Ephesians 2:1-7 - ”The Walking Dead” - Journey Through Ephesians

The Old Testament reading today is taken

from Psalm

14. The fool says in his heart, "There

is no God. They are corrupt. They do

abominable deeds. There is none who does

good. The Lord looks down from heaven on

the children of man to see if there are

any who understand, who seek after God.

They have all turned aside. Together

they have become corrupt. There is none

who does good, not even one. Have they

no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat

up my people as they eat bread and do

not call upon the Lord? There they are

in great terror. For God is with the

generation of the righteous. You who

would shame the plans of the poor, but

the Lord is his refuge. Oh that

salvation for Israel would come out of

Zion. What the Lord restores the fortune

of his peoples. Let Jacob rejoice. Let

Israel be glad.

The New Testament reading is taken from

Ephesians 2:es 1:7.

And you were dead in the trespasses and

sins in which you once walked, following

the course of this world, following the

prince of the power of the air, the

spirit that is now at work in the sons

of

disobedience, among whom we all once

lived in the passions of our flesh,

carrying out the desires of the body and

the mind, and were by nature children of

wrath like the rest of mankind. But God

being rich in mercy because of the great

love with which he loved us even when we

were dead in our trespasses made us

alive together with Christ by grace you

have been saved and raised us up with

him and seated us with him in the

heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that

in the coming ages he might show the

immeasurable riches of his grace and

kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be

to God.

Well, if you can't preach this text, you

can't preach any text. This is the most

beautiful, powerful uh gospel text in

Ephesians. Ephesians 2, uh typical Paul.

He's built up that that just our amazing

stance in Christ. We're in the heavenly

places. He's prayed that our eyes are

open to who Jesus really is. He's put

Jesus right beside God, making Jesus

God. He's made the Holy Spirit that

which works in our lives and the

father's heart to us. It's just been

building and building. And then he takes

a breath. And at this point, he's now

going to talk about our current

situation of Christians in this

world. This section is designed to tell

us who we really are and who God really

is and then how to understand it.

Now there is a movement going on right

now that is working against the gospel

and it's inside the church. Okay, that's

always happening. When you're a

minister, you see it all the time. This

particular movement particularly hits

vulnerable Christians, young Christians,

and it is called this. Have you guys

ever heard of deconstructing

Christianity? Have you heard of this?

Deconstructing Christianity is a

movement of people who uh tend to be

more academic and they have had their

own angst with the Christian faith.

They're often people that are into this

were once very

fundamentalists and they're coming out

of there and they find in this

deconstructing freedom. And what the

deconstructing actually means is that I

am going to take your faith and

deconstruct it. Okay, your faith claims

and then maybe I'll rebuild, but maybe

not because the Bible's not really worth

it because the Bible's full full of

misogyny, sexism, homophobia, etc.,

etc. This is the movement and it's very

very popular amongst people in their

early

20s and it's very very popular with

young believers who are wrestling with

politics.

with the real idea of of LGBTQ issues.

It's very very popular with people who

are wondering about Trump. Say that's a

big thing for this movement. And what

happens is they say, well, how can

we believe in this God when this and

this and this and this is happening in

our lives when we have such a different

internal perspective in our spirituality

than what it seems to say in the Bible.

So what happens is these teachers come

and they deconstruct. It's from an old

system. I studied this whole thing by

the way. It's a guy named Fuko and

Dereda. They were postmodern

philosophers out of France. And it's not

worth even getting into it unless you

really want to know. It's not actually

that strong. It's actually quite weak.

And what a fun part I like to do is I

like to talk to them. They don't like to

talk to

me because I deconstruct

them. Because the te it's actually not

the young people who are wrestling with

these things. It's normal to wrestle and

it's not that we don't have to look at

and deconstruct bad teaching we've had

as young people. I spent a whole three

years at Regent having

that. But what these people are doing is

saying we know enough how to deconstruct

your faith so that you'll be free and

now you can have your own spirituality

of your own. And it's a real thing.

It's a real thing. And the best part is

these so-called

academics that are hired at many Bible

schools are happily pushing

this to our shame. Rick Watts, just to

give you an example, he had an uh you

remember Rick, he came and did the

conference, Professor Rick, he got

called into uh Trinity Western

University by the president. And that

was surprised Rick because he's retired.

