Are You A Modern Day Pharisee?

A little over 20 years ago, I found myself in Northeast Pennsylvania as a first-year Bible college student.

And there's this morning that I will never forget until uh until I'm old and my memory fails me, probably is when I'll forget it.

Um, but it was a beautiful fall morning, and you look out over these windows, and there's the sprawling Pennsylvania landscape in the mountains, and I was in a class about the history books of the Old Testament.

And that'll be significant as we move forward, that we were studying the history books, and my professor made a statement that caused all kinds of alarm bells to go off in my head.

I thought I had gone to a good Bible-believing school and I wondered if he was a heretic.

Because he said the statement.

He said, class, as you're reading the Old Testament, you need to realize that every single passage in the Bible is about Jesus.

I thought, hold up, boss.

I'm pretty sure that's not how it's supposed to be.

Like I kind of grew up thinking like the old acrostic, maybe you've heard this B-I-B-L-E, basic instructions before leaving earth.

Like the Bible's kind of here is my like my playbook.

Here's how I'm supposed to live.

So when he said the whole Bible was about Jesus, that was news to me.

And I thought it was not good news.

Maybe that sounds like obvious to you.

Like, of course the whole Bible's about Jesus.

Like, how could it be otherwise?

I'll get to that in a second.

So here I am, my 20-year-old self, trying to figure out what in the world to do when you think that your theology professor is, you know, way off on the deep end.

So I called my parents.

I'm like, guys, I don't know what to do about this.

I'm 700 miles from home.

We got a problem here.

And they gave me some good counsel, stick with it, listen to the guy, hear him out.

And over time, what I realized and I learned is actually that the Bible itself claims that the whole thing is about Jesus.

And that for hundreds and hundreds of years, theologians had been reading and interpreting the Bible as all about Jesus, from Genesis to Revelation.

And somewhere along the way, in the in the late 1900s or the early 2000s, this message kind of got lost.

And I really praise God that in the last 20 years or so, that Christ-centered way of reading the Bible has been recovered.

That's been a huge gain for the American church.

But it was revolutionary for me to hear that 20 some years ago.

What I discovered in that classroom is there's a right way to read the Bible and there's a wrong way to read the Bible.

And I realize as I say that, it can automatically start to sound like a nerd alert.

Like, uh, here's the pastor's turn to tell us the right way and the wrong way to read the Bible.

He's gonna, he's probably gonna use big words like exegesis and stuff like that.

Listen, we're not getting crazy on the extra exegesis.

We're just here to give you some extra Jesus.

Boom, boom, there you go.

You like those.

You came for the jokes, and the rest is free as well.

Hey, let me say this a little differently.

It's not a right way and a wrong way to read the Bible.

What Jesus says in John 5, he says this there's actually a deadly way to read the Bible.

But that just sounds a little different, doesn't it?

You say you can read the Bible in a way that ends up being deadly for your soul.

That makes you pay attention a little closer, doesn't it?

So let's read John 5, 39 and 40 that Brett read a minute ago and see what we're talking about.

Here's what it says: Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees, and he says this, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

And it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

In other words, Jesus says, You've been searching the scriptures, and it's not just that you're searching them in the wrong way, but the way that you're searching them is deadly because you think you have life and you don't have life.

You see, the Pharisees are being confronted by Jesus because they read the Bible mostly about them and what they're supposed to do for God.

This is not a minor mistake.

This is again the difference between life and death.

And it's from people who knew the Bible, people who grew up going to church, people who grew up memorizing the Bible, going to kids' church like the kids just went.

Some of you will remember the comedian Jeff Foxworthy in his famous line you might be a redneck if I wonder if we would read a passage like this and say in a little different vein, you might be making a deadly mistake if you read the Bible mostly about you and what you're supposed to do for God.

This one is no laughing matter, though.

You see, John 5 39 and verse 40 as well has been an absolute anchor for me in my spiritual life for more than 20 years now because it turned around the way I read the Bible.

And here was the paradigm shift for me.

And here's really, I think, the main claim of this passage, the main thing I want you to hear this morning is simply this.

The Bible is mostly about God and what He's done for you, not you and what you're supposed to do for God.

That's been an anchor for my spiritual life.

And I hope it will become one for you as well.

Now, I recognize that it's supernatural to read the Bible as like a playbook for life, saying, What am I supposed to do?

But here's the reality we got to wrap our mind around.

