Hard Hearts and a Holy King (Psalm 95)

Descripción

PODCAST HARD HEARTS AND A HOLY GOD June 28, 2026 | Jake Thomas Jake Thomas reflects on the struggle of running 10 miles with his wife Hannah, drawing parallels to the human reluctance to change and the need for God’s rest. He discusses Psalm 95, emphasizing three reasons for rest: God’s greatness, goodness, and the consequences of rejecting Him. God’s greatness is illustrated by His control over the earth, sea, and dry land, contrasting with lesser gods. His goodness is seen in His role as creator and shepherd. Rejecting God leads to eternal separation, while accepting Him offers immediate and future rest. The speaker urges the congregation to revere God, reject their rejections, and receive His rest. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Good morning. Please open your Bibles to Psalm 95 That’s going to be page 482 in your pew Bibles. Again, that is Psalm 95 Now, once a year, my wife Hannah and I, we spend a whole day together running for 10 miles now. This newly minted Thomas family tradition is kind of an homage to the first time I made my move on Hannah. I was absolutely desperate to spend any amount of time with her, and so I invited her to do one of her favorite things: go on a run. The problem, though, that just obviously one of my least favorite things, but I was, I was very desperate, so I ran 10 miles with her, though calling it a run feels pretty generous. There was a lot of stopping, some walking, I may have almost laid down once, there was a little bit of crying, and some dry heaving as well, but somehow, in spite of all of that, she married me eventually. And now, once a year, we set aside a day to run 10 miles together, and we actually did it this past weekend. And my sister-in-law had a funny observation. She said, I love that Jake knows this is coming every year, but he still just won’t train for it, and she’s got a fair point. It’s brutal whenever I do it, but it just is a very easy way for it not to be so bad if I just trained. So, after every time I run it, I just think, okay, maybe this is the year I should start training, and like maybe next year will be different, but it’s just it hasn’t been that way, because I don’t change, I just do the same thing, and it hurts every time. Why wouldn’t I do that? Why wouldn’t I train? I know I’m gonna go on this run because I love my wife, and she’s persistent, but why won’t I just try, train, and make this thing that’s so difficult easier? I mean, it’s a simple answer. I don’t want to. I don’t like running once a year, let alone once a week. So, I’m just.. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to change. This is going to hurt until I change. Wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t have to train? If I could just wake up tomorrow and be a good runner, that would be great, and maybe there’s some people here that feel similarly, you know. You need the change, you know you have to do something different than what you’re doing right now. You don’t want to do the hard work of change. Are you burdened with the weight of needed change? You want to go to church more often, you want to pray more, or read your Bible more often, you want to scroll less, you want to gossip less, you want to tell the truth more. You want to change, but that’s hard work. But wouldn’t it be great if we could all just wake up tomorrow and be changed and be different with the hard work of changing our hearts already done, and we just sit back and rest in knowing that we are different. We don’t have to change anymore. God’s word shows us the pathway to rest when our stubborn hearts get in the way of us changing for the better. So this passage today we’re going to see the three reasons that following God can give us rest in spite of our stubborn hearts. So we’re going to start in verse one of Psalm 95 Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. So the first reason is the greatness of God. God’s greatness leads us to rest, and that’s why the psalmist invites us to worship him in this psalm, because of the greatness of God. He says, “Come, let us sing with shout aloud, come before Him, let’s extol him with music and song. And he’s tone for the entire psalm here in these opening verses. He wants God’s people to worship him because of his greatness, and that’s the reason, that’s how this God could possibly warrant this reaction, because he is a great god, you see him say that when he says, “For the Lord is the great God. So, recognizing the greatness of God should lead us to worship. What does that mean? What is the psalmist describing when he describes the Lord as great? We actually see this very clearly in verses three through five. The Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hands are the depths of the earth. The mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. I want to focus on verse three. It’s very important. It gives God this really interesting name. He’s the great king above all gods. Now we may kind of brush past that name by the mention of other gods. A lot of people today don’t even believe there’s one God, let alone multiple gods, but Israel would definitely have needed this reminder of God being the great king above all gods, because there was a lot of pressure from their neighbors to worship these other gods, so their neighbors introduced into pagan gods, such as Molech or Baal and Tiamat, and they told them, these are the guys that actually control everything. You want to have a good harvest, worship Baal. You want protection from bad luck and evil spirits, sing some songs to Tiamat. You want to have good luck and good fortune, sacrifice your firstborn kid to Moloch. So, their neighbors were constantly telling them that Yahweh is not the one in charge, and there are these way better options to worship instead. So, knowing that helps us understand the intentionality of verses four and five to utterly decimate the claims of Israel’s neighbors. Just look at this. So, Molech was the god of the depths, in his hand are the depths of the earth. Baal, he was the god of the mountain peaks, and you’re supposed to go there to worship Him, and the mountain peaks belong to Him, Tiamat. He was the god of the sea, He controlled the seas, and the king above all gods. He made the seas and the dry land between them. So, the psalmist is pouring out the absurdity of following these lesser gods, Yahweh is the great king over everything, from the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and everything in between. Only God is king. And we saw this play out in Egypt, didn’t we? So God went toe to toe with Egypt’s entire roster of heavy hitters, from Happy, the Nile River god, to Ra, the sun god, the God of Israel, directly defied every Egyptian deity, and he went undefeated. He earned the title, the great king above all gods. And yet we don’t worship Moloch and Baal or Tiamat or even Ra today, but we too have other gods. I read a story about a pastor talking to a drug addict, and this drug addict said, really want to become a Christian because I don’t really like authority. I don’t want Jesus to tell me what I have to do with my life. Now the pastor wisely pointed out that heroin had been telling that guy what to do his entire life, and heroin is not a great boss for that dude. Heroin controlled his every action and waking thought, it dictated his every next move. Everything he did was to get another hit of his deity. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound all that different from trying to appease Baal to get a better harvest. And maybe I really doubt anyone here worships Moloch or suffers from a heroin addiction, but again, we too have our other bosses that we’re tempted to follow. I mean, maybe for you it’s sports betting, for a lot of people trying to get that parlay to hit to have that huge cash out dictates their every way that they spend their time and their money, all their resources, and then they’re left chasing big payouts in a system designed for them to lose, not a great boss, or maybe for you it’s trying to be physically attractive as possible, for you want to be the biggest guy in the gym or the prettiest woman in the neighborhood, and so you are willing to change your body or get all the outfits that you need to try and turn as many heads as possible, but we know that has an expiration date, right? Eventually, that too will fade, and you’re left chasing an impossible standard that isn’t going to last. Not a great boss. Maybe for you, it’s the approval of others. There’s something inside you that just needs people to like you, and so you’re willing to do things that you don’t really want to do, or say things you don’t really believe in, just to make people like you a little more, you know. The ironic part of that is that that just makes you more lonely, because if people, if you have to pretend and lie for people to like you, they don’t like you, they like the performance. That you’re putting on it just kind of leaves you lonely, and so for that reason, too, just needing the approval of others is not a great boss. What about you? What’s your boss? What controls your life? And our junior groups here, we have this set of questions that helps us identify the boss of our life, the things that we’re willing to follow instead of God. Here’s a few of them. What ruins your day if you don’t get it? What are you never satisfied with? What do you talk about all the time? What do you spend most of your time and money trying to get? What are you willing to sin to get? So we all have these, we all have these bosses, and none of these bosses are great, but that’s what makes following Jesus so amazing. He is the great boss above all bosses, the great King above all kings. He’s worth worshiping because he is great in everything that we’re tempted to place in his place as our boss, he created and rules over, and knowing that fact can lead us to rest. Trusting the right boss can lead us to rest, help us have peace. For example, I recently led a trip of students to Colorado, and every parent I talked to about the trip had this huge sigh of relief when I told him Jackie Berger was going too. Why is that? I’m a 20 year old dude, and she’s a mom. She’s the right boss. That makes sense, and in a much better way. God is the right king that is greater than all others. Only his great rule of our life can give us the peace that comes from following him, that leads to rest, but is that all he is? Is God just this boss and king that tells us what to do? Can I be further from the truth? So, in these next few verses, we’re gonna say that God is not just great, but He’s also good. Let’s start in verse six. Let us bow down in worship. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care. So God’s goodness leads us to rest. The second reason today is that following God, and sorry, this is the second reason that following God gives us rest. So, a lot of people have that question about God: Is he really good? Can a great king, a great ruler, be a good one? It’s definitely a worthwhile question, one that we see emphatically answered by scripture as yes, so God is a good king because he’s our creator and our caretaker. So we see that him as creator in verse six, it calls the Lord our maker, and that word is so beautiful in the original language, it has a much stronger emphasis of ownership. We are his people. He made us. We belong to him, and that means that you were made by God for God. Toy Story five came out recently. Whenever I think of those movies, I think about Andy writing his name on the bottom Woody’s foot. Now, I don’t.. I feel pretty good about this. I don’t think God wrote his name on the bottom of anybody’s foot here, but he went one step, not even one step, so many steps further than that. He made you in his image. Humanity is so different from everything else in creation, because we were made in the image of God. That’s the ultimate signature, the ultimate display of ownership. But ownership, it’s only good news if that comes with good care. I mean, everyone has seen the broken toys that come from a careless kid, right? And what good news that we see that God does indeed care for those that belong to Him. We see that verse seven it says He is our God, we are the people of His pasture, the flock under his care, he’s not just our creator, he does make us, he’s also our caretaker, and uses that picture of a shepherd to clearly help us envision the care that he provides. I mean, while Israel, they would have read this, and they would have thought about being in the deserts near Egypt, and God given them manna and quail from the sky, feeding them day after day, they would have thought about the pillar of smoke and fire guiding them through the desert. What a good shepherd indeed. God, He was a good creator and shepherd to Israel, and He’s good to us as well. God made us and also set His son to die for us to make the church, given us a purpose to serve Him and glorify Him. That’s what we mean when we’re made to magnify and sent to serve. God gave us that, and also He ministers to our hearts. He takes care of us when we are in need. He gives us our daily bread. He gives us comfort and stability during the difficulties of life. Life, how should we respond