there's almost nothing that's only covered in Mark and this little Parable is Right. The phrase that may leap off the page to us in that story of the farmer, is he knows not how So he like puts the seed in the ground.

Uh, and he doesn't know how but it grows. Now some of us know in a fallen world If you look at my yard you can see that like it probably takes a little more work than what's described here but but what what? He's trying to uh, I like your yard look halfway decent right.

Uh, but like what he's describing here is this power that's like within it seems within the ground. It's like magic, right? Like there's these seeds in the ground and then like whoa. It's like it happens and it's not by his strength or his mind or his power might have some cultivation that needs to take place but this is a power that comes from outside of the farmer, right?

He's he he's talking about this like self-contained power of the seed. And we get really tempted in a growing church that has started small to think of ourselves. Maybe a little too highly. If someone leaves, The church. Or if people aren't coming in quickly enough, we start thinking about our liturgy or advertising, or our programs, or our music, or our priest, or other leaders or our diligence Now, this Parable isn't about isn't against working hard.

You'd have to rip like the entire book of Proverbs out of the Bible to realize that Or to say like, hey, we we shouldn't work hard. But it's a very clear statement about where Victory comes from in God's kingdom. Even that book of Proverbs with all the emphasis on hard, work tells us the horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.

It's God. Who does the work? The kingdom doesn't extend because we like came up with the right plan or got the right charismatic priest or picked the right music or worked tirelessly and never took a break. That's not how the kingdom of God expands. It's a work of God.

And God does it the kingdom of God, extends over the whole earth because God is at work, and he's at Mighty, So where are you feeling tempted to see the Kingdom's extension, be a product of your own work. Because remind yourself of this. Is the Kingdom of Heaven is Advanced only by the work of God.

And only by his might and by his power. Do you think if you don't ever rest or ever say no to someone like me who comes and says hey can you help out with that that the kingdom of God will advance even like a little bit faster? It won't It won't Advance a little bit faster because you can't say no.

Um it won't it it won't Advance a little bit faster because you flexed a little bit harder, the kingdom of God advances. Because God advances it. And he invites us into that. He invites us into the labor. But he doesn't. So what is our part? What does success look like?

What does it look like for us to be successful in seeing the kingdom expand? It's one thing, it's only one thing. Have I obeyed the Lord? Have I rightly discerned what? The Lord's asked me to do and have I obeyed him? That's it. And that's plenty. Trust me. That's plenty to do.

The farmer sowed the seed, right? He didn't just Ask for the seed to be. So he did sow the sea. So, it's plenty. God will ask you to overcome your anxiety, your self-centeredness, your procrastination, your laziness, your workholism, all those sorts of other things that take your eyes off him.

As we see Saint John's continue to grow. And extend God's kingdom. We have to realize though, that success is one thing. And one thing only have I obeyed the Lord And the result of this type of flourishing. This type of flourishing, that, that recognizes that the, the power and all comes from God.

All good proceeds from God, is this longevity, whereas the other type of flourishing led to was fleeting. It was like grass, this type of flourishing is long. That's why the psalm says, the righteous shall flourish like a palm tree. I grew up in Southern California. Palm trees. Can live anywhere.

It like, blows me away. How they survive anywhere. If you've been to Palm Desert in July, It's awful, like nothing like no one should be there. It's so hot, it's so hot. Like you think it was hot this weekend here? Like it's so hot like it.

The palm trees are doing fine, right? And and the psalmist tells us that the ones who are righteous, the ones who are recognizing that all of it comes from God, they flourish like a palm tree. They they they're not like the grass which is fleeting here today and gone tomorrow, they flourish like a palm tree.

In the courts of God. God's advance of his kingdom is completely inevitable. And we receive those benefits when we trust in him and when we recognize, it's his might in his strength. So today we prayed that God is the one from whom all good proceeds. If we truly believe that it changes everything about our lives.

It changes how we view our relationships, our friendships and our families, but it also changes the way we understand our work and our vocation, we come to realize that all good things come from God. Who made all things? And we don't attribute the good in this life to our strength and our might.

