Speaker 1: 0:13

Thanks be to God. Thank you, elsie. All right, so that's our scripture for today. We are in Matthew 22. We've been walking through the slow journey. We actually started the gospel, according to Matthew, in August, I think 21st of 2021. So we are in chapter 22. Welcome. If you haven't been with us, you're going to hop right in.

Speaker 1: 0:33

We're just going verse by verse, talking about just what it says in the New Testament, which is really just the biography of Jesus, his life, his mission, what he said, who he was and who God is. And then we're in the last days before the crucifixion and then the resurrection, which is why we all gather here today, on Sundays. So in chapter 22, we're beginning these three controversies, these three pushbacks to Jesus, these challenges where people come up ideologically and philosophically or theologically, they challenge him economically or even politically and raise these questions that Jesus has to work through and has to figure out. These three stories that we're gonna start to unpack, of the first today, where these crowds gather around and try to trap him. So today is the first one, starting in chapter 22, verse 15. Starts out like this Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words.

Speaker 1: 1:37

They sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians. So quickly, let's just paint the picture of who these characters are in this story. So you have the Pharisees. These are the religious scribes who prided themselves on promoting God's law. They taught in local synagogues, which are like churches of those days, and they kept this stern watch on who was following their customs and their traditions. But it was. The rules were a perversion of like God's law, and it was to serve their own selves, to their own ends. And the Pharisees used their authority over these people and rules to twist the goodness of God's law to their own advantage and to the detriment of actually those that they were supposed to be serving. And so the Pharisees they were actually really disturbed by Jesus's teachings and his miracles because he didn't necessarily follow their rules. In fact, you see quite a few encounters where they're trying to be, you know, like the rules. In fact, you see quite a few encounters where they're trying to be, you know, like the mall cops and, like you know, enforce the rules and saying, hey, you can't do that. And oftentimes, when they confronted Jesus about this, he would rebuke them and at times even they would find themselves being humiliated because they were upside down in their thinking and the way they were supposed to be caring for and loving other people, and so the Pharisees, like hated Jesus for this. They were very challenged by him. They were also very afraid of him because people there's large crowds now that considered him a prophet and were giving him a lot of authority, and so this made it really difficult for them to get rid of him, to get rid of this increasingly popular Jesus while not losing the good opinion of the masses. And so Jesus was this massive threat to them and their way of life and living and their you know, their ability to just rule over people. And so what they do? They plotted together how they might trap him in what he publicly said, and so then they hoped that they would actually catch him in this saying something that they could use against him, so then they could deliver him over to Pilate, the Roman governor, and then they could deal with him. And they recognized, though, that Jesus, he was really difficult to trap.

Speaker 1: 3:55

I don't know if you've ever been caught in a trap, or maybe you've even yourself tried to trap. I don't know if you've ever been caught in a trap, or maybe you've even yourself tried to trap somebody, anybody here, where you've tried to like catch somebody in something. I know this is a safe place. I'm going to share a little bit of my own trapping story. We're a grace-filled community. It says it on the wall out there, so we actually practice that. So this is a parenting moment.

Speaker 1: 4:20

My oldest son, malachi, I was like having difficulty figuring out you know, like, what consequences look like to your actions and like you know, course, correct, all this stuff, right, all this stuff you read in books. And so, like he had no emotional attachment to anything. So I'm like trying to figure out, like, hey, there's consequences to your actions. And so I'm trying to figure out, like, what to take away that he has a distance from. And so I couldn't figure out. So I went up into his room and I like I set the trap. I'm like, hey, malachi, let's play with some of your toys, right? Like you love Legos, let's play with the best Legos you have, like. And then so I like set it up. I'm like what's your favorite toy, like, what's your favorite Lego? And he like saw the trap and all of a sudden he just paused and looked at me and he goes I don't have any favorites. And I was like so annoyed I'm like, yeah, you do you 100% have favorites? Like, no, you have a favorites and he's like everything's dead to me, like it doesn't matter, and I'm like I'm taking everything away, right, like it was. He saw the trap coming. Right, there's a trap. So now some of you guys are going like he's a pastor, right, like why would you do this to a kid? Others of you in the room are really great, you're super gracious. You're like, oh, he needs Jesus too, right, so it's good, safe place, remember. Okay, so they knew he would likely be on guard.