to that? How should we respond to the goodness of God? What do we do? Verse six, it gives us our clear response. So, verse one has this invitation to worship that focuses more on praising God and worshiping Him, but verse six has a different emphasis. It focuses more on pledging allegiance to Him, to bending your knee to Him. Says, look, it says, ‘Come, let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before our Maker. So, the only response that we could have to a great and good King is to bow down and kneel before Him. The psalmist, he’s asking Israel to place their allegiance in Yahweh, to follow the God, the King, who is the great God above all gods, and is a good creator and caretaker. The only response you can have to a God like that is to bend your knee and become a citizen of His kingdom, and this too, it gives us rest, knowing that our King is powerful and yet cares for us, gives us confidence that we’re going to make it, we’re going to be okay, and such a great and good God, while they were near Egypt, Israel got to witness everything, all these miracles of this care of God, of the greatness and goodness of God, and so surely at that moment they’re ready to worship Him, and only Him. Right, right. Let’s see if that really is the case as we close this psalm in the second half of verse seven today. If only you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Mass in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested me. They tried me, though they had seen what I did. For 40 years, I was angry with that generation. I said, they are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways. So I declared an oath in my anger they shall never enter my rest. So, in these verses, we see the final reason that only God can give rest. Rejecting God is rejecting rest. The rejection of God is also the rejection of true rest, so to close this whole psalm, the psalmist, he issues a warning referencing Israel’s rejection of God at Meribah and Messiah, and so these verses kill the whole vibe of worship and praise. So the psalmist must have done that for really good reasons. Let’s really pay attention to why he chose to do this. This is a story from Exodus 17. So, God, He’s just brought Israel out of Egypt, brought him through the Red Seas. He defeated the gods of Egypt and the army of Egypt, and He’s been providing for Israel with food from the sky and guiding them with a pillar of smoke and fire. But at Meriba Messiah they got thirsty, and they questioned Moses, demanding water. They said, “This, why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children, our livestock die of thirst? Why is this story a warning. What’s so wrong about asking God for some water to drink? The issue wasn’t what they asked for, it was how they asked for it. Moses, he asked back then, why he put the Lord to the test. Verse nine here says Meriba Messiah is where they tested and tried God. This question for water, it was not a hopeful question. If you were last week, Pastor Kyle mentioned these hopeful questions, which are questions that are to God with a trust and a belief that He’s going to fulfill those questions and meet those needs and promises. The questions that Maribel missile were not hopeful in the slightest. They were full of disdain and distrust of God. It’s the difference between a married couple working something out and fighting. So, if you know me, you know I really do not like conflict, and I get very uncomfortable when couples around me, or just people, just have fights, just makes you really kind of like, oh my gosh. Then I got married, and I learned there is a difference, like working through problems, it could sound a lot like fighting, but it’s different. There’s this trust, this mutual trust, that both parties want to work things out, and they want to reach a solution, a middle ground. That’s not true of fights. I find a lot of people, they fight because there’s this lack of trust, there’s this belief that the other person does not really care. So, Israel, they’re not working through the. Water problem with God, they don’t think He cares about them, and they don’t trust Him enough to even ask Him for water. They’re questioning this really patronizing way and rejecting way. So, verse nine points out another crazy part of this story. Look at the second half, though they had seen what I did. So, these people, these people who were thirsty, who were asking for water, they were the same people who were in Egypt during these plagues. They walked through the Red Sea. They didn’t take a boat, they didn’t swim. They walked, they ate the manna and the quail day after day. They saw the pillar of the fire, they followed it. And these same people, they didn’t even trust God enough to ask him for a drink of water. Have you noticed that story? They never talked to God at all. They went to Moses, and they asked Moses for water. Isn’t that nuts? Isn’t that crazy? They didn’t trust him enough for that, and that’s the reason this story is a warning to Israel and to us. It shows the danger of hardening your heart towards God, of testing Him, and then going astray from Him. And what was the consequence? They faced the generation that rejected God and Meriba Messiah. They never got to experience the rest of the promised land. They had the water of the desert for 40 years, never getting to the land of milk and honey, they never got to experience rest. They were stuck wandering, tired, wanting relief, but not wanting to do the hard work of trusting their God. But why would they do that? Why would they harden their hearts and reject the King who provided for them time after time again. Why do we? Why do we harden our hearts and reject God? Why aren’t we willing to change or let go of our sin, so we can enter His rest? We don’t want to. They didn’t want to, and the consequences for us are way more severe than walking around the desert for 40 years. When we reject God today, the consequences for that are death and eternal separation from Him. Something interesting to note is that the psalmist is writing this psalm after they got the promised land, so he is using this story as a warning to the people of Israel after they’re in the promised land. Now it’s interesting, right? What rest comes from Israel comes for Israel after they enter the promised land. What rest is there for God’s people? Hebrews four, it quotes Psalm 95 saying, Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains then a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works, just as God did from His. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their examples of different of disobedience. Now, that word, Sabbath rest, in Hebrews four, it’s not found anywhere else in the Bible, it’s only in that chapter, and this is a rest that people, it’s describing a rest people can enjoy today, right now, it’s not just a future promise, but right now, in spite of our sin and stubbornness, but how do we enter that rest? How can we complete the hard work of softening our hearts and surrendering to the King to receive rest? The answer is simple: we can’t, at least, not on our own, the Meriba Messal story has hints of relief. So, towards the end, Moses, he asks God for guidance, and God tells Moses to hit a rock with his staff, and then water flows out from that rock, and Israel has something to drink. So, in spite of their rejection and rebellion against him, he gave them water to drink and gave them relief, and we too have a rock that offers us relief today. Look at verse one, it says, “Let us shout to the rock of our salvation. This is clearly a reference to the rock at the Meru Messiah story, the water there was offered there, but it’s also a reference to the living water that was to come. Matthew 1128 says this: Jesus says this: Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, 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 is the rock of our salvation. The rejected Son of God poured out his blood for our sake, so that we could. To the rest that he provides, the Sabbath rest, it was never meant to be found in a place, it was meant to be found in a person, the person of Jesus Christ. And that’s the answer. The hard work of changing our hearts is already done. Jesus, He was tempted in every way that we were and are, but he didn’t sin, and so we can accept his work as ours, and that enables us to approach God’s throne of grace. Consider it this way: Who’s able to approach a throne? The citizens of the kingdom, right? And so revering God as our King, Jesus as our king is the only way to receive rest, and on our own we couldn’t get past the moat, we couldn’t even get close to the kingdom of God. Our sin and God’s holiness are not compatible in the slightest, but God’s goodness sent Jesus down to die for us, so that we can accept Him as our Savior and follow Him right to the throne of grace as citizens, as royal sons and daughters of the kingdom of grace, and that’s how we receive His mercy and find His grace by swearing allegiance to King Jesus, the great King above all other gods, our maker, our shepherd, the one who delivered Israel out of Egypt and delivers all those who follow him from sin and death. Are you tired? Go to the King. Are you weary? Approach His throne in your time of need. Is the hard work of your heart hindering you? Let the hard work of the cross change you forever, and this leads right into the big idea this morning. The big idea, the big idea is revere your God, reject your rejections, and receive His rest. Revere your God, reject your rejections, and receive his rest. Now, what does that look like for us? How does that affect our day today? Let’s focus on revering your God. When we revere God, we should do so with joy, and joy is all over. Psalm 95 right? says sing for joy and extol him with music and song. It’s why we get together on Sundays to do these things as a community, but when you worship, do you find yourself thinking more about the one you’re worshiping or who you’re worshiping with? It’s an easy trap to fall into. Are you one of the first people to raise your hands so everyone knows you’re especially holy, or are you arms 100% your size to let everyone know you are very humble. Now, the problem of both of those is you’re not focused on the one that you’re worshiping, you’re thinking about the perception of everyone else that you’re worshiping with. It reminds you of the story of David dancing in the streets to worship and praise his God. Now, his wife was not amused by that, and thought it was just a very dishonorable thing to do. And let’s be honest, if David was here dancing on the worship service, he’d get a few side eyes. Let’s be honest, but his response, I think that should also be the response of our heart too. He said, I will be more undignified than this. I love that. Now, I don’t want anyone to mishear me. I’m not saying you have to raise your hands or dance around to worship, just encouraging you that as you revere your God, do so with joy, and a joy that is focused more on revering your God, as opposed to fearing your fellow worshipers, and what a privilege it is that we get to revere Him together, that as a community we gather to sing with joy to the Lord, who gives us rest, and we can indeed receive that rest now. Remember Matthew 11, Jesus says, ‘Come to me and I’ll give you rest. That’s not just a future promise, that is a right now promise that can be experienced from making Jesus the boss of your life. His yoke is easy, you can rest from trying to prove your worth to him. He knows all your faults and your unworth, and he loved you so much. He is willing to die for the broken version of you, all other bosses you could follow, everything else you could worship. It demands you to prove your worth. Jesus, He gives you worth, and as a result, gives you rest from trying to earn worth. But we still need to reject those other bosses. We need to reject our rejections of God. Psalm 95 urges us to reject testing Him. So, when we go to God with hard questions, we all seem to have a hard trust that He is going to care for us and wants to offer us relief in those moments. So, when we’re thirsty, don’t. Rumble and complain to God, go to Him, ask Him for relief with the belief and trust that He will give that to you, but also tells us to reject hard hearts like Israel, our hearts can be hardened to God’s voice and reject Him. So a student recently asked me, Why hasn’t God just forgiven Satan? So my first thought was, Kyle, please help, but then I just took a moment to think about, I was like, oh, scripture just gives us this so clearly, everything we know about Satan from Scripture, we know he was an angel and he saw God in his full glory, he knows everything about God that he could possibly know, but he didn’t want to submit to him. He knew all of God’s greatness and goodness, but he did not want to make God his king. And so Satan will never be forgiven, because his heart is too hard. He knows everything about God, but he still rejected him. He’ll never ask for forgiveness. His hatred is too strong of God, and He knows everything about God, so it’s not like anything could change His mind about it. And that’s exactly what our hearts can be like. We just.. we don’t like being told what to do. We don’t like