Play The Long Game

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Also, open your Bibles to Mark chapter four.

Mark chapter four, one more time.

Let me pray briefly.

Lord, speak to us.

Your servants are listening.

Lord, speak through me as your vessel.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Mark chapter four, while you turn, I want you to think about this.

Where in your life currently are you trying to obey?

You're trying to do the right thing spiritually, you're trying to maybe help minister to somebody else, and uh it seems like it's not working.

Or it seems like it's so painfully slow that it might as well not be working.

Maybe give some examples.

Maybe you're like, I'm thinking about all this stuff.

I think I believe, I think I understand, but I still really doubt my salvation.

I don't, am I really a Christian?

Does all this really apply to me personally?

Uh maybe there is some sin struggle that you are personally struggling with, and you feel like you are you're doing real things to try to fight that sin and put some practical rules into your life to stop you from going back to that sin, but you don't feel like you're making much progress.

Two steps forward, two steps back is what it feels like.

Maybe you're like, you know, I'm trying to minister somebody else.

I've got somebody I'm trying to mentor, disciple, or evangelize, and man, I'm praying, I'm sharing the word.

I feel like I'm doing everything I know how to do, and it doesn't seem like they're moving at all.

No progress, no fruit.

Maybe parenting, I feel like I'm not a perfect parent, but I'm trying my darndest to love this kid, nurture and admonition of the Lord, and all that stuff in Proverbs, and it just seems like an absolute unmitigated mess blowing up in my face.

I will say this: there were years, we have four children, um, who are mostly adults now, I guess you could say.

And uh there were years when, let's just say they were all teenagers and younger, where, and and my wife and I would say to this, and we were honestly about half joking and half serious, because something would happen, like maybe you'd realize that one of the kids did not regularly brush their teeth.

And when you asked them about it, it seemed like that was an idea they'd never heard before.

And my wife and I would just look at each other and say, We're failures.

We have failed in life.

You know, if this middle schooler or whatever it is doesn't even know, yeah, you're supposed to brush your teeth every day.

So, Mark chapter four, the context is this Jesus primarily preaching and teaching to the crowds, but he's got 12 that he's training up, preparing to go out and, in a sense, multiply and imitate his ministry to do preaching.

All right.

And he's telling these parables.

Well, really, here, what's a parable?

A parable, in a sense, is a short, kind of surface-level story that has a deeper meaning and application.

That's that's a layman's understanding of what a parable is.

And we're gonna look at three or four.

Mark chapter four, starting verse 21.

Jesus talking.

And he said to them, Is a lamp brought in to be put under a basket or under a bed and not on a stand?

For nothing is hidden except to be made manifest, nor is anything secret except to come to light.

If any one has ears to hear, let him hear.

And he said to them, Pay attention to what you hear.

With the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

And he said, The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground.

He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows.

He knows not how.

The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.

And he said, With what can we compare the kingdom of God?

Or what parable shall we use for it?

It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth.

Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants, and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shades.

With many such parables, he spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it.

He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples, he explained everything.

So, the first one.

Listen, if you if you have a candle, if you have a lamp, any light source, the whole point is to give light, to put it on a lampstand or something.

Not to hide it.

That makes sense, but you may say, well, you know, maybe some of you kids are like, my mom is really strict about bedtime.

But I like to read before I go to bed.

So I saved up some of my money and I bought a flashlight, and I do hide my flashlight under my pillow sometimes because my mom can't find it.

But then when mom goes away, I pull it out.

Okay, sometimes you do hide things, Easter eggs, but the whole point of hiding them is that eventually they're gonna come out.

They're gonna be found.

Okay.

Um and Jesus noticed two different times, right?

23, 24.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.

Pay attention to what you hear.

I mean, he's emphasizing, hey, listen up.

There's a scene in the movie, uh, Saving Private Ryan, early in the movies, war scene, it's chaotic, and there's two doctors and they're kind of checking on all the people that are hurt.

And at one point, the kind of younger doctor is so overwhelmed with all the chaos, he starts looking around, and the older doctor just kind of beats on his helmet, you know, like, pay attention to what you're doing.

And I feel like this is what Jesus with love is doing to us verbally.

Hey, what I'm saying is really important.

Don't let it go in one ear or out the other.

Pay attention to what I'm saying.

And there's this sense, the measure you use, the measure will be added.

He's saying, listen, don't be lazy about learning.

To the degree that you're willing to really focus, to really listen, to really learn, in some sense, God will be more excited about giving you more.

