Gospel Realization. BEAU HUGHES, November 11, 2007

Transcription

1 Gospel Realization BEAU HUGHES, November 11, 2007 Hey, if you ve got a bible grab it and turn to First Corinthians 15. That s where we re going to start. I m going to have you flip around a little bit this morning. Not too much. But while you re turning there I ll just tell you that you can pray for Matt. He s gonna be out for the next two weeks he leaves this morning and he and his wife Lauren are gonna celebrate their 10 years together they re gonna go to Hawaii and then he s gonna spend some time ministering to the island, whatever that means, so. -laugher- I tried to get in on that but no can do. But let me tell you what s going on: Every time, and this is a new thing for campuses, since having another campus is a new thing I always want to communicate as best that we can, I know a lot of times we re behind on that, and so I just want to communicate as best I can what we re doing and what kind of philosophy of ministry is having a couple of campuses. And so here s what will happen: Matt will be gone about 15 times a year. And every time he s out you and I will get to chat. And really what I to do during those times, more than me coming in and trying to be a pitch hitter, so to speak and hit a home run, is really I want to talk about specifically what life is gonna look like at this campus for the next 40 years. And so it s gonna be a lot more of me pastoring and shepherding and kind of leading in that way than it is me trying to come up here and hit a home run, get us all excited and motivated and go out and hopefully the Lord will move and the Spirit will do some things but really my job, and it s funny because we have never had a campus pastor before, and so when I asked them what my job was they just kind of said yes. Um, yes. That s what it is. And so what I ve been learning is probably what my main role here, in being a campus pastor, is to take the vision and the mission of The Village church. And if you don t know what that is, the mission of The Village church is simply to glorify God through lives changed to bring glory to God through lives being changes through The Gospel of Jesus Christ. That s our mission. And the way that we hope to do that is by expressing and extending our Christian faith to our neighborhood. And we ve kind of broken our Christian faith down and said, You know, there s really some ways that we can talk about it that will help us understand what it means to be a real disciple. And we ve got them hanging up here: Truth, being people who hold on to Jesus who have our foundation in Jesus. Jesus is truth. And so we believe Jesus, and Jesus said the the Scripture point to Him. And so we believe the scriptures are true. And the best way to lead us towards how to lead a best life. And Christian Spiritual, that s using our gifts that the Holy Spirit breathes life into to glorify His name in our community, whether that be teaching or whether that be being a banker or a cook or whatever. We want to glorify God by living our faith in spiritual ways and using our gifts in ways that glorify Him. And missional living which is being missionaries to the culture around us. I know we say this all the time. I know that this a recap for most of us, but missionaries aren t just those that we have serving in Asia. You re a missionary. And if you re a Christian in here, you re life is a mission trip. That s just what Scripture says. And so community, which is you and I walking deeply with people. Growing with people, sharing with people, loving people as we love ourselves if not more than we love ourselves which is a miracle. Foot-washing, which is us serving the bride of Christ. And so these are the kind of things that we said that if you want to be a mature Christian we should pursue God. And hopefully God in His mercy will grow in us these things. And so what I want to talk about every time that we get together is basically, what does it look like to extend and express this mission in the city of Denton? Because it looks very different on this campus than it does on the Highland Village campus. And if you live in the Denton area it s going to look very different for you than it will if you live in the Flower

2 Mound area. There s different needs of a city, there s different types of people, there s a different culture. And so what I want to help us do is kind of grasp and take this mission and this vision that The Village church overarching, right? And to every time Matt talks, it s kind of overarching, but take it and bring it down another level. Bring the helicopter down a little lower so to speak. And so what does it look like here? What does it look like with us? What does it look like in the city of Denton? And what we ve kind of said is what we think this looks like is for us to be a city within a city. If you contextualize our mission here in Denton, it s for us to be the church, to be the city of God within the city of humanity. And as we are the city of God we are a city that loves the city of Denton. We re a city that pours itself our for the city of Denton, we re a city that turns and lives not for ourselves but for others. And so hopefully others will want to join that. And others would be drawn to that great light as Jesus said over and over and over again. But what I want to do this morning is kind of give you just a broad sweep of kind of what s going on in Denton. I don t know how much you know about Denton or how much you really think about Denton but basically that s what I ve been spending the last few months doing is, you know if it s my role to take this and breathe life into the culture I have to know the culture. I have to kind of know the culture that we re in. I mean our church sits right across the street from the third largest campus in Texas 40,000 students and growing every year. And a few blocks away another large university it sits in the middle of a district that is very financially downtrodden, where the education is very poor despite the best efforts of