Ummm...What!? | Whose Sermon is it Anyway?

You can, Matthew 18, after service.

So we're talking about angels today.

Now I asked your elders and your deacons,

so the first Monday of every month,

we get together first for just prayer and accountability,

and we try to have our deacon and elder teams,

our care districts, we try to meet together,

make sure we go over everything.

I think they love it because then I do the devotion

every month and they don't have to worry about it.

But then we pray and it's a great time.

But I asked them my devotion,

how many times they think about angels

or maybe they've ever encountered angels.

And there were a couple stories about driving

and one person wanted to go left,

but it went right and they saved themselves from a crash.

And one couldn't sleep, woke up,

that there was a figure at the end of his bed.

It ended up just being a coat.

But I mean, angels is a weird discussion

because how many of you think about angels

in your day-to-day life?

Exactly.

We don't.

In a lot of ways, we don't.

And John Piper's gonna kinda help me in my sermon

a little bit today.

I drew some from a sermon he gave a couple years ago

because I think it's just some of the things he says.

He's just a lot smarter than me, amen.

And it was, to read that really helped me

and informed me because I don't.

I'm a pastor of a church.

I don't think about it.

Outside of the angel that said yes

when I asked her to marry me in my life, right?

Thank you.

And understand that I don't think about it.

I don't.

I know that angels are real.

The Bible talks about that.

We'll get to that in a second.

But if I say the word angel, what comes to your mind?

Now if you're new, I ask questions.

I like a little bit of interaction.

You never know where it's gonna go, right Ev?

Oh, Evie's not here, but yes.

Anybody, when I say the word angel, what comes to mind?

Wrestling.

Yeah, okay, someone's a Jacob fan.

I like it.

A halo, absolutely.

A woman.

Fair enough, okay.

Your mom, great.

Yes.

A messenger.

That's actually one of my sermon points.

Give your brother a high five.

Nice.

Others.

What?

A giant eyeball.

I know when I ask questions

that there are times people are gonna say things.

Thank you, Austin.

A giant eyeball.

Do you wanna elaborate?

I'm gonna have to have a conversation

on what books you read as a child

when it came to the Bible.

And I know your parents,

so I will be making that phone call this week.

Others.

Protector.

Mary.

Protection.

What?

Great, okay, so I think we did a lot of good work,

but if we're being honest,

I'm gonna ask another question.

If sometime, no, I'm not gonna do that today

because Super Bowl,

someone's gonna make a Taylor Swift joke

and I'm gonna get mad.

So let's say starting after today,

if an angel were to encounter you,

that all of a sudden you're in your regular everyday life

and all of a sudden an angel came to you and spoke,

how would you react to that?

Uh-oh.

Scared?

Awe?

Okay.

Confusion?

Anyone else?

Why?

Good question.

Fear, absolutely.

Go ahead.

A sign.

Like what's coming?

Okay, fair enough.

What did I do?

Okay, absolutely.

In the Scott House, that question's asked a lot.

And so understand that there's an engagement

biblically with angels.

So the fact that when I ask how many of you think about them,

only like 11 of you rose your hand,

angels and people are engaged throughout the scriptures.

Old Testament and new.

We see over 100 in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, angels were mentioned as messengers,

builders, warriors, law givers.

Okay, we're gonna keep going April with these.

We see angel announcing things like the birth of Jesus

to Mary, Zachariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and the shepherds.

I mean, the entire Christmas story is all molded

and shaped by angels.

Right, you go with the shepherds.

We're gonna pause there for a second.

The shepherds, a great multitude of the heavenly host came.

How would that change the story of the shepherds

if no angel showed up?

It would just be a regular day.

Because not only did the angel show up

and sing about the glory of the Lord,

i.e. the Messiah, i.e. Jesus,

it sparked something in the shepherds to go.

I don't think the shepherds would have just thought

about that.

Just some random day, they're like,

oh, let's go see a baby born in a manger.

Not something they're probably gonna do.

Let's keep going.

They ministered to Jesus in the wilderness

after the 40 day fast, right?

And Satan left him in the book of Matthew

and the angels ministered to him in the book of Luke

and Satan left him for a more opportune time

and the angels came to minister.

We see in the resurrection story,

they rolled the stone away from Jesus' grave

because it took a cohort of Roman,

not a cohort, but it took many Roman soldiers

to roll that stone in front of Jesus' body

at the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.