submitting to authority. Now, a few weeks ago, I was a volunteer at the TGC Women’s Conference. It was a great time, and I was in charge of the free book station, so I, my job was to give out one free book to every woman that came to the conference, and you know me, I’m kind of real sickler. I was only supposed to give out just one, but a few people came and asked me for books for their friends that weren’t able to make it to that day. Now, I told them, hey, you come back the last day, we’re getting out so many books, as many books as possible, but for right now, we’re just going to one book today, and one woman, an older woman, she – when I told that, she just got really close to me, and she said, “Look away. So I kind of like laughed it off. I was like, “I’m not going to do that, and I said, just come back the last day, and we’ll get you your book. And so I walk away to go talk to another co-volunteer. I look back, she grabs an armful, and she goes, and my first thought was, like, I can totally catch her, I’m way faster than that’s a race I can win. My second thought was, oh, I do that. I do that to God when He doesn’t give me what I want, when I want it, how I want it. I tell Him to look away, and I take things in my own hands, and we all do that. So, how do we soften our hearts to his voice? How do we not do that? Have hearts so hard that we do things like that. Well, I think the answer is, we have to remind ourselves who’s talking. We have to remember the person speaking. So, Israel, their hearts got hard when they were thirsty, and they either forgot or they didn’t care that about all things that God had done for them before that point. So, when we harden our hearts, we do this because life gets hard, right? That’s why we do that. But in those moments, we need to reject our rejection of God and remember our King. Remembering the King who commands us is also the one who was crucified for us, so that helps us when he gives us hard commands. We know that he loves us, and he is a great and good king. So, remember, the one who is speaking is the way to soften our hearts, and when we do soften our hearts, we can hear what he’s saying. He’s inviting us to experience his rest. The writer of Hebrews and the Psalms, they both have the same invitation: Come, let us bow before Him. And this invitation has an interesting implication. A commentary I read said the invitation to come to the presence of God presupposes that by nature we are far from God. So, being invited to be near God it implies that we are far from Him. He wants to give you rest, he wants you to approach the throne of grace. He’s calling all of those with hard hearts to come home, to come to him. When the Titanic was sinking, some people said no to the lifeboat. They did not think they were going to need it, and it was only was too late that they realized they needed it the whole time, and we’re all like that, we’re all in need of this rest that the King provides, but we need to accept His invitation to receive His rest, because if we don’t, eventually we will be like Satan with hearts too hard, we will be unable to even ask for forgiveness and but if we accept this invitation to rest, we can receive the promise of rest that He’s going to take us, His people, home. Can you see it? Can you hear it? Can you feel it? King Jesus reigns, and He’s returning soon. He’s promised. Us that all who bow their knee to Him and soften their hearts will receive true rest. Isn’t that good news? So revere your God, reject your rejection, and then receive the gift of His rest. I’m very glad that my walk with Jesus works way differently than my runs with Hannah. The Thomas 10 miles is always going to hurt till I change, but with Jesus, He’s paved the way for me, and He invites me to receive Him, and by doing so, receive rest. So, Psalm 95 it gives us these three reasons that following God, following Jesus, gives us rest. His greatness shows us He’s in charge. His goodness shows that we can trust Him, and knowing that rejecting Him is rejecting rest helps us revere Him and receive His rest, not just in the future but right now. And so I’m going to close the first two verses of this psalm, and invite you to revere our great and good God, who gives rest to his followers. Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. Would you please pray with me, Lord, great King above all other gods, our maker, our creator, the one who was crucified for us, the one who raised from the dead, conquered our sin and our death, and gave us the path to life and the path to rest, not just in the future for eternity, but right now today, as we make you the king of our life. I pray that we would do so, Lord, that we would live as citizens of your kingdom, that we would get to experience the kingdom of grace, and the rest that comes with following a king who is so good he was willing to lay down his life for all those who bend their knee to him. Pray for all of us, Lord, that we would follow you more and give up trying to change ourselves and let you do the hard work of softening our hearts and not letting us go astray. Be our shepherd, Lord, be our comfort, be our peace, be our rest. In Your powerful name I pray. Amen.

The Judge of the Earth (Psalm 94)

PODCAST THE JUDGE OF THE EARTH June 21, 2026 | Kyle Bjerga Kyle Bjerga discusses the human response to injustice, using personal experiences and biblical references to illustrate the struggle between revenge and faith. He recounts incidents of bullying and a recent playground altercation, emphasizing the natural desire for revenge. Bjerga highlights Psalm 94, focusing on God’s role as the judge who avenges and the importance of trusting in divine justice. He contrasts the wicked’s arrogance with the righteous’ hope in God’s discipline and eventual judgment. Bjerga encourages his audience to seek refuge in God, trusting in His ultimate justice and comfort. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Well, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. You can go ahead and open up your Bibles to Psalm 94. If you use one of the black pew Bibles around you, maybe underneath that is page 482. As you turn there, when I was a student in school, when I was then a teacher in the school, and when I was doing youth ministry, whether as a volunteer or on staff at a church, there were a handful of times where I’d gotten to the angry to the point of losing my cool, and like angry to where my body responds, and I don’t know what to do, so like you feel that like I’m turning red, I think I, my heart rate is going 150 beats a minute. I’m standing here, I am sweating, my teeth are clenched, and I feel my fists going like this. So, just a handful of times that that happened. Now, what could make me reach this point was not disobedience towards me, was not disrespect, was not cheating, it was bullying, seeing bullies, people taking advantage of those who oftentimes were more vulnerable, whether they were speaking ill of them, picking on them, ridiculing them, mocking them, but they looked at this person and saw I could take advantage of this person, and it was the thing that got me angry, and I still see faces, I still see moments in my mind where these things happen, and I just remember my response in those moments. And this weekend, something happened where Jackie and a couple of our boys were at a playground, and there was an accident that happened, and a guy actually verbally attacked Jackie and her parenting and my son for an accident, and it was a bully, and so you’re sitting there, and now that I’m really wound up, Jackie Jackie’s probably wound up. Let me wind all of you up as well. What, what is it for you? Because I think even me, just saying those few things, faces popped into your mind, situations popped into your mind. And what kind of response do we normally have when these things happen, it’s the thing that goes through my mind oftentimes first. It’s revenge. I want them to be paid back for what they did to me. I want them to get what they deserve. And this is something that happens at all ages, because I love watching movies with my kids that I’ve seen, and I know the outcome. And one of my sons, in particular, loves to verbalize when he wants the bad guy to get it, and he will clap and be physically excited when the bad guy gets what he deserves, and I sit there and, like, yep, that’s me too, and in some ways you’re like, yeah, they should get what they deserve, and at the same time you’re sitting there thinking, like, I don’t want him to, like, you know, be super excited about these things happening, so this kind of this line, like, where do I get excited, where do I not? And then, how do I teach vengeance isn’t ours, vengeance isn’t mine. And so then you amplify these personal examples to some of the worst bullying in the history of the world, much larger scale, the oppression of people groups, kidnapping of children, trafficking, slavery, genocide, and on and on. We can go. When you hear a story of real injustice, you should have a response to it. We want to have that clear line in the sand of this is good and this is evil. The question for us? Is not whether something is evil or good. It’s how do we respond to the evil? What comes into our hearts? What comes into our minds? What comes out of our mouth? And what actions do we take in the face of wickedness and evil? The psalmist wants us to know what we should do, but better than that is where we should go, and so we’re going to start first in verses one and two. You can see there in your notes we are looking at the character of God. So here is Psalm 94 verses one and two. The Lord is a God who avenges. Oh God, who avenges, shine forth, rise up, judge of the earth, pay back to the proud what they deserve. So, no shock that we start with the character of God again. Everything must start here. Our prayers, our laments, our praises, and our requests must start with God. And last week, as we started this series in Psalm 93 we were in the throne room of God. We saw God robed in majesty, looking at the world that He established, and we saw that God is reigning, even in the moments where it doesn’t quite feel that way. And now in Psalm 94 we. Actually, enter into the chaos of the world, and we don’t see it from afar. Now we experience it. It’s our reality of living in a fallen world, and it’s the chaos that leads us to look back in Psalm 93 or two verses one and two of Psalm 94 and we ask the question, Who is God? And we see here in these first two verses that He is the judge of the earth, the whole, the judge who avenges and pays back the proud with what they deserve. In Romans 1219 which is reminding us of what it says in Deuteronomy 32 says this: Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge, I will repay, says the Lord. Vengeance is God’s. So the psalmist is ruining everything in God’s character, which is helping the psalmist and us get in the right mind and heart, because he could just go right into the account of who these evil people are, and this wickedness that they’re experiencing, but instead of doing that, because that’s just going to get all that injustice is going to well up inside of us, he’s reminding himself and us that I need to bring this to the only right judge, and so he pleads with God, he says, “Shine forth, says, “Rise up, and what he’s saying is, “God, show up, show up, be who I know you are, and do what you said you will do, because the psalmist knows that God’s vengeance, when he repays, it is fair, it is just, as a parent, if you’ve ever had kids disobey, amen. Okay, perfect children. If you’ve ever been in that moment where you have to discipline, how many times have you given that punishment, that discipline that didn’t quite fit the crime? It was a little bit too severe for what they actually did, or it wasn’t severe enough for what they did, because we know our kids are going to kind of say, well, that wasn’t fair, right? That wasn’t fair, because this didn’t happen to them, and so we’re going to hear this question all the time, and then when we stand back, we’re like, yeah, I’m not consistent, so Who am I in my little bubble if I can’t be consistent, who am I to think I can sit in the judgment seat for that person and that person and that person if I can’t even do this in my own home and be consistent and fair in my discipline, but God’s discipline is truly just. It is never more than it should be, and it is never less than it should be. It is never an emotional response where God disciplines based on how good of a day he had, which I think is true for some of us. So, it’s not he had a bad day, so the punishment is a little bit more severe, and he had a good day today, so the punishment is a little bit less. No, it is always just. It is always fair. And if we could see what God sees, if we could know what God knows, we would judge exactly the same way, because He is the only one that truly knows what is right and wrong all the time. And Aw Tozer says this, he says it perfectly in comparing our judgments and our actions with God’s when evil comes into our life. He says, how completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has none. To say, I don’t really know if I know the whole story, but God does. He doesn’t have any limitations