Just think about it this way.

Imagine if this year for vacation Bible school, we said, hey, we're gonna do something a little different.

We're gonna let everybody in the church, like if you kind of have a native genius, a skill, like you're great at hitting a golf ball, you're gonna teach kids how to hit a golf ball.

Great at throwing a football, you'll teach them how to throw a football.

Great at playing the guitar, Adam's gonna be out there giving free guitar lessons.

And for each person, whatever your skill was, you had two or three people that came up, and one of the kids is totally not paying attention, picking his nose, just kind of running around in circles.

You all know the kid on your, you know, little league team that you hate, all right?

No, you don't hate them, but right, they're not your favorite.

And then there's another kid that's like glued in, asking questions, trying to make sure he's getting everything you're saying.

Which kid are you gonna be more excited about trying to give more to?

It's just common sense.

Roughly 20 years ago in seminary, I had three semesters of Greek, I had three semesters of Hebrew for various reasons.

I have spent a lot more time working with the Greek in the last 20 years and a lot less time working with the Hebrew.

You don't have to be a rocket science to figure out is Olin better with Greek or Hebrew?

There's a use it or lose it type mindset here that Jesus is saying.

Okay.

Um, now he says, let me give you another one.

God's kingdom.

It's like a man goes out, he does his part, he sows the seed, but there's some sense in which a lot of the growth happens underground and visible, certainly back then 2,000 years ago.

But even today, with all of our scientific wisdom and insight, I don't think we still fully understand how the seed germinates and grows and produces.

So Jesus is saying, there's this part for you to do, but there's also this mysterious part that's beyond you that you can't control.

It's out of your hands.

And then he talks about the mustard seed, which wasn't literally the tiniest seed of all time, and he wasn't trying to say, but he's saying it's the tiniest seed that you guys know about that y'all plant in Palestine.

It starts really small, but it ends really tall.

It's like you have an herb garden over here.

And you plant your little mustard plant, and sometimes it could grow as tall as 15 feet and have branches that were basically like tree branches from a plant, and birds would come and build nests.

If it starts small, it ends huge.

Okay, and he's always teaching these kind of parables.

And I think one of the reasons he was doing it, it was a little bit of a test.

Who would who would clue in?

Who would be like the little kid paying attention and even come ask questions to understand more?

So, lots of application for us here, and the first would be this.

And I think we've talked about this here before, but it keeps coming out in the text.

We're blessed to be a blessing.

I remember hearing an old black pastor one time say, if God can't get it through you, he ain't gonna get it to you.

And he was talking more about money.

But what Jesus is talking about here is truth.

John MacArthur said, I've quoted this before, I know, because I like it so much.

Every Christian is a teacher.

Issue is just how big is your classroom.

You might say, I've only got one person to listen to me.

Great.

Lovingly teach that person.

But the truth that God is giving you, He wants you to steward it well partially by going and sharing it with others in the right time and ways appropriately, right?

The Geneva Bible had this footnote.

The more liberally that we share such gifts as God has given us with our brethren, the more bountiful God will be towards us.

I mean, probably most of us have heard this before.

You can't outgive God.

And again, that's a lot of times we hear that in financial contexts, that's true.

But this is a truth context.

If you're like, I'm hungry for more truth, I wish God would open up his word, explain it to me more, start sharing it more, see what happens.

I mean, again, just practically, the more you teach, the more you learn.

All right?

And listen, when you hear teach, don't think this.

This is one aspect.

There's a hundred different ways to do it.

This can just be a conversation at the table in the workroom over your break.

Second thing, live in light of eternity.

Three of these little short parables end with an emphasis on judgment, on the end times.

Okay.

Verse 22, everything's coming to light one day.

Biblically, that's talking about final judgment.

Verse 29, put in the sickle, the harvest has come.

Talking about final judgment.

Verse 32, the birds of the air, all the nations are coming in.

That's talking about the end of times.

So we need to live today in light of the end of all things.

It's just like your golf game, it doesn't matter.

The longest par five you play, I hadn't played golf in a long time, but I think I remember this.

You always start on the T with the green in mind.

Where am I going?

You don't just randomly hit the first shot, say, I'll figure out the next couple of shots later.

You know where you're trying to end.

And Martin Luther supposedly said, there's really only two days.

There's today, and there's that day, meaning the judgment day.

You know you got today, you're living it.

You don't know you got tomorrow, but you know you got today, and you know you got judgment day.