The angel rolls it back.

They opened the doors of the prisons for the apostles

in Acts chapter five.

They directed evangelists where to go.

They spoke to unbelievers like Cornelius

about what they should do to find the gospel.

And lastly, they will come with Jesus, the Bible says,

at his second coming and there, Austin,

is probably where you get more fiery eyes

in the book of Revelation.

I'm still gonna talk to your parents.

And so we understand that angels have a purpose

and I think that's one of the biggest things

we have to ask when we're gonna wrestle with topics

as six of you and the small group wrestled with

over the last couple months is that angels play, right?

Angels play in our lives.

They play in scripture.

There is nothing that says, and all the angels went up

and they won't come back until Revelation.

We cannot stand on any of that.

That angels engage God's people

for many, many different reasons.

So this morning, there are a couple things

I want us to walk away with.

Okay, the first thing is that they are,

angels are intentional.

That God creates everything with a purpose.

They are intentional and Hebrews one says,

and to which of these angels has he ever said,

sit at my right hand until I make your enemies

a footstool for your feet.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve

for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

So right there, angels are given a job.

So that's one thing we have to understand about angels.

They don't just float about doing their own will.

That is not how that works.

That angels are governed by the sovereign God

over creation.

That angels are sent to do many different things.

The first, they are intentional.

And that's a good thing because they are intentional

to bring about certain things.

And one of the things that I find remarkable,

and so does John Piper, about this verse,

is that it says that angels exist

for the sake of Christians.

Those who are to inherit salvation for the world.

That angels are sent to help and aid the believer.

That was one of the elders.

That they give testimony that an angel helped them

swerve outside of what could have been a really bad crash

in their car.

Maybe you've had those situations

when you can't really explain it.

You've heard me probably say,

coincidences are time when God chooses to remain anonymous.

Okay?

And he could use angels for that.

This verse says it says that they are serving us

as ministering spirits.

Now let me ask a question.

How many of you are comfortable with that?

Okay?

This side of the room.

This side of the room, we really have to work on stuff.

Okay, because a lot of times, maybe they're just sleeping.

But, you know, anyway.

They are ministering.

Why didn't everybody's hand,

why are you not comfortable understanding

that angels are there to minister to you and me?

Because it's weird.

Let's just call it for what it is.

I don't want to think about it that way.

I kind of want to comfort myself.

I want to think that God just sends a tractor beam

of comfort down to me, right?

And just like Star Trek, I just receive his comfort.

But the Bible makes it very clear that he sends angels

to do some of these things.

Can God do it?

Absolutely.

But this verse also brings up,

and maybe the most amazing thing of all,

is not just some, but all of them serve Christians

to help us make it home to heaven.

They are intentional in helping you along the way.

So I like that when I hear that,

I liken it to cadet leaders.

I liken it to parents or catechism teachers

or lighthouse, even nursery.

This isn't a plug for the nursery signups.

We're doing good.

We still need a little more.

But understand that you may be in kind of the place

of an angelic spirit for somebody else.

Now that doesn't mean you wear a halo

and have wings and make it weird.

But understand that we follow that same vision,

if you will, of ministering alongside.

That we are being ministered to,

and we are called to minister.

So if angels are going to be intentional,

then we need to be intentional

on ministering one to another.

We can learn from angels, and there's a key reason why,

but I'm gonna get to that at the end.

One of the things I love,

the second attribute about angels I want us to know,

they are intimate.

I know for some of you,

the word intimacy makes you uncomfortable.

Get over it.

Because God is a very intimate being

that wants that intimate relationship with you.

God doesn't cast his salvation in you

from a long way away,

because he wants nothing really to do with you.

No, he wants you closer than your two front teeth.

He wants to be that intimacy, and he sends his angels.

Psalm 103, 20 and 21, bless the Lord.

O you, his angels, you mighty ones who do his word,

obeying the voice of his word,

bless the Lord, all the hosts, his minister,

to do his will.

He would not send angels to do that

if there was not a relationship there.

We see in the book of Revelation,

he's going to command legions of angels.

Jesus talks about that,

that in a snap of his finger,

he can send legions of angels.

There's an intimacy there.

There's an obedience there.

So just as intentionality,

so we should be intentional with our faith,

and with others,

there's an intimacy to our faith.