when He judges, because God sees actions, and we oftentimes see actions, but only God sees the heart, and he will judge accordingly. So, now that we have our minds and our hearts in the right place, centered on the character of God, we can now move to the plea that the psalmist makes, and it’s a plea about the proud and getting what they deserve. So, we’re going to look at the second section there, the arrogance of the wicked, starting in verse three. How long, Lord, will the wicked? How long will the wicked be jubilant? They pour out arrogant words. All the evil doers are full of boasting. They crush your people, Lord. They oppress your inheritance. They slay the widow and the foreigner. They murder the fatherless. They say the Lord does not see. The God of Jacob takes no notice. Take notice, you senseless ones among the people, you fools. When will you become wise? Does he who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see? Does he who disciplines nations not punish? Does he who teaches mankind lack knowledge? The Lord knows all humans, human plans. He knows that they are futile. So, the question, How long, Lord, is a question we ask quite a bit in our Lament series that we did last year, and it is a hope-filled question. It is not a hopeless question. It, but as the psalmist comes here, he’s like, it looks like the wicked are jubilant, like they’re living the good life, things are going well, they have success, they have wealth, and not a care in the world, and usually that’s at the expense of other people. So, how long, Lord? And when you ask that question, how long, Lord, with the understanding of God’s character, it’s not hopeless in that the wicked are going to get away with anything, but instead it’s asking, I know you won’t let this go on forever, but could you step in a little sooner? Right, I know you’re not going to let it go on forever, but how long? When is the payback coming? Are you going to avenge soon? It’s a question asked through scripture many times. It’s a question that we continue to ask, and the question you’re also probably asking at this point is, why does wickedness persist? Then, why doesn’t God step in right now, right now, knowing what’s going to happen? Why has He not stopped this and this and that? And we’re going to come back to one of the answers that we see in the text this morning. We’re going to just hold on to that for a few minutes, and we’ll get there. But what the psalmist does here is he catalogs the list of these wicked things that these people are doing. These are not small things that you could just quickly glance over. He’s using words like pour out, full crush, which we looked at, even last week, in Psalm 93 overwhelming oppression, slay, murder, like these are wicked, wicked things. It’s a clear line. There’s no way around it. These are evil things that are happening, but what’s more concerning is not just what they’re doing, but who they are doing it to. Who are they doing it to, and we see here in the text, one, it’s his inheritance, God’s inheritance, his people, his covenant people, and there’s a good reason to think that this wickedness that’s happening with the people this time is coming from the inside, but of course it could also be things that are coming from outside nations, regardless of that, though the church has always experienced people attacking from within and people attacking from outside, whatever it is, the prayer is going to be the same, and so the psalmist says, because he’s confident in the Lord, we’re your people, so you are going to do something, because when you attack God’s people, you attack God when He has put His love and His promises on His people. When others go against them, God knows that God sees that, and God will respond. And so, Psalm is saying, How long until you do it? And then we also see who else is this happening to within this group of people: it’s the widow, the foreigner, and the fatherless, and these are groups of people that have special mention in scripture in multiple places, and the Lord makes provision for these groups of people in His law. So, here’s just one example from Deuteronomy 10. It’s not going to be on the screen, I’m just going to read it to you. We see all three of these groups of people in this verse, he defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing, and you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. So this is God saying this about these people, and these are the people that are being attacked by the wicked, and they’re doing these horrible things to them. And the key verse in this section is the attitude of the wicked, and it’s extremely unsettling. Look at verse seven, they say the Lord does not see, the God of Jacob takes no notice. How hopeless would life be if that was true? The Lord does not see the kind of Jacob doesn’t take notice, he doesn’t care. How hopeless would life be if there wasn’t a king, if there wasn’t a judge? Because one thing we know on this earth, the our earthly judges, our earthly justice system is going to let people get off, they’re going to be free, they are going to miss things, and people are going to get away with things they have, and they will, but not forever, but not forever, because there is a king, there is a judge. It’s unsettling, not because we find that this is their attitude. It’s unsettling because we know that this is our attitude. Many times, every time we sin, what are we doing? Maybe God doesn’t look at me today. Maybe He’s not watching. Maybe He doesn’t care. Maybe it’s going unnoticed now, and this happens because we, we give in at some point to temptation, and then we do it again a little bit later, and we feel like the guilt and the shame just isn’t quite the same as it was before. So just say, maybe God isn’t, maybe he isn’t watching, he’s not doing anything about it, at least. So maybe I can get away with a little bit more, and a little bit more, and quickly your heart becomes hard, then you start to realize. Is I’m taking advantage of the vulnerable, I am being wicked to other people in my mind, in my heart, in my speech, in my actions, and so we need to pray that the Spirit would reveal these areas of our life that maybe right now we’re holding on to very tightly, because we’ve gone to that point of saying, well, God hasn’t done anything about it yet, so why do I need to give it up? He sees, and he knows it’s interesting when somebody’s brought in for questioning for a crime that they think they get away with, pretty confident, even as they get questioned, they’re going to get away with everything changes, their whole countenance changes when somebody comes and says we have a video to show you, and it’s like, oh yeah, there’s cameras everywhere, there’s people with cameras, phones everywhere, and we’re going to show you this, and now all of a sudden everything changes, but there’s always been eyes on us, God has always seen us every day, every hour, every minute, so when you think about that, you’re like, oh, so he saw yesterday, he saw this morning, going to church, he sees my heart right now. In verse seven is a succinct way to define what it’s like to live without the fear of the Lord. So, if you want to say, like, what does it mean when somebody doesn’t fear the Lord, it’s this: the Lord does not see, the Lord doesn’t take notice, and that we see here is called foolishness. In contrast to verse eight, look at verse eight: Take notice, you senseless ones among the people, you fools. When will you become wise, and how do the wise live? Well, Proverbs tells us the beginning of wisdom, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. It’s the fear of the Lord. It’s exactly the opposite of what these people are doing. And then the psalmist just kind of takes us to school. We’re in theology 101 right now, in verses nine through 11, we’re looking at the main question, Who is God? And in these four questions that the psalmist asks, we find out that God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient creator. That’s what we see here. So, look at the first two questions: Does He who fashioned the ear not hear? Does he, who formed the eye, not see well? Does he? God tells Moses this in Exodus 37 I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. They’re asking, How long, Lord? And he’s like, I see you, I hear you, and I’m going to do something. The next question, does he who disciplines nations not punish? Well, before Moses and the people of Israel are even in Egypt, God is talking to Abraham in Genesis 15, giving him his covenant, and he tells Abraham, your people will be in a foreign land, will be enslaved in a foreign land for a very long time, and before that even happens, this is what he tells Abraham, but I will punish the nation, which we know is Egypt, I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. Does the Lord discipline? Yes, He disciplined Egypt, and everybody in that area heard about it. And then last question, does He who teaches mankind lack knowledge? Isaiah 4610 says, I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say my purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. He knows it all. He’s everywhere. He’s all powerful. He’s the creator. This is who our God is. And so the wicked should fear the Lord, because he does see, he does take notice, and he won’t let evil prevail in the end. And then we get this kind of summary in verse 11, reminds us there’s nothing outside of God, there are no human plans that God does not see. He knows what’s going to come. He knows nothing can thwart His plans, nothing evil or wicked. And we now move from the arrogance of the wicked to the hope of the righteous. So, look, starting in verse 12 through 19, the hope of the righteous, blessed is the one you discipline, Lord, the one you teach from your law. You grant them relief from days of trouble till a pit is dug for the wicked. For the Lord will not reject his people, he will never forsake his inheritance. Judgment will again be founded on righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it. Who will rise up for me against the wicked, who will take a stand for me against evildoers? Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, “My foot is slipping, your unfailing love, Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought me joy. And so we have here. At the beginning, these words “discipline” and “teaching” are the same words that were just used in the questions that the psalmist asks, same words in verse 10, but the audience has changed. The audience is not the wicked, the audience is the righteous, those who follow the Lord. And right here we get one of the main differences between being wicked and being righteous, because God will discipline and punish both, and he also teaches who he is. He makes it known who he is. In creation, we see it in his word. And so the question is, How are you going to respond to this? How are you going to respond to the answers to this question of who is God? And the wicked respond by saying, The Lord does not see, the Lord does not take notice, and the righteous, those who submit to God, are willing and ready to hear His word. They’re ready to be disciplined, they’re ready to be instructed, so that we can see right here in verse 12. Blessed, it’s like the beatitudes, blessed, happy are those who are ready to receive the instruction of the Lord to receive the discipline of the Lord, because the Lord disciplines those He loves, and they are ready to receive the relief that is talked about in verse 13. They’re ready to receive that relief, because not only does God discipline us, He teaches us through the hardships that we experience, through our troubles, through enduring what the wicked and the evil will do to us, so I love what Augustine says. Says, “Bear patiently when evil doers get all the luck, and they bear patiently, tolerantly the hardships that fall to good people until this world comes to an end, until iniquity shall pass away. They are blessed already, for God has instructed them in His law and made them gentle through days of misery until a pit is dug for the sinner. The Lord is there to instruct us to walk with us, even as the evil, even as the wickedness is going on around us. And Augustine is really just quoting from this psalm here, relief is possible, because look at verse 13, as the wickedness and evil happens, a pit is being dug. The more wickedness, the deeper the pit goes. In a way, the evil and wicked are digging their own grave. And I said, we come back to this question: Why does God let evil persist? Why does He not just stop it right now. Well, there’s a great answer to this in Genesis 15. Again, as God is talking to Abraham, giving him his covenant, he’s telling him what’s going to happen to his people, as we just read that they’re going to be enslaved by another nation, but they will return to the promised land. But when are they going to return to the promised land? He says when the sin of the people there, the Amorites, has reached its full measure. Because God is patient, God is patient. God gives time for repentance, or you could repent, or you can continue to dig, and that’s what the Amorites are doing, they dig a pit deeper and deeper. When they hear about things that the Lord is