And Rick, he told Rick, "I have a

problem. People are coming in as

Christians and leaving

unbelievers." Trinity Western's a

Christian school. That is a problem. My

daughter's about to go

there. Don't worry, I'm going to be

there with her

props. They're not going to like

me. But see, the problem was, he goes,

"I don't know why this is happening."

And Rick looked at him and he goes,

"Because you've stopped preaching the

gospel. Because you've stopped the word

and you've at least people play their

little games on how this isn't

important." And by the way, it's very

subtle and I'll show you that in a bit.

So, how do you deal with

deconstructionism?

Yes. Know

scripture. Know it like the back of your

hand. Because I'm going to tell you

something. Scripture is

lifegiving. It is amazing. And all of

the stuff they say that you should

doubt, I'm going to tell you, you spend

10 minutes just looking closely at the

text and it's just not true. What they

say we shouldn't do or should do is just

not

true. And I'm saying that today because

a lot of deconstruction theologies about

doing what you should do as yourself,

your truth.

Find my truth within all this. And

anyone who's telling you that you can't

do this or you can't do that or you

should believe this is suppressing your

inner

self. We just need to be inclusive.

That's a word they love. Just be

inclusive and find that spiritual self

and then we will be in touch with the

cosmic

Christ. Why do I say that?

Well, today Paul is

deconstructing, but biblically

deconstructing. And one thing he's going

to say is anyone who thinks that their

self is worth anything is under the

illusion of the powers of the air, which

he means

Satan. What? Anyone who thinks they

should follow the passions of their body

and their mind, their true selves, are

going to

destruction. He's saying the exact

opposite of my beautiful

deconstructionists. I wish they'd talk

to me more. They won't talk to

me because God Paul is trying to say

something here that there's something so

much better than my

spirituality. And you know what that is?

Jesus Christ and the

resurrection. Let's

pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for

your amazing grace to us. We thank you

that you have come into our

world, that you have made this world,

and you've come in and you have rescued

us. You have saved us on the cross. You

substitutionarily atoned for us. You

brought humanity up into the heavens so

we would always be before God and that

we are saved in

you. We thank you, Father.

We pray right now that you'll open our

eyes and our ears so we can see this

more clearly.

Amen. So, let's get into Ephesians 2.

There's an abrupt stop. He's just told

us that the whole church fills

everything out. Last week, we should

have been like, "Woohoo! We're

everything,

right?" Remember, we were talking about

China and how that's overcome and how

God has is king of the heaven and the

earth. But all of a sudden he has to

stop because there's a sense that humans

do get when they think, "Yeah, we're

better than them." We do all the time.

So now he's told us how great we are. He

stops and says, "Ah, you're not so

great." Notice this. And you, and here's

the thing, he's talking to Jews and

Gentiles here. This is Romans

Romans 1:3

1:3. If you want to read Romans 1:3,

Romans 1:3

you'll understand exactly why he says

this.

He says something that for a Jew would

be very foreign. This is an epiphany for

Paul that he has now seen the Old

Testament always

said. See the Jews believed that they

were alive because they were in the

bloodline of Abraham, right? And they

believed that if they followed the

Torah, the bloodlines, that's the food

laws, the the circumcision and temple

observance, then they would be okay.

But that's the shock because Jesus comes

and shows by being crucified that

they're not okay even when they're doing

that. So he says, "And you were

dead in the trespasses and sins." He's

saying, "You were dead. There was

nothing in you. Nothing good. Nothing."

People hate to hear

that. But I'm going to tell you

something right now. For Paul, anyone

who is outside of Christ is dead even

though they

live. Now, that's hard to

hear because we've been taught in our

culture that if you try hard and you do

the right things and if you're just good

enough, then when you get to heaven,

you'll run into Peter and he'll have a

ledger and he'll let you in. That is

heresy. Oh, wow. We're getting the amens

already. This is good gospel stuff.

And it's hard for us because we look

down the the street we're on and we see

nice people who will mow our

lawn. We see nice people who pay their

taxes and are good Canadians. We do. And

we think, "Okay, yeah, the crackhead.