Speaker 1: 5:36

If the Pharisees themselves were present, they may have even suspected that he might refuse to answer their question, because just earlier they had questioned Jesus about John the Baptist and he refused to answer this question. So it says in verse 16 that they sent some of their disciples to trap him. So not even them. Luke in the Gospel of Luke actually records that the Pharisees sent spies who pretended to be righteous. So this suggested these disciples of the Pharisees that were dressed like in normal, everyday Jewish attire, not their like religiously affiliated attire, so they would look different. They might even dress as though they were poor to coax Jesus into saying something that would please the crowd and anger Rome. The gospel according to Matthew and then also the gospel in Mark detail that the Pharisees sent their spies or their disciples along then with another characters, which is this is the Herodians.

Speaker 1: 6:36

So who are the Herodians? They're kind of like the political power people of the time. They were in King Herod's camp and they were also planted there to keep a sharp eye to see if what Jesus or really anyone else said whiffed of anything that was anti-Rome or anti-Caesar. And so you have these religious power people and then you have these political power people of the time all coming together and they approach Jesus really with honor and they start up and they say teacher, or that word then would have even been like rabbi. So honor and respect. They said we know that you're a man of integrity and you teach the ways of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by others because you pay no attention to who they are. So I love this, like right off the bat. They're just like buttering them up right. Have you ever had that where you're just like saying, like Malachi, you love Legos, like you're the best at Legos, you don't even need instructions for Legos. You just see Legos and you create, like you're the best at this, right? So these guys are like setting them up and then they're going to like turn on them, which, by the way, this is awful, we love to do this. We do this all the time to each other Like we just set people up so we can turn on. That's what they do Like, if you ever experienced that, somebody would be like oh man, what a nice day, isn't the weather beautiful?

Speaker 1: 7:54

And I'm like, yes, I love this time of the year. Next thing, you know, our conversation about the weather has turned into like a trap about climate change. And they're like why do you drive a diesel truck? And I'm like, what, what happened? Like, why are you? I was talking about the weather. Like I can't even have a conversation, I'm getting trapped.

Speaker 1: 8:11

And it's like how did we even get Jesus? You're so truthful and you don't care about men's opinions, about anything. You're going to tell us the truth to this deep question. So here's the question, verse 17. Tell us, then, your opinion is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not? So pause, right in this moment, I'm going to give you a real quick, brief historical context, because this happened back in the first century. There's things that are taking place that we're just absent-minded of. That I think has a little bit of implications in this specific story.

Speaker 1: 8:49

So here, just quick historical context, there was a guy about 25 years before this time of Jesus' life, for this time of Jesus's life, back around 6 AD or so, when this tax was created, and this guy, his name, was Judas the Galilean, and what he did was he hated the fact that Rome had now started this poll tax, which is what this question at this time to Jesus was, they were asking about. So Judas the Galilean came along and he says here's what we're going to do, we're going to start a revolt, like we're going to start a revolution. And hean came along and he says here's what we're gonna do, we're gonna start a revolt, like we're gonna start a revolution. And he was this leader and he gathered friends and all kinds of people together and they refused to pay the poll tax together and they actually did it. They started pulling this off and gathering more and more people.

Speaker 1: 9:31

And then what we read about is that then they go into the temple, they cleanse the temple of all the Gentiles and made it just purely Jews. And they said we're not taking away the ways of the empire of Rome onto us. And the great feature of his teaching at the time was that it was unlawful to pay tribute to Caesar as Lord, like to have to call someone Lord and to pay these taxes, and that God was the only ruler of the nation. So here's this Galilean which where was Jesus from? Galilee, right? So here's this Galilean that, 25 years before Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, this guy cleanses the temple, refuses to pay taxes and then revolts against Rome. And so what did Rome do? They grabbed him and they executed him and they put an end to this revolution. Now, other addition just historically, his sons continued this later and actually, you see, in that 66 to 73 AD aspect of when Rome and the Jewish revolt actually took place, they tore down the temple. They were very, very much part of that movement as well.