doing, they don’t repent and follow Him. They just keep digging, doing wicked thing after wicked thing. And so, when God brings this judgment on the Amorites in this moment, there isn’t a mistake, like they can’t stand before God and say, “Oh, wait, we didn’t know, or bring these excuses and all these different things to him. It’s like you’ve been digging this pit for a very long time. So God allows things to reach their full measure, in part to demonstrate to us what is truly unjust. It’s not that God needs to prove himself, it’s just for us to be there and not stand before God and say, like, I didn’t know, I had no idea. I didn’t know my heart was getting harder. I don’t think I deserve this, and making every excuse in the book to say, like, I don’t deserve this. When he shows us what our sin is and what it does, all of us would stand there and say that’s a fair punishment, that’s fair judgment, and that’s what’s happening in this, they continue to dig to show one day that I’m without excuse, as all of us are, we’re without excuse, and then here’s the relief for us, that the wicked will not ultimately get away with anything, they won’t, another relief is the teaching of verse 12 mentions God’s law, so we find relief in the difficult moments, in the troubles, in the hardships, in our circumstances, with the promises of God, with the promises of God, the teaching from God’s law. This is what we see in verses 14 and 15. Things are going to be hard, we’re going to experience wickedness working against us and working against the Lord, but the Lord will not reject His people. He’ll never forsake His inheritance. I will never leave you nor forsake you. And that is a promise that we cling to in the wickedness and the evil. Is He’s got me, He’s got me. And then we also find relief that the wickedness, the wicked do not have the final word. It says in verse 15, judgment will again be founded on righteousness, and this is looking forward to the future, so the new heavens and the new earth, where Jesus is making all things new. So when we ask the question, How long, Lord, this is the answer, the new heavens and the new earth, when everything is made right. Another question that we ask ourselves is where do we go when we experience trouble, when it seems like the wicked are winning, and that’s where the psalmist goes next in his questions. In verse 16, asks, Who will rise up for me against the wicked? Who will take a stand for me against evil doers? And I love this. He describes these experiences and emotions that he’s feeling that lead to these questions. Verse 17, he says, ‘I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. So, in the face of wickedness, we could despair. That’s what’s happening here. I could despair. Our minds can go to thinking that God can’t or won’t do something that maybe He’s not able. Do you hear me, God? Do you hear me? In verse 18, He says, ‘My foot is slipping in the face of wickedness. We can doubt, we could be tempted to respond to evil with more evil. We could be tempted to think, like, well, they got away with it, so maybe I can get away with it. And our foot slips off of our firm foundation. We’re being moved, we’re being shaken by our circumstances, and it’s hard. I get it. When wickedness is winning, it is so easy to say, like, I just want to do the same thing, I just want to get vengeance, I just want to make sure they know they’re wrong and that I am right. Does he take notice? And then verse 19, when anxiety was great within me, so in the face of wickedness, our thoughts can be overwhelming, causing anxious feelings, anxious thoughts, causing us to fear, and unable to rest. So, my question for you now is, Where is that temptation? Is it despair? Is it doubt? Is it anxiety? Is it all of them? Thankfully, the psalmist gives us the answer to these questions, no matter where you are. Verse 17, when we’re talking about despair, it says the Lord gives help. Verse 18, when you’re talking about doubt, God’s unfailing love supports you, and when you’re talking about anxiety, verse 19, God’s comfort brings you joy, we go to the one who provides all of this, where all the promises of God are yes and amen. That’s in the personal work of Jesus Christ. That is where we go. The psalmist here had all sorts of small s saviors, small s saviors, prophets, priests, kings, judges, that for a time, might bring some comfort, for a time might bring some help, might bring some support, but just as likely they would end up on the wicked side of things. Just go through First and Second Kings, First and Second Chronicles, and you start to see how quickly these kings can go astray, right? So, there’s some small ass saviors that could bring some of this for a little while, but none of them could bring a completely satisfying and ultimate help, support, comfort, and joy, other than the capital S Savior, Jesus. That’s what He came to do, because He did that through His death, because He defeated evil, He defeated wickedness and sin, triumphing over them by the cross, and not only does he do that, but he sustains us now, and so what do we have to do? We have to turn our eyes back to him. We have to turn our eyes back to Jesus. Some of our women were at the Gospel Coalition women’s conference last week, and the theme was “Turn Your Eyes: Seen the Savior in the Book of Psalms, and that’s what we’re doing this morning, and our eyes have to go to Jesus and say, “This is what you have done for me. This is why I can be completely confident, and this is one of my favorite songs. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. We’ve been singing it as a family this week after Jackie got back from the conference, and listen to these words: “Oh, soul, are you weary and troubled? Are you experiencing wickedness and evil? Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth, evil, wickedness, troubles, hardships will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace, what could do that? Only Jesus can do that, can bring us that comfort and that joy, which leads us to the last section here, the work of God, starting in verse 20 and. Can a corrupt throne be allied with you? A throne that brings on misery by its decrees. The wicked abandon together against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death. But the Lord has become my fortress and my God, the rock in whom I take refuge. He will repay them for their sins and destroy them for their wickedness. So here we are, the work of God. The psalmist comes back one more time to the wicked. The wicked cannot be aligned with God. The wicked are working against the Lord and working against the righteous. So now, at this moment, as we’re living our lives right now, two things are happening. The wicked continue to do wicked things and evil things, and they are continuing to dig that pit for themselves, and then the righteous, those who are in Christ Jesus, are taking comfort in God, their rock, their fortress, and their refuge. As the psalmist sees the Lord’s people being oppressed here and condemned to death, we look back to the cross 2008 years ago, when the wicked banded together against an innocent one. That’s what they did. The wicked banded together to say this man needs to die, the only one who is truly righteous, the Lord Jesus Christ. And they persecuted him, and they crushed him, condemning him to death. There’s something we have to come to terms with, all of us, this morning, and that is the wickedness is not just out there. The wickedness is in here. The wickedness is in here too. Every one of us knows what we deserve. If you recorded the last week of your life, your heart, your mind, your speech, your actions, would you want it played here for everybody to hear? I wouldn’t. I didn’t want that the other day when that guy was going after my family. We all deserve God’s judgment. We’ve rebelled against the Creator, who has given us our eyes and our ears, and we’ve asked Him, “Do you see? Do you take notice? We all deserve that. And yet, through Jesus Christ, listen to what the psalmist says in Psalm 103 He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities when we are found in Christ Jesus. Because of this, the Lord is not a god we run from, but a god we run, we run to as our refuge and our fortress for the help and the support and the comfort and the joy that we’re looking for. He is the rock, he does not move, he does not change, he remains the same regardless of the wickedness going on around us. Verse 23 goes back to what I said before, it’s a nice bookend from where we started. Lord, avenge, pay back. Well, what’s he going to do? He will repay them for their sins and destroy them for their wickedness, the Lord our God will destroy them. The same words used in verses one and two. He is going to do this. No one is going to get away with anything, but at this time, on this side of the cross, those sins, that wickedness, that evil is either paid for on the cross by Jesus Christ, or it will be paid for at the final judgment, because for those who are in Christ Jesus, we ask, How long, Lord, how long? But if you have not asked that question, do not presume upon God’s grace, because you may be hardening your heart, and you may be digging a pit deeper and deeper, because Jesus will come again. He came, capital S Savior. When he comes again, we see this in Acts 1731 It says, “For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead. Well, there’s only been one man raised from the dead like this, and He is appointed at one time to bring justice to the earth, so He will come again. Will you be digging a pit, or will you be running to Him for His as a refuge? So Christ will come and judge you for your sins, past, present, and future paying you back what you deserve, or He will welcome you into His kingdom, because He paid for your sins, past, present, and future, and gave you what you don’t deserve, His grace, His forgiveness, and reconciliation. So, the big idea this morning from Psalm 94 is this: the judge will make all things right, so take refuge in Him and be comforted. The judge will make all things right, so take refuge in Him and be comforted. What does this look like for a few different groups in here? Just want to say a couple things. One, if you were here this morning. In your questioning Christianity, seeking who is Jesus, have some questions trying to navigate the difficult life that we find ourselves living. We’re so happy that you’re here this morning. We have a lot of the same questions that you do, and so this morning my plea for you is simply to fear the Lord. Fear the Lord. He sees all, he knows all, but he has made a way for you to be forgiven through his son, so that you can experience true freedom, true rest, true comfort, and joy, and help and support when the wickedness and evil is going on around us, and he gives us the strength by his spirit to pursue that right life, right living on the right line that has been drawn in the sand, so we know what is good and what is evil, and he helps us to walk with him. So my plea is to fear the Lord today, for my brothers and sisters in Christ, take refuge in the Lord, and let Him avenge, let Him pay back. You’re like, well, what is that? What does that look like? I told Jackie this when I wasn’t with them, when this happened at the playground, and I told her, in God’s providence, in His grace, what sermon was I working on when all of this happened, because I told her all the same things happened to my body, but my mind and heart did not go to the place it would have gone a week ago, simply because I was in this, and it’s going through my mind is like, how could I respond the way I want to respond, and I didn’t know that in the moment, but stepping back now, I’m like, how in the world did I hold it together? It’s simply by God’s grace to say, Lord, you avenge. It’s not for me to do it’s not for me to take vengeance. And when we look at scripture, I’ve got one example from scripture and one from more recent history, but I think we need to hear these to truly understand what does this look like, to not avenge, but to let the Lord do it. Many of you are doing the two-year Bible reading with us, that, and we just finished up First Samuel, and so you’re studying the life of David, and King Saul is pursuing David unjustly. He is jealous, he doesn’t want David to have the throne, and so he is pursuing him. How many times David have a chance to take Saul’s life twice, and how many people were encouraging him to do that, to take Saul’s life. Why seek vengeance, get revenge, take the throne? And what did David do both times? He left a warning for Saul. He said, I just took some stuff from you, just cut off the corner of your robe, but I just want you to know I’m here, but I’m not going to take your life, that’s the Lord’s to do. The Lord will avenge, the Lord will take your kingdom from you, the Lord will give the kingdom to me. He trusted the Lord to do what God said He would do. Vengeance is the Lords, and then Corrie 10 Boom, one of my favorites, imprisoned in a concentration camp for hiding Jews in her home with her family from the Nazis in World War Two, and she constantly spoke of forgiveness every time she would see a guard, there was this moment of what I described, that anger inside, why is this happening to us, but at the same time she was able to pray the prayer, Lord, forgive them, which is exactly what Jesus did on the cross, forgive them, because they don’t know what they’re doing. How many of these guards knew what they were doing in this moment, and she wanted them to experience the grace of Jesus Christ. So, Lord, if they go to their grave unrepentant, judge them, and he will justly, but Lord, I want them to experience the grace that I’ve experienced, because I deserve exactly what they deserve: eternal separation from you. But instead of seeking out that vengeance, she gave it to the Lord. But this is important for us. We need to pray prayers, not just of judgment and justice, we need to pray prayers of forgiveness and pleading for the lives of those who have done evil and wickedness in our life or to others. And finally, church, we need to be comforted and comfort each other. We help others, not seek revenge. We help others support others when somebody sins against them, when they experience evil and wickedness, and we pray prayers like Psalm 94 So I want to read this from Second Corinthians one three through four. Ground ourselves in the character of God, so that we can help each other. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. So we remind each other that the Lord sees all our sins and the wickedness and evil of others. It will not go on forever, and we pray for the wicked that they would come to believe in Jesus Christ, have their sins for. Given like ours have, because it has been paid if they repent and stop digging those pits, and they too can walk in comfort and joy that we are walking in, because the judge of all the earth will do what is right. So take refuge in Him and be comforted. Let’s pray, God of all comfort, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your love for us, the forgiveness that we have received through your Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross and in the empty tomb. We thank you, Lord, that as we enter into this next week, if there’s any evil or wickedness that we experience, Lord, I pray that you would remind us to come to you first, that we would come and pray, we would come and plead with you, and that you would be the help and the support and the comfort and joy that we need in that moment as we rest in the finished work of Christ, and rest that you will pay back the evil you will give it what it deserves, and let us trust you with that. We thank you, Lord. We love you, and we pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

21 de jun de 202641 min

Costly Love (Philemon 17-25)

PODCAST COSTLY LOVE June 7, 2026 | Brandon Cooper Brandon Cooper discusses the theme of costly love in Philemon 17-25, emphasizing that love always costs something, especially in a broken world. He cites examples from literature and movies in which characters sacrifice for love, drawing parallels to the Christian call to forgive and love others. Cooper highlights Paul’s request to Philemon to welcome Onesimus, a runaway slave who has become a Christian, and to charge any debts to Paul’s account. He stresses the importance of forgiveness, generosity, and hospitality, urging believers to go above and beyond in love, as Christ has done for them. TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+ The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy. Well, good morning, church. You want to go ahead, grab your Bibles, you can open up to Philemon. We will wrap up this short book this morning. We’ll be in Philemon 17 to 25 Philemon 17 to 25 As you’re turning there, there’s a familiar but really powerful trope in movies, literature, and the like, where someone is willing to bear a substantial cost. If I can quote from Philemon, to bear that substantial cost on the basis of love, because they’re being motivated by love of different sorts. So, just some examples, you’ll know some of them, at least. I hope mr. Darcy, for example, lays out an enormous sum of money in order to protect the family of the woman he loves from social ruin, so he is driven by romantic love in that case, or switching continents, Jean Valjean risks his freedom to save Marius because he wants what’s best for his adopted daughter, so he’s driven by familial love. One of my favorite characters from literature, Atticus Finch, he endures rejection, social stigma, isolation in order to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who’s accused falsely of attacking a woman, and so he puts his whole family at very real risk in the process as well. He’s driven by a higher love, almost, because it is a love of justice, a love of humanity as humanity, maybe most powerfully, of course, Sydney Carton gives his life, changes places with Charles Darnay, counts the total cost in order to spare his friend, and for the sake of the woman that he loves as well. The point in all of these, we could multiply examples easily, is that love costs, love always costs, and it costs a lot, especially in a broken world filled with broken people, and that’s all those stories I just shared. Two of them, at least, are based on unjust systems, some driven by sexual sin, others by racism. All of this costs, and costs greatly. Someone has to pay the costs, and Paul’s point to Philemon and to us in this letter is that, as Christians, we can pay that cost. We can pay it because Christ paid it for us already, paid the cost for us already, because He took the hit for us should make us willing to take the hit for others, even those who don’t deserve it, because I got news for you, you and I didn’t deserve it either. And he still took the hit for us, plus in dying for us, and then raising us to new life in him, God supplies us with the infinite riches of grace, so that we can go on paying the cost, because you can’t, you know, there’s always an infinite supply, it never runs out, that’s what allows us to keep spending for the sake of others, that’s what we’re going to see in our passage today, we look at three costs that we’re called to pay, and then as we go, of course, we’ll see how the gospel will motivate and sustain us to count those costs, so first cost is the cost of forgiving, the cost of forgiving from verses 17 to 19. I’ll read it for us now. So, if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back, not to mention that you owe me your very self. I love this section because we get the gospel in miniature in it, but what is Paul saying to Philemon about Onesimus? If you weren’t here last couple weeks, you don’t know the story. Paul, the apostle, is sending Onesimus, who’s a runaway slave back to his former master, Philemon. Onesimus has become a Christian. Philemon is a Christian, and so this is a tense moment right here. So, what Paul says in this moment is, look, when it comes to Onesimus, you take the hit, Philemon, you take the hit, you count the cost of love. Now, if you were here last week, this is a nice moment, because we finally get the appeal. You’ll remember last week that Paul was saying things like, I appeal to you on the basis of love. I appeal to you for the sake of Onesimus, who’s my son in the faith. At this point, and so he keeps saying, I appeal to you, and at a certain point, Philemon is undoubtedly going okay, but what’s the appeal like? What are you asking me to do here? Paul finally answers the question. Welcome him, welcome Onesimus, as you would welcome me. Sounds easy enough, not a huge appeal until we remember the context, because Onesimus is a one. Run away, slave. He is also a thief, it seems. From here, if he owes you anything, I mean, he cost labor, of course, probably stole the fare at the very least, but might have stolen more. So, Philemon is well within his legal rights to execute Onesimus when he comes back, and instead Paul says, ‘Welcome him as you would welcome me, because you see, Philemon, Onesimus is now family, so Paul’s saying God sees no difference between me and Onesimus. What about you, Philemon? Do you see a difference between us, or will you offer the same welcome? Then he says, if Onesimus has done any wrong, if he owes you anything, a good bit of tact here, because he frames it as a hypothetical, if perchance this should happen to be, it’s not a hypothetical, Onesimus very definitely wronged Philemon, again stole from him all the rest, and yet whatever he’s done, Paul says, “Charge it to me. So Paul’s saying, “I’m willing to take the hit, I’m willing to pay what is owed. Now, it’s not unusual for Paul to mention that he’s writing in his own hand. He does it at the end of most of his letters. We saw that in Galatians recently, for example. Usually, that’s just to kind of authenticate the letter to go right, you know, a scribe wrote this, but here I am. Here’s my signature, more or less, but this one is a little bit different. When he says I’m writing this in my own hand, he’s writing it as a promissory note. He’s writing this as an IOU, you know, like here you go, like I’ll write it out, I, Paul, I’ll pay it back. So it’s an IOU, signed, sealed, delivered, would hold up in court if Philemon wanted to sue him. This is every bit as, as real as a parent co-signing on a kid’s first loan that could prove costly, will prove costly to Paul. Paul, who, not famous for being rich, by the way, lived off the generosity of others for the most part, otherwise was a laborer, a leather worker, but of course, if we’re talking debts, Paul points out Philemon should probably remember that he owes Paul his very life. Now, in what sense does Philemon owe Paul his life? Did Paul save him at some point? They’re blood brothers. Now, nothing like that. No, no, no. He is certainly talking about Philemon’s salvation, because Paul invested in Philemon, preached the gospel to him. Philemon now has eternal life. So, how are we quibbling about a few dollars that might be owed in light of the infinite riches of grace that Philemon now possesses. So, Paul clearly expects Philemon to take the hit himself. He’s saying, yeah, okay, whatever is owed, I’ll pay it, but really, you’re not going to do that. I know you wouldn’t do that. You’re going to take the hit yourself, and Philemon is in a position of privilege. After all, this is not a hard cost for him to bear. He can afford it, and he’s got a big enough house that the church is meeting in his home. He’s wealthy enough that he has slaves. Remember, we talked a lot about this last week. I can’t get into it all of it again, but we’re talking about economic slavery, like indentured servitude, but he’s able to have a large force of employees, in other words, and so Paul’s expecting of Philemon what the New Testament expects of the rich on every page, which is that the rich would disadvantage themselves for the sake of the poor, and see that throughout scripture. In fact, I mean, just as a couple of examples, this would be the atmosphere in which Philemon would have been taught about wealth, Ezekiel chapter 18. We have this little thought experiment the prophet leads us through, and he says, “Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right, and then he paints a picture of the righteous man, couple of different areas, one of them is money, he says. Looks like this. He doesn’t impress anyone, but returns what he took and pledged for a loan. He does not commit robbery, but gives his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked, which is interesting, because it’s kind of saying, look, a righteous man, it’s not just about what you don’t do, you’re not a thief, you’re not robbing people, you’re not embezzling money or cheating on your taxes. It’s also what you do, and so, of course, you’re giving generously and even sacrificially as you have means and opportunity. Or Proverbs 327 says, Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act, and so those to whom it’s due, the poor, but it’s interesting, the word due is actually related to the word for owners, like this is theirs, in other words, if God gives you an abundance of wealth that isn’t yours. In some sense, according to the Bible, it belongs to the disadvantaged, and we are privileged to act as stewards of that wealth in God’s name to get it to those to whom it belongs. I love the way Basil the Great said it, one of the Church Fathers from centuries ago, he says, the bread which you keep belongs to the hungry, the coats in your closet to the naked, the gold you have hidden to the needy. Therefore, as often as you were able to help others and refused, so often did you do them wrong. And Basil practiced what he preached. He actually came from a very rich and aristocratic family himself, he, his brother, another of the Cappadocian fathers served the church, served the poor. His sister, Macrina the younger, formed a community of women. It was a community of equals. He had people coming from the upper stratus of Roman society, and then the very poor all gathered together as equals. And so Paul’s kind of saying, right, this is this is what we do, you got money, this is what this looks like, and already this is convicting enough, but it’s easier when we’re talking about helping the innocent poor, but here again, we’re talking about a thief who stole from you, well, what then doesn’t that get a little bit more complicated? Like, what could