Appeared, Appearing

This morning's reading is Titus chapter 2, verses 11 through 15.

Titus 2:11–15

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness, and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Declare these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority.

Let no one disregard you.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

It's a pleasure to get to join with you.

There are several Sundays where I'm like, man, I don't I don't know how I'm gonna preach this.

Then we all sing together, and then and then it all and then I think okay, yeah, great.

Uh we need uh the worship of the body to be able to do this.

Uh and I'm so thankful to get to participate in that with you all.

So uh uh with that, let's pray and we'll move into our text for the day.

Holy Father, we praise you for your loving kindness.

We thank you for your sovereign rule over us and uh over your church.

Father, we pray that we might grow an understanding of the salvation that you've accomplished on our behalf in Jesus Christ, that we might gain a vision for the lives which you've called us to lead, that we might get your exhortation, and that it might uh create in us a zeal for good works and for lives of fruitfulness, as we look forward to the appearing of you once again as you come to judge the living and the dead and restore all of creation, Lord, that we might understand that our lives and our labor is not in vain in Christ Jesus.

Lord, help us to grasp this and would you just stoke in our hearts a zeal for you.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So we're continuing through Titus, uh uh coming into the close of our summer series as we've been moving through Paul's letter to Titus, who he left on the island of Crete to bring this church into order.

And as we're uh uh moving through this text, last week Paul gave this exhortation to the different groups of people that make up the church in Crete, where Titus is.

And he instructed Titus to uh instruct the church, and he gave particular instructions for particular groups of people.

So he instructed the older men, he instructed the younger men, the older women, the younger women, and the bondservants.

So this is sort of all of the groups of people that would make up the church in Crete.

And he gave them all similar but distinct instruction.

So he was saying if you understand your life and the very life that God has placed you in, then you may understand that he has called you to live in this particular way in order to glorify God, that Christ calls us to live in this particular way of uh self-control, of steadfastness, of uh laboring for our homes and our families, of uh honoring the structures and positions that we've been put in, even uh even honoring those who are in authority over us.

And that instruction is uh so important for the church to be able to maintain a resilience against the encroachment of these false teachers that are within the church that are trying to steal the sense of liberty and the Christian freedom that has been purchased for the church by Christ, that it's this right action that will allow for and preserve right doctrine within the church.

So this is really this clear exhortation.

And it's the type of exhortation that you could read in uh a lot of ancient texts.

The the Bible does not have a monopoly on household codes.

Many ancient writers would lay out these household codes where they'd move through the different stations that would make up a Roman household, and they would describe how you ought to live rightly within those stations.

But in order to receive truly what Paul is doing, we have to understand why, not just the exhortation, but why we would seek to follow that exhortation.

I met with a friend of mine, uh, we got our families together.

It had been like 10 years since we'd all been together because we were college friends.

And uh now there was like, you know, tons of kids running around, and it was insane.

Uh there were way more of us than the last time that we hung out.

And he is a uh um runs uh campus ministry at CU Boulder.

And as we were, which is where we we both went to college, and I was talking about like ministering to college students.

Like, what's that like ministering to college students now?

That seems extremely challenging to me.

One one time I spoke at like a men's thing that he did uh with college students just like a year ago, maybe a little over a year ago, and it was one of those talks that I gave, and then I left, and I was like, that didn't work.

Like I just totally whiffed.

And I was like, this is this is cross-cultural type of ministry that's going on.

So I was like, what is the what is it like ministering to college students now?

And he gave this great, it's a generality, but I think it's particularly helpful.

He was like, you know, when we were in college, which was before 2020, which was 2,000 years ago.

I don't know if you guys knew that.

We were uh millennials like us.

Uh we had concluded that life was meaningless, and therefore you should just try and get get as much fun in your life as you can.

Because it's meaningless, so try and have as much fun and and you know, gain as much pleasure for yourself as you can.

That was kind of our conclusion.

