The Call to Discipleship

Jakob Davis

(The Ascension and Great Commission)

After His resurrection, His great victory over death, Christ spends some time back on Earth with His disciples, a span of about 40 days. We know from the beginning of Acts 1, that Christ had been ministering, instructing His followers, His disciples, about the commands that had been given and were being given. And yet for what purpose was the Lord doing this? It was to fulfill and to empower His followers to do what He had commanded in the Great Commision. I imagine many of us are familiar with it, but I will read it nonetheless. From the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 28 Verse 18-20,

“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”

And further in the same place of Acts 1, Christ promises the Holy Spirit, the Great Comforter, stating that once the Spirit has descended upon the disciples, that it shall empower them to be the witnesses of Christ “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And having finished speaking these things, Christ was taken up into a cloud, being received back into heaven to where He still stands today at the right hand of the Father.

(Obedience and Submission)

And Yet Christ’s promise, as all promises of God do, would ring true. The Great Comforter, the Holy Spirit, would descend upon the Apostles and what would it immediately empower them to do? To preach the Gospel! Acts 2,

“And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”

These men, having just received the Holy Spirit, knowing full well the fate that could meet them, the same fate that their savior had just met only 50 days prior, began to preach! And because of this the Church grew! 3000 souls came to Christ because of the faith and empowerment of the Spirit at just one moment. And they continued preaching throughout the streets of Jerusalem, continuing to be the vessel through which the Gospel would be proclaimed. And despite jailings and warnings from the religious leaders of the time, those who had put Christ to death in the first place, they continued in boldness in the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

         And because of their faith and boldness, not withholding their lives as Christ did also, thousands continued to come to faith. Yet this notoriety not only brought followers, but also persecution. The followers of Christ save the apostles were driven out of Jerusalem under the threat of death and imprisonment, scattering them and the Gospel away from the Holy City. And yet this scattering did not worsen their faith, but proved to be a testament of it. Acts 8 conveys this point, Verse 4,

         “Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.”

         This seems to echo back to the Great Commision does it not? “Go, making disciples of all nations…”. The faith of those driven out under threats of death were not broken, but only served to further scatter the Gospel amongst the world. Many others, those thought to be untouchable, whether by righteousness sake (in the case of St. Paul) or those who were viewed as unclean and defiled (the Gentiles) had the Gospel proclaimed to them and in their acceptance were made clean before the eyes of God.

         Paul, formerly known as Saul, had persecuted the church in the initial dispersement from Jerusalem. Yet he wasn’t just another cog in the machine, just another priest, he was the man in charge of hunting down the Church of Jesus Christ. He was responsible for the jailings and deaths of many Christians that had not managed to escape Jerusalem in time. And yet even to him was the Gospel given, and even he responded, falling down to his knees before the Son of God on the Road to Damascus.

         This man, the persecutor of the church, did not fear the judgment of the people who he once persecuted, but rather knew that his mission, the mission given to him by Him (point up) was far more important. In fact he spent the rest of his life doing it, spreading the Gospel from Israel and the Middle East all the way to present day Spain. He withstood beatings, stonings, mockings, and being a social and societal outcast of his own people so that the news he was entrusted with would make it to where he had been commanded to take it. In the his letter to the Philippians, Paul speaks on his persecution for the Gospel saying in chapter 1 verse 20-21,

“According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

(So Great a Cloud of Witnesses)

         Now, I imagine it is possible that many of you out there are wondering about my point. Why have I spent the last, however long, talking about the early church and what they did and faced? And to that, I answer your question with a question. Do you know what the Hall of Faith is? There is a portion of the Book of Hebrews that bears a significant tie to my point. In Hebrews 11, we have the hall of faith, something Pastor Jerry covered a year or two ago, quite well I might add. Detailed within are the accounts of various of the saints who have gone before us, such as Abraham, Enoch, Moses, Daniel, Rahab, Samson, Jeremiah, and many, many others. I’m going to read to you portions of this passage. Hebrews Chapter 11 Verse 32,

“And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wondered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.”

Then in Chapter 12 of the same book, right there in verse 1 it says,

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

These same, our brothers and sisters who came long before us, endured all manners of trials and torments, believing that the price that they were paying here in their flesh was far outweighed by the reward which awaited them and the reward of working towards the Kingdom of God. If we consider just the disciples that saw Christ, the risen Christ, they found it to be more desirable that they work and die for the Gospel given to them, than to fade back and only evangelize to those close to them.