Speaker 1: 10:39

So, anyways, now here's a Galilean Jesus who's just cleansed the temple, like a couple of stories ago that we just read about, who speaks about the kingdom of God, and he comes out of the gate and he starts saying things that sound kind of like a revolution, like this upside down way of looking at things, and so when they ask this question, it's not necessarily just about this distraction. They're saying do you want to do what Judas the Galilean did? Is this the next Judas of Galilee? The revolt that's going to take place, and is this what we should be doing? Remember, it's a trap, right, this is a trap. So this is the position that they literally put him in. So if he says, no, you shouldn't pay the tax, here's the problem. They go okay, he's the next Judas the Galilean, and then Rome kills him very quickly, it's done.

Speaker 1: 11:33

But if he says, yes, you should pay this tax, then he's kind of like this weak revolutionary, right, like the last 22 chapters have been like legit, like we're not of the world, like we're counter empire. This is what it means to live in this alternative world, in the kingdom of heaven. That's here and now. And then what happens is is all of these good citizens, you know? Now he's like just be good citizens and whatever, just pay your taxes. The crowd leaves because they're just oppressed by the man and they're like we were waiting for somebody to come and end their persecution. So, either way, jesus loses. Like it's a trap, right, but his answer is brilliant because his answer cuts through and makes everybody actually hear what they want to hear. See what Jesus says, verse 18,.

Speaker 1: 12:25

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said you hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Now, why does he call them hypocrites? What does the word hypocrite mean? It actually means play actor. He's like you're playing a part right now. Like you play actors. Why are you trying to trap me? So then he says show me the coin, like, show me the coin that's used for paying the tax. And they brought him a denarius and he asked them whose image is on this coin and whose inscription? Caesar's. They replied Then, and whose inscription Caesar's? They replied. Then he said to them so give back to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's. And when they heard this, they were amazed and so they left him and they went away. So two things right here. First is he calls them out in regard to their play acting in this moment. And the second is when he says give Caesar to which is Caesar's. This is right here.

Speaker 1: 13:20

What he's saying is really important to you and I. He's saying you're and we need to be good citizens of the world, not just citizens to God, but of the world, meaning that there's a reason that God hasn't just taken you out of this world, that he's actually kept you and I in this world to be salt and to be light and to rub up against the world, which means you got to pay taxes and you got to go to the speed limit, right. There's some things to being a good citizen, like where we're asked not to be a joke because it's actually a witness. Our actions are a witness to others in the life, in the light in which we are right and Christians, followers of Jesus. Sometimes I'm telling you right now, you know this sometimes we're just at the we're like the worst at this, like I get on a box front here.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Let me just I used to work in the food service industry for a minute Ask a server which shift to work is like the worst of the week. You know what they will tell you Sunday lunch. That's crazy. You know exactly what I'm saying. Who's going to lunch on Sunday afternoons? You all, I know you guys are already thinking about it. You're writing little notes right now. You say, hey, you want to have this for lunch. Right, that should be like the best shift to work. They should be like the best is Sunday afternoon because all the people from church showing up, they're so generous. Instead, we're like here's a tip, go meet Jesus, go to church here. All right, we're the worst at this, right? Like it's a joke. All right, so I'll get off that horse. Okay, so be a good citizen of the world. And then we can also be like but it's so bad and it's corrupt and I just need to get my own little bubble. No, no, no.

Speaker 1: 14:55

Read Old Testament, jeremiah 29. Like they're in Babylon, like it's awful, like it's the worst. They've been taken away and it's corrupt, it's like a joke there and everyone's worshiping like these false gods. But here's what the Lord says to do. He says hey, wait, I want you to buy a house, I want you to make some roots, I want you to plant a garden, I want you to bless the city that you're a part of. Don't detach from the world, don't run away from the world. And unfortunately, we're just awful at this. And what we need to understand, friends, is that God has actually put us, all of us, in here in this place, to be a salt and to be light that makes a difference and bears the image of Christ, god, our creator.