And so I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of millennials to apologize for dubstep.

That lasted like a year and a half.

Because once you do the, once you there's you build up and there's the drop, well that there's nothing else you can do.

That's the whole move.

Gen Z, on the other hand, he says, uh, which I guess is college students now, it might even be, I don't know, I'm not a sociologist.

But Gen Z, which is called Gen Z because it is the last generation of humans, is um has concluded that life is life is meaningless, therefore, what's the point of trying?

And so to both groups of people, there's this meaninglessness of life, and that makes both groups of people of people impossible to exhort.

You can't say, hey, lay your life down for this.

Because to the millennial, they hear, lay my life down.

Why would I do that?

For what?

There's nothing to be gained, there is no ultimate meaning in life, and so I should just gather as much, I should just uh enjoy, enjoy the ride.

And then there's to Gen Z, it's uh you need to uh embrace this this uh sacrifice that Christ is calling you to.

It's like that towards what end?

Like this accomplished nothing.

Like when I was when I was in college, the the biggest viral video of my time in college was Coney 2012.

Do you guys remember that?

Does anybody remember that?

Yes.

Okay, several folks.

And this was a this was like a it's a made no sense whatsoever.

There's like this warring, these like warring uh uh groups in Africa, and this these filmmakers just like picked a side in this war that we they didn't know, they didn't know anything about the war, but they picked a side and they're like, this is the bad side, this is the good side.

And if you hang up enough posters, then the then the US government will be compelled to go and fight in that war.

That's not the way things work.

But that that was like this rallying cry, and it was the most viral video.

It was more watched than than anything else.

So that was the this millennial idea of like like, you know, we can we can rally and we can make things happen, and enthusiasm is sufficient.

Uh and then I think Gen Z saw that and they were like, and that enthusiasm was not sufficient.

That was not that that accomplished basically nothing, and it looked very it looks very silly.

And uh so there so there's no reception for exort for exhortation.

And I think the reason for this is because just a pure exhortation is insufficient, especially to a people who do not know where they've come from and do not know where they're going.

Lay your life down for your people.

Who are my people?

What would that even what would that even mean?

I barely have a family, and I don't feel like I'm headed towards anything.

So why would you call me to be self-controlled so that I might resist this carnival of pleasures that the world offers me?

This means that our form of morality, and morality is is the the those things which which tell us what you ought to do, the way you ought to live.

Our form of morality now has transformed uh from one of sacrificial love, laying your laying your pleasures down for the sake of something larger than you, into a morality of coping.

I think this has framed the this sort of like generational project.

It is the in the present moment you experience a deep anxiety and a deep unsettledness.

And that is the problem of human existence is that you're not able to access this one fleeting moment of existence where you might be able to experience pleasures, or you might at least be able to minimize the amount of pain that you're experiencing.

And so our morality becomes you the right thing to do is to eliminate these painful experiences and gain for yourself pleasurable experiences.

And what we what we describe as the the oughts for one another are you ought you ought not to do anything which would prohibit or impede a peer from coping, however they might see fit.

Now, I I think this is a morality of homelessness.

It is a morality of a people that have no sense of place, that have no sense of being a people, that have no sense of connection to one another and have no sense of the story in which they are in.

And I think that this is really analogous to the moment that Paul is writing in as well, because the morality in the first century where Paul is writing was a morality of coping, coping in the present moment.

A contemporary of Paul who would have been traveling around and speaking in the same manner and in the same places that Paul was, was Seneca.

Do you know that they lived at the same time?

Seneca is a f is a Stoic philosopher, and Stoicism has this uh moment in the first century, kind of like Stoicism is having a moment now among tech bros.

And this resurgence of Stoicism is kind of like a marker of homelessness.

Philosophers before the Stoics, the pre-Socratics and Plato and Aristotle, they're trying to describe the world as it is.

So they're asking questions like, what is there, you know, philosophers.

What what is existence?

What is existence made of?