On our best day of obedience, like when you're being filled with the most kindness towards your neighbors, your speech is totally others-oriented, you're listening well, you're giving generously, you're serving in the kids' ministry, like it is your best spiritual day.

On that day, before the face of a holy God, you have about as much strength before Him as a sheet of saran wrap does over a bonfire.

There's nothing there at all.

There's more hope for a spider web to catch a falling rock than there is for you to stand before a holy God.

In other words, if we read the Bible mostly about us and what we're supposed to do for God, we are setting ourselves up like the Pharisees to end up in a deadly place where we have no hope before the God of the universe.

And my hope this morning is that the joy that I found in the last 20 years of reading the Bible, pointing to Jesus over and over and over, if I can give you half or a third, or frankly, even 10% of the joy that I found in that, I would be just absolutely delighted because I think it will change your life forever.

I said the main thing I wanted you to hear is the Bible is mostly about God and what he's done for you, not you and what you're supposed to do for God.

And I just want to kind of talk through that main idea throughout the sermon.

I don't have a whole lot of an outline except to say we'll keep coming back to that over and over.

This idea that the Bible is mostly about God and what he's done for you is right at the core of John 5.39.

Jesus says the scriptures bear witness about him.

Now, if we put ourselves back in that first century context, you say, well, which scriptures?

Well, all of them.

Except here's the thing, guys, the rest of the New Testament wasn't written down widely distributed yet.

So when Jesus says all the scriptures bear witness to me, all the scriptures are telling about me.

You know what he's saying?

Well, which scriptures are written down?

The Old Testament.

So the book of Genesis is about Jesus, the Psalms are about Jesus.

First and 2 Kings and all that wild stuff in the battles and the stabbing and cutting people's heads off.

Somehow that's about Jesus.

Even the book of Leviticus, where all Bible reading plans go to die, is about Jesus.

Let me try and say this a different way.

This means the Bible is not mostly about how to be a good leader or a good teammate or a good employee or a good spouse or a good son or daughter.

Certainly there's principles that touch on all those things, but that's not the main message of the Bible.

So let me try to give you a couple of examples to help not just talk at a high level, but specifically about how this happens.

Let's go to the first story outside the Garden of Eden.

This is the fourth chapter of the Bible, Genesis 4.

You have the story of the two brothers, Cain and Abel.

Right?

And Cain, the one brother, brought an unacceptable sacrifice, and Abel the other brother brought an acceptable sacrifice to God.

God received the one, rejected the other, and the rejected brother, the rejected sacrifice, he got super angry.

They went out in a field and he killed his brother because he was so mad at him, so filled with jealousy.

So, what would the Pharisees tell us is the main point of a story like that one.

Well, I think there's a lot of things the Pharisees would say.

Guys, don't you see?

Don't be mean to your brother.

Siblings, don't be mean to your brothers, by the way, or your sisters.

But that's not the main point.

This the Pharisees maybe would have said, Well, it's super important to offer acceptable sacrifices to God.

Maybe the Pharisees would have said, Well, the main point is if you're like Abel and you honor God in your sacrifices, it could cost you your life.

Maybe they would have said those things, but all of those are reading it primarily about them and what they're supposed to do.

There's this incredible phrase in the middle of Genesis chapter 4.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

This is right after God says to Cain, he says, Cain, where's your brother?

And he says, Of course, well, what am I?

My brother's keeper, I don't know where he is.

Knowing exactly where he is.

And God says to Cain in Genesis 4 10, he says, Your brother's blood cries out from the ground.

And what is his blood crying out for?

It says, the guilt, the condemnation coming to Cain, right?

Well, if you jump to the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 12, do you know what it says?

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

There's this phrase that picks up on Genesis 4, and it says, the blood of Jesus speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Where Abel's blood cried out and saying, He's guilty, he should be condemned, he's wrong.

Jesus' blood speaks out and says, Here's a better word.

You are guilty, you are wrong, you should be condemned, but look at my blood spill that offers forgiveness and freedom to all who are guilty.

So the message isn't be a good person like Abel or avoid bad people like Cain, but that Jesus' blood is the best word, so that the murderer and the adulterer and the thief and the robber and the glutton and the self-righteous Pharisee and the legalist, if they will claim the blood of Christ can be forgiven of their sins, there's hope for any of you on your worst day, and there's still hope for you on your best day as well, because it doesn't depend on you, but it depends on Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

Let's go, guys.

This is what I'm talking about.