Okay, I can see him not being saved, but

these guys are pretty nice." Paul,

no. Paul says, "And you were dead in

your trespasses, all of you, of which

you once walked." Well, why did he say

that? Because for Paul, when we walk

amongst ourselves without God, it's

always about

self. And I'm going to tell you

something. You deconstruct those rich,

well-looking, wise people, and you tap

on their tap underneath their motives

and you're going to find something

called

self. Even keeping my family to look

really nice and good. You met those

families, the ones you're just like

don't like cuz they're way nicer looking

than yours. At

least in my case, I don't mean

physically, but they look like all put

together. And then you scribble

underneath that. By the way, don't go by

Facebook. That's all a lie. Nobody puts

up their their fight they had with their

husband last night on there. Okay?

There's just none of that. It's all the

best time, the best moment of your

life. But the truth is, we and everyone

else who's outside of Christ, he's

assuming they are in Christ. That's why

he's using the p uh the the past

tense in which you once walked. You were

dead in your trespasses, which means the

things you did that you shouldn't do,

but you didn't intentionally do it, but

you overlooked it. And your

sins, which means you purposely did it.

You knew better. Anybody else ever do

that? Last

week I Holy, the holy crowd. like I'm

just maybe I'm the only one where you're

looking saying I know I shouldn't say

this to my loved one

but it feels too good to watch their

face

go

right now. Okay, this crowd's very holy.

I'll following the course of this

cosmos, this world, because this world's

all built on self. It was in ancient

Rome and it is today. One thing that

hasn't changed their gods have changed

but the same fruit of the gods is what

can it give

me right and that's what everything in

our culture everything I see is what can

I get out of it how did we what sell our

politics how did they sell it to us what

can we

get right it's how they sell it or worse

what will they take from

us because it's all about

self. I'm going to tell you something.

Anyone who thinks that it's always good

and God's behind this latest party that

got

in, he I don't think he's he's on

anybody's side. Sometimes you you feel

like when it when you he was in front of

the an angel came in front of I think it

was uh Aaron. Was it

Aaron? And he says, "Who side are you

on?" And he goes, "Sorry, Joshua." "And

whose side are you on? Ours or theirs?"

And he goes, "We're on neither side." I

think that's when he talks like

that. I'll get

it. In which you once walked following

the course of this world. The course of

this world is

destruction. And this is all you know.

And you're like the fish in the water.

And they say, "Well, what do you think?

How long do you think we can stay in the

water?" And the other fish looks and

goes, "What's

water?" Cuz we live in the world, right?

And we don't even know we're living in

the world before this time because we're

just doing what comes

naturally following the prince of the

power of the air. This is one that

people don't like to hear. But right now

and the power of the air for these

people was below the moon which they

called lunar luna and the earth. And

this realm was controlled by dark

spirits. And who was the ultimate dark

spirit?

You guys know, by the way, that's why

they call when people go a little bit

off lunacy because they've been taken

over by the power of the air.

Interesting. I like telling you this cuz

you can go to a dinner party and say

that and go.

So here we have who we are

dead walking in this world of death self

under the power of the darkness of that

very serpent who told us we could be

like

God and then he keeps going and the

spirit that is now work in the sons of

disobedience anyone who's outside of

Christ is working within that this

should be happening Paul's saying in

Ephesus it's really tough for us because

we think that all kinds of good things

should happen. Paul's theology right

through the Old Testament and world

history tells us bad things mostly

happen to human beings because there's a

dark force and anyone who's honest knows

that human beings aren't good and

there's something powerful working and

he's saying that force that was under us

is still under them. Now here why is he

laying all this? Because it's very

tempting, oh Christian, sometime to

think we've

arrived. The Fred down there doesn't

believe. I do. I've arrived. Right. And

I'm going to tell you something right

now. What we're going to find out is

you're just like

him. Bound by the world. Bound by the

things of this age. Underneath the

serpent.

Just like those people who are doing it

now. Among whom we all lived this lived

as we just lived our lives this way in

the

Uhoh. You got get your Bibles. Oh, there

we

go. Uh, you know what? I'll tell you

something. You guys can call me a liar.

