sermon

The Radical Gospel of Grace

/ nickfjackson / Leave a comment

Currently I am preaching through the book of Galatians.  Below is the transcript of the sermon I preached this last Sunday on Galatians 1:13-16.  The transcript is probably 95% accurate.  It’s what I bring up on stage with me.  The actual conclusion is different then what is written below.   If you would rather listen to the sermon, click here.

The Radical Gospel of Grace

We can boldly share the gospel knowing that God’s grace is so rich and powerful that it saves all who are called by it.

Galatians 1:13-16

3-5-17

  1. Introduction:John Paton (illustration primarily comes from John Piper’s book: Filling up the Afflictions of Christ.)
  2. 1606 eighty islands in south pacific were discovered.
  3. In 1773 the Islands were explored by Captain James cook and named New Hebrides (because they were similar to the Hebrides Islands of the NW coast of Scotland.
  4. The chain of islands is 450 miles long.
  5. If you draw a line from Honolulu to Sydney Australia it will cut through Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu.
  6. Today the population is 215,000
  7. John Williams and John Harris came as missionaries in 1839 to these islands.  They were killed and eaten within minutes of landing on on the island.
  8. In 1842 another team of missionaries arrived and were driven away in 7 months.
  9. John Paton at age 33, on November 5th, went with his wife from Scotland to the Island of Tanna.
  10. John Paton, before leaving, had led a very fruitful ministry in Glasgow where he helped those of lower-income with great success.  Many in fact tried to discourage him because his ministry was so successful.  But he was determined.
  11. One, Mr. Dickson was especially against John.  This is how He replied to him,
    1. “Mr. Dickson, you are advanced in years now, and your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by Cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my Resurrection body will raise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer.” (58, Piper)
  12. In March the next year his wife and newborn son died of the fever.
  13. He served on the island for another 4 years under constant danger until he was driven off the island in 1862.
  14. He married again and in 1864 took his new wife Margaret to an island called Aniwa on Nov. 1866.
  15. This is how he described the people,
    1. The native people were cannibals and occasionally ate the flesh of their defeated foes.  They practiced infanticide and widow sacrifice, killing the widows of deceased men so they could serve their husbands in the next world.
  16. For the next 15 years John learned the language, built orphanages and loved on the people in Aniwa.  And the end of his ministry he saw the entire island come to faith in Christ.
  17. John Paton had left certainty for uncertainty.  He was leaving a place where he had been very successful to go to a place in which he might fail to be useful.
  18. What causes a man to leave all that he has and risk the life of his family to go live with cannibals? What causes a man to leave a successful ministry where he is respected to be with a people who would like to kill him. Today we are going to see the answer.  And the answer is the radical grace of God.