We become humble, recipients of what God is doing. And we don't conceive of ourselves as the agents to bring things about. When we put the good things in our lives, in perspective and place ourselves in the place of humble, recipients of the gifts of God's kingdom, the world opens up to us.

God promises that our works and our lives. Both will endure long. After all the things built on human cunning are burned up. So today we're about to receive from the Lord, the first fruit to the kingdom. And we resolve to live in Humble, Reliance on him as he grows the kingdom and brings about our flourishing.

Amen. 

Unedited Transcript Below:

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. So Trinity, Sunday It's a, it's a important Sunday of the year. And our colic starts us in an important place, right? Christians are given Grace. They're giving Grace to confess a true faith. We see Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to your servants Grace.

By the confession of a true Faith to acknowledge the glory. And it goes on from there, but we've been given a gift of Grace. Those of us who have received the doctrine of the Trinity have received a gift And it's a gift of Grace and it's unearned. It's been passed down to us by Christians before us and preserved Through the Ages, by the Holy Spirit, who's continued to preserve this Doctrine or the this true faith for us.

You've you've heard me talk about this before those of you've been around here a while on Trinity Sunday. But we have to reiterate it strongly every time. Because something that because something is difficult to understand. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try and that we should stop talking about it. Okay, I this is like Uh, this is more obvious.

Um, to say out loud, then what a lot of us experience. So a lot of us experience like, hey, things that are hard to understand, you just don't bother talking about it, you know. Um, we don't bother wrestling with something and so you probably have heard someone say. No one understands the Trinity.

They don't mean that like, The statements by themselves. All that difficult to understand but but what the issue is that when we put them all together that they that we're talking about the incomprehensible God and then all of a sudden whoa we just realized God turns out, God really is incomprehensible.

And so what what happens when we start talking about the Trinity as we quickly sometimes we'll be like, oh, that's just that's just stuff for like, theology nerds or people that want to go to grad school and psychology, but like, for regular people, you don't need to bother with that.

In addition to that, as I tell my kids, if The fact that you're feeling a bit bored, At some point in worship. Is not a sign that the church is doing something wrong. Like you guys know that liturgical worship is kind of built on that premise? There's like a whole lot of People like, Entertainment based church that's like, hey, oh it's a sin if anyone's bored in church.

Like no one should ever feel bored for like a single moment in church or you're doing it wrong? Let me explain something to you liturgical worship. We we don't believe that. Like you might feel bored at some point in church and it's not because the church is doing it wrong.

Might be an opportunity. For you. To reflect on. Hey, why am I feeling bored? Right now. Why is this? Boring me, why, what's going on with me when prayers of the people draw on forever? And you find yourself saying I'm bored. It's not because we have the wrong version of prayers of the people.

If they would just turn to the renewed ancient texts and do that shorter version, it wouldn't be so boring. Maybe the question is about me. Why am I so Restless? That I can't sit still for five minutes. You know, maybe that, maybe that's something that I have to do with me.

And listen. That's not like, just a lay person thing, pre-skip board too. So, uh, so like it, but it's something that we have to Ask the question. And when we're talking about something like Doctrine, like the doctrine of the Trinity, it's important to say that at the outset. A lot of times, people will say what we want, our teaching, we want our preaching to be relevant and that it's really just a code word for entertaining or, interesting, or titillating.

That's what is meant by relevant. Um, Of it. I'm like if the Trinity is true, it's relevant and your experience of being entertained by preaching has nothing to do with whether it's relevant or not. It's relevant. If it's true. Um and it's irrelevant if it's not, but that that's the reality.

If if this is who God is it's relevant to you and it's relevant to me regardless of whether you're feeling entertained. Um and whether you're feeling interested, so that's just an important thing to recognize. When we come to the outset of something like the Doctrine of the Trinity is like Okay, so it's hard to understand and reading about it might be kind of boring.

I'm telling you, like, if I read like, Long books about the Trinity. I fall asleep like several times like like I might but that's not a a book problem that's like often to me problem that I'm just lacking the ability to have sustained attention on something, right? So if we're to just lay out the doctrine of God, and we're going to do this quickly because we're actually spending more of our time, talking about what Saint Paul talks about with our, which is our relationship to God.

