Transcript:
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Speaker 1:
What a wretched person I am. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever identified with Paul and thinking, I know what I need to do, I know the right thing to do, but I just can’t seem to do it. Have you ever wondered to yourself or out loud, who or what is actually in control? Yeah. Have you ever thought, I know the good that I ought to do, but I just can’t follow through with it? Well, the good news is if you consider me good company, then you’re in good company. If you answered yes to that question, whether we are comfortable admitting it or not, we have all been in this place and we know that whatever is our vice, that even when we have understood the good and been alive in the spirit, we know that we are always tempted. Paul describes these circumstances by suggesting that he does what he hates, not what he wants to do.
Speaker 1:
And he goes on to say that he knows what is good, but he cannot carry it out. Now, this is an interesting statement considering who wrote these words. Yes. Now this is Paul, right? Paul is at the top of the list of influential Christ followers, right? You don’t name many other people before you get to Paul. When you talk about people who have influenced others to follow Jesus, the words that he wrote in the letters of the epistles that make up the large portion of the New Testament, Paul wrote those words and they will forever be cemented into the holy scriptures. And think about this. Out of all of the people who have ever written anything that has been published, Paul’s words are among the most read, the most known and studied and reflected on out of not just people who wrote the Bible, parts of the Bible, but out of all literature, throughout all of human history.
Speaker 1:
That is who wrote these words. And there are not many more people who wrote as much as Paul did to reveal God and the work that God is doing in the world. But yet he writes what he wants to do. He cannot do. He knows what is good, but he cannot carry it out. Now, if you were reading this from something that I wrote or something that I said, you would think, of course right, Jonathan’s a good enough guy, but he’s not perfect. But from Paul, we might expect different words. Words of overcoming, words of freedom, words of victory, not him writing the good that I want to do. I do not do, but this is precisely the point. Paul is writing about his struggle so that people will understand that as great of a person as Paul is as trustworthy and as skilled with words.
Speaker 1:
Paul is nothing without the grace of Jesus in his life. Paul is inviting us to see Jesus, not himself. So recently we have been on a journey to discover what does it mean to spend time with Jesus? To be with Jesus? We want to follow the way of Jesus. We want to spend time with Jesus. We want to simply be with Jesus just like any other relationship in our lives, you can’t have a relationship with someone whom you don’t spend time with. Okay? So we want to learn to spend time with Jesus, and the purpose of spending time with Jesus is to be formed into the image of Jesus. Right now, I come from a broken home. I have a biological father who he and my mother divorced when I was two years old, and I have a stepfather who I lived with the majority of my formative years from the time I was four until the time I graduated high school.
Speaker 1:
I look like my biological father more and more and more in the morning. When I look at my myself in the mirror, the person I see staring back at me is not myself but my biological father. Whether I wanted to or not, that is the way that it works. But having spent most of my formative years under the fathership, if that’s a word of my stepfather, I act more like my stepfather, I think, than my biological father. I have the sense of humor of my stepfather and some of you say, wow, I wish we’d maybe get some of that biological father’s sense of humor going that might be better for us, I think and act a lot more like my stepdad than I do my biological father. Why? Because the relationships that we are in in our lives, particularly the ones of a parent to a child, they form and they shape us.
Speaker 1:
For better or for worse, they form and they shape us. And it’s the same way with Jesus minus the brokenness part, right? Spending time with Jesus, we are formed and we are shaped into his image. And the purpose of that or the result of that is so that we are able to do what Jesus did to live as Jesus lived. Now, if we are diligent in this direction, then as Paul wanted us to see Jesus more in him, we also will resemble Jesus more and more in our lives. The spirit will have more space to work in our lives. We will trust more in the ways of the kingdom of God over the patterns of brokenness in the world, and grace and peace will consume us and we live in a world where its patterns cause us to be consumed with fear, anxiousness, frustration, bitterness, hostility, right?