those teachers who love students and want to see them grow. And this is where we are. And so as I ve thought about Denton the Lord has really, I think finally after a couple of months, given me some insight into our city. And you can go with me you know this if you drive around town but Denton it s a very apathetic city. And here s what I mean by that: Nobody really hates Denton but nobody really loves it either, right? And so you re just kind of in this in-between. It s like nobody s like, Well, Denton is the worst place in the metroplex you could live. No, but nobody s going, Denton s awesome and I moved to Texas to live in Denton. Nobody s saying that either, okay? And so you have this really weird deal going on. And so Denton kind of doesn t have an advocate. And I think a great picture of it is it s a commuter school. And so basically you ve got these students who come in, they commute to the school, they don t live here, they don t plug in here, they don t put roots down here. I mean they just come into the school and they get their education, and then they leave and they go back to wherever they live and wherever they re at. And it s not just with the students but I think that you ve got people that have moved out of Dallas. And the reason that they ve moved into the suburbs that are north of the lake is not because they love Denton necessary, is because they can get a bigger house for cheaper. And they can get out of the city life, they can get out of the urban scene, they can, you know, raise their family in a safe environment there s nothing wrong with that but what I m saying is people aren t living in Corinth because they love Denton. People aren t living in Sanger or Krum because they love Denton. People aren t doing these things. They aren t living in Savannah and in Providence because they love Denton. They re living there for a different reason than I want to come serve the city, I want to love the city. That most of them are moving there because it s more comfortable, it s cheaper, it s more affordable. And then you ve got the people that have lived in Denton for a number of years. They just want Denton to go back to the way it always was. They hate what s going on. And you know, the mom and pop store is going to be turned into a corporation. Art Six is going to be replaced by some big coffee shop, and we just hate the thought of that. And there s all this going on. They just kind of want Denton to stay how it always was. And so they hate growth. They re not for growth. They re really not for the city despite the fact that Denton is the ninth fastest growing city in the nation. They re trying to stop that. And so it s just this really weird deal. I don t know if you ve thought about it but it just breeds a sense of apathy in our city. And you can see it all over the place. I mean just drive around and look at the streets. I mean it s just an apathetic... I mean, the roads are just terrible. I mean I don t know if you ve been on loop 288 lately they re trying to fix that. Praise the Lord. The roads are terrible. I mean the Golden Triangle Mall is... I think... The Lord, His hand got taken away from that place a long time ago; -laughter- they re trying to fix that but if you look around it s just this general sense of apathy because the city has no advocate.

3 And you know what? We can sit In here and laugh about that and poke fun at that but you know who suffers? The kids at Calhoun Middle-school suffer. I mean for us, we don t feel it. I mean we don t feel it when we drive home. We don t feel it when we, you know, go to Southlake Town Center instead of going to Golden Triangle Mall. We don t feel it as much but for them that are growing up in a city there s no real hero, there s no real story, there s no real hope. It s just this kind of this city that s just kind of here. And they absolutely suffer. People like that suffer. You know who else suffers? The poor. We ve got tons of poor people in this city. And I know we don t want to believe that but if we re not careful we re going to be like downtown Dallas in a few years that was so hesitant to admit that we actually had that problem. That by the time it was overwhelming, there was nothing we could do about it anymore. The people who suffer because of the apathy in the city are the people who have traditionally and historically suffered all through world history. The voiceless. The downtrodden. The uneducated. The weak. The ones that Jesus spent a lot of time with. But here s what I want you to know: This shouldn t discourage you. This should give you hope because what God did about 6 months ago was say, Hey, Village church. I want you to go there and I want you to be an advocate for that city. I want you to love that city because the only thing that s gonna change this city, it s not going to be The Movie Tavern. It s not going Razor Ranch. It s not going to be all these things that people think it s gonna be. It s gonna be people who love others more than themselves and are willing to serve the city instead of being served by it. The only thing that can change the city is the Gospel. Guess what? That s hopefully what we have. And that s what I want to talk about this morning because if the only thing that can change the city is the Gospel, I m making a huge presupposition here to say if we re going to be the city within the city we understand the Gospel. If we re going to be a Gospel-centered advocate for the city we have to know the Gospel ourselves and as the church as a whole. And here s why I think that s a bit of a hurdle this morning: because I think most of us, mentally we know it. I think mentally we get it and mentally and theologically the Gospel is center to us but functionally? And the way that we live and the way that we function every day I don t think that it is. And I think that s just a huge problem. I that that we can come in here and we know the Gospel, we understand it but it s not functionally the center out of which all of our life is filtered, all of our life lived, and because