But the doctrine of the Trinity. If we're to lay this out and it's important to lay this out. We we lit you guys live in an area where maybe no one on your street. The doctrine of the Trinity. So it's, this is kind of a unique place for that like, um, And, I mean, in a lot of places in the country a lot.

No one on your street could articulate the doctrine of the Trinity. But but at least they would say, they believe it. Now, we live in a context where Most people would explicitly deny, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Most of the people that you interact with Um, so it's important that you're able to articulate the doctrine if you're going to live in Utah, like it's important that you're able to articulate.

So when someone asks you, hey, what do you believe about God, you can answer that question. I'm not saying you can win an argument with them and flex your muscles and like, but like you can at least answer the question. What do you guys believe about God? Right, that's pretty basic.

Like that's that's not combative. If someone were to ask you that, it's not Crazy that someone might ask you that like someone might ask you that. Well, hey, what do you guys believe about God? And it's important that you're able to at least articulate what you believe about. God, that's lay people that's pastors.

That's all of us. We have to be able to articulate that. So if we're quickly going to lay it out, Here's here's the doctor, the Trinity really quickly laid out. There's one being who is God, Right. There's one being who's God? He's made all things. All things came from him.

All things were made by him. Everything that is not. God is God. We're monotheistic meaning that we believe that there is one being that has the claim to being God. The other things in scriptures that are mentioned as gods, smallgy gods, they're powerful beings. They're but they are created by God.

That's what makes them different from God himself that there's only one uncreated. All self-existing self-determining being in the universe. This is God right? One God one being. Who is God? The father is fully God. The son is fully God. And the Holy spirit is fully God. Right. And these three persons.

Are distinguishable. Meaning that the father is not the son or the Holy Spirit, and the son is not the father, and the son is not the Holy Spirit and the holy spirit's, not the father or the son, right? So they're distinguishable. From each other. But yet, they're Inseparable. In both their shared being.

One being who is God right back to that, both in their shared being and in their work in the world. This is called the doctrine of inseparable operations of the Holy Trinity, right? So what the that's why Jesus can say, hey, don't, you know, Philip that to look at me is to look at the father, Not saying I am the father, but he's saying our operations are inseparable.

Where I am. The father, is because we share in one being, right? So I am the father are one to see means to see the father, And yet, he's not saying I am the father. Okay. So again None of these statements are that difficult to grasp on their own, but once we are Holding them all at the same time, we're quickly realizing.

Hey, this now we're in the realm of incomprehensible. There's one God. With three distinguishable yet not separable. Persons. Who each have a claim to be fully gone? Yet, there are not three Gods, but one, we'll say all that in the efination Creed which you guys will get to recite in a moment.

So, uh, so but but yet, um, and so what once we're holding it all together, we're recognizing, okay. This is incomprehensible, that doesn't mean we can't articulate it. It means that we recognize, it's beyond our ability to fully apprehend. And, and The only one who fully apprehends the being of God is God.

He's the one uh, he because we'd have to be infinite to do so and self-determining to do so, and uncreated to do so and all the things that only God is for us to be able to fully comprehend or apprehend it. What's important is that we're able. So it's important to be able to articulate that practice that you know, being able to say those things.

Um, so that you can you can explain to people. Who might almost everybody walking around. Even people that have rejected. The doctrine of the Trinity have probably rejected, a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Um, Because in order to make it more comprehensible often, we have, uh, not spoken those three things, and I just said to you, And we've suppressed one or the other.

We've talked about three Gods and we've talked about one person, um, or like so sometimes we just struggle to put all that together and so practice, if you need help getting conversation with others, you can call me anytime. I love talking about the Trinity. Even more importantly than that.

Um, I wanted to talk about our relationship to the Trinity. And what's pretty amazing when we talk about our relationship or our connection to God? Is that first of all, like our colic leads us to praise You realize that so we, we talk about the confession of a true faith and that's important But it says to acknowledge the glory.

Of the Eternal Trinity. It what's important to recognize here that when our call leads us to praise The goal isn't like to pass a doctrinal exam. Okay, the doctrine is important. But the goal isn't like, we haven't. Reach the goal if we can like Articulate, the doctrine of the Trinity.