Speaker 1:
Those are byproducts of the patterns of brokenness in our lives, in the kingdom of Jesus, we are filled with grace and peace. We’re filled with love and joy and patience and kindness and goodness and the fruits of the spirit and the way that that is born in our lives. The way that that is the byproduct of our lives is by spending time with Jesus. And as we do that more and more, the Holy Spirit points out to all of the places in our lives where the patterns of our world are the source of our actions and thoughts so that we are able to be set free from the grasp of those patterns. Paul said, what a wretched person I am who will rescue me.
Speaker 1:
Maybe today you’re in the same place as Paul. Whatever you’re facing, whatever you’re dealing with, whatever mountain is in front of you, you think I cannot get over this obstruction by myself who is going to rescue me? Maybe you have developed some sort of thought pattern that is leading you to despair or that is causing you to be gripped by stress or anxiousness. Maybe there is some action in your life or habit in your life that you need to break in order to move forward. Maybe it’s just a cloud that is over you and you don’t understand what it is or what causes it, but it’s a mountain that you need to get out of your way, and you are wondering who will rescue me? I invite all of us, but especially those who are in that place of despair to hear these words of Jesus. Matthew chapter 11, verse 28, and before we read this, I want to invite us to just take a big deep breath in and out so that we can hear what Jesus has to say for us this morning with fresh ears. Come to me. Jesus says, all you who are weary and burdened,
Speaker 1:
And I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus knows your struggles.
Speaker 2:
Yes,
Speaker 1:
Right? He knows your temptations. He knows this condition of which Paul spoke about in Romans chapter seven. Not only does he know about it, he also experienced it. Had Jesus experienced struggle and temptation in the same way that you and I do only without falling victim to the lies of the enemy. Think about that.
Speaker 1:
Think about how many times in your life, maybe how many times in this past week, maybe even how many times in this last hour have I fell victim to the lies that surround me? Lies that tell me I will never be good enough, smart enough, happy enough, I’ll never be talented enough. I’ll never be whatever enough. Think about how many times we have given into those lies within any given amount of time, and then think about the fact that Jesus who lived somewhere around 30 something years on this earth facing those same lies, never once gave in, never once allowed those lies to have priority over what he knew was the most true about him and about the world and about God. We don’t often talk about that, or at least I don’t often talk or think about that, but it is unbelievably incredible. Now, Jesus had something going for him that you and I do not, right? Jesus was just as much God as he was human being, so he has that benefit that we don’t. But Jesus also promised us that God through the Spirit is at work in our lives and in the world around us when we commit to the kingdom of God, and it’s the same spirit that animated Jesus that is alive in us.
Speaker 1:
So by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we too are able to be animated by the life of Jesus. Now, I said this several weeks ago, but it bears repeating, and if you forgot it, then it’s new to you and it that’s good too. But Jesus promised us the Spirit, right? He promised that the Spirit would come to us. The Spirit, as we know, we might not be able to fully understand it or fully explain it, but the Spirit is God and God is the spirit. Jesus promised that the Spirit would reside in our lives. The spirit of Jesus is in you. Stop for a moment and think about that.
Speaker 1:
Who are you? Whatever it is that makes you up somewhere in there, the spirit of God resides in your body. Think about that. Not the spirit light, not the diet spirit, not an extension of the spirit, but the same spirit that animated the life of Jesus is inside your body. You don’t believe me? Here’s what Paul had to say about it. This by the way, is in Romans chapter eight. You may notice that in Romans chapter seven is when he went through the whole business about he does not do what he wants to do. He knows what is good, but he can’t do it. He’s always doing what he doesn’t want to do, and here is what he says right after that. He says, if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the spirit gives life because of what? Because of righteousness. And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you,
Speaker 1:
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you. What Paul is saying is that on your own, you are subject to death because of sin, but when Jesus bestowed his righteousness upon us, when the spirit fills our lives, we are no longer subject to sin, though our bodies might decay, our lives are being formed and shaped and molded into the image of Christ and this spirit that results in this lives in you. The same spirit that gives that rose Jesus from the dead is inside your body. So let’s go back to the words of Paul.