it s not, listen: it s not powerful. It s not powerful. What I m gonna do and here s where we re going to go. I mean, I m going to trumpet this over and over and over again for the next 50 years. If we re not a Gospel centered church, if we re not a Gospel centered campus functionally not theologically. Because we are theological. You can go online, you can read our theological beliefs. We are a Gospel centered, God centered church theologically. But if we re not functionally Gospel centered in everything that we do. In everything that we do: where we live, where we buy our groceries, where we work I mean everything. If we re not Gospel centered this is just a pipe dream, man. It s just a pipe dream. And I don t think you want that, I don t want that either. I don t want to waste my life on that. And so what I m going to try to do and begin this morning is to try and get us all on the same page. Okay, so what is The Gospel and how to we live Gospel centered functionally? Not just theological. And so 1st Corinthians 15 this is what the Gospel is. And listen, if you re an unbeliever in here this morning let me just tell you: I get asked a lot by friends and people that don t believe in Jesus why Christians are so unlike Christ. And this is why. I m not going to defend it. We are. We re so unlike Christ. That s why we sing. But the reason that we re so unlike Christ is because we don t understand the Gospel functionally. We understand it theologically, we understand it mentally but we don t get it. But here s what it is this morning and this is what Paul is going to it is. And the church in Corinth, let me just give you a little background: The church in Corinth is a church that is a culture that is very much like our culture today. I mean, you talk about idolatry, you talk about promiscuity and just all kinds of evil. I mean, this is Corinth. I mean they had this huge temple in the middle of the city where people would come and they would take prostitutes and consummate with them to worship their pagan deities. This city was a port city and so

4 you had all these different types of culture coming in a very fragmented society. Just like America today. And so Paul has planted a church there. He went in the middle of that city, planted a church to be a city within that city. And then he left and then upon leaving he got this letter and found out that there were all these problems. And the problems were happening because the Gospel went from something that was being central to something that was just kind of, you know, all over the place in their mind and in the way that they live life. And so what we re about to read is Paul saying, Hey, remember what I preached to you; remember the Gospel. And this is the Gospel. And so this is what we re going to read. I think it s a great place to start. It says starting in verse one: Now I would remind you, brothers [and sisters], of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you unless you believed in vain. And I think right there we can even see the beginnings of our problem because the Gospel is not just something that s beginner-level stuff for Christianity. Which I know sometimes we get into this mindset of, Well, yeah. The Gospel. I mean I got saved by the Gospel. Now I need to know about how to love my wife because the Bible sure doesn t have anything to say about that. I mean, dying to yourself has no repercussions on your marriage. But we kind of get in this thing where it s like The gospel, yeah. That s what we begin with but then we move in and Paul s going, No, the Gospel that I preached to you,...the gospel I preached to you, which you received, Yeah, you received it. It started this thing but then you also stand in it. You also are being saved by it. And so if you float away from the Gospel, that s bad news, right? That s what he said. I mean it s not just something that you know at first and then you can kind of move on to, you know, 201. The Gospel is not 101. I mean the Gospel is doctorate school here is what he s saying. You don t ever move past this you stay in the Gospel. And this is what he says in verse three: For I delivered to you as of first importance. This is it. This is of first importance....what I also received... And who did he receive it from? Who did Paul receive the Gospel from? Christ Himself. And then the apostles, and then the people that lived and walked and talked with Jesus on a day-to-day basis. That Christ and that s the first word of the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ centered, unapologetically. That Christ died. And Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures That He was buried... and here s why that s important: Not to leave that out because there s some people that were saying, Well, he wasn t buried. He wasn t buried. He died but, yeah, he wasn t buried. He was taken off and something happened. No, no. He was buried. And that s why it s important to say that he was buried because when he rose from the grave he was really buried in that grave. He was really buried. That s part of the Gospel. Christ, he died, he was buried, and Paul continues on: [And] he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. And so Paul is going, This is the Gospel. This Christ-centered, scripture ordained thing that happened. This historical event that happened, that Christ, he died he died for our sins, he was buried, he was put in a grave, he rose three days later and he was seen by everyone and then he ascended to the Father. And in doing this, part of the Gospel is what that accomplished. I mean, this is the Gospel but out of this so many Gospel truths come. And if fact, turn to Isaiah 53, turn to the left Isaiah 53. I just want to read you some because I don t have all morning to spend on this but basically what I would say is that everything comes from this. Everything comes from this. Like this isn t just some thing that we re like, Oh, yeah. I know that. Yeah, he died and he was buried and then he was raised from the dead and the he saw everybody. Like, we know that but what does that mean? And Isiah gives us a little glimpse. And he was writing about 500 years earlier and he says this in verse one: Who has believed what they heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; [Jesus] he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. And so, he s getting into the same story. He was murdered, he was killed, he died, Surely he has