What the goal is is to praise the Lord. To be able to enter into worship and to offer glory to the Majesty of God that when we are confronted with the Doctrine of the train, we we are confronted with God's incomprehensibility. We praise Him. We praise Him and worship him.

And we acknowledge the glory of the mystery of the Triune God. Saint Paul does such a beautiful job laying out our relationship with the Trinity In this passage. I I was I was reflecting on. I don't think there was a there's a better place in scripture if you want to say like when Saint Peter says, God made us participants in the divine nature or partakers of the divine nature and you're like, huh?

You know what? What does that mean? Saint Paul here. Tells us what that means. I mean he he explains to us what it means to be participants in the divine nature. What it means to relate with God? The God is a personal God. The guy who relates with us as three persons.

And one of the things we see here is that we're we're made full-fledge children of God as we participate, In the in the Divine Life in the life of the Trinity where we participate as children of the So we what Paul tells us is we're given this Spirit of adoption, right?

We're given the Holy. Which is he describes as the spirit of adoption. Now, the cool thing about adopted children, hey, this isn't hard but but we have to remember adopted children. They're they're children. They're children there. There is much children as biological children are so we don't have a huge amount of people that have experienced adoption.

I know Bob has and I don't know if others have experienced the beauty of adoption, but these are our kids. So when we adopt a child, they are our children, right? So, so when, when, when God describes us as his children, by adoption, he's saying, You're my children, you're as much my children as any begotten, child would be.

You are my adopted child you. So, you who have received the spirit of God are children of God. And it. Think about that. Um, and those of you with children, think about your relationship with your children. Um, those who don't have children yet or or don't have children at all.

Um, Can consider. Someone, you know that has like That has children. And when I think about my kids, I I'm so proud proud of them. They don't have to do something that neat for me to be proud of it. You know, like when they when they, when they give me like A piece of artwork that they've drawn.

Like it's beautiful to me. Like it, it's not going to get hung in any Museum. I assure you like no one's like, uh, but that they're my kids. So it gets it goes up on my fridge. And I'm like, that's the, this is, I mean, my kids drew this, or my kids did this or look what they have accomplished.

God, describes our relationship with him like that. Like a good father with his kids, like a good mother with her kids. This is the relationship we have with God. So we're children of God and our baptism were made children of God, we're baptized into the family of God, and at the same time, we're made co-heirs with Christ.

That's what Paul talks about here. So because, so we're children of the father and we're co-heirs of Jesus. So, the the air, Jesus, receives everything, the father has right? He, he, he's the rightful receiver of everything he has. His is, the yours is the kingdom, we say to God, everything belongs to you, and it all is given to the son.

As co-heirers with Jesus, we Receive all that. The kids have coming to them the wholeness of the Kingdom. Along with Jesus because we've been, we've received the spirit of adoption and we've been adopted in the family. So, we receive everything. The kids receive. So, it's important to just ask when we think about the Trinity, what do you and I, what do you believe about your relationship with God?

When you think, About how you stand with God. What do you think about? What do you think about that? Is he? Stern. Angry Monarch. Um, running things.

Like, an element on the periodic table, that's fun to. Dissect and think about, Or is he a father? Is he your father who loves you perfectly? And who's adopted you and his family and given you the spirit of adoption. Because when we are baptized into the faith, into the Trinity, we become children.

This is how we Relate to God. This is what it means to be. Partakers of the divine nature, we become children of God, And co-heirs with Jesus.

And finally, he says, We suffer. Provided we suffer with him. Now that part might be kind of weird, right? Everything was going so well. Uh, you know, Paul was saying, hey, we're going to inherit everything that a kid. Has we receive the spirit of adoption? We're coheirs with Jesus.

Everything's awesome. And then he just has to throw in this provided we suffer. Oh, that well, that was less cool. Um, What's the basis of that suffering? Well, part of it can be the low-hanging fruit that persecution comes when we proclaim the gospel in the world, but that's not mostly what Paul's talking about here.

He's talking about something else. He describes what the suffering is actually. If like, if you have your Bibles, which most of us don't because we read it from the little paper and I know that, but he goes on, you know, like Romans 8 doesn't stop where we at verse 17 where we stopped our reading.

