God's Committed to Holiness

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0:00 They happen and then there's a certain way in which they can't unhappy, like how straightforward things move and how some things happen and there's no undoing the things that are done. And that'll come into our story of scripture a little bit for this morning, but before we do that I want to read us a call to worship and the call to worship that we're going to use this morning is from Psalm 100 if you want to follow along. Just as way of reminder the

0:31 call to worship is intended to be like a little threshold that you walk over that the time that we have together after it is different than the time that we came up here with. So you come into this morning with a certain set of concerns and ideals and you can put those aside for an hour and we can believe that God can handle those. So we make this next hour holy by setting aside for that purpose of connecting with God. To walk us into that time is Psalm 100 it says, make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Serve the Lord with

1:08 gladness. Come into his presence with singing and know that the Lord he is God. It is he who made us and we are his. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. For the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations.

1:39 Amen. We are going to sing a song together and welcome

2:10 the Lord here and declare that we are here with the intention of knowing him and bringing his presence to our city. The words of this song are on the cross-our-lando.org slash lyrics if you want to follow up. When darkness tries to roll over my bones. When sorrow comes still the joy I own. When

2:55 brokenness and pain is all I know. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. When darkness tries to roll over my bones. When sorrow comes still the joy I own. When brokenness and pain is all I know. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken

3:39 Does it stand a chance when I stand in your love? My fear doesn't stand a chance when I stand in your love?

4:09 I'm not afraid to leave my past behind. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. I won't be shaken. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing your love. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing your love. My fear doesn't stand a chance when I'm standing your love.

5:09 There's power that can break up every change. There's power that can empty out of grace. There's resurrection power that can save. There's power in your name. There's power that can break off every change. There's power that can empty out of grace. There's resurrection power that can save. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's

6:09 power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There's power in your name. There is where I'm standing in your love. Amen, Jesus, we welcome you here. And we say that this is your place. And we

7:09 are your people. And we anticipate hearing from you this morning. Amen. We've been thinking about these lessons that we learned from Christmas. I was thinking through what to talk about for Christmas Eve. And I realized there was like six or seven things that I kind of wanted to talk about that we learn about God or we see about the character of God in the story

7:43 of Christmas. And then it wouldn't be smart or fair to try and cram all six or seven of those into one thought for you all. So we've been looking at them over the last several weeks. And we looked at the idea that Christmas, the celebration of the incarnation, demonstrates our God's commitment to the poor and that that commitment is not obligatory. It's not like he

8:16 doesn't commit to poor folks because that's the right thing to do. God doesn't have to impress anyone. God must actually care about the poor and that because of Christmas, we can be people who care about the poor as well. Also, God can care about us, which means we have some poverty in us as well. And the question that can be like, in what ways am I poor? Where is my poverty? And we talked about God's commitment to people, to the body that God saves, not only

8:49 you but he saves all of you, your flesh and bone, that God becomes flesh and bone, dies in flesh and bone in order to redeem and resurrect your very body so that you matter all the way through. Who you are matters. What happens to you matters? Your body even matters. And we talked last week about how interesting it is or at least instructive it is that God incarnates in the womb. That God

9:25 doesn't merely walk out of the desert full grown man, walk up to Calvary, allow them to crucify him, go through the grave and ascend into heaven, get in and out essentially. God does not do that. Christmas communicates to us that God is available for every phase, facet, emotion in life. And we been remembering this one little quote from St. Basil that says that which he inhabits, he also blesses. So this idea that God himself in the person of Jesus of Nazareth has blessed for us

10:03 every stage of life, every emotion, right? So that we have the capacity to be fully present in every stage of life. And this week I want to look at one other or another aspect of what Christmas reveals to us. And that's about the holiness of God which wasn't the first word that I used to describe it but as I kind of got into what I was thinking about. It's compelling how

10:37 seriously God takes the predicament of humanity before the incarnation, life, death, resurrection of Jesus. There's a lot of ways we could get at this but the one that's coming to mind is when I was studying about the New Testament in seminary, a lot of New Testament theology either looks at the synoptic gospels like Matthew, Mark, and Luke or they look at like the theology of Paul.

11:10 Those are not in Congress, they work together but they're two like major driving factors in understanding the life and teaching of Jesus. How do the gospels summarize and put in chronology the teachings of Jesus and then how does Paul explicate those teachings into life situations. And one of the coolest ideas that they mentioned about the teachings of Paul was this idea that Paul, this Hebrew of Hebrews who probably had the whole Old Testament memorized to his trained like

11:44 at the Harvard for rabbinical students if Harvard only took like 12 students, right? Like he was like the cream of the intellectual crop. He's on his way to Damascus, 100% clear on what he's supposed to do and how to interpret the Bible, how to understand Israel's relationship to God. And he meets on the road Jesus of Nazareth whom was crucified and he meets him in flesh and bone and this Jesus of Nazareth who's been raised from the dead then says stop persecuting me.