         The writer of Hebrews, Paul, who we’ve talked about already a brief bit, finds his end in Rome, beheaded by Emperor Nero. The brothers Peter and Andrew both crucified, along with Phillip. Thomas was stabbed through with spears. Bartholomew was flayed to death and then beheaded. Mattias was stoned and beheaded. Simon the Zealot was sawn in half. Every apostle was willing to die for what they saw and what was given to them, save John who survived the attempts on his life and imprisonment, returning immediately back to spreading the Gospel upon his release.

         This pattern of willingness to suffer and die for the Gospel did not vanish after the apostles, for the early church, the church fathers took up the same mission. Hundreds died at the hands of those persecuting them, and died gladly. Disciple and dear friend of John the Apostle, Ignatius, said this as he was led to his death,

“Grant me nothing more than to be poured out as a libation for God while an altar is still ready, that becoming a chorus in love you may sing to the Father in Jesus Christ because God judged the bishop of Syria (which was Ignatius) worthy to be found at the setting having sent him from the rising.”^[1]

He went on further in the same letter, begging the churches not to interfere in what he saw as the culmination of his life as a Christian. And this attitude did not change after his death, as for thousands of years after our brothers and sisters have been dying, and dying gladly for the dispersement of the Gospel, striving to know Christ and to make Him known.

         And yet here we are, comfortable. Generations of saints died for this news, this Gospel, the same news we are entrusted with,  and we can’t be bothered to break as much as a nail for it. Our Gospel is one of convenience. Let me take a show of hands, (walk down among them) how many of us have at any point in our lives shared the Gospel? Now how many have done it within the last year? Now I want you to really think and be honest with both yourselves and with me, how many of us have shared the Gospel with someone who isn’t a friend, a family member, a work acquaintance, or someone that our lives touch through work (this includes the pastors) someone we know and we’re comfortable with? How many of us have done it in the last month? In the last two weeks?

         This is my point, our Gospel is one of convenience, one of comfort, one of fear. In many cases we don’t wanna go out of our way to do it. We worry that the other person might think that we are weird, perhaps we fear that they’ll freak out, or maybe that they’ll ask a question that we can’t answer. Our form of evangelism seems to be akin to a circle around our lives. If an individual comes close, we might just share the Gospel with them, but in many ways we remain stationary, almost waiting for people to be pulled into our orbits before we do anything akin to sharing the Gospel. So in many cases our version of evangelism is inviting them to church. Nothing wrong with that right?

         The church’s function is not to perform evangelism work where you have failed, it’s to train and equip us to do the work ourselves! The church is not a catch basin. It’s not the pastors or the elders job’s to evangelize our spouse. It’s not their job to evangelize our kids. It’s ours! It’s always been ours!

         Many of us, especially likely with our more finely aged brother and sisters, have likely heard the fire and brimstone railings from the old Baptist preachers, railing against our failings and sinfulness just for the purpose of scratching an itch that the pastor has. But I am not those men and I do not feel that itch. This topic, it’s not an itch but an obligation, not a desire but a necessity. I need a clear conscience towards our God, even if it means speaking an uncomfortable truth in a way that isn’t comfortable to hear and I have been stirred up by the Spirit to give this to you. This is not a suggestion or a timid request, but a command. Christ’s commission was not something to be ignored! If we believe in Him like we say we do, we must follow these commands. Matthew 28:19,

“GO therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

You see our Lord’s command doesn’t read “If you go” or “If it’s convenient to you.” or “If you’re comfortable doing it.” It reads “Go”! We are called to submission, we are called to obedience, being willing to suffer and die in the same way our blessed savior was for the proclaiment of a news that isn’t ours, but has been given to us to share! So let us join in the attitudes and conducts of the ones who came before us, who have run the race set before them with endurance, willing and happy to sacrifice all, who fixed their eyes firmly on the One who saved them.

Application

         A dear friend told me a story here recently along the lines of what we’ve heard today. Back thousands of years ago was a king named Alexander, known now as Alexander the Great. He was a conqueror, perhaps one of the best the world has ever seen. Well following one of his great conquests, he stood upon the throne of one of his defeated adversaries and presided over the judgment of the enemy soldiers and prisoners captured during the battle. But when he got to a soldier who wore his colors, a Greek soldier that served in his army it gave him pause. He was told of the boy’s crime, he had deserted from battle because of his fear.