motivate us to count the cost, not only of generosity, but of forgiveness as well? The answer, of course, is the gospel. The gospel alone is powerful enough to sustain that sort of self-sacrifice. And in Onesimus’ story, we get the gospel in miniature. As I said, we’re Onesimus. We’re Onesimus. I mean, think about it. We have a Master, capital M, God the Father, and we ran away from him, starting in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve left. We’ve all been running away from our master ever since then to welcome us back into his home cost our master greatly, cost him the blood of his son Jesus, who took the penalty for our running away. He took the hit himself. In other words, so what we owe God, He charged instead to Christ’s account, and Jesus assumed personal responsibility for the debt we owed, and He paid it in full. As you know, if you’ve been in church for any length of time, when He cried out from the cross, ‘It is finished, and those are the words that they would stamp on I O U’s in Greco-Roman society to say it’s been paid, this debt is erased now. As a result of that, we can now stand before our master runaways and thieves that we are, without fear of judgment. Instead, knowing that we will receive welcome, welcomed by God our Father, as if we were His very son, because when Jesus died for us, it’s like He said to His dad, ‘Welcome, Brandon, as you would welcome me. And, of course, God the Father was oh so willing to do so. That’s why He sent His son. So that’s our story, Onesimus’ story, it It’s important to see that’s Philemon’s story too, of course. I mean, just as Onesimus stands before his master, lowercase m, in this moment, so Philemon one day will stand before his master, the seat of judgment, and so, if he keeps his eyes fixed on his master, who took the hit for us, who counted the cost, he’s going to find himself willing to do so also. And so would we. It would be impossible to be unwilling to do so. That would be the parable of the unmerciful servant that we talked about last week, all over again. He’s just had his $10 billion debt erased, and now he’s going, ‘Whoa, you owe me 10,000 though. Like, no, we couldn’t possibly do that. Instead, we would forgive as Christ forgave us. And how important this is for us to hear and remember, because we find it hard to forgive. Forgiveness is hard, it hurts, it costs. Like Philemon, I am confident that some of you have suffered very real wrong and want that debt paid. You will not forgive until you’ve seen just how much you’ve been forgiven or how much you need to be forgiven. Maybe you’re still uncertain about this whole Christianity thing. You’re still checking it out, and all of that. This is the moment to kind of go, wait, I’m not going to be willing to forgive unless I see how much I’ve wronged my master, how much I’ve wronged God. God, but that changes us when we see it. The world today, I mean, look at social media or something like that. The world today feeds our anger and stokes the fires of our bitterness, but the message of the gospel frees us from all of that and frees us to forgive. Is there someone in your life that you need to forgive. Let the gospel, according to Philemon, motivate you to do so. And if you don’t yet believe, just take a good long look at how you’ve wronged your master and how you’ve wronged others, the forgiveness that is available, and the wonder of that love. See if that won’t change your heart to be able to forgive others too, so that’s the first cost, the cost of forgiving. The second cost we need to count is the cost of refreshing, the cost of refreshing verses 20 and 21 I’ll read for us now. I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ, confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask. So Paul hopes to have some benefit from Philemon, because they’re brothers in Christ. You see that family language showing up there again. I do wish, brother, we’ve seen that from the beginning. So this is all about how we treat one another as the family of God. They’re brothers in Christ, which means the gospel is working in Philemon’s heart and life, and so he should be able to refresh Paul in this moment. Now, not the first time we’ve come across this word, refresh. We saw it back in week one, way back in verse seven, where Philemon’s love gives Paul great joy, because he’s refreshed the church, he’s refreshed the family of God. So Paul’s just saying, look what you’ve been doing, just keep on doing it, do it again here in this spot. Now, what benefit is Paul asking for here? He doesn’t say it, I mean, how exactly is he going to refresh Paul? Well, of course, he said it last section to welcome Onesimus back as a brother in Christ, which we saw last week, forgiving the debt that now has been charged to Paul’s account doesn’t matter, gonna race it anyway. I think there is a little pun here. I will say I didn’t see this in the commentary, so I could be, I could be wrong here. Good news is, if I’m wrong, I don’t think it’s heresy, at least. But he says, here, you know, refresh my heart. And last week we saw back in verse 12, he says, I am sending Onesimus, who is my very heart back to you, so is he actually saying refresh me by refreshing Onesimus, probably because that’s what it would look like, but what I love is that Paul is so confident of Philemon’s obedience. Now this is not a general obedience, he’s not saying Philemon, I know you’re a pretty stand-up guy and a Christian, so this isn’t just general, like I’m confident of your obedience, I know you’re not going to get drunk, I know you’re going to say your prayers every day. No, he’s talking about the specific obedience of this moment, you could almost say confident of your compliance with my requests here in this moment. Paul’s so confident that Philemon is going to do what he asks. He’s trusting, as I mentioned before, he’s trusting the spirit of God in him, working in him to change him. He’s trusting that the gospel is powerful enough to change his heart. It’s the same confidence, of course, we can have for our brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us are changing a lot slower than we would like, and a lot slower than the people around us would like, but we are being changed, and we can be confident of that change that God is working in us and those around us. When we’re confident of that, when we’re confident that the spirit is working, it makes it easier for us to show forgiveness, to count the cost of love. When you know that God’s going to use that love to transform them even more. And isn’t this why parents go on sacrificing for kids? You talk about costly love, the love of a parent or child is very costly, but it’s because we’re trusting the Lord is hearing all our prayers across the years, that He’s going to bless the time we spend in the Word together as a family, the discipline that we offer our children, formative, corrective, whatever sort, so we’re confident of obedience, confident on change. Paul’s confident of Philemon’s obedience. And then I love that last bit, though, because it’s so challenging. Paul says he’s so confident in the spirit working in Philemon that he’ll know that he’s going to do even more than he’s being asked. Like Philemon is not just going to do the bare minimum, he’s going to go above. Above and beyond, now again, Paul does not spell it out for us, but it is crystal clear what he is talking about. He is asking Philemon to release Onesimus, talking about manumission, emancipation, whatever you want to say, is what we just sang. Thank you, Julie, for giving us, making sure everyone knows where the name of our series comes from, the hymn, O Holy Night, right, chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, and in his name all oppression shall cease. And Paul’s going, let’s see it, let’s see it right here, right now. Give us a taste of it. So he’s going to release Onesimus, maybe to return to Paul, which Paul had talked about earlier in the letter. Be so useful to have him here to continue serving in Colossi, whatever it may be. Paul knows that if Philemon really understood the gospel, it will produce a generous spirit in him that he will count the cost of loving well. You remember back in verse six when he thanks God for the Philemon’s partnership in the gospel, prays that it would continue to be effective, and we talk about that word partnership, that partnership that springs from faith is a generosity toward the people of God, including the undeserving people of God, that’s what he’s expecting to see here, that that would keep on going. Should it be any different with us, though? Means, shouldn’t we go above and beyond what is expected of us, what’s asked of us, once we understand the gospel? Jesus seems to suggest as much in his sermon on the mount, he asks some penetrating questions. He says, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors, notorious sinners? In other words, doing that, and if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Jesus, Paul, I think they’re saying it’s easy to be generous towards certain people. It’s easy to be generous toward people we like, people like us, people who can benefit us when we get something in return as a result of loving them. You expand your network a little bit in your career, or like I can remember as a kid, at one point I was extraordinarily generous toward a younger neighbor, I let him use some of my toys because I wanted to use some of his older brother’s toys, that’s not generosity, right, that’s selfishness, and that’s what Jesus is saying, like that part’s easy. It’s easy to love people when you’re doing it for selfish reasons. Shouldn’t we expect more from ourselves in light of what Jesus has done for us? Like, what about when it’s pure sacrifice? What about when there’s no earthly return on our investment, just the heavenly, which seems pretty good, admittedly. Let me just give you an example of like what this would look like. I talked money last week, I’m gonna talk money again this week, not because we’re about to do a campaign or something like that, just because that’s what’s being talked about here in Philemon. So let’s kind of stick with the text, like there’s an actual cost being paid, so our obedience, I think we get established pretty clearly from scripture, is a 10% offering we bring to the Lord. What is what is owed to him? 10% but we could say confident of your obedience. I know that you will do even more. I could say that of a great many of you, not all of you, of course. Some of you working up to the obedience, the bare minimum, the 10% still okay. But I look around this room, I know that there are extravagant givers in this congregation, and so, yeah, you get that. We’re like, I’m confident of your obedience. I mean, all that God gave us, we would give even more than is expected of us. You start to look at your funds differently. We go, you know what, I could live on x dollars per year, even a pretty comfortable life, that’s a vacation, that’s, you know, what all, and I make 2x dollars a year, so that means I got all this extra surplus that I can invest in the kingdom of God in different ways, and again, we’ve seen that here, we gave extravagantly just a few years back when we did the city new renovation project, but even here, and I’m not knocking this at all, like I’m so glad we did this. I think it was necessary and will benefit generations to come, but we got some benefit from that giving, didn’t we? Like, I like hanging out in our lobby, it’s nicer than it used to be. The bathrooms are nicer than they used to. We got an elevator. This is, this is good stuff. Like, what happens though, when we’re asked to give extravagantly and we don’t experience the benefit of it? And you know that’s a live issue, right? We’ll be praying about it next week at our prayer reading and stuff. Like, what happens when we start to give extravagantly to a church plant? So that we’re not renovating the space that we’re in, but if we’re building or renovating space that we will never enter, well, of course, of course, we would be confident of our obedience, even then, because that’s gospel refreshing at that point. Again, Jesus, I don’t think he got any personal benefit from his unjust arrest and trial and torture and death. Now he got benefit, sure, for the joy set before him, but it was this. This was the joy set before him. The people of God saved for the glory of his name. Jesus only got spiritual benefit from his sacrifice, and that’s what we would long to receive as well, and so we would count the cost of refreshing others in his name. Third cost, then, is the cost of welcoming. We read the rest of the letter, four hours, verses 22 to 25 And one thing more, prepare our guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. One thing more, Paul hopes to be released, as indeed he was, and he then plans to return to Colossi when he is released, probably because of the issues that have arisen there, which you could read the book of Colossians to hear all about. He’s gonna need a place to stay by Lehman’s got means. Could you prepare a guest room for me now? There is a lot going on in that one verse 22 Certainly, there’s some added motivation to obey here, like Paul is going to show up shortly. Will Onesimus