Read Galatians 1:13-16

  1. Life Outside of Christ
    1. Description of Paul
    2. In verses 13-14 we are given a description of Paul before he came to faith in Jesus Christ.  Paul hated the church.  He persecuted the church violently.  The word violent means “extremely more than necessary.”  Paul savagely attacked Christians.  In Acts we read that he arrested men, women, and children.  Paul was like a bull that had red in his eyes.  He didn’t just want to cripple Christianity, but he wanted to destroy it, he wanted to kill and bury every christian.  And there was none more zealous than he.  In verse 14 he said he was advancing beyond all those who were his age.
    3. In 1 Tim 1:13 when Paul looks back on his unsaved self he said he was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent.
    4. Here’s the point: Paul hated Christianity.  There is no arguing him into heaven.  He will not be reasoned with. He’s the one that if you bring up Jesus he will begin railing on how dumb you are for holding to such pathetic beliefs. Paul’s heart is like granite, it is impenetrable to Christianity.  Not even a wrecking ball could dent his determination to persecute the church and put an end to faith in Jesus.
    5. Transition: What we have here is a picture of Paul’s spiritual condition.  And guess what?  It’s a picture of yours and and mine also.  We might not have been as fanatical as Paul or as outwardly rebellious as Paul but the Bible says our hearts were just as hard and dead as Paul’s
  2. Description of Humanity
    1. Jeremiah 17:9
      1. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it
    2. Romans 8:7–8 
      1. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
    3. Ephesians 2:1–3 
      1. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
    4. 1 Corinthians 2:14 
      1. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
    5. Here’s the point: we are all born rebellious.  We are all born determined to to hate Christ.  We are all born resistant to the grace of God.  No one can be argued into heaven.  If salvation is up to you and me then we are without hope.  If salvation is tied to yours and my ability to convince people of the gospel then we have no greater chance in saving people as we do going to the cemetery down the street and calling people to come out of their coffins.  We can yank and pull and drag people into the church to hear the gospel, but we have no power to save.
    6. So if we have no ability to save our selves or others, then what hope do we have?  How was it that Paul was saved?  How was it that John Paton saw an island full of cannibals transformed into believers of Jesus Christ?
    7. It’s grace.  All grace.  In Galatians 1:4 Paul said, Jesus came to “deliver us from the present evil age.”  Paul, the New Hebrides, you, me, we’re all saved by grace.  And that’s what we are going to look at verses 15-16.
  3. Saved to be in Christ
    1. Description of salvation.
      1. As we look at these verses notice how the pronouns change.  In verses 13-14 the primary pronoun is “i”, referring to Paul.  But in verses 15-16 the pronouns have changed to “He” and “His” referring to God.  Salvation is an act of God’s grace, for only God has the power to save. So while Paul described his sinful life from his point of view, we are now going to view His salvation from God’s view.
      2. Grace Chooses.
        1. First thing we see is that God has “set apart” Paul before he was even born.  To be “set apart” means to mark.  Paul says something very similar in Ephesians 1:4, “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.”
        2. God’s plan of salvation reaches back before creation. God has chosen those whom will be saved. To some that might sound strange. But omniscience and sovereignty are meant to comfort us not frighten us.  In Psalm 139:15-16 we are told,
          1. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
        3. There is nothing that our God does not know.  He knows us before we were born.  He planned our days.  And He determined in the depths of time those who would be saved.  Here’s a text from Jeremiah 1:5, notice the role of God
          1. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
          2. God chose in the depths of time to create Jeremiah for the purpose of sending him to the nations as a prophet.
        4. Look at how 2 Timothy 1:9 describes our salvation:
          1. who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
        5. Paul says we have been shown grace in Christ before the ages began.
        6. I know these texts raise many questions, but the purpose of them is to draw our eyes to the majesty of the God who saves.  We have a God who is unlike man, powerful, all-knowing, Creator of all things, and He is the one who saves. And He marks us before we are born, before we have done any works, so that we would know that in no way have we earned our salvation but that it solely comes from God’s grace.
      3. Grace Calls
        1. The word “called” means to summon.  And what we see is that all who are marked by God are called to be saved. This summoning is not like a King sending his soldiers to trap and arrest an individual forcing them to come to him.  Nor is like when one of my kids tells the other, “dad’s calling you and in you’re in trouble.”  For when the child comes in that way they do so out reluctance, not joy.
        2. To be called by God is to be made new, meaning we have been given a new heart with a new mind with new desires that now long to run to God, to please God, to obey God and worship Him.
        3. When God calls us, we go from death to life.  Just as when God spoke creation out of nothing in Genesis, so when He calls us, He speaks life into our dead hard hearts.  Wrecking balls cannot dent our heart but God’s grace melts and makes them new. This is how Paul describes our salvation in Ephesians 2:5
          1. even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
        4. It’s the grace of God that saved Paul, and the grace of God gave you life.
        5. Now this coming to life, this salvation looks different in every person.  Just as every snowflake is unique, so also is every salvation.
        6. Stephen Smallman said that the new birth we experience in Jesus is like the whole gestation process of a pregnancy.  The labor pains of some people are long and pronounced, possibly lasting for years.  Others, the gestation period is short.  What this means is that some people hear the gospel for a long time and wrestle with it over months or years before finally trusting in Christ.  Others, like Paul seem to have a dramatic experience in which they quickly come to faith in Christ.  Some people easily point to the time they know they were saved.  For others it’s hazy because it appears to have happened over a period of time.
        7. John Paton said this, “Truly there is only one way of regeneration, being born again by the power of the Spirit of God, the new heart; but there are many ways of conversion, of outwardly turning to the Lord, of taking the actual first step that shows on whose side we are.  Regeneration is the sole work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart and soul, and is in every case one and the same.  Conversion, on the other hand, brining into play the action also of the human will, is never absolutely the same perhaps in even two souls–as like and yet as different as are the face of men.” (pg.214-215, What about Free Will).