         Alexander looks at the boy and calmly asks, “What is your name?” The boy looks at him and responds, “Well sir, Alexander.” Enraged and befuddled, Alexander the Great steps down grabbing the boy by his tunic and throws him to the floor and says, quite simply I might add, “Soldier, change your conduct or change your name!” You see Alexander believed that this soldier’s cowardly acts would besmirch the name Alexander and that the boy, if he didn’t change his conduct, was not worthy to bear the same name as him.

         For many of us, our own fears, laziness, and complacency have placed us in the position of the young Alexander who carried the same name as his king. We flee from a battle that is already won! A victory that is already assured! I understand the fear all too well but we must move! As it was to Alexander, so it is to Christ our King. If we cannot proclaim His name, a name so much higher than any earthly king or ruler, to all the nations in His conquest, then we do not deserve to bear His name. So, I challenge all of us, pastors and elders included in the same way, change our conduct or change our names. Don’t claim Christ if you aren’t truly acting out your faith in Him, you only make it harder for the world to see Him.

Benediction:

A Psalm of David,

¹Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. ² Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight— That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge. ⁵ Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me. ⁶ Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, And in the hidden part You will make me to know wisdom. ⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. ⁸Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. ⁹  Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. ¹⁰ Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹  Do not cast me away from Your presence, And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. ¹²  Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit. ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners shall be converted to You.

Amen, go in peace.

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FOOTNOTE:

The Cost to Christ

Jakob Davis

Good morning brothers and sisters, it’s good to see all of your smiling faces on this beautiful Sunday morning. In case you missed it, or if you need a refresher, last week we talked about OUR sin, OUR  decrepit condition of a nature. We went over how Scripture details that all are found guilty in sin, marred and entangled within it as a cursed inheritance from our forefather Adam. We went over how even though Scripture calls those who are within sin “slaves of sin” it doesn’t mean that we are being forced to do something we don’t wanna do, in fact, quite the opposite. We desire to serve our flesh and allow it to master us. And unfortunately, there’s absolutely nothing that we can do about it within our own strength.

The Incarnation & His Perfect Life

Even to God’s own people, Israel, it looked hopeless! The children of Israel had faced down and fallen to the Babylonians in the Book of Jeremiah, the Temple had been destroyed and desecrated, they had gone into exile and had miraculously been released to go home to their lands after over 70 years. And yet when they returned home and began the work to rebuild the temple the manifested Spirit of God didn’t come with them. His manifested presence that had been upon the first Temple never returned after its departing in Ezekiel 10, before the judgment of the people of Israel. The last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachi, closes the portion of His book with a prophecy of what is to come, a last message of hope. Malachi 4: 5-6 reads this,

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

And with a final word <snap finger> the lights go out. The prophets, God’s divine messengers stopped talking, God stopped talking. For 400 years the people heard nothing from God, made worse by the fact that they had been conquered three different times and dispersed. First the Greeks under Alexander, then Ptolomy, then finally Rome. Bound under captivity and servitude to foreign nations and powers, the people of God wept, begging God for relief, for a release from their overlords, for the power of God to be shown again and for Israel to be glorified amongst the nations. The hopes of the peoples of God were growing ever dimer, strengthened only by prophecies of a king to come that would be a great conqueror and would bring all the nations of the world under His dominion. And that was exactly what they got, what we got, just not in the way we thought He would come.

400 years after God stopped talking, a young and unmarried woman is visited by the angel Gabriel, giving her the news that a king would be born to her, that He would inherit the throne of His father David and that He shall reign over the house of Israel forever! He would be called the Son of God, the Holy One, and His name would be Jesus. Luke 1: 30-33 says this,

“Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

 Yet you might think that a King such as this would be born in the lap of luxury, I mean His father was King David was it not? He’s the Son of God! Yet this young woman and her betrothed husband were not royalty, they were commoners and carpenters. And he would not be born into the lap of luxury but into a humble beginning. Detailed in the Gospel of Luke Chapter 2 Verses 6-7:

“So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manager, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Something for us that we must understand is that this was not a simple babe. He was not just another man or just a holy man. He was God. In the beginning of the Gospel of John, the apostle John records this, John 1 Verses 1-5

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life as the light of men. And the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”

And Verse 14 of the same book and chapter,

            “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Cost

And what was this cost? It was the deaths that we deserved, bearing the iniquity and the sin of us all. In a hammer stroke of symbolism and literality, the high priests of Israel, those who were holy before their own eyes, delivered Him up to be judged before the Romans. And yet they stood for us, stood for mankind, offering up the Son of God to be judged for our iniquity. In the Gospel of Mark these events are recorded, Chapter 15,