And some would say it's all change.

It's like a fire of change.

And some would say it's all static.

It's all uh the change is really just an illusion.

And then they would talk about that stuff and and then they would be like, okay, great, now let's go back home and eat.

But at the time of the first century, with this resurgence of Stoicism, the philosopher switches from somebody who's describing what existence is and answering these sort of riddles of the universe, to what was described as a physician of the soul.

That became the new role of the philosopher, which was how are you able to cope with the pain of existence?

And the philosopher's responsibility and their task became teaching and instructing individuals and in schools of people how to cope with the pain of existence.

And that's what Stoic philosophy becomes.

It's a way of coping with this pain.

Now I learned this story from John Verveke, who's uh cognitive scientist at the University of Toronto who did this YouTube series.

You guys like YouTube?

Yeah, me too.

Super great website.

And it uh he did this series called Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.

And in it he tells the story of Stoicism, which uh I I didn't know, but he describes it in terms of a response to the homelessness uh that uh the Roman Empire was experiencing and that had kind of been uh taking place for hundreds of years in this culture.

And he described it like this you grew up in a city-state, and you all spoke the same language, and you had a thick understanding of your history and your place as a people that was connected to the land that you were a part of, and everyone in your family, as far back as anyone could remember, lived in this place.

And you spoke a distinct language that you knew, and your access to the roles of power in this community was just a few degrees and was deeply relational.

And so it was just barely outside of your your familial relationships.

And so you grew up in this place where you had a deep sense of who you were, what your role was, what the story of your people was, and where you were headed.

And then came Alexander the Great, ATG, like the knees over toes guy.

And Alexander the Great comes and he he hellenizes the whole empire.

And so he moves through these city-states and he says, Love the culture that you guys have had.

I think you should try mine.

And he uh it what happens is you you create this empire that in order to engage in the marketplace, you need to travel and be removed from your own culture and your own people.

And your allegiances begin to lie not with a uh not at a scale that a human could could really grasp or understand, uh, which is like just beyond the the level of the family, but at the scale of a global empire, is where your allegiances begin to lie.

And so suddenly you don't really know who you are.

And the story of your people becomes the least meaningful part of you.

And where you're headed is just the glory of the empire that becomes your telos, your telos, and the end of your life.

And he says that what this experience, John Vravake describes this as domicide, which means the murder of home, the death of home.

So you have no sense of place, you have no people, which means you don't have a story that you are a part of.

You are not able to describe what has happened to you, and you are not able to describe where you are headed.

You are just trapped in this middle with no meaning at the beginning and no meaning at the end.

And so how do you live in this and so this deep anxiety manifests from this meaninglessness that people are experiencing, and then the flaw and then we get the stoics.

We get the people are trying to, the philosophers are now saying we have to solve this problem of existence itself by teaching us just how to cope with this pain of not knowing where we are and not knowing where we're heading.

So, Paul, after this exhortation that he has given, where he has said, Older men, be steadfast, younger men, be self-controlled, older women, be uh be able to hold together these these relationships and do not cultivate a resentment.

And younger women, learn from the older women to tend to your homes and to care for your families.

And uh, bondservants, uh honor even your masters who you are under.

Honor them not as a people pleaser, but honor them uh in honesty as though serving the Lord.

He gives these exhortations, and these exhortations are not dissimilar to what Seneca would exhort.

And so you hear them, and it's like, okay, that's just kind of like ordinary sensible.

But the exhortation means nothing, and you literally can't act on it until you understand and you rehabilitate for these people the story that they are in.

You take these homeless people who are just coping with the present, and you rehabilitate the story.

Say you have a people.

Something wonderful has happened in your past that has made you a people.

This present will require this life of sacrifice and self-control, but it's meaningful because of what you are headed towards.

And the only thing that is truly able to rehabilitate that for the human soul is the gospel.

And so Paul does not just exhort, it is not a plain exhortation, but it is a reestablishing of who you are as a people.