And he actually goes on to talk about what that suffering looks like. He gives an explanation Following and it talks about P verse 23 is really the climax. But he talks about those who have received the first fruits of the spirit groaning with longing for Redemption of the created order.

So those who have received this Spirit of adoption are now groaning along with the spirit. Looking for Redemption. And so what, what to see here is like Okay, if we could all lie to ourselves. And say like this is as good as it gets. This is uh life is great.

Life is awesome. Everything is working splendidly. If we could allow to ourselves, we wouldn't have the type of suffering that that Paul is talking about here. But the problem is that we can't because we've received the first fruited spirit. And with that first fruits of the spirit with the Holy Spirit, we've received his longing for what is perfect.

We've received the spirits longing for all to be made right? And all to be set right in all creation to be redeemed in everything that was broken by sin, and evil, and death to be fixed. And all that's messed up to be made undone and and everything. That's true to be exalted.

And all, we're waiting for all of it and we know that we're not there yet and we who have received the first fruits of the spirit who have received that Spirit of adoption. In this. Current place where where things are? Are God's extending his kingdom? We're on the upswing.

I promise. It doesn't always look like it, but we're on the upswing, but we ain't there yet. We haven't made it home. And so because and we have the spirit recognize that and long for the day. That God will set this thing, right? And we'll heal, what is broken?

So, when we are baptized, we receive the Holy That's why we say to baptismal candidates. You are sealed with the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as God's Own forever. Right. And getting the holy Spirit's pretty great. I mean, receiving the holy spirit's pretty great? I recommend it. It's, uh, it's great to receive the Holy It's also hard.

Because with receiving the Holy Spirit, we receive God's longing for Redemption and we groan along with the rest of creation for God to make things right? And to heal So we suffer, it's a new type of suffering. Right, it's a new type of suffering. A lot of times when sufferings described in scripture, it's talking about participation in Christ's passion die with Christ.

Rise, again, to life here, it's talking more about our participation in the spirit groaning, So we suffer we suffer because we we have this new type of suffering where we're saying this isn't how it's supposed to be yet. But God's going to make it right? So, Christians, all of us, all of us, have a responsibility to articulate, what we mean.

When we talk about God, If someone asks you and I who God is, we should be able to give them an answer from a Christian perspective, right? This isn't true, only for people who go get degrees in theology, it's true for all people who would claim to worship this Triune God.

But it's not the end of our call. As if relating with God, is primarily about knowing the right data. The doctrine of the Trinity is a called a praise. As we learn about, who the God we worship is, and we acknowledge the glory of his majesty. And ultimately, it's about Union.

It's about participation in the Divine Life. Saint Paul gives us this beautiful articulation of what it means to participate in the life of the Divine we relate with God, as Sons and Daughters because we've received the spirit of adoption from the father and because of that, we get all the inheritance that children get as co-heirs with the son.

Come without suffering though. We suffer because we've been given the Holy Spirit. And when we are given the Holy Spirit, we have this longing for that inheritance. For all that is supposed to come. If we could convince ourselves as good as it gets or is this is how things are supposed to be.

We would have avoided this type of suffering, but we can't because we have the first fruits and we're waiting for the completion and the Fulfillment. The participation in the Divine Life is glorious. It's worth it. It's good but it does bring suffering. Finally, this should just This should lead us to praise.

Reflection on the Trinity leads us to worship the Trinity. The incomprehensible God has offered us relationship with him. That we might participate in the life of the Divine. So, let us worship. The Triune God today. Amen. 

In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy. Oh man. Right. At the end of that ax, reading today, that Leanne read we had Some people, some of the people mocking, right? We had people mocking right at the end of it. This is totally normal and expected when there's a move of God by the way uh that that some people will mock That after an incredible outpouring of God's revelation and miraculous power, some people will respond to this In faith and some won't.

This was always the case. So like sometimes we like believe like, hey if if I could just like Do the magic tricks that. That I I saw some of the Apostles doing if I could see some of those miracles, you can, by the way, but but if I could see some of those miracles.