“Immediately, in the morning, the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council; and they bound Jesus, led Him away, and delivered Him to Pilate.  Then Pilate asked Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”He answered and said to him, “It is as you say.”And the chief priests accused Him of many things, but He answered nothing. Then Pilate asked Him again, saying, “Do You answer nothing? See how many things they testify against You!”  But Jesus still answered nothing, so that Pilate marveled. Now at the feast he was accustomed to releasing one prisoner to them, whomever they requested. And there was one named Barabbas, who was chained with his fellow rebels; they had committed murder in the rebellion. Then the multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do just as he had always done for them. But Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” For he knew that the chief priests had handed Him over because of envy. But the chief priests stirred up the crowd, so that he should rather release Barabbas to them. Pilate answered and said to them again, “What then do you want me to do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?” So they cried out again, “Crucify Him!” Then Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has He done?” But they cried out all the more, “Crucify Him!” So Pilate, wanting to gratify the crowd, released Barabbas to them; and he delivered Jesus, after he had scourged Him, to be crucified.”

When it says He was scourged, we might think of something far more pleasant than what was actually the case. The thing He was “scourged” with was called a fragrum and it was perhaps one of the most brutal and cruel devices of punishment and torture besides the crucifixion itself. We likely have a good picture of what it might look like, a handle with cords of leather proceeding from the handle itself. Yet on the end of each of these pieces of leather were nails, pieces of sharpened bone meant to puncture into the skin and become embedded, and perhaps the worst of all, metal hooks which would lodge themselves into the skin of their victims and would pull chunks out of the body when the fragrum was violently ripped away. There are ancient records of the tool leaving ribbons of skin hanging off the body and tearing down to the bone.

And for most of us we know what happened. We know that Christ, after His scourging, was led through the streets of Jerusalem, being mocked and scorned, carrying a cross that weighed near 300 pounds upon a torn and destroyed back and shoulders. And when He arrived to that cursed mount of Calvary, He was laid upon the cross He had just borne, and nailed to it, not with nails as we understand them, but rather with some akin to a railroad spike. Once He was hung, every single breath that He had to take, He had to muscle Himself up on those spikes through His feet. For six hours, He withstood the blood loss, He withstood the constant and ever present mocking and ridicule, He withstood the sheer pain of it. Yet not just physical pain, but emotional pain too. Everyone that had followed Him, His closest friends had abandoned Him. He hung on the cross all alone, dying.

Luke 23:39.

Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, “If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us.”  But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ ” Having said this, He breathed His last.

This last conversation with Jesus before His death, shows mankind a reality. We can be like the first criminal who blasphemes God, showing no faith or remorse, but rather expecting God to save us. Or we can be like the second, who understands his sin and iniquity, and in faith comes to Christ humbly. And with one final breath Christ commends Himself into the Father’s hands, dying in the place of the murderer and insurrectionist Barabbas.

The Plan

But you see this was all the plan, executed perfectly and without error, just as it was intended. You see God wasn’t reactionary to our Fall, He didn’t say to Himself, “Oh darn, humanity done and did it, I better go fix it.” No, rather Christ knew and waited, for as it says in the Book of Galatians Chapter 4 Verse 4-7:

“But when the fullness of time had come, God (that is God the Father) sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

In the fullness of time? Christ came in the fullness of time to break the shackles and the binds of the slaves! Let me read verse 7 again,

            “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”

Our identities as slaves to sin have been destroyed! Atoned for! Covered, with the precious blood of Christ. Christ’s atoning work upon the Cross and His resurrection broke the shackles of death and sin, allowing all those who would call upon His name to come into the newness of life as a son and heir of God. 1 Peter 2:23-25 says this:

“Who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”

Illustration & Explanation

So you’ve undoubtedly seen the absolute mess of rope tied and wound through this front row of pews. Today we’re going to continue our theme of different illustrations with an active image of our lives. Would my voluntold volunteers come on out? As you can all see, these brave souls are fully blindfolded, completely and totally unable to see. Today they are going to be navigating through this sort of “rope course” to the way out that we can all see (crack a grin). They all have their instructions, but we as a congregation cannot help them. Please do not laugh when Beorn hits his head trying to climb under the pews, or when Aria gets frustrated and starts talking to herself. Just observe. (Begin the illustration)

Application

Earlier I read the verse from the Gospel of Mark which detailed Christ being handed over to the Romans and His crucifixion. Yet in those same verses there was a man, a man who had been arrested and was awaiting death for his crimes, who, without a doubt, was guilty of them. His name was Barabbas, if you don’t remember. His name quite literally means, “son of the father”. We are Barabbas, guilty of our own sins and deserving and bound for a death that we do deserve. No one would argue against his deserving of death! Yet Christ was sacrificed in his place, in OUR place. A man, totally innocent and undeserving of punishment, yet willing to take it upon Himself in our place so that we might be declared righteous before the eyes of God and able to come home.