I preach every time I mention that wy

serpent something goes

wrong. It's

weird every

time. Among whom we once lived in the

passions of our flesh. Flesh here

doesn't just mean our physical body. It

means sark. It means that part of

ourselves that wants to be gods and

doesn't want to listen to God. It's self

can fleshly things can be non fleshly

things.

uh

greed, envy, these are flesh, these are

sark, that part of ourselves. So we all

lived according to the passions of our

flesh, our natural flesh, what it wanted

to do, carrying out the desires of the

body and the mind, but I thought people

said we should live our spirituality for

self. Well, I think what Paul's saying

here is you do that, you're

dead. That's what he's

saying. Read it. that the desires of our

body and our mind are things that are

destroying

us. Our natural inclinations are

death. And they're by nature just for

self. And we're by nature, ready for

this, children of

wrath. That's the end

goal. That's was us.

If you want to

be thankful, if you want to really want

to worship and praise, let me just

remind you that you were set up for

destruction until somebody did

something. I want you to realize that

you weren't so good that God said,

"Well, I have to save this

one." We were all the same. We all had

the same end in mind. The end of mind

was God's going to finish this

off like the rest of

mankind. So the next time you're sitting

by your unbelieving friend and you start

feeling a tinge

of arrogance, go back and read

that. That was

you. Now this is heavy, isn't

it? But Paul doesn't leave it

there. But God, when Paul says, "But

God,"

woo, we should be

cheering because now the good

news. But God being rich in mercy,

unmmerited favor, we don't mean. And

mercy is a character language. His is

who he is. He just wants to pour out

mercy on people who don't deserve

it because of the great love with he

which he loved us. This word love agape

does not mean physical uh uh emotional

love. It means a love you have for your

child even when they're doing really

stupid things. Anybody ever have a child

that has done stupid things at

times? Amen, Jason. Okay. Yes. My wife.

Yes.

Let me tell you right now, you can't

stand the stupid things they're doing.

You wish you could help. But you know

what? You don't stop loving,

right? That's cuz Christ is in you. And

he loves us like that. He did this

because he loved us. There was nothing

in us that said, "We want you."

everything. He said, "I want

you." Even when we were dead in our

trespasses. Think about this, folks.

Before you met Christ, before the spirit

touched you, you were dead in your

trespasses. I want you to hear

that. Those things you thought were so

irrelevant, those things where you were

dehumanizing yourself and others, you

were dead.

You were dead men

walking. Even when that was the case,

when we didn't want it, he made us

alive. He made us

alive. We didn't deserve it. Does it

ever say that we wanted to be made

alive? Does it ever say that

there? He made us alive cuz he chose

it together with Christ. He makes us

alive with Christ. He puts us in with

Christ. The only one worth

this. And then he says, "By grace," he

has to stop and proclaim this loudly.

"By grace, you have been saved." That's

it. You have been saved, ladies and

gentlemen. Not because you're good

people. Because he's

good. because his mercy is so good. And

you telling you right now, he did not

look down one day and said, "Well,

they've been trying pretty hard. Good

old Nolan read his Bible last night."

Okay, you're

in. He looked at Nolan one day and said,

"I love this

guy. I'm going to awaken him." He

doesn't know why I brought him up. I

don't either.

Um, and raised us up with him and seated

us. He not only saves us, he raises us

up and seats his us with him and seated

us in the heavenly places in Christ

Jesus. Can you believe this folks that

he rose you up? Raised you up is the

language, by the way, of resurrection.

He resurrected you from the death you

were

in and then he put you in Christ Jesus

because Christ Jesus is in the presence

of the father as a true human. And he

said, "Guess what, Dad? I got a few

others I'm bringing and they're going to

come in

me. That's the

gospel. We should be blown away by

it. Have you seen once Paul say, "Now

you were so

good." He does it cuz he

loves and he puts us up in the heavenly

places. Who would do

that? Do you guys know

yourselves? I know me. I wouldn't put me

in the heavenly places, but he's rich in

mercy, seated in the heavenly places in

Christ Jesus, so that in the coming

ages, now this is amazing. The purpose

of why he raised you, why he died on the

cross, why he substituted himself for

you, I don't want you to lose sight of

this, was not so that you could pay him

back. Read this closely. So that in the

coming ages, the eternity, he might show

the immeasurable riches of his grace in

and of his grace in kindness to us in

Lord Christ Jesus. He did it because he

just wants to keep showing you love for

eternity.

