LWLC Wiki

Search this site

Summary: auto-extracted from transcripts

Summary

But we also know of the perfect ruler, the Lord Jesus Christ, that would come, and how Jesus lived the perfect righteous life and how that righteous life would be credited to David. The king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebiusites, the inhabitants of the land, who said to David, you will not come in here, even the blind and the lame will turn you back, thinking, David cannot come in here, nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, which is now the city of David. And it's a great question and I don't know that the answer is going to be appreciated or liked because really that's one of those things where when we have, when we have what we assume to be an encounter with an angel, is there but this is where and I think we talked about this in our first class where if we turn our attention and our focus on an experience, then we are putting our hope faith and trust in an experience. We'll go to Matthew chapter 18, Matthew chapter 18, looking at verse 10, and actually this is we're going to back up, we're going to just go, we're going to start at the beginning of 18 where it says, it says, at that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. If you go to Revelation the first chapter, so it's the last book in the Bible, Revelation first chapter where where Jesus is revealing this to John, we'll look at we'll look at first verse 8 where Jesus tells John, I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty, then let's jump down to 17. Adam and Eve had everything down to the fact that they bore the image of God the idea of not having enough not being enough it wasn't even a question in their mind because they had never experienced lack they had never experienced anything outside of perfection they had never experienced anything outside of the completeness of God and then the devil comes that tricky serpent and whispers into Eve's ear and raises the question of enough in her life the temptation stirs in Eve's heart and she thinks maybe what she has isn't enough maybe there's more look with me please at chapter three beginning in verse six so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they so did leave together and made loincloths for themselves eating fruit seems pretty innocent it's not a huge deal right to eat a fruit why is that really a big deal after all it looked good it seemed like it would be good to Eve was it a big deal yes it was a big deal because God had expressly forbidden it he had expressly forbidden eating of that fruit we like to judge sin and rank it some sins are worse than others some sins not so bad we can joke about it a little bit but sin is sin sin is sin all sin and sin is not determined by how you or I feel about it sin is not determined by whether we want to say something is right or wrong the whole series of acceptable sins with the big question mark it begs the question what sin is acceptable and the answer is a resounding none no sin is acceptable absolutely zero sin is acceptable even if everyone else does it sin is sin sin is wrong and sin earns the full wrath of God the Father Eve sinned when she questioned the word of God and determined for herself what would be right and good she tried to blame the serpent but the guilt lies directly on her shoulders for her own sin and just like Eve just like Eve we sin out of envy Eve envied God his wisdom Eve envied God his authority and his sovereignty and so she determined for herself that what she had the word of God was not enough and she ate of the fruit just like Eve our envy says that we what we have been given by God is not enough whether it is a matter of a material thing that God has blessed us with we see others who have more and we look at our blessing and say it's not enough out of envy we see the spouse of another person and look at our own spouse and say what God has given me in this spouse is not enough we see others who are wiser than us more talented than us more skilled than us funnyer than us and we envy because we are not enough in our envy we delight in the downfall of others when another struggles we take delight when another when another has a mishap we find little glimpses of joy or humor our envy our envy ultimately comes down to the envy we have over our own lives, over our own morality, over our own decisions that we do not hold the authority that we do not hold the ultimate wisdom that we do not hold ultimate sovereignty and we envy God we envy God and we determine for ourselves what is right and what is wrong in our gospel reading today we have that period where pilot is bringing Jesus before the Jewish people and he has a custom to turn over one of the prisoners to the Jewish people to release him and let him go free and surely he's expecting that he'll let Jesus go because as it said he knew that Jesus had been handed over by the chief priests out of envy the chief priests envy Jesus they envied the power that he had they envied the fluence that he had and they sought his downfall they sought his demise we envy God Jesus stood before the crowd in a crown of thorns and they mocked him and called for his crucifixion do you envy God in that moment they beat him and flogged him stripping away pieces of skin do you envy God they marched him through the streets holding across that he could barely carry do you still envy God they nailed him to two pieces of wood do you envy God Jesus hung there on the cross struggling for breath while those around him crucified with him taunted and tormented him the soldiers at the foot of his cross teased him mocked him while his mother and his friends stood by weeping unable to do a thing do you envy God on that cross the entire wrath of the father was poured out so heavily the burden of the sin of this world of all time all places all people thoughts words and deeds the punishment poured out upon the sun so devastating that he called out my God my God why have you forsaken me and he gave up his spirit to death do you still envy God they removed the body and buried it in a tomb Jesus had died if that had been you or I or any person to ever walk this earth the story would end there it would be done and it would be deserved and just but God God is God he is not you or I God in the second person of the Trinity Jesus Christ walked this earth to live the life that you and I cannot live he walked this earth out of his love for you and I so that when he died experiencing the full punishment unjust punishment of the father he could do what neither you nor I could do and he rose victorious he conquered death he conquered the grave he conquered your sin he conquered my sin even the sin of our envy Jesus did for you and for I what we could never do for ourselves or for anyone else from the beginning of your life of faith when you were born through waters of baptism you were born free you were born into salvation you were born into eternal forgiveness and you were born once again in the image of God and as Paul writes in Galatians it is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me and in Christ you come before the father not enough in yourself but you are in Christ and in Christ you are enough because you stand redeemed in Christ and this was planned from before the beginning in Ephesians chapter one Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love he destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ according to the good pleasure of his will to the to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the beloved in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us what you have my brothers and sisters is Christ there is no need to be in Christ you have forgiveness in Christ you have salvation in Christ you have life in Christ and what you have in Christ is enough and so the joy that you have in Christ is enough the peace that you have in Christ is enough the love that you have in Christ is enough and so I encourage you I encourage you to live live in Christ because not only is Christ enough Christ is everything And you open your Bibles, please, with me to the Book of Exodus, the 3rd chapter for our study today for using a Pue edition of Holy Scripture.

Video citations