Live today in light of judgment.

Third thing.

Okay.

Steward God's truth seriously, carefully.

Are we like the disciples?

I hope we are.

Willing to spend extra time with Jesus to get the private explanation.

Help me understand this.

Help me apply this.

Okay.

Matthew Henry said this: as we deal with God, God will deal with us.

The ESV Bible talked about having a heart that's hospitable to his word.

Just think about that for a second.

I mean, if you have the gift of hospitality and a friend comes in from out of town, it's like you're excited for them to be there.

You clean up the guest bedroom.

Maybe you get them some snacks, you welcome them, you're warm.

You're just what can I do to make you happy here?

In a sense, that's how our hearts ought to be responding to all the truth in the Bible.

I like you.

I want you here.

Come inside.

Let me make room for you.

Let me change things to adapt, to make the word of God feel at home in my heart.

Is my heart, is your heart, hospitable to the word of God?

John MacArthur again said, The one who has learned spiritual truth and applied it diligently will receive even more truth to faithfully apply.

Okay.

William Hendrickson.

Because, guys, look back at this phrase, and this is this is one Jesus uses repeatedly, and it's a little bit of a weird phrase.

Okay.

Um, verse 25.

To the one who has, more will be given.

We get that.

Like there's compounding interest.

I read, I study, I listen, I pray, I obey, my knowledge grows.

We get that.

But then look at this.

And from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

What in the world does that mean?

And that's one of those phrases like, again, if you take it in a very wooden literal fashion, it's nonsensical, right?

If you have zero, I'm taking away your zero.

Like, what does that mean?

Here's what it means.

If you seem to have an understanding of the truth, if you superficially have a grasp on spiritual reality, but you don't really, you're just kind of faking it.

And you're not taking seriously the opportunities you have, eventually, those opportunities will be taken away.

Again, as I'm reading this and I'm wrestling with it, trying to understand, it's like Judas.

You ever thought about that, guys?

Again, let that sober you.

Jesus is out there teaching the crowds, and then he's pulling these 12 guys together, often saying, I'm gonna explain everything to you.

And some of them are the guys that are writing this stuff to us later.

But there was one guy sitting right there with them, listening all the time.

But he was superficial.

He was going through the motions, he wasn't taking it seriously, and eventually the opportunity he had was gone.

God keeps giving opportunities to repent.

And those who don't repent eventually won't be able to repent.

Does that make sense?

If I continue to say, no, thank you, no, thank you, no, thank you, put off till tomorrow, put off till tomorrow, eventually the door is closed.

When do you cross that line?

We don't know, the Lord knows.

Another commentator said this there is no such thing as standing still spiritually, either growing or shrinking.

When I was doing college ministry, this used to be one of my kind of favorite questions with freshmen.

And typically I was working with freshmen frat guys.

And so at some point we get lunch.

I mean, I'm at Sanford University, right?

It's like the belt buckle of the Bible belt in America.

So I say, hey, tell me your story.

And almost all of them are like, well, you know, I grew up in church, daddy was a deacon, mom played.

I mean, it's like just a dime a dozen.

So it was like almost everybody had some form of a testimony.

You didn't meet somebody there's like, I never heard of God.

So a lot of times I just say, well, tell me this, since you've been in college past couple months, have things gotten better or worse?

And listen, I could have bet my house I knew the answer.

But here's what a lot of the guys wanted to say.

They thought this was the safe answer.

I think things have just kind of been about the same.

It was just easy to say, my understanding biblically and my understanding on life is spiritually speaking, it is impossible to stand still.

Because the current of the world is going backwards.

It's going anti-God.

It's going full sinned, sinful.

So if you even honestly, genuinely think, I'm just standing still, man, I'm just neutral for Jesus, you're going backwards really fast.

You don't even know it.

To make spiritual progress in this life, of course, we need the grace of God.

But we have to be good stewards of that grace to say, by your grace, Lord, I'm gonna swim upstream against this current.

You don't stand still.

So the fourth point would be this: guys, be faithful in obedience.

Never let trusting God's grace and goodness and sovereignty and control become an excuse for passivity.

You don't have to read very far in the Bible.

The Bible is not a book of passivity.

Does the Bible emphasize God's sovereignty and control?

Yes, we're gonna get to that in just a second, okay?

But before we do, I just want a healthy reminder.

It doesn't matter how much God emphasizes his strength, his control, his plan, that can never equal for me passivity.