5 borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. And this is when you start to get into all the ramifications that happened from the Gospel. These are the Gospel truths. He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; That s a great definition for sin, by the way. Anybody ever asks you what sin is, that s a great definition. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way. - Choosing our way over God s way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. I mean, do you hear these truths? He carries our griefs. He heals us. The iniquity of us all has been laid on him. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will, what we read this morning, Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. I mean, that s a huge statement. I mean, theses are all things being born out of the Gospel. All things will prosper in his hands. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. I mean, You re counted righteous?...and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. I mean, I would encourage you, and I think I did this for the small groups, but I mean just read that and meditate on that and here s what I know: I think for most of us, this isn t new news. This isn t new news but here s what I think: I think we get the Gospel but we don t get it. We don t get it. And, in fact, let me read you... And before I do that, so if we want to have a working definition of the Gospel this morning... The Gospel is all that God is for us in Christ all that God is for us in Christ is the Gospel. All these things that we read about, all these things that we read about, all these things that we sing about, all these things that we hope about, all these things that we hope about, all these things that we talk about, all these things happen because of Christ. They re in Christ, all the treasures they re all in Christ. And so this is the Gospel: Everything that God is for us is in Christ, but I just don t think that functionally what we operate out of everyday. And this guy says it a lot better that I could. One of my spiritual heroes, Dr. Tim Keller. He pastors a church in New York, New York. And this is what he says: He says, When God called Jonah to go to Nineveh for the first time, And if you don t know the story, there s this city called Nineveh, much like the city of Denton: pagan, immoral, liberal city. And God calls to go and call the people to repentance. And so this is what he s talking about. When God called him to do that for the first time, the prophet Jonah, Jonah ran in the other direction. Why? The reader assumes it was just fear but chapter four of Jonah reveals that that there was also a lot of hostility in Jonah towards the Assyrians and the Ninevites. I believe the reason that Jonah did not have pity on them was that he did not sufficiently realize that he was nothing but a sinner saved by shear grace. So he ran away from God and you know the rest of the story. He was cast into the deep and saved by God from drowning by being swallowed by a great fish. And in the second chapter we see Jonah praying. And his prayer ends with the phrase, Salvation is of the Lord. That s in Jonah 2:9. And Keller says this: My teacher, Ed Clown used to say that this was the central verse of the Bible, is an expression of the Gospel. Salvation is from and of the Lord and no one else. Period. But as a prophet, I mean doesn t Jonah know this? I mean, doesn t Jonah know this that salvation is of the Lord? Doesn t he already know this? So why is he saying this? Keller says he knows it and yet he doesn t know it. For 18 years I lived in apartment buildings with vending machines. Very often you put the coins in but nothing comes out. And what you have to do is you have

6 to shake or hit the machine on the side until the coins finally drop down and then out comes the soda. My wife, Kathy believes this is a basic parable for all of ministry. Martin Luther said that the purpose of ministry was not only to make the Gospel clear but to beat it into your peoples heads. I m not going to do that this morning, literally but,...to beat it into your peoples heads and your own continually. And this is a quote from Luther. This is the truth of the Gospel. The Gospel is the principle article of all Christian doctrine whereby the knowledge of all goodness consisted. Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article well. We should know the Gospel well and teach it to others and beat it into their heads continually. I m not gonna take Luther s advice. So here s what you ve got: He just said it and I use this example all the time because it s such a vivid word picture for me. That the Gospel has been deposited like coins in a Coke machine but it hasn t fallen, right? And you ve all done that, whether it was a Coke machine or a video game. You put it in and it doesn t go anywhere. It gets lodged somewhere but it doesn t really fall to where it needs to go to produce what we hope it produces. And so what do you have to do? We have to beat the side of it. And that s what he s saying. The Gospel has been inserted in most of us, it was inserted into Jonah but it never fell. It never fell. It s lodged up there somewhere with maybe our good works or maybe what we think or maybe Christian culture or whatever had happened but it hasn t made it s way to the bottom and the recesses of who we are and the way that we live ourselves out functionally everyday. And this is what he says: You might be able to get an A on your justification by faith test, but if there is not radical, concrete growth, and humble love towards everyone, even your enemies, you don t really know that you are a sinner