That if we honestly tell someone that we love them,

that we want to walk alongside them,

and let's not even talk about one-to-one relationships.

Let's talk about what we agree to

every time a baby or a child or an adult is baptized.

Next week, we're gonna baptize the youngest Stegenga.

I totally forgot his name.

What's his name?

Andrew, right?

I keep thinking Jackson, we already did his.

But Andrew, we're gonna baptize him next week,

and you all are going to make a promise

to walk alongside the family.

If that's not intimacy, I don't know what is.

Now, some of you are gonna do that very intentionally.

Some of you are gonna be Andrew's Sunday school teacher.

He may be a catechism teacher,

maybe junior high or senior high.

Maybe you're gonna, when he's an adult,

you're gonna be in a prayer group with him,

or a Bible study.

There is intimacy in that.

The angels get it.

We need to get it too.

That part of our faith is being intentional.

Part of our faith is being intimate one with another

for the sake of the gospel, for blessing others,

to walking alongside others when they struggle.

These are things we can learn from angels.

It says angels are mighty ones.

They're not baby-like.

You see in all the kind of picture,

like you go to the Sistine Chapel,

and you see them, they're all these just fat babies.

That's the picture that, who did the Sistine Chapel again?

Michelangelo, thank you.

This side's up now.

Good.

He just wrote these angels like fat chubby babies

because it was this understanding of purity

that angels were pure.

I don't know how the Sistine Chapel would look

if we take Austin's words and just do fiery eyes

all over it.

I don't know how many people would wanna go see that

when they go to Italy,

but understand that they're more than that.

Angels get the word hosts, or troops, or legions,

or armies.

Angels are seen also as like a military force

because they know who their captain is.

They know who the general of their life is.

They know who the Lord of their life is, their creator God.

We should do the same.

So it seems to me, and to John Piper,

that we can infer from this that God loves to create

an abundance of doers of his will at multiple levels.

He has in the scriptures inanimate objects do his will.

He commands the sea and it obeys them.

No one said the Red Sea was angels,

but God can use creation to do his will.

We see that.

Animals, right?

We see the whale or the big fish swallowing Jonah.

We see the talking donkey, right, in the Old Testament.

Humans do his will, or hope we do,

and angels do his will.

God created millions upon millions of angels

as a fitting regal royal assembly for his magnificence.

And I wanna pause right there

because I think some of you just got uncomfortable.

That some of you, because of what we've looked at

over the last six weeks, have this view of God

that you wanna be pretty close to

because that makes you the most comfortable.

And I've told you time and time again,

that's a very dangerous place to be.

We are not called to be on God's level.

We are not called to be peers with the creator God.

We are called to live a life recognizing Jesus as Lord

and following God's precepts and his laws in life.

And so are the angels.

But there's a difference,

and we'll get to that in a second.

One of the other aspects that I want us

to understand about angels is they increase

the glory of God, Daniel seven.

Daniel seven, a stream of fire issued and came out

from before him, a thousand thousand served him

and 10,000 times 10,000 stood before him.

The court sat in judgment and the books were opened

that there is an understanding that angels,

their main job is to glorify God.

I don't know anyone in the scriptures that encounter

an angel and doesn't have a mind blow when it comes to God

and who God is.

We see it throughout the scriptures.

One of the engagements I love is the story of Jesus

that we read at Christmas, that the angel went to Mary,

the angel went to Joseph to make it work,

to make it right, to give them, out of their chaos,

reason and peace.

But I don't know if you could be Mary and Joseph

and not think that believing in God is a bad idea.

That angels, what they do is they magnify

the glory of the Lord.

So if you're following my theme this morning,

if the angels can do it, how much more should we do that?

Well, but pastor, how do I increase the glory of God?

Because you are his image bearer.

The angels are not.

That's the key difference here.

That when God made creation, right,

he didn't create the trees in his image,

he didn't create the grass in his image,

definitely didn't create the snow in his image,

and you all know how I feel about snow.

He didn't create the angels in his image.

He created you and me in his image.

There is a plan of salvation for us set forth

in Genesis chapter three.

We see in Matthew chapter 18,

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

see that you do not despise one of these little ones,

for I tell you that in heaven their angels

always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.

This is when Jesus is welcoming the children.

This is when Jesus is recognizing the difference

between the humans and the angels.

The angels outside of one group,

and we're gonna get to that in a second.

Maybe some of you got all comfortable with angels

over the last 15 minutes.