Wow. He didn't do it because he needs

you. He did it because he loves you.

He took us who were

nobodyies and he breathed upon us and

died on a cross and took our sin so that

for the main purpose he could hang out

with us for eternity and show his

love. I hate hellfire and brimstone

preaching because they never get to

that. This is the good news. you and I

deserve

death. And he said,

"Nope,

but I'm going to give him

this." Is that good

news? I swear I'm going to go to a

Pentecostal church and preach that. I'm

going to get some

reactions. There we

go. Too late.

That's so good that I get very angry

with the subs set subtled deception of

the so-called they call themselves life

coaches these deconstructors. Life I

like that life coaches or or uh what's

the other one I'm hearing? Mystics.

They're mystics to help you

through. And here's the problem is when

they destroy through subtlety the gospel

by trying to deconstruct what they say

the Bible says to people who aren't

spart smart enough to say go blow

chunks people walk

away. I'm going to take I'm sorry but

I'm going to take one or two examples.

Her name is Barbara Brown Taylor. I've

heard of her for years. Barbara Brown

Taylor is a wonderful lady and she says

this. Listen to this cuz it sounds so

profound at first or it did.

Um, the only clear

line I draw these days is this. When my

religion tries to come between me and my

neighbor, I will choose my neighbor.

Jesus never commanded me to love my

religion. Sounds

good. Sounds good. Except what does that

mean? What she means I know because are

you ready for this? You guys are going

to be proud of me. I used

[Music]

AI and I said, "Put in Barbara Brown." I

already knew this, but AI is really

accurate, by the way. I said, "Put

Barbara Brown Taylor's

theology and give it to me in a

sentence." Thank you, Grock.

a refined Christian faith that

emphasizes, look at these words,

inclusivity, personal understanding of

spirituality, and a focus on the human

experience. She believes in the

universal presence of God's spirit in

all of creation. Oh, I'm sorry,

something came

up. And encourages individuals to trust

their own intuition and spiritual

journey. That sounds wonderful. Except

if you read

Paul. What did Paul say about our

individual trust in our intuition and

spiritual journey? Let me go back. I'm

going to go back here. What did he say?

He said, um, uh, I lived in the passions

of our flesh, carrying out the desires

of the body and the mind. I don't think

he's overly concerned about your

individual experience and spiritual

journey because if you go that way, I

guarantee where you're going to end up

doing whatever the heck you

want. And your God is going to look a

lot like

you and her gods

do. Oh, it sounds really nice to say, I

love my neighbor more than my religion.

What she means is the neighbor is our

God and the religion or anything that

would question the way that neighbor's

living their life is now evil. Do you

see how it works? And then these young

students come around and say, "I like to

do this. I'd like to do that. I'd like

to have four boyfriends at the same

time." And she goes, "Well, that's your

spirituality. You follow that because

you need to be

inclusive. It's BS.

Paul would say, "You need to be saved."

He

would. There's no life. There's no

death. All she's saying is, "Let's keep

walking in

death." And the mainliners love

her. Because she's, you know why they

love her? Because intuitionally, we want

to be told, "Do whatever you want." And

she comes in and says, "Oh, I'm not even

going to tell you to do whatever you

want. I'm going to put Jesus as an

exclamation mark.

And we go, "Oh, I'm so spiritual. Now,

what should I do? Let's rob a bank."

It's a little

extreme. You see, it sounds good. If I

just love my neighbor,

dude. Yeah. Like Jesus walks up to the

woman and and she's been stoned and he's

done all that incredible thing. And what

does he say to her? Go and sin no

more. Because he loves her. That's love.

Oh boy. I'm sure Barbara Brown Taylor

would have been there and saying, "Oh,

you're using your religion

again. I'm being mean, aren't I?"

Good. You see why they don't want to

hang out with

me? Another one, this time a Catholic

guy, Richard Roar. Bless his heart.

Don't know everything about him, but I'm

going to tell you one, he has no idea

what the substitutionary atonement is.

He has no clue. So, what he does is he's

got these young people who are like,

"Why did Jesus have to die on the cross?

It was so

violent. That was daddy's child abuse.