saved by grace. That is a huge statement. You might be able to get an A on your justification by faith test, but if there is not radical, concrete growth, and humble love towards everyone, even your enemies, you don t really know that you are a sinner saved by grace. It might be in you but it hasn t fallen yet. And if there s not radical, concrete growth and confidence and joy, even in difficulties, you don t really know that you are a sinner saved by grace. So what must you do if you lack the humility, love, joy, and confidence you need to face the life issues before you? You should not try to move on past the Gospel to more advance principles of theological truths. Rather, you should shake yourself until more of the Gospel coins drop and more of the fruit of the Spirit comes out. And until you do that, despite your sound doctrine, you will be as selfish, scared, oversensitive, insensitive, and undisciplined as everyone else. Those were the attributes characterizing Jonah. If he had known the Gospel as deeply as he should have he wouldn t have reacted which such hostility and superiority towards the city of Nineveh. I mean, and think about it. This isn t hard to see. I mean, think about the church how we ve reacted towards secular culture, how we ve reacted towards people who disagree with us. I mean, it s not just enough for us to disagree with him. We have to let them know how wrong they are and how stupid they are. And this is what he s saying. It s proven that in your doing that you don t get it. We just really don t get it. It hasn t fallen. And it s the same thing with Jonah so you re in good company at least, but I don t know about you but I don t want to go into the belly of a fish. I don t even know what that would look like anyway. But the experience in the storm and in the fish brings him back to the foundations, and he rediscovers the wonder of the Gospel. When he says, Salvation is really from the Lord, he wasn t learning something brand new. But he was rediscovering and realizing more deeply the truth and the wonder of the Gospel. He wasn t learning something brand new but he was rediscovering and realizing more deeply the truth and the wonder of the Gospel. And, man, I spend a lot of my time worrying. And here s why: because I know that every week you come, Matt is going to preach a sermon and he s going to put a brand new slant on it that you ve never heard. And I m worried not because Matt is a great preacher but I worry because we ll take that and get excited about that without the Gospel ever really falling deeper. And what we ll develop is an appetite for more truths but we don t even apply the central one. We don t even apply the central one. And so that s why I ve been praying. You want to know what my consistent prayer for the last six months since we started this campus? Nothing other than the Gospel falling deeper into your heart that s all I ve been praying. Because

7 when this happens, revival happens. When it happens individually in all of our hearts, and corporately, when the Gospel coins fall, that s revival. That s all that happens. It s not some mystical deal where you have to, you know, come in here and sing songs for 17 hours straight or whatever we think it is. It s not that we learn more theological truth, it s that the Gospel, that we are sinners saved by shear grace, that falls. And functionally, it affects every part of our lives. John Calvin said this: With how much better reason, then shall we detest these trifling sophist, who are content to role the Gospel on the tips of their tongues, when it s efficacy [he s smarter than I am. I thought that I was reading it wrong but apparently I m not] when [that] out to penetrate the inmost affections of the heart take it s seat in our souls and affect the whole man. I mean, Martin Luther said that every single sin is rooted in the breaking of the first commandment. Every single one of them. Every single breaking of the commandments is rooted in the breaking of the first commandment: Though shalt have no other gods before Me. Which is really the Gospel. You believe that all that God is in Christ is all that you need. It s your only god, God is your only god and he said, Every other sin, it s a breaking of the first commandment. Stealing why do you steal? Because you think that your need and/or the thing that you re going to steal is more important, more urgent than the first commandment. You make that thing a god or you make your need a god and so you steal and break the first commandment. Lying why do we lie? Because we value people s opinions more than we value God. And so we make people god instead of God god. I mean, you could go on and on and on. Why do you commit adultery? Because you make sex a god, because you make your desire, your lust a god. I mean all of the sins go back to breaking the first commandments which goes back to not understanding the Gospel. All of it. And yet we re so... Like we get in here and we just want to move away from that. We want to grow away from that we want to graduate on to deeper things. And as we float more and more further and further away from the Gospel being central functionally, what happens is we move away from what paul calls, the very power of God to things that have no power at all. I mean, how much power does your theological truth have in those moments when you re just being beat down by your sins. How much does your understanding of Calvinism have in that moment? Nothing! It s not supposed to it s not supposed to be central. Any of it. Who God is and Christ for us is central. And until we get that, I mean, listen: I mean, we can come in here every week and be inspired, we can come in here every week and sing but that quote, we re going to remain those people. And guess what? The city of Denton is going to remain the same way. Because we can t get our junk together. And unless we get ours together, how are we going to be able to help anybody? I mean, we ve been talking about this since day one. We can t. Till we know who we are, we can t