The whole Bible is about Jesus and what he's done for us in Christ.

Now, let me give you a less obvious example.

Maybe Genesis 4, it's a pretty well-known story.

Let's get into a more obscure passage, okay?

How about the Old Testament prophet Hosea?

Now, if your Bible reading plan didn't end in Leviticus, it definitely ended in Hosea, because there's some weird stuff here.

It's a very obscure Old Testament passage.

It's one of the weirdest stories in the Bible.

There's a lot of weird ones in there.

God tells this guy, Hosea, to go marry an unfaithful woman.

Her name is Gomer.

Here's what God says to the man Hosea.

He says, look, your wife is gonna cheat on you.

In fact, she's gonna cheat on you dozens of times.

She's gonna betray you over and over again.

She's gonna turn away from you.

Her life is gonna end up a wreck.

She's gonna end up broken down and enslaved and in all kinds of trouble.

And Hosea, here's your job.

Every single time she turns away, every single time she betrays you, go back and love her.

Every time she ends up in the arms of another lover, you go rescue her, you redeem her, you buy her back, you lay down your life for her, you serve her.

I told you it was a crazy story.

And the thing I've noticed over the years is this one never makes the VBS curriculum.

It's like they always get something else for VBS, right?

What would the Pharisees say?

The Pharisees would say, Well, look how awful that woman is.

Don't go be like her.

Good thing that's not us.

We wouldn't associate with people like that.

But what's the point of the story?

To say to every single one of us, you are the unfaithful woman.

You are the one that continually turns away from God and seeks other lovers that are lesser lovers, they're not the one you're supposed to be faithful to, and yet God continually pursues you over and over and over, never gives up.

His grace never runs out, his love never slows down.

It's always pursuing you.

You see, the Bible's not giving us heroes to imitate, but a savior to adore.

One who is always pursuing us, one whose blood speaks a better word, one who pursues the unfaithful person in me and in you.

This is why our first core value, and I would say our most important core value as a church, is delighting in the gospel.

Delighting in the gospel, because the scriptures are not giving us heroes to imitate, but a savior to adore.

And everything you do as a Christian and everything we do as a church is on that bedrock of what Christ has done that must not only be something I believe at a moment of conversion, but a truth that grips my affections and turns my heart day after day to see, oh, what wondrous love is this?

So let me give you a real easy application of how do you take this and apply it to your life?

Here's just ground lovable and like fourth, fifth, sixth graders.

This is what you can real easily do with this.

When you read your Bible, the first question should not be, what am I supposed to do with this?

How am I supposed to live differently today?

Instead, the first question is this How is God inviting me to receive his grace from this passage?

Instead of saying, What am I supposed to do?

is the first question.

Say, How am I supposed to receive God's grace from this passage?

That's really simple ground level explanation.

Now, some of you theologically are in the gifted class.

At least you think you are.

Maybe, well, I'm not gonna say any more there.

And you already knew that.

So let me go next level, press this a little bit deeper for you.

When you're reading the Bible, we say there are three contexts that you want to read it in light of.

The first is the historical context.

So I want to read and say, okay, this book was not written to me, although it does help me.

So what was going on in the original context?

And then the second context is the grammatical context.

That's simply saying, like, two or three verses before, or two or three chapters before, what was going on there?

Because that's gonna help me to make good sense of this passage.

Like Jesus says to Judas, whatever you're about to do, do quickly.

Like, you don't want to rip that one out of its grammatical context.

Like basketball coaches all over the place are like yelling at kids to run faster.

He's like, you know what Jesus said?

Whatever you're about to do, do it quickly.

Run faster, wind sprints.

Like, okay, don't take it out of the grammatical context.

But the third context, and the one that we sometimes overlook, is called the redemptive context.

It's saying, how does this passage fit into the whole Bible telling us about God's plan to redeem us in Christ?

And when you start to see that fuller redemptive context, you're gonna see amazing truths from God's word coming out.

So in Leviticus chapter 16, there's this incredible picture.

Leviticus 16 · chapter mention

Now some of you are looking at me a little fuzzy-eyed that I said something incredible was in Leviticus 16.

I didn't misspeak.

Leviticus 16, here's what happens there's an offering for sin being given, and the priests are commanded to bring two goats in.

And the one goat is pure and perfect, it's unblemished, and it gets offered on what's called the mercy seat, where mercy is given to God's people.