And if if those things would happen, everyone would just believe, of course. Nope, not true. And even in the scriptures when you see these, I mean think about it. These people just heard The good news of the Lord proclaimed in all their languages, all their native languages that just happened, right?

And some of them didn't believe. I can you imagine Like wow, I'm hearing these people speak a bunch of different languages at the same time that they haven't studied and still. I don't believe you know, it's I I think that they're filled with new wines. I mean the commitment to blindness is maybe almost mind-boggling, right?

Something really cool happens though. God used their very mocking to Bear. Witness to the truth. Remember what he said about new wine needing new wine skins. Right, you might remember Jesus talking about that? In response to the critique of the Pharisees for his challenges to their interpretation of the law, Jesus tells them that the new work God is doing in the kingdom is like new wine.

And new wine skins are going to be needed. For the new wine that is being poured out. The old wine skins were being a reference to the current Jerusalem leadership, right? The current Jerusalem religious leadership and he's saying new wines. To be new wines are going to need new wine skins to hold them.

And here in this passage, we have a group of people mocking this miraculous work of God. And they say, they must be filled with new wine. How right? They were. They were filled with new wine. Saint bead said this, these mockers nevertheless mystically bore witness to truths. For the, they meaning the disciples were not filled with the old wine, which ran short in the marriage of the church.

But with the new one of spiritual Grace for our new wine has come in new skin. Since the apostles re-echoed, the wonderful works of God. Not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit. So what he's doing. So I don't know if you guys remember Caiaphas the high priest.

When Jesus was getting ready to be crucified and he said it is better for one man to die for the many than all the people to die. Then John even writes that in there, like, hey God, had this guy prophesying. Um, even against his will about what what God was about to do.

This is exactly what's happening here. When these people are saying, ah, they're just full of new wine. They're prophesying to the truth, they're filled with new wine. They're filled with a new wine of the grace of the Holy Spirit. They're filled with a new wine that Jesus promised them They're inebriated with new, why?

With the Holy. And there and they're allowing themselves to to be conduits of his grace as the Holy spirit, has come upon them and so we're going to take a few moments today just reflecting on the new wine. That the apostles were intoxicated with what did this wine look like First, it was the new wine of the Law's fulfillment.

This was the new wine of the Law's fulfillment. See, God makes it abundantly clear that we should view this event as a fulfillment of what he began. In giving the law, it's not an ending of what he started. Right? So it's a fulfillment of what God began when he gave the law to his people.

St. Leo, the Great 5th Century. Roman Bishop said, To the Hebrew people. Now freed from Egypt. The law was given on Mount Sinai 50 days after the immolation of the Paschal Lamb. Law given on Sinai, 50 days after the immolation of the Passover Lamb. So we're 50 days after Easter now, right?

Similarly. After the passion of Christ in which the true Lamb of God was killed, just 50 days after his resurrection. The Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles and the whole group of Believers. That's the earnest Christians May easily perceive that the beginnings of the old Covenant were at the service of the beginnings of the Gospel and that the same Spirit who instituted the first established.

The second Covenant. Same God, same, Holy Spirit, instituted the first and the second Covenant. It's purposely parallel with the giving of the law at Sinai. And and what also we're seeing that actually what God intended with the old, Covenant is taking place not perfectly, it's not all that people needed, but it is taking place in verse 5, it says, there were Jews.

From every nation under Heaven. Hold on for a second. Look at what it says there. There were Jews. So, and these are people not being ethnically identified as Jewish people, but they were Jews from every nation under Heaven, meaning, That the proclamation that the blessing of the Nations had already begun.

That the blessing of the Nations through the family of Abraham had already begun and this was a fulfillment of that and an extension of that, but it had already begun. There were already Jews. People who were rightly related with the with Yahweh. Spread throughout the world and they were coming to this place with different languages, right with different languages and different tongues.

Remember when we talked about Deuteronomy 4 and what the law was supposed to do. The law was supposed to cause the surrounding Nations to say, look, see what a wise and understanding people with laws, such as these what other nation has lost such as these and what other nation has a God.