The Bible never does that.

God is sovereign, so it doesn't matter what you do.

Just send away and just it's all gonna work out fine.

The Bible never talks that way.

Okay.

Um biblically speaking, waiting on the Lord, I mean that sounds kind of passive, but you read it in context, it has more of this sense of anticipation, standing on your tippy toes, looking, hoping, longing.

When and where is God gonna show up?

Okay, spiritual progress, personally, spiritual ministry in other people's lives.

It's always a partnership between God and the human partner.

And here maybe is the most healthy way to view it.

It's like getting to go to work with daddy.

The way that we primarily ought to hear this is not this heavy burden.

Oh my goodness.

I'm leaving church now with just this weighted burden of I gotta go out and be perfect for God.

If you're hearing that, either I'm saying something wrong or you're hearing something wrong.

Is there a burden to obey the Lord?

Yes.

But remember, first John says his commands aren't burdensome.

It ought to be this sense of high privilege and delight.

I get to go to work with dead.

This is great.

Fun, privilege.

That's what ought to be emphasized in our hearts, in our lives.

So the fifth part is this God's part is the major part.

Do I have a part to play?

Yes.

But God's part is the major part.

God's part is the essential part.

Psalm chapter 127, verses 1 and 2.

Psalms 127:1

Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain to build it.

It doesn't tell the builder to put down his hammer and take a nap.

But just the whole time that we're building a life, a family, a church that we know, God, if the wind of the Holy Spirit doesn't blow, all of my best efforts will be in vain.

They'll just be wasted.

The watchman stays awake in vain if the Lord is not ultimately the one watching over the city.

1 Corinthians chapter 3, you remember where Paul said, Hey, I planted, Apollos watered.

1 Corinthians 3 · chapter mention

God calls the growth.

Paul's the best planner of all time.

He couldn't cause growth.

The mystery of the Holy Spirit had to do that.

Philippians chapter 2, 12 and 13.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Work out your salvation.

There's your part, there's my part.

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.

God is inside of us, changing us, growing us from the inside out, giving us the good desires.

But then I have to, by his grace, appropriate it, bring it to life.

Okay.

There is some sense in which God works independently of us in secret, we can't fully understand.

Let me give you a story that may help illustrate this, though.

I had a buddy that was a missionary in Brazil and uh been to Brazil a couple of times, and one of the Brazilians, speaking English, would say to this guy, he said, Listen, I'm going, I want you to have your Bible study at my house.

And I'll invite my friends.

He said, But I want you to know ahead of time, I don't believe in heaven.

I don't believe the Bible.

I don't believe in God, but I think the Bible's beautiful.

I love the stories in the Bible.

I think they're beautiful, I think they're wonderful.

So I want to listen, but I just want you to know, don't get, I'm not interested.

Don't invite me to your church or anything.

Y'all can imagine where the story's gonna end up, right?

They were going through the Gospel of John.

And he said every week the guy would show up, his friends would come, family members.

And he said a lot of times the guy would say, I'm happy to host, but I don't believe any of it.

You know?

Kind of like the happy atheist, like smiling like this is cool, we're having friendly.

Discussion, but I'm not, I don't believe any of it.

And he said, one week I showed up and came in, and he said the host was there, and he's just going, It's true, it's all true.

He's like, What happened?

He's like, I don't know, God just changed my heart, God just opened my eyes.

My friend said, I hadn't been trying to evangelize him at all because he kind of made it clear hey, don't, don't, don't put the press on me.

I'm happy to host, I'm happy to invite friends, but I'm not interested personally.

I just kind of want to sit here and listen.

But the mystery of God's Spirit struck his heart.

So, point six Don't despise the day of small beginnings.

And that's basically a quote from Zechariah chapter 4, verse 10.

Zechariah 4:10

We did the thing that I bet a lot of parents do when your kids are little on their birthday, make them stand in the door stop of the pantry and mark their height.

Anybody else do that other than us?

Right?

It's fun to do.

And my sweet little Sophia, when she was a little girl, you know, let's just go maybe three or four years old, the day after her birthday, she did this about two or three years in a row.

She called it inching, inching me, you know.

The day after her birthday, she would like to remember, so she'd come down, she's like, Daddy, inch me again, inch me again.

And I'm like, baby, I'm not gonna inch you again because it's not gonna show any growth.

I'm just gonna be putting a pencil mark right on top of the.

And she's like, Are you saying I'm not growing?

I was like, Well, no, you're growing.