And this as the goat is slaughtered and burned, the offering goes up to heaven as a pleasing aroma.

To say, here is a perfect goat being offered, and it appeases the wrath of God.

But there's a second goat, and what happens is that one is not offered as a sacrifice on the altar.

The priest takes his hand and he puts it on the head of the goat.

And what's happening is he's transferring the guilt of all the sin of all the people onto that goat, and as they transfer it onto the goat, they send it off into the woods to run away and never come back.

Now, in the original context, you're like, well, historically, I get what a goat is, I know what the tabernacle was.

I but this is kind of weird.

Like, am I supposed to go buy a couple of goats?

Can I do this with my chickens in the back, or is this like a goat-only kind of thing?

But you see it as the full picture fulfilled in Christ.

And it's all of a sudden incredible because here you see Jesus as the perfect priest offering a sacrifice, but not offering someone else, offering himself as the sacrifice, where he says, I will take away your sins in my death, like the scapegoat that got sent away to take all the blame.

I'll take all the blame, and I'll be offered as the perfect sacrifice.

And as my life goes up to heaven, then your identity is filled with Jesus' perfect righteousness, not your own half-hearted righteousness, and all your guilt is taken away, your sin is removed, and you are filled with the righteousness of Christ.

It's like saying you had an immense debt, and the debt has been paid.

And not only do you have zero dollars, no more debt in the bank account, you have infinite wealth now given to you in Christ.

Leviticus 16 is telling you all about Jesus, and it's incredible.

You see, we start to see the Bible is not giving us stories and heroes to imitate, but a savior to adore.

And it's mostly about God and what he's done for us.

Now let's dig a little bit on the second part of that sentence.

The Bible is mostly about God and what he's done for us in Christ, not us and what we're supposed to do for him.

See, the Pharisees searched the scriptures, Jesus says, because they thought in their knowledge of the scripture, in their obedience to the scripture, they had eternal life.

This religious group in the first century, the Pharisees, their basic approach was like this know more about the Bible, obey harder what the Bible says, and hold people accountable with more intensity.

And if we know more, obey more, and hold people accountable with more intensity, then we'll be acceptable to God.

And Jesus shows up on the scene.

They've been memorizing the Old Testament for centuries.

The whole thing is pointing ahead to him.

He shows up.

They should have had cake and balloons and fireworks to celebrate.

And instead, they show up with a clipboard and a performance improvement plan, saying, Yeah, you nope, didn't get that one, didn't get that one, didn't get that one.

They had totally missed the point.

One of the major ways this happened was on rules for the Sabbath.

So they have these really strict rules.

Exodus chapter 20 gives us the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

One of those is obey the Sabbath, keep it holy, don't do any work on the Sabbath.

And they so the Pharisees would say, Well, what does it mean to do work on the Sabbath, actually?

So they started defining it.

And they said, Well, you can go into town if you're out of food to buy some groceries, because it's not good for you and your kids to starve.

That would be a little too strict if we said no food on the Sabbath.

But if you have to go into town to run errands, no, that counts as work because you're probably like doing business transactions.

So you can go into town to get food, but not to run errands.

But then they were like, you know what?

I think there are some ways that we could maybe adjust the system to make this better for us.

So they started setting up food stands like every hundred yards.

It was like the forerunner to the Costco testing stations.

They just put those all over the town.

So that what they could do is they could walk to the next food stand that's like next to the Ace Hardware.

Like, well, I'm already next to Ace for the food stand, so I can run some errands, but I was really there to get food.

And then a hundred yards up, like, that's where the Walmart is, and I can get some other stuff there.

And another hundred yards up is Dick Sporting Goods or whatever kind of sporting goods store they had back in the day.

And they've set up this whole system to justify here's how much work you can and can't do on the Sabbath, clearly manipulating it to make themselves look good and get what they want.

But Jesus shows up and he starts healing people on the Sabbath, and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, boss, that's way out of bounds.

You cannot be healing people on the Sabbath.

And everybody's looking around like, what in the world is wrong with you guys?

Like, how did you miss the boat this badly?

Like, you set up all these food trucks so you can run your errands, and you're having a nervous breakdown because Jesus gave sight to a blind man.

You see, what happens is when you start to read the Bible is mostly about you and what you're supposed to do for God, inevitably you're gonna distort it to make yourself look good, and to make your tribe of churches look good, and to make your own culture look good.

And you end up in a big mess.