This week I would like to read the rest of that Chapter of Isaiah so please turn with me to Isaiah 53. The Word of the Lord,

“Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness, and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men. A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely 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 bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes are we healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.

As we go into our last song, and as we go out into the world today, may your mind be cast back to the great and terrible cross which the Son of God went to gladly for both you and I. My prayer for you, is that each and every single one of you would know the love of Christ in that while we were yet sinners, bound and destined only for death, Christ died for us, taking into His own body our sin and suffering our death. There are undoubtedly some of you that are out there that look back upon your sin and think “I don’t deserve this, I deserve death. Forgiveness is not something I want, for how could there be enough for me?” Perhaps you’re looking at your sin right now and allowing it to stonewall God calling out to you. My dear friends, I plead with you, Christ pleads with you, all of heaven pleads with you, come home. I speak from experience when I say I know this feeling, the guilt, the painful remorse. Come home, come home to a Father who loves you, to a Savior who died for you. Come home, the altars are open, there will be men waiting at the stairs to pray with you, who join with Christ and myself in pleading for you. Let us pray.

Benediction

A Psalm of David,

“Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your Lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight – That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when you judge. Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.”

Resources:

The Condition of Mankind

I wanna tell you a story, a true story. A story about a young boy turned into a young man, desperately lost and searching for anything that might bring him a shred of pleasure and peace. You see this boy hadn’t been born to Christian parents, but still grew up going to church. He had the same Sunday school lessons taught to him as many of you did, yet when this world came and broke his little world, he couldn’t cope, couldn’t reconcile what he had been taught about God with what he was facing now. He came face to face with death, the cruel sting of it, robbing him of that last shred of childhood. So, what do you suppose went first? His small and ungrown childish faith. He blamed God for everything that had happened in his life, the bullying, the suicide of his cousin who was more like a brother, the at times tumultuous and rocky home life. He blamed God for the evil that he saw within the world, for the evil that was within his fellow man. And where do you think he sought peace?

He sought it in friends, in women, in trouble and unrighteousness. Lying and manipulation were practically a language for him as was anger and rage. After all, these things gave no peace, only a momentary release and distraction from the pain. Each and every death and disaster in his life drove him further and further into that life, a life where the rule of me was the only rule that mattered. A life whose goal was self-sufficiency and self-satisfaction, which viewed others as dispensable and nothing but pawns and means to ends which he set for himself. Fiercely independent, yet ultimately reliant on others for strength and validation. Nothing within him desired after God, or what God deemed and said was righteousness, in fact the only feelings he had towards Him were contempt and hatred. He persecuted those who believed in Him, actively attacking and lambasting the faith of others, seeking to convince them and himself of the truth that he thought he had. He was stuck, bound, slave to his nature, a nature which desired what was against the God he once knew, and yet he didn’t care.

That young boy, that young man, was me. I desired after nothing but what pleased me and what pleased me, what pleased my sinful nature, what pleased my corrupted flesh was unrighteousness. And yet that is precisely what we are talking about today. Sin, more specifically our sin, our sinful nature, the things which from our birth we have been slave to. Before we begin, examining a portion of the Book of Romans, I wanted to open with this truth about my life. What we are talking about today is without a doubt, a very difficult topic to talk about and a very difficult to accept truth. I want you all to know my heart before I begin, a heart that does not judge nor condemn you for a life that you lived or very well may still live in, for I have lived a life of unrighteousness and there are very, very few things that I have not done for me to judge you upon. My brothers and sisters, dear friends and dear strangers, please join me as we turn to Romans 5:12. The Word of the Lord,

“Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

Through just one man, sin came into the world. Who is this one man? Verse 14 tells us outrightly, it’s our forefather Adam. For from him, we inherited a malignant cancer. But what was the mode that we caught this plague, this corruption? Was it from committing sin? Practicing unrighteousness and disobeying God as our forefather Adam did? I assume we all know of David, the man who defeated Goliath, who desired to see God’s kingdom be exalted above all, who followed after God to his end, the declared “man after God’s own heart”. In Psalm 51:5, our man David had this to say,

          “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”

Our paragon of a man, perhaps one of the most virtuous men in all of Scripture, gives us the origin of how we came to inherit sin, not to Genesis as St. Paul did in Romans, but more simply to our births. We were given it, as a cursed inheritance from Adam. We, through no sinful action of our own at the moment of our creation, became accursed and guilty of God’s judgment upon mankind. But this inheritance was not only the guilty verdict of death, but an invasive and malignant cancer that would bind our will and desires to it, to total unrighteousness. In the Gospel of John our Lord Christ said this, Chapter 8 Verse 34,

          “Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.”