But it's just so slow and so small, it's imperceptible.

That's why we do it once a year.

And guys, that is a great picture of the way that God works in the world, in an individual's life, in a family, in a community, in a church, and in all the nations.

It starts so small, it smarts so small, slow, seemingly not at all.

And then one day it's about world domination.

And this thing started tiny.

Where is it going?

Jesus is like, I'm king of the universe.

I'm king of this whole planet.

There will be a day every tongue, every tribe, every nation will have people in my kingdom.

You can't stop it.

So let me try to summarize all this, okay?

How does God typically work?

How does God's power, how does God's influence, how does God's Holy Spirit, how does God's kingdom typically work and grow in a person's life, in a church, in a nation, in the world?

Secretly, slowly, steadily yet surely.

It's coming.

So, what does that mean for us?

What does that mean for our proper response?

I need to be focused.

I need to be faithful.

I need to be forbearing, just mean patient.

And I do need to be fruitful.

All of this should never lead to me saying, I'm passive and I'm lazy, nor should it lead to me feeling hurried, rushed, overwhelmed, burdened.

It's all up to me.

Pressure's on.

I'm stressed, I'm fretting.

There's this kind of happy, I'm a happy, faithful farmer.

I wake up, I do my part, I sow the seed, I go home, I go to sleep, I wake up, maybe I come back tomorrow, do some water, do some fertilizer.

Doesn't look like anything's happening.

I'm trusting the process.

I remember talking to a buddy pretty recently that was having some parenting issues, and sometimes I get talking and thinking too fast.

Sometimes my wife, she's like, Hey, I think you were actually saying something good in the sermon today, and then you tried to put like a bunch of words together, and I don't know what you said.

My wife is not afraid to give me feedback like that.

I really appreciate it.

Um and this was a one-on-one conversation, and I don't know if you've ever done this.

It's like I had two thoughts in my head, and like the two thoughts kind of came out at the same time.

My buddy's like, What should I do about this kid?

And the two thoughts I had in my mind were pray and play the long game.

And as I was about to answer it, I what came out was pray the long game.

And I was like, that's not what I was planning on saying, but that's actually better.

Pray the long game.

All three of our sons, we we had a season where I'll just say it this way: all three of our sins were clearly not working, walking with Christ.

And in different ways and with different issues, they were what I would call an emotional roller coaster ride.

There were fun, exciting days, and there were days you're like, I'm ready to hurt somebody.

And uh just within the last year, let me just give you a brief picture of where we're at.

The Lord's done a lot of work.

All three of my boys now, by God's grace, clearly welcome to Christ.

One of them a very dramatic conversion within roughly the last year.

One of them married to a very godly girl that we're kind of like, I can't believe you ever got a godly woman like that.

Otherwise, engaged to a godly woman, we're very excited about.

And I was talking to a good friend of mine uh just a few months ago who's got younger kids, and he was just like, hey man, how's it going?

And I quoted my wife because my wife had said one day, my wife and I were just walking and talking, and it was just one of those times where you're kind of celebrating.

And Lena just said, she said, I feel like with our kids right now, we're in a reaping season.

It's like we had a lot of hard years of sowing where it felt like nothing was working, and right now we feel like we're just reaping the benefits.

And so I was telling my buddy this, I was like, honestly, right now, family-wise, we feel like we're in a reaping season.

And he's got younger kids, he's going through some hardship, and he just said, Uh, how long did the sewing season last?

And I said, You want me to be brutally honest?

It lasted about 20 years.

But guys, on the backside of 20 years, it kind of feels like a night gone by.

Because God's eventual work is so worth it.

All the time, all the fear, all the doubts, all the prayers, all the tears, all the restraint, all the sin struggles, it's like totally worth it.

Totally worth it.

And I hesitated to share this example because I'm I'm I'm barely smart enough to know this.

We ain't out of the woods yet.

I mean, as soon as I share this, it's highly likely something's gonna blow up today at lunch.

But the point is, your whole life is play the long game.

Pray the long game.

Do your part, and even when it looks like everything around you is going backwards, trust that God is bigger and better than your best efforts, and He will bless the work of His hands in and through you.

There's a song that I really like called Waymaker, maybe you've heard of it, but it's got this phrase in the course that goes like this Even when I don't see you, you're working.

Even when I don't feel it, you're working.

You never stop, you never stop working.

As I was preparing this sermon this week, I I was just meditating on that phrase.

Even when I don't see it, God's working.