        8. Let’s just step back from a moment and make sure we understand the point.  All whom God calls are saved and experience new life.  Some come quickly and some slowly but they all come.
        9. It’s this truth that gives us confidence to share the gospel with others. You see you are not responsible to save, that’s God’s job. And we need not lose hope or be discouraged when some seem resistant or even violent. For God changes some quickly and some slowly. But all whom God calls are saved.
        10. It’s this truth that has caused men and women for centuries to leave their comfortable lives to share the gospel in other parts of the world knowing that God will save. It’s this truth that frees us to share the gospel with our professing atheist friends knowing that God’s radical grace can melt their hearts.
        11.   It’s this truth that gives us such great confidence that as we share the gospel, there will be people saved.  And it’s this truth that comforts us when we mess up. Have you ever walked away from a gospel presentation thinking, “I should have said this”. Remember it’s God who saves. He perfectly uses our imperfections as a means to saving others.
        12. Know this, there is no one who can resist the call of God.  We all know those people who appear to be running from the gospel at full speed.  You mention Christ and they start sprinting.  If salvation was left to us, there would be no hope for them. But because of this radical grace that we have in the gospel, we confidently pursue them, praying for them, loving them, knowing that God’s grace can make their hearts new.
        13. It’s this radical grace that saved Paul when he was bent on not being saved.
        14. It’s this radical grace that propelled John Paton to leave Glasgow to go live with cannibals.  It’s this grace that sustained him as he lost his wife and son.  It’s this grace that compelled him to return to the islands with his new wife and preach the gospel for 15 years until the entire island came to know Jesus.  John Paton was not trusting in his efforts but He was trusting in the radical grace of God.
    2. Grace Delights
      1. In verse 16 we see that God was pleased to reveal His Son to Paul. God loves to shine His grace in the darkness of hearts that we would see Him and love Him.  Know this, God takes great delight in your salvation.
      2. Just as we don’t come kicking and screaming into the Kingdom of God, neither does God kick and scream as He saves us.  You see, He doesn’t save us because He owes and or is in debt to us.  He simply saves us out of delight.  This is grace: God freely saving us out His good pleasure.
      3. And God so delights in showing us grace that he doesn’t stop once we are saved. Ephesians 2:7 says,
        1. so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
      4. God will never cease to pour His rich abundant grace upon you.  When a million years of being with God has passed, His bucket of grace will not be any closer to running out than when He began.  God’s grace never ceases.
      5. If you are here today as believer in Jesus Christ, then know that God takes great delight in your salvation.  You are a work of God’s grace.
    3. Grace Purposes
      1. And lastly we see that those whom God saves He does so for a purpose.  God saved Paul so that He would take the gospel to the Gentiles.  God reveals His Son to us so that we would be saved and be used to reveal His Son to others.
      2. Ephesians 2:10 says,
        1. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
        2. The grace that saves you is the grace that is working in you right now that you would be used by God. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Esther Job, Ruth, Boaz, Solomon, Paul, Peter, John, Andrew, James, Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, Priscilla, Aquilla all of these and every believer have been called for a purpose.
        3. You have been raised from the dead, given new life in Christ, the Spirit now dwells in you right now that you would be used as an instrument of God for His glory.  You might be feel unqualified or insufficient.  But let me encourage you, the same grace that was sufficient to bring life into your soul will equip you for every good work God calls you into.  Because of God’s grace, Paul who once hated Gentiles is now devoted to sharing the gospel with them.
      3. Illustration: One time John Paton was surrounded by raging natives acting as though they might kill him.  This is what he said,
        1. “My heart rose up to the Lord Jesus; I saw Him watching all the scene.  My peace came back to me like a wave from God.  I realized that I was immortal till my Master’s work with me was done.  The assurance came to me, as if a voice out of Heaven had spoken, that not a musket would be fired to wound us, not a club prevail to strike us, not a spear leave the hand in which it was held vibrating to be thrown, not an arrow leave the bow, or a killing stone the fingers, without the permission of Jesus Christ, whose is all power in Heaven and on Earth.” (75, Piper)
      4. You, right now by God’s grace share in the very divine nature of God.  You are a missionary and a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you are in the words of John Paton, “immortal” until God calls you home.  God determined to save you and He is determined to use you.  You are called to demonstrate the love of Christ and to share the good news of grace of Christ.
      5. That might mean you pack your bags like John Paton, leaving all that you have in order to go share the gospel with unbelievers.
      6. It might mean you are a Father and husband who regularly shepherds his family on how to love God.
      7. It might mean you are a single working mom relying upon God’s grace to take care of your family and to show your children the joy that God gives.
      8. It might mean you are retired and able to volunteer in your neighborhood or here with the church regularly showing others the love of God.
      9. It might mean you take your coworkers to coffee that you would share the gospel and begin doing a bible study with them.
      10. It might mean you share the gospel at work risking your job for the sake of another’s salvation.
      11. It might mean you go to school boldly sharing the gospel with your friends which results in you being and labeled the christian kid.
      12. It might mean you are a wife and mother showing the tender mercies of God to your children as your serve them and show them the beauty of submitting to your husband.
      13. Bottom line: God’s saved you by grace so that by grace you would be used by Him.
  4. Conclusion:
    1. Our mission at Timberline and really the mission of every church is to make disciples who make disciples. And we can do it. But not because of our strength or how persuasive we are.  We can make disciples because we are armed with the the radical grace of God. The gospel of grace can melt the most brazen of hearts, it can move the most resistant of wills.
    2. Let us leave her today prepared to share the gospel with our neighbors, with our co-workers, with family members. And let’s be praying that we would be willing to leave the comforts of our home at any moment to move and share the gospel with other people groups.
    3. And let us never forget, we have a God who loves to reveal His radical grace. And all who are called by God are saved.
    4. Pray for unbelievers. 