And that's what Paul gives in this section today.

Right after that exhortation, he moves into here is the reason that you are being exhorted, and he places you into your story.

So after that exhortation to his people in Titus 2.11, he explains, well, he goes, he explains what has happened to your people.

So what happened in the past.

He explains how you are to live in the present, and then he explains what you are aiming towards and looking forward to as a hope.

Now, without those things, you have a morality of coping.

But with those things, you have an adventure that makes sense of suffering that you are actually able to take place in.

So here's what he says.

What has happened to your people?

In Titus 2.11, after this, after these exhortations, he says, for.

So why live in this way?

Why live in a self-controlled manner and not just enjoy whatever pleasures might be placed before me?

Why actually lay my worldly passions and my pleasures down for the sake of something higher?

Because the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.

Remember, we have no people.

Like, do you remember when like Independence Day, July 4th, wasn't ironic?

Now like it loud like independence day is like ironic.

You know, we do it like like yeah go USA, America.

You know, because it's kind of sill like patriotism, it's kind of silly, isn't it?

It's a little quaint.

It does.

It belongs to a different age.

Barely but barely it's a memory.

It's a memory in our cultural experience of it.

But my point being you're not a people you remember a bit of what it's like but the zeitgeist is not of being a a people the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people.

You where where the the stories that you've been given that that at one time might have been able to lend some meaning to your life but you realize the fuel of those stories has run out and is empty and we can't understand where we've come from or where we're headed for you the grace of God has appeared there is a moment in history where God has showed you distinctly his grace.

By all people here he you coming right out of the context he's he's meaning look these ordinary divisions which you which you thought brought you the the highest form of meaning whether you were an older man or a younger man or an older woman or a younger woman or whether you were a slave it's it for all of you it is this same grace.

And it has appeared so this is something that has really happened this is why the historicity of Christianity is so important.

It matters that Christ really appeared that Jesus really was a man in history that Jesus really lived that he really died that he really resurrected that this same story of existence that you are taking part of right now that this really happened in our story the one that we are in and that means this is a part of your history if you can see it.

The grace of God has appeared Jesus Christ has come and he has shown to this people a particular grace.

Think of what this meant for an Israelite identity how often they think about and sing about their coming through the waters of the Exodus they would say who are we're the ones who have been brought through the waters.

The grace of God appeared to us as a people and what are we headed towards the promised land.

So I know we're headed there because his grace appeared in this magnificent way that our fathers remember and they've told us about it.

And we know who we are.

Well in Christ we all have that story.

This is why the church is baptized we are all the people who've been brought through the waters that this story of being the people of God is now given and extended to all nations.

So you homeless people on the other side of domicide who have no sense of where you are or what story you're a part of the grace of God has appeared for you.

Now wouldn't grace grace is the first place that Paul goes where he describes what motivates right living?

What motivates you to live a life of sacrifice and to abandon sin and to cut it off those those worldly passions and pleasures and instead to pursue righteousness in the Lord why would grace be a motivator for that wouldn't you think it would be sort of like an anti-motivator that it's like hey you're free and you're saved by the grace of God alone that has nothing to do with your works but what Christ has accomplished for you.

You are free and he has made you your people regardless of your sin.

He has washed that away so now go and live as free people.

And someone might conclude okay so I can live however I want and it doesn't matter but this is a misunderstanding of what this grace means and what it means that we have been saved from sin as the grace of God has appeared so how are we to understand this?

Please help us, Westminster Divines.

In Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 20 section one, it's on the liberty of the Christian that says this the liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers that's only the last bit so just you know listen and then we can all read along together don't read yet I won't be doing the reading the liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin.

Listen to this Christian you're free from the guilt of sin.

The grace of God has appeared it's happened.

It has happened Christ died on the cross and bore the punishment for your sin.

You're free from the guilt of sin.