Like just dumb

questions. And here's his answer to

those students. At best, the theory of

substitutionary atonement has inoculated

us against the true effects of the

gospel, causing us to largely thank

Jesus instead of honestly imitating him.

Shut up.

How are you going to carry the sins of

the world? Are you going to imitate them

that way? You pin

head. I want to be like Jesus. Really?

Well, you're

not. And the reason you're going to

carry your cross is not cuz you're told

to imitate him and carry the sins of the

world. He's already done that, my

friends. You're going to do it because

you're in gratitude and saying

thanks. To quote Carl Bart, "The only

thing we have as Christians is gratitude

and thanks, and that will lead us to

eternal life and

joy." Sorry, my friend. Oh, and then he

goes on, "Jesus, instead of honestly

intimidating him, at worst, it leads us

to see God as a cold, brutal figure who

demands acts of violence before God can

love his own

creation." Shut up.

He didn't go on that cross because he

loved all that. Go beat me up so I can

love the creation. Why are you

dumb? Keep this from me. Remember that.

He wasn't longing from it. He did it

because he is the living God who took it

for us because sacrifice is in scripture

and whenever there's sin, there has to

be a debt. You don't believe me? watch a

trial of a

murder and tell me that there doesn't

need to be a debt paid when somebody

dies. No, this guy

is and they won't I I want him to come

on a podcast with me really

bad, but they

won't. And what saddens me and why I'm

preaching this is maybe somebody online

will see this who's under this

crap because they aren't smart enough to

know better to know what they're saying

isn't good. They're just not. That's why

we have teachers and preachers by the

way and the these wolves will come in

and they are destroying people's faith

by the way. They really are. That guy at

Trinity Western really meant when he

said to Rick this is bad.

Paul has just said, "If you follow that

deconstruction garbage, you will be lost

in your

sins, but you will be seeking your mind

and your body and all your

passions." But see, the problem is,

dude, we are spiritually dead.

Okay? Without Jesus Christ, I want you

to hear me. You and I are spiritually

dead. Can you hear me?

We deserve the wrath of God. Can you

handle

that, Papa John? I love this. Our nature

is not only completely empty of

goodness, but so full of every kind of

wrong that it is always

active. Now, does that mean you will

always do wrong every time? No. But your

nature will end up doing wrong.

You will end up the richest unhappy dead

person if you seek money. If you seek

sexuality, you will fulfill every

passion of your body and be

dead. If you seek power, you might

become

president but be

dead. Doesn't matter what you do. We are

fallen. And if we try to deconstruct us

and our faith, what we'll find is only

death for ourself. Listen to Augustine.

Without God, what am I but guide to my

own

destruction? I'm going to tell you

something right now. There's no you

truth in you that's worth listening

to. Is that offensive?

There's none. There's none in me

either. There's not something that you

can go to India and find yourself that's

going to go, "Wow, that was

amazing." All you're going to end up

with, and I've met people that come

back, is talking about

yourself. Because that's the

God. And that's now why we can talk

about the amazing gospel.

You see, the gospel did something that

destroyed our desire for

self, our passion for our flesh and our

mind. It destroyed the power of this air

and it makes us a different

people. It took us from the wrath of

God. Now, let's remind ourselves what

the wrath of God means. God's wrath is

God's

personal righteous constant hostility to

evil. His settled refusal to compromise

with it and his resolve instead to

condemn it. John Sto. God's wrath is not

an outburst of anger. It is a

determination by him that goodness will

win and evil will be destroyed. Let us

never forget that.

and you and I will do evil and he will

not be okay with

it. But what happened, my

friends? 33

AD, God

came and took what we

deserved upon

himself. We were going to get

destruction and he took it upon himself.

We deserve death and he took it upon

himself. We deserved

eternal

condemnation. We deserved to have the

father turn his eyes away from us

forever. And he took it upon

himself. And none of us deserved

it. That's the truth.

Everything about self and my truth was

leading us to

destruction. And the

word, the way, the truth, and the life

came

in and paid for

it. And now he says, "Guess

what? You get this for eternity."