That is so near to them as this God is to this people. This is what the law was always supposed to do. And we see it happened. It happened, not perfectly. We we needed the Holy Spirit. Jesus told the disciples wait for the Holy Spirit, right? But it had already begun and this should be seen as a continuation of what God has always been up to.

Not like a brand new thing that does away with what he was doing before. Okay. So in the Pentecost event, we have this new wine being poured out. And this new wine is this fulfillment of what the law was always meant to be doing. For God's people. But now the law was going to be written and not on tablets of stone.

Put on their hearts. I will write the law in your hearts. He says, in Ezekiel, when he puts the new spirit within them, right? So there's this new wine of this fulfillment of the law. Next, there's this new wine of powerful Proclamation. Powerful. Proclamation. Acts 1 8 says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

And then you'll be my Witnesses, right? Luke 24:49, says wait until you are clothed with power from on high. In Our Gospel reading. Jesus says, You will do greater Works than these. Pause for a second. Think of the audacity of that statement. Jesus looking at his disciples and saying you will do greater Works than these Think of what we saw in the in the gospel of John.

We saw in the Nathaniel under a fig tree and he told him, he he'd seen him before under the Fig Tree and the and this was the beginning of him. Starting to kind of show off a little bit, you know. Then he made an obscene amount of water wine out of water.

He told a woman, everything she'd ever done in John chapter 4, he healed a blind, lame and paralyzed guy in John chapter 5 and in John 9 people, he healed. Another blind guy, he fed 5 000 people in John chapter 6. He raised a guy from the dead in John, chapter 11.

Here. Jesus says, you'll do greater things than these. And in Acts 2. We have these people speaking languages. They've never learned and operating in the power of the Holy See the marching orders were far too big, convert the whole world, that's what Jesus told his disciples to do. You ever feel like the job's big, you know?

He told his disciples. Convert the whole world to the gospel. Go get after it. Right. But these people were going to be given the power to do that. Because God himself was going to live in them.

See, there will be a lot of churches that don't mention Pentecost today. You know that there'll be a lot of churches that don't mention that it's Pentecost today. It's not the, it's not one that hits our calendar. Um in in our secular calendars to the same degree that Easter does.

So there'll be churches that that made sure to mention Mother's Day a lot. Um, last Sunday and won't mention Pentecost today. Um, And Pentecost is every bit as important in the life of a church as the resurrection of Jesus. Pentecost is everybody's God, torn out his holy spirit. He gave God to his people and he said, God will be with you and live in you.

It's every bit as important. If the Ta, if we're going to proclaim the gospel to All Nations Pentecost is every bit as important as the resurrection of Jesus. We need to to, um, In to the power of the Holy Spirit to proclaim the gospel. There's no such thing as gospel proclamation.

There isn't empowered by the Holy Spirit. There's no such thing as a. Like, all the people like if you're praying for people, no one converts. Without the Holy Spirit doing a work on their heart, there's no such thing as a single conversion. You don't have the power within you with your wit and charm.

And good looks to like to convert a single person to the kingdom of God. Not one, not one. Your own children. Like, not your own. You know. I know I can't get my own children to listen to me. So, like, like, not one person. Can you convert in your strength?

But the power of the Holy spirit is the only way that we see a single person converted to the good news. The coming of the holy spirit is, is the Telos. It's the end of Christ's Ministry. It's what it's for. It provides all the power to live out the mission of God to bring about his kingdom on Earth as it is in heaven.

And we have our interaction with the Holy Spirit in baptism in the Eucharist in confirmation and ordination and healing. But we also those are like, the more sacramental. Times that we interact with the Holy Spirit, but we also have interaction with the Holy Spirit in every prayer and every experience that we have with God in our scripture reading, and our being quiet before the Lord and listening to him.

Ordinarily, Jesus. Mediates his presence. Through the Holy. So, or when he says, I will be with you all always ordinarily. He's not appearing bodily ordinarily, he mediates his presence through his holy spirit. So when he says, I'll be with you, he is through his holy And so, our connection with God.

Is always mediated by the Holy. The Holy Spirit who's with us and in Do we feel like marching orders are too big sometimes? I mean, there's so few Christians in this Valley, right? And we feel spread thin. There's a dominant religion and it isn't Christianity. The marching orders, aren't any bigger for us than they were for the apostles?