That's part of the liberty a clean conscience before the Lord it's a nice thing to have the condemning wrath of God you're free from it the curse of the moral law you were not able to live up to the requirements of the moral law and you stood under its curse you're freed from that curse because Christ bore that curse on the tree and in their being delivered from this present evil world the worldly passions that seduce us into lives of coping these are bondage to meaninglessness do you see how it's almost like technically true that these are these are bondage to meaninglessness because coping is the the it's the result of seeing that this is a life of meaninglessness because the beginning has no meaning and the end has no meaning so the expression of that bondage is just I'll take what I can get right now and I'll just try and be a slave to my passion because at least it promises something you're no longer you're delivered from this present evil world from bondage to Satan and dominion of sin.

You are freedom is not just the ability to do what you want if you just have the ability to do what you want then you will be a slave to only doing what you want I've had several conversations lately with folks who are seeing their parents make these absurd decisions.

And in these conversations the the the reasons will be like you know I I for this last stage of life like I just am going to do what makes me happy slaves slaves to sin unable to do anything other than what they want you're free from that free from meaninglessness from the evil affliction of afflictions the sting of death these afflictions which you experience in this life where you say I'm just gathering up this pain and it is just going to harm me no you're freed from that you can experience incredible afflictions and realize I am not made the worse because of those I am actually made stronger the sting of death the sting of death is sin.

You are freed from it you are freed from the sting of death the victory of the grave and everlasting damnation we will never experience those in Christ we have the victory of the grave excuse me the the grave will not be victorious over us we have victory over the grave in Christ as also in their free access to God we have free access because of the grace that has appeared you are a people who have free and immediate access to God what would make you a people what could make a people more a people than them saying we're the ones in God is on our side that's who we are you must be the other guys we're the ones who God is on our side.

This is what makes you a people like people are bound together from the top as the the highest thing that we look towards well the church this is for this is the absurdity of the church is it is all this this invitation to all people saying you're not a people now will come and be a people who have free and immediate access to God and listen to this this is this is the main thing of what I wanted to get at but I just love this paragraph so much I wanted to read the whole thing and then riff on it.

And yield and they're yielding obedience unto him not out of slavish fear but a childlike love and willing mind he has brought salvation to all people why is that grace that has been shown to us not licensed to continue rebelling against God is because we see that our God saves us, that he loved us while we were yet sinners.

That means that all of his intentions for us from the very beginning have been nothing but good and loving and caring.

And so when he calls us to serve him now that he has transformed our hearts by giving us the spirit which he's purchased for us and the sacrifice that he made on our behalf on the cross we are able to say I would serve that God he's he's a good father.

If he calls me to lay down my life I'll lay down my life for him because I know that there's victory over death he's given me everything and he promises me more so the way that I would I would like to serve now that I see that grace I serve him with his childlike obedience and trust it must be good for me.

So this transitions into the second verse of our text for today that this grace that has appeared how then are we to live in the present now that we know what's taken place in the cr in the past Christ has come.

That is your origin story.

In verse 12 it says training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age.

You see the grace trains and we can understand now how this grace trains us because it is a demonstration and a participation in the love that God calls us to.

And then he says now the two greatest commandments I give to you is love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Everything else hangs upon these and so his grace and our participation in his grace by faith becomes this training ground for us.

So we now renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

Ungodliness you can think of it's like immorality plus idolatry equals ungodliness.

So living in a sinful way is like an act of worship towards something that isn't God, which is idolatry.

And that's inevitable because you were made to worship God and when you ignore God you don't not you don't suddenly become not a worshiper.

You can't reach into your heart and pull the don't worship lever.

There's no such thing you're always a worshiper which means if you're not worshiping God you're not worshiping nothing.

You're gonna worship something else you're gonna worship the the worldly passions of our day you're gonna worship sex, materialism, entertainment.

You're gonna worship whatever whatever new coping strategy you have and you're gonna think that it offers some form of salvation and then you become ruled by your passions.