The gospel is this, says Tim Keller in

his best

quote. We are more sinful and flawed in

ourselves than we ever dared

believe. Yet at the same time, we are

more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ

than we ever dared

hope. That is the

gospel. You have a God. What's got me so

mad about Richard Rose Roar's quote is

we have a God that not only substituted

himself on the cross for us, but he

continues to substitute himself as our

priest in

heaven. He continuously substitutes

himself for us cuz we are so broken. He

lives in heaven and is our great priest

intercessing for us. Do you know why you

haven't blown it to the point where he

doesn't want you anymore? because you've

got a priest that's already paid your

debt who's speaking up for you every

day. You question the substitutionary

atonement and I tell you what, I'm going

to take you out

back and I can still do

it. I seem a little bit too passionate

right

now. But trust me, as a pastor, it means

a lot because I know there are young

people walking away because of these

idiots. And I mean

that Carl

Bart, I love his quote. I got some good

ones today. Our position is such that we

can be rescued from we can only be

rescued from eternal death and

translated into life only by the total

and unceasing

substitution. The substitution which God

himself undertakes on our

behalf. There is nothing in you. There's

no natural inclination that's worth

saving to God. But he loved you and I

enough that he said, "I'm going to

substitute and continue to substitute

until you start dying to yourself and

start coming to me." And then maybe in

gratitude, you might carry your cross,

not because you're imitating me, because

there's something super neat about you.

Sorry,

Richard. This God has sat there and he's

done this. And then the craziest part,

he does all of this for

us, for one purpose, because he

loves. I sadden myself how many sermons

I hear that God's angry. Yes, he gets

angry at things, no doubt, but that's

not his main character. Never says

that. He's actually patient, isn't he?

I hate sermons I'm trying to manipulate

into you because if you don't do this,

God will get

you. But I'm telling you right now,

that's not God. Or worse yet, do

something for God so God will give you

something back like he's some sort of

waiter. These are heresies. Ancient

heresies. He just said, "I'm doing this

so I can show you love now and for

eternity show you

love." You know, one of the guys that

got used to get beat up at Regent was Ji

Packers. They say, "Oh, you're an old

Puritan. You're all about anger and

God." And he wasn't. I knew the man,

most loving man you'll ever meet. And I

want you to say, "How can a guy who

writes like this be like that?" He says,

"I am graven on the palms of his hand. I

am never out of his mind. All my

knowledge of him depends on his

sustained initiative in knowing me. I

knew him. I know him because he first

knew me and continues to love me. He

knows me as a friend, one who loves me.

And there is no moment when his eyes is

off me or his attention distracted from

me. And no mo moment therefore when he

cares when his cares

falter. Amen.

Yes, you can choose to go your own way

and there are people and there are bad

people, bad actors who will lead you to

doubt and deconstruction and

death. But there are good people and you

got to listen to the right things and

trust the truth and read the scriptures

number

one because if you want to stop this

garbage just go to scriptures because it

is garbage. It had take me well I had I

just tell you this one story. I had a

guy who decided he was going to

deconstruct. I'm at VST. I spent 10 went

10 minutes with him. He said he was a

pacifist. He threw his coffee mug at

me because they're not that

strong. He

missed. I embraced this

gospel because for me I knew I was dead.

And one day in

1990, I don't know why, he decided to

waken

me. And I have not been able to shake

him since. I've

tried. And he continues to show his love

to me again and again. And the more I

know it, the more I become protective of

this stuff. That's why I'm so passionate

because I know how valuable this is.

And there's a truth that has hit me in

this last few

years. And Charles Spurgeon said it the

best. God chose to love you not for a

time but

forever. I'm going to tell you

something. That's why I wake up and do

this. This is why I walk with you guys

and we pray and we do small groups is

because this is a God worth

worshiping. who took someone like me who

was dead and said, "I'm alive and I'm

going to make you

alive. That's

incredible." Let's

pray. Heavenly Father, you are so good.

You are willing to oppose us when we are

dying in our flesh and seeking after our

mind and our body and the passions

therein. You're willing to say no to us

so that we might

live. And you said no to us on that

cross so that we you might say yes to us

through the

resurrection. Lord Jesus, may this

gospel get out because I believe the

gospel truly

spoken will attract people to Jesus.

they will love

him. And may you silence the tongues of

those who would destroy faith,

especially those doing it in your

name. And may your gospel go alive

because it's only in you that we are

saved in Jesus' name. Amen.