help somebody find out who they are. I mean, that s why I even somewhat worry about us going over to be mentors at Calhoun. Because, guess what? When you go over there to these kids that are in broken families, that are in frustrated families, I mean they are going to push you away for about, maybe a year. They ve been wounded by every person that was supposed to love them from day one. You think that they re just going to embrace you? But some of us are so insecure that we ve made a god of other people s opinions of us that a 12 year old is going to push us away, and we re not going to love them. But we re going to be a city within a city cuz that sounds cool. We can t do it if we don t get this. And so here s the question: How do we get it? And one, I think we start by repenting and running back to the feet of God and saying, Forgive me for the gods that I have put before You. Forgive me for being so proud and being so satisfied with the Gospel just being deposited but not really falling. Forgive me for the way that I don t love people. Forgive me for how selfish I am. You can go through... You just have to repent but what I want to start helping us do, and here s what we re going to do for the next 50 years: You have to start connection to the Gospel to every point in your life. You have to learn how to see how the Gospel applies to every aspect, every category, every part of your life and I don t think that we ve ever been taught how to do that. We ve been taught how to pray the sinners prayer but we ve never been taught

8 how the Gospel really applies to our marriage. We ve really never been taught how the Gospel really applies to our shame issues. We ve really never been taught how the Gospel applies to anything except for salvation! And so here s all I want to do: Turn to Mark 10. I just want to show you a guy; I want to point out a Scriptural example, and in doing so, hopefully show you how Jesus helped people connect the Gospel to their lives Abraham Hershey. I love this quote. It says this: And here s what I want you to know before I read this. He says, The great challenge for those of us who wish to take the Bible seriously is this: is to let us teach us to think with it instead of about it. And so we re going to have to start... Even as we read this morning, even as we talk you can t be sitting there going, Yeah, that sounds great. Think with me. Think with the Scriptures this morning as we do this. And Mark 10 is really the only person, this is the story of the only person that s ever walked away from a call to follow Jesus in the Bible. Jesus called him into discipleship, this person is going to say no, but Mark 10 is really kind of the, part of the turning point in Mark. All through Mark, chapters one through eight the big question that Mark is trying to unpack is who is Jesus? Who is this man? And so you have all these people asking all the time, Who is this man? Who is this man that can walk on water? Who is this man that can multiply loaves? Who is this man that can do such things? Who is this man that teaches with such authority? Who is this man? And then in chapter eight, it s this big climax where Peter says, Well, you re the Christ. You re the Messiah. And so, that s the shift in Mark. And now Mark is taking the story from being about who Jesus is to what his mission was. And he s just starting out on his journey to Jerusalem where we pick this story up. And here s why that s important because what s waiting for him in Jerusalem? The Gospel. Death. Death by crucifixion and that s going to be important here in a minute, but let s read. Let s start in verse 13 because the first story is a contrast of the second one, okay. And so this is the first one. And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. And that s important because that s going to contrasted with this story that we re about to read. And so later you can go and kind of think about the discrepancies between the two, between the child and this man: And as he was setting out on his journey [to Jerusalem], a man... And we know that he s a young man and a rich man from the other Gospels that have the same story. a [young, rich] man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now I want you to understand the profundity of what s going on here. Until this time you ve only got the beggars, you ve only got the people that physically need healing running up to Jesus. This is the first time where someone who has no apparent need is running up to Jesus falling on his knees. I think this guy has gotten a bad rap. I mean, I think he s just us. Falling on his knees before Jesus, a rich man, and begging him and saying, Good teacher, With such respect going, What do I need to do to live life well? How do I inherit eternal life? So you ve got a guy for the first time in the Gospel who has no apparent need just by looking at him, running up to Jesus and going, Look, everything is going fine but it s not fine I m not fine. I know it looks fine but I m not fine. Help me. Help me live life. And this is what Jesus says to him: Jesus said, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Basically Jesus just said, Oh, so you understand who I am somewhat. You know the commandments: Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother. So Jesus basically goes, Um, so what s going on, man? I mean, are you doing these things? How s your life? He s just poking, he s just counseling. And these are the commandments on the second half of the commandments. There s really two sets: the first five are about loving God, the second five are about how to love your neighbor. And so Jesus gives him the second five and this guys goes, Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth. All these things. I ve been doing those since I was 13 years-old and something s still wrong. I mean, is he not us? Like, I ve been coming to church, I ve been listening to the sermons. I ve been podcasting them. I ve been singing the songs, I ve been reading the... and