12:18 I am the God. Paul in pitch black then walks the way to the rest of the way to Damascus, stays in pitch black for three days and then stays in Damascus, right? For years unpacking and this is what was so interesting to me, building his theology back from the reality that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah and immediately some things would occur to him. Sin is a much bigger

12:49 deal than we thought it was. The blood of bulls and goats won't handle it anymore. And then oh the solution for sin is much more complete than we ever thought it could be. No more sacrifice is needed. In fact redemption has already begun. This is the idea I want to think about and to get there I want to look at Luke's Gospel in Luke chapter 5 that Christmas shows us God's like

13:32 a little bit radical, at least radical for us, commitment to holiness. God is radically committed to holiness. Okay, Luke chapter 5 verse 17 will start there. Remember that Matthew Mark, Luke John these guys wrote biographies of Jesus. It's a style in the time of the first century to write

14:08 a biography and you write a biography not merely to communicate the life of someone but to communicate some truth and you use the story of their biography and you align it to teach something to people. And so the biggest thing about Matthew Mark and Luke, they pull on a lot of the same stories so then to understand what they're trying to communicate we would look at how they arrange the stories. Because how they put the stories in order is intentional often where they're leading you

14:39 somewhere. One story teaches you something about the next story and then when you string these stories together they communicate a larger truth. Now that the stories don't matter the stories in themselves are beautiful and instructive but we can learn something about what Luke is trying to say by the order in which he puts those stories and I want to look at these three stories in Luke chapter 5 because I think that they get at this idea for us. So Luke chapter 5 verse 17 on one of those days as he was teaching Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from

15:13 every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. I love that they at this point in the way in Luke's chronology at this point in the story people are coming from all over the place and it's the church folks who are coming from all over the place because Jesus has gotten enough of a reputation that they want to come hear him and they would like to also see him heal some people because the reputation is people bring their sick and oppressed and Jesus sets them free. And so he's like right before that he says he's starting

15:48 to have this trouble because he's walking around Galilee, words gotten out everywhere he goes, there's crowds and so then it finishes by saying and he often goes off into desolate places by himself to pray. I like because I tend towards introversion I like to think that Jesus was an introvert as well. He took care of people and they needed to go to desolate places to be by himself and recharge. On one of those days when there was all these people he was as he was teaching Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee

16:19 and from Jerusalem and the power of the Lord was with him to heal, nice, and behold some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. You got it? They, a lot of the

16:52 homes maybe had like a rooftop terrace or stairs to get up to do some stuff. Maybe dry some clothes up there or something so they can't get in. They came too late. They can't get in towards Jesus so they go to the top and they take the ceiling tiles off and they're going to lower them down and they are very committed. And if we were looking at the story for another to learn something else we would talk about what kind of friendship this is, what kind of commitment this is, what they're looking to Jesus for and how undeterred they will be to continue. It reminds me of like

17:24 the woman who keeps pestering the judge to get the thing. They know where the answer is and they're not going to look anywhere else. They're going to look to where the answer is, right? So they undo the ceiling tyros and they lower the guy down on the mat verse 20 and when Jesus saw their faith he said, man your sins are forgiven you. I don't think that's why they were dropping him down on the mat, you know, why they would put him down in there. They weren't like okay great and start hauling him back up leaving him on the mat,

18:00 they took off the ceiling tiles, dropped him down on the mat because they wanted him to not be paralyzed anymore. And Jesus looks at the dude and he can't believe the faith of these people who were so focused and undeterred by the problems that they were going to get to Jesus that he gives them this great freedom. He says, man your sins are forgiven you. Verse 21 and the scribes and the Pharisees began to question saying, who is this who blasphemes, who can forgive sins but God alone, right? They would be saying like, you don't have the right to do that. The sin is against

18:36 God only God can pardon sins. And when Jesus perceived their thoughts he answered them, why do you question your hearts? Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say rise and walk? But that you may know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the man who was paralyzed, I say to you rise, pick up your mat and go home and immediately. He rose up before them, picked up what he had been lying on and went home glorifying God.