be back in chains? Will Philemon show him Onesimus’ burial site, because he put him to death? Hopefully not. Paul’s saying I’m gonna be checking in on you. This is like parents saying it’d be home in 10, hope things are clean. That same kind of motivation here, but he’s also asking Philemon to continue counting the cost of refreshing and welcoming others, like forget Onesimus, it’s going to cost Philemon to love and welcome Paul, because hospitality is costly. It certainly is. It costs time, it costs energy, it costs a room in his house. I was going to turn that into a study now. I got Paul staying here instead. It costs actually love. I think Philemon is almost like a commentary on Hebrews 13 eight to 11, which talks about the hospitality that we’re called to show one another as Christians. Ready to Hebrews says, “Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. So there’s that family idea again. Do not forget to show hospitality, but even to strangers, he says, for by so doing, some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it, and then continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering, which is a lot of the plight that we were talking about last week, of just entering into what others are going through, like even Onesimus, like what that would mean for him to be in chains. Now, Hebrews takes it beyond what we even hear in Philemon. It’s that same Matthew five idea, like don’t just do this for your own people, and don’t just do this for people who are going to help you. Do it for everyone, your brothers and sisters. Do it even for strangers, because you’re going to treat all people as valuable, because they’re made in the image of God, so they have intrinsic value, and that stuff that you would do for your own family, do that for everyone, and do that especially for the family of God. Can we treat family differently? Know this, like, I’ll just give you an example. So, it’s probably eight years or so ago, my dad had heart surgery. It was, you know, significant, like routine, but heart surgery is heart surgery, it’s a big deal. And so, my mom wanted me to be there. I think she wanted her son to be there. I think she wanted a pastor to be there too, just in case. So, when we got one of those in the family, I went, and it was it. She lost her dad, he went in for heart surgery, and he didn’t come out, and so I think this was on her mind, like, of course, like, of course, I would do that for my mom, she’s family, plus it’s my dad, who’s having heart surgery, he’s fine by the way, he’s still around, so but like that, then means okay, that’s what we should do for others, like when people in this room go in for surgery, we go. Okay, can I be there for you? How can I pray for you? Can I bring you meals afterwards? Like that’s what this looks like. The stuff you do for your own family, do it for everyone. When you were estranged, when you were a runaway, God brought you near and made you family. And that sets the pattern for all of us, and how we treat one another, which sounds good, sounds easy, even, but the challenge is welcoming everyone in the family of God. Again, it’s easy to welcome people like us, easy to welcome people we like, it can get harder. Otherwise, this was actually a problem in Colossi. Elsewhere in Paul’s churches, too. You know, God’s trying to bring all together, all people together in one church, and they’re kind of going, I don’t know, are we sure we want to hang out all together here? And so Paul says this in Colossians 311 here in the Church of God, there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. When you notice he mentions a lot of different backgrounds, there we get religious backgrounds, we get ethnic backgrounds, we get socioeconomic backgrounds, all mentioned. All these people are together under one roof, Philemon’s roof. As it turns out, it’s even interesting where this shows up in Colossians. I won’t open it there for you, but Paul has just talked about our new life in Christ. He’s saying, put on the new self, like live like the new creation that you are. Okay, we’re all the same in Christ Jesus. And then the very next verse, a lot of us have memorized in journey groups, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and love, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, love toward everybody, toward the Scythians, even the barbarians, the Jews, the slave, whatever group it is, right, that you struggle with, even toward them. It’s not easy, though. I mean, Onesimus, as I mentioned before, is a Phrygian slave. Philemon is Kalash and aristocracy. Like, how are those people going to get along? So, if we’re going to have a family conversation, I mean, for us here as City View, like, we’re going to have to talk about the diversity of the body. Some of us get a little uncomfortable when that word ‘diversity’ comes up. Like, is this DEI for the church? Well, DEI is a cultural term. Can I tell you, and I think you got this, if you’re here for the politics series. I do not care one whit what culture thinks about this. I care a great deal what God’s word has to say about this, though. And God’s word talks about diversity, like you see God’s heart for all people in the Gospel, Jesus died to save a multi everything people, the same group that just got mentioned there in Colossians 311 Revelation five nine, Jesus Christ is praised, the Lamb who was slain, worthy to be worshiped, because with his blood he purchased persons from every tribe, language, nation, people, you can actually see that even at the end of the letter, verse 23 and 24 this is the part you just kind of skip over, you go, I can’t say those names, so whatever, no, they’re important, you got Epaphras, he’s Colossian, he’s from the hometown, right, you got Mark, he’s a North African Jew, you got Aristarchus, he’s a Macedonian Jew, Macedonia, like northern Greece. Luke, he’s from Antioch, he’s got a pagan background, though. You can just see this is a diverse group right there, and then here they’re all together in the church, but that ups the ante, ups the cost of welcoming others in Christ’s name, we’re not just talking about, well, you know, you have to get a little extra in the fridge, and again, the spare room, and all those, although that costs, again, let’s not neglect that, but we’re talking about getting out of our comfort zone as well, and if you’ve hung around with people from different cultures, you know, there is some discomfort in going outside of it. The food tastes different, usually that means the homes smell different, and like the culture is different. There may be language barriers, like all these things are present, come at things from different angles, and so sometimes that means you smack into each other on the way, and yet, that’s the cost we count, because Jesus died for all. Now, obviously, this happens in community. I mean, I get that. We talk a lot about that. We just talked about community groups and explore our this morning. Even so, like, yeah, we’re opening our homes to each other, even if we got different backgrounds of all sorts going on, but also we open our home to those outside the community. We got opportunities to do this here, and we’ve got some partner ministries like Safe Families. We are welcoming children into your home for a short period of time while their parents are getting different things sorted, of course. If International Friendships Ministry. International students, I’ve eaten some food I wasn’t going to eat otherwise. Just recently, in fact, because of if we’ve got the opportunity with the Gaias team, which cares for our missionaries. I need a bike for one of our friends of missionaries. I’m getting a text about it tomorrow. Like, this is the kind of stuff we get to do. What a great way to be able to serve to open a home in that way, and can I also say, what a great way to serve as a family, too. And here, I mean, even like your nuclear family. One of the things I love about a hospitality ministry is your kids watch you do that ministry in a way that they might not see some of the other stuff. It will cost. It will cost. It’s inconvenient. You can ask us our story. We had some inconveniences welcoming a child into our home for a six week stint. We’re at six and a half years now. Like I said, it’s a story, all that. Obviously, it’s a cost. We were so grateful to be able to count, but still it will cost. But it costs God so much so more to welcome you into his house, and so won’t you gladly count that cost as well. That’s it. So, just pulling all these costs together, just to give you your big idea, you could probably get there on your own, but it’s this: pay more, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. So, like, do even more than is expected, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. Count the cost of forgiving, refreshing, welcoming God’s people and beyond. I would challenge you. This would be the kind of thing you will, of course, talk about in your community groups specifically, but like, what’s one step that you can take, even this week, so that you are a doer of God’s word to Philemon, and not just a hearer of it? Is there a gift of time, or energy, or resources that you can make? Do you need to initiate a reconciliation process with somebody. Is there an invitation you can make into your home? Will you count it? It is difficult to overstate just how powerfully transformative costly love is. We actually see it in the rest of the story, the story that’s not here recorded in Philemon. We learn it from church history. I do have to say that means I’m stepping into a different level of authority here. This is some conjecture, absolutely, but we’ve got pretty good witness here, like what happens in this story. Because Ignatius, one of the earliest church fathers, he dies, he’s persecuted, he’s martyred in 107 he mentions in one of his letters Onesimus, the bishop of Ephesus. I mean, here is a guy who went from slave to brother to bishop, almost certainly, by the way. Why Philemon is in the canon, like why we have this personal letter in the New Testament, the sovereignty of God is the main answer, but the like human cause answer is because what a precious letter this was to Onesimus. There’s actually good evidence that the Canaan was put together, the New Testament canon was first put together in Ephesus, so like Onesimus was going, ‘Whoa, guys, let’s keep this one here next to Romans and Ephesians and Colossians, and all the others, because this one is important, by the way. Also, shows that Philemon listened. Philemon obeyed, which you love to see too. But Onesimus, this bishop of Ephesus, he was renowned. I’m quoting Ignatius here, for his love that surpasses words. Sure, because that’s the love he received, and so he just kept showing it to others. He went from a useless runaway slave to Ignatius, saying, “I pray that you all may be like him. And Onesimus himself paid the greatest cost when he was martyred for his faith. That’s the power of grace, and it’s there in verse 25 I know we think this is just like writing sincerely at the end of our email. It’s not when Paul says, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. He’s saying this is what you need if you’re going to do what’s being asked of you. That’s the power of grace, God’s grace, of course, but also the grace that is expressed through his people, and how it changes us. If I can flip back to Les Mis again, I started there, I’ll end there. This is like the bishop early on in Les Mis who bought Valjean’s soul. Valjean is released from prison. He decides to steal the bishop’s silver after the bishop welcomes him into his home, steals the silver, and also knocks the bishop out in the process, and then he gets caught, he gets brought back in, you know, he’s like Valjean, says you gave it to him, and the bishop says, yes, yeah, I gave him the silver, only you forgot to take the silver candle. Sticks too, it gives those also, that’s costly love, at least in like the movie versions of it. He like grabs Val Jean, who’s, you know, eight feet taller than he is, and goes, Do you understand? I just bought your soul for God, because that’s the power of transforming love, right? He paid the cost, and it changed his heart, and it did change Val Jean’s heart, it changed Philemon’s heart, it changed Onesimus’ heart. Like a look down the road, what difference could your costly love make in someone’s story? You see that, and you just think, oh, it would be so easy to pay that, pay more, because Christ paid it all for you. Let’s pray. Father, we remember even now the cost of your great love for us. We remember that you sent your son to take the hit in our place to pay the debt we owed in our place. You charged it to his account, so that then when we stumbled back home to you, only by grace, only because you called us, only because you drew us, you would welcome us as you welcomed Jesus. Love like that ought to transform us, Lord. We know that, and so we pray you would be transforming us even now, make us the sorts of people who so willingly spend all that we have for the sake of others and for the sake of Your great name. Amen.

7 de jun de 202641 min

Hard Hearts and a Holy King (Psalm 95)

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