9 something s still wrong. I ve been doing all these things. I mean, what s going on here? And I can just see Jesus, I mean he knows. And I can just see him just smiling in a pastoral way and going, Let me show you. Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And Jesus just basically said, You lack one thing: you don t understand the Gospel. The issue here is not money, right? The issue here is what this man is making his god. And what this man had made his god was his possessions. And he said, Yeah, you re doing all these things but you haven t even done the first commandment which is to have no other gods before Me. You value your money more than me. Go, give your money away and then what? Come follow me. To Jerusalem. To death. Basically he just said, Die to yourself if you want to live. [And] disheartened by the saying, [the man] went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. And here s what I would argue: That man got it. Even though he didn t keep it and apply it, he got it because when Jesus shared the Gospel with him, this man went, Oh. What you re asking me to do is this. And he understood it. And because he understood it I mean you re going to react one or two days: With joy or the way that he did. And he said, I can t do that. I can t do that. But the point I want you to see is how Jesus took this man s life and said, You re problem is you don t understand the Gospel. And now that he understood it he still didn t receive it but that s not what I want you to see this morning. What I want you to see is how Jesus took what this man thought was the issue and he tied it back to the Gospel and said, You re real issue is the Gospel. You don t believe the Gospel. And until you do until you loose your life, you re never going to be able to gain it. And there s always going to be something wrong. And I ll tell you how this played out in my life. Kimberly and I mentioned earlier we did premarital counseling with Michael Snetzer, a good friend of mine on staff here. And you know, I ve grown up, and I need to hurry, but I ve grown up and struggled with clinical depression my whole life. Been on medication. I mean I think when I was three years old they diagnosed me. I was just an angry kid. So my parents were just like, Wow, he s aggressive. What s going on here? And so it used to manifest itself a lot in anger, and then as I got older and more mature I kind of learned how to control that anger a little bit better I could whiteknuckle it a little bit more but there were still moments, but there weren t as many outbreaks. But I mean from the age six to about 15 I mean I was known, there were like urban legends about my anger, I m serious, in the neighborhood. I could tell you some of them. And I do that to boast in my weakness because I started to kind of be able to control it a little bit but then when Kimberly and I got engaged, some really weird things started happening. You know, it s weird that marriage isn t like just a fairy tale, you know? -laugher- And yeah, I m being facetious I knew that going in but what I didn t know I knew it was going to be hard but what I didn t know was I was still angry. And so her and I would get in these discussions. I mean we would through years one through three in engagement because I m just so out of control. And so we had all these conversations. And so it would get to this point where I would do something ignorantly, and it would hurt her feelings. And she would tell me that it hurt her feelings, and I would try to make it right but couldn t. And then I would just get angry and snap. And there were a couple of times when we were driving and I took a Bible and threw it against the car window I mean I just started to snap to the point that she was really scared. I mean you know, I turned on her computer one day and she had been searching verbal abuse and I was like, This isn t good and what s going on here? And I haven t been like this since I was in Little League. And so we went into counseling and we were talking through all this stuff. And we were telling Michael these stories and he just looked at me and was like, You ve got shame issues, man. I was like, What? What are you talking about? I ve got anger issues. I m not ashamed at nothing. And he was like, No. He s like, Let me explain it to you: The reason that you get angry is because you re trying to live her and you can t do it good enough. And so when she responds that way, what you do in your heart is you feel bad because you re looking for your justification and her response to you. And so when you don t get the justification you want when she doesn t think you re great, you become ashamed you feel like a failure. And so you do one or two things with that: You either run from it or you get angry. And you get angry. But your problem is that you don t understand that your justification is found in Christ

10 not her. I mean I had a moment just like this. And I ll tell you, man, it dropped for me. And I realized for the first time in my life that I wasn t justified by anything outside of Christ. And that s difficult for a guy like me who grew up working hard, feeling justified by his works and the opinion of people that he respects. I ve got this real strange fear of rejection. Not from most people you know, for most people if they say something about me I m like, Whatever. But for people that I really respect, my wife, Chandler, John Warrens these people that I walk with closely, if I sense that they re displeased with me, they don t like me, it really bothers me, man, because I m trying to justify myself by their opinions. And Snetzer was like, You ve got shame issues, man. You don t understand the Gospel. I was like, Wow. When you put it that way, okay. But it doesn t matter if it s shame issues. It doesn t matter if it s self- image issues, loneliness issues I mean, all of our issues this morning end up back at the feet of the Gospel. We don t believe the Gospel. And it s so crucial that we do because if we ever want to be a city within a city, I mean the Lord is going to have to do this. And that s