It's about to get real not comfortable in a second.

But understand, angels do not bear the image of God.

You and me bear the image of God.

So if we are bearing the image of God,

how much more should we be intentional

about living out our faith,

showing intimacy that we have in our relationship.

When people look at you they go,

wow, they have a very close relationship.

They have a very close relationship with God.

Or do they insert God with something else?

Ooh, they really have an intimate relationship with,

insert something from the world here.

That intimacy, that intentionality should then

show and increase the glory of God

in your life and in others.

I don't want people to say,

wow, they're a good member of Munster Church.

Yeah, that's all well and good

and I would appreciate people saying that,

but I would say, man, they're like Jesus.

That is something the angels cannot do.

That is something you and I are called to do.

We are called to be image bearers.

So as we've seen, angels come alongside believers.

They do it in tremendous ways.

I mean, you think about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

You think of the good, right?

You think about Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zachariah.

You think about the angels ministering to Jesus

and we get these wonderful images of angels.

They're great.

But then you also get the fire allegiance.

You also get the angels at Sodom and Gomorrah.

You also get the fact that angels are also there

to do the justice of the Lord.

And sometimes that is death.

I mean, think if you were the angel called to that.

That as the angel, you're gonna go through

the streets of Egypt and you're gonna take the life

of the eldest born son.

Now whether you're the Prince of Egypt kind of fan

or the Ten Commandments of Charlton Heston,

would you remember that green mist

scared me half to death for about a month,

the angel of death.

In some ways, I think I'm glad that we're not called

to be and do exactly what the angels are called to do.

Because we have a different call.

We are called to be image bearers of Christ.

We are called to increase the glory of God

in the things we do in our lives, the words we say,

the thoughts we think, the actions that we walk out.

And I know for me, that's convicting.

I know for me, that causes me to take a step back

and go, what brand of God am I showing off to the world?

The angels didn't have to worry about that

because the angels were 100% obedient all the time.

Well wait, Pastor Jim, what happened to,

you don't have to whisper it, Lisa, it's okay, Satan.

What happened to Lucifer?

What happened to Lucifer?

I'm all excited about angels.

Some of you may wanna be one,

even though you weren't listening.

But understand that we could be really comfortable

with angels.

Angels are in my life, angels are in the outfield,

which is a great movie, by the way, in the late 90s.

Do yourself a favor and watch it, right?

Hashtag Danny Glover.

Understand that,

awesome, right?

We're in awe of angels.

Well, if we believe in angels,

we also have to believe in demons.

That's literally the collective, right,

of all of us, myself included.

1 Timothy says this,

now the spirit expressively says that in the later times,

some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves

to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons.

Through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,

who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods

that God created to be receiving with thanksgiving

by those who believe and know the truth.

Aw, Pastor Jim, I was tracking with you.

I actually like angels now.

I may study it more.

But when you bring up demons,

I don't know.

Friend, we've talked about this.

You cannot just take the good with the good.

You have to take the good with the bad.

That's what we look for when we're elders, right,

and we have someone that comes and professes their faith.

We wanna hear what they believe about magnifying the Lord

and making it their own,

but also about the sin in their life.

If angels, then demons.

And understand that the prince of the world

has been given the go ahead to make life better.

Make life really, really hard.

Well, God, if I were God,

if you ever find yourself saying that, stop.

Because that wouldn't be how any of us wrote it up.

Or if we were, we'd be selfish and say,

well then the demons,

they're only gonna be for these kind of people, right?

They're only gonna be people I don't like,

like Cubs fans or something like that,

where all of a sudden you just go and torment them,

then that'll be great.

I think Cubs fans would agree,

they were tormented for over 100 years.

So understand that where there is somebody

who is intentional,

there's the spiritual beings that are intentional,

that are intimate,

that wanna magnify the glory of God,

there are demons that wanna do the exact opposite.

They're going to lie, they're gonna persuade,

they're gonna oversell, under deliver,

to try to take glory from God.

I said it before, I'll say it again.

Satan doesn't want a relationship with you, right?

Satan doesn't wanna say, ooh, I'm best friends with.

It's not a what would Satan do culture.

What he wants, ultimately,

is for you to have that one little seed of doubt.

And guess what?

Satan's not omnipotent.

Satan's not omnipresent.

That did me good as a,

I think I was 14 years old.