Who were told to convert the whole world. At that time there. Zero Christians, you know they were the first so that that was it. In church. You, and I have the very same Holy spirit in. So, when you lay hands on someone, You're meeting God's presence to them. God can heal them.

When you preach God can Empower your preaching and bring about conversion. When you pray for someone's conversion, God can convert their hearts. The missing the mission is large but I'll tell you God. More than strong enough to carry it out. He's a big God. He's pretty strong. He doesn't sweat.

He doesn't get tired. He he can he can carry out the mission, okay? So we have this new wine of empowered powerful proclamation of the good news. Finally, we have this new wine of Union. See Our Gospel reading begins with Jesus discussing his Union with the father, right? He talks about how he's in the father and the father is in him.

Look at the language. He uses there and compare it with what he says, our with our relationship with the Holy Spirit in verse 17. With you. And in you, he's using the very same language. The same type of relationship that Jesus has with the father is the same intimacy.

It's the same type of relationship. He's offering us with the Triune God, by the Holy Spirit, he's saying that holy spirit is going to be with you and in you United with God, our participation with God, our participation in the divine nature, our connection with God is because the holy spirit is with us and in We are one with God.

We are united with God. God is with us, God is in And we bring that Union with God into the world with us. This also leads us into Union with our neighbor. That's a part of what Pentecost is all about, too. So like there's these divided tongues of fire, You see that?

Like split tongues of fire, it's a call back to Babel with the multiple languages. That's why we read the Tower of Babel. So we have multiple languages. So these split tongues of fire. But what's happening is, is where Babel brought disunity. The spirit is taking the City and bringing Unity to diversity and calling it.

Beautiful so where where we're tempted to be division divisive from one another and to start sex and to be disconnected for another, the spirit is bringing Unity Saint, Paul tells us that the same spirit is dwelling in all of us and that's the foundation of our Unity. Yeah, we've inherited a situation where we have true Christians in several different churches.

We didn't ask for this situation, but this is the situation that is. It's just what we've inherited. Um, Ever since I've been alive and my parents were alive. My grandparents are alive, like go back to 10 54. So it's a long time. That's the first church division that we ever saw, right?

10 54. So we've inherited a situation where there are true Christians In churches that are divided from one another. It's important that we recognize though that we don't celebrate that division. Like, I know, I know we go, we get excited a lot about like, Reformation day on October 31st and it's really because a lot of people are like Concerned about Halloween and they're and they're not sure what to do with All Hallows, Eve, and All Saints Day and all that, and they're not sure if it's demonic and a little worried.

And so they're like, we'll do Reformation day like we'll make that a big deal instead, right? Um Reformation like it was important to recover some really Central truths of the Gospel. We're not excited about division that has resulted from the Protestant Reformation, okay? Like we shouldn't be like pumped about that.

Like yay there's 30 000 denominations of Christianity. Yay this is like that's not great news, okay? And the the holy spirit is Desiring to bring us into. Unity bring all true Christians into unity and fellowship with one another because our Union with God leads to Union with our neighbor and so we do our best to be faithful within a broken situation.

There's no perfect church and if we're not going to just like de-church, all the other Christians that are on a part of our group or or we're or we're not going to celebr

More and more unity and ask the Lord. What's my part to bring more and more? Unity to the church? Because that would be his desire. There's no doubt because the spirit brings Unity because there's one Holy Spirit, right? And so today, we realized that the people of God are.

In fact, intoxicated with new wine, the mockers were right about them. They are intoxicated with new wine. This new wine was so powerful that the old structures Jerusalem leadership just wasn't going to work anymore. The new wine was a fulfillment of the old Covenant that the law that he was giving us.

The the new wine was an empowering wine that gives us the power to proclaim the gospel far from, making us sleepy or ineffective like too much wine can do. It makes it empowers us and makes us more effective and enlightened to preach the gospel and proclaim the gospel in power.

And the new wine is a wine that unites us with God. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Making us one with God and one with our neighbor.

You have the Holy. God lives in you. And we're invited into fellowship with the Holy. May God give us all Grace to walk in the power of His holy spirit today. Amen.