Speaker 1: 15:44

Now here's the challenge. I think a lot of us are really good, or pretty good, at giving Caesar to which is Caesar's, partly because he forces us to. I'm not sure that all of us are that great at giving God which is God's. Because this is actually the question that I think Jesus is trying to get to. He wants to go deeper here and he's allowing us to like unpack this a little bit deeper than just the mechanics and techniques you know, like that we can often get into of like just tell me what I need to do, like, just tell me what I have to do, and I just want to do that. So to clarify, in this passage, jesus was not trying to get into a political debate, and this scripture right here is often taught and used for political divisiveness and rhetoric, and I'm not interested. Nor did Jesus give it much of his time as well. This is such a flyby. But here's what he does, do, he does do. He leaves us with such a challenge about our own love, about our own love. Sure, give Caesar what is Caesar's. We should do that. But what about God? So the question is, how do we give God what is God's and whose is his. So let us turn this last half of this message into focusing on that and him See, because often in stories just like this, when we read, we see people seeking for information, not formation.

Speaker 1: 17:20

People seeking for information, not formation, not their own formation, just information Like rather than what am I becoming? We just want information instead, and maybe you have done this. Maybe you've actually even come to the scriptures or come to God just for information. I want to know the answers to this right, or I want permission to do this, or I want permission to have condemnation. This right We've come there just for information. But the scriptures and going to God is not about what you get, but what about what you give?

Speaker 1: 17:54

Giving God what is God's? Because you and I are image bearers. This is what we have the inscription on our heart of, in the heart of God, in the heart of Jesus, is our formation. So let's talk about how that happens, and specifically, how that happens through the studying of the word of the Lord, through scripture, how spiritual formation takes place. So what is spiritual formation? Spiritual formation is how do we look like Jesus? Image bearers, just like this coin. Giving God what is God's? How do we look like Jesus?

Speaker 1: 18:34

But first let me really quickly explain what formation is not right. So it's three things that it's not. First is formation is not magic. It just doesn't like happen, like woo, it just took place. I've known people who like yeah, they have infants and like I just read the Bible over them because they got ears, you know, and they're just gonna hear it. It's just gonna happen, and like something's gonna take place in them. It's gonna be. And I'm like great, like maybe right. But that's kind of like a magic point of view of like hey, just you are in the presence and we're just like waiting on God to do the actual work.

Speaker 1: 19:09

And if there's one thing that the scriptures and the Bible actually repeats over and over and over again is that God will not do the work without humans made in his image. It's very participatory. He's always inviting and asking people and then we have a free will choice to respond to that or not. You see that all throughout the scriptures and with messy, broken people, just like the people in this room and myself, he's always wanting a partnership and participation. So formation of us, who we're becoming, isn't magic. It just doesn't happen by accident, nor is it a reward? It's also not a reward.

Speaker 1: 19:49

I was told that having a quiet time every day, you know this time with God that God will bless you as a result of that. If you take time out of your day and you have this quiet time, he's gonna bless you as a result of that. But notice my posture in that I was reading the Bible in order to be blessed. It wasn't the Bible itself or the person that I was becoming that was the blessing. It was some other thing that was promised. So for me, engaging the Bible or reading scriptures was just kind of like a job, because then it was.

Speaker 1: 20:18

I was going to like pay God off and you know, you tell me this is good for me. So I'm going to do it like information and then you're going to bless me, right? Or like I made all sorts of deals with God with this right. Well, like, if I pray with my kids, then my kids will turn out perfectly. That was a joke. You know, like some of you guys are like you're a horrible person, right? Or like you know, if I'm pure before my marriage, that my marriage will be amazing. Or if I give money, like God, you're going to give me so much more money than I gave you. It's incredible, like it's just going to start showing up in my bank account, right, and see, here's the deal is. That's not faith in God, that's like faith in a contract, that's faith in my part of it, like what I do. And so spiritual formation isn't something that we do to get blessed.

Speaker 1: 21:09

Spiritual formation is a way of becoming a different kind of person, a different kind of human, and that is the blessing. It's also not just straight willpower, which is like a lot of our go-to. Like I get it, it's one of my big go-tos. Like, if I'm struggling with something or like I'm having a difficult time, what am I gonna do? Just gonna try harder. That's what we're told to do. Just try harder, right, I'm going to work on it, I'm going to figure it out, I'm going to do better, and then what happens? It's this constant cycle of like sin wasn't perfect, I didn't make it happen, right, and then shame because I didn't do it. And then, like I promise I'll do better next time, and then I don't do better, and then it's not perfect again, and then shame, and then I'm gonna do better, I promise, and then I don't do better, and it's over and over and over. So if formation is none of those things, then what is it? It's giving back to God. What is God's Me and his image actually formed by, in likeness of him. So then you would say, well, what does that look like? Let me give you a quick and dirty definition.