How many of you have ever seen the big passion play

over here at the church on 45th?

Have you ever seen that?

You have the big production, they got all the animals.

I was 12, and they started this,

and don't, it's not spoiler alert, it's in the Bible.

Understand that they start with a conversation

between Lucifer and Michael the Archangel,

which blew my mind,

because I always thought it was God and Satan, right?

That they're in the ring together.

I was so wrong.

There's nothing that's here but God.

And then Jesus comes out.

But the person they had of Lucifer,

it scared me half to death,

but it taught me something.

Lucifer can't be everywhere, right?

Lucifer cannot torment Dan,

and at the same time torment my dad.

He can't, but what can he do?

He can send his demons.

He can make sure that you're doubting,

and then he's gonna say,

and now go after him or her.

The screw tape letters, if you guys are ever

C.S. Lewis fans, right?

It's the conversation about a demon,

and what was the demon's name?

How Lucifer?

I'm asking because I genuinely forgot.

Wormwood, thank you.

It's all about the torment of an individual.

And you cannot read that book without saying,

oh, well demons were very intimate

about trying to ruin this guy's life.

They were very intentional about making life

really, really hard.

But they're not bearers of God,

and they try to steal God's glory.

So let me final, I'm gonna close,

I'm gonna land the plane here.

We're not called to be an angel, right?

We're not called to proclaim what the angels proclaim.

We're called to proclaim Christ.

We have different jobs, though they may look the same,

we are called something different as image bearers of God.

But unfortunately, Christians and the church

can do very similar harm that demons can do.

Whether it's in authority or power or whatever,

that once we make our faith about us,

you're doing the same exact thing that Lucifer did,

which got him thrown and his angels out of heaven, right?

Or fellow angels, because he was an angel as well.

Vanity, pride, and ego is what ruined Lucifer.

Now understand, what I just described,

all of us struggle with.

And so the question I have for me first, and all of us,

are we leaning into that every day?

Or are we gonna lean into the peace

and the identity of Christ?

Because demons don't do that.

Angels can't do that.

We are called to do that.

And so in a world where our battle

is not against flesh and blood,

we can battle each other and a lot of it's wasted time.

But as the Bible says, our battle is against the supernatural,

that there are supernatural forces.

And I fully expect emails from all of you

who have kids that don't sleep tonight,

if they're listening, and we'll talk that over.

But understand, and here's the thing,

the God that goes before me, the God who stands behind,

the God of angel armies, is always by my side.

He's already won.

And what we need to do is be faithful.

We need to recognize the demonic.

And guess what, all authority on heaven and on earth

has been given to me.

What does that mean?

You can dispel demons.

In the name of Jesus, you can conquer demons.

Not in a egotistical way, right?

I don't want any of you to walk tall

and go, I conquered a demon today.

That's real bad, right?

I'll rebuke you right then and there.

But understand that we can defeat demons.

Why?

Because we have the word of God.

I know some of you who've never heard that before.

That you actually have the power to defeat the demon.

So whether it's actually just a sweater

on the end of your bed, you can pray over that too.

By all means, pray over that sweater,

and maybe move it so it doesn't scare you again.

But when I learned that as a teenager,

the spiritual warfare side of my faith completely changed.

That when you get those feelings,

when you think that there is some kind of heaviness

or spirit over you, you don't have to succumb to it.

You don't have to flee.

You can fight it.

And you don't have to fight it alone.

Find one or two other people that join in you in prayer.

Maybe not at like 2.30 in the morning

when the sweater scares you, you can do that on your own.

But understand that there are legions of angels

that are going to come and defeat the dragon,

defeat the demons, all for your soul, for my soul.

And with the authority of Christ,

we can do all of these things.

Because that's what it means to be made in the image of God.

Because what if Jesus didn't say that?

What if Jesus, when he arose, just said, I'm out?

No, he made sure that the rabbi to the disciples,

he gave us his authority.

His authority to teach, his authority to love,

his authority to feed, his authority to walk alongside,

to do all, to love.

He gave us authority to love.

Because if he didn't, we'd mess that up.

How do we know?

Pretty much the entire New Testament

shows how they messed that up.

But he also gives us the authority to love.

He messed that up, but he also gives us authority

over the spiritual.

He gives us authority over the darkness

because he has given us the light, and we carry it in us.

Let's pray.

Father, we give you thanks.