So the worldly passions become the governing force of your life this is why I don't know if you've noticed this, but the whole world is a carnival you guys notice that lately that there's I think this is like the second time in a row I've mentioned the Olympics opening ceremonies.

Which probably sounds silly but when do you get like global scale art to where the world says here's what we think our story is like rarely.

So I'm gonna seize the moment it it is it's an it's an image of the last supper right at the beginning.

And then when you unveil the meal of the last supper which what's the meal of the last supper?

Bread and wine bread and wine which you what's the bread?

Body of Christ and what's the wine?

Right and what do we do at it what are we proclaiming when we take the Last Supper?

The Lord's death until he comes so this is like this proclamation of sacrificial of the of a life of sacrifice that it results in the ultimate meaning which is the salvation of the world and we feast we feast on that that is the center of our joy in our feast.

Okay back to the Olympics opening ceremony we're on the Seine Sine the river.

Sen.

We're on the river and it it's the it's the image of the the Lord's supper and then you unveil the feast in what in its in who's there do you remember?

Dionysus the blue guy remember the blue guy?

Nobody watches the Olympics anymore there's the there was a blue guy we just see when it goes crazy on Twitter.

There's a you unleash you unveil and it's Dionysus who's the the god of the of the feast and the party the whole world is just i do you see what this is an what this is an image of it is the world is meaningless.

So get as much all you can feast on is pleasure.

And anyone who says that laying down pleasure for anything is a fool.

They're weird and silly that is the this is the image of being enslaved to worldly passions.

It's the very image of it of enslavement to worldly passions.

What trains us to renounce worldly passions?

Grace the grace of God trains us to renounce our worldly passions and to live what is the opposite of that self-controlled can you imagine like what would a what would art look like that was of self-control?

What if there's like a self-control part of the opening ceremonies it would look absurd in that world it was like you know like Feast of Dionysus like I have children to take care of they'd walk off you know it would be like there is no it doesn't even have a place in our narrative frame self-controlled this is this is you before yourself I I'm the one in control of me.

I'm not just tossed around by my worldly passions.

Upright this is before one another which means we see like we're we're all aiming towards the Lord we're aiming towards goodness and so it makes sense for us to lay down these worldly pleasures and passions so that we might gain something better and even something better for one another in godly lives lives which see that there is a God he judges us but in Christ he has judged us righteous even though we are sinners he has brought us into the righteousness of Christ so the grace of God in this present time trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

That's how we are to live do you see how counter this is this is a people with no story.

That's the Olympic opening ceremonies want you to think of this as no story.

And Paul is going to Crete which would have looked just like that and he says you have a story the grace of God has appeared it trains you to live not just tossed around by your passions in this present age but in a real way and then what are we aiming towards what is our hope verse 13 waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ we don't look towards nothing.

Death is not the end but we look in hope towards the coming of Christ who will judge all things rightly and now over the church age is putting his enemies under his feet and until he has put all his enemies under his feet he won't come but he will come and he will judge all things rightly and he will order the world towards his glory and that is such a good glory we know it is because his grace has already appeared and it brought this incredible salvation that we are able to participate in by faith alone.

And so we don't look forward to nothing but we look forward in hope to Christ's appearing now I read recently that the um the Trinity in the New Testament is not so much heard as it is overheard.

I think that's really true.

And this is one of those moments where we overhear the Trinity because look at this look at the way this is framed the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.

It's one referent God and Savior Jesus Christ God Jesus Christ Jesus Christ is God which means that there is this sacrifice of God shown to us in Jesus Christ this incredible grace which trains us how to live in this present age and he promises that he will return and make all things new.

So we look forward in hope a hope even in the face of death and then verse 14 he says this Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Why could we be zealous for good works because we know what has been accomplished for us.

We know the grace we live in which trains us and we know the hope that we are headed towards which means our Works now are not fruitless, but they will have an eternal meaning, an eternal weight of glory, which will go beyond our imagination.