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

/ nickfjackson / 2 Comments

baby photoThis last week I preached on Psalm 139 and specifically how it applies to the way the church views, thinks, and responds to abortion.  There were some technical difficulties with the audio so I thought I would make the transcript available.  Below is the sermon I preached.  While it is not word for word, it is pretty close (also please ignore all spelling and punctuation errors, this was not written for publishing purposes).  Please leave any comments, I would love to hear you thoughts.

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

Grasping the beautiful and magnificent knowledge of God produces wonder and worship.

Psalm 139

8-16-15

Introduction

Today is our last Sunday to be in the Psalms.  And so because of what’s been happening in the media with planned parenthood and abortion I chose Psalm 139.  I had picked up a book a few months ago called, Counter Culture, by David Platt.  It’s a great book that looks at many hot topics of today and shows how the gospel ought to affect the way we think and act.  His chapter on abortion had me convicted within the first two sentences.  He wrote, “Shamefully silent and Appallingly passive.  These are the words that come to mind when I consider my approach to the issue of abortion for the majority of my life as a Christian and my ministry as a pastor” (57, Platt).

Here’s why I relate. I have served full time as a pastor for about 12 years.  I have only preached a handful of messages on God’s love for the unborn child.  And in only a few conversations have I shared my thoughts on abortion.  I have minimally tried to equip and engage the church in how to think and respond to this issue.  And as I watched the horrific youtube videos on Planned parenthood I was reminded of the startling numbers of abortion in America and I couldn’t help but agree, I have been “shamefully silent and appallingly passive”.

I want to take a few moments to give a few facts regarding abortion.  I give these so you might be informed and/or reminded of what is happening here in America.