And yet as we know from our beginning verse of Romans 5:12, all are guilty of sin. So according to Christ, we are all slave to sin, bound to its will and its way. Yet, it is likely that our understanding of slavery carries an understanding akin to being forced to do what we do not desire to do. Yet this could not be further from the truth! Our sinful and corrupted flesh desires and longs for that sinful and unrighteous release. We serve and served sin gladly and with no knowledge or understanding of a better way! For how could we know, except it was preached unto us, and how could we understand if not for the illumination of the Holy Spirit within us? Perhaps you remain unconvinced. St. Paul, early in the Book of Romans quotes a few Old Testament passages to drive home the unchanging nature of this point. Romans 3:9-12:

“What then? Are we better than they? Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks that they are all under sin. As is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not, one”

Not even God’s own people, the Israelites, can escape this. I want to stress that the sinful nature is not our natural state! We were fashioned by God to be in relationship with Him! Our current nature is not new but the corruption of our original nature! We all find a commonality in our final destructions and destinations, both God’s people and the Gentiles, that’s us, for if we all cannot understand, how can we come to appease and find forgiveness in the eyes of God? It is not by our lives or our works as some might suggest, for we know from the teachings of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew that a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit and a corrupt tree cannot bring forth the good fruit. For as it says in the Book of Isaiah Chapter 64 Verse 6:

          “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;”

Our works are nothing for the judgment that awaits and awaited us. We cannot seek to appease or satisfy the righteous requirements of God placed upon us. Our hands are metaphorically and quite literally tied, bound for our final destination, that is eternal death.

We all, whether we can admit it to ourselves and others or not, have sinned, have fallen short of the glory of God. But not just fallen short, we have all brought upon ourselves the wrath of God. For why shouldn’t He who is holy and perfect in all things, seek righteous judgment upon the sinful ways of the thing which He has dominion and lordship over. I cannot overstress to you enough that we do not deserve mercy, we do not deserve grace, we deserve death. That’s what we deserve, our final destination in our sins. Ephesians 2:1-3 says this:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in what you once walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.”

We who were and are children of wrath deserve exactly the same, yet righteous wrath. For how could we measure up? How could we appease and satisfy requirements that we could not desire?

Application

As we move into the closing, I want to leave you with just a single point of application, something simple, but something that must be accepted if one is to understand anything about what comes next. We, all of us, you, me, everyone outside these walls and doors, are broken. All of us, bound before a holy God at an impossible breaking point, totally and utterly destroyed, enslaved to our sin, a nature that we wish to serve. That’s the application, that truth, that understanding of who we are. For many of us we understand what might be coming next, Who is coming next. But I wanted to spend this morning talking directly about who WE  are. For how can we understand salvation and the One who brings it, if we can’t grapple with, understand, and accept what we were being saved from, that being ourselves and the enemy.

As we leave today, I’m asking you all to do something, something much more hands-on than what we are used to on a Sunday morning. Beneath your seats or in the storage compartments on the back of the pew in front of you is a piece of paper. While this last song plays, I want you to think about your sins, who you were and who you might still be, sins that you have confessed to God, and sins that you may not have. When you’re done, write them down on that piece of paper and fold it however many times you’d like and either leave it in your pews in the same spot you found them, or take them to the offering basket on your way out of the sanctuary. This will remain totally anonymous and no one but God and yourselves will know what you wrote. If you’d rather do this in the privacy of your own home, take a piece home and bring it back next Sunday and when we collect the offering, place it in the basket. I don’t often like to reveal my hand, but these seemingly insignificant pieces of paper are vital for the next sermon. As the worship team begins to play I’d like to read to you our final verse, a verse for us to meditate on as we think on who we are and who we were. From the Book of Isaiah,

“All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Benediction Prayer

A Psalm of David,

“Have mercy upon me, O God, According to Your Lovingkindness; According to the multitude of Your tender mercies, Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight – That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when you judge. Behold I was brought forth in iniquity, and  in sin my mother conceived me. Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me hear joy and gladness, That the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, And blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence…”

Amen