Now, along the way, one of the one of the listener questions I might anticipate from you is you say, okay, Justin, if if the Bible's not mostly about me and what I'm supposed to do for God, I'm pretty sure there's lots of rules in the Bible.

Do we just dump those and throw them out?

Like, how do we read the clear commands, live this way, live that way, do this, don't do that?

Look, I am not saying we throw those out in any way, shape, or form.

What we say about the law of God is that it has three functions.

It functions like a bridle.

A bridle restrains a horse, it pulls it back, keeps it from going the wrong direction.

God's laws in a society hold it back from wickedness like a bridle holds a horse's back, holds a horseback from a cliff.

Second purpose of God's law, it functions like a mirror.

Right?

You hold up a mirror, you see yourself, you hold up the law of God as a mirror, and it shows me that I don't measure up to the standard.

I can't be good enough.

Justin, as a pastor, can't be good enough.

Any of our deacons can't be good enough.

Any of our Sunday school teachers can't be good enough.

No one can be good enough.

So God's law as a mirror shows me how I fall short.

And then the third function of the law it's a flashlight.

It points ahead into the darkness, saying, Here is the Christ, the one who lived it out perfectly.

So that Jesus would say, No, no, the law does not pass away, it's completely fulfilled in me.

So we uphold every aspect of the law, recognizing its ultimate point is to point us ahead to Christ.

And Christ tells us how to live.

So in Hebrews chapter 12, it says that Jesus looked ahead to the cross and says, For the joy that was set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

So when when it when we see, here's what Jesus did, it teaches me, like, okay, this looks really difficult.

I don't know how I'm gonna go through this.

I'm facing this clear temptation today, and the ways of the world look better than the ways of God.

How does Jesus train me to live in righteousness?

Well, it says in Hebrews 12 that Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross.

I train myself to say, by resisting temptation, following the ways of God instead of the ways of the world, there is more joy on the other side of that door, even though I can't see it right now.

This is how the law points us to Christ and teaches us to obey.

Now, the Pharisees, we've been saying, had this major error.

They read the Bible as mostly about them and what they're supposed to do for God.

My question is this how do we practically make the same error today?

Like maybe you're not in the business of setting up Costco food testing stations every hundred yards around your neighborhood on the Sabbath to justify your errand running.

If you are, let's have a conversation later.

That's an interesting concoction you've done already.

I think there's four ways, and I want to have some fun with these, a little bit whitehearted in different ways that we make the Bible mostly about us and what we're supposed to do for God instead of him and what he's done for us.

Four approaches.

Here's the first one.

I call it the Jason Born approach.

What's the Jason-born approach?

You look to the Bible for heroes that do legendary stuff and then try to figure out how to replicate it.

It's a Jason-born approach.

So you read this and it's like, boy, these guys are they're calling down fire, they're casting out demons, they're killing giants.

I feel like I need some spiritual steroids to get on their level.

Like you think about the story of David and Goliath.

And yes, David killed the Goliath, David killed the giant Goliath.

But the giants in my life feel much bigger, and I don't know how I could ever take them down.

And sometimes you read that, like, yes, David killed that giant by trusting in God, and you can kill the giants in your life too.

Here's the problem.

You're not David.

That's not who you're supposed to identify with in the story.

You and me, we're like the brothers who wouldn't go into battle because they were afraid, and the champion came along and won the battle, defeated the giants, and invited everybody else who was too afraid to get in the battle to come through.

That's what Jesus did in his perfect life.

He came, defeated sin and death, hell and Satan, while we had no chance to defeat them.

And after he won the victory, invites us to come on through on the other side.

You're not supposed to identify yourself as David in the story.

That's Jesus.

And that's why he says in Matthew 11, My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Because I've already won the victory, and you just follow in behind me with what I've already done.

Sometimes we read the Old Testament like the Jason Bourne approach and try and imitate the heroes.

The second approach is called the Google Maps approach.

We read the Bible looking for specific directions for life, especially in big decisions.

So you put in the destination, marriage.

God, tell me who to date, how long we should date them, and when we should get married, or where to go to college, or when to buy a house, or where to take a job.

You might imagine your high school seniors, where are you guys at?

You just graduated?

All right, now where are our rising seniors?

Okay, we love you guys.

I'm gonna pick on you for just a minute.

This is not targeting anyone.

Imagine one of you is praying over whether to go to IU or to Grace College.

Pray, pray, pray.

God, please tell me what to do.

Please tell me what to do.