So it is worth it in this life to be self-controlled, because this life is not where we will experience the greatest pleasures.

In fact, there is no pleasure which we will sacrifice in this life, which we will not gain a thousandfold in the life to come.

And so it makes sense that this would be a place where we live lives that are a living sacrifice as our act of worship, because we've seen Christ Himself has redeemed us.

This is the goodness that he is calling us to.

So we would be zealous for good works.

So that exhortation that we heard last week, why?

Why would you live in a way which would cause you to renounce the worldly pleasures that you might have?

Or seek to find meaning in?

It's because you know what has been accomplished on your behalf.

You know that Christ came to make you a people.

Because you know that you've been trained in this present age.

You're being trained by the grace of God to live in a way that glorifies him, and you are headed towards a certainty of success.

So this makes you zealous for good works.

So Paul and Seneca are walking around the same places at the same time, and you're an anxious wreck because you can't figure out what anything means anymore, or what a good life is, or what a life worth living is.

And so you go to Seneca, and he says this true happiness is to enjoy the present.

Without this is actually Seneca, by the way, just in case that wasn't clear.

True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.

The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.

A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

So you go to Seneca and he's like, you know what?

Seneca's right.

I've been amusing myself with hopes.

How silly.

There's no hope.

I've been discouraging myself with fears.

Nothing has meaning.

There's nothing to be afraid of.

All that I need is just within me.

I can cope with that.

And you go to Paul.

He was giving a lecture and just a couple of doors down.

You go to Paul and he says, You probably think there's no hope.

That makes sense.

Crete's been bad for a while.

It doesn't look like Crete's gonna get any better.

But you don't know what happened.

God became a man.

He took on flesh like you and I do.

The one, the the true living God, the one in whom you live and move and have your being.

He became a man.

And all the meaninglessness of this life, the death that everything is headed towards, he took that upon himself.

And he offers you his freedom so that your life will no longer be controlled by the fears of death.

The end of your story is no longer plunging into meaninglessness.

And there's this hope that you have to look forward to, which is that he is coming back.

This one who's saved, he's coming back.

And he's coming back for those who have trusted in him.

Your life now is a part of an incredible story.

There's an unthinkable meaning to it.

The sacrifices that you will make to that end will be eternally fruitful.

So quick coping.

Get zealous for the good works that he has called you to.

Are there any questions today?

Sweet, let's take communion.

Let me read it.

Forgot how to do my job.

Do your job, James.

First Corinthians 11 23, it says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Whoever therefore eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.

Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

But if we judge ourselves truly, we would not be judged.

But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined, so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

The night before he was betrayed, Jesus took the bread and he said, This is my body which is broken for you.

And he took the cup and he said, This is the cup of my blood, the cup of the new covenant.

The new covenant is that Christ has fulfilled all of the requirements of the covenant of works, so that we might by faith in him have that righteousness imputed to us.

We might be righteous before God.

The grace of God has appeared.

Let it train you to renounce ungodliness, to seek godly lives in hope of the glory that is to come.

Christian, your life is not meaningless.

You can see it here.

So we invite all of you who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation, who've been baptized into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Those of you who examine yourselves and come to the table and see, seek the grace that has appeared, that He offers to us to remember here at this time of communion.

Holy Father, we pray that you would bless this meal.

We pray that you would invite us to the true feast, the feast of true salvation, of true life, not a feast of ignoring the pain of the world, but the feast that redeems the pain of the world and draws it up into an eternal glory shown to us in your grace towards us, Lord.

I pray that the freedom that is available to the Christian that might just flow through this meal.

There's no guilt from sin anymore.

Your conscience is clean.

Christ has covered it.

It is paid.

He draws you into his story.

He invites you to feast with him, a glimmer of the glorious feast that is to come in the new heavens and the new earth.

We praise you for this, Lord, and lift us up in Jesus' name.

Amen.