19:06 Jesus is like, why you guys are like watching me heal and you think I don't have the capacity to forgive sins but you'll be impressed by this healing and if I heal him from being paralyzed maybe you'll believe I have the authority to heal sins. But in Jesus' mind the forgiveness of his sins was a bigger deal than being paralyzed. And this starts to get at what I want us to think about like forgiveness of sins is not like the same as condoning behavior. So forgiveness of sins

19:40 isn't like, oh you know what, don't worry about it. I'm in charge, just don't worry about it. Keep going. That is not forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness of sins can't be undone in that way. Sins can't be undone. Just it's not a judgment call. It's not like, you I'm feeling good about so I'll let your mistakes go by. Yours I'm going to hold you accountable for.

20:13 Sins are like this. Think about the first ones, right? Adam and Eve. God gives them this instruction that says, hey, good news. I created you out of nothing. But for my good will, love, and benevolent intention, you wouldn't exist in the universe. On top of creating you out of nothing, I have created

20:43 a whole world for you. And I've created this garden specifically and specially for you. Enjoy it. Also, take my word for it. I know what's best for you. Don't try and decide for yourself what the best way to live is. Trust me, I know the best way to live. As an example of that, don't eat from this tree right here. This tree is the experiential knowledge of good and evil,

21:15 right? So just trust me. This tree will symbolize that you're letting me call the shots. You'll be human. I'll be God. Life will be great. And in like the classic human problem, right? We like focus in a couple of weeks ago, we talked about this idea, this fear in my opiate. It's like, oh man, this is never going to work out well. God surely doesn't have my best interests at heart.

21:48 I'm going to zero in on the one thing. I'm going to rest control out of God's hands and put it in my own. And when they do that, when they're sure that they know better than God, when they decide the difference between right and wrong instead of God deciding the difference between right and wrong, it's not like oops. Like God comes down and is like, come on guys, I told you that was against the rules. Now I've got to have you leave. That's not what happens because sin isn't like

22:19 some judgment call. Like you got to check next to your name at school. Sin is like this ontological reality. I mean, it changes essences. Meaning when humans try and take the responsibility of God, the weight of that responsibility crushes them and changes them forever. So that they're under the weight of the responsibility of deciding good and evil, their experience of life changes

22:51 forever. They'll never know what it feels like to live without the memory even of shame, guilt, anxiety, fear. Everything has changed. And so when God comes back into the picture, he's not like, oh, you guys broke the rule. Now I enforce my will to show you that I'm powerful and stronger than you. It's not like you did something wrong. So let me execute a punishment. The punishment is the brokenness. When Jesus says, whoever believes in me will not sin but have eternal life in

23:30 famous face in John 3 16, he doesn't say, or if you don't believe I'll come and punish you. He says, if you don't believe you already exist in this following problem, I'm coming to rescue you out of this following problem. Sin is not a judgment call. It's like this ontological essential spiritual reality that humanity finds itself in. And there's no, it's like a one way street that cannot be undone. I was trying to think of an analogy of that. I mean, time is kind of

24:04 that. But the first one that came to my mind is on the field of play in baseball. I played baseball for like almost 15 years growing up into high school. I love baseball. And a couple years, they did a thing to major league baseball that nearly ruined some of the beauty of it. They introduced instant replay into the game. Oh gosh, that kills it. Part of what I like about baseball

24:37 is it's this like world in of itself. And the umpires determine reality. Right? So like the guy throws a pitch and there's this like magical box in the air. And the umpire gets to decide did the ball go through the box or not? Is it a strike or ball? If the umpire calls it a strike, man, that is it. It is a strike. And there's no going back. Once you

25:08 wash that ball, if it goes through that magical box, you can't you can't go back to zero strikes. You've got a strike. Now you will always have a strike. You get two strikes, you get three strikes. That's it, man. There's something about the problem of sin that you always you exist in a world. There's no going back. This is why Jesus is like they lower the guy on the mat and he's

25:39 floored at their faith. He's like, forget being paralyzed, man. All of your sins are forgiven. In the moment that forgiveness is spoken out of the mouth of Jesus, an ontological change happens in the paralyzed dude laying on the mat. He is regenerated. Soul, spirit, flesh to come regenerated

26:09 in the life to match his now unbroken spirit and soul, his life that will exist forever. When God issues the forgiveness of sins, there is an ontological essential spiritual reality that is changed forever. Jesus says you're lying on the mat, man. Your sins are forgiven. And the Pharisees cannot wrap their minds around it because for them it's like a judgment call. Who gets to make that judgment call? But God himself. And you can't be God, you're a dude, man.