why I have just been pestering Him in the past six months to do this in us because I know that you re not going to be able to try hard enough or good enough. At some level, it s going to be a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. But if you can learn how to look at your life and connect where things are going wrong with the Gospel. Connect your loneliness with the Gospel. Connect your lust with the Gospel. Connect your fear with the Gospel. Why are you so afraid? Because if you really believe that we have peace with God through Christ, you re not afraid of anything. The righteous are bold as a lion. They re not afraid. But it all goes back to the Gospel. And here s where we re going next week: Can you imagine what would happen if just us in this room really got the Gospel? Could you imagine what that would mean for the city of Denton? I can. I mean, in fact, that s what I spend most of my time dreaming about and praying about. Is: what if all the students in Denton got the Gospel, if all the college students got it? And they didn t have to move away from the city and go to some high paying job and some sexy city to feel good about themselves but they could just stay here with their gifts and serve. What if we were willing to move back in the city because our comfort wasn t as important as important as us plugging into the people... I mean, we could go on and on and on. We re going to talk about it all next week, but that s the hope that God would do this in us and as He does this in us, man, people would see a great light, they would see a city on a hill. They would long to be a part of it. And so Josh, he s going to come up and the band is going to come up and I think Jesus knew this and I think that might be a bit of an understatement but I think he knew that we were going to have a problem with the Gospel and with the tendency to float away from the very core of things. And as I was thinking about it this weekend I think that s one of the reasons that, you know the last time he was with his disciples at the meal, what did he do? He shared the Gospel, right? He sat down with them and they re eating a meal and all the things that he could have said, first of all, he exemplified the Gospel he took off his robe and he got down to their feet and he just washed their feet. I mean, the king took on a servant s role which would never happen way too much pride for that, but this man, Jesus who knew. I mean, Jesus understood the Gospel because he was the Gospel. He got down on his feet and said, It don t matter. And in fact, if you don t let me wash your feet, if you don t let me do this, then you have no part in me because this is who I am this is the very core of who I am. I didn t come to be served; I came to serve. And they got around the table and then he took the bread and the wine and and he shared the Gospel with them and he said, This is my body. This is going to be broken for you. This is going to be broken for you so that you would not have to be lonely anymore, you wouldn t have to be ashamed, you wouldn t have to feel that way. It s going to be finished in me. And then he took a cup of wine and he said, This is my blood that s going to be poured out. This is the new covenant that you ve been waiting for, O Israel The covenant where you re not justified by your works any longer. You re not justified by what you ve done, what you don t do, by other people s opinion of you. You re justified by my blood. And when you get that, it takes a heart of stone and turns it into a heart of flesh. When you get that, power is going to come from on high and it s going to inspire you to the ends of the earth. And he said, So every time that you get together

11 remember me, remember the Gospel, remember this because if you drift away from this, you re drifting away from the power of God. And you drift away from the power of God, you re going to be left to yourself and that s just going to go really bad. And so man, my invitation for you this morning is just as a family is I have high hopes for us in the next But this has to be central. This has to be central not just mentally and theologically it has to be central functionally. And listen: that s part of the reason we do this, we do communion, the Lord s supper every single week. And I don t know if you ve noticed but every week what I m trying to do is every week Matt talks about something, whether it s David and Goliath or whatever it is, I m trying to always connect it back to the Gospel. It s always what I m doing. Every week I come up here and I do a little schpeal and I go, This is how this relates to the Gospel, this is how this relates to the Gospel I m just subversively trying to teach us to be Gospel-centered. And everything we read and everything that we do and who we are, because if that happens, man, good things happen. And love and joy and peace and patience and kindness those become things that not that we re doing but things that we are. And so let me pray for you as we come this morning. And be encouraged. I m so hopeful. Next week, we ll talk about what this would look like and we ll dream about this but let me pray. If you re not a believer in here we do the Lord s supper. And I would just encourage you to watch. This is a really sacred thing to us obviously, and I don t want you to do something that doesn t really mean anything to you and is really sacred to us. And so, Father, I just continue to be You. I have nothing else to bring before You this morning except that You would cause this Gospel the Gospel that is the power of God, the Gospel that is most important, the Gospel according to the Scriptures that you would cause this Gospel and it s Truths, that You would cause all that You are for us in Christ to fall in us and change us. We need You. Help us. Help us, and even now as we do something tangible, as we taste the juice and taste the bread, might we taste Your desire for us to understand these truths. And we ask it in Jesus name, amen. And when you re ready, you can come The Village Church