The Cross Orlando Values: life

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0:00 Hopefully, you did have an extra hour of sleep with our kiddos. We were all still up at 6.30 AM. So, you know, that's just how it goes. So the past four weeks or few weeks, more than four, we've been going through our core values as a church and we started with story and we've been doing this in the context of Romans chapter four going through verse six and we started with story and we discussed how we have an inheritance from Abraham that we have this scripture that we have, this

0:35 Bible, which is bound together and passed down through the ages is the story of the people of God, with God with the people of, with his people, sorry. God with his people. There you go. We also learned that despite what we think that the Lord wants to give us good things and the defining characteristic of God is that, and that the people of God is that we would allow ourselves to have those good things.

1:07 And I just want to pause right now because for some reason I feel super nervous. I'm just going to pray and ask God to give me some peace. So Jesus, I just ask that you would be in this place today. I ask that you would please speak through me and that you would just use me. I love you Lord. And I ask that we would hear from you in the words that you want to say in Jesus name, amen. All right. The next thing that we went through was peace.

1:38 And we talked about how we can have peace in the presence of God that we don't have to feel guilt when he comes near, that we can have a profound amount of peace because of his presence. And then we discussed lineage. So for the last two weeks, we were talking about that, that we have an inheritance from the Lord, that it comes down from Jesus Christ and that when he was crucified and resurrected, he had to look to Barnabas and Saul, the people of God had to look to Barnabas and Saul to

2:12 give them direction on how to live out the teachings of Christ. And that we too also have to lean on that lineage to direct our faith and to show us how to apply what Jesus said to our everyday existence. And then today we're going to talk about life. So we're going to do it at the end of Romans 5, 20. So if you want to look at that, we're going to go through chapter 6 verse 4.

2:46 And Romans is in the New Testament right after Acts. Okay. So Romans 5, 20. The law was added so that the trespass might increase, but where sin increased, grace increased all the more. So that just as sin rained in death, so also grace might rain through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

3:18 By no means. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who are baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. So when we look at that scripture, honestly, when I read the first part of chapter 6, I think it's a little bit of a ridiculous request and question that Paul is discussing.

3:52 So we sin more so that grace would abounds more, right? I feel like if my kids snuck their Halloween candy, for example, and lied about it, and I forgave them and had grace to them, but then they kept on sinning, I would have that same reaction that Paul is having. Do I keep on just because, well, mom's going to forgive me, mom's going to be okay with it, so I just want to keep doing it over and over. No, of course not. And I think Paul is saying that, but he's really digging into a deeper point in his teaching.

4:29 And it's a legitimate question because someone might think if more grace abounds, that's what I want. So why not live the life that I want to live? Why not do the things that I want to do? Why shouldn't I just keep on sinning? But that's not Paul's point. He is trying to get at a deeper issue, which is that life and death can't coexist. If you have life flowing inside of you, then the death that you had towards sin is no longer

5:00 existent. It's significant to Paul, I think, especially because of his own conversion story. Now I want us to look at that because when he converted to following Jesus, he shows us that he doesn't live the life that he used to live. And I want us to look at that. It's in chapter 8 of Acts, sorry, Acts, chapter 9. So if you'll turn with that to me, with me.

5:33 Man. All right. So just bear with me because it's kind of a long story, but I want to go with it because it's really significant. It says, meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues and Damascus. So if he found any who belonged to the way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. Now I want us to pause just there for a second because I want us to look at the character

6:06 of Saul. Now remember Saul is the same person as Paul. He used his name as Paul when he was starting to speak more to a Gentile audience, and that was his Greek name was Paul. But when he was spoke to the Hebrew audience, he was Saul. So we're talking about the same person. And this character of Saul as this religious zealot, this Pharisee who was so angry and mad at the people who followed Jesus that he was wanting them to be taken to prison.

6:39 And he wasn't just taking them to prison. They were then to stand trial so that they could be stoned. He was so angry about what was happening and what was trans, what was going on. So we keep going. Verse 3 says, As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? Saul asked, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. He replied, Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what to do.

7:17 That's pretty significant. That's an intense encounter with the Lord. I don't know if God has ever flashed a light in front of you and spoken in a loud voice. I kind of wish that the Lord would do that to me sometimes instead of that small whisper. But unfortunately that is not how he normally encounters me. This is a dramatic interaction. And so verse 7 says, The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless. They heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground. But when he opened his eyes he could see nothing.

7:50 So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind and did not eat or drink anything. Okay, I'm just giving you like a visual here. He's now got these things over his eyes. He can't see. In Damascus there was a disciple named Anayas. The Lord called him an A-N-I-S. Yes, Lord he said. And then he talks to Anayas and Anayas explaining to God, don't you know this is the man who's

8:21 been persecuting your people. So I think that's an interesting interaction right there that Anayas would be questioning God and how often do we question God and what he is saying in our life. But he says, Don't you know this is Saul of Tarsus. He's not, he's a bad dude. And Lord is telling Anayas, I just do what I told you to do. Go meet Saul who's blind. And we pick it up in verse 17 then Anayas went to the house and entered it.