26:42 And so Jesus says, look, I can change reality with my prerogative and voice. I'll demonstrate to you, get up and walk. Okay, let's get some of his mat and walks because Jesus defines reality and forgiveness is an ontological change. And now look at this next story that Luke gives us. Now that he's established that Jesus has the capacity to undo the fatal flaw of humanity, to relaunch life onto a new spectrum, to change reality forever, then he says verse 27, after this,

27:19 he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, follow me, leave everything he rose and follow him. Jesus just made a tax collector a disciple. It's one thing to like a supplicant who believes, whose faith is astounding, who pulled back the roof in order to get to Jesus. To forgive that guy's sins is one thing, but a tax collector sitting

27:54 behind the booth, collecting the taxes for the man, extorting all of his people, about to throw a party with all of his tax collector friends, though the forgiveness of Jesus can undo even him, can restart even him, like essential ontological change, so that when it happens, as Jesus says,

28:24 come and follow me, Matthew by the grace of God understands the opportunity, stands up and follows Jesus. Man, skip down, I mean he throws the party and Jesus says in verse 31, and Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. I have come to restart people who are fatally broken.

29:01 I have come to undo that fatal flaw of humanity. I have come to make ontological spiritual change in people and start them again with the capacity to live unbroken forever, and it starts right now, so I'm not interested in the people who are sure that they're not broken. I'm interested in the ones who are aware of their brokenness in order that I might fix it.

29:32 And then last, and he said to them last story that Luke puts in, so he establishes that Jesus can do something, can make this ontological change, and he does it for one, and then he does it for one you'd never expect. He does it for a tax collector and makes him a disciple. I mean it's like a complete 180. How can that happen? And then they said to him the disciples of John fast off and in prayers, oh go down verse 36, and so he told them a parable, no one tears a piece from a new

30:05 garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old, and no one puts wine into old wine skins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins. I had to like look this up for a minute to make sure that I understood it correctly. And once I read it, I remembered this, when we, when I first got my first year out of

30:36 seminary, I was working at in Lake Mary, and we would do communion every other week there, and we had the little individual communion cups, and we wanted to add grape juice because some people didn't need to have that little shot glass of alcohol. It wasn't good for them. And we had a couple of our church members out there who did not want us to have grape juice in the thing, because then it was not communion for them. It needed to be wine in order to be

31:08 communion. And so when I read about this, I remembered younger Ben, right out of seminary, wrote a five page paper for them on why it ought to be able quoting Augustine and why it ought to be able to be grape juice for them, and that was the same thing. And part of the reason is because the process, I mean, they would just drink fruit of the vine all of the time, and it would be different amounts distilled and fermented, because they would get

31:40 it to the basic, this called must, which is actually not fermented at all yet. It's just like the process of the grapes, and they'd stick it into these wineskits, and it would ferment in there, but it would, the longer you let it sit in there, the more potent the wine would be. If you pulled it out right away, it's just basically grape juice. If you let it sit in there longer, it turns into wine. They're not like casking it and venting it for years, they're just like making something to drink, right? And so they'd put it in these wineskins, and then when it's fermenting in these wineskins,

32:10 obviously, it's kicking off all this oxygen. So the wineskin spreads out, and you get a fresh goat skin that still has the capacity to expand with the wine. Then if you empty that, put new must in there, it's going to break apart when that air comes in there. And so Jesus is saying, there is a teaching coming that needs a whole new container.

32:43 I am giving a thing to humanity that requires an ontological change. Christmas is this amazing demonstration of God's commitment to accomplish ontological change for you. Like whole new person. Not like with bad choices just looked over and condoned. You can't unswing on your swings and misses.

33:29 You can't unsay the things you've said. You cannot undo the things you've done. You cannot un-hurt the people you have hurt. Like the choices that we have made happened. God comes along and starts something all together new.

34:02 Paul would talk about it as the new creation, life according to the spirit. Jesus of Nazareth is something all together new, and then he walks around the world calling newness out of people and sets the church to work in his absence calling newness out of people. This is why we announce to you your forgiveness. Not because your mistakes are condoned,

34:33 but because there is a new you brought to life unbroken, whole, ready to live forever. My prayer is that we would be able to be people who receive that deep and substantial forgiveness of God every day. And in increasing measure have the capacity to live out of the new creation he's

35:05 given us and allow the old paralyzed person to fall away. Let me pray. Hey Lord thank you for your gift of forgiveness and your like radical commitment to accomplishing our holiness. We thank you that you have not merely papered over our mistakes but put them away forever. Teach us how to live out of

35:38 that new life you buy and have bought for us. To just how to receive forgiveness this morning and live new lives with you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.