Even when I don't feel it, God's working.

Why?

Because he never stops.

He never stops working.

I have known true stories, and I bet some of you have heard true stories, but I have I have personally known true stories about a woman who is pregnant and didn't even know she was pregnant until she's in the delivery room.

And you're some of you are like, why in the world are you going there?

That's really weird.

Because all of us that are old enough understand there is a human part to play.

And yet, I'm talking about a woman didn't know for nine months, and then you got a baby, and there were no visits to the doctor, there were no prenatal vitamins, there were no Lamas classes and all these other things you're supposed to do.

And here's a healthy little baby.

God wants you to have a baby, you're gonna have a baby.

Even if you don't know what's going on.

A lot of times we are just fumbling forward in our best spiritual efforts, and they're not that great.

And they're kind of half-hearted.

And yet God in his mercy can and will bear spiritual fruit in and through our lives, despite us overriding us.

How many of you, I'd like to see a show of hands on this one, how many of you, when you were a kid, and maybe you're still a kid, but ever actually did one of the like go to go to work with dad days or go to work with mom days?

Anybody like actually ever had that experience?

All right, a handful.

And I just wonder, in hindsight, how many of you look back and like, I really helped out my dad that day?

It's amazing.

He made more sales, he got more done.

No, you you were probably a disaster.

You probably made his life harder.

Even when he tried to give you the smallest assignment, like, son, just go over there and get me a cup of coffee and bring it back.

And he was doing that to get rid of you for 10 minutes so that hopefully he'd get something done.

You probably spilled it and made a mess.

He didn't really need your help.

In some sense, you made it harder for him to make progress, but the point was he loved you so much, he's like, I want you with me.

And guys, that is the perfect illustration about what God is doing, involving us in this whole process of our own spiritual growth and of helping other people.

We don't make it better, we make it worse, we make it harder, we make it more messy, we make it so slow and painful.

And yet, he is so big, he is so strong, he is so mighty, he can and will work through our weaknesses.

His power is made perfect in our weakness.

Then why does he even do it this way?

I don't know all the reasons, but I know this.

Because he loves us, because he likes us, and he's like, You're my kids, and I like hanging out with you, and I want you to be involved in daddy's business.

And it's fun when we spend time together.

And if we remember that and we meditate on that, it'll work out well.

This is God's normal way to work.

Secret, small, slow, but steady and sure.

And then all of a sudden, I want you to think about the greatest work of God of all time.

The incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection.

I mean, a poor little infant in a feeding trough that only a few people even knew about.

The vast majority of his life, thirty years of total obscurity.

Backwoods little village carpenter.

And then, even when he kind of becomes a famous rabbi, it didn't end too well, humanly speaking.

Crucified like a common criminal, dead and buried.

Talk about slow, talk about small, talk about hidden, talk about seemingly going in the wrong direction, not working, and then all of a sudden, light and power and truth and conquering, resurrection, ascension, reigning, ruling, subduing all his enemies, coming back to judge the quick and the dead.

And so, listen, guys, I hope you know this.

Even as I'm the one up here that has the privilege of being the spokesperson and preaching all this, I am well aware of how often I don't practice what I preach.

I'm not focused enough, I'm not disciplined enough, I'm not faithful enough, I'm not a good enough steward.

And yet, what does the cross and the resurrection tell me?

It's covered.

I'm forgiven.

His power is made perfect in my weakness.

Listen to Philippians chapter 2, verses 8 through 11.

Philippians 2:8–11

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, you are so worthy.

No one has ever been more humble than you, willing to leave your Father's throne above to come, to bleed, to die for Adam's helpless race.

Crucified, dead, buried, yet risen again, highly exalted, the name above every name.

Lord, one day every single knee will bow, every single tongue will confess, whether they want to or not.

I plead with you, Lord Jesus, in your great mercy that anyone hearing this right now that has never bowed the knee, that has never confessed with their tongue that you are Lord, they would do it now.

They would not wait, they would not put it off.

And Lord, I pray for all of us that by your grace have already bowed the knee, have already confessed that there would be such a wealth of emotion and affection in our heart for you, such love and adoration that you have chosen us when we're not worthy and given us this high privilege of not just being saved and forgiven, but being adopted into your family, of being launched out into your mission, that we would feel it primarily as a privilege, not as a burden, and we'd be happy to serve.

We'd be happy to steward your word.

Make us into the men and the women of persevering faith that you want us to be.

We pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.