8:54 Placing his hands on Saul he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again. He got up and was baptized. And after taking some food he regained his strength. Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, Isn't he the man who had raised havoc

9:26 in Jerusalem and he keeps going and says yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. This is, I read this story and I am in awe because we see such a zealot for the way that he thinks things should be. He makes, Saul makes this 180 degree shift from going this direction and to going this

9:58 direction. And I think it's significant because it wasn't a small request of the Lord and Saul didn't take it lightly. And there was this death that he continued to move into and when the scales fell off his eyes and when we picture that he was blind for three days and it was almost as if he could see for the very first time that the life that he had been living was actually

10:31 a life into death. It was a life into the law of Moses and Aaron and then God was calling him into the life of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the life of his people into Jesus. And there was Paul, Saul, trying to uncover what do I do and it says in the Scripture at once, he just began doing the right thing.

11:02 And I wonder if you ever knew someone, I was trying to think in my mind, have you ever thought of anyone that has just changed? Like something happened in them and they just are not the same. I feel like the ideas of that kind of thing has only occurred when it's been a life or death situation where maybe there's a disability or an illness that has changed them from going

11:32 into a trajectory of death into life because all of a sudden I know people that were living one way and then really what we think is death was actually life and they just started living like this was their last days. This was what they were created for and there was this enlightenment inside of them of God has created me for something different.

12:02 And I think that is what Paul is trying to say to the Romans in the book of Romans. He's trying to say it's not that we keep sinning so that grace abounds, it's that we have a new life because of Jesus. We have a new way of doing life. The old way, your old habits, the old ways of thinking, they don't exist anymore. We now have something new.

12:36 And I imagine like what kind of person would have that much angst and anger and fear inside of them that they would stand there and be okay with a stoning. Jesus has gotten into throwing and he's got a pretty good arm and a pretty good aim. When he picks up a matchbox car and he hurls it at me and hits me, it really hurts.

13:13 But these weren't like pebbles that we're talking about. These are like boulders, right? That they are, the intent is to throw it at someone's chest and crush them. And Paul stood with approval and did it himself. And it was all because he thought he was justified by doing it. He thought that he was going in the right direction. And I think there's sometimes a life that we are living and we think that we're doing

13:45 the right thing but maybe God is calling us to an actual, truer version of who you are. And maybe that's actually death and what God is calling you to is life. And here is the challenge that I feel even as I was like thinking of this message, that death and life wage war against each other and each of us.

14:18 So as much as I want to say, this is no longer a part of me, I am now this way, they wage war inside of it. And it did for Paul. That's why he said in chapter seven, like, I don't do the things I want to do and the things I do, I hate. There's this thing inside of him that he wants to be one way but then there's still things that are bringing him back to death, sin that is bringing him back to death.

14:48 Personally for me, I have a really big anger issue. And it's not this like a righteous anger that's standing up for justice and reaching out for the oppressed. It's rageful, vengeful anger that I have to repent and ask God for forgiveness for, that I have to ask my children and my husband to forgive me for the death that I just spewed onto them.

15:19 And I think that it's in those moments when you find sin at work in your life that you have to reorient your way back to life. When death is starting to rise up, that we reorient ourselves back to Jesus, back to the Holy Spirit, back to the source of where we can find life. It's why the fruits of the Spirit are so significant. We talked about that in lineage two.

15:50 We need those fruits of the Spirit because it's with joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness, self-control that I can exhibit that to my kids when all three of them are asking for something for me at the same exact time. I can have patience because I'm going to lean into the Holy Spirit inside of me. And I can love my husband when I want to list the record of wrongs that I can do goodness

16:23 in my city because I see hope in it. I get burdened and frustrated with the things that aren't going right. I think that Paul is trying to teach the Romans and he's learning it himself, right? Because this is still new stuff. I mean, he is such a, he knows the Bible.

16:54 He knows all the laws. But to follow Jesus, I mean, that's new. He's new for him. He's learning it himself. But God has spoken to him so dramatically. This is a dramatic encounter that he no longer wants to go back to the death that he was a part of. He wants to live through the Holy Spirit and through life. So what brings you life?

17:26 I asked that question at the beginning and I realized that, I actually thought that we had stopped doing questions but then I realized we just keep being late. And so, and friends like, no, we actually still do that. But what brings you life? I mean, my passions for travel and your passions for art and music and hospitality and hosting dinner parties, Dana, and all those things that you're putting life into this city.

18:03 You're speaking life into people. You're delivering babies. Like you have a place and it's when we allow death to creep in that it steals the life from us. And it's a part of our core value because we want to do this in our city. We want to speak life to the people that we know, that we encounter to each other, to our kids. Let me pray that we can do that.

18:34 God, I just thank you for the life that you give us. I thank you for your work on the cross that has called us to be close to you. God, I ask that you would please teach us how to tune into your spirit inside of us and that we would live out the life that you've called us to in this city, in our homes.

19:05 Teach us what that looks like for us. Jesus, same name in.