  • There are 42 million abortions that occur every year in the world..
  • That is 115,000 abortions everyday
  • Conservative estimates are that ⅓ of women will have an abortion at some point in their lives.

It is easy to see how some have labeled abortion as a modern day holocaust.  And that is said in no way to undermine the horror of the Jewish holocaust where 6 million Jews died.  But we cannot glaze over the truth that 42 million babies are killed every year.

In a blog article by Ann VosKamp who is an author and prolific blogger, she writes, 

“In 2012, New York City had more black babies killed by abortions (31,328) than there were born (24,758).  Sit with that. That number of black babies accounted for almost half of all abortions in New York City. More blacks aborted than were born. Three American university researchers discovered that Planned Parenthood’s “primary consideration in placement of centers is not poverty but the percentage of blacks in the area.”

Does that not make you sick to your stomach?  VosKamp continues to write, “History, genocides, Nazism, racism, haven’t they all proved at the very least this to humanity: It’s when we dehumanize anyone, that we can legitimize anything.” 

And central to abortion is the the dehumanizing of babies.  

At this moment you might be saying, that’s some strong language.  Do we really need to take like that?

Illustration: Let me read an article to you written my Mary Elizabeth Williams back in January 23, 2013.  She is wildly prochoice and she titled her article, “So What If Abortion Ends Life.”

“Yet i know throughout my own pregnancies, I never wavered for a moment in the belief that I was carrying a human life inside of me.  I believe that’s what a fetus is: a human life.  And that doesn’t make me one iota less solidly pro-choice.”

Her rational:

“Here’s the complicated reality in which we all live: All life is not equal. That’s a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about, lest we wind up looking like death-panel loving, kill-your-grandma-and-your-baby-storm troopers. Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides.  She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.”

Do you hear that?  She openly admits that abortion is murder and she justifies it by convenience, by asserting her rights over a baby’s rights.  Matt Chandler, a pastor in Texas wrote, “That sounds like Nazi Germany excrement to me” and I couldn’t agree more (http://qpolitical.com/they-asked-this-pastor-is-abortion-murder-his-response-gave-me-chills/).

We live in a day an age that we can justify murder on the basis of convenience.  And there are blogs and websites now dedicated to making women feel better about their choice to abort.

In August, Lelya Josephine shared a now viral video for her slam poem “I think She Was A She.” She imagines her aborted child “would’ve looked exactly like me,” with full cheeks, hazel eyes, and thick brown hair. And yet, she defends the killing: “I would have died for that right like she died for mine.  I’m sorry but you came at the wrong time.  I’m not ashamed…When I become a mother, it will be when I choose” (world magazine, January 2015, 46).    Do you see how abortion turns us into God? I will become a mom when I want to be a mom and I will take any babies life that threatens my plans or identity.

So how are we the church to respond?  Are we to picket planned parenthood centers?  Are we to sign petitions?  What do we do?  As Christians our first priority is to ask what do we know about God and how does that inform the way we think about abortion?  And then secondly we need to see how our understanding of the gospel will affect how we think and act regarding abortion.

Transition: So let’s begin with what we know about God and for that we will turn to Psalm 139.  Now you might be thinking, how does our view of God affect abortion.  After all, isn’t’ theology just a lot of head knowledge?  Unfortunately theology (meaning our view of God) has often been divorced from our feelings and actions.  But what we see in Scripture is that an accurate view of God will inform how we think, how we feel, and how we act. So with that, let us read Psalm 139