You show up to church the next Sunday, pastor says, We're gonna start a sermon series in the book of Ephesians.

He opens up, he reads Ephesians 1, 2, and it reads, Grace to you.

God told me to go to grace college.

Listen, that's not how God gives you direction on where to go in your life.

In wisdom issues, like where to go to school, who to marry, whether or not to take a job, so on and so forth, we need to use our sanctified common sense.

Ask the Lord for clear thinking, ask him for direction, but he's never promised to tell us.

So if we come into it saying, I just want God to tell me what to do.

Guys, God has never promised to tell you that.

So don't look for him to fulfill something that he's never promised in our lives.

Now, what would be a better thing to say?

We're gonna take time to pray over it, to evaluate my own motives.

Like God is more concerned with the kind of person that gets married, or the kind of person that goes to a specific school, or the kind of person that takes a job, then whether you take that specific job.

Lord, help me to see my own motives in this.

Is greed dominating my thoughts on why this job looks so good?

Are there selfish motives for why I want to go to that particular school?

How might this decision be used to serve the advance of the gospel?

And you go back to 1 Thessalonians 4 that says, This is the will of God for you, your sanctification.

Look, you don't have to listen for a secret voice from God.

He's already given it to you in a verse.

What's his will?

That you would be sanctified.

You'd be more like Jesus.

And when we go to the Google Maps approach, we're asking God to give a specific route to this destination that He's never promised to give us in the first place.

Just want to make sure we don't do that.

It's making the Bible mostly about us and what we're supposed to do for God.

And we're twisting it in ways we shouldn't.

Third approach, we call the CNN approach.

The CNN approach.

The CNN approach looks at news on the global scene as indicators of Jesus' return.

So you say, man, see what's happening in the Middle East.

Don't you see what's happening in Iran?

Surely we're living in the last days.

Or you look out on the West Coast, don't you see the crazy stuff happening in California?

Clearly we're in the last days.

Jesus must be coming home, coming back soon.

And the response to that is, well, of course we're living in the last days.

We've been living in the last days for about 2,000 years now.

You see, we need to be resolved to recognize we're not on the planning committee for Jesus' return.

We don't set up the timelines for him.

Global events do not set up the timeline for his return.

No, we're on the welcoming committee.

Get yourself ready.

Get your church ready.

Get your community group ready.

Get your Sunday school class ready.

And whenever he comes back, we'll be ready.

Like you've got people coming in town and you don't know if they're gonna be there at five, six, seven, eight, or nine.

Like some of you can remember, like me, back before cell phones.

They're just coming back sometime tonight.

You don't get the text minute by minute updates.

Well, then you just get the house cleaned up and you're ready whenever they come.

That's how it is with Jesus' return.

Be ready whenever he comes.

We're on the welcoming committee, not the planning committee.

Now I'm gonna go back to 1 Thessalonians 5.

I quoted 1 Thessalonians 4 a second ago.

I've been getting ready for our Bible Institute this fall where we're studying 1st and 2 Thessalonians, and I hope you will be there because it's all about Jesus' return and what it should look like and how we can get ourselves ready.

But here's this thing that Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5.

Check this out.

He says this, now concerning the times and seasons, everybody gets interested.

Ooh, what are the times and seasons?

What's he say?

You have no need to have anything written, because you know the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and you won't know when it's coming.

So you get yourself ready whenever it comes.

So when we read the Bible with the CNN approach to predict, here's when Jesus is coming back, in a way, we're making the same mistake as the Pharisees, making it mostly about us and what we're supposed to do for God.

Fourth approach I want to point out, kids, I see you on this one.

I call this the bluey approach.

Two hands up if you love bluey.

Adults, I'm so thankful that you participated in that.

We love you as well.

The bluey approach says that the Bible is a series of interesting stories with a good moral for you to try to obey.

Series of interesting stories with a good moral for you to try to obey.

As if that's the main thing we're after in the first place.

And there's all kinds of places in the Bible that tell us that's not the right way to read it, but maybe the most obvious is in Luke 15.

Luke 15 is the story of the prodigal son.

It should really be called the story of the two lost sons.

Because sometimes we read it, and the prodigal son wanted his dad's money, and he says, Dad, give me the inheritance, and he goes off and he he blows it with prostitutes and reckless living and drunkenness in a distant country.

It's like, boy, don't go be like that guy.

And the older brother stays at home.

He works really hard, he keeps all the rules.