Speaker 1: 22:19

Formation is the relational participation with the text, which would be like the Bible or scriptures, community, us and the Spirit. This is a reference to the Holy Spirit who God gave us as our helper. So it's relational participation with text, community and Spirit. First of all, it's relational. You and I were made for attachment, we were made as relational beings. We were actually made in the image of a triune God who, literally God himself, is in a community, a community himself. And one of the dynamics that the Bible picks up on is this use of this word abide or dwell that Christ is somehow in us and I am in Christ, and there is some reciprocity and mutuality that's actually taking place here that I can start to understand in relational terms, that I am loved, not just like in a mind matter, but in a headway, but in a deeper way, that I'm formed as a human, in what I feel and the way I react to things, because I'm loved by God. So it's relational, but it's also participation.

Speaker 1: 23:41

So my wife's grandfather had a big bash for his 90th birthday party and at his 90th birthday party I went there and dude was playing ping pong and he was just like tearing it up and I'm like what is this, right, 90 years old, just slaying it and I'm like I got this. I'm like this young buck and I'm like I played a little ping pong my day. Well, we call it table tennis. So I was like I can do this and I'm a really competitive person. So it's like I don't care if you're 90, no mercy, let's go. I'm not going to have that. So I'm like, yeah, let's go, let's play some ping pong. We're playing the best of seven games. I'm telling you right now, I think I scored. I don't think I scored more than 10 points in four games. He could have taken every dollar I had to my name from me. I mean like he was a shark, like let's go, 90.

Speaker 1: 24:36

So I had a problem. I had to get better at ping pong, right? So what do you do? Well, I had to go read up on ping pong and table tennis. I'd start watching the Olympics and learn a little stomp kick thing, and I had to. I had to like watch videos on Instagram or YouTube like tutorials, and so I'm getting all this knowledge. Now the question is did that help? No, I read about it, right, but you actually have to go up and get beat up so like you have to actually play and like practice out, participate in what you're like learning and reading and doing Make sense. You following me right here. So now what happens? I get beat up on now by my 70-year-old mother-in-law, who smokes me Just this. Last week she just put me in my place because she's just keeping the family legacy going on. So I have to keep playing her so I can get better. So then I can beat my child who's nine, and then I'll feel good that Like it's just what we do, right. Sometimes you got to beat your kids so you can. Just your day is better, right?

Speaker 1: 25:36

So what's true of ping pong is more true with the Bible. What a weird sentence, but we're saying it. The Bible will use words like walk out right, like keep in step with the spirit, or walk out your salvation, because God is at work within you. Like we're working, we're going. It's participatory, we have a part, but we don't carry the whole thing. And it's then in participation that, in that participation well altogether, of text, scripture, bible, spirit and community that we are formed, that we become something new. Now, spirit, of course, is something we hold really high value in this community. This is the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit is alive and well and active and speaking and is our helper, is who Jesus gave us. We'll get there at the end of Matthew, as we see what's next after the resurrection. But now community. This is the one that I think most of us struggle with the most, especially as Western Americans.

Speaker 1: 26:47

I have spoken to countless people who say things like I don't do organized religion anymore. Right, I don't do that stuff, I don't do church. I have my own personal private relationship with Jesus and I don't need the church to have that experience because it's just me and Jesus, like little stuffy Jesus, like it's just him and I and church doesn't do it and I don't need a faith community or any of that stuff. And so maybe I'll go once a month or like twice a year, woo, woo, like we'll do that thing, right, as an example, when we think about Bible reading similarly in this way, like we think the best Bible reading happens in the morning, when it's still dark and you have a coffee or a tea and you have your Bible laid open and you have a pen and highlighter because you might need to do something right, and we sit there and we contemplate and we ask what does this verse mean to me? And actually we're getting it wrong, because this is not at all what the scriptures have in mind when they were written.