Read Psalm 139 and Pray

  1. This chapter is broken in to four 6 verse sections.  The running theme throughout this chapter is the omniscience of God, meaning He knows everything.  But in addition to His perfect knowledge, we will see 2 other essential attributes that are related to His knowledge.  As we move through this text, I want you to consider David’s description of God and his response to who God is.
  2. Verses 1-6 God’s knowledge is all-inclusive.
    1. In verse 1, David affirms that God fully knows him.  He knows everything that David does. In verse 2, we see God knows whether he sits or rises.  God also knows every thought that David has.  We read that God discerns his thoughts from afar.  Meaning, God knows Davids thoughts long before David knows his thoughts.  In verse 5, David says, God hems him in.  Here God is pictured like a blanket surrounding all of David.  The point is that God’s knowledge of us is all-inclusive.  There is nothing that God does not know.
    2. Now this knowledge that God has is not to be thought of in the same sense as George Orwell’s Novel, titled 1984.  In the novel, Big Brother is like this fictional character or symbol within a totalitarian state, called Oceania.  The citizens are regularly reminded that they are under constant surveillance, Big Brother sees everything.  The result was fear and chaos. But look here in verse 6.  David praises God.  He says, your knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.  David is not filled with fear or anger.  He does not feel somehow violated.  But rather he is in humble awe of God.  You get the sense that David falls to his knees in awe and wonder at the awesome all-inclusive knowledge of God.
    3. So this is our first foundational stone.  God is omniscient (all-knowing).
    4. Transition: Now let’s look at the next attribute of God.
  3. Verses 7-12 God’s presence is all-encompassing
    1. In these verses we see that there is no where we can go to escape the presence of God.  In verse 7, it reads, “where shall I go from Your Spirit?  Or where shall I flee from your presence?”  In verses 8-12 David says he can go up or down go from the east to the west (that’s what it means when he says, “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea”).  Or he can even go and cover himself in absolute darkness and there still God is with him.  There is no hiding from God.  There is no place in which God is not with you.
    2. Illustration of Jonah:
      1. If you remember the story of Jonah.  God told Jonah to go to Nineveh but instead Jonah fled to Tarshish.  Did Jonah get away from God?  No, God was still there and in fact God was even with Jonah in the belly of the fish.  There is no where in all creation that we can go in which God will not be with us also.
    3. Do you know that?  Do you know that God is with you?  Do you know that you are not alone?  Listen, you may right now feel all alone.  You might feel like nobody knows, understands you, or loves you.  But the truth is, God knows you.  In fact He knows you better than you know yourself.  And He is with you.  You are not alone.
    4. Transition: And to illustrate that God knows us and is always with us we look at verses 13-18.  In these verses we come to the third section of this Psalm where we see some of the most beautiful, rich, and intimate words in all scripture.  I want to read them one more time.  READ VERSES 13-18.
    5. Here we see that in the darkness of a mother’s womb God is there.  And what is God doing?  He is actively working.  He is forming and knitting the child.   We see that…
  4. God’s creative power is life-giving. (v.13-18) 
    1. God creates life in the womb.  In verse 15 we see that God know’s our frame before we are even formed.  And in verse 16, God sees our unformed substance. And we even read that God has a book and before we are formed or born, God has written out our days.
    2. Now let’s just step back for a moment.  Here we have and infinitely huge God,  A God who whose knowledge is all-inclusive, who presence is all-encompassing, and whose creative power is life-giving, and yet He is personally involved in the forming of every child and establishing their days.
    3. And so what is David’s response? Praise and Adoration.  In verse 14, he cries out, “I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.”  David’s response to the hugeness of God and also His most intimate involvement in our formation is praise.  What we see here is that proper response to who God is and how He is involved in our lives from even before we are formed is praise and adoration.
    4. So what does Abortion do to this truth?
      1. Now I want to take a moment and look at how abortion denies the truth’s we see here in Psalm 139.
      2. Abortion denies the activity and intimacy of God in the womb
        1. God is the who is creating life through the act of a sperm and egg coming together.  Abortion often treats pregnancy as an accident, a mistake, an inconvenience, but what we see here it is a divine act of God that He is personally involved in.(v.13)
      3. Abortion denies that the child in the womb is fearfully and wonderfully made.  In verse 14, David says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  You don’t destroy that which is wonderful.  You destroy that which is accidental, which is horrible, which is not important, which is irrelevant.  Which is exactly what we saw in the words of Mary Elizabeth Williams when she said her rights were more important than the life of a baby.