He's the hero of Bluey.

Right?

That good Protestant American work ethic.

But at the end of the story, what happens?

They throw a party for the son who came back.

And who's most upset about it?

The older brother who stayed working hard, obeying all the rules.

Because the moral of the story wasn't to be a hard worker and to keep all the rules, but to seek the Father's love and receive the Father's love and enjoy the Father's love.

And if the Father's gonna love somebody outside our lines who didn't keep the rules, the older brother cannot deal with it.

God's not looking for you to improve your moral life by 10%.

Come to church a little more often, drop a few dollars in the offering box on the way out, and think about getting involved in a mission trip.

That may be shocking for some of you to hear me say that.

You thought that was what church was all about.

Let me tell you guys, that's not what it's about.

It's not interesting stories with a moral like bluey of working hard.

It's receiving this radical love from the Father being poured out to us.

And it's easy for us, like the Pharisees, to think God will be pleased with me if I do this, fill in the blank.

God will look favorably upon me if I'm serving faithfully in kids' ministry.

God will be pleased with me if I avoid a judgmental spirit like all these religious people.

God will be pleased with me if I stand and I fight for truth in a culture that's hostile to the gospel.

God will be pleased with me if I dot dot dot fill in the blank.

If you have received Jesus Christ as your only hope in life and death, then God the Father is pleased by you because of Jesus' perfect righteousness applied to your life.

Not because of any moral standing you bring to the table.

He looks on you with favor, just as he looks on his own beloved son with favor.

As he looks on his son and says, This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

If you have received his life, he looks on you and says, With you I am well pleased.

And this is the entire message of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

You see, this Christ-centered way of reading the Bible has been a huge anchor in my life for the last 20 years.

Unless you think that it's just this up in the clouds idea-level thing, it actually changes how you live on a Tuesday night.

It liberates you.

It liberates you from wearing a religious mask.

Because here's what happens.

If I see the whole thing as about this God who is pursuing me, pursuing you, won't be stopped in his love by anything, including my failures, won't be impressed by my successes, then I no longer have to put on a mask and pretend to be up into the right and crushing it in ways that I'm not.

I can actually be honest before God because my acceptance didn't depend on me doing pretty good.

I can be honest with other brothers and sisters now.

Because I'm not trying to earn their approval, because I have the approval of the only one who matters.

And when I feel like I need their approval, it points me back to saying, I actually have the approval of the Father already guaranteed by the blood of Christ.

When I see the whole Bible is about Jesus and his pursuit of sinners who have turned away, it liberates me from judging others.

Because I see somebody else who keeps going back to the same pattern, the same pattern, the same sins, the same foolish living.

And my tendency is to be like, hey, get with him, man.

What are you doing?

Knock it off.

But I realize I'm the unfaithful one too.

And were it not for God's grace radically intervening in my life when I wasn't looking for it and wasn't that interested in it, I'd be doing the exact same thing.

And all of a sudden I'm freed from judging others.

And it liberates me to actually go take bold risks for the gospel.

Because the gospel going forward and Christ's love and his grace moving forward does not depend on my perfect strategy.

It doesn't depend on our church's perfect strategy.

It doesn't depend on perfect execution of every single thing we could ever try to do.

No, he says, I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

You've got this benefactor coming behind saying, This plan is gonna work.

My church is going to go forward through faults, through issues, and we'll repent of them as they come up, and we'll turn away from them, and we're gonna try to get our strategy pinned down, but let's take big swings for the gospel because it doesn't ultimately ride on our excellence and our hard work.

You see, this changes how you think about yourself before God, how you think about others before God, and how you go out into the world for God.

That's what I'm trying to say.

It gives a sure foundation, it's given me an anchor.

My prayer, guys, is that this reality will seep deeper and deeper into my own heart every single day, stirring my affections for Christ, and then it'll sink deeper into yours as well.

And when the storms of life come and the wind is tossing you in one way or another, this anger will ground you because it is the only anger that can ground you.

But the Bible is mostly about God and what he's done for you, not you and what you're supposed to do for him.

And this morning, would you receive his grace with open hands?

Open hands to become full hand with more grace than you would ever know what to do with.

Lord Jesus, we come before you this morning asking for your grace, asking you to pour it out upon us, because in your word we hear grace upon grace upon grace, Genesis to revelation, a singular message that you are on a rescue mission to save sinners.

And once you save us, your grace keeps coming and working in us and on us and through us.