Speaker 1:
Paul wrote, writes about this struggle that we all can identify with. The better question for us to ask ourselves today though is can we identify what Paul is now talking about in Romans eight? Can we identify with this spirit that is alive within us, leading us to a different way? If Paul would’ve stopped with Romans seven and just concluded his words with the struggle, then I guess you and I could say, well, if Paul couldn’t find victory in the grace and peace of Jesus, then what chance do we have? But he doesn’t stop with the struggle. He goes on to write to the extent that we are able to overcome these struggles, not just by ourselves, but because the power of the spirit is within us and it is the mechanism that allows us to live sourced by the kingdom of God. Later on in the same spirit, Paul would write these words. I no longer live but Christ lives in me.
Speaker 1:
Now, you and I live in the midst of a struggle. You can call it spiritual warfare. You can call it attacks of the enemy. You can call it persecution, you can call it whatever you want. But we live within these two worlds that are dueling against one another, the world of what Paul calls the patterns of the world and the kingdom of God, and they are dueling in, they’re dueling against each other in the world, except for when we understand a duel, we have to know that the enemy has been defeated, right? That it is not a war, that the enemy can win, only that we align ourselves with the enemy. The enemy is defeated, but it is a battle nonetheless, and it’s a battle that we understand in our own lives if we will stop and think about it. We can understand though that the popular philosophies of our culture, they tell us that we have to be perfect, right?
Speaker 1:
We have to look perfect. We have to act perfect. We have to have the perfect amount of money. We have to know all the perfect things and say all the perfect things. We have to raise the perfect children and they have to end up being perfect, right? We feel the weight of that desire or that movement towards perfection that is impinged upon us, and we are culturally judged by these impossible standards. Not only is this the standard that we are anticipated to live up to, but there’s no mechanism of discipleship offered by the world to help us get to this perfect place. So at the same time, the world tells us to be perfect. The world also tells us that we will never be good enough unless we have this or buy that or acquire this or look like that. And these are the lies and the pressures that impinge upon us at every moment. These are the lies that keep us trapped in doing what we don’t want to do. So what do we do with this? Are we stuck in this pattern? Are we left to our own devices? Is there any freedom that can be found?
Speaker 1:
There’s an interaction in the story of Jesus written by John, where Jesus is talking to the religious leaders of his day, and this is not something that you would expect anyone to say to a person who is considered to be a religious leader, but Jesus is suggesting to this religious leaders who trace their lineage all the way back through history to Abraham, who is the beginning of the nation of Israel, who is understood that God is their father. Jesus says, God is not your father. Your father actually is the father of lies. Now, let’s look at this real quick. So you don’t think that I’m lying and telling you this is what Jesus said, right? So he says to them, keep in mind this. Jesus is not saying this in the casino. He’s not saying it in a place of ill repute. He’s not saying it in a bar At closing time, he is saying this to the religious leaders of his day.
Speaker 1:
He is saying, if God were your Father, you would love me. For I have come here from God. I did not come to my, I did not come on my own. God sent me, why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil. Some of the older translations say the Satan, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language. For he is a liar and the father of all lies today, they would say Jesus threw down.
Speaker 1:
See from the very beginning, the Satan, the devil has slyly convinced people to believe lies and to leverage lies for their gain. The scriptures began with a story about Adam and Eve, and this is the quintessential example for us, the chief example for us of this struggle in life. Adam and Eve, as the story goes existed in perfection. They lived in an unadulterated world. They breathed non polluted air. They lived in perfect harmony with God and with themselves, but they were deceived by the Father of now. Their story is our story except for one major detail. Jesus is here by His spirit. He is here. So I hope for us today that we realize sitting here in this moment, right here, right now, that the one who is in us is greater than the Father of lies. The Father of truth has so much more beautiful and wonderful things to say about every single one of us than any one thing the father of lies could utter about us.