      4. Now some people attempt to say that the baby, especially in the first trimester is simply just tissue. But that is a foolish and unsubstantiated argument.  It is universally accepted and taught in academic textbooks that the zygote, which is a fertilized egg is the beginning of life.  In fact one abortion doctor said, “I know that we are killing children.”… “It’s simply a matter of justice for women. It would be a greater evil to deny women the equal right of reproductive freedom” (http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/we-know-they-are-killing-children-all-of-us-know).  What he means is that because men can have the option of being a dad or not, shouldn’t mom’s also?  While David is moved to praise and worship because of God’s involvement with a child in the womb, abortion exalts the right of the women and diminishes and/or denies the works of God and justifies the killing of a life.  To make a dark picture even more horrendous,  A pediatric geneticist at Boston Children’s Hospital reported that “and estimated 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies.”  Let me unpack that for a moment.  Our medical community says, if you have down syndrome you are not fearfully and wonderfully made.  You are a mistake.  You are a financial hardship.  And that is a blatant outright lie and blasphemous of God’s Word.  Every child God makes is fearfully and wonderfully made.
      5. Illustration: of blind man
        1. I am going through the Gospel of John right with Isaac.  And this last week we read chapter 9 which is about a man born blind who then was healed by Jesus.  And when asked why this man was born blind, this is what Jesus said, “it was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in Him” (Jn 9:3). God created this man that through His blindness God’s glory might be made known.  God loves to use what is considered insignificant or even foolish for his glory.  Isn’t that the gospel?  Through the death of Jesus Christ at the cross, what many considered to be proof that Jesus was not the son of God, is the very means in which we are saved and forgiven. Let us not think that we are in a position to judge and determine who has value and who does not.  Every child is fearfully and wonderfully made.
      6. Abortion denies the sovereign actions of God.  Abortion says that we are in charge of who is born and who is not born.  Abortion attempts to make us the giver of life and not God. God might be the author of a book with our days written in them, but abortion says, we are the publisher and we choose to either accept or reject his book.
      7. There are many other things we could say here.  But I hope you see that our theology of God is of the upmost importance in determining how we are to think and act.
    5. And in the last section of Psalm 139 we see that David experienced and inward and outward response to his understanding of who God is and what He has done. And both of these responses are linked by a hatred of sin.
  5. Accurate theology will always produce humility before God and animosity of sin. 
    1. In verses 19-22 David is asking God to judge those who reject Him.  David is asking for God to judge those who deny His knowledge, His presence, and His creative power.  The more we know God the more our hearts and minds are made like His.  That is why in verse 21, David says, “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?”  The reason David says this is because he knows that those who reject and deny God are committing the highest of crimes. They are sinning against the Most High God, the very one who made them in the womb.
    2. And in verses 23-24 we see David not only looks at others but he looks at his own life and he says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart!  Try me and know my thoughts!  And see if there by any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” The more we know God, the more aware we become of our own sin, and the more we will ask God to reveal our sin that we might repent of it and that He would lead us into “the way everlasting.”  So what I want to do as we close, I want to ask based upon who God is what He has done for us through Jesus Christ (meaning the gospel), how are we to respond to abortion.
  6. Application for how we respond to abortion:
    1. We must Repent.  I began this sermon by saying that I have been “shamefully silent and appallingly passive.”  I have not hated the things that God has hated.  I say that because while my words may condemn abortion my actions have done nothing to stop it. Can we as the church be passive when a 115,000 babies are murdered everyday and that’s just here in America, we haven’t even looked at abortion in other countries?
    2. We must be known by our love.
      1. We will not overcome abortion by simply yelling louder than the other people, although we should speak.  We will not overcome abortion by simply picketing planned parenthood, although we should at times make a public stand. We will not overcome abortion by simply knowing more facts, although we do need to be educated.