Speaker 1: 27:53

These were meant to be read aloud, just like Elsie did, in their entirety, and heard and listened by people who actually couldn't read. And they did this publicly, in these public settings, like the whole thing. They would read the book of Matthew and it would take just a little over an hour and they would read it from front to back. And the goal of the Bible if you've ever wondered what the goal of the Bible is is not to make you as an individual look like Jesus. It's to make it's to birth, not just make it's to birth Jesus-like communities in the world. The goal of the Old Testament was to create a community called Israel that stood out to the world, to be a light into all the nations, which wasn't happening, which is a lot of what Jesus' conversation was about. It's like, hey, you guys aren't doing this, and the goal of the preaching of the Gospels in the New Testament and the book of Acts was to form churches scattered all throughout the Mediterranean world that actually look like Jesus.

Speaker 1: 28:54

And we so often come to this salvation thing with only me and Jesus in my view, and I think that when we do that, we miss out on a lot of life. That's really life, the life that actually this text invites us into, because we're just looking at it from my own internal point of view. I'll give you a quick example. Take a really popular, famous scripture that you know of love your neighbor as yourself, right? So then we would ask so what is love? Love? Okay, good, let me tell you. Remember the whole participation conversation, okay?

Speaker 1: 29:35

So if I was to ask you what is love, you would say love is an inner deposition, right, it's a private thing, a deposition towards somebody else's welfare or their goodness, and that's not at all what's in the Bible. In the Bible, it's actually a concrete action towards another. So when it says love your neighbor as yourself, it's not saying, hey, work on accepting you first, so then you can accept your neighbor, right? No, no, it's saying listen, you already love yourself, you do. You know how I know, I'll tell you. Because when you're saying, listen, you already love yourself, you do. You know how I know, I'll tell you.

Speaker 1: 30:14

Because when you're hungry, what do you do? You spend time, energy and strategize on how you're going to eat, what you're going to eat, how you're going to make it when you're going to eat right, you do that. So what happens when you need clothes? What do you do? You spend time, money and strategy like figuring out what kind of clothes you're going to have and clothing yourself when you're thirsty, same thing, right? So what does this mean? What does it mean to love yourself? What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself? It means that anyone you come across who doesn't have food or clothing or water, that you actually spend that same amount of energy, time and strategy on them as you would spend on yourself.

Speaker 1: 30:59

You follow, make sense. It's this concrete action I'll give you like a quick one for myself and it's just this discipline of me trying to force this outward thing, not just a feeling of like. Oh, I feel like I'm a better person now because I know it, I love you. You don't know it. So when I go to Costco every Friday to do our weekly shopping trip, I call it my weekly car payment. It feels like that Family of six. You see, some of you are feeling me right now, right, but when I go there and I buy food, I get food for us and I put it in there, and then I go grab one or two items that's for our food pantry, and so it's like I get some and then they get some, and so it's like this actual, concrete, tangible action of living this out. It's not just this inner, private thing of like I hope they're doing well, I love them, I love neighbors. Neighbors are the best, right? Another example, you know, maybe more challenging.

Speaker 1: 31:58

You would say, like well, what about your enemies? How do you love your enemies? Here I'm just going to help you. It has nothing to do with liking them, right. It doesn't have anything to do with being in a relationship with somebody that you're just suddenly allowing someone to hurt you, and we've talked about this kind of stuff before. So just permission, like. It doesn't mean that you have to be in this close relationship because there's things that you shouldn't, but it doesn't mean that you're like, mean or evil towards them. Loving your enemies means that when you have the opportunity to harm them, you choose not to. When you have the opportunity to help them, you choose to. Just so difficult for us. When you have the opportunity to harm them, you choose I'm going to turn my phone off and I'm not going to say that, or close my computer, or I'm not going to gossip about that, or I'm not going to be like, yeah, I'm giving it to you. And when you have the opportunity to do to help, you do you help them or you help them through someone else. That's how you love your enemy. It has nothing to do with what I get. It has everything to do about what I give.

Speaker 1: 32:55

And, just like this story, the question they asked of Jesus was transactional. Right, it had nothing to do with their transformation. Just tell me what we should do. Do you do this or not do this? And God is not interested in a transaction, but he is so much more interested in your transformation, in who you're becoming and what is forming you and what you're allowing in to form you. Not what you get out of it, but what you give and how you give God what is God's? You? And I'll tell you what I've learned.