Speaker 1:
I hope that you can see clearly the truth and that you are learning each day. What does it mean to be set free by this truth? I hope that you understand that you are not an equation of your victories minus your mistakes, but that you are able to live and sync with the spirit of God. And as we learn and live in these ways individually, I hope that collectively we will be a community that embraces one another and our neighbors. I hope that we are the type of church that loves and accepts each other and our neighbors exactly where we are and invites whoever will come with us on the journey. I hope that we seek to remind ourselves and our neighbors that we are not left to our own devices. No, not all of us are overly familiar with the denomination of the Church of the Nazarene.
Speaker 1:
Maybe for some of us, this is the first time you’re hearing of the denomination of the Church of the Nazarene, but our local church belongs to a greater affiliation of churches called the Church of the Nazarene. This week, actually this evening begins a meeting for the North Texas cohort of our denomination. We call it a district. Last month in June, the whole church Glo, the Global Church, 2.6 million people were represented in a global gathering called the General Assembly, where people from every corner of the globe come and spend time with one another and dream about the future. Jeremy was talking about an event that happens every four years in the USA and Canada for a group of teenagers, for them to gather together and to be inspired towards what is to come, and I say all of that to tell you a little bit of a history or a backstory about our denomination. Our denomination was birthed by people who were led by the spirit of God to the trenches of society, to find the discarded, the lied to the broken, and to walk alongside them as they discover how Jesus wanted to set them free.
Speaker 1:
Our church began as a mission to tell people who society beat down and locked up and lied to and manipulated and abandoned that they mattered. This is the roots of our church and Los Angeles, California looked like two guys who were trying to minister to people who everyone else in their lives had written off, people living on Skid Row, which then is very similar to Skid Row today. If you just look at the pictures, this is the same type of setting that these people went into with being fueled and animated by the spirit of God to say you, the church left this place a long time ago, but we are coming here to tell you that you matter. The local church here in the Dallas area, a little community called Pilot Point up north of here, they began not as a church, but as a group of people who provided a home for what they call at the time, unwed mothers, right?
Speaker 1:
Mom, single moms still have a stigma in our society today, unfortunately, but think about back then in the late 18 hundreds how much they were stigmatized by being, as they said, unwed mothers, but these people wanted so desperately for them to know that even in the state of society looking down their noses at them that they mattered and that there was a place where they could encounter the risen Jesus. One of the earliest fathers of the Church of the Nazarene was a man named Joseph Whitney. He was a doctor, a medical doctor. He joined the Union in the Civil War to as a surgeon, to help soldiers who had been injured in battle. He then migrated to Los Angeles, spent some time as the university president of small university, called the University of Southern California, and he joined in with another man named Phineas Braze to minister to the people who all of their pastoral peers said, don’t waste your time, but they went anyways to tell these people that they mattered. Joseph Whitney wrote a quote that we actually have modified a little bit, and it’s posted on our website. The part that we added was this, that we strive to be a church where, and here is where his quote picks up. Saints and sinners sit side by side. The purest woman and the prostitute shall grasp hands in one accord where the pious man and the drunkard shall embrace the unity of the Lord and a holy life.
Speaker 1:
That picture sounds a lot like what we read about Jesus’s ministry in the scriptures, and it’s the ministry that Joseph Whitney and Phineas Brazil and others who began to call themselves the Church of the Nazarene, lived out. These words are words that he wrote as he ministered on skid row in la, and my prayer for us is that we will continue on in this spirit living by these words here in East Dallas, that our community of faith would be a respite for those who have grown, tired and fed up with what they don’t want to do, winning out. Would you pray with me today? Jesus, thank you that you do not leave us on our own.
Speaker 2:
Yes,
Speaker 1:
Thank you that there is such a rich tradition of your followers who have been brave enough to be honest about the struggles and difficulties that they have and the state that they were in before your spirit filled them and captured their attention. Thank you for the witnesses of these stories that even us today might be able to say. That could be our story too. Thank you that your spirit, the same spirit that rose you from the dead is within us, and I pray today, Jesus, that this place would be a faithful representation to whomever you put us in front of. This real and true grace and peace that has the ability to save and save and transform, even me. We ask these things today, Jesus, in your name and for your sake, amen.
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