      2. We will overcome abortion when we the church love the mothers and the babies to such an extent that we welcome the changes to our lives that it will require to help them. When Jesus came, He left heaven, He became the son of a carpenter, He was beaten, spat upon, and crucified.  His love for His Father and us is what brought him to earth and ultimately the cross.  And this is how we are to love.
      3. There are many women who will have an abortion who readily know they are killing a baby.  But there are also those who will have an abortion out of fear.
      4. IN Ann VosKamp’s blog she wrote, “Abortion isn’t so much about a woman having a choice — but a woman feeling like she has no choice at all. Sheer terror can make people feel like all they have is terrible choices.”  No choice.  Are we willing to accept that there are women who will have their babies killed because they are so scared they don’t have a choice?
        1. What if we the church became known as the place women could turn to?
        2. What if we told these women who are scared that we will walk with them through their pregnancy?
        3. What if we helped them raise their child?
        4. What if they still were not sure or able to raise the baby, we adopted the baby.
      5. Throughout God’s Word we see Him looking after and protecting the orphans and widows.  He loves to help those who are outcasts and have no choice.  And because of our faith in Jesus we become the body of Christ and therefore it is through the church that God will meet the need of those who are outcasted.
      6. Now what about when the woman says, but I was raped, if I have this baby I will be continually reminded of that horrific event.  Let’s walk with them through the pregnancy and birth, let’s counsel them, and let’s tell them that God specializes in turning the horrible into something beautiful.  That’s the gospel. The most horrific event in history, the crucifixion of the Son of God is also the most glorious event in all of history where man can be saved and forgiven.  Let’s also tell the the amazing truths of God.  We let them know that God sees them and is with them.  We let them know that what is happening in their bodies is a divine act of God, and the baby is fearfully and wonderfully made.
      7. Listen, we are the church. That means we are the body of Christ, the very hands and feet of Jesus.  And we have been given the blessing, the privilege, the opportunity to love others as He has loved us.
      8. Now you may be here today and you have had an abortion.  I in no way want to minimize your pain or act like I know why or how you made your decision.  But I do want you to know there is forgiveness in Jesus.  In Jesus you have hope.  Jesus came and died so that our sins, our rebellious acts, would be forgiven if we believe in Him.  So I want you to know the cross of Jesus is sufficient to cover you in grace.  I want to urge you to share your story with me, one of our elders or another believer so that we would be able to pray with you, to come alongside you and help you.
      9. But for those who do not repent.  For those doctors who think they can take life each day and not be judged.  For those women who think their right to their freedom is greater than their babies right to live.  For our political officials who think they can advocate the killing of babies, there is a day of judgment coming.  In verse 19, David cries out to God, Slay the wicked, O God!”  Our hope is that through our acts of love abortions can be decreased.  But, one thing for sure the day of abortions is coming to an end.
      10. So I ask you, i beg and plead with you, do not be “Shamefully silent or appallingly passive.  Let us be filled with love and compassion for women and their babies.  Let us proactively go and look for women who are scared, who are making choices more out of convenience then for the life inside of them.  And let’s not just focus on women but let’s focus on men.  Let’s help men understand the consequence of sex and their role as a father.  Let’s come along side men and pray with them and let them know we will help them become good husbands and fathers.    In order to do that it will take time and developing relationships.
      11. Let us be known for more than just words, but for our love and compassion.  Let us dig deep into the treasure chest of God’s Word that we would love what He loves and hate what He hates. And let’s worship the God who knows us, is with us, and because of His creative power we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Not the same sermon

/ nickfjackson / Leave a comment

Quick warning: Luke 6:12-49 is not the same sermon as Matthew 5-7.   

  1. Matthew devotes 3 long chapters where Luke is only one.
  2. Matthew records 9 beatitudes where Luke only records 4.
  3. Luke includes woe’s where Matthew does not at all.
  4. Matthew is written more in third person (they) where Luke is more personal in second person (you).
  5. In Matthew, Jesus goes up a mountain to teach, but in Luke, Jesus comes down to a level place in order to teach.

The above 5 points are only a few of the many difference between Luke and Matthew.  I point this out to simply say, we cannot read Luke and automatically think we know what it means because we read Matthew.  The gospel writers are different.  They have different purposes. What we discover here in Luke is that, while both sermons have overlapping content there are enough difference causing us to conclude they are different.