Speaker 1: 33:34

I've realized that the point of engaging in the Bible and in the scriptures is to engage in the spiritual disciplines that only take place when a community is gathered. And I'll show you what I mean in just a minute. It's literally created this way, that you cannot do this as an independent. You can't play this out by yourself. You can't give to God what is God's without other image bearers being involved. This is not a solo sport. And so what are the spiritual disciplines? Well, the scripture lays it out really clearly the things that form us into what is his and giving his what is his.

Speaker 1: 34:13

So I'm going to read you a long list. This is just quick. Look at this. It says love one another like 16 times at least, commanded. Be devoted to one another. Honor one another above yourselves, live in harmony with one another, build up one another, be like-minded towards one another, accept one another, admonish one another, build up one another, be like-minded towards one another, accept one another, admonish one another, greet one another, care for one another, serve one another, bear one another's burdens, forgive one another, be patient with one another, speak the truth in love, be kind and compassionate to one another. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Submit to one another. Consider others better than yourself. Look to the interests of one another. Bear with one another, teach one another, comfort one another, encourage one another, exhort one another, stir up, provoke, stimulate one another to love and good works. Show hospitality to one another. Employ the gifts that God has given us for the benefit of one another. Clothe yourself with humility towards one another. Pray for one another and confess our faults to one another.

Speaker 1: 35:24

My personal Bible reading and time with the Lord is designed to get me to that place. That's what it's designed to get me to and who I become and what I'm formed. My spirituality doesn't exist in me privately. It only manifests itself out into the community of God. That's what it looks like to give God back what is God. And this was so radical for me personally, because I always thought the goal of my Bible was to get my soul right right and pure, which, by the way, is just really bad theology.

Speaker 1: 35:57

And it took. It was like taking something that was actually meant to be public and communal and it made it individual and private, and that's why we can have people that are claiming to follow Jesus and being like terrible to each other and they see no distinction at all, because they've been taught that following Jesus is only something you do in your heart. It's not something that we do on the road when somebody cuts us off. It's not something we do to someone when they're slow with service or somebody who flames us on social media. So formation, formation. It's not all up to me, but I do play a part in it. The goal is relational deepening so that I know God, not just information about him. But this is all at the intersection of the spirit, the Word and community where this all takes place.

Speaker 1: 36:58

So I know learning from Scripture for some of this has actually been really difficult. Maybe it's even why you haven't been a part of church, or just it's overwhelming and it's confusing and it's like tripped you up a bit because you're like I'm reading this and is this the same and this old stuff and this new stuff, and why did that happen? And you read these things? I will just tell you, standing up here on this stage, I am totally befuddled by pieces of the Bible and it literally drives me into like I've got to be missing something here. I don't understand. I'm trying to reconcile this, but I must remember, we must remember that the object of the New Testament's focus is on the church being faithful, which plays out in all the one another's, one anothering each other. It's not looking at the world and saying like how come you don't live like this? You know, caesar, what a Caesar's? This is what you do and this is what this looks like.

Speaker 1: 38:00

The Bible examines the church and says why don't you, on the basis of your confession, live like this Give God what is God's. And so we approach the text. Realizing the target is me myself, that the log is in my own eye, that we're dealing with. And of course, there's places to have conversations and discernment. But for many of us, we have to be so careful because the scriptures and the Bible has become ammunition for us to set a trap, a trap against other people, just like in this story, rather than something that disrupts me in the pattern of my old pattern of thinking and living and relating to people.

Speaker 1: 38:50

So, friends, be a light, be salt, not salty, but bring beautiful flavor into this world and give God back yourself in his image as a light into the world, your school, your neighborhood, your place of work as you, one another, one another. Would you pray with me, god, may we be formed even in this moment by you, rather than maybe coming here today just to get more information and a deeper study, but, father, through your Holy Spirit, maybe a clarification of self and undoing things of the past or thoughts of the future that are just patterns that need to be broken, would you begin to undo those now in us and thank you for your grace in the midst of that, undoing your mercy and your love. Would your spirit just be gentle with us in this moment as you form us into new things and that may rub off into those who are around us as we represent you and represent you to those in need. In your name, we pray, amen. Friends, would you respond now with worship? Stand to your feet.